Compendium 5/18/2010

Not a whole lot going on these days, or I'm too busy to write about the following topics separately:

• Owen celebrated his fourth birthday a few weeks ago. Unbelievable how time flies. It seemed like he was just coming home from the hospital...or was that Wyatt? Seriously though, I can't believe I have a four year old boy!


• I haven't written up any reviews of The Pacific lately. I've enjoyed the miniseries immensely, I hope to finish watching the last episode tonight. The miniseries really began to grow in intensity, with hopefully a strong finish.


• More education shenanigans, sort of: Our local county council basically underfunded the county dog pound. This brought the ire of many local residents who attended council meetings, wrote letters to the editor, and so on. Yet the school board has severe budget cuts and no one says a word -- school board meetings ill-attended, no letters, no protests. That shows you where the priorities lie here in Darlington County.


• I co-presented a workshop for the LIBRIS 2010 conference last Friday. It was really seat of our pants, because of a death in the family of my co-presenter, but she decided to do it at the last minute. It went really well and we had some good questions and discussion.


• Lisa finishes school next week, so my manic mornings will be done until August! Yay!
  

More Shenanigans from Liberal Cereal Guy

A few posts ago, I spoke about a friend of ours who is delightfully ignorant. This guy, although not a bad guy, is just clueless about how the rest of the country and world lives. To be honest, he listens to too much Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. But there are other issues here.

I recently learned that he has never taken his now two year old daughter to the pediatrician by himself. He rarely spends time alone with her. His wife claims that he "just isn't good" with her. So either his wife or her mother goes with him to the doctor. Once again, he is a professional in a related medical field. Unbelievable.

I've heard this before in this areas -- fathers being remote from their kids, often with in-laws or their own parents taking a larger role in their kid's lives, at least early on. But nothing like this.

I know I probably do too much compared to other fathers, but give me a break. How can you not manage to take your kid by yourself to the pediatrician ONCE in 25 months?

Tomorrow, I will be taking Owen to get "tested" for his placement in 4K. By myself. I can handle it.

Random Musings

It's been a while, so naturally I have a few things on my mind.

1. For one reason or another, we found ourselves in Florence (SC) the last two Saturdays. I really haven't been there in quite some time, perhaps since early January. Florence has the closest Target, Best Buy, big book stores, and so on. We go there anytime we need to get those (many) items that aren't available in Hartsville. I am pleased to announce that both the mall and other stores (Kohl's) appeared to be fairly busy. The mall actually looked busier than it did in late November, at the height of the Christmas shopping season. Even if it's people spending tax refunds, I'll take it. It's good to see people spending money again.

2. In an interesting profile of Billy Corgan in the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine (links to the TOC, article isn't online yet), former Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlain talks about his departure from the band. Nothing earth shattering there, or that Corgan's ego is still firmly in place despite being a pop culture non-entity since 1996. Chamberlain had an excellent quote about the current state of music:

"Music is such a small part of people's lives now...People don't sit around like they did in the Nineties and stare at album covers and think about Kurt and Billy."

This got me thinking about popular music -- do kids today listen to music the same way we used to back in Nineties? Or is this a disgruntled rock star venting about his former boss?

3. Maybe the most interesting thing about using Facebook is having friends from disparate universes argue with each other. For instance, an elementary school friend that I haven't seen since the other Bush was the P.U.S.A. got into a debate with my brother-in-law. Wild!

4. I'm not surprised that Darlington County had one of the lowest rates of return for the 2000 Census. The level of ignorance around here is stunning. Filling out the form takes minutes and might have made a difference here.

5. In related news, my wife had a PTO meeting last week -- staying at work until 7 PM, making for a 12 hour day -- and only two of her kids' parents showed up. Baseball practice > School function, evidently.

6. Wyatt will soon be 18 months old and Owen will be four in May. Unbelievable how time flies! We've been trying some gluten with Owen, and we haven't seen any negative results. We actually spent the night with my parents and he didn't have an issue with the cat, either.

7. We've finally started seeing signs of Spring around Hartsville. It has been the longest, coldest winter that I've had since leaving Pittsburgh in 1990. It rarely made it out of the 40s from late December until the end of February. Several weeks during that time, the temperatures never made it out of the 30s. It snowed three or four times, twice with significant accumulation. We had an ice storm, knocking out power for six hours. So weird! But I've really appreciated upper 50s-low 60s the last ten days or so.

8. The Pacific miniseries has started on HBO. Not surprisingly, it is excellent and I really enjoyed the first episode. HBO is streaming the first episode, but will make you buy HBO or maybe pay for the streams after that. Great marketing move for them -- and I think a unique one at that. They control their programming pretty tightly, so this is a big step forward (from my standpoint).

Again into the Fray

I don't even know what the title means. I guess into the fray of blogging.

Anyway, another year has begun...2010. Sounds so futuristic. I remember being a little kid thinking 2000 was so far away, but here I am living in the future.

Wyatt got his ear tubes last month, so we've been antibiotic free for almost 40 days now! He is feeling a lot better now and seems to be talking a lot more...although it is his patented form of Ewok and Vietnamese. Although he has always had a pleasant disposition, he is just really happy right now. He must have had a lot of discomfort with his ears for quite some time -- constant pain for months.

Owen is Owen -- funny, stubborn and wickedly smart. He has a steel trap memory and recalls minute details of sights and conversations from months ago. He obviously gets the memory from his mother, because it is a good day if I remember what I had for breakfast this morning (oatmeal!)

Here are some things I hope to accomplish this year:

1. Lose 25 pounds. Yeah, original I know...
2. I would like to run a mile. Silly, but I haven't really done that yet. I always walked it in high school
3. Become a flexitarian. I'm not sure if I would miss meat or not, but I have already started to cut back on the meat intake.
4. I would really like to get up to Pittsburgh for one more Penguins game in the Mellon Arena, but it's probably cost prohibitive at this point. Everyone and their brother will be doing that this Spring, and there are only a handful (less than 20) games left.
5. Bake my own bread. I miss making bread and cookies -- why do I only do that during the holidays? I have a great whole wheat bread recipe, but it takes 12-24 hours to proof -- so I have to plan ahead

Five accomplishments is enough for now.

A Monkey Looks at One!

A year ago, we were getting ready for Wyatt to join the family. After nine months of worry with various health scares - low amniotic fluid and the potential for genetic defects and damage while inside the womb -- Wyatt Davis was born a healthy, happy little baby.

Fortunately, he didn't have any of the severe allergy issues that his older brother had, only light cradle cap and the occasional eczema spot on his legs.

It's been a whirlwind year beginning with me staying home with him for November and December, the crazy daycare situation (water, lights and car repossessed etc), Wyatt staying with the Williamses until the end of the school year, and finally getting to go to "school" with Owen (yay!) this Fall.

Although developmentally he is a few weeks behind where he should be, he is a very strong and healthy baby. Only one ear infection and no other major illnesses, unlike his brother who was sick a lot his first year.

He is walking along furniture and can even climb some steps, but it will be a while before he is walking unassisted. Owen, on the other hand, began walking unassisted the day before his first birthday.

We probably shouldn't be comparing the Owen and Wyatt's development cycle, because each child is different. Second children, I am told, develop more slowly and Wyatt was two weeks premature, adding to the time frame.

My only wish is that he would start sleeping through the night on a regular basis. He will sleep through maybe 1-2 in a two week stretch. Last night, Lisa was up at 4am giving him a bottle. The night before that, I was up at 1:45am. Two nights before that, he slept through the night without a peep. It will come around, probably when we get him weaned off of formula.

But what a year it has been! Time flies when you are having fun...

Home and Another School Year Begins...

It's one of the last quiet weeks here at Coker, at least until the Christmas holiday. I'm wrapping up the last major project of the summer, accumulating the various statistics for the many electronic resources we have.

So far, the statistics are slightly higher than they were last year -- even though we had fewer number of students enrolled. Our book circulation numbers are pretty flat, unfortunately. It's difficult to get students to use and read books when the databases and open Internet available to them 24/7.

Next week, we'll have the traditional back to campus meetings and the students will begin filing in next weekend. It was yet another quick summer here at Coker!

As for home, all is well. Wyatt is beginning to pull up on furniture and move around. He still has the happy disposition, for the most part. Both boys have had mild fevers off and on this week, with Wyatt coming off of a pretty severe ear infection (requiring back to back doses of antibiotics).

Owen can be very difficult at times because he is very headstrong and stubborn. His personality has changed a lot in the last few months. I can't help but wonder if this has to do with the older kids at daycare over the summer or just a natural progression.

He still astounds me with his knowledge and intelligence almost daily. He will remember the most minute detail, like who gave him a t-shirt a year ago. Last night, he pieced together a pun in the story I read him: a mother comes home from work and calls her husband and son "dears" because they are pretending to wear antlers. Owen said "Reindeers have antlers, too!"

We may have the beginnings of sibling rivalry, too. Owen can't let Wyatt touch any of his toys without snatching it away from him. Wyatt adores Owen, too...following him around the house as quickly as possible.