Every night when my Daddy comes home from work, I get really excited and happy to see him. When he comes up to me I instantly smile and laugh and flail my arms and legs about ridiculously to signal my delight. He usually sings songs to me just after he gets home. Lately, he's been singing a song called James James Morrison Morrison. It's about a boy who "took great care of his mother, though he was only three." In only a little more than two and a half years I'll be three. I'll be looking forward to taking care of Mommy then.

One interesting thing about my reaction when my Daddy comes home is that it didn't used to happen. I remember way back when I was a young boy, people and things were mostly just indistinguishable blurs. In addition to this obstacle, it was quite difficult for me to control my face enough to convey an emotion (other than by crying -- I had this down immediately.) I've come a long way, baby.

It was a rainy, dreary day yesterday, so Mommy and I stayed inside all day. Mommy does all sorts of things to entertain me, but my favorite is when she recites nursery rhymes. While Daddy, when he says these things, does it in a sing-songy kind of voice, Mommy is in deadly earnest. She wants me to feel the drama of each word:
Hickory dickory dock
Mommy wants me to understand and appreciate the plot line:
The mouse ran up the clock
Mommy wants me to feel the tension building in the telling:
The clock struck one
And down he comes
Finally, the denouement:
Hickory Dickory Dock
Mommy is funny.

Growth Spurt?

Yesterday, I had my biggest day of eating ever, topping the 30 oz mark. I was eating so much and so often that my Mommy swore she could literally see me growing throughout the day. Despite my eating surge, we did manage to get outside to visit one of my favorite places, the Stanford Mall. This is an open-air mall with lots of pretty flowers and trees along its promenades. What Mommy likes to do is strategically position herself and me in a central area where there are lots of bistro tables. There, Mommy will get a sandwich and then I will have a bottle and we'll watch the people passing by. Or, more likely, they'll watch us. This is a great spot for others to admire how cute and wonderful I am. They often stop to comment, which makes both Mommy and I very happy.

Give me a hand

I love to play with my hands. They're especially fun when paired with my bib. For instance, last night I found it tremendously funny to reach my hands under my bib and then pull them and it up to my face, half covering it. I would laugh and shriek with delight at how I was able to change my world. My Mommy would put the bib back down over my chest, and I would repeat the process. I have to admit though, sometimes I'd get a little scared of the darkness from having a bib over my eyes.

I can do other things with my hands too, like grab stuff. When my Daddy is feeding me, I like to grab onto the "handlebars" of the bottle, his two big thumbs. I can put my whole hand around his giant sized thumbs. This makes the whole experience of having a bottle that much more fun. Last night, my Mommy had one of my toys out--Celeste the Sun. Celeste has many delightful dangly things sticking out of her. I made my first tentative steps toward reaching out and grabbing the dangly things. Reaching out is apparently a milestone, so Mommy was very happy with my attempts to grab. We'll see how she feels about it in a few months when I reach out to grab her Lenox figurines.

Quake

I had another milestone in my life yesterday---my first earthquake. It measured 5.4 on the "not the Richter" scale, so it was a pretty small quake. I was sitting on my Mommy's lap when we both felt a rumbling. The computer monitor started to sway from side to side as well. Then, the whole thing was over. It didn't last very long. My Daddy was outside taking a walk, and he said he felt it even less than we did.

My Mommy is increasingly concerned that I'm becoming addicted to TV. Now, mostly I have a lot of trouble following the dialog (particularly the sexy innuendoes on some shows), but I love the lights and the colors. Sometimes, when I'm sitting by my parents, I'll crane my neck sharply to one side to get a better view of something really interesting on TV. Baseball is a favorite. I like the simple patterns of the grass, the ball, and the uniforms. Much easier for me to follow than the nature specials Mommy watches, where everyone is camouflaged.

I suggested to Mommy that part of the reason I'm becoming a TV addict is that she always has the darn thing on. I think that all by herself, Mommy is able to favorably affect the Nielsen numbers of The Learning Channel. We're always watching it.

Happy Mother's Day
I made my Mommy a card for mother's day. I used a highlighter, a pencil, and a fountain pen to make the design. I guess it's my first piece of art. I've posted it in my archive photo album in the folder labeled "memory box". Enjoy.

Picture Time

I've posted some new pictures of myself in the "volume 1" directory of the photo album. Some of you may wonder where all the other photos went. Well, my other photo site is completely full of great photos of me, so I've moved to a new one. If you want access to the old photos, go to my web site and click on the "photo album archive" there. These are photos of me sitting on the porch on Sunday when I was listening to the Giants game with my Daddy while Mommy went off to buy groceries.

My Daddy is a funny guy. Yesterday, he was babysitting me and stepped out to put the garbage out on the porch when the wind blew the door shut...and locked. As a result, he was locked outside the house and I was inside while Mommy was off in Walnut Creek with the house inspection. Daddy was quite unhappy at this turn of events. Luckily, the screen door in the back was open. The problem, though, is that this door in on the second story of the structure. Daddy made his way to the porch, then used a couple of boards to scale up to the second floor and let himself back inside. Whew. What a relief.

Movin' on Up

Well, it looks like we're moving to the house in Walnut Creek with the big jungle gym after all. My Mommy and Daddy decided that they weren't going to do better price and quality-wise than there, so they met the seller's counteroffer. Tomorrow, Mommy goes up to the place to look over the shoulder of the building inspector and we're scheduled to close on June 28. Yippee, a new home!\

Here are some details about it:

This single story detached, ranch home has 4 bedroom(s), 2 full bath(s) and is approximately 2048 sq. ft. Rooms include a family room, dining area. Other features include 2 fireplace(s), ceiling fan(s), window treatments. This home has a 2 car garage, covered patio. Recreation amenities include community swimming pool(s), community children's play area. The lot is a corner lot, fenced. The property is located on 0.22 acre(s).

We'll have a picture shortly.

Good & Plenty

Last night I played a new game with my Daddy. He discovered that I get really excited when he holds both my little hands and oscillates my arms back and forth. I love this! Even better was when he incorporated this into a singing game. I sat astride his waist with his knees tucked up to support my back. He held both my hands and bounced around signing the Good & Plenty theme song:

Once upon a time there was an engineer
Choo Choo Charlie was his name, we hear.
He had an engine and he sure had fun
He used Good & Plenty candy to make his train run.
Charlie says "Love my Good & Plenty!"
Charlie says "Really rings my bell!"
Charlie says "Love my Good & Plenty!"
Don't know any other candy that I love so well!

He would sing faster and faster and this was an absolute delight. I had my mouth wide open smiling and laughing as the Good & Plenty train rolled on and on.

In less happy news, our offer on the Walnut Creek place was flatly rejected by the seller. Looks like we'll be living in refrigerator boxes instead. At least the weather stays nice so living in a box is not too bad.

Graduation Day

Yippee! My Mommy has decided I'm now big and strong enough to graduate to the next size nipples on my Avent bottles. I now move up to size 1 from size 0. So far, the early results are encouraging, because it's easier to get stuff from these nipples, I seem to be eating even more than I usually do. My Daddy likes that I also am eating a lot faster than I usually do, which means more time to play and interact and less time of staring off into space with a glazed expression. The only potential downside to this is that there is now a slightly higher chance of my spitting up with these nipples. I'm a pretty weird baby in that respect--I never spit up. Not once, not ever (knock on wood).

We went on another house hunting trip, but it was really unsuccessful. In fact, so unsuccessful that my parents have made an offer on the property with the big jungle gym in the backyard that I mentioned in my previous entry. Wish us luck! Also, I learned that my Mommy and Daddy received an offer on their place in New Jersey. It had only been on the market for 3 days when the first offer came in. They've countered this offer. Again, wish us luck.

Well, that's all the news. It's a beautiful day, so I'm going to sit out on the porch with my Daddy.

House Hunting

Yesterday, we all went house hunting together. We saw 7 different places and ended up with two of these still being in the running for our next home. My favorite was a place in Walnut Creek that sits on a corner lot. This house has the neat feature of having an enormous playground structure (done in wood) already installed. While I'm still a little too small to enjoy this now, it won't be long before I can start climbing and jumping and swinging. I made myself really at home in this place. I stopped off to eat a bit while we were there and I had two (!) rest stops there as well.

This place offers the convenient feature that access to all of that is right out in my back yard. The other place we looked at doesn't have a playground, but is in a lovely hilly section of a town called Lafayette. I would be able to walk to school if we lived here. This house was wonderfully airy with a zillion skylights.

The big problem with house hunting is that I'm stuck in my stupid car seat all day. By the evening, I was clearly voicing my displeasure with this arrangement and it took Mommy a long time to convince me that the period of being strapped in was mercifully over.

Where does he put it all?

Last night before bed I was hungry. I mean really hungry. I mean like the kind of hungry that folks on Survivor feel after being in the island 23 days. Mommy set me down to eat last night before bed and started in on my usual amount (which is a bit under 4 oz.) Having polished that off, I still wanted more. By the time I was done, I had eaten more in one sitting than I had before in my entire life---8.5 oz. Mommy wondered where I could possibly fit all that milk given my small size. After finishing, I lay back half-dazed from all the food and gurgled happily.

Earlier this evening, we all watched the Phillies defeat the Giants. While there are many shows that I pay little attention to, baseball is not one of them. I really enjoy the high contrast uniforms and the play of light and dark as the brightly colored player stride up to the plate in the darkened stadium. From my bouncy seat, I craned my neck around to get a better view.

My Daddy has invented a little song to greet me when he comes home from work. I always laugh when I hear it. It goes like this:

Mister Baby, Mister Baby
Yessir, no sir, don't mean maybe

That's it. I think he needs more lyrics.

Today, we're all going off house hunting to the hills east of Berkeley. I can't wait to see where we're going to live next. I hope it has a nice yard for me to play in.

Not that I'm not always the greatest company in the world, but my Mommy wanted to go off and do some shopping by herself, so on Saturday my Daddy took care of me instead. We got to do many fun things together. For a while, he kept me entertained with the following exciting game: He would initially keep his head some distance from mine and then slowly swoop in toward me. As he did so, he said the word "baaaaaa-byyyyy" in a high pitched voice. This I found to be hilariously funny. When I'm really amused, I give a big open mouthed smile (not exactly a toothy smile though since I have no teeth) and kind of gurgle. This was great.

We also watched some movies together. Daddy has noticed that my taste in movies tends to run to edgier stuff. The afternoon's movie menu was a kind of controlled experiment to test this effect. Early in the afternoon, during one of my feedings, we watched "Sexy Beast" together. As far as I can tell, this movie consists almost entirely of English swear words and yelling. I was spellbound. I turned my head to the side of the bouncy seat and stared intently at the screen throughout the picture. Later in the afternoon, we watched "Serendipity", a light romantic comedy with John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale. This movie was not the least bit edgy at all, and I paid no attention. Of course, my favorite movie of all time is Traffic. I think as I get older, I'm starting to exude the same smoldering sexuality as Benicio del Toro (or maybe not).

Sniffle snuffle

I encountered a new and not so great milestone a couple of days ago. For the first time in my life, I have the sniffles. I don't really like it very much. For one thing, it makes it harder to enjoy a refreshing bottle of milk. The reason is that with my nose stuffed up, I like to breathe through my mouth. But this gets in the way of eating and sometimes I miscoordinated the two activities and end up sputtering and having to take a break from the happy pleasure of milk drinking.

It's been hot here lately and Mommy seems to have picked out some special rubberized diapers for swimming. I've never been swimming before, but it sounds great--like the world's biggest bath. After initially having some trepidations about baths, I've really warmed to them. I like to splash and laugh and wiggle around. Apparently with this "pool" thing, there's lots of room to do all these activities. I can't wait.

Since I've been sniffly, I've also been a lot more sleepy. I spent much of the day yesterday just relaxing and dozing on and off. I did wake up to watch the Yankees-A's game with my Daddy last night. The Yankees won on a two run homer by Jorge Posada. Daddy and I were both delighted.

I'm growing bigger all the time. Daddy weighed me this morning and I now weigh 15 pounds! I'm now on the brink of being dangerously large for several of my baby toys. Mommy also counted up the days since my birth and notes that I'm FOUR months old today. Happy birthday to me.

New Photos

I've posted some new photos of myself under the folder "baby playing poker". The highlights show me playing poker and winning handsomely.

Over the weekend, I discovered something new and fun--when I kick and bounce my bouncy seat, the "fun panel" plays songs and lights. I had never notived these before but now that I have, they're tremendously amusing. Every time the lights flach and the sounds play, I smile and laugh until I nearly topple sideways in the chair! I've also discovered how to put my hands in my mouth. I really enjoy doing a lot of the time, but especially when I'm hungry. Unfortunately, it's hard to fit a bottly in my mouth when I have my hands jammed in there. Still working out the solution to this problem.

People just keep coming and going in the house. My Daddy came home last night and we gto to spend the evening bonding with one another. I missed him, and I think he missed me too. The sad news is that my Uncle Jack departed early this morning for the east coast. Lots of people come and go but only my Mommy and Daddy seem to stay for longer than about a week or so.

Bye bye

For the next 4 days, my Daddy is going away to Texas, which my Mommy calls "big hat country." He's goiing to an Internet conference (so he can learn how to surf the net more effectively I suppose). He also says that he's going to ride a horsie while he's there (yes, he really talks like that, referring to horses as "horsies".) I'm going to miss him while he's away. I've been alive now for about 108 days, so his departure for the next 4 means that he'll be gone for almost 4% of my life, which seems to me to be a long time. Meanwhile, my Mommy and Uncle Jack will take care of me.

Poker Night

I've added lots of new photos to my web site. I helped Mommy scan them in yesterday afternoon. There are new photos in the Dave and Julie folder that finally prove that Aunt Julie did not leave Uncle Dave at home when she came to visit. There are also more Easter photos in the Easter folder and pctures in the new Grammy's Visit folder taken when Mommy's Mommy came to see me. In addition, there are pictures in the Lake Tahoe folder from the first time I saw snow and the first time I met my cousins, Meryl, Libby, and Matthew.

I got to see my Uncle Jack for the first time ever yesterday. He's funny. He likes to make all sorts of amusing faces at me, which got me to laugh a lot. My Mommy called me a gigglepuss (one of her favorite terms of endearment) as a result of my laughing and smiling. Later that evening, I got to do something completely new---learn how to play poker. My Mommy, Daddy, and Uncle Jack decided to play a few hands of poker complete with cards from the Luxor, a casino I visited in utero, and poker chips. I got to handle one of the most expensive chips, worth 25 cents, and generally had a good time sitting on people's laps and advising them as to what they should do. Mommy was the big winner last night making $1.40! I hope she spends it on more outfits for me.

I continue to sleep through the nights without any problem. Last night, I had numerous evening feedings and, by the time I wnet to bed, I was quite full. I was able to go about 8 hours between feedings (a full night's rest for my parents). Mommy is still wondering whether this sort of thing is normal or not. I don't know, but I'm a happy smiling baby, so what's to worry about.

Poker Night'

I got to see my Uncle Jack for the first time ever yesterday. He's funny. He likes to make all sorts of amusing faces at me, which got me to laugh a lot. My Mommy called me a gigglepuss (one of her favorite terms of endearment) as a result of my laughing and smiling. Later that evening, I got to do something completely new---learn how to play poker. My Mommy, Daddy, and Uncle Jack decided to play a few hands of poker complete with cards from the Luxor, a casino I visited in utero, and poker chips. I got to handle one of the most expensive chips, worth 25 cents, and generally had a good time sitting on people's laps and advising them as to what they should do. Mommy was the big winner last night making $1.40! I hope she spends it on more outfits for me.

I continue to sleep through the nights without any problem. Last night, I had numerous evening feedings and, by the time I wnet to bed, I was quite full. I was able to go about 8 hours between feedings (a full night's rest for my parents). Mommy is still wondering whether this sort of thing is normal or not. I don't know, but I'm a happy smiling baby, so what's to worry about.

Sleepy Boy

I set a new sleeping record last night. In fact, I was so effective at sleeping that my Mommy is starting to get worried about me. I had been pretty hungry for much of the day (in fact Mommy was barely keeping up with my eating) and it looked like I might be enjoying some formula last night if things did not change. Well, they did change. I ate at 10:30 last night, went to bed, and did not get up again until 6am. Really, I was not even up then, Mommy woke me. I was happy enough to eat when I awoke.

This delay in eating got Mommy sufficiently concerned that she got out the thermometer to take my temperature (well within normal range), and she cracked open a zillion baby books to see what was going on. My Daddy seemed unconcerned. If anything, he's probably happy that I'm already able to sleep through the night.

On Saturday night, I had a bath. This was the first time since I was in the hospital that my Mommy and Daddy both helped bathe me. Normally Mommy does this, but one Saturday when she was out shopping, my Daddy tried it on his own. This event was a total disaster. I get very upset almost immediately. Also, in his confusion over trying to keep my head above water, juggle all the towels and washcloths and so on, my Daddy neglected to take off my socks, so my feet were sodden. This was no fun. Thankfully, Mommy is actually competent at bathing me so I had a nice bath. This was good because it was very hot here over the weekend, and I was sweaty.

Today I see a new relative -- my Uncle Jack.

My First Plane Ride
I had my first plane ride this past week. We flew from San Jose to Detroit and then drove from there to Ann Arbor. So far, I like every mode of transportation I’ve been on and the plane is not exception. Thanks to a law created by Laura Bush (according to the flight attendant) I’m guaranteed a window seat whenever I fly. This is great although I’m still a little too short to see out the window. I like the dull hum of the jet engine. It makes me so sleepy…yawn. I slept pretty much the whole way during the flight. In fact, I was so sleepy that my Mommy had great difficulty rousing me to give me a little milk so my ears would get unblocked on takeoff and landing. Happily, I got enough good sucks in to make my ears pop, so I felt just fine.

While normally passengers around a young baby dread the trip, the folks around me looked with delight at the end of the trip and told me how cute and wonderful I was. I’m not like the other kids I guess, I just like to dream of flying around in airplanes.

The next day, I got to ride around in a new kind of car, a Subaru, driven by a realtor who was showing my Mommy and Daddy some places they might like to live in. I checked these places out too and pretty much liked them all equally. They were all a lot bigger than our little apartment in Palo Alto. Once again, I made a good impression. The realtor said I was a perfect baby because of my excellent manners.

The night after seeing the realtor, my Mommy was feeding me in the hotel room when she smashed her foot off of a narrow door frame leading to the bathroom. Mommy was very unhappy—she had the same angry purple face I get when I’m really hungry—and she could not walk very well. The next day, we went to a place called the hospital where they fix hurt people like Mommy. Before they fix them, though, they make them wait four hours to make sure they’re really hurt and not just faking it. At the end, Mommy got to wear a special bootie show for her broken toe and was hobbling around on crutches. This made our trip to the airport really fun. I got to ride in a wheelchair through the airport on Mommy’s lap. Daddy pushed us both as well as all our carry-on luggage from the entrance of the airport to the gate, which the airline had thoughtfully located the maximum distance away.

Getting off the airplane, Mommy got to ride in a really neat form of transportation. I was envious. In San Jose, where we landed, rather than having a jetway leading directly to the terminal, they have an old-fashioned system whereby they wheel steps up to the plane and the people walk down to the tarmac. Well, Mommy couldn’t negotiate the steps, so instead they pulled up this big forklift thing and moved the steps out of the way. Mommy was then hoisted down in the forklift and whisked away in the wheelchair to the car. What a trip! My trips are always filled with many exciting events—blizzards, lost wallets, broken feet, forklifts, and so on.

Because my Mommy cannot move around very well, my Daddy has been at home all day these past several days taking care of lots of things. For instance, when I want to be picked up and bounced around, my Daddy is there to do it. I like that.

Recently, Mommy mentioned that in a month I would be old enough to hold a rattle on my own. My Daddy, having infinite faith in my abilities, insisted that I could do it now. He quickly pulled out a rattle and started trying to get me to hold it. I grasped it firmly (I like gripping things) and occasionally waved it around. When I did that, it made an unexpected noise, which caused me to smile. I even flung it down to the ground a couple of times. Best of all, from Daddy’s perspective, I did all of this with my left hand. My Daddy is convinced that I have an excellent chance to have a long career as a modestly effective middle relief pitcher if only I end up being left handed. We shall see.

Today was a hot day, and I was perspiring. Occasionally, it would get so hot that I would complain and my Daddy would have to figure out some way to make it cooler. At the end of the day, I got to take a bath, which was cool and very refreshing. Now I’m a clean and shiny happy baby.