This was the best Christmas ever before it even got started. Just seeing my nearly 3-year old son so excited to see what Santa had brought. He ran up and down the hall waking everybody up. And it wasn't about the presents - he was more excited to see Santa had eaten the cookies and drank the O.J. we left out (Patrick's selection, not mine) than he was to see the "car me a wide in" which was the big present Santa brought him.

This was the first year Patrick could really conceptualize about Christmas and Santa and being good and presents and gift giving. His first Christmas was like Riley's Christmas this year - all pretty lights, family in town, new things to play with and wrapping paper to eat. Last year, he got that it was Christmas, but it was pretty anti-climatic as we were all sick - I brought in Christmas dinner from the resturant in the hotel where my parents used to stay.

The only thing I can think of that could top this Christmas is next Christmas.

I know I haven't blogged here recently, but I had to relate this story...

My son Patrick is just over 2 1/2 years old. Until today, he still slept in his crib. Julie and I are strong believers in co-sleeping so Patrick goes to sleep in his crib at night but rarely wakes up in his crib come morning. So since he's never left in his crib, he's never tried to climb out of it.

However, today we moved his crib into our bedroom because we're getting ready to paint his room - don't want him sleeping in paint fumes. The crib was too big for the door, so I had to take it apart to get in out of his bedroom. When I put it back together in our room, I left one side of it off so it's now it's a bed instead of a crib. He was SO EXCITED!!! It took him an hour to go down for his nap because he was so excited.

Anyway, we went to the movies tonight - Wallice and Gromit which he loved - so by bedtime he was pretty exausted. I stayed in with him since he's still getting used to the new arrangements. He wanted me to be really close, so I sat right there with him and spoke softly so he'd get sleepy and fall asleep. Just as he was drifting off, I said "Thanks for being my son". His response was "Welcome Daddy".

WHAT A GREAT KID!!!

Anyway, here are some more recent pics of Patrick and Rileyanne.

It's raining today so we brought Patrick to toddler time at the Issaquah Community Center. Two bucks for a gym full of toys. What more can a two year old ask for? Here are pics of him playing with a toy on the ground and going down a toddler "roller coaster" - backwards no less.

There's also a pic of Mommy - recovering nicely, but still not recovered yet - and Riley. How cute!

Jules is healing pretty fast, but she's obviously not close to 100%. I'm taking a couple of weeks off to help take care of the family. Wednesday, I took Patrick to the mall, We hit the bookstore (so I could get Freakonomics) and the baby store (so I could get safety covers for the door knobs) and a few other stores. But the highlight for Patrick was spending some time climbing on the play tug boat they have at the mall. Here are two pics I snapped of him climbing on the tug boats.

We've also been entertaining Patrick by spending evenings watching movies. After naps on Wednesday, we watched Finding Nemo - one of Patrick's favorite movies. Yesterday, we watched Toy Story - one of Daddy's favorite movies. Patrick seemed to really enjoy it. I mean, it held his attention for an hour and a half which I can tell you is not easy to do.

I feel better about letting Patrick watch a movie than most typical kids TV shows. For example, his favorite TV show is Bob the Builder. But each episode is only around ten minutes long (they show three in a thirty minute show). Keeping focused for ten minutes is much much easier than keeping focused for ninety.

FYI, I updated the Riley Photo Album with a few more pics from the ride home. I know photo albums show up in the Space's RSS feed, but it only shows the first 10 pics from the photo album. I've got more than 10 pictures in that album already, so there's no way to realize from the RSS feed that I've updated the album...unless I blog it like I'm doing right now.

Here's Patrick at Ooba's...again. As I said before, this is one of Julie's new favorite places to eat, so we stopped for burritos after Patrick's soccer practice this morning to bring back for her so she wouldn't have to eat the hospital food (though she said the chocolate cake w/ last night's dinner was awesome).

This time, he and his Uncle Ted are sitting playing with the kids games they have there. I forget the name of the company, but basically it's a stand with a bunch of little games mounted on boards that hang on the wall. That way, the kids are entertained while waiting for food. Ted decided to forgo his water basketball game to help Patrick draw. Patrick sure loves his Uncle Ted.

I uploaded 16 photos of Riley with various family members that were taken with a good camera (i.e. not my camera phone).

I had to come home to upload these because I didn't realize I had internet access in the room. Well, I need a longer newtwork cable (no wireless?) plus I left my media reader at home so I had no way to get the good pics out of the camera and onto the web. Needless to say, I'm not leaving either of those behind when we go back to the hospital after Patrick's nap.

It's good to be a dad. :)

Rileyanne Elizabeth Pierson was born yesterday - 5/5/05 - at 5:25pm. That's a lot of fives! :) Mom and baby are doing just fine - Jules was up and walking within 8 hours of getting out of surgery!

More pics to come...

We had an hour and a half to kill after going to see Hitchiker's Guide with my team and a civil ceremony wedding for a friend of my wife's who's new husband is going back into the military. So we dropped into Ooba's - my wife's new favorite resturant. Patrick wasn't interested in his quesadilla but he really liked Mommy's SanPellegrino Lemonade. She poured most of it into a cup but left a little in the can for him. He's even handling it one-handed!

Patrick keeps being cute and I keep snaping pictures with my smartphone. Here, he's pushing his own stroller rather than riding in it. When you ask "who's going to be a big brother?" he enthusiastically shouts "MEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

I'm really enjoying this whole smartphone camera blogging thing. Here's two more pics of Patrick from today: enjoying a Jamba Juice smoothie on the way to soccer practice and playing at the playground at Redmond Town Center.