Articles in family
August 31, 2008 at 10:38 PM · Posted under family, tech, television, videogames
Vacation! I’m taking the entire week off of work. Four vacation days buys me nine continuous days off. Sweet! No special plans, just relaxing at home with Sarah and Edward. Ahh.
Sarah and I have been watching Hill Street Blues on Hulu and we’ve been very impressed. From the very first episode the characters and story are gripping and nuanced. Of course we have both been imprinted by the theme music, which is now an almost irresistible psychological command to relax and get ready for bed.
Speaking of Hulu: Jaadu has proven to be fantastic for controlling our home theater mac. This great app allows an iPod Touch (or iPhone) to connect to VNC servers (such as Leopard’s screen sharing) and does it extremely well. It comes with some shortcut setups that are supposed to be geared toward driving powerpoint presentations, but also happen to be perfect for controlling mplayer or hulu. Now we don’t even have to keep a laptop on hand, just a couple clicks on the iPod controls anything we need on the tv computer. Establishing the connection only takes a couple seconds, and everything works intuitively. Tapping the screen is a click, double tap is a double click, double tap and drag is a click and drag, and dragging with two fingers pulls the scroll bar for the current window. Jaadu even perfectly scales our odd resolution (when tilted to horizontal mode) to fit, although it scrolls so seamlessly I usually just use it in vertical mode.
Moving on to current videogames. If you have an XBox 360 download the demo for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Unless you think that pulling down Tie Fighters and throwing them at squads of storm troopers sounds boring. While you’re on XBox Live, you should download the demos (or full games!) of Braid, Bionic Commando: Rearmed, and Castle Crashers. The wonderfully, magical, and myterious game Braid is a moving and beautiful mindbender about time. It’s kind of like Einstein’s Dreams in videogame form. If you don’t know about Bionic Commando don’t bother, it’s a perfect remake of an old school Nintendo game of the highest order. If you don’t already have the ingrained reflexes from the ages of high hand-eye coordination games then you’ll just be frustrated. Castle Crashers is the next game from the geniuses behind Alien Hominid. If you get it, hit me up for some four player fun on XBox Live.
Comment
August 31, 2008 at 06:16 PM · Posted under family
As you may have read on Sarah’s blog, Edward loves to play The Bee Game. We tie a robe sash to one of his arms or legs and he gets to wiggle his bee mobile around. It’s like a videogame, but with better physics. He really likes to figure out which limb is controlling the bees, then keep perfectly still until the bees have stopped swinging, then unleash a big wiggle to shake them all around. He’s even started to hold down the foot connected to the bees with his other foot, for maximum bee stability.
Other cute things Edward is up to:
- He giggles an adorable “heh heh heh” giggle when he’s very entertained by something
- He’s got some serious foot control while kicking around his tethered plastic ball:
- He’ll poise one foot just next to the ball and wait for it to be still, then kick it.
- He’ll grab the ball between his two feet and swing it around.
- He’s discovered that he has feet, and is fascinated by them, especially when he can grab them.
- He’s learning to program (that initial page turning is all him, he loves to play with books):
Comments (1)
July 25, 2008 at 06:10 PM · Posted under family
Edward continues to increase his cuteness level. Last weekend he learned a new syllable, “guh”, which he has so far shared only with me. It may, in fact, be his name for me. He’s already got a very cute parroting of “hello” down. It’s kind of like “aaahlooo” and he only brings that out when he’s really happy and talkative.
He has learned that his hands can be used for useful things, such as pushing himself up, pushing bottles away when he has had enough, and (just today) holding on to them so they don’t fly away while he is eating.
When Sarah puts him on his stomach to play “roll the baby” (maybe the game is the act of turning the baby over?) he has no trouble holding up his head, and actually seems like he is figuring out how to turn himself over. He’ll push with one arm and tilt his head, and wiggle his legs back and forth. Like a little Bender on his back!
Comments (7)
July 01, 2008 at 08:23 PM · Posted under family
Edward just finished his first shower and was a very good little water baby (just like his dad!). The technique is a little tricky, but one hundred percent less annoying than setting up the baby wash tub. I just hold him in the shower with the water running at a comfortable temperature for him while Sarah washes him with the wash cloth and soap. No bowl of soapy water, no complicated rinsing procedure, and certainly no tricks needed to keep him warm during the bath.
When the water first hit him he cried for just a second, then quickly decided that the water was just fine with him. Even getting his face rinsed off was no big deal and, in fact, seemed to be a pretty enjoyable procedure. Cute!
And just so this post isn’t just boring text, I give you Blanket Baby:
And a rare snapshot of Plotting Baby:
Comments (5)
June 28, 2008 at 10:58 AM · Posted under family
Here’s Edward in his swing from the Undergraduate Library.
And here’s a nice set of three (all taken in a row!) of Edward being cute and awake in his hammock chair.
Comments (6)
June 22, 2008 at 08:15 PM · Posted under family
Here’s a picture of Edward doing one of his favorite activities.
Yes, that is an iPood creeper he has on. This picture was actually uploaded in semi-real time. He is still asleep in that very spot and acting very cute.
Comments (4)
June 15, 2008 at 05:49 PM · Posted under family, tech, television, videogames
A steady stream of flashing lights and sound really helps with keeping awake and alert during late-night feeding and baby care. And when you’re only sleeping three to four hours at most, everything is late-night.
Sarah and I have come to really appreciate the following inputs:
Cable Television with DVR
From National Geographic to Food Network to HGTV to Discovery to SciFi to Comedy Central: there’s always something cool, fun, or interesting to watch on our DVR. While channel flipping would be ok, the DVR is really what makes cable worth it. Frequent interruptions for the baby mean that without the ability to pause and rewind our shows we’d essentially only watch about twenty five percent of the content IF we happened to catch something really cool during the weird hours we’re feeding the baby. Unless you’re into paid programming, there’s not a lot of tv on at 4:27am.
The News and Weather via the Wii
For quickly keeping up with the news and weather with one hand (the other holding the baby) nothing beats the Wii weather and news channels.
The Internet via the Wii
The Internet is, of course, just stuffed with fun content. The Wii’s internet channel allows truly one handed browsing of all of our favorite sites.
Hulu.com
We finally tried out Hulu after discovering to our chagrin that our DVR had dropped two of the last three Battlestar Galactica episodes. Awesome! It has a wide selection of TV Shows and even quite a few movies, all with very small commercial breaks. The commercial breaks are denoted on the video’s progress bar and have a timer countdown while they are running. I’ve always said that I’d be right onboard with official tv torrents that included commercials and, since there’s no download time, hulu.com is even better than that. Hulu even has full movies and a pretty decent selection of them at that.
While it isn’t supported by the Wii’s browser (Flash higher than version 7 required) it does, of course, work great with Opera 9.5 on the PowerMac connected to the tv. The full screen mode taxes our Internet connection a bit too much, but using the mac’s mouse scroll wheel zoom with cursorceror to hide the mouse cursor we get a nice full screen presentation without stuttering video. Since we have the PowerMac connected into our surround sound system as well, the sound is even (thanks to Dolby magic) pretty decent. In a stroke of genius they even mapped spacebar to pause, so after we get the zoom in situated we don’t need to move everything around to find a pause button.
Endless Ocean
Videogames and baby watching are a tricky combination. If he’s deep asleep I can get in some game time, but I can’t really focus on anything involved. Even Super Mario Galaxy requires a bit more concentration than I’d like. Endless Ocean, on the other hand, is a game that requires absolutely nothing from the player. You get to run around beautiful underwater environments and have absolutely nothing that requires focus. In fact, the entire game encourages relaxation over acoomplishment. You can even drive the boat to a scenic spot then just sit in a deck chair and watch the ocean. While diving you don’t need to worry about air, depth, or anything at all. Drop the controller and your character will just patiently wait while fish and creatures swim around to the soothing music. When you do have time to explore, the game is actually pretty interesting and rewarding. Seeing a whale glide in and swim alongside me was an awesome videogame moment.
Comments (1)
June 06, 2008 at 12:00 PM · Posted under family
I took this one immediately following his inspection and bath. One of the nurses was nice enough to hold him up for a really cute shot of his “things could be better” face.
These two, like the first picture I posted, are from the series of pictures I took during his first cuddles with mommy.
I haven’t really taken many pictures since, but I now that Sarah and I are both much more rested and relaxed that will surely change.
Comments (5)
June 06, 2008 at 11:50 AM · Posted under family
The only reason that I have the clarity and time to write this blog post is because of the Happiest Baby on the Block DVD. I’m totally serious. The marketing blurbs attached to this series are completely accurate in our case. After he got over his new baby jaundice he really got into the swing of crying. He would have crying spells for up to three hours, usually in the middle of the night. Even when he wasn’t seriously exercising his lungs little cries were never far off. Yesterday we finally (and I have no idea why it took us that long) opened up our Happiest Baby DVD and watched it with screaming infant in tow. We tried the techniques in turn as the video went through them and snap: happy, quiet baby!
Now we maintain the soothing techniques throughout the day and night and he is consistently relaxed. He does of course cry when he needs to be changed or is hungry, but no more inconsolable crying spells. We went from enduring those three hour crying spells to at most thirty second crying spells, and most of that time spent soothing down. It is absolutely astonishing and it is so so awesome.
Sarah and I were getting pretty tired and stressed because we each felt guilty leaving the other with a crying baby, so essentially we both didn’t get any real rest. At night we could barely sleep before our cute crying baby would need attention. Now we are both sitting on the couch puttering away and little Edward is sound asleep and relaxed in his baby rocker (sans distracting toy bar and locked in the non-rocking position). Ahh.
Comments (1)
May 30, 2008 at 12:10 PM · Posted under family
Sarah and I have really loved reading everyone’s comments on the baby posts. It’s really been fun to check in every few hours and read all the well wishes. Emily, sorry your comment got caught by my spam filter. It’s out now and right with all the others.
The baby continues to be exceedingly cute. He’s learning how to be a physically separate being and we’re learning how to care for this cute little guy. Everything is going great so far. The baby has been checked a few times by the hospital nursery and is in fantastic health.
Comments (10)
May 29, 2008 at 09:08 PM · Posted under family
Whew, it’s nine pm and I finally have more than a couple minutes to sit and get down some actual writing.
Baby Ball is acting all supercute, of course. He was wide awake for about three hours after the delivery but has since fallen into a baby coma with only a couple of brief periods of awake.
He hasn’t really cried so far, only a couple of times while the nurses were poking and prodding or bathing him.
We’re in the post-birthing room now. It’s about a third of the size and is much less well decorated. My very long comfy couch has been replaced by a moderately comfortable recliner.
Right now baby is asleep, but practicing sucking on his left hand. Come to think of it, he’s mostly been using his left hand. How sinister :-)
His name is Edward, which is awesome because it has a ton of potential nicknames. He weighs something like 7.8 pounds and is 20 inches tall (maybe, I don’t quite remember).
He is a veritable font of cuteness. So adorable!
Sarah is doing very well and is, like the baby, resting peacefully.
We are rooming in with Edward so I have to take awake and alert until midnight to keep an eye on him.
Comments (11)
May 29, 2008 at 05:03 PM · Posted under family
Born just before 4pm, so cute!
Comments (14)
May 28, 2008 at 09:00 PM · Posted under family
Now the baby has discovered the monitors resting on his personal space and is having fun kicking them. We still hear his heartbeat in the background but now it’s drowned out by the rhythmic thuds of his kicking. It’s making some pretty funky patterns on his heart rate graph :-)
Comments (6)
May 28, 2008 at 08:20 PM · Posted under family
We’ve seen Dr. Cole, who is very nice (and went to NCSSM!), and things are moving along and looking the baby is coming sometime tomorrow. So Sarah and I are just hanging out and watching TV. It’s kind of like sitting around a hotel room…a hotel room with the tell-tale thudding of a baby heart! DA da dummm!
Comment
May 28, 2008 at 05:59 PM · Posted under family
5:28
Sarah and I are in our room in Durham Regional Hospital. It’s actually quite spacious and nice, lots of nice touches and wood accents. Soothing by design to be sure, except for the woman who was rather vocally giving birth a few rooms away. Rather disconcerting but luckily we arrived at the very end and I got to hear a baby’s little cry shortly afterward.
It’s a nice stormy day for Sarah’s birthday and the approaching birth of our cuddly baby boy. We’re finally down to the wire and parenthood is right around the corner! I’m wound up and running on a sleepless night and nothing but excited.
5:42
We just had a visit from the nurse who got all the monitors setup. Now we can hear baby’s heartbeat which is hovering around between 125 and 142 and watch the pretty graphs go by. His heartrate shoots up to the 160s and 170s when he wiggles around, so cute! Everything with Sarah and the baby looks right on target. A doctor is supposed to check in with us soon.
Comments (7)
