Happy (I am glad I am Harmon's Father)'s Day

One of my Father's Day presents from Harmon was this book, "Father to Son: Life Lessons on Raising a Boy." Taking a few moments to flip through the pages, I came across this passage on page 97: "Take him for doughnuts Saturday morning. Let his mom sleep late." While we don't do doughnuts just yet, although I will be happy when we do, Harmon and I do go for boys' breakfast every few weeks. I usually take him to McDonald's (or Old MacDonalds, as he calls it) for pancakes and sausage, or Denny's, for the same. But, today I wanted a family breakfast, so we had pancakes at home. It was there that I received some of my gifts, including the aforementioned book, Phil Steele's 2008 college football preview issue (which is suspect in that he has Notre Dame as preseason No. 19; but that is for later in the summer) and a new cologne. Earlier in the week, I received my biggest present when, after more than 10 years of the same glasses, I picked out a new pair of specs at Kellogg. After I cut the grass on Sunday, Harmon spent two hours in his backyard pool before we had dinner from Applebees. It was a great Father's Day, and just the way I wanted it with my family, including Baby #2 as we call him/her. I read Harmon his customary four books before he went to bed, which also is included in the "Father to Son" book, on page 16: "Read to him nightly. He'll love it." He does love it, and I love Harmon, Aimee, Isabel, and Baby #2. I am blessed to be a father.

31 months – 3 days late

I’ve been writing SO MUCH at work that the last thing on my mind has been writing for the blog so it’s no wonder I totally forgot to do Harmon’s 31-month update. God, I’m only 14 weeks pregnant and I’m ALREADY forgetting about the first born. I need to step it up!

Harmon is doing wonderfully! No, he’s not potty trained yet but we are oh so close. He no longer goes #2 in his diaper – thank the Lord – and he’s dry overnight most of the time. #1, however, is the challenging part. He’ll go on the toilet at all the usual times – in the morning, before bed and after meals – but he won’t tell us any other time. It’s very frustrating because WE ALL KNOW HE KNOWS but he just won’t do it. I hope it just clicks soon but I just don’t know.

Aside from the potty training, everything is great. He’s continuing to do well at school. We got him a cute t-shirt with his school’s logo on it so now says he’s going to Annie’s Children’s School to play with his friends. It’s very sweet!

He learns new things every single day. He’ll see numbers and letters and yell them out and still is really into all his books. I got him a Curtis Granderson t-shirt to wear to our summers Tigers’ games and he points out the number (28) and spells out the name. I really hope he continues to learn at a good pace.

Although we haven’t officially told him he’s got a little brother or sister on the way, we’re slowly dropping hints. We’ll ask him if he wants a baby to come live with us or if he wants a brother or sister. Since we have names picked out, we’ll ask him what we’ll name a boy (and he’ll tell us Simon) or a girl (and he’ll tell us Maizey) and he gets into it. We’ll tell him a) once I get noticeably bigger or b) when we have the ultrasound (July 15), whichever comes first. I hope we can make it to the ultrasound because we’re finding out this time and it would make it easier to tell him who exactly is on the way.

Once the baby does arrive, we’ll move Harmon from the nursery and into the den. We picked out his new bedding (Junior Varsity from Pottery Barn Kids – it’s very cool) and will change his toddler bed into a full bed. We’re thinking late September or early October might be a good time for this change. We’re hoping he’ll be potty trained by then and it will be after he changes classrooms at school so hopefully his big changes will be behind him. We also thought this was early enough so that he doesn’t feel kicked out right when the new baby arrives. So, that’s the plan. Unfortunately, with him moving into the den, we’ll have to move the computer downstairs which will take some getting used to. We’ll deal, though.

Other than that, it’s business as usual. We’re outside every day – taking walks and going to the park. We’re trying to take advantage of those summer months before the craziness of the fall arrives.