theparkerfamily.org

  • sibley memorial baby-birthing resort

    ECPA20090726_0753
    i learned two very important things today: our delivery hospital (sibley memorial hospital in D.C.) has valet parking, and the lady sparkler isn’t anywhere near the craziest baby momma in the District right now.

    we went out to sibley for an official hospital tour this afternoon. it’s not any closer than it was before, but wasn’t any farther away either (funny, that buildings don’t move around much). it took about fifteen calm, serene, scenic minutes to make the trip, which i am sill having difficulty reconciling with the unbridled anarchy i know is just 15 weeks away.

    during the tour, we saw first hand sibley’s range of post-partum recovery rooms, and some of the private rooms (including the delivery rooms) are just ridiculously nice. one wing has deep hardwood floors, flat screen televisions, mp3 player hookups, arm-chairs that fully recline into beds for tired partners, baby blanket warmers, etc.

    they may have mentioned something about medical facilities, it was only an afterthought … and i think i must have been distracted when it finally came up. did i mention they have valet parking?!?

  • family’s reunion

    ECPA20090725_0752
    quick trip to williamsburg, today. brother and best man Pop Culture Examiner was down for his 239th high school reunion, brought to you by “facebook” and the “national association of lafayette high school alumni who have been gone long enough to have forgotten why they left.”

    we came down because we haven’t seen him (nor wife, niece and nephew extraordinaire) since the lady sparkler got us pregnant. needless to say, we wanted to see them — the little ones especially — to better transition into that little bundle of joy they are going to be expected to coo about over the holidays.

    that night, grandma, grandpa, the wee ones, and the sparklers did a very special dinner at Sonic (lady sparkler’s fast food crush) while the reunion festivities raged over at “the hospitality house.” the niece and i got into a pig-tail measuring contest (she won) and super-nephew tried to get in on the action as well.

    which makes me wonder … have my classes had reunions? i haven’t heard of one, but then again … if i was throwing a reunion, i probably wouldn’t invite me either.

  • bridge 2009: Quick and Dirty Case Studies for Social Media Fundraising and Engagement

    I presented at Bridge this afternoon, a conference for non-profit fundraisers and marketers.

    Our session (with Jocelyn Harmon of Marketing for Non-Profits fame) was a nice little road map for non-profits deciding if they should be in the social media space, and how to best go about getting there. I was brought in for case studies, and focused on Facebook Causes, Flickr, the new my.nature.org, and online donation based social media.

    We actually had a third presenter, Roz Lemieux from Fission Strategy, but the fire alarm went off 30 minutes out from the end and she never made it podium. It was the last day of the conference, during the last session — why do i keep getting the graveyard shifts? — and nobody seemed interested in going back to the conference room after the all clear was given.

    Now, if we had offered to finish it up at the hotel bar … who knows what sort of attendance we would have had.

    Speaking of, the conference was at the Gaylord / National Harbor way out in suburban Maryland. The compound certainly was impressive, but in a fake, Disneyland sorta way. Everything was shiny and massive, but rang (more than) a little hollow. Not to mention, the Gaylord are the people who stole “The Awakening” from DC’s Hains Point, so I am already rooting for their speedy demise.

    On the flip side, at least I have another reason to hate the ‘burbs … with all the baby shopping at suburban big box stores, I was obviously starting to run out.

  • found: midnight visit from emily the cat

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    ECPA20090726_0719, originally uploaded by [ecpark].

  • the ‘burbs and the baby

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    for the uninitiated, i really can’t explain the horror that is Babies ‘R Us.

    our m.o.h., foster mom, is in town this weekend, and we’re taking advantage of her unbridled enthusiasm to travel across the vast wastelands of the D.C. suburbs looking for baby crap.

    the store seems to have been organized via the detonation of a low-yield nuclear weapon, and then ravaged by whatever rampaging, post-apocalyptic hordes survived. there is no sign of intelligent life to explain to you what you really need, just clerks saying what will happen if you don’t buy the most expensive device they have in stock. to make matters worse, only the most overpriced items are readily available, and all the “reasonably priced” merchandise is either out-of-stock, or hidden in some dark ghetto corner-of-shame in the store.

    admittedly, i might not be qualified to judge fairly — i hate the ‘burbs, i hate driving in the ‘burbs, i hate big box stores, i hate backward “R”s, and i get claustrophobic when surrounded by lots of 200 lb pregnant women using strollers as cow-catchers.

    none of this affords me an unbiased platform from which to judge.

    that being said, there is at least one good thing about these monuments to baby-spending-excess: you can touch the items. before you put them back down. and buy the same thing online. for 20% less.

    fortunately, friend and co-worker Papa Bradstein (unwittingly) gave us sage advice about a book called Baby Bargains, which is a kind of Consumer Reports for baby stuff.

    (actually, Baby Bargains is better, because while CR rates baby products, they don’t give much insight into why they rated one product better than another.)

    the book has been great, and i’ve been reading it non-stop … taking away solid info on not only which particular product is best for us (ie. one car seat vs another) but what types of mass-marketing bunk we can avoid entirely (diaper-stackers) without it triggering a child endangerment persecution or (worse yet) nasty looks from our parenting peers.

    luckily, as we slog through the baby shopping, the lady sparkler and i are on the same page about this breed of baby consumerism and she is every bit as exasperated/angry as i am.

    the only difference? i know more about breast pumps than any human possibly can with out getting his man-card forcibly revoked.

  • found: concert at the zoo

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    ECPA20090726_0724, originally uploaded by [ecpark].

  • the summer of sparklet

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    well, i’m pretty sure that the lady sparkler is pregnant. like, really *really* pregnant. like, duck-out-of-the-way-when-she-turns-around pregnant.

    she’s a total trooper, but is just now starting to slow down a bit and get some of those typical symptoms of pregnancy (well, symptoms other than me saying “duuuuuuude, you’re HUUUUUGEE” daily). she’s getting a little tired, little sore (back, ribs) and is a little more dedicated to her naps and early bedtimes.

    oh, but thank god for the el niño moderated summer temperatures this summer in the District. we’ve had a total of one day over 90 degrees since we got back from vacay this spring, and i think that is way better than we had any reason to expect.

    turns out that while my beloved is incubating, she isn’t so interested in being incubated herself.

  • karma: chinese zodiac

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    the lady sparkler and i did our second consecutive date-night tonight … a movie (“up”), then dinner in Chinatown at one of the few real Chinese restaurants left in the city (“full kee”).

    the food was great, but the best part was the chinese zodiac place mats, which gives little personality sketches based on the year of birth. obviously, this got us thinking about Baby Sparklet’s personality, which
    (apparently) will be guided by the chinese sign of the Ox.

    Bright, patient and inspiring to others. You can be happily by yourself, yet make an outstanding parent.

    feeling like we were on a roll, when i got home i found a couple of sites that walk through the signs a little more. that’s when things got interesting:

    Ox people are hard-working and persistent, they can stick at a task longer and go at it harder than anybody. They believe in themselves and tend to classify almost everything into two basic categories, bad and good. They hold up their high standards as a model and severely judge those who don’t aspire to maintain these same ideals.

    Although appears to be tranquil, in fact, Oxens are ponderous but impulsive when angry. They are capable of fearsome rages, therefore, it is better not to cross an Oxen. Ox people are observant, they have remarkable memories and are good at reporting on absolutely everything they observe.

    that’s one heck of a way to start the description, but the rest gets a little better (“kind, caring souls, logical, positive, filled with common sense”) … right up until the end where it says that the Ox’s “childhood and youth will generally be without incident.”

    note the use of the word “generally.”

    for the record, it turns out that I am a Rabbit (“quick, clever and ambitious”) and, while my money was on the lady sparkler being an Ox — just like our baby girl! — she ends up being a Snake (“not to be ignored”).

    and while their “compatibility” estimates are really designed for life partners, it turns out that an Ox, a Rabbit, and a Snake can live pretty happily under one roof … so long as the Rabbit (me) and Snake (the lady sparkler) aren’t romantically involved.

    can’t wait to see how that all pans out.

  • date night / mini golf

    [Mini-Golf, Jefferson Park, Falls Church, Virginia]
    we constantly complain about the lack of mini-golf courses in DC, but it turns out that we’ve just been looking in the wrong place. around here, they seem to be in municipal parks for some reason, not in tourist traps surrounded by chain restaurants.

    for the record, the lady sparkler was able to swing the club around her growing belly … well enough that she shot her best round ever. she said something about pregnancy limiting her option for freaking out and doing crazy things with the putter.

    Explore the Photo Set:
    Mini-Golf, Jefferson Park, Falls Church, Virginia

  • rooftop fireworks

    [Fireworks, Washington, DC.]
    ECPA20090705_2131, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    it’s a bit of a tradition in D.C. to clamor up to your rooftop (if you have one) to watch the fireworks on the Fourth. the lady sparkler and i had never been, but decided to give it a go this year … thinking that it was probably our last year to do something illegal (before baby sparklet arrives).

    i always assumed that the best show was from the mall, but i think the rest of the fireworks (they come from all around us, including Columbia Heights, Crestwood, Silver Spring and over by the National Cathedral) were even more fun.

    Explore the Photo Set:
    Rooftop Fireworks, Washington, DC