Why

I haven't labeled what I'm doing much. I haven't put it in my OK Cupid profile. Sometimes I think I should, though I'm going on the assumption that the act of online dating implies non-exclusivity in and of itself. I suppose it's best described as "in an open relationship."

It gets raised eyebrows sometimes when people ask me about it, and sometimes furrowed brows. I've been on the receiving end of high fives and fist bumps. Some of the conversations I've had are goofy, and some are thoughtful. A couple of people have mentioned the old adage of "If you love someone, set them free..." etc. One person told me, "It's like that old saying, only you're really doing it. Everybody says it, but nobody really does it. You're actually doing it. That's cool."

And it is cool. But I wanted to verbalize what it is I think I'm doing, and why.

For me, this is about two things most of all: fear and genuine human connection.

Fear

I have been afraid, and I have been dishonest because I was afraid. Fear has done more damage to my interpersonal relationships in the past than anything else. And the greatest fear of all? Fear of rejection. I have not been honest about who I am and what I want because I have tried to be and want what I thought other people wanted or expected. It didn't work. I was insecure because I couldn't know what they wanted, so I couldn't know who to be.

An open relationship brings that fear of rejection to the front and center of everything. I am reaching out and asking women to meet and interact with me to see where, if anywhere, it goes. Friendship? Romance? Rejection? It was a terrifying idea to me, reaching out. But now, already, only three weeks in, that particular fear is nearly gone, at least in the online realm of dating apps. I still haven't made that leap in person, but I have no fear of messaging women anymore. I have almost no fear or nervousness in meeting them for the first time. I've been rejected twice after first dates now, and even that wasn't the horrifying, embarrassing, or even mildly awkward experience I was afraid it would be. Both times, it was a "Fair enough. Best of luck to you!" sort of experience, and one of them even told me, "You are a gentleman, and you deserve to be happy!" How terrifying is that?

What I'm learning is that the world is full of an infinite variety of human beings. Some of these may be a good match for me in personality, temperament, humor, and taste. Many will not. If we are not a good match, then what's the harm? None, unless we arbitrarily determine that staying together is more important than being a good match, and then, damage is done to both of us. That's a silly path to take. So peace be with you! Go with God! Fare thee well!

Jealousy, too, is only fear of rejection. If the woman I love chooses to date other people, what shall I choose? To be afraid that she will find someone she likes better than she likes me? No. I can choose to set aside that fear response and look at it from a distance. She loves me. I love her. If we go on our separate adventures, just like anything else we may do separately, we can come back to each other and talk about it. We can each find in other people human characteristics that we do not find in each other, and that is part of the joy. Each person we meet, interact with, and connect with meaningfully will resonate within ourselves a different set of tones, and by discovering the differences in how we connect and relate with others, we discover truths about ourselves we would not otherwise have had the opportunity to bring into the light and examine. We have new pathways through others toward change and growth in ourselves.

Connection

That's the real treasure of this weird scavenger hunt I'm on: human connection. For me so far it's mostly been first dates, which is only the first step in developing connection, a first step with its own challenges, but it's a necessary first step. I've told and listened to tales meant to reveal something of who we are. How we tell and hear these tales is the beginning of a kind of connection that we as humans seem incapable of having with the hundreds and thousands of nameless strangers that surround us. It is the first step in humanizing The Other, in turning a Them into an Us, and it's a joy. And with second and third dates, it's an even greater joy to begin to see how that connection can, with openness, honesty, and a rejection of fear instead of a fear of rejection, begin to blossom and spread into something even more meaningful.

And the connection with the woman who started all of this for me has deepened, too. Maybe that's a surprise. Maybe not. When we come back together, missing each other and craving each other's company, we talk. And some of what we talk about is what we are learning about ourselves and each other through this process of opening up, reaching out, and connecting. That, in turn, brings a new and higher level of connection between us. And missing each other, by the way, is a wonderful thing. Being apart long enough to yearn for each other's company is far preferable to seeing each other so much that the connection becomes stale and taken for granted.

Bonus

The added bonus to all of this is that I'm finding that I really am losing interest in maintaining the relationships I have that don't fit, that provide no real connection, that make me feel bad about myself. And that's a relief. If you don't like me, that's fine. You don't have to. But I don't have to listen to you tell me all about why you don't. That that is a revelation to me says a lot about who I was and who I'm working to become.

Swimmingly

I suppose an update is an order, and really I should get that shameful obscenity out of the top spot on my little corner of the web here. So here ya go:

You may have heard: I'm dating. This is still a mind-boggling turn of events for me, but how many times exactly can I keep telling you that you met me at a very strange time in my life? I started with Tinder. I did communicate with a couple of women through it, but mostly it was silence. It was crickets chirping. It was the sound of one hand clapping. So I deleted my account. A friend told me, yeah, that's mostly for hook-ups. Even though all the women with profiles say they're not there for hook-ups. But notice that it wants your GPS location, and a whole lot of the women have no profile at all. So: current location + picture only = hook-ups. And I wasn't getting any of those. Not that I wanted those. At least, I don't think I did. A few more tests. (That's a reference to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Mom). (Yes, I just spoke parenthetically to my Mom while talking about hook-ups).

So I started using OKCupid. Because I'd heard of it. And because it also was free. But then I lost my mind and started paying for it anyway? Because I'm easily lead? Because I was in an internet-fueled feverish haze? Anyway, what was I saying again? Oh yeah. Dating. OKCupid. Right.

I was stunned to discover it worked. I made my profile. I answered my questions. I added my pictures. I browsed my "Matches." I sent messages. I got responses. If the banter went well, I asked women out. Some said yes. A couple even asked me out! It was madness. Pure madness.

So now I've gone on two first dates, with a third scheduled for tomorrow. I have my first second date on Saturday. I have no idea what's going on here. And that's OK!

I have to say, my favorite exchanges have been with women who've been on dating apps for a long time and feel qualified and justified in critiquing my approach. It probably has a name, talking about courtin' while courtin'. Meta courtin'? Meta dating? I don't know. It's hilarious. Experienced women love to take me under their wing. I'm a newb. I'm a rook. Ha ha!

Wait, what was I talking about again? Oh yeah. Here's the most amazing part of all of this: I did something that terrified me. And it was fun. And shows every sign of continuing to be fun. And (I notice this is a recurring theme in this blog) the thing that I feared most didn't come to pass. I was afraid that I would be unappealing to women, that I would attract no interest myself and all of my interest in others would be rejected. Looking back over the last week, I see now how silly that is. In the world of online dating apps, where a person is defined almost entirely by his words, I am a man who can use words well. That has appeal. I have appeal. Also, my fellow men have largely set the bar pretty low, as evidenced by the jaded comments women sometimes feel compelled to include in their profiles, like, "Don't message me if your profile pic is your chest or your crotch."

In the last year, I've had a dear friend with relevant life experience tell me that I would be happy again, when I was sure I would not. I've had an amazing, beautiful woman that I thought of as out of my league demand, "Are you going to kiss me or not?" And now I've asked several women out, and they said yes. I've asked one woman for a second date, and she said yes. My self-esteem has gone from completely bottomed out a little over a year ago to bobbing along at a pretty damned healthy level right now thank you very much, and I couldn't be happier about it.

If I keep dating, though, I'm going to have to get a second job to boost my disposable income. This social life business is expensive! But if I get another job, how will I have time for dating? Such a conundrum.

The Last Day of My Previous Life

Tomorrow, my wife and I are on the "Uncontested Docket" at something something District Court to have our Agreed Final Decree of Divorce blessed by a judge, or whatever it is exactly that they do. Sprinkle water on it and thumb the sign of the cross into the header? Burn some sage? Sacrifice a goat? I don't know. I hope I'm not expected to bring the goat. But this time tomorrow, God willin' and the...

Hey, have you ever heard that phrase? I have a co-worker who has said for the entire 16 years I've known her, "God willin' and the creek don't rise..." I always took it to mean, "with a little luck," as in "if God is willing for this to happen, and also the rushing body of water between us and our goal doesn't rise under extreme weather conditions."

But last month, said co-worker told me that someone had told her that she should be careful with that phrase, as it's actually racist. As in, the word "creek" in that saying should be capitalized. As in, it's not "so long as the creek does not rise under heavy rain and wash out the road" so much as it's "so long as those pesky Creek don't rise up in armed revolt."

As with most things, consulting with the mighty oracle at Google will tell you that it most definitely is true that the saying refers to the North American aboriginal people and their violent resistance to the oppressive conditions under which they found themselves to be living, and also that it most definitely is not true and is in fact related to the phrase "come hell or high water" in meaning and intent.

I did not bother Googlin' the origin of that one or attempt to ascertain whether or not H E Double Hockey Sticks should or should not be capitalized in the context in which I used it. Though I did capitalize in that context. But not the previous context. I don't know. I'm unpredictable. I'm an enigma wrapped in a something something.

Anyway, what was I saying again? Oh yeah, God willin' and the river don't rise, I'll be a divorced man in 24 hours or less.

How do I feel about this? I've said it before, and I'll say it again: you met me at a very strange time in my life.



On the one hand, it's been less than a year from her uttering the words "I want a divorce" to (presumably) a judge uttering the words "by the power vested in me by the great State of Texas, I now pronounce you as done with each other as can reasonably be expected when you're raising a kid together. Go forth and multiply. Wait, no. Live long and prosper?" It's been a long, awful, fast, wonderful, bizarre, mundane, thoroughly aggravating, fascinating, amazing, and shitty year. We've been endlessly amicable and relentlessly bitter and vicious to each other. I'm thrilled that the year is almost over, though I spent the first 4 months of it trying like hell (not capitalized?) to change the direction this ship was sailing. I'm thrilled that it wasn't more than a year. I'm thrilled that we were able to come to a (more or less) amicable agreement on terms.

On the other hand, I suspect the emotions are going to hit hard tomorrow or some time shortly thereafter. Even though this is what I wanted (at least since some time in April), and at times wanted so desperately that I was screaming to the heavens "let it be over already!" I hear from others who've gone through it that there will be baffling feelings of grief and loss that the marriage of 20 years, the marriage that was the center of my life for over half my life, is truly dead. I am excited at the prospect of finally moving forward with the next phase, leaving behind the scorched ruin in which I've been living and finding my happiness in some new metaphorical place, wherever that may be. But I can see how it might be possible that the finality of a court agreeing that we are now to fuck right off out of each other's lives, to the degree that's possible for co-parents to do, will stir up afresh all of the feelings of loss and failure that I suffered through for the first 8 months of the year.

2015 has been a helluva year. I'm not at its close the man I was at its opening. While that's certainly true for any year in anyone's life, it is most acutely obvious for me, for this year.

So let tomorrow come. Let the marriage be over. Let the custody arrangement be set in stone. Let us let go.

Happy New Year, errby!

It's Different for Me Now

Driving to work this morning, I heard Dr. David Buss on KGSR talking about dating in the modern age. The gist was that modern technology and communications do not make it easier to find a long-term mate.

I'll be completely, officially divorced soon, probably some time in November, so I've been thinking about dating and mating and finding a match that works in the long term. I thought I'd found The One two decades ago. I was sure of it. But The One is now as foreign to me in heart and mind, as inscrutable, as an alien. I'm sure I am to her, as well. We simply do not speak the same language. It's not her fault, and it's not mine, or if there is fault, it belongs to each of us. But I think fault is meaningless in the end of our marriage. There was no infidelity. There was no abuse. There was the long, slow accumulation of resentment and the inevitable separation of what was once, truly if briefly, a close union of souls. Some of that foreignness comes from the pain of The Breakup itself, the cruelty we inflicted on each other while finally, irrevocably snapping that bond between us. But I also think most of our marriage was the desperate attempt to return to what existed for a few years and was lost through the vagaries of time and circumstance, mostly because we were at our cores incompatible in our personalities and desires. We were friends for a long time, even good friends, close friends. But we stopped being mates, I think, probably some time in the 20th century. We fell in love quickly at the age of 20 with the people we had the potential to become, and we fell out of love slowly over the next 20 years with the people we actually became.

Anyway, that's my paragraph-long post mortem on almost 23 years of daily interaction.

All of which begs the question, whether you call what came before a failure or an indispensable life experience, how does one go about making a new match that lasts and uplifts and continues to uplift over the course of years?

I don't think it's on Tinder. Or Match. Or eHarmony. Or OKCupid. Maybe. I don't know. Dr. Buss pointed out that each of these, and especially all of them in combination, give the illusion of infinite choice, infinite possibility, which leads to a paralysis of choice. It's a world where the next possibility is always better than the current reality.

A friend told me I'd have to go through my "divorce crazies," to go crazy and date lots and lots of people over the next couple of years. To step out of my comfort zone and go wild would be the only way to find out who I am in relation to other people, to find out what I liked and what I wanted. While I can see its value, that idea kind of gives me the heebie jeebies. I said in June or July, shortly after I moved out of my marital home and established for the first time in my life a space that was my own: I don't want to date. I wanted to live on my own, making my own choices for my own sake. I wanted to spend at least a year or two discovering who it is I am alone before I try again to discover who it is I am in cooperation with another person. And it was true when I said it. And it's still kind of true now. But I can see that a time will come, and maybe sooner than I thought when I was just beginning to believe that the end was in sight, the end of something that had become destructive, that I will want to find someone. Someone to spend time with. To talk to. To cuddle with. To help and to be helped by. To uplift and to be uplifted by. And yes, to bone. Bonin' is fun, after all. And making love is an expression of, an extension of, and a reinforcement of emotional intimacy. But more than sex: I will want someone to show my intricacies and to discover her intricacies, with all of the joy and fear and frustration and giddiness and fever and love that comes with that openness and discovery.

Who do I want? The more important question is who do I want to be? I think it's answering the second question that will lead to the answer of the first.

What I will not do is hold on to the past. I have friends who model for me exactly the behavior I refuse to engage in. I will not dwell daily on what I had and lost. I will not dwell daily on what she did that brought about the end, or what she did in ending it. I will not remain mired in the muck of what went before. I can't see anything of value in fighting any longer to keep or regain what is gone. I can't see anything of value in hating her or pitying myself. If you are one of my friends who thinks now that I'm talking to you, then hear this: let it go. It's over. You are only hurting yourself and your kids. Find a therapist. I have a recommendation for you if you want it. She was instrumental for me in seeing things differently. But you have to stop it. There's no point. There's nothing to be gained, only everything to be lost.

That's what I won't do. What will I do instead? I will be honest. Trying to be someone I wasn't didn't work. Pretending to want what I didn't want or to be happy when I wasn't didn't work. That staple of couples counseling and Alcoholics Anonymous, "fake it 'til you make it" only goes so far. Eventually the faking is as destructive to the self as the not faking was to the relationship. So I will tell the truth, even when it's difficult or awkward. I am who I am, and I'm a lot more comfortable with that at 43 than I was at 20.

I will be kind. Bullying someone to make them become someone else is a stupid strategy. It didn't work for her, and it didn't work for me. If I'm dating someone who turns out to have very different priorities than I do, it'll be OK to end things and move on. Better now than later. The ending can be as much of a kindness as anything else.

I thought it would be a long list, but I think that's it. I will be honest and kind. I think everything else is a subcategory of one or the other. Is it possible that the next great love of my life will appear, will draw me to her and be drawn to me, by living my life and endeavoring always to be honest and kind?

On Being the Adult

I'm bad with details. And I don't care about money. And I'm kind of like that dog in Up who's easily dis... squirrel!

When I was a lad, I was a scout from Bobcat (they didn't have Tiger back then) to Life. That's one rank short of Eagle. I earned many merit badges. I met many requirements. I camped. I did survival training. I completed leadership training. I was selected for Order of the Arrow. Two things stood between me and earning the rank of Eagle Scout: the service project (coming up with an idea, pitching it for approval, and organizing and leading a team to execute it all seemed like a lot of work to me) and just one more merit badge: Personal Management. In hindsight, it was telling that I never completed the merit badge that would teach me how to balance a check book, to create and stick to a budget, and presumably several other valuable life skills.

Anyway, what was I talking about again? Oh yeah, being a responsible adult. This, the Year of Divorce, has been a roller coaster time in my life emotionally, and a time when new experiences are popping up practically every week. When I was 19, I moved out of my parents' house and straight into student housing, which they paid for, while attending my first year of college. Which they also paid for. At new student orientation, I was offered a credit card by the local bank, despite having no job and no demonstrable means of repaying any accumulated debt. Predictably, I immediately began a long campaign of spending money I didn't have.

When that year of college was up, I had to find a job, and an apartment, and a roommate. The next year was the only time in my adult life when I was entirely responsible for myself and my bills, and I continued with vigor my campaign to increase my credit debt.

The following year, I moved in with Aerie, and she, being the person she is, took responsibility for our finances. She swore when she moved out of her parents' home that she would never be dependent on anyone again, and she meant it. She was in charge. For the next 23 years, I paid little attention to things like "income/expenses" or "budget" or anything else related to our financial situation, except for a brief period when, because her stress levels were high, I took over responsibility for paying bills. Unfamiliar with timing bill payments to work in harmony with payroll deposits, I immediately overdrafted the checking account, and she immediately took back responsibility. It wasn't a learning opportunity, it was just more in a growing pile of evidence that I was not capable of being a responsible adult and an equal partner to her in the business of our family life.

Of course, in my defense, there were other ways that I contributed, ways that were uniquely valuable and perhaps would not or could not have been made by anyone other than me, but... Well, bygones, as they say.

So, my point, really, is that now I'm the only responsible adult in my household, and learning how to do that, how to be that, is a challenge for me. I still don't care about money, and I'm still bad with details. I forget things easily unless I write them down, and I usually forget to write them down. I'm constantly forgetting and resetting the passwords associated with pretty much all of my online accounts, including those that let me do things like check balances, pay debts, transfer funds, and other useful adult activities. The modern world is a wonderful place, with the convenience of autopay and electronic payments and transfers, but Jesus, the passwords. The passwords!

In my work life, I have systems in place to help me keep track of details and schedules, some of which I inherited and some of which I created, but for some reason, it's taking me a little while to learn to create and adhere to systems in my personal business. It's possible, I know, and I already have the skills to make this work. I've just never had to before. At 43, I'm finally learning how to be responsible outside of a work environment. I'm making mistakes, and I'm learning from them, and what's most exciting is: I don't have to answer to anyone, or apologize to anyone for those mistakes. I don't get chastised or criticized. My mistakes are all mine. I am my own boss. It's a little scary, but exhilarating, too.

And yes, I'm aware that the fact that this is how I feel about it is a strong indicator of at least one place where I went very wrong very early in my marriage.

New Beginnings

It's been a strange and difficult couple of years here in Rodiusland. I went through a period of depression and lethargy stemming largely from my fear and uncertainty over my changing role in my family as Thumper moved through his early elementary school years. I didn't feel necessary as a full-time stay-at-home dad, but I didn't know how to re-enter the workforce or how to sell myself as a valuable addition to an employer's team after so long in a mostly domestic role. I didn't know what to do with myself, so I spent too much time doing nothing. It took me a little bit of a while to recognize that the feeling of being stuck, of not wanting to move, was a symptom of depression and that I needed to get help.

I'm coming out of that depression now, with the help of therapy, medication, and a full-time job that redefines my role significantly. I'm weaning off the medication, and I've moved on from my therapist with her blessings. She and I agreed I'm on the right path now, approaching my life and its difficulties and its opportunities with a new attitude. Aerie and I are divorcing, a further redefinition of my role. We have not been a happy or effective partnership for some time, but we're working on breaking up that partnership as amicably as we can. Both of us are focused on Thumper and what's best for him as we move forward into an entirely new stage of our lives after nearly 23 years together.

I've missed writing about my life, but I didn't have much to say, and frankly much of what I had to say over the past 6 months was best said privately. I live my life visibly here and on Facebook, some would say too publicly for my own good. But, as has been said of me, I never could keep my f***in' mouth shut, so I couldn't stay away from this blog forever. I'm going to try to continue to use this space as a place where I can think aloud, talk about my life and my understanding of it, and keep my friends and family aware of and involved in what Thumper and I are up to and how I feel about it. I will also do my best not to talk publicly about things I shouldn't, especially as the divorce proceeds.

Honestly, though, for anyone out there who has wondered what became of me, I am finally in a really good place. I'm working at a place that I love and as part of a team whose purpose and goals I find valuable and worthwhile. I have my own apartment, and Aerie and I are splitting custody 50/50. We alternate weeks, which means I get lots of time with my my favorite person in the entire world. On our off weeks, we each have dinner with the little man one night, which means it's never more than a few days before he sees the parent he's not staying with that week. It's a great arrangement, giving me time to focus on him and time to explore my new life away from the woman who has been my wife, fiancée, girlfriend, and/or roommate for more than half of my life. It's a strange transition, but also an exciting one. There were plenty of hurt feelings, anger, accusations, and general unpleasantness through the first half of this year, but now, I feel like things are finally truly getting better for both her and for me, which can't help but make things better for Thumper. That we both love him and want what's best for him, I have no doubt.

So, uh... What'd I miss? What's new with you?

The First Day of the Rest of Our Lives

As a stay-at-home dad, my only child's first day of kindergarten was almost surreal, a strange mix of emotions ranging from giddy exultation to moody navel-gazing. He's gone from this:

to this:

in what also seems simultaneously like a blink of an eye and an eternity. This parenthood gig is stranger than anyone would ever be able to make anyone else believe with just words. There's so much you can't know until you know it.

It was a grand day. Aerie worked from home so that she could be there for drop-off and pick-up. He was confident and excited and walked to his classroom with an elbows-up swagger that looked like this:

We hugged and kissed him and said our goodbyes. He shed no tears and was happy to see the back of us, but he didn't even mind all the pictures. Next year he almost certainly will. Aerie managed to hold off her tears until we were outside the school.

We came home and, of course, immediately posted pictures to Facebook, like all parents with kids in school. Then I ran a load of laundry while working on a database project. When I began to fold the laundry, including Thumper's clothes that seem simultaneously tiny and, compared to those little onesies of days gone by, huge. That was when the emotions finally caught up with me, sitting in the utterly silent house folding the little big man's clothes.

It was just as surreal how quickly the day flew by. I did too few chores, accomplished too few work objectives, and utterly relaxed through a pleasantly surprising (first-time!) acupuncture appointment, which added even more weirdness to the day. I tried it to see if it could help some of my allergies and respiratory difficulties, but when I mentioned some shoulder pain, the acupuncturist immediately resolved in about 30 seconds of manipulating needles in my shins the shoulder pain that physical therapy and 3 or 4 years of exercises have not been able to touch. I can raise my arms above my head without sharp pain in my shoulders for the first time in years. Because of needles in my shins. Weird.

Wait, what was I talking about again? Oh yeah. End of an era and whatnot. I'm not sure what the future holds for a full-time stay-at-home dad who no longer has to watch a kid full-time. I'm not rushing back into the full-time workforce, though. Aerie and I agree that there is value to having me available, with an early afternoon school release and with all of the sick days, teacher work days, vacation days, and holidays that will come up over the course of the school year, and with the opportunities to volunteer at the school that will also arise. Timing has worked out well with some additional database projects appearing at just the right time through my part-time employer, and there may, with an extra stress on may, be some full-time employment opportunities for me on the horizon. So I'm staying put, biding my time, and waiting to see what happens.

But still, it does sort of feel like Thumper and I, we're walking into the sunset on this whole grand stay-at-home dad adventure.

A Stone for Two Birds

I've been meaning to jump back into Velvet Verbosity's 100 Word Challenge, but haven't in a long time. Also, I was declared 2nd place winner of Trifecta's first of three prompts this week, which earned me a place in the Write-Off this weekend. So I decided to fulfill the requirements of both prompts with one piece, because I'm lazy like that, and a sick kid all week kind of wore me out. Here's "Triumph" for Trifecta and "Swagger" for Velvet Verbosity, with a 100-word count:

Parenting teaches: do not plan; you will plan for the wrong eventuality. I bought my son a balance bike at two. When he graduated to a pedal bike, he wouldn’t need training wheels. But he did.

Imagining myself running beside him yelling encouragement, I bought a handle for the back of his bike. We used it once before he demanded his training wheels.

A friend rode two-wheeled; he borrowed that bike and took off without me or my plans. It was a triumph. You should have seen his swagger. He was proud, and it had nothing to do with me.

I Tried a Tri!

As I've mentioned, I've been in a diet and exercise slump. In the 6 weeks since that post, I've gained even more, so that today I weighed in at 17 pounds heavier than my lowest around Halloween. I trained pretty hard for the 3M Half Marathon in January because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to finish if I didn't, but once I finished the half (as we runners like to say), I started having a really hard time getting myself to run or to keep running. It was too easy to quit in the middle of a workout, telling myself I'd do a longer workout tomorrow, and even easier to skip it altogether, also in favor of that good workout tomorrow. But of course, tomorrow never comes.

Along with low workout motivation comes low diet motivation, eating more and worse foods and drinking more, and more often. And low diet motivation makes it harder to get up and run in the morning because I'm poorly nourished and under hydrated.

So it went, and I couldn't seem to break out of it.

Then I saw a cheap, small, local triathlon advertised. I'd said to some of my running friends when we were standing around chatting before or after the various 5Ks and 10Ks that I wanted to try a triathlon some time, but they were all so expensive. This one was anything but expensive, so it seemed to me that I all but had to sign up. So I did, with about 3 weeks to train for it.

But I didn't. My malaise lingered on, and I ran only once a week for those 3 weeks. Finally, 3 days before the event, I decided I really ought to test my assumption that swimming 17 laps in the pool for the first leg of the event wouldn't be so tough, and I gave it a try. I made it 10 laps before laboriously hauling myself out of the pool and sitting and shaking for about half an hour. It struck me hard that this "sprint triathlon" was going to be considerably tougher than I had anticipated.

The next day, I returned to the pool, adjusted my pace and stuck to breast stroke instead of crawl. I made it 18 laps that time, and shook less when I got out. I thought, "OK, maybe I'm not going to drown after all."

The race was fun. It was small, with about 30 participants, many of whom looked like they were in worse physical condition than I. The swimming (425 meters) was fine, and the biking (12 miles) was fine, but the part that I thought would be a piece of cake (a 3-mile run) was the hardest of all. When I got off the bike and tried to run, my legs nearly gave out beneath me. I had to walk for a minute or so until I could start to jog again. My left calf cramped up. So did my right thigh and my right side, and I've never had cramping problems when I run. That three miles stretched on forever, and I had to stop and walk several times.

Finally, the finish line loomed ahead. I heard footsteps coming up behind me, and the race staff at the finish line started yelling, "Come on, she's going to pass you! Strong finish!" So I poured on the gas for a neck-and-neck photo finish with the runner coming up behind me. As soon as I started to sprint, I heard her chuckle. She had every reason to. The women had started 20 minutes after the men, so she still had a time 20 minutes faster than mine, but it felt great to "win by a nose!"

It was fun. I beat my time goal by several minutes, and I had that same wonderful "I can't believe I actually finished!" feeling that I had after the half. A friend who also ran the triathlon with me (she's run several before) said that she was going to run the TriRock in September. She's running the "Olympic distance" for the first time. She encouraged me to sign up. I'm going to do the sprint triathlon, which is still longer than the one I did this weekend. It's 700 m/16.7 mi/3.1 mi (compared to the 425 m/12 mi/3 mi I just did and compared to the 1500 m/24.8 mi/6.2 mi on her "Olympic distance.").

I hope that step up in distance over what I've already done will give me the same motivation that I got from the half, the fear that if I don't train hard enough, I won't be able to finish. And having swimming and biking to rotate with my running workouts will help alleviate the burnout I've been feeling from running in place or running in circles. It's only been one day, but so far, I've met all of my diet and exercise goals that I've set for myself this week. We'll see if it lasts, but I'm feeling more excited about losing that 17 pounds and getting back to progressing instead of regressing.

Anyway. Sorry that was a long post, and it didn't include even one cute story about a preschooler, but hopefully moving on from this malaise of mine will see me back here more often, writing more words.

Goals Met and Unmet

So I'm 40 now. Last year, I set some goals for myself. Some of them I met; one of them I didn't. I'm only halfway to my weight loss goal, mostly because I did not stick to the calorie-counting and limited alcohol consumption. I'm not sure why this is so hard for me, but it's a lifelong struggle. I'll keep struggling.

I'm not going to beat myself up too badly for it, though, because I have succeeded in some ways that I never have before. While I didn't lose as much weight as I wanted, when I stopped losing, I maintained instead of gaining. I ran my first 10K nearly 2 years ago, and I've continued to run, to improve, to decrease times and increase distances, and it's that long-term commitment to running that's new to me. I have, all my life, lost weight, stopped exercising, then gained weight back again. This time I'm keeping regular exercise as part of my lifestyle, mostly by continuing to add running events, 5Ks, 10Ks, and even a half marathon, to my calendar.

Oh yeah, did I mention I ran the 3M Half Marathon? I registered to give myself a new challenge, but at the time, and right through to the time that I crossed the finish line, I didn't really believe that I could do it. I set a time goal for myself that was only a little bit slower of a per-mile pace than my 10K pace at the time, and I thought I couldn't possibly reach that goal, either.

But I did. I ran the whole way, never stopping to walk, and I beat my time goal by 30 seconds.

So looking to the future, I guess it's time to remind myself of old goals, like controlling my calorie intake and especially my alcohol consumption. But it's also time for new goals. I would like to reach my 200 lb. goal by the time the local pool opens for the summer, which is around May 1. I'd also like to be a better father to Thumper. I'm terrible at controlling my annoyance and exasperation. I can see clearly how I'm teaching him to react the same way as every day I see my irritation reflected right back at me. One of the members of the Stay-at-Home Dads group was talking about a class he's taking, called Logic and Love, and it may be that Thumper and I would benefit from something like that. At any rate, I'm tired of being bitchy so much of the time.

This is the year that Thumper will enter kindergarten, and I also plan to start writing now. I'll be staying home full-time for a while even after he enters school, and I'll need to find ways to do that and still earn more money. I've always wanted to be a writer, but I've never actually written very much, so now is the time to establish a more regular writing routine by blogging more often and participating in writing challenges like Trifecta and Velvet Verbosity's 100 Word Challenge. To write, and to sell, short stories, articles, and eventually a novel, I have to actually write short stories, articles, and a novel.

So continue to work on my health and fitness, read and write more and watch fewer movies and TV shows on the internet, and try to be nicer to my son. That's where I am right now. Happy 2012!

Summon

333 words for the Trifecta Writing Challenge, with apologies because I've been reading The War Against Boys and The Decline of Males and thinking about my maleness.

The sun rises; the cool, humid air surrounds us. 24,000 of us shuffle restlessly together at the starting line. We are a gathering marked with a distinctive, festival atmosphere, a nervous, anticipatory energy. The emcee bawls cheerfully into the microphone; his rich, basso voice is familiar from a half-dozen other similar events, his cheerfulness and affability carefully cultivated and laid out upon the script that rests before him. He acknowledges sponsors. He calls shout-outs to regulars on the running circuit. People stretch; people chat. Music thumps.

The balance between hydration and urination is a carefully orchestrated affair. Bottles of water, bottles of sports drinks, carefully mixed concoctions of powders, liquids, and gels, are quaffed. Lines form at the port-o-pots; the slamming of plastic doors punctuates the hum of conversation. The nervous move directly from the port-o-pots to the end of the lines again until at last the emcee calls us all to the starting line.

And now, not too close to the front or to the back, I anxiously adjust my hat, my headphones, and I think, “I should stretch.” I lift one leg, then the other. I shuffle from foot to foot. I bounce a few times, showing off, perhaps, or maybe relieving a little tension.

“I’m not a runner,” I tell myself at these moments. “Why am I doing this?”

“Yes, I am,” I answer back. “What is a runner but someone who runs?”

“No,” I say. “I’m a fat man, an asthmatic. This is silly.”

“And yet,” I reply, “here I am. Again.”

The emcee begins the countdown to the starting gun, and I think back to the million years of evolution that has produced me, this man, this body, this collection of tissues and chemicals. I try to imagine myself, the Neanderthal, the warrior of a thousand ancient tribes, the hunter chasing down his prey, spear in hand. I summon the strength and speed and desire of the caveman from whom I am barely an eye-blink removed.

I run.

Pride, Hopefully Without the Fall

Thumper has grown so much this year, that the bike that was a perfect fit for him a little over a year ago:



is now too tiny for him. The other bike that he spent so much time on last summer:



is also too tiny for him. We worked a deal with the neighbors across the street, who have 3 boys, 2 of whom are younger than Thumper, trading our 12" bike that's too small for Thumper for their 16" bike that's too big for their 2 youngest. Perfect! Except that the front inner tube keeps exploding. At first, I thought it was the unbelievable heat that builds up in the garage when it's 108 degrees outside, but why would it apply only to that one tire on that one bike? Then I thought maybe it was a rough edge inside the rim, but I ran my fingers all the way around inside the rim and inside the tire and felt nothing. About a week and a half ago, we shortened the lives of a handful of moms at the sand pit when the front tire of the bike he rode from the parking lot suddenly, dramatically, exploded. Two of them hit the deck like battle-weary veterans, scanning the horizon for the sniper in the grass. After carrying a huge, exhausted 4-year-old, a flat-tired bike, and a bag full of sand toys back to the car, I was absolutely done with that bike, returning it to the owners the same day and heading to the local Goodwill to find Thumper a 16" bike of his own.

So after replacing dramatically blown tubes on that bike 4 times, plus one of his tricycle's tubes, plus one of his balance bike's tubes so that we can pass it down to a friend, plus both the front tire and inner tube on his new bike, I'm done with bicycle tire repair. I've spent more on tires and inner tubes in the last 6 weeks than I have on all of his bikes combined.

But it was all worth it today.

Yesterday, I replaced 2 inner tubes and one tire on his various wheeled conveyances, leaving just 15 or 20 minutes to ride bikes before dinner. He loved his new bike so much that he declared he wanted to ride bikes every day, a desire he hasn't expressed since last summer. This afternoon, we left a little more time for bike riding in the afternoon, enjoying the fact that it's only 95 at the day's peak instead of 108. After riding around for a bit in the dead-end, I asked him if he wanted to ride to the local park, about a mile-and-a-half away. He thought it was a fabulous idea. I warned him it was kind of a long way; he had no doubts. So off we pedaled.

And instead of the inner tube, it was me that burst. With pride. Repeatedly. He pedaled and pedaled. He talked and talked. He reminded me so much of that kid in the triathlon right before Thumper was born that I almost teared up. He looked for cars at each of the street crossings and checked with me to make sure it was OK to cross. He kept right on going all the way, without getting bored or tired. He lit up with pride each time I told him how impressed I was that he was riding so far.

"You didn't know I could ride so far, did you Dad?"

No, my son, I didn't.

By the time we got there, he'd ridden 2.16 miles. Under his own power, without stopping or complaining. After we played for almost an hour, he was even willing to pedal home again, but (of course!) my front tire was flat, so Aerie picked us up on our walk home.

I am stunned by the power of my love and pride for this boy, and how it contrasts daily with my annoyance and guilt.

Just Breathe

By the way, Mom, that's a reference to "Breathe (2 a.m.)" by Anna Nalick, a song which Aerie quite likes.

I've had a lifelong struggle with my lungs. It was, of course, complicated by my smoking for more years than I care to remember, but it began, so my mother says, from scar tissue left in my lungs when I had pneumonia at the age of two and was hospitalized, oxygen tent and all. In the intervening years, I've repeatedly tried to get various doctors to help me find a solution to improve my lung function, but each one, each time, either has or has not administered a breathing test and has, in either case, diagnosed me with asthma and prescribed an inhaler. I've tried Primatene, Ventolin, Albuterol, Advair... Maybe more. Never has an inhaler helped. Never has an allergy med or Bronkaid or guaifenesin helped.

After another bout with bronchitis last week and a 2- or 3-week struggle with running because of breathing problems, I thought I'd try again. My primary doc referred me to a pulmonologist. He talked to me about my history, mentioned "bronchi..." something-or-other, which can result from lung infections at a young age, administered a breathing test, and diagnosed me with asthma. I'm not sure how I can have asthma when I never have anything like an asthma "attack;" he explained that the ONLY (and he emphasized "only") lung disease consistent with my breathing test, which was essentially normal, is asthma. Therefore I have asthma. QED. And he prescribed Symbicort, one I haven't tried, but which so far seems to have zero effect, just like all the others.

So in the midst of all this, I got an email from Active.com. One of the 5K or 10K races that I signed up for used Active.com for their online registration, and I've been on their email list ever since.

It was an article entitled "Breathing Tips for New Runners." I certainly never considered myself an "elite" runner, but I didn't think of myself as a "new" runner either. I didn't think it would have much to offer me, but I clicked it anyway because the timing seemed like kismet.

The article suggested that it was possible to breathe slowly, deeply, and regularly, even while running. I scoffed. I disbelieved. I thought, even if it was possible for other runners, it certainly wasn't possible for me and my damaged, weakened, and, despite what the breathing test said, definitely sub-normal lungs. When I run, I huff, and puff, and wheeze, and gasp, and suck, and blow.

Turns out, it is possible. I tried it today. I was amazed. I couldn't believe it. I still ran out of wind and had to walk for 3 or 4 brief stretches through the 5K, but it may have been because I tried a faster pace than I'd done on Monday. But by filling my lungs deeply and pushing the air all the way out on each breath, I breathed slowly. I didn't fall back into rapid, shallow breathing.

I'm choosing to accept that maybe this is a turning point for me, both in my running, which has been declining lately, and my breathing, which has been a constant irritant to me for my entire life. Maybe it's time to accept that my "normal" breathing test may be correct and that my lungs are not as awful as I have believed them, for my entire life, to be. I want this approach to breathing during exertion to be my gateway to actually achieving the improvement that I've expected since I first began running a couple of years ago. Maybe I should finally read that Pranayama book that I bought years ago, too.

King of the Wild Things

It seems like, at just past 3.5 years, every other day is a trial. Today was one of those. He challenged every decision, refused every activity, threw things, hit, kicked, slammed doors, and just generally made everything more difficult and unpleasant than it had to be. Some little part of me is happy when I see him working that same behavior on his mama. We read Where the Wild Things Are as part of the bedtime routine tonight, and I swear he is often the spitting image of Max yelling, "I'LL EAT YOU UP!" Though as of yet, we haven't sent him to bed without eating a thing.

Much of his attitude is his attempt, I'm sure, to assert his independence, to exert his will over mine, or his mother's. This weekend I worked the boys' high school basketball championships, which is sometimes exciting and sometimes, like this year, completely mind numbing. Not the event, really, just my position during the event. This year, I worked two consecutive shifts courtside, sitting in a chair behind the photographers keeping them from moving too far forward and tripping the players or officials and keeping the patrons from coming down onto the floor. In reality, though, I was just sitting and watching basketball. There were some good games, sure enough, but it made for a long, slow day without the moving around and interacting with people and solving problems that I like best. The other two shifts I worked were in the "usher room," a closet where ushers can check in their belongings and check out things like radios, ticket scanners, and the like. Even more boring.

So where I was going with this is, while I was in the usher room, I read two issues of The Atlantic cover to cover, including the most recent, which had a trio of articles related to the entire Tiger Mother brouhaha. One article was "Sympathy for the Tiger Moms" by Sandra Tsing Loh. I took this one in a sort of Chris Rock "I'm not saying she was right, but I understand" sort of way. (NSFW link, BTW). There was also "The Ivy Delusion" by Caitlin Flanagan, which I took as, "The reason you middle class white moms are upset is because clearly the Tiger Moms are taking college admissions spots away from your kids by choosing what you're not willing or able to choose."

To me, though, the most interesting was "Leave Those Kids Alone" by Christina Schwarz. The images of childhood reverberated for me ("finding a stone that 'they could believe was an axe-head, or a fossil'"; "Girls could carry their books in both arms across their bellies, but boys had to carry them in one hand against their sides"; "A kid needs time to lie on his back, opportunity 'to find out whether he breathes differently when he’s thinking about it than when he’s just breathing' and to wonder who she’d be if her parents hadn’t gotten together. A kid needs enough downtime to be bored, yes—bored enough to stare at the sky and study the imperfections in his own eyeball.") I thought, not for the first time, about the difference between what I remember from my upbringing and what I've seen of children's experiences today.

When I was a kid, I had to come home after school, and then I was free and clear until dinner time. My mother had no idea where I was or what I was doing for hours every day. And this was perfectly normal. From what I've seen, it's not normal now. The exception that proves the rule, as they say, is the little girl next door who spends hours each day and seemingly entire weekends roaming the neighborhood freely without so much as a head stuck out the door from her parents, a fact which amazes the local parents, myself included.

On the one hand, thinking of an unsupervised childhood in terms of Thumper terrifies me, because some of what I was doing when I was a child (like crawling through storm drains and setting fire to golf courses) was inadvisable at best and dangerous and destructive at worst. On the other hand, I recognize how much freedom to learn, explore, and develop my own personality, interests, and relationships that time away from grown-ups gave me. My friends and I, and my brother and his friends, explored creeks, caught crawdads, built things, destroyed things, talked, wondered, and did nothing at all, completely free of adult involvement, adult supervision, adult rules, and adult safety gear. And ultimately, I think I'm better for it and only occasionally approached anything like serious danger. And I have no doubt even the danger taught me a few things, too.

So this afternoon, I asked Thumper if he wanted to weed with me. For some reason, he was thoroughly excited by this proposition and ran to tell his mama. Confused as to his excitement about weeding, she said, "What? You and Daddy are going to go weed? Or Wii?" Weed! he happily assured her. Once outside, though, his enthusiasm quickly faded and he said, "Can I ride my bike?" I agreed, got his bike out, and strapped his helmet on his head before returning to my weeding. He stayed close, circling in the driveway. Then he said, "Can I go ride by myself? Because you're still weeding." I thought about it, thought about that article, and said, "OK." I told him what his boundaries were and reiterated more times than he was comfortable with that he couldn't cross the street. He took off happily in the direction of the sound of other kids having fun.

The boundaries I set for him were essentially my sight lines. I dug up a few weeds then checked on him. He was still there where he'd dropped his bike, playing with a gang of other kids, on the correct side of the street. I dug up a few more weeds and looked again. He was fine. I gave him over an hour of freedom, looking in his direction every so often, and when I couldn't see him, riding my scooter (yes, the scooter that broke my finger) down the street until I could see him and then turning around again. I got a fair amount of weeding done, and he got a fair amount of playing. No one was hurt or abducted.

Incidentally, a neighbor walked by with his dog as I was weeding. He is a fitness, and apparently tanning, fanatic who owns a small dog. I try not to jump to conclusions based on this information, but well, I do jump to conclusions. My first experience with him was during the neighborhood triathlon before Thumper was born. He was out jogging before the event began, and I casually mentioned to him as he passed that he might want to run on the sidewalk instead of the bike lane because a huge crowd of kids was soon to be filling the bike lane. He mumbled something about asphalt being better for the knees than concrete and kept right on running in the bike lane.

My next experience with him was when Thumper was riding his bike through the neighborhood, and he was in his yard, digging up weeds and grumbling about how much easier it would be to keep a neat yard if his neighbors ever did anything about THEIR weeds.

Other than that, I've only ever seen him walking his dog, or running, or biking, and he's never looked twice at me or had a pleasant word to say. To be fair, neither have I.

Well, today, he walked by, looked at my big pile of extricated weeds, smiled, and said, "Hi."

What was I talking about again? Oh, yeah, childhood's freedom from adults and their rules and their structure and their "hanging around and bothering them and... making it so bloody important." And maybe 3.5 is too young to be playing unsupervised with slightly older and much older children hundreds of feet away from me, but despite all my fears as I dug up weeds, he didn't get snatched, he didn't get run over, he didn't get shot in the eye with a pellet gun or beat up.

Later, when I asked him what he did when he played with those other kids, he said, "I climbed into Mikey's truck, and I got inside it, and you didn't see me."

"If Mikey said it was OK," I said, "then that's all right. The only reason I told you not to climb on that truck before is that no one was around, and I didn't want you to get in trouble with Mikey's dad."

"Yeah," he said. "It was OK. I climbed in the truck. You didn't see me because you were weeding. Maybe we can weed again tomorrow."

Maybe we can.

He Already Knows That Forever Young Would Just Suck

For Christmas, Grandma and Grandpa gave Thumper Modern Publishing's Treasury of Illustrated Classics, a box set of 16 children's versions of classic novels. His set has some different titles than this one on Amazon, including Black Beauty, Moby Dick, The Secret Garden, and Oliver Twist but you get the idea. He has been very interested in looking through the books one by one and asking us questions about the illustrations, but he has resisted actually reading them at bedtime. Last night, though, he decided he was ready.

I have to admit, I'm curious what a children's version of Moby Dick might be like. If they removed all of the bits about whale biology and the history of whaling through the mid 19th-century, it might be just the right length. But instead, what we started with was Peter Pan. I was excited to start his very first chapter book.

We read the first chapter, about the mother's perplexity over the presumably imaginary Peter Pan who manages to leave dried leaves and muddy footprints in the nursery while the Darling children are sleeping, even though the nursery is three stories up and he never uses the door. When we finished the first chapter, I told Thumper we could read more the next night, and he thought that was a good idea. We talked about the characters on the cover and in the couple of illustrations in the first chapter. When I told him that Peter Pan is always a little boy and never grows up into an adult, he furrowed his brow. I asked him if he'd like to be a little boy forever, and he said, "No!" in a tone of voice that clearly communicated that he thought that was the dumbest question I could ever have come up with. Why would anyone want to stay a kid?

I can understand why he feels that way. Being a kid has been tough lately. We're in a near-constant battle of wills these days, and most of the time he winds up on the losing end, though he puts up quite a fight. It's been a struggle for me, too, and I feel like most of my time is spent feeling either angry or guilty. I tell him to do something, and he ignores me. I tell him again and he ignores me. I say it louder, and he growls at me, hits me, throws something at me, or yells, "You keep saying it over and over!" And the next thing I know, we're both yelling at each other until finally he's wailing through a timeout in his room.

Today, though, when he refused to eat his lunch and then threw his spoon at me when I said he couldn't have dessert, I skipped all the yelling and carried him calmly to his room. He wailed, "Daddy! Daddy!" through a 3-minute timeout, and then I sat with him in his rocking chair and quietly explained that all of the yelling makes me feel bad, and I don't want to do it anymore. I'm the Daddy, and it's my job to keep him healthy and safe and teach him how to be polite. He's the kid, and it's his job to listen to me. From now on, he can choose to listen to me and we can keep playing and having fun and getting nice treats sometimes, like dessert, or he can choose not to listen to me and go straight to timeout, but we're not going to do the part where I tell him something, he ignores me, and we yell at each other anymore.

"But I don't like timeouts," he said.

"Then you should think about doing what I ask you to do. Does that sound like a good plan?"

"Yeah."

"I love you."

"Now can I have some dessert?"

I've heard that 4 is sweet. But it's only Tuesday, and 3 is already making me question my resolve not to drink.

Warrior Dash

I signed up for Longhorn Run last May to motivate myself to work out harder, thinking I had little chance of actually completing it, or at least completing it without walking some part of the course. I surprised myself by succeeding, and of course, I immediately stopped working out and lost most of my fitness and endurance.

So I signed up for Warrior Dash to motivate myself to work out harder. I seriously underestimated how tough it would be, though. I thought, "It's just a 5K; I've already done a 10K. How hard could it be?" and I didn't train nearly as hard for this one as I did for the Longhorn Run.

Here I am approaching the finish, trying to look like I still have some spring in my step, but I was seriously dragging:



The difference was the terrain and the obstacles. Somehow I'd convinced myself that there were only 3 or 4 obstacles, and that they were mostly for entertainment value, since the event seems largely about the silly costumes many participants wear and the beer and turkey legs to be had on the other side of the finish line. It turns out that some of those obstacles, like high-stepping through a field of tires and climbing a pyramid of hay bales and scaling cargo nets, were downright tough. There weren't any long hills, but there were lots of little ones, as well as some slick, steep creek beds to navigate.

I trained mostly by running on the treadmill, with some weights thrown in here and there and an occasional outdoor run. My running strategy has been to find a nice, steady, sustainable pace and focus on my breathing. On this course, though, with all of the up-and-down, and the broken ground, and the 11 obstacles interspersed throughout, I couldn't find my pace. I couldn't steady my breathing. I was winded all the way and did much more walking than I anticipated.

My oldest brother ran the course with me. He said that he's never been much of a runner, preferring biking and softball. When I talked about running a 35-minute 5K, he acted like I was nuts if I thought he was going to be able to keep up with a pace like that. But throughout the course, he was well ahead of me, and while he got winded here and there, I think most of the time he spent walking was for my benefit. Here he is waiting for me to finish the third-to-last obstacle:



In the end, I wasn't as proud of my performance (though at the time I'm writing this, official results have not yet been released) as I was after the Longhorn Run. But I feel more motivated moving forward than I did then. Both of my brothers, several friends, and Aerie are all talking about running another one in the Dallas area in April, and there is no doubt in my mind that I'm going to have to step up my training significantly over the next 5 months if I'm going to be proud of myself when I stagger up out of the mud the next time.



The other great thing about Warrior Dash was the after party. Thumper had a blast. He and his cousin danced their butts off and charmed all of the ladies within a 50-foot radius. They did the Cupid Shuffle:



And the Macarena:



And, uh, whatever this is:



And with everyone else showing off their bodies:



He just couldn't resist showing off a little himself:



I'm not sure what was up with the shoes, though:

Seasoned Traveler

On Monday, Thumper and I gave Aerie a couple of nights to herself and flew to Dallas to visit my parents. It was his first airplane trip, and an experiment on my part to see if it would be easier than the three-and-a-half hour drive. When you factor in the airport experience four times, I wouldn't say it was easier, and it certainly wasn't cheaper. But it was an adventure.

He was a little nervous at the Austin airport as we checked our baggage and went through the security line. A TSA employee chatted with us while we waited, though, and Thumper began to relax a bit. He told the guy that we were going to visit Grandma and Grandpa and the Dallas Zoo, and that his favorite animal is the gorilla, who says, "RAHHRRRRRR!!!" He has been given this impression of the gorilla by the very cranky Kerchak in No Nap for Tarzan. As we discussed the impending trip over the past few weeks, he had periodically expressed some trepidation about meeting such cranky animals face to face, but I repeatedly reassured him that zoo gorillas mostly just sit and stare off into space.

Once we got through security ("Why you taking my shoes off?"), Thumper squatted by the window while we waited to board, watching them load luggage into our plane. ("Is that's our plane? Why?") Once we were aboard, he repeatedly asked, "Now are we flying? Now are we flying?" as we taxied around and waited our turn to take off. When the engines began roaring in earnest, he yelled, "What's wrong with the plane?" So if you have a fear of flying, and you were on that flight with us, I apologize. There was not, as I loudly reassured him, anything wrong with the plane.

He was excited by the takeoff, later reporting to Grandma and Grandpa that the plane went really fast, but after that he quickly reverted to boredom, though the apple juice he was served mid-flight cheered him mightily. He was also confused about where exactly Grandma and Grandpa were going to be, thinking they were at the Austin airport, then that they would be on the plane. And since they had outdated info about which terminal we'd arrive at, they weren't there while we waited for our luggage, either. But when he saw them pull up to pick us up curbside, he literally jumped for joy.

We had a lot of fun with Grandma and Grandpa, playing at their house and visiting the zoo. Grandpa cleverly left a Hoppity Ball deflated and lying casually discarded in their living room; Thumper instantly wanted to know what it was, what it was for, and what it did, so he and Grandpa went to the garage to blow it up. Here he is enjoying it while having a conversation with Grandma shortly after she suggested that maybe he not hammer on her wind chime quite so persistently:



The only reason he didn't cover his face as I took that video was that I used my iPod, which he has not yet realized is also a camera.

By the time we visited the zoo, Thumper had missed a couple of naps and had a late night in the hotel, so he was fairly subdued. Luckily, Grandma had the idea of renting a stroller, which saved the day. Thumper rode from exhibit to exhibit, then leaped out of the moving vehicle without warning Grandma, who was driving, to get a look at each animal. There were a couple of school groups there, so sometimes he had to fight for a spot at the glass:



Since he still has an aversion to having his picture taken, all of my zoo shots are of the back of his head. I could get a shot of his face if I got him while his hands were busy:



But then he'd quickly revert to his extremely strict no pictures policy:



And of course, no trip to the zoo would be complete without an in-depth conversation concerning the universal need of all animals to poop and pee:



When we got home, he reported to Aerie that he saw gorillas, but that they did not, surprisingly, "RAHHRRRRRR!!!" at him. So, there. Now he's a seasoned traveler who has experienced a real zoo. I think, though, that some of his favorite moments were the afternoons we spent at the motel, resting and recuperating if not actually napping: