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…)
33 comments:
I thought Borat was overrated. Some parts were funny, but overall I thought it was tiresome. The wrestling part went on forever...
As for vacations, this site might be helpful.
Turning down the monitor was one of the best things we did.
MBA...congrats to her!
We went to Playa Del Carmen, Mexico (south of Cancun). It is somewhat touristy, but there are lots of Mayan ruins nearby and great places to eat. We loved it.
I think she might be old enough for Cirque.
So much info today!
1. You have become normal parents. I too first dashed into my baby daughter's room at the tiniest peep, just like Miss Clavel. Eventually we all relax appropriately.
2. Now I remember why I stopped watching overly hyped movies.
3. Costa Rica is so great. We stayed at The Four Seasons. MEGAbucks but so totally worth it.
4. Love the headline "Bendable French Canadians"!
5. Love reading what CTDaughter says!
6. The Word Verification absolutely always rejects my first attempt. Am I the only one?
Is there anything cuter in the world than hearing your daughter sing to herself on the baby monitor? We used to just lie in bed and listen.
As for vacation, I'd avoid Costa Rica during that time. Rainy season starts at beginning of May. Some years are better than others but it's not really worth the risk.
Bahamas, Virgin Islands, Antigua are all great. However, they all get lots of tourists due to the cruise ships. I'd try somewhere less crowded. Personally, I love St. Maarten. Half the island is French, half is Dutch. Nice vibe. Spent a lot of time in all those islands. E-mail me if you want more info.
We're planning a trip to Costa Rica right now, but we're going at the end of Nov. No help there, eh?
Try taking you girl to an afternoon matinee at the theatre. It will be dark and loud, just like the Cirque.
If she does well there, she may do well at the live show.
And it's not just the FRENCH Canadians who are bendy.
Wink, wink.
Seeing as we just spent a week at Disneyland, you can take my recommendation with a grain of salt, but for beaches we've always gone to out of the way places in Hawaii.
We finally got to the point where we would see who could pretend to be sleeping the deepest and 'not hear' the monitor. I could never stay still enough.
As for vacation, we hardly go anywhere. We did have a nice time with the kids in Tulum, Mexico last Easter.
I'm with you about Borat. We finally went to see it after just about everyone we knew told us it was hysterically funny.
I honestly thought it was just plain stupid. I kept looking around at everyone laughing so hard that they were choking on their popcorn and I can't help it...but a line like "she has the asshole of a seven year old" just seems seedy to me.
And I can't give you any vacation ideas. We are basically, um...poor...so our summer vacation is going to be to San Francisco. And that is only because Bing has a seminar in Monterey.....
At first I thought you meant you bought her 2007 Christmas gift real early. Then I realized you bought her 2006 gift three months late.
I hope you at least threw a Christmas dress on her and took a picture of her pulling off some wrapping paper so she'll at least have some evidence that she had a Christmas when she was one. If not, at least photoshop something for the poor girl and delete this post before she can read full sentences.
chanchow - thanks for the link- very helpful!
MetroDad - the "Crib speak" - we had no idea kids did this, we find it extremely entertaining. I want to record some of it so she can hear it when she's older.
Maria - I know! Lines like that weren't even funny. I'm sure in a "funnier" movie, maybe. But not this one.
Clare's Dad - You're scaring me. I may have to doctor some photos together...
We didn't even use a baby monitor with our second - we figured she'd cry loudly enough for us to hear if there was a problem.
With the first, we had three nights of hell when he was 14 months old and we finally got sick enough of his night-time waking to let him cry.
I'd watch the red lights on the monitor raging to the end of the dial with tears trickling down my face.
Then he got the message and we were all much happier with night after night of proper sleep.
I swear my baby monitor picks up radio free Europe.
The kids aren't small anymore, but I still use to listen to the kids playing. I can hear everything from down here on the main level when the kids are playing upstairs.
Kids just love kitchens, we have gone through two of them in four years.
Costa Rica in on my places to visit list, so I say go there!
I never had a baby monitor. But my kids' rooms weren't that far from mine.
I too was grossed out about the wrestling. That was just WRONG.
Never been to an island...well, the UK is an island.
As long as you think she'll be entertained, take her!
What kind of bloop?
I think nearly every movie suffers from any and all hype. Not all comedy is everyone's cup o' tea but any comedy is always funnier in a crowded theater. At home, it's never the same. And, when expectations are high... forget about it. I did the Netflix thing, laughed, but didn't fall out of my chair.
The only island I've ever been to was on our honeymoon. We absolutely loves Kauai because it was quiet, beautiful, and not all Don Ho pink-flamingo-touristy.
One thing we found with taking the toddler to things - she absolutely loved all the bells and whistles, but she had a much shorter attention span when she was two than she does at three.
Borat: many/most/all the funny parts were in the previews. I liked it as much as I could have when none of it seemed surprising. I still think he was robbed for best actor though... (and yeah, that naked stuff was too much!)
Monitor: To go one further, we now have a white noise machine in our room so we're lucky if we hear anything.
Hmm, Ada only makes pancakes. Maybe if we can get four or five kids together we could actually get a full meal.
CTD, watch Talladega Nights: the Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Will Farrell with Baron Sasha Cohen doing a much better job than Borat.
Baby Monitors suck. Not as bad as a pulse/ox monitor but close.
We had similar problems with baby monitors...
Your wife is getting her MBA? Congrats to her. That's awesome.
Your daughter sounds like a real sweetheart. I hope she's having a great time with her new kitchen!
Why not stay in a giant beagle?
Seems romantic, right? Ok maybe not. Maybe it's just freakin' WEIRD, but I have that kind of a sense of humor.
I enjoy your blog...
I'm all about the BVI. Check out Little Dix on Virgin Gorda. It's beautiful!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CTD!
Our next door neighbor had a baby about 9 months older than our youngest. We often heard the mom singing to the baby through our monitor. The first time it horrified me to no end because I realized she could probably hear ME singing as well. Or cursing. Or whatever it was I was doing.
sarah o. -- Birthday?!? My birthday is April 6th. Close!
Jenster -- I've always wonder about that...
Jenny -- I totally want to stay there!!!
Ben & Bennie - Ricky Bobby was very funny. And oddly enough people told me it wasn't even worth watching.
crackcorn is the perfect word for it... or maybe that's just my addiction talking!
I have heard that Costa Rica is just paradise, but I have so far not been brave enough to contemplate vacationing with Pumpkinpie. Sounds lovely, though!
And yeah, when they are sick, the monitor gets totally cranked and any little twitch has you waiting, head cocked like a dog, to see if there is anything more to follow. But the rest of the time, we are pretty damn lax - she'll start calling when she's good to go.
Oh. I knew that about your birthday. Um, just wanted to be the first...
Thanks for saving us the trouble on Borat... I'm still getting over Bridge to Teribithia, but saw Ghost Rider last week and thought it was wonderful mindless entertaionment (action for Firstborn, 2 hours of NCage in a leather suit on a motorcycle... ah something for everyone!!)
We couldn't ditch the monitor with Gizmo 'cause she had a devil's case of reflux! But damn those things are sensitive!!
Can't help ya on the vacation sites - we don't go very far for very long.... looking forward to your future vacation reviews though!!
Pageant Mom -- reflux? Actually, that would be pretty good entertainment.
Sarah O. -- if I don't hear anything from you on april 6th, then I'll totally be offended!! :)
We took our guy to see the bendable French Canadians when he was 2 1/2 and he loved it. BUt we did test out a movie first and he didn't sit still the whole show. But he still loved it.
We went to Punta Cana in the Dominican in May when our son was 10 months old. It can be touristy but it wasn't busy that time of year and we went out of our way to pick a resort that wouldn't be big or touristy and it turned out well.
Crackcorn .. lol love that
The words thing is so exciting! I still treasure the look on supermum's father's face when dudelet (at 2 and a half) told him to "sit on the meditation stool" with the faintest of lisps.
Baby monitors are even worse technological tyrants than email. We have one but I sometimes wonder how come if I and my peers managed to survive our infancy intact they've become such necessities. And as for the very notion of nursery webcams...
I've been to the Bahamas. Freeport was very nice from a beach perspective. Nausau was more of a shopping/touristy place.
I could highly recommend a cruise.
Ignoring the baby monitor doesn't make you a bad parent, it makes you a better rested one.
Michael - yes! the learning of new words everyday is exciting. Unless it's words you don't want them to say.
Sandra - hmm, that's interesting. he did sit. I think the wife I and agreed to wait another year. We haven't taken her to a movie yet, we may try this summer and cross our fingers.
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