theparkerfamily.org

Author: evancparker

  • walking home

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    sparklet insisted on walking home, tonight — and she made it all four blocks from the car back to the apartment. my back and i have never been so proud.

  • out: national building museum

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    See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
    national building museum with aunt melissa, washington, dc

  • goob

    we’ll, we’ve been bouncing around a little bit with nicknames for sparklet — not that we’re giving up on sparklet for external marketing purposes, but it’s a little harsh/abrupt/awkward to use in daily life.

    for now, we’ve settled on some variation on the word “goober” — including goob, goober bear, and goober nut. (it’s important to be nimble.)

    now, on the surface, i can see how this might sound odd, but in our defense the the urban dictionary — one of the least polite chroniclers of slang on our fine planet — defines goober as:

    a goober is just a kindhearted, rather oblivious goofball. it’s term of endearment really. it comes from the ancient scottish verb “to goub”, which has to do with doing a dance and smiling sheepishly while doing so, exposing the goubs in one’s teeth.

    so, it’s actually kind of appropriate.

    i wish i knew exactly how “goober” worked its way into our collective vernacular — i have a feeling it was because we were calling her doofus during her “running into walls” phase and decided we should shoot for something a bit more charitable.

    either way, the nickname was cemented about six months ago when we first watch disney’s meet the robinsons — one of the two lead characters’ nicknames is goob, and he has that sort of sheepish, lovable quality that we see in sparklet at this age.

    of course, he also turns out to be the arch-villain of the story, but that’s for another time.

  • sixteen boxes down

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    we’ve been packing.

    the lady sparkler’s parents were here this weekend, which has meant a happy and distracted baby/baby mommy, which has allowed me to start the long process of fixing/packing casa de sparkler up for sale.

    art is off the wall, books are off the shelves, breakables are off the flat surfaces. and i’m starting to work through all those little projects i’ve been putting off for the last three years.

    first observation: each and every project takes two to four times longer with a child. i have no idea where exactly the time gets sucked too — it’s not like i’ve been the one looking after her while i’ve been operating the power tools — but i’m going to officially posit it as a law of physics.

    second observation: we have a lot of crap.

  • found: somebody who is having a day worse than mine

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  • guestbook: grandparents

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    See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
    guestbook: grandparents

  • out: talimo’s first birthday

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    See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
    out: talimo’s first birthday

  • good news/bad news

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    sparklet had her 15 month checkup today, and the good news is that she’s still growing like a weed at 28 lbs (97th percentile) and 33 inches tall (off the chart).

    the bad news is that she’s got some kind of an ear infection, which means that she’ll get her first ever dosing of antibiotics. she’s not contagious, according to the doctor, which is a darn fine thing considering her bff’s birthday is tomorrow.

    i see lots of Plaza Sésamo and Fraggle Rock in her future.

    UPDATE: sparklet no-likey the antibiotics. well, actually, she loves taking them — they just don’t stay down for long. i wonder how long this cycle of futility is going to last.

    UPDATE #2: we think it started off as an ear infection, and then became the flu — namely because i got the flu about three days later.

  • color correction

    our real estate agent came through tonight and picked out new wall colors that he said would help our place move more quickly.

    ever since we painted our very first room, the lady sparkler and i have known that we’d have to repaint all of our wall colors when we moved out — but it didn’t make the new (rather dull) color selections sting any less.

    Living Room
    before: after:

    Grape Green (Behr)
    Reticence (Sherman Williams)

    Master Bedroom
    before: after:

    Ruby Ring (Behr)
    Soft Tan (Sherman Williams)

    Nursary
    before: after:

    Acorn Squash (Olympic)
    Hubbard Squash (Sherman Williams)

    Bathroom
    before: after:

    Warm Spring (Behr)
    Caen Stone (Sherman Williams)

    Kitchen
    before: after:

    Cerise (Olympic)
    Sand Trap (Sherman Williams)

    Foyer
    before: after:

    Porpoise (Behr)
    Reticence (Sherman Williams)

    if i ever needed confirmation that i’m nothing like the rest of the kids on the playground, this did the trick.

  • mount pleasant-er

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    we might be in the market for a house.

    we’re not moving — at least, not moving out of mount pleasant — but there are a couple things going on that make us (er, the lady sparkler) think that it could be time to upgrade.

    • interest rates are down 2+ percentage points from when we signed a last mortgage. when you add that savings to what we pay each month in condo association fees, we can have about a 50% larger place without paying a dime extra per month.
    • we were planning on moving in the next 2 to 3 years anyway, and *man* our place seems a lot smaller than it did, saaaay 16 months ago.
    • the market has stabilized enough that we’re sure we can get all our money out of our current place.
    • the economy is starting to show signs of life again, which means that housing prices only have one direction to go (and that would be “up”).

    that said, if we can’t find a nice little fixer-upper row house in mount pleasant that we can afford now, we’ll just stay put until we’re on the other side of our daycare payments.

    we love our neighborhood, and haven’t given up on the idea that we can raise baby sparklet here. we love our friends, we love our nanny. we love the fact that our vote for federal office is basically meaningless (wait, scratch that last one).

    and, besides, there aren’t a lot of other options …

    within D.C., we certainly wouldn’t move east of 16th street (too speculative), nor south or west of mount pleasant (we couldn’t afford it), and there really isn’t much in D.C. that’s north of us (all residential, little commerce, reduced transit).

    outside of D.C., we have the same problems we’ve always had: new england and chicago are too cold (for my beloved); texas is utterly without seasons (for me); the pacific northwest is really far away and people there actually slow down at yellow lights (the latter is a “third rail” for the lady sparkler).

    and besides, we all know how much my beloved likes change.