We're Home

Ian made it. Five days in Cleveland, but Ian made it. And we made it.

We had an exciting trip. He was perfect on the flight up.

• Ian saw his first snow,
• had his first Thanksgiving,
  
• he went to his first football game (too bad the Texans lost, despite his Texans' onesey jersey),
• he met a ton of cousins and aunts and uncles,
• he had his first professional photo shoot,
• he met a miniature donkey (don't ask),
• and, of course, he took his first plane flight.

Unfortunately, Betsy and I are still learning about Ian and don't always get everything right. Our flight home was at about 6:00 PM. Ian does much better in the morning. We know that, but didn't think about it when we planned the flight. He cried the whole way home. He was really tired and just couldn't fall asleep.

When we got home as Betsy walked through the door with Ian, he broke into laughter. I don't know if he recognized our house or could smell that he was home, but he was VERY excited.

We had a good trip, but we are all glad to be home.



Here's a picture of Ian at the Texans - Browns game. His eyes are closed because he can't bear to watch the Texans lose.

Happy Almost-Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is the busiest travel day of the year -- the day before Thanksgiving. Tomorrow Ian takes his first trip on an airplane. Oh crap. What were we thinking? This was not good planning at all. The trip to the airport will be the farthest that Ian has gone from the house, so a trip to Cleveland, Ohio is going to be a pretty serious adventure.

I have no idea how this is going to go. I do know that carry on luggage is a thing of the past. No longer do I have to check bags only because I am bringing golf clubs on vacation with me. Nope, now we have to check bags because there is so much junk that Ian needs. You would think a 9 week old baby that only eats breast milk wouldn't really need much in the way of supplies. That's just not the case.

Wish us luck. We are going to need it.

Happy Birthday

Ian is two. Well, two months anyway. When a baby is two months, that means it's time for his shots. This is all probably more traumatic for the parents than the kids. It took more time for me to sign the papers than it took for Ian to get fully inoculated. I am not even sure exactly what the four shots were, it all happened so fast. He cried, but just for about 30 seconds.

Betsy and I discussed all of the pros and cons of giving him his shots. For those of you who don't have kids or whose kids are older, you might not realize there is a lot of controversy out there now about whether or not to give kids shots. Some of this surely stems from the fact that most people don't know what rubella is. I didn't, until I looked it up. We don't hear of that many people getting these diseases these days in the US. Of course, one could argue that's because kids get their shots.

I have some friends whose kids aren't getting their shots, or at least not all of them on the conventional schedule. I am proud of them for researching this and making their own decision and sticking with it despite pressure to do otherwise.

Some state require shots for kids to be in school. Some states don't. Some state have exceptions for religion. Some states have exceptions for any parent who is morally opposed. That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. Surprise, Texas is one of those states that doesn't make sense. Texas requires shots, but not if the parents are morally opposed to them for any reason. So can Texas really say it requires shots? This reminds me of going through security at the airport. Often the security people say they "recommend" that we take our shoes off. Ok, fine, recommend away. Only, every time they recommend and I decide I don't want to take them off because they don't have metal in them and won't make the machine go off, they stop and make me take my shoes off. If they told me it was required to take my shoes off, I wouldn't care. If they said, you have to take your shoes off, great. But, often they don't. They recommend it and when I choose to keep them on, then they require I take them off. Make up your minds people. The same holds true for Texas schools. You can't "require" shots if anyone can decide they don't want to give them to their kids. Let's be honest here and call it a "recommendation". Let's leave requirements to the shoe police at the airport.

Oh right, back to Ian. The one nice thing about giving a baby his shots is he gets really sleepy. Maybe they don't all get sleepy, but Ian did. Plus, it was this funny clearly drug-induced sleep and when he came out of it once in a while, all he wanted to do was snuggle. I highly recommend enjoying the day or two after the shots. It is a nice relaxing mellow break from the rest of parenthood, which started right back up about 36 hours later.

There are new pictures linked in the left column and the first two sets of pictures have been renamed. We are going to try to do monthly pictures, so they will now be named with months.

Here's a teaser pic for you. Enjoy!

Happy Halloween

I seem to be about a week late with all of my posts. A Halloween post on November 8? Sure, why not.


I guess having a kid means finding new ways to celebrate old holidays. Anyone out there who happens to be reading this who went to the University of Colorado knows all about what a crazy holiday Halloween was in Boulder. My understanding is they completely stopped the Halloween stuff that used to shut down the entire city and turn all of Pearl Street Mall into one giant costumed mosh pit. That's too bad, we looked forward to Halloween as soon as school started.

Halloween seems to have changed since then anyway. As a young adult -- and possibly for college kids now too -- it seems to be all about girls wearing as little clothing as possible and guys, well, guys don't really care what they are wearing as long as the girls are wearing as little clothing as possible.

Now we are past the young adult years and into the kid years. When did that happen? Oh right, 7 weeks ago. The kid years means no more Halloween parties that involve drinking and outrageous outfits. Now it's about kids' outfits and trick or treating. Obviously Ian is too young to trick or treat. He may be able to gnaw on some candy with those gums of his, but I don't think it's advised. He did get to dress up though. Betsy's play group got together and all of the kids dressed up. I missed the whole thing, but my impression is the mothers had more fun than the kids. Anyway, enjoy the pictures of Ian. For all of you who may be confused, no, he's not a frog or a dragon or an alligator or a lizard. He is a turtle. And in the picture below, he is with Sasha, who I can only guess is Tina Turner in her better years. First girlfriend?

Smile?

There are some things that are just meant for moms. Before Ian was born, Betsy used to sit up, gab my hand, and put it on her stomach.

"Did you feel that?"
"No! For the hundredth time."

Ian kicked and hit and hiccuped and kicked some more. Every time Betsy wanted me to feel it. That was nice of her, but it just didn't work. It probably didn't help that she would sit up, grab my hand, and yank it toward her bulging stomach when she felt him move. Every time she moved, Ian stopped moving. For some reason, Betsy couldn't break this pattern and I continued not feeling Ian move.

The same is happening now, but this time it's with Ian smiling. Supposedly Ian smiles a lot in the morning. Unfortunately, it's always after I have left for work and suspiciously he doesn't feel like smiling on the weekends. If he does decide to smile when I am around it is always right when I have given up and turned away for a second.

I would say that maybe Betsy is making up this whole smile thing. But, she has now produced proof.



Now I know it's true.

Eventually, even I felt the kicking. It was hard to miss, especially when a knee was sticking out in a funny direction. I will eventually see the smile too.

I wonder what will be next? Will he sit up? Crawl? Walk? Talk? And hide it all from me? Is he purposefully torturing me? Doesn't he realize I want to see those smiles too?

I guess I will have to wait for him to start talking before I ask him these questions, that is, I will have to wait until he starts talking around me.

Oh, yesterday was Halloween. More about that later.