Picture Update

All of the pictures from August are available for your viewing pleasure. Most of the pictures are from Papa and Mama Deb's visit...

Eleven Pounds Gone

I lost another pound over the last two weeks; that brings the total to eleven. I can't remember exactly what I ate during this period, but I am fairly certain that I wasn't very strict. I don't think there was any cheese, but there was probably some fried-something. I think. And I haven't been doing any extra exercising — just mowing the lawn.

Anyway, I'll be scheduling my doctor's appointment in the next week or so, and expect to have my results by the end of September, so I'll finally get a read on what my triglycerides are doing...

Spiders

We had one of these orb spiders in our back yard a few weeks ago. It was really big; probably one of the biggest spiders that I've seen in my life and definitely the biggest that I've seen in Texas. I tried to get a picture of it before it left, but I never did get around to it. Ok. Actually, I thought about trying to take a picture of it. This one from the AP will have to do.

From the caption:

These garden spiders, shown in an undated file photo, are argiopes which are common to Illinois and spin large, orb-like webs that can be found in bushes. The female spiders can grow as long as 2 inches as they prepare to lay eggs, but this year they're even fatter thanks to a cool, wet summer that sustained their favorite snack - insects.

Proportional Electoral Votes

Looks like Colorado is looking into some election reforms. There is a measure that will be on the ballot this November that will remove the current "winner-take-all" paradigm for presidential electoral votes and instead award them proportionally, based on the percentage of votes won during the election.

Personally, I think this is a great idea. It's the only way for the minority to have its view point heard. If you voted for George W. Bush in California, your voice wasn't heard. All 54 electoral votes went to Al Gore, despite his winning only 53% of the vote. If you voted for Al Gore in Ohio, your vote essentially was rendered moot, as Bush won all 21 electoral votes by getting 50% of the vote (Gore had 46% and lost by 169,000 votes).

If you know you live in a state that overwhelmingly supports someone that you don't, what's the incentive to vote? Hope that maybe your vote will count in the event that all the pundits were wrong? And what if your canditate comes close, as in Ohio? If a small city had voted the other way, Gore would have had 21 electoral votes and Bush would have had zero. It just doesn't seem very equitable.

While I do like the idea, I am pragmatic enough to know that this will never be implemented. The two major parties won't go for it and they're the ones that are in control. They won't go for it because it would undermine their control. This proposal, while giving the "losing" party some electoral votes, also opens up the possibility for third-party candidates to makes some in-roads into the system, which would obviously erode the monopoly that the two major parties currently enjoy.

No Talking

Aidan has recently been concerned about who is talking to who. When the three of us are present and I start a conversation with Renee (or vice versa), Aidan will tell me, "no talk to my mommy." Sometimes he'll add "me talking to Mommy."

Today, he added a new wrinkle. He was talking to his mommy, and I added something to the conversation. He corrected me, as usual, "no talking to Mommy, me talking. Say micki (excuse me) to talk."

Folding Paper

Wow. So that is what origami can do. I had no idea. I tried to find out more about this piece, for instance, is it one piece of paper, multiple pieces, what exactly are the rules for origami?

It's almost enough to make me want to learn how to fold paper.

According to the caption:

"A work of origami, or paper folding, is shown on display during the origami convention in Tokyo, Friday, Aug. 20, 2004. Showcasing a renaissance in the ancient Japanese art of origami, some of the best paper-folders in the world descended on Tokyo on Friday for a three-day competition and convention to celebrate the artistic possibilities of origami, which is believed to have been used to create sacred ornaments at the Grand Shrines of Ise, the center of Japan's native shinto religion."

Potty Training Graduation

Well ... it looks like Aidan has it all under control.

Last night the three of us were lying down in the grass watching the clouds go by. Sometimes Aidan would get up and run around, climb up the slide, jump on top of us, or ask us to chase him through the yard.

One time, Aidan ran back into the corner of the yard yelling for us to come chase him. But Renee and I stayed put, lazily watching the clouds. A few moments later I realized that I hadn't heard from Aidan. So I went into the corner of the yard, which is completely fenced in, and found nothing.

"Aidan's not here," I called to Renee. Panic started to swell up in both of us. "Go check inside," I told Renee and I started to look under the deck.

Renee did find him inside ... taking care of business. Apparently he got himself inside, went to the bathroom, sat on his little potty, went "poopie," and flushed it down the regular toilet all by himself. When Renee came inside, Aidan ran out of the bathroom without any pants on telling her, "I went poopie!"

Aidan Update

Dropping off Aidan at daycare is no longer an issue. In fact, most mornings, he will walk onto the playground without any concern for me and runs off without a care. Sometimes, as we are walking by his classroom on the way to the playground, he'll tell me "that's my classroom."

Of course, he still does have his moments. Earlier in the week he wouldn't let me go to work. But then suddenly his good buddy Silas showed up ... and I was no longer needed.

Aidan's potty training is still in session, but as we mentioned earlier, just for "making number two." He is doing much better with that lately, but he's still shy (or something) about using the potty for this particular task.

Aidan is two-years-old, however, so he can still be cantankerous at times. Aidan's Papa and Mama Deb (as she is now known) came to visit with us last weekend and Aidan was ... well, a little out of sorts. Aidan didn't want to get dressed sometimes, or go outside, or eat, or ... you name it. It was a bit of a power stuggle at times, but these are fairly short-lived, not lasting more than a day or so. At one point during their visit, Aidan didn't want to do anything and was saying "no" to everything.

Also, if you start to contradict him on something, or forbid a behavior/action, he'll get upset (not unexpected), but then he'll also tell you to "go away."

Yet we do seem to be pretty lucky as he can't be too grumpy for too long. Recently he's been quite an angel, which makes it that much more confounding when he does turn into a grump....

Internet or internet?

Those that know me might not blink twice at the fact that I'm even posting this. Those that don't know me, well ... I guess you are getting to know me.

Effective with this sentence, Wired News will no longer capitalize the "I" in internet. At the same time, Web becomes web and Net becomes net.

NPR covered this as well.

I used to do some editing at a large, large company, and during my time there learned that there are two different kinds of internets. There is the Internet, also known as the Web or the Net, and then there is an internet, which is just a configuration of local computers networked together. Thus, there really does need to be some way to distinguish them. Capitalizing one seems like a decent way of doing this.

But this point was completely missed by Wired News. Their arguement was founded on the idea "If It's Capitalized, It Must Be Important." But that really isn't the case here. There's the bigger, wider Internet, which involves virtually everyone (or in any case can include virtually everyone) and another internet, which is personal, private.

In my opinion (humble or otherwise), Wired really missed the point.

Low-fat, More Fruit, Less Weight

This six-year study found that adults who boosted their intake of fruit during the research period put on less weight and body fat than those whose fruit consumption dipped. The same benefit was seen among men and women who started drinking more skim or low-fat milk, or who cut back on fatty foods.

Ten Pounds Gone

[someone spammed my site and removed the first section of text here with a bunch of nasty link to other sites. I apologize to my readers for this and am now removing comments (and hopefully access to spammers) from all posts.

What follows below is all that remains of the original text.]

Yet somehow, (maybe it was that one trip to the pool?) I did manage to loose another two pounds (ten total). I wasn't particularly vigilant these last two weeks; I did have some pizza, and I think I did end up with a small amount of deep-fried tofu in one dish.

At least I'm still going in the right direction, at least in terms of weight loss; I only hope that my tryglicerides are also following suit.

We're going to try and get to the pool this week, but I do need to mow the lawn again (hopefully tonight and also maybe some more tomorrow night). But there's got to be an opportunity to exercise!

The Art of Photography

Some people are so good at what they do they make hard things look deceptively simple. Henri Cartier-Bresson, who died last week, was such a person.

Cartier-Bresson is largely considered to be the father of photojournalism. Personally, I've always prefered the "photojournalism" perspective more so than studio photography or creating scenes. I guess there's lots of reasons for this, but I think it's partially because I'm lazy: logistically, it doesn't get much easier than walking around with a camera, never posing subjects and not worrying (too much) about how to use artifical light. Just click the shutter on the camera. Granted there's more walking involved and it's not always easy to find something worth photographing.

Yet, that's sort of the point. Taking photos in this particular manner is about interacting with your environment until you can anticipate what everything and everyone is going to do. This was how Cartier-Bresson worked. It seems somewhat chaotic, if only to glance at how the process works, yet somehow he was able to create some of the most memorable photographs in human history.

His theory on taking photographs was based on the idea of the "decisive moment." This moment, as described by Cartier-Bresson, is ‘the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression."

And this is where the true art of photography exists. This is even true for studio photographers. The art is in the unique perspective of the photographer. Sure, there are wonderfully proficient, technically sound photographers who can make great images. And that is worth something. But the real art, in my opinion, is having a unique vision. To that end, Cartier-Bresson was probably more psychologist — or even sociologist — then a technician. He had to understand his environment, he had to anticipate what was going to happen.

Taking a good picture — one with composition, one that has visual interest, but without manipulation — requires thought and foresight. It requires the photographer to not just see some shop windows, but to see a more powerful image. A good photographer can take a picture of a commonplace object and turn it into something interesting, all from how the object is framed and portrayed.

Cartier-Bresson refused to crop his images (although this may be more attributed to legend than to actuallity). This means that the image that he saw through the camera is the image that gets shown. In other words, he didn't make his images in the dark room, he made them as he took them.

Virtually everyone crops their images. The very idea that he didn't do this is complete genius. He was somehow able to make incredibly wonderful images guessing what people were going to do, by seeing things before they happened. He didn't have to rework the image after it was taken. He didn't have to set up a scene. He didn't need to work the lighting or arrange items. He just walked the streets and took pictures.

How wonderfully simple.

Four Years

Today is our fourth wedding anniversary. And guys, let me tell you, you get off easy for this anniversary. The traditional gift for the fourth wedding anniversary is .... flowers. If you can't pull this one off, I can't help you.

So, if you couldn't guess, that's what I got Renee for our anniversary. A big, huge bouquet. It's pretty nice, if I do say so myself. I also got a bottle of wine (a nice Côtes-du-Rhône from 2000, the year of our wedding), some angel's food cake (one of Renee's favorite) and some strawberries to go with them. Aidan thought the strawberries were a good idea, so he ate all of them; the whole pint. Well, he didn't eat all of them; he only ate the good parts. Every strawberry had the red tips bitten off. He was nice enough to leave the rest for us...

A lot has happened in the last four years. Some of it feels like it just happened yesterday... other things feel as though they occured in another life.

Some notable events in the last four years:

• We've been to Spain.


• We've been to Spokane, Washington.


• Renee's been to Germany.


• We've been to Florida (twice).


• We've sold a house.


• We've bought a house.


• I've been employeed with three different companies — and have been at one of them for almost three years.


• I purchased a new car. I mean a brand new car. First time ever for me.


• We've driven cross-country (in said new car).

Aidan's arrival is probably the biggest, most significant event in the last four years. This is one of those things that actually fits into both categories; imagining life before Aidan is like remembering back to another life, but I can still remember him in the hospital, minutes after he was born, as though it were yesterday.

What Not to Wallow

Aidan has been introduced to bubble gum. Well, chewing gum, really. But he calls it bubble gum. Actually, I think he calls it "wubb'l yum."

But the idea of bubble gum, or wubb'l yum, has been a relatively good one for us, as it's now become a bit easier to coax him into the car, or out of his clothes, or into the bath, or other places that sometimes require a little coaxing. Of course, trying to teach a two-year-old how to chew and not swallow is a bit of an adventure.

The exchange of acquiring the gum (on Aidan's part) and us trying to teach him that it's for chewing and not swallowing is complicated not only by the idea (why would I put something in my mouth to chew, and that I ultimately can't eat?) but by pure issues of two-year-old enunciation. Talking with a two-year-old in general is a bit like living in Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First" routine, and ours goes a little like this:

Aidan: My want wubb'l yum.

Renee: What do you want?

Aidan: My want wubb'l yum.

Renee: I don't think I understand, sweetie. You want waffles?

Aidan: No. My want wubb'l yum.

Renee: Um... you want ... daddy's keys?

Aidan: Noooo. My want wubb'l yum.

Renee: Oh! Right. Here ...

Aidan: My eat it.

Renee: No, don't eat it. You chew it. Don't swallow it, only chew. Did you swallow it? Let me see ... good. That's right, just chew it.

[Five minutes later]

Aidan: My want more, Mommy.

Renee: You want more what?

Aidan: My want more wubb'l yum.

Renee: Why do you ... where's your gum?

Aidan: My wallow it. [Aidan opens his mouth wide to show that the wubb'l yum is not present.]

Renee: Aidan, you're not supposed to eat it. It's for chewing. Okay? Only chew.

Aidan: My want more, Mommy.

Renee: I know, but you can't have more. You're only supposed to chew it.

Aidan. Only chew it. My no wallow it.

Renee: You won't swallow it?

Aidan: My want more, Mommy.

Renee: But you won't swallow it?

Aidan: Only chew. My no wallow it.

Renee: Okay, but don't swallow ....

[Five minutes later]

Aidan: My wallow it.

Renee: You want what?

Aidan: My wallow it.

Renee: I'm sorry. I don't understand. What do you want?

Aidan: No chew it, my wallow it.

And so it goes ....

No Sleep for the Funny

We have been having some difficulty getting Aidan to nap on the weekends. It could be that our routine is sufficiently different than the one he is used to at daycare, or that there's too much to do at home to slow down for a nap. It could be something else entirely. But whatever it is, we're going to have to figure out someway to get him to sleep.

The downside to his not napping is relatively obvious: he gets cranky and moody and by late afternoon he doesn't really have the energy to do too much.

For example, yesterday before dinner, Renee and I wanted to go swimming, but Aidan was too tired. We did our best to get him to the pool, but once we were there he was too frazzled to deal with the heat and the cold water, etc. So we went home. We were there for a grand total of about 10 minutes. Not exactly the refreshing trip to the pool that we were hoping for.

But there is an upside to no naps: comedy.

The three of us gathered around the table for dinner after our trip to the pool. Aidan was hungry. And tired. He was literally falling asleep at the table. In fact, he was doing his best to eat with his eyes closed. He would only occassionally open his eyes to make sure he was getting food into his mouth. And then his head would nod over to one side and then he would snap out of his sleep for a moment with that "what? me asleep?" look on his face.

Immediately upon finishing his dinner (and, oddly, he probably ate more at dinner last night than he normally does), he reached out across the table to Renee and — with his eyes still closed — whispered "up please, Mommy."

I don't think that we've ever been able to feed him and getting him to bed so efficiently....

Who is He?

I recently loaned a book to a friend that contains one of my favorite poems. As I just happend to have it in front of me (as the book has just been returned), I thought I'd take this opportunity to share it.

Who Is He?
What is he?
—A man, of course.
Yes, but what does he do?
—He lives and is a man.
Oh quite! but he must work. He must have a job of some sort.
—Why?
Because obviously he's not one of the leisured classes.
—I don't know. He has lots of leisure. And he makes quite beautiful chairs.
There you are then! He's a cabinet maker.
—No, no!
Anyhow a carpenter and joiner.
—Not at all.
But you said so.
—What did I say?
That he made chairs, and was a joiner and carpenter.
—I said he made chairs, but I did not say he was a carpenter.
All right then, he's just an amateur?
—Perhaps! Would you say a thrush was a professional flautist, or just an amateur?
I'd say it was just a bird.
—And I say he is just a man.
All right! You always did quibble.

— D. H. Lawrence

Potty Training Update

As any one who travels probably understands, using a strange toilet can sometimes cause a person to become ... backed up.

Well, for Aidan, all toilets are strange. He is using them quite well for urination, but he has not had too much success with anything else.

All-in-all, Aidan is doing very well with the potty training and one might even consider him a graduate of such training. We haven't had any accidents the last couple of days and the only day that had multiple accidents was the very first day, last Sunday.

The second day, Monday, was still fairly difficult. Aidan did have a poop accident in his underwear, which was sufficiently gross that Renee said that she was doing her best to suppress certain reflexes as she was cleaning it up.

Yet from that accident through all day Tuesday, Aidan never did a "number two" (he finally did accomplish this on Wednesday, at school). Throughout, we encouraged him to go and sometimes he would say that he was going to, but always to no avail.

One time, on Tuesday night, he calmly came in from the backyard, turned, found the doorknob, and closed the door. Then he turned to face us and then suddenly — almost out of nowhere — started running in place and gave us a look of consternation.

"Do you need to use the potty?" Renee asked.

"uh-huh," nodded Aidan.

"Okay. Let's hurry." Renee added, and Aidan ran off to the potty, flapping his arms, while repeating "hurry, hurry, hurry."

He was trying to go "number two" and Renee offered that when he completed his task at hand, he could have a piece of salt-water taffy. Of course, now that he knew the candy existed, he wanted it now and not later. So Renee offered that he could eat half of it while he tried to go and he could have the rest of it once he used the potty.

Aidan was happy with that, so he sat on the potty and chewed and chewed. However, he finished the first bit without actually using the potty. The second half of the candy was on the counter in the bathroom, all wrapped up.

"Me hold it," Aidan suggested.

"No, you can't hold it, sweetie," I told him. "You'll have to wait until you use the potty. You have to wait, okay?"

"Okay, " he replied.

I left him in the bathroom so he could have a little privacy and Renee was busy doing something else as well. Soon, we both heard the door close and the stool in the bathroom being moved.

After a few moments, I opened the door to check on him. When the door opened he had a startled look on his face, which quickly changed into a sly smile. There he was sitting on his potty with the candy.

"Me hold it," he said.

"Okay, fine. But you can't eat it. You have to wait until you use the potty. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Do you want Daddy to close the door?" I asked, thinking that privacy will help move his bowels. He nodded.

A few moments later, I heard Renee open the door to check on him.

"Mommy go away," Aidan quickly said. I heard Renee laugh. He was greedily eating what was left of the candy....

Nomar No More

It was inevitable.

Last winter, the Boston Red Sox made their star shortstop and soon-to-be free agent an offer that he could, apparently, refuse. The owners, after making what they probably felt was their best offer, made their next best (and logical) move: try to create a trade with another team, so they could at least receive some compensation for his departure.

The trade was cooked up behind closed doors but was eventually made public. And this trade that ultimately didn't happen hurt the pride of Nomar Garciaparra, said shortstop.

To make matters worse, he got physically hurt in spring training and Nomar missed the first two months of the season. Through April and May, the months without Nomar, the Red Sox compiled a 35-24 record. That's a decent record. That's only four games behind the first place team. Yet, when he did return to the lineup, the Red Sox went 21-21 and fell 7.5 games behind first place. Obviously not going in the right direction.

To look into this a little bit futher, I've applied a forumula created by famous sabermatician Bill James, called the Pythagorean Expectation, which in my estimation does give a good measure of the expected win/loss percentage for a team in games that it has already played. Any deviation from this expected win/loss percentage in real life is one way to judge if the team in general is playing to their full capabilities. Of course luck, etc. play into this as well, and this formula works really well over long stretches, such as an entire season.

But for my purposes, I'm going to look at the 42 games with Nomar on the roster. During those 42 games, as I've already stated, the Red Sox had 21 wins and 21 losses, or a winning percentage of .500. According to the Pythagorean Expectation, they should have had a winning percentage of .586, or a record of 25-17. The implication here is that the Red Sox weren't playing up to their potential. But why?

Perhaps it is circumstantial that the team wasn't playing as well with Nomar in the lineup. But at the very least, his injury was affecting his game. One article I read stated that "three teams that do statistical ratings of players had him as the worst defensive shortstop in the game, because of the injury." And this from a perennial all-star. A guy who was known for playing hard and playing the game "the right way." These are the reasons he was an all-star and why Boston fans loved him. But something happened.

Maybe it wasn't only the nagging injuries, but also the psychological damage that may have happened when Nomar was almost traded. I mean, would you want to work for a company that is openly trying to get rid of you? It can't be easy, regardless of how many millions and millions of dollars you're making.

But it wasn't only Nomar that was suffering; the whole team was. As their record indicates, they were simply an average team when Nomar came back to them. But they really looked a lot worse than that.

Every time an opposing team hit the ball it was an adventure. This isn't just bad news for the fielders, but for the pitchers too.

The pitchers were afraid to pitch hittable balls. Derek Lowe (who despite his protestations is an emotional and psychologically fragile pitcher) would be doing just fine during a game until someone in the field made an error. Then he would go crazy and start giving up a lot of runs. A pitcher, who two years ago was in the running for the Cy Young award, and last year was a decent pitcher, was transformed into a bad pitcher who couldn't get people out.

Well, all that changed this past weekend when the management (who are enough at fault here as well for making not-quite-completed-trades known to the public) decided enough was enough. They needed help. Big help. Other than their two power pitchers (who could rely on strike outs and thus reducing the number of errors the fielders could make), the pitching staff was in tatters. They in fact had a very good team earned run average, but they also lead the league in unearned runs. The pitching staff was demoralized. Getting other, better pitchers would have been possibly beneficial, but they too may have come by the same fate as the ones currently on the staff.

Thus, the team did something it tried to do months ago: trade one of the best players in recent Red Sox history and perhaps also one of the biggest fan favorites in order to get something in return for his departure. What they got was some guys with solid defensive skills (read: they can catch the ball) but with limited offensive abilities.

But that's alright by me. Not only did they improve the defense about ten-fold, they also basically revitalized an already good pitching staff. Derek Lowe may really be a good pitcher again.

And that's really the point. It's not about star players, as much as the media and everyone talks that way. It’s about being a good cohesive unit, about being able to play solid fundamentals. It's about having "good chemistry," which is derived from trusting in your teammates. And that's something the Red Sox did not have with Nomar in the lineup, despite his great hustle and effort. Sort of ironic, really.

So, the Red Sox only won half of their games with Nomar on the roster. He hasn't been gone too long, thus it is far too early to judge if this really is the right thing to do. But in my opinion, the Red Sox have more of a chance to do very well than they ever had all season.

There are only 57 games left in the regular season. The Sox have a respectable 58-47 record but are a significant 8 games behind the team from New York for first place in their division. That's a deficit that will likely not be made up. Yet, they are only a half game behind the Texas Rangers for the Wild Card spot. Making the post-season is very achievable.

There's an old saying in baseball: you know you will win 54 games; you know you will lose 54 games. It's what you do with those last 54 that matters....

Diet Update

It's been a little over a month-and-a-half now since I've received the news about my high triglyceride levels. My basic strategy has been to limit my amount of fat intake by mostly focusing on eliminating cheese and deep fried food. Since doing so, I've lost about eight pounds but have seemed to have plateaued over the last two weeks, as I've maintained my loss of eight pounds.

The main goal here is to reduce my triglyceride levels, but there's no practical way of monitoring this on a frequent basis. I plan on going back to the doctor's for a new blood test in September, but until then the best I can do is use weight loss (which is also a good thing) as a way to measure progress.

To that end — and since I've plateaued in terms of weight loss — I'm going to have to change up what I'm currently doing.

Knowing how I am and what my habits are, when I learned that I needed to change my lifestyle for health reasons, I overtly choose to remove bad portions of my habits instead of adding new beneficial routines. That is, I was essentially prescribed to do two things: change my diet and exercise.

However, adding exercise to my routine has never really worked out for me in the past because my schedule can be so hectic and varied. I can never really depend on having any one moment available. As I've mentioned in other posts, mowing the lawn has been pretty much my sole means of exercise for some time.

But removing "bad" things, like cheese and deep fried food, was relatively easy and require no serious investment in time (other than trying to think of what I was going to eat).

However, now seems as good a time as any to try and add a little more exercise. Renee loves to swim and Aidan usually does (although the last couple of times we took Aidan to the pool he pretty much hated it). Hopefully, the three of us can go to the community pool and have fun together and then I can throw in a couple of laps to boot (Renee has also expressed interest in doing laps).

If we can do this three times a week, this will be a major boost to my activity and will hopefully contribute to additional weight loss (and help toward lowing my triglycerides).

Potty Training

So nap-time never really happened yesterday. Aidan was terribly grumpy much of the day and had a fairly complete melt-down before bed time. I guess we're still paying for all that fun we had the other day. However, after a full-night sleep, he was mostly back to his usual self.

Another reason for the lack of nap yesterday could have been because we were starting some serious potty training. During his brief nap yesterday he had a little accident, which woke him up, thus ending our only good opportunity (although we didn' t know it at the time).

Our technique for potty training is based on the idea that if Aidan knows that he's wet, he'll be more apt to want to use the potty. Therefore, as of yesterday (and henceforth), Aidan will only wear regular underwear (except at night; a diaper is still helpful in bed as we learned last night).

We stayed at home pretty much all day and let Aidan run around in just his underwear and a shirt. If he had an accident, it was relatively easy to clean up, especially on our tile floor (it's obviously more complicated on our carpet).

Yet there weren't really too many accidents. At least, not as many as I was expecting. There were four successful trips to the potty, four accidents, and numerous false alarms.

When he did have an accident, he didn't get too upset. He usually just told us that he needed to use the potty. But Aidan does get excited about using the potty and even for his false alarm trips, will proudly exclaim "I did it!" after he sits on the potty.

We bought about tweleve pairs of underwear for Aidan with a bunch of his favorite characters, such as Shrek, Nemo, Bob the Builder, and The Wiggles. Unfortunately, Aidan tends to get fixated on one thing at a time, so the only underwear that he wanted to wear yesterday was Shrek, thus limiting our choices.

Since we were home, it was relatively easy for us to keep up with all the Shrek underwear to pacify Aidan. So today, a day Aidan will spend most of his time at daycare, will be interesting.

Aidan's daycare actually encourages us to use them to help with the potty training, so his teacher, Mr. Michael, will be continuing with Aidan during the day. Yet he obviously doesn't have the ability to wash Shrek if he gets dirty, so hopefully Aidan doesn't give Mr. Michael a hard time.

With Mr. Michael's advice and help, we figure that by the end of the week (and maybe as early as a few days), Aidan will be completely out of diapers (with the possible exception of bedtime).

They grow up so fast!

Too Much Fun

We normally spend a good amount of our time on the weekend trying to catch up with all the house work that we neglected during the week. But this weekend, or at least yesterday, we decided to just have fun. But we may have had a little too much fun.

Our first stop was to go see Uncle Jeffrey at a coffee shop downtown. It was relatively early in the morning (we left the house around 9 a.m. to run an errand and then arrived at Little City around 10). We stayed there for about an hour and then headed out to Fredericksburg to get some fresh Texas peaches.

The drive to Fredericksburg is relatively long (about 90 minutes) and we were hoping that Aidan would take advantage of the trip and take a good long nap. However, he remained awake a lot longer than I was expected. He just sat there with a glazed look on his face, almost asleep, but refusing to surrender. Eventually he did capitulate.

We stopped at a farm, got our fresh produce, and almost immeadiately (and after about a 30-minute nap) Aidan woke up and said, "my want peach." So much for napping.

Aidan stayed awake for the entire trip back to Austin. By now it was about 2 p.m. and none of us really ate any lunch (besides a peach or two in the car), so we decided that we would stop at Serrano's on the way back into Austin and then go somewhere fun for Aidan, since he was bound (and awake) in a car seat for most of the day.

Around three o'clock we arrived at Radijazz, which is a large indoor playground is very child-proof so kids can do virtually anything they want. (The price of admission is $5 for one child for all-day admission; they also offer free Starbuck's coffee, so you can easily make your $5 back by driking two cups while you're there).

Aidan loved it. The whole thing and every thing. He was in heaven. He would climb onto things and jump. There were slides everwhere and a large "lava pit" that was like a huge pool filled with foam blocks that everyone — even adults — could jump into. We spent the rest of the day there. Three hours. Past dinner-time. Every attempt to leave resulted in a major revolt from Aidan. Rene and I were exhausted. Aidan was showing signs of exhaustion as well, but he wouldn't (or couldn't) leave.

The only way that we were finally able to get him to loose his grip on all the fun was by getting his hand stamped, which would allow him back into the facility later that day (nevermind that the facility was closing for the day; you can't tell Aidan everything).

He fell asleep in the car minutes into the ride home and remained asleep for the rest of the evening. Renee and I were concerned that, since he missed dinner, he was going to wake up hungry in the middle of the night. That didn't happen.

However, he did wake up really early. Considering that he fell asleep at about 6:30 and didn't eat any dinner, he did pretty well. Still, he woke us up around 5 a.m.

And now we're paying for all the fun we had yesterday. Aidan sort of napped today, but he's just now going down "for real" (the first nap lasted about 30 minutes). He's been moody; pleasant one minute, tired and grumpy the next. Hopefully, after nap, he'll be a new boy....