Tuesdays with Sadie: Standing alone

Around twelve o'clock or so I was lying on the floor with my glasses tucked behind my back as s crawled by. The glasses were tucked behind my back because s perceives that my glasses are akin to gold bars. Thus, when I see her doing the wounded buddy across the floor towards, panting slightly as she approaches, I remove my glasses and hide them behind me. Upon her arrival she usually pats my cheek then proceeds to sort of rake at it. This act, endearing as it is, is followed by a gentle probing of my eyeballs with her fingers. All charming I assure you. However, knowing s I can prepare myself for her unwanted abuse. That's why I was surprised today when s introduced a new trick. As I said, as I was lying on my back in a posture of extreme fatigue the wounded buddy made her way next to me, panting and smiling. And I, assuming that an eye gouge was at the ready, began to close my eyes, except, s wasn't interested in my eyes. No, she leaned forward and put her mouth over my entire nose. I'd chalk it up to teething, but let's be honest it's weird. I think a more sane father would probably understand that the cause was more sinister. She clearly believes that by closing off my airway she'll be able to get rid of me and have all the puffs she wants.

An hour after the nose incident I went to the kitchen to make myself a delicious lunch of microwaved hot dog. I would have checked in on s while I was doing it, but I was busy preparing her lunch as well. And, admittedly, the heavenly aroma of microwaved hot dog kept me there. So, upon noticing that she'd been silent for a bit I checked in on her. And there she was, smiling and sitting up on her knees at the foot of the bookshelf and just beginning to try and stand. Naturally I surrounded her with a bevy of pillows so that when she inevitably failed the crying could be held to minimum.She gamely reached up before crashing back to earth Icarus style, but she was cradled by a pillow. At that point she looked up at me worriedly as if asking what to do next, I smiled.

So now knowing that she's in the process of attempting to pull up I leave the room for a while to prepare her bottle, and I have to do this sort of mental dance of how long I should leave her because she won't pull up with us there because she uses us to pull up instead and whines a bit and does the wounded buddy routine. Like most artists she prefers being alone. Therefore, I let her work on the rocking chair in peace, and when I came back into the room she was sitting on her knees and smiling. And so I encouraged her to not give up, to not go quietly into the night, and she pulled herself up to standing for the very first time. I can't remember the last time I did something consequential for the first time.

Besides standing s's main goal in life is to climb without ceasing on whatever adult body lies near her. And, in the process, removing any excess skin you might have on your legs, chest, face, or arms. Sometimes I pull away and try and let her know that it hurts. We've taken to occasionally saying "gentle" when she touches my face, and S shows her how to do it more softly. I think this just incites more rage in her as she pulls on my face. Either that or she's certain that her parents are impostors and she's trying to unmask us.

Tangled- a brief review

Listen, it's hard enough to review a cartoon movie made by Disney or Pixar as everyone loves them. They routinely garner Rotten Tomatoes scores in the low to mid-nineties that only the best and least controversial of movies can hope to achieve, The King's Speech comes to mind. Anyhow, I am sort of pre-biased against them by this, and, I submit, this is where Rotten Tomatoes starts to fall apart. How good is good?

As I was originally saying I had a run in with a bottle of wine before we watched Tangled that left me a bit punchy and perhaps not at the height of my critical abilities. I mistakenly thought that a group of four of us were "sharing" a bottle of wine. This sharing turned out to be me drinking 95 percent of the bottle.

Singing- Disney movies always have lots of singing. One of my favorite things about the Pixar movies is the lack of singing. I'm not sure what I learned from all those Disney classics except that Prine Ali jolly is he might be the most annoying song known to man and also that A Whole New World was written to make me weep like a little girl. After A whole New World it's safe to say that music probably could have ended. Tangled winds up being a moderately pleasurable Disney romp but not nearly as charming as The Princess and the Frog, which breaks a little bit with the Shrek mold carved for Tangled. That is not to say that it isn't a good movie, it's just hard to quantify how good.