Dad's Night In

It’s just me at the house tonight, which is rare. 

Amy and Babe-O are out visiting an old friend of Amy’s and I’m here with the dogs.

I kicked it off by making a feast of turkey dinner leftovers and now I’m stuffed silly sitting in front of the computer.  The whole thing is pretty cathartic, since I was super stressed all day at work.  After unwinding a little bit now I’m getting down to work, trying to accomplish some things while I’ve got the place to myself: caught up on some client correspondence, set up interviews with contacts for a couple of magazine articles I’m working on, and dug through my webmail to get some files together in the wake up my PC crash.

(Did I mention I had a PC crash?  A bad one.  It sucked.)

So now I’m in the super quiet house flying through work and decompressing at the same time.  One more work day this week and I’m on the road for Thanksgiving travels.  Tomorrow will be rough – more frantic work at the office and a bunch of freelance stuff that is just coming together ahead of deadline, but once on the road all should be will.

Wish me luck.  This time tomorrow night I should be in the home stretch.

Three Slices of Bread

I'm pretty good about my standing lunch date with Babe-O. Almost on par with the bathtime thing, I probably only miss lunch with her for whatever reason about once a month.

Today I was making our usual: peanut butter and jelly for me and just peanut butter for her.

Between plopping the stuff on the counter, giving Babe-O a high five, and walking over to get a knife, I noticed something.

It was the little stack of bread waiting to become sandwiches. Three slices. Two for my sandwich and one for Babe-O's half sandwich.

Someday, she'll eat a whole sandwich by herself. Then the stack will grow to four slices. After that, she'll probably start eating at school or something and our lunchtimes will be few and far between.

But right now, she's my little girl who eats half a sandwich.

And I know that any time I ever see three slices of bread, I'll smile.

Democracy!

I guess you could say it began with a dream. Well, not so much a dream, as a thought. And a pretty random one at that.

It was a long time ago and Amy was holding Babe-O as she shuffled through the line forming in a small gym attached to the elementary school by our house. It was election day and I was at the office.

Inspired by the impassioned campaigns of local businesspeople competing for positions in city and county government during a congressional off-year, she and I had discussed the possibility of having me run for office one day.

Finally to the front of the line, Amy checked off the appropriate boxes on the electronic voting machine until she got to the final selection – Judge of Elections, a position for which not a single person seemed to be running.

It was at that moment that a campaign was born. Amy wrote my name on the empty line and quickly submitted her votes. The polls would be closing soon and there was work to be done.

She immediately drove home and established an impromptu call center in the house, our modestly decorated living room now a full-scale campaign war room consisting of no less than one phone and volunteers from all walks of life: Babe-O, the dogs, a reluctant cat who agreed not to interfere in exchange for political favors to be determined down the line.

Amy reached out to everyone she could think of that (A) had not already voted and (B) was a member of our immediate family. Unfortunately, that was really just me.

She called me as I drove to the polling place and let me know that I was running for office this year. Always the last to know this sort of thing, I agreed to vote for our man, er, me. And that I did.

At that point, with just hours left to vote, informal exit polling indicated that of three people polled, one was seventeen years too young to vote and the other two had voted for me.

It seems that outside of those two shoe-in votes, we had no public support. We had done our duty, though…not only did we vote for the candidates and causes that we believed in but we threw a hat in the ring ourselves.

It was a good feeling. Democracy at its best – and most local. Right away we started thinking about the next election year and the possibilities to swing for the fences with a more robust campaign. 2010 is going to be an exciting one.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Today I got a letter from the clerk of elections indicating that I won a write-in campaign for Judge of Elections, besting the competition presumably by one vote.

Looks like Babe-O is going to be the first daughter of Elections next year.

Weekend with Nana

Our house is a work in progress. That said, we have a guestroom, but at the moment it is a staging area for rooms that we are working on. Or, less kindly, it's filthy and full of junk. We know my Mom was going to be stopping by over the weekend while she was travelling for business, so our goal was to have the room together in time for the visit. Needless to say, the timing didn't cooperate, mostly due to Amy, Babe-O, and me taking turns being sick recently.

So...fast-forward because this is getting boring...we bought an air ma tress and set it up in the nursery. If we had a little more time to prepare, we probably would have bricked up the future guestroom and forgotten about it all together.

Luckily, Nana's a trooper and was fine with the plan. She showed up yesterday in time for breakfast. She brought a great present for Babe-O: a bunch of stuffed dinosaurs inside a big soft dinosaur cave. You normally wouldn't think of something like that for a little girl, but Nana like it and was note even aware that Babe-O happens to think dinosaurs are really cool. She loved the thing and did much roaring and shaking of her little pretend T-Rex arms.

We had a great multi-generational weekend together and Babe-O clearly enjoyed spending time with her Nana. Plus, I got an air mattress out of the deal, which means I have a squishy place to sleep considering that Babe-O's sickie butt is still occupying my side of the bed.

Speaking of which, I'm still a little sick and will be going to bed super early tonight in hopes of hitting the ground running on Monday morning. Oh, and my computer is completely fried and won't boot up, so I'm a little bit crippled in that respect right now, too.

Hi, I'm a PC. And I'm pissed.

The Problem with Princesshood

Babe-O has this great, insulated stainless steel cup. She loves the thing and drinks more water out of it that we could ever get her to with other cups or glasses. It’s pink, which is fine, but it also has princesses all over it.

I’m happy to say that it’s one of few princess things that she owns, because princess crap drives me up the wall.

What the hell kind of message is that to send to a little girl? First of all, it implies that the best way to be a beautiful, stylish, wealthy person is to be born into it. Second, even if that was the message we wanted our girl taking to heart, let’s face it, Babe-O clearly missed the boat on being born into fame and fortune (sorry about that, kiddo).

Even if you want to be stereotypical about things, at least boys have better messages: Become a great athlete and make a million dollars. Chew Skoal and race Nascar. Grow a mustache and become a fireman. The list goes on…but at least it’s proactive.

Girls on the other hand are told from the very beginning that they should either (A) be the daughter of someone important and flit around like a Hilton sister or (B) be born to modest means and strive to be attractive enough to marry some rich douche (and flit around like a Hilton sister).

It bugs the hell out of me. That’s why for the next 30 years I’ll consider it my job to remind Babe-O that she kicks serious ass all by herself and that I’ll be happy to tell Prince Charming where he can stick that glass slipper.

THURSDAY UPDATE: Piggy Flu 2009

Allright, long story short: Amy has been feeling crummy and Babe-O has been back and forth between feverish and merely snotty. Regardless, her (Babe-O’s) spirits have been reasonably high throughout –a trooper she clearly is. Plus Amy has been awesome in taking care of the little one while letting me sleep the bejeesus out of myself on the couch as needed.

This morning, no longer satisfied with battling sick with sleep, I took a two Advil, two Mucinex, and two sinus pills before leaving for work. By lunchtime, I was downright manic and was pretty much crawling out of my skin from the drugs. And by the way, Mucinex claims to be an “expectorant and suppressant.” How the hell can it be both? If it’s doing one it isn’t doing the other.

Either way, I was pretty strung out by the time I got home and was happy to get away from the computer for a while and hang with Babe-O. We roughhoused in her playroom for a while and she was laughing like a maniac despite having a nose running so badly that even her cushy wipes were drawing blood (poor kid).

Right now, the little one is upstairs with Amy, hopefully drifting off to sleep while I get some work done downstairs before turning in early myself.

We’re still planning on seeing my Mom this weekend, so the goal is still to get us all ship shape by Saturday. We’ll see how that goes.

MONDAY UPDATE: Piggy Flu 2009

Today I was sick.  Slept most of the day, worked a little bit, then ate too much Papa Johns.

Babe-O was in good spirits all day long and took a decent nap in her car seat while I worked on my laptop in the car until the battery died (laptop battery, not car battery).

Now she’s sleeping and sounds crappy again, though is now in our bedroom, which thanks to our new vaporizer is humid as hell.

Now it is barely nine o’clock, I’ve made one last pass through my work e-mail so that it doesn’t kick me in the face when I get to the office in the morning.  Going to bed now, on the couch, hopefully falling asleep fast and staying asleep long.

My Mom is in town this weekend, so the goal is to (1) have everyone healthy by then and (2) have most of the tissues and baby snot rags cleaned up. Other than that, no promises.

SUNDAY UPDATE: Piggy Flu 2009

Babe-O slept pretty well last night, or so I’m told. I slept downstairs with the cat (both dogs apparently tired of sharing a couch with me as I get more stuffed up and fidgety at night).

I barely heard a peep from upstairs until morning, when the little one was waking up. Last night we picked up a vaporizer of some kind that shot steam in the general direction of our bed, which seems to have helped everyone lucky enough to sleep in our bed.

We had breakfast and then Amy started putting together some home-made chicken noodle soup, just in case someone decides to turn our sick and snotty family into a Norman Rockwell painting.

The soup turned out awesome, so we dug in before breakfast has even settled and I’ll admit that it helped. Too bad that Babe-O wanted nothing to do with it aside from picking out pits of carrot and throwing them to the dogs.

As of lunchtime, Babe-O is clearly sick but still acting more like she has a cold and less like she has Wilbur Fever. Amy seems under the weather, but is in a good enough mood, which is an excellent sign considering that she is not known for being a trooper when sick (Childbirth? No sweat. Head cold? Watch out.).

As for me, my ongoing morning sore throat has now lasted until noon and I’ve definitely got a head cold going on. If anyone is placing bets out there, I’d give about 3:1 that the two girls are going to bounce back in the next day or so and I’m going to get hit by a dump truck driven by Porky Pig. Just a thought.

Pig flu or not, I’m expecting all three of us to be at least a little under the weather for the next couple of days. I’m hoping to medicate myself into oblivion beginning tomorrow morning, because I work in the largest office in town and if I so much as sniffle at work they’re going to roll me up in a carpet and throw me on the sidewalk. Most years there’s enough flu vaccine available to cover everyone in the company…this year not so much, for swine flu or seasonal flu.

(By the way, I love that they displaced seasonal flu vaccine production to accommodate swine flu vaccine production and now they don’t have enough of either to go around, unless the patient is 85 years old, asthmatic, and pregnant. Or works at Goldman Sachs.).

UPDATE: Piggy Flu 2009

[Warning: this post tapped out on tiny blackberry keyboard. Not responsible for poor spelling or inadvertently suggestive typos.]

This morning I woke up very disoriented because it was 9 am and very bright out...a good four hours after I usually get up. So either i'm getting a little ill myself or my body just took advantage of being able to sleep without being responsible for naby duty, as Babe-O was sleeping with Amy for the night in our bed.

When the little one woke up she was very snotty and quite warm, but in great spirits, the little trooper. Her face was all snotty and her eyes were puffy. I made her some eggs and it seemed like she was doing okay.

Now we are out running some errands and she is getting some good daytime sleep in her car seat while I sit next to her in various parking lots, writing blog posts and wishing that my blackberry had a full keyboard (hand cramps!).

At this point we are still crossing our fingers that Babe-O has a bad cold and not the gentile flu.
The doc said that If it was going to get bad it was going to get bad in the next day or so, so we'll see.

In the meantime, there is a lot of snot wiping going on. Here's a tip: skip tissues, use cloth diaper wipes. That are very kind to small noses and instead of carrying 87 wadded up disgusting tissues in your pocket, you can just carry one or two wadded up disgusting baby snot rags in your pocket. (Plus it's eco-friendly. Did you know that it takes 300 years for a disposable tissue to decompose underneath the passenger seat of your car? My lease will be up by then!)

[One final programming note: you may object to the fact that it seems at this point that Babe-O has a common cold, yet I still titled this post "Piggy Flu 2009." Please remember that (1) Babe-O's first real illness is unfolding in the context of the swine flu scare and (2) I'm competing with the 24 hour cable news cycle here, so let's get reactionary, people!]

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Gettin' piggy with it (Part II)

(continued from Part I)

The doctor checked Babe-O out, looking in her ears, nose, mouth, and elsewhere. Then, he apparently forgot his lines.

This was the part where he was supposed to say “Awww c’mon you overprotective parents, she has a cold and will be fine in a few days now get the hell out of my office.”

But that’s not what he said.

Instead, we got “mmmmm…probably 50/50” (chance of swine flu, that is).

He went on to tell us that in the next 48 hours she would either continue to have cold symptoms that would clear up in a few days OR she would get very sick, very fast – runny nose, cough, wheeze, high fever, dehydrated, inconsolable.

As of this evening, Babe-O was a little worse for the wear. She’s generally in good spirits but during her bedtime routine she ended up really upset, probably as upset as she ever gets, more than once. She definitely doesn’t feel just right.

Amy finally got her to sleep upstairs in our bed, so as not to rock the boat I am getting ready to crash out downstairs on the couch with the pets, which isn’t that bad at all.

I guess the next day or two should give us more information. Stay tuned to see how it goes.

Gettin' piggy with it (Part I)

I guess it started today at about 4 a.m. when a slightly under-the-weather Babe-O was up crying. Since she wasn’t feeling well when I put her to bed, instead of trying to soothe her back to sleep, I just brought her to our bed to sleep with Amy (who has also been feeling a little sick). The arrangement didn’t leave much room for me, so I went downstairs.

Thanks to the programmable thermostat, the downstairs is damn freezing in the middle of the night. I was only wearing gym shorts and flip flops and didn’t want to go back to our bedroom for fear of waking the baby. Lucky for me, within a few seconds, I had a big warm dog curled up on my feet. Followed by a little warm dog in the crook of my knees with her head on my back and, last but not least, a cat of unusual size sleeping on my shoulder and a good portion of my head.

Shivering solved.

Actually, I was cozy enough that I slept into the morning, blowing by gym time and only waking up a little after seven when the first school bus dieseled past the house.

A few hours later I was at the office doing whatever it is I do at the office when Amy called. The baby woke up more sick than when she went to bed and we decided to get her into the doctor. She wasn’t necessarily sick enough to take to the doctor, but if she got any worse over the weekend, we’d have to take her to Urgent Care, which at this point is probably a retail-zoned swine flu petri dish.

Luckily the doctor was able to squeeze us in, I went and picked up the girls, and we headed to the appointment.

We were only in the waiting room for a few minutes and several people came out wearing surgical masks, which I thought you only had to wear if you were either (A) in surgery or (B) a celebrity douchebag honeymooning in Mexico. Whenever I see someone wearing a surgical mask in public I’m always a little surprised that they aren’t also wearing a tin foil hat – it’s kind of an ensemble.

Not gonna lie. I’m getting a little longwinded here and this is taking way longer than it should. Going to grab some sleep now. So, as they say:

To be continued…

And tonight...we blow dry.

The little lady is getting dangerously close to first haircut territory.  She was born with quite a lot of hair, but so far all of the growing has been dedicated to filling in the little bald spot that used to be on the back of her head.  Only now is she beginning to get some length. 

In fact, when it lays just right, she has about eleven hairs that can hang down as low as her eyes.  As the resident baby-washer, I’ve recently had to add the blow dryer to the bedtime routine.  Rather than just giving her the quick towel head scruffle like I used to, now we head to the bathroom and do a little warm blowdrying and combing before bed.

Babe-O seems to prefer it to getting brushed with wet hair in her bedroom, so it is a nice little addition to our bedtime routine.

She shakes her head back and forth to bask in the warm air and I use one of her mom’s brushes to get all of her hair pointed in a similar direction. 

In the past, I was pretty hit and miss with the hair style and she would occasionally end up going to bed with a little baby combover.  My success rate is improving now that the hair dryer is involved. 

What’s next?  Who knows.  I might even start combing my own hair one of these days.

 

Confused in the dark. Again.

Here's an excerpt from my old pregnancy blog, Who are you (and what are you doing in my wife)?. This comes out of a post about the day we brought the pack'n'play home.

...a few hours later, I woke up (as usual) to one of three dogs scratching to go outside in the middle of the night, which (as usual) I sleepily obliged. While the dogs went out to do their thing, I puttered around the living room until the pack'n'play caught my eye. In my late night stupor, I had forgotten all about the thing and it was very disorienting to come face to face with it. My 2 a.m. amnesia kept me from remembering where it had come from and I wasn't entirely sure whether or not we had at some point come home from the hospital with Ava and that she was now lying inside of this strange thing. A few seconds later – less disoriented – I had my bearings and remembered what was going on.

But even then, there was the pack'n'play – a big plastic shrine to the baby gods – resting there in the moonlight.

Like the first time I really noticed BabyCar's protruding belly or felt Ava kick, it was one of those baby reality checks. She's coming. And she'll go in the pack'n'play.

Well last night, I was up with Babe-O at about three in the morning (give or take, thanks to daylight savings time). We were taking our usual comforting walk around downstairs and I almost stumbled over something in the middle of the living room. It was about three feet high and maybe a foot wide, sort of like a tiny version of the obelisk from the 2001 movie or a recessionary Stonehenge. I really had no clue what the thing was and sort of paced around it in circles holding Babe-O trying to decide if I should be concerned.

Then it moved. Fast.

And screamed. Loud.

I almost woke Babe-O up as I stumbled back, thoroughly freaked out at what at that point I was convinced was a crafty dwarf that had Trojan-horsed his way into the house disguised as a UPS package or something. Thankfully that line of thinking went full circle in about a second and a half and my brain finally caught up to what was happening. The strange container was the pack'n'play, which we had just packed up to put in storage.

The moving and screaming was the cat, who was probably pissed that we had packed up what had recently become his primary sleeping place.

Anyway, this was really just a dramatic and complicated way to say that we packed the pack'n'play up for what may be the last time. Over the last fourteen months, it has filled in as Babe-O's living room crib, served as a playpen/babycage, and traveled with us all over the place to give the kid a familiar place to sleep wherever we went. It served us well and now it'll off to storage and then -- perhaps -- to eBay. From that first night encountering the pack'n'play while Amy was still pregnant to last night, just another dad up late with a fussy baby...another piece of the whole story comes full circle.

I know it's a cliché, but that doesn't make it untrue: it goes fast.