An Owen-heavy update

Spiderman's back.


It can only mean another birthday party ...

Owen, Maya and I went to Owen's friend Ron's fifth birthday at the Children's Discovery Museum on Saturday. It was lots of fun, as usual ... so much so that Maya went home too tired and overstimulated to take her nap.

At least it was an early night.

We're actually having a kind of unconventional weekend at the Aalberts' house. Amy and Pam left this morning for Lawrence, Kansas, to attend the funeral of their great uncle Phil Humphrey, a sweet man I have fond memories of meeting 10 years ago when Amy and I were dating.

So I'm playing "bachelor dad" for a few days. There are plenty of thoughts of living up to the Bill Cosby sketch about feeding the kids chocolate cake for breakfast (ironically, there is some freshly made for the aforementioned birthday party), but I haven't done anything too irresponsible yet.

Well, with the exception of taking the kids to Chuck E Cheese at 9:15 am on a Sunday and giving Maya her first Barbie ...

Anyway, the kids are both tucked snugly in bed and I'm catching up on a couple weeks of absentee blogging.

Last weekend we were in Iowa City for the Iowa vs. Northwestern football game. The Hawkeyes entered the game 9-0 and exited 9-1, but my Dad and I (attending the only Hawkeye game we'll see live this year) had a wonderful time nonetheless. we somehow managed amazing seats immediately behind the players' families, 16 rows up on the 30 yard line.

It gave us an excellent view of Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore as they roamed the Iowa sideline.

While Dad and I were at the game, Owen was taking the ride of his life on the Hawkeye Express, a commuter train that takes fans from a parking area in Coralville right to Kinnick Stadium.


Owen loves all trains. Black and Gold ones, however, are even better.

On Sunday morning we headed downtown to meet our dear friends Jeff and Melissa and their two adorable 4 month old twins Audrey and Henry. Added to a family that already includes big sister Olivia and two Great Pyrenees dogs who roam the house like moving sofas, the twins seem to be under the care of two surprisingly sane parents, weathering the challenges of their new lifestyle with considerable ... well ... style.

Amy and I were really looking forward to seeing how Maya would be with the two babies, given the charm she exhibited when she met her similarly-aged cousin Esme a month ago.

As you can see, there was a little more panic this time.

But she did warm up to them as the morning went along ...

I should mention, there was one other highlight to Sunday morning. I hadn't had any coffee before heading downtown, so I quickly dashed off when we got there to the Starbuck's to get my caffeine fix.

The line was long ... but that just gave me more time to talk to Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz, who was in line behind me. It had been almost exactly one year since he had signed the football wishing my dad luck on his heart surgery, but he remembered the inscription I'd penned for him well, and seemed truly interested in how Dad was doing.

He's a pretty amazing guy.

... so is Owen.

As we were leaving the park following our morning with the twins, we walked past Martini's, the bar where Amy and I met. Amy stopped Owen and said, "Owen, this is a special place. This is where your mom and dad met. It was a long time ago." Owen thought about this for a moment and said, "You mean back in the days of the steam engine?"

I also need to share one other quote from the week. Driving the kids to school on Tuesday, Maya was fussing some in the backseat. Owen didn't like it, and when Maya threw her leg over the side of her car seat toward him, Owen said, "Dad, Maya's got her leg over the seat." I told him it was OK, but Owen was sure it wasn't: "No. It's bad for the environment! I saw it on TV."

Lastly, I'll close with the following video of Owen's dance performance. He'd been doing this for about 15 minutes before I grabbed the camera.

We had to give him a nebulizer treatment after.

Enjoy.