Splintered

When I was a child my father seemed to get great delight each time one of us would get a splinter. First there was a lot of gleeful expressions and rubbing of hands. Then he would ask my Mom where he could find a needle. After selecting his torture device he would light a match and put the tip of the needle in the flame – to sterilize it I think – while the patient victim watched anxiously. Since splinters were almost always on our feet the victim would be lying down on the couch on their stomach, knee bent so the afflicted appendage was sticking up into the air. He then would proceed to tilt the lampshade and commence surgery by sewing needle. Now I have always said that my dad is a little bit mean. I love him and we have a great relationship but, especially when we were kids, he wasn’t always nice. But I’ve wondered, was he really that mean? Last night I found out.

Word for Word

It’s so interesting to witness the language development of a child. Katrina is generally past the I-can’t-understand-what-the-heck-she’s-saying stage and while she still does mispronounce words she’s gotten way better at pronunciation too. Now we’re pretty much full into the learning new words at the speed of light stage. The funny thing about this is that a kid only learns the words to which they are exposed. This is, of course, why we are sometimes addressed in Spanish. But Dora aside, it only makes sense that a child learns the words he or she hears.

If They Could Just Stay Little

It’s amazing to me how different parenting can be for your first versus your last child. In our case, we had no children in the middle — we only have a first child (Katrina) and a last child (Tristan) — but I think it’s the same if you have lots of kids too. With Katie we couldn’t wait for her to sit up, to crawl, to get her teeth, to walk. But for Tristan I feel like we’re pulling him back, willing him to be a baby just a little longer. I am especially guilty of this. We rarely “work on” crawling or standing with him although I’m certain we did with Katie. Doesn’t he know he’s the last little one we’ll have and that when he passes from one stage to another he’s closing our door to that part of babyhood forever? Probably not, babies don’t have time for sentimentality. But I do and even though I’m super happy he can crawl, eat cheerios, and briefly entertain himself I’m already missing the time when all he needed in the world was me.

Somewhere Over Nebraska

While the urchins were at home melting this week, I was fortunate enough to escape to San Diego. I have spent a lot of time in California — I know Silicon Valley almost as well as I know my own hometown — but I have never had any desire to live there. Maybe it’s all the fruits and nuts, but I really couldn’t live in the bay area and LA drives me crazy. I have always said that if I had to live in CA I would live in San Diego. — I want to live in San Diego. — Maybe it’s the fact that my hotel was a block from Solana Beach that pushed me over the edge, but I started looking at the job listings. Knowing I could never convince Jen to move, I decided not to look too hard because there were definitely jobs I could get excited about.

Burning the Midnight Oil

Hello, yes, it’s 2:00 in the morning and I am awake. In fact I have yet to go to sleep. Unfortunately for me Tristan woke up shortly before 11:00 from what he seems to think was a nap and now he’s wide awake, ready to play. Let’s just say I am a little less enthused. It seems I am in the midst of a perfect storm of baby insomnia. First we have the teeth — three have pushed through but there are more to come; then we add change of venue — two weeks away from home; thirdly, unusual night noises — on vacation he was awoken by Daddy’s snoring and dog collar jingling in the same room plus some really loud thunderstorms; lastly I think he’s in a little growth spurt making him hungry. All I have to say is, could I be more lucky?

là où est le papa

Keeping up with my unfortunate one post a month pace, I have some snippets for you to enjoy today.
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One of the things I like about reading mommy blogs is that they give me some insight into what my stoic bride endures day in and day out. When I was more prolific here there was a white elephant living in our house. Jen’s mom commented that I was funny and that Jen was just “cute and well written.” Jen decided that I (and other bloggers) were funny because we were “crass and irreverent.” Unwilling to stoop that low she resigned herself to “cute and well written.” If she had gone the other way I think some days we might see some posts like we see from Wood over at Sweet Juniper. I just can’t wait to see how their posts change when Dutch and Wood switch roles and Dutch goes from lawyer to stay at home dad. Good luck Dutch, you are a better man than I!

So Good To Be Back

So who wants to hear about lovely days by the seashore when there’s vomit to talk about. Nothing like crashing back into reality. Tristan’s first tooth, heralded by a vomit bath for me, arrived about a month ago and the second tooth arrived one week later. Now we seem to be working on the upper teeth and at seven months he still lacks the mental powers to understand that you don’t bite the hand that feeds you — or in this specific case, the boob that feeds you. And while these teeth have only brought sleepless nights and the aforementioned biting problem they have, as of yet, been vomit free. Well, leave it to Katie to pick up the slack — en route to the grocery store this morning, vomit everywhere. Nothing like driving the 20 minutes home with that smell — good times! And since we’ve been away for two weeks and I never made it to the store I was left with tortilla chips and candy corn for lunch. Yes, I said candy corn, as in from last Halloween — or maybe the previous one — delicious! And just to make things slightly more stressful, Stefan is having sinus surgery tomorrow. Yeah, it’s shaping up to be a great week.

Daddy Day

So being a Mommy is a tough job, and you can never really know how tough it is until you are one. I mean one night last week I was coated from shoulder to waist in vomit, not spit-up, but sweet potato stinking vomit — I think that can be defined as a hard job in anyone’s book. But being a Daddy, that’s not so easy either. And in the urchin household, as well as the houses of our urchin forebearers, Daddys go to work and Mommys stay at home. And while staying at home isn’t all fun, going to work is usually no fun at all.

Crunchy Granola

Papa Urchin has eluded to it before but when we first dated I was not at all the crunchy granola type. I was way more the Kraft Macaroni and Cheese type. I wanted to be everything different than a tree-hugging hippie and thought most of those types were weird, at best. Now to give myself some slack, Stefan and I began dating when I was 19 so I had a lot of world-learning left to do. All this is not to say that I didn’t believe in taking care of the planet we’ve been given or eating in a somewhat healthy manner — I had just completed a calendar year where I was a vegetarian — I just wasn’t into all the quasi-political stuff, or the bad fashion.

Desperate Housewife

I just called home and asked Jen what was going on there…

I am doing dishes, Sandra [the cleaning lady] and Katie are reading a book.

I knew things were a little crazier at home since I started my new job and began working long normal hours, but I didn’t realize it was so bad that Jen was using the maid as a babysitter and cleaning the house herself. I can’t blame her, even in the limited time I am around Katie now, I have a hard time handling the constant chatter. On a rainy day like today I would probably go nuts. I am just worried what is going to happen when school lets out for the summer and Jen loses her two half-days of sanity. I have encouraged her to find some way to get Katie out of the house for a few hours a week, but as yet she has booked nothing. I might just have to take matters into my own hands for fear of coming home to finding Jen curled up in the corner in the fetal position while Katie watches a non-stop Dora marathon and gorges herself on Laffy Taffy and tortilla chips.