Sometimes, in the past, I would have dreams. Good dreams, where I was happy and things were right. Sure, maybe the dreams would be all weird and surreal, but the feeling I had in the dream was good. Then I would wake up and realize it was just a dream and realize that I was still in the drudgery of my awake life.

Not that my awake life was actually intolerable. I was only perceiving it as such.

Now, I look at Caden and Bridget and I feel like I did in those dreams. And I keep expecting to wake up to drudgery again. I can feel how good things are now, but the goodness still feels fleeting and intangible. It's a nervous time for me because of that.

Bridget says his cord is hanging by a thread, and will likely come off this week. It's about time. I can't wait to play with his bellybutton, because I think he might find that amusing, and I will definitely find it amusing.

Speaking of Bridget, she's been working as a waitress for three days now, and doesn't completely despise it yet. The rest of the staff is giving her a little crap about how she thinks she's going to hit the floor and make mad tips, even though she's a total rookie. Her response: "I might just be good at this. You never know." They don't know who they're talking to. She's gonna show them all up.

This morning, on the way to work, it was overcast. It must have been quite an interesting world when no one knew what clouds were. When I look at them, I think big bunches of water vapor condensed around dust particles, and sometimes it rains. Caden, on the other hand, has no idea. He just looks up and sees a big, wide swipe of various shades of blue-gray.

I tried to look at the sky through his eyes, and I succeeded to some degree. And the cows and the trees. But not for long, because I was driving and you have to stay in the moment with that.

What I did realize, once the strip mall area came up, was that people's creations of signs and buildings and roads have nothing on nature's trees and hills and animals.

Maybe I'll go hang outside at lunchtime today.

Okay a bunch of news.

Vanessa and David have had their son, Max. We took Caden up to Madison, WI, to meet him, and he traveled very well. Max is like holding a saltine cracker in comparison to Caden. We are also guessing that Max and Caden will be the next Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Cause they're so cute.

Caden had yet another most giant poop of his short life this morning. I wasn't there to see it, but Bridget reports that she "cannot begin to describe the amount of poop that came out of [my] son." I have to think he's a pound lighter now, because he hadn't had a big poop for an entire week.

The wind of last weekend is all but forgotten now, and I have a plan to line the back of my yard with hedges to piss off all those fuckers who built fences all around me in an attempt to block off the utility pedestals from their own yards.

Bridget starts as a waitress at a fancy restaurant tonight. She's going to try it out and see if she can work part time there and no time as a retail manager. This would be great, I think. She's managed for quite a long time, and I think she needs a break from that as much as anything. I'm very curious to hear about how this first day goes, but she doesn't get home until late. I just looked at the clock and realized that she's already there working. Good luck!

Which reminds me - I have to pick up our son from her parents house. That would be funny if I forgot that, huh?