July 13, 2008

June 2008

Dear Kids,

I’m writing this from our hotel room in Moab. I just played a gig with Peter Breinholt and came back to find you two kids and mom asleep so I thought I’d wind down by writing about the going’s on of this past month.

Summer usually brings lots of festival/outdoor type gigs for me. This year I’ve played at the Utah Arts Festival with SLAJO and done a bunch of one-off gigs with Peter B. It’s nice to travel around our beautiful state and play my drums through a PA. To this day that’s one of the most enjoyable moments of my musical life: that moment during a sound check when the sound guy brings up the bass drum through my monitor. I can’t really explain why I like it so...maybe it makes me feel like I’m 14 all over again. I dunno...

Anyway, summer is now in full swing and we’ve seen oodles of family so far. We spent a long weekend in St. George to celebrate your Grandma Julie’s birthday. Nearly everybody was there including Aunt Suzy and cousin Tennyson who are in Utah for the summer while uncle Jeremy studies to take the bar at the end of July.

I flew home to get back to work while you guys stayed for few more days. I missed you but it was a hectic week for me and I was happy that your mom and aunt Suz got to have some precious time together just being moms. They also got to have some precious time with their mom, which just doesn’t happen as often as they’d like. I think you’ll learn that Grandma Julie is one hot commodity and that any solo time you get with her is pretty rare.

You guys didn’t even miss me as you got to go to the Lake where you played in the sand with cousin Chloe:

Went swimming at the neighborhood pool:

From there your mom drove back home with Suz and Tennyson and then stayed with us for another week. Cousin Tennyson is quite the little man with his strut and handsome little smile. Charm just drips off of him and I’m sure he’s well on his way of melting lots of hearts as time passes. Ruby, you just love to boss him around and it’s a good opportunity to see how you’ll be treating Henry as he matures. He takes it in stride and mostly ignores your requests. Your mom and I have a good laugh as we’re the ones at the business end of 95% of your requesting.

My math class painfully durges along and I’m losing steam fast. I did really well on my first exam, which got me all arrogant and made me question why I was working so hard. Well then I took my second exam and totally blew it. I don’t have the result just yet but when I do it’ll probably be pretty embarrassing. Oh well. Whatever. The words “D- and above” keep ringing in my ears.

I’ve also let the yard go this summer as we’re about to close on our refinance of the house and will have some money to fix up some things. Our first priority is to sure up the foundation and from there we’ll evaluate how much we’ll have left over and that will dictate what yard projects I will be doing. If it all goes as planned we’ll have a fully automated sprinkling system with new grass and a few other landscape features. Honestly, I can’t wait to start as walking over a dead lawn every day is bringing me down.

RUBY-
Oh, kiddo. What’s happened to you? You’ve become a teenager within the last few weeks with all your mood swings and overall bossiness. It’s a good thing our time-out stool is a quality piece of furniture what with all the action it’s been seeing lately. Your mom catches the brunt of it obviously and I get at least one phone call a day from her where she has to let it out.

Fortunately for me this has lead to more lunches together as I am coming home now more often, one of the blessings of working only a few minutes away. There I get to buffer the drama and try my best to divert your attention. Most of the time it works, but when it doesn’t then it’s time for the ol’e time out stool. Sometimes your mom sends you to your room with instructions to “come back when your happy”. To my amazement this actually works when I hear you a few minutes later yell, “Mom I’m so happy now!” Then you come out a new person perfectly transformed.

It’s probably also worth mentioning that this past month brought one the greatest moments of my life. I was getting out of the car after a day at work and you ran up and greeted me with a rendition of “I’m So Glad When Daddy Comes Home”. You got every word and nearly every action correct and even managed to hold onto the melody as you sang. Honestly Ruby, this was one of the greatest feelings I have ever felt. You are such a sweetheart when your toddler selfishness isn’t driving you. There are times when you run up and give people hugs (people you are way familiar with I should mention...strange faces make you run into exile). Anyway, I hope to always be worthy of your love as I cherish it more than just about anything else.

You can also be so sweet to brother Henry. You mimic your mother at times and give him squeezes and hugs like she does. You even call him “Hen” like she does. Regardless of the imitation, I can tell that you do love your brother and treat him well most of the time.

Sometime this summer we will be buying you a real bed as we think it’s time for you to graduate from the crib. Your mom has tirelessly been working on just what strategy we will be employing and as of this writing we will be getting a twin bed rather than a toddler bed. I guess that she figures that a toddler bed is a waste of money as you’ll be in a twin bed soon enough. I kinda think we should get bunk beds as it’s pretty likely that you and Henry will be sharing a room at some point. We’ll see what happens though.

HENRY-

It looks like you’ve finally turned the corner and are becoming less of a slug. While at Grandma Julie’s we pulled out one of those jumper things you hang in a doorway and you took to it like a BYU coed to a Twinkie™. Since then you like to roll around from your back to your front and are trying to lift yourself up on furniture.

You are also sleeping so much better as of late. I even managed to snap a shot of you sleeping which I felt was akin to documenting a dodo bird. We would tread ever so lightly when you were sleeping for fear of waking you up. We figured that you were a light sleeper and that just about any noise would stir you. Anyway, we’ve now discovered that you suck on your left thumb while enjoying what your sister dubbed an “Iss” (basically a silky swatch of fabric).

This newfound mobility has also translated into your sleep habits. We’ll set you down in one direction only to find you 180° from that when you wake up. I guess that it’s about time we install some bumpers on your crib as we’re likely to find you in any possible scenario now.

It’s also just about impossible for us to take you anywhere without you making some fans along the way. Your smile and full head of hair work wonders on the soft-hearted ladies out there and then once you draw them in they see your blue eyes and at that point it’s game over. Now I could go ahead and brag here about my success as a ladies man but that’d be a bold face lie. The only success I’ve ever had in love was with your mom so just go ahead and call uncle Jared if you need that kind of advice.

Alright then...gotta hit the sack. This month promises yet to be another fun one as we’re heading down to our annual Lake Powell trip with the Hursts.

love,
Dad

Posted by patatomic at July 13, 2008 10:40 PM

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July 13, 2008

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