Yes, I've finally see Sideways

People who know me know that I'm a budding oenophile. A wine guy. In the last couple of years, my wife and I have made more trips to the Napa and Sonoma valleys to go wine tasting than we've gone to the theater and almost as many as we've gone to the movies. That my wife has friends from school that live out that direction is a bonus, but not entirely the sole reason for going.

So when Sideways was in the theaters, people asked me what I thought of it. When it was released on DVD, they asked me what I thought of it. So there was a bit of a build-up for it. Monday I dropped by Schnucks to pick up it on two for one new release day.

I liked it up to the ending.

Connecting with yourself

A friend of mine recently said that she was having trouble connecting with herself these days. That had a bit of resonance for me. It partly reminded me of a quote from the movie Gladiator:
"My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next. "

In it, Maximus defines himself by his roles as a soldier, citizen, father and husband. While I'm not a soldier, I can relate:
"My name is Mypetrock, programmer of CTSG, employee of Citibank, hasher of Big Hump, father to Oliver, and husband to my wife."

The moments when I step out of my roles are almost jarring. Ever feel like that?

The Mythical 50/50 Split

I've been a little grumpy lately. I think part of the reason is that I'm sleep-deprived. It's really my own fault. Starting the three-hour Aviator after 7:30, interrupting it several times to do chores, and setting the alarm clock for 4:45 is not a recipe for getting a lot of sleep. Once a week is fine, but I've been doing it too much this week. But when it is really too hot to do anything other than retreat with the family to The Air-Conditioned Room in the house, what do you do?

When you are in a marriage, you shouldn't divide everything 50/50. But subconsciously I think a lot of people do it (a lot of people get divorced too, but that's neither here nor there). You know what you are doing and want to make sure that the other person is doing their fair share to keep things afloat. The other part of why I'm grouchy is that I keep focussing on my half of the mythical 50/50 split.

In my case I know what it is that I'm doing - shopping for groceries, making dinner, doing dishes, taking out the trash, mowing the grass, doing laundry, picking up Oliver from day care after work and parenting him during the afternoon. I see it an I obsess over it to some degree. It all seems to big and immediate to me.

What I don't see and I need to see is all of the things that my wife does. My wife has morning duty with Oliver, fed, dressed, and ready for daycare while preparing the day care bag and managing to get to work on time. She uses her lunch hour to visit with Oliver and feed him. She heads home through rush hour traffic and is usually met at the curb by her two boys. In general from the time she gets home, she is in charge of the baby while I get other things done. She gets Oliver to sleep and takes care of nightly feedings and changings.

On Mondays she has to fend for herself as I take the night to go to my gaming session. The occasional Wednesday I'll take another night to go hashing leaving her to fend for herself again. She doesn't have any nights off like that except for when we go visit friends and then parenting is at best a split task. I've offered to parent while she goes out, but she hasn't taken me up on it. Yet.

Evaluated like that I might not be holding up my end of the mythical 50/50 split, but it doesn't seem like it when I'm trying to make dinner while parenting a fussy baby.

Metablogging

My first few posts I wrote before I told anyone that I was going to start blogging. At the time I had some allusions about writing and not telling anyone in the hopes that people would find me stumbling about on their own. After a couple of weeks worth of posts, I decided to discard that strategy and tell some of my friends. At that point the nature of the content of my blog has subconsciously changed. I'm metablogging.

One of the key concepts for a magic player is the metagame. The idea behind the metagame is that you choose your deck strategy of winning based on the expected field that you'll be playing. In magic, if you know that your deck is good against everything except for one thing that you don't expect to see at a tournament, then it is a good choice. A simple example would be playing paper against an opponent who is known to usually use rock.

Metablogging is the act of blogging to cater to your audience. If you are a conservative, railing against the homosexual bias of the media will play well to your audience. Calling the president an idiot will both be truthful and play to the Democrats who read your blog (see I know my audience). A lot of it may be the truth of how you feel, but that you know that you are being read changes the content of what you write in the same way that yelling "Fire" is fine when you are the captain of a submarine ordering the deployment of a torpedo and not when you are in a crowded theater.

Belated Happy Father's Day to all the Blogger Daddies

Happy Father's Day to one and all.

For my Father's day, I had requested that we have matching family t-shirts. I was thinking something along the lines of "Dad," "Mom," and "Child." Instead my wife came up with "Geek," "I (Heart) My Geek," and "My father is a geek... My mother is too." They're better than my idea and certainly eye-catching.

We went out for breakfast and met up with some friends. My wife had arranged for me to go out to lunch at Growlers with some other dads and then off to see Batman Begins. While we were out the wives hung out and watched the children. Lunch was good and the movie was better. After the movie, we got back together and went to Johnny Rockets for dinner. Good food, but perhaps not worth the prices. The dance routine was a bit amusing, though.

It was a good weekend all around.

Father's Day

My wife asked me the other day what I wanted to do for Father's Day. And to be honest, I have no idea. Fatherhood is not yet such a demanding task that I need a vaction from it. I wouldn't mind getting together with friends, but it seems as if it is more of a day to celebrate with family. There are a couple of movies that have come out recently, but I'd rather see them with my wife than without her. Maybe we'll just go out and call it a day. Anyone else have ideas?

The Man's Role in Breastfeeding

La Leche League is starting up a new group in University City. So my wife and I usually go to the group in Creve Couer, but we decided to go to the meeting last night (we're really not "La Leche League junkies", as one mother put it). It was an interesting meeting. There were three pregnant couples, a couple of new moms, and a couple of experienced moms at the meeting. The topic was "The Baby Arrives - Getting Started" and it was about how to get started, what expectations poeple had about breastfeeding, and how the experienced mothers' realities differed from their expectations. My wife and I could tell that the leaders were a bit new to being leaders - their explanations on latch and positioning were definitely not as clear as what we've seen before and the meeting was a little less interactive than we're used to. We'll be going back though. If nothing else it is much closer than our other meeting. Not that we probably won't still be going to that one. But we're not junkies.

The most interesting part of the night came at the end of the meeting. One of the dads-to-be piped up "So what's the father's role in all this?" You've never seen a more perplexed group of LLLers. At the time the more experienced folks didn't come up with a very compelling list, but with more time I've been able to come up with some more.

1. A Pillar In your home Be supportive. Especially at the beginning breastfeeding can be very stressful and frustrating. Your support does wonders for paving the way for its eventual success.
2. No one comes to the mother but through you. Play the gate keeper. It is important that mother and child get some time to bond and recover from the experience of birth. If you need to screen out well-wishing family and friends to make that happen, do it.
3. Help! I need somebody. Play the voice of reason. When my wife was experiencing trouble at first, she was determined to muddle through it on her own. It wasn't until I picked up the phone, dialed it, and placed it to her ear that she talked to someone about what was going on. And it helped.
4. Clean up on aisle 12 Clean the baby. The first diaper is kind of exciting. But no one looks forward to changing the 43rd diaper. That said, managing your baby's output is one of the only parts of the process that doesn't require that the person doing it is actively lactating. Baths are also fun and a good time to bond with your child.
5. I am a domestic god. Cooking, cleaning, and washing clothes may not be something that you are good at, but it frees up your wife to do other things like shower or sleep.
6. The Human Pacifier. Learn how to soothe your baby. When your baby is screaming, he can't eat even if he's hungry. And there is only so much that your sleep-deprived wife will be able to do. For Oliver, I discovered that my pinkie was a decent pacifier when he just needed something in his mouth to settle down. But walking, rocking, and singing are all things that dads can do as well as moms.
7. Need a hand. Be an extra set of hands. One of the "cute" things that Oliver would do when my wife went to nurse him was to cross his arms in front of his face and then complain because he couldn't eat. I was needed to lend a hand as my wife was already busy with her own hands and couldn't get to his arms.
8. Hunt and gather the pillows. When your wife is breastfeeding, she needs to bring Mohammad to the mountain rather than bring the mountain to Mohammad. Make sure that she has enough pillows so that she can keep the baby supported and herself comfortable during the feeding.
9. Fetch the child. If you opt for a separate nursery, you may be required to get up at night and get the baby when it is time for him to eat. Getting the baby seems like a small thing, but your wife doesn't have to wake up as much and will be able to go back to sleep faster after the feeding is done.

This is a small list, but it is a good starting point for things that you can do as a father to both be involved in parenting and breastfeeding.

Happy Father's Day, guys.

Time is Slipping By

This weekend when I was home, my parents showed me a DVD that they had made of all of our home movies. There are a number of things that we could do to spruce it up, from adding an audio/commentary track to adding section breaks. But what struck me most was how little of the footage there was.

Every so often I stop and kick myself for not taking oodles of pictures of Oliver. He just turned six months old and I don't think we've taken 10 pictures in the last month. We have gone to Kiddee Kandids twice, but I don't think it's quite the same thing. These are moments that won't come again and too many of them are passing by without being recorded. I'm not saying that I have to constantly have a camera in hand, but I should have it in hand more often.

It's not just for me that I want to have more pictures. My parents live in Chicago and only get to see Oliver once a month in a good month. When we were taking off last weekend, my mother gamely attempted to convince us that we needed to come back next month. Umm, no, but thanks - we do have to stay home once in a while. Pictures might help them feel like they're a little more involved.

And besides, pictures are fun to share.

A Question of status

Ever have a friend who is dating someone and you want to know how serious it is, but don't want to ask? My oldest brother is in his mid-thirties and has never been married. He's been dating the same woman for the last year or so. But no one in our family wants to be the one to ask. I guess it is as if we think that the relationship is some sort of mirage or something. I don't know, but I'm not asking.

An Addiction to Audio Books

I have a confession to make. I'm an audio book addict. I can't drive longer distances than my daily commute without popping one in. I think my addiction started in my childhood when we drove from Chicago to the East Coast with only the Star Wars radio play to keep us entertained. Later trips featured Robin Williams at the Met and Irish comedian Hal Roach. But then I rediscovered audio books when I started driving home from school. My parents gave me my first taste and I was hooked again. I'd get audio books for the trip out and the trip back. If I didn't finish during the trip I might not get out of the car at my destination or drive in circles until every last syllable had been spoken.

In all my time I've found that I have certain preferences for my audio books. Character driven dramas make me sleepy. I'm sure that Wish You Well might be a good book, but it is a terrible audiobook. Lord of the Rings (unabridged!) was good, but I found myself fast forwarding through the poems. But the best is a thriller. Give me a little suspense and a red herring or two and I can get from Chicago to St. Louis without a bathroom break. This last weekend I got to listen to Jeffery Archer's Kane and Abel and its sequel, The Prodigal Daughter. Good pulp. Tom Clancy fares well in audio book form. I haven't been able to find many fantasy novels in audio book form, but I've got my eye out.

Deep Throat Revealed For Fame and Fortune

In the history of the United States there have only been a few unsolved mysteries. I'm not talking about local murders that have gone unsolved, but questions that have bugged the populace. Who shot Kennedy if not Oswald? Who is "Deep Throat"? Unless you live under a rock, you probably know that Deep Throat has been revealed as Mr. Felt. Scratch one mystery from the National consciousness.

I don't have a problem with his identity. If a disgruntled FBI man wants to help out the press, bless his heart. What I have a problem with is his relatives deciding to out him for fame and fortune when for the last thirty years he had not decided to reveal his secret. The Washington Post was concerned that he might not be able to make an informed decision because in his declining years he is not quite as sharp as he might have otherwise been. But that and his obvious desires to not be known as Deep Throat were not enough to dissuade his relatives from revealing the truth to "get some money to pay the bills."

Ahh capitalism.

Teething again

I was all psyched to take Oliver hashing last night. But it wasn't to be. First, the night was moist. That is to say that it started by pounding rain and finished with on and off showers. I don't have a problem with Oliver experiencing nature, but I'd prefer that we wait a while before he gets his next cold from being cold and wet. Second, my wife ended up coming home late as she was delayed both by weather conditions and Cardinals fans. Third, Oliver was very fussy last night. Whenever he wasn't being held or was actively sleeping, he was crying. Fed, dry, engaged - didn't matter. The last time he was like this he was cutting his first teeth. So he is probably getting in some more now. I couldn't just leave her to take care of him by herself when he is like that so I stayed home. As it is, Oliver will just have to make his triumphant hashing debut another time.

At last

We finally got clearance from the doctor to take Oliver in the running stroller! I'm really excited by this turn of events as it allows me to get in exercise while entertaining/caring for him at the same time. And I can take him hashing.

I've already been a bad running parent though. The other day we took off for the park and I forgot to bring something to cover him up. It wasn't a problem until I started heading into the sun and his chubby little legs were sticking out from the bottom of the stroller. After several moments of deliberation I took off my shirt (mmmm sweaty) and covered up his legs with it. I'm sure that it wasn't necessarily the most pleasant sight for the other runners in the park, but as far as I was able to tell no accidents were caused by blindness from accidently gazing at my pale flesh. Mental note - next time sunscreen and a blanket.