Wherein Facebook, family, friends, and providence pave the way… On October 2, 2010, after 87 years of a sometimes difficult and often blessed life my father passed away. During the months before his death, and after, I was in frequent contact with my mom and we were trying to figure…
Happy New Year
I couldn’t let the day end without wishing all of you a happy new year! Welcome to 2008! I am safely tucked away in Michigan right now. My family secure and housing provided. Work has already begun to find work. It’s going to be a good year. I’ll keep you…
AJ’s very wired and tired day
Wherein my wife and I describe a day without meds, without sleep, and concluding with a horse tranquilizer. For AJ, that is., Intro So my son has a pretty severe case of ADHD. And lest you nay-sayers pooh-pooh that notion, let me say that even when merely undermedicated both his…
Podcast: AJ’s First Last Day – Graduating Kindergarten
Last week saw a milestone pass in our house: AJ enjoyed his very first last day of his very first year of schooling. He has now officially “graduated” kindergarten. We are very proud. [Blah, blah, blah — skip Rich’s philosophizing,and go straight to the podcast!] Never having parented before, and having…
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AJ and his first day in kindergarten – a podcast interview
Update: I’ve added Jennifer’s account of AJ’s first day in the comments section, for the interested. Today we sent our little boy to school for the first time. Nobody wept. There was no gnashing of teeth, wailing, or sack-cloth and ashes. On our part, anyhow. Instead, we were excited to…
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One good shave deserves another: My bald son.
So, a couple weeks ago I decided I had enough of the receding hairline thing. I also woke up that Saturday and looked in the mirror and decided I didn’t like to look like Crusty the Clown. When hair thins, it doesn’t have fellow hairs to hang on to and…
Telling lies for fun and profit: The Tooth Fairy
Last night I enjoyed one of those moments of fatherhood I never thought about before we had kids: pulling teeth. Twice now I’ve gotten some dental floss from the cabinet, tied a knot around a loose tooth, and pulled, to reveal a bloodless tiny kernel of dentition in a tangle…
Eight Michigan Photos: AJ, Lighthouse, Lake, Church.
Just before leaving Muskegon, Michigan, this Thanksgiving, AJ started asking us about Lake Michigan, and we realized we hadn’t taken him to see the lake for a couple years. He’s nearly five, now, so he has no memories of seeing it before. So, after driving around and trying a few frozen over access points–and one over-run by hunters–we took AJ to the pier/lighthouse where I proposed to Jennifer in 1997. There was a massive ice-shelf extending into the lake (beyond the lighthouse) when I proposed (I was literally standing on nothing but ice!), but it wasn’t that cold yet this weekend, so we thought it would be a great time to visit.
Boy, was it cold. Ice had already started forming on the lighthouse and the pier leading up to it. We couldn’t get any closer than what you see in this picture because the concrete was far too icy and slippery. There were three hardy fishermen out there with us and AJ stopped and inquired of each one if they’d caught any fishies. Nobody had.
I was glad we happened to have Jen’s digital camera handy, so I could catch a couple snapshots. Enjoy the coldness.
Oh, and on the way back we stopped by a church with some of the most unusual architecture I’ve ever seen.
St. Francis de Sales church is a monumental concrete structure that is simultaneously imposing and inviting, disturbing and refreshing. It is a favorite for foto bugs in town–but photos simply cannot do it justice.
(The “Unprocessed” link below each image will lead you to the original, out-of-the-camera, unprocessed shot, if you’re interested in seeing what a little work in Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro will do. I generally just played with the histogram and made slight cropping corrections. However, the lighthouse required a little extra work to preserve the red color, AJ’s pants required rescuing from becoming black holes, and the church photos were turned to grayscale before I made histogram adjustments.)
I had a great Thanksgiving, by the way!
Kids and rituals
Friday night we went out to eat with the kids to AJ’s current favorite watering hole: Cracker Barrel. While my favorite foods are spicy Thai curries, the rest of my family prefer blander fare. Well, Jen likes Italian and TexMex quite a bit, but the kids? Oh, mac-and-cheese or boiled…
I’m flush with Oreos–or AJ doing his part to ease world hunger
When you’re four years old you can’t walk away from the chocolatey goodness that is an Oreo cookie. And there’s nothing better than a crisp Oreo dunked in cold glass of pristine milk–especially when you’re only four and a half years old. Well, perhaps reading while dunking Oreos might improve…
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Half-Baked Hams
So, the other night, I get home, and before I know it, I’m in the middle of a whirling dervish of kids spinning, crawling, leaping, and rolling. AJ’s been on this freerunning/parkour kick ever since we watched “Jump|Britain” on The Learning Channel a few weeks ago. At home he’s leaping…
Boys, keep away.
Every night I come home to a family. After nearly a decade of marriage and nearly five years being a parent, I’m still not entirely used to it. When it was just AJ and Jennifer waiting for me at home, I’d be greeted with a joyful, “Daddy’s home!” and a…
An Afternoon with the Kids
I enjoyed a great afternoon with my kids this last Sunday. Since I’ve been in a new photo-sig at work, and since I started this blog a month ago, I thought I’d take my wife’s little 3-megapixel camera with me. Sure, it’s not an SLR, but why be a snob—especially…
Thoughtful AJ
AJ looking thoughtful/worried/constipated. Take your pick. AJ is frequently “spacing out” with this blank look on his face, and about the only way for him to get out of his zone is for him to randomly slap his own forehead with his hand. It’s this weird zen-like form of autism,…
AJ at Sunset
This is a picture taken by Jennifer. AJ’s sitting happy as a clam (Are they, really, all that happy? Or is it just a sham to throw us off our game?), or something. That’s “Diesel #10” in his hands, and a Thomas the Train T-shirt. Why do boys instinctively love…
Cheeseface!
My incomparable daughter, Elisabeth, taken about two months ago. She was about a year and three months old when this picture was taken by my wife. Sadly, it’s my wife’s camera, and so I don’t usually have it to take many pictures. Hopefully, that’ll change, and I’ll be able to…