Baby Roomba

It is fascinating to watch Vivian grow up and learn new skills. From the first time she could hold her head up on her own, I look forward to each new milestone. Rolling over, clapping her hands, pointing, all fill me with excitement and pride. However, sometimes, these skills can combine in unforeseen and maddening ways. For example, the new-found mobility of crawling and the fine motor skill of the "pincher grasp" when combine produce what I call the "Baby Roomba" (a Roomba, for the non-techno-geeks out there is a robot that vacuums your floors.) One of Vivian's favorite pass-times is to patrol the floors finding every little tiny piece of dog hair, dirt, or tree leaf she can, picking it up between her finger and thumb, and then shoving it in her mouth. I am seriously thinking of buying her one of these.

Gettin' 'round

Vivian is getting very good at moving around lately. A few weeks ago she learned how to army-crawl around the floor, which has lead us to finally baby-proof the living room (although she still loves to crawl over and try to grab the power cord to my laptop...) She has also learned how to go from a sitting position to a crawl. I can't wait until she learns how to sit up from a crawl. Right now she gets down and crawls around, but can't sit up again to play with her toys..which makes her cranky.

Speaking of cranky, Vivian does this nice little trick where she is perfectly well behaved in public, fooling everyone into thinking she is the best baby ever. However, once we get home she puts on her cranky-pants. To be fair, her two front teeth have been making good progress bursting out of her gums. She also seems to no longer want her evening nap (which used to be around 6:30 to 8:30pm.) On the bright side, she still sleeps through the night, so we think that she isn't as tired as most kids her age and would rather get another hour of playing in before retiring.

Petsmart Grooming Sucks

So, I feel horrible about this. I dropped Ms Lilli off yesterday at Petsmart to get groomed. The baby had puked on here earlier in the week and, well, we couldn't get all the hurl out of her fur. When I went in, the girl checking us in said that she had mats all over her butt and that they couldn't brush them out. Also, shampoo would get stuck in there and make her itch. She said she needed to shave her to get the mats out, but she'd blend the fur so it wouldn't look so bad. I knew she would have short hair...but not like this:

Before:

After:

She looks like a damn poodle now. I should have known they didn't know what they were doing when I asked the girl to give her a "Sheltie Cut", and she said "There is no such thing." Every other dog in the place was getting shaved too, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. The worst part about it is it isn't even a good cut. The hair on her face is uneven, there are bald patches (see her chest) where they cut too close, and parts where they didn't cut enough. It looks like Vivian got ahold of dad's clippers and gave her a haircut.

Needless to say, we will NEVER be going back to Petsmart in Tallahassee for grooming again.

A New Beginning

So, it has been a long time since my last post. Instead of making excuses or promises about doing better, we'll just agree that things have been crazy the last few months and I am not very good at updating blogs.

For those of you reading Vivian's Mommy Blog, you know that we recently moved to Tallahassee, Fl so that Yvonne can finish her doctorate. I left my job at Destineer/Atomic games and am helping to start up Mad Monkey Militia, an iPhone game developer. Of course, that means I don't get paid until we actually ship something and lots of people buy it (I'll let you know when to go buy our first game. :-)

Vivian is doing very well. She is getting nice and chubby, eats a lot and sleeps a lot. We have been very fortunate that she sleeps through the night. She finally figured out how to turn over and is very close to learning how to crawl.

We are currently living in an apartment. The house we are renting will be available at the end of the month. Originally we were going to live in an extended-stay hotel, but 500sq feet is just too small for two adults, and baby, and a dog. Plus, the place was very loud and the internet connection sucked. When we walked in Yvonne's first reaction was to call the apartments that were we originally going to stay at and see if they still had anything available. Luckily they had a three bedroom, so we moved in the next day. Life was much better once we got our rented furniture. Overall though, I'm very much looking forward to moving into the house and finally setteling in.

Tallahassee is definitely smaller then the Raleigh area. It is great to be so close to everything, however there isn't a lot here. For me it isn't so bad since I'm pretty much a Target shopper, but if you are looking for anything "fancy", you'd have to drive to Jacksonville. I am looking forward to taking advantage of the outdoor activities here.

I'm also taking over most of the baby-duties. The childcare options here seem pretty limited and we figure it would be better to just keep Vivian at home instead of putting her in a baby-mill or some crazy persons house. We'll still need to find some sort of baby-sitter so Yvonne and I can go out and have some quality time. And, it will save us a bunch of money, which is a good thing seeing as I'm "unemployed".

No promisses when the next update will be, but I'll try to at least put little short updates up more often.

Lots of stuff and a link

A month?!?! It has been a month since my last post. At least my excuse is that I have been so busy with Vivian and the family that I haven't had a lot of time for anything else.

On Saturday Yvonne, Vivian and I drove down to Florida. Yvonne is heading over to Tallahassee to FSU to meet and greet and go to a class. Vivian and I came along for a vacation. As luck would have it, the Space Shuttle launch was delayed until Sunday, so we decided to go and see that. Let me say that it was awesome seeing it take off. I have some video of it I'll put on YouTube when I get back home. The worst part of the experience was getting stuck in traffic afteward. I don't understand why it was so horrible. NASA can launch the most complex machine mankind has ever created, yet they can't direct traffic out of the area.

We stayed the night in Daytona Beach. Most of the Spring Break kiddies are gone, so it isn't so bad.

If you want some more details on the trip (as well as a lot more pictures of Vivian), check out Yvonne's blog at viviansmommy. She tends to do a better job at updating then I do.

Growing

The last month has seen Vivian do some serious growing. We went to the peds last Thursday for her first round of shots (which she handle like a trooper!) and she is up to 9lbs 9oz. She no longer fits in her newborn clothes and has finally moved up to "big girl" diapers (a decision we made after a rather unpleasant episode in her bouncy seat.)

The cool thing is she even looks bigger. I keep telling Yvonne that she is turning into a "BBB" (Big Beautiful Baby), but not sure she appreciates that.

I know I've been slack with the Dad blog postings, but things have been pretty hectic. Between work and taking care of the baby, there isn't a lot of free time. We are also trying to get the house ready to go on the market. Even now I sit here typing with on hand while the other holds Viv. In fact, it is about time to wake her up and feed her, then hope she doesn't wake up at 5am again. What I would give for a good nights sleep...maybe in another 18 years...

No Day Like Today

*Whew* Ok, this whole being a dad business takes a lot of time! I would like to blame my lack of updates entirely on that, but truth is I just haven't been very inspired lately to write. I guess the five hours of sleep I get a night is taking its toll. Luckily I manage to suck down a pot of coffee before I head to work so I at least don't fall asleep at my desk.

Vivian is growing up. The biggest news is that she has learned how to smile! :) It is soooo cute. She just stares at you and her eyes light up and she just breaks into a giant open mouth grin. I'm hoping we can capture it on film soon, but every time we try she stops. I guess the bright light of the flash puts her in a bad mood. This is the best picture I could get:


Yvonne and I managed to get a few hours to ourselves last weekend. We went to see Rent at the new Durham Performing Arts Center. The DPAC is very nice, though not over the top fancy. The show was really good and we were excited since it starred Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal, the original Mark and Roger from Broadway. They seem to have some really good shows coming up over the next year, so hopefully we'll get a chance to see a few more. It was also a great chance to try out our first baby sitter for Vivian. Sara is really nice and Vivian seemed to really like her. We'll have to use her again.
The worst part of the weekend was that Yvonne got sick on Sunday. It was either a 36 hour flu or food poisoning. We did go to Outback for dinner after the show, so maybe she had some bad fish. Either way, it put her out for a few days so I got to spend more time being daddy.


Yvonne's mother also came to visit last weekend. It was good to finally meet her and get to spend some time with her. Sadly though, her father-in-law passed away on Sunday so she had to take an early flight home to be with her husband.

Not much exciting planned for this weekend. The Steelers are in the Super Bowl. Normally I would either have a party or head out to one. This year, however, I'll settle for partying with three beautiful girls at home instead. I will make some hot wings though. :-)

Go Steelers!