Whoaaaaa whoaaaa, we're half way there, whoaa-whoaaa, living on a prayer

A rare follow up post!!

Yesterday LL was halfway to our January 11th due date. Yay!! Ultrasound tomorrow morning.

Now, on to Marissa cuteness. LL took Marissa to a funeral this weekend in Michigan for LL's aunt. I stayed behind due to a softball tournament on Saturday (7 games) and my aunt and uncle from D.C. were in town for a visit. But I digress. LL was at the funeral with Marissa and there were several wonderful eulogies that brought a tear or two to LL's eyes. Marissa gave her a hug and said "Mommy cry." "Pat, pat, pat." as she patted LL while hugging her. I would not have expected that kind of sympathy from a 17 month old, but there it was.

And it seems like Marissa is much taller and even smarter in just the two or three days we were apart. When I came up at lunch today, she saw me from the kitchen and came running to me with just a gloriously celebratory look on her face and shouting "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!".  She gave me a hug, a pat and then said, "Daddy match. Daddy match." Which means she wants me to sit with her and play a match game similar to Concentration if you remember that game. Preferring disorder to order, she normally takes any matches I find and mixes them back up with the other cards. If she doesn't ask me to play Match, she runs to get a ball to throw and kick. Why? Because she knows what I like to do!!

Two more things from Sunday. When LL and Marissa got home from Michigan on Sunday, Marissa did not believe I was not home.  She kept saying "Daddy down? Daddy down?" thinking I was downstairs. When LL finally took her downstairs to prove to her that I wasn't there, she said "Daddy coffee?" A good guess on her part.

Last night she woke up very unhappy about 3 hours after going to bed and we thought she might have a dirty diaper or something. So I went in to settle her down and change her if necessary. As I reached into the crib to calm her, she said "Rock a little." She wanted me to hold her and rock her in our lounge chair. Just adorable. I also asked her if she had a dirty diaper and she said "Change." Just too freaking cute.

Finally, today, our nanny (who is leaving us for a full time gig in the next few days) said that she asked Marissa what her name was and started saying "Marissa" and then Marissa said "Sutton!".

She's adorable and smart!

A "fail" on the swimsuit life preserver.

LL, aunt Linda and a fingernail chewing Marissa. Need to break that habit. Thanks mom!

Reading with uncle Chuck.

I'm terrible at blogging....

...and I really don't know why. On a daily or almost daily basis I come up with one or two topics to write about, come back to my desk, and then never write. Ugh. It's very frustrating. And it's not just with blogging either. I've had a note on my calendar to call my dentist to talk about her seeing Marissa for about three weeks now. Today I even had the phone number to call written on there. Did I call? Nope. So frustrating. I did make my donation to ALS Chicago though in response to the ice bucket challenge (video on facebook), ran errands (storage unit, grocery store, etc), organized a closet, but didn't make a meaningful post or call the dentist. Ugh.

So on that note, on to pictures!

These are from the golf course in NJ that Joisey Ken and I played on our visit there over the weekend. 

Just a relaxing weekend to meet his new addition and to introduce Marissa in person. On the flight out, Marissa was an angel until the last 15-20 minutes of the trip as we descended and the air pressure and lack of a nap caught up with her. Such wailing and blubbering like you couldn't imagine. Yes, we were THOSE people. I'll never look at THOSE people with disdain again. There's nothing you can do. She wouldn't eat or drink, can't chew gum, it's just brutal. Fortunately we took a later flight on the way back so she had her nap before we left and all was good.

Ken's baby Vivian giving me a very suspicious look. Justified! Ha!

All the girls!! 

Marissa in the sandbox for one of the first times. In general, sand is a no-no.

Marissa in pig tails for the first time. It's taken this long for her hair to grow!

LL and I holding the flag at the Bears/Eagles game. Long story about it, but we got to go onto the field for both preseason games. See videos below.

First tailgate!

#93 is Will Sutton. I WILL have his jersey before the season is out. (did you see what I did there?)

Tailgate #2. Ahhhh, such nice weather for these pre-season games. THAT will change.

On the field for the Bears/Eagles.

On the field for the Bears/Jaguars.

A different game

Time for yet another infrequent post. To be philosophical or strictly factual? How about a little of both?

Marissa started to sing for the first time today. Shocked the heck out of me! Did NOT expect that, but she started to sing along with the Lion Sleeps Tonight or as she calls it "mumbeway". She also likes Shake Sanora-Jump in Line, Baby Beluga and Upside Down by Jack Johnson.  Anyway, she only sang about four words or so, but it was pretty adorable. Then again, just about everything she does is adorable.

Marissa visited her first "splash pad" and had a great time. She needed her face wiped off once when a burst of water surprised her and she took a short time out when she scraped both knees. She wanted no part of ending the day with the scrapes though. 

On August 1, I went to my first Bears training camp. It was okay, due to large crowds, but not bad. The picture above was tweeted out by the Bears! Ha! Yes! That's Martellus Bennett, aka The Black Unicorn, signing an extra hat. Very nice guy!

On the way back from camp, my car turned 150,000 miles. It's an '02 and still runs pretty well.

LL's aunt Jean passed away last week. No only was she her aunt and a pretty fun woman, she had a big influence on LL going into nursing in the first place AND provided her a mentor in college to help her become even more successful in the field. She was only 70, but her health had deteriorated over the last year. 

Quickly on the philosophical side now: baseball card collecting has changed for me. At least, it feels different. It's a different "game" now. It used to be about buying packs, buying packs and buying packs until you got close enough to having the set to trade for the final few cards. Or, if I were collecting an older set, I would go to one or two card shows a year and try to make as much progress as my finances would allow. 

Earlier this year, I decided to start collecting the 1965 Topps baseball set. Part of the reason is that next year it would be 50 years old. Originally I wanted to collect back to 1966, the year I was born. The 1965 set is pretty cool though, they call it the "flag year" or "pennant year" due to the style on the front: 

And now I find myself 4 or 5 cards away from completing the set after going to only show and opening no packs (obviously). Now it's all done on eBay. It's not about finding the card, it's about finding it at the right price. Granted, maybe 2 of these last few cards I need are about actually finding them in good shape, but generally it's just about how much/little are you going to pay. At the shows, you could negotiate. If you had $50-$60 in cards and it was the last day of the show, you offer $40 and be ready to walk away. That's tougher to do on eBay because there only has to be one person out there online who is willing to pay a little more than you. If it's a tough card to find, it's harder to walk away (from the keyboard). Still, you have to be willing to walk away when the price gets juiced. 

That's not the same game that it used to be. Not quite as fulfilling, but still pretty awesome.