theparkerfamily.org

Tag: Long Reads

  • how i met your mother: the battle for evermore

    []

    photo of the week // week twenty-two
    dear sparklet,

    this is the eighth in a series of letters from daddy about how i met and married your mother.

    recently, the most important battle in your life-so-far has broken out … the battle for your taste in music.

    for the record, daddy is feeding you a steady diet from indie pop types (the kind who wear witty, ironic t-shirts) or girl rockers … such as Band of Horses, A Fine Frenzy, your partial-namesakes Kate Earl and Kate Nash, Regina Spektor, and The Killers.

    mommy, however, keeps slipping you music from country and christian artists — George Strait and Jars of Clay, to name a few — when she thinks daddy’s not paying attention. even the nanny has gotten involved, though her choices seem to be much more age appropriate (which unfortunately removes her from the pettiness of this conversation).

    but this battle for the scrobbler betrays two sad little facts … your daddy has horrid taste in music, and mommy isn’t much better.

    for my part, I don’t exactly know what happened … the first album I ever owned was Sychronicity by The Police. my second, however, was the early-80s equivalent of Now That’s What I Call Music.

    I suppose some of it is your uncle Popcollin’s fault — he went through a Debbie Gibson/Euro-pop phase during my most impressionable, formative music years — and I obviously never recovered from his influence.

    i have, though, learned how to cover up my horrid taste somewhat. for example, the title of this post, for instance, the is *not* the Led Zepplin allusion a music aficionado would expect … i would have never known “The Battle for Evermore” if it weren’t for the HeartLovemongers’ cover on the (shudder) Singles motion picture soundtrack.

    anyway, all this got me thinking about music from when your mother and i were younger:

    • my earliest memories of mommy is her belting out songs during road trips, without any sort of notion that she was horrifically off-key.
    • road trips only got better when mommy realized that kelly clarkson’s one-octave “range” was just as limited as her own, and was much more suitable for mommy’s irrepressible sing-a-longs.
    • right before we got engaged, mommy announced that her favorite song was “Foundations” by Kate Nash … a song about a woman holding on to an dysfunctional relationship.
    • right before we got *married*, mommy announced that her *new* favorite song was “Still Sweet” by Benjy Davis Project … a song about the joy that follows the end of an empty relationship.
    • and, of course, one of the very first things we did with you (before you were born) was take you to a U2 concert.

    so, even if i’m ultimately proven wrong about what you should be listening to as a toddler (and i am sure i will be) … i’m going to keep feeding you a steady diet of Ida Marie, if only so that i can film you running around when you are three, singing the chorus to “I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked.”

    you won’t have an older sibling to corrupt your taste in music … so mommy and daddy will have to do the best we can.

    love,
    daddy

  • fire al trautwig

    it’s winter olympics season at the sparkler household, and that means it’s time to get angry and the god-aweful commentary for olympic sports. here are some of my favorites:

    for some, this morning started with agony and shock.

    someone had fallen off the cross-country track.

    these are biathlon fans. they know when to cheer … when the target is hit!

    piercing insight there, friend.

    spillane looks solid for the gold if he can stand up right here. spillane’s got it … america breaks through!

    actually, spillane did *not* get it. in all the jingo-istic excitement, the commentator seems to have missed that a frenchman came in first.

    in the previous three olympics, this man has left with nothing but the memories.

    … nothing besides a gold medal.

    we have a deep russian team. then, the americans. then, the russians … that’s your trilogy.

    russians, americans, russians. yup, that’s three.

    he’s a bit the germaphobe … always taking purell around with him. he doesn’t drink except for the occasional swig of cognac to cleanse his mouth of germs.

    tmi. not quite to the clintonian/jacksonian/woodsian level, but seriously … he can sleep upside down in a hyperbolic chamber, and it’s none of my/our/your business.

    i wish i could just blame NBC as a whole (and i may later) but each one of these linguistic “gems” was said by the same man … NBC olympic commentator al trautwig.

    if the name sounds familiar, it should.

    he is the same #*&%$ who brought you grotesquely over-wrought commentary for NBC’s gymnastics coverage in Beijing (including his 2008 pièce-de-résistance, lamenting “a catastrophe of epic proportions” when Alicia Sacramone fell on a floor routine).

    seriously, NBC … you’ve paid $3.5 billion for the rights to cover the Olympics since 1999, so maybe it’s about time you read the founding principles of the Games:

    The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.

    i don’t think it’s much of an exaggeration to say that mr. trautwig’s over-wrought hyperboles are undermining the very games he’s covering.

    exiling trautwig from gymnastics to cross-country/biathalon coverage (while quite the statement about his perceived worth) isn’t enough. the problem is, he doesn’t have the commentary skills to cover little league matches in the Parkersburg, West Virginia.

    if he’s under a contract you can’t get out of, let me suggest you transfer him to KXGN in Glendive, Montana. as a parking attendant.

  • dear kate

    []
    dear kate,

    well, it’s the last full day of our paternity leave together.

    we’ve spent the morning at the ice skating rink on the National Mall — where we saw an ice skating Nun, and the four foot tall snow drifts that kept you in Texas for so long — and the afternoon at the Natural History museum.

    of course, after spending the last 10 nights sleeping in a flimsy pack-and-play, you’ve been asleep pretty much non-stop for the last 18 hours, so I’m not banking on you remembering much.

    so, just in case you don’t remember our wonderful talk today, I want to thank you again for the last four weeks. i don’t toss out religious imagery much (I’m what your Mom would call a stuffy-bottomed Episcopalian) but our time together has really been a blessing.

    due to your Daddy’s inability to sit still, we’ve done an exhausting metric ton to keep us busy: a week home sick; trips to American Indian and American Art museums; walks around the Georgetown Waterfront and the National Aquarium; not to mention that “bonus” week we had in Austin.

    however, the parts that I have loved the most are the little things in between … like today sitting together at a cafe, making goofy faces on the Metro, watching your face light up at every kind of light source you can imagine.

    part of what made today extra special was that, after carrying you around for much of the day, you started wailing each time I tried to put you down. i am sure that it was just gas, or maybe a diaper rash … but i’m going to pretend that you knew this time together was coming to an end, and wanted to be held just a little bit longer.

    you are just a good-natured baby, and have been incrediably patient with Mommy and Daddy as we’ve been broken-in as parents.

    people told us from the very beginning how babies put everything in perspective, and while Mommy and I smiled and nodded at the advice at the time, the last four months with you have shown this to us in ways words could never explain.

    with that in mind, let me say that we love you in ways that you may never fully understand, at least not until you have a little sparklet of your very own. (and if that’s the case, that’s fine with us.)

    we both know that things will change over the years — we’re guessing you’ll hate mommy at the onset of puberty, and daddy once you start dating — but our love for you will be as constant as the stars you seem to love so much.

    all the love in the world,
    mommy and daddy

  • out: barton creek (the mall not the, er, creek)

    []
    if DC wasn’t in the middle of it’s third big snowstorm of the year, i’d be complaining about the weather in austin right now.

    in fact, auntie nadine’s got to be feeling pretty good about her warm, sunny wedding day because the three days before and the five days after have all be 40 degrees and rainy.

    of course, that beats 20 degrees with 24 inches of snow, but i digress …

    sparklet and i are trying to keep up our daily outings, but between the weather and random february closures of tourist attractions (austin museum of art, elizabeth ney museum, zilker botanical garden) we’ve been having have a bit of a tough “go” lately.

    so it was only inevitable that after yet another cultural attraction with redeeming value turned out to be closed, we found ourselves at the last refuge of the american consumer desperation … the mall.

    the big surprise? i was by no means alone. there were quite literally a dozen (or more) adult/stoller pairs, pushing laps around the mall with no discernible interest in spending money.

    the least surprising surprise? sparklet loves the mall.

    it took her about 30 seconds to realize what window displays were, and from that point on she couldn’t rip her eyeballs away … well, not until about 45 minutes later when she had become so over-stimulated as to render her wholly non-functional.

    the only store we actually went in was cryptically called “the longhorn’s shop” and sold a bunch of stuff in burnt orange.

    i went in with every intention of buying sparklet a university of texas onesie, if for no other reason than to alienate the many baylor fans that seem to dominate (my life by way of marriage).

    alas, there was no onesie to be had, so i grabbed myself a sweatshirt ($12!) and called it a day. i’m already working on my defense:

    “hey, if the weather had been nicer…”

  • the blanton museum hates babies

    []
    i’m walking into central stairway of the blanton museum today — the art museum attached to the University of Texas at Austin — when a guy jumps out from behind a column and says, peering down the length of his rather long nose:

    “excuse me, but diaper bags are *not* permitted in the museum. please use one of the many lockers we have provided for your convenience.”

    i have a half-dozen retorts in my mind — “if she spits up, can i borrow a 17th century masterwork?” or, “my convenience would be to keep the bag,” or, leaning over to sparklet and saying, “if you have any poo, fling it now” — but i decide to play along.

    as i am walking to said lockers, he calls out after me: “and there is *certainly* no food or beverages allowed in the museum.”

    now, i’m even more confused. i check my palms for frosty cold beer-verage. none. i look for a taco platter from taco cabana. nope.

    when i make eye contact with he-who-shall-be-annoying, he is giving the stink eye to baby sparklet’s bottle of breast milk.

    ah.

    well, it’s a damn good thing that the lady sparkler wasn’t there, because she would have said “fine,” stripped off her shirt, and sparklet would have started breastfeeding right then and there.

    and i would have *loved* to see him try and stop her.

    now, at this point, i’m irritated, but not irate. i just know exactly what is going to happen (and they did, in turn):

    sparklet poo’ed when we were the farthest we could have possibly been from their lockers. instead of ducking into another bathroom, i got to track a rather uncomfortable (and expressive!) baby through twelve galleries to retrieve the diaper bag.

    then, sparklet wanted to eat, and, unlike every other museum we’ve visited, we didn’t have the option of her nursing while she stared intently at the paintings, or even us stopping every once on a bench for a couple ounces.

    instead, she would cry for five minutes while we went back to the locker to feed, she would lose interest (remember, i’m feeding in a locker room here), we’d go back to the exhibit where we had left off, sparklet would remember that she wasn’t eating, and she would scream for five minutes while we went back to the locker.

    rinse, and repeat.

    now, through most of this, i was in a pretty okay mood with the blanton. it’s their collection, if they want to do it this way, then that’s completely their call.

    what irritated the bejeezus out of me, was when i realized that a dozen other people were carrying bags around the museum that were *all* bigger than the diaper bag i was forced to lock up.

    there were big dallas-housewife-sized shoulder bags, there were camera bags, there were satchels and laptop bags. a student even had a backpack stuffed with what looked like four years of science textbooks.

    all of this, however, misses the point.

    i guess it’s possible that i just ran into the one docent with an over-developed sense of enforcement, but if that’s not the case … then i am honestly embarrassed for the blanton.

    this thick-headed, anti-family crap is what i would expect from a hoity-toity gallery in some uptight, old-monied art gallery in the northeast. it’s not what i would expect from texas, much less from austin, much less from UT.

    and, truth be told, the up-tight art gallery in the northeast would just post a sign by the door saying “we ask that you do not bring children younger than five into the exhibit space” which, while also being honest about the gallery’s intent, also allows you to not waste your ticket money.

    (when i asked guy-with-long-nose-to-stare-down about getting a refund on my admission based on my new understanding of his rules, he turned on his heels, lifted his nose, and said “enjoy your visit.”)

    so, i won’t be going to the blanton again with sparklet … and while i wish it was a high-minded boycott, it actually comes down to their collection.

    their masterworks are almost exclusively morose (highlights include two severed-john-the-baptist-heads, one saint agatha with a forced masectomy) and the modern exhibits relied too heavily on items from the looks-like-it-was-painted-by-a-three-year-old school.

    blanton. if you are listening … much “bigger” museums seem to find ways to be family friendly. i hope you’ll figure out something, too.

  • miracle baby

    baby sparklet slept until 10am this morning, which isn’t exactly news …

    … except that at 10am we were taxi-ing down the runway on a flight to Austin, Texas.

    that means she slept through (1) getting dressed at 6am, (2) loading the car and unloading at airport parking, (3) boarding and offloading the airport shuttle, (4) being taken out of her car seat and passing through security, (5) preboarding the aircraft, and (6) the aircraft pushing away from the gate.

    actually, it wasn’t until the safety briefing ($@&#% volume-deaf stewardesses) that she finally decided to open her eyes and wonder what the heck was going on.

    speaking of, I wonder if she is going to develop a complex about sleeping … it seems like each time she wakes she has a reasonable chance of being in completely different place than when she went down (museum, park, airplane, etc).

    back to the miracle … due to her sleeping so well we didn’t have to start her feeding until after “wheels up,” which means we sidestepped the whole ear-pain/pressure thing and we’re halfway through the flight with nothing louder than a gurgle.

    in semi-related news, we’re on the way to aunt nadine’s wedding to soon-to-be uncle nadav.

    I started packing sparklet at about 10am yesterday, and by 2pm we were we were running to Target to buy the biggest suitcase they had in stock.

    even so, we still look like we’re on a month-long trek through Nepal, and without the benefit of a legion of Sherpas.

    we’ve got the new suitcase (packed exactly to the 50 lbs. limit), a roll-y bag complete with bridesmaid dress and approximately 237 diapers, a bag full of enough pumping equipment to empty the panama canal, the diaper bad, a car seat and a stroller.

    next time, I’m getting a C-130 cargo plane to “advance” (pre-stage?) our trip.

    now, normally, I’d bring a laptop to blog/upload photos over the weekend … but my back started weeping at the thought of another 15 lbs bag.

    unfortunately, that means I’ll be blogging/uploading baby pics via the iPhone and its 36-dropped-calls-in-one-day, who-cares-about-3g-if-you-can’t-get-reception network brought to you by AT&T.

    I’m not sure I’d expect another update before hell freezes over, or Luke Wilson gets his self-respect back … which ever comes first.

    UPDATE: we landed, in heavy turbulance. still not a peep. it’s hard to refrain from being cocky … but I persevere, mostly so I don’t jinx us for the return.

    See all the Photos on Flickr:
    baby’s first flight

  • man on the street

    []
    i had a math teacher in middle school who said she hated being fat, because everybody in the supermarket assumed that you were a friendly person who like to be talked to by strangers.

    i think having a baby is the new fat.

    today, in the national american indian museum, a woman alone with five kids (yes, that’s “one-two-three-four-five”) looked at me in exasperation when she noticed sparklet was asleep, and blurted out “well that’s a great way for her to see the museum” while she rolled her eyes.

    yesterday, in the american art museum, two women stopped us in the cafe and asked how sparklet was enjoying the museum. i smiled while i said that she was doing great in the large format landscapes, but seemed to start loosing interest (i.e. fall asleep) once we got into the American portraiture. she scoffed, barked “yeah, right” and then stomped off.

    monday, a random guy on the street — looked like a typical D.C. community activist, business casual, with dreads held up in Jamaican rasta hat — called out to me, saying “great job, father! great job!” while he applauded. fwiw, i was crossing the street … and doing it *exceptionally* well.

    but really, besides the random activist, the only reliably positive people experiences have been security guards and cafeteria workers, especially the ones that are 35+ year old women. they just light up when they see someone alone with a baby, and are elated to have 2 minutes with the sparklet.

    biggest observation so far? don’t talk to white people.

    so far, without exception, white people think your baby is either (a) in direct competition with their kid/grandkid or (b) their question for you is just a thinly-veiled ramp to help them launch into a 10 minute soliloquy about their own.

    either way, from here on out i’m dropping them like their hot.

    P.S. there is an interactive “our universe” exhibit on the fourth floor of the national museum of the american indian, which has a ceiling (see photo above) designed to look like the night sky. it is now officially baby sparklet’s favorite place on the planet.

    See All the Photos on Flickr:
    out: national museum of the american indian, washington, dc

  • outings

    []
    it’s day three of the non-sick portion of paternity leave, and sparklet and i are starting to settle into a rhythm … tho, admittedly her front end, back end, and sleep schedule are driving pretty much everything.

    • sleep until 10am, with an occasional interruption from 6am ’til 7am.
    • suck down 7 oz. of breakfast.
    • sleep 11am ’til 12:30pm.
    • suck down 8 oz. of lunch.
    • sleep 2:30pm ’til 5pm.
    • suck down 6 oz. of dinner.
    • sleep 7pm ’til 8pm.
    • suck down 4 oz. of dessert.
    • asleep between 10pm and midnight.

    so her stomach/sleep-cycle doesn’t leave much time for futzing about, but we have about two hours of wakey-wakey time in the noon-ish ’til two-ish period after lunch that we can squeeze something in … but that’s only if we “commute” during her 11am/2pm naps.

    i wish i had some sort of noble intention by helping her “explore the world,” but i’m afraid it’s just my ridiculously short attention span trying to save me from clawing out my eyeballs out from daytime TV (regardless of the awesomeness that is Nash Bridges).

    that said, sparklet is really digging getting out of the house.

    she’s all about paintings in the museums we’ve hit, so long as they are large format (loves those enormous english/american landscapes) or large blocks of color (presumably because most contemporary pieces look like they could have been painted by someone her age).

    sculpture is fine, though white marble holds her interest much better than dark stone/iron. once the pieces dip towards the smaller side, it’s game over … and her attention quickly shifts towards the nearest light source (windows, track lighting, etc).

    speaking of, the big wins so-far have been the stuff that hasn’t been on display … the skylights in the smithsonian american art museum and the national gallery, the tunnel of LEDs in between the gallery’s east and west wings, and pretty much anything with stained glass.

    i’m not sure what’s on-tap next … but for the first time in my life, i am choosing things to do based on whether there are cool things that light up.

    See the Photos on Flickr:
    out: smithsonian american art museum

  • how at&t has made me hate my iphone

    I think I should have guessed something was wrong last fall, when i accidentally left my iPhone in the car overnight. the next morning, when i realized what i had done, i secretly wished that my window had been smashed in and my iPhone taken.

    Rock bottom came two months later, when I dreamed that my iPhone was stolen … and i woke up bummed that it didn’t actually happen.

    Don’t get me wrong, i love my iPhone. It’s arguably the best thing that I have ever owned. it’s just not a phone — because for it to be a phone, i’d have to occasionally get AT&T coverage within the borders of Washington, DC.

    It turns out that my problem is a mixture of the science behind AT&T’s network, and location-location-location. The range of each cell tower shrinks as more and more people us that particular tower. In DC, all the towers are on the beltway. When the network gets busy, the coverage retreats from the center of the city towards the edges … which is exactly where I don’t live.

    So, once the new version of the iPhone came out (and another gazillion people started using AT&T’s network) my reception went from spotty to non-existant.

    When I walk around Mount Pleasant on an average day, I get limited, spotty access to AT&T’s vinatge EDGE network. I’ll average about two hours of cell coverage a day in my house, but more often than not those tenuous bars disappear as soon as I try and make a call.

    In Columbia Heights, I don’t even get that … my phone tells me I’m roaming. Last week, I actually ducked into the Columbia Heights metro station because I needed to make a call. As far as i can tell, the best chance of getting a signal up here is to go underground.

    To date, my only hope for salvation comes because Gizmodo.com is giving away a new Google Android if you write in to them and tell them why you deserve one. Which I did.

    I need it because I’ve had 36 dropped calls in one day … because I regularly get voicemails a week after they are sent and text messages the following morning … because I now give my wife’s cell phone number out to friends and family … because I can’t stand the thought of riding out the last 6 months of my current phone contract.

    So far, they have had 12,000+ comments, so I’m guessing i’m not going to be first in line to win. Either way, my contract with AT&T is up this summer, and once it expires, i’ll be long gone.

    It turns out that it doesn’t matter how great your phone is, if your network blows chunks.

    PHOTOS: Street in Mount Pleasant, DC by Chambo25 via a Creative Commons license; Darth Phone image courtesy Gizmodo.com.

  • make your own christmas television special, in five easy storylines

    the lady sparkler and i are watching our way through our annual list of christmas specials, and as far as i can tell, there is a grand total of five unique storylines:

    • cute [animal/small child/old person/magician] is [sick/growing up too fast/angry], and [believes/is recently doubting/never believed in] Santa’s existence, and [protagonist] goes on a crazy caper which saves Christmas, and proves Santa is real in the process.
    • [protagonist] is a [cute child/bumbling adult/cartoon character/muppet/angry hermit] who [finds out Santa is sick/finds out Santa is in trouble/accidentally injures Santa/un-does all of Santa’s work] and goes on a crazy caper involving a unique but belittled talent, which saves Christmas.
    • [protagonist] is [home for Christmas/someone who never understood Christmas/haunted by three ghosts/a disgruntled relative of Santa or Rudolph/sent to an alternate world where he had never been born], and is driven by a dysfunctional but ultimately well meaning [self/family member/group of friends/unwitting arch-nemisis] to go on a crazy caper in order to save Christmas, and thereby remembering the meaning of Christmas in the process.
    • [protagonist] is [looking for the perfect gift/concerned someone’s list didn’t make it to Santa], but doesn’t have any money, so he goes on a crazy caper where he [sells his favorite possession to get the money/earns the money through some crazy scheme/steals the present/builds the present from scratch] and even though the [attempt/gift exchange] is ultimately unsuccessful, he remembers the true meaning of Christmas and [Santa/intended gift recipient] saves the day.
    • [protagonist] is disilusioned by the commercialization of Christmas when he [goes on a crazy caper/directs a school pageant, often with repetitive dance moves] and thereby remembers the true meaning of Christmas.

    i’ve run through a list of 54 christmas specials and movies, and each one falls into at least one (if not more) of these five buckets. if i am missing a storyline, i can’t come up with it …