My Babies Are Growing Up

Anybody who has read anything I have ever written knows how much I love being a parent. I don't want to bore anybody with repeated metaphors and analogies of why I love being a parent because I feel I have done that enough in my previous writings. About three or four blog entries ago I wrote about how Jadon was growing up and finally using the big boy potty. I am happy to report that his potty training is going about as well as I could hope; Jadon is even starting to take his diaper off all by himself. However, I am not detailing a full blown sequel to potty training today.

Both Jadon and Hailey are growing faster than I can imagine. Hailey just turned 6 months old on August 1st and to celebrate her ½ birthday Celia and I agreed it was a good time for the princess to get her ears pierced. Celia wanted Hailey to get her ears pierced months ago but didn't due to my constant urging not too. The best answer I can give why I didn't want Hailey to get her ears pierced at an even younger age was she was my baby. I didn't want to cause her the momentary pain and I didn't want to somehow accelerate her growth by getting her ears pierced. I thought she was still so little and getting her ears pierced would make her appear older than she was; hence Daddy losing his little girl.

Celia made the continuous argument that the younger Hailey was the easier it would be for her. I fought my fight as long as I could but eventually Celia was victorious. As every guy knows, and every woman for that matter, when the woman of the house wants something bad enough it is just a matter of time before it happens. We men are simple creatures with simple needs so it is inevitable that compromises will be made from time to time.

We drove to Kaiserslautern, a city about 30 minutes away, and found Claire’s in the downtown shopping district. We found an associate who spoke just a little English (we seriously need to learn some German) and told her we wanted to get Hailey’s ears pierced. With such a milestone in Hailey’s life, you should already know Photo Dad (me) had to take plenty of pictures. I’m Clark W. Griswold in National Lampoon’s European Vacation when it comes to videotaping and capturing great family moments. The only difference between Clark Griswold and I is everything he did was scripted. Below is the play by play of Hailey getting her ears pierced.

Before



















Hailey is bracing herself for it, she knows

somthing bad is coming.

She was not a happy princess.

Isn't she just the most beautiful little girl?

Jadon has continued to grow and is slowly showing more and more signs of independence. Since I have been home from Iraq, Celia and I moved Jadon from his crib into a toddler bed. Initially he was mortified. We had removed him from his comfort zone and he did not take a liking to it whatsoever. In just a few days, any vulnerability Jadon felt about sleeping anywhere but his crib was gone. That was just the beginning of changes in Jadon’s sleeping routine.

Since Jadon was a baby Celia would sing him his “night-night” song every night. Most of you know this as the “I Love You” song that Barney used to sing. Every night we would always hold Jadon as Celia sang to him and then place him in bed. Recently Jadon decided that he was big enough to crawl into bed by himself and therefore didn’t need any help. We would kneel down beside him every night to give him kisses and tell him goodnight. We did all of that until last night. Last night, as Celia and I were kneeling down to read Jadon one last bedtime story and say our goodnights, he began to cry. Jadon was crying and shouting but neither of us could understand anything he was saying. Celia finally said, “Buddy. Show Mommy and Daddy what’s wrong.” Jadon stopped crying, he got out of bed and escorted Celia and I out of his room. My 2-year-old son then shut the door on his mother and father; he proceeded to crawl into his bed and go to sleep. As we had the door shut on us Celia and I looked at each other with our jaws open unable to speak.

The other change in Jadon is when he first began getting his hair cut the sight of clippers and the sound of a razor made him cry hysterically. Tears the size of raindrops would trickle down his face as he thought he was being punished for throwing his food. I also began shaving my head about 2 years ago and Jadon couldn’t even be in the same room when I was cutting my hair. One day we decided that we would use my set on Jadon to see how he would look with shorter hair. It didn’t surprise either of us when he looked handsome with short hair. From that point we began to cut Jadon’s hair ourselves but with one setback; each haircut sounded like medieval torture. All of that was until yesterday as well. Jadon not only was in the same room as me when I was cutting my hair, Jadon held the razor and cut my hair for me. I even attached a short video for your viewing pleasure.

That is quite a turnaround from the boy who looked like this for his first haircut.

Like the title of this says, my babies are indeed growing up.