Super Dad

I'm a little bit late writing a Father's Day post for John.  These days I am a little bit late for everything.  I'd use pregnancy as an excuse but I don't think it's really the case.  I think it's more like lazy.

My laziness doesn't diminish (in fact, I do believe it escalates) John's Super Dad status.  Behold, what Super Dad did on Father's Day weekend:

Friday:  Get Dexter out of bed at 6:30, play with cars in his room for interminable amounts of time before allowing him to come in to our bedroom to wake me up, go to work, socialize with parents, take pregnant wife out to dinner in the happenin' town of Parkesburg, pick up sister from the train station, ride motorcycle to be sure it runs, help other sister unload car, socialize with family.


Saturday:  Get Dexter out of bed at 6:30, play with cars in his room for interminable amounts of time before allowing him to come in to our bedroom to wake me up, run motorcycle to be sure it still runs, help make breakfast, show motorcycle to guy who eventually bought it, go to DMV with guy to sign over title, go to DMV and Dunkin Donuts AGAIN to return old plate and entertain father, pick up lunch at grocery store, play with new IPad to see how to make it work, take family to Balloon Festival, take small child in the moon bounce and in the big blown up balloon to play with soccer balls, go on fruitless mission to find son some dinner, put grumpy tired child to bed.


Sunday:  Get Dexter out of bed at 6:30, play with cars in his room for interminable amounts of time before allowing him to come in to our bedroom to wake me up,  be pulled out of the shower by a small child who wants to "go shopping" with his baby stroller, go pick up chinese food for lunch, pack up sisters to go home, mow the lawn, go out to dinner with parents, put small child to bed.


A couple weeks ago someone from Behavioral Services came by the house to get a picture of what Dexter is like, and what our problems were and what we needed help with.  One of our issues, which is far better these days with the implementation of a sticker chart, is bed time.  The BHC asked how much time a day John gets to spend with Dexter, and was pleasantly surprised at my answer.  A lot.  He gets him up in the morning.  He plays with him after work, eats dinner with us, and puts him to bed every night.  Really? she says.  Wow.  You're lucky.


I know.  I'm a lucky girl, and Dex is a lucky boy to have a dad like John.  He's a fantastic dad.  Dexter prefers to play with him, prefers to go up to bed with him, prefers to sit next to him at the dinner table.  I hope it stays that way forever.  I hope when he's a surly teenager that he still wants to talk to his daddy, and still tells him I love you.  I hope when he's an adult and has moved away he still calls because he wants to see how his old dad is doing.  I hope he always thinks of him as the Super Dad he is.


Love you, honey.  Happy Father's Day.

Biker boy

Dex and Daddy check out the balloons

Daddy and Dex play with the big big soccer ball inside a hot air balloon

Dex helps water the flowers.  He's an excellent helper...

Cute cute cute Father's Day card that Dexter made in school.

Weekend at Grandma's

We had an awesome weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Dex is tall enough now that he just barely touches, on his tip-toes, in the pool.  Grandpa keeps his pool hot, so Dexter can stay in there and swim for lots longer than at the Y pool.  Plus, there's no cool fountains to play with at the Y.  And no cool battery-operated fish swimming around the pool.  Dexter loves Grandpa's sandbox and tries to shove every toy he owns in to it.  And Mr. Cranky Pants was kind of a pain in the ass at the zoo on Sunday with Aunt Jeanne, but he really liked watching the penguins, especially when they fed the penguins.  So I suppose it was worth the trip.

Dex is spending a few days at Camp Grandma while John works and I organize the basement this week.  I slept in, watched SportCenter while eating breakfast, and haven't had to touch a train all day.  Heaven.

Here's a few of my favorite pics from the weekend.

I am so glad he finds things fun.  Sometimes I wonder about him.  He's so damn serious.

Not so much jumping.  More falling.  But still fun.

I think John MIGHT have some sore arms today...

Buddy, bless his heart, is going to be a little out of sorts this week with his brother gone.

I have an eerily similar picture from around this time last summer..

Swimming on his own, under the fountain

Grandpa and Dexter "squirting each other on purpose"

Penguin!

Hopefully at the end of the week we will have an exhausted child who will sleep for days, and a much cleaner basement.

Fish

Wait, who is holding on to that child??  Ah, that's right.  Mr. Fish has suddenly learned how to swim.  Just in, like, the last two weeks.

He has been totally capable of doing this for a while now, but every now and then his confidence gets shaken and it takes a few months to recover.  Yes.  MONTHS.  Dear lord.  But he's had an awesome swim teacher this session who has somehow built his confidence and gotten him to swim the entire width of the pool.  As he giggles and smiles the whole time.  Perhaps if he learned to giggle less and keep his damn mouth closed while he is swimming, he wouldn't swallow so much water and he wouldn't get scared.

But then he wouldn't be nearly as cute.

Click below for Fish Video:

American Pickers (and other random assortments of randomness)

It was berry season early here, and the season was kind of short.  So we've been picking berries like mad the last few weeks to try to stock the freezer, and our bellies.  Ooooh.  Speaking of freezer, I believe I still have 2 sheets of strawberries sitting in the freezer downstairs, waiting to be bagged.  Lemme go check on those...  OK.  Strawberry crisis averted.

So here's some pictures of strawberry picking, and rhubarb picking, and raspberry picking, and some other assorted randomness from the past few weeks.  It doesn't even include the awesome Memorial Day parade, or the equally awesome summer BBQ we hosted here last weekend for our Movie Night girl friends and their families.  There's too many pictures of those things.

Dexter and his friend Bryce picking strawberries.  Dex lasted about 5 minutes.  Bryce lasted about 8.  Somehow we still managed to pick a good number of berries.

Dexter spent the other 25 minutes I picked doing this.  Not exactly complaining, but also not so much participating.

He was, however, an excellent bag holder for rhubarb.  Which I had never picked before.  New adventures.  Also new?  Picking strawberries while pregnant.  I do not recommend.  Strawberry picking already sucks.  Add in a baby belly and it sucks way more.

Thursday I went back to pick more strawberries by myself, while Dex was in school.  Far more productive that way.  But Friday Dexter came with me to pick some raspberries.  Or however you say what they spelled on that sign...

The little man is far more excited by raspberry picking.  He lasted a good half an hour.

He put exactly two berries in his basket.  And about 279 in his belly.  I also just noticed he's wearing the same shirt that he wore three weeks previous, when picking strawberries.

I never really imagined that the child who would run away screaming when the beaters turned on would one day be asking if he could do the beating.  Of course he got to lick the beaters after.

Our flower garden, made of flowers picked entirely by Dexter from two Amish farms down the road.  Aunt Jeanne helped us plant them.  She thought we had too much pink.  What can I say.  The boy likes pink.  And purple.  And also flowers.  He likes to sit on the back steps and watch them grow.  And he knows the names of all of them.  Especially the ones I told him incorrectly.  So he shall forever think that pansies are impatiens...

We went for a nice little hike a few weeks ago.  Dexter likes taking Buddy for a walk.  And Buddy, bless his heart, is usually pretty good about not pulling the child over.

We found a place to get in to the little creek.  Dex and John looked for rocks.

Buddy spent a fair amount of time doing this.  It's his "Bite me, I'm not going in there, it's too deep" look.  Now - the water was MAYBE 6 inches deep there.  But when your legs are 2 inches long, I suppose that seems pretty deep.  This?  Is NOT a water dog.

Checking out the minnows

Someone fell in a couple times and required a change of clothing.

John was pounding in a few nails on the deck before our BBQ.  Dexter was tremendously helpful and ran in to get his own hammer off his work bench so he could nail, too.

How's that saying go?  Many hands make for light work?  Totally not at all the case here, but we'll pretend Dex was helpful.

Dex shows off his cool ketchup shirt that Aunt Maria gave him.

On the teeter totter with Daddy.  Somehow I don't think this is going to work.

Crazy-ass storm front that moved in, with some GhostBuster-like clouds.  The storm didn't amount to much, but it was cool to watch the clouds.

Longwood Gardens with Lara and Annabel.  Who, sadly, are moving to Iowa next month.  We'll miss them!

Resting at Longwood

Going down the big big slide at Daddy's company picnic.

Fun with bubble guns

Last day of Soccer Shots.  I only had to yell at him twice for not listening.

He got a very cool medal that he took to Show and Tell on Thursday.  Holy hell.  TWO MORE YEARS I have to do this Show and Tell BS on Thursdays.  TWO MORE YEARS.  Shoot me now.

We are dog-sitting Maggie for a couple weeks.  Dexter calls Maggie his kitty, and loves taking her for walks.  He checks to see where she is, and wakes her up in the morning to get her to go outside.  He'll be sad when Maggie leaves next week.

The Swimming Machine and I went to the outside pool at the Y this afternoon for the first time.  After 30 minutes straight of jumping in to the pool, not having me catch him, swimming over to me, and then swimming by himself back to the wall...  Dex finally decided he was cold and tired and wanted to go home.  So he warmed up in the shower for a while and off we went.  30 minutes at the pool, but it was awesome.  I can't believe how far his swimming has come this session at lessons.  I'll try to get John to come to the pool with us tomorrow so I can take some pictures and some video.

Finally, HOORAY for Union Rags and his Belmont win!  The owner lives right up the road in Chadds Ford.  Michael Matz is someone I have liked since he won a silver medal in showjumping in the Olympics, eons ago.  And he trains at Fair Hill.  So Union Rags lives six miles away from us.  Very cool.  We were cheering for him.  And also for Five Sixteen, who Maryland jockey Rosie Napravnik was riding.  She came in fifth.  Go Rosie!  I've known her since her career started, and it's cool to see her riding big races now.  She won the Kentucky Oaks this year, and just to ride in the Belmont is a big deal for a female jockey.

Finally the child has learned to pedal.  All props go to school.