The Jack Noodle Journal

Yeah, yeah. What’s up? How’s it going? What’s been happening?

Not much going down around these parts. Well, that’s not true. We’ve been pretty busy with this and that. I’ve been keeping my head down while pushing forward. I haven’t had any journal worthy topics burning a hole in my skull lately. I know. I’ll try to do better. I need to force some typing time into my schedule.

I’ve been working and thinking about working quite a bit lately. That’s not fun. Necessary though. Oh and I’m not complaining. Working is good. There are other folks at the office that have been working more hours than I have. Our little universe hasn’t heard about the economic downturn yet. Hopefully it stays that way.

I mowed the lawn for the first mow of the 2009 season Monday afternoon. Yes. I cut the grass on 4/20. It looks pretty good. I think now that the second mow of the season is usually the best our lawn will look all year. I might mow again this weekend.

I mowed the lawn last year for the first time on April 12th. I remember it quite well. That was the day that K went into labor. It’s a funny post because it was the post the Journal was stuck on while G was entering the World. A couple of you knew what was up and thought it kind of odd that the Noodles had been so quiet.

K has declared it the year of the yard. We are going to make an effort to spend more time out there than we did last year. I think I only mowed the lawn three times last year. We were preoccupied I guess. We’ve got a lot of work to do in the yard. It will be good though.

So I have been listening to the new Pet Shop Boys and the new Depeche Mode albums on Myspace this week. They’re both pretty alright. I’m leaning a bit more in the Pet Shop direction. It’s cool that for the most part you can now sample entire albums to decide if you like them or not before plunking down your 17 or 18 bucks to buy the CD.

I’m sure I’ve probably contemplated this here in the Journal before, but I was thinking about it again this week. Depeche, Pet Shop Boys, New Order and U2. I’ve been listening to the oldies lately. Kids these days think of those acts as old time, moldy, dinosaur rock. They are the same distance away from their 80’s heydays (yeah, make the U2 argument if you’d like) as the 60’s oldies were when we were kids. Youngsters today think of Depeche Mode and Pet shop Boys the way I used to think of the Mamas and the Papas and Janis Joplin when I was their age.

Dude! 1989 was 20 years ago. How did that happen?

I know. Calm down old man. Remember your heart.

“You kids get off of my lawn!”

I think I might be getting a cold.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LITTLE NOODLE!

Yes dear reader, it has already been a year! I am the proud father of a one year old boy. It has been a pretty wonderful year.

It seems important to me to mark the occasion with some touching, profound, moving, loving thoughts and scribbles. We’ll see. I have been a dad now for a year and I love the new role. I may not be the best at it but G has made it easy for me to try.

We feel so very fortunate to be living with the best baby in the whole universe. It’s a shame that all parents of one year olds can’t have a baby as great as G, but thems the breaks.

At one year we are getting about 3 steps consistently. I think he’s walked about 3 feet at one go so far. He can walk with you for a ways if you are holding his hand. He doesn’t seem to be in too much of a hurry to get off of all fours. Any minute though really.

He is using multiple syllables and sounds in his “speaking” now. We aren’t quite sure what language he is speaking yet but it definitely sounds like sentences are being formed. Da da and Ma ma comes through now and then and that makes us excited. We are beginning to notice that he understands what we are saying far better than we understand him. I have caught myself a couple of times already changing the tone and content of my words to the dogs when G has been in earshot.

I enjoy just sitting and watching him while he plays or gets into stuff. It is so fascinating now to witness the sparks firing and gears turning in his little head. He’s doing a lot of important thinking these days. It is also really fun to watch him when he tries to play with other babies or kids a little bit older than him. He loves kids and is impressed and mesmerized with whatever the children are doing.

This here Jack Noodle Journal has kept a pretty good record of the last year. I’m so thankful that I had enough sense to write a lot of this stuff down. I have been reading the old posts over the last couple of weeks. Some of it seems just like yesterday and some of it seems like it happened longer than a year ago.

If you hit the “Baby” category there under the post you can get the whole story laid out for you. If you are reading this post now in the form of a Facebook note you might want to click on “View Original Post” at the bottom so you can see all the photos attached. For the commemorating and celebrating of year one I went back and did a recap of some posts and photos that I liked and remembered here from the journal:

Look how tiny he was!
“Gilby Henry Noodle!”
Here’s the birth story:
“at home with the little noodle”

“feed on demand”

“happy one month birthday”
“take your baby to work day”
“get the balance right”
“mr. sheltonville cryer”

“front page news”
“uh yeah so anyway”
“standing on a beach and other nefarious escapades”

“4 months old”
“gilby speaks!?!”
“mommy went back to work”
“creating a bookworm”
“weekend in the AZ”

Thanks to all of you friends and family that have given us lots of support and love over the year. G Noodle is lucky to be raised by such a village!

With each and every coming year there’s going to be even more exciting adventures.

We love you Gilby!