Nutritious Blue Spray

Heather recently celebrated her first birthday. We're sharing some videos showing the fun she had at the party.

( Watch videos... )

My daughter is getting to be more fun as she gets older.  She's nearly 8 months old now.  Let's see... she's doing pretty much everything at this point: sitting up, wanting to stand, cruising, eating "solid" food, babbling, and waving "hi" :)  She still loves our long walks/hikes.  Oh, and swimming.  We're going to try to continue doing that over the fall, winter, & spring until outdoor pools are open again.

The fall has brought us some new television shows.  "Doctor Who" series 3 and "Torchwood" are stand-outs.  The subject I used for this post as well as the music I'm listening to are from Doctor Who.  In the episode "The Sound of Drums", the Master gleefully unleashes the Troclafane on Earth with "Voodoo Child" by the Rough Traders playing.  Very nicely done.  Too bad we can't get either of these shows in high-def yet; both the Sci Fi Channel and BBC America are only in standard definition.

The series premier of the "Bionic Woman" remake was marred by some kind of glitch in the way our cable system was retransmitting local HD channels.  They were all experiencing enough drop-outs to make viewing difficult.

Last week Heather got more pool time in--both at her paternal grandparents' place (twice!) and once more at the Highland Park pool. She really wants to be a little fish.

My 20th high school reunion was over the weekend--and it was better than I expected. We did not go to the informal Friday event, but there were some people who attended that whom I would have liked to see. We went a little late to the formal event on Sunday because we needed that pool time with Heather :) It was nice seeing folks I had kept in touch with but who live far away. And there were some folks I hadn't seen since high school that it was nice to see as well.

( See videos from 20 years ago... )
Anyway, Heather & I have been on our own for a couple of days again this week and things have gone well. She's had her first taste of (cow's milk) formula and we went through the drive-through car wash. Both fairly uneventful :)

This week more than any other I'm getting a lot of time in with Heather while mommy's not around.  Mommy had to travel for work and will be at work tomorrow & Friday while Heather and I are playing hookey.

Sunday we all three went to the pool where Heather had an awesome time!  She was pretty much doing the back stroke on her own.  Pretty good for a 6.5-month-old!  :)  I'd love to go to the pool with her on one of our upcoming days off but arranging that trip without mommy is a bit daunting.  We'll see.  Other possibilities include the Zoo which might end up being hot and tiring, but somewhat more logistically possible than a trip to the pool

This post is going to just be a list of things we've done recently.  I should be fixing the toilets but...


OK, now I have to fix those toilets :)

Oh yeah..  The userpic for this post is what I look like according to simpsonizeme.com.  :)  (Hmm... I think perhaps my theme doesn't show individual userpics for each post.  I hadn't noticed that before...)

I know I neglect Heather's many admirers here so we'll try to be better about posting.  I've re-connected my mobile phone with Live Journal mobile posting so maybe that will help increase the flow of new material here :)

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Today I stayed home from work to be with Heather. We went for several walks and spent some time in the back yard.

( View a pic of Heather... )

(Posted from camera phone.)

Yesterday after work I took Heather out for her inaugural hike in the woods (well, the park).  Yes, it involved the BABYBJÖRN® Baby Carrier.  No, my masculinity is not in question for using this device :)

I originally tried to post this last night but my post was eaten somehow.  It was then that I was listening to Björk's new song "Earth Intruders" (now I'm on the porch listening to someone trying to jumpstart a car... with the sound of chirping birds in the background).  It's kinda odd that my post was (and is) full of umlauts.  :)

Hmm... LJ is being flaky again.  I won't let me post--seems to only preview???  Let me see whether I can fight my way through this...


( Here are some pictures from our hike... )

I know I hardly post.

Sorry about that. Anyway, Amy, Heather & I are having a lot of fun getting to know one another and we have been taking a lot of photos. We're really trying to get photos of Heather when she smiles, but she seems to want to change her smile to a pout when the camera is around :(

( Anyway here are some photos to whet your appetite for more of the same... )

Heather is one month (4 weeks) old today.  Her cuteness more than makes up for the lack of sleep she is causing us :)

On Tuesday afternoon I worked from home and took care of Heather while Amy went to an appointment.  It worked out pretty well, but at first she was not willing to play second fiddle to a notebook computer, so my attention was more on her at first than on work tasks :)

I ended up getting to be involved with one of several "firsts" for Heather: this was her first time being fed with a bottle.  She didn't like it much at first, but I think once she got a taste of the milk it wasn't too bad and she was happy after that.  However she continued to have an incredulous look about having her nourishment delivered in that manner :)

The other firsts were: first non-hospital person to hold her, and first non-hospital staff to change her diaper. :)

So one other interesting thing from Tuesday: I had found previously that listening to "classic rock" seemed to help when trying to get her to sleep.  So I had the classic rock music channel (cable) on and when AC/DC's "Hell's Bells" came on, she went to sleep.  It's not the customary lullaby, but it seemed to workin this case!

It's the story of our daughter vs. the puppet, being played out on the web.


Joyce Carolyn Oates has a respectable number of hits (placing her still beyond some very nice photos), but at least she no longer has the top ranking :)

Our daughter Heather was born Friday morning.  Mother and daughter are home now and are well.


Sorry it's taken us so long to post about it.  We've been home enjoying our time with her and her maternal grandparents.  She is very cute.  And she's graciously allowed us to have at least a couple of hours of sleep each night :)