KU just beat V-Tech in the Orange Bowl..WOOHOO!!

So, my ex- calls tonight because she "needed to hear Trevor's voice"...okay, cool, I can live with that. I find it somewhat pathetic since she doesn't have any concern at all how long I go without hearing his voice, but, hey, I'm trying to work with her to raise a child, so I'm not going to deny her contact.

Then we get to talking on IM after he goes to bed, but he wakes up at one point, so I come back and explain the silence as he woke up screaming and crying for some juice. She freaks, accusing me of being a bad parent, threatening to send bills for his dental work, etc. I'm like, good grief, my kid woke up screaming and asking for juice...its not like his teeth are going to corrode from it overnight or something. I mean, get real, if your kid wakes up in tears screaming, you try and do what you can to calm them down...he was wanting juice...I had some in his cup leftover from earlier in the day...duh, yeah, I'm going to give it too him and hope he falls back asleep.

I'm just sick of the way she talks down to me when it comes to parenting and I finally called her on it tonight and told her that I found it offensive. She proceeded to tell me she didn't intend it that way and then managed to say I was warping "common sense" for giving him juice in the same damn sentence. I mean, good grief, is giving a drink to a screaming 2-year-old worth that much drama? She finally backed off and was like "well, if its only once or twice its no big deal"...well, duh, if you'd listen to what I was saying rather than being a drama queen you'd KNOW it was a one-time thing...he WOKE UP SCREAMING AND ASKING FOR IT! Yeesh!

Okay ranting/venting over...good thing I left "I will not let my ex-wife get under my skin" off the list of New Year's resolutions.

As for my day with my kidlet, it went wonderful...we bounced, we played, we (shhhhh) drank juice...he got spoiled with yet MORE presents today. I hope I have enough room in the car to fit all this stuff when it comes time to go back to Kansas. I suppose I could always leave Missy here with her folks, but I think she'd probably take offense to it. Tomorrow's my last full day with him for this trip...time always goes too quick, but I've noticed that I don't focus so much on the time I don't get him as I do on making the most of my time with him...we've got a solid bond, my fears over being a stranger are gone. He loves me and I think that pours out in the way we interact...as fucked up as everything got with his mother, we somehow have managed to still build a father-son bond that just amazes me. I truly have been blessed by God and I give thanks for it.

Well, 2008 started in about the most wonderful way possible...I was sick with the flu and barely able to stand. So was just about everyone else in the house.

Dammit, if I"m going to feel like the bottom of a shoe, I should at least have the joy of drinking copious amounts of champagne to show for the feelings, but noooooo...

On the flipside, the little man is feeling better and now I am too so I got to take him out some today (since we're in the part of Michigan that didn't get 16 inches of snow the other day...whew!!). He loves watching fish in the aquarium...he loves daddy's funny faces...he thinks finger jello is a riot...and he didn't make too much of a fuss in the steakhouse at dinner tonight (even if he did embarrass me with a burp that must have topped 120 decibels and had everyone in the place turning to see who was responsible...he officially earned his "I am a man" card by taking great pride in the occasion)

Time flies and I'm bummed a bit that the weekend temperature (after I have to take him back to mom) will be around 60...oh well, hopefully the time goes fast between now and the summer (my next scheduled visitation...and I doubt I have cause or ability to come to Michigan before then...).

Anyhow...the trip continues to go well. Hopefully the return to Kansas this weekend will go equally well.

Peace and best wishes to 2008 to anyone who happens to read this.

Not much to say about today...Trevor was a typical sick 2 year old...hyper at times, sick at others. It's been a challenge for me to take care of him because I'm still uncomfortable when something's wrong. He can communicate some, but not to the degree that I'd like to get a bit more direction to know if I need to do more and/or if I'm being too much of a concerned parent.

He was asking incessantly today to go bye-bye...so finally after the 28th request or so at 1:30 this afternoon, I broke down and we drove over to Lake Erie (yeah, I know...the thought of sight-seeing to Lake Erie is a bit of an oxymoron) so he could look at the BIG LAKE (which, surprisingly, still looked like a big lake rather than a big sheet of ice). As I'd hoped, he fell asleep for his nap on the ride home...sneaky daddy :)

Not sure what I'll do if he stays sick for most of the week and we're trapped inside the whole while. We've got lots of toys, but I don't know if we have enough space for him to run off his energy in. Even the dog was tiring out some today...which is saying something since I thought the dog could give the Energizer bunny a run for its money.

Can't really add much, so I'll keep it short. Peace to all.

We're in Michigan, having successfully avoided a winter storm to get here...we're spending the next week at missy's parents' place as I have my son this week.

Trevor was a joy...I got there to pick him up and his face just lit up as he yelled DADDY!!...then he ran to his grandma (aka the wicked witch of the west(ern side of michigan) and screamed THERE'S MY DADDY! I'm surprised there's any snow left because the look she shot ought to have melted it all.

But he's been a blast tearing thru his Christmas gifts today. We got him a soap bubble gun because he LOVES soap bubbles. He went through an entire bottle of bubbles in probably 15 minutes. He shot missy...he shot me...he held the gun backwards and shot himself. His favorite trick was to point it at the floor and make a HUGE pile of bubbles on the floor...and then go jump in them or flop down on them and squash them.

We need more bubbles :)

Aside from that, he's not feeling 100 percent. He's been coughing and stuff, so I dunno how much we'll be able to do with him other than let him push cars all over the house. We'll take him to Cabella's so he can oogle the fish in the aquariums again because he loved that over Thanksgiving. Maybe I can get a new winter coat while I'm there.

Hope everyone reading had a good Christmas and a happy new year!!

Let's see...we've had another 7 inches or so of snow...Christmas shopping this year was next to impossible...not only did I not have a clue what to get anyone other than my son (hey, if you have to know what to get just ONE person...the hyper 2 year old is a good place to start at least :) )...we've had horrid -- not bad, HORRID -- weather every weekend since Thanksgiving.

But here we are...Merry Christmas!!

It doesn't really "feel" like Christmas...we're going to get Trevor later this week and we'll open his gifts then...we didn't get a tree because the ice storm two weeks ago destroyed most of the for sale trees in a huge radius around town (not to mention that Kittenstein would probalby be trying to climb it, which just wouldn't be very good...see glue trap entry below...)

My revelation for this entry is that Christmas has become a full circle. This dawned on me in an Toys R Us aisle. As a kid, you'd rush to the tree to shake your presents and try to figure out what they were. As an adult, you stand in the toy store aisle shaking the boxes trying to figure out what the product inside does as you "Try It!!"...it just looked silly as four of us were all huddled together in the car and truck area shaking boxes and listening.

So I suppose I won't have much chance to blog for the next week or so...not that this is anything new since I've fallen off horridly this autumn doing this. Best wishes to anyone who actually reads this and here's to Peace on Earth in 2008.