All change

It's funny how things change with a kid. I don't mean the obvious stuff, the stuff you expect to change--free time, eating, sleeping, cleaning etc. I mean things that I didn't really expect to change. Things like books and tv and movies that I enjoy. I just finished reading a series by Timothy Zahn, the Dragonback books, which were really quite enjoyable, and I really did have a good time reading them, getting sucked in relatively quickly after re-reading the first book. But the series ended with the main character receiving a message from his dead uncle about his dead parents. For whatever reason that has set me off into a sleepless night of thinking about all kinds of things, beginning with thoughts about losing parents, and the life of a child who has lost parents at a young age (in the case of this book 3 years.) Michael Lewis told a story about having a movie ruined for him and his wife because (shortly after their child was born) a child was abducted from a public swimming pool while the father was underwater. He talked about how absurd the plot was, but that nevertheless it was just too much for the two of them. Anyways that's set me off initially, but it's spread into an overall simple depression. It's impossible to describe the feeling, or explain it, but I just have spent much of the day feeling on the verge of tears for no apparent reason; it just comes in waves and can be caused by something odd or nothing at all. Like the clips in America's Funniest Home Videos of children running from animals that really worry me -- Ostriches, kangaroos, etc. dangerous animals, animals that small children should not be able to get so close to, especially without very close supervision.

Today was always going to be tough with the long tiring weekend behind us. NAthaniel made sure to get us up early, but we were able to get him to sleep in a little bit when I took him down stairs and sat in the recliner for a while. even after he woke up, he was tired enough to just lay with me while I watched QuickPitch with half an eye and a finger on the fast forward button. He didn't take much of a nap today, but he was in a pretty good mood anyway. We took a walk in the early afternoon and then another when Stephanie got home, going to the bank to deposit our tax refund, bar stipend, birthday and graduation money. All told, it came to over $10,000. I'm still trying to decide what to do with the money that I got, but since my dad has said that he'll help me to go to South Africa, I have a feeling that a good portion of that money will be going to help me fund that trip. Lodging, food, tickets, etc. still need to be covered, even if the flight itself is not an expense I have to worry about (and thank god for that, since they're at least $2500 in the best case scenario.)

Anyways, going to try to go to bed a little early tonight since I'm so tired. Tomorrow Nathaniel will be going to his oma and opa's so that I can do some work for my dad and porbably meet with Andy to try to figure out some of the world cup stuff. Hopefully I'll be able to get a good deal done tomorrow. I want to get back to writing my other blog too, because I've really enjoyed a few books lately, and want to write down my thoughts about them.

Graduation today. It was a whirlwind, with a lot of standing around out int he sun for what felt like eternity, before an emotional entry into the auditorium. I wasn't quite ready for the entry and all the people in there--it was packed with everyone watching us enter, everyone showing the pride that I'm sure we all felt. Not only that, but my transition lenses were dark, making it a little bit trickier to negotiate the ramp as well.
After the ceremony, we went to the Glockenspiel with my parents, grandparents and Stephanie's parents and grandparents. The last time that group was together there was when Stephanie and I got engaged. It was good, and I had Schnitzel, but we ended up having to run home because Nathaniel had a huge explosion in his diaper. We cleaned him up as best as we could and drove him home in just a diaper, got him in the tub and cleaned up before the others came over.
After they left, it was a big let down for me; not because they left, but just because I'd been going on inertia for the whole day and then the itinerary was over. We were all tired, but I felt a deeper melancholy because of the ceremony, and the end of law school.
I never really have had a lot of friends, but in law school everyone was drawn together with the intenisty of the experience and the common experiences that I could talk with most of the people in my class if I happened upon them at school for a good while comfortably. There were some who I'd speak to at length, but who I wouldn't necessarily seek out outside of school, and it is sad to me that I no longer have the chance to just go and have that social aspect of showing up at school, walking around the subplaza and finding someone to talk with for a few minutes. And beyond that, Calder and Ivy are now leaving for Vegas. As I said, I haven't ever had too many friends; I usually have just one very good friend at a time, with whom I spent most of my time. Brent, Ben, Dan, and of course my girlfriends and now my wife. But it is difficult when that person drifts away, leaves town, or whatever. I know that we'll still talk and hopefully we will actually do a lot of consulting with each other both on legal matters and on our possible venture. But I never have been good about calling people on the phone, and I always feel much more comfortable talking to someone in person. This has me leaning towards getting a PS3 (rather than an XBOX) in order to perhaps have some online gaming that we could do together. But more research is needed.

Drove up to Duluth today for Erin's graduation. Nathaniel slept nicely on the way there, and was happy to see everyone when we got to Erin's apartment. He and I hung out there while everyone else went to the ceremony. He slept for about half an hour before waking up, but he went back to sleep for me for a nice long nap so long as I held him. I did just that for over an hour while I finished my book, and then we headed down to canal park to beat the parking crunch we expected later. Turned out there wasn't much difficulty parking, but Nathaniel and I walked around for a bit. I didn't feed him at that point because he hadn't given me any indication that he was hungry, and I was just sort of out of it from the change in routine, so when we got to the restaurant, he was very hungry. I was just heading to Caribou to get some hot water to make him a bottle when Stephanie called to tell me that they were done early and at the restaurant already. We fed him there, and then he had another bit blow out in his diaper.

When we then headed home, he was tire,d but not really happy with getting in his car seat again. I played all the lullabies I could think of on my iPod -- Sweet baby James, Goodnight my Angel, etc. and finally got him to sleep. He slept until about Forest Lake when we had to stop for gas. When he woke up there, he was really mad about still being in his seat and expressed his displeasure loudly, but after expressing it for a while, he seemed content to wait until we got home, or at least was so tired that he started putting himself back to sleep. We got home late, but not as late as we'd feared given that it was the fishing opener.

Today I helped Calder and Ivy pack up their apartment. It was a lot of hard work up and down the stairs to their third-floor apartment, with a number of heavy things, but thankfully unlike the last person I helped move, nearly everything was already packed--there was no wrangling of hangers and shelves of clothing.

Piper was happier than I've seen her for much of the time, smiling and laughing at me a couple of times, and seeming to enjoy the company of her grandparents. Calder gave me his laser printer, which we reminisced about him bringing in to school during finals 1L year. It iwll be nice to have a printer at home again (I've got four, but the others don't really work well because I use so little ink they dry out after about five pages.)

LAter on, I went out looking for a tie to match Nathaniel's so that we could dress alike for graduation tomorrow. I went to what felt like sixteen different places before finally finding somehting close, and bought it. Then, when I got home, I discovered that I didn't have a shirt that was the right shade of blue. IT was too late to go looking for another shirt, and graduation is early in the morning, so I am borrowing a shirt from my dad. The problem is that it's a size medium with a very tight collar. I'm going to have to pin it and hope for the best. Still doesn't quite feel real that it's tomorrow, probably partially because I'm so disconnected from the majority of the goings on at school. I didn't feel anything in particular towards high school or college graduation (I didn't even go to my college gradaution) but I think this one is more meaningful, as I've said before. We'll see how it goes, starting early in the morning.

Target Field Party

We took a tour of Target Field today, and it was a very nice stadium. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it didn't feel like it was in Minnesota--it felt like the kind of ballpark that you experience on a trip to somewhere nicer. As I said a number of times "It's a nice thing they did with my money."

We got to see that extraordinarily expensive sections, including those for which you have to pay $1200 for the privilege of buying tickets, and also got to see some neat memorabilia, including Kirby Puckett's gold gloves and Harmen Killebrew's first contract (signed by his mother since he was 17 at the time.)

The party itself was ok; good food, and we spent much of the time talkoing with Calder and Ivy, who are leaving town right after graduation. I've really been not thinking about that because it bums me out.

More pictures for Nathaniel today as we went to get his portraits taken at JC Penny. He was really moving around a lot, and trying to explore the studio a bit, which made the pictures a little harder, but there were still a number of good shots and we got a few good ones ordered.
Afterwards, we went to look at recliners since the one in the basement is broken; it leans to the left and forwards, and when you rock, the glider portion hits the base. We went to Schneiderman's furniture and found a good one, which we bought. I was reluctant to go ahead and buy it; I hate spending that much money before really looking around at other stores and options, but it seemed to be a fairly good price and the chair was nice. I now seem to have found it available online for less, so I need to look into the shipping cost and whether I can get it matched where we bought it. Tomorrow I'll need to go pick it up in Burnsville. David is going to help with that.
It's going to be harder to move than the current chair, though, and it's definitely going to be harder to sit forward in it, so the cables from the PS2 are going to be an issue. I looked into it and should be able to get a cordless one for $15 at gamestop, so I will have to plan on that soon. I also have to decide what I'm going to do as far as PS3/XBOX or something else with the money I got for my birthday, but I'm uncertain what I'm going to do at this point. There's those options, a home server, and a dozen others including socking it for the world cup which is still a slim possibility.
Anyhow, it's time for bed.

Nathaniel went to Gillette today to see an endocrinologist. We went in around 12:30 and got out close to three, but it actually went reasonably well. Dr. Sheridan was reassuring, and told us that there wasn't anything in particular that stood out to him as something to test for, something for which there were warning flags. Because Nathaniel has been hitting (or exceeding) all of his developmental milestones, and he's so active and is actually gaining weight (at a rate of about 5 grams per day) he's not overly concerned. This put my mind to ease at least a little, especially since we mentioned to him many of the things that were back of the mind concerns.











What we did get done were some x-rays, a series of tests called "hemi-skeleton" which involved scanning the hand, arm, leg, ankle and foot all on the left side for some sort of bone-age calculations.










Nathaniel was really good for the whole of the visit; through his weight and height check, through the doctor's examination, and even mostly during the waiting times. He even laid still for the x-rays with only minimal holding from Stephanie and me. He got to get a sticker after his weight check, and after considering Mr. Happy and Mr. Noisy from the Mr. Men, we settled on Mr. Bounce. I think it's appropriate.

After that, we picked up my mom from school since Shireen still has her car and we were passing by, and Nathaniel got a chance to see (again) my 2nd and 6th grade teachers, with both of whom my mother works. He was hamming it up for them as well, before getting tired on the way home and then falling asleep basically without any help as soon as we got home.

Finally, it was picture night for Edelweiss, so we got him all dressed up in his lederhosen and Stephanie got all her Fest tracht out as well. I also got my lederhosen and various other things on and we went to the Klub Haus for the group pics. It took a long time to get everything done, but Nathaniel, Jack and Callie all managed to behave themselves quite well, and for the most part they seemed to not be unhappy for the camera. Nathaniel even shared his Very Hungry Caterpillar rattle with Jack, although I'm not certain exactly how much intent there was to share; Jack just grabbed it when Nathaniel got close, but Stephanie is excited for Jack as a therapist that he did it, and for Nathaniel for sharing.

Tomorrow he gets more pictures, as we're going to get his 10 month shots done at JC Penny, since we didn't do 9 month shots. Hopefully he'll ham it up just as he has been doing regularly for me and his grandparents for months.

Today was mother's day and I didn't do a great job of making it a good one for Stephanie. She had to work, of course, but I should have done more for her when she got done. As it was, we got takeout from the Blue Door and ate with my parents. It was quite good food, but I feel bad that we didn't do anything specifically for her. It's just hard when I don't have a good way to get around.

Nathaniel had fun with both of his grandmas on mother's day, visiting my parents for dinner (and a quick walk earlier in the afternoon) and then a little while in the afternoon he hung out at Stephanie's parents' house before I picked Stephanie up from work. He has been interested in faces for a while, and human forms in art as well, and today at my parents' house he was looking at this particular statue that my dad has up on the top of a shelf in the music room. He's been interested in the mask that hangs above our phone for the last couple of days, and he was quite insistant that he wanted to see that face at my parents', continuously reaching for it and trying to convince his grandparents to get it down for him. So we can add curator to the list of dentist, plastic surgeon, eye doctor, foot doctor and plumber to potential careers for the little guy.

I was sworn in to the bar today. I took an oath that at times reminded me very strongly of the Boy Scout oath, you know, "courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty etc." It was a nice, relatively short ceremony, where Senior Associate Justice Alan Page swore in me and around 150 other people. There were a couple of speeches, one of which included a rather odd list of well known lawyers through the years: Adams, Lincoln, Warren, (Thurgood) Marshall and O'Connor. There may have been others, but I don't recall much more than thinking it a slightly odd list. It's too bad he didn't mention one of my favorite lawyers, Samuel Adams. A man so bad at brewing beer he was forced to go into law.

After the ceremony, Stephanie dropped me off at home, and I'd intended to get a few things done since Nathaniel was with his Oma and Opa, but I just felt suddenly very very tired. Just sapped of energy. So I merely lazed around the house, reading and playing a little FFXII. What I should have done, looking back on it, is to get on the exercise bike, but it didn't occur to me. I will have to keep that more in mind in the future, because it tends to energize me when I'm feeling enervated like that, and it's good for me. I just haven't done enough working out recently, and my diet hasn't been good either. Both of those need to change.

Today was another cool one, but it wasn't so windy, so I managed to take a walk with Nataniel right after noon. Now I'd passed this house a number of times before, but I hadn't noticed the set up on this garage before. There's a large DirecTV dish on the garage, which is nothing special, but there's also that ginormous antenna up there as well. What's not in the picture is the regular sized Dish Network dish on the house as well. It's not like the house is a duplex or anything either. I hope they get good reception. . .

After we got home, however, I had more trouble with Nathaniel. He was cranky and tired, and although he did go down for a nap after a long struggle and then happily snuggle down into his crib when I set him down, less than five minutes later some f***ing credit card bullshit company robocall woke him up. He didn't sleep like he did yesterday, but I think he probably would have taken a good long nap this afternoon if he hadn't been woken up by that phone call. And I couldn't get him to go back down. His teeth were hurting him and he was tired, but not able to get to sleep. I hate getting frustrated with him because I get angry and then I feel awful about it.

It was a cold, gloomy day today for the first day that I had Nathaniel back with me after spending the last two days doing a lot of transcription work for my dad. The work is fairly miserable to be honest, but I got a lot faster at it as time went by, and it's an interesting way to get to hear about the stories my dad is doing, which I usually honestly don't even really consciously think about that much. This was all about an HIV/AIDS clinic in Haiti that has won an award. Inspiring people, but also sad stories. Like a lot of my dad's stuff.

Nathaniel took a long long nap in the morning, nearly two hours, and was still tired when he got up. We had lunch and he went back down pretty quickly after that, and then went and took another nap for nearly two and a half hours starting when Stephanie got home around 4:30. I was a little worried about him and kept going in to check on him, but he seems to be okay, just needing the rest I suppose.

I made the red pepper soup for dinner and I thought it turned out pretty well. It was a little bit thinner than the last time I made it, so I think I'm going to try to use a little bit less stock or maybe some more potatoes next time. I think I was a little lighter on the carrots and potatoes this time because I was afraid of overloading the pot like I did the last couple of times I've made soup.

I biked to school today to pick up my cap and gown (and hood) and I ended up staying there longer than I'd intended to. I talked to Amber for quite a while and ran my few other errands--dropping off my keys and such. It's odd but after having virtually no feelings of nostalgia or attachment to college or high school, I feel a little reluctant to sever ties with the law school. I suppose that's because there was actually some time and effort invested on my part this time, but I'm not certain what else there is to it. Certainly I was anxious to be done with law school as I was with both college and high school, but I guess the key difference is probably that it was actually an enjoyable experience, unlike either college or high school. As I said before, it's not like college was a horrible experience at the time, but certainly I didn't have any fondness for the memories even as things were wrapping up. I wonder if I would feel differently if I hadn't graduated early.
Which brings me to the fact that the law school semester is ending; it's finals week for those of my classmates still in school. It feels somewhat sad that my 'extra' time is over, since they're all finishing school, but in reality, they've still got to study for and take the bar. Part of the reason that the extra time off has seemed to fly by so quickly is that in reality it only started in March when the bar was done, so I ought to include the time between now and the June bar.

Stephanie and Nathaniel went to the Festival of Nations today, and I spent my time doing a bit of stuff around the house. Primarily I got some gardening done. My mom had some extra day lilies and brought over some bleeding hearts as well. We got the day lilies in over in the alley along the garage, and put the bleeding hearts around the tree in the back yard. We also dug out a lot of the crap that was growing behind the garage by the neighbors house, and transplanted some of the snow on the mountain to hopefully have that take it over. Mrs. Martin offered me some cedum if I want to use that to fill in that space, but we'll see if the snow on the mountain does the job first.