Daniel's Head: Not So Deformed After All

Well, no, I don't actually have photographic proof of this yet or anything. But I did take Daniel for a haircut on Monday night and let the lady clipper it to within a half inch of its life, and it looks really good! I don't think his head is as deformed as I thought it was. Maybe it's rounded off in places as he's grown? I don't know how skull-formation works. But I am truly pleased to know that we can do crew-cuts without any major issues, and that the whole Halloween costume in the works will be fine (it involves shaving his head completely, which he is totally excited about and would rather do right now than wait till October).


For posterity, the photo that I already emailed to most of you is above. I cannot wait to do a scrapbook page about this one. About The Look. It kills me -- kills me -- that he is only 5 and can achieve this expression while wearing sunglasses. I wonder if the personality would translate to the big screen? Maybe I should become one of those parents who push their kids into show business just to make money off them.

Brazen Daytime Violence

You have to love a headline like that one: Brazen Daytime Violence. It just says nearly everything it needs to say, doesn't it? You don't get the why or the where, but you do get what, when, and how. What: violence. When: daytime. How: brazenly.

I'll give you props right here in my blog in the form of an entry totally about you if you can guess what that headline had to do with.

From now on, I think I might just seek out a catchy headline and use it as my blog title on that day. The headline will likely never have a damn thing to do with whatever I'm writing about it, but it will amuse me.

For those of you who don't know, I bought an iDog over the weekend. I saw this little electronic creature in a magazine and absolutely had to have one, especially once I found out they come in pink. Oddly, I wound up purchasing a black one, which matches my iPod better than pink would have; my iPod has a red click wheel, and it would clash with a pink dog. Can't have that, can we? I do adore my iDog. Daniel has named it Lizzie. I got her a pink sweater set for the office; it's often pretty chilly in here, especially in summer. So far, she doesn't seem to be bothering anyone at work, so hopefully I can keep her here. She's so much better than a real pet. She doesn't poop or anything.

I know, I'm a huge dork.

Mini Road Trip

So yesterday my new boyfriend (Evil Rob) and I went on a little mini road trip, just for something to do. We drove up into the mountains and into Minturn and then up over Tennessee Pass. The weather in the mountains was kind of cold and weird -- sunny spots one minute and storm clouds the next.

I took these pictures in an attempt to improve my scenic photography abilities. I have no idea where this place is, exactly, but the mountain in the background is called Mt. Massive. Yep, Mt. Massive. No joke. Anyway, I think these look pretty good, given my history of sucking at photographing scenery. I love the contrast between the grey sky and the uber-green grass. And the cows are pretty cool too. Better than llamas, I'm told. None of the cows bit me, at any rate.



So in general, road tripping with Evil Rob was pretty fun. He didn't mind stopping every five minutes for me to get and take pictures, and he totally didn't mind the fact that I'll sit in the car and drink like 19 diet Pepsis and then ask him to stop someplace so I can pee. Evil Rob and I will never have music-listening issues in the car because we both bring to the table the most kick ass taste in music imaginable. I mean, I think he might draw the line at being forced to listen to the Rent soundtrack on a long drive, but one never knows. I will obviously try this one out at some point and get back to you all with the results.

Also, when he sings along to Coldplay, he sounds really good.

So I'm sitting at work. There are 9 of us here out of a possible 23. I believe we are one of maybe 4 offices in the entire building open today. I've had one phone call but it was from Dustin so it doesn't count since he only called from across the office. I bet it's totally worth it for us to be open today.

But at least there was no traffic on the way in!! Woot! 

Touchdown, Rockies!

Yeah, I know it's baseball, not football. Sue me!

 

More Ren Fest

Pooker and his band of merry men.


Pooker meets the King and Queen.
(Erm, that's elephant poop on the right. Yeah.)


Pooker and his new dragon baby, who has been dubbed
Most Powerful Dragon.

 

Ren Fest 2006

So it's that time of year again -- summer, and therefore, the Renaissance Festival.

Here's Daniel with the Captain Jack Sparrow pirate guy.

Here's me feeding a llama, just to piss Ashley off. Word up, Ashley! Plus, it bit me. So that's what I get.

He's lucky the pics still turn out well when he won't sweetly smile at the camera, or I'd find a way to MAKE him smile, dagnabbit!

My valiant son in shining armor.

 

Evil Rob

I have no idea why he calls himself Evil Rob. Does he look evil? I don't think so.
But whatever. I like him, despite the goofy nickname. Anyway, isn't that what
guys live for? Giving one another goofy nicknames? So there you go.

 

Clark Kent? Hello!!!!!

Um, yeah. Just in case you didn't get the memo about what a hottie
the new guy on The Daily Planet staff is...

 

"There's really no good reason for a dead body to be there."

Ahh, there's really nothing like a massive understatement to get a police investigation off to a good start.

So, imagine you're hiking in Boulder Canyon, making your way along the river up there, and you stumble upon... a decomposing dead body. That's apparently what happened today to some hikers. So this was on the news, naturally, and when they interviewed the sheriff in charge, he says, "We suspect foul play, obviously. There's really no good reason for a dead body to be there."

Really! No good reason! That's what he said.

And if you know me, you know my mind immediately takes that statement, and attempts to refute it. I mean, I can think of loads of reasons why a dead body might be there, in that particular area. Mountain lions abound! And during the news footage, there was this massive brown bear on patrol just across the river from where this operation was taking place -- on the same side of the river where the body was found. Hmm, is it not possible that this same bear got pissed off at this human and fought it to the death? I mean, these things do happen. I think they just don't want to scare people, so they're downplaying the possibility that a demonic bear might have offed a hiker.

No, really, I know and you know that there is very probably no good reason for a dead body to be where this one was found. I just find it interesting that this sheriff felt a need to point that out to us. On further reflection, one assumes he was pressed by the interviewing reporters at the scene and taken in context, in response to a stupid question like, "Do you suspect foul play?" from some idiot with a microphone, he probably got all sarcastic and said, "Obviously we suspect foul play. There's really no good reason for a dead body to be there." And left the "you halfwit" unspoken, because the viewing public pays his salary out of their taxpayer dollars and in some jurisdictions might even vote him into his job, and you can't be calling a reporter a halfwit on television, even if the reporter is a halfwit.

Which, let's face it, he or she probably is.

That is all.

Defending Britney

I don't care for Britney Spears. It's no big secret that I think she's just a pretty girl who had a smidge -- a very small smidge -- of performing talent who got seen by the right people at the right time and had the appropriately pushy stage mother to convince her that she wanted the fame, too. And the package was sold to the preteens of the nation and lo and behold we had ourselves a superstar. We can hardly complain, I think, when we're the ones who buy into the crap -- even if we just purchased the cds and posters for our children. We could have just said "No" and moved on, told our kids to listen to U2 instead, but instead we encouraged them to feed on the frenzy that was Britney. So Britney is what we all made her.

Indeed, there are a great many of my female contemporaries who even went through a bit of a phase circa 2002 when it was a kinf of subversive pleasure to listen to Britney Spears and watch Crossroads and sing along to "Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman" (you know it's on my iPod!) and follow her relationship with Justin Timberlake (another guilty pleasure) in the tabloids. And even the song "Toxic" was always more popular among young adults and gay men than it was with the preteen and teen crowds (in fact I've never actually met a high schooler who will admit to liking Britney).

And it shouldn't have come as a big surprise that Britney eventually turned 20, and then 21, and was therefore no longer a teen pop star but basically, officially, a woman. So I have to wonder -- why is it that the rest of us get to start acting like women somewhere around the age of 21, maybe 22, when we graduate from college, but Britney was demonized for it? Sure, she looked a bit sluttier than most of us, but have you ever been to a night club on a Saturday night? Her entire life was a night club -- surely she was entitled to dress like a ho now and again.

One has to assume that the life of a superstar is pretty fucked up. Body guards around all the time, people doing your hair, your clothes, your schedule, everything -- you just go along with the flow of it all and try to say and do all the things you know you're supposed to say and do. It's nothing like real life, where we go to work, drive our own car through rush hour traffic, sit around and watch tv or maybe go out with friends once or twice a week, eventually meet someone and maybe get married, and then start a family. And through it all, no one wants to take pictures of us except our family, and no one wants to interview us and get our opinion on random world events or on other people or whatever. No one makes money off of us in this way, so we don't get bombarded as we exit the local 7-11 following a Super Big Gulp run, and no one follows us into Foley's so they can detail our clothing purchases for next week's issue of Star magazine. No one chases us down a highway as we're driving our children to school or soccer or wherever it is we drive them, telephoto lenses hanging out the windows trying to get shots of us and our spawn. It's jacked up.

So it's not hard to understand why Britney latched on to the first man to feed her a line about wanting to spend his life with her and have a family with her. I'd be willing to place money on Britney wanting to be a better mother than her own, not pushing her kids into show business -- even if it's just a subconscious wish. Yeah, Kevin Federline's a loser with a shitty track record, and Brit's let herself go. I suspect it's our displeasure with our own meager existences that make us so judgemental about her taste in husbands and her bad hair days and puffy complexion -- we can't have our icons looking just like us.

Which brings me to Britney's parenting skills. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that they are as good as any other first time parent. Who among us didn't have an incident with our infant in which we either dropped it or hurt it in some way, totally unintentionally? In Daniel's first two weeks of life, I practically cut off one of his fingers trying to trim his insane fingernails (I do exaggerate, but there was a lot of blood involved); and I also bashed him in the top of his head with my elbow when I had laid him on the bed next to me after a feeding. On another occasion, when he was about 6 months old, I made an unfortunate shoe choice -- platform slide on clogs -- and as I carried Daniel out to the car in the garage that morning, I lost my footing going down the little staircase and totally bit it, with him in my arms. Luckily I had the presence of mind to turn myself as I fell so that I didn't fall on top of him, and I held onto him for dear life so he wouldn't crash to the floor. But yes, I stumbled and fell, dead sober, with him in my arms.

My own parents had an incident with a restaurant high chair in which my younger sister slid down and nearly got choked by the seatbelt. My own best friend had her young infant roll herself off the top of a king size bed when she'd turned her back for a couple of minutes. And I can count on one hand the number of parents I know (including me) who bother to take the time to have their car seats properly and safely installed, let alone keep their infants riding rear-facing until they're a full year old. I know I was tempted to turn Daniel around when he passed the 20 pound mark at 8 months old because the larger car seat just fit in the car better forward-facing -- the only thing that stopped me was the fact that my own parents are trained car seat installers who would never have allowed such a thing.

I would hazard a guess that a first time parent's nerves are magnified a hundred-fold when her every move is scrutinized by paparazzi and an insatiable American public. If it were me, the whole thing would make me clumsier, even panicky. I would probably freak out if being chased with my kid in my arms and jump into my car for a quick getaway without taking the time to get the kid into a seat.

Frankly, I would just start to stay home so no one could watch.

Anyway, the point is -- I think everyone should probably worry about their own damn parenting skills and their own damn marriages, and spend a little less time getting up in Britney's grill.

Public Apology re: Jack Johnson

(I thought I better post this where the most people can see it. )

Stacey, Nate, Melissa, Kim, and whomever else: You were right, and I was wrong. Jack Johnson is totally cool, and his music is really good. Not just the Curious George soundtrack, but all of his music. The Curious George soundtrack is definitely the best cd to come out so far in 2006 (2006 has been a crap year for music... but that's a whole 'nother post!). And I just realized this morning while driving to work and listening to KBCO that if you listen to Jack Johnson at the correct volume, there is some truly amazing guitar work going on. Ihave converted. I am now a Jack Johnson fan.

I love Jack Johnson.

Thank you. That is all.

You know you think he's cute - don't fight it!

The charm, the winning smile...

...The Face... you know the one I mean...

...and the mischievous streak. You know you think he's adorable. It's okay to tell people.

 

Zoo Day

Some of us go to the zoo to look at the wild life living in peace, not bothering anyone. Daniel goes to stomp on ants.

This is either Koda or Nuka, one of the two polar bear brothers who were wrenched away from their poor mother last week and shipped out to some zoo in Philadelphia. Philly will never love Koda and Nuka as much as we do, but Philly will have fun trying. I've never seen animals in the zoo frolic as much and as often as these two do. With the possible exception of the mandrill family that live over in Primate Panorama, but they are difficult to photograph...

If anyone ever wonders why Miss Beff (aka Beth) is number one on Daniel's list of favorite people, this picture of the two of them goofing off at the zoo speaks a thousand words.

The Pooker and me. I know you dig my hat. I know you want one. Suffer!

 

The Golf Lesson

Uncle Nate has the patience of a saint...

Bailey had to get in on the act too! (Oh -- Bailey is Uncle Nate and Auntie Stacey's dog, by the way!)

 

More Easter!

Daniel and me at the Easter egg hunt.


At my church on Easter Sunday, we do this thing called the Flowering of the Cross. They started this back in like 1977; we started going there in 1979; so they've been doing it as long as I can remember. What happens is that all the children are asked to bring flowers to church on Easter, and then during the service, they come forward and place their flowers in the cross, and when it's all covered in flowers, it's hoisted up over the altar. It's always very beautiful, whatever one's thoughts on religion, God, Christ, or otherwise may be. It reminds me every year that this is really what life -- and Easter -- is all about -- this unbroken circle in which we resurrect ourselves over and over by passing down traditions to our children, who will pass them down to theirs, and so on. It's an amazing feeling to look into the faces of the children watching the cross go up and see how fascinated they are by its beauty -- toddlers and preschoolers and kids and tweens and teenagers, and all the adults who love them, taking a moment to literally stop and smell the flowers, to stop and share a simple moment of beauty that if we're lucky, we can carry in our hearts during darker days to remind us that it's not always going to hurt.


See the two older kids behind Daniel? They used to be in my two-year-old class in the Sunday school. Seems like it really wasn't that long ago, but they're like, 11, now!

 

Chickens! Eggs! Easter! Fun!

Every spring at Daniel's school, they incubate some chicken eggs and see how many chickens hatch. This year, they got nine. Here's Daniel with some of the baby chicks -- I realize that they're hard to see but if you look into the cage just to the right of his hand at the bottom of the photo, there's a little yellow and brown chick right there. The kids love it; it's so exciting to see how the chicks hatch right from the eggs. This always happens right around the week of Easter.
In the photo above, you can sort of see a little black fluffball right in the middle of the picture, inside the incubator next to a broken eggshell. He had just hatched one afternoon when I picked Daniel up at school. He turned out to be the biggest chick of the nine that hatched. Once the chicks are old enough, they are donated to the Urban Farm, where they have an egg dairy. The kids get to go visit them on the farm in a couple of weeks.

Daniel never likes to goof off! Here he is waiting for the church Easter egg hunt to begin. On the Saturday before Easter, our church has a Resurrection Celebration including an egg hunt. There are crafts, games, eggs to dye, all kinds of fun things to do. Daniel wasn't having any of it -- he was there to hunt eggs, and only hunt eggs. We did convince him to dye a couple of eggs, but that was it -- otherwise, it was all about the egg hunt. It was actually pretty funny, the singlemindedness of it all.
A whole bucketful!

 

Pooker's New Haircut

Daniel's dad recently went where I've never been bold enough to go and got the Pooker a really close-cropped haircut. It's all fuzzy and cute. I have my reasons for never daring to get it done myself (okay, his head is totally deformed, all right??), but the new cut has proven my fears unfounded -- you can't see any of the bumps or dents or the weird flat spot in the back:

I particularly love how it emphasizes his ears. I LOVE Pooker's ears (I know, I know, someday he will grow to despise them and grow his hair all shaggy and long like the lead singer of a British rock band, and I will spend all my days nagging at him to get a haircut):

Dontcha just want to pinch his little cheeks?

 

Scrapbooking Retreat Photos

Here is my goofy sister on our recent scrapbooking retreat:

She will likely be angry with me for posting these photos, but I can't help it -- I think they're hilarious, and totally representative of how foolish we get late at night on our retreats...
Here we all are.... Rockettes we're not...
(from left, Stacey, Abigail, me, Mom)

And look! It's Kresta and me!!