...Don't Stand Underneath When They Fly By!

It's fortunate for the rest of the world that at any given time, only two people have to shoulder the burden of being the parents of the cutest kids alive. It's been said that the unspoken animosity of evey mother who sees them and has to compare them to her own kids, the requests for DNA samples for future cloning, and the substantial cash offers for knowledge of conception techniques are enough to drive a person to an early grave! Kayley and I are holding up just fine though.

This last Wednesday Claire managed to amaze us.
For those who don't know, Kayley's uncle Bob is from Holland originally, so they have some Holland-y traditions in their family. One of which is that everyone in the extended family is invited to come for a St. Nicholas party the first Wednesday of December. There they eat traditional food and Bob's specialties (Like some really good split pea soup. (I know, you never thought you would hear the words "really good" and "split pea soup" in the same sentance. (Hey, look! I managed to get a triple paranthetical statement! Woo-Hoo!))), play Guitar Hero III (Who knew that Guitar Hero III was a traditional St. Nicholas game?), and toward the end of the night everyone sings a song (the top picture is of Claire and I singing) to invite St. Nicholas to come, at which point he arrives (along with a couple of helper wenches and his slave Black Pete) and gives everyone a present.

Before we proceed, a little info on our little Claire-bear is in order. Do you remember King Ahasuerus from the Book of Esther who would execute anyone who dared to approach or speak to him unbidden? Yeah, she's like that. There are only a few people that Claire will allow to speak to her without freezing up, among them are Grandma Mary Kay, Aunt Karen and Grandpa Throop (which is kinda' weird since she almost never sees him). The whole night she only ever interacted with other kids, and anytime an adult had anything to say to her she would cover her eyes until they got the message and went away. All the people who know Claire were sure she would throw a screaming hissy-fit when we tried to put her on St. Nicholas' lap.

As for Allie, she was just fine with people passing her around like a syringe at a Hollywood after-party as long as the person holding her had a bottle. ("Oh, you're going to feed me now? Fantastic!") I suppose I would be okay with that too if everyone told me how attractive I am the second the saw me. Hint, hint.

Anyway, St. Nicholas came in his bright red robe, Catholic bishop's hat and staff, sat down, and started calling names for the people he had presents for. After about fifteen minutes Claire's turn came and we all braced ourselves for the seemingly inevitable outburst that never came. Kayley carried her over and before she could set Claire on his lap, our little girl dove out and gave St. Nick a huge hug around his bearded neck.

If you have read as many poorly written novels as I have, you've noticed that the words "collective gasp" get thrown around quite a bit. It seems to be used ad nauseum by authors who really have no other literary means of expressing the importance of an event, and as such the impact of a collective gasp is lost. Whether giant termites emerge from their nest in city hall, or the twin suns of Betelgeuse IV come over the horizon, or Cousin Maude has a three legged baby, eveyone always seems to simultaneously suck in as much air as they can.

Well, I can tell you that a collective gasp is an impressive thing. If there would have been a log burning in the fireplace when Claire leaped into Santa's arms it would have been immediately extinguished from the sudden lack of oxygen. After her turn with St. Nicholas was over, she had a big smile on her face as she bounced back over to me to show off her new Littlest Pet Shop. All anyone could talk about for the rest of the night and the next couple of days was how brave our little Claire-bear was. Amazing.

Anyway, Merry Christmas everyone, and if you see Santa and his reindeer, just remember the title of today's entry!

Sweet Relief! (Ya' know, 'cause we had sick kids)

Well, I am very, very happy to report that the girls are feeling better. Kayley and I finally got tired of all the pukin' and poopin' (and my goodness, there was a lot of both!) so we made an appointment with the doctor. Since Claire is such a shy little girl, we knew that she would throw a hissy fit when he came into the room. So, to try and prevent the hysterics before they started, we spent some time the night before the appointment practicing with her all the things he would probably do. (It came to me later that the pediatrician chose his profession he decided he wanted to have three year olds kicking, punching, puking and screaming in his face all day. Who am I to deny him his dream?) It turns out that Allie had a sinus infection, Claire had some fluid buildup behind her eardrums that made it hard for her to hear and they both had a touch of the flu. He game us some antibiotics and stuff to dope 'em up (It's disturbing to me just how much Claire loves to take medicine. If I still lived in that pot-head heaven known as Clearlake I would say her friends had been slipping her a little more than crackers at playtime.) and we all feel much better now.


I think I've mentioned this before, but Kayley loves her job. She especially likes it this year because she has a teachers aide all day, she's teaching all day kindergarten and her class size has been capped by the principle at 18 students. The reason for the cap is that Kayley has what she lovingly refers to as the "low kids" and what I jokingly call the "freakin' idiots" (I'm a bad person). Well, when she came home Tuesday she had a big smile on her face and practically skipped everywhere she went. Like I said, Kayley loves her job, but it's really emotionally and physically draining, so most days she comes home and has to collapse on the couch for a half hour before she feels like herself. So when she came home all spry and happy I couldn't help but notice. After about an hour of unrestrained bubbliness I finally asked what was going on. She sighed, looked off into the distance and with a euphoric smile said, "Five of my students were absent today!" I thought that was pretty funny.

I've got finals next week and I can already feel the ulcer starting. All three are comprehensive, so all this week I'll be trying to remember and relearn the equations, molecular names and electron pushing mechanisms that I've been studying for the past semester. (If you think that sentence is boring to read, imagine trying to do it!) All I can say is "Who needs sleeping pills?"

A Couple of Sick Kids

Time for the weekly update!

Claire and Allie are two sad, sick kids. It started about a week ago when Allie started getting a nasty cough that is just painful to listen to. She must have decided that she wasn't getting enough sympathy from Kayley and I, so she added a new trick: making herself throw up by coughing after eating! Now, Allie has always been a champion puker (I once told Kayley that Allie "is like a bulimic at a buffet". I'm so impressed with myself over that one that I still chuckle whenever I think about it.) but lately she seems less like a baby girl and more like the fountains at the Bellagio. This morning she woke up for her usual feeding which Kayley very graciously takes care of without waking me up. (I've got the best wife!) Twenty minutes later my wonderful wife (Remember, I have the best one!) came back and woke me up to ask if I would take Allie so she could have a shower. I rolled over and, sure enough, Allie had drenched Kayley's entire left side, front and back.

Claire, seeing all the attention Allie has been getting, chose today to get in the game herself. This morning she told us a few times that she wasn't feeling well, so we decided that since Kayley had a talk to give today (Follow the prophets was the topic. She felt like she didn't do that well, but a couple of people told her they thought it was the best one of the day.) I would stay home and take care of both the girls. Well, we mostly had a good day until Claire went down for her nap. An hour into it I heard her scream her head off. When I got back to her room I saw her kneeling in her bed doing her best to empty her stomache of the scrambled eggs she had eaten for breakfast. Yum.

Things don't show any signs of getting better, so Kayley is going to take tomorrow off work to take the girls to the doctor.

Anyway, the above photos are:
the cutest picture of Allie to date
a sick Claire-bear asleep on the couch
and the whole fam the day Allie was blessed.

Is it too late for a Halloween Update?

The way I see it, as long as it's not Thanksgiving yet it's not too late to talk about Halloween.

Given that Claire loves, loves, loves the Disney princesses, it's no big surprise that she chose to dress up as Sleeping Beauty. (It's interesting to me that she loves watching Sleeping Beauty so much, since for about six months whenever she watched it during the day, that night she would have nightmares about a witch being in her room. Well, she's three years old, so I guess logic has nothing to do with it.) We tried to convince her to be a cute little witch so that we could dress Allie up as her black cat, but once she saw the princess dress in Toys'R'Us there was no disuading her. The hardest part for Claire was buying the costume and then having to wait a couple of weeks for Halloween to wear it. Nearly every day she would exclaim "Mommy, I'm going to be a PRINCESS!" To which Kayley would say, trying to sound excited too, "Yes, you are!" Claire would tilt her head to the side in a way that says "I'm cute. Can you deny me anything?" and plead, "Can I wear my costume nooooow?" At this point Claire found out that, yes, we can deny her anything. But when she finally got to put it on, she was so excited that she could hardly contain herself. She twirled around the house, she walked around holding the hem up just like a little lady and every couple of minutes she would ask, "Daddy, don't I look beautiful?" I would dutifully reply that I had never seen anything so pretty and that I could now die a happy man.

Allie wore an orange T-shirt that says "Baby's First Boo". She didn't seem particularly excited about it.

Along with the Halloween photos, I've put up some pictures of a corn maze we went to and when we went to a pumpkin patch to choose (what else) pumkins. Oh, and a picture of Allie on a swing, 'cause it's kinda' cute.

Gettin' Started!

Well, here we go! Kayley and I have always been slackers in two areas in particular: keeping in touch with friends and family and keeping a journal. Hopefully this will be an answer to both those problems.
For everyone who doesn't know, July 3rd gave us a new addition to the family. We now have a beautiful, happy girl by the name of Allie Kay Throop! I should clarify that a bit: She is now a happy girl, but for the first two months she was convinced that life was nothing but miserable. In a matter of seconds Allie would go from being completely calm and content to a high pitched, ear piercing scream that tells parents that their kid must have lost a leg. I've always heard about how bad cholic is from other parents, and I've been sympathetic, but now I'm convinced that you can't comprehend how bad it is until you've experienced it. Thankfully, she got over that phase sometime is September and now she is one of the happiest babies out there. She loves to smile her big, cute toothless smile (I'm gonna miss it when she starts getting teeth.) and no one can make her belly laugh like her big sister Claire!
Speaking of Claire, she couldn't be happier to be a big sister and she's really good at it! All day long we hear "Can I hold Allie?", "Can I feed Allie?", "You're so cute Allie!" Claire can spend an hour dancing and making funny faces and noises just to make Allie happy.
Also, our little Claire-bear has shown us that the Throop and Kirkland genes for really, really, amazingly smart people has carried on to the next generation. She can already name almost every letter in the alphabet and tell you what sound each makes, count to twenty (most of the time) and recognize written numbers up to ten! (That's stuff that most kindergarteners can't do at the beginning of the year.) Every so often Claire will remind us that when she turns 5 she'll be able to start going to school "just like Mommy and Daddy!"
This last semester Kayley started taking a college course to work toward a reading endorsement which means she'll start making the big bucks! (Oh, wait... she's in public education where they don't pay you more no matter how qualified and talented you are.) Still, she's really happy to be teaching full day kindergarten again, and she's especially happy at the school she's teaching now since it's only a couple of blocks away from home.
Kayley is also thrilled to have a newborn again. To her, having two kids just means that she's twice as happy as she was. (Compared to having kids, being married to me barely registers on her happiness meter, and really, can you blame her?) Just like after we had Claire, Kayley can spend hours holding Allie and staring at her while she sleeps (Something I'll never understand. It's just so boring!)
As for me, I'm still plugging away at a degree in biochemistry and, in fact, should be studying for a test I have tomorrow which is reportedly the hardest test of the year. But in the words of Arlo Guthrie, "You can't always be doin' what you're supposed to be doin'." Next semester I'm taking such fun-sounding classes as Principles of Genetics and Cellular Communication by Small Molecules and Proteins. Woo-hoo! I can feel the adrenaline pumping already! But seriously, I think it's amazing what our bodies do thousands of times every second and I do enjoy the classes.
Anyway, that's the update and we'll do our best to do this every week so that those who are interested can find out what's happening in our endlessly exciting lives.