So tonight's the last night. Reid and I didn't do much of anything, and the sleep deprivation exercises I've been doing have finally caught up with me. Seriously, I'm muscle-sore like a college student after a couple all nighters.

It doesn't help that I generally don't get to bed until midnight with a nightly RPOD (my labor of love) as well as random work/household stuff. Sleep is a higher priority around here when K is available to point out how late it is and how sleepy she is.

I've enjoyed this batch of RPODs, for sure, and we've heard from folks who check out Reid's adventures with interest. We thank everybody for reading. After two weeks of RPOD-action, things generally go quiet for a little while, but I'm going to try to keep posting at least two or three times a week. I'm investing in a little technology in the form of an external hard drive so we're going to be attempting a bold experiment with video on the RPOD soon. Stay tuned!

One thing I have noticed is that my understanding of our digital cameras (though not by any means the quality of my photographs) has grown. One little camera we have can do a lot more, but I'm noticing on many shots I don't end up using that the camera actually focused on something else in the frame, probably because Reid was so mobile it couldn't get a lock on him. This won't change. I also played with some of the light settings, and you can see that the photo above, which was taken after dark using only incandescent bulbs in our house including one behind an amber shade, has a much more natural look. 14 days, baby, and I got the light balance down! Whooo!

I'm going to try to coax Katrena to post something on the RPOD. She's shy, which is why she keeps jetting off to exotic locales only to have her trip reflected in the home-bound activities of Reid and myself. Maybe you'll hear from her. Cause, man, I'm tired.

Well, our long national nightmare is soon drawing to a close. K leaves her far-flung destination as I type these words, and after stops in Asia and Europe on her way, she will be back home Wednesday night.

Tonight Reid and I were going to go to a neighborhood babysitting co-op meeting mostly to try and meet other parents in our general area. It's hard when you don't know people in the neighborhood to really forge links. Something like this would be a real treat.

Unfortunately, a combination of things conspired to push the co-op social off our agenda. Hopefully, we can still get involved, but the main loss is the connection to the other parents. We have friends who are having kids, but nobody really in our neighborhood who we can connect with.

Reid is young yet for actual stranger-babysitting. Most of the babysitting we've had has been grandparents or other relatives, and quite a bit of the traditional we're-going-out-tonight babysitting has happened after Reid has already gone to sleep. In most circumstances, he wouldn't know if King Kong was down here.

So, missing the event was a shame.

We did try something new tonight. Based on very little research apart from the anecdotal kind, I've decided to try adding an evening snack to Reid's schedule. A lot of parents do a post-supper snack, and I've decided that a healthy little something something could be the added extra item in Reid's stomach that allows for a better night's sleep. The fact of the matter is that, based on my half-dozen solo no-daycare days this past two weeks, Reid excels at lunch time and has begun to falter at dinner time.

Generally speaking, our schedule is to have a healthy snack about two hours after each meal. So, cereal at 7 or so, banana at 9, lunch at 11:30, Yo-Baby at 2 or so, nap somewhere in here, dinner at 6. Some of our dinners have been stellar eating experiences. Most have not. Certainly on days he is at daycare (where unfortunately, snacking is reckless, seemingly endless and often not healthy), dinner is often wrecked.

But even last night was a good example. Reid ate a great lunch, scrod (!) and corn on the cob, mashed potatoes and some fruit. Great meal. Dinner last night was spaghetti and meatballs and Reid was less than excited. He ate maybe one meatball. It was a big meatball, but still. We were eating around 6:30.

No evening snack, of course, and then, the wake-up call. 2:50 am, moaning with diffuse toddler malaise. No real distress, in fact, just crying for crying's sake. Some parents have told me that baby's don't really wake up with hunger, but if they wake up enough they'll do some cranking even though they probably don't really want to wake all the way up and deal with it. I believe that's what I experienced last night.

So, tonight, I made a roast in the crock pot. Reid ate some carrots, potatoes and a good amount of the meat. But he lost interest quickly, and didn't really "finish" what was probably a normal meal, certainly not as much food as he ate, for instance, at lunch the other day with the fish. So we had a snack at 7:25 before we went up for our bath. We'll see how it goes.

We're excited that Reid's mom is coming home. Okay, I've told Reid that she's coming home, but he just looks around confusedly. Toddlers with limited language don't really understand the whole "coming home in two days" construct, I guess.

The panel of pictures at the right demonstrates Reid's 6-minute campaign of unwavering determination to get the Little People Helicopter somehow into the Little People Playground's upper level. Fortunately for the Little People involved, Reid was called away on urgent business (I was trying to read the paper) and didn't raise the campaign to the next level.

Day two of the shut-in life of Reid and his Dad in the face of the class three killstorm wasn't that bad. In fact, the National Capitol Region avoided the most aggressive of the snow, so the real problem was just unplowed streets. Our street never gets plowed, I believe, unless the storm happens in close proximity to garbage-day. That's because the garbage truck drivers also drive the snowplows, natch.

Anyhow, we made out way out into the snowpack and visited some malls before the stores open (great fun), had a good time eating fish and later meatballs, and basically made a day of it. There is deadly cold in the form of high winds, so we're limiting outdoor exposure through creative commercial parking techniques, and dropping items from our itinerary with impunity:

Me: Can't find a place to park, Reid.
Reid: Gra. Mu-UUUU mu-UUUU mu-UUUU. (Begins to chew coat.)
Me: Guess we'll go to the grocery store some other time then.

We did want to report again on the fashionable sweatshirt whose demise was prematurely forecast in an earlier post. Through the wonders of Spray 'n' Wash, the sweatshirt was revived and Reid wore it today.



In other news, K will be pleased to find that Reid's previous periodic climbing behavior has been upgraded to full-blown scrambling monkey status. This photograph was taken moments after I ordered Reid to climb down from the back of the couch where he had perched himself to eat a piece of fruit. I handed him the fruit, and he ran excitedly out of the kitchen, which is standard fare. Normally, however, the fruit is just juiced over/mashed into the furniture, or any expensive items inadvertently left in the open. Because of this, I walked into the living room with a camera at the ready to capture and chronicle this amusing act of childhood home destruction.

I was sorely mistaken. Reid was couch-perched like he spent hours whiling away the afternoon on the back of the chesterfield. "Reid! Get down from there!" (Father raises camera while diving toward boy, snaps picture. Boy begins to roll down onto couch, ensuring memories of scolding are wiped away by exciting fearless childhood sensations. Repeat.)

The snow day wasn't bad, actually. Because Reid is not the sort of person who willfully accepts a lot of binding clothing, getting ready to go out was more of struggle. I had decided to only go outside if the actual precipitation slowed enough that we didn't look like candidates for institutionalization. It did, to a degree, so I began the bundling of the boy. Mittens first, then sweatshirt, then a grownup scarf (we have no toddler scarf), then coat, then extra socks and shoes. Reid was like Ralphie's brother in "A Christmas Story," with his arms stiff and sticking straight out. I planted him in the stroller and we hit the streets.

While I Was bundling the snow rate must have picked up. I got about one house away and the top of the stroller was covered in snow. We turned back. (We had offered to bring Dixie; she wisely declined.)

We stood on the porch playing with the snow that had built up on the ledge there. I'm not sure exactly how parents get toddlers to put their thumbs into the thumbholes on mittens. No matter how many times I say, "No, Reid, as I'm sliding these mittens over your hands, put your thumbs in the little opening," it doesn't happen. Shocking, I know. So Reid really wanted to play with the ledge snow (or at least that's how I interpret the fact that his rigid arms were gesturing, in a sweeping motion since he couldn't bend at the elbows, at the snow). He felt the mitten-and-snow experience was unfulfilling. Off came the mittens.

Update from Reid to his father, via shocked expression: This. Is. Very. Cold.

We goofed around with it until he got bored (which happened, thankfully, before he got frostbite) and we went inside and took off all the layers. I imagine myself making hot chocolate, but I guess that doesn't apply to toddlers.

We just read the paper instead.

The hits do keep coming. Last night, I crept into Reid's room before I went to sleep, as K or I have done every night since he started sleeping. It was about one a.m. He had been making a lot of noise, but that isn't uncommon for him. He's a mobile sleeper, constantly shifting around in his bed, banging his head and body into the bars of his crib and making a racket like he's building a boat or something up there. So I wasn't necessarily concerned that he wasn't asleep. That's because what happened next has never happened before.

He woke up.

I froze like the humans in "Jurassic Park," hoping that the rules for Tyrannosaurus Rex apply for my son as well. They do not. He saw me immediately and hopped right up with all the normal eagerness Reid brings to your average 6 a.m. wakeup. This is not a good sign.

Fortunately, I was able to get him back to sleep after a little while. I gave him a hug, I laid him back down and covered him with a blanket. About twenty minutes later, he finally fell asleep. Of course, I had to listen to him shout for that twenty minutes, but such is life.

Life also includes, however, Reid waking up again at 3. Gentle into that good night Reid does not go. In fact, to continue the metaphor, he rages against the dying of the light. This time, he was wailing. A half hour of shouting without pause made me believe that I needed to check on him. Remember, he bangs around in there like a construction worker while he's sleeping so it's just a matter of time before he injures himself or escapes from the crib. So I check on him and he has worked himself into a hysterical lather, over what I have no idea. I'm a hard-edged parent, you know, so I won't pick him up, or I'll be picking him up every night until he's 17. No, I tell him to lay back down and go to sleep, trying to repeat my success of two hours earlier.

No such luck. We repeat this a time or two and then I decide to take a different, slightly more daddy-intensive, but no less hard-edged parenting tactic. I sat in the room while Reid fell asleep after about a half-hour. His nearly sleepless night did have an upside, however. Reid slept until 7:40 this morning, long after his normal 6:15 wakeup and permitting his dad to shave and shower unhurried.

But I began this by mentioning the hits. Reid and I are going to try some snow-antics this weekend. The National Weather Service has forecasted a major snowstorm beginning tomorrow at 7 a.m. and dropping 4-8 inches of snow before it's done at the same time Sunday. I'm hoping that it won't be too cold out for Reid and I to frolic in the snow. An earlier snowstorm that brought about 2 inches wasn't something we could really enjoy because it got so cold right afterwards. I'm thinking of finding a sled or something I can pull Reid along in if it isn't too cold.

This is a standard fantasy that I will try to bear out, and who knows how successful it will be. Just picture me getting the dog on the leash and Reid on a saucer-sled and getting out in front of the house on our street which will not be plowed by the county. Reid will shout and try to take the leash and Dixie will bolt away from us tasting freedom for the first time in weeks. Reid will refuse to sit down on the sled and will instead stand up and take a face plant into the snow. Shouting and barking will ensue. The leash will slip out of my hand and chock through the snow as the dog gulps down the brisk air of liberation. We will finally settle into a somewhat enjoyable moment when a car will come along, idiotically testing the un-maintained street, forcing me to scoop up Reid and the dog, and bringing the boy and the leash into close enough proximity to begin the shouting all over again.

But I'll try it. In many ways, these experiences are what parenting is all about. Anyone who reads this blog, or talks to another parent, or even recalls vaguely what they were like as children knows that starting a family means enduring a huge number of things, from childbirth on down, that aren't very pleasant. There's the sleep deprivation, the vomiting (lots of both of those), and the bittersweet pain as a child learns to love you and push you away at the same time. All of these things will hurt you. They hurt me. But I don't regret a minute of it.

Okay, I might regret a little of the vomit.



As I mentioned, Reid received a shopping cart-styled toy for Christmas. The funniest thing is he doesn't push it like a regular person. He insists on pushing it from the side, which leads to it being tipped over, usually on me. About eight seconds after I snapped this picture, that happened.

I guess Reid and I must sound pretty desperate over here. Grandparents are calling in, and K called today from Afghanistan twice! I guess it is just more fun to write about the exciting events which sometimes sound like bad news than the hours of unfettered playtime Reid and I are enjoying. We're training for the "mooo" derby, apparently, by replacing last week's "dog" with this week's newest word, "mooo," which to Reid means a cow. We're having good times in the collapsible play-vehicle, which Reid requests by name ("car," not "SUV"). We are getting around a lot, checking out a new and evolving portfolio of fine dining establishments. We added a new Peruvian style rotisserie chicken place to the portfolio today, and stopped in to an Irani cafe for some ultradecadent Middle Eastern pastries. Delightful.

We also tried something we've never tried before, and while I'm not saying we won't try it again, I have trouble believing it will happen any time soon.

We went to Chuck E. Cheese.

Today was apparently some sort of federal holiday (daddy's in denial) and our trip to the Chuck E Cheese (folks in the know just call it CEC; I do, anyhow) confirmed that fact. It is also a Muslim holiday called Eid al Adha, which gave lots of folks reason to celebrate. And a whole bunch of them went to CEC. Reid and I were meeting a friend and her kid at the CEC, but I showed up early, fantasizing that there was something another parent told me was called the "toddler area" where I could sit and watch Reid play his little excess energy out.

The toddler zone was the size of our living room, but somewhat constrained by the 100 people -- toddlers and full-sized children and their shouting parents -- in there with us. Reid's a real take-it-all-in kind of guy. When K took him to the Atlanta Children's Museum, she said he stood there silent and stared all around. He did it for so long she was worried that he was overwhelmed, but then he just took off like a shot. So I figure Reid is taking this all in, and he'll get involved in a second. I was even prepared for him to tear off into the toddler zone and jump in with both feet.

He tore off, all right, running the other way. Right into the fray. Before I caught up with him, he had knocked a popsicle out of someone's hand (yes, it's winter; kids don't care), stolen an empty token cup, been whacked while passing a whack-a-mole game, and attempted to steal into the airborne labyrinth of child-ducts that rings the entire building. I was lucky he didn't get sucked up into that thing. Kids are living up there, exacting their own justice. It's like Lord of the Flies.

So we bailed. Reid was all to happy to go. The cacophany hurt his ears. I know this because he was literally holding his hands over his ears. It was really loud. And kids were climbing the walls in that joint. Amazing.

We went over to another abandoned mall and shot the breeze. Reid helped two remarkably under-tasked gentleman who were technically working throw a football back and forth in this old style one-story mall with almost no stores. He was fascinated. We had a great time.

Then we came home and got in the toybox.



P.S. Special thanks to the people who sent Reid's mom so far away on important business. In another sign of how desperate we must sound, K's company sent Reid and I over a delicious lasagna from Arlington's own Italian Store. It was delicious. Thanks, folks.

Looking over all of these pictures, I realize that I could afford to do more photography during daylight. Unfortunately, Reid isn't around a lot for the daylight hours on weekdays, and in the dead of winter, daylight is a precious commodity. And our house, admittedly, doesn't have a ton of bright white light. When I shoot pictures of Reid, I tend to turn on the crummy overhead to supplement the floor lamps rather than use the flash. The flash photos look artificially intense and glaringly (no pun intended) snapshot-ish. What that leaves is a sepia tone from our white-shaded overheads, butter-colored walls and an orange-shaded floor lamp. Reid isn't jaundiced, that's what everybody looks like in our house.

Last night, long after I filed the RPOD, went sour. Reid had already had a rough night. He fell right before bedtime and took a routine cut on his forehead, about an inch to the left of the one from a few weeks ago that was just healing. I've learned to accept these. But for some reason it bled alot, so I was a little worried, though he seemed not to care.

After our bath it had closed up and stopped bleeding, so I cleaned it with a little alcohol and put some ointment on before he went to sleep. Reid's sleep style unfortunately is quite mobile (something we're worried about when it's time to go to a toddler-bed). He scoots around on his knees with his butt in the air and his face buried in the mattress. The net effect is a night of driving your forehead into the crib, teddy bear and whatever else gets in its way.

Of course, because he had hit his head and I'm insane and working on little sleep as it is, I checked on him every half hour to make sure he was breathing. He was. Unfortunately, I also noticed that his nocturnal exercise routine had re-opened the cut. Unbeknownst to sleeping beauty, he had got blood on the sheet, a truly horrible sight for a parent to see. I knew it was just the scab, but it was scary.

Reminiscent of my previous personal parenting triumph, the midnight-no-wake-diaper-reattachment, I went in on a new mission. I would cover the wound with a band-aid, treated with Neosporin. It was risky, but it had to be done, and there was only one man for the job. Plus there was only one man in the house. And I couldn't talk the dog into even helping.

I prepped Reid by rolling him onto his back. He's actually quite compliant when he's asleep, though his high activity while sleeping tells me that sometimes he's right on the verge of waking, so you best not try one of these tricks while he's moving around, or you could have a real bad night. Anyhow, once he was on his back, I left the room and got the band-aid and did it up with the ointment. Then I re-entered the room and using only "the force" stuck it on his head.

I figured I would have to wait hours to see if it was even within an inch of his cut. Sadly, it wasn't as many hours as one would hope. Reid was up for good at 4:30 this morning. He ate terribly last night, so I'm guessing he was hungry, but it really seemed like he was scared of something. He didn't go back to sleep but he became completely calm when I finally relented and picked him up. I'm wondering if it was the fall, which was scary. I goofed around trying to get him to go back to sleep and then gave up around 5:30. So daddy is very tired.

Tonight, I decided to go easier at dinner. Dinner is a place where some discipline can happen with Reid because it's very demanding for him (work with a spoon, focus on one activity for longer than five seconds). For some reason, he's a champ at breakfast, eating an entire bowl of cereal without assistance, but at dinner he either won't help you help him eat, or sometimes he'll shove everything in his mouth like it's a game (which usually ends with a parent catching these things when he can't swallow them without choking). Therefore, parents have an opportunity to tell him when things aren't good, and that if he does them again he gets a timeout or whatever. Timeouts may not work for some parents, we understand, and we don't know if they are working for us, but at this age kids are testing boundaries, we're told again and again, and we need to define them for him. So we need to back up the "no throwing food at me" with something like a timeout. Who knows if he even understands what's going on.

Last night was a meal Reid had almost no interest in. Examining the barbecue chicken, rice and broccoli left on the floor, his pants, my pants, his chair and on the dog (long story) after the meal was completed, I figured he maybe ate two bites. The meal ended when he turned the chicken over on the floor in an attempt to bus his station to tell me he's done eating. Cute. So I'm thinking this is one reason why he woke up early.

Tonight we're a little more relaxed. Simple spoon friendly meal, nothing fancy, and Reid still has none of it. He wants my sandwich, and I give it to him. He pretend eats it (making strange sucking noises I'm afraid I must make while eating) and then it spends about five minutes getting moved from tabletop to plate, slowly falling apart under his inexpert grip, and the meal is over. He ate nothing.

Um. I can't wake up again tomorrow at 4:30. In the remaining time I have, I pack him full of every non-bad-for-him treat I have at my disposal. He eats a banana, a pear, a yogurt and some strange dry-roasted plantain chips that K bought before she left. He has milk, juice and water. He eats slices of fresh tomato he rejected thirty minutes earlier. Hopefully it was enough.

Because tomorrow is a full day. It snowed a lot here this afternoon, so potential road hazards are even more limiting to the list of things we can do. So we'll see what we come up with.



That pear didn't know what hit it.

It's freezing in the house. The mittens I wrote humorously about a few days ago have become a necessity, even though Reid views the mitten application as a hilarious game to play while I'm trying to get us out the door.

It's freezing in the house because it's freezing outside. The past three days were very cold, leading to Reid and I having to come up with odd indoor amusement opportunities (dumpy half-dead malls, computer stores, Lowes). The three-day weekend tested all my parenting skills to the max. Now comes the final test, the eliminator. Inauguration day, a federal holiday that for some reason means the daycare is closed. The temperature isn't forecast to go a nick above 20, and if it does, snow is coiled like a puma waiting to strand us anywhere. As a result, we'll probably log fourteen straight hours inside these four walls. One of us will come out alive and the other one...will be very tired.

Speaking of tired. The failsafe nap-treatment has been a car-ride. This is my "serenity now" photograph.

Sometimes I feel like you can only take so many pictures of a little boy running around in a relatively small house.

Luckily, I rest until the feeling passes and start snapping more photos. I basically picked this picture today because I thought Reid's mom would like it. She likes to see him in new outfits. The growth spurt I wrote about when K was out of town last time has come home to roost in the form of some 24-month and 2T (!) clothes. (Remind me sometime to explain how vexingly difficult it is to understand that there is a difference between clothing designed for 24 month old children and clothing supposedly made for 3 year old toddlers. Then again, maybe it's better if you don't.) Here is a snappy little pair of overalls he got from his Nonni, spruced up with a natty long sleeved onesie. And no toddler ensemble would be complete without a blue hand-puppet washrag.

Much like the lost vault of Al Capone, I have unearthed a passel of photos taken during the Christmas holiday. That means that today is a super-bonus-Christmas-RPOD day! This first photo was taken in the Smithsonian Institution's Air and Space Museum during a visit from K's parents. Unfortunately, to preserve the artifacts and space capsules and whatnot, everything in the museum is kept in a constant state of half-light. Pre-digital photography, this must have cost people a lot of money in film. You basically get a well-lit shot of the person you're photographing but not the cool thing they're standing in front of. Reid's expression of amazement is certainly a coincidence, but he is actually standing in front of a carefully reproduced replica of the original Wright Brothers flyer. Amazing!

Reid received mittens for Christmas. I haven't seen them since the day we took this picture. Honestly, we've had some weird weather here in the National Capitol Region, including several 65 degree days right after Christmas. So maybe they got put somewhere safe. But realistically, we knew that the toddler attrition rate for Christmas gifts was high, and we weren't thinking that he would LOVE his gloves. But we really should track them down. It's supposed to snow soon, I believe.

Reid got a serious Lego upgrade from a member of my family this year at Christmas. (K is in charge of recalling who gave certain gifts to certain people. She has an almost disturbing ability to spring back to the moment of gift-itude and announce who bought something. With her on travel, I can pinpoint a lot of information related to the gifting, but not the giver. We received it on December 31st, 2004, in my sister's home in Laurel, Md. It was warmer than usual outside. Alabama was losing a bowl game on the television before we turned it off. Who gave us the Legos? Um, I got nothing.) Reid's previous Lego levels were locked at 20 blocks deployed, two missing and presumed lost, leaving only a detachment of 18 blocks. This new set brought block levels to an all-time high of something like 93. We can build much more now. Thank you, whomever.

I mentioned and linked to the Wiggles guitar earlier. Since I actually informed her of the gift to purchase, I know this came from Reid's aunt Stephanie. (Which leaves only Reid's aunt Alia as the possible culprit for the Legos, by the way. Good thing we solved that little puzzler.) Here's Reid tuning the non-existent strings during a break in his killer imaginary set in Wiggle World. The best song as interpreted by the guitar is a Squeeze-esque humdinger called "Fruit Salad." Of course, only 20 seconds of the song come out of the guitar. The whole track kind of falls flat, but what can you do?

This isn't Chistmas-related but is a riot. Sometime during the holidays, possibly due to a baby monitor snafu, Reid woke up but wasn't immediately heard by his parents, including myself. He shouted and cried, which is de riguer for this little fellow, so no big deal. We entered the room to find that he had removed all of the amusing playthings, blanket and little towel from his crib. He then somehow wriggled his shirt into the position you see here. He seemed to be somehow rending his garments. We laughed when we came through the door, and he was completely overwhelmed with glee. He laughed at us laughing at him looking like an overwraught person with a wardrobe malfunction. The good times lasted until I got the camera. This shot was nice, but in the next shot he's angry because we haven't picked him up and fixed his shirt. Understandable, I guess.

Below, Reid kicks it in his crib with Pawpaw, checking out "Bear Sleeps On." Chill.

Again with the late. K's schedule is such that sometimes I'm able to update her on a lot of the things of the day. That obviates the need for substantives information herein, except for all of Reid's adoring fans (read: grandparents).

We've gone to a new schedule with Reid on weekends. We're down to a single nap. Over the holiday we noticed that he seemed to be needing the 10 a.m.-ish nap less and less. We decided to try to get rid of that nap, and in the few weekends since Christmas, it's worked well.

However, in those weekends, there was two parents here. That not being the case now, a critical failure in our new no morning nap schedule was realized: no reliever for the shower. That is, I can't take a shower while Reid is sleeping. Because Reid never sleeps.

Sink-shower it is!

Anyhow, Reid and I did have a little adventure I didn't tell K about this afternoon. The boy and I went shopping and coffee-shopping and whatnot today, just to get out of the house. When we got back, the temperature reached today's high of 40 degrees and, bundled up well, we decided to take our poor neglected dog for a walk.

Reid likes to help. He wants to hold the leash, of course, because it is filthy and involves something which could choke him, and he's been attracted to things which could potentially hurt him badly since birth. Of course, he's walking with the leash and Dixie -- who couldn't possibly understand that an 18 month old toddler is holding his leash -- gives it a tug. It's a retractable leash of about 13 feet. Therefore Dixie is 13 feet away, standing on a curb while Reid and I are just off the curb, in the street. This is important because, as the leash leaves Reid's hand, it self-retracts, all the way back to Dixie. It can't jump the curb of course, so it travels 13 feet through a 2 inch deep puddle of noxious standing water back to Dixie.

Good times.



Reid got a big popup car from my mom for Christmas (the one he got was actually a big yellow SUV, ironically). About twenty minutes before bedtime tonight he demanded I get it out. I got one shot off before he pulled the entire thing down on top of himself laughing hysterically. (Have I said this enough?) Good times.

It's late. The big story tonight is of course that Reid managed to do so much damage to this sweatshirt that it may be retired. It had a great run. A friend bought it for Reid and for a short time it was his most highly-prized piece of semi-outerware. It was Polo. Lacking the ability to speak, Reid couldn't say it, but I sensed that he felt very chic when he was wearing it. However, as all clothing of toddlers goes, so goes the sweatshirt. The banana Reid is eating in the shot at the right is the last straw. My forensic recreation of the sweatshirt's day seems to include some kind of chocolate sauce or frosting, red marker, soup or possibly gravy, something I hope is milk, some juice and a lot of drool. I think the Spray and Wash might be outmatched. The shirt featured such a dazzling array of tastes and experiences from his day that, when I took it off him, Reid spread it neatly on the couch and fell into a reverie about the places that sweatshirt had taken him. Good times.

It's been a little bit since we have chronicled the life of Reid on these pages. In fact, this is the first post of 2005. I've been thinking a lot about the fact that Reid, since he was born, hasn't lived in a time without this whole war thing going on. It's just strange. When I was a kid, my first memory of politics was that the president was Jimmy Carter. I recall the Iran hostage crisis. I recall my mom voting for Carter in 1980. I don't recall the fact that the president when I was born was Richard Nixon. I also don't recall any of the Vietnam war which continued for a year after I was born.

I don't go in for comparing Vietnam and Iraq or any of that stuff. I'm just pointing out that when I was born, in March 1974, there was an unpopular and contentious war on with a compelling grip on the public. When Reid was born, in July 2003, there was an unpopular and contentious war on with a compelling grip on the public. 13 months after I was born that war ended. Reid's war keeps going. I guess I just hope it will end before his memory starts.

Reid's had a lot of good fun since he got all his Christmas gifts and his cavalcade of visitors. He has been playing with the toys, and they've been completely integrated into the litter that covers our living room floor. One of the toys Reid got was the Wiggles Guitar. It basically plays eight songs and eight notes (and a lot of broken string noises which some kids who aren't Reid must find hysterical). He also received a wide variety of Little People products, including the Little People airport, car wash and playground. He also received the Little People Circus train. As you can see, one of the circus animals, a tiger, has been pressed into service as the operator of this dump truck.

K's again on a long trip, same place as the last two times, for about two weeks. We will, with a hint of regret, be launching the first 2005 series of the Reid Photos of the Day, known as the RPOD. We got a late start this evening, after a successful meal of barbecue chicken and macaroni and cheese and a dessert of melon (ew).

Then Reid towered over me like a giant.