I Should Write More

One of my favorite things to do these days is to go back and read the blogs from when Tyler was born. It's good to have a record of how I felt over those days, all the craziness that happened, and all the memories I wanted to store. And since I'm clearly coming up on another big event that would be nice to record, I figured I would. Might as well get in a few entries on the run-up as well, just to set the stage for the big event.

Tyler is almost 3. He's growing a lot. Every once in a while he will get a CRAZY hunger bug and destroy a whole plate of pancakes and eggs or a pint of milk or something, and then I'm pretty sure he's an inch taller the next week. He talks a lot and has lots to say, loves playing imagining games and has a ton of questions. Reminds me of me, or at least of what parts of me I remember from near that age. Does anyone besides me remember stomping around the house to what may have been Holst's “The Planets” and pretending to be dinosaurs? Well Tyler has been spending a lot of time alternating between pretending to be a baby, a bear, a shark, a monkey...rather a lot of things, come to think of it.

Casey is a kicker. She kicks a LOT. Especially at night, Jess and I will be laying down and reading or almost asleep, and then Jess will take in a sharp breath and I'll know that the little one is awake. She does it during the day, too. Casey hasn't interrupted any meetings yet, but she certainly could if she figured out the timing.

It's been a really cold winder for us down here in Austin. We've had two or three snow days already, which is kinda neat but also kind of a pain. A few of the snow days didn't actually involve any precipitation...just an overactive School System. I went in to work for that one, Jess stayed home.

To catch up on the other things from my last blog post (so many months ago) Tyler is still in his underwear. We have to tell him to use the restroom, especially if he's having fun. He'll wet his underwear a little then get upset and have to do a little 'Cowboy Waddle' over to the bathroom to finish peeing. And then we have to change his underwear. But that's happening less and less now. We even have him in pull-ups for nighttime now, and I don't think he's wet them once. He's pretty good at this.

Which makes me suspicious about the next one...hmm...

Also, I weighed in at 199.6 pounds this morning. I don't think I've weighted this little since...probably college. I'm pretty sure I was 190 through most of high school. Anyway, I'm pretty thrilled. I'm thinking the treadmill desk will turn out to be a really good idea. I burned 500 calories today while playing video games for a couple of hours. Didn't feel like a workout, that's for sure.

Christmas has come and gone, and Thanksgiving, so Tyler has managed to see most everyone so that we can all see how much he has grown. He likes to talk about Baby Casey a lot too. I'm sure he has no idea what life with a little sister is going to be like, but we just like that he has the idea in his head. He always does much better if we warn him before any big transition anyway, and a transition this big is going to require a LOT of warning.

Other than that, not much to report. Still at the same job, working on my mini-painting, excited for ReaperCon, went to Big Bend National Park, Volunteering to teach Kids Math...you know, stuff. I'm an old man now, I don't have time for crazy adventures!

-N

Weight Loss

As several of you may have seen, via my Facebook post, Ryan Davis died a couple of months ago. There's no reason any of you should know him, he was a 'web personality' at one of my favorite Video Game websites. He was a riot to listen to and a great writer. He died five days after he got married. He was also fat. You can find pictures if you want, but let's not beat around the bush here; there's not a whole lot of guessing about what killed him. After I read about Ryan dying, I walked into the bathroom and weighed myself. I was 236 pounds. That might be the most I've ever weighed. It was right after the 4^th of July weekend, so it may have been a little skewed by recent munchitude, but 236 was too much.

The next day I started doing something I didn't think I'd ever do: count calories.

I got on a website called MyFitnessPal, put it my weight, guessed at a goal weight and, started trying to keep my caloric intake under the goal number for the day (roughly 2000). As it turns out, calories can sneak in via some pretty circuitous routes. My trail mix? Lots of calories in there. I only ate 5 fig newtons a day, for my daily 'lunch-dessert', but considering the low number I was trying to hit, that had to hit the highway. PB&J after Tyler goes to bed? Nearly 400 calories by my estimation, and that's just too much. I've gotten down to small dinners, carefully measured lunches, and...pretty much the same breakfast I've been eating for years, so that was okay. I might try and throw some more eggs in there, though. They seem like good breakfast fare.

It's made me really reconsider what I want to eat. When you start limiting yourself like this you start to really think about where you want your calories to come from, and when you want to eat them. Especially, too, when you make yourself exercise, and you start to see how much effort it is just to burn off a few hundred calories. Did you know I don't even get to eat fruit whenever I want anymore? Too much energy in most fruit. I can eat veggies at will, but let's be honest, Tyler is right: veggies are pretty gross.

It's a lot of effort, and I never thought I'd spend this much time thinking about what I eat, scrutinizing every meal. I'm not tracking calories every day anymore, I tend to estimate just to keep my sanity, but a couple of times a week I try to keep a solid count, just to keep myself honest.

Oh, and last time I checked, I was at 224 and dropping. So the effort is paying off. I'm just hoping I can keep this up, you know, forever.

Tyler. Is. Wearing. Underwear. Holy crap! This is big news, people, stop whatever you're doing. Well, okay, technically, now he's wearing diapers, because he's asleep and we're not crazy, but we started him on saturday and kept him in underwear most of the weekend. He did pretty well, though we have to lead him periodically to the bathroom, and he won't think of it on his own yet. #2 is also pretty tricky, but it's a work in progress. The point is that we've taken a big step, here, people. One that is going to involve a lot of extra laundry for a while. But if you recall, we had him in cloth diapers for many, many months, so super-gross laundry is nothing new to us.

Today was his first day back at school with underwear. He was a little bummed out when he realized that his pants obscured his totally sweet Lighting McQueen underwear, but for the most part he did pretty good today. It'll be a work in process (and don't be surprised if we totally wuss out for the New York Trip) but the little guy is growing up. Apologies to whichever family members' floor he pees on first. I figure it's only a matter of time.

Tyler is also starting to have full conversations, though for some reason he likes it better when he has a toy and you have a toy and your toy asks his toy what his toy did during the school day. Too modest, otherwise, I suppose. He also is putting together some pretty elaborate play scenarios. On Sunday he got his luggage, some luggage for daddy (a pumpkin bucket) some luggage for mommy (a purse) and then we went to the airport (kitchen) and sat in the airplane (floor) and went to new york. He walked over to the museum (Office) and saw the Dinosaur (actual Toy Dinosaur, I was impressed) and then we looked up and saw the big Blue Whale (ceiling). It was too high up to touch. We checked. And then, after all of that, we went back on the plane, flew back to Texas, and then said hello to the kitties when we got back to the house. Then he did our tax returns!

Micro-News!

Tyler has been taking swim lessons. Next week is his last class and I am coming to watch and see how good Tyler is now.

Tyler is starting to learn numbers and sounds. He'll be writing novellas before you know it.

Till next time, everyone,

-N

It's been a while, here's some thoughts

Tyler is right here on my lap watching me type.  So I have to be a little careful about what I say about him.  He is is really good kid and I love to give him kisses and he is very nice when he is patient and works hard. 

Now he is slipping and falling off my lap, so I can tell you that as a 2 year old, he's kind of a jerk. 

When you learn about what kids are going through in their 'Terrible twos', their behavior makes a lot of sense.  They have essentially been living in a world that, as near as they can tell, they are in complete control of.  When they want things, they get them, and any perturbations from this norm are probably just forgotten.  A two year old, on the other hand, is slowly learning that he is an entity, and the world around him spins with its own rules, rules he is often not going to enjoy.  It would bum me out, too. 

I consider it my duty to frustrate Tyler at least once a day, if not many more. I figure denying him something he wants is just part of the process of teaching him things.  I figure when he gets old and reads this, he'll probably be really frustrated with me, but tough noogies, kid.  If I didn't teach you these things, you'd be completely insufferable, as opposed to the regularly insufferable that I'm sure you've achieved at whatever age you find this.  It's part of the learning process.  Deal. 

Anyway, I figure that whatever I'm doing has to be working pretty well so far, because he's turning into a pretty great kid.  He's super curious about things, fussy, but certainly not insufferably so, and is quickly becoming a candidate for those great one-liners they always got from 'kids say the darnedest things.'  Lets try a few:

How old is daddy?:  One
How old is mommy?: Two
How old is Tyler?:  Four...um, Two!
Where does our food come from?: Ummm...the Pizza man!

That last one isn't true, by the way.  We cook. 

My recent favorite has been from last night.  I was singing him a random song I had been listening to during the day.  Obedear by Purity Ring.  The chorus goes like this:

Oh, but dear the sky is low.
Gather up your harm and gods
with grateful arms. 
Oh, but dear the sky is low...

Well as I was singing, he sits bolt upright from laying on my chest and says to me, with wide eyes: "Sky is low!  We were on the plane with the clouds!  Sky is low!"  He had evidently just figured out how the clouds had been so close to the plane window.  I did my best to explain how the plane goes up near the clouds, and he settled back down, but that's some pretty inspired science from a kid who was about to go to sleep. 

Tyler is in the 'transition' classroom now, which is theoretically a transition between the 'day care' of the younger kids and the 'almost kindergarten' of the older classes.  He seems to be fitting in pretty well, being a fan of running around, playing with sand, and sitting and reading books, some of the primary activities of his class.  I've gotten to join a couple of times.  I got to hang out in his classroom one morning and started reading him a book.  Before too long I had gathered an impromptu circle of all the kids in the class and was reading to them about things that go. 

I also got to visit for 'splash day', which has started up again during the heat of the summer.  The difference between splash day for toddlers and two year olds is primarily that the two year olds don't want to stay on the splash pad.  There is a big playground out there, one they don't often get to visit, and they have as much desire to explore as they do to get hosed down by the teachers.  Though the hosing is also a pretty big draw. 

I 'got' to travel last week, which Jessie always considers a vacation for me (and she's not entirely wrong) but Tyler is old enough to start missing people and telling us about it, which means that I got a couple of videos sent to me of Tyler saying he was sad because he misses his daddy, which breaks your heart right in two, let me tell you. 

We got to spend the fourth of July in Florida with the Florida family, and Tyler thought the fireworks were pretty neat, though he did manage to burn himself on a sparkler.  Does that sound familiar to any parents here?  First son burning fingers on hot sparkler?  Maybe it's genetic.  Anyway, we at a lot of food (Tyler liked the beans) and also got to go to the Miami Zoo, which was pretty horrible.  Oh, the zoo was fine, but it was really, really hot, and we couldn't get Tyler to take a nap while we were there, so he got pretty grumped up.  He thought the giraffes and elephants were pretty neat, but we had to head home in the early afternoon because of excessive grumpitude.  He napped on the way home and was much more personable after that. 

We also spent a lot of time in Aunt Shannon's pool, where Tyler mostly just tried to kill himself over and over.  He was better than he has been, and was a champion at shimmying along the wall, but he was still a little too squirmy for his own good while we were holding him.  He was a big fan of sitting on floaty things and getting pushed around, as well as getting surprised by Johnny and William.  Also enjoyed doing big daddy-assisted slam dunks in the floating basketball hoop.  But since he was still not holding his breath or being safe, Jess signed him up for some basic swim lessons.  It's not super-critical for us, because we don't have a pool, but it would be nice to let him learn more about holding his breath and being safe around water.  It would at least make it easier to hold him. 

I've been playing more video games recently.  Which is odd, because for a while I wasn't playing them at all.  I was practicing painting, or piano, or drawing, or something else 'productive'.  It's become frustrating, though, to spend all my time on things that are essentially just practice.  I'm not yet good enough at those things to have fun just sitting down and playing piano, or drawing, or something like that.  Every once in a while I want to just have some fun.  Ergo, video games. 

I'm trying to loose weight.  Well, that's not true.  Not really.  I've long held that the scale is not my best metric for monitoring my health, after I stared doing more exercise and lost size but gained weight, presumably in these massive guns of mine (kiss, kiss).  Regardless, I measured at 236 at the end of the 4th of July vacation, and that is too much.  I've started monitoring my food intake in an attempt to see where my weaknesses are, and so far I think I'm doing pretty good, with the monitoring, if not with the weight loss, that takes time.  I don't think of it as a diet, though, those end.  I'm trying to create a formula for selecting the things that I eat that will keep me healthy and satisfied over the long term.  That's also called a 'diet', but it's the version of the word that botanists use.  I like that one better.  The main problem so far has been that I'm still pretty hungry a lot.  If anyone has any suggestions for food that keeps you full with a low number of calories, I'm all ears.  I'm eating a lot of tuna, though. 

I mostly did this because I realized my favorite thing about the blog is going back and reading my old entries.  So this is an entry that will, someday, be old, and I'll read it and enjoy it.  Hopefully the rest of you do as well. 

-N

He's growing up

I am also not blogging very much, and I also have an excuse. I have a two-year-old. I haven't had him for that long, but you'd be surprised how often that excuse comes in handy. “You look tired.” “Well, I have a two-year-old.” “You want to come out to the game?” “No, I have a two-year-old.” “Noel, can you help us with a project?” “Sorry, two-year-old.” “Noel, could you pass the ketchup?” “TWO YEAR OLD.” It's a magic bullet.

We kept Tyler's actual birthday pretty low-key. We took him out to the ice rink, one of his favorite weekend diversions, met up with Natalie and Brian and grant out there, and had a great time. Brian had taken a class in ice skating when he was in college, and then hadn't been on skates in the intervening 10 years, so I was better than him for, like, two minutes, tops. Grant got accustomed to the skating pretty quickly, and between the myriad of adults, we were able to cycle through skating children enough to give our backs a periodic rest. Tyler is getting to where he can stand on his own two feet, though he doesn't cover much ground, and mommy is never more than a few inches away.

After skating, everyone came over for pizza and ice cream cake. Did you know that Tyler doesn't like pepperoni on his pizza? What kind of kid am I raising? He was also able to blow out his own candles, which, when you remember that there aren't very many of them, isn't as wild an accomplishment as it might sound. We got him some random presents, neat shirts, cool toys, a book or two. Kid stuff. He thought it was all pretty great.

Easter also happened. We hid some eggs around the house, stuffed with random small things and fig newtons. Those were a hit. We also went out to the park for the big neighborhood easter egg hunt. Got some candy there, too, and got to see a fire truck up close.

And, then, of course, there was Disney Land.

I am...not a big fan of Disney Land. For the price you pay for the tickets, it seems like there's a surfeit of fun and an overabundance of standing in line. There were some definite highlights, and Tyler is still talking about “Mr Toad Ride.” Recalling how it was “Kinda scary.” and “Flashy lights”. Dumbo, Small world, teacups, all hits, though. Also, instead of heading back to the hotel, Tyler just fell asleep on my shoulder for half an hour while I carried him around. That's the thing you can only really do if you're a dad: that critical combination of comfort, upper body strength, and willingness to put up with a lot of discomfort to get some really good cuddles out of your kid.

Nana and Grandpa were also a lot of fun for Tyler. He got lots of hugs and kisses, many nice pictures, and many many smiles. He was a wonderful model grandson for his elders. He did keep waking up really early, though. Stayed on Texas time. Made it so that we got lots done before his morning nap, though. The second day we went to the Long Beach Aquarium. Tyler got to touch a stingray and see some really pretty birds up close. After that we went to the La Brea Tar pits, which I never did see while I was in LA. But it was pretty great. We also got to see the big squad of people that we started Raytheon working with, most of whom have kids of their own. Some nice family-reunion sized pictures came out of that.

The one tragedy was when Tyler, being a toddler, tripped and smacked his forehead on the chair I was sitting in. It swelled up really spectacularly, but a quick application of ice seemed to do it a lot of good, and the bruise it turned into didn't seem nearly as bad as we thought it was going to be. It's nearly healed up, too.

And in the last bit of Tyler news, some neighbors down the street are moving out, and they asked us if we wanted an extra kid bed. Well the timing worked out great, and after buying a mattress, some spider-man sheets and a Mario Brothers blanket, Tyler is, at this very moment, sleeping in a Big Boy Bed. We also purchased a waterproof mattress cover and a guard rail. Not to keep him from escaping, to keep him from falling out. Kid likes to sleep in corners, and I've definitely found him facing the wrong way in his bed more than once. He's still small enough, for now, that he can sleep sideways in the bed.

The first night in the big boy bed actually went really well. We had been building it up for a while, he got to see us assemble it, and then night came and we put him in bed, tucked him in, and he just waved goodbye and said “goodbye mommy”. Then slept like a log all night. What a good kid.

The only thing I'm up to that is not Tyler-related is REAPERCON! As many of you know, Reaper is a company that makes Miniatures, and I supported a program last year where you preordered a whole bunch of miniatures and got hundres of them for a great price. They're in the process of shipping out now, but last year when I bought into the deal, I decided I should try to see if I actually like painting minatures. I do rather a lot.

The company, named Reaper, has a once-a-year painting convention where there are classes, paints, minatures, board games, and all sorts of fantastic things to do. I have signed up for four classes, amd going to pack up my stuff, and then wednesday evening I drive up to Denton, TX, for 4 days of paining and relaxing, all while Jess takes care of Tyler for me. She's really nice to me.

So, what, is that, 10 paragraphs about Tyler, and one about me? Yeah, that ratio seems about right.

-N

Things I've been up to

We'll start with a Tyler update, being as I'm sure he's the guy you're most interested in hearing about. Tyler's latest trick is that he's starting to have thoughts of his own. Ever since he's been able to talk, he's been really good at parroting, repeating things he's already heard. New to his repertoire, though, is coming up with his very own ideas and sentences. That's right! There's a little human in there after all.

The most memorable example of this behavior has been when we were singing “Wheels on the Bus.” It's always been one of his favorite songs. After a few verses, I asked which sound he wanted to do next.

“Tyler, what else is on the bus?”

He paused, staring ahead, like he does when he's deep in thought (we all know where he gets this from)

“Enui!”

Okay, he technically just said “En-We”, but I think we all knew what he meant.

“Enui? Really? What sound does Enui make?”

Another long pause.

“Boop, boop, boop.”

And so we sang, “The Enui on the bus goes boop, boop, boop.” And he laughed. He laughed so hard, he thought it was just the greatest thing.

It shows up in a lot of smaller ways, too. We'll ask him what he wants to eat and he'll come up with something all on his own. You'll point out something that's big and he'll remind you that Tyler is Little all on his own. He hasn't yet used it to suggest that Daddy and Mommy are always wrong and that he should get more ipad and candy, but give it time, I'm sure.

Work continues apace. I got to travel last week to Patuxent river, again. I was supposed to be gone for the whole week, but we got out there, got everything working in a couple of days, and then everyone went “great, it works, I guess we're done” and went home. Jess has been really busy at work, too, well befitting a person who is so well regarded. And before any of you ask, I'm not worried about the sequester. It may make us trim back a bit, but I suspect that the most likely prospect is that we'll hire new people a little slower. I've been on the test team for maybe 6 months, and there are 5 new people in the group that have joined since. We're busy.

I've also been working on my Minis for ReaperCon. I decided to pull together some of the guys I've been painting and give them a platform to stand on together. Give it some scenery and character, so to speak. Here are some pictures, I hope you enjoy.

I'm also excited because I think I'm going to build a new computer. I've never actually done this before, but I've read some tutorials and it doesn't appear too difficult. The main source of work will probably be selecting all the components, and if you ask any computer-building nerd, that's the best part of the whole endeavor.

-N

Wholesome Family Activities

So in case you're wondering what it is that I've been doing with so much of my time that I can neither blog nor call up parents at the traditional time (sorry!), here's an explanation.  In a couple of months there's a convention up in Dallas called ReaperCon.  Reaper is a company that makes miniatures, the kinds I've spent so much of my time learning to paint.  The convention sounds really cool: they will have classes, plenty of places to paint, lots of things to do and see, games to play aaaaaaand...they have a competition for painted miniatures.

 Now I have never been competitive about my painting, but I looked at a lot of entries from last year and by comparison, my most recent work seems to match up pretty well.   At least, it does when I take my time.  Plus, they have a very forgiving grading system: you get graded based on how good your mini looks, not how many better painted miniatures happened to be entered in the contest.  I'm aiming for 'bronze' rank, but even if I don't get that, you get a certificate of merit just for entering, and I would hang that up proudly on my wall. A lot of the highest-end painting really is just a function of putting in really a lot of work.  And so in that spirit, I've begun working on my entry already.  I've been taking pictures at the end of each day, to show off progress and also to give you guys a sense of how long it takes to paint one of these guys so that they look really nice.  Also to show off how good I am at this now.  :)

Here is the end of day 1:

they grey is the primer: so the only thing I managed to get done in the several hours I spent on the first day with this guy is to get down a base coat of red, white and skin tone on part of him.  Told you: long process.  You use very thin coats of paint and paint them on usually around 4 or 5 times so that your guy looks like a little person, and not a tiny figurine covered in plastic paint.  The matte finish takes work, but it's crucial for a good looking figure.

Day 2:

A few more colors make their appearance.   did the gauntlet, mask, and the like in a slightly different red color.  I have a back-story in mind where the guy stole the coat from someone on the battlefield, so the color doesn't quite match.  Also, the accessories were given to him by his evil overlords, they are the source of his power.  It's very complicated, maybe I'll write up a story for him later.

Day 3:

A lot of progress on this day.  It was Saturday, and Jess let me paint a lot during the day while she watched Tyler.  the rest of the base coat has been laid down, and I even did the shading on the back of his coat.  I think I did a pretty decent job, but this is one of my first attempts at this sort of dramatic coloring.  A cape is a pretty good place to start, though.  The places where to put the high-and-low lights are pretty obvious.

Day 4:

Oh man, I really like the progress I did today.  I painted that tatoo-thing in the center of his chest like scarification, and it came out looking really well.  I also added some shading to his gauntlet, mask, loin cloth and chest-skin.  You might not be able to tell in this picture (heck, I can't even tell unless I look under the magnifying glass Jess got me for Xmas) but I managed to individually shade each of his ab-muscles.  I'm pretty impressed with that.

And lest you think I spend all of my time cooped up in my room ignoring my parently duties and painting: here's some evidence otherwise:

There was a nice breeze today, so we got out Jessie's stunt-kite and went out to the park.  There were a lot of crashes, but Tyler thought this was one of the coolest things in the world.

Jessie took Tyler skating also this weekend, Kneecaps be damned!  He thought it was also the coolest thing in the world.  Cutest, too!

-N

A Subtle Shift in Priorities

Well just take a look at how timely this blog entry is. Ha! Fantastic.

Recently, which is to say 'the last few months', I have not been enjoying the prospect of going to Judo. I would realize it was Monday, my normal Judo day, and my stomach would sink. Judo isn't that bad, not really, but compared to some of the other things I do with my evenings, it just always felt like a waste of an evening. We often spend a frustrating amount of time just talking about stuff, and I've never felt like my progress has been that marked. I got my black belt, I guess, but I still never really felt like I earned it, but just going to judo because it was 'judo day' hasn't really felt right in a while.

I sat down with Jessie to talk about my 'crisis of activities', something that comes up every few years, and she told me exactly what you'd expect her to tell me: if you're not enjoying it, then why are you going? We have our Kinect at home for exercise (and it keeps kicking my ass), there's no need to go if I'm not enjoying it. So for now, I've decided to take a hiatus from Judo. As Jess reminded me: I can always go back. They've been doing Judo for a couple of centuries now, I don't think they're going to quit anytime soon.

So I certainly don't lack from good uses of time in my life, or at least not fulfilling ones. Miniature painting continues to be great fun, and I'm getting better at it with every mini I paint. I even have a permanent home for my painting, now, as opposed to just keeping it in the library and moving it every time we want to play cards or something. I carved out a little corner of my studio and now have my stuff all set up for all the painting I could want. I also shuffled my studio over so it's now in the same upstairs room as the guest bed. We can use the old studio room for...other things.

There's also Piano, which I am attempting to be as diligent as possible about, because you know what practice makes, don't you? I did get a little down on it because, like most of my hobbies, it's not really leading to anything. I'm not going to any recitals, or joining a band, or anything. Though the better I get at piano, the easier it will be to compose music in the future, which is nice. Still, though, playing the opening to Journey's “Don't Stop Belivin'” is a pretty good way to end a day, so I keep at it. If anyone knows of a band in Austin looking for a piano player without a whole lot of time to invest...let me know.

But if I'm cutting back on Judo, perhaps it would be a good time for me to try doing something else with my time, eh? Maybe a little...VOLUNTEERING? Yeah, I know great minds think alike.

I scrounged through various volunteer listings online, hoping to find something that could make some use of my expertise. Something maybe with education, too, because I really, really like education. I ended up signing up for Austin Partners in Education. I start on Tuesday.

I'm volunteering! It's quite exciting. All I saw on the sign-up-form online was that they needed people to help with groups of two-or-three middle schoolers who need help learning math. Sounds up my alley, yes? But I had some questions, which I brought to the lunchtime training session I went to last week. Turns out this group has around 2000 volunteers (!) and what they do is one class a week, the whole math class meets with a group of probably 10 volunteers who guide them through the lesson for the day. The job is to ask questions, get them thinking, and generally show our excitement for the subject matter at hand. I can do that.

I'm coming in the the middle of the school year, which usually means I'll be replacing someone who couldn't make it through the year (Life happens, you know?) so I'm hoping that I'm up to the standard set by my predecessor. If this goes well, and I've only got something like 7 more classes before the end of the year, maybe I'll sign up for a full year next time.

Of course, right after signing up for this, the local community magazine came out with their summary of a boatload more volunteer opportunities, so I can certainly expand if I want. I may have to, if I'm going to help Sandlin meet her goal.

So let's see, what do you need to know about Tyler. He's coming up on his terrible twos. They're not really that terrible, cause he's such a great kid normally, but you can definitely see where the beginnings of a furious little id are going to create a few frustrating afternoons before we get him properly civilized. He doesn't want to share, he gets angry when he can't have is way...you know...kid stuff. On the plus side, the house next door to us sold, and we met the neighbors today while we were getting ready to take Tyler out biking. (We bike, he rides behind). They have a 9-year-old boy, and a 2-year old boy as well. Score! Jess made them cookies. They move in tomorrow. We know pretty much nothing more than that (except their names) but we are going to bring them cookies, so I expect we will be fast friends.

Tyler is starting to sing. You have to know what you're listening for, because he can't carry a tune yet and he only get's about 70% of the words, but we've heard him do 'Twinkle Twinkle', '5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed', 'The ABCs,' and 'The Itsy-Bitsy Spider', with hand motions and everything. He is also really excited because he gets to go to Disneyland for his birthday, or at least near his birthday, and Nana and Grandpa are going to be there too. Though to be honest, at this point the trip is about 30% for Tyler and 70% for Jessie. Also, we get to visit some friends in LA while we are out there, so good fun then, too.

-N

Pretty much the cutest thing

Earlier this week, Jess and I were showing Tyler how much daddy and mommy loved each other by kissing in front of him. You can read endlessly about how children watch mom and dad for cues about how to act around other people, and about how they will often pattern their relationships off of the relationships they see you having with your spouse. We said “mommy and daddy love each other, see?” and then made all smoochy-mouth while Jess was holding him. Even at his young age, he was properly mortified. Which is also probably fair, but hopefully the message buries itself in his subconscious somewhere.

Later that night, after his usual late-evening grumpitude, we were putting him to bed and I asked if daddy could have a kiss. Tyler grabbed my cheeks with slightly-stinging gusto and planted me one right on the lips. We both gave him an 'aww' for that one. Then mommy asked if she could have a kiss.

Tyler grabbed us both by the back of our heads and pushed our lips together.

Runners-up for this award include:

-Saying “No thank you” when he doesn't want something.

-Throwing him up in the air (yes, we have pictures. Yes, you need to see them.)

-Splashing in puddles.

-We had some friends over today, they brought their baby. When Tyler woke up from his nap, the baby had gone down for his. When we explained how we needed to be quiet (ish) for the sleeping baby, he put his finger up to his lips and said “shh”

-N

A Really Warm Christmas

Greetings from the days after Christmas! I'm writing to you from that wonderful time between Christmas and New Year when our office is still closed and we are mandated to stay at home and RELAX. Which is okay by me. We have just dropped off the last of our Holiday visitors off at the airport and the house has mostly contracted to its previous size.

I had a really great time.

The best part was being a host. I don't know if Dad was all swelling with pride for me, but I was pretty chuffed for myself. I own a house that can contain my entire family, and can construct and serve enough food to feed our whole Preecs Army, which I did on several occasions. Pizza Night, Krub, and the wonderful pseudo-thanksgiving of Christmas Eve were all fantastic hits, and we managed to balance that out on the other end with a couple of solid days of eating nothing but leftovers, allowing our fridge to mostly return to its normal state. We still have a little turkey left over, if anyone wants some.

Christmas itself was a hoot, especially now that Tyler is old enough to actually participate, mostly. He opened presents and got really excited when he got cool new things. The top three, clearly, are the Big Spider-man Tent, the Elmo Counting Toy, and the packing peanuts that came with his new G-Diapers. We may have to go buy those in bulk for next year. There was a lot of squealing and stomping with delight.

I also came off pretty well, especially as Jessie wrapped all my new, fancy Paint Brushes individually. And I got a really cool backpack. I'm excited to take that one out on the road. Jess got a laptop and Kelsey got a Surface. Sandlin and Matt got a ticket from Seattle to Austin, which, since it covers several thousand miles, clearly wins the 'biggest present' award. GW also came by with Kelsey and got a really cool rubber band gun. He was a very gracious guest, totally up for everything. Very hipster, too, so I think his favorite present may just have been 'Austin'. :)

Tyler's cute new thing is 'head bonks'. I am hopefully teaching him to bonk gently, or at least he has figured it out for himself, but it's a really cute thing for him to do. He has also started using 'Thank You' mostly appropriately.

The cats, too, would like to extend their thanks to everyone for coming by and giving them so much nice attention. They really appreciate it.

And, finally, a little story. I was out yesterday taking down the Xmas lights in front of the house when a couple of dogs that I recognized as having been walked by the house before came trotting down the street, owners nowhere to be seen. I managed to call one of them over, pick him up, and then store him in our backyard. The other one, larger, was clearly just too excited to be kept still, and so he trotted off down the street. I followed him, hoping to corral him toward my backyard, when from a couple of streets over I heard someone calling dogs. I gave Jessie a call to let her know what the deal was. She had just woken up from a nap and her brain hadn't quite completed its startup sequence.

“Hey, Jess.”

“Yeah?”

“There's a Dog in our backyard. Don't let him out.”

“What?”

“There is a Dog in our backyard. Don't let him out.”

“Don't let who out, Tyler? Why is there a dog in our backyard?”

“I saw some escaped dogs going down the street, I managed to get one in our backyard, and I'm trying to heard the other one. Don't let the dog out of the backyard.”

“Oooh...hey, Tyler, look. A Doggy!”

Luckily, the owners made their way closer to me, and I signaled to them when they came around a corner. Then the dog heard familiar voices and ran back to the owners. I asked if they were missing another dog, and they were, lucky me. I brought them to my house and returned the final dog to his rightful place. Evidently their backyard was small-dog proof. But not quite big-dog proof. Time to get a new fence.

-N

The Adventures of Temporarily-Single Father

Yikes, it's been too long. What have we been up to?

Well we got our windows in a while ago, and it has already made a huge difference in the comfort level of the home. The Weather has started to cool off to pretty chilly at night, and we haven't even had to turn on the heater yet. Just ambient heat and good windows is good enough to keep us going through the night. The other major boon is that the neighbors' barking dogs are much quieter now. It's subtle, but pleasant.

We had our pseudo-annual neighborhood grill-out on Saturday. Not a lot of turnout, but a few families did show up, and everyone was really pleased that we were taking the time to do this, so it's worth it just to foster a sense of community around here. Also, Tyler learned to share toys. Sorta. He still needs some practice on that.

Also this weekend, the silver car had its battery die, so I got to be all manly and get that fixed. I considered just taking it in somewhere, but I've messed around in the electrical system of enough vehicles for work at this point that I felt it wouldn't be a insurmountable task, especially with the internet and friendly auto-parts people to help me through. Anyway, I went out and bought a battery (getting a jump to get home after I discovered the battery wasn't low...it was dead. Got some tips from the guy that sold me the battery (as well as some goop to help ease corrosion) and read up on the process on the internet, then took out some wrenches and went to work. As those of you that have ever done it before know, it's not a particularly difficult process, once you know how. But I got to surprise Jessie when she woke up from her nap and the car was totally fixed before she knew it. Still have to take the old battery back for recycling, though.

And this week, Jess is off on travel, so I'm single-fathering it again. It's not so bad, of course. Tyler gets to see mommy on Skype fairly often, and as long as he has lots of things to play with at home he's pretty easy to manage. Went to sleep just fine a little while ago and shows no signs of waking up in the middle of the night with “where's mommy” sweats.

Speaking of Tyler, the baby dictionary has completely fallen off the rails at this point. I couldn't even guess at how many words or word-like utterances Tyler knows at this point. I was always impressed by the ability of parents to understand the babbling of their children, but what I didn't know was that usually the parents don't have any idea what the kid means the first time he tries out a new word either. We just have more practice at it.

Those are the highlights of the last few weeks. I'd write more, but I have a few more e-mails to write and some research to do on how to 'base' miniature figurines. (Look it up, it's pretty cool). And then I have to hit the hay. A temporarily-single father needs plenty of rest.

-N

Busy Getting Stuff done

Just in case you're wondering why I don't blog more, its because I'm still spending all my time doing awesome stuff. I am, yes, still practicing the piano. I got myself a couple of songbooks for myself for my birthday. So I'm currently learning how to play the theme music from Super Mario Brothers. Yes, you should be impressed, it is very impressive. I can physically play about half of it, for now, but a little less than that with both hands at the same time, and essentially just the intro at the proper speed. So there's still work to do, but I'm really enjoying working on this song. I also got a book of radiohead songs, and I just have to figure out which one I want to learn to play first. And another book of exercise and basic songs to learn, to further expand my skills at a basic level. I'm still just playing on my keyboard, which is just wide enough for Super Mario brothers, though It doesn't use the lowest octave. Of course, I can just push a button and then it won't use the highest octave if I want. Electronics are great like that.

Also, paining miniatures. I've showed off a few of them to some of you over Skype, but I have yet to put up any pictures. They're pretty cool looking, if a little basic, but the process is very time consuming and cannot be rushed, which is part of what I like about it. You have to take your time, consider the process, decide what you want to paint on what surface...you know, ART. I find the whole thing pretty relaxing, and so I decided to invest a little more into our painting gear. I went out yesterday and picked up a bunch of random paint brushes (different kinds, so I can see what I like) some porcelain paint palettes (much easier to clean), and a few other odds-and-ends like slo-dry (for easier paint blending) and some finishing spray to keep the paint well set on the mini's when I'm done. I really like just going out and considering all the options and making decisions and...I don't know even going out to buy brushes yesterday was fun. Maybe because Jess was at home taking care of Tyler for me and, as it turns out, taking down all our blinds.

We're getting new windows put in in the near future. The nice fancy ones that the guy came to our house and punched through for us. Jess got down all the blinds, but we'll wait for a little bit before doing the curtains. We do need some privacy.

And then, of course, there's Judo. I've been doing more Shiai (sparring) recently, which still isn't a lot, but it's more than the 'none' that I've done before. I'm getting a little better, bit by bit, which is encouraging, though I'm still pretty far below most of my peers. I is encouraging, however, that whenever we get new students in that Sensei usually has them work with me. I like to think I'm a pretty patient teacher.

Anything else? Any other activities taking up my time? OH, that's right, my son.

Last weekend we went to Houston for Jessie's great-uncle-in-law's 90^th birthday. We learned that 1) Driving during Tyler's nap is a great idea. 2) Driving while he's supposed to be asleep is not. I also managed to pick up whatever upper-resperitory cough-fest Tyler happened to pick up from day care last, which is still making my voice a little croupy. But other than that, the trip was a pretty great success. Everyone was all excited to see Jess, and Tyler got to play with a couple of twin girls a little younger than he was. He was a little scared of them. I'll tease him about that when he gets older. We also brought back Jessie's Grandmother to stay with us for a while. Tyler eventually got used to her and even gave her some kisses on the last day she was here.

The comprehensive Tyler-dictionary is going to have to come to a close. He's learning a new word or two every day now. It would be difficult to keep up. He's using his words a lot more often now. Here are some highlights.

Nana: What he says every time we tell him we are going to Skype. He knows about grandmothers.

Areyou?: What he says when he is looking for things. Either Waldo in the waldo books or Daddy.

Doo-Doo!: This is the sound a train makes, and a lot of things are enough like trains (cars, rocks, pretty much anything he can push around) that they also make this sound too.

Yikes!: Luckly, this was what Jessie said when her antibiotic ointments took hold on her latest road rash. He's also picked up “Whoah” and “Oh no!” Nothing R-rated yet.

TeeBee: We let him watch TV when he's feeling bad and needs to relax, but he's also figured out that you can watch it at other times as well. He'll ask for it a lot. We generally just tell him no.

Ninite: Certain kinds of clothes are ninite clothes. They are the kinds you put on before it is bedtime.

We took Tyler out to a neighborhood festival this weekend where they had some pancakes, a hot air balloon, and plenty of booths selling arts and crafts. They also had a bounce house that Tyler was really into, even though he was the smallest one there. He was having fun getting bounced around by all the kids...and then the fan kicked off and the whole thing deflated. Which is scary, if you are small and don't know what's going on, and also potentially dangerous. Jess got to work pulling out some kids while other people (myself included) did their best to try and keep the thing from falling over too much. Tyler wasn't at the exit, though, so eventually Jess just dove in after him. She found him in a very unhappy mood, but having mama nearby definitely helped. Still spooky. He's been in two bounce houses in his life. Both deflated while he was inside. I'm not sure if he'll want to go into any more.

Tyler also got a haircut yesterday. His third. The second went just fine. The third was NOT fun. He didn't want the little cape thing on, and he did not like the clippers one little bit. There were many tears, but eventually we got through it with bubbles and patience. There's been a lot of trauma in his life this weekend. I'm surprised he's still this well adjusted.

Other Micro-news:

-Jess has had to go through her polygraph test. It was a horrible experience and she has to go back.

-Jess also is traveling in October for work. I'll have Tyler for the week. Planning to get him a tattoo.

-With all these activities, I barely have any time at all for Video games. Crazy, I know.

-Tyler, for those keeping track, will be 18 months old (1.5 years) at the end of this month.

-Also, Tyler sits in a Big-boy car seat now.

I'll probably write again in another two months when I have some time. :)

-N

P.S.: I have some pictures to share, too.  But photo upload seems to be wonky, so I'll try again later.  

Salesmanship

Jess and I have been thinking about replacing the windows in our house...essentially since we bought the house. We loved the house itself, but the windows are all single-pane, aluminum frame and a little hard to open and close in some places. We played around with a contractor before Tyler was born, but then decided to put it on hold until, you know, the whole baby situation got more stable.

Well since then I've noticed a couple of drips sneaking in around the windows, so we hit up consumer reports again to get some window recommendations and decided to go with Anderson windows. They do pretty darn high-end windows, but you do often get what you pay for, and they convinced us of the quality of their windows...mostly.

So when you call the Anderson guys up, they send out a guy to your house who does some rough measurements, computes a quote, and then, and this is properly obnoxious, gives you an HOUR LONG explanation on how awesome their windows are in your house. It's really over the top, and a little off-putting, but they do have really nice windows.

All of this is background so I can tell you this story:

The guy was out late, and Tyler was already in bed, and the demo had reached the point where he brought in little sample windows and proceeded to explain (in stupidly excruciating detail) every neat aspect of the windows. He had reached the part where he wanted to talk about how secure the windows were. He said: “One of the main reasons people buy Anderson windows is for security...” and then he reached down and with a single punch shattered one of the windows with his bare hands.

For an instant, I was incredibly impressed. “They are so confident of the safety of their glass, that they will break it with their bare hands, and so confident that you will buy their windows that they will replace that pane of glass after each demonstration. Astounding!” Then I looked at the guys face and realized that this wasn't really part of the demo, and he had just shattered a window in our library. And his hand was bleeding.

After we had sorted out that, no, that wasn't actually supposed to happen, Jess ran off with the sales guy to the bathroom to patch his hand up. We had just gotten some really festive band-aids for Tyler, and Jess was rather keen to use them. I vacuumed very thorougly and then walked around in my bare feet. If I missed a shard, I wanted it under my toes, not Tylers.

Anyway, we went with their windows, but if anyone who reads this ever feels like doing the same, you may want to stand back when they get to that part of the presentation.

I also got to travel to Charleston last week. It all went startlingly well, except for some paperwork shenanigans that nearly got me sent back home early. We got it all sorted out, though, and the tasks that we set out to do went off without a hitch. Which meant that there wasn't a lot of drama or excitement, at least not at work, but that's a pretty good tradeoff for success.

As for the rest of the city, it was pretty nice, in places. I got to have some fried chicken and grits several times. You know, like they do in the south. Also lots of fish, because Jessie wasn't there to help us pick restaurants. Charleston is really pretty and old in the places where it has been well maintained, and a condemnable bio hazard in the places where it hasn't. Stick to the nice places and you'll have a great time. We took some walks to go get some food a couple of times, and the City really looks nice, on foot. I'm sad we left before Saturday, there was a farmers market right across from our hotel, evidently. That would have been fun to see and eat my way through.

Tyler is getting better and better at being a toddler. He can run now, and get up to a fair clip for a guy whose legs are so short. He's becoming less and less fussy every time we drop him off at school, and he always seems fully engaged whenever we come to pick him up. He's becoming a little more of a picky eater, but that was bound to happen eventually. I'm sure we weren't going to just be able to feed him broccoli for dinner until he turned 18. He's also working a lot on copying our words, and rather a lot of them, though it's rare that these early attempts at language make repeat performances. We often quiz him on “who that is”, and he's pretty good at Mama and Dada at this point, but the real comedy comes in when he confuses the two. “Who is that?” “Mama—Dada!” He even shakes his head like, 'Wait, no, that's not right. It's the other one...Dada! That's right.” Those of you that have been lucky enough to skype with us may have seen him working on the splits. We'll make a martial artist out of him yet. He has also decided that the best use of the letter and number flash cards we got him is to take them out of our hands and throw them through the air and laugh uproariously, which is more interaction that he has done with those cards before, so I consider it progress.

-N  

Getting Ready to Travel

So tomorrow I get to travel for work. Nothing as exotic as England, but Charleston, SC isn't a bad place if you gotta do some work. It's supposed to be pretty rainy there all week, so I'm glad I have a raincoat to bring. Thanks, Switzerland! Jess is going to be a dear and watch Tyler for the week, which actually means that he will have to have is first babysitter this week, as Jess has a couple of hockey games to go play. Fortunately, they're after Tyler goes to sleep, so it'll be an easy job, but it's still worth noting. First babysitting job, yowza. We got a recommendation from someone at work (a neice) and she will be coming over Monday evening to...well, essentially just make sure the house doesn't catch fire. A neighbor will be coming by for the Wednesday evening game. But in both cases, Tyler should sleep right through the event. Well, at least that's the hope. If he doesn't...well, that's what babysitters are for.

I, on the other hand, am doing important work stuff. The transition from the R&D group to the Test group has been a pretty fantastic one. I've already gotten a spot award and am sitting in on interviews and getting commended for doing good stuff. I even get to travel for test already. Neat, eh? We've been testing our software re: its interface with some other software, and are pretty confident in our ability to go out there and demonstrate our stuff working as intended. We have, in fact, been mostly finding bugs with their software. And also with the hardware we're using to test everything. I'm getting pretty good at reading debug logs and am slowly improving at Linux at the same time. People appreciate what I'm doing, and I've got interesting stuff to do. Exactly what I was looking for.

I got a new toy for myself a few weeks ago. An Ipad! I thought it was way too expensive, but most high-end tablets sell for around the same $$$, and the smooth, pretty display really sold me. So now I finally get to play a lot of those Ipad-only games that I've been reading about for so long. It's nice. I'm also going to attempt to travel without a laptop for the first time in quite a while, just bringing the new tablet with me. Considering I'm pretty much only going to be using it for goofing-off purposes, I think it will handle just fine.

Speaking of games, I've been spending less and less time playing games on the TV, and more time playing them on my laptop or on the tablet. The game that's been taking up residence in the Xbox is actually our exercise game. Good for a workout, but in addition to my usual Judo, I've actually been taking out my bike for a spin in the evenings (I wear one of those glowy vests and have lights and stuff, so I'm safe.) I definitely need to hit up Uncle Matt for biking tips.

Did you guys catch the Olympics? We watched the opening ceremony (until we got tired and went to bed) and have been having it on and off as the mood strikes us. It's probably the most TV Tyler has ever seen. I'm not sure he has any idea what it is showing, unless he's been watching Water Polo at day care.

Additions to Tyler's Dictionary:

Bapple: Apple

Wa-Wa: Water

Moo: Answer to “What does a cow say?”

Baa: Answer to “What does a a sheep say?”

Bee-Bee-Bee-Bee: This is actually the sound Daddy makes when tickling Tyler with his face.

Tuck: Stuck. For things that don't move.

He doesn't always remember the right word for any given situation: you often have to remind him what word to use, but the words are all in there. Very cute.

We also went to watch mommy play ice hockey yesterday. Tyler was very intrigued by the game, though he kept losing track of which one Mommy was. Whenever she skated over to give him a smile in between plays, though, he would get really excited. The rest of the time was spent running around the outside of the rink, watching the Zamboni and doing his other new favorite activity: spinning around in a circle until he falls over. He nearly had to sub in for their center: they were short a lot of players, but they managed to scrape together enough players to form a couple of lines and won their game. Yay!

I'll try to write updates from Charleston if I have time.

-N

Well this is Clearly Unacceptable

Has it really been nearly 6 weeks since I last posted on here? Six weeks? And I'm the one around here who is supposed to be doing updates for a toddler. Six weeks in toddler time is like 3 years in regular person time. Let's get back with the program.

Tyler has been in the toddler classroom for a few weeks now, and is starting to adjust. He had a nice transition, where he spent the last few days in his baby classroom hanging out more and more in the toddler room. He still gets a bit fussy when we leave, but there is a security camera that cycles through the rooms on the way out of the day care place, and on the days when it is pointing at his room, we see that by the time we've reached the lobby, the fussing is pretty much over. He is a big fan of the slide they have in the classroom, and really likes all of his older friends who walk around and do big kid things like singing songs and having circle time and reading stories and doing dances together and stuff. You know, like grown-ups do. The day care has also almost finished up the renovation. I'm most excited to see the new kitchen and new activity room. I'm told it may have computers for technology education. I approve.

Also, we went on vacation. Abandoning all the rest of the siblings who congregated up in Juneau (though we did miss them) we decided to head over to the much warmer (and closer) state of Florida to see the other half of our family. Some of us aren't so lucky to get both halves in the same zip code pretty much ever. It did expose something I didn't know about vacationing with a kid. Most vacations you have a little bit of relax time and a little bit of activity time. It takes work to get over to Europe or to plan hotel visits across a continent, but you do the work and you get a nice memory out of it. But it's also important to have some relaxing time, or you'll just feel more and more stressed out the more you try to do. When you have a kid, though, there's no real relaxing time, and any activity has the focus taken away from the cool event you're trying to do, and put on trying to keep your kid from, let's be honest, killing themselves. We hit the beach in Florida, and I'm glad I went, but you have no idea how excited Tyler was to get himself killed all the way to death in the ocean. When we left Tyler behind with the extended family for a few minutes, we got to enjoy ourselves in the waves, and for those few minutes it felt like a real vacation. But as soon as we got him back up, we're trying to keep him from eating watermelon that has fallen in sand. We were lucky enough to have some grown-up time when we left Tyler with grandma and went out *dancing*, and again when we drove down to do some snorkeling in the Florida keys. We'll put up some pictures eventually, but we have to finish off the underwater camera we bought. Anyway, it was a nice glimpse into the difference between traveling with kids and without them. They are quite different animals.

I changed jobs. I'm still at the same company, but I'm in a different group. The reasons are varied and probably best not discussed here, lest they sound too much like wining...or lest people I work with read this (and why wouldn't they? I good writing!) But I'm really liking my new group. I've been instantly plunged into exciting and important work, and people appreciate what I do. Plus, I get to travel in a few weeks, which is nice because hey, travel! But a bummer that I'll miss Tyler for the week. Yay for video conferencing.

Can I update Tyler's dictionary?

Ah-Oooh has become uh-oh, though he still doesn't know when he's supposed to use it.

We got a 'Wa-Wa' out of him this weekend and are trying to associate it with water.

Cats are now 'Dee-Dee', though he hasn't learned to differentiate between the one that always runs away and the one that gets patiently manhandled until the cat gets treats.

Bah is sometimes 'bath', now.

And Tee means 'teeth', specifically brushing them, often as a precursor to bedtime.

Those are the highlights. I'll try not to take so long before coming back with more stories, but I do keep myself pretty busy these days.

-N

Maybe he should get a Certificate

So anyone who has seen the little tyke on Skype knows that Tyler is very much a toddler. I can think of no better noun to describe that happy little walk he does. He has, unfortunately, been stuck in the baby program at Day Care for too long, however, being as they are trying to organize a lot of kids moving around at the same time that the building is getting remodeled. Well we took it to the highest authority (and asked nicely) and today we got the news that Tyler will be moving up to the Toddler classroom at the beginning of next month. Even cooler, he gets to move in with Ben, one of his current friends from his current classroom and he gets to re-unite with August, one of his friends that moved up to toddlers many months ago. He also lives a little bit down the street from us. So that's exciting.

Jess and I also got to play hookey from school today to watch one of the great rituals of summer in a Texas day care: Splash time! They actually have a neat little area in one of the playgrounds that has a gentle slope that fills with an inch or two of water, and the whole thing is surrounded by sprinklers! Jess and I sent Tyler to school with swim diapers and his swim gear, and went over to see how he would fare.

Tyler's baby group got to head over with the Toddlers (see, they know) and the whole group, most of whom hadn't done this before, broke down into three sections. One group ran right into the middle, splashing and having a great time. One group stood around the edge of the pool staring and occasionally getting hit by the sprinklers, but not really joining in the party. And another group stood off to the side and cried like crazy. Tyler was, of course, in the adventure group. We got more than a few pictures of him running around and kicking up his splashy feet. It was really cute to watch.

So now that Tyler is getting older, and maybe also now that he has tubes in his ears and can hear us better, he's starting to take the first, halting steps towards 'mastering' the English language. Which is kind of a bummer because let's face it, English is a mess. I wish I had a better language to teach him. Is it to late to bring back Esperanto? Anyway, for your edification, I have attached Tyler's first dictionary. It's not organized Alphabetically because Tyler doesn't know what an alphabet is yet.

Ba-Ba: 1) Bottle (if said around 6:30 PM)

2. Bye-bye (all other times)

Da-Da: 1)Daddy

2. Look at that!
3. Mommy
4. I want that thing

Ma-Ma: 1) Mommy

Buta-Bita-Bita: 1) Blanket

Doo! 1) Shoes! Put them on me and let's go outside to play.

Git: 1) Cat!

[Standing near something and lifting up one leg while making grunting noises] 1) I want to go up here.

Ah! Oooooh. Ah! Oooooh. 1) Nothing, but he likes to parrot mommy and daddy when we make that sound at him.

[Crying] 1) What's wrong with you, why don't you understand my perfectly enunciated English? Give me what I want!

Jess is off at ice hockey, the first game of the summer season on her new team the Peter North Stars. If you get the joke behind that name, don't tell anyone else, lest they figure out too much about you. I'm hoping her game goes well and she has a nice time. I'm also hoping I get some sweet loot drops as I'm going to go play some Diablo 3 while I have the house to myself.

-N

Nearly an Official Toddler

As a follow up to the last post, Tyler went in for his checkup at two weeks after the surgery and everything looks just great. His ears seem to be doing really well for him and there's no more sign of infection. Of course, there was rarely any sign of infection before he got the tubes in, but I'm just going to assume that everything is going well.

Tyler is still *technically* in the baby program at Day care, but he has been spending time, along with some of his other classmates, out in the playground with the toddlers. His whole class has become pretty adept walkers, and so they're out there doing all sorts of crazy things with the REALLY old kids. His teacher tells us that all the other babies tend to stay within sight of her, just to be sure to be safe. Tyler, on the other hand, is off and exploring the whole place with no fear at all. Definitely his moms baby.

Here's some other neat things he has done:

-He wears shoes all day now, except for when he is at home. We've even had to abandon some of the smaller shoes: he's grown out of them.

-He likes throwing balls. He has a small whiffle-ball sized one and one only slightly smaller than a Yoga ball. He saw the latter one day at target and we decided to get it for him. He was really excited the whole time at the store. Now he likes to grab one of his balls, run forward, and throw it as hard as he can, all while squeeling.

-MORE TEETH. His bottom left molar is starting to peek through, and if you feel around in there you can feel the top two molars coming in. Because Tyler is the best baby, he's not complaining about this.

-He likes buttons. He is, therefore, obsessed with the remote and with his little baby laptop that we got him. This also makes it difficult for us to skype with people: he's found the power button on my laptop.

-Jess is at Derby tonight, and I just put Tyler down to bed. After a few minutes, I heard the mobile music turn on through the monitor. Yeah, he did that.

I've been doing Judo, still, though a bout of some sort of nasty fever/throat infection kept me out for a week or so. One our old school at the gymnastics academy had to move, the school pretty much split into two, so I tried going to the other one for a while, which is nice because it has more people for me to practice with.

Jess is doing lots of derby and has even signed up for an ice hockey tournament this weekend. She's worried, because worrying is what she does, but she can skate on ice just fine, and it's actually a mixed-skill-level tournament, so she doesn't have to skate against the really good guys, just the other C-level skaters on the other team.

Our cats are fuzzy, adorable, and REALLY into getting attention, especially in the early morning. Gizmo has taken to jumping up on the bed, meowing a bit, and then taking up a sleeping position in my armpit. To each their own, I'm sure it's really warm there.

Diablo 3 is out, and Jess and I are playing together. Yes, it's a video game, but it's something we're doing together, and we're having a lot of fun in the process. We can't do it lots and lots cause, you know, *baby*, but what time we do get together is really nice, both in and out of game.

-N

Post-Op

Tyler is Just fine. It's important to lead with the headline.

So we got up at a little after 7 today and got ourselves ready while leaving Tyler in his crib for a while. We heard him wake up, but he wasn't allowed to have anything in his stomach for his surgery, so we figured our main obstacle would be a starving-hungry baby. After we were all ready to go, we got Tyler up, changed, and directly into his car seat. Despite the change in schedule, he was actually in pretty high spirits. The drive went fine, and then we got to Simply Pediatric Surgery Center, a place clearly designed to help your kid get in and out of his (hopefully quick) surgery with the minimum of fussing. Lots of bright colors and lots of rooms with parents and babies getting ready for their procedures. And I checked for dad, they did have red wagons that they use when they need. We spent a little bit of time filling out forms and having any questions answered (very few, it's a simple procedure) and then it was time for him to go. We gave quick goodbye hugs and then the nurses took him away, distracting him with stickers. He didn't make a single fuss. We went off to the recovery room to wait, and 10 minutes later the doctor came by to let us know he was done. They kept him in a stage-1 recovery room to make sure he woke up okay (they put him to sleep with gas) and then brought him to us.

We heard him before we saw him. He was fussy in an unhappy way. He went right to mommy who soothed him with a bottle for a while. The first 15 minutes were pretty unhappy, but then he calmed down and got a bad case of the sleepy-faces. We got ourselves paperwork-ed out, and then went for lunch at Home Slice Pizza with a very sleepy baby. He conked out in the car and slept through all the pizza. He was in a good mood for the drive home, though, and has been doing just fine every since.

His ears have been draining, there was evidently a lot of fluid behind the ear from his most recent runny nose. I'm guessing if it wasn't for the tubes, we would have been back in for antibiotics pretty quickly. Oh, and when we got back I took a nap for 4 hours. I guess I was more tired than I thought.

Anyway, that's the story of the surgery. Enjoy some pics of the process!

Distractions with Daddy

Distractions with Mommy

Just back with us, unhappiness in the face.

After a little more time, feeling better. 

Identification

-N