Mad Scientist

Lately Nate has been experimenting. Not the blow your eyebrows off kind but the kind where he just recently discovered he has a tongue and different sound levels. He'll chew on his tongue and use it to make this hushed spitting/tongue kind of sound. I don't know how to explain so I have a video. He has also been whispering a lot lately. Kind of funny.

For awhile we were not sure what he was doing, however, we did notice that every time he would make the sound a squirrel outside would stop and listen. I think he may be communicating with them.

The video doesn't capture his best moments but you get the idea.

Too Cool for School

Nate had his 4 month check up yesterday, even though it was really almost 5 months. We had to shave a little of his hair and tell him to act like a 4 month old.....but do it casually because we didn't want him to look like he was trying to act like a 4 month old. Thankfully, it worked and they gave him his check up. At his last appointment he was climbing the charts, jumping up in the percentiles. This appointment he fell down them. We knew he was getting skinnier, probably from all the P90X he's been doing, but we didn't know that that he was so far below what he "should" be according to charts and graphs. He has mostly lost interest in eating so the doctor recommended we start him on rice cereal. So we went out and bought some rice cereal, which by-the-way is not just a generic version of Rice Krispies, and made preparations.

As is the case with most kids and their first foray into utensil foods it wasn't a smash hit. Below is a documentation of the event. Notice his heavy breathing and a face which seems to reflect a revulsion and distaste well beyond what I thought a 5 month old capable of.


We tried again today. Annie gave Nathaniel his first bite and he swallowed it without complaint. Realizing that a failure to catalog every moment of his life would result in something very bad I grabbed the camera, set up the lights, miked everyone and started filming the triumph over rice cereal.



Turns out he still didn't like it. It's amazing to watch that happy face turn instantly sad once that spoon goes in then brighten up again when it leaves.

I don't blog

I'm not by nature a blogger. My life right now consists of a daily routine without variation or excitement. So, until Nate does something new or I suddenly become witty or interesting for now all you get are some delightful pictures of Nathaniel.

Learned things

Ever since Annie and I started this blog we have received thousands of e-mails asking all sorts of questions. We've been asked for life advice, decorating tips and even been asked to be the godparents of several children and animals. However, the question we get the most is how to install a new stick of RAM into a computer. I will demonstrate.

First you must open your computer. In most scenarios the computer will not be larger than you and you should not have any problems.

Next, you may have to remove some other components if they are blocking the way. In this case the video card is blocking access to the RAM. Remember, it looks tasty but don't eat it.

Finally, you will have access to the precious RAM. Simply pull on it really hard, you may need a hammer, and out it comes. Remember, don't eat it.

If you simply cannot resist the RAM's siren call to take a nibble then try to taste a corner

However, it will make you throw up.

Scenes from Misery

It's been awhile since last we chatted. I know that I have all the time in the world but for some reason that makes it harder to find time to do things. I'm sure Data from Star Trek would be able to point to some break in the space-time continuum causing this effect.

I teach primary (CTR 8s) and sometimes it's great and sometimes it's not. This week it was great. The class began with talking about kindness and ended with one boy on the ground screaming and trying to crawl away from a girl in the class who was dragging him across the room. It was the other teacher's turn to teach this week.

The lesson was about kindness and the teacher had the kids role play the Good Samaritan. The beat up Jew was a wild little boy named Colin and the G.S. (cool abbreviation for Good Samaritan) was a sweet little girl named Sadie. Soon enough Colin was screaming on the floor trying to army crawl away while the Good Samaritan dragged him by the leg across the room telling him he needed to go to the inn. It was like a scene out of Stephen King's Misery.

I wonder at what point Nathaniel will lose his sanity and act like that. This kid is cute.

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.