Hello to the Big Kid Bed

And just like that, the crib is gone. The baby is a child. Parenthood is filled with moments when you realize your kid is getting older — that the sands of time wait for no one and spill through the hour glass as quick or slow as they please. When times are bad, they slacken to a trickle. And when things are good, they slip through as if powered by jet fuel. We bought my daughter a big kid bed a few weeks back when we determined that her legs won’t stop growing and that if she keeps sleeping in her crib, we’ll eventually wake up one morning to find her so pinned in between the bars that the jaws of life will be required to cut her out. You never know when a toddler’s growth spurt might kick in.

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Do Brownies and Spinach Mix?

Thanks a lot, Jessica Seinfeld. You just had to go and write a cookbook, becoming a big food sensation in the process. Thanks! Now I’m eating spinach brownies and hearing about chicken nuggets with sweet potato or beet puree. (Actually, that sounds kind of good.) I’ve had apple sauce muffins with carrots stuffed in, and chocolate chip cookies with garbanzo beans tucked discreetly inside. Garbanzo beans in cookies! I have no idea what else is coming down the pipeline, but my wife has become a baking fool. And it’s all because of you. If you haven’t heard of Jessica Seinfeld, she’s the wife of comedian Jerry Seinfeld and now has a mega-popular cookbook out called “Deceptively Delicious.” It’s all about showing you how to “deceptively” work vegetables into everyday food so your children (and stubborn husbands) will eat them. (For the record, I eat my spinach and love broccoli. The irony is that my wife is the one who’s never been a fan of vegetables. But I guess children change all of that.)

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As the Marathon Looms

Fear. Trepidation. Panic. Dehydration. Heat stroke. Butterflies. Muscle spasms. Leg cramps. Abdominal cramping. Ear lobe cramping. Fever. The shakes. Ingrown toenails. Deviated knee joint spontaneous combustion. Nausea. Indigestion. Frizzy hair. Anxiety. Terror. Abject terror! No, this was not the result of my marathon training. (For the record, I’m training to run the Marine Corps marathon in Washington D.C. this Oct. 28.) Rather, all these feelings and reactions hit me while walking around the block last weekend right after my neighbor John yelled out to me from his porch: “Hey, you hear they canceled the Chicago Marathon mid-way through because of the heat?” Then, for added effect, “Someone died.” Actually, it turns out that the individual died from a heart condition, but that didn’t make me feel any better. Death from heat during a marathon or death from heart condition during a marathon: which do you prefer? Any way you look at it, he DIED … in the marathon. (Here come the stomach cramps again!)

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And We All Get Sick Together

The family that gets sick together … well … uses a whole lot of tissue. They do stay together, but only because they get quarantined and no one wants to come near them. No worries. We don’t want to share our hacking with anyone else anyway. We’ll enjoy it all to ourselves. The bug has been going around, and it hit our house a bit over a week or so ago. It started with my wife, moved on to my kid and now I’m battling through it. (I’ve also noticed that the termites haven’t been feeling so well and even lost their appetite. It’s quite sad.) We’re mostly cured, but it’s been a humdinger. Nothing too debilitating or disastrous. More like disgusting. A lot of runny noses, sneezing and some really bad hair days. (Why does having a cold always take out its full brunt on your hair?) I’ve found that having a sick toddler can be quite, well, exciting. Everybody warns you that toddlers will get sick, but nobody ever prepares you for what it will be like — how bad it will be.

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