I've been buzzing my hair for a while now, basically ever since I realized that I was losing my hair. Yesterday, I took the next big step. I shaved my head.
I've never done that before and it was not as easy as I hoped. I didn't get a real close shave, mostly because it is boring running a small razor over a large skull.
I suspect the inventor of Velcro shaved his head. Today, I have head stubble and when I put up the hood of my coat, it pretty much stuck to my head. It was really difficult to shift the cloth around on my head and sliding it off my head was near impossible (I had to lift it off). I was impressed at how much my head stubble grabbed at the fabric.
I have a theory on why I decided to do this now. I have recently started going to the gym again and yesterday (after my shaving experience) I noticed that the guys either have a full head of hair or they shave it all off. I think that is because you spend a fair amount of time around mirrors when you work out and you are constantly reminded of how sad your hair looks.
Apparently, I'm vain.
mwz
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Mikey Likes It
I've always thought the old Life cereal commercial with Mikey was weird. If Mikey will eat anything, why are they so amazed that he likes Life? He'll eat anything.
[Update: An anonymous commenter helpfully pointed out that Mikey actually hates everything. I completely mis-remembered that comercial. I found the actual commercial on youtube and it is pretty much exaclty how I rember it, except they say "He won't eat it. He hates everything" instead of "He'll eat it. He'll eat anything". Now I'm wondering why they thought he would try it in the first place.]
Johann will eat anything too. He'll eat fruit or vegetables, meat or dairy. He can put away a bowl of cut-up grapes with surprising speed. We never have to pressure him into eating. He will often eat more than Frances. He must need it for growing because he isn't getting really chubby.
What he really likes is meat.
He is very much a carnivore. It took us a little bit to figure out because Frances is the opposite. She doesn't like much meat at all. But we started noticing that the meat portions of meals would disappear first.
Then we noticed that he wasn't really very happy when we would have pasta meals. At the end of one, we thought to give him a cut up hot dog. He ate a whole one (minus the skin, yes, I peeled his hot dog). This was after he had stopped eating the pasta.
He's our little eater.
mwz
[Update: An anonymous commenter helpfully pointed out that Mikey actually hates everything. I completely mis-remembered that comercial. I found the actual commercial on youtube and it is pretty much exaclty how I rember it, except they say "He won't eat it. He hates everything" instead of "He'll eat it. He'll eat anything". Now I'm wondering why they thought he would try it in the first place.]
Johann will eat anything too. He'll eat fruit or vegetables, meat or dairy. He can put away a bowl of cut-up grapes with surprising speed. We never have to pressure him into eating. He will often eat more than Frances. He must need it for growing because he isn't getting really chubby.
What he really likes is meat.
He is very much a carnivore. It took us a little bit to figure out because Frances is the opposite. She doesn't like much meat at all. But we started noticing that the meat portions of meals would disappear first.
Then we noticed that he wasn't really very happy when we would have pasta meals. At the end of one, we thought to give him a cut up hot dog. He ate a whole one (minus the skin, yes, I peeled his hot dog). This was after he had stopped eating the pasta.
He's our little eater.
mwz
Monday, February 12, 2007
I not dirty, I Clean.
In our kitchen we keep several containers for the kids to play with; egg cartons, empty syrup bottles and whip cream containers. Both kids can (and do) get them out of the lazy susan to play with.
Today, when we got home from church, the containers were strewn about on the floor. One of the two (probably Johann) had got them out earlier and we hadn't picked them up. After removing her coat, Frances said "It's messy" and proceeded to put the containers away. It was incredible. We are trying to figure out who she takes after since obviously, neither of us bothered to pick them up.
But Frances is a clean little girl (as clean as a little kid can be). For a very long time now, she has kept her toes clean of lint. I never really even thought of trying to remove the lint. Maybe that's why she does it herself but she just started doing it on her own. At first, she would only pick the lint out occationally, when she had an opportunity. Now, it is part of her nap/bedtime ritual. One day, I tried to tuck her in and she said "No, I have to clean my toes". Before her feet get covered, she must declare "all clean" and then I know that she is ready to have her feet covered.
Recently, she has started washing her hands by herself in the bathroom too. It started as her playing with the water in the bathroom sink but now after pretty much every meal, she goes in there and washes her hands. We don't ask her to, she just does it. She has even learned to use the soap dispencer. Surprisingly she doesn't play with the soap, she pumps out just enough and that is all she uses.
As a final note, if you ask her if she's poopy (meaning a poopy diaper), she'll say "I not dirty, I clean".
Frances is an interesting little girl.
mwz
Today, when we got home from church, the containers were strewn about on the floor. One of the two (probably Johann) had got them out earlier and we hadn't picked them up. After removing her coat, Frances said "It's messy" and proceeded to put the containers away. It was incredible. We are trying to figure out who she takes after since obviously, neither of us bothered to pick them up.
But Frances is a clean little girl (as clean as a little kid can be). For a very long time now, she has kept her toes clean of lint. I never really even thought of trying to remove the lint. Maybe that's why she does it herself but she just started doing it on her own. At first, she would only pick the lint out occationally, when she had an opportunity. Now, it is part of her nap/bedtime ritual. One day, I tried to tuck her in and she said "No, I have to clean my toes". Before her feet get covered, she must declare "all clean" and then I know that she is ready to have her feet covered.
Recently, she has started washing her hands by herself in the bathroom too. It started as her playing with the water in the bathroom sink but now after pretty much every meal, she goes in there and washes her hands. We don't ask her to, she just does it. She has even learned to use the soap dispencer. Surprisingly she doesn't play with the soap, she pumps out just enough and that is all she uses.
As a final note, if you ask her if she's poopy (meaning a poopy diaper), she'll say "I not dirty, I clean".
Frances is an interesting little girl.
mwz
Friday, February 02, 2007
Johann is Walking
I am a bit behind in my posts. I was going to post about how Johann was standing up without holding onto anything (which he started doing a week or two ago).
But today Johann took his first steps.
Earlier in the day, he was standing in front of Ariel and he moved one foot forward and then sat down. We then had a discussion about if that constituted his first step. I didn't think that it counted because he didn't move all of his weight to that foot but Ariel thought it was enough of his weight to count.
Later though, our disagreement became moot when Frances pulled away the push toy that Johann was holding onto. He stood for a little bit. I held my arm in front of him to catch him if he fell and he took four steps. He later repeated the performance.
We're all very proud.
He can also go up and down stairs (with adult supervision of course) and he eats cat food (without adult supervision). We had to move the cat food up on a shelf because he kept getting into it. He really seemed to like it.
mwz
But today Johann took his first steps.
Earlier in the day, he was standing in front of Ariel and he moved one foot forward and then sat down. We then had a discussion about if that constituted his first step. I didn't think that it counted because he didn't move all of his weight to that foot but Ariel thought it was enough of his weight to count.
Later though, our disagreement became moot when Frances pulled away the push toy that Johann was holding onto. He stood for a little bit. I held my arm in front of him to catch him if he fell and he took four steps. He later repeated the performance.
We're all very proud.
He can also go up and down stairs (with adult supervision of course) and he eats cat food (without adult supervision). We had to move the cat food up on a shelf because he kept getting into it. He really seemed to like it.
mwz
Monday, January 08, 2007
Bopper
I realized the other day that Frances now says the word "diaper" correctly. She used to say "new bopper". It was adorable but she hasn't said it like that for months.
We successfully taught her how to say it correctly but now I kinda miss it. My little girl is growing up.
mwz
We successfully taught her how to say it correctly but now I kinda miss it. My little girl is growing up.
mwz
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Handful
On top of the usual holiday stress and the fun of moving, both our children have moved away from the nice peaceful stages of their lives that we have grown accustomed to.
Frances is in full "terrible-twos" mode. Her two favorite phrases are "By myself!" and "No Johann, that's mine" (even if it actually is his).
Johann has progressed to the point where he can be a pain to his sister. He often tries to play with what she's playing with or using. Frances has become pretty good about not letting him get to her pancake syrup or eat crayons.
To top it all off, he has learned to climb stairs. He started sometime last week by climbing 2 steps to get to a landing. Tonight he made it up those steps and up the next 3 before we noticed him. (It was my fault. I was watching him. I thought he was still in the planning stage but apparently he was finished with his research and went for a test run.)
He was doing fine though, climbing very solidly. He might have made it all the way up if he hadn't gotten distracted by us 3 watching and cheering him on (while making sure he was safe of course).
He did feed me a bit of his "Biter Biscuit" today though. Stuck it right into my mouth. I thought that was very considerate of him to think that I might be hungry.
mwz
Frances is in full "terrible-twos" mode. Her two favorite phrases are "By myself!" and "No Johann, that's mine" (even if it actually is his).
Johann has progressed to the point where he can be a pain to his sister. He often tries to play with what she's playing with or using. Frances has become pretty good about not letting him get to her pancake syrup or eat crayons.
To top it all off, he has learned to climb stairs. He started sometime last week by climbing 2 steps to get to a landing. Tonight he made it up those steps and up the next 3 before we noticed him. (It was my fault. I was watching him. I thought he was still in the planning stage but apparently he was finished with his research and went for a test run.)
He was doing fine though, climbing very solidly. He might have made it all the way up if he hadn't gotten distracted by us 3 watching and cheering him on (while making sure he was safe of course).
He did feed me a bit of his "Biter Biscuit" today though. Stuck it right into my mouth. I thought that was very considerate of him to think that I might be hungry.
mwz
Friday, December 01, 2006
Recent Accomplishments
We are pretty busy suffering from colds and packing but I thought I should mark some recent accomplishments of the children.
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Johann learned to crawl at his uncles house. Now he is crawling all over the place. He can even crawl over to a coffee table and pull himself up to standing. It's pretty impressive when you realize that he was hardly mobile at all a week before.
This evening, I was taking down my desk (which is one of those modular things that you have to assemble) and Frances was "helping" me. She thought it was fun that I had the desk turned upside down (it did kinda look like a fort).
At one point though, she picked up my screw driver, which I had set down for a second and wouldn't give it back. She was sticking it into one of the pre-drilled holes and turning it. Being completely unsuccessful at getting her to give it back to me, I decided to try something else.
I guided the screw driver to one of the pegs that needed to be unscrewed and showed her which way to turn. To my amazement, she continued turning it in that direction until it came out.
We were both very excited.
After that, she started another one and again she correctly unscrewed it. She wound up doing 8-10 pegs, most without direct supervision. That freed me up to do some other packing.
Today, Frances went from "helping" to actually helping. I think I have Handy Manny to thank.
mwz
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Johann learned to crawl at his uncles house. Now he is crawling all over the place. He can even crawl over to a coffee table and pull himself up to standing. It's pretty impressive when you realize that he was hardly mobile at all a week before.
This evening, I was taking down my desk (which is one of those modular things that you have to assemble) and Frances was "helping" me. She thought it was fun that I had the desk turned upside down (it did kinda look like a fort).
At one point though, she picked up my screw driver, which I had set down for a second and wouldn't give it back. She was sticking it into one of the pre-drilled holes and turning it. Being completely unsuccessful at getting her to give it back to me, I decided to try something else.
I guided the screw driver to one of the pegs that needed to be unscrewed and showed her which way to turn. To my amazement, she continued turning it in that direction until it came out.
We were both very excited.
After that, she started another one and again she correctly unscrewed it. She wound up doing 8-10 pegs, most without direct supervision. That freed me up to do some other packing.
Today, Frances went from "helping" to actually helping. I think I have Handy Manny to thank.
mwz
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