Reagan’s Bumbo-rific and a Follow-up to the Picnic Story

Well, there’s not a whole lot to talk about this week.  We’ve just been hanging out around home relaxing lately.  It’s actually been ok because it’s given us a chance to let Reagan start trying out the Bumbo.  She’s still a little wobbly in it so we can’t leave her in it for more than a couple minutes, but it’s a start.

Here’s our little cutie…

Now before you all go get too excited, I’ll have you know I sat like this for hours on Saturday then again on Sunday.  It was exhausting.  How ‘bout an “ahhhh, how cute” for me!

As a follow-up to my post about my work picnic and Tyler hitting on all the girls.  Apparently a coworker of mine got some photographic evidence.

Here’s Tyler hitting on a little girl his own age.

Then, just as she starts thinking she’s got a chance…Boom. He goes after the “cougar.”

I told Tyler I was going to post these pictures and he just said, “Don’t hate the playa’… hate the game.”

Tonight we were “that family”

About 8 years ago Thesha and I wandered into a Chili’s near our apartment in Albuquerque.  We sat down next to a nice young family with a happy-go-lucky Mom and Dad and their two sons.  Shortly in to our meal the younger kid started screaming and about half-way through our meal the older kid totally puked all over.  We felt pretty bad for the young couple but really we spent the rest of our meal mumbling beneath our breath about how bad it would suck to be them right now.  Plus it sucked for us because we were watching it and it’s hard to keep an appetite after something like that.

We gained a whole new perspective on that couple this evening.  We forgot to get the chicken out to thaw for dinner so we figured we’d just run to Chili’s real quick.  Sure, it seemed like a good idea at the time, and it actually started off pretty well.  When the food arrived things took a dramatic turn, however.  I had literally just pulled my fork and knife out of their pre-wrapped napkin roll when Reagan started to cry uncontrollably for no apparent reason.  I tried in vain to calm her down while keeping her in her car seat but quickly realized I was fighting a losing battle.  So with tears streaming down her face and the entire restaurant peering over their chairs to see what all the commotion was about, I pulled her out of the car seat and tried desperately to calm her down by rocking back and forth in my chair.  I couldn’t hear it over the screams, but I’m almost positive I saw a guy lean over to his teenage daughter and point out that this is why he is always reminding her to not have sex until she’s married.

With my meal getting colder by the minute, Thesha quickly ate her chicken sandwich - her mouth burning both from the heat as well as the spicy sauce she usually savored.  In between bites she “encouraged” Tyler (as only a mother can) to eat something besides tortilla chips.  In retrospect, we probably all wish he hadn’t eaten anything at all.  While still chewing and blowing on the last bite of her sandwich (you know what I mean when you’ve eaten something too hot), Thesha relieved me of the still crying Reagan and gave me a chance to eat my luke-warm hamburger. 

Realizing that he had completely lost interest in the quesadilla, we gave Tyler the cinnamon apples that came with his meal and enjoyed a few moments of peace.  Tyler did pretty good with the apples until he had eaten all of the sauce and started into the apple chunks.  That’s when dinner became a spectacle instead of a meal. 

Tyler started choking on one of the apples.  He coughed it back up, but apparently there was some kind of chemical attraction between that apple chunk and the tortilla chips because as soon as the chunk came up so did everything that had proceeded it.  Tyler was sitting next to Thesha who was still trying to keep Reagan quiet so she gave playing catcher a quick try then realized her best alternative was just to get out of its way.  I hopped up but Tyler’s 4:00 snack had already made it to the floor before I got over there to help.  With all the sudden movement, Reagan started crying again while we scrambled for a stack of napkins from the hostess. 

Thankfully by now the teenage girl sitting next to us and her family had left – probably to go tell her boyfriend that she had been converted to the idea of abstinence – so we weren’t having to apologize to them for all the chaos.  I did find it interesting, however, that while I was still trying to clean up Tyler the waitress decided to drop off our check.  To her credit, she still asked us if we wanted to try a brownie sundae.  I don’t know if she was just used to this kind of stuff or if she was so appalled that she just reverted to her training and routine while trying to find a happy place in her mind.

With a dozen or so soaked napkins piled up on the table and Reagan starting to calm back down, I stripped Tyler down to his diaper and sandals and put his stinky, wet clothes in a garbage sack we pulled out of the diaper bag.  I don’t know whether to be grateful or disturbed by the notion that we were actually somewhat prepared for something like this.  I’m not saying we didn’t get a few confused looks from people coming in as we walked out with a kid in his diaper and sandals and a garbage bag of clothes instead of a doggie bag of food, but we did get out of there with our dignity.  Ah, who am I kidding.  At least we got out of there.

As disturbing as it all was, we tried to keep our wits about us and as we got in the car we looked at the lighter side of the situation.  Even with a screaming baby and a puke-soaked kid, we had at least avoided the trinity of all parenthood fiascos by not including a diaper blow out as well.  I think we’ll save that for Applebee’s next weekend.  As for now, we’re just going to sit and watch a few scenes from The Exorcist in order to get something more pleasant going through our minds before going to bed.

The Battle at Gettysburg

After several weeks of having our plans thwarted for one reason or another, we finally made it to Gettysburg.  It was such a beautiful day – we couldn’t have asked for better weather.  It was about a 2 hour drive so by the time we got ourselves and the kids ready in the morning then made the drive it was just about lunch time when we arrived.  We decided that it would be best to go ahead and grab some lunch before seeing the sights.  Tyler apparently didn’t like this idea and in an instant became that kid that single people look at and wonder if they will ever want kids.

I’m not going to lie about it, it was pretty rough.  Forget about the fact that we just paid $25 for a hamburger, chili dog, and two chicken fingers, we were now two hours away from home and quickly coming to the conclusion that we were probably going to have to just turn around and drive right back. 

Finally after a good half hour of flopping around on the floor and crying his eyes out, Tyler finally relented and started to act normal.  Much like the Union Army at Gettysburg, just when we thought all was lost, we found a way to hold the line, keep the high ground, and win the battle.  At least for us the cost was just $8 for some stupid chicken fingers that he never ate.

The museum was really impressive.  It starts with a 45 minute video narrated by Morgan Freeman about the events leading up to the battle and the lasting impact of the events of those three days in July of 1863.  It was Tyler’s first time in a movie theater and we weren’t sure how he would handle it (especially after the tantrum during lunch), but he was actually really good through the entire show. 

After the movie, you’re taken to a 22 foot tall, 279 foot long, 360° mural of the battlefield known as the cyclorama.  It is incredibly impressive in and of itself, but then they add some lighting effects and some storyline and it’s just amazing.  The slideshow below has some pictures of the cyclorama, although I don’t think they really do it justice.  I was able to see a similar painting when I visited the museum in Waterloo, but it’s a lot different when its the history of your country instead of others.  Plus, Americans know that some cool lighting effects and booming cannons going off over a loud speaker can really bring out the true emotion of the painting whereas Europeans would probably just say that it detracts from the art.  Whatever Frenchy.

After the cyclorama viewing, we walked through the museum itself.   It’s always kind of tough to really get everything out of a museum when you’re chasing a 2 year-old, but we were able to glean bits and pieces as we walked through hallways of civil war memorabilia.  As we exited the museum, Thesha looked at me and said, “Well, if you don’t feel pretty patriotic after something like that then you’ve got problems.”  It really was a moving experience.

Lastly, we went to the cemetery where the Gettysburg Address was given by Abraham Lincoln for the dedication of the national cemetery.  There’s a hill just next to the cemetery (Cemetery Hill) that was a significant location during the battle and it has now become a place for monuments of the various military commanders and regiments that were involved in the battle.  The area has basically been left alone, so it wasn’t that hard to imagine what it would have been like to be camped there prior to the onslaught of Confederate forces.  I think only those who have actually been engaged in such warfare could actually imagine what it would have been like during the fighting itself.  The slide show below has some pictures overlooking the battlefield.

While we were able to see some really cool things, we quickly realized that there is a lot of stuff in the town that we wouldn’t be able to get to on this trip.  There is obviously a lot of history there, but also some fun and interesting shops, restaurants, etc.  We’re definitely looking forward to returning there again some day.

Here’s the slideshow of our sightseeing activities.  If anyone wants the full-size (5mb/picture) versions just let me know and we’ll figure out a way to get them to you.

 

P.S. Why is it that the chili dog always seems to get the last word in the argument about whether or not it was a good meal?

Just a Little Prick and a Picnic

Well, we had a couple interesting events this last week.  On Thursday, Reagan had her first round of immunizations.  Before this she had some shots in the hospital and some blood tests run by pricking her feet, but this was the first time we had to actually hold her down and endure the cries of a trusting but confused and now hurting baby.  Everyone who’s had to be there when their child gets those shots knows what I’m talking about.  We were old pros by now having gone through this a bunch of times with Tyler, but it still just makes your heart ache when that first startled screech comes bellowing out.  Then, in between cries, they just look at you like, “What did I do to deserve this?” and “Why would you do this to me?”  Of course, much like Tyler, she was done crying before we were – I mean, before Thesha was.  It was actually kind of interesting to see Tyler’s reaction though.  I think he was as confused as Reagan was – wondering what the crap was going on – but I think he was just glad that it wasn’t him with the sore leg this time.  We reminded him that his turn will be coming up once again in September when he goes in for his 2 year old visit, but I don’t think it sank in completely.  I’m sure it will sink in soon enough.

After Thursday’s good times, we spent Friday enjoying the “mandatory fun” of my work picnic.  It actually was kind of fun and it was better than a day sitting at my desk, so I really can’t complain.  Everyone was able to bring their families, so we got to meet the spouses and kids of a lot of my coworkers.  Reagan was a perfect little angel and just sat there looking as cute as ever and Tyler was able to run and play and completely wear himself (and us) out.  He doesn’t get to do that as much as he would like since we’re just in the little apartment, so it’s always fun when he’s able to get out of the house.

My favorite part of the picnic was when Tyler walked over and started holding the hand of the daughter of one of the guys I work with.  The girl (who was several years older, by the way) just smiled as Tyler pulled her around to show her how he could kick the soccer ball or throw the baseball or whatever.  Then, as the girl’s dad (my coworker) started walking over towards them, Tyler let go of her hand and just walked away like nothing was going on, everything’s cool, just hanging out… what? 

I told my coworker what had happened and he just laughed.  I guess we can all just laugh for now, but about 10 – 12 years from now something tells me we won’t be quite so laid back with Tyler’s “innocent” hand-holding.  Don’t get me wrong, I pretty much know I deserve it for all the indiscretions of my youth, but I didn’t think it would be starting before he even turns 2 years old.  I mean, c’mon man, at least wait until you can say “hey, check this out” before you start showing off for the girls.  Oh well, what’cha gonna do.  (I mean besides teach him how to say, “hey, check this out.”)

Just to get caught up

Well, I had actually hoped to have lots of cool pictures and stories to talk about by now, but the weather just hasn’t cooperated.  Four score and seven days ago we were planning on going up to Gettysburg but it was raining like crazy so we had to cancel.  Then this last weekend we were supposed to go to a maritime carnival with seafood, boating events, and “living history” (aka more nerds in old costumes) but it was 105° so we decided to just go to Target and Toys R Us and even then we were dying of the heat.  So, no cool stories to tell, but there are a couple little fun things going on that I can talk about to hopefully make for some interesting reading.

Here’s an updated picture of baby Reagan.

We’re quickly falling in love with her big eyes that get bluer and bluer each day.  Unfortunately a lot of her long newborn hair has started to fall out – we haven’t had this much black hair on our stuff since we had our black cat.  But the long hair is at least being replaced with more hair, even though right now she just has a wicked-awesome mullet. 

She has become such an even-tempered little sweetheart that I’m starting to wonder what we did to deserve such good kids.  I’m hesitant to say it, but we’ve even been lucky enough to have her sleep through the night for almost a week.  She still squeaks every once in a while so Thesha will get up and put her binky back in, but then she’ll fall right back to sleep.  Of course we did have one night where Thesha had to give her a little bottle again, but at least it’s not two bottles a night for a hour each time trying to have her eat and go back to sleep.  The first night it happened I was actually out of town.  I got back and Thesha was so excited to tell me about it.  She had just adjusted her schedule so she figured she would just let Reagan wake up and cry to let her know when she was ready to eat but then the whole night went by and there was nothing more than a few squeaks.  So that night we tried it again and sure enough she was sleeping through the night with next to no effort on our part.  We almost don’t know what to do with all the sleep we’ve been getting.  Who am I kidding, we know exactly what to do with it – sleep.  (That’s right you pervs that thought I was going to say something else.)

Tyler’s becoming quite the chatter-box.  He’s started being able to mix in real words with his jabbering and has even graduated from single words to short phrases.  His phrase de jour… “Uh, oh. I made a mess.”  Now where did he pick that up from?

Here’s a fun picture of his latest sleeping habit.  I don’t know how he manages to get all the crap in his crib piled on top of himself, but Thesha got the proof with this picture.

Since you can’t really see who this is under the pillow, blanket, and stuffed dog, I figured I had better add a decent picture of his face as well.

Well, that’s about it for now.  Hopefully we’ll have something more exciting to blog about soon.

A Fun Filled Week

I know this post comes a day later than usual, but there was just a lot going on this week and it took a little longer than usual to get everything together.  While it was a little crazy, we definitely had a lot of fun.

Dad showed up on Tuesday night and spent Wednesday and Thursday driving Tyler around.  They went…well…wherever the road took them.  It’s a good thing Dad had his GPS otherwise we’d probably still be looking for them.    I know Tyler and Grandpa had a good time, but in all honesty I think Thesha enjoyed the break even more.

It just wouldn’t be a vacation without good food, so we had to first take Dad to Woody’s Crab House for some crab, clams, and shrimp.  And of course it just wouldn’t be dinner at a restaurant with Dad without him making an inappropriate comment to the waitress about whether or not she had a younger sister for Tyler and a good looking mom for himself.  This is why I’ll never take Dad to Hooters – not even as a joke.

Thankfully the only thing more appealing to Dad than cute waitresses is his affinity for tropical fish and sail boats.  So on Friday we went to the Baltimore National Aquarium (walking past the Hooters).  The Aquarium is located in what’s called the Inner Harbor.  We had heard about this, but never had a chance to go until now.  There was a lot to do there but way too much for one day so we just stuck with the plan of going to the aquarium.

 

If you look through all the aquarium pictures you’ll see one with a pirate ship and a big hill behind the ship with an American flag flying.  The big hill is actually Ft. McHenry.  This is where the “Star Spangled Banner” was flying during the War of 1812 that inspired Francis Scott Key to pen our national anthem.  We didn’t have time to visit but it was kind of cool to see the big American flag flying on the weekend we celebrated the 4th of July.

Later Friday evening, Thesha’s dad arrived.  With two Grandpa’s in tow, we went to Turkey Point Lighthouse for a little nature walk and a view of the Chesapeake Bay.  It was a really fun time for Tyler who took turns running around with Dad, Grandpa, and Grandpa.  Afterwards we stopped by Captain Chris’ Crab Shack for some more Maryland seafood.  Even though Thesha’s dad is “not much of a connoisseur of seafood” (his words, translation = doesn’t Maryland have a Steak Shack somewhere?) he was a good sport and tried some of their incredible crab legs.  

 

In addition to all these activities, we found some time to sit and talk as well as take Tyler swimming a couple times, but the party really reached its peak when we went to the 4th of July carnival and fireworks in Havre de Grace.  The Grandpas bought a bunch of ride tickets for Tyler and he had a ball.  Thesha brought enough food to feed the entire Nicholas family so the five of us ate well, laughed loud, and stayed up late.  We even got to enjoy something new for a 4th of July celebration…a view of something besides the back of North Davis Jr. High!  Since the fireworks were shot out of a small island in the harbor, a bunch of boats pulled out into the harbor to watch the fireworks which meant we got a nice view of all of them. 

 

Even though it was hard to talk about it over the roar of Neil Diamond singing “We’re coming to America” over the loud speaker, we all enjoyed sitting under a big tree in the park, eating some sandwiches, and looking out over the Chesapeake.  Notice that I didn’t say we enjoyed watching the actual fireworks.  As it turns out, there was a reason why no one had claimed our “sweet” spot.  Much like the giant tree behind us, there was an equally obstructive tree in front of us which was specifically planted 75 years ago to stop us from actually seeing the fireworks.  I ended up walking a few yards away and holding Tyler so at least he could see what the crap we had been keeping him awake for.  At least we’ll know better for next year.

 

Then of course there was the baby blessing for Reagan.  When we first found out we were pregnant and showed up here in Maryland I thought for sure that the circle for the baby blessing would just be me and some Deacon with a microphone.  Then when I saw how small our chapel was I figured I was being overly optimistic about the need to include a microphone.  Thankfully I was able to be joined by two Dads and a cousin.  I guess technically that made us a square not a circle, but whatever.  The member of the Bishopric rounded us out enough to make it enough of a circle.

Here’s our little angel with the members of the square circle.

 

In addition to these handsome young men, Reagan was also surrounded by some beautiful young women on her special day.  Reagan truly is blessed to have such wonderful family members in her life.  Thank you to everyone who joined us that day as well as to Thesha’s mom for sacrificing a month to be with us to make sure we were taken care of when Reagan arrived.

Well, if you’ve gotten this far you’ve probably neglected your family, work, or whatever long enough but thanks for hanging in there with me.  If you want to push your luck a little farther, the names of the places we visited are a different color font because they’re actually hyperlinks to sites about those locations.  Go check them out so you get really excited about coming out to visit us.  Sorry Dad but you’ll just have to do a Google search for Hooters.

Finally some more pictures of Reagan

I’m not going to give excuses for taking so long to post some more pictures because I’m assuming that everyone can understand that it’s been a little tough to find time over the last few weeks.

With that said, here are a few pictures:

 

Unfortunately for everyone out there Reagan is growing and changing every day, so these pictures are already a bit outdated.  Fortunately for everyone out there we’ve got some great picture-taking opportunities coming up this weekend.  My Dad and Thesha’s Dad are coming out to see their new granddaughter and assist in her baby blessing.   It will be interesting to see how this works in our tiny meeting house.  We just became a ward but we’re still in a branch-sized meeting house.  It’s a good thing the whole family isn’t here – the family would outnumber our whole ward. 

There haven’t been too many funny things happen lately to blog about (partially because Thesha told me that getting pooped on WASN’T funny) but the funny stories are what keep everyone coming back to check the blog.  So, at the risk of detracting from Reagan’s attention, I’ll just add a little something based on something you may have noticed was missing from the pictures – my goatee.  Yes, I finally followed my Mission President’s advice to keep a clean shaven face.

People have asked me why and there are a lot of reasons, really.  Here are my top ten – mostly fake – reasons for shaving off my goatee:

10. I’ve been trying to lose some weight and figured I’d start with the easy stuff first. 

9. With a new baby I just couldn’t afford it.

8. The aerodynamic drag was keeping me from realizing my Olympic swimming dreams.  Yep, that’s all that was holding me back.

7. I’m finally having to say good bye to my rebel 20’s – next on the to do list, buy a mini van…not.

6. I was so tired from sleepless nights that I accidentally shaved off the right side and had to lose the rest of it just to cover up my mistake.

5. Bringing a new baby home wasn’t traumatic enough for Tyler.

4. I finally got rid of that zit I’ve been using my goatee to cover up for the past 6 years.

3. The red in my goatee clashed with all the pink crap around the house.

2. Let’s face it, facial hair is a lot of work if you want it to look nice and I’m getting way too lazy for all that upkeep.

1. It’s 2010…Goatees are so 2000’s…time get with it.