Being Late
The Math Behind Lateness
I have the vision that eventually I will be less late. Of course, this means that I am fighting against many factors. The primary factor is being a Watterworth. It is a rule that if you try to get more than one Watterworth together for an event, you can expect the event to occur no earlier than W^2 minutes late than the originally agreed upon time. Of course, some of us are able to counteract this by marrying incredibly on-time people.
A secondary factor related to my lateness is the fact that I have two small children to deal with. The formula for predicting the earliest time a parent of small children will arrive at an event is: Earliest Arrival Time = EventTime + 10*(1/C1 + 2/C2). Where C1 and C2 are the ages of your first child and second child in months. Notice that the first one causes more lateness than the second one. The assumption is that you have figured out how to deal with children (to some degree) after the first one and you can parallel process them a little. So for us, our formula indicates that we will be at least 10.5 minutes late to any event. Do you have more children and want to calculate your value? Here is the normalized formula:
E.A.T. = EventTime + 10*(n1/C1 + n2/C2 + ... nx/Cx)
Of course, my discrete math classes were a long time ago. Plus I haven't gotten enough sleep lately. If the formula isn't quite correct, please post a comment correcting it. I'm also sorry that I couldn't figure out how to display sigma on the blog post.
So what is this blog post about? Here are some things that are late in coming...
Super Tuesday (Late Post)
As a person who has a Political Science degree, you would expect that I vote in elections. This year, as a resident of California, I got to vote on Super Tuesday! Now I didn't register with a specific political party when I registered. And in California, if you are "non-partisan" some parties allow you to vote in their primaries. I had the choice of voting in the Independent Primary or the Democratic Primary. So, when I went in, I asked for a Democratic Primary ballot. Who did I vote for? Someone who has the same name as one of Will's stuffed animals. That's right, even the voting part of my life revolves around my children. After voting, I gave my "I voted!" sticker to Alex.
Christmas Letter - Also Late
Dan and I finally finished our Christmas letter for 2007! Like 2006, we finished around President's Day. Normally the Christmas letter is full of subtle humor. This year, it was much shorter. However, we made up for the briefness by including lots of pictures of Will, including one of him golfing. Golfing... before he was 1 year old. We have strange children.
If you haven't received our Christmas Letter yet, it is probably on its way. Give it a week. If you don't get it, harass us. We probably didn't send it to you because we don't have your current address.
Regular TV Watching for Will
What else is it too late for? Given that we have 3 TiVos functioning in our living room, Will has never had to simply watch what is on at the moment. He will never know the restriction of sitting down at a particular time to watch the show that is on at that time. What does this mean? Every time he watches "Little Einstein" or "Handy Manny," he knows that there are more where they came from. He used to start asking for another episode during the credits. Then he started asking for another episode during the Little Einstein curtain call. Now, he asks for another episode when Leo says "Mission Completion!" He will even go over to the collection of remotes and bring the correct one over so that we can continue to feed his on-demand-tv addiction.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
I Love Drive-Thru Starbucks!
I used to stop at Starbucks back when Will was a tiny baby. It was easier then. I remember one time when I was on my way to meet Beth for shopping near San Diego. All I had to do was park, pop the car seat out of the base, then carry the sleeping baby into the Starbucks.
One of Will's First 100 visits to Starbucks
I'm sure that every parent of multiple children appreciate the drive-in. I find myself only going to places that either have drive-ins or convenient shopping carts available in which to trap the children. Of course, drive-ins are better because you can actually purchase something and they give it to you at the window. If you go to a place that has normal-sized carts, put the toddler in the seat and the baby car seat in the basket, there really isn't space for stuff like groceries. That's why we can only buy things that are available at Costco. Their carts are big enough for 2 kids and 10 pounds of some sort of food. The trick is to pick a food that you want to eat every day for that week.
In any case, it is probably my new found appreciation of drive-ins that has helped us achieve our most recent vehicle milestone: 200,000 miles! That's right, our little Honda Accord finally surpassed 200K.
I especially appreciated the drive-thru Starbucks the other day when I managed to create the most un-caffeinated coffee ever. After being careful to grind the coffee beans only when both kids were awake, I started the coffee maker, told Dan that he could have some coffee when it was done, then left to do other important morning things like showering and finding clothes that actually fit. (While I have lost 30 lbs since being pregnant, I have only recently transitioned from wearing maternity clothes to wearing normal clothes that are too tight.) Unfortunately, when I returned to pour some coffee, out came clear coffee. Ok, I guess it wasn't coffee at all. The ground beans were safely stored away in the cupboard, still inside the coffee grinder.
To the drive-thru Starbucks!
I used to stop at Starbucks back when Will was a tiny baby. It was easier then. I remember one time when I was on my way to meet Beth for shopping near San Diego. All I had to do was park, pop the car seat out of the base, then carry the sleeping baby into the Starbucks.
One of Will's First 100 visits to StarbucksI'm sure that every parent of multiple children appreciate the drive-in. I find myself only going to places that either have drive-ins or convenient shopping carts available in which to trap the children. Of course, drive-ins are better because you can actually purchase something and they give it to you at the window. If you go to a place that has normal-sized carts, put the toddler in the seat and the baby car seat in the basket, there really isn't space for stuff like groceries. That's why we can only buy things that are available at Costco. Their carts are big enough for 2 kids and 10 pounds of some sort of food. The trick is to pick a food that you want to eat every day for that week.
In any case, it is probably my new found appreciation of drive-ins that has helped us achieve our most recent vehicle milestone: 200,000 miles! That's right, our little Honda Accord finally surpassed 200K.
I especially appreciated the drive-thru Starbucks the other day when I managed to create the most un-caffeinated coffee ever. After being careful to grind the coffee beans only when both kids were awake, I started the coffee maker, told Dan that he could have some coffee when it was done, then left to do other important morning things like showering and finding clothes that actually fit. (While I have lost 30 lbs since being pregnant, I have only recently transitioned from wearing maternity clothes to wearing normal clothes that are too tight.) Unfortunately, when I returned to pour some coffee, out came clear coffee. Ok, I guess it wasn't coffee at all. The ground beans were safely stored away in the cupboard, still inside the coffee grinder.
To the drive-thru Starbucks!
Monday, February 11, 2008
Alex is more than a month old!
Ok, we probably should have posted last Tuesday when Alex was actually a month old, but he and I were taking a business trip to Charlotte, NC.
What have we learned about the little guy in the last month? To start, except for his unusual size, he is completely different than Will. Will was the model child. Or at least we believe this to be true as our memories of being super tired the first month have faded 22 months later. Will would sleep for about 5-6 hours at a time. He didn't spit up, have diaper rash, or excessive gas. He was good at nursing. Alex has every issue that Will managed to avoid. Most of his issues prevent him from getting large chunks of sleep at night. This causes me to be a little loopy due to lack of sleep. Think Zaphod Beeblebrox in the movie with the lemon thing on his remaining head. I'll have the occasional burst of energy when infused with a "lemon" (coffee). However, the rest of the day I basically spend randomly searching for stuff. Places to go, ways to entertain the kids, food... Magrathea! Or sometimes I fall asleep on the couch with Will climbing on me. It's easier than you would think.
Of course, not everything about Alex is all crankiness and no sleep. He is getting cute. As promised, here are comparison pictures of Alex and Will at 4 weeks old.
As you can see, Will still has the cuteness advantage, but Alex is not far behind. He's got more hair than Will (at 4 weeks) and he just started practicing smiling.
Must Learn to Smile Without Looking Goofy!
So what did we do to celebrate Alex's 1 month birthday? We ate cake while he slept.
Must Learn to Be Awake at Important Moments!
Alex is also working on his head control which means it is time to let him sit in the little Bumbo chair.
I have learned to look at the camera!
I'm not sure how parents manage to have more than one child and maintain their sanity. I think that statements such as "Children are the Future" and "Children are a Blessing" are things that people say to give themselves hope that their sleepless crazy state will actually end. As for me, my opinion about having 2 children so they can play with each other has been surpassed by my new opinion that parents should have a single child, then live in a neighborhood with lots of playmates.
Ok, we probably should have posted last Tuesday when Alex was actually a month old, but he and I were taking a business trip to Charlotte, NC.
What have we learned about the little guy in the last month? To start, except for his unusual size, he is completely different than Will. Will was the model child. Or at least we believe this to be true as our memories of being super tired the first month have faded 22 months later. Will would sleep for about 5-6 hours at a time. He didn't spit up, have diaper rash, or excessive gas. He was good at nursing. Alex has every issue that Will managed to avoid. Most of his issues prevent him from getting large chunks of sleep at night. This causes me to be a little loopy due to lack of sleep. Think Zaphod Beeblebrox in the movie with the lemon thing on his remaining head. I'll have the occasional burst of energy when infused with a "lemon" (coffee). However, the rest of the day I basically spend randomly searching for stuff. Places to go, ways to entertain the kids, food... Magrathea! Or sometimes I fall asleep on the couch with Will climbing on me. It's easier than you would think.
Of course, not everything about Alex is all crankiness and no sleep. He is getting cute. As promised, here are comparison pictures of Alex and Will at 4 weeks old.
As you can see, Will still has the cuteness advantage, but Alex is not far behind. He's got more hair than Will (at 4 weeks) and he just started practicing smiling.
Must Learn to Smile Without Looking Goofy!So what did we do to celebrate Alex's 1 month birthday? We ate cake while he slept.
Must Learn to Be Awake at Important Moments!Alex is also working on his head control which means it is time to let him sit in the little Bumbo chair.
I have learned to look at the camera!I'm not sure how parents manage to have more than one child and maintain their sanity. I think that statements such as "Children are the Future" and "Children are a Blessing" are things that people say to give themselves hope that their sleepless crazy state will actually end. As for me, my opinion about having 2 children so they can play with each other has been surpassed by my new opinion that parents should have a single child, then live in a neighborhood with lots of playmates.
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