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Saturday, December 31, 2005 The Littlest Han Solo Parker's becoming quite the little 'Quotable Star Wars'. Yesterday I went to tell him a secret. I whispered in his ear "I love you." He responded, "I know." Today, while Kristin drove, I was attempting to reconnect the two DVD monitors to give the kids something to do. For about five minutes I was sitting backward in my chair, fumbling to reconnect the wires to make it work. Parker watched me diligently, and finally announced, "Hold on, I think I've got it." It took me a second to realize he was quoting Ford's lines from Return of the Jedi as he attempted to hot-wire the bunker's blast doors. ------------------------------------------------
Long Day's Journey Into Night  Today our plan was to drive from Shelli's through Pigeon Forge and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park back to Kristin's parent's house in Flowery Branch. The drive started fine, until we reached the boulevard from Pigeon Forge to Gatlinburg. I'd been on that road once before, several years ago, and then it was bumper-to-bumper traffic, which I had attributed to the Classic Car Show that was going on in town.How naive I had been. If anything, the traffic was worse than it had been then. After traveling what seemed to be about three and a half miles in just over an hour, I finally agreed with Kristin to abandon the route and instead go around the park and back to the Interstate than travels its perimeter. Now that drive was exactly what I had pictured. It was the most beautiful drive, we took, curving through little farm fields dotted with bright red barns and sheds, with the largest mountains we had seen on the trip rising like a magnificent matte painting just beyond. At one point we found a small cemetery atop a hill called Fox Cemetery, which had been established in 1787. I got our to take a picture of the row upon row of gravestones that had eroded down to just pockmarked stubs of stone sticking up out of the ground. At the top of the hill I came across an eerie sight: a freshly dug grave, whose headstone was just as old as all the others around it. That in of itself was unusual, but what made it downright creepy were the cloven hoof marks that criss-crossed the fresh soil. I can only surmise that one of the cows from the nearby field had wandered loose. Either that, or the Devil went down to Georgia looking for a soul to steal. In the next little town we found an enormous factory, the largest industrial facility we had seen in the area. n It paralleled the road for several miles, while I wondered what it could be - paper mill? Natural gas facility? No, it turned out to be the headquarters of Bush's Baked Beans. Rrrrrrrrrrroll that beautiful bean footage.  After some hairpin turns, we made it to the Interstate and went south. It grew dark rapidly, giving us the most gorgeous sunset over the Mountains we had found to be impassable. And, like the Fellowship of the Ring, we found that the only route available to us then was through Moria. In our case, Moria didn't contain a Balrog, but an hour and a half straight of Kira crying her lungs out. I think I might have preferred an army of snarling orcs.------------------------------------------------
Friday, December 30, 2005 Singing a Different Tune  For a while now I've been petitioning iTnes music request pages to get them to include British artists, like K.T. Tunstall (right)that are currently not sold in the music store (this due to my addiction to Virgin radio UK which is streamed through iTune's radio feature). Yesterday, as I was looking at the iTunes catalog, I decide on a whim to switch my store view from the U.S. to U.K. Imagine my surprise when I found every song I've been requesting available there for immediate downloads. But, due to the licensing agreement that iTunes has with the labels, to do so would risk being suspending from the service.Wow, and double wow. If the labels truly want to reverse their declining business model, they need to find a way to allow digital access to work across the board, regardless of national boundaries. That's about twelve dollars of revenue lost because of no availability, just from one consumer, after three weeks of exposure to new music on the radio. I think that translates to millions being lost to myopia world-wide. ------------------------------------------------
The Ultimate Experience in Grueling Terror   I asked around to see if I could locate the owner. The local gas station attendant told me she did not the owner, but she was asked that question quite a bit. Why wouldn't the owner take advantage of that and open some sort of attraction, no matter how small, or even just for Halloween? It's got potential for making money - the site is even mentioned by the local board of tourism.The house right next door to the woods is for sale. I dunno about that - I'd be afraid the woods would get into my hands and go bad. ------------------------------------------------
Thursday, December 29, 2005 The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe  Amazing simply doesn't begin to describe how I felt about this film. In review, I have to say I feel it is better than any Harry Potter film I've seen. In fact, I think it's better than The Two Towers or Return of the King, and is on par with The Fellowship of the Ring. Understated, noble, and heartfelt, with acting performances that are wonderfully subdued for children. Seamless special effects, with a vibrancy and energy to them that left me in awe. There were several scenes in the film that nearly had me in tears - not because they were emotionally wrenching, but because visually is was so stunning. While I still feel that Star Wars will walk away with the special effects Oscar this year, this film more truly deserves it. Thanks to its tremendous success at the box office, a sequel is guarantee, and I look forward to seeing Prince Caspian with relish. Or should I say, Turkish delight?------------------------------------------------
The 5200 Shelli got Kristin and I some nifty new cell phones for the holidays, with a year's worth of service so we can keep in touch. One of the niftiest features on this phone was the ability to synch to a computer and be able to upload your own screensavers and mp3s to use as wallpaper and ringtones. Curiously, though, Verizon seems to have dropped this features from this particular model. It seems the reason is to increase sales of screens and ringtones from their affiliates. There is some software to try and get around this, but it all seems like a great hassle just to get that particular song. Ah well. In the end, I guess its better to use a MIDI ringtone - you'd be less likely to just let a call sit so you can hear the whole song. ------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, December 28, 2005 Vortex of Care  There is a right way to advertise your business, and a wrong way. What exactly does this logo saying about the vet? “Flush your animals goodbye?” "Our business will take you for a ride". Kristin called it a Vortex of Care, which every time I think of, I hear John Cleese intoning it in a haltingly British, Monty-Pythonesque sort of way "Our business employs a practice that is best described as a...vortex...of care."Nothing says love like a never-ending maelstrom of fur and feathers. ------------------------------------------------
Eigth Wonder of the World  King Kong is a ambitious, gloriously filmed film that works best when concentrating on the relationship between Ann Darrow and the great Ape. Director Peter Jackson once again shows his mastery of the special effects extravanganza, but Kong seems to try to pull too much in an effort to be the biggest film ever. While certain action sequences are incredible - the t-rex fight is amazing, and the bug swamp sequence is quite creepy and will come back to you on subsequent nights, in the dark, unbidden - others seem tacked on and excessive, particularly the dinosaur stampede, which ends in a massive pile-up the likes of which have not been seen on film since the finale of The Blues Brothers, and is just as comical. Still, it's a pulp adventure that rivals Sky Captian in its earnestness, and that's to be commended. And that scene in Central Park is true movie magic. ------------------------------------------------
Monday, December 26, 2005 On Snow Chains Snow Chains certainly make a racket. Glas we had em. I was also glad back when I still had teeth in my head. ------------------------------------------------
Sunday, December 25, 2005 Merry Christmas From a Long, Long Time Ago...  This year, Yoda substituted by Santy Claus, and Parker got an entire armada of Star Wars vehicles, culminating in a giant Millennium Falcon. The Falcon is based on the original 1970's mold, and suffers all the design flaws of the original: the unwieldy entry hatch, the easily collapsible landing struts, and the hard to close top cover. Nevertheless, they added a great blue LED for the sublight engines, and some great flyby sound effects.After opening the presents, the weather turned even colder, and we got snow flurries. We all went outside for an extended snowball fight, and later went sledding down the parking lot. It was picture perfect.   ------------------------------------------------
Saturday, December 24, 2005 Over the Mountain and Through the Woods  ...t o Grandfather's place we go. Grandfather Mountain, that is. Parker, his aunt Shelli and I went to Grandfather Mountain, a U.N. biosphere with spectacular views of Pisgah National Forest and the mountains of North Carolina. Part of Forrest Gump's run across America was filmed here, and every turn revealed an incredible view of the Smoky Mountains. In addition to seeing bald eagles, otters, and cougars in the nature habitats (one cougar graciously climbed a nearby tree to glower over at us and contemplate a lunch of a suitable-sized Parker), we drove to the top of the mountain and travelled across a mile-high swinging bridge.  ------------------------------------------------
Friday, December 23, 2005 Sticky Situation  Parker complained this morning that his butt felt 'sticky'. When he took off his underwear, I noted that they were stained a deep red. Horrified, I expected to find the kind of blood and guts kind of injury that keeps us from watching C.S.I. anymore. Instead, I discover...one-fourth of a candy cane, that apparently travelled his entire digestive system. Intact.What kind of perservatives are they putting in those things? Reminds me of the Animaniacs Be careful what you eat": Grade A milk emulsified ------------------------------------------------
Thursday, December 22, 2005 Error  Later we were reading how the cabins have their own personal pool and Jacuzzi. The pamphlet warns that onlt potty-trained children should use either. Furthermore, the pamphlet cautions that "if you or your guest have an error in the spa, please contact the office immediately". That’s one way to put it.------------------------------------------------
On Ice or On the Rocks?  Our first day on the mountain! There had been snowstorms a few days before, soo there was some icy snow around, but far too fine to do anything with except walk through it. Still, Parker was fascinated. I fell a few times on the ice, even narrowly avoiding falling into a drainage pipe that ran under the road, in order to get some good photos (how I suffer for my art). I’ll let you judge if the photo was worth it.------------------------------------------------
Quick! Sculpt "Jail"!  Tonight we put our thinking caps and played Cranium. Try miming ‘hormone’ or ‘hypertext’, or humming in-the-gadda-da-vida for five minutes straight, and you’ll realize how fun a game this can be.------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, December 21, 2005 Deliver Us From Deliverance  On Wednesday we left Kristin’s parents and traveled with them by convoy to cabin on Beech Mountain, the highest town in the Eastern continental United States.I truly do love the Appalachian mountains. It is such a change from the minor hilly terrain of northern Florida. In Florida, every road seems straight as an arrow, with little or no suprises to be found. When the road curves, as it does a lot in the mountains, you never know what you’re going to find.  We made a drunken bee line through Northern Georgia and western North Carolina to get to the cabin. The scenery alternating between scenes of gorgeous wooded mountain vistas, picturesque small towns wedged between rivers in steep valleys, and the sprawl and blight of modern life, which seems to be ever deeper when thrown against steep sloping hills. The names of roads became ever more long the higher into the Highlands we got – from the alliterative Cripple Creek Road, Crooked Creek Road, and Cove Creek Road, to the painfully obvious, such as Old Mill Creek Road and Mining Company Road, to the downright lyrical, such as Possum Trot Lane and Fox Grape Hollow Road. Two names really stood out – Ban the Blues Lane, obviously named by a person with certain musical tastes, and Hardscrabble Road, which encapsulates the whole mountain living experience in one word.In between gawking at the scenery and the occasional patch of snow, Parker was content to watch his borrowed copy of Little Einstein’s Big Huge Adventure. At one point in the film the children begin to sing to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, and we were amazed to hear Kira begin to la-la-la along with them – on time, and in key! She is growing up sooo fast. ------------------------------------------------
Chicago Meat Authority? Please take a moment to inspect the logo of the Chicago Meat Authority. We saw this on the side of a semi during our drive and were really confused - is that a cut of meat he's inspecting or a baby swaddled in a blanket? ------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, December 20, 2005 Learning Journey  We picked up two new books on our trip - The Everything Homeschooling Book and Son of Web Pages That Suck. The first book is full of interesting factoids and details on how to homeschool your children, but has already found a way to annoy me with the phraseology that homeschooling is a "Learning Journey". The overuse of the word Journey to describe a process in popular culture just really gets to me, and this particular phrase, in my opinion, reinforces the flighty nature that mainstream America gives to homeschooling parents. It really makes my skin crawl. Son of Web Pages That Suck is bereft of such goosebump-inducing wording (although Flashturbation comes close). I already know most of Vincent's maxims through his excellent website, but it's nice to see them in print so I can show it as a truly printed authority on the matter to those who just don't get it. And it preserves forever such gaffes as Orrin Hatch's fun page. And it has my name it print. No, not because I suck. Because it lists me as a friend of the site, along with several hundred other close, personal friends.------------------------------------------------
Everything in Proportion  Kristin and I are taking a look at these. One of my biggest errors in cooking is that I cook with my eyes, and not my stomach. Consequentially, we eat more than we should. Maybe a plate like this, which physically divides the surface into the appropriate portions for a serving, would go a good way to alleviating that. At least, it will make us aware of how much we overeat.------------------------------------------------
Monday, December 19, 2005 Universal Still Doesn't Get the 'Verse  Universal's failure to market Serenity properly has come full circle. After an abysmal ad campaign for the film that failed to sell it to an audience outside of the existing fanbase, Universal's marketing team has created the most hideous dvd cover for the film imaginable. It fails to speak of the tone of the movie, and instead pastes unrelated images and scenes together to create what they expect a sci-fi film to look like. Summer Glau hardly looks like herself, there is a large crowd of people milling about that never appear in the film, and Serenity, a freighter with no armaments, is blowing up warships with lasers on the cover. Did the cover artists even watch the film? It's the worst misrepresentation of a film by its cover since the American release of Nausicaa (I've watched that film dozens of times, and still have not noticed the cyborg with a lightsaber and the boy riding a Pegasus).The consensus in the Whedon message boards are right-on: this cover art looks like a strictly d-grade, straight-to-video or Sci-Fi-Channel-Original presentation. It looks cheap, and is horribly incongruous with the much better dvd art created for the Firefly television series. I guarantee the cover itself will turn people away from watching the film. ------------------------------------------------
More Celebrity Legionnaires  Thanks to VH-1, I have two new superheroes for the new Legion:
It looks like our future will indeed be assured with these two mighty additions to the pantheon of crime-fighters! ------------------------------------------------
One Small Step For Man... One giant leap for Kira! Kira began to walk today, unassisted. Just a few steps, but she's on her way to being fully mobile. ------------------------------------------------
Saturday, December 17, 2005 I Still Got Diddley  Remember my odyssey with Bo Diddley and the Nike Poster?Well, it just so happens that my car service center's manager was having another customer appreciation party and Bo Diddley was to attend again. Unfortunately, it fell on Saturday, just as we were preparing to go out of town for the holidays. Still, I planned to try and stop by just for a few minutes and bring my poster for an autograph. However, the weather did not want to cooperate, and there was a torrential downpour all afternoon. I elected to leave my poster where it was, but still go by and give Bo my card and see about meeting him later to get his autograph. Unfortunately, I and the family arrived just as dinner had been served. When the center's manager told me I could meet him in about fifteen minutes, I told him I had to leave and that I just wanted to give him my card. However, he insisted I meet him directly, and took me to his table to shake his hand. So there I was, dripping wet, leaning over Mr. Diddley, interrupting his meal of General Tso's chicken. I stammered an introduction, shook his hand, and then promptly left. I'd already interrupted his meal, something I thought was terribly rude - how could I then explain the poster thing then and not feel like a total jackass? Ah well, I'm bound to run into him again sooner or later. ------------------------------------------------
Friday, December 16, 2005 State of the Television, 2006 Now that we have reached the Holiday lull, I thought I'd let you in on what we watch on a regular basis, on my impressions of our Fall Season. Monday Surface  At times annoying cliché, at times nail-biting, Surface is probably the weakest of the aliens-in-the-water shows, but still is compelling. I just wish the government would be seen as having some sort of real agenda - it seems unlikely such a worldwide phenomena could be kept under wraps. I really like the separate storylines of unrelated characters, though I expect them to team up eventually.Medium  Smart, creepy, and a lot of fun. I like how it vacillates from quirky to serious. The husband-and-wife chemistry is perfect; the husband is not too instantly believing of her visions, but has a healthy pessimism that counterbalances her naivete and firmly balances her in the here and now. Plus, the interpretations of her visions to find the truth are varied enough that sometimes the real answer is not apparent until the end, which has becoming increasingly uncommon for me in recent years.Tuesday Commander-in-Chief  Has some of the sparkle of the early West Wing, but throws family melodrama on it in heaps. At times it feels a little schmaltzy as the President always does what is right at the expense of her political stature. Although that feels good and makes for a character we can applaud for, it also rings as being a little contrived after watching Bartlett sacrifice his principles because he must for several years.House  Take Quincy, remove all the loveable aspects of his character, and you get Greg House. Un-PC to a fault, House is a compelling character study and involving medical drama. Of course, in the real world, House would have been fired ten times over, but that's what makes for great television.SVU Only watch it on occasion. Feels the same as it ever did, and still comes off as the most successful of the Law and Order franchise. Wish it would finally get an Emmy. Wednesday Lost  This is the very definition of an ensemble cast. Every person feels just as important as everyone else, and integral to the show. Which is why it comes as a surprise when anyone is killed. Here’s hoping it stays just as gripping and strong, and does not succumb tot he over-the-top antics that sometime beleaguered Alias during its run.Invasion  Decidedly lower key, but still a fun watch. It does feel at times to be a more-friendly-for-television version of American Gothic, its earlier cousin by the same production theme. Except now they switched the devil for aliens.Thursday Alias  It’s Sydney’s last season, but what a season. It feels a little tighter now that it did last year, but the show does seem to be fumbling for a plot or some sort of story arc to carry it out. It’ll be hard to end the show on a note better than last year’s finale, which did feel like it could have been a series finale (ending with Vaughan’s revelation would have been AWESOME). I do kind of wish Sydney’s new teammates could get a spin-off, but that’s wishful thinking.Night Stalker I gave it a shot. I kind of liked it. It was kind of X-Files light, and they stories were adequately spooky, but it did suffer from not having a real skeptic among the crowd. Now that it’s over, I guess I’ll have a TV void on Thursday, since we certainly can’t watch CSI around the kids. That, or I’ll rent the original Kolchak and watch what could have been. ER It just keeps going and going. Though the new additions this season, Kirsten Johnson and John Leguizamo, have done nothing to make the show feel boring and a little staid. I’m thinking it might be on its last legs. Friday Sci-Fi Friday  Nuff Said. Between a reenergized Stargate, Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica, Sci-Fi Friday has never been better. Sci-Fi is winning the 18-34 demographic in the cable networks for Friday night, and here's hoping that they can keep it up. Monk Tony Shalhoub is so underrated; it is great to see that his series is still going strong and that the Emmys have finally noticed. I wasn’t sure about the Sharona replacement at first, especially the disservice the writers did in writing out her character by having her go back to New Jersey and her drunkard boyfriend, but Natalie has proved a good replacement, and possibly better for Adrian in recuperating. Saturday Nothing to watch here. Sunday Desperate Housewives  Every time I feel this show was much better its first season, it pulls something outrageous enough to get me hooked again. And that cycle has continued over and over again this season. I suppose that’s good drama. At least its funny drama.Grey’s Anatomy  This show took a little while for me to get into, but the characters have become more endearing, and ultimately feel much more real to me that doctors on any other medical show I have ever watched, even the perennial ER. Plus, they are all more or less my age or younger, which makes their angst easier to relate too.Every Day Daily Show and the Colbert Report. Easily the fiunniest television on, and much more consistent than any other variety comedy hour. Out of Favor We stopped watching CSI due to un-acceptable kiddie content due to the kids, and stopped watching Boston Legal as it now feels a little too full of itself and its zaniness. No one feels like a real lawyer on there anymore, and Denny Crane and Alan Shore desperately need a Eugene to balance them. ------------------------------------------------
So Quick to Judge the Ape  Just like the city folk that are quick to decide to kill the great ape, there are quite a few ready to call King Kong a flop, simply because it had such a low Wednesday opening.When did Wednesday become the make-or-break day in the eyes of the movie-going public and pundits? To me, Wednesday is still just an extension of the opening weekend. Sure, other blockbusters have had much larger opening wednesdays, but I think a lot of people are neglecting that those figures are normally reserved for summer blockbusters, when kids are out of school, and the temperatures are much higher. With bitter cold and snow across the country, and opening on a week when most schools are in session, and colleges are in fall finals, I think $10 million is not too shabby. ------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, December 14, 2005 What Happens when you Run out of Magenta? It's a bold new direction for science: Printers that create organs using bio-ink and paper. Fascinating. And creepy. ------------------------------------------------
Monday, December 12, 2005 Everything in Proportion Kristin and I are taking a look at these. One of my biggest errors in cooking is that I cook with my eyes, and not my stomach. Consequentially, we eat more than we should. Maybe a plate like this, which physically divides the surface into the appropriate portions for a serving, would go a good way to alleviating that. At least, it'll make us aware of how much we are overeating.------------------------------------------------
Sunday, December 11, 2005 Arch-Villains to the Celebrity League A followup to the Celebrity League of Super-Heroes. Paula Yates, the now-deceased widow of Michael Hutchins and former wife of Bob Geldorf, was the mother of a quartet of girls whose names earn them a place in the pantheon of the demi-gods of the future. Their names: Fifi Trixibelle Peaches Honeyblossom Pixie Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily With names like that, they need to be super-villains. It’s ironic, in a Alanis Morissette kind of way. ------------------------------------------------
Saturday, December 10, 2005 Physical Manifestation of a Thought Process  That’s how Simon Starling describes his work, “shedboatshed”, the 2005 Turner Award winner. The Turner Award is one of the art world’s most prestigious prizes. Starling dismantled a shed he found on the banks of the Rhine, turned it into a boat, sailed it to the museum, and rebuilt it into a shed. The curators of the Tate say it "counters the illusory nature of globalisation and capitalist exchange". Whatever floats your boat. ------------------------------------------------
Friday, December 09, 2005 Ratings Creep NPR discussed the phenomenae of “Ratings Creep”, a trend in which the MPAA rating of films have changed over the years. For example, a film that would have been considered R in the early 1990s would now garner a PG-13 rating. MPAA President Dan Glickman obfuscates this trend by informing NPR that the motion picture rating is only an initial guidepost, and that responsible parents would then seek further information from the numerous internet sites that screen film content. Dan truly lives in the myth that all of America is up-to-date on technology. By all estimates, the number of households in the United Sates with internet access is 75%. That means one quarter of the population, 82.5 million, don’t have access to these content-screening sites. Also, he assumes that all internet users know of them or actively would seek them out to be responsible. I think there are quite a few people our there that look to the MPAA as THE authority on what is acceptable in a film. Ratings creep is a fault in the system that is completely correctable and should be adjusted by the MPAA. It’s their responsibility to do so. ------------------------------------------------
Ghastly Dehumanized Morons Ken Livingston once said that only a ghastly dehumanized moron would get rid of London’s iconic Double-Decker buses. Guess who’s in charge of the London transportation system? ------------------------------------------------
My Kingdom for a House According to a new realty survey, 85% of California households cannot afford to buy their own home. Mortgage rates are simply too steep for wage-earners to afford, and the average price for a home in the state is now $568,700. Does this make any sense to anyone? So it’s solely a renter’s market in California? How can anyway be expected to save for the future if they are locked into the renting cycle with no equity? What has happened to the American dream? ------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, December 07, 2005 Nano Part 2? About two weeks after the iPod Nano hit the market,the company that produced the chips had a breakthrough for a chip the same size that holds eight times as much information. This means that the next iPod iteration could be as small as the Nano, but with the same storage capacity as the low-end full-size iPod. Amazing. ------------------------------------------------
Sunday, December 04, 2005 Idea Mill Just a couple of can’ miss ideas I thought of. If only I were a venture capitalist! Iron Chef: The Restaurant Take the idea behind the Iron Chef television show are transform it into a themed restaurant for high volume tourist areas. Customers watch two renowned chefs battle it our in the arena, making a five or six course meal from a theme ingredient in under an hour. Afterwards, the customers get to sample both chefs’ creations, and act as the judges to choose the Iron Chef. The restaurant could be ultra pricey and only handle a few customers, or, alternatively, have a larger clientele by having trained sous chefs that replicate their chef’s creation in larger, off-stage kitchen. R n Ms Mix Reeses Pieces and M and M’s in the same bag. Alternating tastes of chocolate and peanut butter candies. Delicious! ------------------------------------------------
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Wednesday, December 21, 2005 First Steps Kira is starting to take independent steps!! She took 7 for Jeff this morning. How cool that she'll be just starting to walk over our Christmas vacation!! Labels: Kira, milestones ------------------------------------------------
Loooooong Trip Well, so much for leaving in the morning. It took too long to get everything together - we're packing too much stuff - and the van was chock-a-block full! We got on the road at about 1:30 pm, and didn't get to my parents house until 12 am. Very looooooooong trip. Two tired parents, two antsy kids, and apparently an overturned semi that made a trip from exit 5 to exit 18 take an hour does not equal a fast trip. We're on the road again tomorrow to get to Beech Mountain. Thank goodness we went to Target to get the extra DVD screen. Kira was happy and even laughing for 20 minutes!!! ------------------------------------------------
Friday, December 16, 2005 Health Report 12.16.05 Kira is almost 100%, and Parker is MUCH better, though still with a horrible cough and needing some breathing treatments. His pediatrician said that he's likely to have this cough for a few weeks, and based on how he is currently, I won't be surprised. I just hope he feels well enough to enjoy the snow we're going to see!! ------------------------------------------------
Thursday, December 15, 2005 All Clear for Kira Kira is fine -- we had her checked out this morning, and everything is clear, though it can always change. We think she's teething yet again -- and since she's gotten her first 8 teeth, it would be molars this time. Lovely. She's also STILL not walking. I swear, I thought she would be walking a MONTH ago!! She just lacks confidence, as she'll walk alongside me, holding just a finger, but if I pull it away, she sits down. ------------------------------------------------
Preventative Pediatrics Well, we're going in at 8:30 am to get Kira checked out. I want to make sure she doesn't have an ear infection, especially before we head out of town! ------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, December 14, 2005 Health Report 12.14.05 Parker's definitely feeling better, but is also still sick. Kira is sick too, but (so far) it just seems like a cold. We have stopped keeping them separated now. Parker is SOOO full of his crazy energy, and we're stuck in the house -- SUCKS!! ------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, December 13, 2005 Bronchitis & Double Ear Infections for Parker. It is NOT pretty around here. He's on steroids and albuterol and zithromax. Kira started in with a runny nose today, so please pray she doesn't get bronchitis or RSV. ------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, December 06, 2005 Blogger Settings Messed Up All the time I would have spent back-blogging instead went to trying to get Blogger to even publish to our server. In the process, our entire website pointed to some obscure and apparently defunct online store for a little while, and the biggest loss was access to my online photo album. Jeff and I were up in arms about it!! Well, not really, but you know what I mean. We are actually still working on getting it to function "properly", though. ------------------------------------------------
Sunday, December 04, 2005 Back-Blogging Coming Soon Just wanted to say that I'm still around, and I will be back-blogging (all the way through October & November!!) soon. Parker's impeding birthday started my downward slide of keeping up, and I still haven't come anywhere close to catching up yet. But, I know I'll need to before Christmas, or it'll never happen. And, since I count on this to [one day] be my basis for my baby books, I'd better get a jump on it!! ------------------------------------------------
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