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When did we as a society stop evolving?  The 1900s were about change and progress.  Voting rights, racial equality, and such all issues combated and improved upon in the 1900s.  Here we are in the new millennium and my daughter cannot play with a blue helicopter without receiving a look or snicker.  Go to a fast food joint and order a child’s meal and ask for the boy toy for your daughter and when you get to the window they will look at you weird.

I am so happy that I have a wife that shares my view and doesn’t put our daughter in a box.  She is probably even worse than me as she was a bit of the tomboy growing up.  Would I feel the same if I had a boy?  I feel confident that I would be open-minded, however, I must admit that I wouldn’t be as progressive.  If my son wanted to be Dora, for instance, i would be fine with it, but if he wanted to be Snow White, I wouldn’t be able to cope.

Hopefully, we all can continue forward and not backwards.

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We have have been playing with our new toys for two weeks now and have loved every minute of them.  The great pictures taken on Halloween were taken using the Lumix point and shoot camera.  My Wordless Wednesday selection was taken with the Digital SLR camera.  My XBox360 looks incredible on the 50″ plasma and NCAA Football 10 has such vivid color and I can actually read the text.  I have upgraded my Netflix to include BluRay discs whenever possible because watching National Treasure 2 on the BluRay player has me hooked.  The movie looks almost 3D as you can really see depth in the picture.  The Tornado and I watched Ratatouille on the portable BluRay player in her room and it too had such a sharp, vivid picture.  Both movies were given to us by Panasonic.

All this great stuff was not given to us without a price.  On Tuesday we were visited by four members of Panasonic, two from the New Jersey office and two from the Osaka office.  They all were very nice and we all had an in depth discussion for over two hours about mainly the television and a little about the BluRay entertainment system.  The purpose of the discussion was to see how easy it is to operate the equipment and to see where improvements could be made.  My wife mentioned how it felt like we were being quizzed and we both remarked that we were failing as we didn’t know how to use all of the features of the television.  The representative handling the conversation was great and even commented on the fact that we had only a week to figure everything out.  And I tell you the tv does a lot.

Our guests took pictures and sketched the setups and proceeded to leave and back to playing we went.  Though, next time we have the Panasonic reps over we are going to study and make sure not to fail the quiz again.  All and all it was a great experience and we look forward to more visits.

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Our family has had two major blows in the last two months.  My sister-in-law died on March 8th and now my father died on May 4th.  This has been a terrible year so far and hoping that things start to change in a hurry as we are drowning.

My father has been battling several ailments for the better part of 5 years, but it has been pretty bad for him the last 2 to 3 years.  He has been in and out of the ICU and has done stints of 4 and 2 months of medically induced coma.  He has been on a respirator once and had a trake twice.  So for him to have passed was a mericiful thing.  Though we expected this, and often even hoped for it to end his pain, I must admit that it is still extemely hard to handle.

My father is sorely missed as our relationship has stregthened throughout the years and he was probably my best friend.  We saw each other at least once a week and often frequented a baseball game, the movies, and always got together to watch the NY Giants on Sundays.   I can’t even drink a beer with out thinking of him and remebering the countless ones we shared over the years.

We had to explain to the Tornado, whom my father had dubbed the Tornado, that Poppy is dead and though at 3 years old she can say the words, she hasn’t grasped the concept.  We are taking her to the wake, though for only a short time, so she can start to understand the finality of all of this.  Poppy and the Tornado were extremely close and Poppy was a wonderful grandfather to her, and his 5 other grand kids, all of whom were able to say good bye hours before he finally succumbed.  Actually, he was surrounded by much of his family in the closing moments.  His four children, wife, two sisters, 6 grandchildren, son-in-law, and my wife, whom he became more like a father than merely a father-in-law too, were there in the last hours.  In the final moments his wife of what would would have been 47 years on May 6th and two daughters were there to hold his hand and I arrived about five minutes after the fact followed by my brother shortly after.  The man loved his family more than anything else in the world and was surrounded by them until the end.

My father was a hero in life and will be a legend in death, at least to me and the countless family and friends he has touched in his rich and full life.  Furthermore, to me, he will always be simply “pal.”

I love you, Dad.

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To make matters worse my father, who was admitted to the ICU a couple of days ago, had to be put on a respirator yesterday evening as his condition has worsened.  He has been very ill for a few years and things are not looking like they are going to improve any time soon or at all.

My wife spent the night with her mother at her house and this must have been a very interesting night. The relationship between my mother-in-law and my wife is not good at all to say the least.  Under these terrible circumstances they are now thrust together and hopefully they will get through it unharmed, both physically and emotionally.  

The Tornado is having a rough morning as she was asleep in the car last night when Mommy was dropped off and has awoken to find Mommy gone.  She is not used to this as Mommy is currently working from home and is here every morning.  She is handling it quite well, but doesn’t understand where Mommy is and why she can’t be here to play with her.  Luckily she will be going to our neighbor’s house for the da. She absolutely loves their family and they adore her.

Gotta go as the Tornado is beckoning and need to meet up with my wife to help them out.  Will update soon.

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The early stages of the change seemed a little bumpy. The Tornado is going to bed closer to 8:00 pm and sometimes even later. For a short time she seemed to wake up at midnight and then back to sleep at 1:00 am and she would sleep until about 7:00 am. She napped around 1:00 pm. This new schedule made the Tornado a little groggy and cranky. She was going to bed later mainly because we are more active now as a family as we have three days off together a week as opposed to the one day we shared when wifey was working. (Did I mention I only work 4 days a week, I know you’re jealous.) So, with the extra time together we seem to go out more and entertain in the home more. We were pretty apprehensive to continue with this new sleep schedule, but in the long run it isn’t too bad.

The Tornado seems to have adapted to the new schedule quite nicely. She now goes to bed between 8:30 pm and 9:00 pm. Normally, she will sleep through the night, though when she does wake up late it is only for a short time. Here’s the best part, in the morning she wakes up at 9:00 am or later. This is ideal for our household as I get home from work around 1:00 am and my wife is a night owl trying to get her web design business off the ground and often goes to bed after 3:00 am. This new schedule is great. The Tornado is no longer tired when she wakes up, nor is she moody. We all get plenty of sleep, much more than we used to and there are no more arguments about who will get up with the little one. We naturally seem to trade off as one of us seems to be ready to get up when we hear her.

The Tornado still gets a nap during the day, normally early afternoon, and everything seems great. Believe it or not, the whole household seems to be happier. All this and we, and when I say we I mean my wife, weaned the Tornado off of the bottle too.

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I feel that she is not ready, but really close, because the Tornado tells us after she goes, but not yet before. I think that we should hold off until she can tell us when she needs to go. Now all she does is run to the potty all the time and sits on it thinking it is a toy. She even brings a book with her to read, wonder where she gets that from? She is great in telling us when she is done, though pooped means both number 1 and 2. She even has some tells like she squats when taking a dump, but if we aren’t paying attention she would just be going in her pants. Give her 2 months or so and she will be good to go.

Would love to hear other points of view so let me know what you think.

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First, my wife cannot wait to spend extra time with the Tornado.  The Tornado was spending about 30 hours a week with a babysitter.  Though our babysitter was wonderful, nobody beats mom.  Second, we save quite a bit of money from day care and my wife has a driver bring her home at night as she doesn’t drive and I work nights.  So the money we save is going to be substantial.

Now for the major negative.  I am the primary bread winner now and let me tell you this is where the anxiety comes into play.  Though, daycare and my wife’s travel expenses were high we still had some extra money left from her check.

The good news is that my wife will be working a couple days a week at her school maintaining the web site she designed.  Unfortunately, when dealing with NYC Department of Education nothing is guaranteed.  Also, my wife is trying to get her web design business off the ground and I am very confident that she will be making money very soon as she is talented.  Checkout Mom on the Rise (shameless plug) for a sample of her work and Designs by Kristina Brooke to view her portfolio and inquire about her services.

For the next year we will be doing our best to stick to a budget and I will be trying for all the overtime I can possibly get.  Also, since my wife will be taking the year off anyway, we may be working on baby number two.  Though, we are only having preliminary discussions and are not doing anything drastic just yet.

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