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wants & needs

Hump day on a short week for me because I’m taking Friday off because…

This weekend we’re going camping, the season’s inaugural trip. Yeah, some may say it’s still a bit early for camping in the foothills, but the weather gypsies say the weekend will be in the mid-eighties, which seems right-fine for me. The water in the river, on the other hand, is a hypothermic 49 degrees – which likely means I won’t be spending much time in it (even though I think I’ve been divinely cured of my former affliction). There’s a big group going, lots of kids too. Should be a good time, and I’m excited about getting up there.

We’ll be going to our “standard” place again, just because, for me, it’s the easiest (yeah, I “planned” this one). Later this year though I hope we can branch out and explore some of the hundreds of other places around here. Anyway, I’m taking Friday off to head up early and stake out spots for the crew, who will arrive later that evening – and I’m looking forward to the short week and some time sleeping outside.

Lately, I’ve been evaluating a couple big-ticket purchases. As I’ve written about before, I’ve been somewhat keen on getting a newer, more 2000s TV, and a new audio system to accompany it, for a while now. And, Sharaun’s also been on me to get one of those fancy-shmancy SLR digital cameras. Neither of these items are low-cost impulse buys (and, I wouldn’t likely classify them as such even if I were making 3x what I am today, it’s just my view of money), so I’ve been waffling back and forth about each. On the one hand, I’d love to modernize our boob-tube, get something thin and flat and that we could hang on the wall – I’d love to do that. I’d also love to take stunningly clear and beautiful pictures of Keaton for posterity and artistic purposes. Sure, both of those things would be awesome.

But, every time I think I’m ready to pull the trigger, I start running arguments in my head: How often do I really watch TV? Not Sharaun, but me. It’s an important question because, honestly, a bigger, flatter, higher-definition TV would mean almost nothing to Sharaun – it’s a luxury item that would be enjoyed largely be me and me alone. Sure, she’d appreciate it, but, in her mind, the TV we have is just fine. And, that’s a valid opinion if you ask me. So, asking myself how much TV I watch, or perhaps more importantly, how much TV I want to watch, becomes a really important determiner of value. However, rather than just asking myself, “Dave, how much TV do you watch?,” because I think the answer to that can always be an HDTV-justifying “enough,” I figure I should venture to determine how much enjoyment I derive from television… where it ranks in my list of “ways to waste time.”

Aside from interaction with real humans, including family and friends, my #1 source of entertainment is music. I will almost always choose to listen to music over watching TV, mostly because when listening to music I can do other things (write, surf the internet), whereas TV just sucks attention too hard. I don’t watch many movies, only own a handful of DVDs, and am not too religiously attached to very many shows (OK, I like Lost a lot, and Andy Griffith, and enjoy The Office and the news, but, y’know). My #2 source of entertainment or enjoyment is the internet, and within this #2 is my #3 – writing. I’d like to say that my #4 is something highbrow like reading or something, but in reality it probably is television. So, there you go, watching TV is fourth on the list of ways I’d chose to spend my lazy-time.

If that’s true, do I really care about having a bigger and better TV? Maybe not. In fact, if I spend a couple thousand dollars on a TV I’m sure I’ll feel compelled to actually watch it more in some attempt to get my “money’s worth.” That’s not appealing to me at all. More TV? Yeah, that’s what I need.

Oh sure, as a status symbol it’s undeniably appealing, almost as much as the idea of the point-cases where I’d absolutely treasure having HDTV (drunken communal gatherings for sporting events, for one). The draw is intense, I don’t deny that – all my friends, my family, everyone is upgrading their TVs. Maybe my brain is just inventing this logic as a way to protect my pocketbook, but I think I’m genuinely torn. Does my television really deserve this much money? I just can’t seem to make up my mind. One day I’m a breath away from dropping the dosh on a new home theater setup, the next I’m criticizing myself for wanting to waste that much money on something I won’t use enough to justify it.

When I mentioned this to some friends the other night, they smirked and commented on the large size of our TiVo list. This is a fair point, as there’s quite a bit of stuff on there. But, I could put that money into a college savings account for Keaton or something and probably be just as happy (or perhaps only slightly bummed) with our current stupid TV.

Next up, the camera. Again, I start to question the expenditure. I liken it to the idea that going out and spending thousands of dollars on oil paints, brushes and canvas would magically transform someone into a painter. Same thing with a thousand dollar camera. Just because I have it, does that really mean our pictures will be that much better? Certainly technique and skill are the lion’s share of what it takes to compose a good picture, and equipment, while not insignificant by any means, is just a way to get there. I’ve seen crappy images from SLR cameras, and I’ve seen beautiful images from point-and-shoot models. Just because I drop a grand doesn’t mean I’m going to be better at framing shots or maximizing the use of natural light. I dunno, maybe I’m just feeling cheap.

Enough about all that, it’s almost time to go anyway.

Before I do, though, I wanted to mention something I bought at lunch today (since I seem to be on a “buying”, or “not buying,” theme today). After a nice buffet-style Indian lunch Pat and I swung into the local Wal Mart so I could checkout those pull-behind bike trailer things for Keaton. I decided I’d like one of them a week or so ago, when I got the idea in my head that Keaton would likely enjoy it, it would give us a chance to get out together just daddy and daughter, and it would get me ambulatory.

Anyway, they only had one, and it looked like it may have been returned before – but the price and features were right so I bought it rather impulsively. I couldn’t wait to set it up when I got home, and set about the task no sooner than I’d walked in the door. When Keaton asked why I was “building a new stroller,” I told her it was a gift for her and that we might be able to test it out a little later. Sure enough, the thing went together quickly and, after firing up the compressor to fill my flattened bike tires (told you, I don’t ride enough) and the trailer tires, I had the thing hooked in. I strapped her in and we were off.

Despite the helmet I bought for her being a little too big and sliding down over her entire face, she really seemed to have a good time and shouted “Whee! Whee! Whee!” as we circled the block a few times to get the hang of it. Hopefully we can make a regular early-evening ride a somewhat regular occurence. I’ll try and post some pictures of her in the thing later this week.

Goodnight.

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swing on the swings

Happy Monday folks. Finished up the weekend’s yardwork today after real-work, now just have to mow. Supposed to rain tomorrow though, so I doubt I’ll get to it before Wednesday.

For a while now, the wheels on Ford have been making all sorts of groaning and squeaking noises which I interpreted as a plea for new brakes. Having an interest in working brakes, I decided last week to get some new pads and change them out. However, once I had the car on stands and the rear tires off (to me, the noise sounded like it was coming from the rear brakes), the brakes looked fine, 80% at least. Thinking I misheard the rumblings of protest, I put the rear wheels back on, jacked up the front end and took those tires off. I was dismayed to find both brakes there also in good shape. Pads fine, rotors fine, nothing amiss that I could see (with my finely tuned automotive eyes). Reluctantly, I put everything back together and dropped the thing again. Lo and behold, the squeak and grinding are gone. Whatever I did, my massive mechanic skills solved the problem like magic. I am just that good.

Hmm… here’s one of those awkward transitions I’m so good at.

I remember working at the music store back in college. We got a promotional copy of the Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness almost a full month before it was due to hit the streets. Having loved their previous album first track to last, I remember freaking out when I pulled the ornately decorated double-disc set from the just-delivered box of promos. At the time I hadn’t yet been “promoted” to assistant-manager, and I was just a floor-walking worker (which is really what I was as an assistant manager anyway, but with the power to do refunds, balance the books, and close or open the store).

I can remember begging Bob, my one-time manager and now long-time friend, to let me take it home for a few hours so I could dub it. In the end, he granted me a two hours outside the store with the set – with instructions to be back with it on-time. Not knowing how hard he would hold me to the time limit, I raced home and used two separate tape decks to simultaneously record a copy of each disc. I got back to the store with the promo in-hand in just under two hours, including driving time.

And, for the next three-plus weeks, I wore those cassettes out. The album was brilliant to me at the time, almost entirely good and so well fit to the mood and activities of the day it was as if it were tailored for my life at the time. Jeremy was living with me at the time (I know that means nothing to those of you who have no idea who Jeremy is, but he was a good highschool buddy who moved into our converted-garage bedroom for a few years), and I can remember driving around rocking out to the songs when we should’ve been in class. We had morning classes, and we’d always wake up with the best of intentions, but we’d often end up stopping for a heart-hurting southern breakfast instead.

After breakfast, we’d often take long window-down drives along the river with the music blaring. There was this little park just off the river we’d stop at to, believe it or not, swing on the swings. No, I’m serious. I love swings, always have, always will. Even now, when I see swings that’ll hold me, I’m on ‘em. We’d swing for an hour or so, discussing the important matters of the day: If I thought Sharaun and I would ever get back together (we were on a “break” at the time), how community “college” was a complete and total joke, and how we’d get together one day in twenty years with our kids for a backyard barbecue.

It’s funny, actually, that I picked this fragment of an entry to work on today. See, a bit about my blog writing/filing system: I often log on and capture bits and snatches of ideas into what WordPress calls “draft” files. Sometimes these are just a topic idea, sometimes they are stray paragraphs or bulleted lists, and sometimes they are fully-written entries that just need cleaning up (such is the case with the “porn in the woods” topic from last week’s You Decide Friday poll, but no… you guys made me write original content). Anyway, I’ve long had this draft about the Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie album, and the progressive list of thoughts in there went “Mellon Collie -> swinging with Jeremy -> reunion BBQ with families.” So, I think I managed to cover all that business. And, I’m still looking forward to that BBQ…

Goodnight friends, until tomorrow.

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yardwork

7:30am on Sunday night and Sharaun is in the kitchen stirring a beef stew she’s had in the crock-pot all day. It smells fantastic in here, and I’m glad I was out working in the yard all afternoon so I didn’t have to breathe the temptation.

This weekend I had a goal: landscape a little planter patch on our front sideyard. Way back when I did all the work on the backyard, I drove all manner of truck and heavy equipment over that side of the yard to get from the street into the backyard. In doing so, I ruined the minimal landscaping the builders had done (which really only consisted of some much, a few plants, and a drip system anyway). Since then, I’ve used the space (about ten feet by fifteen feet) to store a pile of mulch I had leftover from finishing the backyard. And, that’s how it’s been now for some three years or more – a pile of much. It’s always bothered me.

Oh, sorry, dinner break. Back now.

As I was saying, the pile of mulch never really worked for me as a permanent landscaping feature, especially since it’s in our front yard. You’d think, as anal as I am about the yard, I’d have done something with it by now. But, alas, the scales inside me that compare my desire to have a nice looking yard and my laziness are tipped ever so slightly to the lazy side. So, it sat there for years. Just last week I decided I could likely get the entire thing done in a weekend if I worked hard. And besides, I’ve always sort of had this “concept” of what I wanted to do with the space (build up some berms down the sides and make a faux dry-creekbed with rock down the center). So, overcoming the years of do-nothingness, I finally forced myself to do some work by ordering two and a half yard of dirt delivered to my driveway… which, if you’ve never had a huge pile of dirt in your driveway before, serves as good motivation.

Friday I came home early (half-day) to get started. I moved the huge pile of mulch onto some tarps I set out for the purpose, and began hauling dirt by wheelbarrow to build up the berms. I worked until dinnertime. Saturday I was out early shopping for plants, and worked all day again moving dirt, planting, picking up rock and building the creekbed, and running drip. Sunday I finished up. Below is the final project, still with some mulch on tarp in front because I’m not quite done with the pile. Looks OK to me!

Also on Sunday, Keaton and I planted the garden when she got up from her nap. I poked the holes in the dirt and she dropped in the seeds. She seemed to have a good time. Maybe next year she’ll actually “get” the magic of the seed-to-food thing, that’d be cool.

Man, I know that was boring, I’m sorry. Sometimes I just write about whatever. That was one of those times. I guess that’s what blogs are good for. Or, bad for… whatever. I guess I’m done for the evening, I have nothing better to offer. Maybe something funny will happen around here tomorrow.

Goodnight.

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YDF #3: Passing Notes

Hi folks and welcome to You Decide Friday #3. This week, the winner of the poll, by a landslide, ending up being: “A humorous analysis of some high-school notes between Sharaun & I” (Ten votes is a landslide? Oh man, I need more readers). Anyway, I guess I don’t need much more exposition than that… so here goes.

You guys remember high school, right? Man, I sure do. Not getting into it too much, you should be able to tell by the abundance of high school era stories I post right here on sounds familiar that I had a pretty memorable four-year stint there. As everyone knows, teenage romance is the bread and butter of high school drama, the planet around which those fledgling emotions orbit and swirl. And, what would teenage romance be without the between-classes note exchange? The embryonic love of high school is a fragile thing, barely able to stand the forty minute breaks from each other as required by the bell schedule.

I’ll ask that you read these old notes with the former mindset. I mean… it’s not going to help really, they are still grotesque.

And, I need to be up-front with you guys here: On Tuesday night I dragged two old dusty cardboard boxes out of their resting places high and out of the way on shelves in the garage. One of these boxes is mine, the other Sharaun’s. Both boxes contain roughly the same things: a bunch of notes and other bric-a-brac from the halcyon highschool days of our budding, now going on fifteen years, romance (if you count highschool, which, after this, you might not).

Since it was already apparent that the highschool notes option was going to win this week’s contest, I figured I bet set about poring over the reams and reams of wide-ruled paper we’ve both held onto for so many years now. And, oh and this is the part I needed to be up-front about, it was a disgusting task. I’m serious. These notes are terrible. They are awful. Cringe-worthy. Emetic even. Honestly, as I glossed over note after note, revisiting each from within its pocket-sized quartered folds, I began to wish we’d never kept them at all. Well, maybe that’s not true, but they are certainly embarrassing, to say the least.

First off, it’s highschool, so of course Sharaun and I could barely contain the red-hot urgency of our love – a love the likes of which the world surely had never seen before. In fact, we used the word love so much, and with such conviction, it’s sickening. Other than the every-other-sentence professions of undying cosmic love, most of the notes were about how one of us shouldn’t talk to some other guy or girl, or flirt with this person or that, and quite a few were me apologizing for being lecherous.

Seriously friends, I had to read through so much pure and utter shameful crap to find a couple missives I could use… it was an exercise in patience. In the end though, I found what I think are some comical exchanges betwixt the Sharaun and I of fourteen years ago.

The notes I chose aren’t direct responses to each other, although that would’ve been easy to do. Know why? Because, in addition to passing notes between class at school, Sharaun and I also instituted something we called a “log.” The Log was a notebook that we traded off from one to another each day, and took home with us every other night. Each night, either Sharaun or I would write to each other in the notebook, logging our “in” and “out” times. In the morning, we’d give the log to the other, who’d read it and take it home to write and repeat.

Over the course of the first year or so we were together back in highschool, we filled up three ruled notebooks this way – and still have them all. They are, in a word, ghastly. But, I can manage to look back on them with fondness – because they are documents of a time gone by where I was pretty dang happy. In addition, I kept my own personal relationship journal-type thing (which I wrote in every day, go figure) for the first few months we dated. I had forgotten about that until I opened the box the other night… ugh.

Anyway, the notes I chose aren’t direct responses to each other (did I say that already?). They also aren’t presented here in their entirety, I had to cut the things down to try and get just the interesting bits – so if the portions I present seem somewhat disjointed, it’s because they are. Anyway, my criteria for choosing them was pretty much based on how much I thought I could make fun of them here on the blog, so I purposefully chose the ridiculous and overly inane.

Let’s start with my letter to Sharaun, because, well, honestly, it’s the worst of the two. Here we go, hope they’re not too hard to read…

Ahh, right off the bat we’re talking jealousy. For a relationship seemingly cemented together with a passion so undying, we sure didn’t seem to have a lot of trust in each other. I don’t really know who I was chastising her for hugging, but I love that my suggested solution to her was to stand like a stone while being hugged, rather than reciprocating. What a way to open a letter, right? Oh man… highschool… Moving on.

Oh, wait… what’s this? Apparently, I was also guilty of hugging someone (our highschool must’ve been a regular hugfest or something). At least I am big enough to commiserate, although I do manage to mention that I actually had to watch Sharaun’s scandalous embrace, whereas mine was more tastefully clandestine. Let’s keep wading through this crap, shall we?

Oh, here I’ve apparently made peace with myself, and am now laying on the love. Let’s see how long I keep up the nice-guy stuff…

Wow. What a jerk thing to say. Basically I’m saying, “I have tons of chicks on my jock, and I’m sure happy you’re not as wanted as I am. But, don’t worry, I don’t flirt with them… even though they’d totally do it with me if I said the word. Glad you’re not as desirable, I couldn’t handle it.” Reading through these notes makes me wonder why in the world Sharaun ever even gave me a shot.

“Rockledge Central” was an unfinished business park that was paved into a dead-end cul-de-sac. We used to drive down there into the dark and the trees and “park.” Notice how I kinda slip that one in there as the last option, as if it weren’t really the first and foremost thing I’d want to do. Sly, ain’t I?

“That huggin’ faggot?” Class act man. Class. Act.

No words… no words.

“Gay-ass fool?” Man, I bet the women truly were lining up.

When I read this stuff, I can actually almost remember feeling and acting like this jealous and possessive highschool kid. I’m not sure if everyone’s highschool relationships were like that or not, but ours sure was.

Once again I seem to be tooting my own womanizing horn. What a catch. How did I ever keep them off?

I’ll leave this to interpretation, but I almost puked up my dinner when I sounded it out. Oh my Lord we were sickening.

So, that’s it. I made it through. Time to collect my thoughts, remember I’m in my thirties and that this was a long time ago (I used to think we were so mature…). Now then, with my head cleared of that foul business, let’s move on to Sharaun’s note to me. This one was taken from one of those “log” deals I talked about above, you can see the in/out time-logging at the top. Ugh.

I just want to run away and hide. It’s that bad, right?

OK, something interesting. Sharaun and I used to stay up all night talking on the phone. We’d stay up well into the morning, sometimes “talking” for five or more hours. I have no idea what we talked about, but more than one time I remember falling asleep on the phone together. Eventually, Sharaun got caught talking to me in the middle of the night. In fact, the resulting phone ban was what started the whole “log” back-and-forth thing – a kind of alternative to being able to talk all night. On some nights, though, she’d manage to sneak the phone into her room and make secret calls to me in the wee hours. This didn’t wake my parents because, when I got my first computer back in ’92, I had decided to pay for a private line in my bedroom so I could monopolize the phone with my dialup Prodigy account. The five dollars per month was totally worth being able to surf the nubile WWW, which I was already addicted to.

Hahaha. Wow. You know what they say about flattery…

Here she’s talking about what we’ll bring with us to the beach when we go some night in the future. We used to tell her folks we were going to see a movie and then drive down to the beach and find a nice dark spot to spread a blanket and make out. Awesome, right?

We really did love talking on the phone…

Oh hey, this portion of the note makes for a neat sideline story…

Once, Sharaun’s grandmother found a note from me Sharaun had inadvertently left in the pocket of her jeans. No problem, right? Only thing was, in that particular note, I was joking around about Sharaun being pregnant – I mean, I was writing about it as if it were true, but Sharaun, of course, knew it for a joke. Anyway, Sharaun’s grandmother freaked out, called Sharaun’s mom (who immediately knew the note for a joke and did not, thank the Lord above, involve her dad). Needless to say Sharaun’s mom was not happy with the note, nor the “coarse” language I used in it (as was a habit of mine back then).

In order to avoid a similar situation again, and to add a layer of security to notes of a “sensitive” nature, I taught Sharaun the code Kyle and I had discovered, and subsequently broken, in the underground tunnels of Astrokalickrama (if you’re completely lost after reading that last sentence, catch your ignorant self up by clicking right here). She’s not using it to mask anything bad here, she must’ve just been keeping in practice or something.

Well, like I said – I had to cut them down a little, but that’s it. I’m not really sure how I feel about this one… as a blog entry I mean… for some reason I’m half tempted to trash the entire thing. But, it’s here now, and it took a loooong time, so it’s staying. I mean, it took forever to write. In the end, I got tired… and likely sloppy. Sorry. I don’t even know if I like it after all that work. Also, I’ve done something like it before here and here and maybe even here. Whatever.

Did it work?

Goodnight.

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the pilot says

Hi internet. It’s Thursday, and the guys came over tonight for a dinner of grilled bratwurst and pizza rolls. I mean, what’s a group of guys to do when their better halves all gang up and go to some “chicks only” soirée? Anyway, it was a wild party… we watched the democratic debate. Yeah, we’re old as sin. Old as sin. Let’s get to writing.

I was searching my memory the other day, trying to figure out when I first flew on a plane as a kid. I guess it was when I was younger, as I know I went to Hawaii with my folks and grandfather before my brother was born – but I don’t think I did much air travel as a kid. I remember flying when we moved to Florida, but not much before that. Keaton, by comparison, should be some 100k Red Carpet frequent flier. I tried counting up the times she’s been airborne: Florida and back six or seven times, Oregon and back ten or eleven times, and then Hawaii and Mexico. That’s more than fifty hours of in-air time. Not bad for a newly-minted two year-old. I mean, the girl has a freakin’ passport, with stamps! I didn’t even have a passport until I was twenty five or something. She’s so global.

She’s familiar with the whole process too. When we pushed her stroller up to the security line at the airport in Mexico, she reached down, took off her Crocs, and handed them up to Sharaun (yes, the TSA is worried about bombs in toddler-sized Crocs). After boarding and taking our seats, she hopped over to Sharaun’s lap by the window to look outside because she said she wanted to “See a suitcases mommy!” as they were being loaded onto the plane. As the crew started the safety announcements over the loudspeakers, she said, “The pilot says I wear my seatbelt!” And, taxiing to the runway for takeoff, she leaned into me and said, “Might be loud, daddy?” “Yes, it’s gonna get loud for a minute,” I answered. She’s a pro, I swear. Man I love that little girl.

OK folks, it’s a pretty clean case for winner right now, but in the spirit of fairness here’s this week’s You Decide Friday poll one last time before I have to start writing. Poll closes around noon today, so, if you haven’t voted yet, act fast. Have at it:

[poll=3]

And, changing subjects to wrap things up: Tonight I decided to put to good use some of the free space on my humongous 160GB iPod. I downloaded HandBrake and ripped some of my favorite Andy Griffith episodes (from the complete seasons DVDs) to iPod-compliant videos. I figure this way I can watch some of my favorite shows while I travel. I mean, there’s so much room on this dang thing, and even though I’ve got right around 100GB of music on there (which is a disgusting amount, actually), there’s still room to spare. So, I plan to rip some of my favorite DVDs (I don’t have many, I’m just not a huge DVD fan) and get them loaded. Things like The Goonies, Lord of the Rings, Andy Griffith, The Simpsons, y’know, stuff like that. Should be a good use of the space, and may even prove useful in a boring situation someday.

Goodnight my friends.

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the70s.torrent

Ahhh… listening to the Band’s live rendition of “It Makes No Difference” from the Last Waltz album; I absolutely love this song. Makes me feel good each and every time I hear it, even if it is somewhat of a sad-sounding tune. Keaton went down early (she woke up late last night with a high fever, ran a lower one all day today, and actually asked to go to bed) and Sharaun’s at volleyball – so I’ve got the place to myself. That means writin’ time.

The other day, my brain tickled by the triumphant return of Demonoid to the torrent scene, I was thinking about how prevalent “discography torrents” have become over the past year. For the unfamiliar, a discography torrent is simply a massive zipped archive of every recording an artist or group has done over the span of their career – albums, singles, extras, whatever – all MP3ized, packaged, and presented as a single one-fell-swoop download. The availability of these all-inclusive super-easy-to-get packages of music makes me wonder about the future of file sharing.

I’m betting that the whole “thrill of the hunt” aspect of music collecting which has, in addition to a genuine love of music, always fueled my lust for tunes, will more than likely be a thing of the past by the time Keaton’s generation begins filing up iPods. Just look at the history: As the internet pipes have become fatter over the years, we’ve moved from single-song-hunting via Napster to album-jacking via Kazaa to discographies through BitTorrent. Eventually, you’ll just be able to click on the70s.torrent and be done with an entire decade’s worth of music in one overnight download.

I don’t even want to think about when Keaton’s kids get old enough… they’ll probably be able to buy a credit-card thick device from the corner market in Shanghai that comes pre-loaded with the entire history of recorded music. Where’s the fun in that? Part of being a music collector is reveling in the far-reach of your collection, touting the stuff you have to other collectors, having one of only five copies of that lost acetate recording of the Velvet Underground’s freshman LP – elitist stuff like that. That’ll all be over when any Joe Topforty can buy a “The Complete 20th Century” MusiCube at Radio Shack (which by then, as technology marches ever on, will have been forced to re-brand as something more “now,” like VHS Shack, or something similarly thirty years behind the curve).

Changing subject, but continuing the “I was thinking” theme… I was thinking today about how I’m happy with the amount of outside-the-house socialization Sharaun and I do – even with Keaton. Before we had Keaton, we’d get good-natured ribbing from our friends about the “end” of our social lives, though neither of us really worried much. In my opinion though, we’ve integrated Keaton well into our social circle. We bring her along, include her in the hangin’ out (much to the thrill of our no-kids-havin’ friends, right no-kids-havin’ friends?!), and often put her down in her Pack N Play when we’re over at friends’ places past bedtime. She’s a seasoned pro at being woken up for a ride home in the carseat.

What got me thinking, though, was my mom asking me if she needed to get Keaton some kind of bigger sleeping accommodations for our upcoming trip to Oregon over Mother’s Day weekend. My answer was “no,” but it was the first time I’d really entertained the thought of her outgrowing the Pack N Play. Not that the first thing I think of when I consider this milestone for her is our social lives, but… what the heck are we going to do when she doesn’t “fit” in that thing anymore? Is that the “lives over” point that people are referring to?

My answer: Nahhh… give me a break. Since our idea of “going out” is typically dinner and a movie or game at someone’s place, it’s not exactly like her sleep is at risk for interruption by the thundering bass of a club or gunshots at an out of control Latino block party (that sounds racist… is that racist?). All she has to sleep through is the “wildness” of a few thirtysomethings who’ve had a glass of wine or four, who might get too loud discussing while discussing their Roth IRAs or the Earth-ethics of local-grown produce (we live in California, remember?). I’m confident babygirl will be just as accommodating as she’s always been, and continue to be the great sleeper she is. But man… I bet it’s an interesting transition.

Before I go, I’ll repost this week’s You Decide Friday poll again tomorrow as a last reminder – but should you want to vote before then, you can simply scroll down the page to Monday’s entry and cast your vote there. I’ll close the poll around noon on Thursday.

PS – Oh hey, Megan posted some new candids of my girl!  Check it!

Goodnight folks.

Posted on

everything is gonna be fine

Tuesday.

Monday was a particularly productive day for me at work. The timing of the project I’m currently working on is way in the future, so most of the tasks I have now are planning-centric… and I’ve been using the benefit of time to do some experimenting along those lines, firming up the way I forecast and ready the team for what’s coming down the road. I know, without me telling you what I do it’s hard to know what that means – but, them’s the breaks folks. Anyway, I feel like I almost made up for a week gone in a single day… Because, when I want to, I can be super productive like that.

Now I’m sitting here listening to some Sabbath (courtesy of the iPod shuffling it up) and writing. I had Keaton tonight. Got to feed her dinner, give her a bath, sing her a bedtime song, say her prayer with her, and put her to bed. She didn’t nap today so she was super tired, but before I put her down she managed to say, in her little half-asleep croak of a voice, “Sing a sun song, daddy?” “The ‘sun song?,’ I asked.” “Yeah, sing a sun song, daddy?” “I don’t know the sun song, baby, can you sing some for daddy so he can hear it?” “This one, daddy: ♫ Please don’t take my sunshine away ♫.” I immediately knew the verse, but couldn’t place the song. It took me a minute, but I eventually broke into ♫ You are my sunshine, my only sunshine… ♫, and stopped to say, “Is that the song, baby?” “Yeah,” she said, and nuzzled into my shoulder. ♫ You make me haaaapy, when skies are grey… ♫ Awesome, I’m telling you… straight-up awesome.

And, since I’m already on about babygirl…

Sharaun took Keaton to her two-year pediatrician appointment today, and asked about several things which’ve been on our minds lately. #1, the stuttering thing (which, by the way, is back again, with a vengeance): Bottom line, the pediatrician said she sees “no cause for concern.” She said she’s already noted Keaton as “advanced language ability” (finally, some corroboration for Sharaun’s my-baby’s-a-genius stance), and suggested that her vocal “hesitations” are more than likely her response to a stall in development that her mind doesn’t understand, and is compensating for. In other words, she seems to think pretty much what I guessed at a couple weeks ago: that baby girl’s vocal chords are just stalling in an effort to catch up with her brain, which has developed beyond them. Not the most scientific explanation, but it works for me. The doc said she’ll continue to monitor it and see how it goes, but that she expects it’ll go away of its own accord eventually. Whew. That really is a relief to me, no matter how much I said I wasn’t overly concerned.

#2, We also informed her of the we’re-the-parents call we made to suspend indefinitely her recently regimented breathing treatments whilst in Mexico. While we made the decision together, I was the one pushing to abandon the treatments. I just got too itchy about having our two-year-old inhale atomized steroids twice a day for what I, for whatever reason, viewed as dubious benefits. I convinced Sharaun to stop giving her the treatments, and her wheezing (which the pediatrician readily admitted was most likely caused by a bug she had, and not some underlying malady) didn’t return. Sharaun said the doc actually applauded our use of parental judgment, and said she agrees with our decision and Keaton seems fine. For some reason, that flexibility and non-attachment to a “prescribed” remedy impressed me. Anyway, we felt like we’d done the right thing – which was not so much a relief as it was a nice vindication of our motivations.

And, #3, some odd breathing patterns we’d seen in Keaton while she slept. Seemingly abnormal things like her getting into a two-deep-breaths / no-breaths-for-ten-seconds rhythm instead of a normal regulated breathing pattern. I had feared this might be related to the whole “breathing” issue thing (which has actually now gone away), but the doc assured us abnormal breathing is normal in kids at this age. Which, again, helps to support my theory that being a pediatrician is about like being an HR representative in that there are no concrete answers to anything, and nearly everything is pretty much “normal” and/or “OK” depending on how you look at it.

Anyway, overall it was a reassuring doctor visit, which I take to mean all is well, or that we have a complete charlatan of a pediatrician. Fingers crossed for the former, eh?

Oh, and before I go – I wanted to include a quick image of what some sounds familiar reader at work considers funny. Below is the name plate thingy in front of my cube (last name blurred for safety… or something), done in tribute to this entry I posted a week back. Funny stuff:

See all those little pharaohs up there? Yeah, that’s gotta be my desk.

Well folks, that’s it for tonight. I’ll be back tomorrow with