Carolyn lost a glove

Julie and I just got back from our trip to run the Portland Marathon. We both finished before they closed the course and had fun telling friendly Portlanders how long a marathon is while wearing our medals around town. Our friends came down from Tacoma to watch.


We ate Sushi Pizza which was excellent.


and visited a giant Zen garden.



I said to the guy at the youth hostel where we rented our bikes, "I bet with this helmet on I don't look like a tourist at all." He reassured me lots of Portlanders wear these helmets. What do you think? Tourist or Portland Hipster?

The Bailout Plan

According to the NY times, "After the overnight drafting efforts on both sides of Capitol Hill — with pizza on the House side, and Thai food in the Senate — Democratic officials said they had completed a unified draft of a bill." I hope Republicans weren't eating any Thai food, that sounds ELITE, I wonder if they had it with ARUGULA.
It took almost ten years to increase the minimum wage and it looks like only one week to bail out the financial system to the tune of $700 billion. This will be passed quicker than rescue workers got to Katrina victims, faster than John McCain can ride the Straight Talk Express back to Washington to rescue the economy, swifter than Obama can be Swift-boated by the same guy who did Kerry.

Gotta go, time to water the sidewalk.

Feeding Time at the Zoo

There is a great article in the NY times titled, "6 food mistakes parents make." Hopefully the link will work, if not email me and I will send you the article.
The article advises parents to sex up food to get your kid to eat, "Adding a little butter, ranch dressing, cheese sauce or brown sugar to a vegetable dish can significantly improve its kid appeal." I can't get Carolyn to eat vegetables using this technique, so I've been putting cheese sauce on her butter and she eats it likes its her job. Also, she LOVES ranch dressing on her brown sugar, in fact I'm thinking of putting her on the condiment diet, or maybe the white condiment diet to narrow, mayonnaise, cream cheese, sour cream, ranch dressing.

Summer 2008

During the summer Carolyn went from only this big....






to almost weighing as much as Pablo.



We're back on the blog-o-sphere and will make up for a dismal showing all summer with a stronger more rugged showing for the last of 2008, so stay tuned...

Somethings pretty funny

Lately, the weather here has been rainy and cold, so Carolyn and I are stuck in the house. We could sit in the basement and watch, "Rescue Me," on DVD which is a show I highly recommend except it's not exactly G rated. Instead, we play upstairs and listen to AM talk radio. "Why would a good yuppie like Montanadad not just listen to NPR all day?" you might ask. Apparently, Montanans can't get enough Jazz because except for the morning and noon news, that's all they play on NPR. My choices for AM talk radio are unlimited. There's Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and Michael Savage. It's hard to believe there's such a thing as the "liberal media," when those are my choices. Sometimes it gets so hard to listen to, it makes us eat dirt.

Rusty old tractor parts lawn art

We went for a walk and someone in the neighborhood had either used a rusty plow to get rid of weeds of more likely used this as lawn art.


Even better was the giant rusty tractor tire close by.

After walking around the neighborhood we realized this is a somewhat common theme, people love to decorate the front lawn with rusty metal. I suppose this is better than the decorating style we were used to in NYC which was used condoms and dog crap, but not something we would choose.

Not thinking about going back to work

Carolyn keeps getting cuter.


I haven't been thinking about going back to work, but feel like I ought to be thinking about going back to work. I've been a SAHD for a year now and I'm worried about having a gap in the C.V. However, any employer who would consider taking time off to be with Carolyn a bad thing I probably don't want to work for anyway. Consequently, I'm going to return to not thinking about going back to work and focus on other things like going to Costo after Carolyn wakes up from her nap.
Top 5 things about Costco:
#5: When I miss standing in line from having lived in NYC, I can always find a long one to stand in at Costco.
#4: The ice cream bar dipped in chocolate and covered in almonds for only $1.50. I'd easily pay $3 for it.
#3: It reminds me of my brother who loves going to Costco more than anyone I know. Here he is using a sled he got from there.



#2: When it rains the good folks at Costco wipe down the shopping cart.


And the #1 great thing about going to Costco:
If you forget to feed your kid that day, there are plenty of healthy free samples for her to eat offered by Senior Citizens in hair nets.

I'm an uncle again!

The #1 gifts for new parents is the miracle blanket and the DVD "The happiest baby on the block." The miracle blanket is a swaddler that looks like this.



This amazing baby burrito maker in conjunction with the video helped us calm Carolyn during those first few months. I sent it to my sister-in-law to help with little Kellin who was born 3 weeks ago. She said it was so helpful she cried. Do you hear that? That's the sound of me patting myself on the back.

Nicknames

Carolyn has numerous nicknames, one of which doesn't make any sense, but it might after I explain how it came to be. Carolyn and I were sitting in the basement watching this super tall wiry Russian guy named Andrei Kirilenko play for the Utah Jazz.


So I started calling Carolyn "Carolinko." This has morphed into "Linko," "Linkage," and "Linkasaraus Rex." I challenge parents of the blog-o-sphere to comment on their most ridiculous nicknames.

D to the M to the V

Boy, I tell you what the folks here sure are friendly. I knew this, but after years of living in bigger cities, it's hard to get used to. Today, the lady at the DMV was nice to me. There's a reason Patty and Selma from the Simpsons work at the DMV.
They are parodying the bureaucratic, unhelpful DMV employees we've all met. But not this time, not in Montana. Karen at the DMV asked me what brought me to Billings, she helped me fill out the form and even complimented my daughter's eyes.
I wanted to leave a tip. Aparently, I'm not the only one impressed by the friendly public servants in Big Sky Country.

What to Wear

Now that we're far from the fashion conscious citizens of New York City, I don't know how to dress. At my job in Manhattan, I dressed business casual sporting typical white guy clothes from the gap, and banana republic with a belt that matched the color of my shoes which were usually Doc Martens or Keens.
Out here in Montana, everyone owns a pair of Merrel's, it is not uncommon to hear people saying, "I love my Merrel's," or, "Dad loves his Merrel's." As you can see, it does appear to be a very comfortable shoe, but that doesn't mean we should strap such a god-awful turd onto our feet.



I'm looking for some advice on how the fashionable stay-at-home dad dresses. Thanks for any ideas.

Watering Baby

Our pediatrician recently recommended Carolyn should be transitioning from bottle to sippy cup.

Carolyn Loves the Camelbak dad uses.





















Not so much a fan of the sippy Cup

Cons of Mannyhood

There are also cons of mannyhood. The first being the unsolicited parenting advice, I wonder if this is somewhat gender-biased, Here's what I imagine people think when they see Carolyn and me in the grocery store. "How cute, Dad is babysitting today. Since we all know Mother's are the only people capable of raising children, I feel compelled to give him parenting advice in a condescending manner." People like this are known as the, "mommy police," according to the honest baby website.
Another fun thing are the not so clever references to Mr. Mom
Not only was the movie crap, but it's title implies some crazy stuff. For example, if I grow my hair out long, am I Mr. Woman? When my wife drinks PBR, and acquires a huge potbelly, is she Mrs. Dad? If I borrow tools from the neighbor and never return them, am I Mr. Brother-in-law? I could go on and on.

Thoughts on being a stay at home dad

I have been staying at home with Carolyn for about 8 months now. She turned a year old yesterday and when I took on this adventure, I assumed I would be looking at going back to work by now. I thought this gig would be boring, that I'd have nothing to talk about but day-time TV, Oprah, and of course Carolyn. I imagined people quickly zoning out as I described how much fun I had recently playing peek-a-boo for twenty minutes with my daughter....and then my face re-appeared from behind the stuffed monkey....Carolyn laughed a lot...and then I hid my face behind the stuffed monkey...Carolyn got excited my face was soon to re-appear and guess what, it did...more laughing by Carolyn.
It turns out I'm hoping to ride this thing out until she turns eighteen as I consider many reasons to continue this lifestyle. For one, the paper isn't going to read itself. Secondly, I'm needed at YMCA noon basket ball to bring down the median age and also decrease the amount of back (and shoulder) hair per capita. Carolyn enjoys spending time with the other kids at the Y day-care and for the first time ever, we have a membership at a gym that doesn't appear monthly on the Quicken budget taunting me: "$99 is a lot of money to spend every month for something you never use." During her naps. I'm able to watch sporting events tivoed over the weekend and lately I've gone through Seasons one through three of "The Wire," in only a month.

It's Bub's
















Now I answer the phone with, "Yo."

Any comments about the benefits of being a stay-at-home dad?

Carolyn is a year old

A year ago around this time, my wife was pacing the halls of our Manhattan apartment per the instructions of our doula in an attempt to coax our daughter to come out and meet us. Her moaning was loud enough to frighten some of our neighbors into locking their doors. Carolyn arrived soon later and to celebrate, I've decided to start this blog. Much has happened since Carolyn was born. The biggest change has been a move last July from a one bedroom apartment in New York City to a house in Billings, Montana. Before the move, I resigned from my job as the assistant director of a mental health outreach team and have been a stay-at-home dad ever since. This blog will be a discussion about life as a stay-at-home dad as well as the adjustments to living in a much smaller community. Enjoy!