"How dare you disturb me during nap time!" part 1

Abbie is now in the midst of the journey to one nap per day. This is huge for me because it means I’m losing one of my two stretches during the day when I can do something that doesn’t involve applauding when I see a block pushed through the correct hole.

Abbie’s made a long journey just to arrive at this stage. As a newborn, she took as many naps as any other newborn, approximately 681,321,534 every day. She would tank up on a couple milliliters of milk, doze off as she inhaled, and then use that same breath to scream with an exhale that let us know she was awake and hungry. This cycle continued throughout the daytime hours, but thankfully eased somewhat overnight when she would sleep for longer stretches, sometimes as long as two entire breaths. Some parents are lucky enough to have a newborn sleep for hours at a time overnight; we were lucky enough to have a newborn we could enjoy at all hours of the night. Ellie and I slept in shifts a lot back then, much like a military battalion guarding against a terrifying force, which come to think of it is pretty much what we were doing. As she aged, she took fewer and longer naps, and eventually started napping erratically, sometimes napping four hours at a time, other times napping no more than 15 minutes. Then one day around age 10-weeks, Abbie was extraordinarily cranky, and by proxy so were we, because she had been awake for about six hours straight and refused to take a nap. Our neighbor took pity and introduced us to a complicated system involving scheduled cycles of feed-play-sleep. The theory behind this system is by putting the child on a schedule, she learns what to expect and when to expect it, eventually becoming the world’s happiest baby who will elicit much praise from mortal onlookers in awe at your parenting skills. After doing some research, I discovered this system’s mortal enemy is called Attachment Parenting, which involves keeping the child near you at all times so you can respond to her needs. The theory behind this system is a baby instinctually knows what she wants, and by fulfilling her needs as they arise the child comes to trust you and feel content, eventually becoming the world’s happiest baby who will elicit much praise from mortal onlookers in awe at your parenting skills. Both systems have sizeable followings who swear their system is the only one that works, and are passionately convinced that the opposing system is ruining America. No doubt these people believe that all the violence in Iraq could be avoided if only the insurgents’ parents had raised them using their system.

Attachment Parenting seemed pretty similar to what I was already doing with little success, so I switched to the scheduled system. Plus our pediatrician seemed to be pushing us to use more of a schedule. We asked him for advice to keep Abbie happy and us sane, and one of his suggestions was to put her on a feeding schedule. When he asked how many times a day she ate, I really didn’t have an answer since she just grazed all day long with a nibble here and nibble there, much like what I do at a wedding reception buffet, especially if they have little smokies and free soda pop. We started her on a schedule that repeated every two-and-a-half hours, and she took to it with relative ease, or possibly the transition was so traumatic for all of us that I blocked all painful memories. Either way, I remember her, and everything else around the house, being much more pleasant after the schedule. In the year or so since then, I’ve spent my time slowly cutting her naps back to four, and then three, and then, um, two. Now we’ve started the painful struggle to cut her down to one long nap per day. That is a story for tomorrow I believe, since I’ve hit my writing limit for today. Plus I need to spend some time distributing these Farsi pamphlets explaining the evils of Attachment Parenting.

Bananarama

Bananas are currently favorite fruit. Not that I eat many of them. In fact I find unprocessed banana kind of disgusting with those stringy things left over after peeling, the inevitable development of brown mushy spots, and the peel dangling over all sides and touching everything like a toddler after eating a popsicle. Give me a choice and I’ll eat an apple over a banana. I think our dog agrees with me, though she’ll eat either. She also eats grass and licks the cats’ ears, so maybe the dog’s preferences aren’t relevant.

I have many reasons for liking bananas that have nothing to do with me eating them. I can always count on Ellie to eat one or two from a bunch. These bananas are very helpful for her nutritional intake because her other main source of fruit is the natural flavors in Starburst. Bananas are cheap, usually costing no more than $.49 per pound. They’re usually the cheapest fruit in the grocery store, making them the produce equivalent of Paris Hilton. If you can find a bag full of ripe bananas, they’re even cheaper, like that six-pound-plus bag of bananas I recently bought for $.99. That’s less than $.17 per pound, and I didn’t even have to use a coupon. Bananas last a long time on the shelf, usually more than a week, assuming I don’t buy the cheap ripe ones.

The banana fun really beings, though, when they turn ripe, and I mean good and ripe with black peels and soft mushy spots and strong banana aromas wafting forth and possibly banana juice oozing from the peel attracting little flies. When they hit this stage of ripeness, they’re easily mashed, like the dreams of Cub fans in September.* I take these super-ripe bananas, throw them in the blender with a little water, puree well, and end up with cheap baby food. I have a whole system of ice cube trays ready to freeze the banana puree for easy dispensing. Abbie loves bananas and eats them almost everyday, making them one of her most consumed items along with applesauce, chicken, and rocks. Of course I can only store so many banana cubes in the freezer at one time, so I take my excess super-ripe bananas and use them to make banana bread. I made a double batch of banana bread the other day with the remnants of my six-plus-pound bag of ripe bananas. Abbie obliged my endeavor by playing nicely in her room for the excessive time I spent mixing. One loaf was for Ellie using her fantastic family recipe that contains sour cream for an extra touch of tart to go with the fat and sugar. The other loaf was for me using every known substitution to cut fat and calories to a minimum without affecting the taste, much. I substitute Splenda for sugar, egg whites for whole egg, applesauce for butter,** and flour-flavored Wheatamine for the flour,*** and end up with a delicious bread that uses up our spare bananas and cuts calories so drastically that I can afford to dump half a bag of chocolate chips in the mix. The texture isn’t quite right, and sometimes I get that Splenda aftertaste, but otherwise I can’t tell the difference. Just because the dog refuses to eat it doesn’t mean it’s not edible.

* If not sooner.
** Really
*** Not really

"Two pizzas for the price of one at Doughy's!" "Doughy's has terrible pizza." "Yeah, but there's two!"

I love coupons. I used to believe they’re just for little old ladies who want to save a nickel on blue hair coloring, but it turns out many coupons are actually good for decent amounts off of products that I use. For example, right now I’ve got a coupon good for $1.00 off a bottle of barbecue sauce, barbecue sauce being one of my four major food groups along with ketchup, sugar, and frozen custard. $1.00 off might not sound like a great deal, but when that bottle of barbecue sauce regularly costs $1.49, you can see that I can walk out of a grocery store holding a bottle of a major food group purchased for only $0.49. That’s like half price! Despite the remarkable nature of this deal, I’m still holding my coupon in the hopes that this barbecue sauce will go on sale so I can possibly one day save two-thirds off the list price. Presumably there could come a day where the price will dip below $1.00 and they’ll actually pay me to take the barbecue sauce off their hands. Suckers.

I discovered the beauty of coupons right about the time Abbie was born. When corporations sense a new baby in a family, they deluge that family with coupons and special offers, many of them quite valuable. These corporations get their information on the new baby from several sources, such as the OB/Gyn office, the hospital, and the corporate spy camera installed into every American home by government “census takers” once every ten years. Corporations make these offers out of an altruistic desire to help a family strapped for cash at the arrival of a new baby save some money on products they desperately need, like diapers, formula, and Dr. Seuss books. Plus they know families with babies are young families with a lifetime of buying decisions ahead of them, and if they build brand loyalty now they can fleece these people as they purchase their overpriced products for potentially decades. Suckers.

Here’s how my latest coupon-aided diaper-buying excursion worked. I had several coupons that were about to expire so I needed to use them fast or risk the shame of essentially throwing money away. First I went to the baby megastore, where you can buy everything baby-related short of an actual baby, although I have to admit I’ve never checked the far northwest corner of the store. There I used a 15%-off store coupon I clipped from a magazine and a $1.50-off manufacturer’s coupon from a mailbox flyer to buy a 112-pack of overnight diapers for $28.49, or 25.4 cents per diaper. Then I went to a big box store to buy a 92-pack of regular diapers with a $1.00-off manufacturer’s coupon from a newspaper flyer for 19.99, or 21.7 cents per diaper. Are you still with me? Good, because here’s my coup-de-grace.* I went to a grocery store to buy an ironically named jumbo pack of 34 regular diapers on sale for $8.98 with a $1.00-off manufacturer’s coupon from a newspaper flyer combined with a $3.00-off store coupon for a final price of $4.98. That’s 14.6 cents per diaper for the exact same thing I just bought for 21.7 cents per diaper. Suckers.

I look for coupons everywhere. At first I would only check the glossy ads in the Sunday newspapers that are reliably delivered by underpaid paperboys. Then I noticed that little coupons are hidden in the newspaper the rest of the week, like all sorts of restaurant coupons in Thursday’s entertainment section. Next I realized that companies send coupons through the mail all the time, mostly in glossy ads that could be packaged in the newspaper but Chuck in the advertiser’s circulation department had a bad breakup with Wanda in the newspaper’s advertising department so they send their ads through the mail just to spite her “needs more space” keester. I think the only remaining step is to go onto eBay to buy 20 copies of the same newspaper ad, but I’m not that desperate. I’m not sure if the people buying those realize they have to buy 20 identical bottles of barbecue sauce at once to make the purchase worthwhile. Suckers.

* That literally translates to “best deal.”

The Closest I'll Ever Come to Carrying a Purse

Abbie and I were out purchasing Vital Supplies yesterday. After pulling into the grocery store, I opened the door to rescue her from the tightly strapped car seat, and looked down. My life flashed before my eyes as I realized my most important possession was missing. Was it the frozen custard I just bought? Don’t be silly; yesterday’s flavor was Chocolate Heath Crunch, and I don’t like toffee enough to bend space so it’s “on the way.” The diaper bag was no longer in the vehicle.

The diaper bag contains all things Abbie. It has diapers, but it holds so much more than just that. It also has wipes, though they’re drier than a new Mel Gibson movie after sitting in the bag for a few months. I also keep some plastic sacks in the diaper bag to hold dirty diapers. That way when she needs a diaper change while we’re visiting people we like and wish to see again, I can wrap up the stinky diaper and dispose of it in the home of someone we don’t like and wish to never see again. I also carry a tube of diaper rash cream just in case I’m feeling particularly saucy while changing her diaper away from home. Sometimes I also remember to stuff a changing pad in there to protect the changing surface, assuming I can find a nice surface like a friend’s coffee table, to change her on, or to protect her from the changing surface in the event of needing to use a gas station bathroom floor.

The diaper bag also holds many entertaining items that have absolutely nothing to do with changing diapers, though the diaper rash cream, with it’s flip-up top, can double as entertainment. The bag holds books, lots of books, and books of all kinds. There’re books with soft vinyl pages, and books with soft cloth pages. There’re books with fabulous flaps for pages, and books with wonderful remarkable spectacular doompadee daps for pages. These are great to reach for when she’s strapped into the seat on a shopping cart, and I’m trying to ignore her protests while determining which brand of Vital Supplies has the lowest sodium. Just slip her a book and she’ll mostly entertain herself, requiring only occasional intervention from me to point to things and say their name, until of course she throws it on the ground. When this happens I have an assortment of toys to hand to her. It takes a special kind of toy to merit diaper bag inclusion: It must be small enough to fit in the bag, light enough to carry at all times, consist of one piece so I don’t have to keep track of several things at once, cheap enough that I won’t cry when it’s inevitably lost, and tough enough to survive multiple encounters with linoleum. When the toys lose their luster, I can fall back on my bag of Tasteeos. At least they used to be Tasteeos. Now they’re more of a fine whole grain powder milled from many journeys at the bottom of a full diaper bag.

Upon realizing the diaper bag and all its goodies were absent, I panicked, took a few deep breaths to calm my nerves, and thought about where I’d seen it last. I knew it was the big box store we’d just visited, though the last place I knew I’d seen it was the checkout lane. Maybe I left it in the cart in the parking lot. I hopped back in the vehicle to drive back to the store; I needed to recover the bag as quickly as possible. I paid little attention to traffic, vehicle or pedestrian. Fortunately, the big-box store is across the street from the grocery store so I never had to make a choice between hitting a pedestrian and leaving the diaper bag exposed the elements and thievery a second longer than necessary. As I pulled into my old parking space, I spotted my old cart. Sitting in it was the diaper bag. Thankfully, no one molested it while it was gone; all the diapers, books, and toys were safe, along with that coupon for eggs I planned to use at the grocery store.

"It's okay, I landed on my head."

Abbie whines about lots of things: A toy just out of reach, getting stuck while crawling under the table, dog food just out of reach. Yet she rarely whines about her poor walking abilities. Abbie can walk in the same sense that NBC’s programming can entertain: It does the job, just not very well. Abbie can walk just fine for a few steps, but she inevitably falls. I now have a greater appreciation for Maggie Simpson’s propensity for falling, except that Maggie will fall down while standing still or after tripping over her dress, but Abbie usually falls only while trying to walk because she doesn’t quite move her fete in hte prepor odrer.

Left. Right. Left.RightLefRigh…Thunk.

She doesn’t always fall because she moves her feet wrong; an uneven ground can cause a fall, too. Our backyard has a crater in it. It’s not a very big crater, maybe 4-inches deep and a foot in diameter, but it’s big enough to throw her to the ground every time she steps in it, and since it’s right in front of the rock bed she loves to play in, she steps in it a lot. Once she sets a foot in it, she inevitably falls, just like your IQ inevitably falls once you start watching “Hogan Knows Best.” The random ebbs and flows in the lawn’s altitude can cause falls as well, along with hazardous objects indiscriminately scattered about the ground like sticks, drain spouts, and dogs.

A small hill in the backyard also triggers falls. She loves climbing this hill, possibly to practice her hiking abilities so she can show off on the castle at the mall playground. Much like at the castle, she can go up the hill without much problem; it’s the part where she has to come back down the hill that sends her flying, and with a lot more velocity than a fall on flat ground. I try to offer my hand to her when I see her in a precarious location like the downside of a hill; sometimes she takes it and often falls anyway, and sometimes she refuses my hand, boldly showing her independence seconds before boldly planting her face in the ground. She’s tough, though, rising right back to her feet, thumbing her nose at the ground that insists on attracting her, and continuing to walk. Then she usually falls again after a few more steps, repeating the cycle.

Just in case anyone doesn’t believe that she falls a lot, she has the marks to prove it. I need to defend myself, first; I’m no Father of the Year here, but I’m not Bobby Brown, either. I don’t just watch her with one ear on Cubs game while she wails following yet another painful header, amassing a collection of scars that will mar her for life. She falls, looks vaguely annoyed that she stopped moving forward, picks herself up, continues walking, and I go back to listening to Todd Walker ground into a double play. She only cries when she falls on something hard. Skinning an appendage can also warrant tears, but she has a scraped knee right now that generated not so much as a sniffle when she hit the pavement. To show how tough she can be, she fell down in the grass so much last night that the side of her face looked like we’d given her a cheese grater to chew on, and she never complained once. This resounding toughness is from the same girl who has a meltdown when shut out of the bathroom.

Chloe Abhors a Vacuum

As a stay-at-home dad, I’m responsible for many duties around the house. I cook the meals, clean the bathroom, wash the dishes, watch the Cubs, blog the, um, blog, complain about the Cubs, and, of course, vacuum the floor. We used to follow a relaxed vacuuming schedule, vacuuming only before company visited or whenever the carpet’s color turned a rich shade of pet hair. When Abbie started crawling, though, vacuuming became a very important chore, much more important than my efforts to pick up clutter, which inevitably results in throwing away important documents left haphazardly lying about the house. With her newfound mobility, she could navigate to small chunks of dirt or dust horses (they were bigger than bunnies) and place them in her mouth. Plus anything touching the floor tends to gather crud from the floor; it’s bad enough when she throws a block and it comes to a rest with a shag look, but when we take her out in public wearing clothes with enough dirt accumulated in the folds to sow turnips seeds, other people view that as a sign of inferior parenting.

We now use a strict vacuuming schedule of twice a week, a schedule so strict that many weeks we actually adhere to it. By vacuuming that often, we can suction up dust accumulations before they reach the bunny stage, sometimes as early as the echidna stage. Vacuuming twice a week, though, means I have to pick up the floor twice a week. At any given time, she will have strewn about a dozen toys across the living room. A dozen toys may not sound like much, but remember that by law every toddler toy must consist of at least a hundred loose pieces, which is pretty amazing considering every piece must be too large to block a toddler’s airway. Toddler toys use the same compression technology utilized in clown cars and airplane cargo holds for storing all of their loose pieces. I must pick up and store every loose piece, otherwise they impede the vacuum’s path, missing large swaths of carpet, and Ellie is liable to ask if I just used a lint brush to spot clean the floor. As I scurry about the room collecting toys to deposit into her toy box, Abbie is usually standing at her toy box yanking things out. Her removal rate is about half of my deposit rate; when I deposit half of a ball while she removes a quarter of a block, I pick her up, dump the final toy shards in the chest, and move on to her room. It has fewer toys, but boatloads of books are scattered everywhere. We have a large rubber tote to store books that allows me to quickly scoop up assorted board books while the tall sides thwart her attempts to read what I just stowed.

With the floor cleared of all non-vacuumable items, I can finally begin to suck. Running the vacuum used to frighten the poopy out of Abbie, but fortunately she seems to have overcome that fear. Some say that a running vacuum will soothe an infant to sleep, but I think that’s just some rumor started by the same people who claim to spend every waking moment in love with their infant.* I used to have to hold her for comfort with one hand while pushing the vacuum with the other hand, but now she stays on the floor wandering under my legs, chasing the vacuum and running away when it comes back toward her. I’m glad to reclaim my hand because I need every free appendage to protect the vacuum from our dog who views it as a giant toy to be attacked with a rubber hose for a soft underbelly that may snap off with one more bite. In spite of those two teaming up against me, I usually manage to vacuum the ideal number of twice per week. Sometimes I try for revenge by running the vacuum right at the dog, but the joke’s on me when I turns out I’m actually aiming for a dust dog.

* Remember that when talking about an infant, that’s a lot of moments spent awake.

"Ralph, that's a basketball ... you'll be on special teams." "I'm special!"

Abbie and I went to a basketball game last night. We went to a few Drake* basketball games last winter and I plan on going to more games this winter, and she behaved pretty well at those Drake games, probably because of all the things to entertain a baby like bright lights, lots of people moving, loud music, and everyone spontaneously cheering. The game we went to last night was a summer league game with players from Drake, Iowa State, and other former, current, and future college basketball players at schools of various levels. This summer league game was just like a college game except that no one really cared who won, even though the game I saw was for the league championship. Sure these guys had pride, but judging from the fact that a third of the players from both teams didn’t show up, I’m guessing that winning this league championship ranked in personal importance somewhere around winning pick up games played during recess from Ms. Freemolbottom’s fifth grade class. The audience responded in kind to their enthusiasm, which is to say they were sparse and not very loud. Combine this with the high school gym where the games were played, and I didn’t exactly have an accurate recreation of the college basketball environment. Still, it’s the closest thing I have for measuring her current basketball attention span.

We arrived at the game late since I had to give Abbie her nap and feed us both before leaving. Plus I-235, the major freeway through Des Moines, is under construction, and the DOT has decided to ease the construction process by closing all freeway entrances so no one can actually drive on it. I sat near probably the only guy I knew in attendance so he could catch me up on what I missed, and so I could pass the time during breaks in the action with scintillating comments like “what do you think?” and “that guy looks pretty good.”

Almost as soon as we settled down, the whining began. Fortunately I was prepared with every toddler-distracting trick I could remember. We settled into a bleacher seat with no one sitting beside us so she could wander freely. When she tired of that, I pointed out the baby girl sitting a few rows ahead, letting both of them pass time by pointing at each other. I dug out some toys in the diaper bag, but that really didn’t go well. The toy stock may need updating because very little in there distracted her for more than a few seconds, and that’s a very bad thing now that she can throw. A hard plastic ball-like toy I gave her distracted for all of about three seconds before she threw it down the bleachers, leaving me to pray that it didn’t roll all the way onto the court with every loud clunk down the steps. The one toy I did have remarkable success with was a pair of rattles that Velcro to her wrists. I hadn’t attached these to her in months because she never seemed to notice them, but boy does she notice them now. She noticed them so much that she was determined to rip them off her wrists, giving me a couple minutes to watching the game while she fumbled with them.

By the time she detached the rattles, we had only been there for a few minutes, so I needed to use the heavy guns. Last time we went to a game, she would take half an hour to drink her milk, letting me watch a quarter of the game in peace. Now she drinks a little faster, sucking a sippy cup dry in three minutes flat, so unless I want to keep refilling her cup with juice, risking childhood obesity or, worse yet, a sugar buzz before bedtime, I need to find non-liquid forms of edible distraction. I tried Tasteeos, but those seem to be falling out of favor, as she was more interested in throwing them than eating them. Perhaps I could try some sort of jerky. Reading was always a big hit as she used to be able to sit and flip back and forth through the same book for minutes at a time while I watched the game and recited the book from memory (“orange carrot, pink bow”). Now she may be onto my scam since she quickly tired of her books, sometimes even before the red shirt. Like the toys, I may need to update the diaper bag’s book supply if I’m going to enjoy the game.

Since sitting and entertaining didn’t work very well, I took her to a balcony section and let her wander for a while. Nothing entertains her like letting her think she’s running away from me. As long as no one was around, I could let her wander while I watched the game for seconds at a time. We sat and watched for a little while again, but when that wore thin again it was time to leave despite the five minutes left to play. Walking out to the car, I realized that I need to find new ways to entertain her. Otherwise I won’t be able to concentrate on the game, and I could end up saying, “that guy looks pretty good” about a guy who sucks.

* Drake is an actual Division-1 college basketball team that plays other actual basketball teams, like Iowa and Creighton, along with some teams that may have ties to fictional schools, like Wagner and Southern Utah (as if anyone actually lives in southern Utah).

Star Jonesin'

Abbie’s first Christmas present was her star stacker. Her grandmother gave it to her while we were visiting last Thanksgiving. She gave it to her early because Abbie was fast approaching meltdown status and a new toy seemed like a good way to distract her from the crushing reality of life. Plus my mother couldn’t wait to give her first grandchild a Christmas present. The star stacker has a yellow base with a pole sticking up from the middle, four variously colored stars of descending size with holes in the center to be stacked flat on the pole, and a happy star to put on top. Here’s a picture:



At this point, it’s an effective stacking toy for entertaining young children. Fortunately the manufacturer realized that no toy should be without multiple battery-powered functions. As you move the four stars on and off the pole, they trip a button on the side that activates a glissando chime and short sequence of flashing lights. When you put the star on top, stand back because the toy is about to play one of five tunes from the public domain with an accompanying light show. That’s the kind of panache we should expect out of a toy from the “Dance Baby Dance!” toy line, a mildly disturbing name that conjures up images of an old west cowboy shooting at a child’s feet.

Notice in the above description, I talk about “you” moving the stars on and off. The toy is rated for 6-months and up, but at 6-months, which is almost how old she was last Thanksgiving, Abbie was still mostly in blob stage, meaning I interacted with the toy while she watched, kind of like how the Cubs play baseball while I watch, except at no time while playing with the toy did I leave 11 men on base while only scoring one run against the Cardinals. My memory is a little fuzzy at that point since Abbieupdate hadn’t been invented yet, but I think the limit of her interaction with the toy at 6-months was to grab the larger stars and chew on them. I believe the toy succeeded that night in delaying a meltdown by several minutes, and when we were done I gave it back to my mother so she could wrap it and give it to her at the appropriate time.

Fast forward a month to Christmas, and Abbie was nice enough to look surprised and act like she’d never seen the star stacker before when we opened it. She still couldn’t do much with it, though. We packed it up and took it home with us, and she continued to play as it developed motor skills, stimulated the senses, and encouraged cognitive abilities. At least, that’s what the advertising claims it does. If all of our world leaders had enjoyed the star stacker as young children I imagine they’d be a lot closer to finding world peace, or at least they’d have better tactile skills. Slowly she learned how to play with it on her own. I think the first thing she discovered was the little button on top of the pole that activates the music when pressed, negating the need to place the happy star on top. To this day the happy star remains in the bottom of her toy box. Eventually she also figured out how to take the stars off the pole, meaning she could entertain herself with it for the 17 seconds (and she got faster as she got older) it took her to pull all four stars off the pole. She stayed at that developmental stage for months, though, meaning that once she tired of pushing the music button, if she was going to play with it I had to be present to put the stars on so she could yank them back off the pole.

Then suddenly she figured it out. I was eating my dinner in peace the other night while she played quietly in the living room for a change. When I checked on her I noticed the stars on the stacker were in a weird order even though I usually try to leave the stars in descending order because I’m vaguely obsessive compulsive about such things. I pulled the stars off, tried handing them to her, and in a magical moment she took the star from my hand, sized up the pole, moved the star over the pole, fumbled with it a few times trying to line up the hole with the pole, burped, and finally slipped the star onto the pole. Here’s a picture for proof:



I applauded wildly and made her do it again, and again, and … whoops she lost interest and decided she’d rather chew on a book instead. I’m so proud of her, and I owe it all to my insistence that she entertain herself and let me eat unbothered.

Star Jonesin'

Abbie’s first Christmas present was her star stacker. Her grandmother gave it to her while we were visiting last Thanksgiving. She gave it to her early because Abbie was fast approaching meltdown status and a new toy seemed like a good way to distract her from the crushing reality of life. Plus my mother couldn’t wait to give her first grandchild a Christmas present. The star stacker has a yellow base with a pole sticking up from the middle, four variously colored stars of descending size with holes in the center to be stacked flat on the pole, and a happy star to put on top. Here’s a picture:



At this point, it’s an effective stacking toy for entertaining young children. Fortunately the manufacturer realized that no toy should be without multiple battery-powered functions. As you move the four stars on and off the pole, they trip a button on the side that activates a glissando chime and short sequence of flashing lights. When you put the star on top, stand back because the toy is about to play one of five tunes from the public domain with an accompanying light show. That’s the kind of panache we should expect out of a toy from the “Dance Baby Dance!” toy line, a mildly disturbing name that conjures up images of an old west cowboy shooting at a child’s feet.

Notice in the above description, I talk about “you” moving the stars on and off. The toy is rated for 6-months and up, but at 6-months, which is almost how old she was last Thanksgiving, Abbie was still mostly in blob stage, meaning I interacted with the toy while she watched, kind of like how the Cubs play baseball while I watch, except at no time while playing with the toy did I leave 11 men on base while only scoring one run against the Cardinals. My memory is a little fuzzy at that point since Abbieupdate hadn’t been invented yet, but I think the limit of her interaction with the toy at 6-months was to grab the larger stars and chew on them. I believe the toy succeeded that night in delaying a meltdown by several minutes, and when we were done I gave it back to my mother so she could wrap it and give it to her at the appropriate time.

Fast forward a month to Christmas, and Abbie was nice enough to look surprised and act like she’d never seen the star stacker before when we opened it. She still couldn’t do much with it, though. We packed it up and took it home with us, and she continued to play as it developed motor skills, stimulated the senses, and encouraged cognitive abilities. At least, that’s what the advertising claims it does. If all of our world leaders had enjoyed the star stacker as young children I imagine they’d be a lot closer to finding world peace, or at least they’d have better tactile skills. Slowly she learned how to play with it on her own. I think the first thing she discovered was the little button on top of the pole that activates the music when pressed, negating the need to place the happy star on top. To this day the happy star remains in the bottom of her toy box. Eventually she also figured out how to take the stars off the pole, meaning she could entertain herself with it for the 17 seconds (and she got faster as she got older) it took her to pull all four stars off the pole. She stayed at that developmental stage for months, though, meaning that once she tired of pushing the music button, if she was going to play with it I had to be present to put the stars on so she could yank them back off the pole.

Then suddenly she figured it out. I was eating my dinner in peace the other night while she played quietly in the living room for a change. When I checked on her I noticed the stars on the stacker were in a weird order even though I usually try to leave the stars in descending order because I’m vaguely obsessive compulsive about such things. I pulled the stars off, tried handing them to her, and in a magical moment she took the star from my hand, sized up the pole, moved the star over the pole, fumbled with it a few times trying to line up the hole with the pole, burped, and finally slipped the star onto the pole. Here’s a picture for proof:



I applauded wildly and made her do it again, and again, and … whoops she lost interest and decided she’d rather chew on a book instead. I’m so proud of her, and I owe it all to my insistence that she entertain herself and let me eat unbothered.

My Dinner with Abbie

Ellie was on call last night. This means she came home just long enough to eat dinner, and then I didn’t see her until, well she hasn’t come home yet, but the important thing is I took care of Abbie by myself all night. For most guys, if television and movies are to be believed, this is the entrance ramp to the hilarity highway as dad scrambles to care for his daughter and winds up stapling a newspaper to her because he’s run out of diapers in between burning dinner and overfilling the washing machine with soap. Fortunately I take care of her by myself pretty much all day every day, so tacking the night onto my duties is just a continuation of the rest of the day.

During Ellie’s brief layover at home, I made us dinner without burning anything besides my hand when I grabbed a pot handle that had been resting too close to an active burner. While pasta was boiling and spaghetti sauce was microwaving, I was feeding Abbie. Right now, any foods requiring utensils we must spoon into her mouth for her. I’m not going to feed her forever, so someday she’ll have to feed herself, unless she finds a revenue stream capable of supporting servants to feed her, but that had better be a pretty big revenue stream because I’ll be darned if she’s going to hire dinner servants before we get a maid and possibly a nanny.

With much grunting and scrambling, I managed to put food on the table before Ellie had to leave and dinner in Abbie. Not that I’m trying to brag here; if I were I would work in the fact that I fed the pets in this time period, too. I’m just trying to establish that I was really busy while everyone else ate. Generally this isn’t a problem since I can eat while Abbie busies herself with juice and Tasteeos. Unfortunately, last night Abbie decided she wanted no part of her Tasteeos, though the juice was very nice, thank you, and demanded release from her high chair upon completion of the palatable portion of her dinner before I even had a chance to make myself a plate. I complied and returned to spooning spaghetti for myself.

At this point she normally she runs off to amuse herself by chasing the cats or ripping her books or whatever she wants to do that won’t result in injury; the important thing is she leaves me alone so I can enjoy dinner. Last night, though, she decided to hang on my pant leg screaming with boredom. Without Ellie around to entertain her, I carried her off to her room to sit and enjoy some fine books, or possibly pull all her clothes out of her drawer, or whatever she wanted to do that didn’t require my participation. As soon I sat back down to start on my steaming plate of spaghetti, she came running out of her room wailing with boredom. Like a fly to sugar or a network programming executive to reality shows, she reattached herself to my pant leg and resumed screaming. I looked into her eyes and saw that sometimes young children, try as hard as they might, just can’t entertain themselves. I looked longingly at my cooling plate of spaghetti, realized it was almost cold already anyway, and did what any good parent would do: I called the dog in to entertain her. When our lousy dog failed to come, I gave up and ate with a child howling at my leg. Children need to learn to do things for themselves, and if I drop everything to entertain Abbie every time she whines with boredom she’ll never learn to entertain herself. She will need to entertain herself someday, unless she finds a revenue stream capable of supporting a maid, a nanny, dinner servants, and personal entertainers, and that’s just silly.

My Abbie Sense is Tingling

A wise man once said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” This powerful sentiment, once known to only the nerdiest among us, is now broadcast on basic cable. In its original context, it means that someone with great powers, such as a telepathic power of early warning to danger that selectively works in plot appropriate situations, should use that power for the betterment of society, like saving the life of Kirsten Dunst.

I can apply those words to raising a toddler. Specifically, the more powers Abbie gains, the more responsibility I have to take. On the low end of responsibility, I used to be able to sit on the bed playing video games while she lay on her back playing with her gym. If she complained, I could shake a toy in her general direction with one hand while the other hand stayed on the controller and both eyes remained on the TV. Those good times ended when she acquired the ability to roll over, and I had to take responsibility and watch her to keep her from rolling off the bed despite almost being at the end boss.

Now that she can walk pretty well, I need to take even more responsibility. When she wanders away, I can’t just sit on the couch watching the Cubs game no matter how pivotal the situation. She could be headed for the bathroom, which is filled with all sorts of dangerous objects that are basically designed to attract and harm children, like the toilet. Ellie whipped me into shape years ago about leaving the seat down, so the dangerous indignity of Abbie falling face first into the bowl isn’t likely right now since she can only lift the lid a few inches. That limited lifting skill still gives her plenty of room to touch all sorts of icky things like splashings from tinkle, wee-wee, and even bubbles. I do everything I can to keep her from touching the toilet, but she also likes chewing on soap bottles. These bottles have flip-up caps that she loves prying open with her teeth. The prospect of her chugging the contents of an open soap bottle is bad enough, but dried soap tends to accumulate around these caps that she chews on. Too many times I’ve discovered her happily munching on a soap bottle with a cap that’s substantially cleaner than I remember it being. You’d think that soap with its legendary curse word cleaning power would taste would taste traumatically bad to a toddler, but I guess that’s what I get for feeding her spinach for dinner.

All I have to do is keep the bathroom door shut to keep her out of there. This presents a problem though in that Charlie, our morbidly obese cat, likes to hide in the bathtub and absorb the ambient moisture. If I forget to check the bathtub for 16-pounds of Chuck before shutting the door, I might open it a couple hours later and discover a mildly upset cat and a funny smell in the laundry hamper. Also, shutting the bathroom door just narrows her entertainment possibilities and makes it more likely that she’ll decide to pass the time at the top of the basement steps. She loves standing at the top of the steps staring into the concrete abyss of our basement. This makes me very nervous to see since she falls walking down a slight slope, and if she falls trying to walk down steps she will hurt herself very badly, much worse than rolling off our 3-foot tall bed onto carpeting. Fortunately she’s never shown any desire to walk down the stairs, she just likes standing at the precipice and gaze at the decline, like she’s trying to figure out how to get at all of our wonderful stuff in the basement. She also likes to throw things into the chasm. A few days ago she threw something down the steps that I never saw, I just heard the descending tap-tap-tap, and still haven’t found. I imagine when we move I’ll find some baby toy, like a rattle or a soap bottle, and wonder how it got downstairs. Once she also threw a Weeble, but its distinctive thud-thud-thud made it easily located and retrieved. By the way, I can now happily report that an 8-foot fall onto concrete will not hurt a Weeble, or the concrete for that matter.

All I have to do is keep the basement door shut to keep her from chucking toys or a potential fall. Once again, the cats present a problem since all their stuff is in the basement. Locking them away from their food isn’t much of a problem since they could survive for weeks on stored body fat and stray dog food. Locking them away from their litter box for an extended time is a problem, especially if the laundry hamper is also behind a closed door. So I only shut the basement door when necessary. The rest of the time I keep a close eye on her and rely on my Abbie Sense to warn me when she wanders near the basement, and then I intercept, no matter how pivotal a moment the Cubs are in.

Playground Hog

Our nearby big-box store moved yesterday. Instead of being located in a scary neighborhood two miles from our home, it’s now in an artificial neighborhood in the mall five miles from our home. Everything but the physical building literally disappeared overnight, much like my remaining respect for Bronson Pinchot and the rest of the Surreal Life cast; one day I have to drive two miles for shampoo, the next day I have to drive five. I have mixed feelings about the move: On one hand I have to drive twice as far, navigate a poorly designed parking lot, and fight with Old Navy and Suncoast shoppers every time I need to buy a bottle of laundry detergent. On the other hand, I can also take Abbie to the mall playground at the same time, like I did yesterday on my inaugural visit to the store.* Here are some quick observations that may have little in common except that they all happened yesterday at the mall playground.

I spend much of my time at the playground actively playing with Abbie. Another Active Parent, a mother with her 15-month-old son, caught Abbie’s attention as soon as we arrived. When Abbie wandered up to him, the mother asked them to say hi to each other. I apologized and explained that she doesn’t talk yet. She replied that he doesn’t talk yet either, which makes me feel a lot better. Considering that children are supposed to have a vocabulary of five words by 12-months, I know plenty of children who pass that stage with no words. I’m not sure Ashton Kutcher’s vocabulary is much beyond five words.

Yesterday was apparently grandparent day at the playground because once the other Active Parent left I was the only guardian under age 50. Everyone else in attendance was of grandparent age, sitting on the sidelines. I overheard one small boy asking his grandfather to stand up and play with him, but he turned him down because he’s too big to play on the playground. His weary bones were doubtlessly hoping the boy didn’t notice me, the Active Parent, helping Abbie climb castles. I only wish I could convince her to play on her own by telling her I’m too big to play.

After running around briefly, Abbie found a book that she wanted to read. The playground has many books, and this one was supposed to be a lift-the-flap book, except that these books, when shared by many children in a public place, quickly become guess-what-the-flap-that-used-to-be-here-looked-like-before-it-was-torn-away books. She really liked this book with all its bright colors and gaping flap holes, and by the time we read it twice, it had attracted a slightly older boy who wanted to read it too. Since we were visiting the playground not to read germ-covered books, but to play on germ-covered equipment, I decided to let the boy have it so we could play. The boy greedily accepted it when offered, and ran off to take it to his mother. Abbie was filled with pride because she shared so another child could enjoy the same thing she enjoyed, and giggled with the pleasure of sharing. Just kidding. She screamed hysterically at the sight of another child running away with her book. We need to work on that sharing thing.

After I calmed her down, we played on the equipment for a long while. She’s getting very good at navigating the hill in the castle; she can walk up and down it without falling provided she’s holding tightly onto my hands the entire time. This is an improvement over a few weeks ago when she would still fall when walking down the hill even while holding my hands.

Following many trips up and down the castle hill, I prepared to leave. As I did, I witnessed the rudest and most inconsiderate action I’ve ever seen at the mall playground, at least among the adults. I woman, a grandmother of course, was sitting on the sidelines clipping her fingernails, just letting the severed nails fly. The only way she could have appeared more oblivious to her surroundings is if she were talking on a cell phone while trimming her nails.** It offended me to no end that someone would willingly spread their fingernails all over an environment where small children are running barefoot; I find the concept of someone else’s fingernail embedded in my foot disgusting. I lived with people who had a similar habit in college and it disgusted me then, but that was a little different since you have to trim your nails somewhere and if not at home then where. Plus we were all smart enough to not try eating a fingernail shard we find on the floor, unless alcohol was involved, but that’s a different issue entirely. I shot her a dirty look as we left, but I’m sure Ms. Oblivious failed to notice. Abbie complained when we left probably because she wanted to keep playing, or maybe she just wanted discover what detached fingernail tastes like.

* Verdict: It’s a big-box store. In a mall. Whoopee.
** She was, by the way, talking on a cell phone at the time.

Microwaveupdate

Because you’ve been dying to know, I have an update to our microwave adventures. The hitchhiker transporting our microwave to the service center in Minneapolis found rides quickly because they called me two days ago to ask for more information about the problem. Adhering to the laws of broken machines, the microwave display started working properly once it arrived at the service center. I explained to the technician that the display was just really dark, otherwise it was fine, except for the smell. He thought maybe it just had a loose wire and promised to take a closer look. Yesterday someone called to confirm, yep, the display is broken, and the cost of repairs exceeds the cost of a new microwave so come on down and pick up my brand new microwave. That’s exactly what we thought would happen, and if they would have said that in the first place I could have saved myself some frustration, not to mention the $30 for a limper microwave.

Abbie and I ventured to the store that night since I was already sick of the limper microwave, even though I had only an hour before the start of her bedtime routine, and hell hath no fury like a child being put to bed still wide awake because she didn’t get her full bedtime routine. First we waited at the service counter before a clerk told us to go to appliances and someone would set us up over there. I had visions of a highly trained sales associate checking a computer to find my information and swapping microwaves right there, so I waited a few minutes for the only guy on duty to finish with other people before helping us. I passed the time by checking the microwaves to find the closest match to our old one, a task Abbie made extra difficult by trying to run far away from appliances every time I set her down. When the only guy on duty finally helped us he looked at the receipt, looked at the microwaves, and pointed to the same one I picked out saying “that’s the one you want, same brand, same wattage.” My visions dashed, I replied, “so I just take it up front then?” He affirmed and I bemoaned the minutes I wasted chasing her around the store.

I pushed the microwave in the cart to the registers; no easy feat since it was too big to fit in the cart so I had to push it with one hand while keeping the other hand on the box and hoping Abbie didn’t do anything from her strapped in child seat that warranted the use of my hands. After waiting in line at the register, the cashier informed me, with all the customer service I’ve come to expect from big-box stores, that I’d have to take it up to the service counter. While waiting in line there, a presumed-mother ahead of me in line had a girl of about 2-years standing in the cart basket. According to the crude carvings in the cart, this is a big no-no because any sudden cart movements could send the child flying onto the floor, causing an injury so horrific that the store will deny any liability.

“See,” the mother said to the girl, “that girl is being good and is strapped into the cart.” I imagine this was the mother’s subtle way of telling her girl to be good and sit down, but the message went right over her head, which isn’t surprising considering since the mother missed my subtle message that she’s your daughter, and she’s only 2! She has to listen to you! If you don’t want her to do something so dangerous, don’t let her! Ahem.

Once I arrived at an associate who could actually helped me, things moved pretty quickly. Thanks to the magic of declining technology prices, our new microwave is .4 cubic feet bigger than our 2-year-old former microwave, and it cost $15 less. It even comes with some features our old microwave didn’t have like a working display and a baked potato button just in case you want to make a baked potato in the microwave.* I promptly applied my $15 refund toward the purchase of a new extended warranty because apparently today’s microwaves have about a 2-year life span.

Finally with one hand on the handlebars and the other hand on the microwave, I turned the cart to leave. Unfortunately, I should have reserved one hand to check Abbie because she had one hand dangling outside the cart, which I obliviously crunched between the cart and the counter. I realized my mistake as soon as she started screaming, and dropped everything to pick her up and comfort her lest someone think I’m some negligent parent who would let his daughter do something dangerous like stand up in a moving cart. Dropping everything sadly included my receipt that I will need when my new microwave breaks in 2008. I left that receipt in the store as I left,** this time with one hand holding Abbie and the other hand pushing the cart by holding the microwave. (What do I care if the cart gets away from me and I drop the microwave? I bought the extended warranty.) With much grunting, we made it outside with just enough time to stop for frozen custard before bedtime because, you know, they’re on the way home.

* You don’t.
** Update: I called the store that night and they said they had my receipt, and would save it for me to pick up. I went back the next day to retrieve it before they lost it, and they had already lost it. Fortunately they could print a new receipt for me using only my telephone number. Now about those privacy concerns…

"Don't you think those youngsters deserve a regulation tetherball?"

Our neighbors recently erected a tetherball pole in our joint backyard. You may remember tetherball as the grade-school game involving a ball tied or “tethered” with a long rope to a pole that seemed about 20-feet tall at the time, but was probably closer to 6-feet. Two people played at a time standing on opposite ends of a circle, and the object was to hit the ball back and forth with the rope wrapping around the pole a little more each time one person missed until it wrapped as far around the pole as it could and bounced back in the opposite direction. At this point the player with the coordination of a newborn elephant lost and was subject to constant ridicule until all who witnessed the game forgot, usually at the end of recess. Tetherball was always one of my favorite grade-school games, partially because one game could last all recess. Boredom was one of the leading causes of missing the ball, at least until one player figured out how to hit it on an angle so the ball would be high above the opponent’s head each revolution, quickly subjecting him to shameful taunts. Tetherball was much better than foursquare, which tends to attract cheaters with their overhands and their carries, or worse moves like typewriters and skyscrapers. Anything was legal on playground foursquare as long as you said the technique’s name first. It also helped if no adults noticed.

Abbie loves this new tetherball equipment. Not that she can play tetherball with it yet, which is probably just as well since I’d smoke her if she tried. She loves to just grab the ball. When I take her outside, the tetherball is the first thing she runs to, assuming that no dogs are doing anything interesting and she hasn’t noticed the ever-enticing rocks yet. She will then hunt down the ball and grab hold with both hands, even if the neighbor children happen to be playing with it at the time. The neighbor children usually cooperate quite nicely with her little infatuation and stop the ball from moving so she can grab it, a generous action that doubtless reinforces that “me” complex she enjoys. Once she lays her mitts on the ball, she just basically stands still. You might think that she’d do something with this ball she likes so much like, oh, I don’t know, throw it, but she just holds the ball with both hands while standing motionless except for the occasional vocalization like she’s a 25-pound lion proclaiming dominance over her captured prey. There’s an axiom that if a dog chasing a car ever caught it, he wouldn’t know what to do with it; the same principle applies here as she loves hanging objects, but hasn’t thought far enough ahead to consider what she’d do if she ever grabbed one.

While walking with her through a store, I’ll occasionally notice that something has grabbed her attention and sucked her face so dry of all expression that you’d swear she were watching a reality television show. I’ll turn and invariably find something dangling nearby. Advertisers love to use displays featuring dangling objects probably because they know how effective they are at attracting children, and in turn their parents (“Wow, five seconds ago I wasn’t even thirsty, but now I’m dying for the taste of this curry-flavored soda!”). Balloons are also popular with children and advertisers, particularly when they have a promotion to publicize like special financing available or free toilet paper with the purchase of bran flakes. I’m pretty sure that advertisers are the same people who cheated the worst at foursquare in grade school.

Bye Bye Bye

Abbie finally waved bye-bye last night. As I finished reading to her before putting her to sleep for the night, our dog wandered into her room and stared at us. This is an unusual behavior for her; she must have been attention deprived, or maybe I just inadvertently said, “treat.” Regardless, I’m glad she decided to enter her room because it gave us a chance to practice bye-bye.

“There’s Chloe,” I exclaimed with a level of excitement generally reserved for those precious moment when your team is on the good end of a pivotal sports moment.* “She’s saying good night to you,” which is of course ridiculous because the dog doesn’t say good night to anyone until she’s had a chance to lay on our bed for a solid hour cleaning her paws, but Abbie doesn’t know that. “Can you say good night to her?” I added in a desperate attempt to encourage speech. One day she will say “good night” and we will celebrate with joyous exultation and possibly a cookie, but not until morning because the last thing I want to do is stimulate her before bedtime. “Wave bye-bye,” I continued, this time swinging my arm up and down about 12-inches in an exaggeratedly simple waving motion. “Can you wave bye-bye?” I said, hoping to promote her adoption of a vitally important life skill. She watched me wave for a couple cycles with the same vacant expression I see every time I ask her to wave bye-bye, or every time I ask her to drop that dog food, or every time I tell her to drop that dog food. Then she grabbed my arm in the same way that she grabs it when she wants me to point at something for her. Thinking that little hamster inside her head was starting to turn its wheel, I said “no, I want you to wave,” the same type of phrase I use to make her point when she grabs my arm. Then she made magic; she performed an action that told us that that tiny baby we brought into the world a little over a year ago is fast becoming a girl capable of acting independently; she tooted. Then she waved. She didn’t use good form, it was more like she was playing pat-a-cake on the knee she sat on, but there was a definite intentional up and down arm motion repeated, and that’s close enough for parenting.

For us, this is an important milestone on par with first steps or first hair cut.** The fact that she couldn’t wave bye-bye has upset Ellie for a long time, especially since most babies learn to wave bye-bye long before now. For her, going to work would be so much easier if Abbie could wave bye-bye. It would leave a giant lasting smile on her face that would make her co-workers ask, “What are you smiling about?” When she says, “my kid just waved bye-bye to me,” a co-worker might reply “my kid just glued a hunk of plywood to his brother’s forehead,” and she could continue throughout day content with the knowledge of what an angel Abbie is, completely unaware that she’s probably whining with boredom at home right now. Her inability to wave never bothered me to the same level, although I am tiring of explaining to the cashiers at the grocery store that “she doesn’t do ‘bye-bye’” when they wave as we leave.

As she waved, I started thinking of situations I could create the next day to test and show off her newfound waving talent. I then uttered some joyous exultations, but not too joyous. I don’t want to over stimulate her right before bedtime.

* At least, that’s what I’ve heard. I am a Cubs fan after all. And a Drake basketball fan. Sigh.
** Memo to self: She needs her first hair cut.

"I have got to do something about that air conditioner suction."

Here in Iowa, we’re experiencing a scorching heat wave. It’s been so hot, people have been packing the theaters for “Fantastic Four” just to for the air conditioning. This is in direct contrast to last summer when the temperature stayed fairly pleasant for the entire summer and I was cursing my luck for determining that would be the first summer we lived in our housing with free utilities; I only have three years to enjoy our cushy arrangement, and I want all of the hot weather out of the way before I have to start paying air conditioning bills again. We’re certainly getting lots of hot weather out of the way this year. Without looking up anything, or “doing research” as real writers would call it, I’d say that we’ve suffered at least four straight weeks of high temperatures in the mid-80’s and up, and dew points no lower than 60. The past few days have days have seen the temperatures top 90 with the dew point in the upper 60’s. Yesterday, the heat index hit 100, and the thermometer in Ellie’s truck that’s parked on the concrete sea we call a front yard read 112. All of this may not sound exceptionally hot to people in warmer climates, like Missouri or Hell,* but remember that in Iowa summer is our respite from months of snow and the radical temperature change breaks us like a small cracked cup holding frozen food being microwaved for six minutes.

Extreme heat like what we’re now seeing makes young children cranky. Of course, many other things make children cranky, including extreme cold and ideal temperatures, but the heat affects young children in a unique way; specifically it makes them hot. When adults are hot, we can cool down a bit by finding a breeze or fanning ourselves. If that doesn’t work, we can take our minds off the heat by engaging in idle chatter with phrases like “sure is hot today” and “hot enough for you?” Young children lack the breeze-finding and idle chatter abilities of adults, though, leaving their comfort to the mercy of the elements. Oh, and their caretakers have a role in helping keep them cool, too.

We have air conditioning, so keeping Abbie cool is as simple as keeping her inside. Keeping her inside is not simple by the way. First there’s the myriad of chores I must complete throughout the course of the day with her in tow. Between visiting the store for groceries, the auto shop for car repairs, and the bank for cookie day, we’re constantly moving in and out and about town in my car. My car has air conditioning in the sense that there’s a setting that turns on a compressor capable of producing air marginally cooler than the outside air. This compressor makes the car’s interior bearable, but I still have to plan frequent stops to give her a chance to cool down in store air conditioning before she has a chance to complain too vociferously about the heat. The piercing sun also creates comfort problems by warming exposed metal, specifically the metal found on car seat buckles, to temperatures ordinarily associated only with the boiling point of purely hypothetical metals. I have to be very careful when buckling her in so I don’t burn her, which would make her scream, or burn myself, which would make me scream and, in turn, her scream. Second, keeping her inside all day is tough because she entertains herself so much better outside. Even in this heat, when she grows bored of the approximately 68,494,035 books and toys assembled inside for her enjoyment, I’ll take her outside because of the nearly infinite number of amusing objects out there (Woodchips! Grass! Ants!). I do my best to keep her in one of the many shaded areas of our yard, and sometimes my efforts work for as long as 49 seconds because something of immeasurable interest will always catch her eye in the unprotected parts of the lawn. As she toddles after it, I do my best to stay between her and the sun, risking melanoma and sunburn to keep her in portable shade while she jams rocks in her mouth. Eventually the heat gets to her, or at least one of us, and I carry her back into our nicely air conditioned home. Hopefully all of this hot weather will be out of the way when we move in a couple of years.

* Is that redundant?

"Get it while it's unbelievably hot, kids!"

We recently lost a good friend; a friend who had been with us for the past two years; a friend who has been indispensable to me in preparing Abbie’s meals; a friend who always did a fine job in very little time without making a lot of noise except for a big long beep when finished. Our microwave is out for repairs, and it’s left me in a tough spot until it returns in four to six weeks.

Our microwave actually broke a couple of weeks ago, we just finally took it for repairs Thursday. Nothing major was wrong with it like the magic elves living inside stopped heating food or giant sparks started shooting out the back, the LCD screen just turned dark. I could still decipher the display, but it required a lot of contorting, squinting, and turning off lights. This made reading time-based functions, like how much remained on the timer or the time of day, very difficult if not impossible. Otherwise the microwave worked fine enough that I thought I could limp along until, I don’t know, maybe until the magic elves living inside stopped heating food, possibly because of a strike.

Being the efficient (i.e. cheap) daddy that I am, I make my own baby food by pouring mashed fruits and shredded vegetables and chicken into ice cube trays, and then freeze them. For meals I pop a few frozen food cubes in a cup and heat it in the microwave, so you can see how much I use the microwave. Thursday night I started making her dinner as usual, throwing the food in the microwave and keying in 67 seconds. Then I went to rest on the bed for a couple minutes since Abbie was still napping. When I rose, I discovered that I must have inadvertently keyed in 667 (or possibly 677) because the microwave was still whirring away. Picking up after a 1200-watt microwave chars a couple ounces of food was not fun, ranking somewhere below even waiting six hours in line to buy a Harry Potter book at midnight. Smoke infested the entire kitchen leaving a stench that still lingers, and the inside of the microwave smells worse than the inside of Moises Alou’s batting gloves. The cup the food was in was destroyed; apparently liquid seeped into a crack in the cup, and when it expanded after being ridiculously overheated it blew the cup apart. The explosion probably would have been cool if I had been watching, and it was just as well since no way would I have wanted to clean super-burnt food from the cup.

That night we uttered a phrase man has seldom spoken, “thank god we bought the extended warranty,” and took the microwave in for service. The helpful technicians verified that no, the display is not working properly, and yes, the inside does stink, before informing us that it’s nothing they can fix in the store. It has to be sent to Minneapolis, possibly by horse drawn carriage, because we won’t see it again for at least the next month.

I realized that my elaborate backup cooking system of boiling water would not suffice for a month and spent yesterday searching for a new microwave to limp us through the next month. I first checked to see if our complex had a spare microwave we could borrow, but no luck there. When I explained our predicament to the housing director, she did helpfully suggest that we might as well go to the river and clean our laundry on the rocks if we’re going to try cooking for a 13-month-old without a microwave. Next I ventured out to the various discount stores dotting the metro to buy the finest microwave I could find for under $30. The one I choose is about half the size and power of our regular microwave, and it lacks some of the amenities we’ve come to expect on modern microwaves, like an LCD display, a lighted interior, a door that opens easily, and radiation shielding. It does what I need it to do, though, which is heat food, so I think I can live with it for a month. As a bonus, it doesn’t stink.

"There's someone here who can help you." "Is it Batman?"

We stopped by the mall playground again yesterday. This is not an uncommon occurrence since I’ve worked out a system of stopping at the mall while I’m on my way home from running chores. Specifically, I needed to grab some things from the nearby big-box store, and as long as I was out I swung by Culver’s for frozen custard. I frequently go to Culver’s for frozen custard “as long as I’m out,” even if “out” means going across the street for gas while Culver’s is across town. It’s not like I’m addicted to the stuff, but when the flavor of the day is Peanut Butter Dream, that’s hard to resist even if my man La Monte isn’t working the drive-thru so I can order a single-scoop and actually receive the equivalent of a triple-scoop. Anyway, the mall is on the way home from Culver’s so it feels like I’m accomplishing two important tasks for driving much further than otherwise needed.

The playground was fairly busy yesterday with maybe a dozen kids using it at any one time. The play area is fairly small, maybe 15 x 25, which by my math amounts to .839 hectares of play area, or 10.7 rods of play area per child (2105 mL Canadian).* This means crowds can create problems if older or rambunctious kids are careening about like sugar-buzzed balls on a bumper pool table made of candy. Fortunately everyone seemed as under control as young children can be, unlike last time when a tot flung his 1/8th scale dump truck wildly about the playground. Most of the kids also looked to be age six or younger, at least until we were ready to leave and a boy resembling an 8-year-old Eminem arrived, complete with baggy pants, wife-beater, and ball cap. He played nicely enough, though he looked as sullen as possible for an 8-year-old boy to look while climbing miniature castles and gigantic insects, and the only real threat he posed to anyone is if he tripped and his gold necklace inadvertently slipped off his neck and struck someone.

The playground’s castle has a somewhat steep slope leading in and out of it. This slope is a favorite for big kids to perilously zoom up and down, but since everyone was fairly calm, Abbie took the opportunity to try climbing it. She isn’t much of a climber, and was having some trouble figuring out how to scale it. Then, at the risk of sounding like a grandmother, a very nice boy took it upon himself to help her up and down the slope. 6-year-old Nicholas grabbed her hand and helped her walk, or helped push her from below if she was trying to crawl up the incline. I usually had to help her back down since Nicholas couldn’t comprehend how a toddler could have so much more trouble going down a hill than going up it. Nicholas spent almost the entire time we stayed at the playground helping her move about, taking her hand and helping her up when necessary. At one point, she actually grabbed his hand when she thought she needed assistance, which I thought was pretty darned cute. Nicholas assured me that he helps others a lot back home. Apparently he’s originally from Des Moines, but now lives in Wisconsin; he’s just back in Des Moines visiting his aunt. I thanked him profusely for being such a good kid, but I guess that’s what I should expect out of kids from the same state that gave us frozen custard.

* Before you trust my math skills too much, keep in mind that I originally thought she would drink almost two gallons of milk per week, and now realize that she’ll only drink slightly more than one gallon in a week. I’m currently hoping she can finish the second gallon I bought over a week ago before it goes bad.

"You know how I feel about giving."

Abbie’s newest game involves sharing. It begins with her picking up something off the ground outside, usually a woodchip or rock. I haven’t tried yet, but the game may also work with other things she picks up like books, toys, and soap bottles. After carrying around the object for a minute and deciding that she doesn’t want to chew on it, at least not yet, she will often reach out her hand to offer her treasure. I’ll take it from her and enthusiastically thank her for giving me the prettiest rock in the whole world, even though it’s just a landscaping rock that you can buy for about a buck a pound. She can look very pleased when I thank her for the rock, like she just accomplished something very good like cleaning her plate or not peeing while I’m changing her. I’ll hold onto the rock for a second, and then offer it back to her asking if she wants her rock back. The answer is usually a definite “yes” as she snatches it quicker than a chilidog waved under Gary Busee’s nose. To continue the game, I usually have to ask for the rock back; “Give me the rock, please,” I’ll say with an outstretched hand. I may have to repeat myself a few times, but she’ll usually give the rock back to me, and the game will repeat like this for several rounds until one of us loses interest, or until she tries to shove the rock in her mouth and I knock it away with disgust.

This wonderful game teaches many important life skills, even more important than the alphabet, or at least the little used freak letters. It teaches sharing, which is very important because her current idea of sharing is “gimme, gimme, gimme.” Her age and lack of exposure to other children her age means she has no idea that someone else might derive enjoyment from something she wants. I grow weary of her grabbing my pants and collapsing into a tearful blob while I try to eat my dinner in peace. Through this game, she’ll hopefully learn the value of sharing and waiting her turn, two skills she will need to know if she’s to work in fast food as a teenager because no way am I going to pay for her cell phone bill.

I’m also teaching her communication with this game, which is very important since she still isn’t talking. If talking ad nauseam while passing a rock back and forth is what it takes to start that trap yapping, so be it. More importantly, by frequently slipping “please” and “thank you” into these conversations, I’m teaching her not just words, but the most critical words for daily life. A couple years form now, when she walks up to another girl, rips a toy out of her hands, and politely adds “thank you” before strolling away, before I chew her out for taking another girl’s toy, I’ll smile with pride as I know where I taught her to say “thank you.” Of course, for all of this communication to pay off, she has to actually pay attention to me when I talk. Since she just stares at the rock the entire time I hold it instead of making eye contact, I don’t know if anything is sinking into her cranium. Once I held the rock up to my nose so it felt like she was looking straight into my eyes, but I don’t think that counts. Still, she may be well prepared for the future as watching the object as she hands it off is important to do or else she might drop the food she’s handing out of the drive-thru 15 years from now.

Technical Difficulties

Sorry for the lack of posts. My internet's been down for a few days. I'm still mooching off a college internet server. The service is free and worth every penny. Anyway, the last couple of day's worth of posts are up now.

"Note to self: Stop. Doing. Anything."

I’ve been noticing various parenting styles recently. The more I take Abbie into places where young children congregate, the more opportunity I have to watch other parents in action. I can learn through careful observation of successful breeders important parenting skills, at the same time Abbie can learn by watching older children in active play all sorts of bad habits to annoy us. My opportunities to watch parents work increased dramatically recently as several new residents with young children moved in, and they use the communal park much more than their predecessors. This could be because the newness of the park for them creates a novelty that they want to enjoy now but will soon forget about, like a child receiving a new toy or a sane human watching “Hogan Knows Best.” It could also be because the new residents have children in that magic age range of 6-36 months who are incapable of entertaining themselves so everyone takes them out to the park because they’ve run out of things to do inside. Taking young children outside always amuses them, possibly because of the infinite number of objects that can be inserted in the mouth. Our complex’s former residents had older children who, when their parents tired of keeping them busy, could leave them alone and know they’d find a way to entertain themselves, or, better yet, take them to school.

After comparing myself to these new parents, I see that I actually have a fairly involved parenting style. This comes as a bit of a surprise to me since I always assumed that watching Abbie repeatedly fall while trying to walk gave me a hands-off style that would concern most child-protection authorities. My philosophy in public is don’t intervene in her affairs unless she’s doing something dangerous, naughty, or just plain crying. Her most common dangerous activity is sticking random objects in her mouth, such as grass or other plants, rocks, woodchips, bugs, and long-discarded food remnants. Even though the rational parent in me knows she could likely munch on all of these things without harm, the emotional parent in me sees these objects as covered with horrible diseases that would make Ebola feel like a stiff neck after sleeping wrong, and besides they’re woodchips! Why for the love of god do you insist on shoving woodchips in your mouth? Naughty behaviors include taking things from other children; if someone else has it, she wants it. Pacifiers are especially maddening since she has never shown much interest in them unless a nearby child happens to be sucking on one, in that situation I have to repeatedly knock her hands away to prevent her from stealing it for her mouth. Crying I have much less tolerance for when we’re in public instead of inside by ourselves. If we’re alone, I’ll usually let her cry for a minute to see if she can work through it on her own. Doing so builds character, plus it frees me to watch pivotal moments in Cubs games. When other people are around, I try to comfort her quickly, partially because she generally has a good reason for crying when she’s outside, and partially because I don’t want to look like the kind of parent who lets his child cry for a minute to see if she can work through it on her own.

These seem like good guidelines to me, but they give me a more active parenting role than our neighbors. I’ll often see behavior that I would correct go ignored. Sometimes parents don’t do anything when their child walks right in the pathway of an active swing. This may be because they have multiple children, and another one happens to be doing something even more dangerous at the time. This may also be because of the communal nature of the park where we all look out for each other’s children. In the swing scenario, I’ll do my part and warn the child to be more careful. Other parents have swooped in to knock the woodchips from Abbie’s fingers before I could intervene, so I’ve benefited from the commune.

The most ignored behaviors seem to be rude behaviors. When I see children struggling to share, I want to jump in and referee, but then I see the parents standing on the sidelines often ignoring the scrum. I figure they know something I don’t, like children need to learn to work through these things on their own so go ahead and let them reach a compromise they both can accept by themselves, or maybe it’s just the billionth time today they’ve fought over a toy so unless there’s blood involved I don’t care. Specifically, there was the time Abbie came up to a 2-year-old girl who was blowing bubbles and tried to grab the bubble wand. The little girl looked horribly offended, then leaned into Abbie’s face to scream, “Go away.” I thought this was too rude and if it had been my daughter I would have told her to be nice and not yell, but then I noticed the girl’s mother standing a few feet away not paying attention and figured that since Abbie shouldn’t have tried to grab the bubble wand in the first place, maybe ignoring the situation would help both girls learn some social consequences on their own. Then again, this is the same little girl whose mother ignored her while she ate woodchips until she threw up, so maybe that’s a bad example.

Dude

The fact that Abbie can’t/won’t talk really bothers me; if she never learns to talk, she may never move out of the house. Despite hearing the same words several times everyday, words like “no” and “dog” and “no dog food,” she still doesn’t say anything that I could call a word without stretching the definition of “word” to include “argh.” I dread her 15-month checkup seven weeks from now, because her doctor said that if she hadn’t spoken yet they’d start trying to figure out why, which I interpret as “you’ve slacked off teaching her language for this first year so you’ve got 3 months to kick it in gear.” I know that she can hear well enough; she points to pictures in books when I ask and when I tell her “no dog food” she looks at me long enough that I know she’s choosing to ignore my command. I know some kids are just late talkers, especially when they have as little exposure to other little chatterboxes as she does. Unfortunately, I also know I didn’t talk to her enough in her first few months.

I’m a guy, and as a guy, I can have meaningful conversations with other guys using very few words, sometimes only the word “dude.” For example:

Ding-dong
“Dude.” (The pizza is here.)
“Dude.” (I’m watching TV, can you get it?)
“Dude.” (I need some money first.)
“Dude.” (I don’t have any money, I’ll pay you back.)
“Dude.” (You’re the one who said you wanted pizza in the first place.)
“Dude.” (So?)
“Dude.” (Douche.)

This works fine for communicating with my ilk, but Abbie isn’t a guy and needs to know lots of words to succeed. Once she tolerated books, I talked to her a lot more, but I knew she still needed to hear more language, I just didn’t know what to say.

One day on the mall playground, Abbie wandered up to another mom, and I saw what baby communication is supposed to be. Abbie caught her attention, and this woman let loose with a string of toddler babble that, with daily exposure, would have any infant talking by 6 months, if for no other reason that to shut her up. Here’s a close reproduction:

”Hi! What’s your name? (I tell her) Abbie? That’s a really good name. My name is Suzy (or whatever she said). My pants are blue, just like your dress is blue. Your dress has such pretty flowers. Do you like flowers? I like flowers. I have lots of pretty flowers at home. My favorite flowers are roses. They can be red, or white, or pink, or yellow, or …”

And so on. She may still be there talking, I don’t know. What I do know is she let loose with a phenomenal stream of consciousness sprinkled with colors. I’m doing my best to emulate that style by just saying whatever comes to mind. Sometimes I’ll describe the dressing process as I dress her, or say the colors of things as she touches them, or even try to teach her how to order a pizza and let a friend pay for it.

"First it started to fall over, then it fell over."

Abbie returned home yesterday just in time to visit a baby shower with us. On one hand, this was not a smart thing to do since she would doubtless be cranky from the long car ride and harder to control than Kenny Rogers at a press conference. On the other hand, her crankiness would create a perfect excuse to leave early, not that we didn’t like these people, but Ellie literally had just returned home and still needed to accomplish important post-journey tasks like unloading her truck and taking a two-hour nap.

We walked to a nearby home, and just as predicted, Abbie soon degenerated to a whining mess. Looking back, I must have wanted this to happen since I left her diaper bag at home, and her diaper bag contains everything I use to entertain her away from home: Her books, her toys, her Tasteeos, and once I get desperate enough, her diapers. The baby shower offered very little to entertain her, too. Often at a party, I can limit her protests by keeping food in her mouth, but the only food at this party was small hard objects like nuts, pastel mints, and M&M’s, or as we in the business call them, airway blockers. They also had cake, but it seemed a little rude to commandeer a piece to feed her before the hosts had even cut it, plus keeping her quiet by shoveling her full of lard and sugar would likely be a short-lived and counterproductive endeavor.

With nothing for entertainment, we had to create our own fun. For Abbie, this means exploring. As long as she feels comfortable, she can entertain herself in strange locations for long stretches of time, as much as three minutes or more, just by wandering around the place. She’ll walk in a circle around the perimeter of the room examining the walls, and by the time she returns to her starting point, much like a goldfish swimming circles in a bowl, she’ll have forgotten everything she just saw, which allows her to circle the room and experience it again for the first time. I led her into the kitchen since it was pretty devoid of people except for the occasional passer-through and a mother trying to entertain her two young boys. The house we visited had no resident children, so I needed to keep a close eye on Abbie for her protection, and the protection of anything at Abbie-level. She quickly ran a couple of laps around the kitchen, taking note of interesting objects as she passed them (“Hey, a stove! Hey, a trash can! Hey, a refrigerator! Hey, a stove!”). By this time, she had been awake for a couple hours and was getting awfully tired, leaving her wobbly on her feet. She normally falls a lot while walking, but when tired she falls even more. Falling while walking usually doesn’t bother her unless she does something especially painful when she lands like hit her head on something; she usually just rises back to her feet and continues walking. I let her walk and fall undisturbed for a little while at the shower, then she hit her head on the refrigerator and we intervened to calm her back down. That should have been my cue to take her home, but once calm I let her walk and fall some more, and sure enough she quickly hit her head on the corner of a metal furnace vent. That one really ticked her off, and judging from the glowing red mark on her forehead, she had every right to scream. We took her outside to calm her this time, and it required several songs and dances to take her mind off the horrible throbbing pain long enough to stop crying. I finally got the hint and we announced it was time to leave. I felt a little guilty since everyone seemed much more concerned about her head trauma than I was; somehow answering “bah, she does that all the time” felt like child neglect. I shrugged it off and we walked back home to unload the truck and take our naps.

Back to a Bachelor

Ellie and Abbie are out of town this weekend, so I get to enjoy a temporary return to bachelor life. My bachelor days were a carefree time involving lots of sleep, television, and junk food. It’s kind of funny, and I don’t mean “ha ha funny,” but this weekend hasn’t been an exact replica of my life before Abbie.

I remember sleeping in until 9 when I had no reason to wake up, 10 on a good morning. Those were good times. Now my alarm is set for 6:10am almost every day. I imagine there are people in non-childcare related fields who wake up at the same painfully early time nearly every day, such as a paperboy, the president, or the owner of a not-very-profitable small business like an oil change shop where they let you add the oil before leaving so you can say you changed the oil yourself. There may also be some crazed non-breeders out there who wake up early on weekdays so they can jog five miles before their high-profile job, and keep the same jogging schedule on weekends so they can partake in weekend morning activities like fun runs and spending large wads of disposable incomes at the farmer’s market. I wake up excruciatingly early so I can work before spending yet another glorious day wiping baby drool and figuring out why she’s crying this time. With no child to mop up after, I turned my alarm clock off with intentions of sleeping in, but my wake time is so entrenched I woke up at 6:30 anyway. I tried to go back to sleep, but my brain refused to let me, insisting that I must have a child to care for and if I don’t roll out of bed soon her nap schedule will be off for the entire day and god help us all if that happens. So I grudgingly rose, clearing space for our cats to lounge in bed all day, free of the fear of being stalked by a toddler.

Once awake, my bachelor days involved a lot of television with a little Playstation mixed in for variety. This weekend was much the same, except that instead of passively watching television, I edited some television programs together. That was our bargain when Ellie left: I get to stay home alone only if I spend massive amounts of time working in front of the computer on those freelance projects that had been rotting on my hard drive for a couple of months. This was an exciting proposition for me since I missed my old editing job and relished the opportunity to burn a hole in my (still dry) keyboard. After working hard all weekend, or at least as hard as you can work sitting in front of a pair of computer monitors, I now remember why I opted to leave my job and take care of Abbie full-time; the wake-feed-clean-change-chase routine is absolutely scintillating compared to the sit-slice-cut-drag-render-sit-sit-scratch-sit routine. At least I could play Playstation again without having to make sure the boss was out of the office.

The area that best harkens back to my bachelor days is my eating habits. Ellie has a long list of foods she will not eat including chocolate, fish, and most vegetables, and another long list of foods she will only eat in certain circumstances. For example, she will eat strawberry flavored foods as long as they don’t have seeds, or foods with onion as long as she doesn’t have to bite any onion pieces. On most nights, I have a short list of eligible dishes to prepare, but this weekend I could throw that list out and make dinner with giant hunks of onion, and desserts so dense with chocolate they produce a discernable gravitational pull. I ate burgers and chocolate-cherry cobbler one night, and a giant pan of smores bars to snack on all weekend, because video editing is a surprisingly energy-intensive activity.

Bonus fun fact: While Ellie was home, the Cubs lost eight straight. While she was gone, they won three straight. Was it mere coincidence that as soon as her negative energy left, they won?

Birds: Our Fine Feathered Colleagues

We spent yesterday afternoon visiting assorted businesses to purchase various essential supplies and miscellaneous important tasks. We hit the bread store to stock up on cheap day-old bread that I can freeze and thaw as needed since no one can tell the difference between frozen and fresh bread, or at least I can’t and that’s all the matters. We hit the grocery store to buy groceries and engage in the Iowa tradition of returning empty pop cans.* We hit the bank to deposit a check and, more importantly, pick up a free cookie because Friday is Cookie Day at our bank, and those free cookies ensure our loyalty better than any favorable interest rate or well-lit parking lot could. Upon returning home, our wonderful neighbor approached as I was releasing Abbie from her car seat.

“Can I ask you something?” she said. As I told her to go ahead, my mind buzzed with the possibilities of what a mother of seven, a woman who had spent the past 14 consecutive years raising at least one child under the age of 2, could possibly have to learn from me. If anything, I should spend my days shadowing her so I can pick her brain for answers to the millions of questions I have like “How can I encourage language development?” or “How can I prevent her from eating dog food?” or “How do I not go insane caring for a toddler all day?”

Not surprisingly, her question had very little to do with children. While playing in the park, one of her kids found a bird with a broken wing, and she wanted to know what I thought they could do for it. Since our home contains four animals, not counting fish or the occasional mouse I see scurrying around the basement, we are the intuitive choice to approach with animal questions, never mind that birds are close to my least favorite pet, ranking just below non-cute rodents, like the Ethiopian Ebola Rat. The best thing to do in my opinion was to place the bird back in the park with a bell around its neck or some other device to attract nearby stray cats to put it out of its misery quickly because there was nothing we could do for an injured wild bird without a degree in ornithology and some very tiny surgical instruments. Not that I said that. I told her to keep the bird out of her house to prevent bringing parasites into her home and call my vet to see what they recommended. She called, and they recommended what I was thinking, minus the bell; it’s really hard to care for an injured wild bird, and, awful as it sounds, you don’t want to go to a lot of trouble for a common wild bird.

The family dutifully returned the bird to the park. The kids tried giving it worms to eat, a gesture that a stray cat somewhere doubtless appreciated. Her younger kids had trouble letting it go, and she said she would have cried if she were that age too. Honestly, I might have done the same thing at that age. I remember my family taking in a hurt bird when I was young, probably saving it from being eaten that night, and instead dooming it to die in our garage that night. Leaving a hurt animal to die is hard for kids, even now that they have “The Lion King” to teach them about the circle of life. I’ll just chalk this up as another lesson I’m glad I don’t have to teach Abbie yet. Her greatest worry is whether or not today is Cookie Day.

* Iowans will gladly endure any hardship, including congregating in cramped rooms with astonishingly sticky floors and handling aluminum cans decorated with a base coat of dried fructose and a top coat of pet hair and other assorted detritus, as long as we get our nickel back.

London

I am a news junkie. I spend almost my entire day listening to NPR.* Concentrating on the news rolling across the wire instead of the mundane and often infuriating aspects of raising a child helps keep me sane. I discovered this trick on my last job, which was almost as mundane and infuriating but at least had significantly less screaming. Now I use a network of three strategically place radios spread throughout the house, all of which are often simultaneously turned on to the same station so I can move seamlessly throughout the house without missing a word on that report on how a particular type of sponge makes a really hard kind of glass. During the day, the radio is often the only place I hear anything resembling adult conversation given Abbie’s propensity to screech and continuing inability to talk even though she has to hear the phrase “This is NPR” at least 50 times every day.

My news junkie status meant I woke up yesterday, like much of America, to the news of the horrible bombings in London, but not from the radio. The first thing I do in the morning is work for a little while before the Time Guzzler awakens. I don’t write so good with the radio on in the background,** so I leave it off while working. I include in the word “work” not only the time spent accomplishing something constructive, or as close to constructive as writing Abbieupdate gets, but the time spent surfing the internet before constructing anything to prime the mental pump. I knew it would be a hard day when the first site I visited, a pop culture-related blog, began with “Everybody’s heard by now … about the bombings in London.” After poking around the internet for a little longer than usual to find all I could about the bombings, which wasn’t much at the time, I worked for a little while before spending the next four hours listening to ghastly reports trickle into the states.

My closest connection to London is a vague realization that my unknown ancestors likely emigrated from the UK. Even though the closest I’ve journeyed to London is Maine, and central Maine at that, I still felt a sense of loss and vulnerability. Similar bombings could easily occur in any city in America, or the world. Three bombs may have exploded in the subways, or tubes (I wish I hadn’t learned the lingo this way), which most cities don’t have, but the deadliest bomb may have exploded on the bus. I’ve ridden enough buses to imagine a similar bomb detonating near me.

Abbie is far too young to comprehend acts of terrorism; she’ll have to comprehend the consequences of putting rocks in her mouth before she can understand such a horrific concept. Hopefully I’ve still got a few years before I have to calm her after hearing about the latest appalling act. As long as I’m wishing, hopefully there will never be another appalling act to hear about. In the meantime, my thoughts are in London.

* If the Cubs are playing and haven’t fallen hopelessly behind yet, I’ll switch to the Cubs game, but even then I’ve been known to turn the television on to the Cubs game with the sound off and keep NPR on the radio.

** Want proof? I’m listening to the Cubs paste the Marlins right now.