Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Question: What is with all the graduations? I graduated three times: High school, college, master's degree.
Now we're getting announcements about eighth grade graduation. Eighth grade?!? Congrats, you're advancing to high school. (insert eye roll)
Preschool graduation I can almost understand: Little kids in robes! Cute!
Kindergarten graduation I don't get.
Graduating every time you advance to another school I don't get.
How much pomp and circumstance does a child need?
Now we're getting announcements about eighth grade graduation. Eighth grade?!? Congrats, you're advancing to high school. (insert eye roll)
Preschool graduation I can almost understand: Little kids in robes! Cute!
Kindergarten graduation I don't get.
Graduating every time you advance to another school I don't get.
How much pomp and circumstance does a child need?
Fantastic weekend
You know how some house guests are high maintenance and when the weekend ends you are just sort of exhausted and happy to go back to work? Well, sometimes house guests are awesome and you feel energized and never want the weekend to to because it was so damn relaxing.
Last weekend we had the latter. An old friend of mine (met in 1995) and his wife visited with their 11-year-old daughter. Special aside about the daughter: She was amazing. The perfect blend of maturity that made her trustworthy with your child and childlike that made Henry want to play with her. She was so patient with him. Their both (her at 11 and my son at almost 2) at tricky ages when they could both be brats, but that wasn't the case.
The weekend consisted of pool time, boat rides into the bay, great meals, and great conversation. The weather was perfect. Homemade crab cakes and hush puppies, grilled corn on the cob, fancy beers.
I really couldn't have asked for a better weekend. I didn't even mind that Henry insists on getting up at 6a.m. seven days a week!
It was one of those weekends when you realize the blessing of good friends.
Last weekend we had the latter. An old friend of mine (met in 1995) and his wife visited with their 11-year-old daughter. Special aside about the daughter: She was amazing. The perfect blend of maturity that made her trustworthy with your child and childlike that made Henry want to play with her. She was so patient with him. Their both (her at 11 and my son at almost 2) at tricky ages when they could both be brats, but that wasn't the case.
The weekend consisted of pool time, boat rides into the bay, great meals, and great conversation. The weather was perfect. Homemade crab cakes and hush puppies, grilled corn on the cob, fancy beers.
I really couldn't have asked for a better weekend. I didn't even mind that Henry insists on getting up at 6a.m. seven days a week!
It was one of those weekends when you realize the blessing of good friends.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Still a work in progress
Words, words, words. I edit words all day, but opening my dumb mouth to speak is tough sometimes. I'm working on that.
Yesterday it got up to 98 degrees. Today they're saying possibly 100 degrees. The air conditioner in our house built in the 1930s was installed by the previous owner, I believe, and he was kind of an idiot. But we don't have the $$$ to get a more efficient (and stronger) one installed, so basically when it's 100 degrees outside, it's 75 inside, even when the AC is set for 68. That might not sound awful (and it's definitely a "first world" problem), but I live with a pregnant woman and a toddler. Hot isn't acceptable.
We're coping with a pretty good sized inflatable pool in the backyard, and cooking as much as we can out there (on the grill). That helps.
Stay cool, folks!
Yesterday it got up to 98 degrees. Today they're saying possibly 100 degrees. The air conditioner in our house built in the 1930s was installed by the previous owner, I believe, and he was kind of an idiot. But we don't have the $$$ to get a more efficient (and stronger) one installed, so basically when it's 100 degrees outside, it's 75 inside, even when the AC is set for 68. That might not sound awful (and it's definitely a "first world" problem), but I live with a pregnant woman and a toddler. Hot isn't acceptable.
We're coping with a pretty good sized inflatable pool in the backyard, and cooking as much as we can out there (on the grill). That helps.
Stay cool, folks!
Friday, June 15, 2012
Phones and feelings
Phone is fixed. I checked out places on Yelp and found a phone repair place three blocks from my office that had fantastic reviews from real people. I dropped it off, and when he asked the inevitable "How did you break both glass sides of the phone?" I told him the whole story (see previous post for the sordid details). Just over $100, which included a 5% discount when he asked how I had heard of the company and told him I found it on Yelp!
What else? I still feel like a work-in-progress in terms of expressing myself (emotionally) to the people I love. Ha! This post is taking a strange turn, huh? I sometimes feel like a robot, wondering "What is this thing you humans call 'emotions'?" But I'm trying.
L's sister is supposed to come down and babysit tonight, allowing us to go to dinner alone and possibly see Avengers (finally!). Yay!
I leave you with this: the final panel form today's Rex Morgan, MD. Just a couple of good looking folks looking like a Roy Lichtenstein.
What else? I still feel like a work-in-progress in terms of expressing myself (emotionally) to the people I love. Ha! This post is taking a strange turn, huh? I sometimes feel like a robot, wondering "What is this thing you humans call 'emotions'?" But I'm trying.
L's sister is supposed to come down and babysit tonight, allowing us to go to dinner alone and possibly see Avengers (finally!). Yay!
I leave you with this: the final panel form today's Rex Morgan, MD. Just a couple of good looking folks looking like a Roy Lichtenstein.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
A Loud Wake-Up Call
I really think the universe is conspiring to tell me something. I really do. Sunday, on our 3-hour drive back from the river, I stopped for gas about an hour from home. I pulled out my cell phone while the gas pumped. Finished up, got in the car, drove the rest of the way home, unloaded the car, put in a load of laundry, then wondered where my phone was. Do you know where I might be going with this?
If you guessed "He left it on top of the car and drove away," you are correct! I called the gas station and asked if anyone had turned in a phone. Nope. Laura downloaded an app called "Find My iPhone" and we plugged in my username and password. Boom! There it was on the map: On the side of the highway, less than a mile from the town where we stopped for gas. It wasn't moving, so no one had it. [My wife is a genius for thinking of this. I would not have, I freely admit.] I drove an hour south and took the exit, then got back on the highway heading north. I pulled to the shoulder and turned on my hazards, driving slowly up the road and trying to figure out where the phone might be based on the overhead map. Luckily it was (1) after one overpass and before another, so there were easy-to-find landmarks and (2) not in the middle of the highway where it would have been both crushed and irretrievable. I saw a black rectangle up ahead. Could that be it? I got out and walked up to it. Yes indeed, there it was.
The rubber case was GONE. No idea where that ended up, but it was already nearly dusk by then and I had another hour drive back home ahead of me on a Sunday night, so I wasn't going to beat the bushes looking for it. Also lost: The pediatrician's business card I had laminated and behind the phone. Replaceable, thank goodness.
As for the phone itself, well, it worked (and still works, amazingly). The glass on both the front and back is severely cracked. I think the rubber case saved it in the fall, but then the phone was likely run over by one or more passing cars before landing on the side of the road.
Here are two pics I took just now in the men's room of my office (of my phone):
Part 2 of my story:
This morning I was deleting old emails and came across a link Laura had sent me back in May:
www.handsfreemama.com/2012/05/07/how-to-miss-a-childhood
I remember looking at it briefly and saying something like "huh, interesting." I clicked on it again and read it more closely this morning and it really hit home. It could also be called "how to miss a marriage" or "how to miss friendships" or "how to miss life."
The combination of the phone incident and stumbling across this link within 48 hours is no coincidence. It's a wake-up call (call, phone ... pun intended). When I first saw my phone on the side of the highway, I wondered who would be best to fix it and for the best price. Now I think I'm going to hold off on it. The phone works. Right now I keep it in a sandwich bag in case the glass comes loose. I didn't look at it at all after work yesterday. The introduction in the link above has inspired me. She says:
I'm in.
If you guessed "He left it on top of the car and drove away," you are correct! I called the gas station and asked if anyone had turned in a phone. Nope. Laura downloaded an app called "Find My iPhone" and we plugged in my username and password. Boom! There it was on the map: On the side of the highway, less than a mile from the town where we stopped for gas. It wasn't moving, so no one had it. [My wife is a genius for thinking of this. I would not have, I freely admit.] I drove an hour south and took the exit, then got back on the highway heading north. I pulled to the shoulder and turned on my hazards, driving slowly up the road and trying to figure out where the phone might be based on the overhead map. Luckily it was (1) after one overpass and before another, so there were easy-to-find landmarks and (2) not in the middle of the highway where it would have been both crushed and irretrievable. I saw a black rectangle up ahead. Could that be it? I got out and walked up to it. Yes indeed, there it was.
The rubber case was GONE. No idea where that ended up, but it was already nearly dusk by then and I had another hour drive back home ahead of me on a Sunday night, so I wasn't going to beat the bushes looking for it. Also lost: The pediatrician's business card I had laminated and behind the phone. Replaceable, thank goodness.
As for the phone itself, well, it worked (and still works, amazingly). The glass on both the front and back is severely cracked. I think the rubber case saved it in the fall, but then the phone was likely run over by one or more passing cars before landing on the side of the road.
Here are two pics I took just now in the men's room of my office (of my phone):
 |
| Front of phone |
.JPG) |
| Back of phone |
This morning I was deleting old emails and came across a link Laura had sent me back in May:
www.handsfreemama.com/2012/05/07/how-to-miss-a-childhood
I remember looking at it briefly and saying something like "huh, interesting." I clicked on it again and read it more closely this morning and it really hit home. It could also be called "how to miss a marriage" or "how to miss friendships" or "how to miss life."
The combination of the phone incident and stumbling across this link within 48 hours is no coincidence. It's a wake-up call (call, phone ... pun intended). When I first saw my phone on the side of the highway, I wondered who would be best to fix it and for the best price. Now I think I'm going to hold off on it. The phone works. Right now I keep it in a sandwich bag in case the glass comes loose. I didn't look at it at all after work yesterday. The introduction in the link above has inspired me. She says:
I'm in.
Wednesday, June 06, 2012
Teeth and drugs and flowers
Monday, Karma bit me on the butt. I commented on one of Kate's posts with a story about a broken tooth I got in Africa.
Not one hour later, I felt something on my tongue. It was the same crown
I got in Africa, little metal post sticking out of the bottom of it. It
chose this moment to randomly come loose, after almost 14 years! I
called my dentist's office, which is literally across the street from my
office, luckily. They said if I came over right away they could fit me in. I think I walked in the office as she was hanging up the phone. The dentist slapped some new cement on it and said it might come out again in a year. Fingers crossed it lasts another 14 instead.
Later on Monday, I met with the medicine man (the doc who prescribes the meds) and told him calmly and honestly what has been going on and asked if, in his professional opinion, if it could be a side effect of the med. He listened, took notes, and told me to bump it up to 1.5 pills a day and see him in three weeks.
Um... lemme see... the weather has been pretty freaking beautiful this week. I've taken H on walks and grilled something for dinner every evening. The two shots below are from yesterday's walk. Let's call them "Coming" (top) and "Going" (bottom).
Later on Monday, I met with the medicine man (the doc who prescribes the meds) and told him calmly and honestly what has been going on and asked if, in his professional opinion, if it could be a side effect of the med. He listened, took notes, and told me to bump it up to 1.5 pills a day and see him in three weeks.
Um... lemme see... the weather has been pretty freaking beautiful this week. I've taken H on walks and grilled something for dinner every evening. The two shots below are from yesterday's walk. Let's call them "Coming" (top) and "Going" (bottom).
Sunday, June 03, 2012
Good days, bad days
You never know what you're gonna get when you wake up. Saturday we planned to go to a street festival in Maryland. First, the damn GPS took us the LONGEST way possible: weaving directly through downtown DC. Then when we parked the car, I asked where Henry's food bag was. "I thought you grabbed it," was the response.
I had made him a sandwich, packed a smoothie, some Goldfish crackers, all his favorites. So of course he gets hungry but refuses to eat what we order him from the kid menu at the restaurant. We also buy him a smoothie from a place nearby and he refuses it after once sip because it's not HIS kind of smoothie (20 months old, already has strong opinions about smoothies).
Well, he did wind up having fun coloring, and seeing a guy on stilts dressed as a cowboy, and drawing on the sidewalk with other kids with chalk, but each time we tried to move him on to the next thing, he threw a screaming tantrum. By the time we got home we had an exhausted kid and two cranky parents bickering with each other.
Sunday on the other hand was completely the opposite. Everybody woke up in a great mood. We did some cleaning, then spent the afternoon in the backyard, reading while H played at his sand table (taking periodic breaks to chase the dogs). I grilled hot dogs for dinner, gave H a bath and put him to bed. Everybody got along and it was all happy times.
Moral of the story? I don't know. Never leave the house? Always believe tomorrow will be a better day? Roll with the punches?
(I edited this because I wrote it on my iPad and it would only publish it as a single long paragraph, like a rant. And that's not what I was going for here.)
I had made him a sandwich, packed a smoothie, some Goldfish crackers, all his favorites. So of course he gets hungry but refuses to eat what we order him from the kid menu at the restaurant. We also buy him a smoothie from a place nearby and he refuses it after once sip because it's not HIS kind of smoothie (20 months old, already has strong opinions about smoothies).
Well, he did wind up having fun coloring, and seeing a guy on stilts dressed as a cowboy, and drawing on the sidewalk with other kids with chalk, but each time we tried to move him on to the next thing, he threw a screaming tantrum. By the time we got home we had an exhausted kid and two cranky parents bickering with each other.
Sunday on the other hand was completely the opposite. Everybody woke up in a great mood. We did some cleaning, then spent the afternoon in the backyard, reading while H played at his sand table (taking periodic breaks to chase the dogs). I grilled hot dogs for dinner, gave H a bath and put him to bed. Everybody got along and it was all happy times.
Moral of the story? I don't know. Never leave the house? Always believe tomorrow will be a better day? Roll with the punches?
(I edited this because I wrote it on my iPad and it would only publish it as a single long paragraph, like a rant. And that's not what I was going for here.)
