This is another Nick entry.
Somehow I managed to get poison ivy on me. I think my cat Frank got it on his coat. And since Mandy never pets him I'm the only one who has it. Two fingers on my left hand have it bad and my right thumb and the part of my right hand near my thumb have it. It's totally gross. I put this stuff called tecnu on it and it seems to be helping but my hands look awful. I've been washing my hands with this stuff like eight times a day so I don't give my 9-week old son poison ivy. I'm fairly certain that would be frowned upon...
Speaking of Grady, I had to take him to the doctor yesterday morning to get his two-month old shots. Two in his right thigh, three in his left thigh. He did really well in the other parts of the examination...and then the shots started. To give our doctor credit, she did all five shots within the span of about 25 seconds. But that kid has never been so loud or angry in his whole life. Of course Mandy was at work so I had to take him all by myself. Fortunately he calmed down just a few minutes after the shots. I took him home, fed him, played with him for a while, and then he slept from noon - 2pm. I'm sure I'll have to take him by myself next time too....ugh, awful.
To update my music tastes, it extends beyond 80's pop and techno. For example, I just bought the new Coldplay CD last week. It's really solid. I'll probably take it with me when I'm in Utah and Idaho from June 24th - 27th. There's not a lot of radio station options out in the rural areas...unless you want to hear about farm reports.
We only have about six weeks until we go to Hilton Head. It looks like me, Mandy, Grady, Scott (Mandy's brother), Lauren (my sister), and Jeff (Lauren's husband) will all pile into my Yukon for the trip. My mom and her friend Dee are going to ride down in Mom's Eclipse convertable. It'll be nice to have a beach vacation and Hilton Head is a really nice place. Mandy and I are the only ones who have been there but it's been about four years since our last visit. It should be about a 10-hour drive. Mandy has family in the Rock Hill, SC area that might visit us for a few days and my uncle and his wife in Jackson, GA might visit as well. Should be a good time.
Grady and I have continued to do well when it's just the two of us (although he's taking a nap with his mom right now despite my best efforts to get him to take a nap all day). He now weighs 11 lbs, 13 ounces and has grown to 23-1/2" tall. He's in the 55th percentile for weight (he was only in the 20th percentile when he was born) and is in the 85th percentile for height (about where he's always been). This just furthers my belief that both my father and my son will both be taller than me. I'll be the 5'10" guy in the middle of pictures with a couple of 6'1" bookends on either side of me.
That's about it for now. It's a quiet Sunday afternoon around here.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Friday, June 6, 2008
Grady vs. his papa....
OK, so it's June 6th around 9:25PM and Mandy is upstairs in bed (Grady fell asleep for his four-hours-in-a-row a half hour ago) since she has to be back for her first day at work at 3:30am tomorrow. It's amazing how quickly seven weeks (April 21st - June 6th) can pass by. So tomorrow will mark the longest stretch of time that Grady and I have been left alone together - about 10-1/2 hours. I can't tell everyone how many times the primary thing Grady needs/wants in order to calm himself down is his momma. That boy loves him some Mandy. He's started to smile and react to us but does it at a far more frequent clip for Mandy than he does for me. Which brings us back to the subject line of this e-mail....
First of all, Grady is a fantastic child. Even in his bad moments they don't seem to last that long. I won't lie and say it's not frustrating when he's having a mini-meltdown for me, I hand him over to Mandy, and then the kid is right as rain. Then he looks at me while she's holding him and gives me the finger when she's not looking. That last sentence is a lie...but I know he's thinking it.
While we'd love for Mandy to be a stay-at-home mom we're still in a mindset of making and saving as much money as possible right now. We're quite lucky though in that we won't need to use childcare to watch Grady. Mandy's work (Ohio News Network) helped her out by allowing her to work 4, 10-hour shifts from 3:30am - 1:30PM Saturday - Tuesday. While it would be nice if she didn't have to work weekends it actually works to our benefit. I'm able to watch him during the weekend as well as Monday and Tuesday. My Dad said I would start work late on Mondays and Tuesdays. On the weeks when I visit stores in Ohio (day trips around the state) I'll just leave the house when Mandy gets home. On the weeks when I leave the state (I fly to Seattle on the 10th, Salt Lake City on the 24th) I only have to be gone from Tuesday (when Mandy gets home or I can leave a little sooner and have my sister Lauren watch Grady before she goes to work - she works 3:30pm - 11:30pm for Columbia Gas so it works out well) to Friday instead of Monday - Friday. The Mondays of my "out" weeks I'll just go visit some Ohio stores. Dad's been really helpful and understanding as has Mandy's work. It wouldn't be the end of the world if we'd had to use childcare but it is really nice knowing that we'll be raising our son (and subsequent children). Dad and I have talked about different positions that I could work in the company which would only make things easier on us while also moving me up at the company. It's a win-win for everybody.
There is going to be a battle for Grady's musical taste. First of all, the kid loves music. He loves the music at church and always calms down whenever the instruments are playing or the people are singing The problem lies in the fact that my primary music tastes are 80's pop and technno (I know, none of these are cool....as is pointed out to me all the time by my wife...like she's the authority on cool) and Mandy likes R&B, Justing Timberlake, bla bla bla. And since Grady has been spending more time with her than he has with me I'm worried that she's got more ground work laid than I do.
Our friends Keith and Lauren Henderson just sent us this really nice package of Hawaiian stuff. Keith is a helicopter pilot for the Navy and is now stationed in Hawaii. We met and hung out with them while we lived in Memphis. Oddly enough there is a naval station in Millington, Tennessee which is a suburb of Memphis. We went to church togeter. Mandy and I once watched their son Rhett (they've since had a daughter whom we haven't met yet) for four or five days while Lauren visited Keith in Rhode Island. They're good friends so it's good to hear that they're doing well out there. Rhett has already turned into this little man which kind of breaks my heart a bit...
It was 94 degrees here today. This is simply unacceptable. First of all, we live in Ohio. It shouldn't be 94 at any point in the year. Second of all, if it is going to be 94 it shouldn't happen until late July or early August. If it's this hot now I'm petrified of how hot this summer could be. It's like being in Memphis all over again. Just hot and sticky and gross.
Well, it's 9:45pm now. I should probably go upstairs and try to go to sleep. It's a pretty rockin' Friday night at the Hague household...Mandy in bed at 8:30pm, Grady asleep by 9:00pm and me trying to go to sleep at 10:00 simply to get some sleep while Grady is sleeping. I wouldn't trade it though. I feel like my life has gone in stages and that I've gotten to enjoy each stage to its fullest. I did the normal high school stuff, had a blast in college, enjoyed being married for over five years with it just being me and Mandy, and now on to having a young child/kids. It's a lot of work but it's an awesome time. The only question now is do we have two, three or four kids....
First of all, Grady is a fantastic child. Even in his bad moments they don't seem to last that long. I won't lie and say it's not frustrating when he's having a mini-meltdown for me, I hand him over to Mandy, and then the kid is right as rain. Then he looks at me while she's holding him and gives me the finger when she's not looking. That last sentence is a lie...but I know he's thinking it.
While we'd love for Mandy to be a stay-at-home mom we're still in a mindset of making and saving as much money as possible right now. We're quite lucky though in that we won't need to use childcare to watch Grady. Mandy's work (Ohio News Network) helped her out by allowing her to work 4, 10-hour shifts from 3:30am - 1:30PM Saturday - Tuesday. While it would be nice if she didn't have to work weekends it actually works to our benefit. I'm able to watch him during the weekend as well as Monday and Tuesday. My Dad said I would start work late on Mondays and Tuesdays. On the weeks when I visit stores in Ohio (day trips around the state) I'll just leave the house when Mandy gets home. On the weeks when I leave the state (I fly to Seattle on the 10th, Salt Lake City on the 24th) I only have to be gone from Tuesday (when Mandy gets home or I can leave a little sooner and have my sister Lauren watch Grady before she goes to work - she works 3:30pm - 11:30pm for Columbia Gas so it works out well) to Friday instead of Monday - Friday. The Mondays of my "out" weeks I'll just go visit some Ohio stores. Dad's been really helpful and understanding as has Mandy's work. It wouldn't be the end of the world if we'd had to use childcare but it is really nice knowing that we'll be raising our son (and subsequent children). Dad and I have talked about different positions that I could work in the company which would only make things easier on us while also moving me up at the company. It's a win-win for everybody.
There is going to be a battle for Grady's musical taste. First of all, the kid loves music. He loves the music at church and always calms down whenever the instruments are playing or the people are singing The problem lies in the fact that my primary music tastes are 80's pop and technno (I know, none of these are cool....as is pointed out to me all the time by my wife...like she's the authority on cool) and Mandy likes R&B, Justing Timberlake, bla bla bla. And since Grady has been spending more time with her than he has with me I'm worried that she's got more ground work laid than I do.
Our friends Keith and Lauren Henderson just sent us this really nice package of Hawaiian stuff. Keith is a helicopter pilot for the Navy and is now stationed in Hawaii. We met and hung out with them while we lived in Memphis. Oddly enough there is a naval station in Millington, Tennessee which is a suburb of Memphis. We went to church togeter. Mandy and I once watched their son Rhett (they've since had a daughter whom we haven't met yet) for four or five days while Lauren visited Keith in Rhode Island. They're good friends so it's good to hear that they're doing well out there. Rhett has already turned into this little man which kind of breaks my heart a bit...
It was 94 degrees here today. This is simply unacceptable. First of all, we live in Ohio. It shouldn't be 94 at any point in the year. Second of all, if it is going to be 94 it shouldn't happen until late July or early August. If it's this hot now I'm petrified of how hot this summer could be. It's like being in Memphis all over again. Just hot and sticky and gross.
Well, it's 9:45pm now. I should probably go upstairs and try to go to sleep. It's a pretty rockin' Friday night at the Hague household...Mandy in bed at 8:30pm, Grady asleep by 9:00pm and me trying to go to sleep at 10:00 simply to get some sleep while Grady is sleeping. I wouldn't trade it though. I feel like my life has gone in stages and that I've gotten to enjoy each stage to its fullest. I did the normal high school stuff, had a blast in college, enjoyed being married for over five years with it just being me and Mandy, and now on to having a young child/kids. It's a lot of work but it's an awesome time. The only question now is do we have two, three or four kids....
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