Two Month Appointment
Today we had Aiden’s two month appointment. This appointment is when he got his first set of shots. He did not like this at all and I got teary eyed trying to comfort him. The good news is that he is a healthy baby. He weighted 13 lbs 8 ounces and is 23 ¾ inches long. His head is now 42 cm around. He is already getting too long for some of his 3 month sleepers. This boy is growing so fast
Pictures
Today I took Aiden down to Wal-Mart to get his first professional pictures taken. He wore a sweater and jeans which made him look like a big boy rather than a baby. He also wore shoes for the first time. Our Wal-Mart doesn’t have a studio in it, so they have someone come in every six weeks and sit up a temporary studio by the shoes. It is nice because no appointment is needed and with a little one it’s hard to tell when a good day or good time will be. We had to wait for about 10 minutes so we got the things we needed while we were waiting. When I got Aiden out of his car seat he started to cry. Luckily it didn’t last very long, however I had a hard time getting him to smile. He did a little bit towards the end, but I’m not sure if she got it or not. After we were done then he started smiling and talking. Doesn’t that just figure.
In other news last night Aiden only woke up once at 4:00 AM and then slept to around 8:00 AM. Richard was up first so he took care of him until he was hungry. So I’m not exactly sure when he woke up. I’m hoping that one time a night will soon be the norm, but we will see. It may be a little soon for that.
How Aiden ended up being 11 feet tall
Figured I should put up a new picture since it has been a while.
Dawn and Aiden sitting in the chair first thing in the morning. Yes, its true I haven't been as diligent in my picture taking as I was.
Things haven't been too horribly exciting around here lately, unless you like the code I've been writing. I've been working on completing a new version of our "flagship" program and hope to move on to cleaning up some older code that we still distribute (I'd give details, but that's WAY too embarrassing). I'm hoping to start load testing this week and we will find out quickly if my gung-ho worker thread stuff in ISAPI is good or bad. I'm also hoping to see if that whole full-text indexing thing in SQL Server is really any good (I didn't like some query cost estimates I got when we started this – like 3.32 when I try for values like 0.006 and 0.012).
Anyway, speaking of numbers, now that we have 3 "doctor approved" measurements of Aiden, I took the liberty of applying my highly skilled statistically-oriented mental prowess to churn out a few very interesting "facts":
On January 15, 2006, at 2:14PM, at the ripe old age of 3 (well, 3 years 3 ½ months) he will be 6 feet tall!!! Unfortunately, he will also weigh 97lbs, 3oz
For his 4th birthday (9/30/06), and just a reminder this will be before he starts kindergarten, he will be 116lbs 2oz and 6ft 10in!
Of course, by the time he weighs 205lbs (its just a nice number folks, a nice one that is pretty close to what his daddy weighs now), he will be 11ft 1in! Happily, our 11ft child won't be this tall until January 6th, 2010, so we do have some time to prepare.
Hmm, maybe I should get out more.
A new use for floppies...
Here is a picture of Aiden wearing a little Christmas spirit.
In this pic, he was being a good boy. Lately, that hasn't really been the case. Last night he woke up every hour all night long and was just fussy. Right now he is being fussy. Today he slept. Thank goodness. Actually, at one point, Aiden and I took off in the car (since he'll sleep there) and drove around for a while. Mom got some much needed sleep and life was once again good. :)
Now on to the floppy usages. Today, I put up the Christmas lights. A holiday tradition I normally reserve for the neighbors. Anyone that asks why I haven't put up lights, I just tell them that I don't in case someone becomes offended. You know me, I try to be PC when I can. Right?
Anyway, last night Dawn and I ran to Wal Mart to get stuff for Aiden (bottles, bottle brush, etc, etc). I found these wonderful little clippies that connect to the side of the house or on the gutter or in the roofing or whatever and decided they would be wonderful for placing our lights. Remember I don't put up near as many lights as some folks around here. Actually, there is a guy in Talent that makes the paper almost every year for the HUGE number of lights he has. (OK, so he is actually my justification for being this incredibly anal with my lights.) The point is, I took this floppy and used it as a spacer for between the lights. Then I put up about 250 lights and figured that was enough. Yes, it took hours (about 3 including the extended lunch). Here is a pic.
Our Christmas lights taken with a 1 second exposure off a tripod (since I'm not that steady).
If I was really bored, or just had lots of time on my hands, I would go back and put lights along the roof line because I think it would look cool. BUT, I'm not that bored and I don't have that much free time.
Just more pics
Thought I would post a few more pics just for kicks today.
Here he is with his dad. He was a little fussy just as Dawn got the camera, but after a sec he calmed down and decided to hug his dad. Of course, I thought this was incredibly cute so I had to post it.
Here he is taking a bath. He seems to love bath time and usually loves the splashing around part. Hopefully, this will mean that he will love to go to the pool during the summer (but, who knows).
General ramblings and some pics of Aiden-pi.
Well, life has been entertaining as of late. I have this HUGE zit on my forehead. I'm pretty sure it'll have to be surgically removed. There are those out there (JAMIE!!!) who laughed at it today, but don't worry it's feelings weren't hurt. Yes, it's almost big enough to talk to me now. I had to gag it with a band-aid so that I could get some work done.
Our little wonderous craptivity fell over. (That's what we have been calling the lighted tree and reindeer out in the front of the house.) Dawn has even given to calling it the same thing so that we all know what we are talking about! The reindeer didn't fall over, but the tree sure did (about 20 minutes after the pic I took of it). The only way I can think that that tree is going to make it out there is if I add some guy wires to it. The base that it was in has already busted, but we do have another kind of base, but it will definately need the whole guy wire setup. Oops.
In other news, my kid has the nickname "pie". We think it started with Dawn calling him "cutie pie" and it got shortened. Of course, if he ends up fat and litigious, I'll end up sued for giving him that name and "programming" him to eat pies. Of course, for the record, it is actually from the greek pi!!
Dawn was telling me about the pictures she had taken of Aiden a few days ago so we decided to set up our own little in-home photo studio and see if we could get him to smile. Here are some attempts:
Here we have an almost one
He was just about to, but then decided to do something else. I guess at 74 days old, people expect you to have a shorter attention span.
Here we started wanting to talk a little bit. He makes the funniest goo noises at this age. Everyonce in a while he really starts trying to talk and it cracks me up.
Here we were somewhere between goo-ing, smiling, and deciding it was time for some food.
Anyway, that's all I know about. :)
Oh yes, and I did find out that there are some of you that can't see Flash. The fun part is that reviewing the server logs shows that you request the page, some graphics, but no SWF files. I'll change the site a little so that at least the pics show. Don't expect it super soon, I'm still making a billion graphics for our current programming project, but sometime in the next couple weeks (and hopefully before year end).
Stormy night
Well, Dawn (AND AIDEN) are stuck on the coast. She went over on Saturday morning intending to just stay one night. When she started back Sunday afternoon (at 1pm) there was a notice that the road had been closed!!! I checked the net and found that 199 was closed due to a slide and they planned to have it closed for more than 24 hours. Then I looked North (Dawn talked about driving through Coos Bay, although it is about 6 hours to get home like that). The road was closed to oversized motor homes and commercial traffic due to winds from a storm that appeared to still be coming in. Then I checked south (although Barbara had warned us that going via Eureka wasn't her favorite). No good, the center of the storm was heading for that area.
The only real choice was to return to her mom's house and wait it out. Well, now it is 1am and the weather in Eureka still looks like crud, the weather north of Brookings is worse, the landslide hasn’t opened (didn’t figure it would) and the weather outside is horrendous!!! I can’t say that this is my favorite night ever.
Grandpa Wartenbee died
Dawn's Grandpa Wartenbee died this morning at 1:30am. I don't know alot of details. Dawn is still on the coast at her mom's house.
ALDEN!!! WHO IS ALDEN!!!
Well, AIDEN's announcement made it in the paper today. Unfortunately, his name was misspelled as ALDEN. Guess we will have to submit another one for a different kid. Here is the announcement:
ALDEN!!! What?
Anyway, this doesn't make Dawn the happiest camper in the world. I'm confident we can get a hold of someone at the paper and get the correct announcement so that we have a good one for his baby book.
I'm off to give the little guy a bath. Yaaaa!!!
Rolling Over
Aiden started to roll over today. If I lay him down on his stomach with his hands up by his head he can get to his back. First he moves his head then his upper body and then finally his legs until he gets on his side and then he moves his whole body together to get to his back. It’s not a smooth single motion, but a good start.
On Thursday on our way back from Klamath Falls Aiden got to see it snow for the first time. I keep a disposable camera in his diaper bag so we stopped at the snow park and took some real quick pictures. When we get them back we will post them. We kept him bundled up in his car seat so all you’ll be able to see is a head and a lot of snow.
I have been busy and didn’t post his last weight at Mom’s group so I will now. He weighed 14 lbs 2 ozs on Thursday the 19th. Next Mom’s group is on the 2nd so we’ll see if he gained any extra holiday weight like his Mom and Dad did.
He has started sucking his thumb and won’t take the pacifier for very long. He also started teething so he is sticking his hand in his mouth more and drooling. Richard got his first tooth at 3 months and so did Joey and Kali. I’m hoping he will hold out on that for a while since teeth and nursing are not the best combination.
Post-Christmas/Pre-New Years
Well, Christmas is over. I still haven't taken down the Christmas lights, but neither has anyone else. It's raining!!! Much has happened since the last posting, so this will be a long one, but it has some pics, too. Dawn, Aiden and I (proper English) tried to create some Christmas pictures.
Anyway, then Aiden's Grandma stopped by to say hi and we did a little photo shoot.
One thing that I noticed is that he has that demon eye thing that Dawn and her family seem to share. Anytime you take their picture with a flash you get the whole red eye thing. If I take a picture of Aiden with the flash pointed at him (not bounced off a ceiling or something else useful) he has the demon eye!
Anyway, then came the traveling. We had planned to go to Grandpa Wartenbee's funeral on Friday morning (in Eugene), then return Saturday, rest Sunday, pick up Grandma Lakeview in Klamath Falls on Monday, go to the coast on Tuesday, return Wednesday (Christmas day), have people over for a little get together that night, then take Grandma back to Klamath Falls on Thursday. Um, that's a lot of stuff.
We went to Grandpa's funeral in Eugene. Aiden cried at the services and daddy (that's me) took him off to the car for a while. We hung out and played pretend patty-cake (which I could only think of the first 2 lines so it was a short game). Then mom (that's Dawn) showed up with some more food and a diaper bag (very good). We all went back inside and I got to finally sit down and talk to Brian for a while. Of course, it was HUGELY loud in there with everyone talking so I ended up saying "WHAT?!?" several times. Brian, being the big time bass player, is apparently accustomed to nearly deafening noises and seemed incredibly comfortable carrying on a conversation in the midst of all this. Actually, it could also be that Brian seems to look comfortable in any situation.
After that, we went back to our hotel and took a nap for a few hours. Aiden looked pretty small on the bed.
Then it was off to Aunt Annie's house to hang out and chew the fat (and I have quite a bit of it these days). We stayed out until 11:30 or so. Then returned to our hugely crowded hotel (which I found out later had all of 17 rooms rented out that night).
The next morning we got up and met up with Darin, Darrik and Dawn's mom. They were running around with Aiden's mom's mom's sister's daughter's daughters, we called them Michaela and Jennifer for short. We all pigged out at this pancake place that had some tasty treats and some odd cherry syrup that was really quite good. Somewhere in here we got the mighty Where's George dollar. Jennifer asked what it was about and I explained the site and blah blah blah. I told her she could write down the serial # and the series and go to the site and say she had it and that it was at the pancake house. She said no, that that would be lying. Now where the heck did she grow up at!!! I know lots of kids that don't mind lying. Her mother must be doing something strange. Anyway, I still need to send that dollar back up there (yes, I entered it at the wheresgeorge.com site).
After some breakfast, we headed out to go see his Great, Grandma Wartenbee. She talked to Aiden Pi for a little while and Aiden was really having fun with her.
After we got home (Saturday night), Dawn and I started talking about all that we still had to complete. It was going to be a lot and we finally decided it was just going to be too much. We had to make some tough choices. We talked more Sunday and decided that we couldn't host everything on Christmas night and that we probably shouldn't go to her mom's house. Dawn was a little tore up about that one since she knew her mom wouldn't come over here (it would mean choosing between Darin and her). I called Mindy and she decided she would just host the Christmas night thing. Thank goodness.
Monday morning we headed out to get Grandma. We talked a little (probably not enough) about going over Dead Indian to catch 140 near Lake of the Woods. We'd taken that path before and it was quite beautiful. So we headed out and not far up the road we encountered quite a bit of snow. It was incredibly beautiful. The roads hadn't been sanded so they weren't all dirty and from the looks of it there weren't many people up here other than that snow plow guy who somehow was keeping the snow very clean. The roads were white the trees were packed with snow. Several places would have made for great pictures. I didn't take any. Oops.
On the downside, it took nearly an hour and a half to go the 50ish miles. I thought we were going to be late, but once we hit 140 it was all sanded and most of the pavement was bare. We made great time, but the car ended up incredibly dirty (and it still is).
We picked up Grandma and back to town we went. She hung out with us most of the day and we had arranged for her to stay at the Pear Tree down the road. Dawn's mom had said they were nice so we didn't figure it would be any big deal. We got down there and the room they had for her was broken (apparently an issue with the shower). Off to mom's house to see if she could hike up mom's stairs or not. The last time I was at mom's I went in from the parking area. That's about 14 stairs, as I recall. Of course, when we get there, mom shows her the short cut and all is good. So Grandma has a place to stay and we go home for the night.
Tuesday, Christmas eve, we didn't do anything. Very nice and mellow day. It was great. I even had time to play a little Tribes 2 (something I haven't had time for at all in weeks).
Christmas day we got up and opened presents. Watched some TV, played with the kid, etc, etc. Then we went to Joe and Mindy's for a while and hung out there. Joe and I set up his wireless network and added his laptop to it. Then we talked about new computers. Components, things to buy, memory, processors, etc, etc. FYI, I love tomshardware.com, great site, most of the reviews are useful (except the early history of hard drives in one article, but otherwise they are great). Anyway, here's some pics of visiting Joe's house:
Anyway, the next morning we took Grandma back to Klamath Falls. On the way home, we stopped at the snow park on 140 (near where Dead Indian connects) and threw Pi in the snow (well, actually his car seat and all) and took a few pics with a disposable camera. Hopefully, that will be done around Wednesday next week and I'll post a few.
One last thing. I started a little trip map of Aiden's travels this week. I was going to put a little calendar at the bottom and a little odometer plus some cute animations of some of the stops (food and diaper changes, etc), but since it doesn't actually pay any bills, and I figure it'd probably take another 4 hours or so to finish (I already spent almost 3 hours just getting the map set up and getting it to follow an inverse guide path since I didn't want the image to follow the guide, but the viewport to follow it instead -- it's a long story), it probably won't get finished. But, if you want to see the part of it that is, it is here. (it's also 68k and I haven't put a loader on it so if you are on dialup, sorry).