Archive for the ‘Family’ Category
Sunday, July 22nd, 2007
One nice thing about the evolution of Versus programming is the unexpected benefit of seeing extreme cagefighting while sitting at the Birchwood Cafe. Never imagined I’d see that in your local, organic, good real food cafe. The flustered looks on the faces of some of the regulars during the he-man commercials was priceless. Almost made it worth having to explain to my 5 yr old son why some guys want to pummel each other. In a cage. While others watch.
Posted by scotterob at 4:51 pm in Family, Pro Cycling | Permalink | No Comments »
Saturday, June 23rd, 2007
Sometimes, at the end of the day, you just shake your head and wonder how you got through it all.
When Toddler Smithers was born I was operating on insufficient sleep due to the fact that I decided to install new firmware on my Treo 650 the night before he was delivered. I had plenty of notice that he was on the way, I just decided to get this project done because I thought it would only take 30 minutes and ended up taking 4 hours. Dumb-ass.
I was determined not to make the same mistake this time. Mrs. Smithers was scheduled for a c-section on June 29th and I figured this would give me plenty of time to bank some sleep before the new baby made her arrival. I have been sleeping in the spare bedroom for the last few months as Mrs. Smithers’ pregnancy induced snoring has made it impossible to sleep in the same room with her. So, with advance notice, lots of rest and my own room in which to sleep undisturbed I knew that I would be fresh and ready for the new little baby!
There was just one obstacle in my way, a late planned business trip out to California. I had some things to get settled out there before the fall trade show and I knew that my only real opportunity to get out there was before the birth. I was scheduled to fly out Sunday evening and arrive back home Tuesday night. It was awfully close to the delivery date but Mrs. Smithers and Baby were testing in the green at every doctors visit and so I had the all clear from Mrs. Smithers to make the trip.
I stayed up past 1am Thursday night trying to wrap up some projects that I wanted to get done before the trip and finally got to sleep around 2am. At 5am Mrs. Smithers came busting in with the announcement “Baby Today!” Holy crap, three hours of sleep. WTF!? I guess little baby does not want me to travel this week.
I fell out of bed and drug myself to the bathroom in order to relieve my three hours full bladder, flushed the toilet which then proceeded to flood the bathroom. We have owned this house for over 5 years and this toilet has never overflowed until this morning. I mopped up, cleaned up, got dressed and then took on Toddler Smithers.
He sleeps pretty sound until around 7am most mornings and if there is one thing he hates it’s being woken up. Just like his mother. Never-the-less, we had to get a move on. I can’t say that he was totally stoked to be awakened but, sensing that something was going on, he seemed to make the best of the situation.
Off to the hospital we went and everything went smooth as glass in regards to the delivery. Toddler Smithers was picked up by his Auntie Smithers to spend the weekend with Grandma and Grandpa Smithers and our brand new Baby Smithers was birthed without a single hitch or hiccup.
After a few hours of getting settled in to our room and getting baby cleaned up and fed I decided to go home for a couple of hours to take care of the dog and grab some items that we had forgotten to take with us in our haste to leave that morning. The first thing I did upon walking in the door at home is to let doggie out in the backyard to blow off some steam from being stuck inside all day. I then spent the next hour collecting items that Mrs. Smithers needed, cancelling my travel plans and wrapping up a few things around the house.
It started to rain outside so I went to whistle doggie back into the house. There is not a clear view of the whole backyard from our back door so I yelled for doggie and whistled for a few minutes but he was not coming to the door. A thought flashed into my head and my heart sank thinking of the possibility that the side gate to our backyard fence might be open. We have been having a lawn service come by and sometimes they don’t close the gate when they leave. A quick peak out the side window of the house confirmed my fear, the gate was open and doggie was gone.
The rain was coming down now in buckets and I had no idea how long the dog had been out and where he might be. I struggled to keep my composure as I put on my rain jacket and walked outside to try and find him. Checking the busy streets, side streets and alleys I spend nearly 30 minutes walking around in the pouring rain whistling and calling his name to no avail. How was I going to be able to go back to the hospital and tell Mrs. Smithers that I lost the dog? Approaching the point of lowest moral I walked down one more alley calling his name. Suddenly I saw, way down the alley, his doggie face pop out from behind someone’s garage. As soon as he saw me he came running towards me with, it seemed, just as much relief to be found as I had in finding him. It was raining so hard that he must not have been able to hear me calling for him and by the time I got him back in the house we were both completely soaked. At least I did not lose the dog.
Everything else for the balance of the evening went just fine. Baby is doing great, Mrs. Smithers is up and walking around. The grandparents brought Toddler Smithers down for a visit and he seemed to have a good time but was not too interested at all in his sister. Just you wait little dude, you got no idea what is coming.
Ah life, what an adventure.
Posted by Smithers at 9:01 am in Family | Permalink | No Comments »
Friday, June 22nd, 2007
It’s hard work being born!
Posted by Smithers at 2:38 pm in Family | Permalink | No Comments »
Friday, June 22nd, 2007
further updates coming soon…
Posted by Smithers at 5:36 am in Family | Permalink | No Comments »
Thursday, May 31st, 2007
t – 29 days.
The most recent visit to the baby doctor told us that Baby Smithers version 2.0 is in the final stages of development and testing and that the product appears to be perfectly prepared to come to market on time. However, Baby Smithers version 1.0 was delivered to market 3 weeks early so anything can happen.
I will be live blogging the entire event just like last time.
Mrs. Smithers will be doing some guest blogging during her maternity leave (vacation).
Posted by Smithers at 7:46 am in Family | Permalink | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 16th, 2007
It’s been a tough week for Baby Smithers as well as a tough week for his parents.
He picked up a cold last week (at school I’m sure) and developed some rather distressing effects from this cold. In addition to the typical ear infection, he also began to suffer from an asthmatic reaction. This has required us to pick up a nebulizer, a rather noisy device that allows for medication to be administered via a mist to the airways.
As Baby Smithers is only 17 months old now he is not quite sure of what is going on with the nebulizer and is not at all stoked about the mask or mouth piece. However, in order to glean any effect at all from the medicine he must breath as much of it into his lungs as possible. This has forced his mother and I into a situation where we have to basically fight him in order to treat him. I have had to hold him in my lap, use my left arm to keep him arms out of the way and my right hand to hold his head still while Mrs. Smithers keeps the mouth piece in place. All the while Baby Smithers is screaming, crying, kicking and fighting trying to get away from us. Very stressful as I am sure you can imagine.
In addition to the fun of the nebulizer, Baby Smithers has also developed a pretty amazing case of eczema. Eczema is an inflammation of the skin, basically a rash. It started last Saturday with bumpy red skin on his cheeks and, as of yesterday morning, is now covering his entire body. It dries out the skin and causes itching. We have resorted to keeping his skin covered with various topical lotions and ointments in order to give him some relief but, needless to say, he is quite miserable.
I understand that asthma and eczema can be common in kids and the hope is that they grow out of having these kinds of hyper-reactions at some point. But it is heart breaking to see such a happy little boy having to suffer through these issues. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot worse things that can happen than wheezy breathing and red itchy skin. But, as a parent, you want your kids to be healthy and happy at all times and not have to be at all troubled with the realities of life and the world until they can at least understand what is going on.
Watching your child suffer is the unexpected part of parenting that really sucks. You think about it constantly and it affects every single aspect of the rest of your daily life. These are not the kind of situations that you imagine yourself dealing with when you think about becoming a parent. Instead, they are the kind of situations that surprise you with a smack in the face and give you no choice but to deal with them as best you can. I hope he gets over this soon and can get back to running and laughing and having fun.
In the mean time he and I have been exploring the joys of the bicycle trailer. We took our inaugural ride on Mother’s Day, which gave Mrs. Smithers the opportunity for a nap, and he had a blast. We rode for an hour and 20 minutes and I think he could have gone longer. On Monday we went out for another hour. It’s now to the point where if he sees the bike trailer in the garage he runs for it and tries to get in. I’ll be picking him up early from school to get him home and slathered up with more skin ointment and some more huff and puff with the nebulizer. Then he and I are going for a ride.
Posted by Smithers at 11:28 am in Family | Permalink | No Comments »
Thursday, May 10th, 2007
Psycho Today:
Kohler found that mothers with one child are about 20 percent happier than their childless counterparts; and while fathers’ happiness gains are smaller, men enjoy an almost 75 percent larger happiness boost from a firstborn son than from a firstborn daughter. The first child’s sex doesn’t matter to mothers, perhaps because women are better than men at enjoying the company of both girls and boys, Kohler speculates.
Interestingly, second and third children don’t add to parents’ happiness at all. In fact, these additional children seem to make mothers less happy than mothers with only one child—though still happier than women with no children.
“If you want to maximize your subjective well-being, you should stop at one child,” concludes Kohler, adding that people probably have additional children either for the benefit of the firstborn or because they reason that if the first child made them happy, the second one will, too.
So, according to this important research, Mrs. Smithers is now 20% happier than she was before Baby Smithers was born.
I am 75% happier that Baby Smithers is a boy rather than a girl. So instead of being only 8.55% happier I am really 15% happier.
Both of us are going to drop in happierness once the next Baby Smithers is born. So Mrs. Smithers will probably come down to about 11.5% happier and I will probably drop down to the 8.55% happier level.
I will keep you updated as to the happierness level as we move along here but in the mean time I have created this handy happierness chart for you to follow along with the progress so far:
HAPPIERNESS SCALE
Posted by Smithers at 8:27 am in Family | Permalink | No Comments »
Monday, April 30th, 2007
People phone or e-mail me all the time about “going for a ride” with them.
Hey, going for a ride when ever is just not the reality of life right now.
On weekends I ride one of the two days. That’s it. I am on the road by 8am and I try really hard to get back home by 12:30pm so I can spend the rest of the day with Mrs. Smithers and little baby. Once the next little baby shows up riding on the weekends is probably going to go the way of the dodo for the rest of the year.
During the week I attend the Urthel ride on Tuesday nights and I am going to start riding at the velodrome on Thursday nights. The Urthel ride will also evaporate for me once we have the baby. The track will be on hold for a few weeks at least.
So if you really want to ride with me you are going to have to catch up with me during those scheduled outings.
I don’t really mind at all the lack of time spend on the bike. I guess I really don’t see it as time off the bike. It’s more like time with my family. There are plenty of opportunities to get exercise that don’t involve being out of the house for 4 hours. I am already working up my indoor trainer schedule for the summer, if you can believe that.
The most important thing that you find as a new parent is the need to re-balance your life once the baby arrives. I bristle at the idea of having to give anything up, I don’t think it’s necessary. What is necessary is to readjust your goals to synchronize with your new life. My goals are to be a good father and husband, and to remain fit and healthy. If I can squeeze a bike race in there once and a while then all the better, but I am not going to sacrifice the time that I look forward to and enjoy spending with my family in order to go down to Sogn Valley and get my ass handed to me.
Besides, Baby Smithers is really coming into his personality right now. I predict that he will be some kind of comedian or clown when he gets older. A clown that throws the occasional and inconsolable temper tantrum.
Posted by Smithers at 5:03 pm in Family | Permalink | No Comments »
Saturday, April 7th, 2007
Baby Smithers walked into a plate glass window this evening.
We were at the Galleria and he was walking around the atrium and spied the Schmitt Music store. He saw the pianos and recognized them as we have a piano here at home that he likes to play, so he walked towards them not noticing the glass separating him from the objects of his desire.
Blamo.
He walked face first into the glass before I had a chance to stop him. Just like a bird that flies into a window he bounced back and collapsed spread eagle on the floor. He laid there for a second and then stood up and started to cry, more in shock than in pain I think. He was fine but was really PO’d that he could not touch the pianos as the store was closed.
We went back into the Barnes and Noble kids section and played with the Brio trains and he seemed to get over it pretty fast. He does have a knot on his forehead as a souvenir of his experience.
Poor little bird.
Posted by Smithers at 11:21 pm in Family | Permalink | No Comments »
Saturday, March 10th, 2007
OK, so this parenting thing seems to be going along just fine.
Little Baby Smithers is now 15 months old and he and I are getting along great. I was worried before he showed up about whether I would be a good dad or if he would cry every time he laid eyes on me. But I seem to be able to make him laugh at the drop of a hat and he is always ready to come over and dole out some hugs my way.
I don’t have any urges to beat on him either, so I guess I am not going to turn out to be one of those crazy abusive dads who teach their kids to fear gown ups. Sometimes I make a mean face and tell him that I am going to give him a spanking. He just laughs at me and I laugh back. It’s hilarious.
Posted by Smithers at 11:22 pm in Family | Permalink | No Comments »
