Happy Halloween!!
Protected: Our Favorite Books
Halloweeny Links
• Halloween on a Saturday kinda rocks … think I must make Vampire Pancakes!!
• there are a couple cute ideas (raining cats and dogs) in this round up of no-sew kids' costumes
• I usually make Halloween Supper, but I've been thinking about switching it up this year and this menu looks pretty good!
• some advice on photographing Halloween costumes
• some fun Geek Costumes
• some very nice Halloween wall paper to spruce up your computer
• there are quite a few great Halloween shirts available on shirt.woot … with expedited shipping they might even make it in time for the big day
… and links completely unrelated to Halloween
• I think Yvett definitely needs this Hello Kitty House!
• gotta love these Rosie the Riveter Bookends!
• I really dig this pretty printable chore chart
• I have no idea how to describe this, so you better just look at it!
• some simple ways to improve your photography – no new equipment needed
A Duh Moment
I'm sure you've heard by now that Disney is issuing refunds for Baby Einstein Videos. And my honest reaction? I think the whole thing is a little insulting to parents' intelligence.
I don't know about you, but I never assumed the DVDs did anything but entertain. We own quite a few and they have played a key role in my ability to get a shower, get dinner on the table and complete an important phone call now and again. Neither of our kids has gotten a steady diet of them (maybe watching 2-3 per week) and I honestly do not see the harm. Maybe in the perfect world, there would be no TV for the under 2 set, or no TV for anyone period. But here in reality, they entertain my kids for a few minutes and I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.
And in general, I honestly find TV to be at least somewhat beneficial. Tabby knows tons of music terms from Little Einstein (and uses them in her every-day speech and pretend) and a respectable amount of Spanish from Dora (the child counted to 10 in Spanish correctly before English! and it's not like we weren't encouraging her in English). Of course it doesn't replace things like puzzles or books … largely, in my opinion because they frequently have the added component of parental interaction. And I can't quite see the logic behind the people that are so militantly against TV. Sure I've heard the studies, but there is a big gap between correlation and causality. For me, another old adage works well here and in most situations: Everything in moderation, including moderation.
So I will not be asking for my money back. As far as I'm concerned, I got what I paid for … a little entertainment for my kids.
The Status Quo
I am hoping *knock repeatedly on everything wooden I can get my hands on* that we are over the sickies. Nothing remains of my illness except a bit of charming mucus and a bit of a raspy voice. It has been suggested to me repeatedly that this is “sexy.” Not sure I agree. Matt is mostly mended as well except for a few sinus headaches. It seems like the kids have missed whatever ailed us, thank goodness. I was worried on Friday when Ben seemed to be running a low-grade fever and fussing (with the cough he already had), but so far, it hasn’t developed into anything more and I pray it stays that way. I’d 100x over rather be sick than have the kids sick.
Obviously, we had a pretty low-key weekend. I end up missing my cousin Tana’s benefit gig on Friday to stay home with Ben. I really hated to miss it, but I feel like I did the right thing staying home with him. Matt and Tabby did get to go and enjoyed themselves hugely.
Saturday we made it to our friends’ Halloween party, which was great. They put a ton of effort into the planning and decorations and it really showed. Matt and I dressed up as two Geek Squad team members, which was easy and went over pretty well. The best costume we saw was a friend of ours who went as Octomom … long black wig, big sunglasses and a sling with 8 baby-dolls in it. Total crack-up. There were also 2 little mermaids with 2 King Triton daddies in their entourage. Tabby had a great time, but was more than ready to go home around 8:30. Two late nights in a row are hard on that girl, nap or not.
The rest of the weekend was spent running the bare-minimum of errands and catching up on laundry and house pick-up.
Ben at 6 Months!
The last couple of months have absolutely flown by and here we are in late October. Yesterday, we celebrated half a year with Ben as a part of our family. It is amazing how much has changed just in the path couple of months.
Ben is doing quite well at sitting on his own, and even better with just a little assistance from someone’s legs or a boppy. This is particularly advantageous since he is too heavy to carry around in his infant carseat and has been upgraded to the convertible. He seems to like it better, but it means we lose the carrier for the grocery store and restaurants. He really enjoys his tummy time and can roll back and forth just fine and likes to “swim” on the floor, kicking up his arms and legs. He also loves to lie on his back and grab his toes.
While he CAN hold his own bottle, he prefers to leave that task to one of his many staff members, including big sister (who has limited patience for extended bottle holding). He is eating quite a few solids and seems to really miss them if we try to skip giving them to him. He’s had most of the readily available members of the fruit and veggie group and rice cereal, of course. I’m looking forward to being able to give him a little more variety in the near future. Unfortunately, all this solid-eating doesn’t seem to have helped his sleep very much.
Verbally, he is hilarious. He baby-talks to us a lot and you can hear him imitate sound we make, especially “hi!” and kissing noises. He is big into music, just like Tabby was, but he seems to prefer our singing to CDs (why?!) and likes to go to sleep with someone singing to him. He definitely recognizes his name and turns when he hears voices he knows. He loves to hear big sister talking and is entertained by her whether she’s doing it on purpose (dancing and singing for him) or not (throwing a fit).
He is quite the big boy, wearing mostly size 12 months and size 3 diapers. I will be very interested to see what his percentiles are like this time and what he’s going to look like at a year old. We are loving him and his happy disposition. Even this past couple of weeks when he’s had a bit of a cold, he is still a smiley, happy guy. He’s so much fun! How’d we get so lucky?
To Do List
1. catch up at work
2. start work on freelance thing
3. blog
4. stay away from FB
5. answer back email
6. write change log
7. make dinner for meal train
8. get photos off the camera (esp. that adorable one of Ben in his frog towel)
9. halloween costumes for Matt & I
10. exchange Tabby's ballet slippers (why did I get black??)
11. make sure Ben's costume fits him
12. return Tabby's shoes to Zappos
13. laundry … always laundry
14. finish report
15. pick up more tissues for hubby @ store
16. pick up kiddos
17. drop of dinner
18. seriously contemplate back of eyelids
19. praise the lord that my week ends on thursday
Siiiick!
So Friday morning, after a week (or two?) of feeling kinda meh (that lingering cold sort of thing), I woke up feeling pretty OK. I got myself and the kiddos dressed and we met up with Grandma and GiGi (that's great grandma for those of you not in the know). We went to Holiday Mart (fun!) and lunch and then we took GiGi home. About halfway from GiGi's house back to mine, I started feeling extremely tired. Then achy.
When I got home I turned it all over to Matt and headed straight to bed. There I proceeded to pass out for the next several hours and spike a temp of 103. Yay!
I spent pretty much the entire (gorgeous) weekend in bed. Coughing. Having a fever. And chill. And aches. Monday too. Tabby demanded to go to Grandma's on Saturday morning and spent pretty much the entire weekend there. Smart girl. Despite not feeling 100%, Matt tended to me and Ben. He is now sick with the flu. I think I'm starting to feel better (oh please, God, oh please) and fortunately the kids seem not to have caught this flu and just have their lingering snotty noses (knock on wood repeatedly, oh please, God, oh please).
Cuz this is supposed to be a busy week. I've already cancelled like 5 things. I would prefer to cancel only like 1 or 2 more. Y'know … the things I didn't really wanna do anyhow.
Of course, one good thing has come out of this. I actually read an entire book. The paper variety (as opposed to the audio variety that are currently my bread and butter). Yes, while lying in bed freezing and drifting in and out of sleep, I read Dan Brown's latest book, Lost Symbol. Man does that make for some weird fever dreams.
Links and Android Braggin
OK, so first things first. My new phone is so incredibly cool. I have downloaded a lot of apps, including some games, some practical stuff (Facebook, flickr). And then this AM, I found one that though impractical for me, is *awesome*. It’s a calorie counter program … and it scans the barcodes of packaged foods and brings up their nutritional info for you to record! Hubby says there is a similar app for comparison shopping. Geeky high over here.
Anyhoo … Links!
• this xkcd comic made me laugh, quite literally, outloud
• I don’t have an iphone, but I would almost consider getting one so I could have this terribly cute iphone stand
• love these spooky halloween glasses made with packing tape
• great article about language development
• Taco Bell’s jumping on the cupcake bandwagon
• So. Damn. Cute!
• beautiful ping-pong party lites
• this weekend, I’m making butter in my mixer! Probably. If I remember.
• very cool project idea: a week in the life
• Doc Brown’s breakfast-making Rube Goldberg has come to fruition!
• wanna take the baby to the opera? craft up a Tuxedo Onesie
• Oil free frying?! Be still My heart!
• When I build my own house, it will have a secret passage (and a treehouse) and it might have to be tripped with a statue
• I could so have used Memoriser when I was in school!
• I felt like we were about two steps away from becoming the humans on Wall-E when I saw this bed
• dude … seriously!??
• pretty green birthday
Geeking Out On Y’all
So as I mentioned, the old phone is dead/dying. Lucky for me, HTC just released the Hero, an Android (Google’s mobile platform) phone for Sprint (my carrier). I got a chance to check it out last night and was suitably impressed. They are getting a unit in today and it’s got my name on it. I’m hugely excited.
Android is excellent because it is an OPEN SOURCE platform. That means that any nerd can make an application for it and distribute it. And no one (i.e. Apple) controls which apps you can or can’t publish. Rock on. When I get some time (a year or so from now), I’d love to check out their development kit and play around with developing some apps. Mostly so I can legitimately put this on my website.
I also had the pleasure of downloading Flickroom the other day. The app itself is nice, but nothing impressive … sort of just like Flickr in a desktop app. What really intrigued me was the way it was developed was by using an Open Source development standard from Adobe (Flex/AIR) that makes it a lot easier for the little guys (me) to develop desktop apps that play nicely with the web.
Once again, when I have time, I would love to check it out. Unfortunately, they did not have the presence of mind to create an awesome flash badge for their developers.