Chillin' in the pool, Sammy-style.

Makes you want to be 13 months old again, doesn't it?

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Sam, Day 1
Sam, Day 365

Happy birthday, little man.

Daddy loves the hell out of you.

So it begins...

Our little girl has her first boyfriend.

A boy asked her yesterday if she would go out with him. She said yes.

When I was a kid, we just asked someone if she wanted to go with you. We usually wrote it in a note: "Will you go with me? Yes No Maybe."

Now they go "out," though they're not going anywhere.

Anyway, first boyfriend. Mom was in tears. Little sister kept saying big sister's first name with boyfriend's last name.

I told her I need references and two years of tax returns.

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On a gushy happy note.

Is this kid cute or what?

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Random Ramblings

See that little South Park-lookin' dude over there? That's me! Don't know if you saw this at Dawn's, but you can create your own South Park character here. I gotta say, dude does kinda look like me. I'm particularly proud of the crazy-bushy eyebrows because, if you've seen the real me, you know I have crazy-bushy eyebrows. The only thing that's off about it is he doesn't have a nose, and boy howdy, do I have a nose. Big ol' schnozzola.

****

I picked up our Christmas tree last night (yes, it's a Christmas tree, you Pagan Pansies!) while Julie and the kids were out dancing -- okay, Julie and Sam weren't dancing, but Emma and Maddie were. It's a very lovely tree, nice and bushy like my eyebrows. As we discovered last Christmas -- our first in this house -- however, our ceilings are only 8' high. Our previous home had 9' ceilings, and my house before that had 10' ceilings. So we've progressively had to get shorter and shorter trees. With 8' ceilings, after you're done cutting the bottom to fit in the stand and leaving enough room at the top for your treetop ornament (for an example of not doing this, look here), your tree itself is only about 6-1/2 to 7' tall. Not the big nine footer I used to get. But you know, once I got the lights on, it started to look pretty darn festive. We'll decorate tonight.

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My Thursday Thirteen last week was all about things that bug me about Christmas. The reality is, however, I love Christmas and actually had to make up a few of them just to get 13. I've always loved Christmas, and there's one good reason for it:

Her.

My mom always made the holidays the most warm, loving, fun and close family time you could imagine. It was never about gifts, though the gifts were always there. It was always about being together as a family. Like Jen said in the comments to my last Thursday Thirteen post, Christmas was magical whether I was a young boy believing in Santa Clause, a young man wishing my voice would stop cracking, a college boy home for the holidays, or an adult man with kids of my own. PJ was just out here last weekend visiting, and we had a wonderful time. But we're not going to make it back to Michigan for the holidays this year -- the third year in a row we've missed -- and it really bums me out. We're separated by 1,200 miles, and flying a family of five anywhere, anytime takes a big chunk of change. Flying them to Michigan over Christmas is more still. I wish we could all be together -- my sisters, my sister's kids, my family, my Grandpa, my Mom -- to wake up to Mom's bubble bread (it's only the best thing ever, and if you have her cookbook, the recipe's in there, and if you don't have her cookbook, you better go here and buy one) and drink coffee and pick on each other.

But... there's one thing I know for sure, and that is that the distance and the absence of our being physically together has done nothing to the spirit of what Christmas has always been about for us. My beautiful family of five will celebrate together Christmas morning and watch seven-month-old Samuel trying to eat his presents for his first Christmas. And I'll talk to my mom and my sisters and my niece and nephew and Grandpa and we'll all be together, in our hearts.

For me, that's Christmas.

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Birthday wishes; BFE trailer

First of all, I'd like to wish my beautiful wife Julie the happiest of happy birthdays. Happy birthday, babe. You're the best!


The director of our show put together a little video trailer thing for it. It's a bit long, but kind of fun.

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Kudos to the Kiddos

I'd like to give a shout out to both my ballerina girls, who auditioned for, and were subsequently cast in, the Colorado Ballet's production of The Nutcracker this year. For 12- and 10-year-old aspiring dancers, this is the uber shit. You rock, girlies.



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Grandma's Little Boy

PJ and Sammy.
It was a most wonderful weekend, albeit too quick. We managed to pack in a whole lot of nothing but hanging out, giving PJ plenty of time to play with Mr. Sam. Sam was quite fond of Grammy PJ, giving her lots of smiles, tons of squeals and squeaks, and plenty of conversation. They even came to see me perform at Madcap Saturday night. One of the improv games we play is called Spelling Bee, where we get the audience to make up words and the actors spell and define them. I was hosting the spelling bee (soliciting the words from the audience) and at one point when the audience wasn't yelling out a suggestion, I hear Sam say, "Aaah, aaah." So I thanked him and took "aaah aaah" as the next word. Big laugh. Later that night I chased criminals, but you can read about that below. Normally when PJ heads home it's a teary affair, but dropping her off at the airport was much easier this time because we'll be heading to Michigan in less than two months. Sam will probably be driving by then.

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A Boy and His Dad

The most-excellent Gekko had a post recently about her boy leaving the nest for the first time, heading off to learn what "higher education" is all about. She posted a pic of her boy when he was but a wee lad (a very cute and funny pic, btw), which made me think of my own boy. Mini Me is 14 weeks old today, and I've had no shortage of people tell me, "Enjoy every moment of it. Before you know it, he'll be all grown up." My response has always been, "Yeah, I know." But seeing Gekko's post made it really hit home. In 14 short weeks Sam has already changed and grown so much, it blows me away. I returned from our Seattle vacation about a week before Julie and the kids did. When they got home, I was shocked -- Sam had noticeably grown in six days. Man. I only got 33 years with my dad, so I know nothing can be taken for granted and every moment is precious. Sam's arrival caused me -- the perpetual motion gotta-be-doing-something-all-the-time guy -- to slow down. As I added recently to centenai di kosi (my 100 which is up to 45 now), the 27-year-old me is appalled with the 37-year-old me. And the 37-year-old me is happier than the 27-year-old me ever was.

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Priorities

It's amazing how quickly the days fly by when your entire life changes because of the arrival of a child. Today was the first time I'd even glanced at my blog in two weeks, which I couldn't believe until I saw the date of my last post, June 5. So no, Mark, I'm not dead (though I did throw up when I saw Ann "200-Calories-Per-Day" Coulter mentioned in my comments! She's vile, dude). And thanks for the Father's Day wish. Unfortunately I spent most of it in Wichita, Kansas, shooting some commercials, but I did get home that evening and got to spend some time with the family who made it very special.

The thing is, Sam changes every day. Every single day. I leave for work and I bust my ass all day so I can get home right away and hang with him, because he's going to do something that I haven't seen before. He's already so much bigger than he was only seven weeks ago. What's really cool is now he's having longer periods of time where he just chills out, wide-eyed, checking out the scene. He's smiling a lot now, and he's damn near laughed a couple times. What can I say? It's the greatest.

While not here on my blog, I have been writing, however, trying to finish a couple things for (you) essays -- something some other folks need to be doing too, hint hint. I've also had to write a couple original sketches for a comedy show we're doing in Dallas in July. We're the featured entertainment at an annual convention of doll collectors. No shit. Fifteen hundred doll collectors at this convention, and we're going to be doing some sketch comedy and improv. The theme of this year's convention is "Tell Me a Story," kind of a fairy-tale thing, so all of our sketches have to do with that. I wrote one about a dwarf, Angry Dwarf, going to the unemployment office. He can't find work and he's pissed because he claims Grumpy Dwarf stole his identity. Fun stuff to write. Now we're in rehearsals for that show.

Overall, though, I just can't spend enough time with Sam. As everyone I know who has kids has told me, they grow up before you know it.

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Sorry about the hiatus!

PJ's been out since Sunday visiting her new grandbaby, so we've been keeping pretty busy. As you can imagine, Sam's getting plenty of attention. He's up over eight pounds now -- the doc says he's gaining about two ounces a day. They way he's constantly attached to Julie's chest, I can't say any of us are surprised. I am getting a bit more sleep lately, but that's only because my wife has been a real sweetie and hasn't been waking me whenever Sam wakes her up, which is pretty much every hour. It's amazing to see the changes in him on a daily basis, particularly with his focus and attention span. I nearly got through my entire Amway pitch yesterday before he started to fuss. Give me another week and he'll be part of my pyramid!

Okay, for those of you thinking, "Yeah, yeah, the kid's cute, but can you please write about something else?" how's this:

I have the uncanny ability to be able to tell whether someone is a dick or a bitch within one second of me looking at them. There's a Dick 'n' Bitch aura that a dick or bitch just can't get rid of, and I am tuned into the aura. Most of these dicks and bitches I see behind the wheel of a car, or walking through the mall, or at a sporting event, or at a bar. When I see the aura, I immediately try to get as far from them as possible so that they don't fuck up my groove. Unfortunately, dicks and bitches love to drive, love to shop, love to go to games and love to party. So inevitably I avoid one dick or bitch only to run into one who fucks up my groove.

Lately I've been in a nearly indestructible groove. Dicks and bitches have been bouncing clean off me without the slightest bit of their aura infecting my groove. But today a bitch came damn close. I was on the highway in my Subaru Outback, driving about 75 in a 65, and driving in the right lane. The traffic was kind of heavy, and there were lots of cars in the left lane. Suddenly a huge Ford Expedition barrels up behind me and gets to within about a foot and a half of my bumper. I look in my rear-view mirror and see the driver -- the bitch -- with her bitchy aura and bitchy face looking in her mirrors trying to see when she'll be able to get into the left lane because dammit, the bitch had somewhere to be! Like I said, there was a fair amount of left-lane traffic, so she wasn't able to get over. After a full minute, I felt my groove start to fade. So I pressed my brakes, giving her the universal sign for "Get off my ass." She didn't get off my ass. She stayed right on it until she got the smallest of breaks, cut in front of someone in the left lane, and then flipped me off as she went by. There were, of course, kids in her back seat.

My thoughts turned to homicide, and my groove really faltered. But I took a deep breath, stayed in my lane a full three seconds behind the car in front of me, and let my groove repair itself. In spite of her best efforts, the bitch couldn't fuck up my groove.

Keep your grooves intact, peeps!

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Sleepless in Denver.

At one point, about five days ago, I was tired. I passed that. Then I was beat. Passed that. Exhausted? Ages ago. I think I'm in Walking Zombie mode right now, but I'm just about passed that too. Pretty soon I'm going to cycle back and be wide awake. But no matter what mode I'm in, I just can't get enough of this little guy.

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Sam I Am

Hey. What's up? I'm Sam. Sam I am. I was born at 9:13 a.m. Wednesday, May 3, 2006. I weighed 7 pounds, 10 ounces and I was 20 inches long. And I got a big old head; it measured 14 inches around. Need all that space for my big brain. I'm doing great, my mommy's doing great, my daddy's doing great, and my sisters are doing great. And just so you know, I kick ass.

Thirteen Things I Can't Wait to Do

13. See my new room.

12. Meet our dog, Oscar.

11. Learn how to smile.

10. Learn how to laugh.

9. Listen to the song my daddy wrote for me.

8. Wear my cool new clothes.

7. Ride in a car.

6. See what the outdoors looks like.

5. Meet my aunts, uncles and cousins.

4. Meet my Great Grandpas.

3. Meet my Grandma (aka Gammy) PJ and my Grandpa Don & Granny Pat.

2. Spit up on my daddy just before he leaves for work.

1. Wake up my mommy and daddy over and over and over and over and over.

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Less than 3 weeks.

WARNING: SAPPY POST ABOUT BABIES TO FOLLOW.

Okay, we're on serious countdown mode now. Our due date is May 6th, which means it could pretty much happen at any time. For any of you *glaring* at me for not posting more often, let's just say Boiled Dinner has fallen down the priority list a bit.

We're so ready. I can't wait to finally meet my son. To say, "Hey buddy. I'm you're dad." The emotion and anticipation is overwhelming me. The "guest room" has now been transformed into the "baby room with a guest bed still in it." It's right next to our bedroom, so every time I go into our bedroom, I walk past what's going to be his room. I stop for a second nearly every time, looking in there and seeing all this baby stuff.

By the way, baby clothes are so much cooler now than when I was a kid. Now you can dress a three-month-old kid in cargo shorts and a hip polo shirt. It's like they turned a shrinking ray on some adult clothes from American Eagle or Pac Sun. My kid's gonna dress like a skate punk before he knows how to keep his spit in his mouth! Of course, they cost a stupid amount of money. We had some gift cards from Baby Gap, and I picked out this kick-ass outfit. The little blue jeans -- just the jeans -- cost more than the damn jeans I just bought for myself! Not to worry, because we've done a shitload of eBaying and now we're stocked with clothes.

The doc said that if Julie goes to term, he'd guess the baby would be 8-1/2 pounds or so. Big boy. BIG BOY! So all those clothes will probably fit for a day and a half.

Holy shit, I'm living in the suburbs, I'm driving a Subaru Outback and I'm blogging about babies.

Eh, sue me. I'm still a skate punk in an adult's body. Just with some responsibility and common sense.

Back to baby.

It's amazing, the amount of stuff you need for a baby. Okay, "need" probably isn't the right word, because a lot of the stuff you could absolutely get by without. But it's a combination of convenience, convention and coolness that compels us to get all this stuff. Cradle, change table, crib, diaper baskets for under the change table, crib bumper, cradle bumper, monitor, receiving blankets, crib blankets, change table pad, crib mattress, cradle mattress, sheets, car seats, strollers, feeders, bouncy chairs, diaper disposal thingie... man, what am I forgetting? Oh yeah, breast pads.

All because this little dude is coming to live with us. Well, right now Julie's not thinking he's so little. He's huge, he moves around constantly, and his ass is somewhere up where her lungs are supposed to be.

So she's ready. I'm ready. The girls are ready.

Holy shit.

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"I see something sticking out there!"

With those six words, the sonographer laid all bets to rest. We'd traveled in a pack that day, my step-daughters and the mother-in-law in tow, all of us with our own preconceived notions of what was going to be going on down between this little alien's legs. We'd taken to calling it Monkey*, because calling it It was too creepy, and the politically correct "him or her," "he or she" and "his or hers" were way too much effort when all you wanted to say was, "Monkey rocks." But now Monkey was going to lose his (or, as far as we knew at the time, her) androgeny. This was big news. At home was an envelope containing five scraps of paper, each containing one of our gender guesses (except for Maddie's whose, we found out later, said, "Boy or Girl," because she just couldn't bring herself to play favorites). I'd guessed boy, but only because I had to make a guess. I had no feeling, no hunch one way or the other.

Given that I'd been living in a house with three females, most of our friends and family had been hoping for a boy, for me, they said. It was an assumption pretty much everyone was completely comfortable in making:

"I bet you're hoping for a boy!"

I'd smile and chuckle and say, "Yeah. Or a girl. I don't really care."

"Yeah, you gotta say that, I know, but come on, deep down inside you're hoping for a boy, aren't you?"

"It's my first kid. I just want the kid. Don't much care what it's sex is."

"Whatever, dude. I know."

Even Julie kept asking me if I had a preference. I'd say no.

"Whatever, dude. I know."

But standing in the ultrasound room, watching the sonographer squirt the KY Jellyish goop on Julie's belly, I started wondering myself. Did I have a preference? In spite of all my insistence to the contrary, was I secretly hoping for boy? A mini me? A little man I could take fishing and to hockey games; play catch with a buy a little set of tools for; teach to play the guitar and advise on the ways of the opposite sex?

No. Because I could do all that stuff with a girl, too. A little girl. A daughter. A mini girly me. I could get used to that. I was already in a house with three women. I grew up with my mom and two sisters. I had some experience with this. Girls are easier. They don't start breaking stuff the minute they can walk. They don't turn everything into a gun. They don't kick and hit and spit. "You know what?" I thought. "I do have a preference. I want a girl! Come on, sonographer! Show me a vagina!

"I see something sticking out there!"

It was pretty quiet in the room then. No exclamations, no "Whup, dere it is!" or anything like that. I kept looking at the image. The unmistakable shape of boy parts sticking out from the unmistakable shape of my son. I looked around the room. Everyone was looking at me, smiles of curiosity on their faces. I looked at Julie, who was still looking at the screen.

"I can't believe it's a boy," she said. "I don't know how to raise boys. Just girls."

I looked back at the screen, then back to Julie. I smiled a smile that pushed the boundaries of my face.

"You just leave it me. I got a few ideas."


Monkey's due May 6.

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*Thanks to Maddie for the name. Monkey rocks.