Ty’s Weblog

Mira has starting giving hugs once and a while.

Sometimes you just be holding her and she’ll lay her head down on your shoulder for a few seconds.

I’ve even had her be playing on the floor and crawl over to me. Then she climbs up on me and lays her head down on my shoulder. Then she’s done and wants to get back down and play more.

You can also be holding her sometimes and look at her and say, “Hug?” and she’ll lean down and give you a quick hug.

It’s really quite cute.

This time last week I was running a 101° fever. From Tuesday night till Saturday morning, I was a very sick man. I basically laid in bed for three days and ached. Looks like it was some kind of flu. In any case, I’m much better now. Still a little tired, but not too bad off.

GameSpy has a preview of Metal Gear Solid 3 up.

In addition to the other events of the day. Mira did her first real crawling today. It was between 5:00pm and 5:45pm this afternoon. I was on the phone with J-Pa when it happened. She’s scooted around a bit before now, but this was the first time that she’d used her arms and knees together to get herself around.

As I often note, we’ve very proud.

This morning, Xander and I got up and headed out to The National Air & Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center to watch the IMAX NASCAR movie. Xander did a wonderful job being patient while we waited in line to get into the museum (we got there about 10 minutes before it opened) and again while we waited in line to buy tickets.

Then we headed down to the theater. I’d tried to prepare Xander for what it was going to be like. I explained to him how the screen was going to be very big and it was going to be very loud. We walked in and he saw the screen and he said, “What’s that?”

Daddy: That’s the screen

Xander: That’s a huge screen!

He did a wonderful job sitting while we waited for the movie to start. He’s only 4 years old, so he had to sit very far forward to keep his seat down, so he ended up sitting on my lap once the movie got started. He also spent much of the movie with his hands over his ears because it was so loud, but he was clearly having a great time. I hardly watched the movie myself this time, I spent so much of the time looking down and watching his face. He had a wonderful time and loved the movie. He said his favorite part was when the cars would go by and go “Zoom! Zoom! Zoom! Zoom! Zoom! Zoom! Zoom! Zoom!”

After the movie was over, we exited the theater and they had a “hands on” activity for the kids. Xander took a little bit of time to color himself a nice picture of a car. Then he went to claim his “prize.” He got lucky and won a full sized movie poster which now hangs proudly in his room..

After that we spent some time looking around the museum. Xander thought the SR-71 Blackbird was wonderful. “Daddy, that’s a big plane!”

There was also a indoor kite flying demonstration that Xander enjoyed watching very much.

Around Noon, we headed out and met up with Mommy and Mira for lunch at McDonald’s. After that we went for desert at Cold Stone Creamery, which was yummy as always.

Then it was home for about a hour and a half of quite time for everyone. Then we got Xander and Mira back up and we all finished watching Nextel Cup qualifying which we’d TiVoed yesterday.

Then Xander and I went outside to run around some since it was such a beautiful day. After about 10 minutes Xander decided he wanted to do some chalk drawing so we started doing that. Soon after that Mommy and Mira joined us outside as well. We all had a great time.

It really has been a full, rich day.

I went to see the IMAX NASCAR movie tonight. You’ll noticed I’ve dropped the 3D. Apparently the 3D is for some theaters, and ours isn’t one of them.

Oh well, no great loss there. The movie was great! I won’t go into too many details on it, but it was beautiful and the sound was amazing too! The screen was 6 stories tall. Racing on a screen that size is amazing.

It was a good documentary. I’m gonna try to take Xander to see it this weekend.

Got my ticket to the IMAX NASCAR 3D movie today. Working where I do has its advantages. I’ve got a free ticket to a preview showing Thursday night. Free in that parking is $12, but it’ll be worth it.

I’ll be feeling it out for taking Xander to see it this weekend.

Mira woke up around 3am this morning and couldn’t get herself back to sleep. So, Kate got up and changed her diaper and brought her into the bed with us to feed her. She’d not eaten all that well before bedtime anyway.

Once she’s in bed with us, I pretty much roll right over and doze off. At some point , I’m not sure what time it was, I wake up to this sound.

“Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da”

I look over to see Mira staring at me tapping me on the arm and saying the above. I am instantly fully awake, of course. “Yeah, I’m Daddy! Whatcha need Lu?” She giggled and smiled at me, then rolled back over to Mommy.

So I’m not 100% sure if she was trying to call me Daddy or if she was just making sounds, but it was sure nice.

Today, Xander showed us that he’s learning to spell. Kate was able to give him some three letter words and he’d sound them out and spell them for her.

We’re quite impressed.

We gave Mira some Rice Chex to try last night. She did a wonderful job with them. She thought they were a lot of fun.

Mommy and Daddy didn’t try to stop her from putting them in her mouth. And they crunched when she bit down on them!

She even managed to get some swallowed.

She did an even better job with them again tonight!

Mira has been toying around with crawling for the past few days. Today she did the best she’s done so far. She managed to get a few feet forward with only a slight drift to the left. She’s not quite moving her legs properly yet, so it really looks more like she is pulling herself forward with her hands, but she is almost there.

Today is Dr. Seuss‘ 100th birthday.

Xander has fallen in love with Dr. Seuss books as of late. It started soon after we started playing The Cat in the Hat Game after Xander got it for Christmas. He loves that game.

The first time I read the The Cat in the hat to him after that, he thought it was the most wonderful thing in the world. Now i’m reading it to him every night, along with The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. He knows almost all the words to both of them now. He’ll even correct me when I read a sentence wrong.

God bless you Dr. Seuss. You’ve certainly blessed us.

Xander and I had a great time this afternoon playing some baseball. He got a tee ball set for his birthday. It was a beautiful day today, so I left work a little bit early so we could go out and play.

He did a wonderful job. He listened to everything that I said to him and then did a great job of doing what I had asked. He was so proud of himself as he managed to hit the ball a little farther every few tries. I was very proud of him too.