Let the Terrible Twos begin

At 4:30 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 29, the Wife shot straight up in bed.

"I think my water just broke!" she said.

I figured I should take her word for it, because if I've learned anything in all these years of marriage, it's that you don't argue with your wife:

1. at 4:30 in the morning
2. when she's pregnant
3. when it has to do with her water
   

So we both got up and began our Let's Have A Baby Today routine. We brushed teeth. We brewed coffee. We waited for Wife's mom to come to the house to stay with Daughter so we could head for the hospital. We checked and re-checked Wife's duffel bag to make sure we had everything we would need.

As the sun came up, we settled in to our suite at the hospital. Wife was contracting intensely and regularly. We tried to remember all the breathing stuff we studied so feverishly in the days before Daughter's birth.

I got to work putting up large signs all around the room explaining what a "quiet birth" is and making plans for how to retaliate if anyone made noise during the first 90 seconds after delivery.

I'm kidding. I got some coffee and turned on the TV to keep Wife's mind off of her contractions.

After a while, the anesthesia crew came in for the beloved epidural. This one went less smoothly than the first one. I sat in a chair across the room from Wife as she hugged her pillow and arched her back while they put the IV down her spine.

She yelled out in pain a handful of times. She said she felt electric shocks down her legs. It scared the heck out of me.

The difficulty of the epidural was over soon, but it didn't fully take. The docs had to tinker with her medicines a handful of times to get it right. All the while, her labor progressed.

Every 30 minutes or so, someone would come in and check Wife. Sometimes it was a nurse, other times it was a doctor. At times it felt like they were just grabbing people off the sidewalk and sending them in to do it, because there were quite a variety of people that wound up doing the checking.

Around 11:30 a.m., the nurse said she (Wife, not the nurse) was 10 cm and ready to push. They rolled in all the carts and lights and started bringing in more people than I would have thought would be necessary. Among the faces in the crowd are:

1. the OB
2. a handful of nurses
3. the respiratory guy
4. an anesthesia guy
5. a janitor
6. the Maytag repairman

Once everyone was in place and had a good view of the action, the nurse gave the green light for Wife to start pushing.

She pushed three times and knew that one more would bring our little man into the world. The only problem was that the doc was down the hall helping another woman with her delivery.

The nurses told Wife not to push.

Wife told them that not pushing was not an option. Very quickly, the doctor rushed into the room. Wife gave one last push.

At 12:06 p.m., our 9 lb., 2 oz. little man was born. Our house hasn't been the same since - in the best way possible.

Today, the little stinker turns two.

Happy Birthday, Buddy Boo!

Movie Line Friday

I have quickly discovered that you are a very movie-fluent group.

In response to my question from yesterday, Amy correctly replied that the character "Karen" in Talladega Nights is the cougar that Ricky Bobby's dad puts in his car to help him conquer his fears.

A cougar named Karen. That's good stuff.

Knowing that you as a group are very well-versed in your movie lines, I don't expect you to have much trouble with this week's line. But we'll see.

Here it is:

"I'm trying to use the phone!"

Take two packs of ramen and call me in the morning

I think I'm on the mend.

I spent all day in bed yesterday fighting that nasty stomach bug. It was a doozy.

Wife took great care of me all day, bringing me saltines and Sprite whenever I asked. Her day got a heck of a lot more interesting yesterday afternoon, when Son woke up screaming because he had thrown up in his bed. He yakked a couple more times last night before his bedtime, but had no trouble during the night.

If I learned anything from this experience, it's this: there's a whole bunch of nuthin' on TV during the day.

After a lunch of ramen noodles I watched Talladega Nights again. Here's a trivia question for you: Who is "Karen" in Talladega Nights?

You have my eternal respect if you can answer that one.

About 9 p.m., I was able to make it downstairs to the couch to spend some time with Wife. We watched the premiers of Private Practice and the other show about Money that came on after it. I hesitate to include the title because I don't want to pop up on those kinds of Internet searches.

Both shows were pretty good. There was nothing about either that made me say, "This show won't make it." Tonight we've got the premier of The Office, so it'll be a good TV night.

Today I'm home at the MBI Estate to make sure I'm fully healed before I go back to work. I don't think the folks at the office would appreciate me sharing this nastiness with them.

I've caught the cholera

Remember that stomach bug that knocked the Wife and Daughter down over the weekend?

It's definitely contagious.

I learned this morning that I'll be fighting it today. So I'm stretched out in the bed watching TV and reading some blogs.

Here are a few things I've been reading lately:

The Wealth Report, a blog by Robert Frank of the Wall Street Journal. Fascinating.
The Simple Dollar, by Trent Hamm. A very well-done personal finance blog.

There's a substantial contrast between the content on these two blogs. The Wealth Report covers the lives of the super-rich. The Simple Dollar focuses on the fundamentals of personal finance for the rest of us.

Give 'em both a look. It's good reading.

Tell you what - you keep the nickel

An extremely intelligent and witty blogger I know put up a short item about the band Nickelback the other day.

I've wanted to rant about how much Nickelback gets played on XM channels 26 and 30 for a while. But I haven't because I know how unique a person's taste in music is. And I also have to stay true to the fact that I'm one of those "If you don't like what's on, change the channel!" kind of guys.

Primarily though, I didn't want to offend any of my readers who might be huge Nickelback fans.

And then I realized that your typical die-hard Nickelback fan probably isn't spending days trolling the daddy blogs.

Your typical Nickelback fan is sitting in English class texting her friend about what she's going to wear to the dance on Fridat night.

So I think I can safely say THE NICKELBACK HAS GOT TO STOP! PLEASE MAKE IT STOP! STOP STOP STOP! without offending my core audience.

One girl's better, one girl's down for the count

I am happy to report that Daughter's stomach rot has released her from its vomitous grips.

Turns out it was just a 12-hour, 14 throw-up bug. That's not to say she's not still wearing the pajamas she wore on Friday when she was sick.

Or that we've turned Noggin off for even a moment this weekend. She played the "I'm still sick" card all day yesterday, and we obliged. Puking 14 times earns you a weekend pass in our house.

She's back on her feet today, except now Wife has caught the stomach funk. She's been on bed rest all day.

And in a strange twist of coincidence, our Blockbuster online service sent us The Painted Veil, which stars Edward Norton as a doctor who travels to a small village in China to treat a cholera epidemic.

Can you catch cholera from a movie?

Answer to Movie Line Friday

You kids are good.

I thought this week's Movie Line Friday would be a little tougher than it turned out to be. Everyone did great with their guesses.

The comment from Anonymous was right: my Dad was Goose back in 'Nam. He was a navigator in the back of a fighter jet flying missions from an aircraft carrier.

I have to hand this week's Movie Line Friday award to Katie, who pretty much owned the contest with this comment:

Top Gun - but it's not the same without the hand gesture Tom Cruise adds.
"You were in a 4G, INVERTED dive with a MiG28?"
"Yes ma'am."
"You're the one."
Classic.

Well played, Katie. I'll think twice before trying another line from a Tom Cruise movie.

Tune in next week for more Movie Line Friday!

A baby on my hip would have rounded out the package

Let me tell you just how much class I have.

First, a few seemingly unrelated facts:

1) Wife bought a table for our foyer this afternoon. I drove the Odyssey to the store to pick it up.

2) Wife and I usually have our car stereos set to the local Christian music station.

3) Wife and I thought tonight would be a nice night to sit outside and have a glass of wine after the kids are in bed.

String those three facts together and you get this:

This afternoon, I walked out of a liquor store toting a brown bag with a bottle of wine in it, climbed into a minivan, and sang along to Chris Tomlin's "Holy is the Lord" as I pulled out of the parking lot.

Nice, eh?

Health insurance is not a scam. Really.

Maybe someone can explain this to me.

Our pediatrician called in a prescription for phenergan for Daughter just in case all the vomiting didn't stop tonight.

Wife sped off to pick up the order, only to find out that our neighborhood pharmacy couldn't compound it into gel, which is the preferred method of application. I'm sure this had nothing to do with the fact that Wife arrived about five minutes before closing. On a Friday.

So our neighborhood pharmacy sent the scrip over to another hometown pharmacy. When Wife pulled out the flex card to pay, the pharmacist told her he had some problems running our insurance.

Turns out they had the info from my previous employer. Wife gave him our new insurance info.

After checking our insurance info, the pharmacist said, "You know what? I'm just going to give you our best price on this. I'm just going to charge you $16."

We like low prices, so that worked for us.

"Besides," he added, "if I filed it with your insurance carrier it would cost you $45."

In case you didn't pick up on that, here's the situation:

We paid $16 for Daughters prescription. If our insurance had paid for it, we would have paid $45.

Unbelievable.

This weekend's medical care brought to you by Mom and Dad

I was all excited to tell you that for the first time in nearly two months, Wife and I have absolutely nothing on the calendar this weekend.

No weddings. No funerals. No birthday parties. No baptisms. No golf tournaments. No helping friends move. No travel. No nuthin'.

But at 3:30 this afternoon, I learned that we do have plans for the weekend: taking care of a sick preschooler.

Daughter has caught the vomits. She's been going at it all afternoon. Twelve times since 2:30 this afternoon.

Is there anything more pitiful than a puky 3 year old?

Movie Line Friday

It's time for another edition of Movie Line Friday.

This week I'm taking the degree of difficulty up a notch, because the multiple choice option is going away. I have faith that you people are strong enough in your knowledge of inconsequential trivia that you can flourish without it.

And that actually is a compliment, even though it may not sound like one.

So, what movie is this line from?

"We were inverted."

$100 update

Yesterday's post inquiring about what you'd do with an extra $100 sparked a lot of good comments.

I think the coolest response came from hulagirlatheart, who said:

At the risk of sounding like a redneck I would use it to pay our beef bill. We are having a cow slaughtered in a couple of weeks, and I could use the money for the processing fee.

I've never paid that kind of money to have something slaughtered and processed.

Fifty bucks and a pack of smokes to have someone roughed up? That's another story.

Anyhow, thanks to everyone who jumped in with a comment.

If I had a hundred dollars

A couple of years ago, each entering freshman at our alma mater was given $100.

The students could do whatever they wanted with the money. The only strings were that they had to tell the faculty and administrators how they spent it, and be honest in doing so.

For instance, if a kid gambled it away on a football game, no problem. If they left it as a huge tip for a waitress, that was okay too.

In the eyes of this exercise, there was no right or wrong way to spend the money. Spend it on yourself, spend it on someone else, give it away - it didn't matter.

So, if $100 showed up on your kitchen table today, what would you do with it?

Be honest. There are no right or wrong answers. Don't say, "I'd put $10 in my savings account, give the rest to help blind, HIV-positive paraplegic kittens" if that's not what you'd really do.

Me? I'd probably go buy some ties with it. I could use a few new ones.

What would you do?

Poo poo on Yahoo

I should stop trying new things. It never works out for me.

In a moment of weakness last night, I gave in to temptation and let myself be seduced by the Yahoo! Mail beta version. I abruptly left good old regular Yahoo! Mail for the sleek, new look of the beta version.

It was good for a while, but this afternoon it got ugly. So very ugly.

When I checked my messages, Yahoo! Mail couldn't load them. Then it tore up Firefox to the point that she wouldn't load any pages.

You can mess with me, Yahoo! Mail beta, but don't bring Firefox into this. She didn't do anything wrong.

I pulled up Safari to get into my Yahoo! Mail account settings to see how to switch back to regular Yahoo! Mail. I was instructed to click a link on my screen that didn't exist. Then I was instructed to clear the history and the cache and all that jazz off of Firefox.

Awesome, I thought. I enjoy typing in long URLs and fumbling for logins and passwords. Clear out the caches!

I also checked some forums to see if anyone else is having trouble with Yahoo! Mail beta, and the results of my unscientific survey show that Yahoo! Mail beta is, in computer-speak, poo poo on a plate.

Luckily I was able to get switched back to regular Yahoo! Mail, so life is good again. Next time I hint around about trying something new, kick me in the neck.

Introducing My Best Answers

I’m introducing a new feature here at My Best Investments. It’s called My Best Answers.

You can ask me a question by posting a comment and I’ll reply in a separate post.

Ask me anything you want. I can’t guarantee an honest answer to your question, but I’ll try to make it fun.

See this example below:

Q: Do you plan to have any more children?

A: Yes and no.

The Wife thinks that the two children we have together are my only two. But I can assure you there are more. You spend enough time in Thailand and something’s bound to happen.

Given that I have two kids with Wife and that there’s probably a baker’s dozen little MBI’s running around southeast Asia, my gut instinct would be to say that I’m done having kids. That’s the “no” part of my answer.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in church it’s that appearances are important things to keep up. So for the sake of appearance, I probably ought to have another child with the Wife. That’s the “yes” part of my answer.

The honest answer is that we would like to have one more baby if it's in God's plan for us. Three seems like a nice number. And no, I don't actually have any half-Thai MBI's running around Southeast Asia. There's no time for that kind of tomfoolery when you get married at 23 and have kids at 27.

There you go. Jump in with your questions by posting a Comment below!

Bumper sticker code crackers needed

Maybe you can help me with something.


I'm having a hard time understanding some bumper stickers I've seen lately. The stickers in question say:


"KEEP IT COWBOY" and "cowgirl up"


In both cases, it seems that the word "cowboy" or "cowgirl" is being used as an adjective rather than a noun. (Am I right in thinking that when you use a noun as an adjective it's called a gerund?)


Any idea what either of these bumper stickers mean?

Why am I not sweating?

I couldn't have asked my local TV weatherman for a better day yesterday.

Well, I could have, but he would have slapped me in the mouth.

It was about as nice a day as I can remember. Sunny. No clouds in the sky. 70 degrees.

Perfect. Could this be Fall?

Looks like summer could be on its way out. Are you getting that feeling where you are?

Answer to Movie Line Friday

Congratulations to Shalee, our first winner of Movie Line Friday.

She correctly answered that the line "You can't dust for vomit" is from Spinal Tap.

For those who don't fully appreciate the Spinal Tap movie, let me explain why that line is such a beauty.

Spinal Tap is a fake documentary about a band of the same name. At one point in the film, the members of the band are doing an interview and the interviewer asks them about how their drummer died.

The initial answer is that he choked to death on vomit.

Only they're not sure he choked to death on his own vomit. Coulda been someone else's.

That's when they explain that there's no scientific test to prove to whom vomit belongs. Unlike fingerprints, you can't dust for vomit.

Good stuff.

Tune in next week for another edition of Movie Line Friday!

Movie Line Friday

Men are, for the most part, hard-wired to memorize and recite movie lines.

Sometimes we rattle these movie lines off at times that seem random or inappropriate. Other times, our skillful delivery of a witty line from a movie is just what the moment calls for.

Those moments are few and far between.

Women tend not to understand how or why we hang on to these movie lines. I'd say it's just one of those Men Are From Mars and Women Are From Venus things.

Women don't understand their man's fascination with movie lines. Men don't understand their woman's fascination with that Kojo fashion critic guy. It's just one of those things.

All of that is a foreword for my new feature: Movie Line Friday. I'll post a movie line and you crazy kids see if you know the movie. And I realize from the outset that this feature is biased toward both of my male readers. Anyhow, on with the contest.

For example, if I were to post: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," then you would jump in with a comment and reply: Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo.

On second thought, I don't think that line is from Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. The Wife is telling me it's actually Gone With The Wind.

This week, we'll make it multiple choice. Here goes:

"You can't dust for vomit."

Is it?
a. Ghostbusters
b. Ocean's Eleven
c. Spinal Tap
d. Scream

Answer to the Sticky Challenge

I know the suspense has been eating you alive.

Without further delay, the winner of the Sticky Challenge is Darren, who correctly guessed that Sticky's real name is Cynthia.

Thanks to everyone who played!

Update on Sticky

You know from this post that we've been working on learning the names of the other kids in Daughter's preschool class.

The Sticky mystery is solved.

Sticky is actually one of the following:
a) Stephanie
b) Kristie
c) Cynthia
d) Vicki

Care to wager a guess?

Tech support brought to you by MBI

You may not believe this when I tell you.

I'm not entirely sure I believe it myself. But here goes:

I fixed our computer tonight.

That's right. One hour and one phone call to my high-tech brother and we're back online.

For the past week or so, our wireless connection has been malfunctioning, forcing us to use the Internet from - of all places - a table and chair.

No sofa. No comfy chair. Just the same table and chair, with the little Mac hard-wired into the DSL modem.

Somehow tonight I launched us back into the wonderful world of wireless. Don't ask me how I did it, because I don't know.

Yet here I sit, in my chair in our sunroom, clacking away on my blog. Far removed from that silly table and network cable.

And I'm 99% sure that the connection will die now since I have gloated in my victory.

The beach exercise lady

Dear Beach Exercise Lady,

I'm all for health and fitness.

I think most of us could benefit from a little extra exercise here and there.

Just this week, I decided to use the time in the morning while the coffee is brewing to do some pushups and sit-ups. It's not much, but it should help me if I can make it a long-term habit.

With that said, I need to first acknowledge your commitment to your exercise routine. You've made it clear that fitness simply can't be contained by the four walls of a gym.

Second, I need to commend you on the range of exercises you are able to perform. Imagine how healthy a place our fine nation would be if all of us could lunge, squat and thrust our hips with the same vigor you display.

The only constructive criticism I might offer is this: you should choose your exercise venue carefully.

For example, I do my pushups and sit-ups on the cold, hard floor of my kitchen in the early morning hours before anyone is awake. For those relatively benign exercises, I wouldn't be too embarrassed if someone walked in.

If there were any squatting or hip thrusting to be done, I would chose to wait until my family was out of the house completely. My wife and children don't need to see that.

You, however, seem to be comfortable and confident doing all sorts of moves on a public beach in Myrtle Beach, S.C. - a.k.a. The Redneck Riviera. Given your proximity to the 4-foot dune behind you, I have to assume you're using that as your privacy wall.

And you're right - that dune shields you from the leering eyes of anyone standing at ground level behind you, leaving you free to dip and grind and God knows what else in relative seclusion.

For your next workout, though, you may want to turn around and do some neck-stretching exercises. When you do that, you'll see that there are 320 condos immediately behind you - and you are visible from every single balcony. This is, after all, a family resort.

Just a thought.

Happy pelvic lifting,
MyBestInvest

Busy busy

What a weekend.

Here's what I've done:

• Helped friends move into a new house
• Attended a funeral service for some friends who lost their child in the sixth month of pregnancy
• Church
• Sunday School
• Brunch after church with a 4 yo and 2 yo in an upscale setting
• Attended a baptism ceremony for the infant son of some other friends
• Moved antique law libraries from our house to mother-in-law's house
• Went by to visit newly-moved friends, helped put their son's crib together
• Had Sunday dinner with my parents
• Put kids in bed while Wife attends a meeting at church

It's been busy. Physically and emotionally tiring, what with all the heavy lifting and funeral and baptism and what-not.

Now I'm headed up the stairs to make some more progress getting my office set up.

These two should definitely sit next to each other

Daughter started her second year of preschool this week.

Over dinner last night, we asked her the names of the other little girls in her class.

"There's Lily, Soapy, Ellie, Julie and Sticky," she said.

I filed that information away for a future rant about how parents have lost all sense when it comes to naming their children - because you know they have.

Soapy and Sticky? Are Bashful and Doc in the class too?

After another few minutes of talking, we were able to figure out that little Soapy's name is actually Sophie.

We still haven't figured out what Sticky's real name is. Any ideas?

Here's my blogging tip

Here's a little tip you won't find on one of the Tips for Successful Bloggers sites:

Over the course of two weeks, limit your posting to three items. Make sure those three items you post are completely useless to your readers, offering no value whatsoever.

Why won't you find that tip on the Successful Bloggers sites? Because that's not how you run a good blog. Yet that's how I run mine, if the past two weeks are any indication.

But then again, no one has ever accused me of running a successful blog.

Anyhow.

Thanks for the input on Shutterfly. Only moments after I asked for help, I figured out what I needed to do. Consequently, our Mac started exporting some 2,900 pics to Shutterfly.

So in one sense, I fixed our problem. That's good.

But at the same time, I created a new problem: pushing 2,900 pics out over slow DSL takes a loooong time.

Fix one problem, create another. That's how I roll.

But enough about that. I hope you crazy kids are having a good week. I can assure you I've got some good posts in me from the past few weeks, I'm just fighting to find the time to spend pecking them out.

So for now, I'll leave you with this, one of my favorite jokes:

Two guys walk into a bar. The third guy ducks.

We're back and we need help

We're back home from the beach, and there are many great stories to tell.

Among them are:

• Just when I start to think I'm a good Dad...
• Life comes full circle: Taking the kids to the alma mater
• Life comes full circle: The old Bel-Air motel
• Dear Beach Exercise Lady

For the moment, there are projects to do around the house and schoolwork to catch up on.

But while you're here, maybe you can help with a little computer issue we're having.

Shutterfly makes a plug-in for iPhoto that allows for direct uploads from iPhoto to their site. We have downloaded this but can't get it to install correctly.

(And yes, I know all the cool kids use Flickr. We are neanderthals for using Shutterfly. I get it.)

Has anyone encountered this problem or something similar? Is there something I don't know about installing stuff on a Mac?

Any ideas?