The Dog Ate It

So Molly has homework. By which I mean, of course, that *I* have homework. A sorry state of affairs for a man so recently freed from the shackles of grad school, but a situation utterly and completely of my own devising, I regret to say.

How, you may ask, does a 2-year-old have homework? What possible purpose could that serve? Ah, there's the rub- the correct answer is "probably zero." And yet, fool that I am, I got caught up in the excitement of parent-teacher night at preschool. I believed my toddler's teachers when they said that this homework program (one assignment per week) was strongly believed to aid in child development.

Okay, that's not fair. It may actually help them when done properly; I certainly don't think it's a huge game changer, but fair enough, it might have some impact on overall development. What I completely failed to take into account was that Molly and I are not together at any times of the day conducive to us doing homework "together." I get her ready in the morning, when we're scrambling to get her (and occasionally me) fed, as well as dressed and out the door. Not exactly prime homework time. Then I work late hours and don't get home until less than an hour before Molly's bedtime, at which point she's either mid-bath or snuggling with mommy on the couch. And it's not like Ann's going to take on the responsibility of doing it with Molly during the early evenings when I'm not there, nor should she have to. She finds the whole thing ridiculous and made it clear that if homework is being done, it's my responsibility. I can't say I blame her, and she didn't sign up for it, I did, so it's not fair to pass the buck. Nonetheless, this means that Molly and I have essentially no homework time together, so usually the first time she sees the construction paper house or turkey or whatever the heck we were supposed to work on together that week is the morning when we're turning it in. Probably not what they had in mind.

Is that my lot in life? Am I going to be the parent who writes his kid's papers for her because dammit, it'll be better and sound more professional if daddy just does it himself, why don't you go help your mother? Is that my destiny? I say thee nay! Preschool is one thing -- I signed up for this weirdness, so I have to see it through. But once the homework is real and mandatory? That kid is on her own. Sink or swim, honey.

Vast Tracts of Land

[I'd like to warn everyone in advance that today's entry will cover slightly different ground than our usual subject matter. We here at Save the Empire have no desire to titillate, but all the same, our readers of more delicate sensibilities may wish to skip this entry and come back next month when I make another post.]

So it's come to my attention recently that Katy Perry has grown powerful in the ways of the boob. I realize that for most of you this will not be a revelation, but I don't often listen to modern music and, you know, I'm not some creeper who goes around leering at up-and-coming young celebrities. Unlike some people I could name.

Monster.

That being said, the phenomenon has reached the point where even I can no longer ignore it. It began with the infamous Sesame Street banning, followed soon after by that hilarious SNL skit:




(Apologies, the unedited segment has been yanked from YouTube.)

But the true danger, my friends, is that Katy Perry has mastered the art of misdirection. Sun Tzu himself would be impressed by her ability to sucker in a potentially hostile force and, siryn like, lure them to their doom. Case in point: a recent Entertainment Weekly cover where Ms. Perry is featured prominently. What initially captures the eye is her neon blue razzleberry smurf wig, bright enough to draw one's gaze from across the room. But once attention has been acquired, the boobs function as a powerful tractor beam, drawing in the hapless victim until the next thing he knows it's 1 AM and his wife is yelling at him to stop standing in the middle of the kitchen and go to sleep, dammit. This is powerful stuff, people, not to be wielded by the immature or uninitiated. The U.S. government knew enough to seal the Ark of the Covenant away at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but does the blooming young star possess similar wisdom and restraint? I have my doubts. Yet arguably both weapons are equally dangerous when stared directly at without protection.

Powerful enough to melt Nazis' faces off

Ultimately, avoidance seems like the best policy. I'd turn the magazine over or move it to a less central area of the house, but I can't risk passing within that pulchritudinous gorgon's sphere of influence for fear of turning to stone. (Er, metaphorically speaking.) The best option may simply be to avoid setting foot in the kitchen for a while until the Entertainment Weekly gets covered by a layer of newer mail, then disposing of it when its arsenal is veiled. Not a pretty victory, but it'll get the job done.

Hopefully it's not rough and bumpy

So my in-laws came over yesterday. While to some people this would be cause for concern, my in-laws are genuinely great and we love having them over. This particular visit, they brought boxes full of old toys. My mother-in-law used to teach young children, I think kindergarteners, so she has lots of old supplies that she's now passing on to us for Molly and second kid. I go to the back of their SUV, grab a box, take a step toward the house... do a double take, and look back inside the trunk at the box labeled, exactly as written, "ASS WOOD BLOCKS". I ask my father-in-law if there's something I should know; he looks, chuckles and tells me I'll have to ask his wife. So we bring the box inside, I set it down and turn to my mother-in-law and say, "Do you mind my asking what that first word means?" She looks at me blankly and replies, "'Assorted.' Why?"

Oh, to be that innocent. So if anyone needs blocks made of rare wood taken from the fabled ass tree, we've got you covered.

#%*$&!

I'm sure this is something most parents encounter when their kids are just learning to speak, but it seems like Molly has really been working blue lately with an excessive number of accidental swears. Some of it's fairly subtle -- when she says "sit," she adds a bit of an "h" sound after the "s" -- but others are just front and center, like her fascination with clocks combined with her tendency to leave out one of the letters that is not "c," "o" or "k." Yyyyeeeaaahhh... try not getting embarrassed over that one when you're out in public and the child sees a clock on the wall. Then just the other day, we were driving to my parents' house when out of the backseat comes this tiny, exuberant little "fuka!", repeated at length. We still can't even guess what Molly's trying to say there (I know what you're thinking, but we're pretty careful about not swearing in front of her), but if you'd been driving alongside us at that moment, you would have seen two adults shaking uncontrollably while trying to bite back laughter, because you can't reinforce that exclamation. At the same time, though... fuka!

Put me in, coach, I'm ready to play

I never used to follow baseball -- I've always liked playing baseball, I just never had much use for watching other people play it -- but I started to get into it when the Phils almost won the World Series on the day Molly was born. Ann and I were in her recovery room and the initial adrenaline rush of "holy balls we're parents now, in two days this thing is entirely dependent on us" had worn off, leaving us tired but not wanting to sleep just yet. We turned on the TV and the Series happened to be on, so we watched while Molly slept in Ann's arms. That was Game 5, the one that would have clinched the Series for the Phils if not for the snow/sleet conditions leading to the game being postponed. The Phils would go on to win 2 days later, and that started a slow-burning increase in interest with me. It wasn't until almost a year later, when the Phils were again in the NLCS playoffs, that I would really starting watching, but this season I've watched almost every game. I'm a newbie, but I'm getting there.

Regardless, because I've been following the Phils and baseball in general closely this year, I heard a lot about the Roy Oswalt trade when it happened. And what I kept hearing from every news source was that on the surface, it seemed like an absolute coup for the Phils, who were getting a great pitcher for almost nothing. But the lone holdouts brought up how Oswalt wasn't young anymore, how he was getting on toward the end of his career, and how it was unclear how long he'd be able to remain competitive. Thankfully so far that hasn't proven to be the case, but those comments stuck with me...

...all the way up until 2 days ago, when I learned that Roy Oswalt just celebrated his 33rd birthday. I don't know why, but I think I had assumed he was in his late 30s/early 40s, almost a Jamie Moyer-type who gets credit just for still being in the game. But no: Roy Oswalt is almost 3 years to the day older than me, and the big question on everyone's mind was how long he could last before his body basically fell apart on him.

I realize professional sports are different and they tax a body something fierce, I know how gymnasts are considered washed-up by the time they're 19 or so, but that was NOT a good realization to have, let me tell you. And Roy Oswalt, let me tell you something too: you are NOT old, my friend, and you are going to prove it by continuing to kick ass through September and (hopefully) into the postseason. And once the playoffs are finally over, if you decide you want to do an Ironman, that will be fine too. You get 'em, man. Welcome to Philly.

Kid Korner

A few random Molly notes, just in case anyone was worried I traded her for a handful of magic beans:

-She has learned to give raspberries. Never proactively; but if I give her one while carrying her, she'll giggle, then contort her little body in a way I would snap my spine if I tried, lift up my shirt like we're coeds at spring break, put her little lips on daddy's belly, and give the tiniest little "pffft." I realize words can't adequately convey the massive degrees of cuteness this entails, but just picture the most adorable thing you've ever seen, then double it. Not even close.

-Molly knows almost all of her colors, in the sense that she can say and repeat their names. But I'm a little worried she's color blind, because every color you point to is "pink." Observe:

"Molly, what color is this?"
"Pink!"
"No, silly, that's red! Can you say 'red'?"
"Reh!"
"Very good! And what color is this?"
"Pink!"
"Noooo, it's blue! Can you say 'blue'?"
"Boo!"
"Good! And this color?"
"Pink!"
"Yes. Yes it is. Thank God. And what's this color over here?"
"Pink!"
"....."

Then again, before pink every color was yellow, so maybe she's just working her way through the spectrum. One can hope.

-On a related note, Molly is also learning her shapes. Thus far she knows circle, oval, diamond, and... octagon. Or occagon, as the case may be. She's also getting "trapezoid." Oh, that's right. My child does not know "triangle" or "square," but she knows "octagon" and almost "trapezoid." We breed 'em advanced in this family.

-Not that her appearance left any doubt -- the child looks identical to myself and my sister from old baby pictures -- but a paternity test will not be required at any point. The reason is that Molly is a born reader. Most of the time she'll bring a book over, plop herself down in your lap, and settle in for story time. But every so often she'll just take a book off by herself, sit down, and start quietly leafing through it. And when she was starting to get clingy at bedtime whenever we left the room, what was the solution? Put a few books in her crib. Problem solved. In another couple of years she'll be sneaking a flashlight to bed so she can read after bedtime. She is her daddy's daughter all right.

"Whosoever twists this cap, if he be worthy..."

Ann's been drinking a lot of G2 lately, and we've both noticed an interesting phenomenon: some of the bottles are pretty hard to open. I'm no weakling, but it definitely takes me more than the usual amount of effort to twist off the cap so that Ann can enjoy her artificial fruity goodness. (Did I mention we're expecting our second child and Ann can't drink anything with caffeine in it? No? Uh, well, we are and she can't.) We've decided it's kind of a Sword in the Stone-esque challenge on Gatorade's part to weed out people who really don't deserve to drink it. Can't get the top off? Clearly you're not athletic enough to be drinking our product in the first place... kindly replace the bottle immediately and go find some chocolate milk or something, fatass. I guess it's kind of working -- if nothing else, it's convinced me that it's time to start exercising regularly again. I refuse to bend my will to that of any non-carbonated electrolyte-laden beverage.