Family Reunion - Last Ball Game - Garden Photos

Nathan's First Teeball Game

Mother's Day and Photos of the Kids

Christmas Tree Cutting Trip

Its been yeeeears since I went out with the family and cut down a Christmas tree. So, this past Friday, we did just that. For effect, I summoned the weather gods for a light snow to fall at just the right time so as to stimulate some Christmas Spirit...at least meteorologically.

The Christmas tree farm also had an barn full of Emu so we sauntered over to see what Emus do in the snow two weeks before Christmas. The answer to that question, in case you were wondering, is nothing.

The pictures follow in chronological order. And yes, Nathan found some honeycombs amidst the snow and mud. (Editors note: If you would have told me that he found a hand grenade out there in the field that afternoon, it wouldn't have surprised me.)

Also, check out Nathan's letter to Santa which was in the paper a few days ago.

Its Time To Hang It Up

Over the summer while playing a home baseball game, I was chatting with one of the umpires while the grounds crew was getting the field ready for play after a brief rain shower.


This guy was a throw-back; an old school guy who looked like he lives life with a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other. His face was weathered with deep wrinkles from years in the sun. His character, which didn't take but more than 10 seconds to discern, was a direct reflection of his appearance--rough and to the point. He was probably 60 or 65 but looked easily twenty years older.


His words were hidden with insight from an "everyone can kiss my ass" point of view. Each thought was beautifully ochestrated with an incredibly abrasive tone that made you wonder how he could hold a job. The topic didn't deviate too much from baseball,. Yet, like a carwreck on the roadside, his words sucked you in. I just stood and listended. Granted, it might have all been a show but it didn't matter. It was great entertainment as I passed the time until the start of the game.


Just when it seemed as though the conversation was getting dull, he drops this bomb on me as he walks away:


"...When ever you're ready coach, give me your lineup?"


My throat immediately sunk into my stomach.


What the hell did he say? Did I hear the word "coach" in there somewhere?


My dad was a coach not me. Nothing against my dad or coaches but I wasn't a coach.


This guy really had no idea that I was a player. His gruff nature wasn't a show; the oldtimer ump just plain didn't give a damn. Didn't he remember that I had three hits in the first game and pitched two innings...the game that he was "UMPIRING" behind the plate?


Needless to say, I was pissed. I promptly went oh for four with two strikeouts in the second game due to his slander. Although his intension wasn't to berate me, the fact that he referred to me as "coach", while having some merit, was very unsettling. As far as I was concerned, the word was in lights above my head for everyone to see! I felt like an aged Connie Mack standing on the top step of the dugout after managing for 50 years. The whole concept really bothered me.


It didn't hit me until later that day that maybe this guy was onto something. Was I getting too old, too slow to play at this level? I still contribute and my hitting is fairly consistant.


It finally hit me while driving a few nights later from another game. I really wasn't having as much fun as I used to. Maybe it was the fact that I didn't play well the game before. Maybe this will pass and I'll feel different tomorrow. No, this is more than that. I couldn't concentrate on the game like I could in the past. Fastballs seem a bit faster. I wasn't as fluid on my feet. The game itself was speeding up because my reactions are slowing down. Maybe the title of "coach"DID fit me more than "PLAYER".


All of these thoughts raced through my mind on that drive home. Yet my conclusion remained the same.


So after 28 summers playing baseball counting high school and college, its time to walk away.


My wife asked me if I was sure? She kept telling me that I didn't have to quit. I told her that this season would be my last; my decision wouldn't change. It was final.


My son will be four next summer. Tee-ball is around the corner for him. Its time to be the dad that teaching young kids how to hit and field ground balls. I still have the first picture of my dad coaching me in my first year in tee-ball. I can't wait for my first picture with my son during his first year playing ball.



Will coaching take some getting used to? Sure.



The feeling you get after getting a basehit up-the-middle on a 0-2 fastball middle-of-the-plate-in, off of the meat of the bat when the score is tied in the bottom of the ninth is something that you only experience a few times and you NEVER forget it. Coaching my son will feel like same experience only it'll happen each day.


All it took was one word for me to realize that it was time to move on and it came from a grizzled umpire who smokes two packs a day:

COACH

Mad Props To My Wife

If you know me, you know that I work strange hours. I'm up at 2AM each morning, prepare for work a bit before heading out the door at 3:15 in time to get to work at 4am. People I talk to each day usually strike a conversation with, "Gee, you have to go to bed at what, 6 or 7PM right?" My facial expression usually dispels their conclusion but I follow it up with this rebuttal, "Not with kids. Try 9, maybe 9:30." It is their priceless facial expression in response that culminates with their jaw hitting the floor. The look is one of utter shock.

I'm writing about this not for pity or for sympathy. After all, many people in the world work strange shifts; many are more unorthodox than mine. I write this to cast some light--actually a huge beacon--on what is responsible for allowing me to keep this schedule without collapsing.
Here are a few hints. Its not coffee, although a good cup of highly caffeinated java is real yummy with an english muffin. Its not the Red Bull or the new "5 Hour Energy" loaded with a blend of chemicals and amino acids that make the periodic table look like a kids book. Its not some exotic herbal extract from the rain forest. (Any food or drink with the word "exotic" is really inviting.)

The best stimulant for staying conscious and fully functional doesn't come from food or drink. It comes from a loving, compassionate wife.

Yeah, yeah, I know. What is this, an episode of Oprah, you say? Sure, it sounds sappy and chessy but I meant what I said.

When you are on a schedule that runs against your circadian rhythm, your body gets pretty pissed at you. The enzymes in your stomach churn uncontrollably throwing your whole digestive system into a tizzy. You eat leftover dinner at 8AM. (Bar B-Que is my favorite). Your eyeballs feel like someone took them out unbenownst to you and dipped them in shards of glass then reinserted them into your head. Not to mention, you get fragmented sleep. Four hours here, a couple of hours there. You never feel rested. You get short-fused and testy. Basically, your body is here and your mind is in the other room. Rarely does your mind and body come together and when it does, look out! Strange things happen. A ll of the jacked up coffee on the planet won't lift your out of this funk. Your there to stay.

My wife knows this. When I get home, she works her day around my afternoon nap. Even if that means watching the kids for another 2 hours AFTER a morning of mayhem. Don't get me wrong. My kids are super-fun. But it is mentally exhausting sometimes when, for no apparent reason, your three year old's calm demeanor suddenly mushrooms up into a full-fledged temper tantrum while the 9 month old needs a diaper change. Its all par for the course. All families go through it. But it takes someone special like my wife to sacrifice her own rest and relaxation and mental sanity so that I can get a few winks. You might say that my wife is a blessing disguised in the form of REM sleep. Without it, I'd be a wreck.

I try not to take any of this for granted. Even after I wake up, my demeanor many times probably wouldn't be compared to a cuddly kitty cat. Its more like a hungry cobra ready to pounce on a rodent. Even still, each day my wife anticipates ALL of our needs. She schedules trips to the store so that I can have time to "wake up". She balances out the activities of the kids around their digestive clocks so that they are fed and ready to go. All of this is done to make the day run smooth even in the midst of the groggy, cranky cobra. Her strength and mental fortitude is second to none and for that, I am grateful beyond words.

Zzzzzzzzzz.

Mother's Day Photo Project

A few weeks back, I was trying to find a way to package some gift for my wife for Mom's Day. Then it hit me. Why not create a single photo comparing both of our kids at the same age doing the same activity like eating.

Another Poignant Conversation With My Son

This conversation occurred yesterday evening.

Mom: "Do you need a snack or are you full?"

Nathan: "Nope. Tummy hard as a rock..."

Nathan: "Uh wait." (Nathan feeling his stomach with his eyes peering upwards as he reevaluates his abdominal status) "Now, food in butt. Snack please."

My son's future wife

So a few days ago, my wife was talking with my son about random topics ranging from trucks to his sister to...marrage. How this came up, I have no idea.

Evidentally, he knows what he wants in the woman he will marry, whoever that will be. He says that he wants his future bride to be

"Skinny, boney and ugly with horsehair"

Go get 'um tiger!

Sounds of Parenthood

Think of the highest pitched noise you've ever heard.

Got it.

Play that sound back in your head over and over again.

Imagine that noise coming from your 6 month old. Surprised? Probably not because babies make goofy noises. That's a no-brainer.

Now imagine your 6 month making that very same high pitched noise and you standing 100 feet away wearing ear protection and still being blown away as if an air horn went off.

Yep. That's my daughter Elaina and her newly found talent for screaming for no apparent reason. Her upper octave range makes an opera singer sound like James Earl Jones.

Babies scream. I get it. It happens. Babies scream when they are hungry, have gas, when they're cold or in pain. No biggie. Its to be expected. My daughter? No, no. She screams just because...well, its fun. How do I know? She cracks up after each one.

Her shrieks aren't your typical "goo-goo-ga-ga" stuff. Her ear piercing shrills are legendary. The other day, my wife and I did an experiment. She held Elaina inside in her room as if she was putting her to bed with the windows closed and I went outside and stood in the middle of the backyard to see if I could hear her screams. As if she know what we were doing, she let out one of her best screams right on cue. Sure enough, she was as audible as if I was right there next to her. Remember, I was 110 feet away with 6 inches of insulation, drywall and an exterior wall separating us.

Afterward, her and I had a little talk and I asked her to tone down her newly found "voice".
Her response to my inquiry,

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Once she ran out of air for the scream, she looked at me, grabbed my noise and just laughed.
She is now grounded for a week which I will informer her of when she is eight.

I love my kids. There are the best thing ever to happen to me. Their idiosyncrasies are what make them cute and lovable. But I can do without Elaina's screams and my son's subsequent retaliatory shrills he "performs" as a way of keeping up with his sister. Until that day comes, my wife and I just laugh, grab our EPA certified ear protection and enjoy the sounds of parenthood.

Clarification on Last Post

Evidentally, some of you have taken my last post the wrong way.

I use a sarcastic tone when I write so please don't take every word literally. My goal was not to diminish what my parents went through in raising all five of us (sports, school, etc) but to illustrate how kids demand so much of your attention and mental sharpness . My parents over time learned how to balance out their energy output so as to give us kids as much attention and focus as possible while still getting things done everyday. My parents were NOT lazy in any way shape or form. New parents like me are still learning this art of balance. Overtime, I am sure that I will. I just hope I can develop this trait over time to the high degree that my parents have.

Blenders...Brains...Fatigue

My parents never had energy.

I always wondered why they had to rest after dinner or work. I knew their fatigue wasn't due to some ailment or chronic condition so I thought in my infinite teenage wisdom that they were just apathetic old people that really didn't want to do anything. To them, I thought, the status quo was utopia. An evening after dinner watching Dan Rather or getting ready tomorrow's dinner or hanging out on the deck if the weather was nice seemed to be--in my overly self confident, myopic punk-15-year old mindset about as static and boring as you can get. I remember distinctly thinking, "I'll NEVER be like that when I get older."

Boy was I wrong.

Throughout my adult like, energy was never a problem. I worked during the night, worked out, played sports, went without sleep. It was fun and exhilarating. Even with my first child, my wife and I cruised along with the view that we could handle anything. When my wife and I drove home and walked into the house with our second child on October 25, 2007, everything changed. My mind and body went blank. The energy that I was accustomed to having was suddenly drained. My ability to process information quickly and without hesitation was severely hampered as if someone took my brain, pureed it in a blender and poured it back into my head. I swore I could literally hear it sloshing around at times. Sure it was all psychosomatic but the feeling seemed real enough.

Maybe this feeling would go away after a little bit of time. A new baby was home and maybe I was a bit nervous. Two kids? WOW.

Here we are 6 months after the fact and my brain is still a liquefied amalgam of tissue, nerve fibers and organic molecules that are SUPPOSED to work together to facilitate cognitive ability and memory. I can assure you that aside from holding a job, pouring juice and queuing up old Bob the Builder VHS tapes, my brain no longer works..

There is just enough brain activity left for me to come up to this conclusion:

HAVING KIDS CAUSES BRAIN DAMAGE!

Don't get me wrong. I love my kids. I would step in front of a moving train to protect them...if I had the energy to do it. Its just that having two children is exponentially more time consuming and more taxing mentally than one. Just like I am sure that three kids is 25 times more draining that two, and so on. I was the first of FIVE KIDS so I should be used to a higher degree of chaos. (I use the word "chaos" in the most loving sense) Now I realize why my parents didn't relish extraneous activities. Its not that they didn't want to, say, throw the ball around. They just had no energy left in the tank. They were tapped. Their reserves were on "E" and the only way to recharge was to catch up on world events with Mr. Rather or read the weekly Parade Magazine about some family who has 12 kids and how they share a 3 bedroom house. I always wondered why they always read or watched about something that was more chaotic (world events) then our day-to-day life. It made them feel better. After all, who is having a better day. The family with 5 kids or the family of 12?

I now have an appreciation for what my parents have been going through since 1978 (the birth of my second sister). Its not that didn't have energy as I thought back then. Its that all of their energy was poured into us kids each hour of each day. Sure I understood that my parents went out of their way for us when we were growing up. But it wasn't until I became a father that I realized how great their endless sacrifices were that they made for us. Its not that they had no energy for fun, its that their energy was used up to allow us kids the freedom to have a ,life at the expense of theirs.

For them, incidentally, the child-rearing ride is about to end as my brother is about to graduate from college. My everyday life with 2 kids and mental fatigue is just beginning. I tell my parents what I am going through and all they have to say smiling is:

"Paybacks are a bitch aren't they?"

Ultimate Quote From My 2 Year Old

Just when you think you've heard it all, just 5 minutes ago, my son while going had this dialogue with my wife:

My wife: "Are you done?"

My Son: "Butt full. Poop sleeping. Poop stuck hole."

My wife, laughing uncontrollably runs to me in the other room and relays his now classic retort.

Again, no pictures required nor appropriate.

New Nathan and Elaina Pics With Family

My Nephew Evan

I've been meanin to post pictures of my nephew Evan, now almost 8 months old hanging out.

Enjoy!