Spit Up Season

I write this as spit-up oozes down my neck. Don't get me wrong, I love the kid, but I'm definitely struggling through a major readjustment of priorities and expectations.

And so as of this morning, I've decided that by June if my two children are still breathing and if Lia and I have not gone certifiably insane, then I will consider this spring an achievement of monumental proportions. Anything else that manages to get done will be gravy.

All Night Long

Two weeks ago I slept with another woman all night long. The all night was the most amazing part. Because the woman was Anna Rose. We went camping down the basement. Lia, the rational one, decided to forego the sleeping bag for the bed. But A-Ro and I braved it.

To make things more interesting we had Mexican for dinner.

We decided to let Anna stay up a bit later than usual. Wake Forest happened to be playing that night. She likes watching basketball. We got to halftime. It wasn't looking pretty. The Deacs. They were not looking pretty. So A-Ro and I cashed in our chips. We read Harold and the Purple Crayon and an Oliver Jeffers book called Lost and Found then said our prayers and fell asleep. I did. A-Ro must have about the same time. Our heads were still touching the way they had been when we were reading books four hours earlier. I placed a blanket on her and managed to maneuver myself to comfortable. I woke up again around three in the morning. She was sleeping peacefully perpendicular to me. At five she woke up. I think it was crying David that did it actually. But she was wired. And I was not ready. So I took her upstairs, prepared her some milk, carried her back down to the tent and handed her Harold. I said, "Read yourself a book, I'm going to bed." Which is what I did. I drifted off to the turning of pages and Anna Rose's unique lilt whispering and the moon went with him. I woke up at 8:30 feeling refreshed. Anna Rose was sleeping perpendicular to me, her head on my rib. She woke up a few minutes later. I could hardly believe we had done it.

Operation next time: the backyard.

The Arnold

Yes, this is a woman. Her voice (a full octave lower than mine) may entice some to question the truth of my claim. But it is true. I think it is. Her name is Sheila - one of the bazillion jawdropping things/people I witnessed at my first ever Arnold Sports Festival last weekend.

"The Arnold" as people in Columbus, Ohio refer to it is an event like no other. This is from a press release: "Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jim Lorimer held the First Arnold Classic in 1989 as a one-day event. Today the Arnold Sports Festival is recognized as the largest multi-sport Festival in the nation and the greatest sports-fitness experience of a lifetime." Experience - yes that is the word. You just have to experience it.

Rich Simpson, Jeremy Logsdon, Todd Vishnauski, David Baker and I spent Saturday at the festival. We saw everything from the Squat Competition to the a World's Strongest Man event to Ping Pong (yes, even Ping Pong). The EXPO itself is worth the price of admission. The Sheila picture just doesn't do the woman justice. (By the way, take a look at the other people in the background. They're almost as jacked!) You have to experience her to believe it. And she was just one member of the eye-candy entourage plastered all over the 700 booth EXPO in the main floor. Oh, we also got to see Arnold.

I really don't have much more to add. You really should peruse the website. http://arnoldsportsfestival.com/

One thing is sure: I am going again though it may take awhile. As David Baker told me on the way to the convention center: "It took me five years to get over the last Arnold." Having attended, I now understand.