Month: August 2004 (Page 2 of 3)

Tim Daggett Youth

August 23, 2004 / DB

This weekend I felt like I was suffering from the male counterpart to post-partum depression. I wanted to nap at all times, no matter how much sleep I got the night before. I was listless and had a total lack of motivation. Not good. Looking back, I think two things triggered it. Other than having a kid, of course. First, Saturday night I was sitting on the couch, holding a sleeping baby, while watching the late night Cheers episodes on TV Land. Sounds like good times, right? While I was sitting there, I realized how much different my life was now than whenever I first watched those episodes (Diane era). I couldn’t even drive back then! Now not only can I drive, I can buy beer, vote, I’m married, own a house, have the freedom to quit my job and do what I really want to do, plus have a kid. Scary. The second thing was the various mentions of the 1984 LA Olympics this weekend. Someone said, “That was two decades ago.” Damn. The ‘84 summer games were one of the pivotal points of my youth. The games were in stylish LA, rigged thanks to the Soviet bloc boycott so the US was guaranteed to dominate, and came at the perfect age for me to eat up all the hype, glamour, and jingoism that goes with the Olympics. 20 freaking years ago. I’m very old.

I’ve had discussions with a couple people over the past week that can’t get down with the Olympics. Arguments ranged from just not being interested in events that are no longer truly amateur, to disgust with the drug and scoring scandals, to people just being too busy to watch events that are 12 hours old. As I’ve been a slave to the TV for the past week, here are some arguments in favor of the Olympics.
1) There’s nothing like the patriotism that goes along with sporting events. It’s much more fun than patriotism that’s related to politics, war, etc. The consequences are less severe, and the rewards often greater.

2) Tim Daggett. The guy is incredible. If you don’t know who he is, he’s the 1984 gymnast who provides the male half of the commentary for gymnastics. Dude is so critical it’s actually fun to listen to. The other two announcers can praise a performer and Daggett will respond with a “Well….” Then break down in great detail how an athlete’s feet were too far apart on the landing. I bet he would make people cry if he was a coach.

3) The US-Australia rivalry in the pool. Always terrific drama, and as I said last week, it seemed much more good natured this year.

4) The Iraqi soccer team. The feel good event of the summer. The added drama of President Bush trying to hitch his wagon to their success, and much of the team publicly saying no thank you. Political intrigue!

5) Pretty much all Swedish, female athletes.

6) Seeing players who were marginal US college players light up NBA stars.

7) Michael Phelps. What the post-modern Olympics are all about. Performing at the highest level, staying humble, and thinking of team and country first. I don’t know enough about the history of swimming to place his performance, but at a minimum, he’s put himself in the argument for greatest single Olympic performance. He can do even better in Beijing and become the greatest swimmer of all time. What’s sick is he’ll only be 27 for the 2012 games. You could be looking at the greatest Olympian ever.

8) Beach volleyball. If only I had been born in Southern California. Karch Kiraly’s dry humor as analyst has made an already enjoyable sport even more fun to watch.

9) Lauryn Williams. She faded to finish second in the women’s 100 meter final, but she is a hope for the future. She lacks the look of the traditional sprinter, being short and fairly squat. But she’s got speed, and she’s got charisma. Great reaction at the end of the final Saturday. She crosses the finish line and says, “Shit!” She stops, stares at the screen, then realizes that she’s won the silver and starts celebrating. In her post-race interview, after thanking all the requisite people, and discussing her family situation (her father is under treatment for leukemia), the interviewer went through a list of all the things that had been lined up against her before the race. “Don’t forget I’m only 20! That’s the most important thing. Gotta represent for the juniors!”

10) Deena Kaster. The US runner took the Bronze in the women’s marathon by running a brilliant race, rising from 18th place all the way to third over one of the most brutal marathon courses ever devised. She blew by several far more famous runners in the final five miles as she seemed to gain strength with each stride. An incredible, inspiring performance. Sadly, the final finisher, from Mongolia, who was basically walking at the end, still beat my marathon time by an hour. Also worth noting, silver medalist Catherine Ndereba of Kenya won Chicago the year I ran it. So I can say I raced an Olympian, I suppose.

We were watching the trampoline event Friday night when S. had the comment of the games so far. “Is Slam Ball in the Olympics this year, too?” How did trampoline become an event and why did all of the men look like they were about 40? Are they kind of like the high school seniors who pick the easiest sport possible to go out for during spring semester so they can get their letter before graduation?
Another solid comment by the wife came in reference to Russian gymnast Svetlana Khorkina. First, she wondered aloud if people ever called her Svetty. Then, “What if she married someone who’s last name was Balls?” Now that E! is again showing Saturday Night Live reruns, the spirit of Alec Baldwin is clearly in the house (We caught a Baldwin-hosted episode Saturday).

And all that is just after week one. Who knows what kind of hijinx the next week will hold??? Be prepared for my essay laying out my expectations for the US team at each Olympics.

Changes

August 22, 2004 / DB

So much for keeping to a regular schedule last week. My apologies, but fatherhood was getting me down a little. I have a lengthy Olympics-related post I’ll add on Monday. However, I did want to point out a few changes the good people at Blogger made last week. Those nasty ads that used to litter the top of the page? Gone. In their place, a sweet little Google search box for this site alone. Need to point your friend the literary agent to my brilliant comparison of Michigan’s Fab Five to the Queer Eye Fab Five? Type it in, and you’ll get links to each time I’ve mentioned the Fab Fives.
Want to find out what I predicted for last year’s KU-MU football game? Search away. (KU, 45-41). Pretty cool, and helps me find old posts quickly too.
Also, in the far right, is a Next Blog button. That will randomly take you to another Blogger blog. Kind of fun for wasting time and seeing what the rest of the blogosphere holds.

Kangaroos And Olympics

August 17, 2004 / DB

I fear we’ve spawned some kind of marsupial. M.’s latest trick is to only be able to sleep when lying on mommy, daddy, or really any warm body. We had friends over Monday night who happened to bring their three kids. All five of our visitors held M., and S. held her the rest of the time they were here. She was out the entire time. We put her down when our guests left so we could clean up, immediate tears. M. slept nearly all night, as long as S. was holding her. She slept all day today, as long as I was holding her. I think she expects one of us to have a pouch so she can crawl in. According to mom, though, we’ve got about another week of this. When M. passes the one month mark, she’s going to have to start acting like a big girl and sleep on her own, use the toilet, and clean up after herself. Well, the first one for sure, we’ll work up to the others.

The word marsupial makes me laugh. Not because it sounds funny on its own, but because for some reason I always think of Will Ferrell doing his George Bush imitation when I say it. “Marsupial. Those are them animals that carry purses, right?” Maybe it’s just me.

The US-Greece basketball game was terrific preparation for the coming college season. M. was attached firmly to my chest, snoring away (and periodically filling the drawers up). There was horrendous officiating. Poor play by my team. And I had to keep my mouth shut. I’m not sure I’ll be able to do this when it’s KU on the TV. At one point, after I passed her over to S., something annoyed me (Tim Duncan’s fifth foul probably) and I said, “Jesus!” rather forcefully but not too loud. S. claims that M. tensed up and her eyes popped wide open. Don’t know if it was the tone, the volume, or just the blasphemy, but I got her attention. How am I supposed to yell at JR Giddens to fucking guard somebody now?

The US hoops team was again bad, although not as bad as Sunday. They were unlucky, too, playing a fired up Greece team on their home court, with the officials doing everything they could to even up the game. I’ve watched enough international basketball to know the officiating uniformly sucks. More so than the usual shitty US officiating. But when there’s a clear lane violation (Greek player in the lane before Allen Iverson even puts the ball above his head) and they call a foul on Carlos Boozer for something that happens after Iverson’s free throw misses, you have to wonder if the playing field is all that even.

Memo to Richard Jefferson: stop freaking shooting.
Memo to Carmelo Anthony: cool it with the attitude. You’re lucky 119 people turned down a chance to play on this team and David Stern decided to market you and your boy LeBron overseas.
Memo to Stu Jackson: stop freaking hiding behind the fact several first and second choice NBA players are not on the roster this year. There were still plenty of opportunities to get a legitimate point guard and at least one player who can consistently hit a three pointer. You blew them all. Don’t go blaming Shaq, Kobe, T-Mac, or Jermaine O’Neal for the fact you didn’t call Michael Redd or Tayshaun Prince, and waited until far too late to ask Rip Hamilton to play. Hell, give Steve Kerr a call. I bet he can still knock down 22 footers. You suck.

Basketball déjà vu: seeing your highly talented team miss outside shot after outside shot while a bunch of ditch diggers who smoke at halftime are consistently throwing in 25 foot bombs and getting the feeling you’ve seen this before. Oh, and Roy Williams is on the bench. (I’m well aware of my selective use of blame and praise in the Larry Brown – Roy Williams relationship. It’s my blog, leave it alone.)

Terrific drama! The men’s 4×200 relay final Tuesday night featured the epic match up between the US and Australia. I accidentally saw that Michael Phelps won an individual gold during the day, but avoided all other results. Here’s a quick recap for those who missed it:
Great start!
Damn, we’re tied.
We’re ahead!
We’re tied again.
We’re ahead!
All even.
We’re pulling away!
Italy’s in second now!
Shit, Australia caught us.
Holy shit, we’re way ahead!
Good Lord, Ian Thorpe just made up the gap in 15 meters.
Tied
Tied
Tied
Tied
I think we’re ahead.
I think we’re ahead.
Dammit, here comes Thorpe.
(Wait for the superimposed flag to show who won. Wait…wait…wait…)
We won!

Great reaction shots of the US and Aussies. The Americans went ballistic; the Aussies were in utter shock that Thorpe got outreached at the wall. Thankfully, unlike four years ago in Sydney, there didn’t appear to be too much macho nonsense going on. It was just good, clean competition. It’s just too bad Michael Phelps is a failure since he won’t be winning eight gold medals. I mean, at 19 with the chance to go home with eight medals of various colors, but not all gold, I don’t see how the kid gets on the plane home next week. He should open up a bar on Crete because there’s no way he can recover from this.
(For the dense reader, or in case lack of sleep is getting in the way of my sarcasm, that’s a shot at all the idiots who will be calling Phelps a disappointment. And I find it hilarious that Phelps keeps taking his wreath off for the national anthem.)

For the record, I like Ian Thorpe a lot. Some of the other Aussies appear to be jackasses, but he seems like a respectful guy who is really weighed down by the pressure he performs under.

Random events M. and I watched today:
Equestrian (I don’t understand it; M. seemed to want a pony already)
Table tennis (How come all the US players are immigrants? Do our garage, ping-pong skills just not translate to the world stage?)
Water polo (Insane sport)
Hoops (Frustrating)
Soccer (Nap time)
Swimming (Exhilarating)
Gymnastics (I kept M. pointed away from the screen so she doesn’t already develop an eating disorder in hopes that she can compete in the 2020 games.)
I tried to play a game of my own, keeping track of horrible puns that Pat O’Brien used during his hosting slot. I lost count, though.

It’s 10:40 PM; the US women just took the silver in the gymnastics competition. I can finally check ESPNews again!

Good Weekend

August 16, 2004 / DB

Sunday night, and I’m sitting here in a faded, yet still bright orange Pearl Jam shirt and some blue KU shorts. I’m feeling very European in my get up! I have a feeling that in Amsterdam, they would think I was dressed quite dapperly. However, if I went to the grocery store to buy some milk, baby formula, or scotch, they’d think I was a mental patient.

One good thing about having the in-laws just across town is easy access to babysitting services. My mother-in-law offered her services Saturday night so we could get out of the house for a while. And get out we did! Our first trip to one of our favorite sushi joints together since the night we found out we were going to have a baby. Mmmm, grilled eel! Thanks to M’s feeding schedule, we were seated just before 6:00, which reminded us that we truly are old now. Even stopping on the way home to pick up ice cream for dessert, we were out for less than two hours. Lame.

Sunday, S. and one of her sisters took M. for a walk around the neighborhood. I took another sister-in-law to Costco, and then ran for the first time in six weeks. None of that may sound very exciting, but if I’m going to get back in some kind of routine, it will be these baby steps that get me there.

I’ve added some new baby pics to the .Mac homepage. I also set up a new gateway page, which is linked below. In the future, all new albums will be visible from this page, so you can hang onto this link.

For baseball fans out there, I’ve found a fine blog that has become a daily read for me. I highly recommend Will Carroll’s weblog, which features four writers about mostly baseball matters. Be warned, however, there is a surprising amount of political commentary as well, and it leans left. So if you don’t want to be subjected to another tentacle of the vast, left wing, media conspiracy, steer clear.

Baseball & Politics? Yum!

These Olympics are like manna for the new parent. Sporting events that are on almost 24 hours a day? Yes, please, and thank you. It is distracting, though, to have to avoid the major sports sites and channels if I don’t want the results ruined for me before I watch the taped events. I thought they were going to make sure all events took place in US prime time, no matter where the games took place, in order to placate the US viewing audience. Someone needs to do something about this. Can we get Tom Ridge involved somehow?

Nightmare

August 14, 2004 / DB

Puerto Rico 92 US 73
Even Basketball Genius Larry Brown may not be able to overcome this. (Roy Williams is on the bench; let’s blame him!) It’s one thing to get beat badly in a game that means nothing. It’s another thing to lay an egg like this in Olympic competition. This was a travesty of epic proportions. No defense, the complete inability to hit wide-open shots, very little heart, too much complaining. Puerto Rico was watching the US shooters from the lane because they knew we couldn’t hit a shot to save our lives from beyond the arc. The Puertoriquenos were woofing at our players not out of fear or machismo, but because they knew they were better.
It’s reached the point where I almost hope the US continues to get smacked around by everyone so we can end the Dream Team concept once and for all. If we’re going to lose, at least throw college players out there who will play with pride. Using Andy Katz’ preseason top 50, here’s a quick run down of college players that could have filled this year’s team:
Chris Paul, PG Wake Forest
Sean May, PF, North Carolina
Wayne Simien, PF, Kansas
JR Giddens, SF, Kansas
Jarrett Jack, G, Georgia Tech
Gerry McNamara, SG, Syracuse
Hakim Warrick, PF, Syracuse
Channing Frye, PF, Arizona
Hassan Adams, SF, Arizona
Deron Williams, SG, Illinois
JJ Redick, SG, Duke
Lawrence Roberts, PF, Mississippi State
Chris Thomas, PG, Notre Dame
Travis Diener, PG, Marquette
Ryan Gomes, SF, Providence
Bracey Wright, SG, Indiana (Bonus non-top 50 pick)

That’s just a quick look at “name” players. Go back to the old days when 50 college kids and a couple high schoolers were invited to camp in June. They try out for two weeks. We pick a team. They practice and play exhibition games for six weeks. I’m telling you, they’d be competitive. We’d lose our inside dominance, but Tim Duncan ain’t exactly scoring at will is he? Think Redick, McNamara, and Wright wouldn’t knock down every wide-open shot they got? Use wiry guys like Warrik out top, then beefy guys like Simien and Roberts down low and you could slice up the zones NBA players can’t seem to figure out. They might still lose games by 20, but at least it would be interesting instead of embarrassing.

Michael Phelps’ eight gold medal dream is over. The US men’s gymnastic team looked rather poor Saturday. The men’s beach volleyball teams look uninspired. Australia, a country of 19 million, looks like an athletic super power. I’m telling you, if the games go poorly, John Kerry can promise to increase funding for the US Olympic program and that might help him win a couple more battleground states. “Under George W. Bush’s watch, we went from easily winning the medal count in Sydney to struggling to remain competitive in sports we’ve long dominated.” It just might work. You read it here first!

Friday Night Insanity

August 14, 2004 / DB

Insanity is harsh, but when I sit down at the computer at 11:45 totally frazzled from 90 minutes of screaming, my creative juices are slow to work their magic. M. was in all kinds of weird moods today. She had a pretty good night of sleep, even spending the time from 6:00 to 8:30 AM in her crib. She woke around 10:30 or so for a feed, and really never got back to a deep sleep until 5:00. Both S. and I were a little frustrated because we didn’t have our regular two-hour blocks of freedom. After her nap, though, she was an angel. One of my sisters-in-law came over for dinner and M. just sat in her arms for an hour without making a noise. Well, she made some noises that began in her bowels so we laid her down to change her, prepared for the usual outburst. Not a peep. She just sat there and let us change and clean her. She dropped another load minutes later, and the same story for that change. We fed her around 9:30 and something there set her off. She howled from around 10:00 until around 11:30. It was one of those outbursts that nothing seemed to stem and brought mom and dad to the verge of their own tears. I haven’t heard a peep from the living room for 30 minutes (Granted, the iPod is cranked up) so, knock on wood, perhaps the storm has passed.

Long time readers of my work (I’m talking pre-blog work; back in the days of the ER list and the 80s trivia list) will recall I had an affinity towards boycotts. If something pissed me off, I boycotted it. That all came to a screeching halt when Masters Newman, Allison, and Lancaster forced me to break my seven year, idiotic boycott of Jack’s Stack one day at lunch. They actually had no idea of the boycott, and I sheepishly admitted it after I tasted how good the food truly was. I went back twice in the next month. Anyway, my point is while I’ve gotten off the whole boycott thing, I’m still a big fan of pet peeves. I have one new one, and was reminded of a classic one I feel obligated to share with the group.
The new one is people who have license plates saying that they’re the “Number One Fan” of team/school X. This really pisses me off. First off, unless you’re 11, you should never think you’re the number one fan of a team. There’s always someone more committed, more rabid, more mentally ill than you are somewhere that’s giving 1000% to the team compared to your 120%. Second, you picked this license plate off a rack that had 20 more just like them. Think about that for a second. There were opportunities for 20 more people to make the same claim, yet you still bought the damn license plate. Did you think they took the rest off the shelves one you carried yours out the door? Stick to a simple logo license plate, please.
The old pet peeve I was reminded of is far more serious. These dump trucks that rumble around, spreading debris and cracking windshields with the disclaimer to stay back 200 feet painted on the back really piss me off. First off, is that a legal defense? Can I put a sign on my truck telling people to stay off my ass, and then if I slam on my brakes for no reason and they hit me, they’re liable? What really gets me going is the fact that if you paint this on a vehicle, should they not ever, under any circumstances, pass another vehicle? How can I stay 200 feet back if the asshole driving the truck blew by me at 10 MPH over the speed limit? There’s a part of me that’s always secretly wants to take a rock from a dump truck in the windshield just so I could have a heart attack over the matter. I hate those things. Am I alone here? Is this thing on?

OK, I feel better after sharing those things. This next week is going to be different, at least I hope so. I’m going to try to get myself into a routine. I need to start studying for the GREs. I need to get back out running again. And I need to be more consistent posting about subjects other than my daughter’s excrement. I shall try to do much better so you have a reason to check daily again. Since I’ll be a captive audience for the Olympics, that should generate some ideas.

Of Diapers And Whatnot

August 12, 2004 / DB

If you’ve never had a child, you probably don’t know that when you’re staying in the hospital, they give you a chart to track your child’s feeding schedule and diaper changes. It’s all so they can be sure the kid is getting food and processing it. Being the anal geeks we are, S. and I have continued to faithfully update the spreadsheet we built to track this information. I’ve got a nice little Excel sheet that lists date, time, a large field to either put amount of time feeding or amount of bottle consumed, which “side” we start on if S.’s doing the feeding, and then boxes for wet and dirty diapers. At each feed, we start the stopwatch on my running watch to track the exact time. No guessing in this house. We’ll be damned if we’re going to be the parents who have to rely on memory when our pediatrician asks us how often M. is taking a dump!
I tell you this because M. had a productive evening Wednesday night. Not only did we have four dirty diapers in three hours, but we had two in five minutes! Homegirl has some active bowels! I must admit, as long as the diaper is secured to her body, I find the whole thing pretty funny. I was on the couch trying to stay awake watching baseball scores when I heard her rip off a good one over in her pack n play. I had to stifle a laugh since S. was sleeping next to me. I walked over and heard M. continue to go to town. I waited for her to calm down, then got to work changing her. I had just got her cleaned up when she released another gift, in gaseous form only thankfully. I slammed the new diaper on as quickly as I could. Sure enough, five minutes later, we’re changing her again.
I’m sure many of you out there are thinking, “Great, now I have to put up with weekly diaper posts.” I just share because the whole thing fascinates me. Not really sure why, it’s just pretty amazing how M. can be in a deep sleep, you walk over the check on her, and suddenly her head turns bright red, she starts smiling, and 30 seconds later you get a whiff. Cracks me up. And since I’m typing this up at 12:14 AM, I’m probably a little slap happy, so cut me some slack.

Tonight was not a record, for what it’s worth. We had a three-diapers-in-fifteen-minutes event last week.

Unlike Ferris Bueller, life is moving pretty slow right now. These are the things I have to share with you.

Two Interesting Phone Calls

August 10, 2004 / DB

It was a dynamic morning here at the palatial, imitation estate of DDB. I had two very interesting phone calls. The second, which we’ll discuss first, came from the Apple Store here in Carmel. “The 20 GB iPod you requested arrived this morning. You can pick it up anytime today. Thank you for spending more money on Apple products.”
My shiny, sexy, little beast of a music player is sucking up music from my hard drive as I type.

The first call was far more life changing. I officially turned down the job my employer had offered me to replace the one they eliminated. In doing so, I informed them I will be leaving the company to focus on applying and hopefully being admitted to graduate school in the near future. It’s going to take some epic work on the GREs to make up for my sorry ass undergraduate efforts, meaning I’ll be hitting the books hard for the next few months. I find it highly ironic that after finally getting my act together and graduating, then having a pretty high level of success at a Fortune 500 company for almost seven years, and thinking the disaster that was my undergraduate transcript was buried in the dust bin of history, that now that I’ve decided there’s something I REALLY want to do, it could all come back to haunt me. Life is funny that way, isn’t it?
I’m optimistic that between a winning essay, good interviews, establishing a solid rapport with the administration, and as I said, acing the GREs, I’ll be a candidate for a master’s in Journalism sometime soon. My academic woes in the past will keep me from even thinking about applying to the nationally ranked program at IU-Bloomington. However, I’m hopeful I can gain entrance to their satellite program at IUPUI here in Indy. We shall see. This is either a brilliant move that will allow me to do something I was probably meant to do, or a huge disaster that will lead towards perpetual underemployment, divorce, and me living under an overpass somewhere. OK, that’s a little dramatic, I admit. I’ll keep you updated as the process unfolds. I’m certainly quite excited about the path life is leading me down.

Catch Up

August 10, 2004 / DB

Before M. was born, I assumed my paternity leave would consist of lots of time on the computer, reading 3-4 books a week, and otherwise relaxing in the ways I was used to. To-date, I’ve read zero books (although I’ve read lots of chapters of several parenting and computer books) and have obviously posted less than what I was doing in the past. So let’s catch up on a few things.

The highlight of our weekend had to be when M. literally shit all over a friend of ours. It was awesome! She just let loose and the diapers either got full enough or were loose enough that it all came spilling out and landed on our friend’s lap, the couch, and the floor. Fortunately, our friend is a physician and a mom, so she can handle it. Plus, it all wiped up off the couch and carpet with no stains, so it was good for a laugh and nothing more serious.

Sunday was the Brickyard 400, the annual redneck convention in Indy that culminates with a NASCAR race. I’m somewhat ashamed to admit I watched more of the race than all the NASCAR I’ve watched in my life combined. I was holding the girl, it was a lazy Sunday, and it was a local event. Plus, the record 93 caution flags were perfect for inducing sleep. I was absolutely amazed, however, that people find it interesting to go sit in the sun for four hours and watch cars drive in circles. At least if you’re home, you can see what’s going on all the way around the track. If you’re at the race, there could be a massive pile up on the other side, and unless you’re sober enough to look at the big screen, you’ll have no idea that Dale or Ricky or Billy dun flipped his car and is in the amblanse. Two of my sisters-in-law went and said the guy sitting in front of them took his teeth out midway through the race because they were interfering with his ability to take shots. There’s clearly something wrong with a “sporting event” if you have to make more room in your mouth to drink halfway through.

The latest ESPN mega-self-promotion is Old School week on Sportscenter. They’re bringing back many of the classic anchors that have left the network to do an evening Sportscenter broadcast. I’m torn between thinking this is just another tired gimmick by a network that needs some competition and being thankful that I don’t have to listen to Stuart Scott, John Anderson, or Scott Van Pelt for a few nights and can actually watch again. Naturally, I watched Sunday’s with great interest as legend Craig Kilborn returned. I was disappointed. His heart didn’t seem to be in it. He made fun of all his imitators at the beginning, and later randomly threw out his once famous catch phrases so quickly they didn’t connect. His appearance did nothing to remind the public how brilliant his act was during his ESPN run. Yet even mailing it in, he was better than 75% of the current anchors. Now where’s Keith Olberman?

Hopefully some of this makes sense. I’ve got a terrific headache and am in no mood to edit.

The Rules Go Out The Window

August 6, 2004 / DB

Funny thing about being a parent: despite knowing it’s going to be a huge challenge, before your child is born you spend lots of time agreeing with your spouse on what rules you’ll be parenting under. It all seems so logical and orderly when you’ve still got a fetus instead of a child. We agreed that we’ll share discipline roles, our daughter won’t have earrings until she can take care of them herself, and so on. The big, big, big rule though was our children will sleep in their own beds. We knew that the occasional night terror or illness would necessitate a brief suspension of this rule. But we were adamant about wanting our kids to feel comfortable in their bed rather than needing to come sleep with mom and dad in order to relax.

This of course means that M. has slept with her parents the last two nights. We seem to be getting the feeding thing down. We visited with a lactation consultant yesterday (Who knew there was such a thing?!?! I think I’ve found my next career!) and she gave S. the big thumbs up on technique. She also weighed M. and she’s already surpassed her birth weight (6 lbs, 11 oz after leaving the hospital at 5 lbs. 11 oz.) so we know the girl is getting enough to eat. Unlike the shrieking from earlier in the week, though, the last two nights she just will not calm down and relax in her bed. S. rocks her for 45 minutes, puts her down, and five minutes later she’s unwrapped herself and is crying. I walked downstairs yesterday morning to find my girls curled up on the couch. S. opened an eye and said, “We’re violating rule #1 in a big way.”

Advice for the other new and prospective parents out there: you may think you’re smart and can enter parenthood with an easy to follow plan. You’re wrong. Your child has nothing to do but sit around and think of ways to drive you crazy. It took our girl a week to get what she wants. You may not care about the whole family bed thing, but I guarantee there’s something you feel strongly about that you’ll be caving on as soon as you have to put up with an hour of crying at 3:00 AM. And yes, I can hear the laughter from my Northern California reader.