Where Rudy, Sea Biscuit, Braveheart, Hoosiers, and the red fern grows.

When you think about inspirational movies, I’m sure you conjure up some list of your favorites that you need a tissue, stiff drink or both.  I’m sure you remember a time in your life when you saw this movie and were immediately inspired to go practice something you’d been working on, or pick up some activity you’d been putting off.  There are countless other movies, Miracle, Field of Dreams (“Hey dad. Wanna have a catch?”), Shawshank, etc.  My point is, the movies that really uplift you are the ones where someone or some team who wasn’t supposed to win, won.  They did whatever it took, worked harder, and won.

Nita and I went to dinner with some friends the other night and they casually asked how our day had gone.  It had been fantastic.  I took Connor to the pool while Nita played with Josephine.  We were silly together and drove around in my golf cart.  On the way home he said he wanted to see the fire trucks.  So I drove him by the fire station and the door was open in the ladder truck bay.  Connor then said he wanted to drive the truck.  “Don’t we all son,” I replied.

We got home and Josie was napping and Nita’s mom was over to help with lunch.  So I went into man cave to see if there was a ball game or a good movie on.  As I was flipping through I saw it.  Where the Red Fern Grows. No way!  And it was just starting!  So I poured myself a Gentleman Jack with a little diet coke and settled in.  I think I made it about 19 minutes to the first tear.  After lunch, Connor came into the room and sat on my lap and watched the movie with me.  “Awe, that puppy dog is hurt daddy.  Bad Cougar, he’s mean.”  And I can barely tell him it’s okay, they’re just acting.

I remember reading this book as a fourth or fifth grader and just balling at the end.  I then remember deciding that I was going to be the coon hunting champion of Manchaca, Texas.  My problems were we had yorkies not redbone hounds, and my parents wouldn’t let me go stalking ring tail ‘coons in the woods with a BB gun and a hatchet at night.  In retrospect it was probably because all of our neighbors had real guns and it might have turned out badly.

In any case, the movie is a wonderful story of perseverance, loyalty, honor, love, humility and respect.  There are some pretty great lines as well, "I reckon every boy ought to have a tree like that to cut down once in their life." And when I told our dinner companions the movie I’d seen they were kind of familiar with it but not completely.  So I summed it up by saying, “I just saw a movie about how everyone wants their boy to turn out.”

The next day we went to a jumpy castle birthday party and Connor did three pretty cool things.  First, he was climbing an obstacle wall to get to a slide and wasn’t quite extending his legs and couldn’t reach the next handle/hold.  The best part of this was when I was telling him what to do; he was very calmly listening to the instructions and executing the commands. This made me happy on several levels: 1. He didn’t freak out at the height; 2. He was calm and not anxious about what to do next; and 3. He was listening to daddy in a situation in which it would have been easy to ignore me being caught up in the moment.  Second, when it was time for the kid’s picture most of the cat herding had been done by the time we put Connor and Josie down.  But we asked him to let Josie sit between his legs and have him hold her.  No problem, he did it gently and sweetly, but he held on tight.  Finally, there were some older kids who I guess thought he was a little older than he was and were rough and tumble with him on the jumpy obstacles.  And he just got up, laughed and chased after them. 

He’s such a good kid, he may never be the coon hunting champion of Oklahoma, win a state championship, or play football for Notre Dame, and I’m positive he won’t skate on the Olympic hockey team unless our neighbor Oly is a miracle worker, but I’m already pretty proud of him.  I think he’s going to be a great son, brother, member of society, husband, and father.  He did, however, poop the bed the other day.  So I guess the jury is still out.  I know!  Just pulled off his diaper and dropped a deuce.  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!

When did we stop singing songs about our junk?

A funny thing happened a while back at work.  I was in the men’s restroom and as I was walking to the sink one of my co-workers who speaks with a pretty thick accent came in and was headed to the stalls.  I said, “How are you doing,” trying to be polite.  He responded, “I’m going to poop (it’s even funnier if you think about it with an accent).”  I started getting a little red faced and explained, “No, I asked HOW you are doing.”

It made me think, would I ever answer this question the way he did?  And then it made me think, at what age did I start letting my ego/pride/embarrassment get in the way of my communication?  We all have stories about how we tried to act cool and did something stupid or hurt someone’s feelings and I’m not going to go there and issue apologies to all those... actually, yes I am.  If anyone reading this blog was a victim of my trying to act cool, or save my own pride, I sincerely apologize.  It more than likely made me look worse anyway.  But if you were a victim of my stupidity, please forgive me.

I got home yesterday and our nanny was telling me that Connor was singing songs about different body parts.  He sang about his toes, his knees, belly button and of course his penis.  Actually who hasn’t sung an ode to their own penis at least once right?  A friend of mine even has a comedy song about it called dear penis.  The question I have is, aside from Rodney, when do we stop singing about our body parts?  Publicly I mean.  

When you think about mooning or flashing people, you usually have some fun little memories of high school or college.  Additionally, skinny dipping is a fun and naughty little rite of passage…unless you are two and a half.   At this age pulling off your diaper and running around the sprinkler is merely something you would do on a Tuesday in the summer.  Obviously Josie is only 8 months and is just saying “mama” and “dada” and is oblivious to nudity or body fluids.  I guess this is why she can spit up on your neck and then give you the biggest two teeth grin she can muster.  She also has no problem eating the little portions of ritz cracker that Connor discards for lacking the proper amount of cheese or peanut butter….off the floor.  We’ll have to teach her about the three second rule later, but for now there apparently is no time limit. When you see her excitedly grabbing a hot new prize (like a sunflower seed kernel or a day old quarter grape) and she’s putting it into her mouth she looks pretty excited about the little treasure she’s just dug up.  Of course we take it away from her, but her disappointment clearly isn’t shame.  I guess we have to be taught that.

So when is the appropriate age to teach shame?  I’m not talking about right and wrong.  I mean shame.  Like don’t pull your pants down at the store …until you are in college and your pledge master tells you to.  Actually, I guess shame is the wrong word.  Modesty is probably the better term.  I don’t want my kids to be ashamed of their bodies, but I also don’t want to see Connor giving his little buddy some air at a dinner party.  And I certainly don’t want Josie playing “guess what’s under my dress” EVER (I know I’m going to have to let go eventually and I’m going to need some help from friends who have older girls).  I know I like to walk around the house in my underwear (because it’s cooler) but I certainly run to the bedroom and put some clothes back on when someone comes to the door.  But Connor doesn’t care, and I guess I hope he never does.  

So I think I might just tell Connor and Josie that due to their fair skin, they mustn’t show a bunch of it, but never be embarrassed.  And if you want to sing songs about your junk, go right ahead.  I happen to know someone who’s made a pretty good living doing it.  Just please don’t do it in church, or at school, or at the mall, or in the grocery store.  Okay, so maybe we could just sing it in the car?  Am I too uptight?

My son is a coked-up monkey.

My freshman year at A&M I took all science classes: Biology with Lab, Chemistry with Lab, Calculus, weight lifting, and Psychology.  The idiocy of my choices notwithstanding, I really enjoyed the Psych class.  One thing I will never forget was that our Professor had a research grant to study monkeys under the influence of cocaine.  This was 1987 mind you, so coke was still relatively new unless you count the hundreds of years that Mayans and Aztecs chewed up coca leaves and ran nekkid through the jungles of South America.  In any case, these monkeys would stop having sex (in the middle), stop eating, drinking water, sleeping, everything for more cocaine. 

Connor loves Thomas the tank engine.  He’s seen many of the videos, has at least 50 trains and coaches, and even has Thomas PJs.  We took him to the touring Broadway show that came to town where he met Sir Topham Hat and Thomas’ and Percy’s drivers.  He has a ton of track with multiple levels and tunnels, bridges, etc.  He has wooden railway pieces upstairs and the plastic sets downstairs. 

My best friend’s (and Connor’s Godparents) across the street neighbor has two boys who’ve recently just grown out of their Thomas obsession.  So their mom was just about to put them up on craigslist.  My best friend’s wife said, “Wait, call Nita first and see if they want it.”  Nita asked me if we should go and take a look before she sold them.  Connor has a catalog and is constantly pointing and saying which trains and trucks we “need.”  To be honest, I’ve broken down and gotten most of them for him.  And to be more honest, I couldn’t fathom them having anything unique to Connor’s collection.  I figured at best we’d find two or three trains Connor didn’t have or maybe get some more track to continue building his little empire.

Holy shit!  Now I should have guessed that a best-selling and award winning author might be a little quirky and gravitate toward the obscure.  But when we started sifting through the trains he and his wife had gotten for their kids, it was beyond amazing.  They had every obscure train and even some discontinued sets.  They had bridges, carnivals, the sheds, tunnels, and so many different and unique trains I was absolutely shocked.  Connor immediately took ownership of them and even started howling when Josie dared to play with one of the trains we didn’t even own yet.  So of course we bought the lot.

We got home and normally a big drive from Onion Creek to North West Austin induces a little nap.  Not for my boy with one train in each hand.  We got home and it was just about lunch time and immediately afterwards would be nap time.  But not for my little coked up monkey.  He wanted to take all the trains and sets out of the four boxes and start assembling all of them and cataloging his inventory which was now about double.  Connor threw a little tantrum when pressed to have lunch.  Again when he was put in his crib and told to nap.  He was trying to bargain his way into getting a train to hold while napping.

The next day Nita said he didn’t even want to play outside, it was all trains all day.  When I got home, it looked like it was about to rain.  Since I had driven Connor through a sprinkler or two in my golf cart, I said, “C, let’s go ride in the golf cart and see if we can get rained on.”  He very matter-of-factly said, “No daddy, I’m playing trains.”  I replied, “Hey buddy, come on, it’ll be fun I’ll even give you some juice.”  He stopped, thought, looked at his trains, grabbed Diesel 10 and Charlie the purple engine, and agreed.  So we drove around and finally got to the golf club where he hopped out and ran around (finally) with a train in each hand.  Again, dinner time was preceded by a light tantrum and he wanted to play trains instead of taking a bath.  Bed time was also coke-monkey-esque.  We almost had a little meltdown during his rant/explanation of how he just needed to “finish” the track. 

He really is at a great stage right now.  He’s really in to creating things, building, connecting, combining, etc.  So he has a red moment once in a while. (For all of you who are married to red heads or have red heads in your families, you immediately knew what I meant didn’t you?)  See y’all later, it’s back to the train table….I’m coming Connor, cool your jets!

Okay Nobody Call CPS....Again.

It already happened once with Connor’s stitches and although the person was pleasant enough, I’d rather not repeat it.  You’ll recall he took a little spill in day care and ended up with three blue stitches on his little red eyebrow.

Josie is now full-fledged crawling.  Not the commando crawling which I believe is safer and lower to the ground, but full-extend-the-elbow crawling.  Additionally she wants to crawl to Connor and either touch/grab anything he’s playing with or put it in her mouth.  Finally, she’s also pulling herself up on everything to a complete stand.  She thinks she’s way more coordinated than she is and is okay going up the sunken living room steps, down….not so much. So right now she looks like an MMA fighter with a little mouse over her right eye.

Connor has also realized he can get away from her by climbing the steps, and of course she goes after him.  Although he is a sweet little boy most of the time, he doesn’t dig sharing Thomas train engines or his “Mater” tow truck.  He has now mastered, “NO JOSIE, NO!!” 

His new technique for dodging Josephine is not helping her avoid looking like Rocky I, II, III, okay all of them.  She’s mostly tough and only cries for a little while until someone picks her up or gives her a puff (Puffs are the new organic fruit cheerios for those of you out of the game).  So the baby corral is up and it’s like reliving the Connor crawling dangers.  The difference is she’s so much further along physically than Connor.  I mean WAY ahead.  At least Connor was stronger and little older when he attempted some of the things Josie is doing.  He’d been in the exer-saucer for four months and the Johnny jump up for about the same time.

We’ve been taking them to the pool quite a bit and Josie just loves being in the water in her little float.  She kicks her legs in the big pool and actually walks along like a walker in the baby pool.  And she’s pretty good at controlling her direction.  Connor was very skittish last summer, but has turned into a little water bug.  We stumbled upon a swimming class last weekend and a kid just a few months younger than he was screaming about being in the water.  Connor very sweetly asked, “What happened daddy, is he okay?”  Meanwhile Josie is doing synchronized swimming in the corner.  All in all we’re having a fun summer (although if any of you could send some rain this way we could use it).  Connor loves running around and Josie is trying to emulate Connor using her head to cushion her fall.  Actually it isn’t that bad.  She’s pretty good with two hands, it’s when she tries to hold something or put it in her mouth while standing that she might lose her balance and do the face plant.  She’s still beautiful and chunky. J

And on July 4^th, Connor and Josie were in a little Independence Day parade.  Mom’s little dog Delilah also rode around in the wagon.  Connor and Josie loved the attention, the ride, and all the candy that went along with being the “talent.”  Of course getting him to stop eating candy and calm down was quite an adventure.  Mom doesn’t help at all in the sugar department. She sneaks him M&Ms, mints, and other things in which she claims her status as a grandmother exempt her from parental policies and mandates.  When mom said, “Connor will give you 5x what you did to me,” I didn’t think she was going to jump start it with cupcakes and egg him on.  Isn’t that cheating?