Thursday, April 23, 2009

Just Tryin' to Help

Our good friends, the Stutts family, is getting ready to have another baby. I've written about Julianna before, and now she's going to have a baby brother.

Unfortunately, the Elder Stuttses are apparently having difficulty coming up with a name. I feel that I may be of some assistance in this matter.

You see, Dad Stutts comes from good Alabama stock. Heart of Dixie, and all that. Lots of tradition there.

There is one very traditional southern name that I believe would fit very nicely for the soon-to-be young Stutts.

I very humbly submit the name Bubba.

Bubba Stutts. Seriously, how cool is that name? With a name like that, you can do anything.

Sheriff Bubba Stutts is one law enforcement officer whose authoratay you would have to respect.
Bubba Stutts is quite simply the best linebacker Auburn has seen in the past 25 years.
When you get in a spot of trouble with the law, Bubba Stutts is the lawyer for you.
Bubba Stutts is the only fighter pilot in the Navy whose callsign is his real name.
If there's anyone who looks good in a seersucker suit, it's Bubba Stutts.
Bubba Stutts' Barbeque is the best in the county. Most folks say it's the best in the state.

It's a great name. You'll thank me later. Trust me.

2 Years

24 months, 104 weeks, 731* days.

At 6:35 pm on April 23, 2007, a little person was brought into our lives, and we haven't looked back since.

A lot changes when you have a kid. Most of which we expected, but there are plenty of things that you simply cannot fathom until it happens to you. It reminds me of the conversation between McCoy and Spock at the beginning of Star Trek IV. McCoy wants to know what it was like to be dead, but Spock says such a conversation would be meaningless since they lacked a "common frame of reference" when discussing it. I suppose the same thing can be said about parenting. You really can't fully know what it's like until you do it.

To me, the most fascinating thing about a child is watching them learn things. At first, they are little more than input/output devices that make noise for (seemingly) no reason. Over time, they gradually being doing actual things in response to the world around them.

The Kid smiled at me for the first time on June 23, 2007. I remember that like it was yesterday. She was sitting with The Wife, and when I walked into the room, she smiled.

She became more mobile, crawling, and eventually walking by her first birthday. And, of course, talking.

In the past year, she's become a little person, with moods other than "crying" and "not crying". She knows how to ask for things (by saying please) and engaging in what is, for her, conversation. Gone are the days where her world consisted exclusively of nouns, and now has verbs, adverbs and adjectives.

She's no longer afraid of things like grass and dirt. In fact, she's now entered the "dirty" phase, which makes getting pictures of her not encrusted in either food or mud a bit of a challenge. I love it.

We've got a big party planned for Saturday, so I'll have pictures to post after that.

* Leap year...