Heaven

When I was little, I had a dream that I was in heaven. I recall the setting so vividly that it may have been a recurring dream in my childhood. Heaven looked exactly like the small ranch down the road from my house.

This ranch was a historical site, kind of a living history demonstration, where they raised animals, harvested corn, blacksmithed, etc. I attended a small preschool at the ranch. It was great, because we were always outside, feeding ducks, learning about nature, thinking the blacksmith was cool, and probably attempting to leap into the pond.

In the dream, the pathways around the ranch were paved with gold (seriously), and God's office was in the preschool building. I describe it as an "office" because that's what I imagined it bore the most resemblance to: God and a couple of angel helpers, sitting around a conference table, hanging out, getting each other coffee, working on paperwork, until someone came in the front door to ask about duckbilled platypuses or the color of the sky. They'd invite the questioner to sit at the table and talk it over. I never made it into the office, I just knew what it was like.

So, Pete started preschool at the same place today.

Dino-riffic!!

The dino-party was a huge success. A brief summary follows:

The setup

The cake (and pensive birthday boy)

The presents

The thank-yous


The pizza

And finally, the candles

Happy Birthday to Pete!!!

See the counter to the right ---->

Right now, Pete is 3.001 years old. That's not strictly accurate, because he was born at 11:23am.

So, we went out for a birthday donut this morning, and Pete was excited about that.
This afternoon, he and I are going to put together his new bed.



And on Tuesday, he gets to start school.

Pete, you think that your mom and I are very cool right now. Yesterday, in fact, I asked you what you want to be when you grow up, and you chose "a man, like you daddy" over paleontologist or superhero.

But regardless of how cool you think we are right now, there will be a time when you will be misguided and hormonally influenced (called puberty) and you'll think that we're total losers.

Once you're through that, and have decided that maybe your parents are cool after all, you might be curious about the people that we were before you were born and when you were too young to remember. And maybe you'll run across an old archived version of this blog, and you'll read this post.

And if that happens - if you're reading this post in 2030 or so - you should know that we love you enough right now to fill up our cups for lifetimes. We're proud of you, and we hope you'll be proud of us. You like to express your love in natural terms (Moon, stars, trees, rain, mountains, oceans), which is the best way to use words to describe something so wordless, but honestly, it doesn't come close.

Dinosaur Birthday Party

Pete's totally looking forward to his birthday party this weekend. I'll post photos of the festivities.

For now, you should all know that there won't be a T-rex on the cake, even though that's Pete's favorite, because he considers it too scary. He is choosing to put the triceratops atop the cake instead, which is my favorite. Yes!

Friday List, Vol. 1

Funny words that Pete uses, placed in their proper context:

Akashee (Akashee, I want some milk, not some water.)
Toodella (I'm going to put these puzzles toodella for just a little bit)
Fusteetatrated (Sometimes, I get fusteetatrated when my baby cries so much)

I dreamt of Conan O'Brien

I just realized that I had a dream about Conan O'Brien last night, and we were talking about a mutual acquaintance (which I actually have. I'm one degree removed from Conan!) He was really nice in person.

Which reminds me: Heather promised that she's going to be posting more often now, and she's going to start off with a description of a dream she had.

Interpretations welcome.

Unless your interpretation is concerned with why I was dreaming about Conan O'Brien on Valentines Day.

Heather, my lovely, talented, beautiful wife, was there too, for your information.

Nothing Interesting...

I'm starting to feel like this guy.

I can't think of anything interesting to write about. Surely there are things happening. Since my last post,

I've been to Hawaii and Missouri for work,

we entered the real estate market, and then promptly exited,

I gained new exciting responsibilities at work,

we filed our taxes,

and Pete had a epic temper tantrum (1 hour +).

And yet, none of that seems like it'd be interesting to anyone who reads this little blog.

I could probably write every day, but the interestingness of each daily entry would go down.

Let's hear it from you, the reader. Do you prefer quality or quantity? Pictures or stories? Just kid-related stuff or broader topics?

I'm expecting everyone to comment, even those of you who are intimidated.