Category: Lydia

The Lydster, Part 44: Mess


In the room where Lydia had been sleeping, there was a large closet that really limited the space a growing girl would need. So, while I was on a business trip, Carol, her father and our contractor had it taken down, which was fine. The trouble is that it left big holes in places that will have to be patched before the room can be reoccupied, mostly to avoid the dust.

This meant that Lydia had been sleeping in the guest room, in a very large bed. While she was comfortable sleeping alone in her Lydia-sided bed, she’s loath to do it in the big bed, but “needs” someone to sleep with. This is normally my wife, who I wake up 30 minutes after we they go to bed. But sometimes, I can’t wake her, and end up sleeping alone. When Carol has evening meetings, I’m the one who ends up sleeping with the child, and apparently, I cannot be awakened, though I generally wake up on my own and go back to my bed.

Once the room was repaired, then the room was repainted, for the former closet area was totally a different color from the rest of the room. I’m thinking, “I cannot wait. My daughter in her room, in her bed. My wife and I in our bed, all night. I can’t wait.”

So the room is ready, but the girl is not. As I feared, she got acclimated to the guest room, and finds her nice new room foreign, even with all in there. I hear patience is a virtue; I must be a virtuous soul.

ROG

ROG

Theorems of the Sick Child and/or The Sick Parent

At least for me:
If I am well, and the child is well, well, that’s fine.
If I am well, and the child is sick, I can deal with that.
If I am sick and the child is sick, I can muddle through.
BUT
If I am sick, but the child is well, but doesn’t want to go to day care because some boy said that she was a boy (probably because of her short haircut), information about which I torturously had to pry out her over a three-hour period, then this is not good, because she wants to do stuff, and all I want to do is SLEEP, which I failed to do yesterday.

So, after I go vote, that’s what I’m going to do today, thank you very much. And re: voting, I’ll probably vote for at least one Republican, which, in Democratic-machine Albany, is no big whoop. Also, there’s a little-mentioned Constitutional amendment for New Yorkers to vote on. From the Adirondack Club:
Since 1930, the Raquette Lake Reservoir has supplied the community with drinking water, but for the past five years, Raquette Lake has been under a “boil water” order from the state Department of Health. To address the water contamination problem, the town needs wells on state Forest Preserve land adjacent to the hamlet.
The “Forever Wild” clause of the New York Constitution permits reservoirs on the Forest Preserve, but makes no provision for drinking-water wells, so a constitutional amendment is needed so the town can legally move forward with this much-needed project. The amendment was twice approved unanimously by the state Legislature, and it is now up to voters statewide to OK it.
As one e-mail from a generally reliable source puts it, “Constitutional amendments make people nervous, and that’s probably a good thing. I believe that these drinking water wells do not signal a danger for environmental groups and are not antagonistic to the original intent of protecting the Adirondack Forest.”

Lots more to blog about, but no energy to describe things such as the Albany Symphony Orchestra concert last month featuring erhu player Betti Xiang, which Carol and I saw with our friends Bruce and Cenzi. Wonderful concert, wonderful time, but no pithy observations, except to note that the two-stringed instrument could, surprisingly, be more lyrically expressive than a four-string violin.

ROG

ROG

The Lydster, Part 43: Safe


One of the tricks of parenthood is to make sure that they’re not eating or touching things that will harm them, of course. My sister Leslie has been sending me the regular updates from the Consumer Product Safety Commission; I could go to the site, but she’s taken on the task. In one recall, there were several Dora the Explorer items recalled because of lead paint content. Lydia has a Dora doll that she adores, and naturally holds closely. Fortunately, I didn’t find that particular item on the list, but it was understandably disconcerting.

More recently, I’ve been baffled by the voluntary recall of children’s medicines that included:
Dimetapp(R) Decongestant Plus Cough Infant Drops,
Dimetapp(R) Decongestant Infant Drops,
Little Colds(R) Decongestant Plus Cough,
Little Colds(R) Multi-Symptom Cold Formula,
PEDIACARE(R) Infant Drops Decongestant (containing pseudoephedrine),
PEDIACARE(R) Infant Drops Decongestant & Cough (containing pseudoephedrine),
PEDIACARE(R) Infant Dropper Decongestant (containing phenylephrine),
PEDIACARE(R) Infant Dropper Long-Acting Cough,
PEDIACARE(R) Infant Dropper Decongestant & Cough (containing phenylephrine),
Robitussin(R) Infant Cough DM Drops,
Triaminic(R) Infant & Toddler Thin Strips(R) Decongestant,
Triaminic(R) Infant & Toddler Thin Strips(R) Decongestant Plus Cough,
TYLENOL(R) Concentrated Infants’ Drops Plus Cold,
TYLENOL(R) Concentrated Infants’ Drops Plus Cold & Cough.
Two of those specific items were in our medicine chest!
The basis of the concern, as I understand, is that children under 2 years have been overly medicated. I actually called my pharmacist, and he said that since my daughter’s over two, it would be OK. But then, a short time later, a panel of the Food and drug Administration concluded that “children under the age of 6 should not be using cold and cough medicines because they have not been proven to be effective or safe.” And since she’s under 6, and since she has a cold, I’m not sure what to do. And I hate that.

ROG

ROG

(W)rap-Up

Did you miss me? I was gone a couple days at a conference of the New York State Data Center Affiliates, and I didn’t have any Internet connection (though I was able to purloin someone’s computer to post yesterday.) Did anything happen? World War III didn’t happen yet, apparently.

The Boston Red Sox are still alive. They’ve decided they need one more game then one game after that, rather than thinking, before yesterday’s match that they needed three wins. Reminds me, actually, of a racquetball match my partner Ty and I were in earlier in the week. We were down 2-8, game to 11, but instead of thinking we needed 9 points, we decided to try to win a point at a time, and it worked.

I’m sorry that Joe Torre’s gone from the Yankees, but $5 million plus incentives ain’t bad for an MLB manager.

I’ve figured out my daughter’s hip hop name. There’s a sign near our day care that says EMERGENCY, and Tuesday, I was showing her our last name, GREEN, which are the middle five letters, scrambled. So, she can be EM CY GREEN, or maybe just EMERGENCY.

More content tomorrow, I’m hoping.
ROG

ROG

Roger Answers Your Questions, Scott and Gordini

The blogger Scott, husband of Marcia and father of Nigel, one of those people who still cares about the NHL, was kind enough to ask:

1. What do you think are the chances of us seeing another “Subway Series” this October?

You must have me mistaken with someone who has any idea. I had the St. Louis Cardinals losing every round they played (and won) last year.

That said, highly unlikely. In fact, much to my surprise, I think the Yankees have a better chance of getting there than the Mets, much to my disappointment. I’m rooting for the wild card to come out of the NL West (and for the Mets to win their division) because I think THEY think they can’t beat the Phillies in a second round matchup, whereas the Yankees could beat Boston, if they get past the first round. Though the Yanks have had a difficult time with the Angels this season, so if the Angels beat the Red Sox, the Yankees may be in trouble. Incidentally, yesterday was the centennial of the birth of original Angels’ owner, Gene Autry.

(When you asked a few days ago, the Mets were up by 2 games. Now they’re tied with a game to go, with no guarantee that they’ll even get IN the playoffs.)

2. What do you consider your favorite TV Drama of all-time?

Quite possibly St. Elsewhere, although Hill Street Blues and Homicide are up there. My favorite show as a kid, though was the Defenders, a lawyer show with E.G. Marshall and a pre-Brady Bunch Robert Reed. I was also fond of East Side/West Side with George C. Scott. There was an anthology show called The Bold Ones, and The Senator segment with Hal Holbrook was great, got Emmy love, but it lasted but a season. Was Twilight Zone a drama? That gets its own special mention.

3. What do you consider your favorite TV sit-com of all-time?

The Dick van Dyke Show. The perfect balance of home life and work life. Great physical comedy by DVD. MTM’s capri pants. And Richard Deacon from Binghamton, NY. Lasted five years – not too short, not long enough to wear out its welcome, which I’m afraid M*A*S*H, arguably a better show in its prime, did for me.

Though I must give some consideration to the Mary Tyler Moore Show, with a magnificent evolving cast, also did home and work well, as did, now that I think of it, the Bob Newhart Show, the one where he plays the shrink.

A comedy that evolved into a good show was Barney Miller, which scrapped any real pretense of a home life after the first season (Barbara Barrie played Barney’s wife), and found its voice.

4. What scares you the most about Lydia growing up?

I suppose I’m dreading that inevitable teenage period when she thinks I’m an irrelevant, archaic druid. But I have to say that the great thing about having no idea what you’re doing as a parent – in that most of my preconceived notions about fatherhood could be tossed into the Dumpster – is that I don’t think too much about her Growing Up; I’m trying to take care of her Now.

I am reminded, again, about racism and racialism. I had never heard the latter term until I watched some Nelson Mandela speech right after he was released from prison. Some people use the terms interchangeably, but I feel a distinction. To me, racism is blatant inequity under the law or in society; e.g., the Jena 6 charged more harshly for their crimes than the white students who had assaulted black kids. Whereas, racialism is more the “damn fool” things people say and do, such as Bill O’Reilly.
I just started reading Anti-Racist Parent. By “just”, I mean yesterday; interesting stuff.

Back to TV: Lydia decided just this week that she wanted to put on her right sock, then her right shoe, left sock and left shoe. This reminded me of a conversation that Mike Stivic had with Archie Bunker (a sock, sock, shoe, shoe guy) on All in the Family; that was a good show, too.
***
Meanwhile, blogger Gordon, newly re-minted Chicagoan, podcaster, and most importantly, March Piscean, writes: “OK, well, here’s a question that I think you can answer: do you ever have a moment where you think ‘I’m so full of hot gas?'”

Immediately, I started writing this rambling epic indicating how there are several areas where I have no opinions at all, that the opinions I do have are often based on reason and experience, and that I don’t love the sound of my own voice as much as many do. I noted how, in keeping with a conversation he and I had privately, that I read other viewpoints; in fact, I spent some time this week listening to some of the speeches on the White Nationalist News Network, which I found by clicking Next Blog.

I addressed how an old girlfriend accused me of Male Answer Syndrome, which I rejected, not because it wasn’t possibly true, but because the thing I was answering (about alpacas being more pleasant than llamas) I actually DID know from research in my job. (And not so incidentally, claims that I have MAS has dropped SIGNIFICANTLY since I appeared on that game show. And there was other stuff about my good listening and observing skills.

But, sure, OK, don’t we all feel like we’re fakin’ it sometimes? Don’t at least many of us feel as though we’re about 11 and are pretending to wear grown-up clothes periodically?

So, Gordon, I could have just said “Yes.” But somehow, I thought you wanted a little more than that.
***
Oh, and another one of my favorite reads, Tom the Dog, who has been on one more game show than I have, says nice things about me. Right back at you.

ROG

ROG
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