The right direction.

Well, it happened. Remember that possible move I talked about two posts ago? I got the job and we are in the process of moving. I have been in Woodstock, GA for the last 6 weeks working and getting everything nailed down while you and your mother are back in AL trying to find a job for her. We have had some good leads and hopefully soon we will all be together and ready to officially start the life we have been looking at off in the distance for so long now. It is very difficult being away from you and your mother but we meet almost weekly and get to spend time with each other. Your words are becoming more apparent and distinct now. You are "melting your mothers heart" every time you say "Mommy". We got to take you to your first football game this past monday. I was worried you wouldn't take the noise well but you stayed up and alert the whole time. Maybe you'll be a sports fan like your mom after all. That's all for now. Just wanted to update you and tell you how proud and happy I am every time I get a picture sent to me on my phone.

-Dad

MCAD

This post has been a long time coming. By the time you read this, if we have succeeded as parents, you should have a fairly good idea of how you unique situation works, what you have to do to ensure your health, and how to do it without impacting the quality of your life.
 The first thing you need to understand is there is nothing WRONG with you. I remember how that felt when I was young and told I was different. I thought of it as a negative thing. The truth is, everyone is different in some way. No two people act, look, feel, or live the same way. That is what makes life beautiful.
You have a special set of Genes (little things inside us that make us who we are) that makes you a little different from a lot of other people. You are not the only one like this. There are lots of other boys and girls that have this. The best way to explain it is that you can not have certain foods and there are certain things that you will need to be careful about as you grow and learn and live. I hope you understand that when your mother and I tell you these things it is 100% because we love you and want to see you enjoy everything this world has to offer. Most of these thing we will need to tell you face to face and is difficult to explain over this as what we know changes every day.
  What I can tell you now is that you have to be careful of the types of fat you eat. Things like almonds, coconut, olive oil, avocado, are not good for you like they are your mother and I. Also, foods that you may not see mommy and daddy eat WILL be good for you like bread, and cornstarch, and different types of flour. As you grow older you will have to be careful not to drink alcohol(You shouldn't be drinking at all until you are 21 anyways) A small amount once you are of age is ok but when your friends go out and drink until they are sick you have to remember that because you are special you have to not do as they do. If you get sick from alcohol you will not react the same as they are and you may have to go to the hospital. I know these may not make a lot of sense when you first read this but as you understand more about who you are you will see that we are not just saying this to keep you from having experiences your friends may be having but because we want you to be able to live life as fully as possible for your special situation. Your mother and I are going to try our very best not to be the uncool over bearing parents that we made fun of when we were younger but please try to understand that this is our first go round at this and there are some hurdles the three of us will have to jump over that many other families will not.

P.S. Sorry for two posts on the same day when I haven't written one in so long. I started this post months ago and am just now getting around to finishing it.

P.S.S.Girls won't affect you any different than they do the other boys so don't be afraid of them ;)

SIC PARVIS MAGNA

"Great things from small beginnings" That is the english meaning of the latin title.

  Another long over due post. You would think that with quitting my job a couple months ago I would have much more time on my hands to write. Well the truth is I do have a bit more time but I have been spending it on something much more important. Being with and taking care of you. 

  I finally did it. The road had come to a dead end and I decided to turn around and take a new direction. It has not been easy and we are not where we want to be money wise but remember what I have told you in past posts. Doing what you love and spending time and making memories with the ones that love you is far more important than having a lot of money n the bank. I am only working part time now and trying to grow the gym to the point of it making us money. 

  My only true regret is that your mother has had to start working again. I know she hates the time away from you even if she enjoys her job. I feel responsible for this even though it was unavoidable. She loves you more than anything on this earth (As do I) and has not worked in so long. This is not the ideal situation for us but we are now working towards a goal, something to make our lives what we hope and deep down know it can be. When you struggle working towards something like that it means a bit more than just being miserable with nothing to look forward to but your next day off. Trust me. 

 It's funny, I have so many thing to tell you and so many ideas I think will help you in your life but when I sit down to write all I want to do is tell you how proud your mother and I are of you already. You finally (after three weeks of working with you) have said and understand on site the word "ball". This will sound silly when you read it but you do not understand the satisfaction of hearing that. That little single syllable is like a PR in weightlifting. A sign to prove that we are moving forward, not just in the sense that you are growing up but we as a family. There may or may not be a move up north in the near future. If there is it will be a great leap forward. If there is not we will stay on the steady course we have already set out on here. Either way it unfolds will be fine and exactly what was meant to be. That is all I will say right now.

  I will leave you with this. A quote I heard today that should alway ring inside your head as you grow and search and struggle and succeed.

"We don't get to choose how we start in this life. Real greatness is what you do with the hand you are dealt."

A couple points to think about

Hello again. Dad here. Not sure if you have any nick names for me, I haven't nailed one down for you yet. It's between fussbucket, booger, and hotrod. They shift depending on the ituation :)
 So you have started walking OR as your grandparents describe it, "more of a drunken stumble". It's amazing to experience all these things. How they just happen and there is no looking back. You, we, everyone just keeps on barreling foward. I wish I could bottle that feeling and those moment in time and just sit around and relive them forever. Ok so that sounds a little mushy. You will understand in a couple decades. I also wish I didn't miss half of them because of work.
 Anyways I have been trying to put a little of a timeline in these things as of late. This way you know where you were when I wrote them but since the over all feel of this project is to enrich your life and help you unterstand how best to experience it I really am just writing to show you a couple points or ideas to think about:

1.	There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately "work."
2.	Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
3.	Learning lessons does not end. There's no part of life that doesn't contain its lessons. If you're alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.
4.	"There" is no better a place than "here." When your "there" has become a "here", you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here."
5.	Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
6.	Your answers lie within you. The answers to life's questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
7.	You will forget all of this

Hives and Houses

 At least I think that's what they are. Here is a link about them. HIVES. I haven't been able to touch you in about a week for fear that they may be contagious. Not sure how I got it. My diet has been pretty good recently as far as non alergenic foods. I haven't changed any shampoo, deoderant, detergent, etc. All I know is they itch to the point of pain and the medicine I have to take to stop the itching makes me so tired and loopy I'm not worth anything to anyone. This doesn't really have anything to do with you but it has affected me spending quality time for the last several days and that has been hard.
 On another note, the lease at your first house is almost up. Not sure how long we will be staying after the contract. Maybe a month, maybe ten years. Who knows. I thought this was relevant because of the location. It is the ideal place for you to grow up. On the water in a small quiet well grounded town. Our intentions were to move here and find a place like this. We did it, we just were not able to buy it for the long haul since we still have the home in Memphis. I hope we stay long enough for you to be able to enjoy and remember the view and atmosphere like we have. If not, just know you had a beautiful first home as a baby.

Welcome, greetings, salutations, ohla, hi

                                              4-7-11 Connor Michael Metts was born.

 You, your mother, and I hit the ground running and now, 8 months later, I realized that I have slacked off on this project since you've gotten here. I have had enough for several posts just about the silly faces you make but there is so much more. I didn't realize I would have so many memories to keep up with, there is no way I could ever write or even recall them all at once. I plan on writing some posts in the future about what makes you, you. For today I will stick to this advice.

 I sit here at work (currently Counselman Automotive) Sick. As. A. Dog. I haven't been sick in about three years, I owe that to eating properly, training, good sleep and as low stress as possible. Most of those have gone out the window as of late though. I know what you're thinking, I'm about to blame you. I mean thats how it goes when you have a child. Actually, your amazing mother has made it easy for me. She is unbelievable with you. She knows that I have to work long hours right now to provide for the three of us and she does more than I could ever ask or expect.

 I can only blame my illness on this job. It will be the death of me if I don't find a way out soon. Which brings me to the point of this post.

 Do not let the weight of your worries turn into the weight of your regrets. You will have to carry that weight with you for your entire life. You can do this by finding the one thing you love to do most, I don't care if it's reading books, working out, or jumping off of houses, then spend every ounce of energy you have to find a way to make money/a life out of it no matter the cost or consequence. This is age old advice but sometimes the simplest ones are the ones you ignore until you realize how true they are.

  You can find what you love by looking at what you do when you should be doing something else. What you do with your time alone when you don't have any obligations. It will be the thing that when you talk to people about it they have to tell you to stop because you have rambling on for an hour. Find that thing and then figure a way to make a living around it. If you can make enough money to survive while doing this, I promise you will be more happy than if you have a job you don't care about that makes 4 times as much. This is because when you have a job just for money, it takes time away from what you love and this makes you resent your job and ultimately your life. But if you have a job based around what you truly love, even if its a poor paying job, you are making money doing what you love. This is so important in life I wanted to make it my first topic since your birth.

  Also, equally important is how soon you start working towards that goal. Do not wait til you are 30 or even 20 to start. Start as soon as you read this. If you follow this advice, I can pomise that you will consider it the greatest advice/gift  I will ever give you.

  I implore you to not fall into the same line your grandfather and I did. We are good people but made poor choices when it came to following our heart instead of our bank account.

 Now for the first time on here, I get to tell you I love you and know that I am saying to a living breathing human being. My son. And though you will find it silly or trite until you are my age with one of your own, I will be proud of you no matter what you choose to do or how far you take that choice. Good luck.

"Dirty Food"

THIS SHOULD UPSET YOU:

http://health.yahoo.net/experts/menshealth/10-dirtiest-foods-youre-eating

Notice that most of the foods in this article are Paleo? The reasoning behind these foods being "dirty" is 100% attributed to poor handling and lack luster storage enviroments. Yet nowhere do they mention that these foods are actually good for you under normal circumstances.
We, as americans, have developed such a low standard for where and how long we are keeping foods from the "Processed revolution". Most of you are already aware of the laundry list of negative affects these "foods" have on you. That would be an entirely different subject for a later post. Real food is perishable. The faster you understand this and remember it at the grocery store the better off you and your loved ones will be. We eat REAL food, not science experiments. In order to do that there are certain precautions we have to take. You would think this would go without saying but you can't leave real, once living food out for days (some will go rancid within hours at room tempurature) and expect for it to have the same positive affect on your body. Would you take your aunt that died last thanksgiving out to a dinner party in June? Not unless you're Andrew McCarthy. Perhaps that's a stretch since most of us also don't eat our dead relatives...most of us. It's still a good movie though. The point being, we have to work at eating just like we have to work at everything else in life. This means not just putting effort into preparing our food but also how we think. Buying in season, buying only what we know we are going to consume within the alotted time, cooking things first that have a shorter shelf life, trying not to resort to freezing foods unless completely unavoidable, cleaning everything thuroughly before during and aftercooking. These are things that are lost on a large portion of the younger community and I can only blame it on being lazy. If you don't know how to properly store or prepare something, ask someone who does. Your Mother isn't just there for christmas gifts, and if she doesn't know google it. Yes, I said google it. Don't act like you don't use it for everything else in your life. Don't let this be one more excuse to reach for the hydrolized modified high fructose cornstarch syrup dipped in caramel and packaged in airtight cellophane developed by nasa to outlive most of the human race and withstand a nuclear holocaust.
I promise the more effort you put into what goes into your body, the more benefits you will reap. Now get out there and eat some turkey, eggs, and cantalop!!