The Zany Zukowski Weblog

My cousin Colleen and her husband Chris brought their 2 boys, Carter and Cameron for a visit. The boys are all close in age and had a blast. They played in the sprinklers, roasted marshmallows, and generally found some trouble together. No visit to our house would be complete without a little fire safety talk, so we trekked over to the fire station where Michael showed off the trucks, checked out heart rates, and talked about being in the dog house at home and at work! Colleen and Chris have a German Au Pair and Freddy thought she was great. She is really great with the kids and played with Freddy and sat by him while we ate! MIchael says Freddy is bound to like older women, but I think it’s a bit early for that! 

Yesterday Randy Pausch died after a long, but short fight against pancreatic cancer. If you don’t know Randy, go to google and look him up. He became the internet phenom for his “last Lecture”. Both Lynese and I watched the lecture and read his book. Very inspiring series. In fact my Lt watched the whole 90 minute lecture with me at the station and every now and then he throws down something, ” you know what Randy would say or do…”. This is unique because  my Lt.  is a hard core hardass who was even inspired by Randy. I suggest everyone should watch the lecture. Thanks and be safe.

“You don’t beat the reaper by living longer, you beat the reaper by living better” – Randy Pausch

Here is the last lecture on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

We had an odd day last Thursday. With vacations and illness the boys and I found ourselves without any charges. We headed to the pool. I ran upstairs to change and grab towels. My boys so don’t understand the girl/boy differences in life and they both reminded me to put my swim trunks on. Well I donned my swimsuit and they asked why I was wearing underwear, because evidently the bottoms of my maternity suit look just like underwear. Freddy doesn’t even refer to most girls as she but instead calls everyone a he. At times, this can be difficult to explain to others.

After the pool we stopped in at a store, and picked up a few necessities. The boys talked me into some oreo cookies. Well, we just had to have a cookie in the van because they were starving and couldn’t wait until lunch. We nibbled some cookies on our ride home. Freddy walked in and collapsed on the couch in a chocolate haze. He even missed lunch! You’ll notice in the first picture the chocolate cookie lying by his hand.

Stephen has 6 weeks and counting until preschool starts! Yippee! We even have our first school supply list. Michael can’t understand how preschoolers need  5 glue sticks each, (clearly he hasn’t watch our children eat the glue and glue paper at the same time)  several boxes of tissue. Just wait until he gets an elementary school supply list.

The really great thing about Freddy right now is that he thinks he can read. I cuddle with Freddy until he goes to sleep at nap time, since Stephen has given up daily naps. Freddy tells me all sorts of fun things. For instance his humidifier is right by his pillow and it’s made by Vicks. According to Freddy the word Vicks reads: ‘no jumping on the bed’. Not that he pays much attention to that rule, but perhaps he means other kids that come and go through our house. Freddy also says that if a giant comes to our house we must get our toys out before the giant steps on the house and crushes it. So there now you know! 

While Stephen doesn’t ‘take naps’ he still occasionally falls asleep on the couch for an hour, but it’s not a nap. It might be a trip into another dimension, a short rest, but it’s definitely not a nap. 

As for our pregnancy, things seem to be going well, and as long as I get my 8 hours  of sleep I am feeling good and energetic. It’s so much fun because everyday the boys ask if my belly is big yet. Well that’s relative question. It’s not pregnancy big, but my regular clothes don’t fit. (for all the women out there, I just feel fat, blessed but fat)  I can occasionally feel bumps and flutters from  baby, but no one else can, the boys are a little impatient to feel a kick and see a big belly. I am sure it will be here soon. Choosing names is a challenging task. Stephen is ever so helpful with suggestions like Bon Jovi, and Stephen. He also likes Kelly for a girl, because there’s a girl on a cartoon named Kelly. We’ll keep you posted, but we didn’t have anything finalized until we saw Freddy, so don’t count on it!

We knew the time was coming for the babies to fly the nest. Sadly, so did our dog Alaska. While out playing with the kids, I noticed the dog was trying to climb one of our trees. Alaska managed to knock, probably a weak flyer, out of the tree from a low branch. She caught it in her mouth and well you know the rest. I checked the nest and I assume it was one of the babies, because there are only 1 or 2 left in the nest. The mama and daddy made a valient effort and dove at Alaska, but Alaska is a huntress and not to be deterred. Dutch our diabetic lab, is struggling with some high blood sugar, perhaps he’s helped himself as well. Survival of the fittest I suppose, but still sad. (Dutch once ate a humming bird out of mid-air)

We had a great 4th of July. Mimi and Pa, Aunt Mary, Uncle Ed, and cousin BJ came to share the day with us. Steve and Freddy Michael (this is what they like to be called these days) were endlessly entertained by the squirt guns. They even found a few unsuspecting targets. (Rest assured Uncle Tom and Uncle Jack, Big Brother Fred/Pa is getting some payback for his years of torturing you from his grandsons, just check out the pictures.)  A couple of neighbor kids stopped by to join the mayhem. More squirt water fights!  We set off our own fireworks and watched the shows going on around us that we could see. Michael cooked some excellent burgers, some with green chili and some without, but they had great spices and flavors. We also had brats, beer, and some great strawberry pie (thanks MImi for the Pie! ) The watermelon was juicy and the boys wore half of what they ate. Needless to say everyone slept well on Friday night!

Call it a midlife crisis, or just a lark, but Michael got a tattoo for his birthday in May. The dragon is symbolic of fire, they call firefighting ’slaying the dragon’ . All 3 of our initials are hidden in the wings. (And there’s room for one more!) The latin phrases at the top and bottom translate as: ‘my brother’s keeper’ and ‘never tire of fire’. The ‘my brother’s keeper’ was a favorite phrase of our friend/firebrother/Godfather, Jeff Dunn. Jeff got an armband tattoo with fire and the brother’s keeper saying. Jeff’s initials are on the IAFF shield (International Association of Firefighters emblem. It’s also called a maltese cross.) Michael likes it, and the boys think it’s neat. Stephen told me he’s going to get a tattoo when he’s 89 years old, and that’s just fine by me. By 89 maybe he’ll have outgrown it. Maybe? (no I don’t have any tattoos, I can hardly decide what to eat in a restaurant, let alone what mark would I want to look at forever. I can’t commit. )

On a side note, I don’t remember seeing it, but evidently the tattoo on the arm thing runs in the family.  Michael’s Grandfather, Poppi, had a heart with a dagger through it on his arm. The name Jo was also a part of the heart and dagger ensemble, and that was for an ex girlfriend! Luckily Grandma’s middle name was Josephine, so it all worked out in the end. Hopefully Michael keeps me around a while. (they have laser tattoo removal these days, so he can always move on, but I think he’s pretty content. Hey, his wife lets him get tattoos, what more does a guy need? )

I am really excited about these baby birdies in our back yard, and come to think of it I don’t think I’ve ever watched the whole egg, hatching, growing up process so closely. There are 5 birdies, and they are getting big quickly and filling up the nest. You can see the fluff turning to feathers. Their eyes are open and looking around. Mama bird is getting more aggressive by the hour. Just being the backyard sets her to squawking, if not diving at us. Michael is getting annoyed by her noise. The first picture is from 4th of July and the second picture is from today. Enjoy!

We were pretty caught up with our camping excursion, but right before we left, Michael noticed that we had a bird’s nest with bird eggs in a pine tree behind our shed. We have been watching them faithfully daily. I was attacked by mama bird tonight as I stole this shot of her babies. It was worth the scolding. I’ll try again soon to keep you updated! Are they cute or what? They think I have food, which I didn’t mean to happen. Earlier today they slept through our visits, so hopefully I didn’t disappoint them too much. (I know the quality is pretty bad, but I don’t have a great vantage point to shoot from, I think Mama bird planned it that way!)

Of course I brought along the camera for our camping trip, and I thought I was safe leaving the camera all alone in the tent. Stephen stepped out of the tent and announced he took pictures of our lovely tent for MImi and Pa since they couldn’t come camping. I didn’t realized until I got home how many pictures he took! I took 12 pictures, my son took 14 pictures of the inside of our tent.  (side note: Mimi and Pa don’t camp unless it’s at a Motel 6 and even then they’ll probably keep driving to a Marriott. Mimi and Pa don’t camp. ) But I digress, Stephen didn’t want them to miss one riviting moment of the camping action! So he took some rather interesting pictures including some really up close self portraits! Enjoy my budding photographer! And Mimi and Pa, please tell Stephen you really liked the tent, he seems very proud of it!