The Toddler Bed

You know, I have spent most of my life trying to remain pretty neutral on Sweden.  As a country, they don’t really have that much to offer, other than meatballs and chefs.  Maybe the occasional supermodel.

But, there is one especially egregious blunder they introduced into the world as a culture:

There had really ought to be a class action lawsuit against the guy that invented the IKEA cam screw.  I believe there will be a special kind of hell where one spends eternity holding one 300 pound piece of particle board, threading a headless screw through a 1/16” pinhole- trying to meet up with another 300 pound piece of particle board precariously perched in such a way that you can turn the connector head towards plus with your third hand before it falls out of the hole and crushes your foot.  “Place the shmorginshmorgie in the geshmorginforgin and turn the hortenvorten” they say, well I’m not buying it.

What ever happened to guys with names like “Chuck” or “Rocky”, or guys named after their haircut like “Buzz”, that would smoke Lucky Strikes and go to a place like The Woodright's Shop and make furniture out of real wood?  They would join two pieces of wood with dovetail joints and mortise and tenons.  Furniture without that cardboard backing that has a picture of wood printed on it.  Furniture that would last more than two moves across town.  I guess only the Amish build that kind of stuff anymore.  But, I guess if they still made the kind of furniture you pass down to your grandkids, we wouldn’t be able to afford it anyway.

That being settled, this is a follow up to the Prison Break! post from earlier this month.  We discussed a few options of what to put Claire in for a bed.  The crib she has been in the last 19 months is one of those with a front that pops off to turn into a day bed.  Great, right? Nope.  We took the front off, and that same night heard the thump of her rolling out of bed.  We then put her mattress on the floor, which she promptly rolled off of, we found that out that night when I went to check on her and she was asleep in her closet.

So we went out and bought a toddler bed.  Great part about that is that it uses the same mattress and bedding as her crib.  Some Lots of ‘IKEA style’ assembly required, however.

I opened the directions. Step one, Shred the styrofoam packing into as many microscopic pieces as possible with the screwdriver so they can’t be picked up by the vacuum.  Step 2, Eat some.  How did I accomplish all of this, you might ask? Well, I had “help”.

I had this stupid thing entirely assembled, and the very last step was to attach the guards that keep her from rolling out.  No hole to screw them into.  Come to find out, I had switched parts E and D.  I took that POS apart 3 times and reassembled it.  Luckily again, I did have “help”.

If by “help” you mean scratching the crap out of the new white finish with a flat head screwdriver.

All in all, this was a good daddy daughter project.  I’ll let you guess how much she stays in it after we put her to bed each night.  Note the spot above her bed where she bit a hole in the drywall.

If all of this is repayment, we must have been really crazy kids.  But, it’s those moments when she spontaneously shows she loves you that make it all worth it.

Prison Break!

Anymore, my days are filled with paperwork and housework. I can get done just about enough housework to break even with what Claire has destroyed that day, and if the wind is blowing right have something resembling dinner ready by the time Elizabeth gets home.

I have a full time class load at school, and right now I’m looking down the barrel at finals week. Also, I am at one stage or another in the police reserve hiring process at 4 different agencies. There are so many very qualified guys and gals anxious to get into a law enforcement career that there are literally hundreds of people clamoring over these precious few unpaid positions. At Marion County Sheriff’s Office alone, there were over 50 applicants who entered the first phase of the testing process; I and 2 of my friends had gotten far enough into the process to be left with around 10-15 people.

So, I have been doing police oral board interviews, filling out job applications, and filling out background check packets. Background check packets are a real treat. Every police agency is different, but for most you have to fill out every address you have ever lived at, every person you have lived with, each job you have ever held, list your debts, bank account balances, list people as character references, any crimes you or any member of your family or friends have committed, etc. And, these character references aren’t like references on a regular job application that have about a 10% chance of being called; these references have 100%chance of getting the 3^rd degree grill treatment. They are sent a packet to fill out to make sure you’re not a dirtbag (or confirm you are a dirtbag, I guess). I feel so bad for my references if I get far enough with the few agencies I have applied with that they each have a separate background check. I guess I’m going to be in the business of buying them beers to make up for it. Another joy is that you can’t just list the people you know who like you, they ask if they know anyone else you know, and so on until they’re talking to the middle school teacher who wanted to stomp your guts out.

There are a lot of people who talk about what bad people some cops are, and that they’re corrupt, and that they’re just out there to flex muscle and bully people around. If they could even begin to grasp what it takes to get into a law enforcement position, they would have a whole different opinion. Those people have seen The Departed and Changeling one too many times.

Back to the matter at hand. In all of this chaos, the only chance I have to take a breath is when Clairey takes a nap. I get a hot shower and enough time to grab a quick bite to eat, then back to the grind. This morning at her usual nap time, about 11:00, I warmed her up some milk, and put her down to sleep. About 15 minutes later while I was warming up my lunch, in walks Claire- bright eyed and bushy tailed. She was smiling ear to ear knowing she had pulled one over on her old man.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. The last few days, I have heard screaming coming from her room, only to walk in and find her trapped like this picture below, about ready to gnaw her own leg off coyote style. She is so desperate to get out of her crib that getting bear trapped every once in a while is just the cost of doing business.So, I put her back in her crib to see if she could do it again, and I shot this video. I think this escape trick would leave Houdini scratching his head.

 

 

Elizabeth came home for lunch and watched her do it again, so we talked about crib tents: like this. Ghetto!

I figured I could do the same thing, but the good ol’ boy way, a la duct tape and bailing wire. So, I put a sheet over the top of her crib, and tied it securely at the corners. I just wanted to keep her in until she fell asleep and then I could remove it.

Although it sagged some in the middle, she thought this was the coolest fort she had ever seen, plus she got to sleep in it! Psh, who needs a canopy bed when you have a wrinkled sheet, right? It only needed to last for today’s nap until we can figure out a permanent solution. I proudly walked away, straining my arm from patting myself on the back, to commence my daily routine.

After I finally could tell she had fallen asleep, I went in to check on the newly installed security system, only to find that it had been turned into a leisurely hammock. Whatever it takes to get her to sleep I guess.Outsmarted by a freakin’ 1 year old.

The Vaseline Incident

Although the title is ‘The Vaseline Incident’, that would really be like calling Death Valley ‘warm' -- or the Titanic a ‘rowboat’.

Since I got laid off at the beginning of April, there have been a lot of adjustments to being a stay at home dad. Our little Clairey is the crown ninja of home destruction. She finds and breaks things I didn’t even know we had and turns our house completely upside down à la Tasmanian Devil, all in less time than it takes to toast a piece of bread. And don’t even think about going to the bathroom unless she’s taking a nap!

Part of pursuing a law enforcement career involves doing little things to gain a competitive edge over your fellow candidates. So, I am taking a remedial Spanish class to refresh my skills so I feel more comfortable putting it on a resume. But, this is the eeeeaaaaaasssssyyyyy Spanish. I took Spanish in high school and studied/taught Spanish on my mission- but no certifiable formal training. This week I had a mid-term test, part of which was the geography of all of the Spanish speaking countries in the world (there are 22- with the US being the second most Spanish speaking country by populous, more than any country other than Mexico.), something I have never really studied. To most Americans (I’ll half raise my hand here), all of the Latin American countries are mere appendages to Mexico, I would be surprised if many people could name more than about 10. Go ahead and try. So, what part of Mexico is Guatemala in anyway? :)

Back to the Vaseline Incident. While I was studying for my test, I started to get that feeling every parent gets from time to time, the ‘it’s been a little too quiet for a little too long’ feeling. Imagine my delight as I opened her bedroom door to discover this: 

And this: And when I took the jar away, this:

I could hardly stop laughing long enough to decide what to do. Clairey has very sensitive skin, so the doctor recommended putting the Vaseline on the worst spots. You really need to click on them and zoom in to gain appreciation of the carnage.

They say that Sir Robert Chesebrough, the inventor of Vaseline, used to eat a spoonful of it every day because he believed in his product and its healing powers so much. He did live to be 96, although I’m not sure how much he ate of the Equate Brand Fresh Scented variety. Judging by the jar that Claire ate, I’m guessing she will be alive well into her 200’s, and the layers she applied to her face, hands, eyes and hair should preserve her supple, baby soft skin for many of those years.

So, after a precursory wipe down and a feeble attempt to clean the carpet, I went ahead and tossed her in the shower; which was about as useful as trying to rinse the scales off a fish. If they ever decide the adage “water off a ducks back” could use some updating, I may have just the replacement. The water from the shower beaded up on her like the wax that costs the extra $2 at the car wash. 

What's funny to me is that the seemingly endless pounds of Vaseline that glopped her tiny face, almost to the point she could no longer open her eyes- didn't seem to matter to her a bit. Nor did the fact that trying to stand in the shower was about like Bambi trying to find legs on a frozen pond. Only the fact that I took the slimy jar away from her bothered her!

I shampoed her hair 4 times in an effort to reclaim it, Elizabeth tried again with dishwashing soap. I think we'll just have to let it work itself out naturally, and in the mean time she'll just have to keep that used car salesman shine.

Lesson learned. Lock all doors, hide all the fun stuff out of reach, and for heaven sake never study Spanish again!