Baseball Weekend, June 2008

The guys and I renewed our summer baseball ritual from the 80's and 90's, only this time instead of watching the Reds play in Cincinnati, we followed them to Yankee Stadium, my first trip to the Big Apple.The crowds took some adjustment, as did the reek of sewage, high humidity, teeth-jarring subway trains, and cramped airport (Laguardia was like a rabbit farm on the way out of town, as cancelled flights caused people to pile up in the terminal with fewer exiting than arriving.) But let no one tell you that folks out east are rude - I encountered some awesome folks during the trip (the girl from Australia, the bartender from Ireland...) Seriously, except for the jerk bartender in "Charley O's" bar (avoid that Sunday afternoon shift at the bar on Broadway), everyone was great.

The memory I will most take away from this trip is Brad's jumping on the wrong subway train for south Manhattan, the door closing, and him being rushed away while the rest of us stood there and watched. We connected later, but watching him be helplessly carried away was a chuckle. Since our phones were working only sporadically underground, I sent my first text message ever, in desperation to find our lost friend. It said, "beers @ eamonns, murray @ church - come find us." We watched four innings on the big screen before he arrived.

Of course traveling means eating non-stop. We covered "Mickey Mantle's" along Central Park, Moxie's Deli for a multiple-pound Pastrami, the "Brooklyn Diner" for awesome thin crust pizza, and a great little Irish pub or two, our favorite being "Eamonn's" in central Manhattan.

I also saw my first Broadway play, "November", starring Nathan Lane. Very talented man, and great entertainment for anyone, but especially if you love a little twist on your politics (is there such as thing as 'untwisted politics?') Best quote from the play: "There are no solutions. Only rearranging of problems." I recommend it, although it's closing in July. Best part of Broadway? The blonde aussie I met in the ticket line who gave me her reviews of all the shows she'd seen in a week.

Finally, I did a little 'tourist' round of visiting the Ground Zero site and memorial, and walking down to the park to see Lady Liberty from a distance. We also played catch in Central Park one afternoon.

I came home with a $3 T-Shirt from a street peddler, and a lot of great memories (and only about 15 hours of sleep in 3 days.)

Click here for photos from the trip.

- Jason

Nick's Eighteenth Month

Nick is getting into rhymes and games now. Mama taught him 'Patty Cake' and 'Ring around the Rosy'. For the first one, he can 'mark it with a B' by drawing a B in his hand. For the second, he flops on the floor like John Barry at the word 'around' (an NBA player known for flopping fouls, for the pointless-sports-trivia-challenged folks.) He's also learning rhythm, when we sing in the car, and taps his hands to the beat. Brandi plays her boombox frequently, so his favorite tunes to sing along are from Sara Evans. His singing still sounds a little like the 'Chinese Top 40', but as far as just talking, his current vocabulary contains Ball, Up, Bird, Mama, Daddy, Chocolate, and Juice. (This must be how the writers for Star Trek came up with all those langaues.) Want to hear his opinion on things? Check out the video at right where he's jumping on the bed and talking up a storm.

All those toddler TV shows I thought were so cute 6 months ago, I now find myself mocking behind Nick's back. "Just save the damn squirrel, already!" I shout, as the Wonder Pets fart around singing and carrying on, taking a half hour to perform the daring rescue in their flying red Frisbee. Mama has her hands full containing us both. All those people who create outlandish warped videos on YouTube, making a mockery of innocent children's shows? I now understand these people - they are crazy parents desperately trying to get the theme from 'Barney' out of their heads.

Most of us don't remember the cro-magnon urges from our youth, but we are quickly reminded by seeing our children come across something that rivals the greatest things of all creation - like Spicy Chili Doritos - and watching them shove their mouths full until they choke. The 'too much of a good thing' lesson comes early in life. Favorite new food this month is a grilled cheese sandwich.

The pictures this month feature some shots of his 'happy Chinaman' smile, which isn't so much his squinting in joy as it is the 'scorch the retinas from your skull' flashbulb on our old camera. It makes for cute pictures, so we use it on occasion. (If his eyesight starts fading in his twenties, I'm gonna feel guilty about this moment.) Mama bought him a toddler pool for outdoors on hot days. She was so eager to introduce him to the pool, we rushed him into it the first weekend for pictures. He wanted no part of the pool, or at least not while there was a broom to push around. He played with the broom for an hour - naked, of course - and barely wet his bottom in the pool.

Brandi made us some homemade Halushka (or sometimes known as Polish Palushki) from her grandmother's recipe. Nick and I both enjoyed those, and she hit the recipe right-on the first time she made it. Good stuff!

He's been snuggling up to us for awhile now, but is finally giving all-out hugs just this month. There is nothing better in life (not even Buffalo & Ranch Doritos, although Nick might disagree.)

Click here for pictures from Nick's 18th Month.

- Jason

PS: You'll find one stray picture in the link this month - of Joanae's little boy. Collin Greenawalt, welcome to life.

Nick's Seventeenth Month

We're getting out more with the warm weather, to the playgrounds and parks. He's come to love the indoor playground at McDonald's, although he'd rather run the grill (I can't keep him in the playground - he wants to be in the kitchen.) We got out to a local church festival with some friends and rode the carousel and train. Nick enjoyed them both, but not as much fun as running free through the beer tent and trying walk off with the band's instruments.

He also got out alot this month with the gaggle of moms and kids. The little girls in his play group have trouble pronouncing 'Nicholas' and call him "NEK-lee-us" which he's taken on as a nickname. Early life lesson accomplished: it doesn't matter what the cute blonde calls you; if she calls, you respond.

He's using sign language more to communicate. The universal signs he knows are for 'more' and 'milk'. Along side of those are some signs unique to him, like smacking the front of his trousers for a diaper change. I fear the switch at some point to less-padded diapers could be a painful transition.

We made a trip back home to Huntingdon, PA for the holiday weekend, and Nick stayed in a hotel for the first time. We hung a bedsheet from the ceiling with thumbtacks to divide the room, so he had his own playpen to sleep (which he did a little of), a sanctioned play area, and toddler videos playing around the clock. He traveled well once again, without a fuss for over 800 miles on the road, and only a short adjustment period to the new surroundings (I got at least 5 hours of sleep in a row each night, so that's not bad. Mama came with her earplugs, since the hotel sits along the railroad tracks, so she slept better than I. I have the train schedule to Huntingdon memorized if you're looking to make travel plans by rail; are those trains that arrive at 1AM, 3AM and 5AM considered 'red-eyes'?)

On the subject of trains, we have a wooden whistle that sounds like a train, when you blow into all four hole openings at once. I make choo-choo motions with my arms, and blow the whistle and he loves it. Now he can make the motions himself, and knows how to blow a whistle, but only one hole at a time. Now that he knows how to blow a whistle, how much longer until he figures out how to blow his nose?

Nick feasted on home cooking for the weekend (as we all did) from his Great Grandma Perow's kitchen, to the family restaurant. He loved his Grand-Daddy Bobby's bread, and it turns out he loves ice cream after all. He bonded with his Grand-Daddy over some fresh rhubarb stalks straight from the garden. He carried around a stalk and gnawed it for hours. He also got to splash in the small fountain with his Great Grand-Pappy.

A final stop on the trip, we broke bread with his Great Nanny and Grand-Pa-Pa for an afternoon. We couldn't tell if all the orange jello he ate stained him from the outside-in or inside-out, but he was mostly orange, and a little green from top to bottom. Meals are always good fun. As he continues to train for the olympic cheeze-it throwing contest, whether he is right or left-handed remains a mystery. He can cover equal distance across the kitchen with either arm, thereby keeping my hope alive that he'll be the first switch-throwing pitcher in the big leagues someday. In the meantime, he has mitts for both hands.

Click here for 17th Month Pictures.

- Jason

Nick's Sixteenth Month

More often Brandi and I are noticing habits and idiocyncracies of Nick that remind us of each other. Yeah, he's talkative, flirtatious, pushy, determined, stubborn and short-tempered... just like Brandi. But he also hangs his tounge out like a beagle when he's thinking hard, chews his lip, and fidgets constantly, just like me.

After seeing him standing on the glass table in the tv room, we removed the glass surface, so it can now serve as his personal jungle gym. He's also now finding things we never knew we lost - or he's disassembling key pieces of the house and furniture that will collapse under us later. He's walking around with nuts, bolts, springs and all sorts of who-knows-what pieces and parts in his fists or mouth. He also loves to hide things in the sofa cushions like ladels, spoons and straws.

There are some pictures of him doing remodeling work, just like his GrandMoose. He can now mimic an action upon seeing it only once. And some actions we don't even remember showing him. We don't think he watched us scraping the paint from the wall, but we look up, and he's doing it.

Nick is starting to ask for things now, and we're requiring him to speak more often to get what he wants. Sometimes it works in reverse, though, and he says the word after he gets it. He can almost say 'chocolate', and if I withhold the morsel waiting for him to verbalize, he has a meltdown. But everytime I hand it to him, he says it after. Who's being trained here? Give him credit, though, he understands 'no' and stops in his tracks right before sticking his legos in a light socket or shoving his head into the oven.

The picture here is in the swing from his Aunt Megan. He'll sit in it for hours if we let him. Nick and I went out this Saturday to give mama some free time, which included a trip to the elderly home around the corner to visit a friend (oh, how they love him there!) and to the park for a ride on the tax-funded swings. He pushed his way past the other kids to the jungle gyms he wanted on, and had no fear climbing to the top. Except for eating a wood chip (Nick), and being nearly lambasted by a swing (me), we came away unscathed.

Click here for 16th month pictures.

- Jason

Nick's Fifteenth Month

We've made it to 15 months already, or 5 consecutive quarters. If Nick was a corporation, he'd finally be able to report year-over-year performance for the first quarter. His stock is rising, but if he keeps breaking things around the house, his net worth is going to roll backward. He found some old martial arts weapons I thought I had well stashed - he came running through the house with an Escrima stick and proceeded to protect us from the piano. And I finally figured out what is causing the rough edges on the leather steering wheel in the Jeep - it's Nick. When Brandi lets him play in the truck, he's gnawing on the steering wheel. Anyone else buy their kid a $40,000 chew toy? If you know me and my cars, you know it's driving me nuts.

The doctor says he has the cognitive skills of a two year old. I know he has the voicebox of a two year old, and he's using it more frequently. He's also passed all the food-allergy tests, and is clear to consume most things he encounters. He's now into eating whatever is on someone else's plate: toast, pizza, veggies, and his first Jello (it was blue). He loves garlic mashed potatoes (all real stuff here, no boxed tater flakes in our house.) The trouble is, he hates having someone feed it to him, or taking it from a untensil. Some food is just hard to pinch between his two little fingers, but it doesn't stop him.

Another proud moment for the daddy as Nick reaches more milestones towards earning his man-card. I always thought the concept of 'farts being funny' was driven by societal pressure, not necessarily natural instinct. Well, it turns out he learned this on his own, therefore disproving my theory. Along the same lines of 'tricks he'll carry with him through college' is his love for making hats out of everything, from tupperware to his mama's bras.

We were watching The Wizard of Oz the other night (which I had never seen before) and Brandi observed of the Wicked Witch of the West, "You can see why children were terrified of this character." Meanwhile, our son is pointing at the screen and laughing loudly each time he sees the witch. "Yeah, I see what you mean." We took a walk down the 'JC Penney Yellow Brick Road' (ever notice how the traffic pattern around the store is faded yellow tile?) - he loves to walk the store in circles... forever. I snuck in front of him to change my view of his adventure, and he stopped. "He wants to lead," says Brandi. Sure enough, he's already decided he's not going to follow. He either leads, or he stops and looks at you waiting for you get out of the way.

Nick and Brandi went to the Bunny Party at the local library last week. The pictures are of him pounding on another little kid about his size for a toy, and then trying to hijack the strollers of other children, sometimes with them still inside. He doesn't seem to have developed a fear mechanism yet, and his social skills could use a little polish. We're working on it.

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- Jason