We Now Return to Our Regularly Scheduled Schedule

When two Virgos meet, marry, and procreate you can pretty much guarantee that routines and schedules will be an integral part of familial happiness. You say "OCD," we say "organized." Even if those two Virgos have a little Taurus who wants to smash the schedule into shiny pieces that she can pick up and eat, the Virgos will hold their ground and remain calm; it's in their astrological makeup.

Dylan's schedule is pretty easy. She gets up early, naps everyday at 1:00, and goes to bed early. If one piece of that simple puzzle is messed with by, say, a chocolate fondue lunch or a sideways glance, then everyone suffers. Most days, we stay on track. Dylan's up by 6:00 whether we're hungover or not, drinks a glass of milk, pees, and watches Dora and Diego while we get ready.

Dora and Diego are slightly annoying children who live in jungles and rescue animals without being attacked and eaten by bigger, more aggressive animals. If Mogli, from "The Jungle Book," had a baby with a drill sergeant with a bad bowl haircut, the baby would be Dora. If Mogli then had an affair with a doe-eyed drag-queen, the baby would be Diego. Dylan doesn't seem to mind their constant high-pitched shouting, but I think I know why. There are no commercials during the shows, but one half-hour episode only lasts about twelve minutes (animal in peril, go through three obstacles, save animal), then the next eighteen minutes are devoted to commercials. And Dylan is infatuated. Damn the power of media.

Dylan sits, rapt, by commercials for toys and tampons (that's the early morning focus group). Regina and I hear, "I want that for my birthday," ten or fifteen times every morning. "What is it?" I'll ask, too sleepy or senile to guess what kind of product Nickelodeon is pushing. I'm not sure Dylan really knows either, but she makes some good guesses: baby? horsey? or, the honest, "I don't know."

Last week she told me she wanted a baby that pooped and peed. Trust me, you don't, I told her. "For my birthday," she pleaded. "First," I told her, "you already have a baby that does that. His name is Grady. Second, Mommy and Daddy aren't making you another one, so enjoy the one you got."

Grady's routine is a little more simple. It involves power-eating and food-coma naps. All the regularly-scheduled eating is really bulking him up. He's already eating a little cereal and his thighs are starting to look like an offensive lineman's. His belly looks like a college freshman's and he even has, what I proudly call, "side-belly." He was rolling over at four-weeks old, but I don't think he can do that anymore, although Regina swears he can. He eats, craps, naps, and grins, all on schedule.

I have to give all the credit to Regina. I'm not sure, okay, I'm positive, I wouldn't have been able to do such an amazing job with getting the kids organized and on a routine that we all can be happy with. I worry (Virgos are worriers too!) about the day that Regina decides she needs a vacation with "just the girls." I can imagine her face when she comes back and sees that the house resembles the suite in the movie "The Hangover," Grady has a bowl of dry cereal on his lap, and Dylan and I are parked in front of the TV, trying to see who can say, "I want that for my birthday," first.

Pistols and Poop

When I was nine or ten, my cousin, Amy, and I made birthday wishes on just about any item we deemed "lucky." We'd blow dandelions in the wind and make a wish. First star of the night? Of course. We'd wish like crazy. Anything was fair game for wishing on, and sometimes we'd just close our eyes and wish without any prompts. My wish was always the same: a .22 pistol and chocolate cake.

A year or two later, I bought a pistol from my brother and cake was ... well, cake's what Amy always wished for, so I just added it to my wishes in case her wish didn't work. Nowadays, my wishes are a little less concrete. Health. Happiness. Pie. And, since I have those things, mostly, it's tough to answer people when they ask what I want for my birthday. This year I received two things I didn't even know I wanted: poop and and smile.

I know. Poop and a Smile sounds like a misguided ad campaign with Mean Joe Greene trading his sweat-stained jersey for a soda, or some poop. "Gee, thanks Mean Joe," I say as I snatch the jersey out of the air. "Thanks for the poop, kid," he says and walks through the stadium tunnel to the locker room. But I didn't get a cool Steelers jersey; Grady started smiling and Dylan spent some quality time on the toilet.

At our last pediatrician's appointment, the PA told us that she loves babies at two months because they're no longer parasites that just take, take, take. At two months they start to give back, usually starting with a smile. Grady has a terrific smile. It starts out a little crooked and goofy and blooms into a full mouthed beam. Even if you're looking at the back of his head, you know when he's grinning. Granted, his birthday gift came a little early, but I don't mind, he's terrible with dates and times right now.

Dylan, after seeing the smile from her brother, knew that she was going to have to come up big for her dad's birthday to top her bro. Her #2 time has been stagnant lately, which became even more problematic when she started wearing big-girl chonies. After threats, bribes, tears, and pleas, she finally decided that my birthday was the right time to unload her present (that's a pun, get it?). We cheered and loaded her with all the gifts we'd been promising so that, by the end of the day, she ended up with more presents than me.

If you hang out with parents of young children, you'll hear every possible scenario about feces that you could ever imagine. And, you'll hear these stories told by seemingly normal people who, apparently, have a passion for poop. I didn't want to be one of those parents, but being a parent and having serious scatalogical discussions is as unavoidable as beards at a folk-festival. At least Grady Jay's smile gave me something else to celebrate, but I think next year I'll go back to wishing for a .22 pistol and chocolate cake.

Timeout!

Whenever I see Willard Scott salute some hundred year-old grandpop, the next comment is invariably something about all of the wonderful inventions and advancements he's seen in his lifetime. Well, Mr. super-old guy, what about me? I've seen some pretty cool stuff in my day, without a Smuckers sendoff and a non-sequitur from Willard.

When I was just a wee-cowboy, computers were the size of Chevy vans (and not the new vans, no, the really cool vans with bubble windows and jacked-up rear tires and unicorn murals and disco balls twirling from the rear-view.), telephones were all tethered to their walls, the Raiders were great, and wooden spoons were strictly for spankings. Now, the vans are mini, the telephones have broken free from their binds, the Raiders are ... never mind, and the kids are all in timeout.

I remember when I first heard about the concept of timeout. I must have had some friend with new-age/hippie parents who put their rambunctious tyke in timeout. Awesome! I thought. You screw up, then get to go play somewhere other than the place you screwed up. The concept seemed so ridiculous that it was ridiculously great.

Spankings, it seems, have fallen out of fashion. Since Regina and I are on the cutting edge of fashion, we've taken to the timeout concept. We've tried different variations for Dylan: first, her room. Unfortunately, that turned out to be exactly how I envisioned timeout would be when I was ten. Dylan would be doing something awful and get sent to her room where she'd resume her awful behavior, now with immunity from more punishment. Obviously, that didn't work.

Our second attempt was the church pew on our font porch. That worked for a couple of weeks. The problem was that Dylan would rather be outside anyway, and learned that whenever she was sent to the bench, the dogs would come around and climb up to join the festivities. At first we thought the shrieks were ones of remorse. Nope. Just joy at getting licked by Chowder.

We're at a loss where the next timeout spot should be. The pasture with the bulls? A small cardboard box? I think Dylan would find something great about any option we try. I imagine when the temperature drops, the pew won't seem so fun. Now, when Dylan starts getting a little nutty, we go for diversion tactics. Hey! Do you need to potty? Could you take the mi-mi out of Grady's eye and put it away? Oh, look, a kitty! Anything. In the end, Regina and I have realized that the best timeout is the one imposed on each other. We send ourselves out of the room and Dylan watches, jealous of the kisses Chowder smothers us in.

Fall Weaning

Big changes happen this time of year around the Valley: the kids are back in school, so our one-lane turns into a drag strip; the farmers are exhausted and can practically see that last bale of the season plopping out of their baler; the buck hunters start twitching whenever they drive by our house and see the bucks lazing in the shade, giving the camo-ed up drivers the finger; and the ranchers start weaning calves. Here on Hanna Bros. we are in category "E" (All of the Above). This means that our nights are spent wide awake, wishing the teenagers would stop knocking over the road signs (damn kids these days!), wondering why we live next to a feedlot, and listening to bawling calves.

Our days are blurs of activity. Regina's back at work, so Dylan and Grady are at Eileen's. Dylan is no longer the baby of the group and rolls with the big kids. She even made up a song about daycare today. I tried to have her sing it to a catchy Avett Brothers tune, but she got off track when she sang the chorus: "We're going to Eileen's and we're going to see Aiden, Shelby, Gavin, Abby, Jenna, and Maaaacy Grace." Granted, it needs work, but give her a break, Simon Cowell, she's only two. Grady just shook his head and went back to his nap.

We've also been chasing down yearling calves that have escaped the feedlot. They made a hole in the fence the size of a hoola-hoop and snuck out like Hogan's Heroes. We've found them six miles north, four miles south, and a couple miles west. The good news is that our eastern forces have been strengthened, just to keep the calves out of Nevada. You know, legal prostitution and gambling just wreaks havoc on impressionable young bovines.

Regina and I got into the spirit of the season and tried a little weaning of our own. No, we didn't leave a box of raisins and a gallon of milk on the floor and skip town, but we decided it was time to get rid of Dylan's mi-mi.

Okay, the decision was made for us, about five months ago at Dylan's two-year check up. We were cruising through the appointment, and getting the esteem boosting nods and "good" replies as we answered the doctor's questions. Then he had to ask about a pacifier. We could tell by his tone that we shouldn't still be using one. I think the question was something like: You're not still using a pacifier, are you? We looked at each other, panicked, expecting the other to lie. Finally the truth came out and we received a stern, yet gentle, reminder that "they" like to see toddlers give up the pacifier at eighteen months. We nearly fell over from laughing.

Strangely, Chowder, our puppy, got into Dylan's bedroom, the truck, and the car, singled out Dylan's mi-mi's, and ate them. At least that's the story we're telling Dylan. I feel bad for Chowder. Dylan's going to resent him for something he actually didn't chew up. She's been, more or less, fine without her mi-mi, and doesn't even ask for it at bedtime anymore, but we've reinforced our eastern line, just in cast she breaks for Nevada.

Fair Addiction

There is this place, turn right past the McDonald's and drive under I-5, where you can first see the tall oblong mast of the Zipper and the swinging cars on the Ferris Wheel. You catch your first whiff of corndog and steer manure and keg beer and know, undoubtedly, that it's fair time. I'd forgotten about it, or forgotten about the feeling that I used to get at that place, even though I've driven past this spot a thousand times, until last Thursday when I took Dylan to the fair.

It was love at first sight. I heard her squeal, and when I checked the mirror I saw her absolutely ecstatic expression. I'm sure she had no idea what she was seeing, exactly, that was so thrilling. After all, she'd never ridden the Zipper or the Ferris Wheel, but carnival rides are like mall Santas, they ooze hope, excitement, promise, and pleasure.

We spent the next three days trying to decide if we wanted to ride the carousel horses just one more time, or take a bold step and try out the Dizzy Dragons. The final count was carousel horses - 11, Dizzy Dragons - 1. We tried other rides, too. Pink Pig Airplane was a second place favorite, just ahead of Pink Car and Pink Truck. When I'd ask what she wanted to ride next, "Pink," was always the first reply until I could narrow it down.

When we reached a fever pitch with the carnival, and I feared that Dylan would force me to unbolt a carousel horse and kidnap a carnie so she'd have them with her forever and ever and ever, we'd stop for a healthy snack of cotton candy, corndogs, and mini-donuts. Fortunately, Dylan was enamored by more than just the bells and lights of the carnival. She also got to see all of her friends. She'd run off with them and I'd suddenly have a couple of minutes to dash over to the beer garden.

I took Dylan to the "Extremely Amped Motocross Show," which was guys on dirt bikes doing crazy X-Games style jumps and a band playing Journey covers with a lead singer who dressed like, as Dylan put it, Barbie. Honestly, I expected her to get bored and anticipated leaving five minutes into it. Not so. Dylan loved the whine of the bikes and after every jump (even if they were mili-seconds apart) she'd tap her cousin Roxy on the shoulder and yell, "That was soooo cool!"

Every evening, the only way we could get Dylan to leave without dragging her and leaving little claw ma rks down the midway, was to promise that we'd be back. But then Sunday rolled around. We rode rides to the point of exhaustion, missed her nap, and, sadly, had to break the news that we had to go. It was hot, we'd just spent our last twenty dollar bill on corndogs and Dippin' Dots, and needed to go home and get some rest. Dylan cried, real tears, all the way to the car. "I want Fair," she sobbed. "Next year," we promised as we pulled out of the parking lot and crossed over that place, just past the I-5 overpass where we couldn't see it anymore, not even the Ferris Wheel.

Say Cheese!

Grady just celebrated his big one-month birthday with a grande milk, a soy-formula fart, and a twenty-two hour nap. Man, that kid can party. During this first month, Regina worked tirelessly to get our little man on "the schedule." As far as I can tell, "the schedule" involves feeding, burping, diaper changes, and naps. It seems there are some subtleties to "the schedule" that I am missing. I sense the undercurrents of some sort of rigid plan, but I cannot figure out of what, exactly, the plan consists.

Whatever Regina's doing, she's doing it well, because Grady (usually) only wakes once during the night to be fed, can already roll over, and can down a big bottle of formula without barfing all over himself. I know this because my wife tracks his routines on a little notepad we keep by the microwave. It reads something like this: 9:45 PM, 6.5 oz. formula, stretches, change pee/poo. I add to it in my distinct penmanship to make it seem like I'm doing a lot to help out with "the schedule." I include things like: 2:00 AM, 32 oz. Mt. Dew, 75 push-ups, toilet trained. 4:30 PM, 1st shave, Japanese lessons,

rugby practice. 5:00 AM, finished training every unbroke horse on the ranch, ate a steak.

I'm probably a little subjective, but Grady's a pretty handsome little guy. He really resembled Dylan during his first few days, but now he's growing into something very different. He has finer features, lighter eyes, and a stronger chin. And while these features look beautiful in person, Grady isn't the most photogenic kid in the world. Sure, Regina has snapped some great shots of him, but we're used to Dylan, who, even on accident, always takes a great picture.

Grady is a pretty good sleeper. Even when he's awake, he looks like he just might drift off at any moment. It's a great quality, and a gift, especially with a sister who has an abundance of energy, but sleepiness doesn't always translate well to film (or pixels). With his eyes half-shut, Grady comes off looking like an extra on the Sopranos. He just needs a polyester track suit and a few gold chains. I expect every caption beneath his pictures to read, "Gimme the @!&% macaroni or I'll breaka your legs."

Case in point, our friend, Amber, who is a great photographer, came over and wanted to snap some shots of the the two of us. I'd just come in from work, so my dirty hands juxtaposed with the clean baby had the potential for some decent pictures. She took quite a few pictures and do you know how many turned out? One. And it was of Grady's feet. It seems that our little guy got at least one trait from his old man, the ability to wreck any photograph.

We're okay with it; he's a handsome devil and gets cuter by the day. We figure that he'll be as good looking in pictures as his sister soon enough (thank God for Regina's good genes). Until then, we'll keep snapping shots of our beautiful little Goomba who will be half-asleep, daydreaming about macaroni and milk.

Hanna, Party of Four

It's amazing what we've forgotten about baby-raising in just two years. "We?" Regina asks, one eyebrow raised. "Do you have a mouse in your pocket?" Okay, it's amazing what I'VE forgotten, but, still, it's pretty amazing. I consider myself a nearly-average dad, but I'm embarrassed at my baby ineptitude -- especially since I've already gone through the sleepless nights, streams of poo, bottle warming, milk barfs, impossible toy-assembly, navel swabs, weird rashes, the car seat weight, awkward comments from strangers, and all of the other little grunts and oddities that come with babies. You'd think Grady was our first child and I was a sixteen year old father.

Grady brings some new things, too. Pee fountains. Like the ol' pull my finger trick, they get me every time. Regina reminds me to put the little pee-pee tee-pee over his boy-parts to prevent golden showers, but I get lazy. I also get lazy about putting the new diaper beneath the old one I'm changing, but that's just an issue I'll have to work out on my own. And, yes, things get messy. We met a hippie couple who were doing the whole No-Diaper thing with their newborn. I guess when you live in the forest, toilet training takes on a whole new meaning, but the mother confided in us that it could get pretty gross. I probably shouldn't use them as the benchmark in bodily function cleanliness, but I bring them and their messy baby up when Regina asks why I'm cleaning off the changing table again.

Grady also has Metatarsus Adductus. If you just met him, you'd think that was latin for extraordinarily handsome, wickedly smart, and well-hung. And while these attributes may be true, it's not what Metatarsus Adductus means. Simply put, he has little bean feet, probably from cozying them together in a tight womb. They will straighten on their own, but we help the process along with little stretches. Our doctor told us he'll probably grow up with a foot fetish (he told us twice, so we're taking it seriously). We're thinking the slight turn-in on his feet will make him a fast runner and there will, finally, be a fast Hanna.

Grady may have the foot-structure advantage, but Dylan will probably claim the Fastest Hanna title first. She can not walk. You're thinking, she's two, right? Shouldn't she? And, yes, she should, but Dylan thinks walking is for the old and infirm. Dylan runs. Everywhere. Barefooted, in flip-flops, cowboy boots, irrigation boots, sneakers, it doesn't matter; she is Charlie-Hustle around the yard. It's fun, and a scary, to watch because Chowder, her puppy, is usually running around -- or through -- her legs.

Very quickly we are learning that two young children can cause an energy vacuum, but, amazingly, with all of the craziness, we've also figured out that the little boogers also revive us. So, we'll keep watching Dylan do laps around the yard, training Grady to be World's Fastest Hanna, and he'll keep peeing on me (Doh! Not again!), and Regina will remain the voice of reason throughout it all, and the Eastside Gang will just keep on truckin'.