Signs of My Times

As either a marker of achievement or lameness, this is my 100th blog post. I have too much crap to say I guess.

Many of us have things in our lives that make us feel old. For some, it's baldness, male or female unfortunately. For others, watching our kids' birthdays come way too quickly. For most of us, looking back on how much things cost (gas at $0.99/gallon around 1998-99, $0.29 and $0.39 cheeseburgers and hamburgers at McDonald's, etc.), what were the cool cartoons growing up (Disney afternoon, Thundercats, Transformers, G.I. Joe, Voltron, etc.), and what were the cool fashions that are popping up again as "retro" (pegged pants, neon glasses, etc.) remind us of simpler, easier times. For me its gray hairs.

Keep in mind, that there are some of my friends who can remember, oh about 16 years ago, when I entered Woodcreek High School as a freshman, the days in math class where I would allow any and all members of the opposite sex to pick through my #6 length hair to find and pull out the single digit gray hairs I had then. So this is nothing new. My head of hair that is. I've been dealing with the ever saddening view point from my barber chair of seeing a higher ratio of white vs. black drop to the salon floor with relative exponential progression for more than a decade and a half. Today was a new low.

As those creepy and scary two numbers, 3 and 0, march ever onward toward my life, it is with much weeping and gnashing of my teeth that I admit the following: I have (now had) a gray chest hair.

I'm not a hair-less guy. As my wife remembered and shared this evening, I once had a friend in college "nair" my back hair into a cross. Somehow, I, along with my brother, captured this hair growing gene from what appears to be thin air, and have been developing it with relative ease since we hit double digit ages and it has consumed my body.

Another flashback to high school. My senior year during volleyball season, I used to dye my hair the color of whatever school our next game would be played at in order to advertise to our tiny fan base where we were playing without saying a word. In order to do so, with my jet black mane, I needed to bleach it everytime first in order to allow some of the lighter colors to show up. Hair does not and has never scared me. Until today.

Today marks the day I admit to the world and finally, more importantly since lying to yourself is foolish, to myself that I am o-l-d. There are some guys at my work, in their late 40's, full head of hair and not a gray hair anywhere to be found. Could be dye, but knowing how cheap cops can be, its probably legit. Sure they might have wrinkles or other signs of aging, but to me, no signs of their actual length on this earth are visible to the human eye. Me however, I can now no longer strut care free shirtless at a pool or the beach with the knowledge that my rug of a chest is monochromatic, but that it is now and forever will be (since I won't be dying my chest hair in this life) polychromatic. Sigh......

My Life as a Dad Vol. 1 No. 3 Discipline of a Parent

I don't like to discipline. I understand it is an inevitable part of proper parenting and without it our kids would run amuck, but I still don't like to do it. Not for the full reason that most of you may be thinking. I definitely don't like causing my own child pain, but I also don't like to do it because I don't ever feel like I am fully doing it correctly. Let me explain. Discipline, Godly discipline, is used to correct, teach, and encourage. If done correctly, the child will A) still feel loved, B) know of their sinful heart, C) be prayed for, D) and continue to learn about their need for a Savior who can heal them through His own sacrifice and love. Here's my problem. While I try to explain all of that, I always feel like I tainted it by my own pridefulness. My telltale sign for knowing Nick needs to be disciplined, is because a frustration, anger, or combination of the two, has welled up inside of my own prideful and sinful heart. Sometimes it's to the point where I don't even feel as if it would be right to discipline him when I'm in sin myself and need my own rebuking. So, in those failing moments, I let it go and let him continue. I will still persevere most of the time, following through with my God ordained responsibility, and I try to remember to ask my 20 month old for his forgiveness as he's crying and hugging me, but in all honesty, it doesn't happen a majority of the time. I'm sure I am not alone in this problem as mankind, particulary the men of mankind, have a major ego problem and don't like to be questioned or disobeyed. I know somewhere in God's infinite wisdom are Scriptures that point in the right direction for my own heart and its cleansing. I'm also sure in Ted Tripp's Shepherding a Child's Heart there is profound knowledge just waiting for me to revisit it. But in the meantime, while I'm being lazy and just thinking about all this, it sucks to need discipline while needing to discipline.

My Life as a Dad Vol. 1 No. 2 Time is on My Side

I have one son. Either due to my inability to multi-task or his sheer amount of energy, I've conceded to the latter, I am unable to get anything done unless he is distracted. All to easily I have relied on my friends, Dora and Diego. I know television is bad for your kids. Fries their brains and all that jazz. Teaches them they don't have to use their imagination, the writers of cartoons will do it for them. However, selfishly, how can I get anything done? I'll tell you how. Give him a sipee cup of juice, some cheez-its, and turn on one of the 10 DVR'd episodes of Dora or Diego and plop him in my recliner to enable 20 minutes of uninterrupted time. This may be extended to an hour if my other orange buddy Nemo and his race car friends Lightning and Mater are in the neighborhood.

Does this make me a horrible father? Probably. But just like life, it's about balance. Should I put him in front of the TV all day? Absolutely not. Does an hour at a time kill him? Not right now it doesn't.

Maybe the problem is compounded by our recent move into a new home and the endless things that need to get done. Painting. Flooring. Landscaping. Hanging. Rearranging. On and on and on. I'd like to say that once things settle down and we get settled in the TV time will be cut into tiny bits and removed slowly from his life. Probably not the case, but a man can dream of the day his only kid is content playing with Lego's for hours and hours with no adult supervision required.

It is probably coming across as I don't like to spend time with my son. I assure you that is not the case. I love playing with him, reading to him, showing him how to fix things, how things work, sneaking candy to him, pushing him on the swings, and the endless supply of life that I'll get to show and teach him. But sometimes, I need to put a desk together, upload pictures, fix the lawnmower. And yeah, these are MY needs and MY needs are supposed to come second to HIS needs. Most of the time. In a perfect world. And it is my desire for this to be my reality. But as is my life, my world slowly creeps up into everyone else's. Sad but true.

And, as a side note, is it ok if he's watching "Christian" TV like Veggie Tales or if the show has good "morals" closely resembling Christianity? I think about these things as I drive around at work. Let's take Ni Hao Kai Lan for example. Super sweet cute Chinese girl teaching the Chinese language and what it is to be a good friend. In the process however, her friends are constantly displaying poor behavior and what not to do. Not something I want Nick learning or thinking is remotely okay just because his friend Tolby did it on Nick Jr. the other day.

I guess when you break it all down, the best way for me to teach my son and myself is to go back to the Scriptures, showing him how to emulate Christ. Not Moono, Boots, Larry the Cucumber, or his earthly father. Using the example of a God who subjected Himself to an earthly body, suffered and died so that His Father would have all the glory and we would have joy eternal in an endless life and worship of Him.

But man that's hard to remember when I need to rewire my surround sound system...

My Life as a Dad Vol. 1 No. 1 Supporting Other Dads

Primero de Mayo. A reason to celebrate Cinco de Mayo early and eat Mexican food and desert with good friends. That's what I thought anyway. See, we gathered tonight at our church and had dinner, played with our kids outside on the playground, inside the gym with a ball, and smacked a pinata. Little did I know the night would end in such catastrophe. Here's how it played out: All kids under 5 weren't able to get more than 3 pieces of candy out of the pinata, so the youngest of the adults, who will remain nameless, busted it open. The cornucopia of candy that spilled out was quite impressive and any little kid with even a basic knowledge of what candy means went after it, Nick included. Being that it was almost time to go and he had gone WAY too long without a diaper change, we allowed Nick to suck on a piece of a lifesaver while we changed him. Oh, and don't call CPS or judge us with the next piece of the story. Since we are such stellar parents, he gagged on the lifesaver while he was laying down being changed, and we continued to let him suck on it. Unbeknown to us, those multiple gags were just priming the charge. Once the cleaning was complete and the pajamas were zipped, I picked up the claymore to leave our fiesta. Just as I lifted him off of the chair he had been laying on, and my shirt spread wide at the collar, my wonderful son proceed to spew what can only be described as a major hazmat incident entirely down my shirt.

Let me pause and explain a critical piece of information. I have had old breast milk aroma spit up projected onto my face, neck, and down my shirt before. I've cleaned up all manner of food items from restaurant floors and patios. I've stood in the same water at the same time that baby poop has resided in. I've even been peed on my bare stomach by a little boy's geyser. I have not, however, ever, ever, ever had adult smelling vomit spewn down my shirt, onto my neck, and permeate my nostrils in the way that I did tonight. I've seen and dealt with plenty of drunks while I'm at work with all kinds of bodily fluids on them, but I glove up. I've seen a few major fatalities with major organs where they shouldn't be, doesn't bother my stomach a bit. But puke on me? Nope, nope, nope. Back to the events of the evening.

It was at this point, as I held Nick at arm's length and pleaded with my wife, as I had abandoned all relation to my firstborn, for her to take "her son" and she was unable to physically hold anything over five pounds as her body was convulsing from laughter, that I saw what true support of a fellow father looked like. My good, no, there's an upgrade in status necessary here, great friend Kevin reached out and took my chunk covered son from me as my eyes were welling up from the stench. Not only did Kevin remove my poor son who was scared and almost crying from the breakdown of his father's mental capacities, he went one step further. I had attempted to remove some of the vomit from the inside of my shirt by pulling it away from my body and in doing so felt, as I am again now do through the retelling of this nightmare, pieces of Nick's regurgitation falling slowly down my neck, chest, and stomach. I then pushed my shirt back against my body to stop the flow and unintentionally pressed said pieces deeper into my chest hair. At some point, unknown to me as time seemed to stand still, Kevin had passed off Nick to Katy and gotten some paper towels. Throwing caution to the wind, Kevin, this highly trained and veteran father of two more months than I, jumped to my aid and attempted to wipe off some of the vomit from around my neck so I would stop flailing about like a fish out of water. It is with the utmost sincerity that I offer my apologies to him for probably yelling at him that his efforts were causing me to feel the spew bits roll around on my collarbone area and yell "I feel it running through my chest hair!" and rip away from his assistance. For this, I am so, so, sorry Kev.

Unable to stop my own bile from building in the back of my throat, I tried distracting myself by doing what I felt was necessary, help clean up what had fallen through my shirt and onto the floor. Big mistake. Bile increase at an exponential rate. While Katy was distracted by trying to find one of our iPhone's to capture this moment in history, I took someone's advice and left the building to remove the source of most of my soon to come night terrors, my shirt, and not do so in as public a place as a church hall. I ran to our truck, removed my shirt, threw it on the rear floorboard, cranked up the air, and rolled down all the windows. I quickly realized the stench was still way too close and grabbed the shirt to throw it as far back in the bed of the truck as was possible. Embarrassed, still smelling the mustard gas on my chest and neck, and a little nipply, I sat in my truck as my scared son and grinning wife came to join me. I did offer apologies to all the ladies as they exited the building and saw me attempting to cover myself and my half-nude body as they walked by. Great night to pick the closest parking spot I might add. Before closing this story, I must say, don't hold any ill will toward Katy for the pleasure she took in the situation or anyone else who laughed and enjoyed it. I'm sure it was quite a site to behold to see a 240 pound CHP officer gagging, dry heaving, and whining from a little throw up. Again, it was not baby spit up, it was full on adult smelling vomit.

Oh yeah, and I decided to break up my few and far between blogs into categories I can more easily follow. This way I can keep this going in a series for as long as I can [;p[to monitor my own progress or regression. In this case, regression.

Potty Mouth

This past Friday, Katy, Nick, and I went to Disneyland. About halfway through the day, while at California Adventure and during Nick's nap, I needed to see a man about a horse. Whilst extracting the necessary liquid poison from my urinary tract, I overheard the following conversation behind me between, what I can only hope, was a 5 or 6 year old son and his father:

Son: Dad, I really have to go poop.
Father: (While flushing) I know kiddo, but all the toilets have poop on them. (Flushes again)
Son: Why dad? (Dad still flushing)
Father: I don't know, some people are just lazy I guess (Flushes yet again)
Son: Well why can't we just use the pee potty?
Father: You want to poop in the pee potty? (Another flush)
Son: Yeah, there's nobody there anyway.
Father: That's not a good idea kiddo. Here, this one's all ready.
(A brief moment passes as the son de-pantses)
Son: DAAAHHHAADD!
Father: What?
Son: I can't go while you're looking at me!

It was at this point that I couldn't bite my lip any longer to keep from laughing and had to leave. Plus, that would've been real weird if I had just stood in the bathroom to listen to a conversation, even one so lively as that.

Once I returned to my own son and wife, I found him wide awake and with a full diaper. Since I hadn't changed one in about a month, I volunteered to take care of it. Little did I know what was about to happen. You see, the changing table in this particular California Adventure bathroom was all the way in the back of the room, about three stalls down from where the above conversation took place. As I walk around the corner toward the baby station, I saw the same father standing outside of the same stall. Apparently the kid was not done yet. Here's how the rest of the talk went:

Father: Are you done yet?
Son: NO DAD!!!
Father: Can't you pinch it off?
Son: No because nothing has come out yet!
Father: Do you need a magazine?
Son: NO DAD! Umm, yeah, I need a magazine.
Father: (Stifling a chuckle) Seriously?!
Son: (Not laughing and dead serious) Yes!

You never know what you're going to see and/or hear at the Magical Kingdom

What is That?

Just before shutting the computer down for the night I saw a video clip on our desktop. Katy was already asleep so I was unable to ask her where she downloaded it from. Opening it up, I expected some comedic short clip. As the two minute movie went on, starting slowly but building in anticipation, I slowly felt myself slipping into my future. Sitting near Nick. Having him read some old blog post of mine out loud. It didn't help that the movie didn't take up the whole screen and a picture of him on our desktop stared back at me, or that I thought about how my beautiful caring wife brought me dinner at work and when I went outside to meet them, my boy was standing on her lap, saw me, and immediately smiled and reached for me. Time goes too fast. Stopping to think about it as its passing sometimes makes it slow down for those memories you hope you won't forget. Writing them down might help in the remembering. The loving of those in the memories is I think what matters most. Enjoy the video and think about your child[ren] and or parent[s].

Pluses and Minuses

Last week I went back to work. I know, I know, wah, wah, wah right? A whole month off and everyone should feel real sorry for me. Well here's my personal dilemma. I love my family. I love my job. Quite the Catch-22 for all you Joseph Heller fans. I've realized now, more than ever, I love spending time with Katy and Nick. This past month has been fantastic, with all the travelling and lounging around the house. Nick started standing a took a few first steps. Just this last week he started to say, "Uh-oh" when he drops (but mostly throws) things on the ground. On top of that, he will now reach for us if we're standing over him, something I'm sure we won't like so much later but hey, we're enjoying it now. Once you're holding him or if he crawls over to where you're laying on the ground, he'll give your neck a tight squeeze, almost like a hug. Tear-jerking moments I tell ya. The time with my wife has been amazing. I've really come to appreciate how much she puts into our marriage and Nick's life. She seems to spend every waking moment with him, changing, feeding, cleaning, changing, feeding, cleaning, a vicious cycle. Plus, I can tell she's missed me. I got a week off in March but it seems like I've been hitting the ol' grindstone pretty hard leading up to August, so I could tell she needed me to have a vacation as much if not more than I needed one.

Here's the flip side of Heller's catch phrase. Work is awesome. Where else can you drive fast legally, arrest people which saves lives, see crazy things like dismantled jets on a big rig travelling down the freeway, have airplanes land in your "office" aka the freeway, and work 3 off 3 work 4 off 4 granting you 3 day weekends every weekend?!? About two weeks into my vacation I missed work. I was having a great time with family, but I also missed my job. I know, I know, Voltaire said we can't have the best of both worlds. But that doesn't negate the fact that it would be super sweet.

I could ramble on and on about loving my family and my job, but it comes down to this. A month off with my family enables me to grow and have this:


Going to work after a month off enables me to now have this:

You decide. And don't let how long Katy will allow me to keep said 'stache influence your decision.

Parables in Poo Vol. 1 No. 5

As can be read about here, Katy, Nick, my folks, and I recently went to Disneyland. While staying in Anaheim we got rooms at the Hyatt, a pretty good hotel about 15 minutes from the Magic Kingdom. This hotel has an odd aura surrounding it. The last time I stayed in it, I was about 10 and my brother had an "incident" in the elevator after staying a few minutes too long at the hotel gift shop while mom and dad ate dinner. Nick had a similar "incident." Here's the story. I had just finished giving Nick a bath and was taking a shower while Katy got him ready for a day of fun at California Adventure. As is customary, Katy likes to let Nick "air dry," which, oh faithful readers, I trust you can figure out what that means. Once I finished my shower, I went to go find some clothes, only to find Nick still "air drying." He had quickly discovered that a hotel bathroom has not one, but two toilet paper holders as well as various sink piping, all extremely accessible to crawling babies so needless to say he always knew when the bathroom door was open allowing him entry to the world of undersinks. Which, in this instance, was where he headed. Not two minutes after he reentered the bathroom with Katy doing her makeup and me getting dressed, I hear this, "Awww, nooooo, Nick! Awwww....Rob can you come here for a sec?" Fearing the worst, I ask, "Is he okay?" To which Katy replies, "Well just c'mere." I hustle over to assist in what I fear is some electrical accident, and find this:


Not really knowing what to do, I instinctively run for the camera. The shots aren't great because while focusing I'm getting yelled at to put the camera away and help because Nick is playing in his own poo. But I did get one last shot:


Apparently, while trying to grab something off the sink and in complete stealth mode, Nick had opened the floodgates of his bowels with no sound whatsoever. It wasn't until Katy stepped in it and almost slipped that she realized what he had done. She quickly picked him up and put him in the tub, where he promptly attempted to clean his own feet by pulling the substance off with his hands and smearing it all over his chest, face, and the tub. After puting the camera away, Katy gave me a choice: the floor or the kid. I chose the kid. Once my hysetria subsided, since I had just showered and was not yet dressed, I hopped in the tub to clean my son. Mistake #1: I chose bath running instead of shower running. With the enormous amount of poo, it was apparently too much for the crappy hotel drainage system, slowly filling the tub with a thin layer of brown-water which began, unknowingly, to coat my leg hairs as I knelt in the tub to clean my son. Obviously, it took me longer to clean my son the second time than it did the first time. Once I realized I was covered in poo too, I quickly turned on the shower and held him up to the faucet. Mistake #2: I tried cleaning his backside first not knowing his chest and hands were still covered in poo, making my chest and hands now covered in poo too. After dry heaving a few times, I finally got him all cleaned and tried to pass him off to Katy. No dice. Not wanting to use a hotel towel and give new meaning to the idea of filthy hotel laundry, she used toilet paper. Not the most absorbant material that single-ply hotel toilet paper. For brevity's sake, let's just say that some of the bathroom grout in the Anaheim Hyatt room #1609 is a different shade than most of the grout.

Lesson learned. "Air drying" your child is ok so long as his piping has already been emptied...permanentaly.

Parables in Poo Vol. 1 No. 4

I have no idea how, but I'm convinced, diapers are magic. Little kids after they start eating solid foods start pooping solid poo. You would think, in such a tight confined space, that poo would be squished everywhere and coming out the sides. Turns out, it only leaks onto the legs when it's in liquid form. Take our friends for examples. One evening, we're playing a friendly game of "Settlers of Cataan," a central coast favorite or so we learned upon becoming permanent residents, and the conversation naturally turned to bowel movements while building cities and roads, moving the robber, and bartering for wheat and ore. I describe a bm of Nick's and the recently discovered phenomenon and lo and behold, it's universally true! Our friends were so thrilled with my elation over said feces that they sent me a picture of one of their 1 year old son's they took in light of their newfound knowledge of my sick sense of humor and inquisitive nature.

Parables in Poo Vol. 1 No. 3

This will be a snippet of a post that's about 3 hours long. Part of a three part post I wrote right after Nick was born. You can read the whole post here. For now, here's one of the better parts in my opinion and I never get tired of laughing at this picture!

...All in all, it was great being first time parents. Tiredness included. He did get a Billy Ribbon test which checks for jaundice, negative, and a genetic screening test which checks for all kinds of genetic stuff that we'll find out about later. Having a healthy baby boy is extremely precious and Katy and I felt truly blessed. One last thing. He pooped. It was awesome and gross at the same time, if at all possible. And me being me, I captured such an amazing incident on film. Here it is, check out the stickiness. I pulled the diaper apart so you could see the low viscosity levels found in what I now know as "marconium."