Rookie Dad: Beer budget, champagne tastes

The long weekend led to whole host of discoveries involving The Youngling.

The first discovery was that not only does she despise lakes, pools and sprinklers; the sandy shores of lakes enrage her. I have never seen a child so totally afraid of sand. It was both sad and hilarious.

Carrying her as she held on like she was being dangled above a pit of red hot lava with her short legs folded up, screaming the entire time. Needless to say, we never even bothered to put her little swimsuit on and she has yet to know what it's like to dip her toes in a lake.

The second discovery a few hours later that same day was that you do not wake her up, she wakes up on her own. This mistake led to nearly-bleeding ears as The Youngling shrieked, screamed and bawled for nearly 30 minutes. The crying got to such a level that she was shaking and I'm pretty sure that some dogs in the neighborhood were seeking soundproof shelter because that high decibel noise is nothing short of painful.

The final discovery was that she has rather spendy tastes. I've chronicled how little and how infrequently it seems that she eats but yesterday was a different story. As I sat eating my New York Strip which I painstakingly cooked in the dripping humidity in my back yard, The Youngling climbed up next to me after she had been fed/finished eating her lunch. Then she proceeded to grab my broccoli and eat more of that than I got to eat. Not satisfied having deprived her dad of half of his vegetables, she first pointed at the piece of New York Strip then grabbed it.

I gently pried the beef from her hand and put it back on my plate and quickly cut off a small piece which she greedily stuffed in to her tiny mouth. To my surprise, she chewed the piece of steak up like she had never eaten food before. She didn't spit it out, she didn't run away, she wanted more. So I kept repeating the process and gave her pieces of my expensive steak until she quit showing interest. That's when I realized that while we have a beer budget, The Youngling has champagne tastes. Maybe she can get by like Garfield the cat's nemesis, Nermal, and people will just give her stuff for being cute. If that's the case, may I suggest more New York Strip?