Observations from a mommy – 7 month edition

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-if there’s no Feb 30th, does that mean that Brenden gets to be 6 months old another month?
-he’s on the verge of crawling, but hasn’t quite figured out how to put all the moves together yet. So for now he just goes backwards and gets mad.
-Brenden is never still. Ever. He even moves in his sleep. However, this means that he’s a very good sleeper. Once you lay him down, it takes 2 seconds for him to fall asleep!
-He’s developing a “let’s get in trouble together” smile. My mom says both Andy and I have that same smile.
-He’s become quite fond of prunes. Yuck.
-In order to change his outfit or diaper, you’ve got to move fast. He can flip over and try to take off rolling if you’re not quick enough!
-We got him one of those doorway jumpers and he seems to like it. However, he still hasn’t quite mastered jumping in it, so for now he just spins in circles and laughs.
-He’s “talking” quite a bit – but we don’t know what he says. 🙂 Sometimes it sounds like he’s cussing in baby since most of his talking happens when he’s frustrated.
-We’ve moved on to formula since the well had run dry. Everyone keeps asking me if I’m sad about that, but I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I was always worried that he wouldn’t get enough to eat. Now I can measure and know how much he’s really getting.
-I’m so not ready for him to crawl. We don’t have enough space! I’m going to have to spend my days chasing him around the coffee table. The coffee table may not survive.
-We had a family portrait done at Target last week – and he did really well! He was really interested in the camera. That helped. Hopefully we can post a few once we get them back. Maybe next week.
-He’s become fascinated with whatever toy Reagan is playing with – no other toy will do. And Reagan has become fascinated with watching him eat solids. It’s too funny to see them react to each other.
-He’s 1/2″ away from being too big for his car seat, so we bought him a new big boy seat. This thing is amazing – he’ll have it as a booster until he doesn’t need any seat at all anymore. It’s great! But we are a little sad to be losing the bucket. It makes him seem so grown up.
-Since the bucket is about to be history, we’re working on sitting in restaurant seats and shopping carts without it. He’s still a little wobbly, especially if he’s tired, but he’s getting the hang of it.
-I can’t wait until it warms up a little and I can take him to the park for the first time. I think he’s gonna love slides. He’s a little bit of a daredevil.

That’s all for now! Have a great week!

In the News

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I thought I might comment on a few interesting items from the news this week:

  1. A-Rod. I quit following baseball closely soon after Nolan Ryan retired in 1993 but still have some interest in it. Pitchers intrigue me most with their arsenal of different deliveries, spins, speeds, and locations. If I played, I would want to be a pitcher, a strikeout king. How great it must feel to be able to fool a batter so badly that he gets called out at the plate.
    Anyway, back to A-Rod. As you’ve probably seen, this week he admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs in the early 2000s, some of his best years. I became a skeptic of baseball players years ago once steroid spectulation started hovering around home-run master Mark McGuire. Since then many players have either been accused or admitted to doping. A-Rod is obviously one of the biggest. Although I’m disappointed that he cheated, I have to admire him for admitting his mistakes and apologizing. He could have followed the lead of many of his predecessors and denied it until the end. I’m also disappointed in the players’ union, who Bud Selig says fought all his efforts to introduce mandatory drug testing for years. I get drug tested for my job. So do many other people. Why can’t they?
  2. Anti-Smoking Bill. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that Texas state lawmakers are working on a bill to ban smoking statewide in public buildings, including “restaurants, bars, shopping malls, and sports arenas”, according to the article. I fully support this bill. It would make Texas a healthier and more pleasant place for us non-smokers and would give the smokers another reason to quit. I would also love to see Congress double or triple the cigarette tax and use the money for anti-smoking campaigns and lung cancer research.
  3. Movin’ 107.5 is Gone. When 107.5 first switched from playing smooth jazz to 80s/90s party music, I was devastated. I LOVED The Oasis and thought it offered music that no other radio station in DFW really offered. Movin’ played much of the same music I could find on other stations like 106.1 plus some songs from my junior high and high school days. After mourning a bit, I started listening to Movin’ when the mood hit. Tuesday afternoon, Movin’ abruptly switched to a Spanish-language station to address the large Spanish-speaking market in DFW. All the music people at Movin’ were fired, which angers me and makes me glad I don’t work in the radio business. It would be like Southwest suddenly deciding it was grounding all its 737s, flying A320s instead, and replacing all of us with new dispatchers trained on the A320. In the middle of the day.

Time Off

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Sorry I’ve been so quiet on here lately. It’s been really busy around the Box household! I did just update Brenden’s page with the latest on his development and some cute pics. Jenny has lots of great pics on Facebook. If you’re not on Facebook, you need to join so you can see our cute pics. Anyway, I just came off a 7-day stretch and now have several days off unless I get some more overtime.

As many of you know already, we have an exciting project in the works that’s taking up some of our time and much of our mental energy. Unfortunately we can’t go public yet, but we hope to soon. For now just know that God is putting together the pieces for an exciting new adventure. I had a trainee at work for a couple of days, a really great guy who used to dispatch for Champion Air and Northwest. Brenden is doing great. We await his slightly overdue 6-month checkup on Thursday to see whether his head has rounded out acceptably. Since he normally sleeps on his stomach now (by his choice), I don’t know what else we can do! He’s eating all sorts of stuff now that Jenny fixes up for him. I’ll definitely try to blog more over this coming break, so check back in a bit.

Weekend Adventures

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This has been a wild weekend! Here’s a recap of the highlights:

  1. Friday I shopped for supplies for our CARES Super Bowl Party. Jenny and I watched the end of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. We’d ordered the 1988 version from Blockbuster Online, but they sent the 2005 edition, which is excellent. Then I finished up 3:10 to Yuma, which is an excellent Western that I highly recommend. Two Baylor alums wrote the screenplay along with another guy.
  2. Saturday we went to Houston for a wedding. In the process of getting there, first I drove off without a milk supply for my parents, who were watching Brenden for the weekend. We drove back, picked up the milk, and dropped off the boy. On the way to the airport, I realized I’d forgotten my backback, which contained our flight passes, my airline ID, confirmation numbers, and my laptop. We picked that up and went straight to the employee parking lot at the airport since we were too late for the Headquarters shuttle.
  3. Upon arrival at the airport, Jenny was told that our flight had been canceled. Instead of leaving at 1:00pm, we were now on the 2:00pm flight trying to make a 5:00 wedding. Hmm. At the gate we learned that the flight was nearly full due to the spillover from the 1:00 cancelation. I signed up for the cockpit jumpseat and prayed that Jenny would get an open seat. At about 5 minutes until push time, with me sweating and pacing in the jetway waiting for her, Jenny learned that the gate agent had somehow deleted her from our flight listing. Another gate agent fixed it and gave her a boarding pass.
  4. In Houston we got a car around 3:30 and pulled onto I-45 only to find a huge traffic jam. I kicked myself for not getting that iPhone with the built-in GPS and Google Maps. Jenny and I figured out a detour and finally found the hotel with less than an hour to spare. The checkin line had several folks from Amsterdam. Jenny grabbed our bag and changed into wedding clothes in the ladies’ room while I waited to check in.
  5. Keys in hand, we ran up to the room. Then I realized the other thing I’d forgotten: a dress shirt. I decided my best option was to do the GQ thing and wear a nice collared shirt with my suit and no tie. It worked surprisingly well. I didn’t have time to shower and forgot to shave. Why hadn’t I done those things in the morning?
  6. Finally we rushed to the hotel and found it with 10 minutes to spare. Sitting in the pew before the start, I got a text picture from my sister: my son wearing a pink shirt and a big pink bow. At first I thought it was Reagan until Jenny corrected me.
  7. The wedding was beautiful and uneventful other than the traumatic picture beforehand. The reception was at a fancy club on the 43rd floor of a building in downtown Houston. On the bride’s recommendation, I used valet parking for the first time ever. I’ve always thought of valet parking as more suited to Porsches, Lexii, Ferraris, and the like, not for Dodge Calibers that rent for $22/day. At the reception I got to visit with some old friends from Baylor whom I hadn’t seen in over 7 years. We got to visit with the bride a bit, and she and Jenny got to meet for the first time like I’d hoped. The bride and groom seemed extremely happy and well-suited for each other. I love attending weddings that give me confidence in the marriage instead of feeling like a train wreck is coming. I actually met a dispatcher for Continental Express who happened to be a bridesmaid.
  8. On Sunday morning we had planned to attend a brunch at the newlyweds’ house, but after our many problems the previous day and a forecast of possibly thunderstorms for Sunday afternoon, we bugged out early to get home for the Super Bowl party. If we couldn’t make it back, hungry and excited residents would show up for our party and find the door locked. I texted the bride with the news. I hope she reads text messages instead of ignoring them like I used to do.
  9. We hung out with Mom and Dad and Brenden for a while at their house. Work called begging for someone to work a doubletime shift that night, which meant leaving the party early. I hadn’t planned on working but figured they had to be desperate if they were calling me, so I worked out a plan.
  10. Just before the party we learned that a good friend of ours was in the hospital. Despite some serious issues, he still has his sense of humor.
  11. The party went fairly well, with lower than expected turnout but a great game and plenty of food. I was halfheartedly pulling for the Cardinals since they’d never won before. They would have done it without that fantastic reception at the end by the Steelers. Great game.
  12. Once I got to work, I got a call from Jenny saying the power had gone out just at our apartment, just after the A/C unit made some weird noises. Since the apartment is nearly new, I don’t understand why that would happen. I tried to report the outage to Oncor, but their automated reporting system is terrible and wouldn’t let me do it. Somehow one of their reps detected that I was trying to report the problem and called me back. She didn’t have a fix for me, but at least they know. Dad came to drive Jenny and Brenden to their house for the night.

Fortunately it’s now technically Monday, so our weekend adventures have come to an end. I need a nap.