Good-bye, Texas Stadium

Jordan made his first — and only — trip to Texas Stadium Saturday night to watch the Euless Trinity Trojans beat the living tar out of Dad’s alma mater, the Arlington High Colts. Oh well, at least it was cold, we had to pay to park on a crumbling lot and the nachos were $8 a pop. (Ordered after the $7 pizza turned out to be inedible).

Texas Stadium will be gone sometime in the next couple of years, replaced by the Boss Hogg Bowl in Arlington, whose taxpayers don’t understand why anyone would pass up the opportunity to build a multi-million dollar stadium for a billionaire sports team owner.

But Jordan got to see for himself the stadium where Tom Landry once coached and where a great football team once played.

Here he is with Papa.

Matthew's first Thanksgiving

Matthew's first Thanksgiving is under our belts. We started the day with a late lunch at D&M's house. Turkey from Colter's, ham from Costco, and more fixins than you could shake a stick at. Oh yeah, and our nearest and dearest 25 relatives.

Debbie, Michelle and I took Conner, Jordan and Aidan across the street to Duncan Robinson Park to kick around the soccer ball, swing and slide. A.J. came over for a couple of minutes to snap some pictures for his photography class at SFA. They all had a lot of fun.

Here are some of my pictures (it's been a while since I took photography at UTA). :)



After we finished up at D&M's, we left and went home to catch the first quarter of the Cowboys game, let Jordan and Matthew rest, and get ready for dinner with Emo, Papa and Aunt Cris.

We arrived for dinner there and ate turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, broccoli, carrots and rolls. It was great. Matthew really liked the sweet potatoes.




Oh yes, we did have Matthew's DOC band painted just in time for the Texas-Texas A&M "game" Thursday night. Seriously, 49-9? Does A&M even belong in the Big 12 any more? I think 5A high school football might prove to be a challenge for the Aggies this season. I mean, after all, they lost to Baylor...

We watched the first half of the Longhorn rout of the Aggies, but Jordan was getting sleepy, so we watched a few minutes of his current favorite movie (The Incredibles) on NBC (seriously, he watches it at least once a day right now - sometimes twice) and then headed home.

Matthew's DOC Band

Matthew, Mom, Aunt Wendy and I all visited the specialists at Cranial Tech to have Matthew fitted for his new DOC Band.

We've been going through this process for about three months now: At Matthew's 2-month check-up, our doctor noted that he seemed to have a flat spot on the back of his head. It's usually caused from sleeping on their backs, and a baby favoring turning his head to one side or the other. So, we spent the next two months repositioning him, all to no avail. So, the pediatrician at his 4-month appointment referred us to the specialists at Cranial Tech. Unfortunately, their offices are an 80-mile roundtrip from the house. And no, there isn't another provider closer (we met a family that drives from Marshall in far East Texas, and know of someone who had to fly from St. Louis for the weekly appointments at Cranial Tech's far North Dallas location).

Anyhow, here's a picture of Matthew's head so you can see we're not making this up (his face is facing the top right-corner of the picture, you'll see the flat spot on the bottom-center of the picture). To the right is Matthew wearing his DOC Band (and trying to get his toes). (I'll try to post a better picture soon; this was taken with my camera phone, which may have the slowest shutter speed of any camera on earth).













The therapist seems to think Matthew will wear this somewhere between 6 and 9 weeks. He has to wear it 23 hours a day, except for bathing and cleaning of the DOC Band. (And our clinician told us we could take it off when we do Christmas pictures later this month or early next).

Basically, the band works like a dam. When water is flowing, if it meets resistance, it finds a more forgiving path to pursue. A baby's developing and growing brain is the same way, it'll expand toward the path of least resistance. So, the band blocks the head from expanding on the fuller side, allowing it to grow to its fullest on the less full side.

Matthew is his usual happy self, and doesn't hardly seem to notice the band; in fact, the technicians tell us that his brain currently sets a little forward of where it should, so it should make it easier for him to pull up, and begin crawling. Hmmm. Maybe this band wasn't such a good idea. :)

We'll keep you posted, and show pictures of how his head shape changes over the next 2-3 months. For us, that'll be "Change We Can Believe In." :)

Election day

Well, there went the country... I think we'll move to Australia.

Fall pictures

Here's some of the latest pictures this month of Jordan and Matthew.