Lifestyles of the Young + Suburban

Archive for August, 2008

Like many of you, Lisa and I have been enjoying watching the Olympics and rooting on Team USA. There is something about friendly competition amongst nations that brings out a sense of pride and patriotism that too often is left deep inside of you. I love that warm fuzzy feeling I get when we are kicking some serious butt and when you hear the odds so many of these amazing athletes (both US and other countries) have overcome.

Past all the Phelps-phans and gymnastic hysteria, I have come to appreciate the high dive as one of my favorite sports to watch. Essentially falling through the air towards a plane of water from thirty-three feet has to combine an amazing rush of fear and excitement. The somersaults, twists and turns are precisely tuned and timed allowing for minimal impact on the water with a tiny splash capping off a the diving dance through the air.

Last week Mark Richt took the number-one ranked UGA football team to the Ramsey Center for a break from their grueling pre-season practice. He, along with several of the players took leaps off the high dive, with much less elegance than the Olympians we have been watching on TV. But talk about an incredible thrill to stand up there and overlook the pool and see all the people looking up at you.

When I saw the NY Times had put together this incredible 360 panamoric view from atop the high dive, I realized this was the closest I will come to standing 33 feet above a swimming pool…and I’m okay with that.

I’ll leave the high dives to the Olympians and brave football players.

PS: Be sure to enable full screen when you look at the interactive view!

Lisa took Grayson for his four month check up this morning. His doctor said he looked great and Grayson is now ready to start getting a daily dose of rice cereal. Lisa has been talking about this for weeks and is so excited to see his reaction and subsequent mess. Looks like we are going to have to pick up a high chair for our little man, if he is going to start eating more than just his bottle.

Grayson weighed in at 14 lbs and is a whopping 25 inches long. He seems to be doing great to us and it is always reassuring to hear that he is developing well and we are doing okay as first time parents.

Yesterday Lisa turned 22 (in her mind, but according to the state of Texas she is two years shy of the big 3-0!). We celebrated the night before with a Mexican fiesta at Prestonwood CC with my folks and Josh, Stacy and the girls. Last night we dropped Grayson off and enjoyed an incredible dinner out at Bob’s. Tonight, we head to the Roughriders game.

Look out for pics of Grayson’s freshly painted room thanks to a paint-fumed marathon by Lisa earlier this week (Grammy was watching him), as well as a few shots of the house as we get a bit more settled.

Just got a phone call from Lisa with Grayson laughing in the background. He has giggled a bit in the past, but this evening she was able to conjure up full-scale hilarity and if he had the hand-eye coordination, I am pretty sure he would have been slapping his knee.

We’ll see if we can get a video posted, but it sounded pretty cute.

So a couple of weeks back we made a stop at Babies R Us to take advantage of some coupons Lisa had gotten in the mail and do some price comparison of formula and diapers.

Costco still has the best deal for Grayson’s diapers and the Enfamil formula, especially since not buying in bulk is crazy and just asking for unnecessary mid-week trips to the store.

One of the coupons we had was for the Bumbo seat, which we were both skeptical on. It seemed strange for a 3+ month old to be sitting in a chair just hanging out. As we looked at the boxes and I scoffed at the $39.95 price tag, a nice mom with baby in sling popped around the corner to praise the Bumbo.

Apparently, as long as the baby can hold their head up, it is good for them by helping get the baby comfortable and good for mom/dad as it gives some much needed hands-free time.

She said it was great with the tray to pop the kid in, put some toys in front of him and have some self-entertainment for a few minutes. The only concerns she had heard was when parents put their Bumbo’d baby on a table or counter and somehow the kid had tipped it over and fallen down. First, why would you put your kid in something like this on a table or counter? Second, the kid would have to have jumped up or grabbed ahold of like 1,000 balloons to lift him up some, because this thing seems sturdy, especially when coupled with gravity. Regardless keeping the baby on the floor seems to be the only sensible route.

Anywho, with the $10 off coupon we went for it and bought the tray that attaches to the seat as well. A few minutes later, as we eyeballed high chairs, a dad came up and asked us what our motivation was for buying the Bumbo, which we kindly retold the glowing review the other mom had given us and cited the coupon. I am fairly certain he bought one, which is just another fine example of the effectiveness of word of mouth. (To any infant product manufacturers: I will be happy to accept free products for review and if it is Graybe approved, then I’ll even hang out at Babies R Us for an hour to tell people how much I love it!)

When we got home Grayson was a bit confused why he was sitting upright without anyone holding him, but after a few minutes realized this was pretty sweet. We popped in the tray, gave him a few toys and he was having a blast.

What’s crazy is when we put in one of the Baby Einstein videos we bought and turned the Bumbo to the TV. He is mesmerized by the puppets, other babies and wacky colors that flash on the screen. While we don’t necessarily think the videos are going to make him any smarter, at least it is controlled programming and he is not catching peeks of mom and dad’s Law & Order reruns like he does when squirms during a feeding.

Back to the Bumbo. Lisa loves it because of the aforementioned hands-free time and the fact that Grayson seems to enjoy himself in it. It’s a nice alternative to have on hand and has found a special place on the floor in our family room.

Graybe approved.

<rant>

Something that has bothered me as of late is some people’s (read: clients and coworkers’) inability to recall that we are in a magical time of year — daylight savings time.

No it’s not that they are showing up an hour late to meetings, its that they seem to use the S instead of the D (eg; EST vs EDT). EST stands for Eastern Standard Time, as in non-daylight savings time. Eastern Standard Time (or Central, Pacific, whateva) is replaced by Eastern Daylight Time in the Spring until the Fall.

So whenever anyone says, I will call you at 3pm EST, I am confused if they really mean 3pm EDT or if they are part of a small community of non-practicing daylight savings time people.

My secret, so if I forget what month or season it happens to be, is to just leave off the D or the S altogether (eg: ET or CT). It saves me about of tenth of a second when typing and it minimizes the opportunity for me to sound more stupider than I already do.

There you have it, one of my four secrets to success.

</rant>