Backpacking Dad

So, I managed to thoroughly embarass myself over on the Parent Bloggers' March Madness Pool on CBS Sports that Chag put together. I managed to barely squeeze out more points than the guy who didn't fill in his brackets. But, I was picking teams fairly randomly, never having paid attention to basketball. Like. Ever. Since this was a chance to do something online-bloggy-parenty I gave it a shot.

However, tonight I believe I've redeemed myself. Today was the end of the NHL regular season, and not only did my favourite team (The Detroit Red Wings) finish first overall during the regular season, but my Fantasy team on NHL.Com in the, um, "Star Wars" league won the championship, defeating the team that has plagued me all year. I drafted this team at the beginning of the NHL season, and they pulled through for me.

So, two first time Fantasy Sports attempts, one a failure, and the other an unmitigated success.

The reason why I won the NHL.com pool? My team name: The Weiner Dogs.

When Erin was about 5 months old we took her to her first county fair, a very lame excuse for a fair in San Mateo County. At this fair I won for Erin her first ever cheap-ass carney toys: Weiner Dog and Turtle. They are both plush disposa-toys, but she loves them, and I love to see her play with them. That was in August, and the draft happened in September, so The Weiner Dogs or The Turtles were obvious choices for team names.

Here is Erin with Weiner Dog and Turtle just seconds after I won them for her; if you sniff closely you can still detect that subtle hint of 20-day-unwashed-carney.

Erin's Weiner Dogs: 2007 Champions of the Star Wars Fantasy Hockey League on NHL.Com.

Go Red Wings!

It was Saturday, and it had a very relaxed feel about it. Going into the weekend Emily had daydreamed about taking a last-minute flight from San Francisco to either Seattle or Vancouver BC, just because we could and a weekend away sounded awesome.

But it's rainy in Seattle and Vancouver this weekend. So we thought about somewhere closer we could go, just for the sake of going.

Why not Sausalito?

Well, I don't know why not. I don't really know why to, but if the point is to go just to go, then Sausalito it is, baby!

So we loaded up the backpack and drove to Pier 41 in San Francisco.

Erin took her second ferry ride ever (the first was the Amherst Islander up in Lake Ontario).

She snuggled with her mom on the boat:

We saw a guy building rock towers down by the waterfront:

Because it was a somewhat nautical day we dressed Erin in her best clam chowdah-yachting shoes from Old Navy:

We had lunch at Winships, where we were greeted very skeptically by the host when we asked for a high chair for our, you know, baby. The reason for his attitude became clear when we were sitting at the table reading the menu and we noticed this little item at the bottom:

As we left the restaurant we went into a junk store, I mean "souvenir shop" and Erin just about Lost Her Freaking Mind when she saw this Rubber Duck Tower:

I bought her a keychain version I could attach to a backpack strap for her to play with on the go:

We walked around for a while, went to the library, and then boarded the ferry again so Erin could nap in transit.

On the other side of the Bay we walked around the piers for a bit:

And then we wound up at the AWESOME Musee Mechanique at the foot of Fisherman's Wharf. A bunch of old old old penny arcade mechanical games and novelties, like the English Execution, an ancient version of Rock'em Sock'em Robots, and my personal favourite, a classic baseball game:

Even though it wasn't a weekend trip to the Pacific Northwest we had a lot of fun. I love showing Erin the world, and I have to keep reminding myself that she doesn't yet believe that the interesting parts of the world are far away. And being able to show her new things makes them interesting to me as well.

Even if they are only 40 minutes away from home.

We celebrated Erin's first Christmas in December. To make it special we spent our holiday visiting her grandparents and her aunts. We expected that she would be loaded down with toys; so many, in fact, that we avoided buying her any ourselves.

We were not disappointed. And in full accord with the rule that says "If you don't have any kids buy the loudest and most annoying toy for those who do", Erin's aunt bought her this little gem.

The Leapfrog AlphabetPal Caterpillar.


It has many settings, music, colours, letters, and it will make some kind of noise with each foot that is even looked at in too direct a manner. It also has a large button on its back which, when depressed, encourages it to burst into a full song. And, if you pull it by its string it will sing the Alphabet Song.

That's a lot of noise for one little piece of plastic.

Because I knew this was a particularly obnoxious toy, with only marginal usefulness for my 10-month old daughter, I let her play with it only occasionally. But for some reason, perhaps because I'm evil, I turned it on tonight and let Erin go to town with it after her mom came home.

Erin poked it; it sang. Erin lifted it; it sang. Erin crawled around with it up on its side; it almost had a fit trying to figure out which of its many songs to sing (because many little feet were being crushed at once as Erin darted from room to room with it).

Erin's mom warned, "You have 5 more minutes with that thing, kid."

5 minutes passed. And a couple more. And the noise was maddening. I don't know why I let it go on; I can tune things out better, I suppose. But eventually I noticed a change in my daughter's play.

When she would drag the caterpillar around and it was quiet she was happy; but if it started singing she was getting upset. I imagined her inner monologue including several expletives and repeated exhortations for the plastic demon to "Just shut up! Shut up! Why can't you just be quiet?!?"

The toy was so annoying that not even my daughter could tolerate it for more than ten minutes.
But I toughed it out; I outlasted her.

As I reached down to finally turn the thing off I sent a mental message to my sister, my loving, considerate sister who had gifted us with this excellent torture device:

"I win, sis."