A little over two weeks and two papers to go, and then this semester will be done. I’ll have a short break, as I’m taking one class in the first summer session, again in Bloomington. So from May 8 through June 15, or something like that, I’ll be commuting to B-town three days a week to take a magazine writing class. Should be fun and interesting, since that’s kind of where I see my career headed.
The latest doings of my daughter. The Post-Pacifier Era has gone relatively well. Naps are a problem; she’s pretty much not taking them most days. Bedtime was actually very good the first three nights. For some reason since then, we’ve had difficulty. But that corresponds with Daylight Savings Time and the sun being up until about 8:00. Even though her bedtime was right around 7:00 for months, she’s had no trouble staying up an hour later.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Corporate radio sucks. We all know that, whether we give in and listen to it or whether we refuse to subject our ears to playlists created through marketing and payola. I’ve sung their praises of woxy.com many times, and I know a few of you have checked out their programming. There is no better source for cutting-edge alternative rock on the Internet. Woxy is now in need of your help. Check out their site, read their story, and if you can, contribute.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
The long-delayed M. update is below the jump, complete with 18 month stats. M. had her 18 month check-up this morning. I was at class, but heard that for the first time ever, she protested her shots. In the past, she cried for 15-30 seconds, then was back to normal. Apparently there was a mini-meltdown this morning. Her measurements were: 25 lbs, 15 oz (remains in the 75th %) 31 3/4 inches (Up to the 50th % from 25th) Head circumference went down from 105th to 90th %.