Hi Guinness! I live in Guinness's house, he's been nice enough not to kick me out yet.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
How will this work...
Hi Guinness! I live in Guinness's house, he's been nice enough not to kick me out yet.
29 days, 22 hours, and boy are my arms tired
I'm leaving town for a few days, may or may not have time and material to post...so I leave you with this...
Fark readers have already seen this one, but the Google Maps directions for getting from Chicago to London deserve a link. See step 20.
Fark readers have already seen this one, but the Google Maps directions for getting from Chicago to London deserve a link. See step 20.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Ruth's dream
So my lovely wife had a dream this morning -- In her dream, we were at one of the mansions here in town for a pool party with a bunch of our friends (most of whom are also pregnant).
Then, at a point in the party where I was inside the house (either getting another drink, or giving one back, I assume), someone stands up at a microphone and starts announcing the sex of the babies of the pregnant women in attendance (I joked to Ruth that this scene reminded me of the "Garden Party" episode of The Boondocks: "Jesus was black, Ronald Reagan was the devil, and the government is lying about 9/11.").
We don't know what we're having and don't want to know (no one knows, as the one test that could've told us was done by an anonymous tech who didn't write it down and has surely forgotten by now), but the dream speaker was apparently clairvoyant, because she told the whole crowd that we're having a boy. Ruth was quite disappointed that our surprise had been ruined, but tried to get everyone to keep quiet about it because I hadn't heard and she still wanted me to be surprised.
Of course, as she's telling everyone to shut up, I suddenly show up and say, "Wha happened?" I think as she was telling me about the dream, we started laughing too hard at that point for her to tell me if I ever found out the sex or not. Or maybe after I popped back into the party, that's when the phone rang in real life and woke us up.
So, we're not sure if this dream is just a weird hormone-inspired mash-up of anxieties, or some sort of prophesy. Of course, as I told her this morning, there's really nothing mysterious about predicting something that has a 50-60% chance of being true anyway. If our kid ends up looking like the blond, curly-haired toddler she dreamed about last week, then I'll be spooked.
Any aspiring Josephs out there want to take a stab at an interpretation?
Then, at a point in the party where I was inside the house (either getting another drink, or giving one back, I assume), someone stands up at a microphone and starts announcing the sex of the babies of the pregnant women in attendance (I joked to Ruth that this scene reminded me of the "Garden Party" episode of The Boondocks: "Jesus was black, Ronald Reagan was the devil, and the government is lying about 9/11.").
We don't know what we're having and don't want to know (no one knows, as the one test that could've told us was done by an anonymous tech who didn't write it down and has surely forgotten by now), but the dream speaker was apparently clairvoyant, because she told the whole crowd that we're having a boy. Ruth was quite disappointed that our surprise had been ruined, but tried to get everyone to keep quiet about it because I hadn't heard and she still wanted me to be surprised.
Of course, as she's telling everyone to shut up, I suddenly show up and say, "Wha happened?" I think as she was telling me about the dream, we started laughing too hard at that point for her to tell me if I ever found out the sex or not. Or maybe after I popped back into the party, that's when the phone rang in real life and woke us up.
So, we're not sure if this dream is just a weird hormone-inspired mash-up of anxieties, or some sort of prophesy. Of course, as I told her this morning, there's really nothing mysterious about predicting something that has a 50-60% chance of being true anyway. If our kid ends up looking like the blond, curly-haired toddler she dreamed about last week, then I'll be spooked.
Any aspiring Josephs out there want to take a stab at an interpretation?
Sunday, March 25, 2007
One more thought
This one didn't make it into the paranoia post, two posts down...
While we were talking to our OB about prenatal education during a visit this past week, he got to talking about infant CPR.
He told us, "You'll have the usual paranoia of 'is the baby breathing?' You won't want to leave it at first, just in case. That's pretty normal. And really, you'll have some paranoia about your kids until, um...[Doc looks into the middle distance, probably thinking of his own five kids, and tries to think of when he stopped being paranoid]...until death."
While we were talking to our OB about prenatal education during a visit this past week, he got to talking about infant CPR.
He told us, "You'll have the usual paranoia of 'is the baby breathing?' You won't want to leave it at first, just in case. That's pretty normal. And really, you'll have some paranoia about your kids until, um...[Doc looks into the middle distance, probably thinking of his own five kids, and tries to think of when he stopped being paranoid]...until death."
Our poor furry boys...
Last night we had the pleasure of hosting our friends Dan and Heather and their 16-month-old son Noah, who were passing through on a cross-country trip. We had a blast, as we always have with them; one of our other old neighbors from VA is in town for training so we had a partial reunion of sorts.
After meeting Noah, we know a few things for sure.
• Our home is a toddler death trap. I realize ours won't be running the day he or she is born, but I also realize I won't have all day to be babyproofing when June gets here.
• I have seen the future, and when we get there Guinness and Aslan will be very, very unhappy cats. We can only hope that they get used to our babies, as ours won't be running into the house and screeching "KITTY!" at jet-plane decibels. At least not until they're a few days old.
• I have never truly been tired.
• My gut has been telling me that Karma is going to punish our couch-potato ways by giving us a child who never stops moving. Now I'm sure of it.
After meeting Noah, we know a few things for sure.
• Our home is a toddler death trap. I realize ours won't be running the day he or she is born, but I also realize I won't have all day to be babyproofing when June gets here.
• I have seen the future, and when we get there Guinness and Aslan will be very, very unhappy cats. We can only hope that they get used to our babies, as ours won't be running into the house and screeching "KITTY!" at jet-plane decibels. At least not until they're a few days old.
• I have never truly been tired.
• My gut has been telling me that Karma is going to punish our couch-potato ways by giving us a child who never stops moving. Now I'm sure of it.
Paranoia and car seats
So, as a soon-to-be parent, I'm supposed to be spending vast amounts of my time worrying about safety equipment like car seats and up-armored Japanese-constructed minivans and the like. Never mind that my parents just duct-taped me to the radio antenna on their 1915 Mercedes coupe for the drive home and I turned out just fine (now get off my lawn).
We looked at car seats, registered for the latest model from a brand that got high marks in Baby Bargains (Hey, look at all those registries over on the right! doesn't that put you in a buying mood?), and I basically put that out of my mind, until I have to install it.
But I couldn't miss the recent kerfuffle over flawed car seat testing in Consumer Reports.
Summary for those of you out of the infant-raising set: Consumer Reports (quite sensibly) thought it would be a good idea to test infant car seats in side impact accidents the same way new cars are tested. They released the results of these tests to much fanfare: Almost every seat tested failed, two so spectacularly that CR demanded they be recalled.
Less than two weeks later, CR retracted their report, after discovering that their independent lab hadn't tested what they wanted -- instead of testing at the 38 MPH standard, they'd tested 70 MPH side impacts. The link to CR above is their apology and analysis of what went wrong, which was admirable.
What got me to thinking, though, is that the problematic testing has brought out the worst sort of parental paranoia. I've seen Internet stories, true or not, of parents dumping their car seats for one of the two that "passed" the 70 MPH test; blog and message board posts along the lines of "so that means I should get one of those two, right?"; and I've talked with at least a couple of parents who proudly pointed at their infant seat and said, "That one passed the CR test."
I'm usually not the type to get in arguments in person, but I really wanted to tell these folks: Unless you're in the habit of having your car hoisted into the middle of an Interstate by helicopter, 70 MPH side impacts into your stationary vehicle are not a situation you're ever likely to encounter.
Not to mention, you can't test what would really happen in a 70 MPH side impact without testing the exact models of vehicles involved in the accident. CR explains that most injuries at that speed are caused by "intrusion," which is weasel-wording for "The car going 70 rips clean through the car going zero and your restraints become useless." Of course how bad the accident ends up depends on all sorts of variables; but that's exactly why it can't be accurately tested.
If you do happen to be that unlucky -- let's say you're making a left when someone blows through the light at twice the speed limit in their invisible car -- anyone who leaves the scene of the accident is going to have to be really lucky, infant seat or no.
You might as well test infant seats by dropping the Monty Python 16-ton weight on them, for how useful this information would be in the real world. And yet...people still want to put stock in these tests, still want to believe that when the one in a million shot hits, that they can do something about it.
I realize that with one of our kids still in the oven and the other probably not conceived yet, we haven't had the virtual lobotomy that overcomes parents on the subject of safety. I fully expect this to be the first post that brings me the dreaded "You'll understand when you have kids" comment. (If you considered writing that comment, consider this your preemptive "Bite Me."
But the simple fact is, this isn't a fight-or-flight, daddy-bird-defending-the-nest scenario that calls for instinctive overreaction. My kids don't need a parent who can't think clearly, who reacts mindlessly and trusts anything he reads on the Internet because it's "for the kids" or "better safe than sorry."
Aside from being far too long, this post is my reminder to myself that while a little paranoia about my kids might be good -- I won't be telling them to run out in the street just because a car wasn't there yesterday -- a lot of this life, and probably 80% of what happens to my kids over the courses of their lives, will be outside my control. The sooner I'm at peace with that, the better.
We looked at car seats, registered for the latest model from a brand that got high marks in Baby Bargains (Hey, look at all those registries over on the right! doesn't that put you in a buying mood?), and I basically put that out of my mind, until I have to install it.
But I couldn't miss the recent kerfuffle over flawed car seat testing in Consumer Reports.
Summary for those of you out of the infant-raising set: Consumer Reports (quite sensibly) thought it would be a good idea to test infant car seats in side impact accidents the same way new cars are tested. They released the results of these tests to much fanfare: Almost every seat tested failed, two so spectacularly that CR demanded they be recalled.
Less than two weeks later, CR retracted their report, after discovering that their independent lab hadn't tested what they wanted -- instead of testing at the 38 MPH standard, they'd tested 70 MPH side impacts. The link to CR above is their apology and analysis of what went wrong, which was admirable.
What got me to thinking, though, is that the problematic testing has brought out the worst sort of parental paranoia. I've seen Internet stories, true or not, of parents dumping their car seats for one of the two that "passed" the 70 MPH test; blog and message board posts along the lines of "so that means I should get one of those two, right?"; and I've talked with at least a couple of parents who proudly pointed at their infant seat and said, "That one passed the CR test."
I'm usually not the type to get in arguments in person, but I really wanted to tell these folks: Unless you're in the habit of having your car hoisted into the middle of an Interstate by helicopter, 70 MPH side impacts into your stationary vehicle are not a situation you're ever likely to encounter.
Not to mention, you can't test what would really happen in a 70 MPH side impact without testing the exact models of vehicles involved in the accident. CR explains that most injuries at that speed are caused by "intrusion," which is weasel-wording for "The car going 70 rips clean through the car going zero and your restraints become useless." Of course how bad the accident ends up depends on all sorts of variables; but that's exactly why it can't be accurately tested.
If you do happen to be that unlucky -- let's say you're making a left when someone blows through the light at twice the speed limit in their invisible car -- anyone who leaves the scene of the accident is going to have to be really lucky, infant seat or no.
You might as well test infant seats by dropping the Monty Python 16-ton weight on them, for how useful this information would be in the real world. And yet...people still want to put stock in these tests, still want to believe that when the one in a million shot hits, that they can do something about it.
I realize that with one of our kids still in the oven and the other probably not conceived yet, we haven't had the virtual lobotomy that overcomes parents on the subject of safety. I fully expect this to be the first post that brings me the dreaded "You'll understand when you have kids" comment. (If you considered writing that comment, consider this your preemptive "Bite Me."
But the simple fact is, this isn't a fight-or-flight, daddy-bird-defending-the-nest scenario that calls for instinctive overreaction. My kids don't need a parent who can't think clearly, who reacts mindlessly and trusts anything he reads on the Internet because it's "for the kids" or "better safe than sorry."
Aside from being far too long, this post is my reminder to myself that while a little paranoia about my kids might be good -- I won't be telling them to run out in the street just because a car wasn't there yesterday -- a lot of this life, and probably 80% of what happens to my kids over the courses of their lives, will be outside my control. The sooner I'm at peace with that, the better.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Just a warning
We just finished watching The Departed; so as I warned my wife, expect me to spend the next fucking day and half talking like a motherfucker in a Martin fucking Scorsese movie, you fucking pricks.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Some people need to be shot laughed at
While walking to our OB appointment this morning (all is well with baby and mommy), we saw a man half-heartedly jogging down our street. He looked like he could've been jogging faster, but he was also pushing a side-by-side jogging stroller with only one baby in it. While yelling into his cell phone LOUD ENOUGH FOR US TO HEAR HIM HALF A BLOCK AWAY.
Poor kid would've been better off being babysat by the TV.
Once at the OB's office, we were sitting in the waiting area. I should note the waiting room is quite small -- 7 or 8 chairs, a tableful of magazines and not a lot of manuvering space around any of them. During our wait, a woman brings in her toddler in a stroller. The woman had clearly been to this office before and the kid was quite old enough to stand and walk, although not like the huge 4-year-olds we sometimes see folded in half and stuffed into an umbrella stroller because they've got their valets (mommy and daddy) trained so well.
Despite this situation that clearly called for leaving her stroller on the porch and walking the child into the waiting room, the woman still thought it was a good idea to heft the stroller up through multiple doors and a tall step (the office is in an old house), then try to muscle the stroller around the waiting area, bumping the magazine table and chairs multiple times along the way. She might have had an easier time if he other hand wasn't involved with steadying her colossal diaper bag, which had probably just barely fit into the back of her SUV.
My first instinct was "I should help her through the door." Then the smarter, less chivalrous part of my brain took over and said, "But I shouldn't enable the stupid and self-absorbed in perpetuating their behavior." If someone enjoys making their own life more difficult, who am I to stop them?
Luckily for everyone who wanted to get out of the office sometime that morning without climbing over the baby, another patient gave the stroller lady a seat away from the rest of the room, with just enough space next to it to park the stroller. That parking spot also prevented anyone from getting within 3 feet of the pass-through window to talk to the receptionist, but that was OK; we all knew who the most important person in the room was.
Within a few seconds, the baby starts getting a little antsy; just some shaking her head, swinging her legs. I would too, if I'd just recently figured out the walking thing but some unbearable hag had imprisoned me in a stroller. Her mother responds by unbuckling the poor girl's stroller restraint, removing her jacket with a comment about how she had to be getting hot...and then buckling her back into the (immobile, not going anywhere) stroller. I guess mommy didn't want her baby messing up her UGG boots by actually standing or walking in them.
As a good friend was telling me last night -- "More and more I don't want to leave the house. People are just that stupid."
Poor kid would've been better off being babysat by the TV.
Once at the OB's office, we were sitting in the waiting area. I should note the waiting room is quite small -- 7 or 8 chairs, a tableful of magazines and not a lot of manuvering space around any of them. During our wait, a woman brings in her toddler in a stroller. The woman had clearly been to this office before and the kid was quite old enough to stand and walk, although not like the huge 4-year-olds we sometimes see folded in half and stuffed into an umbrella stroller because they've got their valets (mommy and daddy) trained so well.
Despite this situation that clearly called for leaving her stroller on the porch and walking the child into the waiting room, the woman still thought it was a good idea to heft the stroller up through multiple doors and a tall step (the office is in an old house), then try to muscle the stroller around the waiting area, bumping the magazine table and chairs multiple times along the way. She might have had an easier time if he other hand wasn't involved with steadying her colossal diaper bag, which had probably just barely fit into the back of her SUV.
My first instinct was "I should help her through the door." Then the smarter, less chivalrous part of my brain took over and said, "But I shouldn't enable the stupid and self-absorbed in perpetuating their behavior." If someone enjoys making their own life more difficult, who am I to stop them?
Luckily for everyone who wanted to get out of the office sometime that morning without climbing over the baby, another patient gave the stroller lady a seat away from the rest of the room, with just enough space next to it to park the stroller. That parking spot also prevented anyone from getting within 3 feet of the pass-through window to talk to the receptionist, but that was OK; we all knew who the most important person in the room was.
Within a few seconds, the baby starts getting a little antsy; just some shaking her head, swinging her legs. I would too, if I'd just recently figured out the walking thing but some unbearable hag had imprisoned me in a stroller. Her mother responds by unbuckling the poor girl's stroller restraint, removing her jacket with a comment about how she had to be getting hot...and then buckling her back into the (immobile, not going anywhere) stroller. I guess mommy didn't want her baby messing up her UGG boots by actually standing or walking in them.
As a good friend was telling me last night -- "More and more I don't want to leave the house. People are just that stupid."
Friday, March 16, 2007
Oh holy cold
I just came in from clearing our ez-slide front porch and cleaning the snow-sleet mixture from our car so my wife could run errands.
I'm somehow still able to type with these ice cubes at the ends of my arms.
I'm somehow still able to type with these ice cubes at the ends of my arms.
We have a lid.
Well, make that "we have a Log-In Date for our dossier with the China Center of Adoption Affairs."
March 8, 2007 -- so if current referral times somehow stay stable (Which they probably won't) we would be getting a referral in July 2008 and traveling in Fall 2008; chances are we will be moving to my wife's new job posting (Japan, we hope) in late 2008 or early 2009.
We sure love cutting it close...
March 8, 2007 -- so if current referral times somehow stay stable (Which they probably won't) we would be getting a referral in July 2008 and traveling in Fall 2008; chances are we will be moving to my wife's new job posting (Japan, we hope) in late 2008 or early 2009.
We sure love cutting it close...
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Sometimes I'm funny
I don't usually laugh at my own jokes but I'm still giggling about my comment on this page (first comment, I'm JA3).
It figures that the funniest thing I've said in the past week was on someone ELSE's blog.
It figures that the funniest thing I've said in the past week was on someone ELSE's blog.
Less than a month,
And I've already fallen off the posting wagon. Last week it was Chicago; there is a post or two in draft waiting to be published. I will get better, now that I'm settling comfortably into unemployment.
In honor of the NCAA tourney, I should note that after four days, unemployment is definitely not overrated. Unemployment is a #1 seed, the unquestioned and undefeated champ. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to plan what I'm doing at not-work tomorrow.
In honor of the NCAA tourney, I should note that after four days, unemployment is definitely not overrated. Unemployment is a #1 seed, the unquestioned and undefeated champ. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to plan what I'm doing at not-work tomorrow.
Ball game or porn movie?
CBS claims that two of the officials for the just-started VCU vs. Duke game are "Zelton D. Steed" and "John Hughes."
I think someone just forgot to get the ref names before game time and made those up on the fly.
[I heard "John Holmes" the first time but as I look again, the name is "John Hughes." I still like the subject of the post enough that I'm not taking it down. Just pretend I said "Ball game or '80s teen movie" instead. And don't think about how little sense this makes.]
I think someone just forgot to get the ref names before game time and made those up on the fly.
[I heard "John Holmes" the first time but as I look again, the name is "John Hughes." I still like the subject of the post enough that I'm not taking it down. Just pretend I said "Ball game or '80s teen movie" instead. And don't think about how little sense this makes.]
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Straphanger
In Chicago the remainder of the week, working every day; thus not thinking too much about a baby on the way (except for the sudden realization that we're 2.5 months fromm that Ruth can't sleep a wink, and this probably isn't a good thing for our sanity now that we're staying with her Dad)
This was a pretty common post back on my first blog, when I had to come to Chicago every so often to make sure I still had a job. Now, I'm in the middle of what could be my last work trip ever to Chicago and it's deeply weird. The company has no clue how much time "part-time" work will entail, so this could literally be it, after almost 11 years.
I'm looking forward to being unemployed and being daddy, much more so than I've ever looked forward to this place (sorry everybody); but after this much time, the place and people are a part of me.
UPDATE, now that I'm home... my actual "so long" party was easy. A fantastic cake, answering all the usual questions about the kid and Ruth (feeling fine; no idea what sex the baby is, and no desire to know; June 1st; Yep, I'm gonna be a full-time daddy; Oh, BTW, maybe I didn't mention we're adopting from China too?), then back to work.
The harder part was that last day. There are people there I've worked with since the day I arrived and even if they're just "work friends" that I never spent any outside time around, leaving them was emotional. I dropped a tear or 10, and I think one of my bosses even welled up a little as well.
On the bright side, they made it clear the door is always open; heck, they let me keep the keys, so even if it's not open, I can get in.
After saying goodbye to the people who were important, the actual departure was an anticlimax. An email to thank everyone and say "so long," and a quick stroll through the office and out the door.
But man, once I made the parking lot and started walking to the train platform...it was like a weight coming off my shoulders with every step. It's still taking some time to get used to the new routine (I almost opened my timecard yesterday to enter "one hour - mopped kitchen floor"), but I'm walking on air.
This was a pretty common post back on my first blog, when I had to come to Chicago every so often to make sure I still had a job. Now, I'm in the middle of what could be my last work trip ever to Chicago and it's deeply weird. The company has no clue how much time "part-time" work will entail, so this could literally be it, after almost 11 years.
I'm looking forward to being unemployed and being daddy, much more so than I've ever looked forward to this place (sorry everybody); but after this much time, the place and people are a part of me.
UPDATE, now that I'm home... my actual "so long" party was easy. A fantastic cake, answering all the usual questions about the kid and Ruth (feeling fine; no idea what sex the baby is, and no desire to know; June 1st; Yep, I'm gonna be a full-time daddy; Oh, BTW, maybe I didn't mention we're adopting from China too?), then back to work.
The harder part was that last day. There are people there I've worked with since the day I arrived and even if they're just "work friends" that I never spent any outside time around, leaving them was emotional. I dropped a tear or 10, and I think one of my bosses even welled up a little as well.
On the bright side, they made it clear the door is always open; heck, they let me keep the keys, so even if it's not open, I can get in.
After saying goodbye to the people who were important, the actual departure was an anticlimax. An email to thank everyone and say "so long," and a quick stroll through the office and out the door.
But man, once I made the parking lot and started walking to the train platform...it was like a weight coming off my shoulders with every step. It's still taking some time to get used to the new routine (I almost opened my timecard yesterday to enter "one hour - mopped kitchen floor"), but I'm walking on air.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
Friday, March 2, 2007
Hooray for negative!
Gestational Diabetes test was negative. Yay for my wife's pancreas!
Gotta run....
Gotta run....
Air travel
I despise air travel and I have to fly this evening, from a rainy and crappy place to a snowy and crappy place.
On the other hand, this is my last plane trip for a long time that won't involve any diapers, strollers, car seats or cheerios.
So I guess I'll just have to enjoy it now...
On the other hand, this is my last plane trip for a long time that won't involve any diapers, strollers, car seats or cheerios.
So I guess I'll just have to enjoy it now...
Thursday, March 1, 2007
On the subject of acronyms
Being a recovering IT nerd and having a wife in the military, my life is suffused with acronyms. Everyone more or less assumes I'm speaking Mandarin when I check the ARP cache to match their MAC to their IP, or TELNET to their SMTP to figure out if their POP is working. When my wife explains that her friend left an LHA before his PRD to go on IA, and therefore wasn't around for the PRT, people figure it's all vital to national security (while those who know better realize she's talking about sit-ups).
We've thought all along our lives had too much of that shit. But oh, then we started trying to have kids, and entered another whole realm of acronymity, for lack of a better word.
First, we found ourselves up close and personal with what I call "Infertility Culture," or as the residents call themselves, "TTCers." This is a group of people who can reveal the innermost secrets of their husbands' testicles in the anonymity of the Internet, but literally sprint in and out of their fertility clinic lest they encounter another human in person. (I just realized I sound like I'm being hard on these folks -- I don't mean it. I don't know how we kept our own good spirits during those years, other than having each other).
Then we entered the world of adoption, specifically international adoption. I don't know if adoption necessarily needs all the acronyms that come with it, or if the agencies just started using them to make all the former TTCers more comfortable.
Now that we're trying to prepare for Ripley's inevitable arrival, we're finding that every parenting "tribe" out there, no matter how simple sounding the topic they've organized around, has their own acronym-heavy language. Want to learn about the options for cloth diapers or baby carriers (Sorry, "babywearing") from the people who know them best? Well, plan on having to breach every topic's impenetrable wall of acronyms.
Apparently, it really necessary to spend hours of confusion learning acronyms before learning about an environmentally responsible way of capturing the little one's shit. Look, I'm used to getting PAID to learn stupid acronyms. No wonder people just say "screw it" and buy Pampers; I was almost at that point myself.
When I started doing this research, the first couple message board posts I sent my wife came back with a simple reply: "These people scare me." Well, that's OK, I told her. "We don't have to be the crazy people. Just learn from the crazy people."
So, the point of this long winded post is to make a promise to my readers, present and future.
Whereas, my (as-yet unpublished) manifesto says that this is NOT a parenting obsession blog,
But I'm certainly going to end up discussing all manner of obsessive acronym-ready topics,
and Whereas, I would like to think that someday what I'm writing here could be useful to other neophytes,
I promise to define each and every acronym I use, in each and ever post.
So if my experiment in cloth diapers works out, you won't arrive here one day to decipher a subject line that says, "OMG I LUV CD," and when I talk about the adoption you won't have to tolerate a post about how we finally have our LID after going DTC last month -- at least not until after I've told you what a Log In Date and Dossier To China mean.
When I break this promise, I expect -- nay, demand -- that you, both my readers, leave a comment that says "John, what the FUCK does that mean?" Thank you.
We've thought all along our lives had too much of that shit. But oh, then we started trying to have kids, and entered another whole realm of acronymity, for lack of a better word.
First, we found ourselves up close and personal with what I call "Infertility Culture," or as the residents call themselves, "TTCers." This is a group of people who can reveal the innermost secrets of their husbands' testicles in the anonymity of the Internet, but literally sprint in and out of their fertility clinic lest they encounter another human in person. (I just realized I sound like I'm being hard on these folks -- I don't mean it. I don't know how we kept our own good spirits during those years, other than having each other).
Then we entered the world of adoption, specifically international adoption. I don't know if adoption necessarily needs all the acronyms that come with it, or if the agencies just started using them to make all the former TTCers more comfortable.
Now that we're trying to prepare for Ripley's inevitable arrival, we're finding that every parenting "tribe" out there, no matter how simple sounding the topic they've organized around, has their own acronym-heavy language. Want to learn about the options for cloth diapers or baby carriers (Sorry, "babywearing") from the people who know them best? Well, plan on having to breach every topic's impenetrable wall of acronyms.
Apparently, it really necessary to spend hours of confusion learning acronyms before learning about an environmentally responsible way of capturing the little one's shit. Look, I'm used to getting PAID to learn stupid acronyms. No wonder people just say "screw it" and buy Pampers; I was almost at that point myself.
When I started doing this research, the first couple message board posts I sent my wife came back with a simple reply: "These people scare me." Well, that's OK, I told her. "We don't have to be the crazy people. Just learn from the crazy people."
So, the point of this long winded post is to make a promise to my readers, present and future.
Whereas, my (as-yet unpublished) manifesto says that this is NOT a parenting obsession blog,
But I'm certainly going to end up discussing all manner of obsessive acronym-ready topics,
and Whereas, I would like to think that someday what I'm writing here could be useful to other neophytes,
I promise to define each and every acronym I use, in each and ever post.
So if my experiment in cloth diapers works out, you won't arrive here one day to decipher a subject line that says, "OMG I LUV CD," and when I talk about the adoption you won't have to tolerate a post about how we finally have our LID after going DTC last month -- at least not until after I've told you what a Log In Date and Dossier To China mean.
When I break this promise, I expect -- nay, demand -- that you, both my readers, leave a comment that says "John, what the FUCK does that mean?" Thank you.
I am no longer a telecommuter.
Well, not really, anyway. I guess I'm still going to work part-time and they're still going to pay me...but I don't have to plan my life around their shit anymore. When they call and say, "Some herd of self-important advertising cocksuckers think their world is falling down around them because their email is taking 10 minutes longer to arrive than they think it should," I can say, "I am busy watching my kid drool, which is the most amazing thing I've ever seen. Call me next week."
This is a profoundly wonderful development in my life, and I'm hoping I get accustomed to the idea before the kids leave for college.
This is a profoundly wonderful development in my life, and I'm hoping I get accustomed to the idea before the kids leave for college.
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