All up in NYC

Well Lela and I are officially done with NYC for the month of may. Yes, May 19th is the first weekday of May that neither Lela nor I are in NYC. Lela started off the first 2 weeks with work as I mentioned previously and I had a lovely M-T Accounting Nerd Convention (aka Accounting for Income taxes). Based on my discussions with Lela and my personal experiences, here are a few thoughts – none are aberrations just reiterating what everyone knows

1) It is true, NYCers just aren’t friendly. Its not always an outward rudeness, its just a complete indifference to life. I mean when you all are on top of each other you would think you would want to be nice and make the world a better place (like the Michael Jackson song basically), but on my few trips to NYC I am always surprised by how bad this is.
2) Its not just NYCers, its east coasters. I like to think of myself as a social guy. Lela always comments on how even though most people say their first impression of me is that I look like I am a jerk (true story, my wife and numerous friends have stated this, thanks guys) for some reason generally I have more experiences than most where people tell me their life story in line at the convenience store. So anyway, yeah I try to be social, but for some reason East Coasters don’t like me. I sat at lunch and tried to make friends. I tried to make friends at my table at training. Basically zero response, I had more interaction with the guy at Dunkin Donuts each morning than fellow mega accounting nerds. As lela stated “they probably think you where a straw hat to work or something in Kansas.” Fair enough, so basically I don’t like east coasters, they can shove it.
3) NYCers are freaks. I have so many random stories from my 2 days and I am sure Lela has many more from her 2 weeks. There is just such a large number of complete weirdos that every time you walk outside you have some weird experience that you wouldn’t have anywhere else. To top off my trip some dude is sitting beside me at the airport talking about how his psychic told him that he’s going to hit it big this summer and how he has all this stuff lined up for that. Same guy also came up to me and asked me if I coached wrestling at Iowa. Because he was once a wrestling coach at UI and I have a Iowa shirt on, so logically I coach wrestling for UI with Brands. Except for I don’t like wrestling and don’t live in Iowa City, other than all of that, its logical that every guy who wears Iowa stuff in LaGuardia might coach wrestling at UI. Same dude as above also singing country out loud periodically. Lovely.
4) I wish I could get NYC food all the time, though I would weigh about 350. I arrived at my hotel at 11pm on a Sunday nigh. I thought to myself “hopefully I can find something nearby that is decent”. I asked the front desk if there is anywhere decent and she looked at me like I just asked if I could poop in the hotel lobby fountain. “Uh yeah. . “ and then she named like 15 places within a block radius. I elected for pizza, which was phenomenal. I wish you had that type of food experience in KC, though again 350 lbs wouldn’t be a good look for me
5) Central Park is great. I am sure it would get old, but there is almost no better way to start off a morning than going for a run in Central Park. I went running in the rain today and you know what, it was still fabulous. Every city should have one of those. Granted we are suburbanites and wouldn’t live near it, but its just a great concept. There’s also a 50% chance I saw the asian guy who was guarding the temple on Lost in the park, either that or some quasi homeless asian guy, he’s one of the 2.
6) Traveling takes on new meaning when you have a Wasian. No longer is it just “I am tired of traveling” its moreso “traveling sucks and now I don’t get to see Emma every freaking day” You feel bad for yourself for missing out on stuff and you feel bad for the other person for having to go it alone with the Beast (aka Cooper) and Emma who can be a beast if she boycotts naps for the day. We are old, we no longer think its cool.
7) LaGuardia is more of a dump every time I am here. I always know it’s a dump but every time I am in it, it seems like it gets worse. There’s a chance next time I come through it will be a big pile of horse manure.
8) Cabbies continue to be crazy. I had a lovely trip to the airport through the rain during rush hour with the AC allegedly not working. Let’s just say that Uncle Ralph might have showed up when I finally got to the airport (not kidding). Blah.

Anyway, back to reality. Mothers day went well, I think. I was pretty proud of myself and made a picture book thingy for Lela, thanks to Snapfish. I also decided I was going to make my world famous stuff French toast and potatoes. What I forgot is that if you want something to be world famous, unless you are as good of a cook as Lela, you probably shouldn’t make it for the first time on Mothers’ day. Let’s just say the world famousness will have to wait until I don’t have al dente potatoes (its always cool when its pasta) and soggy stuffed French toast. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts, right! That’s what lela told me, but I was still a bit annoyed that such hitches occurred on my first (and possibly last) time cooking for the fam.

Emma continues to learn and learn. She has started on finger foods and is doing well. She’s randomly picky where she’ll gobble something up one day and the next day look at you like you are feeding her Cooper’s poop (assuming she knew that Cooper’s poop was Cooper’s poop). This blog is poop themed apparently by the way. She’s starting to accept the sippy cup, sometimes, same logic. She’s still standing next to everything and every so often tries the no hands approach for 2 seconds before falling on her bum. She has her first full 2 teeth on the bottom. She loves to run her tongue against it as if she too can’t believe she has chompers. Its pretty funny. Emma has also discovered naps, well sometimes she remembers them. She’s getting on her 1 per day schedule for the toddler room and does well with it. When she’s at home she even knocks out 3 hour naps some days, and we are in “what do we do now” mode because its such a foreign concept to us.

Here's some pics


Practicing her no look pass already. . .

Emma is like me in that she wakes up talking. . .

Mother's day pictures were hard to get with a semi cranky baby so here's what we got

Emma's always up for some playtime

Trying to show Emma the right way to take pics

Emma loves her little table

Mom's week

Pardon this post if its not well written, trying to knock it out quickly.



This week Lela is in New York. Um, I don’t know if you saw my blog previously about Dad’s riding the struggle bus occasionally, but that was referring to specific events, not a week. So first and foremost, please all keep Emma in your prayers as we hope to make it through the week alive. While absence does help the heart grow fonder, it also reminds some of us how much we don’t have to do on a regular basis! I can handle the nuts and bolts of a Mr. Mom week, feeding, reading, playing, making sure Cooper doesn’t eat Emma’s toys (and thus get murdered), trying to get our little girl who now likes to stand and cry for 10 min before sleeping to bed. Yep got it. But when you combine that with all the little things it can at times be overwhelming, probably because as a man my mind can only open one drawer at a time and thus I miss a lot. For example, Emma had boycotted naps Monday and was sort of tired and cranky. For Emma, 2 things above all else can kind of get her to zone out and chill – going for a walk and reading (As you may have guessed Emma can’t yet read, so that means me reading to her). I didn’t feel like reading to her that early so I thought to myself – ‘self, we should go for a walk. And just to add some adventure, let’s bring the sometimes borderline insane dog that resides in our house with us and see if for the first time ever I can hold a leash and push a stroller.’ Lela usually handles the stroller and I the dog as Cooper is now up to 75 lbs and may tear her arm off if he sees a rabbit he wants to play with. Anyway, normally when I suggest that to Lela, she reminds me of things like sunscreen, what to wear, and many other things that I may forget, so some items may get forgotten since she wasn’t there. First, I may have forgotten to get socks and by the time I remembered them cooper was already wromping in the back yard and I didn’t want to get them. Since my feet get tired with sandals, I decided I would just go sockless which probably means that my shoes should be quarantined for a week (which is extra fun since Emma’s new favorite toys are shoes, yummy!). Second, I may not have had a visor or hat or glasses to help shield me from the sun, which was also not fun since there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Third, as I had more than one duty, I didn’t notice that Cooper’s leash was getting a bit loose which may have caused him to get off leash and wromp around. Picture a lovely day in Shawnee with people out in their front yard doing various things with children and then this crazed looking dog wromping aimlessly around them and a 10 month old Wasian leering out of her car seat to watch while her dad runs around apologizing to people while trying not to swear at his stupid dog and tries to get the dog to stay still for 5 seconds and threatens said dog’s life several times. I mean, not that the last thing would ever happen, I am talking about if these things hypothetically happened in the first 36 hrs Lela was gone, so you get the picture. Its not that Lela tells me to do these things every time, its that everything is a bit off without her. I would equate it to living without a safety net, even if you don’t use it, you still probably perform better just knowing its there.

As an aside, if we did go for a walk and it went better than I expected, I may have needed a drink afterwards and by drink I mean a whole bottle of Baileys. I wouldn’t actually do that as it might be bad Mr. Momming to be wasted while you are home alone with the child, but the thought may have entered my mind. Again, hypothetically.

Obviously there is the effect it has on Lela and Emma too. When Lela was in busy season and seeing less of Emma, she was just off for those 3 weeks. She was mostly sick during them, but there was a non sick aspect to that too. She was much the same Monday. Of course if she had a great day and came home and we laughed and played for 3 hours of nonstop fun I wouldn’t ever mention that to Lela as if I said that over the phone I may get hung up on by lela as she goes to coworkers’ rooms to threaten their lives if they don’t let her leave NYC now, but it didn’t happen so it’s a moot point. Obviously its hard on Lela too as if she never had to miss a day in Emma’s life she would be happy, but looking at the bright side there are a lot worse places for her to go than NYC. One definite bonus to her being there is it has inspired some new songs for Emma and I, so she has been getting to know Jay-Z since he’s all into that New York thing. Emma might also sport a dew rag every now and then and we might have other shenanigans going on. I have also watched various 30 for 30 episodes on ESPN. Hank Gathers and Nelson Mandela may or may not make me shed a tear even though I know how it all ends. Yep, sappy dad style.Plus I learned that Hank Gathers was at USC until George Raveling came there from Iowa, which just goes to prove that life and sports are all dependent on Iowa. I know none of you care about this, but just wanted to give you a glimpse into the mind that Lela gets to enjoy every day.

Overall Emma is doing great though. She crawls everywhere at the speed of light and walks herself around every object possible. Her mobility is especially fun since Cooper is shedding like a mad dog even though I vacuum him twice a day (yep, he has grown to like that) Lela being the super mom she is also discovered that she could put Emma in the bath tub in the morning (which we never use) and that keeps her contained with her toys. Very helpful, especially since being by myself this week is less than easy!

Anyway, in honor of all that mom’s do, I think this should probably be Mom’s week, so I have declared so accordingly.