42 posts tagged “mltu”

One of the main contributors to YFSF is moving out of the county. As a farewell to his beloved city he posted this:

Is it possible to have a better opening four minutes to a film? I have not seen Manhattan in maybe 10 years and this clip made me want to watch right now.

Side note: I have successfully gotten MLTU to appreciate They Might Be Giants. Her favorite song? "New York City". She knows all the words and now sings it, unprompted, all the time. It's very cute. 

So...is it wrong that she also knows some of the words to "Dead"?

I have tried my hardest to bring MLTU up right. Up until today I thought I'd done a fairly good job. After all, she appreciates good food and good music, she has a vivid imagination and she roots for the Yankees. 

So you can imagine that my heart broke in two after this transaction:

FAU: [Pausing MLTU's TV show] I have to check the weather to see when it might rain.

MLTU: But I want to watch Max and Ruby.

FAU: Just one second. [Seeing sports is on and realizing that weather is next] Look, we can watch baseball while we wait.

MLTU: Nooooo!  I hate baseball.

FAU: *Takes knife through the chest*

I actually could have lived with "I hate the Yankees" or "I love the Red Sox". It would have been sacrilege, but at least that's just team specific. But "I hate baseball"???? The whole sport??? And hate?? Not "I don't want to watch baseball, I want to watch Max and Ruby"???

No, "I hate baseball. The rebellion begins.

Em just had a birthday. Aunt C and I bought her a new iPod Nano as a gift while Aunt S and Em's Mom gave her a subscription to Audible (Em loves audio books).

So Em decided to give her old Shuffle to MLTU. The theory is that if MLTU has the Shuffle she can listen to kid’s music with her headphones while Em listens to books (or music).

Now, I am all for Em getting to listen to the things she wants to hear while avoiding Steve Miller Band or the Bob the Builder theme for the one thousandth time...but the thought of a three year old with an iPod freaks me out a little.

Maybe I am a Luddite after all.

Our friend Mama (who's married to Papa) was in town for a visit with their son, 3B.

Mama and Em went out onto the porch with DMTU, leaving MLTU and 3B inside to play. The mothers thought that their 3 year old angels were "playing music", but it turns out they were "cooking":

I am not sure what is more impressive: The fact that these two kids were able to open a cabinet, grab an appropriate sized tupperware, have the forethought to put on bibs, open the refrigerator, grab food, open containers and mix them together...

OR

The fact that they combined three things (yogurt, milk and jam) that actually might taste good together and actually had the consistency of "soup" (which is what they called it). Note that Em stopped them right before they were able to add olives.

We tried to get them to sample their concoction, but they passed.

The lesson: leave two kids alone in a not-so-child-proofed home and you never know what will happen. 

Without too much pain and suffering on all sides, MLTU is now potty trained. It took us about four solid weeks of bribes and coaching, but we had only a few accidents and not too many tears.

I credit Em with how smoothly this went. Three key decisions she made a long time ago pathed the way for success: changing MLTU's diaper in the bathroom once she was too old for the changing table (teaching her that the bathroom is where you do your businesss), dumping all #2's from the diaper into the toilet so MLTU got use to flushing (and to reduce the smell), and allowing MLTU to be fully or patially naked in the house during potty training (removing a barrier).

Unfortunatly for me MLTU has latched on to the nudity part, especially now that it is summer. She turned to me the other day and said "Daddy, can I get naked?" When I told her I didn't think she should her response was "but it's such a nice day". Oh, well in THAT case...

And once naked, MLTU will go to the bathroom outside as well as on the potty. At first I didn't have a problem with this. It's our yard, she can pee outside if she wants (many of her friends do the same). But now she has started "reading a magazine" in the yard as well. And she has decided she can get naked and pee in anyones yard (even friends who are not so like minded).

Of course all this freaks me out. A three year old girl who is willing to drop trow anytime and even strip at her brother's birthday party is not fun for a father like me to watch. Em is more liberal with these things and has declared that three is "the summer of naked" and that MLTU is just expressing herself.

Indeed.

Em does agree that the world is not MLTU's toilet bowl and we are setting limits on where and what she can evacuate. But it seems that I am going to have to get use to coming home from work to find my daughter running through the yard in her birthday suit. Oh the joys of parenting. 

So is this why I have gotten more liberal over the last few years?

Really? Because I have a daughter I am more inclined to be liberal?

This seems a bit off. I think Bush/Cheney and the fact that the G.O.P. is going nutballs has a little more to do with my shift away from the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" than MLTU does.

Then again...A Mistake has a son and he seems to be moving towards the VRWC, or at least going Galt.

In general, at a "kids party", where there is a large group or adults and a large group of kids, I prefer to hang out with the kids.

Why?

• There is no pressure for small talk
• The kids laugh more
• Did I mention no small talk?
• Everything is exciting when you hang out with the kids
• Being with adults generally is easier when either food or cocktails (or preferably both) are involved, at a "kids party" neither are readily available
  

Don't get me wrong, when Em and I hang out with one or two other couples, I have a great time commiserating with the adults. But in these situations I'm generally around my closer friends (and there is food and/or beer). At the last three birthday parties I have taken MLTU, I'd say that 70% of my time was spent hanging with the kids. Trust me, there is less pressure.

On a related note, MLTU had the COOLEST birthday party today. I'll post pictures later in the week.

Happy Birthday to my smart, beautiful, funny, bossy (in a good way) and sometime grumpy daughter.

MLTU at 3

How did I get so lucky to get such a great kid?

One last gushing parent thing that I want to commit to writing lest I forget it: almost every night when MLTU goes to bed, after I turn out the lights, the following transpires:

FAU: Good night MLTU, I love you.

MLTU: I love you too daddy.

FAU: Now close your eyes.

MLTU: Just a little bit.

Yeah, that's a great way to end the day. 

There's news that long time Yankee announcer Bob Sheppard is retiring (almost everyone is reporting it)...unless he's not.

If Bob is hanging it up (and who can blame him, the man is 98) then he will be missed by the Yankee faithful. And I regret that MLTU and DMTU will never hear him announce a game (or see at game at the "old" Stadium).

However, at least Jeter had the forethought to have Sheppard prerecord his introduction, so no matter when my kids see a game at Yankee Stadium III they will hear:

Na-how...ba-hatting...nu-humber two...De-herek...Jee-taa...sa-hortstop...nu-humber two.

I was already lamenting the new stadium and now I won't even have Bob Sheppard's voice to sooth me during the transition. I'll miss you Bob, you were there at my first game in the house that Ruth Built and almost everyone since. All the best.

What father doesn't want to hear this from their (almost) three year old daughter:

Daddy, I want to listen to The Steve Miller Band.

Yes, that's right, MLTU has gone right from her Beatles phase, through her "kid rock" phase (I have to say, as kid rock goes, Uncle Rock is excellent), past her Muppet phase, right into her 70s "classic rock" phase. She LOVES The Steve Miller Band. She dances to it and requests it more than once a day.

Now, I have considered the less than PG lyrics that I may need to explain to her one day, including "sit around the house, get high and watch the tube", "jungle love in the surf in the pouring rain, every thing's better when wet", "midnight toker", and the ever popular "really love your peaches want to shake your tree".

[Funny side note on that last one: Em thought it was "really love your beaches...". It took me a few minutes to explain the logic of the full lyric to her and convince her that yes, Steve Miller is a little dirty.]

While I didn't mind the "kid rock" I am happy that MLTU is starting to get into adult music, because she will have some of these inluences for the rest of her lie. So far her latest obcession seems to be issolated to 70s folk-ish rock (she rejected U2 today).

So I am just waiting for the day she asks me to play Framton Comes Alive! or screams "Free Bird" while I am driving.

Full disclosure: MLTU's other latest musical obcession is Regina Spektor, so go figure.