A Captain, a Co-Pilot...and his kid

Monday was a big day in the Ayers household, Hadley Blaine got her ears pierced.  For the most part, this isn't a huge day in many households.  Heck, this was the fourth time we had done it in ours.  Well fifth if you count mine, its a long story.  Anyway, we sort of decided on the spur of the moment to do this.  It would be made even more special with one set of her grandparents there.  That didn't work out so well, apparently Pop is somewhat squeamish.  At 2.5 you never really know if your girls want their ears pierced or not.  One minute they tell you yes, the next they say no.  They want sparkly ears like their sisters, but they really have no idea what it takes to get them.  She was so calm and trusting in that tall chair, she sat in the chair like a champ.  Thankfully, she had both ears done at the same time.  There was a half a second delay, when she got this shocked look on her face.  How could we do this to her? She then scrunched her face and almost began to cry from the pain.  That is when someone, perfectly timed I might add, shoved a bowl full of lollipops in her face.  She immediately forgot the pain in her ears, and then began picking suckers out for everyone.  She was the Oprah of suckers...."AND YOU GET A SUCKER, AND YOU GET A SUCKER!" Well, perhaps it wasn't that dramatic, but close.  In her handing them out, she ignored her pain.  That was it,  she was ready to move on.

The real pain of the night, I think, belonged to her mother.  I know how she feels, I felt it once too.  I vividly remember the day when Reagan got her ears pierced in Lexington.  I remember being a little sad on that day.  To me it meant my first big girl was growing up.  I figured it was the first of many of these moments, that will prove to me that my time as her first/greatest love is on the clock.  Like many other seemingly minor moments with her and her sisters, I was reminded that all of this is limited.  We live like there is an infinite well of life's precious moments which is ultimately one of the greatest mistakes we can make in life.  Despite all that,  I was happy for Reagan, sad for her Old Man.  I remember the sting that day, Brooke felt it today.

Brooke is always the brave one with the girls.  She can let them run off the diving board at the pool like flying squirrels.  I prefer to be out of the state when this happens.  She lets go of the bike when they are driving it.  I prefer to turn my back and cover my head in the dirt.  I want nothing but to protect my girls, and not ever let them get run over by life.  We are actually a good combination for the girls, like with most things, Brooke and I are a good team. They get a lot of their toughness from their mother, and a lot of their compassion from their Dad.  This is good though, when it comes to emotions, they will expect a husband to be empathetic, sympathetic, and passionate like me.  They will grow up to be disciplined, organized,  and dedicated, like their mother.  Anyway, when the idea came up for the earrings on Monday, I was all about it.  I didn't think twice.  Brooke on the other hand, was a little sad.  She was sad because this was her last baby.  Her last one to get their ears pierced.  She has carried her children in her for close to 40 months, or well over a total of 3 years of her life.  She has fed them with her own milk for a longer amount of time than that.  Sometimes she was pregnant with one, while feeding the other.  She has changed an uncountable number of diapers, she has gotten up in the middle of the night more times then she would care to admit...and here was one of those moments for her.  One that sort of kicks you in the gut.  Its a little, unplanned moment, but a moment nonetheless.  Her last baby was getting her ears pierced.   I felt bad for Brooke, more than I did for the actual pain that Hadley was unaware she would get.

In the end, not much has changed.  Hadley woke up on Tuesday and was pretty much the same kid she was on Monday (Lord help us).  We will go on with our routine, and the girls will get a little older.  It depresses me to know that with each passing day this holiday season, it might be the last for Reagan to have that special sparkle in her eye.  One that only a kid who truly believes has.  It will make me sad when that day comes and she wants to know the truth about the season.  Brooke (of course) is prepared.  She has a letter ready for Reagan and fully knows how she is going to tackle the issue.  She will be the stronger one of us two.  I wouldn't be surprised though, when that day comes for Hadley, that it is me that is the strong one.  I guess that says a lot about the differences between the both of us.

In the old days, it is believed by some that Pirates got their ears pierced because they thought it gave them better vision for the horizons in front of their sails.  With each passing day, Brooke and I see those horizons a little clearer.  We are doing our job as parents, so that one day those girls can set sail on their own.  I have heard that the only way to discover new oceans is to have the courage to lose sight of the shore.  Its nice to have a good co pilot (and many times be a co pilot myself) to navigate those waters, especially when you have an unruly crew.

God Bless 'Merica

Reagan will be going through her first communion this May.  She goes to church school every week in preparation.  One of the things they (her and Caroline) are learning, are all the Catholic prayers.  This week The Lord's Prayer was the prayer to learn.  She caught on pretty fast, and she wanted to show Caroline she knew the prayer.

Reagan: Our Father, Who art in heaven, 
Hallowed be Thy Name. 
Thy Kingdom come. 
Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. 
And forgive us our trespasses, 
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!

Its not about the food.

I don't talk about work a lot on social media, at least as it relates to anything negative.  Every negative comment I could say on Facebook or Twitter, can/will be dissected and possibly misinterpreted.  Therefore, I rarely post anything negative on social media, about anything.  However, if we are having #realtalk, it has been a difficult few weeks at work.  Sometimes the pressure is intense, and self doubt creeps in.  Its difficult for it not to.

The one thing that keeps me going is that 90 minutes of the day from 6:00PM to 7:30PM.  I'm generally one of the first in the parking lot at work, but I make it clear that I wont be the last.  Some might think that the "CEO" should sleep on a couch in his office.  I refuse to do that.  The most important thing in my life is those 5 girls at home.  It takes me about 45 minutes to get home every night.  It is lights out at my house at 7:30 sharp.  Taps is played, girls are in bed.  I always enjoy the next hour or so with Brooke, when we catch up on our shows, or just pass out on the couch.  But my highlight is that 6-7:30 block when we are all together.  It literally is the best part of my day.  Therefore, with traffic, if I don't get out of there by 5:30- it isn't happening.  Our time together gets me through all those difficult times.  I work some when they all go to bed, I travel on most weekends.  I have no guilt making sure that I block this small time out for them.

So tonight, per usual when I'm in town, I got home as fast as I could.  It appeared dark when I pulled up the driveway, but I was ready to release the weight of the work day and be surrounded with hugs and shrieks for my homecoming.  Turns out, no one is here.  I then recalled a moment last night when Brooke was talking to me, asking me to do a favor today.  I was immersed at something on my phone, and mentally I was trying to navigate a very difficult situation at work.  After about 3 or 4 minutes of Brooke talking to me, I looked at her and said in an exhausted tone, "I'm not listening to you at all."  I didn't mean to be rude, but I had literally heard zero of what she was asking me to do.  Work, at the moment (and in my mind), was too important.  She didn't deserve that.  She could tell I was distracted, and told me not to worry about it.

I had forgotten about that conversation until I got home about 45 minutes ago.  I was curious as to where my girls were at, and why the house was empty?  That's when I saw this note above.  I recalled Brooke telling me that there was something going on today.  Had I been paying attention, I could have done something to help.  I wasn't, and I didn't.  Brooke could have reacted a lot of ways last night, and she handled it correctly.  Even if I didn't.  She didn't need to cook me dinner,  she didn't need to take care of me.  Not only did she make sure that after a long day I was fed, she made sure (even in her absence) that after a long day....I was loved.

So thank you, Brooke.  Today I wont get my 90 minutes (cause y'all still aren't here), but in a lot of ways, I got something I needed more.  Tomorrow, I will wake up and attack the day in a way that SAE deserves.  Thanks for giving me the support to do so, even when its mentally difficult for me to do so.

6:52 I heard the heard stomping on the back deck, gotta go!

Good touch, bad touch

I have always alleged that my parents love my older brother more than me.  Patrick says "they should, they've known me longer."  Honestly, I don't really believe this to be true, but its fun to tease my parents about from time to time.  Actually, they went out of their way to make sure that things were equal for Patrick and I.  Every time I accused my folks of this, they always had a great response, "we love you equally, just differently."  Now that I am a parent myself, I totally understand what they were saying.

Not only do I love my girls (equally) differently, they each challenge me differently.  Baylor Grace fits right into that mold.  No question, my favorite part of my day is when I take her to school.  Because of the different start times of the different schools, she goes before the others.  On the days that I travel, or have an obligation that makes me go to work earlier, its a lot more stressful to get everyone out the door earlier.  So, not only do I cherish that alone time with Baylor Grace, it helps everyone else out, too.  She talks almost the entire (short) drive to school.  She then holds my hand as we walk to the back door of the school.  We are almost always first in line, most of the time I kneel down and talk with her until she goes.  I always remind how much I love her, and how I miss her already (even though she hadn't gone in yet).  I tell her I will watch her go in until I cant see her anymore, then I walk back to the car....alone.  Ive mentioned it before, it still hurts-just a little- every time.  I know that this time would be the best time for me to workout.  Honestly, its about the only time I can consistently work out. I know that if I didn't do this routine with Baylor Grace, I would not be as pudgy as I am now.  Every night, she asks if I could take her to school in the morning, how could I turn that down?  I don't want to lose this time with her, its worth the trade off.  I love my morning talks with Baylor Grace.  

She does challenge me though, differently than her sisters.  I worry about Reagan, because I think she is too hard on herself.  She is your typical, great, first child.  If she doesn't get a 100% on every thing she does, she gets upset.  Her perfectionist streak is from her mother.  I worry about Caroline, because she is such an emotional basket case.  She looks for the best in everyone, and as a result, she leaves herself vulnerable to getting burned/hurt.  She has a huge heart, which will someday be a target.  She gets that from her father.  I worry about Hadley, because she has her father's sense of humor, but her mothers daring personality.  This is a very dangerous combination.  This will get her in, and out, of lots of trouble.  Then there is Baylor Grace.  She has the blond hair, blue eyes.  I once mentioned that Caroline was like the mayor of her school, everyone said hello (and loved) Caroline.  Baylor Grace isn't the mayor of her school, she is more like the Carrie Underwood of her school.  When we walk up to school (as I mentioned above) the boys literally come running to say hi.  I am tempted daily to give the boys a quick judo chop, as I have to already fight them off.  I understand the headlines would not be favorable, but I think every father in the world would understand my position.  This was only amplified the other, when she was leaving school and hugged and kissed a boy goodbye. Not to mention, this happened one day after a different boy (Bryan) gave her a rainbow loom bracelet.  She is going to be trouble.

When each of the girls reach about the age of four, my wife has taken on the unenviable task of teaching the girls the difference between "good touch" and "bad touch".  I hate this, it makes me sick to my stomach.  Not just because this is every parents nightmare, but because its an end of an innocent stage of their lives.  It means they are getting older. It is one of their first lessons of the bad parts of a life, that up until this point, had been nothing but a life of love and happiness. That lesson stinks, too.  Brooke has always had a fantastic way with kids in general, but she does a great job of explaining this difficult subject to kids.  She can really get on their level, and I am totally fine letting her tackle this one.

These conversations had gone pretty well with the girls.  The first two understood with no major questions.  Private parts are private, if it happens you have to tell Mom and Dad, etc.  Well, today was Baylor Grace's day.  Brooke said things were going well until she asked Baylor Grace if she had any questions.  BG had one, Brooke braced herself.  

Brooke:  Baylor Grace, do you have any questions for Mommy?

Baylor Grace:  So....what happens when I get older, are people allowed to touch my private parts then?

So after Brooke picked her jaw off the floor, she said no.  Those are her private parts (we will burn that bridge when we get there). Jesus, Mary, & Joesph, Baylor Grace....you are going to give your father a heart attack.

Suddenly questions about The Tooth Fairy, The Easter Bunny, and Santa, seem a little more manageable.  

Profiles in Courage

It has been a while since I profiled a friend of mine.  I started with JR (my brother in law) who is a cop.  I then did one on Col. Bartholomew (a fraternity brother, friend, and US soldier). This is my next chapter in that series.  Is this not an absolutely fantastic picture?  It is one that truly is worth a thousand words.  You see one solider fishing.  You see another, presumably, who is in Special Forces.  You cant really tell where they are, although the camo pattern would signify Afghanistan.  I only know that because I'm oddly into football and military uniforms.  This would be a great picture on its own.  Its made an even better picture because the man with the fishing rod (which is made of makeshift parts) is my former roommate from college.  That is Chad Chenoweth.  Chad and I shared a room while at the SAE house.  He was the most southern, redneck, person I have ever met from Ohio.  I mean that as a compliment, and Cheno would take it like one.  He was a freshman, when I was a junior.  We were sort of at different points in our lives when we roomed together, so we didn't hang out more than suite mates would.  The four of us (Priest, Hart, Cheno, and myself) all got along great.

I was gone, done with UK, before I really got to see the man that Cheno had grown into.  That is one of the great things about Facebook.  I would see occasional updates on Cheno.  I saw where he married his high school sweetheart (which is pretty cool), who he once bought a rat for..... for valentines day.  I remember because he would occasionally have the d*mned thing in our room.  He called the rat "sweetheart" because it had a heart shaped brown spot on his back.  He actually affectionately called the rat, sweetie if I remember correctly. I don't get it. I never got.  But that was Cheno.  He later had a baby girl and a son, a complete family.  With those few details alone, I was happy for Cheno.  Good for him.

One day out of the blue, I got a call from Cheno.  He was rising up the ranks of the U.S. Army, and he needed a reference for top secret clearance.  He wanted to ask if it was okay if he used me as a reference as he attempted to get the clearance.  Not only did it catch me off guard, I was incredibly humbled and honored.  As many times as I have been asked to be a reference, never had it been in this capacity.  Never had it been from someone like Cheno.  As a result, Cheno and I started to keep in better contact. I won't lie and act as if we are best friends.  That's honestly probably more to due with proximity than anything (and I don't just mean him being in Afghanistan).

I was fortunate to have a lot of fraternity brothers at UK that went on to do great things.  I was proud to simply know so many of them.   Of all of them, there are a few of them that I look upon as they have grown into men, almost as a proud father.  Not because I had anything to do with their success, just because I'm so fricking proud of the men they have become.  Jonathan Cummins (with a wife and two baby girls, also served our Air Force) is one, Cheno is the other.

The other day I asked Cheno what he had done in the Army, because I knew I wanted to write the blog about him.  I figured it would be easier to simply ask him.  Here is what he sent me:

Infantry Platoon Leader, Executive Officer, Scout Platoon Leader and Battalion logistics officer from 2005 to 2009 stationed in Hawaii, and deployed to Iraq for 15 months. After that, Captain's Career Course at Ft. Benning in 2009, Ranger Instructer and RSLC Operations Officer from 2009-2011. Deployed again in 2011 for 6 months. Took Company Command in May of 2012, and completed that command yesterday, 4 months of Command in Combat on my 3rd Deployment to Afghanistan on a 9 month rotation this time. Going to RC-South to work for Brigade HQs now.

I don't know what the majority of this means.  I just know that it is pretty bad a*s.  I can decipher that he has gone above and beyond in protecting our freedoms.  I can decipher that he has become highly successful in his field, and I can decipher that has far exceed any of us in life's accomplishments.  He is the type of guy they make video games out of.  He is Cheno, he was my roommate.

Phi Alpha, Cheno.

It was a beautiful day.

Today was a great day.  It was that rare weekend when I didn't have to travel, and we had nothing on the schedule.  One of my favorite things to do on days like this is cook a big breakfast for the girls.  The whole 9 yards.  As we sit down for breakfast, here was the conversation:

Caroline :Mamaw cooks the best breakfast!
Hadley: Mamaw (she now can say Mamaw, instead of Memaw, which incidently enough was my grandmother, my mother's mother).
Reagan: Yes, Mamaw is the best chef.  She cooks everything better.
Hadley: Mamaw
Me:  Yes, if I had a restaurant, I would call it Mamaw's and it would be all the food she cooked.
Hadley: Mamaw
Caroline: Her turkey, her dumplings, her french toast.....
Hadley:Mamaw
Reagan: thats because she grew up on a farm (which is pretty much true).
Me: Thats true, and it was on that farm...I think, that Mamaw saw Santa!
Caroline: Wait....Mamaw has seen Santa?
Me:  Yes, Sport.  She swears by it to this day.  No one keeps the spirit of Christmas alive year round like Mamaw.

That's when I realized that this will be one of my mother's legacies to her granddaughters.  As long as they are alive, they will remember their Mamaw as a great cook, and someone who always believed.

That's sort of what I love about my mother, too.  She has always believed.  She has always kept the faith.  She has always believed in my father, she never stopped believing in Patrick and I (even when we pushed her away), she never stopped believing in the spirit of Christmas, and she has never stopped believing in her faith.  No matter what, she stays the course.  This is what her granddaughters will always remember of her.  That's pretty cool.

We then loaded up the van and headed about 40 miles north to pick apples.  This is sort of a big deal, because in Lexington we used to do this stuff all the time.  You couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a farm that was growing something for you to pick.  We used to go all the time, and it is some of our greatest memories of the girls.  We did it almost this exact time last year, so we decided to head back to the same farm.  We picked 20lbs of apples, many of which we weren't supposed to pick.  We didn't want the smaller apples that were ready to pick, we wanted the big, fat, juicy apples.  So we picked those.  The owner liked the girls so much, she gave us special permission to pick her personal raspberry bushes, not open to the public.  We got two whole batches of raspberries.  When we were checking out, the lady asked Hadley if she has picked any berries, Hadley points to her open mouth and goes "yummmmmm."  I told Hadley she was telling on herself, and the lady asked Hadley if she should weigh Hadley (because she had eaten so many of the berries....and apples for that matter).  We went from there to lunch at  Red Robbin, one of the girls favorite places to eat.  It was a beautiful day.

We got home, all rested a bit, then went to their school to ride bikes. Caroline did it on her first try.  I later helped walk Mimi and Pop through setting up their new iPhones, and then had Ramen Noodles for dinner (which is what I wanted). We capped it off with movie night and SEC football.

I realized that all throughout the day, we were doing things that both sets of grandparents would be proud of, things they both would want to do with us.  Big meals, berry picking, playing at a park, riding bikes, at the school, taking pictures, and dozing off on the couch.

It was a beautiful day indeed.

It was love....

Tomorrow, when we are reminded of that horrible day, just remember this one thing....  When chaos was all around, when people thought jumping was a better option, when they looked out the window as their plane flew closer to the tower....it was not hate in the victim's minds, it wasn't war either.  Over and over again, their last words were words of love.  Tell my wife, tell the girls, tell my boy, tell my husband, tell Mom and Dad...that I love them.  It is all over the news.  That is why the terrorists will never win.  When terrorists do what they do, they have hate in their hearts.  On that day, those victims had love.  Love is much more powerful, and love always wins in the end.

Love.