Passing of the Torch

So we all got up early this morning, had a big breakfast and piled into the minivan to take Jameson to school for his first day of first grade -- his first day of being in school for the whole day. It's a big day in a young man's life. The household excitement (which led to a "first day of school" dance in our bedroom at the crack of dawn) is amplified by the fact that Truman and Amelia are also joining Jameson for the first time as they join the pre-kindergarten program at the same school. Even Darwin is excited as he finally gets to "pick all the shows" while his older siblings are out of the house. And Eliana is excited, too, but that's just because that's how she rolls.

Julie did the honors of taking Jameson into school and escorting him to his classroom (with nary a tear shed). He was the first student in his room and Julie said he sat quietly at his new desk while he examined the room and sized up his new teacher. (For the record, Julie has already stated that the combination of a young and cute teacher and Jameson's romantic heart will guarantee a crush this year.)  Sitting quietly at a desk is not Jameson's usual modus operandi -- this is a side of him that only surfaces under certain circumstances like the first day of school in a new classroom with a new teacher. It's not really a nervous or anxious response -- his confidence is still there, but you can tell he's doing a full mental assessment of the environment and the situation. Unfortunately for his new teacher, the quiet and reserved Jameson will be short lived. I'd love to have a webcam broadcasting from his classroom so I could watch the transformation unfold.

Truman and Amelia don't start school until after lunch, so we headed home to start our new daily routine sans Jameson. The significance of today's milestone was not lost on Truman. He ran into the house, calling over his shoulder, "C'mon, Darwin! I'm going to teach you to play video games!"

So This Is It

Post #1,000.

I have nothing planned to commemorate the occasion. A music video montage of the last five years? I have five kids, I don't have time to make that. A cool prize giveaway? I have five kids, I don't have the money to buy that. A poetic ode to the legacy of my blog? I have five kids, I don't have the brain power to write that.

You'll have to settle for that picture of me with my creepy beard and single tear.

So this is it. Post #1,000. Yee-haw!

I hope you've enjoyed reading. I hope you're only stalking me and my family in that good sort of stalking way. I hope you'll stick around for the next five years.

Maybe I'll do a giveaway for my 2,000th post. Yeah, that's what I'll do.

Sláinte!

Nine Hundred and Ninety-Eight

This is my 998th blog post on The Fall of James.

Wow.

I asked Julie to guess the total number of posts on The Fall of James. She said, "200."

Julie is bad at math guessing. (And I'm bad at grammar.)

I started this blog on Sunday, July 27, 2007. I'm surprised it has lasted this long. I'm surprised that I've posted nearly a thousand times. I'm glad it's still going. I originally started The Fall of James thinking that it would be a useful digital scrapbook and that it would keep interested friends and family up to date on our increasingly busy lives. Just five short years ago, things were very different in our life. Julie and I had only been married a couple of years. We had one, JUST ONE, kid. We both worked. We lived in a little house in the purgatory between Dayton and Cincinnati otherwise known as Franklin, Ohio. We had dogs. We owned breakable stuff. We slept.

A lot has happened in the last five years.

Which, of course, is why I started this blog. My first blog post:

My wife, Julie, and I found out a couple of months ago that we are (she is) pregnant with twins. God willing, they will be arriving some time this fall, shortly after our first son turns two. Which should be right around the time we're moving out of our current house and moving into the house we just started building. (Well, we're not actually building it ourselves. That's what we're paying other people to do. On top of becoming a parent of multiples and building a house, I've also decided to run my first half-marathon this fall. I'm 20 pounds overweight and haven't done any vigorous exercise for a few years, so I'm sure I can get in race shape in a few weeks.

It was only five years ago, but it feels like decades. Since that original post we built two houses, sold one, lived with my in-laws for a year, found new homes for our dogs, got pregnant four times, had a miscarriage, had twins, had two more singleton kids, we watched Bring It On too many times, I ran a half marathon, I quit my job, I became a stay-at-home parent, we took the kids to Florida, Vegas and Seattle, we took the kids on the Appalachian Trail, various kids started school, gymnastics, soccer, basketball, baseball and tennis, we went to funerals and weddings, we welcomed new relatives into the world, I learned to cook, Julie learned to be a programmer, an accountant and a financial analyst, we stayed up late and got up early, we cried, we laughed...

We laughed a lot. How couldn't we?

Wow. In retrospect, things seem pretty boring these days.

So five years and a thousand posts seems like a milestone of some sort. Who knows if this will last through another thousand posts, but I should probably think of something to mark the occasion. I'll get back to you on that. Maybe this weekend I'll take a trip down memory lane and find some of my favorite posts of the last five years and share them with you -- I always love going back through my blog. That was kinda the point all along...