So long, farewell, good bye.

Last week, a chapter closed in the educational history of San Antonio.


Horace Mann Middle School closed it's doors for business after 70+ years of service. The building will be re purposed, but it will no longer be the "Home of the Tigers."


It was the first place I ever held a teaching job. The first place I ever coached. The place where I started fiddling with computers. The place I met my wife.


It is a sad occasion when a school board makes political decisions that effect an entire community. The neighborhood around Horace Mann will no longer have a school to call their own.

Rachel Cougar Hendrix-Halen

She stood there for 20 minutes playing while I was folding clothes. A little rock star in the making.

Twenty Three Months

Dear Rachel,

Today, you turn twenty three months old. I can't believe that you're going to be two in a month.

Of course, as I mentioned before, you've decided to start your terrible twos early, and it's really started in earnest the last couple of weeks. There are times when you're the sweetest, happiest child in the world, then half a second later there is fire shooting from your eyes. We're trying to cope, and we really hope this temper of yours tempers itself soon, or we might have to sell you to the gypsies.

You are learning more and more words every day, and you do a really good job of repeating new words that we tell you. I can't even begin to tell you how many words you know now, but it's a lot, and you talk all the time. In fact, there are times that you talk so much, you forgot to do other things, like eat.

Your brain is also starting to make indirect connections to things. The other night we were reading "Are You My Mother" and when the baby bird sees a boat, you pointed to the area the boat was in and said "wa-wa," even though the water wasn't colored blue and didn't really look like water in the picture. You just knew that boats go in the water. Amazing.

You now understand that things are yours and ours. You'll point to something and say "It's mine" or "It's Dada's/Mama's." If we sit in the wrong chair at the table, you'll be sure to tell us who is supposed to sit there, and the other day in my car, you pointed to the passenger seat and said "It's Mama's."

You have started helping us around the house, and will regularly tell us that you want to help: "I hap!" You help Mama with the laundry, you help me water the grass (but you didn't like getting wet so much), you help with the dishes, and you help with sweeping the floor. The master plan is taking shape...bwah ha ha ha!

Finally, your coordination is getting really good. We bought you a little soccer ball this past month, and you love playing with it. You've gotten really good at dribbling the ball, and last night we ran all over the driveway with you keeping the ball under control. It was so cool to watch, and we can't wait to teach you more about the game!



Despite all the temper tantrums, we love every minute of watching you grow up. You are learning so many new things every day, it's amazing that we can keep up with you. We love you very much.

Love,
Dada

Rumblings

So, I haven't posted anything personally about Monica or I for quite a while. This has pretty much become the "Rachel blog," but the name at the top still says Laleblog, so I suppose it's time to let you all in on a little thing that's been going on the past month. I've been reluctant to say anything about it until now.

No, we're not pregnant.

I was offered a job.

The job I've been shooting for since we moved back to Texas: I was offered a position as a technology director.

The funny thing is, that even though I was really excited about the whole thing, there was just something about it.

I turned down the job.

Had this been two years ago, I probably would have jumped on the opportunity. But I'm older, you know? More mature.

OK, maybe not, but there were an awful lot of factors that came into play that I didn't even consider when I started the process of applying and interviewing for this job. In the end, the timing just wasn't right.

It's an interesting position to be in, getting an offer when you're not really looking. I'm really happy where I am, and while this would have been a fantastic opportunity, I absolutely made the right decision.

Dinner and Dancing

Rachel and I were jamming out the other night while we were eating dinner.

Twenty Two Months

Dear Rachel,

This past week, you turned 22 months old. Your world is becoming more and more open to us, as you're adding new words every day.

It was a very busy month for us, but before I get into all of the new things you're doing, you need to know about the very important person that is no longer with us.

Your Great-Grandma Jean died this past month, and while I don't know if you'll have memories of her, I'm happy that she got a chance to know you. You are the only child we'll ever have who knew Grandma Jean and that is something very special. She is the one who gave you your Raggedy Andy doll (or "nigh-nigh" as you call him). She loved you very much, and now she can watch over you every day.





You're learning more words every day, and while we still don't get everything you say, we're getting a lot more than we ever have. Before this month, you would just talk whether someone was listening or not. Now, you have to make sure that someone is listening to you before you say anything. Yes, we've reached the "Dada? Dada? Dada? Dada?" stage. You'll call one of our names until we acknowledge you, and then you'll tell us whatever it is you have to say.



You're starting to learn your colors, and while you still get them wrong sometimes, you get them right a lot too. You know blue (boo), red (wed), and green (geen), and you'll say brown and orange. At first, everything was blue or red, and sometimes boowed, but now you're starting to point to colors and say either blue or red, then look at us as if to ask if you're right.



You're starting to dress yourself more, and can get your pants or shorts on most of the time. You'll try to get socks on by yourself but the opening is still a little small, and you haven't learned how to stretch the socks out to make the opening bigger. But you're trying, and that's exciting.



Grandma and Grandpa got you a sandbox last month before they left, and we finally got it set up and filled with sand, and you love playing in it. You can spend an awful lot of time scooping up sand, filling your bucket, then dumping over (usually on the deck). The first time we played in it, the sand was a little wet, and I helped you make a castle with the bucket. We'd fill it up, then I'd turn it over quickly and go "BOOM!" So now, your word for the sandbox is "a-boom."



You started walking Sparky on your own this month, but we're not quite ready for you to start taking him for walks around the neighborhood. He follows you pretty well, but I'm still worried about what might happen if he sees something he wants to chase while you're holding the leash. You learned to tell him "sit," "stay," and "heal," so you're well on your way to being the pack leader.



Probably the most exciting thing this month was that you got to see snow for the first time. Despite the sad circumstances for us being up north and just the fact that it was indeed snowing in March, it was really cool to see you get so excited about the snow. It almost made we wish there had been more for you to play around in. Almost.



Your second birthday is coming up quickly and we can hardly wait. You're becoming more of a little person and less of a baby every day. It's so much fun to watch you grown and learn. We love you very much.

Love,
Daddy

What's Old is New Again

I just received my Grandparent's 'weather station' this evening via UPS (thanks, Mom for sending it!). You know the one...it used to hang just to the right of the doorway. Here...let me show you:



OK, so not the most flattering picture of Grandma, but it's the only one I could find that showed where this thing was in her house.

Anyway, as you can tell from the picture, it has three dials on it. A thermometer, a barometer and a hygrometer (You know, it measures the humidity. Ha! Betcha didn't know that I actually knew the name for that. Well, I didn't. I had to look it up.)

It's been hanging in that same spot in Grandma's house for as long as I can remember. In fact, when I think of Grandma's house, it's one of the first things I remember. So anyway, when we were up north, I told Mom I was going to take it with me, and she said something about it needing a good cleaning. So when I got it this evening, I set about trying to clean it.

It's amazing what a difference a little glass cleaner can make. These first two were taken after I'd cleaned the thermometer, but not the other two:




And you can see what cleaning just half of the face of the barometer looked like:



Now it's all clean and shiny, and hanging in our house.

Pack Leader

The title comes from what Dad had to say about this video - "She really is the pack leader."

The quality isn't great because it was shot with my cell phone. But, hey, it was shot with my cell phone.

Ahhh, spring in Illinois...

Ummm, yeah. This is why we live in Texas...

An unexpected trip

So, as most of you who read this blog already know, my Grandma Jean (mom's mom) passed away on St. Patrick's Day. This, of course, prompted a flurry of activity on our part in order to get up here for the memorial service on Friday.

Since trying to find airfare last minute is a financial nightmare, I decided to go with a "last minute" deal that you can find on certain websites. Unfortunately, this last minute fare had us leaving from Austin at 6 AM Friday.



That wasn't the bad part, though. The weather had a little winter in store for us, and flying into Chicago turned out to be a bit more tricky than planned.



Luckily, we did make it, just 30 minutes late, which gave us plenty of time to get our car and drive to Geneseo. The memorial service was wonderful, and Mom made it through her speech about Grandma without too much trouble. Afterward, we had cookies and lemonade in the church basement, then went over to Grandma's house to say goodbye.




(Thanks to Aunt Linda for the pictures from Grandma's house)

Friday night, we hung out with the rest of the Laleman clan at Grandma Betty and Grandpa Al's house. Since they're in Florida, we had a house party and Rachel got totally trashed.



We'll be in Illinois until Monday...enjoying this lovely weather.

It's Raining....mud?

So, yeah. We went out to dinner tonight and when we came out, all of the cars in the parking lot looked like this.





It's been a weird week...

Goodbye, Grandma Jean.

We sure were lucky to have known you.





Say hi to Grandpa for us.

Proof that I have too much time on my hands...

Twenty One Months

Dear Rachel,

This past weekend, you turned 21 months old. I can't even begin to tell you how quickly it's all going by.

Your Grandparents were here for most of the month. Actually, your Grandpa Rick was here for the entire month. Grandma Connie was here for a couple of weeks, but had to go back to snowy, cold, Illinois in the middle of the month to take care of the book store.


I think that trip back to Illinois sealed the deal in convincing Grandma that Texas is a wonderful place to be in the winter.

Having your grandparents here helped us out a bunch as far as taking care of you, but it also helped you to learn a lot of new things. Having two extra adults talking around you for a month helped open up your world to us as you started saying a whole bunch of new words.


First and foremost, you now have names for your grandparents - Nana and Dodd. Nana is pretty easy to figure out. Your Grandma wanted something easy for you to say since "Grandma" is pretty hard for your mouth to figure out, but you got Nana right away. Dodd came from what you heard me saying all month. Whenever I'd talk to your Grandpa, I'd call him "Dad," so you started saying it too. Now, I'm Dada, and Grandpa is Dodd.


You recognize buses now, and every time we go past one, you exclaim, "BUthhhhh!" and then when it's past, you say "bye bye buth." You even recognize the city busses as a bus. Your Grandma spent a lot of time with you singing "The Wheels on the Bus" song this past month, so buses are something you've taken a liking to.



In addition to recognizing buses, you also recognize our vehicles. Every time you see a black SUV, you say "Mama's!" and every time you see my car you say "Dada's!" The fun part is when you think you see your Grandpa's truck. There's no shortage of white ford pickups in San Antonio and every time you see one you say "it's Dodd!"


Your grandparents also taught you how to say "star," kind of. In the Eye Book, on one of the pages, your eyes see "Stars up in the sky!" so every time you see a star, whether it's on a cup, in a book, anywhere, you'll shout "SKY!" and we know that in your world, that means "star."


Your favorite thing to do this month has been to ask us what everything is. Of course you picked that up from all of us constantly asking you "what is this?" and now every time you want one of us to ask you what something is, you'll point to it and say "is this?"

The other really cool thing you started saying out of the blue was "have a good day" even though it comes out "good day." You just said it one day when I was dropping you off.



You also now have a favorite TV show, Bob the Builder. Every time we turn on the TV, you ask "Bob?" You even have a Bob the Builder hat, and, well, I 'll let the picture speak for itself.


I forgot to mention last month that you've started sitting on your potty. Miss Judy started with you last month, and you'll sit on it for us before you take a bath, but you're still not quite there yet.


I'm sure I've left a bunch of things out, as this past month was just jam packed full of fun things for you. It's amazing to us how quickly you learn new things, and as always we can't wait to see what next month will bring. We love you very much.

Love,
Daddy

My turn

We took the final fishing trip of the month on Saturday. There were a lot of things that Dad didn't get to do on this trip, like go fishing with a guide, but I think that overall, he's just happy that he got to go fishing in February.

After not catching much at all during our previous trips, I finally landed a big one on my first cast.



Even Monica got in on the action, hooking this little guy...



Mom and Dad are leaving Tuesday morning (weather permitting), and we'll all be sad to see them go. I think Rachel is going to miss them most of all. She's gotten very used to having "Nana" and "Dodd" around.

More to come in a few days...