1.) Immunization shots pretty much suck for everyone.
2.) Keeping a baby awake is as difficult as making a baby go to sleep.
3.) "Size 1" diapers don't fit.
4.) "Newborn" size diapers don't fit.
5.) There should be a "size 0.5" diaper.
6.) Remember when the baby had a cold?
7.) Well, both Mommy and Daddy caught it.
8.) Dr. Brown's bottles leak in the bottle warmer, creating a burnt milky mess.
9.) Glad we got the Advent bottles with the pump.
10.) Still practically petrified about the plane ride this coming Friday.
1.) Apparently it's next to impossible to sell a bassinet on Craigslist.
2.) Although she's as hard to rouse as her mother, once she's up there's no one happier.
3.) Regardless of position - vertical, horizontal, at an angle - if it's big enough, the poo will go up her back.
4.) Holding 11 pounds of near dead weight for three+ hours actually is tiring.
5.) I am going to be *so* buff in three months.
6.) She likes Brian Wilson's Smile, except for "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow."
7.) I kind of agree with her on #6.
8.) Something happened last night around 10:00 that was very upsetting. Oh, and the night before. I'm nervous about tonight.
9.) Car seat time is getting better...sort of.
10.) Daddy gets overcome with abject horror thinking about the plane ride next week.
Last night the wife and I had an engaging (for us) conversation about the merits of the Beatles U.S. albums versus the U.K. editions. This has been covered by countless articles and box set liner notes before, so I'm sure our discussion wasn't groundbreaking in the scheme of Fab Four scholarship, but it was nice to get all music geekish just the same.
Unlike most of my peers, I grew up with the U.K. versions of the Beatles catalog. This is due to the fact that my father, at an auction in the early 80s, won a copy of the Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab's Beatles box set. These were the Beatles records my nascent geekery was cut upon and are now the most prized possessions in my collection. Even though I also had access my parents' U.S. editions of some albums (Rubber Soul, Beatles IV, The Early Beatles) I just never listened to them. Why should I bother when pristine remastered copies were only a couple of inches away? Because of this, when the catalog was issued on CD in the late 80s (high time for a reissue campaign, IMO), I didn't even flinch when the discs has the U.K. running order and song selection. It's what I knew.
A couple of years ago Capitol released collections of the U.S. albums as yet another shameless cash-in and to give American fans a taste of albums that they were familiar with. My friend Ken acquired both boxes and endlessly extolled their superiority over the U.K. versions. His arguments basically centered around the "punchier" mixes and more concise running order and lengths. I enjoyed the burns he made for me, primarily for their novelty. My wife, on the other hand, had the nostalgic reaction that the boxes were primarily designed to create.
A couple of weeks ago I got the inclination to replicate the U.S. running order of Rubber Soul in an iTunes playlist. I made it and promptly forgot about it. (I've been preoccupied lately.) Yesterday, however, I decided to make the same playlist on my work computer. Going whole-hog, I replicated the Yesterday & Today and U.S. Revolver sequences as well. I listened to them non-stop during my work day, which lead to the aforementioned dinner time conversation.
Basically, I was able to listen to these "editions" without the novelty factor. What I heard confirmed Ken and the wife's enthusiasm (minus the mix part, as I used the U.K.-version CDs for my playlists). Yesterday & Today is a very solid collection, Revolver is much more concise and rocking, but Rubber Soul, with the deletion of four songs ("What Goes On," "Nowhere Man," "Drive My Car," "If I Needed Someone") and addition of two from the U.K. version of Help! ("I've Just Seen A Face" and "It's Only Love") becomes quite possibly the greatest folk-rock album of the era, rivialing even The Byrds' early efforts. (Dylan's in a category of his own on this, so I'm not even trying to compare him here.) At 29 minutes, it's one of the most enjoyable half hours ever committed to wax. The U.K. versions seem meandering and even over-long (a whole 35 minutes!) by comparison.
After dinner, we got out my Dad's copy of Rubber Soul and placed it on the music stand next to the stereo. I bet I know what the Mrs. will be rocking out to with Boo this afternoon.
(Postscript - Despite it's musical merits, of which there are many, the lyrics to "The Word" just don't hold up in the cold light of 2006. Oof!)
1.) You think having a cold as an adult sucks? Imagine having a cold as a newborn.
2.) Either shepherd's pie, chocolate milk, or having a bottle after "bedtime" makes baby so gassy she stays up all night. (the first two were consumed via proxy)
3.) FOUR HOURS OF NON-INTERRUPTED SLEEP!!
4.) Mom's been trying to get baby to love Tommy since Week 2. This has finally paid off in the form of play time to "We're Not Gonna Take It."
5.) Which is much better than loving the movie, which was part of the initial attempt.
6.) Midnight Cowboy does not make for good movie watching during early fatherhood.
7.) One smile. That's all it takes to turn your humble narrator into a quivering mass of "awwwwwww."
8.) Luvs aren't the best diapers on the market.
9.) Getting puked on is starting, slowly, to become un-traumatic.
10.) Getting pooped on, however....
What are your top 5 CDs/albums of 2006?
Submitted by eliz. s.
In no particular order -
Bob Dylan - Modern Times
Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam
The Roots - Game Theory
Crack City Rockers - The Good Life (Caveat: I sing some backing vocals on this, and yes I think it's one of the best albums I've heard this year.)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Mozart 250: A Celebration
1.) As they do not understand language, and therefore consider spoken conversation to be white noise, newborns do surprisingly well at post-Thanksgiving parties.
2.) She's much easier, mood-wise, during daylight hours.
3.) #3 may entirely be the result of my mood during daylight hours, in regard to reacting to infantile fussiness.
4.) We're either in some amazingly glorious sweet spot of time, or she just loves (or doesn't mind) all kinds of music. Crack City Rockers, ahoy!
5.) After much deliberation, we've gotten to the point where we can watch a movie without worrying about the baby.
6.) #5 is the result of the baby "watching" the movie with us.
7.) The cat likes the bassinet more than the baby does.
8.) Time to Craigslist the bassinet.
9.) The soporific qualities of turkey do not translate to breast milk, tragically.
10.) Leaking aside, adding the occasional bottle feed isn't traumatic in the least.
1.) Waking up only three times during the night (at 1:00, at 3:00, at 5:00) can seem like a good thing.
2.) None of the primary texts out there talk about how freaking hard it is to breastfeed, and I'm not even the one doing it.
3.) The younger of your two cats will act like a jealous two-year-old, if given the opportunity.
4.) Go Thanksgiving shopping at 8:00 on a Saturday night. The only other people at the store are other "new family types" without lives and dirt hipsters.
5.) The Baby Bjorn is a Godsend.
6.) Being approached by strangers who ogle and fuss over your child is something to not be freaked out by.
7.) At least until she's of walking age.
8.) A bit of Bushmills makes fussy hour happy hour (for Dad).
9.) When Mommy calls you at work and informs you that she and baby have just bathed together, it makes you feel left out.
10.) When Mommy tells you that baby just crapped all over her towel, it makes you feel okay to be left out.
1.) Thrush is very bad for baby.
2.) Thrush is worse for mommy.
3.) I now understand my mother's behavior when I had the flu two years ago.
4.) By the nth time you've been peed on, it almost doesn't matter...almost.
5.) Branching out musically from Mozart and other "safe" classical artists. She enjoys Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake. This might not bode well. I'll try Prince later.
6.) The pattern made on the wall by the blinds is more interesting than Where the Wild Things Are.
7.) An OB's nurse practitioner knee jerk "overreacting new parent" manner indicates need, perhaps, for new OB.
8.) These 21 days seem, simultaneously, the longest and shortest three weeks of my life.
9.) Four-shot lattes don't cut the mustard any more.
10.) Bath time is my favorite time.
