Joshua has an immense love for motorcycles. He prefers Harley’s and we prefer he stay focused on the bike and not the biker when looking at those. Actually, we prefer him not looking at them at all since the crowd it usually draws. But, hey, if he has a great Christian foundation, he’ll be fine.

Anyway, after church Sunday, we went to our favorite burger place, In-N-Out, for lunch. While eating, Joshua noticed a bike in the parking lot and literally put down his burger to gaze at it. At about this point, Liz asked Joshua for a kiss. To Liz’s dismay he responded, “No, I want to kiss the cycle.” Liz shockingly asked, “What?!” and we all laughed. Soon after the man drove off on his motorcycle and Joshua waved at him through the windows saying, “Bye cycle!”

Yes, our son is in love with motorcycles.

Originally Posted on The Dad’s Group

Saturday, I had to call Verizon to activate a new phone. While on hold, I put the phone on speaker-phone and left the handset on the counter. Joshua, from the table, turned toward the phone and with a great big smile said, “I love this song!” I cracked up because it was the Verizon commercial with, you know, ‘We never stop working for you’ in it. Further, the kid has never heard this song, so where that came from, I don’t know. But hey Verizon Wireless, your marketing department picked a winner.

Originally Posted on The Dad’s Group

Shane posted here a week ago about his daughter’s response to her mothers eyes being chocolate eyes. I loved reading that. Well today, Joshua has added to the eye stories here at The Dad’s Group.

While fellowshipping with some friends at church, Auntie Ma (Liz’s sister) asked Joshua what color eyes she had. He smiled and said, “Blueeee…and white!” Man, we all busted up and laugh good. Too funny but accurate indeed!

Originally Posted on The Dad’s Group

Yesterday I took some time off in the morning to teach the kids how to ride their new bike. Joshua got a bike where the front wheel has the pedal and Katelyn a 12″ frame with training wheels. Both were excited to start their new adventure and I was excited to be part of it. To my total amazement, it didn’t take Katelyn long to figure out the whole bike thing and she was riding by herself in a matter of minutes. She was zooming past me with her hair waving in her face shoved their from her cute little purple helmet that matches her bike (by chance.) When mommy came out to see, she was full of giggles and yelling, “Watch the bike show!” Yes, our four year-old gave a pretty good bike show indeed.

The two year-old was putting around for awhile, but the exercise of peddling seems to be a little much for Joshua at this point. I think it’ll be a while before he gets the concept down; nevertheless, he enjoyed being on his new bike out side riding around with sissy. He soon was on the side lines watch the bike show with mommy and daddy, but I can tell he did like his bike, too.

Well, the children have been just thoroughly enjoying Nana and Grandpa. We got the privilege of having them spend the night last night in a pre-party time. Today, the rest of my family will come up from San Jose to celebrate my birthday. Mom (Nana) made my favorite cake in the whole-wide-world, authentic Black Forest Cake. It took her nearly three hours and man, it looks awesome! She’ll also make my favorite dinner, tonight, too. Can’t wait!

Anyway, back to the kids and the grandparents. They’ve just really been enjoying having Nana and Grandpa here and playing with them with their new blocks. Grandpa’s reading to the kids right now and they absolutely love it!

Last night while changing Joshua for bed, he asked what something was on him. Actually, he pointed to his chest and said, “Boo-boo.” It wasn’t a boo-boo but a God given body part. I told him it wasn’t a boo-boo and he replied with, “What’s that?”

Mmm, now we’ve come up with some new names for other parts on the kids body, like “button” for Joshua’s pee-pee “tool” and little buns for Katelyn’s and then big buns for the other side of which they both have. But we had never come to this, or at least I hadn’t, and Liz was at a Bible study, so I couldn’t verify if she came up with a word. So what did I say? “Nipple.”

“Niiipple?” asked Joshua. “Yes, nipple,” growing increasingly uncomfortable with my choice. “Nipple,” Joshua repeated as he touched it. By this time, Katelyn came running in and asked, “What?!” Trying to blow off this mess, I told her that I just showed something to Joshua and she continued to dig with, “What?” ‘Man, what have I started,’ I thought as I showed her on Joshua and told her, “I told him this was his nipple because he thought it was a boo-boo.” Then here came the question I dreaded and knew was coming, “What’s it for?” Before I could answer, Katelyn pulled up her shirt and said, “I have one. Mommy has one, too.” I agreed that we all had them and then she let those wheels continue to go full steam and said,”Baby’s suck on these?” Oh man, “Yes Katelyn, babies get momma’s milk from them. Only mommies can do that, though.” Her reply was, “Yuuuucky!” Joshua echoed the disgust and I had unthinking say, “Well, it made you and Joshua pretty healthy and you liked it then.” Why I chose to say that, I don’t know, I should have just exited out of the conversation at that point, but nope, I had to add that, didn’t I?

Fortunately Katelyn and Joshua just laughed and quickly moved onto another subject. Man, what a difficult situation. Not that I’m embarrassed or anything by it but really fearing what Katelyn will do with this new found information. I can see her informing the next woman with children that she has a nipple that can feed babies. Oh ya, that’ll be a fun one to explain!

Originally Posted on The Dad’s Group

Ya, I know you really can’t see Joshua, but I thought it was still cool to take this picture and let y’all see what we did yesterday after Katelyn’s first dentist appointment. Yup, hit the Del Taco play area. They both had a great time and I enjoyed some yummy Fat Chicken Taco’s with my wife. Sure, it’s fattening and we’re on diets, but heck, you’ve got to do it for the kids, man!

Today while at a client I received a call from my wife and she told me in a very calm, but frightened, voice that Joshua had just tripped and hit his head on the table. She continued to tell me that he was just sitting in her lap sedated almost. Not really moving or anything. I asked her if he was talking or moving. She said he would do both, but not unless prompted. I told her to just watch him and when he requested to watch Donut Man, I said it was alright. Before hanging up, I warned her to insure Joshua did not fall asleep until he started acting “normal” again.

When I got home later, he came running out into the garage to meet me with Katelyn. That instantly told me that he was fine. I was very relieved and thankful to the Lord. I got out and he happily gave me a big hug and told me all sorts of stuff, none of which I understood due to the quickness of his words.

Later this evening, I plucked him up on the bar stool via the crane maneuver (I put my arm on my knee and pivot him up, due to my back problem) and he sat happily next to sister at the counter. We ate our yummy Daddy’s Secret BBQ Chicken Sandwich with joy and just sat around talking. As I was finishing up my sandwich, Joshua started to fall backward and of course gravity took over and his legs went straight up in a V as his head went straight for the wood floor…with the slab foundation underneath. I screamed out, “Joshua!” and by the time I was done saying his name, he hit hard the surface with his head. Square on the back right side…just the opposite side of his earlier accident.

I rushed over to him and shoveled him into my lap. I held him as he kept crying and saying, “Ow, ow, ow!” I was so scared that he may have done something to himself bad. His hands and feet were moving, so I knew he wasn’t paralyzed and he was talking. All good signs, but man, he slammed that wood!

After about three good long minutes, he calmed down and started sucking his thumb and snuggled up to me. He just sat in my arms with long tears running down his face. When I asked him if that had hurt, he simply shook his head yes. I cradled him a bit more and then asked him if he was alright. He again shook his head in the affirmative. To prove if he was, I told him that I was going to stand him up and I picked him up and positioned him in a standing position. He stood on his own and then with a smile, ran away to go play! Ya, guess he’ll be alright.

Originally Posted on The Dad’s Group

This morning when I changed Joshua’s diaper, I expressed my surprise with, “Oh my!” He repeated me with an addition that made me chuckle with, “Oh my goodness!” Just another cute thing my little 2 year old boy uttered in another fun filled day of being a daddy.

Originally posted on The Dad’s Group.

Today I went to the Bay Area with the kids to pick up some tapes (thanx Brian, sorry we missed each other) and grab my new WD Passport Portable USB Drive from my dad. He works at Western Digital and was able to score me the hard to find 80GB drive at a great price. Thanx, dad!

After we say him and got that, we went to Uncle Sean’s and hung out there. I did some Anti-Spyware stuff for him and he played with the kids. He then let me see his iPod hook-up to the Alpine. Very cool to see in action, but the interface is very difficult and at this stage, I’d not recommend it to anyone. But as Sean said, if you know your playlists and have them set up, it’s not bad at all. I have to admit, though, it was cool seeing the Alpine logo on the iPod screen.

When we left Uncle Sean’s, I called my mom, Nana. We’ve tried so many times in the past to see her but she’s been so busy working on stuff related to the Bradly and making sure our boys are protected over there in Iraq that it’s been hard to get to her. Well today, after three calls, she called me back right when we passed her exit. No problem, I turned around on Montague and took 880 South and got on 101 North and within minutes we were at Nana’s. Joshua fell asleep but I woke him. He was a bit unhappy and while Katelyn was excited to see Nana, Joshua was a bit in is own world. Nana took Katelyn in to show her office and Joshua and watched planes land at San Jose International Airport. He liked that and that woke him up and by the time Nana returned, he was all joy. Nana enjoyed that and when we left a few minutes, her big bright smile could be seen easily in my mirror.

By the time we hit the road, it was pouring. Good ‘ol Bay Area traffic was in effect and it took us nearly two hours to drive home. If you saw the modi, you saw the poor F250 that spun out on 580 West bound just at the 205 split and got hit. No one was hurt, thankfully, but the front end was history. Bummer.

Anyway, I’m home, but have a client call to go to in a few. The kids will come, again, with me and we’ll turn this day into a fun “work with daddy” day before we end it with Bible Time and bed time prayers. It has been fun indeed.