The Hampton Times

So tonight's first practice went very well. It started at 6pm, and we were (of course) about 5 minutes late. All 10 (or so) kids were already doing their warm-up stretches with the coach, so the twins had to join in while everything was in progress. The coach seemed very nice. As soon as stretching was done, he told all the kids he was going to divide them up into three groups so they could work on different skills (running, batting, fielding). At that point, he split them all up and then said (to all the dads in attendance), "Anyone want to help out? I could really use it." He really did need it. I don't know how he could have gotten through practice without assistance from the dads. If no one stepped up, it would have been chaos. As it was, at least 4 or 5 other dads jumped in and took over some of the smaller groups of kids, which was really nice. They had a batting area, which also encompassed fielding skills because while one child would bat the other 3 ...

Here's Jason (in the middle) practicing his fielding skills.

This is Dillon running from home plate to first base.

We all got up by 8am today (I know, wow, so early) so that we could get ready to go to the twins' pre-school (St. Andrews) for church service. The twins were going to be singing two songs with other kids from the pre-school at 10:30am. Grandmom, Mom Mom and Pop Pop all made it to the church on time and got to see them "perform" You Are My Sunshine and If You're Happy and You Know It. Pop Pop wasn't feeling too well, so he and Mom Mom left immediately after the songs were over. I ended up taking Adrian into the nursery area so he could play and talk because that's all he wanted to do in the pew! By the time everything was over and we had collected the kids together, it was about noon. So we went to the Silver Diner in Cherry Hill for brunch. Angie wanted to take the kids to see Monsters vs. Aliens so we checked movie times and the 3-D version was playing at 1:45pm. It was already about 1 o'clock, so I called my parents to see if they would let Adri...

Santa brought a Leapster 2 handheld game system to our house last Christmas. And while we thought that one unit might not be enough, it has worked out fine as far as the twins having to share it. We know we'll get another one (most likely), but for now having one has been OK. One of the features of the system is that you can connect it to your computer via USB and track your children's progress and download additional games (saved to an SD card). We downloaded the only two games that we've ever seen listed within the LeapPad Connect program that came on a CD with the handheld: Letterpillar and Number Raiders. They like both games, and they were free, so I can't complain. But today Jason was asking about getting some new games, so I thought we would check online to see if Leapster had any new games available. Of course, they still only list Number Raiders and Letterpillar. I would be willing to purchase some new games and download them just to avoid having to go ou...

When in need of going Number 2 in a house with young "potty trained" boys, always check the toilet seat before you sit down.

The crime scene clean-up crew went into action again tonight. Dillon woke up around 9:30pm, basically sleepwalking all the way downstairs to the family room, sobbing. I walked with him all the way back up the stairs into his bedroom and put him back to bed. He never once spoke a word, but he would nod his head when I'd say things like, "Let's go to sleep and think about good things like playing with our friends and going to the Please Touch Museum..." He went to bed and seemed to be OK. I left the room for about a minute, and then I heard him sobbing again. He was asking for mommy. I went in and saw that he had just lifted his head up, but was still in bed. I spoke to him softly again and he went back to sleep. All was fine for about 20 minutes until all hell broke loose upstairs. We heard loud crying and multiple footsteps thundering around. Angie leapt into action and I heard her talking to Jason at the top of the stairs, "What happened with Dillon, J...

Great show in Philly the other night. They played a nice mix of old stuff and material up to 1996's Limbo.

Woke up this morning around 6:10 to the sound of Dillon crying in his room, loudly. I got there as quickly as I could (within a minute, I'd say), but I was too late. I literally walked into the room, and he muttered something through his sobs like, "I don't like..." and then WHAM! He puked all over the floor. Stupidly, I tried to rush him to the bathroom so he could continue throwing up into the toilet, but we barely made it to the doorway of his bedroom before BLEARGH!, another blast spewed forth. The stench was tremendous. The vomit clean-up crew then went into action. Angie, stifling back her urge to puke, went and grabbed some baby wipes, paper towels, and the Swiffer WetJet. She stayed out of the room while I sopped up the bile and chunks with the wipes and paper towels, and then came in at the end with the WetJet. Dillon sat in the bathroom while most of this was going on, and then Angie changed his pajamas and put him back to bed. He seemed fine once it...

My dad was discharged from Our Lady of Lourdes this morning, so mom and Ryan went to pick him up. He was home by 10:30am or so and is very glad to be out of the hospital! He's already planning vacations for this year (Ireland, back to Disney with the grandkids, etc.). Thanks to everyone who asked about him and sent well-wishes. It was most appreciated!

My dad suffered a relatively minor heart attack on Tuesday morning. He was admitted to Virtua Voorhees Tuesday night, but was transferred to Our Lady of Lourdes on Wednesday so he could have a "cath test" done. This is the test where they inject a colored dye into a vein/artery in your thigh area and monitor its progress through your heart. Luckily, the test results were fairly good; he only has a 50% blockage that needs to be cleared up and they can do that through medication (no surgeries or stents necessary). Things were looking very good up until Thursday morning, but they have since also detected an irregularity in his heartbeat in addition to an atrial fibrillation. So he'll have to stay in the hospital under observation until at least Saturday, maybe Sunday. Angie's going to take the boys and Mom Mom to see him today, so that should cheer him up a lot. Though if they over-stay, it could elevate his blood pressure! I'm kidding... but not really! :-)

I just got off the phone with my mom. She told me that my father suffered a heart attack this morning while cooking breakfast. He was in denial for most of the day and didn't go to the hospital until the afternoon even though he was complaining of tightness in his chest, numbness in his left arm, and was burping a lot (apparently this is another sign of heart attack). He was admitted to Virtua Voorhees tonight, but will likely be transferred to another hospital tomorrow for some stress testing. He's doing OK, but they wanted to monitor him over night just in case. More as it develops...

Parkway was closed today so I spent the morning shoveling snow and helping the twins build a snow mountain that we eventually tunneled through in three places. We also went tubing in the back yard again, but not for too long. By the time I finished shoveling the driveway and walkways, building the snow mountain, and tunneling through it, we had been outside for at least 2 hours. I think we came inside around 12:30 or 1pm, and Angie had hot chocolate and mac and cheese waiting for everyone. After that, Adrian took a nap and I watched some TV with the twins (something called "Prehistoric Planet" on Discovery kids - it was pretty interesting). We got lucky the last two times it snowed - our neighbor across the street, Ron, used his snowblower on both occasions to clear our driveway and sidewalk for us. Today I didn't see him outside until mid-afternoon and I never noticed if he had the snowblower out. I only saw him with shovel in hand.

Angie and I still own our house in Maple Shade. Our good friend Don is helping us out by renting it until we can sell it. During this past week, Don called to say that the kitchen sink was leaking whenever you turn the faucet on. Water would spray out at the base and leak down underneath. If you ran the water long enough, the leakage would reach the kitchen floor. Don tried to take off the nuts holding the faucet plate on from underneath the sink, but was only able to get leverage on the one on the right. My dad went over a day or so later and ran into the same problem (on top of the fact that my dad just can't contort himself into crazy positions to squeeze under a small sink anymore). So our options were either call a plumber and see if s/he could fix the existing faucet; or we attempt to remove the old one ourselves and replace the faucet with a new one. I was leaning toward option A, but my dad (and Don) convinced me to at least take a stab at it ourselves first. The fol...