Hey, it’s time for my annual listing of the songs that moved me and/or stuck with me the most this year. Enjoy. Honorable Mention “Buildings & Mountains” - The Republic Tigers. A lovely song by a fine band from Kansas City. This sounds like a warm, early summer afternoon. “Northern Lights” - Science For Girls w/Boots Ottestad. Mellow brilliance. “Got It Bad” - The Broken West. Not enough people use the Minneapolis drum sound from 1985 these days.
A few notes, anecdotes, and thoughts from my travels across central Indiana covering high school sports. Morning update. The team I cover that always loses? They won by 24 last night. No, I did not attend the game. I’m definitely a jinx. This began with the idea of being a short review of a couple stories. But I guess all the tight writing I have to do for the paper - my stories normally run between 300-400 words - means I have to go crazy here.
I’m giving the Facebook another shot. If you’re on the Facebook, you may have noticed I started updating my status, I think for the first time ever, over the past few days. I’ve received a slew of friend invites in recent weeks, thus I’ve been going in and approving/ignoring them a lot. And, while doing so, I’ve noticed a lot of friends are updating their status, posting news, and uploading pics on a regular basis.
It’s been a bit of a crazy week. This is S.’s first week back on the day shift, so I’m in the midst of seven straight days with the girls. Monday was a breeze with the big sisters gone and L. at Mimi’s house in the morning. Tuesday was a monster, as L.’s nasty cold meant she had to be held for eight of the nine hours S. was gone. Then today was a little better.
What a freaking game Saturday. My Mizzou friends can just skip the rest. Lord knows I would if things were reversed. I’m not going to act like my feelings about the game changed from two weeks ago, when I said it would take an STD running rampant through the Mizzou locker room for KU to have a chance.* I expected KU to get hammered to begin with, and then as our key offensive players seemed to be dropping like flies over the bye-week, well, I was worried the Arrowhead scoreboard wouldn’t have enough room for all the points Mizzou was going to lay on us.
I hope all y’alls had wonderful Thanksgiving weekends. Ours was good, if busy. I worked Wednesday night, we went to the in-law’s for a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner, and then S. went back to work Thursday night. The night was ok. The older sisters were beat from their busy day, so did well at bedtime. L. did pretty well, also, although she decided she couldn’t sleep more than 2.5 hours at a time.
The high school girls basketball season has started here in Indiana, and I got to cover my first game of the year last night. It was kind of a big deal because my editor handed me an official newspaper laptop and told me to keep it for the season. Which means I’ll be covering at least one game a week for the next three months. I’m moving up in the world.
It’s time to unveil the details of the great naming dilemma of ‘08. I did inform you, dear readers, a couple times that we were struggling greatly with choosing a name for B. Baby number three. We would compile lists, look at them, not feel strongly about any of the names, then chuck them all and start over. For about three months, I think S. spent most of her waking hours either reading baby name books or cruising the Internets for baby name sites.
Some commentary on two of my favorite teams in the world below the jump. Just finished watching the DEFENDING NATIONAL CHAMPION Kansas Jayhawks open their basketball season with a win over mighty UMKC. An ugly first half ended with the teams tied at 32. The Jayhawks got some rhythm in the second half and pulled away for a relatively easy win. One word sums up what I expect from this season: fun.
I promise I’ll get back to a regular schedule here eventually. If only I could get back on a regular schedule around the house. In the interim, another funny saying from one of the girls. When I was putting C. down for her nap today she was super wound up. She looked at me and said, “Dad, I’m going to play with the Diego game that Santa Claus is going to bring me.
Both big sisters have a funny catch phrase at the moment. M. uses the word “imaginate” a lot. As in, “Dad, I was imaginating at school today about being a princess.” Or, “C., let’s imaginate that we’re princess fairies.” For some reason I prefer that word to pretend. C. is pointing out how she carefully considers everything by adding the “I think” qualifier to many of her statements. “I hungwy, dad.
What follows are some meandering thoughts on Tuesday night’s events. I don’t promise that they’re particularly interesting or insightful, but they do represent how I feel about that historic evening. Oh, and way less then the 18,000 words I wrote four years ago! The front page of Wednesday’s Indianapolis Star blared a one-word headline: HISTORY. I thought, couldn’t they have at least interviewed me if they were going to write about me?
I guess there’s some big thing going on tomorrow (or more likely today, depending on when you’re reading this). All I know is I voted last week but for some reason I still won’t be able to buy beer tomorrow, which I think is garbage. This country might be a better place if you could get loaded before you voted.* I think I use this line after every election. I must say, early voting is the greatest invention since democracy itself.
Another successful Halloween for the B. girls. M. went as a ballerina, while C. recycled M.’s pink octopus costume from two years ago. We planned on taking L. in a pumpkin hat and onesie, but she demanded a bottle just as we were heading out so she stayed home. M. was really into it. She’d march right up, say “Trick or treat!” and select her candy, chatting people up along the way.
And thus ends the World Series I’ve watched the least in the past ten years or so. But that was a spectacular ending. Suddenly baseball is like the NBA, and you only need to watch the last three innings (or two minutes) to get the important stuff. Despite my long-time hate for all things Philly, it was kind of cool that they won. I learned after the Series started that Ryan Howard’s brother is in the athletic department at KU.
We had the girls at Target today and experienced an interesting phenomenon. We had just arrived, so L. was safely and snuggly strapped into her car seat in the main part of the cart while her sisters rode along on the back (we had one of those big-assed Target carts with the two seats that face forward behind the “normal” part of the cart. These things are awesome, except when you need to turn them.
So I bet you’re thinking, “Man, he’s got a new baby laying on his chest every night. He’s probably been watching a boatload of football and baseball.” Wrong. Unlike four years ago, when then three-month-old M. slept on me for hours at a time while I watched the Red Sox- Yankees and Cardinals - Astros do battle in their epic LCS, L. is a little too little to be able to hang on dad that long.
I have been doing a little more than just making bottles, feeding the baby, and changing diapers. In fact, I’ve been out working the past two Saturdays. Each week I covered a soccer game, first a sectional final and then a regional final, both times covering the same team. They won each time (apparently the curse of me covering a team and them losing has lifted) so it was fun to follow them, start to see patterns in their play, and have a better idea of how to frame my story the second week.
L. got to spend an hour in the Baby Bjorn yesterday and got her first bath last night. She snoozed in the Bjorn while we were cleaning the house and trying to keep her sisters under control. She screamed like she’s never screamed before in the bath. At least she smells better now.
L.’s poop has started to smell. Other than that, things are dandy here. We’re still sleeping ok at night. I’m pushing to force her to eat five ounces at a time, in hopes she gets up to 10 ponds quicker and perhaps starts sleeping all night. The fact she’s been throwing everything up about once a day from just three ounces makes it unlikely my plan will be adopted. It’s really annoying that even with the sun not coming up until around 8:00 here, M.