Punched Myself in the Face, Etc.

As I was laying on the couch yesterday holding an icepack to my face from my injury incurred while putting together some new shelves I bought at our new SuperTarget, I was thinking I could use the time to type out a blog post if anything interesting had happened recently.

Aside from work, things have been pretty tame around here, other than that anyway.

New SuperTarget:

Since we moved into our neighborhood in 2003, we've had to rely on Walmart as our discount-retail-grocery-and-consumables-big-box-chain-store. I hate it. It's dirty and the people who work there are rude. Its only redeeming qualities are the price and selection that come with being a big discount store.

There's a new big discount store in the neighborhood now. The new SuperTarget opened up two weeks ago. I made it in there on Friday after work when I was looking for some shelves for Heather. It's like heaven. I was so excited I was doing S curves with my shopping cart in the big shiny unobstructed aisles. It even has a Starbucks in it. It's clean and roomy and the people are nice. It appears to have all the stuff we used to get at Walmart, sans dirt and bad attitudes.

I'm never going in that stupid Walmart again. I really don't know how it's going to stay in business with the SuperTarget right down the street. I estimate SuperTarget will make my life at least 1.5% better than it was before.

Shelves:

Heather has been couponing for about a month. She's been stocking up on non-perishables when she has a coupon and the item is on sale (it's called coupon stacking). This has resulted in the closet under our stairs looking like we were preparing for the apocalypse. Heather asked me to get some shelves so no one got hurt in a can avalanche.

I got these at SuperTarget for $19.99:


Thank you SuperTarget. I heart you.

Punched Myself in the Face:

While I was putting together said shelves purchased at said SuperTarget, I almost K.O.ed myself.

I put the shelves together and they didn't quite fit under the shelf that was already on the closet wall. Heather asked me to take the top shelf off to make it shorter.

The whole thing fits together without any screws, so you just shove the legs into the shelf and stack. Then, unless you foresee that your wife will want you to take it back apart, you pound on it really hard to make sure it won't fall apart.

I was trying to get one of the legs back out of the shelf and I guess I had my head too close to my hands while I was pulling. When the leg came loose from the shelf, I hit myself in the face with my fist and the shelf leg as hard as I can recall being hit in a while.

This is my nose after it stopped bleeding and I had put an icepack on it:


My unshaven upper lip and nose would be unsightly even it wasn't injured. Noses are really better observed from afar. You also can't capture the full scope of the injury in a picture. It's more on the inside - not, like, emotionally on the inside, but actually on the inside of my nose and deep inside my head.

This blow was minor on the scale of nose blows I've taken in my life, but it still hurt. Since college, I've been more careful in doing the things that resulted in countless nose bleeds and several broken noses. I went so long without taking a good hit to the nose I almost forgot what it felt like. It feels like no other injury. Somehow, your brain knows to numb your nose right after it takes a hard hit, so it takes a while to even feel it. It's an odd and bad type of pain. Being the one who inflicts the injury doesn't help much either. Pain and shame don't go well together.

After I took the top shelf off and hit myself, Heather decided she liked it better with the top shelf on and asked me to put it back together. Too bad she couldn't have just imagined what it might look like without the top shelf.

Headbanging is Rhythmic

About six months ago, we were concerned about the kids hitting their heads when they fell down. We asked their pediatrician, Dr. C., about it and he said: 1) it's no big deal unless they knock themselves out; and, 2) some kids hit their heads over and over on purpose, specifically stating, "it's rhythmic - it's like masturbation." What? Who? Where did that come from? Just in case we weren't clear, Dr. C. was vigorously nodding his head back and forth to simulate head banging when he said it. Heather and Brooke were both in the room, so I didn't think it was a good time to ask for elaboration. Lord knows what he would have said.

I've had the image of Dr. C. nodding his head back and forth saying that burned into my brain for six months. I think about it almost every day, sometimes several times a day. I don't mean to think about it; it just happens.

Then, a few weeks ago, just like Dr. C. said, Henry started banging his head rhythmically on his crib at night. I hear smack - smack - smack from his bedroom at night, over and over. We try to stop him, but he just starts back again. It's how he puts himself to sleep.

The loud noise in stereo from the room above and the baby monitor on my night stand is bad enough, but I lay awake wondering what Dr. C. meant. Was he trying to explain it by letting us know that a child's headbanging was like that to us? Did he mean it was like that to him? Surely he didn't mean the kids. I seriously have no idea - other than headbanging can be rhythmic. But he could have left out the other part entirely and I would have understood. It's very disturbing.

After a few too many nights of head smacking, we finally determined that the risks to Henry's head from the banging outweighed any possible risks of entanglement from crib bumpers at his age, so we put the bumpers in.


With the bumpers, we've noticed less bruises on Henry's head and the banging sounds a little softer. The smack is now more of a thud, which is nice.

Last night, though, while Henry was banging and I was staring at the ceiling thinking about that, Heather rolled over, half asleep, and said: "Man, Henry sure is going to town up there." I was awake for almost an hour after that.

Proof That Henry Can Walk

I was pleased to finally witness Henry walking last night. Then I got the video camera and he did it again.



That's legitimate locomotion. This myth is confirmed.

It's cliche to say "they grow up so fast," but it's true. They do. Maybe it seems to be going by more quickly because we have three babies turning into little children all at once. I don't think I would be any less shocked to see it if we only had one. It's just amazing.

Really - what have I accomplished in the last year while these three kids have gone from not being able to roll over to walking? I could have developed the ability to fly and it would be less impressive. And that's just what kids do. I knew it would probably happen, so I don't know why I'm so shocked.

Maybe I just lack foresight. One day it seems that the next big milestone isn't even on the horizon, and then it happens. Then it happens again and again with the other two kids. You would think I would come to expect it, but I am no less amazed the third time - every time.

I'm so proud of my little guy.

Henry Can Walk

We have three walkers!



OK, maybe the title is a little misleading. He can walk. I just have no proof of this new ability. This was the best I could do after bathtime on Sunday. Actually, I haven't really seen it either - at least not more than a few steps at a time. My sources say it's true. When Henry didn't know he was being watched, Heather and Brooke say he walked all the way across the nursery twice. I feel like the only person in the woods who missed a spotting of Bigfoot.

We believe Henry has been able to walk for about a week, but he won't do it while anyone is watching. It sounds crazy, but it seems my little buddy has a some performance anxiety. He just doesn't like an audience. That's cool - all in due time. Maybe he wants to master the art before the big unveil. I expect to be very impressed; just don't tell Henry.

Pumkinpalooza

Our Saturday trip to the Pumpkin Patch was an entertaining spectacle. I knew the part about the kids playing with pumpkins would be good, but the scope of the pumpkin enterprise was more than I expected.

I thought the pumpkin patch would be a grass field with some pumpkins and a hay ride that probably wouldn't be necessary to get to the pumpkins.

When we pulled up to the pumpkin patch and saw a full-on pumpkin festival, I was positively giddy:





In hindsight, I don't know why Heather would have suggested we drive 45 minutes to go to pile of pumpkins in a grass patch with nothing else. But really, what do 15 month old kids know? It's all fun. It's all new. But this was bigger and had a little more potential for fun than I had expected.

When we arrived on the main pumpkin picking grounds, it looked like it was about to rain, so we went straight to the pumpkin patch via the hay ride.


I was pretty happy to discover that the hay ride wasn't just a circle around a pumpkin patch. It was actually necessary for transportation from the barn compound, where we started, to the patch. I'm sure the kids wouldn't have noticed, but a necessary ride in a hay truck is more enjoyable to me than riding around unnecessarily in a circle and acting interested.

Even though I figured our hayride destination was likely to be a bunch of pumpkins unloaded into a grass plot, I was secretly hoping for a real pumpkin field.


Jackpot. We found real pumpkin plants in the field at the end of the hay ride. The pumpkins on the vines were a little picked over and were restocked with non-native pumpkins. But it was still neat to go pumpkin hunting in a real pumpkin patch (for the kids, of course).


One thing I didn't know about pumpkin plants, or at least these pumpkin plants, is that they have thorns. Lots of thorns. Probably more thorns than pumpkins even before the pumpkins were picked.



I can see how the idea of throwing a bunch of pumpkins in the grass and calling it a pumpkin patch caught on after seeing hordes of bloody children screaming and crying while entangled in actual pumpkin patches. Picking pumpkins in bushes full of thorns is an ill conceived idea, at least for little kids.

We kept the kids on the periphery of the patch and I went in a got pumpkins to bring out to the kids. Heather documented the pumpkin picking pretty thoroughly here.

After we got our pumpkins, we took the hay truck back to the barn compound. The kids seemed particularly pleased with their bounty.



There was a food barn next to the gift barn so I ordered us some burgers and fries. While we were sitting in the eating barn, next to the music barn, I noticed that the band in the music barn was playing a lot of Jesus music.


I like Jesus as much as the next guy, but the fire and brimstone anthems just seemed a little weighty for a day at the pumpkin patch. I wasn't really in the mood for contemplating my mortality or spirituality. If I would have had my druthers, I would have gone with some folksy looking people with banjos and washboards. Maybe a tub or a bucket on precussion. That seems more pumpkin pikiny to me.

We had about two or three Jesus songs, and then I heard:

. . . if we play it good and loud
She might get up and dance again.
Ooh, she put her beer down.
Here she comes . . .
honky tonk badonkadonk . . .
Got it goin' on
Like Donkey Kong . . .

And we saw this tenish year old girl who had been called up to dance to honkey tonk badonkadonk.



First we heard all about hell and then we punched our ticket to the place. Holy Lord. I didn't know how filthy country music could be. The singer followed that song up with a nice little country number about adultery. Then, like it never happened, right back to gospel. If I didn't see it, I wouldn't have believed it.

Gold Star

Thank you for your votes in the 2009 Multiples and More Blog Awards, both the voluntary ones and the ones that may or may not have been coerced.


I got a gold star!

In the process, I discovered some great new blogs - as if I needed more interesting things on the internet to occupy my time. I expanded my Blog List in the left sidebar with a couple of the other nominees, one of which I already read, Pyjammy's Blog (triplet mom), and a new one, Twinsomnia (fellow lawyer and twin mom). If you haven't already, you'll find a bunch of other good reads over at Multiples and More.

Random funny and non-funny blog posting will now resume. Thanks again.

Funny

I have a cute video of Rosemary doing some of her first real walking. She got up out of her chair, walked over to the toy bin and got a toy. I have a problem though. I can't post it because it's not funny. It's just a kid walking. That's not funny.

See, I have a little problem. I'm supposed to be funny. Some people were nice enough to nominate me for Funniest Blog in the Multiples and More 2009 Blog Awards. That's good - and really nice. Adults generally don't get the opportunity to be nominated for subjective non-professional accolades. When you just do the things you normally do and someone likes it enough to think you deserve an award, it's refreshing. Frankly, this should happen more often. It would be nice to get some recognition for Most Efficient Order at Starbucks, or maybe Most Polite Traffic Rule Violator from a policeman. Alas, that doesn't happen, so seeing that I made somebody smile and got nominated for an award really made my day.

The problem arises when someone reading the Multiples and More site sees a list of three purportedly "funny" blogs and clicks on BGPP to get a laugh or to decide whether to place a vote in the poll. If they happen to come by on a day when I discuss baby fighting for profit, or a tirade about Pampers, they might think: OK clown - mildly funny - job done. Sometimes, though, I don't want to be funny, like when I reflect on the babies' time in the hospital, or how far our little peanut has come. Then, even worse, what if I'm not funny? I can't just be funny on demand like Carrot Top or that witty Get 'er Done guy. Funny just happens. When it happens, I write about it. If it doesn't, there's no "ha ha" to be had.

Maybe I'll get lucky this weekend and witness or be a party to some tomfoolery or shenanigans. The hilarity will ensue and those nice people won't be disappointed.