Extra innings? No, just an extra outing.

The best photo

We decided to stay an extra day, to take the kids to White Sands.

It also allowed us to split the trip back into two days — a vast improvement over the trip out.

And Grace got to do sledding, without that awful cold that was always involved when I was a child. Lucky girl!

Grace learning about time and pressure -- in a geological sense.She especially liked the sand rocks!

I thought it was interesting how abruptly the mountains stopped.


Oh, and a few bad things about the resort:

  1. It was a pepsi place
  2. Being a casino on a reservation in a state that hasn’t legalized gambling means that they cannot allow alcohol in the casino. How lame is that?
  3. They ran out of hot water the last day we were there
  4. It was cold most of the time

Still, it was quite pretty, except for the lack of ocean.

Now, my revenge is complete.

So, Cy and I played a full 18 holes together today.

Having never played the back 9 before, we were both pretty amazed when I parred hole 10.

Hole 12

And, to make my revenge complete, it needs to be noted that I outdrove him on 15 of the 18 holes.

Just ducky!

Oh, and we took Grace for a walk to feed the ducks popcorn!
Finally, I got to play craps, and we left the table up $450.

Panic, then an interesting round…and as good a happy ending as one could expect!

Why did we go to the mountains for spring break? To let Grace play in the snow!

So, this morning, we joined up with Cy’s sister’s family, and caravanned mostly up the mountain.

The road before it got narrowSeveral miles into the 12-mile trip up, Cy started feeling odd. He had just taken his blood pressure medication, so I told him to pull over and let me do the driving. So, off we start again, with me at the wheel. It’s a new car — this is perhaps the fifth time I’ve ever driven it. Well, let’s make sure it’s known that it is a truck. The two-lane road — actually, more like one and a half lanes — has no guardrail. It’s a mountain, so of course the road twists and turns, often sharply. I’m trying to stay as far from the edge as I can, but there is traffic going down.

That’s when I announce, as casually as I can:

I’m having a panic attack.

Cy’s response?

No, you’re not.

Oh, yeah. Let’s have an argument now! Have you ever tried to shut a stupid fscker up? And no matter how many times I told him to shut up, he just had to have the last word.

snowballFinally, we got to another stopping point. Out we go, and Grace throws some snowballs at Cy while I calm down. We give Cy’s sister, who had stopped to let us catch up, the sleds (prompting the heartbreaking question “Why are you giving aunt Judy my sleds?”) and they continue on their way.

We, meanwhile, let G play for a few moments before we turn around. Let’s face it — we couldn’t go on.


Later that afternoon, Cy went to play golf. I thought it was too cold — and it was, when he started. He played the back nine, but I joined him for the front nine.I started out with 3 balls, marked “Top-Flite 3”. I ended with 3 balls, marked “Top-Flite 3”. I played nine holes without losing a single ball.

 

The same 3 balls I started with.

And, of course, my revenge is not complete, despite mentioning that Cy lost one on the front nine today…


And, when Judy got back, she told us it was too cold and windy to let the kids play in the snow.Yay! We did the right thing!

 

So, Grace is 4 today

So that makes it 4 years ago yesterday that we made our first visit to the hospital to let them know what was coming, and 4 years ago today that we got caught in traffic on the way back to the hospital for the third time in 24 hours…

G with her left-handed putterShe likes her left-handed clubs, however!�

So why am I in trouble today?

…because at school, Grace was playing with the tea set. Her teacher asked,

“Are you making tea?”

And so, my daughter replied,

“No, I’m making Mexican Martinis for everyone, and I need olives, please!”

Ah, that’s my girl!


You know, I’m pretty sure she just wanted the olives…

Thinking about laughter

Today, we each had a turn watching Grace by ourselves. We all seemed to enjoy it quite a bit!

It struck me again — not that I’ve gone on about it here — that my favorite sound is her laughter. Grace has a fantastic giggle. Cy got back home before she went down to her grandparents’ to spend the night, so he got his good-night kiss and hug before she left. It quickly escalated to knock-me-over hugs (video forthcoming) and kiss-attacks, both of which invariably cause a bout of giggles. It was almost as much fun to be a bystander!

Later, on our way to eat, we started talking about her developing sense of humor. I was noticing the resurgence of the knock-me-over hug, and remembering back to the first pun she understood:

We were upstairs in Cy’s office, long before it became as messy as it is now. I was sitting on the rug (wait for it!), and she was handing out knock-me-over hugs galore. I told her to wait a moment, and grabbed the rug, and told her to give me another knock-me-over hug. She did, but I held onto the rug, and pointed out that it wasn’t a knock-me-over hug, it was a knock-me-over rug. I was rewarded with a fresh bout of giggles!

This was at about 18 months. (That’s a year and a half to you and me.) Before that, even, there was another event we love to remember:

We were watching some news channel. It doesn’t matter which one, but it wasn’t named after an animal. There was a doctor speaking on screen. He was wearing surgical scrubs, the full get-up, including the hairnet. The scrubs were of a uniform color, but the hairnet portion was mostly white with drawings on it. Grace watched until he came on the screen, then piped up,

“He’s wearing big girl panties on his head!”

It goes back to her first joke: she would take anything — paper, food, toys, anything — and put it on her head, telling us “Hat!” Sometimes, we still get that one!

Grace is growing up too quickly

So, at the company picnic, Grace and I swam in the Blanco river for about two hours, and oh! is my foot aching!

I’m putting her to bed, and she asks about my toe. Yes, it’s still broken. Yes, it still hurts.

Grace:

What did you do when you broke your toe?

Me:

I said some daddy words

(actually, what I said was exactly “Motherfudger”, but she doesn’t even need to know to start from that one…)

G:

What were the daddy words?

Me:

I’m not going to tell you

G:

Just tell me

Me:

No.

G:

Please?

Me:

No, and stop asking. I’m not going to teach you daddy words.

G:

Oh, just tell me and get it over with

What a warm first day of spring

What a day for Grace to learn to ride her big girl bike! (The Dora one, not the Disney one.)
Daddy Cy helping Grace ride her big girl bikeGrace rode her big girl bike around the block and to the park, then rode it back home after swinging and climbing for a while. Swinging at the park
Then, she rode around the cul-de-sac for a while.More of the first day riding the big girl bike

Beautiful!

Got Grace a new bike

Her birthday bike was too big; her legs just aren’t long enough to follow through the bottom of the stroke, so she ended up braking to a stop each cycle. Not very enabling.

So, we got her an el-cheapo smaller bike (she chose Dora the Explorer). All day long there have been people coming and going, and each time I warned her about a car she immediately got out of the street and/or driveway. Since she was so good about that, I told her that we would get her a bike she could fit on tomorrow.

Daddy Cy, however, suggested that we get one tonight — a stroke of parenting genius! She got the immediate reward, which I’m sure she’ll remember, plus we got to kill several birds with one stone by getting shipping supplies at the same time.

Funniest moment: She saw a Scooby flashlight, and told us

“I’ve been looking for one of these!”

Like either of us has the power to resist that kind of cuteness. C’mon.

I love being a daddy

It sounds trite, but it holds true.

In my previous life, I was pretty much a stickler — oh, OK. I was an asshole. If you didn’t do things right by the tenth try or so, you were written off as a lost cause.

I even had an evil twin. He’s the guy who would always say what he thought, no matter how offensive. By most accounts, he’s been in remission since the first sonogram. Then, there is Austin traffic… Especially through westlake. Ewww.

Grace is sick

…with a cough.

Top this off with the skinned knee and nose from a few days ago, and we’ve really got a winner. Poor girl. Being 3 is hard.

We went to the store today, and bought 3 different types of medicine. I gave her the liquid one before bedtime, but she didn’t like it. I also got the “breath strips” type, as well as some popsicle-style, but those weren’t frozen yet.

We’ll see how she wakes up before deciding if she’ll go to gymnastics tomorrow morning.