M’s nine-month check up was Monday. She measured in as follows: 20 lbs., 6 ounces, 75th percentile 26.5 inches, 25th percentile 90th percentile on head size Still need to get the girl to lengthen out. The pediatrician I share a mortgage with tells me you can estimate a person’s adult height by doubling their height when they are two. So not time to panic yet. And her mom did quite well for herself in life despite barely getting past five feet in case M.
Friday afternoon was a little intense. One of S’s med school friends was in town and he stopped by with his girlfriend, who is originally from Nebraska. They were preparing to leave around 5:00 and as we opened the door to let them out, pea-sized hail starts falling. They decided to wait out the hail, so we went back inside and continued to talk. A couple minutes later, I thought I heard something and shushed everyone.
Or maybe in this case, it should be nerds, since I proudly call myself a geek at times. Anyway, Celebration III, the George Lucas-backed Star Wars convention, is in town. 25,000 nerds, most dressed as their favorite Star Wars character, have descended on downtown Indianapolis. Never have I been so proud to live in the suburbs. Listen, like most males (and some females) of my generation, Star Wars had a profound effect on me.
Things will continue to be a little slower than usual here for the next couple weeks. I’m working diligently on my final project for school, and expect the next week to be extremely busy for that alone. Immediately after I submit my project, I’ll start working on my formal application for graduate school, so I’m pulling together some information for that already. Finally, we’re having some work done around the house this week, so I’m spending some of the time I’m usually stuck to the computer outside consulting with people to make sure the right things are accomplished.
Friday: Tooth number 3 pushed its way through the gums. She also ate her first ever macaroni and cheese while her parents ate at a local barbecue joint, then some ice cream with dessert. Saturday: First time in a real swing. There’s a cool little park close to our house called Carmelot (get it Carmel + Camelot?) that we walked M. over to. They have two swings that you can securely place a little one into, so we dropped her in and started swinging away.
My wife called one of her coworkers this morning. The phone was picked up by a boy that’s not quite three years old. “Hi, what’s your name?” “S., is this Mitchell?” “Hi, I miss you!” “I miss you too.” “I’m playing my Nemo game, can you come over and play it with me?” “Not today but maybe some other time. Is your mommy home?” “Yes.” He then sat the phone down next to him and continued to play without calling his mom.
Kids have it made. Examples: today, we took M. to the library and then to a baby clothes store. She got carried around by her parents the entire time. Sales ladies flirted with her. When we got home, she got to sit in her exersaucer, eat, and poop all at the same time. After a new diaper, she sat on my lap in front of the TV for about ten minutes until her eyelids got heavy, her head tipped forward, and she fell asleep.
I slept what seemed to be about 90% of the weekend. That may sound like great fun to many of you, but this wasn’t leisurely, comfortable sleep. This was sleep because my body couldn’t stay awake. There were many factors that could have caused this: M. continued to teeth last week, with the added burden of fighting her first cold. She was up anywhere from 1-3 hours every night last week, in addition to just needing someone to come find her binky an additional 4-5 times a night.
My alma mater jumping the Nike ship for Adidas, errr, adidas? How does this affect the lifetime contract I signed with Nike when I was seven? Would Nike not adhere to the new blue rules at KU? Is it just a crazy coincidence that a few weeks ago I actually tried on a few pairs of adidas that didn’t look too horrible? (To be honest, I’ve been shopping for some new running shoes as my current Nikes are tearing my feet up.
Terri Schiavo has finally found peace. I’ve not written about her situation for many reasons. I don’t object to nearly every blogger needing to state their views. I don’t understand, though, how anyone outside the family can form a complete opinion since all the information those of us in the general public possess is third-party (at best), often based on conjecture or hearsay, and subject to the biases of the people sharing that information.
We survived our little baby sitting experiment. Sorta. I went to bed around 12:20 last night (or this morning, I guess) and found guest baby sleeping on S.. As I shared yesterday, he’s got some health issues and had woken screaming and trying to breath, so she just brought him to our bed and held him until he passed out. Shortly after I got into bed, she took him back to his room.
We hosted our first big Easter dinner today. Nine people were seated around our tables for an early afternoon meal. We dropped the obligatory honey ham on them, two quiches, pasta salad, deviled eggs, two fruit plates, and a lemon cake for dessert. For some strange reason, I decided I needed a nap at around 3:45. Next thing I knew, it was 6:00. So there’s little chance of me getting sleep anytime in the near future tonight.
We’ve been trying to wean M. off the generic, hospital-issued pacifiers for a couple weeks. We’re hoping to get her to use a store-bought binky that has a strap that attaches to her clothes so she can’t lose it. She hasn’t seemed all that interested in the new model, and after a few minutes we inevitably replace it with the old one. This morning, however, she came up with a new trick.
Appropriately Wayne Simien’s shot to win the game fell short at exactly the stroke of midnight here in Indianapolis. In years past, I would spend the next five or six hours laying on the floor without movement. I mean, Bucknell in the first round? OK, I might have been preparing to leap from a tall building. I’m bummed, but not devastated this year. I didn’t expect much from this team, who for whatever reason could never find their identity this season.
M. crawls!
Having trouble getting a baby to nap during the day? First, wear them out by letting them play for 60-90 minutes. Then, put them in your lap and play Beatles music, singing along softly. After about 15 minutes, cue up “Hey Jude.” Guaranteed, but the extended fade-out, your child will be nodding off. I’ve always been a Lennon guy, but I will give McCartney credit for once.
Time for an update on the doings of Baby M. As documented over the past couple weeks, she now has two tiny teeth peeking through her lower gums. She likes to scrape them on things. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. Her sleeping patterns have normalized slightly since the teeth popped through, and she’s kicked her nasty Motrin habit. At least until the next teeth start coming in.
There are a few developments in the world of on-line music that have got me all geeked up of late. I mentioned in my year-end post the glory of the MP3 blog. Thanks to people who are much hipper and better connected than I can ever hope to be, I’ve managed to develop some idea of what is going on in the alternative music world. The second development that I think is great is the growth of quality, streamed music options.
I’ve not shared how my week-long vacation from college basketball went. I indeed managed to avoid almost all college basketball coverage for a full seven days. I didn’t watch games, read about them in the paper, or follow columnists online. Tuesday morning at about 10:00, I checked the Kansas-Oklahoma score but did not read any stories about the game itself. And that was it. A week to attempt to regain some perspective, to try to remember I’m not actually playing in the games and thus should enjoy it when my team wins and be able to move on quickly after the lose.
M’s first two teeth pushed their way through her tender little gums this weekend. She’s a bit shy about showing them off, and they’re just barely visible, so it will probably be a couple more weeks before they’re photographable. She had managed to chomp both her mom and me a couple times, though. Sadly, she remains fairly cranky at times, so her top two central incisors may not be that far behind.
Here are my impressions. It was a truly excellent concert. We wormed our way as close to the stage as possible, and had just two people and five feet of stage between us and Neil Finn. Probably the closest I’ve ever been outside some of those tiny bars and coffee houses I’ve seen bands perform at. The brothers Finn were using a rather non-traditional stage set-up. They were seated at the front of the stage with a bass player behind them.
We watched Ray tonight, which I think means I saw one movie nominated for this year’s Oscars. Anchorman didn’t get any nominations, right? I liked Ray, I just thought it was oddly done. It was far too broad, and thus left me unsure of what to think of Ray. Was he a bad guy who turned good? A good guy who had some rough patches? They try to do too much even though the movie is two and a half hours long.
This week was the anniversary of my mom’s death. I don’t say that to bum you out or earn sympathy from anyone. Just to point out she’s been on my mind a little more than usual the past couple days. My mom was one of those people who always had 20 things going on at once, and consequently, was a little absent minded from time-to-time. As an example, one day I got home from school and went to the cabinet to get a glass for a drink.
Long-time readers and friends know that I’m a gigantic sports fan and a competition freak, both of which combine with a sometimes frightening intensity in my extreme devotion to the basketball team of my alma mater, the University of Kansas. I’ve been extraordinarily lucky to have been born into a fandom that has provided many more high moments than low. One national championship in my lifetime. Two other national championship game appearances (Those loses sucked, but come on, we were one of the last two teams playing with an even money shot to win both times.
My promised summary of some of my favorite Finn Brothers music. I’m always a little surprised that I’ve become such a big fan of Neil and Tim’s work over the years. I’m generally not into the singer-songwriter thing very much, even when it leans to the alterna-pop side of the spectrum. I guess I was entranced by the majesty of a certain song in the spring of 1986 and have never really gotten over it.
We’re hosting S’s best friend and her two-month old son this week. Tonight, we had people from their high school group of friends over so they could all see the little guy for the first time. Including infants, we had 11 kids in the house. I’m really not sure why I bothered to clean this afternoon. When we had shown the last of our guests to the door and bid them goodnight, our kitchen, dining room, and living room were covered in a thin layer of crunched up chips, spilt milk, and ground-in brownie chunks.
Remind me to use the blog to wish for KU wins in March. After my post last night, not only did M. make it through the night with me only having to go put her binky back into her mouth two times, but she also slept (and thus so did I) until S. walked into the house at about 8:30 this morning. Behold the power of the blog!
Man, I had to deal with full-on screaming tonight. M. has cried hysterically, shrieked, yelled exceptionally loud, and I probably even characterized some of her outbursts as screaming in the past. But tonight, there’s no doubt it was a scream. She literally stopped crying so she could scream for five minutes, then started crying again. Some non-parents out there are probably saying, “What’s the big deal? Babies scream.” Yes, but my daughter has proven to be pretty tough so far.
Why is Liza Minelli always on TV? I did some checking, and while she won an Oscar and is the daughter of famous people, it’s not like she’s done much to generate all the media attention she gets. There are some people that older generations are gaga about, and while people our age may belittle their talent, we at least understand they were once huge stars. I’m not sure I understand what Liza did in her career that makes her so interesting.
Arriving in today’s FedEx shipment, my Valentine’s Day gift from my wife: The Jack Stack Barbecue BIG Taste of Kansas City package. Included: A bottle of Jack Stack sauce Hickory Pit Beans Barbecue Sausage Chopped Beef Brisket Pork Burnt Ends Cheesy Corn Bake Yum!