David Valentine

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

So NASA is finally planning to go to the Moon again in 2018. While I do believe we actually landed on the moon, despite all the conspiracy theories and the mind-boggling lack of technology at the time, it will be nice to actually see it happen during my lifetime. However, it looks like Mars may not happen in my lifetime at this rate.
I have been playing a lot of chess lately. It's always been a cyclical thing for me, and with the amount of time I'm spending right now I really hope it's peaking. I am playing 16 simultaneous games right now where I need to make a move in each game at least once every three days. I tend to move a lot more often. I'm playing in a tournament, and also against a lot of friends and family. My games against Nils have been particularly enjoyable.
Brynn has been commuting with her mommy to daycare at her building this week. With the exception of the first day there, where Brynn was still adjusting, she appears to be having a great time. There's been a lot of foot and body painting resulting in some pretty funny pictures.

11:56:59 PM

Sunday, September 11, 2005

For those of you surfing this website for something other than baby news you're finally in luck. After a long hiatus I, David Valentine, am writing a post. You may recognize me by my akward writing style, and numerous hyperlinks. I had lots of ideas for good things to post, but I forgot them all- so you'll just have to live with this drivel.

There are however a couple links that my dad and Carol have recommended I mention:

- Flying Spaghetti Monsterism - the rival to Intelligent Design that makes about as much sense. I recommend setting your desktop background image to this as well.
- Want to write a research paper and look real smart at the click of a button? Easy! Just go here.
- This is an interesting photo journal of a guy trapped in New Orleans during the hurricane and flood.

Did I mention how much I like Wikipedia? It's basically an online encyclopedia that has rapidly become very comprehensive and contributed to by whomever feels like it. That's both its strength and weakness. Trillian, my favorite IM aggregated client (let's you use AOL IM, Yahoo Chat, and MSN Messenger all at once) underlines certain words that popup definitions from wikipedia.
I have still been playing lots of chess lately on redhotpawn, and you're welcome to challenge me to a game!
Oh and comments are down for now. They were what was causing my site to take 2 minutes to load. Hopefully they'll be fixed soon and I can enable them again. I was also starting to get comment spam. That actually made me proud that someone would take the time to spam my website.

10:24:19 PM

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Claire

It is time to admit the truth. Brynn is, in fact, bald and we have been dressing her in a se A picture named toupee.jpg

ries of wigs and toupees.

Bad toupees, no less. See this picture for evidence.

One thing I am finding interesting about watching her grow and develop is that it is not a completely linear progression. She seems to lose one skill for every two she acquires.
When she was about 6 weeks old she flipped over from her stomach to her back a couple of times in one day. I think it was mainly achieved through sheer screaming power - she hated being on her tummy so much that she arched her back and just kind of turned over out of rage. After that she waited another 6 weeks before repeating the feat. She again managed it a few times in one day but has not done it since.
A couple of weeks ago she looked to be very close to turning from back to stomach. She was getting herself onto her side and almost flipped herself a couple of times but then she stopped trying and has not come close again.

The same thing has happened with her crawling attempts. From the time she was about a week old we put her on her stomach and she starts kicking her legs in a crawling motion and tries to move forward. A few times she has actually scooted forward a bit and for a while she was using her arms to help with pulling as well so she was moving a reasonable distance. But she has stopped these efforts almost entirely now. She still kicks her legs but she's lifting her whole lower half off the ground so she's just kicking the air. I am definitely not looking forward to this little squirmer becoming mobile so I'm pleased with this particular lack of progress.

Yesterday we stood her up in her crib and put her hands on the railing. She gripped on and was standing completely on her own without any assistance from us. That, of course, lasted all of one second and then... well we can save the rest of that story for when she is 18 and trying to figure out why she didn't get into Harvard.

(Relax! She's fine!!)

12:31:43 PM

Monday, August 29, 2005

Claire

This is a picture of a game we play called Snugglebug. Basically I wrap Brynn in the blanket on our bed so just her face is peeking out and then I rock her back and forth chanting "snugglebug". No matter how upset she is this game will always have her smiling by the end.
A picture named snugglebug.jpg

Dave's foolproof method of stopping the crying is to sit her in the crook of his arm and wander around the house. She always calms down when he does this.

Other games we play include 'Vampire Baby' based on the fact that she opens her mouth really wide every time she gets close to any part of our bodies, 'Upside Down Baby' (which is fairly obvious) and 'Baby in Space' which starts with her launch into outerspace, followed by a moon-landing and space walk, and finally a triumphant return to earth culminating in a victory parade.

Brynn is definitely a much better natured baby of late. I'd heard that 3 months is the turning point and that was certainly the case for us. She no longer wakes up and screams. Instead I hear her babbling and gurgling away in her crib. She smiles constantly (even for strangers) and we are hearing little laugh type noises (chortles I suppose). She spends a lot of time 'chatting' with us, sometimes to the point where it's annoying. Well ok, it's only annoying when she does it at 3am and we want her to go to sleep. Dave was trying to settle her in the crib the other night but she kept chattering on and on to him. It was like she was telling him a long and complicated story. Very cute despite the hour.

We've managed to get her past the swaddle addiction and haven't used in about three days or so. I never thought this would work when we first tried as she moves her arms and legs around so much it seemed impossible for her to fall asleep but it's been very easy. The main problem now is that she can knock the pacifier out of her mouth but can't get it back in there so she gets frustrated. It's cool to see her getting better with her hands though. She can sometimes grab the pacifier if it's lying near her and then aim it at her mouth. Very occasionally she gets lucky but mostly she misses. Still, a week ago she could barely grasp the pacifier, let alone deliberately try to maneuver it. Progress is being made.

2:03:29 PM

Sunday, August 28, 2005

My mom was out visiting last week. I was pretty busy at work, but as Claire pointed, it didn't matter because she wasn't coming to see me! We all went to Costco over the weekend to stock up on food, and the various other "necessities" that we always end up buying there . Apparently my mom is still trying to convince Andy of the wonders of the place. I am also happy to announce that my mom has been added to the exclusive list of Treo 650 owners. She went so far as to buy an unlocked one to facilitate its use internationally. A picture named Mom_and_Brynn.jpg

11:58:21 PM

Thursday, August 11, 2005

I think Brynn looks a lot like Dave in this picture. I'm still adding pictures to the Brynn fashion gallery so keep checking back for more photos.

The newest update is that Brynn is crawling. Ok, I lie. But she can sort of propel herself across our bed if I put her on her stomach. She uses a combination of pushing with her legs and grabbing the sheet with her hands and pulling. It's not particularly effective but she does move. A picture named brynn3.jpg

3:19:09 PM

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

This picture cracked me up. Brynn Attack!

I can't think of any major baby news. Brynn is still babbling a lot and her favorite word is "Agoo". No clue what that means but she says it all the time.

She has been showing more awareness of her hands and I think will start grabbing things in the next few weeks. She likes to suck on her fist and has started swiping at toys on her playmat.

We had a nice lazy weekend for a change. It seems like we've had places to go and people to see every weekend since Brynn was born so we decided to take it easy and do nothing this time around. Very relaxing...

Last weekend we headed out to Long Island for a BBQ at the home of Ena, one of Dave's colleagues. I got to meet people Dave works with and we enjoyed an array of tasty food, including some great jerk chicken.

Getting to Long Island is just such a nightmare. We've had to do it a few times recently with JFK trips. Dave has decided that the whole NJ/LI rivalry thing is just due to the fact that getting from one place to the other is such a hassle that it's impossible to maintain friendships across the divide. Even meeting halfway (the city) is difficult. We still have friends in LI but it definitely makes you think twice about visiting when a 40 mile journey takes over 2 hours. My car has a feature that calculates the average speed of a tripand our worst LI experience was a JFK run that we averaged 12 mph on the way there.

The dayafter the BBQ we headed down to the Jersey Shore forBrynn's first ocean experience. Dave's friend Peter from California had booked a hotel room in Spring Lake but was not able to use it and couldn't get a refund so he generously offered it to us. Thanks Pete! The hotel was directly across from the beach so we wandered on the boardwalk and took Brynn down to the water to get her feet wet. I think she liked it. We also bought her a cute little bikini but unfortunately forgot to take pictures. I'll have to take a few and add them to the gallery.

10:30:16 AM