Lies! All lies!
No. We didn't have a baby. Not yet. That comes tomorrow. I was merely
conjuring worst-case scenarios and "Bertha" somehow made it into the blog.
Sorry for any intentional confusion.
This morning I missed my exit. The highway construction crew erected one
of those huge, solar powered signs that said, "EXIT CLOSED". I interpreted
the message to mean all exits were closed except the one that I take everyday.
Why would they close that one? It's my exit. As I drove
by all the orange barrels I saw many opportunities for me to steer the
Mazda between the loosely placed obstacles and make my way off the interstate.
I fought the temptation. That meant adding an additional ten minutes to
my commute.
Our house is clean. I sleep better when our house has been scrubbed. And
I'm not talking about normal dusting and vacuuming. It's when we've scrubbed
the floors, sucked all the cobwebs up and eliminated soap scum that I
breathe more deeply and loosen my normally knotted muscles. With this
in mind, you'd think that our house would be spotless more of the time.
No. It's not. You see, that period of relaxation brought about by all
the clean lasts a long time. It lasts long enough to allow enough dirt
to collect that we have to turn into white tornadoes again.
I'm thinking that the next time I post I'll be a father for the second
time. However I probably won't be able to resist the temptation to get
one more in before tomorrow morning. We have to be at the hospital by
six. They tell us we should be out of the operating room by eleven. You'll
probably hear from me sometime after that.
As Lisa has been signing her emails, "Have a nice baby!"
Oh. One last thing. The toasters here at work are marvels of modern
technology. These four slot beauties are made from solid stainless steel.
You place your bread (or in my case, Pop-Tart) inside and press down on
one of the incredibly sturdy levers and watch your food slide down into
the machine. Heat immediately rises out of the slots but there is no red
glow from heating element within. I stuck my face right over the slots
and could feel the heat baking my head, but the inside of the toaster
didn't light up. I'll grab a screwdriver and do some poking around to
see how this thing works. I'll keep you posted.
We had the baby last night. I would have called you, but it was late
and I didn't want to wake anyone.
Deb and the baby are fine. Because the arrival of the child was unexpected
we were able to forego the planned c-section. That means the hospital
didn't see any reason Deb couldn't recover at home.
The baby is a girl. We named her Bertha. At eleven pounds, five ounces
it seemed like the only name that would fit.
Bertha is a real screamer. And I don't mean that in an infant sort of
way, either. She sounds like a horror movie. Every half-hour or so we
hear this shriek from the basinet that sounds like something from the
second-half of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's unsettling to say the
least. In fact, we had to call Deb's doctor around four this morning to
prescribe some sort of tranquilizer for the entire family.
We upped Allie's dosage and she's been lying in the middle of the lawn
for the past hour. I go out and check on her and she says she's fine.
"I'm watching the leaves move, Daddy. Is the baby still here?" she asks.
When I remind her the baby is here to live with us her right eye twitches
a little and I think I hear her make a tiny gurgling sound. Allie just
needs to adjust. She'll be fine.
Bertha is a hungry little/big baby. When she's not screaming she has a
bottle in her mouth. She doesn't seem to be satisfied by infant formula.
The pediatrician recommended starting her on a mixture of formula and
a puree of solid foods. So far, the only thing that seems to satisfy Bertha
is a combination of formula blended with unsalted butter and bacon drippings.
We questioned the soundness of this diet, particularly when it has been
accompanied by bouts of explosive diahrrea (we can easily repaint the
nursery). But the doctor says he read about it in a journal somewhere
and is sure the baby will thrive.
We'd invite you to come visit to see our new bundle but I don't think
Deb is ready for visitors. She's a little "out-of-it" with the tranquilizers
and has painted a huge semi-circle on the floor in the bedroom. She took
all the steak knifes out of the kitchen and claims she'll stick anyone
that crosses over the line. She's such a card. I swear, I don't know what
I'd do without her sense of humor. However I did get "poked" accidentally
when I placed a foot over, what Deb has been calling her "death boundry".
Like I said, she's a funny gal and horseplay almost always ends with someone
getting a sucking chest wound.
I'd better go feed Bertha, check on Allie and try to get Deb to cross
her death boundry long enough to go potty (it's starting to smell a little
ripe).
This new zit on my chin has "baby" written all over it. There's no puss
in there, just residual stress.
Don't get me wrong. I'm excited. I'm just nervous.
I was just thinking about how to bathe a baby again. I forgot that for
the first few weeks it'll be nothing but sponge baths until the belly
button falls off. I knew that, I just forgot what I washed Alex with.
I think we used baby soap. I'm sure we used baby soap. Do we have baby
soap?
Look. I know you're sick of this. I'm sorry. But the evidence in this
household is mounting. The posit that we are here merely as vessels for
our particular gene strait seems to make perfect sense. Particularly when
I seem perfectly willing to wrestle with a Diaper Genie once again.
The baby will be here Wednesday. I should be sleeping. I won't be doing
much of that when the baby gets here. I should sleep.
Maybe next time I'll write about something other than the baby. But for
now it's my central preoccupation. That and finding out where Howie gets
his beef jerky.
It's really good.
Lately I've been trying to get Allie to live her life right by having
her memorize slogans. Despite the fact I feel a little like Chairman Mao
I'm certain engraining these bits of supposed wisdom is the path to enlightenment
for my three-year-old.
A good example was last night when I asked Debbie to ask Allie what TV
does to a person.
"Makes your brain work slow," Allie told her Mom.
Then I asked Allie, ". . .and what makes you smart?"
"Listening to music."
"And what makes you smarter?"
"Learning a instamint."
"That's right, learning to play an instrument makes your brain super strong!"
At this point I turned to Debbie for affirmation that I had done something
incredibly beneficial for our kid. Deb didn't notice because she was too
busy laughing at me.
Later Allie wanted to go downstairs and watch Spiderman. I know what you're
thinking. Spiderman might be a bit much for a three-year-old. However
the only part that gets to her is when the mutant spider sinks its fangs
into Peter Parker's hand. Allie buries her face into my side then insists
that I back-up the DVD so she can watch the spider bite the guy again.
No wonder she shrieks like a banshee everytime she sees a bug the size
of a nose hair sitting innocently on the wall.
I tried to get Allie to memorize the line from the movie, "With great
power comes great responsibility." I knew this was not a particularly
useful slogan. I just thought it would freak people out to hear a pre-schooler
spouting it on the playground. Tommy pushes Kimmy and all the mommies
gather around to scold Tommy for being such a bully. In steps Allie who
looks at Tommy and says. . . well, you get the picture.
T-Minus eight and counting.
We were sitting at the dinner table and Allie asked Debbie, "How was
your day at work?"
Deb and I stopped eating and looked at each as if the salt shaker had
started singing. If I remember correctly, Deb answered Allie by saying
she had a busy day.
"What did you do today?" Allie asked.
That led to a conversation about what Deb does at work during the day.
Deb must have thought I felt left out because she asked Allie to ask me
what I did at work and unfortunately Allie went ahead and asked.
My three-year-old was extremely unimpressed with the portrait I tried
to paint for her of my worklife. She kept flashing a bored expression
that screamed, "Why aren't you one of the voices on Spongebob or a firefighter
or the guy that mows the soccer field across the street?"
Allie knows why I go to work. We've explained that several times. I go
to work to make money so I can buy her toys. She gets that. What she doesn't
understand is why (or how) I make her toy money doing what I do.
She's not the only one.
You can tell when I'm in a hurry. When I'm in a hurry I don't take time
to re-read these posts and then edit out the embarrassing typos, misused
words or disjointed thoughts.
Last night's post on the Web site is a good example. There are a few typos
and if you scroll down to the bottom of the page you'll see the words
"behemoth" and "big tits".
Oops.
I forgot to delete those before I posted. Those were the things that stuck
out the most from the competition I wanted to tell you about. And not
to belabor the subject, but the "tits" I referred to were on the big,
behemoth men, not the women (not that I didn't notice both).
I'll be cleaning up the page later this evening. Although I'm sure we'll
get many more Google hits if I leave big tits on the page at least for
a while.
I did go to work on Saturday, but I didn't have a McGriddle. Instead
I held out for a Big Mac and a McChicken for lunch (no fries; Olympics
around the corner, you know).
I was at the Firefighter's Combat Challenge standing behind a table. I
liked it so much I came back later that afternoon with Allie. The ice
cream I provided and the cookie my boss gave her added up to a good time.
I took some photos that I'll post on the Web site later this week (if
we get the roll developed). The camcorder's battery simply said, "No.
I won't be participating today, Greg. Thanks." That means I wasn't able
to take advantage of that immediacy stuff the Web is famous for providing.
Guess what I had for dinner this evening? A Big Mac and a Filet-O-Fish.
I like to change things up. Go crazy. . .
McDonalds two days in a row speaks volumes about me and what my expectations
for activity were for such a beautiful weekend. I haven't even showered
today. I have a good excuse, though. I scrubbed the bathroom floors. They
needed it. I was sweating like a pig as I did my best Cinderella impression
(we don't need no stinking mops). Now the linoleum gleams with the intensity
of a thousand white hot burning suns plus a gentle hint of bleach.
That's an exaggeration (except for the bleach part). But I no longer live
with the fear of a knock on the door from the Pope asking to use one of
our bathrooms. I'd proudly say, "Pick a throne, Pontiff! We're glad you
could stop by! But please, don't flush. I have a few notions for E-Bay
when you finish up."
Melissa and Dwayne sound genuinely interested in a T-shirt. I have made
it clear that a Greg & Deb on the Web T-shirt is one of my old, white
(actually more gray) undershirts sparsely decorated with a black Sharpie
(I'm not even sure if Sharpies are laundry-proof). People interested in
my underwear. That hasn't happened in some time.
I'd better get something on the Web for Marcia and Judy. Although they
may be reading this. Ladies, please drop me a line and let me know.
I have to work tomorrow. That means I'll reward myself with a Saturday
morning McGriddle.
When the cereal companies advertise their products as, "part of a complete
breakfast" they had no idea the the McGriddle was headed our way.
It is a complete breakfast.
Eggs, bacon and cheese sandwiched between two pancakes with the syrup
built right in. McDonalds whittled breakfast down into its most basic
elements and made it all fit in your hand.
The next step is to take all the raw ingredients and combine them into
a pasty ball that maintains a uniform consistency and that can be deep
fried and stuck on a stick and thrown at you as you drive by the pick-up
window at 30 miles per hour.
I'd say put it in pill form, but if you're not chewing you're taking a
supplement, that's not having a meal. The McGriddle is, so far as I can
tell, an actual meal.
As of this morning Deb still doesn't know she has a blogspot.
I called her and told her to check the Webpage but she probably won't
get to it until much later.
How'd she post something if she doesn't know she has a blog? I took a
portion of an email she sent to me and posted it for her.
After she read my request for everyone to get a blog of his/her own she
insisted that she didn't have anything to say. I, of course, told her
she was full of doo-doo. She has a great deal to say and she's a wonderful
writer to boot.
I suppose I'll be forced to post bits and pieces from emails she sends
me once she decides she's not going to join the technorati.
She'll be very firm to the point of refusing to write to me because she
fears having her thoughts plastered on the Internet.
Stay tuned to see how this pans out.
T-minus 12 days and counting.
Dwayne has started a blog
of his own. I wrote about it on the Web
site.
I've been in a foul mood for the past few days for various reasons. Dwayne's
blog cheered me up.
Tonight Debbie folded all of Allie's old baby togs. Deb washed them all
in Dreft and placed them in the nursery in preparation for the new baby
(a baby we, for some reason, still have refused to name). Seeing those
little outfits made me nostalgic.
Can you get nostalgic over something that happened just a couple of years
ago? I'm not sure. The point is, I can't believe how quickly Allie is
growing up.
Hi. Good morning.
This is the first chance I've had to see the PC interface for Blogger.
Boy, you PC people have got it easy. Now I know there's really no excuse
for you people not to create your own blogs.
I've been playing with the Mac version and it really is, comparatively,
the pits. It requires a lot more html knowledge to do simple things like
insert a link or even place emphasis
on a word or two. But please don't be discouraged if you are
a Mac person. We'll muddle through together.
I am figuring things out, though. However I still don't know how to place
images into blogs. The Blogger help index says that you're not able place
images in their free version. However I've seen Jon do it and I think
he's using the free version. I'll write him and post his answer here.
I ate cheese curds last night. They did what they were supposed to do.
They coated my gut with grease and made me feel like Orson Welles floating
naked in a huge vat of bacon drippings.
Hi!
I set this blog up to demonstrate to everyone just how easy this process
is.
I did it in less the four minutes.
Does this mean there won't be any more posts on http://www.gregorylee.com?
I'm not sure. Maybe this will become something different. I hope you'll
check back from time-to-time to see how it evolves. Perhaps this will
become the PG-13 version of Greg & Deb on the Web. We'll see.
Thanks for stopping. Please drop me a line when you begin your blog. I
can't wait to read it.
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