Valentine's Dud

Last night we were watching the news and they said something about the 17+ inches of snow we got on Valentine's Day a few years back--2007, I think.  We spent that evening shoveling our driveway, which was exhausting, and ended up at the closest decent restaurant, Outback Steakhouse, for what I would consider to be one of my top ten meals ever.  Mind you, that list is also populated by McDonald's, Sbarro, and hospital food, so it's clear it's less about the quality of the meal and more about how desperately I wanted it.  That meal was awesome, but man, were we ever tired!  Upon getting that reminder of that Valentine's Day, I said to Craig, "Man, we've had some crappy Valentine's Days." 

We had one (possibly when I was pregnant) where the restaurant we tried to go to had more than a two-hour wait...though after a few tense, hungry moments, we ended up going to a little place in the city and eating right away.  Last year we invited Lori out with us, which was a fun change of pace, but we had trouble finding somewhere without a long wait and Jacob ended up being a royal pain the whole time we were there. When Jacob was one we went to Strong Museum of Play, and Jacob was brutal.  I'm pretty sure we had a Valentine's Day or two where we had to work.  In recent memory the best one was when Jacob was eight months old and we got to go to dinner and a concert.  But other than that, we've struggled.

Ultimately it's not a big deal.  Valentine's Day isn't exactly the most vital holiday, so while there are expectations that it should be better than a normal day, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way.  I think it's silly to spend a lot of money on a present for that kind of holiday, though if I saw something perfect it would be a nice excuse.  But jewelry's too fancy, flowers die, and chocolate is fattening.  Restaurants are crazy busy, and setting up a babysitter and all that is sometimes not even worth the work.  And at the end of a busy work day, it's all a bit much. 

This year I decided to just keep things simple and suggested we just pick up Chinese food and get a movie.  I love Chinese food, Craig loves movies, and we had a couple little gifts for Jacob to enjoy, too.  Well, we did the movie and Chinese food, but everything else just sort of stunk.  I had a rough day at work, and Craig had a REALLY rough day at work.  His rough day actually started Monday morning when he woke up in Minnesota to the news that five Knighthawks had been arrested after getting in a brawl at a restaurant after their game on Sunday.  While they surely weren't completely innocent, some had pretty nasty injuries and only two other people out of 30 participants in the brawl were arrested, so there's clearly more to the story.  Craig has spent the last few days managing the message, answering calls, and tracking down leads on places where the story is being reported.  It's been awful.  And as a result, he spent much of last night on his phone with co-workers and the media, and tracking down YouTube video of the fight.  In addition, Jacob was pretty awful at daycare pickup--he wouldn't clean up and wouldn't listen at all...even when I threatened to withhold his Valentine's Day gifts.  So...no gifts for him.  The Legos would have to wait another day.

Anyway, the Chinese food was delicious, the movie was good (we rented "Moneyball"), and we did our best to make the most of the day.  But the work stresses and Jacob's behavior sort of killed it before it had a chance.  Again, it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things...but maybe a bad day on Valentine's Day has a way of seeming a little worse than it should.  Perhaps that's as ridiculous as the holiday itself...or maybe having higher hopes for one special day isn't too much to ask.  There's always next year...

The Weekend

Craig was on the road this past weekend, which meant it was another weekend with just Jacob and me.  Once in a while these weekends are good, but considering Jacob's recent behavior (the fact that he will not listen at all), I was a little concerned.  The weather was also a concern, but the good news was that we really didn't have to do anything if we didn't want to. 

Saturday we woke up to snow.  We haven't had a lot of snow this year.  In fact, I think we were about four feet below average, and nearly five feet behind last year at this time.  It's been weird and a little unnerving, but I can't really complain now that we're past Christmas.  I wanted snow for Christmas but beyond that...ehh.  So this round of snow was a little bit of a shock to the system.  We got a couple inches in the morning, enough to make the roads crappy.  Jacob hasn't had a lot of chances to play in the snow, but I got him in his snowpants and boots and he came out to play while I shoveled.  He loved just running through the snow!  Of course, somehow he got snow in his glove and freaked out a bit, but eventually I fixed him back up and pulled out an old sled that my parents had handed down to me.  We took a very quick sled ride, which Jacob liked until we turned and he face planted a bit.  Even then he hung in there but we went back inside pretty quickly so we could have lunch and get around to naptime. 

After nap we braved the roads and headed to the library, our first trip in a long while.  We picked up a number of books--Dino-Soccer (a favorite), a Llama Llama book we hadn't read, another book by the same author, a hockey book, a Curious George book, a couple books by Mo Willems, and one book by the same author as the "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" books.  They're all cute and it's nice to have more new reading material.  Once we were done there, we headed off to get Jacob a haircut.  He was long overdue.  I love when he's got fuzzy hair.  Other than getting distracted and moving his head a bit, he did great.  We made a quick stop at the craft store (little side project I'm working on) and a quick trip to Wegmans before grabbing some dinner and heading home for the night.  After bedtime I went back out and shoveled another inch or two, just because it would be that much less I'd have to shovel in the morning. 

I was dead-set on going to church in the morning as it was supposed to be Jacob's first day of Sunday School.  He's technically been eligible since he turned three, but potty training was an issue.  At some point in the middle of the holidays that took care of itself, but it didn't occur to me for a while that he was finally good to go!  So, last week I finally remembered to sign him up and I wanted to get him into it ASAP before he freaked out about it too much.  I was looking forward to being able to pay attention in church for a change, too.  Anyway, we woke up to at least four inches of snow, and when I went outside to shovel, the neighbors were out and did me a huge favor.  The husband helped me shovel while the wife snowblowed not only the plow crap at the bottom of the driveway, but also part of the driveway itself.  Thanks to them we got out on time and just made it to church on time despite horrible roads.  Drop-off went perfectly.  Of course, I spent most of church looking out the windows at the hardcore snowfall (the pastor said it looked like we were in a snowglobe) and thinking about the fate of the soccer game we were hoping to go to later in the day.  In the end, Jacob really seemed to like Sunday School a lot.  Ironically, his first lesson was one of my more memorable ones from my days in Sunday School--Zaccheus--and I even sang a song to prove it to him. 

When we got home, I had to shovel again because we got another four inches of snow in a couple hours.  I only did half of the driveway to save time (and my muscles!).  We had a quick lunch and headed out to the Rochester Lancers' game.  The Lancers are our local indoor soccer team, owned by an old friend of ours, Soccer Sam.  He used to be involved with the Rhinos and I even hosted his TV show for a summer or two.  I had been meaning to get to a game all season, and I was running out of time.  Craig and Jacob went to a game earlier in the season when I was out of town.  Despite the snow we headed out.  The drive wasn't as bad as it could have been, and shortly after we got there, the sun was out.  Ahhh, lake effect.  Still, we officially ended up with 14 inches.  Wow.  Of course, it's all melting now.

Anyway, the risk of this outing was that Jacob had to miss his nap.  That is always difficult, but I figured I had an early bedtime to save me if necessary.  Once we were settled in our seats, Jacob seemed sleepy and a couple minutes after I hauled him onto my lap, he fell asleep for about 20 minutes.  When he woke up he was raring to go!

Here are a few pics I took while we were at the game...

And this is what I got most of the time.

Jacob wanted to play soccer, and I did give him some time during halftime, but he kept asking.  Still, we made it through the whole game and still managed to track down Louie the Lancer before we headed out. 

We kept things low key for the rest of the day--listening to Craig on the radio, hanging out at home, writing up Jacob's valentines, and fortunately avoiding more shoveling thanks to an unknown neighbor finishing the other half of the driveway.  Craig wouldn't be home until midday Monday, so it was one more night and morning of solo parenting before getting back to regular life.  Of course, in the end things haven't quite been back to normal--Craig's had a rough couple days of work, Jacob has been extra difficult, and Valentine's Day wasn't exactly idyllic.  More on that later, I guess...

Stuff...

It's been a weird week.  Jacob's been sick--starting with awful congestion and a cough, culminating in the diagnosis of an ear infection on Wednesday.  He was whiny and we were worried the strep throat plague in his day care room might have struck again, but in the end the doctor diagnosed an early ear infection and said that the antibiotics would take care of anything else.  He missed one day of day care since he was coming off a fever and we couldn't get a doctor's appointment until midday, and we split the day to care for him.  He got to go back in time for a bowling field trip Thursday.  He loved it, of course.

I, on the other hand, took off for Buffalo to go to the funeral of my great uncle.  He had been suffering with cancer for a while, and while in the end his passing was a blessing, the world lost a vibrant, loving, amazing family man.  He leaves as his legacy a fantastic family full of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.  He's the younger brother of my grandma, who passed away over six years ago.  The funeral was lovely.  There were great recollections of Uncle Carl's life from a past minister/longtime friend and his current minister, and a reading of a touching letter he wrote a few years ago.  It was evident that his life revolved around his faith and his family, and while there's great joy that he's in heaven, it's apparent that his earthly family will miss him greatly.  Despite the circumstances, it was great to see some family, see some pictures, and hear some stories.  To me, that's always the silver lining of a very dark cloud. 

Today it was back to normal...other than the fact that Craig was off this evening to Buffalo in preparation for an early flight to Minneapolis for a Knighthawks game.  This is always one of his favorite trips, for a few reasons.  First, Minnesota is the home of Peanuts gang, so random character statues are scattered around town.  Second, Craig loved the Minnesota North Stars until they moved to Dallas in the early 90s, and the trip sometimes affords him the opportunity to scope out retro North Stars merchandise.  Finally, they usually stay somewhere relatively close to the Mall of America and any trip there is an adventure.  Craig is extra excited to go this time because he wants to go to the Lego Store.  Craig has been loving Jacob's enjoyment of his old Legos, and he's hoping to have the opportunity to make a custom mini-figure to bring back to Jacob.  It remains to be seen if he'll get it right away, but it's a fun opportunity nonetheless.

The one bummer from today is that Jacob is feeling the effects of his antibiotics.  Normally he doesn't have any ill-effects from amoxicillin, but this time he's on something more powerful, and it's taking its toll.  I got a call midday that he had some diarrhea this morning, and this afternoon when I got there, he had a bag of clothes in his cubby.  It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but let's just say that I'm nervous enough to keep him in a pull-up this weekend.  I need to get him some yogurt like the doctor suggested, and gave him a mini yogurt smoothie with dinner tonight.  He still had another round tonight--thankfully very well controlled--but we'll have to keep working on it and hope it gets better. 

So, here we are with a weekend alone.  We don't have many plans, which is probably good considering his health issues, but we'll probably still try to hit up an indoor soccer game Sunday (we have to skip nap...yikes!) following Jacob's first time at Sunday school, which I hope goes off without a hitch.  I hope to grab a meal out tomorrow and maybe do a little shopping, but we'll probably keep things low key.  I'm hoping I can be at least a little productive with some little projects--filing, getting ready for tax season, balancing my checkbook, cleaning--but we'll see how Jacob's schedule and my motivation level cooperate.  Speaking of which, time to work on one element of my motivation...off to bed!

Moments in Time

Consider this the sequel to my post the other day about how I can't quite fathom how much Jacob has grown up...

A few weeks back I got a new computer at work.  I made sure that all of the pictures I had transferred onto my old computer made it to my new computer, because I didn't want to transfer all of them again.  I used them mostly for creating these blog posts and for handpicking a fun desktop wallpaper, and while it's probably not necessary for 90% of them to be there now, it's still nice to know they are.  My wallpaper can give me a reason to smile in the middle of the worst work day.  When I was getting the computer set up, I needed to pick a screensaver.  I was surprised at how few options I had with Windows 7, so I settled on the photo slideshow and set it up to shuffle all of the pictures in my folder.  Little did I know what a distraction it might become.  Now when I come back to my desk and the slideshow is running, I can't help but sit down and stare at it for a bit.  Watching random images of the past five years of your life is pretty crazy.  It sure as heck makes you wonder for a second why you're wasting time sitting at a desk staring at spreadsheets when you have an adorable child and a whole wide world out there to explore.  And then you remember...oh, yeah, you need to fund those explorations somehow.

It's interesting to have these little moments pop up in the middle of a crazy work day, and to allow myself a second to transport back to a great moment-- a vacation, a smiley baby, or a seemingly insignificant but pleasant moment.  It's a unique scenario in that I'm seeing these moments in no particular order, isolated from other photos taken at the same time.  As a result, it allows each moment to stand alone.  A picture that I'd normally look at and gloss over among other ones gets its time in the spotlight and takes on new significance.

I've given all of this a little more thought this week in light of a local tragedy.  A 12-year-old boy was hit in the chest with a ball during a lacrosse game (at a facility down the road--the one we went to the open house at over Christmas), and after a few days in the ICU, he passed away.  As a parent of a little boy that loves sports, lacrosse in particular, the death hits home.  I can't even imagine the agony his parents have gone through this week.  Here they were, letting their little boy do something he loved, something that would otherwise be a healthy, positive way to spend his time, and now they're burying him as a result of it.  It's a totally freak thing, as it takes perfect placement on the body, at a perfect millisecond of the heartbeat, and in spite of the correct equipment, to cause sudden cardiac arrest.  It seems like one in a million, and maybe it is, but there have been a few incidents around here in the past few years--a college player who had a similar incident, a younger kid hit in the base of the head--so it doesn't feel like it's quite rare enough.  How can I send my amazing, sweet baby on to that field knowing that things like this can happen?  I know that something can happen almost anywhere, but it's so scary. 

I think I've mentioned here before that I have a hard time deleting any pictures I take of Jacob, regardless of how blurry or awkward they might be.  I always think about how I'd feel if my picture-taking time was finite, and how if I had no more opportunities to take pictures of him, how precious even those crappy ones would be.  Whenever I hear of the untimely demise of someone far too young, I always think about their parents.  How do they feel looking at those baby pictures?  Do they think, "If I knew then what I knew now..."?  I'm sure it's a mix of gratefulness for the good times and sadness for what will never be, but does the end result taint the past?  Do those baby pictures become more painful or more precious?  I can't even begin to think about it.  Not knowing the future is both a blessing and a curse, as it gives you the ability to enjoy that time without reservation, but also risks that you won't take full advantage of the time you have. 

So, in light of this week's reminder of how precious life is, and knowing we could someday be sending our baby onto a very dangerous field, those little moments I see on my screensaver take on a new significance.  God knows the moments are limited enough considering how fast he grows and changes, let alone if we didn't have the rest of our lives to enjoy him.  God forbid.  Perfect or blurry, silly or sad, mid-blink or too dark, a special occasion or an everyday moment...no matter what, there will never be enough.

Slacker

I feel like such a slacker lately.  I haven't wanted to drag myself off my chair to grab my camera and pull photos off to post.  To be fair, I knew I didn't have any masterpieces, so perhaps the motivation had to do with the quality of the pics rather than complete laziness.  We're in a bit of a "dead zone" right now, which happens once in a while.  We don't have much going on, and as a result most of my photo ops happen to look pretty much the same--Jacob playing sports or watching sports.  Not that they're not special, but I like to have some variety. 

Anyway, two weekends ago when we were in Buffalo, I took a couple pictures of Jacob playing with my brother's beloved Legos.  John's collection was rather large, and I figured Jacob would get a kick out of it.  He's been playing a lot with Craig's Legos (to the point that Craig has been adding to his collection), and I thought it might be fun to see John's collection again myself.  Jacob enjoyed seeing some different pieces and playing with them himself.

Grandma got into the act, too!

Having fun!

This past weekend we went to the Knighthawks game (they won!) and I snapped a few pictures of Jacob in the seats.  Nothing exciting, but funny and cute nonetheless...

Watching...and I think being a little silly since he knew I had the camera

So silly...but how sweet does he look?

I love pictures where his dimple is making an appearance.  My sweet boy...

We had fun at the game but didn't stick around for post-game action on the field.  Lori came with us, and since she's been through hell health-wise lately, we didn't want to push it.  And really, it's never a bad thing to get Jacob home and in bed sooner.  He's had a few opportunities to hang out on the field, and since we got reprimanded last time because Jacob was throwing his ball against the boards (no playing allowed on the field postgame), there wasn't a lot of motivation to stay. 

Sunday we did church and I officially signed Jacob up for Sunday School.  I had been holding off because of potty training, and once he seemed to be pretty much trained around the holidays, we just had to get around to it.  I finally remembered this weekend after church, and we got to meet his teacher.  He wasn't convinced at first, but after running around with the teacher's daughter and discovering that there were some musical instruments there, he seemed more open to the idea.  I opted to sign him up for the session that's during the church service we usually go to.  He's been better in church lately.  He'll play mostly quietly with his action figures, with just a couple moments where we need to shush him or threaten to take away toys or other privileges.  However, I think that two hours is a lot to ask of him at this point.  He'll go to Sunday School while we're at church, which I think is good for both parties.  We'll get to pay attention, and he'll get to learn about Jesus in a very age-appropriate way.  I think he'll enjoy the experience--new friends, new adventures, new songs, new stories--and it'll be cool to have him come home talking about Bible stories and helping us relive our youth.  Someday I would like him to do both church and Sunday School, once he's at an age where he can benefit from both and more easily dedicate two hours' worth of his attention span to the cause.  How soon that time comes may also have something to do with another baby and how full our hands are on that front.  Still, I think it will be fun for him and I'm excited for him to start. 

We had a quiet evening at home to watch the Superbowl, complete with pizza and cocoa krispie treats that I themed to look a bit football-ish.  The big party we usually go to was canceled for this year due to the failing health of the host's mother.  It wasn't the same, as we have fun seeing our friends and getting reacquainted with the folks we see there each year.  The bright side was that we took in a lot less calories, didn't have to struggle to keep Jacob occupied, and got him to bed early (after a non-existent nap)...but the commercials aren't quite as funny without other people to watch them with, and the food and good company were certainly missed.

We have a couple weeks to kill before a very busy and hopefully fun week later in the month.  A three day week and back-to-back three day weekends sound pretty awesome by themselves, let alone adding in a trip to Toronto and hopefully going to Craig's mom's annual Mardi Gras fundraiser.  But in the meantime, Jacob has another cold (that we're hoping isn't just strep in disguise) and there's plenty of work for me and another roadtrip for Craig coming up (Minnesota this time).  No wonder I want to slack.  And speaking of which, I'm tired.  Off to bed...     

Time Flies

This morning I realized that Jacob has now spent more than half of his life in our new house.  Meaning the house that he spent the first 18 months of his life in is now officially less significant than our current house.  It's hard to believe we've been here for nearly two years.  I looked back at the blog from two years ago, and my February posts were seriously lacking...probably because I was too busy packing (and worrying about packing).  Jacob was sick and I can tell that we were generally stressed out.  The move was such a big deal, and now two years later we're pleasantly settled, though we haven't done much to the house in the time we've been there to make it ours.  The good news of that, however, is that it means we bought a house that fit our needs and tastes pretty well, and that's such an awesome thing.  Not having house stress like we had with our old house (ugly kitchen, a lot of expensive projects on tap) has been a godsend. 

Because our old house is pretty much on the path to and from daycare (it's off the most direct path, but not by much), periodically I turn down our old street and go by it.  It's rare that I see much of anything going on there.  The blinds are always closed so all I can see at night is maybe the dining room light shining through the window on the front door.  They've added solar lights along the one side of the house (no idea why) and they hacked the crap out of the lilac bush.  It needed it, mind you, but I could never bring myself to really do it because you risk blooms when you do that.  They do Christmas lights, too, but that's pretty much all I've seen in the way of outdoor signs of life.  Anyway, I went by it this morning and got to thinking about how it was Jacob's first house, with his first bedroom.  Based on my feelings after going to that open house a couple weeks ago, I don't miss it, really.  But I get wistful, and I get a little sad when I think about how Jacob won't remember it.  And that's when it hit me that our current house has been his house for longer than the other one, the only house he'd known for the first 21 months of his life.  Now he's had 23 months in the new one.  That just floored me a bit.

For the longest time, I looked back at pictures from when we were first in this house and Jacob looked like a big boy.  I mean, he was walking and talking at that point (not a lot, but enough) so he was decidedly out of the full-on baby stage, but all of a sudden, now I look back at those pictures and see how much of a baby he still was compared to the real big boy he is now.  And yes, I realize that two years down the road I'll look back at now and say the same thing.  It's getting harder and harder to wrap my brain around the fact that the tiny baby that joined our family 44 months ago is now this real person we can have conversations with and who can dress himself and who wears underwear most of the time.  How can baby Jacob and big Jacob possibly be the same person?  How did he just do that?  I often joke with him about who gave him permission to grow up, but there's a thinly veiled truth there...that while we want him to grow, it's beyond comprehension how it all actually happens.  I still can't believe that two little cells combined once upon a time, and over four years later we have this little boy that looks like us and has all these functioning body parts that are all in the right places...and aside from providing general care to keep him alive, his body did that all by itself.  If that doesn't make you think long and hard about God's existence, nothing will.  Not just chance, people.

I can't get over how time flies sometimes.  Of course, right now part of me hopes that time goes quickly so we can get back to babymaking, but another part of me knows I need to stop wishing away time.  I need to stop wishing we could skip ahead to another phase, another activity, another season, another baby...and just appreciate all I have right now.  And a lot of the time, I do.  But when I look back at the past, viewing pictures or pondering memories, I marvel at the journey we've been on.  And I can't help but eagerly anticipate the good changes that could come in the future.  When you see a baby grow into an amazing child, you can't help but want to watch it happen again.  But for now we'll make the most of what we have...and that alone is a lot. 

Pump up the Volume

Lately I swear someone found Jacob's volume button and turned it up to the max.  Seriously, the kid has been loud.  I know that kids make a lot of noise and talk incessantly, but Jacob is really living up to that these days.  While he had moments throughout his life where that was the case, for the most part he was a pretty low-key kid.  He'd play quietly and mostly get loud while playing sports or when one of us got him all riled up.  But recently it seems like he has to be making noise 24/7. 

I described it to someone yesterday this way: "I feel like we've been transported into the movie Dumb and Dumber, with Jim Carrey's character pulling the old, 'Wanna hear the most annoying noise in the world?' line."  I never thought I would describe the sound of my child's voice with those words, but some of the noises he's been making have been that bad.  He explained away one particularly annoying set by saying that animals make those noises, so why can't he?  To which I replied that that's fine that animals make those noises, but that he shouldn't because he's hurting my ears. 

And there are actually two kinds of hurts going on right now--the figurative "bleeding ears" from listening to these annoying noises, and the literal pain that results from the loudness with which some of them are expressed.  When he's not making annoying, non-sensical noise, he's often whining about something he doesn't want to do, or showing his displeasure via loud, ear-piercing shrieks.  It's brutal.  We've heard them before, of course, but maybe it's just the frequency with which they're being displayed these days. 

Ever since Jacob was sick, he's just been difficult.  All the time.  Maybe it's that we went easy on him that week, or maybe it's just coincidence.  Heck, maybe he's still sick and we have no idea.  Strep never shows up in kids the way you expect it, and it is STILL going around his classroom, making multiple rounds through the class.  One girl is on her third bout of it, if you can believe that.  They've bleached the toys and done everything they can, but his room is apparently infested.  For all we know, he's still got it and while the discomfort isn't clear enough to put into words, it's making him cranky.  I don't know, stranger things have happened.

Even bedtime is not immune to the noise.  Normally we'd leave his room and never hear from him again.  Lately he's been singing, quite loudly, for quite a while...often to the tune of "Deck the Halls".  He's been doing it in the morning, too, and there have been a couple times where I was *thisclose* to turning off the monitor because I couldn't stand the noise.  It's just loud and not at all melodious.  He's my child and I know I should take in every ounce of his essence...but geez.  This isn't easy stuff to love no matter how much I love the little boy it's coming out of.  I'm trying not to shush him more than necessary, because I know little boys need to make noise...but I need to maintain some sanity, too.

We're getting a lot of "no" these days, and in concert with the noise, it's been a little tough to maintain composure.  We're back to lots of counting, some yelling, and withholding his Batcave for another day when he doesn't comply.  Hopefully a few more days of firmness will get us somewhere...like back to low volume and a few more appearances of the word "yes".  Or at least a few less animalistic outbursts.  Small victories...