Against all supportive parental urges, I have to confide in you, Internet, that Hazel doesn’t know very much. She’s a sweet kid and all, but she doesn’t know any of the state capitals or how to find the area of a triangle. I doubt that she would stand much chance of doing well on the painfully easy yet more painfully painful “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?” It’s not her fault - she’s nigh three months old.

However, I know with all certainty that the time will come when I will need her help with some electronic gizmo. The Me of the Future will be scratching his gray-haired head (or graying depending on how quickly technology continues to change), baffled on how to operate some basic household technology. It’s just the way things go. For example, at work, I am often tapped to help with computer errors or printer malfunctions. The asker always cites the fact that I’m a “young person who has a knack for this new technology” as if my age is a prerequisite for electronic and information systems know-how. And I realize that, by this statement, I am painted with the same brush used for teenagers born when I was in middle school. It seems preposterous that any member of a generation just 15 years older than I is confident that, because I’m under 35, I automatically know how to fix their computer, digital camera, or iPod. Don’t think it me a genius when someone is stumped on how to change the way Word looks on their laptop and I whiz in making the magical suggestion to check the “View” menu.

It’s enough to get one quite haughty, but I try and temper these feelings, knowing full well that I will be baffled by my car’s sound system in the coming years. I have to stay on Hazel’s good side, so that she can guide me through the hover conversion of my old road auto. Without those servos installed properly, I’ll never make it to the bank before they close to withdraw grocery money from the nice teller I always go to; after all, I have no clue how to use those new fangled cash machines and the Hannaford doesn’t take paper checks anymore. And, dagnabbit, I need me some Soylent Green!

There are lots of reasons to be late for work: traffic, misreading a bus schedule, maybe a doctor’s appointment. One that has dogged me since my job was “fulltime student” is sleeping late. In high school, I used to be able to turn off my alarm clock without even waking up, regardless of how far I placed it from my bed. In college, I developed a talent for sleeping through a blaring alarm AND conscientious friends shaking me fervently to get up and out to my lit classes. Any class before 2 pm was fair game for snoozing right through.

But, as I grew older, I became more apt to hear that alarm and rouse myself out of bed relatively unaided. Slowly, I became punctual, bordering on regularly early. Hazel only helps matters, her vocal pleas pulling me from bed just as the sun is winking above the horizon. And if she happens to cycle sleep during those morning hours, my trusty alarm clock (with mp3 technology!) will do its thing and wake me up. That is, until this morning, when I slept in just like old times.

I don’t know how it happened exactly. When Megan woke me with “You should have been at work 20 minutes ago” earlier today, I immediately cast aspersions on my alarm clock. A closer inspection did not show an am/pm mix-up or an unset alarm. Everything should have worked fine, and it didn’t. Plus, my back-up daughter alarm was snoozing comfortably in her crib. Confounded, I could only call work and tell them I’d be late before start my morning routine about two hours later than I normally would. I should be happy that Hazel slept well. In fact, I am happy, but being late gives me the jibblies. However, Hazel and I watching Sesame Street together this morning is most likely a better use of my time.

Hazel - same time tomorrow?

On Friday, Megan and I sat down to our first dinner without Hazel since she was born. And, to put icing on the Elvis Layer cake (more on that later), it was a meal out on the town. It was glorious.

Now, I don’t want to disparage Hazel in any way; her presence in my life sets my heart to overflowing. It’s just that mealtimes do not lend themselves well to an infant. To start, Hazel cannot yet sit up on her own. So, we either need to hold her in our arms or put her in her Magic Chair on the floor in the kitchen, all the while bouncing it with our foot so she remains serene. The former runs afoul of the two-handed necessity that is Taco Night and the latter places our daughter either right next to the trashcan or the cat food – both being olfactorily unfit. So, to reiterate, having a meal without caring for Hazel is a glorious happenstance.

We managed this by leaving her at home with Grammie (Megan’s mom) and Gido (Megan’s dad, the title being Lebanese for “grandfather” and pronounced /jzeh-doo/). The plan was to go out to dinner and a movie. All day, I looked forward to the opportunity to be non-parent for an evening without a care in the world past what to have for dessert. But when the time came to leave, one concern after another elbowed its way to the forefront of my brain. “She needs her medicine at 9:30.” “There are extra diapers in the second drawer down.” “Don’t forget to burp her after every ounce or so of milk.” “She likes to be carried facing front.” I was a regular basket case by the time we were shuffled down the stairs to my car. This I did not suspect.

We still managed to have a very nice dinner out at Café Miranda downtown. Megan had the Fabulous Bowl o’ Meat for her entreé and I enjoyed the Elvis Layer Cake for dessert. And although my in-laws don’t believe us, we were home two hours early not out of fear for our daughter but because our meal was so leisurely that, once we finally ate our fill and asked for the check, we would have been over 30 minutes late for the movie. Honest.

On Monday, Hazel went in for her two-month check-up and earned the praise of her primary care physician. She put on almost a full pound since the week previous, which is pretty good for a baby. That’d be like me putting on 20 lbs in seven days, so scoff not lest ye mirror that weight gain relative to your own mass. She also was scheduled to receive four vaccination shots. The last time she was vaccinated, she was sluggishly doped out on the stuff despite the doctor’s assurance that there would be no drowsy side effects. Sure, she was three pounds lighter then, but the pediatrician cautiously only gave her two of the four needles.

Afterward, Hazel wasn’t so much sleepy as valiantly refusing to give in to sleep. In short, she fought sleep all day, not staying down for more than a few minutes despite the discomfort and, I suppose, the healing force of modern medicine. Like Little Mac going for the World Circuit title, she would not relent to Mr. Sandman’s Midnight Sleeper nor his “Dreamland Express” triple upper cut assault. All day and into the night, whenever he landed a restful right or a lulling left, Hazel would mash the A and B buttons, rise from the ring floor, and land a really nice star punch.

But, just like her father, Hazel could not dodge Mr. Sandman forever and eventually relented to his pugilistic pugnaciousness, sleep overtaking her with visions of punching out Mike Tyson dancing in her head. Sadly, that dream match will never come to pass (unless you enter: 007 373 5963). We breathed a sigh of relief when referee Mario finally counted, “Bahn, Buhn, Blee…BeeBayBoo” and Megan and I could board the Dreamland Express ourselves.

I have a sneaking suspicion that many of Hazel’s “life lesson” talks with old Dad will take the form of an extended metaphor based on a video game or an animated series from the early 80s to mid-90s. Poor girl. Even still, I’ll have to do some research on Flintheart Glomgold’s take on when teens should start dating.

One thing you do a lot of as a new parent is watch your baby sleep. This isn’t in a creepy way; it’s more of an unbelievably relieved way. Getting the baby to sleep and then maintaining that state is Priority One, especially at 3 AM. It’s so much work that I often like to just stand back and enjoy the fruits of my lullabying labor. Other times I just rest my eyes.

In my more lucid moments, I’ve noticed that Hazel has a favored sleeping position. Since her first few days on, when in a deep slumber, she throws her arms above her head in unconscious regularity. I have to wonder why? Is she dreaming of being held up at gunpoint? Maybe she is recounting her earliest days as a mere smattering of cells within Megan just days before the positive pregnancy test, spending that Saturday at Six Flags - The Great Escape. Or, perhaps she’s just wants to fight the powers that be.

Or, just maybe, Hazel spends much of her time in the Land of Nod officiating field goal contests. And lo, it is good.

Hazel doesn’t watch television. Currently, she’s more into the hanging toys that arch over her Magic Chair*. Just this past weekend, she figured out that she can pinion her arms about and hit the toys with her hands, making them swing to and fro, emitting a nice rattling sound. She loves this - evident in her pistoning legs and gurgles of what must certainly be glee. It has to be a real thrill to be able to make such monumental self-discoveries as “My arms can make my hands hit things” and “Mommy = Food”. Just wait until she starts noticing that the cats exist.

With Hazel unaware of television, Megan and I are free to save some money (and ourselves from the Maine bloat that snags much of the sedentary populace) by not having cable. No political stances here: we’re just trying to curb expenses. In fact, we actually do watch television thanks to our rabbit-eared antennae. With this garage sale find poised atop out TV, we can tune in to Fox, ABC, and not one but two PBSs! That’s twice the Rick Steve’s Europe (which I never knew had the comically unfortunate subtitle of “Through the Back Door”) for none of the price. Of course the system isn’t ideal; if we have Fox coming in mostly static-free then ABC is a wash and vice versa. And, to get any channels at all, we have to keep one of the metal probes jutting out into the living room, thereby requiring a slight dance to make it to the front door. I haven’t poked myself or Hazel in the eye with that thing just yet, but the danger is palpable.

I’m actually looking forward to when Hazel knows what TV is and such as I’m tired of watching cartoons alone. Most Saturday mornings, Hazel wakes up around 6 or 7 in need of food and a change, so I do both and then rock her to sleep while taking in Saturday morning entertainment. I’m not going to get into a whole back-in-my-day-the-cartoons-were-better thing, but man alive, have you ever actually sat through an episode of Winx? It just might be the worst incarnation of children’s entertainment since Widget the World Watcher. Once Hazel falls asleep in my arms, I often favor not moving at all to waking her up and having to start settling her all over again, so when a TV channel is selected, it usually will not be changed unless the situation is truly dire - like Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader or any of those Bachelor shows. I’ll gladly jostle Hazel to crying, cranky alertness than listen to Jeff Foxworthy. Still, I wish we had the CW, as their Saturday shows are much better and in line with a geek like me. But, Fox’s Viva Piñata is worth watching, though be careful not to sit too long and have to deal with Yugi Oh.

I don’t want Hazel to be a TV glutton, but a little broadcasted entertainment isn’t so bad. Jeopardy is a nightly ritual for us and a sitcom here or there isn’t truly evil. Like anything, it’s all about moderation. Too much of anything is no good, even too much water or exercise. I don’t want a couch potato daughter. But I also don’t want an elitist daughter. I’m not planning on watching NASCAR with her, but a Scrubs rerun here or there will only help her in life, right?

^{* The Magic Chair is really a must for any new parent. Hazel slept in one inside of the giant tiger cage crib they provided at the hospital last week and it really settles her down. Plus it bounces and who doesn’t love that?}