Category: family

This one’s from Jen:

Heather, Kevin’s younger sister – note I didn’t say little – is starting to have multiple suitors. Max has met one, Jeremy, and has heard about the another one, Paul. Out of the blue, Max said to me, “Do you have a pa?” I said, “Pa? Yes, I have a dad, Grandpa Brian is my dad.” He said emphetically, “Paulllllll.” Then he said , “Jeremy.” I said, “oh, I don’t have a Paul or Jeremey, I have a Kevin. So, no, I don’t have a Paul. I just have your daddy. Paul and Jeremy want to date Heather. But I only date your daddy, Kevin.” It was a funny conversation. But I don’t know how much he got out of it.

Happy Birthday, sweetheart. How did she celebrate? She watched the finale of her favorite show (Buffy), went out to lunch, did a little shopping, ate some food, laughed and got some presents.

Next year? We do something big. No, I mean it. Big, big, big, big… just you wait and see.

I put up a bunch of pictures today as well (been a busy boy, have I):

• New! Going Away Picnic For Our Friends: I got to hold and play with babies!!

• Christmas 2000: Max was 1… how can a one year-old at Christmas not be adorable?

• Jen’s Favorite Max Pics: 18 months old on our front steps being cute.

• Max’s First Birthday: He got cake!!

• Max and Uncle Tim

Today is Mother’s Day, and I think Jen had a good one. She slept in, spent the day unencumbered by a high-maintenance three year-old, had yummy cinnamon-pecan pancakes and bacon, and then went over to my family’s house, where I grilled peppers and steak.

I love my wife. She is a great mother and our son proves it. He’s happy, smart, and above average in every way. She takes care of everyone, and has a heart bigger than anyone’s. She’s funny. She wears the funny-pants in our house. Ok, actually, we share them. She hands them over sometimes, but most of the time, she’s in ’em, making me laugh. She has bright eyes and a glowing smile and makes everything better than I have a right to expect it to be.

Happy Mother’s Day, sweetheart.

My sister is a winner (and again, and there will probably be a column about the whole thing here later, and here’s another one). She has been since she started beating my grandfather at UNO when she was three (that episode also gave me my favorite nickname, “Smartass”). Now, she’s in the big league of winners, going all the way to England to receive the accolades of the Cable & Wireless ChildNet awards.

It’s funny. She, up until very recently (and she may still, I haven’t asked), used AOLpress to build the pages of her site. I introduced her to the internet waaa-aaay back in 1995 (may have been 96 by the time Mom let her online). Now, she’s a mini-magnate with a website and blog that get more hits than this poor site ever will. What she lacks in techspertise, she makes up in sheer will, organizational skills, and force of personality. And as much as she grows up, she’s still the little girl who threw up on the back of Tim’s head from her carseat waaa-aaay in the back of the Caravan, and in my mouth when she was six months old when I tried to give her a little kiss. She’ll always be the little girl who tattled at a moment’s notice and used to brag that she could get anything she wanted by rubbing dad’s ear.

Way to go, kid! Now maybe people will start pronouncing our last name right.

• The Baltimore Aquarium

• Lunch At City Lights in the Inner Harbor

Yes, that’s right, two new galleries for the price of one! We went to the Baltimore Aquarium yesterday. It was packed. Max got a little claustrophobic, so we rushed through most of it, except the cool ramp around the inside of the big tank. As you can see for yourself in the pics, it was really dark. I would have loved to have had more time to try to take better pics, but we were rushed and it was so crowded that it was hard to get close enough to take more than one shot of any one thing.

Max loved the dolphin show though. Before it started, he was pretty tired of fish, but once he saw the dolphins jump out of the water the first time, he cheered up. After the dolphin show, we headed to lunch, where I sat across from Max and got to play around with the camera some more. He obliged by being cute and making lots of goofy faces. He was happy pretty much until he fell asleep on the ride home (unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of that – everyone else was asleep and I was driving through two rush hours).

Brian is doing his very best to spoil Max as much as possible in the next three days. This morning, we took a trip to Toys R’ Us and came home with a Radio Flyer Tricycle. You can see the results.

We have pictures! Jen found the camera and put it to good use, documenting a rare afternoon MaxNap and Max and the twins next door playing outside on a beautiful spring day in Northern Virginia.

Please, make him stop!! I can’t take any more puppy cuteness, or I will just break down and buy one. It’s not fair. I don’t even like dogs. In fact, I don’t understand humans’ need for animal companionship, but every time I see pictures of Oliver, and now the puppies, my cold animal agnostic heart just melts.

What’s wrong with me??

Today was crazy in a good way. First, I woke up at 8:30, got up, took a shower and headed to the gym. I made it all the way through my workout routine. I didn’t skip any exercises, just skipped a couple reps on the shoulder presses because I just couldn’t do it any more. I was still really sore from Thursday (I can barely lift my arms over my head and it feels like I have cinderblocks tied around my thighs). But, I did it, and I didn’t die.

After showering and putting my non-stinky clothes back on, I headed over to the Sporting Goods store (Dick’s… mmmmm, Dick’s). I bought a big exercize ball to use as my new office chair at work and new workout shoes. Then, back home to snatch up Jen and Max and head to Famous Dave’s for lunch. Two things worth noting: our waiter’s name was Famous John, and Max had his first root beer float. It took him a while to warm up to it, but once he got past the sickly root beer bubbles. Then, we went to Piglet’s BIG Movie, which bored Max so badly we left before it ended. He’s a Junkyard Wars kid, I guess.

I made soup tonight when we got home after our trip to the grocery store, and now I’m sitting here. I’ve been going non-stop for almost 13 hours, and I think it’s time to take a break, or fall asleep. I can’t decide.