She can fish too

 

My daughter decided to try her luck as well...

Sunday in the park with Nana

The promenade in Beverly.

Playtime

I should do this every Friday...

What, me work?

Lazy Friday

Every weekend should start this way.

Strawberry fields forever

Pretty good harvesting work for a four year old.

RIP Daisy II

Well, we buried yet another goldfish: Daisy's feisty little replacement, who succumbed last night to the harsh conditions of an aquarium that hasn't quite completed its nitrogen cycle yet. Now that I know slightly more than I used to about goldfish care, it's painfully obviously that we shouldn't have added any fish at all to the tank until the water tested positive for nitrites, which would have indicated the presence of bacteria capable of converting the ammonia in our fish's waste to something less toxic. Well live and learn, I guess (unless you happen to be one of our goldfish).

The worst part is that Daisy II didn't even give us a chance to quietly swap her out for another Black moor goldfish, as she gave up sometime yesterday in the late evening, long after closing time even at the most corporate pet stores. This wasn't entirely a bad thing, as it forced us finally to address to issue of pet death with our daughter, who had been sheltered from the untimely demise of Daisy I and her original tank-mate Katharine the First.

Baby Exile took the news surprisingly well - better than either my wife or myself had anticipated. She even wanted to see Daisy II's body (which was still in the freezer, since we euthanized her by putting her on ice) and say goodbye to her, which we thought was sweet until she asked the dreaded question over her goldfish's frozen corpse:

"When can we get another one?"

Sunday morning

If you only knew what I had to go through in order to configure my new phone to post photos directly to Blogger. Apparently Verizon in its infinite wisdom no longer wants to allow its users to send their photos to third-party hosts such as Blogger (probably because it obviates the need to send them to the god-awful PixPlace), so that when you attempt to set up your phone to blog mobile photos the confirmation SMS actually causes your cell phone's OS to crash and reboot. WTF?

So after totally freaking out that I'd turned my brand new phone into a $150 paperweight I calmed down a bit and started Googling for a solution to my problem. Seems like I wasn't the only person who'd encountered this fun user-friendly feature from Verizon Wireless and several of the more techno-savvy owners had already figured out how to hack into the back end of the phone and retrieve the confirmation code needed to activate the mobile phone blogging service.

This is why I love the internet, as no matter how strange a thing happens to you, there are probably myriad people out there who have experienced the exact same thing and are willing to share their wisdom on the subject. There's a larger issue here of course about crowdsourcing and reference, but that's a topic that I think I'll save for a future Library Ass post.

In the meantime my message inbox is still fucked (though I can still read incoming SMS as long as I don't actually scroll down to the offending messages), but I can post photos straight from my phone to the Jersey Exile, so let's call it a draw for now. But how annoying is that?

UPDATE: Sorry, I was so busy ranting that I forgot to include links to a possible fix. Okay - I have a Samsung u740, so if your phone is different you may have to find a different solution, but here's how I hacked my workaround...

(HUGE DISCLAIMER! This fix involves hacking your cell phone and deleting files manually from its memory. If you feel uncomfortable in any way with this sort of thing I would recommend NOT trying this on your own, as you can permanently mess up your cell phone's OS if you delete the wrong file or accidentally overwrite essential data! If you don't want to take any chances with changing anything you can do #'s 1-5 and still retrieve your mobile phone blogging token from Blogger. This will enable you to upload to Blogger, and although your message inbox will still be screwed up you can still view any incoming SMS without causing your phone to crash.)

1. Download and install bitpim (www.bitpim.org)

2. Attach your phone via the USB dongle to your computer and run bitpim

3. Your phone will detect as an unknown model. Under EDIT>SETTINGS You should manually set the phone to SCH-A950.

4. Click the Get Phone Data and select all of the radio buttons to download your phone's messages

4. Go to VIEW>VIEW FILESYSTEM to allow direct access to your phone's file system

5. Navigate your filesystem to find your SMS folders. Double-click on the confirmation messages from Blogger in order to retrieve your token (you should be able to read the token straight from the code)

6. Delete the offending messages so that they no longer appear in your inbox, including the fs.dat file.

7. Click the Send Phone Data button to write the changes back to your cell phone. Your phone should reboot. If it hangs, just power down and up again and you should find that your inbox is now clear of the bad SMS messages.

8. Log into Mobile Blogger, give the token, and set your Mobile Blogging preferences so that Blogger does NOT send a confirmation text message whenever you post to Blogger from your phone.

9. That should do it.

Hope this helps!

Bored now

Baby Exile contemplating her reflection as my father and I get fitted for tuxedos for my brother's wedding in June.

It's hacktastic!

It was a difficult weekend at the Exile household, owing to the fact that the little one had been sick since Wednesday night. Although by yesterday evening Baby Exile was showing signs of clear improvement (fever down, appetite returning, etc.), bathtime was something of a struggle. Our daughter is never pleased with the hair-washing portion of the bath, but last night she was in no mood whatsoever to cooperate, and no sooner had my wife begun to rinse her hair than she started screaming in as uncooperative a fashion as possible as the sudsy water inadvertently ran down her face.

That's when it hit me: hadn't I just read about this situation on Parents Hacks?

Todd's secret for "no more tears" in the bath:

My daughter used to really hate getting her long hair washed and now she thinks it's somewhat fun. We used to use "tearless" shampoo but even that would sting her eyes if even a little bit of suds water got near them. What my wife and I came up with: we put a dry towel over our daughter's face and then dump a large plastic bowl full of shampoo and water on her head. We then rinse with fresh water in the same bowl until all of the suds are gone. No more fighting and it only takes a couple of minutes. Our daughter just turned 4 and for her it's fun feel a surprise of warm water hitting her head and body but not her face.

We do something similar (thanks to my mother in-law) -- my daughter holds a dry washcloth over her own eyes while we rinse her hair. Having a hand shower helps, too.

Without a moment to spare I ran to the linen closet while telling my wife to stop the rinse cycle. One dry hand towel over the eyes later and presto! No more tears. My wife and I almost couldn't believe how well it worked.

Parent Hacks - this stuff is gold, folks!

Three Point Land? But I'm a power player!

Apropos of the impending return of March Madness, Mrs. Exile and I decided to purchase a child-sized basketball hoop for our daughter, who is always frustrated by the fact that she can't reach the big nets at one of our favorite parks in Gloucester (Fort Playground, for the record, which is situated on the waterfront of the old Sicilian neighborhood known as 'The Fort' - not to be confused with Stage Fort Park, which is also beautiful - with views of Gloucester Harbor which are absolutely stunning).

We decided on the Little Tikes EasyScore Basketball Set, a surprisingly rugged toy with a real nylon net and a six-inch ball that actually feels like a basketball. Since the weather has been absolutely dreadful we've only used the hoop inside, but that hasn't stopped us from playing up a storm.

Since even with chunky heels I'm lucky if I stand as tall as 5'7", I've taken this new acquisition as an opportunity to finally do the things I've always wanted to do in a sport that I can't even play on the Xbox, let alone in real life. Of the three sports I played as a kid -- basketball, baseball, and soccer -- it was basketball that I seemed to have absolutely no knack for whatsoever. My teammates would groan when I would get fouled, as my underhanded Granny-style free throws would inevitably miss the net by a good two or three feet, and seeing that I couldn't do a lay-up to save my life (a gym teacher would later remark that I "shot like Barishnikov", which was an insult intended for all parties concerned I'm sure), my short game wasn't really much of an improvement.

Until now. Since we acquired the pint-sized hoop, I've been working out some old childhood issues by means of charging the net and slam-dunking the ball, no doubt much to the chagrin of our downstairs neighbors, but also to the uncontrollable mirth of my daughter. At this point we've worked out a fairly good passing routine whereby she tosses the ball to me as I leap into the air -- more of an NBA play than NCAA, to be sure, but entertaining to everyone in the house except for Mrs. Exile, who thinks the two of us are crazy and were likely to break something sooner rather than later.

Like my toe.

(When I do eventually go in for an x-ray I think I'll conveniently leave out the fact that my "basketball injury" was sustained while charging a 2.5-foot net on a carpeted rug in bare feet, mostly because I've always wanted to go to the doctor's for a bonafide sports injury rather than the usually pathetic and sometimes embarassing reasons that normally send me to my health care provider.)

Cookies make everything better

The local pusher of Girl Scout Cookies delivered my three boxes of empty calories this morning: Thin Mints, Peanut Butter Patties, and Shortbread. And she had change for a twenty (these girls don't mess around)!

As I paid for my bundle of cookies, it occurred to me that as the father of a little girl who turns four next month I'm only a year or two at most away from becoming a Cookie Pusherman™ myself. Scary thought...

24 dancing pirates

Baby Exile: "Daddy, you know what Jack Sparrow says?"

Me: "What?"

Baby Exile: "Put the gun down!"

Me: "Uhhh..."

By special request

My daughter's favorite 30 seconds of television EVAR:

Winter wonderland

Trippy

I gave my daughter the digital camera to play with. Check out the awesome slow-exposure pics she took of our Christmas tree:





I like how the one in the middle kind of looks like candy canes.

Spooky pretzels

Or, being a three-year-old means never having to admit you weren't always at war with Oceania...



"I want to go trick or treating!"

Mrs. Exile and I look at each other in panic as we pull out of the parking lot of the daycare center. Up until this very moment the two of us were under the distinct impression that Baby Exile did not want to go trick or treating, because the idea of it scared the living hell out of her, or at least had frightened her every time we'd brought it up over the past month in an attempt to see if she was interested in giving it a try this year.

"Maybe we can go trick or treating for Halloween," we'd say encouragingly, only to watch our daughter take a half-step back from us, her eyes wide with horror. In fact, Baby Exile seemed so freaked out at the prospect of roaming costumed gangs in search of candy that we scuttled our plans to brave the Halloween festivities in Salem this past weekend (maybe next year!) and ratcheted down our itinerary for last night to a viewing of The Nightmare Before Christmas and maybe handing out treats to anyone brave enough to clamber up to our second-floor apartment.

We figured that the Halloween party at daycare would be sufficient for this year, and scheduled the afternoon and evening accordingly -- a perfectly rational course of action that was in danger of collapsing like a rotten jack-o-lantern as my wife and I were completely blindsided by our daughter's 11th-hour reversal.

"Uh, are you sure about that?" I ask Baby Exile nervously.

"But I thought you said you didn't want to go..." my wife says, mostly out of disbelief.

"I want to get trick or treating!"

Crap. Peer pressure is a marvelous thing -- sometimes it gets your finicky toddler to try eating green beans at dinner, sometimes it gives her the idea that pointing her finger at people and saying "bang" is jolly good fun. Baby Exile has gotten a lot out of her three years at the daycare center, both good and bad, and she definitely wouldn't be where she is intellectually or socially without the time she's spent there. I suppose we're decent enough parents, but we know we can't hold a candle to our daughter's teachers and the almighty peer group.

Well, it looks like a day of everyone dressing up in costume and talking up the big night has completely changed Baby Exile's mind about the scariness of Halloween, and now we don't know what to do. It's kind of late, her outfit is no longer ready for prime time, and we still have a half hour in the car before we even get home anyhow -- more than enough time for Mrs. Exile and I to feel embarassment at being unprepared for this eventuality. This is the moment all of those books and videos never prepare you for, the moment when you feel like a bonafide Failure as a Parent (tm).

Whereas just a year ago you could fudge your way through the turning of the seasons without provoking any resentful recriminations about everything you didn't do (of course they never remember the stuff you did do!), now you become acutely aware of the fact that your little one has certain expectations which are growing increasingly independent of your own. And while you try to find a plausible-sounding reason why the enjoyment of the simple childhood joys inevitably seem to be stifled by your own shortcomings as a parent, all you can focus on when it happens is the disappointment you feel at having "cheated" your offspring of a Precious Memory that you'll never get back.

Then your daughter asks for her Spooky Pretzels. Yes, the same Spooky Pretels from her Halloween goody bag that she ripped into with glee and nibbled upon before deciding that she wanted to unwrap and lick every single piece of candy that she'd gotten from her party at daycare instead. Yes, none other than the Spooky Pretzels that you had asked your daughter more than ten times whether it was okay to eat or not, since she didn't seem all that interested in them anymore and hey, you're hungry. Yes, those Spooky Pretzels -- the ones that no sooner have you polished off than she's asking for again, all of a sudden, in an angry and accusatory tone, as if you hadn't just spent the past five minutes getting her explicit and unconditional endorsement of your eating them.

That's when I realize with a laugh that I'm not a bad parent at all, just the parent of a three-year-old. And that right now it's all Spooky Pretzels to her. Sometimes we're going to read her correctly, and sometimes we're going to second-guess ourselves into the absolutely wrong course of action. But that's okay. At least we're trying. For every Precious Memory we miss, we get a hundred others right, and the nice thing is that she doesn't really understand the difference between the two anyway quite yet. So we put her costume back on, walk around the various rooms of our apartment pretending to trick or treat, and settle in to watch Jack Skellington.

Next year we'll all go trick or treating. I'm already looking forward to it...