Blogging?

I'm thinking about blogging again, but I'm not sure if it'll be here, somewhere else, or not at all.

It'll be one of those three...I just haven't decided.

That is all.

:)

To Blog Or Not To Blog?

It's been another 3 months since my last post and I'm still here, so I guess that means I haven't really answered that question. I go back and forth between wanting a place to process my thoughts and wondering if I really have anything interesting to say. Sometimes it's a cathartic exercise where I get stuff off my chest and other times I think to myself, "Who cares?" If I have anything important to say I'll usually say it in person, over chat, or in an email. So, what's the point of having a blog or blogging in general?

Any blogging I've done in the past 3 months hasn't been here and what little there has been was on a parenting blog where I was asked to be a contributor a few months ago. I was about as successful at that site as I've been here, perhaps a bit more so, but I just really couldn't post as much as the blog needed and frankly deserved. I wasn't the only one who fell short of posting weekly as most others qualified at about the same frequency I did, but I couldn't exactly feel too bad since while I wasn't blogging on parenting I was actually spending time parenting.

A few days ago I walked away from that particular blog and since I didn't live up to the promise I'd made to be a contributor I really can't complain that much about anything that transpired, but after the creator of the blog posted about the lack of activity on the site and its prospects for the future, one of the bloggers that had been active went on a very long rant. She wrote about the "measly" and "lousy" efforts of those (including myself) who hadn't put in their proper amount of posts which I couldn't dispute, but the overall tone of the post had been very offensive to me and I said so. What followed was a war of words I helped to fuel, but ultimately I tried to wave a flag of truce only to get a virtual slap in the face for my trouble.

In the days since I left, the blog has gone on largely as if nothing ever happened and I don't suppose that's unusual for many blogs after a flame war. I've been on many sites where people have posted less than flattering things about others and rarely have any of them gotten me very upset. Much like those other sites I chose to leave of my own accord since no one needs to deal with that kind of abuse. However, this one was different since I personally know the site's creator as well as more than a couple of the other posters who had been called out as giving "zero effort" by this particular contributor. What bothered me was that no one else (except my wife who was also writing for the blog) seemed to much care about what the person had said about me or their own efforts on the site.

As I just mentioned, I've left more than a couple sites where individuals had said nasty things about me or something I posted, so perhaps it's hypocritical of me to expect a different standard from others, but I felt very alone in my rebuttal to this woman's charges. I shouldn't have spoken for anyone else but myself and probably not said anything at all, but when I felt that decent people doing their best were being attacked I went on the offensive. I didn't expect anyone to take sides in the war of words that followed but some balanced response...frankly any response...about this woman's charges was apparently more than I should have expected.

So, I guess live and learn is the lesson I should take out of the whole thing, but I can't shake my feeling that if someone you call a friend sticks their neck out and nearly gets it cut off, you jump in and defend them! I'm not saying you blindly agree with what they did or said, but in that moment when they are being cut down you just react. If you think they were a bonehead for saying what they did or for saying anything at all that's fine. However, that can come later after the attack is over and they can lick their wounds.

Maybe that's just me and I'm just completely out there on a limb. That's fine. I can live with that. I just wonder if blogging, something originally created as a means of staying in touch with people you care about, is now all about stroking each other's egos and finding people who tell us what we want to hear. The anonymous nature of blogging makes it pretty easy to attack anyone you don't agree with in a way you'd never do in person. And these days the point of a blog is often more about how many hits you get than really giving a crap about what anyone is saying. If that's all that blogging is about, then it's not for me. We'll just have to see if that's the final conclusion I'm eventually able to draw, but I definitely hope I come to a different one.

The Beginning of the Beginning

I haven't blogged for months now and I know exactly why. My posts aren't perfect. Yep, that's the reason. I've tried to make my posts entertaining and interesting, but get caught up in formatting them "just so" or getting pictures linked. I see what others manage to do on a regular basis and I wonder how they create such flowing blogs. I can't seem to do that, or at least it doesn't seem to get done.

A lot has happened the last few months and to capture it all in a single post or even a series of posts wouldn't do it justice. I've struggled mightily with my demons and never seem to get very far. The one constant is my family and my daily routine of taking care of my son. He's a wonderful boy who takes life as it comes. He waves to everyone and says, "Bye! See ya later!" with such a calm that I wish I could attain. I think I can, but it will take much practice.

I don't know what will become of this blog. I'd like to think I will write regularly and without the pressure to produce an entertaining blog perhaps it will happen anyway. But if it doesn't, oh well. Such is life. That may sound crass, but it is a difficult concept for me. Over the last couple years I have begun to consider myself a Buddhist, but only in the most passing way since I haven't had much time to devote to reading about it. Learning more about it terrifies me in a way because it might motivate me to change things in my life. Being a Buddhist, by definition, is very hard to do in isolation. There are some things that can be done of course, but taking refuge in a sangha is really an integral part of the whole deal.

I am still a Gen X Dad. That won't change, so there's no reason to change the title of the blog. I've been working on the zendo. Maybe you'll see it, maybe you won't. That's the point I expect. Not to anticipate what could be instead of focusing here and now on what is. I don't tend to do that very much. I have grown weary of the aimless journey I have been on and wouldn't have know any better had it not been for my wife and son. I realize now what I could be missing if I don't think about what I could be missing. Cryptic? Perhaps.

Wake up!

Sick Days, Part II

I was trying to be positive about the fact that I hadn't gotten sick while the boy had a bad cold, but within a day or two of my last post I got that familiar prickly feeling in my throat. Fortunately we didn't overlap too much other than watching his cough, although his schedule of activities had to be curtailed. He doesn't seem to mind it really which I find amazing and keeps on plugging along.

I might regret saying this, but I think the transition to the big boy bed is just about complete since he likes being tucked in now! The next challenge is potty training which I have some trepidation about since it's one of those things that doesn't just come to you naturally...teaching it I mean. ;) I try not to listen to horror stories like every other milestone event and think of the situation from his point of view. In the last few months he's shown an aversion to having anything foreign in his pants, so I'm thinking that will probably help.

I feel like I have so much to do around the house, with little projects outnumbering big ones, but that usually is harder for me since I feel so scattered. I think I just have to attack one little thing each day and see how it goes for awhile or it's going to overwhelm me. Even my blogging feels scattered, but I usually feel more focused after I've done an entry. Hopefully that'll hold true today too.

Is Blogger's spellcheck working? Doesn't seem to be fore me. See, I spelled "for" as "fore" just now! I'll have to investigate that, eh? ;)

Sick Days

I've finally gotten back to blogging today and I'm never sure how long its going to last. Most of the time it's just because I'm busy and blogging is always low enough on the priority list that I don't get to it. That isn't to say I don't want to do it since I do! There's just been too many different things to get done in a day.

Today my little one has a pretty bad cold and although it has resulted in some days where I feel completely frazzled, he's doing well. He's able to sleep for the most part which is good because about a week ago at this time he wasn't. We finally made the switch to a "big boy" bed and he didn't take to it very well. Bedtimes were fine, but naps have been another story. He's able to get out of the bed but doesn't yet know how to get back in, so we have to put him back in every time. We also had to remove the lamp from the room because he was having a ball turning the light switch on and off.

I certainly don't want to convey a "woe is me" attitude since overall the boy has done amazingly well with transitions like this. It just takes up a lot of time and weekdays it's just me. I've fallen behind on sleep for sure which doesn't help the situation, but his tolerance has always been an inspiration to mine. I really do want to get back on track with projects, like the Zen Room, which is currently full of carpeting I had to pull up from the kitchen (yes, you read that correctly). Let's just say that carpeting and kids eating don't mix very well, so that became a priority.

The boy is waking up from his nap in a coughing fit, so I'll end here. Hopefully I still have some readership left out there. ;)

Blizzards and Tornadoes

For those of you not familiar with the weather on the East Coast we don't really get many a tornado, but we do get plenty of blizzards. Right now we're getting snow coming down so hard with such strong winds that it's literally moving sideways. And it's not supposed to get much better over the next couple days with forecasts calling for as much as a foot and up to two feet for some points east of here. It can really bite the big one, but as natural disasters go it's pretty tame since very few ever lose their houses like in tornadoes or earthquakes unless you don't shovel off your roof after the third foot starts to accumulate.

As for tornadoes, I'm not speaking of the weather related phenomenon, but instead of my son who turned 2 this past July. That leaves him right smack in the middle of what many describe as the "Terrible Twos" which leaves me scratching my head on a daily basis at this point. While I still think some overreact and demonize this point in a toddler's life by exaggerating tales of disobedience to the level of a minor war, there is much to ponder when it comes to the behavior the boy has been displaying of late. He wails about getting his way when if he'd merely asked for the thing in the first place I would have given it to him without question. When he doesn't get his way he crawls across the floor like he's reverting to a previous state in his development. By the end of the day it does look like the aftermath of a battlefield much of the time, but more than getting frustrated with him I'm interested to figure out what exactly is going on inside his head and I don't think it's just because he feels like being a royal pain.

So, for the first time in awhile I think I'll be turning to some of the child development books we bought before my son was even born. In many instances I have avoided reading them for fear I'd become one of those parents that asks the doctor why my kid isn't meeting every little developmental milestone at the exact moment the books tell me he should. That isn't to say I never look, but he knows most letters and numbers and his vocabulary is growing daily to the point where I can actually have a conversation with him! That also entails him getting into more trouble as his skills advance and is resulting in this most recent stage in his growth. More than anything, my common sense tells me that his "terrible" behavior is just the understandable stress of learning how to become a sentient being where everything is just a little bit alien to him. And if any of us were put in a similar situation, I think we'd be more than a little bit cranky too.

Behind on Blogging

The last month has been a busy one and has yet again kept me from blogging. I don't know why I essentially apologize every time I let so much time go by in my blog, but I usually feel compelled to do so since I'm probably neglecting other things too. Truth is, I've been pretty busy getting my laptop running again after it stopped working (and still isn't running very smoothly) and my continuing issues getting painting done around the house. On the first issue, I accidentally knocked the cord out while the system was accessing the registry, which I now know is really bad. I ended up having to reinstall everything and with the move I can't find many of my software disks.

Not good.

On the second issue, the woman who owned the house before us didn't know what primer is used for when painting, so I've had to sand just about everything, everywhere! It's been a pain in my ass and I haven't even touched my zendo yet. Hopefully that will come soon, but I'm pretty much through with making predictions. The good news is that I have a good portion of the kitchen painted and it looks pretty damn good. I think anything besides the bland white walls in every room would be an improvement, but I think the wife and I did well picking colors.

In a weird last piece of news, we have a neighbor with lots of lawn equipment and time on his hands. I've been pretty clear with him when we've chatted that I want to do the lawn work myself so I learn how it's done, but he seems to keep ignoring that and mowing my lawn anyway. He's a nice guy and doesn't mean any harm, but I was planning to use the leaves and grass clippings he removed for compost. I just wish when I asked someone not to do something, they listen...actually, doing what I ask to be done would be nice too, but I won't get greedy.

One Becomes Two

Just a quick entry today as I've finally gotten that "other blog" started! As I state in my first post there, I won't stop posting here, but I did want to keep the focus of each one separate for now. At some point they may come together again, who knows? If I could predict the future I think my daily routine would be different...or would it? LOL!

Anyway, here's the link and I hope you'll join me for both sides of my blogging life: http://thezendoproject.blogspot.com/

Cheers!

Things, They Are A Changing

As my regular readers know, I have been struggling with the decision on whether I should continue my doctoral program. I have gone both ways for a long time, but now I have officially decided to stop. I have known it was the right thing to do for some time now, so it's good I finally listened to myself. I wish I knew exactly where I was headed, but the possibilities of the unknown are more attractive than what I've left behind.

Over Labor Day we went up north to see my parents and we had a great time, but the boy and I came back with nasty colds. He was actually better at dealing with it than I was! The funniest thing has been trying to teach him how to blow his nose because it's not something you can really convey through action. To him it just looks like I'm holding a tissue up to my face and making a funny noise. So, many wipes later we're both back to normal and breathing through our noses again.

Now with a lot of "free time" on my hands, I've mostly been working on small projects around the house and out in the yard. It's only today that I feel that the house is becoming uncluttered! Part of it though is the reduction in my stress level which I think has been all to the good. Something else that will help that is my often referred to "other" blog project that will finally be revealed by this weekend! My idea is to have it be interactive, so get ready to offer your opinions!

Last but not least, I've added some new pictures of the boy from the last 9 months and if you haven't seen him lately he's definitely changed a lot. I'm really looking forward to doing more activities with him and can tell that his positive outlook on life is rubbing off on the old man. I love ya boy! I think the changes I'm going through will be good, but they are a bit scary. Just one step at a time, right? Make sure to breathe.

Spam, Spam, Everywhere!

At this time last week I thought the biggest issue facing my return to a less hectic life was met with everyone's favorite email treat, Spam. For the last few weeks the amount of spam accumulating in my inbox has been crazy, but now it's up to an insane level. Most of it is fake messages from eBay members, so those are easy to spot, but since I do sell on eBay I obviously have to open most of them. I'm also getting ones on themes I'm more familiar with like, "I'm the lawyer for Prince Sidar of Qatar and he'll sign over his fortune to you if you just send us $1,000" Everyone gets those, right?

Anyway, it's made life at the computer a bit more difficult that normal, but add that to the boxes we still have to unpack and I'm running behind. Oh poor little me. :) I've fallen out of touch with some folks I really wanted to keep contact with during the move and it just became impossible. Well, maybe not impossible, but certainly more difficult.

So, fortunately this post should signal the beginning of my emergence from chaos, at least from an online standpoint. We leave on Friday to visit my folks back in my hometown which we haven't visited since last December! That'll be a nice getaway I think and I'm sure the boy will love it. Hopefully, I will too!

Tomorrow I'll have some pictures (yes, I finally uploaded them) and perhaps I'll finally reveal that new blog project I mentioned before. Well, let's not get too ambitious shall we? Maybe that won't make it until we get back from our trip, but sometimes miracles do happen. Now, go out and enjoy that summertime before it's all gone.

Boxes, Boxes Everywhere!

I finally got the desktop set up this evening and I'm still surrounded by all our collected crap! We've been just keeping ahead of things and I'm very glad we're done with the moving part. Not that I'm overcome with joy about finding room for everything, but trust me it's nothing compared to all the hauling. As you might expect, my other blog project hasn't gotten anywhere yet, but having the main computer setup so I can download pics is a big step in the right direction.

I've mainly been busy doing my househusband duties of trying to keep the lawn green instead of brown, washing our large collection of dirty laundry (new washer and dryer...yay!), and generally making sure the boy doesn't get hurt while he dodges all of our belongings that are stacked in the dining room. He's been a real champ through the whole thing and continues to amaze me with his happy go lucky outlook on life.

So, as things begin to settle in I hope I'll be blogging more regularly. I won't make promises there since I haven't done so well in the past when I say that, but I think it'll happen. I also have to catch up on friend's blogs that I have accumulated in my Bloglines account. Sorry everyone! I'm sure you miss my witty (or not) comments more than life itself! ;) Now, if I can just find my way out of the boxes maze to find the stairs, it's off to bed. More to come...

Change of Scenery

Well folks, it's been another long pause in entries, but this time I have a damn good reason. We moved into a house! We've been staying nights here since Saturday and have all the large stuff moved. We still have a mostly empty apartment to clean though and have to be out completely by Sunday. It's been kinda weird to be honest since it doesn't seem like we live here! We're very happy though and once my muscles stop hurting I think we'll settle in nicely!

I've been thinking a lot about where I'd like this blog to go since I often feel like I'm showing off by talking about the good side of things. As is always the case, there is bad stuff too but I'm never excited to mention that stuff. I'd like to do something positive with my "blog time", so I've decided to start another one. I'm not ending this one necessarily, especially since the other will be a project based blog that will have an obvious end point.

Now that I've teased it a bit, I'll just say that it has to do with the little room here in the house that I'll be using as a room for my Zen practice. I have a name picked out for the blog and will start on it soon, but I have to do some work on the rest of the house first! And we have to unpack. It'll be up soon however and I'm hoping to make it interactive with my readers helping me make various choices about how to design the room. Stay tuned!

House & Home

Well, faithful readers, I have yet again been away for too long. Usually it's something minor, but this time it's a biggie: My wife and I are homeowners! We just bought a modest house in a fairly well to do town and couldn't be happier about it. I've been dead tired from washing, sanding, and painting and the last thing I've wanted to do is write a blog entry, but it's about time I did, don't you think?

We closed about two weeks ago now and have been working on the house on weekends and spent the 4th over there too. One BIG help has been some rain over the last two days that was light but steady, the kind that the soil can actually absorb instead of these "Global Warming Specials" that give you a horrific thunderstorm with two inches of rain, but in the span of about 60 minutes! It's not that I don't know how to water a lawn, but how much do you water it? What's the best time to do it? I know the answers now, but you wouldn't believe the amount of time you spend learning about what formerly seemed like such obvious things.

So, that's obviously taken up most of my time with packing and watching the boy taking up the rest. He's growing like a weed these days and becoming more intelligible everyday. He's still sticking mostly to one or two word phrases which seems a little behind for his age, but the kid also knows half the alphabet now which is supposedly way ahead of his age. All I know is that he seems to learn more everyday and that can only be a good thing. Larger statistics are pretty much meaningless when it comes to your own kid, although I know they are useful for teachers who have to deal with 20+ at a time. However, in one way or another your child will always been an outlier of some kind...and that's a good thing!

Anyway, the boy is being fussy about eating his banana and keeps asking for his favorite "Appis" known to the rest of us as applesauce, so I best run for now. Pictures will be coming soon, I promise!

Counting Down

Last night after my wife came home, we were sitting in the living room with the Boy and his Sesame Street coloring book. It basically has all the major characters with an emphasis on Elmo (Don't get me started on Elmo since that's for another time). At the moment the Boy can say "Ehwo" (Elmo), "Ocker" (Oscar), "Growrow" (Grover), and "CooCoo" (Cookie Monster). He'll easily point them out to you in a book or when the show is on, but we heard a new one yesterday that made us laugh.

The Boy has always been very interested in The Count and although he will only say the numbers 1, 8, and 9, he tries to count along as best he can. So, when my wife pointed to a picture of The Count yesterday, the Boy said what I thought was "Haha!" which is pretty cute by itself, but we soon realized that he was saying something different. If you remember anything about The Count, it's usually his monicle or his bat like features, but his trademark is a very particular laugh followed by loud thunder and lightning. Well, every time you show the Boy a picture of The Count, you get a huge smile and a hearty "Ah Ah Ah!"

Yes, these are the little things that make other people with kids go "Awww!" and people without kids say "Jeeez!" I used to be one of the latter, but now I find such things as cute as buttons. :)

Long Time Gone

I know I seem to write this same entry every few months and I'm sure it's getting boring, but there has been some really heavy crap going on lately that really makes blogging seem very unimportant. I'm not saying that it is since I find posting to be cathartic, but it has seemed that way. It's nothing I really want to write about at the present time, though perhaps I will after some time has passed.

That class I was teaching this past semester finally ended about a week ago and I'm glad it's over. My crop this year was less than stellar to say the very least. That's not to say that I didn't have ANY good ones, but they were much more scarce than last year. It's good for the resume (the pay sucks) and I like doing the planning, so I'll still do it if they'll have me next year. I'm actually hoping to teach some different courses this Fall or next Spring. We'll see.

The boy is as healthy and spry as ever as he nears his second birthday. I'll get the pictures we've been taking up soon for folks to see, but suffice it to say he's developing as he should. He has this thing where he likes to introduce my wife and I to everyone we meet as if they couldn't tell. He points to my wife and says, "Mama", then to me, "Dada", and ends with a big grin. People eat that up, especially in the checkout at the grocery store. He's definitely a boy now as opposed to a baby, but it's just another step along his journey. I don't bemoan the passing of one stage and just look forward to the next with anticipation.

The thing I most want to accomplish in the near future is to explore what it means to say I'm a Buddhist. As I type this I think I said the same thing in my last post, so excuse the repeat if that's the case. I've been reading a book my mother got me last year called "There's Nothing Wrong With You" by Cheri Huber, who is a Zen Buddhist, and it's not your typical book. However, it is very Zen in turning the responsibility for our lives back onto ourselves, but at the same time realizing our oneness with all that surrounds us. Next I want to start reading a book a friend gave me as a gift last year that I began reading but never finished. I had been planning to start reading that book again, but with the aforementioned "crap" the Huber book was much more applicable. I also have to start seeking out other Buddhists to really learn what it's all about.

So, that's it for now. Hopefully my next post (or more importantly the two or three posts after that) won't be another one of these redundant recaps! Breaking from the cycle? That would be cool!

Tragedy at Virginia Tech

I was just getting my son his lunch when I found out about the shootings at Virginia Tech. Details are still coming in and the authorities don't have all the facts, but right now at least 31 people are dead, many presumably students, in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. I also heard someone say that the anniversary of Columbine is just 4 days away and that type of viloence has now spread from K-12 to the area I have dedicated my studies to, colleges and university. There have been shootings on campuses before, most notably the students shot by National Guard troops at Kent State in the early 1970s, but there has never been anything like this on campus or off.

I was very affected by Columbine when it happened, but this one has hit me harder. I'm not exactly sure why, although I'm sure my connection to higher education has something to do with it. I had always theorized that high school shootings were due to the pressures and lack of self determination felt by the shooters, thinking that such wouldn't be the case at a university. However, now that I think about it I shouldn't be surprised. I should obviously reserve judgement until we find out what happened and it may have been a more targeted attack. I just can't imagine what the students are going through and as I heard them talking to various eyewitnesses there was an erie calm in their voices that was clearly the result of shock.

There will be a lot of analysis done in the days following this event and I suppose we'll find out more after that has been completed. However, I think that like Columbine we'll never really have all the answers. I just can't imagine why someone would go this far and kill so many people. It's just hard to comprehend right now.

Paper Placemats

There hasn't been much to post this last week since I've been cleaning the apartment. My parents were supposed to come this weekend to see us and the boy (ok, really just the boy), but the snow that cancelled baseball games last week is cancelling travel plans all over the northeast. Suffice it to say that cleaning up cat fur off the carpet doesn't make for very exciting blog posts, but if that kind of thing interests you, try one of these which work wonders on carpets!

Except for my inability to hit high notes and still sounding like a lifetime smoker, everyone in the household is healthy again and the boy is back to his old tricks. I was warned long ago that the real trouble starts when toddlers start exploring in the third dimension: furniture. We've created a reasonably effective buffer so he can't get into too much trouble, but I feel like I'm guarding a POW camp where the prisoners are always working on methods of escape. Today I went upstairs to visit the little daddy's room and when I returned I found him sitting in a chair "reading" an issue of Consumer Reports with a very suspicious look on his face. It gave me the image of someone quickly trying to look casual after doing something in secret. But he's not that smart yet...right?

I've always tried to keep a balance between teaching the boy new things and remembering to just play with him and have fun. However, he needs very little prodding from either myself or my wife since he loves books and will sit for extended periods pointing at the pages and talking a blue streak in his own little toddler-speak. He seems to be very fond of vowels, especially A, E, and O, sometimes I, but is not real fond of U and Y is something we just don't talk about. ;)Every time I take him outside our apartment he notices the letters on each door as we go down the stairs and says them out loud as we go. It's basically teaching him the alphabet song except in reverse since we live on the top floor.

So, fortunately I have another week before my parents show up and hopefully we can pawn the boy off on them at least one night so my wife and I can go somewhere without kids menus or paper placemats. Actually, I wouldn't mind having the placemats since it gives you something to do before your food comes, you can draw inside the lines for a change, and it helps you to remember that you don't have to clean up the table yourself. For non-parents, that might not sound like much of an evening, but it really is the little things, trust me.

Let's Play Ball...in the Snow?

If you know me well, you know I'm a rabid baseball fan and have been since I was a kid. Some wonder how I ended up a Boston Red Sox fan since I've lived in New York my entire life. Short version: My Dad was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan who followed the Mets after the Dodgers left Brooklyn, married my mother when both were going to college in Connecticut, and was offered a ticket to Game 2 of the 1967 World Series at Fenway Park in Boston. Since then he's been a Red Sox fan and I have too. It's not always easy being in New York, but that got a bit easier in 2004 when the Sox won it all and made grown men from all over New England cry like babies.

As a fanatic, the beginning of April is a joyous time since the boys of summer start their work after a long cold winter. I'm used to seeing wide green fields of grass bathed in golden sunlight, but while the boy and I were watching today it was snowing instead. What? It's not exactly a new happening and it has been more common since Opening Day was moved from the third week in April to the first one. One time my Dad and I went to an April game at Fenway which was delayed for about an hour or two so they could shovel the outfield! I remember one of the outfielders slipped on the wet grass and broke his leg, so he ended up being out for the season. Fortunately, I haven't heard of that happening this year.

It's been fun for me watching games with the boy since he finds movement on the TV interesting but doesn't really have any idea what's taking place. His favorite moment is when they put the score up on the screen and he points to the letters and numbers. He also responds whenever they say "ball" which in his voice sounds more like "baaaah", but the best part is the huge tooth filled smile he gets on his face. After being sick for the last week he's really returned to his old self which is a wonderful thing to see. The kid is just so happy and steady, although he has been more likely to get frustrated when he needs something or simply wants something. I think he's just learning to ask for what he wants and isn't always sure how to do that. Some call this the beginning of the terrible twos, referring to themselves as the ones who have it "terrible", but it's really the kids that have it that way since there's so much they want to do but don't know how to do. That has to be very overwhelming for him at times, but he always seems to bounce back anew.

So, I'm looking forward to watching more games and hopefully taking the boy to one before long. He and I also play soccer with an undersized ball (small for me, just right for him) which my parents gave him last summer. Whether he hears me say ball or from the TV, he goes and grabs it so he can get me to kick it around with him. Eventually I'm sure we'll get him a glove and basebaaaah to go along with his soccer ball, but I think I'll wait until it stops snowing each spring before we go out and play catch.

Under the Weather

The apartment has been a bit of a clinic the last week or so with all three of us getting sick at various times. My wife had a cold which I got and am still getting over while the boy has a rotavirus and the cold at the same time. For most families this is pretty much par for the course and I'm not really complaining, but as a stay at home kid he's been sick very rarely. So, when he began vomiting up every meal last week we were understandably concerned. In some ways it's good for the boy to have some illness since it helps build immunity, but it's not like you'd take your kid to a mall and ask other people to sneeze on him!

After about a week of Pedialyte and Cheerios for most of his meals, he's getting back on track and my wife re-introduced some regular food last night at dinner. During the worst of it the boy was so listless which is so not like him and probably why we were alarmed by his symptoms. The kid is always happy! People regularly ask us, "Is he always like this or does he really like me?" I'm a "honesty is the best policy" type of person, but lately I've wondered if it might make them feel special if I said, "No, he must really like you!". Actually, I think it's both. He's happy by himself, he's happy with us, and he's happy with everyone he meets!

Well, I better go get the boy his lunch of ...you guessed it! I'm trying to shake my own cold and keep waking him up with my latest coughing fit. Hopefully we'll all be back to 100% by the end of the week so we can celebrate Easter and the coming of spring. It's about time!

Time Away

When I was logging in I noticed that it has been quite awhile since I posted: February 20th! Yikes! I knew it had been a few weeks, but I honestly didn't think it had been that long. I had this great plan to post more often and on more interesting topics and obviously that didn't work out like I expected. I want to post, but I think making these grand plans isn't really working.

Recently, I was reading through another blog and the owner was trying to decide whether or not he should split his blog into two different ones. His logic was that he had two very different threads of thoughts to explore and thought keeping two blogs might be easier. I may be remembering incorrectly, but I think he also said he had tried it once before and it hadn't been as successful as he'd hoped. I know I am getting those details a little off, so please don't quote me on that! Anyway, he asked the readers which way he should go and I voted to keep the blog one unified blog and wrote that it wasn't really necessary since I liked the different topics all rolled into one.

Now, I'm not making a particular comment on what he should do since it's his blog since I want him to do whatever strikes his fancy, but I'm beginning to think that we bloggers worry too much about organization, fancy names, focus points, etc. When I think about my own blog I wrestle with all these issues, but as a reader I love the hodgepodge, potpourri, whatever you call it makeup of blogs that take all kinds of twists and turns. So, what's the point? I think I've spent too much time thinking about what I'm going to write rather than actually writing! Or I post pointless stuff like this post!

Regardless, I'm going to go back to posting about things that occur to me, updates on the family (I have a few ready to go!), and all that fancy jazzy stuff. I'm back baby!

P.S. What happened to my profile picture!?!