life update

well my son's first birthday was this weekend. we celebrated with a small celebration . . well for us it was small . . . about 20 or so people. It's funny, I've always considered myself relatively anti-social, but we keep throwing these shindigs. i can hear y'all saying "WAAAHHH!!! I'm a big baby cuz my life is so sad cuz we throw relatively big parties and I'm anti-social. WAAAHHH!!!!"

Okay, okay . . . point taken. The one thing I've learned about throwing these things is that good food is definitely 3/4ths of the battle. AND the second thing I've learned is always have more than you need . . . nothing ruins a good party more than running out of food.

It was nice to have lotus, shogun, canine, whitey ford and the child there. I don't get to hang with them all that much these days, so I learn to savor the moments i do get. although ronin and hotfudge gave their condolences, their generous present was much appreciated. they do have good taste in gifts, that pair sure do.

Now's the part of the blog entry where longtime parents will go "no s##t sherlock." I can't believe it's been a year with my son. The boy has grown and changed so much, I find myself holding him tighter now than I ever did, because I know this going to end some day. The best feeling in the world right now is to have him walk to me, hold up his arms for me to carry him, and hear that sigh of contentment coming out of his mouth as he places his head on my shoulder. Look at me, I'm getting all "Dick Vermeil" on this blog . . . (for non-American Football fans, Dick Vermeil is a VERY successful coach who is notorious for spontaneous crying at press conferences and interviews . . . that explanation took a long time . . . was it even worth mentioning it?)

But I know it's gonna end one day. He'll grow up and be too hairy for me to hold him. the stuble on his beard will scratch up my shoulder something fierce. I've known on an intellectual level the fleetingness of my son's "babydom" but I really am starting to emotionally internalize this. It will be different not too far in the future.

Something happened yesterday that underscored this more than ever . . . my wife's cousin passed away, a victim of stomach cancer. She was a mother of four, with the youngest being several months younger than my son. i can't say i was close to her . . . hell, the week and a half i spent with her and her husband was horrendous for both sides. (more on that in a eulogy blog coming up after this one). but she and my wife grew up together. she was family. she was a little younger than us. it's a little strange and very tragic . . . the family deaths, until now, were people in their golden years. logistically, estate and emotional matters were simpler to handle. now there's a husband, kids, mortgages, expenses, future plans . . . what's going to happen to them? Not to belabor the point, but I didn't get along with the husband, so screw him and his closeminded ass, but what about his kids?

this question ties into a concern wifey and i have had for awhile. if we both should die, who gets the baby? this tied into our search for a godparent. idealistically, we would want a godparnet to be what we are to our goddaughter . . . literally a second set of parents, as involved and invested as we can be in this girl's life. we haven't found that person for the baby; someone who could fill his material and emotional needs. we named his aunt 'godmother' by default. not to say she doesn't love the baby, but she's definitely not involved in his life the way we are with our goddaughter. she's acts more like an aunt, which she is, but we wanted more from her and so far, she hasn't been willing to give it.

i don't know. maybe this person will fall unto our laps one day. it was that way with our goddaughter. no one asked us outright . . . we just stumbled into it. before you know it, we fell in love with this girl. maybe it'll happen for baby one day. maybe.

well, enough of that. next up: a return to the angry clark. i swear.

f##kers.