Da-Da

Da-Da!

Oh wait, did you think that meant "Daddy"? No, don't be silly. It means many things. For instance it can mean "baby" when Cooper is looking in the mirror or at a picture of himself. Or it can mean "Jackson" when he sees a picture of his brother. It can also mean "that electronic thing on the wall at mothers day out with numbers on it that alerts parents in church service that they need to come pick up their fussy kid." But it by no means means "Daddy". Ask Cooper where Da-Da is and he'll point at the picture of himself on the wall in the living room. Does it hurt my feelings? Maybe a little. Probably about as much as it hurt my mom's feeling when I called her a taco as a kid. I thought it meant something much worse and I got in big trouble for calling her a taco. Seems like there should be a loophole in there somewhere but my mom didn't deal in grey areas.

What else is new with the Haught crew? Jackson' back to playing soccer. If you reference the blog I posted when he started that last season you'll get an idea of what I'm going thru all over again - trying to teach him that he's not going to make a goal everytime he gets the ball and he can't cry and complain that everyone's trying to take the ball away from him. Maybe I should enter him into one of those leagues where everybody wins and gets trophies.

Anyhoo - he's starting coach pitch baseball soon. I'm the coach so I'll be buying a whistle soon. I can't wait to strike out all the kids. I'm pretty sure I still have a serviceable split-finger fastball.

Ellie is taking dance still. I asked her the other day what was the hardest thing she has learned in dance and she told me, "Umm, the step-ball-chain." I pictured them taking all the kids out back, fitting them with prison stripe uniforms and chaining all their feet together and giving them pick axes to fix the railroad. Her first recital is in May!

Kiley is still training for her marathon. It's only 5 weeks away. The other day I rode my bike 26.2 miles in exactly 2 hours. I win! But seriously I'm extremely amazed at what she can accomplish when she puts her mind to it. She's incredible.

And Cooper is officially walking...everywhere. And he's got to be the easiest kid to entertain ever. If everyone laughed at me as much as he did I'd never complain about anything. It wouldn't do my any good, Cooper would just think I was being hilarious. I'm currently working on some new material. The fake sneeze is a big player but I want to add some variety to my repertoire. Maybe I'll work in the ole remove your finger gag and see how that plays.

Jackson and Ellie are fantastic at entertaining him as well. When you're trying to cook dinner and your wife is off running for hours on end you can just tell them to keep him busy and they have him giggling up a storm.

And you just can't beat hearing a baby laugh.

I'm better at walking than Cooper

Yes, Cooper is now walking. Big deal, I can walk so much farther than him. I'll get to that later. Meanwhile - look how much Ellie likes me.

We went to Austin to see my brother and his wife and kids. The cousins. Jackson and Ellie love going to see the cousins. We had a great time. Their new house is awesome - they have a creek right behind them with "lobsters" in it. That's what Cade calls them. They're really crawdads. That's Cade on the left in the tree.

Weird, Cooper is smiling. He rarely does that. Must be gas.

Okay, here's what we've been up to (other than going to Austin). Kiley has been training for her marathon all by herself (if Sarah reads this, insert guilt trip here). I kid! Her running buddy is getting married so is busy trying on dresses and stuff. Kiley ran 16 miles on Saturday. Go ahead and re-read that I'll wait... Yeah 16 miles.

Meanwhile I'm training for a bike race in May called the MS150. It's 150 miles over 2 days. I rode 40 miles this weekend. Only problem is I'm training on a mountain bike with road tires. If you know of anyone that has a spare road bike they don't mind lending to someone and wants to support my efforts have them email me :)

Oh we joined a gym too. I went in this morning after dropping the kids off and did a spin class. After an hour of that the hat I was wearing was completely soaked in sweat. The bill and everything. It was like I dunked it in the sea. Awesome. I was a disgusting sweaty mess after it was over. Then I ate some yogurt and cottage cheese. Gross.

Okay FINE! Here's the video of Cooper walking. He still needs something to pull himself up on before he gets going but he's all over the place. I could still smoke him in a foot race and look forward to challenge him in arm wrestling.