This is a much delayed post. Life has been busy. Thanksgiving, weddings, traveling….
If you know me, you know that I’m a nerd for numbers and dates and times…(and just a nerd in general). Today, Lincoln hit 500 days old. It just strikes me as fascinating. His 1st birthday seems so long ago yet his 2nd so far away. Love you little buddy!
My wife….there are a lot of words to say about her. She’s not perfect but she works so hard at it. Married life with her has been interesting and fun. There have been roadblocks and stumbles but at the end of the day, we are us and we are together. Always together. I can’t even keep track of all the adventures and awesome memories we have shared. It’s amazing to look back at the photo albums from our first years and just see conversations and moments come rushing back.
This year for her professionally has been a bit rough. I guess it started with the social media age but nobody confronts anything head on. They go around and around instead of through (maybe to a possible solution). If they knew my wife, they would know how much this eats at her. Eats at the very soul and core of who she is. How her stress level from this can rise enough to shut down her immune system. Teachers (high school ones in particular) have to put up with a lot. Administrators, department leads, parents…and oh yeah, students who are 14-18 years old and are testing the limits of everything daily.
I may be biased because my mom and many of my aunts and uncles are teachers or educators but I have such respect for their position. E and L are gonna be in trouble because I’ll probably take the teacher’s word over theirs. I can guarantee you though – there won’t be any anonymous letters or secret meetings with the administration unless I talk to the teacher first and am ignored or don’t feel respected (and I probably won’t have to jump in because wifey definitely knows how to speak her mind).
Becky’s job isn’t easy. It’s stressful for all of us. But it enables her to serve people in a way that she’s really good at. Seeing kids come together and have a support group and show their talents – theater invigorates and energizes like nothing else.
It’s why 19 years later, I have forgotten most of my high school teacher’s names except for Ginger Hilbun, Karen Dean, Leonid Mazor and E. Frank Bluestein.
Godparent Series – Kid #2
This was an easy one. It’s about my best friend for over 20 years. Man, has it been that long. I am the godfather to his firstborn son and he’s the godfather to mine. Even though he has to travel a lot for his job, he made the time away from his wife and kids to come visit us in Nashville a few months and meet Lincoln (and give this dad some MUCH needed family getaway time).
Seeing how Travis has transformed into such a family man, lowered his temper, raised his game and become such an amazing father has been nothing short of amazing. He has helped make me a better man, shown me how to do things the right way and given me honest and solid feedback when I ask him for advice (and given me a love for trying to grow my own food). A best friend isn’t one who just blindly agrees – we all need some challenging. Check and check.
I love his family and he loves mine and we are pretty much brothers, probably closer than many real life ones. It’s amazing we have lasted 19 years (senior year at GHS) since living in the same city with maybe a visit or two a year to actually hang in person. The app Voxer has helped a lot along with social media and texting. It’s a challenge but we make it work.
There’s a thing about life-long friends. As you get older, you forget about some of the adventures you had. Travis made me a video for my 37th birthday and looking through them, I can’t believe all the life we have lived. I forgot even BEING in some of those places. It’s a beautiful life and an awesome friendship with him as my bro-pilot.
To my Cubs-loving, movie-watching, Memphis Tigers bball fan and fellow Germantown High School thespian, I love you…man. And my son is lucky to have you in his life.
I have been fascinated by the play “Hamilton” recently. Even though it’s been out and popular for well over a year (and my wife is a theater teacher), I never looked into it. Until my good friends, The Brown’s, went and saw it when it came to Chicago. (if anyone wants to get me tickets to either the Chicago or Broadway editions, we’d be friends for life. It’s FANTASTIC and an epic undertaking. And that it’s all (mostly) true is all the more remarkable)
One of the themes of the play is your legacy and who will tell your story after you are gone and the concept of time. It’s something I’ve been wrestling with. Only a few people get to live on in history – the President’s Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, Michael Jordan, Joe Montana, Michael Jackson, etc. But most of us just live the “simpler” life – hopefully get married and raise kids (if we so choose) and grow old into retirement and relaxation to watch our grand-kids grow up.
Hamilton was not content with that. He wanted to be remembered. As a black man raised by a single mother in Memphis, my experience somewhat compares to Hamilton but then pales. At least I had my mom and no cousin I lived with committed suicide. And there was no revolution in my childhood – even though race relations in America both spoken and unspoken are a kind of revolution.
I’m happy with my life. My friends, my family. My two kids who love me and need me to provide for them. My wife who loves me and tries to make me a better man. My sister who I get to enjoy seeing grow up and grow in her marriage, career and just as a person. My mother who gets to enjoy the fruits of her labor after years and years of struggle and going without so she could raise me and my sister to adulthood (and beyond. I mean, she still mothers and supports and guides us to this day). Maybe it’s a part of getting old that you think about the future and the end.
The relative I most think about is my grandfather, E.C. Burnett and my grandmother, Emma Jean Burnett. I pale in comparison to him as a person, even though he had his flaws. I am proud that my son shares his middle name. He was a man of great pride and stubbornness but he gave so much to so many. I got through school with minimal debt because he made it a point to open a savings account for me when I was a child. Instead of pouring me over with the latest toys, he had a bigger game in mind. And let me tell you, leaving college debt-free was better than any Nintendo game or G.I. Joe figure. My grandmother – her gift of knitting and crocheting is on display in the blankets in my house and the PERSONAL touch she put on things. What a legacy. It’s not that they were cheap – she was a creator. It’s phenomenal to know that both my son and daughter have had pictures with and “played” with something created by my own grandmother who hasn’t taken a breath on this Earth in almost 30 years.
I guess all this to say – I hope that my future grand-kids will think fondly of me. I hope my friends will say I was good to them and there when they needed me – and made them laugh a few times.
That’s a pretty good legacy if you ask me.
We did a really good job this time in managing the diaper transition. We had JUST the right amount of newborn diapers and size 2’s to get our little man to size 3.
I found this little guy lying around today – the last of our size 1 diapers. It looks so tiny. I can’t help but think if this will ever be worn…third Williams baby ONE day?
Today you turned 3. As of officially about 2 hours ago. It’s weird. I still remember the exact time – 7:54 pm. I wonder if I always will.
My daughter…you are so much like me. Your stubbornness is going to be the stuff of legends. Your running style can only be described as a gallop. Your sweet voices, your oh so smart brain. Your love for princesses and cheese, your desire for everyone to be at peace and not argue. Your use of the word “family” and naming all of us ALL THE TIME just to make sure no one is left out. Your love of your brother and being the bestest big sister ever.
Just in the past week, the word has changed from “orangen” to “orange”, from “horsie” to “horses”. And all this by the age of 36 months? What will the next 36 bring? The next 36 after that? You’ll be almost double digits by then!
I shudder for the year ahead at times – threenager (that time where they know so much but can’t always verbalize it but it leads to meltdowns). Patience is going to be a key…and lots of coffee.
It’s hard to believe I ever wanted a boy first and was upset when the appropriate gender was revealed. God has a funny way of giving you what you needed and it’s 100% true with this little love of my life.
Happy 3rd, E.
How does E describe these door knobs?
Goes to show you how busy life has been that this post is well over a month old…oh well, here’s the 2017 edition of Brian’s Birthday.
And here are the freebies I used:
To Use:
Life with two kids in the suburbs isn’t always what you would call “exciting”. Sometimes you just have to survive. This weekend, we had to deal with…THE BIRDS!
We forgot to close our garage on Saturday night after a long day out and about. I can only guess that since it was a bit cold out that a few birds looked for a little shelter. Sunday morning, I went out to take out some trash and get things ready for church. Well, at least 2 birds had decided to take up residence on top of our garage door. They wouldn’t respond to “shooing” or loud noises. We were, of course, running majorly late for church and didn’t want them in the garage the whole time while we were gone, pooping on everything. Now, what do you do? Were these birds peaceful or would they try to peck out an eyeball? I may have seen Hitchcock’s “The Birds” one too many times.
We went out the front door of the house and backed into the garage with the kids and moved the car out of the garage slowly. Opening and closing the garage a few times made them fly around but not exit the Williams garage. I got the biggest and longest stick I could and banged on the garage and made loud noises. I may have even started tweeting like a bird. That got one of the little buggers out from the garage but there was still ONE left. I lost sight lock and then spotted him (or her). The little jerk was on top of one of the wicker baskets by the front door. Church had already started so we needed to GO and I was out of options.
In true teamwork fashion, Becky jumped in. She ran into the garage and gave the bird what she calls “a little female talk”. She asked it kindly to leave our garage…and it did. Really? It MUST have been a girl bird.
The kids were laughing when we both got back in the car and Becky and I both had a little chuckle. Oh….what unexpected family fun on a Sunday morning.
P.S. I think I saw a few of the neighborhood birds on the power lines last night thinking about how to plot their revenge 🙂
I won’t be able to call her “little” too much longer. There’s so much she does on a daily basis that just astonishes me. I just wanted to write a few of them down here
# prouddad
