The Phillies

The Phillies are a game behind to win the coveted "wild card" spot to be in the playoffs. I like baseball. Of all the professional sports that are broadcast on normal TV networks tennis is my favorite and then baseball. I have grown up going to stadiums to watch games (I've been to Yankee Stadium, Candlestick Park, Shea Stadium, where ever the Oakland A's play, Veterans Stadium, Citizens Bank Park, Wrigley's Field, RFK (where the Washington National's play), and Camden Yards (where the Baltimore Orioles play)). I don't love baseball. Mr. Doodlebug loves baseball, specifically the Phillies.

When we lived in DC it was okay because the Phillies weren't on TV that much and we couldn't tune into the Phillies radio station. But now we live in Philly and he has full access to every game the Phillies play, not to mention the Eagles games. We recently got rid of our cable and got DirecTV. With the satellite we don't get most Phillies games because that channel isn't in our line up (too local I guess). Mr. Doodlebug considers this a huge sacrifice. I'm not so sure it was a sacrifice.

Every night that the Phillies play Mr. D puts on the radio where the commentators follow every move the players make. We have constant baseball background noise. When we eat dinner he turns it off. When we retire to the family room to watch some TV or play a game, or play with baby Doodle he wears these ridiculous-looking bright yellow headphones that have a radio built right in. They stick out about an inch on either side of his head. He wore them last night while we watched a movie together, while we were getting ready for bed and while I fell asleep. To be fair, wearing the headphones all night has only been happening since the Phillies have been in the running get a spot in the playoffs.

Now, what is this business with calling it a wild card? If it's the next best team that makes the playoffs how is that a wild card? When I think of a wild card, in Uno for instance, I think of a freebie, or luck, not something that is just like how every other team makes the playoffs. I guess I'll ask Mr. D when he gets home.

Apparently, the Phillies lost last night. They were in the lead by one game, but now they're behind one game. I sense some good old fashion choking going on.

calling people names

This is a rewritten version of the post that Blogger stole from me and never gave back.

Mr. Doodlebug and I were stuck in traffic on I-76 -- not unusual for that God awful road -- last weekend. We found ourselves behind a federal government-owned truck. It was a postal truck presumably delivering mail to fellow Americans around the country, or at least in Pennsylvania. In the dirt on the back of the truck some clever person scrawled two things about Osama bin Laden. Now, if I were going to write something nasty about one of the most hated people in the U.S. I might call bin Laden a "murderer" or "a fucking ass hole." This jerk thought that the worst thing he could call bin Laden was gay -- not exactly an insult.
















The writing in the upper left corner says, "Allah smokes crack." The one above the U.S.P.S. symbol says, "Bin Laden is a homo."

I am pissed

I just wrote a post and spent some time to include a picture and read over my writing and then when I went to publish it Blogger said it could not find my post. ANNOYING

That wasn't the first annoying thing to happen to me today. I went to get my car inspected at the dealership where I bought it (a 20 minute drive from my house) this morning at 10:30, my scheduled time. I cut my run short and didn't feed baby Doodle before hurrying off to Main Line Honda. I get there, get BD out of the car and into the stroller, get the carrier and diaper bag and go to the counter. I am then told that I need the car registration and insurance card. The insurance card I had, but the registration was sitting in the file labeled "Accord" in my office.

I was pissed and said "why didn't anyone tell me I needed both documents when I made the appointment?" No response, at least not one that addressed my simple question. The man behind the counter asked if I wanted to make another appointment for later that afternoon. NO. I have a nearly 6 month old baby and getting out here isn't easy. How about later in the week I was asked. Ok, Wednesday. I made it clear that I was not happy with him or their dumb policy.

Baby Doodle and I went to a friend's house near there and I fed him and he got to play with her toys and bounce in her bouncy seat that hangs from the door jam. Very cool. We're going to have to get one of those.

sometimes I just need Mr. D to put up with my bitchiness

Last week baby Doodle and I went into center city to visit my former colleagues at the National Constitution Center. It was great to see everyone there, and the new 9/11 exhibit for free. I had parked on Fourth Street near the corner with Walnut St. It was an unmetered spot but had a two-hour limit. Two hours into our visit and before we broused through the exhibit I left BD with a friend and went to move the car. I did not have ticket. I drove up a block and a half on Fourth Street and saw an open spot near the corner with Spruce Street. I parked, happy to have found a new spot so quickly and went back to the Center to feed baby Doodle.

We went through the exhibit. BD whined a lot so I didn't get to really concentrate on all of the photographs. Baby Doodle doesn't like dimly lit rooms or the dark, unless it's night time and he's going to sleep. The exhibit was good. We were there right after September 11th, and it was nice to have a place in Philadelphia to think about the day and honor the people who died. I think the NCC's exhibit is more of a memorial than a museum exhibit, but it serves a purpose and I'm glad they have it.

We left for the car just an hour and fifteen minutes after parking it the second time. There was no danger of getting a ticket since I would be returning to the car well under the alotted two-hour limit. I stopped at the Soho Cupcake Company on Walnut Street and bought an ice cream cone for me and the "soho cupcake" for Mr. Doodlebug. I loaded BD in the car, put the stroller in the trunk and got in. Then I realized there was a ticket on my windshield! I was stunned. The parking police had got wrong this time. The ticket had been written just five minutes before we arrived at the car, so I thought of going up the street to track down the mistaken parking cop. Instead, I got back in the car and drove to Mr. Doodlebug's new office.

This time I parked on Walnut Street near 19th St. at a broken meter. There were a number of signs and for some reason I only paid attention to the sign that said you had to feed the meter until 3:30 p.m. I assumed this meant it was free to park there after 3:30 p.m., of course I wasn't going to paying anyway because my meter was broken. We got back to the car around 4:45 p.m. to find another parking ticket for $46 and a bright orange sticker on the back windshield alerting the tow truck to tow my car. This time I had messed up. I don't know why I thought you would be able to park on such a busy street during rush hour, but I just didn't think of it.

The point of this story is to say that I was a royal bitch when I finally picked up Mr. D from work to drive him home with us. I was pissed off about the corner on which I was to meet him, that he couldn't have left work any earlier, at the traffic on Kelly Drive etc. . . When I get in one of these moods Mr. D definitely gets the brunt of it and often the blame, even if it has nothing to do with him. He's a good sport most of the time. The next night I made a special meal (vegetable lasagna, apple pie, and a good bottle of wine) for him and we ate in the dining room with candles (usually we eat at the kitchen table).

I wrote an appeal letter for the ticket I didn't deserve and a check for the one I did.

the personality of our neighborhood

We live in a neighborhood where cheesy flags play a dominant role in the look of your house. There is a house on my street that always has a flag to match the most recent holiday or season. In October they have a pumpkin flag, in November a turkey flag, in June a flag with a picture of the American flag (for Flag Day) with flowers around it. I wondered how these people would commemorate Labor Day. What can you depict on a flag to show workers taking a day off? The September flag is the back of a school bus with children waving through the window.













You might notice the neighbors' Eagles flag and horrendous blow-up Eagle. Here's a closer look:

















The flag flies proudly during the whole football season no matter how awfully the Eagles do. (I happen to know that they blew a huge lead at home yesterday and lost to their arch enemy, the Giants.) And the blow-up generic Eagle only watches over the neighborhood on game days then he retires to their living room where the family converses with him as if he were an actual person.

On another street nearby this flag to usher autumn in blows in the summer-like wind.

















I could have spent my Sunday going around taking pictures of all the flags people display in the fronts of their houses, but that isn't how I wanted to spend my Sunday afternoon. So three will have to suffice. Instead I spent my Sunday going to two flea markets in our neighborhood where I found lots of cute clothes for baby Doodle, and cleaning two of our three bathrooms while Mr. Doodlebug watched football and baby Doodle slept in his stroller. This weekend went by too quickly -- more so than other weekends. I think it's because we didn't go anywhere.

BD news

My new solution to the TV watching while I run: A tall fan with a blanket draped over it in the view path of baby Doodle. It worked like a charm this morning. Baby Doodle actually moved forward on his knees and hands while I was running. He was not in proper, upright crawling position, but he moved forward none the less.

BD is getting so big so quickly. On my list of things to do today is to raise his Exersaucer to the next level.

I am excited that my brother is coming down for a visit with his girlfriend to see baby Doodle, and Mr. D and me, of course. We can't wait to see him.

does it matter if a baby watches some TV?

Baby Doodle is 5 1/2 months old. He just started eating solid food, he rolls over, creeps, but doesn't crawl, and can sit up on his own for a few seconds at a time. And he loves television. We try not to let him watch it when it's on in the same room as him. We distract him with books, toys, superbaby, tickling, just about anything to keep him from staring at the fast moving objects on the screen. Sometimes he falls for our tricks, but sometimes he is completely mesmorized by the TV and won't look at anything else until one of us picks him up and physically moves him so he can't see the TV. Even when we do that sometimes he cranes his neck around and rolls his eyes so he can see that evil television.

I know there are studies that say that kids who watch too much TV are more likely to get ADD or ADHD. But baby Doodle is only 5 months old. He might not even be able to make out the actors on the screen let alone the commercials (though most of what we watch is on TiVo so we don't watch the ads). I would say BD watches about 3 full minutes of TV every day. Those usually occur while I'm running on my trampoline and he has managed to move himself to a place where he can watch too. When I realize what he has done I move him to another position or spot in the room.

Am I dooming my baby to have a short attention span or is the relatively short time he spends staring at the TV harmless?

Have I mentioned BD is eating real food?

Baby Doodle had his first real food on September 2, his dad's birthday. He had avocado. He didn't love it, but he didn't hate it either. The expressions he made while he mashed the very first pieces of food with his gums were literally priceless. If only he could tell us what was going through his head. Maybe something like, "Ooh, what is this? This consistency is not like a nipple or a pacifier. It has an odd taste. It's chunky. I don't like it. But I can't help mashing it with my gums and swallowing. I want more."

He has gone on to eat banana and homemade apple sauce made with apples we picked that morning. BD loves banana. And when I say loves I mean loves! When I take the spoon away from him to put more banana on it he whines and complains and squeezes the spoon tightly. I try to explain that I'm just taking it away so that I can put more banana on it, but he doesn't seem to understand.

He didn't love the applesauce. I think because cooking it burned off the natural sugars in the apples and the sauce was left a bit tart. So I gave him a peeled apple to suck on. He liked that, but it was too heavy for him to lift to his mouth. I held it to his mouth for him, and when I was tired doing that, he leaned over and put his mouth on the apple resting on the tray in front of him. It was pretty cute.
















Eating apple sauce.
















Eating avocado, his first food.

















Wanting to keep trying the avocado even though he was unsure about it.

How dishonest are people?

Mr. Doodlebug and I brought baby Doodle apple picking this morning/afternoon at Linvilla Orchard in Media, PA. The orchard was great. We picked six different varieties of apples (Jonamac, Gala, Stayman, Summer Rambo (yes, that's the name of it), Golden Crisp, and Macintosh) and filled a half bushel container. You could also pick peaches, grapes, raspberries, eggplants and peppers.

Baby Doodle sat in his stroller enjoying the outdoors, which he loves. We can always count on bringing BD outside to calm him down. We browsed the country store which is filled with Linvilla-made jams, preserves, pancake mixes, pies, desserts, candy, etc. . . Mr. D and I split a spinach and cheese stuffed bread at a picnic table near "Playland" -- a big playground with all sorts of fun and unique apparatus to play and climb on. Playland costs $1 to enter for children, adults are free. There is a sign at the entrance that says that 100% of the proceeds go to keeping the playground clean and buying new and safe equipment. There is another sign above a locked container that says the cost and that it is run on the honor system. Pay $1 for each child, we trust you to actually put the money in the container, or at least some change if that's all you've got. I witnessed thirteen families go into Playland and only three put anything in the container. What a disappointment. Here we are at this great family-friendly place with a pumpkin patch, hay rides, birthday party space, picnic tables, and an awesome playground and people can't even dig into their pockets for a measly dollar! We didn't go into Playland as BD is still too small (there weren't any of those swings for babies -- see picture below), but we did put his cute little face through the holes of a duck, pig, sheep and cow.

































On the swing in Spring Lake, NJ, where BD's paternal grandparents live.