Sympathy Pain

Every day, Tony will crawl down the hallway towards our room. Every day he will stop at Jack’s door and look in. Every day he will make a “Hey” noise, and wait for a response. Only on Wednesdays and every other weekend does he crawl like a madman into the room and climb up his brother. Every other day, he crawls on into our room. You can tell he’s disappointed when Jack isn’t there.

Tony loves his brother. It’s reciprocated, just not in as visible of a way. Jack asks about Tony all the time, about his foot, if he’s walking yet, if he talking yet, so on. He always seems interested in his brother, but not like Tony is with him. Tony lights up when Jack’s around. He’s like the little terrier in the cartoon that follows the Spike the bulldog around like he’s the messiah. Tony is fascinated with all things Jack. And Jack is pretty crazy about that little Binja as well.

I worry that Jack is going to start to resent Tony…the fact that he “gets” to live with us, and Jack, only part time. So far we haven’t seen evidence of that, but I’m waiting. Hopefully Jack will prove me wrong. Maybe they will always have a great brother relationship. It just seems unlikely to me.

I leave you with this cartoon…I’ll let you guess which one is which.

P.S.
This is one of the few Sylvester cartoons I like…No Tweety Bird.

Tony is being difficult abou gooing to sleep in his crib. He’s discovered something remarkable. It is way more interesting to stand in the crib than lay down.

Dick’s…

Ok, actually we found one at Hibbitt’s, but we went to Dick’s first. Jack needed one for football. He plays rough, and needs to protect the Comer line.

Now the closest thing I have ever worn to a cup is a dance belt. And, FYI, they are very different.

It’s football season, again. Jack wanted to do the cup shopping with me. Seems he was too modest to talk about it with his mom.

“He needs a new mouth piece and…he wants to get something else…” his mom said with that “you know” sound in her voice.

“Ah…”said I, understanding, ” we will take care of that.” I figured this would come around soon.

He’s hit an age where his modesty is kicking in. It’s kinda cute. He was changing the other night while I was in the room and ask that I turn around. I can’t imagine what he asks his mom to do…probably leave the house.

So we went in search of the athletic protection device. It’s not required at this age, but I would think it would suck to take a helmet to the groin without some padding there. Again…I didn’t have to worry about that in “Camelot”, just hiding my panty lines in my Kermit the Frog green tights. Do you know how hard it is to find a youth ball barrier? We went to 3 stores before hitting a home run at Hibbitts. Now, hopefully, we have protected the boys from harm.

Tony is a scooting fool. He is not really crawling on his knees yet, but man he can make tracks in the military crawl. He especially likes the dogs water dish. It’s been dumped a couple times.

He’s standing pretty well if helped and has pulled up a few times. It’s kinda cool to see him climbing up his brother or one of the dogs.

Which brings us back to the lucky foot. He has an appointment with the pediatric orthopedist in September. We’ll see then what straightening his bones have done. It’s kind of scary…ok, it’s really scary. We have this light hearted approach around the house about it, but it really does worry us for him. I had glasses, and was about the only kid in my class who wore them. I thought that was bad. But Tony will have, at the very best, a limp. I really don’t know what he’s in for…but I don’t think it’s going to be as easy as I would like it to be…or have been trying to reassure Sarah that it will be. I guess I don’t want us to stress about the what ifs, until we know what those are.

So I leave you with an example of the lightheartedness. Sarah was with friends discussing the Olympics and what Tony could compete in to make us famous. Swimming was the conclusion.

“I mean, his foot is kinda flipper like already.”

“But he’d have to do synchronized, because with that foot, he’d swim in circles.”

Ok, when did I get old? I have come to the conclusion that teens should not drive to school. This is prompted my the fact that Jack and his mom had to put their car in the ditch to avoid being in a multi car incident on the way to school. A teen ager was not paying attention to the dozen cars in occupying the turn lane and rear ended them going 45 mph. messed up a handful of cars and a few minor injuries.

So it got me thinking. Why on earth do they have to drive to school. I say have to. It seems to me like there are alotta pluses to cutting this privilege out and not a lot of negatives.

Let’s just look at the state of the economy. Gas Prices. What would happen to oil demand if the roads were absent of teen drivers from 8:00 am to 3:30 pm? And the air quality? I mean, we have about 7 high schools in the county I live in. figure an average of 100 students driving per school that 700 ish cars added into the mix every day. That’s in one county. Some have more, some less, but that adds up fast.

Schools would have more space to expand. I’ve heard, on more than one occasion, that one school or another “just doesn’t have room to build new classrooms”. They would if they didn’t have to have student parking. That’s a whole wing of space that’s wasted.

What about safety. It’s almost a mob mentality at 3:30 when hormonal teenagers hit the road. Not all of them, but I have seen many a “street race” happen between car loads of teenagers. And, remember what started all this.

Insurance rates. I would think less time on the roads to have accidents would equate to lower rates…eventually. That one is a reach.

And, finally, attitude towards mass transit. A bus passes almost every house…or would if students couldn’t drive to school…and we teach our kids that as soon as you are old enough, get the hell off that bus. We are training our kids from the moment they learn to drive that public transportation is somehow debilitating. Your status is so much great when you drive to school than ride the bus…which also sets up social discrimination. The haves and have nots. Here’s an article about Cornell University’s attempt at public transportation…College kids…doing without cars.

So what are the cons? Some kids have to work. Well, if nobody drove, nobody could get to work until a certain time. Set your schedule so that you have time to get home and get to work. Most shifts wouldn’t mind a 15 or 30 minute different start time. Starting at 4:30 instead of 4:00 isn’t that much difference, especially if that’s universal.

One of my co workers said the bus came by her house at 6:00 am…and she wouldn’t have gotten up that early…um…I have nothing on that one. Seems like conveiency makes us lazy and we are teaching our kids that as well. I was one of the first stops on my bus route, and then 30 miles from school, so about an hour bus trip one way. It’s all I knew. You get up when you have to.

Just my soap box for the day…oh, my hip…

Jack started the third grade yesterday. It’s hard to believe. We are getting into grades I remember. I remember the morning Jack went to kindergarten. That was the last “first day at school” I had with him. It sucks…I gotta tell you. I remember him standing in the hall way with his back pack, trying to be brave. I’ve had to go off of bio mom reports since then.

I did pick him up after he got home from school yesterday. He rode the bus home for the first time.

“The bus driver’s mean…but he lets us have snacks on the bus…but other than that he’s mean.”

“Yeah, well, my bus driver turned your Aunt and I in for starting an egg fight on the bus…when we weren’t even on the bus that day.”

“well…I guess I won’t do that…”

“What, Jack?”

“Start an egg fight.”

“But, I didn’t, and got in trouble anyway.”

“oh…well does it hurt to get hit with an egg?”

“Never mind…”

He also has to wear his glasses full time now. I tried to lay on the “I wore them at everything was great” lie, but I think he saw through it. I hated wearing my glasses in school. Back then they were the heavy, gray framed, thick ass glasses. His are actually pretty good looking…but it still sucks.

So, the first day went rather well. New teacher. New girlfriend. New glasses. Hopefully this will be a better year. If not, I may have to cut somebody.

The folks were in town this weekend. I don’t know why but that always stresses me out. I’m a different person around my parents. Maybe it’s the thousandth time I’ve heard a joke, or my mom’s self defeating attitude, or the fact that I feel like I have to play ring master for the weekend, but I was stressed. Sarah had shows this weekend…a show that my parents and Jack were going to go see. Her absence did not help my mood. My folks, especially my dad, are good at watching Tony, but not watching Tony. If I hand them a bottle, they can feed him, but not fix the bottle. And diapers…I don’t even try. So it was, “show the folks a good time, entertain Jack, and take care of the baby” weekend. Even with my honorary ovary, that was too much for me. So I was a stress ball.

Tony has hit a phase where he doesn’t want to go to sleep. He actually has a no holds bar grudge match with the sand man when it’s nap time. He pulled this on the way to the show…Sarah’s show…that we were going to see. We had to get Jack some pants…he’s a growing…grab food and get to the theatre. I also had forgotten Tony’s stroller, which caused a u-turn…while Tony is letting the world know that he shan’t sleep. All the while my mom is blaming herself for a broken van door on their new/used minivan. It was broken, and yet somehow, her not being able to open it was her lack of door opening skills. While dad felt the need to read every sign we passed.

“Ruby Tuesdays”

“Target”

“5 Guys’ burgers and Fries”

“No left turn”

We made it to the show, my wife and Sister-in-law were great. Tony stayed backstage with them during the show. When we got out, the stress began again. The baby was backstage. It was storming outside. I had to get Tony through the maze of folks to my parents, then get the van, in the rain, get the stroller in…with the broken door. It was awesome. I didn’t even have a chance to tell sis how great she was. Sorry…

“No Parking”

“Coca-Cola”

“Dad can we go bowling?” huh, what…oh, that was a question for me. A vote was taken, the Baby was fed, and off we went. Pizza first. Then Bowling.

Did you know that bowling on “Cosmic Bowl” night is 5 bucks a person a game. Plus 3.75 shoe rental. So for 2 games it cost us $55 dollars. Ain’t that crazy? We had fun, but it was about an hour and a half after Tony’s bed time when we got home. It was at this point that I thanked God that my sons are as great as they are. Tony went right to sleep. And Jack followed soon after… I did snap at him. He was following me around while I was fixing a bottle, always where I was trying to go.

“Just go play your Wii…I can’t play right now!”

“um…you said you would get me a drink.”

“I’m sorry; I thought you were just being under foot.”

“Yeah, I do that sometimes.” I Love that little guy.

Until Sarah came home and we decided to move tony from his bed to ours. That way the guest bedroom/nursery could be just the guest bedroom for the night. Tony grappled with the sand man at that point…and almost won. But it was an epic battle…and loud.

So that’s it in a nut shell. Not so bad, but something always unhinges in me when they are around. I’ll be glad when they move closer and don’t stay in our house overnight. I think that would help…I think.

“Weatherly Road”

“First Baptist Huntsville”

“Visions Gentleman’s cl…oh…never mind”