The Post about the Girls meeting Parker March 13th

And then it came time to introduce the girls to Parker.

Although they would spend the next few days at Grandma’s, we’d taken care to see that school, dance class, and playgroup would proceed as usual.

The idea was for them to see Parker as an addition to their lives, not an obstruction.

As 3 o’clock approached I picked up Olivia, my youngest - oops, my middle child - from my Mom’s and went to pick up her sister at school.

Grace was a bit more subdued than I expected - a hangover from a late night at Grandma’s I imagine - but she was eager to hand out the blue bubble gum cigars I bought for her classmates.

Read that bit again: bubble gum cigars. I had a whole box of chocolate cigars, and yet I chose to give the bubble gum version to a room full of three-year olds that have yet to master zipping their jackets.

Bet the other parent’s loved me.

At the hospital they both seemed relieved and happy to see Mommy up and about, but while their initial attention was on her, it didn’t take long for them to notice their little brother.

This was the stuff video cameras were made for: my girls beaming as they were introduced to Parker, doting on him and saying things that were so cute they'd make Art Linkletter smile:

"Your tummy looks a lot smaller mommy"

"Why his belly-button all icky?"

Unfortunately I didn’t have a video camera; just after the birth the night before, one of the nurses had dropped the camera bag and broken my camcorder.

I would curse her name forever. . .if I'd thought to get her name in my post-birth glee.

And then it was time for the gifts from Parker. When Olivia was born she ‘bought’ Grace a doll. Grace is many things, but a doting caregiver is not one of them. It lay unused until Olivia was old enough to appreciate it.

This time around we tried to be a little more precise. Livvie - the nurturer - got a dolly, while Grace -the diva - opened a gift bag with sunglasses, lip gloss, glittery belts, etc.

All dollar store stuff, but they loved it enough to fight over it.

I was a little nervous when they held and fed Parker, but they did just fine. By then visitors were rolling in - including my mother-in-law, who'd come to take Grace to dance class.

Before they left I wanted to take them down to the cafeteria for dinner - an ode to an old McDonald's commercial about a father and a new big brother who bond over french fries.

Yes, I fashion my sentimental moments from the refuse of fast food ads.

It was in the cafeteria that I had a good scare.

I was busy picking out a motley collection of fruit, Cheetos, yogurt, and milk for the girls (hey, it was a special occasion) when I did the standard head count.

And came up one shy.

Olivia was nowhere to be found. Not just temporarily out of sight, but gone. I put down the tray and with panic rising, hurried around the salad bar.

In a small room that was nearly empty, I couldn't find her.

And then I felt a tug on my pants leg.

Olivia had been behind me the whole time, her little legs keeping her just far enough ahead/behind to remain hidden from my sight.

Meanwhile Grace was calming standing to one side.

"Why didn't you tell me Olivia was behind me?" I demanded.

You see where this is going, as did I even as I asked the question. But what shocked me was how slow and deliberate her answer was, like she was explaining it to someone with head trauma.

"You didn't ask Daddy"

Maybe she has reason to think that way - after all I volunteered to bring another one of these monsters into the world.

What else but head trauma would explain that?

Hodge Podge & Arlo and Janis

I'm aware that there hasn't been a non-Parker related post since March 4th, and while I know this may bore/irk some people, I'm afraid you'll have to live with the fact that the next three or four posts may be more of the same.

Also, a brief flare of disgust for BE - in its continuing efforts to please everyone (and therefore no one) I've found my readership halved, as folks now are limited to surfing the sites in specific categories. So what about me?

Aside from posts about my kids, I write on politics, TV, current events, and esoteric rants. Kinda makes it hard on Slapinions, you know?

And don't get me started on the insanely detailed new rating system. Who has fifteen minutes to evaluate a site? In order to be accurate you'd have to read half the dang blog.

Ugh.

This next bit was originally published Friday, March 11, 2005

Arlo and Janis

I don't know how many of you have followed the links to the left, but I encourage you to check out Arlo and Janis, one of the best - scratch that, THE best comic strip around since Peanuts left us.

Now that I have the picture function working, I'll occasionally rashly challenge copyright laws and post an especially witty strip.

Follow the link and enjoy!

Posted by Slapinions at 9:34 AM
Labels: general

The Story of Parker's Birth March 10th, 2005

One thing nice about having an inducement date: with the nursery out of the way and a concrete end to the pregnancy in sight, we could sit back and relax for a few days.

But if it happened that way, we wouldn’t have much of a story, would we?

So I wasn’t all that surprised when I came home from work Sunday morning to the news that my wife was in labor.

I wasn’t surprised, but I still didn’t believe her.

Through three pregnancies I’ve developed an irrational belief that Lisa is incapable of knowing when she’s in labor. At least I’m consistent; I don’t believe her when she says she’s pregnant either.

So we sat there and timed her contractions, and sure enough: every fifteen minutes Parker came one step closer to entering the world.

Lisa then did the only sensible thing: she sent me to bed, and she went out and got a manicure and pedicure.

At four o’clock I met up with her at my parent’s house, where my niece Stacey was celebrating her 4th birthday.

Although March 6th is a historically significant date - it’s the date the Alamo fell, and yes, I’m a big enough dork for that to matter - no one wanted Parker to share his birthday. My wife and father share a birthday, as do my sister and my wife’s brother, and her childhood friend and mine.

Enough was enough.

But it wasn’t looking good. At 5:30 one of my nieces ran in with big news: Lisa’s water had broke.

At a child’s birthday party.

Lisa moments after her water broke; yet another pic my wife will hold against me. :)

Of course, this wasn’t a movie. Nobody started boiling water and shredding sheets. Instead, after consulting her doctor Lisa again did the sensible thing: after cutting my hair, we went shopping.

With some gifts in hand to give our girls after the birth, we returned to the party to say our goodbyes and hit the road.

At 8:15, on a gorgeous 48 degree evening that resembled a brisk May night more than early March, we arrived at the hospital.

Almost exactly ninety minutes later, with Lisa stuck at 3 cm dilated (despite being almost completely effaced) the doc started pictocin, a contraction-inducing IV drug that Lisa dubbed “the devil’s serum” two births back.

Whatever its faults, it works. Lisa’s contractions began coming a minutes apart, with only enough time between each to catch her breath.

At 11 o’clock Lisa caved and asked for an epidural. Why this should even be an issue to women escapes me, but trust me on this: for a woman, being able to say they had a medication-free birth is the equivalent to a guy saying he used to do porn.

It is, at its core, a female dick-measuring contest.

By the time the epidural was in place and they were starting the medication it was almost midnight. With Lisa still at only 6cm, I took the opportunity to jot outside and have a cigarette.

While I was out there I called both our mother’s and told them to start heading out the door - both were supposed to be there for the delivery, just as my mother-in-law had been in the room twice before.

In all, maybe ten minutes passed.

When I got back to the labor and delivery floor the nurse flagged me down: the baby was coming.

It’s like the old adage while waiting at a restaurant; the minute you light a cigarette, dinner will arrive.

What followed is horribly embarrassing to my wife, again for reasons I can’t fathom. Should I ever find a child pushing out my genitalia, I would do far worse.

Still, with the epidural still - and never to be - working, my wife was rather vocal, and with a Hollywood flavor: in a nod to every pregnancy scene ever written, she stated she hated me. She also tried to quote The Exorcist, but failed: “It burns” came out “It’s burning, it’s burning!”

I could see Parker crowning but everything was on hold until the doc arrived. In the meantime a nurse tried some tough love with my wife, telling her the epidural wouldn’t have taken away all the pain - she lasted all of ten more seconds in the room before Lisa drove her off.

And then the doctor arrived, a petite athletic Filipino woman caught off guard by the speed of Lisa’s progress and about to deliver my son wearing a “Real Chili” T-shirt.

Two pushes later, my son was born.

He’s the smallest of all my kids, coming in at 7 pounds, 10 oz and 20.5 inches with a beautiful, perfectly round head and almost none of the typical ‘leftovers’ from the womb.

Even though he was early he came out with wickedly chapped hands and feet, the latter being big floppy appendages that can bend all the way back to his knees, to the amusement of visitors of all ages.

In my opinion, his, ahem, male parts are also capable of reaching his knees, but that may just be a father’s hope for his son (and the fact that like his father he is all torso and no legs).

I was the first person to ever place a diaper on him, and to my sorrow it was not the last.

He has my youngest sisters ears (they curve inwards in the middle, resembling a letter “E”), a cleft in his chin like me, a nose that’s wide on the bottom like mine but seems inclined to grow into my wife’s perfect button nose.

He came out alert and has remained so, with a pretty docile disposition that changes to that of a tiger when he’s wet or in need of human contact (which is pretty often).

Although I regret that they didn't have the opportunity to see the birth, I appreciate the fact that my wife and I were able to experience our son's birth with only each other for support.

Parker soaked my wife, a curtain, and my jacket with urine before he was 48 hours old, first christening his Mom sixteen hours after his birth.

He has yet to urinate on his Daddy.

In short, he is perfect.

One pic of Parker!

This pic, courtesy once again of Oftencold, was taken mere minutes after the birth.

I'll post more later (as if you were afraid I wouldn't :) But I gotta tell you, I don't think this page has ever looked better . . . .

 

Parker Is Born!!!

Parker Daniel was born at 12:13 am this fine March 7th. He weighed in at 7 lbs 10 oz and 20.5 inches long.

Mom and son are doing fine.

Much more to follow, including pics, but I just wanted to quickly let everyone know.

:)

Finally- some working pics

After four months, and through the intervention of Mr.Oftencold (as featured on the links to the left), I have some working pictures on the site.

Check out the bunk bed entry for new and updated displays of the room in question.

Oh, by the way - the 'boy' in the castle pic is my youngest daughter. My youngin's don't have much hair when they're little, and she was just shy of one at the time. And ignore the date stamping - that's wayyyy off.

 

Pregnancy Update

Ugh. The hospital called back and said they have no slots available for an induction except on the 9th. Worse yet, they don't do inductions at 11 at night, so there's little or no chance of the birth happening on the 10th.

Not only does that bump the date back a day, it also screws up the symetry of having my son born on a day I saw in a dream (yes, I saw his name and March 10th in a dream before the doc even mentioned induction. How new age is that?)

So, unless he pops early it's gonna be on the 9th.

The Post about Lent and Fish Fry's March 4th

Today, shortly after midnight, a co-worker offered to buy me dinner -albeit from McDonald's. As his offer is as rare as extra cash the day before payday, I was tempted - but declined.

It is Lent, it's Friday, and I'm Catholic.

And no, I don't like Fillet O'Fish.

I'm under no illusions that my afterlife will be determined by what I eat, but to those who snicker and see no point to it all, I respectfully disagree.

It's not about avoiding some dire consequence; it's about committing to something.

The Church asks that I not eat meat on Fridays for a few weeks. Since I'm Catholic, I choose to abide by that rule as a sign of respect. With a few tweaks, it's the same rationale behind turning down a bribe to look the other way at work, because for better or worse I agreed to the job and I'm damn well going to do it.

Likewise, as a married man, it's why I say no to the supermodel's that are always asking me out.

Commitment's important, you know?

And it's not so bad skipping red meat now and again. In fact, it's only gotten easier since I met my wife.

Back in the day I didn't like fish, had no interest in Italian food that didn't come out of a can, and wouldn't touch tuna or egg salad if my life depended on it. I was a bit of a poor man's version of a snooty food critic.

A few years of raging poverty cured me of my tuna-phobia real quick, while my wife's fetish for the Olive Garden introduced me to several vegetarian dishes. Somewhere along the line my tastes changed and I even acquired a liking for seafood.

Which works out great, because Fish Fry's are to Milwaukee what Mardi Gras is to New Orleans.

Forget the stereotypes that say tourists should hit a German restaurant and a custard stand. Bratwursts are about as much German culture as you'll see on a daily basis.

You want to taste what Milwaukee really eats? Visit on a Friday.

There's not a restaurant in town that doesn't feature a Friday fish fry year-round. Family restaurants do it. So do local fast food places, greasy spoons, and four star restaurants.

Boy Scout troops hold fish fry fundraisers, as do churches. Serb Hall crams hundreds of folks into their fish fry at once, and their drive-thru line stretches out to the street.

I've even gone to an authentic Mexican restaurant and been served a fish fry complete with fries, rye bread, and coleslaw.

Ole.

Trust me, Milwaukeean's consume enough mercury in a given year to take their own temperature when they're sick.

I don't mean to pass this off as a religious mandate. While Milwaukee has its share of Catholics, it's morphed into more of a cultural phenomenon than a religious requirement.

After all, it was my wife's family - Lutherans by and large, with the oddball Catholic thrown in (damn Democrats and their quotas) - that introduced me to the gluttony of the all-you-can eat fish fry.

The fact that this feast falls on Friday seems to be just a bit of good luck for me.

Sadly, the best fish fry in Milwaukee, a title held by a small bar here on the south side, is no more. Once I could complement heavenly baked cod with the best shaved onion rings on earth; now I simply mourn the memory. The bar closed its doors for good a few years back.

Which leaves only 10,000 other places to vie for the title.

My sister's Birthday

Today (well, yesterday) marked my sister's 30th birthday. I don't think she's ever visited this blog, but if she ever does - all the best and lots of love.

Pregnancy Update

We had another doctor's appointment Wednesday, and the news is as follows: if Parker doesn't pop out on his own before then, Lisa will be induced on March 10th.

The due date was/is floating between March 5th (ultarsound results) and March 14th (traditional, last-date of period dating) so he shoud be fully cooked either way.

Knock on wood.

I'll keep you updated.

The Post about Ebay March 3rd

If you ask me - and since you didn't, I'll just pretend someone did - Ebay is heading for disaster faster than a Rob Lowe TV series heads for hiatus.

I speak from experience here, with the love and insight only a true devotee can bring to the table. I've been an Ebay member for seven years, long enough that I can boast of saying 'I bought it on Ebay' and then having to explain what that meant.

I've bought hundreds of items, and I've sold hundreds too. Clothes, books, electronics, you name it, I've bought or sold it, and with nary a problem to report.

Heck, there was a time not so long ago when if I saw a listing for a time machine made out of tin foil and Jell-O, I'd bet my life that I'd be having dinner with Abe Lincoln the day the auction ended.

Sigh. Memories.

Six of my last eight transactions have ended, if not in disaster, then with disillusionment.

There was the video camera that was dead on arrival.

On the selling end, there was the one buyer that just never paid, and another who dragged the process out with endless (contradictory) claims that her mother had fallen ill.

There was seller who charged $3.00 for shipping, then sent the item in a standard envelope for $.83. A handling charge you say? That'd be the stock answer, but how hard was it to drop that in the mail? What, they don't have mailboxes in Baltimore?

There was another seller who sent only half of the decorations we purchased.

And last, but certainly most infamous, there was the $40 lamp that took a month to arrive. When it showed up at our door it wasn't the item pictured in the auction, but gosh golly in the fine print the seller reserved the right to substitute at whim.

More than a month later we're still waiting for a refund.

Ebay used to resemble a universal rummage sale, with a casual, one-on-one atmosphere. Now sellers feel compelled to toss caveats and vague threats on every listing, and buyers have the art of bidding so down pat that a beginner has almost no chance to win unless they're willing to mortgage their house.

As near as I can tell, the villain seems to be the 'power sellers', the mass quantity sellers who dominate the new marketplace. The vast fees they pay may help Ebay's bottom line now, but they'll be the downfall of the company in the long run.

Don't believe me? The guy that sold us the lamp had a feedback rating of around 99%, enough to give us unwarranted confidence. After the fiasco, a closer look showed he averaged fifty dissatisfied customers a month.

True, a thousand people were happy with the service in the same thirty days.

But over the course of a year, there are now 600 people who'll hesitate to use Ebay because of that lone seller.

Even an old hand like me gets a case of the willies. I just bought a camera at Best Buy for $50 more than I saw it listed for on Ebay. A year ago I'd have stuck with the ebay model, but forgetaboutit: I didn't have the time or the energy to deal with the hassles.

Tell me that's the kind of thing a company wants to hear from its customers.

Oh, I'll still use the darn thing. Where else can I buy an 11x14 sepia print of Babe Ruth or sell a battered old textbook?

Only now I'll do it with my fingers crossed.

The Misguided Post about the Oscars Feb 28th

I watched most of the Academy Awards tonight, a useless bit of trivia unless you're tallying up all the hours I've wasted in my life.

Making it all the more pathetic is the fact that I've only seen one of the contenders for Best Picture, the over-rated Ray, which made the experience about as thrilling as watching election results from Bolivia.

Still, there were some items of note:

I thought Chris Rock was a funny host, even if his misplaced Bush rant embittered me almost as much as the "Vote for John Kerry!" sermon at a Barenaked Ladies concert this summer.

(I say almost, because Rock is an American citizen and entitled to his opinion; it was awkward enough paying to see a Canadian band, much less one that didn't know how to mind their own business)

But it's hard to hold a grudge against someone that starred in Friday. I got over it.

Anyone else think Renee Zwellger looked older than Clint Eastwood? Yikes.

I'm in love with Kate Winslet (okay, lust) so I was hoping she'd win, but to be honest I don't think her role in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was worth a nomination.

I am, however, quite happy that Sunshine's writer, Charlie Kaufmann, won an Oscar.

Having Penelope Cruz and Selma Hayek partner up to present an award must have been someone's idea of a joke. I haven't had to wade through that an accent that strong since my cable box was stuck on the Yakov Smirnoff festival.

Joke ruined by a mere week's timing: Is it just me, or have you noticed that Alan Alda and the BTK killer resurfaced at the same time?

My wife took offence to Scarlett Johnannsen's answer to "What actresses did you idolize as a child?" saying it sounded rehearsed and unrealistic when she said "Judy Garland."

Maybe. But she's still mighty hot.

Al Pacino: if that hair gets any higher he could trade places with the singer from Counting Crows.

Robin Williams should thank heavens for the gag order imposed on him. At least now he has an excuse for not being funny.

'Bout time Morgan Freeman won an Oscar.

Antonio Banderas, Carlos Santana, and a movie about a Communist murderer. There should be a joke in there somewhere, but I can't think of one.

Most overblown blog response to the Oscars: to paraphrase a right-leaning site that shall go nameless, an author blasted the left-wing Hollywood establishment. He then went on to praise the hard-working farmers and construction workers of America whose "only golden statuette is the silhouette of the morning sun upon their brow."

Uh, yeah.

I was amazed to see that Virginia Madsen was nominated for best supporting actress. I don't mean that as a knock. After all, in my teenage years I spent many a fond moment watching her fine performances in late night cable movies.

Or as I like to call them "porn, but don't call it a porn because it's R rated and they only take their clothes off and fake having sex"

Guarantee: despite their lack of nominations, twenty years from now the only movies people will remember from 2004 are Passion of the Christ and Fahrenheit 9/11.

And finally, 'tho I never thought I'd see the day, a moment where I felt a certain fondness for Ms. Streisand, as she seemed genuinely happy for Clint Eastwood.

So did his 96- year- old mother in the audience. Thank God for her genes indeed - maybe it means we'll have another twenty years to see Clint work his magic.

Best Wishes

Basil, a regular customer at work and occasional reader of this site, is leaving for an extended trip to China on Monday. Here's to a safe and enjoyable journey.

Quote of the Day

Last week my three-year old misbehaved at a store, yet stubbornly argued that she should still be rewarded with a candy. Her admament defence dragged on for nearly the entire ride home.

"I'll say this much for you," I told her "You're a tenacious little girl"

As soon as I saw the evil glint in her eyes I was fearful. "Why you say I have ten asses?" she said.

"I didn't say that, I said tenacious. It means stubborn. And don't say that word."

"Ten asses?"

"I said don't say that!"

"Why? Why you  say  I have ten asses? I don't have ten asses. Momma, Daddy said I have ten asses .Do you think I have ten asses?"

"You know full well what I said! Now stop saying that! It's not funny!"

Which was, in retrospect, not all that believable a statement while my wife was giggling in the front seat.

Raise my daughter among less reputable parents and you'd have a cross between Michael Corleone, Ozzy Osbourne, and a Disney Princess.

 

The Post about the Olympics Feb 27th

I stopped at my parents' house tonight to pay my respects. As expected they offered me a bag of groceries from their cupboard (they often confuse my rotund appearance with the symptoms of starvation. Not that I mind; they buy much yummier food than we can on our budget).

I was also, by sheer lack of timing on my part, subjected to the evening news.

Now I detest television news: national and local, cable and broadcast. Every cliché on the subject is dead on - from the stilted banter and thirty-second in-depth analysis, to the hysterical weathermen who want this overweight smoker to buy into the idea that a thunderstorm may just be my undoing. I'll stick to the newspaper and the 'net, thank you.

[Of course, on the plus side, some of the local anchors are hot.]

But my parent's are addicted to the stuff, so there I sat. And wouldn't you know it, right after the 'special investigation' into whether those work-at-home emails are a scam (surprise, they are!) I actually learned something.

It seems the US is pushing hard to host the Olympics again, this time in New York City.

For a good minute I was filled with pride. I was ten years old when the Olympics hit Los Angeles and I remember what a big deal it was - the majesty, the patriotism, and the boatload of free food McDonald's had to give out as prizes when the Soviets backed out and ceded the playing field to us.

Then I thought about it, and now I'm left half-hoping we aren't awarded the 2012 games.

If I were a New Yorker, I'd be hard-pressed to see the economic value to my city. Say it is well-organized and does well, which is no sure thing. Is that enough to offset the cost of building an 80,000 seat arena in Brooklyn - a building that has to be built if New York has any shot at all of winning the bid?

Add in years of additional traffic congestion and the fact that building these projects means evicting and leveling countless businesses and residences, and I don't see how this adds up as manna from heaven.

Let's not even bring up the subject of security . . .

But I'm not a New Yorker, and so my opinion, rightly, means as much to them as their opinion on foam cheese heads does to me.

But as an American, go back to what I said about the magic I felt watching the '84 Olympics. It seemed like a rare and special event, something that may not be repeated in my lifetime, an athletic Haley's comet.

So much for that.

In the last twenty-five years we've hosted one version or another of the Olympics on four occasions. Add New York to the list and,I'll have seen five Olympics on American soil before my fortieth birthday.

By that time, the Olympics will seem about as special as a rerun of Home Improvement.

Wile I normally hold the admirably Americentric view that the rest of the wold can take a flying leap, I wouldn't blame folks overseas if they looked upon us as a monopoly, ready and willing to outspend everyone for the honor.

That's not the Olympic image I want to cultivate.

I'm sure most people disagree with me; so be it.

One last parting shot though - if one of my kids ever makes the Olympics, I'm sure the trip of a lifetime would be all the more special for them if it didn't begin and end at someplace serviced by Greyhound.

Pictures

I must truly be stupid, because everytime I try to load the pics the proper way they're so big they warp the page . . . I think I have to change the pics themselves before doing the whole AOL thing, but I don't know how to go about that.

Odd, they look great on the monitor and on paper . . .

So anyway, follow the links below to view the pics (I'll be adding more later).

And yes, I'm in one, but I look like poop. But to be fair I was sick at the time, dressed in scrubs, and most importantly, everyone knows the camera adds 150 pounds.

 

The Post about the Bunk Beds Feb 25th

[If you are reading this via email updates, check the site itself later today. I'm going to try and load some pictures of the room in question. Wish me luck]

Taking care of a baby doesn't seem like half as much trouble as preparing for their arrival. (Of course it helps that I work and get a pass on most of the sour moments, but I digress)

When our oldest was born it meant tearing apart the room we used as an office/library, disposing of one cherished collection after another from our more than quarter-century of child-free years, painting, and decorating.

Our second was a bit easier, since they were both girls and would share a room, but still involved a drastic reduction in income and space.

Alas, this third time to the maternity ward will produce the long awaited Parker, son of Daniel, son of Edward, Son of Michael, son of John.

'Bout time my wife's eggs managed to recognize a Y-chromosome.

(kindly skip the science lecture. Science will eventually discern that that while the man directly determines a child's gender, a woman's egg has a specific gender preference and can accept or refuse a given visitor.

Thus, it's all her fault)

Now, last summer we'd moved into a three-bedroom flat to give us more breathing room. Like most old houses in Milwaukee, the bedrooms are small. The girls occupied the smallest as a bedroom, and we made the second into a playroom for them, with my wife painting a mural complete with a castle and princess on the wall.

Parker's impending arrival meant scrapping the playroom, which broke my heart.

We needed to move the girls out of their room and into the playroom, but to do that seemed impossible. Two beds - even toddler sized - would chew up almost all the space in the room. Remember, we still had to account for their toys, rocking horses, TV, dresser, bookcase, and table.

The solution seemed to be bunk beds, but standard bunk beds would chew up most of the room too. No one seemed to sell toddler sized bunks, even online, and a carpenter we contacted said no one would make them because of the danger of putting a toddler on an upper bunk.

Well, necessity being the mother of invention and all, I decided to make them myself. My wife's brother offered to help, and I accepted. Since he knew what he was doing and I didn't, it seemed like a wise choice.

Let it be known that I am not well known for my mechanical prowess. I can tune up a car, I can do light household maintenance, and once upon a time I built a nice little shelf in shop class, but that's it. If I'm shown what to do I can replicate it, but I have very little experience and thus very little knowledge.

Plus I can't measure worth a damn, which is a bad trait for carpentry.

Never-the-less, we pushed on.

I based the plans on a picture of some beds I found online, and used some ideas from a very basic plan I found on a different site, but modified it quite a bit. We reduced it in size, making the top bunk only 51 inches off the ground and the total height (including a canopy) 67 inches. Instead of a single post on each corner we crafted duel posts secured with carriage bolts, which made the bed strong enough to hold the weight of both my brother in law and myself - some five hundred pounds - before we'd even finished making the braces or screwing it together.

We made sure the bed rails and ladder steps were spaced a safe distance apart, routered the boards to eliminate sharp edges, abandoned the original design for the bed support and used both 2x4's and particle board, and recessed the mattresses to prevent them from slipping.

It wasn't easy. It was time consuming, there were mistakes and do-overs, and it ran so close to the end of the pregnancy that my nerves were getting frazzled.

But we did it.

And we did it cheap too - the total cost was under $150, and that included the satin fabric my wife bought to drape the bed like a princesse's castle.

(as with everything, you don't see problems with a design until you actually use it. I found the height of the canopy so low my daughter hits her head, so we're redoing it. Which means the pictures don’t show the fabric, which sucks).

And did the girls like it? Please! On February 19th, the first day it was in the house, they didn't want to leave the beds all day, not even to eat dinner! And my twenty-month old took to her bottom bunk - her first time sleeping outside a crib - like a champ!

Now all that was left was the nursery.

Many thanks to Bob Kohn for his help in making the beds, Eric Chambliss for transporting it and his wife Chris for some free hardware for the construction, Jonah Slapczynski for helping sand them, and Jeanne Scorsone forthe loan of a second sander and for some fantastic work on creating the canopy.

 

PS. Here's a pic of the completed canopy - the only negative is we matched the sheer fabric too well to the walls, rendering it almost invisible.

Clarification and Etc

I appreciate all the kind words about the delivery, both in the comments and via email, but let me clear something up: while the stats show progress towards the birth, we haven't entered the home stretch yet. Some women can take weeks to move from 2 to 3 centimeters. The due date remains either March 5th or a week later, depending on if you go by ultrasound data or the last missed period.

I'll keep you all updated and I hope the wishes are repeated when it is time for the big event :)

Also -if you are not an AOL user, feel free to use the comments page that can be found on the left of the page in the 'about me' section.

Update on the Pregnancy

Just in case anyone is interested, according to the doc my wife is now two centimeters dialated, 30% effaced, and the baby's at -2 and counting.

The Post about Internet Quizes Feb 21st

One of the great advantages to being part of the Blogsphere is a growing understanding of myself as a person. For instance, just the other day I learned that I am a "'you're so dumb' happy bunny", defined as "you are brutal in your words and enjoy putting others down."

No guidance counselor was ever so accurate.

This and similar insights come from an abundance of surveys and quizzes scattered throughout our little electronic world of make believe. If I so desired, I could learn what color I am (in the Crayola sense of the word), what Star Trek or Star Wars character I best resemble, what superhero best describes me (Spiderman, tho' the foolish test came up with Supergirl. A guy wears a dress one time . . .), and even if I should best be called Earth, Wind, or Fire (I'd insert a EW&F joke here, but I'm woefully ignorant of their music catalog).

That I've chosen to take any of these goes against my grain. Oh, I love when I'm drafted at the mall into taking a consumer survey, and I'm the only guy in America that enjoys telemarketing calls, but I hate quizzes. They smack of Cosmo, that bastion of anti-masculine culture, and I cannot cross the line.

[Side note: I have a friend who subscribes to Cosmo, claiming that as a single man it provides him incredible insights into the female brain. How an article entitled How to make him Scream in Bed is something he'd like to incorporate into his own repertoire brings up questions we don't ask.]

So what's the difference? One cannot feel like part of a community until you participate in the actions considered important by that group. Thus, the quizzes.

Plus, I was bored.

Never-the-less I gotta say some of them are spot on. One dandy labeled me 26% white trash, a level that "will not keep you from becoming a doctor . . but will keep you from a good haircut and fashion sense." Another determined I was 33% tortured artist, not enough to "drive your life into a dark abysmal hole where you are alone against the world." Good to know.

I was also determined to be 57% Evil Genius, a score I think derived from a question asking if I've ever scared someone away with a look and then laughed at them. (hey, that old lady deserved it). I ranked as a moderate internet addict (no knowledge of some alphabet soup programming stuff) and surpassingly, a low level geek (based, I believe, on the fact that I do engage in actual intercourse. With a female. A non-avitar female. )

Some were far off the mark. I placed at the 24% level for 'raver', despite never attending a rave in my life. And the one that ticked me off - I rank as a mere 40% grunge. Excuse me? Grunge was the one true love of my college years. I once spent $40 to buy an intentionally distressed flannel, which I wore every other day for five years. I know the family tree for every Seattle band of the early '90's, bought anything SubPop put out, and I continue even now to collect evidence that Courtney killed Kurt.

40% my ass.

But let us end on a positive note. On the Hotlanta Kink Test I earned 350 points, placing me as "definitely a kinky player". Shamefully, I'm quite proud of this score, although it's a sham. I didn't answer all the questions honestly.

If I had, I'm sure I would have qualified as "Super Freak! You da Bomb!"

Re: Where have you gone?

Sorry I haven't posted lately.

I haven't grown sick of blogging, nor am I suffering from burnout, psoriasis, or anything stronger than a cold.

I've just been very busy in a mad effort to get the house ready for the baby  - hopefully  in time to allow a week of relative relaxation before the birth.

I'll try to get the site back on a normal schedule by Monday.

Misc chatter

1. I was just checking my BlogExplosion stats and noticed that one person has actually dropped me from their Blogmark page. Ouch. I didn't think the book list was that boring.

2. BTW, the books in blue (in the post below) I whole-heartedly recommend. I tried to edit the post to tell you that (and correct some typos) but it keeps freezing on me.

3. To answer an email question, The DaVinci Code isn't on the list because I read it in '03 (the 30th of 79 books that year). Let us be clear on my opinion - the book sucks on a hundred different levels. It's success can only be explained away by reminding ourselves that at one point our society also raved about Vanilla Ice, Teletubbies, and above ground nuclear testing.

The Substitute Post while I paint the Nursery Feb 9th

My wife and I are hard at work prepping the nursery for the arrival of Parker in early March?. To my shame, I haven't had time to scrabble together a post. In fact, I took an extra day off work - something I do maybe twice a year - just to finish the painting.

So, here's something I wrote about a month ago but considered too boring to post. Ain't that a great recommendation?

A long time ago I read Louis Lamour's posthumous autobiography, The Education of a Wandering Man. At the end of the book Lamour included a list of every book he read over the course of some of his 'yondering' days.

Although the lists were panned in reviews of the book, I resolved then and there to start taking stock of what books came across my plate. Beginning in 1994 and continuing to this day, I've done just that, jotting down the name and author of every book I've read.

Yeah, I know. It sounds lame to me too.

But I keep doing it. My shortest list was the year I met my wife, when I was too busy to care about heading off to the bookstore. My longest was sometime in the last three years, when I cleared eighty-some odd books.

I keep aiming for the century mark and falling short.

To rationalize my failure a bit, the list is very particular. Not only do I have to complete a book, I have to have read any and all forwards, footnotes, appendixes, and dedication pages. Maybe five books a year fail to make the list for failing to meet one or all of these criteria.

Lamer still, I know.

Anyhow, before I ramble myself into a straight-jacket, here's the list for 2004; and I warn ya, it's a weak one. I was mired in a few monster works of non-fiction for most of the summer that knocked me off pace. In addition I generally don't read other people's work when I'm stressing my own writing.

Floating Dragon by Peter Straub

Koko by Peter Straub

Mystery by Peter Straub

The Throat by Peter Straub

Julia by Peter Straub

Shadowland by Peter Straub

Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga by Stephen Davis

The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, The B.B, and Ritchie Valens by Larry Lehmer

Big Bad Wolf by James Patterson

Bad Business by Robert B Parker

Shall We Tell the President? By Jeffrey Archer

A Marginal Jew Vol. 1 by Joseph P. Maier

If you Copuld See Me Now by Peter Straub

The Hellfire Club by Peter Straub

The Birth of the Messiah: A commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke by Raymond E Brown

Double Play by Robert B Parker

The Enemy by Lee Child

Tripwire by Lee Child

The Possession of Joel Delaney by Ramona Stewart

Hark by Ed McBain

LazyBones by Mark Billingham

Plan of Attack by Dale Brown

Absent Friends by SJ Rozan

Sharpe's Escape by Bernard Cornwell

The Bone Parade by Mark Nykanen

The Madman's tale John Katzenbach

Sudden Prey by John Sandford

Hawke's Harbor by SE Hinton

An Unpardonable Crime by Andrew Taylor ? ?

Scaredy Cat by Mark Billingham

Cold Blood by Theresa Monsour

The Music of the Spheres by Elizabeth Redfern

The Virtues of War: A Novel of Alexander the Great by Stephen Pressfied

The Godfather Returns by Mark Winegardner

Melancholy Baby by Robert B. Parker

You'll notice I tend to binge on a single authour and then move on.

My favorites? Well, I'll tell you the worst of the bunch - Plan of Attack by Dale Brown and the oldie by Jeffrey Archer. My favorites are harder to sort out, but I must say that I was really drawn to the non-fiction biblical studies this year.

I swear, I get dorkier by the minute.

For my Wife's Peace of Mind

Lisa is slightly disturbed by the personal nature of the two posts on mice.

Let me set the record straight: if we had a problem with rodents or pests, I would have gone insane years ago.

In nearly ten years of living together this is only the second mouse I've seen in our home (the first was one my cat killed and brought home as a 'trophy'), and we've never had a problem with other pests. The mice mentioned in the rest of the piece were at work or at other locales.

Also, I feel it neccessary to point out that while rodents are my achille's heel, it does not in any way reduce the fact that I am, to be fair, the studliest man in America.

 

Dan

Super Bowl Prediction

Not much of a surprise here, but I'm going with the Patriots.

Above and beyond the fact they play like a brutal, uncompromising machine, have the edge in experience, and shut down Indy in the playoffs (in what was probably the best game of the year), they just flat out have more attractive uniforms than the Eagles.

Pats 27 Eagles 17

Although the score was tighter than I expected, the Pats walked away with yet another title. Two observations:

Where was this vaunted coaching of Andy Reid? The Eagles time management was awful, as was their play calling in the closing minutes. Yikes.

When you look at McNabb's stats, you don't get this impression - but the man choked. Not only did he give up the ball at the worst possible times, he looked sick to his stomach when Philadelphia got the ball back with a chance to win it all.

JMHO