Cakes, Thumps & Poop

The latest happenings in the Casa de Rutledge....

• Amy is taking a cake decorating class in hopes of enhancing her skills. We have already seen her handiwork for the boys' birthday as she really has a knack for it. The hope is if returning part-time to IBM in a few months doesn't work out that she will have a nice supplemental income option to fall back on. And if it doesn't work out, the boys & I get some pretty tasty treats out of the deal anyway.

• Owen and Gus can now completely crawl out of their cribs. Joy. So we have abandoned the full-blown crib by taking off the side rail to make their cribs into toddler beds. The first week was oh-so-rough, as the boys were hyper with excitement at their newfound freedom. They would finally stop screaming long enough to fall asleep in the floor for a couple of hours, only to wake up several times in the night. They have settled into the toddler beds this week, although we still get up in the middle of the night at the sound of the occasional "THUMP" as they fall out into the floor.

• Amy had a rather unpleasant experience this morning with the boys. Through the baby monitor we could hear them playing & laughing from downstairs, and everything seemed fine. I left to go on a jog around the block only to return to a beaten-down mother standing at the door. Gus had gotten his hands into his diaper and smeared poop all over his room -- floor, carpet, walls, bed, Owen's face. When Amy got on to the boys telling them that was bad, Owen kept responding "Gus bad, Gus bad." CSI fingernail evidence proved that Gus was indeed the culprit, and Owen was only an accomplice. Ah, the parental joys of two-year olds. The day has gotten better since this morning. ;-)

• Amy & I are looking forward to seeing Uncle Dude, Aunt Mel, Cousin Corinne, Pappy & GJ in Charleston. We can't wait to get down there to see everyone.

• The Bender Ball has arrived. More on this from Amy B, I'm sure.