This entry is a little “intense” for returning to a blog that was originally started to show the hilarity of comparing basic business travel to that of the daily interactions with children of a certain age. Well, we’re going to try that one with this title but there may be a little sentimental direction as this first post, and business trip, of 2020 has brought up some emotion.

Without going into too much detail about where we have been for the last 5 years, the expansion of the family and my travel has grown exponentially. With 3 kids 8 and under (all with their own personalities and needs) I and my very patient wife get the opportunity to interact with not just 3 personalities everyday, but sometimes 7- 12 personalities based on our children’s daily “personas”. This week has been particularly interesting coming off an 18 day school and holiday break, where “traveling daddy” has been home the entire time.

Now, to compare this to a weary travelers reference, this would be like having “Titanium Elite” status with Marriott where if you don’t get the room, points, and welcome gift that you want…… shit ain’t gonna fly with an 11 pm check in after a long day of travel. Daddy time for 18 days somehow equates to years of travel perks where you “just feel like you expect it” when it comes to the day to day basics. Some examples include:

Kids: I woke up, what special breakfast are we having.
Titanium Elite Member : Just give me a breakfast parfait for free and welcome points, I don’t want whatever you’re burning that has stunk up the lobby.

Kids : Can we eat out for lunch today?
Titanium Elite Member : Don’t make me ask you for late night restaurant recommendations that aren’t chain restaurants or crappy pizza places, I only have like an hour to eat before getting back to work. FYI, the Bistro sucks.

Kids : Who are we having a play date with today?
Titanium Elite Member : If I put the damn “Do Not Disturb” placard on the door, it doesn’t mean I don’t eventually want a room to be cleaned, I just don’t want you walking in while I’m ironing my shirt in my underwear while I cool off from my super hot shower that has no middle ground between freezing cold and scorch the earth hot.” Just come back in 30 minutes and get it done when I’m gone for the next 8 hours.

Kids : When is it going to snow so that we can Sled? When is is warm enough so that we can ride our new bikes?
Titanium Elite Member : 2 out of 3 treadmills don’t work in the gym, the pool smells of a Turkish bathhouse and the “Executive Lounge” has been out of bottles of water for the last 24 hours, yet you want to charge me for an Aquafina in the “Market”? My flight was just delayed 4 hours so I’m going to need late checkout at 4pm but you’re only able to give me 1pm because you’re “full up” this evening….. thanks for offering to “store my bags” while I sit in the lobby 5 ft. from you working on my laptop while I hear the damn auto door open and close 3 times a minute and I get all the cold drafts because your valet guys don’t know the range of the damn sensor.

So enough complaining and back to the real meat of the post. This week, to add to the stress of my oldest going back to school after the long break, I introduced a 3 night trip to California where I was missing not just day to day functions, but that of a pretty major meeting in preparation for her First Communion this spring. While sitting in a room full of colleagues and customers talking about the potential of future innovation, I got to leave my family and specifically my daughter without her dad for something that seemed to her, one of the biggest advances in her young life. I’m not the only parent to do this, but when you get the comment of “Why can’t Daddy get another job with “company to be named” so that he can stay at home more…….”, you have to take into consideration what your life choices mean to others so close.

You get to start to see what it means to be a present parent, not just a parent that can make it up with an 18 day home stay. Thanks to my wife’s quick thinking, she had some ultimatums that logically made sense to our advanced 7 year old so that she could get to sleep at night, but the shot has come across the bow and now I realize the need to get proactive.

While FaceTime calls and emoji ridden iMessage conversations can help, you start to see the need as a parent to put yourself in the shoes of your children (whether you agree that they should have laces shoes that they barely can tie on their own or not). You have to hope that your patient tone with the nice front desk lady from a hotel chain that starts with “M” when you get the last crappy room at the inn at 1 in the morning, also replicates in the conversations that you have with your kids before you leave and when you get home. Both situations require a certain amount of understanding that:

1.) It’s not all their fault that they feel that way or that they can’t help you in the way you expect.

and

2.) Talking to them as someone you respect and hopefully care about can go a long way no matter what situation you’re in.

Also a side note, avoiding crying after talking to a front desk attendant like you would taking a FaceTime call with your 7 year old daughter telling you how much she misses and loves you is probably a good way to keep your hard ass “Titanium Elite” persona. Just sayin’…….

More to come…… lots of traveling and parenting to do in 2020.

Well there you guys are….I thought I lost you all for like 2 years.  Yeah yeah yeah, as at least 2 of the 4 followers I currently have will point out, I kinda forgot to keep writing.  No one tells you that when you have a toddler, and then that toddler drives you to have another baby….that you life gets a little complicated.  So without pointing fingers and saying who did what to the when and why I may or may not have changed the title of my blog, let’s just dive into the fun.  Oh yeah, I also had a son in August of 2013, his name is August….no comments please.

As I’ve spent the last two years really figuring out how to be a parent, how to start traveling with my new job, and how to keep sanity in check, a few funny stories have come up from both day to day life with my children as well as those random 200 new friends that I make on every flight.  With enough content to fill up a blog post a day, I figure I’d share some of those stories and hopefully keep you entertained with my journal of experiences that range from smelly poop stories….to things that my kids do to make us laugh.

I’ve opted out of adding in music to every post as I find that slows down the process.  I do promise at least one bullet point or numbered list per post for several reasons :

a. ) it makes it easier to write without worrying about fussy grammatical people correcting my run on sentences.

2.) It makes it much funnier when you jump from kid issues to traveling people issues to random 80’s references.

and

d.) it takes up a lot more room in the post, so like Courier New in grade school, I only gots to write so much to still get credit for the minimum page count.

That being said, I don’t want to pull the proverbial writing muscles in this first post so I’ll end with a short story from this evening.  Please don’t expect chronological order on these stories going forward, it’s just not realistic as my wife will tell you that when I say “just the other day”, it could span back 6-9 months.

As we enjoyed our nightly ritual of dinner, smashing of food on our faces, and then bathing as quickly as humanly possible, my daughter decided to use one of my common phrases just to let me know she is listening.  As we sat down to the first of many pre bed books, she told me that she had to first go to her brothers room to get her baby.  Now my daughter calls all small toys babies, so when this comment is made, we have no idea as to what she may be referring.  She has started naming her babies, but at the same time, she has continued to name some of them the same name over and over.  One is called Sofia, another is Sofia the baby, and one is call Sheriff Callie.  There is obviously a pattern emerging from her obsession with Disney Junior, but I digress as the real point is that it is literally impossible to know what baby she may or may not be talking about.

As I sat in her room for her imminent return, I started to say, “Cici, where are you?”, and “Cici, are you coming back?” I then heard a response that I so regularly would curse my coworkers for as I wait impatiently for them to come to a meeting.

“Just a minute Daddy.”  Now this may not be such a big deal to some of you, but when your 2 and a half year old as clear as day tells you to “wait your damn turn”, you know you’re in trouble.  I mean I use this phrase a lot.

“Daddy, I wanna show you this.” ….   “Just a minute sweetie.”

“Daddy, Auggie touched my doll.” …. “Just a minute hun.”

“Daddy, I pooped and made Minnie underpants sad” …. “Just a minute and your mom will be in there.”

It just goes to show you that it’s never to early to watch out how and what you say, and better yet how people will then use it against you.  So while I may have made you folks wait roughly 2 years, or 1,052,000 minutes, remember that it only takes a 2 and a half year old that long to get some sass and throw it back in your face.  I leave you with one of my favorite new video series that remind us just how fun our conversations will get.

-the traveling “I just got A-list preferred for a year and I’m loving it” daddy

So you’re probably asking yourself, “Andy, why would you leave us for 5 months, and then return with a topic like this?” Well Blog readers, I’m back, and it took a topic like this to get the juices flowing.  While I’ll start back with observations of my daughters crazy antics in future posts, I figured I’d rant about the Baby clothing store phenomenon first because I’ve spent more time at these stores in the last two weekends than I’d like to admit.

Now I want to start off with my appreciation for adorable clothing, whether animal themed or not.  Some of this stuff is ridiculously cute especially when you dress your child up without their consent.  “Well mom and dad, I really didn’t want to wear this pumpkin hat and “I’ve got my daddy under my spell” Halloween outfit, but I have no control over most of my bodily functions so I guess I’ll just deal with it.  Oh, and I just pooped so have fun cleaning that out.”

But as you begin to spend over an hour in one of these stores, you begin to hear a common comment that at first seems natural, but soon becomes like a dagger in the clock on your back reminding you that you’re about to be there another 5 minutes while you talk about how cute it really is.  Here is my theory, you can literally lift up every outfit or item in a store, and say “Isn’t this adorable?”  In truth people, there are not Uncute baby clothes.  It may not be everyones style, but this isn’t the fugly store and they don’t have 6 major corporations built on the fact that something isn’t a “need to have” item.  Every piece of headwear, footwear and clothing is made to melt your heart, and will even cause dad’s to ask the question “Honey, can we get one of these?” while holding up two different hats shaped like animal heads.

And is buying all this stuff worth it?  Damn right it is.  Your kid is worth it, and if you don’t think so, I’m sure there is a grandparent, aunt or uncle that thinks it is. So while my daughter receives clothes that may only fit her a week, I look to clean out my closet and ask questions like “2004 Homecoming sweatshirt? oh how I’ve missed you…”  For any new parents out there, I’ll give you this little bit of advise about the places that we’ve visited recently to hopefully guide you in the right direction :

1.) Baby Gap – It is located in Gap for Kids, and unless you REALLY want to take out a new credit card for each clothing season, make your trips minimal to this location.  The stuff is ridiculous.  It had my wife saying “I wish they had this in adult sizes.” more than once. Here’s the trick, it’s still adult sized pricing.

2.) Children’s Place/Gymboree/New place at Chesterfield Mall – These places have permanent sales racks.  Don’t be ashamed to go through them, one place had a wall of $1.99 items.  But don’t be fooled by the “Buy this and get the next one half off” pricing.  You don’t need two of some items…….

3.) Outlet Mall shopping. – Holy crap.  If you like overwhelming holiday shopping any day of the year, step into Outlet malls for baby clothes.  I’m pretty sure the pricing in the same as normal stores, but where else can you find themed clothing for every holiday of the year in one location.  Who knew that Rosh Hashanah had a mascot.

So that is all I have time for today, but per my lovely wife’s encouragement, I’ve decided to start this back up again.  And guess what, we have 5 months of material to catch up on.  My little princess turns five months this weekend after 2 days of Daddy Daycare over the holiday.  So get ready for some sarcasm, selective hearing and sentiment…..and take the following picture for what you will, it came up when searching for Jewish baby clothing for my joke above and I couldn’t leave it out.

Neil Diamond – Sweet Caroline

So you’re probably wondering why I all of a sudden disappeared when I was supposed to be writing everyday.  Well yes folks, our little bundle of joy came 2 weeks early, and while I had this crazy notion that I’d be able to accommodate everyone with new posts right after she was born (as well as somehow accommodate all of her and her mom’s needs) I was gravely mistaken.  Our little lady was born on April 1st, 2012 at 5:26 am.  She was 7 lbs, 8 ozs, and 20 inches long and is looking great.  Now here’s how it happened:

So we went into the hospital on March 31st around 9am after some labor pains early in the morning, and after 24 hour or so of labor from the first pains, we finally had a C Section take place to bring her into the world.  Now without going into crazy detail, the summary of events were this.

1.) Baby makes a lot of progress, like 6 cm very quickly.

2.) Momma gets epidural and has her water broken.

3.) Everything slows to a halt.

4.) Pittossin for 8 hours to get to the full 10 cm.

5.) Pushing for 2 hours with no progress because your new baby likes to not turn her head.

6.) Doctor saves the day with a C Section

Now she was never in any danger, other than exhausting her grandparents who stayed the WHOLE time, but after so much work and 2 exhausted parents, our OB thought it would just be fine.  Actually, if you remember from the last post, we went to our original hospital and had her normal OB deliver, only to find out that no one had told the Dr. that the round robin had happened.   Not to worry though, this thing ran well, and besides our delivery, she was also able to deliver 3 other children before ours finally joined us in the world in recovery, 2 of them happening between our procedure and the time that she had follow up with us in recovery.  Super doctor if you ask me.

So I could probably go on and on and on and on and on about the first week in the hospital, and all the things that I can’t stop loving about my new daughter, but we have time, and I have a lot of room to fill up this blog in the coming days.  So for now, I’m just going to share a little video of some of our happiest moments, and fill you in on all of my insights in the future.

Loudon Wainwright III – Daughter

So those of you that actually understand this reference, understand that right after this line, Seth Rogen lays the smack down on the last minute doctor (Señor Chang), in Knocked Up.  Well, I’m happy to report that we ALMOST had the same issue.  So my wife works in the NICU, and when talking with a new mother that just had a premature baby, she mentioned that she had a procedure scheduled with our same doctor, but that he wouldn’t be back from his trip until April 9th.  Now for this woman, this wasn’t a big deal because the baby came a little early and the procedure wasn’t needed.  But for my wife and I who were just told on Monday that we’re going to be delivering like 7 to 10 days early, this was a bit of a shocker.  We had met no one else in his group, and I distinctly DON’T recall the mention of any 2 week out of the country trip when we were talking about a 39 week evaluation.

Now in no way am I blaming the guy for having a great vacation and taking time off, but really?  No mention of it at all?  Either way, it’s not quite as bad as the scene in Knocked Up, but it did cause us a bit of a scramble as we’re pretty much due anytime that my wife sneezes too hard.   We have gotten our backup plan all laid out which is actually moving us to our first choice hospital if we go before April 9th.  Anyone wanna place bets on that happening?  Side bets on those bets?

All in all, it looks like we’re not going to have to pull a “naked asian man in the trunk” type of scene (another movie reference folks).  I will say that it was probably our first realization that we may not exactly know what to do with this whole birth thing.  Who do you call, where do you go?  I know that we took a baby prep class at another hospital so who knows what they implanted into our memory.  The good news is that apparently my family has a taped off area in the waiting room of the hospital that we are now going to.  After 17 nieces and nephews, and just as many waiting room parties, I think we’re pretty well prepared and accepted.  We even know some of the supervisors due to some great inside connections (i.e. my wife and sisters, and even my mom are all nurses), so our room choice will hopefully be prime.  It’s like those amazing lounge seats that our good friends would surprise us with at Dave Matthews Band concerts when we weren’t expecting it……oh those were the days.  From now on we’ll have to worry about pump and dumps and babysitter curfews if we think we’re going to be able to tear it up all night at a Dave show……sniff……

All that being said, crisis averted.  We’re in hold mode coupled with long walks, attempts to eat pizza and a beer, and other crazy ideas that we’re being given to progress this little one out.  We’ll keep you all updated on “baby watch 2012”, but our hope is to get this thing a movin’ no later than this weekend as I’m not sure that my wife wants to work next week at all.  Cross your fingers, legs, or whatever else you cross for good luck.

Home This Year – Virginia Coalition

So it’s a proven fact that new mothers, near the time of birth of their little ones, go through what is called a nesting period:  Cleaning, setting up stuff in a room, packing a bag, yelling at their husband to do something over, spending a lot on the credit card…..you know, basic stuff to prep for the little one to arrive.

Well a little known fact about yours truly, is that his OCD tendencies have created a need for what I’m terming as “Mesting”, or Male Nesting.  You won’t find this referenced in many of those baby books, or on those baby websites because of two reasons:

1.) I just made up the word

2.) Men don’t admit to this stuff.

This process happens sometime close to when your wife’s naps become more frequent and random, and your ability to lay around blaming your sloth on the fact that you’re “conserving energy” for your pending child just doesn’t seem to fool anyone.  For me it means going after several outstanding projects that don’t necessarily have direct correlation to the baby.  Things like getting a house phone (for the safety of your baby and wife), maybe some small reading lamps in your bedroom (for late night feedings, I swear honey), and thoroughly organizing the basement with new shelving units (it’s for diapers, at least one shelf I promise). The one major example that I feel truly represents my neurosis would be my constructing, and deconstructing 3 different shelving units for our master bathroom to make for some additional space for baby bath items.  Yes folks, I bought 3 different shelving units, then took apart 2 of them and returned them in an attempt to achieve a simple function that a small box probably could have done.  Total time spent : 6 hours over 3 days, not including online research and on hold time when calling stores looking for items in stock.  The first one was ridiculously small and dangerously prone to tipping. The second, while very nice, was the wrong color.  It said Espresso, it was not Espresso.  The color of the box was Espresso, but  believe me, it was far from it.  We ended up with another piece of what I call “cube” furniture and a large pile of return receipts, but I have to say a rather pleased baby daddy.

After about a month of little projects, the only things left can probably wait until after she’s born, as her room is outfitted to the hill.  We even have the iBaby Monitor mounted in a prime location, ready for all those late night “is she still breathing” freak out moments.  For now my Mesting is done, but I still have hope for the replacement of the driveway concrete and patio, using the excuse that “she needs a safe place to learn to walk and not worry about falling over cracks”.  We’ll just have to see how much I can get done in the 2 week paternity leave that I think I’m going to be able to take.

Oh, and just an FYI.  This writing a blog a day thing gets a little hard when you’re in panic mode.  We’re at 4 centimeters people, meaning that we could go any day.  So I’m going to keep writing if you’re going to keep reading.   But if these randomly stop for 48 hours don’t go yelling at me like my friend Liz.  FYI, this is hilarious even for guys:

Daryl Hall and John Oates –  You Make My Dreams

So I know I’m going to be playing a little catch up for events that have happened in the last month, but every once and a while you have to throw in some recent thoughts, details and inspirations.

This little gem popped up on my wife’s Pinterest account and she just had to share.  I have to say that this one knocked my socks off when it comes to hilarity.  Now in no way am I saying that this is completely true, but it’s hilarious how it calls out that yes, things are going to change and really you don’t understand until this happens.  I personally don’t know when man is said to become a man, I know that Pirates reference something like your first kill or earring or something.    What I find hilarious is that it was probably a guy that wrote this and after having to send to a couple of female editors before posting, they all probably got a laugh out of it.

So not much more on this post because it pretty much is explained by the picture.  I felt that I had to share as it was just too good.

Good Old War – Better Weather

So you leave St. Louis in the dead of winter, when sub freezing temperatures threaten your take off, and snow storms await your return……and what happens in Austin….flurries.  Ok Ok, that was only on the last day that we were there, but really?  You go south because you’re worried about the weather in the Northeast for your baby moon, and what happens, it snows. Worst off, you’ve walked to your Sunday morning breakfast at your recently reviewed restaurant on “Diners, Drive Ins and Dives”, and it friggin starts snowing after your 45 minute wait outside.  I hate to start this post with such a negative tone, but really I just wanted to use this song from the new Good Old War album and this made sense.

So for the second half of our trip, I’d like to think that my wife had my interests at heart.  We spent the afternoon at a great bar after whole foods. We talked life, career, happiness about the new baby, how annoying it was that the fire alarm sensor next to us kept going off, and all the fun parts of being young and free of commitment.  We walked back to the hotel late in the afternoon only to stop by Brooks Brothers in hope to find some baby clothes for some friends that had just told us that they are having a boy (FYI, no luck unless your kid comes out 7 years old).  We then prepped for one of the most interesting nights I think I’ve had in a while.  On a recommendation of a friend we purchased tickets to a show at the Alamo Drafthouse to see the new Denzel and Ryan movie (if you’re asking who that is then you’re not a fan).  This turned out to be one of the best decisions we had made since we decided to trounce around Livermore, CA wineries a few years back (like 4 years back).  The place is awesome, and other than the unfortunate trip to a nearby bar for plastic cup draft beers and “too soon” Whitney Houston jokes, all I can say is that we had a blast.  All I can do is link to their information and hope that you read into some of their awesome events….and that they are now franchising.  Imagine a movie with only grown ups, a full bar and food menu, and hilarious pre movie content.  Check it out, visit if you’re around any of their locations, and pray that St. Louis and other major cities catch on. Alamo Drafthouse.

So after a great evening, I unfortunately then had the pleasure of waking up to the “plastic beer cup” stomach issues, which caused just enough discomfort to keep us in the hotel room all day after the breakfast listed above.  But before the complete waste of the day, we were able to visit an awesome local shop that celebrated local artists……and awesome sh*t.  It hurt more to not buy the amazing assortment of baby clothes than it did to not be able to keep food down.  Parts and Labour.  All I can say is that they had one of the best Onesies (spelled wrong) in the world which I will probably save for a future post.  Let’s just say that it’s brown, and hilarious.

After a day in bed, we decided to hit up our last nice dinner at a Japanese/Sushi restaurant named Uchi, which used to have the privilege of employing the most recent Top Chef winner Paul.  We stretched the borders of sanity by having preggers try some “raw fish” items.   As we tempted fate, we referenced some great blog posts online from pregnant women in Asia as our support.  “I’m pretty sure women in Japan and China whose diet is primarily raw fish…..still have healthy babies. ”  That being said, apparently people that have bad beer from plastic cups don’t have the same positive reactions to raw fish, and after a couple close calls on the way to the bathroom, we made it through dinner.

So all in all, Baby moon was a success.  We ate, I drank, and she slept. Seriously though, it was a great non work visit to Austin, and I think that we decided that one day it might even be a contender for a place to live if the right opportunity came along.  We may have to bathe a little less before visiting certain areas of the city to fit in, but I think it’s got great people, great fun, and apparently one of the best movie theaters in the world……for serious.  Here is one quick shot from the trip that sums it up, thanks Austin, and thanks to all of those people that gave us great spots to visit:

So I know that I’ve been pretty non-existent in this space for the last few weeks, but I promise to get back to my roots.  What are your roots you say?  They are to try and catch up and write one of these per day until our little bundle of joy arrives…..maybe two a day.  I have a few saved up that I just need to tweak.  That being said, I’ll at least update with the following for now…..gosh, I have so many new songs and so much to talk about, let’s just hope we get to 39 weeks.

Of Monsters and Men – Little Talks

Not in anyway attributed to the current status of the pregnancy, as I’d like to get back to my original schedule starting tomorrow, I would like to discuss diapers.  Yes diapers folks, and I have a beef to start with this topic.

1.) Cloth diapers are for people that have the time to deal with them.

2.) With an average of 8 -10 a day (thanks MoBap birthing class), I don’t know how there isn’t a bigger deal brought up about the sheer waste both disposal and cloth diapers bring to the earth through trash and water usage.

3.) Why are there jean design diapers?

While I’m going to leave it up to the comments to better explain these topics, I’d like to point out that we personally will be using disposable diapers, as I hate dirty things, and have issues with putting poop in my washing machine.  I paid a lot for that washing machine, and if I’m going to put poop in there, and probably still have stains, it’s not going to be on 8 – 10 diapers a day.  Now in no way am I criticizing those that choose the poop clothes, as I’m sure I’m just under educated in the full process, but for me, it’s trash it and forget it.  Also, I would like to know if people using cloth diapers expect those taking care of their children to put up with them?  I have to think that it’s got to be a point of contention with some grandparents and unsuspecting uncles and aunts.

To number 3, if diaper companies would put the money that they spend in jean diaper technology back into “disposable, environmentally safe and cheaper” diaper technology, I think we’d all appreciate it.  Also, diaper companies are probably all parts of giant baby product conglomerates that in turn sell baby clothes to go over said diapers, so why don’t they focus their time on that?

Alright already, enough about diapers and their inability to not confuse me.  Tomorrow I promise Part Two of our Austin adventures, as well as the “tale of the baby shower”.  We have pictures galore of the room, the piles of gifts, and the bump….even a story of how our unborn child will be on TV before she even gets out here to say hello.  Stay tuned, listen to some tunes on the blog posts, and we’ll see you later.