« “Steppin’ Out.” | Home | Golan-Globus »
Dear Screaming Baby
By briantologist | January 16, 2006
Dear Henry,
Today you are six months and five days old, and after the weekend you gave us, I’ve begun cursing myself for being too cheap to buy the one-year warranty on you instead of the six-month. Gggggguuuuuuhhhhh. Have I mentioned how happy I am to get back to the relative calm of work today? Ferreal.
Dame Judy thinks, and I think too, and I haven’t discussed this with Ern because frankly we’re both too tired to discuss why we’re tired, that you’re at one of those points where all of a sudden you realize there’s all this stuff you wanna do physically, like crawling or pushups or Gin Rummy, but since your tiny baby body is still sorta rubbery all you can do is put your feet in your mouth and flail your arms and sit up for about 1.41 seconds before falling over backward. And this frustrates you, and so you spend your days intermittently shrieking for no reason when there’s nothing discernibly wrong with you. This is my/Dame Judy’s/possibly Ern’s though I haven’t run it by her yet so I don’t know if she thinks it’s horse shit or not’s theory. Remind me to ask you about it two years from now when you can talk.
On a lighter note, I think I’ve totally gotten into a groove with the French Press. Do you know the French Press, Henry? It’s the silver and black thing that’s close by your dad whenever you see him and it’s light outside. The crazy man who runs the coffee shop told your dad all about how drip coffee makers never get the water the right temperature, and how the filtration process leaves most of the flavor in the basket, and your dad was so moved by this that he stopped just short of vowing never to sully his hands with drip coffee again. The more practical approach your dad took was to get back to using the ole FP, which he’d bought in a fit of nostalgia after visiting your aunt Mandy in London and drinking FP’d coffee every morning and thinking “Man, that’s some better coffee right there.” Probably your dad was still sort of drunk when he ordered the FP, but whatever.
Anyway, so to get FP coffee just right, you’ve gotta make sure your water is off boil (are you enjoying this, Henry? You’re looking off in the distance and chewing your feet and yelling, so I assume you are), between 195 and 205 degrees Fahrenheit, which means boiling some water, then waiting a bit for it to cool down. If you don’t do this, and the water’s too hot, it scalds the grounds, and they don’t get the chance to release nearly as much of their delicious flavor as your pop would like them to. So your pop was always waiting about a minute after taking the kettle off the stove before pouring, but one day he accidentally waited about a minute and a half, and ooooooh Henry, the coffee was SO MUCH BETTER! And has been ever since, during what I like to call “The Minute-and-a-Half Era BCE,” and this is what you get for keeping your mom and me up all weekend, kid, is a lengthy description of why your dad’s pleased with his coffee these days. We’ll do some situps when I get home today, and soon, I hope, you’ll be up to par with your baby goals. Even though you are goddamn killing me, I love you very much.
- dad.
Topics: Beans!, Laments, Misc. | 19 Comments »
January 16th, 2006 at 9:07 am
Shrieking for no reason… the friggin’ shrieking for no neason. If it weren’t for bursting into uncontrolable fits of laughter when I poke my head aroud the corner to see if Jack’s really upset or not, and being oh so cute when he does so, that shrieking might really get to me. I’m glad it isn’t just us.
January 16th, 2006 at 9:29 am
He’s really reached a new level of shrieking too. LIke, when you don’t think if can get any louder and then it does? My mind is blown.
January 16th, 2006 at 9:43 am
Hey, do you guys remember when he was born and Brian posted something along the lines of ‘he’s really laid back and doesn’t cry a lot?’ Yeah. Maybe he’s pissed that he doesn’t get to partake in the excellent coffee?
January 16th, 2006 at 9:56 am
I love, love, love our french press. Of course I love the really dark french roast as well. My husband? Not so much. My daughter is extremely laid-back and doesn’t cry. Of course, she’s only 3 months and I’m fully expecting the karma to hit us full force. She’s just started sticking her full fist in her mouth so I think the teething is about to begin. Good thing my husband is home with her and I’m not. ;) Hey Karma – I just slapped you in the face with my glove.
January 16th, 2006 at 9:57 am
Oy, what is with the smiley icon? So not punk rock.
January 16th, 2006 at 11:02 am
Yeah, I do remember that. Vividly. I’m concentrating on that first good six months.
Now technically, one could make a case that typing the li’l punctuation emoticons to begin with is itself not too terribly punk rock. And that the WordPress preference that automatically inserts the appropriate smiley face is only a logical extension of an inherently non-punk-rock act.
One might. Argue that. Just, y’know. For the sake of argument. Though arguing that would not make Henry stop screaming in amazement/rage/apathy, and would as such be kind of pointless.
January 16th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
It’s still not too late to sell the Shrieker to the gypsies. I hear they pay good money for the little white ones.
January 16th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
they do, as long as you guarantee they won’t be gay. thats what i hear.
and the shreiking is pretty much non-stop from now intil 16, from what i hear. ours is just short of two and not letting her PLAY WITH THE CARVING KNIFE was just too much to bear. therefore, there was gnashing of teeth and screaming like a motherfucker. enjoy!
January 16th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
Burn. (I almost typed an emoticon here but then remembered I’m trying to be punk rock.)
January 16th, 2006 at 1:36 pm
Dude, seriously, it gets so much harder to not be un-punk-rock the older I get. Also the double-negative wrangling gets increasingly dicey. Courage.
January 16th, 2006 at 3:27 pm
I’ve been doing it wrong MY WHOLE LIFE. I always thought you had to pour a LITTLE bit of the water into the FP and then wait a minute (and a half) before pouring the rest in. But this would make no sense, according to your explanation. And THAT would explain why I got rid of my FP in the end and went back to The Evil Drip. So now I’m doing it your way.
January 16th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
Maybe he’s teething?? I have a mostly mellow 9-month old who got rather angry right before his first two teeth broke through, right around 6 months.
Dang, that was a hilarious post though. The lengthy description of your coffee hit close to home. The husband and I talk frequently about simple domestic pleasures, such as the perfect cup of coffee, now that we are CONSTANTLY home to plot how we can achieve it.
Anyway, delurking to say the above, and that I’m not sure where I found your site, but love it.
January 16th, 2006 at 6:08 pm
That lame-ass smiley thing — you can turn that off if ya want.
That said, this blog is better than birth control.
January 17th, 2006 at 6:03 am
i used to do a quasi-meditation thing where i would time my breathing to coincide with the screams. this is also how i deal with people who snore: act like it’s a thing that i want to pay attention to, rather than a thing i’m trying to tune out. sometimes it works. but then, i’m gullible.
it also helps to close your eyes and picture the kid sleeping. so sweet and soft! and quiet! mental calgon bath.
i want coffee. thanks for giving me something to look forward to.
January 17th, 2006 at 8:26 am
perhaps henry could feel the disturbance in the force that was ‘brian boitano vs. paul hamm’ in the skating/gymnastics extravaganza sunday afternoon. or perhaps it was the hamm twins dancing to hiphop between layouts. i still haven’t stopped shrieking inside…
January 17th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
I don’t know if you’ve read “A Million Little Pieces” yet, but this sounds like “The Fury.” Expect your kid to run over cops and wake up on a plane with a hole in his cheek and missing his two front teeth.
Now THAT would be punk rock.
January 18th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
Oooo. That totally makes sense!
January 19th, 2006 at 8:43 am
Ok, thanks, now I’m obsessed with buying a french press.
March 5th, 2006 at 4:47 am
I had no idea about the water temp with coffee. Every morning, as I wait for the water to cool, I think about the dad in OK. seriously, i read this blog a lot and had no intention of commenting, but this coffee thing really f-ing rules. its been months since this post and I’m still thinking about it.
prost!