On his birthday, Sebastian got to pick the meals of the day. For breakfast, the family went to IHOP and Sebastian feasted on strawberry waffles with maple syrup and whipped cream. The IHOP staff came out and sang Sebastian a birthday song and delivered a free bowl of ice cream. At the time, he seemed a bit embarrassed by the surprise, but he later said that it was fun.

Sebastian went to Toys'R'Us and picked out his gifts. His favorite gifts were a Star Wars Storm Troopers gun and a snow leopard stuffed animal named "Snowy."

Sebastian's dino-cake

Back at home, the whole family enjoyed hot dogs for Sebastian's lunch request. For dessert, we enjoyed an ice cream cake with a stegosaurus on it, just the way Sebastian wanted it. He was very impressed with the cake.

Later in the night, Sebastian played a game of his new favorite card game, War, against his father. Sebastian took an early lead, but his dad came back to even it up. Sebastian came through and won the game in the end.

My 30th birthday is near the beginning of June, and my son's birthday is near the end of June. We both celebrated milestone birthdays this year: 30 and 1. I'll leave it up to you to do the math and figure out whose is whose.

Since I often work weekends (including the weekend of Dylan's birthday), it seemed only natural to travel out to the homeland for his birthday party a week early. Unbeknownst to me, the idea was merely a wily subterfuge to conceal my surprise 30th birthday party.

Another piece of backstory that is important is that my wife has, on several occasions, removed a number of my t-shirts from my dresser drawers and placed them in bags and hidden them in storage. Her claim is that not only do I own far too many t-shirts, but that since I don't notice them missing, they're not even necessary in the first place. My counterpoint is, "Mine! Mine! Mine!" Once, she wanted me to toss a couple bags of clothing in front of the Salvation Army for her. I initially refused because you're not supposed to dump bags in front of the Salvation Army shop during off-hours. After some persistence, I agreed to do it. I pulled two bags out and started walking for the front door of the Salvation Army. A few familiar words spoke to me through the clear heavy-duty plastic bag: "State Spelling Chimp." Indeed, it was one of my old t-shirts in the bag without my permission. After scanning the bag again, it became apparent that many of the shirts were in the bags. Needless to say, the bags returned to the car, along with a grumpy husband.

The Frontstory

When I arrived at the party, I walked in the house to see the usual family members. My mother was at the door and greeted Sebastian and me as we entered. Since my wife was still getting Dylan out of the car, I announced that Dylan was not with me, since it was his party. I then looked at my mom and noticed that she was wearing my Family Guy t-shirt for some strange reason. I told her, "Nice shirt." As I looked over at a couple other people, I noticed that they were also wearing my t-shirts. Confused, I offered the same "Nice shirt" to them as well. At that point, it became clear that many of the people were wearing my shirts, so I continued telling each of them "Nice shirt." Still confused, my eye caught the gift table, which had a couple large black signs noting that it was my birthday party. It should be noted that my 30th birthday cake was really a Twinkies pyramid.

I was further surprised by my gifts this year from the culprits behind the surprise t-shirt-wearing party. My first gift was a t-shirt stating "My wife hates my t-shirts." My second gift was yet another shirt, but this one said, "And I have 30 more just like it." The third gift was another shirt that said, "… in a box over there." The final gift/shirt said "… in a bag in the trunk." Each shirt also has the website address to my primary blog, smarmycarny.com. Check out the (low-quality) scan of the shirts:

Of course, strangers might be confused by all this. You'd have to know me personally to understand . . . and even then . . .

The first shirt works great. My wife hates my shirts . . . and visit this site. Since the other three are part of a "story," they make less sense on their own. (It's not often that I'm wearing 2 or more shirts at once, and even if I did, only one would be visible.) The best of the three confusing shirts is "… in a bag in the trunk." It sounds so suspicious, you can't help but wonder what that guy's been doing with his free time.

The Sidestory

Now, looking back at the events of that weekend, I came to some interesting realizations:

We brought presents for Dylan, but we also brought some gifts for my aunt as well because her birthday (39th, of course) was a couple days before Dylan's. I "knew" that the party was for Dylan, but I didn't know if we were also celebrating my aunt's birthday too. The day before the party, I asked my mom, "Who exactly is the party for?" Of course, I innocently wanted to know if we just brought the presents for my aunt because it was the only time we'd see her, or if it was also officially her birthday. My mom, on the other hand, took this as an accusation that the party wasn't really for Dylan. Discussing this later, she said that she was sure that I had figured it out.

Before the party, I took my family to visit my father. I made sure that we got there with plenty of time to spare so we would not be late for "Dylan's party" and we also would be able to spend a substantial amount of time with my dad. I calculated the time we needed to leave in order to make it back 15 minutes early and arrive before most of the guests showed up, but my wife was working against me, doing her best to make sure that we arrived after all the other guests. On our ride back, my wife drove with Dylan and I rode with my brother-in-law and Sebastian. At one point, she pulled off at a gas station behind us and called us to tell us where she had gone. We were on a road that my wife knew well enough to make it to the party, so I kept trying to tell my brother-in-law to just keep driving and to have my wife make her way there. If I had been driving, I would have left her behind and arrived much closer to the time of the party.

One coincidental thing that happened had to do with shirts. As I mentioned, many of the guests wore my shirts that day. Earlier in the morning, my brother-in-law put on a shirt that looked strikingly similar to one I had. Sebastian even told him that he was wearing my shirt. Once the surprise had been revealed to me, I assumed that he was wearing one of my shirts, but it really just was a coincidence.

Currently, his page is incomplete. I have written a synopsis of the day he was born and added pictures for his first three birthdays (0 – 2 years). I find that it's much easier to write about birthdays as they are happening, not 1 – 4 years later. Hopefully, with my wife's help I can get those summaries written soon. I'm certainly aiming to get the page completed in advance of Sebastian's birthday on August 5.

They say about children that the time flies by, but I think this is only partially true. On occasion, it feels like the time has flown by, but today (and more often than not) it seems like Dylan has always been in our family. It's incomprehensible that he has been with us for merely a year.

Dylan's teeth still refuse to officially pop through those gums. I've explained to him that he can't grow up with a toothless smile (in this state, anyway), yet he still refuses to teethe.

Dylan doesn't seem to be using any words in my opinion, though my wife swears that his use of da-da and ma-ma are intentional. He does, however, do one horribly cute thing that we really need to videotape soon. When Sebastian pretends to be a puppy and gives off one of his high-pitched barks, Dylan counters with a small little bark of his own.

Dylan loves clapping and dancing to music — "It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!" is certainly one of his favorites dance tunes.

Dylan is not yet walking without assistance, but that's fine with my wife. To her, less walking is less trouble. I'm not convinced. Once a baby can crawl with ease and pull himself up to a standing position, it's game over on safety. I'm still trying to get him to pull that string that drops the bricks on the raised end of the board he's sitting on so it catapults him up to the fan, which will catch his overalls and spin him around for a while. So far, he hasn't taken the bait. Hours of tape have already been wasted. America's Funniest Home Videos will have to keep waiting.

Don't forget about Dylan's page!

Enter the Carousel. This is the time of renewal.

Logan's Run opened almost 30 years ago (6/23/76) about killing people off at 30. It's my turn to enter the carousel. I plan on watching Logan's Run this week, when I have a couple hours to take the time.

Yes, 1976, back when an average new house cost less than $44,000, people earned just over $16k per year, and a new car would run just about $4500. And don't forget the 59 cents/gallon for gasoline!

Here are the people who wished me a happy birthday, in order of when I received the birthday greeting. Since they didn't know they'd be getting anything out of the deal, free links are included:

1. Dani
2. My 4 1/2 year old son
3. My wife
4. My Saturn salesman
5. My mother
6. Speakup Western NY
7. Gottadeal.com
8. My great-aunt
9. Four co-workers
10. Cold Stone Creamery (including a coupon!)
11. Jippy
12. Fans Of Reality TV
13. Debate Politics
14. Leland
15. My cousin
16. Pimp My Blog
17. Joomla Forums
18. Site5 Webhosting Forums
19. Another cousin
20. My sister-in-law
21. My mother-in-law
22. Marlene

This post was originally posted at The Smarmy Carny, Novac's general blog.

Due to our son's surprise induction and early arrival, instead of preparing for his birth, we just celebrated his three-week birthday on Friday!

This post was originally posted at The Smarmy Carny, Novac's general blog.

My mother turns 50 years old today. Fifty years!

I guess that means I'm starting to get old, too, but I won't hit my milestone for another 11 months.

Today, mom turns 50, but here are some other ways to look at her age:

• 600 months
• 0.5 century
• 2,608.94 weeks
• 18,262 days
• 438,301 hours
• 26,298,073 minutes
• 1,577,884,380 seconds
• 0.20 Plutonian year
• 0.30 Neptunian year
• 1.70 Saturnian years
• 4.20 Jovian yars
• 26.58 Marsian Years
• 81.17 Venusian years
• 207.53 Mercurian years
• 263 million blinks of an eye

Time marches on. Hopefully, my mother will, too.

Thanks to everyone for the prayers and thoughts the past 30 hours.

Long story short, everything went well, and we now have our second son!

Dylan was born on June 24, 2005 at 14:34. He weighed 5 lbs, 5 oz and measured 19 inches long. Due to his early arrival and small size, he was taken to NICU (Neonatal ICU) and is currently hanging out there. He is fine, except for some blood sugar levels, which have now stabilized. Technically, I believe he was born one day before he would officially become "full term."

Long story long, we went in on the 23rd at 19:30 and my wife was given something to help the dilation, considering a woman is not usually dilated at all a month before the due date. The doctor said that some time after 08:00 the following morning, he would check things out. He came in around 09:00 and started my wife on the medication that would increase the contractions. She started pushing around 14:00 and at 14:34, Dylan came out and said hello. He reported that he saw his shadow, so there will reportedly be six more weeks of summer. All in all, the labor was much less intensive than our first son due to Dylan's smaller size. She only had to push for about a half an hour, compared to hours and hours with our first son, who weighed in at 8 lbs, 15 oz.

My wife has had a chance to hold Dylan, and it was wonderful. I'll be uploading some pictures in a day or two. Stay tuned . . .

PS: Thanks to all those who replied on these boards and via e-mail. I'm off for a much needed nap before heading back to the hospital. I will reply to you all personally in due time.

Be sure to check out Dylan's page!

This post was originally posted at The Smarmy Carny, Novac's general blog.