Mom, You're Embarrassing Me In Front of The Cool Kids

Adam arrives for his first day of pre-school.

Elmo backpack? Check. Sippy cup? Check. Okay, now mom and dad, go away; you're cramping my style.

... And I'm All Out of Bubble Gum

We needed a little more pain in our lives, so we packed up the brood (minus Sliver) and drove to San Antonio so that I could run in the San Antonio Rock 'n' Roll 1/2 Marathon last Sunday. I was originally going to run the race with my sister Jennifer, who lives there, but she hurt her knee in September and is out of action for a while. Lucky duck.

So we drove to Tyler, Texas, birthplace of Earl Christian Campbell, a.k.a., "The Tyler Rose," and stayed Wednesday night. Adam enjoyed the hotel room and the breakfast of oatmeal and sausage and yogurt and syrup and milk and a tiny bit of juice, and did I mention he likes breakfast? We covered the rest of the 488 miles Thursday.
Friday we checked out downtown San Antonio. We remembered the Alamo, took a boat tour of the river, had lunch along the riverwalk, and picked up my race packet at the Alamodome. No pictures; we forgot the camera that day.

By Saturday, Adam had discovered that Jenn and Bryan's neighborhood had a pretty sweet park around the corner. He and Blake practiced riding bikes and played while I got in a short run.

The race was to start at 7:15 Sunday morning, and I got there early, thanks to Bryan dropping me off at stupid o'clock. Jean and Jenn and the kids were going to come later and see me finish. If everything went well, I would be finished by 9. If my knees, which had been giving me problems for the previous couple of weeks, couldn't hold up, I would finish MUCH later. As bad as my knees had been, I did not seriously expect them to make it. Neither did Jean or Jenn.

O ye of little faith.

As I was training for the run, since this was my first half-marathon and I had no idea what to expect or how to pace it, I decided on 3 target times. I would be satisfied with anything under an hour and forty-five minutes; I thought 1:42 would be a good day and 1:40 would be my everything-goes-well, best-case-scenario time.

I ran the first mile with the crowd. It's hard to do much else when there are 27,000 people trying to cover the same ground. But it was too slow, so I picked up the pace and by mile 5 the crowds had thinned enough to settle into a really good rhythm. In fact, my mile 6 and 7 splits were only 22 hundredths of a second different. The lack of good training for the final two weeks before the race took their toll on my calves, but my knees were hanging in there, so I kept up the pace all the way to the finish line, crossing in 1:39:28 and beating my best-case target by half a minute. Hooray for me.

And, of course, as I was finishing, Jean, Adam, Jenn, Stormy, and Blake were on a shuttle bus. Aside from the herding cats nature of getting 3 kids organized and moving on a Sunday morning, they figured my knee(s) would blow, and they would see me hobble to the finish line. Well, they were wrong. WRONG, I say!

But they did bring a nice sign:

So, after all that, we met up, went home and Jennifer prepared a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner (that couldn't be beat), since neither of us are going back to Washington for the holidays. We got to meet some of Bryan's family and watched football and the "Man v. Food" marathon. We had to give up on MvF because you can only say "Oh gawd" so many times before you start having a sympathetic heart attack.

Finally, we drove the 488 miles back to Monroe on Monday. Adam did great in the car, but that's a long time for anyone to be couped up. Luckily his potty training has progressed to the point that he will tell us if he needs to go, and, being a boy, we can pull over to the side of the road, pick a target, and he lets it fly (not pictured).

So, we're home. Thanks to Bryan, Jenn, Stormy, and Blake for putting up with us for the weekend. We had a good time. I'm still a bit sore, Adam is getting pretty good at the whole potty thing, and none of us wants to drive that far ever again.

Halloween and Other Spooky Events

by Jean.

Happy Halloween from Spooky Louisiana! We were entertained this last week by a visit from my parents, and they were entertained by lots of small child Halloween activities, including a trip to the zoo, the state fair, 2 halloween parties, and trick or treating. AND we worked on potty training.... it was a busy week.

The zoo had lots of spooky decorations up, and this was Adam's favorite. He probably liked it better than any of the animals! The State Fair of Louisiana takes place in Shreveport, and it was a lovely event. Lots of music, activities, and animals - a small child paradise!

There was even a circus at the fair, with a great show, and their circus animals were available to feed. Adam was pretty impressed with feeding the giraffe - the long black tongue was great!

We went back to my favorite pumpkin patch with the whole family, and Adam got to do more hay rides, train rides, etc. Grandma and Grandpa entertained themselves by picking up pecans, which we then spent hours shelling at home!

Our gym had a kids party, which was fun, but mostly consisted of handing out candy and cookies to the kids. This gym amazes me with their "feed the kids lots of sugar and junk" attitude.

We don't have pictures from the library, but we headed over to the library after the gym, and they had a great bunch of games and sugar free prizes (toy snakes, witch fingers, etc) for the kids. It was great!

Adam went Trick or Treating with some other kids in the neighborhood, and then has forgotten all about the candy he collected - that is the best way to do Halloween!

Guitar Hero

He's already better than his dad:

So You Want to Get a Ph.D. in Political Science

If only the internet had existed in 1996:

via LG&M

Time Marching On

by Jean,

Where did September and October go? Probably the same place this train went - down the road as fast as it could! You can see Adam in a red shirt in the green car on the left. We went to the local farm/pumpkin patch and they had all kinds of cool stuff like this "train" (a lawnmower pulling little carts), a hayride, toys for the kids, and a pumpkin patch where they got to choose their own pumpkins. It was only 85 degrees that day - fall weather in Louisiana. The first time the driver took off with all the kids towed behind, all the parents were astonished at how fast she drove, and how far she took them! Only one child was crying when they came back, and it wasn't Adam. He was grinning from ear to ear, and ready to go again. After 2 hours of playing at the pumpkin patch, here we are, taking a break and sitting on the big round hay bales.

After 3 hours of playing at the pumpkin patch, I finally got Adam to go and look at pumpkins. Here he is, sitting in the pumpkin patch with our pumpkins. He declared early in the day that he wanted a "little pumpkin," and that is what he chose. He also insisted on carrying it back from the field to the car by himself. Now he picks it up and carries it around the house from time to time to show us his pumpkin. It's a good thing he got the little one.

What a poser! This is from a recent trip to the park. We have been working on getting decent poses from Adam for photos. He is getting closer to taking good photos.... this one doesn't show ALL his teeth, and his eyes are partly open!

The other day Adam was listening to music and said, "that's the guitar!" During the next song that played, he said, "that's a piano." He was right both times. Then he wanted to get out Ted's guitar to play while his music videos were playing, because the main performer has a guitar. Then he informed me that he needs "an Adam sized guitar." His grandpa Ray should be proud!

I repeat, where did September and October go?

Sure, He's Fallen on His Head, But It's Not That Far to Fall

I don't know exactly when the brain damage occurred, but Adam ain't right. Today, at the gym daycare, he went out to their little outside climbing toy, crawled underneath it, and stripped. Diaper too. When the staff asked him what he was doing, he replied, "It's okay."

This Is Why the Internet Was Invented

I know we've gone dark 'round here for a while. We've been busy... or something. I'll post a few things over the next week or so detailing some of our recent and semi-recent activities.

In the meantime, bask in the greatness that is RedLetterMedia's YouTube Channel. They specialize in epic reviews of sci-fi movies, especially Star Trek and the Star Wars prequels. Head on over some time and poke around. You'll need sound, of course. Also, they use naughty words, so do not watch them at work - unless you've got a sweet job where your boss and your co-workers are okay with that sort of thing, you know, like the local shipyard, the set of a Quentin Tarantino movie, or a Jesuit university.

In particular, I would like to recommend their 7-part review of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and their 9-part (that's right, 9 parts - I told you they were epic) review of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones.

Here. I'll get you started:

(By Jean) Dirt,Snacks, and other things small boys Enjoy

For a while, Adam could care less about driving his toys in the dirt.... but that recently changed. We have had more time in the dirt playing in the last 3 weeks than in the previous 6 months combined. And more showers, baths, and clothes to wash, also! I had to weed the flower bed the other day to provide him with space to run his trucks - it had gotten too overgrown for them to really dig down in and get dirty and mucky!

It's all happening at the zoo - here is Adam wearing my hat on a recent expedition to our local zoo. We were watching the Lemurs and snacking. Snacking is a big part of any zoo trip. See the monkeys, get raisins. See the hippo, get a pickle. See the tiger, get cheese. And so on....

Adam's new favorite when we go to Sam's Club is the Caesar Salad - in part because it has croutons, and also because he can share with either Ted or me, and get salad dressing for dipping. He is willing to negotiate and eat some lettuce in exchange for croutons. Crazy boy!

Wise Beyond His Years

Adam recently has been enjoying Monsters, Inc. The adventures of Sully, Mike, and Boo amuse him greatly, and he's a sucker for a sight gag. We don't have a portable DVD player - not yet, anyway - so his movie watching is confined to the house, mostly right before his afternoon nap. But we have an iPod for music in the car.

Yesterday, on the way to the gym in the morning, Adam informed me, "If we had another iPod, we could bring the Monsters wiff us."