Conversations with 3 year olds

ACT I
SCENE I. Fitzwater living room. Daddy (played by Bradach Fitzwater) takes a peanut butter M&M hidden in his hands to Bair's (played by Bair Fitzwater) ear, setting up the ensuing magic trick.

DADDY (grasping the M&M by Bair's ear): Whoa! Bair, what is this in your ear?

BAIR (wide-eyed and excited): What is it, Daddy?

DADDY (pulling the M&M from Bair's ear while making a popping sound): Oh my goodness! It is a peanut butter M&M!

BAIR: Yeah! I like that!

DADDY: What on earth was a peanut butter M&M doing in your ear?

BAIR: Well, um, you know...I was just saving it.

DADDY: Oh. Really?

BAIR: Yes. For a long day.

Playgrounded

Our official family word of the summer: "Weeeeeee...!"

Just pictures; just because

Digging through some old stuff this weekend we found each of Bair & Cal's little beanie caps they received as a 'welcome to the world' present from the hospital saff at each of their respective births. B & C wanted to try them on to see if they still fit. Their heads have indeed grown since then, but I must say: they wear the caps well!

MUDDY BUDDY

May 18, 2008 marks a great day in Central Texas. One of the few, the proud, the select fair cities that play host to the cultural phenomenon sweeping this heaven kissed nation: the Muddy Buddy!!! Not surprisingly, Catherine (hereafter referred to as "CAT" and/or "The Machine" was there. Two teams from Fitness 19 went head to head, straight into the belly of the beast (see mud pit below). The first team, the Coffee Chuggers, featured Kelly (Gym Operations) and Cat (Personal Trainer) with the challengers from the second team Dirty Laundry, including James (Gym Manager) and Ken (Personal Trainer). It was all smiles & dirty laundry in the end as you can see here, but let's go back and see how it really unfolded.

Bair and Cal, the fiercest and most critical Muddy Buddy spectators in all of the Texas Hill Country eagerly awaited the teams to see who would impress and who shouldn't have gotten out of bed. Here, Bair snickers at a team clearly out of their element. "Hacks" he says.

"Seriously! Bunch of circus animals!" agrees Cal before non-chalantly taking another stoke on his thumb to emphasize how un-impressed he had been with the field thus far.

Then finally, out of the blue, Cat comes pawing around the hill and immediately spots the camera (as any intensely focused athlete in 'the Zone' would have.) "Yeah BABY!!" she snarls. Bring on the mud!

MUDD!!!! If you haven't heard of the Muddy Buddy (perhaps your city is not cool enough to be on the prestigious tour that includes the select few cities of Orlando, Austin, San Jose, Atlanta, Richmond, Chicago, Boulder, Dallas, and Los Angeles) consists of a 6-7 mile course of alternating bike/run/and obstacles, and finishes with the grand-daddy of them all, the beast itself, the Mud Pit:


Kelly's freestyle is no match for The Mud, and the Machine plows on through, undaunted, and no stranger to The Mud.

Cat emerges from The Mud first, cleaner than when she went in, and stronger too! She screams "Grrrrrr!!!!"

How sweet; that is teamwork at its finest. Nothing says "I got your back Teamie" like a mud-drenched cuddle as you slosh towards the finish line. Cat & Kelly smell blood and they're going for the kill.

In the end, it was Cat & Kelly (AKA Coffee Chuggers) emerging victorious over James & Ken (Dirty Laundry), by an impressively sloppy 2 minutes! Its back to the drawing board, back to the gym, and back to the dirty laundry for the men, while the ladies revel in their Mud.

Who's driving home?

Dinner, potatoes & lemons

A post to let you know I am posting

It's been a while since I have posted, and a video I had hoped to post is supposedly downloading right now, but giving me problems. So this post is to inform you that I am posting.

February 25

Has it really been 20 years? I read Aryn's post and could not believe it. For some reason I always think of my mom's passing in terms of my being 10, not how many years have passed since. I guess in a way it is just a point in time that has frozen for me. There are certain things that I see in my mind over and over from that day. I remember seeing the ambulance at our house while I was across the street at Keller. But that was not the first time it had happened, and Mom had been OK, and so it wasn't particularly alarming to a 10 year old me.

Then I recall the balloons that Mike Caughlin (Mr. Caughlin, at the time) had gotten for Dad's birthday. I always remember a melancholy about that day. It sits in my mind, and every memory I have of the day sort of glows in an almost halo-ish soft light in my mind. I remember us kids all gathered around to talk about what had happened and what it meant. How could any of us possibly have known what our Mother's passing would mean? I know I wouldn't fully understand it for years, and even to this date I don't have a complete comprehension, I just know I understand more and more what it meant for my life each day. And, like Aryn, I constantly wonder how things might be different if she were still alive.

I remember sitting at a table, just running a pen on a paper and crying. Someone was there comforting me. There were so many people there it seemed. The memory that stands out the most is the look I saw on my father's face as he came through our front door for the first time after losing Rae Lynn, knowing he would not come through those doors with her again. That look was all I ever needed to see. I knew right then what had happened before anything needed to be said.

I don't think I will ever understand what the past 20 years - and the two before that - have been like for Dad. So today he turns 60. He was 30 when I was born, and now I am 30. Amazing! Linda asked me to write my favorite memory of Dad for his birthday party, a party I regrettably could not attend. But I didn't write a memory either, and don't know if I ever will be able to. I have thought about his 60th birthday for months. What to do? What to say? I thought long and hard about a favorite memory. But thus far I haven't been able to put such a memory in words. Not because I have none. A boy's memory of his father cannot be fonder than mine. I simply can not find a way to express what my father has meant to me in words. He means far to much to sufficiently capture with my limited command of our language.

So if you're reading this blog, Dad, suffice it say I continue to grow aware of the profound sacrifices you have made and the love you have for me (and all of your kids), and it has meant everything to me for my life. As you yourself put it, I was born into most fortunate circumstances, and it is indeed a fact I do appreciate more deeply as I experience fatherhood.

So though I may try, I simply cannot at this point describe the feelings I have for my Dad. Just like I can't describe to Catherine why I still keep an old tattered and worn Navy T-shirt I've had for as long as I can remember. Perhaps only my siblings will get that.

And as I was typing this, I discovered that my own sons have raided our refrigerator and managed to spread chocolate syrup and salad dressing over half of the kitchen, living room, and Cal. Strangely, Bair kept it mainly on his hands and feet, while Cal ended up bathed from head to to toe...life continues to happen!

So with that, I will say happy 60th, Dad! I love you. And, uh, I am sorry for all the messes I made!

Happenings

We've been fairly busy lately, but having a lot of fun. Catherine has been a personal trainer at a local gym now for a few months and has picked up quite a few clients. She is also slated to begin teaching yoga, and is one of those fortunate few who have found their calling. She absolutely loves what she does. She and I both ran 6 miles over the weekend. That's right, 6 miles - Catherine by the lake and me on a treadmill this time. We are well into our training and feeling good. 6 miles, piece of cake; 20 more...??? Yes, I've decided it is nuts. But we are still far from our fundraising goals - so I would offer an additional plea to anyone reading this blog: click the links here on our blog and contribute!

We put in a new floor, and aside from a few edges and trim to put it all together, its done. Our carpet was horrible and we are loving the new floor, and proud that we did it ourselves. Catherine's father is quite handy and got us started with the tough stuff and planning it out, and I must say it has come out quite nicely. Bair helped mainly by running around and driving his trucks over pieces of wood we really didn't want him to touch and was responsible for more than one nick in the floor. His other contribution was to make funny faces, which are all we seem to be able to capture on camera anymore. He is genetically predispositioned to hamming it up due to his being 1/2 Catherine's.
Speaking of genetics, there's only one word to describe the combination of Catherine and me: Magnificence! (as you can see right here...) Catherine seems to have been tailor made to raise boys. Its easy to say now, not having any girls, but she just seems to have a way with these guys. Here they put on a carefully balanced dance routine to the Thomas the Tank Engine theme song, which for some reason plays approximately 98% of the time in our house when we are awake.
Cal. Cal Pal. Cal Cheese. The Big Cheese. The Little Cheese. CP. C3PO. Cal.

Another totally natural smile from Bair...Noodlebrain. I wonder how long it'll be before we capture a real one again...I also marvel at how big he has become. When did this happen? That is a pretty good size rocking chair - when we got it he couldn't even climb in without help, and now his feet nearly touch the floor. Scary. Slow down boys, slow down! What's the rush in getting big, anyway? Still a favorite, the Big Brother book from Grandpa Fitz & Grandma Linda. Bair calls each character by name (Mommy, Daddy, Grandpa, Grandma, Bair and Cal are all featured in the book), and will sometime sit down and read it to Cal himself. It is eerie because he actually runs through the book almost word for word, and looks as if he is really reading it to Cal. But Bair actually tends to be very analytical and has simply memorized the words and their location on the page.
We finally had our first unplanned trip to the hospital this weekend, something I feared but knew was inevitable at least a few times over the course of the boys' childhood. Cal had the Croup - and woke up really struggling to breath. Not a pleasant thing to watch your one year old wheeze and struggle for air, but he's fine now. Although a little angry, as the remedy for Croup is steroids. I was tempted to take some of his prescription to try and get an edge in the kickball league I joined, but my gut tells me I'll be the next one randomly tested, and the though of going before congress makes me nervous, so thus far I've resisted.

As some of you know by now, Catherine and I have joined with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (http://www.lls.org/) to raise funds for their mission. It is probably self-evident to you why we chose this particular program, but we both continue to be rather astounded by the blessings we have in our lives and felt it was time we did more to give back to a worthy cause. If you are not familiar with the program, we're participating in the Team in Training program (TNT). Basically, we each raise a certain amount, and all the while we train for an endurance event we will complete in honor and/or memory of those touched by blood cancers and to promote awareness.

You probably already know that neither Catherine and I are particularly suited for distance running. Are we nuts? Perhaps. We have goals of $4,000 each. That's right, $8,000, and not much time to raise it, so we're asking for any help you can give. Our participation in the Marathon is contingent upon reaching our goals, so whether you contribute out of kindness and care for the cause, or out of spite to force into running 26.2 miles, you really can't go wrong! Now, anticipating that this blog is read most likely by my four sisters regularly and perhaps Schuyler or Dad on rare occasion, I'm not really asking for donations here so much as I am circulation. The links to Catherine and my donation sites, respectively, are to the right, and at the end of this post. Anything you are comfortable giving would be greatly appreciated. And even more appreciated would be your help in circulating the links to our pages and directing anyone who you think might be interested in donating to the links.

We've just begun, but are optimistic we can reach our goals. Be sure and check our progress through these links regularly, and we'll even post about how are training progress is going. We each ran 5 solid miles this weekend, more than either of us has run in a long time. I did mine early Saturday in the rain while Catherine somehow kept going on a treadmill with her iPod pushing her along. 26.2 seems pretty darn near impossible, so kudos to you who have already done it. This week we will up the ante to 6 miles, probably me on the treadmill this time with Catherine pounding the pavement. It should be excrutiatingly fun.

Thank you in advance for helping get these links out, and on a serious note, thank you for being what you always have to me. I still often marvel at how charmed a life I feel like I've had despite losing my Mom at such a young age. There is no doubt that you (my family) and your support and fierce loyalty has made all the difference in the world. I miss Mom every day, but could not be more greatful for her having brought me into this world and laying the foundation for a family like ours. We know we won't be able to do this without you, so again, thank you!

Catherine's fundraising link:
http://www.active.com/donate/tntctx/tntctxCFitzwa

Brady's fundraising link:
http://www.active.com/donate/tntctx/tntctxBFitzwa