Maybe Jail is a Possibility for Abby

It took Abby a few months after Caleb tried to set the house on fire, but she was able to set her place in Wallaces' Funniest Stories as well. Monica has started substitute teaching which takes her out of the home sometimes while Abby is still in half-day kindergarten. We've tried to coordinate the days Mon teaches with days that I'm not working, but there are days when I get home at 8 AM, get the kids off to school, go to bed an hour later at 9, then I have to wake up in 3 hours at 12 noon to get Abby off the bus (it's school district policy that they won't let kindergartners off the bus unless a parent is present), get her some lunch and then she plays around house alone while I get some more sleep. Abby has an amazing imagination and can entertain herself very well, so it's worked out quite well.

Except on one cool day in April, we had this same scenario and as I went back to sleep around 1:00, I heard the answering machine pick up, and again, and again, and a 4th time. Both kids know not to answer the phone unless it reads 'Wallace' or 'Foster' on the caller ID, so it was no surprise that Abby didn't answer the phone, but I wondered who kept calling. I got up and looked at the phone which read a Spokane number. I called back the number, but it was a disconnected number. Seemed a little strange, but after asking Abby if everything was OK, I went back to bed. A few minutes later, the door bell rang. The door bell ringing is a strange sound at our home considering our location, we very rarely get unexpected visitors living out of town. I listened closely in bed to the see if Abby was answering the door, and started to again get out of bed. In my half-asleep state, I not only heard Abby open the door, but also a man's voice and him entering the house! I quickly jumped up and ran to the entry way to find a county sheriff standing with Abby. Realizing I was standing in my nothing but my underwear, I asked if everything was OK. The sheriff told me that he was responding to a 911 hang-up call. I was stunned and looked over at Abby who had her chin buried in her chest. I asked Abby if she had called 911 and she could barely move. As the cobwebs started to clear in my mind, I started to see the situation from the officer's perspective of a 911 call by a little girl with a man walking around in his underwear at 1:00 in the afternoon. After excusing myself to put on some pants, I came into the entry way with the officer asking Abby if everything was OK and if there was anything she needed to tell him. I understood his concern and tried to explain to him that I had worked the night shift and that she had just gotten home from school, but I'm not really sure he believed me. He left and Abby and I had a little chat about 911 calls, that they are for real.

(This blog story has neither a pic of the sheriff or of me in my underwear)

Maybe Jail is a Possibility for Caleb

When I named this blog 'Keeping Toddlers out of Jail', I did it with a little jest and the idea that I've set the bar low for my parenting skills. Turns out, I may have been more accurate than I had hoped. Both Caleb, 8, and Abby, 6, have given us reasons to be concerned.

Last fall, I took a trip to San Francisco with some buddies to see Gonzaga's basketball team play. It's a trip that we've made for a couple years and it's always a blast. While gone, Monica and I text each other frequently. We're texting addicts and we love to keep each other informed as well as send fun messages.

On one evening in San Fran I got a phone call from Mon, which is slightly unusual since we text so much. When I answered she started screaming to me how Caleb had lit the living room on fire. My first question was whether the room was still on fire? She said she had put in out with the fire extinguisher, but that the house was full of smoke. She finally calmed down enough to let me know what had happened.

While Monica was upstairs taking a shower, Caleb decided to make a fire. We heat our home mostly with a wood stove and Caleb has built fires before in the stove, but under parental supervision. During the colder months, we have a fire going all day and all night. Caleb has been taught the rules of a safety around fires, both in the house and at camp fires. But he decided to take our cardboard box full of paper trash, (junk mail, paper trash, old homework, etc) that we use to start the fires, place it on the brick hearth and see if it would burn. And burn it did! We're told that the flame reached up near our eight-foot ceiling. Abby and Caleb made a few attempts at putting out the fire with some cups of water before Abby ran upstairs and started yelling at Monica that there was a fire in the living room.

It's easy to understand that Monica did not take the screaming very serious at first since A) Abby has a flare for the dramatic, B) There is always a fire in the living room and C) Couldn't this wait until after the shower? Mon did get out of the shower and went downstairs in her towel to see the entire paper-box engulfed in flames. Mon made a quick, smart decision and grabbed the fire extinguisher which sits next to the fireplace and sprayed out the fire.

With the average heart rate of 220 between the kids and Monica, she knew that everyone was safe but that the house was completely full of smoke and that our son would be sorely missed while attending military school. (But not as sore as his backside would be had I been home). Several days later the scent of smoke was all gone. The biggest mess turned out to be the detergent that the fire extinguisher expelled all over the hearth.

Caleb was traumatized and threatened to run away for a few days, but rest assured, he won't be playing with fire anytime soon.

You can see the little cup that the kids used in their first attempt at putting out the fire

This the box sitting on the back deck waiting for me when I got home from San Francisco.

2/26/2011 2nd Grade YMCA Basketball Sonics vs Wolfpack

One of the parents on Caleb's basketball team made this video of their team. They are the green
team and call themselves the Sonics (which I personally think is like putting some salt in the wound). They're a great team. There is a little footage of Caleb in the video. He's number 4. Around the 3:00 mark, Caleb takes the rebound coast to coast for a shot.
It's been a blast watching him play again this year. It's a different league than in years past and has been really good for him to play for a good coach and with other players of his level.

Abby's Highlights Video (Age 0-6)

There was no way I was going to get away not making a video for princess Abby!
Here are some of the highlights of our videos and pictures of Abby.

Monica tries boogie boarding

And the video editing continues. This is from our cruise this last fall in the eastern Caribbean. Monica had wanted to go on a cruise for a long time but the idea of sitting around poolside and stuffing myself with food never sounded appealing. But Mon kept the pressure on and found a way to save money by teaching scrap booking classes on-board and also found a cruise ship that had a wave ( flow rider) on it. She knew saving money and surfing are two ways to change my heart.

We had fantastic time. I was blown away by how much fun I had. From dancing, sailing, eating, meeting a ton of cool people, and riding the flow rider, we had great time.

Monica spent most her mornings resting poolside or doing scrap booking stuff while I hung out with the teenagers at the flow rider. Surfing the wave proved to be pretty tough and I'm certainly not going to be joining any pro-tours soon. But the boogie boarding was surprisingly fun. After several days, I finally talked Mon into giving it a try.

****Again, I'm realizing when I post videos on the blog from Youtube, the widescreen video doesn't fit very well in the window provided and also the advertisements are placed directly over my witty comments. To avoid both these problems I suggest clicking on the Youtube button on the bottom right and watching the video from YouTube's site. From there you can click on the 'x' on the ads and they'll go away.

Caleb's Highlights Video Ages 0-8

Here's my new creation. It makes me very proud to see all the things that Caleb likes to do. I'm very blessed to have two perfect children.

They YouTube advertisements cover up some of my fancy editing, so it's better to watch on Youtube's site and then close out the ads as they pop up.

Video Time

Santa came early and brought me a new laptop with new video editing.

Here's my first video.

I finally captured one of Caleb's goals on video. He scores a lot, but I never had the video recorder ready. The video starts as the opposing team was throwing the ball from the side line, but they had two illegal throw-ins, (the first one, Caleb tried to head butt the ball). Then the ref gave the ball to Caleb's team and Caleb quickly ran to the open space, got the pass and scored the goal. That a Boy!!!

Or you can watch it in HD here

Caleb Wakeboarding

Though it's been a fairly cool summer, we've still managed to spend a good amount of time at our favorite summer place, Loon Lake. Monica's parents have a place out there on the water that provides us with ample opportunity for all kinds of water sports. We had many days at the lake this summer, but the highlight has to be watching Caleb, 8, learn to wakeboard. He showed some interest in wakeboarding after watching some of my wakeboarding DVD's this last winter and as the weather got warmer, he kept talking about it. So for my birthday, I bought Caleb and Abby a wakeboard. Abby decided to stick mostly to kneeboarding, but Caleb was excited to learn how to wakeboard. He tried many times over several days, only tolerating a few crashes at a time before getting back in the boat. But he never got discouraged and was eager to try again the next time out on the boat. He eventually started to pick it up and before we knew it, he was wakeboarding for a few minutes at a time.

It's always emotional for me to see my kids accomplish something new. I feel like a sap of a parent as I cheer them on from the outside, but bursting with tears on the inside. And watching Caleb wakeboard was no different. Caleb especially loves to wakeboard when we have guests on the boat. He's becoming quite the ham (He must get that from his Mom). Though he tries to maintain a serious look on his face and it takes all the energy he has to not let show his big cheesy grin. It's quite the site and once again makes me feel very thankful for he and Abby in my life.

Abby's Power

Recently, Abby came up to Monica and me and told us how the deer come up to her when she plays her toy recorder. She then showed us the wind instrument and even danced around the kitchen like some sort of snake trainer. Mon and I looked her and then each other, and laughed at our perfect little princess. Abby does have quite the imagination and expresses random thoughts nearly every day about her being a princess, librarian, or a rock star.

She is our self-entertainer and can be found in her room playing hours on end with dolls, singing to herself, or teaching her stuffed animals how to read. So when she told us of her new talent of being some sort of deer whisperer, it was easy to down-play as a make-believe story. And then something extraordinary happened a few weeks ago. Abby quietly yelled for Monica and me to come to the front door to see the deer she had called over. When we got to the front door and looked out the screen door, we both could barely believe our eyes. Abby had played her small recorder-like instrument at the front door and apparently a small fawn walked right up to the front porch, never loosing eye-contact with Abby. It was amazing. Mon told me to take a picture with my phone to prove that it really did happen. I always knew that Abby was an angel sent from the heavens, and this may be the proof.

A Great Big Hole

Keeping our yard green through the summer takes a good amount of effort. We have no sprinkler system and with a couple acres of grass it means a lot of moving around hoses and sprinklers. I've come to love our little traveling sprinklers that I can turn on at night and they water a large portion of lawn while we sleep. We probably have 400 feet of hoses that feed different areas of our yard, including Wallace park (our flat yard in front that's approximatly 1.5 acres of grass). The vast majority of the water comes from one outside faucet, a frost free yard hydrant to be exact.
A few days ago as I was heading out of town for a boys camping trip, I went to turn on the water and noticed no water was coming out of the yard hydrant. I literally had the car packed and running when I discovered that something was wrong. I knew that not watering the lawn for 5-6 days could potentially cause a lot of damage, but my plans of camping sounded a lot better than fixing the problem. And I was right, camping was a lot more fun than fixing the problem.
When I got home I started investigating what could be the problem and hoped that it was just bad valve in the hydrant. The only problem was that hydrants are buried deep in the ground to avoid freezing and I had no idea how deep. My trusty Kubota back hoe would be the perfect tool in digging up the hydrant, but it is inches away from our well and main water line, which meant that after scratching the surface with the tractor, it was down to me and the shovel.
I gave myself a little head start on digging with the tractor, but then I had to start digging by hand...and digging...and digging...and digging. I followed the hydrant down 3-4 feet and started to wonder if I had some different type of faucet or hydrant. I made some calls to some different home-improvement stores and found that one of them carried an 8-foot hydrant, 2 feet above ground and 6-feet below ground. What are the chances that I owned the house with the elusive 8-foot hydrant? Why would I be writing this blog post if it weren't the case?
I ended up have to dig 6 1/2 feet down. At around the 5 foot mark, it was too hard to throw the dirt out of the hole, so I just put the dirt to the side inside the hole and essentially dug a smaller shovel-sized hole at the bottom of my big hole where I could get on my knees and bend over with my shoulder on the ground to reach the bottom of the hydrant. Once the hole was dug, it was an easy fix of just unscrewing the old unit and replacing it with the new one.
I spent the good portion of an entire day on that hole, and the problem seems to be fixed. It's days like this that owning a condo sound really nice.