Monday, January 21, 2008

Googled

Every now and then we used to post about the searches people used to find our blog. I'm not sure anyone actually finds us anymore, but our Google autofill shows what we've been searching for. Here is a sample:

"arosa": Sigh...what we wouldn't give to visit there again.

"arrested development": The (brilliantly funny) TV show, not the hip-hop group (although "Tennessee" was a fantastic song).

"babies and melon allergies", "baby and teething", "baby constipation", "baby vaccinations and side effects", "antihistmines and babies and eczema", "dairy allergy and babies", "nightshade vegetables and allergies and babies": Welcome to our world.

"babies and internal injuries", "babies vomiting blood after fall": Several months ago, good friends with a daughter just a little older than Baby were over at our house visiting Gretchen while I was at work. Their daughter snuck upstairs while no one was looking, slipped, and came tumbling down the stairs. As if that wasn't terrifying enough, she went limp and vomited blood. Gretchen called an ambulance and she was rushed to the hospital. Thank God, she only had a broken nose but was otherwise fine--evidently babies tumble down stairs with surprising frequency, so the doctors at the emergency room weren't even that concerned. A few days later she looked and acted as if nothing had ever happened. Even though it wasn't Baby, I'd say it was probably our scariest moment as parents. (For the longest time after that, every time Baby heard a fire engine she would point to her nose or her head and make a fake cry for her friend.)

"fat cream": The Swiss answer to any skin-related malady.

"germany shopping sunday": Don't even think about it.

"haka": I generally could care less about rugby, but the Maori/Pacific Island war dance done by the New Zealand All Blacks (and evidently by Tonga...who knew?) is one of the great rituals in sports.

"hema": A Dutch store, and our favorite source of inexpensive, colorful, European baby clothes whenever we were able to get up to Amsterdam.

"kaffee und kuchen": What Gretchen misses dearly every afternoon.

"lutheran and godparents": One of the first things we were going to do when we got back to the States was have Baby baptized. It's not that this is urgent; there's no fear of limbo or anything like that (although this has evidently changed in the Catholic church as well). Through a combination of procrastination on our part and intense fussiness in church on Baby's part, we still haven't gotten around to it. Oh well, one of these days...

"maldives": When we were planning our "babymoon" before Baby was born, the Maldives were one of those once-in-a-lifetime destinations we seriously considered. In the end Thailand was much more affordable and had better access to health care in the event of an emergency.

"rancho bernardo instant replay": The Instant Replay was a sports bar (before sports bars were a dime a dozen) in a strip mall a block from the house I grew up in. I only went once that I can remember, but it was an institution that was popular with most of the Dads in town. I hadn't really thought about it for years, but looked it up after the big fires in San Diego this fall to try and find more info about my old neighborhood. I couldn't actually find much from my search, but later pieced together that the fire evidently burned as close as across the street.

"roger sanchez and another chance and video": First saw the video for "Another Chance" on a work trip to Europe before we moved there and both the video and song really stuck with me.

"tila tequila and wikipedia": I'm sure Gretchen has a good story for this.

"tim cahill grace": A beautiful essay about Grace (both the dog and the spiritual concept) that I've read countless times and never gets old.

"wiggles caterina": We swore we would try to limit Baby's television, and to a large extent we've been able to do that. One notable exception: The Wiggles. Baby loves the music and dancing, Gretchen loves the Aussie accents, and I've developed small crushes on some of the dancers--Caterina in particular (although, for the record, I had nothing to do with this fan site). And it turns out we just missed them here in DC! I really never would have guessed that one of the things that comes with fatherhood is finding yourself assessing the cuteness and/or hotness of characters on your daughter's favorite shows...