Major happenings within the Family Rags this week. To start with yours truly, I’ve been keeping my nose to the grindstone at work for the past week or so, preparing for a test run of potential new and interesting responsibilities. Earlier today, I facilitated my first solo seminar for work - not to go into deep detail (though I am happy to do so via email for those especially curious readers), but we provide consultancy services which involve philosophy, storytelling, words and their meaning, as well as entertaining a group of people for four to eight hours at a clip. It’s not exactly my dream job…

My dream job would be a superhero whose mild-mannered alter ego is that of a comic book artist who just so happens to captain his local Ultimate Frisbee team. Hey, it could happen!

…but it’s darn close and nailing the seminar today - which I did - has opened up several doors which have the promise of lifting Megan and I up a bit financially. Being a former English major, I never expected to earn much. So far, nearly ten years out of college, those expectations were met very readily and frugally. I’m not saying to take me Porsche shopping, but I just might be able to treat Megan and Hazel to ice cream with two kinds of sprinkles on top this summer. Stay tuned for more on this.

On the Hazel side of things, she said her first word today. Well, not exactly a real word, but she used speech to communicate a desire, and that counts in my book. Up until now, if she wanted something, she has grunted or whined while eying whatever her determined target might be. However, today Megan took Hazel to visit her great-grandparents. Not Hazel’s, these are Megan’s great-grandparents - well into their 90s and still with minds as sharp as anyones. Plus, they speak in that stereotypically New England way (like the “Pepperidge Farm remembers” guy) which I could listen to all day for a month without the awesomeness wearing thin. Anyway, following the visit, Megan had a long drive back home. Halfway through, Hazel started screaming. Unsure of whether she was just tired, feeling hungry, or sitting in a dirty diaper, Megan kept on driving in the hopes that the bumps in the road would soothe her off to sleep.

No such luck.

Eventually, the screams started mixing with one syllable repeated in groups of two: “Ba-ba.” This, apparently, is what Hazel calls her bottle of milk. Sure enough, when they got home and I brought Hazel in, she was muttering “ba-ba” between sobs and snorts. Megan readied the bottle and Hazel was overjoyed. She ate a bunch of ounces and felt right as rain after. Like I said, she didn’t use a real adult word, but she used a specific term for a real-life object, so it’s good enough for me. The English language rallies on!

Since having Hazel, I keep asking my mom what my first word was. Either she doesn’t remember or I keep forgetting her reply, but I have no idea if I was a “ba-ba” man or not. Given this autobiographical oversight, I now have to focus my energies on what my last word will be. I sure hope it isn’t “moist” - I’d hate to give Future Megan the jibblies.

Hazel’s two biggest passions at the moment are music and walking. The former she appreciates fully; she bounces and bops the same to a Bob Marley song, the theme music for Elmo’s World, or a snazzy jingle for dishwashing detergent. The latter she cannot do without assistance from a person or piece of furniture. While Megan and I are more than happy to help her amble along, her hands in ours, it does bother the back a bit to walk around with your torso parallel to the floor. Lucky for us someone (I think my parents though Christmas is kind of a blur) bought us the Stride-to-Ride Lion. The idea is that a toddler still getting used to self-ambulation can use the wheeled cat as support and, when old enough to walk on their own, can fold the handle into the lion’s back which doubles as a seat. Then it’s all the fun of pushing yourself around on a plastic king of the jungle. This handy little thing combines Hazel’s two passions.

By gripping the purple handle, Hazel can stroll around fairly unassisted. The lion also plays a handful of poppy songs when it is pushed especially forcefully or when its nose is pressed. We still have to stand guard since she sometimes forgets to keep stepping forward while pushing the lion ahead. More than once she’s wound up flat on her face like a bowler who forgot to let go of the ball. Thankfully she only has a short way to fall and we usually catch her in time. Usually. And while this is fun and all, Hazel likes it even more when we fold the handle down and place her on the lion’s back. She’ll just sit there, happy as a clam to be on her mount. Typically, she’ll lean forward, press his nose to start the music, and just dance away. The song ends, her dancing subsides, and she leans forward again to smack the nose and bring on the next instrumental. Oh, and the lion also occasionally “roars” before or after songs. I use quotes because it sounds more like Charles Nelson Reilly after last call.

My mental blueprint for this post is threatening to spin out towards a larger discussion about music, so I think I’ll end here and post that separately. Let’s just say that I love Hazel’s innate interest in music. I know odds are I will dislike whatever bands/artists she fanatically follows as a teenager, at least for now, we can both agree that the theme song for Super Why! saves our day every time.

Megan called me yesterday at work with an exciting announcement: Hazel was cruising around our house. “Why is our little girl motoring around our living room in a tiny convertible, blasting Night Ranger, and looking to score a date for Saturday’s school dance?” I immediately questioned. “Furthermore, what are we paying for insurance on that little Volkswagen Cabrio and where has she been hiding it?” I tend to speak first and process what I heard afterward. Luckily, Megan knows this and tends to not listen to my first (and second) reactions to things. It turns out cruising is when an infant walks around unassisted by human hands. Rather, the tyke grips onto furniture for support. In my head, I call that bouldering, but since we don’t live at the foot of a cliff, in a climbing gym, or in a quarry, we’ll just go with the generally accepted “cruising”.

This is, of course, fantastic news. Hazel has been early for almost every milestone and now it looks like walking will soon be added to her repertoire. I often remark to Megan that, as Hazel learns to do more and more stuff like a “real live person”, it’s kind of like the cat ambled out from the kitchen on its hind legs, bow tie ‘round its neck and a monocle in place, to ask for a spot of Earl Grey tea. I know she’ll do more and more each day, but the fast rate of her ascent toward maturity can sometimes stagger me a bit. Just when I get used to one of her abilities, she supersedes that with further advancement. It’s what every parent wants, but it’s really tiring to boot!

Not to focus on the negative, but this crowning achievement is sullied by the fact that she still has no teeth. I know it’s no big deal, but all of Hazel’s friends have teeth – not a single tooth mind you, but multiple teeth – and Hazel is still the Gummy Joe of her social circle. I know the other babies are accepting, but once they learn to talk, can gossiping be far behind? Like that ninth grader who’s old enough to drive to school, Hazel could suffer ostracism by all these toothy tots.

You might think I’m overreacting, and you’re probably right. In fact, you’re definitely right. But despite my knowledge that I’m being irrational, late at night as I lie in bed listening to Megan’s thunderous snoring, I can’t help but wonder what we’ll do when Hazel is invited to her first Bubble Gum Birthday Bash and we don’t have enough money for baby dentures and that Trap Jaw surgery is still only legal in Mexico, Switzerland, and Eternia.

Despite the fact that being a dad is great, I need some time off now and again. This reprieve comes via two specific events: Being At Work and Hazel’s Bed Time. Megan, on the other hand, doesn’t get to leave the house for 50 regular hours every week, so it’s important that she get some non-parent time when I am available. Being that I had a three-day weekend on my hands, we found time for her to go shopping alone, take a nap, and even go to a movie with another AWOL mother or two.

The latter activity didn’t start until seven at night, which coincides with Hazel’s regular bed time. So, after her bath and bottle had soothed her to tiny slumbering snores, I had a whole evening to myself. In between watching the Packers break my cheese-encrusted heart in subzero conditions, I finished up my theme redesign. A few surface level tweaks need to get done, but things should be ready to roll for one and all (i.e. Jim). So click around and let me know what you think.

Features I am most proud of:

• Megan took my muddled explanations and half-crumpled napkin sketches for a Pitfall! homage banner image and really nailed it in vector graphic glory.
• Just in case you don’t want to see my posting calendar or blogroll, you can just fold it up via those little double arrows to the right of each sidebar section. This may be fairly useless, but it’s still dern cool.
• Speaking of my posting calendar, I have gone back to using the AJAX Calendar plugin and really like the fact that folks can cruise through many months of archives with the main page not reloading until they choose a certain day. Plus, the downward pointing arrow centered beneath the calendar, when clicked, will show a small list of every post title in the current month. It takes a little Fonzarelli finagling of the mouse click to get the function to work sometimes, but I am still as proud of it as a mother duck is of that one duckling that only paddles in circles. Sometimes circles are the way to get where you need to be.

Hazel’s latest photo session, commemorating her eighth month of life on the outside, did not go over swimmingly. Lately, she has started whining a bit should we take away something she wants; in this case, she really wanted to chew on Megan’s digital SLR and that mean mommy simply wouldn’t give in. Instead, Megan gave our little technophile her cell phone to gaze upon in wonder. And as the warm, glowing, warming glow of the phone’s backlit screen soothed the savage tot, Megan started snapping pics once more.

Of course, you cannot expect a baby with such a treat to just stare at it and simply noodle some buttons. At least, not for long. What started as mere nibbling soon ballooned to outright gnawing. Despite having enough teething rings to hold the toothiest crocodile at bay, Hazel decided at that moment to cut her choppers on Megan’s Nokia. The improvement in her mood could not be resisted and Megan just kept taking pictures. All in all, the photo shoot was rescued from a threatening tantrum and we can have a smiling baby in the Month Eight space of our First Year frame. Oh, and no teeth came out, even after several minutes of mobile munching.

After work, I called Megan to see if she needed me to stop and pick up anything on my way home. Her phone went right to voicemail. Thinking that odd, I called the house phone (which is actually Megan’s office number so I never use it lest I fall into the company of supply houses and sales reps). Megan answers and explains that her phone has stopped working. She recounts for me the tale I just told you – albeit much more succinctly and linearly – and tells me that she’ll be getting a new cell phone the following day. Luckily, that day came and her phone had “dried out” enough to function again to an acceptable degree. No new Moto for Meggo.

Should I ever land my dream job in international espionage, I’ll eschew the fancy technology for a good, old-fashioned baby. Need that microfilm destroyed? Just give it to your government issued baby and it will be a drooly memory in no time. Still need to dispose of those stolen top secret blueprints to the latest Doomsday Machine and enemy agents are hot on your trail? Just hand them over to your diapered sidekick and not even Mike Wazowski will be able to reassemble the torn-up mishmash. Mark my words, in the next James Bond flick, 007 will be sporting a BabyBjörn carrier and crashing Lamborghinis through plate glass windows all in search of a restroom that has a diaper changing station.

-or- Sonnet #553 DISK FULL ERROR

Some ISP trouble notwithstanding,
my new weblog theme is nearly complete.
Server-side errors impeded landing
the PHP files needed for this feat.

I can tweak and continue debuggin’
and upload all the recoded data.
Thanks to the awesome Preview Theme plugin,
no one need suffer a faulty beta.

A clean, fresh look is my ultimate aim
since my prose is the ultimate focus.
Once I am done, a few files overlain,
I’ll have a whole new blog – hocus pocus!

I like my new banner image the most.
Pray Activision won’t sue your fine host.