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. S. is trying to get her to nap right now, and it doesn’t sound like it’s going well. It’s a gorgeous day, so after her nap, we’ll distract her with bubbles, a walk to the park, and other fun stuff like that.
Month: March 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. She had a late nap, so when her usual bedtime of 7:00 rolled around, she was in no mood to go to bed. That’s good. With daylight savings time just two weeks away, we’ll soon be in full sun at 7:00 so she needs to learn how to stay up until 8:00. We played, watched a video, and played some more. Finally, at 8:15, I picked her up and figured it was time to try whether she was ready or not. She never really fought me, but did seem more interested in continuing to play than to fall asleep. She tossed and turned, laughed, jabbered at me, and demanded her water so she could have a drink. Finally, she flipped onto her side, put her arm up, waved at me, and said, “Night night, daddy.” I left and did not return to her room until 6:45 this morning, when she woke up happy. Nearly a perfect night!
One more quick funny story. Tuesday night, she had been in bed for about an hour when she started yelling. I went up, walked into her room, and started towards her bed. I got almost all the way to her bed when I walked into something and nearly fell across her bed. There she was, standing up, next to her bed. Fortunately, I caught myself before I sent her onto the floor as well. She learned in just three nights how to get out of her bed! She was upset but clearly tired, so I tried to find her binky, which I assume was what she got out of bed to search for. I patted around her bed, fluffed the covers, flipped the pillow, but couldn’t find it. I ran over to the light switch, flipped it on, and prepared to do a quick once-over of the area around her bed. As soon as the light went on, she threw her hands over her eyes and started screaming louder. I spied the binky on her bed, and flipped the light off just as she took a step towards a pillow next to her bed. Suddenly in the dark again, she caught her toe on the edge and tripped over it. More screaming. I was trying hard not to laugh, as she had been stumbling around like a drunk in a movie, zigging and zagging while she tried to keep her eyes covered. Fortunately, as soon as I put her in bed, gave her the binky, and covered her up, she was ready to go back to sleep. She never did any climbing out of her crib, so we’ve been lucky not to have her wandering around the house at night. It looks like those days (or nights) are over.
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. It’s worth noting that the grad students all seemed to be holed up in the library or something over the last week. We were all just as pasty as we were a week ago. Except for the one cute girl in class who’s actually getting her Master’s in another program and just taking a few journalism classes for content. She had a tan. She was the only one, though.
OK, enough of that. M. slept in her big girl bed for the first time last night. She showed a profound disinterest in the pack ‘n play up in Saginaw, so we ended up putting her in our bed until we went bed each night. That worked, so we figured why wait to get her off the binky first. Throw her in her bed and see what happens. It did take about 30 minutes longer than usual to get her to go down, and she woke up a couple times during the night, but we got a good 10+ hours out of her in our first try. No naps today, so that was troubleseom. But, she’s currently back in there for the second night, so it might work. If we can get her off the binky soon, toilet training won’t be that far away.
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. But I like the idea and hope it gets an honest chance.
My beef, though (and you knew I had one otherwise I wouldn’t be writing about it), is ESPN’s coverage. I don’t know who determined the schedule, the network or MLB, but I don’t understand why so many games have been sent to tape delay. Last week I understand some of it, since ESPN was balancing all the basketball conference tournaments they carry. But why not put games featuring name teams on ESPN Classic live? They show all kinds of crappy college games on Classic live. Surely there’s no advantage to showing the US-South Africa game on tape at 2:00 AM as opposed to live on Classic. (I actually watched some of that game, as that was the night I couldn’t sleep, but I watched with minor interest because A) I was iller than ill and B) I had seen highlights of Griff’s shots about ten times already.)
So tonight I’m watching the Puerto Rico – Venezuela game and notice a score for the US-Korea game starts showing up. Is that game going on now, or was it this afternoon? I flip to ESPN2. No game. Tennis. Back to ESPN. The next time the score comes across, it lists it in the second inning and says the game will show up on ESPN Deportes (which pretty much no one has) at midnight, and ESPN2 at 1:00 AM.
What
The
Fuck?
Was this part of Bud Selig’s master plan? To keep the US from being on live TV? Granted, with the spread of major leaguers across many rosters, I’m seeing plenty of players I’m familiar with in the other games. But shouldn’t the US games always be on live in the US? If you want to build interest in the event, shouldn’t the home team get the NBC Olympic treatment and not be relegated to time slots of horrible informercials? I need to know who to blame, because someone needs to be blasted.
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. We’re hoping that the temperature is somewhere above freezing. Saginaw isn’t known for its balmy winters.
I forgot to share some big news last week: we’ve scheduled S.’s c-section. If she can hold out until then, Little Girlfriend will be delivered on May 17. That will be 39 weeks, and M. was born at 38, so those last seven days could be interesting. The clock is now officially ticking, 10 weeks to go. All was well with S. on her most recent check-up. Fetal heartbeat still excellent. Momma as comfortable as she can be at this point.
Which all leads us to the fun process of naming the next kid. To review, we had a list of five names for M. roughly five months before she was born. Narrowed that down to two names in June, and picked M. about 4-5 hours after she was born (she surprised us, we weren’t quite ready).
This time around, we’ve had some struggles. We had a list of names before Christmas that we were going to let sit for awhile. After the holidays, we agreed we weren’t terribly fond of any of the names, so we scrapped them and started over. Last week, we got that list down to four names we’re pretty happy with. So we may be done, finally, with that initial part of the process.
How do we pick from this list? Ask our toddler, of course. For a couple weeks I’ve been asking M. what we should name the baby. She just looks at me and says, “Baby? Baby?” Not terribly helpful. This morning, however, when we were telling her names on the list, she repeated two of them. While I was at school, she came close to saying the other two names (they’re slightly more difficult names to say). While that is fun, again it’s not super helpful when she repeats every name rather than just one that she likes most.
I did think of a way to ease the process, though. I could always sell the naming rights. The Colts got $112 million last week for the rights to their stadium for only 20 years. What kind of paper could I bring in if I offered the name of my daughter for her entire natural life? Toyota has a nice ring to it. Maggie Brought To You By Old Navy. Apple Presents Brenda. If some British guy can make $1 million by selling pixels on his website, surely this can work, right? Perhaps I should secure the funds before I share this idea with the Mrs. It might help me make my argument if I can show all our kids’ educations as well as our retirement will be taken care of.
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.
I meant to post the stuff below last night, but apparently hit Save rather than Publish. My bad.
Two strange things I felt obligated to share with you, my loyal readers. I’m not sure which is odder, so please log your votes in the comments. Now eat, you jackals.
First, for about the last month, every day when I get on the highway to return to Indy from Bloomington after class, there’s been this guy on the side of the road riding his horse. And I mean right by the side of the road; he’s right up next to the shoulder. That on its own isn’t super strange. It’s a rural area with farms and ranches, and people with horses like to ride them. I guess. I’m a city kid so I can’t be sure about that. What’s weird, though, is that often he’s not just riding. He’s got the horse doing tricks. Most days they’re spinning in circles, like the horse is trying to catch its tail. Seems like an odd place to teach a horse tricks, what with cars zooming by at 80 MPH mere feet away. But the horse seems to dig it and the guy seems pretty proud of what he’s got going on, because, like I said, it’s been happening every day. Weird, and a little distracting. I keep waiting for a speed trap to be right over the next hill, waiting to catch people shaking their heads at that damn horse.
Second, each of the last two Saturdays we’ve received a call that showed up on the Caller ID as “Prison.” A week ago, I was sitting in my office reading and S. was napping when the call came in. I saw the listing and figured it was just another jilted ex-boyfriend of my sister-in-law who’s using our guest room, so I let it go through to voice mail. I checked it a little while later and was greeted by a recorded message that went something like:
“This is a collect call from the Marion County Prison. This call is from:” and a guy named Doug said his name. “The charge for this call is $4 for the first minute, $3 for each additional minute. To accept the call, press one. To decline it, press three. To block future calls from the Marion County Prison, press nine.”
Since it was a message, I couldn’t respond. I felt bad for Doug, since he clearly wasted his Saturday call on the wrong number, but I was also a little concerned Doug might come steal my iPod or M.’s books and blocks when he’s released from his prison stay because we didn’t pick up. This past Saturday, though, another call from “Prison.” This time S. answered so she could select the Block Future Calls option. I guess it’s bad form to live in Hamilton County and get calls from prison inmates. It was again Doug, and again I felt pangs of sadness for him. Maybe he just needs someone to talk to, someone to share his worries and dreams with, someone to help guide him through this troubled time in his life. Instead, he’s left with unanswered calls and his prison girlfriend. Poor guy. Doug, if you have internet access, you’re in my thoughts.
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. I’ve looked everywhere M’s been over the last two days and haven’t been able to dig it out. It’s maddening. There aren’t that many places in the house that she can get to. I really should be able to find something she’s hidden within 20 minutes, absolute tops. I’m on the verge of breaking down and opening up the trash bags that have been taken to the garage to see if she dropped it into one of them. Luckily, we have to receivers, so we can still keep an ear on her when she’s sleeping. I may have to start putting every remote control way out of her reach.