Grady 360

No, the Grady 360 isn't a cool new snowboard trick that I've invented on my private half-pipe (thanks to my sponsor, Red Bull) hidden in the Colorado mountains.  Nor is it a sexy new dance move, created on my private dance floor (thanks to my sponsor, Southern Comfort) hidden in the basement of my parents' house.

The Grady 360 is ... drum roll, please ... the days it took for our little Meatball to pop out his first tooth.  Not that we were nervous about having a ten-year old with falsies, but if you typed in the letter "T" in the Google search bar on our computer, the history would show repeated queries of: Teething, when does it begin?  Tooths, anyone? and, Toddlers, can they wear a grill?

We were reassured by plenty of experts (our pediatrician), non-experts (parenting blogs), and strangers (the People of Wal-Mart) that some babies don't sprout teeth until as late as twenty-seven.  Although, those babies were fed a steady diet of Pepsi and meth in utero.

So now, let the dominoes fall.  Let the teeth grow like the dandelions in our yard, let crawling commence, and let his cooing and baby-Chewbacca speak turn into something we can comprehend.

I guess, sadly, this is Grady's first big step out of the baby-baby stage.  It's been a slow step out (a baby step? Oh, clever), but now that threshold's been crossed, I guess the next big milestone will be this: click here

FFA (Food & FireArms)

I'm always glad when our friends Paul and Amy tell us they're coming up from Oakland to visit the ranch because I know we'll be eating well, drinking plenty, and laughing so hard we'll all get the "Grady-laugh" (laughing with no sound).  But my excitement for poop jokes and bourbon is nothing compared to Dylan's excitement to see her homie, Malcolm, Paul and Amy's four-year old.  His arrival falls just short of Santa's in terms of pure thrill.

As soon as they pulled up to the house in their Bay-Area Monster Truck (Prius), Dylan and Malcolm started playing; you'd never have guessed they hadn't seen each other for a year.  Dylan even gave him the country moniker: "Buddy."  They make a scary pair -- he's wicked-smart (who else can name every player on the Giant's AAA Fresno squad?) and Dylan's a bit of a diva.  They shared a bed, and would laugh and giggle, despite our pleas to get some sleep, until way past their bed times.

It was probably from lack of sleep, but, like all couples, by day three they hit a rough patch.  Just before nap time, Dylan informed everyone that, "I don't want to sleep with my boyfriend anymore."  Malcolm was a little hurt, but I gave her a high-five and told her to never, ever, forget that sentence.

Malcolm and Dylan weren't the only cute couple.  Paul made a mint julep and, although it was a brief encounter, the tasty drink and I were inseparable for nearly fifteen minutes.  Okay, that wasn't so cute, but you should have seen Paul with my .22.  Adorable.  We went out to shoot a few squirrels and I've never had more fun just watching someone shoot.  His skills had improved so much since last year that I accused him of either finding another rancher friend with a ground squirrel problem or joining a gang.  Since they live in Oakland, I suspect the latter.  It was especially great when he'd get out the truck to re-create what, exactly, the squirrel did when he shot it.  Regina and Amy weren't as amused as I was, but I just don't think they appreciate good improv.

The King and Queen of cute had to go to Grady and Amy.  It was especially fun to see Grady become smitten.  It was a full blown boy crush, complete with drool and lots of face grabbing.  Amy didn't seem to mind the attention and I think the country fresh air and rejuvenating spa (air blasting through our lines exfoliates nearly as well as 80-grit sandpaper) made up for the oatmeal slobber stains and cheek scratches he gave her.

Dylan's already talking about the next time she sees Malcolm.  She must like him because she's already learned who Madison Bumgarner is (left-handed pitcher for the Fresno Grizzlies).  Grady gets a far-off look in his eyes when Amy's name gets mentioned and Regina and I are trying to work off all the food and drink we consumed.  We'll see our friends again, but in the meantime, we're comforted by the knowledge that somewhere out there in the twilight, Paul is standing guard, .22 in hand.  Waiting.  Waiting.

Poo Juice

I'd fully anticipated the title of this post to be something like, "Boy, Ten Months, Foregoes Crawling and Walking for Running!" or "Grady Jay and the Twenty Teeth."  I mean, he's ten months, at some point here our odds have to be pretty good that he'll cut a tooth (4:1 odds in Vegas) or crawl (a longshot at 9:1) soon.  Instead, he's perfectly content being toothless and stationary.  We don't mind, Dylan's active enough for two and Grady makes for a really cute baby.

There are so many great things about having a baby around that they make the grueling stuff bearable.  But, there are some thing I won't miss.  There are the obvious things: changing poopy diapers, watching Grady rub food in his eyes and hair when he's both tired and hungry, remembering the diaper bag for every outing, and the 2:00 AM parties in his crib.  I think, given some time, we'll even look back on those things with fondness, or will have scrubbed them from our memories altogether.

There are a few less obvious things that we won't miss.  Babies are fun to hold, right?  Yes, and Grady is a great hugger and snuggler, but when your baby weighs as much as a big sack of Costco rice, pretty soon your shoulders look like Serena Williams' and your back feels like the cobblestones in Pamplona.  Also, it took some time, but I'm at a point where I really don't mind changing diapers.  I don't crave it, and I still employ some great evasive techniques whenever I smell a big diaper bomb ("I'd better go check the... [hay, horses, still]").  But what I really won't miss, more than anything, is the Diaper Genie.

If you don't know, the Diaper Genie is a semi-air-tight garbage can for diapers.  We use ours, primarily, for the poopy ones, so when it's full, it's literally a festering tube of rotting crap.  It's horrible.  Yesterday, I shoved an especially full diaper through the plastic jaws and into the tube, but it was full.  The sensical thing would have been to open it up, remove the full plastic tube of diapers, tie off the plastic and start new.  The country thing to do is forcefully shove the diaper into the full tube.  You know what happens when you do that?  Poo Juice.  Yes.  The solids and fluids inside those fermenting diapers leak, and when they get compresses, the fluids rise and you get poo juice on your hand.

It's the last remaining thing about infancy that gags me.  But if that's all I can't handle, we'll let Grady stay a baby for as long as he likes.  And if you're in Vegas, put a twenty down on a bottom tooth by July.

The First Weekend in May

There aren't too many weekends that match the sports spectacle of the first weekend in May.  The Kentucky Derby and the May Rodeo always fall on the first Saturday and Sunday, respectively, and they're both big events around here.  I know, those can't match the hype of March Madness or the Super Bowl, or even the T20 World Cricket Finals, but they're even better.  Trust me.

In 1973, I watched Secretariat win the Triple Crown, I was two and a half, and "Secretariat" became my favorite word.  I've tried to continue the tradition and get Dylan excited about the Derby, but her short attention span can't last through the three hours of pre-race hype.  Hell, my short attention span can't last that long.  But, I did get her to watch Mind That Bird's 50:1 upset win last year and I bribed her to sit down, finally, as the horses entered the gate this year.  Calvin Borel  is our new hero -- although I'm worried that she'll yell, "Ride the rail, Borel" to any adult male who is under 5'3''.

The other tradition is the May Rodeo.  It's the first local rodeo of the year and I grew up riding in its parade and getting bucked off by its calves.  For months, Dylan has been telling us that she was going to ride a sheep.  The thought seems harmless enough, riding a big fuzzy sheep is like sitting of a soft cloud. But I know the scary truth; I've been helping parents pry their children's fingers from the top rail of the chutes and putting them on the backs of pissed off lambs for the past ten years.  Mutton Bustin' is like being a passenger on the back of a runaway dirt bike.  Sooner, and not later, the kids fall off, face first, in the arena dirt.  There are always tears, often blood, and not much reward except the Queen gives you a silver dollar, which, to little kids, might as well be a shiny stone.

Greg was always against his daughters riding sheep -- not for any kind of righteous-cattle-rancher reasons -- but for simply practical ones.  I thought he was crazy.  Mutton Bustin' is nuthin' but fun!  Right?  Then I started paying attention to what happened after the terrified kids left the chute, and then I had a daughter.  I told Dylan she could ride a sheep, but I dragged my feet.  Besides, I figured she'd chicken out once she saw the reality of it.  So, I took her behind the chutes, and we stood on the catwalk and peered down into the bucking chutes at the lambs.  Her confidence didn't waver and she still wanted to ride, so I had my friend set her on the back of one, just to get a feel for it.  She still insisted that she was having fun, then the sheep moved.  Just a little, but she knew it wasn't anything like sitting on the back of a horse and she wanted off.  Viola!  My plan worked.

The rest of the day was spent watching the show.  I skipped out on my normal rodeo duties and enjoyed the rodeo from the back of a flat-bed.  Dylan spent the day eating.  When I asked about her favorite part of the rodeo, she said, "The dip."

Grady got passed around until he hit nap time, then, like a good cowboy, fell asleep on the front seat of the truck.  Dylan wasn't too far behind.  The dirt, snowcones, and excitement wore us all out, but I think Dylan's officially hooked on rodeos and now she can't wait until the last Saturday in July so she can Mutton Bust again, if only for a few seconds.

Milestones

Lacy, my niece, just turned twenty.  The fact, I think, bummed Greg out a little.  You know, the whole "it all goes too fast, blink and they're twenty," thing.  I started playing the numbers game in my head: Greg's fifty, Lacy's twenty.  When Dylan's twenty, I'll be fifty-five.  Fifty-five!  I'll probably be wearing those gigantic side-flap sunglasses that old people get at the optometrist's office and peeing ten times a night by then.

Dylan just turned three.  This fact didn't bum me out at all, although I couldn't quite match her enthusiasm for a birthday party.  We decided to combine everything Dylan loves into one party: cupcakes, Easter eggs, and presents (basically: candy, candy, and presents).  Her presents were a great representation of her very princess-girly side and her country-girl side.  Along with a ton of dolly's and dresses, she also received a pair of chinks (Chaps, for you city-folks.  Quit dialing the ACLU.) and a huge Lego set.  The day after her party, I thought I'd step out the back door of the house and shoot a few squirrels.  Dylan was still in full party mode and wearing, I think, her party dress from the day before.  When I told her what I was doing, she wanted to come with me.  "Let me get my dolly first, Daddy," Dylan told me.  Dolly's and dead squirrels, together at last.

Grady, too, has hit a milestone.  Sort of.  I'd written about Dylan at nine months (75% in weight, 95% in height) and I remember her as a pretty big baby.  Maybe big isn't right: solid is more fitting.  She was often called a boy by strangers, and on several occasions, I got a, "Oh, he's going to be a good football player."  Grady is just big.  At his nine-month check-up last week, he was 95% in weight and 60% in height.  Kind of a flip-flop of Dylan, and he's never been confused for a girl, but I do get, "Oh, he's going to be a football."  I hope they mean football player, but he very well could be the football.  He's shaped for it anyway.  He's all hips, thighs, and smiles.

This morning, Regina and I watched Grady as he toppled over from a sitting positing, then struggled, like an upside down turtle, to get himself righted.  He finally got himself in a comfortable position and grinned at us.  "I love that he's staying a baby for so long," Regina told me.  I hadn't thought of that.  I'm always wondering, "What's next?" -- teeth, crawling, school, girlfriends, cars, graduation, twenty -- when I should be looking at what is now.  Maybe I'll do that a little more often, as soon as I can find my giant side-flap sunglasses.

Zombie Raccoon

I've mentioned the raccoon before -- it was one of the scattered animal remnants in our yard and the same vicious beast that attacked Chowder the day after Christmas (a result of coal in his stocking, I'm sure).  This guy was certainly more tenacious dead than alive.  He's been buried (twice), hit with a tractor and disc, run-over by traffic on our lane, dragged, stampeded, chewed up and barfed out, burned, and finally, bagged.  He has been, needless to say, a lesson for Dylan in ... something.  Probably something gruesome that will scar her.

"There's the raccoon that bit Chowder, Daddy," she'd tell me, every time we passed its bloated figure.  "He's dead now, sis."  "Yeah, you shot him."  This was the conversation we had, almost daily, as we watched Mr. Raccoon stay perfectly preserved in the cold months of January and February.  I should have tossed him in the dumpster then, but he made such a great conversation piece.

By March, I'd buried him in the alfalfa field, but the disc unearthed him and helped speed up the decaying process.  The dogs decided, then, that he was sufficiently rotten and would make a fine meal.  Dylan quit talking about him until the spoiled meat nearly killed Scout (Raccoon - 2, Dogs - 0).  That's when I decided that a good old-fashioned witch burning was in order, not to exorcise any demons, but I figured cooked raccoon had to smell better than the decomposing one the dogs unearthed.

Dylan was stoked.  "We're burning the aa-coon, Mommy!"  Regina didn't ask any questions -- she's learned she's better off not knowing -- and Dylan and I set off up the lane with a gas jug and a lighter.  We piled on the sticks for the cremation and watched the black smoke climb.  For a week Dylan told everyone she met that she'd burned a raccoon.  I shrugged like I had no idea what she was talking about.

Today, nearly four months after its demise, I found half of the raccoon in our yard.  The fire hadn't done much for its looks or in cooking it; it stunk.  Dylan was glad to have her old friend back, but I told her to stay away.  This thing is not real.  I'm at the end of my list for ways to dispose of dead varmints.

I have to look on the bright side:  Dylan's learned about life-cycles, the meanness of cute wild animals, proper grilling techniques, and the perils of eating rotten meat.  All valuable lessons for a country girl.  The raccoon will offer one last lesson: plastic is better than paper for bagging up zombies.

Merry Easter

Originally, this post was going to be titled "March Madness" (despite the ever-looming threat of a *gasp* copyright infringement lawsuit from the NCAA) and I was going to write about what a nutty month March was.  By nutty, I mean plagued with illness.  Dylan and Grady fought through fever, bronchiolitis, pneumonia, breathing treatments, ER visits, antibiotics, and giant boogers.  I thought April would bring wellness to the Eastside gang, but apparently bronchiolitis follows the Aztec calendar and doesn't give a rat's ass about April.

So, instead of writing about the hilarious and wacky adventures of two tired parents with their sick kids, I thought I'd write about Easter.

I'd forgotten how fun Easter is for kids.  It's a candy-fueled melee that ranks right up there with any holiday that overloads children on chocolate and attention.  Our cousin Julie tried to explain to Dylan that Easter wasn't just about the Easter bunny and candy.  She told Dylan about Jesus and the resurrection.  Dylan listened, then said, "Julie, that's weird."  I think the Jesus side of Easter finally stared to sink in on our way to the Thamer's for our Easter party.  It started snowing pretty heavily and definitely looked more like Christmas than Easter.  Dylan conveniently combined the two and sang, "Baby Jesus is Coming to Town" the whole way up.  It felt like Ricky Bobby was serenading us from the back seat.

Dylan skipped any food that wouldn't give her a sugar-high.  Regina and I kept waiting for the crash, but (Easter miracle) the meltdown never happened.  She waded through mud and poop so she could pet a newborn lamb and didn't care that her shoes got mucky, she hunted Easter eggs in a blizzard and didn't freak out over her new frilly socks getting soaked, she actually had competition in hunting eggs this year and didn't care that every egg wasn't labeled "For Dylan Only," and she ate jellybeans instead of ham and didn't care ... okay, maybe that was the secret.  Jellybeans to kids are like bourbon for adults, they make you not care.

We finally came home in our one-horse open sleigh and, now, despite that it's April and we were supposed to leave the bad voodoo of March behind, both kids are back on antibiotics, steroids, and breathing treatments for round two of bronchiolitis.  But it's better this time around.  We have baskets full of candy, a little sunshine has melted our April snow, and I won't have to worry about any copyright infringement lawsuits for using "April Madness" in a post.