Baby's 13th Flight

When we woke up today (very early), baby had been on 12 airplane flights in his first 9 months of life. Today were flights #13 and #14 and the first flights since baby learned to crawl. We were a little worried this morning of how he would handle a three hour flight where he couldn't move around a lot, but baby did really well. He didn't sleep at all on flight 13, which is odd for him - he'll usually sleep most of the flight. He slept through all of flight 14 though. All 50 minutes of it.

We are now in Midland, MI visiting my wife's brother and his family. We went out for ice cream tonight and on the way back to the house my wife noticed that all of the traffic lights were blinking red or yellow. Evidently after 10 PM the town switches all the traffic lights from their normal green/yellow/red function to a blinking yellow or blinking red. Crazy huh?

We'll be out of town for the next week, so look for a new ward's tempos tomorrow on the other blog.

Mountain West Burrito Review

Today I had lunch at Mountain West Burrito. It's a relatively new Mexican place in a gas station off State Street on the ProvOrem hill. It's one of those sustainable ingredients, Kangen water, free range places that prides itself in really fresh food, and then charges you extra for it.

I had the giant steak chimichanga ($14) and got a plain cheese quesadilla ($3) for baby. The food was really good and very fresh. I was super impressed with the speedy service. By the time I had ordered, filled my drink, and sat down, my meal arrived at my table. I usually don't order a chimichanga at a restaurant because I'm often wary of the freshness of the oil used to fry it. One look around Mountain West Burrito made me pretty confident that the oil was relatively fresh. The restaurant is very clean - especially for being in a gas station.

All this having been said, I still prefer Beto's to Mountain West for two reasons:

Value - At Beto's, a huge breakfast burrito and large quesadilla will set me back $5 instead of $17. Beto's doesn't take AMEX though, and Mountain West does.

Taste - The food at Mountain West tasted really fresh, but it lacked an indescribable quality that I enjoy in Mexican food. Is it possible that ingredients can be too fresh? Maybe it's something about week-old bacon, thrice-fried potatoes, or eggs and ham of questionable origin that makes Beto's burritos more tasty. I don't know exactly what it is, but the Mountain West burritos just didn't taste as good as burritos from Beto's.

I will admit though, that I'm not feeling the sickly aftershocks of a Beto's meal now, 3 hours after Mountain West. Usually a Beto's meal will leave me feeling slightly ill, but maybe that's the cost of perfection. I guess it's a choice between eating well and feeling well.

Two Nights of Peace

The last two nights have been incredibly peaceful. Now that my brother has moved next door, baby is back in his crib in his room.

Sunday night I didn't turn on the baby monitor in our room. In my sleepy stupor, I couldn't figure out why putting the power cord in the earphone jack did not recharge the battery so I could turn it on. I assumed it was broken. So at 7:20 Monday morning, when we finally heard baby crying, we got him to feed him. We'll never know how long he'd been crying or if he really made it through the night.

Last night the wife forgot to turn on the baby monitor in baby's room, so though I turned on the receiver in my room, it was futile. At 7:25 this morning we heard him crying so I went in to get him, but again, we don't know how long he had been crying or if this was the first time he'd woken up. I guess we could go next door and ask the boys there if they heard him, but I think it's better just not knowing.

I guess it's not great to have him unmonitored during his sleep. We wouldn't want something bad to happen to him, of course. But every morning he's still alive - so far so good.

Communal Review

Last night we had dinner at Communal with some friends. We'd been to Communal before and weren't overly impressed with it, but we figured we'd give it another chance.

Our reservation was for 8:00 PM but our table was still occupied when we arrived at 8:05. We were eventually seated at 8:40 with a few apologies from the wait staff. We ordered our (overpriced) meal by 8:50 and the food came to the table at 9:30. I ordered the tri-tip and mashed potatoes and the wife ordered the pork chop and cauliflower custard. The food was good, not great, and the portions were kind of small. Our total for dinner was $68.

I have a love/hate relationship with Communal. I like the idea of a non-chain local restaurant that uses sustainable ingredients and whatever, but don't feel like Communal executes that idea very well. The wait staff is kind of unfriendly and the whole atmosphere is a little pretentious. The food is pretty expensive for what you get and the menu is very small (16 items).

Cleaning Checks

We manage the apartment complex that we live in and occasionally are asked by the management to do cleaning checks and check-outs. Today was check-outs. Since the wife is at work today, I got to do check-outs, which takes practically all day.

It's interesting that some people will really do their best to clean their place, while others won't lift a finger. This was my first time doing check-outs, so I may have been too harsh or lenient, I'm not really sure.

I put baby down for his afternoon nap and took the baby monitor with me to check a few apartments. Does that make me a bad dad? I locked the door when I left, and I assumed the baby monitor would reach to the other apartments in our complex. When I came back he was still breathing. No harm done.

Now that people have moved out of their apartments, there is room for my brother to move in. So he'll be leaving us tomorrow and moving next door... which makes tonight our last supper. We're going all out. He gets to pick anything and we'll eat it or go get it.

Treats

Wife came home early from work today so that proud mothers and fathers of graduating students could park in her parking spot. Upon returning home she got busy in the kitchen making marshmallow cereal treats. This is not a completely uncommon occurrence. When I noticed that they were done, I helped myself to one. Big mistake.

Evidently she wasn't making them for me. She's taking them to work tomorrow. She was appalled that I didn't ask before taking one. Now the question is: Whose is the burden? Do I have the burden to ask her, or does she have the burden to warn me?

She says, "What? I'm supposed to tell you as I'm making them that they are not for you?"

Yes. Obviously.

MacGyver

I mentioned earlier that at times I listen to music with profane lyrics with baby in the room. Well recently my laptop speakers broke - probably God's punishment for my sinful ways.

So I turned to reruns of Law & Order and NCIS to entertain me. These shows aren't the most... pacifistic in nature, but I enjoy them nonetheless. They say the average child has witnessed 8,000 murders by the age of 12... well baby has probably already filled his quota. I thought about keeping a tally, so I could see how accurate that number (8,000) is, but then we watched Taken with Liam Neeson and I lost count in the first 5 minutes of his trip to Paris.

My brother is obsessed with MacGyver and has all the seasons on DVD. Who doesn't like MacGyver though? I mean, what's not to like? He's a dude with a mullet that goes around wreaking havoc on commies with his pocket knife and whatever else is lying around. And most episodes have him helping a "hot" girl that he usually kisses once in the episode. I say "hot" because they are attractive in the style of the 80's. Big hair, weird clothes. Not someone you'd see today and think dang.

So we've been watching MacGyver lately and baby really likes it. He especially likes the theme song. He starts dancing and bouncing up and down every time he hears it. I'm hoping some of the show's material rubs off on him so that he can be awesome someday when I give him a pocket knife.

I figure it'll be a good baptism present. The wife will want to give him something lame like scriptures, but I'll give him something that can get him out of a Federal Supermax prison.

Saliva Shower

We own a silicone pastry brush that has somehow made its way into baby's box of shame. Remember that box that we used to put baby in? He doesn't spend as much time in it as he used to, so we use it to store his belongings. By belongings I mean things he seems to enjoy that he's left his mark on. Babies leave their mark similarly to dogs, but with saliva instead of urine. So over the last few weeks, baby has collected a number of random objects in his box of shame and one of those items is a silicone pastry brush. It's technically a silicone basting brush from our turkey kit, but that's not important.

So anyways. This silicone brush looks something like this:

 

Baby likes to take the brush and put it in his mouth. He was sitting next to me on the couch playing with the brush this morning when all of a sudden my computer screen was covered in water droplets. Then a second later, a second wave of liquid hit my face, covering my glasses. Baby figured out how to use the bristles of the brush as tiny elastic catapults to fling saliva all over the place. Needless to say, the brush has made its way back to our drawer and out of the box.

Brother Poop

So my brother has been staying with us for a few weeks until his apartment opens up. He was out of the country when baby was born, so this has been his first opportunity to meet him and spend time with him. It's been fun to watch them interact. In fact, my brother has offered to watch baby a few days a week in the morning so I can work a few hours at the office.

This arrangement should work pretty well for the spring/summer, though we'll need to figure things out again in the fall when both my brother and I are taking classes again. The wife and I are pretty confident that my brother will do a good job with baby; he's taken to being an uncle quite naturally... for the most part.

There's one thing about babies that he's struggling with... poop. Now that we're feeding baby mostly solid foods, he's been pooping a few times a day and they are super nasty and smelly. My brother can barely handle it. The fact that there is poop somewhere other than inside the human body or the toilet boggles his mind.

This morning my brother was playing with baby and noticed a familiar odor. He looked down the back of baby's diaper and saw a little poo (still contained by the diaper) and flipped out. He started yelling, "There's poop! Poop! Poop in his butt crack! I see poop! Right there!" Then he started gagging and had to leave the room. From the other room he yelled, "I don't think I'm going to be able to have kids... not if they poop like that."

We'll keep working with him...

Baby's 1st Beto's

Brother and I took baby to Beto's today. If you are unfamiliar with Beto's, I pity your sad existence. Beto's is home to some of the best Mexican food in ProvOrem. Brother and I each had a breakfast burrito and baby had a quesadilla. It was awesome.

Golf Ball

Since the Masters last weekend, baby has been playing with some of my golf balls. He'll chase them around the kitchen and family room. I let him use my Titleist Pro V1s, because let's face it - I'm too scared to.

Well a few minutes ago I was going to throw one into the kitchen so he could chase it around and he moved into my throwing range and I hit him in the head.

Confessions of a Bad Dad - The Pencil

Forgive me Blogger, for I have sinned. It's been 2 days since my last confession.

My baby just ate a pencil. Five minutes ago I looked over at him and he had a pen in his mouth (or what I thought was a pen). I just grabbed it, and it's a light blue pencil. But not just any pencil - it's a "Blue Water Soluble Pencil." So when I say that my baby ate a pencil, he actually ate it. That is to say that his saliva dissolved the "lead" of this writing device, and it's now a hollow tube. There is light blue pencil "lead" swirling down his esophagus into his stomach.

Go me.

I wonder how that will turn (come) out.

The End?

I have done bookkeeping and accounting for a certain company for the last five years, both at the office and from home. For the last few years, I've worked primarily from home for a few reasons, (1) it's more convenient with school and (now) a baby, and (2) they ran out of desks at the office.

Well today I was told that they want to bring me back in. I need to do my work at the office from now on. No more going days without wearing pants. No more showering once a week. It will be quite a change to return to society.

This will dramatically change things in our life from now on so we're deciding how to proceed. There are a few options:
- Find someone to watch the baby during the day and go work at the office. That would be the end of "Stay at Home Sven."
- Quit my job of 5+ years and stay at home with the kid. Find odds and ends ways of earning money from home (random legal research projects, ratemysinglesward.com, etc.).
- Wife quits her job and stays home with the kid, and I go to work. This is probably the worst options since our current (awesome) health insurance comes from her work.
- Or we could do a mixture of the first two and I could go into the office part-time.

Of course if more people read my stupid blog, I could sell advertising and never have to work again. Wouldn't that be nice?

Diapers in the Cereal

We usually have an empty grocery bag hanging on the doorknob where we place dirty diapers. Then I take the bag out to the dumpster each day. Sometimes when we finish a box of cereal, we'll fill the empty cereal box with diapers and other odd pieces of garbage and put it by the door so that I take it to the dumpster.

The other day the wife went to the cupboard for a box of cereal and pulled out a box filled with nasty diapers and random garbage. I wonder how long that had been there.

Confessions of a Bad Dad - Indian Food

Forgive me Blogger, for I have sinned. It's been 11 days since my last confession.

Tonight we went out with some friends for Indian food (Gandhi, not Squanto). The wife and I love Indian food, so we thought maybe baby would love it too. He really enjoyed my chicken saag and wife's lamb coconut kurma. We ordered ours mild, as neither of us have a high tolerance for spicy foods.

My friend ordered the lamb vindaloo, and he ordered it hot. He didn't finish it all, so I thought I'd try it. I did; it was very hot. So I gave baby a big spoonful of it. He didn't react at first, but after a few seconds he made a weird face and started screaming. I fed him some rice and water to help make the burning go away. Then more vindaloo.

Turkey

I love turkey. It's definitely underrated as far as a protein source. We eat it once a year and that's not enough. So last night we had some friends over for dinner and we cooked a turkey and ate it. The best part about a turkey dinner is carving the bird and picking off all the little meat pieces with your hands as you cut the big pieces for everyone else. By the time I sat down to dinner, I was already full.

Magleby's Review

Tonight we went to Magleby's in Provo for dinner. In the past we've really enjoyed Magleby's, but tonight was not impressive. We didn't get there until 8:30 or so and we were seated right away, but it took 25-30 minutes for our food to arrive once we ordered. That's a long time in a nearly empty restaurant. Furthermore, my bacon cheeseburger was medium well instead of medium and disappointingly small.

We used to love Magleby's when it was located in the Riverwoods. They had a great menu and the food always came promptly and tasted great. The menu at the new location in the Marriott Courtyard is much smaller and lacks a few of Doc's signature dishes.

Before going to the restaurant we tried to look up some information on their website (www.maglebys.com), but had trouble navigating it. It's horrible. Not only are there 10+ obvious typos on the main page, but there are a number of dead links and missing information. We couldn't even find a phone number for the Provo location. The text of the site refers to a "Locations Page" that unfortunately does not exist.

I looked up the web designer in charge of the site, and probably would have emailed him had his contact information been readily available, but it wasn't. I could either follow him on Twitter or be his friend on Facebook, neither of which I was interested in. I understand how a web guy can make grammatical errors. I have been known to make a few in my day. But this guy is in charge of the company's entire online presence. Talk about first impressions.

I know Magleby's prides itself in its local Provo recipes and homemade dishes, but the website doesn't need to look like it was written by a someone with a Utah high school education...

Stouffer's Thrift Store

We love the Stouffer's Thrift Store in Springville. They sell Nestle, Stouffer's, Buitoni, Lean Cuisine, Hot Pockets, and some other brands. You can get a family size Stouffer's lasagna for $6 and a super large 6 pound lasagna for $9. They also sell Nestle candy bars for $0.39. All of the food is safe to eat, but it's unacceptable for sale because it didn't pass quality control. Also, if the packaging is damaged, it's 20% off.

The Stouffer's/Nestle Thrift Store is at 1055 N. 1750 W. in Springville, Utah.

Hours:

Tuesday - Friday: 9 am - 5 pm
Saturday: 9 am - 4:30 pm
Closed Sunday & Monday

In the past they only took cash, but now they accept Visa & Mastercard

Mardi Gras Beads v. Necklace

When we were in New Orleans last year we acquired some Mardi Gras beads that we brought back with us. Lately the wife has been giving the beads to baby for him to play with, but she refers to them as his "necklace."

I have obvious issues with this situation. I consider myself a relatively manly man (especially now that I'm sporting a beard), and I'd like for my son to be the same. I thought that maybe if I explained to baby the significance of the beads (and what they can be exchanged for during Mardi Gras), it might rectify the situation - but wife isn't crazy about that idea. Can't imagine why.

So she'll continue to call them a necklace and I'll keep calling them the man beads.

Infanticide (Again)

I know it's wrong to kill your children (though one could make the "I-brought-you-into-this-world-I-can-take-you-out" argument), but DANG last night sucked.

My wife went to bed around 10 last night, but I stayed up till midnight finishing some work and watching Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indiana Jones never gets old. So around 3:45, baby started screaming and I turned on the white noise. He's sleeping in a Pack-n-Play in our room since my brother is in his room. He'd quiet down a little bit, and then if either of us moved in bed, even the slightest, he'd freak out.

At 5:00 he was still crying and my iPod broke. It just stopped playing the noise. The kid's incessant crying outlasted Steve Jobs. From 5 to 5:30 the silence of the night was often interrupted by baby's wailing. At 5:30, the wife decided that the 6 am rule could be broken, and she brought him to bed and fed him.

A few hours later, I am up and working. Not a great night for sleep.

New Car

My brother recently returned from a mission trip to Mexico and he's staying with us for a few weeks until his apartment opens up. He recently found a job as a bilingual customer service rep for a local company. He drove out here a few weeks ago with a new (to him) car that he bought back east. It's a bronze 2009 Toyota Matrix and it's really cool.

At least once a week, the wife complains to me about how lame our car is, and how we need to get a new one (even though the one we have works fine). Her current favorite is the Toyota Matrix, so when my brother was looking at cars, we suggested it to him. Now it sits in our apartment complex parking lot, teasing my wife - A symbol of her unattained desires.

My brother will be dating again, now that he's home, and I've given him suggestions on how to properly outfit his vehicle for maximum dating utility:
- The driver-side door compartment should be stocked with all manner of breath fresheners (mints, gum, tic tacs, Binaca, etc.) that can be grabbed and used discreetly. Also a small bottle of cologne/after shave (NOT too strong).
- The passenger-side door compartment should be stocked with things that a lady friend might ask for: gum, Kleenex, napkins, bottle of water, etc.
- The visor CD-holder should be stocked with a variety of music: top 40 hits, Michael Buble, Disney songs (learn the words), jazz/swing/dancing music (never underestimate the possibility of a spontaneous car-side dance), classical music (to give the air of sophistication), romantic love songs, and maybe an audio book (in order to appear well "read"). This music can also be loaded on an iPod for use with the car's aux port. Be sure to offer her the choice of music.
- The back seat should contain one (and only one) warm blanket. Large enough to keep both parties warm, but small enough so that they will need to huddle close together under it. It should also contain an extra jacket/sweater/hoodie (large, clean, and good-smelling). All girls look cute in a huge sweater/hoodie.
- The trunk should contain constellation maps (for stargazing), a flashlight, granola bars, IBC root beer (or other bottled soft drink), folding camping chairs, a croquet set, a Frisbee, one (and only one) umbrella, a beach towel and a roll of paper towels.

If he follows my advice, he can't go wrong.

The Doctor

Took baby to the doctor yesterday for his 9 month check-up. Baby freaked out when the doctor looked in his ears. Doctor warned me about the need to baby-proof the apartment now that baby can crawl. He told me to be careful of stairs, power outlets, low cabinets, and power cords. I had a hard time keeping a straight face when he mentioned power cords. If he only knew...

Confessions of a Bad Dad - The Bed

Forgive me Blogger, for I have sinned. It's been 1 day since my last confession.

As I've mentioned before, we do not get baby out of bed until 6 in the morning for his breakfast feeding. Then he usually falls asleep between us in bed, and wakes up anytime between 8 and 10. By then the wife is at work and I'm usually out on the couch doing work, so neither of us are aware of the exact moment he wakes up. Usually he'll make some noise that I'll hear, and I'll go in and get him. Recently though, he's found a new way to get my attention. He rolls/crawls/jumps off the bed, hits the floor, and starts screaming.

This happened last weekend and again this morning. He seems to be alright again - all of his limbs are functioning, there are no visible bruises, and only one scratch.

Maybe we should figure out a better system.