I'm Back

Time to step back from the ledge my loyal readership - after a long sabbatical, I'm back. This blog was born in the midnight hour and that is when it has thrived, like Nosferatu coming out to feed at night. Around the three month mark, as many have foretold, Jack seemed to hit another milestone in his quickly evolving life. Between 10 and 11 PM he falls asleep and stays that way until between 2 to 3 AM. The key is, when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he eats quickly (usually between 15 - 30 minutes), gets a diaper change, and needs to be rocked for less than 5 minutes before he's out again for another 4 hours. This coupled with being asked on more than one occasion if I'm a workaholic have made staying up late and working a rarer occurrence - usually only a couple of nights a week. The other night's I'm in bed before midnight, although I must admit that I'm usually reading, watching TV/movies, etc until a bit later. What can I say - I'm a night owl.

Anyways, I seem to have a tad bit more leisure time now that Jack's hit this milestone [knocking on wood]. In the past few weeks I've managed to see several movies, watch my backlog of Tivoed shows, and read about 200 pages of a book. I finally had a chance to watch No Country for Old Men which was pretty good, although I preferred Fargo as far as Coen Brothers' movies go. I think it was a better overall movie, although No Country for Old Men is more memorable if that makes any sense. It all has to do with Javier Bardem's character, definitely an iconic role in movie history. Man as I write this I'm thinking maybe I do prefer this movie ...

I tried to catch up on everyone else's blog's - saw that I was "tagged" on Jess' blog. I'm supposed to list 7 random things about myself, and I figure for the people that read this I mine as well try to make them interesting, so here goes:

1) As you may have guessed I take after my Mom and Dad in that I love good movies, and after my Uncle Dave in that I love music (there is a pretty prominent example of this in my life but I'll never tell). I bought Sirius satellite radio about a year ago and I listen to it for several hours everyday.
2) I have OCD ... at least that's what the professionals tell me. With work it's gotten a lot better but it's still a hindrance. The earliest I remember it being an issue was when I was around 11 years old and I had a ritual that I carried out every night before going to sleep. I won't go into details (because it would take several thousand words) but it involved rolling over and looking at my clock and it having to be an even number between a certain range, several times in a row. If I screwed up, there was a penalty period and some other things I had to do for penance. It got progressively worse for about two years until it took over two hours each night to get everything right and I could go to sleep peacefully. I was crippled with fear that if I didn't do these things I was going to get in trouble, picked on at school, or worse - that something would happen to my family (and of course when these things did happen I could recall something that I must have done incorrectly that brought it on). Those days are long gone, but I still always try to sit on the left side of planes (I am overcoming this one), still have major issues with numbers, still have some issues with germs, may or may not be able to tell you how many tiles are in my bathroom, wow I better stop writing or I'm really going to freak you guys out. Seriously though, it's manageable now or I wouldn't write about it. Still if you notice I'm zoning out while you're talking to me don't just assume it's because I'm not interested in what you're saying. The C stands for compulsive ...
3) The most embarrassing thing that ever happened to me was pooping my pants in front of some girls I liked. One summer we went to visit a friend of my Dad's and he had two daughters that were roughly my age, named Cheryl (I think) and ... I can't remember - maybe my Mom or sisters can refresh my memory ... Anyways, we got dropped off at the pool and after about 15 minutes of being there my stomach turned. I ran into the bathroom and it was nasty (remember I'm a bit of a germaphobe). The girls said their house was only like 10 minutes away so we decided to hoof it. About a half an hour later I lost control and crapped my swim trunks. I wrapped my towel around me like a Sumo wrestler's diaper and jogged to the house with the girls in tow and cleaned myself up. Fortunately the girls were very supportive and I found out later in the week that they both had a crush on me, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this story...
4) I repeated first grade. As I entered second grade for the first time I was overcome by extreme laziness. I would just write down random numbers on my math work (well getting back to number 2 they weren't random, but they were incorrect), I was upset that I wasn't the fastest kid in gym class, etc. When my Teacher and Principal sat down at my kitchen table with both my parents and presented the option of going back to first grade it sounded pretty good. After all I had some good friends in that grade, I was pretty sure I would be the fastest kid in gym class, there was a lot more coloring, and Bridget Bohn was in first grade and she wore panty hose.
5) I'm a recovering alcoholic (like how I just slipped that one in there). I started attempting sobriety about 4 years ago and haven't had a drink for about 2.5 years. I think it's pretty cheesy that I put this in my blog and I'm certainly not fishing for compliments, I just think it's important for several reasons that I put it out there in clear terms at this point in my life.
6) I don't remember the majority of my childhood. I remember bits and pieces but am amazed by the way other people (including my sisters) can recount endless stories from their childhood. It bums me out.
7) I don't have 7 people that I can tag ...

So I'll tag Carrie, Corinne, and Katy. I despise fwds, particularly the ones that mandate that I bother other people and fwd along an email to them, so don't feel obligated to follow up on this. But if you're struggling for a theme for your next blog like I was, here it is ...

It's Official

Carlos is my son. On Wednesday February 27, 2008 I adopted Carlos! Man, am I lucky or what? - Two sons in a matter of a few months. We were all a bit nervous about going to court, but luckily things went smoothly. We were joking around quite a bit on the way to court (shocker) as I was practicing my go-to court lines, including such favorites as:

I'm out of order??? You're out of order!!! This whole damn court is out of order!!!

and the ever-popular:

You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!!

After I got through doing my best Jack Nicholson we started joking about the judge putting Carlos on the stand after I finish the first tirade (This whole damn court is out of order!!!):

Judge: Carlos, does your Dad always swear like that?

To which Carlos responded:

No, he mostly just lies, Mom's the one who swears all the time.

Hahaha, we were rolling. (For the record I pull people's legs .... lie is such an ugly word).

Anyways, we learned later that the judge himself has two adopted children so he was well suited for our "case". I got to take the stand and the judge threw me a softball asking how I felt about Carlos. Fighting back tears I told him and Carlos that I feel truly blessed to have found Carrie and Carlos and have no doubt that God led me to them. I truly couldn't ask for a better son, Carlos is such a thoughtful and considerate young man. If Jack turns out to be half as good as his older brother than he'll have a leg up on anybody else.

Carlos has endured the learning curve I undertook (and am still taking) by switching from a relatively immature, short fused, self-centered, impatient boy into the slightly more mature, less self-centered father that I am today, to which he is owed a lot of credit. It's common knowledge that the oldest child gets it the hardest, and I imagine this is compounded by having a young and inexperienced step-father who tends to be somewhat of a hardass discipline-wise. But Carlos has never been disrespectful, has never questioned my leadership, which speaks lengths about his character. It seems fitting that now that I am being thought the lesson of patience from nature's little teacher; an infant, Carlos is entering the most formative (and from what I hear the most trying) years of his life - the teenage years. It seems like my lesson couldn't have come soon enough. I still have a lot of work to do, but I'm getting there ...

Well, that's all for now. I'm in lovely Binghamton NY, and still have a bit of work to do before I can call it a night, along with a late night treadmill run. Remind me to tell you about the last time I was in Binghamton and decided to take a jog outside at 1:30 in the morning ... They say engineers are book-smart but lack common sense ... not me!