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.

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.

Family Vacation Roadtrip

We had our first lengthy roadtrip vacation as a family of four last week. We had a blast, although it was exhausting at times. We're actually all still exhausted, and Owen has actually come down with some sort of fever.

Briefly, we drove from H-ville to Toronto and on the return trip, spent some time in Pittsburgh.

Here are some things I learned:

• The portable DVD player was the best $100 I've spent on Owen yet -- minus medical costs and food, of course. Even if he watched the 10 minutes of bonus features of Cars about 400 times in the 28 hours we spent in the van.
• The engineers who blasted the West Virginia Turnpike out of those mountains way back in the 1950s deserve some sort of commendation. What a long and winding road. People really overlook the importance of the highway system and Eisenhower's leadership in this area. Shame we got the idea from Adolf Hitler...
• We broke the drive up in two halves, staying in Morgantown, WV the first night. It was a perfect amount of time on the road -- around 8 hours or so, with frequent stops.
• Speaking of stops, Owen did an excellent job with potty stops -- only a couple more than what Lisa and I would have done if we were driving sans kids.
• Toronto is a wonderful city. Even with a city worker strike, the city was clean and most everyone was marginially friendly -- it doesn't help to have a cute baby with you either!
• Canadians are proud of their country. We were there during Canada Day, and most everyone wore flags or red shirts -- even the skate punks at the coffee shop in the Beaches. Much more patriotic than in the U.S., it seemed.
• One cool thing (and I wish I got a picture of it) is that the city of Toronto gives each household a larger recycling bin than garbage can! In fact, my sister-in-law informed me that the trash can has a false bottom, making it even smaller than it looks. How great is that? Darlington County is so far behind in recycling that it's pathetic. They don't even take office paper or junk mail unless it is shredded. Like public education here, it isn't a priority.
• Wyatt learned how to crawl during the trip, which was amazing considering how little floor space we had at our hotels and in-laws. I rarely put him on the ground for fear he would have been trampled by his brother and cousins. But he is moving around pretty well, and he has four teeth in with two more coming in.
• We tried to go see Niagara Falls. But traffic from Toronto to Niagara Falls was pretty heavy, and it was really crowded when we did get there. Owen saw the Falls, but wasn't impressed. On to Pittsburgh!
• Owen called Pittsburgh "Rothelisberger"
• We ate at a very loud and crowded Primanti Brothers Restaurant while waiting for the fireworks. It was excellent, but I don't think Lisa was impressed. Oh well. What's not to like with french fries and slaw IN your sandwich?
• Our hotel in Pittsburgh was expensive, but very close to PNC Park and the fireworks. What a show! And only a five minute walk from our hotel down to the Allegheny River. I realized that this was the first 4th of July fireworks I'd ever seen in Pittsburgh because we were always on the Outer Banks that week.
• We planned to go to the Zoo, but we were all out of steam by that point. A seventh night in a hotel room might have put us over the edge, so after a couple of stops (for food and formula), we decided to head back to Hartsville.
• We borrowed a GPS, which made the trip a little more interesting. We changed the voice to French and British English for fun. It was nice to have a list of close hotels when we got to Pittsburgh, and we could find a Wal-mart with ease. It definitely was good to have, and if we travelled more often, we would buy one ourselves.
• The GPS said it would take almost 11 hours to get home from Pittsburgh, but we made it home in under 10 with three stops.

The Hangover/Random Stuff/Father's Day

So we went to see The Hangover yesterday -- my boss graciously watched the boys so we could get out and enjoy some time together. I think this was the first movie that we've attended together since last summer. We saw Dark Knight in Myrtle Beach last July or August. Yikes.

Anyway, it was a funny movie...full of infantile jokes and so on. My following rant has nothing to do with the movie itself, which I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to the sequel in a couple of years.

Shortly before the movie started, a group of giants sat in front of us in the non-stadium theater. I really hate this because the theater had probably 20-30 people and over 100 empty seats and this big goofball HAS to sit in front of me.

So we moved over to some empty seats across the theater, and while we were moving, Lisa noticed one of her former students (a rising 6th grader) and his eight year old brother, accompanied by their mother. The movie hadn't started yet, but we knew it was R-rated and from the trailers knew the content probably wasn't appropriate for children. In fact there were several groups of families with teenagers at this screening. As we watched the movie, I was even embarrassed by some of the content of the movie -- I couldn't imagine what the parents were thinking about some of that stuff. None of them got up and left either, but at least they didn't talk through the movie. I guess that is one consolation.

For being in a supposedly conservative area, where "church" means Southern Baptist and liquor can't be found for purchase between 12:01 am Sunday until 12:01 am Monday, I was shocked to see so many underage kids at this movie. I couldn't imagine my parents taking me to Porky's or Revenge of the Nerds back in the day (although I watched both on Cinemax well before I was 17). Unbelievable, but I guess the upside is that they were with their parents and not alone. If parents want to make that kind of choice, then they are free to do so.

Now some random stuff:

• My eye is finally getting back to normal. I poked it with a garden stake last Sunday night while weeding the tomato beds. I nicked the cornea and caused "significant" damage to the eyeball. Nothing permanent (to my knowledge), but I was pretty miserable for most of last week. Two sets of eye drops and now down to just a steroid to get the inflammation and light sensitivity alleviated. Almost back to 20/20!
• I had an enjoyable Father's Day. We went to our new church (more on that later), Owen made me a key holder at school, and both he and Wyatt "signed" my Father's Day card. Capped off with a movie and dinner, it was the perfect day. I can't believe it's been three father's days so far!
• Work is quiet, even with summer school in session.
• Our new president, Dr. Robert Wyatt, has been on campus even though he isn't "on the clock" until 1 July. This is an excellent sign, and it goes without saying that everyone on campus is excited about his arrival.
• My panel session talk at the SCLA Summer workshop was very well regarded. I got a lot of compliments from people in high places. I even pulled out the "What do libraries and bakeries have in common?" joke. Answer: Neither ever has enough dough.
  

That's it for now.

New blog, school ending, kids

I've started up a new blog that will cover the activities of the Coker Library - Information Technology Center. Check it out at cokerlibrary.blogspot.com. Mostly library news and information, it probably will only be of interest to Coker students, faculty and staff. But maybe random people might find it interesting.

The semester ends early next week for the day students and the end of next week for our evening school students. Graduation is May 2, at 9 am. Seems like I was just helping the freshmen move in to their dorms back in August. Wyatt wasn't even born yet! Amazing how quickly time passes...

Speaking of Wyatt, he is now nearly seven months old. He is cutting some teeth and is getting close to sitting up on his own. He is an extremely laid-back baby, so we often "forget" about him. Now before you call social services, we don't really forget about him. But he often will just chill in his bouncy seat while we are busy in other parts of the house. He rarely cries when he is hungry or needs a diaper change -- only first thing in the morning most of the time. He adores watching Owen and has a smile for everyone. Fortunately, his allergies are very mild compared to Owen at this stage. A little bit of cradle cap and eczema, but no where near the level that Owen had.

Owen turns three in two weeks. What an amazing little boy! So smart, funny and getting bigger each day. Fortunately, he has his mother's amazing memory. He remembered that that Lisa's dad gave him a specific shirt a year and half ago.

News and notes

Time flies when you are home with a child. Well, not really. It has been a wonderful experience to be home with Wyatt. Tomorrow will be my last "solo" day home with him - Lisa is out of school and he will head to daycare on January 5th.

He is such a "good baby," meaning that he eats, sleeps and fills diapers with frightening precision. Usually waking only once a night, Wyatt goes back to sleep very quickly -- I'm rarely up with him more than thirty minutes. No major health issues, other than the cradle cap and eczema that seem to afflict our poor babies. Wyatt's skin issues are no where near Owen's issues -- but the bad stuff didn't happen until Owen was older (and the weather got much colder and drier). We're off to see the Allergist on Monday to launch a preemptive stike -- with medications, steroids, and so on.

My original intention was to do a fair bit of yardwork and exercise. I was really good about the exercise the first few weeks, taking hour long walks with the Zune. I tried listening to the Eric Clapton autobiography but it was really dreadful. Maybe a better read, but I doubt it. Not enough time spent on my favorite parts of his career -- Cream and Derek and the Dominoes. Oh well, I digress. I intended to do the yardwork with Wyatt in his stroller, but he doesn't like being in the stroller/carseat combo unless he is in motion. So after about five minutes, he would start to fuss.

Perhaps I'll be able to do some work this weekend and next week with Lisa home. Not likely with Owen home, but maybe we'll let him run amok in the backyard.

I've watched a lot of CNN and CNN Headline news while feeding the boy and the headlines are very dreary and depressing. While watching the ever-lovely Robin Meade this morning, the headline "crawl" had a procession of the most depressing headlines I've ever seen: Morgan Stanley lost billions last quarter, the USPS thinks that they will have the slowest holiday shipping season in decades, bad weather with many flight delays, Ponzi scheme bilks thousands out of billions, that creep govenor of Illinois, and so on. The only good news -- for most consumers -- is that oil prices continue to drop. I really don't want to watch any more news until the Inauguration.

I've also read three Alan Furst novels: Night Soliders, the Polish Officer, and Kingdom of Shadows. I'm not done with KoS, but the other two novels are excellent. Not really off-the-beaten path of what I normally read, but strangely refreshing. Furst looks at (for me) different angles of war in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, from Eastern European countries. They are spy thrillers set in the darkest parts of the 20th century. Great stuff and I can't wait to read the rest of his works. It's been nice to have the time to read without falling asleep after thirty minutes!