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.

Lightsaber

For anyone who wonders whether or not a real lightsaber will ever exist, I present you with this: the Arctic Spyder Laser III. Apparently this laser can burn through things, including people's skin.


Arctic Spyder Laser III = the most awesome Power Point presentation ever.


Some people doubted the potency of this device until it was finally revealed. This could be bad. Remember seeing annoying red dots everywhere when the laser pointer came out? Well, imagine that but with casualties.

Nate's Best Time Ever

The other day Annie and I were playing with Nathaniel. He was sitting in front of Annie and sucking on her finger as if it were corn on the cob. He would start on one end and move down the finger then move back to the top again and repeat. We thought it was pretty funny, and apparently so did he. I started to record the cuteness and as I was recording Annie and I would laugh and he would look up. Soon enough he started making some sounds that sounded a lot like laughing himself. While some of you may think this is cute, I am very concerned. He did not laugh until we started laughing. He didn't even know what he was laughing about but laugh he did simply because his friends were. Peer pressure is already preying on his mind. I fear for his behavior when he gets to high school.

On the bright side we think we may have captured his first laugh. It's hard to tell because his throat is raspy, but then again it's been a little raspy for a few weeks and he has never made these sounds before. The video is about 2 minutes and he laughs once or twice at different times so pay attention. Watch the video and you can be the judge. It's like your very own America's Got Talent.

Father's Day

Being a Father didn't really have any perceivable benefits until Father's Day came along. Suddenly, it's like I belong to a special club. Yesterday was like being an employee at Toys R Us all over again. It gave me the same feeling I used to get every time customers became thick like a forest and I needed a break.

I would go into the "back" at Toys R Us. It's like belonging to a special club that allows you admittance into a place the common person does not see. There you can avoid the chaos of frothing parents desperate to get a toy and enter a mysterious place laden with boxes of treasures and hide in a secluded area only you and other members of the club can enter. Before yesterday I thought the only benefit to fatherhood was the eventual promise of free labor, but I was proven wrong. Father's Day is like one day of being able to go into the "back".

Also, as promised, although delayed, here is a video of Nate. It starts with him babbling. Or that is what he would have you believe. It sounds cute but really it's a vicious string of expletives in a language only he can understand. The video then moves on to him just sitting there being fat before it finally ends with clips of Nathaniel doing his best pirate impressions and trying to extract sustenance from Annie's arm.

E3

I have had little time this week to post a real post so instead you get something better, more pictures of Nathaniel. I'll post a video tonight or tomorrow.