Yuletide Greetings

I haven't been posting as much recently. Honestly, between work and family, I've been crazy busy. So a quick update, Christmas letter style...

Professionally speaking, I'm having a banner year. I just completed a project that could be the pinnacle of my design career. Which some may think is sad that at age 32, I've reached the top. Not me. I couldn't be happier about the work that I have done and I feel confident that it will be well received by most and age beautifully.

I've been as busy as a beaver taking care of projects that landed in my lap when nearly half of my office was laid off. It keeps me running. But I think I'm handling it well.

The lovely wife seems to be doing well. At least, she hasn't gone postal. Yet. Staying at home, taking care of the kids. The only thing she's missing when I come home are high heels and pearls. But she's living the 50's TV mom dream, I tell ya!

El Presidente is doing great. While we have friends with a 16 month old that has surpassed our 41 month old's weight, we aren't worrying. He's still (barely) on the growth chart. And he's consuming most of his calories by mouth.

Let me say that for added dramatic emphasis: he's consuming most of his calories by mouth. And we've recently got him taking his medicines (both solid and liquid) orally. His feeding tube has received very little use over the past couple of months. Knock on wood, I'm thinking by his 4th birthday his feeding tube will be gone. Fingers crossed!

I should make note that I mentioned previously that the lovely wife is staying home. She's not eating bon-bons and watching her stories. Well, maybe sometimes. But the whole eating by mouth thing? That's all her. That was her project. She worked it and worked it hard. All the credit goes to her.

El Presidente has been doing well at preschool. He's talking up a storm. He's very active. Very imaginative. And very ready for Santa Claus to visit. He is really, really fun.

The Princess Royal is a lovely little girl that smiles whenever she first sees me. Heart melting stuff. On the flip side, she is also a ball of mood swings and, to be quite frank, I don't really do things right. In her mind anyway. She's all female. She lets me know when I piss her off. And honestly, that's like every other minute.

She has taken to looking at her hands as if there is something missing. "Why aren't their jewels on these fingers? What stupid bastard is responsible for this oversight? OFF WITH HIS HEAD!"

She has taken to royalty well.

The dogs, Lucy and Ethel, are still alive and kicking. Ethel's arthritis is doing better. They both have been adjusting to having two kids. But only because they have no other choice.

The Unlucky Unitas is still alive and kicking. Knock on wood.

Four Square No. 266 is still standing. Knock on wood.

There is so much going on and just not enough time to document it. I've got a Don Quixote thing I've been wanting to write. Plus my Bohemian friend married over the weekend, which is wonderful. Luminaria in the 'hood was beautiful. And my Colts...well, you know how they are doing...

But that is all stuff for another day, I suppose. But I'm hoping that this blog post finds you well this winter holiday season. So whatever it is you celebrate, celebrate it well with friends and family, good food and booze, music and stories, and maybe a gift or two hundred.

Sending you all the best for this yuletide,
Jason

Dear Santa...

This piece of furniture is on our wish list...

It is actually three love seats and an ottoman that can form together in different layouts. I mention this 1.) just because I think it is a cool piece of furniture and want to share with you and 2.) when I win the lottery, I don't want to search all over the internet to find it again.

A quick update (be warned: I'm talking about my balls here)

For any guys thinking about it, I will state for the record that the idea of having someone cut into your scrotum was 100 times worse than the actual procedure. The process was quite easy.

First, you shave your junk in the morning. This actually was the most difficult part. It's not an easy task. Be sure to use a good razor.

So you go in. You sign some waivers. So does your wife (if you have one) because she does own those boys, don't you know.

You enter the procedure room. You strip down naked from the waist down. You sit on a bench where they elevate you up and shine a big spotlight on your package. Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, your genitals!

They wash, prep you, and surround your scrotum with medical paper. I received a sedative to ease my nerves. The ceiling tiles started to dance. I felt relaxed. Very relaxed.

The doctor then provides the local anesthetic, he makes a cut, he pulls out the plumbing. Cut. Clamp. And cauterize. The puff of smoke that came out of my crotch region was interesting.

Stitch 'em up. Pack 'em in gauze. Slip on the jock strap. Put on your clothes. The exit is that way. Have a nice day!

Seriously easy.

But at least

When tomorrow concludes, it will likely have been one of the strangest weeks I've ever had. It began with a massive layoff in my office, followed by the Unlucky Unitas refusing to start and 47 minutes of lousy ass football. It will conclude tomorrow with someone taking a knife and using it to cut... into a very sensitive place... you know... down there...

Work
My office had been lucky over the past few years. While most architecture firms were letting employees go, we had been able to maintain our staff. We wouldn't fill vacant positions, but nobody worried about losing their jobs.

That changed real quick. Over the past month, there were signs that the economy finally was going to affect us. And then one morning, it was announced that 12 of our 28 employees were being laid off.

I was one of the fortunate survivors. But there is certainly a bit of sadness and guilt that good, talented people were losing their jobs through no fault of their own. It looks like I'll be taking over the projects once handled by three architects, plus the duties of our specifications writer and our computer systems specialist and archivist. I'll be a pretty busy beaver for a while.

But at least I'm employed.

The Unlucky Unitas
My '93 Chevy 3/4 ton doesn't run as smooth as she used to. The transmission has a leak somewhere. The muffler is falling apart. There are electrical shorts that require me to bang on the dashboard to turn up the radio (I bet I'm quite the sight to other motorists). The A/C is out. There is a creature of some sort that tries to escape my dashboard whenever I turn on or off the truck. It guzzles gas. The tailgate requires an advanced degree to keep locked. It seems to attract bad drivers (my driver's side door has been hit in the same spot twice!). The interior door handle has fallen off. And a check engine light comes on and off with no rhyme or reason.

But I could always count on it starting and getting me where I needed to go.

Until Saturday when I was helping my sister and her family move into their new house. I would turn the ignition and nothing would happen. There was juice in the battery. Everything seemed like it should work, but something with the ignition wasn't right. My truck was 30 miles away from home and I couldn't start it.

Fortunately, my sister's husband's sister's husband (or brother-in-law's brother-in-law) is a mechanic. And he was willing to work on my truck between 10pm and midnight. The first challenge was to get the truck to his house where his tools were located. And that involved my very first experience with hotwiring a vehicle.

Long story short (too late), he took the steering column down and found a rod in need of adjustment. So I can start it now, though I've been assured that somewhere down the line, it will happen again, and there isn't much more room for adjustment. At which point, I'll probably just have a toggle switch wired and fully turn my pickup into a redneck ride.

But at least it works now.

Football
As everyone is well aware, the Colts sucked ass against the Patriots for 47 minutes on Sunday. I was at the game. And I was miserable. So were others. My friend Bryan opted to leave early in the 4th quarter, figuring that the Colts were done. I can't say I blame him. Though I have always argued that you can't leave a game until it is over; there is always a chance that something will happen.

I'm glad I stuck to it. I was rewarded with the wildest fourth quarter that I have seen from the Colts since the infamous Tampa Bay game. So three quarters of misery followed by a quarter of pure excitement. It left me exhausted, without a voice, and a little bit ill.

But at least we won.

Snip, snip
Tomorrow will change my life forever. When the lovely wife and I first married, we wanted to have four kids. And when we bought a house, we bought one big enough to have four kids.

But things don't always go as planned. We had trouble getting pregnant. We lost the first pregnancy. And the second pregnancy gave us a beautiful son, but El Presidente, as you are probably aware, had health challenges right out of the gate. So that left us a bit nervous about future children, from the standpoint of how healthy our future children will be as well as the amount of time required to care for El Presidente.

El Presidente's health improved and our comfort level with caring for him improved, so we threw caution to the wind and opted to do it again. We lost another pregnancy before we were pregnant with the Princess Royal. The pregnancy was nerve wrecking, but she the birth was easy and she was healthy. I started thinking, "Hell, let's do it again!"

Then a week later, the lovely wife was back in the hospital with dangerously high blood pressure. And that drove it home. I might have been willing to try for another child, but not at the risk of the lovely wife's health. Or life.

That was the moment I realized that I should be thankful for the family I have and not risk upsetting the balance we have.

Plus we've reached our maximum out of pocket for the year with the insurance plan.

So I am getting a vasectomy. I am willingly and purposely letting a doctor cut into...well, you know. The family jewels. The tea bag. The guy sack. The hairy beanbag. The chin bangers. The junk. The boys. The protein pendulum. The coin purse. The under the butt nut hut. In other words, the scrotum. I've been assured that I will want to shove very cold things down the front of my shorts for a few days.

But at least I won't have to pay it.

Giving thanks for Thanksgiving

It is no secret that I love Christmas. But I love the build up to Christmas as well. That includes Halloween and Thanksgiving. Especially Thanksgiving.

I've written before about Thanksgiving at my parents' home. This year, we won't be attending Thanksgiving there. Instead, we will be heading north to Bluffton why the lovely wife's paternal family will be gathering at her grandparents in one of the largest family gatherings that I can recall.

Which is exciting to me. Thanksgiving is all about large family gatherings, in my opinion. So I will get to enjoy the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and the football games and the black Friday ads and the big gathering.

It will just be in a different venue.

The only downside is that the food will not be to the same standards that I am used to. My dad is a good cook. He's always does the turkey and the dressing...that beautiful, wonderful, tasty dressing. My grandmother fries up slices of sweet potatoes in brown sugar and butter. There's green bean casserole and cauliflower. And plenty of desserts. It's big. It's tasty. Plenty of calories and plenty of flavors. A good southern Indiana meal.

My in-laws live in northern Indiana. I readily admit that there are some good foods that come from "up there" (beet-pickled eggs immediately come to mind), Thanksgivings in the past have lacked something.

Apparently, sweet potatoes are not a staple of northern Indiana Thanksgivings. And I don't recall much (if any) dressing the last time we attended. In fact, I seem to recall being underwhelmed at my last Bluffton Thansgiving.

In addition, my grandmother-in-law has forgotten how to cook for a large gathering. She gave birth to five kids, but hasn't had to cook for them in recent decades. Her plan is to cook a turkey breast.

Okay, first, one turkey breast for 20-some people. It won't be enough. And then second, no dark meat? C'mon. Not everybody wants dried out white meat. In particular, me!

So I figure the only way to insure that I am happy is to do some of the cooking myself. First, I'm doing a turkey. I'm going to brine it and then deep fry it. That way, there will be plenty of turkey and I'll be able to get the dark meat I so desire.

I'm going to make a dressing, though not exactly like my dad's. I'm going to do a White Castle dressing. I'm going to use a recipe from there website, but add sauteed mushrooms and celery. And I may leave the pickles in. I'll have to think about it.

Sweet potatoes are a must. I won't attempt to fry them like my grandmother; I'm certain I won't do it justice. Also, trying to get a burner in the kitchen leading up to dinner will be difficult. I'm doing a crockpot recipe using maple syrup and chopped walnuts.

And finally, I'll bring the ingredients to put together a green bean casserole. Canned green beans, Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup, and French's fried onions. Easy and quick. And tasty.

So when it is all said and done, everybody will be full. Everybody will be happy. And if I'm the only one eating the food I cook, well, I'll have plenty for time to recall the wonderful time we had at Thanksgiving.

Every lunch hour. For weeks.

Time flies when you're having fun

I just realized it has been almost three weeks since I last updated Four Square No. 266. It's a sure sign of old age that time seems to fly by faster and faster. I have a hard time believing that it has been 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Even more shocking is the fact that El Presidente and the Princess Royal are already 3 years and 3 months old, respectively.

Halloween at our house was busy. I spent 14 hours on my feet at the annual Irvington Halloween Festival helping out in any way I could. It went of with little trouble. That was followed by several hours at the house handing out candy to the 500+ children that get bused in to our neighborhood. We had to resort to giving out 4 year old Double Bubble gum. I'm hoping that we weren't the cause of too many cracked teeth.

In case you were wondering: El Presidente was a zebra and the Princess Royal was a ballerina.

Yesterday, El Presidente attended his first tailgate session. He ate bratwurst, he drank beer (or at least was really interested in drinking mine). A chip of the old block, he's my little kraut boy. Before I know it, he'll be old enough to actually drink beer with me.

In an attempt to age myself even faster, I do have Christmas lights up on my house. Before you completely freak out, they are not plugged in. My father and one of my brothers helped me clean the gutters last week and while up there, we put up the outdoor Christmas lights. Better to do it during beautiful fall weather than freezing winter weather.

I should probably rake my leaves before mother nature tries to freeze them into place on my lawn. I have no trees in my backyard, but neighboring trees feel that my lawn is a wonderful place to spread their gifts. My tree in the front yard has let go of about 2/3's of its leaves. I'd like to wait until it finishes, but this afternoon is suppose to be so nice, I may try to get a jump on it.

Actually, I'll probably rake them up into a pile and let the kids jump in them. Let them enjoy it while they can.

Haunted Four Square No. 266

I may be ready to jump into Christmas, but we have to get through Halloween first. El Presidente has been really into Halloween this year. Every time he sees a pumpkin or a large spider web or ghosts hanging from a tree, he yells "Halloween!"

His pre-school teacher sent a CD of classical music to play at home. In particular, the first track, which is Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, better known as Dracula's Theme. When we play it and the first notes of the organ are heard, El Presidente immediately yells "HALLOWEEN!" and follows it with a "BWA-AH-AH-AH-AH!" that is so scary, it would turn a vampire vegan. I don't know where he picked that up from!

He's been asking for Halloween cartoons. Being the Disney and cartoon dorks that we are, we have several DVD's including: Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Mickey's House of Villans, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and Claymation Halloween. We also have some DVR'd Halloween specials. Most of them are pretty easy viewing, though there are some scenes that are a bit scary for El Pres. He goes back and forth between liking the scary stuff and not liking it.

Myself, I find no pleasure in being scared. Horror movies, haunted houses, not for me, thanks. The only haunted house I do is the Haunted Mansion at the Disney parks. I like pumpkin carving and costumes; lights and decorations; and candy, of course. But otherwise, the decorating I do is just as a warm up for the Christmas decorations. Which I will begin installation of on November 1st.

In Irvington, there seems to be a large number of haunted homes. Ghosts and spirits spooking the notorious locations around the 'hood. I'm thankful that (as far as I know) we've had no hauntings in our house. The only evil spirits you'll find are the lovely wife's when El Presidente and The Princess Royal wake up at 4:30am.

Day or night, night or day

We made our first trip to Virginia this past weekend. We drove through the night on our way down, expecting the kids to sleep through the night. The Princess Royal slept most of the night, with a one hour stop at 4:30am to feed her.

But El Presidente, he was up the entire night. He kept looking around at the lights along the highway. Radio towers looked like rocket ships to him. Mountains were volcanoes. His imagination kept him occupied. He slept the last couple of hours, during daylight.

So we figured if he isn't going to sleep, why drive through the night when we're sleepy? On our return trip, we'd drive through the day and see how it goes.

Well, he was awake during the trip back. And he was fine. He looked around. He watched his DVD player. He snacked and drank his milk. He was fine.

The Princess Royal, however, wasn't quite as cooperative. I didn't anticipate that she would be into enough of a routine that she would expect to be out of her car seat during the daylight hours. We ended up taking additional stops for additional out of the car time. It added almost 3 hours to our trip compared to the 12 hour trip down to Virginia.

Odds are that we'll be making this trip at least three times a year. After the first trip, I must admit, I prefer the night travel option over the day travel option. Yeah, I'm exhausted when we arrive, but I'm also less stressed.

An alternative would be to stop for the night somewhere at the halfway point (which would be in West Virginia), but that would require a hotel. And I'm not really interested in spending money on a hotel.

If we had an RV, though...

Yeah, I'm one of those guys

In two and a half weeks, Irvington will be hosting the annual Halloween Festival and one of the elements of the festival is a house decorating contest. I proposed to the lovely wife that perhaps the scariest Halloween display we could put up would be our Christmas decorations with a "Only XX shopping days!" sign.

I thought it was a brilliant idea. TLW shot it down.

Though, to be honest, it wouldn't frighten me. I love the trio of holidays that make up Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, but Christmas is my favorite. I love holiday decorations and gift giving and Santa Claus and all that jazz. I have committed to not playing Christmas music until after Halloween, but I can't promise that I won't be rockin' around the Christmas on November 2nd. Just call me The Christmas Creep.

The family car

Growing up, we rarely traveled by plane. When we traveled anywhere, it was in a car. Texas...Florida...South Carolina. Four kids and two adults crammed into a vehicle.

Early on, we had a station wagon. A blue Buick Century station wagon. The middle seat would fold down so that the four of us kids could sleep in the back while dad would drive through the night.

I thought about this as we packed our car this weekend to go up to Bluffton for the annual Free Street Fair. We have a four door sedan that is plenty roomy. Or it used to be. Two adults, two kids in car seats, and two dogs. We have officially maxed out the car.

Ideally, we would buy a mini-van. But with one income, we really can't afford it. Well, we could. But to be honest, it is probably because we've gone so long with both cars paid off that we really enjoy not having that monthly payment.

But if we are to continue taking both dogs with us on trips, we'll need a bigger vehicle.

This evening, during our dog walk, the lovely wife and I were talking about vehicles and traveling in comfort. The lovely wife has no interest in doing big road trips. It took a lot of arm twisting to get her to travel to South Carolina by car. Twelve hours is her definite max.

Someday, I want to travel west by car; TLW isn't excited about it. But tonight, we came to an agreement.

Forget getting a mini-van, let's just get an RV!

That way, there's plenty of room. We can take all sorts of people. We have a traveling guest room wherever we go. There will be entertainment options; toilet options; food options. Not to mention tailgating possibilities.

The vehicles we have now are fine for city travel. But when we travel, we travel big. And an RV is the perfect solution. And TLW has agreed that with an RV, she would travel anywhere.

You may think I'm goofing, but the more I think about it, the more I like it.

Hi, I'm Jason, architect and driver of the Winnebago...

First

El Presidente
Today was El Presidente's first day of school. This is his second year doing pre-school. Dropping him off today went a lot smoother than last year's first day. That's not to say that he wouldn't rather stay home and watch Phineas and Ferb. He would. But he didn't fuss. And he didn't fight it. And the report from the teachers was that he ate his snack today. It is certainly good for him.

Princess Royal
Today the Princess Royal smiled at me. This is a big deal because she doesn't really like me. She doesn't like me because I don't have boobs. Okay, I may have man boobs, but they don't produce milk, so they are of no use to her. It is also a big deal because it was her first smile. She was making faces at me, I made faces back, so she smiled. Apparently she thought I was funny looking. Of course, if that were true, she'd smile all the time, right?

A couple of things have kept me busy lately

Call me crazy, but I didn't expect having a second child to keep us busy. Actually, what I forgot was that a newborn requires a lot of attention. Especially since the lovely wife is breastfeeding the Princess Royal, she's dealing with her all the time.

So I've been spending more of my non-work time taking care of El Presidente. Which means I haven't been able to do much of anything else. But you know? That's cool by me. Playing "Robot Dinosaurs Riding Spaceships" is much better than mowing the lawn. He and I have spent a lot more one on one time. Great father/son bonding. He's hilarious. And shares a lot of interests with me. Chip of the old block, I believe is what they say.

He's also seems so much bigger and more mature now that the Princess Royal is around. It was like he turned big overnight. Makes me feel old.

Occasionally, I'm still shocked by the fact that I have a daughter. One day this week, I was holder her and she was looking at me with big eyes, almost like they were saying "Holy crap, you are big. You are hairy. You are a scary guy!" I told her, "I know I'm scary. And someday, I'll hopefully scare the crap out of your boyfriends. And your fiance. And your husband."

And then I scared the crap out of myself: she'll grow up and I'll have to deal with boys (or girls...I'm okay either way) and maybe she'll get married. I'll have to deal with all of that. Wow.

Something else I didn't expect: she has "girl parts". I mean, yeah, I know, she's a girl. But I didn't expect a baby girl, all of three weeks, to have "girl parts". And when she poos, I have to clean out her "girl parts" because sometimes the poo gets up in there. I spent the first two weeks apologizing to the Princess Royal.

I feel really weird talking about "girl parts" online.

Anyway, they've been keeping us busy. Sleep hasn't been the greatest, but we're having fun and enjoying the family life.