Velcrometer
Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks
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M. Giant's Velcrometer Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks |
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Wednesday, August 31, 2005 Fire in the Hole As I mentioned several months ago, Trash and I have been planning to take M. Small on his first vacation out west. We planned to stay in hotels instead of camping, since we didn't really feel prepared to spend a week in a tent with a ten-and-a-half-month-old. We're not planning to do that any more. Oh, we're still going. But we're not staying in hotels. We're doing the full-on camping experience, sleeping under the stars, eating only what we can kill, and wearing clothes made from leaves and animal skins. Okay, not really. But it's been a while since we cooked with propane, so it'll feel like roughing it. I talked to my ex-bandmate Kraftmatik for tips on camping with a little one. He and his wife actually took their son camping when the tyke was only four or five months old. I can't imagine doing that with M. Small at his age. For one, thing camping in February in this part of the country is inadvisable under any circumstances. Kraftmatik explained that it's actually easier to camp with a baby before he becomes mobile. You can just jam him in the crotch of a tree and go about your business. But once he can crawl and walk, you're constantly busy trying to keep him from crawling into the campfire, because, bright! Pretty! Especially when Trash builds the fire. For some campers, fire-building is a science. For others, it's an art. For Trash, it's an Olympic event. If you let her, she'll spend the whole evening making the fire hotter and hotter, turning the logs so that the unburned sides get exposed to the flames, blowing and fanning with large container lids, invoking Vulcan and what not until it's hotter than a forge. Seriously, a blacksmith would look at one of Trash's fires and say, "No thanks, I prefer to shape my horseshoes with a hammer, not a mold." On the last night of our two-week road trip in 1999, she literally got the fire so hot that aluminum cans burned in it. They didn't scorch, they didn't melt; they burned like a regular log in a regular fire. Not like the logs in this fire, of course, because by this point these logs were doing something that I can only describe as fusion. The campfire conversation was a little louder that night. Not just because of the wine, but also because the heat of the fire required a twenty-foot perimeter, and we had to shout across the distance between us. This fire was visible from space. Cooling it down before going to bed was a task in itself. Trash tried to bank the coals, but the twenty-foot branch she was using burned down to half its length and became useless in less than a minute. We threw pots of water on it, which flash-boiled in midair. We assaulted it with entire coolers of icewater, the first few of which ignited merrily before disappearing altogether. After a few hours, a multi-pronged assault finally brought the fire down to a manageable level where Trash could bank the coals for the night. We all went to bed feeling like our tent was near the lip of an active volcano. When we got up the next morning to make breakfast, Trash got the fire roaring again by flipping a bottle cap at it. That fire pit probably didn't have snow on it all winter. What with the baby in the mix this time around, Trash is going to have to curb her pyrokinetic skills. But maybe not as much as we thought. When shopping for camping equipment and baby bug spray last night, she came upon a miniature, freestanding, screened-in canopy just the right size for a camping toddler. It's like a tiny little tent, designed to protect a little one from excessive bugs and sun. Just zip him inside and he's all safe. A bambino gazebo, if you will. We can't wait to try it. If it works while we're cooking over the fire, we might just find it coming in handy when cooking in our kitchen. A few tent-stake holes in our linoleum tile would be a small price to pay for some peace of mind. Today's best search phrase: "Giant metal robot formed by cats." Like most of my search phrases, this one was found by Trash. She was so disappointed when I actually knew what this searcher was looking for. "You never watched Voltron?" She never had, and she was pretty bitter about it, too. But she felt better when I explained that the giant metal robot was formed by giant metal robot cats. Which I admit, isn't nearly as cool as the other kind of cat would have been in giant metal robot form. And it would have taken a lot more of them. posted by M. Giant 10:06 PM 4 comments 4 Comments:Are you guys seriously thinking of camping with a baby? You are a far braver man than I, M. Giant.
By Timmy our now almost 6 month old is going on his 3rd camping trip of the year this weekend. We started him when he was 4 months over the 4th of July weekend. We camp in the White Mountains of NH (which is FAB by the way, if you are ever looking for somewhere else to camp). You will LOVE IT!!! Nothing like feeding the munchkin when it’s 32 degrees out (yes July 4th in the mountains got COLD this year) and then changing the dyedee, before the crack of dawn listening to night creatures creaching…. BTW what trash does with fire is called FIRE MAGIC, it is important for the cherubs to learn it early. Best of luck on your camping adventure
By I want a link to the bambino gazebo! What a good idea.
By Oregon State Parks have amazing cabins and yurts that you can rent - you still have the woods around you and a place to build a fire, but you also have a retreat indoors when your little one has stuck the 50th pine cone in his mouth. http://www.oregon.gov/OPRD/PARKS/rustic.shtml
By Wednesday, August 24, 2005 Photoblog  You probably think that I took this picture just because I wanted to capture one of those fleeting but adorable moments. Actually, he'd been standing and drooling, frozen in this pose for more than ten hours by the time this photo was taken. Weirdest thing. Fortunately, the flash snapped him out of it.  M. Small, the first time we let him hold his own bottle. He'd been trying to hold his own for a few months, but when we let him, he prefers to use it as a percussion instrument. He'll drink from it for an ounce or two, and then he gets bored and we have to take over. Looks like it'll be another couple of weeks before he's ready for his own apartment.  M. Small's latest getaway attempt.  Which ends like all the others.  Shit like this is going to completely redefine dating in the twenty-first century. We won't be able to humiliate M. Small in front of his future girlfriends with this, because with any luck at all they will have already seen it.  But wait till they find out that his shorts matched his hat.  And here, of course, is the photo for the cover of the debut album.  Looking at this angelic child, you'd never know that his one overriding goal is to completely tear down our entire house. Today's best search phrase: "www.i let a tiny fart." I can't believe nobody has snapped up that URL already. posted by M. Giant 8:54 PM 17 comments 17 Comments:
That is one beautiful and healthy kid! The last picture almost looks like a painting, with the lighting and his look. You guys must be doing something right.
By What a sweet looking baby!
By Oh my God, he's just unbelievably cute. How long before he's doing GAP ads and supporting Mommy and Daddy in a style to which they could become accustomed?
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Those little fat dimples around his wrist make me want to gobble him up.
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Wow, he used to fit in a coffee mug* and now he's all Chunky McChunkenburger! Chunkity chunkity chunk chunk chunk...
By What a big strong man! He looks like such a happy baby.
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Why is it that babies curl their toes when they sit up? I've always wondered about that...
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Love the alt tags you used on each pic :)
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Not a baby any more. Babyhood is over. And you thought it would never end... M. Small is now officially a toddler. And a darn cute one!
By Absolute goodness!
By Oh, look at M. Small and his mom. Too cute for words. He's going to get all of the ladies.
By Your little boy is darling. I love the arm dimples. My kids had them as babies. But I warn you, one day you will suddenly notice they are gone, and it will break your heart.
By That is one handsome child. He has a great look! Thanks for posting the pics.
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M. Giant. I do believe my ovaries just exploded from all that delightful baby goodness.
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Oh. My. God.
By Two things re: Strat. 1) Although a rare phenomenon, kitties can stop being diabetic. I discovered this by my been-on-insulin-for-3-years kitty suddenly going into insulin shock. He's fine now and eats like a horse and no longer gets shots. 2) Hyperthyroidism occurs in middle-aged to older kitties. It causes weight loss and vomiting. Just some things to be aware of as your kitties age. Also, your human kid is really cute, but I miss the kitty photos and your blogs ranging from gnome theft to CSI Sesame Street.
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So, like, he's outgrown every stitch of clothing, right?
By Friday, August 19, 2005 Today on my way home I was behind a car whose license plate read "HRUDUDU." It made my eyeballs feel all wiggly. Today's best search phrase: "My baby won't eat." Damn, Search Phrase, why you gotta bring a guy down like that? When we first brought M. Small (then M. Tiny) home from the hospital, he wouldn't eat, either. As I may have mentioned before, they sent him home before he was readily and consistently finishing his bottles. Which were all of two fluid ounces back then. He'd have an ounce or so of formula, and then loudly refuse to eat any more. He'd throw a twenty- to thirty-minute wobbler right in the middle of the bottle, and eventually get worn out enough that we could finish getting the rest into him. This was the worst part of parenting a newborn for us. Not the usual complaints, like the lack of sleep, or the poopy diapers. Although both were certainly exacerbated by the primary issue. Fighting with a wiggling rape whistle for the better part of an hour is bad enough. Doing it at two and five a.m. is worse. As for the poopy diapers, quite a bit of the joy of that ritual was sucked out by the fact that we were helping him get rid of stuff that he never wanted put into his body in the first place. All the books say not to force your baby to eat if he really doesn't want to. You want to avoid giving him a complex about food, at least not until he's old enough for you to exploit it. Meanwhile, we were getting a complex of our own. We didn't want to force him, but we didn't want him to have to be readmitted, which is what would happen if he didn't have a certain amount of formula each day. For a while we were keeping track of his intake in CCs (about thirty of those in an ounce), and nervously adding them up at the end of the day to see if he'd met his goal or exceeded it by five or ten milliliters. It was nerve-wracking, especially because at any given time of the day, we were either getting ready to feed him, beginning to feed him, feeding him, waiting for him to calm down so we could finish feeding him, finishing feeding him, or recovering from feeding him. Except for a five-minute window equidistant between the two nearest feedings, at which time we were dreading feeding him. Eventually--maybe a month after his actual due date, I'd guess--he made his peace with the bottle. We started measuring his intake in ounces instead of CCs, and we quite writing them down in the notebook, because at every feeding he was meeting or exceeding his per-feeding quota. Now we actually have to limit his formula consumption, because of all the nutrients and calories he's getting from baby food and small pieces of regular food. So, yeah, he'll eat now, and as of his last official weighing over a month ago he was well over 22 pounds. So it turned out okay. But if your baby still won't eat, I hope you're asking somebody else about it besides Google. Or me, for that matter. posted by M. Giant 4:11 PM 5 comments 5 Comments:A rhududu is what the rabbits in Watership Down called a car or tractor. That's awesome.
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I feel you, dude. When we brought young Master Sam home from the hospital, his weight (a formerly hefty 8-1/2 lbs) went into a downward spiral. That, combined with a pernicious case of jaundice, made us nigh frantic. Nobody likes having a skinny newborn. It makes us feel bad about ourselves.
By my unadopted son (it's complicated) turns three on Tuesday. he eats when he wants to eat. he's lived with us since he was nine months old and he's always been like that. he is not malnourished in the least, is in the top 98 percentile of his group and the height and weight. he is strong as an ox and doing just fine. I would say don't worry.
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Some good friends of mine had an exceedingly small preemie- I guess Abby weighed about 3lbs when she was born?- and had jaundice. She looked like Homer Simpson and I was the only one who'd tell them so. She did the cc-eating thing for a long time, gained enough weight to go home but then- catastropically- stopped pooping. As the near-resident baby expert, I had them give her very diluted prune juice, the a little diluted prune juice and by day three, told them to take her to the doctor. There was no obstruction, but apparently her poor preemie instestines hadn't finished whatever it is they are supposed to finish before kids are expelled from their comfy cozy wombs and we were told to "exercise her." Periodically we'd grab her by the legs, pump them, and hope for the poopy best.
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Wow, a "Watership Down" reference. I got that one right away. I still love that book (yes, yes, I know, it's about bunnies...)!
By Thursday, August 18, 2005 Ah, the magic of fatherhood. M. Small is learning to crawl and scoot around. It's a special time. Because now I can start blaming him for things. For instance, of the three separate times I spilled cat food on the floor this morning? Only one of them was completely my fault. That was the first one. Rather than keeping the giant sacks of kibble on top of the fridge, we store the food in a couple of big Rubbermaid containers that take up a lot less space. When a container's empty, we go downstairs, refill it from the sack in progress, and bring it back up. Maybe wrangling a large bag with an uneven opening wasn't the wisest thing to do as my second task of this morning (after making M. Small's breakfast bottle, and before peeing). But considering that only twenty or thirty kernels ended up on the floor, I don't think I did too bad. And considering how sloppy the cats often are about covering up after themselves in the nearby kitty boxes, they would have eventually ended up there anyway. A little later, I was rooting around in the cabinet under the stove for containers and lids to bring our lunch to work in. We have roughly eight million containers under there, and nine million lids, but the overlap between them equals about three and a half. So finding a viable container/lid combination can become a little arduous. Trash was occupied with actually arranging the lunches themselves, so while I rummaged I put M. Small down on the floor right next to me. Forgetting that the cat food bowls were on the floor right next to him. The next sound I heard was the sound of a feline breakfast being inverted. I should let the cats make his bottle tomorrow. After Trash took M. Small off to day care, I swept up the dry food and stepped over to the trash can to toss it away. Prior to working the catch that releases the trash can lid, I jauntily tossed the laden dustpan from one hand to another. I know what you're thinking, but that third time wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for the kid. posted by M. Giant 4:50 PM 4 comments 4 Comments:Hmm, there's a logical fallacy there, but I can't think of what it is. It's not post hoc, ergo propter hoc, but that's close.
By I can't believe you would blame the boy, when it is obvious where the real fault belongs -- on the cats.
By How are the cats taking this crawling phenomenon? My cat- who hates all things male on GP- for some reason loves little children. This is the same cat who bit my old roommate (on the face; she deserved it) and her boyfriend (on the head; I tried to warn him, but he didn't believe it would happen).
By I blame my kid for the crayon all over my walls. No one else knows this secret. ;-)
By Wednesday, August 17, 2005 My copy of Haunted turned up. It was under the bed, which I could swear it wasn't the last time I looked under there. It was face-down, which I think is the only reason Trash and I haven't been having horrible nightmares. posted by M. Giant 8:16 PM 2 comments 2 Comments:I'm going to read it this week. Should I be really frightened
By Nah, it's not that good, really. Just gruesome.
By Sunday, August 14, 2005 Care Not for Carrots When we first met M. Small's birth parents, they already knew that he was developing normally and healthily. So we knew the kid wasn't going to come out with half a bowel or something. The main thing I was worried about was allergies. Seems like everybody's allergic to something, especially kids. You hear about these kids with such severe peanut allergies that they go into anaphylactic shock if somebody brushes them with a Charles Schulz cartoon. Or maybe that's just me. Obviously if he turned out to be lactose-intolerant or allergic to gluten or water or something, we'd deal with it, but we'd prefer not to have to. As it turned out, the only concession we had to make to any special dietary needs was giving him special preemie formula with a higher caloric content. And, you know, that worked. When we started him on baby food around six months, they told us to only start one food at a time and not to give him more then one new kind of food in a three-day period. That way, if he turned out to be allergic to something, we'd have already isolated it and wouldn't have to go through a lot of tedious trial and error. Peas? Fine. Sweet potatoes? Fine. Green beans? Fine. Squash? Fine. Carrots? His throat closed up later that night and made his breathing sound like a muted trumpet being played by an elephant in a wet balloon. But other than that, fine. If you get a reaction after introducing a certain food, you're supposed to try it two more times to be sure it's that and not some other environmental factor you may not be aware of. On the doctor's advice, we tried carrots again a couple of weeks later, but in a smaller serving and with other food. The reaction was proportionally smaller, but it was still there. On the doctor's advice, we skipped the third attempt. It seems that like our new U.N. ambassador, my son doesn't do carrots. As allergies went, we thought, this was a fairly innocuous one. Carrots are easy to avoid, after all. Asking them to be left off your house salad is the biggest hardship you'll ever face if you have a carrot allergy. You might not ever be cast in a live-action production of Watership Down, but it's not going to be hard to find an upside to that. So Trash and I counted ourselves lucky that the biggest problem in feeding M. Small was going to be a heavier rotation of all the other stage-one vegetables. We looked forward to stages two and three with relish. If we'd known then what we know now. You know what single ingredient is in the greatest percentage of mixed stage-two and stage-three baby foods? As it turns out, it's not carrots. It's water. And then it's carrots. I can understand that a jar labeled "Garden Vegetables" is going to have carrots. I can even understand that carrots would be the first ingredient on the list (after water, of course). It doesn't surprise me to see that "Roast Beef and Vegetable Dinner" has plenty of carrots. My own roast beef and vegetable dinners have plenty of carrots. You know what I don't use lots of carrots in? Lasagna. I've made lasagna many times (once from scratch), and never once has a carrot gone into the mix, let alone more carrots than anything else. Same with spaghetti. Trash makes this amazing spaghetti that has about nine hundred ingredients. Carrots are not among them. And yet these are the second item in the ingredient list on the baby-food version of both of these meals, as well as any number of others where you wouldn't expect to find carrots. I mean, peach cobbler? Please. It makes a cynical kind of sense, I suppose. Carrots are probably a cheap filler ingredient -- unlike shiitake mushrooms, for example -- that they can use a lot of. And doing so with carrots won't piss off the FDA -- unlike grass, for example. You don't see peanuts in baby food, because lots of kids turn up allergic to those, but who's allergic to carrots? It's like being allergic to celery. It's basically water in vegetable form. What could be more innocuous? But, of course, my boy is special. Don't worry, I do realize just how lucky we are that he's not allergic to water or air like some kids are. I'm a little disappointed that he can't experience spaghetti or lasagna until he's old enough to enjoy the carrot-free varieties that Trash and I will make for him (although the latter will be disappointment if he turns out to be allergic to barbecue sauce as well). But then, any carrot-intensive versions of those wouldn't be any sort of spaghetti or lasagna we'd recognize, anyway. And please don't suggest a baby food-processor, because life's too short and babyhood's even shorter. Yesterday he had part of my gyro. I was just glad I'd thought to order it without carrots. Today's best search phrase: "pizza man delivers pizza to a house the , girl sucks his from inside the pizza." I'd feel more qualified to comment on that if I didn't feel so out of touch with pop culture these days. posted by M. Giant 5:11 PM 23 comments 23 Comments:We were discussing this issue yesterday. We visited some friends whose otherwise delightful baby is extremely allergic to dogs. We're planning on having a kid soon, and we're terrified that it'll be allergic to our first-born aka the dog. What is it with kids these days? If they're not listening to their hippity hop, they're going into anaphylactic shock. Seriously though, it kinda freaks me out.
By It freaks me right out too. When we were kids and someone had "allergies" it meant they had snotty noses in the spring. Now entire SCHOOLS have to ban foods cause if you whisper "cashew" too loud, some kid keels over. What the hell happened?
By I love hearing your stories about M. Small and the cats. My mother has severe anaphylactic allergic reactions to all nut and peanut products, and she's amused by the increase in allergy awareness. She carries 2 EpiPens and a supply of Benadryl tablets on her at all times, and so far she's made it to 63. Your boy will make it too.
By I love hearing your stories about M. Small and the cats. My mother has severe anaphylactic allergic reactions to all nut and peanut products, and she's amused by the increase in allergy awareness. She carries 2 EpiPens and a supply of Benadryl tablets on her at all times, and so far she's made it to 63. Your boy will make it too.
By He may outgrow the carrot allergy. My daughter projectile vomited carrots (and only carrots) the 1st two times we gave them to her. By the time she was a little over a year, she was eating them just fine. I know, not much of a consolation during the baby food stage! Maybe try an organic line like Earth's Best to see if they don't put them in everything?
By Seriously the world has gone bad. I had asthma as a kid (occaisonally took a puffer, mostly just sometimes had to slow my breathing carefully)...but after about six years of no puffer carrying, I ended up in hospital yesterday needing more treatment than ever.
By Speaking of allergies...my mother raised 7 kids. Recently I received a desperate phone call, "Your brother has a prescription for penicillin and we can't remember if he is allergic to it!!! You need to call me ASAP!" Geniuses. The only kid with allergies was ME, the youngest one. How hard is that to remember? I am allergic to horses, dogs, cats, dust mites, penicillins, macrolides and nuts. I'm so fun. Why don't you go ahead and get M. Small a carrot tattoo so you never have these problems?
By My toddler is allergic to peanuts, and I just want to say thanks for the tip about the Charles Schulz cartoons!
By Too many carrots can also turn your child ORANGE. And when your child is a redhead, orange skin isn't too flattering. We had trouble with the carrots in stage 2 and 3 foods as well and just started making our own. It isn't that hard, just throw well cooked veggies, rice or pasta, some meat, and maybe some cream of chicken or mushroom soup, water in a processor, whir... and there's your baby food.
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Carrot allergies turn out to be pretty common, maybe 25% of food allergies, and there does seem to be something about the damn things.
By While I do not put carrots in my spaghetti my mom occasionally throws some in hers. She started it when I was like 22 so one day at dinner there was a big HUH? moment but we all just kpet eating.
By You know who else was allergic to carrots? Mel Blanc.
By Life is too short to make your own baby food UNLESS you're already making something anyway. Whenever I was making something for the rest of the family I would just throw a cup or so of it into the food processor and freeze it in ice cube trays. One or two ice cubes is about a single serving size. Well rounded meals - thawed when ready. Convenient and way less expensive than commercial baby food. - Trish
By Drat, I thought my son was unique because of his carrot allergy and now I find out it's almost as common as his allergy to sulfa drugs. The good news is that he outgrew the carrot allergy by the time he was 10 and now thinks baby carrots are an acceptable potato chip substitution. The bad news is that's the only veggie he'll willingly eat.
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I have a similar reaction to carrots, but not to organic carrots for some reason.
By I've heard that carrots are used to cleanse land from various contaminants. Just harvest a crop or two and then test the soil. Of course, you'd throw those carrots away.
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I'm 22 years old and I've been allergic to carrots since I was 8..or at least thats when we discovered that.
By Think about other illnesses that have popped up since we were children-namely ADHD (whoever heard of that in the 70s), juvenile diabetes, allergies a plenty...what is different these days? VACCINES. Look into it- investigate the "illnesses" we vaccinate our children against and you will find that they are more likely to have an adverse reaction to the innoculation than to die from the disease. Not to mention vaccines are made with MONKEY tissue to cultivate the antibodies...doesn't that just seem wrong? It HAS to mess with their systems somehow and I think we are just seeing the beginning...
By I just found out my grandaughter is allergic to carrots too, I'd never of a carrot allergy before! In going through the shelf of baby food I keep at home for babysitting purposes I discovered the same problem you did - almost every mixed food has carrots in it! I am dumbfounded - that really limits what we can feed her considering there aren't that many alternatives to begin with.
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I came across this looking for info on the carrot allergy. My son has a rash after eating carrots. we were told try again after a few weeks. Same result. My wife, a scientist, read the NIH link. Very helpful.
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Hilarious commentary! "You might not ever be cast in a live-action production of Watership Down, but it's not going to be hard to find an upside to that."
By my daughter is 7 and allergic to carrots. She knows the first thing to tell people is her allergy. and if you go out to it, order all carrot free food. It can be done. Just make sure the kids know what to look for at school lunches.
By It would take less time for you to make your own carrot-free baby food than it took to read all those labels to find out if they had carrots in them. I know this because I have food allergies. I spend a lot of time reading labels in stores. I decided to make my own baby food right off the bat because of the likely hood of my son inheriting them. But I will never treat HIM like a pain in the ass (unless he is actually being one) about this issue, just the major food companies that resisted labeling and still don't identify major allergens like gluten.
By Wednesday, August 10, 2005 The Weighting is the Hardest Part It's been over a year and a half since Strat was diagnosed with diabetes. As I'm pretty sure I've explained before, the way we figured out something was wrong with him was by a considerable amount of weight loss over the course of several months. Ever since we got back from a vacation to find him overfed and looking like a giant, white tribble, picking him up took some effort. Fifteen pounds of cat can throw you off balance if you don't have your feet planted. And forget about scooping him up with one hand unless you had a free limb flung out in the opposite direction as a counterweight. The day I sat at my computer and picked him up off the floor without feeling it in my abs, I knew it was time to take him to the vet. And you pretty much know the rest. A thousand shots and about two and a half cc's of insulin later, he's still doing great. He still horks up a puddle of half-digested Science Diet every once in a while, but even that's not a problem with Turtle around to clean up after him. We bring him in to the vet for regular checkups every few months. In the spring, his weight was at 10.8 pounds. That was up a bit from the last time, but the vet really wanted him to be up around twelve pounds. I thought that might be a little tricky, since his appetite isn't what it once was, but I figured that if I upped his evening helping of soft food and/or tuna, he'd pork up rather nicely over the coming weeks. Months passed. Strat ate his food, just as we wanted him to. Everything should have been going according to plan. But scooping him up off the floor was easier. We got a little nervous. Where could his weight be going? Sure, the nightly yield from the catboxes was plenty substantial, but we had two growing cats using it as well. We couldn't figure out why he was wasting away again. We made an appointment with the doctor for his checkup a little early. As she checked his various orifices, I explained that Strat's attitude and appetite both seemed fine (although the latter had been dropping off some), and I had no idea why he was losing weight. She said she'd take him into the back to draw some blood and put him on the scale, and they'd both return in a moment. I stood in the exam room alone for what seemed like a long time, wondering what we were going to do to get Strat's weight back up. A tuna-only diet? Enforced bed-rest? Intravenous injections of baby fat? The technician brought Strat back, and I braced myself to hear just how far below ten pounds he had dropped, and to start figuring out how we might finance, say, a kidney transplant. "He's 11.6," the tech said. "Pounds?" I said. That explained the drop in appetite. Strat was approaching his ideal weight. We had to wait a couple of days for the lab work to come back to make sure that everything else was fine, and guess what? It was. Aside from diabetes, we've got one perfectly healthy fifteen-year-old cat. I just wonder what happened to make him feel so much lighter.  Today's best search phrase: "Genitals and fur coats DVD." I hear the commentary track on that one is awesome. posted by M. Giant 6:59 PM 7 comments 7 Comments:Glad to hear Strat is ok. Your boy looks so cute, though now I understand what Trash meant when she said that he's huge now.
By Hmm there's a poser. What on *earth* could it be?
By This was not a good morning for me--until I read this entry. You've changed my whole attitude for the day and I thank you so much.
By Ahhh, M. Tiny is so cute - and so BIG! I was re-reading the entry when he first arrived, and the difference in the pictures is unreal. Yea! for healthy babies and kitties.
By M.Small - Your progressive weight training program. Does wonders for your arms. Glad you kitty is ok.
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Yay, healthy kitty and big, healthy kid!
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HOLY CRAP he's big!
By Saturday, August 06, 2005 Saturnalia Trash's car had to go. She loved her sporty little black '98 Chevy Cavalier that she's had since 1998, but it wasn't working out. Once M. Tiny quit being M. Tiny and became M. Small, he graduated to another car seat. The old one was fine. Safe, secure, basically a padded, belted Gibraltar in the back seat. The new one, not so much. The front end of it touched the top corners of the bucket seats in front, resting between them. Which, on one level, looked fine, but on another, we were pretty sure that wasn't supposed to happen. Especially since the car seat wiggled a lot more when the front seats were folded forward. Just didn't seem right somehow. Add to that the fact that strapping a wiggling baby into a car seat in the back of a two-door car requires bodily contortions not unlike those called for when building a fire in the fireplace from atop your chimney, and Trash's car had to go. So my dad figured out what kind of car she'd probably like, and she went online and looked at some new and used cars, and last Saturday morning we met up with my parents at the Saturn dealership near where I used to work. Yes, she was joining me in the Cult of Saturn. And just like any cult worth its legions of insane proselytizers, the Cult of Saturn can be expensive and challenging to get into. If only we had known. On the way there, with M. Small strapped into that tiny back seat for what we hoped was the last time, it occurred to us that we hadn't double-checked to make sure that we had food for him in case we were still car-shopping by his next mealtime. But we were pretty sure we were all set, and if not, he could probably hold off an extra ten minutes if things went a little long. Let's just say we ended up being glad we were all set in case things went a little long. No, actually, let's say more than that. Maybe we could start with two minutes after we arrived on the lot, when a salesman with a bad haircut -- let's call him Len -- came out of the building and descended upon us. Which was fine, because we did in fact want to buy a car. We just didn't know at the time how difficult he was going to end up making that. Finding the right car turned out to be trickier than we expected. The one Trash picked out first turned out to be sold, so that was that. So then he got on the computer and started searching the database for vehicles that had what she wanted. Considering that Trash has a Master's degree in finding stuff out on computers, you can imagine her frustration at watching over the shoulder of someone who used the computer like he just recently graduated from pointing the mouse at the monitor like a TV remote. Meanwhile, my parents were taking care of the baby over at an empty cubicle. We were thisclose to inviting the kid over to run the computer, on the assumption that he'd do it faster. But we got through that, and after an hour, Trash and I had both been on a test drive with my dad and she had picked out the car she wanted. It ended up being one of the ones on the show floor, about three inches from where she'd been standing and trying not to let her fingernails pierce clear through to the backs of her hands while Len took five minutes per vehicle to come up with possible cars that at that time were in Rochester. With Mom's help, we got M. Small's bottle taken care of. And at long last, we were just a few pieces of paperwork away from driving home a shiny new Trashmobile. Sadly, at this point Len was nowhere to be found. Len had decided to multitask this fine morning, and was dealing with at least two other customers in between stolen moments with us. We later theorized that he had actually made appointments with them, but had leaped on us anyway, figuring that he could do ten things at once. As it turns out, Len can't. After a few minutes of sitting in our little cubicle, Len breezed by on his way to do something else. "You folks comfortable here?" he asked us hurriedly. "Well, we wanted to buy a car," Trash said to the Len-shaped dust cloud before us. You know how you're watching a movie or reading a book, and it's really not doing it for you, and after a while you realize you're only hanging in there because it has to get better? This was the experience of buying a car from Len. But we figured we were almost done. We'd get out of there, complain on our customer service survey, and enjoy our new car. We kept thinking we'd get out of there, as Len took a ridiculous amount of time to request our financing paperwork. As he took an absurd amount of time to do whatever with the title and license. As he kept disappearing on us. Soon other employees began to notice. "Can I help you guys with something?" "We're just waiting for Len," we'd keep saying. Eventually they'd stop asking and they'd say, "Still waiting for Len?" Over the course of the day, we had to have Len paged on at least three separate occasions. After we'd been there three hours, and M. Small had had another meal, we finally signed all the paperwork, had Len paged again, and got ready to drive the new Trashmobile -- which by now was out of the store and out on the pavement -- off the lot. "Oh, I haven't cleaned that car out yet," Len said. We probably should have paid more attention to the Jack-Lemmon-in-Glengarry Glen Ross flopsweat pouring off the guy the minute we laid eyes on him. In a dealership full of calm, relaxed salespeople, Len was probably the guy staring down the barrel of an unmet quota on the last selling day of the month. He overextended himself, and we paid the price. Nearly four hours after we'd gotten there, the service guys drove the car out of the bay and opened the driver's side door for Trash. While we got M. Small strapped in (I'd actually put the car seat in the thing while it was still on the show floor, which was a show in itself, let me tell you), Len had just one more thing to go over. The survey. Len explained that we would be getting a customer service survey in the mail, and while we both bit our tongues to keep from saying that the thought of the survey was the only thing that had gotten us through this long, arduous process, he explained that while the survey questions would look like multiple choice, they're really pass/fail. M. Small started getting impatient at being strapped into a stationary car while Len's flopsweat flopped harder than ever. I just glared at him. Trash wouldn't look at him at all. Survey, we both thought, and by the time we got out of there we were so frustrated and emotionally exhausted that we had to go pick up a pizza. Later, mom told me that if we didn't respond to the survey, they'd send us another one. And then we should send both in. Today I stopped in to have Trash's new plates put on, but I didn't see Len. At least not until I was driving out of the service bay, my errand complete. He was just stepping out of the building. I'm actually rather proud of myself for not having run him over.  Today's best search phrase: "Owatonna rent dumpster." Okay, I know Owatonna's a clean town, but shouldn't they spring for something a little more permanent, just in case? posted by M. Giant 9:44 PM 11 comments 11 Comments:
Buying a Saturn can be an absolute delight when you're dealing with a salesperson with the tiniest bit of snap (i.e., when I bought my first one). But when you aren't? NIGHTMARE (i.e., when I bought my second one).
By Congratulations! I bought a Saturn Ion 3 a month ago- so welcome to the cult. It is my first Saturn, and I love it! Too bad about crappy salespeople. Ours was as nice as could be, and it didn't take too long...
By Oooh, shiny cars!
By
Welcome to the cult! We just bought a Saturn Vue. Yes, we sold our green souls and have an SUV now. Ack. But it's so niiiiice ...
By
When my wife and I bought a car (Ford) four years ago, we have "something" of a similar experience. We didn't quite have a Len to drive us insane, but we did have out first child in tow and it took us about three hours or so to get everything taken care of.
By Pretty car! Is it a 2005 or a 2006? I know it may be too late, but I read somewhere that the 2006 is actually cheaper than the 2005.
By
Congrats on the new ride! Be safe and enjoy.
By Damn, that's got to be the worst car-buying experience I've ever heard. My Saturn experiences were very easy, although the last time, 2004, every time I asked the dealer a question, he directed the answer to my husband. Next year, is M. Small gonna be M. Shorty?
By
It is always that bad. The last time I boght a car, I already knew exactly which car I was getting, financing had been pre-approved, and the salesman was my brother-in-law.
By
Pardon me, but as an escaped cult member haaaaaate Saturn. Haaaate.
By We had a very similar experience when we went to buy my husband a used Jeep after his truck was totalled by a red-light-running-maniac. We had already picked it out off of their website and were paying cash. We foolishly figured it wouldn't take long because last October we bought a brand new Hyundai and the whole process only took an hour including the test drive and financing. Instead, we were treated with Len's twin brother, who made us wait for hours just to pay for the damn thing and then when we finally appeared to be done, we were told it hadn't been cleaned yet. Oddly, we never received a survey. Maybe he figured it best not to send one since we both gave him the stink-eye and peeled out of the parking lot as he tried to say goodbye to us, a half hour after the dealership had closed for the night. What we learned: buy cars only from Hyundai from now on.
By Thursday, August 04, 2005 I bought Haunted last month in part because it came so highly recommended, sort of, by Pamie, stee, Wing, and Toque. I read that first story at my mother-in-law's house in Iowa on the Fourth of July weekend. So I couldn't even offer to read the thing out loud to the room at the time, because I can't imagine it would have had a terribly receptive audience. So the other thing Pam mentioned in that entry was how creepy the very sight of the book's cover was around the house. I may have discovered something creepier. And that is the absence of the very sight of the book's cover around the house. I know we got home with the book, because I remember reading part of it when we returned. But a couple of days later, it vanished. I've looked everywhere. It's not in any of the shelves. It's not under any of the furniture. It's not even in the freezer for getting too upsetting. It's just gone. Except it's not, because it's here in the house somewhere. Waiting. Waiting for me to forget about it. Waiting for me to let my guard down. Waiting for me to stop looking for it, and then waiting a few more weeks, so that it can leap on my face while I'm sleeping and suffocate me. Anyway, if I ever go, like, a whole month without posting, that's probably what happened to me. Just so you know. posted by M. Giant 10:03 PM 4 comments 4 Comments:Perhaps it eloped with my missing "The X-Files" Season 1 DVDs. They'd actually make a pretty good couple.
By I seriously suggest buying another copy of the book. Murphy's law on this one is this; when you lose something and you go through the trouble of buying the same thing twice, you will find your original again. That is how I ended up with so many watches...
By
Nothing supernatural here. When you get a kid, things go missing. Not that it's the kid's fault. It's more of a priority issue. Baby, check. Baby's stuff, check. Stuff for baby's stuff, check. Book I was enjoying? Aww, damn.
By I think your book and my missing, brandnew, round non-stick baking sheet might be in your oven. I don't know why your book would want to be in your oven, though, but you might want to check there anyway. Stranger things have happened. And if you find the baking sheet, let me know. Thanks. :)
By Tuesday, August 02, 2005 Last night, our friend brought over her four-week-old baby so we could meet her for the first time. Dude, that girl is sooo wee! I knew she was young, and she was born a little early, but coming face-to-face -- nay, face-to-entire-body -- with a human being of such small stature freaked me out a little bit. I was afraid I'd break her just being in the same room with her. Then her parents told us her weight, which is twice what M. Tiny's was the week after he was born. Of course, objectively, I remember when he was small enough that I balanced him on one forearm for feedings. But then seeing that little girl last night, I don't know how I even found the courage to pick him up back then, let alone burp him. I've gotten used to his size, even as he's grown. He now weighs five times what he did that first month. All of his measurements are in the ninetieth percentile for his age. Not his adjusted age, where you count from his due date, but his actual age, counting from the day he arrived seven-and-a-half weeks premature. He's caught up, and in a big way. He does look smaller when he's sleeping in his crib, simply by virtue of the fact that every moment he's awake is spent either practicing walking or trying to escape from whoever is holding him so he can practice walking. But awake or asleep, his tiny days are over. So he's not M. Tiny any more. As of now, he's upgraded to M. Small. posted by M. Giant 8:24 PM 10 comments 10 Comments:I'm curious what you'll name him if he ever grows up to be taller than you. M. Normous?
By Hee! How about M. Ense or M. Onolith
By Well, you could go with M.Assive, but that may send the wrong message. How 'bout, M.Easurable, or M.Pressive.
By Along those lines, how about M.Grande?
By He would of course have to spend a little time as M.Edium first.
By
So, if he is M. Small, has he passed M. Iniature?
By I vote M. Onolith.
By Once he reaches school age there is always M. Kid.
By How about M. Idget? No?
By
If he wants to play trumpet in the band, but can't play very well? "M.Tinny."
By 
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