I suppose I should write one of these, too

I had to go back to my previous entry in order to figure out what has been going on since I last wrote. I know it's been a while, but I'm busy, usually either working, taking care of a baby, or resting to recharge my battery to do one of those things again.

So the cats first. They've gotten over their fear of each other and the house is much improved. I couldn't tell you if there is one alpha cat between the two of them. I've seen them both at the top of the cat condo. I've seen them both chasing the other one around, though it does look like most of the time Nagano is the one in charge of deciding when it is 'run around like a maniac' time. They mostly eat out of their own dishes...mostly. And they have even occasionally been nice to each other.

Gizmo is a great cat. I'm really pleased with him. For starters, he seems to have, mostly, lost the habit of trying to wake me up in the middle of the night with head bonks. He mostly just finds a nice spot under my armpit and curls up there. For some reason, whenever we're in the bathroom he decides he desperately needs attention like right then, and whenever he does he's astoundingly vocal about it. He likes it when I pick him up and let him nuzzle my face, as well as being a fan of good, hearty haunch scratches and even the occasional thumping. He's very good with Tyler and a sweetie all around. I'm glad he's mine.

Anyway, Tyler. His walking progress has really taken a good turn, recently. We went to a birthday party for one of Tyler's school-mates. Her third birthday. Very mature. Anyway, there were a lot of kids there of all sorts of ages, and Tyler, evidently, got very inspired by all the kids running around and doing things with their feet. Ever since he's been really interested in walking . He can cover a lot more distance on his own, for once, walking from the living room all the way over into the library sometimes. And more than that, he seems to be using walking to cover ground, rather than crawling everywhere. He's definitely more of a toddler than a baby at this point. Still cute, though.

More teeth are coming in, too. He's been a little fussy the past few days and I daresay we figured out why this morning when Jess had me flip him over so we could check his top gums for new teeth, and there was a new one already through. The one on his left side is through, the one on the right side is on his way. He's had some fussy times but for the most part has been weathering the trials like a champ. Still sleeps all night. What a trooper.

He's also down to just one nap a day. Not on his own, we've been trying it out for him. You see, once you hit 1 year you become eligible to move up to the toddler class, but you have to be able to do certain things, they don't just toss you over the fence on your first birthday. One of the big ones is be able to sleep in a cot and only take one nap. So we had the day care try it out for us, and they've been putting him to sleep at around noon, completely exhausted, (seriously, like a wet noodle) and he's been taking good, long 2 hour naps. Course, he does tend to sleep on the drive home with us too, but that's allowed. We kept it going over the weekend, and even on a day last week when he had to stay home sick with a fever. Of course, I had to stay home sick that day too, and Jess was kind enough to relieve me at about noon from my babysitting duty so I could take, no like, a 4 hour nap in the middle of the day. I can see why he likes it so much.

Tyler's birthday is this weekend! A fairly low-key affair, all told. We'll invite a bunch of people over, have some cake and ice cream, let Tyler open some presents, if he feels like it, and then allow a bunch of other kids to play with his toys. Oh, and also Jessie's mom and sister and nephews will be coming to visit. Such fun! I'm looking forward to letting him make a gigantic mess out of some cake.

Cooking! Nothing impressive, mind, but we have managed to clear out most of our pre-made casserole dinners from our freezer, so I took it upon myself to stock us up this weekend. I made double-batches of three different casseroles on sunday and froze the lot. I'm not actually sure how any of them will fare in the freezer, but they all seemed pretty tasty when I sampled them before they went in. I can send you guys recipes, if you want.

Other than that, it's been a lot of video games and the occasional spot of music production. I am, however, considering shaving my facial hair in the interest of looking a bit younger. I'm all old and everything, and while the facial hair is nice and dignified, inceasing the perception of my age really isn't a boon anymore. I'm a dad. I'm old, you see.

-N

Growing Up

The various life forms we are in charge of continue to get older. Would you like to hear some stories?

Nagano and Gizmo are starting to get along better, though Nagano still gets hissy whenever Giz gets too close. 'Too close' is becoming a smaller and smaller distance, though. Gizmo had a busy day when we let him out of his room and into the house at large. He spent a full day just walking from room to room and smelling things, looking at stuff, and slowly memorizing the layout of our house. We took him in for a doctor checkup today, and he's doing just fine, but we are going to have to get them a stool sample at some point, something I'm not really looking forward to. Though considering how much time I spend managing poop in this house, it's not really much of an issue.

Tyler is getting a couple of new teeth. The bottom ones #3 and #4 are coming in. One has broken through and the other is on it's way. I'm sure you've seen the videos of him almost walking (and if you haven't, I have someone on facebook that you should be friends with) but little else has happened on that front. His walks are still pretty 'staggering' and he spends most of his time crawling for distance or using his walker. We are getting closer and closer to his birthday, and I'm most excited about watching him mash cupcake all over his face.

Next week is South By Southwest, (SXSW), at least, the music component is next week. That's the part most people think about. The less well known but still fun 'movie' and 'interactive' (read: video games) parts are happening as we speak. I'm planning to hit up the Screen Burn Arcade this weekend to hopefully check out some games pre-release. Should be fun.

Not much else to tell, but hopefully this will tide you over for a time until I do something more interesting.

-N

Gizmo

Here he is:



He's the cutest and most cuddly cat in the world. Seriously. He's big on nuzzles.



Here his is with Jess. They get along great. But then again, he gets along with everyone. Nagano is the one who is going to have to get used to the new cat, not the other way around.

We Have a New Cat

We stopped by the humane society on Friday with a cat carrier in tow. And this time, we said to ourselves, if we saw a cat we liked, we would take it home. We hopped into one of the cat rooms, much more well stocked with cats this time, and took a look around. There were a lot of good contenders. I was quickly drawn to a black cat high up on a perch that seemed really anxious to nuzzle my hand when I came in. There was another in the same room that was small and a little spooked, but very vocal. Not as friendly, though. The other room had a very playful off-orange guy who was chasing a toy mouse around the room and a skinny, long-haired black cat with smokey tufts behind his ears and very, very soft fur. Jess had her favorites, but I was deliberately the one in charge of picking the cat. I was excited, but a little anxious, too. Picking a cat is a big responsibility. There were a couple of kittens, too. Little chirpy ones who were the very picture of adorableness.

I ended up gravitating back to the first room, where I reached up and gently took the black cat down off his perch. He immediately started purring and giving me affectionate face-bumps. I stayed in there for a while, and he just wanted to purr and purr and get petted as much as he could. Tyler was along with us, and the cat was very patient with him and not spooked at all. He even gave Tyler a rub or two. I thought he was the nicest, most affectionate cat I had ever seen, and I wanted to take him home.

So we did! We signed the paperwork, put him in the carrier, and drove him home with a napping Tyler in the back seat. We discussed names on the drive. 'Death' seemed appropriate because he's mostly black and we're Pratchett fans, but it's an awkward cat name. We toyed with 'Grim' for a p inhile, but that's pretty awkward too. For the moment we're calling him Gizmo, after another cat I knew when I was volunteering at the humane society up in Juneau. He was also black and very, very nice. We may change our minds, though.

We set him up in our upstairs guest bedroom with all the kitty basics and I tried to sleep in there with him to make him feel welcome. Tried, I say, because the affection *does not stop*. He was giving me head bonks for most of the night, in between nuzzling up and sleeping in my armpit. And he does so with some serious muscle. He's about Raoul's size, and just wants nothing but love and cuddles as much as you can give. He's an absolute sweetie-pie, and I couldn't be happier that he's ours.

In other news, Jess didn't get much sleep last night either. Tyler was having some sort of coughing and heaving problem, and he spit up in his bed a couple of times. I helped out, changing sheets, but he kept going back to sleep, he just needed some assurances in between episodes. Luckily, we all slept in this morning. I got up at 9 and I was the first one up. I wasn't sure where Jess was, but it turns out she had camped out in Tyler's room for some Zs. They're both napping now.

We went out and got some random shopping done, picking up some stuff for tiny house repairs and some more clothes for Tyler. But we also took Tyler out for his first haircut. The place was pretty cool, and they let you pick what TV you want to use to distract your kid (or video games! I was jealous.) We picked Sesame street, which was briefly interesting but before too long, Tyler started putting on his scared face. Did not like! He got a little grumpy while trying to cut his hair, but we distracted him by playing a movie of me tickling him on my cell phone. Worked quite well, and he's looking much less shaggy now.

So clearly I owe you guys some pictures of the new cat and Tyler's haircut, but I have to connect a few different cameras for that. So I'll do that later. I promise both are really cute, though. Really cute.

-N