our curling party

The Sixth Annual Rhona and Matt Curling Extravaganza participants. Next year, you can be here as well. We'll keep you posted. And we'll have a few more pictures soon.

Autumn's first spring

Spring seems to have sprung in our little corner of the world. Yesterday the thermometer tipped to the higher side of 50. I think it says something interesting about where I am in life when I get excited about the thermometer being higher than my age.

Obviously though, this is the American style of measuring the temperature. It's the system in which freezing is bizarrely set at 32. Bizarre, until you think a little bit about these United States. Most of the country cares more about the top level of this temperature scale. Many of the southern states see 32 on rare occasions, but they understand fully what 100 means.

I'm sort of with them, when the temperature warms. When it's cold, I understand what zero degrees means in the Celsius scale. It means freezing. I get that. And even though Anders Celsius, the inventor of the scale meant for zero to be the boiling point of water, he finally relented and made zero the temperature in which water freezes.

And that makes sense. But what doesn't make sense is 16. When the temperature hits 16, I have no idea if I need a jacket, or I don't need a jacket. However, 62, the approximate corresponding measurement in Fahrenheit, makes sense. It means go for a walk. With the family. Because spring is here.

So, my point. I know spring is coming when I make the mental switch from Celsius to Fahrenheit. When I go from 1, 2 and even 5, to 60, 65, and dare I dream, 80 degrees. Meaningful numbers to me. Happy spring people.

Discover Math

This is my favorite personal little joke: my parent's, in naming me Mathew (one t please) were describing my future outlook on Math. Ew.

Thankfully, I wrote for a living, because I am not so good at math. Take this egg problem I read in Discover Magazine.

You have 9 eggs. One of them is heavier than the other 8. You have one scale and can make as many different groups of measurements you want. The fewest is 2. Can you explain why?

The thing is, this is a logic question, which I'm generally good at. But the simple thought of Math clouds my head. I hope that when Autumn starts school and needs help with her Math homework, this little glitch in my head won't stand in the way of me helping. And just for the record, while mom doesn't have a Math joke built into her name, she's not so hot at Math either. But we can both turn a phrase, so we'll help Autumn write great essays.

Anyway, I'll post the math answer a little later.

Curling on the weekend

It was a busy curling weekend. First of all, the team I predicted would win the Brier, won the Brier. Not exactly a surprise pick, but hey, I did pick 'em. It was an exciting game, and the result made my day.

Plus, it was the 6th annual Rhona and Matt Curling Extravaganza. A party dedicated to teaching people in Western New York to curl. This year, we had about 20 people learning to curl for the first time. After the event, we ate pizza, drank beer, and laughed. Soon I'll have some pictures. I promise.

Cool

After drops

Not happy. But she gets happy quick.

Before drops

She's feeling better. But I'm about to give Autumn her little drops. I'll post that picture in a little bit.

This was funnier

So, we give Autumn baths all the time. And we can't help but marvel over how soft her heine is. You've heard the term "as soft as a baby's bottom", well, since we have a baby, and since I've had occasion to bath her, I can tell you it's soft. So when I saw this comic, it made me think of her. A lot of things in my life are going to make me think of her. I guess that's part of the greatness of having a little girl. Click on it to make it bigger:

Autumn in Dress

Autumn in Dress, originally uploaded by MRHames.

I was looking through some old shots and saw this. I feel like she looks like a doll in this. It was from September of 06. She was a couple of months old. And yet, she still pulled off a dress. You can see Autumn in there, but just. It's gonna be so neat to look back.

Autumn doing what she loves

Yes, with the help of that thing (which she loves), she can walk all on her onesie. When she hits a wall, or an object, she just keeps plowing through, which is often funny as well. But, mostly she'll just sit back and have the thing fall on her, which as you can imagine, gets upsetting. Still. She'd rather be walking. And really, on a gorgeous Friday morning, who wouldn't rather be walking?

Pink eye.

On Monday, we got a call from Day Care saying that our little girl had the runs. She basically exploded, and thus, she had to go home. Tuesday mom stayed home, changing diapers at a record pace. Tuesday, dad began to feel like three pounds of poop in a two-pound bag. In other words, not good.

When dad arrived home on Tuesday, he went to bed, staying in bed from around 5:30PM until the morning, whereupon mom went to work and left a pink eye, but awake and aware little peanut, and a dad who appeared to be on death's door. We were a sad pair. And you could tell mom was nervous.

At this point, you should know two things:

1. Dad is a complete grump when sick. True, who isn’t? But dad would most likely take the gold at the grumpy Olympics.

2. Mom and Dad had tickets to Wednesday night’s Sabres game, Joe Sakic’s last appearance.

To recap: Dad is sick. Autumn has pink eye and the runs. The Sabres appear to be a distant dream. Mom takes tickets to work with the intention of selling or giving away.

So there’s Dad and Autumn, at 8:00 both feeling crappy. Both ate a little, and then sat on the rocker, slowly falling asleep. Fast-forward a few minutes, and you find dad and Autumn sound asleep in the bed (Lucy and Romeo there as well) in what will be called the sleep that solved almost everything.

Because, from that two hour nap on, Dad felt like a million bucks. Autumn even seemed better.

The nap. It’s not sleep, it’s better sleep. Even a half-hour nap can do wonders. Still, Mom had given away the Sabres tickets as planned to someone at work who really needed a night out. Really, it all sort of worked out.

Update: it’s now Friday. I started writing this post Thursday. Autumn is doing better, Dad feels great, and managed to get tickets to the Sabres game tonight. Thanks Mom!!!!

We’ll post later about giving eye drops to a squirming, screaming baby.

Happy Birthday Grandad

There's no way he'll ever see this, he's not big into computers. Plus, he's in Florida. Anyway, happy birthday to Granddad!

Sick Peanut

Yesterday, we got a call from day care. The call was, Autumn has the runs. Actually, she doesn't have just the runs, she has the world class sprints. And some goop in her eye.

A little background. She hasn't been sleeping through the nights for the last few days. Mom and dad aren't getting much sleep, so we're on edge. Autumn is both toothing and leaking mostly fluids from her cute little heiney. So, not only does a late night diaper change involve the diaper change, it also involves the full-scale change of her outfit.

Anyway, Autumn and mom are home today. She's not allowed to go back to daycare until she has a solid BM. We'll see how today goes. But I'll tell you this: I'm currently jacked up on caffeine, feeling like I'm getting sick, and it's the coldest day of the year. I've had better weeks.

Sunday at the Brier

I might be on my own, but I'm in heaven. I'm at the Brier in Hamilton, about to watch one of the best games (on paper) in the week. Glenn Howard vs Jeff Stoughton. You can watch it here.

Last night, Autumn didn't really cooperate with Dad's plans to spend the entire day at the Brier, Canada's Curling Championship. She was up and down like the stock market last week, finally settling to sleep at 3:00 snuggled to dad.

We're not big fans of bringing her into bed, but after an hour of trying to get her back to sleep, we were at our wit's end, and a little tipsy to boot.

Yesterday, I did run into Johnny Mac, an old teammate from my playing days. I got a shot of him even.



John told us the news that he was going to be a dad. It's awesome. Even when she's crying at 2:00AM, and you want to be at the Brier for the next day.

This is Autumn

Happy Birthday Aunt Tracey!!

This morning, Autumn said trawa, which I think was in your honour. And I spelt that the Canadian way, also in your honour.

At the Brier

I am doing this post from the Canadian Curling Championships. Also known as the Brier. The Brier is one of Canada's premier sporting events. Thanks to my occasional penmanship in a little curling rag called the Curling News, I get to be an ink-stained retch for the week and watch the event from the press box. As a young curler, I used to throw rocks at night thinking about throwing a shot to win the Brier. And while the Olmpics are now a big every-four-year carrot, there's something special about the Brier. You won't find another sport with the same kind of access to players. some of the guys on the ice, I consider friends. As I walked around before this game, I saw people I haven't seen in a long time. It was pretty cool.

Anyway, I might blog some more about this later. It's that cool.

Autumn crawling, walking

This month, Autumn will be 9 months old. That's around the time it took mom to carry her in her belly.

She's crawling around now without any problem. And she's beginning to practice pulling herself up on just about anything. This morning, she tried to pull herself up using my bottom lip. I'm not kidding. So, in the next few months, she'll learn that some things aren't sturdy enough to lift her weight.

That's probably why yesterday, at Day Care, I signed an 'Accident Report'. It seems our little Peanut tried to pull herself up on something that fell on her. She had a little boo-boo on her head, but I'll bet you didn't notice it in this morning's picture.

What you will notice, when you come to our house, is that we're baby-proofing as we go. As new parent's, we can guess what she'll get into, but they are only guesses. I would never have guessed that she would use my bottom lip to stand up. And I would never have guessed that her little nails would cut my lip.

So we baby proof. We pull things off the table. We clear the lower shelves of the bookshelves. We keep our bottom lip as far away from her little fingers as possible.
We work on it. And try hard to limit the bumps to little ones.

People often ask us if she's growing up too fast. When I'm up at 2:00AM feeding her, I can honestly tell you it isn't fast enough. And, I can't wait until she's walking and talking. A parent we talked to said this: "You can't wait for your child to start walking and talking, and when they do, you can't wait for them to sit down and shut up."

Right now, I can't wait for her to start talking. Keep watching this blog to see how that goes.

A family shot

Family shot for a friday morning. Coming soon, more politics.

The Estate Tax

For the last six years, Bush has fought hard to repeal the Estate Tax. This is a tax on inheritance. It's been framed in many different ways, from Estate Tax if you're a Democrat (or progressive) to Death Tax if you're Republican.

To me, the non-America, it's a very American tax. Here's why: America is the land of opportunity. It's the only country with a dream named after it. There isn't a Canadian Dream. Or an Italian Dream. There is an American Dream. This is the country that was deliberately set up to be anti-England. At the time, England was all about class. It was generally clear at birth what class you fit into, and what class you would be as an adult.

America was meant to be different. Class doesn't matter. Millionaires come from everywhere. And while class has broken down in the rest of the world, America still tries to stand for a non-class country. This is meant to be a country where you call start from the same place, and hard work is what makes you rich.

You're allowed to get some help from inheritance, but in my opinion, it goes against what America is all about if you get it all. In my opinion, the estate tax levels the class playing field.

However, the Republicans, lead by the wealthiest families in the US, have fought hard to reposition the Estate Tax as the Death Tax. That was step one to repealing it.

It's not a death tax though. This website, likes to tell you it is killing family business. I pulled the chart below from their site.

Notice the legal at the bottom. The numbers in this chart are monies NOT TAXED. So if the 'family business' had an estate of 1.5 million in 2004, the inheritance was tax free. And they think this is killing the family business?

Anyway, I think all people who pay taxes in the US should read this speech. It's from the floor of the senate by Bernie Sanders. It gives you an idea of what's at stake.