Our Baby is Growing Up!
For the first year of Olivia’s life everyone said, "Soak it in. It goes so fast!" But that first year for me seemed to go just right – not too fast and not too slow. I was home with her all the time and she was learning and growing a little everyday. Since her first birthday, however, it is going a little fast. She has gone from our sweet baby to an adorable little girl. So many changes in the past few months – she walks, she talks, she whines, she laughs so hard she falls over. It’s amazing! Don’t get me wrong, I’m thoroughly enjoying this new phase, but it’s setting in that our baby is growing up and life will never be the same. As always, Olivia is a very pleasant, sweet girl. Her best bud is still Red and she gives her lots of hugs, rides her like a bull (even holds onto Red’s collar for support), and wrestles her like a UFC champion. Red is as wonderful to Olivia as you could hope. She tolerates anything and everything and only occasionally gets up and walks away. Not surprisingly, Red has inspired Livy’s favorite word – woof! She’s got the whole word together now (started with just "ff") and everywhere we go, it’s "woof, woof, woof" to everyone’s delight. She can also say: baby, bye, daddy, dog, eye, hi, light, look, mama, more, no, nose, quack, thank you, and up. We haven’t done much with signs the last few weeks as she doesn’t show much interest and seems to be communicating well with gesturing and words. We’ll have to see if we need it. Her favorite snacks are fresh fruit (especially pears), cheese, Ritz crackers, and fruit smoothies. She loves anything you can drink out of a straw, especially juice boxes.
Just like her father, she is happiest outdoors and whenever she hears someone grab some keys or sees a jacket in my hand, she runs to the front door and starts laughing. She’d give anything to spend all day running around outside and since the weather has been beautiful the last couple weeks (70s and 80s), we’ve done a lot of that. The first thing she does when she gets out the door and down the front step is run to the sidewalk and take off toward the mailboxes (at the end of the block and around the corner). I really have to watch her because she is faster than I think and if I dilly-dally at all, she’s about to round the corner. We’re going to hang a swing for her in the backyard and redo the fence so that it is a more child-friendly playground. No plans for a swing set for this summer, but we will get a wading pool to help us survive the Texas heat. Her favorite indoor toys these days are stuffed animals. She has her special bunny that she sleeps with and any other little animal that is about the same size is an instant friend and she’ll tuck it up under her chin and pat it like a baby. We’ve also joined a toy library (like a regular library that also loans out educational toys) and that’s been a fun way for us to get out and meet other families, as well as try out a few toys and see how much fun they are. This week we have magnetic blocks and those are really interesting. We also got a ride-on toy that she is warming up to. It was a little scary at first, but she’s starting to see how fun it can be. Our neighbors, Rick & Jennifer, kindly gave us their daughter Cecilia’s old one last weekend and it fits her a little better, so I’m sure we’ll be having hours of fun with that this summer.
I’ve started letting her watch her first regular TV program – It’s a Big, Big World on PBS. I turn it on after breakfast and it gives me 30 minutes to organize my day and have some quiet time for prayer (my Lenten resolution). It’s a nice educational show about science, animals and nature and she really enjoys watching it. There is a super cute photo of her watching it with her bunny here. Much to our delight, Olivia has become a bit more cuddly in the past couple months and we are thoroughly enjoying more snuggles from her. She is still an independent girl, but seems to appreciate little signs that we are supporting her in her latest adventures and wants to give and receive hugs more. I’m surprised on a daily basis by what she understands. She can do just about anything you tell her to like "get your shoes or go to your high chair." She knows what direction to run for just about any activity. She’s also learning how to be ornery and has decided that sometimes it’s more fun not to come when you ask and not to give you what she has when she’s been told to. Along those lines, one of her favorite pastimes is still taking books, CDs, etc. off every bookshelf in the house. The good thing is that she is starting to show some interest in putting things back! Books can be tricky to re-shelve, but she can open the drawers on her new dresser and take out socks (and everything else) and put them back all by herself. The thing she loves most of all, though, is reading. She is a little bookworm and I catch her more often than not, sitting in a little corner in her room taking out her board books one by one and reading to herself in a sweet little cadence. Every time I’ve tried to catch her on video, though, she looks up and gets distracted.
It’s a good thing we have a new baby on the way because this one is really growing up fast!
The Second Trimester
Where has the time gone? Our new baby is already almost 16 weeks along! If I’d written a couple weeks ago, I would’ve told you that I’m barely showing, but after complaining of uncomfortable clothes, I broke down and spent an afternoon at the mall buying a few maternity clothes. With one look in the mirror, there was no question I am showing! It’s a nice change to go from looking & feeling a bit pudgy to looking & feeling pregnant. As one of the sales girls sweetly told me, "Everyone’s cuter when they’re pregnant." When I was pregnant with Olivia, my friend Amy Hardin most generously loaned me all of her maternity clothes and I only had to buy a few pieces here and there, so when it came time to make the big switch to all maternity clothes this time around, I was a little short handed. Amy is expecting her third boy in April, so her clothes are in use by their rightful owner. At the mall I picked up a couple pairs of jeans and some t-shirts and a simple black dress. I have to admit that I do feel cuter in my maternity clothes and it’s nice to go back to elastic waistband pants! The second trimester is starting off great. I feel good and though I am starting to notice a difference when picking up Olivia or reaching into the sink, my tummy isn’t really big enough to cause much difficulty yet. I’m looking forward to enjoying the next three months.
So it’s already less than six months until this little one is expected and we haven’t really made many practical decisions. I suppose we’re waiting for the ultrasound that will most likely tell us if Olivia is getting a baby brother or sister. There’s also the experience of having one child already and knowing that not everything needs to be set up the minute this one comes home from the hospital. But at some point, we’ll tackle the decision of making Livy and the baby roommates or collapsing our office and having two children’s bedrooms. We’ll also have to begin that difficult search for the perfect name and take stock of the baby items and make sure everything is ready by August. I have a few non-baby-related tasks that I’d like to tackle before D-day (Delivery day) and I decided this weekend that if they’re really going to get done, I better come up with some sort of schedule or the next trimester will pass as quickly a the first one did without anything getting accomplished. I also have an ever-growing "Honey-do" list and thankfully, I have an excpetionally handy husband to give it to! The nice thing is that for me this trimester is one where I will likely feel pretty good and be able to enjoy the expectation without having to be stressed about planning and preparations.
Baby Updates
Don’t get too excited as these are just technical updates on the website and not any new information about the baby. It’ll probably be a few more weeks until they’d be able to tell the gender. Tonight I added a countdown timer to the right side of the blog. It’s written in php which generates the time when the page loads. I could have done a javascript count down like we had for Olivia where you could have watched the seconds tick by but that would have been more work and I thought it was unnecessary. If you really want to see it tick by you can just keep refreshing the page. (That’s a joke.) We also changed the sub-title on the top of the page to include the new little one. Enjoy!
Alex Diagnosed with “The Knack”
My sister recently blogged on a condition that my nephew has been exhibiting recently in her post "It must be genetic". I have to confirm her suspicion that it is genetic and provide a little more information on the condition. It is commonly referred to as "The Knack" and is described in the video clip below.
AT&T Marathon Leaves Me Drenched
That’s drenched with Powerade, not sweat. Rather than run the AT&T Marathon/Half-Marathon this past Sunday, I volunteered at a water stop. It was fun but it wasn’t a picnic either. We had to show up at 5:30 AM to start setting up. We setup tables, set out cups, and started filling them a little less than half full. Lots of cups! We had about 3 tables of water and 3 tables of blue Powerade sports drink, each stacked 3 levels high on sheets of cardboard. It was nice running weather at about 38 degrees F, but it left our hands pretty cold especially while handing out the cups when our hands got wet.
We were stationed at mile 4, so most of the participants were ready for a little hydration by that point. It was also an interesting vantage point. The leaders were running faster than I can even run 1 mile let alone 26. At first it was all business as the runners came by grabbing the cups out of our hands with excellent form. Yeah there is a technique to it. The volunteer has to hold the cup loosely from the top and let the runner take it. Most of the advanced runners will make eye contact to so that you are their guy, then they grab it and pinch the cup so that they don’t spill all of it. All the skill and planning quickly broke down as the pack quickly became more than we could handle. As runners clogged the rest of the tables, many ended up forming a mob at the end of the stop desperate for some hydration. That’s where I was stationed and I did my best. If the mob got to the table itself, then things really broke down for everyone. So I found that I could grab 4 cups from the top with one hand and 3 with the other. I’d start with the hand with three and use my extra fingers to tip one cup out so a runner could take it and repeat. Then I’d take one cup from the other hand and repeat. Being an engineer, I was pretty proud of my efficiency. Most of the runners were just thankful to get something. As the largest packs cleared out we had a new problem. We had gone through all of the cups we had filled! So half of us started filling more cups as we continued to hand them out. Not too long after that, we ran out of water. We had plenty of blue Powerade, but unfortunately as the runners turned into walkers, they were only interested in water.
Overall, everyone was thankful for the little bit of help we could provide and I’m guessing that they only got more thankful to those at the later stops. I’ll probably end up running the half one of these years, but I don’t feel any urge to run the full marathon. Even if you don’t ever feel like running; I definitely recommend volunteering. But don’t be surprised if your shoes end up blue and sticky.
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Tonight we watched an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that really showed what life is all about. I’ve been a fan of the show for a long time, but tonight’s show really struck a chord. The story featured an Austin family (they live about a mile from us) who have been blessed with six children, five of whom are autistic. They lived in an ordinary house that was built for the average American family with 1.8 healthy children. Dad works two jobs and Mom is the primary caregiver for the six children. They were whisked away to Colorado while the Extreme Makeover team built them a beautiful new home with a bedroom for each child to make the children’s world a little less chaotic and and plenty of special features that will make Mom’s job a lot easier. I say that this is what life is all about because this is what we all want life to be like. Two selfless, loving & devoted parents happily raising a houseful of children, regardless of circumstances, who fall on hard times (their house was about to be foreclosed on) and society steps in and sets things right. This family deserved to live better and it was wonderful to see them rewarded for countless struggles and difficulties. To see the children express their excitement knowing they were each thought of in a special way by the designers, to watch the parents soak in the reality of all that they had been given, to see the compassion of the volunteers who made it all possible – that is what life is all about. That is why we are here – to take the life we have been given and live it to the fullest and to seek those in need and lift them up to the dignity they deserve. We didn’t know the filming was taking place here a few months ago, so we missed the opportunity to be involved in this family’s adventure, but the *good* news is there are plenty of other unsung heroes, people who are suffering, and families in need. I don’t have the ability to provide an extreme makeover, but I certainly can do little things with great love.
The Questions No One is Asking
Texas made national headlines a couple of weeks ago when Governor Rick Perry issued an executive order requiring girls entering the 6th grade to receive the new human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine. (See article here.) HPV is a sexually transmitted disease that is the cause of almost all cervical cancer and this vaccine protects against the two strains of HPV that cause about 70% of cervical cancer. The Governor’s order prompted a wide range of questions. Is it safe? How long is it effective? Does the Governor really have the authority to do that? All good questions, but that’s not the question that I’m alluding to in the title.
If HPV is such a big problem, why didn’t most people know about it before the vaccine? Why wasn’t everyone promoting condoms to prevent cervical cancer? Why were condom promoters trying to deny the link between HPV and cervical cancer? Maybe that’s because condoms aren’t effective against HPV; 50% risk reduction or less. So maybe now you should be wondering just how effective condoms are against other STDs. Take a look at the facts on The Medical Institutes’s website here.
I think the HPV vaccine could be a good thing, but I hope the debate over the vaccine doesn’t overshadow the issue of sexual health and education. Often people just consider that a moral or religious debate, but regardless of moral and religious arguments, the scientific facts show the need for abstinence education.
Drozmonkey Computers
Yes, we are officially a computer system builder now. OK, so we’re not starting a new business, but I did build our family a new computer. We’ve had the previous computer for 4 years now and it only had 512 MB of RAM. It also had Rambus Ram which is really expensive. (Rambus and DDR ram were both new when we got it and DDR took off and Rambus didn’t which is why it’s so expensive.) So upgrading our old computer wasn’t really an option. We didn’t need a super-computer but since we started doing video editing we definitely needed more horsepower. We compared building our own versus buying a PC from somewhere like Dell. We found that the higher end computer you are looking for the more you can save building it yourself. So I’d say we saved about $500 from what an equivalent system would have cost retail. It’s a tough comparison though because it’s hard to build the same system at Dell. Our main motivation for building our own was to be able get all of the options and features we wanted. Our features ranged from very techinical to very practical.
CPU – Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz 4MB L2 Cache
Motherboard – MSI Platinum P965
Memory – CORSAIR XMS2 2GB DDR2 800Mhz
Video card – BFG Tech GeForce 7600GT 256MB
Hard Drives – Two Seagate Barracuda 400GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
Optical Drive – Samsung Dual Layer DVD Burner With LightScribe Technology
Card Reader – Built-in card reader
OS – Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition w/Upgrade Coupon for Vista – OEM
Case – Ultra Wizard Mid-Tower ATX Black
Power Supply – Antec Neo HE 550W
Case Fans – Antec Tri-Cool, 120 mm & 80 mm
Additional Features:
9 USB 2.0 ports (3 on front)
2 Firewire ports
Built in card reader
DVD burner with Lightscribe
Matrix RAID (50 GB RAID 0; 350 GB RAID 1)
Practical Features – One feature we wanted was a case that had a door we could close that would cover up the power buttons and DVD drive; we also wanted to be able to lock that door. I used to think that cases like that were annoying, but that was before I knew how good Livy was at pushing buttons. She will hold the power button down for the required 5 seconds and then look up at the screen and laugh and clap as it powers off. We also have some more standard features like a built in card reader, lots of USB ports including 3 on the front , and a front Firewire port.
Technical Features – I wanted a dual-core processor and the Intel E6600 is the best bang for the buck. At 2.4 GHz it’s faster than the E6300 and E6400 you’ll see in most retail computers, but it also gains a lot of performance from twice the L2 cache at 4 MB. Next, we had to decide whether to go with RAID storage which requires multiple hard drives. RAID 0 boosts performance by splitting the data and writing/reading half the data to/from each hard drive. RAID 1 provides an automatic backup and writes all the data to both drives so if one drive fails the data is still safe on the other drive. Typically you would need 2 hard drives for each type of RAID so if you wanted both your would need 4 hard drives. The motherboard I selected has the Intel ICH8R southbridge which provides Matrix RAID Technology which lets you use two hard drives to do both RAID 0 and RAID 1. So the system uses the performance RAID 0 to store the OS and program files, but RAID 1 for all of our data. We also wanted this system to have enough horse power to met our needs for several years. If we ever need more performance we could easily overclock it and get 50-80% more performance. I upgraded and got a little better RAM just in case we decide to overclock. Some technical features we really didn’t care about, like the video card. We don’t do any gaming so any basic video card would do for us, as long as it had a DVI connector to be able to provide a digital signal for the 22" widescreen I got on the day-after-Thanksgiving sale. Finally, we went with Windows XP Media Center Edition, which came with an upgrade coupon for Vista Home Premium. Since this is our main PC, this gives us time to let issues with Vista shake out before we switch over, but we won’t have to pay for Vista when we decide to switch.
Purchases – We found that we could get the best deal on almost everything from www.Newegg.com. I’d bought things from them before and had good experiences and the same held true this time. Shipping was less then $20 for everything and one big bonus of shopping at Newegg is that you don’t have to pay tax, which would really add up. Priding myself as a bargain hunter I did get a few components from www.Frys.com, such as the the case, power supply and fans. I actually got the case for free after rebate. There were also rebates on a few of the other things as well which helped with the price. We also got an OEM version of Windows which is cheaper and sold to "System Builders." It has license restrictions like what comes preinstalled on a retail computer.
Verdict – Two thumbs up! It is screaming fast with plenty of RAM and hard drive space to last us for a long time. We’re pretty happy with it. I’ve put it through it’s paces to test it out and it really performs. Our custom PC is also exactly what we wanted. There is definitely some risk in building you own, and I wouldn’t recommend it unless you know what you are doing or have help from someone who does. I spent plenty of time reading up on the internet to make sure I knew what I was getting and that it would all work together.
Oh and Livy’s favorite feature is the blue LED lights from the fan that looks cool with the lights off.
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