In case this ends up in a time capsule of some sort,
yesterday will go down in history as the day the scabs hit the tipping
point. Remember back in 1987 when the
NFL locked out the players and they started the football season with “scab”
players? Well the NFL referees are
locked out and the blown call at the end of the Green Bay vs. Seattle game may
go down as one of the biggest blown calls in the history of Monday Night
Football. Now I’m probably a little
bitter because I was talked into playing fantasy football (which I had
successfully avoided for 16 years) for the first time and I find myself sweating
out games that under normal circumstances I wouldn’t give two shits about. I remember about 8 years ago my buddy Pete
asked me to name 12 quarterbacks in the NFL.
I did, but it wasn’t easy. Now I
can pretty much give the top 5 position players on all 32 teams. I’m not proud of that, by the way, you all
know how competitive I am.
As a funny aside to the paragraph above, I was in man cave
sweating out the game last night while Connor and Nita were watching a spitting
cobra episode of Crocodile hunter. After
the 200th sack of Aaron Rodgers I shouted, “Mother F@#$%^.” Nita came in the room and said, “Connor heard
your little outburst and said, ‘Mommy, Daddy is calling you.’” That actually made me laugh so hard I was
crying. I really have been watching my
language in the house but I thought Connor had already gone to bed. My bad.
Connor has grown into a booster chair now. Yep, he’s riding tall using a real
seatbelt. And his new little booster is
pretty slick. It has movable arm rests
and two cup holders. He is very sweet
about it too. Josie will ask if she can
put her sippy cup in his holder and he always agrees to do it. Oh, and two pretty scary events happened
yesterday. By the way was there a full moon or something? What is up with Yesterday and this
morning? Anyway, Connor ended up in our
bed last night. I figured he’d gotten
scared or something and Nita brought him downstairs to settle him down, but
when she discovered him in the bed she took him back upstairs and tucked him
in. Apparently, my adorable son can unlock
the baby gate at the top of the stairs now.
And he did just that and came down the stairs in the middle of the
night. Normally he gets to the top and
calls for one of us and then Nita goes up and settles him down. This is a new twist.
Now for those of you who have been to the house, you know
our staircase. It is charming, but
probably the most dangerous staircase available. To make things worse, when we did the hardwood
floors, we also did the stairs. In fact when Connor was first learning to walk
up the stairs and Pete would come by; he’d hold his breath every time he got
about half way up. Pete said, “My heart
just stops right at the turn where it starts to narrow.”
A couple of years ago, Nita went to go check on Connor in
the middle of the night and missed the last step and took a little tumble. So I
went out and bought some glow in the dark tape.
You know like the stuff that they use on stages for marking your spot in
the dark? And actually my mom took a
little tumble leaving our house through the garage and cracked a rib just before
we flew down to the Valley a couple Christmas’ back. So I put the tape on the bottom seven steps
and made a little runway for mom in the garage in case she didn’t turn the
light on. This morning Connor wasn’t
talking too much about why he came down the stairs or how it went (he does kind
of sleep walk a little too), so I’m not sure if he used the tape as a guide or
not. All I know is I’m a little freaked
out about it and need to put an extra stopgap on the gate.
This morning Josie was nice enough to show me how she’s
learned to climb up into her crib all by herself. She does it by pulling herself up, using her
rail and mattress as footholds and then launching herself headfirst over the
rail onto the mattress. She laughs as
she catches herself with her hands and head and then flips on her side. Yes I visualize her next move all too
clearly. So we have to ask if it is time
for a princess bed (lower to the ground of course), or do we try to reason with
a 2 year old and convince her that it is dangerous to climb on furniture (while
watching brother bounce from item to item like the ground was a crocodile
infested moat). So there is that.
Josie’s vocabulary and thought progression is taking huge
strides. In addition to singing songs
and general parroting, she is really focusing on connecting dots. For example, she’s crazy into Halloween right
now and one of the books she wants read (about five times in a row) is the “Clifford’s
first Halloween book.” There is a page
where Clifford (the big red dog) gets some bones from a neighbor while trick or
treating with Emily. Josie thinks that a
skeleton must have given him the bones because skeletons have bones.
This weekend a dear old friend got married and we brought
Connor to the reception. Well, he found
the dessert bar and after 20 peanut M&Ms, some Reece’s pieces, and a few
gummy bears, Connor transformed into Tony Manero and lit up the dance
floor. His best move is to run around in
circles until he gets dizzy and then fall down.
We used to force pledges to do that, I’m guessing he won’t need much
prodding if that comes up in his future.
Josie also knows this move and last night while mommy was finishing up
dinner we had a little dance party complete with percussion instruments in the
formal living room. It was pretty fun. The kids are growing up so fast it blows my
mind. I’m not sure I’m ready for all the
cha cha cha cha changes. One change I am
ready for is the old NFL refs. Y’all
come back now ya hear!
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