Mark The Date 11/27/06

It finally happened! Lil'daddy has learned that he can climb out of his crib! I put him down for a nap, then heard Dadoom..., dat dat dat dat. I heard his feet land on the floor and as I hurried down the hallway to meet him, I heard his footsteps nearing the door. As I waited for him to open it, he stopped. We both waited on either side of the door in silence, making me think that he realized he shouldn't have climbed out. I reached for the door and as I turned, I felt his hand go for the knob. I don't know if he was more surprised that he was about to get out of his room or that I was waiting for him on the other side of the door. I scooped him up and gave him a quick once over as I brought him back to his crib. I took his pillows out, put them on the floor in front, told him not to climb out again and left the room. After a minute of crying I came in just to make sure I didn't miss any hidden bumps. I told him that I didn't want him to hurt himself by climbing out again and that I would be right in the next room while he napped. It's been a few minutes and he's seemed to have fallen asleep. Whew! I guess we're converting the crib to a toddler bed this afternoon! Tonight's bedtime should be fun!

Frankly I'm surprised it took this long for him to climb out - being the uber-climber that he is. Watching his climbing skill progression, I'm not surprised that he landed on his feet, but saying that I'm relieved he didn't land on his head is an understatement! ...I'm so relieved he didn't hurt himself.

Update: Thursday 11/30
We converted lil'daddy's crib to a toddler bed (3 sided crib with a low front) on Tuesday. All naps and bedtimes have been relatively uneventful so far. I thought for sure he'd try to come out of his room as soon as we put him down! He seems to like his big boy bed, and likes climbing in and out, but the bed looks funny to me with the new lower front. He's been sleeping in the crib the way it was since we took him home from the hospital! He's such a good big boy (but he's still my lil'daddy).

California Dreamin' (pics)

Just when you thought our front page bandwidth was going to decrease… …here’s some more pictures! I finally narrowed it down! This is less than 10% of the keeper pictures from our San Francisco trip. I can’t believe it’s been less than 3 weeks since we got back; seems a lot longer. I miss the long hilly walks lil'daddy and I made criss-crossing the city.

I think we’re going to have shrimp for lunch in memory of our trip. When I took ‘the shrimp eating shrimp’ pictures lil'daddy had finished a shrimp cocktail (with 4 jumbo shrimp) and was going one-for-one with me on a pound of peel’n’eat shrimp in a garlic butter sauce!

Enjoy the pics… San Fran ‘06

Yummmy Yum-o Cocoa Apple Bunt Cake

So about a month ago Counting_Blessings and I decide the best way to make good use of the bushels of apples we picked was to make a Cocoa Apple Cake recipe that we found on AllRecipes.com. We doubled the recipe and used a small loaf pan and a small Pyrex baking dish. It was so good I decided we needed to go out and buy a proper pan! Bunt pan shopping we went. John and I perused the floor-to-ceiling warehouse shelves of various bunt pan designs; Your choice of materials, coatings, colors, and designs. I realized I was in too deep when I was considering a pan that would protect the cranium of a tank gunner from a roadside IED. -Such a solid piece of extruded craftsmanship that would befit the manliest of men; that would have my bunt cakes looking like the defense funded offspring of an articoke and rosebush. I don't remember the cost but I may have needed access to national defense funds to finance it. That is when I had to step back and regroup. Instead of the top of the line uber-pan I was headed for, we came home with a more budget priced silicone pan for at least 1/5th the price. I've heard how great silicone bakeware was so I was excited to try one.

A few weeks ago, we were getting together with some friends and I had the chance to make the cake once again but this time in their special bunt pans. BTW the only place I'd use 'bunt cake' in a sentence previously would be in reference to "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" (Quotes: "There's a hole in the cake!", "I fixed your bunt cake!" ...great movie). Anyway we had to leave the cake home because we were running late for the party. About halfway through the party, on separate sides of the house, the ladies were discussing the latest moves from their hip hop dance class and the guys were contemplating going out for another beer run. In my own defense the ladies were in the living room and the guys were in the kitchen, when I actually said, "If we swing by XY deli than we could stop by my house to pick up my bunt cake... [pause] [silence] ...I baked a cocoa-apple cake for tonight... [pause] [blink] ...we were running late and left before it was done." The guys didn't know what to say. I got a couple smirks and blank stares. I think they were waiting for the punch line. There was none.

The Cocoa-apple bunt cake did eventually get to the hosts of the party, albeit a day late, and they did rave about it, but I was disappointed that the cake stuck to the mold in some spots. Non-stick was one of the reasons I went with the silicone pan. I sprayed the pan with a non-stick spray before the cake batter. I figured I'd try using some flour on the mold or I'd butter it up before I gave up on it completely. I'd even try to use some Crisco if I had to. I vented to a few people that I thought would have baking or bunt pan experience. This post is to let everyone know that IT WORKED! After a light dusting of flour on top of the non-stick spray... no sticking whatsoever! Perfect mold. The cake slid right out of the mold and the pan practically cleaned itself! Thanks everyone for hearing me out and offering suggestions. I'd take a picture of the cake but what good would that do. Come on over for cake and coffee!

In my frustration and then joy over the bunt pan, I decided for write an epinions review! I don't think the guys will ever understand!

UGH! Passwords!

On Monday evening, I was prompted on my work laptop that I needed to change my network password. No grace log-ins, no warning period, that was it, had to change it. So I did.

Tuesday morning - yesterday - I arrived at work at a very early, ungodly hour to finish some last minute deliverables on a project. Pop my laptop into my docking station, boot up, try to log-on --- AND I WAS LOCKED OUT. Tried restarting. Tried my new password, my old password, nothing worked. Locked out of my Windows accounts at 5:30 AM. Apparently my network password and windows pw did not sync up as they should. I call the Help Desk, noone will be in until 8:00 am. Consider options:

1) Go home and take a nap.
2) Find a conference room and take a nap.
3) Wake up an IT Admin that I don't know at 5:30 to reset my account.

#1 and 2 sounded very appealing, but were not going to help my morning workload.

On a lark, I walked the 7-minute walk to our IT area. I almost kissed the IT Tech that I found there. Can you reset my account? YOU CAN? AWESOME!!!!

I figuratively skipped back to my desk and got a nice large cup of coffee to start the day.

Coming Soon: San Fran Pictures

We've had a couple queries into the existence of lil'daddy pictures from San Francisco. We can con firm that in fact, they do exist. Record shows there were about 150 pictures from that 7 day period of time. After tossing the blurry and poorly exposed shots, there were still over 130 pictures. Thirty-two pictures have now been selected for photo processing. When we whittle that down to about half that number, hopefully soon, pictures will be posted. The question of which is more round, lil'daddy's head or the dome at the Palace of Fine Arts, remains to be seen.

Our Phonics wizard!

For a while now John has recognized the spelling for some written words and can recall the spelling for some said aloud. We have been working on phonetics and sounding out words. We do a lot of story reading with him and lately we've added a few stage 1 and 2 Ready-to-Read and Step-into-Reading books focusing on the actual words. We spell with crayons, pencils, pens, markers and magnetic sketch pads. October 7th lil'daddy legibly wrote his name (yes I noted the day) We've been trying to catch him sounding out letters on video when we think of it. Mommy got some good footage tonight...



Guess it's working. We're so proud of him!

The tools to get the party started...

What tools were you thinking about?