Thanksgiving at Wah-Hoo

Scenes from Thanksgiving Day at the Wah-Hoo Ranch - including Kole's after-dinner fireside visit with Grammy, Grandpa Gedy, Grammy's horse Biscuit, and a big smile with Mommy.

Kole's Thanksgiving wishes

Kole gives his own Thanksgiving wishes to everyone ... whales, dolphins and humans. The groan at the end is the ultimate kicker.

Scary Day

When we started this page, we wanted it to be about Kole and not about us. But, since most who read this are concerned friends and family, and if you haven't heard the full story yet, this is as good as any place to explain it.
Monday around 12:30 in the middle of the afternoon, while I was at work, Kathy got a knock at the door. She looked through the peep-hole and saw a young Hispanic-looking guy at the door she did not know. Looked clean cut enough, jeans, tucked-in plaid long-sleeve shirt. Kathy was going to ignore the knocker and wait for him to move on - like a trick-or-treater when you have no more candy. Instead, the guy changed his tune and began banging on the door with a fist, like he was a landlord at the door of a delinquent tenant. Kathy continued to watch out the peep-hole as he walked away, then the black SUV parked on the curb turned off its engine and a second Hispanic-looking guy came to the door and took his turn pounding the door. With Kathy's pulse racing, the second guy took a few steps back, got on a cell phone and appeared to be telling someone our house address - as if he was asking someone if they had the right house. He spoke in Spanish and Kathy couldn't understand. He then put his cell phone down, satisfied with the information given to him, then with Kathy still watching through the peep-hole, watched as the second guy strode purposely towards the door then WHAM! kicked the door with all his might.
Kathy then ran to the bedroom and retrieved the loaded .38 Special I keep in my bedside table - as she's doing this she hears WHAM! .... WHAM! more kicks to the door. By the time she dials 911, a fourth blow had been delivered to the front door in broad daylight.
It's hard to reconstruct this story, but she says the whole time Kole was in his swing, where she put him when she first heard the door knock. Maggie, our cowardly guard dog, mustered a low growl - but even Kathy guesses that she was probably just feeding off of Kathy's own fear, instead of reacting protectively to what was on the other side of the door.
With the 911 operator on line, the kicks stopped and Kathy checked the peep-hole and saw where the two guys and the black SUV were both gone. They left with as many unanswered questions as why they came and picked our house in the first place. The cop eventually arrived and said this had all the characteristics of a typical mid-day burglary attempt.
I took Kathy to the gun range just after we married and tried to get her to accustomed to shooting the gun - but she was just too fearful, and unnerved by the other people shooting large hand cannons just feet away. Still, she had the gun in hand and insists she was ready to use it. The cop later gave her some tips, about keeping the gun closer to her body instead of holding it outstretched like a Charlie's Angels pose. He complimented her on being cool enough to call 911, and said next time, if it escalates to someone attempting to kicking down the door, it might be a good idea to shout something about having a gun, police on the way, etc. Plus, he gave a good pointer to arm our security system (right by our garage door) to where alarms would sound at the first crack of the door.
It was a good stop-down opportunity to review all procedures if the scenario should repeat itself.
I got home before 3:00 and the wine began to flow, taking the edge off of some frayed nerves. In the end, everyone was okay.
Photo: the shoe prints on our front door. Thought we'd have the evidence to compare it to the shoe on the corpse if this should happen again.

Milestones Abound

It's the 18th of the month, which means that Kole turns over another month - and this makes it 5 months. I think I gave as much of an update of emotional and physical development as possible in the previous post, but really in the last 48 hours we've had a groundbreaking development. I'll let you see the video with your own eyes. There's really nothing more I can say or add.
We both weighed ourselves with Kole, then weighed ourselves without him and took the difference. We were about 6 ounces apart, which is as close as we've ever been. So I think we're fairly accurate, though the weight he's put on is fairly significant - over a full pound in a month, plus one inch. Still, he is only slightly ahead of the bell-curve for his age. It's nothing alarming, he's just right on top of that shaded area of averages for height and weight on the growth chart. As the doctor said last month - he's healthy and happy, the portions of what he's eating are not out of whack, everything is fine. He's just on an earlier growth spurt than the average - and that may all catch up when he's between 4 and 5 and other kids have a more significant spurt, or between ages 11-13, etc. It should be noted, however, that this past month he has been eating more solid foods - oatmeal cereal, bananas, peaches and pears, mostly.
Enjoy the video. Monday afternoon I talked to Kathy from work and she was like - I finally saw him do it by himself! I then wondered how he would do if a camera was propped on him. Making his daddy really proud, he glommed the camera and performed on cue!

Closing out the 4th month

Kole will turn 5 months next week - but until he gets to that point, before we really start grasping for new milestones and new signs of what a big boy he's becoming, we're really trying to harness the sensation of him being a cheery, happy little baby.
From what we read, the 5th month will begin a real emotional development - when he'll become real connected to Kathy and I and recognize us as mother and father, his key caregivers. He will be outwardly emotional and clingy, which is all very cool. But, there will also be separation anxiety and he will bear a large potential to be scared by strangers. So, it's the give and take of growing up, moving up in status from infant to young toddler.
He is still a ways from crawling, and from what we can tell he is beginning to turn over on his own. He's done it a couple of times for sure - but when we weren't looking. Still, he hasn't shown a consistent pattern of showing he can freely do so.
He is still growing like a weed. He now wears clothes that are labeled 9 to 12 months. It's easy to tell by his appetite. Just earlier today, he was cranky and crying and obviously hungry. Kathy stirred up some oatmeal cereal with some pears and peaches - and the kid was like a newly-hatched chick in a nest, craning his neck and crying for more. As soon as Kathy would plunge a spoonful of food in his mouth, he'd be crying again the instant she'd pull the spoon free. It's hard for the two of us not to watch and laugh. It's like ... EASY KID, IT'S COMING! Geez!