Pleasantly Disturbed Friday

It’s been a while since I posted a Pleasantly Disturbed Friday, or even had an update on my most favorite of subjects: The Grandsons!

Cameron has now turned three. A couple of weeks ago, while Janet was out of town visiting her mother, I went over to the son and daughter-in-law’s house for dinner. If I didn’t know it before, I know it now: Cameron owns his grandfather.

And then Caden, almost one, crawling, standing and climbing, watching everything with a slightly suspicious look (“Do I know you? Are you sure?”), following Cameron and his grandfather into Cameron’s bedroom – to fix the Brio toy set, play with stuffed animals, play hide and seek, whatever Cameron can come up with (and he comes up with a lot).

Caden startled his mother the other day when she found sitting on Cameron’s trampoline. And then on the fireplace hearth. It’s called batten-down-the-hatches time.

Since mid-February, work has been intense. I should write that in all capital letters. Crisis after crisis are blending together into a rather large ongoing crisis mishmash. One day I found myself tweeting about three different crises at the same time, and I had to focus to slowly check each tweet to make sure I was tweeting the right one at any given moment.

Factoid: I’ve now read 69 books on the Amazon Kindle.

The crises at work means I’m generally reading less, but I am still reading. Currently that means the World War II suspense novel Winner Lose All by William Brown; Poemcrazy by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge for the Tweetspeak Poetry book discussion; Not So Fast by Ann Kroeker for the High Calling book discussion; and The Grace of God by Andy Stanley for what I call the Jason-Sarah Wednesday book discussion.

Waiting patiently to be read are Lapse Americana: Poems by Benjamin Myers, which just arrived this week; Poet in New York by Federico Garcia Lorca; and My Bright Abyss by Christian Wiman.

If the weather cooperates, I hope to get on the bike this weekend. Several people have asked me about my bike ride Wildlife Reports I post on Facebook after each ride. I list the numbers and kinds of wildlife I encounter while riding, in descending evolutionary order: horses, dogs, cats, birds, roller bladders, and bikers talking on their cell phones.

Factoid: Longest bike ride I’ve ever done: 93 miles, from Boonville, Missouri, to Hermann, Missouri, on the Katy Trail. Shortest bike ride I’ve ever done: three blocks from my house (my very first ride when I started biking; it was almost physical collapse).

I’m still working with my personal trainer. That means I’m still doing exercises with exotic names like cat’n’camel, bear crawl, scorpion, and dead bug. My un-favorite is the dead bug, epically when I have to put 10-pound weights on my ankles and lift a 10-pound medicine ball from my feet to my hands. And while I’m lying on the floor. They don’t call it Dead Bug for nothing.

Photographs of Cameron and Caden Young by their mother, Stephanie Young.

He taught me two things about fatherhood

He arrived two weeks after his due date, by induction, and he was not impressed, yelling his way out into the world. He was a big baby – at birth he looked like he was three months old, pushing toward 10 pounds. The nurse cleaned him up, wrapped him in a little blanket, and put him in my arms. Eyes in a little round face squinted at me.

I fell in love.

At seven months, sitting between us in his car seat, he tried to take control of the steering wheel. We were on the interstate.

He walked at nine months. He walked for exactly one day. Then he ran and didn’t stop.

At two, he climbed into the car in the garage, keys in hand. He considered himself an adult, so why shouldn’t he drive the car?

He was four, perhaps five, when I noticed something odd about the training wheels on his bike. He wasn’t using them. I took them off, and off he went. When his mother saw him, she burst into tears.

For the elderly neighbor across the street, he was her Jeopardy partner. They’d watch the television show together, and she’d give him snacks.

Early one Saturday morning, we heard the television set on. I stumbled into the den to see what was up, and there he was, watching a golf game on television. Golf. He was five.

And then time begins to run together. I’m not sure what happened, but a lot of time passed between the little boy singing at the top of his lungs for a church Christmas program and a white stretch limousine pulling into the driveway for the senior prom. In between were hundreds if not thousands of soccer games, basketball games, baseball games, and any other kind of game with a ball.

Like that 1987 World Series game, Cardinals and the Twins playing game 5 in Old Busch Stadium. We were there. He explained the game to me.

College, and then his first job, working for a minor league baseball team. And then the jump to Arizona. Watching him load the U-Haul truck. Watching him drive away.

Even good things for your children can be hard.

And then he finds Stephanie in Phoenix. We fly out one Christmas to meet her and her family. She was scared to death. Turns out he had told her all kinds of stories about his mother.

Almost two years later, we flew out again to Phoenix. For their wedding.

And then my St. Louis boy figured out a way to get back to St. Louis. With a pregnant wife in tow.

And then the night they go to the hospital for Cameron’s induction (there must be something in the genes). He falls, hits his head, and I rush to the hospital at one in the morning. He’s not delirious, but he’s disoriented. The x-rays come in. Blood on the skull. The next day, Stephanie’s in labor, and he’s having brain surgery.

It all ends well. Cameron’s born. Two years later, Caden’s born. For Caden’s birth, he wears a bicycle helmet.

He, and his brother Andrew, have taught me two things about fatherhood.

The first thing: Once you become a father, you never stop being a father. How you’re a father changes, but you never stop being a father.

And the second this is, you don’t want to stop.

Happy birthday, Travis Young.

Photograph: Stephanie and Travis Young, with Caden obviously enjoying himself and Cameron standing quietly, with a friend's new baby.

Thanksgiving Blessings 2012

                                                             Cameron Young

                                                               Caden Young

Photographs by Stephanie Young. Used with permission from Cameron and Caden.

A Belated Birthday Party

Since Grandpa’s birthday occurred while we were in London, we went over to our son and daughter-in-law’s house yesterday for a belated celebration. And Grandpa got the two best presents of all – Caden on my right and Cameron on my left. Cameron and Grandpa also got to play about 30 minutes of “how many times can we fill the watering jug with water” and almost an hour of watching the Disney Junior Channel – something about Never Never Land with kid pirates and Captain Hook and a show called “The Octonauts.”

While I was feeding Caden mashed squash, my daughter-in-law pointed out the difference between a parent and a grandparent: “He spits it out and it drives me crazy, but you just laugh.” I told it it’s because parents always have things to do, while grandparents just have to be.

Photograph by Stephanie Young.

A Working Lunch

Today I had guests for lunch at work -- daughter-in-law Stephanie, grandson Cameron and grandson Caden. Cameron polished off most of a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and a pile of fruit. Caden had already had lunch, or it might have been second breakfast. Stephanie had a salad. I had a ham sandwich.

Caden Young, age 9 weeks; Glynn Young, slightly older than that

With Cameron, one has to take pictures fast, because he thinks every phone is either an iPhone or Andriod phone with his apps.

Cameron Young, age 2, reaching for the phone

After lunch, Stephanie was planning to go to the grocery store, boys in tow. If anyone could manage it, it's her.

Update on the Grandsons

I hadn't shared a picture of our new grandson, Caden Thomas Young. He's six weeks old -- but he looks a little older than that. Like his brother, he's a big boy.

Here's Caden at one of his favorite pastimes:

Cameron has taken the new brother in stride.

In fact, Cameron seems quite fond of his brother.

We call them "The Binky Brigade."

Top and bottom photographs by Stephanie Young; middle photography by Janet Young.

Family Time

Just a few photos about what’s been happening with the grandsons.

Cameron spent a good portion of the day Tuesday with his grandmother, including a lunch of some of his favorite foods – cherry tomatoes (he knows where they’re kept), cheese and strawberries. However, he was not impressed with the official food of St. Louis -- toasted ravioli.

Here’s Caden (almost three weeks old) doing one of his two favorite activities – sleeping. (The other is eating.)

And Cameron joined Dad in helping to feed his brother.

Uncle Andrew is in town for a visit this weekend, so we hope to get some photos of him and his nephews.

Top photo by Janet Young; bottom two photos by Stephanie Young. Use with Cameron’s and Caden’s permission.

The family grows

The weekend was rather intense. On Friday night, my son and daughter-in-law went to the hospital to start her induction for their second child. We knew it was a boy, brother to Cameron.

The doctor decided to induce at what was officially a week before what was the due date. Two weeks back or so, the doctor had determined that the baby was likely to be big. Cameron had been a big baby – 10 pounds, 3 ounces. This one promised to be big, too.

I got to the hospital early Saturday morning. Things were progressing fast. My wife arrived about an hour after I did.  At 10:25 a.m., he was born. Our Cinco de Mayo grandson.

It turns out that he was bigger than his older brother – 10 pounds, 9 ounces. Twenty-one-and-a-half inches long.

Everything went fine. Mom and son are doing fine. Dad is doing fine.

Our family has grown by one.

Welcome, Caden Thomas Young.

You are already well loved.

Photograph: Dad Travis Young introducing the two new brothers, Cameron and Caden. Photograph taken by Grandfather Glynn Young.