It’s so surreal to hear someone in the bathroom, look around the corner, and see your three year old son washing his hands all by himself.

It’s not really the physicality of it that astounds me, I mean, the kid can ride a bike better than Lance Armstrong, so it’s not that crazy to think he can rub his hands together under water. It’s more that he knows to do it. Sure, we’ve told him a thousand times to wash his hands after going to the bathroom, but I’ve told him a thousand things a thousand times and he still barely listens to me…not sure why that one stuck.

So today is day 3 in the technology lite lifestyle. Wednesday night I pulled my sim card out of my G1 and put it in some crappy Nokia phone we’ve had around the house for years. I deleted the link to facebook in my browser, and I used Leech Block to block twitter, facebook and Google Reader.

The most noticeable effect was being late to work both Thursday and Friday. Turns out that taking the battery out of the phone that also acted as my alarm clock was not a smart move. So I’ve reinstated the G1. I got rid of the social networking apps on it, and use it only as a phone, calendar, and alarm clock.

Second most noticeable effect is sheer boredom in the bathroom. I won’t go into details there.

I read an article this morning in Relevant Magazine about how Facebook is turning us all into narcissists. I was pretty disappointed with it, as the whole narcissism claim has been around since blogs started getting popular. It talked a good bit about how we preen our images, and go back over our profiles to make sure the image we’re projecting is the one we want projected. The author claimed enough of this and you start believing your own lie. This isn’t my issue at all. Yes, I’ve preened my image, but I’ve never deluded myself into thinking that’s the real me. My issue is that I buy into other peoples’ dolled up lives. When I surround myself constantly with the updates and insights of the perfectly preened people, my own flaws and short comings stick out in my mind more. Even a friend of mine who lost his job and had to move out to the middle of nowhere to live with his mom…I envy his chance at a new beginning, his free time. Yeah, see? It’s bad.

The other reason I’m doing this, as mentioned before, was to try and get rid of this constant inner dialogue where I talk to all of you all the time in my head. If I’m not actively posting a status, I’m thinking of what it could be. I’m even thinking of little fake ones, or what I could say if I was in a situation, one that I’m not in at the time. One sentence from the aforementioned article really stuck out. “It’s a constant reminder to externalize our thoughts.”

Ever since I was a kid I would have this thought process, pretty similar to an interview. As I was doing something, I’d imagine being interviewed by someone about it. “So, what were you trying to say with this?” “Well, I feel that…” blah blah blah. It wasn’t so much a sense that I was important enough to be interviewed, more of a desire to be understood, and I guess the interview format was a good way to explain myself. I used to think it was completely crazy, but a person that I look up to once said he did the exact same thing in his head, so I feel mildly validated.

So coming from the self-interview format, and suddenly being given a tiny text form that says “What’s on your mind?” that I knew would be instantly beamed to 80 or so people, well, that’s a pretty hard thing to avoid. I know what you’re thinking. Am I not doing this right now by writing this post? No. I’m not. You know why? Cause with Facebook I knew it would go straight to those 80 or so people, at least those that have not hidden me. With tonybullard.com, Google Analytics has clued me into the fact that it’s only 30 or so people a month, and 25 or so of those people are just looking for The Metal Vocal Tutorial.

Overall, I must say I’m surprised at how little effect the whole process is having. Let me rephrase that: This process has been a lot less grief stricken than I thought it would be. Granted, I do feel the “externalizing thoughts” portion of my brain calming down, but I DON’T feel like I’m missing out on a whole lot. I still have the same desire to hang out and spend time with my friends. The light interaction provided by Facebook never was able to satiate that. But if I think about it, I do feel content to just be at home with my family this weekend. I don’t feel the overwhelming desire to compete with everyone else on Facebook with fun weekend pictures or something.

That being said, enough of this blogging crap. Time to get outside with my family.

Filed under: rambling, social by tonybullard
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Yesterday we were getting ready to go out, everybody putting on shoes, rounding up supplies, getting Noah to choose a small toy to bring…you know, the regular routine. I open the door, start ushering Noah out, and Teresa looks at me and says, “Are we bringing Desi?”

Calmly sitting in the other room, oblivious to the world, is little Desmond.

“Oh yeah. Yeah, we should probably bring him.”

See, this is how my mind starts to internalize things. Teresa was in love with Desi and dreaming of her new four piece family within weeks of finding out. I, on the other hand, am like a fine wine. Facts must age in my brain until they’re ready for use.

As we load into the car, the old process of buckling Noah in has now expanded to buckling Noah in and getting Desi locked in. I try to avoid the second part, as putting a newborn into a car seat is akin to fitting potato chip into a change purse. It looks like it could fit, but your pretty sure something will snap in the process.

So while it used to be “Me and Tree and the boy” now it’s “Me and Tree and Noah and Desi.” It’s no longer “Noah is an addition to our couple.” It’s “We are clan Bullard.” We are a traveling troupe. Matching t-shirts would almost be appropriate.

After a long struggle (search “poop” and see how many posts come up) Noah has finally come to terms with the fact that poo belongs in the toilet. Turns out the breaking point was simply lying about the world’s supply of Noah-sized diapers. We warned him that we were running low, and that soon he’d be forced to poop in the toilet. It was a game of human waste chicken. Who would blink first?

Noah held out until the very last diaper, and then only held it in for a day before finally deciding the toilet wasn’t the spawn of satan (in regards to poop…peeing in the toilet has been no problem for months.) I got a call at work from a tiny voice saying, “DADDY I POOPED IN THE TOILET!!!” This time it wasn’t a wrong number.

So my life has changed in a very good way. I haven’t had to clean up anything resembling adult poop in over a week. It’s almost weird. He’s tells us when he’s going about 50% of the time, so sometimes you’ll just walk in on him, or it will be really quiet, and you’ll get suspicious.

“Noah?”

“I NEED PRIVACY!”

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My mother once told me that if you couldn’t say something nice, you shouldn’t say anything at all. Yep, she was the one who came up with that.

Luckily I didn’t listen, otherwise this blog wouldn’t exist.

So two days ago I posted about Desi and our family and how we were sick. Little did I know that within a few hours of that post we’d be in the ER. Desi has a fever. Teresa burst into tears like we had already failed him as parents, and I went into “let’s get done what needs to happen” mode, and got us to the hospital tout suite.

So generally, in medicine, the way they find out what’s wrong with you is by seeing how your immune system is fighting. The problem with this method is that 2 week old babies don’t yet have and immune system, so there’s nothing to check. So what they have to do is take blood samples, then put them in petri dishes and try and grow various bacteria. If it grows, then it’s in his blood. If not, then he’s clear. This is a process that takes 2 days. So we get to stay in the hospital for 48 hours. To top it all off, they have to check for spinal meningitis. Yep, spinal. So you know what that means?

My son, at the ripe age of 2 weeks, got a spinal tap. This means Noah is going to have to step it up if he wants to kee the “I survived my father” title for long. If Desi keeps on this course, he’ll be fighting giraffes by 3 months.

Your move Noah…your move.

Filed under: family, health by tonybullard
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We were going through our Netflix Streaming queue looking at movies, and Noah desperately wanted to watch anything we mentioned.

Filed under: family, video by tonybullard
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He’s getting really good. It’s not shown in the video, but he’ll sometimes take that turn really fast, with his feet off the ground for 5 or 6 seconds, adjusting through the turn, really controlling his balance. He’s never gonna know what training wheels are.

Apologies for the poor video, my phone was the only thing I could find. Also, the audio is really low, which is a downside of the G1. The mic points towards the shooter, so I’m loud, while Noah’s adorable comments are quiet. It’s worth turning up your speakers.

(For those reading on Facebook, you have to click the “View Original Post” to see the video.)

Filed under: cycling, family, video by tonybullard
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Noah and I wrote this on the way home from school today.

Lyrics:
Sun so bright
Sun so bright
I Wish (it wasn’t) so bright.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

“Sun So Bright” by Tony Bullard, featuring Noah Bullard
»download«

Filed under: music, song by tonybullard
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Slept like this for at least half an hour.

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Filed under: rambling, video by tonybullard
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It’s been a while since I’ve posted about Noah. The time span between this and the last Noah post is part of the reason it’s been so long. Some sort of weird performance anxiety. I feel like if I don’t document it all, then why document at all? That’s a weird sentence.

I haven’t put up video in a while for 2 reasons: 1, I’m lazy, and I hate video editing. 2, Noah isn’t all that interesting anymore.

OK, maybe that’s not true, but we have certainly let down our former 300-pictures-per-month selves. I think there was one month in there where we took like, 4 photos. You’d think he was our third child or something.

He’s getting really smart. Too smart really. We’ve realized that we can no longer talk about him like he’s no in the room. That’s annoying.

The other night Teresa said she needed to take a shower, saying she was “stinky.” Due to her choice of vocabulary for Noah’s diapers, my son thought my wife had pooped her pants.

I’ve found out why disciplining a child is so hard. It’s not the strong will. It’s the fact that you don’t ever want to do it. I’d much rather just eat dinner than place a kid in a chair facing the wall 48 times in 5 minutes. When he starts acting up I think to myself, “Really? This is what you want to do for the next 30 minutes?” THAT’S really annoying.

Every night around midnight to 3am he comes into our room and sleeps on the floor. It’s not terribly annoying, but I know it’s going to cause issues in the future. We’re both putting off fighting it cause neither of us want to fight him at 3am. I know most of this will fall to me, as Teresa becomes and irrational she-beast when you wake her at night.

That’s all I can think of to post right now. Sorry this isn’t more funny or entertaining…See? This is why I didn’t want to do this in the first place.

Oh, and I have some video. Somewhere in the middle there you’ll see we’ve been blessed with the most patient cat in the world.

One last thing, to add to the vacation post. I came into the kitchen Friday night to find the fridge pouring water out onto the floor. Several gallons of it. Now we get to replace all the wood laminate in our house. Yay.

Filed under: rambling by tonybullard
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Yeah, you know the song. That’s one of the great things about the success of the internet. If the record labels had it the way they wanted, I couldn’t link to a listenable version of the song, but they’d totally be cool with me recommending you go out and buy the whole album!

But I digress. (I think. I don’t really know what that word means.)

Today marks a couple big changes in the Bullard Atlanta HQ. Last night was awful. Teresa decided to try and ween Noah, and that meant me struggling for over an hour to get Noah to stay in bed. This included him learning that he is able to climb out of his crib, perfecting his door opening skills, and teaching us that we can no longer leave his light-switch stool in his room at night. Yeah, it was fun. Oh, he can also unlock a door.

So tonight, we start some changes. I’m sure this will mean another night of endless returns to his crib.

Change numer eins:

I figure if he’s going to climb out of bed, then it’s our job to teach him that him being in bed is a decision he has to make for himself. Might as well make it less dangerous. Of course, it’s in the picture, but Teresa has made a Great Wall of Pillows to shelter our snowflake from any falls. I figure there’s no better way to cure a kid of fitful sleeping than to take away his since of security in bed. No one sleeps sounder than those wrought with fear. or something. Maybe that’s backwards. Whatever, none of these decisions will have any lasting effects on any persons.

El Chango Numero Dose:

That’s the outside of his room. And that’s the lock, on the side I like to call “our side.” Because this is a war, and he’s on his side, and I’m on mine. Rar.

I know this may look awful at first glance, but to you I say loosen up your panties and think with me for a moment. The bed thing makes getting out of bed a decision on Noah’s part. From there he makes the decision to open the door, find us, and we put him back to bed. Last night I learned this is a game for him. He finds it funny. So locking the door is a way for me to make it less fun. He’s gained the control of being in bed or not, I’m keeping the control of him getting out of his room. We’ll never leave it locked through the night, and I hope to not have to use it at all. It’s really no worse than putting your kid in a wooden, padded cage that’s too deep for him to climb out.

And thus far everything is going fine. He’s been down for 15 minutes now, open bed, unlocked door, and it would appear he’ll stay down for the night. I’m still a little worrid, as he seemed to be telling us the small thunder outside was caring him. I told him it was God telling him goodnight (it’s loud cause you know…He’s God.) And of course, because God has that wonderful sense of humor, He made sure to tell Noah goodnight REALLY LOUD right after Teresa put him down. Let’s hope He doesn’t keep it up all night.

So there you have it folks. A quick look at the draconian parenting methods of the Bullards. Hey, if we seem to conservative in our parenting ways, maybe I can soothe you liberal folks with the story of Teresa making her own laundry detergent. Yep, first she’s making clothes, now laundry soap. Expect paisley shawls and bell bottom jeans any minute now.

UPDATE:
(Imagine the Unsolved Mysteries Update music here)
Noah got out of bed twice last night. At 3am he found me out on the couch asleep in front of the TV. He was excited to watch TV with me. I laid him back down and he seemed to be fine, but as I was moving my pillows into the bedroom he found me in the hall. I laid him down again and laid down next to his crib. He poked his head up a few times, but then went back to sleep. Then of course this morning he came into our room to wake us up. I guess that’ll be the new norm. Overall though, not too bad. No real fights.

Filed under: family by tonybullard
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