And Devin Waves Hello

For the last few days (perhaps weeks), it seemed that Devin has been waving to us, but it seemed slightly circumstantial and it was hard to discern whether it was intended or not.

Well, today I was sitting on the front porch; I was in a rocking chair and Devin was over by the porch railing. I called to him and waved ... and he waved back! Renee came outside and I told her about it. I tried to get Devin to repeat the action, but my expectations were low. Even if he did it intentionally, he probably isn't too interested in waving hello again so soon. But he did it again. And he did again for Renee, too.

So, it is official: Devin can wave hello.

Happy Birthday, Aidan!

We all got to celebrate a long happy birthday with Aidan. His birthday party was on Saturday, April 1, at The Little Gym on Saturday with all of his little friends. Then, that night, Papa and Grandma Deb arrived from New Jersey — just in time for Aidan to open his presents.

On Sunday, we all headed up to Arlington, Texas for a special event that we would attend on Monday, April 3 (Aidan's real birthday). While at our hotel, Aidan used one of his new birthday presents (Spider-man swim fins that fit over his hands) and becomes obsessed with swimming all night long.

This morning, we headed back out to the pool for one last swim before we headed out to opening day at Ameriquest Stadium to see the Texas Rangers take on the Boston Red Sox!

One of Aidan's favorite Red Sox players, Johnny Damon, recently signed with their archrivals, the New York Yankees. When I told Aidan about this, Aidan said, "Well, how do we get him out of there?"

While we were at the game (which the Red Sox won, and looked good doing it), Aidan told me he saw Johnny — he was right there in the stands with us (someone was wearing a Damon jersey), "so he wasn't on the 'Ankees," Aidan added with a smile.

Later in the game, Aidan got to see his name in lights, which he was moderately excited about (he seemed mostly perplexed about it). After the game, Papa, Aidan and myself got to run the bases.

Aidan was, again, somewhat intersted in the idea (he was also getting through this day withough a nap) — but once he realized that he could run, and he was supposed to run fast — he was extremely excited. With his Red Sox cap on, he was good-naturedly called "out" as he touched home plate by a Texas Ranger's usher.

Keep Rollin'

It may be too early to speak with any authority, but it looks like everyone except Devin is healthy. Devin is still suffering from the croup. However, he's full of energy and strength!

This morning, as Renee and I were making breakfast, I placed Devin — on his back — in his cradle, which is near the kitchen. As we sat down to eat, we noticed that Devin had flipped over on to his tummy!

And he's also done the tummy-to-back roll over a few more times since I first reported it; apparently turning over in either direction is no longer a challenge to this three-month old.

A Wild Weekend

On Thursday of last week, I had to take some time off of work because I was... um... sick. Violently. Renee and I weren't sure if it was because of food poisoning or a stomach bug, but I was most definitely sick. The hope was, of course, that if it was a bug, no one else in the house would catch it.

By Saturday, I was feeling mostly better, but not entirely. We went to a birthday party for one of Aidan's friends and did some running around in the morning. By Saturday evening, we were all pretty tired and Aidan went to bed relatively early. By 9:30 p.m., we heard him coughing. Turns out, he wasn't just coughing....

Aidan was pretty good on Sunday, although obviously tired. His friend Silas came over and the two of them played very well together for the bulk of the day, Aidan showing no ill effects of the night before (besides being a little tired).

Devin, however, was pulling at his ear and had a nasty little cough. Renee took him in to see the doctor this morning and it turns out that Devin has croup, which is a nasty sounding name for a nasty sounding cough. It's a little more than that, but the prognosis for Devin is good. [Oh, and as an aside, Devin's stats as of today's doctor's visit are: 18 pounds, 4 ounces; 27.5 inches]

In fact, we consider ourselves lucky that this is his first real illness thus far (Aidan was on this second or third ear infection within his first three months of life). Devin has had a small case of congestion recently, but nothing really seemed to phase him. So, other than this, Devin's first three months have been very healthy.

That said, this weekend was a little out of control. Saturday night was a little hectic, as I my stomach was still too weak (and the memory too fresh) to help Renee with Aidan's episode. Renee is home with Devin today, and perhaps for another day or so, as croup is contagious. Maybe we'll all be healthier by next weekend. If not, we'll be fighting a bout of croup.

Roll Over

Devin is cooing up a storm and doing so many amazing things right now. He's also drooling a lot. The drooling is also amazing, if only because of the volume. But this isn't exactly the amazing part I was wanting to write about...

Renee had set Devin on the floor for some tummy time. Of course, because of the drooling, Renee had also set a towel in front of Devin, so the floor wouldn't become soaked.

Devin was generally not enjoying his tummy time (not too unusual for a baby his age). Renee had, at this point, continued on to some other activity; I was now in charge of the babe.

After a few moments, I had realized that the towel was no longer under Devin's head; he had rotated about 30 degrees to the left! Wow! He's starting to become mobile.

"Renee, Renee!" I called. "Come see this, Devin's moving!" Renee didn't answer right away, so I got up and looked for her down the hall. I found her in the laundry room.

"Renee, check this out," I said, as I encouraged her back to the living room floor. "Devin's ..." I stopped short. He wasn't rotating. Or, rather, that wasn't the big news anymore. By the time Renee and I had returned to the scene, Devin had turned over on his back — all by himself!

TexRenFest

We headed out early last Sunday morning to the Texas Renaissance Festival, which is near Houston and about a 2.5 hour drive. For that reason, we wanted to leave as early as possible in hopes that Devin would be able to sleep through as much of the ride as possible.

Despite leaving the house later than expected, we were able to drive about 90% of the way there with Devin asleep. It was that last 10% that took us a while to cover, as we pulled over every couple miles to soothe the crying babe.

We arrived a little after 11 a.m., which was right after one of the events we wanted to see. Nevertheless, Aidan was unaware of what he was missing and instead jumped right into the festivities.

Our first stop was a ride on the elephants, then on to the Dizzy Dragon, which I can atest is not some little kiddie ride. The Dizzy Dragon is a bigger version of twisting ropes around a pole. When we first started to spin, Aidan looked a little green, but I reminded him that we were supposed to pretend that we were riding on a dragon, which pepped him up immeadiately.

We then saw the knights joust. Our seats were in the black and blue section, which happended to be the representative colors of the "German" knight, Sir Otto. It was our duty to cheer him on. Thus, we bought a black and blue pennant for Aidan to wave around whenever Otto did something worth cheering for. After the joust, we took the flag over to the side of the arena, where Sir Otto himself was waiting and happily signed the flag for Aidan.

Aidan then rode several other rides, including his very first pony ride. Devin, on the other hand slept though much of the day....

I'm sure you can come close to guessing how the ride home was. When we arrived back at the car, we got everyone situated and ate some sandwiches we brought with us. Aidan, who was running around all day, ate half of his sandwich. As he took a bite of the second half, he feel asleep. I tried to put the sandwich away for him, but as I moved the sandwich bag out from under his hand, he woke up, took another bite, then nodded off again, with the food in his mouth. Renee and I did everything we could to laugh quietly.

Devin, on the other hand, was well rested after sleeping most of the day in the sling. All he wanted to do was to be held and play with us.

So, our first 20% of the ride home was much like the last 10% of our arrival: at approximately 2 mile intervals, we'd pull over and try to soothe Devin.

All-in-all, it was a wonderfully fun weekend, especially watching Aidan have so much fun and getting so excited about the festival in general (and the rides specifically). Here's to next year!

Renee's Back At Work

Renee started back to work on Monday and updating the Web site had been, well, a difficult thing to get accomplished. Our days usually start around 6 a.m. and we don't generally get a chance to do any "extra" stuff until after we get Aidan down, which is usually sometime after 9 p.m. At that point, we too drained to do much of anything else. If we do have any energy, it's usually spent on preparing things to help make the morning go a little easier.

However, Aidan (much as we predicted) has been very excited at the prospect of Devin going to school with him in the morning. We no longer have to struggle with getting him out the door. In fact, it's almost quite the opposite.

Devin has been making the transition to school very well also; his teachers have said that he's a very good baby — he only cries when he's hungry or tired, which has been pretty much the same experience we have at home.

Renee visits Devin everyday for lunch, which obviously allows her to continue nursing, but also has the added benefit of helping Renee with the transition back to work. We are proud to say that she, too, has been having a decent time with her transition.

ACL Fest - Day 3

The last day of the Austin City Limits Festival was — how should I say this? Well, hot should suffice. It was officially 107 degrees at the downtown weather station. Thus, we stayed home.

Devin entertained us with some smiles and laughs and showing us he can grab a hold of his toys and stuff them into his mouth (sort of). Otherwise, it was an incredibly hot, lazy weekend, kicked off with a little music on Friday and a lot less hurricane than we expected. Not so bad....

ACL Fest - Day 2

Day 2 of the ACL festival was a wild-card day; either Hurricane Rita was going to impact our area enough that attending the festival would have been impractical (or unsafe), or we would get to spend most (or all) day listening to music.

It turns out, we didn't go, but it wasn't because of Rita.

There was a little bit of wind. No rain. And plenty of heat. With temperatures up around 100 and our energy supply low (we were completely drained from the day before), we decided to pass on going to the festival.

Instead, we made Halloween decorations and decorated the house, took long naps, and generally just hung out at the house. It was a very nice relaxing day, hopefully recharging enough that we can take advantage of the last day of the festival...

ACL Fest - Day 1

We spent the morning sort of preparing the house for high winds (in case Rita decided to come a little closer to home). Then, we all took naps, and headed out to the festival around 3:00 p.m.

The wind started to kick up around this time — it was strong enough to start spreading some trash around our neighborhood. There's a lot of construction going on around our neighborhood as well, and all the exposed ground had dust and dirt flying through the air, which was perhaps the most dangerous thing I saw.

After having some difficultly finding some parking, then making our way to the shuttle buses, then taking the 15 minute ride to the festival, then walking for 10 minutes to get to the entrance, we finally arrived (around 5:00ish). Thus, unfortunately, we missed Lucinda Williams.

But we were able to catch Mr. Jose (one of Aidan's old gymnastics teachers) and his band, Grupo Fantasmo, who play kind of a fusion-latin sound, mixing salsa, cumbia, and other latin sounds.

We were quite impressed with this band, as they packed about 12 musicians onto perhaps the smallest stage at the festival. The horn section was excellent and Mr. Jose (congas) and the drummer were very exciting. There were a couple of conga solos, which had the place jumping. Very fun.

We then moved on to see John Prine, which is something that Renee wanted to see. In the end analysis, though, she decided that she liked him better on the radio than live. Perhaps this is true, but the experience may have also been tempered by the blowing wind, which was kicking up dust, and the heat, making us all feel a little grimy at this point.

John Prine finished his set just as the sun was going down, adding a new dynamic to the experience — lower temperatures and light shows!

Renee and I were pretty much ready to go at this point, but the next stage over just started. The band was Keane, which Renee and I didn't care for all that much. However, Aidan loved them, and insisted that we stayed until their show was over. Kids and their music....

After Keane was Lyle Lovett and his Large Band, a band Renee and I were hoping to see. Yet, with the prospect of a long walk back to the shuttle buses and finding our car, we headed out. By the time we got home and ready for bed, it was close to 11:30.

We'll keep an eye on the weather for rain and increased winds, but odds are, the show will go on tomorrow! If you're interested in reading another take on the festival, check out the Friday daily report, from the ACL Fest Web site.

Rita is Coming to Austin City Limits

Renee and I have been planning on attending this year's Austin City Limits Festival after missing all of the previous versions. A friend of mine finally talked us into it (they had to talk us into it?), by mentioning that it is as Austin a festival as there is — much like the venerable South By Southwest festival — and we really should experience it for ourselves.

So we bought our tickets for this year's festival as soon as they were available, which was back in March or April. We finally received our tickets in the mail around the end of August.

The next step in the process is to exchange the tickets for wrist bands.... assuming we can find the tickets. Which we can't.

We turned the house upside down. No tickets. Renee and I woke up the next morning telling about how we each dreamed of finding the tickets in crazy and remote places. This was obviously causing us a lot of stress and anxiety.

Under the premise of "if you don't ask, you can't receive," I called the ticket agency — and they issued us new tickets! Yeah! We're back in business.

But not so fast. A slowly developing under-story was coming to light: Hurricane Rita. As of Thursday night, the Austin city limits were directly in the path of the storm, in fact it appeared the eye would pass right overhead. It was also projected to still be at hurricane strength as it passed through. That would make standing in Zilker park a little less desireable.

At this point, we played with the idea of leaving Austin, evacuating out west a little. But the people on the Gulf coast are evacuating here, which is a problem in itself (since all the hotels and such are already booked for the ACL festival). Roads are clogged. There really isn't anywhere to go, even if we could go.

So, last night, I headed out to the grocery story to get some basics, although a lot of the basics were already gone. However, I headed out to Central Market, which had plenty of basics (I guess no one thinks of Central Market for this sort of crisis?).

But now, the latest reports have the eye of Rita going significantly East of Austin; however, the storm is big enough where we will likely get at least the western edge of the storm. Thus, we are preparing to hunker down for the weekend. We'll learn more if the ACL festival is cancelled or postponed later today (supposedly around 6 p.m. CDT). Yet, as of right now, are plans are to go to the festival on Friday, hide out on Saturday, and then see what Sunday brings....

Two Months Old!

Devin is two months old as of yesterday and had his scheduled doctor's visit today. This isn't the most fun of visits, as this the appointment where Devin received 4 shots! His thighs are incredibly sore and we have to give him Tylenol at regular 4-hour intervals (we missed one follow-up dose by a half-hour — we won't be doing that again).

Overall, Devin checks in at a very healthy 14 pounds, 13 ounces, 22.25 inches long, and a head circumference of 41.5 cm, which is fairly similar to Aidan at this point.

Tiny Bubbles

Devin has recently begun blowing little bubbles, and cooing, and holding his head up, and ... so many other things that I can't ever document them quickly enough to remember them all!

Basically, Devin is being an incredibly good baby; he sleeps a lot and doesn't cry much, and when he does he's easily consoled. I think one of the reasons for this is that every time he moves, or someone touches him, or a slight breeze touches his face, he passes gas. Seriously. There is no gas shortage in our house.

And it is because of this that I think Devin is doing so well right now; he doesn't really have much in the way of gas pains. Aidan, on the other hand, was never like this (i.e., supplying so much gas) and I think that may explain why he was so ... shall we say, "expressive" in his first few weeks of life.

Anyway, Devin is doing great, Aidan is still fairly well adjusted (although bringing him to school is sometimes very difficult since he has to leave Mom and Devin at home), and — thus far — all is well in Austin, Texas.

Aidan at School

Some observations from Aidan's teacher:

• Aidan was using some stacking circles to stack them "high and tall." He had to stand up to reach the top; his patience and balance was very impressive.


• During center-time, Aidan was sharing a book with a friend. They were taking turns reading to each other. When I told Aidan that I really enjoyed hearing him tell the story , his face lit up and he had a big smile.

Innerspace

The four of us made our first real trip together all by ourselves. We headed out to one of the local caverns, Innerspace Caverns in Georgetown.

Renee thought that Aidan would be intrigued, and he was... sort of. That is, he was when we first brought up the idea — yesterday — and it slowly ratcheted downward as time progressed.

By the time we actually arrived at the ticket window, Aidan was still somewhat excited. However, with the 15 minute wait for the tour to start and some trepidation about the cave in general (which revolved mostly around its contents, including dinosaur fossils, so Aidan continually asked things like, "are all the dinosaurs dead?"), Aidan wanted to head for home before we even entered the cave.

Once inside, Aidan didn't want any part of it. I carried him for the entire .75 mile walk, up and down the slippery walkway. It was actually pretty fun, and I think Aidan grudingly enjoyed himself. Renee and I both agreed that perhaps the best part was that there were little bats flying around in the cave, buzzing past our heads; Aidan seemed quite unfazed by them. Still, when it was all over, he went quite willingly to the car.

Aidan at School

Some observations from Aidan's teacher at school:

• While we were working with the tools to repair our bike, Aidan gave a little lesson about how we use screwdrivers. He explained to everyone how to hold it, be careful, and watch what you are doing — it was too cute how everyone stopped to hear and listen.
• During lunchtime, I watched as Aidan helped a friend pour his milk and when he was done helping his friend hold th milk pitcher, Aidan told him, "now say thank you."
• Aidan did a very nice job at lining up and finding his name in our classroom. He has learned to recognize his name.

Devin's Baptism

Papa, Grandma Deb, and Aunty Sandra came down for a long weekend to help celebrate Devin's baptism. The weekend went by very quickly, but we had a good time.

We were able to schedule a nice, private ceremony after a regular mass. Jeffrey and Sandra stood in as the godparents (they may look familiar; they are also the godparents for Aidan).

48 days

After 48 days of waiting (since the car accident), I finally received my car back yesterday. It looks like the body shop did a very nice job; there's only one very small detail (at least right now it feels like a small detail) that may or may not be an issue. I'll see if I can get another opinion on this detail, and then take action on it, if necessary.

But now, comes the fun part: trying to collect from the other insurance company.

The big issue is the money for the car rental. The reason that the repair took 48 days is due to miscommunication (at best) or non-communication from the other guy's insurance company. Knowing that I wouldn't be "guaranteed" that Geico would be able to recover money from the other insurance company, and with my personal confidence that the accident was completely the other guy's fault, I figured it was going to be in my best interest to make my claim with the other guy's insurance.

So, at all relevant moments, I declared to anyone who would listen that I did indeed have a rental car and that I was filing my claim through the other guy's insurance. It wasn't until day 23 that the other guy's insurance agent told me that, despite the fact that my car was not drivable, they would only cover my car rental while my car was being repaired. Which, at this point, it wasn't, because this insurance agency wasn't done with their investigation. Wonderful.

As of that day, July 19, I switched my claim over to Geico and, for the most part, it moved along well. By my count, it took about 16 days for my car to be repaired, so I could expect to possibly get reimbursed for as little as 16 of the 48 days of the car rental, which would stick me, by my estimate, about $800.

Why is it that, because of someone else's carelessness, that I'm possibly going to be stuck with having to pay for someone else's mistake? That I have to go through all the inconvenience, frustration, anxiety, and possibly loss of money, when all I did wrong was be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

How ridiculous.

Glitter Vader

Aidan's been playing with my Darth Vader mask a lot lately. It's pretty old (I think I bought the mask back in 1999 or 2000) and it has a flimsy velcro connection to keep the mask together. It was not made to be taken on and off repeatedly, which is what Aidan usually does.

Thus, the velcro strips are separating from the mask. Renee tried to glue it back together, but the plastic just isn't holding the glue on.

So, today when I got home, Aidan wanted to play with the Vader mask. I told him about the state of the mask, the glue, why it wasn't holding together, etc. Aidan pointed to a strip of excess dried glue and asked, "is that glue?" I told him it was, but that it wasn't doing its job.

Aidan wasn't too upset, which I found slightly odd. But I was happy that he took the news so well. So, I went off to take care of something else.

Then, I notice Aidan walking over to get his play vacuum cleaner out of the closet and wheel it over where his arts-and-crafts supplies are kep. He starts vacuuming the floor.

Why was he vacuuming the floor? It turns out that he spilled a bunch of glitter on the floor and he wanted to clean it up. All on his own volition, with the only tool he knows: his play vacuum cleaner. Very sweet.

But why did he get the glitter out? Because the Darth Vader mask had glue on it. And what do we do with glue? We decorate it with glitter!

It's a Thin Line Between Love & Being Scared

Aidan and I went to a minor-league baseball game last night and had a great time. I think Aidan really would have prefered to see Johnny Damon (he was asking for him several times), and even asked me if I wanted to see Aven Martik (after several attempts, I realized he was trying to say Jason Veritek). I had to admit that, yes, a Red Sox game would have been very exiting to watch...

But we still had a lot of fun. We met several friends at the game and there are plenty of activities for the kids; inflatable castles to jump in, playscapes, and even little ponies to ride, and the mascot, Spike.

Aidan was looking for Spike the second we arrived and the few times that we saw Spike, Aidan would try to wave to him.

While on a trek around the stadium to find the ponies, we came across Spike up close and personal. Actually, it was a bit of a surprise for the both of us, as there were lots of people milling about, and it was hard to see very far. Aidan was holding my hand and walking on his own, so his visibility was significantly less than mine.

However, the people parted and right there in front of us, bigger than life, was a huge, person-sized bulldog wearing a railroad conductor hat and overalls.

"Hey, Aidan, look! It's Spike," I said, thinking this was a good thing. Aidan looked up, saw Spike and screamed. He dropped my hand, turned around and ran in the opposite direction as fast as he could.

This kind of put a damper on the rest of the evening, but still, it was a fun outting. On the trip back to the car, Aidan said that he'd rather go to Red Sox game again to see (at this point, Aidan drops my hand and strikes a pose) Johnny Damon.

That's my boy!

Devin Drake's Birth Story

Earlier this year, Grandma Jackie offered to fly down to Austin, Texas in order to lend us a hand with the new baby, whenever that might be. After thinking about when would be a good time for her to plan on arriving, we suggested that she should come into town on Saturday, July 9; the plan being that the baby wouldn't be much later than July 8 (i.e., a week late), since that's pretty much where doctor's feel comfortable and that's how late Aidan was. That was the plan, anyway. But sometimes plans fall apart. And sometimes the result is better than anything one could have planned....

The baby didn't come on July 8. Or July 9. Or July 10. I was thinking that the baby would definitely be here by Monday, July 11 at the latest. But Monday came and went and Renee wasn't showing any signs that labor was imminent. At this point, I was beginning to feel a little worried that Jackie might have come down to help us with the baby, but we'd have to send her home (she was scheduled to go back to Connecticut on July 18) without her even having met the baby.

However, Grandma Jackie was able to spend some quality time with Aidan, which in retrospect, was incredibly helpful.

On Tuesday, July 12, Renee had an accupuncture appointment. She called me at work, just as I was about to leave, and told me to meet her, Aidan, and Grandma Jackie at Aidan's gym class ... but be prepared, because she was starting to feel some "real contractions." I was terribly excited and rushed to the gym class. However, the contraction, while real, weren't all that frequent or intense; we were still a ways off from rushing to the hospital.

The contractions continued through the night, strong enough and frequent enough — we were measuring them to be about 20 minutes apart — to keep Renee from getting any restful sleep.

The next morning, Wednesday, July 13, we had a regularly schedule doctor's appointment with the doctor's nurse (our regular doctor, Dr. Love, was on vacation with his family for the week). Again, we were lucky enough to have Grandma Jackie around, as she took care of Aidan for us as we tried to bring on labor...

The nurse checked Renee and everything looked good, but she didn't recommend that we check into the hostpital yet. Renee's contraction were still about 20 minutes apart and, while they grabbed her attention, she was still able to walk through them.

But things were heading in the right direction. So, to encourage things to progress, Renee and I headed out to one of the enclosed shopping malls in the area. It was still only 9:30 in the morning, but it was hot enough to want to walk indoors.

As we walked, we saw lots and lots of teeny-bopper-type store fronts (it's been a long time since I've been inside a mall ... were they always like this?). It was at this point, with pictures of pre-teen girls all dolled up with glitter and "mature" clothing and such that Renee and I decided that we were not at all ready for a girl...

The walk around the mall helped some, but it wasn't as though it was the key to bringing on active labor. We headed home and I massaged some of the accupuncture points on Renee's shoulders, ankles, feet, and hands. This seemed to help, too, as each time I hit a point well, the baby would obviously move about in the womb. It was pretty freaky. The contractions were getting closer, maybe 15 to 12 minutes apart.

Later in the afternoon, after Grandma Jackie and Aidan came back from their activities (upon his return, his first quesiton was "is the baby here?"), Renee and Grandma Jackie headed out to the grocery store. Upon their return, which was around 6 p.m., Renee's contractions were about 7 to 5 minutes apart! Things were progressing and I started to get a little adreneline flowing.

We ate the dinner I made while they were at the store (a curried cauliflower and tofu dish) and after dinner, went for a walk around the neighborhood. During the walk, I tried my best to keep tabs on the contrations and they seemed to be about 5 to 4 minutes apart. Yet, after we returned home, the contractions spaced themselves out again, closer to 10 to 7 minutes.

Still, Jackie and I felt things were progressing to an obvious end, while Renee was a little less receptive, saying that they weren't all that intense and that she could still walk (and mostly talk) through the contractions...

Things kept progressing, even as we were trying to put Aidan to sleep. Aidan was tired and yet very excited about the baby; putting him to sleep was very difficult, as he wanted Mommy at times, other times Daddy, other times he just wanted to jump on the bed. All of this while Renee was having contractions (back in the 7 to 5 minute range). Eventually, Aidan did fall asleep, but in our bed — we had hoped that he'd sleep in his bed this night if only so Renee could comfortably labor in her own bed without disturbing Aidan. So, Renee moved to Aidan's bed, while I sat on the floor timing contractions (5 to 3 minutes apart, but sometimes spacing out again to about 7 or 8 minutes apart).

I called our doula, Monika to let her know how things were progressing and to ask for some advice. Basically, we were wondering if there was anything that we could do to help encourage active labor, so we could get this over with (Renee hadn't slept much in the last 24 hours), or if there was some thing we could to slow it down to allow Renee to rest.

Monika recommended taking a bath. She said that it would either slow things down or encourage labor, depending on how Renee was physically. We took her advice, filled the tub (after moving Aidan to his bedroom) and prety much immeadiately, the contractions spaced out to 11 minutes, then 15 minutes. Okay, I thought. The bath will slow things down so we can have some sleep. No baby tonight, I guess we'll meet the baby tomorrow... maybe even the next day.

Yet, almost immediately after the bath, the contractions started to get pretty intense and closer together. Renee was now moaning through the contractions, but still handling them beautifully; they were now about 5 to 3 minutes apart. But then they would space out again. So, around midnight, we both curled up in bed. I tried to continue to massage Renee's back and time the contractions, but I was too tired. Between the contractions, I would sleep. But every five minutes or so, I would wake up, look at my watch to see how long it's been, and drive my knuckles into the small of her back to help ease Renee's pain.

Around 1 a.m. on Thursday, July 14, the contractions were pretty regularly in the 4 to 3 minute range. I was getting a little antsy. Renee was spending more and more time in the bathroom and the contractions were pretty intense. I called Monika to see what she thought and she recommended that we hang on for as long as we could at home; as soon as Renee suggested the hospital, that's when we should call her back and reassess.

It wasn't too long after that when Renee mentioned that it might be time to head out. I called Monika and the doctor who was backing up our doctor, Dr. Pollon. At about 1:30 a.m., we were out the door on the way to the hospital. And, once again, feeling lucky that Grandma Jackie was there for Aidan, so when he woke up in the morning, he would be in comfortable surroundings with someone he was getting used to spending time with.

We arrived at the hostpital around 2 a.m. We were checked into our room and assigned to Nurse Paula. As one might expect at 2 a.m., there wasn't much going on in the labor and delivery area; things seemed pretty calm, hopefully an omen of things to come...

Nurse Paula found that Renee's blood pressure was regular (a concern since Renee's blood pressure was high with Aidan's labor; some thing that the labor inducing drug Pitocin may have contributed). Renee was dilated to about 5/6 centimeters (out of a complete 10 cm) and the baby's heart tones were strong. All of this was great news, as we were hoping to have some freedom to allow Renee to walk around and labor as she felt the most comfortable, something that would have been difficult to do if she had to be constantly hooked up to monitors and IVs.

Over the next few hours, Renee walked and moaned through her contractions, drinking Gatorade and water as she pleased. Monika and I would each press an accupuncture point during a contraction to help ease Renee's pain and to also encourage active labor.

However, by 5:45 a.m., almost 4 hours after we arrived in the hospital, and after missing two nights' worth of sleep, Renee was becoming exhausted. But Renee was able to find some deeper strength and kept going. Monika recommended a shower, so we helped Renee in to the shower in her room while she labored. From my perspective, the showers were wonderful and seemed to help Renee a lot with the contractions.

But after checking to see how far things had progressed, Renee was starting to think that and epidural would be a good idea. She was just so tired and Renee was very concerned that, without sleep and with the exertion that she was putting forth, she wouldn't have the strength to push the baby out when it came time. By getting the epidural, Renee felt that she would get some relief and be able to sleep for a couple of hours.

Both Monika and I were dubious, as with the epidural would also come the Pitocin. Renee had been laboring so incredibly well that I felt that introducing the Pitocin at this time was not a good idea; I just remember how tremedously strong her contractions were with Aidan that I didn't want to have to put her through that again, if we could at all avoid it. And, with the introduction of the epidural, Pitocin would be right around the corner.

Another downside (in my eyes) for introducing the epidural and Pitocin was that Renee would then have to be hooked up to monitors and IVs and such, thus limiting her ability to labor as she felt most comfortable. That is, she never felt most comfortable on her back in the hospital bed. But that's exactly where she would need to be if we followed through with her request...

But Renee felt it was best, so for the moment, Monika and I acquiesced. At approximately 7:30 a.m., Nurse Becky (Nurse Paula left around 7 a.m. with the end of her shift), started some IV fluids for Renee, a requirement before introducing the epidural. At this point, Renee was telling us that she was proud that she was able to achieve her goal of starting labor without any assitance and had experienced early labor and active labor at home. With Aidan, this was a different experience.

Since we left in the middle of the night, and we were at a relatively calm cross-road, I called Grandma Jackie to give her an update and to check on how Aidan was doing with all of this. Apparently, Aidan was doing wonderful. Around 3 a.m., Aidan had woke up and went to our room to look for us. Not finding us there, he started to cry. Grandma Jackie went upstairs to comfort him, which apparanetly she did very well, as he went back to sleep and didn't get back up until nearly 8 a.m. He was, in fact, coming down the stairs just as I was getting off the phone with Grandma Jackie, fully dressed (he dressed himself, which is a rare happening these days) and as he came down the stairs, was asking Grandma Jackie if it was time to go to the hospital to see the baby...

Back in the labor and delivery room, Renee, Monika, and I all agreed that it would be a good idea to check to see to how things progressed before administering the epidural; with Aidan, Renee received an epidural very close to the end, and had difficulty pushing because of this. At approximately 8 a.m. Nurse Linda found that Renee had made quite a bit of progress; she was dialated to 7/8 cm and was 90% effaced. We were so close!

Renee was laboring so well and we were so close, Monika and I started to make our case against the epidural, but the anesthesiologist was already called and would be in the room any minute. Renee was now unsure what to do. She had already set her mind on getting the epidural, but I think she could see how far she had come. With the anesthesiologist, Dr. Rauula, in the room, we continued debating the merits of each path. Finally, Dr. Pollon, making his first appearance since we first checked into the hosptial checked in and encouraged Renee to go without the epidiral. So, Dr. Rauula, who had his table of items all prepared and ready to go, put his things away and wished us well. Monika was blown away; she had never seen an anesthesiologist so flexible nor someone like Renee, seconds away from an epidural, refuse one. It was quite impressive all the way around.

By 10:30, Renee was 100% effaced, but was still dialated to about 8 cm. Nurse Linda was also indicating that it appeared that the bag of waters had broken (perhaps while Renee was in the shower?). We continued our regular routine, spending some more time in the shower, walking, sitting in a recliner, rocking chair, and hunched over a large yoga ball.

By 11:10, she was at about 9 cm. We did some more of the same while adding some side-lying positions in the bed. By 12:40, Nurse Linda announced that there had been no further progress. Ugh.

Renee was utterly exhausted. At this point, Monika and I agreed with Renee that the epidural was probably the way to go. At the very least, she may get enough relief from the contractions that she might very well be able to doze off occassionally. Dr. Rauula returned around 1:30 p.m., assisted by Nurse Kelly, and administered the epidural.

During Nurse Kelly's appraisal of our situation, we discovered that the bag of waters had not completely ruptured. In an effort to help encourage the contractions to keep coming and help melt away that last centimeter of cervix, Nurse Kelly ruptured the membranes. The first thing that we noticed was that the water was clear, a wonderful sign, as the baby was 13 days passed the due date, and the longer a baby stays in the womb the chances increase that meconium could be present in the womb, causing problems for the baby.

But the fluid was clear, a great relief. But soon after, the heart tones dipped from their steady 140 beats-per-minute to about 78. Whoa. Nurse Kelly noticed this too. She got to work to find out why this was happening and figure out what she could do to get them back to where they belonged (in the 140s).

Nurse Kelly, the only other person in the room besides Renee, Monika, and myself, called for help ... a nurse, Dr. Pollon, anyone. Just any extra hands that could assist. Then she got to work.

First, to help relieve some stress from the baby, i.e., to stop the contractions from squeezing the baby and causing a certain amount of trauma to the baby, Nurse Kelly gave Renee a shot of terbuterol, a muscle relaxant. Then, Nurse Kelly tried to attach an internal fetal monitor to the baby's head. It didn't take. So she tried again. Success. Now, we have a better idea exactly what the baby is going through. But we don't know everything.

Nurse Kelly thought that one reason the fetal heart tones could have taken a nose dive is that the baby could have landed on the cord in the decent after the bag of waters was broken. But after checking as best she could, she didn't think this was the case. However, she was able to feel the baby's nose, which told her that the baby was facing the wrong way, i.e., was in a "posterior" or sunny-side up position.

While Nurse Kelly was checking on the cord, Renee's eyes started to glaze over. Nurse Kelly gave Renee and oxygen mask. Renee didn't look very good. Her hand started to grab at her chest. I had no idea what was going on, but I didn't think it was very good. The only thing that I was thinking was: Is she having a heart attack? Is this delivery getting slightly out of hand? I don't have a clue what's going on...

Renee sort of said something, weakly and through the oxygen mask so that I didn't really catch it. Nurse Kelly, in addition to trying to assess the baby's situation, calmly stated that the medicine that Renee recieved was a muscle relaxant; since the heart is a muscle, she'll likely feel some odd heart beats for a little while. Oh. I guess that sort of explains that ... She'll be okay, though, right? ...

Finally, the heart tone came back to the 140s. Renee was still jittery, but seemed much better than just moments before. No one was really all that sure why the baby's heart tones fell, but everything seemed back to normal at this point. Just then, Dr. Pollon comes in the room. "What's up, what's going on?" he asks.

Oh, nothing ... everything seems under control now, thanks, Doc.

For the next little while, everyone rested. Nurse Kelly was changing shifts and she handed us off to one of her friends, Nurse Jonna.

At around 3:00 p.m., Renee was completely dialated and was ready to push. But we had to go through the shift change, and page Dr. Pollon again and bring everyone back into the room. So we waited a bit. Around 3:15, Renee couldn't wait any longer. Therefore, Nurse Jonna encourange Renee to try pushing a little, assuming that we'd be at this for a little while and that everyone would have time to reassemble in the delivery room.

Renee slowly pushed the baby down, little by little. Soon, we could see the head. Renee did one more magnificent push and ... the baby's head was crowning. But where was everyone? Once again, it was only our nurse in the room. Nurse Jonna paged for a Dr. Stork (any doctor available). No one came. Dr. Pollon was still not there. No other nurses came.

Nurse Jonna placed her hand on the crowning head, trying to hold the baby back. Renee did all that she could to hold the baby back, but really, that's about the most impossible task to ask of someone. Still, Renee was able to achieve the impossible.

Nurse Jonna again paged for anyone a nurse, anyone, to come and lend a hand. No one came. Finally, Renee couldn't hold on, and had to push the baby's head out. We then found out that the cord was indeed wrapped around the baby's neck. Nurse Jonna tried to lift it over the baby's head, but it was too tight. Nurse Jonna put a clamp on the cord and was looking for another one — she was going to have to cut the cord; the baby's shoulders were still not out. Thank goodness that Monika was once a labor and delivery nurse. At least she had a clue what to do when Nurse Jonna asked for another clamp.

Nurse Jonna cut the cord, and Renee pushed the shoulders through. Jonna caught the baby as another nurse came through the door. They both brought the baby over to the baby station and Renee heard one of the nurses say "he's alright." The baby was a boy. I was choking back tears of exhaustion and joy and bewilderment as I was trying to tell Renee "It's Devin! It's Devin!" But I don't think any of that ever made it out of my mouth.

3: 41 p.m. Devin Drake was born. He weighed 8 pounds, 10 ounces and was 22 inches long. And just at that moment, a Texas-sized thunder storm started to boom outside, annoucing the arrival of baby Devin. And, just at that moment, Dr. Pollon finally came into the room. Timing is everything ....

In retrospect, Renee's contractions near the end of labor were following a pattern: 2 minutes apart, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 8 minutes. Looking at this now, Monika feels as though this was indicative of the cord being wrapped around Devin's neck, as the uterus was trying not to squeeze the baby out in a bad way. It (the uterus and body) were waiting for things to correct themselves before pushing the baby through. Moving to the epidural and pitocin earlier (at the 6 a.m. time frame) may have been somewhat detrimental, as the pitocin would have been extra harsh on the baby's environment, not allowing for things to "pull back" when the body wasn't comfortable. Doing things as we did, we actually never really recieved any pitocin (technically, we did, per doctor's orders, but by the time Renee was ready to push, the pitocin wasn't even in Renee's system).

As things were winding down and I was able to catch my breath, I called Grandma Jackie to give her the good news and ask her bring Aidan over, the new big brother, so he could be Devin's very first visitor. While talking with Grandma Jackie, I found out that Aidan had been patiently asking all day about when it would be time to visit the baby, and that they had baked a birthday cake for the baby.

Once Aidan learned the baby was a boy, Aidan was very excited to come and visit his new baby brother, Devin the Dragon (Aidan wanted to name the baby Dragon, but we told him we couldn't do that; however, we were able to accomodate this by naming the baby Devin Drake — Drake meaning Dragon in Old Norse and Old English — so Aidan will tell you that the baby's name is really Devin the Dragon).

Devin's Two Weeks Old

Devin is two weeks old, which means we have a doctor's appointment scheduled to check on how things are going. According to the doctor, he is looking great. All signs of jaundice are gone (or virtually gone).

Devin has put on a pound since his birth (he now weighs in at a hefty 9 lbs 10 oz), which is fairly impressive, as most babies are hoping to get back to their original birth weight at this point.

Where's the Car?

Today is one month since the car accident and I still don't have my car. I was originally going to put the claim through the other guy's insurance (the guy who rear-ended me), but they've been dragging their feet and may end up costing me about a month's worth of car rental (only recently did they tell me that they would only cover car rental expenses while my car is actually being worked on — despite the fact that my car is undriveable; this is being disputed, but nothing is resolved at this point).

Anyway, the short story is that I am now putting my claim through Geico (who again, seems to be doing whatever they can to make my life easier). Estimates are that I should be able to get my car by the beginning of next week, possibly sooner.

The odd thing is that I've been without my car for so long, I'm actually experiencing a certain amount of anxiety about getting my car back. A coworker of mine had a similar experience, and was in a rental car for almost three months. She, too, was slightly anxious about getting her car back. We've sort of likened it to meeting up with a boyfriend (or girlfriend) that you hadn't seen in a long time. Would you two still have things in common? Would you still get along like you did before you had some "time off?"

Regardless, I'm all too ready to get rid of the rental and I miss my Element far too much to not wish for its speedy return. But I do have these odd feelings that things are different and that maybe things won't be like they used to be...

Time for a Breath and an Update

It's been a little busy around here, but everything is generally going extremely well. Aidan seems to be quite smitten with Devin; Devin is getting over his mild case of jaundice. Renee is having some issues with getting enough sleep and having much too much milk available for Devin (which, from what I hear, is the better problem to have — better than not having enough milk).

Devin has been the picture-perfect infant: sleeping, eating, and pooping. The only time that he cries is when his diaper is being changed. Other than that, he seems to be one very content little boy.

Aidan has been doting over Devin since he was first introduced to him. The very moment that Devin cries, Aidan wants to help, find out what the matter is, or point out what's amiss. For example, this evening Devin fell asleep in his car seat, so we left him in there. After a while, he started to stir, twisting his face in a grimace and looking generally uncomfortable. Aidan noticed and proudly announced, "my baby doesn't like it there anymore." When I got up to move Devin to a more comfortable location, Aidan jumped up with me and said, "Let my do it!"

Special Picture Update

There's sooooo much that needs to be shared, but I don't have the energy or time to do it properly at the moment. Please, let this suffice for the moment and be assured that more information will be forthcoming! :)

So, enjoy the early July pictures; there's many of our new family member, Devin, who is Aidan's little brother. The pictures fairly well document his first 48 hours of life...

Happy Birthday

Welcome to the world, Devin Drake! He was born at 3:41 p.m. He was 8 lbs 10 oz and 22 inches long. Aidan was Devin's first visitor and it looked like Aidan couldn't have been a happier big brother. Grandma Jackie and Aidan baked a cake for Devin, and we all got to eat some real birthday cake!

Observations from School

Aidan's teacher made the following observations of Aidan at school:

• While outside at the picnic table, Aidan was pretending pieces of a puzzle were chocolate-banana cookies. He said, "Who wants cookies?" I said, "I do!"

  Aidan said, "Okay, one at a time!"

• While discussing with the children what they though I was having for a baby [Aidan's teach is also pregnant], I asked Aidan what he though about his baby, and he said, "A boy, a big boy!"

Running to Stand Still

Renee has wanted to go swimming for days. It's been hot, she's near the end of the pregnancy, and she loves the water. Renee's been overdue for a swim. Except that the circumstances never worked in her favor.

Friday night, Renee wanted to go. I had to work late that night, thinking it was going to be my last full week at work, and I needed to ensure that certain things got handed off. So Renee asked Aidan if he'd go swimming with her, but he refused. Adamantly.

Last Saturday, we finally got things worked out to meet Kathryn and Silas at their pool and a cook-out on the grill. We headed out the door around 5:15 p.m.

Around 5:20 we arrived at the corner of Slaughter Lane and Brodie Lane. We were in the right-hand lane, a lane that has access to a gas station. This gas station isn't very well situated; it can be difficult to get in and out, especially when the tanker is filling up the tanks.

The light turns red and I stop, second in line behind a pick-up truck. Once the light turns green, I follow the truck through the intersection, but the truck stops. I'm not sure why, but I soon realize it's because vehicles are trying to get in and out of the gas station. And, of course, the tanker is there, blocking the way.

I am prone to checking the rear-view mirror a lot lately, as I was in an accident on April 20, where someone rear-ended me; I was alone in the car and other than some relatively minor physical damage to the car, there wasn't anything outrageous about that accident.

As I notice the pick-up truck stop, I slow and then come to a stop; and check my rear-view mirror. There's a car coming and it's not slowing down fast enough. I brace for impact.

The car hits me, then pushes me forward into the truck in front of me. Aidan starts to get a little upset and is whimpering/crying. The truck in front of me, a Ford F-150, is obviously looking for a place to pull over, and starts to pull into the gas station. However, the driver realizes that would be difficult considering the circumstances (too much traffic and the tanker blocking the way), so I follow the truck down to the next driveway for a business that looks closed for the weekend. The car behind me follows.

I turn the engine off and walk to the back of my Element. Not bad. About what I would have expected, especially after my recent experience; the back bumper takes the damage pretty well and doesn't really show much superficial damage. The impact was pretty slow; no one's airbags went off. Maybe this isn't going to be so bad.

I stroll to the front and see radiator fluid leaking and a large diviot in my front end. The F-150 had a trailer hitch and it planted itself neatly into the front of my Element. Really, other than that, the front bumper did pretty well, too. But my radiator is obviously cracked and the front end, while not completely messed-up, is displaced. I start swearing. I'm not going to be able to drive out of this.

If I wasn't rear-ended so recently, I probably would have been okay. But the other accident is still so fresh in my memory and ... well. I lost my temper a little.

Aidan is still a little upset, and Renee seems disturbed, but okay.

Renee walks over to me and helps me (and Aidan) calm down. Once I get my head together, I call my car insurance company (Geico). They get my information, then ask to speak to the driver of the vehicle who hit me. They get his information and then the information for the F-150.

Both other vehicles look fine; there is virtually no damage to the back of the F-150 and the owner says as much — at the scene of the accident, he had no intentions of filing any claim.

The other car, a Lexus RS 300 looks like it was in pretty good shape as well. The front bumper might need replacing, but in a pinch, I don't think anyone would have known that it was the point of impact for the accident. The driver gives me his business card and I learn that he's a capitan for Continential Airlines and from the information on the card, I guess he flies their 757/767 jets.

The driver of the F-150 and I talk for a little while and he tells me that when he stopped, he looked in his rear-view mirror and noticed that I stopped. He was thusly very surprised to feel an impact. He and his passengers (two women and a dog) all seemed to be doing well.

At this point, the heat is getting to all of us. The people from the F-150 provide some juice and water for Renee and Aidan and the driver of the Lexus offers to drive Renee and Aidan home so they don't have to sit in the heat while we wait for a tow. I obviously wasn't thinking very clearly, and I accept. Renee doesn't object, either. (Sending them home with a stranger? What the hell was I thinking?)

I stay and wait for a tow. However, Geico wasn't going to be able tow my car because I didn't have Roadside Assitance with them, and I also wasn't planning on putting the claim through them (I planned on putting my claim through the airline pilot's insurance — it seemed clear-cut that all the damage was the fault of the driver who hit me). That's fine, I said. That's why I pay my dues to AAA.

So Renee, Aidan and the airline pilot head off. The F-150 leaves. I am alone in the heat of Texas and make my call to AAA. After a few moments, they tell me they can send a wrecker out to my location in about 30-40 minutes. So I open all the doors to my car and I sit inside, out of the sun, waiting to get towed.

And then it dawns on me. Renee needs to call Dr. Love's office to make sure that the baby's alright. Renee had shown no ill-effects from the accident, but we never really did properly check the baby. I think everything is probably alright, but still, better safe than sorry. So I call home after what I felt was an appropriate length of time for them to get to the house. No answer.

I panic. I call Kathryn to tell her that, first, we're obviously not coming to go swimming and, second, that I'm an idiot and that my pregnant wife and son were in the car with someone who obviously isn't the best driver on his best day and who knows what other crazy things were part of his résumé. She offers to head directly over to the house and check on them while I wait for the tow. Thank God for friends like Kathryn.

I call the house again; no answer. Great. Now, I'm really panicked. I'm imagining the worst. I call again. Renee answers. Finally, a moment of relief. Everything will be okay. I tell her to call Dr. Love's office and inform her that Kathryn is headed over to be with them at the house.

After a few minutes, either I call Renee again or she calls me (I can't remember which) and her voice is not steady. She's been instructed to go directly to the hospital; she'll need to be there for a minimum of four hours for observation.

My moment of relief is gone. I have a full-blown ulcer at this point. I see Kathryn's truck drive by and I know that at least Renee will have Kathryn to drive her to the hospital and be with her, even if Kathryn doesn't know that yet. But I have to wait for the stupid tow truck; I'll take Renee's car to the hospital once I get home.

I call Monika, our doula, to let her know the situation, except that I get her voicemail. I leave a message, and try the number again, as the voicemail system had told me that there was also a paging option. However, when I call the second time, Monika picks up.

She tells me she was in a movie (sorry, movie folks; please forgive the intrusion) and I tell her about our situation and ask her to call Renee at the house to see if there's anything that needs to be done.

Around the 40-minute mark, a wrecker from All-Star towing shows up. I am eternally grateful and I want to make friends with the driver; he is going to be the beginning of things getting better and forgotten. I greet the driver and notice his name is Gus. I immediately like Gus.

Gus asks me for the police report. What police report, I ask. The police didn't come. We didn't need them. Gus looks a little out of sorts. He tells me that he can't tow my Element without a police report. He says that he could get in trouble for towing a car without a police report.

This all sounds ridiculous to me, but I'm in no place to argue. I just need to get home so I can get to the hospital. I tell Gus the situation; about my wife being nine-months pregnant and about the accident. If you can't tow my car, then please, just give me a lift back to my house, which is only 3 miles away. Gus tells me that he can't do that. He has other calls to make.

I am livid. Gus is not being the person that I need him to be; that I expected him to be. I plead my case one more time. He refuses. I start to run home.

On my way home, sometimes walking, sometimes running, I make some phone calls. I call my friend and Aidan's godfather Jeffrey. I let him know what's up, and that he may be needed to watch Aidan at some point, as I wasn't sure what the situation was with Renee and the baby. I call Monika for an update, but get her voicemail again. I call Kathryn and find out that Renee has since calmed down and is in pretty good spirits. Once Renee find out what I'm doing (running three miles home in 100-degree weather), she tells me to take a shower first before coming ot the hospital.

I call AAA and give them an earful. I tell them the situation. They give me excuses. I tell them that all I need at this point is for someone to tow my car. They make more excuses. I hang up. I call Gieco. Oddly enough, I end up with the same person that I had when I first called the accident in. She's very friendly and tells me not to worry, that they will take care of the car. They tow 24/7. She just wants me to focus on getting to the hospital with my wife. She was much nicer than Gus.

Eventually, I do get home. The heat never really did bother me, nor did the running. At least, not while I was running. Now, I am a little tired, a lot thirsty ... of course, we are all out of cold water so, like an idiot, I don't drink anything. I think about taking a shower, but I"m too wound up. I turn on the computer and e-mail Renee's cousin Matthew, who is a lawyer. I hate AAA and I tell him about it.

My cell phone rings several times; it's Monika telling me that she spoke with Renee and things appear okay for the moment — other than observation reasons, there's nothing to really worry about; Kathryn calls me to remind me to bring the infant car seat — just in case. I think AAA called me and tries to tell me their reasons for not towing. I don't have time for this, I reply. Either tow my car or get off the phone. They continue with excuses. I didn't want to go through any red-tape; I just wanted my car towed and get to the hospital. At this point, they were getting in the way of both things.

Their solutions were paltry and not very useful and required me to do more than I needed or wanted to do (go to the police station, file a report, etc. and then they could come tow). I tell them that I don't have time for this, I need solutions, not excuses or additional forms to fill out or hoops to jump through. Fix the problem or get out of the way. I hang up.

By the way, basically, they were telling me it was a law that tow trucks couldn't pick up cars from an accident without a police report. This perplexes me. Why would this be necessary as it would be next to impossible to tell the difference between a disabled vehicle being towed and an accident vehicle being towed. What would be the probable cause to pull over the driver of the tow truck?

Also, as it turns out, if involved in an auto accident in the state of Texas, you are legally obliged to do the following: move the vehicles out of the right of way, if possible, share insurance information with all parties involved, file an accident report with your insurance within 10 days. Note the lack of police report ...

I eventually get to the hospital, some time around 8 o'clock. Renee got there around 7 o'clock won't be released until 11 o'clock. Kathryn and Doug (her boyfriend) take Silas and Aidan out for dinner (I completely forgot about food). Renee and I catch up while Renee eats a turkey sandwich that the nurse was able to scrounge up for her. I drink all of Renee's Gatorade that she's been saving for labor. So far, it appears, nothing unusual. No contractions, the baby's heartbeat is perfect. Everything appears fine. Finally. Some good news.

I call up the airline pilot's insurance to start the process there. After an eternity, I call AAA again to try and get my car towed. Again, I meet the resistance of a well-entrenched bureaucracy. I give up.

I call Geico and I ask if I add their Roadside Assistance package to my policy right now, can I get my car towed? They told me that I didn't need to do that. They asked me where my car was and where did I need it to be. And that was that. Wow. That sure was easy.

Geico wanted to make arraingements with me to get my car right then, but of course, I was in the hospital. We figured that I should give them a call after I get back to the house, so I can meet the wrecker with the keys, etc. It's a plan.

So ... we finally get home around 11:30ish (maybe 11:45). Everyone is exhausted, but okay. I call Geico on the special hotline I was given to get in straight to the people that knew my story. I was given a reference number that had all my case details in it, so I wouldn't have to tell everyone the whole story again. I feel like I'm finally going to get some closure. I get some hold music. For about 40 minutes I get hold music. Ugh. I didn't know that it was this hard to get a tow.

I get off the tow-my-car hotline, and called the regular number. I am connected to a live person in about 3 minutes. He patched me through to a Roadside Assistance person in about 15 minutes. Mandy, my Roadside Assistance representative, started to call around for available wreckers. By this time, dear reader, you can probably guess what happened: no wreckers available.

So much for 24/7 towing. Mandy is as confused by this as anyone. So she calls around some more. Finally, she has to call towing companies that are non-contract; meaning, I'll have to pay for the tow. Fine. Just get my car moved. Please. Mandy finally, after going through a few of the non-contract towers, gets me one. It'll be about 30-40 minutes before the wrecker can get there, Mandy tells me. That's fine. $130. Fine.

2:00 a.m. Flat-bed wrecker appears and takes my broken car home. Finally, things are going in the right direction. Now I just need to hope that the airline pilot admits to everything and that getting my car fixed goes smoothly.

Renee still hasn't gotten the chance to go swimming, perhaps the Fates don't want her to for some reason. But at least we're all safe and in bed. A little past our bedtimes, but we are all safe.

Observations from School

Some observations from Aidan's teacher at school:

• I watched as Aidan and friends played color dominoes all by themselves. Aidan was helping his friends when they had trouble with their colors.
• Aidan and his friends had cars in line behind each other two-by-two. They were racing their cars like a real race.
• A friend brought in a bagpipe CD for us to enjoy while we were playing. I watched Aidan twist to the left and to the right. Then, he took a friend's hand and started dancing with him.

Peach Hunting

Last year, we drove about an hour or so outside of Austin to get some freshly picked, wonderful Fredricksberg peaches. We got a basket of them and we ate them quickly; the basket only lasted us a few days.

This year, we found out about a peach orchard that's about 7 miles from our house. Obviously a much shorter ride. And last years peaches were picked for us, which is fine, but what's the fun in that? The orchard around the corner from our house allows you to pick your own, which Aidan loved. He called it "peach hunting."

We gathered up about two baskets worth of peaches, although Aidan had to induldge himself with a peach after we picked the first couple off the trees. He followed us, munching on his very crisp (yet incredibly sweet) peach as Renee and I picked peaches.

The orchard manager eventually came by (his name is Rom) and offered to give Aidan a peach, unaware that Aidan had already helped himself. However, Aidan was too receptive, so Renee and I each got to eat one straight off the tree. Renee's peach was soft, juicy and sweet. Mine was harder, crisp (like Aidan's) and incredibly sweet. I found it odd that the crisp peach (and what I assume to be the less ripe peach) was so much more sweeter than the soft peach Renee was eating. No worries, though. Both peaches were delicious, and we had two baskets full!

The orchard is also right next to a beautiful Hindu temple. After picking our peaches, we strolled the grounds and saw a dozen or so peacocks with baby chicks. It was quite a wonderful day, and all accomplished before the heat of the day knocked us out of commission.

Picture Update

Our Memorial Day weekend was actually fairly relaxing and productive at the same time (I feel both rejuvinated and that I've accomplished things). Part of that may come from a wonderfully relaxing evening we spent last night with Jeffrey, his aunt and his grandmother. It was the perfect way to end a long weekend.

Jeffrey made us a wonderful spaghetti dinner that even his Italian grandmother approved of (well, besides the strawberries in the salad — but Jeffrey's aunt made the salad, so we can't hold that against Jeff).

Anyway, this month's pictures have a bunch from Renee's surprise baby shower and include a few from our Memorial Day weekend, including some of Aidan's godfather, Jeffrey, with Jeffrey's grandmother.

Fun in the Sun

Our Memorial Day weekend has at least been psychologically washed out by weather reports. It was largely predicted that this weekend would see lots of rain, and that's been more or less true. However, most of the rain has come at night, leaving the days mostly clear and enjoyable (although hot and sticky).

In order to cool off, Aidan and Renee put on their bathing suits and ran through the sprinkler in the backyard. Aidan was very much in the running part of the equation, but he had some trouble with the through-the-sprinkler part. He prefered just to put his hands or feet in the water, which was fine until he stepped on the sprinkler and "readjusted" it so that it only sprayed into the ground.

Oh, and for anyone who may have been partly involved in our search for a grill, the search ended yesterday at Lowe's. We purchased a BBQ Grillware grill, which came with free assembly and a free filled tank of propane. It's a very large grill, but I was able to fit it in the back of the Element (after unassembling parts of the already-assembled grill). I also had to make two trips, one with Aidan and Renee, then one without, as I had to rearrange the seating to accomodate the very, very big grill.

Part of the excuse to get the grill was because of the new baby. We figured it would be nice to not have to heat the house by cooking indoors so often as well as keeping things sort of simple (no large pans and such to clean). Plus, I just wanted to get a grill. I guess it's time to search out some vegetarian grill recepies.

Aidan, the Dancing Dog Who Asks Why

Aidan is officially at the stage where he incessantly asks "why." I do my best to answer him, even if I have to use "big words" to come to some conclusion, but sometimes we've boiled the "why" down to what I consider the base-constituant parts, and I can't go any further. Such as, "why is a deer a deer." I don't know. At that point, I just turn it around on him and ask Aidan why he is a person. This sufficiently confuses him (or satisfies him; I'm not sure which), and he'll stop asking "why."

I'm still looking for a good, creative way of encouraging his curiosity but still being able to withstand the barrage of questions.

On a related note, Aidan is learning how to read and can already pick out several words on a somewhat regular basis (font and context seem to throw him off sometimes). We were practicing words with him, which he loved, but it's sort of fallen out of favor these past few weeks, mostly due to people rushing around and busy schedules and all ...

We still haven't found out too much about a new school for Aidan. This search may be put off for a while, since there is just so much going on at the moment (new baby arriving, etc.). He's doing well, although his teacher at school had no idea that Aidan knew how to draw some of his letters — he can pretty much write his first name — and sign virtually the entire alphabet. Here are some observations from Aidan's teachers:

1. Aidan was in home center pretending to be the children's pet puppy. He never said a word. He only barked. He said "ruff, ruff," as he was pretending to drink from the doggy bowl.

2. I noticed Aidan and a friend dancing to some music. THey were spinning around and around in circles when they were done each time, they said "whooooooah" and laughed.

3. At circle, the children played a game of "transportation charades." Aidan pretended to ride a bike. The children immeadiately knew what he was doing!

Educating Aidan

Aidan has been soaking up so much lately. He is very interested in words and spelling and is doing well recognizing numbers. His current day care facility is base on the philosophy of learning through unstructured play. However, as one person observed, Aidan may have learned all that he can from this environment; it may be time to move him to a more structured school where he can further develop his interests and talents.

His current school, because of their philosophy, don't have the alphabet on the walls and do not help them write their names (something that Aidan is beginning to do) or associate colors with items #151; such as red :: apple).

The trick here is that we don't want to push Aidan, obviously, and stress him out before he's ready to handle the extra material. However, just this morning we decided to pick up a reading program that we originally started way back when Aidan was probably about a year old, but it soon fell out of our routine. But because of his apparent appitite for learning, we are bringing it back for him.

A friend of ours, who's son is now 8 years old, was doing this with her son and when he was about 4 years old (upon entering preschool), he was reading at a second-grade level. We'll see how this works for us....

The lesson plan is to show Aidan five words per day. After a week, we start to introduce new words. That's it. Only five. The point is to not tire him out and get bored. But after I showed him his five new words, he wanted more. And more. We probably went through about 30 words, maybe more!

The point being, is that by all appearances, Aidan is hardly being challenged, so the search is on to find a good preschool for Aidan (one mom from Aidan's school, upon hearing we were thinking of enrolling him in a preschool, said she applauded our efforts as it was widely known that Aidan was the smartest kid in the current school; whether that was said purely as a compliment and words of encouragement or as truth, it sure was wonderful to hear!).

This is in incredibly complicated thing to do, as some preschools focus specifically on physcial attributes (sports, ballet, swimming, etc.) and others on mental. Some have long waiting lists, others don't. Some are terribly expensive, others aren't (and the "good" ones are not necessarily the expensive schools). Some are convieniently located near work or home; others aren't.

Add to this equation the fact that the new baby will be arriving shortly and will potentially going to a different school (probably the one that Aidan's at currently), so we may have a lot of running around to do on drop-off and pick-up. The arrival of the new baby will also be a disruptance in Aidan's routine, so he might feel more comfortable at his old school with is old friends, as opposed to introducing new, more challenging situations.

So, our search is just beginning, updates to follow as we learn more!

Observations for Aidan

Here are some more observations from Aidan's teacher at school:

1. Aidan and friends were working in woodworking. I watched as he gathered wood and hammered away! When I asked him to tell me about it, he said, "It's a cage for a bug."

2. The children wanted to know how big my baby was [Aidan's teacher is pregnant]. So I drew them a little diagram. I had to go to the bathroom and when I got back, they all drew their own version. Aidan participated as well!

3. While outside, I noticed "the blue guy" push Aidan. Aidan yelled and said "I don't like that! Stop pushing me. Leave me alone!" I was proud of him! He didn't even ask for my help.

Baseball Trip

We headed out to Arlington yesterday with Silas and Kathryn to see a Red Sox/Rangers game. Aidan is still pretty obsessed with Johnny Damon (with a certain amount of encouragement from me, no doubt), and Aidan was really looking forward to seeing Johnny play some ball.

The first thing out of Aidan's mouth after we were through the turnstiles was, "Where's Johnny?" Then Aidan started to notice all of the Bs on everyone's hat ... "Hey! He has a B on his hat! Hey, he has a B on his hat, too! Hey ... wait a minute ... he has a T on his hat!"

As luck had it, Johnny had a pretty good game, helping the Sox win by hitting a home run (turned out to be his first of the year), an RBI double, and a bases-loaded single in what was an exciting game (at least from our perspective).

We had very good seats (section 19, row 26 ... for those not familiar with the Texas Rangers's home stadium, that's 26 rows behind the visiting team's dug out). There were a ton of foul balls hit in our direction, and if we weren't just a couple of rows under the deck above us, they would have landed directly on us. Since our section was behind the visitor's dugout, there were plenty of other Red Sox fans to share the joy. There were plenty of "Let's Go Red Sox" chants to the point that a Rangers fan in the area said to his friend, "We're at a home game, right?"

Aidan got lots of compliments, and was eventually picking up on the "Let's Go Red Sox" — he designated himself as the chanter and I had to do the hand claps. After Johnny hit his home run, Aidan was comfortable enough with everyone that he started to give out random high-fives. Pretty cool.

At the end of the game, a Red Sox fan (about my age) was walking up the stairs and passed us, saying to Aidan, "Good game, little guy." Aidan replied, completely unprompted, "No, Johnny had a good game!"

Caught a Germ

Aidan's just getting over being sick; he and Renee have stayed home the last few days. Aidan hasn't had a lot of energy, so they spent some time watching TV and just hanging out. One day, they caught an episode of Reading Rainbow, where there was a story about a little kid who got sick — more specifically, caught a germ.

Thus, if you were to ask Aidan what's been going on lately, he'd tell you, "My caught a germ." If he sees someone on TV (or in general) coughing or sneezing, "they caught a germ."

Aidan at School

Here are a couple of observations that Ms. Nicole (Aidan's teacher) has shared with us:

1. Aidan is a very vocal boy. When it comes to a friend hurting him or bothering him, he will let them know. Today, a friend was lightly kicking him and he moved away and they followed. He yelled, "Stop! I don't like it when you kick me." He then move away from the other child.

2. While building a house in blocks, Aidan said to a friend, "There are four there." He is great with recognizing the amount without having to count them one-by-one.

A Blustery Birthday

Today, partially for Renee's birthday (happy birthday, Renee!) and partially just for the fun of it, we headed out to the 77th Zilker Kite Festival. It was a beautiful day, with temperatures in the 80s and perfectly windy for a kite-flying day.

Aidan was wonderful and had a blast. Renee assembled his kite and we both helped him fly it. Renee took hold of the kite and Aidan had the string end. Renee threw the kite up into the air and shouted, "run, Aidan!"

Aidan wasn't sure but started to run, but not necessarily in the right direction.

"Towards me, Aidan," I called. Aidan changed direction and started to run toward me as though his life depended on it. As he got closer to me, he started to slow down.

"Keep running," I encouraged. Aidan's eyes got bigger and he he started to run faster. "You're doing it," Renee and I yelled!

"I'm doing it!" Aidan replied. "I'm running!"

I'm not sure if he didn't put two-and-two together and realized that running equaled flying a kite. Although I am quite sure that he equated having fun with the kite. "Playing with the kite," meant that he got to run. He definitely was well-focused on running but I'm pretty sure he never got a chance to look back at the kite he was flying.

Regardless, he had a great time. I'd guess that Aidan did mini-sprints for about an hour or so before he took a break and ate some lunch. It was quite impressive.

And then at the end of the day, we sang happy birthday to Renee and had some birthday cake. Not a bad weekend at all!

More pictures from the Kite Festival will be posted at the end of the month with the rest of the March pictures....

Three Observations

Three observations recently made by one of Aidan's teachers at school:

1. While in a circle discussing the feeling "happy," I asked each of the children what made them happy and Aidan said, "Umm ... umm ... hugs!"

2. Aidan catches on quick. While in science center, I noticed Aidan looking at the magnifying glass. I showed him how to use it. He then started checking everything out with it. He was making everything bigger. He was busy!

3. While in Library, I watched Aidan pick up a book off the shelf. He then opened it up and started to re-tell the story to his friends. He held the book so all of his friends could see.

The Good Enough Mother

Renee found this article, written by Anna Quindlen of Newsweek (found in the Feb. 21 issue):

Forget about day camp or mandatory Gymboree. What's the point of raising kids if we don't have a good time and a few laughs?

There was a kind of carelessness to my childhood. I wandered away from time to time, rode my bike too far from home, took the trolley to nowhere in particular and back again. If you had asked my mother at any given time where I was, she would likely have paused from spooning Gerber's peas into a baby's mouth or ironing our school uniforms and replied, "She's around here somewhere."

By the new standards of mothering, my mother was a bust. Given the number of times I got lost when I was young, she might even be termed neglectful. There's only one problem with that conclusion. It's dead wrong. My mother was great at what she did. Don't misunderstand: she didn't sit on the floor and help us build with our Erector sets, didn't haul us from skating rink to piano lessons. She couldn't even drive. But where she was always felt like a safe place.

The idea that that's enough is a tough sell in our current culture, and not simply because if one of my kids had been found wandering far from our home there would have been a caseworker and a cop at the door. We live in a perfection society now, in which it is possible to make our bodies last longer, to manipulate our faces so the lines of laughter and distress are wiped out. We believe in the illusion of control, and nowhere has that become more powerful—and more pernicious—than in the phenomenon of manic motherhood. What the child-care guru D. W. Winnicott once called "the ordinary devoted mother" is no longer good enough. Instead there is an über-mom who bounces from soccer field to school fair to play date until she falls into bed at the end of the day, exhausted, her life somewhere between the Stations of the Cross and a decathlon.

A perfect storm of trends and events contributed to this. One was the teeter-totter scientific argument of nature versus nurture. When my mother was raising kids, there was a sub rosa assumption that they were what they were. The smart one. The sweet one. Even the bad one. There was only so much a mother could do to mold the clay she'd been dealt.

But as I became a mother, all that was changing. Little minds, we learned from researchers, were infinitely malleable, even before birth. Don't get tense: tense moms make tense infants. (That news'll make you tense!) In a prenatal exercise class, I remember lying on the mat working on what was left of my stomach muscles, listening to the instructor repeating, "Now hug your baby." If I had weak abs, did that mean my baby went unhugged? Keeping up with the Joneses turned into keeping up with the Joneses' kids. Whose mothers, by the way, lied. I now refuse to believe in 9-month-olds who speak in full sentences. But I was more credulous, and more vulnerable, when I had a 9-month-old myself.

This craziness sounds improbable in the face of the feminist revolution that transformed the landscape of America during our lifetime. But at some level it is the fruit of that revolution, a comeuppance cleverly disguised as a calling. Every time we take note of the fact that work is not a choice but an economic necessity—"most women have to work, you know"—it's an apology for freedom. How better to circumvent the power of the new woman than with the idea of mothering not as care but as creation? Every moment for children was a teachable moment—and every teachable moment missed was a measure of a lousy mom.

My baby-boomer friends and I were part of the first generation of women who took for granted that we would work throughout our lifetime, and like most pioneers we made it up as we went along. In 1976, Dr. Spock revised his bible of child care to say that it was all right if we worked and had children as well. There was a slapdash approach to melding these disparate roles, usually reflected in the iconic woman at a business meeting with spit-up on her shoulder. My first sitter was the erstwhile manager of a cult punk band. She was a good sitter, too. We got by.

But quicker than you could say nanny cam, books appeared, seminars were held and modern motherhood was codified as a profession. Professionalized for women who didn't work outside the home: if they were giving up such great opportunities, then the tending of kids needed to be made into an all-encompassing job. Professionalized for women who had paying jobs out in the world: to show that their work was not bad for their kids, they had to take child rearing as seriously as dealmaking. (Fathers did not have to justify themselves; after all, no man has ever felt moved to say that most guys have to work, you know.)

It's not just that baking for the bake sale, meeting with the teachers, calling the other mothers about the sleepover and looking at the SAT camp made women of both sorts crazy, turning stress from an occasional noun into an omnipresent verb and adverb. A lot of this was not particularly good for kids. If your mother has been micromanaging your homework since you were 6, it's hard to feel any pride of ownership when you do well. You can't learn from mistakes and disappointments if your childhood is engineered so there aren't any.

So much has been written about how the young people of America seem to stay young longer now, well into the years when their grandparents owned houses and had families. But their grandparents never had a mother calling the teacher to complain about a bad grade. And hair-trigger attention spans may be less a function of PlayStation and more a function of kids who never have a moment's peace. I passed on the weekend roundelay of kiddie-league sports so our three could hang out with one another. I told people I hoped it would cement a bond among them, and it did. But I really wanted to be reading rather than standing on the sidelines pretending my kids were soccer prodigies. Maybe I had three children in the first place so I wouldn't ever have to play board games. In my religion, martyrs die.

Our oldest child wrestled custody of his life away from me at a fairly early age, perhaps inspired by an epic bout in which I tried to persuade him to rewrite a perfectly good fourth-grade paper to turn it into an eighth-grade paper. Perhaps I'd been addled by the class art projects, some of which looked like the work of a crack graphics design team—and were. I asked the other day about his memories of my mothering. "You sorta freaked out during the college application process," he noted accurately. But then he wrote, "What I remember most: having a good time." You can engrave that on my headstone right this minute.

There's the problem with turning motherhood into martyrdom. There's no way to do it and have a good time. If we create a never-ending spin cycle of have-tos because we're trying to expiate senseless guilt about working or not working, trying to keep up with the woman at school whose kid gets A's because she writes the papers herself, the message we send our children is terrible. By our actions we tell them that being a mom—being their mom—is a drag, powered by fear, self-doubt and conformity, all the things we are supposed to teach them to overcome. It just becomes a gloss on that old joke: Enough about me. What about you? How do you make me feel about myself? The most incandescent memories of my childhood are of making my mother laugh. My kids did the same for me. A good time is what they remember long after toddler programs and art projects are over. The rest is just scheduling.

Gift from Aidan

We were walking through Academy (a sporting goods store), and Renee and I were a little disctracted as we were looking at a particular item. We looked around and Aidan was gone.

We went our separate ways, spreading out so we could find Aidan quicker. Renee went around the corner and found Aidan looking at some shoes.

"No!" He said. "I'm looking for some shoes for the baby. They'll make the baby soooo happy."

So, we purchased the smallest pair of blue sneakers that we could find, as a gift from Aidan.

The "Wow" Factor

As some of you may know, we recently made a 20-minute long video history of Aidan's first two years. The intro to the video is based on the Star Wars intro, scrolling text and all — including the theme music.

While I was working on that project, I would do occassional screenings to Renee and Aidan to get some feedback. Aidan would occassionally complain that he didn't want to see the "Baby Aidan" movie. But as soon as the opening blast of the Star Wars theme came through the speakers, Aidan would immeadiately stop whatever it was he was doing and run to the couch and watch. It was pretty funny.

It's been a while since I've seen all three of the original Star Wars movies. I was pretty sure that they would be a little scary for Aidan, but I didn't think that they would be too bad for him. And since I just recently received them on DVD for Christmas, I figured why not....

I was right about the first episode (actually, Episode IV). The opening had Aidan completely in awe. The Imperial Star Destroyer zooming in to capture Princess Leia's ship got this reaction from Aidan: "Whoooooa." That was a completely unsolicited whoa, too, by the way.

In fact, any time a spaceship went zipping by, Aidan was pretty sure to say "whoa." After a while he started asking about the characters. "What's his name, Daddy?" or "Who's that, Daddy?" I'm sure I was beaming with pride. A sort of geeky-pride, but pride nonetheless. Quite over Aidan's head in terms of storyline and such, but not too scary and he loved the special effects.

Over the course of the next several weeks we watched the entire series of the original trilogy and Aidan was always most impressed by the flying spaceships. However, the characters got a little darker, the monsters a little more scary and there were plenty of scenes where Aidan would just say "I don't like this part."

Still, Aidan did try his best to follow along with what was happening. After being introduced to Yoda, Aidan would constantly ask where he was and what he was doing. Another favorite question was "Where the guy in the helmet are?" (Referring, of course, to C3P0.)

Aidan would also ask why everyone was running away from Darth Vader, or who Darth Vader was looking for and why. And of course, he wanted to know what they all were saying, which wasn't always an easy thing to explain.

"Daddy, what's he saying?"

"Well ... um ... he's saying that ... um ... well, he's saying that he's Luke's daddy and that ... well, they should get together and do bad things, but Luke doesn't want to do bad things."

"What's he saying now, Daddy?"

"Um ..."

"What's he going to do, Daddy?"

"Um ..."

Yeah. So, anyway, I'm still looking for some answers to some of Aidan's questions; I have a feeling this is just the beginning of such moments, only I didn't expect this to happen so soon.

Lala The Tree

We've been at the new house for a little over a year now. One of the first things on our to-do list for the new house was to get a tree to replace the poor dead thing that was in our front yard; it probably died from too much water (current thinking is that there may be a spring under our property).

We talked about getting different kinds of trees, but neither one of us were terribly passionate about anything, nor did we know enough to feel confident in choosing a tree.

So yesterday, the three of us went to the Wildflower Reseach Center to buy ourselves a new tree. We shared with the experts at the Research Center that we probably have poor drainage, etc. and they ended up recommending a Possumhaw.

Once we got it home, it was time to put it in the ground. I enlisted Aidan's help and in no time at all, we had it in the ground.

Later that day, Renee spoke with her dad and he had a great idea. Since the tree is roughly the same height as Aidan, and since he helped put it in the ground, we decided to call it Aidan's tree, which will grow with him. Aidan decided to name it Lala.

Gym Class

Aidan started his first gymnastics class yesterday. It's at a place called The Little Gym and it has all the things one might expect in a gym: high bars, tumbling mats, balance beam, and more.

There's tons of activities, which are all lead by a gymnastics teacher, that help with balance, tumbling, jumping, and strength. Aidan loves it, although he usually likes to do his own thing and doesn't usually follow the group (which is okay for this age group; the next class up wants kids who will follow instruction, as the parents aren't supposed to be involved at that level).

Unfortunately, Aidan suffered his first "sports" injury during a dismount on the high bar. The children aren't allowed to wear shoes or socks while in the gym and Aidan landed on his baby toe. He recognized the injury at first, but was able to shake it off and continue on, never showing any signs that it was bothering him.

However, after class — while trying to put his shoes on — he complained that his toe hurt and that he was "a little sad." A little children's Advil and some ice seemed to help, and by this morning it seems to be all healed up!

Puzzles, Puzzles

Aidan got several puzzles for Christmas and he's loving every one of them. These new puzzles are a little more advanced and Aidan seems to love the challenge.

Aidan is also getting into coloring with his crayons, which is something that hasn't really appealed to him all that much — up until now.

As Aidan was putting his seven crayons back into the box, he put them in without any objective. Then, he realized that he could arrange them. So, he dumped them all out and put them back in with a sense of purpose. As he placed them in the box, I could hear him mutter:

"This one goes here; this one next to purple; this one next to purple; this one next to purple ..."

This is when he realized that they all couldn't go next to the purple crayon. So, he dumped them all out again and started sorting them a different way. I'm sure there was some method behind it, but I don't know what it was. Apparently Aidan forgot, too, or the method wasn't working out, and he dumped all the crayons out again.

This time, Aidan took deliberate steps as he placed each crayon into the box. It must have been an acceptable method, because once he was done, he reached for the lid.

But then he realized that there was a picture on the cover of the lid that indicated the solution to the puzzle! He looked at his layout, then checked the cover ... out go all the crayons again. This time he tried his best to order the crayons as the cover of the box suggested. This, of course, resulted in the perfect box of crayons and he was then able to put them away.

Christmas Recap

We got a visit this weekend from Aidan's Aunty Jody and Uncle Steve. They made the trek down from Seattle to spend the Christmas weekend in Austin. Although I'm sure it was very hectic for the two of them, as they had to visit with lots of family and friends in four-days' time, we really enjoyed their company.

Aidan is still in his "Shrek" phase, but he had a little trouble deciding who exactly Uncle Steve and Aunty Jody should be. Ultimately they were referred to as Prince Charming and Fairy Godmother, respectively. Uncle Jeff, who came to visit with us on Christmas day, was easily and quickly named by Aidan: Giant Gingerbread Man (aka, Mongo).

Aidan got a bunch of really great gifts (as did Renee and I). Thanks so much to everyone for thinking of us. We really do appreciate it.

At this point, Aidan's favorite gift has to be his fireman hat that Renee got him on a whim. The helmet has a little visor in the front that goes up and down, perfect for protecting him agains the firey breath of a dragon. The helmut is a must have, and since he received it on Saturday, it's been everywhere: to bed, to the restaurant, to the car, you name it.

Our big gift to our family this year was a video project, distributed on DVD, complete with packaging. It was a long-term project that was a lot of fun for Renee and I to put together, since it gave us a good reason to go back and look at a lot of video archives that we just ordinarily wouldn't watch.

There was over 9 hours of raw footage for us to go through and, at times, it was pretty boring stuff. But we hopefully were able to bring it altogether in one neat package that everyone can enjoy.

Trail of Lights

We went to the Trail of Lights last night, which is an Austin Christmas Tradition^tm, but something that I've just never really did (I actually did go once about 10 or so years ago, but it was very different).

At the begining of the trail, there's a gigantic Christmas tree made out of lights and wire, attached to a Moon Light Tower. The object here is to stand under the tree, look up at the spiraling lights, and spin.

Aidan loved it.

So we walked the trail, which included some light tunnels and some statues of famous characters (Snoopy, Cat in the Hat, etc.). Aidan's favorite was this "ice castle" display, which was a fabric backdrop of an ice castle with some statues designed to look like ice sculptures; there were a couple of horses, a lion, one that looked like a Greek goddess of some sort, and one that kind of looked a little like Neptune without the trident. We walked past this display and Aidan wanted to go back and see it again. And again.

The other "Aidan favorite" was at the stage. Near the end of the trail there is a stage where various types of performers show their talents. When we arrived, we just missed some carolers. But we caught the begining of the belly dancers. Aidan was mezmorized.

I asked Aidan ... er, Shrek (yes, we're still playing that game) ... if he liked the music or the dancers better, and he said he liked the dancers. In fact, when he gets older, he wants to be a "Shrek dancer." Good work, if you can get it, I guess...

Brother or Sister?

Coming soon to a family near you — or to our house, if we don't live near you: A new baby!

We are now in the midst of the 11th week of pregnancy, and by all indications the baby is doing well. We started a progesterone therapy regimen, which we know is controversial. However, the therapy seems to be doing it's job, as Renee's levels seem to be getting closer to what we would want them to be. Still, having to give Renee the injections twice a week is not a whole lot of fun....

Renee's doctor's appointment last week allowed her to see the baby moving around and acting very lively, which is very exciting news indeed.

We also learned the due date is July 1st, although we'll just call it July 3rd, for other reasons.

So far, things are going very well and Aidan seems to be fairly excited about the prospect of a sibling; many of his little friends have baby sisters, so if asked, that's usually the direction he's leaning.

Cold Brings Out the Wet

Aidan has been potty trained for a few months now and we very rarely have an accident of any kind. However, recently, Aidan has been having accidents at night. A friend suggested that this might be from the change in the weather; now that it's colder he may be having more difficulty keeping it together.

Whatever the reason, we're washing a whole lot of sheets lately. We've even taken to waking Aidan up in the middle of the night to walk him to the potty. He'll co-operate, but by the time morning arrives, we'll most likely have wet sheets.

We don't really want to resort to having to back to diapers, although we've been trying pull-ups (diaper-type underwear), but the pull-ups don't absorb enough (which is really the point of them anyway) ....

Any suggestions or stories from others in a similar situation would be appreciated!

Picture Update

November's Picture Update includes images of us carving a pumpkin (Aidan was quite disgusted with the process), posing for Christmas cards (taken at Zilker Park) and Aidan wearing his "knight" outfit.... Enjoy!

Famous Aidan

Some of you may remember that a photographer took some pictures of Aidan and Renee for La Leche League (LLL) back in 2002. Since then, LLL has published several of their photos in various publications (in fact, Aidan and I even made it into a book).

Well, it looks like another picture of Aidan and Renee has made it to the big time: You can now order personal checks and address labels in support of LLL with Aidan and Renee as the background image.

Picture Update

Pictures from October are up and available for your viewing pleasure.

Plenty of pictures this month that go way back to a fun birthday party at a pumpkin patch, as well as a few other miscellaneous photos.

Baby Dragons

The other night, Aidan and I were at home alone, while Renee was out grocery shopping. I was trying to encourage him to go to sleep, but he kept telling me that he wanted to "go to night," while pointing to the east. I thought that was terribly odd and I wasn't sure how he knew that it got dark in the east before it got dark in the west.

So, we got into my car and I drove around until he fell asleep. Only later did I realize that Renee had told him that we were going to see knights.

And that's exactly what we did yesterday. We went to the Texas Renaissance Festival with Silas and his mom. Silas and Aidan both dressed up as little dragons and both were quite popular. Every was taking their picture. At first they were a little shy, but soon they were hamming it up, holding hands and posing.

It did get pretty hot, and I'm sure the cosutmes weren't helping things any, but both Silas and Aidan seemd to enjoy the attention. They would take it off when we took breaks for food and drink, but would want to put the dragon outfits back on as soon as we started walking again. It was very cute.

Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures from the event. We did bring the camera, but we forgot the battery at home in its charger. But even if we had brought the battery, it wouldn't have mattered, as there was only room for about seven more pictures on memory card. Oh well.

Still, we had a very good time. The very moment we arrived, Aidan wanted to "see the knight." While we couldn't see them right away, we did share with him where the knights could be expected to be found on the map. From that point forward, he enthusiastically point to the map and say "that's where the knight is, next to the swimming pool" (it's beside a small pond).

Dinosaur Roar

Aidan read his second book the other night (the first book was back in March)...

The book is Dinosaur Roar, and while he doesn't actually read it, he definitely has it memorized; he can go through the whole book, page by page, and recite what is supposed to be said for each section.

He's also starting to sing along with songs on his favorite CDs. We normally listen to a Wiggles CD on the way to school in the morning and he'll sing virtually all of the words to most of the songs and he'll even hum the guitar solos (or sometimes the kazoo solos).

Picture Update

The September Picture Update is available. Plenty of pictures this month, including a couple from early in the month when we were treated to a beautiful sunrise. There's also a few of Aidan in his new dragon costume, which should be seen again come late October.

You should also find plenty of pictures of Aidan and his dare-devil friend, Silas, at the swimming pool, enjoying a late summer romp in the water.

Tike on a Trike

Come and get it! The latest Aidan video is now available.

Small Version (for slow Internet connections)
Large Version (for faster Internet connections)

Health Update - Thirteen Pounds Gone

I received the lab results from my latest round of blood tests, which were conducted last week. Since my original blood test three months ago, which revealed elevated triglyceride levels, I've been doing my best to eat low-fat. Mostly, that's entailed avoiding cheese and deep-fried foods. During this period, I've lost thirteen pounds (two in the last week).

But weight loss wasn't the main goal; it was to reduce my triglycerides. Thus, here are the results from the lab; I've included my cholesterol numbers from this new round of testing, because my triglycerides were so high last time it rendered the cholesterol readings from the first test inaccurate.

Cholesterol: 144 (should be < 200)
    HDL: 27 (>40)
    LDL: 67 (<130)
Triglycerides: 248 (<160)

So, my triglycerides are down from 420, but are still high. Thus, I'll keep doing what I'm doing, but only more of it (try to throw some exercise in there and still keep away from the fat). I've been a little lenient on the cheese restriction, so I'll have to clamp down on that (pizza once a month and parmesean on some pasta as needed).

My HDL (good cholesterol) is low, and the nurse recommended that I eat more fiber to help get this score higher. I haven't seen too much information on fiber increasing HDL levels, so I'm not sure what her suggestion is founded upon. But more fiber isn't a bad thing, so I'll try to comply. And it probably wouldn't hurt to actually exercise, too (just writing about it doesn't seem to help); there is evidence that exercise alone can increase HDL levels.

But I also found some interesting information in an article from the National Business Review (not exactly a major source of health news, I know; emphasis in the quote below is my own):

A May 2001 study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, using subjects with high triglyceride levels, found a diet high in monounsaturated fatty acids and omega-3 fats was far more effective in producing a healthy blood fat profile than the more commonly advocated low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet.

After three weeks of the low-fat diet, serum triglyceride levels increased 63%, "bad" LDL cholesterol 19% and, most worrying of all, "good" HDL levels decreased 12%.

In contrast, after three weeks following a diet high in monounsaturated fats and [omega-3 fats], triglyceride levels dropped 63%, total cholesterol 22% and LDL levels 53% while HDL increased 8%.

Recently, numerous studies have examined the effect of adding nuts (rich in monounsaturated fatty acids) to a typical heart healthy diet. Using walnuts or pecan nuts in amounts as small as a quarter of a cup a day had produced significant positive changes to blood fats. By adding as little as 70g of pecan nuts to a low-fat high-carbohydrate diet the usual decline in protective HDL cholesterol was prevented. HDL levels actually increased 5.6%.

Looks like I should also re-focus some energy on what I'm eating. I'm going to do my very best to eat lots of beans, fruit, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, and soy.

I've obviously been able to reduce my triglyceride levels a significant amount by avoiding certain foods, and that was the easiest change in behavior for me. However, I still have some work in front of me, especially now that I know that the HDL score is low, too.

As a methodology, making a few small changes and adding others over time seems to be a good way of changing or altering my habits. If I had to give up cheese, fried food, plus exercise, and add/restrict other foods all at the same time, I think it would be too much for me and I would probably be setting myself up to fail.

Anyway, so far so good. Weight is coming off, I'm feeling good, and it looks like my blood profile is becoming healthier. Retest in 6 months.

Health Check Up

I haven't lost any weight in the last two weeks, but I also have been less strict about what I'm eating. For example, I had some pizza and (gasp) some cookies yesterday.

I've been trying to exercise more, and Renee and I have made a promise to each other to try and get out at least once on the weekend to go hiking, or biking or something. We did that yesterday (went on about a three-mile walk), and I was very tired and sore at the end of the day. Heck, I still am sore.

But tomorrow is my follow up appointment to get my triglycerides checked out. Hopefully I'll see an improvement!

Picture Update

All of the pictures from August are available for your viewing pleasure. Most of the pictures are from Papa and Mama Deb's visit...

Potty Training Graduation

Well ... it looks like Aidan has it all under control.

Last night the three of us were lying down in the grass watching the clouds go by. Sometimes Aidan would get up and run around, climb up the slide, jump on top of us, or ask us to chase him through the yard.

One time, Aidan ran back into the corner of the yard yelling for us to come chase him. But Renee and I stayed put, lazily watching the clouds. A few moments later I realized that I hadn't heard from Aidan. So I went into the corner of the yard, which is completely fenced in, and found nothing.

"Aidan's not here," I called to Renee. Panic started to swell up in both of us. "Go check inside," I told Renee and I started to look under the deck.

Renee did find him inside ... taking care of business. Apparently he got himself inside, went to the bathroom, sat on his little potty, went "poopie," and flushed it down the regular toilet all by himself. When Renee came inside, Aidan ran out of the bathroom without any pants on telling her, "I went poopie!"

Aidan Update

Dropping off Aidan at daycare is no longer an issue. In fact, most mornings, he will walk onto the playground without any concern for me and runs off without a care. Sometimes, as we are walking by his classroom on the way to the playground, he'll tell me "that's my classroom."

Of course, he still does have his moments. Earlier in the week he wouldn't let me go to work. But then suddenly his good buddy Silas showed up ... and I was no longer needed.

Aidan's potty training is still in session, but as we mentioned earlier, just for "making number two." He is doing much better with that lately, but he's still shy (or something) about using the potty for this particular task.

Aidan is two-years-old, however, so he can still be cantankerous at times. Aidan's Papa and Mama Deb (as she is now known) came to visit with us last weekend and Aidan was ... well, a little out of sorts. Aidan didn't want to get dressed sometimes, or go outside, or eat, or ... you name it. It was a bit of a power stuggle at times, but these are fairly short-lived, not lasting more than a day or so. At one point during their visit, Aidan didn't want to do anything and was saying "no" to everything.

Also, if you start to contradict him on something, or forbid a behavior/action, he'll get upset (not unexpected), but then he'll also tell you to "go away."

Yet we do seem to be pretty lucky as he can't be too grumpy for too long. Recently he's been quite an angel, which makes it that much more confounding when he does turn into a grump....

Ten Pounds Gone

[someone spammed my site and removed the first section of text here with a bunch of nasty link to other sites. I apologize to my readers for this and am now removing comments (and hopefully access to spammers) from all posts.

What follows below is all that remains of the original text.]

Yet somehow, (maybe it was that one trip to the pool?) I did manage to loose another two pounds (ten total). I wasn't particularly vigilant these last two weeks; I did have some pizza, and I think I did end up with a small amount of deep-fried tofu in one dish.

At least I'm still going in the right direction, at least in terms of weight loss; I only hope that my tryglicerides are also following suit.

We're going to try and get to the pool this week, but I do need to mow the lawn again (hopefully tonight and also maybe some more tomorrow night). But there's got to be an opportunity to exercise!

Four Years

Today is our fourth wedding anniversary. And guys, let me tell you, you get off easy for this anniversary. The traditional gift for the fourth wedding anniversary is .... flowers. If you can't pull this one off, I can't help you.

So, if you couldn't guess, that's what I got Renee for our anniversary. A big, huge bouquet. It's pretty nice, if I do say so myself. I also got a bottle of wine (a nice Côtes-du-Rhône from 2000, the year of our wedding), some angel's food cake (one of Renee's favorite) and some strawberries to go with them. Aidan thought the strawberries were a good idea, so he ate all of them; the whole pint. Well, he didn't eat all of them; he only ate the good parts. Every strawberry had the red tips bitten off. He was nice enough to leave the rest for us...

A lot has happened in the last four years. Some of it feels like it just happened yesterday... other things feel as though they occured in another life.

Some notable events in the last four years:

• We've been to Spain.


• We've been to Spokane, Washington.


• Renee's been to Germany.


• We've been to Florida (twice).


• We've sold a house.


• We've bought a house.


• I've been employeed with three different companies — and have been at one of them for almost three years.


• I purchased a new car. I mean a brand new car. First time ever for me.


• We've driven cross-country (in said new car).

Aidan's arrival is probably the biggest, most significant event in the last four years. This is one of those things that actually fits into both categories; imagining life before Aidan is like remembering back to another life, but I can still remember him in the hospital, minutes after he was born, as though it were yesterday.

No Sleep for the Funny

We have been having some difficulty getting Aidan to nap on the weekends. It could be that our routine is sufficiently different than the one he is used to at daycare, or that there's too much to do at home to slow down for a nap. It could be something else entirely. But whatever it is, we're going to have to figure out someway to get him to sleep.

The downside to his not napping is relatively obvious: he gets cranky and moody and by late afternoon he doesn't really have the energy to do too much.

For example, yesterday before dinner, Renee and I wanted to go swimming, but Aidan was too tired. We did our best to get him to the pool, but once we were there he was too frazzled to deal with the heat and the cold water, etc. So we went home. We were there for a grand total of about 10 minutes. Not exactly the refreshing trip to the pool that we were hoping for.

But there is an upside to no naps: comedy.

The three of us gathered around the table for dinner after our trip to the pool. Aidan was hungry. And tired. He was literally falling asleep at the table. In fact, he was doing his best to eat with his eyes closed. He would only occassionally open his eyes to make sure he was getting food into his mouth. And then his head would nod over to one side and then he would snap out of his sleep for a moment with that "what? me asleep?" look on his face.

Immediately upon finishing his dinner (and, oddly, he probably ate more at dinner last night than he normally does), he reached out across the table to Renee and — with his eyes still closed — whispered "up please, Mommy."

I don't think that we've ever been able to feed him and getting him to bed so efficiently....

Who is He?

I recently loaned a book to a friend that contains one of my favorite poems. As I just happend to have it in front of me (as the book has just been returned), I thought I'd take this opportunity to share it.

Who Is He?
What is he?
—A man, of course.
Yes, but what does he do?
—He lives and is a man.
Oh quite! but he must work. He must have a job of some sort.
—Why?
Because obviously he's not one of the leisured classes.
—I don't know. He has lots of leisure. And he makes quite beautiful chairs.
There you are then! He's a cabinet maker.
—No, no!
Anyhow a carpenter and joiner.
—Not at all.
But you said so.
—What did I say?
That he made chairs, and was a joiner and carpenter.
—I said he made chairs, but I did not say he was a carpenter.
All right then, he's just an amateur?
—Perhaps! Would you say a thrush was a professional flautist, or just an amateur?
I'd say it was just a bird.
—And I say he is just a man.
All right! You always did quibble.

— D. H. Lawrence

Potty Training Update

As any one who travels probably understands, using a strange toilet can sometimes cause a person to become ... backed up.

Well, for Aidan, all toilets are strange. He is using them quite well for urination, but he has not had too much success with anything else.

All-in-all, Aidan is doing very well with the potty training and one might even consider him a graduate of such training. We haven't had any accidents the last couple of days and the only day that had multiple accidents was the very first day, last Sunday.

The second day, Monday, was still fairly difficult. Aidan did have a poop accident in his underwear, which was sufficiently gross that Renee said that she was doing her best to suppress certain reflexes as she was cleaning it up.

Yet from that accident through all day Tuesday, Aidan never did a "number two" (he finally did accomplish this on Wednesday, at school). Throughout, we encouraged him to go and sometimes he would say that he was going to, but always to no avail.

One time, on Tuesday night, he calmly came in from the backyard, turned, found the doorknob, and closed the door. Then he turned to face us and then suddenly — almost out of nowhere — started running in place and gave us a look of consternation.

"Do you need to use the potty?" Renee asked.

"uh-huh," nodded Aidan.

"Okay. Let's hurry." Renee added, and Aidan ran off to the potty, flapping his arms, while repeating "hurry, hurry, hurry."

He was trying to go "number two" and Renee offered that when he completed his task at hand, he could have a piece of salt-water taffy. Of course, now that he knew the candy existed, he wanted it now and not later. So Renee offered that he could eat half of it while he tried to go and he could have the rest of it once he used the potty.

Aidan was happy with that, so he sat on the potty and chewed and chewed. However, he finished the first bit without actually using the potty. The second half of the candy was on the counter in the bathroom, all wrapped up.

"Me hold it," Aidan suggested.

"No, you can't hold it, sweetie," I told him. "You'll have to wait until you use the potty. You have to wait, okay?"

"Okay, " he replied.

I left him in the bathroom so he could have a little privacy and Renee was busy doing something else as well. Soon, we both heard the door close and the stool in the bathroom being moved.

After a few moments, I opened the door to check on him. When the door opened he had a startled look on his face, which quickly changed into a sly smile. There he was sitting on his potty with the candy.

"Me hold it," he said.

"Okay, fine. But you can't eat it. You have to wait until you use the potty. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Do you want Daddy to close the door?" I asked, thinking that privacy will help move his bowels. He nodded.

A few moments later, I heard Renee open the door to check on him.

"Mommy go away," Aidan quickly said. I heard Renee laugh. He was greedily eating what was left of the candy....

Diet Update

It's been a little over a month-and-a-half now since I've received the news about my high triglyceride levels. My basic strategy has been to limit my amount of fat intake by mostly focusing on eliminating cheese and deep fried food. Since doing so, I've lost about eight pounds but have seemed to have plateaued over the last two weeks, as I've maintained my loss of eight pounds.

The main goal here is to reduce my triglyceride levels, but there's no practical way of monitoring this on a frequent basis. I plan on going back to the doctor's for a new blood test in September, but until then the best I can do is use weight loss (which is also a good thing) as a way to measure progress.

To that end — and since I've plateaued in terms of weight loss — I'm going to have to change up what I'm currently doing.

Knowing how I am and what my habits are, when I learned that I needed to change my lifestyle for health reasons, I overtly choose to remove bad portions of my habits instead of adding new beneficial routines. That is, I was essentially prescribed to do two things: change my diet and exercise.

However, adding exercise to my routine has never really worked out for me in the past because my schedule can be so hectic and varied. I can never really depend on having any one moment available. As I've mentioned in other posts, mowing the lawn has been pretty much my sole means of exercise for some time.

But removing "bad" things, like cheese and deep fried food, was relatively easy and require no serious investment in time (other than trying to think of what I was going to eat).

However, now seems as good a time as any to try and add a little more exercise. Renee loves to swim and Aidan usually does (although the last couple of times we took Aidan to the pool he pretty much hated it). Hopefully, the three of us can go to the community pool and have fun together and then I can throw in a couple of laps to boot (Renee has also expressed interest in doing laps).

If we can do this three times a week, this will be a major boost to my activity and will hopefully contribute to additional weight loss (and help toward lowing my triglycerides).

Potty Training

So nap-time never really happened yesterday. Aidan was terribly grumpy much of the day and had a fairly complete melt-down before bed time. I guess we're still paying for all that fun we had the other day. However, after a full-night sleep, he was mostly back to his usual self.

Another reason for the lack of nap yesterday could have been because we were starting some serious potty training. During his brief nap yesterday he had a little accident, which woke him up, thus ending our only good opportunity (although we didn' t know it at the time).

Our technique for potty training is based on the idea that if Aidan knows that he's wet, he'll be more apt to want to use the potty. Therefore, as of yesterday (and henceforth), Aidan will only wear regular underwear (except at night; a diaper is still helpful in bed as we learned last night).

We stayed at home pretty much all day and let Aidan run around in just his underwear and a shirt. If he had an accident, it was relatively easy to clean up, especially on our tile floor (it's obviously more complicated on our carpet).

Yet there weren't really too many accidents. At least, not as many as I was expecting. There were four successful trips to the potty, four accidents, and numerous false alarms.

When he did have an accident, he didn't get too upset. He usually just told us that he needed to use the potty. But Aidan does get excited about using the potty and even for his false alarm trips, will proudly exclaim "I did it!" after he sits on the potty.

We bought about tweleve pairs of underwear for Aidan with a bunch of his favorite characters, such as Shrek, Nemo, Bob the Builder, and The Wiggles. Unfortunately, Aidan tends to get fixated on one thing at a time, so the only underwear that he wanted to wear yesterday was Shrek, thus limiting our choices.

Since we were home, it was relatively easy for us to keep up with all the Shrek underwear to pacify Aidan. So today, a day Aidan will spend most of his time at daycare, will be interesting.

Aidan's daycare actually encourages us to use them to help with the potty training, so his teacher, Mr. Michael, will be continuing with Aidan during the day. Yet he obviously doesn't have the ability to wash Shrek if he gets dirty, so hopefully Aidan doesn't give Mr. Michael a hard time.

With Mr. Michael's advice and help, we figure that by the end of the week (and maybe as early as a few days), Aidan will be completely out of diapers (with the possible exception of bedtime).

They grow up so fast!

Too Much Fun

We normally spend a good amount of our time on the weekend trying to catch up with all the house work that we neglected during the week. But this weekend, or at least yesterday, we decided to just have fun. But we may have had a little too much fun.

Our first stop was to go see Uncle Jeffrey at a coffee shop downtown. It was relatively early in the morning (we left the house around 9 a.m. to run an errand and then arrived at Little City around 10). We stayed there for about an hour and then headed out to Fredericksburg to get some fresh Texas peaches.

The drive to Fredericksburg is relatively long (about 90 minutes) and we were hoping that Aidan would take advantage of the trip and take a good long nap. However, he remained awake a lot longer than I was expected. He just sat there with a glazed look on his face, almost asleep, but refusing to surrender. Eventually he did capitulate.

We stopped at a farm, got our fresh produce, and almost immeadiately (and after about a 30-minute nap) Aidan woke up and said, "my want peach." So much for napping.

Aidan stayed awake for the entire trip back to Austin. By now it was about 2 p.m. and none of us really ate any lunch (besides a peach or two in the car), so we decided that we would stop at Serrano's on the way back into Austin and then go somewhere fun for Aidan, since he was bound (and awake) in a car seat for most of the day.

Around three o'clock we arrived at Radijazz, which is a large indoor playground is very child-proof so kids can do virtually anything they want. (The price of admission is $5 for one child for all-day admission; they also offer free Starbuck's coffee, so you can easily make your $5 back by driking two cups while you're there).

Aidan loved it. The whole thing and every thing. He was in heaven. He would climb onto things and jump. There were slides everwhere and a large "lava pit" that was like a huge pool filled with foam blocks that everyone — even adults — could jump into. We spent the rest of the day there. Three hours. Past dinner-time. Every attempt to leave resulted in a major revolt from Aidan. Rene and I were exhausted. Aidan was showing signs of exhaustion as well, but he wouldn't (or couldn't) leave.

The only way that we were finally able to get him to loose his grip on all the fun was by getting his hand stamped, which would allow him back into the facility later that day (nevermind that the facility was closing for the day; you can't tell Aidan everything).

He fell asleep in the car minutes into the ride home and remained asleep for the rest of the evening. Renee and I were concerned that, since he missed dinner, he was going to wake up hungry in the middle of the night. That didn't happen.

However, he did wake up really early. Considering that he fell asleep at about 6:30 and didn't eat any dinner, he did pretty well. Still, he woke us up around 5 a.m.

And now we're paying for all the fun we had yesterday. Aidan sort of napped today, but he's just now going down "for real" (the first nap lasted about 30 minutes). He's been moody; pleasant one minute, tired and grumpy the next. Hopefully, after nap, he'll be a new boy....

Picture Update

The July pictures are up and ready to be consumed. Most of the pictures are from the 4th of July (that feels as though it were ages ago?); apparently we didn't take many pictures since then (although there are a couple)....

First Night

Last night was Aidan's very first night away from his mother. Renee called us just as we were getting ready for bed. Aidan had another very lucid conversation with her and seemed to really enjoy the fact that she called. In fact, I think the phone calls from Renee (she called us twice yesterday and again this morning) have been really helping any anxiety Aidan might be having with Renee's trip.

Bedtime was one of the moments I've been anxious about since I learned about Renee's trip. He usually lets me put him to bed, but he also likes to connect with Mommy before he goes to sleep. Again, I think that phone call probably helped. And overall, he did pretty well; even better than I expected. But it was still fairly rough in spots. For example, he woke up crying at about 4:15 in the morning and started searching for his mom. He eventually fell asleep on the floor next to the bed for a few minutes before crawling back into bed with me. He awoke again about an hour later, but it was just a quick pop-up, look around, and then head on pillow.

Since he had some disturbed sleep, I let him sleep in this morning, although I did have hopes of returning him to school (and myself to work). But when he did awake (I sort of inadvertently woke him up by trying to change his clothes and diaper), he only wanted Mommy. But he soon realized that all he had was Daddy and that was going to have to work.

Aidan had been showing some signs of getting his appetite back yesterday, but he still had a cough. As of early last night, the fever seemed to be gone, although it was closing in on 100 again last night before bedtime. For some reason, perhaps his general good mood, I was hopeful that he'd be better today. But he hasn't eaten much so far and has also been somewhat lethargic. His temp seems like it's climbing back up, too. At this point, I'm not encouraged that he'll be able to return to school tomorrow. My biggest goal for the rest of the day is to get him to eat (and drink — he hasn't had many wet diapers) and for him to rest.

Hopefully we have a good night without Mommy; it's our last one. Tomorrow, we get to pick her up from the airport!

Going to California

Aidan and I dropped Renee off at the airport this morning. Renee is off to California on a business trip and will be gone for the next few days. This will be the first time that I will be with Aidan, just the two of us, for a substantial amount of time. I am both nervous and excited. But mostly nervous.

The original plan for today was for Renee and me to drop Aidan off at daycare first and then go to the airport. But Aidan's been sick with fever the last few days. Renee took him to the doctors yesterday and the doctor said there's a virus going around and Aidan will likely still be feeling the effects of the illness for the next couple of days. With that report, I arraigned to take off today and tomorrow from work. Thus the three of us were off to the airport.

On our way to the airport terminal the three of us got stuck in the parking garage elevator. We made it to the proper floor, but the doors didn't open. I used the call box in the elevator to call for help and we could see at least one person running to our rescue (the walls are mostly glass), however he was unable to do anything and motioned that it would be a few more minutes before someone else could arrive.

So we sat and waited. For some reason I decided to try and force the doors open. And they opened. It was quite effortless, actually. I don't think I have ever opened a door using less energy. Why I didn't attempt this earlier, I don't know; I guess I just figured that there was no way that I could possibly move those doors. Interesting lesson.

The three of us then walked into the airport terminal and Aidan and I escorted Renee to the security check-in. Actually, Aidan ran ahead of us and seemed to love the wide open spaces in the hallways (there weren't too many other travelers). Renee went through the security gate; Aidan and I waved goodbye to her. Well, I did anyway. Aidan wanted to get out of my arms and run around some more.

I focused Aidan's energy into running back to the car (we took the stairs this time). Even though I was officially home with Aidan because he was sick, I thought that he probably needed to run around. Especially with all the evidence that was displayed to me at the airport terminal. So I got Aidan into the car and offered to drive him to the park. Aidan didn't think it was a good idea. He refused to get into his car seat. Any and all alternatives I suggested were shrugged off.

Eventually he told me (actually he signed it to me) that he wanted to play at the airport. Right. I forgot how cool airports could be. So we got back out of the car and headed back to the terminal again (we took the stairs). Aidan ran up and down the length of the airport a couple of times and then we were finally good to go back to the car.

We headed out to the park and spent a good two hours there (about an hour-and-a-half on the swings) and then headed back to the house for lunch. Aidan almost fell asleep in the car, but I figured that wouldn't be a good idea for him to go to sleep without lunch.

As I pulled into the garage, Aidan let it be known that he, contrary to my own thoughts, shouldn't get out of the car. Okay. I unpacked the car and started bringing things into the house, figuring eventually he'll want to come in.

We did finally make it into the house, ate a little, played a little and then headed upstairs to go to sleep. I read several books to him and the next thing I knew, I was the one who was asleep. I know this because I was awakened by someone (that would be Aidan) knocking on the bathroom door, which he closed couldn't open. Interesting lesson.

Thus far, I've napped, Aidan hasn't. Renee called us around this time to let us know that she's arrived safely. Aidan seems to have one of his most lucid phone conversations ever and tells her most about our morning and also seems to be accurately answering some questions from Renee.

Soon after the phone call, I figure it's time to try and get this nap thing to happen. I offer Aidan three things: we can ride in my car, go for a walk in the stroller, or go for a ride on a bike. Usually any one of those would put him to sleep. The easiest for me would be to take him for a walk in the stroller, as there's less to prepare and it's relatively easy to get him in and out without waking him up.

Aidan, of course, chooses to ride the bike, which is probably the hardest of the three to pull off. There's a lot of preparation and I have never successfully pulled him off of the bike without waking him up.

Thus, I ignore his request and try to pull a switch; I pull out the stroller. But I pull out the jogging stroller, which has bike-like wheels. The downside here is that the bike-like wheels needed air, so I had to fill up three tires, which was more prep work than I was really expecting. But Aidan crawled into the stroller on his own accord and we were off.

Except that about fifty yards out of our driveway Aidan says, "me want go home an ride bike." Great. We head back to the house.

Of course both of the tires on the bike are flat, so I have to fill those with air, too. I get our helmets on, put the child-seat on the bike, everything’s ready and we head off. Aidan loves it. I hear him laughing as though he's riding a roller coaster. I figure there's no way that he's going to go to sleep like this.

I make one circuit of the development and take a glance over my shoulder; it looks as though Aidan may be falling asleep. I head back to the house to try and devise a plan to get him off the bike and into bed. As soon as I stop the bike Aidan sort of wakes up and in between his head rolling around and his eyes involuntarily closing he tells me to keep riding. At this point, I still don't know how to get him off and he's partially awake. I needed more time to think. I get back on the bike and do one more circuit.

This time when I get back to the house, Aidan is pretty much out cold. Except I still don't know how to get his helmet off, the seat-straps off, him out of the seat without waking him (or spilling the bike). His head is so wobbly at this point I figure that I can try to move Aidan's head so that he's looking into the sky, thus making it easier to undo the chin strap on the helmet. But I was wrong. It only made it easier to wake up Aidan.

Yet Aidan seemed to want the helmet off. He actually helps me get him off the bike. I successfully picked him up (without spilling the bike) and he put his head on my shoulder, wrapped his arms around my neck, and pats me. I bring him upstairs and lay him in bed. Much easier than I thought. And kind of fun, too.

Interesting lesson.

Mowing and Dragons

Aidan developed a fever last night. Renee thought he felt relatively warm as she was putting him to sleep and in the middle of the night it seemed to get worse. He eventually ended up with a 101.3 temperature. We gave him some medicine to keep the fever down and kept him out of school today. But other than the fever, he really hasn't shown any ill-effects; in fact he's been in a generally good mood.

Renee stayed home with him today and Aidan seemed to enjoy the company of his mom. We've been rather busy lately just doing "adult" things and such. I guess we just haven't been giving Aidan much attention. So having a sick day with mom was probably a good thing.

I headed off to work in the morning with the intention of meeting up with Renee and Aidan near my office so Renee could run an errand. However, as Renee was leaving she inadvertently left her keys on the kitchen counter and locked herself out of the house. Luckily, she had her purse and cell phone with her (and some snacks for the two of them). Renee called me and then the two of them hung out in the back yard playing and eating until I was able to let them in.

Since I was home for lunch (Renee wasn't able to run her errand after all), I thought I would stay. Aidan liked that a little too much, as he wanted me to stay home and play with him ("No Daddy go back to work," he said). I promised that I would play with him later and that we could even do one of Aidan's favorite things after work.

Aidan and Renee were waiting for me in their rocking chairs on the front porch, as they do from time to time. Aidan was very excited to see me and chased me all the way into the garage.

After dinner and at Aidan's insistence, we pretended to be dragons. We placed a dish towel over our shoulders (wings, I guess) and ran around the house, roaring like dragons and pretending to breath fire. It was loads of fun.

But the most-favorite thing was yet to come. Because of my allergies and asthma, mowing the lawn is a chore in the truest sense of the word. Renee and I have thought about hiring someone to mow the lawn for us, which would obviously keep me from suffering through the process and it would also give us more time on the weekend to do fun things together (it takes about two-and-a-half hours or so to mow, edge, trim and sweep, effectively killing a weekend morning). But Aidan really likes it when I mow. He really likes it. In fact, I don't think we could find an activity that would really satisfy Aidan as much.

So, I continue to mow the lawn and after dinner, that's exactly what I did. Aidan couldn't have been happier.

And to close the whole night out, I read Aidan to sleep. He, of course, wanted to read a story about fire-breathing dragons (he probably would have also accepted a story about mowing the lawn, but I don't think we have any books on that).

It was a pretty magical night.

Oh, Micki

There has been a slight change in our bedtime ritual lately. Aidan used to need us to stay in the room with him in order to fall asleep. Now, we just tell him that we'll be back in a few minutes to check on him, leave the room, come back a few minutes later (he is usually still awake), leave the room again, and he usually falls asleep on his own.

This has been quite liberating for Renee and myself, as we now have the evening to accomplish things that we weren't able to under the old bedtime paradigm (and we take advantage of this by doing fun stuff like balance the checkbook or doing the dishes).

Last night, Aidan put himself to sleep in our bed and he ended up on my side of the bed. Renee took her usual side and I ended up in the middle. At some point in the night, Aidan woke up and probably didn't like the sleeping configuration (he's quite particular about where things — and people — should be). Wanting the middle of the bed, he tried waking me up so we could swap places.

In a soft and sleepy voice, Aidan awoke me by saying, "Micki, Daddy. Micki." Which, of course, means "Excuse me, Daddy. Excuse me."

Eight Pounds Gone

Since my last update on my new dietary and nutrition habits, I have lost another three pounds, bringing the total number to eight.

As I mentioned in that previous entry, I've been doing this primarily by avoiding cheese (really, dairy in general) and fried food. I will still pan-fry food, so the limitation is really to deep fry. Also, I'm trying to make some other low-fat choices as well, such as not pan frying with butter.

I will have to admit that I did eat some pizza during the last two weeks, which is traditionally part of my company's quarterly kick-off meeting (it's not actually my company, but you hopefully know what I mean). Other than that, I don't think I intentionally "cheated." However, that one pizza-eating moment may explain why I only dropped three pounds during these two weeks as opposed to the five that I lost during the first two weeks.

More Frequent

Aidan is using the potty more frequently now. Friday, after nap, Aidan used the potty at school. This morning, after waking up with a dry diaper, used the potty before breakfast.

Five Pounds Gone

Since my physical (about two weeks ago) I've done my best to stay away from fried food and cheese (with the sole exception of a little bit of grated Parmesan on my pasta). I have also tried to choose low-fat options whenever possible.

As of this morning, it appears that I've lost five pounds! I have no idea how my triglyceride levels are, but the positive sign of weight loss is definitly encouraging.

A Funny Fourth

We had a fun and crazy Fourth of July weekend; the complete set of pictures will be posted at the end of the month, as usual. Instead, here's a sample of Aidan waving the flag on our front porch.

We spent a lot of time at several pools, tried to feed the ducks (although they were pretty much already fed by the time we got there), spent some time at the park and Aidan got to spend some quality time with Silas and the Sanders' Triplets.

Of course, we also went out to see fireworks. This was really Aidan's first time to see them (Aidan's first Fourth was spent in the emergency room, and last year he slept through the entire event). At first, Aidan was a little scared; it was obvious that he was breathing a little quicker. He also quitely mummbled "Aidan go home." But Renee was wonderfully soothing. Soon, Aidan was saying "Aidan like that one, that one, that one."

The fireworks were very well done and lasted about 25 minutes. I was quite impressed. However, the whole fireworks event was a little odd.

The event was put on by the Hyde Park Baptist Church. I guess they had some money to spend. Not only was the firework display quite phenomenal, they also passed out free ice cream sandwiches. And had free events like the Sock-Hop and a Moon Walk. They were also giving out free bottles of water and other treats like cotton candy.

All of this was over-the-top fun. However, as the saying goes, show me something that is being given away for free and I'll show you a long line. And lines, as we all know, are less than over-the-top fun.

Just prior to the fireworks, there was an emotional sermon given by what I presume is the church's pastor. A lot of what he said didn't sit very well with me. But, to each his own. Considering this was an event sponsored and paid for by Hyde Park Baptist, I did my best to pay attention.

Ultimately, it was a very fun evening. Both Aidan and Silas were having crazy fun wrestling with each other and eating watermelon. Next year should be even more fun!!!

Still, I do have to quibble, because I gotta be me. Some of the things the pastor stated were far from absolute truths.

The sermon was based upon the foundation that the United States of America was built on Christian principles. I think he was also trying to establish a premise that would (more or less) demolish the idea of "separation of Church and State."

Really, this whole debate is set upon interpretation and perceptions. For example, Article XI of the Treaty of Tripoli pretty much should put this whole discussion to rest as it states fairly blatently (and was ratified by the United States Congress):

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.

Yet this statement obviously hasn't pushed aside any pursuits in exploring ideas that perhaps the U.S. was still built upon Christian principles. So there must be room for interpretation there somewhere.

As part of the pastor's evidence of how intertwined Church and State really are, he began to go through a number of items, most of which are taken from an e-mail chain letter. You can take each and every one of those items and interpret them as you like, to support any idea that you wish.

But let's just takt a look at a couple of them. The pastor mentioned — and I'm fairly certain that I'm really close to quoting this verbatim:

As you enter the Supreme Court courtroom, the two huge oak doors have the Ten Commandments engraved on each lower portion of each door.

Ok. Perhaps. But here's another view from Snopes.com:

The doors of the Supreme Court courtroom don't literally have the "Ten Commandments engraved on each lower portion" — the lower portions of the two doors are engraved with a symbolic depiction, two tablets bearing only the Roman numerals I through V and VI through X. ... these symbols can represent something other than the Ten Commandments.

Such as the Bill of Rights (which are the first ten amendments to the Constitution).

The pastor also mentioned that all 50 states mention "God" in their state constitutions. This is true, yet it would seem to be a bit of a stretch to absolutely consider these mentions of the Christian God.

Colorado mentions "Supreme Ruler of Universe;" Delaware mentions a "Creator;" Hawaii mentions that they are "Grateful for Divine Guidance;" Iowa mentions "the Supreme Being;" Maine mentions a "Sovereign Ruler of the Universe;" Massachussetts mentions the "Great Legislator of the Universe;" etc.

None of these or even the ones that actually do mention "God" or "Almighty God" define the type of divinity. Only perception and interpretation does that.

The Day My Life Changed

[Some of you may remember this entry posted on another Web site. I thought it would be nice to archive it here...]

July 3, 1998. It was an overcast and rainy day; somewhat cool for Texas in July. I am from New England and sometimes I get nostolgic for wearing heavy clothes, so I made it a point to wear a blue hooded sweatshirt and jeans, even though it was probably 75+ degrees (F). 75 feels cool after a few days of 100 degree weather...

I was finishing up my last few semesters of college and signed up for summer classes and what I hoped would be relatively easy courses. I didn't have a job, since I was studying so much. I had signed up for summer classes in lieu of a much more prestigious endeavor; I was supposed to be in Belize, photographing some archeologists at a dig on some ancient Mayan site. It was going to be my senior thesis and pave the way for my doing other photo ethnographies. I should have been returning from my adventures in Belieze by July 3. However, things didn't work out for me; I was unable to embark on the journey and I lost out on all sorts of scholarships, etc. because I just couldn't get everything together in time. Perhaps I'll make it to Belize some other time...

Through several complicated moves, the previous three months or so had proven to be pretty rough; I was homeless for the month of April (well, I was able to couch-surf). By the beginning of May, I had moved out of a friend's place and moved into a cockroach infested/air condition deprived Co-op (the Sandia Co-op). I was stone-cold broke at this point and needed to find some work.

I finally found a job, as an extra on a movie set (the movie was Varsity Blues ); It was one of the hottest Mays on record; the tempurature was regularly over 100 degrees and I had no air conditioning. I was working from 6 PM to 6 AM. I had classes from 10 AM to 2 PM; I slept until 5:00 or so and then went off to work. I was hot, exhausted, and virtually brain dead; my studies suffered.

Then came July. I had finished the first summer session in unspectacular fashion. I had a short break from classes; essentially just the July 4 weekend, classes resumed July 6. The job had ended, so I could go back to some sort of regular sleeping pattern. But, on this rainy July 3, my friend Christine called me up to go see a band. I had never heard of them before, it was raining, and I was tired. I really wasn't in the mood to go. But I also had nothing better to do; I acquiesced.

By the time we got there, the band had already started. It was still raining out and the club had the air conditioner on; the cold air on my wet skin made me glad I had my sweatshirt on. We found a couple of seats on the side of the small cafe/bar and started to watch the band. Soon, Christine got up to go to the bathroom; then again to smoke a cigarette outside; once again she got up to get another beer. It was during one of Christine's absences that I noticed someone sitting at the table next to me. She was very beautiful and it was hard for me not to stare at her. She was with several friends, so I figured that I would only be able to appreciate her from afar.

The band decided to take a break, and so did Christine; I guess another cigarette had to be smoked, or she was in need of bladder relief. Either way, I was, again, left alone at the table. One of the beautiful girl's friends must have noticed this (and/or my staring at the beautiful girl) and invited me over to their table. We introduced ourselves and almost started a conversation, but the band started up again... it's hard to talk over a good band.

Christine eventually came back and I went and sat with her. The beautiful girl got up and went to the back of the club (for what, I wasn't sure), so I decided that I would follow... under the disguise of needing another beer. She, too, got another drink, although I think it may have been water. She started to sway to the music. I watched and sipped a Guiness. Eventually, she went back to her seat. So did I.

The band finished its set and Christine went up to the stage to say hello to the singer, whom she apparently knew. The club was relatively quiet now, as people were filing out to go home... I was still siting at my table, waiting for Christine. The beautiful girl and her friends were still sitting at their table talking about something; I overheard a little bit of it and it made me laugh. They soon included me in their conversation and we followed some strange, convoluted, inebriated storytelling; I can't even remember what was said. Soon, there were just four of us in the club, sitting around the table telling our stories: Christine, myself, the beautiful girl, and her friend Johnny. It was very late (sometime after 2 AM) and we all decided that we were hungry and decided to meet at a restaurant on Kerby Lane. Johnny had no idea where that was, so we did our best to give him directions...

Christine was riding with me and on the way to the restaurant, she decided that she didn't want to go. Since her place was on the way to the restaurant, I dropped her off. I eventually got to the restaurant; the only one there was the beautiful girl...

We were seated, saving a space for Johnny, and proceeded to order... she couldn't make up her mind what she wanted; I asked her if she was a Piscies (indecision being a trademark characteristic of Piscies... I should know. I am one). She said yes.

Our food came and we ate and made nervous conversation. Johnny never showed. It was still raining out and I walked her back to her car. She opened her car door and sat down in the drivers seat, her legs still outside the car.

"If I gave you my number, do you think you will call me?" I asked. She said yes. She reached into her car and pulled out a pencil and paper. It was still raining and it was hard to make my name and number clear. She gave me her number too.

She stood up, perhaps to shake my hand, maybe to give me a hug. I am usually to indecisive; choosing between two options is usually more problematic for me than taking the only option. So I chose one and stuck to it. I kissed her. She may have been shocked, but she kissed me back. It was still raining.

Six years later, this beautiful girl is now my wife...

Picture Update

I've uploaded new pictures to the Web site. Most of them are of Aidan dancing at the wedding; there are also some pictures from our visit to the San Antonio zoo ....

Time for Bed(lam)

The most crazy part of the day for us is quite probably bed time. Since Renee and I both work, it is possible that other times in the day could potentially be more crazy. Yet, as one friend pointed out, if the kids didn't need to eat and sleep, this parenting thing would be a lot easier.

We normally try and start Aidan's bedtime routine around 7:30 p.m., although it sometimes starts later than that. Here's a rough approximation of how things go:

7:30 Start Bath.
This usually is one of the easier items on the list as he really likes to play in the water. It gets exponentially more difficult the more he associates "bath" with "bed." Thus, the trick here is to try as hard as possible not to associate the bath with the bed.

7:45 End Bath. Get Dressed.
Getting Aidan out of the bath can sometimes be tricky, since he does like it so much and, as I mentioned, bedtime is pretty much right around the corner. Drying him off is usually a challenge as well. So is putting his diaper on. And his clothes. Sometimes it is amazingly simple; just ask him to put his clothes on and he'll cooperate. More frequently, he'll dance around the room and jump on the bed and get all worked up. This, of course, is the opposite of calming down, a necessary component of going to sleep.

7:50 Brush Teeth.
As most toddlers like to immitate what they see, we as parents need to be mindful of what we do in front of our kids. That's why both Renee and I will try and brush our teeth with Aidan. However, as Aidan does like to mimick a lot of what we do (see "mowing the lawn"), he definitely puts up a fight when it comes to brushing his teeth. On any given night, you could see a Keystone Cops-type chase in our bedroom with either Renee or myself chasing after Aidan with a toothbrush. At the moment, the best strategies that I've come up with are:

• Allow Aidan to brush my teeth after he lets me brush his. This is one of the more successful ideas that I've ever had, at least in terms of negotiating with a toddler.


• Let Aidan know that the teeth brushing will only last until the count of ten. Basically, I'll tell Aidan that I'll brush his teeth while I count to ten, and then I'll stop. This sometimes works, however Aidan will occasionally tell me to stop counting (and stop brushing) or he'll tell me to count faster (admittedly, I'll count as slow as I need in order to get the job done).


• Renee likes to tell him what foods he has eaten that day (and are still on his teeth).

8:00 Read a Book. Or Two. Or Three. Or None.
This part of the process has changed a lot over time. Sometimes Aidan likes it when we read some of his books (current favorite is The Dragon Machine). Other times he just likes to hear me read to him from any book. In the recent past, this meant that Aidan would snuggle with his mommy in bed while I read from the entire "Lord of the Rings" books. Other times he just isn't in the mood for a book, but isn't ready to fall asleep either, so we'll let him do some other calm activity. Basically, the goal here is to help Aidan wind down from the exciting frolic that is part of getting dressed and brushing teeth.

8:15 Go to Sleep.
This, too, is a rough time, based on how well any of the previous items went. All three of us sleep together (family bed-style), although Aidan has lately been choosing to sleep in his own room, if only for a little while. At some point, after brushing teeth or after books, Aidan will walk into his room, or he'll make himself comfortable in our bed. Regardless of where Aidan wants to sleep, the ending process is pretty much the same.

On the easy nights, Aidan is fast asleep by 8:30 and he pretty much drifted off by himself, with maybe a little counting or singing to coax him.

However, the counting and/or singing can go on for quite some time on the more difficult nights. The other night, it took until about 8:50 for him to fall asleep by this method.

On the truly difficult nights, both Renee and I are required to soothe him and it requires all of our powers of concentration to keep him in the bed (he likes to scurry out of the bed on these nights and tries to go back downstairs). He'll also scream and kick and cry about needing to go back downstairs or wanting Mommy or Daddy back. Last night, we thought we finally had him down to sleep. It was 9:06. As soon as Renee and I got back downstairs, he woke up and started to cry for us. It was about 9:20 before he was asleep for the night.

Most of the Aidan stories regarding bedtime usually come from this last step. Not only can this stage be incredibly frustrating, it can also be incredibly fun. On more than one occasion Renee and I have had to suppress laughter as to not encourage Aidan's little trick he was doing to avoid sleep. One classic example is while we are next to him in bed, he'll try to pat both of our backs so we can go to sleep, too.

Another example: Aidan wanted to sleep in his room, so we did most of the above ritual in his room; his mommy was downstairs taking care of other things. It was a slightly prolonged ritual, as Aidan was fighting off sleep as best he could. Just as he was about to drift off, he started to cry, "want Mommy back." So I picked him up and brought him into our bed. He had a big sleepy smile on his face as I put him down and I could tell right away that he could smell Mommy in the pillows. He fell asleep in about two seconds.

Little Drummer Boy

Today was the first day back to work for Renee and myself. We were both pretty anxious about it and each developed a tension headache before we even left the house.

I was a complete mess and proved to be physically inept as I tried to prepare breakfast. In fact, I completely ruined our blender as I was trying to make a smoothie, which is really a difficult thing to do (ruining a blender is difficult to do, not making a smothie).

Over the past couple of days, Renee and I have been able to spend time with each other talking about the preceeding events and how it affected us. We also spent some time watching movies and going to the park with Aidan.

Yesterday we cleaned up the room that was going to eventually be the new nursery and turned it into a hobby room of sorts. We set up my drums and cleared out the clutter and let Aidan at it. It's become a near obsession for him; the drums seem to be pretty much the coolest thing on the planet.

All of this has been really helpful for Renee and I; we gave the room a definite purpose and made everything comfortable enough for us to freely talk about everything. The downside to this, if there is one, is that home became very comfortable. So, when it came time for us to head off to work today, we were heading way out of our comfort zone. Thus the tension headaches from this morning.

However, fears aside, it was a completely tolerable day.

Change of Diet

I had a physical last week; it's the first physical that I've had in a very long time (I can't remember when I had my last one). Everything is pretty much good and under control; here are the highlights:

• I've been diagnosed with asthma. This usually becomes an issue for me while (or after) mowing the lawn. Since this is my primary means of exercise, I don't really want to give up mowing the lawn, so the doctor prescribed an asthma inhaler for me, as well as some other allergy-type medicine. The asthma itself is pretty mild, so this should help and allow me to continue mowing the lawn. However, we can step up the treatment if necessary and upgrade to a steroid inhaler, but that'll be a future decision made on how things work out.
• My blood test came back with everything at very good levels (my cholesterol is about 146). However, I do have an issue with triglycerides, probably due to the amount of fried food and cheese that I eat. (My triglycerides came back at over 400 mg/dL; normal levels should be at or under 150 mg/dL.) However, since my triglyerides were so high, they really couldn't expect to get a very accurate reading of my cholesterol.

Thus, I'm going to make a conscious effort to eliminate fried food and cheese from my diet and eat as low fat as I possibly can. In addition, I'll need to make sure that I have more reasonable portions (as opposed to super-sized portions) and I'll try to fit in a little more exercise and then get my triglycerides tested again in September.

My vegetarian diet has probably served me pretty well in terms of cholesterol and triglycerides; adding meat to the equation would be yet another source of fat that would have to be monitored and, knowing me, would have contributed a few unneeded trips to the fast-food places. Some low-fat diets also recommend fatty fish, since they are high in omega-3 fatty acids, which is considered "good" fat. Flax seed oil is also a very good source of this, and I usually include some flax seed oil in my smoothies; I guess I'll just be more diligent about how much and how frequently I use it.

The ABCs of Sleep

As I was trying to put Aidan to sleep last night he started to sing his alphabet. He did the entire bit, right through to the concluding "now I know my ABCs, next time won't you sing with me." It was very impressive, so I applauded and said, "good job, Aidan. That was well done."

Then he said, "Daddy turn."

So, I sang my alphabet song. When I finished, Aidan said, "good dob, Daddy," and he clapped for me. "Now Aidan turn ting, Daddy turn dob."

I wasn't really too sure what he said, so when Aidan finished singing the song, I just sat there waiting for further instruction.

"Daddy clap," was the command. So I clapped and said "good job."

Then Aidan said, "Daddy ting." And so it went for several cycles of one of us singing the alphabet and the other applauding the other's efforts. It was all very fun, but really too exciting to foster an environment of rest.

Eventually, I was able to loose Aidan's near-obsessive grasp on the alphabet and I was able to use simple math (I counted) to put him to sleep....

Transition Update

Aidan had his best drop off at school since his return from sabbatical. Renee dropped him off this morning, which may have been one reason for the chance, but maybe Aidan is just getting more comfortable?

Bob Mato

Aidan doesn't watch a lot of broadcast television; he does watch his fair share of TV in general, however most of the shows that he watches are on VHS or DVD.

One of his favorite shows is Veggie Tales, which is mostly a Christian morality show hosted and acted out by vegetables. It is really terribly clever and usually well done. Bob the Tomato hosts the show with his friend Larry Cucumber.

While on our trip to Florida, Aidan would lament that he couldn't watch Veggie Tales and would do his best to sing the theme song, which he is actually quite good at. So, while we were on the road, Aidan saw a logo on a restaurant that consisted mainly of a tomato. Aidan excitedly pointed to it and exclaimed, "Bob Mato!"

This has now extended to the kitchen, where if Aidan sees a tomato (even a chopped up tomato), it is Bob Mato. For some reason (perhaps because of Mr. Mato's tasty nature), Aidan doesn't seem to feel any remorse for eating Bob Mato.

San Antonio Boogie

We made a little road trip down to San Antonio for the weekend to attend a wedding for one of Renee's co-workers (congratulations to Denise and Phillip!). It was a very fun time for us, but the high point of the entertainment (at least for us) was watching Aidan on the dance floor. The kid loves to boogie.

Aidan was all dressed up in his Sunday best, complete with tie and what he likes to call his "mowing shoes." (I was mowing the lawn one weekend and usually change my shoes before I start, which have been dubbed my "mowing shoes" by Aidan. A few weekends ago, after I had mowed the lawn, we went out to get some clothes for Aidan for the wedding. We bought him some new shoes, which Aidan was excited about, mostly because he thought that they were his special "mowing shoes.")

The reception started out with Aidan just running in circles on the dance floor, since the bride and groom hadn't yet danced their first dance and there wasn't too much "real" dancing going on just yet. Once the music starting going, Aidan was all wound up and ready to go. At one point, the photographer came up to me and asked if it was okay to steal some of Aidan's dance moves....

Getting Better

Things looks like they're getting better with Aidan at daycare. He still gets upset when I drop him off in the morning, but he seems to be getting over it quickly and accepts the routine of the day a little better than before. Aidan seems to be feeling more comfortable with one of his teachers (Michael), and the consistency of having Michael in the classroom all week seems to be a major step in the right direction.

Still, he is somewhat moody and he's even recently been moderately difficult at home. However, the mostly likely reason for his behavior at home isn't necessarily because of daycare trauma, but because his two-year molars are coming in (or, perhaps, some combination thereof). From other antecdotes from other parents of two-year olds, this is likely to last some time and probably won't be a completely easy transition, regardless of how daycare works itself out....

Aidan's Transition

Aidan's transition back to daycare has been very hard. Last Tuesday was his first day back and as I mentioned in an earlier post, Aidan's friend Silas has been trying to help Aidan through the transition.

However, Aidan is still having difficulty adjusting. The last few days that I've dropped him off in the morning, he'll usually say something like "Aidan no stay; Aidan go home." Heartbreaking stuff.

We have also heard from his teachers; when he goes down for nap after lunch (usually around noon-time), he'll stay on his mat for the rest of the day (maybe until 4:30 or so). They have also said that he really hasn't been eating too much. His teachers have taken his temperature, but he's never really had a fever (it usually registers at about 99 degrees).

By the time he gets home, he is usually in a very good mood and shows no side effects of the day, although he'll sometimes tell us that "Aidan cried at school."

We're not sure what to do at this point. We have given him a teddy bear, so he can have something from home with him while at school, and we've been reading Caillou-Day Care to Aidan pretty regularly and he seems to enjoy it (he even asks for us to read it to him).

We've also been trying to give him as much routine as we possibly can, with nightly baths and dinner at a regular time and such. But he hasn't been able to get too much routine from school, as teachers have been switching out because of vacations. And there are other events that can change up the routine; it was raining outside today, so instead of being dropped off outside in the playground as we normally, we had to do it inside, and in a "new" classroom (not Aidan's usual classroom).

Renee and I are trying to figure this out. One suggestion is to maybe try a new environment; start him at a new school. But that will take him from his friends and any routine that he might currently have. Aidan doesn't seem to dread the act of "going to school," meaning he gets into my car every morning fully aware of where we are going. It's just at the physical place that he starts to get upset, even more specifically at the moment that I am going to leave.

Ugh. He was liking school before the sabbatical, so I know that he can like it again. It's just so painful to watch him go through this adjustment and I'm not sure how we can make it easier for him....

Endagered Species: Cell Phones Without a Camera

My cell phone is on it's last legs. I've had it since 1999 or 2000. Renee and I got our phones at exactly the same time and hers just broke. She got a new one, which is pretty nice, but it's not exactly what I'm looking for. I spent some time recently trying to find my perfect phone; however it looks like the phone I want doesn't exist.

The odd thing is, the phone that I want isn't some super-magic phone that would require lots of new, cool technology. A stronger signal would be nice. But that would really be the only enhancement that I would desire; at this point, since I've already bought into the system, I've been brainwashed to accept the signal strength I'm given and not ask for more...

I'm currently with Sprint and I don't want to leave (cuz I'll have to pay through the nose to get out). So, for the moment (and/or the next two years or so), I'm stuck looking at Sprint PCS phones, which may be a major factor in my inability to find the right phone. What I want is the following:

• clam-shell design
• caller-ID viewable while phone is closed
• calendar
• NO camera

Any other additional features are acceptable. Anything less would be unacceptable. The Samsung VGA 1000 and the Sanyo 8100 have everything I want, but they also have the camera, so they're out of the running...

The Motorola V60v looks promising, except that I can't find it anywhere besides on the Sprint PCS web site, and I don't trust buying a phone without trying it out first.

And, of course, all the reviews for the above mentioned phones are mixed; any one of those phones may be the best phone or the worst phone, depending on which reviewer you decide to believe....

So, does anyone know where I can find this mythical phone?

Aidan P. & the Lil Munkin

Yesterday, Renee and I took Aidan for a walk around the neighborhood. During the walk we talked about Renee's doctor's appointment and the new little munchkin that's on the way. For the rest of the walk, Aidan was jumping around and singing "lil munkn, lil munkin. lil mun-KIIIIIIIN! munkin. munkin."

The entertainment around here is priceless.

Today, as Renee was getting Aidan ready for his nightly bath, Aidan used the potty for the very first time! He even flushed it himself.

We're all terribly excited and I'm sure that when Aidan is old enough to read this entry, he'll likely be terribly embarrassed....

Due Date

The official due date has been confirmed with a sonogram: January 8, 2005.

Today was Renee's first doctor's appointment and both Renee and the baby are fine. All the measurements done at today's appointment indicate that the baby is about 8 weeks along.

The next appointment is June 30....

Last Day of Summer?

Renee's sabbatical is over (boy, can two months go by quickly or what?) and her first day back to work is today, as is Aidan's first day back to day care; neither were terribly excited about it. I could sense a little bit of apprehension from Aidan as I was dropping him off, but he was mostly doing pretty well. Renee called to check up on him and they said that he was doing well, with occasional bouts of panic.

During these bouts, Aidan would ask for Renee or myself. But Aidan's good friend Silas was there with him, telling him "Nay-nay, Pattu come back."

Yesterday, we celebrated our last day of summer (and the first day of summer by most other accounts) by heading out to Schlitterbahn. We went with Silas and Kathryn and had a lot of fun, mostly hanging out in the kiddie pools. But we did have a moment or two of adventure as a hail storm moved through the area. The storm must have been centered right over us, because the thunder was incredibly loud. Apparently there was a lightning strike or two in the area...

Picture Update

The pictures are up! This month's pictures include images from Grandma Jackie and Dad-Daddo's visit as well as a little trip to the park with the Sanders' Triplets to feed the ducks...

Dad-daddo and Jackie

Aidan's Grandpa Bob (aka Grandadoo, or as Aidan says it, Dad-dadoo) and Grandma Jackie are going home tomorrow. They spent the last few days with us and we had a blast.

Sunday was spent entertaining the two moms (Renee and Jackie), as it was Mother's Day. I made them my "famous" waffle breakfast and watched one of Renee's all-time favorite movies.

Tonight, Aidan entertained his grandparents for us while Renee and I got to go out to one of our favorite restaurants (Fonda San Miguel).

The visit was very fun (and fairly short) and, unfortunately, we didn't get a chance for many photo opportunities. But I have a bunch of pictures from April that I still need to share with everyone, so look forward to a picture update one of these days....

A Visit from the Grandadoo

Aidan's Grandadoo and Grandma Jackie are in town for a visit; they flew in last night from Connecticut and will be staying through next Wednesday.

Today's adventures included a hike in the Barton Creek Greenbelt and a trip down to Gruene, Texas; we had dinner at the Gristmill and played a game of horseshoes before dinner.

Picture Update

We are supposed to be camping this weekend. However, the weather took a turn for the worse and we decided against going. I was able to get my new hiking boots before we left; they are probably one of the best boots that I've ever owned, although at this point it's a little early to give them this title.

So, since I have all this "free time" (i.e., since we're not camping), I thought I would take advantage and publish all of the pictures that Renee brought home with her from New Jersey!

Enjoy.

Picture Update

Pictures are up and mostly contain images from Aidan's second birthday party.

Aidan's Two-Year Check up

Aidan just had his two-year check up today (a few weeks later than he should have because he was in New Jersey for most of the month).

His official weight: 27.5 pounds

Height: 35 inches

Apparently, people are generally half their adult height when they are two years old; this means that Aidan should be about 5 foot 10 inches — a full inch taller than his dad...

How Was Your Weekend?

Jeff (Aidan's godfather) regularly does sound for a club here in Austin and this weekend he needed a little help. Since Aidan and Renee were out of town, I had nothing but time on my hands, and I was happy to volunteer....

Over the last couple of years or so, Jeff has been pretty active in the local music scene, even acting as the road manager for a relatively popular band. As such, Jeff has been able to travel and visit many part of the country and has meet a lot of other people who do the same.

A couple of months ago, someone that Jeff knows called him up, asking for a favor. They were bringing a band out on tour and needed a venue in Austin. They originally tried to get Emo's; however the whole affair was put together too late and Emo's was already booked for the night that they needed. Jeff hooked them up at the Ritz.

It turns out that the band — in this case bands — were out on tour in support of their own albums, but also in support of one of their major sponsors, Look-Look Magazine. The tour was called the Youth Invasion Tour 2004. In addition to the bands, there were support people/items, such as promotional banners, tables full of free t-shirts/magazines, etc. There was also a documentary team. And they all arrived in a 15-passenger van hauling an Airstream trailer.

The first band that was to go on, Hawnay Troof, consisted of one small little guy, very petite and for the most part he seemed pretty laid back. Neither Jeff nor I really knew what kind of music he played and we were both oddly impressed when, after his sound check, he sounded both more mature and interesting than his apperance first let on.

The second band, and the headliners for the evening, a band called Electocute and consists of two 18-20 year old grrls (I'm not too hip to that term, but that's that's about as accurate a description as there is), did their sound check and it, too, seemed fairly compelling. And then, of course, there was a local band to round out the evening; the drummer was good friends with Jeff, so we were already looking forward to their performance. It seemed like it was going to be a pretty fun evening...

At around 11:30, Hawnay Troof went on. Suddenly, he transformed from a small, very petite little "boy" into a scrawny, anxiety-filled, spastic ball of energy. His voice went up about two octaves as he screamed his vocals through the microphone and jumped around the stage — and off the stage, dancing around the few people in the audience that were brave enough to approach.

The new MC Scrawny jumped up and hit the lights that dangled low from the 50-foot ceilings. Then he jumped up on pool tables and anything else that was available to him.

This was enough to get the Ritz management a little concerned. The manager calmly walked over to Jeff and told him that he needed to get Crazy Boy under control. Jeff, in turn, informed the bands' tour manager, Casey. For the duration of the next song, Casey could be seen following MC Scrawny/Crazy Boy trying to set things right. But there was no way that Casey could whisper in his ear "hey, calm down a little." That would be like trying to whisper sweet nothings into the ear of a bucking bronco.

Instead, an employee of the Ritz approached the stage in an effort to instill some sort of civility by his mere presence. Hawny Troof probably saw it as an opportunity to get the crowd involved. Crazy Boy (who will now be known as Really Crazy Boy) put his arm around Machismo Man and said something to him in a very fast and high pitched voice. Machismo Man, which is arms folded in front of him, looked at Really Crazy Boy and then said into the mic, "get the f**k away from me. Right now."

Really Crazy Boy understood the moment — but for only a moment. He got up on stage and said that it was all cool. He loved everyone there and that it was alright. And he continued to talk about it for the next minute or so. But as he continued on, his voice almost seemed to drip with sarcasm. Perhaps. I honestly don't know. There was no doubt, however, that he could have let it drop after a couple of mentions and that every mention of their "confrontation" thereafter was becoming increasingly uncomfortable for people, myself included.

And that's when the manager of the Ritz came over to Jeff and motioned for the sound to be shut down. This "band" was done. One of the grrls from Electrocute came over to the soundboard where Jeff and I were (the Ritz manager had by this time gone back to other things) and was deeply disturbed about Hawnay Troof being shut down. "We won't go on if he can't continue," she threatened. That was fine by me and I think Jeff felt the same...

Anyway, after some introspection, Electrocute decided to go on. And the very first thing that they did? "I can't belive you don't like our friend," one Electocute said into the mic. "He loves everybody. You all have small dicks."

Jeff and I pretty much knew what was going to happen next. In fact, if Electrocute stopped right there, everything would have been fine ... but that's not what happened. In between every song (and sometimes during a song), they continually harassed the audience in that same taunting way.

During one song, one Electrocute got into a sort of "cat-pounce" stance, did a little Uma Thurman type glance with her eyes, licked one of her fingers and then jumped up to very gently tap one of the lights — the very lights that Really Crazy Boy had been messing with just a few moments before.

Both Electrocute grrls then began to climb on stuff, most notably a pool table and the back bar, which was closed. Oh, did I mention they were wearing spike-heeled shoes? And what happend next (like you don't know).... The manager of the Ritz comes on over, tells Jeff to shut them down, and just as it happens, both grrls jump up and down and hoot and holler like they just won a prize....

And then ... that's right, the story's not finished yet ... the management decides that neither of these road bands can stay. They both have to leave. Now. So, as the soundman's sidekick, I do my best to help out. I get my car, drive it down the back alley and help them load their stuff and drive it off to their Airstream, which is a good half-mile or more away.

Upon my return to the Ritz, I ask Jeff if I missed anything, fully expecting that the local band would have behaved very well, especially with the understanding of all that happened that night.

"They threw all the chairs; broke a couple I think," was Jeff's reply. I thought he was kidding; however, as I started to look around, I noticed that virtually every chair in the Ritz was turned over in front of the stage.

The manager came over at this point, not quite ready to pull the plug on yet another band, but waiting patiently for another slip up.

That's when the singer from the band tried to wear the chairs as boots; he put his legs through the rungs of the legs and walked around with the chairs on. That was enough, and the plug was pulled; a perfect 3-for-3!

And that was my Saturday night. By the time Jeff and I cleaned up, packed up all of the equipment and made it back home, it was about 4:00 a.m.

I haven't done anything like that in years. Not sure when I'll be going out on the town again, but whenever it is, I'm pretty sure it won't be quite as exciting...

A New Look

Well, I finally decided to push it across. The new site design is now up and fairly functional. I'm still trying to put a few new features into the archives section (the date archives mostly work properly — although I want to be able to make the calendar reflect the month of the displayed entries and I'll be adding some additional navigation to that area, also).

Other things that need to be addressed (and will be, some day):

• the category archives (they still link to the old site design)


• the images page needs ... images; doesn't get any more basic than that (and it doesn't get much more time consuming, either)

There are a couple of other bell and whistles that I want to add, but to be honest, I can't think of them at the moment; the plan was to go to bed early tonight ... instead I find myself publishing the redesign in the wee hours of the morn.

That's OK, though. I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't fun (and somewhat addicting)... :)

Trip to NJ; Site Redesign

Renee and Aidan have arrived safely in New Jersey and will be spending the next week or so visiting the family back east. Renee has the camera with her, so hopefully we'll have some pictures to share when they get back.

I have tons of things planned for myself while they are away. The things on my list that you may notice (when complete) include finishing archiving all the old entries from the old site into this new format and I'm also working on a brand new look-and-feel for the site as well....

Thus, there may not be many new entries going up soon. However, if you're looking for something to read, there will be plenty of entries from the last year or so for you to read, including some never before read entries (some of them only kept on paper journals up to this point)...

And, as I mentioned, hopefully by next weekend there will be a brand new look to the Web site (and I'll clean up all the old broken links and make everything look "cohesive").

Until then... you'll just have to endure lame entries like this one.

So Much To Do

We've been neglecting to update the Web site, but that doesn't mean that things haven't been happening... Aidan had his second birthday on April 3. We had it at our house with about 25 people (10 of them were about 2 years old), which made Renee and I a little anxious. However, in the end, it all worked out really well. I think all the kids had a lot of fun. We took a lot of pictures and I hope to have them uploaded to the site soon.

To that end, I am also in the midst of building a new computer for the house, so all manner of computer actions (e.g., uploading pictures to the Web site) have come to a complete halt, at least for the moment.

Renee has just started her sabbatical and is mostly enjoying her time off (she says that it doesn't yet feel like a vacation). She and Aidan will be leaving for New Jersey next Thursday, which will hopefully help with the "vacation" feeling...

While they are gone, I will be here in Austin, working. Not everyone gets 8 weeks of vacation :)

To that end, I hope to get some much-needed changes done to this Web site, as well as upload and re-organize the pictures, etc. while they are in New Jersey.

Anyway, that's a quick update of what's going on here in Austin, TX. Pictures coming soon....

Off for two months

My sabbatical has started! I am off for the entire months of April and May. What a treat. Today, Aidan and I had a playdate with the triplets, tomorrow we are going walking with Angie and on Saturday we'll be having a birthday party with 10 two-year olds. Whew, it is busy already.

No really, I plan on spending the time enjoying Aidan. We'll practice our numbers and letters and hopefully get in some swimming. During naptime each day I'll be sure to take some time for myself. I've already started my first book of the break. Now I am off to read it.

Congratulations Jesse and Brandy

It has been announced that my good friend Jesse is recently engaged!

Jesse and I originally met in 1999 while we both worked for the same company (a company that monitors pharmacutial studies). Jesse quit there before I did, but while we were there, we learned a lot about HTML and wanted to try and turn that into some sort of "career." I soon learned about an opportunity to do just that, and we both went to a .com startup in 2000 and that's where he met his future bride, Brandy.

Congratulations to both of them!

On a personal note, Jesse asked me to be his best man, which — of course — I was honored to accept. Their wedding will be in April 2005.

New Pictures Are Here

Better late than never, right? We've finally uploaded some pictures. I think two of them are from January, the others are from February, and capture the bit of snow that we had on Valentine's Day. A lot of these pictures aren't very good, as the quality of our camera seems to be fading fast (as if you haven't read that here a hundred times already). You can check out all of the "new" pictures in the photo gallery (which needs an overhaul, by the way). The picture you see on the right is from said Valentine's Day, which also featured a trip to see Sesame Stree Live! Aidan was very happy to meet Elmo. However, Elmo seemed a little ... well, vacant.

Anyway, the image quality issue is all going to be rectified very soon with the purchase of a new camera!

One of the reasons we're upgrading to the new camera (in addition to the "old camera is bad" mantra) is that I really miss taking pictures, and I really miss using my old film SLR camera. Recently, all we've been using is the film camera, which has been great; however, I've never been happy with the quality of the scanned film images, so those rarely get uploaded to the Web site.

Basically, what it boils down to is that I want to have a good, solid camera, with film-quality images, only digital. And I do prefer the feel of the SLR camera over the point-and-shoot digital camera that we have (rather, had).

At this point you are probably reading this, and if you haven't closed the browser or moved on to another site by now, you are probably thinking "but what does this mean for me?" This means that you, dear reader will be getting more picture updates, and they will be of a much better quality (in terms of resolution), and they might be of a much better quality (in terms of aethetics). But I wouldn' t hold my breath on that last point....

In Search of ...

My old hiking boots are falling a part. And we've planned a couple of camping trips this spring, so I figure I'll need a new pair. The problem is, I can't find any. Actually, that's not entirely true. I can find hiking boots and some of them even look like boots that I would want to wear. The problem is finding boots without leather....

I tried to buy "regular" hiking boots, and I even had them on my feet. But as it came closer to decision time, I couldn't do it. Buying leather just goes against what I believe in. But I do need a good hiking boot. But finding exactly what I want is not quite as easy as going to the local outdoor outfitting store.

But the next best thing might be going to Google. [By the way, how did people find information before the Internet? Card Catalog at the library? That seems like another lifetime!]

One of the first search results I get, directs me to a Web site that has a sort of FAQ on vegan shoes. Here is that section, in it's entirety:

For "serious" hiking boots, your best bets are probably the Ethical Wares (available from them directly or from Aesop) or Vegetarian shoes (direct or from Pangea or Heartland) lines, or the Garmont Vegan.

• Aesop and Heartland both carry quality leather-like hiking boots.
• REI carries the Garmont Vegan, made with synthetic leather and Cordura nylon.
• Rugged Outback: Leatherlike hiking sneakers. Available at Payless Shoe Source.
• Your mother can wear combat boots even if she's vegan. There's an Israeli desert combat boot made of canvas. One surplus catalog I've seen them in is Mass Army Navy.
• In the U.K.. Michael Traub says that non-leather hiking boots are available from Cader Idris Outdoor Gear, Eldon Square, Dolgellau, Gwynedd LL40 1PS, Phone +44 (0) 1341 422195.
• Kim Laurie told me about Ethical Wares, who carry heavy-duty hiking boots.
• Vegetarian Shoes has several models of hiking boots; I had a pair of Doc Marten "Rangers" which were quite nice until my dog ate them.

I have no idea how old this post is (such as it is, the Internet is full of wonderful, searchable information, but it isn't updated frequently, unlike a card catalog); a lot of that information is erroneous. Or, at the very least, very difficult to verify.

Case in point. I went to the REI Web site and found no such thing as a Garmont Vegan. I also couldn't find it at the Garmont Web site. Some of the other mentions, such as Heartland and Aesop, either don't have much selection or don't seem to exist anymore.

The last mention on that list is Vegetarian Shoes. So far, that's the front-runner and I think I may have a pair picked out, although there's another pair in the running from Ethical Wares. One other (pricey for me) possibility is a selection from No Bull. I guess we'll see who this online buying process works out ...

The downside to this process is that I can't try on the shoes, and I have no idea what they feel like, look like, etc. except only by an image on a computer screen (and a short marketing description that I can only partly believe).

So, if anyone out there in Internet Land has any suggestions or comments or product reviews or anything, please feel free to let me know!

[UPDATE 3/16/04: I found the Garmont Vegan. It looks really nice, too. It'll likely be the boot that I get. You can find it on the Garmont Web site, and soon on the REI Web site -- see the comments associated with this post.]

What Counts and Who Hops

Aidan is progressing at such a rapid rate, it's really hard to document all the things that are going on. But here are two things that have become quite obvious as documentable achievements:

We have a book called Who Hops. It's very short, with only two word on a page (for the most part), and basically just tells you "who hops." That is, on the first page, it's a picture of a frog, and the text says "frogs hop." Except that they throw the proverbial curveball every fourth page or so, and say something like "cows hop." On the very next page, they'll let you know what's up: "No they don't. Cows give milk and moo, but they don't hop."

Well, Aidan can pretty much read this entire book. He goes through the hopping, flying, slithering and crawling sections with ease (although saying "slithering" is really hard for him, and in general, it does take a certain amount of interpretation). The last section of the book asks, "Who hops, flies, crawls and slithers?" The answer in the book is "you do," but Aidan says "me do!" Aidan also always finishes the book by closing it up and saying "he en" (the end).

The other thing that Aidan is doing remarkably well is counting. Sometimes you have to spot him the "one" (sort of jump start him), but he can count to five, for the most part. He occasionally gets really excited to get to five, so counting might go like this:

me: Aidan let's count. Ready? One.
Aidan: Woo (that would be "two")
me: Two
Aidan: IVE!
me: Three
Aidan: IVE!
me: Four
Aidan: IVE!

But usually, he does it very well. Renee and Aidan have been counting as they walk up the stairs, and he can easily get past five, although he has more of a tendency to skip numbers (or stay on the same one for a couple of beats) when counting to 17 (yes, we have 17 steps). But to see it in action, it is very impressive.

A New Diaper

Yesterday Aidan did the most precious thing. While I was making dinner, Aidan wandered down the hallway to the bathroom and came out holding a diaper. I thought "wow, he's never asked me to change him before by going and getting a diaper." So I asked him whether he wanted me to change him and he looked up at me with a puzzled look. Instead of giving me a yes or no, he went back into the bathroom and got his wipes, which he carried out to the living room. Then he took his Hokey-Pokey Elmo and lied him down on the floor and took out a wipe. He wiped between Elmo's legs and then his hands. I sat back and giggled the whole time, but then I was asked to help. Aidan needed my help putting Elmo's diaper on his bottom....

Pictures in a Book

We've recently found out that some more pictures of the family have been published by La Leche League. This time, the pictures appear in a rather prestigious book, perhaps the most famous book that La Leche League puts out: The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding (Seventh Edition).

There's two pictures of Renee and Aidan (those two pictures are of Renee laying down with Aidan -- the captions on both of those pictures are in chapters about "illness"; apparently Renee seems to be "sick" a lot in this book...)

Another picture in the book has the three of us (Aidan, Renee and myself); we are on the title page for "Part Four — Life as a Family"; as you can probably tell, we are quite proud.

Reading in Bed

As is probably evident by now (as I've mentioned it in several previous posts on this site), our bedtime routine basically involves me reading to Aidan and Renee as they lie in bed. Last night, we changed things up a little bit.

Aidan had been sick the last couple of days, which resulted in a rather grumpy and tired little boy. But, just as we were to try to put him to bed, he began to get some energy back. He was running around, dancing, jumping, having great fun. But it was his bedtime, so we tried to encourage him into bed. I told him that, if he got into bed, I would read him a book. But Aidan thought of another idea.

Aidan pointed at the bed and said, "Dadda, bed." So, I got into bed. He found one of his favorite books (Foxwood Tales), got up in the rocking chair I usually read from and started reading — out loud.

"Smle smli plu," Aidan read (or something like that) as he dragged his finger across the page.

Aidan continued reading in this style for a little while. However, I felt that it was time for Aidan to try and sleep (it was already relatively late), so I asked him if he wanted me to read to him. He looked at me, furrowed his brow and pointed at the bed. "Dadda, bed," he said.

Giving Time

If you are selling something to benefit a school project or to save the rain forest or something like that, and you are doing this by going door-to-door, you better hope that I answer the door. I have a really hard time saying no.

But I think I may have an alternative to giving away all of my money: Volunteer.

It's not like I have a ton of free time (at least it doesn't feel like I do), and the volunteer stuff I did in college weren't exactly positive experiences (basically, the positions I held were "office" jobs — sitting behind a desk — with not much to do). I just didn't feel like I was doing the most I could (and felt that the organization tapping it's resources properly, at least when it came to how it deployed me).

But maybe I need to re-evaluate this. If I were to volunteer, I'm sure it would be good for my psyche, for developing some more skills, and putting to use the ones that I have. Perhaps I'll just start off with a one-time event. Then maybe join an organization or something. We'll see.

I still need to exercise more. And learn to play guitar, not to mention play the drums again. And read more. And hang out with Aidan. Lots of things to do. I'll just have to figure out how to do it all ... a lot of people can manage to do all of that and more....

No Smeagol

One of our favorite bed time rituals is to read bed-time stories. We'll read some books for Aidan (and aimed at his age group), and then we'll read something for the adults. Renee will usually lie down with Aidan in bed (to soothe him to sleep) while I sit in the rocker and read. Right now, and for the last year or so, we've been reading the whole Lord of the Rings; we are currently just beginning The Return of the King.

Aidan seems to enjoy the ritual; if I try to get in bed with them, he'll look at me, point at the rocker and say "read." I assume he likes the story, too, because there have been a few nights where he'd grab whichever LotR book we are currently reading and handed it to me. But I do know that he doesn't like one character in the book: Smeagol.

Whenever I read the name "Smeagol", Aidan will sit up in bed, look at me with some frustration and pain in his eyes, and he'll say, "no megol," while signing "no." I can read "Gollum" without this reaction....

Salvaged pictures

A few December images were sucessfully created with our malfunctioning digital camera. We are most fortunate to be able to even have a wonderful image of Aidan and Me-ma from the end of Thanksgiving break. You can view them as part of the December picture gallery.

And Then There Was One ...

Yesterday was not one of those days one could classify as a "good" day.

It started off with Aidan not feeling very well — probably has a cold of some sort — so he wasn't in the best of moods. Renee ended up getting to work later than she wanted because Aidan didn't want her to leave.

Eventually, Renee left for work, and I took Aidan into daycare, so I could go to work. The drop-off was pretty good (he didn't fuss too much), but he was still a little cranky. Apparently, that eventually escalated, and Aidan turned into a big grump. Big enough for Renee to leave work early to take Aidan home.

We also have had problems with one of the stove's burners and had a repair shop scheduled to come over to the house to replace the broken part. They were supposed to be out to fix the stove before Thanksgiving, but through various mishaps and bad scheduling, nothing was accomplished, and we are still left with one burner that doesn't work.

The repair guy was supposed to be at our house between 3 and 5 p.m. But he didn't show up. Again. Turns out his truck broke down.... They did eventually send someone out — but he didn't have the proper tools. I don't think this will ever be fixed.

And, the topper for the whole day? Renee went out to visit with the bunnies, and she found Bitta, the white rabbit, had passed away.

Aidan was playing with the bunnies the previous day, and was carrying them around — he even learned to say "white" (which he says very clearly) because he wanted to play with the white rabbit, not the black one.

Renee and I dug a hole in our back yard for Bitta — a task that we found somewhat ironic since Bitta really enjoyed digging holes (and tunnels) in our backyard...

Well, the white rabbit has passed on. And now we are down to our last bunny: Beauty.

Me-Ma's Visit

Aidan's grandmother (a.k.a, Me-Ma, Renee's mom) came down to visit us for Thanksgiving. At first, Aidan was shy and didn't want to get too close to his Grandma. But after the first day, Aidan warmed up to her, and was constantly asking for her and wanting to know her whereabouts. When Aidan would wake up in the morning, one of the first things out of his mouth would be "Me-Ma?"

We also got a chance to do some more unpacking and put up the Christmas lights around the house as well as our Christmas tree. We all had a productive, wonderful (and somehow relaxing) time, with the possible exception of Sunday...

Our friend Mary came over to visit with us and see the new house. Me-Ma, Renee, Mary, Aidan and myself were all sitting out front. Aidan wandered over to the neighbor's yard and picked two berries off of a little shrub. I wasn't too sure what the berries were, but I figured they weren't healthy for him to eat, so I kept a careful eye on him, and tried to encourage him to give up the berries on his own accord. I kept calling it a ball, and encouraged him to throw it (and not eat it). This was a successful tactic for one of the berries, but he held on to the other.

I tried to get the berry from him, but he would hide behind the bushes where I couldn't reach him. So, I reverted to keeping a close eye on him, encouraging him at all times to "throw the ball." But he seemed mostly content with just holding on to the berry or playing with it between his fingers.

At one point, something in the conversation caught my attention and I tried to join in, thus losing my concentration on Aidan. He immediately started to cry, and I saw him take the berry out of his mouth...

Renee wisked him away and tried to wash his mouth out with water, and she even tried to brush his teeth/tongue. But Aidan kept on crying. I brought Mary, our friendly-neighborhood gardner, over to the bush to inspect the berries that Aidan had put in his mouth, hoping that it wasn't too poisonous....

Turns out, they were some sort of pepper and not berries — a really hot variety of pepper, too. So, for the next 40 minutes or so, we tried our best to soothe Aidan and keep his hands from rubbing his eyes (the juice got on his hands). Milk helped, but ulitmately, it was the movie "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron" that distracted him enough to forget his agony.

Aidan's Second Halloween

We bought a Halloween costume for Aidan a few weeks ago at a garage sale for cheap. A couple of days ago, Renee thought it was time to try it on him. It was way too big. Perhaps two years from now it will fit, but definitely not this year. So, we went out and bought a new costume for Aidan yesterday, again for a good price since there wasn't a lot of selection.

We decided on a pretty cool looking dragon outfit. It fits Aidan just fine, or at least, it probably would. We don't know because Aidan is scared to death of the dragon.

The moment he sees the costume, or even if it's brought up in conversation, he tenses up and gets that scared look in his eyes. God forbid if you actually bring it close to him (or bring him to it)....

So we decided we'd try something familiar. At school there is an elephant costume that Aidan typically likes, so we borrowed it and tried to dress him in it on Halloween... but as you can see that didn't work either.

Kind of amusing, despite the trauma we're probably causing.... and it's also horribly disappointing, as we aren't going to be able to do Halloween this year.

Strep Throat

Aidan was sent home early from daycare on Thursday because of a fever (about 102.2). Renee took him directly to the doctor's office, and they did a throat culture, the results of which we just got back: positive for strep.

Generally, Aidan is in good spirits, and hasn't really been too grumpy. However, he hates taking his antibiotic — actually hate may be too weak of a word. We may try and switch it out with another one that he might like better? Not sure what to do at this point (we are almost half-way through the doses for the antibiotic that he hates. If we start a new one, we'd have to start over from the beginning of the dosages, which could mean 7-10 days of this all over again. Maybe the new one is so tasty, the whole process will be worthwhile.... We shall see....

Mama and Dada

Aidan knows our names. All weekend long he has been practicing them. It is very darling. He signs 'mama' and 'dada' while saying them. No particular reason, other than just saying our names.... We are quite smitten.

Aidan's Second Haircut

I went by myself to get Aidan's haircut this past Tuesday. I was home sick and decided to take Aidan to a salon which one of his classmate's mother had previously recomended. Dora, the stylist, asked me whether I wanted his hair cut short or medium. I said medium and boy am I glad I did. It is very cute, but much shorter than I had imagined it. This shot is from right after the haircut.

Aidan Update

A note from Michelle, Aidan's teacher at daycare:

Today, while outside on the playground, I went and sat on the swing. Aidan came up behind me and tried to push me. After a few tries he did push me a little bit. Then, he stood back and started clapping.

Aidan Update

Aidan had his 18-month doctor visit today. Overall he is doing very well; in fact the doctor said his language skills were advanced. According to the pamphlet that the doctor's office gave us, children of Aidan's age usually have a vocabulary of about 10-15 words, "although often the words are only about half intelligible."

Aidan is saying about 10 words and signing about 70....

He didn't need any immunizations or shots, but we did opt for the flu shot....

His stats, as of today, are:
24 pounds, 10 ounces
31.25 inches tall
49 centimeters head circumference

Cross-Country Trip Day 6: Glastonbury, CT to Boston, MA

We made our way up to Boston today with my Dad and Jackie to see the Red Sox play the Yankees at Fenway Park, a short 104 miles from Glastonbury. Grandpa and Grandma Deb joined us from New Jersey. We also met up with my cousin Brian, his girlfriend Katie, and the Ronan clan.

This was quite the pilgrimage for me, as I've been telling Renee about Fenway Park for about as long as I can remember. This was the first visit for her and for Aidan. Unfortunately, the home team lost, and Roger Clemens won his 299th career game ... But Nomar Garciaparra hit a two-run homer, which I called before it happened ...

Aidan Update

Aidan loves it when we read books to him. He will go about the house and look for books, then bring them to us, so we can read them to him (actually, so he can turn the pages; we are lucky to read a few words on the on each page).

Mommy Feeds Aidan; Aidan Feeds Mommy

We made popcorn tonight, and Aidan sat in-between us as we ate it. He wasn't terribly interested in it, but after watching us continuously put this "stuff" in our mouths, he decided to see what the fuss was all about. He didn't really like it too much, but he obviously understood that we liked it. So, Aidan grabbed a handful of popcorn and put it in his mom's mouth! It was quite fun (and funny; Aidan laughed hysterically as he did it).

Aidan Update

Another note from one of Aidan's teachers:

"Aidan has been putting himself to sleep without us having to pat him. He will get on his mat, and point to his cubby for his pacifier, and he will lay down.

Aidan and Friends

A note from one of Aidan's teachers:

"Today, Aidan, Ella, and Alex, were sitting together and playing with the hats; putting them on their heads. It was funny watching them sit there for a while, just playing with the hats."

First Birthday - First Party

Aidan's first birthday party!

Lots of family have come in from the northeast to visit Aidan for his first birthday. It was a short weekend visit, but was well worth it (and much appreciated). A great time was had by all.

Aidan's First Birthday!

Aidan is one year old today! Happy Birthday!!!!!

Aidan Update

Aidan has been in very good spirits lately, except for this morning, when he had a moment of despair and cried for what seemed like forever; there was no consoling him. Later, Renee discovered some puss oozing from his right ear.

She took Aidan to the after hours clinic and as sure as the sun rises, Aidan was diagnosed with another ear infection (usually he is much more moody when he has ear infections, so this one took us completely by surprise). The infection is in both ears, but the eardrum in the right one has ruptured, thus the puss. The pediatrician prescribed a couple of antibiotics for him and said that his eardrum will heal just fine....

Aidan Update

Reflecting what must be genes from his mother, Aidan has taken to wiping tables, chairs, doors, and basically anything he can reach....

Aidan Update

Aidan is eleven months old.

A Little Ice to Go With the Snow

So much for 70 degree weather... The temperature has plummeted and we are in the midst of an ice storm, which has effectively shut down all of Austin.

Last night, just before the ice started to fall, Renee was rear-ended. Renee and Aidan are doing well, although a little shaken up.

Return to Austin

Renee's and Aidan's winter adventure is over; they arrive back in Texas to 70 degree weather.

More Snow!

A blizzard sweeps through New Jersey, and to make things a little more dramatic, it seems as though Aidan has come down with a stomach bug. Without getting into to many details, Aidan isn't keeping any food down, and he does have a relatively low fever. At this moment, they are snowbound and trying to dig out from under about 20 inches of snow...

Snow!

We received a call from New Jersey this morning. Apparently they got about 9 inches of snow, something that we don't see too often here in Austin, Texas. However, this morning, we too, have some snow. Not 9 inches worth, and one would even be hard pressed to say it was a dusting... But there was undeniably snow on the roof of the houses and on some of the cars that were kept outside.

Aidan's First Stroll

Matthew was helping Aidan stand by supporting him under his arms. Aidan saw the kitty and started to lean forward to go after her. Matthew kept supporting him as Aidan started to walk after the kitty; after a few steps, Matthew realized that Aidan had a pretty good sense of balance, and let go... Aidan took at least three or four good steps before he realized he was on his own and that crawling might serve him a bit better...

Aidan Update

Aidan is ten months old.

Aidan Update

Aidan may have accidentally taken his fist step. Very recently (today? yesterday?), Aidan has started to stand by himself, but usually only after he has pulled himself up with something near by. The something this time was the bathtub in our master bath. He had grabbed a hold of a rubber ducky that sat on the edge of the tub, and then stood for a second. Then, he moved one of his legs, as though in a walking motion, closer to the tub....

Matthew's knee is doing much, much better. We put his mountain bike on the roof-mounted bike rack on the new car (pictures coming soon) and went off to a local park. There was some pretty difficult terrain, but Matthew was able to navigate it rather well.

Matthew's New Job

Matthew has had several careers in his short working life. Today, he moves on to yet another chapter: He is now working in the art department. Recent history had him as a Technical Writer, then an Editor, and most recently, he was a Consultant (what does a consultant do, anyway?).

He is still with the same company, but he has a new title (and the responsibilities that follow). His official title is now Graphic Designer/Web Developer.

Aidan Update

For the last few weeks, Aidan has been incredibly moody; usually a sign that a tooth is working its way through. Renee is very excited about the prospect of a new tooth erupting, and is always eager to declare its presence. After much debate (well, not really; just being dramatic), we have declared today the day that tooth number three arrived.

A quick call to our family tooth expert (Aidan's Aunt Sandra), and we learn that it is the "g" tooth, also known as the primary left canine or eye tooth.

Aidan Update

Some of Aidan's teachers from day care are saying that it sounds like Aidan is talking. Around home, it sounds like he may be, too. Most distinctive is "what's that," (maybe more like "was da"), since he is usually pointing at something when he says it. He seems to get "mom" and "da" said in context pretty frequently — frequently enough to make us think that he's got it, but we're really not 100% sure....
Aidan has also been showing off some of his physical talents lately. He's been putting rings on his Fisher-Price ring pyramid, playing peek-a-boo by pulling sheets or blankets over his head, he likes to give you a toy he's found (like a ball), but only if you give it back to him...

...and he also likes to shake his head.

Aidan Update

It is impossible to change Aidan's diaper or clothes lately. He squirms and crys and is generally a major handful. However, we have learned that if we tell him what we are going to do (and sign it for him), then he is nothing but cooperative.
Speaking of signs, Aidan seems to be grasping more and more of the signs and he is starting to use them himself; we're pretty sure that he can sign "up" (as in "pick me up") and he definitely understands the sign for nursing, but it's difficult to know if he is making the sign or not, mostly because if he is doing it, he's not particularly articulate, and it is fairly similar to other hand gestures that he seems to "naturally" make.

Aidan Update

Aidan is nine months old, and today was his regularly scheduled well visit with his pediatrician. Overall, Aidan is doing very well, and his ears are the clearest (meaning, no infection) that his doctor has seen in a while.

Here are some of Aidan's stats:

One other interesting bit: Matthew was carrying Aidan around the house with him the other day (yesterday?) and was looking for a snack; eventually he settled for a pickle. Aidan, being the curious baby he is, wanted to know what his dad was eating. Matthew knew that Aidan wouldn't be interested in a pickle, so he did his best to keep it away from him. Yet Aidan kept opening his mouth, looking for a taste of this mysterious thing. Realizing that Aidan only wanted to satisfy some curiosity and little harm could come from tasting a pickle (at worst, Aidan would probably make a sour face and forget about the food), we decided to let him try it.

To our surprise, Aidan took it! He sucked on it and was even able to get his two bottom teeth into it (and managed to pull out a few small chunks)....

King Sized-Bed

We practice Attachment Parenting and we have a family bed, which we are rapidly out growing (we have a queen-sized bed). Today, we went out and purchased a new king-sized bed. We are very excited! The plan is to place the new, larger sized bed on the floor (no bed frame), so Aidan can get in and out of it as he likes and we'll all have enough room to be comfortable.

Shopping wore us out, and we weren't going to do anything for the New Year, although we had two standing invitations (one of them was to visit with Robin and Allen and the Triplets). However, we also had an invitation to a neighbor's house, Ed and Stacy, which is literally two doors away. Ed invited us a few days ago, but things were never really finalized. But then Ed showed up at our door with Ray (Ed's three-year old son), and Aidan seems to get along famously with him....

Despite our initial tiredness and declining the invitation to the Triplet's house, the three of us did end up going to Ed and Stacy's. They have two young boys, Ray and Liam (20 months). Aidan had a very, very good time playing with the boys and we had a good time socializing with Ed and Stacy.

Locomotion Update

Since Aidan has figured out how to use his legs more, he has also figured out how to use the rest of his body better. Over the last twenty-four hours, he has been learning so much! He's figured out how to put things (such as balls) into other things (such as a box); he can also pull tissues out of a tissue box, he found where we store the CDs, he can reach into the little candy dish (which is currently stocked with almond Hershey Kisses), and he can even turn his daddy's Xbox off in the middle of a game by pressing the proper button...

Almost Walking

Aidan got a Stride-to-Ride walker for Christmas, and he is really cruising around on it! Just a couple of days ago, he didn't know what to think of this contraption.

Colors!

Grandma Deb and Grandpa are visiting us for a long weekend.

While sitting on the living room floor, Grandpa and Aidan played with some of his toys; Grandpa was showing him the difference between a blue ball and a red ball. After a little while, Aidan seemed to grasp the concept. If Grandpa would ask Aidan for the blue ball, that's what Grandpa would get. If he asked for the red ball, Aidan would send it his way.

Other things we discovered: Aidan likes to bop along to the songs that play on some of his toys; Aidan started to point at things....

Cause and Effect

Aidan is beginning to learn about cause and effect. He just learned that if he puts a ball on the track of his new toy, that it will fall through the track, and land right in front of him. Watch the video

(Windows Media Player 7.1 required — download here)

Eight Months Old

Aidan is eight months old.

Today, he was able to negotiate a learning set of stairs at daycare, one of the more difficult baby skills. He managed to get all the way up and halfway down; quite an accomplishment!

Leader of the Pack

Every day at Aidan's daycare, they bring the kids outside to get some fresh air. The usual process would involve putting the babies into their mobile cribs and wheeling them out.

Well, today, Aidan managed to crawl the entire journey from his classroom to the outside area, which involves several turns. He did this all from memory, which really only could have been learned from his crib....

Tickle Attack

Mom and Aidan entertain each other. Watch the video

(Windows Media Player 7.1 required — download here)

Aidan's Second Camping Trip

Another camping trip! This time we went to Pedernales Falls State Park with our friends Chris and Raquel. The weather cooperated much more than our last outing (although it did get pretty darn cold at night) and Aidan got a chance to see some deer up close and personal. One big buck was literally only a few feet behind where Aidan and his mom were sitting. Aidan also got his first little hair cut on this trip (that's Chris giving Aidan a trim in the picture)...

Other firsts: Aidan ate some dirt.

Aidan's First Crawl

Today was the big day (well, one of them, anyway). Aidan crawled! see the video

(Windows Media Player 7.1 required — download here)

Movin' On Up

Aidan is growing up. He no longer takes his naps at school in a crib, like a wee babe, he now sleeps on his very own nap pad.

And, tonight at dinner, Aidan was able to pick up individual peas and put them in his mouth....

Drinking From a Straw

As with most everything, Aidan prefers to try to do things that he sees his parents do. Such as drinking water from a glass (as opposed to a sippy cup). But this is somewhat problematic, as one might expect, especially because Aidan likes to try and put his hands into the glass while he drinks from it.

However, we have discovered another way of getting him to drink "like a big person." Today, while we were waiting for his Christmas pictures to develp, we stopped by a local eatery and offered Aidan a drink of water through a straw. It took him a little bit, but he had the whole thing figured out in no time at all.

Seven Months Old

Aidan is seven months old.

Aidan's First Camping Trip

We went camping at Inks Lake. It was Aidan's very first camping trip and we all had a great time, despite the cold weather and constant rain....

Aidan's First Halloween

Aidan's first Halloween; he was a bat....

Clap Your Hands

Thursday evening at the monthly LaLeche League meeting Aidan figured out how to clap.

Locomotion

Aidan scooted backwards across the living room this evening. He made it about four feet. We were told that he performed this same feat yesterday at school.

A New Game

A game has developed out of necessity. Aidan's nose has been runny (allergies? cold?) and we do our best to wipe his nose, so he doesn't have to eat too much mucus. But, of course, this causes some irritation on this face (just like blowing your nose a bunch of times causes a raw nose), so he complains as soon as you bring your hand anywhere near his face.

If you can throw a little towel over his head (thus covering his eyes), you can play "Where's Aidan?", which then allows you to wipe his nose while the towel's on his head.

But, the game has advanced: We now cover his head, and ask him, "Where's Aidan?" He then pulls the towel off of his head by himself. The next step was to put the towel on mom or dad's head and ask "Where's mom/dad?"

At first, he didn't do anything, but once we showed him how to pull the towel off of mom/dad's face, he quickly got the hang of it.

Aidan's First (Table) Meal

We gave Aidan his first food today. The menu consisted of sweet potatoes, delicately blended with water.

Well Checkup

Aidan had his six month well visit with his pediatrician today; he is 18 pounds 14 ounces and 27 inches (2 feet, 3 inches) tall.

Six Months Old

Aidan is six months old. He is also starting to treat mom and dad as though they were a jungle gym....

Aidan Update

Aidan is starting to babble. Lots of ba-ba-ba and ubbah-ubbah. Everything around the house is now referred to as ubbah-ubbah [something]. Thus, for example, if you were to ask Aidan if you should change his diaper, you would ask: "Ubbah-ubbah diaper?" Or, if you were to explain what you were doing, you would say: "Ubbah-ubbah dishes."

You are also allowed to combine the two different babbles in as many different combinations as you can think of. For example, "ubbah-ubbah ba-ba-ba" is completely acceptable.

Aidan Update

Tooth number two appears.

Aidan Update

A few days ago, Aidan developed a mysterious rash. It showed up within his first hour in a new room at day care and would get better when ever he was outside of the building for a good amount of time. By the time he would wake up in the morning, his rash would be gone, but would reappear after he was at school.

Renee mentioned the rash to her dad, and he remembered that Renee had a similar reaction after a hay ride when she was younger. Renee took this information back to the teachers and they did find some hay (saved as a sensory experience in a sealed container) and some dried flowers. They removed the hay and flowers, and thus removed Aidan's mysterious rash....

Aidan Update

... And today, we saw the tooth!

Aidan Update

Aidan has been showing a lot of symptoms of teething lately, including putting his hands in his mouth all of the time, sticking his tougue out, and moaning for no particular reason (well, no reason that seemed obvious at the time). Today, as Aidan grabbed his dad's finger to put it into his mouth, Matthew felt a hard, sharp "something" in the lower front of Aidan's mouth....

Aidan Update

Aidan was recently diagnosed with an ear infection. His medicine for his ear infection has caused him to have very runny stools and has caused him to vomit on more than one occasion. Because of this, Aidan's doctor recommended that we try to give Aidan some yogurt (which contains acidopholus and can help calm upset stomachs). However, since Aidan is still exclusively breastfed, he didn't take to it. Instead, he used his yogurt as finger paint. There are more pictures of Aidan's yogurt experience in his September 2002 gallery.

Aidan Update

Aidan figured out where mommy's voice was coming from while in the car. This morning he craned his little neck around and looked over his car seat finding mommy. He will now also follow us with his eyes as we work in the kitchen and he plays in the living room.

Aidan Update

This morning, Aidan woke up looking at his feet. They would wiggle around a little bit and then he'd try and grab them. Once, he had them in his hand, but he didn't know what to do with them. Yet, his wiggling little toes definitely got his attention! It probably won't be too long until he starts putting his dainties into his mouth....

Aidan Update

Aidan is able to indicate when he wants to be held by holding out his arms and letting out a little moan.

Aidan Update

Aidan is five months old.

Aidan Update

Aidan has seemed to take notice of the cat for the first time. He will look for where her meows are coming from and will watch her move around the house....

Aidan Update

Aidan is able to sit up by himself for a substantial amount of time.

Aidan Update

Aidan started to scoot forward (just a wee-little bit, but forward nonetheless) on his tummy to get closer to one of his new toys. He is also able to figure out how to put one of his more complicated teething toys into his mouth, although this only works sometimes and he is best at it with his left hand.

The Model Family

A photographer from La Leche League came over to the house for a photo shoot of the family; we'll possibly be included in a future LLL publication.

Aidan Update

Aidan turned over from his back to his tummy twice this morning (although once he got his arm stuck under him and he couldn't complete the turn).

Aidan meets his great-grandmother

Aidan meets his great-grandmother for the very first time. Renee developed laryngitis and wasn't feeling particularly great, but the visit turned out to be a grand success.

Aidan Update

Aidan is sucking in his lower lip and then blowing out, making his version of "blowing raspberries." Very cute.

Aidan Update

Aidan had his four month check-up today and received four more vaccinations. He weighed in at 17 pounds 10 ounces (90th percentile for his age), measures 26.5 inches tall (95th percentile), and has a head circumference of 44 centimeters (95th percentile).

Aidan Update

Aidan is four months old.

Aidan Update

Aidan is starting to grab at things on the table when he's sitting on your lap.

Aidan Update

Although he can't quite do it on his own, Aidan has seemed very determined to sit up. He is also teething and (perhaps unrelated) has started to show a preference towards certain toys.

Matthew Knee Update

Matthew has another follow up appointment with his knee surgeon. The doctor suggested trying to add some straight-ahead running into the exercise repertoire.

Aidan Update

It looks like Aidan is sick again with another ear infection. Yet, despite his ailments, he hasn't had any trouble eating. His official weight from the doctor's appointment was 16 pounds 14 ounces. He has more than doubled his weight in just over three and a half months. According to some experts, most babies should double their birth weight by 4 to 6 months of age and triple it by their first birthday....

Aidan Update

Aidan had his first "sleep-over" at his friend Silas's house. The moms and dads played Monopoly and Dominoes.

Aidan Update

Aidan is beginning to figure out how to grab at things. He isn't particular successful yet, but he is obviously trying. He also likes to use his feet to help "capture" an item.

Aidan Update

Aidan is laughing big, full laughs, especially when you play peek-a-boo with him....

Aidan Update

Aidan is talking up a storm! He sits in his bouncy seat and talks to his mom and dad for about an hour; he did this repeatedly all day long!

Aidan Update

Renee makes Aidan laugh his first real laugh.

Aidan Update

The prescription for Aidan's ear infection isn't agreeing with him; he is vomiting after each dose, which led us to spend the entire night in the emergency room. After all was said and done, Aidan is doing just fine and the doctors took Aidan off his medication....

Matthew Knee Update

Matthew made his first successful walk around the block since his knee surgery!

Aidan Update

Aidan is three months old! He was also diagnosed by his pediatrician with an ear infection.

Aidan's First Portraits

Aidan got his first professional portraits done. What an angel.

Aidan Update

Aidan is intentionally swatting and grabbing at things...

Aidan Update

Aidan has learned to turn himself over from his tummy to his back.

La Leche League Conference

The three of us attended a La Leche League conference in Houston over the weekend; we learned a lot about how to raise a healthy family.

Renee is Back to Work

Today is Renee's first day back to work and Aidan's first day at daycare. Aidan's first day was rather successful by any account. He didn't fuss (much) and he ate well (three bottles).

Babbling Aidan

Aidan is talking up a storm and has been entertaining himself (and his parents) by blowing little spit bubbles.

Aidan's First Swim

Aidan gets to "swim" in a pool for the very first time with his friend Silas (they know each other from daycare). Aidan absolutely loved the water.

Aidan Update

Aidan is two months old!

Aidan Update

Aidan is now deliberately placing his fist (usually his left) into his mouth to soothe himself. He is also pretty much able to stand on his own two legs (he just can't keep his balance yet).

Aidan Update

Aidan is moving around like crazy, flailing his limbs about. He can't crawl yet, but you can see in his eys the desire to become mobile... Thus, the race is on to see if Aidan or Matthew will be the first to be mobile without the aid of assitance.

Aidan Update

Aidan is seven weeks old and weighs 12.6 pounds.

Aidan Update

Aidan is six weeks old. He is smiling a lot now, and is frequently seen laughing and smiling in his sleep.

Aidan Update

Aidan is starting to find his hands and was actually sucking his thumb (for a very short moment) while visiting his dad in the hospital.

First Babysitter

Auntie Jo is Aidan's first official babysitter; she came over to watch him for a few hours while mom and dad took care of some serious yard work. Maybe next time we'll go to a movie?

Say Cheese

Aidan is starting to smile! He also has more "awake" time during the day and he seems to really enjoy some of his toys/mobiles.

Aidan Update

Aidan's first tub bath.

Aidan Update

Aidan's umbilical stump falls off.

Baby Doctor Visit

We had another doctor's appointment today. Renee is still 1 cm dilated. We have another week to go before the doctor wants to induce, and we all think that Renee will go into labor before we have to take that measure. However, we are making plans for the induction (meaning, we're making reservations at the hospital). We have an appointment at the hospital on April 7 to start the induction....

Baby Doctor Visit

Another doctor's appoinment today... So far there's no indications that the baby will arrive any time soon. However, Renee is 1 cm dialated.

We also learned that two other couples from our childbirth class had their babies.... Guess we're next in line!

Baby Doctor Visit

Renee had another doctor's appoinment today. No news to share from that (everything is normal), however she and her doctor decided that her maternity leave should start on March 20 (if the baby isn't here yet).

Car Seat Education

We visited a local store that was sponsoring car seat inspections. We learned a lot as the local sherrif's department made sure that we had our baby's car seat installed properly (from what we know, virutally all car seats are safe, but about 80% of all car seats aren't installed correctly, and that makes all the difference).

Baby Doctor Visit

Another doctor's appoinment; all looks well. Renee's blood pressure and the baby's heart rate were higher than they have been recently, but the doctor said they were both well with in the normal range.... and he also confirmed that the baby was head down and had lowered itself into the birth canal....

Pregnancy Update

Renee felt the baby "drop" into position.

The Babies Are Coming

We just learned that a couple from our childbirth class gave birth to a beautiful baby girl on February 26th (they were absent from class and we were all wondering why). Their baby was due on March 19th, just six days before our baby is due....

Baby Doctor Visit

We had a doctor's visit today. Everything looks great! The baby is still head down and the heart rate is around 150 bpm. We'll have another visit with him on the 8th.

Baby Doctor Visit

We had another doctor's visit today; the baby has turned head down! According to our baby doctor, the average length for gestation is 37 to 42 weeks; we are at about 35 weeks...

Baby Doctor Visit

We had a doctor's visit today. He thinks that the baby is transverse (perpendicular to the "head down" position), but since we are only in our 33rd week, this isn't much of a concern. The baby can get into the head down position as late as the 38th week....

Doula Interview

Renee and I interviewed a few doulas and decided upon Karina Bolger. She was incredibly knowledgable and very supportive. We both think that she will be an invaluable asset for us during birth.

Renee's Surprise

On January 26, a few of us threw Renee a surprise baby shower.

This story really starts in November 2001, just after Thanksgiving. This is when I first started planning a surprise baby shower for Renee. I enlisted the help of my sister Jody and a few co-worker/friends of Renee's: Raquel, Siham, and Angie. Renee's sister, Sandra, is also a prime player....

I wish I could have done a better job documenting the planning of the shower, but, since I know that Renee reads this web site, there is no way I would have been able to keep this a secret if I wrote about it here.... so the best you can expect is the best my memory can provide....

Essentially, the surprise party went down like this: Sandra came in from New Jersey Friday evening. Jody will picked her up and keep Sandra at her place until Saturday....

Saturday morning, Renee and I went over to our friend Robin's house to help out with the triplets. While we were gone, Jody, Raquel, Siham, and Angie sneaked into our house and begin the preparations. Just after we left Robin's house, Robin called my sister at my house to let her know that we were going to be arriving shortly....

We arrived at the house and *Surprise!* Renee had no idea. She started to hug everyone that was there and was so happy and appreciative. Then, we sat her down and told her that, before we started eating or opening presents, we had to present her with one big present. Renee said later she was expecting a high chair or some other difficult to wrap item. She was quite surprised when Sandra walked out....

Also, since Sandra is was only here from Friday night to Monday afternoon, and Renee didn't know anything about that, I had to ask Renee's boss for a day off for Renee. I've never done anything like that before, and he said he never received a request from anyone other than an employee. But he said it was cool, so Renee was be able to spend Monday with her sister :)

Baby Preparations

We have interviewed a couple of pediatricians and I think we'll end up going with Dr. Broberg. His office location is much more convenient, his staff is much more professional, and he seemed every bit as impressive as Dr. Barrera.

Renee started attending a monthly La Leche League group to meet with other breastfeeding moms and their children.

Bradley Class update

We delved into the Bradley Method; our classes have been very helpful and informative up to this point, but now it is time to start taking some of the lessons and applying it to real life (basically, learn how to reduce stress). The classes teach us some exercises to be both physically and mentally prepared (as much as one can be). So far, we have been rather lax in our preparation, but time is running out (as it usually does) and it is time to do our exercises faithfully.

Although we are not necessarily averse to using drugs if there is a need, the class has bolstered our confidence on being able to do this without drugs.... The classes are held once a week on Tuesdays and will run through the first week of March.

December Recap

We started taking a childbirth preparation class on December 11. We are going to be participating in the Bradley Method, although we are not necessarily averse to using drugs if there is a need.... The classes are held once a week on Tuesdays and will run through the first week of March. Hopefully, the baby comes after we are fully educated ;)

Both Renee's mom and my mom visited. They were here about two weeks each, encompassing both Christmas and New Years....

Renee's mom helped out by painting the guest bathroom and organizing the closet space (apparently we actually had some).

With only three months left, our attention is now focused on getting ready for baby!

Visitors

Both of our dads and step-moms came down to visit us over consecutive weekends.... We did our first baby shopping with Renee's dad and step-mom (Deb); he also helped us out around the house by installing shop lights in the garage and lighted switches throughout the house.

My dad and step-mom (Jackie) came down for Thanksgiving. He, too, did some work on our house. He installed outlets in the garage and flood lights for our backyard.

Estamos en España

Adjusting to the time difference wasn't all that hard, but Renee and I sure did get grumpy there for a little while as our sleep deprived bodies and minds tried to navigate through this foreign land.

We did a lot of site seeing; took a bus tour of Madrid and then walked around for a bit. I am trying very hard to maintain my vegetarian lifestyle, but it is not easy. I don't know the language very well and when I order food, I don't always get what I am expecting. And, because of my lack of knowledge, it is next to impossible to fix what I need to fix...

This is interesting also in another sense. This is the Spanish culture that I am trying to experience, so why not live and eat like a Spaniard?

But let's look at that even further. Let’s pretend I am an anthropologist. To what level should i compromise my values to experience the ways of a particular culture? Where and how would I draw that line?

For example, if I don't believe in a supreme deity, should I participate in their religious rituals? How about if I don't believe in eating meat? Or murder? Or hazing? Fill in the blank with the most preposterous ritual/event you can think of; should an anthropologist check his/her values at the door and fully participate? Or should they just observe?

For those of you thinking the observation choice is the easiest out, when was the last time you truly learned or experienced or understood anything through pure observation?

I am quite confidant that the vast majority (99.99%) of the people need to actually "do" what they want to learn or experience to understand it completely. it is one thing to watch a football game; it is an entirely different experience to play in the game....

I am a Married Man

Right now, at this very moment, while I am writing, I am sitting in the JFK international airport at gate number 8 waiting to board an Iberia airlines flight to Madrid for my honeymoon. Yes, my honeymoon. That should at least give you some clues as to what I’ve done over the last two days...

Friday, August 11, was incredibly hectic, yet not all that stressful. It started out just fine:

Jeff and I woke up around 8:30 or 9:00 in the morning and went to downtown tom's river for some bagel and coffee. We hung out there until it was time to pick up Christina (Jeff’s girlfriend). Jeff and I got a little lost trying to find the train station, but it all worked out. We got back to the hotel around 2:00 or so and got ready for the big event!

Christina video taped us getting ready for the wedding and she also taped the actual event. Jeff taped the reception.

Yesterday, Renee’s dad had a huge picnic with maybe 40 or 50 friends and relatives.

Ok. Writing is going to be hard. I am on the plane now, but while we were waiting to board (and while I was writing everything up to this point), an alarm was going off for no apparent reason. Now, that I am on the plane, I have no space to write (my tray is currently holding both my and Renee’s dinner).
Anyway—back to what happened:

I am not sure how they keep (or if they keep) official tabs on such things, but i believe Renee's dad threw the party of the century. Everything was perfect. The funniest part of the reception was the throwing of the bouquet/garter. Sandra’s boyfriend Eric caught the garter, and Renee's cousin Katie (who is only 14) caught the bouquet. For those of you weak on wedding tradition, the guy who catches the garter has to put it on the leg of the one who catches the flowers. And every inch above the knee is a year of good luck for the bride and groom....

So, Katie’s dad is a really big, huge guy. he was standing right behind Katie with the look of a nervous father. Once Eric realized who Katie’s dad was, he dropped the garter, backed off from Katie, walked over to him and shook his hand. But he eventually put the garter on. I think we only have about a year of good luck....

Back to the present:

I am only on the plane, but my Spanish has already been called into play. The flight attendants seem to know English, but only use it as a last resort. My mind has started to make the switch over to thinking in Spanish, and i think it would be cool if by the end of our stay in Spain, I will have written at least one small entry entirely in Spanish.

I am off to sleep now, in hopes of getting adjusted to the new time zone....