Category: …And Little E Makes 3

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...And Little E Makes 3

Revenge of the Rainbow Yawn

Infinitely improbable barfageBlurgh. Evan’s been barfing again, much more explosively than his last bout of the barfies at the beginning of the year. I’m hoping that maybe this is just a recurrence of the same stomach bug, but it worries me that I haven’t been hit yet (and believe me, I’ve been up to my ankles in it, cleaning it up, and all but field-stripping the crib to clean it all up, so I’ve been in physical contact). Evan and I have spent so much of the past three months being sick with one thing or another that I worry that his immune system just hasn’t quit reeling from the punches. Such are the joys of day care: interesting new social situations for Evan and his immune system! 😛

Other than that, day care is going well for Evan; he’s the biggest kid in his “class” – which is the 3-18 month category – so he’s kinda like the king of the babies. (He rotates to a new “class” in March when he turns 18 months.) A few times when I’ve gotten him in the door late enough for it to be morning snack time, I’ve literally seen all the other little ones stop and wait for him to get seated before they resume eating: the boss is here! But he doesn’t seem to be using his size to lord over everyone. If anything, he’s very encouraging and sympathetic: if one of the little ones is crying, Evan can be found patting them on the back, kinda like “Hey buddy, it’s okay.” Where he learned that behavior, unless it was from me picking him up and patting him on the back, I have no idea.

We won’t go into him coming home from day care last week having learned the word “howdy.”

I still seem to be a bit of an oddity in that I’m a dad who looks forward to showing up and picking the kiddo up. I’ve seen and observed other dads there, but some of them are real humdingers – you can tell they’re more eager to drop their child off than to pick them up. I know people have bad days and so on, but we’re talking every single day, there are a couple of guys who seem supremely irritated that they’re having to be involved at all. I go poke my head in the door, look for Evan, and make faces at him – maybe not the manliest thing in some people’s books, but hey, maybe it’s time to redefine that. There are few things I look forward to more than picking him up, because he’s my best buddy right now – which probably just means that daddy needs the kind of meaningful interaction with kids his own age that Evan is getting. 😆 I can’t figure some of these guys out. Sorry the kid’s harshing your buzz, dude, but hey, it’s all about the little ones now, so you might as well make the mental adjustment.

Anyway, hopefully he’ll be feeling better soon – he might be missing a day of day care tomorrow depending on how his tummy’s doing. Though given that the 2009 tornado season apparently begins tomorrow, maybe it’s a good day to hang out at home with dad…… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Home Base

The Hand-Me-Down

Shortly before Christmas, my dad and his wife came into town to see Evan, something which really only happens 2-3 times a year for a variety of reasons I won’t go into. This was yet another case – they’re bad about this – where the meeting had been set up less than 24 hours before, and I just didn’t have a chance to pull together anything to give them. Really, though, my dad just wants to see Evan on any given day, so I had them meet me at a restaurant in Alma called the Red Rooster, which is my favorite place to eat (that’s right, as if I wasn’t already enough of a heel for not being ahead of the curve on my Christmas shopping, I made them buy me lunch). I took some food for Evan, including a banana which I fed to him on the spot: Evan and his grandfather both love bananas. I knew my dad would get a kick out of that.

As we were leaving, my dad said that he had some goodie bags, mainly for Evan, and it was some pretty good stuff – books about animals, books about telling time, all sorts of neat stuff which Evan loves (I guarantee I have to read at least one of these animal books a day to him – he demands it). But the biggie was something that I had already seen, and had never expected to see again.

Little red wagon

That little red wagon actually used to be mine. I was probably all of 3, 4, maybe 5 years old. I don’t think I’ve seen it in nearly 20 years; I remember at some point spotting it stowed away on an upper shelf in the basement of the house I grew up in, sometime in the ’80s, and the thought never occurred to me at the time that I’d be seeing it again, or that I’d have a reason to. I hadn’t thought about it since then. In fact, I’d forgotten it until I laid eyes on it for the first time in nearly 30 years.

My dad apparently hung on to the little red wagon all these years, got it cleaned up – I don’t remember it ever being this clean, and I wouldn’t put it past him to have had it repainted – and now it belongs to my son. Evan, of course, being the neat freak that he is, keeps the wagon in his bedroom and stows his toys and other goodies away in it. It’s kind of like the mobile toy chest: he can drag it into any room in the house and deploy all kinds of fun all over the place! And yet he always puts it back in there when he’s done, and back to his room it goes. (Where Evan comes by these neat-freak tendencies, I have no idea – it must come from the same place as his height, which is now exactly half of mine.)

Someday I’ll fill my son in on the history behind his first (used) set of wheels. But until then, I just love knowing that he has this now.

Thanks, Dad.… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 ToyBox

The Mosesmobile

Collect the whole setWhen I was growing up in the 1970s and ’80s, there was one basic rule in the toy world: Star Wars was king, so if your toy line had to have a chance of success, it had to be in the same basic scale as the Star Wars figures. Things aren’t quite so unified in the modern toy-making or toy-buying world, but it’s neat when it does happen – mixing and matching characters and vehicles and whatnot kinda flexes a kid’s mental storytelling muscles (or at least it did mine). There was some justification for the smaller-scale G.I. Joe guys and the Micronauts and the crew from The Black Hole hanging out on the Death Star. You just had to use your imagination to figure out what that justification was.

So generally speaking, when buying toys for Evan, I keep half an eye open on “compatibility.” It’s not a deal-breaker, but it’s kinda neat when stuff fits/works together. Right after Christmas, I was delighted to see that Evan discovered that the engineer, the monkey and/or the elephant from his little train set could also sit in the driver’s seat of the little jeep and the little truck that he got. Which is cool, you know – you can’t get everywhere by train. The Wonder Pets and their “Fly Boat” are vaguely compatible with all of the above too, though they’re slightly larger than everyone/everything else.

When one of my wife’s cousins sent a big belated Christmas package for Evan in January, I was pretty jazzed to see that the big wrapped gift inside was a big Fisher-Price Noah’s Ark set. All right! More critters! And they can sit on the train or in the driver’s seat too. Well, maybe not the train – it makes noise, and has no volume or mute switch, so mom kinda disappeared the batteries that kept the train running. It can still make its rounds manually via Evan power, though. But without the noises, the train seems to have lost some of its appeal for him.

But that’s okay! The engineer, the monkey, and the little elephant quickly joined the motley crew of Noah’s Ark. Or is it Noah’s? I’ve caught no end of grief for the fact that, as we untangled all of the critters and characters from the ocean of twist-ties that held them in place and handed the critters off to Evan, I told him “Here’s Moses!” Wait, what? Well, he looked a little more like a Moses than a Noah when I first saw him in my perpetually sleep-deprived state. I was quickly corrected on that account, but when Evan eagerly added the train characters to Noah’s Ark, it certainly raised some other questions: why are there suddenly three elephants and only one monkey? And who the heck is this engineer? (Well hello, doesn’t someone have to keep the boat running smoothly? I mean, if all the animal species on the planet are riding this thing…yeah, I want an engineer. Dare I say…a miracle worker.)

And of course Noah (Moses? Moses!?) and his buds can drive the little jeep or truck. Evan has already decided that since the pickup truck is the same color as Noah’s Ark, it’s Noah’s Truck. Well, he got the animals to the boat somehow…wait, I’ve got it. While we’re rewriting the entire Old Testament to include the combustion engine and the Wonder Pets, Moses can be the driver of the truck. Um…and the engineer…whoever he is…drives the jeep. With the monkey. And as for the Wonder Pets? This whole boat gig is all about saving animals. Well, if you’ve watched Wonder Pets at all, somebody’s gotta save the baby animals. See? Daddy’s got this whole thing worked out about how to mix and match the backstories of all of one’s toys.

Well, okay. Maybe this is one case where toy compatibility has caused a few more problems than it’s helped along. (Moses!!??!) In the meantime, Evan’s having a blast, and that’s all that counts.… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3

Bleh…sick

Here’s the status report on everyone after a round of doctors’ visits yesterday:

Evan: has pneumonia. This is kind of scary, but the symptoms aren’t screaming worst-case scenario just yet. But it’s bad enough listening to the little guy being a heavy mouth-breather on the baby monitor. Obviously he’s out of day care for a while. He still has an appetite, however, so that’s a good sign; the moment he doesn’t feel like eating, we have a problem. We’re not looking at hospitalizing him…yet.

Evan’s daddy: has a big honkin’ sinus infection and an infection in the left eye. Something got into my eye on Sunday at the farm and I rubbed at it pretty relentlessly on Monday. By Tuesday night, the eye was almost swollen shut, and it still hurt like hell. Apparently these two things got together and made a big mess in the middle, so the infections are related. I’m a mouth breather too right now, a very dehydrated one, and I’m having to put antibiotic eyedrops in every two hours. The problem there: I can’t stand to have anything come into physical contact with my eyes. Opening my eyes underwater? Forget it. Contact lenses? No way. Getting to where I can routinely put these eye drops in has been a sheer-force-of-will thing, because, y’know, I’d like to keep the eye.

Evan’s mom: is pretty frazzled because we both keep getting/staying sick. Sorry, I don’t plan things this way. Given that a month ago I had an upper respiratory infection that threatened to turn into pneumonia, and Evan had a sinus infection, obviously we’re just trading illnesses at this point because he and I are usually all over each other when he gets home from his part days at day care. So I’m having to keep my distance from him, so my wife is having to stay home from work with both of our sick asses.

If there’s a silver lining to any of this, it’s the fact that apparently I haven’t put as much weight back on as I’ve thought – either that or I put it back on and lost it again. Yay me?

Hopefully things will start looking up soon. I hate hearing the little guy feeling bad; and despite that, he’s trying so hard to be his normal happy self. It makes me really self-conscious about feeling too bad about my own predicament. I want to be more like Evan when I grow up.… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Home Base Music

Urpiness (adj.): feeling as though urping is imminent.

Blargh. I'm urpy.Ah, the joys of parenthood. It’s a wonder sometimes that the whole human race hasn’t been wiped out by germs and viruses – when we have a situation like we have now, where the three of us are handing illnesses around like hot potatoes, I really wonder how the species got this far. Evan’s had a second round of urpiness, Jan’s feeling urpy, and I’ve never really stopped feeling urpy. The only real unexpected part is really trying to figure out who will be the next to lose their lunch. Place your bets now. For breakfast this morning, Evan’s had a chopped-up banana and some Cheerios (minus milk) as finger food, and I’ve let him pace himself on how fast he wanted to put it down. So far, so good – I’m finding that in many cases, taking a bit of a zen approach and letting him choose his own pace is the key to figuring out what’s up with him. And I have yet to see him feed himself so fast that it comes right back up. I know it’ll happen someday, and that I can’t let him graze freely forever, but for right now it’s useful. Me, I’m still down to one meal a day – I just don’t feel like my stomach can handle any more than that. (I tried to eat twice on Saturday, and paid for it rather messily.) But I’ve got this perpetually dizzy/shaky thing going on that makes me suspect I need to be eating more – I feel really disoriented. I’ve been hitting the multivitamins for the first time in ages to compensate. Maybe I should try some banana slices and O’s…

Potentially more troublesome was my wife freaking out, after bringing Evan home from having his chickenpox shot on Tuesday, when I told her I don’t remember ever having chickenpox when I was little. Apparently this is a biggie, because the vaccine was after my time. Evan came home early from day care on Friday with a high fever, which apparently isn’t that uncommon; a few days after getting the shot, kids can run this little fever for 2-4 days. But if he’s got a fever, he’s contagious, and between not having had the vaccine at any point in my life, I’m the most likely target. And according to everything I’ve read, if I’m exposed while my immune system is already distressed (see above week-long bout of urpiness), I’m really screwed. But despite Jan’s efforts to keep me separated from Evan for a couple of days, in the end, if I’m really screwed, I’m already really screwed and we might as well buckle up for the ride (and the medical expenses).

I was watching the Disney Channel’s newfangled CGI-animated take on Winnie the Pooh – you know, the show where Pooh and Tigger are detectives and Christopher Robin is nowhere to be found (what’s up with that?) – and happened to notice in the end credits that the show’s music is by Andy Sturmer. Holy Jellyfish! Though now that I think about it, there is something very Jellyfish…ish…about the show’s music. In a “Bye Bye Bye” / “Ignorance Is Bliss” kind of way. I’m always glad to find out that one of the ex-Jellyfish guys has landed some sweet deal. Sturmer is kind of conspicuous by his absence from the ranks of Jellyfish alumni with burgeoning solo careers, aside from fleeting appearances on the L.E.O. album a few years ago (has it been that long already?), so it’s cool to hear what he’s been doing with his time: sounding like Pooh.

OK, Evan’s just dumped his last few O’s in the floor, put the empty plate on his head like a hat, and taken off into the rest of the house at a run. Looks like the zen approach worked again – I’m glad somebody’s feeling better.… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Television & Movies

Meet Matt, the new meat…erm…new Doctor Who.

Matt Smith IS the Doctor...whether you like it...or not!A few folks seem to be waiting for me to weigh in on the choice of relatively unknwon 26-year-old actor Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor, and I kinda wanted to wait until I’d seen the Doctor Who Confidential episode that introduced him. (By the way, if this episode of DWC doesn’t pull that particular show’s highest rating ever, I’m going to eat the nearest hat.) The interview with him on DWC doesn’t seem to have inspired much confidence in some quarters, but I really don’t think that interview is going to be the best display of what this guy’s bringing to the part. Look at it this way: after going for a dark-horse, one-in-a-zillion audition for one of the most prominent character roles in television, anywhere, you suddenly get the call that you’ve got the part, you get to sign a boatload of contracts (probably including more NDAs than anyone this side of a military covert op), and then you get rushed into a deer-in-the-headlights interview for inclusion in a mini-documentary that’s being slammed together at high speed so the BBC can beat the tabloids at their own game.

I wouldn’t expect to see Matt Smith – or anyone else for that matter – at his best in such a scenario. I do, however, remember seeing him in The Ruby In The Smoke with Billie Piper, and looking back, it may or may not comfort anyone reading this to know that I felt like he “read” older on the screen than he actually was when that was made. The same may also be true with Doctor Who. We just don’t know.

One very significant thing that I took away from the DWC episode is that Steven Moffat (the new showrunner, for whom this is a dream job that I don’t think he’s likely to rush into and screw up) talked at great length about wanting to hire a 40-something actor, and yet he and the other new producer were knocked out by this guy’s audition. If Smith’s audition performance was impressive enough to make an avowed Doctor Who traditionalist like Moffat do an about-face on his casting plans, then isn’t anyone the least bit curious as to what Smith might be bringing to the table? I’m curious to say the least.

It’s a really bold move for the BBC to reveal Smith over a year before we’re going to actually see him in the role; of course, Doctor Who fandom being Doctor Who fandom, this means there are more than 12 months worth of “emo Crispin Glover Doctor” gags to look forward to. Yay? If I had a dime for every time I was uncertain about a new incoming Doctor, or a Doctor I hadn’t seen before…I’d now officially have a dollar.

On a more humorous note, while I was bracing myself for the day when Doctor Who would be younger than me, I wasn’t quite ready for 10 years younger than me – when I was watching The Five Doctors, the eleventh Doctor was in diapers.

Speaking of guys in diapers, Evan spent so much time sleeping today that I was worried. I suppose he’s recovering from the fight his body had to put up against whatever stomach bug bit him on Thursday, but…yeah. I admit, I’d creep into his room and check to make sure he was still breathing. He was sleeping that much. Hopefully it’s all uphill from here; it’s not like him to be lethargic, and he was in a pissy mood all day – I could tell he was bothered by the absence of his own energy.… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Cooking With Code

So this is 2009

2009 has begun…with a barfing little boy. Hopefully this is just a 24 hour stomach bug or something that he caught at day care (which he started this week, doing part-days). The poor little guy has no energy at all. He’s breaking daddy’s heart. And making daddy do lots of laundry.

I’ve done a slight revamp of the front page of the site, including adding this little piece on where theLogBook.com gets off claiming to be 20 years old this year. I’ll admit, it’s a bit of a technicality – theLogBook.com is 10 years old this year, but the LogBook is 20. I gave up really making the distinction long ago, so there it is – my web site, or at least the material that led up to it, is two decades old. I’m not sure if it’s a cause for celebration or a cause for “dude, I would’ve given up on that ages ago”…but I’d rather deal with it as a celebration for obvious reasons!

I’m assuming that everyone who had any interest in doing so is still suffering through the podcast; I listened to a little bit of it late last night and kinda hated the sound of my voice. But that’s nothing new. Hopefully the decent music compensates for that! 😛

Have a good year; hopefully Evan will be feeling better soon.… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Critters Serious Stuff

You could change your life, and never be the same

Oberon on the day we adopted himIt’s two years today since a lot of stuff happened around here, but perhaps the best way to mark the occasion would be to celebrate Obi Day. Two years ago today, we adopted a fluffy little kitty guy who had been hanging out in our yard for about 48 hours or so. Unlike a lot of other stray kitties who had come and gone over the years, Oberon was laid back enough to pass muster with Othello…and of course, it didn’t take much for Olivia to decide he was a new friend. I’m going to hazard a guess that there are probably all of two months’ difference in Oberon and Olivia’s age. The rest litmus test, though, was always getting Othello’s approval. That was a rare and precious thing. Othello had readily accepted Olivia earlier that year, but she was a tiny kitten and it was pretty easy for him to establish dominance there; Oberon was bigger than Olivia and – more importantly – male, but Oberon never made an attempt to be the alpha male of the house. Even when challenged, he was laid back – he’d give ground. I’m sure that appealed to Othello in his old age. Obi had permission to stay. … Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Critters Gadgetology Home Base

Ah great

Once again, Obi’s decided to run out the door full tilt and inspect the property. It upsets me when he does this, on behalf of Evan – he’s supposed to be my little boy’s cat, and ya know, it’s gotta do a real number on your self-esteem when your bestest furry buddy routinely runs away from you.

It’s just as well then that Evan’s spending tomorrow with other members of the family, mainly because his daddy’s sicker than a dog. I’ve taken so much Benadryl in the past 24 hours that I feel like I’ve been smothered with a blanket. Several times. I’m switching to a less ….debilitating antihistamine tonight, to deal with the chills, the fever, the aches and pains, and the fact that the hills are alive with the sound of mucus. And yeah, I know, I’m a real pansy if Benadryl knocks me out. Hey, I’m a square. I don’t drink or do drugs recreationally. It doesn’t take much. I didn’t go to the farm today – which is okay by me. I’m not sure I can handle a farm routine that Hannah isn’t a part of. I’d prefer feeling better to feeling like crap with a crapital crap, but I was relieved to not be at the farm today, as much as it might’ve inconvenienced everyone.

I did make the mistake today of watching some Sarah Jane Adventures; don’t get me wrong, it’s a great little show, and almost more like classic Doctor Who than the current Doctor Who is. It’s gotten a big boost this season from getting to cherry-pick from Who mythology as background info, as well as developing its own ongoing stories. But the two-parter I watched today was a slightly more convoluted take on the Doctor Who episode Father’s Day, with a nearly identical paradox. Benadryl-addled brain + temporal paradox = not my friend. But I kid SJA – it’s a great show, and so amazingly unlike anything that’d be rolled out for the early teen age group over here. In some respects it’s almost Buffy-esque in how it deals with “real life problems.” I’m glad it’s back for a full season in ’09, because with “light duty” for both Doctor Who and Torchwood, it’s gonna be a painful year.

Finally, a big shout-out to Jess Ragan for selling me a shiny new Mobilepro – well, okay, not new, and he keeps trying to warn me that it’s not especially shiny – but it’ll be a huge help to be able to stay connected while on the move. Evan’s entering the “stick everything in his mouth” stage, and as much as I’ve tried to keep hazardous objects out of reach, it stuns me what the little guy comes up with – he finds hazards that I didn’t know were there – and as such, sitting at the computer and merely listening isn’t an option. I either need to be close at hand, actively engaging him, or at least close at hand keeping an eye on him. Not having the means to walk around and do the wi-fi thing has been aggravating for the past month; I look forward to being “on the air” again.

Hopefully there’ll be an Obi cat at my feet while I’m doing it, too.… Read more