1. Quit my job in California
2. Got a new job in Indiana
3. Moved to Indiana
4. Moved back in w/ my parents
5. Celebrated the holidays in Indiana with family
6. Looked for a house
7. Bought a house
8. Moved into a house
9. Sold a car
10. Bought two cars

Needless to say, we’ve been rather busy and the server that I run the blog on has been offline for a rather long time, but I’m back baby!  I’ll try to get some pictures and stuff up when I can for posterity’s sake, but you can check my facebook profile out as I update it more often.

-Chris

She had a great time. Stuck by her buddy, Kendyl, the entire time. She loves Kendyl so much. After we picked her up, she kept saying, “Kendyl Kendyl Kendyl Kendyl!” So funny. She keeps saying “up-ee-down” and “side-a-side.” They must have sung the Gymbo song at least once while she was there, as those things are in the song. She had me sing it for her a few times after we got home.

When we got home, we sat down in our chairs to quickly eat our dinners before putting Emma to bed. She rushed out of the room into the kitchen and hurried to the corner by the pantry, which is her normal pooping spot. We asked if she was pooping, and she said no. Normally, if you try to go into the kitchen when she’s doing her business she’ll say, “Bye-bye!” Or maybe, “Sowwy, sowwy (sorry, sorry)!” So I got up from my chair and said I was coming in there. She said, “Sit down!” So I walked back to my chair and sat. She could see me from her spot, and right after I sat down she said, “Good girl.” It was hilarious. Chris and I laughed so hard.

She’s saying the names of her friends a lot, too. She sort-of has a boyfriend named Logan, whom she calls Lo-dee.

Here

This past weekend after a bath, Emma was, well, playing with herself differently than I’d ever seen her before. I asked her if she needed to potty, and she said yes. She kept saying, “Pah-yee, pah-yee.” So I took her out of the tub, naked and still wet from the bath, and hovered her over the toilet. She got nervous, so I just wrapped her up with the towel and ran her into her room to get her in a diaper, in case she really did need to do something that I didn’t want to get all over the floor or myself.

We decided it was a good idea to go ahead and get her a little potty, so that way she could get used to the idea of it. I picked it up on Monday. It plays music when something goes in there, but it also doubles as a step-stool.

So any time Emma says “pah-yee” (which I’ve figured out she usually does after she’s just peed in her diaper), off we go to the bathroom. She sits down on the potty, and immediately starts rubbing her hands together like she’s washing them. She is loving washing her hands in the sink.

So tonight we were getting ready to put her to bed, and she said it again. So I rushed her in the bathroom. She was on the potty, I was sitting on the floor next to her, and Chris was standing in the doorway. She wanted to close the door for privacy (no daddies watching, please), but she wanted me to stay in there. After fighting with her to stay ON the potty and do her business for a few minutes, she sat there and I heard a glorious little tune come from beneath her. I couldn’t believe it (I’m tearing up just retelling this…am I a mess or what?!), so I yelled for Chris, who had walked away for a second. We praised the heck out of her, and she washed her hands, and off to bed she went.

Just wanted to share a little tale of my genius baby with you all. I just love being a mommy. And with a kid like Emma, it just makes it even better.

Speaking of making it to 30 though, I got some nice gifts, and got a big surprise. Now, as a general rule, I’m pretty tough to surprise. I tend to pay attention to little details and become suspicious of strange behavior immediately. Combining that fact with Jaime’s *usual* inability to keep secrets for too long means that that cat is normally out of the bag before the bag is closed. Being relatively new out here, I thought there may be something that she was cooking up with some friends of ours in Valencia, but I hadn’t gotten any of the normal “We really should go visit so-and-so!” or “I have a craving for a specific place to eat. Let’s go there tonight around 6:30!” Those are dead giveaways and that would be that. This year, in spite of it being a big milestone, I had heard nothing of the sort and figured we would just low-key it and spend time together, which honetly, is what I want to do every weekend regardless of the “event”.

I need to preface this little story with a couple things. First, I keep my work life and my personal life very, very separate. It’s a choice I made a long time ago so that I don’t punish my family for bad days at work, and my work doesn’t suffer because of personal issues. Second, I tend not to socialize with my workmates to much because I want to spend my free time with Jaime and Emma. This keeps me in the right frame of mind and I rarely think of bumping into work people outside of work, and personal people inside of work.

That being said, on Friday the 7th, I had a meeting with a co-worker of mine. Her name in Monique and she’s really great. She’s been a solid friend at my job, and gave me good advice on where to live before we moved out here. She’s also a grown-up about work-related stuff, and I enjoy working with her because of her stra0ght forward and practical nature. I am taking on some new responsibilities these days, and she is a key asset to help me ramp up and take on the new stuff rapdily and effectively. Because of this new interaction, we had been meeting off and on the last couple of weeks whenever we got the chance.

On this day, she had scheduled a quick 30-minute meeting to discuss some technology choices. She scheduled it at noon, and apologized that noon was here only free time for the day. I eat lunch a bit later these days, so I thought nothing of it. I arrive at noon, we chat a bit about work stuff and vent a bit about work stuff (as commonly happens). I thought I had a 12:30 call (which I was mistaken about) and told her that I would have a hard-stop at 12:30. She asked who it was with and what I was talking about. “Why would she care?” I thought, but whatever. Around 12:25, she pick up the phone and dials a number. “I need to make a call.” she says. I sat there waiting for her to finish her call, thinking nothing of it. “Yup … mhmm … okay … okay”. click. That was the phone call. No introductions, no “Hi! It’s Monique.” nothing.

That was fishy, but remember, I *do not* combine my personal and work lives so I thought nothing about it being almost my birthday. A few minutes later, she makes another call with the same jittery dialog along with no intro. At this point she stands up and says, “You need to come with me for a second. You’ll want to see this.” or something to that effect. I, just like an unsuspecting steer led to the slaughter, just stand right up and follow her out of her office and down the hall. She walks into the conference room and I followed her. As I’m walking in I notice that the room is filled with my team members, a bunch of food, balloons, and most importantly, Jaime and Emma!

“SURPRISE!!!!!”

Indeed it was.

Turns out, Jaime has played the connect-the-dots game to get a hold of Monique by contacting Don Wood (who is a great friend of mine from Indy) to get information about Monique (who I had talked to Jaime about in the past). Once Monique was mobilized, she and Jennifer (another co-worker) worked the whole plan out and made sure that Jaime/Emma were able to get here and get situated. I understand that Monique and/or Jennifer even payed for some of the party favors.

I was shocked like I’ve never been shocked. It was so nice to see everyone in one place and was great for them to meet Jaime and Emmabug. Very very cool and mega props to Jaime for getting me so good. It’s not easy to do. :-)

So, I HIGHLY recommend Go Fish for all you parents out there, and even for those of you who don’t have kids yet but like good Christian music. To find out more about these guys, or to order some of their CDs, here is their web site.

Emma absolutely loved the show. She danced her little heart out and clapped along with the songs. It was so cute. I tell you, she has the music in her. She loves to boogie. It’s the sweetest thing.

That’s all for now. More later.

Always remember: The rhythm IS going to get you … sooner or later.

Anyway, funny story. I gave Emma a bath on Monday evening, and then Chris and I put her to bed. We left her room, shut her door and came back out into the living room, expecting to see Norbert curled up in my chair like he normally is. Nope. Then we expected to find him curled up on our bed in front of my pillow (his other favorite spot). Nope again. We looked all over the place for that crazy mutt, but he was nowhere to be found. We figured we shut him in Emma’s room, so I opened up her door and looked in, but he wasn’t there.

Turned out he had gotten himself shut in the bathroom where I had given Emma a bath. He had been hanging out with us in there, and I guess I had shut him in there when I carried Emma out. Poor thing, he hadn’t made any noise being shut in there in the dark. He probably thought he was in trouble. Chris let him out and gave him a dog treat to try to make up for it. He doesn’t seem any worse for the wear. Silly puppy.

Chris, Emma and I will be visiting Indiana Oct. 10-17. There’s a Heacock family get-together on that Saturday, and the annual Martinsville Fall Foliage Festival parade on Sunday that we’ll get to attend. I think Emma will really like the parade.

We’re planning on taking Emma to the San Diego Zoo soon. I think we should probably wait until it’s not as scorching outside, but I want to go fairly soon. I think she’ll love seeing all the animals.

Emma’s into waving at people (anyone and everyone) these days, which is the cutest thing. She says “hi” sometimes, but she says “bye” a lot. It’s so funny. We were leaving Johnny Rockets (where we ate lunch) Monday, and she waved at one of the waiters and said “byeee.” He turned around and smiled and waved back. So cute. She’s also into blowing kisses and making the kissy smack noise. Again at Johnny Rockets Monday our favorite waiter stopped by to say hello to us. He turned and walked away, and Emma blew him a kiss to his back. She loves him. It was so sweet.

That’s all for now. More later.

Always remember: Nobody puts Baby in a corner.

The past few days have been full of bumps, bruises and scrapes around the Heacock household. For Emma and me, specifically. Allow me to explain.

It all started on Thursday when Emma and I were taking Norbert outside. Norbert was out doing his business when some girls walked by, distracting him and making him bark. At the same time, Emma wanted to be walking around, so I had put her down. I looked away from her for two seconds to tell Norbert to stop barking, and when I looked back she had stepped down one of the two small steps from our porch. I was telling her to be careful and reaching for her when she lost her balance and fell down the remaining step, hitting the side of her face on the concrete sidewalk. The result was a few minor scrapes on her forehead and by her left eye.

THEN, on Friday, Emma was wearing a cute little dress. We were on our way to the car to go to Wal-Mart. When we got out on the porch, Emma, remembering yesterday’s mishap, held my hand as she gingerly went down the steps. Once we got out to the asphalt, though, she dropped her hand and just stood still. I walked forward a few steps and asked her to follow. She smiled and took off running. She only made it a few steps when she fell down, hands and knees first, on the blacktop. She scraped her left knee.

THEN, later on Friday, Emma and I were playing in the third bedroom. She was sitting on my desk chair while I was spinning her. She tried to reach out and put something on my desk, and she reached too far and fell, head first, to the floor. It scared her more than anything.

I felt horrible about each of these incidents. I know things like this happen with toddlers, but I still felt bad, like it was my fault. My guilt was nearly erased by two MORE incidents on Saturday. This time, though, I was the one on the receiving end of the bruises.

I don’t know how it happened, exactly, but Emma and I were playing on Saturday morning, and she head-butted me in the mouth, giving me a nice fat lip. It went away after a while. Then, in the afternoon, she and I were playing on the floor. She was sitting on my lap, facing away from me, and I hugged her. We fell over as I was tickling her when her head reared back. She hit me right on that bone just above the outside of my left eye with the hard part of the back of her head. It swelled, and today I have a pretty nice shiner.

Ah, the life of a mom and a toddler.

I know that I should have blogged by now. I think of tons of great things to jabber about, but I never have the drive to put them into words that aren’t just monotonous fact-stating word-a-thons. That being said, there have been some interesting things happening and I think I’ll wax a bit.

We watched the NCAA final the other night and saw Florida win back-to-back championships. We were happy for them. Great job Florida.

Too bad that I can’t hardly stand to watch basketball these days due to all the thuggish garbage that happens. The NBA is a gathering storm of all-out brawling like hockey used to be. The bigger issue here is that the college players see what the pro lifestyle entails and begin to parrot the behavior sonner rather than later. Now, I’m not saying that every basketball player is a thug. I’m saying that there are more thugs than there used to be.

I also realize that the NFL isn’t a bunch of angels all waiting to help their fellow man. It is interesting to note though, that with the Colts winning and the pictures of the team kneeling in prayer after the game, America got to see a side of professional sports that was not readily apparent. I recall hearing the commentators debating whether or not the gun-toting bear, who’s name escapes me, should be allowed to play due to having to get special permission from the courts to travel to the Super Bowl.

The commentators were split down moral lines, which is to be expected. The “sport is king” purists would say that his personal life has no impact on his job, in this case playing football. While the “moral highgrounders” would say that someone who broke the law shouldn’t be glorified with special treatment, thus sending the message that entertainment power trumps legality. I think I stand in the middle. I love the idea of players humbling themselves enough to realize that it is God’s grace that allowed them to be there in the first place, but I think forcing morality down people’s throat will always backfire.

Coming from Indiana, we had the two polarities of sports conduct. The Pacers, who shot people at strip clubs, and the Colts, who didn’t get yelled at by their coach in order to control the practices better. The Pacers management was continually pleading with the public to come to the games, the Colts didn’t have enough seats to sell to buyers.

I think back to the 80s with Bob Knight at the helm of the Hoosiers. I can tell you, with a high degree of certainty, that if one of Knights players decided to get in a fight with other people, he would’ve been choked. I don’t think choking solves all problems, but it was a deterrent that made those guys get in line and stay there. Love him or hate him, he had the medicine to make young men keep cool under pressure. His being such a hothead (throwing chairs, etc) let his team know that if outrage was commanded, he would take care of that. There was no need for his players to ever act against good sportsmanlike conduct.

Remember when Abdul-Jabaar got charged with rape? Or when Magic Johnson shot that guy for saying the Lakers suck? Or how about that time Michael Jordan got arrested for slapping a stripper?

You don’t? Of course not. It’s ridiculous to think about. I realize they all had their indiscretions, but they did a great job of keeping their image intact. Like it or not, successful people are role models. You can’t say, “I’m no role model”. That won’t cut it. In the eyes of many youths who want to be exactly where you are, they will mimic you from the get-go. I think it’s high time that professional sports thugs got their bells rung.

These high-school, college, and even little league thugs-in-training need to be shown that sports institutions will not tolerate personal indiscretions beyond a certain point. If a player is willing to slap a stripper, why would you think that he won’t slap a receptionist? If he will shoot at a fan in a nightclub, why not a fan after a game? Why not an opposing player? If he will verbally assault his own wife, why won’t he tell a coach off?

The pastor at our chuch talked about this very thing this last week, and he was dead on. Your personal behavior indicates all other behavior given enough time. Same goes for me, same goes for everyone else. The real issue is that we have let the high bar of excellence in behavior slip slowly downward to where we allow anyone to do anything, as long as they’re not “on the job”.

I hate to think about the status of sports when my daughter starts to get interested. Between the scantily-clad cheerleaders and the glorification of illicit behavior, we’ll probably have to get Cinemax to watch the All-Star game.

-Chris

I’m in Beaverton, OR this week for business. The plane that brought us up here was some dinky thing that I had to duck to get into, and stay ducked to move in the cabin. Crazy.

Luckily, I had an open seat beside me. If that wasn’t the case, I would have had someone sitting on half my lap the whole 2 hours up here. For those readers that don’t know me, I’m a big guy. I’m tall, but I’m also quite large, so tiny places are dreadful for me. I carry my own seatbelt extension for air travel. Yeah, that big.

We finally get our crap from the airport and make our way to the hotel.? It’s not a complete dump, and the receptionist was very friendly. She hands me my keys, tells me “Room 422, that’ll be down this hallway, then up to the fourth floor. You’ll have to take the stairs, as the elevator is not working this evening.” Now, three flights of stairs isn’t the end of the world, but after a long day of work and a 2 hour long, mega-cramped flight, I wasn’t looking forward to lugging my luggage of four flights of stairs. Lugging my luggage. teehee.

I get up there and drop all my stuff off and call my wife to tell her I made it. As she answers, there is a knock at the door. “Room service!”, I hear. I tell Jaime to hold on and look through the peephole, as I had JUST gotten in my room and ordered no room service. I open the door and the gentleman hands me a bag with a water, an energy bar, and a note from the gal at the desk, apologizing again for me having to take the stairs. Nice sentiment.

I head back downstairs to get some food with my colleagues. Dinner was pretty good, and we were soon back at the hotel to call it a night. I decide to jump online for a few minutes to catch up on email/forums/etc. No connection. I try the standard ip releasing/renewing drills. No connection.

I call the gal at the desk who after a brief spiel about it having some recent issues gives me the number for the service center that runs the show. I give them a call, and after about 15 minutes I get online.

All of the aforementioned events occurred between 3:30pm and 10:30pm. That is 7 hours. 7 hours of my life completely wasted trying to make my life feel like my life before those 7 hours started. That is the reason I strongly dislike traveling. Getting to take pictures of Andy cooking my leftover steak and ribs in a hotel glass (photoalbum.theh…), then eating both with his hands (photoalbum.theh…) is the reason I don’t hate it.

On top of all this, I hear last night that Emma started throwing up around 11:30ish last night. Jaime sat up with her and tried to give her milk/water and keep it down. They are heading to the doctor today to see if there is anything Jaime can give her to help her stay hydrated. The thing that sucks is that I’m stuck a few hundred miles away praying for them. Maybe that’s the best thing to be doing, but I feel so physically helpless and so want to help Jaime with the sick baby. She’ll handle it, because she always does, but I’m still sad not to be able to help in virtually any way. /sad

-Chris