One of my earliest memories as a sports fan is listening to the Washington Capitals playoff games on the radio. I was probably eight or nine years old. In those days you couldn’t watch Caps homes games on regular television (same for the Bullets and Orioles). You needed a cable channel called Home Team Sports (HTS) in order to watch these games and we didn’t have it. We’d get it eventually, and it occasionally had free preview weeks, but not during the playoffs. With a setup like this its no wonder the Redskins have long been the most popular team in D.C.

I have no memory of how I even found the radio station, but I’d tune in and sit still and listen. Pretending to be Mike Gartner or Rod Langway (I once went so far as to sharpie a mustache on my lip to look like Gartner). When the Caps would score, the radio broadcast would pipe in the PA announcer announcing the good news and it would feel like you were in the old Capital Centre, watching the decibels rise into triple digits. Those are great memories. But as we know, most of the history of Washington Capitals hockey is flush with terrible memories. And those started on that radio in my fathers home office.

For every Dale Hunter game 7 OT game winner against Philly, we have a laundry list of disappointments. Agony really. The earliest example I can remember is Pat LaFontaine and the Islanders spoiling Easter Sunday in 1987 with a 4OT game winner in DC.That game ended around 2am, I’m sure I was asleep but devastated none-the-less. The previous season the Isles had overcome a 2-0 deficit in a FIVE game series to knock out the Caps. This was the beginning of 30 years of playoff failures.

If you are around may age (ahem…40) the Caps have exited just about every playoffs in a blaze of disappointment. There was the out-of-nowhere run to the finals in 1998. Their reward? Getting swept by an all-time Detroit team in the Stanley Cup Finals. They didn’t even make the playoffs the next season.

The Caps have great fans, and the fans somehow talk themselves back into “anything is possible” mode every April. Usually with devastating results. Starting the year before the LaFontaine goal, the Caps have made a bad habit of blowing 2-0 or 3-1 leads in series. They’ve blown five 3-1 leads in their playoff history. Mucb of the 1990s saw them blow those sized leads to the dreaded Penguins, including another 4OT home loss in 1996. The Caps of my youth made it to the conference finals exactly once. In 1990 led by John Druce, who wouldn’t be heard from again as a Cap. The 1998 team was the only other team to get even that far until this season. That team was a memorable bunch, Adam Oates, Peter Bondra, Joe Juneau and Olaf Kolzig between the pipes. Other than the hideous uniforms (they went from red/white/blue to some combo of gold, white, black and a teal like blue for a few years. Yuk) they were fun to root for. But even that era ended with a blown 2-0 lead and playoff series loss to Tampa in 2003. And much of it was tied to the truly disappointing Caps career of Jaromir Jagr. Who played like 40 years in the NHL, killing the Caps when he was in Pittsburgh, but saved his worst three seasons for the Caps. Thanks!

Alex Ovechkin was drafted first overall by the Capitals in 2004, Nicklas Backstrom would be drafted the next season. By year three (2007-2008) of the Ovechkin era (or Rock the Red era if you prefar), the Caps would make the playoffs every year of his career except one (2013-2014), but never advance beyond the second round. Ovie’s teams have authored their own playoff collapses. 2009 against the stupid Penguins, 2010 against Montreal, 2013 and 2015 against the NY Rangers. They had some fun series wins, winning game 7s against Boston and the Rangers. But the seasons always ended in disappointment. And the fans would have another long off-season to decide how much longer they could stay in this abusive relationship.

The 2017-2018 season wasn’t one I was particularly excited about. The Caps bowed out last season in Game 7. Shut out. At home. By the Penguins. It was a little bit of a different series than all the previous ones. This one saw Pittsburgh jump out the 3-1 lead, before the Caps rallied to force a game 7. Making believers out of those loyal, heartbroken fans one more time, before coming up short again. By any measure, the 2017-2018 Caps would be a less talented team. They had made off-season moves that saw them lose 3 of their top 6 defenseman to free agency/expansion draft. Two top 6 forwards left as well. They were able to lock up a couple of top players to long term deals, but the feeling in the off-season was blah at best.

The Caps regular season played out like a lot of the seasons in the last 15 years. Some highs, some lows. Some worry that they may miss the playoffs, before they end up winning the division and ride a top two seed into the playoffs. It would be business as usual.

When the playoffs started, they drew the Columbus Blue Jackets, which I liked because they haven’t knocked the Caps out the playoffs before. Not yet anyway. The Caps had a goalie problem though. Braden Holtby had been bad down the stretch. Phillip Grubauer would get the start. He lasted a game and a half. The Caps promptly dropped the first two games at home, which might have been the first (not the last!) time in the playoffs where I wrote them off. Called them losers in texts with my friends, and pouted. Lars Eller would save the series (and the season) with a 2OT goal in Columbus to win game 3. The Jackets wouldn’t win another game and the Caps advanced. Guess who was waiting?

The Pittsburgh series was treated like the finals when in reality it was just a conference semi-final. Whoever won, would still have to win 8 more times to raise the cup. The Caps lost game one at home, because of course they did. Somehow the Pens would win only once more. The Caps would take this series in 6, in OT, on Pittsburgh’s ice. This whole thing was starting to feel strange. Eastern Conference final for just the THIRD time ever. Beating Pittsburgh was nice. But this couldn’t be “good enough.”

Tampa was next and they were the only team in the East with more points than the Caps, so they got to host the first two games. The Caps won them BOTH! Wait, wait? This is gonna be easy now, just win the next two at home and away we go. Not so much. The Caps lost BOTH at HOME and now its a three game series and Tampa gets home ice back (whatever that was worth). Tampa scores :19 seconds into game 5 and never look back. 3-2 Tampa. The Caps evened the series with maybe their best game of the playoffs, pitching a shutout in game 6. So, then we get a Game 7. On the road. To get to the Cup final. The game 6 performance made a believer out of me, but I probably had a 30% confidence they could win. They pulled it out. Another shutout. Back to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in 20 years.

I have my own kids now (this is largely a parenting blog for those you drawn in by the hockey talk!) and in many ways I wish I could still watch sports through those innocent eyes. My son has taken to watching “the hockey” and we got him and his sister little Ovie sweaters for this postseason run. All he knows is the red guys are the good guys and the yellow guys (Pittsburgh) are the bad guys. When the Caps score once, he assumes they have won the game and moves on the next thing. It was much easier when I was 9-years-old listening to the games on the radio. The Caps were my team. I would be bummed if they lost, and maybe commiserate with fellow fans in whatever 5th grade class I was in, but that was it. I didn’t have to avoid watching highlights or reading the stories after the loss like I tend to do now. DC sports (and the Orioles, and most Syracuse teams) have broken that spirit over a 35 year sports watching career.

I’m writing this particular paragraph on the afternoon of June 7th, the day of game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final. The Caps hold a, gulp, 3-1 series lead on the Las Vegas Golden Knights. I’m not sure exactly how to feel.

The Knights are completing their FIRST season in the NHL. A remarkable story about a group of guys who were drafted off other teams (to be a fair, many of these guys are solid pros, unlike past expansion drafts) to make a run like this. Their goalie is Marc Andre Fluery, the same guy who shut out the Caps for the Penguins in DC, in Game 7 last season.

Las Vegas won the first game in a video game like 6-4 final. Tons of offense, the lead changed hands a record number of times. If the pace remained like that, the Caps would have no chance. Luckily the Caps coaches made adjustments and they grabbed the second game in Vegas, and both games in DC. So here we sit, sixty mins from the first DC title in my adult lifetime. 26 and half years since the Redskins won the Super Bowl in Minneapolis. That was the best team of my lifetime. But I probably only watched half of that Super Bowl. I was on a middle school ski trip, running from hotel room to hotel room, doing what 13-year-olds do. I couldn’t have imagined then that the wait would be this long. As I wait for game 5 to start, I’m trying to be excited. But I’m losing the battle to nervous energy. I’ve tried to enjoy these two months of playoff hockey, and I’m thrilled for the team. The players. For Ovechkin. But that pit in my stomach remains, the scar tissue of playoff past hasn’t yet healed. If I had to bet, I’d say even odds the Caps win it tonight, or lose it in 7. There is almost no in between.

THEY DID IT! Lars Eller scored with under 8 minutes to go to WIN the CUP in five games. The Caps took a 1-0 lead, A 2-1 lead. And ended up 3-3 midway thru the final period. Eller scores the biggest goals of the playoffs (again) and the Caps survive to win the Cup. I’m not sure to how to feel. The Caps are 44 years old this year. I’m 40. My entire life has lead up to this team breaking thru. The cashing in on the talent and making it happen. For the first time in 26 years, DC gets a championship. This is incredible. Impossible. Inevitable?

The last eight minutes of this game took 3 hours, but a win is a win is a win and the Caps are the champs. I feel so good for Ovie. And Backstrom. And Holtby. Trotz. Smith-Pelly and Eller. All the guys who made this possible. The Caps exercised ALL of the demons that have haunted our dreams over the years, They beat the Pens. They survived blowing a 2-0 lead. They won the cup defending a 3-1 lead. We are the champions.

In my adult life I’ve enjoyed a couple of college titles (Maryland in 2002, Syracuse in 2003) but my pro sports life has seemed like a lot of wasted hours. Thank you Ovie. Thank you Backstrom. And Oshie, and Holtby and the rest of the Caps for an amazing run. And a happy ending. Instead of worrying about a game 6, I’m worried about how I make it to a parade. LET’S GO CAPS!

Jack Van Vleet’s outfit, courtesy of the Oakland A’s

No, not me!

If you are Facebook friends with me you might have noticed in recent weeks that I have been liking and commenting on posts from my buddy Pete Van Vleet. Pete and I worked together, sat next to each other actually, for almost eight years at The Associated Press. We worked in the newsroom of the AP’s Broadcast News Center, and our tasks changed almost daily. Some days were insanely busy, others could be pretty slow. Regardless of what was going on around us, or how stressful the news got, we always had time to talk sports. Specifically baseball.

Our shared love of baseball is something we intend to share with our kids. I am an Orioles fan. My father was raised in Baltimore and was 10 when the O’s came to town. He was in Memorial Stadium for the final out of the 1966 World Series, the first title for the birds. He’s lived in DC now longer than he lived in Baltimore, and he reads The Washington Post every day, so the Nationals are the team he follows the closest these days. He also hates the Orioles owner. But that doesn’t stop us from talking baseball just about every time we talk or see each other. For close to four decades now.

My son Cameron is now three, he was at his first Orioles game at less than six months. We took Erin to her first game just after her first birthday. The both have certificates and O’s hats. The Orioles will be THEIR team, whether they like it or not!

Pete has a different approach. And frankly it’s hard not to admire how he’s going about it. Pete is a Houston Astros fan. Born and raised in Richmond, Va, Pete didn’t have a local big league team. So he found one. That is the message he’s sending to his kids. Daughter Madeline adopted the Detroit Tigers. Pete and his wife Marcia welcomed son Jack back in February. Before this MLB season began, Pete wrote a letter to all 30 MLB teams asking them why his son should root for them. This was a fun exercise for Pete, but the reaction he would soon get from the teams and social media was the real story. Pete and Jack became famous for a couple of weeks. Newspaper articles, MLB’s own website did a story, Pete did a skype interview with a local TV station in Milwaukee. The family was invited to the Richmond minor league teams game as VIPs. And the reaction to Pete and Jack on social media was incredibly positive.

The Brewers throw their hat in the ring

With his fifteen minutes winding down. My old work buddy was nice enough to give me a couple of minutes to talk about this whole wild experience. And nice enough to give me a chance to get my blog dusted off after too many months on the shelf!

You grew up in Richmond, Va as a Houston Astros fan. Why have you decided to let your kids find their own favorite teams, instead of passing down your fandom like so many (myself included) do?

Great question. So I have always taken quite a lot of pride in being an Astros fan. I am a march-to-my-own beat kinda guy anyway so picking the Astros and sticking with them fits into that. And because of that I wanted Jack and Madeline to have that same experience. There is something emboldening about being able to stand separate from the group and to stand proudly and firmly. I guess I am picking my kids to have to experience that over having whatever bonding we may engage in over cheering and lamenting over the same team. I will freely admit that I may have miscalculated this but my father wasn’t a big baseball fan (while he liked the sport and encouraged my love for it he himself didn’t have a team, my grandfather was the big baseball guy in my family but he passed before I could develop a following.

Swag from the Mets!

Madeline visits with her favorite MINOR league team

Dad’s favorite team makes their case

The Pirates make their pitch to Jack

Finally some quick questions for Marcia, Pete’s wife and Jack and Madeline’s mom:

What does mom think about all this? Did any team gain your support throughout this? I imagine Jack would take your advice. Have you enjoyed all this, even the extra media attention on Pete and Jack? 

It’s been a fun adventure. I’ve enjoyed watching Pete’s reaction to all of this. On the days when packages have arrived in the mail, it has been like Christmas morning for him. And it will be a special story to tell Jack when he’s old enough to appreciate it. 

But, if I’m being totally honest, the extra media attention makes me a little nervous. Facebook was one thing, but then this story went to a whole other level we never expected. Pete has handled it well, though. But as the Mama it has been a bit nerve-racking to be on this side of things as far as the coverage. Even though it’s a positive, feel-good story, you still feel like your family is under a magnifying glass and you lose some control of the narrative because you aren’t writing the story. That’s hard for someone who is used to writing and editing. An unexpected upside to the coverage has been realizing that our neighbors still read the newspaper!

I’ll definitely support the Flying Squirrels from now on. They were so nice to our family, especially Madeline. (And she’s a huge baseball fan already, which sometimes gets left out of all of this.) They took a lot of time to hang out with her, talk princesses, sign autographs. It was a special day for her! And I’ll always be grateful to the team and staff for that.

As far as major league teams, though, based solely on what we’ve received as part of this experiment, I’d tell Jack to pick the Pirates. Their letter was exceptional!

My prediction: Madeline continues to be her daddy’s biggest baseball buddy, and Jack stays home and watches reruns of Fixer Upper with me.

This has been a fun story to watch from afar, and it was a lot of fun to talk with Pete and Marcia a bit more in depth about how all of this went down. Thanks to them both for taking the time to chat about all of this one more time!

The question I get asked most often these days is “how is life with two kids?” Most of the time the people asking have more than one kid of their own, so they know the answer:

Having two kids is MUCH harder than having one!

The fact that I haven’t published a blog post since May should give some indication of how I usually answer that question. Life with two….is complicated.

When you have your first child, you are in a bit of a haze for the first few months. You can’t actually believe that you created a child, and that you have this awesome responsibility now that you didn’t have just days before. You are careful about everything, and sleep with one eye open for months. Nothing is ever too annoying and you are so excited to have a child, that everything else takes a back seat.

And for twenty-five months that was us. Cameron was the main focus. Before he was born we took most of the available baby classes. After he arrived we had a routine figured out quickly and stuck with it for a year. Feedings, naps, walks, etc. Everything was by the book. Despite marrying a doctor, we’d call the pediatrician more often than I’d like to admit. As a new parent you are nervous all the time. You can’t believe that what you are doing is the right thing. It takes over a year to gain the confidence to think that you are doing this parenting thing correctly.

When the second kid arrives, things are different. They just are. There is a level of “I’ve been there before” cockiness. But there is also a complete memory lapse of how “you did it before.” I can change diapers in my sleep, but how about getting the baby to stop crying? It is hard to really remember how you did it before. Maybe you black it out? Maybe you were so tired you really don’t remember? Erin is a little smaller than Cam ever was so she reacted differently to almost everything. Eating. Napping. Crying. Even if I could remember exactly how I got Cam to sleep when he was five months old, it doesn’t matter. These are different kids.

You lose that cockiness pretty quickly by the way. Not because you can’t figure it out on the fly. You can. But when I was raising Cam as a 4-month-old, I didn’t have a two-and-a-half year old running around the house. I think that is biggest thing we didn’t fully see coming. Something as routine as loading up the car now takes twice as long. Walking the dog can be a comedy of errors that I’m sure is entertainment for the whole neighborhood. Just chasing Cam around the park is much more difficult when you’re carrying or pushing an extra 18 pounds. Six months ago Cameron was very much under my watchful eye. Nowadays, he has full run of the house for the time it takes me to get Erin down for a nap.

Erin just turned six-months old. That means that Cameron is now closer to three than two. This is happening at warp speed (expect on the hard days, those are in slow motion!). To answer the question that we started with, I would say it is somewhere between twice and ten times as hard (depending on the day) to be at home with two kids every day. But watching Cameron seek out his little sister to give her a hug and a kiss every morning, or seeing her face light up when Cameron shoots her a smile makes it all worth it. Most of the time. Life with two is pretty great.

Cameron and this blog turned two a couple of months ago. When I started this, I wasn’t really sure how it might end. Would I pick a date and just stop? Would I just slowly stop posting and move on to other things (this has sometimes already been the case)?  Would it pick up a second wind somewhere along the way and revive it for a while longer? Or would someone offer me millions of dollars to turn all of this into a book? A movie?

On April 5th we got that answer. Erin Elizabeth joined us and made us a family of four. And just like that, we are back to the beginning. My first blog post ever was a couple of Aprils ago when I was preparing to stay home alone with Cameron as Sara went back to work. Here we go again.

It’s pretty incredible how quickly you forget how to handle such a small person. You forget (or maybe block out) all the quick feedings, and naps, and how often to change the baby. The milestones we hit with Cam now start over with Erin. This is both exciting and exhausting.

Sara has been home a little longer already than she was with Cam. She heads back to the office on June 6th, and then this all gets very real. Juggling two kids and getting to learn all about raising a girl headline the challenges ahead.

I’m looking forward to it. I think. When I was faced with this a couple of years ago, I had no clue what to expect. I know better now, but having a girl this time around leaves plenty of unanswered questions.

And don’t worry. Cam will play a significant role in most of the posts ahead. We aren’t done with him yet. I’m expecting a four-part post on potty training alone! Yikes.

Come back in June and see if I still have the job!

I don’t like snow storms all that much. There are a couple of reasons for that, I guess. I went to college in Syracuse, New York. In Syracuse they average around 100 of inches of snow per year. My four winters up there were generally considered to be mild, yet there was almost always some snow on the ground from Halloween to Easter. I’ve also done a couple of tours in New England in the last decade or so. Maine and Rhode Island both produce plenty of cold and snow, even on the coasts where we lived.

The main reason I don’t get super excited for blizzards is because I used to work in the news business. Working in news for any length of time will turn you into a cynic. You root against big stories developing to keep your head from exploding. While the rest of the area is excited to sit on their couches and watch the news coverage, those in the newsrooms have to get into work to produce that material. News people don’t get the day off. They work twice as long in most cases. They get hotel rooms within walking distance to the office. Or a super long and dangerous commute. So please excuse me if I don’t get pumped up seeing stories about long lines at the grocery store, or the lack of snow shovels available in town.

There is a different reason why I wasn’t wild about this particular snow storm- Snowzilla! Sara was in Atlanta for all of it. She had a conference down there that started on Thursday. There was talk of her canceling, but these are good networking opportunities for her as she builds her career. Her original travel plans had her back on Saturday afternoon, she quickly changed that to Sunday as the forecast got more serious. That left Cam and me (and our trusty sidekick Quinn) home alone for who knew how long. Sunday turned into Monday. She finally got home Monday afternoon. I was on solo duty with Cam and Quinn for five full days. My first solo mission longer than a day in almost a year. Cam will be two in about six weeks. This was by far the biggest challenge I’ve faced as a parent.

I first noticed a smell in our laundry sometime Wednesday night. I couldn’t quite make it out, but by Thursday afternoon (after Sara had left) I knew just what it was. Something had died. And it was only going to get worse. Our laundry room is the unfinished part of our basement, which makes up about a third of the total basement. It houses the washer, dryer and our backup fridge, which we got when we moved back to store extra food for our growing child. It is also where we store all of our crap that we like enough to keep, but not enough to use. Finding a mouse in these conditions wouldn’t be easy. By the time the smell became almost unbearable, the snow storm had started. I’d have to wait almost a week to get someone out to help. In the meantime I used every deodorizer I could find in the house to neutralize the smell. Even calling on some disgusting scented lavender vanilla trash bags (that had been banished to the basement) to help. All it produced was a potpourri of awful that left me nauseous every time I went in to do laundry. Unfortunately, I’d be doing a lot of laundry.

Thursday and Friday without Sara were easy enough. We were able to stick to our routine, his school stayed open until 1:00pm on Friday. I was even able to successfully deflect questions about Mommy’s whereabouts. The weather didn’t really start until late in the afternoon. And we even got out on the back deck to see the first inch or two of the storm. We were breezing through, even looking forward to having a couple of days stuck at home to enjoy the first real blizzard of his life.

By 5:45am Saturday morning, I was less optimistic. Cam woke up with a cry I hadn’t heard in a while. When he wakes up in the morning, he doesn’t usually cry unless he’s been up for a while and is being ignored. Instead he will bounce around, or starting throwing stuff out of his crib. Just to let you know he’s up and ready for the day. That wasn’t the case here. He was sick and had vomited all over himself and his crib. Not the start I was looking for to the weekend. We cleaned up and moved on, but he got sick again. And then again. The final blow was something out of The Exorcist and unfortunately we were sharing a chair at the time. He was very upset as I scrambled to clean up a pretty big mess before Quinn did. Yuck.

So now I’m obviously concerned. Sara handles all things illness in our house. I don’t really know when to give Tylenol, or when to give something else. Or when to call the doctor. There was already more than a foot of snow on the ground, so I couldn’t take him anywhere. And if he was really sick, I wasn’t convinced anyone could get to us. I took his temp and started praying that we weren’t going to be doing this every hour. Not sure if this was a flu bug or just the result of too much dinner, we switched to just water for a while. We took a rare midday bath and he went down for a nap. A three hour nap. That saved the day. Fortunately it appeared it was just something he ate.

Sara arrived home just after 2:00pm on Monday. Stuck in Atlanta for an extra 48 hours, she was able to get to BWI after changing her flight home five times. Things were back to normal. Until they weren’t. Turns out Cameron probably had a bug. As I said, Sara handles all things illness in our house! He vomited again Monday, he was jumping around a bit too much after dinner, but enough excuses. He had a bug. I was about to find out just how bad a bug it was.

I lost track of how many times I got sick. Starting around midnight Monday until late Tuesday afternoon, I was useless. Luckily Sara was able to stay home while I stayed in bed all day. I hadn’t been that sick in decades. Maybe ever.

By Wednesday Cam was back at school and Sara was back at work. We were finally back to normal. Then Sara called. Yup, she was sick now. Of course. Since we had only managed to dig out one car by Wednesday, I was running a carpool. I picked up Cam, Sara got an IV at work (a perk of working at a hospital) and I grabbed her later. Sara would spend most of Thursday at home. She hadn’t taken a sick day since she had to get her wisdom teeth out in 2007. This stomach flu had wiped out our entire family. I’d heard of this happening, but living it was unbelievable. The only one in the house not sick as a dog, was the dog. The only good news? The Orkin man found the dead mouse buried under our fridge. So we had that going for us.

On Friday morning things actually were back to normal. Finally. Sara returned to work. We were all feeling better, but still not quite 100%. Plans we had made for Friday night were postponed. The weekend would now be for catching up on rest and getting rid of the snow. The longest week in recent memory was mercifully coming to an end.

When I dropped Sara at the airport that Thursday morning, I was prepared to spend a couple of nights with Cam by myself. Maybe an extra solo night if the weather was as bad as predicted. What followed is something I couldn’t have seen coming. Which I guess is the point. I’ve been a parent for almost two years, and the only thing I’ve truly learned, is to never expect things to go as planned. Routines are nice. But you earn your money when those routines fall apart. Weather happens. Travel delays happen. Illnesses come out of nowhere. Coming out the other side, mostly intact, is about the best you can do.

I didn’t get a cell phone until the summer after I graduated from college. Or fifteen summers ago. But it might as well have been a lifetime ago. Like most of us, I’m entirely too reliant on my phone. I can’t remember a time where I didn’t at least have a phone on me at all times. I go into spasms if I’m without my phone these days, it’s pretty sad.

The iPhone, or smartphone if you prefer, is still less than ten years old. But I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t freely check my email or set my fantasy football lineup from anywhere. The convenience is so great that it does make you forget how you lived before these devices. Somehow I made it 22 years, including four years away for college (and a semester abroad), without being in constant contact with everyone I know. If I tried to do that again now? I’d have a breakdown.

This is a long way of saying that I have no idea how my parents raised my sisters and me without the technology that we can use today. I’m not proud of this, but Apple products play a HUGE role in getting Cameron and me through a day. Sometimes its just pulling up YouTube Kids to get through a meal or firing up Elmo on demand on the iPad to survive the late day meltdown. Traveling is a little less scary with the ability to throw something on the phone or iPad anytime. Or a noise maker to help sleep in a hotel room. In fact, we have an iPad that has embarrassingly become the world’s most expensive night light.

When I was a kid, I watched plenty of Sesame Street, Mr Rogers, 3-2-1 Contact and whatever else was on in the early 80’s. Those shows came on at a set time. Everyday. Perhaps my mom plopped me down in front of the TV for a little while so she could get work done, but her window was so much smaller than what we have available now. Between streaming services, On Demand, and the hundreds of cable channels, there is always something that can bail me out.

As we approach Thanksgiving, I’m certainly thankful for all of the technology helping us raise our son. We do try to load up the activities so that we aren’t just watching PBS all day. But there are times everyday where the ability to turn over the parenting duties to my iTunes account comes in pretty handy.

Now if you’ll excuse me, my dropcam app on my iPad just let me know that my son’s nap has ended!

I can’t say I wasn’t warned.

Almost every person I spoke with about starting preschool said the same thing: Prepare yourself emotionally for this kind of change. Turns out that was pretty good advice.

Cameron started school on Wednesday. He’s doing three mornings a week, about three hours at a time. We were hoping to push off starting school a couple more months. January was our target, but a spot opened up at the school we preferred and we took it. I don’t think we thought he’d be in school at 19 months, but we’re excited for him to get this opportunity.

The nerves started sometime on Tuesday. We had delayed the start a week to get medical forms all set. This wasn’t a phony excuse, but my guess is we could have pushed a little harder if we weren’t afraid of this on some level. I guess I was worried that he would hate it, and then hate me when he got home. Or he would be a problem in class and I’d have to come and get him. He is starting about six weeks into the school year, so of course you worry about him making friends. As I tend to do, the worry was way worse than the reality.

Wednesday morning was rough all around. He had only met his teacher briefly last week, and seen the classroom for just a few minutes. When I walked him in to drop him off, he started holding me pretty tight. He was sensing that I would be dropping him off and leaving. The tears and screaming started pretty quickly. But almost as quickly they stopped. The teacher met us at the door and walked him in. I said goodbye and didn’t look back. But I couldn’t hear him screaming, and if he was still screaming I WOULD be able to hear him!

I went back to my car and just sat there for a minute. I wasn’t as upset as I thought I would be. But it was strange. Sure, I welcome the free time to run errands or just catch up on the DVR, but for the next three hours I wouldn’t really know what Cam was doing. His whole life I’ve pretty much known his every move. Our weekday mornings are spent at various classes around town, learning how to swim, listening to music or stories at the library. Now, nine hours a week, I won’t really know what he’s learning. We’ll get some updates, and maybe some pictures, but there will be firsts that I’m sure we will miss.

By late Wednesday morning he was all smiles. He and his little backpack came up to meet me for pick-up time and he was happy. By Thursday morning the drop-off tears were gone. As I walked him into the school a couple adults already knew who he was. “Hey Cameron!” “Is that Cameron?” I think he made a good first impression. This time when we got to the classroom he led me in and got right back to whatever he was working on when he left. Same drill on Friday morning.

There will be some bumps I’m sure, but we’re thrilled so far. So far I’m avoiding the drop-off and pickup lines. I’d rather walk him in every day, and since I’m never in a hurry that should usually work. At some point I’ll give it a spin, and that may lead to more tears. The kids I’ve witnessed so far aren’t super happy with a teacher yanking them from their parents car every morning. Cam has proven so far that he’d probably get used to it, and do it all with a smile on his face while waving to everyone in sight. But I’m not ready for that just yet.

So far this week I’ve filled out a permission slip for a field trip to a pumpkin patch (I’m also going!) and we got a packet about ordering school pictures. So, yes, this is all starting to move a little too quickly.

I’m hoping to get to my at least once a month blog output as we start a new season of new and fun activities. I never want this blog to become a running diary of our days together, so if there isn’t much happening, I won’t bore you with the details.

The summer was fun, but fairly tame. We spent a lot of time in Bethany Beach where we couldn’t keep Cameron away from the ocean! We spent a lot of time at our pool, where Cam continued to get comfortable in the water. All of these are good signs, considering his parents started dating in part because they were both on the local swim team 20-something years ago.

The summer was also a change in our day-to-day routine. We took six weeks off from all of the classes we usually go to. Music and swim lessons took a break. We missed a few storytimes along the way. Storytime may be going on permanent hiatus soon, since all I do is chase him around a small room for 45 minutes as is! He can’t exactly be tuned in to the stories, when there are things he can grab and throw all over the place!

Amazingly, I decided to add more to the schedule this fall and we recently started a toddler tumblers class at Rebounders Gymnastics, and he’s taking part in the Lil’ Kickers Soccer program at a sports complex down the street. These decisions we made with the idea that anything that allows him to run around and spend some of his limitless energy is a good thing. Talk about your all-time backfires….

We found out last week that Cameron was taken off a waiting list for a preschool up here in Baltimore. We applied with the idea that we would want him to start going somewhere in January, just before his second birthday. The process moved much faster than we expected; now he can start as soon as next week. Not taking the spot probably isn’t wise, since we have no idea when the next one will open. So I’ve spent the last three days trying to move stuff around so he could keep doing most of these activities, and start school in a week or so. All the while, I’m not really even sure how ready he is, or I am, for him to start school already! It’s only a three day, half day program, at a Montessori school ten minutes away. But this was not something I was prepared for!

Pretty soon we may have gymnastics and swimming on Mondays, music class on Tuesdays, school Wed-Fri and soccer on Sundays! I’m starting to understand why I never see my friends with kids anymore! Wish me luck with all of this; school related blog to come once we get started.

A few weeks ago Cameron turned 18 months old. This means that he’s eligible for some of the programs above (school and soccer for starters), but it also meant another trip to the doctors office! No shots this time, so it was our favorite check-up yet! He’s more than 32 pounds and 37.5 inches tall. So he’s still trending to be the first 7-footer in Fogarty-Paley family history!

A lot of new and exciting things are coming. Most of this should be fun, and some of it will be stressful and awful. Those are the ones that make the best entries, so it’s a win-win I guess!

It has been over three months since my last blog entry. That is longer than I intended, but a short break was something I did plan. With a beach vacation starting in a few days, it will probably be a few weeks before I get anything else posted. So I felt like this would be a good time to remind my many readers that we are still here!

When I started this blog Cameron was a few weeks old and I was fretting my decision to be a stay-at-home parent. I never wanted this blog to just be a running diary of our days together. I wanted to share milestones, and funny anecdotes of our time together. That has gotten a little harder as we settled into our routine. We had a crazy first few months together, but things have settled down in recent months. We have a very strict routine and I go out of my way, for us not to go out of our way and get into any trouble. In short, we live fairly boring lives. The most exciting thing that has happened to us was the time that daddy forgot he left the library books on the roof of his car a couple months ago. He drove home and didn’t remember until a couple hours later. Back in the library parking lot and the surrounding areas were pieces of these books (ironically mostly about cars and trucks) all over the place. A lost cause. And a 30 dollar braincramp. Could have been worse!

Back in April I posted about Cameron starting to walk. I’m “happy” to say that he hasn’t slowed down since. He’s getting close to running and is tall enough to get into almost everything in the kitchen. What used to be relaxing trips to music class and storytime have pretty much turned into me chasing him around for 45 mins. Attempting to stop him from sticking his thumb in some poor baby’s eye as he attempts to say hello. We’re still working on proper salutations!

We have continued to enjoy PBS Kids when we are home and have a little bit of downtime. I’m a big fan of Arthur, much more than he is. It’s probably over his head, geared more towards adults I think. He has gotten into Sesame Street, which is cool. Many of the same characters (and actors) remain from when I was kid. He’s partial to the letter of the day with Elmo (clap, clap) and the Count telling us the number of the day (stomp, stomp). And of course the hilarity of Super Grover. Neither of us are very fond of the Flying Fairy School animated bit. Nor can we understand why it gets so much of the show.

Next up is talking. We can’t decide if he’s started talking yet or not. He “talks” a lot, but its mostly the kind of sounds you heard from Adam Sandler early in the movie Billy Madison. He does say Daddy, and Doggy (these sound almost identical, but you know what he means). Mama. Truck and Car are getting close. In short, he’s about there, but we’ve decided not declare a first word just yet. Stay tuned…..

Waiting for your child to walk is a little bit like waiting for water to boil. Or waiting for your entree at a busy restaurant. They aren’t going to walk if you are just waiting for them to walk.  That is especially true when you are always armed with an iPhone, and start shooting video at every move that could be confused as walking!

I don’t really remember when Cameron was able to sit up on his own. It was one of those things that both Sara and I noticed at different times. Not really sure if it was new or if we had just not noticed it before. I may not know when he started sitting up, but I’m reminded how good he is at it every time I try and change his diaper.

I do remember when he started pulling himself up and “walking” around with the help of various items of furniture. It was out of nowhere, but looked like he had been doing it for years. So that is where we were as he passed his first birthday. Not yet walking, but really on the verge.

Cameron is still is off the charts for size. He is nearly 30 pounds, 33 inches or so and his head is…..proportional! We had heard from friends and our doctor that his size would likely delay his walking. So much to balance and carry around with him. I was prepared for him to go a couple more months without walking. In fact, we didn’t have shoes for him until after he started walking. We had to make an emergency Sunday stop at the Leesburg outlets after visiting friends for the weekend. The outlet kid shoe store experience is probably worth a separate blog that Sara can guest write. I got to stay in the car with the dog!

Last week is was becoming clear that he was really, really close. He was standing on his own. The balance was pretty much down. Now, could he move forward? His 11-year-old cousin Jack stayed with us for much of last week. He has three younger siblings at home, so he was much better equipped to help him walk than we are! His guidance led to a couple of mini steps on a couple occasions. You could count these as his first steps, but I wouldn’t call it walking. That changed last Friday afternoon after we got Jack back to his Dad.

Carrying the Nintendo Wii steering wheel previously used by Jack for hours of Spring Break Mario Kart, Cameron started walking. He made it from our big comfy basement chairs to the stairs. He dove to the stairs, almost an exclamation point to the whole event. He’s been on the go ever since. *Note, I did get this on video. All 8 seconds in vertical iPhone video. I’ll add the video in a separate Facebook post since I’m not smart enough to get it embedded here.*

In the week since, he’s walking all over the place. Usually it ends with a face-plant or a hard landing on his tush. He isn’t 100% sure yet that he preferred using his two feet to crawling. He would likely win the 100 meter crawling race at the baby Olympics. He LOVES crawling. But I get the sense that within a month, he will love walking even more.

When he starts running, I may have to go back to working!