Nolan's Internet Debut

Nolan had his first blog mention today on HugPug (we can't count bragging parent blogs). Not bad for a 10-week old. We predict plenty of internet fame for the child of a web producer and a software engineer. Check it out for cute pictures of his new best friends, the Justia Pugs.

Log Cabin Fresh!

People keep telling me to turn this into a Mommy Blog. Dude, I hate Mommy Blogs. Even though I've never read one. But I'm not above sharing the f'ed up parts of parenting so you can laugh at my misery. Isn't that what blogging is all about, after all??

Let's start with a little something in the TMI category: Fenugreek. I have started taking this herbal supplement to increase breast milk production. That's right--Old Bessie needs to step up her game to keep up with the small hungry monster. (Seriously, this kid is off the charts with the eating. The doctor tells me he is trying to "catch up" since he was born small. Hey doc, isn't there an obesity epidemic in this country?? Anyway.)

While it appears to be working (MOOOOOO), it is not without side effects. The big one being. . .it makes me smell like maple syrup. Yah. Maple SYRUP. Revolting. I guess it is better than the other possibility--"a faint curry smell"--mentioned by one website. GAG!

The Towel Guy, Stars @ Sharks 1/17/08

My dad is an NHL off-ice official for the San Jose Sharks. This week he got to be what we call the Towel Guy (you can DOOO IT! No, wait-- that's the WaterBoy) and manage the Dallas Stars' Penalty Box. Here's a clip of him letting Trevor Daley out after a 17 minute major for fighting (homeboy was in there for a while). You can see him counting down the time before he opens the gate. Sez the Towel Guy, they do that for the linesman so that they know when a player is coming back on the ice.

Go Dad!!

Baby Straitjacket

Preparing for a baby, there are a couple of mantras that the so-called experts hit you over the head with: breastfeeding is better, put the baby to sleep on its back, and swaddle, swaddle, swaddle! You'll hear these rules before you even give birth. You'll hear them multiple times. You'll have them memorized.

Well, we followed the first two, but when it came to swaddling, it just seemed to piss Nolan off even more that he could not move freely. He would fight the swaddle so hard that we would hear him grunting from the effort in his crib. And, he would almost always win.

First, we tried a regular baby blanket. No match for the little 5 lb monster, he plowed right through it. We'd wake up to find him kicking around on a flat blanket. Then we tried two blankets. Same result, though it took him longer. I started to freak out that I was creating a SIDS risk with all these blankets. (Rule number 4: nothing in the crib but the baby! Acck!)

Next, we bumped up the protocol to the Kiddopatomus. These are little envelope shaped blankets with velcro on them. You put baby's legs in the pocket, then velcro the rest of the blanket around him. Velcro! Surely 6 lb child is no match for velcro! WRONG! We found him with arms sticking out, legs sticking out, and sometimes with the whole thing unwrapped. One very scary morning I found him wriggled all the way INTO the blanket, with his whole head stuck in it. (Hello, SIDS?! Acck!)

So I stopped swaddling him. He seemed happier, but he was still waking up every 2-3 hours, which is torture between 12 and 7 am. Also, putting him down for naps was getting more and more difficult. So, out of desperation for sleep, I brought out the big gun: the Miracle Blanket. I doubted its power, but my friends swear by it. This thing is actually a cute, itty bitty, baby pastel colored straitjacket. You put baby's legs in the envelope, then wrap these little flaps (let's call them what they are--soft restraints) over his arms, and then the rest of the blanket wraps all the way around, twice. My small Houdini is no match for this powerful weapon, and you know what? He falls asleep, within minutes! And goes for his full nap!

Snug.as.a.bug.in.a.rug.

Lawyers and Doctors--the new Accountants and Dentists? And why is that bad, exactly?

The NYT reports on the decline in cachet for the "older professions" [Clong: I had to read that twice, my mind went immediately to the world's oldEST profession, not that lawyers aren't routinely compared to whores]. Lawyers and doctors are complaining, it seems, that nobody respects them anymore. Applications to the professional schools are down. This, of course, would have been helpful to me a few years ago.

It seems the gist of the doc's complaints is that they are treated just like every other worker, and that there is a general disregard for their uber-degree. One poor doctor had to fill out a req for his patient's wheelchair--how demeaning! And then there's the pediatrician who takes it as a "personal attack" whenever people complain about the medical industry (presumbaly HMO's) at cocktail parties. Well. Welcome to the party. He should have to sit through lawyer jokes at every social function. Or perhaps he would like to meet one acquaintance of mine, who routinely asks me--"How's the LIARing going?"