Spring be springing... yo

marshmallow gun sniper

room full of bounce house play areas and he chooses this... and turns it into a ram-mobile...

Well, the clock said 7:00 PM tonight and the sun was still out... that must mean it's spring. Well, that and the fact that I used said later sunlight to rake up 27000 pounds of dog doo-doo that had been gathering over the winter. You're welcome for that pretty image. With spring being the season of new beginnings and new hope, I once again find myself hoping that Ethan will soon learn how to turn on the TV and pour himself a bowl of cereal at 6:30 AM on any give Saturday or Sunday morning. I seriously looked at a $200 universal remote with 'easy' turn on so I could show him how to turn on the TV and find his channels and buy myself 30-60 more minutes of sleep on the weekend. Then, I realized I was looking at a $200 tool that the satellite company had already given me for free and even if I showed Ethan how to use it he'd conveniently 'forget' how to use it when the next Saturday rolled around.

Ethan is growing up. Fast. I don't like it. Well, I do and I don't. You can't spend a paragraph ranting about ethan not knowing how to use a remote, and then say you don't like that he's getting older so fast. The part I don't like happened when I showed up last week at daycare to pick him up. I love that part of my day. I always have. Work, and all of it's nonsense, disappears when you get to pick him up, get a big hug and smile. Things didn't exactly go according to plan last week. I walked in the room, found ethan, got his attention at which point he looked at me, got a disappointed look on his face and the proceeded to ignore me. That stung a little. I think he was in the middle of a game and not ready to leave, but that's the first time I haven't gotten his big smile when I walked in the room. Sometimes you get subtle, little reminders he's getting older like jeans suddenly becoming high waters or ethan using new words that you had no idea he knew or knew the definition of. Other times you get you get a quick, obvious lesson like above. More often than not, Ethan still gives me the big smiles. Still wants to sit on my lap and watch TV and definitely likes to snuggle at bed time. But, I know the day is coming, and definitely more quickly than I would like, when he's going to be too big for all that. I think sometimes you need those harsh reminders to make you stop and enjoy the little things like an evening in the front yard playing football, or 20 minutes on the couch watching some mindless cartoon and most definitely that time before bed when we read books and get to wind down together.

Speaking of sports, Ethan is starting baseball soon. Kari and I had the 2 HOUR coaches meeting the other week. 2 hours. 120 minutes. Actually, it went long. It was 140 minutes of pure awesomeness. Not at all over the top for a T-Ball league. Nope, not at all... Now, I will say that I got a few decent pointers for coaching. But, most won't apply until the teams are older and I can get them to concentrate for more than 8 seconds at a time before a butterfly half a field away gets their attention and they tune me out. Some of these parents are over the top. Not quite as over the top as the lady in charge of equipment for the league. I'm pretty sure the recently deceased Kim Jong Il had a better personality than this ray of sunshine. This lady was the epitome of someone who probably got picked on as a kid(for being no fun and having a crappy disposition), got a little bit of power and now abuses the bejeezus out of it. As my old co-worker used to say.... 'lighten up, francis.' I have no idea what that means... but, it popped into my head now. And, I haven't even gotten to the worst part. Brace yourselves... this isn't pretty. Our team name is.... the Yankees. I wish you could see my chin fall to my chest in disappointment when I realize I will have to say the words, and mean them, 'let's go, Yankees!' It physically pains me to know I have to wear a hat with a NY on it. I will have to have some sort of burning ceremony at the end of the season and probably shave my head completely to remove the bad mojo vibes that I picked up wearing that hat.

I recently purchased a new car, which in turn means I have to get rid of my old car. And, this got me a little depressed. It was the first car I actually bought and I really enjoyed driving it. And, as I was lying in bed thinking about it the other night I realized how much I'm going to miss hearing 'Go fast, daddy!' from the backseat. Since Ethan was old enough to talk he's been chirping me from the back seat to go fast. Our mutual love of speed is something we have bonded over and now I won't have that anymore. My new car is such a heavy pig 0-60 could probably never be done in less than 10 seconds. So, no more gunning on it on the on-ramps, hearing a laugh from the back seat and hearing, 'good one, daddy.' Kind of crazy the things you realize you're going to miss as things change.

The other week we took Ethan to a place called Pump It Up where they have a bunch of giant, inflatable bouncy houses to play in. Ethan had a really good time, but there was one little sh*t who kept pushing other kids down and butting in line and overall being a little jackass. And, of course neither of his parents stepped forward to say 'knock it off you little d-bag' so it started to get on my nerves. After he pushed Ethan down and then tripped him after he got back up I told Sarah I'm going to teach ethan to throat punch little a-holes like that. She thought wasn't the most mature solution and maybe I should consider an alternative... but, I swear if I could have drop kicked that kid without any repercussions I probably would have. Ethan really never seems to play like that. He just wants everyone to be his friend so I really don't think he knows what to do when kids behave like that. Shortly after the tripping incident Ethan found a toy car to drive around... which he immediately proceeded to drive at a high rate of speed into another little kid's car. The bully-ee bceame the bully-er... Talk about a quick turn around on eating your words. HOWEVER, the difference was I told ethan that was not a good idea and he stopped. Whereas that other little butt much never got the direction and continued to act like a dick.

Some other small observations not worth an entire paragraph:

• Ethan has recently become much, much better at coloring. He is now picking appropriate colors for what he is coloring, he is also staying in the lines. Another of the subtle reminders he's getting older... :)
• Ethan hates losing. I can't even joke with him that he's losing without him getting bent out of shape.
• Ethan would much rather tackle in football than get tackled. He's pretty fearless when chasing me down as well. I accidentally delivered at least 2 forearm shivers, landed on him once and he smashed his face into my hip no less than 3 times. Each time he got up and said, 'let's do it again!'
• He did whine some with each collision mentioned above. Some were more dramatic than others and most were pretty entertaining.
• Ethan got a marshmallow gun for his birthday. He's quite the sniper... as long as he's winning. As soon as daddy takes the lead the game suddenly ends or Ethan forgets to add to my score. Like I said, he doesn't like to lose.

I think that's about everything for now. Hope you all are enjoying the warm weather!