Catching Up...

My sister has graciously reminded me that I have fallen behind in my regular updating duties. As most of you know, Francine and I are expecting another baby girl in late July. Fran has been busy re-arranging Nicole's room to accommodate her new baby sister. Nicole says she's excited to be a big sister but I don't think she really knows what it's going to be like sharing a room with a crying newborn. I'm curious as heck to see how she reacts. I'm sure she will be a great big sister.

The boss at work decided to bring in his kids' hamsters as they were getting too old and busy to take care of them. So guess who got suckered into taking one home? The boss wanted me to take both just to get them out of our breakroom.

"Why don't you take them both to get them out of here?"

"Nah, I don't want to have to find someone to take the other one."

"It's a take all deal, man," He said with a grin.

"Dude, my wife is gonna have my head as it is. If I bring home both I'll never hear the end of it."

"Just take them both, she'll understand. And you'll find someone to take the other one."

"Yeah. How about I just feed one to the cat and keep the other one? Either the cat eats one or the wife eats me."

"Well, at least take the one and hopefully someone will take the other one."

So Nicole now has a pet hamster named Belle who lives in a nice pink cage. Nicole's slowly learning how to hold and pet it gently rather than grabbing it with a full fist and waving it in the air. Belle has already taken a few trips down the plastic slide in the playroom. It only took three times before a nice yellow streak appeared from top to bottom.

"Daddy, what's that yellow stuff?"

"She peed."

"Why?"

"Well, if someone grabbed you and squeezed your belly and threw you off a building, you'd probably pee too."

"Ohh."

Maybe I should have taken both hamsters. They're identical. It would be a perfect bait-and-switch should poor Belle accidently get squished while riding in a toy fire truck.

I still need a photo of Nicole's new friend. In the meantime, I included a video above of Nicole opening a Valentine's Day card from her Aunt Julie. Enjoy.

Nicole's New House and My Fight with the Lazy Susan

To those of you who read our Christmas letter, you know that it has been a very busy year at the Siegfried house. The holidays were no different as it has been our custom to do a little traveling each Christmas to visit all our relatives.

For Christmas, I bought Francine a Lazy Susan shelf to help with access to the corner cupboard. But before I could get to work installing it, I needed a helper to crawl into the cupboard as it is rather deep. Even my long arms can't reach all the way inside, lest my back give out. So our little helper Nicole volunteered to crawl in and retrieve the remaining cans, jars and assorted goods that had been lingering in there for years. For instance, we found a box of cereal that was two years expired. There were also four jars of unopened peanut butter Fran didn't know she had and a container of olive oil that had been camping out since we had moved in almost five years ago.

Nicole did a great job clearing out the cupboard. But just when I was gearing up to begin installation of the Lazy Susan, Nicole declared that the cupboard was her new "house". We had not planned on our daugher annexing part of the kitchen as her own. In retrospect, giving in to Nicole and letting her keep her new home would probably been preferable to shoe-horning in the Lazy Susan shelves. I had to be a bit of a contortionist to get myself in there to drill holes and stuff that thing in, but two hours later we had two spinning shelfs with easier access to our goodies. It will probably add 5 years to each of our lower backs.

Nicole still asks if she can go in her new house.

Sure. If you can fit, kid.