Graham

The following is a true story which may dissuade some of you from having children. It might also be one of those stories that you find so... I don't know... endearing, maybe... that it makes you want to have children even more than you already do.

I'm eating dinner with my family the other night. Since we've had the baby, there have been several neighbors who have graciously offered to bring over dinner. An offer we can't refuse. Well, the other night we had a neighbor bring over chicken kay-sah-dee-ahs. They were quite yummy, but my children are a little more picky than my wife and I.

They're surprisingly willing to try pretty much anything you offer them, with very few exceptions. (Semi-humorous side note: I had Tyton convinced that until he'd actually tasted poo, he's wasn't allowed to say something tastes like it. I told him that poo might taste really really yummy, but he'd never know unless he'd try it. Don't worry, I didn't let him.) Well, Tyton thought the dinner tasted okay, but when Boston put the first bite in his mouth, he gagged audibly and started scanning the living room for the garbage can among the newly rearranged furniture. I told him he could spit it out on the side of my plate, which he did happily... along with some of his spit and a bit of graham cracker I didn't realize was also in his mouth.

Well, I don't have much of a gag reflex. As long as I can't smell something gross, I can be looking at just about anything. So I scoot this blob of chicken-graham goop off to the side of my plate and continue eating. My boys continue playing with their trains and I keep watching Most Shocking on TruTV (previously Court TV).

Betsy wanders in about 10 minutes later... right about the time I polish off my scrumptious dinner. Betsy asks me if Boston thought it tasted good. I chuckle and start to explain his gag and subsequent ejection of said bite, but when I glance at my plate to give my wife the unneeded visual aid, I notice the glob of goop was mysteriously absent.

There was only one explanation. At some point I had stirred Bostons partially digested morsel into my own meal and consumed it along with the tortilla, cheese, chicken, sour cream, and the miscellaneous spices that comprised my kay-sah-dee-ah.

My wife was disgusted, but I was more surprised that I didn't taste even a hint of honey graham.

Hunt

On Saturday I took the boys to a neighbors Easter Egg Hunt while Betsy stayed home with Season. It was pretty far out west where most of the houses are farms or other types of miscellaneous acreage. There ended up being at least 40 kids there ranging in age from 1 to 14ish. I found out the hosts of this "hunt" had hidden 509 eggs, so it should have averaged out to approximately 12 eggs per kid.

When the hunt started, several of the older kids sprinted out into the fields of weeds, bushes, and manure and starting scooping up as many eggs as they could. I didn't think much of it because their parents were there. I thought, "I'm sure their parents won't let these teenagers get too out of hand. Easter Egg Hunts are mostly for the younger kids anyway." Well, I was wrong. I held the hands of my 5 and 2 year olds as we looked for eggs. After about 25 minutes or so I looked into my kids baskets and saw they had each collected 3 eggs. Three.

We wandered by the starting line and I saw a 12 year old kid dump out his basket of colored, candy-filled eggs and start counting. His parents were standing over him as he counted out over 30 eggs. I heard his dad say, "Whoa... you really cleaned up, buddy." I started to get pretty pissed.

I walked my kids back out into the field to keep looking. Tyton asked me why he only had three eggs while that other kid had so many. I explained that some kids are really good at picking up every egg they see... but that WE'RE better at finding eggs that nobody else could find.

Well, we looked for about another 5 minutes, but didn't have any luck. Then I noticed there were two different 12 years olds boys who were kind of hovering around us. I started to get even more pissed thinking they were going to try to snake the eggs before we could. I decided it was time to call it quits. I told Tyton that we should start walking back toward the starting line again. The two boys overheard our plan and started walking back to the start about 20 feet in front of us, pretty much destroying our chances of finding any eggs on the way back.

Just then I heard Tyton yell that he'd found an egg. He was so excited. Then I felt Boston let go of my hand and run up ahead about 10 feet to pick up an egg he saw in the foot print of a horse. I couldn't believe both of my boys had found eggs so close together... especially since we'd already looked around in this area. Then they found another one. And another one.

Just then I looked up ahead and watched these two 12 year old boys bending over and putting eggs on the ground while they were walking. They were pulling eggs out of their baskets and hiding them where my kids could easily see them. I couldn't believe it.

It gave me something to work toward. I want my kids to be like the second pair of boys... not that first kid. I know there's only so much I can do as a parent and the rest falls on them, but I think they're the type of kids that will grow up to be like those two boys. I guess we'll see.

'tainment

I know there are several people who read my blog that may not know me. Those people (most likely) care very little about my family or our new baby. They probably just read my blog because they find what I have to say mildly entertaining. Well, I hope I don't lose readers because my next few blogs focus on my new daughter. My posts will gradually return to random observations, casual encounters, or completely fictitious personal stories that I claim are true.

Until then, I plan on posting photo's of Season and my family with maybe the occasional anecdote to help illustrate my experiences. Here are a few more photo's of Season... my favorite of which can be found by clicking here. And here are a couple more:

Season

I know, I know. A few people at the hospital told us we should have been born in the 60's. Season Love Daley was born at 2328 hours after about 5 minutes of active labor. She's 6 lbs 6 oz and is 19.5 inches long. She has short hair that looks like it might be a little curly (wonder where she gets that).

And by the way, referring to a previous post... she's not Down's.

Baby tonight...

On our way to the hospital. More to come...

Bad Idea

I'm 30 years old... 31 this year, and I'd like to think I've learned a few things in that amount of time. I find I'm often amazed at the same things, month in and month out. Like my toothpaste tube. Seriously. I can't believe how many days worth of toothpaste I can get out of a tube after I'm absolutely positive it's empty. I can have it all rolled up from the end and think, "Well... this is for sure the last day I'll be able to squeeze anything out of this tube." And then two weeks later I'll still be using the same tube. I've honestly never gotten to the bottom of a tube of toothpaste. In 30 years, I've never reached the bottom. I'm not saying I'm using the same tube I took with me to Scout Camp when I was 12... I'm just saying that someone else always throws it out before it's gone. It's like my wife just gets frustrated that it never seems to end so she throws it in the garbage.

The same thing goes for soap. I can always get "one more shower" out of the remaining sliver of Irish Spring. Sometimes I end up spending 10 minutes trying to get it out of my armpit pubes, but then I just rinse if off and set it off to the side to use tomorrow. My wife always throws those away, as well.

My sticks of deodorant usually crumble when I get to the last bit. For some reason I find that extremely irritating so I throw them away. No ones fault but my own with the deodorant.

I've learned recently that the "seemingly endless" qualities of many personal hygiene/toiletry items doesn't transcend to toilet paper. The toilet paper roll ends. When there's no more toilet paper on the roll, then that's it. Let it go. I've learned the hard way that the cardboard center of the toilet paper roll doesn't possess the same absorptive properties of it's paper counterpart. It mostly just "spreads" while doing very little, if any, "cleaning".

%

So I think every dude has a little bit of "gay" in him. Even if it's just 2%... every guy does something, or has a personality trait that screams "gay". It might be more politically correct to say "feminine", but very few guys refer to other guys as "slightly feminine" so I won't bother, either.

There's all the usual signs of gayness that people are used to looking for. Like if a dude needs to look at his fingernails, it totally ups the "gay" percentage if the guy holds his hand out in front of him, palm down and checks out his fingernails. Or if a man wants to see if he stepped in dog poo or gum, the manly way is to bring the suspected shoe in front of you and rest it on your opposite knee. It's extremely gay for a guy to look over his left shoulder while bringing his right foot up behind him to check out the bottom of his shoe. Also, it will raise a guys "gay" percentage if they have any other fingers protruding while flipping the bird, especially the thumb.



I've been noticing lately that I have more "gay" in me than I thought I did. I noticed that I posted several comments on other blogs that had some underlying homosexual references. I've always known I have a pretty strong sensitive side (I cry every time, without fail, during An American Tale, Field of Dreams, My Life, and The Cure), but lately I've been experiencing pretty intense light-headedness whenever I think about or hear a story involving blood. In fact, I donated Plasma for a while, but then all of a sudden... one day... I got really nauseous and ever since then I can't hear a story about farm injuries or facial trauma without getting dizzy and my legs actually ACHE when I hear stories about someone needing to have screws or pins or staples put in any appendage. Weird, huh? Actually... I should have asked, "Gay, huh?".

I did some math the other day and I added up all my percentages:

- I like to hug guys... full blown, two armed, cheek to cheek hugs. If they're related to me or a really close friend, I frequently provide (and expect) a gentle butt squeeze during the hug.

- I enjoy cooking for my family. Not elaborate meals like on Food Network, but I like the slow cooker and deep fryer.

- I cry every time I see my children experience something new that they enjoy. Not really CRY cry... just like... lump-in-my-throat kind of thing. By the way, I also cry during the last 5 minutes of EVERY episode of Baby Story on TLC.

- I get light-headed when I hear a story involving blood, hanging clumps of flesh, or extremely invasive surgery. To my credit, I don't feel sick when seeing it in person... only if I'm envisioning it in my brain.

- I don't care for watching sports on TV or hunting. I don't care about killing and eating animals, I just would enjoy watching the movie The Deer Hunter more than I'd enjoy deer hunting.

I've concluded that I'm about 49% gay. I don't think that necessarily means I'm only 2% away from divorcing my wife and looking for a man-partner, because ultimately it comes down to whether I feel like I could make out with a dude... and enjoy it. I don't think I could. I could exhibit every gay quality in the world, but I wouldn't be gay because the thought of another dude's tongue in my mouth makes me want to vomit.

So I'm a 49% gay, straight man.

PS I almost included the photos in the post below... but I didn't want to reuse them.

***day

So my best friend and I have a standing movie date. His name is John Maxim and he's been my best friend since we spent a few months together in England (no offense to my other friends who I have told they are my best friend. John Maxim in truly my best friend. I have other friends that were previously my "best", but time and distance apart have put a space between us that will probably never be spanned... JB... you know who you are [even if you didn't, I just used your name so now you'd better know who you are]).

Aaaannnnyway, so John and I have this standing movie date. I won't tell you on what day this "movie date" falls on for fear I may be judged by my more righteous Mormon friends and acquaintances. Also, John has something called "Ward Prayer" which just so happens to fall on the same night as our "movie date" and, if I'm not mistaken, John frequently makes up some random excuse as to why he needs to leave early. I'd hate to ruin this misleading practice of his by giving away too much information as to the time and day of our outing.

John and I typically meet in Layton since he's coming from Salt Lake and I live in Ogden. We figured out that Layton is the halfway point. Not just "kind of" halfway or "pretty much" halfway. The Layton movie theatre itself it exactly (time-wise) halfway between our two homes. We know this because every ***day we leave the theatre and drive home while talking to each other on the phone. We always arrive home within 10 seconds of each other... and sometimes I get home before him and vice versa. And traffic isn't an issue either since the traffic is scarce every ***day night when we leave the theatre.

So the whole point of this post is that I need to make sure John is cool with just coming to Ogden for the next few ***days since my wife is now 3 centimeters dialated and 75% effaced. She could go into labor any moment and I don't want to be in Layton on a ***day night with my phone on vibrate when her water breaks. Some of you might be wondering why I don't just call John to arrange this. Well if I did that, what would I have typed on my blog? Criminy.

2?

It's kind of weird because I thought I wouldn't be as nervous for this kid since I've already done it twice... but I was sooooo wrong. I've been crapping myself for the last few days. Even though Betsy isn't technically due until April 6th, the truth is Tyton was 3 weeks early and Boston was 2 weeks early. So Season* could come around the middle of March and it wouldn't be a surprise.

Well, we went to a prenatal appointment yesterday. Most of it was the same old-same old, but it was also the first time since the first couple of visits that they do a check of the cervix. Well, they told us that Betsy is dialated to a 2 and she's 50% effaced. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that Season is coming tomorrow, but it COULD.

I about shat myself. I live in Ogden and work in Salt Lake (about 45 minutes without traffic) so if Betsy's water breaks or something and I'm at work... geez. I'm really scared. On top of all this the doctor says something vague like, "Don't have this baby for at least two weeks, ok?" Like we have a great amount of control over the situation. Criminy.

So I laid awake until about 1am last night/this morning trying to figure out what our plan should be, and I think I got it figured out. I told Betsy to make sure she let me know if she was feeling different. She was reluctant at first because she didn't want me to panic and come home early every time she didn't feel well... because honestly, she doesn't feel well and all sorts of bizarre things are happening to her body everyday that "don't feel right". So then I explained the next phase of my plan: I told her to rate how different she was feeling on a scale of 1 to 10. If it's a 1, then she just farted unexpectedly or something. If it's a 2, then maybe her back hurts in a different spot than normal. If it's a 3, then maybe she's feeling some peculiar pressure going on in her belly... and so on. All the way to 10, which means the baby is crowning. If she uses this scale as it was intended then I can decide whether I need to leave work based on her rating (and she doesn't need to tell my WHY she's chosen a particular rating... just what the number is).

I also told her that I would rather leave work early every day than not be available to take my own wife to the hospital when the time comes. I am really just hoping that it can happen like it does in the movies, you know? Like, I'm just laying there peacefully in bed next to Betsy. She tries to get comfortable a few times and then sits up in bed and gets a surprised look on her face for a few seconds. Then she'll nudge me and say, "Honey? Honey? It's time." I'll mumble and say something like "Time for what?" Then she'll whisper softly, "It's time to have a baby." Then I'll push the pillow closer to my face and say, "Ok. That's nice" followed by an immediate realization that it's time to go to the hospital. Then I'll jump out of bed and say, "WHAT? IT'S TIME TO HAVE THE BABY?" I'll stumble around the room trying to get dressed, hopping on one leg while trying to get my other shoe on, and grab the bag that's been pre-packed while quietly repeating my mental checklist of things to remember. Betsy will be sitting on the bed smiling sweetly while calmly watching my humorous antics (conveniently not having contractions). I'll get halfway out of the driveway before I realize I've forgotten my own laboring wife. I'll sprint back inside and run to the bedroom only to find Betsy still sitting calmly waiting for me to help her out of bed and to the car.

You know what's probably going to happen, though, is we'll go to the Dr. next Monday and they'll say, "Well, you're dialated to a 5 so let's just schedule you to come back at 6 am tomorrow and we'll start you."
And I'll look back at the last month and think, "I had diarrhea for 5 weeks for nothing."

* Yes. Her name is Season.

Betsy

I'm not really sure how else to post this. I couldn't find an electronic version so I just scanned in the pages as jpegs. This is a brief history of my life before Betsy and then our first date. A few people have asked about it so I thought I'd post it. It's an entertaining story (if I do say so myself), but it's a LONG read so don't feel like you have to read it all at once.

Also keep in mind that I wrote this within the first year of our marriage so the details are pretty accurate. I made a special effort to refrain from exaggerating, which is something I don't normally do. Feel free to read a page a day or something. There's no pressure for you to read it all at once. It's one solid story, without obvious places to "pause", if you know what I mean.

So just click on page one and then let me know what you think. Cheers.