Season Underway: CHECK!

This summer has been one intense checklist. It was a list that began around late January when the reality sat in that we were having another baby. Mentally, I began a checklist of things that needed to be done. It's the man-of-the-house end of the deal, since I can carry the tot in my belly. So, I got the business end of things, and with my first show of the fall season in the can today, I can check off the last item and now kick my heels up and wait for the magic.
The Checklist:
*Designate a room for the baby. This became our former office, my 'man-cave', and a plan was devised to clear it out, move things to the attic, garage, or garbage. Unfortunately we're running out of room in our attic and garage which led to the next item. Check!
*Build an outdoor storage shed. This was accomplished by late July, allowing the mower and various yard implements to be stored there, clearing lots of space out of our garage. Our Christmas stuff was also moved to the storage shed, creating more room in the attic.
*Clear the Man Cave. Two entertainment centers - both sold in a garage sale. A TV - stored in the new backyard shed. And the computer and desk were moved to our master bedroom. Those were the big items. The biggest pain of it all was the closet - which in itself was a spare storage space, mostly for my crap. Things were boxed and moved to the attic, thrown away, or moved to our 4th bedroom closet. Check!
*Paint the Bedroom. We had paint swabs going for a good month or so before we finally painted. On July 30, it took me about 6 hours to do my magic and go over the Ralph Lauren "Cilantro" with a Behr "Porcelain Skin". Check!
*Get Away, Just Me and Kat. Mission accomplished thanks to my mom and Kat's mom taking turns watching Kole here at the house while we went to Vegas for a weekend. We gambled, we ate bad, we laid out by the pool in 110 degree heat (not a sarcastic reference to the temp) and drank cold beverages. It was exactly what the doctor ordered (again not sarcastic - Kat's OB demanded we go). Check!
*Health Check-up. With Kathy in doctors' hands at least once a month, I decided to get myself checked out. By the grace of God, I'm really sick about once every 15 years. I may get an annual cold or flu-like something, but I can count my doctor's visits over the last decade on one hand. So, after a dentist check-up and clean bill of health on my teeth, I then went in for a physical, just last week. Blood pressure was a tad high (120/90) , but otherwise, though I know I don't appear to be the picture of glowing health, I'm as healthy as a bull. Check!
*Car Check-Up. My car has over 140,000 miles on it and it's tough to sink money into outside of routine oil changes and tune-ups. But, since I don't see a new car in the plans anytime soon, I went ahead and changed the brakes and rotors - something that needed to be done two years ago. I also had a thermostat in the housing changed out finally, which has been the source of a "Service Engine" red light on my dash for most of 2010. All that is done. I need new tires soon, but that will have to wait. I'll get Kathy's car tuned up this weekend. Check!
*Dental Check-Up. I started with a new dentist nearby and got a clean bill - no cavities, no problems, I got good chompers. Check!
*Lower Some Bills. Looking to save a few bucks here and there, I quickly determined that we didn't need AT&T U-Verse's top-tier cable package, which literally included every single channel offered on cable TV. We paid a top-tier price, but cable TV is a tax write-off for me because of work. Still, it was quickly determined that we hardly ever watched HBO and Cinemax. By getting rid of that alone, we went to U-Verse's 2nd-best tier, which they happened to be running a special. I was given the special rate for one year. The result was a savings of over $80 a month! Since we got rid of my Man Cave, I turned in another cable box, which meant another $8 a month. Then I got what amounted to a $10/month credit for 6 months because AT&T came for a service call and did not come "between 8am and noon" like they promised, but at 2:30. I was held captive in my own home. After adding it all up, our savings is more than $1000 over the course of a year. On CABLE TV!
*Decorate the Room. Done. The crib and changing table were easy, borrowed from Kole. We bought a cool dresser we got from CraigsList. The clothes were a little tougher deal, as mentioned in a previous post. Kathy got a cool pattern and theme (ladybugs, dragonflies and flowers), we got stuff on the walls, as well as a couple of shelves. Check!
*Get My First Football Show in the Can. Pardon the shop-talk. When a taped TV show is done, on tape, and complete, it's in the can. That happened today. We shot a day early accommodate the schedule of one of our analysts. The show will still air on Wednesdays. I now begin my 15th season as a reporter or producer of Big 12 Showcase on Fox Sports. Football season's sponsors pay the bills for the entire year. So, it's been weighing on my mind for a good bit of the summer, getting the first show knocked out. It's now football season. In my mind, in January, it was going to be football season when the baby got here. Well, college football season is here. Check. It's baby time!

I don't push my sponsors down my friends and family's throats, but they are worth mentioning. If you have the option to support one of these fine companies who so generously supports the show I pour my heart and soul into it would be greatly appreciated.
SportClips Haircuts (I can't support them myself, so now that's where I take Kole! This is SportClips' fifth season as a Showcase sponsor!)
STIHL Outdoor Power Tools (just in case you need a new weedeater or blower. I do have a STIHL weedeater now)
On The Border (OTB just signed on for another full season - 52-weeks! That's now two straight years as a year-round sponsor. I wish they had better salsa, but I'm so appreciative to have them.)
McDonalds (besides maybe Budweiser and Nike, one of the Granddaddies of all sports-TV advertising. Our sales girl Kristen reeled them in on a jumbo deal that involves a lot of college football programming on Fox, worth a total of nearly a half-million bucks, but Showcase got a piece of the deal!)

First Baseball Game

Last night was a pretty not-so-hot night, so we ventured up Beltline Road to QuickTrip Park to see our local minor league baseball outfit - the Grand Prairie AirHogs, as they battled the Shreveport-Bosier Captains. Kole had never been to a game before. Technically, I guess his first live sporting event was horse racing. Earlier in the summer we went to Lone Star Park on a day where they had a big kids part with a petting zoo and pony rides. But we figured this would be a good night out. Not so much because Kole is a big baseball fan, or because dad wants him to be, but because the park is very kid-friendly with a big playground area. Plus, the seating really only extends from just beyond first base to just beyond third base. Along the left and right field lines, the seating is really a grassy berm. So we got seats close to the grassy area and let Kole do his thing - running up and down the hill, rolling around. Basically he was doing whatever he saw a big kid do first. If kids were running to the top of the hill then rolling downwards like a barrell, Kole would do his best at the same. But, his rolling down the hill consisted of stopping, laying down, putting his feet up in the air until gravity gave him a good flop over to his belly side, then he'd jump up smiling ear to ear and run the rest of the way down. Kathy got a funnel cake and nachos - just to make sure the little baby was taken care of and didn't go hungry. It was actually a pretty good time.

Baseball wise, the game was largely ignored. The only name I recalled was Thomas Incaviglia, son of former Rangers great Pete Incaviglia. Trailing 3-1 in the 3rd inning, the AirHogs' Greg Porter hit a massive 3-run homerun, clearing the center-field batter's eye. Two batters later Michael Holliman golfed a 2-run homerun just inside the right field foul pole, knocking Captains starter Cody Kelley from the game and putting the AirHogs up 6-3. And that was all we needed to see. It was 8:30 at that point, meaning it took an hour and a half to play three innings, and meant it was Kole's bedtime. Good thing we left, because as it turned out the game didn't end until after 10:30. It wasn't exactly a pitcher's dual, and the Captains eventually won with a 9th-inning homerun, 12-10.

Four weeks until the baby is due ... we needed to get out, and to do something where Kole got to run around and have a great time was a bonus. Good night out at the ballpark!

We're Ready

Tomorrow, Kathy will hit her 35th week with our new little girl. And we now consider ourselves at the finish line of the Great Dash of Summer 2010 to transform my man cave into a princess den. These pictures don't really do the paint justice. If you were to be blindfolded and brought straight to a wall with it five inches from your face it would probably just look white, or maybe some sort of off-white. And in two of these pictures the camera flash sort of blows out the picture and makes it look uniform. But, in the picture that has the window in the center of the frame, dresser on the left and crib on the right, you can tell a little better the difference between the paint and the true white of the door and shutter. Against a white it's more of a very soft earth-tone, maybe even a slight peachy-pink tone to it. Ladybugs, dragonflies and flowers are what's sprinkled around a little of everything.
The crib is Kole's, which was also his cousins' Riley and Reagan's. So is the changing table. The dresser was a CraigsList purchase. The bassinet, which also is seen in the second picture with the window in the middle, was also used by Kole and originally was Kathy's as a newborn. If we pulled up the white lacy thing you could see how it does truly look like something from the 1970s, but really does not show a lot of age. It is wood and wicker and is on rollers - it's greatest attribute. It freely rolls around from room to room, which quickly allowed us to to develop a routine with Kole when he was a newborn infant. The only way for one of us to get overnight sleep was after a feeding to roll it into a the bedroom of one, then to go to sleep in another room. That person would hopefully be asleep, only to be awaken by the baby later on when the other was hopfully asleep. We'll see how agreeable this one is, and hopefully free of cholic.
But, everything is in place now. We have about four or five weeks to go. But if anything should happen in the meantime, we are ready.

Memories For Sale

One final act of preparing for our little girl is to make some final transactions between Kole and his little sister, at least retroactively. This past weekend that included taking down all the Space Saver bags out of the attic with Kole's stuff in it and extracting the gender-neutral colored onesies, outfits, blankets, socks, bibs, teething toys, etc. ... anything and everything that we think would be best suited for our little princess that doesn't scream little boy.
The end result was bags full of stuff that we are now prepared to part with - via garage sale or donation. In its own way, it was a touching reminder of how much little Kole has grown so much in such a short amount of time. I mean it seems like he was just in these clothes, and now they're ready to be discarded.
As a photographic example: Exhibit A is a picture of all the bags that were retrieved from the attic.
Exhibit B is a photo of Kole from yesteryear. Moreover, it's a photo from March of 2009. The little guy was 9 months old and was as ticklish as can be. Sitting in Kathy's lap, I had a camera in one hand and was poking a finger in his ribs or on his neck with the other - snapping off shots the whole time. This shot was one of those shots that made a good run. The tongue, the cheeks, poor Maggie in the background. It got framed and got some good display time around the house for some time. It even became a screen saver on our computer for a good run, as I recall. The shot is iconic in its own way in our little world.
Exhibit C is a tight shot of that blue and orange "romper" from the previous photo, lifeless in its space saver bag. It's like a small piece of a memorable highlight in Kole's brief life is about to be discarded like another dirty diaper. It's strangely touching. It's not the sight of the laugh, which the photo will always preserve. Nor is it the sound of his hoarse, lispy giggle, which is still on the playlist of my brain TiVo and I access and play quite frequently. But, the little romper was part of the moment. And here now was that romper, along with a bunch of other rompers and onesies and blankets and moments and memories, ready to be priced at $2 and happily sold for $1 and never to be seen or heard from again.
I can throw my own clothes away and have the whole process just as soon give me jock itch than a tear in the eye. This coming from a pack rat who still has hung on to a high school letter jacket, Dallas Mavericks ball boy uniforms and other sentimental artifacts. I still haven't found a fondness for any piece of clothing worth hanging on to in my adult life. Then again, I don't have a particular fondness for clothing more than 10 years old anyways. Sort of like Mama Cass seeing a wardrobe full of Size 4s.
But this was Kole's stuff, and it's like he was just born last month, and this stuff was all part of the process. He only has so many memories to keep in his young life, and here's a big bag full of them.
I reckon this is all just part of the parental path of turning pages, time moving painfully forward, and letting fluid moments from the past set and fossilize in video, photos and memories.
It's definitely the biggest symbolic and metaphoric parting of ways with his infancy and toddlerhood to date, but I guess that's hard to cry over too much when really the task at hand is to get that kid to make poopies in a miniature shitter before his sister comes along. If he doesn't soon it will probably cushion the blow of cutting the first deal of Tres para cinco dolares.

Lesson Learned: Enjoy This Time

As the clock ticks towards the arrival of our little girl, there has been a battening down of the hatches around here. To be exact, Kathy is at 33 weeks, meaning we have about 6 weeks left. Now that furniture has been moved out, things boxed up and stored or thrown away, closets cleared, walls painted, more furniture moved in, decorations put up on walls, we are now at a point of contentment where we can peacefully lay in the grass and stare into the sky and daydream about what's to come. In doing so, I find myself reflecting on the last 26 months of fatherhood boot camp. The lessons learned. If we are to believe the Evolutionists, I won't make the same mistakes that I did before. We'll see.

"Know Your Baby's Cry"

Every baby book ever printed has pages and pages about this myth. That somehow a baby will change his or her's cry pitch or frequency for hunger, need of a diaper change, a rash on the bum, or for the home reveal during "Extreme Home Makeover". I never knew my baby's cry, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. When I heard a cry - and they all sounded the same - it meant something on a check-list needed to be tended to: a diaper change, a bottle, he's gassy, etc. I could hear a cry from afar and guess what it was, and sometimes be right, and assume that this is what most parents do until whines and whimpers come in to truly distinguish one cry from another.

Pacifier Etiquette/Weaning

Doesn't really apply when your kid won't take a pacifier. Kole never did. And it's not like we didn't try. For two weeks straight it was first up on the Try This chart, and each time he took it for about 5 seconds before spitting it out and screaming louder, even more pissed off than before. It was a bad joke - a nipple with nothing behind it or coming through it. Lessons learned from the pacifier? Nothing. I guess we'll try again.

Spit-Up/Throw-Up Maintenance

Again, we'll be dealing with this pretty much like newbies. Kole was a great dry burper, like an old whino. We can probably count on our fingers the number of times he has barfed up anything projectile. We have no wacky videos of big spit-up bouts, not even aftermath shots where formula, milk or anything else is puked up on clothes. Not that it hasn't happened, but it's been a rarity. Up to now we've had two major incidents of picking up Kole's poop off the carpet, yet I can't think of a major blow-up out the mouth. Actually his biggest puke job to date was at a restaurant - barfing up macaroni and cheese all over Kathy's chicken parmesan at Candelite Inn.

Changing Diapers Will Make Me Think Twice About Eating Guacamole

My friend and mentor, Bill Land, has always told me this. Any time we're in the vicinity of Tex-Mex, as far as Bill is concerned, guacamole might as well be sewer rat poached in warthog urine. He said he's been that way since changing his first baby diaper. Could never look at guacamole the same ever since. I'll proudly say that I've changed countless diapers of Kole. Not that it will ever hold a candle to what Kathy does, but I've done my share - including some chunky, green poopies that has not wavered my fandom of guacamole one bit.

We learned plenty. Now the trick gets a little trickier, since we can't put our entire focus on this one. We'll have to balance time between our new little girl and with Kole. We do know many of the ropes, but so much of that early on will be dependent on how well Kathy can sleep. Kathy has many strengths and gifts, but one of them is not falling asleep quickly, even when dead tired. Napping between feedings early on is not much of an option. So, hopefully the breast pump will produce for me a good reserve to work with.

"If you have never been hated by your child you have never been a parent." -Bette Davis

We'll see. It's exciting. Really, it's a lot like skydiving. In my experience, the best part of all was inching towards the open door knowing I was moments from being out there, while watching the jumpers ahead of me instantly wide-eyed drunk with adrenaline, just before they disappeared into a speck faster than a bad idea at last call. The plane is in a "drop zone" and everyone has to vacate the plane in a matter of seconds so the plane can nose-dive down and land well ahead of the first jumper. From the moment your body is stacked up with the other jumpers in a hollowed twin-engine prop for the ascent up to 14,500 feet until the moment your feet are at the edge of the plane ready to jump is less than 30 seconds. No time for high-five rituals or speeches. Everyone out of the plane, pronto! It was the most magical 30-second adrenaline rush known to man. The climax being that five-second moment when I was positioned at the door, wind blowing mercilessly, and the only salient thought I can remember having is Holy shit, I'm going to do this! Chickening out was never an option for me. But after hours and hours of big-talk and wonderment, I was now ready to jump and hurl myself towards the earth at 125 mph for about 45 seconds. It's every drug known to man, a thousand roller coasters, love and lust, all rolled into one massive head rush. And you jump.

Then comes the work. Checking your altimeter, making sure you don't commit the sin of forgetting when to safely deploy the primary parachute. In my case, even hamming it up for the guy videotaping my jump was a bit of a chore, distracting enough from just enjoying the free-fall. It was like the 45 seconds was gone in five. It was the most fun I've ever had in my life, but make no mistake it was nerve-wrecking and undeniably concentrated work. Fun had its place, but forgetting about responsibilities had dire consequences. That's why I always remember more fondly that 30-seconds of deaf, hunched-over foot shuffling in a big metal tube before the actual jump. That's where the real rush was. That was pure adrenaline without the fear or concentration or training recall.

That's where we are now. There's work ahead. It's work and responsibility mixed with a ton of fun, but no one can deny that it is work, nor the consequences of not doing the parenting work well. It's a big responsibility. But for now, we are inching towards the door, letting the adrenaline flow.

Too Tired To Eat !!

Kole has decided he doesn't need to nap. Nope! He has napped ONE DAY since Sunday, meaning he has skipped a nap four of the five days. In his room at 1:00, in bed, then as soon as we shut the door he's up having a party. We know this because of our spy cam (baby monitor) still rigged to the TV. At one point of this week, he actually managed to take off his pants and diaper ... and you know what came next? Guess. Yes, the kid took a dump on the carpet. In fact, he didn't just pop a squat and drop a massive turd, he apparently stepped on it and tracked the poo around the room. Brilliant, huh? The joys of 2-year-old-hood have finally arrived.

As we're starting to wonder when, if ever, this nap-less pace will catch up to him, I finally got this jewel tonight at dinner at about 5:15. Kathy was having dinner with a girl friend, so it was just the two bulls at the dinner table. He had just sat down with his corn dogs ... and faded fast.

Happy Birthday, Mama

Kat's big day is Tuesday, August 3. I managed to get all three of her little ones in the same picture. That's her pregnant belly on the right.