Zoo heat

We took Lyla to the zoo and sweated with approximately 76,304 other Twin Cities families.

Lyla had a chance to touch goats but refused. While other children begged their parents for more food pellets from the machine, Lyla said "No no" and "Up peez." Likewise, when the old man held up a squealing piglet, Lyla declined. So we didn't have to stand in the mile-long line for hand washing.

But then came the chickens, her current favorite animal. Her hands got a good scrub after covering every inch of those cages.


Then she sat on a tractor...


...and slept all the way home.

Dirty Bakers Square/Roughing It

I am 31 years old today.

Lyla took me to Bakers Square for a pre-shower birthday breakfast while Julie slept in. Eating out alone with a toddler involves a lot of multitasking. I have a distinct advantage as a left-handed person because due to the mild, innocent, but nonetheless frequent persecution we face our whole lives (scissors, stick shifts, gas and break pedals, lawn mower pull cords, the hand smudges caused by pencils and erasable pens, lecture room desks, cameras, rental golf clubs, the way pages turn in books, the return key, the delete key, most computer mouses, not to mention the idea that anything correct is "right"), I am more ambidextrous than most of the right-handed majority. I can feed Lyla with a spoon and myself with a fork all at once.

In other birthday-related news, Julie is a very sweet person. She made me a coupon that says "Grab the tent, gas up the stove, plunk the wife in the car and get ready for a weekend camping extravaganza in beautiful Grand Marais, MN. Child not included." In the 11 years I've known her, she has never once agreed to go camping with me. I think her version of "roughing it" is a hotel without room service. "Happy camper" is a phrase that does not compute, an oxymoron. For her to arrange Lyla-sitting for a weekend in July and to offer to go camping with me in a tent on the dirt in the woods by Lake Superior is a very, very thoughtful and amazing gift.

So I immediately went online and booked us a suite in a bed and breakfast. Hey, I'm thoughtful too. We'll rough it as a family when Lyla's older. Until then, it is my birthday decree that a weekend away from Lyla will involve comfort, class, and someone making us breakfast. Doesn't change how cute it is that Julie psyched herself up to sleep in a tent.

Maybe I'll set one up for us in the front yard.

The cheap sports

It was empty. At least we don't leave shot glasses and crack pipes lying around.

In about four years, we will sign Lyla up for sports. I hope she has a natural affinity for the cheap ones and rejects the pricey ones like rhythmic gymnastics and yacht racing.

I was in track when I was little. "Hey, see that big oval on the ground? Go run around it." That's the sport. "See that pit of sand? Run and jump into it." You're five years old. Why do you need judo lessons when there's sand to jump into?

I was also in soccer, which is exactly like track only very disorganized. "See that field? Go run around in it. You're the midfielder." There was a ball, but I don't remember ever getting to kick it. At halftime there were oranges. At the end of the game, Mountain Dew. Lyla would like that, and it wouldn't require us to buy golf clubs or a polo horse.

"Dad, I've outgrown my racing bike again."

"Oh really, honey? Here's a stick. Why don't you go hit some rocks with it?"

Gnome love

"Are you helping Mama water the plants?"

"Yeah."

Lyla grabbed Julie's hand. "High-dint!"

They walked down the driveway and across the street to say hello to the hydrant. Then they went to the park, where Lyla refused to step in the sand with her sandals.

"They're called sandals because they go in the sand."

"No! Up peez!"

And back home, Lyla met a gnome and flirted mercilessly with it.




In other news, last night Julie defeated the garish sun by draping blankets over Lyla's window. The dear child slept until 6:55.

The damn sun

Lyla did sleep in until 5:55 this morning, a time that would have made me barf in horror a couple months ago. This morning the extra 15 minutes of listening to white noise on her baby monitor was like placing a seashell against my ear and imagining the ocean's vast calm. I even got to make coffee without Lyla offering constant advice as to which food I might consider fetching her next.

"Teez."

"We don't eat cheese for breakfast."

"TEEZ! CA-CA!"

"How about some Kix?"

"Elmo!"

There was just the whoosh of the monitor, the grinding of the coffee beans, and the dogs' paws scrabbling across the floor.

In yesterday's post about how Lyla wakes up too early, my friend Rachel commented that the sun is bright. "Uh, the sun shines through Lyla's window, dumb-ass," was her basic gist.

A Google search reveals that the sun has been rising at around 5:33 recently. Meanwhile, I'm sitting here stroking my imaginary chin beard and wondering why Lyla begins serenading the world at 5:40. It's the damn sun! All the talk of roosters yesterday and it didn't occur to me that Lyla truly is thinking like one.

So I'm going to paint the nursery windows with tar.

Here comes the rooster

The alarm clock that lives in Lyla's brain somehow got reset and now buzzes at 5:40 every morning. What happened to the courteous sleeper I once knew? Who replaced her with this rooster?

Julie's theory is that if we put Lyla to bed at 7:30 instead of 7:00, she'll sleep 30 minutes later in the morning. Didn't we try this once? Didn't it result in very bad things? Plus, here's what we saw at 6:25 this evening:


Still, tonight we entertained the child with extra books and games of taco, which, if you recall, is the highly intellectual game where we place Lyla on a blanket, count to three, and then quickly pull the sides of it over her head as though she's the meat in the tortilla. She requests the game each night by pointing at the blanket folded over the rocker and saying "Tah-toe!" Why do I get the feeling she will drop out of law school to work at Chipotle?

Mmm, Chipotle...

At 7:27 I sang her the ABCs and Row, Row, Row Your Boat, and put her in the crib. Just for the record, I don't think this will work at all. I predict Lyla will cock-a-doodle-doo at 5:00 AM sharp, just to show us we're idiots.

Cigarettes

We got Lyla a dump truck so she won't be a total girly-girl like her mama. When you press the button on the side, the truck shakes and then rolls across the floor. It reminds me of the awesome toys I did not have when I was younger.

With yesterday being the hottest May 24th in the history of Minnesota, we were not the only ones whose air conditioning decided to pull a Tim Pawlenty and stop working for the good of the people. The heat wave is breaking up, though, so I postponed the guy coming out because doing it Sunday on my birthday would feel depressingly middle-aged.

But tonight it was hot enough to fry an egg on your face, so we picnicked upstairs in Lyla's nursery where the window unit kept us cool.


Of course, Lyla sees that binky in her crib and she has to have it. Suck suck suck. Julie tried telling her that big girls don't use binkies. "See, Lyla? Dada doesn't use a binky. Dada's a big girl."


They're cigarettes for babies, I've decided, minus the chemical element. I wonder if they sell cigarette-shaped binkies with inch-long ashes hanging off. That would be hilarious in that horrifying way that some things are hilarious. We could give her a binky-cigarette, teach her how to sneer, and watch her push that dump truck around like some bad-ass version of Bob the Builder.

(Oh dear.)

Hot hot hot

Today was so hot that daycare put a third pigtail in Lyla's hair. It was in the back, not unlike a rat tail.

Our central air conditioning is totally ineffective in 95-degree weather. My dad says it's the "A-coil," but I'm pretty sure B through Z are screwed too. A guy is coming on Sunday to putter around with it. Sunday is also my 31st birthday; it seems to me that getting overcharged for A-coil maintenance is a very 31-year-old thing to do.

Luckily we still have two window AC units from our old apartment days. They are now both blasting, one in our bedroom and the other in Lyla's nursery. When I pay this month's electrical bill, I'm going to buy myself a birthday cake from Dairy Queen...that is, if there's any money left.

Found

Those are washable markers. She's remarkably good at staying on the paper, though. I still picture leaving her alone for two minutes and coming back to find her decorating a very porous wall or coloring her eyeballs or something.

Now if you'll excuse me, the series finale of Lost is on.

Dirty Perkins

Before Lyla, Julie and I would go to Perkins on Saturday before showering. The food there tastes better when you're dirty. Their slogan is "Always Something Fresh and New," so you don't have to be.

This morning while Julie slept in, I took Lyla out for dirty Perkins.


We got there before 7:00, so Lyla was easily the youngest person there, and I was easily second-youngest. The nine remaining diners tied for third-youngest at approximately 97 years of age.

Lyla's child menu french toast sticks came with bacon on the side. Is Perkins in cahoots with heart surgeons? I substituted fruit for the bacon and then sheepishly (piggishly, rather) ordered bacon on the side for my meal. "Lyla, do as Dada says, not as Dada does." Of course, all Lyla wanted was my bacon, so I gave her a tiny piece and then crammed the remaining 3.8 pieces in my mouth so she couldn't demand more.

"Mo' peez," she said after swallowing the bacon pellet.

"Aw gohng," I said with my mouth bacon-stuffed. Have you ever had 3.8 strips of bacon in your mouth at once? I think it's what heaven tastes like.

So she ate every grape in her fruit bowl and avoided all the honeydew melon and cantaloupe. Then she sucked the jelly off some of my toast, barely touched her french toast sticks (a plus since they're about as good for you as bacon), and said she was all done but sat there patiently while I syringed two cups of coffee into my femoral artery.

I think this will be a Saturday ritual: dad and daughter dirty breakfast.

In other food-related news, Lyla seems to have a moral objection to hot foods. It's to the point where she expects you to blow on her food no matter what it is. This is Mama blowing on bread and hummus.


And now she expects me to blow on it.


By the way, check out our new refrigerator in the background. We stole it from the the Jetsons. "Lyla, the display on the door says that the hummus is 37 degrees. Mama's breath is 98.6 degrees. Mama's actually making your hummus hotter."

Lyla nods her head. "Hot!"

Dynamic

Lyla is the most dynamic dinner companion I've ever known.

18 and life

18 hours old (give or take):


18 days old:


18 weeks old:


Today Lyla is 18 months old:


In a blink she'll be 18 years old. She's 1/12 of the way to adulthood.

The new normal

At 3:30 this morning, Lyla woke up and started yelling from the crib. Rough translation: "Get me the fuck out of here!"

I hope this is just a stage and not the new normal. Before the stage, she'd fuss half-heartedly for 30 seconds and go back to sleep out of courtesy to her parents and a mature appreciation for sleep's inherent benefits. Now she has discovered that her screams have great power, and she vigorously rejects the Spider-Man mantra that with great power comes great responsibility.

So I entered the nursery and surveyed the scene. Lyla was standing in the crib, binky in hand, no vomit and no failed diaper.

"Mama!"

"No, just me. Do you need medicine? Do your teeth hurt?"

"No!"

I picked her up, sang the ABCs, and laid her back down. "Good night."

"Mama!"

As I closed the door behind me, she began to howl.

In our bedroom across the hall, Julie and I listened. It wasn't the scared cry or the in-pain cry, but the mad cry. How long do you wait it out when it's 3:30 in the morning?

Five minutes into it, Julie rolled out of bed and crept across our room. As her hand touched our doorknob, the crying stopped. We froze. Julie tiptoed back to bed.

The silence continued. I felt Julie settle into sleep beside me. I waited for Lyla to cry again, but it never happened. Almost three hours later, Lyla woke up at the appropriate time and in a cheerful mood.


Not me. I never got back to sleep.

Channeling

I brought Lyla to the softball fields behind our house for some inspiration.

See, I played pitcher and first base as a kid, so my past is full of unrealized potential and dashed dreams. I plan to channel those issues into unrealistic expectations for my daughter's level of interest and skill in sports. I've already started to put money aside for her therapist.

Meanwhile, clearly she's improving.

Murdering the ball

Should we be concerned that Lyla went at the ball with the same arm motion that Norman Bates used to stab Janet Leigh's character in the shower scene in Psycho? (Trivia: Remember the sister's name? Lila.)

I had visions of a quick tee-ball tutorial followed by hours of hitting and fielding, and by the end we would decide the tee was unnecessary. Maybe I'd teach her fast-pitch or, at the very least, bunting.


"Okay Lyla, Dada's going to let go now. Hit that ball! Kill it!"



Clearly she was distracted by the beautifully mowed grass. We moved to the driveway.



"Yes, Lyla. You tipped over the tee. Dada's very impressed."

Then Lyla deserted Team-Division-One-Scholarship and joined her mother on Team-Not-Paying-Attention.





It's okay. We have all summer.