* Tuesday was the MLB All-Star Game. I stayed up late and watched all 15 innings. Unfortunately the junior circuit won again (the NL's last win was in 1996) but that was an amazing game with four extra-inning outs at the plate and the game winner was a split-second play too. * Maegan just completed her second and final week at horse camp. Unlike last month, I was able to attend her presentation at the end of the week. Here are a few photos, and a link to a short video.  Here's Maegan the horse-whisperer gracefully persuading her animal to the mounting area.  Maegan gives her horse a hug while waiting her turn.  Show time. * On my way to see Maegan at horse camp, my tire completely blew out at 65 MPH. I had to change my tire on the shoulder of I-485, but thanks to my NASCAR-like pit stop, I wasn't even late for Maegan's show.  * We have yet another baby bird on our lawn. He's been down for 48 hours now. The momma bird has been nearby but we've not seen her actually go up to the baby. I keep flagging off the area of the front lawn he's in so nobody steps on him. * And here are two more photos from the past week: Patty playing bubbles with Darah, then finger painting.   Labels: baseball, Darah, funny, Maegan
Wow Darah has a lot of energy! P.S. This is the last time I upload a video through Blogger's interface. Is everybody else getting two videos too? Labels: Darah
Darah walked for the first time today! She's taken one step before and even a second step, but we never considered that walking - more like delayed falling. Today she let go of the coffee table and took three forward steps towards me. She almost made it but took the spill on the attempted fourth step, just a couple of feet short of me. Labels: Darah
 Yesterday was father's day. Patty, Maegan, and Darah got me a gift certificate to Omega Sports, which I'll likely use on a few new disc golf discs. In addition, Darah supposedly "made" me a little cake/cookie at her child care. (Cake baking is the care giver's other line of work.) It came with a homemade card featuring Darah's hand prints in finger paint and a poem about following daddy. But the funniest part was this photo of Darah in a little chef's hat! lmao. Labels: Darah
When I was little I learned to walk by holding on to a child's rocking chair and pushing it across the floor. It glided nicely on carpeting, not too fast like with something with wheels would be. 35 years later, Darah is also using a child's rocking chair to learn to walk - the exact same chair I used when I was little. Labels: Darah, video
- Darah's home-based childcare notified us that they're suddenly shutting down. We had to find a new child care pronto and were lucky to find an ex-teacher who just received her license to open up a new home-based childcare. Darah begins going to her new child care on Monday.
- Since last year we've been planning to make a trip to New York to go to a game at Shea Stadium before it's torn down at the end of the season. This week we finally purchased our airline tickets (we already had the Mets tickets lined up). So now it's official that we'll be in New York this August. This will be the first time I'll be in New York in several years, and the first time during the summertime in ten years.
- Today I played my first full game of disc golf all year. Perhaps my first game all year shouldn't have been in a tournament. I started poorly but finished strong so maybe that's a good trend for next time.
Labels: Darah, disc_golf, New_York
Darah's first birthday was this weekend.     Can you notice what's wrong with this last photo? Labels: Darah
Darah learned to stand up on her own and by the end day she's mastered it. Now we can't keep her off of things. Labels: Darah, video
Maegan's swing set broke last weekend so I had to go to The Home Depot to pick up some bolts to fix it. While I was there I picked up a baby swing for Darah. Labels: Darah, video
 Like Maegan and most other babies, Darah's first words were "dada". (You may have assumed "mama" would makes more sense but "d's" are just an easier sound for babies to make.) But last night Darah said her second word (we think). Darah said "Dack". Now I know what you're thinking... what the heck is a dack and why would that made up word count? Darah loves her pink bath ducky, and every time she takes a bath Patty talks about the duck, followed by "quack quack" sounds. So last night Darah was taking a bath and reached out for her floating pink duck and said "dack dack" - which is apparently the combination of " duck" and "qu ack qu ack". Well that's how we're seeing it. -------------- Correction: We forgot that she said "ball" two weeks ago, but that was repeating the word we were saying to her, while "dack" was initiated by Darah on her own. Labels: Darah
 Darah had routine surgery this morning to insert tubes in her ears. She's had ear infection after ear infection and neither ear drops nor shots seemed to help eliminate the problem. Patty and I left the house by 6:15 a.m. Since Maegan's school doesn't open until 9:00 a.m., she had to spend the night over her friend's house on a school night. It was pretty funny to see Darah with eyes squinted, giggling uncontrollably from the laughing gas. Everything went well and Darah's playing at home with Patty now. Here's a link to more information on the subject. Labels: Darah
 Darah is the sweetest little baby. She loves people, and she's usually happy and smiling. So it didn't sound quite right when her child care teacher described little Darah, who can't even crawl yet, as being a baby bully. She's not a bully and they were kidding... well sort of. Darah is very grabby. VERY grabby. She's always reaching for everything within reach. She can't sit near a table without trying to grab whatever she can get her hands on. Be careful walking down the hallway or she'll knock the pictures off the walls. Watches, rings, glasses - all must be touched and pulled closer if possible. But her favorite thing to grab is hair. I don't have much to worry about myself, but she's constantly yanking fistfuls of hair from Patty and Maegan (which is difficult to avoid when you're holding her). This brings me back to Darah being described, jokingly, as being a bully. Just like with Patty and Maegan, apparently she's been pulling the hair of other babies at child care. And she doesn't let go easily either. She's obviously not trying to be mean but she too young to understand the word "no" or the concept of hurting other people. She's just curious, and has absolutely no idea that these other babies don't like it. Oh those poor other babies who have to put up with Darah until she learns not to pull people's hair. :-( Labels: Darah
 Labels: Darah
I can't believe this is just the second post I've made all month. Sorry. I wish I could use the excuse that I've been too busy but I've actually been on vacation (from my main job) for the past nine days, and I don't go back until January 2nd. I've been catching up on a backlog of house fix-ups most of the time. Belated Happy Chanukah. Belated Merry Christmas. And an early Happy New Year. This was Darah's first Christmas. It was her first Chanukah too but that's no big deal. Darah and Maegan made out like bandits as usual with lots of toys and clothing. Even though it's not my holiday, Santa brought me The Simpson's Movie. And speaking of Santa, Maegan (age 9 1/2) now knows... you know who isn't you know what. Before I leave the subject of Christmas, my sister Amy sent me this "ElfYourself". Darah is hilarious to watch. And speaking of Darah, she cut her first tooth (barely) last week. My brother-in-law John returned to Charlotte just days before Christmas after more than a year working in Hawaii. And my father-in-law Ed returned to Charlotte the very same day from his job as a contractor in Afghanistan. John is back for good but Ed is most likely returning to the war zone after New Year's. We're about to give away our Pug, Hobo. He's cute and loving and great with children (seriously, Darah can grab a hold of his face and pull hard and he just sits there and takes it), but after a year and a half he still can't be left alone or else he chews Darah's pacifiers and toys, empties trash baskets, and sometimes still marks his territory indoors. Maegan is very sad about this but we just can't keep having this go on with Darah about to crawl and then walking soon thereafter. :-( Boomer isn't going anywhere but I'm sure he'll be sad to lose his long-time play-fighting buddy. I know I should have even more to write about since my last post but I can't think of anything else worth mentioning right now. I promise to post more regularly after New Year's - not as a resolution, but because that's more the norm than compared to just two posts this entire month. Again, Happy New Year. Labels: Darah, family, holidays
 Darah can only keep her head up for a few minutes at a time but she was still able to get in a bouncy seat (or whatever these things are called) for the first time. Labels: Darah
 Darah had her Baptism today. Labels: Darah
Yesterday was Darah's first day at child care. For now she's only going for a few hours a day and everything went well. It was more emotional for everybody else but when Patty picked her up, Darah was smiling and happy and usual. Labels: Darah
Last week I showed Patty how easy it was to upload video to Google using the Gmail account she already had. Since I showed her, she's been shooting video uploading it every single day. She wants to show Darah to her father in Afghanistan and her younger sister in Hawaii. As an example, here's today's video, which features some nice smiles. Labels: Darah, video
 I don't normally point out every time I upload new photos but we took lots of new photos this weekend during Amy's visit this past weekend. Here's one above in sepia tone. You can check other new photos of Darah here. Labels: Darah
Darah was born exactly one month ago today. :) Labels: Darah
It's been more than a week since my last post. There's been plenty to blog about but I just haven't had the time, so I'll give a brief recap. Darah is doing fine, as are Patty and Maegan too. Every three hours she wakes up hungry, cries until she's fed, gets her diaper changed, wants to be held, eventually falls asleep, and then start all over again. She's sleeping plenty, but not on our schedule.
Last night I got a phone call from a good friend from college, Steve Smrek (far left in this photo). He's a fraternity brother, former housemate, and was the best man at my wedding... but I haven't had any communication with him at all since 2003. Apparently we've both emailed each other many times since then but our messages just weren't getting through and we were both too lazy to pick up a phone until now. Everything is going well with Smrek, and he tells me that another good friend I haven't spoken with in a few years, Flintstone (behind Smrek in that same photo), just had his 2nd child only a few days ago. Looks like I need to have another long overdue phone call very soon.
I worked all weekend. On Saturday I missed a rare opportunity to see the Mets beat the Yankees on national television, and I missed the 400th episode and season finale of The Simpsons on Sunday.
Speaking of The Simpsons, I found out that the new Simpsons video game that I was looking forward to later this year will not be made for X-Box. This is becoming common practice now as Microsoft pressures game manufacturers to stop supporting the old X-Box system in order to force gamers to buy a new X-Box 360.
My mother will be visiting this Memorial Day weekend. This will be the 1st time she sees her new granddaughter.
Labels: Alpha_Sigma_Phi, Darah, friends
 Patty and Darah came home from the hospital today. We also got this photo that the hospital took. Labels: Darah
 Everybody's still doing well on day number two. I uploaded a few more photos to the album. Patty and Darah get to come home tomorrow. Labels: Darah
 Darah Shea was born today at 2:50pm Weight: 6lbs. 11oz. Length: 19 3/4 inches Patty and Darah are doing fine, and Maegan is extremely excited about her new baby sister. Darah is perfectly healthy, although we had a scare when she didn't cry after being born. Actually, she still hasn't cried yet, but after six straight months of non-stop crying after Maegan was born, I suppose we were owed a quiet baby this time. Click here for a few first day photos. I should have more, better photos in the next few days. Labels: Darah
We wanted to keep the baby's name a secret right up until the baby was born, but the secret accidentally slipped out anyway. And since the cat is out of the bag now anyway, the name we've chosen is Darah Shea. One of several reasons behind the name is that the letter D is in honor of my father, David, who passed away in 2000. We don't put much weight behind the traditional meanings behind names but that doesn't mean we didn't check. Different sources said different things, but the most common meaning for Darah is "pearl of wisdom". As for whether or not her middle name is for Shea Stadium, home of the New York Mets, that will remain my secret. Labels: Darah
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Here's Maegan the horse-whisperer gracefully persuading her animal to the mounting area.
Maegan gives her horse a hug while waiting her turn.
Show time.
* We have yet another baby bird on our lawn. He's been down for 48 hours now. The momma bird has been nearby but we've not seen her actually go up to the baby. I keep flagging off the area of the front lawn he's in so nobody steps on him.
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