The 5 stages of pancake eating (according to Daven)

Daven enjoys pancakes. No, that's an understatement. Daven LOVES pancakes. That still doesn't do it justice. If there were no pancakes, there would be no Daven. The loss would be too great for him and he wouldn't be able to go on. But watching him eat (i.e. inhale) the pancakes is only part of the show. There are distinct stages that we go through when it is pancake day. I'll review each of those now.

Stage 1: Excitement-- Usually pancake day happens on the weekend when both Elli and I are home with Dav. Lately this has been harder and less frequent, so we've resorted to just making pancakes on the weekend whenever one of us has the time and nothing planned. When you announce to Daven that it's pancake day, you are rewarded with a shout of "Pancakes!" and then having him run frantically around the kitchen and the rest of the house squealing excitedly. You are now on the clock and you'd better get moving with the making and cooking of those hotcakes.

Stage 2: Anger-- No matter how fast you mix the flour and the milk with the eggs and brown sugar, it is never fast enough for Daven. Mind you he exists to eat pancakes, and he is not pleased with having to wait. I have actually debated about making the batter the night before so that it's ready to go, but have never done it yet. So about 5 minutes after announcing that we're eating pancakes, Daven comes back into the kitchen exclaiming how he wants pancakes. "A couple more minutes and they'll be ready", you reply, to which his reply is simply a whiny "want pancakes!". Best to ignore him and he'll eventually storm back into the dining room and wait for your incompetence to resolve itself.

Stage 3: Anticipation-- At this point the pancakes are cooking on the griddle and you can now ask Daven what he wants to drink. His reply more often than not is a juice box, but you can simply ignore him and fill up a glass with milk. After putting it on his spot in the table, you ask him if he is ready for pancakes, in which he blurts out a very enthusiastic "Yeah!". You then go back to your pancake flipping and get everything ready with regard to the silverware and plates.

Stage 4: ADD-- By now Daven has managed to find his trucks and what not and is busy playing with those. Even the allure of pancakes isn't quite enough to overcome his attention deficit, so although he may not have forgotten about the pancakes, he simply is too busy with other stuff to bother you about how slow you are preparing the flapjack feast. However, simply asking him to get into his chair snaps him back to the task at hand and he runs over, again requesting a juice box, and climbs eagerly into his chair. He may or may not request a fork at this point.

Stage 5: Whirlwind-- Now it's time to eat. I've always given Daven two pancakes right off the bat, but it would seem wise to just prepare and hand him 4, cause that's always the MINIMUM number he eats these days. By the time you've sat down with your own plate of steaming pancakes, he's already done and asking for more. You have to remind him to take a sip of milk to wash everything down. He does so, and then repeats his request for more. He does say please, and it's hard to resist when he smiles while he asks.

It's all just another fun activity we do. Plus Elli and I like pancakes as well, so it's a win for everyone.



P.S. I know some of you are anxious to hear about the HHH. Rest assured I will be posting something (or somethings) about the ride starting next week hopefully. It's tough because how do I put into words the single greatest ride I've had up to this point? I'm sure I'll find a way. Keep checking in!

The Doctor will not be seeing you today...

I've wanted to be a Doctor for a good long time now. It started after I got mixed up into the Med Tech field, which was about a month before I was supposed to graduate with my Biology degree. Regardless, once I got going in the lab my fascination with medicine kind of starting running.

However it took me 3 years of college to actually buckle down and study. Before that I was a C student or so. The first two years I was kind of bored with my classes and didn't try all that much. Then the 3rd year of college I made my glorious come back to baseball. That was a lot of fun however school was put on the backburner and my grades suffered because of it. Only at the start of my 4th year did a light come on. Maybe it was the classes got more specialized or maybe I just matured some. Regardless, I pretty much did a 180 and aced most of my classes. As I dove more into Microbiology, Molecular Genetics, Anatomy and Phys, and Biochem, I realized that my passion wasn't all about Micro. It was getting more into the body, and what can go wrong and how do we fix it. The idea of being a Doctor starting blipping on my radar.

But then I sat back and truly looked. Yes I was getting good grades and living up to the potential student wise that I should be. But let's face it: I pissed away 3 years of school and even if I got straight A's, the GPA wouldn't be where it needs to be. Also, I was almost done with school, I was recently married, and I was looking forward to getting out of the classroom and getting a job and making some money and not flipping textbooks. My job as a Med Tech looked stable and promising, and I was able to push the whole Dr. bit back into the recesses of thought.

Or so I thought.

The more I worked in the lab, and then even more so when I went into the BB full time and started dealing more personally with surgery and what not, the more the fascination with medicine built up. I would see new procedures I never heard of before on the surgery schedule and look up all kinds of things about it until I had a firm grasp on what the basic principle behind it was. If a patient was admitted with some sort of disease I didn't hear about, I looked that up too. It all fueled the fascination until last October I couldn't keep denying the thought of going to Med School. So I announced shortly thereafter to Elli that I wanted to take an MCAT prep course, take the MCAT, and see what happens. I had read that Med Schools like the Med Tech degree, and couple that with my work experience, good letters of recommendations, and a strong MCAT score I could make up for the lower than average GPA and put together a competitive application. The MCAT score was my key I thought, so I wanted to prepare as best as I could. Therefore I thought the MCAT class was needed to guide me to the promised land.

The course did help a lot. My brain remembered lots of stuff, it was just a matter of pulling back up to the surface. I improved each week, studied hard, and saw my practice test scores reflect the hours of putting my nose to the grindstone. As the date got closer to the test, I got less and less worried. "I know this stuff" I thought. I worked harder at Organic Chem and Biology to make up the slack that I would have from Gen Chem and Physics. I even took a whole week off of work so that I could do lots of review and tie up loose ends. The date was nearly here and I felt good and prepared.

Test day came one Saturday. I opted for the afternoon session which started at 1:30pm. I got to the testing center around noon. I found a place to eat and tried to remain calm. I went into it feeling great. During the test I was good and focused, and thought that I paced myself well. I had about 5 minutes left after each section so I was right on the mark with that regard. When it was all over, I couldn't get a read on how I did. I told people I either did really well, or bombed it big time. But I honestly thought it was the first scenario, in that I did really well.

I needed to score slightly above average in order to make a competitive bid. The scores weren't gonna be released for about 3 weeks, so I just tried to go about my business until that time.

When the day finally came, I was checking about every hour or so for a score. And at 2:30pm on May 11th, my score was finally released.

And my dream of being a Doctor was instantly shattered.

I haven't told anyone my score except Elli. I needed slightly above average. I didn't even come close to average. I have no idea what happened. When I saw the score, I was in nothing more than shock. I remember swearing out loud and struggling to wrap my mind around the number I was looking at. Life sucker punched me. Bigtime. When I went home and told Elli, I remember saying to her that I felt like I let everyone down. Lots of people were rooting for me and saying what a great addition I would be to the field, and even though I joked that this was all for not I truly believed I would at least be able to be in contention. With the score I received though, it wasn't even worth doing the application.

I was at rock bottom morale wise, but Elli quickly started picking me back up that night by looking me in the eyes and telling me that I didn't let anyone down and to never say that again. She wasn't the only one. Throughout this journey all of my friends have rallied behind me and encouraged me to go for it. They all asked how the class was going, and after I took the test they were on me every day asking me if I heard anything yet. And when word started getting out that I bombed the test big time, I was instantly flooded with the same people telling me to keep my chin up. No matter what the test number was, it means nothing as far as what type of person I am I was told. I was reminded to take stock of what I had: a very supportive and loving wife, a healthy and spirited little boy, a great network of friends and family, and a stable job that allows me to provide for all of it.

I consider the whole experience a success. Yes I wish I would've at least been able to get to an interview for Med School. However this situation really let me see the big picture. Life delivered one hell of a sucker punch, and it floored me. I struggled to get up from it, but then I was offered a whole bunch of hands to help me back up. These same hands then dusted me off and pointed me back in the right direction to look at life right in the eyes and ask it, "Is that all you got?"

If you are reading this, chances are you were one of those hands. And for that, I sincerely thank you. What's next for me? I'm not sure yet. I'm kicking a few ideas around but nothing big and exciting. Mostly for now I want to sit back and put in hours at work and be a good family man. With Elli graduated from Nursing School, this is the first time in our 11 years together one of us hasn't been in school. So we're looking forward to slowing things down and having a little bit of peace and quiet.

Although that won't last long if at all. We have a toddler son who turned two last March and knows only running as his speed.

And Elli is due with our second in January.

Light/Lite/Crappy Beer...

Light beers are only good for one thing: funny commercials.

Both Bud Light and Miller Lite have commercials that are hilarious. Even Keystone Light recently released the "Keith Stone" commercial. Funny stuff. But that's it as far as positives from me about light beer.

Listen up Nancy's. If you have one of these can's of weasel piss in your hand, you do not get to do the following ever again:

1) Insult other people drinking beer, especially real beer. Ever notice how no one with a bottle of Summit or a mug of Guinness ever gets made fun of?

2) Complain how you'd better slow down so that you don't feel like crap in the morning. You're basically drinking water so you're fine.

3) Say how "absolutely destroyed" you are when drinking your barley flavored water. No you're not. Stop it.

4) Demand that other people drink more. One can of real beer is basically 4 of yours put together. We're drinking plenty. You're the Girl Scout of the crew.

5) At most you may have a slight headache the following morning, but you do not get to compare it ever to the massive hangover those of us professional drinkers experience from time to time.

However, those with a lite brew in hand are allowed to do the following:

1) Fetch the real beer for the real drinkers.

2) Wear a skirt.

3) Put a lemon wedge in it. Hey, I do it with water sometimes so why not give a little taste to that goat spit you're drinking huh?

4) Tap the top of other lite beer drinkers bottles. It's funny to see the reaction of the victim and it's not wasting actual beer.

5) Buy drinks for everyone else (Appendum: It IS acceptable to complain about free lite beer. It's that bad).

Grab a Stout, slug it down, and experience what beer is supposed to be you ninnies.

Gone but not forgotten...

For the ones we've lost but will never forget, we celebrate this day.

Happy Memorial Day all!

Congratulations to the class of 2010!!!

Our next door neighbor's son had his open house today for high school graduation. I remember mine 11 years ago (that means yours was 15 years ago Heather!) and remember thinking that it took forever to get to that point.

Then college flew by, I got married, landed a job, bought a house, had a son, and now here I am 11 years later. That time also flew on by.

It is amazing how quickly time goes by, and thanks to the events held next door today and the fact that it is Memorial Day weekend I take a moment to reflect on where I'm at. It is a very good point right now. Stable and happy.

But it does go by really fast. And like I've said countless times before, reminders are needed to slow down and take each moment in. Every second is the past.

Bragging Rights...

(It's a long one, but hey, it was a long journey.)

Last weekend was a busy one. It started Thursday night and ended Sunday afternoon. Today I took off of work to recover. Anyhow, the activities involved in the busy weekend included the following: My Mom graduated with an Associates degree in Administrative Assistance, Elli graduated with her B.S. in Nursing, and I had my annual pilgrimage up North to partake in opener. The highlight though was my wife's achievement. It was 3 years in the making, and they were anything but smooth.

Elli went to school initially at Madison. While there she gained the highly coveted degree that is Scandinavian Studies. Yup, that's what I said. It's a branch of History if I understand correctly. What do you do with that you ask? I honestly have no idea. She never really used it. There was a blip once with a travel agency and Norway trips or something like that a few years ago, but after college she moved up North with me to Bemidji while I finished my degree, and then went out west to teach skiing in Utah for a season, and then went with me out West to Montana for my internship. Along the way she held jobs at a few different banks as a teller, she worked at a tanning salon, and at a JCPenneys. She also did temp work. Once I graduated, we moved back to MN and I promptly procured work down at the VA, and she went back to work as a bank teller downtown.

For those of you with kids, if they ever want a degree in any form of history, do me a favor will you? Hit them. It's a pointless degree.

Anyhow, as she tells it, she came across Nursing while looking at the want ads and noticed all of the nursing jobs available (what a difference a few years make huh?). She then thought that may be something she could get into. She liked the idea of working with patients and hey, it seemed like it would be a steady job. So she ran with it, getting a Nursing Aid certificate and took prereq's for the School of Nursing down at the U of MN. The pre stuff took a year to do, and then she went ahead and applied. She had high marks, a little experience with the NA stuff, and had a rather strong application. She applied to both programs at the U and then we waited around for an answer.

Things did not work out as we had planned.

Elli got "wait listed" for both programs, which pretty much meant she shouldn't count on getting in. Lots of people were applying and it would be rather doubtful that a spot would open up. They pretty much told her this much when she called asking why someone straight out of high school would be a stronger applicant than her. This was our first taste of what type of place the U of MN Nursing School was. Anyhow, we pretty much went into plan B.

It should be mentioned now that Elli and I have never ever had a boring life. We've always had multiple things going on at once. We've pretty much had to juggle time our almost 11 years together. As a point of reference, the last time we had a weekend free together with nothing going on was back in March sometime. We won't have another one until July 4th weekend.

So what was Plan B then? We agreed that we didn't want to put Life on hold for her to get into Nursing school. So we thought that if she didn't get in for some reason, we would try to start a family and reevaluate later.

The summer moved on. Elli continued working as an NA at Fairview University, I went on with the VA worklife, and we just kind of went about our business. We didn't really talk about Nursing school or anything along those lines. There wasn't anything we could do. They were gracious enough to tell Elli how many people were on the wait list (lots) but wouldn't say were on that list you were. We moved into the long days of July, and one day while Elli was napping our fate was delivered to us in a form of a letter. I checked the mail that day and saw an envelope that for some reason thought was mine. So I committed a federal crime and opened up someone else's mail. I opened the letter and saw the seal from the U's Nursing school at the top. "Eh" I thought, "I went this far, may as well read what it says." And so I did.
"Dear Elli" it began, "Congratulations..." That's all the farther I got. I remember clearly stumbling in the driveway due to the shock. "It said Congratulations!!" I said to myself. It was from the Nursing School and said congrats. Which means she got in. I sprinted to the door, forced my mind to comprehend the difficult task of opening the door, raced through the kitchen, maneuvered around 200lbs of dogs, flew up the stairs and burst into the room where my wife was sleeping peacefully after a long nights work. Her eyes fluttered open sleepily.

"Hi!" I said.

"What do you want?" said my wife drowsily.

"You got in." I said as I showed her the letter.

She almost hit the ceiling. She was very much awake now. We hugged, reread the letter about 5 times to make sure it was what we thought, and then she needed to call someone. Anyone. She got ahold of her sister. Once the initial excitement went away, we then took stock. We agreed that we better stop trying for a baby seeing as though we were staring at 3 more years of school for her. We were both a little disappointed with this idea, but thought it was for the best. It would be just too hard to raise a kid with one of us in school full time and the other working full time, and her working while going to school full time. Where would we find the time to do that with a youngin' in the mix.

HA!

July ended up being a great month. Elli got in, and we were rapidly moving forward with that. She got everything squared away as far as admissions info and was all set to start school. At this point I should tell a little back story. When Elli was initially wait listed, (i.e. rejected) from Nursing School and we decided to try for a family, we would joke about that this was us we were talking about. "You know what's gonna happen don't you?" one of us would ask the other, "We're gonna find out that we have a baby on the way and then also find out about the same time that Nursing school will have an open slot". We'd just laugh and say how silly the other person was.

I was typing at the computer. It was a rather hot day. Elli walked by me in an unusual way. I remember thinking that. She's the worst at sneaking, and she was definitely up to something. But I really didn't pay her much notice and she retreated back upstairs. Type type type went I. A few minutes later she came back down, acting the same unusual way. "Remember how we said that I would get into Nursing School and then we would find out that I'm pregnant?" she asked me. "Ya." I said still typing away. It was then she layed down "The Stick" so that I could see the positive sign. I was floored. I didn't even think about how we were gonna do all of this. I was just uber excited that we were gonna be parents.

The Summer went by and Fall came. Game on. It all began. Elli was kind of nervous being that pregnant student. Not that there's anything whatsoever wrong with that, but you know, it's just kind of a thing. Anyhow, I think she was relieved to find out that the class was basically split down the middle: Those baby faced youths straight out of high school doing this as their B.S. degree, and the other half composed of the philosophy, history, and swimming pool management degrees held by the older students. She fell into the appropriate crowd and went about her business. The first semester of school was relatively quiet. She did great, got bigger, and the only mixing of the two was due to her bouts of throwing up. She has a great story of taking the bus where vomit is involved, but I'll let her tell that. Anyhow, she made it through the first semester. We both agreed though that that would be the easy one. The real fun would start towards the middle of the next one.

March 2008 came very very fast. You're never ready when your child shows up. Try going to school AND working when that happens. As the date came closer, Elli made the arrangements with the instructors and they were all understanding. She did fine maintaining the work while also getting everything in order for the baby to show. Then Tuesday March 4th happened. Specifically 3am March 4th. Elli came up complaining about back pain (she had since been sleeping on the couch for the past 2 months or so because it was more comfortable then the bed) and it wasn't going away. Complaining about "rhythmic back pain" to be exact. I'll spare you the details, but Daven was born at 1:40 in the afternoon on that Tuesday.

Elli was back at school the following Monday.

And life got exponentially more complicated. Now, instead of having to worry about our schedules and time we needed, we had our little son around as well. Thankfully Daven came late enough that Elli could be on Maternity Leave from work through the rest of the semester. We would then have the whole summer to figure out the logistics of school and parenting while working. All the credit for that goes to Elli. She found the daycares, asked the needed questions, came up with the budget, and just took charge and owned all aspects of being a working Mom who goes to school. I just did was I was told and tried to be supportive.

For the following 2 years, it really wasn't as bad as either of us thought it would be. We were swamped sometimes and yes, we had many many arguments along the way. We got overly tired and sometimes felt overwhelmed. But those storms passed and we realized that we would make it. It got easier as we got used to the new schedules. We also found time for ourselves as well. We were able to still compete in athletic activities, we travelled a little bit, and Daven seemed to be thriving along the way.

At this time, a shout out needs to be given to our support team. There is no way, NO WAY we would've been able to do this without help from our family and friends. We always had someone come through for us with daycare needs to cover school or work, or someone would offer to take the little guy for us so that we could have a date night or if I was at work someone would offer to watch Dav so that Elli could get caught up with school. Thanks to everyone who pitched in either with time or words of encouragement. There were plenty of times both of us were getting down on morale and you would pick us back up by saying we were doing fine and it will be done soon. This accomplishment belongs to you all in a way as well.

And the end did come. On May 14th, 2010 Elli graduated from the University of Minnesota with a B.S. in Nursing. Seeing her walk down the aisle with the other grads while Daven was playing with cars on my lap was an incredible experience. I don't mind saying that I got a little choked up. Here I was with our son watching my wife celebrate an enormous accomplishment. Very few people would be able to pull off what she did, and others who could pull it off would have a tough time doing it as well as she did. But she made it. We made it.

I'm tremendously proud of what Elli did. It was hard on both of us, many times more so on her end. But she did it, and even though she won't gloat about it, I already have to everyone I know. All that's left to do now is for her to pass the NCLEX and then secure a job (which may be a whole nother battle to go at), but I'm not worried about either of those. The hard part is over, and she came through just fine.

Congrats Elli!! Daven and I along with everyone else are extremely proud of what you pulled off. Thanks for being a wonderful Mom through it all and making it go as smooth as you did. We love you on this end!


P.S. Can I buy a boat NOW?

To the Moms...

To the ones who can make an owie feel better with a simple kiss, who organize extracarricular activities while balancing the household good and husbands, to the ones who keep everything running smoothly on little sleep, and read the same book countless times willingly, we celebrate this day.

Happy Mother's Day Moms!!!