Football opinions and puzzlements from the birthday girl

This weekend was great. We went on the Eye, which turned out to be absolutely amazing and not that scary. The view from up there (the highest observation wheel in the world) made London look small. Really, really small. And Ben and Jack gave me one of my birthday presents, a beautiful silver necklace. I'll post a picture sometime later this week. The card said Jack got the idea from Nonna's visit--Jack was fascinated by her necklaces.

Today was nice enough, with lots of birthday calls, most of them missed somewhere between Jack's naptimes (I turn off the ringer then) and diaper changes and bath time. I also realized how much I love facebook. Amazing that you can now go without seeing or talking to a friend for months or years, and then because of a little reminder service, they wish you happy birthday right on time. Great tool for the nostalgic. The day could have been a little better though if, for instance, I had gotten to see my husband for more than 15 minutes all day. I'm really starting to resent S&C.

But enough of that--let's talk football. Our morning (Jack's and mine) started with a bit of a surprise. It turns out that Jack's Uncle Tyler, my little brother, was pictured in the KC Star! And on the front page of the sports section, no less. I haven't heard the whole story directly from him, but through Mom and Dad I gather that on Friday night at 11 p.m. someone showed up at his door with tickets to the Big 12 Championship game and asked if he wanted to drive to San Antonio with them. Tyler, a junior at my alma mater, jumped in the car and told Mom and Dad to watch for him because he'd be "noticeable"--something about tiger paint and a Mizzou flag worn as a cape. Well, now we know what he was talking about. Tyler is the painted one on the left in the picture. His roommate Rob is the one in front pumping his fists.

I had refrained from saying anything gloating about Mizzou out of deference to Melanie, a KU grad and die-hard fan, God bless her, and frankly it's a bit hard to say much that's gloating now, since the BCS just dealt us the worst blow in recent memory. Last week number one and now, after losing to a top ten team, we're eliminated from a BCS bowl. That's just wrong.

I mean, seriously, "The" Ohio State is going to the championship? The most overrated school from the most overrated state ever!? The school whose conference giants include the once great but now rather lackluster Notre Dame and Michigan? Many of you have heard my rants about Ohio being the worst state in the country, a view heavily influenced by the 2004 elections and multiple horrible experiences with the Cincinnati airport. Honestly, is it possible for a single state to have a greater abundance of miserable, mid-sized, lukewarm Republican-leaning cities (think Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Akron, Canton, Dayton, etc.), all of which lost their lustre (if they ever had any) long ago? But this strongly held belief of mine also depends in part on the annoyingness of people who claim that Ohio State and/or the Cincinnati Bengals are or ever have been or ever will be decent, respectable teams. Even if Angelette extended-family loyalty did not already demand it, on January 7 I'd still be cheering for LSU.

Things might get a little interesting in Houston this Christmas, though, given Mizzou's bowl opponent. We're playing Arkansas, where Jack's Uncle Stephen went to school. Which leads to an interesting question--if (when) Missouri beats Arkansas, since Arkansas beat LSU and LSU will win the national championship (barring uncalled penalties on the order of the neck-standing junk Ohio pulled against Miami to steal the 2002 championship), does that mean Missouri should actually have stayed #1?

And now to Jack. He was very happy all day after a fussy weekend. But I've had to stop typing this twice already to put him back to sleep, and both times it took a lot more effort than normal to calm his louder than normal cries. The first time he had been asleep less than three hours, and something was hurting him. I didn't completely determine what it was, but I think he has a tummy ache. It seemed more like an achy tummy pain type cry than an acute teething pain type cry; a few months ago I never would have imagined that the two were discernable.

The rough thing about this age is that 1) Jack's needs are starting to be more complex than just needing to eat, sleep, and be changed, 2) he's getting more able to tell me and I'm more able to recognize when something is wrong, but 3) it's now much harder to tell exactly what is wrong. For example, when he's eating, sometimes Jack will cry because he wants food more quickly and sometimes because he wants it more slowly--at different times he wants it to flow at different speeds, and it's not always how you would expect. I would think he would want food really fast at the beginning of meals because he's hungrier then, and sometimes he does, but other times he doesn't. I've tried and failed to discern patterns for it. And it's hard to tell what food he wants when and when he wants a drink. It's easy to tell when I guess wrong, but eliminating the wrong choices takes a while and leads to more frustration for both of us. I'll be really, really glad when he can at least finally use sign language.

Another new thing that's just started in the past few days is that Jack will wake up crying at odd hours, and I'll go in to find him standing or sitting up in his crib. That I don't find the least bit odd--he's still getting used to going from laying to standing and standing to sitting, so he's practicing even in his sleep, which is common for babies to do with new skills. The thing I do find oddly funny is that when I put his binky in again, he immediately goes limp. As in completely limp and fast asleep again. It's as if he's hypnotized and I've touched his head and said "sleep!" The first few times he did this, he almost fell over because I was so surprised by his reaction that I wasn't prepared to support him. Normally he relaxes a little when I put his binky back in, but this is like comatose-relaxing. Bizarre.

But the best thing Jack has started doing recently is giving me kisses. It's really sweet. He had started giving random kisses/drool deposits on our cheeks while Mom and Dad were here, but now he's gotten more targeted and will do it on cue. I ask, "Can I have a kiss, please?" and make puckered kissing noises, and he leans in and plants a big, open-mouthed slobber right on my lips. Messy, but adorable. I'll try to get Ben to capture us on video this week, but Jack is rarely one for demonstrating party tricks on demand, so no promises.