Friday, August 27, 2010

Let's get this blog started!

Hi everyone - I'm not sure how much time I'll be able to devote to this blog, but I figure with our far-flung family it would be nice to have somewhere for people to go to get the latest on Tommy, Joey, Trish and I.

There's been a lot of change lately with the boys, as they are both entering new phases. 

Tommy is almost standing without support, and looks ready to try walking any time.  I think if Tommy were a little more adventurous and willing to risk falling down, he would have probably already taken a few steps.  He's very different from Joey in that respect - he takes his time and is generally very careful not to knock his head or fall down hard.  Right now he's at that stage where they push things around the house as they learn to use their feet.  He likes to push his high-chair around, and he's always on the lookout for a good box to push.  We have a toy that's designed for this purpose, but Tommy seems to prefer to improvise.

Joey is making fantastic progress with potty training.  Until  became a parent and Joey entered this stage I had no idea how important it is and how trying it could be!  The good news is, it looks like clear sailing from here (knock on wood), because Joe has gotten into the habit of using the potty for his calls of nature and seems to recognize now that it's very preferable to a dirty diaper.  Even better - he likes to use the real toilet better than his little potty.  We've always rewarded Joey with Hot Wheels cars for using the potty, and we're talking now about dialing that back a little - he has dozens at this point.

Joey's making progress on other fronts, doing a great job of bathing himself (supervised, of course) and clothing himself.  It's all very bittersweet as he needs us a little less, but it's great to see his progress.

Joey's been afraid of monsters at night, and the other night I decided to try to have a conversation with him about it.  I thought I was doing a good job convincing him they weren't real when he switched the topic to tigers, lions, elephants (?) and dinosaurs.  I tried to tell him that dinosaurs hadn't been around for a long time, and I tried to explain it to him by saying that the dinosaurs had already been gone by the time he was born, and even before when Daddy, Mommy or Grandmom were born.  Well, you have to be careful what you say to a 3-year old.  Last night at bedtime he asked me if there were any monsters or dinosaurs that could get him and I said "no," to which he remarked "Dinosaurs live at Grandmom's house."  Oops.  Sorry Merry.  Hopefully he won't be afraid of Grandmom's house now (especially considering she's our #1 babysitter)!

Trish got a promotion at work a couple of weeks ago - that's my girl - she makes quite an impression wherever she goes.  She's got her hands very full these days with a demanding job and two small kids and she's doing great.

As for me, I'm still working at Intel in the NAND Solutions Group - mostly I do database and application development work.  Lately I've been working on developing web forms all day and it's a great learning experience but it would be great if I had some other types of work to break things up.  Sometimes I miss the more high-stakes work I used to do in Process Improvement, but in reality this is probably a better fit for me right now.  I was in a meeting recently where I got into the middle of a heated debate about a software project and I realized that I'm more annoyed than excited by that sort of thing these days - it may be a while before I'm really ready to get back in the ring and slug it out like the old days.

I've been trying to learn a lot about photography so I can take better pictures of my family with my SLR.  It's hit and miss, but I get the occasional great picture to keep me interested.  I've found that the real dividing line for me is the flash.  If I'm outside with good light, I can generally get great pictures - I've yet to have a picture using the flash that I would put into that category.

Well, that's my first blog post.  I hope all is well with everyone.  Don't forget to check my Flickr photostream periodically at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29222781@N07/ for the most recent pictures of the kids!

Cheers,
Anthony

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