Not that you could tell by the photos, Ben had a great halloween. He went trick or treating with his cousin (just a few houses), and when he got back, he had some dinner and helped give out candy to the other kids. It was a great time!
(click the picture to the right to see more of the evening)
Just thought this picture looked good in B&W as well. Man he is a cute kid!
You know me, never satisfied with the technology I have. I got turned on to a different blogging program called WordPress a while back. It looked pretty cool, but since I couldn’t try it out, I couldn’t know for sure whether it was better than what I was using. Anyway, this past week, I received an invite to try out their hosted service. It only took me five minutes to see how much easier it would be, so I decided to load it as the blog software for modave.net. Hopefully this means I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ll be more motivated to share the fun bits of our lives with you. Anyway, you didn’t come here to read about this, I just wanted to let you know why things look different. Let me know what you think with the comments link below.
More importantly, take a look at what we did last weekend below.
You couldn’t have asked for a better weekend! Although, I could have asked the meteorologists to let us know we were going to have a good weekend. See, they were predicting rain all weekend. We had things we had to do and plans with family and all of it was outdoors. Anyway, we all know the meteorologists have no idea what they are talking about, so I will try to get past that part.
Saturday
Saturday was picture day. Mo needed pictures of downtown Detroit for a work project she is working on.
So we packed up the Ben and the camera and off we went. We parked near Greektown, hopped on the People Mover and road it around town taking pictures at all the stops that looked interesting. Once we got to Cobo, we got off and walked down Jefferson to the Renaissance Center taking pictures of the Spirit of Detroit…
…Hart Plaza…
…and the Fist…
…along the way. Mo hadn’t been in the Ren Cen, or downtown for that matter, in quite some time, so there was a lot to see. I love the new glass sculpture they put in the front lobby!
Then again, I love that the building HAS a front lobby. Those of you that have seen the Ren Cen before the GM reconstruction know what I mean. So I showed her and Ben around the place taking a look at the Winter Garden…
…and the McDonalds
We never did see any rain that day.
You can see more of the pictures we took on our adventure here.
Sunday
So we figured we got lucky on Saturday and would have to pay for it with the rain on Sunday. The meteorologists outdid themselves that day when the first thing we saw when we woke up was bright sun and blue skies! Perfect for our planned day at the cider mill with Ben?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s cousins! Once again, it couldn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t have been a better day, and since everyone was expecting rain, the crowds were light and there were no lines in anywhere. We had a wonderful time petting animals, going down the HUGE slide that they had, and just having fun! This is my favorite picture of the day…
The rest of Sunday?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s pictures are here.
We got so lucky. We were terrified to go get his haircut, but it couldn’t have been easier. We walked right in with no wait, we had the nicest stylist and we were there right when Blue’s Clues was on Noggin. I don’t know that he even noticed that someone was cutting his hair!!! He looks so cute too. Check out the pictures.
So last night, Merideth came home. For those of you who don’t know, Merideth is a friend of ours who just got out of college last spring. She is living with us while she applies for grad school. Anyway, as soon as Ben heard the door open and before he even saw her, he waved a little wave and said “Hi.” Then he went back to his toys.
Then this morning, I dropped Ben off at his Ama’s before work. I was standing near the door to leave, just talking to Ama, and before I even said goodbye, he waved bye to me. It was all just too cute!
As I mentioned, I have been listening to Babyhood, by Paul Reiser, on my commute and it has been bringing back some memories of the Ben days. There are a lot of things to do to help out while we were still at the hospital, but the one thing that I thought about obsessively was what I thought of as my first official duty as Father of my newborn son: the drive home. Now let me start by saying that the hospital couldn’t be much more than a mile from our house, but in my mind, I may has well have been transporting highly volatile nuclear material or top secret government materials. I was so worried that Ben would cough, choke, look cross-eyed and that I would have to immediately get off the road and perform some medical maneuver to save his life. I can’t imagine how tense I looked at the time, but I was constantly monitoring traffic, the road, and nearby driveways ensuring that with even a hiccup, I could be off the road and administering first aid within 3.5 seconds. It may have only been a mile away, but to me, it was the most crucial mile I would ever drive in my life.
I have been listening to Babyhood, by Paul Reiser, on my commute and it has been bringing back some memories of the past year+. One of them happened moments after Ben was born. There are some things that are “always done” that I just don’t understand. My “duty” to cut the umbilical cord is on of those things. From the moment I heard that it was traditional for the father to cut it, I have thought, “Why in the world would I want to do something like that…” for so many reasons…
1. The Dr. is making good money to be here, why is he delegating this to me.
2. I can’t imagine that the sensation of cutting the cord is something I would consider delightful. I have to imagine it is something like cutting leather with lefty scissors.
3. I don’t want to be the one who has symbolically detached my newborn son from my wife. It is just too risky.
The part I really couldn’t believe is that it seemed that I personally insulted the doctor by not taking on my fatherly duty after multiple requests. I could go on, but I’ve probably already bored you to tears.
We’ll say it is that we have been busy, but I think the real reason that Ben hasn’t had a haircut is that we are scared. Mo has been snipping a little here and a little there just to buy us time. They have this place at the mall called Carnival Cuts where every station has a TV and it is completely geared for kids. We are running out of excuses. Hopefully we will get him there before he has a pony tail!
