Clairol of Mass Destruction

PSI's a funny thing.
Spent the morning making last-minute preps and working budget issues in the boss' absence, before picking up some stuff at Fort Belvoir for tomorrow's ceremony and some stuff at the airport for she's my mother.
Swung her by her hotel (since our guest room now belongs to a two-month-old we're fond of), and when she opened her suitcase to whip out some belated Christmas presents for the "nippaz", she discovered that her pump bottle of hairspray had somewhere between a leak and an exploded all over some of her clothes, some of Erin's, and a lot of Peter Cottontail's butt.
Thankfully she had put the zucchini bread in tupperware, so all was not lost.
Brought everything home to wash, and I prepped a bottle to use while Ainsley quick ran to the grocery store, but Erin fell asleep in the armpit of the warm wool sweater my mom was wearing. So now Nana Knows Shoulder Pain.
Ryan was a little shy/weird at first, but quickly realized she was okay enough to show her his Simba and Mufasa.
Delayed dinner a bit to wait for Grandad, who said he'd be getting off work a little late since he was taking Friday off THE BIG LIAR.
The household was hectic when Dad drove up, me trying to put my uniform together and keep the fire going, Ryan in full hunger/tired/screaming/jumping mode, Ainsley changing diapers, dogs barking. As I was poking logs around, Mom went up to Dad in the kitchen and said, "Aren't you missing someone?"
See, Mom lost her hearing during the Blitz, so she and my Dad usually shout at each other during normal conversation, so her idea of whispering is talking in a normal voice from a foot away, forgetting sound travels and I have the hearing of a teenage lynx.
Now granted, I was distracted in all the hubbubery and had momentarily stopped considering that Tim might be coming for the ceremony despite his stories all year ("So, talk to your first born?" I asked in the car from the airport. "Few days ago." THE BIG LIAR). So when Mom said that to Dad, I wondered what she meant -- missing whom? Had Dad shaved his moustache? Then I heard Griffin barking in a menacing HEY YOU kind of way not a friendly OH IT'S YOU kind of way. a-HA!
And in walks Tim. They'd kept it a secret for weeks, friends who knew didn't spill it, and Mom, bless her, she tries, let it slip with eighteen seconds to spare.
Had a great night sipping wine at a lovely dinner, Ryan using his napkin and folding his hands in front of him between bites THE BIG FAKER just trying to impress. Dad even bought some champagne to toast the big event that I again will remind folks would have been TODAY if it weren't for that extra half-inch in the orbit that forces us to add a stupid 29th to February every quadrannality.

What I've learned in Dad 101

It is extraodrinarily difficult to effectively pretend to be tickled.

TIM'S HERE!

For the record, I knew it.

I just knew it.

Even dreamed about it Saturday.

An Inconvenient Youth

Love my children. LOVE 'em. Wow. Amazing individuals. Beautiful miracles. And who needs to play guitar from time to time anyway?
I just don't think either of us thought sportin' dual offjoints would have so much impact on every microsecond of our lives. On a good day, the house is a disaster, maybe all the pets are fed, and Ainsley gets eight minutes of sleep. Conversation, relaxation, personal hygiene all suffer. There's just never a down time. Even when Ainsley and I went out for Valentine's Day, we were cramped at the restaurant bar, ensconced in noise and smoke, then hurried home afterwards to the surprise of the family babysitters--it's as if we're out of practice on how to be a couple.
Then there's nights like Friday, when Ryan's cold-then-stomach ailments went back into his face, with a bad nose cold and terrific coughing fits. Medicine every two hours, rocking him back and forth, draining his sinuses into handfuls of kleenexes, he finally fell asleep around 1:45am, when of course the dogs decided they wanted in on this Being Up action and had to go 'log out', if you will.
Vegged at home all day Saturday, canceling a dinner date with cul de sac neighbors, watching Remy the Rat in front of a big fire. Sunday was nice enough for the whole gang to walk in the morning, before leaving Grandad in charge of putting Ryan down so I could cram for my test. 1200 pages in 3 books, about a hundred 'sample' test questions to find answers for. But I passed with blue and white colors, a computerized response the next day: "Congratulations! You have received a score of : Satisfactory." You missed the following objectives:
None.
How is that not Exemplary? Outstanding? God-like?
The rest of the week has been meetings and promotion ceremony prep; at our branch meeting Tuesday I showed the video I made for my promotion to Captain (and subsequently showed for my Last Alert speech at Minot and also when I pinned on Major), a silly home movie that everyone laughed at, hopefully because they were supposed to, not because I looked so different when I was 25.
It's just a shame that the Air Force seems to be in the business of promoting dumbasses. Got a call this afternoon from a guy who scheduled the conference room after me -- last October I reserved it between 12 and 4 to allow for set-up and clean-up, with a start time of 2:30. So this left numbnut reserves the room for 4 ... and schedules his ceremony to start at ... 4.
"Oh. Well, Protocol didn't know what time yours was starting, so they figured, like, one. When were you planning on being out of there?"
"4."
"Ah. Geez. So you start at 2:30, so you could be done by, what, 3?"
"Yes, but we're doing the reception in there afterwards, and I don't want to have to kick people out just because someone else wants to set up for the next event right away. I planned this months ago, and when I called Facilities to find out what the plan was for the 4 o'clock reservation, I was told that they would start setting up at 4. So I don't know what to tell you."
"Well, uh ... man. My invitations have already gone out, too."
"Look, I'll see what I can do, but just keep your folks out of there until we're done. I'll try to get out by 3:45 at the latest."
"Hey, thanks, and Congrats on your promotion!"
"Ditto, assbag."
So I'm thinking my speech will be the slowest in recorded history.

A Day On, Not a Day Off, Part Duh

I thought it was the chocolate chip pancakes making me queasy Sunday morning, but it turned out to be an intestinal fortitude. It was just my turn. You'd think we all drank from the same water bowl in this house.

Dad came over and dutifully walked his son and grandson, but my stomach was tight all through it -- then the aches and pains joined up during lunch, making me a barrel of monkey to be around. Had to study, though, so while Dad even more dutifully put Ryan to bed, I hit the library for four hours, arched over in pain. Not a great way to study.



While everyone else got to honor their favorite Thomas, Polk, and Harry, I drove in to work (got a great parking spot!) to finish the paper on Innovation and study some more. I was pleased with how it turned out, particularly with my coined phrase, "Innovation is not just thinking outside the box; it's turning the box into a dodecahedron," until the Public Affairs guy came back and said they try to reach a broad level, namely, the 6th-to-8th grade reading level, so could I please use a different word. I grumbled about it the whole next day, asking the room at a VTC if anyone knew what one was.

LTC Predmore: "12-sided object?"

Me: "Thank you, sir."

Mr. Nelson: "I thought it was ten. Really?"

LTC Sweetser: "How many sides on each ... side?"

Me: "...one?"

He meant 'edges' of course, and I had to look that up, too. But what good does it do 6th and 8th graders if they don't have to bust out the dictionary and look up a word from time to time?

Wednesday I read a few hundred more pages at the library (on leave), watching a rare snow fall outside. Stinks that I have to burn leave to study, but if I'd timed this better, I would have had all this stuff read while I was in Russia. Still kicking myself. Thursday I left early to go up to Howard University in D.C. to participate in an ROTC career day and chat with the cadets there about what a Space & Missile guy does for a living. At least a few of them had been following the news about the satellite shoot-down, so we had things to talk about. I seemed to be the only one to bring a laptop, and had color brochures to hand out, too. I don't faff about with the advertising. Hard to fathom that the oldest of these cadets may have been born when I graduated from high school.

As it turns out, we were supposed to get a whopper of a snow/ice storm Friday, so the Air War College testing facility called me to reschedule to Monday. Though the storm fizzled, I'm glad I didn't have to spend all Thursday night cramming for the short-answer (essay!) exam. No I can just do that all day tomorrow. Helps that for the first time in years, I could give half a hoot about the Oscars, since I've seen all of 3 movies in the past twelve months.
Well, I hope Ratatouille wins. I'll give you that.

Otanjoubi Omedetou Gozaimasu

My boss assigned me a writing assignment during my absence Thursday, thanks to the recommendation of my Good Friend Mike who saw that I'd won a writing award at Joint Forces Staff College, even though I didn't and tried to explain that the author of my training report had just cut and pasted comments from another guy's and failed to edit that part.

So I get to write about innovation and its role in our Theater Security Cooperation activities. In a day.

But I'd already planned on scoping out the O'Club for free linens and a place to hang out after my promotion, then host a brown-bag lunch with fellow space officers at DTRA just to talk shop (something a few of us had done at the Pentagon). By the time that and the next meeting were over, the Division Chief forcefully kicked everyone out of the office to get a head-start on the three-day celebration of James K. Polk (Mr. Fifty-Four-Forty or Fight, as I tried to explain to my branch members). No one in the office knew it was my birthday, which is fine; this ain't kindergarten.

Per my request, the family headed down to the Tokyo Japan Steak House, with Beth Boivin accompanying and Dad meeting us there. Ryan enjoyed the BIG FIRE again, the spinning, the cooking, the steam, the noise, the onion volcano. Even let the chef hit him in the face three times with tossed shrimp parts. And he especially enjoyed the "soup" (basically hot salt water). Erin, recovering from her ordeal at the clinic (shots), amazingly slept through the entire meal.
The family let it slip that it was my birthday, so they brought out a bowl of lavendar ice cream with a lit candle, while singing Happy Birthday and banging drums, bells, and sauce bowls together. They then had me stand up next to them and do a silly dance while singing it in Japanese, much to Ryan's open-mouth fascination (either at the words or Daddy Doing Shakira).
Back home to open tons of great presents, including coat hangers so I'd quit bitching about Mimaa and Grandpa using them all up when they visited, TWO copies of the movie "Nacho Libre" and a pack of Hula Hoops potato chips from Tim in England, before wolfing down some of my standard birthday 'cake'...pumpkin pie. Beth officially thinks I'm weird.
NaCHOOOOO!

Don't Mess With Lexus

Erin had her two-month checkup today, and she is growing like a weed should. 10 pounds, 3 ounces, and already a healthy, hanging-off-the-edge-of-the-nursing pillow 23.5 inches (Ryan was 24 inches at 4 months).

It was reported to me that Ryan is rather fond of his mini-van: while Mimaa and Grandpa were helping Ainsley get the kids situated in the car, Ainsley had left her car door open when a woman walked up wanting to get into hers in the next parking spot. So as she gently closed Ainsley's door, Ryan belted out:

HEY LADY DON'T TOUCH MY BLUE CAR!

A Day On, Not a Day Off

I'd scheduled a day of leave for Valentine's Day to do very unvalentine's day things, particularly, go to the library all day and study. Unfortunately, Ainsley woke up feeling like refried african beans, so I stayed home in the morning to help her out with breakfast and cleaning up and such.
Bouncing off the walls, Ryan was in need of an outing, so I took him out to get the grey car washed, then to Arby's for lunch, enjoying an entire Arby's Jr., apples and grapes, and a carton of milk (even dipping some of his sandwich in my aujus). Jealous though Ainsley was to hear it, Ryan and I had a great time hanging out together.
As per usual (of late), I was able to get him down for his nap fairly easily, then took advantage of the reduction in required active child maintenance (and the pending arrival of the in-laws) to finally scoot libraryward and read a hundred or so pages of the unimaginatively titled "Senior Leader Course" before heading home as directed "before 5:30."
Despite the fact that we usually don't go out on Valentine's Day (to avoid the rush and to focus external dining on My Very Special Day following), Ainsley had arranged for her parents to babysit so we could act like adults and cut our own meat and not worry about drinks being spilled or waking up the nipper. Ainsley surprised me by taking us to the Outback, one of my varra favorites, and to avoid the 2.5-hour wait (seems it's a lot of people's favorite),we sat at the bar and chatted next to the smokers and regular bar-type folk. Ainsley was still feeling crapulent, so she barely touched her meal, and we were home so quickly that our kids were still up. It was still wonderful to get out on our own for a quick spell, though.
Ryan was a bear to get down, having napped from before 1 until 4:30, an inconsolable crying mess anytime I dared try to leave the room and spell Ainsley from her sapsucker. Finally able to break free after about an hour of trying, and quickly let Ainsley open her Bag o' Presents -- she got me cool lights for the hot tub, I got her a frying pan. How cool am I?
You're right, the scale doesn't go down that far.

Omniprescient

Vote n Slide

Glad I voted early.
The freezing rain hit the metropolitan area around 3:30, turning all the highways into skating rinks and then parking lots. I was able to zip home just underneath all the hazards, but when I got home and threw the family in the minivan to take Ainsley to the polling place, we found the entire block without power. We couldn't even do our traditional post-election supper at IHOP, thanks to some free pancake night and the joint full of college kids.

Weather even forced a 2-hour reporting delay this morning, so I got to go back to bed at 5:36 until Ryan got up at 7 singing "Only One Way to Rock." We all had toast and tea before I left at 8:50. That's the life, lemme tell you.

Still frustrating to come home to an absolutely exhausted homemaker, when there's still so little that I can do to give her an Erin reprive -- as much as me, she hates hearing Erin's curled-back, red-faced screeches almost the moment I take her. I do catch her in good moods from time to time, and she'll often just hang out kickin' and dancin' while I change her diaper. But when you have a night like last night, when A's taking her first shower in 3 days while I'm rocking a crying Erin while going up to see why Ryan's bawling his eyes out in his crib, it's all you can do to wonder why people think procreation is a good idea.

On the other hand, if I hadn't changed jobs last fall, tonight I would be spending my first night of 42 straight in sub-zero and family-free Votkinsk, and I cannot even fathom missing the next six weeks of my kids' lives. As much as Erin doesn't seem to quite appreciate me yet, she's really starting to grow on me. And Ainsley blew a heart gasket when she told me I was Ryan's best friend...

Political Announcement

This is election season.
You're at a candidate rally, it's bound to have camera crews.
I know you're caught up in the moment...

But what say you make sure that sign you're holding above your head isn't upside-down.

Maj. Mom

Erin, the shuttlecock in the badminton game that is weekend parenthood, was handed back and forth from wakey-wake time (0650, thanks to Ryan) through breakfast, then finally I nabbed that hot potato a little after 9 while Ainsley cleaned up my pancake explosion.
For whatever reason (though having nursed since 2 a.m. might have helped), she fell asleep in my arms around 9:15, so Ainsley quickly got dressed to go out and run some errands, leaving me a full dosage of what we'll tenderly call "Mama's Cans in a Bottle."
Ryan watched "Cars" while I wandered around with Erin, rocking and swaying, until she woke up a little after 10. I changed her diaper, and gave the bottle a shot, and after a little resistance, she slowly drank it in three shifts over the next half-hour, burping breaks inbetween. Miraculously, she fell back asleep, while Ainsley got more errands done in a 2.5-hour period than she had in over a year. I thought she'd up and driven to Ft. Lauderdale, shouting "FREEDOM!!" out her minivan window. But she came back to us.
Erin slept through lunch, and after Ainsley sat a few minutes tapping her feet waiting for the inevitable wake-up howl, I told her to go ahead and catch some Zs. "Maybe I can get an hour," she admitted. Hell, Erin let her have two.
So, all told, Erin was stuck in the craw of my arm for the better part of six hours.
A taste of what Ainsley's every day/every hour life is.
She must never pee ever ever.

Humainsley

Dad was brave en
I mean, Dad was nice enough to babysit Ryan today while Ainsley went to a friend's baby shower and I hit the library again for Air War College stuff. I was going to leave at 9:45, but we decided to get another dog instead.
But just for a couple hours. Ainsley corraled a young, friendly Husky wandering around the cul de sac, so she's still got mad dog skillz. Props to her.
After leaving a message at the number on his collar, and an unanswered knock at his house (the next street over), we called Animal Control to come pick him up. He hanged in the garage, since when I brought him in to show Ryan, Tomas made it quite clear that he did not approve.
Dude sounded like a police siren.
The County rep got here pretty quickly, allowing us to get on with our day. Assuming that learning Maj Gen Lorenz's 13 leadership principles is how you want to spend your free time.
After a long day in the car, Erin actually went to sleep around 7:30, allowing me to put Ryan down while Ainsley got some much-needed sleep.
Well, until 11:45, anyway.

I sit corrected

I am getting a guilty amount of sleep. Last night, we all turned in relatively early, and when something woke me up at 11pm, I felt as if I'd been asleep for 6 hours. I did notice some big bags under my eyes at work yesterday, so maybe I'm just playing catch-up.
If only I could do a Freaky Friday with Substantially Significant Other. Though Erin is slowly starting to sleep longer stretches (unfortunately, mostly during the day) and stay awake and happy in her chair for longer periods, too.
So I used to hate reading "Go, Dog, Go". Makes no sense. Random dogs on top of random things, insulting each other's hats and driving way too close to each other and almost running over the bird.
But Ryan whips it out from time to time, and it started promisingly, on the first page, with a dog (natch) and the word 'Dog.' typed on the bottom.
Ryan: "D...O....s."
First off, most of his alphabet stuff is all capital letters. Secondly, even when he does learn 'g', it's not going to be that squiggly double-circle with a pimple eyeglasses on its side-looking thing. I mean, look:
g
Where else do you see a "G" written like that? You don't learn to write it that way. It serves no purpose. Draw a circle, connect a hook on the right side, you've got a perfectly good g.
Anyhoo.
Darned if Ryan didn't "read" the first ten pages to me. All I did was flip the pages. And it's not like he was just identifying what he was seeing -- it wasn't "Dogs on train lookin roller coaster thing," it was "Two Dogs going up....one little dog going down." Verbatim. I was shellshocked. Ask the wife.
Almost as cool as him saying "Ryan Gottrich" last night for Grandad.

Pumpin' Tinfoil

When you're at the weight machine, ready to start your second set of tricep pulls, and you need that extra boost of adrenalin?

The song to be listening to on your ipod is NOT "Sailing" by Christopher Cross.


Ryan's helping with my fitness regimen at home; here's the nightly routine:

Ryan sits down to get his shoes/slippers taken off at the shoe/slipper takin'-off step. We should probably come up with a better name for it.
He crawls, or I walk with/carry/Tigger-bounce him, up the stairs. At the top he usually says "Billiblibbibblibbibbih" while running into his room, a bounce in every step.
By the time I get in there, no sign of him. "Ryan gone?" a voice asks.
"Ryan?" I say to no one. "Are you in the bathroom?"
"No! Under Bed!"
(Tonight I went into the bathroom to start his bath water and I heard an addendum: "Bailey Found Me!")
I lie down on the floor and look under the crib and say "There He Is!"
At first, a few months ago, he would crawl out to see me.
Then, he started being coy and staying under there, playing with whatever toys were within reach. So I started knocking out a few pushups just for fun. To pass the time.
Seeing that, he immediately crawls out, and climbs on my back. "poosh UPs?" he says.
So it's good weight resistance, having a 34-pound squirmy lug on me. Though still kinda hard, especially if I've already worked out that day.
"How many?" I ask.
"1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12?"
Damn him and his counting ability.
Last night I said, "How about '5'?"
He upped the ante. "How bout thix."
Nertz.
So I thought I'd outsmart him this evening.
"How about '2'?" I asked.
"How Bout ... SEVEN?"

Diner Dinner Diddin Dazzle

Day Two of the Reground Saddle. It sucks to be unimportant again. The other two section chiefs have been out of the office, so it's just been a few of us hanging around banging out e-mails. At least I worked on a powerpoint for a couple hours, which I haven't done in a while. Mostly typing, though. Not a lot of sound effects or spiraling bananas. None, in fact. Sad. Just sitting in my cube, drinking tea, listening to Amir Abdmishani tell people how his name is spelled:
"A as in Apple, B as in Boy, D as in David..."
"JUST SPELL IT!"
I told him later to call Carlos about a technical problem.
"Who?"
"C as in car, A as in apple, R as in riboflavin..."

Ryan and Ainsley are snot fountains, and Dad, ever looking on the bright side, said this is a good time to be sick, to get it out of the way before the promotion.
Guess my birthday doesn't matter anymore.
*sniff* <-- emotional sniff, not a nasal drip one

Ryan said his last name for the first time, so that's adorable. He's been saying "Pocomoke" for a year, so the two combined should get him some assistance at the police station.

We took Ryan to Silver Diner tonight to check out its Tuesday kid's night (free shakes!) and I was awful glad I had a coupon for a free meal, since mine tasted like a TV dinner and gave me a splitting headache. The dessert, a barfable chunk of carrot cake (too much carrot, not enough cake) with raspberry sauce insultingly splotched all up and down it, was also on the house, and then in the wife after my first bite or two. A magician came by and mesmerized Ryan with some hidden nerf ball and handkerchief tricks, but scared his friend Jack with the pretend live mongoose. Plus the service was so bad that I had time to change both children's diapers; during Ryan's time on the graffiti-laden changing table, the song "Lollipop" came on, and Ryan licked at his finger and said, "like haircut!"
What a lad. Did I mention he can count to twenty? If you don't care all that much about 18 and 19?

A night of Dorky Importance

Erin's crying. Rock her, hold her, wrap her, bounce her. Nothing. Decided to give her a little metal rattle, so while she was flailing about, she'd at least get a little rhythm (and maybe distracted enough to stop crying). Ryan brought me another rattle, and after I gently shook it near her face, she stopped snivling enough for me to take her downstairs, where Ainsley watched me with eyes agape.
What.
"She's holding a rattle!"
Well sure, it's what hands do. "Yes, I gave it to her. Is that important?"
"It's An Important Milestone, Ya Dork," she said to me lovingly.
Huh.

We've also been giving Ryan the opportunity to use his Potty whenever he was lower-half nekkid, and today when he stood up from it, a little brown spot was on the bottom.
RYAN! YOU POOPED!
"Huh," his expression seemed to say. But he went to tell Mommy anyway. Then he tried again and drummed out a lovely splatter. "YAAAAAY!!!" we all went. Even calling Mimaa and Aunt Leigha.

Lastly, Ainsley has somehow found the opportunity to pump the last few weeks, and we decided to give the bottle a try. Ainsley went to bed at 10, and Erin slept on my lap until midnight while I watched TV. She didn't like the first bottle I tried, so she screeched in my arms until I transferred it into a different one, which she finally accepted. Slept for an hour, then at 1:20, I was able to give her most of the contents of another bottle.
Which, twenty minutes later, she unceremoniously projectile vomited, including out both nostrils.
One of those Whoa...WHOA! moments.

But we're gettin' there.

I found my thrill

Well, they found my blackberry, so that's one thing. With my name still sticky-noted onto it. Weird.
Friday, my last day as the exec, I decided to wear my flight suit instead of the short-sleeve blue shirt and uncomfortable shoes I'd had on all week.
So of course this is the day that the Director decides he wants to go to Capitol Hill.
Home at lunch, into my "Class A"s, back to work. Everyone in a panic because the boss left ten minutes early, I'm thinking 1400 means 1400. I'm not going to run down the hallway after him. It's nice to be chaufeurred everywhere, and this afternoon, with four of us going, the driver got the Suburban, which was better on my back than sitting cramped in the front seat of the Ford Crown Victoria. Dropped off at the Rayburn Building to meet with some Congressional Staffers, and the first office we came to had a lady at a desk with a sign:

Military Personnel Subcommitte Staffmember

"Can I help you?" asked the lady.
Yes, I'm a military personnel. Are you my subcommittee?
HA HA THAT'S VERY CLEVER she said, stating the obvious.
Got home after 7pm, Ryan celebrated by peeing in his little potty for the third time today.