Lost toy

Last summer, I took Adam and Dova to the playground. She sat in her stroller with a couple of rattles while he would climb, slide and swing. I pushed her around in the stroller and nursed her when she got fussy, but for the most part, she was happy just watching Adam frolic. Near the end, I noticed that she dropped one of the rattles. It was a Sassy rattle that had a clear ball on the end that would spin. Adam loved it as a baby, it was well chewed, scratched and worn. I even drew a picture of it in the favorite toy section of his baby book. He would spin the ball really fast with his "move", which was the first physical thing he was excellent at. I became obsessed with finding it, but to no avail in all those wood chips. I finally left the playground with 2 tired kids and without the toy. I was so sad about losing this toy, even though Adam didn't really care. I thought about getting a replacement one, but it wouldn't be the same without Adam's teeth marks in them. Besides, Dova really didn't like rattles, she always ended up hitting herself in the head with them and crying. Maybe I was just sad that I was losing a piece of Adam's babyhood.

I should have realized that this was just the start of a trend with her. She "loses" stuff all the time and can trash a room within seconds. The OOD (obsessive organizational disorder) in me is really pushed to the limit. There is still one missing puzzle piece that I can't find. Most stuff usually shows up within a week or so. Adam is showing signs of this disorder as well. He became obsessed with a car (one of about 100) that he couldn't find, and we finally found it a year later inside another toy. Well, at least we have tons of her favorite object, burpies.

My perfect pitch is going flat

Sometimes when I listen to classical music on the radio, I hear it in the wrong key, a half key flat (or they are playing the stuff too fast!). If I know the piece, I'll stop and say, wait that's supposed to be in E flat, not E, and so I force my ears (or brain) to change the pitches (or labels of the pitches) I hear. Then suddenly the piece goes from sounding kinda flat and dull to very bright and cheery (from the flat side of one key to the sharp side of the other key). The piece will slip back once in a while and I have to shift it in my mind again. It is fairly easy to do with pieces that I know, but difficult with pieces that I don't know. If the key of an unknown piece is announced beforehand, and then I hear it flat, I can't change the key in my mind in that first listening. When the key is announced after the piece and I realize that I was listening to it in the wrong key, it is very disconcerting. Other times, I hear it the right key, and I think, whew, my perfect pitch isn't going flat. I wonder if my piano is just a little too flat and is affecting my perfect pitch (it is just a hair flat, but really not bad at all). And then there are some recordings that I have that are simply so sharp that I can't change the key in my mind at all. I recently got David Oistrakh (who I called david ostrich when I was a kid) playing the Bach E Major violin concerto, which I love, but I keep hearing it in F and it is all wrong!! It is so bad that I can't listen to the recording anymore. If only I could just listen to it like someone without perfect pitch and simply enjoy the music!

Easter Beauty

Easter Bunny

Does using the DVR = reading?

In March, I learned that Sara, a girl from Dova's daycare, read a 20 page Dick and Jane book to Dova. She is 3 years and 5 months old, a year younger than Adam (minus 2 weeks) and was "the baby" when he was there. I was simply amazed, then immediately went home to get Adam seriously started on reading. I told him that Sara could read and he should start learning (big mistake). He just outright refused, "I don't want to learn to read!" And then I remembered the same stubbornness with the potty training, which took close to a year!!

But we've slowly infiltrated reading into his life. He always wants to watch his favorite show on the DVR so we tell him to scroll to the name "The Magic School Bus" to play it. And now he can find "Erase" afterwards. He sits there fast forwarding through the commercials (although some of the commercials he seems to like) and can work the remote like a pro (male gene of course). So is it reading? Hopefully it is a start.

To iPod or not?

My friend George (Mr. latest gadget) tells me that the future is all in consolidation of devices. He has this Pocket PC from Sprint that is his cell phone and PDA. It has free AIM with his internet access (unsavvy losers have to pay by message) and provides wireless internet access to his laptop anywhere. He also has a bluetooth headset and a GPS attachment (OK, that is REALLY cool). All this because I laughed at him for still having his black and white Palm V, when I had upgraded to a Palm Zire 71, just so that I could have nice hi-res color photos of the kids.

In reply to his smart phone, I simply say that I'm not about to shell out $450 for the phone and $10 extra per month for internet access (which is probably not available with my super cheap $9 cell phone plan). I just got a new camera flip phone for $10 after rebates. Then again I did pay $180 for my Palm (reconditioned one in 2003). Now I'm considering an Photo iPod 30GB. That would be another $350, so we are getting in the range of that darn smart phone. What should I buy then?

I bought the Palm from proceeds a digital camera ($210) and MP3 player ($76 for a 96MB digisette player which you could put into any cassette player) thinking that I would be getting a camera and MP3 player in the Palm. With a 256MB SD expansion card, it was a step above the old MP3 player, but still not enough for music, Audible books and podcasts. I am constantly shuffling the contents around to fit. The camera is only good in a pinch, and certainly better than the silly camera phone.

Then I read this article in TechnologyReview.com - Will Cell Phones Dethrone the iPod?. They are right, some things are best when you get the dedicated device. You don't really want to surf the internet on your PDA, you use a computer (although Google on a product while you are in the store would sometimes be handy). You use a real digital camera for taking pictures. And you use the iPod for music.

I always thought the iPod would be so much better if they put a real processor and operating system on it so you could do all your PDA stuff on it as well. It already has that huge hard drive for it. The iPod Photo is cool addition where you can just hook it up to your TV. The screen is still too small - smaller than my Palm. Years ago, I said I would get a laptop when they had high speed wireless internet (a pipe dream when 56k modems were high end). Now wireless is everywhere, and now I have a laptop. Should I wait for the iPod to have more capabilities, or should I just get one right now? NOW NOW NOW??!?!

Spring is here!

Our first laundry hung outside this year. Just last week, the yard was still covered with snow, but the past week has been 60-70s. This little girl can spend all day outside. Here she is seeding the yard with clothespins.

Adam the photographer

I finally bought him a $30 1 megapixel digital camera from eBay and he takes wonderful pictures (of course!). His subject matter is definitely "different" but comes up with wonderful photos like these.


Here is an action shot that he took of Dova whacking herself in the head!

Two snowmen in one day?

It was crazy, since I was trying to get over my 2+ month long illness. The day before we were out trying to get all the heavy wet snow (1 foot of perfect snowman snow on March 12th) off the trees so that our driveway could get plowed. Two days later I was at the doctor's again getting a second round of antibiotics. I had to make one on the deck for Dova because she kept watching us in the window. I asked Adam how long he thought the snowmen would last. I guessed 10 days. He guessed 100 days!! I told him that in 100 days it will already be summer. In actuality, the little snowman fell over the very next day, and the big one got decapitated about 5 days later and was a stump about half the size 10 days later. It was in the 40's and 50's the whole next week.

OMG!! Indecent at Walmart

Here is an old draft from October...
First the joke:

A blonde woman is walking down the street, with her blouse open. A cop is approaching from about a block away, thinking, "Boy, my eyes must be going, it looks like that woman's right breast is hanging out."

As he gets closer it becomes apparent that her breast is hanging out. When he gets face to face with her he says, "Ma'am, are you aware I could cite you for indecent exposure?"

She says, "Why, officer?"

"Well, your breast is hanging out."

She looks down and says "OMIGOD, I left the baby on the bus!"

And here I go..

After I visited with Dova at lunchtime, I went to run an errand at Walmart. Just needed some basic items, so I went from one far corner of the store for diapers to the other far corner for motor oil and then to the checkout. I went back to work, and stopped in the cafeteria for some lunch. Brought the lunch up to my desk to eat. An hour later, I stopped by my friend Jim's cube. I sat in his guest chair and then all of a sudden I noticed that only the top button of my blouse was closed, the rest were wide open!!! Holy smokes, I had been flaunting my stuff all that time through all corners of Walmart and the cafe and no one had said a word. Luckily, it probably hadn't shown if I had been standing up straight.

Kisses

It is wonderful how the kids love each other!!