The Reluctant Carnivore

Yesterday marked NJ's first real foray into the order of Carnivora. In the only bit of work she performed on her first Mother's Day, The Wife made a lamb-and-lentils recipe, and the resulting dish was actually quite tasty. NJ will need some more convincing, though.

Great Odin's raven!

You know, mixing this vile concoction with the plain yogurt, which I love, doesn't make it any better.

Admit it: You're flat-0ut torturing me so Dad Solo will have another excuse to post one of those dumb photo sequences of me making funny faces on the Internet. That's just lazy blogging right there. I'm so disappointed in you. And on Mother's Day even!

Eventually we moved on to plain yogurt, but there's lamb and lentils in the fridge and I'll be making another go of it later today.

UPDATE: NJ ate the lamb and lentils for lunch today, but only when it was slathered in yogurt. In fact, only yogurt could be visible on the spoon before she'd take it. Then there'd be a head shake and a stream of what sounded like Polish swearing. But: She ate it. So there, kid! So there.

NJ's Ever-Evolving Social Skills: A Case Study

How She Gets What She Wants
Something I learned this week: If you go into your favorite sports replica clothing store wearing a cute baby who's happy and joyfully smiling at everyone she comes into contact with, the charmed storekeepers are likely to give her a free Seattle Angels t-shirt that she'll be big enough to wear in about three years.

How She Ignores What She Doesn't Want
NJ quite obviously and wantonly humored her father yesterday, something I'm sure I'll see again and again for the rest of my days. We were sitting on the couch playing with one of her ring toss games, and I started talking about something I'd just seen on the Internet. I'm doing my best to ix-nay the baby talk, lest she grow up thinking "boo-pa-doo-ba-doo" is an actual greeting to be used in all of society. So after I talked about what I was talking about I poked her in the tummy lightly and said "Know what I mean, kid?" She'd been watching the dog, who was by the end of the sofa, and when I poked her she turned toward me and widened her eyes a bit -- as if she'd been busted in class for not paying attention. Then she nodded her head, uttered a sound that was about ninety percent of "Uh-huh" and flashed the fakest, most last-minute, half-hearted, half-smile I've ever seen. I was actually a little taken aback at how cavalierly she'd treated me as she went back to watching the dog. Then, to add insult to injury, she darted her eyes back toward me -- to see if I was still looking at her -- and, upon seeing that I was, she quickly turned away again and began playing with toys and uttering noises that sounded suspiciously like the "duh-ta-da-ta-da" humming people do in movies when they're being conspicuously inconspicuous. It was a little soul-crushing, but a few minutes later she'd forgotten that I'd bored her silly with info on that night's starting pitchers. Hooray for short baby attention spans. I'm dreading the day she learns how to roll her eyes dismissively, though.

Otherwise, it's been a pretty uneventful week here at Dad Solo HQ. We're gearing up for The Wife's first Mother's Day as an honoree, something I need to think about this afternoon. I told The Wife my original plans a couple of evenings ago, and her response was about as enthusiastic as NJ's reaction to Felix Hernandez's ERA.

Slide, NJ, Slide!

Remember Mike 'King' Kelly, the great baseball player in the late 19th century with the Chicago White Stockings and the Boston Beaneaters who popularized the hook slide? And the poem 'Slide, Kelly, Slide' that made him a household name?

Yeah, NJ doesn't either.

This man enjoyed sliding.

This girl doesn't.

That's What She Said, Or: Embarrassing Parental Milestone

For the first several weeks of NJ's life, obviously, The Wife and I (mostly her) were up all hours feeding and caring for her. That's when the DVR earned its keep. Set that puppy to record shows during the day, then watch them at all hours when the kid needs to nurse and be rocked to sleep. We had a seemingly endless supply of "The Office" episodes, because both TBS and a local TV station shows multiple reruns throughout the day. The Wife and I ODed on Michael Scott's sublimely boneheaded antics to the point that now, when an episode starts, I know if there is a joke in it that strikes The Wife as particularly funny; when it comes along, she chuckles and I say "Oh, you thought that was funny, did you?" in a super-sarcastic voice. She does the same to me. (Possibly related note: We are dorks.) So: It's a good bet that over the last eight-plus months, "The Office" has been on our television set for at least a few minutes almost every day.

Late last week I was flipping around after dinner and "The Office" came on right at the beginning. The theme song started up, and NJ -- who was nursing, eyes closed and head facing the other direction, content to the point of being in another world -- jerked her head around and stared at the screen until the music was over. The next night, same situation, same result -- "The Office" theme immediately got her attention, like a bomb went off in the corner of the living room. Next night, same deal. Every time I've played "The Office" for her since, in fact. She's Pavlov's Cutie.

The future Mrs. Dwight K. Shrute?

So chalk this up as my official First Corruption of Youth. I think my next project will be to train her to make me a martini every time she hears the theme from "Mad Men."

She Probably Thinks This Blog Is About Her

Can it be that NJ is turning into a little narcissist? Or at least she's really working on her vanity, right along with her vocal and motor skills.

A couple of weeks ago we had a photographer in for a wide-ranging Vanity Fair-style photo spread of the child. NJ playing in a pile of toilet paper, NJ looking pensive in her great-grandfather's rocking chair, NJ looking slyly through the slats of her crib, NJ thumbing through her big cloth books. You know, the typical up-and-coming Hollywood star stuff. When the photos were done, The Wife and I were clicking through them on the computer here and NJ caught a look at the screen. She laughed and The Wife asked her if she recognized the kid in the photo. She laughed a little more, and I clicked on to the next shot. NJ was delighted when the next photo of herself materialized -- arms waving, beaming smile, adorable giggle. This continued, and escalated, with each new photograph. After a while I expected her to lean over and whisper "Let's use that one for the head shot, send it to Miramax stat" in my ear.

Over the weekend, NJ's fascination with herself spiked even higher. I've talked about our stops in front of the hallway mirror before, but a few days ago I noticed that it's no longer about me making a funny face, or the adorable juxt of big, beefy Dad Solo and his tiny, cute-as-hell daughter. No, it's all about her: NJ squeals, flaps her arms like a bird, kicks her legs and generally goes nuts, staring at herself. And just when I think it can't get any worse, she almost falls out of my arms reaching out to touch herself in the mirror. I guess I'd better not take her to the lake any time soon.

Oh well. I suppose it's hard to blame her. Who could resist this? She's not made of stone, after all.