Author Archive

• Home Depot gift cards for that patio arbor I’ll never build
• Money towards a real sprinkler system for the yard
• A new Driver (my Dad actually built one for my birthday and I can’t wait to slice a ball into oblivion)
• Sarah eating a double whopper with cheese AND MEAT
• Liposuction
• A Penguin
• And of course, better grammar

Dear Asher,

Today you are officially 11 months old. I guess turning 11 months is kind of like turning 20 years… too young to get into bars, but too old to hang out at high school parties. In your case, too young to walk on your own, but too old to be crawling everywhere… Despite all that, you still managed to accomplish a lot over the last month.

A couple weeks ago, I taught you how to use your walker-toy-thingy to help you walk. It’s now your favorite thing in the world to do. You haven’t quite figured out how to turn the thing once you get going, so you just push and walk until it slams into a wall. Then there is much pouting and grunting until your mom or I turn you around so you can do it all over again… It’s really helping you with your balance, and on June 26th, you took your first steps!! 2 Tiny steps for you, but 2 huge, proud steps for your mama and papa! You still can’t go more than 2 steps on your own, but it’s only a matter of time before you’re running around the house conquering and destroying. I’ll be so thrilled when you can finally walk, because if you can walk, it won’t be long until you can skate!

Learning to walk means that you’re also learning to crash. I know I’ve told you this before, but you are one tough kid! Nose-dives into the carpet, face-plants on the concrete, head-bangs into doors and walls… but, you never cry for more than a couple of seconds. Sometimes I wish we could wrap you up in toilet paper padding like those old commercials from the 1980s, then you could jump off the roof and land like a feather. The other day I was cleaning the office and you crashed into a big pile of daddy-junk. We fully expected a giant tear-fest, but instead you laid there quietly like you had just discovered the most comfortable place on earth. So, we did what any good red-blooded American would do in that situation. We ran as fast as we could to get the camera to take your picture.

We also took you swimming for the first time ever this month. We visited your uncle Wes at his apartment and hung out by the pool. You didn’t especially love it in the water, but I think it was because the water was a little too cold. It didn’t help that we brought Zoe along too… I swear she’s half otter, and she freaked you out a bit with all her barking. We had a fun time, and we’ve visited several pools since then. Each time, you are getting more and more comfortable in the water. It won’t be long before your standing on Zoe’s back, riding her around the pool like a dolphin trainer.

I have to admit I’ve been a little obsessed lately with meat. No, not meat for me, meat for you (although I do LOVE me some meat!). You’ve probably figured out by now that your poor, depraved mommy doesn’t partake in the eating of flesh. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t understand it either. I can tell you this: no matter how much you want her to eat meat, and no matter how hard you try to get her to just ‘take a little bite’, it’s NOT going to happen. Since you were born, I’ve been rather paranoid that you would grow up to be a vegetarian by association. I don’t think I could handle living with another ‘no-meater’. I’m happy to report that as of this past month, you are officially a carnivore! Your mom actually fed you some turkey and rice baby-food and you loved it. I am so proud. Together, we will rule the Yarbrough household with a big, bloody, medium-rare steak.

Let the party planning begin. Your first birthday party is still a whole month away, yet your mom has already started the planning. Guest lists have been written. ‘Reserve the date’ emails have been sent. Talks of cake and decorations have commenced. Presents have been purchased. Insanity has taken over. It’s going to be one hell of a party… too bad you won’t remember ANY of it.

Your sign language is coming along nicely. You’ve now devolved to one universal sign… More. If you want to be picked up, you make the sign for ‘more’. If you want a drink? More. Toy? More. Done? More. Eat? More. More? More. Sometimes it takes a while to figure out exactly what it is that you want. Maybe next month you can trick it up a little and learn the sign for ‘less’.

Love,
Papa

Dear Asher,

It seems like it was just yesterday that we were bringing you home from the hospital, and here it is 10 amazing months later – the most incredible 10 months of my life. Watching you grow up and learn new things each day is a blessing, and the past month has been the best yet.

You recently figured out that daddy’s toys are much cooler than your own toys. You’re no longer interested in your blocks, books, and other countless toys. You’ve discovered the magic of Daddy’s TV remote control. Whenever I’m watching TV, you come at me like a spider monkey, trying to get the remote out of my hands so you can play with it. We even took one of our spare remotes that looks IDENTICLE to the real one and gave it to you as a toy, but you just laughed, tossed the dummy remote across the room, and looked at us like we were idiots. Now when I watch TV, I have to hide the remote under a pillow, out of sight so you won’t attack me. I’ve also recently discovered a major drawback to having a media cabinet that doesn’t have doors. You love the lights on the dish and surround sound receivers, and your favorite thing in the world right now is to turn the volume knob as far (and loud) as it will go – I am deaf now. And it’s not only the TV remotes that you’re obsessed with. It’s also my laptop, iPod, alarm clock, guitars, watches, shoes, sunglasses, water bottles, and especially the dishwasher. You are utterly mesmerized by the dishwasher. You’re always trying to crawl up in it like it’s some sort of cool carnival ride. I can’t quite figure out the fascination, but I hope it lasts until you’re old enough to actually do some dishes.

Your Granma recently gave us a great gift – Asher Jail. It consists of about 8 pieces of plastic wall that fit together to form an enclosed pen. We can put you in there with a butt-load of toys and you are in heaven. We don’t have to worry about you crawling into the dishwasher or going for a swim in the toilet because you can’t escape from the plastic wonderland that is Asher Jail. I am not looking forward to the day you figure out that you’re actually trapped…

Paris wishes she’ll have it this easy…

You’ve recently developed a hideous expression we’ve come to know as ‘huffy-face’. When you get really excited about something and determined to crawl towards it, you morph into a raging asthmatic. You’re face scrunches up like an old man and you start wheezing and huffing like mad. It’s really not all that cute… in fact it’s kind of scary. We’ve got some great video of it, but I hope you grow out of the huffy-face phase pretty quick.

Child-proofing has re-commenced in full force. You’re favorite thing in the world (other than riding in the dishwasher) is to open every cabinet in the house and proceed to pull out EVERYTHING you can get your hands on. I figured it was a real problem the other day when I found you sipping on a bottle of drain-o like it was a martini… I kid, I kid… but you do like to get into the cleaning supplies under the sink. So, I installed child safety locks on all the cabinets in the house. It was a major pain-in-the-ass! I don’t know if I had the wrong kind or what, but they were almost impossible to install. And even now, every time I go to open a cabinet, I forget about the stupid child locks and get a jolt as the lock catches and rips my fingers off.

Does this classify as an eating disorder?

Having a kid is a huge adjustment for anyone, but I never thought the adjustment would be so much fun. It’s so strange to think about my own childhood and how my parents must have gone through all the same experiences and emotions. I can only pray that one day you will have children of your own and be able to feel the amazing emotions that I’ve had over the last 10 months…

Love,
Papa

Dear Asher,

Last week you turned nine months old. Just when I don’t think you can possibly be any cuter, you smack me upside the head with a 2×4 of even more cuteness! You have got to be the happiest baby to ever grace the face of the earth. I never imagined that a baby could be so happy.

The best part of my day is walking through the door when I get home from work. You get soooo excited to see me, as if I’ve been away for weeks… You give me the biggest smiles and laughs, then you squeal until I pick you up and give you a big hug… for 2 seconds, then you promptly reach for the floor and squeal just as loud for me to let you back down because I’ve just wasted 20 seconds of precious time that you could have been playing. It’s all you want to do lately. Your increased mobility over the past month has been the catalyst for your transformation into ‘sir-plays-a-lot’. You are constantly in motion; up, down, up, down, this room, that room… dragging toys around and leaving them spread about all over the place. Most of the time our house looks like a Baby-Einstein grenade went off.

Your mother has been using sign language with you for a couple of months now. So far, the only sign you could sort of mimic was the sign for ‘more’ (2 hands touching fingertips). You’ve mastered ‘more’ and moved on to my personal favorite, the sign for ‘milk’ (one hand squeezing the air like milking an invisible cow). Any time you’re hungry and momma is nearby, you start milking that invisible cow with every ounce of your being. I love that you can communicate, but would it be too much to ask for just one ‘Dada’?

Yesterday we took you to the doctor for your 9 month checkup. You are now a lean, mean, 2’4 (30in), 20lbs playin’ machine. You’re almost as tall as Verne Troyer/Mini-me (2’7) from the Austin Powers movies, although I’m sure you could already whip his ass in a block stacking competition. The doc predicts that you’ll be around 6’3 180lbs as an adult, but gauging from the amount of food you eat on a daily basis, I’m guessing you’ll be about 9’5 680lbs… I have absolutely no idea how you eat that much food. Where does it go? Every day you eat 1 or 2 whole bananas, 3 bowls of applesauce and/or various stage 2 baby foods, toast, crackers, puffs, rice cakes, and of course, 5 yummy servings of momma’s magical boob-juice. You definitely get your appetite from my side of the family. You’d think that since you can use your hands to communicate, you’d also be coordinated enough to eat your dinner without making too much of a mess. Not a chance…

You took a bunch of trips to some fun places this month. A couple weeks ago, you made your first ever visit to the Zoo. Your mom, both of your grandmas, your cousin Ally, and I tagged along. The Zoo was awesome, but I think you preferred the 45 minute train ride to get there. Your mom and grandma also took you to the Dallas Arboretum and got some great pictures. At what age does it become sissy for a boy to be in pictures with a bunch of flowers?? I’ll let you decide. You even came to visit me at work a couple of times… we packed up lunch and went across the street from my office for a little picnic while the weather was still great. Soon it will be hotter than a snake’s ass in a wagon rut. Good Times.

Love,
Papa

Dear Asher,

I think you’ve learned more this past month than you have in all the previous months combined! So much has happened that I don’t quite know where to begin…

Congrats little man, you now have 2 sharp fangs to go with your 10 razor-like talons… I’m going to start calling you Wolverine. Your first two teeth snuck in unbeknownst to your mother and me. The other day I was feeding you some yummy banana when you inadvertently munched down on my poor finger… I recoiled in pain as I withdrew the bloody stump that used to be my pointer. You literally drew blood. We had no idea you already had teeth because the sneaky little bastards were hiding under your tongue. The two tiny protrusions from your bottom gum are impossible to get pictures of and only make rare appearances when you are poised to eat… They don’t seem to bother you all that much, which is good because I’ve heard some teething horror stories from some other parents and I was NOT looking forward to that particular part of your baby-hood.

You are one tough kid. Unfortunately you’re also incredibly clumsy (you get that from your mother, right?). We can prop you up against stuff and you’ll happily stand there holding on for dear life. The problem is that you haven’t quite figured out how to stand up or sit back down on your own. So, once you get tired of standing, you simply let go and fall, as if the world was made of pillows and cotton candy. Every day I wonder how long it’s going to take you to realize that our living room floor is CONCRETE. You’ve had a few graceful falls on the carpet, resulting in some minor bumps and bruises, but luckily nothing too serious. I guess that’s to be expected from a future hockey player… I can hear it now, “Stitch me up and get me back in the game!!”

Chinese Acrobat?

It only took a single day, with much help from some shiny car keys, for you to learn how to crawl. It started out as an arms-only army style crawl and has since morphed into a warp-speed (he’s gone plaid!) baby crawl. You only have two gears: stopped and full speed. When you spot something across the room that you want, there’s no stopping you. Walls, chairs, pillows, couches, daddy… these obstacles are no match for your superb crawling prowess. Learning to crawl has opened up a whole new world, and although it’s much easier now to keep you entertained, I was totally unprepared for your mobility. We realized fairly quickly that we needed to baby-proof the house because your favorite activity is to play with the electrical outlets in every room of the house. When we put those little plastic covers on all the plugs, you just saw that as a new game to play and ripped them out one by one. We don’t need baby proofing, we need Asher proofing…

Speaking of Asher-proofing, I apparently need to Asher-proof my toes. You’ve been rolling around in the kitchen in one of those Fred Flintstone type baby walkers. You know, the kind that you sit in with your feet touching the ground, and the big rack of brontosaurus ribs attached to the side that always tips you over… (I wonder if you’ll ever understand that joke. Are old Flintstones episodes even shown on TV anymore? Oh well, there’s always YouTube I guess) Your favorite activity while you’re in this walker is to wait until I’m not paying attention to you, then charge at me like a bull, ramming the plastic edge of the walker into my poor unsuspecting toes. Ouch! I’d ban you from the walker, but I have too much fun watching you chase Zoe around… she’s been torturing me for the last 4 years and now it’s time for some serious payback, Asher style.

The Mighty Toe-Killer

There was also some big news this month that will have a major impact on the next 30 years of your life. On March 13 2007, Mario Lemieux and the Pittsburgh Penguins announced they had reached an agreement with the city of Pittsburgh to build a new arena that will keep the team in the city for next 30 years! I couldn’t bear the thought of you growing up without the Pens, and now you don’t have to…

Love,
Papa

This past Saturday, I spent the day in Glen Rose, TX working on my Father-in-law’s treehouse. I hadn’t been down there since August of 2005 (I blogged about that trip here). There’s still a ton of work to be done, but it’s finally beginning to take shape.

We got the roof decked and installed most of the windows on the second floor. It’s still almost impossible to get good pictures of the treehouse because of the surrounding trees, but here are a couple – click to enlarge!

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07072/769032-61.stm

The last 6 months have been a hellish waiting game, but it was all worth it in the end!! My beloved Penguins will stay in Pittsburgh! Thanks Mario!

From this…

To this!

Dear Asher,

February flew bye… At this rate you’ll be all grown up by May. You had a great month of firsts! Your first vacation, first time in an airplane, first taste of real food, first (and last) visit to the Igloo in Pittsburgh, and many, many more.

One of my favorite stand-up comedians of all time is Bill Cosby. My dad (your Paw-Paw) introduced me to his comic stylings a loooong time ago, and I will do the same for you. Once you’re a little older, the 3 of us will sit down together and watch Cosby ‘Himself’. Anyhoo, there’s a part in there were Cosby talks about a little 4 year old kid he sat in front of on an airplane. The kid drove him absolutely nuts the entire flight. Incidentally, the little kid’s name was ‘Jeffry’ – just like your old man. For some reason, that story about a kid wreaking havoc on an airplane has stuck with me over the years. Whenever I see a kid getting on an airplane, I pray to the airport gods that I get a seat as far away from the little bastard as possible. So, when you came along, I knew the day would come when I’d be THAT parent with a crazy, wheels-off kid incessantly kicking the seat of the generic Joe Businessman sitting in front of us.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. You were a total angel on both the flight to Pittsburgh and the flight home. You were so great that we even got several compliments from the people sitting around us while de-boarding. Thanks for not being a little ‘Jeffry’.

The trip to the ‘Burgh was awesome. Not only was it your first trip there (one of many I hope), but it was the first time for your mom too! Your Uncle Ryan drove us around your Me-Maw’s old neighborhood near Riverview Park. We saw the house she grew up in and the church Me-Maw and Paw-Paw got married at.

The best part of the trip was taking you and your mom to see the Penguins play at Mellon Arena. The team might not be in Pittsburgh next year, so it was important to me that you got to see them play in Pittsburgh (just in case, God forbid, they move to Kansas City). Hopefully that won’t ever happen and we’ll get to go to a lot of Penguin games in a new arena! The Pens beat the Capitals 3-2 – Malkin scored an unbelievable goal on a one-timer from Gonchar in the corner. It was a dream come true to get to share such a great experience with you and your mom.

This month you started eating real food. Well, I don’t know if I’d call it “real” food, but compared to the mom-juice-only diet you’ve had so far, I guess pea-mush is as real as it gets. You’ll eat anything you can get in your mouth – sweet potatoes, peas, rice cereal, green beans, bananas, carrots, earrings, loose change… and your facial expressions are priceless. Thankfully you’re not too terribly messy… yet. I’m still waiting for the day when you discover your pitching arm, I just hope we’re not serving mac & cheese.

You’ve also nailed the whole sitting up and rolling over thing. It’s funny to me how excited moms and dads get with their kids when they learn to roll over and sit up. It’s never good when you have to clarify that you’re talking about your baby and not your dog…

You’re learning new and exciting things each day! I can’t wait to see all the stuff you’ll learn to do over the next couple of months.

Love,
Papa

2 weekends ago our family of three took a little vacation trip… to Pittsburgh, PA. Impossible you say? Vacation? In Pittsburgh? Yes indeedy. We flew up on Friday afternoon and spent the next 3 days soaking up the sun and enjoying the great weather. OK, so it wasn’t all that sunny and it wasn’t even close to being warm… But I still had an absolute blast, and I’m pretty sure Sarah and Asher had a good time too.

My best friend Ryan has been living in Pittsburgh for the past 5 years or so, and this is only the second chance I’ve had to visit. I went up a couple years back in late summertime and caught a Pirates game at PNC. This recent trip has been in the works for a really looooong time. I’m a HUGE Pittsburgh Penguins fan, and even though my mom is from Pittsburgh and I spent a lot of time there as a kid, I’d never been to see the Pens play at home in the Igloo. That was unacceptable, especially since they might not be there much longer… Long story short, on February 18th we saw the Penguins beat the Washington Capitals 3-2 at Melon Arena. It was a dream come true for me (hey, I’ve got attainable dreams alright!). The best part was that I got to see the game with Ryan and share the experience with Sarah and Asher.

We were lucky enough to stay at Ryan’s Aunt and Uncle’s condo at the Hidden Valley Ski Resort about an hour east of the city. I really can’t write enough about how great Ryan and his family were. Ryan chauffeured us around all weekend, which was precarious at times due to the 458ft of snow that fell while we were there. Seriously, it snowed almost non-stop. Ryan and I spent all day Saturday skiing on fresh powder at Hidden Valley, and even though it was about 15 degrees, it was still incredible. I don’t think Sarah had ever been in weather that cold (and I don’t think she’ll ever want to again).

By the way, Asher is the most laid back kid I’ve ever met. On the plane? Awesome. In Ryan’s car? Awesome. At the game? Awesome. Sleeping at night in a strange place? Awesome. Scratching the hell out of Uncle Ryan’s face? Awesome.

Here are some photos from our trip to the Burgh:

The Igloo

The Pens

Me and my baby Penguin

Winter Flower

A Blizzard at Riverview Park

Snow

LOTS of Snow

View from the slopes of Hidden Valley, PA

All of these pics are posted on the photos page under Places –> Pittsburgh – Feb2007

Below are some photos from the Pens vs Stars game back on January 26th. The Penguins won 3-2 in a shootout. We went down to the AAC early to get some pictures of the players warming up…

Sidney Crosby

Jordan Staal

Ryan Malone & Marc-Andre Fluery

Sid the Kid

Evgeni Malkin & Noah Welch

The Future

All of these photos are posted on the photos page under Hockey –> Penguins vs Stars (01-26-2007)