Happy Birthday, Grandma Panache!!

The Deflector Sheild is Down!

“You know,” said my wife Sunday, “I think we can probably remove this now.” She gestured at the blanket that has, for months, protected the hand-woven rug in our living room from the once-frequent regurgitative assault of our daughter. “She hasn’t spit up in…geez…over a month.”

I was reminded of this conversation this morning as I sopped warm, rejected milk from the rug.

My daughter’s devious patience scares me.

Who Was Afraid of Men in Silly Costumes?

On Saturday morning, Moonshot and Little Lutine let me sleep in just a bit. Not more than a half hour or so, but it felt utterly glorious to stretch out in the bed for a brief moment. I tend to go to bed later than my wife and rise at least an hour before her. An unoccupied mattress is a rare thing.

At any rate when I eventually slid on my robe and stumbled my way down from our converted attic bedroom, I was greeted by a long forgotten by instantly recognizable theme song from the living room.

American Gladiators.

Moonshot shrugged sheepishly. “There was nothing else on.” But I didn’t need any explanation. I’m as big a fan of nostalgic schlock as anyone. Bring on Nitro, I thought as I prepared myself for mind-numbery. But as I stood there, a thought occurred. And that was a bit annoying on a Saturday morning. But, once it had sprung into my head, I had no choice but to chase it down like a white rabbit. And having chased it, I had no choice but to comment to my wife about it…thereby dragging both of us away from our brainless Saturday and into yet another sociological discussion.

It’s what I do.

I remember when American Gladiators first hit television. I can recall critics bashing it, saying it was another step toward the downfall of our society. Anyone who would root for such barbarism, they said, was just like the Romans who screamed for blood at the Coluseum. Now, even at my young age, I knew these folks were going off the deep end with that kind of talk. But I accepted, even as a fan of the show, that it probably appealed to the worst in humanity and represented a bad trend in American culture.

Standing there in my bath robe almost 20 years later…it looked positively adorable. It looked simplistic and silly. I tried to remember a society that would be offended by this level of “brutality.” I tried to recall a me that believed that grown men in flashy costumes shooting tennis balls at each other represented a base and degrading element of our society. I tried to recall what made this so offensive. Goofy….sure. Offensive?

No one was getting voted off the island, ala Survivor. No stripping games to titillate, ala Dog Eat Dog. No blood and barbed wire, ala WWE. No back-stabbing masking as entertainment through camera confessionals encouraging contestants to bad mouth their opponents, ala just about every reality game show out there. Just people trying to best each other in straight-forward and silly physical competition.

With the light of hindsight it seemed almost pure.

I stood there and wondered what sort of entertainment Norah would someday gaze at nostalgically. I felt old.

So, having chased the thought to its age-spotlighting conclusion, I shut off my brain and let Norah climb on me while I remembered how much I had always wanted to play some of those cool Gladiator games.

Suddenly, it felt like Saturday again.

The Least Relaxing Bath….Ever

Ok…while I can’t actually prove the hyperbole above, I can say that if anyone has a less relaxing bath story to share...I truly look forward to hearing it.

We traveled to MoMa’s house this weekend. We hadn’t been down there for some time and Easter seemed as good an excuse as any to load the child and the dog into ZaZu the Subaru and go wreak some havoc on MoMa’s house of countless grabbable/breakable trinkets.

We were somewhat uneasy about how Norah’s sleeping pattern would play out for the weekend since we’ve been engaged in a battle of wills in our household of late. Norah wakes around 1 or 2 am and screams to be picked up. We decline. We soothe her by standing close and ssshhhhing calmly. But we’ve been waiting her out, letting her scream it out. There has been progress. Lately, she hasn’t been crying so much that she pukes, for instance. But, there’s still lots of screaming involved. And, that’s great in your own home, but somewhat more annoying when you’re a houseguest.

So, as the munchkin’s bedtime approaches on Saturday night, we start getting our game plan together. Her routine calls for a bath right before bedtime and we figure it would help to follow a known pattern even in this unfamiliar place. Problem is…MoMa doesn’t have a normal-sized sub anywhere in her house. She’s got showers and one uber-jacuzzi thing. When last we were there, Norah was small enough that we bathed her in the kitchen sink. Such a trick is laughably impossible now. Ok, we say, she’ll get to use the big tub. No problem.

We start the water running and strip the child. She crawls excitedly to the edge of the bathtub and pulls her naked self up to watch the water fill the tub. It’s a very cute scene that is played out every night at the grenstead. However, this evening there was one difference.

“Whoop! She’s peeing!” calls Moonshot from behind me.

MoMa’s floor is awash in yellow as my indifferent child stares joyfully at the water in the tub. As a man with nearly 31 years of urinary experience, I can say that I would have been impressed to let loose with this deluge. Seeing it come pouring from my minuscule daughter was truly disconcerting. Further, if this is the sort of torrent she is routinely unleashing…allow me to say that I have a new found respect for the absorptive powers of Huggies.

We scurry about and wipe up the floor while MoMa goes to get the Pine-Sol.

Once we get the worst of it, I set the girl in the tub and Moonshot rolls up her jeans so she can wade through to sit on the back edge of the tub in a Norah-Defense position.

Clang!!! Some decorative piece of knick-knackery is bashed to the floor by my wife’s bum. Norah is startled and keeps trying to climb to her Mommy.

“No standing in the tub,” we tell her. It’s a mantra of sorts during her bath time these days. But she doesn’t listen. She keeps trying to stand. Moonshot opts to get the wash routine rolling before the play period…you know…in case the little one gets fussy about not being allowed to stand, we can just remove her. It is just after the soap in Norah’s hair had been worked into a good lather that she tries to stand for the final time. She slips forward, diving her face under the water. Moonshot snatches her up within half a second, but not soon enough to prevent the hysteria.

“Panic!” say Norah’s wide eyes.

“Freak-Out!!!” cries her high-pitched shriek.

And “Hrragflflflf!!!” gurgled the stream of half-digested milk shooting from her mouth to coagulate in the warm water.

“Oh, she sitting in it,” I call helpfully from the sidelines.

“I don’t really know what I can do about that right now!” shots back my wife over the howls of our daughter. “I think we just need to end this,” she says. But we can’t…the child is fully lathered, so Moonshot is frozen, holding the panicked child by the armpits. We’re looking desperately for an escape route, the least traumatizing way to rinse the child in a tub full of swirling vomit.

“Over here,” I offer. “There’s no puke in the water over here!”

We frantically scoop water from the clean half of the tub to rinse the soap from Norah’s head and the lumps of curdled formula from her legs.

I lift Norah out of the tub as Moonshot extracts herself from her perch. It is to this chaotic retreat which MoMa returns with Pine-Sol in hand, eager to watch her darling grand-daughter frolic as promised in the tub.

The up-side was that all this pandemonium and terror seems to have really done the trick with Little Lutine’s sleep. She conked out in Moonshot’s arms within minutes and didn’t make a sound until morning.

So, for any parent out there looking for a way to ensure a good night’s sleep for your child. Moonshot and I whole-heartedly recommends a soothing Jacuzzi bath before bed. Norah, on the other hand, may have other ideas.

April Politicians

I toyed for some time with making a joke post today. Thought maybe I’d tell everyone that Norah had followed in her mother’s footsteps and uttered “Dammit!” as her first word. But, in the end, I figured it would be too obvious. Instead, I’ll share a bit of April Fool’s absurdity I experienced today.

I am weed eating along the sidewalk and a friendly and intelligent gentleman approaches me. I hut down the machine and he tells me that he is sincerely hoped that I would be voting this Tuesday in the city’s mayoral election. And further than he hope John Gieseke had my vote. Now, I don’t follow local politics as much as I should. Every year I tell myself that this is the year that I start paying attention. This is the year I begin acting like I really understand how much more significant local politics is to my life. But I never do it. Life’s been pretty good round these part, so left with no other input, I suppose I’d vote for Patti York to keep her job. But I hate the idea of just cluelessly voting for the incumbent just because I was too lazy to research the issues. So, I was actually fairly happy to be approached by this friendly and intelligent looking gentleman. I hoped that he could give me some details on which way I should vote.

Me: Oh, thanks. I’m not as up on local politics as I should be. Been meaning to research a bit before Tuesday. What’s Gieseke’s main issue?

Friendly and Intelligent-Look Gentleman: Mayor

Me: What?

F.I.L.G: He’s running for mayor.

Me: Oh, well yeah, I knew that. But what’s he want to accomplish? What are his goals?

F.I.L.G: He’s going to represent the people better than Patti York.

F.I.L.G is smiling pleasantly. Seemingly confident that he’s giving all the right answers to win my vote. I try another tactic.

Me: Ok, what’ something that Patti York did that John Gieseke would have done differently?

F.I.L.G: She didn’t represent the will of the people very well.

Me: Oh. Well, if she’s not doing that then we need to get her out of office.

F.I.L.G, moving on down the sidewalk, pleased that he has won a vote: Exactly. Remember, the election is Tuesday.

So, sure, I still don’t have a particularly good reason to vote for Patti York. But she hasn’t screwed up St Charles too bad…and I’m pretty sure she’s got a better platform than a vague promise to represent my will. Thanks, Friendly and Intelligent-Looking Gentleman, for helping me decide.