Random Thoughts For Thursday

The Baby Monitor Is Worse Than The Alarm Clock
If a tree fell in a forest (in China) our baby monitor could probably hear it and then start flashing like a disco (we have one with those sound light bars.)
In the early days if the kid even breathed funny two light bars would glow like an RPM meter and the wife or I would rush like EMT’s to her room - checking for signs of life, room temperature, aliens, etc. But now, we’re a bit more relaxed. We wait until we get at least 5 bars of light before even thinking about getting up. In fact, the bars have to stay at 5 for a whole minute (or more) and then one will wake the other to go check. Does that make us bad parents?
Although, I must say, when she was sick recently, we’ve been on EMT/paranoid alert again, just like the old days.

Borat Was A Disappointment
We ‘Netflixed’ it. I was really anticipating this movie from all the word-of-mouth and reviews; I even started laughing prematurely at the DVD menu. In reality, there were only like 4 or 5 funny parts (The egg laying, rodeo, the feminist interview) everything else seemed too staged. I honestly felt a little ‘duped’ – like that Blair Witch Project movie.
The part where he wrestles the fat naked dude was just wrong. It gave me nightmares…I still see creepy man-boobs when I close my eyes…(shiver)

Vacation Where?
Our original plans to France this fall changed when the wife decided to go back to school for her MBA beginning this summer (which is very exciting; more on that later...) So now we’re scrambling for someplace to go this May/early June. We know what we want – island, beach, nothing “touristy” but not empty. So far we’re exploring Bahamas, Virgin Islands, Antigua, and/or Costa Rica (although that may be too hot in May/June.) The kid just got her passport on Saturday, which she is very excited about – walking around with the little book pointing at the picture.
Has anybody been to any of those places, or have any recommendations?

Bendable French Canadians
Cirque Du Soleil is coming back to L.A. this August for their new show “Corteo”. The wife and I love going to these things. We’re contemplating taking our daughter who will be 2 by then (or for those exact-age people “25 1/2 months”.) We think she’ll sit through it since their shows are usually loud, bright, crazy music, and people swinging all over the place like monkeys. Normally we wouldn’t have considered it, but they sell tickets for kids as young as “2” which has us wondering – what is the “right” age to introduce this to kids?

Funny Things The Kid Is Doing
We just bought her Christmas gift now (I know 3 months late - we’re bad parents, but she didn’t know) which was a fancy little kitchen. She loves it, although now if you’re anywhere near it when she’s cooking “bloop” (her word for "soup" and the only thing on the menu) she forces you to sit down and eat.
She’s learning new words and sentences daily - “I want that”, “I’m splashing”, “Sit down”, “I want crackcorn (Popcorn)”, “Sushi!” and repeats that one line of ‘Old McDonalds Farm’ - “E.I, E.I. -O” about a million times each day. Even in her sleep (we can hear on the baby monitor…)