Happy (Belated) Fiscal New Year

Ok, ok, yes, I know it’s been two weeks-plus since I’ve posted; I apologize. But believe me, I have plenty of reasons (lame excuses) for not having published anything about the exciting lives of A., J., and B. McGuirk. First, in the most recent post (recent is a relative term), I mentioned that I returned from Spain having brought home “a little reminder” of Europe. Said flu wiped me out for four days. The beauty (horror) of this was Ashley had to travel to Colorado for work for the entire week, so I was charged with taking care of the Bode-man solo. Fortunately, daycare looked after Bode during the days. The only issue was getting Bode there “safely,” and by safely I will simply say that it is always dangerous to travel too far from one’s home port when one has the flu. Fortunately, I was able to get him to and from daycare without any incidents, although I was a tad nervous on one occasion (thank heavens we bought the Beamer, as the Probe wouldn’t have been able to handle the speed…) The evenings were fine, albeit not very productive. Bode and I played and had fun, and as soon as Bode went to bed, I followed immediately thereafter; hence, no blogging that week. Ashley returned on Friday to a messy house and a tired husband. The weekend was fine, except for Auburn’s (the football team) loss to Vanderbilt, the first time they’ve lost to the Commodores in our life-times (I think it was 1958, but I’m too lazy to use google to find out for sure). Following the defeat, I wasn’t my usual happy self, so I couldn’t really blog. Plus, our computer is acting a bit strange—it will simply lock up without warning. CTRL-ALT-DEL does nothing to help, and the only way to solve the problem is to perform a hard shut-down. Thus, anytime we do something on the computer, it is a race to get things done, and we’re constantly saving things as we go just in case something happens. Top all this off with a 3-day trip to Boston (I had a conference), and well, you get the picture.

That being said, blogs should resume on their normal weekly schedule from this point forward. We’re all doing fine, although Ashley is a bit bummed about Auburn losing to Arkansas. She’s just about written off the season and is really getting into the NHL (of course that’s a joke). Bode is doing great. He had a 10-month doctor’s appointment where he weighed in at 23 pounds, 4 ounces. I’m not sure how tall (long) he was, but I do know he’s in the 75th percentile for height and 75th percentile for weight, thus, like his father, he is perfectly proportioned (yes, perfect proportions do involve having a little spare tire around the midsection, so no wise-a*s comments).

A month ago, we had some nine-month old pictures taken, so if you want to see some professional photographs, go to http://www.markgarber.com and click on Portrait Gallery and then Clients. Password is Bode. Ashley had him all duded out in a Sean-John shirt, so he looks pretty slick (except for that hair—gonna have to see a stylist about that). Now for some pictures. First, I’m including a couple shots of me in Pamplona. Here’s me standing in a section where the Running of the Bulls takes place.

I can't imagine running with the bulls. The roads are quite narrow, so if a bull has you in his sights, you are doomed. Next, here’s me at some castle. Not really sure of the history of the castle, but it was quite impressive.

Ok, enough pictures of me. You probably want to see little Bode-man. Here’s the little guy with his best buddy, Auburn. She’s quite tolerant of him, as she lets him crawl all over her. She never gets upset which is good because even though Bode is getting bigger, I don’t think he could yet take on Auburn.

Here’s a shot of Bode rearranging the furniture in the sun room. He loves to push the chairs around. Unfortunately, we live in a house with walls, and when the chair hits the wall, it no longer moves, much to Bode’s displeasure.

We discovered Bode loves ice cream. He will even do what we ask if we bribe him with a lick--we ask him to say, "Da da," and he does, after which he gets a little ice cream. We then say, "Bode, say Ma ma," and he does. Pavlov would be so proud...

Here’s a shot of Bode “mowing the lawn.” I tell him this is great practice for when he's a little older...

Bode is just about walking—every now and then, he’ll realize he’s not holding on to anything and fall down. A couple times we’ve seen him take some steps between objects without holding onto anything, so we imagine he’ll be running around the house on his first birthday, which is only 45 short days away—has it really been that long??

Pleasant day, and Happy Fiscal New Year!!!

Catching Up for Lost Time

It's been almost a whole month since I last posted. Fortunately, I have some very good excuses, and also some cute little stories...but I'll get to those as I go. First, the last post was on September 8th. I had planned to post on September 14th--had some really interesting things to say about Auburn's anemic 3-2 win over Mississippi State. The game was so boring, so painful to watch, that even Bode gave up midway through the third quarter.
Fortunately, Auburn was able to eke out a win. Much the same can be said about Auburn's win over Tennessee, but I'm getting ahead of myself...

So like I said, I was planning on posting the Sunday following the Auburn-Mississippi State hockey, err, football game. However, Hurricane Ike intervened. Ashley thought Ohio would be immune to the effects of hurricanes (other than the gas-price gauging that accompanies them nowadays). She was mistaken, because on the 14th of September, a massive wind storm, the remnants of Ike, engulfed the Miami Valley. Sustained winds reached 70+ mph, and I'm sure there had to have been some much stronger gusts. We lost power at 2:30 pm; it did not come back on for ten days (yes, days. Not hours. Days.). We were very lucky in that we didn't suffer any damage to our house. We had a lot of tree limbs down, but nothing hit our house. We had neighbors that lost two huge trees in their back yard. The trees fell onto their back porch--a couple feet to the right and they would have been in serious trouble.

So, how does one cope with no power for ten days? You make due. Initially, it was kind of cute. It was like a camping trip, except with indoor plumbing and soft mattresses. We listened to football games on the radio and since we have a gas stove, we could cook. Obviously the fridge was lost, but we were able to get ice in a cooler so we could have cold drinks. As the week crept on, we started to hear things. Dayton Power and Light (DP&L) gave initial estimates that everyone would have power restored by the weekend (over 300,000 in Dayton alone lost power). This changed to "the end of the weekend" and then to 95% and then 90% of all customers having power by Sunday night. This created a huge problem, because the Auburn-LSU game was on Saturday night at 7:45 pm. "Oh, we'll have power by then," I assured Ashley on Wednesday. Slowly, houses started getting power back until our whole neighborhood had it...except our street. One of our neighbors works for DP&L and said the feeder lines that service our houses are still down. Unfortunately, this equated to only about 50 houses, so we would likely be in that 10% that wouldn't have power back Sunday night. People on our street began to get a little feisty although most were maintaining there sense of humor. Bode seemed immune to the power outage, although he probably did wonder why we were waking him up with a big flash-light in his eyes. The first time waking him up with the flashlight and saying, "You been drinking, son?" was funny. It lost a little bit of its humor on day 5.

The biggest issue (sadly) was the Auburn-LSU game. We couldn't really take Bode to the bar and watch the game. We'd be out until at least 11:30 pm or so, and we didn't want to mess with his sleep schedule. Nor could get someone to watch the little Dude--"Can you come sit in our dark house while Bode sleeps so we can go watch a football game?" didn't really sound like a good way to recruit a sitter. Thus, Ashley was resigned to "watching" the game on the radio. Fortunately, Ashley married someone that really loves her and vowed to move heaven and earth to let her see the game. I saw that our friends a couple streets over had power. We have four or five extension cords in our garage, and our neighbors have a lot of extension cords which weren't being used. I gathered up about 500 feet of cord, trekked through some backyards and across the street, and showed up at Emily's and Tony's with a three-pronged outlet in hand. "We'll only run the TV," I promised. After they finished laughing, they were glad to help, and we were able to see the game, which Auburn lost...so thanks to me, Ashley was able to see her beloved Tigers lose. I guess I shouldn't pat myself on the back too hard, huh?

The Sunday after the Auburn-LSU game (the 21st of September), I left for Pamplona, Spain. I'll document that trip in a future post. Ashley and Bode pressed on without power until Wednesday the 24th and things returned to normal. I got back late on Saturday--managed to see the Auburn-Tennessee game in the airport in Philadelphia. The trip was fine, except I didn't realize Montezuma's brother, Enrique, was from Spain and he's just as evil (which is why I'm writing this Monday morning from home, staying a safe distance from the bathroom at all times.)

Pleasant day.

The Same Bode?

First and foremost: Auburn won on Saturday. It was a ho-hum game against Southern Mississippi, although Auburn did play much better than last week. The offense piled up yards, and the contest wasn't ever in doubt. The final score was 27-13, but Auburn fumbled twice in the first quarter inside the opponents 10-yard line. Hopefully they learn to wipe the grease off their hands before playing. Bode was, as expected, thrilled with the outcome.This week, Auburn has an SEC game against Mississippi State, a team they (horrifically) lost to last season. I think Auburn will be a heavy favorite going into the game; let's keep our fingers crossed.

I was going through some old pictures of Bode. Well, old isn't really the right word since he is only 9-months. What surprised me is that Bode doesn't really look like the original Bode we brought home from the hospital. You be the judge. First, here he is when he's about three weeks old.Now here's a shot of him before the Auburn game on Saturday, nine months later.
Is this really the same kid? Obviously he's grown some--probably tripled in weight--mostly in his head and gut-- and gotten a little longer (I can't really say "taller" until he's standing on his own). He also has a lot more hair, and his face is starting to develop its own unique features. He still has that "baby look" (although he's lost that new baby smell), but he also has some features and expressions that are unique to him. He's definitely a little person with his own personality rather than just some little creature that gurgles and cries every so often (although he was crying last night at 0400...little guy is starting to become rather attached to Mommy).

Well, nothing else exciting to report. We had a lazy weekend--lots of football (Go Steelers!!) intermixed with trying to entertain Bode. In our (little) spare time, we read some. Ashley is reading Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith and I'm (embarrassingly) reading the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. For those that don't know, her books are hot sellers in the "teenage girl" category, so I have to act like I'm buying them for my daughter when I go to the store... They are a good story and easy to read especially if you have to stop every other line to say, "Bode, put that down." The little dude is getting into everything.

Pleasant week to you all.

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.