Reactions....

Before we get started, I’m just sayin... would like to extend our deepest heartfelt sympathies to Danny and his family. Danny’s grandfather passed away and I know how much something like that can hurt. We’re praying for you Danny. (For those who don’t know, Danny is a longtime reader of this blog. How long? He’s one of the original 3 who were reading my stuff back when it was just an email I’d send out. In fact, the reason I started a blog is because they got tired of getting the long emails from me).

It has been awhile since my last post. Part of that is because I haven’t had time (more on that later) and part of that is because I wanted to leave that as the post that comes up first for a while. I have had many people contact me to tell me what a great job The Wife did with that post. Many have even said that she could do as good a job blogging as I do. I’m pretty sure these people were either just being nice or they were drunk. But still, she did do a good job.

We have also been hearing reaction to our news. Before I climb up on my soapbox for a minute, let me share with you a couple of things I’ve learned over my 31 years of life. The first thing is you never walk up to a woman and ask “When’s the baby due?” unless you’re damn sure she is pregnant (and by that I mean she just told you “I’m pregnant”). The second thing I’ve learned is that being lucky enough to get pregnant and have a baby isn’t something to be taken for granted. I will not speak for everyone, but I can share with you my situation. I came into this thing (marriage) thinking ok, we’ll use birth control until we want to have a baby, at which point we’ll stop taking birth control and then we’ll get pregnant and so on and so forth until we’ve had all the children we want. Well, it didn’t take long to find out that life don’t work the way I thought it did. The birth control did its part... but that was about the only thing that went as planned. It took us years and thousands (with an ‘s’) of dollars and years to get pregnant with Baby Uno (later named Mary Ruth). Well, we heard, a lot of times people go through all of this fertility stuff for the first one and then have no problem getting pregnant with baby #2. So a few years go by and we decide to try this baby thing one more time. This time it ‘only’ took us hundreds of dollars and about 7 or 8 months to get pregnant with Baby Dos (later named Susie). The reason Susie was cheaper (and didn’t take as long) is that we skipped some steps that didn’t work the first time. So here we are pregnant with Baby Tres. There were no fertility drugs this time. No months and months (or possibly years) of trying and me seeing The Wife upset and frustrated at not getting pregnant. Of course, I consider all children to be miracles... but this one seems to really be a miracle to me. I will now step up on my soapbox for one second. Our fertility issues aren’t something that we’ve kept secret. This is the first time I think I’ve really talked about it on here... but our families and probably most of our friends know about these issues. We have had a ton of positive reactions to our news of Baby Tres. (****Before I go on, if you read this blog I must insist you read the reaction to the news that fellow blogger and great I’m just sayin... friend KC had. His post was classic!****) I joked in the last post about the “Was this a surprise?” question because most of the people asking it know about our fertility issues (and, let’s face it, when you’re pregnant with Baby Tres before Baby Dos turns one... you kind of expect that question). While this was a surprise, I am still happy and excited (& I’m pretty sure The Wife will be too after she gets past the being sick all the time phase of the pregnancy). Call me old fashioned, but I think when someone tells you good news, you should be happy for them. If you aren’t happy for them, you should make them think you are happy for them. That is what friends and family do. Heck, even strangers do that most of the time. Needless to say, research has shown that my readers are smart people so I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this. There have been a few people who do not seem to be happy about our “situation”. Maybe they are and their words just didn’t come out right. Maybe they are just worried... not sure how we’ll make it. Here’s a secret: I didn’t know how we’d make it with just me, The Wife, and Lucy. Could we really afford having Lucy AND Maverick? Wow... can we pull this off having a baby with two dogs? THREE DOGS?! Are you kidding me?! How in the world can we afford TWO children and THREE dogs?! And yet we’ve somehow managed. I’m pretty sure God had something to do with the “somehow” part of that last sentence. But how we’ll make it is for me and The Wife to worry about (and by that, I mean The Wife... she worries enough for all of us... by all of us I am including you). “How we’ll make it” shouldn’t keep anyone from being happy for us. Granted, 99% of the people have been happy. Some have been so happy that I could hear them screaming when The Wife told them over the phone. Having friends and family to share this joy with makes it that much better. Conversely, sharing this great news with someone and having them not seem that happy hurts. It shouldn’t. For someone like me who usually doesn’t care about such things, it has surprised me how much it bothers me. It’s only a few people (who I won’t name) and yet I was up last night thinking about this. The thing is these aren’t even people that I would consider myself very close to. 100% of my close friends and family have been thrilled. But it still ticks me off that these other people aren’t. Oh well, I’ll get over it.

HEY! BREAKING NEWS (unless they called you, texted you, or you saw it on Facebook)! Jeremy and Rebecca are having a boy! This, of course, means they are now faced with the task of picking out a boy name. I am here to help. So the following are names that I mentioned in a previous post back in March (with the last name changed from Horres to Dunlap... because it would be weird if their child had my last name and not theirs).

Levon Kirkland Dunlap
Michael Corleone Dunlap
Ryne Sandberg Dunlap
Winston Churchill Dunlap
Chris Gaynor Dunlap
Greg Lewis Dunlap
Charles Oakley Dunlap
Stonewall Jackson Dunlap
Doc Holliday Dunlap
Ric Flair Dunlap

And to answer your question... There are enough great names on that list that if Baby Tres is a boy, we’d still have some cool names to pick from.

Mary Ruth suffered a concussion this week. Things were kind of scary for a couple of days but she is doing much better now. The doctor has cleared her. The good news is this did not happen under my watch. She was at day care when she took the fall and hit her head.

So tonight is “MR and Daddy Campout in the Den Night”. This is something we do every Friday night. It started out with Mary Ruth getting to sleep in bed with us on Friday nights (as a way to keep her in her own bed the other nights). Then we moved it to the den and we’d sleep on an air mattress. The air mattress isn’t really big enough for me, Mary Ruth, and The Wife... so we voted and The Wife now sleeps in our bed while me and Mary Ruth sleep on the air mattress in the den (for the record, the vote was 3-0). So on Friday nights, we pull out the air mattress and MR and I spend the night watching ThunderCats, Transformers, and G.I. Joe (and whatever else she wants to watch... but usually that’s all she wants to watch). We both love it.

Not sure if you got to see any of the basketball hall of fame stuff (I didn’t) but you have to see this. This clip is from when the Dream Team was inducted. Magic did most of the talking and he did great, but the best part is at the end when Larry Bird starts talking. For those who don’t know, Larry Bird is known for 3 pointers and trash talking. You also need to know that the 1960 US Olympic Team was inducted into the hall of fame. That was a great team with a lot of future NBA greats on it. There was some trash talking between the 1960 team and the 1992 team leading up to the induction ceremony regarding which was the better team. During this talk, Jerry West (who played on the ’60 team) talked about how the 1960 team had to stay in a dorm without a/c and they only got $1 a day. That’s all you need to know before hearing what Bird had to say.



Know Your Medal of Honor Recipients:

Paymaster’s Steward Michael Aheam (US Navy) received his Medal of Honor for his actions on June 19, 1864 off the coast of France during the Civil War. His citation reads:

Served on board the U.S.S. Kearsarge when she destroyed the Alabama off Cherbourg, France, 19 June 1864. Carrying out his duties courageously, PmS. Aheam exhibited marked coolness and good conduct and was highly recommended by his divisional officer for gallantry under enemy fire.

Watertender William Ahern (US Navy) received his Medal of Honor for his actions on July 1, 1897. His citation reads:

On board the U.S.S. Puritan at the time of the collapse of one of the crown sheets of boiler E of that vessel, 1 July 1897. Wrapped in wet cloths to protect his face and arms, Ahern entered the fireroom, crawled over the tops of the boilers and closed the auxiliary stop valve, disconnecting boiler E and removing the danger of disabling the other boilers.