More Precious Moments

I love sharing these precious moments.  I was putting Jack down for a nap and was pretty exhausted myself.  I’m pretty sure I fell asleep before Jack did, and the next thing I know, I’m getting woken-up by the click of a camera.  Yep, Lauri strikes again!

Jack and dad asleep

I Just Can’t Wear Hats Anymore

Jack eating dad's hat

As you can see, Jack loves to eat my hats.  I just can’t wear hats around him anymore.  He ALWAYS takes the hat off my head and tries to eat it.  His personality just keeps getting bigger and more fun.

More Fun With Jack

One of Jack’s favorite activities is climbing in and out of the tub.  Everytime he sees the bathroom door open, he heads in there and hops right in.  Sometimes the door doesn’t even have to be open…he’ll just open the door.

Jack climbing into tub

This is how Jack climbs into the tub.  He leans on the side until his momentum pushes him over the edge.  Then, most of the time, he’ll use his hands to catch himself (the other times, he’ll use his face to catch himself).  Fortunately, the one Lauri captured was of him using his hands to catch himself.  It’s just too funny to watch.

Jack exploring in tub

Once he’s in the tub, he will either start playing with everything, start exploring, or he’ll simply climb out, only to climb back in.  In this picture, he’s exploring.

Picture of Jack in the tub taken in the mirror

It sure is hard to get a clear picture when taken through the mirror.  Too funny how he just loves the tub!

Jack playing in the tub

The first picture is my favorite, but this one is a close second.  I just love the mischevious grin on his face.

Too Precious!

Lauri took a picture of Jack playing on his laptop (a really old one that shuts-off as soon as it’s unplugged, because the battery is completely dead).  It’s just too precious!

Jack working on his laptop with dad in the background working on his laptop

Because of the lighting, Lauri wasn’t able to get a good, clear shot.  But the “moment” is what is most important to us, and she NAILED it!  I especially love that we are both wearing red shirts.  Just too cute!

Jack loves to mimic what I do on the laptop.  He still loves to try and type on my keyboard while I am typing, which makes working very difficult, but he’s slowly learning to stay on his laptop.

Stuck (but on purpose)

Earlier this week, there was a pretty good snowstorm that hit our area.  The forecast called for 1-3 inches in the valley and 3-5 inches on the benches (where I live).  The snow was supposed to start on Monday in the afternoon and end early on Tuesday.  As you can see from the picture below, we got a lot more than 3-5 inches at my house.  The snow actually started before noon on Monday and dropped about 8 or more inches that day.  But Tuesday morning, there was more than a foot of snow at my house.  The snow continued until late in the day on Tuesday.  I think we got around 15 inches total during those 2 days of snowfall.

My car buried in front of my house.

Before I go into how my car ended up like that, I must first explain why I took the car.  Yes, I knew there was a storm coming, but as you can tell, I didn’t expect the 3-5 inches to hit until late on Monday.  I had a lot of driving to do, so I wanted to take avantage of the fuel economy of the car.  My car gets around 25 mpg city, whereas my truck only gets around 16 mpg city.  Unfortunately, I lost on that gamble.  The snow came too quickly with too much.  It took me 2 tries just to get up the road to my house.  I made it only halfway up my driveway (and that’s with a running start from my neighbor’s driveway).  I knew the plows would be coming throughout the night, so I had no choice but to drive up the street aways, get a good running start, and then bury my car in the snowy embankment.

Thankfully, my truck handles really good in snow (with a lot of help from great tires).

Towing my car out with my truck.

I was a little worried when hooking up the car, that the bumper would be yanked right off when the truck started pulling.  Fortunately, that worry was unfounded.  I got lucky with where I placed the hook.  Lauri drove the truck and did a great job of not yanking the car out.  The truck pulled the car out with no problem.  Whew!  There is no way I could have gotten it out by myself without spending an hour of just shoveling snow.

Now the roads are all clear and I’m back to driving the more fuel efficient car around.

Another Challenge, Yet Special Moment

On New Year’s Eve, instead of staying up to celebrate the New Year of 2009, I got the privilege of staying up to help Jack sleep.  I’m guessing your first response to that is, “huh?”.  Jack got the Croup.  We did all the tricks our friends and family gave us, but twice when we laid him down to sleep, he’d wake up about 30 minutes later sounding even worse than before.  In fact, after the second time he woke up, he wouldn’t settle down, so we took a drive to the emergency room.  Fortunately, the cold air and the drive helped to calm him down, so we decided to go back home and give it another shot.  This time, we took our friend’s advice (thanks, Tiffany Montgomery, for the advice) and I slept (or tried to) with Jack on my chest while sitting in his red chair.

Dad holding Jack, similar to New Year's Eve "Croup" night

Jack is normally an “active” sleeper (he moves around ALOT).  When he’s sick, it’s even worse, because he’s trying to get comfortable, which is very difficult to accomplish when you can’t breath very well.  So imagine Jack (all 30 lbs of him) lying on your chest moving around the whole night trying to get comfortable.  That’s exactly what it was like.  I got very LITTLE sleep.  However, it was worth every second.  Why?  Two reasons:  1) Because he was able to breath better laying on me (vertical enough to help prevent his nose from clogging further) than laying in his crib.  So he did sleep better in my arms; and 2) Because he slept better in my arms (and I was redundant on purpose).  I got to hold my son for hours on end with him cuddled in my arms.  For two full nights, I got that privilege of holding him in his time of need.  That moment was too precious!  I will be able to cherish those 2 nights with him nestled in my arms for the rest of my life.  Sleep deprevation never felt so good!

Adapting to Changes in Life

Every once in a while, I like to reflect upon an experience and relate it to this fun ride we call “life”.  The other day was one such experience.  We went to the Social Security office in Utah County to get Jack his new social security number (he had a temporary one for tax purposes until now).  When we got there, we checked in and were assigned #73.

As we sat down, they called number 65 (or something close to that).  The first thought I had was that this shouldn’t take too long.  I couldn’t have been so wrong.  It was nearly an hour before our number was finally called.

When we finally got to talk to someone, we found out that one of our documents didn’t qualify, because it didn’t have his legal name AND his birthdate.  We had his birth certificate, the certified document from the court proceedings where Jack was declared legally ours (which was the one NOT qualified to use), and some other form needed.  Because we couldn’t use the court document, we had to come back the next day after getting a form from our doctor that showed both his name and birthdate.  Fortunately, we were given a pass to cut in line the next day and we were able to get in and out within around 10 minutes.

I realize that the changes were made shortly after 9/11/2001.   Here’s where I really started to reflect on this experience.  Life is ever changing.  We have two choices when we encounter changes (like the one I did here).  We can either grow old and BITTER and complain about every single aspect of our lives, or we can learn to adapt and enjoy our “experiences” as they happen.  While we were waiting, I could have driven my wife crazy by continually complaining about the loooonnnnnnggggggg wait.  Instead, we chose to focus on why we were there (because of Jack) and the blessing of having such a wonderful baby.

My grandmother, who was very active until the last year of her life (which ended peacefully after 96 amazing years), lived by this saying:  “Do it!  Or wish you had”.  I’ve never heard of a happy person who lived by a crede like, “complain and keep complaining”, or “watch others be happy and do NOTHING about it”.  We all get to CHOOSE what our attitudes will be.  I have chosen to follow my grandmother’s example and live by my favorite saying, “Do it!  Or wish you had!”, and I hope you will choose to find a similar crede to live by.  May your lives be blessed as you strive to become a better person with the approaching excitement of a new year!

Touchdown!!!

This was really cute!  Lauri was taking pictures of Jack and she wanted me to get Jack to raise his hands, which he’s been doing a lot of lately.  Normally, we can get him to raise his hands by raising ours and saying, “Yay.”  But he wouldn’t budge this day.   It wasn’t until I said, “Touchdown!”, that he finally raised his hands.  All I can say is, “THAT’S MY SON!!!”

TOUCHDOWN!!!

I really don’t think I can say how cute he is enough.  What a joy he has been for us!

Bright spots during troubling times

This morning, I had an experience that made me smile.  Lauriann had gone off to a Pilates class at the gym, so I was left watching Jack.  Whenever jack is awake and Lauri or I need to shower, we usually let Jack roam the bathroom to entertain himself while we are showering.  This morning was no different.  Here’s the cute part.  Whenever Jack gets out of our sight (goes into the closet), all we usually have to do is say, “Ah”, and he’ll reply.  Not this morning.  He didn’t say anything.  So I hopped out of the shower and went into the closet to find him.  It took me awhile, because he was behind the door trying to pull down my hats that are hanging on a special hat holder.  When he looked up at me, he had that grin on his face that made my heart melt.  And it’s always that same smile whenever he’s found something new.  The look on his face is hard to describe.  It’s almost as if he is saying, “This new world is AWESOME!”.  So I hopped back into the shower to finish with a HUGE smile on my face.  I LOVE my son!  He is so special to me!

Jack with similar smile

It’s moments like the one I had today that makes the daily struggles we go through worth every minute.  We are definitely in some very troubling times and we must choose to see the bright spots in our lives, if we are to be truly happy during these times.  I hope that everyone who reads this will take a minute to reflect on what makes their day a little brighter and, therefore, makes them happy.

Violently sick

Last night was one of the few times in my life I wished I would actually die.  Lauriann and I went out to dinner to celebrate her birthday.  Toward the end of dinner, my stomach started aching really bad.  I decided to try to make it home before using the restroom.  By the time we finally got home, I had to race straight to the bathroom.  Not to be gross, but I really can’t remember if I’ve ever had to use the toilet and trash can at the same time before.  You read correctly.  I had severe diarrhia and had to throw-up…at the same time!  Unfortunately, it got worse from there.  By bedtime, I had already thrown up 5 times.  And these weren’t just little episodes.  These were violent!  It continued almost every hour, until around 5am this morning.  Also, because of how violent these sessions were, it got to a point where I could barely get a good breath.  It literally hurt to breathe.

Needless to say, today was spend in complete recovery mode.  I did get out and voted, but that was pretty much the extent of my day.  The rest of the day was spent in bed resting.

There was one positive benefit from this horrible experience (I always try to look at the positive side of things):  I lost 5 lbs in one night!