tonight (and of course by "tonight" I mean 10 days ago, since it's now november 4th) we tried the new izakaya in our neighborhood. We had expected to not like it because it appeared too fusiony (edamame hummous, salmon “ceviche” in endive cups) but it turns out that much of the menu is traditional grilled or fried izakaya fare. Just very very poorly executed. I figure they can probably fix the problems with the service, and the fact that there are multiple things with the same name on the menu, and they could hire an 8th grader to teach them how to use the formatting tools in Word so that the menu isn’t just a mess. But the dry, bland food is going to take more work. Fortunately, this means that our neighborhood is still in need of a good izakaya, so jon’s dream of opening one is still alive and kicking.
Parents always say that one thing that kids will teach you is patience. I never doubted their words and welcome the change of disposition. And I got to feel it in action the other day. We woke up a few days ago and Toby had this enormous buggar in his nose. I tried my darnedest for a few minutes to try to get it out, but my fingers weren’t right for the job. I dunno how many of you out there have tried to pick a baby’s nose, but it’s pretty hard. Their nostrils just aren’t quite right for adult fingers (look closely at posted picture). I watched the buggar come in and out of sight in his nostril as he breathed heavily, just taunting me. I then tried to use his hand and fingers to lodge it out, but again to no avail. I then began conjuring up plans to get it out using chopsticks or other household utensils, but the image of Toby accidentally getting a frontal lobotomy prevented me from going forward. I figured that could wait for a few more years. So I just waited it out. And eventually, it disappeared. I dunno if it landed on my shirt or on Sarah’s nursing top or in somebody’s mouth, it doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that I didn’t have to wait very long to become the most patient fathers in the world.
Today we went to a party at the very cute lenodle-mogooms houses. There were lots of babies there (well, if you consider 4 to be lots, which we do). I always thought that once I had a baby I would be better at guessing the age or gender of other children. But either because I’m grossly inattentive or because our baby is aberrantly large with a head full of hair, I’m still terrible at it. So I’ve mostly settled on saying things like “my, that’s a nice baby”. Afterward we briefly stopped by the besmorf house where they were preparing to watch some ultimate fighting pay-per-view thing. Toby wanted to stay and cheer on the spider while he kneed his competitors in the head, but we had to go home to our sakoolley house instead.
Toby has recently started to grab things and bring them to his mouth. The grabbing part is still a little clunky, but once he’s grabbed on, the item, be it a finger, sock, toy, or your shirt, is covered with drool in seconds. So far we’ve mostly been offering him soft things like socks and blankets. But someday we could give him other things without too much anxiety since California just became the first state to ban phthalates from children’s toys. So as long as we don’t have to move out of San Francisco, Toby’s liver, thyroid, and testes may be safe, at least from this class of unpronounceable chemicals. Although we could always move to the EU since they banned these things like a decade ago. Then toby’s liver would only have the delicious wines, beers, and sweet sweet lambics to contend with. mmmmm, lambic.
Today as I sat at my desk at work trying to get some stupid analysis program to run and wishing that I were still at home curled up on the sofa, a rat ran across some molding above my head. I really hate my job.
Tonight, toby went to sleep with a pacifier in his mouth. Prior attempts at the pacifier resulted in him sucking on it briefly before it would pop out. And prior sleeping attempts have always involved him feeding multiple times first. Unfortunately, while the pacifier was cool, because it meant that he didn’t eat a lot before bed, I was stuck with a lot of extra food, which was, well, uncomfortable. In other news, toby’s new favorite inanimate object is an American analog set poster. When he sees it, he just goes crazy, smiling, giggling, babbling, even cupcaking. I almost feel sorry for his previous love, the halogen lamp. Almost. Then I remember that it’s a lamp.
