The funniest thing though was that an hour into the movie he looked over at me and said “High five!” I put out a hand and he gave me high five. Then went back to watching the movie. Didn’t tie to anything that happened in the movie as far as I remember. Totally random.

The Garden also has their holiday model train show going on and the kids always have a blast looking at the trains and the displays. Every time a train would come around again Beck would say “There’s another one!”. Never got old.

Then on Sunday, our occasional baby sitter took the kids over just for fun to her house to decorate cookies and little trees which she’s done the last few years. They had a blast and got all hopped up on sugar. On the way home, she was driving them home in our van and had a blow-out. Fortunately she was able to quickly pull over with no problems. Always good to drop a few $100 on tires out of nowhere.

Truman got to over to his best friend’s house that afternoon too.

The funniest thing though was every Monday Ella has a school assignment to draw a picture of what she did over the weekend and write (as best she can) what it was.

She chose (in face of the above competition) to draw “went to the grocery store with Dad”. That’s both heartwarming and irrational all at the same time.

Truman had gym class so I ran him up there and dropped him off, then headed to the grocery store. My parents and grandmother were coming that afternoon for Thanksgiving dinner, so I needed to stock up for cooking later. I took care of that and then went back to pick Truman up, then home.

I unloaded the groceries, grabbed a quick bite, and then had to run Ella out to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese (aka Charles Queso according to my sister), which of course, is right next door to the gym I was just at 30 minutes prior with Truman. Mary had not been feeling well, so went I got back she hit the sack. I hung with the kiddos for a few minutes and then popped on the tube so I could take care of a few things. Cycled some laundry, emptied the dishwasher, and then started to make the marinade for the flank steak for later.

Of course, by then, Beck was bored. His new thing is to take off all of his clothes and his diaper. In reasonably short order, he’ll usually also try peeing on the carpet somewhere. So, as I said he was getting bored and started stripping down. I was in a cycle for a while of doing one ingredient (balsamic vinegar or something), then going over to redress Beck so he didn’t start peeing on the floor.

After about 15 minutes of this (while slowly losing my mind), Truman decided he was tired and wanted to take a nap. Super idea I thought so I took him and Beck both upstairs. Truman went to his room and I took Beck in to nap. His other new trick is that when left unattended in his room, he will often poop, then take off his diaper, and then get it all over his room. So, before sleep times, we’ve started duck taping around his diaper so he can’t take it off, MacGyver-dad style. Crude but effective.

I taped him down, and got him safely in his room. Back downstairs to finish the marinade. Clock is ticking on Ella’s party – need to pick her up soon too. As I go to put the meat in the marinade I’ve ever so slowly prepared I discover that a significant portion of it is missing. At some point in all this, Piper the dog has snuck in and snagged a half pound of raw steak off the counter and it’s oh so gone. Oh well – rest goes in the marinade and into the fridge.

Suddenly, Truman is screaming for help. Apparently he didn’t go to sleep but has actually been on the potty himself. He managed to over-TP and when he flushed, the waters started to rise and he was freaking. As it turned out it was a near miss. I got him squared away but had to leave the toilet for later fixing.

Clock still ticking on picking up Ella; need to leave very soon. Beck has not gone to sleep and he’s not happy to be in his room. To give Mary some quiet, I decide we’ll give up on the nap and I’ll take him with me to go get Ella. I take him back downstairs and start to get ready to go – collecting Beck’s clothes (he’s already shucked them), socks, shoes, coat, etc. Then he’s in the bathroom saying “need go potty!”. Due to his recent tricks we’ve started potty training him so I’m excited that he’s interested but not happy about the timing.

I grab Beck and discover I can’t get his diaper off due to the duck tape (hey it works). Slight more tugging and I pull it off. It’s then that I realize that Beck was actually saying earlier that he had already gone poop and he actually had a full diaper, which I had just pulled off in haste, making a bit of a mess.

Really really need to leave to pick up Ella. Quickly clean up the bathroom and Beck, clothes on, shoes and socks on, in the car and make it there just a minute late to get Ella. Beck immediately falls asleep. Get Beck out of the car and have to run the gauntlet to get in and out of Charles Queso while proving that the children are all mine of. Finally, I make it back home. Get Beck to bed for real (re-taped) and slow down to hang out with Ella and Truman. Whew.

“The bunny’s going to get up and go to see Santa Claus. She’s going to tell Santa Claus that she wants someone to take care of her. Santa Claus puts me in a box and wraps me up, and leaves me for my bunny. My bunny opens the box and I jump out and then I can take care of her.”

Then she went to sleep.

• skelekon = skeleton
• Franklinstein = Frankenstein
• glow up = those blow-up holiday yard things
• yogret = yogurt
• Harry Podger = Harry Potter
• sfool = skool
• ife cream = ice cream
• Obi-Wan Kadoobie = Obi-Wan Kenobi
• Indinana Jones = Indiana Jones

The new word for today though is “chocolate” or as he says it, more like “yocowat” yet is very clear what he means. The impending valentine’s day and subsequent increase in chocolate consumption has brought this about. He’s very serious about his chocolate.

Here’s the track list and covered artist:

• Welcome To The Machine – Pink Floyd
• Heaven On Their Minds – Jesus Christ Superstar
• Almost Cut My Hair – CNY
• For What It’s Worth – Buffalo Springfield
• For The Love Of Money – O’Jays
• Innuendo – Queen
• Neon Knights – Black Sabbath
• Synchronicity II – Police
• Red Rain – Peter Gabriel
• Odissea – Carlo Marrale & Cheope
• Bullet The Blue Sky (Live) – U2

We actually stayed at this exact same hotel back in January, the last time we tried to do this trip. You may recall that last time we made it all the way up to Chicago to discover that Ella had a ridiculously high fever and was very sick. We spent a tortured night there and had a long and horrible drive back. Anyhow, it was definitely a better trip this time.

We got up Saturday morning and headed straight to Shedd Aquarium. We got there just as it opened and had no problem parking or getting in. By the time we got in they were having their first show at the big center aquarium which was a diver that would show you stuff. The big center aquarium has a huge turtle, sharks, and a ton of really cool big fish. Then we wandered around all the different habitat aquariums. Some of the favorites were the sea horses / sea dragons (Mary’s favorite), the jelly fish (Truman’s favorite), frogs, etc.

Then we headed down to the big oceanarium area and saw the sea otters and got ready for the dolphin show. By this point, the kids were all tired and hungry and just barely hanging on. Truman started throwing a fit, so I took him out of the show and down a level, to where you could see the dolphin tank from underneath. That was actually more interesting. Man they swim fast.

After the show we grabbed lunch which helped everyone get in a better mood. Then we took another trip down to the lower level and saw the baby Beluga whale (very very cool) and the penguins, who were a lot of fun. Pics here.

After the aquarium we drove around downtown a bit trying to find a good place to park. The kids napped (which they desperately needed). We were headed to the American Girl store, which apparently is some kind of weird cult that I don’t need to know anything more about. Lots of very well-dressed little girls carrying their dolls around (dressed the same way). Mary and Ella headed into the temple and us boys headed to the Disney Store. Truman scoped out some Power Rangers he wanted (the girl Rangers, heavily on clearance – score!) which he later played with for about 5 hrs straight on the way home. Apparently the girls did not fare so well. Ella threw a fit in the AG temple and scared a lot of prim girls so Mary had to remove her from the store. These things happen.

After all that excitement we headed for home. It was a long drive but mostly passed without incident. Beck slept a good chunk of the way, Truman was in Power Ranger heaven, and Ella pretty much just chilled. All in all, a good trip.

Ella said she wants to be a ballerina, mommy, author, and artist.

I guess they’ll be busy!

As always, she loves to wear dresses and jewelry. She has gotten a little better about wearing shorts when that’s necessary to play at the park or gym, but only if you promise that she can change back into a dress as soon as she gets home. She loves to play dress up in shimmery dresses, high heels, etc.

Ella’s went through a period recently where she was very interested in drawing and making books (blank pages stapled together). Her favorite subjects are people, flowers, etc. The people are often girls and have elaborate and enormous bows on their head. Sometimes the people are holding hands or jumping rope. She is very good at writing her name and sometimes can write other words like “mom” if you help her.

Lately, though, the focus has been reading. She is really, really interested in reading and loves to read books to us that she has memorized. Just tonight she told me the whole story of the three billy goats gruff. We have some easy reader books and she loves to work through them with Mary or I figuring out the words. I think at this rate she’ll almost certainly be reading before she reaches kindergarten.

Ella loves to play pretend games and this summer Truman has really reached the point where he can fully participate. Lately, they have really been playing very closely together with all sorts of pretend games for hours at a time. Settings typically include the beach, camping, wedding, house, doctor, etc.

And I can’t forget the dancing. Ella took her first ballet class this year and had her first recital. She loves to dance and still does her rountine for us regularly. Recently we got the video from her recital (which is hours of performances) and she loves to sit and watch it. She’ll get up and dance along with it and she does pretty well. Beck’s often dancing along with her.

For example, a couple weeks ago I came home and Mary said “Truman, show your father what you did this afternoon!” He took me in the living room and showed me the drapes that he had cut up with his child scissors. Doh!

Last week he was supposed to be in bed when he called out to us. I went up there and he was standing in the bathroom holding a bottle of children’s hairspray, which he apparently was drinking (and spilled all over himself and the bathroom). So I made my virgin call to poison control. Apparently the main danger was that this stuff is about 50% alcohol so there is a chance of symptoms of drunkenness. However, he had not had much and we gave him some apple juice to raise his blood sugar.

Truman’s favorite game lately is “Robot”, which involves me pretending to be a robot and talking in a robot voice. I chase him (and Ella) and catch them, then put them in a variety of robot machines: the tickle machine, the spinning machine, the rolling machine, etc. Sometimes I make them eat bolts and oil. Also, if you press the robot’s nose, it turns off and on.

We’ve been doing a lot of counting with Truman lately and he’s gotten really good. He’s especially proud of counting on his fingers all the way up to 10.

Truman and I clash a lot. I think he really wants my attention right now and that tends to come out in aggression or acting out rather than in vocalizing or showing me that. So I’ve been trying to be more understanding and ask him if he wants my attention when the aggression comes out. That helps but he’s still amazingly good at pressing my buttons.

Oh, another thing Truman has recently gotten really good at is riding his bike. He can now pretty much do it all by himself (training wheels of course) if he’s in a flat area. Our street is a little hilly, just enough that it makes it challenging so it’s better if we go someplace a little flatter.

Beck has also been fascinated as usual by music lately. He’s discovered how to dance (mostly bending his knees in time to the music) and will stand at the TV and dance whenever music is on. Actually, anytime anything vaguely music-like comes on he will do the dancing. He also loves any kind of music – rock or kids music is fine. And he loves to play with musical instruments. Recently at music class he walked up to a girl playing an Irish drum and stared intently at her for a long time.

He’s totally off bottles and formula (yeah!!! we’re done!!) and eats lots of different stuff. He loves his milk and also likes meat of any kind, cheese, yogurt, apples, bananas, rice, etc. Generally he’s willing to just about anything. When he’s done he will start throwing it on the floor or grabbing it from you. Then he’ll say “done”.

He’s doing a little bit of early talking. He loves to say “no” and shake his head but that’s mostly a game. He says “dog”, “door”, “up”, “out”, “Ella”.

Beck loves to get up on the couch and the rocking chair and pretty much anything that lets him get in the middle of Ella and Truman’s play. He loves to be outside and crawl all over the yard. Lately he’s been fascinated with crawling up to the top of the hill.

Here’s some pics of Truman and Ella sitting on Jeff’s bike. Notice Ella in full thumbs-up mode!

Just before Jeff was ready to race, the skies opened up and it rained hard for a pretty long time. Seda helped me run the kids over to the trailer and the kids hung out in there for a while as it poured down rain. Truman was looking a little out of it (he had some kind of bug the day before). Eventually, it looked like it wasn’t letting up, so Seda helped me take the kids to the bathroom and the car. Many thanks to Seda for her help!!!

Here’s the view from the trailer of the guys huddled in the tent as it pours down rain:

Anyhow, after we left, we headed for home. As soon as we got on 44, the skies turned bright blue and sunny. I’m not sure we even got much rain at home – the nasty storm was apparently parked right over the race track.

So, we didn’t get to see Jeff race, but the kids were excited about it none the less. Truman told Mary quite seriously all about the race bike and how you had to lean over to reach the handles.

We went to a school parking lot and spent a while riding the bikes around. Ella does pretty well. If she slows down too much she gets stuck and frustrated, but if she can keep moving she can pretty much do things herself. Truman has a lot of problems keeping the pedals moving forward and tends to move them backwards, hitting the brake instead and stopping his progress. But they both seem to enjoy it and want to keep doing it after several times out so hopefully they will continue to improve.

Check out some pictures here.

This was Beck’s first time on the beach and he had a blast. He loved crawling around on the beach, picking up shells, seaweed, and pretty much anything he could find. He had no fear of the ocean – he would spot it and crawl head first into the surf as fast as he could (when we would pluck him out of it). He really liked being held in the waves and moving up and down with the tide too.

Ella and Truman were able to amuse themselves for hours at a time on the beach – wading in the surf, collecting shells, digging holes, building sand castles, etc. My favorite memory of Ella was when she was playing by herself with some shells and started dramatically fake-crying. I asked her what was the matter and she said “I’m crying because the shells are so beautiful”. Oh, brother.

I took a boat ride into Tarpon Bay with Ella and Truman. This is a protected area with tons of birds and wildlife next to the Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge. We were really excited to see dolphins twice while on the boat. Both kids were excited about that but not too interested in the birds. They took turns trying out the binoculars (always looking through the wrong end) and generally were really good for an hour on the boat. About 40 minutes in, Truman conked out and slept hard on the bench.

We were a little disappointed in the Sanibel beaches for shells. Maybe we were just there at a really good time the last time, but there were far fewer shells and not as good a variety as the last time we were there. We also took several trips through the Ding Darling refuge and saw way less birds – I think last time we were there in September and there were a lot more birds migrating at the time. But we still saw a lot of interesting things and a bunch of raccoons this time, which was different.

Travel to and from Florida was not particularly fun but was really not that bad. Certainly could have been worse. The kids were great on the plane and Beck especially had a healthy nap in both directions.

When we got to Madison we had lots of time so we went to the UW Arboretum. We went to the visitor’s center and badgered the poor lady with questions about what we should do both at the Arboretum and around town. Then we took a nice little walk on some of the trails around the visitor’s center. There were tons of birds out – mostly red winged blackbirds and swallows. Here’s a nice nature picture for you.

Probably the coolest thing was when we were walking through the prairie area and a sandhill crane came circling out of the sky and landed maybe 30 feet from us. Here’s a picture I took if you’re interested. Later, we came across another one close to the visitor center. He yelled at us (apparently it was their guard call) and then took off.

After that we headed into campus and the main drag, State Street. Here’s a pic of Mary at the top of the art museum there with the capitol in the background. Here’s a slightly arty picture of the Orpheum Theater sign across the street. Just playing with the camera…

Eventually, we made it to the Kohl Center where the Dalai Lama was speaking. There were a number of loud crazy preachers outside and a reasonably large waiting crowd trying to ignore them. There were also a number of monks wandering around speaking with people. We just lay in the grass and watched the interesting crowd. We went in fairly early, which it turns out was a good idea as the security and large crowd (12,000) meant for big lines once the talk got closer.

In fact, they ended up starting about 30 minutes late. His Holiness the Dalai Lama came out and got some quick introductions from the chancellor and then he spoke for about an hour about compassion. I’m not sure I totally understood all of the points he made. At the end he answered some questions that had been collected from somewhere. One of the questions was about how parents can instill compassion in their children. The Dalai Lama offered a few ideas but at the end admitted that he had rarely spent time taking care of children so he wasn’t really sure. I think Mary felt good that he didn’t know the answers either. :) There was also a question about his daily routine where he talked about getting up very early (3 am) to meditate and how important breakfast was since monks do not eat solid food after noon. I got a kick out of his comment about his afternoon meetings: “Some meetings good; some meetings waste of time.” I hear ya.

He was also asked about the status of Tibet and the Chinese government. He spoke for quite a while about his negotiations and the aims of the Tibetan people. He said that they were willing to give up Tibetan independence if the Chinese government granted them autonomy and the ability to establish and manage their own culture, education, etc. That seemed like a new strategy to me, so I’m not sure if that was new news.

I didn’t take any pictures at the Kohl Center as there were many large and prominent signs saying not to do so. However, the Dalai Lama was in Chicago the following day and here is a good link to some pictures from the Chicago visit.

After the talk, we fought our way out of the Madison traffic and a long drive home in the dark and rain, and eventually a good sleep in our own beds. Definitely a fun trip and I had a great time talking and hanging out with Mary without the kids around for a change.

Truman has been a very sweet boy lately, playing well by himself and with both Ella and Beck. Today he went to Mary while she was sitting on the couch and rubbed her back just because he though it would feel good.

Ella and Truman have been playing together a lot outside in the backyard lately. These days they can play really well together for hours outside by themselves. One of their favorite games has been to get in their two red cars on the deck and pretend to have accidents. They like it when I come and give them tickets. Truman always throws his in the trash and then I have to put him in jail.

Beck has been great as usual, although he has some kind of bug right and he has a pretty persistent fever. He’s also teething really hard and has his first tooth in and another just about coming in.

Truman’s made some good friends as pre-school and he talks the most about Kylie (?) and Ben. He likes to play on the big trucks and on the slide in the gym. He really likes going and seems to be very comfortable there. Ella also has been having a great time at school and most of the girls in her class will be at her birthday party this weekend, so that should be pretty crazy.

You may also enjoy the Wikipedia page for My Humps.

I posted a few pictures of him standing at the couch and crawling. You can tell he’s getting pretty chunky – he has been taking down food like it was going out of style. He’s not happy with baby food either – he wants what you’re eating, NOW. He’ll eat anything, or at least everything we’ve ever given him – chicken, waffles, bread, noodles, apples, etc.

He’s also very interactive and likes looking at books (he’s starting to turn pages), playing with big wooden puzzles, plays “so big”, like to play pattycake, etc. It’s usually easy to get him grinning as he is usually a happy boy. He’s been teething off and on for a while but has yet to cut that first tooth. He’s also starting to wake up in the middle of the night upset, maybe from bad dreams or just greater awareness of his environment. Traditionally, he’s been a champion sleeper, so that’s been unusual and distressing when it happens, even though I know he’ll be ok.

Mary went out and got a whole mess of underpants (see how fun that is) for him to get excited about wearing. We got Spiderman, Batman, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He’d never heard of TMNT before and wanted to know what they do. The shortest possible explanation I could come up with was “they fight bad guys”, which covers pretty much half the cartoons out there. Actually, Truman classifies movies and TV shows as “has bad guys” and “doesn’t have bad guys” because the bad guys often scare him. So, something like “Backyardigans” or “Sesame Street”, etc are “no bad guys”. But pretty much any Disney movie has at least some bad guy.

Often before bed we let the kiddos have “naked time”, which is really “almost naked time” as they still have to wear underpants (see?). Truman looked really really cute running around in his Spiderman underpants. He was cracking us up.

I enjoy Penn immensely as an interviewer / host. He is one of those guys that knows a little about everything (or at least is willing to pretend in interesting ways) and he has a very natural way of guiding an interview or a caller. He also seems like someone very receptive to ideas and discussion while still maintaining a respect for the other person.

Anyhow, give it a shot if you’re interested. You can find the podcast on iTunes too if that’s how you roll.

You can check out a jamming track from the album at Feed Me Good Tunes, one of my favorite music blogs. Here’s the direct mp3 link.

The performances are next Friday 2/16 at 8 pm, Saturday 2/17 at 8 pm, and Sunday 2/18 at 2 pm, all at Clayton High School. Adults are $20, senior/student $18. Call 314-865-1995 for reservations.

Also, they have a special Valentine’s package where for $60 you get 2 tickets to our concert and the following discount certificates:

1. John P. Fields (restaurant) – 26 North Central – $10 off purchase of $25+, expires 03-03-07
2. C.J. Mugg’s (restaurant) – 200 South Central – $10 off purchase of $25+, expires 06-30-07
3. A Floral Gallery (flowers, gifts, art) – 7616 Wydown – $10 off purchase of $35+ (excludes delivery & original art), expires 04-30-07
4. Massage Envy (massage) – 7736 Forsyth – One-hour massage for $39 (regularly $65), expires 07-31-07
5. The Lifestyle Center (medical spa and laser center) – 7642 Forsyth -$25 off purchase of $100+ (includes services, excludes products),
   expires 04-30-07
6. Parker’s Table (wine, gourmet foods) – 8137 Maryland – $10 off purchase of $50+, expires 12-31-07
7. Candicci’s Italian Grille (restaurant) – 16 South Bemiston – $5 off lunch, $10 off dinner (not valid Saturdays/holidays), expires 03-31-07
8. Barucci Gallery (art, framing) – 8101 Maryland – 15% off framing (includes framing only), expires 03-31-07

Clayton Symphony
Stray Dog Theatre

Please pass this along if you know of anybody else who might be interested!

His big game these days is peekaboo, which he loves to play. He likes it when you put a small blankie over his face and say “where’s Beck?”. Then he’ll pull the blankie off as you say peekaboo and laughs and laughs. He can do this for a long time.

Actually, he has always wanted to put blankets over his face. If you put him on the floor or anywhere else with a blanket nearby, he is soon reaching for it and trying to pull it over himself. Used to be kind of scary because sometimes he couldn’t get it off and would freak out. Actually, we don’t let him sleep with a blanket because we’re worried about him doing that and getting scared.

He’s always seem fascinated with texture, noticeably more than either Ella or Truman and he always wants to touch any new or strange texture that he can see.

For the years in my life when I was seeing live shows on a weekly basis, MN was my favorite place to see a show. I dug the tiered floors that let you choose how you wanted to see the gig – down in the pit, sitting, standing near the bar, etc. I dug the bar. I don’t know why, but it was just a fun place to be. Tom was our favorite bartender – he’s been there for ever. I always thought it was just the perfect size venue to see the kind of shows that I love the best. You could get close but it’s big enough that the place can get really rocking and high energy.

The first show I ever saw there was Sass Jordan with the Arc Angels opening. The Arc Angels was basically the Stevie Ray Vaughn’s rhythm section after he died. And Sass Jordan was sort of a southern chick singer Nick and I were briefly enamored with. Nick and I went down to see that gig and we were young enough that we had to sit in the special minor “no drinky for you” area.

It’s hard for me to pick a favorite show I ever saw there. I remember seeing a ton of local acts there like Robynn Ragland, Vargas Swing, the Unconscious doing a reunion gig, Slapdash, Suede Chain, Savage St. Hubbins, Sarah Cloud, The Urge, 311. Also a bunch of more national acts like Barenaked Ladies, Medeski Martin and Wood, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Cherry Popping Daddies, G Love, Paula Cole, Rollins spoken word, and many more.

The Barenaked Ladies gig was an awesome xmas show put on by one of the radio stations. They did a medley of Billy Joel covers at one point that was hilarious. Undoubtedly one of the best gigs I saw there was Medeski Martin and Wood, an acid jazz group. In fact, the show was so good that I went out and bought a kick-ass keyboard the next day and started studying jazz piano. And I think that same show was the impetus for Scott buying his first drum set.

Later, Mary and I saw at least one show there: John Spencer Blues Explosion. Mary actually saw her at the time estranged childhood best friend there (whom I had never met), which was weird. Turns out Mary has been going to Mississippi Nights even longer than I have and has seen all sorts of awesome stuff. She saw the Beastie Boys there at least twice. The first time they were completely drunk and couldn’t even play their instruments. The other was on a later tour and one of her favorite shows ever. Turns out her favorite bartender was Tom, too. Guess that guy was good.

The last show I saw there was (fittingly) with Nick seeing Primus last year with Drums and Tuba opening. D&T were really incredible (oddly I’ve seen them opening several times) and I would have gladly watched them do the whole night. Primus was lackluster – guess Les was sick and having an off night.

Nick, this one’s for you. I’ve seen more gigs than I can count with you and MN has always been a constant and special place. I’m glad you were with me on all those gigs, ready to share the music. I can remember so many detailed musical discussions, grooving, drinking, and just all around enjoyment we shared all those nights.

This feed is courtesy of last.fm which has a plugin for iTunes that scrapes your listening info and publishes it to the last.fm site. If you want to look at my most listened albums, artists, etc you can check out my user page.

They also announced a deal with Paramount for more movies. Passed their 2 billion songs downloaded mark. Selling 5 million songs a day. Moved up a spot over Amazon as 4th biggest music reseller.

But even better is the iPhone. It’s super thin and all touch screen. Multi-touch gestures to control it. 8 GB iPod built-in. 2 MP camera. Can show wide-screen. Proximity sensor, light sensor, accelerometer (can tell if you are showing portrait or landscape). Visual voicemail. Wifi and EDGE connectivity. Works with Cingular only I guess. I’m drooling – looks amazing. $500 for 4 GB and $600 for 8 GB. Available in June (still needs FCC approval).

I feel very happy with my decision to buy some AAPL stock last week (up 5% on the day right now). Wish I’d bought more…. :)

Pretty good coverage on the Engadget transcript although I’m sure all the Apple store stuff will be up later today as well.

Beck has started rolling over by himself in the last few days, going front to back and back to front. Most of the time he’s pretty content but occasionally he gets worked up about it and works hard until he flips himself over. He’s also been doing a lot of giggling lately. Mary can really get him going and actually Ella is really good at it too.

Some other things he’s been doing lately: sitting up by himself for short periods of time, eating cereal and fruit and veggies (he likes them all so far), banging things to hear their sound (and dropping them for us to pick them up). He took his first bath in the big tub outside of the sink this weekend and did really well. He’s always been fascinated by textures and continues to love feeling different things. He has this funny wrist thing he does kind of waving his hand or a toy in the air.

Truman is a funny little guy and his language continues to improve. He’s not far behind Ella and can put together some pretty sophisticated sentences when he calms down a bit.

I had a good time out running errands with him yesterday. We were in my ‘99 Corolla (a rare treat for him) and he said it was “fast” and “looked like a race car”. That cracked me up.

Ella continues to grow up before our eyes and seems older every day. She can do a lot of dressing and putting on shoes, etc herself now, and has been going to the bathroom and washing hands by herself for a long time. Her big thing lately is brushing her teeth by herself (including putting toothpaste on, rinsing with water, spitting, etc). She loves to wear dresses and be “pretty” (brushes her hair back from her forehead).

Cars and car seats can’t be sold unless they can withstand a 30-mph frontal crash. But most cars are also tested in a 35-mph frontal crash and in a 38-mph side crash. Car seats aren’t.

One of the seats they tested (the Evenflo Discovery, which I think is the one we used with all 3 kids) didn’t even meet the federal 30-mph standards and they are trying to get it recalled. 7 of 12 seats failed in the 35-mph crash and 8 of 12 failed in the 38-mph side crash. “Failed” in this case means they separated from their base, twisted, threw the dummy in the air, caused injuries, etc.

Interestingly, they had a lot of problem with LATCH restraints and found that using vehicle seat belts worked better than LATCH for many of the seats. Here’s a link to their ratings if you want more info. If you’ve got an infant car seat, please give this a look.

Then she said “what next?” and I said that was about it. She paused a second then said “let’s have a baby now”. (Coincidentally, that’s pretty much how it happened for Mary and I.) So, she wanted me to drive her to the hospital, then she gave me some play pliers and asked me to take the baby (a small bear) out of her tummy. So, I did that and made the baby cry. Then we put him in a crib.

That was about it, but I thought it was funny how much she knew about all that stuff.

Update: Here’s another post with a great pic of JB.

1. Breakestra – Hit the Floor (2005) – If you’ve got a thicker slice of funk this side of 2000, I’d like to hear it. You cannot listen to these guys without grooving. The album has some straight-ahead funk, the canonical hip-hop track with a pile of guests, and some more laid-back stuff and it is all worthy of your undivided and immediate attention.
2. Nada Surf – The Weight Is a Gift (2005) – This is a consistently great pop album and never fails to hook me within minutes. Oftentimes I catch a song on shuffle and end up listening to half the album. This album also contains one of my absolute favorite songs of the year, “Blankest Year”, which is two minutes of pure pop wonderment.
3. The Raconteurs – Broken Boy Soldiers (2006) – Jack White’s other band put together a great rock album this year. Hopefully this means rock is back! It also contains one of my favorite songs of the year, “Level”. They also have one of the best band web sites ever.
4. Ben Kweller – Ben Kweller (2006) – Ben put out a great pop record this year that I’ve found myself getting hooked back into over and over. My favorite track on the album is “Penny on a Train Track”.
5. Mike Doughty – Haughty Melodic (2005) – Mike is better known for his band Soul Coughing, although I guess even Soul Coughing is fairly unknown. Anyhow, he’s been doing solo work for a few years now and I think as a whole it’s better than his Soul Coughing stuff. It’s a lot more stripped down, less instrumentation, but that brings out his quirky lyrics and music more.
6. Imogen Heap – Speak for Yourself (2005) – For some reason I came across Imogen’s last album and it was just what I wanted to listen to for a while. Kind of pop/dance/electronic music. The track “Hide and Seek” was definitely one of my most-listened this year – it’s all vocals, with heavy electronic processing. Best heard loud.
7. Pearl Jam – Pearl Jam (2006) – PJ is back with the first album I’ve actually liked since Vs. Lot of good stuff on this and I certainly heard it a lot in the car and at home as it was one of Mary’s favorite CD’s of the year too.
8. Fall Out Boy – From Under the Cork Tree (2005) – probably my favorite power pop ear candy album of the year. Lots of fun stuff and ridiculous song titles. Another power pop honorable mention would be Panic! at the Disco.
9. Shout Out Out Out Out – Not Saying Just Saying (2006) – Two drummers + four bass players + two samplers + five synthesizers + five cowbells + two octapads + one vocoder = awesomeness. Dance electronic funk. Check out “Dude You Feel Electrical”.
10. Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not (2006) – Great unique stuff from these UK guys. They put out a couple other decent EPs this year too but my favorite stuff is all on the album. My favorite track is “Red Light Indicates Doors are Secured”.

Then we grabbed some dinner and headed for home. I was driving the kids in the van and Mary had the other car. I was going west-bound on Manchester and turning left onto 141. As those of you in the area know, this is a big intersection with a double left turn lane. I was in the far left lane. As I was going through the intersection the idiot kid in the right left turn lane decides to make a u-turn in front of me (which of course, directly intersects the path of my car). I slammed on my brakes and was able to watch his horrified expression right up to the point where I crashed into the side of his car. I was probably only going 5-10 mph by the time I hit him and the van basically has bumper and light damage so no one was hurt in either car.

The rough conversation as I checked on the kids:

Me: Is everyone okay?
Ella: Yeah. Daddy, why did we stop?
Me: Well, we just had an accident and we hit another car.
Ella: Did Santa see that?
Me: Oh yeah, and that guy is not getting any presents this year.

The kid in the other car was driving his dad’s Acura and I’m pretty sure he was headed for a bad night. I’m glad everyone was ok. I think Beck actually slept through it.

The cop was very political but seemed to be a little in disbelief that the kid did something so idiotic. I’m pretty sure he got a couple tickets.

Beck has been really vocalizing a lot lately. When he’s in the right mood he makes all kinds of sounds and is starting to say da-da-da and other sounds like that. He hasn’t rolled over yet and doesn’t really seem too interested in it. He’s happy to be on back or belly and is pretty strong. Maybe he’ll just skip all that rolling over and just sit up. He’s also really taken to the cereal lately and is actively eating it now.

I’ve been going swimming with Truman lately and he’s coming along. He’s not quite ready to get his face wet or go under yet but is getting better at kicking and jumping in off the side. For now, I’ll be happy if he just is having fun in the pool. His favorite thing is just playing with toys, which they have at the class. His favorite thing is to fill up a toy and then squirt the water out of it (preferably at my face). About the time we get home is his normal nap time and he is usually just wiped after swimming. Usually he is asleep before I leave the parking lot.

Ella has been doing a lot of drawing in spurts and has learned to write her name pretty legibly! I’m floored by that. I’ll try to scan some art or writing if I get a chance sometime soon.

Truman’s speaking and vocabulary and general verbal abilities continue to surprise us lately. When he gets a word in edgewise over Ella, he can express really elaborate thoughts.

As an example, this is a snippet of a longer conversation tonight, consisting of a long chain of Ella’s “what if” scenarios (which Truman is now participating in).

Ella: What would happen if we didn’t have food?
Mary: Well, after a while you would die.
Truman: Like Grandma K?
Mary: Yes, but she died because she was sick, not because she didn’t have food.

I thought this was a really impressive bit of reasoning by Tru. Basically, he took in “if A, then B” and “B”, and concluded “A”. Pretty good. Of course, this is a logical fallacy (“affirming the consequent”) as it ignores that C could also cause B. Which is basically what Mary said, except she did it in a way that Truman could understand, as opposed to the incredibly nerdy way I just explained it. :) Good thing I was busy eating ice cream.

I just ran across a link to a list of death metal bands in a festival (plus logos) that is equally as funny, perhaps more so as these are real actual band names. I think my favorite is probably “Nunwhore Commando 666″. If you scroll down, you’ll see a bigger list of past attendees at the bottom in small print.

And interestingly, there is at least one name on our made-up list that is also on the actual list: Catheter. There might be more too although nothing else I saw at a glance.

Today I took Ella to school in my car and she brought her kiki (which was unusual in itself) and she accidentally left it in my car. I didn’t realize it and at nap time Mary thought it was just lost so Ella took her nap without it.

Later that afternoon Mary figured it out but in the meantime she told Ella about the “kiki fairy”. When you’re done with your kiki for good, you can leave it for the kiki fairy and she will take it and replace it with a toy. It’s important that when you leave your kiki for the kiki fairy on the front porch, that you shout into the night what kind of toy you would like to get for it.

Ella seemed quite excited by this and picked out a nice bag to put her kiki in and leave outside for the kiki fairy. She shouted that she wanted a doll that she could dress up, so presumably the kiki fairy will leave that for her tonight and she will be kiki-free!

Truman was also curious but doesn’t seem quite ready for the go-go fairy to come yet (his version of the kiki), so I think the go-go fairy will have to wait.

Here’s crazy half-naked one wrong shoe, one sock balloon man who terrorized our house last night.

I put up some other recent pictures as well for your viewing pleasure.

Just by coincidence Nick and Porter were in the class too so she got to sit next to Porter. We managed to our last class with them (”Sports Night”) too, also by coincidence.

Ella was a little shy but she had fun. It was nice getting some daddy time one-on-one with her. That is a hard thing these days with the whole pack around. I’ve been going to swimming class with Truman on Saturdays so I’m getting some daddy time with him too. Occasionally Mary and I split the kids up and go do something on the weekend but we haven’t gotten around to doing that lately.

I think I was most impressed tonight by how well she wrote her name on the placecard. She did it all by herself and it’s pretty recognizable. She’s been practicing a lot on her artwork.

Anyhow, I won the contest and for my prize I was able to pick any book I wanted from the school library. (They were closing the school that year and building a Venture, later a Target, on the same location.) For a geek like me, picking any book I wanted from the library was a daunting choice. It felt like too big an opportunity to screw up by picking the wrong book – I wanted to make the most of it. But, I had no idea and one of the librarians suggested this book Chester, which I think I just finally tossed when we moved this year. I can’t believe I kept it that long. It had a little insert in the cover about the award.

Anyhow, I later wore the same costume for Halloween. My mom was awesome enough to dig out some old slides from Halloween when I was a kid and scan them. In 1980, I was Chewbacca and Shannon was Wonder Woman (pic1, pic2). In 1981, I was Yoda, and she was a ballerina (pic1, pic2). In 1982, I was the robot and she was Smurfette, I think? (pic1, pic2)

Ella continues with her what-if questions. Tonight after they had gotten a Teddy Graham for playing nicely together she said “what if we didn’t have any Teddy Grahams or candy or anything?”. Indeed. I told her there were lots of kids in the world that didn’t even have enough food to eat. I wonder if she knows what a lottery she’s won by just being born in a place where she can have food anytime she wants. (I know, this is heavy for a 3 year old – was really more of my internal thoughts.)

We’ve started giving Beck some cereal. He mostly just works hard to spit it back out but sometimes a bit stays in. I let both Ella and Truman feed him a spoonful tonight. Some day they (and Beck) will be ready for that, but not just yet.

PS. Don’t forget to vote!

Places to buy music:

• emusic – Used to be very heavily indie but covers a lot higher percentage of mainstream stuff now. Lots of live stuff. Music i DRM-free. I like the subscription model – it’s a lot cheaper than something like iTunes if you get a subscription and actually download your tracks every month. Cost is probably around 20 cents / track.
• AllOfMP3 – Russian web site, currently at the center of a lot of copyright pressure. They pay the artists but not record companies, which you may or may not think is right. They operate under Russian law, but it looks like Russia may eventually buckle under pressure. I love the model though – tracks are DRM free, pick your format and compression level, pay per the byte. Cost is usually around 10 cents / track.
• iTunes – great selection, still a great place to find and buy music. 99 cents / track is simply too much though. Downloads also use Apple’s DRM and can only be played on up to 5 authorized computers.

Other things of interest:

• last.fm – Track your listening habits, get recommendations, listen to radio based on artist, recommendations, etc.
• iLike – sidebar for iTunes that suggests similar music to what you’re listening to and points you at free tracks by indie artists on garageband.com.
• G2P – Use Google to search for MP3’s on the net
• LibriVox – Audio books for books in the public domain
• LaLa – like BookMooch for CDs – peer to peer CD trading. Haven’t used it, but heard good things.
• Indy – music recommendation player, based on Pandora I think. I used this for a while about a year ago and thought it was ok.

One of the best things about it was that a bunch of guys were playing spoons in Clap Hands. And the other best thing was that he had marionettes off-stage that were mimicking the band (including said spoons). Awesome stuff.

Even odder was that Mary and I watched Team America: World Police that night as well, so it was like puppet night. Speaking of Team America, I enjoyed it. If you watch it, be sure to watch some of the extra stuff on the DVD about making of – pretty amazing.

For Halloween, Ella was Angelina Ballerina, a book and TV character that is a girl mouse that loves ballet. Mary did a great job putting everything together, in particular the ears which were kind of tricky. Truman was a chicken for no particular reason other than he liked the costume (from Old Navy). He fell at the park on Monday, so he actually had scrapes and a black eye, so he was more of a beat-up chicken on Halloween.

On the pumpkin carving, it looks like I’ve done all the work in the pictures, but don’t buy it – Mary did the bulk of the carving as she’s way better than me.

Anyhow, the kids had a great time trick-or-treating and yelling boo at all the kids. Truman was pretty scared of the kids with masks or other scary costumes. Ella was ok with it all but he was really scared a few times.

She also asked separately why poop is brown. Can’t say I know (or want to know) the answer in any detail.

She stumped us twice in one day!

We carved pumpkins on Sunday; we had a bunch of little ones and one bigger one. Truman kept asking about the big one but we were busy taking care of all the little ones first. Finally, I told him it was time and carried it over and he said seriously “That’s what I’m talking ’bout.”

Lately Ella has been obsessed with asking “what if ….” and then coming up with some strange scenario. We were out taking a walk tonight and she said “Daddy, what if we didn’t have beds?”. And right before bed she said “Boys are boys and girls and girls. What if I was a boy?” That was too big for me to handle before bed time.

There is a story the kids have been reading lately called Papagayo that’s about the moon eater (kind of a folk tale to explain the phases of the moon). So lately Truman has been noticing the moon when we’re out at night and saying the the moon is half full. He’s also been saying he wants to cut his sandwich in half, which seemed like a good transfer of concepts. He’s been wanting to go out for walks at night with me, which is always a lot of fun. There are some ghosts hanging in a tree around the corner and he always wants to walk up and see them.

He’s a clever boy. Another favorite hobby is playing with CD players. He has the boom boxes we have in the house down to a science. He knows how to take CDs in and out of the case, in and out of the CD player, turn it on and off, change the volume, stop and play, switch to radio, etc. He can play with a CD player for 10-20 minutes at a time.

They have a bunch of free live tracks available but I would urge you to check out Ghetto Queen in particular. It’s kinda funky and it has vocals and beat-boxing. If you like Debra by Beck (and you should), then you’ll probably dig it.

Some of my favorites:

Gown removed carelessly. Head, less so.
- Joss Whedon

Kirby had never eaten toes before.
- Kevin Smith

The baby’s blood type? Human, mostly.
- Orson Scott Card

Anyhow, he is a happy and very aware baby. He loves to be talked to and he particularly enjoys it when Ella talks to him. His favorite song is Itsy Bitsy Spider, which Mary sings to him. He used to make sounds and coo but that’s tapered off. He does still love to laugh – it’s usually kind of a “heh heh” sort of laugh. Sometimes he does it when I put him up in the air. It’s pretty easy to get him to break into his big old Beck grin.

He’s very into grabbing stuff and playing with it or bringing it to his mouth. He loves to touch your face or hair when you’re holding him. He’s rolled over a couple times although I haven’t seen it yet. He usually needs some help but I guess he’s starting to figure it out. He’s not quite ready to sit up yet but sometimes you can prop him up a bit.

Beck has so far been our champion sleeper. He’s always been really easy to get to sleep at night – pretty much put him down and he calms down and drops right off. He now sleeps about 11-12 hrs per night. He used to ferociously chomp on a binkie but a few weeks ago he suddenly didn’t want it. Now, he’s all about the thumb. He’s not too particular about which one but he seems to favor the right one a bit.

He’s old enough to start cereal but we haven’t done that yet. We were thinking we would wait a while but he is eating a lot in the last week or so and it doesn’t seem to be filling him up like it used to, so we may make the plunge pretty soon.

That’s the highlights. Here’s a couple pictures from recently.

Item #1: A couple weeks ago we had a large and beautiful spider set up residence on our front porch. We later determined it to be a yellow garden spider. It was pretty big (probably 1 inch or more) and the web has a distinctive zig-zag pattern that is used to warn birds so that they don’t run into the web. You can see the pattern at the top and bottom of the picture.

After a few days he disappeared and showed up in a new web stretched across our master bedroom window. The kids had a great time checking on him every morning. Eventually we had some wind or rain and he was gone.

Item #2: Last weekend we were driving around in the suburbs and saw two large red-tailed hawks in a bare tree in a field. They were pretty big so we pulled over to watch them for a little while. They were flying from branch to branch in this tree acting a little strange. Finally we figured out that there was a squirrel in the tree and they were chasing him up and down the trunk trying to catch him! We gave up before they did but I’d put my money on the hawks.

Item #3: I came home early on Tuesday to give Mary a hand and found that she had rescued a pretty big turtle from the near outside our subdivision. So I took him and the kids down to the woods and let him go. They thought it was hilarious that he pooped all over the wagon Mary stashed him in.

Item #4: Today we visited the World Bird Sanctuary in Lone Elk Park for their open house. If you’ve never been there, I highly recommend it. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for seeing owls, eagles, parrots, etc. They have some amazing animals and do really world class conservation work. We’ve been there before and I always have a great time. Truman liked the parrots a lot this time. Here are pictures of an owl and a bald eagle:

I love seeing the owls. They are definitely my favorite.

Time to cue up the Motown….

Adult
Child

The gnomes on the shirt were made with the awesome South Park Create-a-Character game, captured off the screen with Grab, and resized in GraphicConverter (the swiss army knife of Mac image programs). The titles were done in Gimp, with the ScriptFu Glossy plugin. Everything was put together in GraphicConverter and mirrored. Then we just printed to t-shirt transfers, printed them out, and ironed them on. GraphicConverter and Grab come pre-installed on the Mac. Gimp is a free PhotoShop wanna be (a pretty good wanna be for several hundred dollars less though).

Just for the record, doing this on white t-shirts works pretty well (make sure to trim the transfers down to get minimal white stuff around the shirts). The dark shirt transfers were much poorer and I wouldn’t recommend them. If we had started more than two days before the party, we probably would have just had one of the photo processing places on the web do it as they would probably look a lot better. Maybe next year.

Yesterday I was taking a walk with the kids and I was talking to Ella about all the ways to tell it was fall. Some of the things she came up with were:

• leaves are changing color and falling
• windy
• get to wear dresses and long pants and shirts
• go to the pumpkin patch
• get to pick apples
• nuts are falling from trees

I asked her what animal was out looking for nuts in the fall and she said squirrels. Then I asked her what squirrels did with the nuts and she said something I couldn’t understand; wasn’t anything I was expecting like “hiding” or “eating” or anything. I eventually determined (after an impending meltdown) that she was saying “protect them”. That was a lot more nuanced choice of words than I expected, and absolutely correct.

Here’s a sample:

A college-educated umbrella A stovepipe somewhat pees on the paternal short order cook. A ball bearing defined by the skyscraper operates a small fruit stand with a hockey player over the sheriff. A tabloid beyond the wheelbarrow caricatures a squid about a vacuum cleaner. A lover caricatures the fairy related to the bottle of beer, and a worldly chain saw figures out an apartment building. The pig pen from a sandwich seeks a movie theater from a blood clot, but some cough syrup from some football team barely organizes a fighter pilot.

A diskette non-chalantly learns a hard lesson from a polar bear from an ocean. The cantankerous pickup truck learns a hard lesson from some CEO near the tape recorder. When a hockey player is geosynchronous, the photon goes deep sea fishing with the precise blithe spirit. A psychotic wheelbarrow makes love to a pickup truck. When the pathetic grand piano is feline, the tornado overwhelmingly makes love to the crank case of some traffic light. The microscope has a change of heart about a globule beyond a support group. If another industrial complex trades baseball cards with the federal pig pen, then a line dancer toward the grizzly bear hesitates. Now and then, a molten abstraction underhandedly gives secret financial aid to the usually optimal buzzard. A burglar for a class action suit tries to seduce a familiar chess board. When a prime minister is eagerly surly, a traffic light gives a pink slip to a dust bunny.

A college-educated umbrella A diskette non-chalantly learns a hard lesson from a polar bear from an ocean. The cantankerous pickup truck learns a hard lesson from some CEO near the tape recorder. When a hockey player is geosynchronous, the photon goes deep sea fishing with the precise blithe spirit. A psychotic wheelbarrow makes love to a pickup truck. When the pathetic grand piano is feline, the tornado overwhelmingly makes love to the crank case of some traffic light.

A chain saw Now and then, a prime minister finds subtle faults with the warranty. A blood clot is resplendent. Furthermore, a carpet tack starts reminiscing about lost glory, and a tripod often throws a wedding dress toward a grain of sand at a blithe spirit.

Prior posts if you’re interested:

• More loudness
• Overuse of compression in CDs

Baa baa black sheep
Have any wool?
Yes, sir, yes, sir
Three bags full
One my master
One my dame
…repeat ad cutey…

Mary got out all the fall / halloween books so we’ve been doing a lot of reading about ghosts and such things lately. Any time we talk about some place scary or ghosts Truman will look at you very sympathetically and say “I’ll hold your hand”. He’s so sincere about it that it cracks me up that he wants to comfort me (and not vice-versa).

Beck has been starting to get those hands and arms under control. He’s starting to really try to grab things and bring them to his mouth. Sometimes he just lays there and plays with his hands in front of his face. He can often grab the binky, pull it out, and wave it around too.