Father’s Day, 2004

Well, for a number of lame reasons I have been pulled away from this journal once again. The last three weeks have been filled with work trips and/or cruises to Santa Catalina Island (twice) and Santa Barbara for a total accrued time away from my son and wife of more than ten days, which is incredibly stupid and frustrating, as they are absolutely my two favorite people and in Landon’s case, a developing character - changing more rapidly every day. On top of the difficulties of separation, I came excruciatingly close to obtaining a new job that would have benefited both my career and immediate family, but as the phrase ‘excruciatingly close’ implies, I am still mired today in the monotonous field of fish delivery boy. What these obstacles did reaffirm was my love and devotion to my family – I would do anything for Rhiannon and Landon, miss them tremendously over periods of separation, and will continue to strive for an improvement over our current mundane existence in a cave-like condo located squarely in the middle of the limitless Southern Californian suburban sprawl.

All that aside I had a wonderful first Father’s Day last Sunday. Although no one in the family except perhaps Landon felt well; I was still recovering from twelve hour work days in Catalina, and Rhiannon lay swamped by the responsibilities that engulf a teacher at the end of a school year, we headed off to the Long Beach Aquarium to introduce Landon to the wonderful world of living and breathing and swimming and bubbling fish. There is definitely something that a two dimensional picture of a fish (of which Landon has seen plenty of examples) lacks completely, and something that a writhing, luminescent scaled living fish possesses that inherently defines and describes what a fish is. A fish doesn’t sit still. A fish is wet. A fish floats and dances and dives its way through a world we can only visit temporarily.

Landon seemed enthralled with the fish and often just the movement of water at the aquarium. I hope I’m not supplanting his genuine interest with a father’s desires, but Landon did seem to watch and follow the fish as they darted around in the tanks at the aquarium. My guess is their colors had something to do with it, but then again, there is something simple and relaxing about a fish that I believe even a four month old child can enjoy. Our visit was relatively short, Landon is still limited to a little more than two hours of awake time before the eyes get rubbed and the yawns begin to escape, but I had a wonderfully memorable time sharing with Landon something that is so essentially a part of who I am.

That night we walked to a Japanese restaurant and enjoyed fish in a different context – they were equally delicious.

Related to eating, but entirely unrelated to fish, Landon has begun to be introduced to solid foods. Last week he had his four month doctor’s visit where he weighed in at 15 lbs 15 oz, and taped in at 26 in. During the visit Dr. Mackey also suggested that we begin to integrate solid foods into Landon’s diet. So, in accordance with the doctor’s orders we began feeding Landon one meal a day of formula mixed with rice cereal. He is still struggling with the whole idea of keeping what goes in his mouth inside his teeth less jaws, but nonetheless he seems to relish in the whole messy experience as he giggles and smiles while his chin and bib become inundated with white mush. Solid food has also brought about Landon’s first solid dookie with was welcomed into this world under an incredible cloud of stink and confused infant cries. Rena did a good job of cleaning up the damage while I stood nearby gagging, in shock that such a big terd could come out of such a little butt, it was no wonder to me that he wailed during the entire expulsion.

June 9th, 2004

Well it’s been far too long since I have visited this journal, not for lack of events worth reporting, but rather the opposite, life has become far too busy and complicated to find the time to sit down and rehash all that has happened. I finally find time to sit down and recollect now, not because of a pause in the rush, but rather because of an urge that if I don’t at least briefly try to tread water I will be swept away and never come back to this pile of memories.

Memorial Day Weekend

Friday morning, Rhiannon, Landon and I joined my parents for at rip to the Bay area to celebrate Justin’s graduation from San Francisco State. This was the first trip for Landon on a plane, the first trip for Landon away from home for more than a night, Landon’s first trip out of Southern California, and so on – this was a weekend of firsts to say the least.

With nervous apprehension we boarded the plane in Orange County early Friday, unsure of how Landon would adapt to his first flight through the clouds. Confident that Landon would greet his first experience with a rapid change in pressure in his ears with rattling screams, I was prepared to hold him up – Lion King style – for all of the air travelers to equally share in the glory of Landon’s lungs. Rhiannon and I were both prepared for the worst. Unbelievably, once we placed Landon in his car seat on the airplane he rolled slightly to the side, slipped a thumb into his puckered lips and drifted off to sleep – all before the jet engines were even fired up. He slept the whole flight – it was so relieving, such an awesome surprise, I could literally feel my stress get smaller just as quickly as the people left behind on the ground below quickly metamorphosed into fleas.

We landed and got settled in at the Nob Hill Motel, with a nice pair of adjoining rooms that combined plenty of quality family time with an always available escape hatch only a closed door away. More than anything else our room doubled as Landon’s nursery. It’s amazing how much gear goes into traveling with a three month old. The Buhr’s have officially become “that family” – the one struggling into elevators and down terminal hallways with bags and strollers and a hundred more potentially necessary items slung over shoulders and under armpits.

That night we had a sushi dinner with Justin and his girlfriend Jenn, along with some of the Reynold’s crew – Ben Leslie and Jay, who also made the northward pilgrimage to celebrate Justin’s success. And later after we tucked in Landon and Rhiannon and my parents, and headed down to the Big Foot Bar for a few more drinks and some Mega-Touch games. It was great to catch up with the Reynolds kids, Leslie is quickly coming along with her pregnancy, its great to imagine soon-to-be Zachary and Landon hanging out, and equally enjoyable to watch Ben and Leslie interact with Landon, realizing that all too soon they will have a giggling, drooling rug rat of their own to hold.

Saturday was Justin’s graduation ceremony, and in keeping with the tradition laid out by all graduation ceremonies preceding it, it was an utter debacle. We arrived on time with my parents, only to realize that the tickets to the event still remained back at Justin’s apartment, so after walking in with our heads down, ignoring the poor student assigned o ticket collection we were harangued for trying to bring a stroller into the event – God forbid our kid be comfortable, I guess it would be more reasonable to have a screaming child unsettling all of the attending families and friends within earshot. It took close to an hour for all of the graduates to enter the stadium. The ceremony started at noon, so by the time the last purple cloaked student smiled his way to his seat it was hot and uncomfortable. Landon was completely whacked. He was hungry and tired, so we decided to sneak out of the arena and give him a quick bottle before he completely melted down. He refused the bottle. We tried changing him on a grass campus lawn and were still greeted by a pouty lower lip. Finally we broke our way into a classroom building and found an empty classroom (all of the classrooms were empty) for Rhiannon to nurse Landon. We trekked our way back into the stadium and sat down, Landon refreshed, and listened to the remaining four speakers, all of which were very politically charged from the left, and the last of which decided this would be a great forum under the heated afternoon sun to spill forth an hour long diatribe on his life, graduating, and who hell knows what else, since I lost interest ten minutes in. Finally Justin walked across the stage, and I along with the rest of the family beamed for him, and after a four hour ceremony we met up on another campus lawn for a few commemorative snap shots.

That night Jenn threw a tremendous party for Justin on the 16th floor of the Francis Drake Hotel, in an awesome suite complete with a huge balcony that possessed a spectacular view of downtown San Fran. I think everybody in attendance was stunned, and Justin deserved it, his road to this point has had several twists, but he made it and the night was truly worth celebrating. Landon was a hit for the hour that he remained awake, but after that the night became a blur of gin and tonics and smile and cigars and slurred speech and more smiles. Thankfully my parents agreed in advance to watch Landon, so he didn’t have to get exposed to his inebriated parents. It was a great night, at least the parts that I remember.

The rest of the weekend was filled with laughter and giggles from Landon interspersed between games and conversations shared with family and friends. We caught up with Lyndsay and Jeanette, two friends of Rhiannon’s that we hadn’t seen in a long time. Jeanette has a new daughter of her own, along with a new 45 year old husband who was nice, but a little weird none the less. He cuts hair for 110 dollars a cut, sometimes I think my career with fish is a little unique, having the nads to charge that much for a haircut is a very unique skill.

Our plane home left Monday evening and we finally skidded into our beds/cribs around nine that night. All involved were exhausted. The trip involved some serious sacrifices but all were well worth the experience. Rhiannon, Landon and I are so proud of Justin, and so happy for his success. We will always be in his corner.

Its much later now than when I started typing this entry, and I am nowhere near where I hoped to be, hopefully continued thoughts will be coming soon.