It was a year ago this week that we found out we were expecting a baby, something which caught us totally by surprise. Just when we’d gotten into an “oh well, that’s never gonna happen, I guess we can just do our own thing” groove, the universe decided to throw us a curve ball. … Read more
Evan’s mom got home from work early on Saturday, so it was time to bundle up the boy, break out his stroller, and go for a walk.
I’ve had a couple of train wreck days here lately, and Friday was definitely the icing on the cake. Evan was more temperamental than he’s been since he was born, and it was just because he’s been such a good kid, not prone to tantrums or other big displays without a reason, that it caught me off guard. And I know he’s still a good kid – I don’t believe there’s really “misbehavior” at the almost-four-month mark, just reactions to stimuli that I’m just not picking up on. (It doesn’t really help that I’m worn out at the moment.) It just alarmed me to feel like he was testing my patience, even though he wasn’t. It wasn’t him, just all in my head.
I’m not usually one to go for the New Year’s Resolution thing, because I’ve been at 1024 x 768 for years. That and, well, while I’m not going to say I can’t keep a promise to save my life, my circumstances seem to change so randomly that I try not to make any promises that I’m not sure I can keep. … Read more
Early October 2007…
…Evan’s swing just swallowed him whole. He couldn’t even hold his head up.
Early January 2008…
…he completely fills it up and holds his head up straight just fine, thankyouverymuch.
Another 2 or 3 months and he probably won’t fit the swing at all. 🙁 It’s all going by so fast that I can barely even comprehend it.… Read more
Let it never be said that I don’t know how to party. I left 2007 behind and rang in 2008 with a big bottle in my hand and getting kisses from a sassy young female.
Now, granted, the sassy young female was Olivia, who decided she’d jump up and lick my chin while I was feeding the bottle to Evan, but still! I am living on and/or near the edge, am I not?
Other than that, I think this post from a year ago pretty much sums up my new years’ feelings in general. I hope 2008 is good to you if you’re reading this (not that this should be taken to imply that I wish a pox, or a bunch of rox, or botox, upon those who aren’t reading this). I’m looking forward to more Evan time myself.… Read more
A little video piece celebrating the biggest event of my life this year (with apologies to David Byrne, who came up with a tune that’s ridiculously appropriate). This is a higher-resolution-than-usual video segment, so it may be choppy while it’s first loading.… Read more
Evan’s been a little bit cranky lately, has wanted the binky a bit more (which is odd, because he hasn’t been a baby who absolutely demands full-time binkyness), and has had trouble sleeping, occasionally going from being sound asleep to awake and screeching.
Turns out the little guy has his first toofers coming in! A few more of those (and a few more screaming fits) and semi-solid food, here we come. Poor little guy. I feel for him – it occurred to me that it’s almost exactly ten years since I had my own replacement toofers installed, and that was no walk in the park. Daddy has spent lots of time standing by the crib or carrying the little guy around, holding his hand while he’s having to endure this pain that he has no idea what to do with.
To observe the occasion of his first toofers, and the fact that it’s really really cold outside, here he is in his new little penguin outfit. Kid tested, Mr. Flibble approved.
If someone had told me, a decade ago while I was having teeth replaced, that ten years from that day I’d have a baby son going through teething pains, oh how I would have laughed.… Read more
The living room media PC project continues; installing Nero has solved a lot of problems; stuff that was playing with no audio is now playing with full audio. Yay! There are still some kinks to work out in getting theWindows audio/speaker settings, Nero’s audio output settings, and the living room’s occasionally baffling Dolby Pro Logic receiver to cooperate with each other, but that’s a job best left to the A/V engineer in the family…oh, wait. I guess that’d be me. I did conquer the mystery of why MP3s weren’t streaming from Zen (turns out the m3u playlist files use relative file locators instead of absolute ones – i.e., if the playlist is for an album contained in my “ELO” directory, the playlist entries are actualy “../elo/*.mp3” rather than the full network address leading to the right machine, the right drive, and the right branch of my directory bonsai tree. Obviously that’s not gonna get you jack from another computer – it has to be called up song-by-song. This is just a wee bit of a pain in the butt…but, as usual, I have – as they say – a cunning plan.
In the meantime, while my friends in Oklahoma and Missouri have been digging themselves out of a fresh glacier that’s been dumped on their heads since this time a week ago, we’ve just been getting rained on. A lot. This has resulted in, somewhat predictably, a very soggy dog. I let her in tonight and wrapped a towel around her so she could dry off somewhere other than all over the living room carpet. Lo and behold, she actually kept it on while she ate her specially prepared dinner consisting of dog food and, from last night’s dinner (ours, not hers), green beans and ostrich steak juice. Yum.
Xena later wolfed down another bonus helping of “human food”, some leftover scrambled eggs. Actually, saying she wolfed it down is underselling it a bit. I thought she was just going to eat the damn plate the way she was going after it. We have a kitty who loves biscuits, a dog who likes eggs, and I think we’d be hard-pressed to find a cat here who doesn’t like a bit of bacon. Smart money says the dog would make quick work of any available sausage too. Breakfast is therefore served here at one’s own risk. (We also have a cat here who likes dog food. I’ll let you guess who.)
And what’s Evan doing during all of his dog-drying and media meddling? He’s workin’ that binky, of course.
Evan has started making this great gurgling/burbling/rolling-R sound (and he’s not even Scottish!). If I can just teach him to say “Mercy!” before doing his rolling-R thing, then look out, Roy Orbison.… Read more
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