Super Bowl XXLICCLI (or something like that)

This time last year I was watching the Steelers finish off a dicey fourth quarter with an 80 yard drive ending with Santonio Holmes in the end zone to beat Arizona. This year the Steelers were sidelined short of the playoffs and I could really have cared less who won the Super Bowl.

I spent the first half with the TV on, watching Babe-O burn off some energy chasing a beach ball around in circles and shouting goofy stuff at the top of her lungs. We were having eggs for dinner, so I sat with her and watched the game while she burned through every bite of two eggs and then started angling for some of Amy's soup.

She had been going strong all day so we didn't wait until halftime to get her in the bath. By the time we were done with that, we were just in time to catch The Who on stage, which Babe-O celebrated by dancing naked on the bed, flapping her arms and grinning ear to ear.

Then the game got interesting fast with New Orleans pulling off an onside kick to keep the ball after the half. I was impressed, but Babe-O was pooped so I shut the TV off and curled up with her to go to sleep.

She crashed out after about five minutes in the dark and I went downstairs and watched the Saints pull off the win. Sure next year I'm hoping to be at a party someplace watching Pittsburgh win a seventh Super Bowl ring, but I'm not going to lie...spending this one goofing off with Babe-O was a blast.

Slowplaying the Poop Card

Today we considered not taking Babe-O to her swim lesson, as she had been a little under the weather today. She said she was up to it, though, and seemed good when it was about time to leave, so I went for it.

She was a little subdued during the lesson, but all in all did pretty well, until we got to about the last two minutes. She started fussing more and more and then finally blurted out the universal battle cry of kids that need to get the hell out of the pool: "poooooop!"

I excused us from the somewhat maddening end-of-lesson song and bolted for the men's locker room (no toilet in the family changing area where we usually go).

That meant running Babe-O through the YMCA naked old man gauntlet, which I imagine was a little traumatizing for her (let alone me). And why is it that old guys feel the need to use such an unholy amount of soap when they shower? They always look like giant liver spotted Santa heads with their huge nipple eyes shooting you sideways glances as you go by.

Anyway, we made our way to the one toilet in the place and as soon as I opened the door, Babe-O started shouting "no, no, no!" Long story short: not happening.

So we made our way back through Saggy Alley, where I'm pretty sure we saw Fidel Castro, and back out to the pool area. The lesson was wrapping up and it was pretty clear that time could become a factor on the poop issue, so we grabbed our gear and headed right to the family changing rooms.

By the way, the family changing area is just a closet with a stall mat on the floor. There are chairs there about a third of the time, but people steal them to sit in and read, which I only just realized in the last thirty seconds as I type this. Bastards!

Once Babe-O was stripped down, we figured out that we'd forgotten to pack a dry diaper. It seemed we were doubling down on the urgency of the pending poop. Luckily, Babe-O Commando managed to make it home without incident.

Now she's sleeping. And come to think of it, that poop never did materialize.

Either the morning is going to be ugly or she was just slowplaying the poop card to get out of the swimming song.

Dad-O, God of Lightning

Static electricity is starting to affect my quality of life.

First it was just cute that the baby's hair would occasionally stand up on end when she wore hooded coats, but lately it's been out of control.

I blame my slippers, but whatever the cause, I get shocked every time I touch anything. One doorknob in particular HURTS.

When I pet the cat at night it looks like he's on fire. Luckily he's kind of a freak, likes it rough, and doesn't mind.

The dogs think I abuse them for fun and run away every time they get shocked.

Yesterday, I went to adjust the volume on the DVD player and it caused such a zap that the display scrambled and the external speakers crapped out instantaneously.

What the hell? Is there anything I can do about this? I'm afraid I'm going to touch off a grease fire in the kitchen or blow myself up at a gas pump. Little help?

Gross Riddle

How long does it take a Q-Tip to travel 18 inches?

If the route runs from my dog's mouth to my dog's butt, about four days.

Since the other day when our cocker spaniel Lola decided to eat about two dozen Q-Tips for lunch, we've been keeping an eye on her and bracing ourselves for a $1200 vet bill. She's actually done this before, but never with quite so many at one time, so while we're pretty sure she can handle one or two, this didn't look good.

But luckily, sure enough just yesterday we finally started to see the first couple of slimy brown competitors poke their once fluffy heads out into the daylight and stagger across the finish line.

Unfortunately, if the dog's digestive tract is, I dunno, twelve feet long, she is apparently only able to push a Q-Tip for about 11.92 feet. That last inch or so is where I come in.

So anyway, we aren't out of the woods yet on the vet bill, but it looks like we're making some progress. And on the plus side, the dog has been acting very fond of me since last night when I yanked that first handful out for her. I suppose when you've got a problem like that and can't really reach your own ass, you'd better make some really good friends in a hurry.

Big girl panties

Yesterday Amy went out and picked Babe-O up some sporty Elmo panties.

She's sixteen months old, so it isn't like we're jamming the potty training thing down her throat at this point, but lately she's been doing a great job keeping her diapers dry in between potty sits so we figured what the hell.

So far, she's doing great. I was a little slow picking up on the pre-potty symptoms last night and we ended up with a wet one, but as long as you're willing to remember that a quick pants change is no big deal, then everyone gets along fine.

In the meantime, the sitting on the potty routine is much faster since we don't have to monkey with the cloth diaper and Babe-O gets to feel like hot shit in her big girl panties.

The downside? With no diaper, it is more obvious then ever that this kid has NO butt.

Cookie? Cookie!

I'm not a big fat guy, but I will eat every last cookie in a bag of double stuff Oreos in one day. Even when I was at my most fit, I could not expose myself to that temptation. It's a huge weakness and I know it, so unless I'm feeling really decadent and want to drown out some specific frustration by way of nine-hour diabetic coma, I don't keep the things in the house.

Oh, and not just Oreos. They are the worst, but I will eat homemade chocolate chip cookies until I am sick or suck on frozen cookie dough until my teeth hurt.

There I said it. It's disgusting.

Anyway...Babe-O's into cookies as well. They give kids a free cookie at the grocery store and she knows as soon as we get in the car to start asking for one. Then when we get to the store, she'll pretty much made us go directly to the cookie bin and from there we have to plan our route around the store so that we don't go past the bin again later.

Even worse is that Amy told me today that Babe-O has started asking for cookies within minutes of waking up in the morning.

That's a problem. It's genetic.

One thing that we're considering is perhaps making cookies available to the little one 24/7 so that she stops making such a big deal about getting them. The idea is that once the cookie thrill is gone, she'll chill out on the issue and adopt a less passionate relationships with cookies.

Just a thought. And I'm not even kidding, as I write this I feel like crap because Amy made cookies tonight, I ate too many, and now I want to die.

Corporate Travel, Sick Baby, and Sick Everybody Else

So I guess it started when I had to go out of town on business. It was last week and I was up at something like five in the morning on the way to the airport. My flight left at six, or so I thought.

After standing around for a while with about twenty of my coworkers who were also trying to get down to Orlando, we learned that our flight had been diverted because of fog. The next flights out were much later that day and I rebooked myself a seat on a 3:30, grabbed some egg mcmuffins, and went home.

The good news? I had a company car so I hadn't dragged the girls out of bed. The better news? I got to spend a day hanging out with the family instead of puttering around the Ritz futzing with my laptop.

It was a good day and I was well received on account of the egg mcmuffins.

I went back to the airport that afternoon and made it to the hotel by ten p.m. or so. I was there working for a couple of days, managed to enjoy a couple of open bars, and was glad to be on my way home after keeping busy down in Florida.

After getting home around midnight, Babe-O was already asleep, but I managed to nuzzle her halfway awake to give her the little Mickey Mouse I had picked up for her. She looked up at me with adorable sleepiness and studied the little Mickey for a while before smiling and giving it a hug. Very sweet.

The rest of this is kind of a blur, but I'll try to piece it together.

I had work related to my trip that had to be done in a very timely manner, so I went to bed at about 1 a.m. and got up at 5ish to go to the office. I got a lot done that day and then came home not feeling well. I was up sick much of the night and went to the office at 4:30 to finish getting done what needed to get done. By lunchtime I was done with anything pressing and went home to be ill.

Then Amy got sick. She wasn't feeling well that night and ended up sleeping in the bathroom, throwing up about every half hour. The next day, she was pretty much out of commission so I decided to try to work from home and take care of Babe-O while she slept off the ugliness of the previous night.

That was going fine, until about ten a.m. when I was trying to reply to an e-mail and was interrupted by a couple of good SPLATs as baby vomit flew threw the air to land first in the dead center of my laptop keyboard (still smells funny) and then all over the right hand side of my screen (still streaky).

Luckily, by that point any work that was absolutely on fire was all done and anything else could wait until the little one was sleeping.

That was Friday.

I spent that day and most of the weekend feeling fine myself but the poor kid was just a pathetic little wreck. I felt awful for her, but she was a trooper all the way through.

Love that baby. And man, it is brutal to watch her suffer.

Oh. Also, Amy is fine now, too. It is also brutal to watch her suffer, but she gets mean when she's sick, so it's easier not to feel so bad for her.