Dear Son

Ryne -

Almost a year has passed, now, since you were born (actually, 11 months has passed). Wow! What a difference a year can make in someone’s life. At this time last year, if I recall correctly, I was scared, nervous, excited, and curious, you name it – if it were an emotion, chances are I felt it. I had no idea what to expect once you were born. I do remember how desperately I wanted you to be born during the Iowa Hawkeyes bye week (that didn’t happen). I remember thinking how they (the Iowa Hawkeyes) were going to have a dream season to coincide with the year that you were born; what a year it was going to be the Iowa Hawkeyes were going to win the Rose Bowl the very first year that you were alive (that didn’t happen, either)! Oh well, the sun kept coming-up; life went-on. Last year turned-out better than I could have ever planned. Ryne, you entering your Mom’s and my life has been the greatest thing that has ever happened to us.

Everyday you bring us so much happiness. The little things that you do are the best: your smile when one of us first gets you out of your crib in the morning, the way that you open your mouth in anticipation of every bite of food that we feed you, the sly grin that you give when you want someone to chase after you right before you take-off, your little eyes barely peeking out the screen of the front storm door when your Mom or I go outside, I could go on… You have only been alive and with us for one year, yet I don’t remember what our lives were like prior to you joining us. I can’t imagine our lives without you. I’ve said this previously, but it merits saying again, ‘you can not describe how great being a parent is to someone who is not a parent,’ they just couldn’t and don’t understand. You are the greatest gift that I have ever received. Thank you.

I started this blog to convey my emotions regarding the pregnancy leading up to and the birth of you, Ryne. You see, Ryne, there are very few people who I feel comfortable discussing my emotions with, but at the same time I am quite an emotional person. I had a feeling that you would bring out the best of my emotions and I wanted to give a larger scope of people an idea as to what I was feeling in regards to you. And I wanted you to know how you make me feel. I want you to know without a doubt how much I love you. I am not an openly affectionate I person, and I am not a lovie (not Smith, bad joke) person. However, I hope to never shy away from showing you how much I love you. I want to be able to hug you, and tell you that I love you as you grow-up and into adulthood. Nonetheless, these words that I write, and that you read, are my feelings; they are my thoughts expressed for you, to you.

You have changed me, Ryne, and it has been for the better. I hope that I can return the favor and help mold you into an exceptional citizen/person. To steal from my favorite book, I want to raise you to be ‘a man built for others.’ I am optimistic that these blog entries will serve as a reminder of a) how to do that (be ‘a man built for others’) and b) just how much I love you. Hopefully, when you are a bit older, you will be able to reference these entries and to use them as a guide, to give you strength when you are in despair, and to remind you that you have always been and will always be loved.

The 12 Commandments

This past summer I’ve been doing a lot of running as I get ready to run my first half-marathon at the end of September. While I’ve been doing all of this running, it has given me a lot of time to think (one of the reasons that I enjoy running so much). A lot of the time I think about you. I think about how quickly you’ve developed and grown over this first year, I think about what the future holds for you, I think about what kind of Dad I want to be, and I think about what I need to do in-order to raise you as best as I can.

I don’t consider myself a teacher or an administrator; I like to consider myself an educator. Being an educator is not my job, it is the career that I have chosen. The greatest pleasure that being an educator brings me is helping young people become better people. I see these people on a limited basis, during the school day for a year/a couple years and then that is it. I get to see you everyday. Helping you become a better person, Ryne, is my number one priority, and it is something that excites me very much when I think about it.

On one recent jog, I started a list in my head. This list that I started I will call My Twelve Commandments that I hope can serve as your guide you to living well. I’m sure that I have written something similar to this over the past year, but I find these traits to be of the utmost importance to possess so I will reemphasize them.

1) Be open-minded; try new things; don’t just hear, but really listen to what other people are saying
2) Be humble, yet be confident in your self
3) If something is worth doing then it is worth your best effort
4) If something is worth starting then it is worth finishing
5) Discipline yourself so no one else has to – if you have the inner-strength to discipline yourself no one else will need to discipline you with consequences
6) Love - don’t ever be afraid to love
7) Be comfortable being independent; don’t think that you have to go along with the crowd just because it is the popular thing; if you don’t believe it, don’t do it
8) Believe in something greater than yourself; have faith with those beliefs through good times and bad (I recently read a tweet from Larry Fitzgerald that I liked, it said, “Faith isn’t not being afraid to go on, faith is being able to go on when you are afraid.”)
9) Be honest, be trustworthy, and don’t lie. My Mom emphasized this to me so much when I was younger that I actually thought ‘Thou shall not lie’ was one of the Ten Commandments
10) What you do matters more than what you say; actions speak louder than any words
11) Respect – if you want to be respected, you must respect others. Respect those that are younger than you, respect those that are older than you; you were once in the younger person’s shoes, and you will someday be in the older person’s shoes. Respect people that are different than you. Respect women.
12) See the glass as half-full; be optimistic. Realize that yes, things could usually be better, but they could always be worse; be thankful that things are not worse, be hopeful that things will get better.

Goals vs. Wishes

Herman Edwards has said a lot of great things. He said, “Playoffs?!” He said, “You play to win the game.” And he said, my favorite, “Without a plan, a goal is just a wish.”

I am a goal oriented person. I work best when I have goals to achieve/complete. I have always set goals for myself. Midway through college, I set myself a lot of goals. I have attained all of them except for two, and I am currently working on one of my remaining goals. The goals were:

1) Graduate with an Elementary Education Bachelor’s Degree. Check
2) Get a teaching job. Check
3) Get a coaching job. Check
4) Marry Amy Kelling. Check
5) Own a home. Check
6) Get an Educational Administration Master’s Degree. Check
7) Become a head coach at the high school level. This is the one that I have abandoned
8) Become a principal. This is the one that I am working on; hopefully by next year it is a 'Check'

Anyways, I have two new goals. Big goals. Important goals. Goals that I will work towards fulfilling for the rest of my life.
1) Raise my child (hopefully, in a couple of years this becomes children) to become exceptional citizens/people.
2) And love my wife at last sight. You all know that I claimed love at first sight when I saw Amy Kelling in our introductory elementary education course at the University of Iowa. I love her more today (I love her more right now as she sits in sweats all cuddled up in a blanket on our couch reading The Help while Ryne sleeps and I type this) than I thought I did on that January day in 2004. It is my goal, my determination to love her more at the very end of our lives, at last sight, then I do today.

Books for Ryne to Read

As an educator, there is nothing more important than teaching a child how to read – how to read for understanding, how to read for practical application, how to read to evaluate critically, and how to read for pleasure. I want Ryne to be able to read for all four of these purposes. I really want Ryne to want to read for pleasure. It is understood that reading correlates positively with intelligence. I recently saw that the Educational Testing Service reports that 90 percent of a school’s proficiency can be explained by five factors; two of which, are number of pages read for homework and quantity and quality of reading material in the home. Therefore, if you want to be smart, read.

Amy and I try to read to Ryne as much as we can (as much as his restlessness will allow). We will continue to read to him, as well as doing other things to make him literate. I want to give Ryne a small reading list of books (for when he is older) that I strongly recommend that he reads. (They are listed, from top to bottom, in the order in which I have enjoyed them – top being the favorite.)

Season of Life: A Football Star, A Boy, a Journey to Manhood
By Jeffrey Marx
Joe Ehrmann was a larger-than-life party guy and star defensive lineman until the death of his younger brother changed his life. This is the story of Ehrmann's inspirational career--and his effect on Marx's life. Most amazing are the stories of the high school team Ehrmann coaches--a football team on which life lessons are more important than tackling fundamentals. A sports story, yes, but much more, too.

Quiet Strength: The Principles, Priorities, and Practices of a Winning Life
By Tony Dungy
How is it possible for a coach—especially a football coach—to win the respect of his players and lead them to the Super Bowl without the screaming histrionics, the profanities, and the demand that the sport come before anything else? How is it possible for anyone to be successful without compromising faith and family? In this inspiring and reflective memoir, Coach Dungy tells the story of a life lived for God and family—and challenges us all to redefine our ideas of what it means to succeed.

It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life
By Lance Armstrong
People around the world have found inspiration in the story of Lance Armstrong--a world-class athlete nearly struck down by cancer, only to recover and win the Tour de France. His actions will melt the most hard-bitten souls: a cancer foundation and benefit bike ride, his astonishing commitment to training that got him past countless hurdles, loyalty to the people and corporations that never gave up on him. It's Not About the Bike is the perfect title for this book about life, death, illness, family, setbacks, and triumphs, but not especially about the bike.

Never Die Easy
By Walter Payton
This isn’t a traditional autobiography at all. It's an oral history disguised as autobiography that reveals Payton, the most exquisite running back in NFL history, as a man of great skill, decency, passion, and charity: a man beloved.

Have a Little Faith: A True Story
By Mitch Albom
This is a remarkable, true story of contrast, of two men of God; one an aging rabbi, and the other, an African American pastor working in a ghetto. In the end, the message is clear: Faith ties us closely together and can give us the chance to accomplish things we never dreamed possible. The book carries an inspirational message for anyone, regardless of religious affiliation, or lack thereof. Albom helps show the true definition of `Church.' It is not the building, it is the people and their faith. We come away with a better understanding of how life can be so meaningful, if we'll only give it a chance.

Bad as I Wanna Be
By Dennis Rodman
The first adult book that I remember reading...probably when I was in middle school, and I loved it (because I was in love with the Chicago Bulls and Dennis Rodman more than any of the other Bulls.
Everything I do is about confidence. After years of struggling with my identity . . . I've become totally confident about being who I am." There is only one basketball player in history who could make that statement--Dennis Rodman. Readers will be surprised to find that Rodman has a fascinating coming-of-age story to tell: the saga of a skinny street kid who grew nine inches in the year after high school, who blossomed as a basketball player because of his willingness to do the game's grunt work, and who reached stardom only to contemplate suicide and, later, vow to face the world and the game strictly on his own terms. We may tire of his repetitious rants, we may reject his wild nonconformity, but finally, only the most inflexible of readers will fail to admire Rodman's unabashed honesty and irrepressible energy.

(The synopsis of these books were taken from Amazon)

Baby Bix Video

Ryne got his first taste of competition last week when Mom and Dad entered him into the Diaper Dash race that was taking place in conjunction with the Junior Bix. Like Dad, Ryne did not win his Bix race, unfortunately. However, he finished (so did Dad)! Ryne started something and even though it became clear once he started that he wasn't going to win, he finished it anyways.


So since none of you were able to see Ryne's race, we filmed it. Enjoy the footage shot by Uncle Kyle (thanks)...

And as us Cubs fans always say, there is always next year!

Shared photo book from Eric

Click here to view this photo book larger

Summer Vaca

Back in the winter, when we (I) were planning our summer vacation it sounded easy enough. It was my turn to pick our destination and I was deciding to build a summer road trip around visiting a couple of new baseball stadiums. I knew that I needed to pick places that were drivable, I needed to pick places that in between there would be places worth stopping (because I was aware that with Ryne we would not be able to drive straight through), and I needed to pick places that there wouldn't be too much to do because with Ryne we would need to accommodate his nap schedule. So I picked Cleveland and Pittsburgh; I had heard really good things about both teams' baseball stadiums, and I knew there wouldn't be much else to do in either city other than go to a baseball game. Furthermore, we planned to stop in South Bend, Indiana (home of Notre Dame University and the College Football Hall of Fame) on the way out, and Canton, Ohio (home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame) on the way back. While it was still many months away the vacation sounded very doable.

As the vacation got closer, I realized that we may be brave, crazy, stupid, all of the above, or at least a combination of those and some other adjectives. We were about to drive 10+ hours across country with a 8 1/2 month old baby. This was going to be an adventure. Maybe on of the most adventurous things I'd ever done. (Note: I'm not a very adventurous person)

Fast forward to now...

The vacation was wonderful! Everything went better than we could have possibly hoped for! No, we didn't break any world's fastest driving time records going from Bettendorf to South Bend, or South Bend to Cleveland, or Cleveland to Pittsburgh, or Pittsburgh to Canton, or Canton to Bettendorf. But we did make it to each place that we needed to with plenty of time to do what we needed to. In fact, by the end our trip, Ryne was so exhausted (from such a fun trip) that he slept a majority of the way home and allowed us to drive all 10+ hours in one day. Let me emphasize that. We drove 10+ hours in one day with an 8 1/2 month old. We drove from Pittsburgh, PA to Bettendorf, IA with an 8 1/2 month old in one day. It was a long day.

We are so lucky to have such a happy baby, such a go with the flow baby. For those of you who have traveled with me in the past, you probably know that I like to stay busy when I am at a new place. I usually create a pretty detailed itinerary to keep busy with new things for the entire trip. I didn't do that for this trip, nor did I mind. We weren't always as busy as I would prefer, but that was fine. It was really just an unbelievable vacation with my wife and my son. I can not wait for many, many more vacations with them.

(I am not posting photos to go along with this blog, sorry. If you want to view any of the photos from our trip, they are all on Facebook.)