You know that whole argument men have with their wives about safety? The one where you say you want to have your son or daughter wrapped in knee pads, elbow pads, and every other kind of pad before they get on the ever-so-dangerous contraption known as a bicycle but your husband says that skinned knees are part of growing up and they need to learn how to handle that kind of thing? The Shubin clan are kind of a rowdy bunch and fall very much into the trampoline-with-no-giant-net-around-it crowd. I grew up in the Shaw family, which is somewhat less rowdy. You can probably tell where this is headed.

At our house, George started doing his human roller coaster impression with Georgie before he was a year old (I don’t remember when exactly, but somewhere close to as soon as Georgie’s neck was strong enough). Up and down and all around, up in the air and down low my tiny baby went. Aaack!

Naturally, my first inclination was to tell him to knock that off post-haste; but then I noticed that both of them were laughing away and seemed to be utterly enjoying this daredevil behavior. Crazy Y chromosomes! Clearly this must be some form of weird, manly, paternal bonding. It makes no sense whatsoever to me, but I’m willing to admit the possibility that there are other forms of bonding out there than the mushy, smooshy-kiss Mommy kind.

So being the calm, mild, and demure wife that I am (stop laughing), whenever they would start this game I’d retire to the kitchen so I could enjoy listening to them having so much fun while not having to see what was actually producing all that wild giggling. Then Trinity came along and she was a much quieter baby than Georgie was. Surely this rough-housing stuff wouldn’t be her dainty little cup of tea. Errr, wrong. Before I knew it, George was off tossing her all over the living room and now all three of them were laughing away like a bunch of nutsos.

Add a few more kids (all girls, of course) and now we have the most fearless children in the state. Hmm. His guy philosophy may have something to it. When we went to Disneyland in April, Georgie’s favorite ride was the aptly named Screamer, which takes you upside down. He’s almost eight. Trinity (age 6) liked every ride that was fast, even the ones in the dark. Anika hated practically everything until she got to Splash Mountain, which she loved and went on numerous times. That’s the log ride where they drop you over a 52 foot high waterfall at 40mph.

So what does all this have to do with moving, you may wonder? A valid question indeed. Quick mathematical computation for you: crazy Husband + crib mattress + stairs + crazy children = what? Lots of prayer, a mere two minutes of tears, and this:

George is the cameraman for the first part and then Georgie takes over. Nice of him to watch and film his sister as she tumbles down the stairs right in front of him, don’t you think? That’s Anika (age 4) who gets thrown by the bucking stairwell, but that’s also her immediately afterward going down with Handsome Hubby. Looks scary on the video though!

The kids spent the entire rest of the day sliding down the stairs, and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I don’t think Anika actually went again. She’s not quite strong enough to hold the mattress up in front (as is obvious from the video). Who knew packing could be so much fun? Ahhh, isn’t parenting grand? If you need me, I’ll be in the kitchen.

Rachel

Apparently when small children watch too much TV, their parents get to overhear conversations like this on the way to church:

Georgie’s Robot Wolverine made from miscellaneous bionicle pieces:  “I’m not allowed to have fun. My batteries will run out.”

Trinity’s Polly Pockets replies: “Oh barnacles!”

I wish every television show that employs expletives in place of actual vocabulary (this means you HBO) could replace them with names of innocuous sea life instead. Plus barnacles is just a funny sounding word. Thank you, this has been your Sunday moving pictures moment.

~ Rachel

No, he’s not popping back out from the womb again (for which I’m sure his mother is eternally thankful), nor is he being born again since he already is. He and I managed to actually escape for celebratory goodness tonight, so now I’m wishing him happy birthday again. Why do I feel all sappy? Eewww!

So said celebration included one hour at the mall where I bought truly exciting things like facial moisturizer, a purse, and leggings for under the girls’ dresses; dinner at Benihana where they sang him Happy Birthday and gave him a really goofy balloon hat (*snicker snicker*), and a sneak preview of The Guardian, which is the new Kevin Costner/Ashton Kutcher movie about Coast Guard rescue guys. Despite having those two guys as the principle leads, the movie was pretty good for most of the way through.

Here’s a picture from Benihana so you can all join me in the snickering:

Rachel

Today is George’s 35th birthday. Kind of a low key day! Since we’ve had chaos with all the moving stuff, birthday was a bit off the radar. We had not much babysitter luck, so we spent most of the day doing house stuff and trying to think up some fun birthday-ish thing to do with all the kids.

You know, Portland is a bit low on the kid entertainment scale. There’s not much to do with teeny tinies that isn’t outdoors (like zoo) or expensive (we were going to go to the circus but $100 seemed like a lot for an evening).

We ended up going to the very swanky Home Town Buffet restaurant, which I must say the kids were thrilled about. They each said numerous times how much fun they had and how much they liked the food.

Since they were all really well behaved, actually ate their dinners, and were generally exuberant and cheery, we parents enjoyed ourselves as well. If Georgie hadn’t thrown up in the car just as we were pulling into the parking lot, it would have been perfect!

Actually, George said when he got home that he really enjoyed dinner. These are words I never expected from him in reference to Home Town Buffet; but he clarified that the food was not the attraction, the company was. He enjoyed the kids. Sometimes it’s nice to take them out and enjoy them out of the house. Particularly fun when they aren’t tired, hungry, crabby, fighting, or sick. So about once a year.

Tomorrow night Katie is coming over to babysit so we can go out for his actual birthday date. Dinner & a movie isn’t the most exciting outing, but last week we went on a dinner cruise on the Willamette to unwind from our craparoony month of frantically trying to find somewhere to live. This weekend he just wants to relax and do something comfortable, I think, which translates to dinner & a show.

So, since his birthday today didn’t really go as expected and was a bit on the frustrating side for most of the day, I want to wish him a Happy Un-Birthday. I love you!

Rachel

Welcome to Shubinesque, my blog about whatever thoroughly irrelevant tripe pops into my head at any given moment. Were you looking for deep thoughts? Well, unless you’re a fan of Jack Handy, you have come to the wrong place. No fathomless thinking allowed here.

Well, okay I might do some profound pondering at some point, but it’s not gonna be today! All I’ve got for today is drivel. Maybe the kids will say something weird and then I can put that up. Hmmm, seems highly possible…

Rachel

So here’s what we really think!