DadRock

Closing up shop

So I'm sure you've noticed a lack of action around these parts since our new baby girl arrived. I said I'd post the story of the day she was born, and I never got around to it, and now she's almost 6 months old. I'd like to say I've been too busy to post, but that's not really it. I guess I've just sort of lost interest.

When I started this blog, my intent was to bring my previous experience writing music, book, and video game reviews to the parenting world, focusing this blog on kids music, toys, and various media. But as the posts went on, it became more and more of a "this is what my kid did today" kind of blog, and I never really had much of an interest in that kind of blog. I liked being able to keep a handful of friends and family updated at once, but writing to an audience of 6 or 8 people was never my plan, no matter how great those 6 or 8 people are (and you are, each and every one of you, great). I wanted to build an audience and develop a voice, but the thing got away from me before it could happen, and here we are.

At any rate, I'll be removing this blog from the webosphere in a week or so, so if you for any reason want to re-read anything, now's the time to do it. In the meantime, you can still keep up with my other two blogs. At Bat to the Face I occasionally post funny sports pictures, and at Under the Muck I post random weirdo punk, metal, and rock albums. Neither has anything to do with parenting, but hey, maybe you'll like them.

So thanks for reading, thanks for commenting, and thanks for being an ear and a voice during the first coupl'a years of this crazy experiment of parenting Kelly and I have found ourselves in. If either of us figures out the secret, I'll let you know.

Cory

PS. One more thing- I often talked about our son's speech problems and his progress, so I'd like to give those of you who don't see us or him very often a little update. He's made amazing progress in the past year. Thanks to speech therapy and pre-school, he talks all the time and by all accounts sounds like a normal 2.5 year old. At his final evaluation in speech therapy back in March, his verbal language was right on track, and his receptive language was that of a 3.5 year old. We are extremely lucky and grateful.

The little girl

Our daughter, Ruby Kathleen, was born 1-5-09 at 3:03. More info soon. It was a wacky day.

Things 2-year-olds do

1. Sneak up on you while you're using the bathroom. Everything's quiet, then there they are, grinning at you and saying "poopie! teetee!"

2. Stick stickers all over the couch. Like dozens of them.

3. Color everything.

4. Dip everything in ketchup.

5. Want to watch the same thing over and over and over. In our case, it's the Tigger And Pooh Super Sleuth Christmas Movie.

6. Tear the covers  off coloring books for no apparent reason.

7. Constantly try to push their luck by doing things you specifically tell them not to do in varying degrees, such as grabbing an ornament on the Christmas tree, then just touching it, then pointing at it, then starting over with a different ornament.

8. Chase the dogs.

9. Love beans, then refuse to eat beans. Love corn, then refuse to eat corn. Love chicken, then refuse to eat chicken. Love grilled cheese sandwiches, then refuse to eat grilled cheese sandwiches. Love waffles, and pretty much always love waffles.

10. Face the harsh reality of giving up the pacifier. We're on night number two, and it's (so far) going *far* smoother than night number one went. Fingers crossed we get through this thing in another day or two.

An open letter to The Imagination Movers

Dear Imagination Movers,
How've you been? Things are good here. It's been a little colder than normal for this time of year, but for the most part I enjoy it. How's the weather where you are? Good I hope.

Look, let me get to the point. As I'm sure you're aware, I've talked a lot of trash about you. I don't think I ever blogged about you, but I'm certain that I told my wife how annoying I thought you were, and I told my friend Bryan that you sucked and that I'd rather listen to The Wiggles. Mover Scott, you in particular have found yourself at the business end of my insult cannon more than once. After all, I did say that you looked like Penn Jillette's nerdy son (seriously though, the resemblance is uncanny), and I think I once suggested you should go have improper relations with yourself.

I hope you'll forgive me, for these things were all said before your show debuted on Playhouse Disney. You see, now that I've had some time to get more acquainted with you, I've actually grown quite fond. Some of those songs are downright catchy, and your show, with its Monkees-like hijinks, is a welcome addition to the oversimplified cartoon world I get subjected to each morning. Mover Scott, I'm sorry I said you looked like you got kicked out of Hootie and the Blowfish for having stupid chin hair. It turns out you're probably the best one on the show, except for maybe that cutie Nina. What's her story, anyway? Why's she hanging around with four dudes all the time? That's a recipe for disaster, guys. Let me tell you, nothing can split up a band faster than having one cute girl hanging around all the time.

Don't get rid of her! That's not what I'm saying. I just think maybe you should have 2 or 3 more cute girls come hang out sometimes. I'd just hate to see Mover Smitty end up getting hurt when he falls in love with her and she chooses Mover Rich instead.

Finally, if you'll allow me one indulgence, I'd like to make a suggestion. You guys have all those wacky rooms in the Idea Warehouse, right? What if you had a Nacho Room, where a liquid cheese fountain was the centerpiece, and you could build your own nacho platter? Just an idea!

Anyway, I hope you will forgive me for my disrespectful past, and that we can just put it all behind us.

Sincerely,
dadrock

p.s. I don't mean to rock the boat now that we've gotten things smoothed out, but seriously, that "Numbers in my Bag" is the worst crap ever. You might want to drop that one.

p.p.s. Sorry, but as I was typing out the previos post-script it occurred to me that someone also needed to point out to you that the "Seven Days a Week" song is a ripoff of the theme for "Go Diego Go" so you might want to drop it too.

Two

So our son turned two on Saturday. Time flies. It's so hard to believe. The last two years have been turbulent and strange, and he's just been growing up in the meantime. But it's exciting and wonderful, and he's such a delightful little guy.

We had a party for him on Sunday, with family and a few friends. Big thanks to Jennifer S. for making an awesome cupcake cake. There are still 5 cupcakes left if anyone wants one.

On the speech progress front, the verbal break I mentioned in my last post a coupl'a weeks ago has hit full force, and he's now *constantly* trying to say new things. It's fascinating. Of course, now we're really seeing the extent of his apraxia, and it's clear that he's going to be in speech therapy for a bit for sure. You can recognize the words he's trying to say based on his cadence and the tone of his voice, but the specific syllables are often wrong, or they're drawn out as he struggles to get his mouth to move the way his brain is telling it to. For example, when he wants you to open something, he'll ask, but open comes out more like "omee". When he says Tigger, it's more like "Tee...cuh". Ls and Rs are going to be a problem, too. One funny result of this is that sometimes he sometimes substitues B for R. His sister's name is Ruby. We've got less that two months now to try to get him to say Ruby instead of Booby.

Speaking of Tigger, our boy is completely obsessed with the Tigger and Pooh Christmas movie. Every day we fight off watching it for as long as we can, because once you hit play that first time, he won't be happy unless it's on. Luckily he only half pays attention to it when it's on anyway, as he's usually coloring, playing with his cars, or chasing our dog Yoshi around, but we get *really* sick of it. But it's so hard to resist when he walks up saying "Pooh! Pooh! Pooh!" He's even figured out that we use the dvd remote to start it, so he'll find that remote and bring it to one of us. Smart kid. I guess we'll have to fight through a few meltdowns after Christmas over it though. I'll be damned if I'm watching this thing well into Spring.

Oh, I also said last time that I'd keep you updated on how my first batch of homebrew turned out. It's good. I've got about 3 six packs left, and I've got a Coffee Stout in the fermenter right now, but I won't be able to crack into it for a coupl'a months. I might do another batch in the meantime. It's a lot of fun.

Things I've Been Doing Besides Blogging

It's been far too long, so I figured I owed you an explanation as to what I've been up to since we last spoke. Make no mistake, I've been moderately busy a considerable amount of the time.

1. Brewing
About a month ago I cooked up a batch of Extra Pale Ale. It's my first shot at home brewing, but I've got high hopes. If this one goes well, I'm going to try something a little darker next time around, like a porter or a winter ale. I brewed it and moved it to a fermenter, then a week or so later siphoned it to a secondary fermenter. Two weeks after that, I bottled. As we speak, there's a Rubbermaid in our kitchen with 45 bottles of beer in it, conditioning. I could crack one as soon as Monday, but I'm going to hold off until Wednesday since it's been cold (the carbonation process happens slower in colder temps). I'm also considering holding off until Tuesday the 4th as a celebratory gesture. I'll keep you posted.

2. Cramming My Face with Politcs
As alluded to in the previous post, I've been downright obsessed with the impending election as well as political stuff in general (see #3). I even hung out with my 12 grade American Government teacher a coupl'a weeks ago. That was a hoot. I suspect he may become a bit of a comrade down here in the Republican stronghold we call our home town.

3. Watching The West Wing
Aaron Sorkin's masterpiece, The West Wing has four solid seasons of fantastic tv with some of the best characters ever to grace the small screen. By season 5, things start getting a little shaky (I'm sure it's no coincidence that Sorkin left after season 4), but even through the hit-or-miss later seasons, there's some great stuff. The liberalism is a little heavy-handed at times (even for me, and that's saying something), but excepting that, it's fantastic.

4. Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
I installed Windows on my iMac specifically so I could play this game. It's glorious.

5. Being Amazed by Our Son's Progress
He started pre-school back in August, and it's doing wonders. His vocabulary is up to 7 or 8 clear words/names, and a good handful of beginning sounds accompanied by signs. He's picking up things quickly now, and we're feeling very confident that the verbal breakthrough we're waiting on is just around the bend. He's in pre-school two days a week for three hours a day, plus his weekly speech therapy. We're feeling good.

6. Getting Ready to Have a Daughter

 

 

It's a girl

Baby #2 is due in January, and we found out today that it's a girl. Holy moly.

Like a cat presenting a dead chipmunk

A few minutes ago, I was sitting here minding my own business, and the boy walks up to me holding a cave cricket by one of its legs. He was presenting it to me, as if to say, "Look what I got!" The thing was still alive too, so I'm totally amazed that he was able to just reach down and pick it up. Those things jump like crazy.

As a kid I was terrified of cave crickets because I thought they were spiders. Both of my brothers' rooms were in our basement at the time, and therefore you were pretty likely to find these little buggers jumping around down there. We called them jumping spiders, and they were almost enough to keep me from spending too much time down there alone. Of course, the Nintendo was also down there, so I managed to overcome my fear most of the time.

When Kelly and I lived in Lilburn, Ga, for a few years, we had a big basement that was just overrun with these things at certain times of the year. I grew to not really mind them, as long as they didn't jump directly on me. They're just crickets after all.

But still I was caught off guard to see him presenting this thing to me. My first instinct was, "Drop that!" but then I realized it would likely hop off. So I managed to grab the trashcan and hold it out to him, where he gladly deposited the cricket. I then dumped him outside, where he'll live to hop another day. He's lucky neither of the dogs found him.

Family Heirlooms

My brother and I go to my grandmother's house each Friday to eat lunch and mow the grass. Her house is sitting on like three or four acres, so it's a bit of a job. We divide it up, me on the riding mower, him on the tractor. It's actually sort of relaxing, though, and it gives my mom and grandma some time to play with the kids, which they really enjoy. And, of course, we usually get a good home-cooked lunch. Today we had fried chicken, fried okra, black-eyed peas, cornbread, pasta salad, and big glasses of sweet tea. I had two plates full.

Anyway, there were two cast-iron skillets sitting on the stove when I arrived. I'd remembered a while back my grandmother telling me that she had a skillet that was given to her by her grandmother, so I asked her about it. Basically I knew it was something that no one else in the family would probably have given a second thought to, but I figured when the time came it was something I'd like to get. At any rate, much to my surprise, she pulled it out from the drawer under her stove and offered it to me. I was honored to take it.

It was given to her by her Grandma Seeney (I'm guessing on that spelling and to be honest I'm not even sure which great-great-grandmother this is from, and none of the names on the family tree I referenced fit with Seeney. I'm going to have to do a little more investigating), who used it over a wood-burning stove back when electricity was something city-folk had. She died when my mother was very young. My mom says she only remembers this grandma, her great-grandma, from stories. I'd guess the skillet is at least 100 years old. And it's in wonderful condition. Cast-iron skillets are a special thing; the more you use them, the more durable they seem. As long as you treat them with a little love and care, they will outlast you every time.

I'll use this one, for sure. And even more so, I'll protect it, so that some time, many years from now, I can offer it to one of my grandchildren as a piece of our family from a time they'll barely even be able to comprehend.

 

The Trash Heap (Nyaaah)

Sorry it's been a while. I was out of town for a week or so, and before that I was just busy and/or lazy.

At any rate, about 6 weeks ago I started a compost bin. I want to plant a garden next spring, and I figured I'd get a head start. I used a 14 gallon Rubbermaid container, some old newspaper, and some bricks for the bin itself, and a boxcutter, screwdriver, and spray bottle for the construction. Here are some pics of the basic procedure:

So in the past 6 weeks, a ton of stuff has gone into the bin.
-coffee grounds and coffee filters (every day)
-corn husks
-onion skins and scraps
-broccoli scraps
-old blueberries
-old grapes
-sliced tomatoes that didn't get eaten w/ the hamburgers they were sliced for
-half a bag of cole slaw mix
-dryer lint
-toilet paper and paper towel tubes
-egg shells
-banana peels
-grass clippings
-leaves

You get the idea. At any rate, it's a slow process, but it's totally fascinating to me. First of all, you'd think a pile of old rotting food would reek something awful, but it doesn't. I'm not prepared to say it smells good or anything, but it mostly just smells like old coffee. It's got an earthy aroma, but it's not a rotten smell at all. I keep a little bin beneath the sink that I put random scraps into, and every coupl'a days I go out and dump the new stuff in and stir it all around a bit. After 6 weeks of brewing, here's what it looks like: 

Here's a close up. Notice all of the grub worms:

Anyway, as you can see from the pics (especially the second one), the compost is a little too wet. It's not quite to the slimy stage though, so I think it'll be fine. Part of the reason for the wetness is that we've actually gotten a decent amount of rain over the last week or two (though I should point out that it does have a lid on it when I'm not taking pictures, so don't think I'm just letting it get flooded like an idiot). But to help dry it out, I shredded a bunch of newspaper today and added it.

I stirred about 2/3rds of it into the compost:

And then I spread the rest over the top:

Hopefully in a few days when I check on it again, it won't look quite so gloopy.

Oh, and I also planted a few herbs the same day I started the bin. So far my basil and garlic chives are doing pretty well, while the oregano and parsley have both sprouted and died once already. The parsley is coming back in again though, so we'll see what happens.

Anyone else into this kind of stuff? It's all very new to me, but I find it pretty fascinating and fun. I'm really looking forward to getting my garden going next spring.