Alexander excited to open his gifts on Christmas morning.

When he gets really excited, his hands go into his mouth. Does not happen often, but when it does it is pretty cute.

The primary color picture that Alex has been carrying around the house.

When it was complete, he brought it to me full of pride at what he had just created.  It was a chart with circles of each primary color, and the color names above them.

You should have seen him!  He was beaming with pride about his creation, and he should be.

He has carried that picture with him everywhere and even tried to take it to bed last night.

He has asked that I buy magnets so we can mount it on the wall.

—–

I have not seen Travis much the past few months.  He has been busy with school and was having some trouble.

When I do see him, it is usually a five minute hello and goodbye thing.

He has been staying with Toni more and it looks like that is how it will probably be from here on out.  I understand it because that is his mother, I just wish we could spend some time together having fun like we used to do.

Travis is a tough one.  I love him with everything I have, but I am disappointed that he tends to not be honest with me and lie frequently.  When that happens, it is hard to trust him.

I hope we can at least repair some of the damage from the separation and divorce.

—–

I have been working a lot, and the stress is getting to me.  Everything else is fine but work stress some days is amazing.

—–

My relationship with Barb is great.  Never thought I would find someone that I click with this way.  We just “get” each other and there is no bullshit.

This is what a healthy relationship should be like.

I know people do not want to hear it, and think I am making bad moves, but the bottom line is that I am happy now after years of not being very happy.

You either accept that or you do not.

—–

I think people are still in shock over the divorce with Toni and they think it was all so sudden.  What they do not realize is that the two of us had been unhappy for years, and we were both good at covering it up.

I know it all seems sudden for people looking at it from the outside, but I can honestly say it was something that had been going on for a long time.

I hope that she can find someone that makes her happy, that is good to Alex and completes her life.  I really want that for her.  She deserves it.

We are both moving on, and that is just reality.

—–

I am probably going to put this place on a shelf for a bit.  Not sure if I want to continue updating it.

I am going to probably archive all of the stuff about the pregnancy and Alex into a personal scrap book for him so he has something to read when he is older and can understand everything that happened during the time of his birth.

I have been fighting it, did not want to admit it, but I finally have to get over the fact that he is no longer a toddler.

Alex is at a point where we can have a decent conversation about things.  He can express his feelings more than ever, and he is not shy about what he wants to say.

Alex loves to help with everything!  Making dinner is a big deal now.  Alex must help, even if it is something small like pouring a liquid or mixing something together, he has to be involved.  All very good things to see.

Alex is telling me about his life outside of the time I spend with him.  Again, great stuff that shows me he can remember things and can be creative.

Love my time with him right now and am enjoying what he brings to my life.

Now if I could just get him to wipe…

—–

We were in the bathroom last night and I had to pee.  He has come into the bathroom with me since he was old enough to stand, and he has always been fascinated with the whole going pee thing.

He looks at me, points to my crotch as says “What is that?”

“My penis”

“Oh, I have a penis and you have a penis” he says.  I was proud of him, good job on picking that up.

Then he dropped the bomb.

He screams “You have a huge penis!”

I died.  Seriously.

I was glad nobody else was in the house at the time.  Actually, now that I think about it, I wish I had a house full of beautiful women to hear that. :)

—–

Alex says it is no longer “Christmas time”, that we are now in “Happy New Year time”.  This means he walks around the house with a birthday hat on all of the time.

He tries to get me to wear the hat with him but I’ve resisted so far.

Now I need to tell him that “Happy New Year time” is almost over and come up with something new.  Ideas?

A few days ago he said that the newspaper was “hobo” after he had opened it and scattered it all over the place.

I asked him if it meant horrible, and he said yes.  So it’s not “hobo cheese” it was “horrible cheese”.  Awesome.

This happened last weekend while Travis was watching Alex.   Travis noticed Alex starting to grunt and asked Alex if he was trying to poop, and Alex said yes.

Rather than change a diaper, Travis grabbed Alex and put him on the potty and told him to go there.   Boom!

Great job by Travis to recognize and get his little brother on the potty.  Everyone is pitching in the help get him potty trained now and it is awesome!

Mom and my older boys stopped by early in the day for gift exchanges.  I was tired and not feeling so hot but enjoyed seeing everyone.

I had a small gathering of friends over for dinner on Christmas Eve.  It was a quiet night with good dinner and drinks.   A little drama later in the night but disaster averted and all is well.

Toni dropped Alex off at the house Christmas morning at 9am.  Barb and I scooped him up and packed for her parents house at Lake Lawrence.

Once settled at Barbs parents we decided to take the kids for a walk down to the playground.  Barb, her brother Pacer and a combination of kids all marching out into the cold air for some fun.

The kids enjoyed time on the swings and that adults enjoyed the spectacular view of Mount Rainier and the mist rising off of the calm lake.  It was relaxing and nice, which is a change from past Christmas gatherings.

Dinner was excellent, both vegan and non-vegan.  A little something for everyone.

Was home by 7:30 with a car load of passed out children.

—–

This past Saturday Barb and I went to El Toro to see Alicia and Sean Fowler, in town from Singapore.  They invited a lot of folks from Facebook and it turned into a mini Wilson/Stadium/Bellermine Prep reunion.

Amazing to reconnect with people I have not seen for over 20 years.  Lots of good conversations and memories.  A great time!  Even downed a Jägerbomb faster than the folks that drink every weekend.  Still got it!  haha

—–

My Infiniti M45 is still int he shop.  The new estimated date of return to me is January 8th.   I want my car back so bad right now.

I am driving a rental, and I’m not fond of it to be honest.  It is a 2009 Jeep Cherokee Laredo and it just feels cheap when I compare it to my M45.  Oh well, only one more week of driving it right?

The insurance companies have found that nobody is insured on the vehicle that hit me.  I am not happy about it at all.

—–

Toni was involved in an accident two days ago and, surprise, she was also hit by an uninsured motorist.  Nice to see that Washington State has a law requiring all ofus to have insurance, yet fails to enforce it.

I am losing my faith in the system every day.

—–

My lower back is killing me.  I cannot get in to see the doctor until Monday the 21st so I just have to deal with the pain.

The plan was to have Mom, Flower, Alex, Barb and the girls and Travis come over for dinner.

I picked Megan up from school and then picked Alex up from day care.   We had been home for 10 minutes, and I needed a shave so I wandered up to my bathroom and left Alex and Megan to play.  A few minutes later I hear a solid THUD from the living room, then Alex erupted into screams.

Uh oh!

I raced down the stairs just as mom was walking in the front door.  Alex was face down, bleeding from his mouth.  He was excited and running around in the living room, tripped over his shoes and hit the floor face first.  He actually bit into his upper lip and it was bad enough that I considered getting him to the ER for stitches.

He survived with a huge fat lip the rest of the night.  Looks okay now but many it was kind of scary to see him bleeding like that.

—–

The birthday bash went well.  Barb made dinner and mom and Flower brought salads and desserts.

The night was a little chaotic but I had a good time.  We were going to fire up the Wii so my aunt could trash talk us, but we never got the chance.

I crashed pretty early that night because I was feeling a little tired and burned out.   Turned out I was coming down with the flu and ended up in bed the next few days and am still recovering.  I also have a sinus infection on top of it so I feel like crap.

—–

Because having the flu and a sinus infection is not enough, I decided to get in a car accident on Saturday to top it all off!

Actually, I did not decided, someone else decided that for me.

I was sitting at the stop light on South 19th and Stevens waiting for the light to turn green.

Light turns green and I start going through the intersection and then I notice someone coming down the hill on my right… fast.  I remember thinking, wow he is going way to fast to stop a the light.  Then I realized, he was not going to stop.

I hit my brakes hoping he would pass in front of me but no such luck.  He slammed into the right front end of my car.  Hard.  I assume he was running roughly 30-35mph.

I was able to drive the car home, however the steering is messed up big time, and I have no idea what the rest of the damage is like.

The driver was young, and has no insurance.  Just found out that the owner of the car is insured via eSurance.  We’ll see how that goes.

Either way, not happy about the accident at all considering I just purchased the vehicle in October.