Cruisin' and snoozin'

Sorry for the cheesy post title today. I know it would be more appropriate for an album by Winger or Enuff Z'nuff. Jeez... remember those ass clowns?! Anyway, Mariana has officially started cruising. For those of you not hip to the lingo that means standing on her own and walking while holding on to things. Watch this video to see her standing and babbling towards the open window. Mommy is just outside and I think she hears her.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZnBYd7WyU8

This other video shows Mariana's unique sleeping position. Hey, whatever works, she sleeps like a champion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8CiKo2ji8I

and RIP to Frank McCourt, man I loved that book

growing, growing

Mariana is doing a lot of babbling these days. She seems to get the act of conversation but just can't make the words yet. She pauses in the right places and responds at the appropriate time. Ok so she's only saying "gob gob gobbly goo" but she's trying to communicate. The next time she'll say "atsh ATSCH" with hard inflection. She's learning inflection! What else is she learning everyday? Curse words perhaps? Her mother and I both have potty mouths and have not had to curb our cursing for 20 odd years. That's going to be a hard habit to break. "Frickin'" just doesn't have the same oomph. Oh and one word she definitely knows is "flump". It's a made up word that means to crash your head down on one's shoulder and give a quick hug. She's a frickin' genius.
As she nears her first birthday. Mariana has also started to show some of her temper. Brushing her teeth at night can bring on wordless whining- which is the same as tearless crying. She wants to hold the toothbrush and do it herself. 

That's fine kid if you hit a tooth now and then but dentists ain't cheap. She also does this high leg kicking thing and cries as soon as I put her down to change her. I'm just not used to her doing things like this- I don't know how to deal with it. It's just so unreasonable and unnecessary. Why are you wigging out Mariana? I know this is just an ice cube on the tip of the iceberg that is called discipline. There will be a million more situations where I tell her to chill out and I know she will ignore me. How am I going to handle that? I found myself getting flustered and exasperated by her behavior AND SHE'S ONLY 11 MONTHS OLD. Hopefully time and more experience will help me but if I'm getting bent out of shape now, what will I do when she's a teenager and I come home to find a house party in full swing? Just chill Dad, jeez....

pictures: 1. Hanging in the stroller eating leftover pasta and 2. drying off from a sprinkler jaunt in Cobble Hill (much happier than the poop face would imply)

Wheels

I have 2 bikes. A semi fancy race bike that is purely for fun/exercise and a cheapy bike that I bought from Craigslist. The latter is the bike I commute with and the one I was going to affix the baby ride along seat to for Mariana in about another month when she's big enough. Well, plans have changed.

Last week I had a friend at work help me draft a letter to the building owners where I work; 7 World Trade Center owned by the Port Authority. I wanted to request that they find a secure bike storage room somewhere inside the building so that people like me can bike to work and not have their bikes stolen. A few co-workers were willing to sign on as well. I decided I'd better run it by my boss before sending to anyone but he's travelling for a couple weeks so I'll just sit on it for now. Yesterday I got stopped at a light in my neighborhood by a guy with a clipboard doing a survey for the city. He asked a bunch of questions about bike stuff ie: "Have you ever been injured?"(yes) "Do you wear a helmet?" (yes) "Have you ever ridden on the sidewalk?" (whoops, yes) "Do you want to see more bike lanes and racks?" etc. Wow this is great, the tide is turning and people care about making the city more bike friendly. He gave a water bottle for my participation and I rode off to work. As I came down the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan I was feeling pretty damn good. It was a bright sunny day and the tourists were not yet clogging the pathways. I thought "Why would I ever ride the train to work?"

At the end of the day I was going to ride home through Chinatown to pick up some food for dinner. I found what was left of my bike by the rack in the back of the building. Someone had stolen the fork and front wheel and left the handlebars hanging by their cables. The rear wheel and frame were still there, locked to the rack. That's some timing huh? The letter, the survey, the jubilant morning rider. Well, I'm not getting Chinese food tonight. I'm not riding this bike with Mariana. Shit, I'm not even riding home today. I clipped the cables to set the handlebars free, took the seat and left the rest to bring home today- if it's still there. I'm not sentimentally attached to that bike and it's paid for itself already in the $4 a day it saved me by not taking the subway. But it still sucks. That was my only form of exercise these days. It's something I didn't have to make time for because I had to take 1/2 an hour to get to work either way. It's been rough adjusting to how much less time I have to do everything that I want to do now that Mariana is here. They say it will get better. ugh. She's lucky she's so damn cute and sweet and perfect. 

C-I-L-L my neighbors

Yesterday we went to a gathering at my parents house. Unfortunately my Mom is in the hospital again so the party was moved from the Poconos to their house. We're all worried about her and hoping for the best. We went to visit her in the Hospital and I hope Mariana brightened her day a bit. Back at the party Mariana was passed from lap to lap and arms to arms by the 423 people in my family. She was a trooper, smiling and being her usual chill self. 

 

I want to kill my neighbors. Dead.

We got home at 10pm or so and just as we had feared there was a party going on in the building behind ours. The music was loud- really, REALLY f*ing LOUD. Mariana slept all the way home but was now waking up to the thunderous bass echoing between the buildings. We had left all our windows open so when we came upstairs it felt like we were inside a club. Closing the windows reduced the noise only slightly and we still had to practically shout at each other while sitting on the couch. We put her down to sleep and crossed our fingers. They've been having parties back there recently and she grew up in Bogota so she can sleep through plenty of noise. But this one was so far over the top it was unbearable. They were set up outside with a DJ and a full-on PA system. Hilary went to ask them to turn it down and they basically laughed at her. The 81st Precinct did pretty much the same thing when she called them. Mariana slept for a little while but then started waking up every 2 hours or so. Finally sometime past 3-4 am the noise stopped but Mariana still couldn't sleep. THEN ALL DAY. The poor thing is so exhausted she can barely crawl. She's all limp and whiny. Who is this kid?! We went for a long walk in the stroller. Nothing. We went for a long drive and only got a few winks out of her. It was almost like she was afraid to sleep. Every time she started nodding off she'd wake herself up crying and then have to be picked up. It screwed up her eating, napping, everything. It was such a beautiful day here in NY and the entire day was wasted. SOOO I want to kill my thoughtless scumbag neighbors. I laid in bed fantasizing about hosing them all down with the garden hose on the roof, making sure to give the turntable and speakers a good soaking. Zap, music's off!! I thought about throwing a Molotov cocktail down on them. Ok, that's a lie but I'll never understand how some people can be so completely disrespectful of everyone around them. In walking around with Mariana in the stroller today I could really see the incongruity of this neighborhood through my sleep deprived haze. Lots of flowers and people taking care of their houses, kids playing on the swings in Saratoga Park. It's really a very pretty neighborhood with lots of decent people. We chatted with a few neighbors who were also pissed off about the music. Maybe if enough of us say something, they'll listen. Then again, a well placed firebomb could do the trick too. Kidding! I'm just kidding.

here is a picture of Mariana with Poppi and some of her girlie cousins

Mornings with Chunky

The mornings are really starting to fall into a routine. Mariana starts rolling around, googooing and gaagaaing around 6 - 6:30 am. I often wake up and hear her through the monitor. Normally I've got tissue stuffed up my nose to stop the whistling that Dr. Mehta gave me when he "corrected" my deviated septum. Thanks Jackass. My ears are plugged because the neurotic pit bull in the yard just outside our bedroom windows has been squealing and wailing all night. Probably I gave up trying to ignore the noise at around 1am and resorted to the ear plugs. So when I awake at 6 to the muffled sounds of my daughter I feel like I'm in a sensory deprivation chamber, albeit a lousy one. Once I've dispensed with the plugs and nose tampon, I try to go back to sleep with mixed results often lying awake until 715 when I have to actually get up and start our day. I go downstairs, feed the cat, make Mariana's bottles for the day, put away the coffee table, lay out the blanket, prepare my cereal bowl and head back upstairs to get my lil' girl. Sometimes awake already, sometimes face down and drooling she wakes up with a big smile every day. Within 10 seconds she sits up and utters her first word "Cat!". Does she just love the cat or is she just happy to use the only word she knows how to say? Since our cat is completely anti-social and prone to hissing at our new bundle of joy I'm inclined to think the latter. Either way she is always smiley and heart burstingly cute. We go to the bathroom for a diaper a change and then downstairs for a little Daddy/daughter time. I feed her her first bottle which she usually takes and drinks on her own now. It's sort of the calm before the storm. I can stare at her and talk to her and play with her hair and she's occupied with the bottle so she sits still. If the cat should happen to walk by she'll start saying cat with a mouthful of bottle. "grgrcagrat!" he he She's funny.

Next

Mariana likes to play with tupperware, toilet paper rolls, socks, and remote controls. Regular toys? Eh, not as interesting. (Though she does dig the hamburger Aunt Maria gave her) She's starting to learn that when we say no that we mean it. We'll let her play with a cell phone but we won't let her put it in her mouth This doesn't stop her from trying over and over and over. She's just starting to show that it's very frustrating to play with some things but not be able to lick them. Sorry, them's the breaks kid. 
Work has been all consuming at times in the past month. This is very difficult to deal with. It means Hilary has to work overtime too. She has been doing a fantastic job but it's not easy. Yeah the economy sucks, yeah people are getting laid off left and right. I can't help but feel like those days and nights spent at work away from my family are lost. I'll never get back that time with them. The work that I do has so little socially redeeming value that it adds to that feeling. I'm giving up my life and time to help Northface sell more crap? I traded a weekend with my wife and baby for Tropicana? What a waste. 
Mariana is learning little things every day. Sometimes we forget that there are so many things that she has never seen before. Everything is new. I guess that's why she's so curious about anything new; the vacuum, flip flops, the cat's bowl, tissues- and you know that all that stuff makes great kids toys. 
My Spanish still sucks. I try to speak to her as much as I can but I'm afraid if she picks up anything it will be with all my errors. It still hasn't sunk in that someone else is going to have to teach her Spanish.

Also check out these videos when you get a chance. Mariana caught on tape babbling in the park and also her first time climbing 2 stairs. pretty exciting stuff:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDTEzlWcf5I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXHKxFzIzZk

Father's Day

Today was Father's Day. My first as a Dad. It's been a long time coming and it was worth the wait. I have THE most wonderful daughter a man could ask for. 

It's been a while since I wrote and I've traded writing posts for sleep. I'm going to try to start writing on the subway. We'll see how that goes. It's summertime and I've been riding my bike to work when the weather is decent so my plan may be scuttled quickly.

Mariana continues to be the dream baby. The occasional cold leads to a few broken nights sleep but nothing too bad. She continues to make my heart swell. The talking/babbling is in full force now. We try to decipher things she's saying because they often sound close to being right. The only word that's clear that she knows is cat- although it sounds more like "dat". She points at the cat and smiles and says "DAT!" She also points at dogs, animals in the zoo and a gray stuffed squirrel and says "DAT!" She's learning still ok?!

She is crawling a lot and starting to pull herself up on the couch and on the drawer handles. Scary. We still need to do much baby proofing. I came into her room this afternoon after she was supposed to be napping and found her up on her knees, hands on the bars like she was down for her crimes. Very cute but it illustrates how soon she'll be trying to climb out of there.