It was three years ago tomorrow that my wife gave me one of the best gifts I’ve ever received, namely, my 4th generation iPod (20GB). How many hours use have I gotten out of this thing since then? Ten thousand? It might not be much of a stretch.
The 4th gen replaced my trusty 2nd gen model (pictured here, at left), which then went to my (then) friend (now brother-in-law) Kevin. He only had it a couple weeks before he dropped it somewhere and EOLed it the hard way.
The new iPods today are nice. WiFi? Pretty sweet. Touch screen? Zoinks! But $299 for 8GB? Mama Palmberg didn’t raise no fool. First of all, the iPod needs a touch screen like a woman needs a man. Or something. And the wifi would actually be handy were I to use my new iPod as a wireless remote to run tunes on my Apple TV at home, but even I’m not insane enough to buy a $300 remote. One fitty, maybe, but not $300.
Still and all, it’s nice to know the new models are out. Mine’s not going to last forever, after all. Maybe by the time I need a new iPod there won’t be iPods anymore. Perish the thought!
It’s no wonder I’m not involved in any way with a single one of Ava’s clothing decisions. This is the kind of thing I suggest:
In this instance, I blame Leah for my inspiration. On the drive back from our anniversary getaway on Sunday, she got hold of the iPod and started rolling all sorts of songs we never listen to when Ava’s in the car. Some of them, like the aforementioned band’s “One,” Leah never listens to regardless of who’s in the car. But she played it anyway, much to my surprise. I couldn’t help but picture Ava in one of these little Ts. Wouldn’t the folks at daycare be surprised?
Leah started off her retrospective with a battle royale of 80s rock, alternating between Foreigner and Journey. Just based on the sound of their vocals alone, I always figured Lou Gramm could kick Steve Perry’s mulletted arse in an alley fight. He probably got more chicks, too. But when it came to range, ol’ Golden Lungs ended up the more iconic front man, IMO. I’d also have to throw in with Neil Schon on lead axe over Mick Jones, if only for the solo on “Don’t Stop Believin’.” And of course Neil had that insane afro, too. Petty differences aside, if you can make it more than 1:30 through any of either band’s songs without singing along or clenching your fist in rock-and-roll exaltation, you’re either deaf or dead. Or both, I guess.
Alas, Leah informs me that red and black aren’t Ava’s colors. She’s only three, and she has colors. What am I, Martha Stewart over here? To quote Dewey Finn:
You’ve gotta feel it in your blood and guts! If you wanna rock, you gotta break the rules.
Leah finally reached her breaking point. After months of expressing her dissatisfaction with how long it takes to coddle Ava to sleep at night (sometimes as long as 45 minutes), the last few nights found Ava putting herself to sleep. The first night was the worst, natch. It turns out there’s no amount of preparation we could’ve done to prevent Ava from sobbing when it came time for Leah to leave the room. That was a couple nights ago. Last night, Ava went to sleep with nary a peep.
Our efforts on Sunday night were confounded by a fireworks display from the Catholic high school nearby. There was a ten-minute stretch there when they lit one firework every minute, which seemed needlessly drawn out. Worse, we were entertaining some friends at the house that night, so Leah missed a good portion of the festivities while she tried to comfort Ava back to sleep. When she came back down for good, she was ready to march up to the high school and drop-kick every Catholic she saw. A glass of wine helped calm her nerves, but only a little.
Here’s hoping Ava continues to put herself to sleep.
One nice thing about having a blog is that I can disseminate information to a broad audience in one fell swoop, and everyone gets the same information, so there’s never any, “Oh, you didn’t tell me that!” nonsense.
Our trip to Dubuque was nice. Weather was gorgeous, the inn was very nice, the spa was relaxing, and our dinner out was…well, it was fine. As a refresher: We decided to forgo the bistro at our inn in favor of the Pepper Sprout on Main St. in downtown Dubuque.
I’m not the final authority on all things Burning Man, but nothing I’ve ever read about the proceedings out there in the desert evoked the word “innocence.”
Another fun thing Ava did with her Gramary on Wednesday (who came up with the spelling of Wednesday, and can we change it?) was to visit the practice field used by the Iowa Marching Band. The band was there preparing for the big game at Soldier Field this weekend, and Ava rejoiced in marching along on the edge of the field as the musicians honed their steps.
When Ava came home, hopped up on smoothie and chocolate milk, Leah showed her the new kitty cat rain boots we’d bought her that noon. I was downstairs for the reveal, which took place right after Ava’s bath, but when I heard the distinct sound of thick rubber soles stomping up and down the hall on the second floor, I had to investigate.
When I got to Ava’s room, Leah was sitting on the floor in front of the open boot box, and Ava was high stepping up and down the hall, naked save for the new boots, hair still wet from the bath, yelling “Go Hawks!” at the top of her tiny lungs. That little internal voice, again, insistent, frantic, “Get your camera! Where is it? Run and get it, NOW!”
I’ve been known to jump up without notice from a perfectly comfortable spot on the couch to grab my camera and run outside for a shot I don’t want to miss. I actually felt a visceral sense of loss the other day when I saw a gorgeous caterpillar sitting on the edge of a fountain at a landscaping company Leah and I were visiting, its little spiny hairs tipped with water droplets, and I didn’t have my camera.
But I couldn’t bring myself to move a muscle as I sat on the floor and watched Ava march. It was the million dollar video, the once-in-a-lifetime shot. And I knew I wouldn’t be able to recreate this particular moment, Ava’s exuberance, her laughter, the sound in her voice and the movement of her right arm as she wielded her invisible mace, up and down, up and down, in time with her step. I looked over at Leah, and she looked back with a combination “WTF? / This is awesome!” smile that must’ve been a reflection of the adoring bewilderment on my own face. Right at that second, in that very instant before I turned back to watch Ava, I knew that I loved these two people more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my life.
There’s never going to be a picture of that moment anywhere but in my mind, a fact that makes it only more precious, like a tale of first love sent down from generation to generation in the stories of new lovers. But I can see it now when I close my eyes, the damp tangle of Ava’s hair on her shoulders, like a faraway star that compels me to consider my place in this world.
I know that one of the things Leah finds frustrating about not getting pregnant — aside from all her friends who are pregnant or new mothers — is that there are lots of people out there who are pregnant or new mothers who should probably never have had sex in the first place, let alone given birth. Like this lady.
Schnobrich, who told cops she used Percocet and took 86 sleeping pills in the prior two days, was charged with two counts of felony child endangerment and misdemeanor public intoxication. Days before her most recent arrest, Schnobrich pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor operating while intoxicated charge.
Talk about a responsible parent! Too whacked out on sleeping pills and booze, she enlisted her five-year-old to drive her home. Know when to say when, mom. Won’t somebody think of the children? At least she didn’t stuff the kid in a microwave, run over him in the driveway, or leave him home alone for a week while she went on a meth-fueled bender in another county.
I know I’m not supposed to say this, but it sure is frustrating to see all the ways our child welfare apparatus in this country fails under the weight of caring for children who were born to mothers who never, ever stood a chance of supporting a child. It’s difficult to talk about restricting a woman’s right to do what she wants with her reproduction (as someone who’s tried to talk a woman out of buying shoes, I know from whence I speak), but it’s heartbreaking to look at my darling Ava and to think of all the children in our own little city who go without every night. Children who suffer at the feet of the stupid decisions their parents made. There’s a difference between those parents and the parent I am; I don’t have any hesitation stating that. Maybe it’s the difference between children being an intentional choice or being a collateral occurrence. What kind of person can have so little regard for a child? Are they sociopaths?
Just what everyone needs: A real downer post on a gorgeous Friday.
As of 4 p.m. Central Time yesterday afternoon, my sister-in-law Rachel passed the oral section of her Ph.D. comps with flying colors. I’m so proud I could spit, even though I had absolutely nothing to do with her success.
Way to go, Rachel! I’m looking forward to celebrating her accomplishment in a couple weeks when she and Kevin are in town for Ava’s birthday. The picture above was taken a couple years ago in Grand Marais and is one of my favorites of Rachel. It’s probably second place to the one of her Uncle Jim’s dog Millie giving Rachel’s face a good washing on top of Pincushion, also taken in G.M. Rachel, you know the one I’m talking about….
I guess I can imagine that some people would consider having kids as a key component of a successful marriage, but 65% of people thought this at one time? Seems high.
Just four-in-ten (41%) Americans now say that children are very important to a successful marriage, compared with 65% of the public who felt this way as recently as 1990, according to a new Pew Social Trends survey. Yet while children may be perceived as less central to marriage, they are as important as ever to their parents. As a source of adult happiness and fulfillment, children occupy a pedestal matched only by spouses and situated well above that of jobs, career, friends, hobbies and other relatives.
I guess I wonder what “successful” means. Is it the same thing as happy? Surely happy figures in there somewhere. I guess if you see kids as an integral part of being married, then yeah, it’d follow that they’re key to marriage being a success.
What I’m trying to say is that I’m one of the six in 10 who wouldn’t call kids key to a successful marriage. I don’t think a child is the “point” of a marriage.
This picture was taken on August 9th, 2004, just a little over a month before Ava was born. It was taken either right before or right after we got back from a brisk walk, a regular measure we took to help keep Leah’s blood sugar numbers down. What a pain that was. Measuring all her food, counting grapes. Bah. It’s not like Ava ended up being huge, after all that.
This is one of my favorite pictures of Leah, pregnant or otherwise. They say that women take on a special glow when they’re with child, and my experience around pregnant women the last couple years confirms the old saw. But Leah looks especially cute in this picture, I think. Maybe it’s the playful pucker. Or the hair. That jaunty pose? Maybe that little bundle tucked away there under her shirt. A result of Leah’s bout with gestational diabetes was a fairly small weight gain during pregnancy. You can see here that she was pretty much all tummy.
From a technical standpoint, I love the light in this shot. If I’d had a camera with a better sensor at the time, I might have even been to tighten up the focus a bit. I suppose that’s why God created Photoshop.
Fish (tilapia, salmon, flounder, cod and mahi-mahi)
64 ounces of fluid
Red wine (preach, sister! Can I get an ‘amen?’)
Coffee (24 oz. daily, sorry, Kevin)
Milk (for the Vitamin D)
I like to try to imagine a reasonable meal that contains as many of these items as possible. You could nail a lot of them with a spinach salad topped with walnuts, fruit, and flaked grilled salmon, followed by whole wheat pasta with red sauce, a glass of chianti, a glass of water, and a nice cup of decaf with dessert.
I was just looking again at the menu for the Pepper Sprout, where Leah and I will have dinner on Saturday night. There are some nice things on there that meet a couple of the points above, but is there any realistic expectation that I’ll be able to avoid getting the curried mussels? I think not.
Via Sanjay Gupta (he’s no Quincy, but he’ll do in a pinch):
Recent evidence suggests that older men are more likely to pass down genetic defects to their children. Scientists have found a gradual increase in DNA damage as men age.
Bad news: I’m getting older. Good news: I’m a model of flawless DNA. I don’t know what “older” means in the quote above. Probably over 40, I imagine, and I have a couple years before hitting that landmark. If Hugh Hefner ends up fathering a child with Holly, that’ll put my mind at ease for a while.
Fashion designers are ramping up their effort to capture the teen market with a slate of new perfumes. Marc Jacobs, whose new Daisy perfume has ruby-red-grapefruit notes, launched a social-networking site where fans can create a Daisy profile in a virtual flower field. Young Sexy Lovely perfume from Yves Saint Laurent comes in a pink-hued bottle with a heart-shaped indentation. While most teens can’t afford $1,200 designer handbags and evening dresses, the thinking goes, they can afford a fancy eau de toilette, which typically costs less than $60.
Most teens can’t afford $1,200 designer handbags? Most? I can’t decide if I’d rather have Ava hanging out with the potheads in the parking lot at lunch or shopping with the $1,200-handbag set at the mall.
To be fair, a girl I was friends with in junior high wore a fragrance called Anais Anais (I think that was it) that was pretty nice. It was one of my first exposures to the seductive power of olfactory stimulation. She never gave me the time of day, but I did end up going out with her friend, who also wore Anais Anais, so it was all good. I reciprocated with Speed Stick by Mennen; what a lucky gal.
Our new house sports a dishwasher, a “convenience” Leah and I never knew at our old house. After living with it for a couple months, I’m not impressed. The problem seems to be finding that perfect schedule that will result in everything I need at any given moment being clean and ready to use. So far, that schedule eludes me.
I’m starting to think that the only solution is to run the dishwasher every night as we go to bed. Well, one of the only solutions. I could go back to washing everything by hand, which frankly I find therapeutic sometimes. Maybe I just need to give it more time.
In other news, Ava’s back to big girl underpants the last couple nights, with no issues. Actually, we did have an issue this morning. I told Ava she could watch two episodes of Caillou while I made her breakfast, and I was just finishing cutting up her waffle when she walked in and said she’d had an accident. Sure enough, there was a wet spot on the new couch. I tried to assure her that it was OK, and that accidents happen, and I apologized for not getting her to the bathroom sooner (WTF was I thinking?). I stripped the covers off the cushions and was relieved to find that nothing had soaked into the pads. I scrubbed the covers with some soap and water and set them to dry downstairs in the laundry room. It seems like we should be able to toss these covers into the washing machine, but there are no washing instructions on them. A call to Slumberland should clarify the matter. Stupid microfiber.
Panties emblazoned with “Buy it now! Tell dad later!” Now, I wouldn’t have Ava dressed for 6th grade in a burqa (probably), but the thought of her heading off to school wearing any of this stuff gives me the frights. Doesn’t Carhartt make underwear for little girls?
Even more distressing is the thought of Ava and Leah off shopping together. Where, I ask you, is the voice of reason in that duo? Maybe Ava will rebel against her mother’s devotion to uncomfortable shoes and designer jeans. Maybe she’ll be that kid at school who works her own style, out of step as it may be with whatever the barbies are strutting around in.
I just finished reading this on the WSJ’s parenting blog:
But between work and family, I’m finding little time to keep in touch with popular culture. My iPod is mostly a mix of 80s tunes and bands that were popular when I was in high school and college in the mid-90s; I can’t remember the last time I purchased anything by a new artist.
Being in contact with single, sometimes hipper colleagues in the workplace often reminds me just how out of touch I’ve become. The other day I had to turn to Google to find out that Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty were singers after they came up in conversation with coworkers.
Things aren’t that bad in our household. Yes, my iPod has its fair share of tunes from the 80s and 90s (and also the 50s, 60s, and 70s). But I have plenty of 00s music on the server at home, including Amy Winehouse and a number of her contemporaries. Leah and I are still plugged in enough that we have a certain feel for what’s going on “out there,” and besides, information on cool new music is only ever a podcast away.
Whether we’ll be able to maintain any hold on pop culture going forward remains to be seen. Anything worth looking at is on the Web these days, it seems; it’s been years, literally, since I’ve seen a music video on MTV. I know people are still shooting them. Where are they being played? Remember when MTV first started, and you could sit for an entire day and see nothing but videos? Sure, you saw U2, The Fixx, The Buggles, and Huey Lewis about 18 times each, but at least it was videos. Huey, why hast thou forsaken me?
Two ultrasound videos of Ava. This is back when Leah used to refer to her as our “bun.” Original, I know. Anyway, Leah ended up having at least three ultrasounds. She heard about a clinic in town that trains ultrasound technicians. Turns out the place also has a religious-based, pro-life mission, but Leah’s desire to learn that her baby was doing OK outweighed any other reservations she had. Another nice thing about the clinic was that they let me “take pictures” during the ultrasound. I never asked if it would be OK to take video, but it sure is easy to switch between picture and video mode on my P&S camera…just a quick turn of the dial.
In this first one, we get to see the heart beating, the alien-looking head, the spine, and other cool stuff.
In the second one, we see a great shot of her knee, her hand, and she even sucks her thumb! Crazy kid.
Contrary to what Mark might have said in his “que sera” post, I can’t seem to convince myself that “whatever will be, will be” when it comes to having another baby. I fervently, desperately want another child. We’ve been trying for eight months, with no luck, and it’s been such a shock to me, because we had Ava with NO trouble at all. In fact, we got pregnant with her three months after our wedding, during our first month of halfhearted “trying” without birth control. I guess that’s what gave me the misguided hubris to believe that whenever we’d be ready for another, we’d have one.
Grandma Georgie has decreed that posts on this blog featuring Ava (as well as pictures of Ava on my Flickr account) should be password protected. I aim to please; and if you’re not registered here, now’s a good time). But I’m posting this video out in the bright light of day because, firstly, it’s so darn cute, and secondly, Ava doesn’t look anything like this anymore, so the odds of tracking her down based on this footage are minimal. That said, on with the show….
I have some cool ultrasound footage I want to get up next. Watch for it….
Has it been 24 hours yet since I mentioned the Planet Earth DVDs?
Once again, Ava was sitting on the couch this morning in front of the TV, slippers on(?), eating her eggs while she watched her new favorite portion of the program. It’s on the Ice Worlds section, which contains many, many super cute penguins. But there’s also a segment I’ve mentioned her previously that shows a hapless polar bear who becomes injured in a desperate attack on a walrus heard and goes on to starve to death. There’s a particular sequence in which the bear is curling up on the ground to rest following the attack that prompted Ava to say, “Oh, he’s going to sleep. That’s cute!” I probably should have let it go at that, but it seemed important at that instant to explain to Ava what was happening. I told her that the bear was injured, and that because he was hurt, he wouldn’t be able to get himself any food, and he would eventually die. She sat there for a minute, staring at the gorgeous sunset on the screen. Then, eyes brightening, “No! It’s OK. Because the mommy bear will go and catch a fish. And she will bring it to the daddy bear, and then he will have food!” I smiled at her and said, “Maybe. Maybe she will.”
If only Leah could get over Attenborough’s use of “orientate,” this would be the perfect piece of entertainment for the whole family.
