Dad to Benjamin & Abigail

Mommy's Night Out - Benefit Concert

2011-11-10T20:38:00.001-05:00

Allison recently made some new mommy friends in the neighborhood. She was invited to hang out for a mom's night out. Bring a snack, don't bring the kids. That's all fine and good, but when the your 7 week old daughter has only been bottle fed once in her life, there could be problems brewing at home. Let's see what happened shall we?

We ate dinner then Allison got her S'mores type snack ready and hit the road. I was getting mentally prepared for my night and I didn't even get to do my classic S'mores joke. I'll have to double up next time.

I got Ben in his pajamas early. He still isn't himself yet. I don't know if he isn't 100% over his virus or if he is teething and that is bothering him, but either way, he's not himself. He's been angry and whinny. He actually sounds a lot like me when I'm sick or hungry or sick and hungry.

I knew he would go to bed early, and that would just leave me and my little girl. Last time I was alone with her, I had to admit defeat and call mommy home. Not tonight little girl! Not tonight!

We played in the kids room for about 20 minutes and all was fine: see exhibit A

Then one of Ben's cars fell off the ramp and he thought it was a good idea to punch, kick and push the ramp. That marked bedtime. I did a very quick teeth brush and put him to bed. I tried to be slick with his bedtime story. I knew it was only a matter of time before Abigail got upset that she was alone and I wanted to get back to her before that happened.

I started reading Clifford and Friends. It's a double feature, Clifford and Friends in the front, Clifford's Family in the back. I skipped directly to Clifford's Family. Ben was happy for the first 3 pages, then WAIT A MINUTE! SOMETHING'S NOT RIGHT!!! He figured it out and started reaching for the book. I quickly finished up then played the "tuck in" game. (tucking him in by pulling the blanket over his head) I said good night and was on my way. I feel bad for skipping story time, but he'll get 2 or 3 stories tomorrow night to make up for it.

It was off to tend to Abigail now. Did the abbreviated story time keep her from getting upset? NOPE! Missed it by that much! Now to calm her down and feed her a bottle for the second time in her life, the first time being her first meal ever! No sweat right?

I dressed her in winter feety pajamas. It's going to be 47 degrees tonight. Gotta bundle up. I got a bib and two burp cloths. I was ready for action. I tried to feed her and she flipped out! WAIT A MINUTE! That taste like my food, but you're not mommy!!!! She probably screamed bloody murder for 30-45 seconds, but it felt like 4 or 5 minutes. I decided to sing a song to calm her down. It worked. She stopped crying and started eating. So I couldn't stop singing could I?

Those of you who know me well, know I'm a horrible singer. Ms. Duck wouldn't even let me join the chorus in elementary school. I had to play viola in the orchestra! It's scary to think my singing soothes my baby girl.

I think her first sentence may be "quick to the point to the point no fakin, cookin MCs like a pound of bacon" because I sing that song to her a lot. On to the playlist:

Ice Ice Baby - Vanilla Ice
Living on a Prayer - Bon Jovi
Paul Revere - Beastie Boys
New York, New York - Frank Sinatra
Wanted Dead or Alive - Bon Jovi

Things got bad for a minute during Wanted Dead or Alive. I started laughing thinking about an SNL skit. The whole thing is funny, but I was thinking about the scene 4:25 into the clip.

Jon Bon Jovi interview SNL, funny :) from monster on Vimeo.

I composed myself and continued the concert. She started eating again. The encore set list:

Mr. Brightside - The Killers
NY State of Mind - Billy Joel
It Takes Two - Rob Base & DJ Easy Rock

She fell asleep during the last song. I woke her up for a quick burp. She only ate 1.5 oz, but I'm calling that a success of epic proportions. However, if Allison reads this, I'm pretty sure she hated the bottle and me feeding her. She's much happier when you do it and let daddy sleep! WINK! SMILEY FACE!!!

To summarize my night - Daddy Rules! King Kong ain't got nothing on me! (Sorry for the cursing, I couldn't find the clip from the preview when he says "nothing")

Best and Worst of the Weekend - Sick, Sick, Sick

2011-11-08T23:51:00.003-05:00

Before I get into my best and worst of the weekend I wanted to bring up something I mentioned a while back. Another celebrity died today and that's all that people are Tweeting or Facebooking about.

You can search back six months and I bet you don't find any posts about Heavy D in your timeline. I think he would have wanted to hear how many people loved his music and appreciated him as an artist. Pick a celebrity you enjoy and give them a tribute while they are still alive.Heavy D's most popular song had to be "Now that we found love" but my favorite song of his was "We got our own thang"

Pick your favorite 90s song and ask your local radio station to play it. Send an email to Fred Savage and thank him for The Wonder Years. Or write a happy blog post, tweet or status update about someone. This is my third installment of Best and Worst of the weekend, that was inspired by Dan Patrick and the Dan Patrick show.

This week's best and worst of the weekend are actually the same thing.
Worst of the weekend - Ben was sick and I had to spend the last 4 days taking care of him.
Best of the weekend - Ben was sick and I got to spend the last 4 days taking care of him.

Friday night before bed, I was putting on a puppet show for him. It was to the part of the show where the sheep puppet picks a volunteer from the audience and tickles them. I noticed that Ben felt warm. I took his temp and it was 103.5! Holy KTU that's hot!

I looked at Allison and said "Bye bye!" I made her take the baby and get away from me and Ben. I can take care of him. It's ok if I get sick, but I can't have my 7 week old baby or my wife who takes care of her getting sick. Sorry. Take a hike. You're both quarantined until further notice.

I was about to read her the riot act or even better, the "DFS" quote by Dustin Hoffman in Outbreak, but she went upstairs without a fight. That left Ben and I alone for 4 days.

Ben was a brave boy at the doctor on Monday. We called the doctor back when his temp hit 104.7. She told us if he hits 105, take him to the emergency room. I got dressed and stayed dressed for the next 4 or 5 hours just so I would be ready if we needed to roll. When I went to bed, I laid out clothes next to the bed. so I could be ready at a moment's notice. Luckily we didn't have to take him.

What do you do with a sick 2 year old? We played with a lot of toys and watched A LOT of television. That's what you're supposed to do with a sick boy. Wear pajamas, eat ice pops and watch TV. Here's a list of what we watched and an estimate of how many times we watched it:

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse - 10 episodes.
Jake and the Neverland Pirates - 3 episodes
Sesame Street - 2 episodes
Thomas and Friends - 12 episodes
Chuggington - 5 episodes
Yo Gabba Gabba - 1 episode
Full House - 30 minutes of clips on YouTube
Cars - twice
Cars 2 - three times
Pixar Shorts - twice
The Little Mermaid - 1/2 of it, then we switched to Cars 2
Tangled - Once
Football - one half on Saturday, Three quarters on Sunday

I honestly feel like I left some shows out. All the kid shows start to look like the same show after a while. His fever broke this afternoon. During a nap, he sweat through his shirt and soaked his pillow. His temperature hasn't gone above 99.2 since. I hope I didn't jinx it. We'll find out soon because I'm going to check him again when I go to bed in a few minutes

One thing I learned this week - Chuggington is a good substitute for Thomas and Friends, but the theme song is very catchy. It's been in my head since Saturday morning. "Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-Chuggington!"

Best and Worst of the Weekend - Work, Work, Work

2011-10-31T23:20:00.000-04:00

Here is the second installment of my newest feature, Best and Worst of the Weekend. (My tribute to Dan Patrick)

Best
All the Halloween themed activities we did. We started out Saturday morning at the local library for a Halloween Party. They had kid games, face painting, balloon animals and live snakes! Ben had a great time. He played bowling, golf, fishing, Plinko and Spin the wheel game.

A woman gave us a coupon for face painting. She was leaving and didn't want it to go to waste. I wanted to give her a hug. I don't know why, but it was a nice thing for her to do. Anyway, we thought NO WAY Ben would sit there, but sure enough, he did. Check out the art work on my little Superman.

After the party it was nap time, then time for the October playdate. All the kids dressed up. A bumblebee (non-Transformer) and Elmo joined my Superman and ladybug and they had a great time. The kids colored pumpkins then we went to see Jayslights Halloween Lights. It was awesome. I can't wait for his Christmas lights.

Worst
The worst of the weekend was that I had to work all weekend. I had my laptop up and running Friday night. All day Saturday and all day Sunday. We visited our old neighbors and I had my laptop. Dinner with my in-laws with a side of laptop. Season 1 of Modern Family...working on the laptop. Overall it was still a great weekend, but I'm looking forward to some downtime.

Best and Worst of the Weekend

2011-10-24T23:22:00.003-04:00

So I was thinking of ways to make sure I write more often. I see other people with daily themes on their blogs. I've seen Music Monday, Super Sexy Tuesday or Thursday (SST), Wordless Wednesday and other things like that. I'll do you all a favor and hold off on the SST until I'm back in shape and Super Sexy again.

Good for those people, but I want to do my own thing, so I thought I'd do something I heard on the Dan Patrick show, Best and Worst of the Weekend. It's not my original idea, but I haven't seen it on any blogs yet, so that's new right? It's not stealing, it's called homage! Did anyone see Cop Out?

After Steve Jobs died, everyone spent the next two weeks talking about how great he was and all the things he's done for the world. While I agree that Steve Jobs was a great man and he had a huge part in shaping all of our lives, I wonder, why do we wait until these people die? Why not honor them in life?

If you're my age, you grew up watching Dan Patrick on Sportscenter. He and Keith Olbermann are responsible for the way sports shows now show highlights in cool, funny ways. It's mostly a good thing, but like with all inventions, there are some downsides (BOO-YAH!)

If you know me well, I know you expect my best to be about food and my worst to be about lack of food or yard work. How boring would that be? So I'll skip the food best/worst unless it really needs to be said. For example, a few weekends ago, we had neighbors over to watch the Jets/Patriots game. We shared 2 pizzas and Allison made Daffodil Dip. Even though the Jets lost, that was probably the best of the weekend.

Anyway, on to Best and Worst of this weekend.

Best: On Saturday we went to Disney World to visit friends who were in town from New York. We're very close to them. She's partly responsible for Allison and I getting together (I'll explain this another time) and their kids call Ben their Florida Cousin.

As soon as we took the Disney World exit, we saw the sign for Disney World and Ben yelled Donald Duck! Then for the next 10 minutes, he laughed, pointed out all the buses and firetrucks and shouted "yaaaaaa, woooooo." All that "woooo"ing woke up Abigail. Now that she was awake, she needed to eat. She let us know in her own special way.

"WWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

Add the silly songs CD to the mix and I'm convinced we had one of the loudest cars in Disney World. I was either gonna laugh or cry from the noise. I decided to laugh and take video so I could share it with all of you. This went on for a few minutes until we got to the hotel.

Worst: I'm not sure what the worst was. The Indianapolis Colts had a rough weekend, so the the Miami Dolphins. I guess my worst of the weekend was that I was traveling for work last Thursday and Friday and my iphone4s finally came in. It was sitting on my desk at work waiting for me and I didn't have time to drive to the office to pick it up. That's like opening toys on Christmas, but not being able to play with them. I activated it today and all is well with the world again.

I'll post my best/worst every Sunday or Monday night. If you're not selected as a best, I apologize in advance. There can only be one best. If you end up being a worst, you need to step up your game!

Have a good night.

Who's on First?

2011-10-23T23:13:00.000-04:00

If I didn't know better, I'd think he was messing with me. Here is tonight's dinner conversation with Ben.

"Ben, do you want Pizza or Pasta"
"YEAH!!"
"Which one? Pizza or Pasta?"
"Pasta!"
"Pasta?"
"No, NO, NO! Pasta"
"That's what I said. Pasta, right?"
"NO! Pasta!"
"OK, Let's try this again? Pizza?"
"Pasta!"
"Ok, pasta it is."
"No dasda, pasta"
"My head hurts. So you want pizza, not pasta"
"Yeah, PASTA!!!!!!! HA HAH AH HA"
"How about I get you some milk? Honey, Ben wants you!"

What I learned today?
Ben pronounces Pizza as Pasta. He pronounces Pasta as Dasda. That's not confusing at all. For those wondering, Ben had pizza and pasta for dinner.

Have any of his babysitter shown him this video?

Dad-chelor Party 2.0

2011-10-11T23:44:00.000-04:00

You may remember reading about my mind blowing Dad-chelor Party idea when Allison was pregnant with Ben. If not, check it out HERE. This post has gotten lots of attention lately and it's made me want to refocus on my writing. If everything works out, hopefully you'll see a lot more posts on the blog and a lot more of me on television.

My first Dad-chelor party while fun, did not live up to my "The Hangover" expectations. I went downtown Orlando in my Mickey Mouse shirt with my two best friends. We saw G.I. Joe, then had a few beers and went home. No Dwight Howard. No Alyssa Milano. No XL1067. No wild animals. And worst of all, no Appliance Direct guy!

As soon as I found out we were expecting a second child, I started thinking about Dad-chelor Party 2.0. Hopes were high that it would exceed the first one and at worst, it would at least exceed "The Hangover 2." What a let down that movie was, but I wont get into that now.

Fast forward to July 19th. The Tampa Bay Lightning announced they were playing a pre-season hockey game at the Amway Center in Orlando on September 21st. (Does that date ring any bells?) Bingo-Bango! Scene set for Dad-chelor Party 2.0. Dinner, hockey game, cigars, Church St. This may be my last child. My last Dad-chelor party. I have to live it up, right?

I invited a few friends and as luck would have it, my brother-in-law moved to Orlando the week of the announcement, so he was going to join us at the game too. It was all starting to come together. I prefaced the invitation with the following statement: Allison will be 38-39 weeks pregnant. If Allison is in the hospital giving birth, you're on your own, but if not, I'll be there.

Now to make the party Legen....wait for it.......Dary!

Just like with the first party, I wanted celebs and a radio station sponsor, but with a pregnant Allison, Ben and work occupying most of my time, I really didn't have time to plan or sign anyone up. At the last minute, I tried to put a list together of local celebs. Tiger Woods is local, but I don't think he would want to be affiliated with a party like this.

Another local celeb, who I've actually seen at Orlando Magic games, Chris Tucker. So we invite Chris for comic-relief. When you point to Chris, he lays down one of his classic movie lines.

Fifty million dollars? Man, who do you think you kidnapped? Chelsea Clinton?

Now we need a radio sponsor to emcee the night. Jayde from XL1067 got a fancy Hollywood job and I think a husband (congratulations) so she's out. What other radio station could host? How about David Buffa and The Shot Doctor? Or even better The Dan Patrick show complete with the Danettes. They spend the day working in a "Man-Cave" and they are all about corporate sponsors. I think everything on the show down to the microphones and pencils are sponsored. They would be down for this manly idea right? Well, maybe not McLovin, but the rest of them for sure. Unfortunately, I never sent them an email about it, so we'll never know.

For what seems like months, FOX has been playing commercials for The X-Factor. So that got me thinking we need a singer. I had to go for one of my girls. Nelly Furtado, Carrie Underwood or Pia Toscano. Tweets to them were not immediately (or ever) replied to.

Now it's September 20th, the day before the game. No celebrity appearances, but it's all good. I can't wait for the game tomorrow night. Hockey, pizza and beer, NICE! What could possibly keep us from going out and having fun?

A BABY!

Abigail was born the morning of the hockey game. Since I had the tickets ay my house, I made arrangements for the guys to get their tickets so they could still enjoy the game without me.

Then something strange happened. Allison told me to go to the game. Really? Is this a trap? We were in Triage and Allison was telling me to go to the game. Mid contraction. Go! Have a good time. I'll sleep.

She asked the nurse and she said sure Daddy, go to the game. I looked at her and said, "Oh, you're in on this too? I see how it is. Girls sticking together." The nurse was reassuring. She said if something happens there are 10 nurses here to help your wife and your daughter. You'd only be in the way, go to the game.

My mother, my mother-in-law and a few other nurses were telling me the same thing. Go to the game. I said I would think about it, but I honestly wasn't planning to go. As the day progressed and I saw that both baby and mom were doing fine, I started to change my mind. Around noon I decided as long as mom and baby are good, I'd go to the game, but just the game. No dinner before the game. No drinks at all. At the first drop of the puck, I will have been awake for 37 hours with two 40 minute naps. The last thing I should have is a drink.

That's the plan. Uncle Steven came to the hospital to meet Abigail. We hung out for a bit then he left and we planned to meet up again at the game. Uncle Mark came to pick me up from the hospital to go to the game, then Uncle Dave brought me back to the hospital and came upstairs to meet his niece after the game.

I have been to lots of sporting events in my life. Too many to count. I was there when the New York Mets won the National League Pennant in 2000. I watched the New Jersey Devils raise the Stanley Cup in 2003 and now I've been to a game the day my child was born. I'm ranking those as my top 3 games and I'm saving that ticket.

The game itself was a lot of fun. As expected, the guys offered to buy me drinks, but I refused, so they bought me food instead. We watched the game and talked about my baby the whole time. It was awesome. I'm sure the people in front of us were tired of hearing about it, but they didn't say anything and I wasn't going to stop talking about my little girl even if they did.

In the end it all worked out. I got a healthy baby girl and even got the celebrity appearance after all. Chris Kirkpatrick of Nsync sang the National Anthem. He did a nice job. He's often the forgotten member of Nsync....um, I mean, stupid boy band! PLAY SOME SKYNYRD!!

The game was exciting. The Saint Louis Blues won 4-3 on a late goal by Adam Cracknell. I'm trying to get a picture, hockey card or puck signed by him for Abigal's Time Capsule, but no luck so far. He actually replied to a tweet saying he'd love to sign something for me and invited me to the fan fest, but unfortunately I couldn't make it to St. Louis that day, so the search continues. At the very least I'll order a puck online and put it with the game ticket in the time capsule.

I'd call Dad-chelor Party 2.0 a success. I still plan to take the guys out for cigars, but there is no date on the calendar yet.

Before I sign off, I just have one more idea to share with you:
GRAND-DAD-CHELOR PARTY!!!!
Yeah buddy! I wonder if Katy Perry will still be wearing those leotards in 30 years. We'll find out. I'll start plugging away at the celebrity guest list now.

What a great wife I have. I don't know how many other wives out there would have forced their husbands to go to a hockey game. Thanks honey.

God Bless You

2011-10-07T17:31:00.000-04:00

You think you have no time? Wait until you have a kid or two kids. Holy cow. I have so little free time now it's crazy. I can't imagine how people with 3 or more kids find time to do anything. I'm sure things will get easier once we get into a routine. It's only been 2 weeks.

It's strange that I need to prioritize my evening like I'm at work. I used to get away with doing nothing until after watching our shows. There's plenty of time, I'll just do that later. Well now, that's impossible. There is not enough time later. It's come down to: What's more important today, blogging or a shower. As you can tell by this post, I chose blogging. So you can then come to the conclusion that I also chose being dirty and smelling poorly. ;)

Ben has been a great big brother so far. He loves his little sister. He wakes up looking for her and shows her all his toys. When she cries he comes to get one of us. If she's sleeping, he makes sure she has her pacifier. He even gave her his pacifier once, but it was just a loaner. He needed it back when it was time for bed.

It's so cool watching him interact with her. He knows she's part of the family and he has to be good to her. How does he know that? We've been telling him about the baby in mommy's belly and reading him the 'I'm a big brother' books. Did he really comprehend all of that? Can he really get it? Look at the big brain on Ben. Good job little man!

Here is a little video of the two kids. If you can't make it out, he's saying "Bless you"

Welcome Abigail Beth

2011-10-05T23:37:00.000-04:00

Abigail Beth was born Wednesday, September 21, 2011 at 4:40:AM. She weighed 8lbs 2.1oz and was 20 3/4 inches long. She had a full head of hair.

Our delivery experience was a lot different with Abigail than it was with Ben's delivery. What? You'd like to hear all about it? That's great, because I love telling the story.

Pre-Game

Allison had been having contractions for weeks. Small ones. Not painful, but very frequent. She met with her doctor on Monday the 19th. He pretty much guaranteed her that she would not hit her due date of October 5th.

That night, Allison had contractions for about three hours. They weren't consistent or strong. They varied. 5 minutes apart, 9 minutes apart, 2 minutes apart, 7 minutes apart.... C'mon stupid contractions! Get organized! I was ready to meet my baby girl. I wanted to go to the hospital, but Allison talked me out of it, so we watched TV then went to bed.

Tuesday came along and with that came a few txt messages from Allison, from work "Just had a strong one." "Had a few small ones during my demo." When she got home from work she admitted to having some more contractions in the car. Medium to high intensity, but still not consistently spaced.

We had a pot roast from a crock pot for dinner. It was day 2 of the pot roast, so I wasn't too excited about it. I decided to make spaghetti for myself. What does this have to do with the story? Absolutely nothing, but you know how much I like talking about food.

Back to the story. Allison had contractions for the next 2.5 hours. They were getting stronger, but not as strong as when she had Ben, so we didn't really know what to do. Allison didn't want to go to the hospital, but three hours of contractions two nights in a row seemed like a big deal to me.

I called Grammy and Poppy (Allison's parents.) It was a better plan for Ben to go with Grammy and Poppy while he was still awake instead of calling them to come and get him in the middle of the night. So they came over and took Ben to their house for a sleepover party. I knew if the contractions kept up for another hour that I was taking Allison to the hospital. If I had to take her kicking and screaming, so be it, we were going.

About 20 minutes after my in-laws left with Ben, Allison agreed that it was time to go to the hospital. We gathered our belongings, packed the last few items we needed for the hospital bag and hit the road. This time instead of putting the list in the bag, I put the ACTUAL ITEMS listed on the list in the bag. I'm an old pro now. In preparation, I put aside an outfit to wear to the hospital weeks in advance. With Ben, I tried on 3 pairs of pants and I couldn't find my sneakers. This time I took a pair of underpants, socks, pants, a t-shirt and a golf shirt out of the rotation. They sat on my closet shelf for 2 weeks just waiting for the call. I changed clothes and brushed my teeth in 3.2 minutes.

The Drive

When Ben was born, the drive to the hospital was like a scene straight from a movie. I was playing Danger Zone (Top Gun) in my head, weaving in & out of traffic and exceeding the speed limit, while Allison was writhing in pain in her seat. This time couldn't have been more different. This was a speed limit obeying, stay in your lane cruise down the road.

We left the house at just about 8:00:PM. To keep everyone calm (everyone being me) I was thinking of all these jokes. I asked for permission to tell them, permission was granted, then revoked because I was making her laugh too hard! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I'm killing it tonight and now I have to stop? I don't remember the jokes, but one of them involved the package of cookies I packed in our hospital bag and if we needed to be admitted before I opened them or if could I open them as soon as we get to triage. I did a whole Seinfeldian bit about them. It was awesome.

We listed to Z100 on satellite radio and had a regular conversation. Who would you rather see in concert? Beyonce or Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga or 1990s Madonna. Silly stuff like that. I chose Beyonce and Madonna. I think Allison chose Lady Gaga both times. Between rounds of "Who would you..." Allison kept saying how they're just going to send us home. And that it wasn't time. I said let's just see what they say. Safety first.Worst case, we get ice cream on the way home and we have a lovely night out.

We got to the hospital just after 8:30. I dropped Allison off at the front door then went to park the car. By 8:47 we were sitting together in the triage waiting room and Allison was txting me, which I thought was ridiculous because I was sitting right next to her. Our legs were actually touching. She could have just written a message then showed it to me on her phone, or leaned over and whispered something to me, but she felt the need to txt me instead.

Triage

I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the Winnie Palmer Triage area. When Ben was born I bashed it pretty good. I called it "The armpit of Winnie Palmer." the seats were ripped and the room smelled of urine. This time, just like the drive, it couldn't have been more different. The waiting room was great and we were seen right away.

One complaint I have about it was their choice in programming. They were showing a Nancy Grace type show. Nancy Grace herself was not the host since she is on the Dancing show, but the lady hosting was just as irritating. They were discussing the teen girl who gave birth to twins then suffocated them in her bathroom, dumping their bodies in the laundry basket. REALLY? Is this the only thing on? These women are about to give birth to babies. Put on some happy programming. Positive stuff. You're a hospital for women and children, I know you've heard of Postpartum Depression! Inappropriate!

Aside from that, Triage was great. We were seen within minutes and were admitted within the hour. I feel a little guilty about one thing though. When we got to triage, there was this Spanish speaking couple (he spoke both, she only spoke Spanish) waiting to be seen. She was in a lot of pain, writhing around in agony, sweating, breathing heavy. It was not fun to watch. They were next. She got up and walked away. A few minutes later, a nurse came looking for her. She wasn't there. The guy (I won't say husband, I don't think they were married) was sitting there playing Angry Birds. He didn't move. He didn't even look up. The nurse turned to Allison and said, "OK, I guess I'll take you."

We went into the nurse's station to fill out some paperwork. Allison said her pain number was a 4 or 5. Midway through the questionnaire, I looked outside and the Spanish speaking couple was sitting right outside the door and judging from the pain chart, her pain was between 8-10. I hope for his sake she never finds out that he just sat there playing Angry Birds while the nurse looked for, then skipped her.

Had that been me, that nurse would have waited for Allison to get back. I would have had to be physically restrained before someone took her spot. Especially if she was in that much pain.

Labor Pain

It was a busy night. We later found out 41 babies were born in the last two days. That's a lot of babies. It took about two hours to get a delivery room assigned. The extended wait was because that Spanish woman in all the pain got a room before us. I'm glad she did, she needed it. We were greeted by our nurse, a different Spanish woman named Milli. I immediately thought of Carla from Scrubs, but aside from speaking Spanish, she wasn't anything like her. She called us Mami and Papi. She said "Here's whats gonna happen Mami. We'll break your water, you'll finish dialating, and you'll have this baby girl around 6:00." She wasn't too far off.

Within minutes of arriving in the delivery room I set up shop. Camera: ready to roll. Laptop: powered up, Firefox tabs opened for Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and of course Yahoo! Sports to track the massive choke job by the Boston Red Sox. Cookies were open and I already polished off a few of them.

They checked Allison, she was 3 or 4 cm dilated. They told us they'd be back in two hours to check her, then with a straight face, told Allison to try to relax and get comfortable. I don't think Allison's been comfortable since sometime early July. I didn't have that problem.

We looked for Scrubs on TV, but couldn't find it, so we watched an episode of Friends. At the top of the hour we found Scrubs. It really is one of the best shows of all time. I ate a few more cookies behind my monitor or in the bathroom so I didn't tease Allison with them. Once you get checked in, it's nothing but ice chips, ice pops and water for mom until the baby comes out. Dad can eat anything mommy will let him.

Milli came in from time to time to check on Allison and make some small talk. At the two hour mark the doctor came in and said Allison hadn't dilated any further so she wanted to put her on Pitocin to increase contractions. It kicked in about 30 minutes later and Allison was ready for her epidural. After she got her epidural, they broke her water and again told her to try to sleep. They said they'd be back to check on her in a few hours. We turned off all the lights and tried to rest.

Just before the doctor left, she said "I have a surgery scheduled for 6:30:AM. So we have to have this baby before then or after then." I thought that was a odd thing to say and envisioned a 'Father of the Bride 2' moment happening. I must have had a look on my face because Allison told me everything was fine.

I took my sneakers off, unbuttoned my pants and curled up on the rocking chair with a few blankets. The thermostat was set for 65 degrees. I fell asleep right away. I woke up occasionally when they nursing crew came in to check Allison's blood pressure and some other machines.

Around 4:20:AM Allison woke me up and said she had a lot of pain. I pressed the call button and the nurse came in. She was happy and cheerful coming into the room. She had a big smile on her face. As she checked Allison, her demeanor changed immediately and a look of panic came across her face. She pulled out her phone and called the doctor. "Delivery STAT we need you down here." She pressed the call button and requested a delivery team STAT. She would probably deny it and say that's business as usual, but I know what I saw. Unfortunately I've made the look of panic at work a few times. I know what it looks like and that was it.

Nurses came running into the room. They set up the newborn lamp and baby station in about 2 minutes. While one group of nurses was setting up the baby station another was getting tools and scrubs ready for the doctor. The doctor came in and checked Allison out. She rushed to put on her scrubs, mask and visor. She said "Are you ready? The baby is right here."

I asked "Really?" She said,"Yeah, come look." HELLO!!! THAT'S A BABY HEAD! I don't know what I was expecting to see, but I was shocked that she was right there. Allison had to push for close to two and a half hours before Ben was that close. Abigail got that close while we were napping.

The nurse said "Papi, get your camera ready, get your baby book ready, then grab a leg." I was a step ahead of her. Remember, I'm an old pro now. I had my camera on the table next to me with the baby book under it. I used a hospital menu as a bookmark for the footprint page. I'm ready. Let's do it!

Delivery

I was expecting to have this magical moment. A connection to Baby Abigail like Jacob had with Renesmee when he first saw her. You know Jacob, the werewolf from the Twilight books. And Renesmee, Bella and Edward's half human half vampire daughter. Not that I read the Twilight books, that's kind of girlie (4 books in 6 weeks, finishing the last one before Allison even started it. #TeamEdward) Some girl told me about that part while I was watching manly sports and doing manly things. I just remembered it now. ;)

I think it all happened so quickly, that I wasn't prepared when she actually came out. Allison pushed for a total of 13 minutes. 13 minutes! A few days later we were able to count the number of pushes, but I don't want to get too graphic here, so I'll keep that number between us. 38 weeks and 13 minutes...POW there she is. Time to cut the cord dad. Then it was over. An uneventful birth is a good birth, but it left me thinking, really? That's it? We're done here?

I was talking to Allison, making sure she was OK. Four nurses and a doctor are in the room, but I'm sure my asking "You OK?" would unearth any problems that may be occurring. It felt like a My Cousin Vinny moment. "I should've asked you a long time ago for these pictures. You got it, honey! You did it! The case cracker, me in the shower! Ha ha! I love this! That's it!"

The doctor laid Abigail on Allison's chest. She cried for a bit, then got quiet and just laid there. My two #1 girls laying together quietly. Mental picture moment, I doubt that will happen very often ;) Abigail laid on Allison for 20-25 minutes before the staff cleaned her up. She was perfect. Ten fingers. Ten toes. She cried right away. She had good color and a full head of hair.

When she was first born, I thought her hair was curly. I said she looked just like her mama. Then she had her first bath and FOOP! Her hair got spiked and she looked just like me. My mother sent my baby picture and there is no denying she is my child. Well, she's either mine or Law's from Tekken. You decide.

She looks exactly like me except that my nose was bigger. Hopefully she doesn't have to deal with that big nose drama, but I'll apologize now, in advance, for her awkward middle school years.

Welcome Visitors

A few friends and Allison's family came to visit. Not that I didn't appreciate the visits from our friends, but the most important visitor was Ben. We weren't sure how he was going to react. It could go bad. He could stomp, cry, scream NO NO NO or he could be the good little boy that he is and be super cool with things.

His reaction was right in the middle. I met him in the lobby. He wasn't alone. Grammy and Poppy brought him. At first he was afraid of the waterfall tunnel in the main entrance. He eventually got over his fear and didn't want to exit the tunnel.

We got him upstairs and entered the room. He did not want to go to Allison. He freaked out a little bit when I tried to put him on the bed, but he did say "Hi Mama." I tried to bring him over to the bassinet that Abigail was in, but he wasn't having that either. So he played with his car while grown people talked.

Grammy and Poppy took turns holding the baby. Then we did some trickery on Ben. Grammy held Abigail. I held Ben. We sat next to each other and inched them closer and closer. He looked at her with interested eyes, but I could tell he wasn't quiet sure how to act. The good news, he wasn't jealous that Grammy was holding another baby.

Then suddenly Ben made a fist and moved it in Abigail's direction. Not to worry, he wasn't hitting her. He was fist bumping. One of her hands came out of it's sleeve and was in a fist. We went with it. He did the left fist, then the right fist. Then we said give the baby a kiss and sure enough, he did.

Ben noticed the baby was asleep, so he said "Shhh baby sleeping." There was a pacifier resting on Allison's food tray. He grabbed it and started walking with it. We all reached for him to stop him from putting it in his mouth. He said "Baby!" and tried to put it in her mouth. Grammy took it from him. What a good boy.

Ben walked over to the bassinet, pointed at it and said "Baby sleeping. Baby sleeping." Translation, hey dummy! Put the baby in her bed, she's sleeping. We cooperated and placed her in the bassinet. He went for the pacifier again and threw it into the bassinet for her. Yeah, he's going to be a great big brother.

Since he was right next to the bed, I gave him some flowers to give to Mommy. He did and everything was cool. A hospital isn't a great place for kids to be hanging out, so Grammy and Poppy took him back home shortly after, but a huge weight was lifted. Ben likes his little sister. whew!

Going Home

We left the hospital Friday around noon. Allison got settled at home, I went to Target to get her prescriptions filled, pick up lunch, then we waited for Ben to come home. It was really not a big deal. We made a point to spend extra special time with Ben. Abigail got him some cool Thomas the Tank Engine bath toys which he loved and that was it. Now....we're a happy family of 4. Wish us luck and come back for more stories.

So's Your Face

2011-09-19T19:00:00.000-04:00

When you're with family, you have your own inside jokes, stories and words. It makes sense to you, but to an outsider, well outsiders look at you funny. When I first met Allison's family, there was a lot of this.

I'm Catholic, she's Jewish. Bring on the Yiddish. Until I met Allison the only Yiddish I knew was "schlemiel", which I learned from Independence Day. Strange, I grew up in NY, but I only knew one Yiddish word. That all changed at the first Jewish holiday. I learned a bunch of words and I tossed them around. I wore "chatchke" out like nobody's business. Allison will tell you she was "chatchke'ed out." I think when I used the word three times in one sentence utilizing each definition of the word was what did it.

More recently I'm saying "Oy Gavelt" It's like "Holy cow" or "Good grief." It's fun to say. Usually I give a little giggle, and the reason why I said "Oy Gavelt" doesn't seem that bad.

This evening at dinner Ellen, my mother-in-law, came up with a true gem. It wasn't Yiddish, I'm not sure that it was English either. I had never heard it before but somehow I knew exactly what she was saying. She said to Allison "I think you're having this baby tonight. Look at you, Your face is all over your face!"

LOL - WHAT? Your face is all over your face? That makes no sense, but we all knew exactly what she meant and now, it'll be an inside joke for life. I expect it to show up every holiday, birthday or family dinner.

Let me translate to those of you who don't quite get it. The day Allison had Ben she had been out shopping with her mother all day. When I got home from work I asked if she felt ok and said her face looked funny. It just looked different. She was already pretty swollen. She just looked different. That night, she went into labor and had Ben. Today her face looked....different, but not like that. It was a different, different.

Today Allison's cheek bones, lips and eyes looked puffy. So when Ellen said "Your face is all over your face!" I knew exactly what she meant and her description is as good as anyone elses.

It also reminded me of a funny thing we used to say as kids. "Oh yeah, So's your face"

Cereal, Hold the Milk

2011-09-17T21:24:00.005-04:00

I'm one of the few people that does not put milk in cereal. I'll drink a cup of milk while I'm eating it, but combine the two and you can just created a bowl of garbage. I'm not eating it. I'm not a big dipper either. The chip is the main attraction. The dip is an add-on.

Why did I mention that? Because there have been incidents.

The Chip & Dip Incident.
We went to a neighbor's pool party on Labor Day. It was a really nice time. I made my homemade Mac&Cheese and Allison made her famous double-stuffed chocolate chip cookies. I spent most of the party in the pool with Ben while Allison talked to neighbors and friends. The only time we spent out of the pool was to eat.

While Ben was waiting for me to finish eating so we could continue our splash-fest, he found the bowl of potato chips. He ate a few, then he found the dip. He dipped a chip and fed it to Allison. Then he dipped another chip and looked directly at me and said "Dada." He dipped a chip for me. The only problem, I'm not a chip dipper. I feel very strongly that the chip is the meal. If you dip, you should only dip enough to add just a taste to the chip. Chips & Salsa, 7 layer dips and the like are excluded from this rule. In that case, the dip is the meal, but if you're talking potato chips and onion dip, the chip is the meal.

Ben dipped 1/4 of a chip into the dip. The chip was gone, buried under the dip. He walked over to me. I kept telling him "give it to Mommy" but his resolve was strong. He kept coming for his dad. He fed me the chip. I ate it and said thank you, but as soon as he turned away, I made the bitter beer face. This kept up for about 5 or 6 more chips until I eventually couldn't take it anymore and said "who wants to go swimming?" It wasn't 30 minutes since I'd eaten, but I'll risk cramps over eating more dipped chips any day.

Cereal & Milk
Allison called me at work the other day. She said "Your son just had a complete meltdown because I put milk in his cereal." I said "You're somehow going to blame this on me aren't you."

I don't put milk in my cereal. I'm not a cookie dipper either. Ben has been eating cereal & milk for months. I eat my bowl of cereal with a spoon to make him think there's milk in the bowl, but no milk. I guess he's paying closer attention than I thought. He wants to eat like his daddy. NO MILK.

This morning I watched him have a fit. Allison made his bowl of Life cereal. Then when she took the milk out he started screaming "NO NO!!!" then he waved his arms like a mad man when she actually poured the milk. So I decided to suck it up, do what I had to do and put milk in my cereal.

It was effing disgusting! How can anyone enjoy this? It transformed my normally crunchy, tasty cereal into cold, wet, chewy, tasteless slop. I'm pushing HEAVILY for waffles for breakfast tomorrow, because i don't know if I can eat that crap again. ;) A dad's gotta do what a dad's gotta do. You know I'll do anything for my kid(s), but I never thought it'd be this. LOL

Anyway, what cereal do you guys eat? Is there anything that keeps it's flavor and crunch in milk? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Happy 2nd Birthday Benjamin!!!

2011-09-15T04:33:00.000-04:00

Benjamin was born 9/15/09 at 4:33:AM. He was 7lbs 7oz & 20 1/4 inches long. Now he's about 29/30 lbs and 36 inches tall. He's walking & talking and is cuter and happier than I could ever have imagined. Here is the link to the recap of year one. And without further ado, year 2:

October 2010 - 13 Months - Ben was Woody (Toy Story) for Halloween and we went pumpkin picking.

November 2010 - 14 Months - We took a trip to NY. Ben met a shark, attended his first Christening and took lots of trips to Disney World.

December 2010 - 15 Months - Ben enjoyed Christmas and Chanukah.

January 2011 - 16 Months - HAPPY NEW YEAR & Playoff time! J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS

February 2011 - 17 Months - FORE!!!

March 2011 - 18 Months - Touchdown! Football season is over...I SAID TOUCHDOWN

April 2011 - 19 Months - Finger painting and feeling sick. :(

May 2011 - 20 Months - Watching the Royal Wedding with mommy.

June 2011 - 21 Months - Daddy's birthday

July 2011 - 22 Months - Happy 4th of July. Vacation in Ft. Lauderdale.

August 2011 - 23 Months - Let's Roll. Riding my bike is serious business.

September 2011 - 2 years! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Ben Speaks

2011-09-06T21:08:00.000-04:00

Since I haven't posted in a while, those of you that don't see Ben too often have really fallen behind in your Ben coverage. The last you saw of him, he was laughing like a hyena and running to the door screaming when Mommy got home from work. So this post will serve as a Ben to English dictionary.

His vocabulary has grown a lot recently. Some words are clear as day, some not quite as clear, but you can figure it out. Then there is a last group I'll call The NFC (No Effing Clue) Group.There are a bunch of words in this group, such as "Do-doo-waaa, seeeet, babablabadababadada" There are full sentences in this group too.

Anyway, here is a breakdown of some of his best words. (in random order)
Dada! (Random order after this one that is! HA HA HA Dada #1 Dada rules!!!)
Mama
Baa-ba - Poppy (Allison's Dad)
Gwee-Weee - Grammy (Allison's Mom)
Choo-Choo - Choo-Choo trains
Pease - Please
Don-woo - Thank You
Hi
NO
Yeah
COOKIE
Mealk - Milk
Jews - Juice
Cheese
Hot
Pool
Shoes
Ball
MOOOOOO - What a cow says.
Woof woof - What a dog says.
HSSSSSSSSSS - What a snake says
Meow - What a cat says
ROOOAR - What a lion says
Melmo - Elmo
Doooouwg - Dog
Cat
Nigh Nite - Night night
Yellow
Geen - Green
Reed - Red
Whie - White
Bwack - Black
Dawone - That one
Theeeseone - This one
plane
heli-babter - helicopter
Tiger
Wow
Woody
Buzz Lightyear

Wow, that's a lot of words and he knows a lot more than that, I just can't list them all here.

He's also been learning sign language. Here are a few of the signs he knows.

This last one is more of a body language signal. The red face is a dead give away. The definition is below, but it also means RUN!!! RUN and let someone else do it.

Happy Labor Day

2011-09-04T22:32:00.001-04:00

WOW! Who knew? It's been a while since I posted anything. No big deal, nobody reads this anyway right? WRONG!

In the past few weeks, I've had friends, co-workers and neighbors ask me about the blog. So I guess it's time to bring it back. When I started the blog in April 2009, I was like Macaulay Culkin in Uncle Buck. I had tons of questions and thoughts. I just needed a place to get them out of my head.

I didn't know anybody would read it. I didn't realize it would inspire people who were thinking about children, but needed that extra push. I didn't know other parent bloggers would read it and share war stories. I didn't even know I was a dad blogger, but I guess I am (don't worry, I don't plan on doing any stupid product reviews.)

I figured I have a new baby girl on the way, so I should do something new on the blog. Without being annoying, I'll post about Allison & I, Ben and Abigail. It'll be mostly about the kids. So here we go. Time for some new posts.

Let's start with a Labor Day weekend post. It started out pretty rough, but got better as it went along. I hope tomorrow will be the best day, but seeing as the agenda includes food shopping and house cleaning, it doesn't look promising.

Ben woke up with a temperature on Friday. Allison took care of him and he did well until nap time. After nap time he woke up with a worse temp and a stuffy nose. He cried until he puked, but good news, Allison caught it all, well most of it in a tissue box. LOL

I stopped off to get cold medicine and ice pops, then rushed home to tag in for Allison. I got Ben to stop crying and chill for a bit, but then something strange happened with is face. It looked like his tongue swelled and he couldn't close his mouth.

We called the doctor and got the answering service. The doctor closed early for the holiday and they are closed all weekend. You know, because nobody gets sick over a holiday weekend. Why would anyone want to actually see the doctor? (that's a topic for another post) They said if you don't get a callback in 25 minutes to call again.

25 minutes? GTF out of here. If I don't get a callback in 25 minutes I'm getting a new doctor. I changed from my work clothes into shorts and 2 minutes later I was ready to go to the Urgent Care Center. I said "let's go."
Allison said "you don't want to wait for the callback, do you?"
I responded "absolutely not. I'm a little upset we're not out the door right now"

We hit the road, but I couldn't help but play fight scene from Independence Day in my head "...this isn't happening fast enough, get them outta there..." We were pulling into the parking lot of the urgent care center when the nurse called us and said Ben should be seen immediately.

He had swollen glands and a red throat. It wasn't strep. They said it was probably just a virus. Luckily, or unluckily depending on how you look at it, we already met our deductible, so $27 was all it cost. I wonder if my insurance would cover a haircut. Normally I just buzz my head myself, but for $1.20, if insurance covers it, I'll take that. I work for an insurance company, 'll see what I can do.

Saturday Ben was feeling a little better. I took my car to Honda for a $25 oil change. I left with the oil change, a new battery, new front brakes and a new AC fan motor. This is why I usually lease. No maintenance just gas. I hit 50,000 miles this week. 50K, I can't complain too much. The car has been very good to me. We went to Target, it smelled funny in the store. Like a fire or something. We shopped then left, the store was surrounded by cop cars, ambulances and 3 fire trucks and a bunch of firemen in full gear. Target, where we care about our customers. Thanks for looking out for me and my family Target. There's a fire in the store, no need to evacuate.Take your time...buy some goods.
I went to the UCF game Saturday night. They won 62-0. It was a video game score. Very ugly game, but fun and great weather.

Today was a cloudy day. We played in the backyard in a kiddie pool and blew some bubbles, then we went to a BBQ/Pool party. I made my homemade mac-n-cheese. No leftovers. It must have been good. Allison made her special double stuffed chocolate chip cookies. Ben spent all but 15-20 minutes in the pool.He fell in love with a Lego boat & Lego cars.

The cutest thing Ben did today, he dipped potato chips into onion dip and feed them to Allison and I. I don't like a big dip. Dip is not the meal. The chip is the meal. Dip is an accessory. I'm a light dipper. I had about 3 years of dip today in about 5 chips. Thanks Ben.

Abigail -
It appears that Abigail has turned and is head down, facing the exit. She's kicking and moving around a lot in there. More than Ben did, but I gotta tell you, I didn't feel a thing either time. ;)

Have a good Labor Day...back to work on Tuesday.

Daddy, This is MY BLOG!!

2011-06-30T22:47:00.000-04:00

I hope this isn't a sign of things to come. I think Ben got a little jealous of my post about Baby Girl C yesterday. Tonight at bath time there was an incident. An attention grabbing incident...which was probably my fault. It was like Ben said "Daddy, you know that song that you play in the car, that you're not supposed to play, but you play it anyway, then you turn to me and say, Don't say those words Ben, well, this is my blog! It's All About the Benjamins Daddy!" It sounds like something he would say. That or, "My question to you sir, is this my blog or not?" Yes, I'm watching too much Casey Anthony Trial.

*not for little ears*

Ok, so here's the story. I picked up Ben from the babysitter, then headed off to BJ's to pick up a rotisserie chicken for dinner. They didn't have any ready, so I had to walk around the store for 20 minutes. We stopped by the toy section, the electronics section then the bakery. They gave Ben a frosted sugar cookie. He loved it. He ate the whole thing.

We got home, he was giggling and silly. He had no interest in dinner. We played a bit, then it was bath time. He splashed around, played with his toys, then practiced his swimming. Flipping from his belly to his back, just like they teach him in class (good boy)

While laying on his back, he started making some bubbles. He announced them "bubbles!" Then suddenly he stood up with a panicked look on his face. I reached out to grab him and sit him down. (there's no standing in the bath tub) When I did, he grabbed my arm with both hands and started to grab onto me with his legs too.

I said "Whoa buddy? What's the matter?" He looked at the water, pointed and said "uh-oh" I looked and there was a little poop nugget. "No biggie. I'll fix that for you kid." As I swung him a few inches to the left I saw them. An East River Brown Trout and his friend the Bronze Dolphin. (there's nothing funnier than poop jokes/stories. See past post: Poop, Poop, Poop.)

I scooped him up out of the tub and yelled out to Allison "I need help" she came in, yelled GROSS and started cracking up. We moved him into our shower to finish getting him clean. I jumped in still wearing my shorts, shirt and glasses. Ben took the shower head and tried to spray the dog. He started to giggle. Molly tried to bite the water through the glass door. Ben started belly laughing. This was the hardest I've ever heard him laugh. I was in tears laughing at his laugh. It was awesome. After a few minutes he let me finish his bath and after THREE stories, we put him to bed.

What did I learn today? Next time they someone gives Ben a frosted sugar cookie, only let him eat half.

Shopping for Baby Girl Clothes

2011-06-29T23:05:00.000-04:00

Allison and I were shopping and we decided to take a look at newborn girl clothes. I kept picking out fancy dresses, like the ones a little girl would wear on Christmas Day. Allison told me she can't wear clothes like that everyday. She can't play in clothes like that. I argued that she could. What's the big deal, she can play in a dressl??

Allison picked out a jumper/onesie thing. I hated it. I thought it was ugly and that's what I told her. She said it's not ugly, it's so cute. I wanted to keep her in good spirits, so I said "Well maybe once I see it on her."

Without hesitation, she held it up to her belly and said "Well, what do you think?"
LOL That was a good one. I love pregnancy humor.

This is Why I Never Blog Anymore

2011-05-20T00:28:00.000-04:00

When Allison was pregnant the first time, I had all the time in the world to write blog posts. (Take some time to read the old posts. They are pretty good, if I do say so myself.)

Since Ben was born, my posts have been few and far between, but my life has never been better.

Here is a clip of how I spend most of my time now. After watching it, can you really blame me?

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

2011-04-27T21:20:00.000-04:00

Allison is doing well. She's 17 weeks today. The baby is forming bones, it weighs about 5-6 oz and is about 5-6 inches long from head to bottom. We have another sonogram in 2 weeks. Hopefully we'll find out the sex of the baby.

Ok onto Ben. Ben is doing great. His vocabulary is rapidly expanding. It seems like every other day he says something new. Today he repeated Donald Duck after I said it. I tried to get him to say Goofy, Mickey Mouse and Pluto too. He repeated them, but it didn't really sound like anything. However, he nailed Donald Duck. I guess no more Lil Wayne in the car. I don't want him to pick up any bad words. He's a good boy though. Just look what he does when I say "earmuffs"

Ben got a balloon last weekend when we went big boy furniture shopping. It's still hovering, so I tied it to his Mickey Mouse toy so he could play with it. I took it off of Mickey and it floated to the ceiling. I picked Ben up, lifted him over my head and he grabbed the string. He was so excited. He ran around the kitchen a few times with it, then mommy got home from work and he let it go.

It floated up to the ceiling again and I asked him "Ben, do you want to get your balloon?" He looked at the balloon, looked and me and said "yeah." Yeah buddy! Good job.

He also knows how old he is. Grammy taught him to raise his pointer finger when you ask him "How old are you?"

Flu Shots, The Flu and Prophylactics

2011-03-31T19:18:00.027-04:00

I don't embarrass easily, but I got pretty embarrassed last month.
We just recently found out that Allison was pregnant. It was still early, she hadn't even been to the doctor for her 6 week sonogram.

Anyway, Ben was really sick. We took him to the doctor and it turns out he had the flu. How could he get the flu? He had the flu shot. Allison stayed home with Ben. I didn't really want her near him, you never want a pregnant lady to get sick. So I left work early to spend some time with Ben and keep Allison away from him. I wasn't worried about getting sick. I had a flu shot. Bring it on.

Ben and I had a lot of fun. We watched Toy Story 1 & 2 a lot. We played in his play room and ate ice pops.

Allison and I were worried that she would get sick, so she called the doctor. She left a message, then she had to go to a function for work. When the doctor's office called back, I took the call. Yikes!

I explained the situation. Here's about how the conversation went:
ME: My wife is 4 or 5 weeks pregnant, but my son has the flu. Is there anything she can take or do?
NURSE: Has she been to the doctor yet?
ME: No, she has an appointment for next week.
NURSE: Hmmm, so you say she's pregnant, but she hasn't seen the doctor yet.???
ME: (getting pissed) Yeah! 4 positive pregnancy tests, I'm pretty sure she's pregnant.
NURSE: I will fax a prescription for Tamiflu and keep her away from your son.
ME: OK thanks.
NURSE: I'll fax it over. She has to take this prophylactic until it's finished and make sure she stays confined in a clean room.
ME: Um..wait, what? How does she have to take this medicine?
NURSE: It's a prophylactic, it just means preventative. It's a tablet form. Just take it with a glass of water.
ME: Oh. OK, thank you.

Fast forward to two weeks later. Ben is better and we are at Allison's doctor appointment.
It's a new nurse since Allison's first pregnancy, so we did our introductions. Allison says "We spoke, remember, my son had the flu"

The nurse immediately turns to me and says "YES! I remember talking to you about prophylactics! You gave me a good laugh that day. Prophylactic Man." The rest of the appointment went well. I went to my own doctor's appointment right after that...and it turns out I caught the flu too! Thanks Ben.

Since I was home from work for a few days, I decided to look up the definition of "Prophylactic." I thought it was a condom. who knew it had another or a real definition. It's been added to the list of words that have thrown me for a loop/embarrassed me. (see: Invalid ME: "What's an invalid motor coach?" Teacher: "You mean In-va-lid?" ME: confused stare.. )

Prophylactic

1. A medicine or course of action used to prevent disease.

2. A condom

What have you been up to?

2011-03-25T20:48:00.000-04:00

It's been almost 2 months since the last update, I'm sure your wondering what we've been up to.

Ben has lots of teeth now. He has 4 on top, 4 on bottom and half a molar on bottom. If you look and feel inside his mouth, he has 4 more teeth coming in. Poor little guy has his hands in his mouth most days now, he's a little clingy too, but I'll take that over some of the other teething horror stories I've heard.

Ben has gotten pretty handy with a spoon & fork too. Just this morning, he fed himself a bowl of Cheerios & Milk.

He tries to dress himself, he's good at putting on shoes (both mine and his), but only slip-on shoes. He hasn't quite grasped the Loop, Swoop & Pull technique yet.

He enjoys spending time with his best friend Molly. He does a dance while screeching when we first get home and then he walks her in the back yard.

Like his daddy, Ben's favorite food group is ice cream. He's able hold an ice cream cone and eat it all by himself. I think some of it actually goes in his mouth, but a lot of it goes on his face.

Some of it goes on his shirt too.

He found out how fun it is to play with a roll of toilet paper. Don't play with it too much buddy. You may need to spare a square one day.

During our last playdate, he got to drive a tractor, well he sat in the seat, then he went for a ride on the tractor.

Most recently he's learned the joys of sidewalk chalk. He has tried to color with crayons and Crayola color magic markers, but he doesn't put enough pressure, so you can't see much. The chalk was gold!

Is he a righty?

Or a lefty?

Either way, he's very messy.

Good boy, he even helps clean up.

Ben takes lots of trips to Disney World with Grammy and Poppy.

Here are some of the best shots of their time and some new friend.

Ben says "Hold on Poppy, I'm dropping the hammer" (Days of Thunder...anyone???)

I have so many more pictures and stories, but not a lot of time to put them all here. Check back this weekend. I'll have more stuff posted.

Time to Play Catch Up

2011-03-23T23:53:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I posted anything, but this hiatus was actually planned. I had a secret to keep and I thought it would be too difficult to blog and keep my secret. Well, it's time to let the cat out of the bag and I can start blogging again too.

The big reveal: We're having another baby! That's right Benjamin is going to be a big brother. He's such a great little boy, he's going to be a great big brother.

Allison is 12 weeks pregnant. Her due date is October 5th.
Here are some sonogram pictures of Baby C 2. I have a few posts planned about Ben and some redesigning of the site to do, but let's just start with these pictures.

Baby C 2 - 6 weeks

Baby C 2 - 12 Weeks

Disney World Day with Dad

2011-01-18T21:11:00.008-05:00

My in-laws are my babysitters two days a week. They took a vacation so I needed to take two days off of work to look after him. Ask me how upset I was about that. (really not upset at all. I wish I could do it everyday)

On Monday it rained, so I took Ben for a haircut, then we watched some movies and played some games inside.

On Tuesday I took Ben to Disney's Hollywood Studios. It was a great day. The sun was out. It was about 70 degrees with a light breeze. That's winter in FL ladies and gentlemen.

We started off at the Little Mermaid show, then we ran across to the Playhouse Disney Live on Stage show, then we went to meet Mickey Mouse, then we had a pretzel and a Mickey bar, THEN we did some other stuff. It was a busy day.

Ben made a friend. A girl friend. A girlfriend! I'll tell you about it, but first I need to get something off my chest. What's the deal with Brazil? Does anybody work or go to school there?

I've had passes to Disney World 3 out of the 5 years we've lived in FL. EVERY TIME I go to Disney World, I see multiple groups of kids and chaperons from Brazil. EVERY TIME!

Anyway, back to Ben and his girlfriend. Ben was doing people watching from his stroller. All day he was looking around quietly. While we were waiting on line to buy a Mickey Bar, Ben saw a group of girls from Brazil. He started pointing to her, smiling and screeching. She came over and pinched his cheeks. Ben smiled and got bashful.

She was a little too old for Ben and a little too young for me. But I compliment Ben on his taste in women. Brazilian girls are....ok....I better stop now, take a look at the pictures of Ben below.

Top 10 songs of 2010

2011-01-14T09:58:00.000-05:00

Every year since 2006 I have been keeping track of the number of plays each song on my iPod gets. At the end of each year, I turn the top 40 songs into a playlist. Last year and this year's list got burned to a CD so I can play them for Ben when he gets older.

This brings me to another topic. There are so many songs on my iPod with curses in them, it's ridiculous. I initially noticed this when I made a playlist for his birthday party. It wasn't a big deal, I found enough songs for a 3 hour party. But now that I pick him up from the sitter's house 4 days a week, I play a lot music for him, so it's becoming an issue.

Ben tries to sing along. He dances and most recently we taught him how to fist pump, so he does that too. He's not talking yet, but I'm afraid he'll hear an F-Bomb or other curse words in one of the songs and repeat it. So anytime a song with curse words come on, I skip to the next one. I do a lot of skipping.

Oh also...there are sometimes curse words in other languages in music. Here's a tip. If you don't know what the words mean, don't post them as your Facebook status. (a la - Girls, Girls Girls - Jay-Z: see below)

Anyway, here is my top 10 of 2010 for your enjoyment. What songs are in your top 10?

10. New York State of Mind - Billy Joel
If you're from NY, you have to like Billy Joel. I think there's something in the water.

9. Say Goodbye - Dave Matthews Band
DMB is awesome. This is one of my favorite songs by them. I still can't believe I've never seen him in concert. How is that possible?

8. Fix You - Coldplay
I used to think Coldplay was stupid, but then I saw them in concert and now I think they are awesome. This song is great.

7. New York, New York - Frank Sinatra
Another song about New York. Yankees fan or not, you grow up in NY, you know this song. It was played at my wedding and a lot this year in my car and office.

6. Girls, Girls, Girls - Jay-Z
I love girls, girls, girls, girls...I wanted to enter to this song at the wedding reception, but it was quickly vetoed. Still a great song though.

5. I Can Transform Ya - Chris Brown
Personally, I think Chris Brown is an a-hole. But he still makes good music. this was on my running playlist. It will get your energy up quickly.

4. Wonderwall - Oasis
Another favorite from the 90s. Funny story, I didn't like this song when it first came out. It took me a few months. Then I really got into their songs.

3. Mo Money, Mo Problems - Notorious B.I.G.
This song never gets old. Great since the 90s.

2. Welcome to the Black Parade - My Chemical Romance
This has been one of my favorite songs since it came out in 2006. It has been #1 in 2006, 2007, 2008. #2 in 2009 and #3 this year.

1. Empire State of Mind - Jay-Z & Alicia Keys
Yet ANOTHER song about NY. I loved this song since the first time they performed it at the MTV awards.

Honorable Mention: You're The Best - Joe Esposito
That's right. The fight theme from The Karate Kid. I put it on my running playlist. It made me laugh everytime it came on and kept me running again when I was thinking about stopping. Doubt me? Try it. You'll laugh, then pick it up a notch.

I LOVE my new chair!

2011-01-05T11:17:00.000-05:00

And he also loves Toy Story 2. He did not love Wheezy though (penguin toy) turned away and got upset anytime he was onscreen.

He's laughing at Woody playing with the dog. It's so crazy that he can watch something and react to it now. He's not a baby anymore, he's a real live boy.

Show Mommy How the Piggies Eat

2011-01-03T11:11:00.002-05:00

We had mini-strawberry shortcakes for dessert last night. Ben didn't want the cake or the Cool Whip. He only wanted the strawberries. And he wanted to eat them in a most peculiar way.

Goals for 2011

2011-01-01T20:28:00.004-05:00

I made a list of goals for 2010 instead of having a new years resolution. It worked out pretty well for me last year, so I thought I'd try it again in 2011. Check out my list of goals in 2011.

Goals for 2011

Spend more time with Ben and Allison.
Finish writing my book.
Make more money off of my writing.
Run 500 miles. (not at once)
Learn how to juggle.
Learn how to play Super Mario Bros theme on my keyboard.
Remain a size 34 pants for another year.
Post a picture everyday in 2011.
Teach Ben to say "Daddy" & "Awesome".
Do not curse in front of Ben.
Get my grandfather's trains and my RC car back into working order.
Work hard everyday. (Like you do the first few months of a new job)
Eat healthier and take care of my stomach.

I feel like there are more things I want to accomplish next year, but I can't remember them. I'll add them as I check things off.

Wish me luck and tell me what some of your goals are.

Best of 2010

2010-12-30T12:29:00.010-05:00

This is going to be a little harder than writing my Best of 2009 post. My 2009 was documented. Possibly over documented right here on this blog. I did very little blogging in 2010. I'll have to make this list by memory (Oh dear God) or by looking back at pictures. Just like last year, I'm sure I'll leave something or someone out. If you's like to add something to the list, comment below. And now..onto my list

January:
1) Had a dance party with Allison and Ben to Neil Sedaka - Waking Up Is Hard to Do
2) Water pipe burst. Not a best moment, but very memorable. 1/10/10
3) Watching the NY Jets playoff run. It stopped in Indy, but it was a great unexpected thrill.
Favorite post: Almost 4 Months Old

February:
1) Ben's photoshoot with Victoria Shade. www.victoriashade.com
2) Watching the Winter Olympics
3) Opening a Garden City office with a stomach bug during a snow storm.
Favorite post: (only post of February) A Really Long Time

March:
1) Trip to NY for Danny & Bridgette's Wedding.
2) Taking Ben to see his first Mets game. In true Mets fashion, they lost to the Braves in extra innings.
3) Lunch at Hooters with my old CA crew.
4) I wont tickets to In The Heights - Broadway Across America.
Favorite Post: It's a Nightmare

April:
1) Ben started crawling (I think)
2) Great American Pie Festival - Yes! It's as awesome as it sounds. We were even on the CBS Early Show. 1:40 mark
3) Ran a 12K (7.46 miles)
4) Personal best 5K - 4/24/10 - 27:45
Favorite Post: I'm a Bad Dad

May:
1) Ben started cruising (I think)
2) Ben took Survival Swimming
3) Family trip to Cocoa Beach and I got a new hat at Ron Jon.
Favorite Post: Poop, Poop, Poop

June:
1) Disney Vacation!
2) My 34th Bday
3) I got World cup Fever
4) My 1st fathers day and the 1st annual Father's Day eve poker game.
Favorite Post: Disney Vacation Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 A, Day 3 B

July:
1) July 4th vacation on Miami Beach
2) Allison got a new car (new to her. It's a 2008 Honda Pilot)
3) Ben had ice cream for the first time.
Favorite Post: Dad vs Parent

August:
1) Went to NY for work and got to go to my niece's 5th birthday party
2) I got to see Citi-Field for the first time (only the outside)
3) Started writing for a Dearwomen.com
Favorite Post: (only post of August) Bi-Weekly Update

September:
1) Ben's 1st Birthday
2) Ben took his first steps - at the babysitter's house!
3) Ben's 1st Birthday party - we had
4) Allison's birthday. I made her an AWESOME BBQ King Crab dinner
5) Ben's first haircut
Favorite Post: Happy 1st Birthday Benjamin

October:
1) Ben started walking full-time
2) Trick or Treating with Ben and his friends
3) Weekend beach getaway with my wife's family from NY
Favorite Post: Today Was a Good Day

November:
1) Thanksgiving in NY visiting with friends and family
2) Playing Bingo for the first time at Foxwoods Casino
3) Taking Ben to the Yo Gabba Gabba show.
Favorite Post: Fun in the Sandbox

December:
1) Watching Ben open gifts for Hanukkah and Christmas
2) Going to see Jay's Lights with Ben, family and friends.
3) Hearing that Ben got his first kiss.
Favorite Post: NONE

OK. Onto my favorite things of 2010
Favorite moment of 2010: Ben's birthday. We were supposed to have 94 people at the party. Due to sickness and Disney on Ice, we ended up with 76 people! It's a wonder feeling that that many people wanted to celebrate Ben's birthday with us.
Favorite song: Don't Stop Believin' - Glee (shut up! don't judge me LOL)
Favorite CD: Eminem - Recovery
Favorite movie - Drama: Extraordinary Measures
Favorite movie - Comedy: Date Night or Little Fockers or She's Out of my League
Favorite move - Action: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt1
Favorite new show: Raising Hope
Favorite gadget: iphone 3GS
Favorite App: Angry Birds Seasons
Favorite Website: Facebook & Twitter
Favorite Radio Station: XL106.7
Favorite LOL Moment: Taking Ben out of the bathtub and holding him over the toilet because I saw him trying to poop.

Review of 2010 Goals

2010-12-29T12:20:00.008-05:00

On New Year's Eve 2009 I wrote down my list of goals for 2010. Some I met. Some I didn't even come close to meeting and some are just laughable now that I know what life with a kid is like. I have a well behaved, joy of a child, but still my personal time is very limited. So while goals 2, 3, 9, 10, 11 and 12 would be awesome, they just didn't make the realistic cut.

But 2011 is a new year! So we'll try it again. I'll post 2011's goals in the next day or 2. Here's how I did in 2010. Goals I met are green. Goals I didn't achieve are red.

Goals for 2010

Spend less time on Facebook and Twitter and more time with Ben and Allison - I did a good job of this. I don't get on Facebook or Twitter until after Ben is in bed and Allison and I are both usually on Facebook while we watch TV together.
Spend the first hour after Ben goes to sleep writing. I find this hilarious. Ben goes to bed between 8-8:15. I then finish cleaning up after dinner and doing whatever chores need to get done. It's usually 8:30 - 9:00 before I can say we are "done." Add an hour of writing onto that and it's bed time. I'd never spend anytime with Allison. I'll need to address this in 2011.
Finish writing my book. See above.
Make money off of my writing. This I did. I wrote for http://www.fireflyworldwide.com/ and also for http://www.dearwomen.com/. I didn't make enough money to retire, but I did make enough money to ensure that at least something went into savings every month.
Run a 5K under 30 minutes - I achieved this goal 3 times. My best time was 27:45 on April 24th. I also recorded 27:47 on June 15th.
Run a 10K in an hour - I didn't run a 10K this year, but I did run a 12K in April. What's a mix of red and green? I want partial credit.
Run a 15K - just finish, without stopping - See above
Run a half marathon - just finish without stopping - I didn't register (or train) for a 1/2 marathon. I am however partnered up with my wife's cousin to run Disney 1/2 marathon Jan 2012.
Learn how to juggle - I tried to juggle a number of times, but just like William Hung, I have no professional training in juggling.
Learn how to play Super Mario Bros theme on my keyboard - I can play the first 6 notes, but that was not the goal. A friend sent me the sheet music, so I'm that much closer. Check back with me mid/late 2011.
Learn how to play Clocks by Coldplay on my keyboard - I can play Ode to Joy, but I didn't even try this one.
Learn how to play NY State of Mind by Billy Joel on my keyboard - I can play when the Saint's go Marching In, but I didn't even try this one.
Remain a size 34 for another year - I won't lie, there were days when my pants were not buttoned because I couldn't button them, but right now, on 12/29/10 my size 34s are buttoned! Another year? that's gonna be a tough one, but let's try it!
Create a new blog and post a picture on it everyday in 2010 - I had fun doing this, but I ran out of time. I got too busy to post. I'll try it again. I really did enjoy it and I learned some tricks to post faster. I posted 236/365.
Teach Ben to say "Daddy" & "Awesome"- Ben can say Dada, but it sounds like Na-Na. He cannot say awesome, but he can fist pump. That's a win if you ask me.
Do not curse in front of Ben - I have curbed a lot of my swearing by saying "son of a nut cracker, jerk-face and ah CRACKERS!," but I still drop the occasional swear word here and there. Luckily, he's not talking yet, so no copycat swearing.

Ben loves his roller coaster.

2010-11-14T20:34:00.002-05:00

30 mins of fun

2010-11-13T18:03:00.001-05:00

Ben likes watermelon

2010-11-05T09:00:00.000-04:00

Fun in the sand box.

2010-11-03T23:41:00.000-04:00

Today was a good day

2010-10-20T21:27:00.003-04:00

Work was work, nothing special. One good thing that happened at work was I was offered tickets to the Orlando Magic game. Unfortunately I couldn't go to the game and I had to pass. That's the second set of tickets I had to pass up this week. I was also offered tickets to Monday Night Football in Jacksonville. I had to pass on those too.

Poor me right? Well I'm glad I didn't go to the game tonight. Tonight was kind of a good night for our family. NO! We're not pregnant!

Ben had a big day. 1) he flipped on a light switch for the first time. 2) He walked for about 45 minutes. 3) Got mad when we took away his nigh-night bear. 4) Got mad when he wanted to go to bed.

He has walked a few times before, but he was very tentative and wobbly with his steps. Tonight he was in the zone. Allison and I sat on either side of the dinning room. He walked back and forth between us for 30 minutes. He laughed and laughed. Unfortunately I can't upload any pix or vids right now, but I will once the website lets me.

I made his bottle and we headed upstairs to put him to bed. He WAS NOT HAPPY. He cried and thrashed for about 5 minutes. He was having fun and didn't want to go to bed. The only thing to make him happy...putting him down so he could walk more. He wouldn't even wait for his pajama bottoms, he had to roam free! (I have vids of this too)

Funny how Allison and my reaction differed. I was proud of him, but nervous because now he can reach more things that are higher & pull them down onto him and he can fall easier & possibly get hurt easier. Allison was proud of him, but sad that her baby boy was growing up.

Well, you know what they say. Men are from Mars, women are crazy. LOL Have a good night.

Good thing I'm not a house elf.

2010-10-14T20:53:00.003-04:00

Tonight I didn't want to do the dishes so I asked Allison to switch with me. She would do the dishes and I would do bath time. Bath time is usually a lot of fun, but not tonight.

As I was getting him ready for the bath, he was already getting a little cranky, but usually as soon as he gets in the tub he perks right up. He is starting to learn how to make his bath toys squirt water.

He had his firefighter duck and was filling it with water...and squirting it out. He was excited and flopping around like a fish. He hit the back of his head on the faucet. He didn't cry, but he wasn't happy so I decided to move him to the other side of the tub. I guess I moved him too far back and when he turned he lost balance and fell backwards.

He hit his head again, this time on the back of the tub and this time he did cry. I felt so bad for him. He was crying really hard and even tried to climb out of the tub. I let the water out of the tub and gave him a hug. He cried for a few more minutes and really off and on until he got his night time bottle.

He's OK, but I feel bad. I feet like I should smash my head or something like Dobby the house elf. I'll make it up to him tomorrow. When mommy goes out to dinner...daddy will take him out for ice cream. Now hopefully mommy doesn't read this until after tomorrow night.

Planting the seed

2010-10-07T21:00:00.003-04:00

If you remember during Allison's pregnancy, she had little to no cravings. I'm trying to work on that now for the next pregnancy.

HOLD UP!!! Let me stop you right there. I am in no way making an announcement about an upcoming baby here. I'm not even announcing that we are trying for another one. Although when we do start trying I'm not going to announce it either. We very well could be trying right now, and you wouldn't even know it. But we're not...but we could be...but we're not. Seriously, we're not.

Anyway, back to the story. Just like Ralphie in A Christmas Story, I struggled for just the right pregnancy craving hint: (6:30 into the clip)

My hint.
Me: You know, my friend Melissa craved ice cream every night during her pregnancy. Her daughter had all her teeth by 6 months, was walking by 10 months and is currently 18 months and writes perfect cursive.

Allison: WHAT?

Me: Oh nothing. You look pretty tonight. (cough ICE CREAM cough cough) (I may have overplayed my hand)

I was very disappointed during the last pregnancy that Allison didn't have cravings. I was very excited to make midnight runs for ice cream or a jar of pickles. Or rush to the supermarket and buy a box of cookies and cool whip just as they are closing. You know heroic stuff like that. Nothing! Well not this time. I LOOOOOOOVE ice cream and of course the main and real reason, is that I want to do nice things for my pregnant wife. ;)

I'll let you if my tactics work when the time comes...which if you remember from above, is not yet. Have a good night.

Ben can walk

2010-09-29T21:00:00.004-04:00

So I picked up Ben from the babysitter's house after work tonight and she says to me "he's a really good walker." So I said "yes, he's getting close. He still holds on though." She replied "What do you mean, he took 6 steps today, walking towards the TV."

We've seen him take 1 or 2 steps, then immediately crumple down to the ground, then start crawling again, but never a full walk.

So I put him down and he crawled around a bit, then the next thing you know, he stood up and took about 12 steps into the living room! Again, later on in the kitchen, I put him down again and sure enough...he walked out of the kitchen into the hallway. That's seriously an 8 to 10 foot walk.

I took Ben home and had to decide if I tell Allison what I saw or not. I didn't tell her, but as soon as she got home I put Ben on the floor and let him show her. He took about 12-14 steps. We tried to get him to walk a few more times. Check out some of the video we took.

Happy 1st Birthday Benjamin

2010-09-25T00:07:00.026-04:00

Ben is officially one year old. You're probably expecting a long post about how great a year it's been and how much my life has changed because of Ben, but you're not going to get that here.

I did write that post, but I turned it into a letter that I will share with Ben. I haven't decided if I will put it in the time capsule or save it for when he has a child of his own, but in any event, it's not getting posted here.

I don't want to leave you completely hanging, so here is a photo-journal of Ben's first year of life. Enjoy.

September 2009 - It's a Boy
This picture was taken 9/15/09 at 4:38 AM. Just 5 minutes after Ben was born.
This picture is from the ripe old age of 10 minutes
October 2009 - 1 Month - Trick or Treat
Ben's 1st Halloween. He didn't get to eat any candy, but he held some and watched The Great Pumpkin.
November 2009 - 2 Months - Gobble Gobble
I love tummy time!
I got my bib and I'm ready for turkey.
Staring contest...don't make me laugh.
December 2009 - 3 Months - Merry Christchanukah
Lunch with Mommy's friends. I love the ladies
Ho Ho Ho

January 2010 - 4 months - Happy New Year

February 2010 - 5 months

March 2010 - 6 months - Play Ball!
A visit to NY and a Spring Training game
Hello ladies!

1st baseball game. Mets @ Braves. True to form, the Mets blew it in the 9th.

April 2010 - 7 Months - Happy Easter
Chillin' poolside. GTL baby

Very excited to host the first playdate.
Stripped down to color Easter eggs.
Look what the Easter Bunny gave me!!!
Hi guys, I stand now.
May 2010 - 8 Months - Happy Mother's Day
Cool, Daddy's hat fits me.
1st trip to the beach.
Hi!
June 2010 - 9 Months - Happy Father's Day & 1st Disney visit
Whoops, dad forgot to put on the swimmy diaper
Check out my cool ears.
Proof that Ben isn't always smiling.
This should be on a Disney poster.
July 2010 - 10 Months - Happy 4th
Character Dinner to celebrate Mommy's new job.
I love fish!
Swimming in the ocean with Dad.
Yeah...I love the ladies.
Vacationing is AWESOOOME
Hitting Publix
August 2010 - 11 Months - Baby Gates
Helping Dad put up the baby gates.
I'm up to something...
September 2010 - 1 year!!!! Happy Birthday Benjamin!
The Birthday Boy
Check out my new hat.
Does this shirt make me look 1? I don't get it, but mommy says it's funny.
Reading about this very hungry caterpillar at my new desk.
mmmmmmm...Monkey Cake
Hi there!
Hello again.
J-E-T-S
JETS JETS JETS

Ben's First Haircut

2010-09-14T22:55:00.001-04:00

Every time we go out, someone stops us to tell us how cute Ben is. It's one of those things that you never get tired of hearing. I always feel proud after hearing it. I say to myself "yeah, that's right...I made that!"

Anyway...if you've seen Ben in the past month, you know his hair was out of control. Like his dad, he's a hairy little Italian. (He's 1/4 Italian anyway) I need my hair cut every week and a half, although I let it go 2 to 3 weeks now. I'm married with child, who am I trying to impress?

Ben's hair was in his eyes. He looked like the smallest Bieber fan in the world. It drove Allison and I crazy. So we made an appointment to have his hair cut at the barber shop in the Magic Kingdom in Disney World. Aunt Stephanie and Uncle Steven took cousin Jack there for his first haircut and it was pretty awesome. We decided that day that when we had a kid, we'd be back for the first haircut.

For those of you who don't see Ben often, here are some before pix. Cute, yes, but hair is out of control.

I met Allison and my in-laws at Disney World after work. We had an appointment, but like everywhere else when you have an appointment, we still had to wait. When Ben got in the chair, the lady put about 10 Mickey Mouse stickers on him. They distracted him. I wasn't too happy that they went on his skin. I took video of his first haircut. Mommy and Grammy kept Ben happy and Poppy was in charge of still photography. He got a bunch of good shots. Here are a few of the action shots.

All done! Here's the finished product:

How you doin?

And now we have ice cream to celebrate

What a big day for a little boy...he's exhausted.

Bi-Weekly Update

2010-08-13T11:59:00.005-04:00

Hey guys. I planned to do a weekly update, but I got sick, then Allison got a new job, then last week was completely nuts and I haven't had a chance to write. I had to go to NY and NJ for work. It was pretty cool because along with working, I also got to meet my new niece and attend my other niece's 5th birthday party.

Work was good. I drove around the city across the bridges, which is always fun/annoying. I drove next to CitiField. I really wanted to stay an extra night and go to a game, but I missed Ben and Allison too much and I made sure I made the flight.

In other news, Allison and I started working for www.DearWomen.com We are both writing and doing some behind the scene stuff. We are still in Beta right now, but I'm excited about it.

This is a blog about Ben, so let me get to him. Ben is doing much better. We thought he was teething and that was causing him to be cranky, but no teeth yet, so he must have caught a bug.

He is awesome at standing now. You can see that he wants to walk, but he still secures himself by grabbing onto something before he steps. He did pick a foot up and maybe move it an inch without holding onto anything, but I'm not going to count that as a step. Sorry buddy.

Ben LOVES eating. He doesn't want baby food anymore. He wants real food. He loves chicken, peas, carrots, cheerios and most of all cheese. Something else Ben loves...the TELEPHONE. He holds it to his ear and screams into it.

Exciting news...Ben has an appointment for his first haircut next week!

It's been difficult to take good pix and vids since anytime he sees a phone or camera he goes after it, but here are a few recent pics and vids.

Ben and his monkey just chillin

Hi, I'd like to order a pizza!

This Facebook stuff is hard.

Ben enjoying dinner

Ben standing and hugging

Weekly update

2010-07-30T13:13:00.002-04:00

Well, it may have come down to this. Between working, writing and running (well maybe not so much with the running) I haven't had time to blog. I want to at least let you know what Ben's been up to this week.

Ben had his first fever. It was a low-grade fever. Only 99.6, but still a fever. It broke overnight and he was fine.
Ben might be teething. He is drooling like never before. I'm surprised he hasn't dehydrated from it.
Ben is starting to stand on his own. He will crawl up to one of us (or the couch) stand up while holding on...then let go. He stands for 10-15 seconds then grabs hold again or sits down. We clap and he goes crazy smiling and screeching. It's awesome. I wish I could post a video, but every time my iphone comes out, he attacks it.
Ben called China. Well maybe it wasn't China, but he made a phone call from Grammy's house.
Ben LOVES fish sticks. Our friend Ashley gave us a kids meals cook book. One of the recipes was Cod Fish Sticks. He could not get enough. He also love cheese. Dislikes...bubbles from a bubble bath.
Ben had ice cream again. This time it went down without incident.
We picked up the Honda Pilot after the leather seats were installed. It looks great.
I tried to explain how much I love Ben to a buddy who's trying to make a baby. I think that's impossible to explain unless you are a parent.

I think that's all for now. I know I have forgotten a ton of stuff, but at least it's something. Have a good weekend.

The Circle of Trust

2010-07-22T23:19:00.004-04:00

You guys have seen Meet the Parents right? If you haven't you really need to watch it. It's really funny. Ben Stiller is a real funny Focker. At one point in the movie Robert DeNiro talks about the Circle of Trust.

I always thought that when I had kids, it would be me, Allison and the kid inside the circle. It would be us 3 against the world. It's like that most of the time, but I have had moments where I kicked Allison out of the circle. Has this happened to any of you?

Allison is a fantastic mother and she takes much better care of Ben than I do, but there are times where I have to kick her out of the Circle of Trust. As you read earlier on the blog, my job is to protect my son from danger. If I sense a threat it's my job to neutralize the threat. But what happens when the threat is Allison?

It might make more sense if I give you an example. We took Ben to Twistee Treat for his first taste of ice cream (which he loved by the way) Anyway, I always get a small swirl. Vanilla ice cream w/ Reese's pieces. Allison said that Ben could not have any of my ice cream because there is peanut butter in it and kids are often allergic to peanut butter and they also are not supposed to have it before 1 year because their body can't digest it.

We went with Uncle Mark and Aunt Kristin. We forgot to get Ben his own spoon so he could have some of Allison's vanilla cone. I asked Mark if he could get me a spoon for Ben. He did, but he put it in his ice cream...which also had peanut butter.

Allison took the spoon, ate what was on it and began to try to feed Ben with it. DANGER DANGER DANGER. That triggered an alarm and in a split-second we went from a happy family to The Terminator and Sara Connor (Terminator 1, when he tries to kill her, not T2 when he tries to protect her) I flipped out. I made her stop what she was doing. Do Not feed Ben that scoop of ice cream. It has peanut butter on it, you said Ben can't have peanut butter. She said it was fine because she cleaned the spoon. I disagreed.

My sister is allergic to peanut butter. She used to break out just from the smell of it. And you couldn't use the same knife when making a PB&J sandwich because that would contaminate the jelly and it would bother her. So with this background, I didn't think that just licking off the spoon was good enough.

However, when I get mad or defensive, I have a hard time expressing myself. So I really could not get this point across to Allison. I just kept saying "he can't have peanut butter" and she kept on saying "but, there's no peanut butter." Every time we did this I just got madder and madder. Eventually I said something that made her cry and made other tables look at us, but she stopped trying to feed Ben. (Sorry honey)

I wanted to rip the spoon out of her hand and throw it across the parking lot, but I thought that would not end well for me. I also thought about taking the spoon and flicking her in the forehead with it. Mostly because it would be funny, but also to get her attention. Knowing that would end worse for me than Spoon Javelin, I just kept arguing about peanut butter. I think we eventually got a new spoon or we just cleaned it a few more times. Either way, Ben lived and he LOVES ice cream.

Allison's current status: In the Circle

MMMMMMM Ice Cream!!!!

Dad vs Parent??

2010-07-20T06:04:00.001-04:00

So I'm really good at being a dad, but I'm horrible at being a parent. What am I talking about? Well I'm glad you asked.

Being a dad.
I think being a dad includes taking care of Ben. Feeding him, changing his diaper, playing with him. Basically keeping him alive and safe. Keeping him clean and also making him happy while teaching him things. Direct interaction with Ben. I'm awesome at that.

Being a parent.
I think being a parent is how I interact with other children/parents when I'm with Ben. Basically interactions with others that have an effect on Ben. I'm finding out that I am really really bad at this.

Here are two examples, my defense of my actions and my realization of what I should have done in the situation. If you have any advice, I'm all ears. Seriously. I need to get better at this parenting stuff.

Example 1:
Location: Disney World - Waiting in line for the monorail.
Time: Very late after 11:PM
Ben: Sleeping in his stroller.

A little girl 5-8 years old was fighting with her brother 10-12 years old over a Nintendo DS. The little girl was standing directly next to Ben's stroller. I saw the two kids fighting over the Nintendo DS. They were pulling it back and forth, one of them was going to get that DS.

I played out the scenarios in my head. 1) The little girl will win the DS, but she'll have to pull so hard that she wont be able to control the DS. It will go flying and hit Ben in the head. 2) The little girl will lose the DS. She'll go flying and crash into Ben's stroller. Maybe hitting Ben in the head, definitely waking him up.

I was not OK with either of these scenarios. So I politely tapped the little girl on the shoulder. When I say tapped, I mean I used 2 fingers and gently tapped, like you would pet a baby bunny or stroke a baby human's head. I wasn't hitting a buzzer on Family Feud!! The little girl and her brother stopped fighting over the DS. Disaster averted.

Allison yelled at me. She said "Just say excuse me" My defense 1) They didn't speak English. 2) "Excuse me" would not have worked while the kids were in the middle of a DS battle.

Allison told me that I got a lot of dirty looks. My reply, pardon my French, "Who gives a shit about dirty looks? I'm protecting Ben. They can give me dirty looks all night, but they should be controlling their kids" I said it loud enough for the family to hear, but like I said, I don't think they spoke English. After the fact, after I calmed down, I realized I should not have touched the little girl at all. I should have somehow moved the stroller.

Allison response: "How would you react if someone touched Ben?" I can't tell you how I would really react. That would take my PG-13 blog post and make it R rated. But it wouldn't be pretty.

Example 2:
Location: Beach - 4th of July
Time: Around 8:15PM
Ben: Playing on a blanket on the beach.

We were on the beach waiting for fireworks to start. There were lots of families on the beach lighting off fireworks, but they were 1) small fountains and 2) far away from us.

A family of 5 or 6 people came onto the beach followed by 5 kids 10-13 years old. They all had huge rockets and lighters. The adults kept walking down the beach, but the kids stopped directly even with us (but 10-15 feet back) and started trying to light the rocket.

I was OK with the fountains, but I was not OK with 5 kids, trying to light one rocket 10 feet away from my family. Call me crazy, but it left me feeling very uneasy. I went up to them and very nicely asked if they would move a little further down the beach.

They moved down the beach then one of the adults walked up to the kids and I read his lips. He asked the kids "what did that guy say to you?" They kids said "asked us to move down" The guy made a face like WTF, what's the big deal and looked over at me. I looked right at him and nodded my head as if to say "what's up?" Nothing happened, but I was waiting for that guy to do something stupid. Needless to say, I didn't enjoy the fireworks on the beach and I had to have a few beers to calm down when we got back to the room.

I felt like I was playing Missile Command in real life. I had my head on a swivel looking for stray fireworks and also seeing if the dude in the Adidas sweat suite was gonna start something. It was a rough evening.

Allison said that I probably should have gone over to the adults and asked them to have their kids move down. My defense 1) By the time that happened, the kids would have gotten the rocket lit. 2) He's a douchebag in an Adidas sweat suite, is he really gonna do anything?

Allison's response: How would you react if someone went up to Ben and said something? You would get very defensive wouldn't you? My reply, I can actually share with you this time. I would go up to the guy and say "what's up? you have something to say?" I would be very defensive of Ben.

Then Allison said I need to calm down. That I'm being too protective and it's gonna get me into trouble one day. She's probably right.

She said when I'm out with Ben, I'm not a happy guy. I put on a mean face and if anyone comes close to us, they get the look of death. She also said I do not speak nicely to people when Ben is around, that I'm kind of a dick. (more French, I'm very international today)

Well, I don't know how to change that. My job as a dad is to protect my son. If I have to piss off a few people to do it, no sweat off my back. As long as my boy is safe. I'd rather have a family give me nasty looks then Ben get a DS to the head and I'd rather have a DB stare me down all night then Ben get burned by a stray rocket.

Seriously, if you have gone through this, I'll take tips. I'm a quick study.

My face hurts

2010-07-19T21:08:00.002-04:00

That title reminds me of an old joke.
Person 1: Does your face hurt?
Person 2: No, why?
Person 1: Cause it's killing me.
And....rim shot...and scene.

Anyway, the past few weeks I noticed that when I feed Ben, my face starts to hurt. I couldn't figure it out. Am I grinding my teeth on the ride home from work? Damn traffic! What's up with my face hurting? Well I finally figured it out.

I noticed today that with every spoonful of food I give Ben, as he opens him mouth, I open my mouth. I open it wide for every bite. THAT'S why my mouth hurts. Did that happen to anyone else? I wonder when it till stop. I realized I was doing it and I made a conscious effort to stop it tonight, but to no avail. I'll keep you posted.

Anyway, enjoy a picture of Ben enjoying mixed vegetables and chicken.

It's a New Car!!!

2010-07-18T17:14:00.012-04:00

Well, it's not exactly new, but thanks to NBCs clever slogan "If you haven't seen it, it's new to you" I can say, that I have a new 2008 Honda Pilot.

Allison and I knew we wanted to start a family sooner than later, so right after our wedding we started looking at SUVs. I mean right after our wedding. I think we got the Honda CR-V the weekend after we returned from our Honeymoon.

It was a good car. It treated us well. It was big enough for Allison, Molly and I. And probably big enough for Allison, Ben, Molly and I, but not our stuff. Shopping was an adventure with the stroller in the trunk. Packing the trunk after a trip to BJ's or Costco was like a game of Tetris. Rotate and move each item to make if fit perfectly into place.

Road Trips since we added Ben were rough. We probably could have packed lighter, but just the essentials filled us up pretty quickly. A stroller, pack-n-play, 2 suitcases. The trunk is full. It's now time to get creative.

It's funny, we bought the CR-V because we thought it would give us plenty of room when we eventually had kids. We even thought, it would be plenty big for one kid and it would maybe be big enough to handle a second kid. LOL Sadly that was not the case.

Anyway, on to bigger and better. The Honda Pilot is bigger than the CR-V. It has 3rd row seating and tons of trunk space. The stroller fits longways in the back leaving the whole other side for storage. We went grocery shopping today and 12 bags of groceries fit with no problems. There was almost too much room and the bags were jostling around. Oh and yeah, 12 bags of groceries? I swear I have no idea where all that food goes. I feel like I never eat and there is never anything to eat in the house, but that's a post for another day. The thing that is different about the Pilot is that it's the first used car either of us has purchased since 2000. So Hopefully it's onto bigger and better.

We went to Headquarter Honda and we had a good experience. Keith and Chris helped us. They were both good guys. Jeff was the sales manager that helped us. He has a foreign accent, but he was a good guy too. They are the Greenest (environment friendly) dealer around. Is that why we went there? No. W went there because it's about 30 miles closer than the next Honda dealership, but it's pretty cool that they are green. Wish us luck with the "new" Pilot.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention. The upholstery had a few stains. We complained and said unless they got the stains out, we couldn't but they car. They did one better than remove the stains. They are installing leather for us. And, we currently have free XM Radio. It will remain free until the previous owner cancels their subscription. Remember that episode of Friends where Chandler and Joey got free porn? It's a lot like that. Until it dies, XM Radio is staying on.

Now lets have a history lesson. Here are all the cars we've had and a little story.
This is the first time we've bought used since our first cars. My first car was an 1984 Mercury
Capri. I got it in 1993. I think we paid $1200 for it. It lasted a few years, but not before I put 3 or 4 times what I paid for it initially in upgrades and repairs into it. (Mostly repairs)

My next used car was a 1994 Chevy Cavalier. I think I got it in 96 or 97. It was a very good car, but I got a new job, making more money and I decided I wanted to get a new car. I got a brand new 2000 Oldsmobile Alero. I loved that car. It was a dream on wheels. ;)

After that I was introduced to Honda. I had to pay off some debt, so by trading in the Alero for a Civic, I was able to save about $110 a month. I got a 2003 Honda Civic 4 door. That struggled to make the drive down to FL and when it got here, it could not handle having the AC running 24x7 so I had to turn that in.

I got a 2006 Honda Accord. Coming out of the Honda Civic, this thing was a beast! I pressed the gas, it moved. It was not an Alero, but it got me from point A to point B quickly and with air conditioning.

That was a lease and it was going to run out in October, Ben was due in September, so we didn't want to be looking at cars with a newborn or a 9 month pregnant woman. In February I got a 2009 Honda Civic. This one was redone and I really like it a lot. I plan to drive this into the ground and make it last 10 years. wish me luck.

I can't go too much into details on Allison's cars, but here they are. Allison's first car was a 1991 Ford Probe. She got it in 1998 (I think) Her first new car came in 2000. It was a 1999 Chevy Tracker. It was purple with a white soft top, but she liked to call it eggplant.

For one reason or another, she got rid of Suzy and got a 2001, 2 door Fire Engine Red Honda Civic. After that she got a 2005 Infinity G35. It was the 4 door, but it was still a beast. It had some balls on it. It was hard to drive under 60 and you can easily drive 86MPH on Disney property and get pulled over on the way to your Disney Wedding Consultation appointment. I'm not saying this happened, but I'm saying it could very easily happen.

That gas guzzler left to make room for the 2007 Honda CR-V and 45,000 miles later we now have a 2008 Honda Pilot, which we also plan on driving into the ground. We'd like to have a year where we have no car payments. If you think about how much money has been spent on car payments in the last 10 years it's disgusting, but we always had reliable vehicles and were never left the lurch.

Here are the pix. See if you can match them up and leave some comments on them.
My Cars
1) 1984 Mercury Capri
2) 1994 Chevy Cavalier
3) 2000 Oldsmobile Alero
4) 2003 Honda Civic
5) 2006 Honda Accord
6) 2009 Honda Civic

Allison's Cars
1) 1991 Ford Probe
2) 1999 Chevy Tracker
3) 2001 Honda Civic
4) 2005 Infinity G35
5) 2007 Honda CR-V
6) 2008 Honda Pilot

Happy Father's Day to me!

2010-07-06T20:01:00.002-04:00

Holy cow am I behind on posts. It's not because I haven't been trying. I have 5 posts in draft mode. I'll bang a few out tonight if all goes according to plan.

June 20, 2010 was my first Father's Day. Well that's not exactly true, it all depends on who you ask I guess. If you ask me, last year was my first Father's Day. While it's true Ben hadn't been born yet, I was already doing one of the my jobs as a Father. I was taking care of him by taking excellent care of Allison. But if you ask anyone else, that does not count.

Oh well, water under the bridge. Let's talk about Father's Day 2010. Aunt Donna and Uncle Doug called to wish me a happy fathers day. While we were talking we asked Doug if he remembered his first fathers day. He didn't really remember what they did, so they said to make sure I documented it. Well, good thing I have a blog, the perfect place for it.

Father's day actually started out on Saturday night. I was invited to go down the block and play poker with some of the other dads on the block. There were 8-10 of us. The girls had their own get together two houses down. They were supposed to go swimming, but it rained all night. From what I hear they still had fun though.

Poker was fun. I finished tied for 5th. Three other guys got knocked out on the same hand as me. I was bluffing that I had a straight. I didn't scare the guys that had 2 pairs or the guy that actually had the straight. I had a pair of 8s. Yeah, I'll go all in with a pair of 8s. Makes playing poker with me fun, I'm unpredictable.

Once they finished up we started another round. Only five guys played the second go around. I won! That was a nice little Father's Day gift to myself. I had a few beers and a few shots of tequila. I wasn't drunk, but I was feeling good.

I woke up on Fathers day around 8:30. I heard Ben crawling across the bed, then he finally got to me and I woke up. He is always so happy in the morning. (he's happy all the time, but especially when he first wakes up)

Allison made waffles and brown-n-serve sausage. My favorites. We gave Ben some waffle and he liked it. He's my son after all, was there ever any doubt that he would? Allison gave me four shirts and two pairs of pants that all had to be exchanged because they were too small or because I am too fat, depending on how you look at it. I choose to believe they were too small, I suggest you do the same. That was a good gift, I really needed pants and shirts. Ben gave me a really cool travel coffee mug with 10-15 pictures of me and him on it. I'm not supposed to have caffeine, so I've been filling it with water.

We went to the pool and played for about two hours. Before we left, Ben had to practice his survival swimming. If you've never seen it, it's rough to watch at first. It really looks like we're trying to drown the baby, but it's quite the contrary. We're doing this so he doesn't drown. He was a champ. He floated, flipped then floated and floated again. There were some ladies at the pool who at first thought we were crazy, then were amazed by my boys mad skillz! LOL

We went home, showered then had lunch. I don't remember what we had, but I'm sure it was good. Ben and I sat down and watched some of the Mets vs Yankees game. The Yankees won 4-0 but it was still a good day.

Try to follow me on this one. Somehow Hy and I got wrangled into cooking dinner on Father's day. Allison cooked dinner on Mother's day and she suggested the boys cook for Fathers day. Before I even knew what was going on, it was too late. I was on the hook for dinner. I said that's fine. Burgers and Mac & Cheese it is. And that's exactly what we had. I made my homemade recipe that I got from Susan many years ago. It's awesome. The last time I made it for Allison, she had just gotten over mono. It was the first time she was able to eat in over a week. She'll deny it, but I swear she ate almost half the tray. She then puked her brains out and I was no longer allowed to make it. I warned her to pace herself this time. (she's gonna be mad at me for telling that story)

Dinner was good. Allison made an awesome cake. Strawberry cake with her butter-creme icing. It doesn't get much better than that. In case you can't read it, Ben's shirt says "I get my handsome from my dad." I can't argue with that. ;)

Disney Vacation Day 3 - The Big Pool

2010-06-24T22:09:00.008-04:00

After the park we met up with Rene again to hit the pool. We had a great time. Her daughter is really funny and she's a smart little bugger. I asked her if she wanted to go on the slide. Of course she did, it's a really cool slide. (and would you believe I don't have a picture of it?) ME of all people!

I spoke to Rene and we both agreed that I would go down the slide first to wait for her daughter so I can be there when she hits the water. This is the same little girl that cleverly got me to hold her 2 years ago at downtown Disney. Story Here.

First trip down the slide, no problem. Second trip down...slight problem. She wanted to go down the slide first. The conversation went a little something like this:
ME: I know you want to go first, but I have to go first to make sure the coast is clear.
Daughter: But I want to go first. It's OK. I went down first the other day.
ME: Ok, here's what we'll do. You can climb the stairs first, but I go down the slide first.
Daughter: But I go down the slide first. OK?
ME: I have the perfect plan. I'll go down the slide, but then you go down first after me?
Daughter: But I want to go down first.
ME: You'll be the first one after me. That's pretty good. That's probably better than going first.
Daughter: yeah. OK.

She's a smart kid. I know she didn't buy that, I just think she saw me squirming and felt bad for me.

Now the other daughter, whose name I know..and can spell, but for security reasons, I wont say, had fun with Ben in the pool. Since neither of them can really talk all that well, take a look at how I think their interaction went down.

A Pretty girl and a handsome boy are sitting on the beach, looking out over the water.
Girl: Hi, Do I know you?
Boy: Hey...How you doin?

Boy: Wow, your skin is really soft.
Girl: Oh thank you. My mommy uses Johnson's baby soap.
Boy: Cool, my mommy does too. So, where are you from? How much longer are you on vacation?

Girl: Oh, I'm from New York and I go...
Boy (interrupting): WHOA! What's that? Look what I found! Is that a light saber? I think that's a light saber. VVVVRRROMMMM CHACHICHNGCH VROMMM. I'm gonna grab it.

Girl: UUUUGGGHHHHH!!!!! Why are boys so dumb!

Boy: Don't get upset pretty lady. It's not a light saber. It's a pool noodle. I got it for you.
Girl: For me?

Girl: My Hero!

And scene!!! I'm waiting for the Oscar people to call me any minute now.
It was a great vacation and even though we live in Orlando, when you go to Disney World it really does feel like a vacation. Forget that my house is 30 minutes away, you feel like you're in another world.

Thanks to Rene and her family for letting us crash their family vacation. Hope we can do it again soon.

Disney Vacation Day 3 - The Big Cheese

2010-06-24T21:15:00.010-04:00

Sunday started the way Saturday was supposed to. We woke up early, had breakfast and caught a boat to Disney's Hollywood Studios.

It was Ben's first boat ride. I don't know where he learned it, but he was singing cool boat songs. What's a boat song? You know, Yo ho ho- a pirates life for me. And of course the classic Boats and Hoes. ;)

We didn't wait long for the boat and it took us straight to the park. I know I'm over protective and paranoid, I think it's a good thing, but one day it will get me into trouble.

As soon as we got aboard I started looking for the emergency exit and the life belts. The next thing I looked for was who I needed to fight through to get Ben and Allison to the exit should the boat sink. There were two ways I could go, but YOU, yes you in the Flyers jersey...if it comes down to it, I'm coming right at you.

Anyway, we got to the park safe and sound. We didn't realize that along with Gay Days it was also Star Wars weekend. Coincidence or smart planning? That's a discussion for another blog.

There were storm troopers patrolling the line. They pointed at me and asked for my identification. I played along, but they punked me. As soon as I showed my ID, they said "We don't need to see their identification. These are not the droids we're looking for" It was pretty funny, but I felt like an idiot.
The plan was to go straight to the Playhouse Disney show, but we were early and decided to see if Ben could meet some characters. We went inside the character area and got the schedule. Pluto was going to be out for another 10 minutes, then Mickey Mouse was coming. That's right! The big cheese himself in just 10 minutes!

We got in line to meet Pluto. This could go either way. Either Ben will LOVE the characters or he will scream bloody murder in about 3 seconds. Ben saw Pluto and he immediately though "That dog is much bigger that Molly (our Boston Terrier) Where are his toys? I want to put them in my mouth." He was very interested in Pluto.

We got to Pluto and Ben had a ball. He immediately smiled and laughed and grabbed Pluto's nose. He reached out for Pluto to hold him, but Allison held onto him. I don't think the characters are allowed to hold kids, and even if they could, the probably shouldn't. Ben kept smiling and pointing at Pluto's nose. It was really cute and I got very excited at the whole thing.

Even when we posed for a group picture, you can still see Ben is mesmerized by Pluto.
We said goodbye and got on line to see the big guy. The head mouseketeer. We waited for about 15 minutes and there he was. MICKEY MOUSE. Ben watches Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on Saturday and Sunday mornings. They go way back. And of course you know Allison and I go way back with Mickey too. He came to our wedding remember?
There were about 6 or 7 people before us and then we got to meet Mickey Mouse. Ben looked a little confused, but Mickey knows how to handle that. He did this "jazz hands" wave to Ben and kept moving his fingers closer to Ben's face. Ben responded by trying to bite Mickey's fingers. It was pretty funny. We joked that Ben could smell the cheese on his fingers and was getting hungry. Ben liked Mickey, but he enjoyed Pluto better. I took video of this encounter, so I only have group pix. Once I figure out how to transfer the video online, I'll post Ben trying to snack on Mickey, but in the meantime, here's the group shot.
After this we went to check out the Playhouse Mickey show. It was HOT and we got sweaty and disgusting pretty quickly. Handy Manny and one of the Baby Einstein guys walked by, Ben just look at me like "DAD! DID YOU JUST SEE THAT! THAT WAS HANDY MANNY"
I was a little upset that Special Agent Oso wasn't there, but hopefully they'll add him soon. Don't know who Special Agent Oso is? Check him out, but be warned...the Three Special Steps song is VERY VERY dangerous. Once you hear it, it gets stuck in your head for hours. 2:50 mark.

The show was fun but I think Ben was too young to fully enjoy it. He jumped when there was music, but when bubbles and leaves fell and when everyone was supposed to clap and stomp, he really couldn't do that. In a few years, he'll love it.

There was a Star Wars parade on the way out. The coolest part about it and the coolest part of any parade was Billy Dee Williams. It doesn't get cooler than Billy Dee. R2D2, Chewy, the Ewoks and Darth Vader were there too. What a day and it's only noon. Come back for the next and final post about the Disney Vacation. Day 3 - Return to the Pool.

Disney Vacation Day 2. Saturday, In the park (Not Really)

2010-06-17T21:23:00.000-04:00

Saturday was day 2 of our Disney World vacation. The plans were as follows:

Wake up early, eat breakfast, go to Disney Hollywood Studios
Go to the pool w/ Rene & family
Showers, downtown Disney, dinner

Line items 2 & 3 were pretty much fine, but line item 1, never had a chance. We slept in. We slept until 10:15. It was incredible. I used to sleep into the afternoon all the time. It was great. I slept my day away, but I stayed up all night. I don't bust your chops for missing the whole night, so don't bust my chops for missing the whole day! (sorry early 20s aggression still working it's way out.) 10:15 was the latest I've slept in years. I could go for that once a month.

We missed our window for Hollywood Studios, so we put on our swim gear, and headed to Picabu for breakfast. It's an overpriced cafeteria style 24 hour restaurant at the Dolphin hotel. The food is really good, just over priced. I had an excellent blueberry cheesecake 2 nights in a row.

After breakfast we headed over to the Beach Club. We got ID'ed and were granted pool access. It was better than awesome. I don't even know what word to use. There was sand like you were on a beach, but you were in a pool. There was sand on the bottom of the pool! What Disney Magic is this?? It was awesome. And if that wasn't enough, they had a pirate ship water slide! This thing really moved too. I bottomed out a few times, I had that much speed.

It was hot, so I decided Ben and I were going to get into the pool while Allison went to get us some drinks. We were splashing around, having fun, playing with sand, then at about the 15 minute mark, Ben started getting really upset. I tried all my tricks to make him smile and nothing worked. I needed reserves...MOM!!!

When Allison got him she immediately started laughing. She knew what the problem was. We never switched Ben from his regular diaper to his swimmy diaper. The diaper was so full that it looked like it was about to burst. No wonder he was so upset, he was getting squeezed like a push-pop. Sorry buddy!

I thought he was good to go. I didn't even think to check if he was wearing a swimmy or not. Well now I know for next time.

He wasn't hurt and it was hilarious. I swear the diaper weighed close to 10 pounds. After that we all splashed around in the pool and on the slide. I walked Ben around on the BoardWalk to get him to sleep, then as it got cloudy, we eventually to just head back to our rooms to get changed for dinner.

As I was about to jump in the shower we got a call from Rene. She needed to get a new supply of sun screen for the girls. I guess the one they had wasn't protecting them properly. So we planned to head out to WalMart. I hate Walmart, but they sell everything and it was off property so prices would be close to normal.

I picked them up and we were on our way. I don't know what it is about the people in Walmart, but clothes never work harder or scream louder anywhere else on Earth as they do in Walmart. There was some scary sights. We also saw a baby as red a tomato. That guy needed to buy sun screen for his kids too. I hope he did.

I dropped Rene off and called Allison I figured why take the bus when we can drive. I already have it out of the parking lot. She thought it would be nice to take the bus. Oh joy of joys! I was a little pissed, I hate waiting around for the bus, but it's no big deal, we're on vacation right?

I parked at the Beach Club and decided to walk back to the Dolphin. It was a hot day and a decent walk, so for safety reasons, and safety reasons alone, I purchased a Mickey Ice Cream Bar. You have to stay cool on those hot hot days! It was awesome. I really shouldn't have had it since I'm not supposed to have chocolate, but it really hit the spot.

We caught the bus and were on our way to meet up with Rene and her family again, this time at Downtown Disney. We got lucky and we were able to get a table for 8 at the Rain Forrest Cafe with no wait. Actually if we would have taken another 2 minutes to get to the restaurant they would have given our table away and the wait would have been 2 hours.

Ben and Rene's older daughter really loved the fish tanks. Ben was watching all the fish and was smiling, jumping and trying to touch the glass. Rene's daughter was in love with this one big silver fish. She named it Sara. I know I took pictures of this, but I can't find them. We'll have to go back and recreate them I guess.

We hit a few stores after dinner and then all hell broke lose. Ben got cranky, Rene's daughter fell asleep standing, it was going downhill quickly. We all headed our separate ways to get the kids to bed. As we were approaching the bus stop, we saw a bus pulling away. I'll give you one guess which hotel it was going to. That's right! The Dolphin. I said some choice words and tried to remain calm. My dinner didn't fill me, so I was hungry and cranky to begin with. This didn't help. I had my mad face on, but another bus came no more than 5 minutes later. Thank God for that. It could have gotten really ugly.

As soon as we got on the bus Ben perked right up and was happy again. We put him to bed and he went right to sleep.

9 Month Checkup

2010-06-17T20:24:00.003-04:00

Ben had his 9 month checkup today. I wasn't there, but I hear he did well.
He got a shot in his leg and they had to prick his finger to get blood. He was a trooper and I heard he was having fun with the Garfield band-aid on his finger.

Ben was 20 1/4 pounds and was 29 1/2 inches tall. The doctor said he is a perfect size and he is perfectly healthy. He hasn't started teething yet, but the doctor said there is nothing to worry about until 18 months. If no teeth by 18 months, he'll have to get x-rays to track those teeth down.

The doctor also told us that Ben can start eating real foods and dairy. My first question when Allison said this "Can he have ice cream?" He can, in small doses. You know that that means right? Twistee Treat & Friendly's here we come! I can't wait to give him ice cream. Grammy and Poppy must be just as excited about it since that was the first question they asked too.

I started a box on the right hand side to keep track of the foods Ben likes and dislikes. I think the fun level is about to go from a 10 to a 12 and the poop stinky level from a 5 to a 20.

Disney Vacation - The weekend in review (day 1)

2010-06-13T19:08:00.025-04:00

Two weekends ago our good friend Rene (who we recently found out from her daughter is family) came down with her family to Disney World. Allison, Ben and I decided that meeting up with them was a great idea, so we booked a Disney World vacation too.

Rene and her family stayed at the Beach Club Villas. We aren't high rollers, so we had to search online for deals at other hotels. ; ) We found a great deal at the Dolphin, which ended up being perfect because the two hotels are walking distance from each other. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let's do this in order.

Friday started at Ben's survival swimming class. I talked a lot of trash leading up to the class. I was planning to jump into the pool and drop-kick the teacher like Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka if I didn't like what she was doing to Ben. That wasn't an issue. Ben was a champ. He cried a little bit, but every time she put him into the water, he kicked and spun until he was floating on his back. Good job little man! I was very proud of him. The teacher was really nice and I felt bad for ever wanting to drop kick her in the face.

Now we're off to Disney. Ben slept in the car during the 35 minute drive there. Our room was ready when we arrived, so we brought everything upstairs, unpacked and headed out to the Magic Kingdom, but not before they hit us for 2 tips. First the guys help you unload the car, then they hand you off to someone who brings the cart up to the room. I can already tell this is going to be an expensive weekend.

We took the bus to the Magic Kingdom then upgraded our "Give a day, get a day" passes to seasonal w/weekend passes. If you are looking for us, this fall & winter, check Disney World. If you really need us and we don't answer at the house or our cells, just call the main Disney World number and have us paged. Oh, also, if we don't answer at the house...don't steal our stuff. Thank you.

We called Rene and decided to meet in front of Cinderella's castle for a show. There was a cool dance party going on when we reached the end of Main Street. Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and maybe even Chip and Dale were dancing in the streets, doing a conga line and just going crazy. At one point the MC started singing "the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire.." He stopped before the next verse, but I was really tempted to be "that guy" that sings the inappropriate lyrics.

We found Rene and her family. It was good to see them. Her little girls got so big and cuter too. Rene got me a "Happy Birthday" pin. It was pretty awesome until I sweat so much that my name wiped off the pin. Here is the pin and it's replacement. Yes, I do realize I'm a big baby. Thanks Rene for getting me those pins.

The show started. It was pretty cool. Ben was confused. He just looked around at everyone. It was cool watching him trying to figure out what was going on. Eventually he started smiling and wiggling, trying to reach out to touch other people and the characters on stage.

After the show the seven of us walked around the park for a bit. When it was time for lunch Rene and her family went back to the room to make sandwiches. We spent over 20 bucks in the park. In hindsight, after getting our credit card bill, sandwiches may have been the better way to go.

Once we finished lunch, Allison took Ben on his first ride, Dumbo. I must have looked like a big dumbo running around with the camera and video camera trying to capture it. He didn't have too much of a reaction, but I think he was just too hot and tired to care.

After cooling off and a nap(for Ben), we hit the carousel. Ben LOVED the carousel. He was all smiles and screeches. After the ride ended, Allison said "I'm not getting off" I made an inappropriate but hilarious "that's what she said" joke and started testing out other horses so I could capture some good action shots on the next go around. I took video and 36 pictures. I say that's just being a dad. I was told that was definitely not regular dad activity. Either way, sorry Charlie. You're stuck with me and my overactive trigger finger.

We hit It's a Small World and Winnie the Pooh next. We were lucky. It poured both times we were on those rides. We stayed dry, but the cold rain really would have helped cool us off. We played around in the Pooh store and ate ice cream until the storm was over. Ben enjoyed both rides.

We met up with Rene and her family again and we used fast pass to go on Splash Mountain. The girls didn't want to get splashed, so I got to go on with Rene's husband and oldest daughter (4 3/4 years old.) She was excited. I can't remember everything she said, but she's a really funny girl. She comes up with some hilarious lines.

I always forget how long Splash Mountain is once you get inside the mountain. It was awesome watching her as we went down. I was partly watching her to see her reaction, but mostly watching her to make sure she was OK. I think of her as my niece. She was born exactly one week before my real niece. I worked and lunched with Rene all through her pregnancy. So I feel really close to them. (There's also a story about Rene trying to convince me to make a move on Allison that I'll tell you another time.) She loved the ride and asked to do it again. Look for us. Don't blink or you'll miss it.

We couldn't ride it again because we had to get a good spot for SpectroMagic and Wishes. We found a spot by about 8:25 for a 9:00 parade. Next time I think we should start looking for a spot by 8:00, it was a mad house. I thought we were going to get into a fight with the 2 crotchety old hags standing in front of us. Nothing went down, but there were lots of dirty looks between her party and our party.

The parade was cool but again, Ben didn't quite get what was going on. He did enjoy it towards the end, but mostly he was just looking around like "what the hecks going on? this isn't my bed. It's nighty-night time guys"

It was fun watching Rene's oldest daughter. She loved it. She said afterward "I waved to Minnie, but she didn't wave back. She signed my book earlier" I said "I'm sure she remembered you, but she had to wave to other kids who's books she didn't get to sign." She replied "yeah, that's right. she had to wave to the other kids. that's probably why." It was really cute. I think her youngest daughter fell asleep.

Another 30 minute wait and it's time for Wishes. We love Wishes. It's our favorite thing at Disney World. If you don't know what Wishes is, it's a fireworks show at the Magic Kingdom and it's worth the price of admission. I was worried that it would be too loud for Ben and he would cry, but he was fine. He actually watched a lot of the fireworks. We killed some time after Wishes ended, then decided to catch the bus back to the hotel. We all had tired kids and we were very disgusting from our day at the sauna, I mean park.

Stay tuned for the breakdown of Saturday and Sunday of our Disney World vacation. I don't think the posts will be a mega post like this, but I really didn't intend for this to be a mega post, so who knows what you'll get.

Finally!!!

2010-06-03T23:07:00.001-04:00

After another visit to Babies R Us today, I finally have a 3rd Britax Marathon car seat. It's clean, registration for still attached to the harness and I know it fits perfectly into my car.

I was planning to write a thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday and explain how recently I learned a valuable life lesson, but I'm too tired. I'm no spring chicken.

Vacation at Disney World this weekend. I'll write if I can. If not, I'll be in touch Monday.

Every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in

2010-06-02T21:22:00.005-04:00

No, I'm not talking about the mob, I'm talking about Babies R Us. The car seat saga continues and there will be another episode tomorrow. Thankfully Jar-Jar Binks has not made an appearance yet, but sadly neither has Natalie Portman. :(
Anyway, car seats. When I was in Babies R Us yesterday, I spoke with two customer service people and a manager. They agreed to re-key in a coupon I used on Sunday and let me return the two Evenflo seats and replace them with two Britax seats. The manager even wrote this nice paragraph and signed it since she wouldn't be on working today. I was excited about that.

I had a looooong meeting with a vendor from about 10:45 - 1:45, so I didn't get to leave for Babies R Us until after 2:00. I went in spoke to the girl at customer service, showed her the note from the manager and we were good to go. I got my two Britax seats and we were doing the transaction.

Being a former BRU-KRU member, I know some insider information. I know if you are having twins, you get a 10% discount on large ticket items. As the girl was doing the returns I started talking to her. I said, "These are the 3rd set of car seats I'm getting and man, they are the most expensive. Do you have any other discounts you can give me?"

She said, "well, we offer a 10% discount if you are having twins, so congratulations and good luck with your twins." I thanked her and played along making a few jokes. I was fully prepared to try that new "Hump day" line I learned from watching Glee last night, but luckily I didn't have to use it.

Fast forward to 6:00 in my in-law's driveway. I take the first car seat out of the box and...son of a bitch...the base is dirty and scratched. They sold me a used car seat! It was scratched up pretty bad, had some discolor to the base and there was dirt and hair all over the base. It's almost like they put the old floor model in a box or a family used it for 3 months then returned it.

Allison called them since I had yard work to do and tomorrow I'm exchanging it for a new one and getting another 15% off. It sucks to keep going back and forth, but after all is said and done, We'll save $110 on this car seat. A Britax Marathon for $170!!! You can't beat that!

Wish me luck. Hopefully as a birthday present to my tomorrow, Babies R Us will give me the right car seat and I'll be done with car seats for a while.

Teething and DUDE!!! I'm so sick of carseats

2010-06-01T20:56:00.003-04:00

As you have read in the past 2 posts, we are having car seat issues. I now decided to return the Evenflo Symphony 65 car seats and go with the Britax Marathon car seats. (Which we should have just done from day 1)

I'm sure the Graco and Evenflo seat would have both been fine, but I didn't feel comfortable with them. The Graco moved too much and the Evenflo was at the wrong angle. Their solution, use a rolled up towel or a pool noodle. I'm sure it's safe to use those things, but we just spent $200 for this car seat. It should work without a towel or a noodle. Am I right? Also, I really didn't trust that new slide harness on the Evenflo. I had a knot in my stomach knowing Ben was in that car seat for a day. I can't wait to get it out of my car.

I can't wait to pick up the Britax seats tomorrow, install them and be done with car seats. I must have spent 4 hours working on car seats in the last two days. The only way I got threw it was with this: SERENITY NOW!!! Throwing my hat to the ground and kicking it across the garage helped a lot too.

So I mentioned teething earlier, let me get back to that. Ben is definitely teething, but here's the strange thing, his top teeth are coming in first. The doctor said most kids bottom teeth come in first. He's already cute, I can't imagine how much cuter he's gonna be if he only has his 2 front teeth. I'll post pictures when they come in. Until then, it's drool city.

Car seat struggles day 2

2010-05-31T22:30:00.003-04:00

The Graco My Ride 65 wasn't gonna work out. They said some movement is OK, but it was too much movement for my liking.

After spending the morning having breakfast and swimming in the pool with The Powells we headed to Babies R Us. Matt helped us. He reminded me of a heavier version of Lee Dewyze. He didn't sing, so I can't tell you if there were any other similarities.

We had to choose between a Britax Roundabout w/cow print or a Evenflow Symphony 65. We went with the Evenflow, but I'm still not sure if we did the right thing. I installed one in my in-laws car in the BRU parking lot. If I didn't like this one or couldn't get it to work, I wasn't driving the 40 minutes across town again.

So the install went well. It rained a little bit. I needed it. It was refreshing. I installed the car seat and when the "level line" was level, I could move the seat. When I installed it tight enough where the seat didn't move at all, the "level line" was off. The seat was too upright.

So what's better, or should I say what's worse? A seat that moves a little bit or a seat that is at the wrong angle?

Also, I'm not sure about the seat itself. Instead of having a harness that feeds through the back of the seat, it has a new "Slide Harness." I'm a little nervous about that. Does it really work? will it work 2 years from now? Ben's safety is on the line...I don't want some fandangled, gimmick harness holding him in. The reviews I've seen have been mostly positive. I'll spend a lot of time the next few days reading more.

Does anyone have any experience with these seats? Let me know what you think.

It was a good day and a bad day

2010-05-30T22:06:00.005-04:00

This morning Allison made a test batch of homemade buttermilk pancakes. They were really good. Not sure if they were that much better than the "just add water" box pancakes or if it was worth the trouble, but they were good.

We gave Ben some pancake. He liked it. He ate about a 1/4 pancake. I decided this was the day to let Ben eat off of his monkey plate.
He really didn't need it and he barely used it, but I enjoyed watching him play with it.

Now to the bad part of my day. I'll start with a little background. I used to work at Babies R Us. I worked in the Baby Gear department (car seats, high chairs, pack-n-plays) and I was employee of the month. I install my own car seats and have done it for family and friends.

This afternoon I tried to install a Graco My Ride 65 car seat in a Hyundai Tucson. It kicked my ass. I was out there for over 2.5 hours. I tried latch in the center seat. Seat belt in the center seat. Latch in the passenger seat, seat belt in the passenger seat. NOTHING WORKED. The seat moved all over the place (2 to 4 inches) and that's just not gonna work.

Graco - what's up with you? What is this piece? Why do I need to use this lock thing with the seat belt? Time to rework that idea.
I had to give up. Tomorrow is another day. At one point I threw my hat onto the ground. Later on I kicked it clear across the garage. When I was starting my father-in-law asked if I needed help. I said "I got this, thanks. But if I'm not inside in 20 minutes, start bringing me beers." I was only kidding, but I think beer could have helped. It definitely wouldn't have hurt.

I'm going to test it out in my car tomorrow. Maybe the combination of car seat and car I'm working with just isn't going to work. Stay tuned for tomorrow's update, I'll let you know how the install went.

Survival Swimming. Are you a fan?

2010-05-29T23:41:00.005-04:00

Picture taken before 1st dunk

I think I've mentioned this already, but I know I haven't gone into it with this much detail, so here it is again. Ben started Survival Swimming 2 weeks ago. Some people say it's torture, but some people swear by it.

I personally know a woman whose 18 month son fell into a pool and was able to turn onto his back and float until his parents fished him out. He took SS and the woman swears it saved her son's life. When I used to work at Babies R Us, I helped a woman whose son suffered brain damage after falling into a pool and almost drowning. He was in an electric wheelchair with a tube and his mother said he would probably be like that for the rest of his life.

It was hard to help them. Not because of the kid, but because of the mother. She was beating herself up and it was brutal. She opened up with, "Hi, I need a car seat for my son, he drowned because of me. It was totally my fault and now I need a car seat for him." Back then I thought "wow, the guilt she must feel if she is beating herself up like that in front of me" but now that I have a kid, I can't even begin to imagine the amount of guilt and pain she was going through. I never want to go through that.

If Ben has to cry a little bit now to avoid something like that happening, then sorry buddy, you're gonna cry. I'm a big talker. I haven't been there for one of his classes. Allison, Ellen and Hy have all taken him and from what I hear it's really tough to watch. I've seen about 2 minutes of video from class, but that's completely different.

When I'm watching the video, Ben is home, safe and sound. I just gave him a kiss and I'm watching him play with his toys. I know that he survived whatever I'm about to see on that video, so it's no biggie. That might change on Friday though, when I actually sit in on a class. Wish me luck. If there are no posts after Friday it's because I decided to pop the teacher and dunk her underwater to see how she likes it!

Do you have any survival swimming stories? Let's hear them. Happier posts and cute pix to follow in the next few days. Sorry my first post back is a downer, but I had to get that out of my system. I tried to type other stuff, but kept coming back to this.

PS: This has nothing to do with Survival Swimming, but when I ran spell check, it said "no misspellings found!" YEAH! What up Merriam-Webster Dictionary? You want some of this, Oxford American Dictionary? WHAT!

I'm Back Baby!

2010-05-29T23:07:00.003-04:00

I know I've said it before, but this time I mean it. I started this blog in April 2009. I averaged 11 posts a month. Pretty good. Not too many that I'm annoying to readers, but enough to keep them coming back.

Do you know what my monthly average is for 2010? It's less than 5!! Less than 5! Are you kidding me? Basically what that says to me is something of worth only happens about once a week. That's ridiculous. I can post daily about the things Ben does or my thoughts about raising him. I have just been lazy and preoccupied with other stuff. Well not anymore. The quality of my writing has suffered and I think I'm down to 2 readers. (My father-in-law and Twistedxtian.) I appreciate you guys, thanks for reading, but I'd like to be able to count my readers on 2 hands (and hopefully someday soon on my feet.)

Even if nobody reads my blog, there are some things I just need to document so I can look back when my memories are replaced with new ones. Ben changes fast. Everything he does amazes me and every time he does something new it gets cuter and cuter.

For a while there I was getting paid to do some ghost writing, but that has slowed down a bit. No excuse there. I was watching the Devils and the Magic in the playoffs. They are both out now. No Excuse there. The Mets...well, do I even need to go further than just saying The Mets? No excuse there. With the exception of SYTYCD, most of my TV shows are off for the summer. No excuse there. I'm gonna write more, no excuses.

I'm an award winning blogger! I need to show it. If I'm going to turn the pre-Ben blog into a book one day, I need to write. I need to grow my followers back to the level they used to be and keep them by keeping them entertained. Sounds easy right?

With the help of the blog contest on Pregnancycorner.com and the help of Twitter I've found tons of other dad blogs and parent blogs. Some I like, some I love and some I can't stand. If they can write everyday or 3 times a week, so can I.

Sorry about the rant. Sometimes I just need to complain and publicly call myself out. So stay tuned for Ben related blog posts.

It's Pool Time, Maybe.

2010-05-27T09:02:00.004-04:00

I've heard about having an office Baby Pool. You know, the one where you guess the baby's sex, weight and length. Well I just thought of another pool idea and I'm pretty excited about it. I don't know what the prize will be, but I have time to figure that out.

You know I put together a time capsule for Benjamin to open on his 18th birthday. What do you think of having a pool to guess his height, weight and shoe size when he is 18?

I know it could turn out horribly wrong. If we all say 5'10" or taller and he only grows to be 5'5" (not that there's anything wrong with that) it could upset him. If he is "big boned" and we all say he'll only be 150lbs, that could upset him too and ruin his 18th birthday, something that should be a really fun day.

I can have guests at his 1st birthday party fill out their guesses and I can put them in the time capsule. Let me know what you think. Pool or No Pool?

Poop, poop, poop

2010-05-24T12:10:00.008-04:00

We've all heard of the book "everybody poops" and it's true, everybody poops. There is nothing more disgusting or funny than poop & poop jokes.

Exhibit A - Hilarious.

Anyway, recently Ben decided it would be fun to poop in the bathtub. He's pooped in the tub 2 out of his last 3 baths. The first time, he was just sitting in the tub, playing with his toys and I heard a grunt. His face turned red and we knew poop was coming. Allison picked him up and we were able to keep the poop out of his little tub, but it landed in the big tub. We were cleaning up a little bit and moving the poop aside, when Ben decided to pee! It went in the tub, off the wall, onto his leg. That was a fun bath time, but we survived it.

The next time we weren't so lucky. Ben was in the tub and he got us with a sneak attack. I picked him up, but 4 or 5 milk dud sized poops popped out and landed in his tub. We ended up washing him by holding him over the tub. And just like last time he peed again and it got all over the wall and the floor.

Exhibit B - funny and funnier

He doesn't just poop in the bathtub, he also poops in swimming pools too! We were at a 1st birthday party for one of Ben's friends. I got into the pool with him and we floated, splashed and played for about an hour. I brought him to the side of the pool and Allison was like "uh-oh I smell something."

His diaper was full with poop! The swimmy diaper and his bathing suit kept the poop in, we had a fun time changing him...and I had to make the announcement to everyone that "the water is really cold today guys. Ben wants me to tell you the water is really cold!" (Shrinkage....Seinfeld....anybody??) I didn't have to make the statement, but it was pretty funny.

Exhibit C - pool poop

A first??

2010-05-18T08:31:00.003-04:00

Something crazy happened last night. I think for the first time ever, I was the first person to see Ben do something for the first time! Usually I'll tell Allison "I saw Ben do this today" and she'll say "I know. He did that the other day." Or she'll say "I know, he did that at my mom's house on Monday."

Well last night Allison was out and I was home alone with Ben. We were playing in his playroom. I was laying on the couch watching him play with his blocks and a monkey car, then something interested him and he had to investigate it. He did his Army crawl over to the couch, lifted himself up and tried to grab my feet.

I had on black socks with gold toes. He was trying hard to grab them, but since I had those socks on for about 13 hours, I wasn't going to let him grab them. He then tried to reach for them with his mouth too. I thought "Buddy, you don't even know how gross that is"

I needed to stop the attack on my feet, so I made his Fisher Price Play Table make noise. He started to do a dance, then slowly (very slowly - 3-5 minutes) he shuffled his way along the couch over to the table. He was so proud of himself. He celebrated by mashing the buttons on his table and screeching with delight when it made music.

PSA - The More You Know

2010-05-13T20:58:00.002-04:00

Remember those PSAs when we were growing up. NBC had "the more you know" (I think they still do them) and there was this one that still sticks out in my mind today.

It's the one where the kids gets caught doing drugs...the father said "Who taught you to do this stuff???" "YOU ALRIGHT!!!! I learned it by watching you!" Remember that one?

Well it's true. Even from a very young age, kids learn from watching us. I had a cold about a month and a half ago. Towards the end of the cold, allergy season kicked in HARD and I got a bad cough. I had this cough for about 3 weeks.

Well, my cough is gone, but now Ben has a cough. The little bugger copied my cough! It's the cutest thing. He coughs, then looks around at us, smiles and coughs some more. How do you even fix that? I guess he'll stop eventually when he doesn't hear us coughing...but holy crap. This little guy is like a sponge.

Yummy Plane 1 & 2

2010-05-12T23:47:00.002-04:00

This is how I feed Ben when I'm home alone.

MOM - A Definition

2010-04-28T21:23:00.003-04:00

Tonight Allison came up with a fun saying. She said "MOM means Master Of Multitasking."
It's very true. I've seen her carry the baby, while eating dinner, talking on the phone, typing on the computer and paying bills. and that's on a bad day.

I came up with some other definitions for MOM. I'm sure she'll love them.
MOM - Maker of Mandel Bread
MOM - Memory of Magic - really, she remembers everything. She's the David Copperfield or remembering.
MOM - Maker of Misery -Seriously...if Mom's not happy, nobodys happy.
MOM - Maker of Mandel Bread - For real...make some more Mandel Bread. It's really good stuff.
MOM - Manager of Money - Pssst Can I borrow a dollar? What do you mean what am I gonna spend it on?
MOM - Murderer of My fun - Just kidding....mostly
MOM - Move Over More - You know because she takes up her side of the bed and also most of mine too. ;)
MOM - Maddening Old Maid - but I love her anyway.

Well this idea was much better in my head. I don't know if it translated well to the blog. Maybe I should have saved it for Mother's day. Oh Well. Feel free to comment on mine and add your own.

To Run or Not to Run

2010-04-27T12:07:00.007-04:00

Once again it's been about 2 weeks since my last post. An update on Ben, he is doing great. He's started to do an army crawl. He's getting pretty quick. It's hilarious when he sees something across the room that he wants. He will climb over anything in his way (monster truck style) instead of moving it or going around it. He is eating veggies. He likes carrots, sweet potatoes, peas, apples, pears and a few others. On the unsure list: Cauliflower.

Anyway, between work, Ben and running I just don't have the time to post like I used to. That brings me to the point of this post. To run or not to run?

Many of you know I have been in a running group for the last 7 months. When I started I could barely run a mile, now I have run a 5K (3.1 miles) in 27:45 and I've finished a 12K (7.46 miles) in 1:21:17. I haven't gotten thinner by running all these miles, but it's kept me from becoming a fat ass.

I've also made a few good friends from the group. How do I know they are good friends? Well, we're friends on Facebook now. ;) I run with a good group of people. Seriously I think I've made 5-7 good friends from running. It's hard making new friends as an adult with a child. So it's a great thing.

Those are the pros. The cons:

Running group starts at 6:00. I get there around 6:15/6:20. Training starts without me, so I am missing out on part of it. And it's about to get HOT out there. I'm not good in the heat.

On normal nights I get to see Ben from about 5:30 - 8:00. 2.5 hours out of my day is not a lot of time to spend with my son.

On running nights (2 nights during the week) I get home, give Ben a kiss, change, have a snack, give Ben another kiss and go running. I get home around 7:30 or so. Which is when Ben starts his nighttime routine. Bath, bottle, bed. So on running nights, I see him for about 30-45 minutes. That sucks.

It's getting harder and harder to go to running every week. Especially now that Ben is crawling and being more interactive. I just want to stay home and play with him. Look at the fun I'd be missing out on:

So what do I do? Miss out on hanging out with Ben twice a week to go running? Maybe I miss his first steps or words or the first time he throws a ball, but I stay in shape. Or skip running to hang out with Ben? Maybe I get fat. Maybe I miss out on making new friends and hanging out with the friends I have there, but I spend more time with Ben.

What to do...what to do......

Ben Crawling

2010-04-14T22:20:00.006-04:00

Well Ben is almost crawling. I'm not really in the mood to write, sorry. Here are some videos.

Happy St. Patrick's Day Revisited

2010-04-08T12:38:00.004-04:00

I know I still haven't finished our NY Vacation review or Easter, but I had to get this post out of my head. It's been rattling around there for almost a month.

I think I'm a 1/4 Irish. Well, that's what I tell evereyone I am, so let's go with that. That makes Ben 1/8 Irish. On St. Patrick's Day, he got to enjoy the smell of sauerkraut having sex with a dirty diaper on a garbage barge. Yes, that's what I think Cornedbeef and Cabbage smells like. I love the cornedbeef, but ugh, I think cabbage is the most disgusting thing in all the land.

I got to thinking, what other Irish delights does Ben have to look forward to? Here is my short list:

Michael Flatley , Lord of the Dance - His backup dancers are pretty hot too. The first girl I remember having a crush on in was in the 2nd grade in Brooklyn. Her name was Melissa Rutledge. She took Irish dancing. That doesn't add much to the post, but I thought I would add it in here anyway.
Lucky Charms cereal - They're magically delicious.
Conan O'Brien - The guy is a genius. I've watched him since 94 and I think he's partly responsible for my crazy sense of humor.

But the most important and exciting thing about being Irish and St. Patrick's Day is the Irish music. I'm not talking about songs like Danny Boy or When Irish Eye are Smiling. I'm talking about the best Irish song of all time....

That's right my friends...Jump Around by House of Pain!

NY Vacation - Day 4

2010-04-05T21:36:00.005-04:00

Day 4 was another busy day and another late night.
We had some family come over for brunch, then at night we had a wedding to go to.
It was great to see my family and spend time with my niece and nephew. Next time we go to NY I'll have another niece and Ben will have another cousin. He had a great time playing with his current cousins.

and Aunt
and Grandma
and Papa

Looking forward to the next visit. Probably around Christmas time.

After brunch, we got ready for the wedding. I don't have any pictures, so you'll have to take my word that we looked good. We left Ben with Grandma and Papa to feed, change and put to bed. We weren't worried and everything Ben got to bed without a hitch.

The wedding was at FlowerField in St. James. If you know me, you know I like to eat. Well I must admit that I met my match. I ate so much food that I had to stop eating. If you are ever invited to a wedding there, go! According to the sister of the bride, the bride and groom love to eat too.

The bride and groom are friends I met while working at Babies R Us. It was a Puerto Rican Wedding. There was a lot of Latin food & music. Here's a helpful hint for you. If you ever go to a Puerto Rican /Latin wedding, take dance lessons. I've never felt whiter or felt that I had less rhythm than I did at this wedding. Add to the fact that I wasn't drinking, and that's a lot of still moves. I looked like Frankenstein out there.

The people at our table were commenting on how good the DJ was. We agreed, then told them about our wedding, how we flew the DJ into Disney from NY. Come to find out our DJ was doing this wedding! There was an MC, so we didn't notice him until late in the night.

When I say late in the night, I mean late in the night. It was about 11:45PM when we noticed him. We stayed until about 12:30 - 12:40, but then we had to go. They were still going strong.

If you don't know, I can't tell you whose wedding it was, but I can tell you to check out the music of Bridgette Angelique. She put on an excellent performance at the wedding of My Whole Life Has Changed - w/Genuwine

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bridgetteangelique

NY Vacation - Day 3

2010-04-04T21:45:00.000-04:00

So day 3, it's Saturday. Ben woke up again at 5:20 and stayed up for another hour. I hope he doesn't keep this habit up when we go home (FYI: he stopped doing this when we got home.)

Saturday morning, at mom's house. Perfect for watching cartoons on the couch and flashbacks of screaming real loud whenever anyone says the secret word, right? Well it is perfect for that, but I had to go to work.

I drove to the new Garden City office. I was almost to the office after a fun drive on the Southern State listening to Z100 morning show re-runs, when I realized I forgot to bring a screwdriver. Off to Wal-Mart at 8:AM to buy one. The Wal-Mart in Garden City wasn't ghetto, or maybe Ghetto doesn't wake up at 8:AM. either way. In and out, unscathed. Got to work. 15 minutes, done. A fun drive home.

I got to relax for 15 - 20 minutes then we left to meet up with Allison's friend Jessica out east. I think I've only met her at her wedding, but she seemed nice. Her husband sang a song to her at the wedding. It was pretty cool. I don't remember the song, just that it was a country song about a cowboy. Anyway, we got all the way out east and pull up to the house. There is a big truck with a car seat in the driveway. Oh good, they're home. We get out, ring the bell and wait. Knock on the door and wait some more. Ring the bell again and wait some more. Now I'm getting cold and pissed. I tell Allison to call her friend. She does, no answer. So I take Ben and say I'm waiting in the car. I forgot to mention it was cold as hell. It was high 30s or low 40s.

Allison walks to meet me in the car and notices the front license plate has an Islanders frame around it. She says "That's not their car, they hate the Islanders. We're at the wrong house!" SERENITY NOW!!!!!

We get to the right house and bada-bing, they open the door right away. It was fun hanging out with Josh and Jessica. Lots of conversations about babies, making friends with other parents and sports. Jessica's niece was watching the original Alice in Wonderland. What a strange movie that is. We had pizza for lunch, then it was time to go to the next stop.

Not too much further to Rene's house. Rene is a former co-worker of ours. I started working with her at Maharam while she was pregnant. We went for pizza and Italian ices at least twice a week and I put on a good 10 pounds. It was awesome.

Her kids are beautiful and Ben had a great time playing with them once he took a nap. One of the best moments of the trip was when Rene served us dessert. Chocolate chip cookies and brownies! Yeah baby. I hadn't had chocolate in over a month. So the 2 cookies and 1 brownie I had was like swirling a little bit of heaven around in my mouth. Her oldest daughter is really quite funny. I helped her rearrange her stuffed animals based on weather the Easter Bunny would like them or not. Then I helped her draw a picture of the Easter Bunny. Allison commented on what a good picture it was. She replied "What are you kidding me? His egg looks like a toaster oven!" LOL that's hilarious.

We left there after what seemed like 15 minutes, but it was closer to 3 hours and headed straight back to Islip to meet Linda and Ryan at Maxwell's. I remember this place as Hutley's and I remember it being dark and dreary. I was pleasantly surprised to see it nicely redone. (or maybe I just remembered it wrong) Either way, it was good to see them. They are expecting their first child and it was fun talking pregnancy stuff with them. They aren't going to find out the sex of the baby, so we had to get them a unisex gift. A stuffed Baby Pluto was the gift. I hope the baby likes it. I think they are going to have a boy. The old wive's tale says if your body and face changes, it's a girl, because girls are a real pain in the tuckus (hey, I didn't make up the wive's tale) and she looked exactly the same as I remember her. If you saw her sitting at a table, and her tummy was hidden, you would never know.

Ben had missed bedtime again, but he took a nap at the restaurant. We got him home, fed and in bed by a little after 9. He's a little trooper.

You think the night is over right? It's after 9, it's time for bed. Well not tonight. At dinner Friday night, Vinny invited us over to watch the UFC fight. I think it was UFC 2185, something like that. We left the house around 9:40 PM. No, that is not a typo, we actually went out after 9:30 for a fight that started at 10!

The fights were good, but I enjoyed the company more. Tim's new GF came with him. When I say Tim's new GF, I mean Tim's old GF. Not old as in a cougar, I mean old as in they dated back in 1997. WOW! Is my rental car Jetta a time machine? I didn't hit 88 MPH. HMMMM. It was cool to see them together again. I always liked her. She used to give me excellent advice about girls that I would always ignore. They look good together. I wish them luck.

The fights are very addicting. There is another fight this month. I probably wont buy it from PPV, but if anyone else gets the fight and wants company watching it...give me a call.

Day 4 coming up tomorrow. Danny & Bridgette's wedding.

I'm a Bad Dad :(

2010-04-03T21:33:00.009-04:00

I'm a bad dad and not in the good way like when Run-DMC says it. It seems like once a month I do something boneheaded and earn my bad dad of the month award. I got it out of the way early for April.

I got my Netflix Wii disc. I was very excited to test it out, so I let Ben jump in his bouncer while I played with the Wii. I updated the software and then looked for a movie to watch. I figured I'd put on a kids movie so Ben could enjoy it too.

I landed on Monsters Inc. It's a cute movie. Boo is a cute girl and Ben likes the ladies. Perfect right? Not exactly. So the opening credits come on and Ben is happy. He's facing the TV, jumping around in his jumper, smiling and screeching with delight. I still needed to take Molly potty from getting home from work, so I left Ben to enjoy the movie for a few minutes.

Take a look at what he saw. Pay close attention between 2:25 - 5:00.

When I came back to him, he was crying and trying to climb out of his jumper. I calmed him down but forgot to turn the movie off...so more monsters and more crying. I turned it off, calmed him down again, then put on Follow that Bird. It was a much better choice. In case you are wondering, when it comes to 6 month olds, Sesame Street > Monsters Inc. Sorry buddy. Now I know for next time.

NY Vacation - Day 2

2010-03-26T22:44:00.009-04:00

Day 2 started early. Ben woke up about 5:15AM. Allison tried to get him to go back to sleep, but he was up and not going back to sleep. she tried for an hour, then woke me up to take over. I went into the other bedroom and rocked hm for about 15 minutes. Nothing. He was just smiling and looking around the room. Smiling some more and looking around some more. I put him in the crib and I laid on the ground next to it. he just looked at me smiling, then he played with his toy.

Fast forward to 7:15. After rocking him and trying to get him to sleep for an hour, I decided to let him lay in bed with me. 5 minutes later he was asleep. I slowly creeped out of bed and stood over him. In case he decided to roll around I had to be there to keep him from rolling off the bed.

Breakfast was awesome. It's a Friday during Lent so I can't eat meat, so I went to the deli and got a buttered roll. It's probably been a year since I had one and it was great. I really would have liked the bacon, egg and cheese on a roll, but it was still awesome.

Ben's cousin James came over about 8:45 started and they started playing. They are so cute together. They are 7 months apart and the size difference is huge. I can't believe Ben will be that big in 7 months.
After breakfast, playing and nap time we met up with some old coworkers from CA and Maharam at Hooters! It was Lou's birthday and his choice. Allison had never been there before. She said the food was good and the atmosphere wasn't as bad as she'd imagined. There was no hula-hooping while we were there though. That might change her mind a little bit. Ben as always around the ladies was a huge flirt and a great big ham for the camera.
After lunch we went to the Maharam office where Allison and I first met. We saw a bunch of former co-workers and it was a lot of fun.

We went to Babies R Us and ran into Tim. What are you doing here we asked him? Buying something for your son he said! Go pick out something nice. It was pretty funny.

We went to Saviano's for dinner with Tim, Vinny and Theresa. The food was great and it was awesome seeing the guys (and Theresa) again. After dinner we spent about 2 hours at Starbucks. Ben fell asleep in his car seat, so we kept talking until he stirred. Then we took him home and put him to bed.

It was a lot like old times, but different at the same time. It was a great night. Tomorrow is another jam packed day. Stay tuned for more pix and stories.

Fun Facts (stuff):

When I get together with Dmitry & Lou and Vinny & Tim, it's just like old times. I had a conversation about Idol and baseball with D&L. It was like we just picked up a conversation that stopped 4 years ago. Same with V&T
I still have not blown my horn at anybody and I did not curse anyone out today either.
I love buttered rolls. It's so simple yet so awesome.
There was a girl in the deli asking for "salt and pepper." After she said it I said to myself "WTF did she just say?" Her accent seemed crazy to me.

NY Vacation - Day 1 - Ben's First Flight

2010-03-26T00:05:00.007-04:00

We took Ben on his first plane trip today. It was pretty cool. He had his own boarding pass and everything. We started him out right with the most important rule in traveling: Check in early to make sure you are in Group A!

The excitement of his first flight proved to be too much. He fell asleep before takeoff. He was well behaved on the flight. He woke up, but he was happy. He fussed a little bit, but it was pretty close to lunch time. Luckily thee were no diaper incidents. He fell asleep just as we started our descent into Islip. Allison reminded me of the Jerry Seinfeld skit where he talks about pilots talking over the intercom. "just fly the plane!" and right on cue, the pilot gave us a play-by-play of the landing.
Every time we go back to NY, my NY comes back to the surface. My accent comes back. I am a little more defensive and aggressive at the same time (if that makes any sense to you.) I'll list fun facts and other bits of info during our vacation.

Ben met one set of his Aunts & Uncles today and he also met 2 of his cousins. He had a great time playing with them. They are 4.5 yrs and 1 yr old. They didn't have an epic game of Hungry Hungry Hippos, but they had fun. It's gonna be a busy week filled with friends, family, a wedding, food and possibly snow. Cmon man! Channel 7 (ABC) said possible snow flurries tomorrow night. I'm getting too old for this...

Fun Facts:

We ran into an old co-worker from Maharam on the flight. Good to see you Joyce
First dirty look I gave: At the baggage claim to an old lady in a wheelchair: I took my bag off the carousel and she started getting up in arms that I took her bag. I shot her a look and said "This is not your bag, this is my bag." I then turned my back on her. I know she was in a wheelchair and she was old, but I do not discriminate. I am an equal opportunity offender.
First car horn I heard: 15.2 miles into the trip on Carleton Ave. I have not blown the horn yet or given anyone the finger, but I have shouted a few expletives at people.
I still remember the phone number for my favorite Chinese take-out. Yan Min Kitchen 631.277.5666
My mouth is already watering for either a fresh bagel from Bagel Boss or a buttered roll from the deli. Both will be had this week.
I forgot to pack pajamas.

ORANGE ALERT! EMERGENCY

2010-03-23T22:29:00.003-04:00

Last night Allison had to work late so I was in charge of Ben. No biggie. I've been alone with him before and I get the job done. Well he didn't nap well and was a little cranky. Not good for me, but still I did a good job.

I was feeding him his 6:00 meal (rice cereal mixed with formula) when Allison called. She said what are you doing? I said "poop eating" she said "WHAT!?!?!" then she realize I meant Ben was pooping and eating at the same time and not eating his own poop.

He ate his food and he was done pooping so I decided to change him. I lay him on the changing table and I can already smell it, not good. Ben did his 3 days of carrots and now he's on day 2 of sweet potatoes. I take his pants off, unbutton his onesie and WHOA! ORANGE POOP EVERYWHERE.

The poop escaped out of his diaper and over his belly button. His belly button actually looked like the middle of a scale or a see-saw with a line of poop going across his whole tummy. Poop was all over his onesie, so I didn't know exactly how to undress him. I got poop all over my hand and arm, but got the onesie off of him without spreading the mess on Ben.

I started to clean him up, but I was making it worse. There was a pile of poop gooped onto his but and peeps area and the poop that was on his tummy, was now spread up to his nipples. He needed a bath stat. I picked him up and carried him to the tub. Shit! How do I turn on the water and get the shower head down? He's covered in poop. I worked it out and he got clean. Never a dull moment, but I felt good giving him bath time all by myself.

Fast forward to tonight's bath time. I got home from running and Ben was already in the bath. I washed up and went to visit. Ben was playing with his toys and splashing around. Allison and I were talking about his day, nap time troubles, eating schedule and stuff like that. I guess we stopped paying attention to him for a second. He reached out for a bath toy and went head over heels. I immediately picked him up from the water, but he bumped his head on the bottom of the tub and went under. He was fine, but he got scared. He cried a little bit, but was happy again after 30-40 seconds.

Sorry little buddy, didn't mean to let you down like that. You can bet all future baths will be spent with all eyes on Ben.

Happy Half Birthday

2010-03-21T20:28:00.012-04:00

Ben is six months old. During his six month checkup, he got two shots one in each leg. He didn't like that very much, but he did really well. He's 18Lbs 0.5 Oz - 27 1/4 inches long. The doctor said he looks like a 9 month old. She also said he could start solid foods.

What does Ben and a rabbit have in common? They both like carrots. We gave him carrots first, sweet potatoes are on the menu for tomorrow. Check out Ben's first taste of carrots.

The carrots gave him an orange beard, orange fingers and orange poop.

We also started giving him baths in big boy tub. That's just the regular bath tub to you and me. He loves it. He spends the first few minutes splashing around. Then a few more minutes trying to catch his bath toys. When we finally wash him, he's exhausted.

Lastly, I have told everyone who's asked how much I love being a dad. I love everything about it. Well, that's not exactly true. I found something I hate doing. I hate, two things more than anything in the world. 1) I hate changing crib sheets in the middle of the night 2) I hate washing bottles.

That's all for now. Make sure to leave some comments and stay tuned for updates on Ben's first plane trip, coming soon.

It's a Nightmare!!!!

2010-03-09T12:26:00.006-05:00

Last night just before 9:00 Ben started screaming bloody murder for no apparent reason. He was sound asleep then !BAM! screaming at the top of his lungs. He has never done this before so I bolted from the office into his room.

When I got there he was in serious crying position, on his back, fists clenched over his head. Tears were streaming down his face, but here's the odd part...his eyes were closed. I immediately tried to comfort him. I put my hand on his chest and gently rocked him while putting his pacifier back in his mouth. No dice.

I turned off the baby monitor and picked him up. He was still screaming. Allison had come upstairs to see what was going on. I handed him off, but still he wouldn't wake up and he wouldn't stop screaming. We though "maybe he's teething, give him some Baby Orajel." He woke up when we did that and stopped crying for the moment.

He was awake for about a minute. He was doing the breathing after crying thing...it's so cute. After we baby orajeled him, we tried to get him right back to sleep. Bad idea. He closed his eyes again and immediately he went right back to crying and screaming. Maybe it's not his teeth. Maybe like in Vanilla Sky...

It's a nightmare!!!!

We woke him up again and let him calm down. It took a good 5 - 10 minutes. Finally he regained his composure and fell asleep in my arms. I put him down and tip-toed out of the room. I was nervous for the next hour or so, wondering if it would happen again. He was good for the rest of the night. I fed him a late night bottle at 11:30. He was happy and took 4 ounces.

I guess he had night terrors or a nightmare. That sucks. Poor little guy. I felt so bad for him. I wanted to cry for him. It was so unsettling to see him that upset with nothing I could do to help him and not knowing what caused it.

I thought to myself, how can a baby have a nightmare? What could a baby see that could scare him? It's not like we let him watch Nightmare on Elm Street. You have to be at least 3 yrs old to watch that one. ;) The more I thought about it, the more I could see it. The more I think about the animals in his books and the characters on TV, it's a wonder he gets any sleep at all. Some of these characters are scary looking.

First up: I'll Eat you up!
The monsters in Where the Wild Things Are have faces only a mother could love. And they say "Don't go, I'll eat you up" Yes, they say it in a loving way, but it CAN be heard as "DON'T GO!!! I'll EAT YOU UP!!!! AAARRRRGGGG" And not that he's seen the movie yet, but one of the monsters is played by Tony Soprano. AHHHHH The horror.
Next up: Those damn dirty apes.
Ben's room is covered with monkeys and he has multiple stuffed animal monkeys. How would you like it if this is what was watching you sleep?
Exhibit C : I'm from the streets yo!
He did watch Sesame for the first time last week and suddenly this happens...hmmmm

Having a bad trip? Don't watch this show. Maybe Ben thinks he was going to be a guest for the party in Brobee's tummy. Look at the DJ...never trust someone that smiles that much!
Last up because I have to get back to work. I could honestly do this all day...and if I got into altering pix in Paint I could do this all week. But the last one is a fashion nightmare. What if Ben was dreaming about this! Sandals with socks! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

How do you like being a dad?

2010-03-08T12:33:00.004-05:00

I get asked this question a lot. I think it's kind of a dumb question (sorry to those who have asked me) but it's true. It ranks up there with:

Hot enough for ya?
Cold enough for ya?
Why you going to the airport, flying somewhere?

Being a dad is the best thing I've ever done. It's the best job I've ever had. I'm 5 months in and I think I'm pretty good at it. Yes it's true, I've made him cry a few times. (6 times to be exact) But I've stopped him from crying many more times than that (more than 6, but not really too many times...he is such a happy baby)

If you just want to hear good, great, amazing (or my default answer) awesome, ask "how do you like being a dad." If you want more than a one word answer, ask "What does it feel like to be a dad?" Even if you already have kids and know what it feels like, I think it's a better question, that will prompt different answers from everyone you ask.

I came up with the question and I'm not even sure how to answer it. Do I talk about how it felt the first day, the first month or how it feels now, 5 months in. I could talk about it all day. I can't remember what Allison told me is for dinner tonight, but I can tell you all about giving Ben his bottle last Thursday night. I can go into Navin R Johnson detail with it:

"I know we've only known each other four weeks and three days, but to me it seems like nine weeks and five days. The first day seemed like a week and the second day seemed like five days. And the third day seemed like a week again and the fourth day seemed like eight days. And the fifth day you went to see your mother and that seemed just like a day, and then you came back and later on the sixth day, in the evening, when we saw each other, that started seeming like two days, so in the evening it seemed like two days spilling over into the next day and that started seeming like four days, so at the end of the sixth day on into the seventh day, it seemed like a total of five days. And the sixth day seemed like a week and a half. I have it written down, but I can show it to you tomorrow if you want to see it."
Sorry, back to being a dad. I'm trying to describe what having a kid is like. Combine your favorite toy with your favorite pet and multiply it by 5, that's what it's like. I can be angry one minute, I look at him and I'm smiling again. He's awesome. Look at him, how can you be mad about anything when he smiles at you like that?
He's sitting up on his own like a champ and playing with his toys. I think he'll be crawling by next week. He can get up on his hands and he can get up on his knees, but he can't do them both at the same time. He's been close a few times. It's time to start baby proofing the house and get some baby gates.
There have been some funny parenting moments. We've taken his diaper off before he was finished going #1 and #2. Another time, somehow, his overalls got put on backwards. (I didn't do it)
We fixed it, but it was pretty funny. I'm not sure how funny he'll think it was when he hears about it and sees the pictures when he gets older, but for now...it's funny.
He's also decided that even when he's not in his bouncer, it's time to bounce. We'll hold him on our laps and he'll just start bouncing away. We'll feed him his late night bottle and instead of eating it, he'll just sit there smiling at us. He eventually eats, but not until he's smiled for a few.

He likes to show off for his parents. When I pick him up from my in-laws house he is really happy to see me. Last Tuesday he was in his Fisher-Price Jumperoo. When I got there he started jumping like crazy. If I stopped looking at him to talk with my mother-in-law, he would start making noise until I looked at him again...then he would resume jumping like crazy.

I think he's very smart. I make funny sounds to make him laugh. When I do it I make crazy eyes and take a deep breath. Now when I make crazy eyes and take a deep breath, he already starts to giggle. I stop and say "I didn't even do anything yet! don't laugh yet" but then I make the sounds and he laughs.

I feel like this is all over the place, but at least it's a post. I had to bang it out on my lunch break (and maybe a little over it) It feels good writing again. I'll keep it up. Ben's first baseball game is this week. We're taking him to see the Braves at Disney. It's pretty cool because this is my first spring training game too. I'll have pix and a post on that by the end of the week.