Happy Vet's Day

Hopefully everyone is enjoying the holiday. I say this in jest because most of you don't get Veteran's Day off. Of course, being on a Tuesday this year it's sort of a waste...not that I'm complaining. Daycare is closed, so Bode had to stay home. Evidently Ashley didn't trust me with Bode alone...something about a recent bike crash...so she took the day off. We slept in until 0700, got up, fed the piglets (Auburn, Dudley, and Bode), and then went out to run some errands. We tried to do some Christmas shopping but didn't have much luck, although Bode was fascinated by some of the cool items in Toys R Us. We told him Santa might bring him what he wants IFF (if and only if for you math types) he behaves himself.

We came back around lunch time, ate, and now Bode is napping. Ashley headed back out to run some more errands while I'm in monitoring mode. In case we didn't tell you, we did some tile work this past weekend. We took out the carpet in our foyer and replaced it with ceramic tile. It turned out pretty nice. Due to Ashley's broken finger, she was unable to do a lot of the work...lucky me. We did have a friend over at the house that helped us with some of the finer points. Plus, having a third-party expert really eliminated any possible arguments between the two of us because when in doubt, we did what Clay said. Here is a picture of the finished product.We are also taking down the wall-paper to the right of the stairs. We hope to finish that this week and paint some time in the near future. Home improvement projects never end, do they?

We've been having lots of fun with the little man. Here's Bode jamming out on the keyboard.Bode likes to mash on the keys, and the beauty of the electronic keyboard is the volume control. Sometimes Bode is more interested in the control settings, probably due to the LED's that change whenever he presses a button. He's not really playing music yet, although he does seem to like it when Ashley and I play songs on the piano. His favorite: the Star Wars theme (of course). After all that keyboarding, Bode gets sleepy. Here he is curled up with Mommy on his little blanket.
Hug a Vet today.

Belated Halloween

Sorry this post is out of sequential order, but I had to wait until I had copies of the pictures. For Halloween, we did not take Bode trick-or-treating. Yes, we are bad, awful parents. However, please allow me to explain. First, let me say the state of Ohio is somewhat weird (but in a good way). You see, trick-or-treating doesn't necessarily occur on Halloween. They have something called Beggar's Night. I'm not sure of the origins, but some years, Beggar's Night and Halloween are on the same day; other years, they are not. For example, this year, Halloween was on Friday, 31 October, while Beggar's Night was on Thursday, 30 October. I'm not sure what days Beggar's Night and Halloween would fall on the same day, but I did read that if Halloween is on a Friday, Beggar's Night is on the Thursday before it because the state did not want to jeopardize attendance at high-school football games. Thus, in Ohio, football takes precedence over Halloween. Gotta love a state that has its priorities in order :-)

On Halloween, daycare asked that parents dress their kids in what they want to be when they grow up (as if they already know; I'm still trying to figure that out for myself). We remembered this the morning we were dressing Bode. Thus, we put him in a nice outfit with a cool jacket, slicked his hair, and said, "He's going to be a model." A bit of a stretch (especially if you think Bode looks like me), but at least it was something. Now here's the odd part. All the other kids in Bode's daycare room came dressed as animals (I didn't realize one had this career option). To make Bode fit in with the animals, they put a little farmer's outfit on Bode and had a farm theme going.Evidently Bode thought he was still dressed as a model and was showing off "Blue Steele" (if you haven't seen Zoolander you won't get this joke). Here's a close up of Farmer Bode with a hint of a smile.
We didn't take Bode trick-or-treating because we thought, since he's still pretty young, that we'd be just asking people for candy for us. Yes, a lame excuse. Rest assured, next year the Little Dude will be all decked out. Costume planning begins next week. Any idea where I can get a light-saber?

Pleasant Saturday.

The Walking Dude**

It had to happen sooner or later. Bode, that little seven pound bundle we brought home from the hospital less than a year ago, has started stumbling, err, walking. I say stumbling because his gait really isn't that fluid smooth movement one associates with the great running backs like Gale Sayers or Walter Payton. No, Bode's movement is like that of a man whose been sitting in a bar for many hours pounding beer after beer on an empty stomach who suddenly decides to stand up and walk. Perhaps a video would best explain what I mean.

In the video, he doesn't make it very far before falling. Thus, it wasn't his best effort. He's probably walked 20-30 feet continuously without falling, although he sometimes has to pause and reassess his balance. What terrifies me is when I watch a little boy in his day care class running. Good heavens those little guys can move fast! I can only hope Bode's girth will slow him down...

Here's a good shot of Bode walking to Mommy. The shot really isn't that good of a picture of Bode. What I like is the sheer joy on Ashley's face seeing her little man walk to her. She didn't even get that excited when I got her diamond earrings last Christmas :-)We had our first accident this past weekend. The result was a broken finger, a smashed knee, some road-rash on a shoulder, and a sore jaw. Before you panic, I'm fine (only kidding). Bode, the one you really care about, is also fine. The aforementioned injuries were inflicted on Miss Ashley...and it sort of was my fault. We went for a bike ride on Sunday. I was pulling Bode in his trailer while Ashley was riding behind us. I probably was going too fast (although too fast is relative because it really was quite slow, but evidently not slow enough). One of the driveways up onto the sidewalk was somewhat of a diagonal, so the trailer went over uneven ground, which resulted in it flipping onto its side. I didn't notice what was happening until Ashley started screaming. I look down and see the trailer overturning, so I hit the brake. Fortunately, I intentionally have my front-brake very loose in case such an occurrence happens, thereby preventing me from flying over the handle bars. Unfortunately, because I stopped so suddenly, Ashley had to stop suddenly. Alas, her front brake is rather tight, so I got to see her fly over her handle-bars and smack onto the ground. Being the good husband but bad father, I first went to Ashley, forgetting about the overturned trailer (yes, I"ll be paying for that one for awhile) when Ashley (in intense pain) screams, "Check him!" Bode was crying, but really not hurt because he was strapped in. I consoled him and in a few minutes, he was fine. Not so for Ashley, whose fingers were bent backwards rather severely, her knee and shoulder badly scraped, and a very sore chin. It could have been much worse. We managed to get home and her knee really swelled up, as did her fingers. We didn't go to the emergency room, but she did get X-rays the next day and was told her ring finger was broken. Fortunately she had the good sense to remove her rings right after the wreck and before the swelling set in...We've had a fun week. Bode's new mobility seems to make him a lot more tired at night. He's been going to bed around 7:30 every night. This may sound great, but it's sort of sad for us because we don't see him that much during the day and wish we had more time with him. I guess we'll just have to double the fun on weekends!Here are a few things worth your time. We've been watching True Blood on HBO--pretty good show so far. Also, if you have never watched The Last Lecture on youtube, it is definitely worth the time (just google "last lecture" and you'll find a link to the video). Finally, the episode of South Park on Wednesday was hilarious (well, the way they portrayed McCain and Obama supporters was funny; the Ocean's Eleven/Thirteen parody was so-so).

Pleasant Friday to all.

** For you Stephen King enthusiasts, I realize 'the Walking Dude' was one of the aliases of Randall Flagg from The Stand. For those that haven't read The Stand (shame on you), Randall Flagg is the instrument of evil, perhaps even the devil himself. In fact, in many of King's books, Flagg or some version of him is always "the bad guy." Using the name here to describe Bode is just a coincidence.

Eleven Months and Counting

This week, Bode will turn 11-months old. It was about this time one year ago that we began this little blog. It's turned out better than we expected because 1) it gives family and friends the opportunity to see pictures of the Bode-man frequently (a big plus); 2) I've been able to convert the blog to a .pdf file, which means this blog has become our electronic scrap-book of Bode's first year (also a big plus); and 3) the blog allows me the opportunity to share all my thoughts and insights with you, our dear readers (a plus for me, probably a big minus for you).

Well I'm sure you can guess the mood in the McGuirk household. Auburn was thorougly whipped Thursday night by West Virginia, bringing their record to an unimpressive 4-4. P.U. With upcoming games against Georgia and Alabama, Auburn will be lucky to finish .500. Here's hoping. The mighty Pittsburgh Steelers lost to the Giants, the Buckeyes also lost, the Bengals are in the toilet, and my suggestion to do away with the Congress and give the power of the purse to me has been largely ignored by the masses. Weather is forecast to be in the 30's this week with the possibility of snow. Thus, you're probably guessing we are somewhat depressed. Quite the contrary, we are constantly finding that silver lining in the omnipresent clouds in the Dayton area (although Ashley seems to have more trouble doing that than me).

Here's some good news. A dear friend of ours (Eric Hallam) wrote a children's book, and has asked for some free publicity (note to self: as a man, don't refer to some other dude as "a dear friend." Yes, it's the 00's but calling another guy "a dear friend" just sounds wrong). Knowing the reading audience of our blog is in the tens of millions on a daily basis, he asked that we put out a not-so-discrete advertisement. His book is called Big Dreams, and you can visit his website at Dreamseedbooks.com. Here's a picture of the book's cover--the artwork is really cool and Eric does a great job putting into rhyme what we all dreamed as small kids.Bode had another great week. We continue to thank God, Allah, and anyone else within shouting distance that Bode is not a discriminating eater. Anything we put in front of him quickly disappears. A friend of ours has a son who is over a year old that only eats pureed food. This week, Bode ate spaghetti, Mexican casserole, cheese quesadillas, a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, pancakes, scrambled eggs, and a whole produce store of fruit (bananas, honey-dew, blackberries, carrots, green-beans, apples, oranges, peaches, and strawberries). Here's shot of Bode after he ate...quite the carnage.All that eating requires Bode to do lots of exercise; otherwise, he'll get fat(ter). Here he is doing laps around the house. He hasn't quite walked yet. He's taken two or three steps between support structures but can't quite seem to be able to sustain an upright posture...we think his belly is causing him to topple forward :-) Note also the Nebraska Cornhusker attire. Because of the aforementioned poor performance of Ashley's team, Bode has switched allegiances...note also it appears Bode can only wear one sock at a time. He's this generation's Michael Jackson (oh God, please no!) We also had to rename the dog. Here's a shot of "Nebraska" waiting for some scraps--not sure if you can make out the thin line of drool hanging from her mouth.Bode started doing something really cute today. Ashely was holding him and started breathing real fast in and out of her nose. Bode thought this was hilarious. What was funnier was he would imitate you doing it. Here is a movie.

Not much on tap for tonight. No football on TV--well, I think Tulsa is playing one of the directional Floridas on the ocho (ESPN2--watch Dodgeball if you don't get the joke). I might try to read some. I've put World Without End on hold. I got about 100 pages into it--very good, but I really have to focus on it. I picked up The Eight by Katherine Neville and started reading it and got sucked in. Pretty good story so far--promises to be DaVinci Code-esque on the book cover; we'll see.

Pleasant week to everybody and have a great All Saint's Eve!

Bode the Bully

The other day, Ashley went to day care to pick up Bode. Usually Bode gets very excited to see either of us when we go get him. It's actually quite sweet. He'll see us and sort of laugh/smile. Then, he'll crawl as fast as he can over to us, and pull himself up and stand in front of us. If we don't pick him up then and there, he'll start to wail. Ashley was expecting a similar reaction--she's gotten used to being greeted with such enthusiasm. However, this day was different. Ashley had arrived during snack time. Bode was seated at the little table and chairs with a fig newton in each hand. Bode sort of glared at Mommy, sensing she might try to take away his cookies. He quickly started gnawing on the cookie in one hand, shoving as much as he could into his mouth before moving on to the next. Ashely sort of laughed and proceeded to the sign-out log. She made some small talk with one of the ladies in the room until she heard a kid start screaming. Ashley looked over to see that Bode had finished his cookies, gotten up from the table, and stolen another kid's cookies--he'd taken them right out of the kid's hand. Evidently, the little Bode-man is a cookie freak...I wonder where he gets that from?

Here's a quick movie of Bode doing the assisted-walking thing while listening to some crazy techno music.

Bode's hair has gotten quite long, and we think we might have to get it trimmed. I told Ashley I could take him to the base barber, point at my hair, and say, "Put this do on that kid's head." Well Ashley doesn't really want to torture the kid because, for some reason, she really doesn't like my hair cut. There's a place down the street that cuts kid's hair, so we might try that later. Here's a shot of Bode shortly after waking up...he's got kind of a Dr. Emmet Brown (Back to the Future) thing going .Note the tongue sticking out. He seems to be doing this quite a lot, especially when he's thinking. Either that or he's been spending too much time with Dudley and Auburn. The weather is starting to get a little cooler, so Bode is having to abandon his t-shirt, shorts, and bare-feet look for the long-sleeves and pants. Here he is all decked after a nice breakfast of fruit and pancakes-a-la-Daddy. Doesn't his hair look "slick?" Note also the ubiquitous tongue...Here are some book ideas if you're into the reading thing. I finished reading The Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. It was good--the last book was somewhat disappointing, and I didn't like how it ended. However, these four books held positions 1,2,3, and 5 on USA Today's top selling books of the summer quarter, so the masses seem to enjoy them. I also read Third Degree by Greg Iles (very good). If you are too happy and need to become depressed, Cormac McCarthy will do the trick. I read No Country for Old Men (see the movie if you don't like to read) and also The Road. I guess they're very good from a literary stand point, but, like I said, not real pick-me-ups. I'm currently reading World Without End (good so far) and Ashley is reading The Count of Monte Cristo (a classical masterpiece). If you're really really bored, go here: http://www.opticsinfobase.org. You'll be thrilled :-)

No big plans for today. We'll probably do some work around the house (Ashley wants to take down some wall paper), and then watch the Steelers-Bungles (Bengals) game.

Pleasant Sunday.

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.