The Movie Draft - Rom-coms, Tom Hanks, and Child Actors

Inspired by the Blank Jones Movie Draft, over dinner last night, S and I conducted our own "movie draft" while multitasking to keep D fed and occupied. It was kind of fun and makes for some good conversation.

The basic premise is to choose an arbitrary category of movies (as general or specific as you want), then go back and forth picking your favorite movies in that category to get your own personalized lineup for our fictional movie channel. We restricted it to movies that we had seen before, and we also had to go off of memory, forbidding the use of the internet to jog our memories.  This made it more agonizing but also more exciting to try and remember whether there was an important movie that we missed.

We drafted for 3 categories - see what you think of our picks.

Category 1: Romantic comedies, S with first pick
1) S: Pretty Woman
2) B: The Princess Bride
3) S: When Harry Met Sally
4) B: Jerry Maguire
5) S: 10 Things I Hate About You
6) B: Dave
7) S: French Kiss
8) B: Big

Category 2: Tom Hanks movies, B with first pick
1) B: Saving Private Ryan
2) S: Catch Me If You Can
3) B: Apollo 13
4) S: Big
5) B: Cast Away
6) S: Road to Perdition
7) B: Forrest Gump
8) S: The Green Mile

Category 3: Movies with a child (elementary-school age) as a main character, S with first pick
1) S: The Sixth Sense
2) B: The Shining
3) S: E.T.
4) B: Little Miss Sunshine
5) S: The Little Princess
6) B: Home Alone
7) S: Mighty Ducks
8) B: Iron Giant
9) S: Escape from Witch Mountain
10) B: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Another view of our picks - whose channel would you rather watch?

Romantic comedies - S
Pretty Woman, When Harry Met Sally, 10 Things I Hate About You, French Kiss

Romantic comedies - B
The Princess Bride, Jerry Maguire, Dave, Big

Tom Hanks movies - S
Catch Me If You Can, Big, Road to Perdition, The Green Mile

Tom Hanks movies - B
Saving Private Ryan, Apollo 13, Cast Away, Forrest Gump

(we retroactively disqualified the Toy Story movies since he's voice acting in those)

Child movies - S
The Sixth Sense, E.T., The Little Princess, Mighty Ducks, Escape from Witch Mountain

Child movies - B
The Shining, Little Miss Sunshine, Home Alone, Iron Giant, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Traveling lessons learned with our one-year old

A month ago, we went on a 12-day vacation to New York where we spent some time visiting S's brother and ate our way through many of the locations mentioned in the Serious Eats Guide to NYC.

The timing happened to work out such that I had a little bit of a window in a busy season at work (we just finished a milestone), and I still had quite a bit of California paid family leave (which expires after the baby turns 1 year old) remaining.  Plus, after a year of stay-at-home mom-hood, S was raring to get out of the house for a while, so we got some last minute tickets, found a good hotel deal, and packed everything up.

On the good side, we got to spend some quality time with S's brother, ate a lot of good food, got to catch up with old friend Pastor Drew, and got to introduce little D to the City That Never Sleeps.  Our pictorial highlights can be found here and I'll mention a few culinary highlights for the food enthusiasts at the bottom of this post.  But on the flip side, we also went through several painful lessons of traveling with our little boy that I'll document here so that if any other travel newbie parents have a similarly-temperament-ed child to ours, they can learn from our pain.  Of course, every baby is different, so your mileage may vary.

1. Try to do your traveling after the baby is in more solid health (probably after 3 months in most cases) but before baby gets mobile (crawling, walking, etc.). Ever since D gained the ability to move himself around, he cannot be in one place for an extended period of time - he'll go crazy very loudly.  This is why we didn't have problems on our flight to Hawaii to visit S' parents at 5 months, but also why both flying to NYC and back were exercises in frustration trying to keep a squirming baby in our laps while the "Fasten seat belt" sign was on.
2. Avoid redeyes. We've always taken the redeye from SJC to JFK since it's the only direct flight on JetBlue, with all other flights earlier in the day having at least one layover. We figured, D sleeps wonderfully at night, so he shouldn't have any problems, right? Big time wrong.  We got maybe a total of 30 mins sleep on the flight over (meaning 30 mins of sleep the whole night), and were stressed out the entire time because the entire plane is trying to sleep and D was melting down. Right off the bat we already felt like canceling our vacation and going back home.
3. Spend the money to get a hotel room unless you can stay with a friend/family member who has baby items like a crib. In Long Island, we stayed with S's generous brother who housed us for a few days, but it was difficult for D to adjust to sleeping on a camping mat in the living room next to our air mattress, so he was up in the middle of the night every night. Feeding was also difficult without a high chair, so it'd be wise to pack a booster seat or something like that (even though they take a lot of room).  In addition, one other benefit to staying at a hotel is that you don't have to worry as much about cleaning up after yourself.  So to recap, for the first 5 days of the trip, each day (usually in the dark of early morning) it was tempting to call it quits and head back home.
4. If you can afford it, look for a suite rather than a standard hotel room. Since D goes to sleep earlier in the evening, we had several nights where we would get him ready for bed, then S would put him down while I walked out to get us dinner. We could then eat dinner and hang out, converse, watch TV/movies, or whatever else without having to worry about disturbing the little one. Since D has gotten used to sleeping in his own room, we actually found that he slept better if we stayed out of the bedroom entirely and slept on the sofa bed. It made our sleep less comfortable, but he ended up sleeping 12 hours in a stretch.
   Incidentally, if anyone ever vacations to Manhattan with a baby, we highly recommend our hotel - the Affinia Shelburne.  It's not cheap (very little lodging in Manhattan is) but given how much time we spent in the room while on D's schedule, it was awesome. In addition to springing for the suite, the room had a kitchenette w/ microwave so we could reheat leftovers on eat-in nights, and the hotel also provided a crib, high chair, baby bath tub, and humidifier. Very, very baby friendly.
5. Make sure to have a nice, light umbrella stroller and baby carrier for urban settings. We were constantly switching back and forth as we walked around the city, down and up stairs into the subway, so the extra mobility was essential.  The other fun thing was that D started pushing his own stroller as a walker whenever we could find a big open area. It was amusing seeing incoming pedestrians startle as they saw what appeared to be a remote-controlled stroller moving towards them until they passed by to see D earnestly trudging away.

Finally, our five favorite bites from our "food tour" of places around the city (click on the links for photos and descriptions).

     5.  Pork belly buns from Momofuku Ssam and the pork belly sandwich from Num Pang.

     4.  Smoked salmon and pickled herring from Russ and Daughters.

     3.  NYC-style pizza from John's Pizzeria and Neapolitan-style pizza from Motorino.

     2.  Halal Mix Chicken and Gyro over Rice from the Halal Guys - we didn't have very high expectations for this food cart and it was awesome, and just $6. Even though it was enough food for two, we regretted not getting two and eating even more.

     1.  Grilled Scallop with Uni and Uni Porridge from Neta - we got out for one nice meal while S's brother stayed in the hotel with a sleeping D. This Japanese restaurant had two incredibly delicious dishes where uni acted as a flavor enhancer. 

9 parenting thoughts at 9 months (part 1)

Nine months ago this past Sunday, S and I welcomed our little ball of joy (and frustration, and kookiness) into the world and had our lives turned upside down.  Haven't done much musing since 3 months, so here's a list of 9 thoughts on the experience so far (give or take a few memories):

1) They say that with parenting, the days are long and the weeks are short.  As I write this, it is hard to believe that we're 3/4 of the way through his first year.  Yet, there were seemingly countless occasions when he's crying his head off, it's way too early/late, we have no idea what's wrong, and the seconds were crawling by interminably.  To paraphrase Einstein's famous quote, play with a happy baby for an hour and it seems like a minute, hold a wailing baby for a minute and it seems like an hour.  That's relativity.

2) In C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, for those who haven't read it, the premise is that of a veteran devil mentoring a novice devil on how to best trip up, lead astray, and ultimately bring misery to his assigned human.  It's been a while since I read it so I don't remember if this was one of his pieces of "advice", but it is really easy to be tormented by the comparison demon as a parent.  You look at other babies and parents on Facebook or in person, and even though your brain might know that other parents are just putting their best face forward, you almost reflexively compare developmental milestones, eating/sleeping habits, overall health, and inevitably find your own baby (and by proxy your own parenting) lacking in some way.  S and I have had to learn how to encourage each other and guard our thought lives when one or the other of us begins spiraling into irrational envy.

3) Speaking of which, I'm so glad that we're in this parenting thing together in a committed marriage.  The tough times can be so tough that it wears away at your reserves of good nature and grace, which makes it a lot easier to succumb to bickering and fights with each other over even minor things.  We're gradually learning how and when to bring up issues (best not to do after D has been screaming all day) and how to ask and grant forgiveness.

Tim Keller likes to explain the stresses of marriage by using the analogy of a train going over a suspension bridge - the weight of the train reveals any cracks or structural weaknesses in the bridge.  Similarly, getting married and living together reveals the cracks and structural weaknesses in our relationship.  If that's the case, having a baby is like a train going over that bridge while being bombarded with a rockslide and lava from a nearby erupting volcano.  For couples who don't have kids yet - dealing with as many issues as you can before having kids is a wise thing to do.

4) S went away for a weekend with friends at the end of February, so I had D to myself that weekend.  It wasn't too difficult because my parents live nearby and love spending time with him, so I mostly had to handle him nights and mornings.  It did get me thinking, though.

Much respect to the many, many single parents out there who are doing the best they can on their own, because they love their children.  There aren't too many single parents in my social circles, but from stories I've read - for example athletes who grew up poor - many (most?) of them grew up with just 1 parent in the home who sacrificed a lot to make ends meet.  The lucky ones might have a grandparent in the home too.

Given that, it's easy to see how difficult it would be to help your children escape the cycle of poverty from poor, single parent households.  If the parent is out working odd jobs to put food on the table, it probably wouldn't take much for the kid to get involved with the wrong crowd or the wrong scene.

I like to ask D, semi-jokingly but mostly seriously, whether he appreciates how fortunate he is to have both a mom and dad at home.  Again, much respect to the moms or dads who are doing it on their own.

5) They say babies love music.  Babies love repetition.  Therefore, many of his toys repetitively play baby music that is just catchy enough to get stuck in your head the rest of the day, and just juvenile enough to drive me crazy.  For those of you who tend to get music stuck in your head - hope you'll like singing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" all day without even knowing it.

This is getting long, so I'll break the second half up into its own post.