Comics: DC relaunched and renumbered its entire line last week. I’ve read Justice League and Action Comics so far. Justice League didn’t reveal where it was headed while Action suggests the new Superman is a mix of Spider-Man, Batman and…a 1930s-era Superman (with nods to that era’s mob and wife abuser villains). So both are wait and see. This post from AV Club explains why that’s a good idea when it comes to comics arcs (starting with the third graf of the Justice League review).
Internet: Pat Bruno was fired from the Sun-Times and wants to start his own food blog. The Atlantic Wire discusses why this might be harder than he thinks. Why do professional writers – particularly print writers – wait until they are fired to develop an online presence? It’s much easier to do this when you’re employed at a publication that will help you build your audience and, fair or not, it lends your efforts a credence it might not otherwise have that you can leverage into a larger online buildout or a new job.
Media: Spent the better part of 36 hours recovering from what your grandma would call a stomach bug. Upside: I got caught up with a bunch of Quantum Leap episodes I missed when they first aired. Downside: I only missed episodes of the fifth season when the show jumped the shark so…blergh.
Music: An e-mail with the subject line Here is your FREE ukulele lesson book brightened my day.
5. The Chief Technology Officer of the city of Chicago, John Tolva (@Immerito), DJ’ed the party last night which is probably the best commentary on how this whole project brought the Chicago tech and arts scenes together in one crazy mashup.
4. The Young Chicago Authors kids from Louder Than A Bomb who turned in one of the best live poetry performances I’ve ever seen. In particular, were two girls around 16-17 whose piece on sexuality, body image and adolescent relationships was wisdom so far beyond their years I felt as if they knew more about life than I do, twenty years their senior.
3.The actual Mayor Emanuel showing up, shaking hands and doing an Entourage-like walk through the club before signing @MayorEmanuel author Dan Sinker’s book with “You are an asshole. Mayor Emanuel.” *
2. Jeff Tweedy singing “I Gotta Feeling” and reciting the lyrics to “My Humps” (above via). Just go watch those videos now and be in a good mood the rest of the day.
1. Dan reading the fermented baby food in the crawlspace bit where @MayorEmanuel meets Sweetness, hugs Studs Terkel’s heart and talks with Curtis Mayfield. If anyone still thinks this whole project was just a bunch of vulgar tweets, the literary passion Dan poured into that reading – and this whole event – put the lie to that notion.
I was so proud to be a Chicagoan last night.
* A couple other folks I know got the actual mayor** to sign their books and he signed all of them “Mayor Emanuel” as if to say “No, motherfucker, I’M THE MAYOR. It takes more to get this shit than starting a fucking Twitter account.” @AnnaTarkov told me she asked the mayor if he was a fan of the book and he said no. That answer may have been more persona than anything else (another friend of mine said the mayor exchanged good-natured f-bombs with Hideout co-owner Tim Tuten) but it’s also worth noting how he goes out of his way to show he’s a good sport about the whole thing.
** I love how I keep having to say “the actual mayor” to avoid confusion.
As I said, I’m still making changes here but I’m officially relaunching this blog as a place for longer pieces about the professional and the personal. When I first started this blog on Blogger in 2007, it was media-focused. Around 2009 and into 2010, the frequency of my writing here decreased. I’d been spending more time on Twitter and most days it was enough of an outlet for me. Plus, I was pretty unhappy at my job at this time and after a day spent in media I wasn’t much interested in writing about it. When I got fired, I really got going on my Tumblr blog and I kept this space for more personal posts or text versions of readings I’d done around town.
I’m hoping to bring all of this together here now, including my work on Twitter and Tumblr.
The categories are, for the most part, self-explanatory. Uncategorized is a place for housekeeping matters, life updates and stuff that just doesn’t fit anywhere else. Some things aren’t quite in their right places after the move but that’s life.
Speaking of, my efforts to redirect all the links from my old blog to the new were for naught despite three nights of trying. So I’m leaving the old blog up until I end up in the hospital with a broken leg and have so many hours to kill that I fix all the links manually. Until there, here is a selection of posts from over the last four years of this blog (links for which have all been updated).
I’m in the process of moving my old Blogger site to this (not-yet-)very fancy WordPress site. Why? I wanted more of a hub for all aspects of my online identity and any projects I’d work on and will eventually have that here.
So why ourmaninchicago.net instead of .com? Well, some other guy is already using the OMIC name at .com. Frankly, that’s largely what stopped me from making the switch until now. But I figured, what they heck? .Net will do.
There’s a bunch of stuff I want to change/fix but for now this is the new home.
This was a piece I read first at Tuesday Funk, my friend (and acclaimed sci-fi author) Bill Shunn‘s reading series at the Hopleaf. I read it in a slightly different form at Essay Fiesta a few months later. I don’t usually repeat pieces like that but I wanted another crack at performing it since I didn’t feel I’d quite done it justice the first time. Honestly, this is a piece that works best in front of an audience of comic geeks or, failing that, with visual aids. I didn’t have that in either case (though the Tuesday Funk crowd was pretty close) so the fact that this piece worked at all is a testament to my ability to mine cheap laughs out of the words “bosomy” and “pantsless.”
Since February, my wife and I have been the parents of an amazing little girl named Abigail. Many months before she was born, I began to obsess over how we’d raise her in a “pink is for girls, blue is for boys” culture. My hope is we’ll raise Abigail to figure out her own identity and pursue her own likes and dislikes, irrespective of the expectations of others. I realize this is akin to saying “And hopefully she will someday own a unicorn” but that’s my hope.
My biggest concern with the color pink is the princess culture that seems to accompany it. Everyone in this room looks pretty intelligent – in addition to being incredibly good-looking – so I don’t need to go into all of the pitfalls here. But suffice it to sabuy I don’t want to raise a daughter who expects to be saved by a handsome prince. Frankly, I’d be happy if the sum total of my daughter’s experiences with princesses involved getting to the end of a level of Super Mario Brothers and getting annoyed because the one she is looking for is in another castle.
But I realize some of the girly pink stuff is going to be inevitable. My wife once told me “Our daughter might like pink and Barbies” in a tone that left unsaid the words “and that’s OK” as well as “and you might just have to suck it up and deal.” I’m certainly aware of the irony of burdening her with all my expectations in an effort to help her avoid those of others. If she’s going to be her own person then I need to tread lightly lest I send her running into the Disney Princess section of Toys R Us and have her emerge covered tiara to toe in wee royal garb.
This has not, however, stopped me from conceiving of alternative options for her.
Obviously the surest way to get a kid interested in something is to, in some way, suggest that it is somehow “bad.” So merely suggesting princesses are dumb isn’t going to work. When I first got out of college, I was a substitute teacher for classes that ranged from 1st to 8th grade. When I was trying to correct the behavior of younger kids it wasn’t enough to tell them not to do something. You have to redirect their undesired behavior to something positive. So if one of your charges was getting into an argument with another kid you would break it up but then, say, walk them over to the bookshelf and have them pick out a book.
So if the dominant societal culture dictates my daughter is inevitably going to gravitate to women in unrealistic costumes with fanciful backstories who operate from positions of authority steeped in tradition…isn’t it possible I could interest her into comic book superheroes instead?
My plan was to acquire five appropriately iconic comic book covers featuring female super heroes and use them as art in our daughter’s room. My hope was that the imagery would carry with it a certain magisterial air that would seem an acceptable substitute for the elaborate sashes and gowns of princesses. And as she grew up, my daughter would inevitably have questions about these characters and we’d share their stories, discuss their heroics and, in doing so, gently reinforce the values of self-reliance, sacrifice and adventure – all of which seemed to run counter to princess culture. Eventually she would decide uh…for herself that superheroes were cool and princesses drool.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Scott, this all sounds kind of sneaky.” To which I would respond “Yes. Yes it does.”
Anyway, I realized early on that this wasn’t a perfect alternative. There’s plenty of problematic imagery – particularly when it comes to women – in comic books. So I came up with a list of traits that would help guide me to the responsible choices:
[Fair warning to the non-geeks in the audience: This next bit is going to get super-nerdy. If the last thing you saw involving someone with a cape was Phantom of the Opera now might be a good time to go get a drink from the bar or hit the bathroom.]
1. EACH CHARACTER SHOULD HAVE HER OWN IDENTITY AND NOT BE DERIVATIVE OF A MALE CHARACTER
Even though this would knock out some perfectly acceptable options – Batgirl, She-Hulk, Mary Marvel – it seemed to run counter to this whole exercise if the entire list suffered from Ms. Pac Man syndrome and my daughter equated female identity with little more than lipstick, false eyelashes, a beauty mark and a hair accessory. (As an aside, how many of you remembered that Ms. Pac Man had a mole?)
2. EASY DOES IT ON THE CLEAVAGE
Obviously, female superheroes are going to have boobs. And for uh…whatever reason it seems that a predominant number of them have large boobs. Clearly, for women who are predisposed to saving the Earth there is some kind of correlative genetic marker for large breasts. There didn’t seem to be much of a way around this but at least it could be managed. So I resolved to favor women who wore shirts, jackets, jumpsuits or perhaps battle armor. It also meant Power Girl wasn’t making the cut.
3. NO ONE WITH AN “AND THEN SHE WAS EVIL” PLOTLINE
It would have been great to put Jean Grey up on my daughter’s wall: a female hero whose greatest power derived from the use of her mind? Perfect! Up until the point where she turns evil, becomes Dark Phoenix and commits genocide by wiping out an entire planet.
4. PANTS ARE PREFERABLE TO NO PANTS
I felt we were doing our daughter a disservice if we suggested to her that the world at large is OK with a young woman who parades around in underpants and fishnets. We’d really just be setting her up for two possible careers: pop singer or magician’s assistant. I’m not saying either of those is bad, but it seems kind of limiting. So this meant Black Canary was out and so was Zatanna – who I think was an actual magician’s assistant at some point.
The corollary to this rule was that shorts were also acceptable so obviously the X-Men’s Jubilee was a possibility. Then again, I had to ask myself whether I wanted to endorse jean shorts as a fashion choice.
But when I got down to the business of making my list based on these rules, I found sticking to them was pretty much impossible. Even my wife thought I was being a little too restrictive. On the turning evil issue she said “I think it’s OK to have been evil at some point; there is an important lesson there. Everyone gets to make mistakes, no one is born perfect and we all get a shot at redemption and triumph.”
What I eventually realized was trying to shield my daughter from pantsless, bosomy, infrequently evil characters was going to prevent my daughter from figuring out why these rules were important all on her own. By creating a set of rules about what was OK I was working against my own efforts to instill in her a contrarian spirit. Or, as my friend Veronica put it, “Well behaved women rarely make history. This covers not wearing pants.”
So yes, there might not be Supergirl if there hadn’t been a Superman first but that doesn’t mean she’s any less dedicated to truth, justice and the American way. And I came around to the notion that it’s OK that Wonder Woman isn’t usually wearing pants because she inspires others to be strong, powerful women. And Buffy Summers saved the world a lot, even if she once had to kill her vampire boyfriend to do it. All three of them made the list.
Rounding out the top 5 were the Invisible Woman from the Fantastic Four and Elastigirl from The Incredibles. Both are mothers with a strong sense of family. I figured it was valuable to teach my daughter that moms are superheroes, too.
The act of making this list was what finally made me realize the problem I originally set out to solve didn’t need fixing. If we’re otherwise smart about how we raise our daughter then she won’t need her father to save her anymore than she’ll need a prince to do so. She’ll make her mind up all by herself. There’s plenty that’s problematic about princesses of the Disney variety, sure, but there’s also Princess Leia and Zena: Warrior Princess. And just as the pictures of the women we’ve chosen to hang on Abigail’s wall aren’t to be judged solely by their costumes so to are princesses to be judged by more than the color of their gowns.
Though I still think she’s going to be heartbroken when she finds out we won’t let her leave the house pantsless.
I’ve been lucky enough to spend my entire life with my father and two grandfathers not to mention several other dad-based relatives. Father’s Day celebrations are not new to me. But participating in one as a father is.
This morning Erin gave me a great father’s day gift, plus three cards – one from her and two from Abigail – and a onesie for AG that says “My Daddy Rocks” (with a little guitar).
It’s all a bit surreal as there was a time in my life when it looked as if I would never be on the “father” side of Father’s Day celebrations. In the beginning of the end of my first marriage, I told my first wife “I don’t think I want kids” even though that had been a driving force behind why we got married in the first place. “Neither do I,” she said. We were both lying. We both still wanted kids. Just not with each other. Everything that was wrong about our marriage was there in that moment. We were divorced within a year.
Up until Abigail was born, I’d worked harder on my relationship with Erin than anything else I’ve ever tried. There were points when – no matter how much I loved her – I wasn’t sure we would end up together. I had a lot of shit to work through in therapy and had to learn how to trust my instincts and emotions again. Getting this far meant trying to achieve a deceptively complicated goal: get each day right. When we started dating, I wasn’t trying to achieve marriage. When we got married, I wasn’t trying to achieve home ownership or fatherhood or a certain life together. I just tried to get every day right. I’ve missed the mark as often as I’ve hit it. No, strike that. I’ve probably missed the mark more often than I’ve hit it. But I get up every day and try again. And so does she.
Without going into the details, we had difficulty trying to have a kid. Not near as much as some, but more than others. We tried off-and-on for a year. In that time, we both made peace with the possibility that our family might not grow larger than the two of us and the dog. And then boom.
The other day I was looking down at Abigail’s head and thought “You were worth every difficult moment.” Here was proof that together Erin and I hit the mark often enough. And I get to feel that every single day.
One of these days I’ll develop the discipline to write longer pieces here independent of a local reading series (for shorter, more frequent posts check out my Tumblr blog) but until then here’s the piece I read at Paper Machete this weekend. If you’re in Chicago and haven’t checked it out, next Saturday at 3pm is as good a reason as any: the show moves to larger digs at The Horseshoe in Lincoln Square and features Chicagoan/SNL cast member Paul Brittain and Schadenfreude’s Kate James.
This piece is about the recent string of downtown Chicago robberies that many are calling “flash mobs.” I get into why this is a misnomer and the lazy reporting that got them tagged this way. Plus, links to relevant material! Sadly, you will have to wait for the podcast to hear my “caveman” voice.
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Well, this is quite the flash mob we have going here today.
That’s what a flash mob is, right? Groups of otherwise unconnected strangers, driven by text messages or social media communication who gather together for some event? I know I invited all my friends via Twitter, Facebook and text. And The Paper Machete has a website where they talked about today’s lineup. Plus, there was something on The AV Club.
Plus, it’s not like any of us already has some kind of loose affiliation or acquaintance? Right…? Gang…?
I’m obviously getting ahead of myself but I do want to talk about how all of a sudden a term meant to describe seemingly-spontaneous coordinated dancing or shitty fake improv suddenly became the hot new trend in violent muggings in the tony Gold Coast and Streeterville neighborhoods. And like most annoying trends it seems to have started in Brooklyn.
But let me back up and set the scene here: We’ve had a longtime Daddy figure for a mayor replaced by a younger guy who’s untested in the role, a city with a $650 million dollar deficit contributing to economic decline in the city’s neighborhoods and a police force with 800 fewer cops than there ought to be and a superintendent who’s barely been on the job for a month – and wasn’t officially approved for the job until earlier this week. Tack on reports of downtown youth violence robberies during the last few months and whispers of potential violence causing the Memorial Day weekend closing of North Avenue Beach and things. were. just. a. little. tense. leading up to last weekend.
According to the Wall Street Journal, 12 crimes involving large groups of young men – half were robberies and the other half were non-violent crimes – occurred last weekend in the Streeterville/Gold Coast area. Of the robberies, five of them were committed by the same group of people and ten of the people in that group were arrested. 19 other young men were arrested for the other six, non-violent crimes.
While these crimes and their victims are very real, the organization of the groups through social media has been overreported. Or perhaps reported is the wrong word. On Wednesday, a Chicago Police Department spokesman said there was no indication any of the assaults or robberies were coordinated using social media. So maybe the word we’re looking for here is “completelymadeup.”
So how did these attacks end up reported as “flash mobs”? This brings us back to Brooklyn. And 40 cent hot wings.
In October of 2009, a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant in Brooklyn started running a Tuesday night special: hot wings – 40 cents each, which based on my extensive Google-based research of hot wings menus is about a 20-50 cent savings over the price of your average wing. What was later described in the New York Times as an unauthorized flyer discussing the special was posted to various social networking sites and caused an increasing number of teenagers to overwhelm the spot over the next three weeks, culminating in a Veteran’s Day Eve melee in the area around the mall that ended with two shootings and one stabbing. This was followed by other non-poultry-related incidents involving large groups of youth in Philadelphia and South Orange, N.J., in 2010 and, more recently, robberies in St. Paul, Minnesota and St Louis earlier this year though few of these mention any social media involvement. Let’s just say they…fit the description.
So back to Chicago. We’ve got a national context for two years of sporadic violent incidents involving youth, which are, in some cases, coordinated using text messaging and social media. It’s a meme, as the Internet would say. Then while doing research for this piece I remembered a report from CBS 2 back in March about businesses along the Magnificent Mile experiencing groups of teens coming into their stores grabbing as much as they can and running away. “Apparently, they’ve been Tweeting each other,” said the reporter. There it is: Twitter was to blame. Despite the lack of direct quotes from police, the victims or the alleged attackers mentioning any form of social media. And nevermind that plenty of people who use Twitter or Facebook manage to get through their days without knocking over a Filene’s Basement.
And that’s when it all came together for me. This has way more to do with the Gold Coast and what it represents and social media and what it represents. And it can all be explained by a little something called terror management theory.
[OK truth be told I’m only saying this because I heard about terror management theory for the first time on Wednesday while listening to the How Stuff Works podcast and it sounded really cool. Had my iPod shuffled differently during my morning commute I might be telling you the only way to truly understand these attacks is to listen to the Sound Opinions review of the new Fleet Foxes album. But hang with me and I swear this will make a kind of sense.]
Terror management theory essentially posits that all human behavior is motivated by the fear of mortality and that every societal construct we create is meant to distract us from a fear of death: political parties, saying “bless you” when someone sneezes, even Bravo’s The Real Housewives series which is ironic because every time I remember that show exists I want to fucking kill myself.
According to this theory, symbols that enforce our cultural views are fiercely protected and anything that threatens those views is dealt with in a highly punitive manner.
Now, think of the Gold Coast and Streeterville, where these attacks occurred. What’s over there? Tiffany’s, Water Tower Place, the American Girl store, parks, countless tourist attractions and various economic engines for the city. Basically, high affluence in a low-crime area. For a city that wants to convince itself it isn’t broke and suffering from an increase in gang activity, you don’t get much more symbolic.
So how does social media enter into the picture? On almost every level, social media is changing the way we communicate and learn about our world. Rather than reinforce the individual societal constructs we have in place in our families, neighborhoods or countries, social media is exposing us to yes, congressional penis, but also cultural worldviews that differ wildly from our own. If you don’t believe me, try this experiment: On the day after the next court ruling on gay marriage, gun rights or abortion, visit the Facebook page of any family member you purposely only see at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s the interpersonal equivalent of finding a potentially cancerous mole on a part of your body you can’t see without a mirror.
Flash mobs make the perfect scapegoat. They’re symbolic of technology many people don’t understand and are still struggling to legislate and use to create new economic models. And if it wasn’t flash mobs, it would have been something else. When I was a kid, blue star LSD tattooswere the neighborhood bogeyman. For my parents, I think it was communists. I’m sure even cavemen were like “Have you heard of this new form of fire that can start by rubbing two sticks together? Someone really needs to start monitoring the sale of sticks.”
Last week my wife was sitting in the glider, feeding our daughter.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
“We’re getting there,” she said.
That about describes where we’re at right now. I don’t know that I have much context to add to Erin’s beautifully-rendered post about Abigail’s first month other than to say we seem to unlock new baby achievements every week:
Congratulations! You have achieved Napping After Bottle.
You have found The Mobile That Keeps Her Distracted Long Enough For You To Have A Cup of Coffee.
I’m sorry, parents, but your full night’s sleep is in another castle!
The other day, when I expressed frustration at not being able to describe a new normal, my friend Matt left the following comment:
“I hate to tell you this, but there isn’t really a normal. Once you figure one out, they’re just a little bit older and have already changed again. The real trick is getting better at adjusting to that unpredictability.”
He’s right, of course, and that’s probably what was bothering me. Erin and I know enough to know that once you think you’ve got one aspect of child-rearing figured out, it changes. But it doesn’t stop me from wanting to plant my flag in the sand and say “We figured this out.” While I might know, a month in, how to handle work and baby and oh yeah! my relationship with my wife I might be ass-over-tea-kettle in month two. But at least I know that so it won’t be a surprise when it happens.
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I realized yesterday that I’m that guy now.
I’m that guy who, without prompting, will show you a picture of his kid. And with prompting will show you 20.
I’m that guy who tweets about bits of formula getting on his iPad. As if I’m the first person to experience it.
I’m that guy who goes into work late or leaves at a decent hour because it means 20 extra minutes with his kid.
I’m that guy who makes Dad Jokes now. (Actually, I was always sort of that guy. It’s just nice to have an excuse now to indulge my inner Phil Dunphy.)
I’ve been back at work for two weeks now after two weeks off for the birth, hospital stay and first few days of Abigail’s life at home. Here’s how I put it in an email to a friend who has three kids, two of whom are newborn twins:
Being back at work is weird. I’m glad to be doing something other than facilitating the feeding, changing, and sleeping of our child and glad to not be worrying about my wife in the process (actively, anyway, it’s always passively in the back of my mind) but feel guilty for feeling that way. On the other hand, work has taken on more importance. Being good at my job now equals being a good provider which means being a good Dad.
To which he replied “You’ve hit on one of the big cosmic conflicts of new fatherhood. Didn’t even take you two weeks.”
I’m leaving that second sentence as I typed it because I was being honest then and I’m endeavoring to be honest here. Were I writing that sentence first for publication to a wider audience I’d have said:
Being back at work is weird. It’s a nice chance of pace to be doing something other than facilitating the feeding, changing, and sleeping of our child and a relief to spend a few hours not preoccupied with the stress my wife’s dealing with right now (though it’s always in the back of my mind). Doing anything for two weeks nonstop is a drain and it’ll be great to go home refreshed and ready to have at it again. Still, I feel guilty for feeling that way.
When I went home that first Monday night I did feel refreshed and ready to dive back into the fray. I changed clothes, scooped Abigail out of Erin’s arms and spent the next few hours feeding, burping, changing and soothing her. And it felt great. In fact, each night I can’t wait to get home and tend to her.
And truth be told, Erin doesn’t need me worrying about her. But for all the reasons I’ve discussed before, I know parenting is harder on her than it is me. And now on top of that she’s managing child care alone until 6:30 rolls around.
As much as some people have the temperament and/or will to be good parents – in our better moments, I think Erin and I are those people – the first few weeks found us occasionally questioning whether we are or not. I know everyone goes through this. Doesn’t change the fact that it was nice to get back to the office and spend some time on things I’m demonstrably good at doing.
Every time I start a new job I get frustrated because I’m not as knowledgeable about the environment as I’d like to be and accomplishing something takes longer due to the learning curve. Parenthood has been no different. Each week it seems as if we’re trying some new (to us) child-rearing theory to get Abigail to sleep longer, feed better or be happier. We’re still trying to shake off the notion there’s some pre-determined way to raise our kid and instead just listen and observe the way the kid’s behaving and act accordingly. We know this is the way we’re supposed to do it but it still annoys us that Amazon doesn’t sell The Guide To Abigail Grace Smith’s First Year.
My big worry was I’d arrive back at work and not give a shit about my job anymore. Who cares about the Internet?!? There’s a new human being in my house who needs me! Instead, it’s the opposite. The better I am at my job, the better I take care of those who depend on me. While Abigail’s not even old enough to recognize my face yet, it’s important to me that she has a father who works hard. At the very least I want her to think I work as hard at my morning job as I do my evening job.
—
I’ve been working on this post for the past couple weeks – I started it the day I went back to work. Each time I read through it I find I’m unable to thread it all together. There’s a couple of good bits but nothng overall to say. Maybe it’s because I’m striving to describe a “new normal” when I haven’t figured out what that is yet.
My posts about Erin’s pregnancy and Abigail’s birth have been awfully introspective – and perhaps a little tear-jerky – so to keep this blog from being a ponderous chore to read, here are some amusing things that have happened in the Age of Abigail:
* I’d like to thank the creative and production staffs of “Parks & Recreation” for saving our sanity. The few moments Erin and I have to ourselves are usually spent decompressing via episodes of this show. We may decide to raise Abigail according to Ron Swanson’s Pyramid of Greatness at some future date.
* A friend of mine – a new father himself – sent me…er, Abigail a CD of 80s songs as lullabies. “Total Eclipse of the Heart” is surprisingly affecting. Oh and Abigail likes it, too.
* The trash can in the baby’s room – the one containing all the dirty diapers and sanitary wipes – is so sophisticated that Erin and I somehow removed the bag in reverse. That’s right: Two college-educated people were almost outwitted by a garbage receptacle.
* My daughter’s “Let me interrupt you for a second so I can take a crap in my diaper” face is hysterical. It looks like she’s going into a trance or casting a spell. It’s almost as awesome as the noises she makes when she’s waking up or stretching, which bear a remarkable resemblance to the noises made by the “Compys” in Jurassic Park.
* Abigail’s favorite way for me to soothe her is being held while I walk up and down the stairs to our 2nd floor. Our house is an old bungalow so the stairs are attic-style which means they’re very steep. I can usually fake her out but achieve the same effect by walking around our dining room table while doing half-lunges.
At this rate, I should have buns of steel by Tuesday.
