Day Tripping

Well, we've successfully completed 1 week of daycare. Maddox is getting settled in. Nicole and I are so lucky to have such an easy baby. I really, honestly think he enjoys it. His teachers both love him and work with him. I'm positive he's their favorite. He's got to be. He's so handsome, how couldn't he be? Truth be told, Nicole and I did check out the competition (i.e. the other kids and their cuteness levels). Here's the run-down: He's in a room with about 5 or 6 other kids less than a year old. So we did a quick check to see how Max ranked on the cuteness factor. Not to intentionally be mean, but let's see... 80% to 90% of the class consists of either the "flat-heads" or the "always cryers", or a combination of the two. This means Max is automatically in the top 10%. Really his only competition is this girl named Juliette. She's a sweetheart with big brown eyes and a beautiful smile and she's got a cute name. I'm not going to lie, she's tough competition... but, as is the case with all women, she's also getting older by the minute, which in her case means she won't be in the class much longer... so we'll wait her out. Max will be king in about 3 - 4 months.

His main teacher is Miss Jackie. She's an older African-American woman whom I believe came to Dallas shortly after Katrina. She's so nice to Nicole and me and she's so great with Maddox, plus she really knows her stuff. Very well educated on child development. And the best part is that Max really likes her a lot. Just hearing her voice makes him smile, and that makes us so much happier about the situation. Plus she gave Nicole a hug on her first day to drop Max off. How great is that? She's going to be great for Max.

Something I'm starting to notice about myself as I transition into a father... I now judge stories/movies based on what they are telling and how they tell it. Used to, I wouldn't care too much about what was said or what the story meant so long as it entertained me on the broader, less specific about what's going on scale. For instance, our bedtime routine consists of Nicole feeding Max while I read to him a story from a book. Usually the stories are ones that have been passed down from generation to generation. In our case, a lot of these stories are found in condensed form from a book we bought at Sam's. So maybe this is where my problems start. Because some of these stories aren't really teaching the best lessons to children. Let's call this my "What the hell?" segment, because that is the feeling I get after reading some of these stories.

The "What the hell" segment starts with Jack and the Bean stalk. To refresh everyone, here's a summary. Jack and his mother are poor. All they have is a cow that doesn't produce milk. Mom says sell it for food. Jack trades it for "magic" beans. Beans get slapped out of his hand by pissed mom. Beans grow. Jack climbs up, finds castle with giant and lots of goodies. Jack breaks in and steals everything but the kitchen sink. He runs away, chased by giant, chops bean stalk just in time for the giant to fall to earth and die. Jack and mom live happy and rich. Did I miss anything? In case you missed them, here's a closer look at my problems:

1. Jack stops to talk to a strange man about some "magic" beans. They might as well have been mushrooms. Bad move. Now, from my son's point of view, Max thinks that out of every weird random guy that wants to talk to him, at least one of them might have something "magic". Why not just have Jack go to this man's van to get the magic beans?
2. Jack climbs the beanstalk as high as he could go. Obviously not the best idea for any kid ever. Especially since we have really tall, mature trees in our front yard.
3. Last, but not least are all crimes Jack committed. Let's see, Breaking an Entering, Stealing, Fleeing from a crime scene, Homicide and probably the cover up or "tampering".

Yay for us! Sweet dreams son.

Anyway, this week we still have a candy corn outfit to make. I'll try and post pictures as soon as I can. But I don't promise anything. I honestly don't know where the time goes. I'm working at work less than usual, I'm spending less quality time with Nicole than normal and the grass in the front yard stays long longer than usual. We'll figure it out. We have to I guess.