One of my favorite things when Will was a baby was all of the times that he would fall asleep on my chest in my recliner and we could nap together. While she's an absolute cutie and a delightful baby, Adriana just doesn't do that - she likes to sit up, generally even when she's tired. But yesterday, on my birthday, she finally snuggled up and fell asleep.

Today we debut a new feature on the Vanderblog: Vanderblog NewsWatch with Marc and Will, a periodic review of current news and information from the Vander Maas household. This week, your Vanderblog NewsTeam brings you the latest on an important birthday celebration...

Will started his swimming lessons a bit timid about the water, but as you can see, he's starting to get a bit more confidence in his abilities - at least when his teacher, Michelle, is within reach...

This one has some great stunts in there...

A while back, I spent a day shooting some footage with Adam Barr (and Josh Harney) for a new Borderlands project - Consumers or Creators. Based on the trailer, it looks to be coming together pretty well:

Both Dawn and I have been intending to write a full-scale update on everything that's been going on in the last month or so, but we're both busy and distracted enough that whenever we actually have time to do it, we're not thinking about it. So apologies for the light posting.

Anyway, last friday was, of course, the fourth of July, and our family went out to Dumont Lake Park in Allegan County somewhere southwest of Hopkins (a shout out to 'Chelle on that one) and had a bunch of fun with Grammy and Papa and Auntie Tammi and Ella. Will did some swimming, Andie got to wear her new swimsuit and looked totally cute, and Dawn and I just sort of sat around, occasionally wandering out in the water or pushing Will on the swingset.

Well, as we were packing up to head home, all of the sudden Will is crying and I see blood. Lo and behold, he had fallen on the big plastic twisty slide and had opened up a half-inch gash on his chin that was laying wide open! After some parental deliberation and a call to the doctor, we decided that the best course of action would be to take him in to have it looked at and potentially stitched up, so off we went to the nice new St. Mary's Southwest center on Byron Center.

Will got to walk around for about 20 minutes with a numbing medicine-soaked cotton ball taped to his chin, which was kind of funny looking, but allowed him some time to play with his Bob the Builder "Kids," as he calls them (Rolly, Scoop, Benny and Muck, for those of you who know what this stuff is about).

The doctor had taken a look at the gash, and told us that she'd probably recommend that it be sutured shut, just to keep the size of the scar down, but that it was one of those things where we could weigh the benefit of having a smaller scar against the potential, well, trauma for Will of having to go through the stitching process. We decided to have him stitched up.

Initially, they wrapped him in a blanket to restrain him a little bit so the doctor could work on his chin, but that only worked for the first poke with a syringe (he got numbed again), and so we had to actually put him on a restraint board and velcro him into it. I even ended up standing behind his head holding his jaw in place, although I did have to sit down when I saw the doctor pulling at the cut with a giant tweezers thingie. ("A good father never passes out and falls on his child while assisting in a medical procedure," my dad used to say. Or not. Mostly he just stretched and said "harga barga barga barga." But I like to think that he'd say that if he knew I was going to be in a position to pass out during my child's medical procedure.)

He ended up with only one stitch in the middle of the wound, and a couple of Steri-strips that they put on either side of the stitch to keep the rest of the wound closed and protected. We were told to let the steri-strips fall off on their own, and not to pull them off. Naturally, after we got home about 20 minutes later, the first thing Will did was pull them off. He wandered out of the bathroom holding them in his hand saying, "these were the things that were hurting me."

In the end, Will did pretty well, and as we were walking out of the building he said, "you know, the doctors did a GREAT job."

For those of you fortunate enough to check out this blog on Saturday night, you get the opportunity to see the latest SSSOT episode BEFORE Sunday morning!

Just one of the premiums that my regular readers enjoy here at the Vanderblog...

It's tough to be a baby. Playing, sitting up, occasionally crying and eating. You just need to catch some z's when you can...

I suppose it should be noted that I noticed this furry little guy out there only after unintentionally hitting him with a chunk of cucumber that I was tossing out into the yard. (I'm mowing the lawn tomorrow, so I was tossing some cucumber scraps from dinner out there figuring that they'd be mulched anyway.) It's kind of unsettling to accidentally hit a skunk with something like that; I certainly didn't intend to provoke him or anything. And it was dark at that point, too, which makes having a skunk in your yard even more unsettling.

I'm just hoping that the thing isn't living back there. I've seen a skunk in the driveway before, and I've noticed that odor in the air occasionally. My fear is that there's actually a den of skunks living under the pile of old branches and junk between the barn and the back fence. (Lord, please please PLEASE don't let that be the case, and if it is, please please PLEASE don't let me find out the hard way.)

Well, it's quarter after one. Time to hit the sack.

Will took his first swimming lesson out at Railside yesterday, and as you can see, he was thrilled about it. He really didn't do too badly. His teacher, Michelle, is very good, and she's gradually easing him into the water. And there's only one other little girl who is in the same "class" with him, so he gets a good amount of attention.

A good part of the time during his lesson, Will was sitting on the top step of the pool, refusing to go down the additional step that he was asked to move, and reciting lines from various tv shows. At one point, Dawn and I heard him say quite loudly "Everybody say OH TOOOOODLES!"

We both sort of bowed our heads in shame. Or laughter, or both. I don't know, really.

Tomorrow morning is lesson #2. We'll see how it goes.

Four Years Old

Hooray for Father's Day! And in case you're wondering, I had a very nice day today, thank you very much. This morning at church, we saw the second in a 13 part series of videos that I'm editing for the summer sermon series. It's sort of a comedy deal involving all of our pastors basically making fools of themselves. For those who are unfamiliar with this crazy mess, the trailer is below:



Yeah, that's nuts. The nice thing is that I've added a set of end credits that contain my own little gags. This week I threw in a recipe for delicious pound cake.

Anyway, after church we went to grammy and papa's house for a light brunch, after which we presented Papa with his Father's Day/birthday present - tickets to this afternoon's Whitecaps game. The game itself turned out to be something like an anti-fielding clinic for both teams, and the Whitecaps got beat pretty badly, but it all turned out OK because hey, the Tigers are on a 6 game winning streak. So no worries.

After that, we went back to grammy & papa's house for a little surprise birthday celebration with DELICIOUS COSTCO BIRTHDAY CAKE! And now we're home, in bed, and ready to sleep except for me doing a bit of my summer reading yet before I turn in.

I'll try to post a bit more on what's gone on in the last few weeks in the coming days, or at least a longing look back at my time with my (I mean Work's) precious Olympus E-500 SLR camera, which was stolen last thursday during Acton University. Believe me, my heart is broken right now.