NSJ

We are hoping some of Sumo’s sleeping habits rub off Niko. Sadly they hadn’t yet as of 3am yesterday morning. Or 3am this morning. I am locked in an epic battle with my son for who can survive with less sleep. I’ll let you know how that goes.

While we were in CT we got to meet Jon’s mother and grandparents. We connected in Hartford and had a lovely lunch. After lunch Jul and Mart dropped me at the Hartford airport for my flight home.

Nicholas didn’t get the memo.

Megan and Luke hosted a party for Nicholas while he was on his east coast tour and he got to meet the entire extended family. I was pretty negligent with the camera so you will have to trust me when I say we got to see Aunt Gail, Lisa, Len, Giovanna, Matt, Uncle Walt, Brett, Grace, Zoe, Aniela, Aunt Lo, Uncle Ray, Betty, Greg, Jeff, Jody, Michele, Mark, Jacque, Ava, Lucas, Aunt Sandy, Uncle Joe, Carol, Bunky, and Gretchen. It was great to see everybody. I had to bring an extra suitcase to Michigan so we could bring home all the gifts. Thank you everybody for being so generous. Nicholas has a lot of thank you letters to write so he better get going on learning to write.

Jul and her mother survived the plane flight with baby and dog. I followed a couple days later. We were very well taken care of by Mart, Lew, Meg, and Luke. Nicholas got to spend some good quality time with his aunt and uncle. He also got to meet his cousin Molly.

Here you can see Molly attempting to trade her shovel for a gross slobbery stuffed animal. Yuck. In the end Sumo decided a duck in the mouth was worth more than a shovel in the hand.

Roar….zzzzzzzzzzzz.

Mandy, artist extraordinaire, has been working on art for Niko’s room. I stole some of her proofs to build a new blog theme [1]. It is always dangerous working on derivative works because you risk associating the artist with your sloppy hackishness. Say, for example, you were looking at the new blog header I built using Mandy’s art. You might say to yourself, “Wow, this stuff is just amazing, as I have come to expect from Mandy. That being said, I couldn’t help but notice she might be losing her edge a bit with that last one.” To hopefully avoid dragging poor Mandy through this misunderstanding I have provided a handy chart below to sort it out.

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[1] Yes, I am that big a dork that I spend my free time on “blog themes”

You know when you see a picture and you think, “they look familiar, I wonder who they are?” Only to realize it is you? This was one of those pictures.

It is impossible to spend more than ten minutes in a major airport like Chicago’s O’hare without overhearing some variation on a story that goes something like, “and to top it off there was a baby on the plane that screamed the entire flight.” When watching the faces of those listening to the story, I typically can classify the reactions into two major groups. The first group react with an annoyed look that says “I’m so sorry you had to endure that horrible experience, why the hell do people have kids anyway? And when they do why don’t they lock them in the closet?” The second group react with a empathetic look that says something more like, “oh yeah, my kid has totally done that. That is nothing. Did the baby poop all over the seat? Come back and complain when a screaming baby poops on you.” [1]

With that in mind, I put Jul and Mart on a plane with Sumo and Nicholas this afternoon. Nicholas is heading out to see what my wife calls “the right coast.” [2] When checking Jul in at the airport with Niko and Sumo the airline agent looked at her with a, “wow you are totally insane” look, quickly followed by a look in my direction that said “and you must be the useless husband who isn’t traveling with her.”

I’ll join them in CT this weekend to make sure Nicholas and Sumo don’t forget who I am. I need to head back to CA for work next week at which point Jul, Grandma Mart, Nicholas, and Sumo are going to drive to Michigan so Nicholas can meet his Great Grandma Louise (who is, after all, a movie star). I’ll join them in Michigan the following weekend and fly back with Jul, Nicholas, and Sumo. Kind of makes me tired just writing about it.

Here is how it all breaks down.

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[1] I tend to fit into a third category that react with a lost look that says “I was just working here on my laptop…did you say something?”

[2] I’ve always thought she meant “right” as opposed to “left” but I’m beginning to think that might not be what she is implying. (I’ve never been accused of being quick on the uptake.)

Red (Mandy visits from CO)

White (Grandma Mart back in from CT helping us with the boy)

Blue (Josh in from CO)