She's crawling and standing

The latest from our little girl

It's not quite crawling, but she's getting where she wants to go.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Our little girl wanted to wish all of you a Happy Valentine's Day! (and eat the card we made)

Love you all!

Cable's Out

My cable company, Time Warner, is boasting big improvements. Caller ID shows up on your TV, browse shows and movies up to 2 weeks in advance. Search for a show by keyword, subject, title, star, etc. And to do this they send my cable box the upgrade overnight... It's actually a series of upgrades over time.

About six months ago here was the story. I woke up and the cable box was flashing letters and numbers. I call the cable company and tell them the problem. They say something went wrong with the upgrade and to wait and it will fix itself. I wait, call back and they say to wait longer. I wait longer and call back. They go through various tests and diagnose and tell me they need to send a tech to my place. He'll show up a week later and fix it. I ask if I can go to their store and trade out my cable box for a new one. That's what I did. 1 short paragraph, but it took all day.

So today here is the story. I wake up and the cable box is flashing the exact same letters and numbers as six months ago. I call the cable company and they tell me to wait and it will fix itself. I wait and call back. I tell them the problem and explain why I''m familiar with it, they tell me to wait a little bit longer but as opposed to the previous times, they aren't saying call back a X o'clock, they just say 'later'. And now I'm wondering what we can do 2 hours from now that we can't do now.

"This has happened before. It doesn't fix itself. Let's take the alternate route." I don't want to trade out cable boxes (I have shows saved on there) but I'll bring that up later after their tests and such.

She comes back and tells me, "Right now there is nothing we can do. If you are still having this problem later than call us back and we will assist you then."

"Well when is later? Should I wait 1 hour? 3 hours?"

"We are available 24/7 so you can call us any time you like."

"I'd like right now."

"But we can't do anything right now"

"I know this problem, I've had this exact problem before. Why must I call back later to get something done. Why does it always take 3 or more calls to get my cable fixed? Let's do it right now."

"Right now there is nothing that we can do. But if you will call back later..."

"Later when?"

"We are available 24/7. You can call whenever you like."

OK, we are now officially going in circles. "Please, give me some sort of resolution. If this will fix itself, tell me when or by what time. If you can't give me a time, than let's get to fixing it NOW!"

After this was all over. I got the worst answer that I could have received. She told me noon, then she followed it up by saying that she was only guessing at that number and it came from no actual information.

It's Superbowl week (in retrospect)

This recent week Lynette and I needed a babysitter. We called Laura, my good friend and ex-coworker at the restaurant. When she left to find another job I mentioned maybe calling her to babysit some day. She said yes, then made sure to bring up the subject again. Just in case I was just making conversation, she wanted me to know that she was serious. She wanted to babysit.

Lynette's parents and our schedule gave us little to no need to have Laura babysit, but this most recent Friday, we called Laura and her mother, Carol. Carol practically begged to babysit and when I called to confirm she interrupted me to say, "You better not be calling to cancel." So Carol and Laura hung out at our place last Friday to watch the baby and dog and some TV. Near the end of the night I called to check up on them and they said, "Don't bother coming home. We've taken over you baby, dog and TV." But I came home anyway. I need the TV.

They had a great time. And Carol took the stereotypical babysitter picture. Laura sat on the couch and did what teenage babysitters do best. If only she'd known that she could use my phone all she wanted and not used any of her cell minutes.

Then the following Sunday, as I'm watching the Superbowl, Lynette decides that Sophia is not dressed properly. So 5 minutes later she shows back up and Fia is dressed appropriately for a football game. It was sweet. The outfit was a little too small on her, but she still pulled it off.

So I gotta explain

I think the others have been making assumptions about why I haven't posted. Let' me clarify: It's because I'm a bad person. There. I hope that clarifies it.

So I've mentioned this story to a lot of people. But our car got a boo-boo. It was hit and a big dent in the door had to be fixed. We took it to the body shop and got a rental car. Enterprise was a little short on cars so they gave me a truck. A Dodge Ram 1500 with 4 doors and the cab had as much room (or more) as the interior of my car. And it was massive and superfluous and excessive and really cool to drive.

So here are the standard Sophia picks for you. Her last monthly pictures included the rock anthem climactic scene. We also see her in her new Beatles shirt. (who didn't see that coming. I only wish it was pink) And the last one is recent. We changed car seat and the new one doesn't have the shade that the old one did. So we tried the window shades that stick to the car but those don't work all the time. So we bought sunglasses. We figured that she will have the sun blocked regardless of where the sun or her head is. But she takes them off as soon as she can.

More video

Sophia tried to eat our dog. He's OK with it.

Sorry it's so dark.

This is the video that I've been trying to send to a person or two.

Mymusic player

When I went to share our Capsules song I needed a place to host the song. I found an online storage site that gave me 10G free. I figure that is more than I'll ever need, but I'm in.

OK, I'm loading The Capsules song, and a lot of other things onto the site. Videos to share, more music to share. Everything. But MediaMax is so slow. When they have traffic, they really have traffic. So the songs on my blog are sometimes not working, cause the site that they are on is slow. Or as I'm writing this, the site is totally down.

So I'm looking for another site. maybe Xdrive will work better. Whatever I find, I'd love to find something fast and reliable and I'l happily upgrade to a larger package.


Oh and here's a contrast picture of Sophia. I'm around her everyday, so I can't see her growing. But she has. and here are the pictures to prove it... Nevermind, she's exactly the same.

Look what it's doing today!

So we are having our first snowfall of the season and despite the recent warm weather we've had it is actually sticking (Probably due to the freezing rain and sleet we got yesterday) So since it's also the first snowfall in Sophie's life, we thought we would document the occasion.









She hated the snow blowing in her face- it was really cute! Maybe next year we will actually play in the snow.

Never shake a baby

Unless she's asking for it.

Lynette has been trying to catch Sophia on camera laughing as she does. She finally did it, but the camera is not perfect. It's a little blurry and it makes this look more violent than it actually is but here she is laughing up a storm. Enjoy.

Sophia's bouncing time



In other news, here's a funny story about Lynette. So she is into Kevin Smith and a couple of his characters, Jay and Silent Bob.

Recently she learned about a film she was unaware of, "Jay and Silent Bob Do Degrassi" Neither of us had any idea, but she signed up for Blockbuster Online specifically to rent this movie.

Turns out that Degrassi is a kids show. Kinda an older version of "Saved By The Bell" or a younger version of "Dawsons Creek"

So we have a collection of episodes of "Degrassi: The Next Generation" with special guest stars, Jay and Silent Bob. It's funny cause this is a horrible show and Lynette went so far out of her way to get it.

What's spookier than a bunny?

So I have Haloween pictures to share, but the day itself was standard with no great stories to tell. So instead I'll talk about my observations on childrens TV.

So as Sophie has been taking somewhat of an interest in TV, I've done what I can to learn what shows I will let her watch and what I won't. I can remember Mom saying that she didn't allow Tracy to see Three Stooges because of the violence. Tracy said she didn't allow her kids to watch Rugrats cause they are creepy-looking. Well I'm jumping on board. I don't want Sophia to watch The Doodlebops. It's a Disney show that seems to center around 3 puppet-people who are in a band. Seems that the purpose of the show is to tell kids they are only getting half the story. If you're any kind of fan you need to buy our videos and see our live show. It's like Pokemon where the premise of the show was to buy the figurines and cards. Same with Yu-Gi-Oh.

As annoying as I find BooBah and Oobi, I don't think that I will scream and hollar if Sophia actually wanted to watch them. But I'm gonna continue to screen and shield her from what I feel is wrong with our over-commercialized world. Seems like near the opposite of what I said before I became a father. I always thought that by letting the child make their own decisions you let them be their own person. Now I realize that they won't make their own decisions. So I have to chose if I want her decisions to be made by me or commercials.

And from the poo and slobber...

...a person emerges.

I know that my little girl is soooo special and I've been looking for those little things that makes her different from everyone else on the planet (she needs to have her hand on her face when she eats)

But now she's starting to develop her personality and her likes and dislikes. Sophia was in my arms and I was watching... I don't know... Die Hard(?) And she started telling me in her own way that she didn't like what we were doing. So I, almost jokingly, told her, "If you don't want to watch my show, that's fine. I'll turn on your shows." and I turned the TV to Noggin. She sat and watched Noggin for near 45 minutes.

So we pulled out her Baby Einstein DVDs and started finding out what she likes and doesn't. She still isn't interested in what the TV is about. But she does like the bright colors moving on TV. Her favorite TV show is Maisy. It has the brightest colors with stark contrast and she loves it. I truely believe that she enjoys Maisy and I'm not making that decision for her.

Our little girl (set to music)

So the idea came before Sophia had appendages. My mother used to sing me a song she called, "My song" An old folk song that goes, "I love you, a bushel and a peck... etc" I don't know the title, but someone will surely say the title is something simple like, "bushel and peck"

Anyway, I wanted a song for my little girl. In fact, I loved the idea of her song being something like Goodnight My Angel by Billy Joel. It's a nice song that is sung in the 1st person from a father to a daughter. I loved the lyrics and was wanting to use that, until I found out that I wasn't the first to think of that. There is everything from a song to a childrens book with the lyrics. Seems great, but then I just felt that I was jumping on the bandwagon. Not what I was after.

So Lynette and I went to The Capsules. It's a local band that has released 2 1/2 albums that we enjoy. They were skeptical they could deliver what we wanted. But they took the challenge and sure enough. Today Lynette, Sophia and myself had dinner with Julie and Jason Shields to get the song. They sure came through with something great. In fact, I have 2 opinions.

Personally, I love the lyrics and the sound. It's dripping with The Capsules sound that Lynette and I have grown to love. It has Julie harmonizing with herself (which I love in their other songs) And the repetative scales (think Ave Maria) only adds to its childish charm (I think that phrase may be taken the wrong way. I only mean that it is meant for a baby, as it is)

Professionally (I know I'm not a professional) I was actually surprised that I was analyzing this song. Yet I couldn't help but notice the bold, yet confident steps they took with minors and incidentals. It shows development in style and more than an expected level of maturing. It only makes me more excited in hearing their next CD (which is still a ways off)

Without further ado. Here is Sophias song.

The Capsules

One Bright Shining Star

Shorter story for you: The shirt you see Sophia wearing is a gift from my friend Nigel who lives in Ireland. Yes, Sophia has an Irish shirt from Ireland. Anyway, Irish labeling says the size is 0-1 I assumed the shirt was equal to a 6-9 mo. But when we put it on her, we realized its 3-6 months and she's going to be grown out of it soon. It took me a bit before I agreed that she could wear it at all. Now I'm sad that she'll only be able to wear it a short while before it becomes too small.

Just like daddy

We went garage sale-ing a few weeks ago and I found a couple of hats for Sophie. I figured we should get something to put on her head since its getting colder and she still has NO hair to keep her head warm (She's going to be starting Kindergarten by the time she has hair at the rate it's growing now) Anyway, this hat reminded me of Ken and it was so adorable that I just couldn't pass it up.

Just a reminder of us

OK, if this is how I spend most of my day. In fact, I'd say 70% of the time that Lynette is at work, how is she able to grow and develop her muscles?

But she can. I don't know how, but she does.This morning SOphia was happy with sitting and watching some TV, she didn't want to take a lazy approach to it all. So she decided to sit up to get a better view at the TV.

So pictures is what you're after, pictures is what you'll get.

Sophia has been doing 2 new things. 1 is smiling at anyone who smiles at her. The other is learning what her tounge does.

Here is her in both poses.

Picture problems all around

I'm excited to see that Tracy and family had fun with the diet Coke and Mentos thing. I found out about it a while ago, I tried it and I've seen some interesting stuff on it.

They did an episode on Mythbusters about the phenom. Basically they said they already knew it to be true, so the show was about why it was true. They realized there is a chemical reaction between the aspertame, caffeine and something else (I think potassium benzoate) in the Diet Coke. And the gum and another long named chemical ingredient in the Mentos. Though you can get a reaction out of other beverages, it's not as big. But the biggest reaction came from something called nucleation. Basically the bubbles that are trapped in the Coke are violently released when they are able to escape via the dimples, cracks and fissures on the surface of the Mentos. I love Mythbusters cause they never are satisfied with giving us all the information about a myth. They also have to blow some stuff up.

They looked for the next big thing in chemical reactions.

1. They piped methane into a diffuser in a bucket of soapy water. The result was a lighter-than-air column of bubbles which they were able to set off in a gassy fireball. Cool, but who has a tank of methane lying around the house?

2. They cut 2 holes into a pringles can, one on the top and another on the bottom. They pumped Hydrogen into the bottom hole, then lit the top on fire. It burned like a candle for a second or two, then when the pressure was lost in the can, the fire rushed into the can and BOOM! They can exploded, and considering the blast, the chips themselves were relatively unharmed. Again, super fun, but also a little dangerous.

So on to Sophia. I don't know if it's because I'm staying home with Sophia all day, or if it's because she actually is growing and learning. She is A-L-M-O-S-T able to roll over all by herself. She can get from her back to her side, and sometimes from her side to her stomach. She just can't seem to get past the hump on her side to make it all they way around. I know she already knew our voice but I'm pretty sure she is recognizing our faces. And it's really cool to see her more interested in the things around her. It seemed that only a couple weeks ago, she didn't care about the dangling colored things on her seat. Now she is interested in the colors and - this probably isn't on purpose - but she's actually hitting them with her hand. Lynette said that after a trip with grandma and grandpa to Powell Gardens she was VERY interested in all the colors of the flowers.

Yesterday I took our little girl to work with me. It was fun but she was having trouble taking a nap. In fact, she was tired for a lot of yesterday, but she would only nap for 10-20 minutes at a time. Then at about 4:00 I wrapped her up and gave her the 5 S's (It's a trick from this book I read) and she went down like a light. When Lynette and I went to the grocery store at 6:00 she was still asleep. When Lynette and I were eating dinner at 7:00 she was still asleep. After Sophia ate at 8:00 she was still asleep. When Lynette and I were watching TV at 9:00 she was still asleep.

It was about that time we realized that we need to get to bed ourselves. If Sophia has been sleeping since 4:00, there is no way we were going to get a full night out of her. We'll surely wake up in the middle of the night, so let's get to sleeping now. We went to bed at 10:00. Sophia woke up at 2:00 and ate, then went back to sleep! She woke again at 7:00 and finally she was up for the day.

I don't know what kind of growth spurt she hit. But something happened at yesterday she needed 15 hours of sleep.

Candy is Dandy but water is wetter

Sophia has enjoyed her baths from day 1. Lynette and I thought it may be the wooshing of the faucet, but we wanted to take her to the pool to see if she loved it as much as we thought she would. We looked at her swim suit (size 0-3m) and she long outgrew it. I'm not sure she would have fit into it at her 1 month mark. Thanks to Grandma, she has a swim suit that fits and some little swimmers that don't.

Why is it they make baby swimsuits as small as 0-3m but the smallest swimming diapers are 16 lbs and up?

She wasn't happy with the water at first, but that seemed to be only because she was so cold. Grandma kept getting her used to the water and we moved her into the jacuzzi part she was happy and loving every minute of her life.

Conservation

Thank you FletcherFive for the care package for Sophia. Seems that it is full of very useful stuff. I've never owned those pre-wetted towels from Lysol or Clorox and now that I have them, I don't think I can stop using them. The Dr Browns bottles do cut down on the gas. Lynette's not sure, but I could swear that she burps less when we use those.

And we are using every part of the gift. As you can see. Who needs a car seat? Who needs a crib?