Bode

When I got to the gym this morning, I started off training by doing my 10 minutes of belly breathing.  It’s this thing that Ben has me doing to help me learn how to breathe efficiently in the middle of training.  So, I’m laying there with one hand on my chest to make sure it doesn’t move at all, and the other hand on my belly to make sure it fills up and sinks down…

You should’ve seen Ben yesterday.  He was in his element.  We finally got on the road to go camping, and I look over at him as we drive away from the house and he has an enormous grin on his face while he says, “It’s a beautiful day, drivin’ my truck with my family, listening to country music, goin’ camping.  LOVE this!” It is one of those things that I guess we’ve both dreamt about:…

Last night, Ben and I took the little kids to see Jonah’s 6th grade chorus concert at Kennedy Middle School.  I, for the record, LOVE things like chorus concerts.  Dead serious.  Especially middle school ones because there is no age that is more awkward and/or uncomfortable than the middle school age range. I just love how it’s that period of your life when you don’t know what to do with your hands, you feel like…

Dave Hamel.  I, honestly, don’t think there is a single human being on the Planet Earth who is not just sitting around waiting for the next time they get to spend time with this guy. When you are at CFNE and you see him roll into the parking lot with a full sized tree in the back of his Hamel Bros. Landscaping pick-up truck, you just sit there anxiously waiting the 15-20 minutes you know…

While I give props to my father for teaching me the ropes on just how to develop your OCD as much as possible, it’s my grandmother, Lula, who really had it down.  We called her “Lula” because that’s the Filipino word for “grandmother”.  The word for grandfather is “Lulu”, but my grandfather wasn’t having that. She was a ninja OCD’er.  But, when I was young and never knew it was a “gift”, I just assumed…

The diaper scene sort of cracks me up.  There are so many different approaches to diaper changing that it never ceases to amaze me. There’s something about grandmothers, not grandfathers necessarily, that makes them feel the need to change a diaper five times more often than I’m used to.  Ben’s Mom told me once that she thinks it’s because back when we were all kids, the technology wasn’t as advanced as it is now and…

Maybe we’re going to hell for this, but somehow we managed to successfully spend $2 on Bode’s birthday. Here’s the thing.  Bode’s 4 years old.  It’s the perfect age for parents because he’s finally old enough to really understand that your birthday is a really, really special day…but, not old enough to know that most people get cake and naughty dinners and tons of presents that cost parents tons of money. Four year olds don’t…