In my mind I see a door opening up before me....

No, no it's closed again. Oh, wait it's opening up again and beyond it I see.... No, it's closed, never mind....

This is my part another of Lily's newest favorite games. She absolutely loves to swing doors back and forth. If we leave one of the bedroom doors open, Lily will find it, crawl to it, pull it back from the wall, get behind it and push it closed. She crawls over to the edge of the now closed door, and gets ahold on it with her fingers. If it isn't closed tight she opens it up. This part requires some tricky maneuvering since she is crawling and is right in the way of the door's opening. Sometimes she makes the necessary corrections quickly and sometimes it takes a little longer, but she always works it out, and turns to push the door back to the wall. From here the process starts over again.

So far we have always tired of the game before she does. When she shuts the door tight, she goes to work trying to get her little fingers into the gap and pull the door out. She has not given up or lost patience for that project yet either. I've never let it go for very long before I open the door just a crack to allow her to continue opening and closing the door.

It's a good game. I wonder what it means...

Goodbye Tempe, Arizona

We will be living in Arizona for three more days now. Someone, I wish I could remember just who, it might have been Martin at work, pointed out to me that we have timed our move to leave an Arizona summer in time to catch the Utah winter. We've got this all wrong. We should be coming here for winter and spending summer there. Maybe another tume we'll get it right...

This has been a great summer for re-inforcing our desire to leave the state of Arizona. A streak of 52 straight 100 degree plus days, including a couple of weeks over 105 or 110. Since mid July the humidity has been way up, and it has been miserably muggy. Where's your dry heat now? Huh?

I am so excited to have Lily closer to Grandparents and cousins. I am also excited to have me closer to trees and mountains and rivers. Melissa and I have discussed several times how much we want to get back to a place with four seasons.

The packing and boxing are nearly complete. A little more of that, clean up the apartment, and load up the truck and we will get on the road to Utah. No one is looking forward to the long drive, but it has to be done and it will be worth it to get to all the things I mentioned in the last paragraph.

While it has not all been easy or convenient or quite to our schedule, everything has worked out for us and this change of scenery.

On another note: Ollie has been clingy and prone to boredom since Tonks went away. He lost his favorite toy after all. He's still very good and patient with Lily and her habits of grabbing, pulling, tasting and crawling over him. He is a great cat and we hope to be able to keep him, or leave him with family if that becomes necessary.

Another Entry, but What Does it Mean?

Does that sound like something out of a mystery novel? I was hoping that it would. The mystery is why I can think one thing and type something else entirely....

Melissa keeps getting after me about the depressing nature of my first entry. I had been intending for it to be more of a simple exposition of my situation, and perhaps even an invitation to follow me as I try to make sense of it all. I didn't think it was depressing but...

I'll try to be more amusing this time. With this in mind I will start with a story (sort of.)

I'm sure you've all seen at least one sit-com or movie in which the guy has the clever idea of using a niece/nephew, neighbors' kid or other cute youngster to help him meet women. It happens all the time, it's one of the stand-by bits that comedy writers seem to use when they have nothing better.

Giving the prevalent nature of the gag, I never would have imagined that it would work in real life. I assumed that if a guy with a baby actually started talking to a girl, she would say something like, "Yeah, hi, I saw that episode/movie/sketch. I know this is not actually your son/daughter, and that you are probably a lying sleazy jerk, using this child to engage my emotions and cloud the logical center of my brain, much like you would normally use alcohol to try and get me to come home with you."

Of course it always comes to ruin, which is hilarious for the viewing audience, every time. You know it's coming, and it's still funny. Why else would they keep using it.

Anyway, I have taken my now 10 month old daughter to campus a few times in the last several months. I am always suprised by the number of women that comment, and turn to watch the baby go by. "Oh what a cute baby." "So sweet." "OOOhhh!"

I think I really could use my baby to meet women. It's not just comedy stand-by material. It's real. I honestly thought that it was such a common comedic theme that it couldn't be done in a serious or real world setting.

Of course if I did, I would ultimately get caught. (They always do on TV.) Then my marriage would be in jeopardy. Now, maybe I am too close to the situation, but I just don't see the humor in that. Perhaps if I had the detached, omniscient, objectivity of a studio audience I could laugh at the prospect. Lacking that perspective, I think I'll just not try it and keep my family as it is.

If I weren't married, though, I'd be taking the baby to school all the time. Of course if I weren't married I wouldn't have a baby to take. Maybe I could borrow someone else's....

A Non-Traditional College Student

At 30, I am considered a "non-traditional" college student. I really didn't know what I wanted out of college for several years, so I started late. Then I spent time wanting to be a psychologist, and then an engineer, and then a video game designer. This indecision caused me to spend even more time not earning a bachelor's degree.

Now I have a plan and a major that I fully intend to finish (even more so than the first three) and a strange new kind of confusing indecision. I guess I would compare it to a prolonged mid-life crisis.

At home, I am a husband and father and I want to be a good one. I can't help but think sometimes that to do so, is impossible until I at least have a four year degree and a more lucrative career than part-time retail or burger flipping or (insert other crappy college jobs here.) I'm not the motivated, succesful, bread winner that I tend to think I am supposed to be, and sometimes I worry about that fact.

At school, I am surrounded by a different generation of young people that I can identify with on the level of classmates studying the same subject, but that is about all. I certainly don't want to be the "un-cool old guy" in class, but how cool can you be if your weekend fun is watching your daughter crawl around the house? Sometimes it feels like high school all over again. Wanting to "be cool," hang out with the cool kids, and worrying about your public perception around school. It's sad, I know, but I can't help it some times.

I have been going to counseling to work out my issues, and I am getting a lot better. (You can tell because I am able to attempt to discuss it objectively in this blog.)

And now, lest the previous discussion of feelings should make you think that I am not a very manly man, let me just say that I am so ready for football season!!!
Go Cardinals!!! (Yes it's sad, but living in Phoenix, I have become a Cardinals fan. I probably shouldn't choose such a dissapointing team, given that I already have issues. I don't need to add the depression of "yet another losing season." Too late now...)