One more cup of coffee

Brief update

It's been a while since I posted in here. Things have been going well. Nathan's teething pain is starting to subside; he actually slept eight hours straight each of the last two nights. On the other hand, Nathan has now decided that the act of actually going to sleep is a battle not to be surrendered lightly. And a rich battle it is, with feints, brief tactical withdrawals, and full-out assaults. He punctuates his maneuvers with a cry like that from a Fell Beast, then coldly announces that we are fools; that no parent can make him fall asleep. Then, finally, falls asleep.

It is sometimes a bit exhausting.

I took the day off yesterday and we all went down to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for Nathan’s first visit there. We weren’t sure what he’d think of it, but he loved it. Truth be told, half the time he was mostly taken in by people-watching, but a lot of the time he was totally entranced by the fish. We tried to take lots of pictures – something we’ve been bad at lately – so I’ll try to get them posted soon.

The child is getting bigger and bigger all the time. At his six-month appointment, he weighed 18 lb, 13 oz. Last weekend, we went out and bought him a new car seat, deciding that he had finally outgrown his infant car seat. Like good safety-conscious parents, we carefully read the Consumer Reports article on car seats so we could avoid those seats that prompted phrases like “…sending it flying off the test rig.” Not an image you wish to associate with anything holding your baby. Unfortunately, Nathan so far hates his new car seat. Hopefully he’ll get used to it soon.

I give up

Dear Spamming pond-scum:

(My apologies for slandering pond-scum.)

You win. The number of spam trackbacks I’ve been receiving lately has boggled the mind. The rich variety of URLs, many of them off by just a few characters, has overloaded my ability to keep the spam blacklist up to date. And since I’ve only ever had a handful of legitimate trackbacks, I surrender. I’ve killed trackbacks for all the entries on mohea.

Bah.

Life at Microsoft stories

“Watching the game of "Telephone" play out on the Internet”

Evil

The Bush administration is, according to recent reports, “lobbying to block legislation supported by Republican senators that would bar the U.S. military from engaging in ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment’ of detainees, from hiding prisoners from the Red Cross, and from using interrogation methods not authorized by a new Army field manual.”

New pictures

New pictures are up…

– Random Dodd family pictures (including a picture of Nathan’s first time pulling himself up to a sitting position)

– Nathan’s first visit to the Aquarium

and a new video, of one of Nathan’s first successful attempts at crawling forward.

Milestones

Three weeks ago, Nathan pulled himself up to a sitting position for the first time.

Two weeks ago, Nathan crawled forward for the first time.

Today, Nathan pulled himself up to a standing position for the first time.

…

At this rate, he should be riding a bike in another month or two.