Game on!

Thanks Uncle Tim! Vicki's uncle (and Sam's great-uncle) Tim treated us to an O's vs. Nats game on Friday night at the Yard. For good measure, Papi, Samson's grandpa, was also with us. That smile you see on Sam's face was there the whole night.

The night was humid, and for a while it looked like we might be treated to a spectacular thunderstorm. But the rain held off, the Orioles prevailed (11-1 over the Nationals), and it was a great night.

And although Samson didn't make it through the whole game, he went eight strong innings (better than the starters for either team).

Some things I learned at the ballpark:

1. 24 ounces of Gatorade plus Samson equals a trip the restroom every inning. The price of proper hydration, I guess.

2. Eating peanuts and dropping the shells on the floor never gets old. Seriously, I think I was as excited about it as he was.

3. Apparently I am doomed to be seated next to incredibly scrupulous ticket-holders. This was not a sold-out game (surprise, surprise), but for some reason, the large man to my right (in full Nats gear, no less) never moved even a seat away to take advantage of the four empty ones directly to his right. Seriously, he got up to get food more than once and came back right next to me each time. [I had a similar experience on a flight to Kenya years ago. I had the end seat of a five-seat row, and there was a guy on the other end. Our third row-mate arrived and sat in his assigned seat, right next to me. Fair enough, but once the plane was in the air and we could be certain no latecomers were going to materialize, I suggested to him he might move to the middle so we'd all have some space. To which he replied "no" and then went to sleep. Good times.]

4. Samson is not totally clear on girls versus boys. As we drove toward the parking lot, we passed two 20-something blond girls in player jerseys and denim micro minis. We could see only their backs, but Samson wanted to know if we'd be seeing them on the field. I told him I was pretty sure we wouldn't.

5. The whole crowd dancing thing escapes my son (as it does me, if I'm being honest). When people got up to dance to the YMCA, Samson looked at me and said, with a serious-bordering-on-concerned look on his face, "Why are they doing that?" To which I gave the most honest answer I could: "Sammy, I don't know."

6. Although he has yet to crack 40 lbs, Samson when asleep is serious dead weight. He fell asleep on my shoulder as we walked to the car, parked about a mile away in the lot next to Ravens Stadium, and I walked the whole way with a smile that probably looked a lot like his.

Life skills

There were lots of things I hoped to learn to do when I became a father. And I'll be honest, starting off with a boy was kind of a soft landing as I'd already been a little boy and so could figure most of that stuff out. This is not to say there weren't any surprises, but Jane's arrival two and half year ago (!) opened up a whole new world.

One of the best things I've learned is how to do Jane's hair. This was borne as much out of necessity as anything, because without tails (pony or pig) Jane looks like 1970 Ozzy.

Our mornings now have a little ritual built in, where Jane will say "Can I have a ponytail?" and I'll go get the little rubber bands (we have millions of them) from their box on her dresser and let the day begin.

I've been getting more ambitious lately and going for the pigtails option. You'd think this would simply be twice as much work. You'd be wrong. Still, most mornings I get it right and feel confident that she won't get asked "Is Mommy out of town?" by strangers when we're in the supermarket.

In the fall, Vicki goes back to work full time, which means that I'll soon be on tap for getting both kids up, dressed, fed, and out the door. Mind you, the space between "fed" and "out the door" is the trickiest time as it involves the washing of faces, the brushing of teeth, the combing of hair, and invariable wardbrode changes. Lately Samson is obsessed with wearing only shirts and shorts that are the same color and tucking in his shirt in a way that would make Steve Urkel wince. And Jane is developing her own, er, look, which involves a layer or two of pajamas and whatever else is handy.

Nothing I can't handle, mind you, but come the fall I think I'll need to be pretty specific on the "you'll-wear-what-I've-put-out-for-you" front...

Gratuitous Sam and Jane pics, beach edition

Whistle a happy tune

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but Samson can whistle.

And when I say he can whistle, I don't mean in just the occasional serendipitous note-producing way. That's how it started, of course. But over time he has kept at it, and so his whistling is now more like when Woodstock channels Madame Butterfly or the marching scene with the guys in Bridge on the River Kwai.

One the one hand, we always know where he is in the house. Unfortunately, he seems to have inherited my predisposition for ohrwurm, which I find hilarious and Vicki finds less than endearing.

In any event, for the longest time (and I'm talking years), I had a piece of a song that would intermittently pop into my head. It came out when I was in junior high, and while I knew the band, I couldn't locate the track. Of course, the magic of iTunes changed all that, and as soon as I found it, I downloaded it.

I then shared it with Vicki to prove to her that I was not imagining the song's existence. [If not for Wikipedia I would never have convinced her that Barbapapa was real; another one of those things from childhood that I couldn't find/prove existed until the Internet. Thanks Al Gore!]

Anyway, the keyboard part [the video below is not much of a video, but it's the best way I know of to share music via this site] is really catchy and is what was stuck in my head. It is now stuck in Sam's, and he happily whistles it around the house. All. Day. Long.

It's actually a really good song. Not on 24-hour repeat, mind you. But still...

Enjoy.

Fever (real and dance varieties)

We had plans to go to visit friends in Virginia for a pool party on Saturday.

And by "plans" I mean we had bags packed --- new beach towels, new bathing suits for the kids, a fresh thing of sunblock [we buy in bulk, as you can imagine if you've see our family] --- and were ready to head out the door. But Jane seemed a bit listless when she got up from her nap and just wasn't interested in doing much beyond being held.

A quick scan with the thermometer revealed she was at 101. Not critical, but certainly not pool-friendly either. [Sidenote: It's nice to have Fahrenheit readings back; at some point last year one of us hit some hidden button and we were only getting Celsius temperatures. Having a child with a fever is stressful enough without also having to do math.]

Anyway, we called and canceled, which Samson took about as well as you'd expect.

After a dose of Children's Motrin and another nap, Jane perked up a bit. Our dinner plans now scuttled, we decided to go grab some ribs at a local barbecue joint. Some things I learned:

1. Samson will not eat ribs with his fingers. He will, however, eat coleslaw with them.
2. My children do not like corn bread. At all.
3. Apparently soul (blue-eyed and otherwise) and R&B make Samson want to dance.

This last point fascinates me because Samson has never been a particularly dancy kind of kid.

Lots of people have home movies of their kids grooving away, completely unaware that they are being surveilled. Sam is more of a head nodder. But for some reason, a succession of songs by James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and Hall & Oates (?!) flipped some inner switch. The last song, in his defense, was "She's Gone," so it's not like he was wiggling around to "Private Eyes" or something.

Anyway --- and I say this often, but I really wish I had video of this --- Samson was just completely oblivious to the fact that we were watching him. We were outside the restaurant at a picnic table, and he just got down. Sort like a combination of David Byrne, Rerun, and Grover. It was magic. He ate almost none of his dinner (except the aforementioned cole slaw), but he was having a blast.

Unfortunately, Jane crashed. We hadn't been out for more than 30 minutes when she just shut down. Her whole body was hot. And not warm-let's-run-a-tepid-bath, but hot. The kind of hot that a laptop gets on the underside. Just before it catches fire.

We quickly decamped for home, where we checked her temperature again and saw she was now running 103.

My first thought was "Oh God, she's got West Nile virus." Vicki's first thought was "She needs more Motrin and probably a cool bath and some rest." We met in the middle with a call to the doctor and spent the night keeping tabs on her.

According to our pediatrician, there is some weird virus going around that causes kids to have this fever spike. It lasts a day or two and is then gone. It's cliche, but I think just about any parent would rather be sick than watch their child in pain.

And while this was a relatively quick episode [she was laid low all day Sunday too], it struck me how blessed we've been that both Sam and Jane have been generally healthy. It's easy to get caught up in the daily craziness (who put this diaper in the washing machine? why are you wearing a snowsuit?), but sitting by Jane's bed and watching her as she slept put things in perspective.

Anyway, I'm not trying to get all afterschool special on you. Jane woke this morning feeling much better. I think she's trying to make up for having taken the weekend off because Samson was bothering her by getting in her face and she hit him square in the nose.

As we were scolding her, I could see the wheels turning in her head as she contemplated pretending to still be sick. Our Jane is back.

Four out of five dentists...

Are not as cool as the one my kids go to.

Samson and Jane had a dentist's appointment today. And despite some initial fear (from Sam) and loathing (from both), I think they had a pretty good time. The dentist only works with kids and gives out all sorts of goodies and even offers rides in the chair. Good times in proper oral hygiene.

I won't get to hear all about their adventures until dinner tonight, but thanks to Vicki and her handy camera phone, I got at least a glimpse of how things went.

I don't think I've ever seen such nonchalance in "the chair" before. It's certainly not how I roll...

The kindness of strangers

For my birthday, Vicki got us tickets to see the York Revolution play. The team is an independent league team, and the stadium is only a year or two old. Like many minor league parks, the atmosphere is really festive. Lots of silly contests and promotions, which is great for keeping the kids at least sort of interested. When all else fails, there's also a carousel.

Perhaps my favorite promotion was the Velcro wall home run challenge, where one fan agrees to be velcroed to a wall outside the right field fence in the hopes that a ball is hit his way. If he catches it, he gets $5,000.

The coolest thing that didn't involve fabric adhesive was the pre-game catch on the field. Fans are invited into center field to have a catch for 20 minutes or so before the game starts. It was, as you can imagine, pretty awesome. Bright sun, super-springy grass, and Sam throwing heat.

Our seats were right on the left field foul line halfway between third base and the outfield. In any park, that's a pretty good seat. In this one, we were just a row behind the guys in the "bullpen." We were also on the alert for any foul balls slicing our way. [Indeed, I spent a good portion of the game intently watching each pitch for fear of being inattentive and having Jane be forever tattooed (literally and figuratively) as "Janie Foul Ball."]

The opposing team, the Long Island Ducks, were warming up as we took our seats, and so the starting pitcher and catcher were just on the other side of the fence from us. Sam was watching them pretty intently and was impressed by the sound of the pop each time the ball hit the catcher's mitt.

He watched for about five or 10 minutes, only turning his attention when Vicki (and the food) arrived. As he was facing away from the field, the pitcher and catcher finished warming up, and the catcher walked over to our seats, reached through the fence and tapped Samson on the shoulder to give him the ball.

I wish I had a photograph of the look on Sam's face. I have to imagine that ballplayers recognize themselves in young, wide-eyed kids at the ballpark. But I also have to imagine that given the length of the season, the wear and tear on your body, the annoying fans [we had one in our seats when we arrived hectoring the players for autographs], and the prospect that you might never make the big leagues, could turn you a little, well, pessimistic. Or at the very least it could make you aloof since it's really just another day at the office, so to speak.

I don't know anything more about John Pachot than what's stated in his team bio, but I can tell you that his singular act of kindness not only made my son's day, but it made mine as well.

Samson and Jane

I'll write about this later, but here's a shot from our trip to a local nature center/preserve. Something about the symmetry of my two moving up the big grassy hill just struck me.

The (pretty) good earth

With all the rain we've had lately, I was starting to wonder if we'd ever get the chance to go strawberry picking or if we should look for some terraced rice paddies and offer to help.

This trip has become something of an annual ritual for our little family, and it's something I really look forward to. I have such fond memories of our first trip with Samson, who seemed to cotton to it right away.

Jane still seems unsure about the whole farm-labor-as-family-outing thing, but the kids definitely enjoyed being able to eat as they went.

And they really liked being able to eat and not having to work for it.

The crop this year was not overly abundant, so there was a little more work involved than usual, but we left with more than five pounds of fresh strawberries and made a terrific (and easy to prepare) salad. The recipe, adapted from one I found at epicurious, calls for the following:

3C sliced, hulled strawberries

3 navel oranges, peeled and sliced [you want these to be about the same size as the strawberry pieces]

1T brown sugar [it calls for more, but you won't need it]

2T finely chopped mint leaves

You mix everything together in a bowl and you're ready to go. It suggests letting it stand for 30 minutes before serving, but I'm never on the ball enough to have an extra half hour before meal time. In any event, it's delicious and really light.

I didn't make jam this year, but if we can get our act together and get out once more, I may still try. See here for an easy recipe for that too.

Overdue

My posts, like my library books (sorry Dad) are overdue. So to the three of you still reading this, I apologize. When I look at the archives of this site and see how much I posted in years past, a few things occur to me:

1. Vicki takes some great photos
2. It probably shouldn't have taken me 18 months to write my thesis
3. In addition to being a wonderful procrastination enabler, this site has helped me to keep some precious memories.

So once again, dear reader, I will do my best to keep up to date. Lately work has been all, um, work-y, but if you really want someone to blame for the radio silence, I think the obvious choice is Jane.

OK, not really. But I did need an excuse to share this picture from the weekend.

Good to be back. Lots more to come. Stay tuned...