A quick but good trip to the lake over the weekend. There were four families, and ten kids total, at this get-together, which made things a little crazy. Especially when the three two-year-olds decided to get wound up. Unfortunately, we were the only family without an older kid - each of the other three had at least a seven-year-old - so our girls lagged behind everyone else a bit. While even the other two-year-olds were hopping into the water (with life jackets, of course), ours would only stick a toe in, or walk ankle deep while holding one of our hands.
Here is my look at the latest iPhone software update, the Application Store, and other things iPhone.
I’ve found the iPhone 2.0 software update to be a profoundly mixed-bag. One of the reasons that lines were (and continue to be) so long for the 3G iPhone is how successful the first generation model was. There were some opening weekend issues a week ago, as well, but things quickly fell into place.
We took the girls to our church’s festival/carnival last night. While I did not indulge, I was reminded of why I’m glad I married a Catholic girl: drinking is encouraged at church fund raisers. That’s going to come in handy when the girls get a little older.
For now, though, we had to concentrate on keeping the girls from getting trampled and whatnot. We succeeded and they seemed to have a great time.
I was a little disappointed that baseball is being purged from the Olympics after this year. Not that anyone really cares about Olympic baseball, and I can usually name about one of the players on the U.S. squad. But this news makes me think it is a good idea to ditch it. Freaking Euros messing with our traditional American sports.
Perhaps Brett Favre and Manny Ramirez should run off together. And then they could take a significant portion of the sports media with them.
Every football off-season, it’s Favre’s retirement drama. And every July, it’s the Manny Wants Out Of Boston drama. Every summer Favre comes back to play another year. Every August, Manny wakes up wearing a Red Sox jersey and goes out and continues to be Manny as long as the Sox play that season.
We decided to bite the bullet, take the plunge, make the move, etc. and put the girls in the same room last night. My rough plan was to do it sometime in August, so we had a buffer A) before school started and B) well before the baby arrived. And so, if we had a set-back, we had time to regroup and try again. But C. continues to have trouble going to sleep when we put her down and then wake up at least once a night because either her teeth are bothering her or just because she’s a stinker and enjoys waking us up, so we were dreading making the move.
We celebrated M.’s fourth birthday last night. As mentioned earlier, her actual birthday is today. We didn’t make a huge deal out of. Next year, no doubt, she’ll realize that she got to go to several cool birthday parties for friends and that she should start complaining about wanting farm animals to come to the house, or a trip to Chuck E. Cheese, or something like that when her birthday comes around.
Our house has been taken over by small creatures I can only assume are aliens. Nearly every room has at least one piece of paper with these strange little being drawn on them. Surely this is some kind of message that there are E.T.’s living in our backyard, right? Either that or anytime you give M. a crayon or pen and a piece of paper, she draws these cute little guys and tells us what people she wants to send them to.
Interesting that these two pieces hit the Internets today. First, Joe Posnanski writes about autographs, mentioning how he sent letters to players and teams as a kid. Then, former player Doug Glanville writes in the New York Times about cleaning out his closet of some fan mail left over from his playing days. Apparently Glanville is a really sharp and cool guy. Who knew?
I totally spent my summers in the early 80s sending baseball letters to players, with their cards and SASEs included, and to teams hoping for autographs, stickers, pocket schedules, and any other freebies they were willing to send my way.
Some day I’d like to mic up the girls so I could record every funny thing they say. Although their behavior could often use improvement, about 90% of what they say makes us laugh.
One day M. found a wallet-sized picture of her and C. on my desk. She looked at it and said, “Boy, this picture is adorable!” She paused proudly, and then said, “This picture frame is enormous, daddy.
No way did I stay up and watch the end of the All-Star Game. I made it to midnight, which coincided with the end of the 10th inning and the AL wasting the bases loaded, no outs situation. If the All-Star Game is a big gimmick anyway, what with it determining home field for the World Series and all, why not just go to a league-vs-league Home Run Derby after the 9th inning.
In between geeking out with the new iTunes software while waiting for the new iPhone software, I put together a little something about my two most recent books.
22 - <i>Three Bags Full</i> - Leonie Swann. I was searching for a book to take on my Kansas City trip and was torn between a international thriller-type novel and a more straight-forward detective novel. Then I noticed this one on the bookshelves of my local Border’s, noted the blurb from Carl Hiassen on the cover, and then the interesting sub-title: A sheep detective story.
So much for dodging the Barbie bullet. Last week, before my step-dad got to town for the holiday weekend, the girls and I stopped in at Blockbuster to rent some movies. I told M. we could get her a movie, thinking we would get something that she’s seen but we don’t own like Madeline, Mary Poppins, etc.
But there, right at the perfect eye level for a nearly-four-year-old, was the Barbie Mariposa movie.
Another outstanding trip back to the motherland of Kansas City. My thanks to all of those who hosted me, dined with me, provided Royals tickets, etc. Chris N., John and Christie N., Erick and Ann R., Sean and Sarah M., Dave V., Omar E., Billy and Stacey B., Steve and Jennifer B., Mary and Derek Y. I think that’s everyone. Forgive me if I left your name out.
We’ll run through some details quickly.
I should probably hold off on saying this for a few more days, until I’ve had a chance to listen through it more, but the best album of the year so far is The Midnight Organ Fight by the Scottish band Frightened Rabbit. I’ve tried to put on my amateur rock critic hat and find some really eloquent words to describe them, but about all I can come up with is that the album is freaking brilliant.
I’d like to preface this post by reminding you all that I’m nearly 37 years old, am married, have 2.5 kids, and have a Master’s degree.
Last night, I spent about 45 minutes shooting a water gun at the mother raccoon that lives under our deck each time she peaked her head out to see if the coast was clear for her and her kits to go on their evening foraging run.
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/magazine/15parenting-t.html?_r=1&amp;oref=slogin">This article</a> is a thought-provoking (and lengthy) examination of how couples struggle to achieve a fair balance when it comes to raising kids, managing the home, etc. I’m fascinated by how little the numbers have changed over time, as though there’s something hardwired in either us or our society that prevents us from moving the ratios too much. Regardless of how your family is set-up (one career, two careers, single parent, etc.
This is how strange a spring it has been: today, June 17, is the first morning this year that I’ve spent most of my time in our three-season-room/sunroom/screened-in porch, or whatever this room is called. Most of the spring it’s been too chilly to hang out in here anytime before lunch. Over the last couple weeks, it’s been hot and muggy, too much so to come out even in the mornings.
I feel comfortable saying the Celtics have this thing wrapped up, since they have a 31 point lead three minutes into the fourth quarter. I believe that’s what you call a comprehensive ass-kicking. So much for my Lakers in five pick.
Paul Pierce proves he’s one of the best players in the NBA, officially ascends as the second best NBA player to come out of KU, and puts a nice wrapper on the year of the Jayhawk (Bonus: Scot Pollard gets a ring as well!
Happy Father’s Day, late in the day, to the other pops out there. I enjoyed mine. Worked in the yard. Had a little cookout for the local family. Enjoyed my gift, the <i>Rock Chalk Championship</i> DVD. (I learned one thing from the DVD: Bill Self is a locker room genius. No singing “Eye Of The Tiger.” No tired “Everyone is against us,” tirades like John Calipari is perpetually rolling out. Just calm, confident speeches that inspire his team.
My on-going quest to read everything ever printed.
18 - <i>Open Line</i> - Ellen Hawley. This is a fun little novel about a lark run amok. Annette Majoris is a late-night radio host in Minneapolis who dreams of making it big in a real city, specifically New York, not some sleepy Midwestern town. One night, after being bored to death by another round of conspiracy-theory spouting callers, she casually asserts that the U.
While at the library last night, M. and C. were playing with some toys while S. and I were looking at books about ten feet away. Another little girl, who looked to be 4-5, ran up to them and asked, "What are your names?"
M. gave her a look for a minute like, "Who are you, asking me questions?" but finally got happy and said, "I'm M. and this is my sister C.
I want to be careful how I say this, because there are a lot of people across Indiana and other Midwestern states who have truly suffered over the last week because of all the rain. Some of the pictures from just south of Indianapolis were incredible.
But, I’m ready for all these freaking storms to go away. C. is now incapable of sleeping through even the mildest of storms. Despite having a fan cranked up in her room, at the first rumble of thunder, she starts crying, gets out of her bed, and comes and finds us.
M. had another birthday party this weekend. I highly recommend checking out the family pic page (right there on the right sidebar, top link, for you newbies) for some good ones. This was a special party in that there were farm animals. Two ponies. Two baby goats. A rooster. A hen and some chicks. A rabbit. And all were either drugged up or mellow enough so the kids got to get up close and hold/pet them.
Finally, a little political talk.
(The Obamas sully the presidency, and demonstrate their hatred for America, with their offensive fist-bump.)
I have to admit, as interested and involved as I’ve been in the contest this year, I largely tuned it out following the Indiana primary last month. I was frustrated with the tone the Democratic race was taking, and fearful it would continue to get nastier and nastier, potentially sapping the eventual nominee’s strength for the fall.
Not sure if this is sad or hopeful. Willie Aikens will always be one of my favorite 3-4 Royals. And it’s not just becase he hit four home runs in the 1980 World Series.
(As an aside, the ‘80 World Series may have been the pinnacle of my kid fandom. It came at the perfect moment in my life: we had just moved to Kansas City, I had the white-hot intense fandom of a nine-year-old, George Brett just dropped one of the greatest years ever on the American League, etc.
I’ll admit, since April 7, I’ve been wearing a lot of KU gear. I would say 80% of the times I’ve left the house since then, I’ve had some kind of KU shirt on. Generic, Final Four, or National Champions gear. Doesn’t matter as long as it’s KU attire. I figure there’s a limited window in which you can take advantage of your team winning a championship, I might was well milk it for all it’s worth.
In the late 70s and early 80s it was hard to find two cities that, per capita, loved baseball more than Kansas City and Baltimore. 30 years later the Royals broke their 12 game losing streak tonight and in Baltimore there were about 50,000 Red Sox fans filling up Camden Yards. Watch the video of Manny Ramirez hitting his 500th home run and notice how many people are going crazy, as Red Sox fans would do, rather than just standing to watch history, as O’s fans would do.
Like all parents, we struggle at times to ensure that our girls are eating a well-balanced diet. Not just making sure we’re hitting all the food groups in the proper ratios each day, but also just in variety of foods. We could serve mac & cheese with some kind of fruit at every meal and the girls would happily gulp it down.
In an effort to branch out, I picked up Jessica Seinfeld’s cookbook at the library last week.
We’ve had a couple large milestones here in La Casa De B. in recent months that I’ve failed to mention.
M. left the pull ups behind in March. It was one of those “We’re down to about ten pull ups, do we want to buy any more?” changes that we parents have to force upon our kids sometimes. She was cool with it, though, as she was ready. She had been taking naps without a pull up for about a month and avoided any incidents.