Hide And Seek!!

   Wyatt has been all about playing hide and seek lately.

   He's awful at it.

   Here he is hiding behind the curb:

Not sure if he's hiding, crying, praying, or counting. Either way, my parenting style is of the kind that says "quick go in the street but also hide so cars can't see you!!"

   I also have pictures of him hiding behind the world's thinnest tree, shortly after exclaiming "I'm going to go hide behind the tree, dad!!" Our games go a lot like this:

   After a few rounds of this, I told him to stop telling me where he's hiding. He'd respond with. "Oh. Sorry dad!! I'ma go hide behind the tree now."

   He only hid behind the curb, the tree, and his bike.

    When we play inside, it doesn't get much better. He's way more excited to have me find him than to actually hide well, but gets upset if I don't make enough of a game out of it. He did find this little gem of a corner, however:

This is honestly his best hiding spot ever. The blankets in the corner behind the couch. His tactic of saying "I'm here, dad!!" as I walk by is still less than ideal.

   Sometimes he hides in our hall walk-in closet. He likes it because there's a door. On this same, magical day of hide and seek, he decided to hide while I was feeding Lincoln. I realized he had been eerily quiet the whole time. I checked in on the closet, to find this:

He said "I'm feeding my animals." Yeah, Wyatt, because animals just love dry rice. Stupid.

   I wasn't really mad, I had never told him not to play with the rice. I let him keep the rice he already had, and put the bag away. When I finished, he performed the most devious act of his young life: He walked up to me with a rope. He wrapped it around my feet a couple times, then around a chair a couple of times. He said "You tied up now, dad! You can't move!!" Thinking he wasn't allowed to play with the rice, he tiptoed backwards, staring at me the whole time, towards the closet. "You can't move!!" He stepped into the closet, then poked his head out one last time. "You can't move, dad, you tied up!!"

   I don't think I've ever laughed so hard at something he's done, and I've seen him pee on his mom when he was a baby.

I let him play for a while. He eventually broke two of the glasses. Parenting is hard.

My mood: exhausted from finding the hider so often

Wyatt's mood: sad about the glasses and rice

Lincoln's mood: he was just chilling, watching Wyatt hide worse than a bike rider in traffic.

Cara's mood: needs sleep

Listening to: Blink 182

Summer of 2014!!

Our first camping trip took us to the coast. It was a little cool, but it was like a billion in Eugene so we didn't complain.

Every new-ish parent is used to hearing the same three or four pieces of advice:

They grow up so fast.
Next think you know they're in high school.
Treasure these days.
Seriously, just lock them in the closet for a few hours and they'll learn.

On the one hand, I don't feel like these last 3 years with Wyatt have flown by. (He turns three in a month, so go ahead and start planning your party for him now). When you are a teacher, each year is pretty compartmentalized into two categories: "Summer," and "Sucky". So as a year goes by, I have a good feel and pace of it.

However, I did go into this summer with an understanding that Wyatt's only going to be two for a little bit longer. Right now, everything is new and wonderful and exciting for him. He gets wide eyed and takes big gasps when he sees a snail or a new type of bird, and his imagination is really starting to get a hold of him. I know that next year it won't be quite the same, and that he'll have tons of relentless, back-breaking questions and his words will be more formed and less cute and he'll have a better idea of what he does and doesn't like, and that next summer we'll have a little baby that will keep me from adventuring a bit more, so I really wanted to make this summer count.

For example, I had a goal of taking him camping every other week, during the summer. We went tent camping 4 times, in 4 different places, with 4 different groups of people, and we slept outside out grandpa's house and we'll probably sleep outside one of these nights too. But we did other things too.

The river spot we biked to at least 20 times.

We hiked and biked and swam in lakes and pools and rivers and threw rocks and saw waterfalls and ran races and built obstacle courses and read books and slept outside and slept in our hammocks and wrestled and wrestled and wrestled and we watched a snail cross the sidewalk and we tried to play cars with cats and we tried to learn about being a brother and we got him potty trained and got him sleeping through the night in his own bed and he pooped on my shoulder one time and we picked apples and we pressed cider and we picked berries and made cobbler and we went to like 12 different parks and we found waterfalls and we did so much more stuff.

It was a blast. It was a span of 10 weeks I will treasure forever. Really, we had so much fun and moved so fast I didn't get too many pictures of them all, which I am okay with.

Wyatt had the tow truck ready in case the snail broke down.

My two favorite people in one of my new favorite places.

Wyatt and Papa with Kambiz.

If you are a dentist and want to give us a free checkup, I assume this is the only picture you'd need? Just write me an email at worldsbestdad77@juno.com to let us know of any cavities.

You can't tell from his expression, but these are Wyatt's two best friends, and the people who get mentioned the most in his prayers outside of mom and dad.

Wyatt's favorite neighborhood cat, who isn't very good at playing cars.

The best picture I have of him at campfire, with his favorite accessory on his head and what I am going to assume is a box of matches in his hand. No, wait, that's a graham cracker.

I do love my job, actually. Teaching is wonderful because it is challenging and exhausting and it's never the same thing twice, really, and young people have energy and excitement. I like to pretend like summer ending is the worst thing that could happen to me, but only because squeezing a month between July and August sounds so appealing. But I've learned that I need to reach this mystical point where I am ready for school. Where I feel like I've done enough fun to enable myself to look out the window when I am sitting in my classroom, and see the sun and the breeze and be okay with the fact that I am not playing in that right now. This summer, I did that, and in a few hours I'll gladly go to my first day of work.

The summer of two-year-old Wyatt is over, can't wait for the fall.

My mood: Ready

Wyatt's mood: He actually spends about a week waking up in the morning and walking around the house looking for dad. He's used to having me home, but I am usually gone before he wakes up. It's cute and sweet and maybe a little sad.

Cara's mood: Sad I am going to work, but glad that I have a job and am not a total loser for 12 months of the year, just three of them.

Listening to: Ocean Avenue by Yellowcard

Track Star!!

This picture has nothing to do with the following text. In fact
you can ignore my stupid grin and just get going, if you'd like.

   Living in Eugene, Oregon, AKA Track Town USA, AKA Smells Like Pot has lots of wonderful things about it. One of those not-wonderful things is the fact that there's a marathon or 5K or half-marathon for pretty much every cause and every holiday every weekend.

   So, you have to do them. They are for a good cause. They fight hunger, or you walk for a cure, or you walk for heart disease. I've never really understood why anyone would be "for" heart disease but I am sure I am missing something. You can even shuffle for a truffle, which, I'm sure is something we should all support.

   Worse, everyone you know except for you has run a marathon. I can't tell you how sickening it is to see 100 status updates one morning that say something like "Can't believe I did it! Another one off the bucket list!" or "Wow am I tired but I sure feel good. Team Beat Insomnia did it!" (there's a half-marathon to fight insomnia. It starts at 2:00 am. I am lying.) or even "Just finished a marathon and I bet my ex Jordan is still on the couch getting fatter." (Get over it, Sam, you just look sad!) These people are running marathons and you're reading about it while eating cereal because you were too lazy to make pancakes. The only thing I've knocked off my bucket list lately is "spend a whole day in your underwear," which was actually kind of awkward because I had to take out the trash. I mean, how do you expect me to do a 5K!? Don't you know that it's five thousand!!

   Wyatt, however, that kid is going to run marathons, man.

   He can run, non stop, for hours. This is not an exaggeration. He's done it after church, running in circles around the gym, he's done it at this courtyard in town where we go to eat Fro-Yo, and just today he did it around the neighborhood.

   Sometimes we go to visit our friend, Marianne. She's not home a lot, but we stop by anyways. She lives at 1933 Roosevelt Street, which is exactly 0.8 miles from our house. Marianne, who has tons of nice stuff in her living room, wasn't there today around 9:15pm during our run, but that didn't matter to Wyatt because he wanted to go "pas," which is his adorable way of saying "fast." He says it all the time. "Mon da go pas!" (Come on dad go fast!) is easily his most used phrase, distantly followed by "oh car broke" (whenever he sees my broken down Buick Grandma which is for sale by the way only $6000), and "oh no ma wor oh no" (we are sad mom is at work). He turned around and ran home, which means he ran 1.6 miles tonight. Which means I ran 1.6 miles tonight. Which means heck yeah. Here, look at the Google Mapping I made:

Google Map of the route we took.

   His first sentence he ever said was "I gon ge goo!" which, loosely translated, means "I'm going to get you!" He yells it and then runs away from me, wanting me to chase him. He literally wants nothing more than to go pas all the time. When he's not going pas, he wants his cars to go pas or his choo choos to go pas. It's an obsession on par with Ricky Bobby.

   We decided to test out this need for speed, and took him to the last All Comers Meet at Historic Hayward Field. Since you might not live in a track-and-field-and-not-deodorant crazy town like I do, an All Comer's Meet is a track meet put on for anyone and everyone who wants to. A couple even have official enough time keeping to count towards things like national meets and Olympic Trial Qualifying.

   Wyatt went, and here's what happened:

We're in the middle of the screen. Wyatt's in the yellow-orange shirt, I am kneeling behind him giving him pointers. "Okay, now, it's a 40 meter race, so don't go too hard and wait for the other kids to get tired, then sprint hard at the end! If you *accidentally* trip another kid, that's all part of racing and winning and making dad proud."

The race has just started! You can tell because Cara put her finger in the screen a little.

What's the big hurry, kid in the red?! It's just for fun and we weren't even trying to win anyways.

   Just so you all know, I wasn't even going my fastest. If I'd wanted to win in that race I totally could've. It's just that my hamstring has been bothering me a bit lately.

   Once Wyatt really understood what a race was, he wanted to do it again, over and over. We would ready-set-go a few of these for him:

   There was also a long jump that Cara filmed. Well, "filmed" probably isn't the right term. It's more like she was "out looking for sasquatch" who is always in a blurry field.

   Thanks for that glorious, one-second video of Wyatt's first-ever-athletic venture, honey!

   He had a great time, and got a participation ribbon for all three of his events!! (Long jump, 40m dash, softball throw). I am usually totally against the whole "everyone gets a trophy" mentality, but I am all for the "Wyatt always gets a ribbon" craze that is sweeping the country. It will only make him tough and strong. Besides, winning isn't everything, if you lost. If you won, well, winning is obviously all that matters.


   Without really knowing it, I've actually been preparing him for races all along. I've spent the summer building up a little obstacle course in the back yard for Wyatt. It's really not much, it just has him running some loops and climbing some things, but he likes trying to do it faster and faster. Watch!

   My intention with this was actually to work on a few things: Counting (when he does the slalom at the start), shapes (I have him run around a circle, square, or triangle and say the shape each time), putting his face in the water (he's afraid to do it when in pools), climbing and jumping (he is hesitant if there are no cushions), and running under hammocks (self explanatory). There were other things I wanted us to do, like color or make animal sounds, but he just likes the "go pas" ones, so that's what it's turned into.

   Cara's always been afraid that Wyatt will love baseball, because she finds it so boring. I've always been afraid that he'll love math, because then he'll be so boring. Now we are wondering if he's just going to be one of those runners, who just runs all the time and doesn't really know how to throw a hatchet like all the other kids. Still, we're glad he's happy going pas and having fun.

My mood: Actually quite tired from that run. My hips kind of hurt. Ugh.
Wy's mood: Not at all tired from that run.
Cara's doing: Well. Not sleeping great, but that's mostly due to the fact that I am taking up the drums.
Listening to: Third Eye Blind

Big Announcement!!

   Yeah okay let's get this over with we're having another baby.

   I thought about mustering up some excitement and throwing down lots of my trademark double exclamation points!! and trying to build up some suspense or something, but that wasn't going to work. Let's face it: This new one isn't going to be our first one, and that means you aren't going to be as excited.
   My parents already have their first grandkid. My brother and sister already became an aunt and an uncle for the first time. Wyatt's cousins already have cousins. Now it's just more of the same old same old.

   But!! We can still make this exciting!! I'm talking about photos and updates and pinterest and fruit and all kinds of good things!! Here's what I mean.

   Spend half an hour on Pinterest (which my wife does like 6 times a day), and you'll see that pregnancy announcements and gender announcements are A HUGE DEAL. You have to let the world know how cute and artsy you are and how happy you are to be having a baby and also that you are going to be the best parents evar!! So, we've got that covered:

   These are 6 images that appeared on the first page of searching "Pregnancy Announcement" on Pinterest. Let's see what we've got:

Can't spell. Is that ring both an "o" and an "a"? Just trying way too hard here.

Whoa! I don't want to see people making out unless it's me and a steak. Also, walking around on those shoes must've been stressful.

Um, hmmm. Well, so, I guess anyone who can recognize those feet knows who this girl is and that she's pregnant. Angela?

Ah yes, the chalkboard with arrows and colors. Classic.

So, wait, boy + girl + tree = 3? I don't get the math on this one. Maybe it's boy tree girl plus sign three?

And this one!! Okay, actually that's really funny. You guys win.

   As you can see, there's a lot of pressure to pull this thing off right. People need to get excited for you and also know how wonderful you are, all at once. A while back, Cara and Wy and I were bored and decided we'd get a head start on this whole "baby announcement picture" thing. These were the results:

This is the creative process at work.

We realized people would take this the wrong way. WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?!

True story: We had a friend take these photos. The friend is actually a photographer. The friend didn't want us to use his name because he didn't want anything to do with these things. Thanks, Jake!

We figured we'd make a few with some random dates, just hoping to get the due date right. Notice we didn't put down any years or anything.

What fun we were having.

Our try at the whole mathy thing. Because there'd be four of us. I guess I forgot to add a tree in there somewhere. During this photo-shoot, someone actually walked by and said "What does that even mean? Are you having a baby or something." I politely replied with "MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS AND DON'T LET THAT DOG POOP ON MY LAWN!" (It wasn't my lawn.) (She didn't have a dog.)

It's not... you know, Cara ...  the baby's not going to be in my belly. Why are you doing this?! You know I've had body image issues ever since we were pregnant the first time around. It changes you.

What is with this belly obsession!?

Do you get it!? Cara drinks water, dad drinks whatever's in that bottle and we're not telling but it's probably just used for cooking anyways, and Wyatt LOVES milk.

Here, we gave Wyatt a bag of chips and said "spell out "I'ma big brother!" or something" and then came back a few hours later.

   So there you have it. The secret's out: Not only are we pregnant, but we aren't photogenic, clever or going to be featured on any pinterest boards.

   Now, I'm sure you have a ton of questions, so let me answer them for you.

   How did this happen?!

   That is not a question I am going to answer. This is a family blog. Well, it's a blog about a family. No, it's really a blog about a dad who needs attention. 

   Are you going to change the name of the blog?!

   To what? "My Kids Is Special!!?" That doesn't even make any sense. You should be embarassed for even suggesting that.

   You should be embarrassed that you can't spell "embarrassed" right. Those aren't my questions, Grant. I have questions like "When will-

   - "When will I get a new little plushy batman drawing for the new kid?" Great question. I probably need to update Wyatt's anyways to reflect his age and sensibilities. We don't know if the new kid is a boy or a girl yet, so the plushy image could be Link or Spider-Man if he's a boy, and Zelda or Samus if he's a girl.

   You are awful at this. At least you answered the question about the gender. When is the soon-to-be-forever-screwed-up-by-this-blog kid coming?

   The "doctor's" tell us it's coming in December, but I think I know my own body and have a good feeling about late August.

   Ugh. Are you going to find out the gender in advance?

   Probably. But not because of ultrasounds or anything. We have a neighbor who has visions about these sorts of things. He accurately predicted that Wyatt would be a boy and he'd be super cute and he'd grow up to be a rock star, so he's pretty reliable. He also knew in advance that Hillary was going to run for president.

   Ugh. How's mom doing?

   Yeah great fine who cares what else?

   Have you thought about names at all?

   Yes. If it's a boy, probably Link or Spider-Man. If it's a girl, um, can you trade those things in for boys?

   What, you don't want a baby girl?

   No no no, it's not that at all. I'd love a baby girl. I don't want a middle or high school girl. Those things are terrifying.

   Aren't you a teacher?

   Yes and if the girl's knew how scared I was of them and their drama they'd have all the control.

   Okay let's wrap this up.

   Well, I'm in charge of this blog. I ask the questions around here.

   No, seriously, I've been asking questions for like 15 minutes.

   Wait, what? Seriously?

   Yes!! That's been your whole gimmick!

   Are... are you sure that's right?

   Well, now I guess we've switched and you are asking stupid questions.

   How did you do this? Are you like a spy or something?

   You keep asking questions. And if I were a spy I obviously couldn't tell you.

   Okay. Got it. You can't tell me. I'll just have to do some digging on my own some other time. 

   I need to be moving on. I can't just sit here and entertain all day. I've got important things to do like mail a few more wedding thank-yous. Let's wrap this up.

My mood: ecstatic! Also, I can't believe any of you would read this far!!

Wyatt's mood: kind of understanding what's going on but not really!

Cara's mood: Sleeping okay these days!!

Listening to: The Shins.

New Feeding Rituals!!

We've always been pretty informal when it comes to feeding Wyatt. When I say "we" I really mean "not Cara" because she actually likes to sit down at the table and have a good meal and talk and stuff. I just think we should get food in our bellies and get back to watching reruns of White Collar.

Here's a tip: when the special little kid is eating, he's going to make a mess. So, if eating outside isn't an option, just leave everything on the kitchen floor, in a bowl, as if the kid were a pet. At more advanced stages, it looks like this:

No clothes, no napkins, no carpet to ruin, just some cereal on a stool. And the dishwasher is already ready to be loaded already!

Sometimes Wyatt is eats really quiet and takes a long time. Any seasoned parent knows that silence is a very unsettling sound, but I am not a seasoned parent so I go with it. When I realize something's probably up, it's way too late. A few days ago, I gave Wy some Psgetti and then decided to use my valuable time elsewhere. When I returned, after having not supervised Wyatt eating pasta with tomato sauce for an extended period of time, well, things actually couldn't have gone much better:

Holy meatballs did I dodge a bullet. Sure, he ate almost nothing, and just played with his food the whole time, but he basically washed his dishes for me and contained the whole mess in one space. We'll attribute this to the fact that I've raised him well.

Now, you might be looking over these meals and thinking "Wow that's a lot of carbs there, Grantly, don't you think you should throw something green in there?" Funny story: I went grocery shopping, and returned from Costco with several days worth of food: chicken, bison, salmon, lasagna, pasta and pasta sauce, cereal, brownie mix, milk and cheese. After preparing a feast for the first night, Cara comes home from work, ungrateful as always, and asks "Do we have any vegetables?" I thought for a second, and then said "No. Um, buying vegetables didn't even cross my mind."

Because I'M A MAN.

My mood: hungry
Wyatt's mood: bored with his food
Listening to: The Zombies

Mobile Sandbox!!

   Whoa! This was unexpected!! I made a quick, kind-of-spontaneous trip to by some soil for our planter boxes and berry bushes, but wasn't able to lay the soil for a while. Guess what resulted?! That's right!! A giant sandbox on wheels!!

Well, it's not sand, obvs, because we aren't planting our veggies in sand, so don't freak out on me about my soil choice, but sheesh did Wyatt love playing in that dirt.

Nothing makes a man feel like a more accomplished father than having his son all dirty, smiley, and happy to play in the bed of his truck, while that man crushes Candy Crush and hums some bars of Frozen.

Who knew that spending 30-some bucks on dirt could feed our plants AND feed Wyatt's imagination?! I did, but you didn't so now you ... do ... wait...

Fertilizer?

That... that was fertilized dirt he was playing in. And then eating. And then licking me. Does that ...huh. So, I guess that means that I am still a really great dad and we shouldn't dwell on this anymore but just remember how happy he was and how awesome it was and goodbye.

My mood: not at all disgusted
Wyatt's mood: not at all clean
Listening to: not at all Frozen

Wyatt Loves The Ocean!!

He's saying "Come on, let's go play in the water!" We'd just played in the water for like an hour.

   Oh man you guys, I had no idea. I mean, we've been to the beach before, as you've seen a couple of times, but never before had Wyatt been so in love with anything. Like, ever.

   On our trip to Santa Barbara, among other places, we spent half the day at the beach. Once Wyatt realized that you could be in the water for 15 seconds and still feel your toes, he realized that the water in California is more fun than the water in Oregon. And he never wanted to leave.

He would've run straight in, as far as he could, if we'd let him.

His face was like this the whole time. Look at that cute little face!!

Just some boring sand time with no water that he frickin' adored.

Oh yeah Cara was there too. We decided to all wear collared, blue shirts.

   He laughed so hard and smiled so big the whole time!! I bet his jaw hurt!! And the whole time he was thinking "What great parents I have to bring me here and let me play!!" Because we really are great parents. I mean, just watch this video of him rolling down the teenie-tiny sand dune:

   That probably happened 15 times total. All of this sand climbing and rolling, ocean chasing and laughing is probably what lead to him falling asleep as he kept playing.

   Okokok you get it, this was great and he had fun and everyone was happy. Can we talk about something else now? Like, elephant seals?

      Cara and I were laughing so hard because that scene reminded us of our bedtime ritual.

My mood: can't sleep
Wyatt's mood can't sleep just long enough to keep me from sleeping.

Vacation!!

   Way back at the new year, Cara and Wyatt and I took a vaycay to cali. Something I learned while vaycaying in cali: only posers call it "cali" and only girls call it "vaycay." The three of us flew to San Jose, rented a car and made stops and stays in Monterey, Big Sur, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and ... um ... Riverside.

   Now you're thinking "wait how did I not know this?! Someone spending time in California is required to absolutely blow up my instagram, facebook, twitter, and send me postcards so that the whole world knows!! Well, I wanted to play it cool because a) that's what this blog is for, and b) IF I ANNOUNCE TO THE WORLD THAT I AM GONE WHILE I AM GONE THEN EVERYONE WILL COME ROB ME!!! And I don't want to lose my Pokemon cards, because I have a killer deck that my brother could never beat because I made him trade me that Venusaur for a Charmeleon when he was like seven and what a sucker. I think he's learned from that experience though.

There's a real fun aquariam in Monterey that everyone says you have to visit. This was a big tank with sharks and turtles and sadly nothing eathing anything else. It's located inside the Mystery Science 2000 Leagues Under The Sea Theater. It turns out that when you've seen Free Willy in person, a little hammerhead isn't so impressive.

There was also a clam that made Cara uncomfortably happy. Like, I was uncomfortable. Wy wasn't too sure either.

In Monterey, there is a place where thousands of Monarch butterflies are supposed to converge. I don't know why this is exciting. Do they taste good or something? Anyways, the wife really wanted to check it out, and on the way we found this awesome park bench. I was so relieved to finally learn that the legacy did not in fact die, but was continuing very, very far from Colorado.

(we saw like 4 butterflies).

Big Sur was nice, although not a great place to go with a 2 year old. Wyatt napped at all the wrong times (hikes) and wanted to play at all the wrong times (in the car). Here was a waterfall that we just "had to see" according to everyone, and apparently Big Sur doesn't realize that these little suckers litter every highway in Oregon. I learned that Big Sur is not a place where dudes go to surf.

There were, however, lots of really awesome views. This is where we thought we'd find Peter Pan as the mermaids try to drown Wendy. Cara thought I was a little too excited at the idea of seeing a mermaid, but I kept telling her that I've seen topless fish hundreds of times. In fact I don't even get excited by it anymore.

   This is the mission in Santa Barbara. I wasn't sure why we were making a point to see it once I learned it wasn't like a famous restaurant or anything. I'd show you pictures of the inside, but you care less than I do so let's move on.

   We had a wonderful time in Santa Barbara. I was hoping to bump into the guys from Psych, and hung around all the crime scenes I could find, but alas. The thing we liked most about SB is it's where we spent the longest time crashed on the beach. Wyatt loved the beach. Like, I think it might now be his favorite thing in the world besides his dad and fussing. I will have a separate post about our beach adventures, but hopefully this will ... tide ... you over.

My mood: ready for another vaycay - dang it! I mean vacation!!
Wyatt's mood: looking for a single missing car
Listening to: Kings of Leon on repeat for like 7 days.