Yesterday was not a particularly fun day. It was actually quite stressful. Lil' S ran a slight fever on Thursday, which meant not only did he have to be pulled out of daycare early on that day, but he could not come back on Friday either. (They have a rule that a child must be fever-free for 24 hours before returning.) S has Friday "off" -- I use quotes because she has one of those jobs where she's implicitly expected to work even on her off days -- and I work from home on Fridays, so we would both be home, but we had to figure out how to divvy up the parenting responsibilities for the day. I hate this part of child-rearing because you end up bartering in this undefined currency "parenting units," where it's like -- How much is taking him to the store for an hour worth? Is that lunch and a bath, or a trip to the park, or what? And inevitably each parent thinks whatever it is they are doing is worth more than what the other person is doing. With S there is an added struggle that she never wants the emotional burden of putting somebody else out, so instead of just saying to me "I want you to do x. Will you do it please?" she will act in away where it becomes more and more apparent that she would like me to do x without actually stating it. Or sometimes she will make a "suggestion" that's really more of an imperative, but I will treat it as a suggestion, because I don't get the context right away (or perhaps I do, but I'm annoyed that she's not being straightforward, so I act as if I don't -- which, only makes things much worse, I know). The whole thing just leads to bad times. It's fine when we're in our well-established routines. But when we get thrown off it's tough.
I ended up just taking a sick day yesterday, so that I wouldn't have to worry about work at all. This way I could watch Lil' S all-day -- or that was the plan anyway. It didn't really work out that way, because S was still home most the day, and if she's home, he wants to be with her at all times. He's going through a huge mama's boy stage right now. If he's in a different room as her, he just whines and says, "I want Amma ... I want Amma." And then unless you physically constrain him, he goes to wherever she is and pounds on the door. The only way to distract him is to give him the iPad (Lightning McQueen trumps his own mother -- it's amazing and scary the power TV has over kids his age), which is fine once a day, for a half hour, but then what are you going to do the other 13 hours he's awake? S can go to a coffee shop or something, and she did that, but she's also pregnant (another nice "bonus"), and apparently sitting at a coffee shop all day is not very comfortable when you've got a bowling ball attached to your tummy. I can take Lil' S out, but you can only go to the park for so long, and he has to be home to eat and nap and stuff, and also you don't want to overdo it because he was just sick, which is why he's not at daycare in the first place. Oh, and also we are having some work done on our house, so men are constantly coming in and out, and there is a nonstop cacophony of pounding and sawing and stomping. So, if you are scoring at home, that's me, my pregnant wife, and my whiny toddler trapped in a construction zone for 12 hours. I need to get back to the office just to have some peace of mind.
Another little wrinkle is that it's S's birthday today. It's bad timing. Nobody is in a celebratory mood. She has the same stresses as I do, only it's 100 times worse because she's pregnant. It's tough on her emotionally. I know this, but I'm not very good at showing it. Emotional support just isn't my bag. I have too much robot in me. Also, it doesn't help that S and I have been at odds with Lil' S's eating habits of late, and that's causing a bit of strife between us. Basically, Lil' S is a picky eater, a really picky eater (just like 95% of the toddlers I know). In the past, we've gotten around this, by turning on the iPad and shoveling food into his mouth while he's in a zombie-like state, or by rewarding/punishing him for eating/not eating (dessert, iPad time, take away his toys, etc.). I really don't like doing either of these. I think they are instilling really bad habits and increasing the odds that he will develop negative associations with food and/or eating disorders. In most matters child-rearing I'm a parent-and-let-parent type of guy, but this is one thing about which I feel somewhat strongly. I want to put a few dishes out for him, let him eat or not eat whatever he wants, and be done with it. If that means he only eats yogurt and shredded cheese for a week, so be it -- he's not going to die of malnutrition. Eventually he will open up his diet, and it will stick for the long run because he did it on his own. It's short-term pain for long-term gain.
S agrees with me on this in theory, but when it's dinner time and all he's eaten is half a baby carrot and some ketchup on a fork, her Mama Bear instincts take over and she goes into "cub need food now!" mode. I can make all the arguments I want -- if he's really hungry, he'll eat; he'll make up for it with a bigger breakfast tomorrow; he's healthy and growing normally, which is the only important thing; etc. -- but they fall on deaf ears, because it's not about rational point-counterpoint discourse, it's about maternal instinct. And maternal instinct, I've come to find, is very powerful force.
Anyway ... lest I've given you a notion to the contrary, S and I, are, on a macro-level, very happy and doing quite well. We just go through the same shit as every other couple. My problems aren't, like, real problems, but they are mine, so I get to talk about them on my blog.
Okay, time for just a few bullet-point topics.
I ended up just taking a sick day yesterday, so that I wouldn't have to worry about work at all. This way I could watch Lil' S all-day -- or that was the plan anyway. It didn't really work out that way, because S was still home most the day, and if she's home, he wants to be with her at all times. He's going through a huge mama's boy stage right now. If he's in a different room as her, he just whines and says, "I want Amma ... I want Amma." And then unless you physically constrain him, he goes to wherever she is and pounds on the door. The only way to distract him is to give him the iPad (Lightning McQueen trumps his own mother -- it's amazing and scary the power TV has over kids his age), which is fine once a day, for a half hour, but then what are you going to do the other 13 hours he's awake? S can go to a coffee shop or something, and she did that, but she's also pregnant (another nice "bonus"), and apparently sitting at a coffee shop all day is not very comfortable when you've got a bowling ball attached to your tummy. I can take Lil' S out, but you can only go to the park for so long, and he has to be home to eat and nap and stuff, and also you don't want to overdo it because he was just sick, which is why he's not at daycare in the first place. Oh, and also we are having some work done on our house, so men are constantly coming in and out, and there is a nonstop cacophony of pounding and sawing and stomping. So, if you are scoring at home, that's me, my pregnant wife, and my whiny toddler trapped in a construction zone for 12 hours. I need to get back to the office just to have some peace of mind.
Another little wrinkle is that it's S's birthday today. It's bad timing. Nobody is in a celebratory mood. She has the same stresses as I do, only it's 100 times worse because she's pregnant. It's tough on her emotionally. I know this, but I'm not very good at showing it. Emotional support just isn't my bag. I have too much robot in me. Also, it doesn't help that S and I have been at odds with Lil' S's eating habits of late, and that's causing a bit of strife between us. Basically, Lil' S is a picky eater, a really picky eater (just like 95% of the toddlers I know). In the past, we've gotten around this, by turning on the iPad and shoveling food into his mouth while he's in a zombie-like state, or by rewarding/punishing him for eating/not eating (dessert, iPad time, take away his toys, etc.). I really don't like doing either of these. I think they are instilling really bad habits and increasing the odds that he will develop negative associations with food and/or eating disorders. In most matters child-rearing I'm a parent-and-let-parent type of guy, but this is one thing about which I feel somewhat strongly. I want to put a few dishes out for him, let him eat or not eat whatever he wants, and be done with it. If that means he only eats yogurt and shredded cheese for a week, so be it -- he's not going to die of malnutrition. Eventually he will open up his diet, and it will stick for the long run because he did it on his own. It's short-term pain for long-term gain.
S agrees with me on this in theory, but when it's dinner time and all he's eaten is half a baby carrot and some ketchup on a fork, her Mama Bear instincts take over and she goes into "cub need food now!" mode. I can make all the arguments I want -- if he's really hungry, he'll eat; he'll make up for it with a bigger breakfast tomorrow; he's healthy and growing normally, which is the only important thing; etc. -- but they fall on deaf ears, because it's not about rational point-counterpoint discourse, it's about maternal instinct. And maternal instinct, I've come to find, is very powerful force.
Anyway ... lest I've given you a notion to the contrary, S and I, are, on a macro-level, very happy and doing quite well. We just go through the same shit as every other couple. My problems aren't, like, real problems, but they are mine, so I get to talk about them on my blog.
Okay, time for just a few bullet-point topics.
- Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber, was sentenced to death a few days ago. I wish he would not have been. For one thing, I think there is less honor in withering away in obscurity in a cage somewhere than in being executed by the very society he terrorized. For another thing, I'm very much against the death penalty -- not because I think it's wrong in theory, but because it's wrong in practice. We fuck it up so much that it's better to just not have it at all. With that said, I won't exactly be protesting in the street to spare Tsarnaev -- even if he is long in boyish good looks.
- I don't know which is harsher -- Tsarnaev's punishment for bombing a bunch of innocent people or Tom Brady's for having his lackeys deflate footballs to slightly below the legal limits set by the NFL. Four games! Plus $1 million and the loss of two draft picks by the Patriots! Egads! That's brutal. I know of the nine people who read this blog at least six of them couldn't care less about sports, so I will just talk about cheating in general. Cheating is one of those things like lying where it is done so frequently, by so many people (just about everybody), that it is useless to talk about it without proper context. Not all "cheaters" are the same -- not by a long shot. There is a massive spectrum: On one side, there is seeing one of your opponent's cards in a game of rummy and not saying anything; on the other side, there is having a couple goons whack you opponent in the knee with a club before an ice skating competition.
When I played lacrosse in college, we had guys our team who would intentionally use illegal gloves (they would cut the palms out so that they could grip the stick better) because the refs often did not notice. But if they did, it was a three-minute non-releasable penalty, which in most cases meant several goals for the other team. Although it was definitely cheating, I never really thought of it as such, because the possibility of a penalty was always there. It was more like a calculated bit of gamesmanship. Go ahead and try it, but if you get caught, you pay the price. But then that's it. You serve the penalty and then you can come back onto the field with legal gloves later. You aren't branded a "cheater," and you aren't disallowed from future games. It's like if you speed, you pay the fine, and drive a little more slowly next time. Tom Brady got caught speeding, and now he's going to jail for a month and being branded a criminal. It's way too harsh. With that said, it doesn't help that he gave the finger to the police officer (i.e., didn't cooperate with the NFL), and is now telling everybody to "fuck off" (figuratively speaking), instead of just coming clean. Tom, just admit it. - I thought the clip below was hilarious, and it also perfectly illustrates why Jimmy Fallon is the most untalented genius in show biz. This video is literally just Fallon and Jack Black pretending to be the guys from Extreme and recreating the More Than Words music video. On the difficulty scale it's a two; on the creativity scale, it's a one. Other than a few funny faces and gestures by Black, there is absolutely nothing to it, and yet I loved it, because back in seventh grade this song was the jam. I don't actually watch Jimmy Fallon's show, but from what I can gather, his whole shtick is that he redoes things from the past that make thirtysomethings nostalgic. That seems like a pretty lame and simple shtick, but -- and this is a big but -- he picks the exact right things. That's the genius behind it.
- So on that note, I will leave you with the top five songs from my seventh grade year (1990-1991). These are not my favorite songs from that period; they are the songs that most instantly transport me to those days -- back when recess was no longer a thing; pubic hair was a common topic of conversation; and people -- even black people -- thought Vanilla Ice was unironically cool.
5. Unbelievable, EMF
4. I Touch Myself, The Divinyls
3. Motown Philly, Boyz II Men
2. Ice Ice Baby, Vanilla Ice
1. More than Words, Extreme
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