Gooooooooaallll!!!!!!!

Our first little monster got her first goal today. She was so excited
after she kicked the ball she stood there with a shocked look on her
face and had no clue what to do. She is so cute :)

Alfredo Cajones

My family, or rather my father, has an interesting habit of making up nicknames out of the most random things and applying them to us for the rest of our lives. Lucky me, I was Zard Baby for many many years. As someone or other says, it is good to give back... So I have to connect the dots for you to make this story make sense. If I just told you his name was Alfredo Cajones, who would understand why? Other than it is a super cool name of course. Being born into the end of the 20th century, my family tree looks a bit more blurry than some. My parents divorced when I was young and my mother remarried, which gives our Monsters 3 grandfathers, not to mention the great grandparents. Step-grandpa is "Grand Daddy", which makes it easy. But the issue evolved - what to call the other two? Should there be some sort of distinction between them at least until the kids are older and can understand who we are talking about by context? Given my father's uncanny resemblence to the actor Rowan Atkinson in both looks and sounds, It was decided that Grandpa Dean, should instead be called Grandpa Bean. To make it better, Grandpa Bean does not like his name-sake, nor does he see the resemblence. Right... Not being one to miss an opportunity, my oldest child (dear husband that he is) decided that was not enough. In a fit of spanish delight, he dubbed my father "Abuelo Frijole". Well the kids went crazy thinking this was the greatest name ever. Unfortunately they are still learning to pronounce English words correctly, much less the latin dialects. So the next breakfast we had with Abuelo Frijole, Matt wanted to join in the fun. He leaned into his father to be reminded of the words, and proudly said hello to "Alfredo Cajones!" Things don't get much more perfect than that. All the time in the world would not have revealed that masterpiece of a nickname. Lucky for us.

The best time to learn new words

Saying dinner last night was enjoyable would be a bit of a stretch.
Food was great, company was great, johnny was a royal pain in the
rear. At one point the people at the table behind made some comment
about maybe he wanted to sit with them.... I spun that high chair as
fast as you have ever seen. He didn't appreciate that at all! Oh well
he did calm down when the French fries arrived at the table. The
highlight of the night was as we were leaving the restaurant a few
ducks and geese were very pushy and all to comfortable around people.
We kept telling the kids to back up because they would bite them.
That inspired johnny newest phrase at the top of lungs in front of the
restaurant he yells BITE ME!!!!
Nana did get chomped on by his little friend..... To be fair it made
us laugh more :)

Day Three

Ok, so maybe not all of our tourist-y trips were done. This morning
John and I went for a walk to figure out something to do today and ran
into the American Museum of Natural History. I am a fan of history
museums, but I can't say that I would ever think "hey, let's hit the
museum today". The musuem is 5 stories (ground space being such a
premium) and had amazing displays for dinosaurs, sea life (hence the
Blue Whale), and incredible space/creation of the universe
information. We met a great employee named Michael who talked to is
about the history of Man and science. In the great timeline, Man has
existed for the width of a hair in comparison to the three stories of
spiralling walkway display. Science as we know it today has existed
for 1/100th of the width, and the Hubble telescope has been
operational and changing what we thought we know for 1/2000th of the
width of the hair. Amazing stuff. The rest of the day was spent
wandering, really. We went out to East Village, which is where "it"
is supposedly happening. I guess John and I just aren't, because we
were back home by midnight to watch a movie we bought at the
Blockbuster we passed. I know, crazy us. Tomorrow is cleanup day and
then the subway ride to JFK and back to our lovely women and the
Monsters I miss so much. Speaking of subways, I am proud to bring
your attention to the fact that there are no bad subway choices to
report today. Check me out!

School

Yesterday was Matt's lunch day at school. One day a week (Monday) the
little monsters (at least mine is a monster.... Can't speak for the
other children for certain) have lunch at school. They call it
practice for kindergarden when they eat at school daily, to me it is
one more lunch to make in an already hectic morning. Oh well Matt has
fun and apparently that is the purpose if preschool.... There....

Day 2 - Tourist Day

Today was Tourist Day in New York. I am writing this quite late (or
early) so you will have to forgive the brief nature of my post.

As you can tell, we made it to the statue of Liberty Enlightening the
World, as she is formally known. Pretty interesting history there.
More interesting will be the photoshopped pictures once I get them
home and into the computer. After our visit to the French lady, we
walked by the site of the World Trade Center. Sadly for tourists but
happily for the area and country the site is all closed off for
construction and you can't actually see a darn thing. Instead we went
into the memorial. Very sobering. After some New York pizza to get
our strength up it was off to Rockefellor Plaza, where their tower
observatory rivals the Empire State Building. It was a truly amazing
view of the city. The night out ended with a viewing of the new movie
Righteous Kill, because what trip to New York would be complete
without a good NYPD is corrupt movie? More or less predictable, but
still very well done.

Undercover work

This is John. He looks very different with a mustache.

New York, New York

The Monster Dad is broadcasting from New York this week, as some of you know. My friend and child's namesake has connections in the airline business and had some free time, so with two weeks notice we spontaneously hopped a flight to the beautiful Upper West Side of Central Park. Pictured is our first clear view of the city as seen from the AirTrain which takes you from JFK to the subway system.

Our flight from LAX was fully booked, so unfortunately we had to be bumped up to 1st class. Darn..... I have the subway lines in a program on my phone, which is awesome except that some lines run at different times during the nights and weekends. If you would like an example, we are off W 96th St. We took the A train from 14th to get home, but it doesn't stop at 96th. It stopped at 125th. So we get on a train going back the other direction, and it takes us to 53rd. We finally got back, but you would be amazed at the number of panhandlers that make announcements that they "never" bother people on the train, but...

John hailed his first New York city cab, which was exciting until the driver tried to kill us in traffic. We would gladly get back into his cab, however, after trying a rickshaw this evening. All I can say is holy crap these people have no regard for one another.

Tomorrow will bethe real tourist day. We will start with Old Lady Liberty herself and then work our way back north hitting whatever we find along the way. Wish us luck!

Our winning day

If one were to keep score in a U6 soccer game (which of course no one does) than yesterday would have been a very nice day. The Dragons finally pulled it all together and player very well. Matt had a great block....would have been better if it wasn't a kick from his team mate....and going exactly where it should have been...and more importantly not using his face. Great none the less :) The Wildcats showed all of their soccer strength off to a team that we assured the coach right before the game they are more the flower picking cartwheel doing hugging sort of group. Anyway. It was fun and what everyone else cares more about is we got a couple pictures of the bestest players in our eyes and yes....the best picture that we could have possibly gotten of Matt with the ball was during a throw in....I think the face shot was teh only other time he touched the ball...

Pre-op Playtime

Ok, so as it turns out we still don't update out blogs as much as we
should... I would say we've been busy (which is true) but as I recall
we changed this blog to be updated on the go.

Today is Johnny's last visit to any hospital until his lucky wife
gives birth (25 years from now). He has been charming the nursing
staff with how cute and helpful he is, even taking his temperature
orally under his tongue. It was nice in theory having the playroom
(pictured) but when the small room is occupied with obviously sick
(like viral) kids with rough older siblings and scary scary parents we
opted to play iPhone games in the main room instead. As I type Johnny
is just starting his procedure (only an hour and a half late).

As luck would have it, today was also unfortunately Matt's first day
at his new preschool. Thank goodness for wonderful Nanas and their
willingness to help. I must say moving back was one of the best
decisions we have made.

Katy started 1st grade last week. She loves school and it is so nice
to see her interactions with other kids. We continue renewing our
concerns that she will be a huge hand full as she gets older, but I
get a demented sort of satisfaction at the sassy attitude.

Even Peppers Blush

Not to be outdone by her crazy urban-farmer sister, Lisa has a victory
garden of her own going on our upstairs balcony. Right now most of
the attention is on her hanging tomato plant with it's miracle gravity-
defying promise of a better vine, and the big pumpkin plants donated
by the aforementioned urban farmer. As we wait for those produce
items to produce, Lisa has harvested her first crop of peppers. These
little guys' plant was bought on a whim for $2 and they have proven
their worth. While they may not be big enough to stuff, I am thinking
they will go nicely in tomorrow's eggs. Yum yum.