Archive for January, 2006
Tuesday, January 31st, 2006
Hot Hot Hot
It’s hard to believe that this month has been January! Having lived in Upstate/Central New York all my life, I’ve seen some pretty awful January’s. Yesterday we tied a record set back in 1914 for 54 degrees, and according to a story in today’s Post Standard, January of 2006 was the warmest on record with an average temperature of 33.3 degrees. There were seven days above 50 degrees, and 16 days above 40!!
Everyone I’ve overheard talking about this has mentioned that they’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. Can we have such a nice January without retribution? Will the Weather Gods permit such a thing? My personal theory is that Lake Ontario has remained warmer than it normally would be, allowing for the continuation of lake-effect snowstorms once the cold weather returns.
And finally, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will begin rating snowstorms in the Northeast immediately after they hit. This is to measure the impact of the storm, not to warn residents of an impending storm. The Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale, or NESIS, will rank storms as follows: 1 is Notable, 2 is Significant, 3 is Major, 4 is Crippling, and 5 is Extreme. There are also some examples of each ranking on the NOAA website. It will be interesting to see if people like ranking their snowstorms, or if it gives them something new to complain about!
2 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by blaine_5
Monday, January 30th, 2006
The ExerSaucer from Hell
One of the best purchases we ever made as new parents was our Evenflo ExerSaucer. As you can see on the website, it’s a playcenter that you put the baby into and he’s surrounded by a myriad of different toys. He’s loved it from the very first moment we put him in it (after an evening of assembly, of course!!), and since that first night he’s spent lots of time playing with it. That time allows us to clean, or cook dinner, or get in a few minutes of reading or tv.
Part of the fun has been watching him learn how to use each toy in different ways. It took him a while to figure out how to make certain noises or actions happen, but with each discovery has come the joy of learning, and his obvious satisfaction and pleasure.
However, we’ve noticed a trend in the past few weeks. Since he’s crawling around like crazy he doesn’t spend much time in the ExerSaucer anymore. But whenever he does, he almost always poops. My wife and I have taken to calling it the Enema Machine.
One of my favorite bloggers, Poop and Boogies, has written about this phenomenon as well, except his son does the same thing everytime he’s in a bookstore. I can’t come up with an explanation for it - he’s spent plenty of hours on it without pooping, so this is a new development. I set him in it, and within ten minutes that familiar aroma is filling the livingroom. Whoever notices it first alerts the other, we laugh, and then (of course) argue over who’s going to change it.
Up until this point this hasn’t dissuaded me from putting him in it to play, but I think I’m going to plan ahead from now on. At least to make sure it’s my wife’s turn to change the diaper.
3 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by blaine_5
Saturday, January 28th, 2006
My Son the Connoisseur
A few days ago, the E-man was happily playing in our newly-gated livingroom while I tried to catch up on some reading.
Suddenly, he became very very quiet. I glanced over and much to my dismay caught him taste-testing a small puddle of baby vomit on the carpet.
Honestly, he didn’t seem too upset at the flavor. At what point do we decide that vomit tastes so bad?
Comments Off - Posted in Uncategorized by blaine_5
Tuesday, January 24th, 2006
My First
Last week I received my first comment spam. Does that mean I’m a real blog now?
2 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by blaine_5
Monday, January 23rd, 2006
Toys and the Lies We Tell
There’s something I’ve noticed as a new parent - sometimes you just have to laugh at the truth and embrace the lie. A few weekends ago, we were up north visiting the E-man’s maternal grandparents in the Town-That-Is-Practically-Canada. It’s a 2.5 hour drive, and we’re always relieved to walk into the door and drop our stuff. But this time, as we walk in, we see the toy on the counter that Grandma-D had purchased for the E-man and had been talking about all week. We were horrified by what we saw.
It wasn’t that it was a choking hazard, or that it had pins and needles sticking out of it - it was nothing that simple. We were horrified because the E-man already had that toy.
We hadn’t yet encountered this situation, and we gave each other furtive glances in an attempt to telepathically come up with a solution. Which was funny, considering we can barely communicate when talking out loud! So, in our unspoken language, we decided to lie.
What made the situation even more hilarious is that we had the same toy sitting in a opaque plastic bag on the floor of their livingroom, just feet away from its doppleganger. In a desperate attempt to hide the lie we were about to profess, I grabbed up our stuff and took it to our room, where I hid it amongst our clothes. Naturally, the toy makes lots of noise when it’s activated, so I spent the next few minutes and the rest of the weekend worried that it would activate by itself and give us away.
Not long after we had opened the toy and given it to the E-man, who seemed to know what it was and how to play with it like the genius that he is, the phone rang. The lie police were about to test the strength of our conviction. It was Aunt-L, calling to say hello. Now, Aunt-L knows all about toy version 1.0 since she lives near us, so as Grandma-D started to describe toy version 2.0 to her, my heart clenched and I felt the adrenalin squish out of my glands into my bloodstream. Before I can intervene (or accidentally cut the phone line), Aunt-L is telling her we already have that toy!! It’s reinforcing itself as they talk - does it roll? - does it talk? In a last ditch attempt to preserve the lie, we tell Grandma-D that we know which toy Aunt-L is thinking of, and it’s not the toy he just received. It doesn’t do as much, and isn’t as nice. Maybe that part was a bit over the top.
So a disaster was averted, and the rest of the weekend went off without a hitch. Grandma-D was able to give her grandson a toy that he loved, and Mom and Dad learned a new lesson in parenthood.
(By the way, Grandma-S, who reads this blog, we’ve never lied to you about a toy - I promise).
4 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by blaine_5
Saturday, January 14th, 2006
BOB - Best of Blogs
If you’re interested, you can vote for some of your favorite blogs over at The Best of Blogs. The very first category is for Dad blogs, some of which I read often.
The E-man slept like an angel last night, woke up once at 1:00am for a feeding but was back to sleep within 20 minutes and didn’t wake up again until the alarm went off at 5:00. Even though this is Friday and we went to bed a little late, we still felt a little bit rested. Hope there’s more of this down the road.
2 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by blaine_5
Thursday, January 12th, 2006
De-lurked lurkers
I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who’s commented in the name of De-Lurking Week. I can’t tell you how great it is that people stop by and follow us in our journey of parenthood. There’s still one day left in De-Lurking Week, so for those of you who procrastinate or only stop by on Friday the 13th’s, leave me a comment!
If you’re curious, I set up a sub-blog for my attempts at reading during 2006. You can check out what I’m currently reading, and what I just finished reading!
2 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by blaine_5
Wednesday, January 11th, 2006
Bed Time
I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before, but I never knew how much I’d miss a full night’s sleep! The E-man has only slept through the night (without a single wake-up) twice, so everynight there’s a least one period of hunger or annoyance (annoyance at not being in bed with us, where he likes to be!).
Over Christmas break we decided that it was time to stop co-sleeping. I think my wife would have let him sleep with us until he was 18, but I thought 8 months was good enough. Before this change we would let him fall asleep on us downstairs while we read or watched tv, then we’d take him upstairs, feed him, and put him to bed permanently around 9 or so. A few hours later he’d wake up and come back to bed with us for the rest of the night.
Our new routine starts with a diaper change and a sleeper at 6:30PM. Next we read to him, followed by a nice warm bottle in a darkened room. He is then transferred to the crib. Now, the first night we tried this he didn’t fall asleep on the bottle and he cried in his crib for 24 minutes before falling asleep. It was the longest period of time in my life - I grew 124 new gray hairs as my wife and I sat in the livingroom staring at each other. It was horrible. The next night, however, he only cried for a few minutes, and within a week it was just a 10 second fuss before rolling off to sleep. It’s wonderful having so much time in the evening to get things done while he’s blissfully sleeping upstairs. He’s getting a lot more sleep than he used to, and he seems happier and healthier for it.
We tried to let him cry through his wake-ups at night (when we thought they weren’t discomfort, diaper, or hunger cries), but we didn’t have the heart to do it. So instead we get up and comfort him a little, which usually calms him down and leads him back to sleep. I guess with an 8-month-old I shouldn’t complain about just one wake-up a night - I know a lot of other people have it a lot harder than we do. But I would still love a full night of sleep!
3 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by blaine_5
Tuesday, January 10th, 2006
Bath Time
There’s nothing cuter than a baby in the bath, so I thought I’d post a few pictures of the E-man from last night’s bath. The best thing about digital cameras is that you can take a hundred pictures, and undoubtedly a few will be truly incredible.
And here’s an action shot:
And don’t forget, it’s still De-Lurking Week! Feel free to leave a comment!
6 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by blaine_5
Monday, January 9th, 2006
De-Lurking Week
All over the Dad Blogdom today is the idea of De-Lurking Week, started last year over at Paper Napkin. It’s a time for readers and visitors to make their presence known. I know I have a little traffic, so someone out there is reading!
I know I tend to be a lurker, only leaving a comment when the topic strikes a chord or I have something I think is super intelligent to say (isn’t everything I say… nevermind). But today I tried to say hello at blogs I read where I don’t normally leave comments, or only rarely do.
You can just leave a quick hello, or you can tell me who you are, why you read, what you like or don’t like, anything you want. It doesn’t matter if this is your first visit or if you stop by everyday. Don’t be shy!
10 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by blaine_5
Thursday, January 5th, 2006
My Opinion
I’ve never been a proponent of the death penalty. I guess I have lots of reasons including the expense to the country, the lack of the death penalty as a crime deterrent, the possibility of condemning the wrong person, the inherent wrongness of ending another life (punishing murder with murder). I also have to admit that I have never been nor have I ever known someone who was a victim in any sort of terrible crime, so I’m not sure how that sort of anger would change my opinion.
So I was just reading this story in CNN about 75-year-old Charles Ray Allen who is scheduled to be put to death (funny how the media never says “scheduled to die” or “scheduled to be murdered”) for ordering 3 murders from prison. Gov Schwarzenegger has denied a clemency hearing for the inmate, not too surprisingly. The strangest thing about this story is that not only did Charles Ray Allen suffer a heart attack last September, he is also blind, deaf, and confined to a wheelchair. What’s the point of killing this guy now?
On the other hand, this man did some horrific things in his life and he should spend the rest of his life being punished. Maybe he should have been put to death decades ago, considering he was sentenced to die in 1982. Undoubtedbly he’s been racking up lawyer’s fees for the past 24 years. Personally, I don’t think he should be killed at this point since he’s so close to the edge anyway - he’s spent decades in prison and he’ll die there one way or the other.
2 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by blaine_5
Wednesday, January 4th, 2006
Application Report
Here’s my latest list of results from law school applications. The second category is my probability of acceptance, based on the calculator Chiasu using only my LSAT and GPA without any of the so-called “soft factors” (i.e. extracurriculars, letters of recommendation, etc..). Note that the schools are ranked in the order of probability, not in the order of preference (since I don’t even know the order of preference yet!!).
The last three weeks of December were filled with acceptances, which was a great deal of fun. The deferrment from Cornell was disappointing, but it wasn’t a rejection or a waitlisting. I had applied early action but was put back into the regular applicant pool. Not sure what that will mean in the end, but we’ll see.
Most of the schools are giving me until April to make my decision. In the next 90 days I’ll have to decide the entire rest of my future, no pressure, right?
