Wordless Wednesday

A family left out in the heat...

This weekend was eventful to say the least...

This past Saturday was a night with friends, good food and a trip to the park; sounds like a lot of fun, right? Well, when a slight miscommunication can change the face of the entire experience you can surely bet there will be a blog written about it.

It was Saturday, June 20^th, and we had our friends over for dinner. Brad, Adrienne and their one and half year old boy, Hudson. We hadn’t seen them since our little bundle of joy had joined the family. For dinner we enjoyed mesquite, grilled chicken along with fluffy couscous and green beans. It was a lovely evening until the fatal suggestion, I made, to go to the park located in our subdivision.

We drive to the park...

We arrive, I place Mauldin in our black and red baby bjorn and we all proceed to watch Hudson enjoy his moment in the swing. What is an outing without pictures? We proceed to make a few memorable snap shots before we decide to head back to the house and enjoy some good coffee and intelligent conversation.

Back at the house, excuse me, our drive way we quickly discover there is something wrong when I ask my wife for the key to the front door.

"I don't have it." Laura whispers to me with a look of pure shock on her face.

Of course, you all are probably wondering don't you have a key hidden outside somewhere? No, in fact we don't. (Don't start mom.)

Secondly, the key that should be on my wife's key ring, the key to the house, is hanging on a hook, inside the house, on a Vera Bradley, key chain/license holder combo. With that said, we have a ghetto garage and for this we have only one garage door opener and it is in my car which is not the car we took to the park! That's convienient, huh?

Thirdly, speaking of spare keys, we were smart enough to give our neighbors keys to our home. But, the two spare keys were unattainable, unfortunately, on this night, because neither of the two were at home.

To add insult to injury, neither my wife, nor I, brought our cell phones with us on our fun and sponteneous trip to said park.

"I thought you brought yours," Laura said.

"Well, I didn't bring mine because I figured you brought yours!" I quickly replied.

So, lets take a quick account: No phones, no keys, a 3-month old baby and 90 degree heat equals, well.. it pretty much looked hopeless.

However, our friends, Brad & Adrienne, were still with us and had not headed for the hills after finding our sad perdicament.

"Hey, lets think about this," said Laura. "Lets stay calm and think."

"Okay." I said. "I'm calm, but I'm hot and I need to pee!"

"Me too," added Brad.

With that said, we headed to the backyard. Brad and I took refuge in two seperate bushes on opposite sides of the yard. I felt so stupid to be peeing in the bushes at my own house and I was sober.

"What about Melissa!" Laura said with a bit of urgency in her voice.

"Who's Melissa?" Adrienne said.

"Our Pet Nanny," Laura and I said in unison.

Melissa, the nice lady who watches Logan and Andy, our two playful pups, while we are out-of-town has a key to our house! This was our saving grace! But, is she close by... what if she is out-of-town herself?

We proceeded to call Melissa, with the use of Adrienne's cell phone, and to no avil. She did not answer. I went ahead and called my mom to let her know about our situation, as Hudson went tumbling onto the grass, crying soon followed.

"Mom, you won't believe..." I started.

"Is that my baby crying?" my mom said, interrupting.

"No, that's Hudson. Mom, listen..."

I went on to tell her what our perdicament was and she went on to tell me how it could be avoided. This was not helping my current situation.

I look over at Laura and she has Mauldin bouncing up and down on her knees. He had no idea what situation his crazy parents had put him in. He couldn't of looked happier.

"We already called our pet nanny, can you please keep trying to contact her?" I said.

"Yes."

Not two minutes went by and Adrienne's phone started to ring... was it Melissa? I hoped, I wished, I hoped some more!

"Hello?" I said into the phone.

It had a black rubbery covering. I slide my thumb up and down the side as I awaited to hear a response. It was like an iPhone, but not, I think it was a Blackberry storm, not sure, but it was a life saver whatever it was.

"Eric?" said the voice on the other end.

"Melissa! Thank God!" I quickly replied. "Did you get my message?"

"Yes," she said. "I can be there in 20 minutes, is that okay?"

"Oh yah, that's perfect!" I said.

Yes! Our Pet Nanny was coming... she was coming to our rescue! She arrived shorly after, but it felt like an hour. We sat in our Honda Pilot with the AC on full blast. Mauldin took this chance to test out the driver's seat. He loved the steering wheel.

So, we had quite a memorable experience this Father's Day weekend... one we won't soon forget.

Thank you to my mom, Brad, Adrienne & of course, our Pet Nanny, Melissa!

The last strawberry in my fruit cup...

So, I am not exactly sure when or how it happened, but my likes and dislikes have sporatically changed. My tastes for certain foods have switched on like a light switch in the middle of the night.

As I sit here eating my lunch and digging my black, plastic fork into my medium cup of fruit, from Chick-fil-A, and saw there was only one single strawberry left it dawned on me… who am I? I don’t eat strawberries! When did I start liking them? What is going on here?

Please understand what a pickey eater I am. First off, and please don’t judge me here, but I do not eat red meat and I haven’t for nine years. I can just hear Aunt Voula, from my Big Fat Greek Wedding, “You don’t eat no meat?!” It is quite a complicated choice and I have probably made it insanely annoying for everyone I love who enjoys cooking out, and during the summer it is a popular pastime, atleast here in Georgia. No cheese burgers for me, turkey burgers, yes. Chicken? Sure. Bison, not so much. All my friends and family have accepted me for my wacky and unusual choice, but isn’t that what your friends and family are supposed to do? Soy? No. You don’t want me to eat soy… if you give me soy you better hand over the Beano or gas ex and not just the regular or store brand… I need the ULTIMATE extreme… okay, moving on. I still get the “oh yah! You don’t eat beef,” and it is always followed with “why?” I, look at them, take a deep breath and sigh, and oblige to give a short and concise explanation of, “it’s just a personal choice.”

Moving on I will let you know I was always one of those kids who would say, “no thank you,” to certain things at dinner time and get togethers. Don’t you hate those kids? I detested cream corn, tomatoes, collard greens and watermelon. My love for coke never existed and I still hate that bubbly mess in my mouth. I know the taste for these items will never, ever change. Okay, probably… I have learned to never say “never.” However, I cannot say the same for scrumptious, caesar salads, delicious, red strawberries, juicy red or green apples, steamed broccoli, buttery asparagus, twice baked potatoes and coffee. Yes, I said coffee. I used to not drink coffee. Try to wrap that factoid around your brain. I find myself craving these things as if I were some pregnant woman yearning to satisfy my appetite. My appetite for those I used to gag to visualize on my plate.

What is going on here? Am I getting older and learning to appreciate more things in life? Is this normal? Why is it I hated eating Caesar salads about a year ago and then just one day… it was different. It was like an alien ship came to earth and reprogrammed part of my brain while I was sleeping. “You want strawberries. You are a good person. You want to go to the Island.”

Any thoughts or answers? I was just wondering.

Oh.... It's Friday!

Isn’t it a nice day today? Oh, and why would it not be? The sun-is-a-shinin’.. well, it is here where we are.

I would say I was glad, it’s Friday, even if it were raining, there were cloudy skies, pasha, it doesn’t matter because today… is… Friday! Friday, I say!

It is the beginning of what will probably be a pretty event-filled weekend!

First of all, it will be my daddy’s first Father’s Day. Mommy and I got him the coolest gift, but he doesn’t know what it is because we hid it from him…

Secondly, I am hitting a milestone, well sorta! I mean it's quite a milestone. Mommy and Daddy keep telling people about it. I will be turning three months old on Sunday… They seem pretty stoked about it.

Well, don’t do anything I wouldn’t be proud of… behave yourselves. Happy early Father’s Day to all you dads out there, and more importantly, happy Friday!

Click here to check out my dad’s column on Examiner.com!

No more newborns...

It has happened.

We knew it would, but it just kind of crept up on us.

What am I talking about you ask?

Mauldin, our almost three month old son, has officially graduated from his newborn diapers (N’s) to ones. The little man has grown so fast in the past few weeks and we didn’t even notice until he started peeing on his clothes because his diapers could no longer hold his excretments! Okay, that is kinda gross when I say it like that. Let’s just say his pee was seeping out and so it was time for something bigger.

“Eric, can you replace all the diapers with the new ones?” my wife asked me so sweetly.

She was busy nursing him. He was lying there nourishing his body so that he can grow into the next stage of diapers. The 2’s! It won’t be long before we will actually have to start buying diapers again. Laura, my wife, and I stocked up on diapers when she was pregnant so that we wouldn’t have to be buying diapers so often. Well, our stock has started depleting right before our very eyes.

"Maybe we can make it to September!" I said with a hopeful disdane.

"I'm sure we can.. he is only what?"

"Ten pounds" said Laura, finishing my sentence.

"Alright then! He is ten pounds and 1's diapers are for ten to 14 lbs, right?" I continued.

"Yes, that is correct." Laura said.

She was sitting on our couch with Mauldin covering up some of the best parts, might I add. She had on khacki shorts, a pink shirt and a head band with skull and cross bones on it.

"I noticed you wore your belle band today!"

"Ouch!" she yelped! "Yes, thank you. Does it look okay?"

"What's wrong?" I recalled her previous retortment.

"He chomped on my ..." she stopped in mid sentence and looked down at our little hungry hippo.

"If you are going to act like that, sir, no more for you."

Mauldin laid there with no regret on his face what-so-ever... it was if he was like...

"Yah, sure.. you talk all big and bad.. bring it on mom!"

"I can't believe how big he is..." I said.

"You said that already..." said Laura looking at me as if I was losing my mind to early Alzheimer's.

"Well it's true!" I replied matter of factly! "Our little man is growing up so darn fast... our little newborn is gonna be our little three month old here in a few days!"

"Buuurrrrp!"

Mauldin had finished his afternoon lunch. He sat in his mommy lap with a huge sense of accomplishment across his face... as well as a little drool. The drool slowly dripped onto his little green and blue stripped onesie that read "I love mommy."

"Mauldin!" Laura exclaimed in the I'm surprised, but I'm really not surprised mommy voice! "Well, our little man is certainly growing up just like his daddy!"

All I could do was stand there and beam with pride.

"Yep!" I said... "I'm so proud!"

Check out my latest article on my column for New Dads at Examiner.com.