The life and times of an irrational father. One man, multiple personalities.
Header

Blowing Some Balls

February 24th, 2009 | Posted by Joe in joe | laughing | the best medicine | Tyler - (3 Comments)
Click to view larger

I can say, with absolute certainty, that nothing in my life has ever compared with the joy and warmth that fills me when I hear Tyler laughing. Tyler takes after his father in the sense that he is quite easily amused. If I’m watching a movie and see Matthew Perry run into a glass sliding door and crash to the ground – all this because he’s trying to dissuade his assistant and Jimmy “The Tulip” Tudeski from murdering his wife – I will laugh every time. Sadly, I don’t own a copy of this movie, so I can’t be a hundred percent sure of the details of the scene.

One of Tyler’s toys is an orange plastic tiger that is holding a purple plastic basket. On the basket it a blue plastic bird. The accessories to this toy are three – you guessed it – plastic balls. Tyler received this toy as a Christmas present from his Aunt Jillian. When you put a ball into the basket, it plays music and says things like “woohoo”, “good job” and “you’re grrrrrreat!” I find it a tad interesting that this orange tiger toy says “you’re grrrrrrreat” in a very similar way that another orange tiger – which is not owned by the same company – says “they’re grrrrrrrreat”, in reference to the yummy qualities of a certain breakfast cereal.

Playing with this toy with Tyler entails ME dropping the balls in the basket while I say “daddy puts the blue ball in the basket.” Tyler usually watches with mild curiousity for a few moments, before crawling away to find a power cord to chew on. Sometimes, Tyler would pick up a ball with each hand. I would then giggle madly (to myself) when I told him what he was doing. “Tyler is holding his balls.” *snicker* A few days ago, Tyler seemed to finally “get it”. He picked up a ball and dropped it in the basket. I was so excited that I almost jumped up and performed cartwheels. Almost. My worries that maybe it was just a fluke were whisked away when he made 9 more baskets.

Last night, after dinner and before bed, we found ourselves playing with the tiger toy while Sarah took some alone time to unwind and read the paper. Tyler picked up a ball and swung his arm towards me, like he wanted me to have it. I said “can daddy have the green ball?”, as I pulled it from his hand. I couldn’t tell you why I did this, but instead of dropping it in the basket, I made a chomping noise and put it in my mouth. Tyler grinned a little. I aimed down a bit and shot the ball from my mouth, popping Tyler in his leg. He laughed, hard, and handed me another ball. “Can daddy have the red ball?” Chomp. Pop. Laugh. Honestly, I have never heard Tyler laugh this hard before. A baby’s laugh is quite infectious. Sarah put the paper down, laughing, to watch Tyler. I laughed everytime he did.

After a few minutes, I lay down on my back and started shooting the ball in the air, and catching it in my hand. Tyler started laughing even harder. If we weren’t having such a great time, I would have grabbed the camcorder. I don’t know how much that toy tiger cost, but it was worth every penny.

And if you were thinking of something entirely different when you read the title of this post, then shame on you. If that never even crossed your mind (liar), then shame on me.

The decisions that we make

September 30th, 2008 | Posted by Joe in joe | morbidity | Sarah | sleep | Tyler - (5 Comments)
Click to view our galleries
I love his faces
(View More Photos)

I sometimes wonder if, when I started this little blog of mine, maybe I should have set it up a little more anonymously. Some of the blogs I frequent use letters to refer to their loved ones. Tyler would be T, Sarah would be Ess… You get the picture. I tend to be more along the lines of the full-disclosure type along with a couple of the other blogs I follow. There are any number of reasons why somebody would want to maintain a level of anonymity on the internet. You could have worries about the executives within your company knowing about your personal life. Maybe you work for the shadow government and are under constant surveillance. Maybe you’re delusional, and THINK you work for the shadow government and are under constant surveillance. The list goes on.

My reasons for thinking I should have gone the anonymous route are simple. I don’t want you to call Child Protective Services on me. I don’t want to be exiled from my small town. I don’t want to be ostracized by my friends or outcast from my family. But, in the spirit of full-disclosure, I’m going to tell this story anyway.

Tyler is a brat. Maybe “is” is the wrong term. A better one would be “can sometimes be”. Tyler can sometimes be a brat. He caught a cold last week. As a result, he cried a lot, didn’t sleep very well, and ate poorly. If you were to pile all that into a bucket and take it to your local 4-H fair, it would win Best-in-Show as the “Fail Pail”. Needless to say, we’ve had a rough go of things over the past few days.

Yesterday was no exception. Due to his over-tiredness, Tyler would cry and fuss through feedings, and he fought sleep very, very hard. And, due to Tyler being fussy and over-tired, Sarah was fussy and over-tired. She finally decided to take Tyler upstairs, and they would both (try to) take a nap together, because they both needed it.* I stayed downstairs. I had been vegging out on the couch all day, on account of me being sick also, watching MMA fighting.

Two hours later, the dogs come tearing down the stairs. Ten times out of ten, this means that Sarah is coming down as well. I paused the TV – DVR is modern man’s greatest invention, possibly the greatest of all of mankind – so I could see how her and Tyler were feeling after their nap. But there was a problem; Sarah didn’t have Tyler with her.

After a big stretch, she says, “man, I needed that.”

I reply with, “Is TyTy still sleeping?”

“He. Is. OUT.”

Sarah goes off into the kitchen to start dinner – meatloaf, smashed potatoes, and a fruit salad – and I continue to watch Enoch Wilson beat the snot out of some other guy.

About an hour goes by. I finished watching the fights and was looking through the guide, and I had this… feeling. Staying calm, and doing my best to keep my composure, I start up the stairs, careful to skip the first one because it creaks the worst. I count each step as my foot lands on it. “2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.” And if you’re wondering, yes, I do count stairs everytime I’m on them. It’s my slight OCD kicking in. I could dedicate an entire blog post to the number of steps in houses, buildings, and fire escapes, or on the color coding and design of parking structures. But I wouldn’t do that to you.

Upon topping the final step, I quietly walked into the bedroom. I see Tyler, smack dab in the middle of our queen sized bed, chillin’ like a villian. Out. Cold. I stare at him for a moment, but don’t see his belly moving up and down. Terror washed over me. I sprinted to the side of the bed and knelt down. I stared, senses sharp as a razor. Nothing, no movement. I’m in a near panic at this point.

And this is where you dear readers will say to yourselves, “What is wrong with that man’s head?”

Have you ever had a moment where you’ve got only a nano-second to make a decision, but it seems like millions of thoughts and scenarios have time to swim through your mind? For example, you’re putting away dishes, when a plate slips from your fingers and goes flipping downward to the ceramic tile floor. You have just a moment to decide whether to let it hit the floor, whether to try to grab it, or whether to position your foot so that it will break the plates fall and hopefully save it from breaking into many tiny pieces. All those thoughts go through your head in a flash. Or a dog dashes out in front of your car. You can brake, go left, go right, or go straight. All in the span of a lightning flash, you rationalize everything. Go left and you could get into a head on crash, go right and you sideswipe the minivan next to you, brake and get rear-ended by the Prius that’s tailing you. Go straight, and you take this dog’s life. As morbid as it is, it happens.

Well, I had one of those moments as I tried to see Tyler’s belly move. On one hand, I was petrified that my beautiful baby boy wasn’t breathing. I wanted to (HAD TO) put my hand on his chest/belly and feel for his breathing. I had to put my ear next to his nose. I had to know. My head was swimming in thoughts. Ambulances, hospitals…. worse. But… hold on just a second… on the other hand… I didn’t want to wake him up. If I put my hand on his chest, he may jerk himself awake, and the boy really needed his sleep. DON’T JUDGE ME!!!

Thank the heavens above, I didn’t actually need to make that decision. Just at that moment, his fingers twitched. I let out a deep, deep, quiet sigh of relief. I put my finger on his palm and he grasped it. And stayed asleep.

*I want to note that I’m not calling Sarah grumpy or anything here… I’m just saying that they was tired and needed some sleep.

When in Rome… go to the hospital

September 26th, 2008 | Posted by Joe in allergies | games | hospital | joe - (4 Comments)
Click to view our galleries

Do you mind if I do a non-Tyler, non-parenthood post today?

I had to fly to Nashville, TN on Tuesday. With the work that I do, I don’t necessarily have co-workers. I work alone 99% of the time. So do all the other reps around the country. So, our region has quarterly meetings where we all get together, go over numbers, and hang out. This quarterly meeting was in Tennessee. All in all, it was a good time.

I get there Tuesday around 11am. After getting hotel rooms figured out (what a FUBAR situation that was), we all had lunch. Pulled pork, grilled chicken, beans, coleslaw, potato salad, and some type of apple dessert. Yum yum. After lunch, we had a couple meetings, then a friendly competition. I threw the competition. I feel bad in hindsight. I didn’t want to win, but I also didn’t want to lose. We placed dead last because of my sand-bagging. Whoops! Then we had one-on-one meetings with our managers to go over our individual numbers/performance.

Once this was out of the way, we headed to our rooms, changed into casual clothing and waited for dinner time. A few of us went to the Applebees that was in the hotel. I had one drink. This was at 5:30pm.

At 6p, we all hopped in taxis and drove to a restaurant called “The Aquarium”. Obviously, it was a seafood restaurant. I’m not a fan of seafood. Sometimes, Sarah makes telapia which I find quite tasty. Aside from that, I steer clear of seafood. I just don’t like it. I decided that I was going to take a chance this day though. Whenever I find myself at a seafood restaurant, I get chicken, or a salad. This day, I got the Sirloin and Shrimp dinner (sometimes called a surf-n-turf).

The appetizers came out first. I couldn’t even begin to name what all was there. I had bruschetta bread with some type of crab/cheese dip. Man it was good! When the food came out, I ate my Sirloin because it was delicious! I only ate about 4 shrimp though, because I just don’t find it as tasty. I had 2 drinks at the restaurant.

I should mention that my “drinks” are Captain Morgan & Coke, with a splash of grenadine (for a cherry coke taste).

After “The Aquarium” we all head over to Dave & Busters. I’d never heard of Dave & Busters before. So, if you’re like me, you need an explanation. Dave & Busters is an arcade for adults. They’ve got a ton of arcade games (video games, racing games, crane games, skiball, etc), but in a bar setting. I had 3 drinks here. I spent most of the night playing Daytona USA with 7 other guys. It turned out to be more of a demolition derby than actual racing, but it was a great time.

We left around 11p, because we used up all the credits that our managers gave us. The plan was to head back to the hotel. Those of us that wanted to crash could head up to their rooms, the rest would head back to Applebees.

The taxi ride (mini-van with about 5 of us in each taxi) is about 10 minutes long. On the way back to the hotel, my right cheek started itching. I didn’t think anything of it. About the time that we’re pulling up to the hotel, I rub my palm along my cheek and notice that it feels bumpy. When we got out of the cab and into the lobby of the hotel, I ask one of the guys if my face looks funny. His facial expression said enough, but he must not have realized that because, in addition to the look of horror on his face, he says, “HOLY S**T!!”

What followed was a bunch of pointing and commenting by the rest of my taxi-mates.

Physically, I felt fine. I had a slight buzz going. I only had 6 drinks over the course of 6 hours, so I was doing just fine. On the advice of my manager, I got two Benadryl pills from the front desk and took them. Aside from my less than appealing appearance, and some itching, I felt great, so I went to Applebees. I only had water while here. About 10 minutes in, the itching was much, much worse. And I noticed that there was some swelling at the corners of my mouth. The word “hospital” was mentioned a few times. Sometimes to my face, other times as part of another conversation (about me) that I wasn’t involved in. One of the people there was scared to be near me. Another guy said my face looked like a tomato, but covered in bumps.

I decided to check out the damage. A look of sheer terror washed over my face when I looked in the mirror. I only wish I would have had the presence of thought to have a camera nearby. My face was COVERED in bumps, and completely red. My neck was also covered. COVERED! I didn’t check below the waist, because I didn’t want to drop my trousers in front of a mirror in a hotel bathroom. I did lift my shirt though. My back was rather nasty and riddled with bumps, and my front side had about 10 or so. My face and neck were the worst though. There were some bumps on my arms as well.

My manager, and the manager of our sister region met me just outside of the bathroom. I’d never had anything like this happen to be before, so I was open to suggestions. They both said “hospital”. I still felt pretty good, so we (me and my manager) decided against calling an ambulance, and opted for a taxi instead. We went to the local hospital’s Emergency department. I filled out the information and waited. As I’m sitting in the waiting room, I noticed that I was starting to have difficulty swallowing. I immediately concentrated on my breathing and noticed it was a little raspy and wasn’t as easy to do anymore.

I mentioned to the very nice lady at the desk that my throat was starting to swell a bit. Within about, oh, 2 seconds, I was being taken to Emergency. A guy comes in with some pills and needles. We tell him that I’d already taken 25mg of Benedryl beforehand. He says “Well, you’re about to get some more then.” He gives me a Prednisone pill, and 2 Pepcid (because the Prednisone is hard on the stomach). He is then having a conversation with my manager about the stretchers at the hospital (we work for the company that makes them). I’m listening, but not really participating, because I’m not feeling so hot. Suddenly, and without warning, the guy (without ever even taking his eyes off my manager) stabs the needle into my shoulder.

It’s hard to explain the feeling. It wasn’t pain, exactly, but it sure as heck wasn’t peaches and lollipops either. It felt like someone punched me real good in the arm. Then, a crampy feeling started moving its way down my arm, all the way to my finger tips. It was extremely uncomfortable. Within seconds, I was a zombie. At one point, I am certain that I was sleeping with my eyes open. But the itching disappeared within about 1 second of getting the shot. The swelling in my throat and lips was gone within seconds as well. The bumps stuck around for a bit, but were noticeably better. I couldn’t walk straight when I stood up, and found myself wondering if it was dangerous to have had 6 alcoholic drinks, then following that up with a bunch of make-you-drowsy Benedryl.

Thinks were pretty fuzzy after that. I don’t know how much longer we were at the hospital. I know we got back to the hotel around 2:40am. My manager told me that I didn’t need to be at the first couple meetings and to just sleep in. I couldn’t tell you why I set the alarm on my phone anyway.

I got to my room, and my key wouldn’t work. I had to stand outside of the room, catatonic, for about 10 minutes, waiting for security to let me in. The last thing I remember was taking my shoes off. After that, everything was black. I was dog tired, but feeling great otherwise at 7am, when the alarm went off. I made it to the meetings just fine.

Before Tuesday, I had no known allergies. I still don’t know for sure what it was that triggered that reaction in me. My guess would be the crab dip stuff. From what I hear, shellfish is a common allergy for people to have, and crab is a shellfish. So… maybe. I’d only had crab one other time in my life. Sarah had some at Red Lobster, and I tried a bite. Nothing happened at the time, so… I just don’t know.

I played it off at the time, but once I felt the swelling in my throat, I was scared. Genuinely scared. I can 100% guarantee you that I will never touch seafood again (except for Sarah’s tilapia).