The Big Easy

I'm sitting in the lobby of the Hampton Inn & Suites on Carondelet Street in New Orleans.  Jude, J.P. and Joe are upstairs, asleep, after a busy couple of days in the Big Easy.  We fly back to Nashville tomorrow morning.  I absolutely love New Orleans and, because of Jude's family history here and the many times we have visited, it's kind of our home away from home.  It's been great to have Joe here for the first time.

Our trip didn't get off to the best start, as our 6:30 p.m. flight Thursday evening was delayed to 7:30 p.m., then 9:45 p.m., then taken off the board entirely due to air traffic control (weather) issues in Chicago.  Although we went to the airport just to make certain Southwest wouldn't send a replacement plane, we decided to change our flight to Friday morning.  It wasn't a difficult decision, as there was absolutely no way we could spend 3-4 hours at the aiport with J.P. (5) and Joe (16 months).  J.P. was disconsolate - crying - because he was so disappointed our trip was going to be delayed for a day.  A sweet Southwest employee gave him a bag of M & M's and all was forgiven.

Our Friday morning flight was a typical one for our family.  Typically difficult, that is.  Joe cried the entire flight and J.P. vomited during the descent to the New Orleans airport.  Then, as we were walking to baggage claim, I realized I had left my iPad (the one I'm typing on right now) on the airplane.  Frantic, I rushed back to the gate and was relieved to learn that a flight attendant had found it and taken it off the airplane for me.  Losing my iPad would have been a disaster.   At Enterprise Rent-a-Car, the minivan I'd reserved wasn't there.  Typical.

Yesterday, after we checked into our hotel, we had lunch with Jude's folks at Redfish Grill.  In the afternoon, Jude took J.P. Cafe du Monde for beignets and then to the Aquarium.  I took Joe for a long walk down Bourbon Street and through the French Quarter, while he napped in the stroller (yes, the City Elite made it to New Orleans, thanks to Jimdad and Jane White).  After he fell asleep, I slipped into the bar at a nice restaurant and had a couple of beers and read on my iPad.  A nice, quite afternoon.

Last night, Jude and I went to dinner at the Palace Cafe, while her folks stayed with the boys.  We had a nice night out, except for the fact we gorged ourselves to the point of no return.  I really thought I had eaten so much I was going to be sick.

This morning, we drove through a violent thunderstorm on our way to Houma, LA, on our way to visit Jude's Aunt Peggy and Uncle Bob (Quinilty) and, more importantly (from J.P.'s viewpoint), to swim in their pool.  As soon as the rain stopped, J.P. and Jude hit the pool with a vengeance.  J.P.'s swiming lesssons are staring to pay off, although he ability to swim has yet to catch up with how  well he thinks he can swim.  You know, the irrational exhuberance of youth and all that comes with it.

It's always great to see Peggy and Bob, and it was a real treat to see Jude's cousins and their children, too.  It was controlled chaos in a good way, with shoes, clothes and toys everywere.  7 children under the age of 6!  J.P. was the oldest child, which is hard to believe.  We had a great time, although it was a quick visit.

This evening, Jude, the boys and I took the boys for a walk through the Frencn Quarter and for dinner at Stanley's.  It was a nice way to end a weekend in the Big Easy.  Tomorrow, it's back home (I'm already dreading the flight back) and back to work on Monday.

Oh, and here's Aquaman himself.

Running Men

As an older parent, one of the things I worry about is whether I'll be able to be as active as I want (and need) to be as J.P. and Joe get older.  I think it's important to be able to play sports with them, as opposed to watching them play sports.  That's part of the reason why I've been pretty down about the low back and right hip pain I've been dealing with for several months.  I don't want an injury to limit what I can do with my boys.

This morning, while we were at Bongo Java having breakfast, J.P. asked me if we could go for a run togehter later in the day.  He asks to run with me from time to time and it always brings a smile to my face.  If you had asked me a decade ago, one of the top items on my bucket list would have been to go for a run with my son (or daughter).

Now, "going for a run" with J.P. only involves a run around the block.  Still, it's time spent together, doing something I love to do and asomething I'm good at.  And, more imporantantly, it's building a foundation for something we can do together five years from now, 10 years from now, etc.

Today, we ran down Elliott Avenue to the alley behind "Neighbor Regan's" house (formerly Ann Marie and Rob Elliott's house), walked up the alley, then ran the rest of the way home.  After our run, we took turns drinking out of an ice cold bottle of water we had set outside before our run.  I poured a some water on his head, then on mine, and we laughed together as we went for a walk to cool down.  When we got back to the house, Jude and Joe were sitting on the front porch, finishing lunch.  I gave J.P. a "rain shower" by shaking the branches on the trees in our front yard with the two of us standing under them.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

With my boys, it's "monkey see, monkey do."  And I mean that literally.

Virtually anything J.P. does, Joe tries to do.  If J.P. squeals or makes an unusual noise (grunts, roars, etc.), Joe, ever the perfect mimic, squeals or makes the same noise.  It's beyond funny to watch.  Jude and I just look at each other, shake our heads and laugh.

Last night, the boys were taking a bath together.  Joe was sitting in his bath chair, facing J.P.  J.P. started kicking his legs and splashing water, laughing the whole time.  Joe immediately starts kicking his little legs and splashing water, also smiling and laughing.  The more Joe kicked, the more J.P. laughed.  And the more J.P. laughs, the more Joe will do whatever he is doing that is making J.P. laugh (splashing, spitting, squealing, throwing things, etc.).

This afternoon, after I went for a quick 3-mile run in the 'hood, we were hanging out in the front yard.  For some reason, J.P. decided it would be funny to open an umbrella, sit down in the tall monkey grass in front of our front porch and pretend to be a groundhog in a burrow.  It was kind of funny, given that all you could see was the top of the umbrella, with J.P.'s disembodied voice coming from underneath it.  Joe walked over to the monkey grass and sat down in it, just like J.P.  He looked up at me and smiled proudly, as got up, then plopped down again.  He repeated this several times as we looked on and laughed.

The good news, of course, is that J.P. is an amazing big brother.  He loves Joe so much and never appears to be jealous of any attention Joe gets.  My hope is that as they grow older, J.P. and Joe will continue to be close.  I have a dream of them traveling to Europe or elsewhere together when they're older, during or right after college.  I want them to be the best of friends.  

Vocabulary Words




 Damn, I love this guy.

It's funny, but on the development timeline (whatever the hell that is), Joe seems to do everything a little bit sonner than J.P. did.  J.P. never really crawled much.  Instead, at about 14 months old, one day on the back deck, he just started walking (I can see it now - J.P. in his "yellow and orange 'basketball' t-shirt, doing the 'drunken sailor' walk, reeling diagonally across the back deck from Jude to me and me to Jude, as we beamed with pride on a spring evening).  Joey, on the other hand, did the "army crawl" at 10 months or so, crawling across the floor on his forearms.  By the time he was a year old, Joey was crawling everywhere, literally scooting across the hardwood floors upstairs and downstairs, moving so quickly we had to keep a constant eye on him.  Shortly, thereafer, he was walking (the "drunken sailor" walk, of course) across the rug in front of the fireplace in our den, hands outstretched over his head for balance.  Awesome!

We're convinced Joe crawled and walked earlier than J.P. because he wanted to keep up with his brother.  Everything J.P. does, Joe wants to do, too.  J.P. laughs, Joe laughs.  J.P. screams, Joe screams.  Joe desparately wants to keep up with his big brother.  And that's pretty cool.

Talking (or trying to talk) is the same way.  As I recall, Jude and I (okay, not so much Jude) were a little concerned, early on, that J.P. wasn't talking as soon as we thought he should.  Suddenly, at about age 2, the words burst forth like a fountain.  It was pretty amazing.  Joe has been "talking," already, for quite a while, actually.  Granted, it's not talking in the traditional sense, but he definitely makes sounds (now words, at times) repeatedly that have a specific meaning.

Here's a vocabulary list, courtesy of Joe, a silver-tongued devil if there ever was one:

1.   Ada.  Okay, that means light, especially the decorative, unique (strange) hanging ball of a light upstairs above the stairwell.  It's almost a "disco ball" light, gold in color, metal with lots of holes in it (ball shaped).  When you turn it on at night (and the other lights are off), the effect is kind of dazzling and beautiful - dots of light, shimmering, all over the walls upstairs.  "Ada" was really his first word.  At night, before bedtime, I would hold him in my arms, turn the other lights off and spin the "gold ball" slowly.  He'd look at the patterns of light on the walls, smile, and say breathlessly, "Ada."  Every single time.  J.P. had a very similar reaction to that light when he was a baby.

2.  Pa-PA.  There's a photograph on a ledge on the landing of the stairs (we have a several photographs  there of friends and family) of Jude's family at Mardi Gras from long ago.  When we take the boys upstairs to get ready for bed at night, Joe always stops and points at this particular photograph, actually points directly at Jude's dad, and says, "Pa-PA!"  It's pretty funny.

3.  MA-MA/Da-Da.  Okay, that's self-explanatory.  I'm not sure which one he said first (J.P. said "Da-Da" first and still occasionally calls me "Da-Da").  I can tell you, though, when Joe says "Ma-Ma!" he has a big smile on his face.  That boy adores him mother.

4.   Pa-Tee.  I'm not sure how or why, but "Pa-Tee" means "J.P."  Really, really funny (not so much to J.P., who says it sounds too much like "potty").  Joe points at J.P. and says "Pa-Tee," and we all laugh.

5.  Och.  One of my favorites.  It means "I want that."  Joe points and says "Och," and we pick up things until we figure out what it is that he wants.  It's become a family inside joke, actually, to the point that if I say "Och," J.P. will say, "Daddy, what do you want?"  Also very funny.

6.   Down.  This one's impressive, really, and favorite of Joe's for a couple of months now.  If I am playting with him on our bed while Jude showers downstairs, he's perfectly content until he hears her walking upstaris.  Immediately, she says quite clearly, "down!"  When she walks in, he says it again, and she sets him down on the floor and off he goes behind her, like a duckling waddlng after his mother duck.

7.   Dankoo.  This, of course, is "thank you."  It's been a popular word (or words) for him for a while.  He knows what it means, too, because when we hand Joe something, he'll hit us with a resounding "Dankoo!"

8.   Nini.  That's "Mini," one of our cats.  Joe points at her and says, rather emphatically, "Nini!"

9.    Bye Bye.  Self-explantory, but he knows what it means.  Of course, he'll repeat "bye bye" all the way home from somewhere we've been.  Over and over again.

10.  Up.  A little tricky, because "up" has two meanings.  One - pick me up.  Two - throw this up in the air.  I like the second meaning, particuarly when we lay on our bed and he plucks the red plastic apple from his Nashville Predators' "old schooll" metal lunch box, hands it to me, and says "up!"  He wants me to toss the apple in the air, which I do, again and agian.  And it never gets old, because he loves it.

11.  MOUO!  My current favorite.  I really can't spell it accurately enough to do it justice.  Any time Joe is eating, though (and he's a good eater), he finishes what he's eating and immediately says "MOUO!"  When he says it, his voice rises several octaves so he finished with squeal.  Also, "MOUO!" is accompanied, every time, by Joe banging his fists together, making the sign langueage symbol for "more," which he learned from our nanny and friend, Carley Meade.  Very cool and very funny.  I really, really don't know how to spell it.

Joe is such a bright kid.  He looks like J.P. and he looks like me and he makes me smile every time I look at him.