Week 6: Dad's Little Guy and Some Smiles

Sunday, November 16th, 2014

It is amazing how much time my wife and I waste just staring at, and trying to interact with Grant.  Although I would say that it is not time wasted at all, but rather quality time spent with our son.  We will be sitting there with him, trying to get him to smile, and all of a sudden two hours have passed.  And let me tell you, there is no better feeling in the world than seeing a little baby smile at you, especially when it is your own child who you have spent so many hours and days taking care of without receiving any recognition from him.

 

Well little Grant has started to smile, and it is pretty amazing to see him smile because of something I do or while he is looking at me.  The smiles are still pretty rare, but they were much more common this past week than they were during the first five weeks.  They can also be fast, so they are still difficult to catch on camera, and so when he is in a smiling mood we will take about 20 pictures in a row hoping to get one or two while he is smiling.  Here are some of the smiles we have gotten this week.

 

 

Having a child has been a very humbling and rewarding experience.  And having a son is a very special thing to me.  I also have a very unique responsibility being a father to a son.  Not only do I have to pull my weight in raising him with my wife, I also have to be a role model to him, because while he is growing up as a boy, he will look to me to see how a man is supposed to act and carry himself.  He will look to me on how to pray to God.  He will look to me on how to treat others, friends and strangers alike.  He will look to me on how to treat a woman, and his most important example will be how I treat his mother.  I Look forward to the challenge of raising a good boy who will eventually turn into a good man.

 

This picture of Grant holding onto my hand struck me on how him and I will have a special bond for the rest of my life.

 

 

My dad recently gave me a frame that had a picture of Grant looking up at me and a poem about a father raising a son.  The poem describes perfectly what I want to impart to Grant as a father.
 

"I Have a Boy"

I've a wonderful Boy, and I say to him, "Son,
Be fair and be square in the race you must run.
Be brave if you lose and be meek if you win.
Be better and nobler than I've ever been.

Be honest and noble in all that you do,
And honor the name I have given to you.
I have a boy and I want him to know
We reap in life just about as we sow,

And we get what we earn, be it little or great,
Regardless of luck and regardless of fate.
I will teach him and show him the best that I can,
That it pays to be honest and upright, a man.

I will make him a pal and a partner of mine,
And show him the things in this world that are fine.
I will show him the things that are wicked and bad,
For I figure this knowledge should come from his dad.

I will walk with him, talk with him, play with him, too;
And to all of my promises strive to be true.
We will grow up together, I'll too be a boy,
And share in his trouble and share in his joy.

We'll work out our plans when we both will be men.
And oh, what a wonderful joy this will be,
No pleasure in life could be greater to me.

~ Hugh M. Pierce

And of course there was more football this weekend.  Mommy and Grant were cheering.

 

 

But it wasn't enough, because Notre Dame really stunk it up and lost to an awful Northwestern team.  Grant went from concerned to upset.  At least Florida State won.

 

 

 

Week 5: One Month and a Wedding

Sunday, November 9th, 2014

This past Wednesday Grant turned 1 month old!  And boy what a month it has been.  We had been properly warned about how difficult it would be, and how little sleep we would get, but hearing about it is one thing, and actually going through it is another.  It is very emotionally draining, because you experience so much love, fear, anxiety, joy, pride, and frustration...and I am sure there are more.  It is also very physically draining for obvious reasons.  I wish that I could stay home with Katie and Grant everyday, so that I could experience all of Grant's firsts that will be happening in the near future, and so that I could help Katie during these important first months.

In order to commemorate each passing month for Grant, we got him monthly dinosaur neckties.  Each month we will be taking pictures of him in his neckties while he sits in his little chair.  And when I say sit, I mean we prop him up in the chair and try and snap the picture before he flops around.  Here are the pictures commemorating his big first month of life.

Grant also witnessed the marriage of his Uncle Dan to his new Aunt Mary.  It was such a fun weekend because Grant was able to meet so many people!  The wedding was up in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C.  We got there on Thursday night and spent a relaxing night in the hotel.  It was Grant's first night in a hotel, and unfortunately it is probably the nicest hotel he will stay in for a while, so hopefully he won't expect them all to be like this one was.  He immediately took advantage of the comfortable bed.

The next day was the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner, and Grant was looking sharp.

The rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner were both a lot of fun.  We were able to spend some quality time with our closest family and friends while eating delicious food.  My parents hosted the rehearsal dinner at a restaurant named P.J. Skidoos, and it was the perfect place for our group.

Grant met Katie's good friend, Tom, and his son Damien.

And his daughter Caitrin, who was So excited to meet little Grant.

Grant met one of Katie's best friends, Mabel, who has already monogrammed so many things for him.

He also met his Great Aunt Rini.

And he also met his Great Grandmother, affectionately known to all of us as Mimi.  She was so excited to meet him, and she was dancing with him while in her chair.

 

 

We were also able to get a great Pearl Family picture, with my parents, all of my brothers and their spouses, and the four grandchildren.

And we got an awesome 3-generation picture of Katie with her mom and her son.

The wedding was very special.  It was the third wedding in our family in the past 11 months.  Katie and I were married 11 months ago, my brother Jim and his wife, Val, were married 9 months ago, and this weekend my older brother Dan was married to his new wife Mary, who happens to be a great friend of Katie's, and has been for over a decade.  I was the best man, and hopefully I gave a speech worthy of my older brother.  I have always looked up to him and viewed him as a role model, and I am so happy for him.  Grant is lucky to have such great uncles and aunts.

The Pearl family is now 15 strong, going on 16 in April.  It consists of Papa and Grammy, 4 of the 5 brothers now have wives, and then there are 4 grandchildren, with a 5th on the way in April.  This special occasion was also the first time Grant was able to meet his cousins B, C, and G.  They were shy at first, not really sure what to think of Grant, but eventually they got curious enough to crowd around him.

What a fun week it was for Grant!

Week 4: The World Series, CrossFit, Halloween, and a Little Lamb

Sunday, November 2nd, 2014

So I lied in the first blog.  This is a REALLY long blog, and I talk a lot about sports in this one, so if you are not into sports, scroll down to the Halloween section.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a HUGE sports fan, and I will do everything in my power to make sure that Grant also becomes a huge sports fan, and hopefully a fan of the same teams that I am a fan of.  I am a Notre Dame football and basketball fan, and I always have been, even before I went there for college.  My grandfather went there, my dad went there, three of my uncles went there, all of my brothers went there, and almost all of my cousins have either gone there or to Notre Dame's sister college, Saint Mary's College.  So it is no surprise that I was a Fightin' Irish fan since before I can remember.  As for my favorite professional teams, they all hail from Boston.  My family moved to a southern New Hampshire town when I was four years old, and because the small state of New Hampshire doesn't have any professional sports teams, and the town I grew up in was only an hour north of Boston, it was only natural that I began to follow and love the teams from Boston.  I am a passionate fan of the Boston Red Sox, the New England Patriots, and the Boston Celtics...and probably in that order.  My wife, Katie, is also a big sports fan, but she is more selective with the teams that she follows.  She is a die-hard Florida State football fan because she went there for college.  She doesn't really follow professional football, even though she grew up in Miami and a lot fo her friends are big time Dolphins fans.  She also loves the professional basketball team, the Miami Heat.  Her favorite player is LeBron James, and even though she was sad to see him leave the Heat, he is still her favorite player.  She is not a fan of college basketball or Major League Baseball either, so I have no competition with the Boston Red Sox, New England Patriots, or Notre Dame basketball when it comes to raising Grant and teaching him what teams to root for.  You already saw some of his Notre Dame and Florida State outfits from the Week 2 blog, but we have already started him early with some other sports outfits.

We do live in Virginia, so there is the chance that Grant might pick different teams to root for.  I am pretty sure that he will be a Notre Dame and Florida State fan until he goes to college and falls in love with his school's team.  However, as far as professional sports go, there is a big chance that he could grow up to be a Washington Nationals and Redskins fan, or possibly a Baltimore Orioles and Ravens fan.  Those cities and teams are a lot closer to where we live than the teams from Boston and Miami.  Additionally, most of his friends growing up will probably be fans of those teams, making those teams more appealing to him than my teams from Boston.

I bring up the topic of sports because I think it is a very cool idea to chronicle the different champions during Grant's life.  The World Series just ended on Wednesday night in dramatic fashion, with the San Francisco Giants beating the Kansas City Royals 3-2 in Game 7.  It is the Giants' third World Series win in the past five years, while it was the first time the Royals had made it to the postseason since their 1985 World Series win, a playoff drought of 28 years.  Whenever I don't really care about a team, I usually root for the underdog, and the underdog was definitely the Royals.  Throughout my entire life up to this point I had only ever known the Royals as a bad team that always finished with a losing record and near the bottom of the standings.  So it was cool to see them almost win a championship.  Grant, only being three and a half weeks old, was not very interested in the game.  He was too busy feeding to watch the exciting bottom of the 9th inning, when the Royals got a guy to third base with two outs, 90 feet away from tying the game and sending it to extra innings, before the Giants recorded the championship-clinching out.  Katie does not know or care about many MLB players, but she LOVES the Giant's catcher, Buster Posey, because he went to FSU and she thinks he is adorable.  Below are pictures of the Giants' reactions to winning, and Grant's reaction to the Giants winning.


Meanwhile, my team, the Boston Red Sox, just finished a 3-year stretch of going from last place, to first place World Series Champions, to last place again this year.  I believe that is the first time in MLB history that a team has gone from worst, to first, to worst in a 3-year span.  Maybe that just means that the Red Sox will be first again next year.  Here's to hoping!

Another sport that I have grown to love is CrossFit.  Watching the CrossFit games on TV is pretty cool...some of those men and women are just ridiculous athletes.   I joined a CrossFit gym at the beginning of the year, and I will definitely be sticking with it for the foreseeable future.  I hope that once Grant gets old enough to start working out that he will join me at CrossFit.  But for now, bringing him in and showing him off to all of my workout buddies will suffice.  And yes, that is a kettlebell onesie that Grant is wearing.  And the last one is of Grant flexing in his sleep...already practicing showing off for the ladies.


It was also Halloween this week.  We got Grant a Little Lamb Halloween costume.  Anyone who knows Katie knows that one of her favorite things to do is identify people as little lambs.  It is a term conferred upon people who have one of, but not necessarily all of, these attributes:  little, gentle, sweet, awkward, innocent, nerdy, or nervous.  For example, sometimes we will be watching Jeopardy, and there are often contestants who are a little awkward, nerdy, or nervous...and sometimes all three.  When they nervously stutter through an answer or a fun fact about themselves, Katie will often refer to them as little lambs.  Katie has also referred to Grant as a little lamb, mainly because he is so small and fragile, so when she found an infant lamb costume, she just had to buy it for Grant.  Katie and I spent Friday evening with this little lamb passing out candy to all the Trick-or-Treaters who came to our door.

Once Grant is able to stand and walk, hopefully by next Halloween, he will definitely be dressing up as Dr. Alan Grant from Jurassic Park.

It should be pretty easy.  I will need all of these things, but in toddler sizes.

I will finish off this post with a picture that Katie was able to snap of one of Grant's rare smiles.