JAMIE'S SON

IN MY PLACE

A conversation a few days ago that really put me in my place.

Liam was not wearing a diaper for his afternoon nap and he took an impressive dump while sleeping. It left his legs covered in crap. I picked him out of bed and hurried him to the bathroom to strip off his clothes and get him into the tub. I did plenty of damage on the way there and so I set the shower running for him to start cleaning off while I went to work wiping the splatter up off the bathroom floor.

From behind the shower curtain he started talking....

Liam: "Daddy, you there?'

Me: "Yup."

Liam: "You cleanin' up my poop?"

Me: "I sure am."

Liam: ".....OK... good job."

BLUE SLED

There has been little snow to work with this year. When we finally got a big storm today Liam and I went to the store to pick out a new sled. He picked out a blue one and we got some good runs in off the back deck.

LITTLE VALENTINE

Jamie knows she'll get nothing from my cold heart on Valentine's Day so she's recruited a new 'honey bear.'

(As long as he gets to eat the dough he's happy with the setup.)

MILK ON MY SHIRT

"I have my milk on my shirt."

BABY LOTION

In the old days I had to do all this work myself. Now I have a secretary. Thank you Liam.

CHRISTMAS TRAIN IN ACTION

And now The Christmas Train, with friends, in action.

THE CHRISTMAS TRAIN

We had planned to get Liam another train for a while. It turned out great that his favorite movie of the last month has been "The Polar Express."

He calls this The Christmas Train.

CHRISTMAS MORNING

Two things I find entertaining from Christmas.

• Every gift Liam opens is something that then needs to be assembled or needs some space to use. After he's done removing wrapping paper on each gift he says, "let's open it up and play" to which we respond, "not now, we can play later." I'm sure everyone goes through the same thing. He really showed amazing patience for someone who never got to play with any of the hundreds of toys he opened. He just kept ripping paper, shrugging his shoulders about the fact that he was allowed to use the gift yet and then ripped more paper.
• After everything was opened he went right back to playing with the same toys he always plays with. At the Regan house that was the two rubber WWF wrestler bathtub toys and at the Merna house it was the Duplo train set. "Thanks for letting me remove paper from these nice boxes, now back to my toys."

Liam on Christmas morning.

SANTA WARM UP

Liam got to see Santa three times this Christmas pre-season. The first meeting went poorly enough that we couldn't even get him close enough for a photo. The next two went better at Penfield High School and Park Place Diner in Victor.