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Taking the kids to and from school is when I get some of the best gems while talking to Andrew. He’s very focused and is willing to talk your ear off about just about anything.

One thing I’ve been teasing him about, because it makes him SO upset even though it’s nothing, is calling a CVS store Walgreens, and vice versa. This is a short clip of us coming home from School the other day.

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One of the best Super Bowl commercials from 2011 was the “Imported from Detroit” commercial with Eminem. The music was cool, the VO was cool and the overall look of the commercial made you want to run out and buy a new car from Detroit. This is the original spot.

Not long after that we took one our our usual trips to Detroit and we decided to make our own modified version of that, but based on the fact that I was “Exported from Dearborn” to Chicago. So, on a whim we shot a bunch of footage with our iPhones while driving, and then a lot more footage with the GoPro camera that we just happened to have on that trip with us. I have all the footage to Brenda and the audio track, and she created our own version. This is what that one looks like (if you have not seen the original, watch that one first).

We had a great family day complete with a field trip to see holiday trains and cake and gifts. I wonder what this day will be like for them when they turn 21 in 2028.

A few more photos are on SmugMug.

The kids first official trip to see Santa. I’m not sure they really knew what to make of it, but Andrew managed to ask for “a car”. I’m not sure if he was talking about a matchbox car or one that he can drive around the block.

Room by Ikea

This time we decided not to wait until the bed was being scaled with a single leap over, and got Sydney her own bed. She’s been really good at sleeping on the floor mat at Grandma’s house so we thought she was ready. We waited for it to be assembled before we brought her into the room. I think she was a bit confused at first, not knowing what happened to her crib.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie] ]]> http://tomchak.com/blog/2011/11/12/sydneys-first-bed/feed/ 0 http://tomchak.com/blog/2011/11/08/dad-and-andrew-day/ http://tomchak.com/blog/2011/11/08/dad-and-andrew-day/#comments Tue, 08 Nov 2011 23:19:33 +0000 Thomas Tomchak http://tomchak.com/blog/?p=3869

For awhile I was taking more photos than I had time to process, and I’m still getting caught up.

These photos are from back in June when I spent the day with Andrew in Chicago at Navy Pier. It was part of the new “one-on-one” program we’ve been trying to institute with each child.

So here are some of those photos, and the rest are on SmugMug.

See them all on SmugMug

Max started going back in January as I previously posted and was accepted early because of his Autism diagnosis. It’s generally a very hard school to get into because they are a integrated school with a mix of kids that are on target developmentally and others that are challenged.

Now Andrew has qualified to get in and was super excited today to ride the bus with Max. It’s all he would talk about yesterday and this morning he as all too excited to talk your ear off about his new back pack and his Lightning Mqueen binder. It was a really fun morning with them all.

A few photos are here, the rest are on SmugMug.

It’s just so gratifying when the plan you had for your life is executed on so perfectly. I finally know what they mean by “living the dream”. It’s all exactly as I dreamed it would be some day.

So, enter the new “Tractor Wagon” (this is what Andrew calls it). It’s made to carry 1,000 lbs, so I’m pretty sure it will be up to the task of carrying the boys all the way through adulthood.

But this one is so big, we realized today that it easily carts the boys around, Sydney and a few bags of daily necessities while we’re out.

The down side? My legs are KILLING me from being the horse to this cart. But the kids loved it.

The rest of the photos are on Flickr

From there we caught a bus to the brown line, and took the elevated L train back into the loop where we had parked.

Seeing life through the eyes of a 3 year old is so amazing and fun, I could have spent the entire day with him. And the one-on-one time is just such a treat for me as the parent. Being able to give 100% of your focus and attention to just one child, and not feel bad about it is really great. I could tell he really enjoyed it as well.

There are some of the photos I took here, and lots more on Flickr. I think he even makes my photography hobby more fun!

Thanks for a great day Andrew!

Location:Dwight D. Eisenhower Expy,Oak Park,United States

BathTimex3 from the Tomchak Family. on Vimeo.

What’s that, your kids will not eat fruits or veggies? The trick is to turn them into something they like!

We blend strawberries, bananas, mangoes, broccoli, spinach, flax seed and pear into a tasty “shake” that the kids actually ask for. Healthy eating without the battle.

It helps to have a good blender like the Blendtec too.

The trick is to get just the right balance so that the sweet fruit overpowers the more bitter veggies.

Location:Home

Location: Adler Planetarium

It’s amazing how something so simple is so exciting to them.

This is my first official blog post. Hooray for Brenda!

I have always appreciated Tom’s dedication to posting the updates and play by play happenings of what is going on in our household. It is very nice for me to look at old posts and see how our lives are constantly changing. I know my posts will not be as detailed because of my drive-by tendencies in writing anything however I will try to get involved in the blogging game.

Here is a video that I did on my iPhone. This really seems to be the only way I will be able to do any form of editing these days. I did one for Sydney, so now it’s Max and Andrew’s turn for a video.

It’s fun to see what things your kids become interested in as they grow up. At the age of 2, it’s pretty simple. Cars, Fire Trucks, and Trains. At least for Andrew. He is obsessed with them all, but Trains is probably in the lead right now. A few months back we took him and Max on a train ride to Chicago and he still works it into a conversation unexpectedly as the mood hits him.

More recently it’s been all about Thomas The Train. He would play with his Thomas The Train set by the bay window, while watching Thomas The Train on TV. I think for me that’s like watching a nerd show on how to build a computer while sitting on the couch on my wireless laptop or iPad. So I understand. The male species can be an easy read.

Because he loves it so much and gets so excited, Brenda and I have wanted to add to his excitement by expanding his train set with more engines, cars and maybe an expansion pack with more tracks. Those are all great, but then we noticed that they actually sell a table specifically for setting up the train. I liked this idea a lot. It would be kind of nice for him (and Max when Andrew allows it) to have the train setup it a place that didn’t get knocked on the floor multiple times a day, sending Andrew into a rage yelling “No Train Sydney, My Train… Time Out Sydney!”.

Anyway, after looking at a few tables and seeing how crappy they were made, especially for the price, I decided to make one myself. A quick google search turned up a link on some very basic plans that I thought I could handle since I’ve been home this month. So one day I had the idea, the next day I was at Home Depot with the Little Sydney picking out lumber. What’s really amazing to me is that I’ve had a top notch woodworking garage for the last 7 years, and never made a single project aside from remodeling the basement. But the first summer after I sell all of the machines, I decide to make something where the machines would have actually be useful!

My original plan was to make the table at a much higher quality, and for less money. In the end, It probably cost me twice as much when you count the glue I had to by, the name tags, clamps that I needed but didn’t already own and the fact that the materials list given on the website actually had 2 extra pieces listed that I didn’t need. But, it is personalized and much better made. My hope is (and I do know this is a long shot) that 20 years for now Andrew is able to give the table to one of his boys (or girls) and adds another name tag to it.

I had an idea to shoot a time-lapse video of building it. I have a camera that’s very easy to mount anywhere that can take a suction cup, and has a very wide angle lens, so it was pretty easy. Looking back at the video now, I’m really glad that I did it (both the table and the video). Hopefully it will be a nice memento for the boys in years to come.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

Sunday was a great day to play outside with the kids. Having the “Tomchak Park” is turning out to be a great use of our long neglected yard.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

We also got to see several places where they were shooting the next Transformers movie (#3). Large parts of Michigan Avenue were shut down and they had a car dangling off of the Michigan Avenue bridge.

All in all, it was a great day. Summers in Chicago are really the best. You can find the rest of the photos on SmugMug.

After being outside close to an hour with the boys and Sydney we started to bring them into the house since it was past their bedtime and they still needed baths. While Brenda was holding Sydney and trying to convince Andrew why going in the house was a good thing, I carried Max into the house through the kitchen door that connects to the garage. I plopped him on the floor in the kitchen, made sure that the basement door was locked and pulled the kitchen door closed behind me.

Brenda and Sydney were about 20 feet away from me as I pulled the door closed and we swapped places as she went to take Sydney into the house and I headed for the yard to continue negotiations with Andrew.

That was mistake number 1. Never leave a 2 year old on the other side of a door that can be locked.

As I passed Brenda I joked “I hope he doesn’t lock us out!”. And only seconds later Brenda was yelling from the garage that indeed, we were locked out. There are two locks, one on the handle and a deadbolt. Max had turned the deadbolt.

Over the next 30 seconds we realized the following in rapid succession. We did not have house keys on us, the hidden set from the garage was missing (and probably had been for a long time), there were no keys in the vehicles, and we had no cell phones on us to call anyone for help.

So I start to talk to Max through the door and ask him to unlock the door. We can hear him on the other side playing with the lock and babbling so I’m feeling somewhat confident that if he locked it he can unlock it. I hear him playing with it and as I’m turning the door knob back and forth I hear a click – and now the bottom handle is locked too. The likelihood of him unlocking both and letting us back in seems rather unlikely now.

Now Brenda is kind of, shall we say – losing her mind. She looks through the kitchen window to see what he’s up to but can’t see much because the counters are taller than he is. Since it’s now clear that we are helpless to fix this situation alone I decide to run to the neighbors house and see if we can use someones phone to call 911, not really knowing what the police can do.

I went to 3 different houses and nobody was home (or I looked to crazy to answer the door). As I was getting ready to go to a fourth there were two women walking down the street with their dogs and I ran up to them and asked if either had a cell phone I could use to call 911. One of them did and she handed it to me.

As I was on the phone with the police, luck finally turned our way a bit and a police car was coming down the street. I waved the officer down and explained the situation quickly through the passenger side window. She explained that she could help but the only thing the police can do is break down the door. Now it was a matter of choosing what door to break down. Great!

This is not our actual house, in case you were wondering.

The officer comes up to the house and we start to discuss what doors to break down. I wanted to do the garage/kitchen door since it’s in the garage and nobody would see the door damaged. But that door is a strong metal door, so we start looking at the front door. The inside front door is open, but the outside screen door is locked. At this point you might be wondering why we did just jerk open the screen door and go into the house. We tried! It’s not the typical screen door, and is made even better than we thought. I pulled on it with all my weight and force only to have the handle start to bend, which would do no good.

Then the officer had a good idea. If we could get the top glass pane down (it’s a sliding glass top) we could just cut through the screen and unlock the door. So that’s what I did, and less than a minute later I had the door open and ran into the kitchen. What I found was Max standing on the kitchen chair and sipping diet coke out of a McDonalds cup. This is of course a nice treat for him since we don’t give the kids pop.

So all is well that ends well, but it was a pretty uncomfortable situation to be in and we are trying to take some lessons away from it.

Lessons Learned

• Never walk outside without keys to the house if the house is left empty, even if the doors are unlocked.
• If you ignore the first rule, have extra keys available in other locations. We now have 3 extra sets of keys hidden in various locations that only we know the location of (and no, it’s not one of those “key rocks” so don’t come over and look).
• Keep your cell phone in your pocket when going out to play in the yard. It was very rare that I didn’t have mine, and it was only because my phone was dead from using it all day in the city.
• Never underestimate what a child can do. It never occurred to me for a second that Max would lock the door on us. I won’t make that mistake again!

Thanks for keeping things interesting Max, but don’t do it again!

The rest of the photos are on SmugMug as usual.

More on SmugMug

A new park just opened up this weekend, and the best part is – it’s on our property. Sure it’s a little sparse at the moment, but there are no membership fees, no hours of operation, and many hazards to be discovered (boys, just keep an eye our for that teetering pile of bricks next to the beehive!).

Life has reached the point of pretty much every minute of every day being scheduled, so I’m a bit behind on doing posts. Next month when work slows down a bit things will change. So here is a quick photo post.

The boys had there first “school day photos” taken this week. While we don’t have those pictures form the school yet, we did take a few photos of them all dressed up.

You can find the rest on SmugMug.

Our first family trip to the city, and it was a great time. We did a lot of walking and enjoyed the weather.

You can find the rest on SmugMug

It’s amazing when I think about what our visits were like just 3-4 years ago vs now. The whole focus of our visits have changed, not to mention simply exhausting.

There are a few photos here, you can find the rest on SmugMug.

I’m still amazes at how fast time is flying by, and how little time I have these days. Between the boys being more and more “mobile” and pushing the boundaries, and Sydney needing more then just a bottle and diaper change, it just seems like the walls are closing in sometimes.

Proof of that? I’ve been working on a video for Sydney since she was born in November but have not made much progress, I more or less stopped doing blog posts, and I keep saying I’m going to take more photos of the kids yet weeks go by without me getting the camera out (there’s either no time or I’m too exhausted when there is the time).

So I finally forced the issue of at least taking photos a few weekends ago and we took the kids into the basement to play and take some updated photos. We still need to take some nice family photos, but now that the weather is getting better maybe that will be possible.

You can find the rest of this series on SmugMug.

Here is a short little video of him demonstrating his new found skills. Given he’s only 25 months old, it’s pretty amazing. As for Max, he’s doing well too but a little more shy about letting on what he knows.

This past Saturday we didn’t know what to do with the boys. The weather wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great. We had spent the previous weekend at the mall since the weather was so nasty, but didn’t feel like being indoors again.

Maria was hired before she even left the interview after spending 2 hours talking and caring for the boys while we asked questions. We could tell just from her interaction with them that she would be a great caretaker for the boys. In no time at all she was in love with them as if they were her own. Even now, just saying “Maria is here!” gets the boys running to the front door looking for her. She has not only been great taking care of the boys, but most days she helps clean the house, do the boys wash and makes us dinner. What’s not to like!

So now the boys are almost 2 years old, and we’ve realized that hey need more help then we can give them on our own or even with the help of a Nanny. They need more stimulation, more challenges, more interaction with other kids and need to be more engaged in general. We recently found a school (a pre-preschool) that seems to have a great balance of all of these. We knew after our first meeting at the school that this was what they needed. We did one trial day with the boys at the school to see how they liked it, and it was clear that we were doing the right thing.

So starting next week, the boys will be in school from about 9-5 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. This gives Brenda time to relax and start “nesting” for the new baby, and sometime next year if she chooses to, it gives her a chance to continue her career, something she’s still very passionate about.

Maria is still weighing out her options and may continue to Nanny or pursue some other opportunities that have come her way recently. One thing is clear, if she continues to Nanny she will not have a difficult time finding a new job, even in this economy. She is second to none, and the only bad part about having her help out is that any other caretaker after her will just not compare.

So while she’s no longer our Nanny, she will always be a great friend. We love you Maria.

You can find the rest of the photos on SmugMug.

The boys really loved it and we ended the trip with a ride on one of the Fire Trucks. All and all a great way to start the day! The rest of the photos can be found on SmugMug.

We had an awesome day downtown with the boys. The weather was great, and love him or hate him Mayor Daily sure knows how to create a beautiful public park. There’s always something to do down there, even with our little guys.

Here are a few photos, and the rest are on SmugMug.

Their room was not really totally child proof, since we really never let them play in there. We had plenty of things that they could get into – like old fireworks, open paint cans and a case of “easy strike” matches. So, we had to make some changes. All of those things are now in the bottom drawer of their dresser.

They now have toddler beds (cute little beds from IKEA) that can be adjusted as they get taller. On the surface it wasn’t all that expensive, until you doubled the price for everything since we needed 2 of them.

How have they done? It’s been a challenge, but they’re getting better. The first several nights they screamed, cried and spent an hour jumping on the beds and sometimes hitting the floor. Now they’re much better. The crying time is less then 15 minutes and for the most part they sleep through the night.

So now the room is all setup for the two of them plus #3, and their new sibling due to be here in just 12 more weeks. Then the real fun begins.

As with the library clip, this is unedited footage so it’s a bit longer then the 2 minute clips I normally put up. But you might find if you start watching it you can’t stop! TRT is 10 minutes.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

More photos can be found on SmugMug.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie] ]]> http://tomchak.com/blog/2009/07/04/happy-4th-of-july/feed/ 0 http://tomchak.com/blog/2009/06/26/good-clean-fun/ http://tomchak.com/blog/2009/06/26/good-clean-fun/#comments Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:41:03 +0000 Thomas Tomchak http://tomchak.com/blog/2009/06/26/good-clean-fun/ There are two times a day that the boys are (almost) guaranteed to be in good moods. The first moment that they wake up when you walk into their room to greet them, and right after their bath in the evening, when they get a half hour or so to play before they go to bed. Usually we put them both in the playpen for a few minutes while we’re finishing up the baths and cleaning things up.

This is a short video that shows them being goofy right after their bath. It’s in low light and was shot by my new iPhone, so the quality is a bit worse then usual. Still fun to watch though.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

We left on Saturday at 10am, went to see a movie, checked into a nice hotel downtown, had lunch and then just relaxed in the room and ordered room service. We didn’t return until Sunday at 1pm and then spent the rest of the days with the boys at the park.

Download QT File

This past weekend we took the boys to the Wheaton Library to visit their children’s area. We found out recently that they had a nice play area and decided to check it out.

Normally I cut down the video to just the highlights, but honestly if I waited for that to happen I wouldn’t have put anything up. So I decided to just put up the raw video that we shot as is, no editing.