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Before I met Don almost 14 years ago Courtney told me that he had gotten sick. She told me that her grandfather had gone to Asia on business over 20 years ago and never came back the same. She said he had lost his short term memory and kept notes in a notebook.

Don and I ended up sitting together in the family room, alone, at some family function. He looked at me and said, “How’s the weather?” I made some sort of comment about it being a nice day out. He said, “I used to live in D.C. Too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter.” For the next 8 years this was the extent of our conversation. Every Christmas and Thanksgiving Don would ask how the weather was and tell me about D.C.

In his notebook, Courtney told me, he wrote notes to himself to remind him of things. He had fallen ill with encephalitis before his grandkids were born so he barely knew or recognised them. He would keep notes on who his grandkids were and such but it never seemed to change the conversation.

After we were married we took Dottie our Great Dane over to my inlaws one weekend while Don and Adaline, Don’s wife, were in town. I had grown accustom and comfortable with the D.C. story. We sat down with Don in the room and sort of talked around him as usual. As the conversation died down Don piped up, “That’s an oversized dog you have there!” In the 8 years I had known him I had never heard him say anything except the D.C. story. He went on to mumble something about a dog he had once. After that, every time Don would see Dottie he would tell us about how oversized she was.

A few years later Don would open up a new story about sneaking in to watch the Packers play through the fence. Though Courtney told me he had told the story before, it was the first time I heard it.

Don passed away last week from complications of pneumonia. While I didn’t/couldn’t develop a deep bond with him, his stories were always appreciated. He was not a complicated man when I knew him which made it easy to appreciate him. I will miss hearing about D.C. this Christmas.

When we were younger I used to race my brother to the store doors or to the car or to the store carts. You name it, I wanted to race. The conversation usually went like this:

Me: Race ya to the store!

Drew: no

Me: Come on! I’m gonna beat ya!

Drew: Fine

Me: Come on! Run!

Drew: No, I’ll walk.

So imagine this conversation going on daily for most of our childhood.

Now, enter adulthood.

Drew and Michelle told the family over Labor Day weekend that they are expecting their second child, affectionately known as “Dos”. We are elated to have another cousin in the mix. It has been so much fun to watch Riles and Avery grow up together. We’re ecstatic that our next kids will do the same.

To Drew and Michelle, with all sincerity, congratulations. We’re happy and over joyed that we’ll have friends and family we can relate to again. You guys made us not feel so crazy when we just weren’t getting Riley some days. It will be wonderful to have someone to lean on again.

We told our families early on about Courtney’s pregnancy in August. We knew were weren’t going to be able to keep a secret long. We whipped up this video to tell everyone. We hid the announcement under the guese of a funny Riley video:

Back to the race.

After a few more doctor’s appointments Courtney’s due date was honed down to March 27th, my cousin’s birthday. I’ve been happy to have another March baby. With my birthday being March 20th I thought it would be neat to have my kid have the same birthday month.

Back to the race.

Drew and Michelle tell us over Labor Day weekend about “Dos” and we quickly did the math. Michelle is one week further along than Courtney, putting their due date roughly one week ahead of ours. In the most impolite fashion I denounced their method of joyous announcement as rotten and underhanded.  My brother had beaten me in the race.

But, as it was when we were children, I think I may be the only one racing.

This is one of my favorite MTV commercials from back in the day:

For those who don’t know yet, and I would venture to guess that may be most of you, Courtney is pregnant with our second kid. She’s due in March. Riles turns 2 on Halloween so we’re prepping him for a little brother or sister. On any given day Riles may tell you he wants a brother but switch to a sister the next day. It’s pretty cute since he doesn’t know much of the difference. But something tells me that he understands that he could wrestle with a brother and not a sister. We don’t have much to plan for, just to adjust spacing in the house a bit and figure out how the heck to haul 2 kids around. But other than that we’re pretty much good to go. Court’s been on top of everything already. Daycare, beds, strollers, she’s got it all figured out. I would be a wreck without her.

So we’re prepping for a late March baby. Reality is that Courtney will probably have another c-section. The doctor said if there’s any small sign that the second one is growing at the same rate Riley did then we should plan for an early c-section. That would put the baby’s birth around St. Patrick’s Day. There’s a slight chance we might then end up with a Halloween kid and a St. Patty’s kid.

Yesterday we took our quarterly trip to find shoes for Riley. Riles has a “unique” foot size: extra wide. For the uninitiated, that’s one side bigger than wide. It presents a challenge every couple of months to find him affordable shoes that fit comfortably. After 2 years of the same struggles I have finally come to the realization that his shoes are always going to be expensive, quite expensive. So instead of fighting to jam his foot into Target shoes, we headed straight to the Stride Rite store.

After the mall Stride Rite was a bust we motored to Maple Grove in hopes of them having a better stock of the extra wides. We entered the zoo (or madhouse, whichever you prefer) and quickly found the pair we needed to have sized. We waited, and waited, and waited for help. There appeared to be 2 people running into the back for shoes for about 6 families.

While we waited, somewhat impatiently, Riley began to explore the vast amount of toys the store had out for kids to play with. He was immediately drawn to a car ramp. He put a car on the ramp and zoomed it down the ramp. “Whee!’ he shouted. A young toddler girl wandered over and started grabbing the cars from Riley. I’ve had to get to this type of behavior from not only my child but other kids as well. We let her take the cars and I showed Riley the bin next to the girl where we could grab a few more cars. With each car we grabbed the girl would take them from us. Time to move on to something else, I figured.

We moved onto the puzzle stand. Riley started thumbing through the various puzzles on the stand, pulling them out and looking at them. The toddler girl followed us over to the stand to look. She moved in on Riley, pushing him squarely in the chest and screeching. She grabbed the puzzle from him. Stunned that this girl’s mother was watching her and not doing anything I squated next to Riley and helped him look at the puzzles without getting harassed.

The clerks were nowhere to be found so we had to shift to the back part of the store to get some help. I gladly grabbed Riley up to get away from this rude girl and mother. The backside of the store had a bookstand which Riles started purusing. We found a book and went in search of chair to sit down in. He pulled himself up at chair and began scanning the book. The girl from the front of the store found her back to Riley, and away from her mother mind you, and stole the book from Riley. She started to push Riley out of the chair. I had enough.

Unfortunately, my passiveness has bled into my parenting style. Her mother finally came over to her to grab her. In a literal huff I picked up Riley and said, “Come on, Riles. Lets leave her alone. We’ll go read elsewhere.” The mother heard me and huffed herself. I wasn’t sure if she huffed at me or at her daughter. But she got the point that I didn’t want her kid around my kid.

After we got help we were out of the store in 5 minutes. I hate judging how others parent their children. Riles has a lot of free reign in life. But one thing we don’t tolerate with him is poor manners with others. I wish all parents would do the same.