4,2,1 Blast Off: The Irish Triplets Bounce to Outter Space

Catherine and I were in Vegas gambling away Kelly's college fund (we actually ended up about $1,000, thanks to Cath's late heater on the blackjack table) and missed his official 4th birthday, September 24, 2010. He seemed to forgive us, and was even a bit confused about his exact birthday thanks to a weekend long birthday party started by Pebe on Friday. Like Tigger from one of Kelly's favorite new, old books, the classic version of Winnie the Pooh, my boy loves to bounce and bounce and bounce. Kelly's circular shaped UFO Bouncer unit was delivered promptly at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, the morning of his 4th birthday party, just as the guest of honor was finishing his fine French toast breakfast he helped me make, nibblely cracking three eggs without loosing a single shard of shell.

"I jumped and jumped like a crazy rabbit." Kelly explained with a grin and glint in his eye as he recounted the party's highlights to our nanny on Monday. At the end of the party, it was time for the obligatory happy birthday song and cake/candle blowing event. I told Kelly it was cake time and he replied, "I don't want to eat cake."
"What?" I gave him an expectant stare, well maybe a glare.
He smiled and replied,"Alright, I'll blow the candles but I don't want cake."
He did just that, blowing out the candles and shyly enjoying being the focus of attention during "Happy Birthday." A beat after the song ended, Kelly scooted off his chair and trotted back to bounce in the UFO until bedtime.
"I'm all sweaty in my diaper." observed Kelly while taking a pee break. We're still trying to coax Kelly away from his beloved portable pee and poop collection system.

Rhys Notes:

Kelly observing his little brother, Rhys, trying to cool his oatmeal with his moist half-blow- half-spit method, "If you keep blowing like that it's just going to taste like drool."

Rhys puked in his oatmeal this morning, tripping off a chain reaction of screaming from Kelly, who was just outside the barf zone, and Beckett who instinctively just copies what his brothers are doing. Rhys calmed down eventually, we stripped off his sodden pj's and picked out a fancy outfit together (see photo).

Beckett Notes:

Beckett is walking around, but only if you trick him and offer your hand just out of his reach. He's just 13 months old and surprisingly easy to fool.

Here's a great photo of Beckett with his great grandfather, Grampie Wege.

The Three Goodwillie Goofs: Massive Minutia You'd Rather Not Know, September 2010

Reader Note: If you're interested in watching the boys in action, doing all kinds of funny stuff, videos of the crew can be found here on YouTube.

Kelly, aka, "The Hammer" Kelly turns four this week on September 24th.
Kelly has taken to the great American pastime, baseball. Often in the evening, after our able nanny departs, Kelly insists on taking batting practice, serious batting practice, swinging for the fences, over and over, until dinner is served. He's a righty with a natural line drive swing. Thus, the new nickname: "The Hammer".

Well, we took "The Hammer" to his first major league baseball game this week, a day contest between the home Rockies (in the midst of a major hot streak), and the rival Padres. Kelly loved game and all the minor extravagances that, in composite, is a day at the old ballpark. Kelly wolfed down park dog with catsup, cracker jacks (the vegetable of his meal?) and purple cotton candy (Mom's call on that one). He quizzed us about the name of every new batter.

After Troy Tulowitzki cracked a three-run homer in the fourth, I hoisted Kelly up on my shoulders as the stadium and Kelly enthusiastically cheered the all-star shortstop during his jog around the diamond. Kelly pointed and laughed with a gleeful grin as the water fountain in center field erupted in celebration of the home team dinger.

It was hot in our sun-soaked boxed seats along the first base line, so we decided to take a walk around the stadium to explore and find some shad. We discovered a little kid t-ball batting cage out behind center and Kelly, after taking a few awkward swings with the longer, unfamiliar lumber, hammered the grapefruit sized wiffleballs into and over the miniature outfield wall until another future major leaguer wanted his turn.

As Tulow dug in for his third at bat of the game, we squeezed into a shady standing room spot along the railing behind the treed, pseudo mountainscape fountain area with a great view of the entire field. With two men on and after taking a few pitches, Tulow launched his second homer of the day into the left-field bleachers. The crowd went wild as the ball cleared the wall and Kelly lost his stuffing as the fountain shot five water spouts fifty feet or more in the air right in front of us. The Rockies beat the Padres 9-3 and won a new fan that day.

Overheard at Casa de Goodwillie:

"Kelly don't drive the car in your butt!" I said to Kelly as he was sprawled naked on his back with his feet in the air after a shower. Kelly was driving a matchbox car right up his, luckily, squeaky clean crack.

"Pebe (grand mother) you are so lucky you get to read to me tonight." Kelly.

Rhys, aka Big Boy, Boo Boo, Slick, or Rhysie Roo 27 months.

We found out Rhys' "Goodwillie eyes", in shape, also have provided him with our clan's characteristically poor vision. Rhys was fitted with fine wire-framed spectacles last week and is now sporting his "cool glasses." They have hooked earpieces and an oversized nose bridge that do an amazingly fine job of keeping them on, so far. Rhys, as per usual, while running around playing and performing other two-year-old business, has taken several face-first, head-whiper falls and the glasses stay, mostly, in place. He tries to remove them on occasion, but way less than we feared. We guess, well, he can see so much better with the glasses he wants to keep them on. Rhys has been know to, inexplicably, walk straight into walls, cabinets, and doors. I guess, in hind site, the low visual acuity in his left eye may explain these incidents. The glasses, like the rest of his general facial area, need a thorough cleaning after meals, but the glasses are certainly less of a pain in the ass than we imagined.

Rudely jolted from a dream, mountain climbing in the Swiss Alps, I believe, I open my eyes. In the dim, pre-dawn light of our bedroom, I see Rhys’ face two and half inches from my nose. He’s patting me on the side of my face and softly repeating, “Pooooooop….poooooop….poooooo….pooooop.”

I check the clock. It’s four fracking thirty. I reach around to pat him on the bottom and confirm what my nose and Rhys himself is already telling me: my boy is packing a special present, just for me, a pant-load of steaming hot, super stinky poop.

“Poooooop, Daddy. Poooooop.”

Rhys, two-years plus a month old, turned escape artist this summer, vaulting the rail of his crib before first light to visit our bed and spread the joy of sleep deprivation to his beloved parental units. He did this every night for almost a week toward the end of July and I, as night patrolman and alpha of the pack, had the job of returned the whining, cranky, little wanker back to his cozy confines. I issued a firm command, "It's time for night-night. It's time for night-night", put him in his crib and quickly left his room, not uttering another word. Surprisingly, to you, and even a bit to me, Rhys followed orders and returned to sleep, but I rarely did.

The damage to our circadian rhythms, night after night, lead us to what I thought was a desperate, likely-to-fail, solution: a crib tent. I installed the contraption, similar in structure, with jointed tubular aluminum support rods, and material to a modern domed camping tent - just without a floor. I was a crib tent sceptic but now I'm a true believer. Everyone, including Rhys, sleeps better when we tuck and zip him in for the night.

Another nighttime Rhys note: he insists on his caretaker providing him with "two blankies" before being put in his, now, tented crib.

Beckett, aka "The Brain", formerly "Big Head" (He still has a giant dome but we thought "The Brain" was more self-esteem enhancing than "Big Head."

Beckett took his first steps a few weeks ago, crawls as fast as cockroach on fire, and cruises around, walking around with the aid of furniture, cabinetry, or human hand. He's still cute as a button, just bigger and with a developing feisty streak. As the third child with two equally demanding big bros, he often does not receive the attention he deserves, as is apparent from the length of this blog dedicated to chronicling (very little of) his early life.

Micro Chronicles of The Three Goodwillie Goofs: Beckett Gets Hosed

Mom is out with Pebe and friends drinking wine, sharing small plates of this and that - forget the main we were talking about blah blah blah, oh my gosh, and, at length, about I don't even care.

So, just me and the boys tonight. After an evening bike ride with Big Boy to Little Man Ice Cream downtown (photo right), we're on the late dinner schedule (more about the menu in later micro chronicles). And the most popular activity of late for the big boys is shower time in mommy and daddy's room. Even 11 month old Beckett enjoys crawling into a nice not-too-hot shower, inhaling the relaxing mist and exhaling the stress of yet another day on mysterious earth, enthralled in utter fascination by the existence of his own hand, consumed by the bewildering functionality of his wrist and his commanding control over the mind boggling joint, and astonish by the taste - a note of maple syrup, I believe - and texture of a used paper napkin discarded down yonder in the lower plane of the babysphere.

Back to the evening's tale of thy three lads:
I marched the crew upstairs as we said our, "Love you Mommy"s and asked our "So you will be home in the morning, right?"s to the leaving ladies, stripped them all down to birthday attire and chucked them into our fancy double headed glass shower enclosure. Before I had a chance to yank off my sweaty cycling gear, Kelly led the trio of giggling, goofs in a symphony of cacophonous, shrill, shrieking that I feared would cause alarm with the neighbors and get the police dispatched to our door to investigate a possible 187. It was a riot to watch the performance of KRB - they were clearly having the time of their lives - but difficult for my auditory sensors to endure.

Sitting on his plump rump at the foot of Conductor Kelly, Baby Beckett was giving all his heart, soul, and lungs could lyrically deliver, hollering note for note along with his two big bros. The symphonic performance disintegrated to nervous giggles and then unbridled cackling when Kelly opened his own little the flood gate, accidentally shooting a point-blank, four-second-long, hose blast of urine all over Beckett.

From the dry side of the quarter inch thick glass pane, I pointlessly commanded, "Kelly, don't pee on your bother!" I have a feeling that's not the last time I will issue this order in vain.

More Micro Chronicles of The Three Goodwillie Goofs coming soon...

Bye-bye sweetie pie!

Action Photos

Kelly's maiden voyage on his new peddle bike. Rhys, scooter master.
Big Head is crawling backwards, popped his first two teeth, and thinks his big bros are hilarious.

2010: Vomit Reigns Supreme!, Good Morning (Extreme)! Diarrhea, and Big Head’s Staycation Part II

I have a the best life, blessed (I don't use the word blessed, ever, but it is the correct use in this situation) with three beautiful, fun-loving boys and a surprisingly loving wife (I'm a bone head and unappreciative on occasion), but, honestly, 2010 has not been our year. Turns out our boys harbor bacteria and viral infections on par with a wooden chopping board in a poultry processing plant. This year, Beckett, a.k.a. Big Head, has been in the hospital twice for repository difficulties and that's just the start of it. Since our Good Stuff report from Jackson Hole, Rhys passed his stomach flu along to Master Kelly and his mama. This week's extra special ailment: strep throat for Rhys & Kelly.

The stomach flu started with intermittent vomiting - a manageable 24 hour thing. The best part of the flu we didn't expect and learned to love, morning, noon and night: diarrhea, lingering for weeks. Good morning Diarrhea, how are you this fine day! Lately, each wonderful, joyous morning, we unzip Rhys' cute footie doggie jamma to find a rhea ramma in his pants with all the stomach flopping stench of a miniature hog farming operation. A oh, holly, hhaal, that is fufufufufu...hhoo, wrong. Slick, sick, stinking, up-the-back, down the leg, chunky curry, eight wipe, wrong.

Kelly is a poop liar, meaning he denies the existence of poop, as if trained by MI5 in the art of deception, concealed in his blessed #6 Huggie. One morning Kelly wandered, sleepy eyed out of room as I was totting Big Boy downstairs for breakfast. Kelly shuffled down the stairs a few steps behind me, but the stench of fresh poo preceded him. I asked Kelly if he had a poop and from top step to landing he did a Mark McGwire and denied, denied, denied, "No poop daddy." Despite his protests, I gathered supplies to do a diap change and then to unzipped his footed pj's down just below his belly button and quickly re-zipped the spastic colon horror show going on in there. Kelly's entire abdomen below his nipple line was covered in camel colored, lose stool. The situation was beyond my capabilities, especially with Rhys crying for his orange juice and hollowing for waffles, so I called for the hazmat squad, Catherine, for a full decontamination and hose down. Catherine is an angle from the 10th level of heaven.

Good Stuff in Jackson Hole

The annual ski trip to Jackson Hole with the cousins resumed this year, unfortunately without Beckett and Catherine due to Beckett's second hospitalization of the season.

Kelly skied for the first time this week. The first day was a test of my physical strength, dragging Kelly along between my legs as he found his balance on his tiny 80 cm boards, pulling him up from frequent crashes and hoisting him onto the lift. He improved everyday, thanks to Uncle Pat's training harness, and by the end of the week was turning a little and stopping, sometimes.

The seven of us took a break from skiing on Wednesday and visited the Elk refuge, taking a jarring, horse drawn wagon ride out into the middle of the 5,500 head heard. The kids enjoyed the bumpy parts of the ride, when we rolled off the dirt path into the meadow, and the first 75 seconds of elk watching.

Thursday, we took the tram to the top of the mountain and treated the big kids to waffles smeared with jam, Nutella and brown sugar butter for lunch, the specialty of the rustic Corbit's cabin. The sunny ride up in the new tram had given us awesome views of the Jackson valley and the mountain range on the other side of the Hole. With waffles from the top of the world filling our guts, we headed down the tram in an unexpected snow storm for another afternoon doing laps on the bunny hill.

Kelly had a breakthrough day on his skies, day 3, making his first real turns and generally keeping pace with Cole and Nora. Kelly had a few falls toward the end of afternoon and wouldn't move a mussel to attempt to right himself. He just lay limp in the snow precisely in the same position he fell. The little kid skiing schedule dictated that Kelly skip naps the entire week and the littlest of the big kids seemed to be waring down. He was still having fun, though, and showed no volitle fits of frustration as had happened in day one and two. Halfway down the last run of the day, Kelly looked skyward and started singing nonsense. I barked to look where he was going or to turn, but didn't seem to hear my commands and continued his giggling singing song. I dragged Kelly up a few short flights of stairs and he staggered into the ski locker area. After I helped him strip off his Sponge Bob helmet and goggles, Kelly dropped to his knees and mumbled, "Everything's blue. Why is everything blue, dad?" His Nutella waffle power had run down to emty, so we refeuled, as we did most days apre ski, in the Teton Club's great room with a petite cup of hot (Kelly prefers his hot coco one degree above room temp) coco. Good stuff, really.

Rhys, somewhat ignored and saddled most of the week with a sitter while big people skied, got every one's attention the morning of our departure by spewing a frothy puddle of acrid OJ and lumpy oatmeal on the breakfast table. Bad-bellied, big boy seemed better but fussier than normal as we hurried to pack, muscled our way through the mob of huffy vacationers heading home at the JHole airport, and waited in line after line.

Well, two hours after leaving the comforts of the Teton Club, we finally navigated the gauntlet of incompetent airline employees, TSA check points, and sank into seats 18 E & D (middle and window) on our oversold flight. Kelly and Rhys did a great job for the first half of of the 65 minute flight snacking on goldfish, sipping flavored water from sippy cups, paging through the in-flight magazine and generally handling the rigors and stresses of the morning with more poise and ease than their exhausted pop and our most of our fellow travelers.

Rhys climbed up on my lap and cuddled up for a cat nap on my shoulder. An announcement from the cockpit informing us we would be landing in twenty minutes ended his ten minute snooze. Rhys lifted his sleepy head and looked me square in the eye and burped. After a three count delay, two dollops of regurgitated, pureed gold fish crackers escaped Rhys' maw, sticking on his blanky draped over his chest and, luckily, missed me. As I tended to the minor mess with a handy wet wipe, I was jolted by a slurry of well chewed bagel and cream cheese briefly marinated in orange Vitamin Water and stomach acid. The point blank blast of rank gut juice soaked me from my shirt collar to mid-thigh. I was able to soak up and block a portion of Rhys' surprise puke attack with his blanky, but we were both quite stinky and sodden.

At this point, Rhys was wailing with tears streaming and vomit dripping from his pudgy chin, Kelly was shrieking between dry heaves (Kelly is sensitive to foul fragrances) and I was stuck in the middle seat managing the mayhem, blocked in by our row mate, a young musclebound guy hinding behind his fly-like, fancy, fashionable (ladies?) sunglasses. This poor guy lost the seat lottery in a big way that day. As folks filed off the plane, I overheard a boy six or seven rows infront of us ask, "Mom, what's that stinky smell?"

"Someone got sick. Just breath through your mouth, Jimmy," she replied.

Good stuff, good stuff.