Complex Thought

I made an earlier post about how Kole knows many words but not many multi-word thoughts. We've been drilling him on things like "milk - please" when he wants milk. He knows milk and please, but has yet to connect the two, no matter how much we prompt. Same with "crackers - please" and so on. It's one word, then a short time later, the other.
Tonight he finally figured something out and made a connection. His first complex communication is a little payback to his mother, since his first word was "Da Da", and at least a good month or two before he said "Ma Ma".
Tonight's two-word thought while being put to bed: "Nite-nite, Ma Ma".

The Stork is Coming

As of today, Kathy is in her 30th week with our Little #2. As the pictures show, she is a girl. We are 97% certain of a first name, but we are waiting until the actual birth to confirm it. Not that we're keeping the name a secret, we're just wanting one of those We'll-know-when-we-see-her moments to absolutely confirm the name. The middle name is still in discussion and we're maybe a little warm on a half-dozen names or so.

But, today was 4-D sonogram day. Not with Kathy's doctor. The procedure has gone commercial and it is offered at a place near MC Arlington for just over $100, with prices going up in incriments on how much you want - 5-minutes of video on DVD, 15-minutes, 20 images versus 50, etc. We all went along and it was fairly painless. The image is projected onto the wall maybe 4-feet by 4-feet.

Anyway, it is a girl. She's healthy. All systems are go. I counted 5 toes on at least one foot and 5 fingers on one hand. Other features look beautiful. The baby has already turned and is head-down ready to go, even though we need her to stay for about another 10 weeks.

Today is a good day.

The Transformation

Summer is here, the days are long and hot, but Mommy's belly is growing and getting ready to produce a little sister (we're 95% sure), and Daddy's college football season is just over a month away (that's for work purposes, not merely fandom). Some changes need to be made to this house and that's what's happening.
The obvious part was that another of our 4 bedrooms needs to become the little girl's room. Aside from our master bedroom and Kole's room was a spare bedroom and was what being considered my 'office', and part man-cave. We quickly determined that the spare bedroom was worth hanging on to. My 'office' consisted of a computer and printer, which occupied one wall, then two walls of sports memorabilia and memories and a TV, then another wall with a full sofa. It was quickly deemed that the 'office' was the easiest to sacrifice among the two rooms.
Phase I
So the office needed to be cleared out. We could move the computer into our fairly spacious master bedroom easy enough. Martha Stewart wouldn't be impressed, but we're getting down to practicality now and not worrying about the cover of Better Homes & Gardens. Still, that left two entertainment centers holding books, a TV and memorabilia. Those were sold at a neighbor's garage sale for a total of $40. We also had a wrought iron wine rack in our dining room nook that we figured needed to go. Long ago we cleared out the hanging wine glasses, and Kole was still prone to grabbing wine bottles. With another new crawler coming, and nowhere else to put it, it was sold on Craig's List for $30. So now that left the office sofa - Kathy's long-time sofa from her bachelorette days. That was moved today to Grandma's house. There. The big items are out of Bedroom 4.
Phase II
There were still Kole toys as far as the eye could see. Toys which we now know we would rather hang on to than sell or give/throw away. Still no room. No more bedroom closets and the attic is full. So, we needed more space and made it happen with an outdoor shed. An 8'x10' (and 8' high) box in the middle of our shrinking back yard. I could essentially move our garage contents there - lawn equipment, tools, etc. I already had good shelves in the garage, but they were full. Three days before we left for Las Vegas, a crew of three installed our shed bought from DFWShedCo.com, which was humbling to watch considering that at one point I thought that maybe my dad, bro-in-law and I could put up a shed purchased from Home Depot. Now, insert the image of me laughing maniacally on one knee and bracing myself against a wall. The shed was installed by three amigos, only one of them spoke English, and it took them from 7:30am to 3:30pm to completely install it. And they do this every day. Do to our HOA code, it couldn't be one of those cheap metal sheds anyway. It looks like a little house, complete with a window and shingles on the roof. Once I put everything in the garage I wanted in there, I soon realized I had much more space to spare - so down from the attic came the Christmas stuff and into the shed. Still more space to spare! And now space was opening up in the attic. Now things are happening.
Yesterday I cancelled the cable box from the old office room. We have AT&T U-verse and did have their top-tier package for internet and cable. We get every movie channel ever invented, and watch one of those channels maybe once a week. If we want to watch a movie it's normally a fairly new release that we get at a Red Box DVD or something for $1. I wanted to pair down our cable movie channels. And by merely eliminating HBO and Cinemax, combined with a promotion that AT&T extended to me, along with the $7 a month I'll be saving by turning in one cable box (receiver), along with a $60 credit I was given by AT&T for not showing up on time on a service call ... with all the promotional dollars laid out, I'll pay $32 a month over the next three months for what I had been paying $119. Then it goes to $37 for the next 9 months. I did the math and I will save $1,023 off my cable bill over the course of the next 12 months. Unbelievable. Add the $70 from entertainment center/wine rack sales and I'm more than halfway to paying for the shed.
Coming Soon ... Phase III

It's Good to be Missed!

We are back from a little weekend getaway to Las Vegas. Previous gambling benders (very minor ones, in my book) prompted the Harrahs properties to offer us 3 free nights hotel in Vegas - we chose the Flamingo, one of our old favorites right on the bullseye of the Strip. We saw Lion King and did some other general sight-seeing, but we spent the heart of Saturday and Sunday lounging at the pool and hanging out. We did some gambling - Kathy came home with $60 more than what she left with, courtesy of the slots and roulette tables. I was not so fortunate. Believe it or not, I'm not a big sports book gambler. Sports are too unpredictable, though nothing tickles the ego bone of the average male quite like putting their money where their sports smarts are. Everyone's an expert and is willing to pony up. Well, it seemed automatic to me that the Rangers could easily beat the lowly Orioles when Cliff Lee made his debut, so I made a bet where I had to put up over $100 in order to win $100 back, then the Orioles proceeded to beat the brains out of the Rangers. I only relay that story so I can say it in clear black and white and be quoted on it: I'll never bet on sports at big-time sports book again. $10 for a Super Bowl square? Fine. $10 for an NCAA tournament pool? Okay. Betting over a hundred bucks because I know that the Rangers will win? An automatic sure-thing win? Never again. Then my luck wasn't any better at the Blackjack tables, but I did make over $150 at the roulette tables, and just screwing around on the slots I turned $15 into $86 in about three minutes. In all I spent about what I think we would have spent on any other entertainment in Vegas, but doing on the gaming floor should mean free room offers again.
Grammy (Keith's mom) and Grandma (Kathy's mom) took turns watching and staying at our house with Kole. Here's Grammy's report card on the weekend:

"I loved having the opportunity to spend some one-on-one time with Kole - I don't get to do that as much as I would like. We had a great time together! He was an absolute angel ... well ... MOST of the time! We had two little incidents: once he was with me in the bathroom when I put on my makeup. I stepped into the bedroom to get my toothbrush (literally seconds) and when I got to the bathroom door he was "cleaning" the toilet with the toilet brush (actually, pretty darn cute!) The other time he was running back-and-forth down the hall - laughing and having a ball. He did that 3-4 times, then I noted the last time he ran down he didn't come back. I got up to check on him and he wad climbed to the top of the changing table! I gave him a swat on the butt (he didn't even cry!) and told him "NO!" He looked crushed when I said that. 99.95% of the time he was an absolute joy and a little angel and I'm so glad to have spent time with him!"


We are treating the bruises on his butt and he's recovering nicely.

Kidding! We've swatted his fanny and hands for some things when he absolutely refuses to listen and gets into things he's not supposed to. Right now he really doesn't care. His Timeout seat is one of his favortie spots to hang out and sing. Discipline is a slow road right now.

Here's Grandma's recap:
"I'm so glad you're home. I know you didn't miss the little devil at all. I hated taking care of him the whole time. He was awful 99.9% of the time. The rest of the time he was an angel. Thanks for letting me take care of him."

So, there's plenty of scarcasm in his DNA to do him well the rest of his life. It was a great vacation, a good breather away from everything, and it was great to be back.

Official 2-year doctor visit

All is well, officially, with Kole on his 2-year doctor visit. At the doctor's office he weighed 30.2 pounds, which puts him in the 75th percentile (only 25% of 2-year-olds weigh more); his "height" is 36-and-1/4 inches laying down, putting him in the 90th percentile. This will probably be the last time we measure him laying down and will begin doing it standing up from here on out.
Here's the kicker - the circumference of his head is 51 centimeters (not sure why they have to go to metrics), which is way over on that bell-curve in the 95th percentile.
His motor and speaking skills are normal, some further ahead than others, as that sometimes goes.
He's a healthy, happy boy and that makes for healthy, happy parents.