Playing With a Traveling Bode-Man

Happy Labor Day Eve to everyone. Hopefully you've all been good so the saint of the working class (aka the Obama Ticket) brings everyone who contributes the bare minimum to society their government-provided entitlement...

But enough with politics (although I must say I do agree with the voters who picked Sarah Palin as the nation's hottest governor--check her out in a bikini in Governor's Fancy on pg. 34!!!). What a busy weekend we've had. Nana and Granddad (aka Ashley's parents aka my in-laws) arrived Friday afternoon. Bode quickly proceeded to show them how mobile he has become.
Of course, all that moving around makes a little guy tired, so Bode needed to take a nap. Evidently his crib was occupied, so Granddad's lap had to make due...
I'm sure everyone knows Saturday marked the start of the college football season. Yes, I know there were games on Thursday and Friday, but let's face it: the season does not begin until Auburn has played their first game. Unfortunately, Auburn didn't play until 7:00 pm on Saturday. Therefore, we had some time on our hands. There was a big festival going on at a local high-school. It's called "Alterfest," because the name of the school is Alter High School. I thought it would be a typical (lame) school festival. I was dead wrong. This event is HUGE. There were rides, tons of food, bands, big screen tv's, tons of beer (sort of surprising since Alter is a Catholic school) and real-no-kidding gambling. Theoretically, you could get on a hot streak and make it so the event lost money. What was the coolest was the visit from the Budweiser horses. Here are some photographs--check out that horse's a*s in that one picture.
The horses are very large. I put in a shot with a guy standing real close to them to give you a sense of scale. I'm an (un)impressive 5'9" tall, and I come up to the horses' tails. I certainly wouldn't want to get in the way of a Cyldesdale (although I do think Auburn could take on Bud, the dog...)

After Alterfest, we anxiously awaited the start of the Auburn game. Thankfully, Auburn won the game against Lousiana-Monroe (no jokes about the opponent), although, and I'm quoting Ashley here, "They played like fussing spit!" (Yes, I cleaned it up some). Still, a W is a W, and do note Auburn is an undefeated 2-0 in the Bode-era (he was here when Auburn won their bowl game on New Year's Eve).

Today we went down to Mason, Ohio (20 miles south, near Cincinnati). There was a professional beach volleyball tournament being held. For those that watched the Olympics, the names Misty May-Treanor, Kerri Walsh, Phil Dalhouser, and Todd Rogers probably mean something to you (for those that don't know, they were the gold-medalists in women's and men's beach volleyball respectively). We were able to see the semi-final matches for each of these teams. I was able to take lots of pictures. For some reason, I took a lot more pictures of the women's game than the men's...
I remember watching the Olympics thinking, "Those sure are some short uniforms the ladies wear," but after watching them play, I realize how important it is for the ladies to be in the proper beach volleyball attire. Anyways, we had fun in the sun at the tournament. Surprisingly, the team of May and Walsh lost in the event finals, breaking their 100+ match winning streak.

A quick movie. Ever want to see a rottweiler in full-attack mode? Here's a movie of Auburn trying to attack a toy ball.

The obvious question is, "How did you find out Auburn reacted like that? Do you, Jeff, spend a lot of time sitting in your hallway idly throwing the ball against the wall? No wonder that novel isn't yet written..." Actually, one evening Bode crawled into the hallway. I rolled the ball to him and he started giggling. I bounced it off the wall and he started laughing. The more the ball bounced, the harder he laughed. He even found it funny when Auburn came charging into the hallway barking at said ball. It certainly is amazing what tickles a baby's fancy...

Tomorrow (Monday), we will probably go to a parade just up the street and relax. JoAnne and Frank are staying until Tuesday, so Bode gets one more day of hanging out with Nana and Granddad, not to mention Mommy and Daddy get one more day of an extra set of hands helping to entertain our rapidly growing boy :-)

Pleasant Labor Day to all.

Summer Time Fun

Another good week in the life of Bode McGuirk...until this morning. But I'll get to that shortly. The work week passed as usual with nothing of note happening. Friday came, and we lived it up, going out to dinner at a local Italian eatery. Bode does real well in restaurants, provided we bring his favorite toys so he can entertain himself. We got home around 8 pm, and were then in bed before 9. Fortunately God invented the DVR so we could watch the Olympics in the morning :-) Bode was kind enough to sleep in until 7 am or so, meaning we got close to ten uninterrupted hours of sleep. Yes!!!

We decided we wanted to do something fun on Saturday; however, there was also work to be done around the house. Thus, we said we would each do one chore and then we would go out and whoop it up. Ashley decided to do some touch-up painting in the kitchen while I busted out the chain saw and sledge hammer. We had a tree taken down a couple weeks ago (it was dead) and wanted to use the wood this winter. The only thing that makes one feel more manly than cutting wood with a chain saw is then splitting it with the sledge. I worked for close to three hours and made one huge pile of fire wood--I almost took a picture of it to show you all, but I thought that might be a bit cheesy. Yessiree, I was feeling pretty good about myself--manly indeed...until this morning when I woke up. It felt like I had been in a terrible car accident after which a team of Clydesdales stomped on my back. Do they have to make those sledge hammers so heavy? I also didn't think my hand would be so sore from just squeezing the saw's trigger. In the immortal words of Toby Keith, "I ain't as good as I once was..."

Ok, back to Saturday. After our work and before the soreness kicked in, we went to the pool. Once again, we had the best time. The second we put Bode in the water, he was smiling and splashing. He even crawled around in it--we had to make sure he didn't tump over every now and then. Otherwise, he just loved it. Here are some action photos. First, we have Bode and Mommy hanging out.
Next, we have me and Bode playing. The life guard asked me to not release Bode when I was throwing him, which reduced Bode's enjoyment somewhat, but he still had a great time.
After playing in the pool, we needed to relax in the shade. Bode was thirsty and needed some juice from his sippy cup. He does quite well drinking on his own. Daycare doesn't even give him bottles anymore...
Today started off much like yesterday. Bode slept in, and we wanted to have some fun. Before that, we decided I would go to the grocery store and get our weekly supplies. While there, the cell phone rang. "Jeffy, can you get some band-aids." "Sure, why?" "I cut Bode's finger...really bad." Mommy was cutting Bode's finger nails when she took some skin off. Needless to say, Bode was not happy--crying and screaming, and there was blood. It's nothing major--just a nick, but I'm sure it was quite traumatic to the little guy (not to mention Ashley). But, after he got his breakfast, he seemed to be fine and back in his usual good spirits. We're seeing if he'll take a nap, and then we're heading up to one of the local parks that is having a sea food festival. Hopefully we can get some good eats. Pleasant Sunday to all.

A Whole Lotta Nothing

I'll start this off by saying we've done nothing of note these past two weeks, so if you're hoping for some exciting story about our thrill-seeking lives, I suggest you find another blog. It's been the usual routine--sleep, wake up, work, eat, play with the Bode-man, and, of course, give Auburn and Dudley some love. The weeks are certainly going by fast. Amazingly enough, Bode is quickly approaching the 9-month point, meaning he'll have spent the same amount of time outside the womb as in it. Has it really only been nine months? It feels like it's been much longer, yet at the same time, it's passed in the blink of an eye.

Since there is very little to report, I'll jump right into the photographs. Bode is really developing quickly. Almost everyone comments about how big he is--and it's not that's he's just stout. He's gotten a lot longer. Not sure where the height is coming from, and hopefully the trend continues so Bode can top out above six feet (he must have gotten the same gene as his Uncle Pat, who is 6'3"). Not only is he growing quickly, he's also learning how to do so many different things. He's started feeding himself. It's so nice to just plop him down in his chair and put some diced fruit in front of him. Of course, about 25% of what he picks up actually makes it to his mouth. The rest of it? Well, that's why we have the rottie...
The folks at daycare say Bode really loves music. He likes any toy that plays a tune. He also really likes banging on the piano, so we're thinking we have a prodigy on our hands, which I guess would go in the same category as Bode being tall because neither Ashley nor I is musically gifted. We'll see if he's the next Mozart. The other day when I picked up Bode from daycare, one of the ladies that watches Bode says to me in a very innocent voice, "Does Bode have any shoes?" Yes, we were being stupid (cheap?) and weren't putting anything on his feet (prepping him for life as a beach bum). Thus, we had to go out and get him some sneaks. He's a baby size 4, extra wide, which, evidently, is quite big for one his age. Here's a shot of him modelling his new footwear.Obviously, Bode is pulling himself up. He's even started moving around from one piece of furniture to the next. One of his favorite games is chase the remote. We simply place the remote out of his reach and watch him navigate around the table. Hours of fun right there.
All that walking around certainly is tiring. Here's a shot of Bode sitting with me at the computer. We were going to try to Skype some folks, but when he nodded off, that got put on hold.
Note the shirt I have on in the picture above. It's 14 days until college football season. War Damn Eagle. Pleasant evening.

Command post, control: Bode is mobile

By the title of the post, you can probably deduce that Bode is now crawling. He's not exactly whipping around the house, but he can definitely get from point A to point B. Oddly, he doesn't seem to like crawling because he's also figured out how to pull himself up to a standing position. I think he knows what walking is and would rather walk than crawl (crawling is sooo last week). When he does crawl, he acts like he's upset as if to say, "Why should I have to crawl when I have two perfectly good legs?" We don't have any action movies of Bode crawling, but here are a couple pictures of Bode in a standing position which he achieved with no help from anyone.Note in the second picture Bode has already found some low-lying objects. Obviously we have to start doing some serious Bode-proofing because saying, "No Bode," works for about half a second. He's really become more active, and is even saying things that sound like words. He says, "Da da da da da," a lot; he hasn't quite figured out "Ma ma ma ma," although Ashley is feverishly trying to teach it to him.

Bode has also started eating "real" food. For second breakfast today, he had some Total cereal, some cantelope, and a thing of Gerber pears. For lunch, he dined on a bottle of milk with some cheese quesadillas, and as I write this, he's snacking on some Cheezits and blackberries with apple juice in a sippy cup. He loves his juice in a sippy cup; when I tried to take it from him, he looked and me and said, "You can have my sippy cup only if you can pry it from my cold dead hand." Odd that a baby would go around quoting Charleton Heston...

We've had a wonderful day today. This morning, Ashley was kind enough to let me go for a bike ride. You may recall I used to ride my bike a lot--I was even commuting on it last year. This year, our schedules our just a bit busier, and I haven't been able to really ride my bike. In fact, today was only the second time this summer that I was on my road bike. When you combine that with the five pounds I gained while on vacation, you have one hurting Jeffy. Much like my friend Eric (teamhallam.blogspot.com), I hear the voices of Paul Sherwin and Phil Liggette (the commentators for the Tour de France) in my head when riding. I heard many of my favorite Sherwinisms while I was trying to climb up some hills: "His legs are screaming at him," and "He's really going to have to reach down into his suitcase of courage!" constantly filled my head. As it was, I found out I forgot to pack my suitcase because when my brain said, "Engine room, this is the bridge: More power!", there was no more power to give (also a Sherwinism). The ride did feel good, and I'm sure I'll be paying for it tomorrow.

This afternoon, Ashley and I took Bode to the Kettering water park. It's like a neighborhood pool but much much better. They have this huge endless pool (maximum depth: 3 feet), two big water slides, a kiddie water slide, a diving board and more. It's a wonderful place for kids. What made it so fun was Bode loved the water. Down in Georgia, he wasn't too fond of the ocean, so we were a bit hesitant. We set him in the water and he was puzzled at first, but then he started splashing around; only once did he cry and that was after he put his face in the water. It was an awesome way to spend close to two hours. When we got home, Bode was exhausted, as the below picture can attest (no pictures from the park because I didn't want to bring the camera).Tonight, Ashley and I are going to test out our new toy--we bought a Wii, so I'm sure we'll have a serious bowling competition. She also bought NCAA Football 2009. Hopefully the mighty Air Force Falcons can defeat the Auburn Tigers. We'll have to try to convince Auburn (the dog) to babysit while we play!Pleasant day to all.