HE'S BACK!

Merry Christmas to us Philadelphia, Clifton Phifer Lee, the coolest pitcher on the planet is coming back home! I heard the news while at work on Monday night in a real life Paul Revere type scenario (one of the nurses was going from floor to floor saying, "Cliff Lee is coming! Cliff Lee is coming!") It was a crazy night, and afterwards I had to give myself a pinch to make sure it wasn't all just a wild Cliff-Lee-themed daydream.

Aside from the obvious fact that it is exciting to now have one of the greatest starting pitching staffs ever assembled, I am also looking forward to not hearing the various "big three" nicknames that sportswriters were throwing around last season. (H20? What does that even mean??) On the flipside we better get used to hearing a LOT about Philly's "Phantastic four" (or "phearsome four", or maybe even the "phour horseman") the possibilities are endless.

To steal a headline from the Daily News:

Merry Cliff-mas Philadelphia! (And a happy Halladay!)

The saga of the Tooth, the Pacifier & the Puzzle

Lets just cut to the chase: on Saturday night Aiden tripped, fell, and hit his face. In fact, he hit his face hard enough to partially dislodge one of his two front teeth. He didn't knock it all the way out mind you, but he did rearrange it pretty good.

A visit to the dentist the following day determined that he'd be able to live with it as-is, but that we'd need to be careful with what he eats and MOST importantly- he wouldn't be able to use his pacifier for a while. A decision was made by the parental council that perhaps this was as good an opportunity as we were going to get to wean Aiden off of his pacifier for good. And that is how we got to this point:

In case it is not immediately clear, this is a picture of Aiden's pacifier sitting in a box on his desk, waiting for the pacifier fairy to come and take it away. Obviously.

Our initial attempts to convince Aiden that he didn't need his pac (pronounced 'pass' of course) were met with a lukewarm reception at best. It didn't take long for us to move to plan B. Plan B, as you may have already surmised, involved a story about the "Pac Fairy". The Pac Fairy (as the well-known children's story goes) comes in the night to take a child's pacifier and leave behind a beautifully wrapped new toy.

Luckily the Pac Fairy had already done some of her Christmas shopping, so it was no problem for her to quickly find and wrap a brand new numbers puzzle. The Pac Fairy likes educational toys.

The Pac Fairy's visit was met with much rejoicing the next morning. There was even a hand written note that we read with as much enthusiasm as we could muster in the seven o'clock hour.

It was an exciting time for everyone. Aiden was excited for his new toy. Parents were excited by the success of their genius plan. And Bailey was excited that actually got his fuzzy mug into a picture (look closely below.) It was a good morning.

The aftermath, while not bad necessarily, has not been as seamless a transition as we'd hoped for. On one hand, it's great that Aiden is actually playing with his puzzle on the floor right now as I type this. On the other hand, he is doing it at 6:30 in the morning because without the comfort of his pac he is waking up about an hour earlier every morning.

There have been a few other speed bumps along the way as well. Most significantly is the raging guilt that we feel every time that Aiden looks at us with watery eyes and says something like, "I can't find my pac" or "they (we hope 'they' means the mean Pac Fairy, and not his mean parents) took my pac!"

The path to pac independence is long and fraught with many pitfalls. But I am confident that our persistent efforts will be rewarded. Although the fact that Aiden just came over and saw a picture of his pac on the computer as I was writing this may have set us back a few days. Oh well...

Christmas came early

Thanks to the UPS man for delivering the first great toy of this year's Christmas season: cardboard boxes. I suppose it's a good thing that the boxes on delivery actually contained items that we'd ordered as Christmas gifts, but at least for now, the cargo is secondary to the packaging. This is how Aiden and I spent the majority of our morning after these boxes arrived, and I'm not sure who had more fun.

In Thanksgiving-related news: I am thankful that my child is a boy because it gives me a good excuse to do things (like build large hot-wheels tracks out of cardboard boxes) which, lets be honest, I would want to do anyway.

Backyard Camping

A little while back I thought it'd be fun to set up the tent out in the yard for Aiden to play with. He did like it, although he spent most fof his time running around it and opening and closing the zipper. To each his own.

It was a fun little morning activity and it makes me excited for when he gets a little bit older and we can take our sleeping bags out there, start a fire in the firepit, and do some real backyard camping.

The Parade

With Halloween just around the corner Aiden's pre-school put on a mini costume parade for the kids. As it turns out, there are few pleasures greater then seeing a gaggle of costumed toddlers ambling in circles around a parking lot, waving at anything that moves. It was pretty great.

There were some pretty creative costumes on display. One of my personal favorites is Aiden's little friend Leah who dressed as a "nurse in training." (I took some pictures) Aiden's costume was a Phillies player, which is something that we'd picked out before the Phillie's disappointing fizzle. Although the wounds from their loss are still fresh I think that seeing our two year old proudly strut his stuff in Phillies garb was the first step in the healing process.

Anyway, it may not have been the "Phillies parade" that we were expecting, but I'll take this one any day of the week! Enjoy the pictures...

Falling for fall

The weather has taken a turn for the cooler around here recently and I, for one, am loving it. The last few days Aiden and I have been taking advantage of the sunny, fall temperatures by hanging out in the backyard. I started a project a while back where I am using broken-up pieces of our old sidewalk as edging for some of our plant beds. Despite being far from completed, Aiden decided to claim the area as a new place for him to play and get dirty.

Post wall-walking we moved on to collecting leaves. Which, as you'll see, then transitioned nicely into collecting dirt.

A boy and his dog

This video pretty much sums up the current state of Aiden and Bailey's relationship. Aiden just wants to play, and Bailey barely tolerates it all because he knows that Aiden is his primary gateway to all food-crumb related morsels.

My favorite parts of this video are when Aidens declares definitively "Its my rope!" (its not) And also when he chases Bailey around the room imploring him to participate while Bailey desperately eyes his escape route.

Untitled from Robert Jones on Vimeo.

UFO!!!!!! (Unidentified Flying bOy)

...these pictures are classified as TOP SECRET as this quadrant of the living room is designated as a strict no-fly zone... you never saw this... it never happened...

Doctober Part 2

For those not fortunate enough to live within reach of the airwaves of the Philadelphia radio broadcast here is the final out of last night's no-hitter as called by Scott Franzke:

Doctober

Unlike the last two years there has been nary a blog post in the lead up to this season's baseball playoffs. What can I say? Maybe we've reached an era where making the postseason is just buisness as usual for our Fightin's.

I could hardly let tonight's game come and go, however, seeing as that it was (literally) one for the ages. I am excited to have game one in the bag, but beyond that, watching Doc deal the second postseason no-hitter in baseball history was just electrifying.

Thank goodness for Doc. And thank goodness for baseball.

Here we go again...