Let Christmas Begin

The Turkey and Dressing has been thoroughly consumed and the Christmas lights can go up.  We are planning on getting a tree this weekend.  My four year old can’t wait to get it up.  She’s already making her list for Santa and gives me updates every morning on what new items might be included.  Currently, a Princess Throne from the Disney store has caught her eye.  It announces your name when you sit on it which is all my little girl needs to boost her low self-esteem (with slight tone of sarcasm).   For some reason, she is also interested in a pair of binoculars.  This seems like an odd request for a four-year-old, but what do I know?

For the record, I have continued my exercise regimen.  I even “hard-cored” it on Thanksgiving morning by running in 30 degree weather.  There were probably ice crystals in my lungs, but all you nay-sayers can suck it.

Whew!

{Paste obligatory apology for being gone fore so long here}

The busiest part of my year is DONE! I can’t tell you how happy I am. I get to re-introduce myself to the family after some very long days serving the high school football gods. It was a great season for me, but I’m glad it’s over.

In other news, the baby is rolling over and razzing. It’s funny to watch her figure out new sounds. She looks so pleased with herself when something new comes out. The big sister is helping out, too.

I am trying to get back on a healthy eating habit. It’s so hard during football season because time is so short. There is no time to make healthy meals and snacks. I try to be good and eat at the Subway, but there’s only so much of that a guy can take. Jared’s a better man than me I guess. Not only that, finding time to run is not easy. I’ve cut back to running about twice a week, but am planning to amp it back up now that I have my life back. I will post here in my progress with that… it will hopefully keep me motivated.

My brother had his Birthday recently. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRO!

Oh, and the new Zune update came out, and it is off the hook! I can now sync wirelessly with my computer. It’s awesome because I record TV shows in my Vista Media Center and they automatically sync to my Zune when I walk in the house. Podcasts also update and sync auotmatically. I am also trying to figure out how to get my ZuneCard posted. It part of the enhanced “Zune Social”. When I get it to work, it will show you what I’ve been listening to.

Until next time!

Bubblemania For My Four Year Old

I’ve blogged before on birthdays so you can relive history if you have recently joined me.

Yesterday was my oldest daughter’s birthday party. It was pretty cool. We had a “Bubblemania” party. Basically, there were buckets of bubble soap and bubble machines everywhere for the little ones to play with. We also had Aria’s little pool set up as well as her “Bouncy House.” Everything else was the usual little kid party fare…cake, candles, presents, and breaking up 4-year-old fights.

All the mom’s came to this party. One other dad came. Anyone else notice this trend? I can’t complain because I can always find an excuse to miss another kid party. (Grass needs mowing, work to catch up on, hair needs to be washed…)

I can’t believe how fast these four years have gone by. My little girl is now the big girl and getting bigger everyday. She knows she’s getting bigger too….she reminds me everyday.

I’ve Survived

They should make a reality show about summer band and a week of teacher inservice. It would be pure entertainment. The good news is, I’ve survived one of the busiest weeks of the year…with some speed bumps along the way.

What’s been going on with me, you ask? Well, about 15 hour work days for the last week and a half is all I’ve been doing. I’m exhausted, I miss my family, and I still have work to do this weekend to be ready for school. ARRGHHHH!

I have about 30 hours of shows to watch on my TIVO. I have a lawn that is about two feet tall. My car is a biohazard. One of the TV’s in the house needs new cable. I haven’t run in a week. My oldest daughter wants to play and go swimming with me. My youngest daughter probably doesn’t even know who I am. But, I’m not complaining.

So, here’s to the first day of school, and all the joys that accompany it. How many days ’til summer ’08?

I’ve….been…..tagged…..

I don’t know what this means. A friend of mine wrote it in his blog. Apparently, he was “tagged” and answered some pre-determined questions in his blog. He then proceeded to tag two other folks, me being one of them. This sounds a whole lot like those emails that tell you to answer the questions and forward it to ten people or your babies will grow up to hate you and cancer will rot off your parts. I’ll play along this time.

Oh, and Eddie and Kyle….consider yourself tagged.

FIRSTS AND LASTS

First Memory: Eating a bar of Ivory soap after uttering some foul language to my mother who was not amused.

First Real Kiss: Gwenda S out at the ball fields in the summertime. She would kiss anyone….just kidding….not.

First Concert: I could give the band nerd answer and say “Beginner Band Concert. Yeah, I’ll stick with that. The real answer is even nerdier.

First Love: To CMA, my wife is my only love.

First Crush: Beth something in fifth grade. Man, I wish I coud remember her last name ’cause she was FINE.

First thing you think in the morning: Man, I have to take a leak!

First book you remember loving: The Indian in the Cupboard.

First pet: A cat named Beethoven. Great cat that played a mean Sonata.

First question you’ll ask in Heaven: So, what was the point of Oklahoma?

First thing you think of when you hear the word vacation: Hotel Pheromones.

First best friend: David Cunningham. He was a Jehovah’s Witness. I don’t know why that’s important, but it seems interesting.

Last time you dressed up: I dress up for my lady every night. (wink,wink)

Last CD you bought:Muse: Black Holes and Revelations Go to the media section of their website and listen to Knights of Cydonia.  If you’re now wowed, your name must be “Dawg”.

Last book you read: Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. No, I’m not a hormonal teenage girl. It was a gift from a student.

Last time you cried: When my three-year-old daughter accidentaly rammed “the twins”.

Last movie you saw: Bourne Ultimatum which in my opinion is the best in the trilogy.

Last time you told someone you loved them: Wait……just now.

Last really funny thing you did: Probably playing dress up with my daughter. If people who knew me saw it…

Last Halloween costume: A Pirate for a social in college.

Last concert attended: I’ll go nerdy again and say…Parents Night at the end of band camp.

Doctor Appointments

It’s hard for me to keep up with them all. My oldest daughter just got tubes put in her ears because she was having so many ear infections. They asked to do a follow up appointment after the surgery which we missed. Actually, my “reminder” ringer on the cell phone went off 15 minutes before the appointment was supposed to occur. The appointment was 30-40 minutes away. A colleague of mine has heard this ringer many times before major events at work. I usually set such reminders around 8 eight hours before such events, but I just didn’t this time. We had to reschedule the appointment for today. Tomorrow, my newborn daughter has her second appointment to make sure she still has ten fingers, I guess. Next week, my wife has a “post-delivery” appointment. I need to schedule my yearly physical which I have been putting off until I can get some of this summer weight off.

As you can see, we are very familiar with our doctors lately. Today, my oldest asked if she could take her new Cinderella doll to show her doctor. I’m sure this was the highlight of his day. She told all the nurses, and anyone else who would listen, about her new baby. It was cute, I hear. I stayed home with the newborn.

I am thankful that all these visits are just checkups. I know folks who have more visits than we do, and they’re not just checkups. It’s good to be healthy.

On a different note, I have been listening a lot to different webcasts. Some people refer to these as “pod”casts, but I refuse to give Apple naming rights to these wonders of the web. Most of the webcasts I’m familiar with are basically radio shows on the web. The cool thing about them to me is that you don’t have to tune in at a specific time to catch your favorite show. I just download WCs that I’m interested in and save them on my Zune for listening when I have nothing else to do. From time to time, I will update on what I have been listening to. Recently, I have been enjoying the Ramblecast with Jay and Jack. They are two guys in North Carolina who are mostly known for their Lost webcast about the TV Show. I listen to it too, but the Ramblecast is more fun to me. They talk about anything from movies to games and music to sports. Jack is actually Jay’s dad. In their last episode, they each picked their favorite ten TV theme songs of all time and played sections of each. Dawg won’t belive this, but THE WALTONS was not on either list. Shame. This one’s for you, dawg.

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What are your favorite TV theme songs of all time?

Single Parent Shout Out

I thought we could all take a moment today to think about those single parents out there.  Especially the ones dealing with more than one child.  Most of the people that read this blog are probably happily married with at least one kid on the house.  It occurred to me today how hard this parenting thing would be if I was by myself.  My wife and I split duties, taking turns doing this or that.  What if you had to feed every bottle, change every diaper, discipline every infraction,  give every bath, and coddle every cry?  WOW!  Whenever I get tired of these necessary duties, I think of those that have it a LOT harder than me.

The thing is, I know there are thousands of single parents that do this everyday.  My hat’s off to you.

And if you have somebody to share the duties with….stop your bitchin’.  You got it easy.

The Routine

My brother has referred to it in his blog. The baby routine: eat, sleep, poop. It’s not always in that order. Sometimes the little one likes to mix it up on us. You know, to keep us on our toes. Last night was the first night one of us stayed up with her. The hospital kept her in the nursery overnight for two days and nana kept her for the two nights following. My wife decided to take the first shift so that I could be fully rested to deal with our older child who has not slowed down at all. She proudly refers to the new addition as “my baby” and has made herself in charge of seeing that the baby has a steady supply of stuffed animals to sleep with.

Everyone is doing great so far. Today, the older daughter is going to a friend’s house to play and checks the clock every ten minutes to see if it’s time to go yet.

In other news, (yes there are other things going on in the world besides our new baby) I was watching TBS the other day and something happened that caused me a great deal of anxiety. Right in the middle of one of their shows, this remote appears on the screen and pauses the action. The show I was enjoying gets moved to the background and I’m forced to watch a commercial with Bill Engvall. This just confirmed my opinion that he is one of the most annoying men on television. Then, he “unpauses” the show I was watching so that the end of the scene could continue.

All of the TIVO owners out there should be terrified of this development. If this idea catches on, gone are the days of skipping through the commercials, because you’ll never know when one is going to pop up. I understand they have to make their money, and I deal with other things that are annoying like the bottom 1/3 of the screen being filled with advertisements during a show. The Turner family of networks (which TBS is a part of) is notorious for those ads. Many of them even have their own little scenes WITH THEIR OWN AUDIO happening at the bottom of the show you are trying to watch.

This new intervention, however, completely screws with the integrity of the show one is enjoying. Directors work hard to pace action, the delivery of punchlines, etc. What’s the point when a commercial is going to be stuffed into the show at random intervals.

I did write an email to TBS and would encourage you to do the same if this new attempt at getting to the TIVO crowd annoys you.

By the time my new baby is grown up, free TV will be dead with advertisements and we’ll all be buying programs from Apple on ITUNES. When that happens, brace yourself for the END OF THE WORLD!!!

B-Day

Today was the day. I woke up at about 5:00 this morning to the sound of some very heavy breathing. I asked my wife the obvious question to which she replied, “yes.”

We rolled in to hospital, checked in, and about 6 hours later, the newest addition to our family came tumbling into this world. She clocked in at 7 lbs 14 oz and is very even tempered so far. We’ll see what happens when we get home.

It’s late and I’m tired so I will sign off for today. Here is a pic.

Tick… Tock… & My Lady’s Junk

5 Days away from the official due date and still no sign of a baby.  I can’t wait.  I’m beginning to get a little stir crazy.

We have an appointment tomorrow to check progress.  Actually, my wife has the appointment.  I just sit there and watch all these strangers explore my wife’s nether-regions.  It is kind of awkward, but a necessary part of the process.  Come to think of it, I’m amazed at how comfortable everybody gets with each other when a pregnant lady is involved.   It starts early on in the process when perfect strangers (men & women) feel free to walk right up to my wife’s enlarged belly and rub it like a magic genie is going to pop out.  Then people start asking how the baby was conceived (like there’s any other way but one), when it was conceived (I can’t remember…they all run together), and what are you going to name it.  The bigger my wife gets, the more inviting she must look to people.  I’ve had questions about: my wife’s mucus plug (don’t ask me to explain it), if the gates down there have opened up any since last doctor visit, is she planning on using my her breasteses for feeding (yes, I wrote breasteses), and the list goes on and on.  There are other things to.  Have you ever fed a baby with another man’s wife’s breast milk?  (Think about that for a minute.)  Not only that, it’s perfectly acceptable for a mom to whip her mams out in a restaraunt to feed the baby.  I guess everyone else is eating.

I could go on, but you get the point.  Those barriers that we all throw up around us in public no longer exist with a baby in the belly.  Strangers ask us all the time when we’re “due”.  They always smile following the response and sometimes even follow up with a “boy/girl” or “name” question.  Sometimes, you’ll even get a whole conversation about their own pregnancy experience peppered with helpful tips.  Well, thanks for the tips but I don’t need to know what you did to get through when your wife was closed for business.