I can hear that the little boy's woken up from his second nap, but I'm gonna squeeze out this entry before he explodes. Not much going on really, other than the fact that this is the first day I've had off whereby I haven't actually done anything.

And that feels so good.

So often we're entertaining, or we're out of town - it's nice to just be home, play video games, and for no good reason, run to the park so that Alex could grab the playground materials and have a ball. He's still not too sure about the baby swings, but then again he might be still upset about the haircut I gave him.

The thing about baby hair - it's not like normal hair. It's amazingly soft and flimsy, the kind of nice smelling hair you find yourself burying your nose in because it's so pleasant. Plus his hair's growing a bit unevenly, so it's long in some areas and longer in others. Since I don't really use a guide with a moving baby, I tend to guess what the best buzz would be. Right now, the right back of his head looks a bit silly, like someone's Dad didn't know any better and cut it. And so it goes.

Yep, not doing much of anything today. Doing a huge heap of laundry, but I don't suppose that's really interesting to blog about.

Really, really wanting to grab my hands on a Canon A80. Man alive. I feel a little different about digital photography than videography - videography is always stuff to edit, expensive tapes and endless tweaking. But digital pictures are all instantaneous. Everything you needed to do would be before the moment you snap that picture. Everything after that is just pure enjoyment at the beautiful shot you achieved.

Well, someone decided to make a racket and wake the baby up. So, the loungefest continues!

A couple days ago, some kid left a prank call, hooting and hollering gibberish on my answering machine.

I called back the number on his caller ID, and played it back to him and hung up.

My newest obsession

Every once in a while, my brain gets bored with the things that normally occupy it, and I pick something to obsess over. In the past, it's been an iMac, then my Sony VX2000, which is still the bomb to me, then a PS2, and now it's a new digital camera. My Olympus D-360L has served me well, but I think it's time to move on to better controls, better resolution, and better response time. My Mom found 2 Xbox games at the hotel, and since I don't have an Xbox, I was originally going to return them to a store and get PS2 games. But then my mind warped itself and now my plan is purchase a camera, using the 2 games that I returned as 50 bucks store credit toward my camera. Yes, I wasn't terribly honest about it, but the games weren't stolen or opened, and they can resell it no problems. Flexible ethics have to kick in to nuture my materialistic hunger.

So, I've decided on the Canon A80, which will be good for bigger pictures and better controls. I have no idea how I'm going to raise that money, but this is my new obsession. I won't be putting it on credit, but like a teenage boy, I will save every little penny I can spare to get that baby. Oh yeah, it will be mine soon.

There was something else that was exciting that was going on, but I've forgotten what it was.

Driving on the way back from home, I wondered if I was missing out on life by not participating on extreme sports, like skydiving, basejumping, bungee jumping, white water rafting and the like. Then I thought about the people who died doing it, and how their friends and family always said, "Well, at least he died doing what he loved."

And then I thought, well, I like playing my Playstation 2, but I don't wanna freakin' die playing it.

The Coolest Little Girl

We haven't been talking about our little girl very much, so I thought I'd mention her, since she is due to make her first formal appearance in less than two months.

My wife has had the feeling that she's dropped, because she is putting a lot of pressure on different things in her body. She's starting to feel Zoe have the hiccups and move more, though the pregancy has been a little easier in some ways, harder in others. Alex had more of an ill effect on my wife, probably because he was a little boy, but Zoe has been easier. In a lot of ways, she feels a little easier in huge part because my wife does not have gestational diabetes with her. With Alex, that meant weekly non-stress tests, constant monitoring of his heartbeat and activity, and doctor visits like crazy.

In whole, really, Zoe hasn't gotten even half the attention that Alex got. I think it's mostly because we've got Alex on our hands, and Zoe's been on the back burner, on the background on people's mind. We haven't gotten hand-me-downs or a baby shower for the little girl, so we've been feeling a little guilty because we haven't bought hardly anything for her. My wife hunkered down and got 4 outfits for her tonight, which was a good idea.

Nobody's to blame - we're up to our necks in Alex's tricks and random screaming, and when we're not doing that, we're working... so hopefully, we'll shape up and pay a little more attention to her. We're lucky in a way because we haven't gotten rid of any of our baby stuff or given it away, because we still need it all. We'll also have a fair amount of onesies and other of Alex's old clothes that are generic enough for her to wear out, and boy clothes that she can wear at home where nobody cares.

I wonder a lot about how she looks, whether she'll be like Alex with longer hair (which would be quite a while before that hair gets to be long), or whether she'll look completely different. My brother and I look very different. But all and all, here's a shout out to our little girl - we love you and we're thinking about you in there! Boogie Woogie!

Wife and boy watching the fireworks.

Pow! Happy Fourth!

Brendon and Maralise, our shiny happy friends.

B and M were babysitting for us while we went to the bathroom. There is a little man walking out of Brendon's head, evidently.

Reaching for the stars!

It was so cold that we had to put the little bear in his bear suit.

My beautiful and alluring wife!

Kite watching. I think.

Yeah, the horizon's a bit off. But the flag is hoisted upright!

The Fam!

I think I clocked in about 1000 miles in driving distance in the last week or so, just tooling around the state like a madman. Just drove my mom home today, after a 4 day visit and it was fun - but it's nice to get back to routine.

The Fourth was as usual, a blast. It was the first time Alex got to gander at the exploding shells of happiness, but since it was two hours past his bedtime, he was captivated for about five minutes before he turned his head and zoned out. Brendon and Maralise joined us once again, as we joked about how next year there would be three babies to juggle between all of us. We're still not sure if it was the third or fourth year we had been doing this, but I think we settled for the fourth go.

I really enjoy watching my mom play with Alex, I think in part because I get to see how she probably played with me when I was a baby. To see my mom get so uninhibited, cooing and chirping and loving her grandson is like a window into my own childhood that I have since forgotten (not purposely, just too young to recall.) Alex thinks his grandma's the bomb, he laughs and interacts with her pretty easily. On Saturday when I was driving my mom from Seattle back to Bellingham, I sneezed and apparently scared the bejesus out of Alex, who started to sob uncontrollably. I had to pull over the van and hold him and let him molest a stuffed Serta sheep to get him to calm down.

But listed above are some photos. I've been posting more pics because I feel like my writing's gone a little downhill. I take better photos than creating prose.

Banana.