Failed and Funny

Annie and I had a family council the other day (as we always do) to discuss what to post on our blog. In my mind it was clear; my recent failure and Nat's infectious laugh.

To begin with, I am a man of few failures in life. I easily conquered puberty and ever since then I have seen so few failures that one might believe me to be some hero from a tall tale. I'm flattered but that is not the case. Last week I angered the Barbecue Gods. I love BBQ and I've long desired to create a BBQ sauce. I decided that now was the time and began the process. I collected all the different ingredients and began brewing my sauce with naked anticipation barely contained. I mixed, I poured, I measured and I simmered. I grew excited, and then it all went horribly wrong. The sauce was not a sauce at all but a devilish amalgamation of horrificness and disappointment. It was too tangy, chunky and had the consistency of chicken noodle soup. It was not a sauce at all. To make matters worse I prematurely placed the frozen hamburgers on the grill. They came out sickly and barely resembled a hamburger. Annie ate it anyway and said it tasted great but I could see the vomit in her eyes. I failed horribly and I don't know that the Barbecue Gods will ever forgive me.

Thankfully, Nathaniel is so cute that anyone that has a vendetta against me will quickly forgive it to be able to hear Nate laugh. He laughs more frequently and it is very cute. Cuter than any other babies, yes, even yours. He starts to laugh and you find yourself feeling filled with pleasantness and laughing along with him. We often sing to him and have been able to get him to laugh by singing Lime in the Coconut, Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar or any Bruce Springsteen song. He is a wonderful kid and can start a whole room laughing with him, as evidenced with this video. He does tend to get distracted by the camera though.

Special Theory

I'm now convinced that infants, rather than the mind experiment involving a clock tower, are the best way to observe the special theory of relativity. Just watching Nathaniel over the last months and seeing how fast he is growing makes me think that he may be moving at a faster relative speed. Soon I fear his growth speed will reach the speed of light. If that happens I hope to piggy back off of his ever growing speed and see if I can go backwards in time. It seems that no matter how aware Annie and I are of Nate's rapid growth and no matter how much we try to take advantage of him at each stage it never seems enough. We constantly look back at pictures of when he was younger and think wistfully of how it was and how fast it has passed us by. I can't imagine what it will be like in his teens when we look back on him as an infant and don't even have the solace of having a sweet, cute baby in the present. Just a pimply gangley teenager. I suppose we'll still like him though.

Two videos for your enjoyment. Nate literally has a button nose, and I mean literally in the real sense not the non-existent yet oh so common figurative sense. His nose acts as a button. When you press his nose, it turns something on. We're not exactly sure what we are activating but it is always funny. Secondly, Sometimes Nathaniel likes to yell. It doesn't usually mean he's mad but I am beginning to suspect he hates the camera. He has a shouting match with it in the second video. Its as if he sees me with it frequently and finds himself locked in a death match with the prize being my attention.

Nate's top pics of the week

Nate's first t-shirt








This was him begging for me to give him some milk after I tried to make him fast today.