Pinch me, please

It might have been the best Mother's Day ever because it was my first, but let me tell you, yesterday was extra special to me. After four long years struggling with infertility and the Grace wait, yesterday felt like it was a long time in the making.

Grant and Bret made me waffles for breakfast, and then Grant, I assume with his American Express Card, bought me the greatest gift an overstressed, overworked, underslept working Mommy could ask for: a full day at the spa, complete with facial, massage, pedicure, manicure, and even lunch. I felt completely and utterly spoiled.

But the real spoiling is the fact that Grant Nicholas is my perfect, dreamboat son. I felt like the day was more about him in the end... his gift of motherhood to me. We said a very special prayer for Grant's birthmom, knowing how hard the day must have been for her. We sent her lots of gifts (none nearly as good as the full day spa package), but we wanted her to know that we did not forget her gift to us as well.

Since our marriage, Mother's Day has been secretly hard for me. Sure, I can try to concentrate on my mom or Bret's mom or even our grandparents and aunts, but truth be told, there was always a struggle about being childless for another year. I still think the holiday is "overdone," but eating that homemade walnut and cinnamon waffle while dreaming about toe nail color, I came to realize that it was okay to overdue things for at least this first year.

Cleaning Lady Encounter Part Deux

This morning while my fellow co-workers and I were standing around discussing the plight of our careers, my favorite cleaning lady came through. She was pushing a trash barge through our hallway, collecting anything with a "Trash" sticker on it. A few days ago, I placed a dead computer and monitor outside my cube, and I had noticed that the computer disappeared, but the 21" monitor (of the old heavy tube variety) was still hanging around.

As she walked by us, she pointed at the monitor and blurted out, "I not picking dat ting up."

I quickly replied, "I can pick it up, if you'd like." At which point I grabbed the monitor and quickly heaved it over the side of her rolling rubbish tip. As the monitor landed with a "thud," it threw off the balance of her cart, dropping the front end to the floor so that it could no longer be pushed.

The cleaning lady glared at me with a stare that said, "Dat's strike two, gringo. Tree strikes, you out."

Cubical Embarrasment

A few weeks ago, I received a voicemail with the following message (names have been changed to conceal identity, well, all except for mine, but anyway):

"Hi Bret, it's Yolanda. I need to setup an appointment to get your blood. I can do it at your work, your house, wherever is convenient. Have a nice day!"

Now I sat and tried to figure out for the life of me why some woman would call and want my blood. The whole thing was just odd. You would expect something more like, "Hey Bret, it's Yolanda from the 'Indiana Blood Center and Vampires Guild' and we need some of your blood for some noble cause blah blah blah." But this message had none of that. This sounded more like a producer from Maury Povitch trying to con me into a paternity test or something. But then again, very few engineers or engineering students have been featured on Maury's show, given the almost zero likelihood that they managed to find a girl to even take to Wendy's, let alone back to "the teleporter" or whatever other Star Trek themed room was featured in their apartment.

Anyway, I digress. I called Yolanda back and made an appointment for her to meet me at work. In the mean time, she still gave no indication of her intentions with my blood, but I figured out that I recently applied for some additional insurance at work which (apparently) requires a blood test. No sweat.

So Yolanda arrived at my office yesterday with medical bag in tow. I escorted her into the building and asked where we should make the transaction. "Anyplace with a flat surface where nobody will be freaked out by me drawing blood." In an engineering facility, such an event is likely to draw a crowd, but only in an effort to see who can make the blood come out faster or who can design a machine that checks the blood for malaria on the spot or some such. So I told her we could do it at my lab bench.

Now the area around my lab is almost completely vacated. I'm about three days from switching cubes and labs, and I'm pretty much the last man standing in our area, so it's pretty empty. Yolanda dropped her medical bag, pulled out a scale, a tape measure, and a whole pile of blood drawin' gear. This was already a little more intense than I expected, but alas.

She took my weight and height (inseam is still less than waist...sigh) and then told me to roll up my sleeve. All is well. Nobody is around. She takes the blood, and I begin to help her gather up her things. Just as she caps the last vile of blood, I see, in slow motion, her reach into her medical bag and pull out a small plastic cup. Simultaneously out of my other eye, I see one of my coworkers round the corner just in time to hear Yolanda say:

"Okay Mr. Hawkins. You fill 'er up and bring it back to me."

Coworker halts. "Uh, I'm obviously interrupting something here."

Now first off, when handed an empty cup to fill, it took me a second to remember that this was not one of the fertility doctor appointments of the past few years. Talk about an embarrasing scenario. Next I explain, politely, to Yolanda that I can't very well walk half way across our floor with a cup of my own urine in hand. (Although this isn't something that seems COMPLETELY out of the realm of possibility in our building.) She didn't even have a lid for the cup! So I convinced her to wait outside the Men's Room, which she did.

After I left her the, uh, goods, I escorted her out of the building. After an awkward handshake (followed by a good, solid up-to-the-elbows scrub for yours truly) I trudged back to my lab to find and apologize to my coworker. He took it in stride, although I'm not sure he bought my "it's for insurance" routine. Ah well...

I need my tunes

With last year's purchase of the iPod, I do almost 100% of my music listening on the iPod rather than CDs. This almost immediately created a bit of a dilemma for listening in the car. My car has a CD player and cassette deck, so I've been using a cassette adaptor (remember when we needed these for CDs?) Erin's previous car had only a CD player, so I purchased this little gadget to broadcast the iPod on the FM band, but this has never worked well in Indy. We've got scads of little stations which block out the iPod, and on the highway, everytime you pass a truck you hear something by Merle Haggard, and everytime you pass a kid under 21 you hear the previously described "backin' my thang up" genre. Apparently everyone has one of these FM modulators these days.

Now that we've purchased Big Whitey (aka our Kia minivan), I have been struggling with how to correct this life and death situation, since this is the car in which we'll be taking our long road trips to exotic locales like Bedford and Gatlinburg. I did my research, and discovered this little head unit from Sony. For us geeks, this thing has several nifty features. It has a USB jack on the front so you can play MP3s from a USB jump drive, it has an auxillary line in jack so you can run anything with a headphone plug into it, and most importantly, it has an iPod cable so you can control the iPod directly from the head unit. Oh joy.

So I rolled Big Whitey into a local installation shop to have this thing installed. You should have seen all the installers jump to get a chance to pimp my Kia. They offered me some spinny rims and 22s, but I politely declined. After 30 minutes of ripping and tearing on my brand new dash, it was done. We jumped in the van and immediately hooked the iPod up. (Well, we hooked the iPod up after a chorus of "everything else on the dash is gray but that thing is black." Grr.) It played flawlessly. Beautiful. I was listening to a song by The Beach Boys and decided to use the Sony to jump to a track by The Who. I pressed "Skip Artist" and waited. About three seconds later, it went to The Beatles. I pressed it again. About three seconds later, it went to Big Star. Oy vey. I have over 300 artists on my iPod, so I could conceivably go from the first artist to the last by pressing "Skip Artist" 300 times over the course of 15 minutes. This is easier said than done at 80 mph.

The moral of this story is that doing your research doesn't always uncover these little implementation difficulties. All of the sites online say this is the best player to use with an iPod, but obviously this is a technology that still needs some work. Plus, I figure Apple will change the cable I need for the next generation of iPod leaving me with a big, black, useless cable extending from my dash in a few months. (I'm sure that won't happen, honey. Just kidding...) In the mean time, this solution works great if you're just listening to a mix on the iPod, and if you want to jump around between artists a lot, you can always use the auxillary line in with the headphone jack. It just don't sound as purty.

Oh yeah, one other funny part of the story. The installer forgot to connect my antenna to the new headend, so I only got the three strongest stations in Indy. After ripping my new dash apart a second time, it all works much better.

Sometimes being a geek is tough...

Grant goes multi-lingual

This morning I was charged with taking care of Grant after mommy headed off to inflict literature on her high school students for yet another day. As Erin headed out the door, she told me that a good way to distract Grant from poor parenting for a few moments is to pop in a Baby Einstein DVD. Score. This would give me just enough time to get cleaned up for my day of inflicting, well, doing whatever it is that I do for another day.

So I grabbed the first DVD I could find. I hopped in the shower, and the next thing I hear is "Die Kuh sprang über den Mond" and "Ein, zwei, drei, vier, fünf." It was very surreal. Apparently I managed to pop in a language video which defaulted to German as the first language. I wondered for a brief moment if I'd actually just tuned the TV to the History Channel, but I had not. In any case, I can just see my cute little boy looking at me in a couple of years and saying, "Vati ist eine Kuh." (That's "Daddy is a cow," auf Deutsch.) There were all sorts of hypnotic colors and things swirling around on the screen while various things were spoken in German. They could have been telling Grant to do just about anything, and my three years of German in high school wouldn't have helped me a bit. Hopefully next time I'll grab a DVD that helps Grant do something more useful, like mow the grass or make daddy an omelette.

Just like his pappa

For those of you who have seen Grant lately (and especially for those of you who have picked up the precious bundle), you know one thing for sure: our boy wonder loves his food. And this week did not disappoint. After four long months of nothing but formula, formula, formula, Grant has started on rice cereal for a meal a day, and who would have thought that this small culinary steping stone was like discovering gold. He pants, crys, wails, (dare I say) hisses if the spoon carrying his cereal is less than prompt. He has a special talent with his cereal, common to babies the world over, no doubt, in that he is able to transport the cereal to any part of his body. Last night involved both a bath and a q-tip to get all the cereal off (and out of) his body. The fact that his hair is so tightly curled doesn't help. Have you ever tried to get clumpy and wet cereal out of an afro? Didn't think so.


But his love of all things food is not the only area of his life where Grant is strikingly similiar to his Daddy. (Do you know anyone else with so many blasted blog posts about food?) Grant also likes to sleep like his Daddy (sans the blaring music from the IPOD... that'll take a few years). Exhibit A. I love my two boys.

At the zoo...

Saturday morning, we decided to take Grant for his first trip to the Indianapolis Zoo. The Indianapolis Zoo of my youth was located in a city park on the east side of town, and if you could dodge the gunfire as you made your way from the parking lot, you were likely to see some animals. Erin and I recently drove through the park where the old zoo was located, and I was shocked at how small the grounds were. The foundations of all of the old zoo facilities are still present, so it was sort of an eerie vision of what I remembered. The new Indianapolis Zoo, opened 20 years ago in the heart of the Indianapolis tourist district, is generally safe, and you're likely to see perhaps three, maybe even four animals.

I really don't get it. You wander throughout a beautiful facility, complete with multiple places to buy ice cream and chili dogs, yet you very rarely see any animals. You see faux grasslands and jungles, with lots of trees and rocks, but you don't see animals. Presumably they're off being groomed or bathed, because it's actually more rare to see wildlife within our zoo walls than outside in the wild. Grant didn't seem to mind the lack of wildlife. He was far more interested in the various signs and people wandering about the grounds. I spent approximately half of our time searching for an ATM so that I could buy food to assuage my irritation at not getting to actually see monkeys and polar bears. I was eventually calmed by a root beer float from Dog 'n Suds.

On Sunday, we made our way to our our local outlet mall. It was such a gorgeous day that we decided it was worth a trip out. The outlets gave Grant a chance to flash his award winning smile and dimples at all the ladies. They generally returned the gesture, except in one case where a young African American girl shouted at a rather unneccessary volume, "Look at that Butterball!" I chuckled, while Grant paused his struggle to find his thumb to find another finger with which to reply. All in all, we had a nice stroll around the outlets, and it gave me a chance to engage in checking out some of the true wildlife in Indiana -- the citizenry of southern Indiana.

There was the usual parade of mullets and oversized pickups, but I noticed two relatively new phenomenon. The first was the striking number of men over 50 sporting not one, but two earrings -- one in each ear. I call this look "the Harrison Ford," and he looks just as silly. As a general rule, if you're having to trim the hair in your ears for your earring to be visible, you've probably passed the age (by decades) when you should even be considering wearing an earring. The other thing I saw multiple times was men wearing what I have heard traditionally referred to as culottes. I can remember my mom scouring TJ Maxx for these when I was little, but I guess I didn't realize they'd made their rounds to the menswear department. I have to say, I'm not a huge fan. There's something just a little too "Anne of Green Gables" for me when I see a dude in short pants with little bows at the bottom. In one case, I saw a guy with a mullet, two earrings, culottes and a Big Dog T-shirt. It was sort of like a male redneck version of a supermodel. Delightful.

We had a lovely weekend, and we're definitely glad to be rolling into summer here in central Indiana.

All Grown Up

I know that there are a million firsts that Grant has yet to conquer, and I know that I'll love each stage for the new things I learn about our sweet baby boy, but I must admit that I find myself thinking, "Don't you dare grow up one more bit." I look at the first pictures of Grant, and he has changed so much. He is in such a sweet phase of babyhood right now, smiling and laughing (and sleeping through the night)! I know there are his first words and first steps and his first day of school, but truth be told, I want each stage to last longer than it does. I want him to be a baby for several years... a toddler for a dozen... a kid for a long, long time... and even a teenager for a lifetime...

Here are some recent pics of our not so little guy (official four month weigh in in 20 days).
Here he is in his exersaucer (his favorite toy):

Here he is sitting up. He can't (obviously) pull himself up to a sitting position, but if placed in one, he can stay up for long stretches (read: several minutes):

The shirt says it all.

Not Fair

I had on nice shoes all night; I only changed into the flip flops towards the evening's close. Bad husband.

Yikes

This is about as bad as it gets, folks.

Two tired, rapidly aging adults having their picture taken at prom, nearly 15 years past their own proms. The picture looks a little blurry. Normally I'd say it was bad photography, but in this case, I think someone was trying to do us a favor.

I'd like everyone to take note of the shoes worn by my lovely wife. No shoes at our wedding and flip-flops at prom. It's all about style at our house.

Prom and the morning after...

Some mornings go better than others when a small child is involved.

Now that Grant is sleeping more soundly during the night, his wakeup time in the morning has become somewhat more erratic. Sometimes he wakes up at 5:30am. Sometimes he wakes up at 7:30am. This creates a dilema when mommy leaves at 6:30am, and mamaw arrives at 7:15am. This leaves Grant a critical 45 minute period during which he can remind daddy that while he no longer routinely pees in my face, he's still thouroughly in control of the situation.

This morning, he woke up at 6:15am. No sweat. I'll feed him, mommy will leave, I'll put him in his boppy on the bed, I'll take a shower and cleanup, and mamaw will arrive. I began the feeding. At about 6:30am, Grant looked at me, smiled, and deposited the contents of his embiggened (my favorite Simpsons word) stomach onto me, the carpet, the recliner, etc. "Cleanup on aisle Grant."

After finishing the feeding and mopping, it was about 6:45am. I placed him on the bed, carefully surrounding him with towels and boppy to ensure that he wouldn't be able to move and that any further spewage wouldn't land in the approximate location of where daddy's head would be when it hit the pillow later tonight. I hopped in the shower (actually, I don't much hop anywhere at the moment given my increasing girth.) About 45 seconds into my shower, Grant started screaming his head off. In my rush to be a not-so-delinquent father, I forgot that we have shower doors that you have to duck under the frame of which to exit the shower. After beaming myself and recoiling into the tub, the volume of Grant's scream escalated, although it was somewhat hard to hear over my own screaming. I shimmied across the slippery bathroom floor and picked up the youngin'. He quit crying. Nice. I put him back down. About 45 seconds later, more screaming.

I wrapped up my shower, hitting only the highlights (actually, more like low-lights, but I digress), and exited. After calming Grant down, I began shaving. More screaming. I ran, semi-clothed, to the front windows in hopes that mamaw had arrived. Lo and behold, she had. After waiting what seemed like an eternity, mamaw made it into the house and calmed Grant while I finished getting ready. What a morning. I'm not sure if I have deoderant on, and there's a relatively high possibility that I'm wearing Erin's underpants, but I made it out the door and only a few minutes behind schedule.

In other Hawkins Happenings, Erin and I attended prom at the school where Erin teaches this weekend. As the junior class moderator, Erin has put in countless hours setting up the prom, so it was fun to see all of her hard work in action. Similar to last year, I was horrified by some of the dresses worn by the high school girls. It's all burlap for Grace when she arrives. Several girls had on a type of long dress that was separated all the way down the front until just above the waist. As I told Erin, that's not a dress, it's an invitation. It was held closed by one little piece in the middle, which resulted in a lot of high school guys angling for a side view. One of the other chapperones noted that one particular young lady spent a good deal of her evening in the restroom "taping her boobs in" to prevent them from falling out. Trust me. If it were my kid, those suckers would be taped in with duct tape. Of course, it wouldn't matter since she wouldn't be wearing it outside (or inside) the house anyway.

Once again this year, prom was held at the lovely Indiana Roof Ballroom. A couple of policemen were brought in to keep an eye on things. I took note of the fact that if I were a high school kid forced to outrun an officer of the law, these were precisely two of the officers I'd want chasing me. Shortly before dinner, Erin was informed that they were to be fed. I dared her to tell them that they didn't need it, but she obliged and provided a meal. The event went off without a hitch, and neither officer was forced to expend any calories.

Much like last year, I spent the evening trying to ignore the complete lack of taste displayed by the DJ. I heard not a single song by R.E.M. or the Beach Boys all evening. Instead, I heard every song released in the last five years which admonished me to back up some part of my body. I was told to "back that a** up" and "back that thang up." I have no idea what my "thang" is, but I'm relatively sure nobody wants me backing it into them. I also was incensed that the DJ laughed at me when I asked him how many CDs (let alone records) he carries with him. In order to DJ a prom, you need a laptop. That's it. I can't believe we're still paying these guys. I should have told him to back his "thang" out, and I could have DJ'd the whole deal. Erin was mortified when I reminded her that in just a few short years, Grant will be backin' his "thang" up, too. Of course, he may be doing it alone if he doesn't stop spitting up on people.

All in all, prom went off without a hitch, and many people were telling Erin how lovely a job she had done. At 11 pm, all of the kids filtered out into the streets of downtown to join other late night revelers (a firemen's convention was in town) in doing whatever they do late at night on a Friday night with 50 bars around. I shudder to think...

Oh, the places you'll go...

This week has proven very interesting for me at work. For the past few weeks, I've been working on a project primarily being developed in Shenzhen, China. Some of the work on that project is also being done in Shanghai, as well as Bangalore, India.

Yesterday, I also began work on another project where the work is split between Shenzhen, Beijing, Tokyo, and Singapore. I've already been approached about going to Bangalore, and there's a good chance I'll end up in these other locations before the end of the year as well. Oh yeah, there's also a group in the Netherlands on one project. Craziness. Business trips USED to mean Denver, San Jose...maybe even Chicago. How engineering has changed...

I'll be sure to keep everyone posted on my travels. Imagine the bizarro foods I'll be able to try between now and fall...

Sleep, Sleep and more Blessed Sleep

Well, Grant is... on the whole... knock on wood... for the most part... don't jinx myself by saying this... sleeping through the night. His nights range from 6 to 9 hours, and we think that in the coming weeks, he'll get it figured out. It's a dream to be sleeping again; though, I wake up all the time to check what time it is. I force myself to stay in bed (if I didn't force myself, I'd be up every hour checking on him), but even with the sporadic waking, I am getting better sleep than I have since January 13. I thought I was the most excited person about this new found sleep, but it turns out that my dear husband had to endure a little more snippiness than I had realized. He’s a patient man.

Yesterday, Grant, Bret and I had a visit with Grant's birthmom. It was wonderful to see her again. She adores Grant, and so I know it was special for her to see him and hold him and feed him. After about an hour and a half at a local restaurant, we said goodbye. We hope to get together again this summer.

Grant has his first sleepover this weekend. I am in charge of the Prom this year, so this Saturday, Bret and I will be dancin' it up at my school's prom (read: sitting and eating the extra pieces of cheesecake). Grant will be hanging out at his Grandparents' house overnight, where he will no doubt get the requisite spoiling.

Here are a few recent pics. He smiles like crazy--and even laughs--but soon as the camera (and the darn flash) come out, he's far too interested in the electronic contraption in front of him to keep smiling. He's going to be a nerd; I can just feel it.

Two Big White People, Two Big White Cars, One Cute Black Kid

It's a little bit frightening, but I guess we had to expect it would happen eventually. Last night we got our first phone call demanding a blog update. The voice was polite, but very clear in its message -- "It's been six days. We're counting on you. We rely on knowing what you ate and pictures of the boy for motivation." I understand, and in the future, we'll try and update at least a couple of times a week. But this past week, a lot has happened, so prepare for a tome.

Last week, Erin and I reached a boiling point with our current vehicle lineup. Our friends have always made fun of our cars -- one a big, white, bulky, gas hogging sedan, the other a small, gas hogging, slightly sportier sedan, so perhaps it's good that we start car shopping. My car is a AAA sticker and a "God Bless Our Troops" ribbon away from being a nursing home van and Erin's, while slightly less elderly, just isn't big enough to hold the two of us and Grant. Erin has been begging for a minivan for the past few weeks, but I haven't been able to look myself in the mirror without weeping at the thought. It's like releasing your last vestiges of untamed youth to buy a minivan. It's like admitting you're over 30. It's facing the fact that not only could you no longer win American Idol, but you're too old to even enter. This is the vehicle that will elicit screams of, "I will pull this van over if you don't stop blah blah blah..." So we bought a minivan. I've never felt less manly.

But this isn't just ANY minivan. It's a big, white, bulky, gas hogging minivan (Erin claims this description very nearly matches yours truly). In my engineering way, I briskly read the manual after we purchased it. Throughout there were phrases like "If equipped with..." and "If the automatic setting is available on your vehicle," and in all cases, the answer to these questions is, "No." Our van has features like "a steering wheel" and "keyed entry." So I'm now the proud owner of a Grant hauler. Erin will be the primary driver, which leaves us trying to sell Erin's sporty little sedan. We would have traded her car in, but the dealer offered us approximately $6 for her car, therefore we're selling it ourselves. Hopefully it'll go quickly and peacefully. I hate the process of buying a new car, but I'd say that this experience was less painful than average. The only downside is that we test drove about eight minivans with tornadoes looming, which wasn't very fun.

"Gee, Bob, this thing seems to be pulling to the right a little bit. Oh look, the wind just snapped that tree in half and flipped over that guy's minibarn. Perhaps it's just the weather..."

Our first outing in Big White (I racked my brain trying to use B.O.W.E.L. as an acronym, but only got as far as Big Old White...) was to Chicago this weekend with Erin's folks. This was Grant's first trip to the big city, which was exciting. Erin and her mom have an IKEA fixation, therefore I think buying the van was simply a ploy to get more space for furniture purchases. When we picked Erin's folks up on Friday afternoon, I encountered a very delicate situation which many guys only get to dream about -- my mother-in-law had lost her voice. Not just a little, but completely. So for the whole weekend, she could only talk in a whisper. Grant seemed utterly befuddled by this woman staring him in the face, appearing to talk with nothing really coming out. He stared at her somewhat quizzically all weekend while I chortled to myself at her predicament.

Our other big outing on this trip was to a Brazillian steakhouse called Sal & Carvao. A guy at work recommended this place to me, and he described it as "a carnivore's dream." He was right. The basic premise is that waiters circle the restaurant bearing swords with meat on them. I think they said there were 35 kinds of meat; everything you can think of from Portugese sausage to filet mignon. You have a rock and if you put your rock in front of your plate, they will continue to come by, asking if you want a slice of whatever their sword is carrying. If you want a break, you put your rock away. On top of this, they had a big salad bar with all sorts of exotic things on it, not just your typical iceburg lettuce and shaved carrots.

Now those of you that know me should already be thinking, "This sounds dangerous." And you'd be correct in this assessment. But more impressive than my own eating are the abilities of my father-in-law. He's been known to eat two whole chickens at the Essenhaus before taking his first sip of iced tea. In the end, the food was wonderful. I was concerned that with such vast quantities of food, the meat might possess the quality of a "steak" from a suburban buffet (I'm looking at you, Golden Corral), but this was not the case. Everything was top notch. I think in the end I ate maybe a dozen pieces of various things, and I suspect my father in law was in the same camp. I don't want to risk incurring an injury from the wife, but let's just say that small animals were running away from her, screaming, as we left the restaurant parking lot. Apparently they'd heard the news. Funny thing is, out of all of us, my father-in-law had the biggest problem after the fact. On the drive back to the hotel, he moaned and groaned in the back of the van, complaining that he hadn't eaten that much rich food in a long time. By the time we got back to the hotel, he dashed back to his room, begging the Brazillians to go quietly.

All in all, it was a fun weekend, and it gave us a chance to get used to driving Old Whitey. Summer driving vacations, here we come...

(Usual Disclaimer: Erin will post pictures of the boy later...)

Time Keeps on Ticking...

There was a point where I talked about how old Grant was in days: "he's nine days old." Before you knew it, I was talking about his age in weeks: "he's 6 weeks old." But as of Saturday and the 12 week mark, it's time to start talking about Grant in months. The sad realization hit me that before you know it, I'll have to talk about him in years, and that doesn't even seem possible.

Last weekend was a great weekend, full of firsts, including Grant's first Easter. We went to the Botanical Gardens to see the butterfly exhibit, and Grant loved checking out all the flowers in bloom. Easter is an especially meaningful time in our family, as we celebrate God's goodness to us--specifically in Jesus. With Grant's adoption, I have a special place in my heart for how God talks about us as His adopted children, and this Easter I was especially thankful to be so loved.

Here are some recent pictures of the ever adorable Grant Nicholas:

The Horrors of Social Interaction

On Sunday, our church and another local church had a combined Easter service at Clowes Hall. This is the one opportunity each year for all 800+ people who usually attend one of our three services on a given Sunday to all be in the same room at the same time. Pastries and coffee were available, and people were invited to mingle for an hour or so prior to the service. Now this is sort of a nightmare for yours truly, because if I know one thing about myself, it's that I'm a fairly crappy mingler (is this really a word?). My usual approach might be to show up about 15 minutes prior to the service and mingle briefly before nervously heading for the cheap seats. In this instance, Erin had to be present an hour early since she was one of the scheduled toddler teachers for the morning. (Teacher is probably a loose term, in this case. She spent two hours cleaning refuse from the tails other people's offspring; not a job I will volunteer for without coersion.) This left me with few options, so I began circling. What I discovered is that the best guy to mingle with at such an event is the guy shelling out the pastries. Not only is he always available, but he's providing me something with which to stuff my face, leaving me inable to converse without crumb spewage. So I repeatedly circled back to his table, each time pretending I'd never seen his selections before, choosily grabbing whatever I hadn't already sampled. (Now I know at least one of the elders from our church reads this, so he can contact me later to verify just how much I really ate and bill me appropriately.) Luckily after several pounds of danish, my sister and brother-in-law arrived, providing me with someone safe with which to converse.

All of this got me to thinking about a prior awkward mingling experience. When I was in middle and high school, I was a frequent user of local BBS's around Indianapolis. That sentence hopelessly dates me, and for those not in the know, BBS's (Bulletin Board Systems) were a precusor to the Internet. User's used their home computer to dial over the phone into someone else's computer, where programs and e-mail could be exchanged with other users of that BBS. There were dozens of BBS's in the area, and occasionally, some brilliant computer nerd would get the idea to have a BBS BBQ, allowing for the BBS users around town to meet face to face with other, previously faceless, BBS users they might "know" from around town. There were several flaws with this plan.

First off, computer users are, by defintion, not socially adept or compatible creatures. They sit around at night staring at dimly lit computer screens, praying it will someday lead to a chance encounter with a member of the opposite sex. (The "opposite" part of that sentence frequently backfires, given the anonymity involved in BBS usage.)

Second, one of the primary tennets of BBS usage was that you had to continually pick fights with the other users, just to keep the "conversations" going online. (This frequently involved a lot of profanity, often from middle school students masquerading as adults.) This brings up the third problem.

Much like the Internet today, you frequently were misled regarding the age and/or gender of the people you were dealing with. This can create an ugly scenario during a face to face introduction. You thought you'd been chatting with 25 year old Mary when actually it was 52 year old Marvin. And finally, the ratio of actual males to actual females on BBS's was approximately 1000 to 1.

All of this should be creating an image in your mind of a group of men of varying age (and perhaps one unfortunate looking woman) hanging around a strangers house on a weekend, none having ever met before, none having any real understanding of social cues, all having stayed up until approximately 4:30am the night prior fiddling around on the BBSs, all now trying to mingle in an impossibly awkward situation.

For whatever reason, I subjected my buddy Eric to one of these things while we were in high school. I have no idea, really, what we were thinking. We both had girlfriends, and all our presence at such an event could do was degrade our already damaged social status, ensuring that those girls would most assuredly ditch us if they found out we had attended such an affair. I don't think we stayed long, but through some break in logic and the space-time continuum, after seeing this gathering of Indy's most rabid computer users, I still decided to go into Computer Engineering. What I guess I failed to understand at the time was that this meeting was a glimpse into the future, as it looked very similar to virtually all of my undergraduate engineering classes -- with a slightly better male to female ratio. Yet another brilliant decision by yours truly.

(For those who've read this far, there will be more pictures of Grant up soon. I'm well aware that me rambling is only a distraction from the real reason for you checking our blog. The only immediate Grant update is that following our lovely Easter service at church and Easter dinner with the grandparents, around 8:30pm last night, Grant decided to attempt to wake the dead on his own for approximately an hour. The boy has lungs. He was his usual, cheery self following a bath to remove the beads of sweat he was soaked with while screaming his head off. Ah, parenting...)

Bossy Names

My boss at work for the past ten years has been a guy whose name happens to be Aaron. My wife of the past four years is a lovely lady whose name happens to be Erin. On the surface it doesn't seem like there would be anything funny about this, but it has become not only confusing, but in some situations dangerous to my employment.

You don't know the funny looks I get when I say things like "So I was talking to Erin in bed last night." If they don't know my wife, I just get a confused, judgmental stare, or the guys that know Erin come up with clever quips like "So that's why you get those great evaluations, eh?"

This horror of homonyms (take that, English teacher wifey!) has led me to always appending "boss" or "wife" to the my sentences. So I say things like "Boss Aaron asked me this morning if Purdue just gives an engineering degree to everyone who asks for one" or "Wife Erin asked me to stop teaching Grant to laugh when he passes gas." One rather astute co-worker informed me that in reality, this approach is a poor one since I really have two Boss-Aaron/Erin's, therefore "Boss Aaron" doesn't really help narrow down to which commander-in-chief I'm referring. I guess he's right. The boss at my next job will probably be named Grant...

Tote Bags

This has been a big week for the Grantster. On Thursday, Grant officially became a permanent member of the Hawkins family (his protruding nose and chin are on order). The ceremony involved standing before a judge and declaring that we understood that we were to support and love Grant for as long as we're still alive. It also involved us agreeing that Grant could inherit from us (good luck with that one, kid) and that if Erin and I were to ever dissolve our marriage, one of us would have to take custody of Grant (this would obviously be Erin, since if our marriage were ever to dissolve, my body would be disposed of in a most unsatisfactory manner.) All in all, the hearing went well, and Grant managed to impress the judge by sleeping through the entire proceeding.

This morning, Erin went to a lady's meeting for church. This meant Grant and daddy got some one on one time to play cards and watch that show about the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders (just kidding, ma...). Grant has had a difficult 24 hours. For whatever reason, he's been exceptionally gassy, and despite my efforts to try and show him how to relieve the issue, the problem remains. Therefore about 10 minutes after mom left, Grant began to alternate between screaming and giggling, as gas bubbles approached. It was maddening. He'd coo and giggle, so I'd get right in his face to giggle with him, at which point he'd switch to a blood curdling scream, rendering my hearing non-existant for several minutes after.

One thing I discovered after Erin left is that there were small, plastic shopping bags all around our house. One in the kitchen. One in the family room. One next to Grant's changing table. This final one gave me an unfortunate clue as to the contents. Now I understand that Erin is tired, and OCD has decided that I'm usually the one to take out the trash, but I'm not sure I fully understand the need to leave a small, plastic bag filled with urine soaked Huggies at every corner of our humble abode. When she gets home, I plan to ask her if she's trying to ward off evil spirits or perhaps ensure we don't have house guests for the next few months through the use of these little Grant fun bags. Needless to say, I gathered them all up, disposed of them in the trash in our garage, washed my hands up to my elbows 25 times, and returned to attending to my gassy little guy. Ah...Saturday's...

Grant Update

Well, I'm here on spring break and loving being home with the little guy. Grant is simply too much fun, and he's growing and changing daily. Everytime my dad sees him, he says that he looks like a "whole new kid." Well, in honor of Grant, here's an update:

This Thursday
This Thursday is our official court date where we make everything official. It's a very big day for us, and we'll all be sporting our most stylin' duds. We plan on celebrating this day as our "forever family" day, and much like a birthday, we plan on celebrating year after year after year. We plan on doing the same thing with Grace when she joins us... but as for now, March 29 will be Grant's Forever Family day. We'll post some pictures of the cutest baby in the world on Friday.

Sleeping
Many of you must be wondering how Grant is sleeping, especially after I posted about his significant breakthrough. Well, he's sleeping about 5 hours at a time. On average, we put him down at 9 pm, and he sleeps until about 2 or 3. Then, momma is up for a quick feeding (usually about 15 mintues), and he's back down again until morning. He really struggles in the morning (from about 5 to 7), but we are working on it. Some days are better than others (for example, last night was AWFUL), but on the whole, we are making steady progress towards sleeping soundly through the night.

Grant's favorite things
Grant continues to love his bath (I MEAN LOVE!!!). He has a very long attention span; he stares at things for hours (okay... maybe not adult hours... but baby hours). He espeically loves to stare at: light bulbs, the huge Bedford sign in our living room, the TV if it's on, the New Order (a band for those outside of Bret's music world... so most of you) poster in our office, the motor to his swing (I think he is very suspicious that noise comes out of it but it looks just like the other side). Grant is talking up a storm when he's not tired. He babbles to just about anyone about anything. I love it! He is also starting to smile all the time, and I swear that I heard a giggle the other day. He especially thinks that his grandmothers are funny, as they get double the smiles. See, smart kid... he knows who has the deep pockets (especially when it comes to him).

Grant's least favorite things
waking up... to prove it... here's a little movie clip. Notice two things: 1. the crazy look I get when I start talking and 2. what happens to my finger when it gets too close to his mouth. Other than waking up, being hungy, and gas (which Grant has a lot of), Grant is the happiest baby ever!



But, just so you don't think that we have a cranky boy on our hands, here he is after eating... talking up a storm.

Back Home Again...in Indiana...

On my final day in Hong Kong this week, I decided to do the most touristy thing I could find. So I headed back over from the mainland at about 3:00pm, donning shorts, black socks, and a camera around my neck, and took the tram up the side of Victoria Peak. The tram has been in operation since 1888 and consists of a pair of rail cars that are slowly dragged up the side of the mountain at what is very near a 45 degree incline. Now for those of you that know me, you'll remember that I spent a great deal of my childhood on the floors of various glass enclosed elevators, praying for God to take me swiftly rather than screaming as the elevator was released from its tether. So for me to ride this tram was something of a challenge. Shown below is the view from the starting station in Hong Kong central. Notice the incline...
Here is a shot while ascending the peak. This gives some indication of the incline...My only concern while riding the tram was that I have been witness to some, shall we say, questionable Chinese engineering in the past couple of years. So putting my life in their hands did leave me somewhat jarred. I guess I slept soundly enough on the 21st floor of my hotel each night, so this shouldn't have bothered me.
After arriving at the peak, I was greeted by a number of shops, all featuring various tourist gifts and memoribilia. I quickly dashed past all these shops, as I planned to do some authentic shopping later in the evening. The peak features a Madame Tussauds wax museum which seemed somewhat fitting for a tourist trap. It was entertaining to watch plump Americans pose next to a Jackie Chan figure, looking more like they were ready for a toilet rather than a karate match. Another floor featured a fine Asian cuisine restaurant, with tables outside overlooking Hong Kong central. I ascended to the top of the tower, curious as to what shop or restaurant had been given the priviledge of the highest point in Hong Kong's most famous tourist attraction. What did I find?
Bubba Freaking Gump. Now don't get me wrong. I've eaten at Mr. Gump's establishment, and it provided a cornucopia of greasy seafood which treated me well (in a cleansing sort of way). But is this really the best that Hong Kong can do? All I can figure is Bubba's American ownership bid a Gump-load of cash for the location, outbidding all their Asian competitor's who figured, "Eh...we'll feed 'em when they get back to street level." I neglected to eat, instead heading out onto the viewing platform for some pictures of downtown. Here are some views downward towards Hong Kong's majestic skyline...



After my trip to Gump Towers, I took the Hong Kong subway back to Kowloon for a little shopping in Tsim Sha Tsui. Upon boarding the subway, I looked toward the back of the car. Now the picture is a little blurry, but you'll notice the only other face at my level is another Big Dumb White Dude.
I trotted around the TST (Tsim Sh...ok, you get the idea) for a couple of hours looking for gifts for Erin and Grant. One of the alleys lead me to a place where even my arts could be appreciated...

All in all it was another enjoyable trip to Hong Kong. My visits to China aren't bad, with the exception of the dreadfully long flights. On the return flight, as we pulled away from the terminal, the pilot made the following announcement:

"For this afternoon's flight, we'd like to take this opportunity to welcome the 50 children from the Rich Chinese Kids From Hong Kong Primary School aboard for their spring break trip to America."

You could almost feel the air being sucked from the plane as the businessmen in coach gasped. The kids were mostly well behaved. There were a couple of 10 year old Chinese boys that insisted on running from their seats at the front of coach to their friend's seats at the rear of coach every few minutes. But then again, every Asian guy under 40 that I've ever worked with runs from cubicle to cubicle around our building at work, so I guess they're just in training.

All in all, it feels great to be home with Grant and Erin. It was nice to flip on the radio this afternoon here in Indy and hear something that didn't resemble cats in chorus. While in Shenzhen, I heard a pop song on the radio in a cab which had adapted the melody from "What Child Is This?" This travesty was only out done by a Chinese dude slaughtering a Simon & Garfunkel classic. My boss nearly wet himself every time I burst into "Herro darkness my old friend...that's the sounds of sirence."

Like Father, Like Son

Last Friday, before Bret made his famous second voyage to the other side of the world, we took Grant Nicholas to the doctor for his two month well baby visit. To start the visit, the nurse took Grant's measurements. He has been on the small side, his first visit registering in the 25th percentile for height and weight. So, you can imagine that it was no surprise to find out that Grant is still in the 25th percentile for height (his Daddy's dreams of the NBA are "shortly" becoming a thing of the past). But, the real shocker was that buddy boy weighed in at 14 lbs, 5 oz, putting him in the 97th percentile for weight. That's right, we have a porkchop on our hands. Most babies who are heavy are also long, so round and pudgy Grant is in a class of his own.

I guess that's what happens when you give a kid to two chubby people. I don't know what I'm going to do about it; I'm going to go talk to some food about it. Where's that Snicker bar when you need it?

Here are some pics of the little, loveable, cuddly, cushy guy:
His wrists look like a rubber band is tied tightly around them. Yikes. It's like a bad, "you know you're fat when" joke.

Single Mom

With Bret in China, I am pulling single mom duty, and let me tell you, it's hard work. And that's with the help of family, 2 extra shot Americanos just today, and the vow to do no laundry or real cooking. It's tough. It doesn't help that Grant has a cold and chokes on his own snot about every 5 mintues (especially at night). I have never (and I mean never) been so ready to see Bret.

Here are some pics, espcially for Daddy in China:

The Seattle Cafe...now serving pig knuckles!

Tonight for dinner we visited the Seattle Cafe, a high end restaurant situated behind our hotel (and adjacent to the Dongua Park women's commercial enterprise district...if you catch my drift...) This "western style" steakhouse featured a wide array of steaks, as well as the aforementioned pork palms, various ox parts, and any number of delectable bird parts. I had a standard issue filet, which was actually quite good. I also had some French onion soup, which I'm fairly sure contained no onion, but who knows. A glass of red wine (Spanish, if I remember correctly...California reds were VERY expensive...) and all was well. The place was basically priced at American prices, so it was very pricey by Chinese standards.

After dinner, I took a stroll around the area surrounding my hotel. Here are a few night shots. I know that I'll be hearing, "That looks so nice" and "Yeah, really looks like you're roughing it" but trust me, it's still China.





I went in this very upscale department store (again, American prices), and the escalators all smelled like open sewers. A very nice store, but just not quite right.


My hotel is the tower in the background...


This sign was next to the sidewalk in the park on the way out of the hotel...Would someone like to hazard a guess as to what this means??

This ain't spaghetti...

So nothing too exciting to report today. I did shockingly well, considering the amount of jetlag I expected to have. I made it through a day's worth of meetings, and I only drooled on my laptop once.

Given the inclimate state of my boss's digestinal tract, I let him choose our dining options for the day. So what does a sick man eat for lunch? A McDonald's double cheeseburger made from grade DD Asian beef. For dinner we went to an Italian (!?) place. I ordered the house spaghetti. As it turns out, this meant "scrape everything you can from the floor of the South China Sea and toss it with a few spaghetti noodles." It was fishy to say the least. I left a large portion of it behind, and I have a strange feeling I've not seen the last of it.

Tomorrow a second wave of coworkers arrive, which will be nice. There's a large shopping complex across the street from the hotel, which I plan to checkout tomorrow. There's also a rather magnificently large Wal-Mart and another shopping mall down the street. Nothing says "direct to market" quite like a Wal-Mart in China... I should hopefully get a chance to take more pictures tomorrow.

Awe geez...

What do you not want to hear your boss say at breakfast at the start of a week where you'll be working closely with him and riding in cabs all over China with him?

"I've been throwing up for 3 days straight..."

Man do I hate international travel...

You know, when I was in college, I loved traveling. I'd have paid my own way for my company to send me to someplace exotic like China. But what I've discovered since marrying Erin, and even more recently since having Grant, is that I now despise being sent out of the country. I hate being away from home. I hate the hassles. I hate not hearing Grant coo in the morning. I hate not leaving for work with a stinky, formula stain somewhere on my clothes from Captain Spitup. But alas, this is the predicament I find myself in, so here's the last two days of my life.

I left our house at 6:00am on Saturday morning in hopes of catching an 8:00am flight to Newark. My Hong Kong flight was to leave Newark at 3:00pm, and I was booked on a flight arriving from Indy at 2:00pm. Thus with all the bad weather, I thought it prudent to catch the early flight. Got to the airport...flight cancelled. Back to Brownsburg. Got home around 7:30am. Returned to the airport around 10:30am. Flew to Newark, arrived 2:30pm...close, but I'll make the Hong Kong (heretofor known as "the HK" for you hipsters) flight. Got the gate at 2:45pm. Flight delayed until 4:00pm. Eat a Nathan's hot dog, return to gate. Flight delayed until 5:00pm. Boarded the flight around 6:00pm. We taxi out into the parking lot someplace and sit...until about 9:00pm. No updates, no info. Sit. We finally depart (with cheers) for our trip over the North Pole to HK.

Now normally I'd make lots of comments about the food, tiny toilets, etc, but to be honest, I slept a lot on this flight, which was nice. My only comment is that they have replaced the notorious curtain between first class and the commoners with a mesh curtain. This just adds to the frustration for those of us in economy. At one point I heard the stewardess asking a man if he wanted nuts on his sundae. Then it was what KIND of nuts. Then it was, "Do you want whipped cream?" "Cherries?" and on and on. When the thing came out, it looked spectacular. About the time his was delivered, I was handed one of those little cups of vanilla with a used popsicle stick to eat it with. The guy got up to go to the toilet, and he very nearly lost his precious sundae. Otherwise, food on Continental was WAY better than United. Travellers take note.

I arrived at the HK airport at 11:00pm. After spending an hour waiting for my bag, I headed to ground transportation. Normally we take the ferry to the mainland, but it's shut down after 9, so I started surveying my options. About this time, a wiry little Chinese dude who looked about 65 but had dyed hair and rather trendy shoes which said, "I'm actually 40 but dying at a much faster rate than you" started yelling "Shenzhen taxi...Shenzhen taxi." Perfect, I thought. I know guys at work have hired cars to take them over. I was set. So I follow Hong Kong Louie out into the parking lot, where he shows me into the back of his Toyota minivan. No taxi meter, no "Your driver is Samir"...nothing. I begin envisioning my organs being harvested and a group of guys saying, "Nice work, Qu Phong. You got us a fatty." So I demanded to see some identification. He pulled out a laminated card which basically said "Qu Phong -- HK taxi guy." A middle school kid with Photoshop could have made it before the bell rang, but I said, "Looks good." By this point, we were going about 95 MPH on the freeway out of the airport. What do you do?

Now Louie had agreed to get me to the Holiday Inn in Shenzhen (SZ for the hipsters) for $600 Hong Kong Dollars (HKD). So we're sailing along. We hit a toll booth, and he demands $50 (HKD) (about $7 US). I'm like "tolls aren't included?!" He says no, so I'm like, work is paying this...fine. He hands me back less than I expect, so I say "Where's the rest?" and he says "I've got to get back to the airport, no?" So now I'm being driven out in the middle of nowhere to die...on my own dime. Or work's dime.

We hit the crossing into mainland China, and Louie hops out of the minivan and stands by my door. "What the hell are you doing?" I politely inquire. He informs me that he can't drive into China. "Welcome to Shenzhen" he says. I started griping about our little misunderstanding, at which point he says, "I'll go with you for $400 HKD more." I reply, "I'm pretty sure I can get there from here" while in my head I'm standing in a bus terminal in the middle of nowhere at 1:00am with 10000 Chinese people milling around. "Ok, fine."

A guy drives us into the bus terminal. We hop a SZ city bus to cross the border (after going through a customs checkpoint.) After that, the guy catches me a cab and tells the driver where I'm headed. Worth his price? In the middle of the night? Yep. I'd never do it this way again, but he DID get me to SZ. So now I'm racing through SZ in a cab. I'm looking for landmarks that I know, but I never got into downtown during the last trip. The place is massive. Like Chicago sized. I finally see an exit sign for Nanhai Blvd, which I know is where my company and hotel are. Shew. The cab dumps me, and I head for the desk.

Now at some point during this past week, American Express Travel lost my hotel reservation, so I rebooked on Friday. But by that time, all rooms were full for Tuesday night, and all rooms were now smoking...not cool in Asia. The girl at the desk looks up my reservation, and I explain that I have reservations for nights 1, 2, and 4, but really need 1 through 4. She understands. The hotel is full though. She talks to her manager. Voila...I'm in a suite. Non-smoking even. It really is an awesome room. It makes up for a lot of this evening's horrors. Free laundry, free mini-bar, free happy hour. It's sort of like, "Welcome to China. You're stuck here, so drink up!" Here are some pics.




That last one is just one of any number of examples of what cracks me up over here. Off to bed. Off to work in 6 hours...what a day.

You never can tell...

Back In The P.R.C.

So here I am again, on the verge of another trip to the People's Republic of China. I've been assigned to another joint project with my Chinese brethren, therefore I'll be traveling to China occasionally for the next few months. (It was evident to me that a trip is necessary after a conference call this evening with three Americans and several non-English speaking Chinese engineers. Conference calls work very poorly under these circumstances.)

I'll have the pleasure of checking out the Holiday Inn Donghua Shenzhen. Surreal. We switched hotels this trip, and the endorsement from someone who had stayed at the Holiday Inn was "it doesn't have as many hookers out front." But hey, it's 16000 frequent flyer miles, and it'll give me a chance to brush up on phrases like, "no more chicken bones for me, thanks" and "you're really gonna eat that?"

Things I didn't know... sappy content to follow

There are a great many unknowns in the world. No amount of reading or prepping or chatting with others can prepare you for the reality when it comes. Babies are one such reality.

I read the books--lots of books. I talked with other moms. There are some things, though, that just come in the trying. This last weekend we went out with our dear friends from Chicago, Eric and Emily and their darling daughter, Kaya. Over dinner, Emily asked me, "So, what are some of things that you didn't expect?" I don't think I was ready to answer that question then, but after some thought, here are some unexpecteds:

1. I didn't know love like this was possible. I love Grant with a unique and an unquenchable love. Who knew that a love for a child could be so different from any other type of love?

2. I didn't think I would find his cry so endearing. He gets his bottom lip quivering and starts to wail. It's too cute. It's even cute at 3 am in the morning. That's when you know it's really cute.

3. I never thought that I would change outfits as often as Grant. We have tried everything: different formula, different bottles, different delivery methods, but there's no getting around the fact that our kids spits up like mad. He is freakin' Old Faithful. Just today, I have changed outfits three times; Grant has only changed outfits once. Smart kid.

4. I didn't realize that four hours of sleep would seem like a gift. I need sleep... just ask Bret. Prior to Grant, I would have said that I needed at least 7 hours of sleep to function, but, I can survive (and even be semi-productive) on less sleep than I thought. If I get four straight hours, I am in heaven.

5. I didn't realize that having a baby means open season for conversations and attempted touching by old ladies and Walmart cashiers the world over. Everyone wants to touch, to tickle, to pinch and to talk about Grant. Most of the time, it is wonderful. Sometimes, when I'm a tad bit sleep deprived (reference point #4), it's hard to muster the strength to be sooooo chatty.

6. I didn't think that I could love Bret more than I do, but seeing him be the world's best (seriously, I think the absolute best) father to Grant makes my heart melt for him in new ways.

7. I didn't think Grant would be so expressive. Bret and I (and the rest of our families) love the many expressions of Grant Hawkins. From his early days, Grant has been able to produce a wide array of looks--Blue Steel included. And because he is so expressive, he doesn't seem like a newborn. Here are a few:

The shirt says it all

Engineers Are Weird

Over the past couple of weeks, the company I work for has gone through a, shall we say, reorganization. This has led to many of the cubicles in our Dilbert-scape needing to be, shall we say, cleaned out down to the bare floor. This has proven no easy task, and it has led me to a greater understanding of a few of the nuances of the engineer personality.

1. Engineers are freaking pack rats

I've never seen anything like it. In the past few years, there have been routine cleaning requests where dumpsters were rolled in, and we were asked to clean out extra equipment and junk from our cubi-cells for tours and such. You'd think these would have eliminated the vast majority of the garbage from our department, but it obviously has not. There are computers made out of vaccuum tubes, black and white televisions, and crusty voltmeters and power supplies that appear to have been used by Edison. I'm relatively sure I saw the key from Ben Franklin's kite. There is junk piled everywhere. Thousands of video and computer cables that would easily be sold at Best Buy for $19.99 a pop, some being used as bailing wire for other assorted crap.

2. Electronic junk is like Crack for engineers

With all of this trash in the hallway, it's been enjoyable for me to watch the pain with which my fellow engineers shuffle past the piles as they move in and out. It's virtually impossible for many of them to give the stuff up in the first place, but then after they've done so, they're drawn to it like Ann Coulter to a slur. They can't resist. I've seen one poor guy hunched over a heap of 3.5" and 5.25" diskettes for the past two days, trying desparately to keep from stuffing them in his mouth and pockets, running frantically for the door. It doesn't matter that the entire pile has a street value of approximately $.03. It's just the thought of throwing away anything computer related or anything with a plug that breaks their lonely, unsociable, short-sleeve-dress-shirted hearts.

3. Engineers never have any brotherly love, even in times of distress

It's a well known fact that engineers are antisocial. This is understood. It's the explanation for our inability to date or mate with regularity or avoid comic book conventions. This inability to relate socially extends to our own predicament. It doesn't matter that we're all in a similar, leaky boat. It doesn't matter that we've all been asked to clean out our trash. It doesn't matter that most of us have worked together for ten years. If you even suggest, "Hey buddy...Yeah you with the black socks and Reeboks...You might want to toss that 1200 baud modem. I'm pretty sure it can't be used in a post-1985 PC" you'll get a tongue lashing. I haven't heard some of these guys speak in 10 years, but now they're fighting over who gets to take home a VCR that weighs approximately 300 pounds or a pile of remote controls for televisions produced in the 70's or (and this is my favorite) several hundred megabytes (the precursor to the gigabyte, for all you youngins) of memory for PCs from the 80's (this one nearly went to blows...and for all you computer geeks out there, the deathmatch was between two guys who both wanted it for their Amigas...I kid you not...)

Now I'm sure some of you are going to think, "Eh...this isn't funny. You're just playing on the Engi-nerd stereotypes for a quick chuckle." But it's the honest truth. And much like the Seinfeld where the dentist turned Jewish so he could tell their jokes, I'm a member of the club so I can take all the shots I want. I really wouldn't have believed all of this until I saw it. I should be selling tickets. I can see the marquee now:

"See two unmarried guys with a combined weight of 700 pounds and 6 remaining strands of hair between them wrestle over crap nobody else in the universe wants, all the while wearing polyester pants, black sneakers and T-shirts featuring their favorite Star Wars character. Get your tickets today!"

Breakthrough

It happened. I don't want to jinx myself, but it happened. Grant Nicholas (read: the best baby ever!) slept over 6 hours (almost 7) last night. I never thought I could be sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited about one night, but let me tell you it is a dream come true to have over 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep. I feel like a new person. As Bret puts it, I have de-crankified. After two cups of coffee, I almost feel normal (or sane)... (or both). Good thing.


Here's a picture from a week or two ago of our sleeping angel.



We have been working really hard on getting good sleep, not junk sleep, and I think it is paying off. I say that this morning, and he'll probably be up every hour on the hour tonight just to show me who is boss.

Crazy People

These things can only occur in Bedford, Indiana...

A plane crashes into a house on Sunny Acres Lane. Tragically, it's a man and his daughter on board. In true Southern Indiana fashion, the house was owned by his former mother-in-law.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/05/indiana.crash.ap/index.html

http://www.tmnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5546&Itemid=43

Yeah, Right.

Erin went to bed early tonight to try and get some sleep before Grant awakened for his 10:30pm feeding. One of the frustrations I've had since Grant's birth is that Erin wakes up at the slightest whimper of a cry from Grant. Tonight, I decided to stay up and take the 10:30pm shift, in hopes that Erin would de-crankify with a bit of sleep. So at 10:30pm, Grant started stirring, and I quickly dashed into his room, but before I got seated, there was Erin. I told her I'd take the shift, and she gleefully threw herself back in bed.

In the course of feeding Grant, he got a little gassy (who doesn't?) and started crying. It lasted approximately 1/1000th of a second, but there she was at the door. I quickly said, "I've got it! Go back to bed!" Her response?

"I was worried about YOU, not Grant. I thought something happened to YOU!"

Dearest, you're never a good liar, least of all when you're 1/10th awake. Worried about me. Right. Because I cry and sound like Grant. (Ok, so I do...but only sometimes...)