Happy Mother's Day!

Ok, ok, I'm a little late. I am still a guy.

On Friday, Four's pre-school put on a Mother's Day presentation. M tells me it was really neat, and from the pics I can only assume that it was super adorable. She came home from work and picked him up for the 12:30 production. On the short drive to school, Four admitted that he was "feeling a little nervous. Sometimes I get nervous when I have to get up in front of people." Apparently, he got over it pretty quickly.



On Saturday, my parents watched the cherubs while M and I attended a 50th wedding anniversary party for M's aunt and uncle. Before bed, we all had a dip in the hot tub. The kids love it, and truth be told, I am learning to enjoy relaxing myself.


Oh, and that other thing. The back to work thing. Still wrestling with that decision. I had to push back a possible meeting with my former colleague and mentor, as I had a Board meeting for our little trailer park tonight. So now, we're aiming to get together next Monday. It's one of those things where I just like this guy and hope we can be friends regardless, I hope he's not banking too much on my returning to work. I'm curious to hear what they have to say, but my heart's not really in it right now. Right now, my heart's in raising these two little beings as best I can (while maintaining some semblance of sanity and self).

Speaking of which, I solo'ed the other day. It was actually the same day we left for Western PA, but life has been such a whirlwind and this blog IS mostly for and about the kids that I haven't put it out there til now. I keep asking M, "Did I tell you I flew an airplane all by myself?" I think it's starting to bug her a little. But the flying experience was incredible. I'll write more about that later.

Fun together

Something in that there water!

Travelled this weekend to Western PA to attend a dual gender baby shower(the owner of our B&B innocently referred to it as a "bisexual shower"). One of our neighbors who grew up near Dayton, OH calls the part of the country "Pennsyltucky". It is, politely, a very rural area, and the teeth were one of the self-deprecating gag gifs in the pinata. It's a beautiful area though, and in close proximity to some of the finest whitewater paddling in the world. I wasn't able to paddle this trip, which is probably a good thing since I've become a tad rusty post-kids.

John and Kara, the expectant parents, are awesome people. They have built this whitewater clothing business, from a garage business essentially making board shorts with a grommet into an incredible thought leader and innovator in the kayaking industry. Not knowing how is not a viable excuse for these to not do something, they just figure it out. About a year ago I was on the phone with John and LuLu had made a mess in her diaper which was spilling out the top. I told the situation and that I had to go, he responded with something to the effect, "You're scaring me." But, in reality, I'm sure he'll be fine with fatherhood.

This recent visit has caused even more introspection than my potential return to work offer. More on that later. Enjoy the pics.

Maybe I Will Stay Put...

My local news station just ran a story about a salary.com poll which attempted to calculate the salary a stay-at-home mom should earn. Based on a 40 hour workweek and 60 hours of OT, the figure came out to a whopping $131, 471 annually. And since men traditionally earn more than women...

Now if I could just find someone to take up the charge for stay-at-home parents everywhere. It actually might not be that hard, I mean, if Congress is getting involved with steroid use in MLB, surely they can find the time to take up a truly important cause. Right?