Saturday, April 02, 2005

Recently, whenever I see babies at work, I can't help but think of my own babies. It's the devil's plan to see other people's babies and compare your own with theirs, but I just can't help it. And without question, I always arrive at the same conclusion as every other parent out there who has a baby: My baby's cuter.

I am learning to accept that there are different kinds of cuteness in the world, like the kid I heard laughing today at the store. Not only does this kid look like my step-grandchild, he's got the same goofy laugh that sounds like he's a little pervert. Kinda this chortle that perverts do when he ogle at women; I know, I'm a pervert. Though I don't chortle very much anymore. My wife got sick of hearing me do it around her all the time, which is the only place that I ever do it. Really.

I haven't seen any baby look like Zoe, but I have seen older girls or young women whom she might grow up to look like. It's kinda odd that I would be able to see that, but I can't see Alex as a young man yet. I guess Zoe's look is a little easier to peg, and Alex is a little more unique. Either way, I guess my wife has been getting a lot of comments about how the babies really look alike now. I can see the resemble somewhat, though it's still tough to tell. I don't know if people are just generalizing because they don't see a lot of Chinese babies, or if they really do look alike. Not that it bothers me, they are siblings.

So my wife and I celebrated our low-key anniversary by going to... Shari's. I know, it sounded kinda cheap and bad, so we defected to Denny's after our server make some odd comment about my workplace being Freddy's Falls-Apart. Which really makes no damn sense. We ate out, which was something that I once read about in a book before I was a father, and that was pretty much it. Well, as much as I'll tell anyway. It was nice, but definitely too short. Vegas will be nice because I would be spending more than a few hours with her,

Been considering about my career again, and last night I was so sick of my inactivity that I applied for two jobs, both out of state. I haven't manufactured a theory as to what I would do if I actually got it, but it was a good jab to myself that said, "Now that wasn't so hard, was it?"

But it was. Very hard. One site had me enter every question individually. I think I spent about a good 45 minutes filling in the blanks on dialup. Ridculous. But I spent all day today thinking about the job, and it made me feel warm inside thinking about actually doing some work that I enjoyed. Mmmm.

Now if only someone paid for me to be a pervert. Which might be the other job I applied for. It's in California, land of the perverse fornicators, and it's for a production company that uses "models" and involves "amateur video". I'm not ruling it out, but I doubt it'll be for me. Unless it paid really well.

Sunday, March 27, 2005

Easter Thwarted by Northwest Weather

There's no element of surprise, after I've given it all away on the title. I was so psyched to see how Alex would be when he went on his first official Easter egg hunt, but as it would have it, I woke up hearing the wind slap the rain against the windows, and disappointment set in. I never did go to the hunt to see if they had postphoned it or just went with it anyway - but I'm pretty sure I'd like to avoid the wet bunny and a clown with running makeup harass us while we go wading for some waterlogged candy.

So instead, like every other parent in Whatcom County, we decided to get our own Easter goodies - so we ended up with a chocolate candy egg for the boy, and nothing for the girl. since she enjoys her steady diet of cereal, formula, and sweet potatoes. But seeing Alex eat half the egg this morning was just fun. He nibbled at it and went, "Mmm!", which I still think is the coolest thing in the world.

Zoe's developing quite the personality, which is utter cuteness mixed with total indifference. About 70 percent of the time, she's quite happy to be left alone. She turns into putty when you pick her up, just wiggling and contorting to a blob baby until you just give up and put her on the floor. She also has this knack for blowing raspberries without putting her lips together, but rather with a wincing expression with half open lips. She's one talented tot, that girl. Although she's learned to pull herself to a standing position, she's not quite learned how to get down from it. She either falls, or yells for somebody to rescue her, or better yet, falls and yells for consolation. We're also guessing that she's doing faster crawling development because she is, in truth, trying to keep up with Alex so that she can steal all his toys in order to freak his shit out.

Which brings us to Alex, who actually does freak out when Zoe's crawling toward him now. He's got a bit of a sharing issue, so at times he would run from her, which is really funny because she's so menacing with her top speed of a foot per month. But to his credit, he's generally a really good sibling, opting to run away or push her away, instead of hitting her or god forbid, unlike some people in the house, stepping on her. But today, me and the boy had lots of bonding moments that really made me enjoy being a father a lot.

Seeing him eat the chocolate was one, then making some potstickers (premade, I just boiled them) that he thoroughly enjoyed was the next. I'm like a mother - seeing my kids or my wife enjoy something I made for them gives me a sense of fulfillment. After that, he skipped his afternoon nap because he decided to poop instead, and having a full diaper doesn't exactly cause one to snooze off. But the result of his sleep deprivation was that he fell asleep in my arms while we were watching TV, and I got to cuddle with my son while he power napped. Just having him sleep on me is one of the luxuries of fatherhood. Simply indescribable how cool that is. Also, I got to wrestle with Alex and that was a lot of fun. Not like yesterday, when he jabbed his finger up my nose so hard that I doubled over, but like today, when I won every match we played. So I'm bigger, but I won.

Tomorrow is our 3rd wedding anniversary - either tomorrow or the day after, neither of us remember, but we're simply going to go out of an abbreviated date after the babies go to bed. It's not exciting, but since we're so anchored with babies and we're trying to save for Vegas, it'll be fine. But I'll say that I would love nothing but to spend just an entire day with my wife just chilling. That would be so cool.

And yes, I am dying to see Sin City and Kung Fu Hustle.