Did you hear that?

Modern kids toys are amazing.   Even the analog, now-powered tools have all been engineered for the maximum fun and learning factor.  But, it's the battery-powered ones that I'm amazed with.  It seems like everything makes noise and/or lights up.  This is great because it engages our kids and (supposedly) stimulates the learning centers of the brains.  This is bad, because many of the light and sound toys are possessed.

Possessed, you ask?  You better believe it.  Ever since we've had kids, and therefore bought light-up, sound-making toys, they've repeatedly shown that they light up and/or make noise at times that they shouldn't.  This always--and I mean always--happens after all the girls are in bed.  I'll be walking through the kitchen, and as I'm doing something completely unrelated, I'll hear a loud (and disturbing, without any context) sheep's bleat.  "Is there an angry sheep in my house?" I'll ask myself.  Ah, but no, it's just our fridge farm, a toy that is supposed to be touched before it makes noise.  Did anyone touch it to elicit a sound that could potentially attract nocturnal predators?  Of course not!  Nobody was near it.  Possessed!

Need more?  Okay, you asked for it.  My parents got all the girls a Fisher Price Laugh and Learn house, where the girls can sit on either side of a plastic house-shaped facade and open a door between them.  They love crawling through the door and the music it plays with its many buttons.  Oh, and when the door opens it makes a child-like, comical creaking noise.  Let me stop there though--said creaking sound is only child-like and comical when you see your children sitting there playing with it.  When it creaks by itself, when no one is around to open the door, it's less comical and more disturbing.  Increase that by a factor of ten when it happens in the middle of the night when it's dark and I'm up to check on the girls.  That Laugh and Learn house is lucky it's not yet trash and garbage.

Oh look, the door makes a face that looks like an evil clown.  Great!

And don't even get me started on the life-like, battery-powered kitten that we got for Addie when the twins were born.  First, we actually own cats (which makes a life-like toy cat kind of redundant, but Addie loved it when she saw it at the store), so hearing a cat meowing isn't all that unusual.  It's only bad when it's a loud, terrible meow that's coming from a location where there can't possibly be a cat.  Compound that with the fact that it's the sound a living cat makes when it's supremely pissed, so not being able to pin down the cat's location is a bit disconcerting.  And did I mention that before we gave the cat to Addie we left it in our closet, and it would just randomly meow at a high volume with no rhyme or reason?  I didn't want to, because it's the stuff of nightmares.

I guess that I'll continue to put up with the noise making toys so long as they entertain (and enlighten?) my children.  But if anybody brings home a Good Guy doll, I'm out of here.

If the door's open

As any parent of an infant can tell you, mobility is both a blessing and a curse.  It's nice because we don't always have to get up from what we're doing to grab something for either of the girls.  It also allows them to entertain themselves a little more.  It's hard because, once they can move, they get into stuff we don't want them to get into.

This whole yin-yang of movement is made doubly (nice pun!) difficult with twins--as they never go in the same direction.  Invariably, Anne Perry will head right, and as I'm trying to keep her from eating dog food, Audrey Kate will escape out of sight to the left.  It's a constant shell game, and I'm not the first to compare it to herding cats.

What's interesting about the whole thing, however, is the fact that both girls seem to always know whenever we open a door--any door in the house.  The second a door opens, they're heading for it.  It doesn't matter what's behind the door that's open--they don't care, all they care about is being through that door.  They head for every door as if their expecting to see Mr. Tumnus every time they go through it.  And for them, every door is probably like what Narnia would be like for me.  They're little minds get blow by the fact that there's a room that has an Air Conditioning grate that they can pull up and a toilet that they can try to open.  And that's just the bathroom.

The lemming-like prediliction to head straight for any open door gets pretty hairy when you're talking about two crawlers.  Especially when it's the front door.  Now that we have Finn, our new dog, we have two children and one canine attempting to escape whenever the front door opens.  As soon as we stoop down to grab one of them, the other will make her way outside.  You can almost hear them screaming "Freedom!  Sweet freedom!"

Hopefully doors will lose their luster soon.  Because sooner or later there's going to be a jailbreak, and I'm going to have to herd cats...and a dog.

I think my phone is self-aware...

...and apparently, it hates me.  Perhaps, when I'm not paying attention, my phone (a unnamed brand that that has an operating system that rhymes with an-schmroid) has been communicating with my TiVo, and it doesn't appreciate my viewing habits.  Maybe it has a grudge against Disney, since all we watch now is Monsters, Inc. and Little Einsteins?  Maybe it's reading my emails and has decided that I'm getting too much spam?  Maybe it's the fact that when one of the girls get hold of my phone, it goes straight into her mouth?

I don't know the reasons, but without a doubt, my phone has decided to become my Moriarty-like nemesis.  Apparently, I've been too cavalier in my expectations for my wave-of-the-future smartphone--expecting it to do things like function normally.  I also have the unrealistic hope that I can hit the home button and then the phone will actually go back to the home screen and allow me to make a phone call without having to wait for 45 seconds.  I know, I'm a demanding phone owner.

I don't use any applications anymore.  It's not that I'm not jealous of Anna and her i*Phone, because I definitely am.  I totally want a phone that I can use for applications.  I tried applications for a while on my phone--use of said applications somehow caused it to operate even worse than it does now.  I've since removed all non-necessary applications, reset the phone to factory, and I pull the battery every other day.  This allows the phone to barely function.  It's like I have the cellular equivalent of a AMC Gremlin in my pocket.

Maybe it's that all my expectations are smothering my phone.  I need to understand that my phone can't live the buttoned-up lifestyle I expect of it--it's a free spirit that has decided to embrace the American dream of doing its job badly, but not so much that I'll throw it out the window.  So now, I wait for my upgrade.  I've tried three times, unsuccessfully, to upgrade early (my normal upgrade cycle comes up in July).  Each time I've gone to the cell store, I show them my phone, tell them that it mocks me daily, and then they nod and say, "Yep."  They clearly know that my phone is against me, but it seems there's nothing they can do.  So, now I wait--my phone plotting against me.  At least I have the comfort of knowing that it will never do anything, because that would require a little effort.

Face Painting!

As we've grown as parents, Anna and I have learned some important lessons.  One of the most important has been to figure out which restaurants give you deals on kids meals.  Once you have more than one kid, you have to learn where to get free food.  We don't always take advantage of the deals, but it's good to know where to go to get free/discounted/cheap food on any given night.  This developed skill is what brought us to Moe's last night.

On Tuesday nights, Moe's (at least in Montgomery) has free kids meals with the purchase of an adult entree.  They also bring in some sort of child-friendly activity.  Sometimes it's a balloon animal guy (who my friend Chad and I call "The Lonely Balloon Man" because of his insistence on making really depressing, banal small talk), but last night it was a pair of super-nice face painters.  Addie really likes the face painters whenever they're at Moe's; she's just always refused to actually get her face painted.  She'll allow them to paint her hands, but she has been staunchly anti-face.

Well, last night we were sitting at dinner, and Addie saw another little girl who had gotten an octopus painted on her face.  Addie turned toward Anna and said, "I want an octopus on my face!"  Anna and I looked at each other incredulously.  After a couple of minutes feeling Addie out to make sure she wouldn't freak out the second a brush touched her face, Addie was sitting in the chair getting a blue octopus on her face.  She was so excited and so good!  She sat still and was very sweet to the face painters.

 But it only has five arms!

When we got home, we decided to let Addie keep the paint on her face because she had already had a bath before we left for dinner.  So we put our little painted girl to bed, and things proceeded much as normal.  Now, in order to fully appreciate this story, you need to know that Addie rarely gets out of bed if she wakes up.  Mostly, she'll call out to me or Anna, and she'll sit in the bed until we come to her. 

Well, last night around 11, I'm getting ready for bed, and then down the hall comes walking Addie.  First, she startled me just by her presence.  Second, she freaked me out with her face paint.  Essentially, because of the way that her face was painted, it looked like a miniature version of '80s wrestler The Ultimate Warrior was coming at me.

Although eerily similar, this is not a picture of
Addie throwing a temper tantrum.

I half expected her to run into the room and try to put some sort of scissor slam on me (Full Disclosure: All I know about wrestling is that Koko B. Ware had a parrot, Andre the Giant was in The Princess Bride, and Hulk Hogan fought Rocky in Rocky III).  Fortunately, all Addie did was stagger into our bedroom and tell me she had taken a good nap (much what I would expect a retired, punch-drunk wrestler would do).  I told her it was still night-night time, and I put her back to bed.  The face paint has since been washed off, but the little wrestler in her lives on.  Just watch her body slam one of her sisters.

Socks

Addie was standing in the living room while I was sitting in our recliner holding Audrey Kate.  Addie picked up one of my thick, wool socks and pulled it over her arm like a sock puppet.  The difference for Addie, is that the sock goes all the way up to her armpit, so it definitely covers her whole arm.  Addie, excitedly, began to run around the room, holding her be-socked arm in the air.

"Addie, is your arm a sock?"  I ask her.  She immediately stops running and looks at me.  "I'm not a sock!  I'm Addie!" and then she pulls the sock off her arm.  I didn't offend her--her tone was not confrontational at all--that's what was so funny about it.  Her response was about as matter-of-fact as you could get.  How do I respond?

"I know you're Addie, I was just talking about the sock you had on your arm."  She stares at me blankly and then squeals, "Silly Daddy!" and runs to her room.  I only wish I could have these kind of conversations in my normal, adult life.  It would make things much more interesting.

Supervisor: "Is that the proposal you've been working on?"
Me: "I'm not a proposal. I'm Paul!"
Supervisor: "Uh....I know, but I was just going to see if you would..."
Me (running away giggling): "Silly supervisor!"

If only...

I begin, yet again.

I don't think anyone checks my blog anymore.  I don't mean this as any sort of pitiable statement--I just haven't updated it in a loooong time, and I take responsibility diminishing returns...there's literally nothing to read.  So, I'm wiping the slate clean (yet again) and I'm going to try to start writing some new stuff.  When I started this, Addie hadn't been born yet, and then she was just a baby, so I was relying on myself for material.  What I've since learned, is that children are a goldmine of comedic weirdness. 

That being said, I'm going to try my best to update this space with the weird, funny stuff that Addie tells me, and the weird, funny stuff that Anne Perry and Audrey Kate do.  I think I need to start blogging again for me as much as anyone.  I already feel like I have a tenuous grip on all the things I want to remember about my kids anyway, and the last thing I want to do is forget all of this stuff, as I will desperately need it at future formal occasions that call for hilarious, yet embarrassing reminiscences (proms, rehersal dinners, etc.).  So, please, check back every now and again, and I'm promise I'll try to do my part.

It's not late, it's early!

Addie gets up very early in the morning--very early, like pre-5:30 AM early. We kind of become accustomed to it, but it's till jarring to be woken up at 5:15 by a two-year-old standing by your bed, waiting for you to look at her. One morning, she stood in silence until I felt her presence and looked at her--then she quietly asked, "How're you doing, Daddy?" I'm good, and you're lucky you're cute.

I wake up much faster than Anna, so Addie in the AM duty falls to me. Usually, we come out to the living room, and then Addie will sit in my lap while I rock her in the rocking chair, desperately hoping that she'll go back to sleep (Spoiler Alert--she never does). Recently, however, we've had a new development in the early morning travails. Now, immediately after waking up, Addie asks for a breakfast bar (a Kashi graham and fruit bar) or to watch TV. At 5:30, we don't want to let Addie eat or watch TV, because we don't want her thinking that if she gets up early, she'll get rewarded for it. So, the first time she asked, I told her "It's too early for a breakfast bar," or "It's too early for TV." She didn't like it--but she took it in stride. The next morning, again at 5:30, Addie looks at me--very seriously--and says, "Daddy, it's too early for Elm0," meaning we wont be watching TIVOed Sesame Street. Awesome, I think to myself--I'm slowly helping my daughter to wake up later.

Within a couple of days, however, Addie is now randomly saying "It's not early, Daddy!" We've figured that, as long as the sun is out, Addie is convinced that it's not early, either at 7:00 AM or 5:00 PM. Okay--so she's making the realization that daylight tends to mean that it's not too early. But then the kicker. While getting her ready for bed one night, I told her that it was getting late. Addie was befuddled. How can it be late (clearly the opposite of early), when it's dark outside?

I've been trying to tell her about different contexts for late and early. She doesn't seem to get it yet, but she doesn't really care all that much. She still gets up around 5:30, so we're okay. I just don't look forward to Daylight Savings Time completely freaking her out when the sun comes out before 6:00. I guess we'll be eating breakfast bars much earlier.

You again?

If you're like me, you've followed Anna's blog for a couple of years now. She does an excellent job taking pictures and reporting the day-to-day life of a stay-at-home mom with three girls all under the age of three. I've determined, however, that we're missing the crucial, exceedingly outnumbered viewpoint of the single male human being (I refuse to count my neutered cat--I can't rely on him for any sort of solidarity) in my house--me. So, I've decided to start this whole blog thing again.

I really do intend to actually start posting with some regularity--making humorous comments on what it's like to be surrounded by girls. I hope I can provide some insight on some of Anna's stories, and maybe I can write about some of my own experiences with girls that all have me wrapped around various little fingers, yet still have the ability to frustrate me to no end, make me laugh, and melt my heart. I hope I can gain some readership back from the extraordinarily small group of people that were patient enough to type in my blog's URL every now and again, even when I didn't post for months. So, thanks for giving me one more shot; I promise I won't squander your goodwill.

Anna's surgery from my perspective

If you're here reading my post, then you've probably already read Anna's post about the ectopic pregnancy, her surgery, and recovery process. Anna told me that she found it very helpful to blog about what had happened, and she encouraged me to do the same. It's been a while since my last post, but I figure that this is an important enough event to start again. For not posting in a while, this is going to be long, so thanks for bearing with me.

To start, you may or may not know that Anna and I headed to the Pigeon Forge/Sevierville area of Tennessee this past weekend in order to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary a little early--it's actually in July of next year. We knew there was a good chance (when we booked the cabin rental) that we would have a new baby (or two--apparently) next summer. So we packed up the car, headed to Pigeon Forge, and we made it to our cabin after dark (Anna never got to see the view from the deck).

We'd been at the cabin for less than two hours when Anna started feeling pains in her stomach. Given the morning sickness she'd had with the twins thus far, we were concerned but not worried, because the pains were worse--and in a different location--than usual. I asked Anna if she wanted to call our OB, but she said she was feeling better, and we went to sleep.

Anna woke up around midnight, darting to the bathroom, calling out to me to ask where the light switch was. She barely made it (after getting the light on) before she threw up. Again, Anna told me that she was feeling better, and that the throwing up helped, but she needed me to go get her some Gas-X. We had passed a Walgreens on our way to the cabin, so I headed back there. It took me about twenty minutes to get back down to the drugstore, and then about ten minutes inside, because, being that it was about 12:30 in the morning, there was only one employee working, and it took her a while to get to the front when I was ready to check out.

Up until this point, I was thinking that Anna either had bad nausea from the twins, or she had picked up a stomach bug. I called Anna when I left Walgreens, and she said that her OB had told her she should go to the ER to get some fluids. My worst thought at the moment, was that we might have to take our weekend a little easy to let her get better. I headed back, and a few minutes later, Anna called me and said--barely audible over the phone--that we needed to call an ambulance. I was still ten minutes away; I didn't know where to tell a 911 operator where we were; I didn't remember the keycode for the front door of our cabin. I started to get very nervous, and I started to drive faster than I should have on the winding mountain roads.

I made it back to the cabin, and as I alluded to above, I struggled with the keycode. I started to freak out, and I had to calm myself down so that I could get my fingers to obey the numbers in my head. It finally clicked and unlocked the door, and I ran downstairs to the master bathroom. Anna was sitting, back against the wall, on the bathroom floor. Her cellphone was in her hand, her eyes were closed, she mumbled to me, and--this I will never forget--she was white as a sheet. I got 911 on the phone, and they GPS'd our location and had an ambulance on the way in almost no time.

The paramedics arrived about ten minutes later, and they came down to the bathroom. I think, based on the description given to them by the 911 operator, that they were pretty sure Anna was dehydrated before they actually saw her. As soon as he saw Anna, Andrew (we learned the paramedics names later, as they came to see us in the hospital, and are absolutely great guys) told me to go upstairs with Aaron and get the step chair that allows them to carry a patient up stairs easily. I think he asked me to go with Aaron because he didn't want me to see how concerned he was--I appreciate that now.

Andrew and Aaron got Anna loaded into the ambulance, and Aaron told me to keep up, as I would be following him to the hospital. In a day full of disconcerting events, following the ambulance through strange, mountainous terrain was one of the worst. If you've ever had to follow an ambulance that has your loved one in it, you'll understand what I mean. I could see Andrew working on Anna--but I couldn't hear anything he or she said, so I could only guess as to what they were saying, either good or bad. I wished for nothing more than to know what was going on--it was an incredibly helpless feeling. And, just as an FYI--I couldn't ride in the ambulance, because it wasn't yet considered a life threatening emergency, and we didn't know anyone in town who could come and get me from the hospital after the fact.

After what felt like an hour in the car (it was actually twenty minutes, mostly because of the roads in our cabin's subdivision) we made it to the hospital. I checked Anna in, and I was immediately whisked to the ER, where they gave me a seat next to her. She was in a bed, and she didn't look good--but she looked much better than she had when I last saw her. She had had a liter of fluid started via IV, and it helped to increase her blood pressure. This would not be long lasting--and if you want to keep score, Anna ended up having eight liters of fluid pumped into her by the time of the surgery.

The next couple of hours were what you would expect for a patient with abdominal pain and dehydration. The ER nurses and doctor gave Anna fluids; they gave her protonics (proton pump inhibitors, like Prilosec); they gave her anti-nausea meds--but nothing really worked. Her pain started to spread. I still wasn't too worried. The ER staff were very reassuring. "It's probably just food poisoning," "It's probably just a bug," they said. Yet, out of everything they threw at this, nothing worked. Her blood pressure would go up, and then it would drop again. I could tell by their faces that they were getting concerned as to why she wasn't completely responding. And that made them start to worry about the twins.

So on we went to get an ultrasound to look at Anna's gall bladder--nothing. Urine samples--nothing. Stool samples--nothing. Thoracic cavity x-ray--nothing. Ultrasound to look at the twins--something. Wiggling babies with great heart rates. And some free fluid. Normal stuff, the imaging tech said. But when we got back to the ER--they were still unsure why was her blood pressure dropping despite the fluids they kept giving her.

The nightshift ER doctor (Dr. H.) consulted the dayshift ER doctor who had come in early for Anna. They were worried, but not too worried. They called the surgeon on-call. They wanted to do an abdominal CT with contrast in order to determine what was wrong. They called the OB on-call. They wanted to be sure that anyone who could provide input on the safety of an abdominal CT would be able to.

The surgeon and the OB arrived, and this is when I knew things had taken a turn for the worse. Anna was shivering (we found out later because she was going into shock due to blood loss), she was wracked with pain that shot up her right arm. Her abdomen could barely be touched by the doctors due to the intense pain. The surgeon clearly stated that there was no time for contrast (it would take thirty minutes), they would do an emergency CT scan--now. The emergency CT scan was discomforting enough by itself, but as we left the ER, I noticed how many people came with us. Anna was being wheeled by our ER nurse who was accompanied by our OB, our Surgeon, our two ER doctors, and two imaging techs. You don't draw that kind of attention if you're due for a routine exam. I knew something was seriously wrong.

Due to regulations--I couldn't go into the CT room with Anna. Dot--one of the imaging techs was my proxy--she held Anna's hand when I couldn't. I had to sit in the hall and wait for them to finish. And while I sat there, I heard Dr. P.--our surgeon--talking on his phone. This is not verbatim, but he said: "I don't care that [the surgical team] isn't on tonight. Tell them to get here now." This was said in a tone of voice that I can only describe as gravely serious. I started to cry, but I knew I had to hold it together for Anna. As we walked back to the ER (jogged is more like it), I asked Dr. B.--the dayshift ER doctor--if Anna was going to be okay. I'll never forget this. He couldn't say "Oh, sure. She'll be fine." He had to say "Sir, we're going to do everything we can." I'd never thought words could knock the wind out of me--I was wrong.

Within minutes, we were back in the ER, and after having a chance to review the CT scans, we were being told by Dr. A.--our wonderful OB doctor--that there was blood in Anna's abdomen, and a lot of it. And they didn't know where it was coming from. They knew that they had to operate in order to determine the source of the bleeding. They told me from the start that this would not be a laprascopic surgery--she would have a major scar. What they thought--however--was that the bleeding was related to Anna's reproductive system. The doctors suspected that there was an ectopic pregnancy that had burst.

Dr. A. explained to us that Anna could lose a fallopian tube, an ovary (or ovaries), or her entire uterus depending on the extent of the damage. Again, I tried to hold it together for Anna. But the dominant thought running through my mind was: "Are we going to lose both twins, and then any chance of having any more children of our own?" Anna took the news in stride (I continue to be amazed at the peace the Lord gave her), and she communicated with me in the way that husbands and wives do--with looks and touch. She never said a word, but the way she held my hand said "I'm going to be okay."

Dr. P. was making it abuntantly clear that we didn't have time to waste, and it was time to get Anna to the pre-op room. Almost like running into a brick wall, the concept that Anna was dying slammed into my mind. I wanted to see and hold Addie. I wanted to take the pain from Anna and make her better. I wanted to protect the twins. But I couldn't do anything. It was the most helpless I've ever felt in my life.

As the surgical team prepared Anna for surgery, I sat next to her, choking down sobs so that I could try to be strong for her. Dr. A. rubbed my back, and I knew she was praying for us. Will--our ER nurse--told me I had to drink something because I hadn't had anything in hours, and I had to get some energy be there for Anna. I've heard the expression that something can taste like ashes in your mouth. I experienced that first hand.

The last thing we did, before I was taken to the OR waiting room, was to remove Anna's jewelry. I wished more than anything that I could let her wear her wedding ring. Everything else, I was willing to hold, but I wanted her to know that I was with her in surgery. But I knew she couldn't keep any jewelry--and I know that our bond is much stronger than a ring--but it broke me to take the physical manifestation of our wedding vows from her finger and put it in a personal effects bag.

An OR nurse walked me to the waiting room, where I sat by myself, as the room was empty. I called Anna's mother and her two best friends to get them to pray and let them know that Anna was in surgery. When I hung up with Anna's mother, I looked to see if anyone had called or sent a text to Anna's phone, and I saw Addie's picture (as her wallpaper). I wanted my wife to see her little girl again, and I broke down. I sobbed--pretty much uncontrollably--for several minutes. I missed Addie so much--I would have given anything to hold her at that moment. I wish that I was as ready with scripture as Anna was, but since I wasn't, I simply prayed for strength for Anna, and strength for our twins. And I remembered the psalms. "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Thou art with me."

After about half an hour, an OR nurse came into the waiting room. I sprung up as if the waiting room door was attached to my chair. She told me that there had been a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, and that we had lost that baby in the course of the surgeons stopping the bleeding. She also told me Anna's vitals were holding steady. I was stunned. At the time, I thought we had lost one of our twins. I started to cry again--and I consoled myself with the fact that we still had one. I called Anna's mother and her two best friends. I asked them to continue to pray.

After about another half an hour, Dr. A. came into the waiting room with a smile of relief on her face. She sat next to me and told me that Anna was okay. A wave of exhaustion came over me as I released a huge amount of pent up stress. But there was still the matter of the ectopic pregnancy. Dr. A. started to explain that there was no damage to the uterus. There was no damage to the ovaries. She even drew me a picture to show me what had been done--I needed it because I was so tired, I didn't understand that Anna had only lost some of her left fallopian tube until Dr. A. drew it out for me. I was thankful that Anna was mostly intact. "But here's the thing," Dr. A. said. And, I don't know how, but I knew before she said it. The ectopic was our third baby. The twins could still be there.

My exhaustion turned into absolute, directed energy. I started making phone calls, and I started people praying for Anna and the twins--but now that they would still be healthy after the surgery, and that Anna would recover as fast as possible. That's about where my story ends and Anna's continues. She tells her part better than me. But I appreciate you reading this, because it was important for me to write it.

The emotions are still raw--I've had tears come to my eyes several times while writing. I've yet to really comprehend the fact that I found out about a baby and lost it at the same time. I've been in survival mode over the last five days, and I don't think it's set in how close I was to losing Anna and the twins. Forgive my rambling and my inclusion of too many details. But I want to keep this, for myself, for Anna, for Addie, and for the twins. I want it to be a testament to God's power and His ability to work through the most broken of vessels. I would have never made it through this with Him, working through the staff at the hospital, our tremendous family and friends, our church, and the countless others who have prayed for us based on blog viewings and Facebook statuses. Thanks to you all. You'll never know how instrumental you were to me and my family. God has worked through you in a powerful way, and I hope you never forget that. Thanks.

A BrickBreaker's lament

As I mentioned in a recent post, my old phone died not too long ago, so I picked up a Blackberry Curve. So far, I've been pretty pleased with it. It's not too different from my previous phone, so it hasn't taken me too long to get familiar with the phone. So, besides the occasional inadvertent sending of what could be construed as a threatening picture to a local energy conglomerate, the only other thing worth mentioning about the Curve is BrickBreaker.

BrickBreaker, if you're unfamiliar with Blackberrys, is a simple game that comes included with the phone's software. It's a pretty standard break-the-bricks-using-a-ball-that-you-hit-with-a-paddle game; except for the fact that it is akin to crack in its addictiveness. I first played it when I found it on my phone while I was exploring all of the features--nothing special, I thought. Then I tried it again, then again, and soon I was playing at many a random moment. It hasn't interrupted my normal/business life (although apocryphal stories online say that it has for some people)--It's not like I'm ignoring Addie to break some bricks--but I can't help but wonder: What am I gaining from this?

I can't figure out why I play this stupid game, but it's just so easy to get pulled in when you have a moment. What's even more galling about BrickBreaker, is that I'm terrible at it. I've yet to break the ten-thousand point mark, which I originally thought was okay...until I saw the high scores online. My best effort, I surmise, would put me someplace between a person who's been dared to sit on his hands and play with his tongue and a would-be psychic who is trying to play solely with her mind. I'm that bad. I just hope that BrickBreaker isn't some Last Starfighter-esque test to determine who is worthy to fight the alien hordes that are plotting for galactic domination using cleverly placed bricks that can only be destroyed by paddle-jockeys who have nothing to lose. If that's the case, we are definitely in trouble.

Then why--I ask again--do I keep playing? Maybe BrickBreaker, and all of the other cell phone time-wasting games are the real plot by the aforementioned brick afficionado aliens. Maybe said aliens are trying to lull us into submission through the use of mindless mobile games. Well, it's time for revolt. Give up your BrickBreaker, your Solitaire, your Tetris, your Pac-Man! Join the resistance, lest our society be dismantled brick by brick (so to speak).

The beach!

Well this past weekend, Anna and I packed up the car and headed for Gulf Shores and the beach to visit Anna's father. And when I say packed up the car, I mean the Beverly Hillbillies would have thought that we went a little overboard on the packing. Somehow we managed to get two suitcases, the pack-n-play, Addie's toy bag, a full beach bag, both laptops with all the cables, a full-sized wagon, the jogging stroller, a large cooler, Miles the diabetic cat and her litterbox, and--somehow--our child. Anna pretty much hit the nail on the head when she said that had we not had a carseat permanently in place, Addie would have had to ride on top like Granny.

Despite the fact that we could have filled an over-size U-haul with all of our stuff, we made it to Gulf Shores early Friday afternoon. Anna, who is normally quite laid back about our travels out of town, was quite geared up for the beach. We basically got inside her father's condo, changed our clothes (I'm abbreviating here--have you ever tried to get an infant ready for the beach? It only takes like three or four hours.), and made our way outside. Well, then the fun begins. We loaded up Addie's brand new Radio Flyer wagon with more beach stuff then you could possibly imagine (including Addie herself)...no harm there, as it rolled pretty easily. But then we reached the sand--oh the sand, bane of my existence!--and the wagon went from easily rollable and not that bulky to I-have-to-drag-it-over-the-sand-like-it's-a-wheeless-dune-buggy heavy. After what felt like hours, we finally got Addie down to the beach.

And boy, did Addie love the beach. She hated the surf and the waves, but she loved the sand. The second we sat down, she took off--crawling all over the place--and she didn't stop for hours. She pretty much didn't slow down at all the whole first day. By the time we got back to the condo, she had bright red patches on her knees from all the crawling, and as far as Anna and I can tell, Addie ate her weight in sand. So it was a good weekend for us. I think it was equal parts relaxing and stressful as Addie would go from extremely happy and sand-eating to incredibly agitated and weepy (but still sand-eating). But I guess those are the breaks of the beach--sand is a fickle foodstuff.

Etiquette at the gym (a.k.a. farts-a-plenty)

I've recently started a new workout program that has me doing cardio intervals three times a week. I prefer to use the elliptical machine at the local YMCA because it's low impact, and I hate running. I could write a missive about how dumb I think running is, but at least you get somewhere. I recognize that the elliptical machine is dumber, as you are fake running without actually getting anywhere--so I'll leave that one alone so that I don't get angry glares from people who get a runner's high (which I'm convinced isn't real, but an El Dorado-esque motivational tool--but again, I'll leave that be).

Anyways, I missed going to the gym this morning because Addie slept poorly last night, so I went this afternoon after I got home from work. I don't know if you've ever done intervals, but they're pretty intense. They get your heart rate up, and I definitely start sucking wind toward the end of the minute-long "on" periods that I do. Well, you know what makes intervals harder? When someone farts nearby. Don't get me wrong--sometimes it happens, and I'm willing to forgive the occasional mishap. But these were terrible, I-can't-breathe, sentient farts--it's like they were trying to punish me for having a sense of smell. I mean, there I am, trying my best to huff and puff through my workout, when all of the sudden it's like I'm trying to breathe through a surgical mask that's been hanging out in Addie's diaper pail. It was that bad.

What stinks (awesome pun alert!), is that it's impossible to know who's taking care of business--so to speak. And what's worse, people could be assuming it's you. For instance, I noticed the woman on the machine next to me start to glance around her shortly after the first "incident." The problem is, was it a "I can't believe the guy next to me is farting" look, or was it "I hope nobody knows that it's me that's farting right now" look? You know that look because we've all been there--looking around to see if we've gotten away with the crime. Thankfully, I finished up my workout shortly thereafter, so I didn't have to keep fake-running through a cloud of ick. I guess the advantage of running would be that I could have run away; so that's one in your column running--just don't count me as a convert

The Dentist

No, Addie's not quite ready to go to her first dentist appointment yet. Today was Anna's and my turn to have our gums stabbed repeatedly...er, I mean, have our teeth cleaned. We've started scheduling our dentist appointments back-to-back as it allows us both to get our appointments out of the way, while the other keeps Addie in the lobby. Normally, you would think this post would be about Addie's lobby freakout; however, she was great today. We brought plenty of toys, which kept her happily occupied. I'm glad that I was able to distract her, because the dentist had the Disney Channel playing on their "kids area" TV.

I don't know if you've watched the Disney Channel lately, but when did Disney go from light-hearted cartoons to targeting pre-teens with soap opera facsimilies that are somehow dumber and more poorly acted (and that's saying something)? I don't really think Addie cares much about what's on TV right now, and for that I'm glad. Anna and I walked in toward the end of an episode of some show (although it might have been a movie) where some girl was apparently trying to be queen of some sort of dance, or something. Nothing too far afield there--that could practically be Teen Wolf. But here's where things get weird, that same girl trying to be queen or whatnot, was apparently being advised by herself, as a separate character--meaning there were two of her on the screen at once. Therefore, I am led to believe that this poor girl is either a) mentally ill or b) pursued by a devious doppelganger who is making constant mischief in her life. Why would I want to subject my child to such horrors? Why can't we just watch Sleeping Beauty or The Rescuers?

Fortunately, I didn't have too much time to think about why that Disney show ended with the girl--now doppelganger-free--dropping a host of "Save the Whales" flyers on her fellow dance goers (it really was that weird...if I saw this late at night I would have sworn I dreamed it) because I got called back for my appointment. And who doesn't love a good dentist appointment? Seriously, does anyone not absoultely hate going to the dentist--does anyone leave the office thinking, "now that was refreshing?" Because there I am, laying on a chair while my hygenist is--as far as I can tell--trying to drill for oil in my gums, all the while asking me the most unrelated, random questions possible. It was like she had a Wheel of Fortune wheel in her head that had a subject of conversation on each slice...."Internet security," to "rural Montgomery," to "my mother won't take her medicine" all in the span of two minutes, with me being unable to reply as I'm face deep in dental instruments.

At least my appointment came out clean. No cavities, and not another appointment for six months. And if you're anything like me, as soon as you leave the dentist with a clean bill of health it's like you got a stay of execution from the Governor. So, now I don't need to brush for at least three months....I'm kidding, I probably won't go for more than two weeks.

A little cheerleader?

I was watching Addie this afternoon, and as we were sitting on the floor, playing with her Little People Noah's Ark, I had the TV news on in the background. Nothing unusual there, as Anna and I typically try to catch the local news. First, to stay informed, and second to be incredibly entertained for all of the wrong reasons. Local news in Montgomery is a study in nigh-continual, unintended hilarity. At least once every two weeks, our local news will devote an entire telecast to discussing how to prepare for severe weather. Not because there is severe weather in the area, but because there MAY be severe weather in the future. I don't mind prepping for the unforeseeable, but Montgomery news outlets revel in chicken-littleism to the highest degree--and there are only so many times you can be told not to stand near windows during a storm. And it's not just the weather that's great about the news--it's also the bungled headlines (my favorite is "Humane Skeleton Found"), anchors who believe their reading of health department scores will change the world, and frequent misuse of the term irony.

All that is awesome about the news aside, that's not what brings me to today's blog entry. While Addie and I were playing, I heard our local weatherman announce that he was on the road in Tallassee (a town shortly outside of Montgomery). So--intrigued by the weather being read from the sprawling metropolis of Tallassee, Alabama--I started watching the news. As soon as the weather was done, our local weatherman introduced the Tallassee High School cheerleaders, who did a cheer for the benefit of the viewing audience. As soon as those peppy teenagers started in with "Go...Big...Purple," clapping all the while, Addie turned to the TV, completely entranced. She stared at the cheerleaders, slack-jawed, completely hypnotized by the upbeat cheering on of the Tallassee Tigers (but, go big purple?...seriously?). "Uh oh," I thought. Perhaps I have a little cheerleader in the making.

As soon as the cheer was done--and the cheerleaders did their requisite wooing, jumping, clapping, and other general merry-making--Addie clapped for a second, lost interest in the news, and went back to playing. But I'm concerned the cheerleading seed has been planted. What's going to happen next? Will Addie become a cheerleader? Will the local news freak out about upcoming weather and interrupt every TV show I like to watch in order to describe a particularly menacing cloud? Will said weather freakouts be, in some way, ironic? Stayed tuned to future blog entries to find out.

Squirrel bits

Rather than try to explain away my multi-month absence from blogging, I thought I would just go about things like I've never been gone. It's kind of like the time between seasons of a television series. What was many months for you was only days for your favorite characters. It's the same--but different. So, last season on Blogsted...Paul had a six-month-old daughter. Now she's 13 months old. There, you're caught up.

So, today while I'm at work, I got a lovely picture message from Anna. She hasn't ever sent me a picture message before, so I was quite intrigued. Well, the picture that graced my Blackberry screen was that of a recently deceased squirrel laying on our front porch. Unfortunately (for the squirrel) it was only a head, tail, and feet. No legs--just feet. It appears that Fuzz, our most savvy, hunting-prone cat, perpetrated this crime against tree-dwelling rodents. Don't get me wrong--there is no love lost between myself and squirrels, but you have to feel bad for any animal that gets partially devoured by a house cat.

So, I'm looking at the picture in disgust, and then I try to reply to Anna. Well, the Blackberry that I mentioned above is new to me, as my previous phone recently died. Normally, with my Blackberry, I would press the track ball, roll to "Reply" and click the track ball again. However--and if you have a Blackberry, you will recognize this--I accidentally scrolled to "Forward" and pressed the button. The "Forward" button took me to my address book, and as I was flustered by my misunderstanding Blackberry functionality, I somehow forwared the picture of our newly dead rodent friend to Alabama Power (the first entry in my phonebook). I haven't heard yet what they thought of the picture...but Alabama Power has raised their rates recently, so I would imagine they've received worse.

Well, that's not quite the end of the story. I get home, and Anna informs me that she has left the dead squirrel for me to clean up. No big deal--I decided that I would take care of it after a few minutes. That was before I accidentally stepped in the recently thrown-up, partially digested squirrel parts that Fuzz had deposited on our foyer rug (at least I was wearing shoes). I wish Fuzz was smart enough to know that squirrel is rough on the digestive system. I also wish that the throw-up bug didn't spread to Addie, who just threw up in her bed tonight. At least Addie didn't throw up any squirrels.

One of my most (and quite unexpected) favorite things

If you would have asked me, before Addie was born, to speculate on what I would enjoy most about being a father, I certainly would not have guessed it would be waking up in the middle of the night. But now, as I've grown into my new role as father, it is absolutely one of favorite things about having a daugher. Now let me qualify here, so that I don't get myself a permanent job of waking up in the middle of the night. I don't desire to wake up--in fact, I would prefer to stay in the bed, and I appreciate the fact that Anna and I trade off on waking-up duty. However, it is when Addie does wake up, and it is when I go to her room, that I have some of the best experiences with her.

As Addie has grown, her waking up in the middle of the night is not an indication of hunger. Rather, as I have read, she has reached the end of a sleep cycle, so a great deal of effort is not required to get her back to sleep. When Addie cries in the middle of the night, pretty much all we have to do is put her pacifier back in her mouth, which leads her--almost directly--back to sleep.

When I wake up with Addie crying, and I make my way into her room, she will invariably have woken herself up and rolled on her stomach (I think she's a little disoriented after being asleep--although I don't have any proof of that). I'll step up to her crib, and with my left hand cradling her head and my right hand gently holding her stomach, I'll roll her over onto her back. It's that moment, right after she's rolled over as I grab her pacifier and her lovey (blanket, for the uninitiated), that I see in her eyes that she recognizes my face, and she immediately calms down, and her crying stops. Every time that she has the look of recognition in her eyes, it melts my heart, because it is immediately followed by a look of complete contentment. Then I see that Addie knows that she is safe because her daddy is there.

I don't claim to know if Addie is really awake enough during these late-night moments to truly recognize that her daddy is there, but I hope she does. Even so, if she thinks it's only a dream, I'm glad that she falls back asleep dreaming of me.

Dancing queen!

So, Addie likes to dance. Well, let me qualify that by saying that she likes to sit up and bounce up and down semi-rhythmically to music--but she seems to be having a blast. The problem we have with Addie's proclivity to dance, however, is that we have yet to figure out how to get her to do it for the camera. Anna and I have both seen her get down, so to speak, but we have been chronically without recording device when she chooses to do so.

So Saturday night, Anna and I tried to catch lightning in a bottle with Addie, our camera, and iTunes. We tried several songs in order to get her moving. First, we played her "In the Jungle," which she liked, but decided she didn't really want to boogie to it. Moving on, we tried a couple of other songs--some Stevie Wonder, some unnamed techno, and, I hate to say it, some rap. I remembered that episode of Friends where the only way Ross and Rachel could get their daughter to smile was by singing "Baby Got Back."

Unfortunately, I'm not immune to the siren song of cute baby videos, and as a result, I played a little Sir Mix-a-lot for her. As an aside, please don't judge me for my "Baby got back" ownership, as I'm sure you have your own black sheep mp3 (feel free to add a comment with your track of shame). Thankfully, Addie didn't dance, but I suspect, that even if she had, I would have been too ashamed to post that video on the Internet. Then, after a little bit more thought, we got a few moments of furtive dancing to the Knack's "My Sharona." I imagine that we'll have plenty of days ahead of our daughter dancing to novelty chart-topping hits, but I'm glad we can avoid it for now.

I totally understand the Wiggles now.

Before Addie was born and I spent significantly less time with infants, I had a hard time understanding how musical groups catering to children really functioned. I mean, how can you sing their songs without going insane? I'm not one who looks down upon artists like the Wiggles or Raffi--I don't think that they're freaks or sell-outs or anything like that. Obviously they make a great living, and they have to have some musical talent to do what they do; but, like I said above, it's the precariously traveling along the razor's edge of madness that I didn't get. Seriously, how many times can you sing "Get ready to wiggle" or "Go Captain Feathersword, Ahoy!" before you completely lose it.

But tonight, everything changed, and I had a moment of complete clarity akin to the clouds parting and the single beam of sunlight illuminating my sky-turned face. I caught myself, while feeding Addie (Anna's at a class tonight), singing a song that, as far as I can remember, was entirely about the mixture of foodstuffs that made up Addie's dinner. It's not that weird that I sang a song that consisted of the lyrics "You got your chicken and your fruit, and it's good enough for me!" to the tune of "You put the lime in the coconut"--the weird part is that I sang it for the better part of five minutes before I realized it.

As soon as I knew that I had been singing an impromptu song about baby food, I stopped and audibly laughed at myself. But here's the kicker--as soon as I stopped singing, Addie got upset. What I didn't notice is that my singing had transfixed her into eating like a champ. Then it hit me--silly songs are the pied piper ballads that cause babies to immediatley calm down and listen focusedly. So, obviously, I started singing again, and Addie ceased her fusiness and finished eating.

So there you have it--Raffi, the Wiggles, and others of their ilk aren't annoying--they're geniuses that have songs that you might as well call "Baby, be quiet as I make funny noises for your parents benefit." And it works. Stand in awe.

Another show of massive greed in the financial crisis

An interesting story surfaced today that may be under your radar with all of the other negative economic news. Apparently, after receiving an $85 billion bailout from the American taxpayer, AIG decided it was a good idea to take its executives on a $440,000 retreat at a resort in California. You can read the details here, but you don't need to know much to have your stomach turn.

Rarely do I write to congress, but this story pushed me over the edge. I wrote the following letter to Senator Richard Shelby, who represents Alabama. But if you, like me, want to register your disgust with these executives, you may also want to contact Senator Shelby, as he is a ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee. You can send him a letter from his senatorial website: http://shelby.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Home.Home. Feel free to copy my words verbatim if you like (change your state, though)--just make your voice heard.

Senator Shelby,

As you no doubt noted today, it has come to light that several AIG executives, after receiving a bail-out to the tune of $85 billion of taxpayer money, decided to take a lavish week-long retreat in California. As the events of the last two weeks have unfolded to the incredible detriment to most American taxpayers, it is an absolute slap in the face for those who have directly contributed to this crisis to take a lavish vacation to reward themselves for a job obviously not well done.

As an Alabamian, I appeal to you, a ranking member of the Senate Banking committee, to please take action on this issue. If the government is to ever restore the American investor's faith, it absolutely cannot allow the brazen actions of individuals who, apparently, lack any remorse for the havoc their reckless corporate decisions have caused the American people.

I, for one, would gladly greet the news that every executive who attended this retreat were summarily terminated from their position. Now that I am a part owner of AIG by virtue of my tax dollars, why should I allow these executives to retain their positions? What have they done to show that they understand the financial crisis facing this nation or that they have the ability to assist in leading out if it? Please, sir, don't allow this to stand. Instead, take action, and contribute to the restoration of American confidence in the economy. Thank you.

Paul Wamsted

Debate fever!

Since my last post, we've had our first and only Vice Presidential debate, and we are soon to experience our second, completely impromptu, absolutely extemporaneous, totally off-the-cuff town hall style debate. I can't wait to hear the questions read in the style of a Brave New World automaton--it's gonna be awesome. And it's the relative safety and ability to avoid the question built into our debate system that has gotten me thinking about some ways we could improve our debates, or at least make them more entertaining. Here are three of the best:

1. Instead of having debates in auditoriums in colleges around the country, the Citizens' Debate Commission could buy some land in the Nevada desert and build a debate Thunderdome. When the debates are conducted, pundits, journalists, and handlers can scale the outside of dome and bang the metal girders with their weapons to register their approval or displeasure of the debate. The Thunderdome will be available for any political race (how awesome would the local school board race be then) and televised via a closed circuit station. Also, all candidates will have to dress in post-apocalyptic Australian fetish gear, and all of the debates will be moderated by Tina Turner.

2. Since the candidates really don't answer the questions they are asked (or at least, they dodge the main question and find a way to answer the one they want to), why don't we make them adopt rhetorical styles of our choosing? The audience members will write down a pairing of a hero and a villain from literature or pop culture and drop it into a hat. Then, the candidates will have to answer in the styles randomly selected before each question. In the interest of fairness, the candidates will have to alternate being the villain. Such a debate system could lead to these classic match-ups:
-He-man vs. Skeletor (military policy)
-Papa Smurf vs. Gargamel (domestic policy)
-Yoda vs. the Emperor (foreign policy and Jedi rights)
-Optimus Prime vs. Megatron (technology)
-Ferris Bueller vs. Mr. Rooney (education)
-KITT vs. KARR (the economy)
-Storm Shadow vs. Snake-eyes (the silent ninja threat)

3. We could ask the candidates original, thought-provoking questions and demand that they be answered with honesty and candor. And immediately after the question is asked, the candidates will fight Medieval Times style with nerf weapons to determine who will answer it. The candidates will trade off as to who gets to choose the implements of the nerf dual. Then whoever is defeated in single, nerf combat must answer the question (as everybody knows that honesty is candidates' kryptonite). I think nerf would be more entertaining then paint-ball or lasertag, but I'm open to suggestions here.

So tomorrow night, while you watch the candidates try to one up each other on not screwing up, just think what might have been. And please, if you have any good hero/villain match-ups, please add 'em to the comments. Cheers!