Are We Still Cool?

11 months pregnant: a photo gallery

cool mum — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:18:26 +0000

You know those cute pictures you see on Facebook where a pregnant women takes pictures of her growing belly every week? I was just thinking the other day that no one seems to continue taking those belly pictures for the weeks after the baby was born. The shrinking belly is just as much as part of the whole experience as the growing belly, right?

In an effort to be cool and different, or maybe uncool and entertaining, here goes a picture gallery you probably won’t find anywhere on Facebook. It pretty much explains why people are still walking by me on the street telling me “Congratulations!!” when I don’t have any children with me.

I can only post these because this week I found out I am back to my pre-pregnancy weight. Yay! The last picture was taken a few days ago. Here goes…(gulp)

(L-R) Day 4, day 9, day 44.

Cool Dad’s Project Mom casting post

cool dad — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 03:12:24 +0000

Cool Mum knocked her casting video out of the park, yes? Well, Project Mom posted that they’re accepting submissions from dads, too, and I remembered that I’m a dad. A cool one, as a matter of fact. So, I’m contributing to the “Put the Cool Fam on TV” cause.

WHO I AM

I’m Eric Corpus, better known as Cool Dad around these parts. I blog because I want to move people, often to move them to laugh, but also to move them to think or even move them to move, as in take their lives to a completely new place.

OUR STORY

CM elegantly summarized our New York story in her video. It’s been a rollercoaster. (Here’s a fun slideshow of our first year.) The miraculous way that I got a job, living in a 200 sq ft studio apartment for six months, moving between six different apartments in the first year, quite possibly being the shortest man on any given subway car. In our brief time here, we’ve been touched by birth and death. The inconvenience and discomfort of the city makes the two years seem much longer, but we are far from done.

MY SIDE OF THE STORY

Every dad that I know here is full-speed in his career. I’m 33, and I’m just gaining speed. Long ago, I earned a degree in engineering, but I chose to chase my dreams and played in a rock band for 10 years instead. Now, with a wife and two kids to support, I have to figure out what I want to do for, oh… the rest of my life.

The opportunities of New York are unparalleled, but so is the competition. The city is exhilarating and exhausting. These are the questions that I live with:

How do I:

Establish a career, which will probably require more than 40 hours a week?
Find quality time with my two sons?
Devote time and energy to Cool Mum?
Support CM in maintaining the household?
Find time for myself, especially when our family is squished into one bedroom?

AND can I still be cool in the process?

BUT IT’S ALL GOOD

These are deep life issues, and I love it. The conflicts are heavily outnumbered by the moments of love and community and laughter and silliness. When you look at videos like this and this and this or read posts like this and this, you can tell that we’re having a good time. We want a fun life, and we thank God that we have it.

LAS MADRES

I’m proud to feel welcomed by the moms who follow our site. They’ve been sources of encouragement and help. And it’s been fun finding kindred spirits through Facebook and Twitter.

We hope that our story will inspire anyone leaning forward to take some leap of faith. At the very least, we hope that we’ll get an LOL out of you. That would be cool.

A kinda cool picture of Cool Dad (aka Eric Corpus) that was required by Project Mom.

Cool Mum’s Project Mom casting video

cool mum — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 21:34:00 +0000

A TV production company is looking for mom bloggers to be part of a reality show. Cool Dad thinks I might have a chance because what other mom is foolish enough to willingly live the way we live, right? If they like my video, they’ll call me in to interview at the big BlogHer conference here in NYC in a few weeks. Yikes. I always enjoy seeing CD step into the cameraman/director/editor role, so I agreed to all this. Here’s the final product!

Oh yeah, and some of you might notice that we taped this right after I cut off (by myself) about 8 inches of hair for some upcoming video posts. Check back later this week to watch me butcher my hair for the sake of frugality!

Did anyone else do this? If so, please post a link in the comments. And in general, would you be willing to be part of a reality show?

Checking our cool: Jennifer Garner

cool mum — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 18:36:49 +0000

Jennifer Garner went out for a stroll with her two girls in New York the other day. I wish I could say that I ran into her. I also wish that Cool Baby would stop waking Cool Newbie up from his naps. But seeing this article on Jennifer made me wonder if I’m still cool now that I have two kids. Let’s see –

1. THE LOOK

JG can wear an LBD that short because she has a nanny to help her out. If you’re by yourself and you’re always bending over to help the kids, you’ll earn a bad reputation on the playground. That’s why I often opt for the black nursing tanktop and maternity jorts. [-5 cool points] At least I was cool enough to wear a similar LBD on a date night when I was 9 mos pregnant.

2. THE STROLLER

JG’s three-wheeled stroller, Bob, could easily be friends with my Phil & Ted. [+2 cool points]

3. ENTOURAGE

JG’s entourage includes Victor Garber, an award-winning television, movie, and theater actor that played her father in Alias. Perhaps because some guy named Ben Affleck couldn’t make it that day. My entourage includes, um…Cool Dad? [-3 cool points]

NET CHANGE: -6 COOL POINTS

I’ll point out that Jennifer Garner has a little more experience because her kids are older. My only excuse is that I’ve only been a mom of two for six weeks, so sometimes I sacrifice cool points for the sake of just getting by.

***UPDATE 7/25: I went to church today with my infant and toddler, without Cool Dad or any kind of entourage, and wore a different little black dress! I did it! A couple of close calls with Cool Baby about to lift my dress. Other than that, I was okay!

The Cool Fam is grateful and crowded

cool dad — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:11:21 +0000

Continuing to catch up with the new Cool Fam of Four, we have been

THANKFUL

(I was thinking of doing all “ex-” words to carry on with the long Christian tradition of alliteration, but I decided against taking two hours to write this post.)

It was a hard pregnancy for Cool Mum. Her first trimester was met with awful morning sickness. And then she was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, which turned her diet and life all upside down. And she had an energetic Cool Baby to care for during all of the nausea and then the hunger.

Through the difficulties though, we have a healthy Cool Newbie, and we are SO thankful to God for the new little guy. He already has been a blessing to us and neighborhood family. Cool Baby is crazy about his new baby brother and has been very gentle with him. Also, since CN is nursing, his poop doesn’t stink. Praise the Lord!

In addition to being exhausted and thankful, we have been

SQUISHED

We’ve mentioned it before, but we four (Cool Mum, Cool Baby, Cool Newbie, and myself) are sharing one 8′x8′ bedroom in the Cool Duplex. I was hoping that anti-gravity machines would be invented by now so that I could just float around the room to get what I need. Unfortunately, it’s already 2010 and no anti-grav machines are available for home use.

So, instead, when I go to bed (after everyone else), I tiptoe, climb, and contort my body to get by CM’s bed, CB’s bed, and CN’s bed, all without waking any of them. Silent, surgical precision, which might come in handy should I decide to become a Navy SEAL.

By God’s grace, CN’s crying hasn’t woken up CB much at all. That was our main concern: that CN’s crying would keep CB awake, thus resulting in two cranky, tired boys. But CB has been snoozing through the late-night crying sessions, and so have I. I usually wake up when I hear CN crying, but I don’t get cranky at work after a short night’s sleep (though it’s fun to throw a tantrum at the office and collapse when someone tries to escort me out).

This bedroom is a sight to behold, so we’ll have a video tour soon.

The ubiquitous “best baby products” list

A name is chosen! And the Cool Fam could use a break

cool dad — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:26:18 +0000

It’s crazy to think that we’re already five weeks into the Two Cool Babies experiment. What is life like now with a Cool Fam of Four? We’ll catch up with a little series this week.

But first: What is the new Cool Baby’s blog nickname?

It was the first suggestion and it feels like the most fitting one. The new Cool Baby will be from hereon known as Cool Newbie! Many thanks to Sarah at themommylogues for the name. After all, little Micah is quite the n00b at this ‘being a person’ stuff.

And now to kick off our catch-up series, life as a Cool Fam of Four has been

EXHAUSTING

It was to be expected, I guess, but CN came out with his days and nights all upside down. He dozed through the day and was wide-eyed and awake in the wee hours of the night. Since I again failed to achieve sympathy lactation, Cool Mum was the only one who could feed him, so she had to get up whenever he called for food. Cool Baby had the same schedule 3 years ago, but of course, he was the only kid CM had to watch.

To complicate matters, CN is quite the town crier. CB fell asleep after his feedings. For the first several weeks, CN wouldn’t sleep between night feedings, so CM would have to get up with him and stay up. It was actually convenient when one of our roommates had insomnia (not from a fussy CN, we hope) and the two of them could talk during those late hours.

As of this week, CN has been better at night. He and CM have been able to sleep 2-3 hours between feedings. This is very much needed because the days are pretty tiring in themselves. CM has a fun-loving, hard-rocking CB to care for as well as the generally fussy CN.

Since CM is fully immersed in childcare, that leaves errands like grocery shopping and laundry to me. Now that I’m the only one who can, they need to be done more often. I usually do groceries around 7:00 am before work, and my weekends consistently include a lively evening at the laundromat.

This is not a difficult life, and there are so many who live with much harder hardships. Still, it has been exhausting. Thankfully, it has been at the same time a blast, and we’ll talk about that next time.

Did the new Cool Baby help run the Dharma Initiative?

cool dad — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:46:36 +0000

For as long as I’ve known Cool Mum, she’s enjoyed figuring out who people look like. Once in a while, it makes for an awkward exchange when she asks someone, “Do you know who you look like?” That’s as loaded a question to be asked as any. The response could damage a friendship, especially if it involved a cartoon character. Well, Jessica Rabbit being an exception, I would think.

The other day, CM proclaimed that she knew who the new baby looked like. I cringed a little.

“The guy from the Dharma videos!”

She’s talking about the TV show Lost and its enigmatic doctor of Asian origin who appeared in several 1970s training videos. Me being a Lost nerd, immediately provided a name: “Pierre Chang?”

“Yeah!”

Whatcha think – do you see a little Pierre Chang in the new Cool Baby? (Dr. Chang is the bottom if you’re not familiar with Lost. Or human infants in general.)

What should we name the new Cool Baby?

cool dad — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 15:33:09 +0000

Ok, so we have a name for the new Cool Baby, Micah. But a critical (some might say more important) issue remains: What should Micah’s silly blog nickname be?

Like I’ve said before, Cool Baby will always be my baby, so I’m not sure if I can promote him to Cool Boy in good conscience. Plus, if he becomes Cool Boy and the new Cool Baby becomes regular ol’ Cool Baby, that will leave us with two CBs. And future readers and alien civilizations discovering this blog will be thoroughly confused trying to determine which of the Cool Babies we are referring to on any given post.

And THEN, what will we do when we’re still blogging as old folks wondering whether we are still cool, and I will have to refer to the current Cool Baby as a Cool Man? That will give us two CMs, contributing to further frustration for readers to come.

So, please help us figure out this dilemma which may have intergalactic repercussions:

What should our new baby’s silly blog nickname be?

Cool Baby’s stroller = NYC sidewalk bulldozer

cool dad — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 21:11:53 +0000

This is from the free daily newspaper AM New York last week. This is totally me:

I don’t mean to be a baby-carting bully, but when people are standing in the middle of the sidewalk, they need some encouragement to do what normal, decent, law-biding citizens should do: get the heck out of the way.

If there were cars stopped in the middle of the highway for no good reason, what would you do? Lay on the horn. Well, the Cool Stroller doesn’t have a horn, but it has a fat front wheel that rides perfectly on the backs of peoples’ ankles (not that I’ve ever done that, though I’m curious how a busted-up Birkenstock got in our spokes).

And what if you were driving an ambulance coming upon said pointless roadblock? Well, you’d do much more than honk your horn. You’d push through the traffic if that meant saving the life of your patient. And if you’re thinking, “Well, CD, you’re not exactly in a life-and-death emergency here,” then you probably haven’t had a toddler screaming, “I NEED TO GO POO-POO” in your expensive, new double jogging stroller.

So, if you’re on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and stop in the middle of the sidewalk to ask yourself whether you just passed a Real Housewife of New York, and you happen to notice a speeding red blur behind you, roll. Cool Baby’s poo-poos wait for no one.

How do you mom bloggers do it?

cool dad — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 12:49:26 +0000

On Saturday morning, I wrote the baby name blog post. Writing on a Saturday morning sounds like a peaceful exercise, but I felt like I’d just finished the NYC Triathlon. Or more accurately, a UFC title fight.

I actually wrote most of the post on the subway. On Saturday, I put it on the blog and tweaked it. The irony is that I breezed through the writing of it on the packed train, even with a homeless guy harassing a girl next to me (he called her a “wench” on his way out), but I struggled to tweak the post at home because it’s hard to tweak and type with a 38-lb Cool Baby hanging from your arms.

He had just finished breakfast and asked me to play with him. I asked him to give me five minutes to finish my work, to which he replied, “No! You can’t finish your work!” Cool Mum and the baby were sleeping in the bedroom, so I tried to keep CB quiet. The five-minute tweak job turned into more than an hour of

CB asking me to fix his broken fishing pole
Me explaining helium and why I can’t blow up a sinking Mylar balloon
Me explaining boat buoyancy
Me trying to keep him quiet without the use of duct tape
Us playing and crashing Lego towers at alarming volumes

I am grateful to God that we are close enough buddies that he wants to have fun with me. We play all the time, and I love it (though I wish he would have just obeyed and given me my five minutes). I had my mind set on getting the blog post out early because I knew if I waited, it would never happen. I then marveled to myself:

How do you mom bloggers do it?

How do you write with one or more kids needing care and vying for your attention? Do you just write at night or do you have an activity or magic spell that you incorporate to keep the little ones occupied?