Lots can happen in a week

Wow. First, I apologize to all the avid readers for my not writing recently. I have no delusions that you are interested in my writing, mind you. I fully realize and accept my place in the universe as the Scribe of Fletcher. So it is written, so it shall be done. (And, for those keeping score at home, I have not written because I have been adjusting to my new job.)

Back to Fletch. I picked up Mini Me at day care earlier this week, and what I saw made me drop my jaw. He was sitting up in a big boy chair. Holy cow!! (See picture.) First. Time. Ever.

Having mastered the use of sitting appliances, Fletcher then proceeded, through force of will alone, to produce 2 shiny new teeth. Remarkably, he never cried about it. Not once. And his poop still does not stink either. (Now. You do not believe that, do you?)

Let's see. He also mastered rolling over on command. No, not on my command. Just upon his own internal clock. As in, "Hey, I think I would like to plant my face in this here carpet. Oh wait. No. That did not work out as well as I'd hoped. Back to my back. Nope. I'm bored again. Let's try my face." And so you see how Fletcher spends his floor time.

OK. All for now. Rick's Wife is demanding that I cook dinner. In protest, I think I am just going to serve cold pizza. :-)

Humbling

So, Rick's Wife had to work this weekend, leaving me to watch the kiddo. We had a great time, he and I. He cried, and I tried to make him stop crying. Add formula. Repeat. I'm kidding. It was not that bad. Besides, the in-laws came to town to help watch The Boy, as Daddy had some important official business to attend to on Saturday morning: the fantasy football draft.

What was so humbling this weekend was the realization that Rick's Wife holds a very special place in The Boy's heart, leaving me to wonder how there can possibly be room in there for me. You see, a couple of times during the weekend, Fletch just cried and cried, and was not to be consoled. I held him, changed him, fed him, burped him, bounced him, talked to him. No avail. Finally, I walked him in his stroller, and that did the trick. The point is: much moaning and gnashing of Daddy's teeth. Then, Mommy comes home. And Fletch falls asleep in her arms after about, oh, 3 minutes.

For the record, Fletch has never, not once, fallen asleep in *my* arms. Behold, the power of Mom.

Fletch holds the bottle

I do not have a picture, but this one is in the same theme.

So Much to Do!

OK, so before you read this, let's make 2 things very clear:
1- Fletcher is at day care, and will be so for several more hours (and I am not picking him up); and,
2- I have had way too much caffeine this morning.

So I figure, a PERFECT time to blog. I have found myself lately a bit overwhelmed at the joy of being a dad. Kinda like I want to hold on too tightly to water in my hands, but the tighter you hold your fingers together, seemingly the faster the water trickles out. Know what I mean?

Being a dad is AWESOME. I LOVE being the first person The Boy sees in the morning. (He typically about jumps out of his skin in glee, and I tell you, that is NOT a bad thing for the ego. Plus, I feel just about the same way, so that is way cool.) I find myself recently thinking a lot about all the things I want to do with The Boy: take him to a baseball game, teach him to throw a baseball, take him fishing, take him tubing, take him snowboarding, and when he is old enough, take him to Vegas, teach him craps. OK, so I got a bit ahead of myself there. (It's the caffeine. Hey, can I get another? Thanks.)

For all of the wonderful things that are in the here-and-now, I look forward to all the things to come. Like math homework. And soccer (aka, herd ball) practice. And pool parties. And band-aids. And teaching him to tease Mommy. (I cannot wait until he calls her "Rick's Wife", ala Cotton Hill from "King of the Hill.)

Anyway, my world and view of it has completely been skewed for the better with the arrival of my little tyke. I have no idea how I ever got along without him.

And I suppose caffeine makes me just a tad bit sentimental.

Gangsta Lean

"Fletcher, look at you! All cool, down low in your high chair, with your gangsta slip."

[Here, I furrow my brow, trying to figure out if Jen was being funny, or serious. Having made my decision, I reply...]

"Uh, Jen? You mean gangsta lean."

And here I was, about to provide a blog entry about the lack of Jenisms since I started documenting them for all the world to see. Pshaw. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is sooo overstated. Word.

Ready to go see Daddy in the yard

Here's my little boogaloo, ready to come outside and see me have heat stroke working in the front garden. (Yes, gardening is MAN'S work.)

The Cold War

I imagine that most of the readers (all 5 of you) are old enough to remember the Cold War. "Cold War kids are hard to kill, under the desks in an air-raid drill. Haven't they heard we won the war? What do they keep on fighting for?" I think that Billy Joel, with those few lines, really captured the essence of what it was like to grow up knowing that you lived, ate breakfast, went to school, tennis practice, whatever, at the business end of a Soviet nuke. But we went on with our lives, restful in knowing that the Reds sat at the business end of our nukes, and after all, "It'd be such an ignorant thing to do, if the Russians loved their children too." (That's Sting, by the way, from Dream of the Blue Turtles.)

So, what's your point, The Rick? Glad you asked. Mutually assured destruction. It is what kept the balance during the Cold War. And, with mutually assured destruction in mind, I submit the following photo.

Here. Smell this.

Pssst, here's the plan.

Goober: Psst. Coop. No, don't look at me. Keep your eye on the humans. I heard them talking. They are gonna put the kid in a contraption called a Hiya Che-arye to feed him. If we play our cards right, and work together, we can clean UP on scraps. Whadayasay?

Cooper: Ya think? OK.

Now that I have this tiger by the tail...

Nuclear Meltdown

This past weekend, The Wife and I sojourned to H-town, for some q-time with the fam and friends. After spending Saturday with my dad, we took Fletch to spend the night with some friends. We left Dad's right around Fletcher's typical bath time. So, he was starting to get grumpy.

Rarely a fan of the carseat, especially when The Hunger stirs, Fletch began to get vocal on the way to our friends.

"How far is it?" Not far, dear. I have my trusty google map in hand. Huh. I can't find the street. Surely we missed it. Let's turn around and try again.

Meanwhile, The Boy is now at Defcon 2.

Nope, that street is definitely not there. "Rick, are you reading that map correctly?" "Yes, call them for clarification on the directions." No answer.

Fast forward 15 minutes. And raise the volume 70 decibels, or, for those not familiar with a dB scale -- about the noise a jet engine makes. Fletcher is now at Defcon 1.

And still no answer from our friends. Fletcher is now beginning to flood his carseat with his crocodile tears.

Still no answer. And the in-laws are out of town. And no answer from Jen's sister. By this time, the only one in the car NOT crying in yours truly. The prospect of stopping in unfamiliar territory is not attractive, as night has fallen. (Do you know Houston?)

I am happy to say that we did eventually get a callback; the directions were in fact in error (lucky us that this is the one error for Google Maps); and we made it to our friends house.

And the moment we stopped the car, so Fletcher shut off the waterworks.

Fletcher is the sadistic warden of a very elaborate prison.