Christmas 2003

Happy holidays! We have a lot of news to share with you, including some new pictures (finally)!

First off, we'd like to apologize for not getting pictures up on the Web site in any sort of timely fashion. Our digital camera isn't working properly, as you'll be able to tell in most of Aidan's October and November pictures. However, we were able to download all of Grandpa and Grandma's images, so we do have some December pictures for everyone :)

So, first of all, let's recap some of the pictures from October and November. Basically, the pictures in October aren't very good, as the camera started to have it's issues about then... but there's a couple of cute ones in there.

The November pictures are more plentiful than the October pictures and are of a slightly better quality. The highlight in this bunch is the one of Aidan signing "cold," as in "it's cold outside." The way that cold is normally signed is by making a fist with your hands and then sort of shiver, as though you were cold. Aidan takes this to new dramatic heights, as he clenches his fists very tightly and gets so "cold" that his face turns beet-red. It can't be good for him, but it's as funny as it gets.

And, now finally, the December pictures. All of these pictures were taken during Grandpa and Grandma Deb's visit.

It took us forever to unwrap our presents, about three and a half hours, mostly because Aidan wanted to play with the gift that he just opened, so there would be a long period between opening one present and the next. It was a very fun morning with lots of gifts from our generous family - thank you all.

Thanks also goes out to Dad and Deb for coming to spend the Christmas holiday with us. We appreicate all the help we received around the house during their visit and we espeically like our new garage shelves.

The Beauty of My Child

Another image from our family's photo session for La Leche League has been published and I couldn't be more proud. Aidan is on La Leche League International letterhead. That's right, an image of Aidan is on the upper left hand corner of their letterhead, envelopes and in the center of a trifold thank you note to their sponsors. It is beautful.

Spoken Word Update

I decided to update Aidan's spoken word list. Seeing the words on paper really enable me to see the progress he has made in the last three months.

Total number of words: 45

B
baby; ball; bird; blue; bubbles; buckle; bump; bye-bye

C
cat

D
da-da; dog

E
Elmo; eyes

F
five

G
go

J
Jo-jo

K
kitty

L
love you

H
help; hi; hop; hot

M
ma-ma; me; me-ma; milk; more; mouth

N
night-night; no; nose

O
olive

P
papa; pickle; please; pop;

S
stop

T
thank you; two

U
uncle; up

W
walk; water; Wiggles; white

And Then There Was One ...

Yesterday was not one of those days one could classify as a "good" day.

It started off with Aidan not feeling very well — probably has a cold of some sort — so he wasn't in the best of moods. Renee ended up getting to work later than she wanted because Aidan didn't want her to leave.

Eventually, Renee left for work, and I took Aidan into daycare, so I could go to work. The drop-off was pretty good (he didn't fuss too much), but he was still a little cranky. Apparently, that eventually escalated, and Aidan turned into a big grump. Big enough for Renee to leave work early to take Aidan home.

We also have had problems with one of the stove's burners and had a repair shop scheduled to come over to the house to replace the broken part. They were supposed to be out to fix the stove before Thanksgiving, but through various mishaps and bad scheduling, nothing was accomplished, and we are still left with one burner that doesn't work.

The repair guy was supposed to be at our house between 3 and 5 p.m. But he didn't show up. Again. Turns out his truck broke down.... They did eventually send someone out — but he didn't have the proper tools. I don't think this will ever be fixed.

And, the topper for the whole day? Renee went out to visit with the bunnies, and she found Bitta, the white rabbit, had passed away.

Aidan was playing with the bunnies the previous day, and was carrying them around — he even learned to say "white" (which he says very clearly) because he wanted to play with the white rabbit, not the black one.

Renee and I dug a hole in our back yard for Bitta — a task that we found somewhat ironic since Bitta really enjoyed digging holes (and tunnels) in our backyard...

Well, the white rabbit has passed on. And now we are down to our last bunny: Beauty.

Largest Known Prime Number Found

In the Totally Useless Information department:

Michael Shafer, a 26 year-old volunteer in the Mersenne.org research project called the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS), has discovered the largest known prime number. Shafer used a Michigan State University lab PC and free software by George Woltman and Scott Kurowski as part of an international grid of 211,000 networked computers in virtually every time zone of the world.

The new number, expressed as 2 to the 20,996,011th power minus 1, has 6,320,430 decimal digits and was discovered November 17th. It is more than two million digits larger than the previous largest known prime number, and belongs to a special class of rare prime numbers called Mersenne primes . The discovery marks only the 40th known Mersenne prime, named after Marin Mersenne , a 17th century French monk who first studied the numbers 300 years ago.

Read more at the mersenne.org site.

Me-Ma's Visit

Aidan's grandmother (a.k.a, Me-Ma, Renee's mom) came down to visit us for Thanksgiving. At first, Aidan was shy and didn't want to get too close to his Grandma. But after the first day, Aidan warmed up to her, and was constantly asking for her and wanting to know her whereabouts. When Aidan would wake up in the morning, one of the first things out of his mouth would be "Me-Ma?"

We also got a chance to do some more unpacking and put up the Christmas lights around the house as well as our Christmas tree. We all had a productive, wonderful (and somehow relaxing) time, with the possible exception of Sunday...

Our friend Mary came over to visit with us and see the new house. Me-Ma, Renee, Mary, Aidan and myself were all sitting out front. Aidan wandered over to the neighbor's yard and picked two berries off of a little shrub. I wasn't too sure what the berries were, but I figured they weren't healthy for him to eat, so I kept a careful eye on him, and tried to encourage him to give up the berries on his own accord. I kept calling it a ball, and encouraged him to throw it (and not eat it). This was a successful tactic for one of the berries, but he held on to the other.

I tried to get the berry from him, but he would hide behind the bushes where I couldn't reach him. So, I reverted to keeping a close eye on him, encouraging him at all times to "throw the ball." But he seemed mostly content with just holding on to the berry or playing with it between his fingers.

At one point, something in the conversation caught my attention and I tried to join in, thus losing my concentration on Aidan. He immediately started to cry, and I saw him take the berry out of his mouth...

Renee wisked him away and tried to wash his mouth out with water, and she even tried to brush his teeth/tongue. But Aidan kept on crying. I brought Mary, our friendly-neighborhood gardner, over to the bush to inspect the berries that Aidan had put in his mouth, hoping that it wasn't too poisonous....

Turns out, they were some sort of pepper and not berries — a really hot variety of pepper, too. So, for the next 40 minutes or so, we tried our best to soothe Aidan and keep his hands from rubbing his eyes (the juice got on his hands). Milk helped, but ulitmately, it was the movie "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron" that distracted him enough to forget his agony.

I Know I Don't Know What He Knows

[from Yahoo! News]

A bizarre comment by U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the hunt for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction has been awarded the "Foot in Mouth" prize by the Plain English Campaign.

Rumsfeld, renowned for his uncompromising tough talking, received the prize for the most baffling comment by a public figure.

"Reports that say something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know," Rumsfeld told a press briefing.

"We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know.

John Lister, spokesman for the campaign which strives to have public information delivered in clear, straightforward English, said: "We think we know what he means. But we don't know if we really know.