shanenickerson.com

six months in

My son is just about six months old.  If you have kids, I'm certain you can relate to this picture.  You sleep when your kids sleep, because it might be the last chance you have.  Once they're awake, they're awake with a mission: A Mission to Keep You Busy.  Actually, come to think of it, it's pretty much a never-ending mission, much like the Neverending Story, but without the Luckdragon that looks like a flying dog.  (Unless there are squirrels outside.  In that case, the dog flies around the house, panting and slipping his way from window to window, desperate for one taste of those chattering rodents.  I'm not going to lie to you, I hope he catches one someday.  He deserves it for all the time he's put into stalking them.)

Last night was tough.  If you've never dealt with babies, you may not know that falling asleep is a major issue for them.  They're still getting used to managing unfamiliar flailing arms and legs.  They're also pretty confident that an adult will probably come running at the first whine or wail.  The bad news for Zachary is: all that changes now, with sleep-training.  I'll spare you the intricacies of the Ferber Method, but the gist of it is that you let the baby cry it out after you put him in the crib.  As long as he's well fed and comfortable, the most you can do it go in and tell him everything is cool, maybe pat him on the tummy and walk out.  I'm telling you, it's defies every instinct I have as a parent.  It feels like abandoning your child in an open field and turning around, walking away, and not looking back.   It's a horrible feeling.

With Lucy, we made the mistake of skipping over sleep-training.  She was our first baby, so we ignored the parents who told us not to wait too long.  We didn't mind having her in our bed.  It felt nice to be needed.  If a baby is crying, it is the job of the parent to detect the problem and solve it.  Or at least, that was my thinking back then. 

She's four and a half, and she still can't get to sleep on her own. 

Baby number two?  This one is getting trained.

Last night was the first night of hell.  He cried for almost two hours, and every twenty minutes I'd walk in to make sure he was okay, give him some reassuring words, and then turn around and leave him alone to cry it out.  It was torture, but eventually he figured it out.  He went to sleep on his own.  Of course, it only lasted about an hour, but for an hour, there was peace.

Tonight, he was asleep within 15 minutes.  About a half an hour ago, he woke up and started to cry.  I walked in, put a blanket on him and told him everything was okay, and came out here to write this.  He's asleep again, on his own.

If this works, I'm telling you, it will be the greatest thing in the world.  A kid that goes to bed on his own?  I can't even imagine what that might be like. 

Now the question is, how do you sleep-train a 4 1/2 year old?

gurgle

I'm just now recovering from three days of living in a bonafide Vomitorium.  Do you know what a norovirus is?  It's a fancy word for a microscopic stomach fucker.  It's a bug that gets into your digestive tract and goes off like a frag grenade. 

My wife started feeling a little stomach discomfort right before we headed over to the Ben and Jerry's free cone day last week, and by Sunday afternoon both kids were erupting like volcanic bile geysers on every inch of carpet and every bed sheet in our house.  (Incidentally, most of the rooms in our house have hardwood floors, but apparently it makes more sense to children under five to vomit in highly stainable and stink-retaining areas).  We gave Lucy (the 4 1/2 year old) a small bowl in case the urge arose, but more often than not, she chose to start a sentence telling us...

"Mommy, Daddy, I'm starting to feel...

...bbbbbbbBlllaaaaeeerrchhhhh."

Usually right in the spot we were sleeping. 

All night. 

For two days and nights.

It got to the point where we stopped cleaning up and just threw towels over the offending piles in the bed, and tried to get back to sleep before Zachary (the six month old) started his spray work.  It was awesome.  I felt like I was living in a field hospital.

And through it all, I remained fine.  No stomach ache to speak of, not a twinge of churning in my stomach, and no flu-like symptoms or fatigue.  Somehow, I dodged a noroviral bullet.   A bullet, it turns out, that waited until the puke cleared with the wife and kids to strike me square in the gut.  Within a couple of hours, my stomach felt like it was housing an angry piranha.

So go ahead and insert any graphic details you'd like to imagine here.  I don't need to get into detail like I did HERE.  Let it suffice to say, I feel better today.  While we were out, we had the house cleaned (scrubbed, really) and came back to the successful lemony fresh vanquishing of lingering hurl stench. 

Thank the BV.

twitter

Well, I'm a little late to the world of Twitter, but in case you feel like following me:

http://twitter.com/shanenickerson

**Updated

fluffer

I'll be joining my friends, Greg Pitts and Oscar Nunez as a guest on Lesley Wolff's interactive web series, "Fluffer" this coming Friday night.  Its kind of a neat, multi-camera live talk show, where we chat, drink beer (and probably hit on Lesley) as she hosts and takes questions via IM.    

It streams live at 8pm, this Friday May 9th  at: http://www.thestream.tv/series.php?s=30. 

There are a bunch of archived episodes posted there as well, so feel free to enjoy those

If you tune in, and you feel like hazing me while we're on the air via live IM,  the AIM screenname is: thestreamdottv

Live on the internet.  It's perfect.  You don't even have to get off your couch.

rust

I had lunch with Wil Wheaton this past Thursday, at a place in Old Town Pasadena called Yard House.  There are lots of great places to eat in Old Town, and after careful deliberation and multiple e-mails back and forth, we settled upon Yard House because it has over 300 beers on tap.  Yard House FTW!!1  (I've gotta tell you though, I'd be lying if didn't confess to you that the WWdN fan in me kinda wanted to go to Hooters.  But seriously, 300 beers at Yard House?  A pox on Hooters and it's storied WWdN history!)

Like so many people on the internet and IRL, I am a huge fan of Wil Wheaton. Not in the, "Oh my god, you used to be that guy on that space show and also in that movie about the dead body, with Rebecca Romijn's husband and Jack Bauer, and holy crap will you please SIGN THIS?"  Not that kind of fan. (...yet don't get me wrong, even before I knew Wil, I'd seen every TNG and Stand By Me like, a million...)  The thing is, if you live in Los Angeles for any amount of time, it's not unusual to eventually amass a group of friends from various well-known TV shows and movies.  These people become your peers and co-workers, and while there is certainly a novelty to having friends that are somewhat recognizable or famous, it's not really a topic that comes up in everyday interaction.  It is more often than not, an amusing phenomenon that's interesting to witness, when it sometimes interferes with real life.  So my fandom initially arose not out of a kinship with Gordie or Wesley, but out of the written experiences and personal stories that Wil shares on his weblog.  As a writer and fledgling blogger, I related to his honest and fearless style immediately.  Most importantly, after reading his blog, I felt inspired to write.

An excerpt from my first blog entry, November 2003:

The first "Blog" I ever read was www.wilwheaton.net.  Wil is a fellow ACME Comedy guy and I think the URL to his site was in a company wide e-mail or something. Anyway, I checked it out. It was weird.

I knew Wil the way most people do...from "Stand By Me" and "Star Trek: TNG." At that point, I had never met him and so it was odd to see someone you grew up watching in movies being SO HONEST with whoever cared to check in. The other weird thing was that he had (and HAS) a blog FOLLOWING. Forget about fans who remembered him from movies and TV, these were people who were now addicted to the WilWheatonDotNet guy. It may have been his leftover fame that brought them there, but they stayed because it was good. I'm envious of Wil's ability to be so honest with himself and with strangers. It's one of the hardest things in the world to do.

I walked into Yard House right on time, and met him at the front entry by the hostess station.  He greeted me with a warm smile, and immediately told me, "I brought gifts," as he handed me a copy of his third book, "The Happiest Days of Our Lives." 

"Oh, this is AWESOME!  I've been dying to read this," I told him.  I tucked the book under my arm and we followed the hostess past the bar.  We sat at a fairly large table, with a window facing out onto East Colorado Blvd.  It's been a while since Wil and I have actually hung out, so we started with small talk as we settled into our conversation.  I looked over the beer menu and selected a delightful Hazelnut Brown Ale (and if I remember right, I think Wil went with the Lagunitas IPA).  We caught up on our kids and our jobs and our lives, and both of us shared news about exciting projects on the horizon that are too secret and awesome to even write about. 

I've often imagined life to be a giant race.  It's a metaphor that's easy to understand if you've ever run a marathon, or even a 5k or 10k.  Thousands of people start at the same place, pace themselves differently along the way, use different methods and techniques to get where they are going, and ultimately end up in the same place.  There are certain people that run (or walk) at about the same pace as you, that you can't help but run into several times before the race is over.  Sometimes you give them a knowing glance, and sometimes you exchange words, and sometimes you lose track of each other, but there is an understanding.  There is a common goal and a mutual, mostly unspoken encouragement between fellow runners that keeps you going. 

I congratulated Wil on publishing his THIRD book.  "It's an amazing accomplishment," I told him.  He smiled and nodded.  "I'm very proud of it," he admitted.  He also congratulated me on my career and all of the stuff I have happening in my life.

"We're almost there, aren't we?" he asked me, with a huge smile.  "We're just on the verge of getting to that place we really want to be in our careers." 

"I guess we are," I agreed, as that fact washed over me.   "It is pretty exciting."

We ate lunch and laughed about old Acme stories and threw around some ideas for collaborative projects, and lamented the simple fact that years pass too fast.  After four beers and almost four hours, we both decided it was time to get back home to our families before rush hour.  Since Wil brought the book, I bought the beer, and we made plans to have lunch again soon...maybe with our old pal Annie next time.  I thanked him again for the book as we walked out, and as he headed off towards the Foothill Transit Line bus, I began the search for my car in the massive public parking garage in Old Town, Pasadena.

On my way home, I realized that I do miss writing here.  It's not always easy or fun, and the scrutiny and ribbing from friends is often hard to bear, but getting out that story you really want to tell makes it almost worthwhile.  I also take comfort in the fact that as Wheaton and I both keep running our separate races towards that elusive and ever-changing finish line, I'll continue to be inspired by his well-documented progress, even as I race to make my own.