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.

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.

First Kiss

Kathy is again watching her friend's little girl, Sarah. She and Kole have become regular buddies over the past few weeks. Today, with a little prompting, they caught each other's gaze and the mood overtook them both. We'll call today his first kiss with someone near his own age.

The Birthday Weekend

Turning Two

The little man's actual birthday was on Friday, but part of the celebration was a week before, part of it on his actual birthday with his party-animal mom and dad, then came some more organized activities with little buddies in the following days. A trip to Chuck-E-Cheese and another get together here at the house. In all, it was a packed weekend and the little midget slept about as soundly as he has in quite a while - naps and at night.
His developments happen so quickly they're really hard to keep track of. It seems like every other day, or perhaps every third day, we'll notice that he's got a new word - acknowledging something by name that he hadn't before. Just as an example, in the past week, he now not only says "cookie" when he sees a cookie and wants one, but will now also say the word when he sees Cookie Monster on Sesame Street and is not prompted by anyone to say anything. That's pretty cool, when he figures things out on his own.
He's more coordinated and is 100% boy. He can't get up on the couch without going the adventerous route from the side, or even attempting to go up from the back. He's increasingly independent and will attempt to put on his own shoes. His newest, more annoying, trick is to take off his pants and diaper. Unlike when he was crawling, he's got a little independence now to roam around the house and go unsupervised for a bit ... until it gets uncomfortably quiet. Then we have to call his name and check on him, and more times than not recently he's on the floor with his pants off and working on his diaper. Kathy has tried putting the diaper on backwards, but he eventually figured that out. We tried duct tape, and that is effective, but sometimes makes it hard to get off when it's time to actually change him.

He is very musical. He loves to sing, and he can quickly be hyptnotized by a song - or most often, by the opening theme song of a cartoon, or really even a commercial jingle. Not that he watches a lot of TV, but when he does it's on the Sprout Channel - which is a PBS-owned cable network, with lots of Sesame Street and Barney. But two shows in particular that he likes are 'Bob The Builder' and 'Roary the Racing Car' - mostly because of the opening theme music. Another show is 'Wiggly Waffles' in the morning, a show with lots of nursery rhyme songs and dancing. He dances and sings right along with it. If Kathy really wants to settle him down and get him calm, she'll slip in a DVD of nursery rhymes and he stops, listens and loves it. We've tried watching movies with him before - including 'Tarzan' and 'Toy Story', but he just has a short attention span for that with no music involved. Kathy and I will watch TV at night and he'll be playing or annoying Maggie, then when the commercials come on he perks up. There's a Progressive car insurance commercial with a bright white background, lots of blue, and the brunette girl with bright red lipstick - and elevator music in the background. He sits in a trance watching that anytime it comes on. Academy Sports and Outdoors should put him in a commercial, because here he is with a vocabulary of 100-200 words, but when that commercial comes on and has that tag jingles of "the right look - the right price ... ACADEMY!" and he hums along with the whole thing and tops it off with a resounding "ACADEMY!" It's hilarious., There's no way he has any concept of the store or what's in it or what it sells, but the jingle is stuck in his head and he likes it.
We are working on putting two words together now. He has lots of words, and can ask for a cracker; when we ask him what he's supposed to say he'll say "please", but we always follow that with "cracker, please!" prompting him to put both thoughts together, but he hasn't quite grasped it yet. Same with other things - going outside (his word is "gus" - a sort of combo word from go outside) put on his shoes, when he wants water ... "water, please!" , "shoes, please!" etc. He hasn't caught on.
He also hasn't taken to potty training, but we're on the path. He definitely knows the word "poop" and many times has said the word right before the room fills with his diaper aroma. A few times he'll stand there, hitting the back of his diaper, going "poop! poop! poop!" so we get excited and run him into the bathroom, put him on his training potty, then he has this look like - "What the hell did you do that for? I was just about to take a poop!" He stands up and gets aggrivated when made to sit back down. He just doesn't make the connection yet. But, heck, he just turned 2 and some groundwork has been laid. In the end we put the diaper back on, then five minutes later he's crapped his diaper, quite on cue.
He can be a handful for Kathy during the day - skipping naps, not being cooperative, making a mockery of timeout punishments (he quite enjoys sitting on his timeout chair - laughing and practically mocking his mother); being generally grumpy. All the negative things of 2-year-olds being two years old he is already beginning to acquire. But, he has a laugh that echos in my head each night when I go to sleep, and he is affectionate and loving to his parents at all the right times when it's really needed. I don't know how it's possible that another child is loved more than this one is by his mother and I.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

A birthday weekend with Father's Day woven in, as well. Quite a weekend. More details to come.

One Last Month To Be A 1-Year-Old

Forgive the quality of the picture, but this is what happens when you point a camera into a dark room - in the vicinity of where you want a picture - and push the button with the flash and hope for the best. The photo is not of a corpse, but of Kole in the spot where he has put himself to sleep for the second time in a week. On the floor.

We still have the baby video monitor where we can see what's going on in the room. Of course, it's not a very wide angle and can't show too much, but we point it at his bed and at least know when he's not there. Normally, it means we need to turn the volume up and listen. He gets in his drawers and pulls his clothes out. That's his favorite thing to do. One of his previous favorites was climbing up his changing table. Yes - one minute he's rooting around the floor, then three minutes later you come in and he's on top of his changing table. So, now his changing table resides in the front hallway of our house, as does his sister's new dresser. A room is ready to become a nursery, and will soon, but until then the house is very much in a transition stage. Pardon the faux pas, "Better Homes & Gardens".

So in another month he'll be two. At the moment, his size is often mistaken as being that of a 3-year-old. He continues to be a very big boy, but healthy and strong. His vocabulary continues to expand, his knowledge keeps developing. He thumbs through his books now to find an apple he can point out and point and tell you what it is. It takes him maybe a full three seconds to get out both syllables of his version of the word: "aaaahhhh-poo".

His favorite word now, without a doubt, is "No". It was just a few weeks or days ago that all he knew how to do was vigorously shake his head back and forth. Now he punctuates the shake with a hearty "No!". And he'll say it to anything, even when he means yes.

Us: "Kole - do you want to wash your hands?"

Kole: "NO!" (then walks to the bathroom door)

Us: "Kole, do you want to play outside?"

Kole: "No! No! No!" (then sprints to the back door)

On the language front, it should also be noted that "Mama" is now a favorite word to. He hasn't said Maggie's name without prompting, but when he pets her we'll ask him if he loves his Maggie and he'll say "Ga-KEE!"

What's cool is when he forms the structure of a sentence. Last week before I left for out of town he had some crackers. He wanted more, and was in a routine of saying please. So, out of nowhere, he suddenly put everything together: "Moo (more) ... ca-cuh (cracker) ... PEESH!"

With a birthday approaching I'll just end by saying that he's growing out of his T2 clothes and is now T3. Toys? I don't know. It's hard to think about when we have a house full of crap - and much of it has to go; and when I say go, I mean there are heavy-duty items that need to be garage sale or tossed, as we clear out this office room and turn it into a nursery. I need to get a back yard storage shed up and going very soon. Anybody want an entire library of John Grisham or John Sandford novels? I'm not being facecious. You can have them, or I can take the trouble to run them up to half-price books for maybe $10 total. They're all hardback and in like-new condition.

New Playset

For some time now since the spring weather hit, Kathy has gone through a daily ritual of taking Kole outside - generally just to play with some of his inside toys and run around in the fresh air; taking him to a nearby park whenever possible so he can ramble around. He loves to climb, and his strength is becoming quickly obvious. Kathy went with another friend and her near-2-year-old to McDonalds, the kids played in the playground area, and where little Noah struggled to climb up certain obstacles, Kole scaled them with relative ease. He pulls himself up on the couch from the side - from the arm-rest side - all the time, working out like an Olympic gymnast. Especially when he throws his toys, a practice we're desperately trying to tame, it's obvious how strong he is at such a young age.

So, back to the backyard play equipment. We've been looking for several weeks - searching garage sales and CraigsList.com. A few days ago we looked at an outisde set that looked good enough - basic plastic crawling/climbing things with a slide, no big fancy wooden swing sets just yet. We finally saw a good set on CraigsList and the people selling it were nearby so we got it. We knew it was a good deal because the previous day a woman was selling about half as much stuff for $25 more. We jumped on the deal, brought it home, washed it down, and got it up as Kole was napping. He woke up and got in a little playtime just before it started sprinkling at dinner time. But, he took to it very well, so it looks like Kathy has some entertainment relief - especially as her pregnancy progresses and she easily gets winded after just a little activity, limited in her ability to bend over, etc. We could have put it on the 2nd birthday wish list, but we needed the relief immediately and it's already paying dividends.

Kole's Sister Is On The Way

Yes, it's the not-so-secret secret we've been hanging on to since about mid-January. Kathy took an over-the-counter pregnancy test that came back positive, then another. It was far from something we had carefully planned on a chalkboard. But, obviously God thought it was time for us to have another child. Today, in Kathy's 16th week, we had a sonogram where it was determined that it was a girl. Or, there's a 90-95% chance of it. A due date of September 29 has been thrown out by Kathy's doctor.

We waited till the first trimester was in the rearview mirror before we made a broad announcement of it. The odds of Down Syndrome or some other birth defect rise from about 0.5% to about 1%, but there is a great deal of money to be made in the medical field capitolizing off of fear and selling early indicators of birth defects. There is a lot of good that can come from early detection, but I've seen a side of the business I didn't care for, and it's obvious that there is a tremendous profit to be made from the fear of child-bearing women, and that fear is cleverly packaged and marketed. But, that's a different post for a different day.

There have been tense and stressful days, preparing for a baby when the prospect of Kathy actually returning to work was being discussed. There can be 1,000 elements dissected of what could have been if we had waited another few months, or another year. We are much wiser than we were two years ago about child rearing. Now we'll give it a shot with a maniacal 2-and-1/2 year old scatting around. There is much anxiety, but it will fall short of fear. 1 John 4:18 says "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love." So, maybe that's why God is bringing us another child right now, so we may be perfected in love.

Wow. Daddy's little girl.

From Crib to Bed

Landmark night last night, as we bought a toddler bed and it was Kole's first night to sleep in something other than his crib since he graduated from the bassinet. He's been a fairly good napper outside of his crib, so we figured it should go well. Especially after we brought it home and it was hard to get him away from his new bed. He was fascinated with it, and the ease of getting on and off. So, last night we made some quick rearrangements in the room, crossed our fingers, and we got some good results. But, we didn't quite properly Kole-proof the room, especially right next to the bed, and it didn't take us long to discover the error of our ways.

UPDATE: Now that we've been asked a couple of times - those are diapers. His little diaper bag hangs off of his changing table, and well within reach from his bed. Well, just for that first night it was.