There’s nothing like a relaxing weekend

to really recharge the old batteries. We (the wife anyway) are going to hit the halfway mark in the gestation of offspring number two this very week, and we have been talking a little about stuff like decorating, moving my nursery, middle of the night feedings, errands with a newborn, etc. Even thought it’s only been a little more than three years, you forget a lot of the stuff that was second nature “way back then.”

(I preface this blog with this for reasons you’ll know shortly).

So Saturday, the wife was involved in birthday festivities for her middle sister Caca, and that entailed going to another mom’s house to help setup. She was kind enough to take the urchin with her so I could seriously embark on the process of vacating my current home office (soon to be the bedroom of bambina numero dos) and doing all the things that go with that. You know, emptying and sorting boxes that you haven’t touched since you moved into your last house, trying to figure out why you saved those 5 ¼ floppy disks the last three times you moved, and stumbling across pictures that bring back some great memories. It’s quite a time consuming chore as you all may know.

Anyway, I got two full dressers and one nightstand emptied and sorted (and their contents disposed of when necessary) and got all that furniture moved to the basement, or as I refer to it, the Goodwill collection staging area. Either Goodwill is going to love me or my trash men are going to hate me. But either way, this shit’s on the way out.

After completing (well, nearly completing) this task, the wife got home with the urchin and we finished up the afternoon playing and reading and watching the Busch race.

Molly was leaving around 4pm and was planning to be home “not too late.”

So Lauren and I got Cooley’s pizza, had an ice cream (she did, not me) and watched a little TV before bedtime. She had been a little whiney Saturday, but that happens when you’re three, so I let it go…

Anywho, while cleaning out my office, I had stumbled across a couple of medals from our dart league years ago, and Lauren put one on. I explained that what she was wearing was now called “ba-LING.” She struggles with saying her L’s, so if she rushes it, it comes out “bwing.” By pausing and emphasizing the L, she not only says it right but adds a little flava as well.

So, I’m getting her ready for bed, and she flops down on the bed, which causes the “ba-LING” to fly up and hit her just below the right eye. No cut, but there’s a mouse for sure. To be nice, I give her a little Tylenol and put her to bed. Then it’s off to race-chat and some cold beer and poker online whilst watching the Craftsman Truck race on Speed. (I am one multitasking sumbitch, aren’t I?)

Anyway, I wasn’t feeling my usual chipper self, so I passed on an evening at the Thomas kitchen table and just chilled. The wife got home about 11:30pm, and we got to bed shortly thereafter and I was asleep about 12:30am. Quite the good little boy, if you must know.

Then, without warning, at 2:45am, the urchin is calling me. I go to check on her and she asks “can I sweep wiff you in yoi bed?”

‘No’, I think and then say, “but we can sleep here in your big girl bed”. She graciously accepts and it’s back to sleep…sort of.

She wakes about an hour later, and now she’s really really hot. I mean, hot to the touch hot. So I take her into our room and we proceed to get some cooler pajamas, some juice and some Tylenol, which we give her at about 4:05am. At 4:15am, while laying on her back next to me, she mutters something I can’t understand…and then pukes. On my pillow. Sweet.

The wife hussles for the trashcan, and I sit and try to comfort my now sad and retching little girl. She pukes a few more times, mostly purging the juice and Tylenol and then she seems better. We realize at this point that we’re up for the day on a little more than two hours of sleep, so we shower up, give stinky a bath (to unstuck the Tylenol/puke hair) and head downstairs to start our Sunday.

We watched some Noggin, some Boomerang, and got some Saltine crackers and ice chips to stay down, and at this point I was convinced that what had made her chunder WAS the Tylenol on an empty stomach. We got some more in her, and her fever responded immediately.

A couple of hours later, it was bacon, an egg, and a bagel with butter and cream cheese (her choice). She ate two pieces of bacon, a quarter of the bagel, and drank her juice and seemed to be coming around nicely. Of course, she was tired since she’d been up basically since a little after 2:30am, so I took this with a grain of salt.

The wife and child were resting around 10am, so I decided to take that opportunity to trump Hurricane Dennis and I mowed the front and back yard, blew off the driveway, got about 500 pounds of charcoal moved to the basement, showered, and was ready for the rest of my day.

When I came back downstairs, the urchin had crawled up on the sofa and fallen asleep upright with her face buried in the cushion. It was cute, so I took a picture. (I will be posting the picture shortly).

The rest of my day was “supposed” to consist of a trip to Sam’s to look at some safes and pickup ABT fixin’s for that afternoon / evening. ABT’s are peppers stuffed with cream cheese, some meat (Li’l Smokies today) and wrapped in bacon and grilled until the bacon’s crispy.

These too will be posted as soon as they’re off the camera.

We got home from our trip to Sam’s, which was as always, a fun trip, and the wife started the two-hour process of prepping the ABT’s. Lauren watched whatever on TV and I cleaned out the Egg in anticipation of our snacks.

Repeating the Tylenol seemed to keep Lauren feeling okay and kept her fever down, but in her state of tiredness, she confused yawning with needing to vomit, so every time she’d yawn, she’d reach for the giant pail we had placed in the den for just such an event. This was also a little fun and more than a little sad.

I watched the race while cooking the ABT’s and then I walked back thru the den and (GASP) found Lauren asleep at 4:45 in the afternoon. Now I know she’d been up basically for 14 hours and was obviously tired, but this was going to pose a problem down the line. I chose to let her sleep while I cooked, and then woke her (which took some doing) around 6:15pm for some juice, Tylenol, and a dinner of Easy Mac. My thinking was to give her something that wasn’t too tough to chuck up if need be.

By the way, the only thing I enjoyed more than the Bud car winning was Jeff Gordon running the way he did. Yes, Mike Bliss wrecked him out, but his day was doomed to being not much better than where he finished anyway. That team is lost about everywhere now, despite having the point-leader as a teammate. I find myself snickering at the possibility of the 24 car not making NASCAR’s Chase for the Championship. (Please insert your own evil genius laugh here).

Anyway, we got Lauren dressed for bed and down at about 7:15 or so, and she was obviously exhausted. The storm was not helping our cause however, as the wind was blowing the rain against her windows so loud that she was actually scared, which she usually is not when it comes to rainstorms or any weather, for that matter.

I comforted her, got her talked into trying to sleep and she finally did just that shortly before 8pm. The wife and I then folded about 67 loads of laundry (hooray for Sunday nights) and collapsed in bed to watch TV and just exist for an hour before falling asleep. I am fairly certain I fell out at 9:50pm.

At exactly 3:45am, Lauren summoned me again. The wife commented that we should know she’s sick when she calls me. She will only call me when she’s not feeling well.

I went to get her and she was burning up again. This made 24 hours of a fever that was (depending upon which device was used) around 101 this time. I got all stuff and brought her to our bed, then got crackers and remembered the juice that I’d brought up before bed and got her some liquid and food in her stomach BEFORE giving her that bubblegum smelling pink shit.

She was obviously not feeling well because soon after, she actually went to sleep (about 4:15am) in our bed. That never happens. We avoid bringing her in there unless she’s sick because it’s not something I want to become a habit. We have a four-bedroom house so the chitterlings have their own rooms to sleep in (on most occasions).

I get up at 5:15am for work, and as I was leaving I realized that I had forgotten something upstairs. When I went back into my room, there was Lauren crying…a LOT, because I was leaving. It’s nice to be missed but seeing that made me quite sad.

So here I am with about seven hours of sleep the last two days typing a mindless, endless blog, and wondering if I should have even come in today at all.

Me thinks not.

Remember those records I was talking about?

Well, after reading the rest of that Spin Top 100 Records list, I decided that any list people have to pay for isn’t worth reading, because they’ve always got an agenda to push.

So I decided that, today, right here and now, for your amusement, I will name what I consider to be MY top ten records of all time.

1) U2 – Joshua Tree (1987)

This is, without question, the greatest record ever made by a band that was, at the time, bigger than any band had ever become. The whirwind that surrounded U2 following “The Unforgettable Fire” and the fact that you knew that you were seeing a band move from one stratosphere to one never before seen on a pre-internet planet earth. If you’re 35-45 years old, you remember the songs, the videos (like “Where the Streets Have No Name” and “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”) that shut down streets and city blocks to be made, and how we were riveted to MTV and couldn’t believe the energy and the power of the band.

I have listened to this record, I don’t know, a blazillion times, and I never get tired of it. The lyrics of songs like “One Tree Hill” (a song written in honor of a friend of Bono’s that died) are powerful:

I don’t believe in painted roses
Or bleeding hearts
While bullets rape the night of the merciful
I’ll see you again
When the stars fall from the sky
And the moon has turned red
Over One Tree Hill

Same goes for the lyrics of “Running to Stand Still:”

In through a doorway she brings me
White gold and pearls stolen from the sea
She is raging
She is raging and the storm blows up in her eyes
She will suffer the needle chill
She is running to stand still

And the concerts were religious experiences. I saw them twice: once for The Unforgettable Fire tour and once for Joshua Tree. If you don’t believe me, ask anyone that was at one of the two shows in Atlanta in December of 1987. Here’s the setlist from the night I was there:

Where The Streets Have No Name, I Will Follow, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, MLK, One Tree Hill, Gloria, Exit, In God’s Country, Helter Skelter, Help, Bad, Bullet The Blue Sky, Running To Stand Still, Sunday Bloody Sunday, New Year’s Day, Pride (In The Name Of Love)
encores: With Or Without You, People Get Ready, 40

Tell me where the drum solo moment or the “hey…wanna go take a piss?” moment or moments were in that setlist? There wasn’t one. I was physically and emotionally spent after that concert. We sat for half an hour in our seats, just sort of staring at the stage in disbelief of what we had just witnessed and, to a small degree, been a part of.

If I had a time machine, the first thing I’d do after going back and winning a few lottos and meeting folks like Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln and Johnny Cash, would be to follow the entire Joshua Tree tour or possibly be a fly on the wall as that record was being made.

1A) Guns N’ Roses – Appetite For Destruction (1987)

This was a tough call, but in the end, the reason this record falls below Joshua Tree is the tiebreaker: Compare the bodies of work of the two bands.

3) Prince – Purple Rain (1984)
This record was beyond great. There’s not a bad song on it. Hell, the record was so great that they managed to make a half decent movie based on it. Think that’s easy? Ask Kiss how their movie worked out. This was also a top five concert, which adds to its allure.

4) REM – Life’s Rich Pagent (1986)
Politics aside, this band has been about 100 things thru their history and they’ve been amazing at reinventing their sound. I was in college when this record came out, and after seeing all of the frat party bands and bar bands, these guys put out a record that captured that sound that every one of those bands was trying to find.

5) Tesla – Mechanical Resonance (1986)
This record came out the summer I was going to college. A buddy picked me up and had it in the tape deck, we were on our way to pick up another friend, and I mad Ronnie take me to the mall to buy it. I was totally blown away. We then picked up Paul and Tom, and it was back to the mall again. By that night, it sold 20 copies in our neighborhood alone. And the funny part is that it still holds up today. Songs like Little Suzy, Modern Day Cowboy, Comin’ Atcha Live, Changes, EZ Come EZ Go and Cover Queen are amazing. I saw these guys at the Fox in Atlanta with (get this) Great White and Kix as the opener. The dueling guitars of Skeoch and Hannon were amazing and the whole show was just kick fucking ass.

6) Edwin McCain – Honor among Thieves (1985)

Before you crap on this, ask yourself what you look for in your music. One thing I really enjoy is a guy that, while a talented performer, is a songwriter to the core. That’s Edwin McCain. We went to Chastain to see Hootie and the Blowfish and found these little handbills in our seats about the opening band, so we decided to quit screwing around and pay attention.

What we got was an incredible show both performance wise and lyrically.

Before we left that night we bought the CD, and it’s been with me ever since. Well, I take that back. I’m on my third copy, as I’ve worn out the first two. If you want to hear some stuff that, beyond the production, is just plain powerful, check this one out. You can tell these aren’t songs “bought” from songwriters in some mill. These are songs that matter to the guy with his name on them. (And if you like this one, check out another Edwin McCain CD, “The Austin Sessions.”

7) Hootie and the Blowfish – Cracked Rearview (1994)

Before you even say, just shut the fuck up. This is MY list. Not yours. The Blowfish are a guilty pleasure. I’m not going to apologize for enjoying this CD to the point of wearing two of them out altogether. And I’m not the only one. They sold about 50 gojillion of them. So go listen to your radiohead cd’s and leave me alone. And before you ask, I am NOT drinking, nor have I ever had Chardonnay.

8) Don Henley – The End of the Innocence (1989)

I was tempted to put the Eagles Greatest Hits here, but since I knew it’d draw a shit storm, I did the next best thing: Added a Don Henley record.

This CD is lyrically about half a step behind Edwin McCain’s, and to me that’s saying something. Plus, you had the title track, which to me is a top tenner lyrically. Oh, and if you missed it before, shut up. This is my list.

9) AC/DC – Back In Black (1980)

So, you have a band that’s pretty successful. They put out some kickass records including Highway to Hell, Dirty Deeds and High Voltage, and then the lead singer up and drinks himself to death. What do you do? Do you break up, split the cash, and call it a day?

Hell no. You hire Brian Johnson (who might possibly have been the only guy on the planet that could even hold Bon Scott’s jock) and put out possibly the baddest fucking rock record Australia’s ever seen. Don’t think so? Check out the songlist (and this is yet another Mutt Lange production like Def Leppard’s Pyromania, AC/DC, XTC, Cars, and much more. (Like it or not, that guy’s produced records that’ve sold about 150 million copies). Anyway, here’s the list:

Hell’s Bells

Shoot to Thrill

What Do You Do For Money Honey

Giving the Dog A Bone
Let Me Put My Love Into You

Back In Black

You Shook Me All Night Long

Have A Drink On Me

Shake A Leg

Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution

I mean, come on!! That’s a fucking hammer of a record.

10) Kiss – Kiss Alive II (1977)

This is another one of those “I don’t care what you thinks,” but this record changed my life. I was 9 years old and I saw that album cover in the store and I had to have it. And after listening to it, I knew what rock n’ roll was supposed to do. KISS, while thought to be a goof by some, were master marketers, performers, and creators as well. Kiss might well be the ultimate musical guilty pleasure (unless you’ve got a closet full of New Kids on the Block CD’s).

That’s all for now boys and girls. I’ll be back soon with some great pictures of my urchin doing something cute.

The (hopefully) great (but ultimately) untitled blog

I couldn’t think of a good title for this entry, so I’m leaving it blank, more or less.

As many of you may know, yesterday was the big day. Oh, you don’t know. Okay, sorry. It was the day we were to (hopefully) find out the gender of urchin number two. Right now, it’s December 7th, but we’re not likely to hit that. We’re figuring around Thanksgiving.

Anyway, I never cared a single second whether Lauren had ended up being a boy or a girl. I was so horrified at the myriad afflictions that a newborn can be stricken with that all I wanted was a healthy, ten fingered and ten toed, four limbed child. Gender (and manner of arrival for that matter) seemed so secondary to my first goal that they were almost invisible in my mind.

And then we got Lauren. She was perfect (with the notable and noisy exception of her 121 day bout with reflux and her inability to ride 10 feet in a car until she was one year old), and I was thrilled.

Then, the wife talked me into another one, which for some reason became an easier and easier sell as time went on. I can’t explain that, but it was. In the months leading up to yesterday, I didn’t care a whit what gender number two was.

And then, when word got out that we were going to find out, folks started asking what we wanted, etc. However, I still didn’t care. And I said so.

So we got to the doctor yesterday (complete with Lauren in tow) and she got to hear the baby’s heartbeat (or heartbeep as she called it). She was amazed. Everything looked good, so it was off to the other office for the ultrasound.

She sat and waited patiently until we were called back into the room. She was very impressed with the machine, but was very concerned when “the lady put jelly on mommy’s belly,” but she was ultimately impressed that her “mommy say it not hurt at all!!”

Then, we saw the baby. All the measurements were perfect, and occasionally Lauren would see a hand (or the tech would tell Lauren she was seeing a hand) and Lauren would address the belly:

“Hi baby!! You waved at me!! Hi!! I see you baby!!”

Then, we heard and saw the heartbeat in cool color ultrasonic form. Again, we were all mesmerized and I was relieved. We saw ten fingers and ten toes and two earholes and a perfect heart and brain measurement and limb length and everything else. I was ecstatic.

But the tech was having difficulty located the “indicators.” I wasn’t surprised. I have always joked that in this age of super advanced technology, I could produce an heir that was misidentified gender-wise, at least until the doctor slapped it’s ass and handed it to me.

Anyway, after some very thorough searching, the tech said “I can’t be sure, but I’d say it’s a girl.”

The doctor came in moments later, took one look and said “you’re having a daughter.”

Molly grabbed my hand, smiling as widely as I’d ever seen. I slumped slightly and just stared.

A girl.

Molly asked “What’s wrong?”

I sat for a second and said “apparently I did care, and I guess I wanted a boy.”

DAMMIT!

For the record, the dammit wasn’t directed at the wife or the being behind the placenta, but at myself. I couldn’t (and still can’t) believe I was so fucking selfish. Ooooh…I want a boy. I have to carry on the family name, blah blah blah.

You know what? That’s all horseshit. This isn’t the middle ages. No one NEEDS to carry on a family name. There are over 6.5 billion people on this rock, and to assume the end of the family name is a crisis is absurd. I don’t have an estate or a fiefdom or some land overseen by serfs and peasants. I’m a computer guy in Georgia that has the greatest daughter in the world and a wife no man deserves. I live well beyond any expectations I ever had (that didn’t involve winning the lottery). My firstborn child has seven grandparents that love her very much, and much family that is eagerly awaiting the arrival of her younger sister.

Yet I had the unmitigated gall to sit in that chair (and a couple of times since then) and utter the words “Yeah, I guess I am a little disappointed.” Fuck me.

For the record, I am thrilled to have another daughter. Here are several reasons I just came up with off the top of my head:

All the old clothes can still be worn, saving a trainload of money to be used on other stuff. Like more clothes.

I already know how things go with a girl (at least to this point).

It will be VERY unlikely that this child will pee anywhere near my face at any time in her life.

I will spend FAR less time over the next 17 years (or more) standing in urine while peeing in the middle of the night, or anytime I am peeing barefooted for that matter.

Uncle Todd will have another little girl to dote on for a while.

I’m sure this list will grow, but I think you see my point. Besides the very obvious reasons, there are many reasons that us having another girl is great news. I hope everyone that knows me can forgive me for my selfish and shameful pouting.

That’s not to say that I won’t pout again over something else. I most assuredly will. But that will be another story for another day.

Oh, and before I go today, I thought I’d share a very funny clip with you. Lauren picked up on the sound of the baby’s heartbeat during the sonogram and ultrasound right away, and spent much of the rest of yesterday imitating it. Click on the link below and make sure you’ve got your speakers turned on:

The Amazing Lauren

Pretty good, huh?

Happy Fourth of July everybody!!

As I sit here the morning after my 37th birthday, I find myself pondering a few things:

The first one and most obvious is, why in the fuck can I not sleep? I mean, in highschool and college I could stay up really late and sleep late too. Then, sometime in my mid to late 20′s, I started waking up early. And now, on a good day I can sleep seven hours, but most days it’s between five and six. So it’s either stay awake until 2am so I can sleep until 8am (on the weekend) or go to bed at 11pm and be up doing this and playing in an online poker tournament at 6:24 in the morning on a national holiday?

What’s happened to the fourth of July in the last thirty years? Yes, it’s a national holiday and yes, folks still enjoy it, ,but I remember the bicentennial, and that was kickass. Since then, it’s like people sort of stopped caring. I know that not every July 4th can be like that one, but you would think that someone (like Donald Trump) would put together some sort of proposal or committee or something to put this holiday back on the top of the list.

There may not be much funnier than putting a digital camera in a three year old’s hands and sending her off to take pictures around the house. The stuff she comes back with is hilarious.

Speaking of my three year old, there is nothing sweeter than the hugs you get on your birthday because she remembers how big her birthday was to her. Oh, and on a semi-related note, there isn’t much funnier than putting a few rolls of crepe paper in the hands of said 3 year old and tell her to decorate the house for daddy’s birthday.

My sister in law (who lives across the street) backed out of her driveway and hit my dad’s car. That’s all I’m going to say about that…

Another thought about the fourth of July here. I thought the fourth was the fourth. Not the second, third or fifth. So why is it that folks are shooting off fireworks in my neighborhood From Friday thru last night? I’m not being a grump, but it’s against policy…isn’t it?

You can have your beef tenderloins or your filet mignons or your lobster but, for my money, there’s no better food on the planet than leg of lamb. Cooked right, it’s just amazing.

I don’t know who thought of combining fast food joints, but the guy that decided to put Taco Bell and Long John Silver’s in the same building near my house deserves a Pulitzer prize.

I put a new front door knob / lock assembly on my front door, and I really think that job is one of the worst around the house. Your margin for fuckup is near zero, and if you mess up, you have to replace the door, then you have to paint the door, and then the door won’t match anything really so you have to paint the whole house. Basically the intial cost of $70 could end up costing you about $2700. That’s nothing to sneeze at when picking up your screwdriver.

Oh, and thanks to the douchebag that put in our doorknobs. Since you used an electric screwdriver, every fucking one of the screws is stripped, and if they’re like the ones I took out of the front door, the ones that aren’t stripped will have the heads just pop right off, leaving one to try to figure out how to drill out a broken screw.

Time for a shower and getting ready to get stinky out of bed…

Guess what yesterday was?

now that’s cute as a damn button right there…

And finally…

A little crack never hurt anybody

bubbletime Lauren

“I’m sorry Daddy” Lauren.

Without question, my favorite picture of Lauren that’s ever been taken.

exhausted Lauren

Just a few more….

Tubby time Lauren.

Prideful Lauren

Gluttony Lauren

First haircut. Yikes!!

Father’s Day DVD continued…

Very very tired Lauren

Hey look!!! A chicken!!

Here’s Johnny!!

How ya’ll durrin’?

More from the Father’s Day DVD

You don’t have to look at all of these, but since you’re here, I figure you want to, so here ya go…

Can’t fit another Cheerio in my mouth Lauren

We don’t need no stinkin’ rules Lauren

just one of my favorites….

Possibly my favorite picture of the two of us…

Hands up!!

And now for something completely different…

As you are now well aware, I have learned how to post photos in my blog. Since I’ve learned that great skill, I wanted to post some of my favorite pictures from the dvd my good wife presented me with on Father’s Day (2005). This was an amazing gift that Lauren and I watched together and it hit me on the sofa that Sunday how quickly they grow up. Yes, it’s very cliche’ to say that, but it’s true. Just see for yourself:

wonder Lauren

Evil eye Lauren

Overwhelmed Lauren

Early happy Lauren

Check out the middle finger of my left hand Lauren. Oh, and the costume’s cute too…