Duck My Life

We took our quack-quacking NJ to Green Lake this afternoon for a little bread-on-duck action. We've done it a couple of times already and she loves to watch the ducks, seagulls and other waterfowl in a feeding frenzy, as long as one of her parents is tossing the food -- as you'll see below, she's not much on throwing bread herself. Never passing up a chance to mentor my wide-eyed-with-wonder, ever-learning child, I delicately took a piece of bread from her hand and tossed it into the water for the birds. "See, like this!" I added helpfully. She only stopped crying once The Wife handed her another piece.



Once we were out of bread I walked Zeus around a bit while The Wife and NJ (her new chunk of bread still lodged in her pudgy hand) walked along the lake and kept company with the ducks. I saw that the kid was heading straight for a sizable rain puddle and thought "Uh-oh, those boots are going to get soaked." They did get soaked -- and so did a lot more of NJ's ensemble when she executed a Fatty Arbuckle-esque pratfall into the water, landing squarely on her fanny and not seeming to mind all that much. Sadly, the camcorder was already stashed away in her diaper bag, but here's a little photographic evidence to help us remember it forever:

Now, it's true I told NJ I loved the blues and hoped one day she'd get into Muddy Waters, but this isn't what I had in mind! Thank you, thank you very much -- I'll be here all week. Try the veal, and don't forget to tip your waitress.

We packed up the car and drove the now-pantsless kid home, where she continued to quack-quack for a bit, but then turned to other pursuits. Namely, marching around her room with a frog puppet on one hand, held defiantly in the air like she was a member of the 1968 Olympic relay team -- but cheerier, of course. There also were bubbles blown, laughed at, chased and burst. All in all, I think she had a pretty nice afternoon. And once she gets the connection between tossing the bread and seeing a duck feeding frenzy, I think she's going to be tossing a whole lot of bread.

Sexy Beast

NJ has agreed to give up a little blog real estate in honor of her late, hairy brother, Willie. I had to put Willie's guns in the ground this week, and the boy deserves a few pixels dedicated to him.

All pets die eventually, but sexy boudoir photographs last forever.

You know Willie, whose official registered-with-the-AKC name was Redmond Chocolate Thunder, as one-half of the famous Two Idiots comedy team. He was as good a dog as I've ever known. I was fond of him from the day we brought him home, but he and I really bonded after two or three years when he established a routine that paid off for both me and him. He'd wake up The Wife very early -- leaving me be -- to let him outside and serve his breakfast. Then he'd come upstairs and jump back onto the bed with me and sleep until I got up. Shrewd, eh? This, I thought, is my kind of dog.

His penchant for eating anything -- A. Nee. Theen. Guh. -- was widely known, gossiped about and shuddered over. Now, at least, The Wife and I can blow our noses and freely toss our used tissues in the wastebasket without worrying that he'll be in there later, rooting them out and eating them. He so loved the scent and, apparently, taste of tissue paper that we occasionally came home from an outing to find that he'd pulled a nice, long trail of toilet paper from the bathroom to whatever room he'd made into his ad-hoc dining room. We learned quickly to shut the bathroom doors when we left the house, but sometimes we'd forget. And come home to this:

Don't just stand there pointing a camera, Ansel Adams -- get me some mustard!

In September 2009 Willie was slowing down, slightly -- a couple of gray hairs in the facial fur, and he took two steps at a time on the stairs instead of three -- but he still was being mistaken for a puppy on our walks in the neighborhood and around the lake. One day The Wife woke me up with news that he'd collapsed and couldn't move. I took him in and we found that he had a rare cancer that usually only shows up in Burmese mountain dogs. We had his spleen removed, but the cancer was fast and unrelenting, we were told, and he had two to three months to live. But he kept on keeping on -- his legs got a little arthritic, but I'd lift him onto the bed if he didn't feel like jumping. A couple of weeks ago, though -- fourteen months after he was given three months to live -- he stopped eating (and if you've been paying attention, that's a huge red flag). An ultrasound revealed that most of his innards were ravaged by cancer -- the vet was kind of impressed that he was surviving at all with so much of it all over his organs -- and while a steroid brought back his appetite and chippered him up for a while, it was only a while. A week later was Monday, and Monday was a really crappy day.

Zeus is still here, of course -- about a year younger than Willie, and a mutt so theoretically not as much risk of weird diseases. And while I love this guy too, he's no Willie. Whatever Zeus's previous owners did before The Wife and I got him from a rescue shelter did a number on him. It was weeks before he'd let us pet him, and to this day he'll only come when called about half the time. He's never fully embraced things like getting hugged or petted for long periods of time, or the general rolling-around-playing that Willie excelled at. We've always felt that Zeus loved Willie and liked us. Zeus followed Willie everywhere, and felt so secure and emboldened enough with his older brother that occasionally this notorious coward would growl at other dogs on our walks. Go on, come after me -- but before you do, get a real good look at this choco-Lab wildman to my right and ask yourself if you feel lucky.

Pass me that bottle, bro.

Now I feel better about things than I did in the days leading up to Willie's last trip to the vet, but I miss the SOB (I can say that, he literally was one) a whole lot. There's a beautiful song by The Band called "Rockin' Chair" about two elderly sailors who are headed home to spend the last of their days. I used to sing it to the dog when no one was around (he never once complained about my singing voice!) because the singer is one of the old geezers and he's singing to his friend Willie. It put me in the mind of a very, very elderly me sitting on a front porch, "with my very best friend, they call him Ragtime Willie." Silly, impossible, implausible, sure -- made me smile, though. And he sure loved the ear-scratching that came with it.

So it's the first Christmas in quite a while that I won't have to constantly worry that the tree is going to get knocked over because Willie is rooting around underneath it, or ornaments will be swatted across the room by his ever-wagging tail. It cheers me up a great deal to think that the next animal we bring into this house will be NJ's.

Oct. 31, 1997 - Dec. 6, 2010: RIP

The Age Of Sticky

Now that we've boldly entered the solid food-eating phase here at Casa NJ, there's a thin veneer of sticky all over the place. One end of the dining room table. Part of the dining room floor. NJ's clothes, bibs and spit-up rags. Her living room play mat. Plastic toys. NJ's face, hands and arms, and occasionally her legs.

It's all over the place, in other words. But it's not a giant flood of applesauce, half-chewed rice crackers and spilled pureed veggies. That, almost, would be better. No, it's little dabs of residue here and there, where you (I) least expect it. Yesterday I put a glass down on the table and picked it up again to find a little cereal star clinging to the bottom like it had grabbed onto the last helicopter out of Saigon.

I don't care how you feel about these things. I like 'em! Bring me more!

Not all of them end up in NJ's mouth, of course. She knows how to pick them up, and she knows they belong in her mouth. But if she closes her hand into a fist, that fist is what ends up in her mouth. The cereal may end up in her mouth, too, but it also may stay in that fist, soaking up drool, and come back out again. And stick to the back of her hand. Or her chin. Or her bottom lip. Or her shirt. Or ... just about anything.

In the photo above, NJ picked up all four of the pictured cereal stars, and 1) managed to eat one; 2) lost two in the palm of her very own hand, where they turned to a gooey mush; and 3) dropped one into her lap, where it eventually bounced to the floor. That's where Zeus snagged it. (Hallelujah for The Two Idiots and their ever-vigilant patrolling of the house. Yesterday NJ grabbed the edge of my cereal bowl and toppled it, spreading flax-seed granola and milk all over the office floor. I called Willie over and he quickly, efficiently cleaned up 80 percent of the mess.)

I'll eat half of this now and ball the other half up into mush and keep it in my hand for an hour.

When mixed with copious amounts of baby saliva, the rice crackers and cereal bits mix into a paste you could use to repair cracks in concrete. It sticks to everything and congeals in the blink of an eye. The resulting crust sticks to NJ's face and hands like barnacles on a ship's hull and she is not a big fan of mine when I clean it off her.

Anyone know a metal band that needs a lead singer? I can go with a green, red or white goatee, too, if orange is a deal-breaker.

The steamed, pureed fruits and veggies -- and yogurt, which was added to the mix last week and is a big favorite -- end up all over NJ's face, of course. But her new-found penchant for thumb-sucking has increased the mess factor four- or five-fold. You stick a thumb into a mouth that's festooned like the one in the photo above and that stuff is getting all over the hand. Then that hand goes to the hair, then the high chair table, then the other hand, then the shirt sleeve, then the sideboard next to the high chair. Soon it's "Carrots all around!"

Things That Fascinate My Daughter

NJ has toys spread out across our house. At any given moment you can reach to the coffee table, the living room floor (inside her play tunnel), the dining room table, the breakfast nook table, anywhere in her room, the basement floor or the office floor and find something to shove into her meaty little hands. Still, there are mundane and random things around the house that positively mesmerize her.


When NJ gets her evening bath in her tub, which fits into the kitchen sink, she loves to look at her distorted reflection in the kitchen sink faucet. Recently she's learned that it swivels, and The Wife and I are on constant alert now to make sure she doesn't bang herself in the mouth with it.


Whenever NJ is playing on the floor and one of The Two Idiots goes strolling by, play time is suspended until he's out of sight or lays down somewhere. NJ loves to pet Willie (L) and feel his soft fur, which we allow under very controlled situations. Zeus (R) never really gets close enough for that. He'll duck in and sniff the top of her head, then dart off like he's stolen a candy bar from a counter display.


As mentioned before, this ceramic bass hangs over an entrance to the kitchen. That's where we take NJ to dance the fussiness out of her, something she enjoys greatly. When she looks up and happens to get Fred the Kitchen Fish in her sights, she locks in on it and pretty much doesn't stop staring at it until she's out of the room. Go figure.


Trying to get ready for the day in the morning, but NJ is crabbing and crying on the bed? Start brushing your teeth with an electric toothbrush and show her what you're doing. Something buzzing weirdly in your mouth -- it's a show-stopper. I can't tell if she is intrigued or horrified, but her eyes get big, she stops squirming, and doesn't move until the thing shuts off.


The washer-sink combo is a weird one. Ambient noise from the dryer and washer make for good basement nap accompaniment. But when the washer discharges its water into the sink, it's a mini-Niagra Falls. The roiling, rumbling water prompts NJ to jerk her head over to see what's going on (she can't, because there's a rack of hanging clothes between her nap swing and the laundry area). The first time it happened it scared her. Now, though, once it's over, she goes back to dozing.


Another nap-time diversion: my cell phone. She watches the reflection of the screen in my glasses and (I think) it calms her. She sees me, sees pretty lights, feels good. If she gets cranky, I call her name and wave the phone back and forth so she can see it. She watches intently and calms down.


More and more, NJ sits in my lap as I sit at the computer. And more and more, she's fascinated by the keyboard. Mommy and Daddy seem to be having a lot of fun, after all, so why not try it? She bangs the handrest area with her full hand, and lately has been reaching up onto the keys themselves. In fact, I had to start this missive over when she made the first version disappear. I think she's embarrassed about the ceramic fish thing.