kiss and tell

Eli turned 5 about 6 weeks ago.  About 3 weeks ago, he started at a new preschool.  We hated to change after 2 years at one place, but, because of location, his new preschool will be able to pick him up from kindergarten starting in August.  His old one did not.

He’s adjusted well and made some new friends.  His best friend at this point is a VERY talkative girl named Maggie.  Just a few days ago, I found out from Erin that Eli and Maggie had kissed each other on the lips during playground time.

I asked him, “So, Eli, when you and Maggie kissed, was it yucky?”

Eli said, “Nope.  It was good.  I liked it.”

family photos

Took an official family photo last night for the first time in about 18 months.  A heartfelt thanks to my good friend Sabrina, of Photography By Sabrina, for doing these for us.  Sabrina photographs all the products that we put on our retail websites at Threds, and stays very busy with weddings, anniversary shoots, family shots, baby shots, etc.  She was so great with Eli, who normally wants to make only goofy or mean faces when taking pictures.

Is he really 5?

This Thursday, Eli will turn 5 years old.  As awesome as birthdays are for kids, this one is actually a tough one for me.

My boy isn’t really a toddler anymore.  Soon he’ll be headed to kindergarten.  Just this weekend he told Erin, “Mommy, I really want to kiss a girl on the lips.”

I guess part of what scares me is that he’s now old enough that I’m actually having trouble remembering him as a baby.  Those moments that you have as a parent when your child is very young, those moments that, while they are happening, are priceless … those moments are now fuzzy memories for me.  Crawling, waddling, falling asleep on dad’s chest on the couch, humming in the baby swing.

Now he’s a “big kid”.  He rearranges his room, can take showers pretty much on his own, doesn’t want help getting things in the kitchen, asks to stay up later and later, and is excited about becoming a “school ager” in his preschool.

Regretfully, Erin and I did not have a digital camera until Spring 2006, so the first couple of years were captured on low quality, printed pictures.  But, from what I have available….here’s a little slice of my son growing up.  (Clockwise, starting at top left – June 2006, April 2007, May 2008, and March 2009)

FUN STUFF – JUMPING, BOWLING, SLEDDING!!

This is an exciting post for me…mainly because on Monday of this week, Knoxville received the most snow that I can remember seeing in the last 6-7 years.  So I wanted to share some fun stuffthat Eli (and I) have done lately, highlighted by a couple of incredible snow days.

First, Eli loves to jump from the ottoman to the couch.  Slowly but surely, he pushes the ottoman farther and farther back to test his (and our) limits.  Recently, he had me take a bunch of pictures of him jumping…here’s one of the better ones:

Next, our family recently went bowling for the very first time.  Our friend Chris joined us, and Eli muscled his way through two complete games.  It’s not easy to roll an 8 pound ball when you can’t hold it with your fingers. 

Saving the best for last….SNOW.  I’m so pumped we got snow this week.  Last winter, we received not one single snowfall that was enough to break the sled out.  But on Monday, all hell broke loose.  It snowed heavily all morning.  Threds (where I work) actually anounced at 12:30pm that anyone who felt the need to go home for safety reasons was free to go.  Needless to say, I took advantage.  I already had Tuesday off anyway, so it was perfect.  Picked Eli up from school, went home, and proceeded to get in about 3 hours of sledding time over the next day and a half.  On Monday, we used the yard across the street from our townhouse.  Eli kindly rang the doorbell and asked the lady who lives there if we could sled in her yard.  We sledded for about an hour, took a warm up break, waited for mom to get home, then went for another hour.

Then, on Tuesday afternoon, I actually took Eli to a much larger hill at the outskirts of our subdivision for some serious riding.  Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of this one.  The hill ranges from 20 yards to 50 yards long, depending on where you go down, and also varies in steepness.  The snow was hard packed and icy from the overnight low temps, so it was fast, furious, and quite bumpy.  Some other kids that were there let Eli borrow their much cooler sled, which went faster and farther than ours.  It was great.  Eli typically doesn’t have a large threshold for pain or adventure, but he was unstoppable on this day.  Forwards, backwards, on his rear end or stomach, small and big slopes, it was great.  So many times I would stand on top of the hill laughing as I heard him go down, yelling, “ouch, ouch, that hurt, ahh, watch the fence, woo hoo!”   I just can’t describe how happy I am that it actually snowed and I got to take my son sledding…when we went a couple of years ago, he was still a little timid with it and mainly rode in my lap.  Now he’s loving it completely on his own, more daring than I expected, and is already asking about when we can do it again.  Thanks God for the snow!!

 

 

Some Pictures

Eli is big-time into Power Rangers right now.  He was a Power Ranger for Halloween, I think he’s already dedicated his life to “getting bad guys”, and he often runs downstairs and puts on random displays of Kung Fu action for us.  Here is Eli in his “Super Eight Sword” Power Ranger pose in front of our Christmas tree:

This next one is from a few nights ago.  Eli and I were making home-made masks to wear around the house and scare each other.  Eli made a sort-of Ironman mask, and me…well, as you can see, it doesn’t take much to make this grill look scary:

Finally, a shot from last Saturday.  Crossings had its Leadership Community at 4 Market Square – our new home beginning January 11th.  The community broke into teams and participated in a downtown area photo scavenger hunt.  Here was my team (I took the photo), standing in front of a graffitti’d wall just behind the 4MS building. 

happy late halloween

Conversation on the way to preschool

This morning, Eli wore a royal blue pullover hooded sweatshirt as his jacket, since his other jackets are all dirty and still in the laundry.  We were in the car on the way to preschool.  This is a short conversation that ensued.

Me:  “Eli, you know the big pocket on the front of your sweatshirt, do you know what that’s called?”

Eli: “No”

Me:  “It’s called a ‘kangaroo pocket’”

Eli:  “Huh?  A kangaroo pocket?” 

Me:  “Yep.  Do you know why?”

Eli:  “Yeah.  Because mean guys take the pocket off the front of a kangaroo, and then they paint it blue, and they put on to this shirt.  And then they turn it sideways?” 

Me:  “Yep, I guess so, son.” 

 

(PS – headed to Florida next week for a 4 day work event….talk to you in about a week!)

The 1st Thing I’ve Built In Years

A couple of weeks ago the subdivision Erin’s parents live in had it’s 12th annual community garage sale.  It’s always big, and really good.  We’ve participated 3 times, and always sold everything we put out.  This year, while walking around the neighborhood, I found the Sanyo 27″ TV you see in this picture…and bought it for $20.00.  It now sits in Eli’s room. 

However, when we bought it, I knew there wouldn’t really be a spot in his room to put the TV.  So I decided to build him a TV table.  Myself. 

I sketched it out, did the measurements, went to Lowe’s, found the wood, had it cut on site, realized AFTER it was cut that I had grabbed the 2×10″ wood instead of the 2×12″ wood, which screwed up my sketched out plan.  So I had to figure out how to use the precut wood I had instead.  Figured it out.  Proceeded to build the table in our kitchen.  Realized the screws I was using were not really the right kind.  Went to Ace Hardware and got new ones.  Made lots of noise and lots of dust in the kitchen.  Measured mostly by eye, which you aren’t supposed to do, realized the table was slighly wobblier than I had hoped, but was able to use two left over pieces as extra support braces.  Decided to nail those in instead of screw them, which was REALLY loud in the kitchen.

And finally finished.  Didn’t varnish or paint it.  I wanted Eli to be able to draw and decorate and write all over it if he wanted.  He did for a while and was done.  But it’s still his for the decorating.  And it holds up his TV.  So, when it was all said and done, Eli got a 27″ Sanyo tv in GREAT condition, a custom made TV/VCR/DVD stand, and a VCR/DVD combo (from his grandparents who weren’t using it anymore), and I spent a grand total of about $50.00.  Not too bad.  However, it kind of sucks to think that it took me 29 years before I had a TV as big as the one he now has at 4 1/2.

Eli & Angela

We’re reluctant to admit this, but for the last year or so, Eli has had a girlfriend at preschool. Her name is Angela, and she’s crazy about him. Seriously. Ask Eli who his girlfriend at school is, and he’ll tell you it’s Angela.

Her parents are aware of this connection as well, and for a while we’ve talked with them about getting together sometime so they can hang out. We were finally able to this past weekend as they met us at the Oaks Farm for a hay ride, snacks, pumpkin picking, and other fun stuff.

Because I’m unable to get Picture Trail to work on this blog, for some reason that’s making me crazy mad right now, you’ll have to go to the link I’m attaching to see the photo show of Eli & Angela at the Oaks Farm. Sorry about that, I should be more technologically adept, but I just can’t get it to embed right. So, anyway, go here for a photo recap of Eli’s first date. Oh boy.

http://www.picturetrail.com/flicks/5742673/preview

2 Reasons It’s Fun to Wear a Swim Mask

A Few Updates

I’ve played more tennis in the last 2 months than I had in the last 10 years.  It’s been great.  Although playing until after midnight on Tuesday nights with my pals, getting to bed around 1:00am, and then getting up for work the next day has been a little rough on this old body.

I’ve picked more berries in the last two weeks than I have in my entire life previously.  Picked some fresh blackberries at Daniel & Mandy’s about a week ago, and just ate them right off the bush.  Then, Eli & I went to The Fruit & Berry Patch in Halls a few nights ago and picked some blackberries and peaches and took them home.  Then a couple of nights later, Erin, Eli, & I went back out to the Patch and picked blueberries, grapes, blackberries, and apples.  And we bought a thing of honey made in Nebraska that is probably the most delicious honey I’ve ever tasted.  Then we went home and I took the blackberries and blueberries and made a homemade cobbler all by myself.  Never did this before.  It was really really good….and VERY sweet….went just a little overboard on the sugar.  Although I did take the cobbler to work the next day and it disappeared quickly. 

Work is hectic.  One guy in my department was let go about 4 weeks ago, and another girl resigned and went off to greener pastures.  So I’m taking on some full time web accounts again, on top of trying to do the things I’ve been doing the last several months….technical training and development, product development, various projects, etc.  Stressful.

I LOVE the show So You Think You Can Dance.  Love it.  I’ve watched previous seasons as well, although I’ve never committed to watching it every single week like I do with Lost, The Office, or Prison Break.  But the dancing is so incredible.  This isn’t celebrities “trying” to dance.  It’s 18-28 year olds who are actual dancers trying to make it and get their big break.  I love it.  The choreography each week is so stinking creative and amazing.  And I don’t think I can dance.  I know I can.

Erin has recently gotten pretty good at throwing Frisbee.  I’m not sure how or why, because every time she’d tried in the past, it went pretty poorly and she’d get frustrated and quit.  But something clicked.  And although there’s still room for improvement, we’ve actually gotten out and thrown several times over the last few weeks.  Awesome.

Because of season passes that were given to us as a gift, we’ve been able to go to Dollywood & Splash Country 4 times each so far this year.  Yee Haw!

This time next year, we’ll be getting Eli ready for Kindergarten.  Buying a backpack, shopping for school clothes, getting pencils and paper, finding a cool lunchbox.  How is this possible?  5 years ago this little person did not exist.  Now he talks back, climbs on the counter to secretly find snacks, dances all around the living room breakdance style, wears his water mask/goggles in bed while watching cartoons, prefers to get dressed all by himself, picks bugs up off the ground, sings on tune, loves to eat mushrooms, has a sort-of preschool girlfriend who is so clingy to him that he says “why does she be my friend ALL the time??”, and laughs just as wonderfully as ever.

One Thing Eli Loves About Summer That I HATE…

Bugs.  Yep.  Bugs.

Is this really my kid?  He loves bugs.  He loves letting caterpillars crawl onto his hand.  He likes getting really close to the ground and watching ants.  A couple of weeks ago, Erin went to pick him up at daycare.  The kids were outside playing in the back yard playground area.  Eli’s hands were cusped together as he ran to Erin saying, “Mommy, mommy, look what I got for you.”  Erin had an idea it was probably a bug.  Maybe a caterpillar.  He opens his hands, and there are roughly 5-6 long slimy worms bunched up in his hands!  AHHH!!  GROSS!!  It freaked Erin out, as it would have for me. 

Why bugs, son?  Why bugs?  Soon he’ll be bringing frogs into our home, releasing moths into his bedroom, and housing lizards in his dresser drawers.  Not long after that he’ll begin disecting them.  Studying their organs.  Analyzing their bone structure.  Going to college and learning their domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species (impressive, huh?).  We’ll visit his dorm and find beetle colonies under the bed.  He’ll start using words like bugaboo, bugger, debugged, humbug, buggy, and bugle.  He’ll wear ecologically friendly praying mantis colored t-shirts.  He’ll invite us over for dinner and offer us a wide selection of cholocate covered junebugs, fricaseed slugs, and grasshopper soup. 

And because I’m his dad, I’ll love every minute of it. 

The Sandwich Maker

A couple of weeks ago, Eli taught me how to make a cheese sandwich.  (Clockwise, starting from the top left) Step 1 – take out a piece of bread.  Step 2 – open cheese and put it on bread.  Step 3 – put another piece of bread on top.  Step 4 – eat it.  About 10 minutes later, I found a half-eaten sandwich in the living room.  I asked Eli about it.  His response?  “I don’t like a cheese sandwich, dad.” 

the singer in the family

It has become quite obvious that our son loves to sing…and is actually good at it. I have to tell you something that brings tears to my eyes. For the past 3-4 weeks, when we put Eli to bed, we’ve been quietly playing Rich Mullins music on the little cd player in his room, to help him fall asleep. It’s sort of an alternative to a nightlight, I guess. So far we’ve been playing “The World as I Remember It”, both volumes 1 and 2, and “Liturgy, Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band.”

A couple of nights ago, Erin was in Eli’s room getting him ready for bed, and called me in to the room with them. “Listen to Eli” she said. Quietly, and accurately, Eli was singing “Oh God, you are my God, and I will ever praise You. Oh God, you are my God, and I will ever praise You. I will seek you in the morning, and I will learn to walk in Your ways. And step by step You lead me, and I will follow You all of my days.” He learned this chorus simply by hearing it in his room with the lights off before going to sleep. And it’s one of my favorite songs of all time….actually the song we were singing in my high school youth group when I committed my life to Christ. I was definitely tearing up to hear Him singing it so beautfully.

For the record, Eli also loves to sing “You’ve Stolen My Heart” and “Hey, You’re the One” (both by Leeland), “Mush (Bus) Driver” (by Caedmon’s Call), “You Never Let Go” (by David Crowder), as well as a few others I can’t immediately remember.

Now, considering how well he’s absorbed the nightly Rich Mullins music, I’m wondering what else I should start playing for him to sleep by. The languages of the world? Mark Nelson’s podcasted messages? The Purpose Driven Life? High school level calculus theories? Anything by John Denver?

the many faces of eli

Our son turned 4 years old this week.

He’s a great kid. Funny, smart, moody, caring, curious, engaging.

And a total goof ball.

some brief updates on life, music, and vegetarianism

My son turns 4 in about 3 weeks. Amazing. That means it’s been nearly 5 years since I lived a single day without thinking about our child. Some thoughts are wonderful. Some are maddening. Some are frightening. But for roughly 1700 days now, I’ve lived life as a father, rather than just as some guy.

I changed the strings on my guitar last night for the first time in roughly 5 years. Actually, back before we were even married, Erin had bought me a package of Elixir guitar strings for my birthday. Right around the time I had stopped playing. I’ve kept the strings ever since, and finally had occasion to use them last night. It was tough….I never ever have liked changing out guitar strings….but it still felt good.

Because of the example, testimony, and recommendation of our friends Emily & Chase, we bought a rice cooker this weekend. Black and Decker. 14 cups (cooked) capacity with a steamer basket so you can steam veggies while the rice cooks. Non stick removable cooking bowl. Already used it, and I’m very excited. Finally, a kitchen gadget I really feel like I’m going to get real value out of. Unlike the waffle maker, toaster oven, sandwich press, and hard-to-use electric can opener that have graced our kitchen at some point.

12 days with no meat. But plenty of rice, broccoli, zucchini, squash, ramen noodles, pasta, baked potatoes (dan quayle spelling), veggie pizza, a veggie burrito from Salsarita’s, the veggie plate at Shono’s in the City, homemade whatever-I-can-think-to-put-on-it salads, tofu (marinated in heinz 57 sauce this weekend), peppers, and Mello Yellow….a staple vegetarian drink.

MY guitar hero

We went to Kentucky this weekend to visit my family. We’re trying to visit every 2-3 months so we can see our nephew/cousin, Grayson, grow up. Here’s a picture of Eli and Grayson:

But, there was another highlight to this trip. We do not own a video game system at our home. The last one I owned was an original Playstation that I ended up selling about 6 years ago. I hope to hold off as long as humanly possible before Eli gets a game system for himself.

My sister and brother-in-law, however, own a Nintendo Wii. And while we were there this weekend, Rodney went out and bought Guitar Hero III. We all had fun playing and laughing and making fun of each other’s lack of skillzz. But when it was Eli’s turn to take it on, holy cow. He watched others play and did a great job of being patient and waiting his turn. When the time came, his aunt Kari Jo took care of the “strumming”, while Eli’s job was to hit the colored buttons.

After going through a “slow” practice session, we let him go through a practice song at the full speed. I believe the song was “Slow Ride.” And my little homeboy hit 25% of the notes! And Kari will probably admit that some of the misses were from her strumming, not his misses, so he may very well have gotten over 30% of the notes at full speed.

But not only that, he was TOTALLY into it. He was screaming out the colors when he changed them, jumping up and down, frantically getting to the next color button in time, grunting. It was freaking hilarious. And he never let down either, even though the songs on that game last forever. It was a blast. I certainly hope he’s got some actual music skills as he gets older.

what makes mornings worth it

Every weekday morning, around 7:20am, I drop Eli off at his daycare center. Sometimes he grumpily walks in, won’t hug me, and just slumps back to his friends, complaining about something that has made him angry.

Other days, we go in, take off his jacket, and he takes off, sprinting to his friends and leaving me standing there. No hug. No goodbye.

Still other days, we’ll check his cubby, go see what they have for breakfast, exchange hugs and kisses, and then when I start to leave he’ll holler at me and run to give me another hug before I go.

Some days – not nearly as much anymore – he’ll cry when I leave and plead for me not to go. Then a teacher will have to hold him while I exit.

This morning, we went inside…took off his coat…switched his shoes back over to the correct feet after he had put them on by himself at home…went over to the breakfast table to pick which cereal he would like to eat…he took off one of his shoes (that we had just fixed) in order to show Ms. Rachel his Incredibles socks…then we hugged.

Then I said, “You have a good day, okay?”
And he replied, “Okay, dad, you have a good work.”

And that makes mornings worth it.

old school big wheels…

When I was younger, I used to have a Dukes of Hazzard style big wheel, much like this one:

It was such a blast, man. My buddy had a Knight Rider big wheel. We’d race, spin out, go down hills way too fast, spin the wheels in the rocks, all kinds of stuff. I’ve always had these unusually nostalgic memories about riding a big wheel. I’m not sure why.

Now, finally, my son is able to ride a big wheel. Erin and I actually bought him one when he was 18 months old, thinking he’d be tall enough to pedal it when he turned 2. Well, another year and half later (what were we thinking?), and he’s finally up to speed. And, yes, I realize this is not a “classic” big wheel, but there aren’t many of those around any more, so this one had to do.

It’s awesome to watch and remember how much fun I had doing the very same thing over 20 years ago. I hope he’ll also get to enjoy a cool Huffy or BMX bike, an Atari, and a whiffle ball bat and some rocks. Just like dad did.

eli loves greg’s music

My friend Greg has just released two new Cd’s….”Chasing the Western Sky” and “Thirty Three”. You can check them out or buy them here. Me, Erin, and Eli went to see him perform this past Friday night at The V Cafe. He played 12 songs with a full band, it was pretty awesome.

What really blew me away was how enthralled our son Eli was. He watched the entire show. He played percussion on the table he was sitting at, bounced up and down in his chair, and even got up in front of the stage and danced to an entire song. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a camera with us. It was so funny.

This morning I was taking Eli to school. We were listening to the “Thirty Three” album in my car. During the very first song, he recognized it was Greg singing. He asked me, “Dad, why is Greg singing in our car?”

Then when the song ended, he asked, “Can we listen to another Greg song?”. Then when the second song ended, he asked again, “Can we listen to another Greg song?”. Then we made it to school. Thankfully, one of the songs we listened to was entitled, “Four Bucks.” I hope Eli listened to it closely and learned an important lesson about inflation and gross overspending.

Thanks, Greg, for your subliminal influences on my son.

being a dad

There’s nothing like being a dad. For the longest time, I really thought I would never have children. I pretty much thought I’d live life as a bachelor, doing what I wanted, traveling, etc. And granted, Eli was not actually planned. But neither was I. And I’m glad I’m alive.

I never slept as little as I did his first 2 weeks of life. It was horrible. Erin was not able to do much after a c-section, and every night, every 2 hours, it was me and Eli on the rocking chair in the living room, me singing make believe songs in his ear, with lyrics like, “please go to sleep and daddy will spoil you forever”, and “God loves it when we sleep”.

It wasn’t too long before he started to be fun! Learning to talk, crawling and walking, realizing when he did things that were funny and then doing them again. Eating on his own, recognizing things like animals, cars, and balls. It was amazing. As a parent, you pretty much think you’re child is the only one in the world learning these things at such a young age. It’s so fulfilling.

It wasn’t too long before he started getting an attitude. Refusing to do things. Saying no all the time. Not eating something he didn’t like. Laying on the floor and pouting. Fake crying. Not wanting to go to bed. I’m not sure where “Terrible Two’s” came from, but it’s not entirely true. Our 3rd year has been the rough one. He’s too smart now. He knows how to manipulate. He understands emotions. He’s stubborn and sometimes refuses to give in, regardless of the punishment. He’s pretty much been poddy trained for about 6 months, but still gives in sometimes, even though he knows it’s yucky and will make mom and dad upset. We’ve had to start an “Eli Bank” just to start rewarding him again for successful pooping, because he was having a really rough stretch for about a month.

But I can’t wait to see him every morning. And each evening. Going to do things together is so much fun….Dollywood, hayrides at the corn maze, Happy meals, shopping at Walmart, the bounce house, playgrounds. He’s learning to ride a big wheel…his legs are finally long enough. He’s so much fun, he’s becoming more thoughtful and polite, he learns things every day that I often don’t even realize until he springs them on me days later. His vocabulary continues to grow. His bad days are pretty bad, but the good days are so so so so good.

Like I said, there’s nothing like being a dad. And I thank God everyday that I got to be one.

And, yes, I’m aware that his shirt is on backwards in the picture. But he likes to put it on “by himself.” Who am I to stop him?

take me out to the ballgame

Last night Eli & I went to a Tennessee Smokies baseball game (AA affiliate for the Cubs). Eli actually got to throw out one of the first pitches – although the friend from work using my camera didn’t get a shot of the actual throw. Eli actually threw the ball from about 10 feet in the front of the pitchers mound, and it made it all the way to the catcher on a straight line, about half in the air and half way on the ground. It’s really a fantastic ballpark for a AA team. We left after the 6th inning, although we probably only watched about 1 inning of actual baseball. Sort of a slow game for a 3 year old to focus on, I guess.