http://heSaid.purplehouseonpearl.com/ Liftoff to Space Exploration. en-us Sat, 12 Aug 2006 15:30:55 America/New_York Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:57:16 America/New_York http://heSaid.purplehouseonpearl.com/rss phop_rss_generator heSaid@purplehouseonpearl.com 10 http://heSaid.purplehouseonpearl.com/?entry_id=360 sheSaid and I have been trying to modify babySaid's sleep routine.  One of the main things we are trying to work on is getting babySaid to fall asleep with me instead of just with sheSaid.  So, while sheSaid was at a meeeting, We had an evening of just us guys.

We played, we called grandma, we read books, we wrestled...

And at that time, I noticed he was a bit tired.  I brought him downstairs and we sat together on the rocking chair and we rocked, and rocked, and rocked, and he was out.

For the first time in months, babySaid fell asleep for me.  And we rocked until sheSaid got home.

It was an amazing night. Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:52:44 America/New_York http://heSaid.purplehouseonpearl.com/?entry_id=360 http://heSaid.purplehouseonpearl.com/?entry_id=357 babySaid woke up at 7:30am this morning.  What is great about that, very little, as I didn't get to sleep until almost 3 am.  The little that is good about this though is so easy to quantify. He is such a joy when he wakes up.  He has the glee in his smile and high jumps around, and laughs and is just the picture of joy.  It is easy to get woken up to that, even at 7:30 am.

We had decided that we wanted today to be a day to catch up on laundry, catch up with the weeks worth of toys that we couldn't keep off the floor during the week, and try to reign in the kitchen.

Our house is often a mess, and we both want it clean, but some facts we have to accept, and we have to accept some of the choices we have made.

Fact 1) I am a semi-slob. 
Fact 2) babySaid is extremely mobile and curious.
Fact 3) babySaid is extremely mobile and curious.

That one deserves two slots.

Choice 1) We don't want babySaid to feel that he cannot touch anything. (Unless of course it will cause him bodily harm) So he will pull out all of his toys, pull out a load of books, and put them all in garbage cans.  This is an exciting new phase that he has shown us over the last few months.
Choice 2) I don't want to tell him No 50 times a day just because I fear he could make a mess.  I would rather him be happy, and the house be a little messy.  I am hoping that with this approach, outside of letting us all be happier now, we will be able to teach him that it is ok to look at something you are curious about, simply, please replace it when you are done.

So, with these 5 items, we need a day to catch up every so often.  And today, was a good day for it.

sheSaid folded 95% of the laundry, I folded the remaining 5%.  (I was taking a "I am not awake yet" tv break.  After I finally became coherent, Matthew helped me fold the rest, and we danced to the music playing, and we sang to the music that wasn't good for dancing.  When I was putting away the laundry, we played the, I can put it away faster than you can steal and unfold it game.  Although causing more work, it is so much fun to make him part of the cleaning and laugh about our mistakes.

We then worked together to clean up the kitchen and make lunch.  While my idea of the cross between a hamburger and a grilled cheese was somewhat a failure, babySaid had a load of fun playing with the spatula.  He seems to like spatula'ing my head.  Now, he is working with sheSaid to go down for a nap, and I thought this would be a good time to sit in front of the fireplace, and let everyone know about how good my day is.

Oh and a P.S. for a certain Uncle Namesake, When I called earlier, I was thinking of the timezone difference of Salt Lake City and not Seattle, so while I didn't feel bad about waking you up at 9 am, 8 am is a some cruel form of torture and if I had done it intentionally, I would deserve some sort of beating. -- So, sorry about that. Sun, 09 Nov 2008 12:20:08 America/New_York http://heSaid.purplehouseonpearl.com/?entry_id=357 http://heSaid.purplehouseonpearl.com/?entry_id=355 Starting a fun new project for me and babySaid, so please review the details under "funStuff".

P.S. Pass it on to anyone in the Normal Park or College Heights neighborhoods. Sat, 08 Nov 2008 20:39:21 America/New_York http://heSaid.purplehouseonpearl.com/?entry_id=355 http://heSaid.purplehouseonpearl.com/?entry_id=353 Elated:
::e-lat-ed::
–adjective
very happy or proud; jubilant; in high spirits: an elated winner of a contest.

Last night we elected Barack Obama to be our next President. This brought me an intense amount of hope.  And with all the political reasons aside, let me express to you why I am so elated about this election.

Reality now shows us that even when a black woman is talking to her son or daughter, she can honestly say, "You can be anything when you grow up."  Before now, this could have been stated, with the stipulation, "However, presidency might be out of your league."   But blacks are not the only people who benefit from this.  (Yes, I said blacks and not African Americans - The U.S. has many people who are plagued by all of the same atrocities that African Americans are, that are not from Africa)  This shows ALL minorities, that we can do it. 

From here on out, I know that I can tell babySaid that if he wants to be president, he can.  The Dominican part of of him will not hold him back from that dream.

This is a victory for minorities, world wide.  But it is also a victory for whites.  If I may go so far as to say, this is a victory for our country, united.  Perhaps the dream of diversity sans segregation is a true hope.  For the first time, people put aside their biases and voted to better our nation.

This is a win for hope, change and a lot of hard work.  While we have won the initial victory, remember that this is a battle we need to keep fighting to make sure that our success in putting the first black man in office, is followed by the support and effort of the country to allow him to accomplish the goals which convinced us, we could do it.

Yes, We Can!  Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:34:21 America/New_York http://heSaid.purplehouseonpearl.com/?entry_id=353 http://heSaid.purplehouseonpearl.com/?entry_id=352 Microsoft, per their own admission, has fooled the American public.

The Mojave Project was a trick to try to get people to see past the rhetoric around Vista.  They leaked that they were working on a new Operating system to replace Vista, and had some people who had never used Vista, come in and rate Vista, codename "Mojave".

People loved it.

But, they forgot one highly important thing.  These people were using systems built by Microsoft to support Vista.

Now, had they walked down to best buy, and gotten a system from the cheaper half of the store... would the opinion be so high?  The problem with Vista has rarely been how horrific it is without some points of reference. 

Few people can afford a system that will support Vista or Mojave. Even though, all systems are sold with it.

Nice try Microsoft, you still missed that mark. And frustrated me even further with your product base.  Now I feel your sneaky as well as overdone. Mon, 03 Nov 2008 14:26:22 America/New_York http://heSaid.purplehouseonpearl.com/?entry_id=352 http://heSaid.purplehouseonpearl.com/?entry_id=350 babySaid was AMAZING last night.  We went to 5 or 6 houses to trick-or-treat.  He would come up to the door, point at the decorations and say "Oh Yeah!"  He was especially fascinated with a blow-up Frankenstien across the street from our neighbors house.  He occasionally would see one of the little kids he know and chase them, but he would just run back and forth to the houses he liked and play in the yards. 

Then he started seeing big kids in costumes!  He would chase them pointing at their cool costumes, and just run and run!  Finally, after his 5th trip into our neighbors yard, he got tired and laid down in the middle of the side walk.  I picked him up and we walked home. He then informed us that he was joking and not really tired and needed to run around a bit further.

He remained this excited until finally he wanted to run around, but didn't have the energy to do so, and then sheSaid was forced to run around with him. 

Around 7:30, we ran out of candy. :(

But babySaid wasn't done, still too many kids in the neighborhood.  So we went to a neighbors house and stayed on their porch. 

babySaid then finished the piece of red candy that I gave him in place of a rock, and got red candy juice over everything and finally, it was the end of our Halloween activities.

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 09:54:41 America/New_York http://heSaid.purplehouseonpearl.com/?entry_id=350 http://heSaid.purplehouseonpearl.com/?entry_id=349 If you played, you would know.

I whooped him yesterday.  And overall it was gratifying because it was the first time I was able to shut that loser up since I walked into paradise.

But, I approached him, and shot him three times with my arrows, and he just died.

3 Arrows.

At least it shut him up!

Woot! Hoorray for a safer Tamriel! Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:38:20 America/New_York http://heSaid.purplehouseonpearl.com/?entry_id=349 http://heSaid.purplehouseonpearl.com/?entry_id=347 Recently, a blogger we chat with Caramama has recently outed herself as a geek, and asked others to do the same... What kind of geek are you?  She asks...

Well, I of course identified the standard ways I am a geek, but I left out the most important one!

I am working with some people at O'Reilly to publish a book!  It is not a shoe in, but they are interested in my idea and I am working on detailing an outline for them.  So Excited!

So, I am an uber geek because I am writing a book to teach others to be geeks! Yes! Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:35:56 America/New_York http://heSaid.purplehouseonpearl.com/?entry_id=347 http://heSaid.purplehouseonpearl.com/?entry_id=346 It all started when babySaid's Uncle Namesake came back to see us.  He is visiting us from Seattle, and took some time away to visit his parents.  He cooked Pineapple Curry for dinner for us that night.  We had a great family meal, babySaid loved  it.

Saturday, we went to the Ann Arbor Farmers Market, and Uncle Namesake ran into some old friends.  (And the pretty lady gave babySaid and I some fantastic apples.) Winter Bananas.  MMmmmmMMMmmmm.  I at 4 of them.  babySaid wasn't interested.

Then we went to an orchard.  There, we ran in to urbanEngineer, who ironically shares the same name with babySaid and Uncle Namesake.

We got some excellant donuts and cider, and went home in time to take babySaid on the neighborhood halloween parade.  babySaid was a star! (well, frankenstein, but a star!) grannySaid and GrannyMJ Met us at the after party, and saw babySaid in his costume.  He was so excited.

On Sunday, babySaid and I went shopping and for a walk. Uncle Namesake went to lunch with is friends from college and sheSaid actually got a break.  (There was loads of obliviating by all)

I then made a vat of Chili and Chicken Cashew Curry.  (We love curry.)  And then our old friend from Traverse City, ghostHunter came to visit.

And outside of babySaid diving head first into the corner of the coffee table, it was a perfect weekend.  (His head is better now, there is just a bruise.) Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:15:16 America/New_York http://heSaid.purplehouseonpearl.com/?entry_id=346 http://heSaid.purplehouseonpearl.com/?entry_id=341 I have never lost a loved one.

But I have this memory, one that I cannot shake.  The reality of it is too close to be able to push off.

I know that it was over 100 years ago. I was not of the upper class, I think I herded goats or sheep or something.  But, my wife was high-born. We were as happy together as we could be.  The only tension between us was the pressure she felt because of the difference in our status'.  It plagued her, and crushed her.  The beautiful child we had together could never be more than a burden to her.  Despite the utter joy that our little girl brought to us, she was shamed for having her.

I came home one evening, and found her, with slit wrists.  The pressure had finally become too much, and taken her from me.  Through my grief I saw logic and started frantically looking for my daughter.  When I got outside our home, I saw the back of her head, being escorted away with her grandparents.  She would be raised as a highborn person, and I would most likely never see her again.

I still have the images imprinted in my head of my dead wife, and our daughter turning her head to see daddy one last time.

I cannot forget.

When we were in our pre-parenting classes, we needed to do an exercise about sharing our fears with others.  I shared the fear that I would lose my wife and child.  It was great with, well everyone fears that, do you have something else?  I simply stated that they have no idea how real the fear is for me.  It is not just something in the back of my mind, "Oh, yeah, it would suck to lose your family."  But, everytime I see this image, I feel the sickness in my gut, and the onslaught of emotions that come. The grief the unsurmountable anguish, the questions about the value of your own life.  The type of grief that you can only feel if you have been there.

But in this reality, I haven't.  As stated above, I have never lost anyone close to me.

Last night I dreamt that sheSaid and I were driving in the car, I looked into the back to check on babySaid, and he wasn't in the car.  In fact, nor was his carseat. I asked sheSaid were he was.  She looked at me, with a tear in her eye and said, "you know very well that he died 4 months ago, when we gave him the vaccinations."  I then started to ponder how I could have forgotten something so horrific.  And I started thinking of what we would all miss because such an amazing life terminated early.  And I had forgotten this hardship.  I pulled over.

Complete meltdown.

I woke up, and didn't realize that this dream was wrong.  It was playing to my greatest fear.  And when I turned to look at sheSaid, I couldn't see babySaid. I broke down into tears before sheSaid rolled over and I could see that he was actually sleeping on the opposite side her and I just couldn't see him.

My morning was horrible.

But, babySaid and I needed to stop to get gas before I dropped him off at school, and he started playing with the sign this is protruding from the gas pump.  He would hit it, and giggle is it swing back and hit the back of his hand.

It is so amazing how one little person can move heaven and earth in my eyes, in a just a few seconds.  He brought me out of my concern and fear by simply being himself.

For someone who has never actually experience death, I have sure felt it, and at its worst. Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:45:26 America/New_York http://heSaid.purplehouseonpearl.com/?entry_id=341