Haaaappy Birthdayyy Tooo Youuuuuuuu

The LW and I have been baby free for most of the day. She spent some of it downloading songs onto her swanky black iPod while fielding birthday phone calls from family and friends - I went to a neighborhood support network meeting. It worked out well because I was out of the house and she didn't have to chase a toddler. Auntie M was nice enough to play nanny today and it's a great thing. We're about to go out for California rolls and stuff at a sushi place and then hopefully pick up Pirates of the Caribbean 3 on the way home. It's fun just playing like we're adults again.

Park Afternoon

CP and I had a good time at the park this afternoon. It's getting to where she expects to be taken out in the afternoon after her nap and that's a good thing, I guess. There's a water fountain ring near the baby swings and she really wanted to see what was inside it this afternoon. I was cold, but we looked over the edge and into it anyway. There were other kids at the park by the time we finished with the swings and she had a good time watching the older kids running all over everything.

Unfortunately, some cranker had been smurfing under the playground equipment and left the cold medicine packs. I looked around in the sand for other garbage or maybe more dangerous things, but luckily didn't see anything. Speaking of garbage, you may begin to note that photos of CP will be small and probably increasingly grainy when you open them. I'm doing this on purpose after seeing what happened to another blogger with a cute daughter.

Winding Down

CP will start going to preschool one day a week and I'm pretty damned excited to get one day a week back to work and finish many of the lingering projects around here, in my business, and in all of the volunteer work that I've unknowingly buried myself with. It'll cost us what amounts to another phone bill every month, but we'll make do. We'll go see about it some time soon, but we're pretty sure that it's a sweet gig based on a personal recommendation from a good friend.

Another day goes in the tank as CP goes down to sleep, but not before causing one more bit of an uproar though. I never thought that breast feeding would be such a logistical pain in the ass sometimes. I pulled CP from the LW's arms a bit ago so that she could finish figuring out how to insert song names on iTunes. Well, CP decided that she would start to crash out on my shoulder and I figured that it would be a good idea for her to nurse before bedtime to keep her from waking up at midnight. Man, was I ever wrong. Little did I know that this bit of last-minute switch up would send the LW into a complete swearing, tossing stuff tailspin...just one more thing in a day full of back to back tailspin fodder. Maybe tomorrow I can be the windshield.... and maybe this week or the next CP will wean herself from this single-parent need.

Who... Me?

Nothing like starting the day off right. (fellow blogger Chile-see link on right sidebar-urged me to post this)

CP comes into the bathroom this morning and starts messing with something...I can't even remember what it was now...anyway, Frago the cat is in the catbox taking care of things. I give CP the loud "ehhh" goose snort of a correction and Frago interprets it as something he's screwed up and bolts, unfinished, out of the catbox trailing litter bits. He settles into the hall and licks himself for a bit. I'm still running the sonicare, and CP is standing in the hallway near Frago just looking for the next thing to get into. The sonicare gives me the final beep and we make it past all of this craziness and head out into the living room just in time to see Frago the cat slinking out of the, thanks to the Ikea bookshelves, very hard to reach into corner. There's only one reason that he slinks...he knows he's busted. Yup, he'd sneaked into said corner and emptied his relatively full cat bladder onto the floor. Why, just when I'm trying to get out the door? I mean, I just got up and got all lined up to get the kid out of the house and away from the hard-at-work LW. Well, all manner of sailor-speak came out of my mouth and he took off running, leaving CP standing there befuddled and wondering what she'd done wrong.

All of this prior to changing the second really poopy diaper and putting CP in the car just to get to the gym and then to Costco. If this seems funny to you, remember it the next time you're walking through the store somewhere and you see that parent who, at 9:17am appears to be just on the edge of grabbing a bottle of Crown Royal in the liquor section and polishing it off in the store. Smile at them and tell them that their kid is cute or something else nice.....it may just help a bit.

iPodded

The LW's birthday is coming up, so I purchased her present with the help of her siblings and asked her if she'd rather wait and pretend to be surprised about it or pretend to be surprised now. Of course, being impatient as she sometimes is, she chose now and is completely overjoyed with her new black iPod. We've already loaded our entire music collection onto it and relegated the CD's to storage.....and we still have 71GB left on the thing. It's an amazing little gadget and it's brought us back in touch will all of the music that we haven't listened to in a long time with it's simple shuffle function.

CP and I escaped to the park yesterday afternoon and had a good time. I chose a nearby park for a change of scenery and there were kids all over when we showed up. I sat down next to a very talkative lady who wanted to play with my camera and was so tied up with her that I didn't really get to talk to the lady on the other side of me who at one time worked for the AP as a photojournalist....that's the way it goes, I guess.

I was reading about China's banning of plastic shopping bags over at Katie's site and saw a comment posted by a gal from central Mississippi near where I grew up. It discussed the strange looks that she gets when she walks into grocery stores there with cloth bags. In some ways I remember MS being ahead on things (my education, fads, etc), but in many ways the state is just plain backward and seemingly unchangeable (my uncle calling me out on our VW by saying that I was giving money to "fawrners"). T-town is pretty good for getting good cloth bags and for people actually putting them to use. My favorite bag though, is the one that I had my logo printed on at CafePress. If you're wondering about the price and size, don't worry. It's a big, sturdy bag, and you get to put whatever you want on it!!

Medicating Kids

I've only made it through a few minutes of tonight's Frontline show and I'm already spitting mad. If you stick a kid inside a house every day with a video game and a refrigerator loaded full of sugary crap and gatorade then wonder why your kid doesn't pay attention to a damned thing, pack your stuff, drive to Tucson, and I'll just pimp-slap you a few times. Holy schnikeys! Have any of these people seen the movie Idiocracy?! These are kids folks....hyperactivity, screaming fits, vivid imaginations..... sound familiar? Kids riding around on bicycles with so much high fructose corn syrup in their systems that they can't think straight is just silly - maybe they should be treated for corn syrup addiction.

These kids need to be taken outside and run every day like race horses. Had my brother and I been kept caged up like some of these kids, we would have been diagnosed with everything Biederman could possibly write down during a trip to the crapper.

Sunny Tuesday

On the way home from our recent trip, we stopped at Steins, an old ghost town of sorts just on the side of I-10 out near the state line. It was a good stop that got CP out of the car, but it was closed. The irony of this was not lost on the LW and I. A ghost town...closed for business. That's where I shot this photo of her sporting the new hat that her aunt got for her.

This morning CP and I escaped the gravity that's held us in the house after our return from 16 days on the road. We went to the Y where I spent an hour in the gym and she went downstairs to twirl the ladies in the childwatch program around her little finger. It was good to feel my heart pumping blood and to just be back.

We left there and headed over to the La Encantada mall up in the foothills where we looked at salt and pepper crushers. The place itself is rather uppity, but the store employees who actually have to work for a living, were very nice. It seemed to me to be a small scale version of Horton Plaza in San Diego.

It's our third or fourth day on our used IKEA PS Lovas sofa/bed. The LW was goofing around on craigslist and found it for $50. Since it sells for $350 new, we decided that it would be a good plan to just go ahead and pick it up and disassemble our old king. There's so much more room in there now and CP has really been enjoying another bright room in the house.

Home

We made it in this afternoon from Van Horn, TX. Wheewww...
Time for a nap!

BananaBelle & Auntie V.

Saturday was departure day around here for many of the family. The Charlotte contingent bolted after supper, followed soon by the Cheeseheads.

We took this mass departure as a sign to go and visit some friends in town before our visit here is finished. I'm sure that the LW's folks enjoyed a bit of quiet too. Well, CP got to go visit her friend AnnaB and they had an interesting time of it. These are two singleton children who are raised by stay-at-home parents - let's just say that "sharing" was an interesting new concept. They had a good time and all of the parents enjoyed getting to catch up and discuss topics of interest divided along gender lines (Boys - Cameras & Girls - Books) CP's Uncle Ian prepared a wonderful dinner for us all and Auntie R. finished our visit off with an amazing brunch. We were sad to go, but on we went.

Something was wrong with Auntie V's car, so the plans to meet her somewhere were on the fritz. We arrived at her place to barking dogs and a happily squealing Auntie V. CP was immediately happy with her and interested by her two crazy pups. Things settled down after a bit and the LW and CP started in on a bit of napping. While they were doing this, I figured out that Auntie V's car, a 2000 model Jetta, had the same problem that we had before leaving T-town. The only thing different was that her brake lights were stuck on and this had drained the battery. This presents an interesting problem due to the shift lock system on her automatic transmission. With no brake switch, the interlock won't let you out of park. After a bit of internet searching, we found a way to get around that and get the car started. This problem is common on this and other VW models and there is a recall (called N4) out there for it.

We let that sleeping dog lie for a while and went to dinner at Lucky Brewgrille. It was a nice place and the food was great. CP enjoyed getting to roam around downstairs and was exerting her will after being sleepy and after seeing what other little people get away with when they exert their willpower. Mostly, she was just sleepy and tired of traveling. She arrived happily at home and is upstairs enjoying a quiet 2+ hour nap as I type this.

Before leaving Auntie V's, I advised her of what to do with the car. This afternoon, she called and said that the dealer had towed it for free (as they were supposed to do) and fixed it for free as well. We were both relieved to hear that she was back on the road....now, if only she'd stop running over stuff and beating up the front of the undercarriage and plastic parts.........they're expensive for VW's.

It's quiet here today and the LW is getting some work done. She just got the yearly note letting her know that big blue can't get their contract stuff together and that she was headed for a cut in her weekly paid hours as a result. We planned and budgeted for it, but we hope that it won't last 3 months like last year.....sheeeesh.....bureaucracy. The joys of being a contractor, I guess. Tomorrow morning we'll be heading to Durdurdurdanelle Arkansas to visit with my folks in order to avoid a 10+ hour drive in the car with CP on the way to Dallas to visit with the great grandmother. This will cut our drive into a 5+hour day followed by a 6+hour day and greatly decrease the need for stress relief/boxing gloves.

On The Road Again

Thursday was takeoff day for the xmas '07 Clark Griswold family truckster travel-a-thon. We loaded the wagon with diesel and stuff and headed out by 6:30am and it was a good day of highway driving....until we got to Deming. They're still doing construction on the cutoff between Deming and Hatch, so we bugged out and went through Las Cruces. It added an hour to our trip and as such, we didn't get to go to the Kaliedescope store in Albuquerque like we wanted. CP rolled with it though and we wound up just going to dinner at the Frontier. Just google it and you'll see. The food was good and CP had a blast running around in the place. It is huge. If you've got kids, it's really easy and we give it two greasy baby thumbs up.

We left the KOA there on Friday morning a bit late and with the time switch, this put us into Elk City later than expected. It's a running theme with us. Late...late...later.... We had dinner in the KOA's little TV room and hung out with the guy running the place while the owners are away. Arden Rapp (spelling?) was the guy's name and he said that he's been on the Canadian and PGA tours before and was going back this year. A nice enough chap...but the skeptic in both of us wonders how much of the story will hold water. Uncle LeRoy should know something about it and we'll ask upon our return. Anyway, there was a little playground there and CP loved it. She didn't love the wind at 2am though and woke up screaming so loud that it almost caused her mom to lose her dinner. It was that much of a shock. The wind was blowing so hard that it caused out little kabin's window curtains to blow around.

We sailed out of there at about 2:30am our time and were happily headed out of Oklahoma. The LW was worried about beating the snow....and worry she did. CP slept quietly for most of the last day of travel because it was dark and the clouds hung ominously low. CP grew agitated by the time her tummy said, "EAT!", so we pulled in at the McD's in Emporia. It was mid-morning and the place was humming. When we pulled in there was old snow on the ground, but by the time we were done with breakfast, the car and everything else was covered in fresh snow. It was blowing hard and really nasty by the time we were 10 minutes down the road. Wouldn't you know that this was the perfect time for CP to load her diaper in the middle of nowhere. Rural highway Kansas nowhere....the worst kind for poopy diapers and blowing snow. We finally found a place that looked ok and made the change. The LW lost it while trying to change CP's diaper on the only thing around....a chair. Why those Koala changing stations aren't all over is beyond us, but we sure could have used one. The LW and I were running on 3-4 hours of sleep and it was just ugly when the snow was added into the mix.

Soon we got down to about 30mph because we just couldn't see where we were going. After a few miles of this, it started clearing up, but for a while it was all white knuckles. It wouldn't bother me if it was just me in a 4WD, but with the little person, even a slide off into the grass with the possibility of being stuck can be dangerous. It was too cold to be outside for even a few minutes. 20 more miles or so and things were still clearing. By the time we almost got to Wellsville, the roads were relatively clear and we punched it back up to 70. Just as I did this though, we went across a bridge where some folks were stopped. Half of the distance across the bridge, a gust of wind moved the car and in trying to respond, I realized why the people were stopped on the side of the road. When I moved the steering wheel, nothing happened; it was a big sheet of black ice. Of the cars stopped on the side, two looked driveable and one had the grill smashed up near the windshield wipers where it had contacted the bridge. It looked like everyone was ok though and we breathed a sigh of relief.

Soon the sign on the road actually showed mileage to the Gardner exit and the LW was all smiles and joy. You could feel the air in the car lighten up and the LW told CP that we were getting close to Grandma's house..this was met with a grin. A few slippery turns later, we walked into a really warm house full of happy family and CP's wild cousins. A good end to the trip.

It's been good to see everyone and get to relax. The LW is using her grandmother's hand-cranked bread pail in making bread today with her dad. The dough is rising near the fireplace/stove and all is well. CP says, "HI" to all her peeps and wishes everyone happy holidays.

Tricycle Motor

Auntie M. came over yesterday for a bit and brought her gifts for CP since we'll be out of here for xmas. CP was really happy for the sit~n~spin and the art supplies, but the tricycle has been her joy.

I spent some time at the VW dealership this afternoon after the brake lights went completely out on the car over the weekend. I guess there's a recall for the brake switch, so it was a freebie. It's nice to have the CD service manual with updates and TDIClub.com resources so that I can learn about these things.

The EOS350D came in the post while I was gone. The image on the left and the others out on flickr are the first run. The new business starts soon and should be fun.

Wedding & Presents

I just talked to my bro - he and his girlfriend are getting married on xmas eve. He sounds really happy, so it's a good thing. I had to ask - married on xmas? This isn't the first go for either of them, so they don't want anything even mildly extravagant. It'll be simple and will be at the house that they've been shackin' up in. I wondered why they chose that date and he said that everyone will be in town and they can mark it down for 2007's taxes....good enough for me! They'll go somewhere fun for a getaway and have a good time. Heck, I may have to spring for the string of lamps or maybe the full sized lamp for a gift! FRAGILE! It's Italian!

Fa rah rah rah rah rah rah rah rah....

CP's still not eating a lot of food, but we keep putting as much different stuff in front of her as we can. She's still got plenty of fat and isn't having any problems running us both into the ground, so we're not too worried.

The photo stuff should start arriving tomorrow and we're all excited. Well, I guess I'm more excited than any other grown human in this house. I've been eyeballing this battery gizmo for extended shooting time. The LW and I discussed the stretching out of accessories as this camera earns its keep. I'll have to earn mine too....

Stop!....Go!

CP's figured out that she can bring her tickling to a screeching halt by simply saying, "stop". Of course, she learned right after this, that she could make it resume by simply saying "go". It's been fun and she's making the most of it.

Yesterday, the LW started choking and coughing on some water...go figure...and CP ran over to her and pushed her mouth open to look for what was making her mother cough. She said it was the funniest thing she'd seen in a while. Last night CP and I were playing with the kazoo. She'd laugh into it and start us all laughing. After this, she walked up to me with it in her mouth and had me bite on the other end. It was serious fun and just made us laugh all over.

This weekend, I'll be going to the local photography meetup.com meeting. It seems like a relatively active group of diverse folks with a good deal of experience. I hope that the LW and the baby get out to ride the Toys For Tots ride, but the weather may have something to do with her decision.

There's snow on the mountains and it's beautiful here. (click the little round dots on the right side to see the snow)

The Plunge

The LW and I have been kicking around the idea of my starting a photography business on the side and last night, we decided to dive in. She's wanted me to do this for some time, but I resisted for not wanting to turn a wonderful hobby into a job, but it'll be good for the eventual day that my hands and wrists just can't take it any more.

Our little point and shoot camera is ok, but so many irretrievable images are blurred or missed completely due to the hesitation inherent in such a small package. As you can see, my favorite subject is often too fast for even the flash. The newest prosumer additions to the camera stable will arrive soon and should lead to plenty of holiday pictures. I hope to get a website design going and get business cards in the mix too. I think that candids (as a backup guy for the professional), portraits, and sports stuff will be the majority of what I plan to do.

This morning it was a bit cool, so CP got her overalls on and we headed out for the book store and then on to the feed store. The chicks needed some pellets and scratch - plus the cats were a bit hungry this morning after I let their food supply run too low.

Blow!!

Today CP finally figured out the nose blowing trick today and has been showing off her newfound skills. It really helps the LW and I because the snot-vacuum thingy has come to be seen as the enemy.

We've been going for walks with the little person because, comically enough, she puts her hand up to your hand and says, "walk?". Who can resist that? She's become pretty adept at navigating over the landscape rocks and steep curbs that are in front of the houses of our neighbors. Earlier this week we were out and she'd had a little too much sugar (cookies), so we took her into the upstairs floor at the mall nearby. It was quiet and she kept us entertained while she ran through the isles turning that sugar into heat. The ladies working in the store just loved her and even played chase with her at one point. She was happy and tired by the time that we poured her into the car to head home.

Off to see Oma tomorrow...we hope!

Pull Over!!

....no, it's a cardigan.... (It's one of my favorite lines from a really crazy movie.)

We were supposed to go to the zoo today, but woke up to drizzle. Instead, we went to the Children's Museum and it was a blast as usual. We were early getting there by about 20 minutes, so we meandered over to the 17th Street Market. We picked up some Oolang tea for the LW and looked at all of the musical instruments that they have there. We'll probably be back for a xmas present or two from there. Once we got to the museum, CP and Teague were all over the place. One of the docents even came over when we were at the fire truck and turned on the lights. The kids got a kick out of it and CP loved all of the lateral running space. We didn't spend as much time in the music room this time, but it was really warm in there. We made up for it in the playroom with the frogs on the conveyor though. They loved that one. They have little stuffed toy frogs attached to a rope operated vertical conveyor setup with velcro and at the top is a ceiling fan with two blades. As the frogs get to the top of the conveyor, the fan blades come around and smack them off which sends them flying across the room. The kids then round them up and do it all over again. It was a hoot. It wasn't working the last time we were there, so this was my first time around with it and I really had fun with it.

Every Day...

..is a good day with my lovely wife and beautiful daughter. I woke up to a smiling baby full of laughter. We all played "tickle..tickle" this morning before getting up and getting going.....and she's been going full blast this morning. My LW gave me a wonderful card and a Wailin' Jennys CD, then my maternal grandparents called and sang happy birthday to me. It's pretty funny stuff to listen to, and remarkable because they never leave messages for me, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I've been trying to get in touch with my mom, because today is her birthday too (I was a 20th birthday present, of sorts), but her line is busy busy this morning and that's a good thing.

Neti Pot

I use the wife's little oriental teapot for sinus irrigation usually, but this time I waited too long after my eyes started watering and sinusitis crept up on me like a fog, and on little cat feet even. It's been an interesting few days of sniffling and sneezing, but I hope to be over this soon because work's beginning to filter in more an more. I'm enjoying that, but it's tough to work when your head feels like a bowling ball.

CP and I have the house to ourselves today since the LW took off on the bicycle this morning. She went down to one of the coffee shops in town today to meet one of the garden coordinators that's now a co-worker. It's really good to see someone else land a good spot that allows them the freedom to work from anywhere with only a laptop computer and a wifi or cellular bb card. CP and I were outside a good bit today and she's now a wheelbarrow riding fiend. Can't get enough of the thing. We go and spend a lot of money on a bike trailer/stroller/hiker and all she wants to do is ride in a $10 wheelbarrow. It just figures.....

I've put out the word to most of the family already that this year we'd like for CP to get musical instruments and art supplies for xmas. She likes stuffed critters alright, but her interest in them fades really quickly and they're quickly tossed aside when crayons or drums are about. CP's uncle Richard has already alluded to the idea of getting her a bullhorn/siren for a gift. He's a funny man for an engineer. CP really likes the musical instrument room at the children's museum here in town. The only thing that dragged her away from that last time was the model trains that were running.

The flickr spot should have some new images from my last round of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

Picher Perfect

The LW and I watched a disturbing show last night on PBS. It was an Independent Lens program called The Creek Runs Red. I didn't know that the LW had changed the channel, but I heard someone speaking who sounded a little bit slow. I turned around to see someone who could have very easily been a part of my family down in Mississippi. She was going on and on in an obvious redneck dialect about how lead poisoning hadn't done anything to her or her family and that she didn't know what all the fuss was about. I found it interesting that this person is basically a poster child for learning disabilities caused by heavy metals .......and that by having learning disabilities, she doesn't even realize that she's the poster child.

The show is worth watching. I had basically heard these people speak before. They're all over just about everywhere that I've lived. In Canon City, CO they're the folks that still believe that dirt from the Manhattan project that's stored near the water supply (and almost leaking into the water supply for most of western Kansas) won't hurt them or their kids. Yup, if you don't want to find anything, don't put in the correct monitoring wells....problem solved right? In Mississippi, they're the families of folks that have lived near the cotton fields and been subjected to boll weevil poison and defoliant drift all of their lives, yet continue to wonder why they have so many strange illnesses in their communities. CMT anyone?

Deadlines and a New Doctor

I left the LW this afternoon in a pretty bad state. She was buggin' because her deadline for file check-in was moving up fast and I had to leave for work. Something about a translation department in Japan, I think. Technical writers and their time-shifted global deadlines......

As usual, CP was doing her best to make everyone in the house fully aware of her needs and wants. We try our best to humor her, but sheeeesh, it gets hard sometimes. We took her to meet her new pediatrician today. You might recall that her last doc got fired down the road for messing with the labial adhesions in the old-school, "just separate them, it won't bother her" way. We had to find someone new because if he did that again, I was going to kick his old ass into next year....and then I'd need a lawyer for xmas.

Anyway, the new doc is a really nice lady who took a careful look at CP and judged her to be bright and happy. They have a large waiting room with a playground and CP was happy right from the start. The doc let CP play with her medical equipment and she absolutely loved it. She prescribed some cream ( at $100/tube) for her and things will be just fine soon. Of course, since CP was sick most of last month, we got the standard issue "are you feeding her?" type questions. I tried to explain that she had been sick/off of food for almost a month and that we'd basically been trying to throw everything in the cupboards at her, but little stuff like that just flies by, or so it seems.

CP's happily sleeping now and the house is quiet. The LW wore CP out this evening while I was at work with singing and ring-around-the-rosie. All is well.

Oh, if anyone else out there wondered how to create a backup of their blogspot blog, here's a neat trick:

http://yourblognamehere.blogspot.com/search?updated
-min=2005-01-01T00%3A00%3A00Z&updated-max
=2010-01-0101T00%3A00%3A00Z&max-results=3000

Insert this bit of code into the url line after you change the dates to reflect what you want. Once you're there, using Firefox of course, go to file and save page as. It'll save it so that you'll at least have the files should something go wrong.