TV Boy

Yeah, I know what I said about BB EC and the television. Yeah, I say a lot of things, and if you believe most of it, you're a fool.

So we bought some Baby Einstein videos for the little guy, and know what, he loves them, it's about the only television he watches (with the exception of the Fox Morning News) and I'm pretty sure it won't turn him into a lunkhead.

So far we have two of the videos, baby Beethoven and baby Mozart. Not quite the full orchestra versions of the music, but what the hell, it beats Barney and the Wiggles, I'd imagine. The videos themselves are filled with random puppet action and spinning toys. They're actually kind of trippy, and if you threw a little Dark Star in the background, you would have a perfectly serviceable Baby Grateful Dead video. I know the videos won't turn BB EC into a genius (genetics should take care of that, hahaha) but I really can't believe that watching puppets and listening to Mozart is harmful to babies. It's not like I'm going to shove him in front of the tube and make him watch Kickboxer with Jean Claude Van Damme just to keep him quiet when he cries.

Oh yeah, the crawling thing is also proceeding along nicely, really getting the knack for it, so good in fact, in one day he fell on his face and bruised himself and closed his finger in a drawer.

Ready Set Crawl

Baby Boy EC, eight-months old, is getting pretty good at the crawling thing.

The only caveat to that is that he is getting pretty good at crawling when he is butt naked. Oh sure, when he has pampers, a onesie, and pants on, he can scooch a bit, get up on all fours and rock around.

But strip him done so he can feel the breeze of the fresh air on his little boy bits, and he suddenly becomes Carl Lewis at the '84 Olympics. Which can make changing pampers a bit of an adventure these days. Soon as the second velcro latch is undone, he's pivoting like Kevin Mchale in his prime and is halfway to the dining room, pumping his little arms and legs as fast as he can, bum up, scooting straight ahead like a little man with someplace to be.

It's all very cute, and you want to call the wife and the grandparents and uncle over to watch BB EC go, but at some point, you realize you're playing with fire. Or more accurately, playing with pee. Because, although theoritcally BB EC has been stripped of a freshly peed pamper and there should be a urine-free grace period, I have discovered that eight-month olds don't always like to stick to the theoratical world, and don't give a darn about when or where they pee. And since we are all living at grammy's house for the time being, the issue of where he pees becomes even more of a third-rail issue, even if we can always blame the barely house-trained corgi.

Once we get the pamper back on, it's like BB EC has been exposed to baby kryptonite, and he's suddenly back to barely rocking in place.

Who knows, maybe BB EC is on to something. If I'd only run my cross-country meets with no shorts on... well, I guess I wouldn't have been doing anyone any favors.

Seasons greeting

Merry Christmas all

I have a very bouncy BB EC in one arm, so I'm typing the best I can with one hand.

Hopefully be more updates soon, including the story of our almost finished(I think) housing hunt.

Hoop dreams

BB EC just had his six-month check up, and we found out that he is the 100th percentile for height, making him the Wilt Chamberlain of the infant world. I know there will be pressure for him to jump straight into the pros from high school, but I’m hoping he takes the scholarship. Later tonight, I’m planning on shooting some video of BB EC going to town in his jumparoo and sending it to Coach K at Duke. For a little guy who can’t stand on his own yet, he has a pretty impressive vertical leap. He’s also able to go to his left, although it’s usually for pulling off my glasses or grabbing his little bag filled with pear pieces, not driving to the hoop. That’s okay, I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time for practice.
Of course, I don’t want to be one of those pushy sports parents, barking at the officials during T-ball games and sending BB EC off to basketball clinics at the age of 2. Because the doctor also said BB EC was very developmentally advanced, I would have no issue if he decided to become a brain surgeon.

Live blogging the ALCS

8:45 p.m. Okay, I'm not really liveblogging the game, but it sounded good, didn't it.

Actually, I forgot the game was on until about the fourth inning. Mrs. EC went out for dinner with a friend, so I was planning on some quality Green Eggs and Ham time with BB EC. After that, I was planning on doing a little reading of the more grown up variety, or possibly updating my woefully neglected blog (which I am doing now, so I guess I wasn't too far off). By the time I tried putting BB EC in the crib, I remembered the game was on. Of course, BB EC boycotts the crib these days, so right now he's sleeping beside me on the bed, and the game is on, the Sox up 5-1 by the time I started watching.

With Sabathia in the hole right off the bat, I'm calling the series, Sox in 5. The series was effectively over before I even started watching. Bring on the Rockies. The only down side to that is that losing to the Coors Rockies would be about the most depressing thing ever, probably about the only thing that would come close would be losing to the Devil Rays in the ALCS.

At least the Red Sox master plan is now apparent. Come out like gangbusters in April and May, build a 30-game lead, coast for four months, and then wake up and smack everyone around in the playoffs. Not bad, if you can pull it off.

Sox now have the bases loaded and I'm feeling like all I will ever blog about again is baseball and donuts. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing...

9:30 p.m. The Sox are up 8-2 in the sixth with the bases loaded, I finally got BB EC into the crib, and I got myself a bag of chips and a Corona Light. It's officially a party! (Sadly, this is as wild as my life gets)

Crabby time

Someone is not happy in the exersaucer. Baby Boy EC has a very determined look as if he is going to bash the stuffing out of the circus seal toy.
Hopefully, I'll check back in a bit when BB EC (normally as happy a little guy as you'll find) either perks up or heads to bed.

Online

Work, work. Baby, baby.

On top of that, a finicky computer with a sketchy wireless connection. To get on the internet, I basically have to recite the alphabet backwards, draw a pentagram in the sand, cross my fingers, make sure I'm not on the wrong side of the house (dividing line is at the staircase), go downstairs and drink a glass of milk, come back upstairs, wait, wait some more, then check the computer and hope I got lucky.

Oddly enough, the same process is also needed at times to feed Baby Boy EC, with the added bonus that BB EC can scream very loudly.

Of course, he is also much cuter than my computer and he can touch his toes. Top that ancient Toshiba 2100 CDS.

A vast wasteland

The latest scientific research recommends not allowing children under the age of two to watch television, so as not to let their little brains rot at an early age (only put into more scientificy words).

Early on, the missus and I decided that it would be a good idea to heed the sciencey reports and keep Baby Boy EC away from the idiot box for the first couple of years of his life. I'm not sure about the missus, but I mistakenly assumed that this was a decision we wouldn't have to worry about too much for the first year, since I couldn't imagine BB EC would show all that much interest in the boob tube til that time.

But, like much else in life, I was sadly mistaken.

Since BB EC turned two months old, he has taken every opportunity possible to sneak a peak at the evil black box, no matter what's on - Food Network, Red Sox game, test pattern. A couple of times, we've even caught him staring at it while it's been turned off. The first time we caught him watching TV was about a month ago, when he was screaming as babies will do and I was walking him around the room singing songs about monkeys and diaper pails, as dads will do when babies cry. Suddenly, BB EC stopped crying and his eyes turned big as saucers as he stared across the room.

"Good boy," I said. "Daddy knows how to make you ... Hey, are you watching 'So You Think You Can Dance'? No, no, no."

Since then, whenever we're in a room with a television on, we have to make sure to turn BB EC in the opposite direction, lest he be lured in by the magical allure of Alton Bown's Good Eats or another barnburner of a Terry Francona press conference (You know, our guys played hard, sometimes the other team just gets that extra opportunity, blah, blah, blah). And because BB EC shares a room with his mommy and daddy, when we put him in his crib, we have to make sure his eyes are closed before we turn the TV on. On more than one occasion, we've thought he was asleep, only to discover he was faking it and watching Househunters instead.

Unfortunately, BB EC has some allies on the TV front in the form of Grammy and Grampy EC. When we were over their house for Sunday dinner, we told them that we don't plan on letting BB EC watch TV until he is at least two.

"You and your father watched TV when you were little," she tells us. My dad and I also have the attention spans of gnats, so that might not be her best argument.

Try as we might, however, there is always the temptation (on my part at least, don't tell the missus) when BB EC is especially fussy or screaming, to walk by the television verrrrry slowwwwly and let him catch those bright colors and frantic movements out of the corner of his eyes. So far, I've done my best to resist and stick to my improvisational songs about monkeys, pampers, and spaceships.

Regression is a wonderful thing

Now that I have a one to two hour commute to work each day and I can't make it home for my lunch break, I've been packing up my lunches at the beginning of the week and stockpiling food in my desk and in the company fridge. Pretty smart idea, right?

Yeah, well, except for the part where I'm turning back into an eight-year-old.

It started with the juice boxes, and I will admit, they were my idea. Hey, a guy gets thirsty, and juice boxes, they have the straw attached and everything. Convenient, no? Plus, it's not like I'm carting the Ecto-coolers to work. I've been getting those Vruit juice boxes, the fruit juice mixed with veggie juice. Veggie juice is pretty grown up. I mean, I would have gotten my ass kicked if I tried pawning off carrot juice on the other kids on the playground when I was in third grade.

Still, juice boxes are just one of those inherently funny things in life. Drink a fine Bordeaux out of an 8 ounce juice box, and it will still look like your mother should be dressing you up in Garanimals.

So the juice boxes are one thing, but I did not realize how far I had fallen until the other day when I opened up my snack drawer at work (technically, I now have more drawers for snacks than I do for work) to get a package of Cheez-Its.

Now, lets back up to the weekend, when the missus, BB EC, and I went grocery shopping. The missus has control of the carriage while I'm making sure BB EC remains napping by keeping his stroller in constant motion. The missus likes very detailed grocery lists, while my needs are usually broken down into Breakfast, Lunch, and Snacks on the list, giving a lot of leeway for potential purchases. So I'm pushing the stroller back and forth while the missus heads down the snack aisle. She comes back with a package of nutter butters and a package of Cheez its. Decent choices both, but honestly, once something is in the cart, I'm ready to move on. She could have bought me jellied octopus rings and sugar free pork rinds and I would have been - sure, sure, that's great, honey - lets get the bread and get out of here.

Which brings me back to the Cheez-its. Or should I say, the Fun Shrek Shapes! Cheez-its. Oh lord, first the juice boxes, now this. Before I know it, I'll be reading Spiderman comic books and eating SpongeBob Jello pops in the break room while wearing striped tube socks hiked up to my knees. And I wonder why the missus is convinced I'm going to end up being a crazy old man.

Rasta baby

I know it's only a matter of time before Baby Boy EC falls under the hypnotic sway of the Wiggles, Barney, or some other parent-grating musical entertainment act. For the time being, we can take solace in the fact that BB EC seems to dig the reggae. The missus is convinced its because she listened to lots of reggae in the car while she was pregnant. I'm hoping its because BB EC was born with a fully functioning good taste gene.

We've actually been trying to play BB EC a good mix of music, from jazz and classical to reggae. We tried, we really tried to expose him to a CD of baby lullabyes, but it sounded like folk music with what little energy that type of music might have sucked out, and then mixed with a heavy-duty valium cocktail. I know the point is probably to relax babies and get them to sleep, but I would feel bad if he was nodding off not because he was relaxed, but because the songs were boring him to pieces.

When it comes to reggae, BB EC is especially fond of Toots and the Maytals, and he likes dancing around his room with his mom to Funky Kingston and Reggae Got Soul. Reggae also soothes the little guy. One of the last nights before we moved out of our apartment, the college kids next door had a party with a live band that specialized in hippy-dippy type of music. BB EC was starting to get a little fussy, until the hippy-dippy band broke into a pretty decent cover of Stir it Up, causing BB EC to immediately calmly sigh and fall asleep.

Now, we will play BB EC the Toots and the Marley and the Jimmy Cliff, but I draw the line at dressing him up in little tie-dye onesies or getting him a little baby rasta cap. We've got enough to do as new parents without trying to be hip and cool by dressing our baby up like a little hipster. Plus, the dinosaurs and little trucks are just so darn cute...

Not quite according to plan

Things are in a state of general upheavel and chaos on the EC homefront right now. Looks like the missus, BB EC and Endangered Corgi might be making a totally unplanned move back to the hometown much, much sooner than we had ever planned to, putting a premature end to our 10 years of wandering in the North Shore desert. This is the second day of me dealing with that likelihood, which means I am many times over more pragmatic and reasonable about it than I was at this time yesterday.

General rule - Give EC a day to sulk and feel sorry for himself and he gets it out of his system.

May sound corny, but everything will likely turn out for the best sooner than any of us may expect. Plus, it's hard to feel too bad about one's lot in life when Baby Boy EC lights up our days with a seemingly infinite array of poop faces and incredibly loud farts and belches.

So pack up the dishes, call the post office, looks like we're heading home. Maybe for a short time, maybe longer.

Mr. Poopie Pants

Baby Boy EC is home and doing well. Napping, pooping, staring at black and white targets and the lights on his play gym and all of that other totally adorable baby-type stuff. The Missus and I totally love him and I'm fairly certain that BB EC is getting used to us.

As expectant parents, the Missus and I probably got a lot of advice and tips, some solicited and some not. Most of the the little tidbits I heard broke down like this - your life will change forever, get use to not sleeping, and you will get peed on. Sure enough, two weeks in, and it's all pretty much true. Of course, it was all pretty blatantly obvious advice - what, you mean there is a little person who can't do much on his own and is going to depend on me and my wife 24 hours a day and you think my life is going to change - well golly gee, and I was really hoping to start training this spring for that ascent of Mt. Everest I've been putting off for years.

The lack of sleep and the getting sprayed by the peepee is also kind of obvious, but nobody bothered to tell me that there are two less obvious derivations of those old standbys.

First, the sleep. BB EC obviously needs to be fed and changed every couple of hours, so there is a decided lack of sleep. But, luckily for me and the Missus, BB EC has been a pretty good sleeper, and we've all been able to get back to sleep during the night after the 30 minutes of the feeding and changing ritual. What may actually be the bigger shock to the system isn't the lack of sleeping, but the lack of any kind of coherent eating schedule for the grown ups. If Mrs. EC and I can get the window to throw together a sandwich and wolf it down for lunch by 4 pm. its a good day. Doing the math, that pushes dinner time back somewhere between 8 pm and breakfast the next day. About the best advice I can give to ensure you don't waste away while your newborn is eating everyday is to make sure there are plenty of foods around that can be eaten with one hand. Pop Tarts and granola bars are high on the list.

And for getting sprayed, it really isn't the pee that's the biggest shock the first time it happens (although it is pretty amazing that he can send a stream clear across the changing table to the other side of the room). Nope, it's the stuff shooting out the back end. Apparently, the fresh air on a baby's bottom acts as a kind of laxative. Luckily, being a baby is about the only time when everyone is thrilled that you're pooping, no matter where it lands, and BB EC is making the most of it.