Friday, September 28, 2007

Cubs Win!!!!

So my earlier post in which I claimed that the Cubs would win the division barring a "monumental collapse" turned out to be a bit more prescient that I expected - the Cubs let it get way too close for comfort. But at the end of the day, they pulled it out. So we may cram Maggie into a 12 month Cubs onesie tomorrow to celebrate since that's the only Cubs baby gear that we have on hand. And although it may be premature for such stuff, here's a song for this post:



Now, we can only hope that the Phillies pull it out as well. Why? A) So brother-in-law/uncle Joe S. in Wynnewood will be happy. B) So my colleague Dave, who is also a huge Phillies fan, will be happy. And C) So that the Mets, rather than the Cubs, suffer a monumental collapse. Unlike most people, I don't hope for bad things to happen to NYC teams, but watching the Yankees lose 4 in a row after winning the first 3 against the BoSox a few years ago was a sublime experience (first time ever, in any sport, that happened in a 7 game series.) Same would be true if the Mets can lose a lead of 6.5 (or 7.5, whatever) games in September.

But what would really be interesting is the inter-family tension that would arise if the Cubs play the Phillies at some point in the playoffs. But we'll deal with that conflict when (and if) it happens. In the meantime, Cubs win! Cubs win! Cubs win!

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Thing 1



My nephew from the Shaker Hts. clan recently went to Abby's alma mater, Dartmouth, for a college visit. Apparently, he's quite the star. When the people at the dog park saw Margaret's t-shirt and asked if I had gone to Dartmouth, I responded "What, are you kidding me? Like an Ivy League school would even open my application envelope." In any case, they sent us a couple of t-shirts from their visit. Margaret is wearing the first. The second is slightly smaller and is labeled "Thing 2." So you can imagine what our Xmas photo will be this year, particularly given the festive color of the shirts.

And some random thoughts:

  • Fittingly, Margaret and I read "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" before I put her to bed tonight. My review: THAT BOOK MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE! I don't even mean that there is a lot of nonsense in the book. After all, I would have anticipated lots of gobbledygook given my recollections of Dr. Seuss. But, OF, TF, RF, BF has absolutely no narrative thread. None. Just a bunch of completely random nonsense pieced together. I did like the rhymes and rhythm (and basically started "rapping" the book to her in my own way) which always makes a book more successful in my opinion, but some overall point would have been nice. Perhaps I'm being too much of a literalist. Naturally, Margaret had a ball. Until she started to conk out at the end (it's actually an astonishingly long book for something that doesn't have a point.)
  • The kid's outfits involve a very particular pattern depending on who dresses her in the morning. When Mama chooses the clothes, she tends to wear pink or purple and is much more likely to wear a dress. But when Papa chooses the clothes, she often wears blue jeans and green or yellow tops. The people at the dog park have quickly learned to guess the source of the clothes. The above photo illustrates a "Papa outfit."
  • Margaret has crushed another milestone for kids of her age: the what-sound-does-a-___-make trick. She's been working on it for a while, but now has the following animals down cold: dog, cat, cow, horse, sheep, lion, rooster, frog. Although interpretation of some of the harder multi-syllable sounds (e.g. the rooster or frog) does require some creative license on the part of Mama or Papa.
  • She has also learned the names of some of the dogs at the park. Bob (a brown lab who loves to chase balls) and Molly (a somewhat rotund, but very devious Border Collie who likes to edge away slowly while no one is watching before making a break for it.) She also waves goodbye to everyone at the park when we leave which gets an almost universally enthusiastic response from everyone sitting at the "dog" picnic table. The sight of 6 people sitting at the table, all waving wildly at us as we leave, is pretty funny.
  • The position of the kid relative to the kitchen counter in the above photo illustrates another recent development: Margaret's assistance during the preparation of dinner. Since Abby tends to get home after we've started the dinner preparations and since I'm the one who does those anyway given my comparative, nay absolute, advantage in that aspect of home production (geez, such an economist), in the past, Margaret spent a lot of time wallowing in misery around my legs while I cut stuff up and started cooking. Pretty annoying behavior. So I have started to plop her on chair, give her a dull butter knife to fiddle with, and push veggie remnants in front of her to mess around with. Since those remnants are obviously food, she tends to taste them, but most, such as raw garlic or onions, come back out pretty quickly. Still, she seems to be much happier. Up at the counter with Papa, messing around with important things - much better than being left on the floor by Papa's legs. And she seems to have a general affinity for messing around with "kitchen stuff" as I noted when I picked her up yesterday from the preschool room (yep, she was in the preschool room since she's obviously an advanced child) where she was fiddling around in the pretend kitchen. It looks like we may to have get her a kiddie kitchen set at some point. (By the way, I actually like cooking even though I tend to complain about always having to do it. A guy at the dog park who also cooks for his family summed it up perfectly: "It's something concrete that I can actually finish every day.")
  • I went to Chicago this past weekend to watch the Cubs last homestand of the year against the Pirates. Since they won the Saturday and Sunday games against the Bucs, it currently appears that, barring a monumental collapse (knock on wood), the Cubs will win the division. But the best moment of the weekend happened on Sunday. The Brewers (the team chasing the Cubs) had taken a 4-1 lead against the Braves through the 7th inning. When the manual scoreboard at Wrigley showed that the Braves had put up 4 runs in the bottom of the 7th to take a 5-4 lead, everyone at Wrigley started to do the "Tomahawk Chop." They then did it again when the Braves expanded the lead to 7-4 and when the score was posted as a final. It was pretty cool. As I told one of my friends at the game, "I've always hated the Tomahawk Chop, but I'll do it today."

And another photo of Thing 1.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Recent developments

Abby is pretty darn big at this point due to the new kid. S/he is also starting to yield some interesting bumps in Abby's tummy. Tonight, we played "Is it the head or shoulder?" as we tried to figure out what was bulging out. While she's scheduled to deliver on 10/8, let's all hope that it doesn't happen sooner. Especially not this weekend while I'm in Chicago for the Cubs last homestand of the year.

As for Margaret, her new word is "No." She doesn't really understand the true meaning of "No", but she does understand that it is an appropriate response to a question. Thus, I ask "Would you like to go to the park?" and I get "No" in reponse. A quiet, lilting "No", but a "No" nonetheless. I'm sure that, in a short time, it will becomes an emphatic, definitive "NO!" But currently it is pretty funny to ask various non-sensical questions to get cute little "No" in response.

Our current battle revolves around the nuk-nuk (known in some circles as the binky or paci.) We've been trying to wean Margaret of her nuk-nuk, and the caretakers in Toddler I say that they don't use it at all. In fact, when I asked Ms. Karen, one of her new caretakers, whether she ever used the nuk-nuk for Margaret, she seemed a bit surprised. "I never would've known that she used a pacifier," said Ms. Karen. "She plays great and naps well, all without a paci." But as soon as we leave the GSA building, it's "Maa maa", Margaret's universal cry for "I want" which, in this case, clearly means that she wants her nuk-nuk. I've tried to feed her saltines, take her by the fountains outside the IMF, point out airplanes and other kids. All temporary distractions. We always get back to "Maa maa" followed by petulant crying if she doesn't get her nuk-nuk. It's so unpleasant that I've been giving in recently, sticking the nuk-nuk in her mouth right after we leave the building. One of our friends at the dog park pointed out that she knew a kid with a close sibling who ended up using her paci until she was three. We hope that won't be the case for Maggie, but the impending arrival of No. 2 might give her some leverage in these types of battles.

Here are some photos from our recent trip to CT for Grandma Nancy's retirement shindig. Including some photos from our visit to a corn maze.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Logistical issues

My blogging muse has deserted me, as indicated by the lack of recent posts. I've been reading a lot of Hunter S. Thompson lately, which has made me reconsider my general writing style. A need to inject a certain level of agitation into the posts. Excitement. Odd and bizarre insights. Random tangential connections between our day-to-day life and the terrible and foul society in which we live. Indeed. (That's all a joke for those of you who haven't read HST.)

But basically, there hasn't been much to write about. A Washington Post writer has been loitering around the dog park with the intent of writing an article about the contrast between NoVa (northern VA) and DC in terms of official dog parks. Ours is a very unofficial one that involves a core group of about 20 or so dogs (and 15 or so dog owners), so the writer has been heavily lobbied not to identify our location by name since we don't want to draw attention from the Park Service Police and don't want lots of interlopers trying to "join" our park group (this is Georgetown, after all, so we're pretty exclusive.) The writer basically understood, but today a Post photographer showed up to take some shots of the park denizens and dogs, ostensibly because our group is the "best looking" that the writer had encountered in her visits to DC dog parks. But of course - this is Georgetown, after all, where everyone, including the dogs, is beautiful. In any event, the photographer took some pics of Maggie with the dogs, so if they show up in the Post, I'll be sure to pass along a link.

But some other more or less important details:

(1) Kid no. 2 is officially scheduled to arrive on 10/8. That is THE date, since this one will be coming out the side exit as Margaret did. No name yet, although we plan to sort that out during our 7 hour drive to Connecticut this weekend for Grandma Nancy's retirement party. But we have spent the last week or so getting ready for the arrival in other ways. Getting another crib from the relatives in Philly, sorting the infant clothes (by size and gender), buying stroller attachments to handle a second kid, etc. Grandma Mary from IL will be coming for the first week (which basically means that she'll get to spend lots of time with kid no. 1 and the dog) after which she'll tag out with the CT grandparents until Abby gets back on her feet. (For those guys, we've rearranged the room in the basement to make it more inhabitable.)

(2) I have no idea why the Flickr slideshows sometimes work, but sometimes don't. It's quite random and is perhaps related to issues on their servers. If you're determined to view the slideshows, my suggestion would be to hit "reload" a few times in whatever browser you're using. Eventually, that appears to get the slideshows up.

(3) Our old Sunrocket phone number should now be back in action. As a glutton for punishment, I've signed up for another Voip startup, in this case VoipYourLife, and had our old Sunrocket number ported over. After some hiccups with the quality of the service and some time to get the porting done, we're all set. For now. Indeed.

Do we have a baby photo for you baby photo junkies? Here's one of Maggie and her cousin Lizzie....

Monday, September 3, 2007

A quick tip for viewing pics

Reviewing the blog, I've experienced some difficulties viewing the Flickr picture slideshows (the error says something like "No such photos found.") The following approaches appear to fix the problem, but if you find that they don't work (or have a better solution, or don't encounter any problems at all) let me know.

(1) Use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer.

(2) Refresh (reload) the blog in Internet Explorer after initially opening the blog.

Both of these have let me view the slideshows that I've put on Flickr. But if you can't view them, let me know and I'll figure something out.

I'll post something about the fun trip to Philly soon.