For future posterity

We're about to paint over the kids' growth chart timeline. I jotted down the data points we've collected and knowing what our paper and storage situation is like, I'm going to post them here so we won't lose them.

Colleen (DOB April 28, 2005)
Dec. 16, 2005 25-5/8"
March 19, 2006 27-3/8"
Aug. 19, 2006 28-3/4"
April 9, 2007 32-5/8"

Robert (DOB June 4, 2002)
Oct. 6, 2003 29-1/2"
March 13, 2004 32-3/16"
June 11, 2004 32-7/16"
Sept. 6, 2004 34-1/2"
March 19, 2005 35-15/16"
Oct. 15, 2005 37-3/8"
Dec. 6, 2005 38-1/4"
Jan. 29, 2006 39-1/4"
May 31, 2006 39-5/8"
Aug, 19, 2006 40-3/8"
Jan. 20, 2007 41-1/4"
March 1, 2007 41-7/8"
April 9, 2007 42-1/2"
Aug. 25, 2007 43-1/4"
June 10, 2008 45-2/8"

Elizabeth (DOB 11/24/97)
Oct. 6, 2003 44-1/2"
March 13, 2004 45-3/4"
June 11, 2004 46-1/4"
Sept. 6, 2004 46-7/8"
March 19, 2005 48-3/4"
Oct. 15, 2005 49-3/4"
Dec. 6, 2005 50-7/16"
Jan. 29, 2006 50-3/4"
Aug, 19, 2006 51-3/4"
April 9, 2007 53-5/8"
June 10, 2008 56-7/16"

Interesting how we have a bit more data on Robert and a lot less on Colleen. Who was in charge of data collection? We'll try to do a better job from here on out.

Counting down the hours

No idea how many hours left before we get out, and I'm still supposed to be "at work" today, but we have at least a half a ton of stuff to do.

Plugging away. Living room is full of boxes. Ceilings in bedrooms still could stand to be painted. Car needs to be inspected. I need a trip to the bank for the business. And all sorts of offloading items from the house to the storage POD.

Sigh.

Bookending the D.C. experience

We were all 17 years younger then: Carlos, Steve, Catherine and I, residents of Ryan Hall, that Halloween night of 1991 when we piled in Catherine's parents' car for the drive to the Capital Centre for George Michael's concert.

Though I don't remember many of the particulars I doubt we made any sort of pact suggesting we would all meet at the next one. And heck, as it turned out, he didn't even come back to D.C. until last night.

Until about a month ago, hadn't seen Catherine since Cate and I went to an Orioles game with her and her husband in 1995 or 1996. Haven't heard from Steve from forever, though he's Google-able, and Carlos, well, his last name is too common to make a search engine of much assistance. But when we met for lunch recently (she works a couple miles down the road) she mentioned she had George Michael tickets for one of my last nights in town.

We were in just about the back row: section 410, row P, with one row of seats behind us. That is, until the usher came around and started handing out upgrades to the floor! So we got bumped up (or down) to section 4. As other fans started filtering in around us, Catherine kept asking, "Did you get the hookup?!" (Two whole rows of us got $230 seats for our $55 tickets. Ticket price in 1991 was $27.50.)

They had cameras in the house last night, so we're thinking maybe they didn't want to have empty seats on the floor with "tape" rolling.

So as not to further embarrass Neil I won't wax poetic about the concert. Let's just say it was a fun time.

It seemed like a good way to cap off the D.C. thing somewhat the way it started. And Cate either didn't mind or has bit her tongue. I'm not sure I got enough work done on the house over the weekend to merit a night off but I got one anyway.

Gone in 48 hours ...

Some people need practical advice

I had a great time at the George Michael concert last night with Catherine S., a friend from college. More about that later. However, one of the best parts about riding the Metro is the people-watching. We saw a prime example of it last night, when a woman standing on the train right in front of us was holding a paper with a Google maps printout.

I didn't see the exact start and endpoint, but no lie, it was just like this.


View Larger Map

There are so many ways this could have been avoided.

1. When you plug in your two endpoints and you see the simple one block-by-one block right angle pop up on your screen, you could simply commit it to memory and close the browser.
2. If you're not paying attention and print it out anyway, you could recycle the sheet of paper.
3. If you are so inept or insecure that you must carry a piece of paper to tell you how to go two blocks, for goodness sakes, fold the paper inward so the rest of the train can't see.

Thanks. That is all.

Equal time to the other cousins

Neil has just an incredible picture on his blog of our three kids and his daughter, Amelia. I suggested that we make this an annual event and he has added an alert to that effect.

I, for one, love alerts -- I have one on my phone for 2031, only because my phone calendar doesn't go any further out. If I still have Sprint service then, or TerraTelCo or whatever global megaglomerate handles whatever passes for "telephone service" then, I should get reminded.

But in going through my laptop this afternoon I stumbled on the other side of the family, a picture taken at the Brennan family reunion back in June that Cate never got a chance to blog about. Here it seems to be Colleen sporting the sad face among all of her second cousins, the children of Cate's cousins Nicole and Chip. Doesn't look like Joey's kids are here, or at least, not his oldest.

My apologies for not being Brennan-savvy enough to recognize who's who or remember everyone's name. Abby is sitting on the bottom step with a baby in her lap and Sydney is sitting next to Elizabeth and Colleen.

Greetings from Minnesota!

What does a girl do on her first day as a Minnesotan? Listen to Prairie Home Companion of course. While passing through the hall Elizabeth caught a moment of "Guy Noir, Private Eye" on the radio and said "Ooo! What station is this? It's like TV but without the screen." She's listened to Garrison Keillor before but never as a fellow Minnesotan.

The Meeting of the Cousins went very well. All were cranky at the end but it was well past bedtime so we'll overlook that. Baby Amelia was sleeping for the initial meet and greet but Robert soon helped her overcome that. There were lots of kisses and peek-a-boos. Colleen sang her songs, Elizabeth entertained with cartwheels (even Uncle Neil and Uncle Ryan tried their hand (s and feet) at the cartwheel and were as successful as grown men can be), and Robert helped and talked (his personal strengths). Aunt Cate got to hold her lots (thank you) and enjoyed sniffing her head. That's not too weird -- babies smell nice (most times). Pa also attended and worked his great-grandchild magic. Colleen ran right to him and he lifted her onto his lap. He got lots of hugs and she just ate up his undivided attention.

Special mention goes to Jennifer Jensen who stopped by to say welcome (and provided the photo of Colleen and Pa!). We went together to an open house, our first in the Minnesota market. Not the house for us I think but a nice way to get our feet wet -- with a friend. She also took us to the Linden Hills playground. So the kids got some fresh air and Cate got some grown up conversation. Very nice way to spend an afternoon.

Headlands revisited

I picked Elizabeth up from her sleepover this morning in BFE and took the long way home. We were dropping Cate's keys off at the bookstore, running to the bank and such, so since we were so close to our old Reston townhouse I decided to take Elizabeth for a tour of the neighborhood.

The first thing Elizabeth noticed was that her tree was gone!

Of course, her tree isn't gone. She just doesn't recognize it. The tree is bigger and Elizabeth is bigger too. She's standing in front of it.

We walked into the backyard and visited where Todd is buried. Todd's flagstone has been gone for a couple of years but he seems undisturbed. He died the night before Thanksgiving in 2001, and everyone was very sad, including Elizabeth. Todd had not been in good shape, though, for some time, and I think Cate was glad we were there when he died rather than him dying while we were gone.

The young couple that bought the townhouse from us still live there and the husband was out on the back deck. I asked if that was the house (I lost count how many decks there were in the back, and they replaced our old deck) and he invited us in to see the place. They've done some nice work in the kitchen, about as much work as we've done with ours.

We capped off the tour de Headlands with a quick walk to the playground. Elizabeth chuckled at Da's Bear Right sign in the circle of Headlands Circle, remembered rescuing the turtle in the circle some rainy day years ago, and mourned the loss of the lion statue in a neighbor's front yard.

Of course, Robert was born in this house. Cate took him to 2055 earlier in the week. He asked her, "which window was I born in?" He found which mailbox it was by matching the numbers and also missed the lion. They also saw what we saw: a picnic bench in the green grass park, which hadn't had anything before but empty ground.

Something borrowed

Or handed down, if you prefer. Cate has a ode in her head to another piece of clothing that everyone has worn, but today is a nice day and Scooby came out of the dresser.

Scooby is a tank top that Neil bought for Elizabeth when we were living in Arlington. Elizabeth was much smaller and the shirt was gigantic on her at the time, coming down to her knees. But she loved it, and wore it until she didn't fit anymore, in the other direction.

It later went into Robert's circulation and was worn occasionally, and now Colleen is the perfect size. We've gotten the maximum usage out of this gift, to be sure! So thanks!

Coincidentally (not ironically), Colleen is holding in the bottom picture another piece of clothing that everyone has worn, a pair of fleece pants that had been part of a Bear in the Big Blue House ensemble. A little warm for that today, but we're at the point where instead of clean laundry going into drawers, they're going into suitcases.

Colleen wouldn't quite pose with the Scooby shirt but you get the pictures.

Robert is out on his last play date in Virginia, with Austin, a kindergarten classmate. They'll be going to the park and such.

Feels like the last time

Lots of things being done for the last time these days. We joked about it Sunday afternoon, when we were making a nearly blind turn onto Georgetown Pike, basically having to take a leap of faith that the road was clear. Elizabeth said, "let's never do that again!" After a couple of seconds I responded, "well, I bet we never take Georgetown Pike again, come to think of it."

Cate reports that she's taken it three times since then. Apparently Rte. 7 is too good for her. But she hasn't turned onto Georgetown Pike from Belview Road, has she?

Oh, wait, she has. But anyway, another last tonight as we made our last trip as a family to the bounty that is known as Wegmans. It's the last dinner out as a family here in Northern Virginia before the move. (Here the kids take a long last look at the voluminous fresh produce. Elizabeth said, "It's like four times as big as anyone else's produce aisle!")

Yes, Neil, we will miss Wegmans. There's nothing quite like it. You'll have to just take our word for it.

Floored

The last major step is being performed as I write, as our ugly flooring is being ripped out and replaced with pretty flooring.

We'd already seen one layer of linoleum underneath the kitchen tile when we had the stove replaced early in our tenure here at 406, but we saw two more samples that I'm glad we never had to lay eyes on before. It's hard to believe any of this stuff was ever attractive.

They got here at 8:45 this morning, and other than an afternoon break to dump trash and pick up something for the stairs, they've been at it ever since. It's after 8 p.m. here in the East and we can only hope we can get to bed sometime soon.

It's butterscotch oak flooring, for those who have been asking. It's encompassing the entrance landing, kitchen, living room and hallway back to the bedrooms. The stairs are getting replacement carpet, not hardwood, since that's knocking hundreds of dollars off the cost.

It's the low bid but the floors look good. That's all that matters.

Robert has been trying to help all afternoon. Thankfully they are not charging us extra for the experience!

Something even older

In the course of the move, we've uncovered many things that we haven't seen in ages, things we've moved many times but haven't opened.

This isn't one of them. It's a remnant of our very first move, when Cate and I moved out of dorms rooms in Ryan Hall at Catholic U. in 1993 and into half of a row house about four blocks from campus.

Cate and I were on campus an extra month working on the yearbook, and they let us stay in our dorm rooms. But eventually it was time to leave and get our crap out of there. Thankfully, we had other friends on campus that summer, including Rob Scotto-Lavino, who worked for the campus transportation services. So he had access to a truck.

We don't own a lot at this point in terms of furniture, me being 20 and Cate 19, but Rob was in the business of moving furniture. And in the back of the truck was this table, which came from neighboring Regan Hall, and has been ours since that night. (Rob was also my first color guy on college basketball broadcasts. Thanks, Rob.)

It got packed in the POD today, which, thanks to an assist from Sean and Claire, is now 99% done. (There are some cubby-type holes we can poke things into.) We (they) also got a ton knocked off the to-do list today, and the painters came back and nearly finished. Floors get worked on on Monday.

Elizabip

That's not a new nickname for Elizabeth; it's how Colleen is pronouncing her name these days.

It's closely related to the formerly popular Elizabif.

Something new

Colleen is embarking on this great adventure of which she really has no concept. She has spent just one night away from Cate in three-plus years, hasn't been to Minnesota since before she could walk and has barely seen my parents. But she will be doing all three in fairly short order as Cate takes all three to Minneapolis the week before we move.

It's with that in mind that I have been putting Colleen to bed every night this week. Not that I've never put her to bed before, of course, since Cate has worked basically every Sunday and Thursday night for the past year and I've put all three to bed myself. But if Cate's home, Colleen gets her for bedtime, because she refuses to be put to sleep by me.

So this week it's been sink or swim so that Colleen can get used to anyone other than Cate at bedtime. And although there were some issues the first night because she could hear Cate talking to Robert in the next room, lately it's gone fairly well. I've often had sleep success with Colleen like I wrote about with Robert earlier this year. I can leave the room with Colleen partially awake and she will finish the job.

She still sometimes gets up at night before midnight, wandering out looking for Mom. But it's not actually Cate she's looking for, just someone to give her some company. It's very easy -- a sip of water, a hug, some soothing words and back to bed. If she's awake enough, she'll even walk back to her room herself.

Easy as pie. Good luck, Mom and Dad.

Something old

Sometime about four years ago, my wedding band disappeared.

In all honesty, the ring was large when it arrived, although at the fitting the samples in that size fit snugly. So when I would play ball, or wash the dishes, or take a shower, I would take it off so as not to lose it.

After a couple nights of it falling off my hand while I was asleep, I started taking it off at night as well, and one morning, I couldn't find it on my nightstand.

This wasn't the first time, so while I looked briefly around the bed, I didn't go too overboard and got ready for work. But as days went by, it still didn't turn up. Cate couldn't find it either, and Elizabeth hadn't seen it. I chalked it up to the newly mobile 2-year-old boy in the house and expanded my search to the recesses of his room, the heating vents, etc.

But no luck. And I went without a wedding ring for nearly two years, which bothered me, at least a little.

When time came for me to leave for NBCSports.com in Connecticut, I figured it would be bad for for me to go empty-handed. With our 10th wedding anniversary coming up, I bit the bullet and got fitted for a new plain gold wedding band. I didn't tell Cate because I wanted it to be a surprise. On the day I left, I opened the box and showed her the ring, at which point she told me she'd forgotten I wasn't wearing one.

Two years without a wedding band proved irrelevant.

Well, today I was trying to figure out how to get our recliner out the door and into the POD, turning it on its side and upside down in the process. When turning it upside down, I heard things rattling around inside it, so I felt around and came up with a kid's sock, four pencils, a hair clip, an eraser and some other random small items. After I figured I'd gotten everything, I went back in one last time.

And found the ring.

And Cate had wanted me to take the recliner to the trash! I might not have been so copious about digging around inside if that were the case.

So while this doesn't 100% exonerate Robert, it's a pretty good sign. All forgiven.

It's the little things

We're attempting to fill the last quadrant of our first PODS container and have mostly furniture to go. We made a list tonight of what should go in this container and what is left for the next one, and started triage on the remaining space.

In the end, we hit on a plan that seemed fairly innocuous but turned out to be ingenious. Stacking one cabinet on top of another made sense because it maximized use of all three dimensions.

Just turned out that it took up every inch of the POD's height, and then some. We tried to fit a cloth in between to keep them from scratching each other and couldn't.

Small victory as we attempt to get this thing off our street and move onto the next one. Still remaining: three beds (one more we'll leave behind), three dressers, a couch, electric piano, rocking chair, recliner, kitchen set ...

Mrs. Mom is doing well

Cate got weaned off the Vicodin today and spent most of the day in bed, which was long overdue for her. I did manage to put in a full day's work (more or less) while also handling breakfast, lunch, dinner, baths and all sorts of other stuff we might otherwise tag team or Cate might do all by herself.

By the way, I hate giving baths. Cate described it on the phone this evening as "his least favorite part of parenting" and I estimated that in the five years in this house, it's possible I've supervised fewer than a dozen baths.

Cate couldn't put any pressure on the foot today, which bodes well for working on Sunday. And dinner made her throw up, twice. But everyone else ate it and survived. Robert even scarfed the steak down, and lately he has been resistant to anything you can't put in a bun.

Now Mr. Mom could use some sleep. Desperately. Well, once the dryer is done.

How my wife is like Joe DiMaggio

She's never shilled for Mr. Coffee or married a movie star or hit in 56 consecutive games or had a monument to her in Yankee Stadium. Paul Simon has never sung about her, unless she was Rosie, the Queen of Corona in a previous life. She's never homered more than she struck out or had two brothers play in the major leagues or been inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

But, thanks to Ernest Hemingway, I have always associated bone spurs in the feet with Joe DiMaggio. And that's what the Yankees great and Cate have in common. Today she had surgery to have it shaved down, so she's upstairs resting and the kids are reluctantly watching television since I've forbidden them from clinging to her.

I'm guarding the Vicodin closely.

The circle of life

Got home today and rode the bike up to the shed in the backyard, passing a dead red-headed woodpecker at the base of the tree.

Scooped it up and disposed of it in the tall grass just off the common area. No big circle of life speech in me today. Just glad the kids weren't outside to see it.

What Elizabeth ate

We haven't ordered out for pizza in a while -- part of an attempt to cut our food budget back as well as our calorie budget. But I found some pizza crust mixes on sale at Giant earlier this week and we cooked up a couple of homemade pizzas for dinner tonight.

When we used to order pizza, everyone would have pepperoni and I would have a sausage and onion or mushroom or something vegetable-like. But of course, I've swayed Elizabeth over to the light side and she joined me in making a veggie pizza.

Part and parcel with that is trying something new. We had a can of black olives and I convinced Elizabeth to try one. She liked it.

Of course, when put on the pizza, she was less enthralled. But she still had pizza with onions and red pepper on it. And I got her green peppers and olives to put on my slices.

But put black olives on the list of food Elizabeth likes!

What I miss about newspapers

It's coming up on two years since I last worked at a newspaper, and there are certain things I miss.

Copy editing for a newspaper is different than online. A newspaper is one-and-done -- if you miss something, it's often gone until tomorrow. Your story needs to fit a certain size and your headline has to as well. If the headline is more than one line, it's supposed to make sense where the lines break.

There's a certain gaming aspect in it for me. What's the fewest number of words you can take out of a story to make it fit? Once the widows are deleted, is anything else easy to remove?

(A widow is where, at the end of a paragraph, one word kicks over to the next
line.)

This past winter I was in New York for a pair of Division III games and sat next to the writer from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. He was filing on deadline for his Gannett paper, which used the same editing software we did when I was at USAT. So I was looking over his shoulder as we were trying to make his story fit the space while the copy desk back in the newsroom was writing the headline. Felt like I was back in a newsroom.

I even dreamt the other night that I was back at The Tower, which is the student newspaper at Catholic. I was a visitor, not a staffer, but just dying to edit something, anything, and I made my wishes known.

Even though online is on a perennial deadline, and there's a definite rush from that, it's just not the same feeling.

Inside the house

The kids have been wonderful today (so far) by letting us sleep in a little. Robert even played a little trick on ole dad. He came to me with the phone and whispered "Quick, Mom. What's daddy's cell phone number?" So he called Patrick and left a "Hi Daddy" message. He giggled through it; he was very pleased with his trick and wanted me to blog about it.

What's even better is that he forgot to hang up after his hello so the phone recorded him explaining (in detail of course) how he left a message.

Now that the morning hijinks are over it's time to buckle down and prepare for the painters to come on Monday.

Waiting for fireworks

Well, we got a great parking spot in Rosslyn and we've eaten dinner so now it is just a matter of waiting the two and a half hours until the fireworks start.

Keeping the kids entertained. Not going to be fun.

We're right in front of the Iwo Jima memorial. Should be a great view.

Someone's hungry

Cate had to leave for work before finishing her dinner. Colleen had no problem finishing it for her!

It's about time!

At the Verizon location where I'm working these days, bikes are not allowed in the building, so it's fairly clear how many people bike to work by how many bikes are in the rack.

When I've biked in so far, about three-quarters of the time I've had the only bike in the rack of our garage, which serves about 600 people. The rest of the time there's been one other.

But on Tuesday, when I biked in, I was the third bike in the rack. Maybe we're getting somewhere.

So many questions, so little time

Poor Robert; it's hard being six. And poor Elizabeth; it's hard having a little brother. And poor Colleen, who sits between the two. Yesterday was a non-stop kind of day for us. Not so much running around doing errands, but constant doing stuff around the house.

Robert was "on" all day. Finally, on the way back from tae kwon do Elizabeth had had enough. "Can't you stop talking for just a minute?! It's so annoying!" Colleen chimes in, "Yeah, it's annoying Robert."

Robert very seriously answered, "But I have so many questions and I need to know the answers."

He also got to sit in on Elizabeth's tae kwon do class. So far he's been with the under 6 crowd. He did really well in his first traditional class. He worked hard to keep up with the much higher ranking belts. Afterward he said "That was hard." His instructor tried to put a positive spin on it by saying "Challenging huh?" Robert was not to be swayed, "Yeah challenging but also very hard."

It's difficult to quote Robert without using all italics because he emphasizes everything.