St. Nick and the Dragon

Here is a Little People reenactment of St. Nick slaying the dragon with his mighty candy cane, Ascalon:

Pa's Not-So-Excellent Adventure

The day after Jessica and Daddy's Stone Mountain outing, my father--Jessica and Elyse's Pa--went to the hospital with all the symptoms of a heart attack. That is exactly what it was, a heart attack, but fortunately a mild one--or one which was treated quickly enough to prevent its becoming something more than mild.

The doctors put a stent in one of Pa's arteries, which was 95% blocked, and will be inserting another in a couple of weeks to treat another artery that is 80% blocked.

Dad's doing very well; as I write this, he's still in the hospital, but will possibly--hopefully--go home today.

Here's a picture of Elyse and her Pa from about six months ago, when we took our Christmas pictures:

And here he is reading with Jessica a couple of years ago:

We're all very thankful that this episode wasn't more serious, and grateful to the doctors and nurses who have helped him to get better. Most of all, we're glad that my father was smart enough to say, as soon as he realized something was really not right, "Call 911!" That just might have saved his life.

Update: At about the time I was finishing this post, my father was headed home from the hospital. We went to their house for supper, bring Subway sandwiches with us. He seems to be doing well, but has been ordered to "take it easy" for the next couple of weeks.

Jessica and Daddy's Excellent Adventure: Stone Mountain

Tuesday morning Jessica and I dropped Elyse off at Granny and Pa's house and went to Stone Mountain Park for a day together. Here's a picture of the two of us shortly after we arrived, posing in front of the famous carving:

(This picture was taken by a Stone Mountain Park employee who asked if we wanted a picture of both of us. His uniform said Michael, but I don't know the rest of his name. In any case, thanks!)

Nearly everything in the Crossroads area was closed. How can you play, laugh, and pretend when the toy store is closed?

There were, however, plenty of rocks to climb on around the reflecting pool at the edge of the Memorial Lawn:

Jessica was so exhausted after all the walking and climbing that she had to lay down on a comfortable-looking rock and take a nap:

(She laid down on her own, not at my request as a photo opportunity. I'm not even sure she was aware I was taking pictures.)

We took a break and went outside the park to CiCi's for lunch, and then returned to hike around the walk-up trail for a while. Here she is posing on a rock on the side of a mountain:

As we walked, we picked up various detritus on the side of the mountain, including nuts, bolts, and washers, some of which may be remnants of the mountain's time as a working quarry. Here are a couple of pictures of Jessica showing off washers she found:

How They Do in Italy

Elyse knows how to eat spaghetti, and she does it just like they do in Italy. You eat spaghetti without a shirt on, and you don't use any utensils, just the fingers God gave you:

You certainly don't worry about getting it on you--spaghetti is a wearable food:

And most importantly, you enjoy your meal!

One More Elyse Picture

I posted a couple of pictures from our Easter portraits a couple of weeks ago; I've since decided that this is my favorite of Elye:

2011 Renaissance Festival

A couple of weeks ago we went to the Georgia Renaissance Festival. I believe it's the fifth time Jessica's been, and she's only four!

Here's a picture of Jessica relaxing on a bench in the Parrots of the Caribbean:

And here's a closeup of the parrot that was behind her:

Here's a sort of M.C. Escher pose I caught as two of the macaws groomed each other:

Elyse was very excited by the sheepdog demonstration; you can't see her face very well here, but she's howling with delight as the dog chases the sheep into formation:



Jessica was very taken with the Arabian Nights-style storyteller:

(In case you're wondering: No, I won't be doing that to my beard.)

Happy Birthday, Lucye!

Today Jessica and I went to Lucye's fourth birthday party at Autry Mill Nature Preserve. We had a great time seeing the live reptile show, going on the nature trail hike, and eating cupcakes. Jessica especially liked running around in the grass with the other little girls, though I think she was even happier after all the other kids had been shuttled away by their parents and it was just her and Lucye running around.

Here are Jessica and Lucye sitting on one of the benches on the front porch of the Summerour House:

Jessica's "The Far Side"

A couple of days ago, Jessica found one of my collections of Gary Larson's "The Far Side" cartoons and, despite our assurances that she wouldn't get much out of it, spent quite a while looking through it and puzzling over each single-panel cartoon. Here are a couple of bits of wisdom she came up with while looking through the book:

Why would two cows be living in a house?

Those are empires. There really vampires, but empires are the ones who play baseball.

(I couldn't find this one online. Also, I didn't know she knew the word "umpires," in any form.)

Easter Portraits

Today we took some Easter portraits of the girls, and here are two of the best of them:

We tried, but could not for the life of us get a decent picture of the two girls together; I think herding cats would be easier. But I'm pretty happy with the pictures we did get.

Happy Birthday, Aunt Lois

Today is the birthday of my Aunt Lois--my father's aunt, actually; my great-aunt. Were she still with us, she would be ninety-three today.

Aunt Lois was one of the people who regularly babysat me when I was young and my mother needed to go to work or run errands or attend to other obligations. In the early seventies, Aunt Lois's house was one of my favorite places, and she one of my favorite people; she would let me look at the toys in her Sears catalogs, and help me plant acorns in her yard, and make milkshakes for me--real milkshakes, made with a true shaker, not a blender.

I don't know who took this picture, or when exactly it was taken; I assume from Uncle Arthur's uniform that it was sometime during World War II. I love the look of confidence on Aunt Lois's face, and the look of adoration on Uncle Arthur's. I also like to think the young woman in the background is watching with a certain amount of admiration, perhaps even envy of the young couple.

There were a good many people involved in my upbringing, and they all had a hand in shaping who I am today. I know that because of Aunt Lois's contribution, I'm a better person than I would have otherwise been. I am grateful for that.

Monday Photos

Here are a couple of pictures I took of the girls this afternoon:

(Elyse was really proud to be sitting in the big chair all by herself.)

Jessica and Daddy's Excellent Adventure

Last Friday, Jessica and I drove up to Chattanooga to spend the night on Lookout Mountain and go to Rock City and generally have an adventure. It was our first daddy-daughter overnight outing, and we had a great time.

We stayed at the Sky Harbor Bavarian Inn on Lookout Mountain. We had stopped at Gwinnett Place on the way up to get a couple of sticker books for the trip, and the first thing Jessica wanted to do was sit on the bed in our room and work on her Cinderella sticker book:

Here's the view of the Tennessee River and Chattanooga from our room:

When she was able to tear herself away from her sticker book, Jessica came out on the porch to try out the rocking chairs:

We went to the mall for supper that night, ate some Chick-Fil-A and looked around the Barnes & Noble for a while, and then went back to the Inn to go to bed. (Jessica had insisted that we get a room with two double beds because, as she said, when she and I shared a bed on our Pensacola trip after Christmas, "you kicked me.") It took us a while to get to sleep, and Jessica woke me up three times during the night to say, "Daddy, you're snoring too loud." But we did manage to get in most of a good night's sleep.

We awoke Saturday morning to this sunrise:

and a little later, when the sun was poking up over the horizon:

We met Kevin and Lisa Eames at the Starbucks across from Rock City and visited with them for over an hour; Jessica was very patient with us, working on her Cinderella sticker book and making her own occasional contributions to our discussion. But then we said our good-byes and great-to-see-yous (it really was), and the Eameses went home, and Jessica and I went to Rock City:

It was very windy up at the top of the mountain, here at the point from which you can (so they have for years claimed) See Seven States:

We had a great trip, but of course eventually had to come home. We left a little after two o'clock and drove straight home; Jessica slept almost all the way, and I listened to Bob Edwards Weekend on the UTC NPR station until the signal got too weak, then switched to some episodes of X Minus One on my MP3 player.

I'm so glad I had this wonderful trip with my daughter, and can't wait for our next outing!

Tempted About Tinkerbell

This afternoon as we were driving home from school, Jessica was going through the bag of goodies that she got from her classmates during their Valentine's Day party. I told her she could look at the candy, but we weren't going to eat any until we got home.

She looked for a minute at a green sucker embossed with the likeness of Tinkerbell. Then she called up to me, "Could you keep this up front? I'm tempted about Tinkerbell."

By the time we got home, more than half of the contents of her goody bag was sitting on the passenger seat up front. Most candy, it turns out, is tempting to a four-year-old.

Jessica Reading

Sometimes Jessica likes to pretend she needs Mommy's glasses to read:

Though it doesn't usually take her long to realize she can see better without them:

She isn't actually reading this story, by the way, but she was telling a story as she looked at the book. It had nothing to do with A Witch's Garden by Miriam Young, however.

Elyse in Color

Here's the color version of the picture I posted on Elyse's birthday. I've since decided I like this one best; I was going for a kind of Julia Margaret Cameron feel with the sepia version, and I think it succeeded, but I think the color version is stronger anyway.

The Birth of a Child: For Jessica on Her Birthday

January 24, 2007, was a Wednesday. We will probably never forget that it was a Wednesday. Anna had taken the day off to go to her doctor's office for an ultrasound to check on Baby Burdett, and we were going to go out to lunch afterwords. The ultrasound wasn't quite routine; at her eight-month checkup the week before, Anna had measured "a little small," so Dr. St. Charles wanted to bring her in the following week for an ultrasound to make sure everything was okay.

We weren't expect to have a baby that day. If we'd had any idea that that were even possible, we would have packed our bags at least, instead of just saying, "We really need to get around to getting our suitcase ready," and then not doing it. So imagine our surprise when Dr. St. Charles said, "You're going to have this baby today."

"What? It almost sounded like you said we're going to have a baby today. But that can't be; the due date is still three weeks away--February 14, Valentine's Day, remember? We've still got plenty of time to finally adjust to the fact that we will soon become parents. We still have time to get ready!"

That kind of readiness is not a factor in such decisions, apparently.

Dr. St. Charles told us to get ourselves straight to the hospital. "Can we at least go home to get some clothes?" "No! Go straight to the hospital. This baby is going to be born in the next few hours." Based on the ultrasound measurements, they believed the still-in-the-womb Baby Burdett (we knew her name would be Jessica, but we hadn't told anyone yet) weighed about four and a half pounds, which is very small for a soon-to-be-born baby. Since Anna was 37 weeks along at that point, and they consider 37 weeks to be full term, Dr. St. Charles believed it would be best to get little Baby Burdett out into the real world to determine what issues she might have that were making her so small, rather than wait for Anna to go into labor.

So we went to the hospital, scared, concerned, totally inexperience, but still with excitement, albeit somewhat muted.

I remember so clearly sitting on a chair outside the operating room where they perform C-sections, wearing the flimsy hospital outfit they had given me over my clothes, including the paper booties over my shoes and the cap on my head; the face mask dangled down onto my chest, the top straps not yet tied, just like I'd seen countless times on "M*A*S*H." Inside, they were prepping Anna for the surgery; Baby Burdett's heart rate had dropped when they tried to induce labor, so a Cesarean was the only option. I sat there, not knowing what was going on anywhere, writing over and over in my back-pocket notebook, "Please, God, let this baby be okay. Please, God, let this baby be okay. Please, God, let this baby be okay." I sat out there nearly forever.

They called me in.

It takes a long time to perform a C-section, and it was comforting that while they were cutting my wife open and pulling our baby out--Bobcat Goldthwait once said a C-section is "when the baby comes out like toast," and I couldn't get that image out of my head--Dr. St. Charles and the assisting nurses were talking about vacation plans and family visits and other mundane things. On "M*A*S*H," you know everything is going to be okay when the doctors are chatting and making jokes; when they're quiet and really focused on their work, it's time to worry.

After a short eternity, Dr. St. Charles said, "Here comes the baby," and seconds later we heard crying. And we cried.

She was skinny; we didn't realize at the time how skinny, she was the only baby we'd ever had. And she was purple and covered in blood and everything else newborn babies are covered in. But she was crying, and wiggling around, and she was so beautiful to me. I didn't know I could feel so much love so fast.

I stood at the nurses side, tears streaming down my face, as they cleaned our little baby up and weighed her--three pounds, thirteen ounces, more than half a pound less than their estimate--and put her in a diaper and blankets; they showed her very quickly to her mother and then whisked her away to the NICU.

And that's how Jessica was born.

She was in perfect health, though they kept her in the NICU for six days--perhaps the longest week we've ever lived through--before they let her come home. They never found out why she was so small, but ultimately it doesn't matter; she was fine, and by five months she had caught up to most babies her age.

I can't believe it's been four years now. Four years is, of course, really not very long, but in a way it really is. I hope that the next few years go by very slowly. I hope our oldest daughter is telling me the truth when I tell her not to be in any rush to grow up and she says, "I'm not."

Happy Birthday, Jessica. I love you.

Happy Birthday, Elyse!

Today is Elyse's first birthday! I can't believe she's already one; it seems like only yesterday that.... Well, that's the thing about being a parent, isn't it? Children are constantly growing and changing, whether we want them to or not; only we adults are stagnant.

Here's a picture of her from the joint birthday party we had for her and Mommy last Saturday (Saturday, January 15, 2011, was Anna's 35th birthday):

And here is a picture I took during a formal photo session tonight:

Elyse at Play

Here are three pictures of Elyse playing in her play yard this morning:

She was very interested in playing with Maggie (one of Jessica's Little People) this morning:

Tessie is a frequent visitor to the play yard, and sometimes Elyse tries to involve her in play, as you can see:

Let it Snow!

If you live in the American South, at least in our part of Georgia, snow is an occasional and short-lived part of winter. The last month has been a real aberration: first, it snowed on Christmas day in quantities enough to stick and be measured, and then, just two weeks later, we got several inches of it! (Of course, for this to be true you have to buy into four being "several." Humor us, okay?)

And this isn't a short-lived episode, for us, at least. As I write this, school has been cancelled for a third day in a row (Monday, January 10 through Wednesday, January 12), and the college where I teach, Georgia Perimeter, has pushed back the beginning of this semester by a full week. (I'm very happy about this, because I don't have to worry about driving back home from my Thursday night class at 8:30 on low-trafficked streets glazed with ice.)

Here are some pictures of what our four-inches of snow looks like here at Planet Burdett. First, the view from our patio:

This is what four inches of snow looks like on our trash cans:

And, a little more poetically, on our bird baths:

I know to my Minnesota in-laws, four inches of snow doesn't even warrant the snow tires, but to us, where some years it's seventy degrees on Christmas day, this is a pretty big deal. However, it's also becoming an annoying ordeal; the novelty has worn off, and I'd really like it to clear away as soon as possible.

Plus, we're very nearly out of cat food, and if I can't get out and get us some more soon, I'm going to have six very angry kitties to answer to.

Twenty Years of Me

Here's a brief glimpse of how I've changed over the years.

First, here I am in 1989:

(picture by Margarette Rogers)

I was nearing the end of college--my undergraduate degree, anyway; I didn't know it at the time, but I would keep going back for sixteen more years until I eventually earned two master's degrees. I cut most of that mass of hair off just a few months later, though frankly I miss it sometimes. I liked having long hair.

Now, fast forward ten years to 1999:

(picture by Heather Dobson)

I'd had a beard for most of the previous ten years--though as you can see in the picture from 1989, it was a little sparse when I was younger--but I shaved it off near the end of 1998, and kept it off through half of 1999. (I haven't been beardless since.) This is how I looked when Anna and I met right in the middle of 1999, though by the time of our first date on August 11, I'd grown my beard back. I gave up the contact lenses not too much later, when my astigmatism reached a point where contacts didn't work very well for me. Besides, I look better with glasses anyway.

And here I am, about a year and a half ago, in the middle of 2009:

By this point, I was a full-time stay-at-home dad of one, and a part-time college English instructor. Not a whole lot has changed since this picture was taken, except that now I'm a father of two, and I have even more gray in my hair and beard.

As I write this, I am just three months away from turning 44, twice the age I was in the first picture above. Sometimes I miss the person I was in 1989, half a lifetime ago. You give up things as you get older, like the notion that you've got in you a string of great novels just waiting to come out, or the idea that someday you'll be a well-respected professor at a prestigious university. But after a while, you realize--or, at least, I realized--that it's okay to reach middle age without having published a book, there's still time. And the people teaching at prestigious universities are so busy with grading their students' work and reading the Important Books that they're s'pose to read that they don't have the luxury of reading cool science fiction and fantasy novels (especially the ones with covers by Darrell K. Sweet), lots of Ray Bradbury stories, and books about Zen Buddhism.

So in every way that really counts, I'm better off now, certainly happier, than I ever have been.