Giving it All Away

(4 p.m. on a beautiful late January afternoon at Bongo Java, Sleeping Joe beside me in the City Elite and a cacophony of coffee shop voices and music in the background)

Earlier this afternoon, Jude asked me to load a few baby things into her Honda Pilot - baby things we're giving to a young lady at St. Patrick (our church) who has a baby on the way.  My heart skipped a beat, though, when I saw what she was giving away - the "boppy pillow" and the blue newborn infant bath tub (it fits in the sink for bath time with newborns).  Damn, I thought, overwhelmed with feelings of nostalgia at the thought of giving those things away.

How many times did I sit in our den, watching television, as Jude breast fed J.P. or Joey on the "boppy pillow?"  Too many to count.  For me, the "boppy pillow" represents simplicity and bliss.  In my lifetime, I don't thing anything has seemed so natural, so right, so perfect and pure as Jude breast feeding one of our boys on the "boppy pillow."

It's the same with the newborn infant bath tub.  Giving the boys baths (when they were infants, anyway), has always been Jude's thing.  When J.P. and Joey were so small - too small for the regular bath tub - she put the infant bath tub in the ugly yellow sink in our kitchen and bathed them.  J.P. hated it and Joey was okay with it.  Many, many nights, after dinner and before bed, I watched in admiration as Jude expertly bathed one of our boys, then quickly dried him off and put a diaper and pajamas on him.

And tomorrow the "boppy pillow" and the newborn infant bath tub will be gone.  Why?  Because our boys are growing up so fast and, at our age, there aren't going to be anymore babies to breast feed and bathe.  As always, time passes.  It's the one constant - the passage of time.

There is love - so much pure love - in the "boppy pillow" and the newborn infant bath tub we're passing along to a fellow parishioner tomorrow.  I hope they make her as happy as they have made me.

 

Say It Ain't So

J.P. and his cousin, Matthew Hearn, at the Vanderbilt-Butler game.  Setting him up for a lifetime of sports disappointment, Jude got J.P. a Vanderbilt hoodie for Christmas.  Oh, boy, here we go.

Margaret Mary Andra

Jude's grandmother, Rita White, and Margaret Mary Andra after her christening.

Laura McCutcheon and her niece and goddaughter, Margaret Mary Andra.

Proud parents and godparents.

One Small Step for Man . . .

There are certain things all boys seem to like.  Dinosaurs.  Trains.  Bulldozers (all construction equipment, really).  Garbage trucks.  Superheroes.  And astronauts.

Saturday morning, we drove down to Huntsville so we could attend the christening (Sunday morning) of Margaret Mary Andra, the daughter of Jude's cousin, Rita (who, incidentally, is Joe's godmother).  Got all that?

We drove straight to the Space Museum, which J.P. absolutely loved.  We spend a couple of hours inside, looking at old photographs, model rockets and various exhibits.  We also played some interactive games designed for children.  After lunch, we went outside and looked at some old rockets and a space shuttle (or a replica of Pathfinder, one of the space shuttles).  J.P. was fascinated by the whole experience, really.  He couldn't stop talking about it the rest of the weekend.  On the way out, i bought him a couple of posters - one of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon and one of the Atlantis, another of the space shuttles.

Last night, we met Rita, Jason (and baby Margaret Mary), Laura and Margaret McCutcheon (Jude's aunt) at a pizza joint for dinner - Sam and Greg's - in downtown Huntsville.  J.P. adores Rita and Laura, so it was great to watch him interacting with them.  It was a great night, just hanging out with family and having dinner together.

This morning, we checked out of hotel (and J.P. loved the hotel, as he always does) and went to Margaret Mary's christening.  The church service was perfect and, afterward, we drove to Jason and Rita's house for a quick bite, then got on the road home.  Amazingly, J.P. and Joe slept the entire way home.  True road trip bliss.

When we got home, the boys were well rested and wired, so Jude decided to take them to the Adventure Science Center while I went for a quick run.  As I was helping Jude get the boys situated in her Honda Pilot, J.P. told me he was going to the science museum so he could learn more about Neil Armstrong and the planets.  Jude and I shared a look and a smile, marveling at our inquisitive, thoughtful 4 1/2 year old son.

Tonight, after dinner, J.P. grabbed the iPad and asked me if we could "do some research" together.  He wanted to "research" the planets in our solar system, then watch videos of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon.  We had "a moment," as I like to say, as we sat together on the futon what passes for our playroom and watched grainy video footage from 1969, as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon.

One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.  Indeed.

Saying Goodbye to the Holidays

New Year's Day is, for me, kind of a bummer.  It marks the official end of the holiday season and, at the same time, the official beginning of the coming year's work season.  Meh.

In a smaller, less significant way, it's brings to mind the last day of summer, before school starts the next day.  Lots of happy memories but a nagging feeling I didn't enjoy it enough while it was here.  And now it's gone.  Forever.

To cheer myself up today, I spent some time thinking about the fun I had over the holidays.  The memories that were made.  I'd like to capture some of them here, in no particular order.

• Playing hide-and-seek with Jude and J.P., while I carried Joe, at Santa's Tree's in 12South after we picked out our Christmas tree.
• Decorating what was maybe our best Christmas tree yet, with J.P. really, really into pulling the ornaments out of the box and hanging them on the tree.
• Our inaugural, impromptu Christmas tree dance party (and several more).  We turned off all the lights except those on the Christmas tree and, while I held Joe and played "DJ" with my iPhone, Spotify and the Jawbone, Jude and J.P. danced together in front of the Christmas tree.  J.P. laughed joyously, spontaneously (the best kind of laughter in my book).
• My law firm's Christmas party/dinner at Urban Grub in 12South.  I hosted it, as I normally do, and I was pleased everyone enjoyed themselves at a restaurant they had never visited.
• Taking J.P. to his first Vanderbilt basketball game with my mom, my sister and my sister's son, Matthew.  As I watched J.P. watch the game, I smiled to myself and realized things had really come full circle.  I never missed a Vanderbilt home basketball game as a child and, later, a teenager, attending virtually all of them with my mother.  She and I bonded over Vanderbilt basketball and some of my fondest memories from my childhood are attending the games with her.  
• Sneaking in a few, "Indian Summer-ish" afternoon weekend walks with Joe to Bongo Java.  Really unusual for December.
• Elf on the Shelf, which J.P. was way into.  Jude and I got a kick out of watching him look for him each morning.
• Christmas morning w/J.P. and Joe.  Santa was good to both of them.
• Christmas Eve service at St. Patrick, where I watched J.P. carry the baby Jesus down the aisle in front of Father David Perkin as part of the procession.  As I watched him, I felt an overwhelming sense of pride.
• This year's version of my "manly pickles," appropriately entitled "the nuclear option."
• A last supper at ChaChah with my law partners, Mark and Chas.  Last supper, in the sense that ChaChah's closed New Year's Eve.  This summer, I stopped in often for a glass of wine on my nightly strolls with Joe.  I sat at the bar and read on my Kindle while Joe slept in the stroller beside me.
• J.P. discovering my baseball cards, boxes and boxes of them in the closet in his room.  I got one of the boxes down and smiled as he sorted through the baseball cards inside it.  Having a son to share my baseball cards with one day was a dream of mine.
• Tonight, as Jude fed Joe and I read the newspaper after dinner, J.P. got a towel, washrag and pajamas and took a shower all by himself, a first.  More proof that sometimes it's the small things that mean the most.
• Watching Jude and J.P. build the Lego Fire Station that Santa Claus brought him.  It's for ages 5 - 12 and initially Jude thought it would be too complicated for him.  Turns out, it wasn't too complicated for him (with her assistance), after her jigsaw puzzle instinct kicked in.  It was actually a pretty involved project, but J.P. totally enjoyed assembling the fire trucks and buildings with Jude.  
• Carefully placing the Lego Fire Station (and trucks) in a shoe box and driving up to the fire station on 12th Avenue, just up from our house.  J.P. and I walked inside, saw Chief Fletcher and some of the guys and showed them the completed project.  They loved it and he loved showing it to them. 
• Watching "This is 40," the new Judd Apatow movie, with Jude.  Okay, that's not really an "enjoyable" memory, per se, given that our viewing of the movie was marked by nervous laughter and uncomfortable silences.  If the movie was called "This is 46," I would sue Judd Apatow for royalties, since the similarities to our life (and family) was uncanny.  It was like I was  watching my life unfold on the big screen.  And that was kind of funny, actually.

Well, that about wraps it up.  Good times and good memories.