Tom Eppenberger Jr’s blog

Lane biffed it this morning on his way to pick some strawberries in Grandma Linda’s backyard. Oof, it just looks painful. He was his normal self by the time Shelly picked him up this afternoon, but it was (of course) the first thing out of his mouth when he saw her.

I’m actually on my way to bed as I type this, but first I have to sneak some Neosporin onto these scrapes…

While Lane is totally obsessed with space, rockets, satellites, etc… he is deathly afraid of fireworks. I can’t explain it.

Friday night was awful. Once the sun started setting, and the explosions began, Lane was attached to either myself or Shelly until he passed out. I’m talking about uncontrollable crying, shaking, clutching, you name it. Even closing up all the windows and doors, turning the TV on to a show about space with the volume cranked didn’t relieve his fear.

Last night and tonight, the explosions have continued (although much fewer and further between). The same things have happened each night. We try and explain that there is no way the fireworks are going to hurt him or us, but nothing seems to work. I even tried the rocket angle, saying that some of the fireworks were like a mini rocket with lots of colorful stuff in them, but he didn’t buy it.

The issue is, I think, an audible one for him. We’ve long thought that he has had issues with loud noises, but this has definitely been the worst thing to date.

Yep, we finally did it, we took Lane to the barber and got all of his beautiful locks cut off…

It was Saturday morning, and all the salons we went to were super busy. Finally, the third one we tried (ironically, the same place where I got my long hair shaved off at the age of 17 – the last time I had any type of long hair) didn’t have any real wait to speak of.

Clutching to two toys, and briefly playing with a green Buddha figuring that the woman had at her station, he was quite a good sport through the process. Shelly had taken in a picture of a model with a “micro hawk,” and asked that he get something similar. She did a great job, and was incredibly patient with Lane.

When it was all said and done, he acted like nothing had changed. It was pretty amazing to see how different he looked with all that hair gone…

Since we hadn’t told anyone this haircut was coming, we decided to surprise my Mom at home. I called first, of course, and also brought her a drink from Starbucks. Camera ready as we walked up to the front porch, Shelly managed to forever capture Grandma JuJu’s first reaction to the “new Lane,” and it was great…  (Sorry Mom)

Every Monday night, for the last few months, we have been going to Gymboree for a 45 minute class. Lane absolutely loves it, and talks about it all week long, so it is worth every penny.

There have been a lot of holidays that have fallen on Monday’s the last few months, so it’s always a crap shoot as to how many of the kids in his group were going to show up. Sometimes just one other child, and other times 5-6 other kids.

Well, tonight, it was just us. Lane, Mommy, Daddy, and teacher. She gave us the option of doing free play, or having a private class (which was a nice gesture on her part — and was something that she always does when she is worried nobody else is going to show up), but we opted for the free play. All the play structures setup to find dinosaurs, balls of all sizes, inter tubes, etc. We even had a short game of hide and seek! It was a great night, and we all had such a blast…

While trying to get Lane to sleep on Friday night, he was staring out our large bedroom window up at all the stars, and started singing this repeatedly. After the third or fourth time, I went and got my cell phone and took this recording.

Thanks to Gene for his help in getting this file converted! I had all kinds of problems with the WordPress.com audio player, as it kept rejecting all the mp3 exports I did. He made this one today, and it worked!