I’m A Big Kid Now

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There are few occasions more memorable or powerful than your first kiss, your first love, your wedding day or the birth of a child. What I’m about to share with you doesn’t even come close to those events. This event is much more subtle. A small victory in parenting but a good reminder that we must be doing something right.


In writing, it’s recommended that an author build a certain amount of
suspense before making his or her point. The idea, of course, is to fill major points with background and character building while giving readers interesting plot lines and twists. Hopefully I’ve done that.

So our little victory? Ryan is on day 2 of his “big boy bed” trial and he’s doing amazingly well. I’m so proud and he’s enjoying not being dropped from three feet up because mom is too short to reach over the rails and dad has the hand-eye coordination of a hippo.

Stay tuned for another big step forward tomorrow!

Dance To The Party In Your Head!

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“Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.” 
It’s unclear who to attribute this quote.  There are some who’ve argued that it was the 18th century Jewish Rabbi Nachman while others believe it was Friedrich Nietzsche.  The bombshell actress, Megan Fox, sports these words on a tattoo that adorns her back.  What does it all mean though?  After taking a few sporadic breaks in blogging, this quote got me thinking about the deeper meanings and how I should consider living my life.  I think it’s pretty simple.  If you’re enjoying yourself and living life the way you want, others might interpret that as being wasteful, boring or otherwise insane.

Now, I do have to wonder about Ryan.  The quote says nothing about people who dance when there’s absolutely no music to be heard.   I believe it was the great 21st century blogger, Dave Austin, who wrote, “Those who danced with a white man’s over bite and fingers pointed in the air while no music is playing is thought to be bordering on insane.”  We’ll cut him some slack because he’s two but if I see this kind of behavior when he’s 15 or 16, I’ll start to be concerned.  For now, we at least need someone to teach him how to dance.  I vote, not me…or Tom Clement!

Endless Inspiration

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Today was a “warm” day in the North East.  Connecticut was a balmy 50 something degrees and New York just slightly cooler.  I’ve just started going through the pictures from our trip to Disney and am realizing they will provide endless inspiration for me. It’s very possible the next fifteen or twenty posts will somehow involve our last excursion to the south.  Something is different about this trip to the warm country.  Is it that we’ve had a particularly harsh winter?  I suppose it probably is, but the longing for somewhere warm hasn’t left and it normally is gone by now.  Look at this picture of Jenn and Ryan in short sleeve shirts having a blast!  I think we need to be somewhere warm.  Of course, if I can show a little patience that warm place will eventually be the North East.  I hope.

Oook Oook!

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The only video taken from our trip to Disney can be found here.  I’m not sure why we decided not to shoot video when I have over six gigs of pictures.  I guess I’m just a pictures kinda guy.  Anyway, this is a cute video of Ryan being excited in Animal Kingdom’s Rain Forest Cafe.  If you have never been, you should check it out.  It’s pretty cool. Please pay little or no attention to the end.  That’s a little behind the scenes look at how we generate such cute pictures of Ryan.  Torture?  Arguably but the results are priceless.

My Kingdom For An Antibiotic

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Yesterday was a ton of fun, for awhile.  We went to Animal Kingdom and had a blast seeing all of the exotic animals and riding on the carnival type rides in Dinoworld.  The African Safari, though it was a 70 minute wait , was worth every minute of the wait.  It’s basically a fifteen or twenty minute tour of a fully functioning African safari where the animals are sometimes literally a few feet away.  The best part is every trip is different!  P.S. for those going to Disney, I’d recommend sending one adult in your party to the park early to sign up for all the fast passes because they go REALLY quickly.   Ryan got a huge kick out of seeing all the animals and showing them to us. We probably heard “ook” (loosely translated to look),  over a hundred times. The monkeys were no doubt his favorite part.  

The bad news came a bit later in the afternoon when our little explorer broke out with moderate fever. We’ve learned that a light fever could be a million different things from teething to a bad cold but once you hit the 101’s it’s usually something more.  That’s the extent of my medical knowledge so please don’t read this blog for medical advice beyond that.  So, we began the adventure of bringing the little dude into the urgent care clinic.  “Urgent” is a relative term in this case.  We called around 4 and the earliest they could see us was 8:30.  We got there at 8:30 and waited until 10:30 to be seen.  Turns out we didn’t need a doctor to tell us what we’d already diagnosed.  An ear infection.  Oh joy of all joys.  
So today is our lay low day.  I have to say one of the things I’m beginning to be worried about though is that it seems Ryan doesn’t know what it’s like to be totally 100% healthy. I mean, does this look like the picture of a boy who’s got an ear infection, a molar coming in and a fever?  Maybe it’s the meds or maybe it’s the magic of Mickey but he’s hanging in there like a real trooper.  If his fever breaks today we might sneak in for a quick peek at Cinderella’s Castle and Mickey.  If not, we can hope for tomorrow.  Perhaps we should stay in this 80 degree weather for ever! 🙂  

Either way, we’ve had fun so far and can’t wait to come back.

Live from Disney!

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So we’ve arrived safely in Disney and have settled in to a nice routine of not having any routine at all.  After getting to Downtown Disney for dinner yesterday, we spent last night at Hollywood Studios and today at EPCOT.  I’ve been super impressed with our little trooper who has only taken a few power naps during the day and is right back on the wagon trying to see as much as he can.  There’s little doubt that our pace will begin to slow down as the week comes to a close but that’s not an all together bad thing.  
So far Ryan spent some time with his favorite characters; Mickey, Donald Duck (or pronounced quack quack,) and a particularly great Goofy who crawled down on the floor with Ry earlier today.  Of all of the attractions we’ve been on so far though, there’s no doubt his favorite is/was the aquarium at EPCOT.  If you’ve never been, this is an amazingly giant fish tank with all different species of creatures.  Ryan got the biggest kick out of being able to press his face right up to the glass and see the fish just inches from his nose.  Ahh, the magic of Disney.
So, tomorrow we head to Animal Kingdom but for now, it’s time to rest and relax since tomorrow will be another day of fun!

ByeBye Maddie (Just For The Week)

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We spent last night at my parents dropping our eldest daughter off at my parents so she can spend the week with them while we’re in Disney.  It’s always difficult leaving our canine offspring, even though I realize that she’s probably in a better situation than the one she’s currently in.  Let’s take a quick peak.  At home she gets ridden like a pony, walked on occasion and fed more unhealthy human food than a homeless person in New York City.  At my parents, she’s walked three times a day and there’s not a crumb to be had for her.  I can tell you which situation is better for her, none the less, she’s become a part of our every day and it will be difficult without her.

What’s not difficult (and I realize this is a terrible transition) is to see a picture of Ryan and Gray Ma enjoying a good book and a glass  of milk. These days it’s a rare site to see the Ryanus Austinus in a calm serene setting just relaxing.  I’m soaking this in because the terrible twos are knocking on the doorstep.



Star Date 2011

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I’m going to geek out a bit on you now so stick with me. Do you remember Star Trek where the captain would begin an episode by setting the time frame of the episode? It would be something like, “Star Date 2072: The crew has been stuck on planet lame for three weeks and food is running low and illnesses are starting to spread, if we don’t fix the flux capacitor on The Enterprise we may all die!” (I’ll apologize now to all the true Trek fans and Michael J Fox fans who are offended by my mixing pop culture.)

That’s a long setup to share the Austin journal for February 15th, 2011.

Star Date 2.2011: It’s been twenty three days since our family has slept through the night. It’s not clear what the cause is but it’s clear that our youngest tribesman is trying to kill off his elders through a series of covert special forces tactics of sleep deprivation and germ warfare. It has come to the point where our canine companion is even protesting the assaults on sleep. At this point there’s nothing we can do but hope that our young assailant tires of his efforts and submits to normal human-like sleep patterns. We’ll wait out this storm with teamwork, patience and extended prayer sessions. We’ll be sure to report progress if that day should ever come.

Valentine’s Day Eve

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Valentine’s Day is traditionally a time where men are challenged to muster all of their romantic abilities together for just one day so they cam impress their mate. This is traditionally an area in which I have failed so miserably that the holiday is no longer observed in our household. This is totally, completely 100% my fault. All of the romantic ability I have to muster could probably be compared to a small canoe in the Atlantic Ocean. In other words, present but not so magnificent. On top of that, Jennifer is not someone who can be bought with jewelry, clothes or flowers. She’s very conservative with spending and views Valentine’s Day with a certain amount of suspicion. To her, it’s a good day to show how you feel about someone but, to her, it is very much a Hallmark Holiday. I tell you all of that to tell you this. Tonight Jenn made my favorite dinner and had key lime pie waiting afterwards. It wasn’t too expensive and it made me very happy. So now I have about 12 hours tomorrow to come up with the right way to tell her I too love her very much. I didn’t want to do this but it might be time to use my little secret weapon to help me. Who could resist chocolate covered strawberries delivered by a 2 foot tall waiter? Now, I wonder howblong it will take him tomorrow morning to teach him to hold a tray…