Christmas Pictures

Here we are, two days before Christmas, and I feel like the big day should still be a month away. I finally got around to taking some Christmas pictures over the weekend. Rian has always been pretty photogenetic [sic - he gets it from me ;)] and cooperative when it's time to take pictures. Ethan, on the other hand, is a different story.

When it came time to take pictures, Ethan wasn't really in a mood to sit still. I hope you can't tell from the pictures, but he was only still for about half of a second for every 10, and when he was still, there was no telling where he would be looking. Babies just aren't good at posing for pictures, but of course the baby is usually what everyone wants to see.

I love this kid.

So we did what we could, and Lacey deserves a lot of credit for distracting Ethan just long enough for me to get a decent shot.

Merry Christmas.

Memory

One of Rian's favorite games is Memory. He usually plays with Lacey, because I don't really like that game, but today we decided to play - just him and me.

Now, something you should keep in mind is that I am a fairly competitive person. I let Rian win at some games, but not so much that he thinks his dad can be beaten consistently by a 5 year-old. The thing that I try to teach him whenever we're playing games is that you can have fun whether you're winning or losing, and how to win and lose with grace.

So one reason I don't let him win very often is to teach him how to lose, but the other reason is because he just doesn't need much help most of the time. He has an uncanny ability to roll sixes in Trouble, and in Candyland, somehow I always end up getting the card that pulls me all the way back to the beginning, while he gets the cards that pull him closer to the end (you just don't know what it's like to be frustrated until you've been pulled back to the Gingerbread Tree multiple times in a single game of Candyland).

A few years ago when he was learning how to play Memory, we would help him by leaving cards flipped over or helping him find matches, but these days he plays by the same rules that I do, and these rules are strictly enforced. We played two games today, the first of which I won by a single pair. He definitely held his own in the game, and may have even won if I hadn't run the table with four cards remaining. The second game, however, had a very different outcome.

As we play, we stack our cards up in a pile and then compare the stacks at the end. In this picture, Rian is comparing his stack to mine to determine the outcome. Needless to say, he won by a landslide.

And, while I'm at it, here are some pictures from Thanksgiving and from around the house.

Ruby on the phone

Lily

Ethan as a foot rest

Boo Boo!

Yawn...

I am so ready for Ethan to be sleeping through the night. Heck, I'll take anything over 4 hours. I'm tired.  I love this kid to death but he doesn't sleep. We're up at least once a night but most of the time it's twice. I'm exhausted. I was hoping that I would get lucky with Ethan and have a decent sleeper but no such luck. BLAH! Ahh, but on the bright side, he is SUCH a love and so snuggly when he wakes up in the middle of the night.

Rian's race was awesome! I was so proud of him. He was pretty excited about the whole thing and wants to run another "marathon".  

I ran my half-marathon the day after Rian's race. It was really fun. It took me longer than I had hoped but I did it! I can't wait to do it again. I seriously have to lose this baby weight though. I'm pretty sure it's the extra (gulp) pounds I haven't lost since having Ethan that slowed me down. Errgh! Anyway, I'm glad I did it. 

I love this time of year. Rian, Ethan and I went to the park yesterday after we picked Rian up from school. We played in the leaves and came home to make apple cider. After drinking half a mug of apple cider, Rian pushed it away announcing that he didn't like it. He told me it was an "only for adults drink." 

       

   

Happy Fall!

Oh my gosh, October has turned out to be such a crazy month! I can't believe it's almost over. Rian is literally counting down the days until Halloween and letting me know each morning. He's so excited about it. I love having kids! 

We all went to the pumpkin patch with Rian's school. It was really fun. We'll post pictures soon. 

My best bud from California and her husband came to visit. We haven't seen each other in about two years. It was so much fun! I miss her like crazy. Thanks, Jennie!! 

Rian had his last soccer game and most of Eric's family was able to come see it and hang out with us. (Thanks guys!) We found out that Eric's sister is pregnant. We're so excited for you Amy! I loved watching Rian's soccer games and cheering for him but it'll be nice to have our Saturday mornings back. I'm looking forward to making french toast, watching cartoons and staying in our pajamas all morning. 

Tomorrow Rian runs in his kid's marathon. A teacher at his school has been keeping track of each mile they run. She has been commenting on how enthusiastic Rian is about running and how he just keeps running laps even after the other kids are done. So anyway, she gave me Rian's running log this morning and he has run over 34 miles in two months. I was like dang, he's pretty good. I'm so proud of him!!

Sunday is my race. I'm feeling so nervous but crazy excited too. It'll be fun. Eek! My stomach is doing flip-flops as I'm thinking about it. 

Ethan started clapping! It's the cutest thing. Oh my gosh, I love it. Another thing he started doing is pulling himself up on things. First it was the living room table. I left the room for like two seconds and came back to find him standing at the table, a huge grin on his face. That was it. He's pulling himself up to stand at anything. It's so exciting and yet I can't help but feel a little sad that my baby is getting more and more independent. And I was just thinking how I couldn't wait for him to start doing this kind of thing. Sigh. 

Teeth!

Ethan's teeth are coming in! It's a good thing as he's been a little chew-crazy these days. Poor guy, he's just trying to get some relief from those aching gums. 

He's almost crawling. He gets up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth but then does the army crawl thing to get around. It's so funny. He moves pretty fast for a little guy and if I head into another room he'll soon follow, protesting loudly about being left behind. 

I'm running a half-marathon this year. I had this big, lofty plan when I was still pregnant with Ethan that I was going to run a marathon within a year of having him. Ha. I obviously forgot about how hard it can be to find time or energy to do the dishes some days, much less run. (Oh wait, maybe that's just laziness...) I don't know what I was thinking. 

Anyway, I finally found a teammate (about a week ago) to run half of our area's big marathon with the last weekend in October. I'm really excited!

Rian's running in a kid's marathon. He's so funny. "Mommy, I love marathons." He runs everyday at school and they keep track and then I keep track of how much he runs here at home. The kids have two months to run 25 miles in half-mile increments and then on the 25th of October they participate in a 1.2 mile race. Rian is pretty excited. He calls it "my marathon". I asked him if he wanted to go for a walk/run the other day and he said no. I then asked him if he wanted to go running for his marathon and he jumped off the couch and got his shoes on. 

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Rian says some of the funniest things. He can make me laugh almost as hard as Eric can. I love his little voice and hearing what he thinks about things. Lately though, I just get annoyed and frustrated that he never stops. Seriously, he doesn't. He even talks in his sleep. I'm really trying to work on being thankful for his talkativeness. The things he says are so precious and special. I'll be longing for it when he's a a teen and I'm dying to know what he's thinking about and the last person he wants to talk to is his mom. He's growing up so fast and I don't want to look back on this time with regret that I wasted so much time being an impatient or annoyed mommy.  

ANYWAY, here are some of the funny things he's said lately...

A friend watched Rian and Ethan so that Eric and I could go to the parent orientation at Rian's school. When I picked up my monkeys it was dark outside so I flicked on the headlights. Rian started giggling in the backseat. I asked him what he was laughing about and he said, "Mommy, why are you turning on those flashlights?"

Rian: "Mommy, are Coach Kelly and Coach Scott married?"

Me: "Nope. Coach Scott is married to Miss. Marci. Coach Scott and Coach Kelly are friends."

Rian (after thinking this over for a minute): "Mommy, I'm going to marry you."

Me: "Oh sweetie! That is so precious. I'm married to daddy."

Rian: "Oh yeah, I marry daddy too."

Me: "What about me?"

Rian (hugging himself and smiling): "Yes, we all married. Mommy, daddy and Rian."

I had a doctor's appointment and had to take Rian and Ethan with me. The nurse had come in to take my blood pressure so I was holding up my arm while she got the cuff ready. Rian, sitting in the chair next to me, suddenly became very interested in my arm. He stared at it for a few seconds and then poked it a couple times. 

Rian: "Mommy, why does your arm move?"

Me (starting to giggle and feeling my face turn red): "I don't have enough muscle so it jiggles."

Rian: "It's very jiggly."

Me: "Yup."

Rian pokes it again and then starts singing, "I like to move it, move it. I like to move it, move it. I like to MOVE IT!"

Guess it's time to start lifting some weights. 

Rian: "Ethan, no! Mommy! Oh no, Ethan is playing Brain Quest!"

Six Months

Ethan turned six months last week. In a way it seems like the time has gone by quickly, but at the same time it's hard to imagine life without him. I think he has made a pretty big impact on us in a relatively short amount of time . So far we like him a lot.

At his six-month checkup, he weighed in at a little over 20 lbs, which ranks in the 93rd percentile. He now stands (kinda) at 2 feet, 3 1/2 inches, which puts him in the 80th percentile for height. So he's slowing down a little, but he still routinely draws raised eyebrows when people find out how old he is.

Last night he was sleeping in his crib and I thought he looked pretty cute, so I started taking some pictures. After a few minutes of playing with lighting and moving some things around, I was staring through my lens and all of a sudden he started smiling. This isn't the first time he has done this. In fact, the first time he smiled in his sleep was at the hospital when he was about 15 minutes old. It makes me wonder how many nights he's been in his crib all by himself in a dark, quiet house, smiling to himself for no one to see.

GRE

What a crazy few weeks this has been! We took a trip down to Newport Beach in sunny California (See pic of where we stayed. It was gorgeous.) and had a fabulous time visiting with Lacey's family. We got back a few days before the 4th of July. Our neighbor had a little party so we hung out over there for a while. But before the weekend had finished, it was time to start studying for the GRE! The GRE, if you don't know, is a standardized test, similar to the SAT, that is required for admission to grad school.

I didn't really know what I was getting myself into. I started looking around on the intertubes and found out that some people take studying for this test pretty seriously--like, studying-for-several-weeks-and-memorizing-hundreds-of-vocabulary-words serious. I started to panic, as I had only given myself about a week to prepare.

I calmed myself down long enough to review some Math problems like I hadn't seen in 10 years. Someone at work recommended that I get a book on how to study for the GRE. I think it's kind of ridiculous that they sell books on how to study for this single test, but I guess that's just how it is these days. I got one on an inter-library loan (W. Richland library is crap), but it didn't arrive until the Friday before the test, which was on a Monday.

So from Friday night when I got home from work until Sunday night when I went to bed, virtually every waking moment was spent reading that book, memorizing vocabulary words, and taking practice tests. I managed to memorize about 150 new vocabulary words over the weekend, so if anyone needs to know the definitions for useless words like enervate, penurious, perspicacious or magnanimity, I'm your guy.

So after a week of intense studying I felt fairly well-prepared. I took the test and scored above the minimum goal I had set for myself, but when the computer showed me my scores (they are scored instantly) I made an error adding them in my head and thought I had done a lot worse than I did. Dejected, I called Lacey to tell her the bad news. I told her my scores and what they added up to and how they didn't add up to my goal, but she corrected me and informed me that they *did* add up to significantly more than my goal. Hooray!

Dual Booting with Wake On Lan

I don't usually talk about technical stuff here, but I'm going to take a little break from gushing about my kids to explain part of how I solved my problem of too many pictures. To quickly summarize, I found that my digital picture library was too large to continue storing on my laptop, and even if I upgraded the hard drive in my laptop to a 320 GB or possibly a 500 GB drive, I would just be delaying the inevitable as my library is growing very rapidly. The crux of the problem is that only one hard drive will fit in my macbook pro (I have the 15" model which doesn't support this crazy option, even if I wanted to).

To solve this problem, I am now storing all of my original photos on a desktop computer running Windows. This computer has multiple hard drives and provides plenty of space for my pictures. I use Lightroom on my laptop, which is smart enough to only store reasonably small previews of all my photos, drastically reducing the amount of space required on my laptop.

This setup works fine when both machines are up and running, but I usually keep my desktop turned off to conserve energy. I often find myself in a situation where I am in another room and don't feel like walking down the hall to turn on the desktop, just so I can import photos from my camera. Wouldn't it be nice if I could remotely boot my desktop and import my photos without getting off the couch?

It turns out I can. I poked around in my BIOS settings and enabled a feature called Wake-on-Lan. Then I installed a Wake-on-Lan Dashboard widget on my laptop. Now I can boot my desktop from another room at any time with 2 simple clicks.

This worked well for a while until I decided to install Ubuntu on that same desktop and dual boot between that and Windows. Now things are a little trickier, because sometimes I will want to remotely boot into Windows, but other times I might want to remotely boot into Linux. Unfortunately, Wake-on-Lan doesn't have the capability to choose an OS when the computer turns on.

The solution I came up with (read: found on the Internet) was to use Wake-on-Lan to boot the computer and let Grub boot into whichever OS is set to default, then use a shell script to change the default OS to one of my choosing, then reboot the machine. It's a few more steps than I'd like, but it sure beats getting off the couch!

Here's everything you need to get it working yourself.

Requirements:

1. Grub bootloader. This solution could be adapted to work with other bootloaders, but right now it only works with Grub.


2. Ext2 IFS. Allows your Windows partition to access your Linux file system.

To get started, create two copies of /boot/grub/menu.lst in Linux. Name one menu.lst.win, and the other menu.lst.lin. Then edit each one to boot into the corresponding OS (Windows for menu.lst.win, Linux for menu.lst.lin). You will probably only have to change one line like:

default  0

to something like:

default  4

But there are instructions for doing this out on the web if you need help.

Once you've done that, create a file named grubEdit.sh with the following.

grubEdit.sh

usage="Usage: grubEdit [win | lin]"
grubHome="/boot/grub"
menuLst="/boot/grub/menu.lst"
menuLstWin="/boot/grub/menu.lst.win"
menuLstLin="/boot/grub/menu.lst.lin"

if [ $# -ne 1 ]
then
 echo $usage
 exit 1
fi

if [ $1 = "win" ]
then
 rm -f $menuLst
 cp $menuLstWin $menuLst
else
 if [ $1 = "lin" ]
 then
  rm -f $menuLst
  cp $menuLstLin $menuLst
 else
  echo $usage
 fi
fi

Now boot back into Windows and create a file named grubEdit.bat, and copy in the following.
Disclaimer: I think this is the first time I've used goto's in a real script. I don't write many shell scripts, but I think this is how it has to be done.

grubEdit.bat

@echo off
set grubHome=L:\boot\grub
set menuLst=%grubHome%\menu.lst
set menuLstWin=%grubHome%\menu.lst.win
set menuLstLin=%grubHome%\menu.lst.lin

if "%1" == "win" goto win
if "%1" == "lin" goto lin
goto error

:win
del %menuLst%
copy %menuLstWin% %menuLst%
goto end

:lin
del %menuLst%
copy %menuLstLin% %menuLst%
goto end

:error
echo Usage: grubEdit [win ^| lin]
goto end

:end

Now from either OS, just run:

grubEdit win

to boot into Windows, and

grubEdit lin

to boot into Linux.

It's that easy!

(Note that you'll need to prepend sudo to either command on Linux, and I've left out instructions for editing your PATH to make sure the shell can find your new scripts.)

Five

We celebrated Rian's birthday last weekend. I still can't believe that he is five already. Rian had a blast and now he has a bunch of new stuff to play with.

One of his presents was Mouse Trap, which we played today for the first time, but we didn't quite do it right. We spent a bunch of time putting together this elaborate trap, and then read in the instructions that you are supposed to build the trap gradually as the game progresses. Whoops. Rian didn't seem to care that the first half of the game had pretty much no point as a result. I'm pretty sure he could play a game where you just roll a die and move your piece around a board with no variation and no special spaces on the board and have fun for at least an hour.

The game got pretty exciting when we started trying to trap our opponents' mice, though. The trap failed two or three times before I got a chance to trap Rian and Lacey for good. I carefully inspected the trap to ensure its correct operation, then I turned the crank which rotated the gears, which caused the lever to move and push the stop sign against the shoe, which tipped the bucket holding the first metal ball which rolled down the stairs and into the pipe which lead it to hit the rod held by the hands, causing the second metal ball to fall from the top of the rod, roll down the groove, fall into and then out of the bottom of the bathtub, landing on the diving board, catapulting the diver through the air and right into the bucket, causing the cage to fall from the top of the post and trap Lacey and Rian's unsuspecting mice.

They never saw it coming.

Michelin Man

Ethan had his four month check up this morning. I can hardly believe he's four months already!

He weighed in at 18 lbs and is 26 1/2 inches long. He's in the 95th percentile for both height and weight. I knew he was big but, holy cow! His head circumference is in the 97th percentile so at least he's pretty balanced. 

 

Too Many Pictures

I am quickly running out of disk space on my laptop. I was looking for a way to visualize my disk usage to see where I needed to focus on cleaning things up, and ran across JDiskReport. It's written in Java, and thanks to Java Web Start, is simple to get running.

It turns out that a little over 50% of my hard drive is filled with pictures from my digital camera! This tool allows me to take a closer look and see where all that space is going. I found out that the amount of data from pictures I took in 2005 is greater than the years 2000-2004 combined! Also, I accumulated more picture data in 2007 than the previous 7 years combined!

There are a couple of reasons for this. First, in 2005 I upgraded from a 2.1 megapixel point-and-shoot to an 8 megapixel DSLR. Second, I started shooting exclusively in the RAW format in 2007. All of this increase in image quality comes with the obvious cost of having to store all this data. So I guess I'm in the market for a new hard drive.

Looking Back at Rian's Surgery

I put together a little video about Rian and the days leading up to his surgery. I mostly put it together for myself, to help me remember that time, but also for Rian so that maybe when he's an adult he can look back and see what he was like when he was 4 1/2 years old and preparing for eye surgery. By putting it on the web I'm not only giving you a chance to watch it, but also increasing the odds that it will be around in 10 years when Rian might appreciate it.

Anyway, enough of that. This video is pretty long. Believe it or not, it was actually a lot of work to get it under 10 minutes, which is the maximum length that YouTube allows.

Cousins!

We had some family visit recently, which is always fun. We tried getting a group picture of all the cousins together, which can be quite a challenge since they are all so young and have such short attention spans. Joshua didn't make it into this picture, but maybe I can photoshop him in later. There isn't a lot of room though. Maybe I'll just give Ethan a 2nd head.

Joshua was pretty interested in Ethan. I think they're going to be friends. Joshua wanted to touch Ethan's skin and face, but he hasn't quite developed the gentle touch that Michelle so effortlessly employs so we had to keep an eye on him. :)


Ruby was beautiful, as always. I know Amy gets tired of hearing that, but I think that is a good problem to have. If you don't know Ruby's story, it's a fascinating one. Much of it is detailed at my sister's blog, Finding Love in Liberia.


We sat down with the kids and watched one of my favorite movies, Ratatouille. Well, I guess not everyone actually sat down to watch it. Reid preferred to stand about 2 feet away from the TV. Perhaps he has had a look at this chart and was just trying to appreciate the film in all of it's 1080p Blu-Ray glory.


This last photo shows Ruby and Ethan holding hands. I think the contrast in skin color is interesting, but the other thing you'll notice is the contrast in body fat. Of course, this shouldn't come as any surprise if you've seen pictures of Ruby when she lived in Africa.

Now We're Rollin'

Our chubby little baby turned 2 months last week. He had a checkup where he was weighed and measured. The doctor confirmed what we already suspected: he's big. And fat.

Just how fat? He is the 90th percentile for weight, and the 75th for height. And his head is ginormous. It ranks in the 95th percentile for that category. We could have another John Madden on our hands. But cuter. And a little younger. And without the unhealthy fascination with offensive linemen's butt sweat.

Today Ethan rolled over for the first time. I wasn't home at the time, but Lacey snapped the picture below mid-roll. She tells me he was lying on the sun when he started. Sadly, the monkey was caught completely off guard and was hurt badly. We're trying to teach Ethan to "look, then roll," but he's just not getting it, no matter how loudly I scream.

Taxes!

I just filed my taxes! Hooray! I guess you can call me an early bird. Now I can kick back and relax as all you procrastinators scramble to get things together. I can't believe you waited this long.

Of course, we owed again, but not as much as last year. This year I had to pay a little over $100, but last year it was nearly $500. What a rip off. TANSTAAFL? Can't we pass a law to ban that?

Because I don't have anything interesting to show you besides my kids, here is a picture of how we found Rian last night at 3 am. Poor guy. He falls out of bed quite regularly. When Ethan outgrows his crib, I plan to get them a bunk bed and put Rian on the top bunk. Then I figure the problem will just take care of itself.

Romo, Cars, and Fatty McJude

Cameron visited recently and surprised us all with a gift from his friend: a TONY ROMO jersey! Romo of course is the Cowboys quarterback and a weekly guest in our homes each Sunday between September and January. Here is Rian modeling his new threads in our barren back yard.

Earlier on Sunday he quietly stacked all of his cars onto his Thomas the Train (am I the only one that hates calling him "Thomas the Tank Engine"?) track.


I was amazed.


Ethan is gaining a ton of weight. Lacey must now take great care to wash between each roll, lifting each flab and getting in there. Check out those thighs.


Here she is demonstrating what she calls Ethan's "armpit rolls."

Ben Is Jammin

During my freshman year at George Fox University, I lived across the hall from a guy named Benjamin Hawkins. We weren't really good friends, but we talked a bit and saw each other almost every day. He was the kind of guy that was always happy. He had a great sense of humor, and always had some little thing to say that would make you smile.

We both graduated in 2004 and I remember talking to him several times over our 4 years together. Talking to Ben wasn't like talking to most people, though. Whenever I talked to him I was always surprised because he always listened. I'm not sure how he did it, but whenever someone was talking to him, you could tell that he was really listening. He was a genuinely caring guy.

This was a guy who I never, ever saw do anything selfish. He was very interesting to talk to, an outstanding musician, and one of the greatest guys I've ever met - cheerful, honest, and trustworthy. On Sunday, he was struck by a car and killed in what is being called a freak accident. He was 25.

This simply couldn't have happened to a better guy. Keep on jammin', Ben.

Surgery

I wrote the following about 3 weeks ago, but for some reason I never got around to posting it until now.

In a previous post I talked about Rian's eyes needing to be operated on to correct Strabismus.
Last Tuesday we drove up to Kirkland (near Seattle, about a 3 1/2 hour drive) for Rian's eye surgery. He had an appointment with the surgeon on Wednesday to measure the degree that Rian's eyes needed to be corrected. Their measurements matched those from our local doctor, which was important to me just to rule out the possibility that our local doctor was nuts and that Rian's eyes were fine.

As part of the pre-op appointment, they had to give Rian some eye drops to dilate his pupils. They got big. Huge, in fact. They got so big that his pupil nearly covered his entire iris, so we gave him Lacey's sunglasses to wear afterward because otherwise it would have been too bright.

Thursday was a difficult day. Rian had been very good about accepting the idea of a doctor fixing his eyes in the weeks leading up to the surgery, but it all caught up to him at the surgery center when it was time for the nurse to measure his vitals. Suddenly the surgery got very real and he didn't want any part of it.

They got most of the vitals that they needed and it was time for Rian to go back into the sterile room, alone. They brought him a little red wagon, which he thought was very cool, and the nurse asked him if he wanted to go slow or fast. "Fast!" We gave him some kisses, the nurse counted to three, and off they went, running down the hall. Rian looked like he was having fun, but he turned and looked back at us as if questioning whether this wagon ride was worth leaving the safety of Mommy and Daddy. He would tell us later that they had him lie down and breathe like an astronaut, and that he screamed, "I miss my daddy and my mommy!"

We waited in the waiting room for about an hour. A nurse finally came out and led us back to the room where Rian was recovering. I had looked online at some pictures of kids that had already had this surgery beforehand to help prepare myself. I knew it was going to look bad, but nothing prepared me for this.

His back was toward me as I entered the room. Lacey took him, sat him down on her lap, and held him. He turned and looked toward me, staring at me with these huge, bloody eyes. They didn't move at all, just staring . . . lifelessly. At first I wasn't sure if he could even see out of them, but then I figured out that he could, in fact, see. It just looked so . . . creepy. It was hard not to wonder if we had done the right thing.

The next day we took him back to the doctor's office where they ran the same tests on him that they had before the surgery. This time things were much different. For one test, the nurse would ask Rian to focus on something far away as she would cover one eye, then the other. Before, his eyes would jump back and forth as she would switch eyes. But now, both eyes stayed straight, as they were both able to focus on the same point without compensating. For another test, Rian wore 3-D glasses and was asked to indicate which in series of images was popping out off the page. Before the surgery, he could get about half of them right, but this time, he got them all right!

---

Nearly 4 weeks have past since his surgery. One eye is looking much better, but the other is still very bloody. The doctor told us that it will clear up in a few more weeks, but that it's nothing to worry about since none of it is new blood.

Long Night

I stayed up with Ethan tonight while Lacey slept. (I slept in really late on Saturday, so it all works out.) Lacey was telling me earlier about her system she has when changing Ethan's diapers to minimize the amount of time he is left exposed, since he has a tendency to pee right when you take the diaper off. I kind of dismissed it and told her I didn't think it was that big of a deal. After all, I told her, that hadn't happened to me in over a week.

In retrospect, I think she may be on to something.

I was changing Ethan's diaper around 3 am, cleaning up his little bottom, when a spout appeared. This has happened before--in fact it had happened a couple hours earlier as well--and what usually catches my attention first isn't the stream arcing from his little body, but the sound of the stream hitting something. This time it was a box of wipes sitting on the floor next to the changing table.

I used the wipe in my hand to minimize further damage, then grabbed another one to start cleaning up. Assuming he was done, I let my guard down, but then, wouldn't you know it, it happened again. This time it landed on the changing table and ran down toward him, pooling at his back.

He was pretty wet at this point. Most of his back was wet, and parts of his tummy. I think the first stream may have been running for a little while before I noticed it, because he was a lot wetter than I thought he could be from just the 2nd one by itself. So I wiped him down, but now I needed somewhere to set him so I could finish changing his diaper (I still hadn't finished cleaning up the original mess). The changing table was drenched, so I set him in the crib.

I turn around to get a wipe and pick up a clean diaper when... yeah, you know where this is going. He had done it again! Now the crib was wet!

From now on I'm going to listen to everything Lacey tells me as if it's straight from the mouth of God.

So what's up with the pictures of Ethan's feet? Well, it was a long night. We went through 4 or 5 diapers and 79 pictures. So you see, I had to post one or two, even if they're just of his feet.

For the Babies

Lacey and I were talking a few months ago, after we had found out that she was pregnant, and I admitted that I wasn't crazy about newborns. My reasons were that they are kind of boring, kind of funny looking, and they don't really do much. You can't really have fun with a newborn. You can't even make them smile.

I've changed my mind.

While some of that is still true, Ethan is just a lot more fun than I thought he would be. His skin is so unbelievably soft, you just have to feel it to believe it. When I was taking these pictures I couldn't help but lean in and kiss him on the belly. His perfect little skin smells so clean and feels impossibly soft. Sometimes I just have to smother him with kisses, and the funny thing is he doesn't appreciate the affection at all. If anything, he finds it mildly annoying. But I love that about him. He just has a few very simple needs, and beyond that, everything else is largely ignored.

Alright, sorry for getting mushy. I've really got to stop posting late at night...

Strabismus

A while ago we started noticing that one of Rian's eyes had a tendency to drift off to the side on its own under certain conditions. We usually only saw this when he was doing something that required the sight from only one eye, like looking through the viewfinder of a camera. At first, I thought he didn't know how to look through the viewfinder. It looked like he was holding the camera up to his face, and then looking to the side, as if trying to see around the camera. I mistakenly thought that he didn't know to look through the viewfinder, and tried to correct him.

But after seeing this happen a few times, we eventually figured out that his eyes weren't looking in the same direction. One eye would look through the viewfinder, and the other would just go off to the side, all on its own. This would happen just about every time he would look through my camera. Very strange.

So we mentioned it to the doctor. He referred us to an ophthalmologist, who examined Rian and ran him through some vision tests. He explained that this was normal, and that Rian's vision was fine. The eye, he explained, naturally reverts back to a different position when at rest. He demonstrated this effect to Lacey and told her that when Rian's eye would drift off to the side when looking through a camera, it was just at rest, and that happened to be where its resting point was. Everyone is a little different.

But that seemed a little strange, and when Lacey explained all of this to me when I got home, I was a little skeptical. She showed me an exercise the doctor recommended involving a string and a ball that is supposed to strengthen the muscles in the eye. I tried it, but grew even more agitated. It just didn't make sense to me.

But, after all, this is what the doctor told her, and he was an ophthalmologist. He probably sees this all the time. So I decided that I needed to trust the doctor.

Some time passed and everything seemed normal. His eye would wander occasionally, but it could usually be corrected by reminding him to "focus." But as time went on, we started seeing it happen more and more. Now it was happening in low-light conditions, like when tucking him in at night, or even in the living room during the evenings.

His teacher had noticed some things, too. She had seen him being very cautious when going up and down stairs. Having seen a few students with vision problems, she recommended a vision clinic that had a good reputation. We took him there and right away, the doctor could tell something was wrong. After running him through some tests, the doctor diagnosed Rian with strabismus. This guy actually specializes in this stuff, and told us that he was very surprised and disappointed that the first doctor hadn't seen it.

He explained that strabismus is a serious problem that can ruin depth perception and in some cases can lead to blindness in one eye (read about it at webmd or wikipedia). The doctor asked if Rian still preferred a tricycle to a bicycle, and if he seemed afraid of a ball when thrown to him. Of course! These are both indicators of a lack of depth perception. Sitting up high on a bicycle would make me pretty nervous too, if I couldn't see how close the ground was. And of course, it would be pretty hard to catch a ball if you can't tell how far away it is.

Since then, Rian has been back to see them several times. Although various forms of vision therapy are often enough to correct strabismus, because of the severity of Rian's case, he will need surgery. The surgery has been scheduled, and will take place one week from today.

And now, finally, I will explain the picture. Part of the preparation for the surgery is to identify exactly how far his eye wanders. This is so that they know how much they need to correct for during the surgery. They performed many vision tests, which we described to Rian as "eye games" (which he actually looks forward to "playing"), and they got a pretty accurate number. Then, they take a prism which bends the light by the appropriate amount to account for his eye looking in the wrong direction, and attach that to a pair of glasses. This allows both eyes to sit where they want to (looking in different directions), but because of the prism, both eyes see as if they were looking directly ahead. They needed Rian to wear these special glasses for 24 hours and then at the end of that period, they do a test to make sure they had the number right. They did.

One thing you'll notice right away is that the prism bends the light in both directions, so it looks like his eye is way out to the side instead of right in there next to his nose. This effect can be a little uncomfortable to see, because it changes the appearance of the shape of his face. It's not as obvious in this particular photo (which is why I chose it), but it is a lot more pronounced when you can see his eyes.

Anyway, please pray for Rian as he prepares for surgery on March 6th.

Back to Work

I have really enjoyed being a stay-at-home dad the last 2 weeks, but now it is time to go back to work. It was fun being able to take Rian to school in the mornings and then picking him up in the afternoons. Before this week I had only picked him up from school once, and that was when I had jury duty. And of course, I've enjoyed spending time with Ethan, changing diapers, and taking pictures. But alas, on Monday it will be time to go back to work.

Lacey's parents visited last week and got to meet Ethan for the first time. Here's a picture of Ethan holding onto (Grandpa) Bob's finger. This was actually Bob's idea, but I'm mostly satisfied with how it turned out. So thanks, Bob!

Blurry Moon

I was hoping to get some good pictures of the moon tonight, but unfortunately nearly everything came out blurry. The weather was mostly clear, but there were very thin clouds that disrupted the light just enough to make everything look out of focus.

I'm So Tired

I mentioned recently that I am surprised by how much Ethan sleeps. Well, I know that none of you believed me, so I decided to make a video about it. I hope this will convince some of you doubters.

Don't forget to turn the volume up.

What a Week!

Ethan is one week old today. He had a little operation on Friday, so changing diapers has been a little more challenging the last couple days. He's doing better now, though.

Last night I was trying to change his diaper when he started peeing all over the place. Fortunately, there was something in the way and so it was just deflected harmlessly down his side and onto the changing pad. No problem.

A minute later I heard something and looked down. My worst fears were realized as I watched the changing pad getting even dirtier...much dirtier. The diaper was just a couple inches out of position, but that's all it took.

Now I was really stuck. Ethan was still dirty from the diaper I was in the middle of changing, and the changing pad was dirty from...well, from Ethan. I didn't know what to do, so I started calling for Lacey, but she was asleep in the other room. Aaack!

Lacey eventually woke up, but she was so tired that I had to raise my voice to the level of what probably sounded like an angry, frantic yell. She came tearing into the room, looking a little alarmed and probably expecting something horrible. She came in and took over like a pro, cleaning him with an ease I'll probably never attain.

Stretching

Ethan cracks me up. I knew that newborns slept a lot, but I had forgotten just how much that was. Ethan usually looks completely wiped out, like he just finished something incredibly exhausting. He'll wake up for about 45 minutes and sit with Lacey, getting something to eat, but apparently nursing really wears hm out, because by the time that he finishes, he's fallen asleep again!

Spam with a Twist

I use gmail at home, and it usually does an excellent job filtering spam out, but this morning an email sneaked past the filters and into my inbox. Take a look at it and you can see how it got through.

From: chalbappah@gmail.com
Subject: underlaid Viiaxgra
Date: February 15, 2008 4:52:45 AM PST
To: ericjmarshall [---at---] (public email service mentioned above)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Viiaxgra from $1, 20 http://www.[domain removed].com

Very very well, said Madam Pomfrey, looking startled, and she too left.Not that I know of, said Mr. Weasley. Yes, its a minute off ...Wedcontrasting strongly with the black of his hair and beard

It's kind of funny how the spammers are trying to get past the filters by disguising part of the message as something that doesn't look like spam. Of course this is nothing new, but I hadn't seen a message quite like this one before.

Lunar Eclipse Coming Soon

There's a lunar eclipse coming up on February 21st. I had so much fun during the last one, back in August, that I'm hoping to take pictures of this one as well. I recently bought a 2x Kenko Teleconverter that allows me to get in a little closer. I took it outside today and took some pictures of the moon, and I think they have a lot more detail than the photos I took last August.

But you probably didn't come here to see a picture of the moon, so here's another picture of Ethan.

Learning to Read

I decided to do something a little different today. Ethan has been getting a lot of attention lately, and I can tell that Rian feels left out sometimes. It was especially evident at the hospital the other day. Some people came to visit and they were all talking about babies, but Rian found that boring and decided it would be more interesting for everyone to look at his soccer pictures from last summer, which I happened to have on my computer.

He started pulling the soccer pictures up on the screen and talking about them, but nobody really listened. It made me sad for him. As the youngest of 3, I remember what it was like being little and everyone being excited about something that I didn't appreciate or understand, and wanting to turn the attention of the room back to myself.

So, as cute and adorable as Ethan is right now, I want to show you a video that I made that is all about Rian. Rian is learning about some exciting things, and one of those is learning how to read. Today he brought home a book from school, so I sat down with him while Ethan was taking a nap and he read it to me.

Fitting In

I picked Rian up from school today, and his teacher told me that he was telling everyone in his class that his brother "came out of Mommy!" Lacey and Ethan were waiting in the car, so I asked him to guess who was waiting in the car. "Umm... Eli! I mean, ETHAN!" (His cousin Eli is 16 months old.)

Ethan seems pretty comfortable in his car seat. The straps have to be pretty tight in order to hold such a tiny body and I thought I was going to break him last night when I was getting him ready to go home. He slept through it though, so I guess it wasn't too uncomfortable.

It may sound strange, but it's easy to forget how small he is when you have been around him for awhile. But then when we put him in his car seat it puts his size back into perspective and I remember to appreciate his tiny little body.