Daddy Dan

Three quotes that have helped me through today:

Faith:

I have to learn that the aim in life is God’s, not mine.  God is using me from His great personal standpoint, and all He asks of me is that I trust Him, and never say “Lord, this gives me such heartache.”  He simply asks me to have implicit faith in Himself and in His goodness. - Oswald Chambers

Hope:

May every sunrise hold more promise, every moonrise hold more peace. - Anonymous

Love:

Where there is love there is life. - Mahatma Gandhi

My faith and hope were reaffirmed today, and love (and prayers) definitely played a big part.

After discussing it with my wife (and it was actually her idea, but I agree), we’re not going to have a big birthday bash for Babito’s 2nd Birthday.  Not only would it cost us a fortune, and not only would it create tons of stress in preparation, cleaning, shopping, etc, but Babito doesn’t even like it when we have a lot of people over at the house.

He tends to get a little stressed out, nervous, and clingy.  And after all, it’s his birthday and we want to do something for him that he would really enjoy.

On the day of his actual birthday we’ll be going to Disneyland (it’s becoming a family tradition) but our current plan is to take him to San Diego for the weekend and hit up Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, and maybe even Legoland. 

We’re going to invite the family and some close friends, and provide them with a detailed itinerary of where and what we plan to do.  Some may decide to spend the entire weekend with us, some may just come down for the day.  Sounds like a much more relaxed and stress-free way for all of us to celebrate Babito’s birthday, and I know he will have a great time.  And that’s what’s important.

We spent Sunday celebrating Babito’s Grandma’s 70th Birthday.

Babito had a great time and danced non-stop throughout the 6-hour party. He and I were both exhausted by the end of the night.

Babito and my Dad at the Redwood Challenge.

Babito LOVES that place. It his new favorite place in Disneyland.

He enjoys running across and over the many bridges, way up “in the sky,” as he says. This little boy has absolutely no fear, which can be scary.

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Well, we had big plans for this past weekend and the only plans we kept were the plans for today, staying in and relaxing. The Babito was sick with a fever all weekend. No other symptoms at all except that his first molars are starting to come in. WebMD says that teething does not cause a fever, but I’ve heard it from so many other people that there has to be some truth to it. Anyway, his fever was gone when he woke up this morning, Thank God. We were planning on taking him to see his pediatrician today if the fever persisted.

The rest of our weekend was shot. Our plans were to go to Disneyland on Friday, the Orange County Marketplace (a swap meet) on Saturday, and Victoria Gardens on Sunday. Instead we never left the house all weekend, and it was nice, except for the whole fever thing.

My wife and I got to watch several movies together while the Babito slept, including ‘Little Children,’ which I reviewed below. We also watched ‘Flags of our Fathers’ and ‘The Departed.’ They were both great. As you can see, we’re really behind on our movie-watching.

We’re just thankful the Babito is feeling better. I hope you all had a great holiday weekend!

The Babito was the star of my cousin’s wedding reception on Saturday night. He danced all night long, mostly all by himself, even before the real dancing got started. We stayed until after 11:00, and he was still awake and going strong. All of his little cousins were sound asleep. I think the wedding photographer and videographer both took more pictures and videos of him than the bride and groom. The wedding photographer is supposed to have the pictures up on his website by the end of the week, so I’m anxious to see them.

Babito was asleep before we left the parking lot.

By the way, I have no idea who anybody in this picture is, besides the Babito.

Tomorrow night we’re going to my cousin’s wedding.  I can’t believe that she’s getting married.  It seems like yesterday that she was about The Babito’s size and my Mom was babysitting her.  We used to play with her before and after school and teach her all kinds of bad things.  Now she’s all grown up, just graduated from Long Beach State and is working for Yamaha’s marketing department.  How time flies.

We found a little black suit for The Babito to wear to the wedding.  It’s very similar to the one below, except he’s wearing a red and black clip-on tie.  I’m going to wear a black suit as well, and my wife bought me a tie that looks just like his (except it’s not a clip-on, darn it!).

The wedding doesn’t start until 6:00pm, with the reception immediately following.  It’ll be nearing The Babito’s bedtime around the time the reception gets started, so I’m a little worried about how he’s going to act.  Not taking him is definitely NOT an option, as we have a lot of relatives coming that rarely get to see him.  I’m hoping we can get him to sleep in a little tomorrow and to also take a LONG nap tomorrow afternoon, so he won’t be tired.