Fuzzymonk

Leah and I just finished playing a nice round of sock-mouth

Sock mouth dates back to yesterday when we were eating some eggs for dinner. One of the bigger bits of eggs was still too hot when she put it in her mouth. so she spit it out and gave it a very suspicious look. You know one of those, how could you do that to me type looks. Well to make her feel better I treated that bit as if it were gross. I pushed it away and said yuck. She thought this was great. So she pushed it away too, I grabbed her hand and said yucky yuck! and the game was born.

At least the game of yucky eggs.

Tonight when I went to change her diaper she was very sad to be leaving the couch so I tried to cheer her up. She gave me the idea when she took off her sock and handed it to me. I shook it and said yuck, made a face and set it on the table next to her. She immediately associated the face and word yuck with the egg game and thus sock-mouth was born.

She tries to put the sock in her mouth and I make faces. She tries to put the sock in my mouth and I make faces. Then we run around squealing.

If it is a game, then there must be some way to win. I had to turn to Leah for inspiration on this one. But she sure found the definitive win condition.

First one to vomit wins. Shove a sock into your mouth till you throw up 2 fish sticks.

This was Leah’s second plane trip, and last time we bought her a seat and her grandma came along to help out. Unfortunately we didn’t luck out enough to get a row to ourselves, and had to share space with some poor unsuspecting traveler. The flight out she never really cried, but was a little fussy and very fidgety the entire trip. The way back she was very sleepy and cranky, but after a tour standing up at the front of coach dad was able to trick her into sleeping. Despite the evil glares from a business man (who had an empty seat next to him). And Kelly and I (and the poor lady in our row) had a couple hours of still and quite.

When we landed early in Denver, early enough that jeannie had not even left the her house in Colorado Springs yet, and was gonna be a while. So we gathered all our babies and baby related stuff and set out to find a place we could let Leah get down and run. And run she did. It was way past her bedtime, and she was hyper like only a hyper one year old can be. We were running around a column playing ‘catch the baby which eventually blossomed into a proper game of hide and seek. I would take her to the corner and tell her to count to 3, then count with her while trying prevent her from peeking. then run off a few feet away and ‘hide’ by the wall, or behind some of our luggage. Once we got into it she was playing along good. So much so that I overheard passers by saying “oh, look! she’s counting” while she had her head buried in the corner with a “du…du…du.” our games involved lots of running, flailing and screeching. Impressive thing is, she didn’t even crash right away in the car, she lasted a good 30 minutes.

One best parts of visiting the McPenberthy’s at Monopuss Manor, are the Dogs. We would sit out back and throw a ball for hours. In addition to the fun puppies to entertain Leah (and her dad), the weather was gorgeous, no humidity and no bugs. Dirk, Jeannie and Kelly kept making these amazing meals that we could eat on the back patio. Strap the baby into her chair and we could chow down on Alaskan Salmon, King Crab and Stuffed Blueberry French Toast Croissants. I think I gained a few pounds. Which is not surprising considering how many pounds of Fondue I ate.

Leah’s favorite backyard activity must have been collecting rocks. Dirk and I took her out behind the back yard so that he could run the dogs a bit more, and she started picking up rocks as best she could and when he noticed that she could only carry three at a time, Dirk set out to get her a pail. Turns out a Tupperware bowl is a lot like a pail. Especially when filled with rocks. From then on, we where in serious rock collecting mode. So the rock beds all around the edge of Monopuss Manor were really handy.

We didn’t say at their house the entire time, though I would have been happy to hang out there — between the back yard, the dogs and FotC on OnDemand, I really didn’t want to leave. However, we were in CO, and there were fun things to go do. And we did a few.

First one was the Air Force Academy. Which is across the street from their place. Kelly and I being a couple of AF brats, we had a good time. Checked out the Chapel and looked at a few planes on display. Pretty fancy campus. We went from there to the Olympic Training center and wondered around. We were there late so they didn’t have any tours still, but Leah had a good time running around in the little courtyard.

The highlight of our excursions had to be the Zoo. We went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, which was a really fun little place. Little miss was pretty overwhelmed while we were there, but was also very interested in everything. She was clearly tired but never got fussy. Just went hard until she crashed in her stroller.

I know I have been really bad about about keeping up with my blog. In the past I would make long senseless posts about wushu between the fun adventure posts. Well, since I haven’t been doing much of that (and when I do I mostly just work basics and get sore), I don’t have that stuff to post about. Now, there are more adventures, nearly all inspired or caused my the little miss, but work has been nuts so I am falling behind on them.

I could replace the wushu posts with programming posts, but I am not sure that is what my audience (read: Kelly) wants to read about. Not that they wanted to read about wushu, but it was an easy topic that was constantly on my mind. So now that programming is my idée fixe I figured maybe I should write about that. So here goes: I just spend the last few days trying to figure out some weird C Runtime Library (CRT) issues with our new installer. We had always built things as multithreaded, not multithreaded dll, so it was never a problem. We would much rather have larger exe’s than to redistribute the msvc dlls. Well, turns out that you can’t build C++/CLI mixed mode code as multithreaded, so you have to dynamically link to the CRT if you want to build with /cli. Drat. I just want to statically link and be done with it. This was annoying because I didn’t notice until after I deployed on a machine with out the Visual Studio installed, and it would crash hard and give me this fancy FileNotFound error. I read all about manifests and how to embed them, but Visual Studio’s linker automatically does that for me – eventually I figured out that we were trying to use the redist dll’s from VS2005, but built out lib with VS2005sp1! Egads! Now that I have the correct version of the dlls, I think we are in business.

And that’s why they call them business socks.

Hmm, maybe, I shouldn’t write about that stuff – and if I want to I will need to make the articles useful, and that takes lot of time. Plus my audience really just wants to hear A) Stories about Leah B) Funny stories or C) Funny stories about Leah.

They would prolly love to hear about how Leah got my wallet, emptied it’s contents, stuck the post-it’s on her belly and handed me the empty shell with a big grin on her face. I think she hid one of my credit cards. Hopefully this is not foreshadowing.

Ride down: Well it didn’t start out so smoothly. Work exploded so Kelly & Leah went home to pack on their own and pick me up on the way out of town. Leah apparently wasn’t thrilled with this idea and has to get a playmate from down the street to distract her as Kelly packed. Then the ladies swooped in and picked me up. A quick dinner at Baja and we were on our way. The little girl was asleep before we hit 81 (and nearly hit a cayote). Things went fine for a while until we hit traffic and Leah woke up. She cried for 20 minutes or so while we pretended not to be there and eventually went back to sleep. We arrived at our hotel at 12:30am and there was a line to check in. We all got into bed and were happy to be near The Promised Land.

Friday we got up and Kelly had a stupid meeting on her stupid phone. So Leah and I decided to go to Walmart to play for a bit. But we got lost. They seem to have installed a dozen or so overpasses for no apparent reason. However, as a side benefit we discovered that nice part of Christiansburg – The Toy Station, antique shops, The Chocolate Spike, Dude’s Drive In and Due South BBQ.

Our adventures (and the less than normal night’s sleep) had tuckered out the little girl so we went back to the hotel for naps. Despite being exhausted Leah fought going to sleep and stood up in the Pack-N-Play looking around. Kelly & I had to dive onto the floor and army-crawl behind the bed so Leah couldn’t see us. Once Leah was asleep we moved to the bed and the three of us slept soundly for three hours! We all felt like new people when we woke up. And hungry people. Our dilemma: where to eat lunch. I told Kelly about Due South and she agreed that we should check it out – after all, the baby is a fan of BBQ.

Due South was great. The food was awesome and Leah rocked out to bluegrass. The only problem was that it wasn’t a nostalgic place for us. We decided that we should go there lots so that we could make it a nostalgic place and go there every time we’re in town.

From there we headed to the main event – Blacksburg. Kelly was getting nervous as we got closer and closer to town – it might not like her anymore – and all our driving around to find a good parking spot was just making it worse. Eventually we said any spot will do and got out to breathe Blacksburg air. We wandered around Steppin’ Out looking at all the booths and telling Leah things like “That’s where Daddy used to get his hair cut,” or “Mommy once sat on that bench eating ice cream in the winter.” The only thing we bought from one of the vendors (if you don’t count the tasty limeade) was a knit hat for Leah and headed off for the air conditioned book store to do some real buying.

Kelly has wanted to get Leah a cheerleader outfit all summer so she made a beeline for the baby section. We picked up half a dozen other shirts and a few little trinkets but not nearly as much as we anticipated. There were no “Hokies United” shirts and they won’t have more in until the end of the month. We could enter a raffle at Steppin’ Out but I think we’ll just order some when they’re back in stock. Man I wanted one of those shirts. We then proceeded to hit up every Tech paraphernalia store between there and our car. But not before spending some quality time on the Drill field since we had to introduce Leah to Kelly’s tree. Kelly and I just sat for a while and Leah ran around picking up leaves and whatnot.

Once it became clear that Leah needed to get a nap we headed back to the hotel. Unfortunately the baby fell asleep in the car and we didn’t have the heart to mover her. So we sat in the car. She woke up after about an hour and we were off to dinner. We’d already decided we were going to Bogen’s. I was a little ethrown off, because the menu no longer looked like a monopoly board, but the food was still tasty.

We headed back to the hotel and proceeded to prep the baby for bed. She was clearly tired, and we figured she would go to sleep quick and easy. We were wrong and wrong. I walked her. Kelly walked her. She was wired. This went on for a couple of hours. The elaborate forts we built to shield the us from Leah’s view went down, as we were just too tired to deal with them (and if we were gonna go to sleep right away, there was no point). If we were at home we would have put her in her crib and let to put herself to sleep, but we couldn’t do that in the hotel — especially after we found that she liked to entertain herself by banging on the walls.

Around 11 she was finally out, and so were we. Up early and armed with the knowledge that we were going to be kicked out of the hotel by 1, we set out to make Leah as tired as possible so she could have an early nap. We did what any good parent visiting Blacksburg would do. Head to the toy department at Wal-mart. We also fit in a tasty breakfast at Cracker Barrel, with grits galore—but then it was back to the room for a nap.

We were smart and hung the DND tag on the door handle. Leah cooperated and crashed for us. We slept too. The house keeping lady banged on the door a little after noon. I opened the door and said no thanks. That woke up the baby and we were up for good. I’ll get you eh house keeping!

But we packed and loaded up the car and hit up Macado’s for lunch before the trip to the duck pond. We fed them our left over crusts from lunch and half a grilled cheese sandwich. Them ducks, they loved it. We even found a mama duck with a dozen fluffy yellow babies, and since they were babies Leah shared her stars. They didn’t eat them. I think they were too little to eat the stars. Poor ducklings, stars are good.

As we were headed into campus to make our way back to main street Kelly and I decided we were just too exhausted to last the rest of the day and headed back to the car to journey northward. We wound up skipping the home place, but it was the right call. We’s was tired.

Leah did great for the first few hours in the car. She was awake and mostly happy – eventually dozed off for about an hour. She came to about the time we hit I-66 and decided she had enough of that stupid car seat and wanted out. So she screamed. A lot.

We had this theory that she was hungry and wanted to run around for a bit. So we asked tom tom for suggestions and he lead us to Old Carolina Smokehouse in Hay marked VA – which was awesome. Leah didn’t want to eat or run around. She just wanted to not go back in her seat. So we ate and put her back in her seat. She screamed for most of the 45 mins home – which was not awesome.

Back at Ft. Truxion little miss was as happy as could be. Running around with her new orange and maroon pom poms, flogging the cats. Giggling.

I know this because she has taken to walking around only on her tippy toes. That, and she likes to climb. She is a mini Sherpa. Which is impressive because Sherpas are quite small. I even had a lady comment that leah was just learning to walk because “look how she walks on her toes.” That just proves that ladies can be pretty dumb. Take that toe-lady.

Last night we had a big accomplishment, followed by a bit of despair on our part. Leah figured out how to eat with a fork. She took an empty fork, speared a piece of tilapia piccata, and stuck it in her mouth. We cheered. She continued fumble around with the fork, occasionally getting more food, but mostly getting food close to her mouth before knocking it off the fork. The despair kicked in when we noticed she wouldn’t let us feed her, she had to feed herself. Moreover, she wouldn’t use her hand to pickup the food either, she was all about the flat ware. Eating took a long, long time. Luckily, Kelly figured out how to sneak in a few bites when Leah brought an empty fork to her mouth. Sure, it sped up dinner that night, but it might be reinforcing bad fork skills with tasty fish reward. Parenting is hard.

Leah turned one yesterday and we had the party to prove it. It was a few weeks of planning on Kelly’s part, then there was a couple of days of baking and prepping. Mostly baking. We baked 4 cakes, carved one into a penguin and added a few few basketfuls of cupcakes just for fun. Turns out that cake decorating is a really good grip strength exercise.

We were going to do practice cakes on Friday, so Kelly made a quick cake mix into a sheet cake and we carved it out into a penguin and iced it. Well, he turned out cute, so we decided that we were going to keep him for the party and promptly decreed that no one is to harm the penguin-cake and tucked him away in the fridge.

Saturday we made the Big bear and two little bear cakes and got to icing them up. It was also when we really had to get the house cleaned up nicely, if anything to make room for all the loot Leah was going to collect.

Sunday was beautiful, we couldn’t have asked for a nicer day. It wasn’t oppressively hot, or raining–just nice. Kelly and I headed down to the lake to setup and get ready, and found Nanjo and Kids there waiting for us. Our picnic area was nice and shady, with a polite breeze. We filled balloons, and set up table clothes and waited for Grandma to bring the birthday girl. Leah was pretty happy, I thought she would be in a better mood, but she wasn’t unhappy by any means. She didn’t mind people holding her (except Todd) and was more than happy eating her little cake. However, she didn’t do face first dive into it, to my dismay.

I think all the kids had a good time–Everett, Neal and I played Frisbee with the older kids for bit. There was plenty of playground to handle the pandemonium.

Well I have spent the last two weeks a little under the weather. I am doing much better now, but it was a little rough for a while. The doc said that I had some sort of viral sinus infection. Hooked me up with some pain killers, antibiotics and a decongestant. I have finished the antibiotics, and am doing much better now.

This past weekend we took Leah for her fist Ikea trip. She loves shopping, always looking around at all the things to see, wanting to ‘get’ everything. Ikea was great as far as she was concerned. We let her run around and explore, fed her meatballs and potatoes. Well, I should say Kelly fed her those things. I gave her a fork full of lingdon berries right after we sat down and she made a very sour face and didn’t trust me to feed her again for the rest of our meal.

Last week Kelly and I actually got to have a date night. Grandma came over and swiped the baby from daycare and we had Thursday night to go out. We went and got tapas at La Tasca in Clarendon, which was made the lady very happy. She loves her some Tapas. We then went to a quaint little toy store and I bought Leah a book, which I am saving for her birthday.

After that we jumped in the car and headed home. I think we were in bed by 9:30, for sleeping. We are that Wild. 9:30.

I think we slept for 12 hours. It was awesome.

That next Friday the Tulli came into the city to return our child at M&S grill, but I had to work late and missed most of dinner. They had a spiffy little cubby booth in the back that Leah could run around under the table and look out the window. I eventually showed up just after dessert with C-Dub and we had a tasty beverage and fun apa-teaser.

Today Leah, Kelly and I were in the kitchen playin’ magnets and doing some dishes. Leah toddles over to the dishwasher in her normal baby like way and starts licking it. She turns around and says a few baby-gibberish things to Kelly who simply assumes that the little girl was trying to persuade her to join in the dishwasher licking. So my brilliant wife says “okay!” scoots over and licks the dishwasher too.

I just though that needed be said.

Yep, this morning she’s your daughter. Not mine, yours. I would never behave like she did.

So I put her in the car and detect a slight odor. I should have gone in and changed her then, but I figured we’d be ok and I wasn’t even sure I smelled anything.

When we got to Mrs. Malik’s I started putting her shoes on her and definitely smelled a smell. Pungent. (Ok, that sounds like she’s my daughter, but I never really agreed to that nickname.) She was getting fidgety (your daughter) and turned herself over in her seat and tried to climb up out of it into the front seats (your daughter).

As she stood up I noticed a rather large brown streak down the back of her darling pink pants.

Not knowing how liquidy said brown mess was I held her very gingerly as I carried her in.

We went straight for the changing mat and I wouldn’t let her sit down lest she soil the carpet too.

The brown mess was caked onto her pants and leg.

I cleaned her leg up some and laid her down to change her diaper.

I got the diaper off, I had her mostly cleaned up and then it happened.

She grinned, she grinned first I tell you, and then peed. Peed on mom. Or at least near mom.

She soaked her shirt, her sweater and her back. I’m surprised her hair wasn’t wet.

And she was giggling.

I got her clothes off of her and she popped right up and started trying to run around naked. She was as happy as could be. Naked and free.

I eventually wrangled her into some clothes and got myself and her super cute clothes cleaned up.

Your. Daughter.

No doubt about it.

It was definitely a more eventful morning than I had planned, but now I’m at work and will be in boring meetings until 4 so I guess I needed some eventfulness. And that definitely sounds like you.

Well I should run. And boy, it’s taken all sorts of self control to not call you and tell you this. But I wanted you to sleep.

Since it has been so long since I made a real post, I could tell you about my 20+ hour coding weekend or my fun out-of-the-blue promotion or other work things but we all know you are here for one reason, and one reason only.

Pictures of the baby. Now, I may be wrong, and you would rather me drone on and on about wushu nonsense, but I am gonna go with my huntch, and simply leave you with Leah in photo awesomeness form.

There is toys in this here chest Bath duck gets kisses.

Gettin’ some stars

Catch Dad!