The US team beat this year’s goal of 100 medals but there was still room for concern. Some medals that should have been locks were either missed or not the preferred color. The first week of the competition, NBC had a poll question on what you want most from the US team. The most medals, good sportsmanship, or no hint of scandal. Something generic like that. In my world, I want a combination.
Remember how I was lamenting the fact our child wouldn’t fall asleep at night? Well, we’ve certainly got that problem solved. The girl slept something like 12 of 15 hours between late evening last night and late morning today. It was brilliant. The downside is the kid refuses to go down from early afternoon through the evening now. She takes a few catnaps here and there, but for the most part, she’s awake endlessly.
Another Olympiad has come to an end, meaning I no longer have 19 hours of guaranteed watchable TV each day. It’s also a time to reflect on what happened over the past two weeks, and what needs to be changed for the future. This is part one, part two will be posted manana. To the world’s horror, what we feared most happened Sunday. The renegade Irish priest who has been holding the world hostage these past three years struck again.
Friday is my final day of gainful employment. After that, I’ll be a deadbeat dad doing my best to drag the economy down. I think my lack of purchases at the Apple store alone will bring the economy to a screeching halt. This evening, I worked through a ton of my old e-mails on my work account. Unfortunately, due to a laptop mishap, I was only able to read them, not forward them out for permanent documentation here at home.
Forget beach volleyball, all the men out there should have been watching women’s field hockey for the last two weeks. I watched the second half of the gold medal match between Germany and the Netherlands last night and was very impressed by the Dutch team. Then again, went aren’t Dutch women impressive? Less skin than on the beach, to be sure, but for the most part these looked like regular hot girls you’d see at happy hour.
If nothing else comes out of the US men’s basketball team’s loss to Argentina on Friday, at least we can hope that NBC and all the other media lemmings will drop the label Dream Team from future US national teams. I know David Stern makes calls to them before each tournament reminding them to use the term, but it’s ridiculous to continue to use it. The term was coined for the 1992 team, which truly was a Dream Team.
Last night, after four or five straight nights of good sleep and what appeared to be a nighttime routine, we decided to let M. cry. If you’re not a parent, you don’t understand all the conflicting advice out there about how to handle a crying newborn. Some people say you should comfort them immediately until they reach 2-3 months. Others say, if you’ve feed and changed them already, let the little buggers cry.
Baby in bed: 11:00 PM (In her own bed too, not in the Pack ‘n Play) Mom and Dad in bed shortly after First feeding: 3:30 AM Second feeding: 6:30 AM Baby wakes up: 9:45 AM I’ve just jinxed it by sharing, I’m sure, but this was the best night since M’s first week.
Props to Stace and Dale for sending out the link to the SI blog. It seems our occasional French correspondent, Madam LeRiche, has beat me to something I was working on. I had crafted a lengthy announcement Paul Hamm should make each time he’s asked about the scoring controversy. It was closely worded to J’s, although I did not include the option of giving up his gold medal. Rather, I left him open to whatever options the international gymnastics federation thought most appropriate for resolving the crisis in a manner that was fair to all competitors.
For starters, your weekly baby poop story. M. had an epic blast Monday night. She had been backed up for about 12 hours, to the point where she was even spitting up a little bit after eating, which she’s never done before (our theory being she was too full to digest anything). We took her for a walk and joked that all the bouncing of the stroller would really loosen her up.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.