Child Wonders Around Home and Destroys House

WARNING - Written with Extreme Sarcasm and Humor...

This week marked my third month working from home as a Realtor for Keller Williams Realty and playing the Stay at Home Dad role.

Tuesday I sat in with the Roseville Big Band and it went surprisingly well and I managed to get added to their sub list.

Wednesday is where the fun at home started…

I started revamping some things related to work and Nicole had some late nights coaching at the college. My first task was to upload about 300 contacts into an online database, but unfortunately the program didn’t like my spreadsheet and I was stuck entering them one at a time. In the mean time Robert managed to tear our home apart.

As of Friday morning we have no kitchen and no living room. Robert has managed to tear apart everything in the lower cabinets - all the plastic containers and glass, which I caught before he could get very far with, have been scattered across the kitchen floor. After he crawled into the bottom drawer of the stove, see below, he ventured into the living room and emptied out his toy chest and scattered his books.

The floors in the kitchen and living room cannot be seen.

This isn’t the only mess that has accumulated. The kitchen counters and stove have seen better days. Meals where prepared, but clean up could not be done because...never mind that.

Not only is the living room and kitchen a disaster, but Robert has not emptied his diaper pail for days. I give him one little job and he can’t even do that. He can clear the tables and dust the floor, but he can’t even take out his trash. The next time this child cries he’s going to bed.

I would have taken more pictures of the house, but I don't think anyone could stomach the mess. Not just the mess made by the child, but the mess that has accumulated on the kitchen counters.

Here’s an after shot…not for the faint at heart.

This was just the inside. You haven’t even seen the outside. Evidently Mother Nature doesn’t like me either. Last week I finished picking up leaves and then she goes and dumps a bunch more on my lawn. I can’t even see my grass OR my deck.

In finally finished uploading and auditing my contacts this morning and was going to start cleaning when Robert took his first nap this morning. He’s decided not to nap, but instead to jump up and down in his crib. He thinks it’s pretty funny. We’ll see how funny it is when he’s stuck up there for a while.

As of this afternoon some of the cleaning has been completed. The trash and BAGS of trash have been hauled out as well as the dirty diapers Robert won’t clean up. This kid really needs to start pulling his weight, literally. I can walk through the house again and the counters are cleared. I ended up ordering lunch since preparing it would have meant standing on my head while doing a waltz on the ceiling.

The only thing left is the leaves and I think I managed to forget the dogs out in the rain one of the days. I don’t know why they didn’t speak up. Can’t they bark? I’ll be having a talk with Mother Nature this afternoon since we’ll be in Red Wing over Halloween.

Some Side Notes

Little kids at this age really don’t need toys just let them wonder around your house.

While cleaning up I may have tossed some things that shouldn’t have been tossed.

I Talked with Nicole earlier today and she said she would make it up to me. I’ll believe that if I see pigs flying past my home or a blue moon tonight. If that is the case…I want a big porterhouse steak sautéed with mushrooms, onions and green peppers. Along with a baked potato fully loaded and an ice cold coke. Yes coke, not beer.

Real mean clean, but we have our own methods. Here is a picture of the results.

As I finish this post I notice some child walking around with a devilish look.

That kid is grounded.

Fall Days

This week was realitively calm for us and we took every opportunity to enjoy it before another crazy week starts for all of us. I have a long work week ahead with 3 late nights at work for high school swim meets and a volleyball game and then my own team has a meet on Saturday. Eric has his normal workload of juggling Robert and real estate along with a sit in with a big band group. Robert's week should be pretty calm but that is just because he doesn't know what is in store for him with Halloween on Saturday.

The only downside to the week is that I somehow managed to hurt my foot. Luckily one of my good friends is our athletic trainer so she has been giving me some TLC but I sure missed her today. I'm not sure what I did but after standing on it for practice and a Volleyball game on Friday night it was quite sore. Then I stood on it at my team's meet yesterday and afterwards through the rest of the night it hurt really bad. I was then stupid today and ignored my hubby and thought I'd be fine to go grocery shopping...BIG mistake. I've never been in so much pain, ok maybe giving birth to Robert was worse but not by much. I learned my lesson and spent the rest of the day with my foot up and I'm hoping that Abby (trainer) will have a magical cure for it tomorrow besides sending me off for x-rays.

Anyway onto the part of the blog everyone wants to see...pictures of Robert!

With the weather being so cold Robert has gotten stir crazy and found his way into our tupperware cupboard this afternoon after the child lock failed. Here he sits so proud of his mess!

Yesterday after I got home from my meet and Eric returned from his open house we (ok Eric because my foot hurt) tackled the leaves. Robert wasn't too sure about them and there were a few tears shed when he fell down and couldn't figure how to get back up.

Not quite steady footing!

Daddy working, Robert investigating

Hmmm...maybe this isn't so bad!

For the last two weeks Robert has been carrying his pumpkin around to get ready for trick-or-treating and has it pretty much figured out. Now we'll see how he does this weekend. We'll be going to Red Wing for the big day since we don't really know anyone around Robbinsdale and my mom has LOTS of friends to show her grandson off to. Stay tuned next week for pics of Robert in his Halloween costume...and now he won't be a fish this year, I tried but Eric said no!

Where's the candy?!?

Longest workday ever!

This Friday-Saturday my team ran a 24-Hour Swim-a-thon to raise money for our training trip and for ALS. It was a great event and my 3rd time coaching a swim-a-thon but I realized that I'm getting way too old to be staying up all night. With only being 2 weeks into our season I was a little worried about how the girls would do but they all impressed me with their determination and amazing work ethic. They swam a total of 170.44 miles and raised over $1,100 for ALS. It was a great event and a wonderful way to kick off our swim season!

My swimmers after the last lap was swum!

Abby and I with our babies at the swim-a-thon!

Robert running the table while I busy doing something else!

At times it is hard to split my time between work and home but luckily I have a great husband who is very understanding and a sweet little boy who makes any long, stressful day worth coming home to. I'm definitely taking time to enjoy our weekends and the little time I'm home during the week to spend time with my boys before Robert gets too old to hang out with us.

Thirsty Boy! He loves his milk & water!!!

Latest family picture! Robert refused to smile.

Busy last day...

My season starts tomorrow and with that my long work days begin. I start off by running 3 practices tomorrow, the first at 6:30am. Ugh! I'm so excited for this season and have such a great group of girls on the team but I'm not looking forward to the early mornings and late nights. Luckily I love my job and it helps to come home to two cute boys!!

Today I took advantage of my last day off (well after I went to work to get a USS swim meet that was renting the pool started) by going to the Twin's Game. There was a group of us and luckily everyone got there early enough to get decent seats in the "Cheap Seat" section. It was a great game and although it ended up not being the last game in the dome, like expected, we had a lot of fun and are excited for the games next year in the great outdoors...well on the nice warm days that is!

A packed Dome!

Proud Twin Fans!!!

It was great to see hang out with Caauwe's during the game!

Robert stayed home with G'ma & G'pa Hempler but enjoyed playing with the Homer Hanky tonight. Not quite the same but he's too little to know the difference.



As great of a time that we had today it wasn't the day we had originally planned. Eric's cousin JJ and his father Eldon were supposed to have joined us today but sadly Eldon lost his battle with his health on Thursday. We know that he was there with us in spirit just as we know he would've loved the game today. We are keeping all of the family in our thoughts and prayers and wish that we could be with them later this week for the funeral.