Zoomunchy

I'm awful glad Erin decides to get up at 5 am. Otherwise I'd never see her.

Been getting home after dinner the last few nights, finding Erin already asleep, Ryan already in bed. A few words of hello and goodbye to him, then a few hours downstairs getting Halloween costumes together, watching my amazing exhausted wife building an alligator out of peat moss, ping-pong balls, recycled pipe cleaners, gardening gloves, washcloths, shopping bags, and a lot of moxie.

I made the mistake of lying to my wife that'd I'd get home around 5 on Halloween, but at least still got home before it was dark. Ryan immediately found his outer reptile while Ainsley stuffed Erin into a borrowed bumblebee and I got into my topical/historical costume du jour:

Note the southpaw.

Despite the lack of sidewalks, it's nice to live on a short cul-de-sacked street, allowing us to walk up one side and down the other and be done with trick-or-treating. Ryan offered a treat to several people: his adorable off-key version of the "Jack-O-Lantern" song. Not sure he understands the concept yet, but he still said his 'thank-you's and 'happy halloween's when appropriate, still staying in character by stomping from house to house going "Snap! Snap!" As alligators do in the wild.

Erin was game hanging out in a stroller, kicking her feet, mesmerized by the yellow glowstick bracelet on her arm. But we got the kids home and dined, with very few kids stopping by for their own costumed gluttony. I did tell one of them that the cat she was calling "Tomas" was actually Jeremy dressed up as Tomas for Halloween. It's all in the family.

Changeling

It's easy to forget what a sweet boy our Ryan can be. Coming home with the headache, he was all concerned face and "poor Daddy" going and wanting to kiss my owie, hard to explain to a 3-yr old what a headache even is. But when he lay down next to me and gently stroked my face, I just about wanted to cry. Just so genuinely concerned about his daddy.
Of course, he also asks me on a daily basis and asks how my gray car is doing.
Of more, course, this is also the same kid I found in the basement next to a crying sister. "Ryan, why is Erin crying?" "Because I hit her in the head with a bottle." "Yeah, that'd do it."

We Can't Rebuild Him

I'm running out of good joints, here.
My 1-millionth hospital visit since 2000 (I got balloons!) had a physical therapist from Walter Reed having me do all sorts of silly things with my right arm (like bend it) while she nodded at my reactions to pain. She determined I have some degeneration in the tendons in my inner elbow, which is why it hurts when I lift anything heavier than something just lighter than an Erin.
Didn't "do" anything to it -- it just started hurting a couple months ago, I told her. She asked what I do for hobbies, and I lied and told her I play guitar. (I haven't plugged my guitar in since 2007.) She's having me put a brace on my wrist (*sigh*...just when I've grown sick of wearing the one on my left hand for whatever hand issue I've got going on (MRI in two weeks!)) almost all the time, then wear an arm band pressure velcro thingy just above the elbow when I know I'm going to be doing some lifting. Which should otherwise be avoided.
So I'm slowly turning into an unarmed non-mechanized Robocop, or a Darth Vader without the force, as the military medical system covers all my appendages with metal-based black velcro bands. I could really use the force right about now, since it's near impossible to hold my computer mouse with the damn thing on.
But I'm also going to have three more treatments of some dexa-something steroid electrically osmosified into my elbow -- at the end of our session, the doc put a medicated pad about the size of a pringle on my elbow, then put another square pad on my wrist "for a ground", then hooked up little wires like a mini-car jumper attached to a battery. This is supposed to heal the tendons at a molecular level, but all it did was make me lightheaded and then give me the worst headache I've had in years.
Friends are starting to inquire if the reason I have all these aches and pains is that I just turned 40.
They are no longer friends.

Little Miss (Pre)Sunshine

I really appreciate all these sunrises Erin lets me experience with her.
I've also caught up on contemporary VH-1 videos. Can't seem to get Katy Perry's "Hot & Cold" out of my head.
Speaking of the latter, I'm getting over my version of the Cold That Ate Pocomoke, still tickling Ryan's throat and oozing ectoplasma out of Erin's nostrils, so Ainsley allowed me to take NyQuil last night and go to bed early. Which of course meant I could have slept through the house next door exploding. Let alone the girl in the next room. But hear her I did at 6:12am (Yay, weekend!), and found her standing in her crib, lost in the jungle that is her animal-centric mobile. I picked her up, and she patted my chest and back with a satisfied grin, signaling that She Was Up. Time for grapes, peach poofs, and SportsCenter downstairs until the rest of the house wakes up.
Erin likes the hockey.
I also spent the morning with her yesterday, for about an hour before Ainsley got up, and then for four hours while Ainsley and Ryan ran some errands Like Old Times. I'll bet Ryan appreciated having his Mommy to himself for a spell, while Erin was a dream for me, going down for a 90-minute nap with nary a nitpick.
Today was a lovely day for a dog walk, though Ryan's getting a little too rambunctious to play nice in the wagon with his sister. Just not a lot of leg room for a long jaunt. He burned off some energy once we got to our park at the halfway point, but getting home was interesting: Erin started to doze off sitting up, so I picked her up in my arms. Kind of a scene trying to get three dogs, a wagon, a 3-year-old who wanted to ride on someone's shoulders, and an asleep baby girl up the last hill and across the street with only four hands between me and my dad.
Still nice after nap and a Redskins victory vs. the Lions, so we took Ryan out into the backyard to try out his new plastic baseball tee to go with his new mitt (thank you, Boivins!). He's good at the aiming and counting 1-2-3 part, but lacks a little oomph in the follow-through. And also seems more interested in knocking the tee over once the ball's off. But after some coaxing, Ryan was able to smack a pretty good ball between the two of us, but then threw his bat down and darted away, seemingly spooked.
"Ryan, what's wrong?"
"I hit a home run!" he said, raising his hands in 'touchdown' pose.
So he hadn't 'thrown' his bat, he had given it a celebratory 'fling'.
The hell does he learn this stuff?
It's ERIN I'm watching SportsCenter with.

Better Bubble Business Bureau

To the makers of the Johnson & Johnson "no more tears" shampoo formula:

My Ass.

Three At Last

Well, he made it.
Despite the fact that Erin was up from 2 to 4:30, we didn't want to hold that against the first-born, and decided not to cancel his birthday.
Ainsley had the wonderful idea (another one!) of driving up to the Pentagon so he (and she) could see where Daddy works. It's been a relatively slow week, so it was the perfect time to meet them at the visitor's entrance and show them around. It was interesting carrying a sleeping daughter (huh!) in my arms, all pinkle* dress and white tights and cute shoes snuggled in my flight suit sleeves, while Ryan stomp stomp stomp down the corridors, sliding his hand along the wall.
*pinkish purple. I'm sure Ainsley knows the proper term.

I even left work at 4 to go home and help with the real celebration, as Ainlsey's folks had driven in from the mountains. We opened as many presents and cards as we could -- movies from his Nana, art supplies from his Eshners, a cool Santana Moss Redskins doll from someone who modesty prevents naming -- before piling in the car to meet Grandad and the Boivins at a restaurant in Lorton.* Where of course one of the tables was stacked to the ceiling with presents.
*Ainsley had asked Ryan if on his birthday he would rather have pizza or go to a restaurant. His response: "Pizza at a restaurant."
Unfortunately, Ryan has caught another terrible cold, so every other breath was a coughing fit as he struggled to comprehend the hermetically sealed but colorful presents from our dear friends. Plus Grandad got him his first baseball mitt and a wristwatch that glows in the dark like Daddy's. Though his favorite present seems to be the Air Force One Bump n Go airplane, which without the batteries neither bumps nor goes, but Ryan just adores anyway. He kept asking for it while opening other gifts, and even took it to bed with him. So well done Aunt Sara!

Ainsley took the Santana Moss doll to bed, too, so I don't feel so bad.

Tsleeping Tsunomaly

Erin had Ainsley and I playing RockPaperScissors at quarter to three this morning, in the throngs of another long night of hourly wakeups. Just wish we knew what would make her comfortable and stay asleep. Or what's going on in that little mind or little body. If she were a satellite, I would know how to take care of her. I'm not trained for this.

Of course, the last time I wrote about her bad nocturns for the worst, she slept nine hours. So this'll be a similar long ranting reverse-psychology e-mail for little missE above my head a room, asleep now for 2hrs 12 minutes.


I've had to shift into new weekend mode; I used to be able to get projects done or go for a bike ride between 1 and 4 while the kids (and Ainsley) took a nap. Now I stay here and count on one (or both) of the kids getting up between 2 and 3, leaving me with some quality time while Ainsley tries in desperation to cling to a couple more hours of sleep (neighborhood kids, car alarms, and ice cream trucks be damned). Still, it's fun hanging out with a happy Erin, now that she's becoming a little person. It's fun (and scary) watching her explore, and I'm reminded of the simple things that amuse the under-one set, like a game of tug tug tug. Or a bathtub filling up (it's all I can do to keep her from throwing her leg over the side to dive in). Or the feel of biscuits in your hair.
Meanwhile, before our very eyes, Ryan is putting more and more words together, emphasizing points with a clenched fist or calling out a list while sticking out individual fingers. And I can't remember if he's done this yet with me (and I'm ashamed I don't know), but he actually started playing pretend with me. Yesterday he asked if I wanted my mail, and I said I had already gotten it, thank you.
"No. Mail from the blue one." From his toy castle.
"Oh. Sure. Is there mail for me?"
"Yes. Here you go."
And he handed me a pretend letter from an empty hand with closed fingers.
I'm not explaining this very well. But it was just the most adorable thing. My son wanted to play with me.
Tonight he even blew a perfect "toot" sound over the mouth of a beer bottle.

He seems to be enjoying the prospect of no longer being a 2-year-old, helped by the fact that he opened more presents this morning (didn't want to overwhelm the lad yesterday). To go with the book theme, we'd asked that his friends only buy him books, in order to replenish his stock and dissuade the continued crapalization of the office. Unfortunately, despite the fact that he got somewhere between 14 and 20 new books, we've now read a Lightning McQueen short story fifty-seven times.

Preethree Partee

The Old Couple

Do you realize how hard it is to light a birthday cake with ten 3-year-olds hanging around it?

Governor Schwarzenegger needs to call this gang over, put them around the California wildfires, and start singing Happy Birthday. Problem solved.

Ainsley had the ultra-cool idea of holding Ryan's kid-centric birthday party with his friend Olivia (whose birthday precedes Ryan by just three days) at a small children's bookstore in Historic Occoquan. Sixteen kids and their parents crowded into the back of the store, where little tables were set up with munchies; a birthday cake in the shape of an open book that my wife lovingly worked on until 1:45 this morning; and an art project so kids could make their own bookmarks with sticky felt doodads.

One of the store owners sat in a big rocking chair and read Olivia and Ryan's favorite books (or at least tried to read them, since the kids kept standing up and pointing out everything on the pages).

Despite the toddler vortex surrounding the lighting of the candles, it was a very smooth operation, and fun had by all, big and small.

PARTY!

Missed my mate, mate

With four days' notice, Ainsley was able to wrangle up some friends willing to watch the kids for a few hours so she could accompany me to a black-tie affair in Tyson's Corner; the head British Air Attache had invited 300 of his closest friends to a Royal Air Force dinner in honor of The Battle of Britain, since those Battle of Saratoga celebrations never seemed to catch on.

There were more general officers than you could shake a box of fish & chips at, plus various British officers brought into town from their exchange assignments across the states, sporting regimental cummerbunds (plus the occasional kilt). Ainsley and I were seated at a 10-person round table with an American colonel and his wife and six random brits, though protocol dictated we be placed opposite each other so we were forced to have conversations with strangers. Which was a hoot for one of us. Every time I could get away from the riveting conversation about the history of British warrant officers and glance over at Ainsley and read her lips, I could tell she was talking about her kids. She also picked up a dinner roll and pointed at the crust, so I could tell she was talking about what color our dogs are.
Unfortunately, the dinner stretched on so long, we decided to split a little after 10, before the keynote speeches had even begun, to go snag our children from Ainsley's friend. Erin had been her usual wakin-up-cryin self, and Ryan hadn't even bothered to go to sleep; yet he still wanted to read a book when he got to his room. Got a chance to teach Ryan the term "11pm".

Diet Starts Tomorrow, Take 7

Got home a little late from work, and Dad was already here and done with dinner. In fact, everyone was, as Ryan greeted me at the door and Erin was busy standing up talking to the living room chair. Ainsley had made breadbowls with soup, which I just found amazing. I'm not sure I've ever had a breadbowl, thinking they belonged in fancy restaurants, and if I'm in a fancy restaurant, I'm not going to have soup, for pete's sake. I even asked her if she'd cut out the holes in the bread or if they came pre-bowled. She gave me that furrowed squinty what-planet-exploded-and-brought-you-here kind of looks.

Anyhoo, I had on my simple gray t-shirt with "Air Force" written across the front, and since Ryan and I had discussed it in the past, and had sung the song enough times, I thought I'd give him a chance to impress his grandad with his reading skills.

"Ryan! What does my shirt say?"

And with a left-to-right sweep of his index finger, he proudly exclaimed,

"Big Guy!"

America's Most Talented

In a matter of days, Erin has:

• Managed to sign her version of 'more'; though it may look like clapping, occasionally one of her fingers bends down further than the others to replicate the 'point to the palm' we've been demonstrating since February
• Mastered crawling
• Started pulling herself up to a standing position (in a crib, at the side of the tub, at the zoo)
• Climbed up three stairs
• Learned how to "high-five"
• Popped out two teeth
• Conjugated a verb (I mama, you mama, he/she/it mamas)
• Eaten two plates of lasagna at one sitting

Not to be outdone, Ryan, if he concentrates, and stares dead ahead, and juts out his jaw, and pops a temple vein,

• Can wiggle his ears once

You just can't teach that.
I am enormously and equally proud of them both equally the same no more one than the other I swear.

Like Butta

Spent the weekend in the Weeva, ostensibly for the Universe-Famous Berkeley Springs Apple Butter Festival, but really just to get out of the house and cavort with turning mountain leaves and celebrate (again) Ainsley's pop's 70th birthday.
Wednesday, the morning after their return from a month in China, Ainsley's parents were shocked by her arranged surprise stack-o-doughnut breakfast in the sunroom, complete with Dad popping by for a hole or two and an old friend of her mom's, whose daughter lives here in Woodbridge with two kids our kids' ages-ish. But I had to work (and had a doctor's appointment I'd been waiting six weeks for), so Saturday was my time to offer my gratitude for his longeviousness.
With a box of squirrel nut zippers.
Seemed appropriate.

It was Erin's first Festival, and although the weather cooperated with sunny skies and bearable temps, the parade itself was kind of "...inh?" Just didn't have the pizazz of earlier years. Perhaps I too-much missed the absence of the dudes in fezzes driving the boxcars. And the lack of livestock. And septuagenarian dancing girls.
But Ryan enjoyed himself immensely, which is all that matters. He picked up a bunch of candy threwn his way, which he handed to me and I'll give away for Halloween. He danced to the marching bands. He got to stir the 40-gallon pot of boiling butter with a stick the size of a lamp post. He ate pizza.
Erin still had trouble staying asleep, not helped by the new-to-her pack-n-play-n-crib that hurt our backs trying to lay her down in (and pick back up, without hitting our head on the low-slowed ceiling), so the nights were still a struggle to maintain sanity, but she slept 7 hours Thursday night, so we know she's capable. All in due time. As we realize, soon enough she'll be sleeping until noon every weekend, annoying us in a whole different way, out all night, who was that boy you were with anyway and what the hell was he driving?

Flubbees

Thanks to a handful of blue-uniformed ursine yahoos from the blowy borough, I have no idea when I can talk to my mother again.

"Hit the ball," says Danny.

"Hit a home run!" says the Dinosaur he's sitting on.

How hard can that be?

She-fund, Wee Fund, We all Scream for Refund

Hello, Customer Service? We were promised a child last year. A human one. As you know, unless you're a robot, it's hard to tell over the phone, but as the rest of us know, humans need sleep in order to survive. Just ask my wife. After she wakes up from being dead.
Instead, we got this cupie doll with the string permanently pulled. She gets idle from time to time, but boy, stick some sweet potato casserole in her gob and she's good to go for another 2, 3 days.
Sure, she pretends. We'll get her in her crib and tiptoe away, but forty minutes later, just when the adults next door have slinked off to la-la, boom goes the dynamite, and Little Miss Sheena of the Jungle has to start roaring at the tippy top of her cute little lungs.
There is a saying, 'Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.' We don't understand that. Perhaps the baby would be quieter out in the alley. Happier with the feral cats, whom she emulates.
For two nights straight she has literally not gone an hour without waking up. Her big brother hasn't helped matters by getting up three times himself just for fun. Daddy just can't break through the back-arching screeches with a soothing little diddy bout Jack & Diane or Fred & Ethel or anyone. She could give a shit where the wheels on the bus go.
Friends have told us that it might be a growth spurt and/or teething. At this rate, she better grow to be 13 feet tall and have a mouth like a shark, with two rows of teeth pointed in different directions, allowing her to eat Porterhouses like tic-tacs.
At any rate, since she was free, we can't really ask for our money back. How 'bout an instruction manual?

A Nous Experience

Somehow, quite suddenly, I have been given responsibility, or at least Point of Contactship, for Office Calls between our senior generals and other countries' miliacious dignitaries. Some turn out to be lunches, which require seating charts and menu items, and others are dinners, meaning we need to get someone from the Air Force Band to provide background music.
As I told a colleague today, I never thought that sixteen years into my Air Force career my job would entail crises such as baby squash being on the pre-printed menus when baby zucchini was all the Air House chefs could find at the store. ("Can't you just use food coloring?" said the helpful carnivore.)
Today at the last minute I was asked to sit on an Office Call, just in case notes needed to be taken or a tasker tasked, between our 3-star and the French Chief of the Air Staff. Because others with the responsibility were unavailable, I greeted Le General at the River Entrance ("Bon Jour!") and directed him and the Attache up the stairs, which, thanks to Miss Hoyt and Mr. Bentley, I could do on fron say. ("A la gauche, s'il vous plait.") Yet another cool experience to add to my short time in the office. Plus Mrs. 3-star made a chocolate brownie sponge cake dealie that the 3-star insisted we all try, so le bonus.
Later on, the Air Chief Marshal (British Chief of the Air Staff) popped by for some Office Calls, too, but I appeared to be a rather redundant member in the hallway entourage, so once I escorted him from one room to another, I asked the other Lt Col if he could escort them all out so I could get some bloody work done.
Plus I needed to go get my pen back from my 3-star.

Dude's Night In

I fully support my wife's rare opportunities to spend an evening away from the tykes, as long as she a) comes home and b) doesn't smell like a Chippendale. I've usually had one of the grandparents here as a backup auxiliary child soother, but last night, I flew solo.
Erin performed like a dream. I had 'em both in pajamas by 7:45, then asked Ryan to talk to watch the silver Philips babysitter while I put Erin to bed. She gulped down most of a bottle of ChardonnAinsley, fell asleep in my arms, and stayed zonked the first plop in her crib -- and remained asleep until after midnight.
Unfortunately, Ryan was the bigger issue, still unable to shake a post-nasal drip cough, and feeling a mite needy: he called me up to his room twice, asking me to stay with him, and when I declined, telling him I had to listen for Erin, he'd start to cry, which I tried to shush. Hard to tell someone to stop crying in a manner that doesn't make them want to cry more, I've learned. I ended up curling up on his floor for fifteen minutes, the door creaked to listen down the hall. He was still up when I made some excuse, and didn't stop coughing until almost 11. Poor little fella.
Ainsley had a lovely evening with five of her friends -- "mushroom pasta at a friend's house", is this year's codeword for male jell-o wrestling -- and I'm glad she could do it. Still, it made me realize I haven't had a "guy's night out" in years. It all balances out, since I'm the one who gets to travel around the country and has ecto-familial contacts every weekday at The Pentagon. Still, those are forced marriages, not my chosen friends. I guess it doesn't help that my last friend turned out to be a stoner. Perhaps I should just stick to the military folks.
I was watching "The Incredibles" when the kids were in their rooms, and mused that I don't even have a friend to have a pretend bowling night where we really go out and fight crime. So I'm down to fighting crimes on my own, and mostly ones of fashion, specifically how I end up dressing my daughter. Apparently purple doesn't go with chartreuse. And while I've been able to get barrettes out of my daughter's hair, damned if I'm going to stick one of those fashionable head staples in there unsupervised.

got weiner?

To honor my Bohemian heritage, I recently bought my son a sponge with a picture of Christina Aguilara circa 1999 rubberbanded around it.
Ja.

Ainsley had found about Fort Belvoir's Oktoberphestenszedeutch kicking off a four-day weekend, so we decided to test our daughter's tuba tolerance and plus Ainsley wouldn't have to cook so YAY she says. It was actually more of a mini-carnival next to a few large oompa-pa tents, but it allowed Ryan to ride in his first little roller coaster and ferris wheel (strangely enough, Ainsley's too). It was a cool night, and not very crowded; we seemed to have every ride to ourselves, and could hear the German brass polka band from every corner of the park. We eventually tried a few wursts of the brat and knock variety, and as I poked a fork into Dad's condiments, it occurred to me that it wasn't going to go well, but tried it anyway:
"Ryan, would you like some saurkraut?"
I mean, is there a worse-named food? "Ryan, would you like some Rancidcrud?" "Ryan, would you like some Moldyplops?" "Ryan, would you like some spoiled yams?"
He said no.
Despite Mommy's help that the stringy, off-green flaccid strands were "just like pickles!"
At any rate, the 'hot dog' was a hit, as was the band, as Ryan danced a jig and Erin bounced and flapped. After eating a bavarian pretzel the size of a toy poodle, I tried to win the kids a giant stuffed animal, but the ol' football wouldn't get in the ol' tire hole, so Ryan got to pick out his consolation prize.

It wasn't even a hot picture of Christina Aguilara.

Hot and Cold

The boy sees a picture of me on the desk at home today while I'm at the Pentagon. He decides to spontaneously comment to his mother.

"I love my Daddy."

Ainsley (touched): "Awww. Do you want to call him at work and tell him?"

"No, thank you."


Which is fine, because our phone conversations usually consist of thus:

"Hello, Daddy."
"Hi, Ryan. How are you? (or whatever I happen to say)"
"Mommy's here and Erin's here and Ryan's here." (I can practically hear him looking around the room.)
He will mention whatever he is doing and I will ask what color something is and he will say "What" three times and then his mother tells him to say Bye Bye Daddy.
"Bye, bye, Daddy. Seeyoulata. Bye."

Still, it just about makes my day.