Hawkins: Adventures in Parenting »

July is no June, but it’s not August yet either. No. Wait, it’s already August too.

August 19, 2010

‪July was a busy month around here. The evidence of this ‬is that I’ve not filed an update here in over a month. At the end of July I exhibited with World Famous Comics at the San Diego International Comic Con. It is the largest convention of it’s kind in the world, and attendance this year was in the range of 140,000 people. It’s a lot of fun, and I’ve met a lot of really good people there over the years. But it’s physically taxing. I’m not as young as I used to be, and every year it gets harder to stand in a booth for 8 hours and then spend all night drinking.

After a week of that, it takes me a while to decompress and get back in the swing of my normal life.

The past month has been full of milestones.

We had our first boo boo that required a bandaid.

We discovered that kitchen cabinets open.

We had our first fist bump.

We learned that toilet paper is fun.

We started feeding ourselves.

We turned 10 months old.

We took our first walk in the stroller without the car seat.

Of course, I’m using the royal “we” to speak about Logan. I’ve already done all those things. Except feeding myself. That’s a new milestones for me as well.

The doctor gave Logan a clean bill of health during his July checkup and he weighed in at 17lbs. Still very much on the small side, but he continues to grow at a pace he’s set for himself. Any concern we have for his low weight is diminished by watching him eat. Logan can hold his own spoon now, and about 2 times out of three even manages to get the food in his mouth.

Two more months and my little fella will be a year old.

Tags: Milestones

Posted in: Bean, Travel – 2 Comments

Nine months old

July 12, 2010

Remember all that stuff I said about turning 9 months old? Well, now it’s true. So, I guess, review that stuff.

Making it to 9 months means crossing a lot of milestones off your checklist of developmental activities. Logan has mastered the pincer grip, which, as it turns out, is a real thing, and not part of a super villain’s oeuvre.

He grabs food, puts it in his mouth and almost all the time completely avoids choking. This is significantly more difficult than it appears to me as an adult, and you can read the concentration on his face while he slowly and determinedly grasps a treat, studies it, and crams it in his crier.

Most of the time, the treat is even food. Okay, some of the time.

Pretty soon I expect he’ll even be playing the piano, instead of just banging on it with blocks and drooling on the keys.

Logan long ago mastered sitting up, and has moved on to standing with the assistance of inanimate objects. After a little bit of practice, he nailed the difficult transition from standing to sitting.

Crawling is something that he still does in the manner of a wounded soldier avoiding machine gun fire, dragging one leg and pulling himself along the floor on his belly. He has, however, increased the speed and range with which he employs this maneuver, as well as the volume and frequency of the excited calking noise that pin points his location in the home. He’s like a bat. That crawls. Sometimes with surprising speed.

Increased crawling has led to increased exploration, frequently at the expense of his parents nerves. No, you can’t play with the bowl of crushed glass, or the pond full of piranha wearing their laser helmets. Put down that hand grenade young man. And keep your distance from covered electrical outlets!

We anticipate he will start walking any week now, at which point I’m certain he’ll become much easier to keep track of.

I just made myself laugh.

Tags: crawling, eating

Posted in: Bean – 3 Comments

The laughter of children

June 28, 2010

Mark Twain wrote, “he laughs best who laughs least.” Far be it from me to question such a notable American scribe, but my boy Logan is putting that to the test. He not only laughs like a maniacal super villain huffing helium, but when he gets going, he’ll do it for a really long time.

Tags: laughter

Posted in: Bean – 4 Comments

Weekend Adventure Fun Time

June 14, 2010

There are a lot of things you expect to find in Las Vegas; bright lights, playing cards, flashy whores. These are expected items, frequently included on many To Do lists of sun struck tourists. Among the things you rarely expect to find in Las Vegas is an orchard.

I’m not sure what I was expecting when I heard about the Gilcrease Orchard. Sandy dunes separated with sickly rows of brown twigs hung with crow picked rotters perhaps. What I didn’t expect to find was a proper orchard. Long rows of green fruit trees laden with plump offerings. This wasn’t simply near Las Vegas, or in the same county as Las Vegas, this was in Las Vegas. Bordered on several sides by residential neighborhoods.

Frankly, I’m still a bit in shock.

We pulled in some nice zucchini, apricots, Yukon Gold potatoes and some ridiculously delicious apple cider.

On Sunday, we tucked over to Grandma Cora’s to combine Logan’s 8 month birthday a week late, with Father’s Day, a week early. Like all proper secular holidays, age related celebrations and themed parades, we celebrated with barbecue ribs and Boston cream pie. Since the week had warmed from two days of cooling clouds and light rain, we opted for a bit of a swim. This was Logan’s first experience with a swimming pool. He didn’t appear to enjoy it much.

Tags: Adventure, fruit, orchard, swimming

Posted in: Bean, Food – No Comments

New recruit

June 8, 2010

Science Officer Lt. Commander Logan Hawkins reports for duty aboard the USS Pioneer.

Sitting at the Science Station on the bridge, he is responsible for monitoring all sensor scans and identifying anomalies near the vessel’s course.

Posted in: Bean, Bean Gear – 1 Comment

When did becoming a cranky old man become a career goal?

June 7, 2010

Sunday was my birthday. This is how I celebrate my birthday.

I have an odd relationship with birthdays. I’m sure that as a child I enjoyed the attention and the gifts. For just about as long as I can remember though, I find most of the spectacle awkward and somewhat embarrassing.

I get intensely uncomfortable when people sing Happy Birthday, or ask me what kind of gift I want. When my wife asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday, I replied that all I wanted to do was hang out with my friends. Nothing fancy. Nothing elaborate.

I’m aware that at some level, this seems to make everyone believe I’m petulant or ill humored.

Sorry about that. I don’t think it can be helped.

In league with my discomfort over the celebration, is the growing presence of my age. Thirty eight isn’t a significant milestone with regards to aging, and in many respects it’s not all that old. When I think about my age in comparison to the parts of my life that have already transpired, it starts to blow my mind a little bit.

It’s been ten years since I started dating my wife. It’s been twenty years since I graduated from high school and joined the Army. It’s been thirty years since I first shot a gun. It’s one thing to think of a childhood location and think, “I haven’t been to that place in twenty years or more.” It’s another thing to find myself in a rarely visited part of Vegas and think, “I haven’t been to this part of town in 15 years” and reflect that when last I visited, I was an adult.

Now I have a son, and I keep thinking of my the years in my life in relationship to my father and his life. My father was younger than I am now when I was born, but he always seemed like an old man to me. I don’t feel old, except when I try to sit on the floor, but I realize now that I will always be old in the eyes of my son.

Tags: birthday, grandpa, steak

Posted in: Bean, Food – 1 Comment

Road Trip to Sacramento

June 3, 2010

Every year, for the past three or four years, my wife and her mother travel to Sacramento to visit family over Memorial Day weekend. It’s a trip they enjoy, and one that I typically don’t join them for. We spent some time in the past week lamenting the fact that because Logan is only 8 months old, traveling by airplane wasn’t something we likely wanted to do with him if it could be avoided.

My wife was lamenting the loss of the annual trip and the opportunity to share our son with her family. I was lamenting my now traditional Memorial Day weekend of Drunken Debauchery and Not Wearing Pants. It was a painful decision for both of us.

Nearly at the last minute, sometime on Wednesday, my wife IMs me and asks how I would feel about her driving to Sacramento with the baby and her mother.

I had a chance. I had to play it cool. Come on too strong and she’d ask why I wanted her away (drunk, no pants, video games all day), come on too soft, and she might decide not to go. This was a situation that required delicacy and diplomacy, neither of which are skills frequently attributed to me.

Sacramento is a 9.5 hour drive from Vegas. It’s a trip that I wouldn’t personally want to make. After about 5 hours in a car, my crippled knees start to painfully cramp.

I played it cool.

“It’s a long drive. If you’re going to do it, I’d rather you take my car.”

“That makes sense,” was her reply. It did make sense. My Tdi Jetta Sport Wagon has far superior fuel efficiency to her Mazda 3s, as well as more storage room and more torque for climbing mountain passes. The conversation quickly and naturally turned to one of logistics, and I knew I was home free.

I loosened my belt in preparation for taking my pants off.

[Not Pictured]

Cameron left Friday morning, and after visiting every rest stop on the way, arrived in Sacramento that evening. They had picnics, went to the zoo, and Logan spent a good amount of time crawling around in an entirely different and new house. Which must be something like the experience I would have if I went to the moon for a weekend.

From what I understand, Logan was very good on the trip, his first long car ride, and spent most of the time alternating between sleeping and keeping up a runny commentary on what he could see out the back window of the car in a language that no one can understand.

While they were gone, I started painting my Bronco. I wore pants for that.

Tags: Sacramento, Travel, zoo

Posted in: Bean, Travel – No Comments

Mea Culpa

June 2, 2010

Okay, you know what? I’m not a terrible father.

I am, however, pretty bad at math. I have a bachelors degree in Anthropology, largely because the math requirements were so low. And, to be perfectly frank, I failed one of those classes. Multiple times. It’s a personal failing I’ve learned to live with, largely with the assistance of things like calculators, computers, and my wife. I’m sure it won’t be too long before Logan is correcting my math as well.

Next weekend, Logan will be eight months old. Not, as it turns out, nine.

I’m as disappointed in me as you are.

Here’s a video of Logan crawling.

Tags: crawling

Posted in: Bean – 2 Comments

Equal time

May 31, 2010

Within a week Logan will be 9 months old and I’ll be 38. It’s just another birthday for me, but for Logan this week is something of a milestone. On the 9th he will have spent as much time outside the womb as he did inside.

It’s not the sort of thing you usually get a card for.

Logan continues to develop at what seems like an advanced pace. A few weeks ago he demonstrated the pincer grip. While I thought the pincer grip was an emerging kung fu skill, I was corrected swiftly. It turns out it’s a significant milestone skill in the baby’s life, demonstrating some expanding coordination.

Standing is one of Logan’s new favorite activities. He can’t quite balance by himself, but he’s strong enough to rise and stand on his own, as long as he has something to hold onto. Most often, this has to be or his mother.

Crawling is something that Logan had showed little to no interest in until very recently. Once on his belly, the boy would spread his arms and legs out in airplane maneuver and start crying. We were beginning to suspect he would walk before he crawled.

And then he just started doing it. He’s not terribly accomplished at crawling yet, he tends to drag one leg and grunt a lot. He looks for all the world like a miniature wounded soldier attempting to crawl out of no man’s land. He’s working on it though.

Tags: crawling, pincer grip

Posted in: Bean – 2 Comments

Further evidence of the decline of milkman as an avocation.

May 5, 2010

This is a picture of me taken when I was just over a year old. The contraption I’m imprisoned in is an early model of the car safety seat. It’s made out of what appears to be stainless steel tubing and vinyl. I’m sure it was intensely uncomfortable, which is why I’m attempting to escape.

My mother tells me that his is a maneuver I frequently engaged in. I would lift one leg far past its current range of flexibility and thrust it out of whatever restraint I was strapped into. Evidently I was quite good at it.

This is a picture of my son taken a few weeks ago.

It would seem that not only has Logan inherited my extraordinary good looks and roguish charm, but also, my genetic disposition for a distaste in restraints. Until this moment, I was unaware that escapism was an inherited quality. With any luck he’s also managed to inherit his mother’s good sense with money as well as her study habits.

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Hawkins: Adventures in Parenting