Jasmine is a kick-ass baby. She just is. She never stops smiling, especially when either Mommy or I enter the room. She never cries for no reason, and even when there IS a good reason to cry, once we do whatever she wants us to do (take me out of this crib, give me something for this annoying teething, please make Ariel get off of my head), she stops crying and smiles again. As long as no permanent harm was done, no problem. That’s how she rolls. And we love that, obviously. She’s even starting to do better with sleeping through the night. Without a doubt, after 10 months, I’m giving the kid a solid A.
That said, she took it to a whole other level the other day. Some teenager rang the doorbell and when I stupidly opened the door, she started in with a whole annoying pitch on the environment and why I should donate money to her cause and make the world safe for the whooping crane or some such thing. I don’t have a problem with environmental causes (although I’ve never fully trusted the whooping crane), but I do have a problem with people ringing my doorbell and bothering me. So I’m standing there in the doorway, holding Jasmine, listening to the pitch, just waiting for the inevitable pause that will allow me to jump in with “Hey, that’s awesome, but how about you go away now and I never see you again,” when Jasmine decides she’s heard enough. She reaches out for the door, and with one little 10-month old hand, pushes the door closed. I let it swing shut as I watched Green Girl say “but I’m not finished…” and then yep, she WAS finished. Just fantastic work on the part of Jasmine. Someday when she’s older I’m totally going to buy her something for what seems like no reason at all, and it will be a thank-you for this performance, definitely the smile of the week.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Thursday, July 21, 2011
July 21, 2011
So a few months back the family was strolling though the mall (I’ll be honest, there aren’t many instances where I feel comfortable claiming to “stroll,” but the mall and the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica are two that definitely qualify) and a local photo studio was having a promotion – you could get a session valued at $500.00 (valued by WHO is a legitimate question) for a mere 50 bucks, and they would throw in one 8X10 shot for free. We would find out later that this 8X10 picture was valued at $250.00, and yes, those of you familiar with story structure, this rather scary revelation is a harbinger of things to come. So stay tuned and pay attention.
This past Sunday was photo shoot day. We prepared for our hour of modeling with gusto, making sure the kids were bathed (as were we), lots of outfits were brought, and we even brought props for fun (Ariel’s bicycle, some red sox hats, etc.). These kinds of activities are always fairly stressful for me, between wondering whether Ariel will feel like cooperating that day and dealing with logistics, but she looks beautiful in a well-taken photo, and Jasmine’s a cutie too, and frankly, at the moment, our walls are way too bare, so I was optimistic. I figured it would generally be fine, occasionally be painful, and result in some beautiful shots of the kids and hopefully the entire family.
So how’d it go? Well, the shoot itself wasn’t exactly hassle free, but it wasn’t too bad either. Jasmine is always so easy, but she was teething and uncomfortable, so getting her to smile and stay still was challenging. Ariel was Ariel, she was awesome, difficult, cute, funny, and infuriating all at once. Say what you want, but my daughter is nothing if not versatile. We knew going in that the highlight for her would be the pictures of her while blowing bubbles (bubbles are BIG with her), and unfortunately that didn’t come until the end. So, we were treated to being asked approximately 465 times during the hour whether it was time for bubbles. So that was fun. She also has been into making strange faces lately, which isn’t a big deal at the dinner table but makes taking the perfect family picture fairly difficult. But she didn’t have any major meltdowns, and the photographer was pretty good with her, so overall, you can’t really complain.
My favorite moment came during an outfit change for Ariel, when she was changing into a red dress, and pointed at the photographer and yelled, “You can’t WAIT to see how beautiful I’m going to look!” You tell him, Ariel. You just freakin’ tell him!
But now we have to circle back to our harbinger from before. You forgot about that, didn’t you? Sure, whatever. Anyway, we finish up and they tell us to schedule an appointment in a week or two to meet with a designer to go through the images and pick out what we want. The walls of the studio are of course adorned by some of their best shots, and their framing is creative and stylish. They gave us a pamphlet showing our options. Which was great, since we were then able to start debating whether to buy a moderately sized picture of the family, or go another way and take that money and take the entire family to Hawaii for like a month. Seriously, the prices were utterly insane. $6,000.00 may be what some people pay for art, and apparently they consider their pictures “wall art,” and that’s just super, but no, that ain’t happening folks.
The bright side is we can get all the digital images separately. For $1,500.00. And we can’t DO anything with them, except look at them on the computer. So, not like a VERY bright side, no.
This past Sunday was photo shoot day. We prepared for our hour of modeling with gusto, making sure the kids were bathed (as were we), lots of outfits were brought, and we even brought props for fun (Ariel’s bicycle, some red sox hats, etc.). These kinds of activities are always fairly stressful for me, between wondering whether Ariel will feel like cooperating that day and dealing with logistics, but she looks beautiful in a well-taken photo, and Jasmine’s a cutie too, and frankly, at the moment, our walls are way too bare, so I was optimistic. I figured it would generally be fine, occasionally be painful, and result in some beautiful shots of the kids and hopefully the entire family.
So how’d it go? Well, the shoot itself wasn’t exactly hassle free, but it wasn’t too bad either. Jasmine is always so easy, but she was teething and uncomfortable, so getting her to smile and stay still was challenging. Ariel was Ariel, she was awesome, difficult, cute, funny, and infuriating all at once. Say what you want, but my daughter is nothing if not versatile. We knew going in that the highlight for her would be the pictures of her while blowing bubbles (bubbles are BIG with her), and unfortunately that didn’t come until the end. So, we were treated to being asked approximately 465 times during the hour whether it was time for bubbles. So that was fun. She also has been into making strange faces lately, which isn’t a big deal at the dinner table but makes taking the perfect family picture fairly difficult. But she didn’t have any major meltdowns, and the photographer was pretty good with her, so overall, you can’t really complain.
My favorite moment came during an outfit change for Ariel, when she was changing into a red dress, and pointed at the photographer and yelled, “You can’t WAIT to see how beautiful I’m going to look!” You tell him, Ariel. You just freakin’ tell him!
But now we have to circle back to our harbinger from before. You forgot about that, didn’t you? Sure, whatever. Anyway, we finish up and they tell us to schedule an appointment in a week or two to meet with a designer to go through the images and pick out what we want. The walls of the studio are of course adorned by some of their best shots, and their framing is creative and stylish. They gave us a pamphlet showing our options. Which was great, since we were then able to start debating whether to buy a moderately sized picture of the family, or go another way and take that money and take the entire family to Hawaii for like a month. Seriously, the prices were utterly insane. $6,000.00 may be what some people pay for art, and apparently they consider their pictures “wall art,” and that’s just super, but no, that ain’t happening folks.
The bright side is we can get all the digital images separately. For $1,500.00. And we can’t DO anything with them, except look at them on the computer. So, not like a VERY bright side, no.
Friday, July 15, 2011
July 15, 2011
There are a few sentences that every parent fears hearing come out of their kids’ mouths. “What happens when you die?” “Where do babies come from?” “Am I old enough to start dating a guy driving a Harley?” “What did Mom mean when she said we lost all our money in a ponzi scheme?” Those are the classic examples of course, but another one came tumbling out of Ariel’s mouth the other day, totally out of the blue. “Daddy, tell me a story.” Sounds innocuous, right? I mean, I read stories to her each and every night. But “TELL me a story” generally brings with it an obligation to make one up RIGHT NOW, and I suspect with Ariel there will also be the implied requirement that this story I make up RIGHT NOW be pretty darn entertaining. There probably needs to be laughs, thrills, a princess or two, maybe even a twist ending that would impress M. Night Shyamalan. How exactly am I supposed to make that happen? Sure, if this was a one-time thing, I could probably fake my way through it. You start with “Once upon a time,” you make sure to have a female heroine, a semi-scary (but not TOO scary) dragon, some magic, and a happy ending, and I should be fine. We’re not talking King Lear or even “The Usual Suspects” here. But if I know Ariel, and I’m pretty sure that I do, if that first story gets a thumbs up, many, many, many others will be requested (and obviously I’m using the word “requested”, in the way that Don Corleone and Luca Brazi requested that bandleader to sign Johnny Fontaine’s release in The Godfather). So, maybe the key is to make up a story just good enough so that she doesn’t complain, but not so good that she wants repeat performances on a nightly basis. Sounds like a job for whoever wrote the screenplay for The Hangover Part II. I wonder if he’s available.
Monday, July 11, 2011
July 11, 2011
I played a lot of games and sports with my Dad growing up. He coached some of my sports teams as well as my tennis (I was a tennis prodigy/brat) and was always willing and happy to pitch to me or play with me when he got home from work or on weekends. However, to this day the MOST FUN game I can EVER remember playing with him, at least based on how much fun I had at the time, was this incredibly simple game we played probably only once. We were at my grandmother’s apartment in NYC, in the living room. Before I go any further, yes, the game DID involve a ball, and yes, since my grandmother was like most Jewish grandmothers, the idea of us playing ball in the house was probably so frightening and inappropriate to her that I’m amazed we did it. And that she survived it. Maybe she was cooking all day and never left the kitchen.
Anyway, Dad was sitting in a chair on one side of the room, and I stood at the edge of the room by the hallway leading to the bedrooms. I don’t remember how the game started, but basically Dad threw the ball as high as the ceiling would allow, trying to get the ball over my head and into the hallway, while I tried to jump up and catch the ball or at least knock it down. I was probably 6-7 years old and probably thought I had Michael Jordan’s ability to jump and hang in the air (it seems very likely that I did), so this was a fantastic challenge. Actually, MJ was in high school at this point so let’s go with Dr. J. But I digress. The game was very fun partially because my Dad was a good athlete himself and could get the ball exactly where it needed to go to make it a good challenge for me, but mostly it worked because I happened to be JUST tall (or short) enough to be able to jump JUST high enough so that a perfect toss would beat me, and a well timed jump by me would beat him unless it was a perfect toss. 6 months earlier or 6 months later and the game would have been boring after 30 seconds. I’m pretty sure we never played it again. And yet I remember it vividly 35 or so years later.
So why do I bring this up? You know, other than because I couldn’t come up with a better blog idea today? Well, this weekend Ariel and I were in the pool and she told me to go towards the deep end and she tried to throw a pair of her goggles over my head into the deep end while I tried jumping up and grabbing them. And yes, as you probably suspected, Ariel has a cannon of an arm. Sure, the roles were a little reversed from me and Dad, and sure, my vertical leap still isn’t nearly as good as it is in my head, but it was incredibly fun. Ariel was able to throw the goggles JUST far enough that a good throw wasn’t reachable for me, and I didn’t have to “let” her win. She could win on her own as much if not more then she lost. For her part, she thought this was the funniest and most awesome game since…Candyland probably. And we all know how high a standard THAT is.
Anyway, Dad was sitting in a chair on one side of the room, and I stood at the edge of the room by the hallway leading to the bedrooms. I don’t remember how the game started, but basically Dad threw the ball as high as the ceiling would allow, trying to get the ball over my head and into the hallway, while I tried to jump up and catch the ball or at least knock it down. I was probably 6-7 years old and probably thought I had Michael Jordan’s ability to jump and hang in the air (it seems very likely that I did), so this was a fantastic challenge. Actually, MJ was in high school at this point so let’s go with Dr. J. But I digress. The game was very fun partially because my Dad was a good athlete himself and could get the ball exactly where it needed to go to make it a good challenge for me, but mostly it worked because I happened to be JUST tall (or short) enough to be able to jump JUST high enough so that a perfect toss would beat me, and a well timed jump by me would beat him unless it was a perfect toss. 6 months earlier or 6 months later and the game would have been boring after 30 seconds. I’m pretty sure we never played it again. And yet I remember it vividly 35 or so years later.
So why do I bring this up? You know, other than because I couldn’t come up with a better blog idea today? Well, this weekend Ariel and I were in the pool and she told me to go towards the deep end and she tried to throw a pair of her goggles over my head into the deep end while I tried jumping up and grabbing them. And yes, as you probably suspected, Ariel has a cannon of an arm. Sure, the roles were a little reversed from me and Dad, and sure, my vertical leap still isn’t nearly as good as it is in my head, but it was incredibly fun. Ariel was able to throw the goggles JUST far enough that a good throw wasn’t reachable for me, and I didn’t have to “let” her win. She could win on her own as much if not more then she lost. For her part, she thought this was the funniest and most awesome game since…Candyland probably. And we all know how high a standard THAT is.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
July 5, 2011
A few random thoughts following 4th of July weekend…
I got this text from my wife the other day – “Ariel just threw a fit at the ATM because she wanted to put the checks I was depositing into her piggy bank. And then she wanted the $400 I took out... for her piggy bank. Then she held my receipts hostage until I promised her a quarter for her piggy bank. She then told me she wanted a “whole lot of quarters.” Note to self, don't take her to ATM again.” Just wanted to make sure everyone realized my wife is funny too. It seems clear to me that someday Ariel’s either going to run an organized crime syndicate…or she’ll be the Fed Chairman. There is no in-between. Both, maybe…
I was coloring with Ariel and I finished one part of the picture pretty quickly. She asked me how I was able to do it so fast. I told her I must be talented. She exclaimed, “Talented! Wow, Daddy! You’re coming up with some WORDS today!”
Last weekend Ariel’s best friend was going to see a performance of Beauty and the Beast and her parents took Ariel too. Let me just say, if you’re going to have kids, it’s a total must to have friends like this couple (let’s just go ahead and call them the Fabulouses), who are ridiculously awesome and will take your child for the afternoon and show her a good time, and drop her off at the end of the day. Seriously, I have no idea how you’re supposed to parent a child without friends like the Fabulouses, and there can’t really be a lot of them out there, so to everyone who doesn’t have them, I feel your pain. And no, I’m not lending them out, so don’t even go there. So, we then had the afternoon (mostly) to ourselves, since Jasmine is so easy. She just rolls with whatever. So what did we do to take advantage of this wonderful gift? This 5 hour respite from the tumultuous whirlwind that IS a weekend day with Princess Ariel? Well, we couldn’t take a spa day, so we did the next best thing. We went to COSTCO. Who dares say life as a parent isn’t glamorous and exciting?
On the way home tonight Belle and I were talking about Jasmine and Belle commented on how easy she was today (we went to the fair – and BOTH of our princesses were great). I remarked that Jasmine’s ALWAYS easy and since I’ve been watching The Wire (easily in the conversation for the best show in TV history) non-stop lately, I slipped into Wire-speak and said that was just “how she be.” Belle of course needed that one repeated, and I laughed and said I’ve been watching too much of The Wire. Ariel then screams from the back that THERE IS NO WIRE and we shouldn’t say ANYTHING about a wire! You see, it’s just that sort of out-of-leftfield crazy-angry-tantrum-based-on-nothing that keeps you on your toes in my world. I guess she would have preferred a Sopranos reference instead. I’ll remember that for next time.
I got this text from my wife the other day – “Ariel just threw a fit at the ATM because she wanted to put the checks I was depositing into her piggy bank. And then she wanted the $400 I took out... for her piggy bank. Then she held my receipts hostage until I promised her a quarter for her piggy bank. She then told me she wanted a “whole lot of quarters.” Note to self, don't take her to ATM again.” Just wanted to make sure everyone realized my wife is funny too. It seems clear to me that someday Ariel’s either going to run an organized crime syndicate…or she’ll be the Fed Chairman. There is no in-between. Both, maybe…
I was coloring with Ariel and I finished one part of the picture pretty quickly. She asked me how I was able to do it so fast. I told her I must be talented. She exclaimed, “Talented! Wow, Daddy! You’re coming up with some WORDS today!”
Last weekend Ariel’s best friend was going to see a performance of Beauty and the Beast and her parents took Ariel too. Let me just say, if you’re going to have kids, it’s a total must to have friends like this couple (let’s just go ahead and call them the Fabulouses), who are ridiculously awesome and will take your child for the afternoon and show her a good time, and drop her off at the end of the day. Seriously, I have no idea how you’re supposed to parent a child without friends like the Fabulouses, and there can’t really be a lot of them out there, so to everyone who doesn’t have them, I feel your pain. And no, I’m not lending them out, so don’t even go there. So, we then had the afternoon (mostly) to ourselves, since Jasmine is so easy. She just rolls with whatever. So what did we do to take advantage of this wonderful gift? This 5 hour respite from the tumultuous whirlwind that IS a weekend day with Princess Ariel? Well, we couldn’t take a spa day, so we did the next best thing. We went to COSTCO. Who dares say life as a parent isn’t glamorous and exciting?
On the way home tonight Belle and I were talking about Jasmine and Belle commented on how easy she was today (we went to the fair – and BOTH of our princesses were great). I remarked that Jasmine’s ALWAYS easy and since I’ve been watching The Wire (easily in the conversation for the best show in TV history) non-stop lately, I slipped into Wire-speak and said that was just “how she be.” Belle of course needed that one repeated, and I laughed and said I’ve been watching too much of The Wire. Ariel then screams from the back that THERE IS NO WIRE and we shouldn’t say ANYTHING about a wire! You see, it’s just that sort of out-of-leftfield crazy-angry-tantrum-based-on-nothing that keeps you on your toes in my world. I guess she would have preferred a Sopranos reference instead. I’ll remember that for next time.
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