Week Off

Yesterday Dad and I were playing a game on the computer when it started acting funny -- stopping for no reason, for minutes at a time. So Dad shut it down, and when he tried to turn it back on all we saw was this blue screen. According to Uncle Mike, our hard drive has a corrupted sector in the boot partition, which as far as I can tell means it lost its shoes. But anyway, it won't work until we can install a new hard thingy, which he's sending Dad in the mail.

The good news is that Dad managed to get his ten-year-old laptop working tonight, so now we have rudimentary Internet access. The bad news is it's rudimentary. There's no way I can upload new pictures or videos from this thing. So for now all you get is what was already there.

The big news this week is all related to my mouth. I'm teething in earnest now. Those little suckers are starting to poke through my gums, and it hurts. It's not like a sharp stabbing sensation either -- I'm in constant, annoying pain. If I'm not actively eating, sleeping or totally distracted, it's enough to make me gripe.

Also, I'm eating more solid food than before. Mom and Dad are making my cereal thicker, and I'm working toward twice a day. It's pretty good, but you know as soon as I get used to it they're going to pull a switch on me. Today they tried to feed me acorn squash. I mean, I ate it, but it sure wasn't like anything I'm used to. Dad decided he's going to make as much of my food as he can, so he bought a baby food cookbook that helps with the benchmarks; you know, what things I'll be ready for at which stages. He says this way he'll know what's going in my food and we'll save money. That squash made 25 servings and it only cost us $1.60, so I guess it makes sense.

That's really about it for now. I have to stop anyway, because this computer is so slow it's making me crazy.

Six Months

On Thursday I will officially be six months old. I can't believe it's almost my half-birthday already. But then again, I can't remember not being here. Dad says he can't remember me not being here either, and I think I know what he means -- it just feels natural to be around, loving my parents and being loved in return by them. If I wasn't here, that would be weird, because then who would be writing this blog? Whoa, I'm starting to get metaphysical. I mean, I guess; I'm not really sure what that word means. But if it's weird for Mom and Dad to think about when I wasn't here, imagine how it is for me.

I had my professional picture taken again, but since Dad still doesn't have a scanner I can't put it up. The photographer was just as nice as the one we saw when I was three months old, and I actually cracked a few smiles for her this time. Mom put up the new picture right away, and we got some of those photo-with-a-graphic-caption pictures to mail out to people, but they were way more expensive than we expected, so don't feel affronted if you don't get one.

We did go back to Epcot this weekend, but there was nothing different to talk about. I guess we went on the Finding Nemo ride, but I slept right through it, so whatever. Plus Dad forgot the camera again because he's still a newbie. But he has taken some pictures of my new accomplishments. I'm snuggling Kucha (with his help and supervision, of course) and I'm starting to push myself up to a standing position when someone's holding my hands. I got a new high chair this weekend too, and tonight Mom gave me my cereal (which I'm eating much more readily these last couple weeks) while I was sitting in it. All by myself, I'm working on lifting my lower body off the ground and moving to get my toys. That crawling thing is almost within reach! I can't wait.

Oh yeah, and if you didn't notice, I now have video on my Web site! Check it out over there to the left -- you can play it in the small window or click on the little white text (the unreadable line) at the bottom to see all my videos.

That's all for tonight, my friends. Sleep tight!

Sprout

Whew, after all the family here this week was comparatively low-key. I basically spent the whole week sitting and playing with my toys. Which is not so fancy, except that that I'm pretty much sitting up by myself. I'll lean forward to grab a toy and then sit back up to play with it, which has Dad going all goo-goo and everything. I don't know what the big deal is, because he sits up all the time without my help. Still, it means I'm having more fun with my toys, even when I lunge forward for them and end up face-planting on the blanket.

The stuff Mom and Dad play with is interesting to me too. I just want to grab the phone or the remote or the camera and press all the buttons, maybe put it in my mouth for a while and see what it tastes like. Dad found a remote that's a little more my size (the one he uses on our TV is a little too big for me to grab yet) and carefully cleaned it off so I'd have something else to go for besides my elephants and butterflies. No phone yet -- Mom said something about running up the minutes, so I guess I have to wait.

Last Friday, before Mom had the weekend off, we went to Epcot for the Food and Wine Festival. Obviously, I couldn't eat any food or drink any wine yet, but it was a lot of fun to watch all the people walking around and see the different colors and everything. We did go to a beer seminar, which we just happened to reach in time for Dad to sample some, and that was exciting. I pretty much squealed the whole time, loud enough for Dad to hear but not so much that I drowned out the speaker. (The employees there were really nice to me -- it pays to be cute!) We're talking about going back this weekend, because by the time we got to the Greek stand Mom and Dad were too full to eat any more and they'd like to try everything. (If we do, it'll be her turn to taste wine or something, because that's only fair.)

The only other thing Dad and I did this week was go to a volleyball game at UCF. He didn't bring the camera, but that wasn't such a big loss because we were only gone for two hours and I'm not married to UCF anyway. We're Lobos in this house, Mom and Dad say, but we support the Knights because it's close and Dad used to work there. We're planning to go see a basketball game in a month or so, and from there I guess Dad starts grooming me to play for Coach Franrahan or whatever his name is.

I better go to bed. Sleep well, everyone!

Great and Grand

It's been a while. Sorry, everyone. I know there's already been at least one complaint that I haven't updated this week yet. We've been busy.

Our major event was that my great-grandparents and my great-aunt on Dad's dad's side came to visit this weekend. We didn't do a whole lot of sightseeing; they were just thrilled to spend some time with me. Great-Grandma said it had been a while since she'd been able to hold a baby, plus I'm the first new kid on that side in something like 15 years. They were joking that my cousin (the last one) was jealous of me, but at least she gets to see them every day and hang out. It's going to be a couple more years before I'm always around, and really there's no risk of me replacing her -- after all, she's the last grandchild, and I'm the first great-grandchild, so we have different but equal places in their hearts.

One of the things Mom and Dad are having people do is paint a butterfly in my room. As you can probably tell from my header, butterflies are my theme for decoration right now, and Dad had this idea that people could paint one of the many stenciled on my wall, as a personal note and memory of them. It's really taken off, and so far everyone thinks it's a cool idea. Dad put up the collection of butterflies painted to date, if you're interested.

Over the last week or so, I've also become a lot more mobile. They'll put me down on the floor and I'm rolling right over to the puppies. Angel still isn't sure about me, but today I petted Kucha for the first time (without parental assistance, that is) and she seemed to like it OK. I'm also learning how to make my toys operate by myself. My favorite is Jackie the elephant. Jackie is short for "Jackpot" because she has a little wheel in her stomach that turns like a slot machine and selects what song she'll sing next. I'm really digging lying on my tummy, chewing on her trunk and turning the wheel to play the music. Dad doesn't think it'll be long before I'm crawling, and yesterday I did manage to get up on all fours for about a second. He'll be chasing me around before he knows it!

See you next week!