What A Trooper

Ha! I finally did it!

Last night the mullet met its doom. If you have seen Scotty in person lately you would know that the long brown hair he was born with has undergone a sort of metamorphosis since then. (I say in person because we make sure to hide it in the propaganda pictures showing Scotty as a perfect little angel with no flaws at all.) You see as good parents we make sure that he sleeps on his back (a precaution that has been determined to greatly prevent SIDS). While we have been good about making sure he gets plenty of time on his tummy to keep him from developing a nice flat spot on the back of his head, we can't keep him from rubbing a wide patch of his fine baby hair right off as he wiggles throughout the night. In effect what this has done is given him a stellar baby mullet as the hair below the bald patch stayed and is good and long. His mother, in her fear that I would give her baby his first haircut too soon has done her best to keep it smoothed flat so as not to peak my desire to rid my first born of his unwanted "hockey hair" (see also Kentucky waterfall, SFLB, business in the front party in the back, and Canadian passport). Well last night after his bath mamma got lazy and I spied it sticking out....way out. It was the

last straw and out came the clippers. Erika made sure to grab the camera lest any moment was left undocumented and I got to cuttin'. I think the result is a nice compromise (as I would have liked to use the 1/8 instead of the 3/8) but most notable was Scotty's response to dad wielding a noisy set of clippers (gotta oil those things man). As you may see he took it like a champ, which got me thinking. This kid is the ultimate trooper. His mom and dad put him through some stuff that babies don't generally find fun and he just takes it with a smile

Let me illustrate.

Well from day one the kid has had to pose for countless pictures. (often in flash and no flash versions as dad gets used to the settings on his new camera) So far he has done a good job as he doesn't appear to be faking the smiles, although I do think he was wondering what had come over his parents in a few of these.

He has also done very well with all of the parenting he has been getting. The combination of new parent with our backgrounds in the sciences has made us voracious consumers of the latest research and theories (all of which get tested out on our n of 1). The kid gets swaddled and cuddled, moby'd and read too, he's 100% breastfed and just says no to his binky (there are more but you get the idea). Sometimes it looks like he is having fun, but most of the time I think he is just humoring us while he trains us how to be his mom and dad.

Most of all he gets dragged a lot of places his parents want to go but couldn't yet conceive the idea of leaving him with someone else. By now you have seen the pictures at Angel Stadium but you didn't see the behind the scenes that show Erika's arm holding him up, or that we were really there because dad heard you could take batting practice on the field in exchange for canned food.

Or how about going to a BYU football game in San Diego. Rain in the forecast? Ah slap a beannie on him he'll be fine.

What? Uncle Kim wants us to come up for the weekend.......He does always pick the best restaurants......Scotty won't mind lets hop on a plane for a quick visit.
You may also notice that each event seems to come with its own special outfit (the airplane one above is for traveling as it is covered in planes, trains, and automobiles). His mom can't help it. So many people have been so generous that he seems to have an outfit for every occasion...and when there isn't one mom dresses him up and sits him on the bed for his photo op. Through it all he just looks back and forth from mom to dad thinking, "Well this is it, these are my parents. Complaining at this point is probably gonna be counter productive......What the? Is that a build a bear outfit they are trying to squeeze me into? "

I love that last one as its as if he is saying "why mom? why?"

And then there are times when the event is purely "clothing optional"

But its not all dress up and traveling. On occasion we like to make him the key game piece in a spirited game we Johnson's call "bombs away". I think my dad invented it as its one of those games with no real winner per-say. See if you can figure out the rules.

As you can see he is just a trooper through it all. He giggles when something amuses him and takes the rest in stride. This is a great shot as he ad his mom pose for a picture outside Rodin's "The Gates of Hell". That's right he's even happy to be with mom and dad outside the gates of hell.

He really is a good kid and we just love him so much....and I think he's having at least as much fun being our son as we have being his parents.

......well he may be kind of ticked when he sees some of the liberties we are having with him