Cumberland Park

Late this afternoon, after J.P. got up from his nap and Joey and I returned from our walk to Bongo Java,  we drove over to Cumberland Park on the East Bank of the Cumberland River, next to LP Field.  Jude and J.P. had been there a couple of times since it opened, but it was my first visit.

The park is a great place for children on hot summer days, as there are fountains built into the ground of the water play area, as well as water sparing from the ceiling of an overhang.  J.P. absolutely loves it there and he had a blast playing in the water.  I think I had more fun watching him.

This is the kind of photo that will break your heart.  It's perfect.  Man, I love this guy.

The Boys (and Girls) are Back in Town Again

(Sunday afternoon at Bongo Java, Joe sleeping in the stroller beside me.  Listening to Boston - "Third Stage" (1986) on Spotify)

Summer in our 'hood is officially over, as yesterday was move-in day for the kids at Belmont University.  I couldn't help but chuckle as Joe and I strolled across Belmont's campus.  Cars were lined up nose to tail, as parents waited to drop their children (and their stuff, lots and lots of stuff) off at one of the dorms.  Campus police officers were everywhere, along with student volunteers, directing traffic, answering questions and generally trying to appear helpful.  It's a ritual that repeats itself every August.

Even funnier were the looks on the parents' and kids' faces, as they walked around campus together.  The parents appeared to be a little anxious, a little sad and very confused (lost).  The kids appeared to be anxious, too - anxious to have their parents leave campus and go home as quickly as possible.  Later, in groups, the kids talked a little louder than normal, filled with the false bravado all freshmen use to mask their insecurities and fears at living away from home for the first time.

I was reminded of September 1984, when my mother and our next door neighbor, Warren Gilley, drove me (and my stuff, lots and lots of stuff) to Knoxville, Tennessee, so I could begin my freshman year of college.  Mr. Gilley, who died a few years ago, was like a second father to me.  My mother told me she cried all the way back to Cookeville, after they dropped me off at Reese Hall and drove back to Nashville.

My roommate and close friend from high school, Mike Corley, had already arrived and moved his stuff into our room on the ground floor (west) - RWO.  I vividly remember unpacking my gear, sitting down on my single bed and looking over at him, sitting on his single bed.  Channeling "Revenge of the Nerds," I said, "well, Gilbert, we're here."  Mike immediately responded with the "nerd laugh," just like  in the movie.  We laughed together in our dorm room, the first of many, many times we would laugh together in our dorm room during our freshman year of college.

That night, a bunch of my friends from home went out together.  While I don't remember the entire night, I do remember walking to Buddy's Bar-B-Q on the east end of the Strip, where we had dinner and drank pitchers of beers.  Who was there?  I remember Mike Corley, Rip Pewett and Mike Matteson, for sure. I suspect Bart Pemberton and Jeff Jackovich were there, too.  We ate, drank beer and laughed a lot, glorying in the our independence and secure in the knowledge that college and everything that goes with it was right there in front of us.  All we had to do was go get it.

And we did.  We got every bit of it over the next 4-5 years.  We got girls, parties, hangovers, football games, road trips, lifelong friends, classes, fraternities, intramural sports, cafeteria food, fast food, music, bars, broken hearts, fights and laughter (lots of laughter).  We made enough memories to last a lifetime.

I hope the Belmont freshmen get all that and more the next 4 years.  I really do.

Nocturnal Ramblings

(Sitting on my front porch in my camping chair, drinking an ice cold beer and listening to Billy Bragg & Wilco - Mermaid Avenue:  The Complete Sessions)

Almost every night after Jude and I get J.P. into bed, around 8:30 p.m., I put Joey in the City Elite (stroller) and we hit the streets.  Usually he is fast asleep as I turn the corner and head up the hill on Acklen Avenue.  Ear buds in, as we walk I listen to a podcast or two on my iPhone through "Stitcher," another one of my favorite apps.  

Many nights, we walk to Bongo Java and I order a "mood elevator," chatting briefly with whomever is working that night.  I sit down inside, drink my coffee and read a book on my Kindle Fire as Joey sleeps in the stroller.  

Other nights, especially if I've had to work late and missed dinner, we walk to Chago's Cantina.  There,  I eat a late dinner and have a beer or two while I read.  

Some nights, we walk my 3-mile neighborhood running route.  Conservatively, I've probably run that route 350-400 times in the decade Jude and I have lived in our house.  It's nice to walk it with Joey while he sleeps.

These nocturnal ramblings are something special, to me, that Joey and I do together.  They're made more special because I know they won't last much longer.  Soon, summer will be over and it will get cooler at night, too cool for Joey to be out in the City Elite with me.  Or, when Jude stops breast feeding (which will be soon, I think), he won't eat at 10:15 p.m., like he does now.  He'll go to bed earlier.  Either way, I'll be on my own again after dinner and bedtime, which makes me feel a bit sad and nostalgic already.

My nocturnal ramblings with Joey are the best, most relaxing and stress free part of my day.  It's when I clear my head and, really, just unwind.  It's my time to think or my time not to think.  Most of all, it's my time to be alone with Joey. 

  

Change

(Sitting at Bongo Java on a Sunday afternoon, listening to a Wilco mix on Spotify while Joey sleeps peacefully in his stroller beside me)

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about change, not only in my life, but in general.

I'm not sure I was prepared for how much my life would change after Joey was born.  Going from one child to two children has been a big adjustment, bigger than I thought it would be.  Several of my close friends have two children, and I've accused them of removing that chapter from "the manual" before giving it to me while Jude was pregnant with Joey.

Probably the biggest adjustment for me has been the lack of time to do much of anything that doesn't involve taking care of the boys, directly or indirectly.  It's hard to find time to run (which absolutely kills me), blog, go out to eat or to a movie with Jude, grab a beer with a buddy or work a little extra to get caught up.  Consequently, I constantly feel like I'm juggling responsibilities, rushing out of the office in the evenings, stopping by the grocery store, then rushing home, etc.

I am not complaining, not by a long shot.  I couldn't be more blessed than I am to have two healthy boys and an accomplished, intelligent wife who also happens to be the best mother on the planet.  I would be lost without Jude and I can't imagine life without our boys.  Having watched my mother raise three children on her own after losing my father at such a young age, I know how fortunate I am to be married to a woman like Jude.  In other words, I know if something happened to me, she would be able to raise our boys.  That's incredibly important to me.

Still, I often feel like I'm treading water, just trying to keep from drowning, as I adjust to life with two children.  The quiet moments, the down time - few and far between indeed.

As a result, I think I appreciate the stolen moments more.  The many, many walks with Joey in his stroller (I swear, I'm going to bronze the City Elite when Joey gets too big for it), especially at night after J.P. is in bed and while Jude catches a quick nap or unwinds before she feeds him one last time for the day.  A glass of wine, sitting on my front porch, after everyone is in bed, listening to the late night sounds of the city.  A quick lunch or a beer with Matteson or Hal.  A three mile run in the neighborhood, followed by a walk home through Belmont's campus.

And so it goes.  

Joe

I'm going to quit my job and become a professional iPhone photographer.

Highway to (Travel) Hell

Traveling with infants and toddlers is kind of like women having babies.  Stick with me here, because it's true.  

Women who have a baby soon forget how brutally difficult child birth can be, as a result of which they're willing to get pregnant and have another baby or two.  Similarly, when you take a vacation with infants and toddlers, you forget how terrible it is to travel in a car with them.  By the next year, you're ready for another vacation and another car trip.

I think it's some form of selective amnesia.

Last Saturday, Jude, J.P., Joey and I traveled home from Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, in Jude's Honda Pilot.  Aside from the trip home from the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida, 15 years ago or so - when I traveled with 3 horribly broken fingers on a charter plane that was 12 hours late - our trip back to Nashville was the worst travel experience of my life.  And I'm not even exaggerating.  

What should have been a 6 1/2 hour trip home took 10 1/2 hours.  I clocked it.  And I felt like crying.

Within an hour of departing Santa Rosa Beach and winding our way toward Montgomery, Alabama, on a series of 2-lane highways, J.P. was whining and crying, literally crying, about the trip home taking too long.  Then, he began vomiting.  Again and again and again.  

At one point, with Jude sitting in the back seat between J.P. and Joey, I passed a tupperware container back to J.P., so he could vomit in it.  I hear his window roll down then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the container sailing down the highway.  J.P. started screaming and asked me to turn around and drive back to get it.  I refused.  More crying.  Finally, he explained he was trying to "dry" the container, which apparently had a few drops of water in it, when he rolled down the window.  Makes sense, right?

We stopped in some tiny, tiny town on the Florida-Alabama border to look for a store that would give us a cup of hot water to warm Joey's bottle of breast milk.  No luck.  We ended up parking at the City Hall/Public Library building, which was closed.  While I sat in a rocking chair on the front porch and gave Joey his bottle - in 95 degree weather - Jude and J.P. walked up the road in search of a bathroom.

From there, J.P. cried all the way to Montgomery, where we stopped in a Chick-fil-A.  For the play area, of course.  I fed Joey (or tried to, as he wasn't hungry), ate part of a disgusting chicken salad sandwich and watched J.P. in the play area.  After almost an hour, I suggested to J.P. that he go to the bathroom, so we could leave.  In response to what seemed like a perfectly reasonable request from me, he threw a fit and began yelling, at the top of his lungs, "I want to go the McDonald's play area."  In Chick-fil-A, with customers and employees staring at us.  

Back in the car, whenever J.P. calmed down momentarily, Joey started crying inconsolably.  Jude tried to comfort him while she ducked down and used the breast pump.  It got so bad, at my suggestion Jude removed Joey from his car seat and held him as we drove, state and federal laws on securing infants in car seats be damned.  At that point, I would have let Joey drive if it would have made him stop crying.  No sooner did Joey calm down, then J.P. started crying again.  It was "hell in a Honda."  I plugged my ear buds back into my iPhone and listened to another podcast.

In Huntsville, 1 1/2 hours away from Nashville, J.P. insisted we stop at another Chick-fil-A.  Play area time again.  At this point, I was catatonic.  I had the "thousand yard travel stare."  Finally, we left Huntsville and drove up I-65, headed home.  Suddenly, J.P. began vomiting again, mostly dry heaves because there was nothing left for him to throw up.  Lovely.  

I've never, ever been so glad to arrive home from a trip.  Next year we're flying.  Or not going.

Santa Rosa Beach 2012

It's Friday night - the last night of our vacation in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.  J.P. is sleeping upstairs and Joey is sleeping in the stroller beside me in our beach house ("Slice of Paradise").  Jude is down the street, visiting with her Tulane friends for a few minutes before she goes to bed.  Yet again, a week at the beach has passed by too quickly.

Things I'll remember from this trip to the beach, our first with J.P. and Joey, in no particular order -

• When we left our house and drove south on I-65, we hadn't even reached the Old Hickory Blvd. (Brentwood) exit before J.P. said, "how much longer until we get there?"  I'm not even kidding.
• J.P. loved the bunk bed in his room at our rental house.  He especially loved taking his afternoon nap on the top bunk the last couple days of our visit.
• Each morning, I ran early, then J.P. and I walked up the street to one of the swimming pools in our complex for a swim.  We had the pool to ourselves and swam for about an hour, just the two of us.  That was probably my favorite part of the trip.
• J.P. loved the ocean, more so than on any other trip we've taken with him to the beach.  He spend a good deal of time in the water.  
• One morning after it had rained, we went to the beach.  Jude and J.P. found several shells.  J.P. walked up and down our section of the beach, showing his bucket of shells to everyone he ran into.  
• I enjoyed feeding Joey his bottle at the beach, underneath the umbrella we'd rented for the week, watching Jude and J.P. play in the ocean.
• Each morning, we carried so much gear to the beach - bouncy seat, blanket, beach towels, kick board, assorted buckets/shovels, snacks, bottled water, sun screen, camera, etc.  Okay, so that's not really a fond memory.
• We rented bicycles and a trailer for J.P.  Jude didn't ride hers the entire week and J.P. and I took my bicycle out twice for short trips.  He and did ride up to "Local Catch" for lunch, after which we rode home in a thunderstorm.
• We spent lots of quality time with Jude's Tulane friends and their children.  Jude and I got a kick out of watching J.P. play with the big boys (Ben Russell, Trent Williams and Nate and Andrew Fitzpatrick).  
• We had a crazy dinner for 20 at Elmo's on 30A, after an hour wait.  
• Joey and I drove over to Grayton Beach every afternoon for a quiet interlude, while Jude and J.P. napped at our rental house.  We found a quaint coffee house - Grayt Coffee House - and spend a couple of afternoons there.
• Once again, I ran on the trails around Draper Lake.  I discovered some new trails on the other side of 30A, across from Draper Lake (single track, mostly sand), in a new development ("Pelican").  One morning, toward the end of a 5 mile run, I tripped over a small tree stump or root and did a complete face plant on the downhill portion of one of the trails in the Draper Lake development.  Fortunately, the trail consisted of sand, pine needles and twigs, so I was uninjured other than scratching up my chest and stomach.

Those are just the high points.  It's been a good week, although there isn't a lot of vacationing to be done with a 4 year old and 4 month old.  We're looking at a long drive tomorrow, but it will be nice to get home.