I decided to start a blog after the birth of my son, Pete. I figured it would be fun to have some writing to show him when he is older. Plus, I can talk about my love of cooking and baking, my pets Beabo and Vala, my life as a new dad, and everything else in between.
Good evening Petey! Its about 9:20pm on Thursday night; you and I had the day off so it was a Dad Day with Pete! Your mom worked the early morning shift, and had a doctors appointment afterwards, so unfortunately for her she was gone until about 3:30. She had a very long day, and was pretty sleepy when she got home.
Besides dinner, we just relaxed around the house, and played outside for a while, and of course played inside a bunch too. Your mom caught you on video on her phone having a laugh attack; you do so many funny things, and think so many things are silly, but you really really thought it was funny when you and your mom were making high pitched sounds to each other. And then, I was playing back the video to you a bunch of times and it just made you laugh even more. You are so silly, you get up close to my phone playing the video, and you are used to putting your forehead against me and your moms when you are being silly, so you put your forehead up against my phone and gave it a little kiss (which ended up stopping the video from playing).
I just wanted to add, the picture above is of you and your nose which is looking so much better! You still had a scab on it when you woke up this morning, but at some point the scab fell off and now it looks as though your nose has healed up almost all the way. Yay!
Hey Pete!
I know its been a few days since I posted anything, and also the last two things that I posted weren't very substantive; we've been a pretty busy family the last few days, and my usual habit of trying to write journal entries for you at night has proven a little difficult because of late nights at work and then being sleepy when I get home. I'm sorry buddy!
I mentioned in an earlier entry that Starbucks, for some odd reason, decided to change our hours of operation to be open a half hour later and a half hour earlier (only some days do we open later, but we've been closing later every day). They are trying to see if we have much of a demand from our customers for us to be open later, and so far the answer has been pretty obvious: no!
The other night, I was closing with Dillon, a young man who just graduated high school and usually works with me 2-3 nights a week, and around 9:10pm we were talking about how dumb it was for us to be open just a half hour later than usual; we used to close at 9pm on the dot, and closing on the half of an hour just seems weird to me, but we both looked up to notice a man coming up to our doors and come in to get some coffee. He walked up to the door, took a look at the little sign posted that has our Store Hours printed on it, turned around a left. Dillon and I both looked at each other, confused; I stepped outside and checked the sign, which to my surprise still had our old hours posted! We were both baffled. Why would Starbucks keep us open an extra half hour, but not have any notice about both the change in hours or the new times we would be open?! I checked our online information as well; it still had our old hours posted. Unbelievable.
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Well, I wrote this a few days ago but hadn't posted it yet; I have posted a few other times since I wrote the entry above, and never finished it because I wasn't quite sure what else to say. To sum it up, it has just been a dumb and frustrating change by the higher-ups at Starbucks, who dropped the ball when it comes to actually communicating our new hours to our customers. Theres only so much that word of mouth can get you; any major changes like that should be written and posted. Buh!
Today, we had a really fun morning; it was a typical Monday, meaning your mom worked early, and you and I hung out from when you woke up around 6:30am until I dropped you off over at nana and papas house around 1:30pm. Then, I worked the night shift, and when I got home around 10:30pm you and your mom were sound asleep, so I got myself a snack and a beer and listened to some new music and started writing this.
So today, we did a lot of fun playing, checking out all kinds of toys and having a tasty breakfast (the usual for you: strawberries, a scrambled egg and a piece of toast, and as a special treat today, I carved up a nice ripe mango as well; for me, I usually don't eat much food until around noon but today I decided to have an english muffin with peanut butter with my 2nd cup of coffee), playing with the dog, and trying your best to get into trouble.
Today, at one point I had my computer at the dining room table (its the best place to use the computer and have coffee, anywhere that is close to your height and you will try your best to grab the computer or coffee and throw it on the ground), and I turned around to see you with our pantry doors wide open, and you just standing there looking in at the bottom shelf, which is really the only shelf you have easy access too due to your height. Usually I just close the door and say "no no no" and find something else to distract you, but you were just looking in at all the random jars and boxes and bags of stuff in there, not doing anything to cause me any concern, so I came over to you and sat on the floor next to you and looked into the pantry with you.
The bottom shelf of the pantry is kind of an unorganized mix of random things (to be quite honest, our pantry needs a little organizing; the entire right side is basically a random mix of things, except for the top shelf which is all your food); it has all the ingredients for S'mores, an unopened bag of sour cream and onion Lays, some cans and jars of various things like peanut butter, nutella, peas, some soups, etc... mostly things that you would have a hard time destroying.
So we sat there and you made your "cute and curious" sound, something like an "oooh" that has a nice musical lilt to it; depending on your mood and what you are thinking, it could be a simple flat "ooo", or it could be an "ooohhh" that drops off at the end, or it could be my favorite version, the "oooOOOooo" that lifts a half step or two in the middle and then returns to the starting note.
You picked through the pantry and did your favorite activity of grabbing things and organizing them. You would take one or two things out, inspect them a little, and then put them back in a new place. Sometimes you would grab all new things; other times you would grab the same thing over and over and just put it in different places, all the while doing various "oooh"s. You, of course, found and obsessed over a plastic little jar of peas in water that had a plastic, flimsy looking lid to it; out of everything you inspected and organized, you always involved the little jar of peas, and of course that jar of peas was the most likely object that you could destroy and make a mess with.
It was really fun getting down to your level and doing the simple act of mostly observing you spend a lot of time curiously inspecting all these weird objects of varying sizes and materials that seem, to you, to just be exactly that which you see; you don't understand the labels and the pictures on the cans, and you don't know that inside them are a world of various edible goods. All you knew is that they were neat shapes and felt different ways in your hands and had different weight to them all, and for some reason you knew you wanted to see how they looked if you put them over here, and then see how they looked if you put them over there.
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I was going to write about yesterday, Sunday and our fun time over at Jamie and Alisha and Liams house, playing in the bounce house with the ball pit balls; renaming your uncle Jamie Uncle Balls; how you didn't want to eat any of your food when we were trying to give you dinner; and then when we were getting ready to leave, you fell face first into a wooden step and banged your mouth pretty hard against the step, and started bleeding and crying and you didn't want to let anyone check out your mouth at all, you just kept turning away from anyone trying to shove a cold wet paper towel in your mouth to try to stop the bleeding or maybe even entice you to want to use it as a pacifier and suck on it to help with the pain and blood.
But now its late, and I'm going to go to bed because before I know it, you are going to be awake and probably needing a diaper change and some milk, and it'll snowball from there. Heres a song you liked in the car ride from home to nana and papas today: this lady decided to reimagine Talking Heads album Remain in Light, and her version sounds like Graceland-era Paul Simon. Its good:
Hey Petey,
Its your dad again, and its about 9pm on Saturday night; you and your mom just fell asleep, and I will be going to sleep pretty soon myself because, strange and uncommon as it is, tomorrow both your mom and I are working the morning shift at work; that means I've gotta wake up in just about 6 hours. After work, we're gonna pick you up, get out of our work clothes and then head over to your aunt and uncle Alisha and Jamies house to celebrate Jamies 32nd birthday.
Today was a nice relaxing Saturday, as we like our Saturdays around here. After we woke up and hung out and had breakfast, we didn't have any big plans or chores to do so I decided to tackle the massive amount of cardboard and packing material we had accumulated in our basement. In the last 6 months or so, we have upgraded and added a decent amount of "stuff" to our apartment; bookshelves, a big pantry, a new kitchen table, more shelves... and because it was winter, I got lazy and hadn't spent the time breaking down all the cardboard, organizing it, getting all the styrofoam and plastic bits separated from the paper, and brought the whole mess to the dump. So today was that day to deal with it all; it took me a good hour of just cutting up and separating everything, and then another 90 minutes of packing the car three times, taking it to the dump and repeating the whole process.
I stopped for a few errands while I ran to the dump; we needed more of the big blue Millis trash bags that you have to use at the dump for general garbage disposal, plus we needed dog food and some replacement baking sodas for the fridge and freezer (they help keep everything fresh). Plus, I needed to get gasoline and some windshield wiper fluid, and I am still monitoring/ adding fluid to my power steering because I have a suspicion that there is a leak somewhere; it seems to be fine since I filled it to the proper levels earlier today, but I'm still keeping a close eye on it.
While I took care of all these chores and errands, you and your mom hung out and relaxed around the house. Yesterday, I was grilling some hot dogs and a burger and some corn, and in the middle of going in and out of the house, I opened the door to come inside and poor Pete, unbeknown to me, was holding himself up by pressing against the door; I opened the door outwards, and you fell pretty hard out onto the wooden staircase one step below where you were standing. Oh Pete, you were so shocked and sad, and you cried a lot, and your poor nose got all scraped and still looks terrible (I've been saying you have a case of Rudolph Nose)... I felt so bad for you, my little buddy. Your mom went upstairs to put neosporin on your scrape, and while she did that I whipped up a grilled cheese sandwich for you really quick, so the second you came downstairs I gave you a hug and some nice comfort food. I hope we all learned a lesson from your little boo boo; I know I'll be even more careful to make sure you aren't leaning on the door when I'm coming in and out of the house. You've been pretty well balanced in these general kinds of situations, but I'll definitely make sure you have your footing before I swing the door open.
Well, its time I head to bed buddy, I will be writing you soon!
Good Evening, Petey! It's about 10pm on Sunday evening; your mom told me you fell asleep around 8:30pm, and I got out of work and home by about 9:30. Game 2 of the NBA Finals are on right now, the Golden State Warriors are about to take a second win in the series to be up 2-0 in a best of 7 series. Steph Curry just set an NBA record for 3 point shots in a Finals game, hitting 9 of 17! The game started at 8, so since I've been home I have been watching the 2nd half of it.
We had a pretty nice morning together; your mom usually works the morning on Sunday, and I work at night, and we have a bit of a gap between our shifts so we meet up at my store so that I can drop you off with her.
I'm a bit sleepy tonight, so I'm going to go to bed now so I can get up with you early. Goodnight Pete!
Hey Pete! There you are, giving us a nice face for a photo while you, your mom and I all had a tasty lunch at the Cheesecake Factory in the Natick Mall today. It was another humid, hot day today, and besides having to do some necessary chores, your mom and I were pretty content to take it easy and have a pretty low key day with you. Around 11:30am, we packed you up (which means we had what I call your GoBag, a backpack full of extra clothes, diapers, wipes, some toys, some bottles etc.), as well as your stroller, and went off on the short ride from Millis to Natick to get some lunch.
You were pretty distracted at lunch though; you had had a short hour nap before we left, which we hoped would get you into a more restaurant-friendly attitude, but it did not. You aren't very loud when were in public (which is nice!), but you definitely get antsy and agitated and wiggly when you don't want to be sitting at the table waiting for food. So thats what you did; you wiggled, trying your best to get out of the straps holding you into your high chair; you grabbed at anything within arms reach at the table, which would mean anything we didn't anticipate you finding interest in (again, its a pretty funny looking table setting when we go out to eat with you, having this little buffer zone around you and your "area", making sure nothing we don't want you to play with is within your reach, and cramming all of the plates and beverages and everything else at the other end of the table); you basically ignored the grilled cheese sandwich we got for you, occasionally finding some interest in french fries we gave you from our plates (you were disgusted by the piece of fried fish I tried to give you); you just had a distracted fidgety time at the restaurant, so after our food was at the table, we ate pretty quickly to bring you to the cool Kid Zone thing the Mall has on its 2nd floor.
The Kid Zone is super great for you; we've only been there twice, but each time it has been relatively busy, full of kids of all ages running, toddling, and crawling their way around a decent sized area full of neat things for you to discover. Its just so fun watching you kind of socialize; kids of all ages are mostly self centered and self serving, ignoring everyone else as they go about their own business, maybe interacting with another kid briefly because their paths somehow crossed on whatever mission their little brains are involved in. There is a wealth of soft red plastic balls littered all over the Kid Zone; usually, on your mission, you would have at least one ball in your possession, leaving it on a whim and then picking up another when you remember how important they are. At one point, little girl with a few red balls noticed you, so she walked over to you and observed you for a moment, before she reached out and gave you one of her red balls. You took it and looked at her for a second, and she walked off to continue whatever else it was she was doing; you watched her walk off for a moment, and then continued on with your own business, now with two red balls. Its just so funny and silly, these weird interactions between you and other kids.
I was just thinking about this journal, and if it was me receiving it from my dad, what kind of things would I want him to have written about. I'll have to continue on that thread in my next entry, but I definitely would like to turn this a bit more autobiographical I suppose, talking about myself a bit more instead of just outlining the days highlights. I do want to close this one with a rather important note.
Today, June 2nd 2018, is 8 years to the day that my youngest brother Brian died. Brian was a very special boy; he was born with a host of different disabilities, and was basically dependant on my mom and my family from his birth until he passed. He lived an amazing life; he was basically a pure soul, wearing his emotions as plainly and simply as possible, and his presence in my life for the 21 years he was in it affected and taught me so much about life and how live, and about happiness and contentment. I'll definitely write more about him in entries to come, but for now, rest in peace Brian, and goodnight Pete.
