When did you stop
beating your kids? This year we decided our big vacation would
be a Disney cruise. We kind of went all
out. I wasn’t sure how the kids would do
on a boat for that long, so we did the four night cruise and booked an extended
stay in Miami for three additional nights.
Two nights before our flight we were getting Connor ready for bed and he
buried himself in our pillows to “hide in his habitat.” I reached under to get him and he exploded
out to “surprise me.” The poor boy hit the headboard so hard that I thought we
were going to get stitches. His eye
swelled up so quickly it was kind of scary. In fact I would guess it was one or two foot
pounds away from about five stiches, it looked pretty thin and tight (for those
of you to whom that would make sense). We
iced him pretty heavy for the next two days.
We arrived at the airport, took the first leg of our flight, and the
kids were doing great. I booked an
extended layover in case we needed costume (diaper) changes, lunch, or just
needed to run the kids to tucker them out for the Dallas to Miami hop. As the kids were running around the play area
Josie ran into the corner of the table...eye first. I now have two children
with black eyes. So here we are about to board a boat for a swanky cruise and I
am obviously an abusive father. I was
praying that Nita wouldn’t stumble into a door to complete the trifecta. In fact it reminded me of when I had gone to
Houston to ask Nita’s Uncle Sammy for permission to marry her. He recommended that I “never lay a hand on
her” in a way that hinted that they might not find the body should I ignore his
advice. Two weeks later we were house
shopping and Nita hit her eye on a spring loaded gate. I told her we couldn’t go to Houston for two months. She thought I was overreacting.
Disney and Miami. We made it on the boat and the kids
were pretty excited. We toured some of
the kids clubs and got some lunch. We had
a really large suite on the boat and it included a dining room. So instead of trying to get the kids bathed,
dressed, to hurry down and stand in lines to then sit quietly and wait an hour
for breakfast…we had the majority of our breakfasts and lunches in our suite; mostly
in pajamas. The funny thing we learned was that Josie is a night owl and Connor
goes full speed until he hits the wall and then goes down. Connor fell asleep at the dinner table all
but one night and while I entertained Josie at the table, poor Nita ate her
dinner in the suite almost every night.
We also learned that even though NO ONE loves animals as much as Connor
does; humans in animal costumes…not so much.
Meanwhile Josie loves characters in costume…and she can eat her weight
in macaroni and cheese. We visited the Bahamas, did a submarine ride, and
played on the beach; where Josie ate almost two whole mangos in one
sitting. That girl can eat. Kids and
parents had a wonderful time.
Miami
was wonderful. We went to the Miami Seaquarium
which is like a 1950s version of SeaWorld complete with the injection mold
plastic animals (Remember Mold-A-Rama?). The next day we went to Jungle Island which is
a VERY interactive zoo. Connor fed parrots, a lemur, kangaroos, and goats. He also held snakes, turtles, and an
alligator. The kid is fearless.
The
flight home was great and I even had a flight attendant tell me how well the
kids behaved. However, I made one
“princess bed” (you’ll see). After our
lunch the stewardess came by with warm cookies.
Nita had to go the restroom, Connor was watching a movie and was fine so
I slid next to Josie and started tearing her cookie into pieces to cool it
off. I mean it was just-out-of-the-oven
hot and I was helping, right? Josie was
nearing nap time and we’d been on the plane for a couple of hours and well the coup de gras was when I took a bite of
one of the pieces to see if it was cool enough.
Well Josie lost her mind. Not
only did she not want her cookie “broken” but actually consuming a portion was
just plain unforgivable. Nita came back
and looked at me like, “what’d you do, I was only gone for two minutes?” Even the flight attendant chastised me. I switched Connor’s whole cookie for Josie’s
“broken” cookie and the world continued turning.
Saturdays with Nita.
During the spring and summer I usually play golf on Saturdays and during
football season, well my time belongs to Texas A&M football. So Nita has been very creative on what there
is to do around town for the kids. One
time she found a reptile expo. Connor loved it so much I had to take him back
the next day. He held everything. In fact this year (if you include the petting
zoo, circus animal rides, and jungle island) Connor and Josie have pet, fed, held
or ridden: a camel, elephant, horse, donkey, cow, parrots, tarantula, black
scorpion, python, reticulated python, milk snake, corn snake, grass snake, boa
constrictor, alligator, lemur, kangaroos, turtles, dog, cat, caterpillar,
butterfly, largemouth bass, catfish, frog, worms, ants, praying mantis, rat, monkey,
lizard, bearded dragon, basilisk, chickens, chicks, sloth, ducks, geese, lambs,
goats, pony, sting ray, starfish, sea urchin, crab, snails, pigs, and
bunnies. It probably is no surprise that
Connor originally wanted to be a “snake hunter” for Halloween. In fact, he sometimes introduces himself as
“snake hunter” when asked his name.
New Door.
We have a new door. If you
remember 10 years ago when we were shopping for granite for the countertops and
how long it took, well once we decided to get one it only took us 9 months,
five trips, 10 designs, 200 emails, and three arguments. We have a new door.
Josie’s princess bed.
Josie learned to both climb out of her crib and also into it. She used items from around her room and (even
though she’s more coordinated than Connor) I just knew a big fall was
inevitable. Nita purchased a princess
bed for her six months prior from a friend whose daughter had grown out of and
we put it in Connor’s closet. So to set
it up it would have to be at a time when Connor and obviously Josie weren’t
napping, I was home, and I had a couple of hours. Well the perfect storm hit. I went to check on Josie as she got her arm
stuck between the rails trying to move her toy riding horse closer so she could
climb out. About 10 minutes later Connor
woke up and went downstairs and Nita was going to coax him into getting in bed
with her to continue the nap. We had a
date night planned with another couple in four hours. I saw my window. So I took apart the crib. I then went into Connor’s closet and got all
the parts and went online to download the assembly instructions. Nita came upstairs and gave me the “home
alone” look and shouted, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I thought it was obvious but I
answered her anyway. She flipped out.
“Put it back together right now!” I said I was too far along that I
preferred to go ahead and assemble the princess bed, besides it was a drop side
and disassembly is a one man job, but assembly is a two man job. Nita was inconsolable. I’m not exaggerating,
she was furious with me. The faux pas that I had committed was the sin of
omission. Apparently I was supposed to
check with Nita first. The real problem
was logically we both knew that Josie had outgrown the crib. The emotional problem was I robbed Nita of
the process to accept that there would be no more cribs in the house. Her baby had just passed a milestone. I’m sure all you moms out there got that
right away, and all you dads were kind of like me “WTF, problem - solution,
you’re welcome!” She was so mad at me,
when we pulled into the valet stand and he said, “You got a sitter, awesome… my
wife and I celebrated our 26th anniversary.”
She replied, “We MIGHT make it to 10.”
Well the date night went on and we managed to have fun. She accepted that it was time and I accepted
my failure in protocol. And Josie LOVES
her bed. Now when she’s ready to get up
she gets out, knocks on her door, and then opens it just about six inches…so
the zombies don’t come in. We laugh about this a lot now. Currently a violation of etiquette is known
as “the princess bed.”
MHP 80.
Around February Nita told me, mom is turning 80 this year, I’m going to
throw her a surprise party. So she
planned and planned and covertly contacted folks. She smuggled some photo albums out of Mary
Helen’s house so I could put together a video/slideshow. She worked with the chef, planner, and
bartenders at our club to make sure everything was perfect. She even went out and got special
decorations. Finally, she set up special
hotel rates for incoming family…during ACL music fest week no less. And two weeks prior to the event, Mary Helen
said, “Nita, I really do not want a party okay?” Pause, blink blink, “Uh, okay mom.” She was almost in tears and asked me what she
should do. I said, “Proceed. Put all your remaining energy into the
outcome, not worrying about how you got here.”
She did, and the party rocked.
Mary Helen was so surprised, and overwhelmed with all the folks who came
from everywhere to celebrate with her.
The food was perfect, cake was perfect, and we even hired a couple of
teenagers to take pictures of the event.
Mary Helen was still on cloud 9 days later. Happy 80th to
Mary Helen, and great job Nita.
Halloween.
Josie’s favorite holiday is Halloween.
Bigger than Christmas, bigger than birthday. Presents be damned, that girl loves zombies, “ghoulies,”
and decorations. Luckily much like
during Christmas, our neighborhood goes pretty Griswold for Halloween as well.
She made me take her around the neighborhood almost every other day to see if
any new decorations, graveyards, or blowups had been put up. Her favorite so far is a pretty disturbing
zombie mother rocking a zombie baby on this guy’s front porch. Connor likes
Halloween, Josie LOVES Halloween. Last
year we did the family theme, I’m afraid that ship may have sailed. Connor was a
jaguar (of course Abuelita sewed his costume) and Josie wanted to be a “pink goblin.”
Entomology. This was definitely the year of the
science experiment. It started off when
I read that the praying mantis was the most efficient hunter in the animal
kingdom, parlay that with the fact that they LOVE to eat mosquitos. We all know how much Marco loves flying
biting/stinging insects don’t we? Well
Marco ordered two praying mantis pods.
We were told that each pod would hatch around 200 little mantids. So we cleaned out a couple of little cherub
tomato trays and put a pod in each one.
And then one morning I heard, “Daddy! Daddy! Come quickly they are hatching.” I ran to the kitchen and then saw about 200
little baby mantids hopping around. It
took me about 30 minutes to gently scoop them up and take them outside. The next day…it happened to the other
pod. It was awesome. The kids were
amazed. We put the pics on facebook and
several of our neighbors would call or write us that they found one of our
little hatchlings.
Connor
and Josie’s school had a school visit from the butterfly guy. Long story short we ended up with a
caterpillar attached to a milkweed plant.
For two weeks we watched that little dude munch and munch and
munch. Then, “Pita” started to curl up,
turn into a chrysalis, and finally emerge as a monarch butterfly. The kids loved it.
We
then had our fifth annual petting zoo birthday party with all the farm animals
you can think of. The kids had a great
time, petting, wrestling, riding, and holding them all. Also, this year we decided to let the kids
each choose a cake. Josie chose rainbow
sheet cake…Connor asked for a doughnut cake.
Yes, Krispy Kreme makes one. Finally after everyone went home we started
to open gifts. Connor’s Godfather and
Godmother sent him a….wait for it….an ant farm.
Those little harvester ants made some great tunnels and Connor and Josie
both loved getting right up to the glass with magnifying glasses. Those guys
work let me tell you.
Phew,
what a year. The kids are growing like
weeds. Nita and Marco are healthy and
happy, and our blessings are too numerous to even list. Every year when I write this I look back and
laugh at all the fun and wonder how we were able to squeeze all of these
activities and experiences in a single year.
I also reflect on the times where maybe I lost a little faith, hope, or
let my guard down. It’s kind of
embarrassing to go back over all the wonderful friends and family in our lives,
the health and well-being of our kids, and in spite of all those things to
allow stress, worry, frustration, and doubt creep in. So this little recap is therapeutic for me. I hope you find it similarly entertaining,
therapeutic, and a way to grow closer to God.
So
here we are at the close of 2013. I wish
you all health, happiness, and all the blessings you deserve (and a few you
don’t). God bless you and Merry Christmas.
May 2014 be your best year ever.
Stay tuned, there are big changes coming soon. And Nita isn’t pregnant.
Marco,
Nita, Connor, and Josie (didn’t pull off the dog this year, but Nita this is a
hint, this won’t read the same way next year).
