Updated some photos as well, it is now residing in Imagestation. Didn't want to clog up more of my webspace, because the videos take up quite a bit of space. Eventually I'll probably end up archiving the videos to Imagestation as well, if they let me.

I've been Suzy Homemaker today, except not Suzy. Maybe Bob Homemaker. Just doing dishes, making bottles, making dinner, baking a cake and putting lots of frosting on it - just being rather domestic. At the same time I was encoding the videos for the website, when I found out something quite amusing. Alex enjoys watching the videos of himself on my computer, smiling and cooing and laughing at himself. It's the most adorable thing. How he evokes so much happiness in me is really quite amazing, considering he's not even trying to be funny. He's just being happy and that's all it takes to put a smile on my face. Not quite sure if he's thinking it's another baby or if he is aware that it's him on there. He could very well just be reacting to the happy baby tone that the other baby on the computer is making, and he's greeting him back.

Besides that, we've been thinking a little about Peanut. We have a friend to watch Alex on the day of the ultrasound, and I'll probably have to take that day off and maybe the day after if my wife decides to do the amnio. In a way, knowing early and more about it is definitely helping us prepare.

Today has been a somewhat difficult day for JL and I. I went downstairs and I noticed something odd, a movement that she made that was uncanny. Basically she's not allowed to eat in the living room because she's messy and doesn't pick up after herself, and we have a white couch on top of that. Well, she was eating bread when I came down, so she attempted to hide her bread under the couch and pretend she wasn't eating it. So I got upset and told her to pick it up and vacuum the crumbs under the couch, and walked away, fuming. Like I told my wife, if she was eating the bread and I saw her, all she had to say was sorry, and all I would've said would be, "Go eat in the kitchen." But the fact that she tried to cover it up (Martha Stewart, have you not learned?) made me furious. My wife later told me that I should just go ahead and yell at her next time, instead of moping about it and holding a grudge.

We've been having a tough time with JL lately - her grades are borderline failing and she has little regard for her school work. If we didn't pry into her grades through email and the internet, she would be failing completely. And after we confront her about the work, she would just give nothing but excuses - it would be the school's fault before it was hers. Even after we find out that a lot of it can be saved or made up - if it was not for our intervention, she would still be pulling F's and D's.

JL's a good kid overall, and it boils down to this: She's not doing her job. She's not fulfilling her role. Each and every one of us is pulling our weight, doing what we're supposed to do, and the fact that she isn't is really making me shifty. I mentioned something earlier in the blog about being functional human being... She used to have chores - now she doesn't. Not a single one, except that her room has to be clean and she needs to do her own laundry. She doesn't do dishes, take out garbage or clean the cat box. I don't like cats, and I clean the cat box.

We have three cats. It's a toxic dump.

So she has no chores, we don't really make her babysit, she's not working, has no after school activities, and the other time we ask her to do any type of picking up or cleaning is when she makes a mess. She is essentially free of responsibility, except to be a student. And she's not doing that well. She's not stupid, not at all. In fact we think she's quite intelligent with lots of potential. But she just doesn't take any responsibility.

I suppose it's just teenage stuff, but it's driving us crazy. I have to admit that my high school grades weren't stellar, but I did have some pride about stuff I did. I'm also quite aware she might read this - which is fine. Because I don't know what else to do.

Kids are fun!

More videos of the best baby in the world! Check on the right sidebar for all three new videos!

In the middle of all this exciting new developments with Alex and his new tricks, I'm going to be serious for a moment.

My wife went to the doctor's yesterday to do a routine blood test, to test for markers for genetic disorder and so forth. We went to the doctors today and the doctor told us that one of the markers did come up - it wasn't Downs Syndrome, but it is probably Trisomy 18, or Edward's Syndrome. We did some reading on it on the web and it sounded like how the doctor described it.

From what we know, it is a rare genetic disorder and it is essentially when there are three chromosome 18s, instead of 2. This causes some serious problems for the baby and the infant mortality is really high. 10-20 percent of the infants will die within the first month, 90 percent will die within a year. I don't know that much about it and wouldn't like to just speculate, but you can read about it on the web. We have a 1 in 40 chance that our baby will have Trisomy 18.

We're handling this news on different levels - we're overwhelmed with the news but don't really want to react too much until we find out for sure. We're scheduled for a high resolution ultrasound on the 15th of this month, and will probably do an amnio to find out if our baby's fine. There are 39 possibilities that we will have a healthy peanut, and we're banking on that.

Wish that Peanut is well for us.

The Joys of Aging

I read somewhere once when a human male gets older, all that testosterone eventually dwindles out of the body and something either similar to estrogen or maybe even estrogen itself will begin to build up, therefore driving out all these male desires to procreate, act macho, and kick puppies. They begin to become a more idealized version of a male - emotional, wanting to be in a loving, committed relationship, and enjoying long walks on the beach.

And I'm almost there.

First thing is how I'm starting to appreciate certain things more, even though I could care less about them before. Now that the days are starting to get longer and the pink hues are returning with the sunsets, I feel all nostalgic and happy that the world is beautiful and so forth. I'm also getting quite emotional about certain things. On a good day, I will curse at my wife for crying at something silly because I'd be crying too. Then we'd laugh at each other and make more babies.

Anyway, the other thing is that in the past, when I was a strapping young college boy, I would stay up late at night watching boy movies and surfing the web for inappropriate anatomy lessons, and then wake up about 5 hours later and go to classes, then work, and go home and do it all over again.

Now, if I get any less than 8 hours of sleep, I'm lucky if I'm only exhausted. If not, like right now, I will be nursing a crippling headache that renders me incomprehensible and terminally grouchy. I don't get just tired anymore, my ears will feel like they're burning, my eyeballs will throb, and my head will pound until I force myself to curl up in a fetal position and sleep for 12 hours. So after this, I will probably do just that. I already took an extra hot shower that lifted my skin off my body, so if I just stay warm I should be gone into hibernation to reset my brain. Good night, everybody.

Alex has a new trick, which is something that we'll probably chide him for doing later on in life for being rude, but since he's 5 months old, he gets away with it.

Raspberries!

The act of loosening one's lips and blowing air out of them. He's really adorable when he does that, and at times it seems like he's almost talking. Never mind he's saying, "Bahhhhh." It's his inadvertently of Sheep talk. Or perhaps he's being a Scrooge, as in "Bah, Humbug." In fact yesterday, I freaked for a while because it seemed like he said a three word phrase. Of course, being a good parent, I forgot what that phrase is, but it actually made me wonder if someone else said it.

I will post the raspberry video once it becomes available. My computer is busy encoding my short movies so that I can start putting my works on DVD. Since my mondo camera is in the shop, this will be a good side project for me.

Spent four hours of my life last night watching the Oscars, and I can't say that I don't like the Oscars, but it certainly is worth thinking about. I was thinking about this year's Best Actress, and the two years before that with Nicole Kidman and Halle Berry, and a weird trend seemed to be taking shape. Seems like Hollywood likes their leading ladies for their performances, and when they transform their beautiful selves into frumpy, prosthetic characters to portray pained individuals, that's just amazing to people. But at the end of the day, they're still beautiful actresses. Actors on the other hand, don't have the same set of criteria as actresses.

It's also a bit disturbing to see Billy Crystal naked for that long of a period of time. And did Bill Murray look pissed or what?

Yesterday was also one of the first times I actually lost the bet with my friend Jay. Every year we bet on who's going to take home an Oscar, and this year his preference toward Sci-Fi paid off. I lost by like 4 votes.

Well, that's all I got.