Blood, Sweat and (preferably no) Tetanus

I've been working on the basement office project for several months. Recently, I've be focusing on the space under the stairway. It's a junk-zone today but with some love, we think it can be something special.

The original vision was to create a bench nook sort of thing for readers and/or loungers. That didn't make it past the approvals board so now I'm building a playhouse! Something like this:

An important early step is removing an old shelf system and building a wall to enclose the area under the staircase. Over the course of a couple of weekends, a nice pile of wood scrap and other construction stuff accumulated in the corner and I finally decided to haul it out to the trash today. ...without gloves. And that's how to spend the morning in the hospital, children.

Lots of blood. 6 stitches. 1 tetanus shot. Two parts embarrassed, one part regret. Sigh...

Project status: on hold.

That's Enough Sleep for One Night

When I was growing up, we'd spend holidays with grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. Thanksgiving's were mostly spent at Mom's parents house in Towson. Children and grandchildren descended and temporarily forgot that they didn't own the place.

It was fun. We played marker tag and made cookies. Grammy and Grandad lived in the house at the corner of Cottage Lane and the back alley which meant they had a larger back yard than most. We'd play any- and everything in that yard: soccer, basketball, football, badminton, golf, etc. And the tire swing was a popular attraction.

I remember that (accidentally) sending a ball over the fence into the neighbors yard was avoided at all costs. Can't remember why though. I bet more than one tennis ball was lost forever on account of a grandchild's fear of the neighborly unknown.

If you stood on the back porch, you could pull seeds off of the tree and wing 'em at your siblings down below. Of course, if you were down on the ground level, you could sneak through the basement, up the stairs and into the kitchen to lock the Winger outside on the porch.

Grandad was a late-riser. In his defense, he was probably a normal-riser. ...children wake up early just to mess with parents (and grandparents).

If it was your turn, Grammy handed you a googly-eyed-fuzzy-pencil-looking-thing and asked you to go wake Grandad. There was only correct way to wake Grandad; twist the hair into a tight swirl, sneak-up on the unsuspecting fella and shove the hair twist right up his nostril (then duck any reflexes that may have been triggered).

I couldn't believe my eyes when I was clicking around the web yesterday and found this (the one on the left): the googly-eyed-fuzzy-pencil-looking-thing! The only difference is that ours was a yellow pencil with green hair. Wild.

Turns out that every generation enjoys waking someone from a sound sleep...

Fuel for Sleep Deprived Parents

I have front row seats to this amazing moment that's been happening each night for weeks. It happens a few minutes before Alex goes to bed and only lasts for 10 seconds, if I'm lucky.

After his bath, we put Alex in his pajamas and read him a few books. Ali takes Alex to go through the rest of the bedtime routine and I take Kinsley for her bath. Just as I'm finishing her bath, Alex comes out to say, "good night." With Kinsley in my arms, I kneel down to his level.

And then it happens. He gives her the most gentle hug I've ever seen, kisses her on her cheek and then hugs her again. Kinsley smiles right back at him and my heart swells.

I have no idea where he learned it or what compels him to do it. He just does it and it's arguably the best part of my day. And each night, I start looking forward to it all over again.

Kinsley Marie

We've been in a consistent state of change for the past several months. We've taken ownership of the new house in January, Ali's been in the final stages of the pregnancy and I'm 7 months into a fresh career move.

Mid-January to mid-February was a race to get the new house painted. Somewhere between rolling Moonlit Snow on the walls and Stolen Kiss on the ceilings, I started getting next-level excited about becoming a family of four. Before long, the crib was assembled, a take-home outfit (and other clothing) started showing up and the newborn carseats were back for round 2.

As we crept closer and closer to the May 27th due date, we started to wonder if the new baby would steal Uncle Matthew's birthday lime light. It seems like it would have been fun for most everyone. Fun fact: I have Aunts and Grandparents who share (or are very close) to my b-day. Go Capricorns!

Ultimately, however, the doctor had a different plan and we found ourselves heading into the hospital early Monday morning, May 22nd. Finally, we were going to meet the new baby! Obviously, it's impossible to know anything about her personality today, but I will write that she refused to cooperate at every photo opportunity over the last 9+ months.

This being our second time, we're much more confident and comfortable heading in for delivery. It's great to be familiar with the facility, process and have a general understanding of what's happening.

Delivery went exactly as expected. Everyone was in a good mood when baby entered into the world at 10:09am. By 10:28, the doctors and I were posing for pictures with the new baby. I'm happy to see that I've figured out how to wear the mask in a more flattering way.

Baby was back in Ali's arms shortly after the photoshoot was complete. Shortly after that she had her first real-world meal and shortly after that I was making some phone calls like every proud papa would.

Baby weighed-in at 8lbs even and looks beautiful. We could not be happier.

The new baby, Ali and I are spending the days and nights together. I shuttle between home and the hospital in an effort to keep Alex's routine as consistent as possible. It's really nice to have Grammy and Pop-pop to help. And, I can't wait to introduce the new baby to Alex!

We don't have a name picked-out for the new baby yet but we've narrowed it down to three. We like to ask everyone who comes in the room for their opinion. I'm leaning in one direction (and am really happy about it).

The Gender Sender Delivers the News

Wifey and I have been keeping a secret for a bunch of weeks:

The news of baby's gender was available to us around Thanksgiving-ish. However, as of Christmas morning, only Wifey knew the gender. Turns out we have significantly different opinions about this little tidbit of knowledge the second time around. Who knew?

I lived through several weeks of loving torment (e.g. "Do you want to know now? ...how about now? ...um, now?"). We made plans to disclose the Mills side of our family at Christmas lunch AND force them, willingly or not, to participate as the gender was revealed to me/us. Here's how it went down:

Our calendars are marked for May 27th!

The Great Pacifier Backfire

Wifey & I didn't want to use a pacifier with Alex. Then he went to daycare and we found ourselves knee deep in those thangz. It made our lives a little easier at the time but Alex is so chill that neither of us think there was a material benefit. Quitting the habit brought the full range of withdrawal goblins though and that's what we're dealing with this week.

Naturally, I took the pacifier notion and mashed it with one of my favorite musicians (Walker Hayes). Here's where I landed.

Since I have very little music-ability, I needed to rip the instrumentals and most of the remaining creativity. Getting the lyrics and instrumentals didn't go quite as planned but you got the point! Here's the original song. I picked it because it's got a nice message behind it that is easily relatable. 

You be the judge though, which version do you like more? ;-) 

Fall is for Farms

This is a great time of year to be (as mature as?) a toddler. Who doesn't like to carve up a vegetable, cruise down a hillside slide on a potato sack, roll around in corn or over-indulge on cinnamon donuts? We've been doin' one fall festival per week for a while. It's great - each weekend a new farm!

Gaver Farm was our choice for pumpkins and farm animals this year. Alex especially likes the goats.
By the way, have you ever noticed human's predisposition towards enormous pumpkins? I can't explain it but it seems to be part of our nature. I direct your attention to Exhibit A (...as in Alex).

Despite the more reasonably sized pumpkins, Alex wanted the pumpkin that weighed as much as he does. Gotta admit, I love his ambition! Unfortunately for him, when I was growing up, the rule was; if you can carry it, you can get it. So...

The best part of Butler's Orchard Pumpkin Harvest was the squash shooting, jack-o-lantern launching, punkin' chunkin' CANNON. How could I resist? Pay close attention to Alex when I blow the horn.

Side-note: Butler's has the best cinnamon donuts.