Ty’s Weblog

We tried out some sledding with Xander on the hill beside our house today. The results were mixed. We were using one of the saucer sleds, which might not have been the best choice.

His first time down he slipped off and slid down laying face down on the sled. His head was toward the back at least, with his arm dragging behind him. He didn’t think that was much fun. He seems to have more fun ridding down in my lap. At least until the edge caught in the snow one time and we flipped over. I managed to shield him from the worst of the fall, but he didn’t think it was as much fun as I tried to make it sound. So I’m not sure I did such a good job as Daddy on the sledding front today.

I went down one time with Mira also. I’m lucky I didn’t have my little flip while I was holding her. Anyway, she loved watching Xander and me sled, but she didn’t care much for it herself.

I’m gonna try to get a more traditional sled for next time. I think the saucer might take a bit more control to keep balanced than a long flat sled does. Maybe Xander will like that better.

Upon closer inspection, it looks like Mira has her bottom right lateral incisor, instead of the central incisor which is what I thought it was this morning. It also looks like the two bottom central incisors are just about to break through also. We think we can see them.

(Yes, that’s an adult teeth picture, it’s the best thing I could find.)

Tonight at dinner Xander did a very good job of trying some new foods, and Mira was playing nicely in her play pen while we ate.

I commented on how good both of them were being and said, “How did I end up with two such wonderful children?”

Xander responded, “We got Mira.”

“Yes, that’s exactly right Xander.”

So Mira gave us a couple of surprizes this morning.

Kate was off to the doctor this morning to have her toe looked at again. It doing well by the way. The doctor said everything is healing fine.

Anyway, back to Mira. I as keeping her while Kate was at the doctor. I was playing a little bit of EverQuest while she played on the floor or sat with me as the whim took her. I was running around town in game talking to the NPCs to see what they had to say. Mira decided she wanted to sit with me again so I picked her back up. I was talking to a bunch of high level NPCs (at least compared to me). Mira did what she often does when presented with a table and slammed her hands down on it. She managed to nail the attack button on the keyboard for me. So then I had 3 high level NPCs attacking me back. Needless to say, my character died.

I couldn’t help but laugh about it, of course.

So Kate gets home and I’m telling her the story about what happened, and I’m acting out what my character did in game.

“So, do you have any quests for me to… *WHAM* *WHAM* WHAM*”

The *whams* where accompanied by me using my hands like I had a sword in them attacking, it was very animated. Mira thought this was very funny and started laughing, which started us laughing, which kept her laughing. Kate, who was holding her at the time, looks down at her and says, “Is that a tooth?”

We both get very serious all of a sudden. We look a little closer and sure enough, there is a little white spot on her bottom gum. I stick my finger in her mouth to make sure it’s not just a piece of paper or something she managed to end up with in her mouth, since everything she finds goes in there anyway. Sure enough, it’s hard and connected. So Mira has gotten her first tooth through her gums. Looks like it’s the bottom right incisor.

So then I decided I had to have a picture. So we spent a few minutes trying to get her to open her mouth and hold still. Didn’t get a picture of it, but we did manage to piss her off pretty soundly though. So Kate takes her to change her diaper, and while she’s doing that, I keep trying to take pictures. That just pisses her off more. Kate leans away to do some diaper related thing, getting a wipe or something, and as she is coming back, Mira sits up and grabs her shoulder. I mean, she goes from lying down on the changing pad to sitting up and holding her Mommy without any help from anyone! We laid her back down, and she did it again!

So needless to say, it’s been a pretty busy morning for our little girl!

Mira clearly prefers Mommy over Daddy. She often gets upset when Mommy is no where to be seen. She calms down after a bit but sometimes it takes a bit of work on my part. One of the things that I do to calm her down is sing Little Bunny Foo Foo to her. That started years ago when my niece, Brittney, loved that song so much. We taught it to Xander when he was a baby and now we are doing the same for Mira. It has lots of hand motions and waggling fingers and such, and she is just entranced by it.

So we come to this morning. I’m sitting at the dining room table working on my lap top, since I’m home today because of the weather. Kate is sitting on the other side of the table eating her breakfast. Mira is down on the floor playing and Xander is bouncing around the room the way he usually does.

Mira decided she’d had enough of being on the floor. She’d managed to lock her legs around a chair at the end of the table and get herself sitting up. She wasn’t very happy with the situation though and she started crying pretty hard. I was in the middle of debuggin some problem and Kate was eating, so by silent conscent we agreed that a little crying wasn’t going to hurt anyone.

Xander sits down beside her and gives her a kiss on the head to try to make her feel better. That doesn’t work, which he comes to me to report. I tell him it’s ok for her to cry a little bit. Xander doesn’t like his sister to be unhappy so he thinks for a few moments.

The next thing Kate and I notice is that Mira has stopped crying. We refocus our attention over to her and we see Xander sitting next to her singing Little Bunny Foo Foo to her.

Thanks to Kate’s quick thinking, we’ve even got a movie of it for you to watch.

We had about 4 or 5 inches of snow yesterday. We had misting all night that was freezing when it touched the ground, so there is a nice layer of ice on the ground this morning, so I’m working from home again today.

My favorite part of this time of year is when I spend an hour or so getting the snow out of my driveway and then, just before dark, the snowplow comes along and dumps about a foot of snow in the driveway again. Lots of fun for everyone.

The weather people are saying it will get bad again today with sleet and freezing rain, then snow again in the evening to overnight. Another 1 to 2 inches on top of what we already have.

This is what I expected things to be like when I moved up here.

Two weeks till we get racing again!

I can hardly wait. I do, however, have some thoughts on the upcoming season.

I really don’t like the new points system that NASCAR is putting in place. I think this whole “playoffs” style end of the season this is silly. In other sports you have playoffs in order to trim things down to the two teams that are better than the rest. The difference in NASCAR is that the same drivers race each other 36 times. It’s like if every football team played ever other one every Sunday. The points reflect who finishes the best week after week. I do agree with giving more points to the winner. I’d also give some points to the pole sitter. I don’t think we need to tighten the field back up at the end of the season to maintain interest. Those who like racing will watch anyway. Those with only mild interest are going to go back to football once it starts anyway.

I’m also amused that the U.S. Army is the Official Armed Service of NASCAR. I think next year, the Russian army should put in a bid.

I do like 38 cars making it in on time this year. I don’t really like provisioinals that much anyway. Make it or go home boys.

Captain Kangaroo died today. I’m pretty sad about it. I remember watching him when I was a kid. The thing I remember most is Mr. Moose dropping ping pong balls on the Captain’s head. It’s not often I cry because someone I never met died. This is one of those times.

So Kate gets up this morning to get Mira out of her crib because we hear her crying. She walks in to see her sitting up in the crib holding on to the bars. We’ve figured out what she’s doing. She fiddles around until she can get her legs through the bars. Then she twists her feet to keep them from coming back through. Then she pulls with them till her arms can reach the bars and she uses her arms to pull herself up the rest of the way. We were both pretty impressed.

Mira put her self to sleep just fine last night! I woke up around 1:30am and heard some music coming from her room. I crept over to her room to see what was going on. She had woken up and turned her self so that her feet were facing her fish. Then she’d managed to kick the button at the bottom to start them up and she was just watching them. I went back to bed. When we woke up in the morning a little before 7am, we heard music again and a little crying. She’d started up the fish again! So, it looks like the 1:30am starting wasn’t just a fluke! She’s figured out how to turn them on when she wants them.

We’re very proud of her this morning.

We’re also very proud of Xander. He did a great job last night keeping quite in his room while Mira worked out going to sleep.

Tonight we put Mira in her crib around 8pm and just left her there. We’ve been reading up, and this seemed like the best way to get her out of the habit of sleeping in our bed. She cried for around 10 minutes, and then went to sleep. We are very proud of her tonight. Hopefully the rest of the night will go as well for her. She’s up now having her late night snack. With any luck she’ll get herself back to sleep in her crib again after that.

Yes, I’ve started playing EverQuest again. We’ll see how long it lasts this time.

Boy am I behind.

Kate broke her right big toe on Jan 2nd. Short version is that there is nothing much to do about it. X-rays show it is in alignment, so it is just a matter of waiting for it to heal.

Xander started back to school on the 5th, that continues to go well. We had the mid-year conference with his teacher on the 13th and everything seems to be going fine for him. He loves playing Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, and Operation Brain Surgery.

Mira had her 6 month checkup on the 5th also. She growing nicely and everything seems to be fine with her. We just started the sleeping on her own thing, which is really hard on Kate and me. Harder on Kate than me since I get to go off to work for much of it.

That covers the high points of the last couple of weeks as far as family life goes.

Spirit has landed.

That’s the latest Mars rover.

This article in the New York Post really pisses me off. Lots of places have commented on the stupidity of the whole article.

It appears that, as usual, parents aren’t the ones that are responsible for controling what kids are playing. Not only that, but the fact that the game has you doing things you shouldn’t do it real life is apparently a shock. It appears all works of fiction, interactive or traditional, are going to have to be banned to shut these idiots up. And I suspect non-fiction that mentions that this kind of stuff happens will have to be thrown out as well.