Our New Baby Boy

Bunkmates

Saturday we began the process of transitioning Kellen into a shared room with Aidan. Task one was excitedly promoting an opportunity to take over the lower portion of the big boy beds.

Kellen excitedly climbed into the bottom bunk and talked to himself for a half hour. He then exited the room with a giant "hey did you guys know I can get out of this thing whenever I want?" smile on his face. Nap time was over...until he fell asleep shopping about an hour later.

That evening he escaped a half dozen times before joining us on the couch to watch football until he crashed two and a half hours past his bedtime. The late nap may have contributed to the issue but the wry escaped convict smile remained. Why sleep when you can just pop out and watch TV with your parents? Sunday night worked better and he drifted into sleep after I laid on the floor next to him for awhile.

Yesterday I suggested to him that it would be really great if he would close his eyes at nap time and just take a quick snooze. My sales job worked well and he acted like he was winning some contest in doing so. Mission accomplished. Last night...same thing.

Little Boy Blue

Kellen decided he wanted a beard and mustache today. The marks were self inflicted and came with no prompting or suggestion from the rest of us.

PHOTOS: HCA Fall Festival

Mooned

Our friend A.J. is playing with us today. I heard, "Hey, Mr. Travis!" and turned to find the boys doing this...

That's A.J. on the left and Kellen on the right if you don't recognize them from this particular angle.

Random Memory 5

Last night while dining with friends a train of conversation brought to mind a not-so-productive day in my life.

While we were living in Chicago I left the house one day intending to return inside momentarily. My destination was the end of the driveway. My attire was not yet sharp dressed man. I was taking the trash to the curb and had already donned my black dress pants but little more. Barefoot and topped with a white undershirt I made the short trek to the side of the house and then curbside. When I returned to the garage I found the door to the house had blown shut hard enough that it had managed to lock itself. I stood quietly not yet knowing what the rest of the day had in store for me.

At the seven o’clock morning hour I’m not sure what possesses someone to decide that the best course of action is to wait things out. I thought perhaps I could find a way to break into my own house…and I unsuccessfully tried a few things. I was new to the neighborhood and not about to show up at the neighbor’s looking like a hobo in nice pants. Calling Rachel and asking her to drive more than an hour in both directions wasn’t something I wanted to do either. That course of action would still require me to surprise the neighbor lady in my disheveledness or walk way too far in bare feet to a gas station to make that same call. What to do…what to do?

After failed attempts to break into the house I decided to go sit on the back deck for a while. As I lounged semi-comfortably in a deck chair I heard my cell phone ringing in the upstairs office. I was sure to receive many unanswered calls that day. Being a person with some sales management functionality my team and my clients would undoubtedly be checking into my silent line. I don’t recall the total number of messages left on my mobile phone at the end of the day but I know my business line held the maximum capacity of 25 by mid morning. Some of those messages were of the confused “I didn’t know you were going to be off today” variety. I didn’t know I was going to be off either.

I survived on Gatorade and the General Mills snack foods that lived in our garage. It was a hot enough day that hydration was going to be necessary. I failed to think through the process that hydrating requires one to…um…de-hydrate at some point in time. Thankfully I had an empty Gatorade bottle at my disposal! It was an easy choice to close the garage door and take care of that (once) rather than pee in the backyard.

I ran out of things to do very early in the day and was haunted by the words of a recent sales seminar for the better part of my unplanned vacation day. “I must do the most productive thing possible at every given moment.” Fail. Having run out of anything to do that was even remotely productive within an hour I opted for taking a nap in my car.

The exhaustingly boring day got a boost of energy when the mailman brought me a new sports magazine. I would have settled for reading Valpak coupons or the fine print of a billing statement by that time. I grabbed the new reading material and a camping chair from the garage and plopped myself near the front door to wait for my rescue.

Rachel showed up confused as to how I had beaten her home. It was uncommon for me to do so and I usually didn’t strip down to my undershirt and bare toes to greet her outside. Her question of how long I had been sitting there required little calculation. I had plenty of time during the course of the day to track such things. It had been nine and a half hours.

It wasn’t the last time I inadvertently locked myself out of the house. It happened again months later but having learned my lesson I was prepared…kind of. The extra key we hid in the garage had managed to misplace itself but I did have my cell phone in my pocket…and the number of a locksmith ready to dial.

PHOTOS: U2 Concert

First Day of School

Aidan's only concern after Day One of his academic career was that the day at school was a little longer than he expected. Like any normal five year old boy his favorite part of the day was "playing on the playground at recess" (according to a take home sheet). When I asked him what he had done at school he recounted his math lesson first so it sounds like he was excited about more than running around outside.

PHOTOS: A Happy Birthday

PHOTOS/VIDEOS: Como Zoo

After church today we headed over to the Como Zoo. It had many of the standard animals displayed including a walk through several breeds of big cats. While walking by one particular feline Aidan asked why the sign read "Stay Back". I suggested it was because cougars are known to pursue young boys. He didn't get the joke but Rachel did.

After spending some time walking through the animal exhibits we headed for Como Town, the amusement park for mini-sized visitors. We present four sets of pictures and videos below.

Hot Roding

Tea for Three

Magic Carpet Ride

Dragon Coaster

Wedding Photos

The pictures in the slideshow below were all taken by Allison's good friend Mandy. She got some great shots of the boys (and the rest of us) and quickly became buddies with Kellen. She was awesome with the kids "off camera" and does some great work.

If you're in Michigan or know someone that way looking for a photographer send them here (link below the logo)...

Memories By Mandy

PHOTOS: Allison's Wedding