Animal Sounds

I forgot sheep, "baa", and horse "neigh!".

Halloween

So this last weekend was Halloween, and of course Judi and I had our 6th happy anniversary.

Annemieke was a skeleton this year and of course she made a very cute one at that. I am surprised at how tolerant of the hood she was. We went to the Joan and Ray Kroc Community Center to a free carnival, and sa all sorts of fun costumes. Of course with Mieke being so young, we mostly watched, but there was apple bobbing, fishing for prizes, a haunted theater, cookie decorating, pumpkin decorating, tie-die, a craft fair, all kinds of fun decorations and of course food.

There is even an ice skating rink, and I got to try that for the first time! I didn't even fall.

Pumpkins!

Pine Cone

Of course things are still busy, but that is still no excuse for not posting an update or two! Some of the amusing things Annemieke has done lately:

* She makes animal sounds for cat, wolf, snake, lizard, elephant, lion, and murloc.

* Told the cat to get out of her room at bedtime- she pointed at the cat and said "nout!".

* Is now liberally saying "no". Do you want more milk? No! *shakes head* Can daddy have a hug? No!

* Preempts the signing time DVDs. She'll make the signs at the intro to each section at the black and white text when they speak the word, before they even show the sign.

* "Kisses" by sucking in her cheeks.

* Will cover her eyes if you say "dark".

* Will tripod with her head on the ground if you say "upside-down".

* Follows instructions very well. Too well. "Can you put the towel in the hamper"? Can you put the car in the box"? "Can you give the pine cone a hug"?

* Tries to hug kids in the child care center at the Y.

* Tries complex words. Rutabaga: "rubrubrubrub". Avocado: "avavavav".

* She is now obsessed with bubbles, which she calls "gaga" for some reason. She will sequentially hand us a cup and then soap in the shower, insistent we make "gaga" for her.

* She has some concept of self now. If I ask her "where is Mieke" or "Where is you"? she points to herself.

She's a funny kid.

Motivation

It was like a switch was thrown...

She went from a few hesitant steps to double-timing in in about fifteen minutes. All I needed to do was give her a little bit more motivation.

Surgery and a Bunch of Videos

First, a few shots of Annemieke. She is learning new things all the time, and it is a great deal of fun to watch. We made a couple of trips to the zoo recently- once with my family Easter weekend, and once since then. I'll attach a few photos I've taken since our hike, and upload some random videos I shot of Mieke.

I/Travis had a stapedectomy surgery performed on my ear a week ago Monday, which means they took out my calcified stapes (stirrup) bone and replaced it with a prosthetic. It was an outpatient procedure, though I'd never been under general anesthesia before. Given all of the other help issues people in the family have had this year- stents, brain inflammation, broken hips, spinal surgery, radiation treatment, and aggressive cancer, it seems rather insignificant. I was back at work in a few days and I feel great.

I can't hear much from my left ear since the prosthetic hasn't "opened" yet (it generally takes two to three weeks), plus it is stuffed with packing and my ear is full of fluid. It will be a few weeks before I will be able to hear much, and know how much hearing I got back. There is a small chance the prosthetic shifted (3%) but there is no way to know for now. The biggest downside is my list of restrictions, which includes not picking anything up over 10 pounds. Annemieke weighs about 18 pounds now... so we've been doing floor play, and the nanny is staying until bedtime every night. It is an expensive solution, but I don't want to risk having to go back in for a touch-up surgery.

I can't thank Judi enough- she's been superwoman taking on extra duties- taking care of Mieke AND me, and taking on extra duties around the house, as well as going to her own job. I am also extremely grateful to my parents, who came up on Saturday and watched Mieke while Judi was at work- AND cleaned the house and helped out in so many ways. Compared to what others in the family are dealing with, the past eight days have been a walk in the park for us, but it is still not easy.

Annemieke is still learning new things all the time. We made a couple of trips to the zoo recently- once with my family Easter weekend, and once since then. I've attach a few photos I've taken since our hike, and upload some random videos I shot of Mieke.

And since I use YouTube, I'll just link the videos. They are just Annemieke doing random things. We found the exact same "Frog Music Table" thing Chris and Nay have at the used baby toy store, and since she enjoyed it so much we bought it for her.

"Water": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQOYPT6Z9b4

"The Wall": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nrc707EGIAw

"Flowers": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIAj8Zpnxq4

"Sharing": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1gMSdPh3Ts

"Stairmaster": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C04yDCJW_E

"Dancing Girl!": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOp1Pk-U5fs

"One Page Book": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtLK-FCMjgc

"Yogurt Wizard": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCUs6SGuPuw

Mission Trails in Green

Judi, Annemieke and I went on a nice hike after breakfast this morning through the Grinding Rocks Loop of Mission Trails park. We got some coffee for the trip, put Mieke in the Ergo, and headed into the park. It is very nice to live so close to the park and the visitor center, we were there in three minutes (and I have been hiking the Cowles Mountain trail more lately as well, since it is so easy to get to and the Ergo makes it easy to take Mieke). It was a wonderful, cool, overcast morning which are my favorite hiking conditions. There was a cool humidity in the air that filled the entire gorge with an herbaceous aroma of sage and other scents.

I have not seen San Diego this green in a very long time- at least since the winter 2004/2005 rains, and this may be the greenest I have ever seen it. Since November there has been at least a little bit of rainfall every seven to ten days, interspersed between unusually warm and sunny periods, which has kept all of the flora growing. Flowers are exploding everywhere, to the regret of my sinuses, though delight of Mieke who very much likes them. Everywhere I looked in the park I saw all sorts of plants in numbers I have never observed, and a throngs of flowers. We're due at least one more storm which is expected to roll in tomorrow, so we should get a few more weeks of this green before it is baked into summer brown. We also saw some intrepid baby cottontails and numerous birds.

Here are a few shots from the hike, with a link to Picasa below for some additional shots.

http://picasaweb.google.com/arlanthe/2010Apr11MissionTrails#

Seismic Disturbance

Well, we’re back. I’ve been meaning to resurrect this blog for some time, starting ohhh… about a year ago. Actually living life seems to get in the way of blogging about it however, but I finally decided that there is never going to be a “good” time to sit down and create updates, and that I will just create blog posts here and there as I can. There certainly is plenty for my family to blog about though- these pages are stagnant not for lack of news.

It is interesting that Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube seem to have supplied the “connected” among us with a sort of immediate gratification in posting pictures, videos, web links, and snippets of personal news. These are great tools, but there is something lacking in the abrupt and constantly shifting nature of these services. Blog posts seem like a better method of going into a topic in more detail, even if it takes a little bit more effort and the audience is smaller. (Though I am still a huge proponent of using an RSS feed, such as Google Reader for those of you with Google accounts, to monitor blogs and other web pages).

So of course the big news this week is the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck South of Mexicali on Easter Sunday. Judi, Annemieke, and I all felt it in San Diego. Judi had a rude awakening from her nap, and Mieke and I were sitting at the computer when it struck. It was the strongest earthquake I have felt in San Diego in the 10.5 years I have lived here, and was the strongest I’ve felt since I lived in the Imperial Valley (which is where the epicenter was, on the Mexico side). It lasted for quite some time, and the building swayed a great deal and creaked and popped. Nothing appeared to have fallen over, and there was no damage. A series of aftershocks followed, several of which we felt through last night.

My family was actually headed back to Brawley from visiting us in San Diego when the earthquake struck (Brawley being not too far North of the epicenter, along the same San Andreas fault complex). They had almost arrived back in Brawley when the earthquake struck, having just gone down Carter road three minutes before the event. The image below shows Carter road in the immediate aftermath of the quake- note the main canal on the right overflowed its dirt banks, and flooded the road with water and mud. That spot is where my family was driving three minutes before the quake. Their house was tussled some, but there was no major damage, although apparently some streets in Brawley were flooded with water from all of the swimming pools that overflowed. My uncle Joe, 20 miles closer to the epicenter, reported that the water came out of his pool higher than a person “like a tidal wave”.