Thank God for baseball and grandmas

I know, I know. It sounds like a sappy gol-bless-merica platitude. (You forgot motherhood and apple pie...)

Still. If it weren't for those two institutions, the last two weeks would have left me little more than a gelatinous blob.

GrammaMaus is with us and has been a tremendous help — every extra hour of sleep, every hot shower, every load of clean dishes, every afternoon nap, we owe to her. We even got out of the house for a hamburger the other day, which right now is like a weekend in Paris.

And then there's baseball — before fatherhood, I would watch a full game in real time every now and then, but usually just skimmed through games at 4x speed on Tivo, picking out the scoring situations and big plays and getting through a full game in under an hour.

Now, I watch every pitch of every game. Every replay. Every commercial. Pregame and postgame shows. It fits into my day so easily, so perfectly, it almost makes me believe baseball was invented specifically as therapy for sleep-deprived fathers. It's so reassuring, so comfortable — it makes me feel like a grounded human being. Dave Niehaus is my Mister Rogers.

(And and and! The Ms are playing the Cubbies this week — which for me is like the Beatles sharing a bill with Bob Dylan.)

And while I'm at it, thank God also for Johnny Cash. Because it seems nothing soothes our little outlaw like songs about train wrecks, hangings, and hard time.