Creepy music. . .

Music toys are very sophisticated these days. Sure old music boxes and such played some good melodies, but the new battery powered toys can put out midi music with melody and harmony that would put some symphonies to shame. . . that is until they start to lose power. The batteries get low and for some reason the first thing to go is the melody. But the harmony keep on going.

The music becomes dark and somber and to be honest creepy. Our little guys crib TV is going now and it plays some macabre songs while casting an eerie blue light across the crib and it's occupant. . . laying there trying desperately to fall asleep, terrified by the sounds. OK maybe it doesn't both him, but it weirds me out.

Christmas Thoughts. . .

That image to the left is the front of this year's Christmas card, for those of you I don't know outside of this site. So the cards have been sent, the presents have been wrapped, the cookies have been made, not much else left to do.

Last year I took some video and made a little first Christmas thing. It's sappy and boring, but I had fun making it. Enjoy, until the copyright police shut me down for using an unlicensed song.



By the way, the song is from the CD Santa's Playlist by Sister Hazel. I'd recommend it to anyone as a great addition to their holiday collection. . . especially for their bluegrass version of The Dreidel Song.

Fruit Snack update

We opened a new box of fruit snacks, the same kid that before were brown and shriveled. This new box was colorful and moist instead. Guess we just got a bad batch.

This has been a fruit snack update.

Bouncing baby boy

Quick funny story. We just went to a shoe store to look for dress shoes for Christmas Eve. We set the little guy down so he could walk—he'd been stuck in the car seat for a little while. He immediately grabbed a mini basketball because it's THAT kind of shoe store. So after grabbing the basketball he starts running towards the front plate glass window, excited because he thought he could run straight outside.

He hit the glass basketball first and bounced off onto his butt.

Once we stopped laughing we found a good pair of shoes.

On a side note, the whole family is off for two whole weeks. I'll update you when one of us kills someone else. . . unless I'm the dead one.

Feeding rules. . .

1. Some things can only be eaten with a spoon. These items can be fed to the eater with a spoon or the eater can put it onto his/her spoon—with his/her hands—and then eaten off of the spoon. If no spoon is available the food, which is the best food ever on a spoon, will be rejected and treated as the most vile food on the planet.
2. That which will not be eaten needs to be as far away as possible, preferably on the floor. This includes "yucky" food as well as some favorable foods*.
3. Cheerios will hold a baby out for a long time. . . Corn Chex will slow them down just as much if not more.
4. Bananas>Peaches>Cheese>Ham>Veggie Puffs>Bread. . . Juice>Milk>Water
5. If the feeding is being overseen by the female parental unit, messy food must be rubbed into the eater's hair at some point in the feeding.
6. The eater reserves the right to demand any food regardless of having already tried and dismissing it already.

Failure to adhere to these rules of feeding will result in the eater throwing his/her head back and screaming.

*"Hmm I've had this Cheerio in my mouth for 3 seconds, I'd prefer a fresh one." and then he throws it overboard. Below the high chair is a perpetual pile of previously chewed food.

Back to normal. . .

This morning went much, much better. No crying, no fighting to go back to sleep. He woke up happy and talky. But have just been a bad day. I guess we all have those, even the short people.

Not a morning baby. . .

This morning was the worst morning I've had in a long time. Normally I stumble out of bed, throw on some clothes and make my way to what I'm calling my "morning coffee." I open my son's bedroom door and there he is, lying, sitting or standing, happy and smiling usually talking with his stuffed panda, Pete. He shows me how he knows how to turn his TV on. Sometimes when the light comes on he'll giggle, quickly run to the end of his crib, and lay down to play dead.

This morning. I woke to the sound of crying, and as we went into his room we were not greeted by our normally happy baby. Someone had snuck in and replaced our baby with a sleepy, crabby, screaming badger (or some other such mammal).

All through getting him dressed, if he wasn't crying he was closing his eyes to fight waking up. He was not happy all. At breakfast he cheered up a little once he got his cup of milk, he drink most of it right away. Then he scarfed down a banana. And then he was crabby because he had to put his coat on. Grandma reports that he was crabby and lying down all morning so she gave him a morning nap.

His mother and I haver been sick and we thought it somehow missed him. I guess we thought wrong. So far his only symptoms are sleepiness and crankiness. Of course our main symptoms were horrible chills. . . how can you tell if you baby has a chill?

Poor little monkey.

Christmas chicken. . .

Sunday afternoon, while out little sugar plum snoozed, we put up our Christmas tree. My wife was so excited, one of her coworkers told her how her son (who's a couple months younger than ours) got so excited when he first saw the tree he almost fainted. My sweet wife even wanted to videotape our son's reaction to the tree to save if for posterity.

I thought it would scare him.

My suggestion was overruled and we erected the tree while he napped. I put up and fluffed our fake fur tree (shut-up it's a damned good fake tree), took good care to hang the lights and garland—my wife selected and carefully hung the ornaments, making sure the soft non-breakable ornaments were low and the others were out of toddler reach. The stage was set.

He woke up and, after a diaper change, his mother sent him in. The second he caught a glimpse of the tree he froze, then turned and ran, almost in tears, back to mommy and clutched her leg to be lifted up. Over the next few hours he got used to the tree, he'd point at it and exclaim to us "dat." We'd reassure him by saying "Christmas tree pretty, twinkle twinkle." To which he'd return to playing near the tree.

And things had not improved this morning. After breakfast (he didn't see the tree on the way to breakfast) I set him down so he could finish his morning milk whilst exploring the house. He walked toward the living room, saw the tree and turned around to grab me so I could protect him from the big, bad, scary Christmas Tree of Doom! I suppose a 7 foot tall tree suddenly looming over all your toys can do that to a kid.