I'm a ramblin' man. Or something.

I don’t know what my deal is. While I love to try to keep you entertained with somewhat witty accounts of the happenings in our lives and the chaos that consumes our family – lately, it just makes me a little… tired. So until I climb out of this slump – I will continue to log events and post a few pics. I’m sure the inspiration will return, so don’t fret, dear reader. I can’t even muster the energy to format this post into anything resembling coherent. So here is a bunch of rambling stuff from the last few days, in no particular order.

Our water heater decided to spring a leak last night. Tons of fun. The poor girls, and dog, were all geared up and excited to go out for a walk, and I was busy putting away goods from my grocery shopping trip and had run downstairs quick to throw a ham in the freezer. I almost wiped out, and my slippers were soaked as I found myself standing in half an inch of water in our basement. So we un-geared the girls and Pat headed down with the wet-vac to clean up the mess. Water heater shopping is not my idea of a good time.

We brought the girls downtown St. Paul on Saturday for the St. Patrick’s Day parade. It was a lot of green craziness. We met up with Pat’s dad, brother and nephew to watch the hour-long hoard of shiny, “happy” people parading and pretending to be Irish. This is now Eve’s newest addition to her vocab. “I-Wisshh!” Brian brought Josie a beaded necklace with a big “Irish Princess” sign attached – kind of like the fancy necklaces old school rappers wore with dollar signs and hub caps. She wore it all day. Later that afternoon, she told me I needed to call her Cinderella, the Irish Princess. I didn’t know Cinderelly was so ethnic. I don’t think either of the girls really knew what to think of all the people, and noise, and greenness of it all. Of course, neither did I. Times have changed. 7 years ago, we had a keg on ice in the bathtub of our apartment downtown. Now, we had to hustle to leave because it was naptime.

Our daycare provider was on vacation last week. So we divvied up the week with Pat’s parents – they took the girls Monday and Tuesday, Pat stayed home on Wednesday, and I took Thursday off. Pat may as well have worn a cape that said “Super Dad,” as he made their day by taking them to Como Zoo, and to get ice cream at Dairy Queen. I’m not sure who had a better day, the girls or their dad. On Thursday, I took the girls to run a couple of errands, then to visit the Central Library downtown. It was a lot of fun – they kept bringing out loads of toys for the girls to play with, including these adorable hand puppets and stage that Josie absolutely loved. But the downside is the parking situation – while I got a great spot right out front of the library at a meter… I missed the expiration by like 3 minutes, and got a parking ticket. I swear the cop must have been sitting on the hood of my van, wringing his hands in excited anticipation of that meter expiring. Bastard. I’d like to see him wrangle two crabby-squirmy-hungry-tired girls into their coats and check out movies and herd them out the door before the meter expired. Next time maybe we’ll take the bus. THAT would be an experience. Actually – I bet it would be the highlight of the girls’ week.

The church just down the road from us has an annual fish fry on Friday nights during lent. We met up with the Gronaus and ate some fish. Well, the adults ate some fish – I think the kids enjoyed the mac and cheese and pudding much more. And figuring out how they were going to escape the giant dining room and make it to the glory of the large, long hallway where they could run and run. I didn’t even realize that was the last Friday before Good Friday until Pat mentioned it when we got home. Easter being so early this year is really throwing me off. We made it to St. Jerome’s for 10:30 mass Sunday morning. Woo doggie, that Palm Sunday mass is a loonnnggg one. Eve pooped about half way through – and announced that she pooped, just in case anyone's olfactory senses weren’t working, so I took her out to change her, and we kind of hung out in the lobby for a while watching a mom with an unhappy newborn little boy, otherwise, there was going to be trouble with a capital T. It’s already hairy making through an hour service – and this one rang in at about an hour and a half. After I returned to the pew with Eve, Jo had to go potty, so I took her out. I guess while we were gone, Eve called out for Josie over and over again, found a picture of a camel in her animal book and made spitting sounds and then started banging her cup on the wooden pew. I’m sure there are more than a couple of people who find her very distracting to the service – but she’s pretty funny. If nothing else, she’s entertaining. There was a picture of Jesus on the cross hanging just behind us, and she kept pointing at it saying “dressed!” – as in, that guy needs to put some clothes on. Whenever the choir would finish a song, Eve would announce “all done,” then ask “bye bye?”

As I was changing Eve on the landing of the stairway leading down to the basement – because the church doesn’t have a baby changing station in the bathroom or significant counter space in the bathroom, which drives me INSANE – I was struck by how that particular landing holds a couple pretty significant memories for me. I can remember taking that stairway down with Pat to my RCIA (right of Catholic initiation for adults) classes the year before we got married. Then I distinctly remember standing and waiting with my brother on that landing on my wedding day while the procession into the church began. We were talking with Ben, our ring bearer, and Emilie, our flower girl about art classes at school. I was starting to sweat, and I remember wondering if I put on enough deodorant. And now – there I was sitting on my knees, changing a poopy diaper. I find it interesting that I can’t remember what household items I need from Target unless I write them down – but I can recall memories with vivid detail like that as if they happened yesterday.

I mentioned to someone just a bit ago that Josie hasn’t really thrown us for a loop with any deep, death-type talk or questions, yet. But I guess I spoke too soon. Not too long after that, we were sitting at the kitchen table, and Eve must have said “kitty.” We used to call our cat, Buford, who died a year ago, Kitty-Kitty, sometimes. Keep in mind – Josie was just over 2 when he died. Right after Eve said “kitty,” Josie paused for a few moments, and asked me where Kitty-Kitty went. I said, “Do you mean Buford?” She said she did – and I told her that he got old and died and went to Kitty Heaven. Then she asked if we’d be able to see him again. I told her we would, someday. Then she countered by asking if he would come back again. I told her no – he wouldn’t be coming back, once you go to heaven, that’s where you stay. She asked again where he went, mulled over my answers for a bit – then asked if we could go to “Kevin’s” and see him. *sigh* So now I have a 3-year-old who’s walking around thinking that when pets die, they go to our friends Tricia and Kevin’s house - and Kevin is some sort of keeper of dead pet souls. They’re going to have some explaining to do when we visit them again and Jo is walking around looking for Buford.