I feel like our boys got older this weekend. I mean, I know they literally got 48 hours older, but there were randomly several major milestones over the past couple of days that got me all sappy thinking about the little dudes becoming not so little. Let’s take a look back, shall we:

1. Cal gets his first haircut. Good lord was this horrible. Page had to hold him, and I think she ended up in a sweatier mess than he did. The woman at Great Clips – God bless her – was very patient, but after doing a relatively good job blowing through the majority of his head, she turned OCD and was convinced that the necessary cherry on top was “snipping that little rat tail of his.” Cal doesn’t have a rat tail, folks. By the end of the #12minutesofhell (as it would be hash-tagged on Twitter), Cal was at his wits end. He was pissed at getting a haircut and even more pissed at the mere mention of a rat tail. When the barberette (woman barber?) was done and the faux tail was snipped, Cal immediately simmered. What a disaster. His dome looks good though. He looks like a little boy now. Crazy.

Seriously, was it really that terrible? (YES.)

2. We take our first walk through the mall together (not ever, just in a while). Can someone tell me when black, calf-high socks and Sperry Topsiders TOGETHER became cool? I seriously felt like I was 80 on Saturday. Every single person in the mall was on their phone, and I think I saw about 47 people (yes, one solo) having sex in H&M. What in the hell were Page and I thinking having kids?! It’s not like I don’t go out in public on a daily basis – hell, I’m around teenage kids all the time with our baseball tournaments, but seriously, you would have thought that the memo of snap-back hats, neon everything and pants that would cut the circulation off even a horse jockey would have crossed my path at some point (see video below – apparently, I’m a jerk). It took me about 11 seconds before I put the weather shield over the stroller. No way are my boys gonna catch crabs at Crabtree Valley Mall.

 

3. Ford drinks from a normal person cup for the first time. This happened like an hour ago, and while it may sound silly, this could quite possibly have been the highlight of the weekend. To this point all of Ford’s drinking devices have needed a steel-latched lid, as he tends to fire his cups across the house as if they just set fire to his little hands. And every time he does this, Page and I turn into CSI detectives trying to follow a blood splatter. “Do you see where the milk leads, Detective Fehling?” “Yes, Detective Fehling, he threw the effing milk clear across the room. It is currently resting – and dripping – on what looks like a laptop.” “Aw hell.”

4. Cal advances to a forward-facing car seat. Now, I know we run the risk of being publicly scolded for not having him rear-facing until he’s 17 years old (who writes these rules anyway?? What? Doctors? Crap.), but everything we’ve read, heard, seen, feel like doing, tells us that it’s time. I remember switching Ford out…and…man, it’s crazy seeing that face staring at you in the rear-view for the first time…especially when a 1-year-old flips you the bird for what I can only assume is the disgust that it took us this long to put a tank-sized kid into a decently-sized seat. To be fair, it has been a little hard to buckle him lately (for the past four months), but I digress. So now we have double-barrel toddlers in our second row captains chairs. If it didn’t feel like we were chauffers before, it definitely does now. Monkey Joe’s it is, kind sirs.

Guys, seriously, this is so not worth a photoshoot.

5. And finally — one more for Cal — little man gets a passport. Technically we’re filing everything tomorrow, but he had his picture taken today. I posted it to Facebook earlier, but come on, how can I not flaunt this beauty again. Could he be any more pissed? They ask you to “not make a facial expression” for the photo, but come on, they HAVE to waive that for kids, let alone ones Cal’s age, right? God I hope so. If we end up on YouTube as Cal is getting molested by the TSA while Page and I are firing off obscenities in the background because of this picture, well…well, that would be awesome.

Do NOT let this child on your plane.

So yeah, big weekend. Not to sound too corny, but with all of those milestones, plus my future flashing before my eyes at the mall, I definitely was thinking a lot about the next few years, fatherhood, etc…

And then I pissed my pants a little.

And no, that’s not a first.

Jake

p.s. Honorable mention: Ford requesting (demanding) ice cream for the first time.  Not that this is a big deal at all, but he called it “ass cream.”  “I WANT ASS CREAM!” he yelled over and over before we finally caught our breath and gave him some.  We’re horrible parents.