NIGHT-TIME STORIES

The other night, as I was tucking Landon in to his bed, he looked up at me, and with a slight smile and asked, “Who is Solman? Are you Solman?” He looked very interested in the answer. I unfortunately responded with little more than a puzzled stare. I asked him to repeat his question, and again the reference came out “Solman”. I wasn’t sure if his enunciation was leading to the misunderstanding, or if it was simply a new word he had created, but Landon seemed very sure that I should know who/what Solman was. Unable to answer his question, I told him he was a silly little boy, kissed his forehead and wished him a good night.

My parents reported that Landon had asked them a similar question last weekend when they were putting him to bed. And while he hasn’t asked about Solman again, the interaction has left me perplexed and the origin of Solman has entered my thoughts frequently. I think my overactive imagination coupled with too many creepy books and horror movies may be partly to blame. Regardless of the source, one recurring source of the unknown name is from some entity that is only visible to my three year old son. Now while I don’t actually believe this, it seems a very entertaining premise for a science fiction tale, maybe somewhere along the lines of the Sixth Sense. Currently the mystery continues….

Within the last week, Landon has also developed the regrettable behavior of exiting his room at night when he can’t sleep. Rhiannon and I had heard stories of other children doing this, and always prided ourselves on how well our sons went to bed at night. But alas those days now appear to be over. The past few nights Landon has left his room numerous times, with excuses ranging from being thirsty, to needing a diaper change, to not being able to sleep, one time he even emerged after completely stripping off his pajamas. Every time he exits his room, we can hear his small footsteps thundering down the hall upstairs, shortly followed by a cry for his Mom or Dad. A few of these events have happened in the wee hours of the morning, at which time he requests to sleep in our room, a request that we usually fulfill being too tired at the time to argue. He then gets in bed with us and no one is able to fall back asleep, which makes for a pretty crabby family. So far (knock on wood) Colt has been able to sleep through these late night interactions. Hopefully this behavior doesn’t persist, and hopefully it’s not related to the aforementioned Solman.

LUCKY

A number of recent events have been cause for some self evaluation and introspection. After some pondering I have come to the conclusion that in general I am in fact a pretty lucky/privileged guy. To that extent I would say that most of the people I know fit into this category as well, making me all the luckier by association. Some might argue that what I consider luckiness is actually the result of hard work and planning, which I agree to some extent is probably true, but along the path fortune has definitely smiled. I have a terrific companion for a wife, two amazing kids, and family and friends that truly enrich my life. I have my health, although the stack of days on my calendar is reaching new elevations. I enjoy my career and feel the work I do actually makes a difference. I live in a beautiful section of the country/world. I eat three meals a day, and although I would enjoy seeing an extra digit before the decimal on my paycheck, my bed is always warm and soft at night.

I don’t have one significant event to post about, but it’s been a little while, so following are some recent events and incidents, some of which even made me feel lucky.

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Landon got his first black eye a few days ago. I told him to stop yelling but when he wouldn’t well I just reared back and……of course I’m kidding. Actually Landon was playing on the stairs in our house with a bouncy-ball (another example of my extraordinary parenting skills) when he slipped while trying to run up the stairs after the ball. His face came crashing down and caught the edge of a stair, just outside his right eye. He bled for a little while, and screamed for even a little while longer, but when the tears and pain subsided he seemed pretty impressed with his quickly developing bruise. Hopefully he can come away from the experience with a little well earned trepidation when ascending and descending the stairs, but more realistically he will find another fun game to involve the stairway once his wound has healed.

Every time Landon crashes and comes up in pain he asks me to make his “owwies” go away. We then engage in a fairly effective ritual where I investigate his source of discomfort and then proceed to pluck off the offending “owwies” one by one, until I have them held tightly in my clenched fist. We then race to the nearest bathroom as quickly as possible so that no “owwies” can escape, lift the lid, and flush them away into the recesses of the local sewer system. At this point Landon usually has forgotten what had caused his tears to develop in the first place.

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The last few weekends have included trips to San Diego to visit Rhiannon’s sister, Andrea in the hospital. Andrea has been pregnant with triplets since last fall as a result of an in-vitro procedure where two embryos were implanted and one then split resulting in three developing fetuses within her uterus. Good times. Well at least until about six weeks ago when she began to develop complications with the pregnancy. She had an emergency procedure to save the babies at the beginning of March, and since that time she has been restricted to complete bed rest at the hospital while hooked up to a number of beeping and flashing machines. Every third day she is permitted to stand up for ten minutes to take a brief shower, she is also permitted to stand to use the restroom, other than that she is confined to the horizontal.

Considering her situation, Andrea’s spirits seem high. The babies’ due date is late June, however if Andrea is able to hold onto them until early May he pregnancy will be deemed a success.

We’ve taken the boys with us a few times to visit their “auntie Andrea” at the hospital. Landon really enjoys the elevator ride to the seventh floor, but seems a little unsure of Andrea’s inflated belly. He understands (I think) that he has three future cousins in there, I just think he wants to wait until they are out in the fresh air before he interacts with them. Colt has a good time as long as he is able to crawl around and we make food available. I’m not sure if it helps Andrea or not to interact with our little munchkins at this point. I’m sure their little laughs give the light at the end of the tunnel a little extra illumination, but at the same time I’m sure she also feels upset that she is being put through this extraordinary experience on her travels to parenthood.

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Colt evolves into more and more of a daredevil on a daily basis. He rarely shows any fear – of anything. He stands up in his high chair and on his stroller. He crawls up on the foam chair in his room and allows himself to tumble off, head first, with a giggle, and then proceeds in climbing back up the chair to repeat the process. He tries to climb up the playground slide, which again results in a giggling crash. Each day he becomes more agile, and each increase in control results in a new daring feat to accomplish. I can’t imagine the trouble he will get into once he starts walking. I think he may need a helmet.

Colt has also begun to confront his older and bigger brother. Previously when Landon and Colt squabbled over a toy, the conflict usually resolved itself with Landon walking away with the disputed item in hand and Colt with a dumbfounded stare. More recently contentious interactions between the boys, whether over a toy, or the preferred spot in the tub, include Colt standing up to Landon, often amidst a few angry screams and pounding hands. Landon will sometimes be caught off guard and be the one displaying the dumbfounded stare. Eventually size still prevails, and Landon leaves with the prize, but Colt is definitely becoming more aware of his own person and a need to defend himself.

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A few weeks back I zoomed up to Mammoth Lakes for the weekend with some friends. Initially the trip had included Rhiannon, and my parents were going to watch the boys, but with the complications that developed with Andrea, Rhiannon made the adult decision to stay behind in Orange County while I snuck away for a fun weekend in the Sierras.

One day was spent riding the slopes at Mammoth on some early season spring snow conditions. It was only the second day I’ve spent on the snowboard this winter, and I really enjoyed myself. We rode all day from start to finish except for a brief lunch break, and finished the day over margaritas and laughs at the local Roberto’s.

The next morning while everyone else returned to the slopes, Justin and I headed over to Bridgeport to spend the day floating flies on the East Walker River. Being early in the season we didn’t have high expectations but we ended up hooking a number of fish. I even brought a few to the surface to chase dry flies including one 18 inch brown trout that was the biggest fish I’ve ever caught in the Eastern Sierras. It was great spending the day with my brother, I hope that my sons can develop a friendship like the one Justin and I share.

Hopefully later this year we will be able to bring Colt up to Mammoth for his first visit to one of my favorite places in the world. It might even be time for Landon to catch his first trout.

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Last Saturday we participated in a local Spring Celebration/Easter Egg Hunt for the kids of Rancho Santa Margarita. Our neighbors who also have two young boys invited us along, and not really knowing what to expect we decided to join them. Conservatively I would estimate that there were over 1000 children participating. The event was crazy - it included a petting zoo, several bounce houses, games and crafts. The egg hunt was broken into different age groups to level the competitive field. Colt was content with crawling over and picking up one egg, Landon refused to gather any eggs unless his dad held his Easter bag, after which he began dropping four eggs at a time into his stash. After a few hours in the sun we were tired, but instead of heading home we continued on with the second part of our plans and drove down to beach at Laguna.

We had planned to meet with Margie and Jon and their new son Riley, but received a call as we were parking the car that they were running over an hour behind. We still cruised down to the beach, and the boys delighted in the sand, looking for shells, burying trains, and just crawling all over the rocks. Colt probably ingested over a pound of sand. Both boys were covered in sand – they were stripped completely to diapers before entering the car for the ride home. I don’t think Colt lasted 30 seconds in the car before he passed out. Rhiannon and I were also wiped out after several hours in the sun chasing around our maniacal sons. Landon was tired, but before he drifted off to sleep in his car seat we asked him if he had a fun day. He responded that, “we had a very fun day together as a family, and that he would have been sad if we all couldn’t come”. It was said so innocently and sincerely that it immediately erased any hardships we faced that day. Children are definitely worth the gray hairs they inevitably produce.