Episode 61: Cat fancy

Since the inception of this blog last August I have, for the most part, limited the characters involved to myself, the baby, sometimes Monica and the occasional lunatic that I encounter at work. I have also been teasing that some day I will take the time and effort to put all of the required media together in order to properly introduce you, the reader, to the other two members of the family- our two cats, Nugget and Little Cat. '

Well, today is your lucky day, folks.

I am, by my own admission, a crazy cat person. I think cats are great. As I have mentioned here before, I prefer them 1000 to 1 over dogs. They are funnier, less work and (most of the time) smell much, much better. That said, we have somehow managed to end up with the two most bitchy, retarded, selfish, asshole cats in America. I will briefly introduce you to the cats and then attempt to somehow describe what life is like living in a tiny second floor apartment with two idiot animals and a baby. They WILL win me $10,000 on America's Funniest Home Videos some day, I just haven't been able to catch the right moment on film yet.

This is Nugget. As you can see, she is morbidly obese and probably one gene away from a raccoon. Despite the fact that she appears to be bathing herself here, I can also assure you that she has the personal hygiene of a homeless man. The older of the two cats, we adopted her from the Animal Rescue League in Boston three years ago. She came to us on her death bed with a horrible cold and kennel cough, and she has never really been a normal cat. I cringe to think of what sort of trauma this cat encountered in the few weeks before she ended up at the shelter, but it has to be something pretty bad because I have never met an animal with more emotional problems in my entire life. If she were a person, she would be that overweight goth girl you went to high school with who had purple hair, safety pins in her ears and wore Rob Zombie t-shirts with black JNCO Jeans and dark eye make up in the shape of tears every day. Sometimes I call her Little Cat's goth big sister, Julie.

Most of Nug's day is spent sleeping, and I don't mean 'most of the day' in a typical Garfield, cat nap sort of way. I mean this thing is out cold for at least 20 hours a day. She rarely plays, choosing most of the time to just sit and watch other people or cats play, she probably eats more trash and accidentally dropped human food than a dog, and whines more than the baby does. She is, by all accounts, a fat, whiny slob. Nugget's fur is dry and coarse, she has dandruff and she doesn't properly wipe her ass when she goes to the bathroom. Worst of all, she constantly sheds like a middle aged man with a receding hair line. Again, disgusting. At the same time, Nug is a very sweet cat. When she allows you, and trust me, any affection is on HER terms only, she can be very cuddly. Unfortunately, she weighs like 30 pounds so when she jumps on your lap it hurts and she always takes the cuddling and the petting too far. The best part is, with no warning at all, she will just get up and waddle away, as if to say 'thanks for the good time, I'm going back to bed. She can also say 'hello.' This is not a lie. At night, because she is afraid of the dark, she will often get disoriented and whine 'hello!' 'hello!' until one of us, or Little Cat, go and get her.

If you were to come to our apartment, you would never see Nug. She is scared to death of other people, sometimes even us. Sometimes even herself, I think.

This is Little Cat. Her name is derived from the fact that no one could agree what to call her and she is very tiny. She also goes by the names Douchebag, Fuck Wad, Dill Weed and anything else derogatory that you would use to describe a sleazy, manipulative, little punk. I would compare little cat's appearance to that of say, Lady Ga Ga, or perhaps Maggie Gyllenhaal, in the sense that on occasion, she can look very attractive (in cat terms that is cute and lovable, not 'sexy') but if you get her in the right light she is probably the ugliest thing you have ever seen. A bizarre mix of cat breeds that shouldn't go together, including Siamese, Little Cat is way, way to smart for her own good, manipulative, bratty and destructive. She can also be the most lovable, cuddly cat you have ever met.

We adopted LC as a kitten from the local shelter here in Salem two years ago in an effort to cheer up our fat, depressed dandruff raccoon cat. She grew very slowly, hence the name, and as a full grown adult cat is now not much larger than a squirrel. Befriending Nug rather quickly, LC relished the role of being the kitten, a role that she still plays today despite the fact that she is now an adult. She is that one friend from college you have that still plays flip cup at parties, mooches off their parents and acts as though the rules do not apply to them.

I think LC's most annoying, bratty trait is that she likes to jump up on to the counter and knock things on to the floor. The exact opposite of Nug, LC is quick, agile and energetic. She sprints around the house, leaping up on things, drinking the water out of the fish bowl and wrestling with shoelaces and baby toys. When she wants something from you, she knows how to get it. In the morning, provided the baby hasn't woken us up already, LC will jump up on the bed and get in your face. If you ignore her, she will jump up on to the dresser and start knocking things off, not because she wants to play with them, but because she knows she will wake you up. If she wants to sit on your lap and you are using the computer, she will lay across the keyboard so you can't type. She is, like I said, a brat.

This is Nug and Little Cat cuddling. They are best friends, like Peaches and Herb or Felix and Oscar. They are, unequivocally, in love. The above scene is recreated on a daily basis. Sometimes they sleep like this, other times they spoon, some days they even give each other baths. It is creepy and, on occasion, over the line. Yes, if they were not both fixed I would say they were lesbians. In fact, I am going to say they are lesbians. I have seen them in some pretty compromising positions and, sometimes, when one of them takes the cuddling too far (usually Nug) they get in to lover's quarrels. I have heard cat screaming coming from the bed room only to rush in and find Nug's paw on LC's head, forcing it in to the bed while she licked her. That is real. I was just as disturbed as you are right now.

As is the case with any couple, their lives are not all cuddles and borderline rape at nap time, the two have their fair share of fights. Usually it is because one stole the other one's food, or one woke the other one up, but about once a day they can be found chasing one another around the house, tackling and swatting, usually until something breaks. Normally I would consider putting a stop to this, but it is really the only time Nug gets any exercise so I pretty much let it go.

Like any cats, the pair do all sorts of funny, idiotic things like stand in front of the TV and try to catch the things moving on the screen, bat small pieces of cat food across the floor like toys and occasionally fall off of tables because they lose track of where they are. They are the dictionary definition of house cats, they would be killed within seconds of going in to the wild, but they still act as if they are the toughest pair around. Sometimes LC even squints her left eye to look tough when new people are in the house. Seriously, at first I thought she had some sort of problem. Now I realize that it is just her stink eye. Unreal.

That is, essentially, what it looks like when the baby and the cats get together. (Notice anti social Nug is no where to be found). Av prefers LC, because she is smaller and cuter, but she is also quicker and more skittish, so really the only way to get them together is if there is a toy involved. Notice also how the red laser trick works on both a baby and a cat equally. Best $4.99 I've spent in a while.

LC pretty much hated the baby at first, that whole 'I'm not the kitten any more' thing (which shouldn't happen because, you know, she is a cat, but like I said, she is smart and manipulative) but over the past year she has grown to like Av. I do think that this is only because she wants to play with her toys, but I'll take it. Unfortunately, no matter how much they want to play with each other, LC is too afraid of the baby still to make it happen. It will though, it will. Just give it time.

The baby has much more interaction with Nug, if only because she is fat and slow and can't get away. Nug can be found most of the time sleeping on the bed, so if the baby wants to she just walks right in, yells "DITTY!" and goes to town. The baby is still kind of apprehensive about touching Nug, and when she does it is not always gentile (sometimes she rips out entire handfuls of fur) but Nug is often so starved for affection (for no reason, mind you, she gets plenty) that she will let the baby get away with quite a bit before she waddle-runs away. Lately, the baby likes to climb up on the bed and lay next to Nug, almost like she is cuddling but I think she is more making fun of the cat for always laying around. I think this because she usually laughs and then tries to grab Nug's ear. (Part of the reason that the cats don't like it when she goes near them is because she will try her hardest to stick her finger in their ears. It's weird, I know, but that's the way it is). At any given time during the day if a cat walks by the baby will yell "DITTY!" and go on the prowl. Unfortunately for her, they are usually three rooms away before she even figures out which direction they went.

So, there is a brief synopsis of what it is like living with a baby and two idiot cats. There are tens of thousands of things that happen every week that make me shake my head and you really can't get the full effect without living here, but hopefully this post shed a little bit of light on my every day existence, and from now on you will have a few visuals of what I am working with when I share their idiocy with you.

Episode 60: Living in squalor

My patience has been wearing thin this week. I am not sure why, maybe it is just because all of the rain has forced us inside for the good majority of the day, never a good thing when you live in a tiny apartment filled with toys. Not being able to go outside combined with the baby's ever growing curiosity means that I spend my day trapped in here constantly following her around the house making sure that she doesn't play with electrical outlets or try to climb up any book shelves. Then there are the times when she steals the remote control out of your hand while you are trying to put something on TV for her or when she sneaks up on the computer and starts hammering away at the keys. Yeah, it needs to get nice out ASAP.

The difference this week compared to winter is that at least when it is cold out we are able to take field trips to the store an such. When it rains as much as it has we can't really go anywhere, given that the greater Salem area is pretty much underwater, and will remain as such probably for another week. Gotta love that old school infrastructure and poor draining. That was only cool in college when we used to get rainy days off because the parking lot would flood.

So, we are stuck inside, endlessly playing with the same toys, watching the same episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba and Blue's Clues, following Daddy around messing up the things he just cleaned, you know- kid stuff.

I think that is another thing that is really, really starting to bother me- the overall lack of cleanliness and personal hygiene in my life. I used to be neurotic about hygiene before we had a baby, showering at least twice a day and making sure to always change my socks so that my feet never smelled. If I did something sweat-inducing I would immediately shower. If I was going to go somewhere, same deal. Can I tell you that for a span this week I went at least 60 hours without a shower? Yeah. 60. I showered Saturday night, right around midnight when I got home from work and then not again until Tuesday night. I did not do this on purpose, it just happens that way sometimes when you have a kid.

There are many varying factors that prevent me from showering on a daily basis. It is virtually impossible for me to get in to the bathroom when I am home with her. When she used to sit in her chair and watch videos I could sometimes get away with it, but now that she just walks around the house all day I have zero shot. If I try to sneak off while she is doing something she will just stand outside the bath tub and scream at me. Sure, she takes naps, but by the time that happens I can usually think of about 9,000 other things I should be doing. I usually try to jumnp in when Monica gets home, but some days we need to go out and do stuff so I don't exactly have time. This is what happened on Monday, when we had errands to run and didn't get home until it was bed time for the baby. At that point, you just have to chalk the day up to a loss and hope for a shower tomorrow.

There is an old Dana Carvey comedy bit where he talks about his friends calling him after he had kids. I don't remember exactly what he says, but it is something along the lines of 'you're standing there covered in drool, you haven't brushed your teeth or changed your clothes in a week.' Sometimes that is how I feel.

The lack of cleanliness is not just limited to my personal space, either. It is extremely difficult to keep up with the apartment, especially when the baby doesn't allow you the time to do things like the dishes during the day. As hard as we try to keep it clean, and as much time as we spend at night and on the weekends doing so, there is always a half-eaten piece of bread or a pile of wet Cheerios somewhere. Some days you spend hours just trying to get rid of the poop smell, others you end up sweeping the floor 300 times only to turn to the left and step in old Jello.

Same goes with my car, which, as I have mentioned, used to be as clean as clean could be. If you look in my back seat right now you will find a wide variety of toys, snack foods and wrappers that she has discarded, while in the front you will find an overflowing bag of empty wrappers, empty energy drink cans and coffee cups and piles upon piles of junk mail (I usually grab the mail on my way out somewhere), and that is not mentioning all of the dust that has built up on my dashboard.

Don't get me wrong, I am not miserable walking around here all day, but for someone who prides himself on cleanliness, this lifestyle is difficult to get used to to say the least. I also don't want to create the illusion that my life is like an episode of Hoarders, with trash piling up around us, it is not. At the same time, it is extremely hard to keep up with the chores, especially when I can't even keep myself clean half of the time. Hopefully things will get better in the summer when Monica is around more and we can open up the windows. Maybe I can go back to showering every day. That would be sweet.

Episode 59: Just another day as a dad

Sorry to anyone who was confused by yesterday's post, as it was a repeat. Some things got mixed up both in my head and on the Internet. Not the first time, won't be the last. The kid and I are still plugging along here, trying to get used to a new routine in our post- nap car seat lives and playing our new favorite game- you know, the one where I sit here while she walks around the house collecting random objects and handing them to me. Like a letter 'P' refrigerator magnet, a stuffed bunny and a pink rubber seal bath toy, which I am holding as I type this. At first I thought I was supposed to play with this stuff, but now I am pretty sure I am supposed to just hold them until she comes back to re-claim them. There are also objects placed in other random areas of the house, like under the cat post.

Another new game she loves is handing me the plastic bath toys so that I can squeeze them and blow air, or sometimes old bath water, in to her face. She thinks this is hysterical. By the way, I have now been joined by the letter 'Q', some socks that she pulled out of the clean laundry basket (my fault for not putting them away fast enough) and a DVD copy of The Big Lebowski. It is getting hard to type.

Even though it has been well over a year, there are still certain moments every day where the reality that I am a dad hits me out of nowhere. Yesterday, it was when we were walking from the car to the playground. I had a banana sticking out of my coat pocket, a pink rain coat over my shoulder and a large rubber fish sticking out of the other pocket. Cool. It actually feels like this happened about three weeks ago since it is f-ing snowing outside today, but yesterday was about 60 degrees so we were actually able to go out.

We got to the park first thing , about 8:30 a.m., which was perfect because we were the only people there. She had free reign of the whole place and I didn't have to worry about any awkward interaction with other parents. Of course, she chose to spend the first 20 minutes hitting a bench with a stick and laughing, but eventually she got around to swinging and going down the slide. As is the case with most kids, she doesn't have much of an attention span, so swinging is kind of a futile activity. Sure, she enjoys it, but after about five minutes she is pretty much done. She likes the slide, but she likes it a lot better when I put her on my lap and slide down with her, as opposed to just holding her on the side and letting her slide down herself.

It was at about the third trip down the slide that I really started to realize how old I am getting. I am kind of a big dude as it is, so climbing up playground equipment designed for 5-year-olds isn't exactly easy for me, but I definitely remember a point in my life, a recent point, where I was much more nimble. Maybe it is the fact that I essentially carry around a moving, talking 25 pound weight all day long, but my muscles are way to sore to do this sort of thing.

On a side note, has anyone been down a playground slide recently? What the hell is with all of the static electricity? I thought we were going to spontaneously combust.

Along with the slide I was also forced to climb through tubes, crawl under some apparatus and hold her over my head while she grabbed on to the monkey bars. I feel this morning like I spent all of yesterday at the gym. Which is actually good, since I haven't set foot on a gym since at least 2006.

Our dream day at the park was going pretty well for a few hours but eventually, as I knew would happen, some other people started to show up. First, an Irish woman, who I am pretty sure was a nanny, arrived with three boys, probably like 3, 2 and under a year old. Now, due to her inherited social awkwardness (that comes from me) and her lack of experience dealing with people, Av tends to be very uncomfortable around other kids. She wants to play with them, bad, but she can't really speak to them and she doesn't know how to approach them, so she just follows them around and when she can, she gets real close to them and touches them. In a way I kind of feel bad for her, but at the same time, when she has a chance to play with them she doesn't really do anything anyway. I think she just needs to get a little bit older.

This situation was made funny by the fact that she was very clearly interested in playing with one of the kids, the middle boy, and she decided she was going to do the creep follow. He and the nanny were playing on the slide, so she stood at the bottom of the steps and waited for him to walk over, then she would look at him, get shy and then point and laugh as he went down the slide again. Eventually she got up the nerve to get close to him, at which point she grabbed his Transformer sneaker since, you know, she has no concept of personal space. It was at this point that the nanny said 'do you want to play with the little girl, Liam?' and we both realized from his surprised face and red cheeks that he thought Av was a boy. In his defense, she was dressed kind of boyish, wearing jeans, blue sneakers and a brown sweat shirt with a dinosaur on it. The funny part was that as soon as Liam found this out, he wouldn't even go near the stairs to the slide, let alone the baby because, as the nanny told me, he is 'terrified of girls.'

I kind of felt bad because Av really ruined this kid's day. He wouldn't go down the slide if he knew she was around, or watching or anything. Poor kid. He should probably learn to get over that, though, unless he wants to grow up getting his ass kicked by his two brothers- and probably a bunch of girls, too. Av quickly got over her little crush, probably when she realized the kid was a pansy, and moved on to picking up rocks and putting them on top of the picnic tables next to the playground. Another kid showed up with his grandmother and Av briefly explored the possibility of playing with him, but didn't seem too interested, so we left.

We got home and I put Av down for a nap. As I was walking out of her room I realized that my coat was covered in banana so I took it off and cleaned out the pockets so I could wash it in the next load of laundry. What I found was a banana peel, a stick, a bunch of Cheerios and some dumb plastic toy she probably refused to leave the house without one day. The only thing in that coat that was mine was a pen. Ahh, another Dad moment. I have already conceded to devoting part of my Saturday to cleaning the inside of my car. I can only imagine what I am going to find when I do that. This coming from a person who used to clean his dashboard with a Q-tip and specifically stop just to throw away trash in lieu of leaving it in the car. I had, without question, the cleanest car in America. Yes, fatherhood does change you.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I am having a problem juggling the typing with the three wooden blocks, stuffed duck and plastic sheep that I am holding, so I'll be signing off now.

Episode 58: X is for X ray

Due to some in utero dancing and squiggling around Av's doctor decided at her yearly check up that it may be a good idea to go ahead and get some X- rays of her hips and pelvis. I am neither a woman or a pediatrician, so I have absolutely zero idea why we had to do this, but the doctor insisted and I obliged. Actually, I put off taking her for the X-ray for well over a month, as I felt both afraid of her behavior in the room and much too lazy to pack her up and make the drive to Beverly, a painstaking 10-15 minutes away.

The problem, really, was that the people at the hospital told us that we could just show up, that we didn't need to make an appointment. That is decidedly the wrong thing to ever say to me because chances are I will probably never show up. (Case and point, I waited until last week to get my taxes done, and I only did that because I discovered the online appointment scheduling feature at H&R Block's website).

Another major reason that I have avoided this is because, in my completely unprofessional opinion, the baby is fine. She has never shown any sort of pain or discomfort in her hip/ pelvis area, she started walking like three days after she was born and the doctor told us herself that she 'looks perfectly fine' when she was debating as to whether to order the X-ray. The entire situation stems from one single ultrasound picture that looked a little funny, and it sounds to me like a great way for Dr. Monaco to get her friends in radiology a little business.

Anyway, after about three or four weeks of ignoring the X-ray order, I found it on top of the fridge and I started to think. We have had two cats for three years and I think they have been to the vet like twice. We keep getting these letters and phone calls from the vet saying they are due for check ups and such but, c'mon, they've had their shots, they've been fixed, they aren't sick. Leave us alone. I'm not paying $45 for you to tell me that my cat is too fat and that she should eat more nutritional food. She's a cat. She eats Kit 'N Kaboodle because it is $3.89 a bag and it is the only one that her and the skinny cat agree on. The point is that I had to make a conscious effort to remind myself that the baby is not, in fact, a cat (although the similarities are uncanny sometimes) and that perhaps we should start taking her doctor's orders more seriously.

So, I procrastinated for another week or so and finally decided, reluctantly, that we should get it out of the way this morning. Aside from my laziness, the biggest thing I think preventing me from wanting to take her was that I really had little to no confidence that she would sit still long enough for an X-ray and I just pictured it being a disaster. A screaming, squirming, biting disaster.

We left first thing this morning and got to Beverly Hospital, where the doctor sent the X-ray order, around 8 a.m. This was the first time we have ever actually been inside this hospital, as all of her birthing and related activities took place at Salem Hospital which, while seconds from our house, was a fairly dirty, poorly lit, rudely staffed place. In contrast, Beverly Hospital was extremely bright and clean, and everyone who worked there was very cheery. We went through registration where Av developed a shy crush on the man with the beard taking our info and then made our way to radiology. The waiting room was much different than those she is used to. The toys and fun pictures on the pediatrician's wall were replaced with adult magazines (not adult like, Teen BJ's Monthly, adult like 'Time' and 'Better Homes and Gardens') and a TV blaring, and I mean BLARING 'Ellen.' The usual running kids and annoyed parents were replaced primarily with cancer patients waiting for radiology and old, fragile women with walkers. Not the happiest place on Earth but, again, it was impeccably clean.

I was fully prepared to take Av out of the waiting room when she inevitably started yelling and I was equipped with a pocket full of Cheerios and a dumb-looking doll to shut her up if I had to, but as it turns out, she was really feeling that radiology waiting room. She spent the 15 minute wait time smiling and laughing at old people, running around and pulling my hat off of my head. She made all sorts of friends and never caused a problem. When it came time to go in to the room she excitedly walked behind the nurse and laughed hysterically when she picked her up and put her on the table. That's right, she let the nurse pick her up. I have never seen anything like it in my life, well, except for that time at Fantasy Island when she let the Chinese waitress hold her while we ate, but that was like six months ago.

The most remarkable part was that when it came time for the actual procedure, she laid perfectly still and let the nurse move her legs around through the entire process, not whining once, only getting mad when I wouldn't let her press the buttons on the X-ray machine. To cap the day off she got two Yo Gabba Gabba stickers and walked past three people in wheel chairs on the way out, inducing hysterical laughter. Yeah, It's cruel, but when you are 1 all you see is someone with wheels for legs, and that is kind of funny, so we'll save that teachable moment for another time.

All in all there is nothing wrong with her hips or pelvis, but I do feel much better knowing that my daughter didn't ruin anyone's day in the radiology department. I am also counting my blessings that her usual morning dump held off until we got home, always an added bonus.

Episode 57: The one where I get worked up over a kid's show. Again.

Granted this is about eight years too late, but something is amiss in the world of children's programming and it needs to be put to a stop. This something has a name, and it is Donovan Patton. Or as he has come to be known in my household, 'that *@*!$* who ruined Blue's Clues.'

I realize that in the grand scheme of children's television Nick Jr.'s long running saga of a computer animated dog (who doesn't speak) and his clever little game of 'guess what I'm thinking' falls somewhere in between likable and tolerable to most people, and it isn't close to being a classic like Sesame Street or Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, but in a way it has defined a generation of this country's children.

Most people my age may have missed the Blue's Clue's bandwagon, as it debuted in 1996, when most of us were becoming teenagers and were more concerned with such life-changing programs as Saved By the Bell (which I admittedly never watched, my favorite show in 1996 and pretty much straight through its last episode in 2004 was the Drew Cary Show, I know, weird), but I am sure most of you at least remember the erroneous rumors of the show's first host dropping dead of a heroin overdose. In any event, mainly as a result of my youngest sister being 1 at the time the show first aired, I had quite a bit of exposure to the first few seasons.

The basic premise of the show follows a 20-something dude named Steve and his world of computer animated friends, namely his puppy, Blue. Most everything in his house has a name and voice and they all help him in the main goal of each episode- to solve Blue's Clues. To explain Blue's Clues, I'll recite the simple explanation Steve gives.

'To play Blue's Clues first we have to find a paw print, that is our first clue. Then we write it in out handy dandy notebook.' See, simple. Anyone can do it. Once you get three clues, you sit down in the thinking chair and figure the damn thing out.

As far as kid show hosts go, Steve (played by a man named Steven Burns) is probably the best one out there not named Fred Rogers. Subtly funny, a little dumb and flawless in his acting despite having nothing but a blue screen behind him, his wry smile and little jokes made watching kid shows as a high school freshman tolerable. Such is life, my sister got older and I started doing the whole go to work try to get girls to make out with you thing that 15-year-old kids do and that was it for the show. At some point along the line I remember Blue getting a friend named Magenta and Steve leaving the show to go to 'college' and being replaced by his 'cousin' Joe. There were rumors that Burns died of an overdose, which he later thwarted in a live appearance on the Today show, where he revealed that he had recorded an album called 'Songs for Dustmites' with the Flaming Lips . Cool. End of story.

(Anyone interested in hearing what sort of legitimate alternative music Steve came up with, just You Tube 'Steven Burns.' It's actually not that bad, considering. At the very least, it would be worth seeing live, if for no other reason then to drunkenly yell 'Mail Song! Play the Mail Song' during lulls in the action).

Fast forward about eight years to the beginning of the month when I reluctantly placed phone call to Comcast so that I could add premium kid's channels to my cable package (yeah, Nick Jr. is a PAY CHANNEL now. That is so absurd I can't even begin to articulate it). The main reason for this was so that I could On Demand Yo Gabba Gabba, a show that Av particularly enjoys.

(If you haven't seen this show, look here for a sample- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDG0c3saE4I&feature=channel. )

If you don't have kids, I recommend getting some sort of high before you watch an episode. Totally worth it. Also, Biz Markie makes an appearance every episode with his 'beat of the day.' Also a bonus.

The Nick Jr. On Demand features also include old Blue's Clues episodes (it went off the air in 2006), so I figured Av and I would settle in to watch. Maybe she would like it. We watched maybe 3-4 episodes together, restoring my memory of the show and sparking what I believe to be her first TV crush. Seriously, she looks away and gets shy every time Steve is on the screen. It is hysterical. After a day or twol I started scrolling through the episodes and saw one labeled 'new.'

'Cool,' I thought. "One we haven't seen yet."

Much to my horror, the 'new' episode was in fact, really new, and featured Steve's cousin, Joe- his replacement from when he went to 'college.' After about 1.5-2 seconds Joe, played by shittily lame actor Donovan Patton, immediately made my blood boil. Steve's subtle mannerisms and seamless interaction with the audience and computer generated characters were replaced with some big, dumb, clumsy, exaggerated goon with a douche bag personality and an annoying tendency to point out how 'new' he is to Steve's house. Gone, too, was the subtle intro, replaced with some shit song not worth repeating, and Steve's pleasant green polo shirt, replaced instead with a series of dumb ass rugby sweaters of varying colors.

Joe's singing voice is about as lame as lame can get, and so are his songs. His jokes aren't funny and his eyes get too big when he looks at the camera. Want me to keep going? Because I can. The point of the story is that this guy sucks at being the host of Blue's Clues and the fact that he lasted as long as he did is a miracle. I have seen a lot of changes on kid's shows in my life (don't even get me started on the recent changes to Sesame Street, specifically Cookie Monster) but this one has to be by far the worst. Sure, I get that it was Burns who left the show voluntarily, but did they have to grab the first knuckle-headed weirdo that walked in to the audition? How bad was everyone else?

Furthermore, the guy just looks like some sort of dorm room date rapist. "Hey baby, I have a muscular build and work on a kid's show, here's some champagne.'

I don't know what happened to Patton after Blue's Clues, but if I ever see him out you had better be damn sure that he'll know what I think of him.

You may find my affinity for Steve creepy or strange in some way, and I accept that, but put yourself in my shoes. Imagine if you were forced to watch children's shows and one of the few you enjoy was ruined by some dink who can't even get the damn songs right. Frigging travesty.

Steve = cool.

Joe = suck rapist

Episode 56: Wait- how did it get to be 4 a.m.?

So once again we as Americans were forced in to recognizing one of the most out dated and absurd practices in our culture over the weekend, that being, of course, Daylight Savings Time. The argument for 'springing forward' claims moving an hour ahead (supposedly) provides an extra hour of sunlight at the cost of an extra hour of sleep. For those of you without children, this is a mere bump in the road in your leisurely existence. Anyone out there with children, especially under the age of 5, realize that it doesn't matter what the hell you do to the clocks, they will find a way to rob you of sleep and destroy any sort of routine that you may be working on.

Daylight Savings Time has always been one of my least favorite times of year. There is the absurdity of having to change your clocks at 2 a.m. on a Sunday, and the hassle of going around and adjusting all of your time pieces accordingly. Sure, our cell phones and cable boxes do it for us, but if you are anything like me you still spend 20 min punching buttons on your dashboard trying to figure out why the 'clock' button in your car changes the clock to military time instead of just letting you adjust the hours and minutes.

While we're at it, military time is another racket. Who still uses military time? Sure, there is the military, and then there are cops and astronauts. That's it. Why does it need to be a setting on my cell phone, car or watch? It doesn't. Get rid of it.

Daylight Savings Time, like military time, is in no way necessary in our modern culture. First off, don't give me that crap about 'gaining an hour of daylight.' That's bull. The only people gaining an hour are the people who wake up after the sun comes up. For everyone else, the sun just comes up an hour later and stays out an hour later. Perhaps the dumbest argument for this tradition is that it somehow helps farmers because the sun stays out later. I'm not buying that either. It isn't the 30's anymore, and I find it extremely hard to believe that an occupation that traditionally bases its timekeeping on roosters and where the sun lay in the sky is reliant on the government deciding to adjust the clock by an hour in either direction.

This spring the time change especially caught me by surprise, even though I had been reminded multiple times that it was coming. Saturday night, with Monica and the baby staying with her mother for the weekend, I left work and enjoyed a few adult beverages with friends and returned home about 1 a.m. for some late night snacking and TV. I did just that, played a video game or two and decided it was time for bed. I looked up to turn off the cable box to realize that it was 3:45 a.m. 3:45! I haven't voluntarily been up at 3:45 a.m. in at least a year and a half. Damn you Daylight Savings Time.

As much as Daylight Savings drove me nuts before, it has pretty much disturbed our entire existence since Av has been born. Having kids and, more importantly, keeping control of kids is completely reliant on keeping them on some sort of schedule. Not even just sleeping. Eating, pooping, playing, everything has its time and if one thing gets messed up it has a direct effect on the others.

One would think that changing the clocks would mean little to a baby, as she can just go to bed and wake up an hour earlier or later, but it isn't even close to being that simple. The first time we really dealt with this adversity was in the fall, when we moved the clocks back an hour. It literally took us two weeks before the sleep/ eat/ poop schedule was back to normal, so we decided that we would be ready for it this time.

Monica managed to keep the baby up an extra hour Saturday night in preparation for the time change, and things seemed about normal Sunday night in to Monday morning. Unfortunately, once she was awake Monday it became apparent that her internal clock was all messed up again. I don't really have any sort of explanation as to why this happens. It really should make little to no difference to a kid who has no concept of time, but for some reason she just can't seem to adjust.

We woke up at 7 a.m., which would have been 6 a.m. and right from the start she was grumpy, bratty and miserable. We tried a nap around 9:30, about a half hour before her normal nap time (since she was so grouchy) but with no luck. For some reason the time change had left her tired and miserable, which means I was also tired and miserable, and we weren't getting along. One of the things the baby likes to do when she is tired is bully me. She becomes incredibly mean and fresh, clawing at my face, yelling at me and demanding things even after I have said 'no' multiple times. Yesterday we were waiting in line at the bank and she tried to grab my wallet out of my hands while I was fishing for my debit card. I said 'no' and pulled it away from her, at which point she grabbed the approximately $250 in cash that I had and threw it on the ground. Just like a bully. I can already hear the phone call from her principal.

"Mr. Baer, we need to talk. It seems Avelyn punched a boy in the face and stole his lunch money today,"

Just like her mom.

Part of the issue is also that the doctor insisted that it is time for us to stop giving her formula and start replacing it with milk, something that has waged a war on her digestive system. Although she has been eating cheese and yogurt for some time, the abundance of milk being added to her diet just did not agree with her. After a week of constipation and little pebble-sized poop, she has spent the last three days ravaging her diaper with a sort of peanut butter/ butter scotch liquid poop- and a lot of it. Sorry if that ruined anyone's breakfast, but if I have to smell it you have to read about it. My nose experienced so much trauma yesterday I was spending time trying to find a poop smell that didn't exist long after she went to bed, only to realize that it was simply trapped in my nose. Gross.

So maybe it isn't just the change in the clocks that is screwing her all up, but that doesn't change the fact that continuing this practice is unnecessary and cruel to the human body at any age. When I run for president the abolition of Daylight Savings Time will be one of my primary platform items. As will a scientific study in to whether or not I used the word 'abolition' properly above.

Episode 55: The one where we get attacked by seagulls

For the first time in what feels like years the thermometer rose to 60 degrees in Salem yesterday, meaning that we were finally able to open the windows, throw some lighthearted hip hop on the radio and go cruising. OK, so it was really only cruising for one of us, that being me- the driver- for the baby it was more like a windy ride in the same old too small car seat, and I am almost positive that she is a little too young to appreciate WuTang, but it is still better than being cold, right?

Yesterday was truly one of those rare days where the weather had just about everyone, even me, in a good mood from the get go. I didn't even get annoyed at the adult skateboarding neighbor who had tied his dog to the front steps for a bath, or the idiot next door who is somehow listening to the same Pearl Jam song at full volume every time he pulls up to the house (he ALWAYS waits for the song to end, too. So annoying). It was one of those leisurely, 'I can't believe the sun is finally back' sort of days, and that called for a trip to the park.

Before we went out to play we stopped at Target to get a few errands out of the way and pick up some snacks for our trip. We arrived at the Forrest River Park, another ocean side city park, around noon to find the place just as I had remembered it from the fall, bustling with snooty, yuppie moms and their blond haired kids, dog owners, running college girls and, of course, bus loads of old, Russian women from the local nursing home. Av and I started to play on the swing and the other equipment, but there were a few too many older kids being aggressive for her liking, and she was much more concerned with the cup of Cheerios that I brought anyway so we found a picnic table near the water and sat down.

We enjoyed the shade and the cereal for a while, laughing at the puppies running by and the birds flying over the water, until Av decided we needed a change of scenery and grabbed my hand. She led me (rather hysterically) down a hill and over to the old boat dock in front of the small sandy beech. This is where there was a lot of gull activity, which she seemed to be looking for. She also seemed really intent on invading the personal space of a particular running college girl who had taken a break on the dock. This would have been less awkward if said runner was friendly, she was not. She just kind of smiled and left. I would have done the same thing probably, but I would have at least faked it for a minute.

Anyway, I was holding her in my right arm and we were enjoying watching the tide come in next to a small pile of brush when out of no where a wasp circled my head. I swatted at the bastard but he wouldn't go away and, much to my horror, flew up and hovered nose to nose with the baby. Not only did Av not freak out, she stared the bee down and laughed in his face. The same cannot be said for me. Fearing a vicious face sting I turned to the right to pull her away and began flailing with my left hand, trying to punch the wasp and not drop the baby at the same time. As a result, I flung about half of the cereal bowl in to the air, instantly attracting about 8-10 seagulls.

The loud birds swarmed over our heads and began fighting over the Cheerios on the ground. Again, the baby just laughed and reached up to try and touch them. I freaked out like a 1-year-old girl, flailed and ran away, throwing the remaining Cheerios at the birds. I looked around to make sure no one saw what had happened, and luckily I didn't see anyone. Still, this is not my proudest moment.

I would not say that I am in any way afraid of bugs, or birds for that matter, I guess I just don't want them any where near me or my kid. Still, I don't really think that flailing is the way to go either, maybe next time I should just calmly shoo the bee and try to contain the Cheerios. Although, this is easy to say when you are not confronted with the incident.

As for the birds, I think the only thing more terrifying than being attacked by a flock of seagulls (not the band) is being trapped in a room with a bird who has somehow gotten indoors. I have experienced both and do not recommend either. Birds are fast, they dart around and they have sharp beaks and talons.

Despite my experience yesterday I am still excited for park season. I have already started to think of non-awkward conversation pieces in case I get trapped in a conversation with a mom (It won't happen though, they avoid me like the plague. That isn't a complaint, either) and I am pondering getting a little red wagon to drag the baby around in. Most importantly, though, I need to regain the confidence that I once had as a child around critters. Yes, park season is back. Time to man up, Dad.

Episode 54: All progress is lost

Probably the biggest challenge of being a parent over the last year (aside from writing this blog after my kid has ripped out half of the keys on the lap top and made the other half sticky) has been getting Av in to some sort of routine- that is getting her to sleep/ eat the way that she should and learn to be a little less clingy all of the time. Getting her to sleep through the night was a massive challenge, and didn't happen until just a few months ago. The same goes for getting her to nap without a ride in the car and convincing her that it was ok for me to feed/ take care of her even when Monica was home.

Unfortunately, it seems that all of our hard work has vanished just in the last few weeks. I think we are screwed. I can trace the problem back to the exact time and date that we started going backwards. It was her birthday party in mid-February. Everything was great, she was entering her second year and seemed to be pretty well adjusted to life. She ate, slept and pooped at the same time every day and almost never woke up in the middle of the night any more. Then we had her party.

A combination of too much excitement and too many little kids contaminating her toys teamed up to attack the little guy's immune system, causing a nasty cold and fever to overtake her. For a solid week she was miserable, coughing up phlegm and whimpering non stop. She was attached to Monica like a Koala. Since that time she has made a full recovery, seen a doctor and been given a clean bill of health. Still, she is treating life like she is still sick.

Almost every night now she is waking up around 2-3 a.m., just crying, often times for no reason. Other times you go in the room to find a massive dump in her diaper, because nothing ruins a good night sleep like crapping out your insides (or cleaning up after someone who has just crapped out her insides). Dinner time, which was always a challenge, has become even more difficult, depending on how picky she feels like being, and naps, which we we just starting to get a handle on, now once again require two trips around Salem Willows.

*As a side note, I cannot believe how many creeps hang around the Willows eary in the morning. For those of you that don't know, the Willows is an ocean side public park on the outskirts of Salem, just past the power plant. Along with the usual gazebo and picnic tables there is a sketchy arcade, a Chinese restaurant and a hot dog/ ice cream stand. I like to make the drive because it is a nice, big, scenic, and best of all tiring circle. In any event, every morning I drive past a row of creepy, usually old men sitting in their cars just looking. Some read the paper. Some smoke cigarettes. None of them, it appears, have anything better to do. All I can nthink about when I drive by is the plot to some bad 80's kidnapper/ cop drama. Like one of those dudes has body parts in his trunk and it is up to that guy from Mannequin to solve the case.

As much as I love packing up a whiny kid at 8:45 in the morning and visiting these creeps, I would really like to get to the point where I can just give her some warm milk, put on her ocean noises box (or as we call it, the Miami Sound Machine) and put her down for a few hours. Instead, I am left to carry a 22 pound kid in a five pound car seat that she is too big for up a fight of stairs and in to the house, all the time hoping that the family downstairs doesn't let their dog out, or slam the back door or feel the need to listen to Radiohead very, very loudly.

As if the eating, sleeping, pooping problems weren't enough, Av has also decided that she can no longer watch her morning video by herself. It used to be that she would sit in her little chair and watch the video, not making a peep. I used to use this time to empty the litter box, take out the trash, get some laundry started, shower etc... Now, I spend it on the couch with a palm full of Cheerios learning the names of the neighborhood animals, or worse, learning how to sign 'couch' from Marlee Matlin. AGAIN. I guess I don't care so much about the chores, and the man who used to shower three times a day because he is paranoid about smelling is all but dead, but my tolerance for Baby Einstein is almost gone.

I really have no idea how to solve any of these problems. We let her cry it out a lot of the time, especially at night, but there is only so much of that one person can listen to. My only hope is that she will figure out how to talk soon so that she can at least communicate her issues and maybe understand where I am coming from. I suppose this is why people always talk about how hard parenting is.

Episode 53: America, where everything ends in a tie

Every now and then I lift my self-imposed ban on following current events and decide to put stock in something that I normally wouldn't care about in my post- reporter life. This typically leads to an overly opinionated rant with undertones of anger and disappointment in society. Well, it has happened again following my interest in the Olympic hockey tournament.

My issue today has to do with the overall softening of America's youth, or as my Dad used to call it the "Pussification of America.' Two separate incidents occurred over the past week or so that have got me thinking about this, and both of them have me pretty fired up.

The first incident sent me in to a spiral of blind rage late last week, maybe Wednesday or Thursday, when I was attempting to go with Av to the Post Office to buy a book of stamps. Sounds simple enough. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of leaving the house at or around 2 p.m., which happens to be around the same time that most kids get out of school. Traffic in Salem is bad pretty much all of the time any way, a product of over population and an ancient, crumbling infrastructure that includes narrow, one-way streets, but at school dismissal time you might as well have a bike with a side cart because you aren't getting anywhere quickly. I am used to the gridlock in our neighborhood, which is in very close proximity to both an elementary school and college, so when I got stuck behind a school bus just a block away from my house, I began looking for alternate routes. I had a plan to shoot down a side street and as the bus closed its doors and the kids crossed the street I began to accelerate. Only to be forced in to stopping again AT THE NEXT HOUSE. Once that child was dropped off the bus closed its doors again, moved up five feet and stopped again. Yes, that is three different kids, three different houses, three different bus stops, all right next to each other. You have got to be kidding me.

It has been a solid ten years since I have boarded a school bus, but I can remember just about ever bus stop I have ever had and I am pretty sure the only time I ever got picked up in front of my house was when I was in second grade, and everyone else from the street was in front of my house, too. Most of my memories of bus stops involved walking and waiting with half a dozen kids at the end of the street. I can even recall a time where the stop was so far away I would whine to my Mom for rides on rainy days. The rides home were even worse. When I was in middle school we had fewer buses in the afternoon and I can remember pretty much everyone from the neighborhood being dropped off at the same stop and walking home. Apparently not any more. Are we so afraid of keeping our children safe that we have to just pick everyone up at their homes? Kids can't walk any more? I am willing to bet that this has a lot less to do with the school or the city than it does with overbearing parents, which brings me to my next incident.

Before I get in to it, I have to say that in the two-plus years I spent as an education reporter I quickly learned that the biggest challenge that schools and teachers face is not students, it is not the federal government or regulations or violence or bullying. It is parents. Hands down, dealing with parents is absolute hell. Nearly ever week my voicemail would be flooded with parents worried about this or that. "MY son isn't getting this." "This teacher said this." "The schools are old." "We have to walk two blocks to get the bus." The School Committee meetings were even worse. Even as budget cuts loomed (made possible by the yuppie governor that everyone elected to mismanage the state's funding), parents would flood the meetings insisting that nothing their child was involved in be cut, even as administrators tried honestly to shave the programs with the least amount of interest in an attempt to be fair. Obviously, these actions don't apply to every parent, but now days, especially in the yuppie-infested North Shore of Boston, everyone thinks their kid is privileged. The kid can do no wrong. It is society, the schools, the teachers, pop-culture that is messing our kids up. It can't be the overbearing parents who spoil them, leave them with nannies or refuse to admit that their child has made a mistake.

Case and point. I was driving home from work Sunday afternoon just a few minutes after Canada had beaten the US in the Olympic hockey gold medal game. I had been listening to the game on the radio and the local sports radio station was taking calls following the game. The topic was 'has the exciting Olympic tournament done enough to restore America's interest in hockey.' An interesting subject and one the sports writer in me was intrigued by. Then a woman called in and made a point that infuriated me a thousand times more than that school bus ever could. She said something approximate to the following.

"I am the parent of a 3-year-old boy, and our family is really in to sports. We have been watching hockey with him and trying to teach him about the game. But then I see the guys out there and they are always fighting, and I think it ruins the game. It is too physical, how am I supposed to teach my son not to imitate that?'

Without debating the issue of fighting in hockey (which, by the way wouldd be like eliminating tackling from football or crashes from NASCAR- it is half the reason real fans watch) here is my problem with what this woman said. First, your son is 3-years-old. If you are relying on professional athletes to instill values in your son at 3 he is going to have a very long, disappointing and troubled life. Second, this is yet another reason why America's youth are fat, weak and soft. Sure, teach your son that hockey is too violent because they fight instead of teaching him how the game works and explaining WHY the PROFESSIONALS fight. Why don't you sit his fat ass in front of a computer and show him Flash videos of butterflies instead. Maybe hand him a paint brush and teach him how to draw water color ferries.

Sports, by nature, are violent. Especially professional sports. They involve highly competitive people doing things that are very physical at very high stakes. I say professional sports because youth sports are decidedly not violent. There is no fighting allowed in youth hockey, in fact, many leagues don't even allow checking. Other sports, like baseball, football and basketball carry heavy, heavy penalties for kids who get in to fights. This is fine. I agree with these rules. What I do not agree with are parents, probably much like this woman, who think that sports should no longer be competitive. People who think that every kid should play the same amount of time in a game regardless of ability (as a side note, this rule is fine if you are dealing with kids under 8 or so because, c'mon, who really knows who is good and who isn't at that age), or even worse, people who argue that there should no score to games and the kids should just 'play for fun.' Sports are about winning. If you want to play a sport where there is no score and no one cares who wins try something like bike riding or mountain climbing. There you go.

For the record, I hated nothing more than when my high school basketball coach would go crazy and make us run till we puked and yelled at us up and down the court because we were not winning or not playing well, and I don't agree in any way with those overbearing sports parents who make their kids eat, sleep and live the sport. I do not think this is an effective method of motivation for either, and if a kid isn't having fun, he or she should have the option to do something else. That said, when I played basketball I did not at any point wish that we just didn't keep score, and I did care, a lot, when we lost.

The overall problem is that people in this country have skewed the lines between equality and reality. Yes, everyone should be treated as an equal and have the same opportunities. I agree. But sports are much like the business world in a way. I am willing to bet a lot of these yuppie parents who think their kid should play the whole baseball game even though he isn't that good would be pretty pissed if I walked in to their company and started doing their job for the same amount of money. For that lady who doesn't like violence in hockey, no one is saying that you have to watch it. If your son likes the sport it is your responsibility to teach him the reasons why you think fighting is wrong, and maybe help him understand why it takes place.

As for the kids on the bus. If you teach your kids the basics (don't talk to strangers, look both ways, come right home) they should have no problem walking a block or two to get home. That is, of course, assuming that you didn't leave them with a nanny for their entire lives and show up on Christmas and the weekends to give them whatever they wanted like puppies and iPods. Child neglect is two fold. Yes, there are the drug addict parents or the parents who just ignore their kids all day, but the rich, yuppie parents are just as bad. These are the kids that are growing up to run this country and I'm not having it. All I can see is a future where everyone is fat, relying on cell phones to tell them everything they need to know while they carefully navigate what they think is going to be a perfectly safe, fair world.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that life is hard. It is the farthest thing from fair, just or safe, and the sooner kids realize that the sooner they will begin to learn how to survive it. That is your uplifting message for the day.