Who's That Girl?

I think Harper looks like Ray Charles in this picture.

Vegas Baby

Apparently, McCall and I are still adjusting to the fact that a baby demands your complete and undivided attention at all times. We received an object lesson on this very point last Sunday when we tried to enjoy an overnight stay at the Palms Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. "Why would you try to go to Vegas with a two month old baby?", you might ask. Perhaps I should back up a little bit.
McCall loves this show on A&E, Inked. Maybe you've seen it, it's all about the Hart & Huntington tattoo studio located inside the Palms. Anyway, one day we're sitting on the couch watching Inked and she turns to me and says, "I want to go to Hart & Huntington to get my henna design tattooed on my belly." "What henna design?", you might ask. Perhaps I should back up a little bit more.
Just prior to Harper's arrival, McCall had a friend come over and draw a mehndi pattern on her big pregger belly using henna ink. The henna stains your skin so when you wash it off it leaves a sort of temporary tattoo. McCall had then laid out in the sun to get a nice tan, but the mehndi didn't tan so even after the ink stain wore off, the pattern remained. You can still see it today.
So where were we? Oh yeah, "I want to go to Hart & Huntington to get my henna design tattooed on my belly." Naturally, I thought H&H the most obvious choice considering how devoid Los Angeles is of tattoo parlors (insert eye roll here). And instead of going to San Diego or something, it makes perfect sense to cross Death Valley for a shop popularized on national television. Yeah, I know it's only cable, but it's BASIC cable. Everybody gets it!
Long story slightly shorter, I got us a room at the Palms, we were upgraded to a full suite on the 31st floor (Happy Birthday, McCall!) which was good because we spent all but about three hours of our time in Vegas in the room dealing with a very fussy baby.
Things were hopeful at first. Harper was enthralled with the lights on the casino floor as we headed from the parking garage to the bell desk. After checking in, we were even able to pop into H&H and inquire about the tattoo. After a brief conversation with the receptionist we were told to come back around 8pm to see if they could squeeze us in that night. McCall also informed me of the estimate.
"Three to four", she said.
"Hundred?", I asked.
"Yes."
"Dollars?"
"Yes."
"American?"
"Yes."
"Wow!"
"What do we do?"
"Come back at 8pm, I guess."
Up to the room to drop off our bags. I love being in tall buildings and I love being as high up in them as possible, so the 31st floor was right up my alley. This affinity may have been instilled in me by my father, an avid world traveller. I flew with my parents to Europe once to visit my brother who was in Hungary on a college missions trip. We landed in Frankfurt, Germany (a beautiful city in pictures) and arrived at our hotel. The first thing my dad did was go to the window, whip open the curtains, and check the view.
"What a view!", he exclaimed. "This is tremendous. Spectacular!" He went on and on about the view and then suddenly stopped. His whole demeanor changed. "Kyle, come here and look at this."
I wandered over to the window fighting jet lag with every step. I looked out and saw the building across the street. Red lights shone from every window. At 15, I wasn't entirely sure what the lights meant. But the sign on the building left no doubt. "Non Stop Sex!" I turned from the window and said, "I bet they stop for lunch." My dad didn't laugh. In fact he didn't really acknowledge my assesment at all. But to this day, I still think it's the funniest thing I've ever said in Frankfurt.
Looking out the window of our corner suite was something like that day in Germany so long ago. See, the Palms isn't on the Strip, it's a couple blocks away, so one side had a terrific view of the back of the Bellagio while the other overlooked squatty cut rate motels and warehouses, all seemingly begging for mercy from the unyielding heat beating down.
After settling in a bit, we decided we should try to rustle up some dinner before heading back to H&H again. Upon checking in, we had received a 20% off coupon for one of the restaurants in the hotel, Little Buddha. We went down to check it out with McCall carrying Harper in a sling. We kind of knew a sit down dinner wasn't going to work so we sat at the bar and ordered our food to go. Harper promptly made her opinion of Buddhist philosophy known by errupting in a fit tears. Luckily, we had had the foresight to bring a bottle. Harper then made her opinion of being fed know by promptly shutting up and sucking it down like an afternoon alcoholic.
Unfortunately, the food took longer than Harper did and it was back to crying. McCall hastily hauled Harper out into the casino area while I awaited the rest of our order. Back up in the room we both raved over our meals. Little Buddha received two big thumbs up from us and one tiny thumbs down from Harper. Not that the suite seemed to please her much better. It was obvious that all excursions beyond the four walls of the room were right out, so we ordered a movie on the hotel TV and took turns soothing Harper for the next two hours. We watched Hard Candy. I had to miss a couple of bits here and there while dealing with the little, but I think I got the gist. It's about a 14 year old girl who aspires to be a surgeon while searching for love online. Thumbs up!
Right about the time we were supposed to be back down at Hart & Huntington, McCall fell asleep. About 20 minutes later so did Harper. We had requested a crib from the Palms so we could have the bed to ourselves in case some amor broke out. None did.
The next morning the alarm went off at 5am, then again at 7am. Each time we would feed and change it and try to get a little more sleep. Finally, at 9am we knew we were up for good. McCall wanted to lay out by the pool so I called to see if we could get a late check out time (official "Don't Let the Door Hit You Where the Good Lord Split You" time is 11am at the Palms). I was hoping for a 1pm check out. Not today, I was told. We're totally sold out this evening. Perfect.
By 10:45am, after rushing to get everything packed up while constantly dealing with baby, we're in line at H&H. They open at 11am and already there's at least 10 people ahead of us. Not everybody's getting tattooed, about half the people are moral support like me, but it doesn't look good for us. I don't want to be here another 12 hours wating for a tattoo! McCall, already upset at not being able to lay by the pool (we didn't even get to see it besides the sliver of view we had from the room!), decides she's going to scrounge up some breakfast. This leaves me standing in line with Haper in a Baby Bjorn strapped to my chest like a timebomb. One that I know, sooner or later, is going explode. I get lucky. Harper gets a little fussy, but not bad. The people in line are totally cool about it and try to help keep her calm. I tell them she's getting her first tattoo. A portrait of my face on her back.
McCall returns with McDonalds and we finally get into the shop again. Now they're telling us the tat will run closer to $600 or $700. I can't believe it. In addition, the best artist to do a henna piece won't be in until 6pm and the woman directly in front of us just requested him specifically to do a portrait (Ironically enough, of my face on her back. Weird.). It's a very time consuming piece so it would be closer to 10pm before we could even think about getting started. The stars are not aligning, God is not smiling on us in this moment. It's not meant to be. But for McCall, it's hard to accept. She'd been looking forward to this for weeks and now it's all falling apart. In addition, we haven't been able to eat in the restaurant, haven't hit any of the tables, haven't been to the pool. Nothing. We basically drove four hours to stay overnight in air conditioning and were about to drive another four hours back to our sweltering apartment.
This was when it became clear...no clearER...no EVEN clearer...no even MORE clearer (if you'll excuse the breech in grammar for effect) that our lives are not about us anymore. We now have our own little buddha who needs us to drop whatever we want, desire, or plan to do in order to take care of her. This takes adjusting and we're still in the process, but honestly, I wouldn't want it any other way.

Knuckle Sandwich

I have a confession to make. And I had no idea this blog was going to be so full of personal secrets, but journalistic integrity demands it. Or something. Whatever, the confession is this: I sucked my thumb until I was 13 years old. That's right, 13! I was in Jr. High before I finally outgrew it.
I can remember the shame I felt as I kept getting older and older but couldn't compel myself to stop. It was very embarassing and my biggest fear became, "What if my friends find out?" At sleepovers, I would pull blankets or sleeping bags over my head to avoid detection. Of course, I eventually quit. I believe it went something along the lines of me saying, "This is stupid, just stop!" And then I stopped.
So you can imagine my consternation at the thought of Harper falling into the habit. "It's like crack", I tell her. "You think, 'This is great! It's cheap, it's easy to find, and as long as I have it, I'll always be able to soothe myself'". That is until you can't sleep without it, or it ruins your teeth, or you end up married to Bobby Brown! "Crack is whack", I say, "And sucking your thumb is just plain dumb." This has been my mantra.
And it hasn't really been a concern since she's been perfectly happy with pacifiers. However, over the past week or so Harper has decided she no longer likes pacifiers. Used to be, she would eat, we would burp her, she would get a little fussy, we would pop a paci into her pucker and she'd peacefully pass out. Parental paradise! No so anymore. Now, you offer the binky and she spits it out redoubling her urgent cries. Then she started trying to comfort herself by attempting to suck her thumb. But she can't quite figure out how to extend that one opposable digit away from the others. Thus she ends up sucking most of her fist (see the image above). Or she hooks her thumb under her first finger like she's playing "Got Your Nose". Except she's playing, "Got Your Nose, And Now I'm Gonna Try And Suck Out Your Nostrils", which, as you can imagine, is not nearly as enjoyable so she ends up crying all the more.
Finally today, she acheived success. She outsmarted her hand and got the thumb by itself in her mouth. But I'm feeling a little ambivalent about this progression. She now has the ability to self-soothe, by all accounts a tremendous water mark for a baby, especially at two months. But now I have to wonder, "Will she get hooked?" Will we have to stage an intervention at some point down the line as my family did?
I can still remember that evening in the kitchen when I was about ten years old. My whole family gathered around while my mom poured ground pepper on my thumb. They all stood there telling me it was going to make my thumb taste like candy. They were Wonkafying my habit, I thought. But I was suspicious. This was an activity they constantly frowned upon, even moving more and more towards punishing me to coerce a cease sucking.
I should have listened to my gut. It was a lot smaller then, but just as smart. As soon as I popped my thumb in my mouth, a horrible, spicy flavor exploded. I broke down into tears immediately as my family burst into laughter. Betrayed! That was as close to emotional abuse as it ever got in my family. I think my mom probably apologized and washed my thumb off. But then a funny thing happened. For the next few hours, I actually thought it had worked. I was cured! Until I went to bed.
We can always take away her pacifier, but we can't remove her thumb. Or can we...? No, that's terrible. So I'm hoping and praying that she will be like the zillion other kids on planet Earth who simply outgrow it as toddlers and not like the one sucker that sired her who couldn't quit even after being punk'd by his parents!

Summer Movies are Cool

Today, I'm going to let you in on a little secret: It's ridiculously hot in our apartment. The geniuses that built the place in 1921 determined that central air conditioning was not a priority. Our current landlord agrees with that assessment.
However, we do have rockin' insulation which traps the heat, so often times it's actually warmer inside than it is outside. This is especially true at night when it can hover around 86°. In fact we have a thermometer in Harper's room and currently it is reading a very brisk 81°. I've seen temperatures as high as 90° in there on a number of occasions.
So how do we beat the heat?
First off, we drive around in our air conditioned vehicles looking for air conditioned businesses. I suddenly have great disdain for any business establishment not chilled to a comfortable 60° temperature. Movie theaters still get it right in their attempt to compete with meat lockers. The three of us went to a "Mommy and Me" movie (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest) at the Grove on Monday.
A Mommy and Me movie is a showing specially designated for people to bring their babies. There's a large stroller parking area in the lobby (it's the upper-middle class equivalent to the shopping cart parking areas you see outside of missions downtown on Skid Row). The theater offers the very highest level of security for your stoller as brass poles and velvet ropes stand guard unflinchingly for the duration of the feature. Inside, the theater are anywhere from 20 to 150 adults (depending on the flick) with maybe 15 to 75 infants, babies and toddlers.
The audio is turned down just a bit to avoid disturbing the little ones. This also has the duel effect of making it very difficult to understand characters who whisper. But when does anybody ever whisper in the movies??? They also leave the lights up about half way so you can nurse or change your baby right there in the theater. Harper had a huge blow out during the movie. She had baby poop all over her and on her outfit and on the theatre seat. But we didn't even have to get up! We just changed her right there. However, I wouldn't want to be the poor schmoe who sat in the sixth row about 15 seats from the left side for the next showing. That seat was a poopy seat!
And if your baby starts crying, what do you care? You pretty much just let them wail and everybody understands. It's not like some other mom is going to "shh" you. In fact Harper was laughing abnoxiously and smoking a huge cigar throughout the entire screening and nobody said anything. That is, until Robert DeNiro came over and told us how rude it was. Well excuuuuse me! I thought this was a MOMMY and Me movie, not a DeNiro and Me movie!
Unfortunately, all the factors mentioned above can really impact your ability to actually watch the film. But we were able to circumvent that problem as McCall primarily handled Harper duty and I was responsible for relaying to her what was happening on screen. I'd say I did a pretty good job. Here's McCall's review of Pirates of the Caribbean: "It was a beautiful film about a pirate searching for love on a ride at Disneyland." Thumbs up!