snagabag

Well, the day is finally here. The day I had avoided for 687 days.

D-Day …also known as Dad Day. Am I doomed? Check back in a week.
(ok, also known for something else, but this is my blog!)

Yep, after almost two years of being a dad, today is the first time I’ll be taking care of Liah without the help of her mom. Aparna has to travel for work today and won’t be back until tomorrow.

But wait! It gets even better. After returning tomorrow, Aparna is off again for work on Thursday and won’t be back until the following Tuesday!

That’s right. Liah is going to be cared for by her dad for 7 of the next 8 days. (now is when you say a silent prayer for Liah.)

Am I nervous? Let me give you the same answer Aparna gave her doctor when she asked if she wanted an epidural, “YES!”

It’s going to be an interesting week to say the least. The flip side of me not having ever watched Liah exclusively for one night, much less one week, is that Liah has never had to deal with me exclusively for that long. Oh boy, is she in for a surprise. As you might guess, I have a somewhat different approach to parenting than my lovely wife.

The main concern, which will come as no surprise to those who know me, is that I can be quite stubborn, but it is hard to out-stubborn a 2-year old. Nevertheless, Aparna is dearly hoping the next week doesn’t turn into the “Battle of the Goyals,” because we all know who will win that battle… Liah.

Luckily, my friends have offered to help. I’m aware they are doing this more to protect Liah then help me out, and I’m 100% ok with that.

Just a quick note that Aparna & I celebrated 7 years of being married to each other recently. It’s been a fantastic seven years. Ok, taken individually, not every single day has been great, but taken as a whole… I wouldn’t change a thing. Aparna, on the other hand, has a list of 82 things she’d like to see changed immediately.

We treated ourselves to dinner at a restaurant we had not been to before, Roy’s. I’m happy to say we really liked it. They had a personalized congratulations for us (I mentioned it was our anniversary when I made the reservation), the food was delicious, and the service was very friendly. We look forward to going back!

Liah all dressed up for Mother’s Day

As mentioned recently, I saw Shrek The Third. Unlike the last movie I reviewed, Shrek 3 was just ok. I did not find it as entertaining as Shrek 2, and I did not find Shrek 2 as entertaining as the original Shrek! I found the story to be a bit boring, which is not unexpected when watching the third film in a series.

Please keep in mind that you may not share my opinion. For instance, my co-reviewer for this film, Anila, thought Shrek 3 was “awesome!”

Believe it or not, I’ve actually seen a couple of movies in a movie theater during the past week. The first one I saw was Hot Fuzz, and I thought it was extremely entertaining. I highly recommend watching this movie. First off, it actually has a strong plot (so rare in movies these days), as well as great acting. The humor is exceptionally witty I feel, and the action scenes are well done. I’d say the movie is a mix between comedy and action. However, as the film is a British film, the humor is a bit more dry than your typical American film, but I love dry humor so that wasn’t an issue for me. It’s from the same team who made Shaun of the Dead, which is also an excellent movie. If you liked SotD, then you’ll definitely like Hot Fuzz.

Happy 8th Birthday to Anila! Aparna’s little sister turned 8 last week, and we went down to Corpus this past weekend to celebrate with her. She is a fantastic girl who is so much fun to be around, and she is a great big sis to Liah. …and by “great” I mean “patient” as Anila cheerfully puts up with Liah’s constant stream of “NO” and “MINE.”

For me, it’s great watching Anila grow up. I sometimes wonder what it’ll be like with Liah as she gets older, and hanging out with Anila is a reminder that it’ll be great. For example, Anila & I went to go see Shrek The Third on Saturday, and I had a great time. The movie itself was only ok, but I had a really fun time hanging out with Anila. I’m pretty sure it was the first time just she & I had hung out. It gives me hope that Liah will like me for at least 10 years!

I’m not sure if I’ve overused the word great in this post, so let me conclude with a final great. great.

Witness the awesome fury of me slamming the ball through the rim!*

*The fact the rim is only eight feet above the ground should in no way detract from my awesomeness.

The internet never ceases to amaze me. Flickr is a photo sharing site, and someone has up and created a little script that will find images consisting of letters of the alphabet of your choosing. Neat.

You’re looking at a photo I took of two room staff at the Hyatt Santa Clara capturing a moth in my room. That’s correct, I took the photo because I was standing on the other side of the room.

Entomophobia is the name of the phobia describing those who fear bugs. Does the fact that I called for hotel staff to come to my room to remove a moth, and then waited for them to arrive instead of subduing (that’s right, I said subduing) the moth myself mean I’m a entomophobiac?

I wish. All it means is that I’m a big baby when it comes to bugs/critters/insects.

To be sure, my friends have a field day with this. How? There was the time one of them dangled a rubber band by my ear when I was driving, causing me to slightly wig out for fear that something was about to set up shop in my ear. These are my friends.

I mentioned in my recent post about our first Liah-less vacation that my parents came to Austin to watch Liah. My mom flew down on Thursday and watched Liah by herself for a couple of days before my dad drove on Saturday afternoon. By my reckoning, it was the first time my mom was taking care of little girl all by herself since Irma was a baby (and that was a long time ago!)

I wanted to give my parents a public thanks for taking care of Liah, and especially my mom for being able to handle Liah one-on-one (not an easy task IMHO!)

My mom is a great babysitter. She feeds Liah great food, plays games with her, reads books to her, etc. etc. In fact, I have a nice photo of mom showing off her babysitting skills while Aparna & I were in Cancun.