Research Proposal Take Four

Back in the library again. Feeling like a student once more. It's finally time...

After three topic changes, two deferments and a lot of tanning at the beach, I am finally starting my thesis. It's funny how I've been putting it off for so long, but as soon as my mom comes out to Hawaii, I find myself sitting at a desk in academic mode. I guess mothers never lose their "do your homework" influence.

So, here it is. My final research topic (hopefully). I am going to be examining the extent to which satire news (John Stewart/Colbert Report) has influenced the formatting and content of mainstream broadcast news outlets (CNN/FOX). I'm feeling good about this one, and even if I wanted to change topics, I think my thesis advisor would officially disown me as a mentoree. Without his media research omniscience, I would be lost. And for that sake alone, I will plow through this thesis, page by page until I've written 16,000 socially significant words.

And yes, I've snuck a Rockstar Recovery into the library.

Shhh, don't tell my students...

Loves of My Life

That's all.

First (but really second) Birthday!

Harper's first birthday was way better than her original birthday. You know, the one where she was stuck in a cramped, contracting birthing canal for ten hours only to be pushed out into a cold, iritatingly bright room with tons of masked men speaking a mortal, unintelligible language? Hands down, even if you spent your sixteenth birthday eating a dessertless, balogna sandwich lunch alone in a high school bathroom stall, your original birthday was the worst. With this in mind, I knew that Harper's second First birthday would be her best yet, even with minimal effort on my part.

Of course I still wanted to make the day special. I know it's been said that a first birthday is more for the parents than for the baby, but I think Harper had a really awesome day. I mean, just look at her wake-up face. It's like she knew this was her day.


She really loved her Happy Birthday sign. She kept pointing to it and growling (because that's her #1 form of communication...)


She couldn't wait to open her presents, and was definitely stoked (and not the least bit humiliated) by her obnoxiously flashy headband. I tried to make her wear it all day.



I then made Harper her favorite meal for her Birthday dinner: chicken nuggets and peas. Yup, still wearing the headband...


After her gourmet dinner, we had the usual gang over for birthday cake. Harper had the happiest, most genuine smile the entire time we were singing "Happy Birthday" to her. It was as if she knew we were singing just for her. Then we just let her go buck wild on the cake. She made a few unsuccesfull attempts at eating the cake face-first with not hands, but eventually resorted to the hand-to-mouth method. She almost ate the entire piece!

All Hallow's Eve

Harper's first Halloween wasn't too special, thanks to me. At first we were going to dress Harper and Parker in some kind of "duo" costume. Our ideas slowly deteriorated from grandious aspirations of dying our babies' hair hot pink and azure for Dr. Seuss "Thing 1 and Thing 2" to just drawing a sun and a moon on a couple of onesies and calling them "Night and Day". Eventually, probably in an attempt to subdue our 'creatively underacheiving mom' complexes, Lindsay and I decided that first Halloweens weren't that important anways. I mean, then can't even eat candy, after all, so what's the point? Then I found an awesome 5$ baby motorcycle jacket and decided that I would be James Dean, and Harper Baby James Dean. This didn't happen either. Luckily ever-festive Aunt Tawnie came to the rescue by inviting us over for pumpkin carving. Harper just couldn't keep her hands (or mouth) off of the pumpkin innards and kept sneaking handfulls of the orange, stringy goo into her pie hole. As you can see from the following photos, Harper's Halloween costume degraded into a couple of spooky stickers on her cheeks. I'll do better next year. Promise.

Alternative Toilets

Running errands just ain't what it used to be. Like today, for instance, when I had to make the hour-long trek to Honolulu to pick up Harper's Social Security Card. Pre-baby, this feat would have been annoying, but pretty low on the stress-o-meter. Add a one year old baby to the mix? Well, things aren't quite as easy rider as they used to be...

It started with strapping a fussy, hand-foot-and-mouth diseased baby into her car seat, coaxing her to sleep for the first 15 minutes of the car ride. This included many dangerous (and impressively acrobatic) manoevers that required extreme arm contortions to keep Harper's pacifier in her mouth. After she was finaly asleep, I was able to relax for a while, just until the keen pang of a full bladder came creeping up on me. At first it was a faint sensation, but after 45 minutes I was trying to figure out how to cross my legs and do the Pee Dance (you know what I'm talking about) while driving in a straight line. I never figured it out, but somehow I made it to Honolulu and parked on the side of a busy street. Was sweet relief just minutes away? Not exactly. Being that Harper was sick, I didn't have the heart to wake her. I figured she wouldn't sleep for much longer. 20 minutes elapsed, and I had resorted to a strange seat version of the Pee Dance to try and supress my burning bladder (my hands were gripped to the steering wheel, so think a faster version of the Macarena). Finally I couldn't take it anymore. Did I wake up baby and take her into a public bathroom? Nope. I peed in a bowl. That's right. A bowl. You might be thinking that this was a shameful act for me, but in the moment, I was actually really proud of myself. In fact, as soon as I was done, I texted Rivers to let him know how rustic I was. I thought he would be proudest of all. And he was. He sure was... The End.