WWF Showdown! Harper vs the Giant Purple Monkey!

Here is the action from Wednesday Night!

Same wrestling arena (the living room).

"Baby Girl Aion" in one corner weighing in at 17 lbs, 12 oz. 27 inches tall. She's been working on her moves and techniques since the last time we saw her in action.

In the other corner we have "Puffy, the Purple Monkey" He's puffy, filled with air and always happy! He doesn't have a clue!

The crowd watches as Baby Girl pulls Monkey from his place in the corner behind a chair. She tests him by chewing on his tail a little.

No reaction.

She plops him in front of her and looks at him.

He's so complacent.

She pushes on his chest to see if he reacts at all. He just keeps smiling up at her.

She's thinking of the next move and for encouragement she looks at the crowd.

She sees "Mum" and "Ada" watching with great smiles on their faces! They cheer her on!

With renewed energy she decides to jump onto the monkey!

He rewards her with a great "Sssqueeeaaakkk!!" The breath is knocked out of him!

She rolls over him and flops to the floor. Will he attack while her back is turned??

Somehow he's still smiling!

She decides to wipe that smile from his face once and for all!

She jumps again and bites at the same time, he sits and does nothing. Another high pitched squeak, squeak and that's about it.

She's tired now and ... oh wait there's something shiny over there...

My Daughter, The Great Relocator

School has started! I am quickly learning the limitations of fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants teaching style.

It sucks. Time to get organized.


On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I will be teaching a physics lab at Duquesne University. When I returned home last night, I found my wife and brother-in-law's girlfriend sitting on the floor in the living room studying for a test that the latter is going to take tomorrow. My brother-in-law and daughter were nowhere to be found.

I sat down at the computer quietly and began doing...things... (I don't remember, but it was probably wasting time.) I hear the door open and I look over my should to find a tiny gap-toothed mouth smiling at me from 3 inches away. My brother-in-law had taken Harper for a walk and she was excited and hyper!

As I'm sure you can see from the videos that I've posted (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra_zuwf4bI0) that the little baby has started walking/running around the house.





She is not crawling at all anymore. When she falls down, she immediately stands back up and keeps walking.

When she was put on the ground last night, she screeched in joy, toddled over to my wife, patted her on the knee and proceeded to walk in circles around my living room, going until she found a wall, then turning around and walking back. She giggled the entire way.

When she first started walking, people said "Oh man, are you ever in trouble!" I thought "Nah! This is great! Now she can follow us around and that will be adorable!"

It is adorable!

It's also terrifying.

Two nights ago, I had followed the Great Wanderer into our bedroom and lay on our bed as she paced our room. To my horror, I watched walk over to my wife's night table, pick up her glasses, turn around, walk over and, very deliberately, place them behind the dresser, where they fell about 16 inches into a crack between two pieces of furniture.

She then looked and me, giggled and ran out of the room.

I'm moving everything I own into a box and gluing it to the ceiling.

My Daughter, The Speed Demon

We are in trouble...

Pictures From Vacation, Starring Harper, Sara and Some Ugly Guy

My Daughter, The Screen Hog

WARNING: The Following Movie Review Contains Spoilers!

This past week, Sara and I watched the newest production from New Parent Pictures, entitled "Baby's First Beach Vacation." It was an interesting film, filled with all sorts of twists, turns and cameos.

The film opened with a quick trip to the grandmothers' house after work on a Friday. The star, the lovely Ms. Harper, spent the evening walking around the house while her supporting roles, played by Mom and Dad, went to sleep.

Saturday morning found or characters on the road to beach, excitement building to a stunning climax that culminated with their being stuck in traffic and taking an extra hour to reach their coveted destination. Our main character spent most of this time enjoying the amazing images on the inside of her eyelids.

The beach was reached, surprise family members were present, much rejoicing was done. Monday morning greeted the father of our heroine with the pleasant surprise of poison oak all over his hands. That will teach him to weed gardens without gloves! Four Benedril and a full days rest later, he awoke and went into the ocean for perhaps the second time in a decade.

Parents really should not allow their children to watch Jaws at such an impressionable age...

Luckily, the story did not take place in Seaside Heights, which experienced a 6-foot shark swimming into the beach (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQc4irJxy6E)

After a day of recovering from poison oak, Harper's parents went deep sea fishing and caught 1/7th of the fish caught for the day.


I'm sort of bored with this style of writing and it has taken me all morning to do, so I'm skipping it for now.


We had a very nice relaxing few days until we woke up Friday morning to realize that our bikes had been stolen right off of the porch. We are not pleased. Filed a police report and now we wait. I have no hope that they will be recovered at this point.

Saturday, my uncle, cousin, aunt and grandmother came down for the day and we had a blast. It was great to be able to spend time with everyone and it helped us to forget how pissed we were about the bikes. I spent a good portion of the day in the ocean. I was wearing a sleeveless shirt and now have the most absurd burn on my armpits...

We spent Saturday night with my mom and drove home yesterday morning.

Vacation with an 8-month old is an interesting thing. I won't go so far as to say that it's not a vacation, only a change of venue, but it's very close. It was actually harder than spending the days home with her because with the heat, the humidity and the new environment, she didn't nap at all. She was cranky and very hard to keep happy. I was slightly stressed and we almost came home early just so we could get some sleep. But we persevered, and were rewarded with the theft of our bikes on Friday and an awesome day with my family on Saturday.

I start back at work on Wednesday and I'll be pleased to get back to a regular schedule. Many teachers say that their favorite perk of teaching is summer vacation. I like that very much, but it's not my favorite perk. My favorite perk is being finished with work at 2:30 in the afternoon. I'm a morning person and am best able to concentrate on getting things done first thing in the morning.

Dropping Harper off at my brother-in-law's place at 5:45 should be a blast!

I have other thoughts on this topic, but she's crawling around and needs attention. Here are some pictures from vacation. There are more, but Sara accidentally took the camera to work with her. I'll post them later.