Swordplay.net

So it’s looking like tomorrow will be the big day.  We’re going to the hospital at 6:30am to have labor induced.  Hopefully it will go quicker than last time which was 16 hours.  Keep your fingers crossed.

In my continuing effort to get all our media more accessible, I have put many of Ellie’s little video clips in one location on our Google Pics page.  It’s not the best solution, but it puts everything in one place.  If you have the bandwidth, be sure to click the “View HQ Video” link.  Go watch!

Baby, Blogging, Movies

You may have noticed some changes around here.  Believe it or not, my web server got hacked and filled with spammy links.  I ended up wiping out the old blog and rebuilding it.  So here we are.  But I figured this was a good time to give everything an overhaul since…

We’re going to have another baby!  Another girl!  And she is due any day now.  No promises, but there’s a decent chance I’ll have the requisite motivation to begin updating again.  I have to admit that this blog was a fantastic way to keep our family and well-wishers up to date about Ellie’s early days.

If you are one of the handful of people that have ONLY been following this blog, then you have missed a lot of pictures and other goodies.  You may want to start with the new Galleries page.  Or just take some time to enjoy some recent Ellie pictures:

Baby, Blogging, Family

Ellie is now a confirmed toddler. By that, I mean she toddles everywhere spawning mayhem and wreaking havoc. She leaves a trail of destruction wherever she goes.

It’s wonderful.

She also expresses herself much more easily now. She has an arsenal of words (or approximations of words) that convey her emotional state, her wants and needs. Many of her words are clearly understandable as either English or Spanish. Some are only understandable to her parents. Some are only understandable to Ellie, herself. Some examples are “Didoh” and “Bahdoo”. Personally, I find these words the most entertaining.

At 16 months old, Ellie is taller and heavier than many two year olds she knows. She still loves to read books, watch Sesame Street, and climb up and down stairs. She visits the playground almost every day, and enjoys swinging, riding in cars, and playing ball. She’s also fascinated by water in all its forms. She likes drinking it, bathing in it, splashing in puddles, and watching fish. Maybe she’ll be a sailor one day. We’re looking forward to swimming this summer!

And now for the good stuff. I’ve put a slew of new pictures online for your enjoyment. First, I added a bunch of to the bottom of Ellie’s April through June Gallery. Here is a prime example:

Next, I created a new mini gallery devoted to Ellie’s various zoo trips. So far, she has only been twice, but I hope to add more after each visit. Think of this gallery as an exotic safari through animal pictures, baby pictures, and unbridled cuteness.

Ellie at the Zoo

Finally some housekeeping notes about this blog itself. First, In case you hadn’t noticed, those of you that signed up for e-mail notifications about blog updates have not been receiving them. These notices just never worked properly and I finally disabled them. But I have an alternate solution. Keep an eye on your e-mail for more info.

Second, a fair number of spam comments have been slipping through my filters and appearing in random posts. Some of them are rather disgusting. I’ve been deleting them as soon as I find them, but some may slip through. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Baby, Blogging

As usual, I’ve been a recalcitrant poster. It’s not because I don’t love my readers. I do! But you know how it is. One day leads into the next, there’s always something to do, and then suddenly I haven’t posted in weeks.

To atone for my inaction, here’s a picture of Ellie with a cookie on her head: (She is going to be so mad at me one day…)

I’ve added several additional pictures to the latest gallery page. (Sorry, Mom… they’re the ones you’ve already seen!) And while you are there, please check out the spiffy new gallery software I’m using. Since I had to transfer my entire website to a new host, I decided to take the opportunity to upgrade. The new gallery is a lot more powerful and flexible. But unfortunately, it broke many of the links from older blog posts. At some point I’ll probably go through and fix them, but in the meantime you may find broken links.

As I mentioned, I was trying to find a good way to let people sign up for e-mail alerts for blog posts here. I found a good plug-in, but I haven’t gotten it working 100% correctly yet. But since I can at least manually send out notifications, I’ve decided to start letting people sign up. There will be a little box for this that lives over on the right. But for now, you can enter your email right here:

As for Ellie updates, there’s a whole lot to report. She’s such a joy to have in our lives. She is sweet and mellow most of the time and loves to examine things around her. Her naps still usually only last about 30 minutes, but every now and then she’ll take a nice long one. She is still chubby and jiggly. Every few days she adds a new sound to her repertoire. She is still rolling from back to front, but has not yet mastered the reverse, front to back. Although now she’s getting more comfortable with tummy-time.

I guess the big new development is that we have started experimenting with “solid” foods. And by “solid” I mean “mushy” things like oatmeal and apple sauce. At first she didn’t know what to make of these strange substances in her mouth, but after a few tries she figured out that she is supposed to swallow them. It was so cool to see her reaction the first time she tasted the sweet apples. Her eyes got super-wide as she processed the experience.

And while we are on the subject of Ellie’s mouth, I am pleased to announce that Ellie’s first tooth has poked through her lower gum! I’m sure she’ll be biting us in no time.

Baby, Blogging, Life

Eleanor rolled over by herself for the first time today! We’ve been expecting her to do so “any day now” for over a month, but today was the big day.

I missed it, unfortunately. Tara says Ellie was just kinda playing on her side and then gave a big kick and flopped over onto her tummy. And then, just as suddenly, thrust with her arms and went back on her back. We could not get her to repeat this feat later on for me to see, nor would she cooperate for the video camera. Oh well. Maybe she’ll be in the mood tomorrow.

Unfortunately, I got some bad news yesterday. The company that hosts this website is going out of business. I only have until July 1st to find a new host. Hopefully there won’t be any interruptions. But if this site vanishes for a few days, you’ll know why.

Baby, Blogging

I know, I know. Weeks upon weeks without a post! It’s disgraceful. Let’s hope that Eleanor inherits her work ethic from her Mom rather than her Dad. But I pledge to do better.

A lot has happened since the last post. But in the interest of actually publishing content, I’m going to start small. I’ll begin with the most recent information.

Ellie turned four months old last week. She went to the doctor today and had a perfect check-up. She is 15 pounds, 11 ounces of cuteness. She is 24 ¾ inches long. And she is reading on a seven month level.

Last weekend Eleanor went on her first swing ride. I’m not sure she really knew what to make of it at first. But I think that she ultimately enjoyed herself. Through the magic of Internetronics™, you can experience it for yourself!

I’ve also posted a number of new pictures in various locations. I finished off the Month 4 gallery with a few more pics, and then started the Month 5 gallery.

I have also created a separate gallery for pictures from Eleanor’s Naming Ceremony. I will go into more detail about the ceremony another time. It was such a wonderful day that it deserves its own post. But you should enjoy the pictures now.

In general Ellie is doing great. Every single day she becomes more and more aware of the world around her. She gazes at people, observing their every action, and seems to be especially fascinated by other little kids. She is also getting much better at manipulating objects with her hands and feet, and has a 86.375% success rate at getting things into her mouth. And she is still sleeping through the night.

Alright, I feel better now that I’ve posted. I’ll have more to say soon. By the way, would anyone be interested in some sort of notification system? Say, for example, you could sign up to have an e-mail sent whenever I update the blog? That way you wouldn’t need to fruitlessly check the site when I haven’t updated. Just a thought.

Baby, Blogging

First of all, I’d like to apologize for the lack of updates. It feels like I just blinked, and suddenly 3 weeks have gone by without a post. I suppose that’s the same process by which kids grow up fast. I’m thinking that I should probably start mixing up the content here by including some non-baby-related posts. More typical blogging stuff such as interesting links, general musings, or other happenings in our lives. Ideally I’d like to avoid these long stretches without new content. We’ll see how it goes.

And speaking of growing up fast…

Disgustingly cute, I know. Don’t you just want to grab her cheeks and pinch away? I finally put some new pictures online. But sorry, no videos this time. I’m actually working on a much longer video project, though it may take a while to complete. I will try to post another small, easily digestible video on the blog in the mean time.

So what’s Ellie been up to, you ask? A whole bunch actually. She’s been very social, attending a play group and going on several little trips to see family. We also had a lovely visit from Ellie’s adorable little cousins, Claire and Sophie. Ellie is a hit wherever she goes. Everyone approves of her cuteness and sweet disposition.

She still enjoys many of the same playful activities as she did last month, but she is much more adept at them. For example, l’d say she’s batting about .723 when it comes to reaching out and grabbing objects that interest her. That’s pretty good considering that last month she could only swat at things. Of course her favorite pastime seems to be just staring at her hands. Well, and the TV. We really need to curtail that habit…

Her personality has continued to develop as well. She smiles broadly at stuff she finds amusing. Making silly noises and faces seems to work best to elicit a smile. Every now and then we get a little giggle too. She’s also better able to just hang out on her own and entertain herself by looking at her hands, toys, patterns on furniture, etc. In fact, she is generally much more self sufficient. She is even able to wake up in the morning and chill out for a while without needing us right away. She still requires a fair bit of attention and/or cuddling to fall asleep, though. Fortunately, we don’t mind one bit.

Her most recent doctor visit went swimmingly. Well, except for the shot. She found that to be quite uncalled for. She is a solid two feet long and she’s just shy of fourteen pounds. She is still pretty chunky, but it’s more in proportion to her body size now. The doctor basically told us (yet again) to keep up the good work.

And Finally, I would like to report that Eleanor has been sleeping through the night! She typically passes out anywhere from 6pm to 9pm and is down for a good 8 hours. She’ll often kinda halfway wake up in the wee hours and want a quick feeding and then fall right back to sleep. But we still consider that sleeping through the night. Huzzah!

Baby, Blogging, Life

We recently mailed out the second batch of birth announcements and included an invitation to check out the blog. So if this is your first time here, welcome! You should definitely click here to get the scoop before reading further.

Baby, Blogging

Hello everyone! We recently sent out a large batch of birth announcements. Along with the obligatory cute baby picture and birth information, we also included an invitation to our little corner of the Internet. So many of you are probably visiting this page for the first time. Welcome!

Let me give you the lowdown. We decided that this would be the best way to keep everyone up to date on Eleanor. And, equally important, this page serves as a repository of all our baby pictures. You can always access them (and other various galleries) by clicking on Pictures over on the right.

I actually created this blog on the day we found out that Tara was pregnant. So you can really start from the beginning if you go back far enough in the archives. My posts between then and Ellie’s birth were somewhat erratic, and there wasn’t much baby-related topics to talk about… but at least I tried to get something online. Well now Eleanor is slightly over one month old, and thus I have had lots to talk about. For the full blow-by-blow account of our lives since her birth, go back and read the blog. But I will give a quick overview here:

• Tara was in labor for 16 heroic hours.
• Eleanor was born January 31st at 11:40pm, weighing 8lbs 5oz.
• Eleanor and Tara both recovered quite well and were released from the hospital after 2 days.
• Eleanor loves to snuggle and won’t sleep if she isn’t right next to us.
• Eleanor is quite mellow most of the time and doesn’t mind meeting new people.
• Eleanor is becoming very observant, spending a lot of her time examining things around her.
• Eleanor hates taking baths, but is getting used to it.
• Eleanor’s eyes are blue/grey, but this may change.
• Eleanor is exceedingly cute.
• Eleanor’s parents (and grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousins, etc) love her very, very much.

That about covers it. I hope you find this website useful. It’s certainly been fun to document Ellie’s adventures so far. Keep coming back to see how she grows! For now, click here to go back to the main page.

Baby, Blogging, Family, Life

Still no babies here yet. Tomorrow remains the scheduled day.

I made a couple small site updates to keep things fresh around here. The first is a contact form over on the right which can be used to send us messages. You might have noticed that no e-mails appear anywhere on the blog. Neither do our last names, home addresses, etc. I’m pretty paranoid about giving out too much info and/or getting unnecessarily spammed. So the anonymous and hard-to-abuse contact form is the way to go.

The next addition is much more fluffy in nature. The link on the front page of Swordplay.net formerly know as tripout has been changed to a more broadly defined illusions page. On it, you’ll find a randomly selected optical illusion for your enjoyment. At the moment, I only have 6 illusions in rotation… but I will hopefully be adding more in the near future.

That is, assuming I have time for such little projects after Baby get here. We’ll see!

Blogging