Month: February 2006

Typical Night

February 28, 2006 / DB

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.” Not that I don’t find S&C funny, it’s more that like most of the TV and movie humor I’m into, my wife just doesn’t get Scrubs. She’s finally admitted that My Name is Earl is “kind of funny,” but can’t connect with the wacky docs at Sacred Heart or with the hilarity that is The Office.

Tonight I think we entered the phase of pregnancy where we sit and stare at S.’s stomach a lot. Little Fetisina was flopping around, sticking parts out, and jumping around all evening. Perhaps it was the etoufee we dined on to celebrate Mardi Gras. Most of the night S. sat on the couch with her belly sticking out so we could watch the show and try to guess what body parts were in each position. Do you think those are her feet, or is that her head? Could that lump be arms or her butt? Terrific fun when it’s not working your innards over; S. seemed a little more weirded out and uncomfortable.

I think we’re both going through odd phases right now. S.’s job is much different than it was during her pregnancy with M.. Now she’s dealing with lots of very sick premies; a routine week involves the deaths of several newborns where at her old job it was rare to have any deaths. I can’t imagine dealing with that under normal conditions, let alone when you’re carrying your own child. To make matters worse, in the past week to ten days, she’s started seeing kids whose due dates were after Fetisina’s due date. She had a kid last night who was due on June 1. Poor kid had no steroids over the last couple weeks of gestation, so on top of some other serious issues, its lungs are woefully underdeveloped and it doesn’t have much chance to survive the week. I know each time she deals with one of these kids, she’s thinking, “What if this happened to me?”

I, on the other hand, have started to have the crisis of confidence I assume most dads have when #2 is approaching birth. I’m finding it hard to imagine how I can possibly love another child as much as I love M.. Like all the other aspects of fatherhood; changing diapers, cleaning up puke, staying up all night with a screaming infant, dealing with mood swings, etc.; it seems an impossible task when it’s just a concept. When I finally have to deal with it, as with the diapers and the puke and the crying and the mood swings, I’m sure it will come without effort or thought. But sitting here at 28 weeks, I wonder how on earth will I be able to love Fetisina in the same amount that I love M.. What’s the old cliche of parenthood? You don’t love any of your kids any more than another, but you do find ways of loving them differently? Chances are good that Baby of the Blogger #2 will act quite different from her big sister. Where M. is full-speed-ahead exuberant, equally easy to entertain and frustrate, her sister might be cautious and calculating, sizing up things before she rushes in. Where M. fills the house with her screams and laughter and talking, Lil’ Sis might sit in corners reading books quietly. Or perhaps she’ll be a brute and force her will upon M.. We have friends whose youngest (4) shoves her 8-year-old brother and 7-year-old sister around without any objections from them. It’s those differences that will make me love her in a way that is different, but equal, to how I love M.. It’s just difficult to come to terms with that until I know what those differences are and can start connecting with them.

Wish List

February 27, 2006 / DB

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. Sure, I have a ton of these on tape or DVD, but when you decide to watch one of these movies, you’re making a commitment to watch the entire thing. I want to know on channel X, anytime I need to waste 15-20-25 minutes, Lane Meyer, Lazlo Hollyfeld, or Farmer Ted will be there to comfort me. If I’m watching a game, what better way to spend the 2:30 commercial breaks than teaching my daughter lines from “Pretty In Pink” or “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”? Forget the occasional flick that shows up on WGN, TNT, TBS, or Spike. I want an all 80s movies, all-the-time source. Surely there’s some internet billionaire out there who grew up watching the same stupid movies I did that can make this happen.

Fight The Good Fight

February 26, 2006 / DB

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Olympic Praise

February 21, 2006 / DB

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.

My Little Immitator

February 21, 2006 / DB

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. As soon as I started twirling again, so did she.

If she sees you standing or sitting with your arms crossed, she crosses her arms dramatically over-and-over until you notice she’s doing the same thing as you. Don’t you kind of wish that the simple act of crossing your arms made you that happy, and wasn’t just a technique for staying warm, engaging in conversation, or just to do something with your hands?

The funniest form of imitation, though, came tonight at the dinner table. She’s suddenly obsessed with having ice cubes in her drinks, which is weird because both S. and I rarely use ice cubes in our beverages. Tonight she kept asking for “Ice Ice” which naturally turned into S. and I saying “Ice ice baby.” For dessert, we were eating some leftover ice cream cake from a sister-in-law’s birthday dinner. As S. spooned her up a bite, M. said, “Ice ice baby!” Now I just have to get her to talk about the V.I.P. Crew and we’re in business.

Another new word of great significance: Meegum. That’s how she says her name, which she now does consistently. And when she says it, she nods her head very seriously, I guess so we understand it’s her name and therefore of great importance. We asked her what we should name her sister and she said, “Whaaaa,” which is what she says babies do.

One more funny thing she did tonight before I go to bed. She has a little table and chairs in her playroom that she likes to sit at and work with her puzzles or toy animals or use her crayons on. She and S. were already seated when I walked into the room. She looked at me and said, “Sit daddy.” OK then. Her second sentence. Later, she picked up the phone and told no one in particular a long story that involved mommy, daddy, apples, the apples being mmm mmm good, and going to bed. That’s funny because mommy and daddy were of course with her, she was eating apples, they were yummy, and as soon as she was done with her apples it was bedtime. I’m telling you, some of you are going to start getting calls and you need to be prepared.

Winter Olympics

February 19, 2006 / DB

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. I’ve actually watched about 10 hours of curling just because it was on. There’s no good reason for me to watch that “event.” In the summer, we can watch the preliminary rounds of events or pool play sports like volleyball, basketball, etc. during the day and convince ourselves that the finals we watch at night are kinda-sorta live. Other than hockey, there’s little in the Winter Games to make the daytimes pass.
Worse, when NBC holds an event for the evening they edit the crap out of it and ruin the drama. Example: Sunday night they were showing the men’s cross country pursuit event, which was fun to watch. Halfway through, though, Bob Costas says “We’ll get back to the cross country action in a little while, but first, we go to to the ice dancing competition.” I believe the proper internet term of the day is WTF?!?! We’re dealing with sports that the average American has minimal interest in, and you really want us to hang around for an hour to see how it turns out? No thanks.

NBC’s problem is doubly complicated because in the summer there’s really not a lot of reason to check sports web sites during the day. Most baseball games are played at night, and even then you can go directly to mlb.com if you want to avoid Olympic results. In the winter, though, I’m following college basketball and the NBA, so I’m checking scores throughout the day. Need to see that Texas-Oklahoma State score? What’s this? Bode fell down again? No reason to watch tonight I guess. It’s really a no-win situation for NBC, but I’m all-too-willing to pile on. Their job is to lure me in, and they’re failing.

I thought the buzz that was developing last week about how new sports like snowboarding are “saving” the Winter Olympics was interesting. The sports picked from the X-Games world are in many ways the opposite of the traditional sports. No further proof is needed than the reaction to Lindsey Jacobellis’ gaffe in the snowboard cross final. If you missed it, she grabbed her board to showboat on her final jump, bit it, and ended up staggering to a silver. Immediately the press attacked her, saying she was the ugly American, she demonstrated what’s wrong with sports today, or just playing up her failure. I think they miss the point. From my limited understanding of the sport, that seems like part of it. A little extra flair here and there. In regular sports, it’s seen as showing up the competition. In extreme sports, it’s seen as part of the event, done out of the excitement inherent to the sport rather than an attempt to denegrate opponents. In traditional sports, rivals are supposed to be fierce but good-natured, a balance that is often lost. The extreme sport athletes do seem to care about each other, focus on enjoyment of the competition rather than the competition itself, and, for lack of a better term, keep it real. Funny that they were being hailed at winter sport’s saviors and as soon as they act like themselves, get hammered.

Why did CBS have snowboarding on Sunday as well? Were these competitors not good enough to make the Olympics? Did CBS think it was smart to counter-program with the same events? Did they think NBC throwing the Daytona 500 in the middle of its coverage might lead legions of winter sports fans to search for their sports on a different channel?

Best thing about the Olympics is listening to the hockey announcers. There are no better announcers in the world of team sports. These guys talk 1000 miles an hour, have to track rapid changes in lineups, and react to plays that are difficult to see with the naked eye. They do all of this and make it all perfectly comprehensible and entertaining. A counter to listening to a certain pair of basketball announcers from the midwest on Saturday who managed to miss play-after-play because they were too busy talking about things that had nothing to do with the action in front of them. I don’t think they could ever handle hockey.

BTW, hockey should use my recommendation for Olympic basketball. Go with under-22 teams. I’m sorry, Chris Chelios isn’t playing solely for the honor of his country. He’s playing to fill a spot on his resume. That’s true for all the NHL veterans. Let’s give the game back to the kids. Even if they’re playing in the NHL or European pro leagues, at least they’ve not been jaded by the professional game. There are plenty of opportunities for the veterans to play for their country: the World Cup and Canada Cup being two examples.

I Lied

February 12, 2006 / DB

I watched almost no Olympic coverage this weekend and I didn’t pull my thoughts on Quin Snyder’s resignation into a reasonable scope. Hope to work on those a little Monday night, when I’ve got a basketball game to watch.

The weekend was passed putting some serious time into my readings for the coming week, thinking about my two papers (I’ve got them outlined mentally, but nothing on paper yet), and the rest of the time we listened to M. scream and yell. Apparently her trip with her mother to the mall Sunday afternoon was “the worst trip ever,” including a total meltdown, kicking and screaming while lying prone on the ground, and a refusal to put her coat on. Boy am I glad I stayed home! As a bonus, the clerk helping S. with her purchase for some friends who had kid #3 this weekend couldn’t master the art of printing a gift receipt. She had to run the transaction through three times to get it right, taking ten minutes for what should have taken one. All the while, M. was rapidly advancing from DEFCON three to one. The toddler perfect storm: teething, a serious cold, and the mind of a two-year-old. This weekend seemed curiously like a trip to visit my NoCal homies back when they had a sick nearly-two-year-old. Good times!

Funky Friday

February 10, 2006 / DB

The last 48 hours have more-or-less been total wastes for me. I’ve got some things done in the evenings, but days have been totally shot. This is the one week of the month that S. works regular people hours (8-4 the last three days) so I was home alone with M. on Thursday and Friday. No big deal; she’s getting older and more independent and I felt like I could still get some things done for all my assignments that are due next week even in her presence. Cue the Killer Cold and all those plans went down the drain.

M. battled a pretty nasty cold the last two days, which meant most of each day consisted of: her face being covered in tears, snot, and slobber; her being extra cranky and bursting into category five tears at the slightest disruption to her plans; her spending a ton of time just laying on me as we watched TV. Seriously, the kid got a good 12 hours of TV in each day because she would whine until I turned it on, then lay across my chest and fall asleep so I couldn’t move. A couple added bonuses to this cold. Normally, she’s a big fan of medicine. Motrin, Pediacare, Benadryl. Doesn’t matter, she slurps it right up. Not the past two days. She fights to get away, clenches her mouth shut, then sputters and spits. She does this for the first spoonful, then acts like it’s no big deal. Also, she’s been refusing to eat. That’s not unusual, lots of sick kids lose their appetites. She, however, likes to make her signs for needing to eat, allows me to strap her into her chair, and then when I try to feed her, flings her body around and screams. She’s not making this easy on me at all. We had a talk about public versus private schools this afternoon, but I’m not sure if she understood my point.

I take that back: the days weren’t total wastes. She learned two new body parts today. She learned back and elbow. Naturally, after a horrid day, she improved to her normal mood about 15 minutes after S. got home from work tonight. For the next hour, M. said “ba, ba, ba,” and pointed at her back, or “elmo, elmo, elmo,” and pointed to her elbows. Funny stuff. Didn’t quite make up for the rest of the day, but close.

Coming sometime over the weekend, or perhaps Monday morning, some thoughts on the Olympics and the end of the Quin Snyder era at Mizzou.

She Knows What She Wants

February 7, 2006 / DB

Monday night, 1:00 AM. I’ve been tossing and turning for close to two hours. M. starts crying. I let her go for a couple minutes to make sure she isn’t going to put herself back to sleep. When I finally go to her room, as soon as I walk through the door, she rolls over, stops crying, and says in the saddest voice she can muster up, “Binky.” I dig it out from the rolled up corner of her blanket and pop it into her mouth. She smiles, puts her head down, and is back asleep before I have the door closed again. Parenting is just that simple sometimes.

Binky Be Gone

February 2, 2006 / DB

We’ve taken all we can take and we can’t take anymore. Wednesday we started to wean M. off of her binky. The binky is now reserved for her crib and for car trips. As soon as she gets up in the morning or from a nap, we drop it into the crib, say bye-bye, give it a wave, and walk away. We’ve had some success since she loves to wave and say bye-bye. This technique worked briefly in the fall, before she started working on her molars and we cracked. You may also recall from my update on her earlier this week that she likes to call for it when she can’t find it, “Binky….Binky.” We’ve been hearing a lot of that the last two days. But no tantrums because we won’t give it to her. Tantrums for other things, yes, but not for that yet. We plan on doing this for awhile, then cutting all the binkies so they’re not nearly as satisfying. I know some parents have success with that method, and others do not. But we’ve got to get through this first stage before we even think about that.
We got her a little toy shopping cart over the weekend, so the new toy has helped distract her some. Unfortunately, she’s exhibiting a very anal, easily frustrated side with the new toy. We pulled some boxes of various foods from our pantry and placed them in her cart so she’s got her own groceries to push around the house. She zips around, takes them out, then attempts to put them back in. When she can’t get all the boxes back into the cart exactly how they were before, she throws a huge fit. Great, as soon as she realizes I don’t put all of her clean laundry away the same way each week, I’m really going to hear it.