It’s interesting how something changes, although it is precisely what it was before. When I was a young child, I loved watching Fraggle Rock.

Dance your cares away,
Worry’s for another day.
Let the music play,
Down at Fraggle Rock.

Work you cares away,
Dancing’s for another day.
Let the Fraggles play,
We’re Gobo, Mokey, Wembley, Boober, Red.

Dance your cares away,
Worry’s for another day.
Let the music play,
Down at Fraggle Rock.
Down at Fraggle Rock.
Down at Fraggle Rock.

We were recently enjoying a lazy evening around the house and decided to find something to stream via Netflix. Sarah went to the kitchen to make popcorn, while I perused the “Watch it now” list on Netflix.com.

“What we watching, daddy?”

“What ARE we watching, daddy?” I corrected. “I don’t know yet, I’m still looking.”

“What ow we watching, daddy?”

“I don’t know. I just told you I don’t know. Why aren’t you listening to me?”

“We watching a mooooovie?”

“Tyler. Seriously. We’re not going to watch anything if you don’t let me see what there is to watch.”

Tyler paused, seeming to process my last statement. I returned my attention to the screen, scrolling past Bob the Builder, Thomas the Train, and a plethora of other shows that I honestly couldn’t care less about.

“I want to watch something.”

I closed my eyes, and chose to just ignore Tyler. Then, I saw it. Season one of Fraggle Rock.

“Sarah,” I shouted across the house, “how about Fraggle Rock?”

The reply – and excitement – was immediate. “YES!”

As I clicked the appropriate links and booted up the Wii, I told Tyler what we were going to watch.

“I not want to watch Flaggle Rock.”

“Tyler, you don’t know what you want. You’re going to love Fraggle Rock.”

From start to finish of episode one, of season one, Tyler’s eyes were glued to the screen. When the episode ended, he said “Want to watch another one.” So we did.

The beauty of Netflix is that you can stream these shows commercial free. Each episode is approximately 22 minutes. For roughly 44 minutes, Tyler laughed at Sprocket, learned about Fraggles, Dozers, and the King, Queen and Prince of the universe (the Gorgs). He giggled madly when the Trash Heap appeared and spoke with her rats.

Sarah and I? We spent those 44 minutes giving each other strange looks. We whispered to each other.

“Do you remember this show being this bad?” I asked.

“No. I used to like this show,” she replied.

“Me too! Loved it. You know there’s 5 seasons of this on Netflix?”

“Amazing…”

“I wonder if our parents thought this show was as stupid as we think it is now.”

“Hahaha… I bet. I feel bad for them now.”

“WAIT! Doc… Look at him. Isn’t that the guy who’s in Boondock Saints? The dude that has Tourettes?”

“Oh my God. That is totally him. Hahahaha.”

Doc. The old guy that runs the workshop with his pet dog, Sprocket. He, strangely enough, also plays Doc in Boondock Saints, where one of his more memorable quotes in the movie is “Why don’t you make like a tree, and get the f— outta here?” Unbelievable.

A couple days ago, Sarah was having some rather strong contractions, and I was suffering from some intense neck pain. We decided to have another lazy evening. It was well deserved this time, though. Earlier, Tyler and I bundled up and played out in the snow with Delilah for a while. Then Sarah and Tyler played with dinosaurs and Legos. As the evening progressed, we just wanted to snuggle up, so I asked Tyler if he wanted to watch some more Fraggle Rock.

“YES,” he replied without hesitation. “I love Fwaggle Rock.”

Although watching the show through an adult’s eyes makes me realize that the show simply isn’t that good… I’m kinda looking forward to making my way through the 96 episodes.

-Joe

I’ve had to close the book on 4 years of memories today. We had one of our dogs “put down” this morning.

We adopted Logan from the Indiana ASPCA in 2004. Sarah and I had moved in together in Fort Wayne, Indiana. We moved down there for her job. This was in 2003. We talked back and forth about getting a dog and really wanted to rescue one from a shelter. We finally did so on March 10, 2004, when we met Logan.

When they brought him out, Logan was skittish around me, but warmed to Sarah pretty quickly. We both fell in love with him immediately, so we adopted him. Over the course of the next few days, he warmed to me as well. All told, he was a perfect companion for Sarah and myself. We put him through training classes, which he excelled at, taught him lots of tricks, took him for lots of walks, and just generally pampered him.

We noticed rather quickly that Logan was absolutely petrified of basements. I can’t remember when it was, but we found out that Logan had been abused pretty harshly by his previous owners. This information solidified our resolve to give him the best life we could provide. Our love for Logan ran very deep; he was our first pet, and the first addition to our family.

Logan loved stuffed toys that “squeak” when you squeeze them. I swear, Sarah was buying him a new “baby” every week. He had a wicker basket that was overflowing with green monkeys, purple elephants, and red giraffes. Logan would just sprawl himself across the floor and squeak his toys over and over again.

Logan also loved to “hug”. Everyday, when I’d come home from work, one of the first things I had to do was go into the living room and drop to my knees. Logan would sit, tail wagging back and forth, and wait.

“Logan, can I have a hug?”, I’d say.

As soon as I said “hug”, Logan would hop up onto his back legs, and throw his front legs on either side of my neck. It was absolutely adorable, and it’s probably one of my favorite things about him.

Logan has always been able to “sense” when something was wrong with Sarah. Anytime she felt sad or lonely, Logan would always cuddle up next to her and keep her company. She loved petting and rubbing his soft, floppy ears. It always made Sarah feel better.

Unfortunately, owning a dog that had been abused has created a behavioral issue that Sarah and I have been unable to correct. Logan bites. He’s bitten a few members of Sarah’s family. I’m not going to rehash those memories, or the circumstances involved, because I just don’t think it’s necessary. About a year and a half ago, we decided that we either had to never allow him around other people, or put him down. We opted for the former.

We knew we’d have to revisit the subject when Sarah got pregnant, but we made excuse after excuse to put off the inevitable. We got so desperate for help that I posted an ad on craigslist, and Sarah wrote to Cesar Millan. We thought we had hope when someone answered my post, saying she ran a no-kill shelter and would “love to take Logan”. After a couple weeks of trading emails and voicemails, she backed out, and quit all communication. We were devastated. We still are.

After making more excuses and putting it off, I finally called the vet yesterday.

Sarah took Logan for a walk this morning. Actually, she let Logan take her for a walk. She let him go whatever direction he wanted to go, let him pee on all the trees and leaf piles he wanted to, and let him stop and sniff everything. He loved it. When they got home, we let him and Delilah wrestle for a while. Then, Sarah and I cuddled with Logan and cried over him.

Doc assured us and reassured us that we were doing the right thing. We knew we were; we’d never be able to forgive ourselves if Tyler grabbed Logan’s tail and something happened. But that didn’t make anything easier for us. It didn’t lessen any of the pain we were feeling.

Sarah and I held Logan in our arms as Doc gave him a shot in his front leg. Just a couple seconds later, Logan collapsed. It was, by far, one of the most heartbreaking experiences of my entire life. I immediately wanted to take it all back and start over again. I quickly removed his muzzle and started kissing his snout, telling him I was sorry, and that I loved him.

Logan, I’m going to miss your hugs. Your rare kisses. Your companionship. Your loyalty. Most of all, I’ll miss you. We already do. Goodbye, Logan. You were a great friend, a cherished protector, and a loved family member. You will always be in my heart and Sarah’s heart.

I’ll let the pictures tell the story, and I’ll try to keep my typed words to a minimum… We went to Nottawa Fruit Farm to partake in some hayride and pumpkin picking activities…

Tyler LOVES tractors. He calls them grahgors. He even got to ride one of his very own!

We went through a corn maze… get it??? Corn? Maize? Har har har. Then Tyler sat with Papa during parts of our covered wagon hayride.

Tyler got to pick out his very own pumpkin. He found the one he wanted and sat on it.

Tyler didn’t want to, but his cousins climbed through a dark tunnel system made of hay. They loved it. Afterward, Tyler got to dig for buried dinosaur eggs! He found one with a baby dinosaur toy in it.

Tyler got his very own mini pumpkin to color and decorate.

All in all… we had a great time… Stay tuned for the pumpkin CARVING post coming in the next couple of days.

Like most stories, the series of posts did not go as planned. What was originally planned as a three or four paragraph post turned into 4 posts of a three part series, where I explain some things that I’ve never really shared with anyone before.

I figure that my readers may be interested to know a little bit about my past, and how I got to where I am now, but since I’ve already published the posts over there, I wanted to create this snippet to point you over there for the story. I’ll try not to do this in the future, but, like I said, the story went in an entirely different direction than planned. And, frankly, I think it’s written pretty well and don’t want them to go completely unnoticed.

The “I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo” series:
Part 1 of 3
Part 2 of 3
Part 3 of 3… maybe
Part 4 of 3

Yesterday, I had to do a full hospital bed audit at one of my accounts in Indianapolis, Indiana. As such, I needed to go to every single department of said hospital. Among those departments were Labor & Delivery, Antepartum (pre-labor)
and the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. ICU for babies).

I also need you to know that I’ve got a not-so-great memory. I go through my entire blog every week or so and re-read the stories as if it were the first time. It’s a blessing and a curse, I guess.

So, I’m going room to room, knocking on doors, introducing myself and telling the patients why I’m there, and that I need to look at their bed for less than 2 seconds. EVERYBODY was 100% fine with it. I don’t really like doing it, because I hate disrupting people, especially while they’re at the hospital. It’s my job, though, so I trudge along. Most rooms are non-eventful. People just lying around, reading, watching TV, talking on the phone, sleeping, or eating. Occasionally, though, there’s activity going on. I love coming home and sharing some of these stories with Sarah. People share a lot of things when they don’t receive a lot of visitors, ya know? Well, there are HIPAA regulations that forbid the sharing of certain information. Mainly names, social security numbers, and afflictions. Basically, I can’t say names or anything else that would make someone say “I know exactly who you’re talking about.”

In the labor & delivery rooms, I was accompanied by a nurse tech. The LAST thing I wanted to do was go in a room and see a woman, spread-eagle, with her legs up in stirrups. I only actually went in one room, and even then, I got what I needed just by peeking under the curtain, so I didn’t even see the patient.

In Antepartum (pre labor) I went in many rooms with extremely pregnant women. These are women that are, more or less, on bed rest. They were all very nice. I was in and out, so I didn’t make any small-talk. This department was non-eventful as well.

The NICU, on the other hand, really affected me. I’ve got just a couple things to share here. In one of the rooms, I knocked and introduced myself. There was a new father, a new mother, and a very new baby. I told them that I needed to look at their bed for about 2 seconds and then I’d leave them to their privacy. The father said, “Sure, no problem.” He seemed like a younger guy, mid to late 20′s. What caught me was that he was changing his baby’s diaper. So, BOOM, I started reminiscing. The first diaper I’ve EVER changed was Tyler’s diaper, at the hospital. It *appeared* that this may have been the first diaper this new father had ever changed. Don’t get me wrong though, everything I saw took place in a span of 2, maybe 3, seconds. I remembered how I was treating Tyler as if he were a very expensive, very fragile piece of fine china. He was doing the same thing. I almost wanted to give him some pointers. I don’t know what came over me… I would NEVER do something like that, but I really wanted to. He looked like he needed help!

For me, luck was on my side. A very very sweet nurse had come in the room while I was trying to figure out the logistics of diaper changing. I mean, I’ve got two hands. I need to remove a diaper, hold his feet, wipe him, and put on a new diaper. Have I mentioned that I’ve only got two hands? I was looking around the room for some type of jig, or harness, to assist in diaper changing – some type of third or fourth hand – but there was nothing. I was holding one foot with one hand and pulling the diaper off with the other. Tyler kicked his free leg and landed his foot right in that thick, tarry mess. They call it meconium, instead of “thick, tarry, black mess” for reasons unknown to me. The nurse saw that I was struggling and bestowed upon me the most ingenious technique known to man. Hold both feet with one hand. BRILLIANT!!! Why I couldn’t think of that myself, I don’t know. Nerves, maybe. It was shortly after this that I realized that Tyler is not as delicate and fragile as I originally thought. His bones aren’t going to snap if I grip his feet so that he can’t kick away (seriously, I worried about that).

I had to keep my mouth shut, though. It was not my place to try to explain all that to a total stranger. Maybe it would have been fine, but in my mind, it seems like an invasion of this man’s privacy. He’ll figure it out. We all have, right?

I loved having that memory.

Another thing that struck me, as I walked the NICU, was how lucky Sarah and I are to have had a healthy baby. Just about EVERY baby in the NICU was in what seemed like a plexiglass shell. Some had tubes and IVs hooked up to them, some were very, very underweight. A couple rooms couldn’t be entered without “gowning up” (putting on a head cap, gown, gloves, and face mask). I’m looking at these babies, and these families, and my heart sinks. It just doesn’t seem right that anybody should have to go through what these people were going through. I’ve read Mike and Heather’s story, and it’s very sad. VERY SAD. Being there, at the hospital, and seeing it. It hits you like a ton of bricks. Sarah and I had a tough labor. It was hard, painful, emotionally draining. We had to give up almost every bullet point on our birth plan due to unknown (at the time) circumstances. After the C-section, we had a healthy baby boy. Aside from a low blood sugar, he was perfect. His APGAR Score was a 9, for crying out loud. I mean, we were blessed, when it came down to it. I can’t even begin to imagine the pain that these people were feeling in there.

What has Tyler done to me??? Before Sarah was pregnant I never really processed that kind of stuff. I’ve been in NICUs before, no big deal. Sure, it was sad, but because I have to see this stuff every single day, I try to not let it affect me. Man, it affected me yesterday.

Lastly, I need to get to the subject of this post. I was robbed. Saying that I was robbed “yesterday” is slightly misleading. Let me explain. Of all the babies I saw, none of them were as large as Tyler was at birth. Some were premature, sure, but some were born right on time. I feel like I’ve been robbed of having a tiny baby. Tyler was in the 95th percentile of birth weight, meaning that of 100 babies, 94 would be smaller than Tyler. I see people holding their new baby, tiny little things. We needed to use both arms to hold Tyler. How the heck did Sarah and I produce a 10+ pound baby?

So, yeah… as blessed as we are to have a healthy baby, I can’t help but feel that I’ve missed something in not having a “normal” sized baby.