Sunday, June 25, 2006
The phrase I’ve been using way too much recently: “M! Get your finger out of your nose!” We were at the library Sunday, and I swear she was just standing around, finger in her nostril, almost the entire time. Since the other girls were at home, she made me look like Father of the Year again. My exclusive, exhaustive look at the World Cup so far and what’s to come over the next two weeks will drop sometime Monday.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
We had several house guests over the past few days. Three, in fact, occupied our various beds and couches last night. As much fun as it is to entertain, there’s something about the quiet that descends upon a home after all the guests have left and the kids are in bed. We took M. on her first real walk tonight. By real walk, I mean she walked rather than rode in a stroller or wagon or some other device that was parent powered.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Many visitors, surprising amounts of sleep, and schoolwork have kept me from finally getting a summary of what’s been going on posted. Below the jump, your first update on what life with two kids has been like in the home of the blogger. It’s still a little hard for me to believe that the wife made it all the way to our scheduled c-section date. We were both quite convinced that the water would break early and we’d have to head in before May 17.
Friday, May 19, 2006
I have no idea how much sleep I got last night. C. was actually quite cooperative, but there’s something about those hospital, pull-out couches that keep you from falling asleep comfortably. Of course, I didn’t have a big incision in my stomach that required at least five different kinds of pain meds to mask, so I can’t complain too much. I know I slept from 10:30 to 11:30, then again a bit between 1:00 and 3:00.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Baby C. Seven pounds, nine ounces, 20 inches long. Mom, dad, and big sister M. are all healthy and very happy to welcome our newest addition.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Here we are, 26 hours from a scheduled c-section and it looks like we’ll make it. I was convinced Little Sister would show up last weekend, for several reasons. But she’s so far refused to budge. People say we should be enjoying our final days of just having one kid, but that’s impossible. S. is miserable. When the kid isn’t kicking her or she doesn’t have monster acid reflux, she’s got a foot or head or something pushing on a nerve that makes her left leg go totally numb.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
I realized today we’re in for a rude awakening when daughter #2 arrives. How? Well, over the last six weeks, M. has settled into an excellent sleep schedule. Sometime around 7:00 PM, she gets a bath. Then we either play with her toys or watch a Baby Einstein DVD until just before 8:00. That’s when we pull out her stack of bedtime books and work through them on the living room couch.
Tuesday, May 9, 2006
Pearl Jam’s self-titled, eighth studio album arrived in my mailbox a little over a week ago. After many spins of both the disk and the iPod’s hard drive, I can agree with the majority of professional reviewers: it’s a damn fine album. Calling it a return to form is problematic: it matches the intensity of those early albums, but it isn’t groundbreaking and genre-defining the way they were. I’ve always been a fan and thus have always found something positive in even their most uneven releases.
Tuesday, May 9, 2006
I’ve lost my 4.0. Not unexpected, and not catastrophic either. I got an A and a B+ this semester, dropping my GPA to 3.86. Still higher than pretty much any point in my previous academic history. The B+ was actually a surprise. I was thinking B as best case, B- as the probably grade.
Monday, May 8, 2006
No trip to the hospital yet, which leaves time for an update on M.. It’s official: I’m going to become one of “those” parents. M. has been exhibiting all kinds of strange, i.e. early development, behaviors recently and I’ve decided she’s a little prodigy. That big head is full of brain, apparently! She knows at least eight colors; all the ones in her starter pack of washable crayons. She can count to three and knows the number 8 on sight.
Thursday, May 4, 2006
The final weeks of pregnancy! Or, as women like to call it, hell. It’s safe to say S. is extremely uncomfortable. Skin feels like it can’t stretch anymore, but there is constant pressure from inside. An urge to go to the bathroom every five minutes because there’s a foot or head or arm pushing on your bladder. A complete inability to get comfortable in bed, which leads to hours of tossing and turning (In unrelated news, I slept better last night that I’ve slept in months!
Tuesday, May 2, 2006
I just shot my research paper down to Bloomington via the wonders of the Internet. A hugely frustrating experience. I literally worked on it all day yesterday, from 7:00 AM until 1:30 AM this morning, and had almost nothing to show for it. I’d crank out 5-600 words in a section, decide I hated it, delete it all, then move to another section and repeat. At 10:00 PM last night I literally had less words saved than I had when I cracked open the Powerbook in the morning.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
S. had a sonogram this afternoon to make sure all was well with our little Sister Fetus. That was confirmed. Estimated weight is six pounds, three ounces at 36 weeks. For comparison, M. was born at 38 weeks and weighed in at six pounds, eight ounces. #2 is generally bigger than #1 (something to do with the muscles on mommy’s abdomen already having been stretched beyond their limit once), so this wasn’t a surprise.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
I’ve not shared one of M.’s favorite foods with the group. She loves humus. We give her a little container of it and she dips pretzels, cheese, and bread into it and goes to town. Today is a Mr. Mom day for me. We’re getting close to needing a trip to the grocery store. M. was hungry and begging for pretzels, which we’re out of. So, I gave her humus and toddler-sized pieces of some hint of lime Tostitos.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Leaves are apparently M.’s first irrational fear. Thursday was a perfect day: 82, no humidity, gentle breeze, sunny skies; so we spent most of the day outside. We got her a sandbox on Tuesday, so she played in that a lot. She ran into the neighbors' yard to trick us into letting her climb on their tree house. I mowed and trimmed the yard while she “helped” S. sweep the garage.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
A little over two weeks and two papers to go, and then this semester will be done. I’ll have a short break, as I’m taking one class in the first summer session, again in Bloomington. So from May 8 through June 15, or something like that, I’ll be commuting to B-town three days a week to take a magazine writing class. Should be fun and interesting, since that’s kind of where I see my career headed.
Thursday, April 6, 2006
The latest doings of my daughter. The Post-Pacifier Era has gone relatively well. Naps are a problem; she’s pretty much not taking them most days. Bedtime was actually very good the first three nights. For some reason since then, we’ve had difficulty. But that corresponds with Daylight Savings Time and the sun being up until about 8:00. Even though her bedtime was right around 7:00 for months, she’s had no trouble staying up an hour later.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
We are now a pacifier-free household. Hopefully. This morning, we took M. outside, tied two of her binkies to balloons (the rest had been deposited in the trash earlier), counted down, and sent them “to the babies in heaven.” It worked for the Newman family; we’re hoping the technique works for us. She seemed more interested in the balloons than the fact her binkies were tied to them, although earlier in the morning she had a meltdown when we showed her what was about to happen.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
I’m in the middle of a double paper effort, thus my silence this week. M. has continued to do very well in her bed. From Saturday night, when it took and hour to get her to settle and sleep, we were down to only 15 minutes on Tuesday. Last night was my first night on my own with her, as S. went back to work. So I was a bit nervous about how she would do.
Monday, March 20, 2006
I’m mixing topics dangerously tonight. Don’t tell my wife. Fellas, it was the best day of the year today. That’s right, the first day of class after spring break. Tans o’plenty. The higher ratio of silicone and saline among the students in the 21st century as compared to the 20th century, when I was an undergrad, makes the day all the more interesting. Granted, that was only when I was out walking around.
Monday, March 13, 2006
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the World Baseball Classic. I’ve watched several games and have enjoyed them all. I’m still not sure about the timing, and if that can ever be fixed. Doing it during spring training sucks because most major leaguers aren’t in game shape yet. I can’t imagine baseball would ever adjust its schedule to allow for a mid-season tournament (playing a 154 game season every fourth year?). Post-season is as problematic as pre-season, especially for pitchers who have been run down over the previous six months.
Wednesday, March 8, 2006
Hey, I’m on spring break! I’m thinking about loading up the cooler later and heading to a local tanning salon, popping open a few cold ones, and yelling at women to flash me. Yes, I’m almost 35, married, and about to become the father of a second daughter. But a guy can have some fun, right? Actually, we’re taking a little trip next weekend to visit some friends who moved to Michigan last summer.
Tuesday, March 7, 2006
We took M. to the Children’s Museum for the first time today. She had a great time, for the most part. Her favorite part was riding on the carrousel. Unfortunately, she spent the next hour saying, “Nay-nay?” which is her way of saying she’d really like to go find those fun horses again than play in the sand. I’ve got some good pics that I’ll try to get posted tomorrow.
Thursday, March 2, 2006
One frustrating thing about having a kid is how things just disappear. Most of the time, it isn’t anything important. Often we’ll be short a sippy cup for a day or two until a very stinky one rolls out from under a couch or a pile of toys. You just hope your kid didn’t attempt to drink any of the curdled milk. We’ve been missing one of our baby monitor receivers for two days, though.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Tuesdays at 9:00 are channel flipping time in our house. I generally run the remote, so we spend most of the following hour watching Scrubs on NBC. Is it just me, or since they started airing the new episodes in back-to-back fashion, isn’t the first episode always much funnier than the second? Anyway, during commercials on Scrubs, we flip over to TBS and watch Sex and the City reruns. Or, as I tell my wife, “Now you can laugh for awhile.
Monday, February 27, 2006
Saturday, as I was waiting for the Mrs. to get ready so we could make a trip to the mall, I sat down and spent 20 thoroughly enjoyable minutes watching the classic 80s flick “Wargames.” Matthew Broderick. Ally Sheedy. A talking computer. Global Thermonuclear War. You know how it goes. Anyway, it gave me a thought. There should be a channel that plays nothing but 80s movies. “Wargames,” “Caddyshack,” “Fast Times,” “Better Off Dead,” “Real Genius,” “Fletch,” “Sixteen Candles,” etc.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Corporate radio sucks. We all know that, whether we give in and listen to it or whether we refuse to subject our ears to playlists created through marketing and payola. I’ve sung their praises of woxy.com many times, and I know a few of you have checked out their programming. There is no better source for cutting-edge alternative rock on the Internet. Woxy is now in need of your help. Check out their site, read their story, and if you can, contribute.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
OK, I found another thing I like about the Olympics. I love how the support teams for male skiers yell at them before they start each race. “Come on Daron! Let’s go buddy! Come on D! Let’s go D. Rahlves!” Makes me laugh every time.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
M. has reached the point where she’s beginning to mimic all the things S. and I do. We better start watching our language! Over the weekend, we got dinner at a noodle place. While M. was working on her spirals and cheese, I was woofing down some spicy pasta. As I spun my fork to curl my pasta onto it, M. twirled her fork in circles too. When I stopped to eat, she stopped and watched.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
I’ve decided the Winter Olympics kind of suck. Not the events themselves, but the coverage we’re getting here in the States. I realize by making that statement I’m offering the most obvious and repeated opinion possible, but it’s true. The fundamental problem with the Winter Olympics are that there are so many fewer events than in the Summer Olympics it is difficult to fill all the TV hours. Thus, as NBC tries to save all the marquee events for prime time, we’re left with watching all kinds of crap during the day.