Super

Every spring, our city has a curbside junk pickup service that you can pay a nominal fee for. You put essentially anything out there that your garbage service won't take. Most of what ends up on curbs doesn't make it to the landfills; instead, neighborhood junk-seekers show up with trailers and vans to scavenge everything of interest.

In our garage lived the remnants of young apartment life: shelves, a couple kitchen tables with chairs, a broken boom box, a microwave, a TV stand, and various boxes of detritus that we didn't want. I decided early on that with the longest driveway on the block, this chore would go much faster on Rollerblades. It was a stupid idea disguised as a fantastic idea.

I didn't fall, but I certainly contorted my body in unnatural ways to avoid falling. I had serious apprehension about landing with a kitchen table on top of me, especially with that uneven gravelly part at the end of our driveway that shoots you shakily into the street.

Today I'm very sore, and I also have a two-inch gash on my hand from a half-busted, six-foot bookshelf whose adjustable shelf peg got a little feisty. I used a kitchen disinfecting wipe to scrub the blood off the particle board.

I think there's a fatherhood Superman complex that afflicts new daddies. Suddenly there's this little person who thinks you're the greatest man on Earth, thinks you can do anything, and around the five-month mark, she becomes more adept at expressing it. And every once in awhile, you believe her.

Pigs

When Julie was young, her family had two pet pigs named Thunder and Chestnut. When she was slightly older, they ate Thunder and Chestnut. I believe she has deep-seeded psychosis from this experience. It'll never surface--that's how deep-seeded it is.

So Lyla and I went to the zoo today with a friend and her 15-month-old son. Probably our great families will unite in the throes of holy matrimony in about 25 years. For now, Lyla and William are just zoo buddies. Give it time.

Anyway, we went to the farm baby exhibit, which thrilled Lyla not at all, and I came home with the following picture:


Julie saw it and said, "Did you give her a bath? Blech!"

And I said, "Um, no?"

"Seriously!? Aren't her pants disgusting?"

Immediately I realized that Julie thought the pig was real.

"That's a statue of a pig."

"That's a--a statue?"

"You can't tell a real pig from a pig statue?"

"Well, I--"

"And you once owned pig pets that you later ate?"

A nugget of psychosis flashed across Julie's face, but then she smiled pleasantly and said, "Did Lyla see the fish?"

"Oh yes. Still enamored with the fish."

Decoy

Lyla's voice is unmistakable on the baby monitor. Even with the nursery radio and table fan in the background, if she's jabbering away or fussing, you hear it.

I might be going insane, though, because I'll sit in the livingroom and swear that I hear her. Then I'll pause, listen harder, and decide that it wasn't her after all. It was something on the nursery radio with a frequency similar to Lyla's voice. Or it was a hallucination.

I used to creep up the stairs anyway just to be sure, and there she'd be, sleeping in her crib. Then I'd creek the floor, she'd stir and wake up, and I'd want to punch myself in the face for ending her nap prematurely.

So now I sit in the livingroom and concentrate idiotically to discern whether it's really her, knowing that it's not. But is it? No. Wait, but what about--no, not her!

But where I'm really going insane is that once I decide unequivocally that it isn't Lyla's voice on the monitor, thirty seconds later I hear her for real.

I'm not sure if any of this makes sense. Maybe you need to experience it for yourself. Bottom line, I think we need a video monitor.

Clock

At 9:30, Lyla's normal mid-morning nap time, I listened to her on the baby monitor fussing, then goofing around, then fussing again, all the while hoping she would fall asleep so I could take a shower. I went upstairs and immediately photographed her because this, ladies and gentlemen, is not the look of a nap. Lyla's feet are pointing at 10:00 here, and they started at 3:00. I decided to give up on the nap for the time being.

After more playing, more food, more diapers, and a onesie change, Lyla fell asleep at 11:00 for the length of one shower. As I coaxed my wet hair into place, I heard her fuss and found she had rotated 180 degrees, feet now at 9:00.


Then at 1:00, Auntie Lori came over to play. I went to Starbucks to drink cappuccino and complete the crossword puzzles in the newspaper, then to Target for all the items I forgot to get at Target yesterday. I went to a different Target so as not to gain a reputation with the staff as the guy who goes to Target every day.

At 3:00, I came home with a clearer head. The afternoon passed without incident, but tonight at 7:45, it was clear that Auntie Lori had put Lyla through some sort of boot camp.


Drill Sergeant Auntie Lori is encouraged to spend as many hours here as she wants.

Application

Lyla has recently added sitting to her repertoire of tricks. You have to sit her up, get her started, lean her forward slightly, but then she'll stay that way for, oh, a couple seconds or so.

If you put Lyla on her stomach, she'll lift an arm until she flips over to her back. What's funny is that when she gets tired of sitting, she does the same thing. The bed is the only place to practice this. It's pretty hilarious to watch her sit there and then suddenly raise her arm until she flops over. Then she gets a look on her face like, "What the hell was that?"

As a teacher, I try to get my students to learn how to take a skill and apply it to different situations. But maybe it's not teaching as much as it's reminding.

Game

We were fairly certain today that Lyla was a Minnesota Twins good luck charm. At her first baseball game ever, the little bobblehead saw the Twins hold the Royals to zero hits through six innings while cruising to a comfortable 4-0 lead.


Of course, no lead is ever truly comfortable with the Twins. Scott Baker lost his no-hitter in the 7th in truly catastrophic fashion: five straight hits, one a three-run homer. When all was said and done, the Twins lost 7-5. It was a good time to introduce Lyla to the lesson of "it's just a game."


Often when we're out, I'll change Lyla's diaper, but not at the Metrodome, never at the Metrodome. If you've seen (in person or in a nightmare) the long urinal trough in the men's room, then you know it's not a place you want your baby daughter anywhere near.

Asterisk

A couple months ago Julie got a little tipsy. And by "a little tipsy" I mean she had like 1.3 glasses of wine. Minutes passed, and it was time for her to pump. Not wanting to pump and dump, she drew asterisks on the bags so we would know to only use them in an emergency.

Well, they're still sitting in our freezer, the asterisk bags, the bags of booze milk. Obviously we're not going to use them, but I don't see us throwing them out either. They'll sit in there for a year or two, and on a special occasion yet to be determined, we'll thaw them, pour the contents into champagne glasses, and toast to our responsible parenting.

That's so disgusting that I should delete it and write instead about how we took Lyla to the park today to watch people fly kites.




It was fun. Anyway, I do think Julie should write a motherhood book and title it The Asterisk Milk.