Send Grandma a Photo

NEWS.COM -- A few years ago a few companies started offering "remote photo frames" - you send it to grandma who plugs it into a power outlet and a phone jack and then you go online and upload photos and they appear on grandma's photo frame. I thought this was really cool and if it were a little less expensive, I'd buy quite a few of these. Along those lines, a company is now offering a "remote photo printer" -- similar idea - grandma plugs it into a power outlet and a phone jack. You go to a website, upload photos and they print out on her printer. I like this idea even better than the frame. It's permanent and she can show it to her friends when they get together for breakfast every week. (Or is this the further impersonalization of things where you can't even be bothered to print them yourselves and attach a quick post-it note offering your love before dropping into an envelope, addressing, adding a stamp and dropping in the mail?) More...

My name is what?

BABYCENTER.COM -- The latest top 10 lists for names are out. While in general, we don't want names that end up in the top 10 until years after we use it, so that we look more like trendsetters then trend-followers, it's cool to see where Rachel did come up in the top 10 - Northern Ireland and Scotland. More...

When Did I Become "Dad"?

Rachel's taken to calling me simply "dad" now instead of "daddy." Ah, they grow up so fast. Mommy has become mom sometimes, too. Then again, Rachel is now up to three self-appointed nicknames... Che Che (chey chey), Rach (raych) and Jake. (??)

Some other great recent quotes:

"Watch OnDemand."
"What?" asks Lori.
"Watch OnDemand. Supposed to."

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As Lori is unbuckling her to get her out of the car she hands her baby to Lori and says "Here's the baby. Don't drop it."

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Umprompted, an hour after receiving it: "THANK you mommy guitar wiggles guitar."

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After throwing her bag of bunny grahams down onto the floor in the backseat and then multiple requests for us to retrieve them are denied...

Silence for awhile.

"I'm sorry."
"What for?" asked Lori.
"For throwing bunny grahams on the floor."

Was she sorry? Probably not. But it worked anyhow, she was given something else to snack on. (The bunny grahams were out of our reach.)

Keyboard of Fun

Rachel was acting like she wanted to type, so I started up Blogger and was going to let her make a post. She held down different keys for awhile, watching long strings of n's and j's appear. Then I asked her if she wanted to type something specific and she said yes, so I asked what. "Kitty" she said. So we worked on tapping the keys vs. holding them down for 10 minutes at a time and she actually carefully typed the word "kitty" ;;; bnn mmmmikj b I stepped away from the keyboard and I see she's been back. Well, last time after she typed that wonderful post, then she found the little recessed "sleep" key and pressed that and the computer locked up and the post was lost.

Can I get an encore

Phone rang the other day at work. I normally have the cell phone off, but I turned it on at lunch that day for some reason. We were all in a conference room having a party and I answer but the stupid thing's on speaker phone and won't turn off so I'm trying to leave the room and everyone's laughing and making silly comments and I finally ended up just hanging up on my wife (sorry!). It had been a weird morning, Rachel was up before the crack of dawn so I played with her while Lori got ready. Most days I don't even see the little one before leaving for work. Well, I called Lori back and she said she was calling because Rachel was telling her that she's saying "miss daddy" and signing "cry." That was pretty cool. Of course, I didn't get a chance to mention that during the party and say "Take that, you, you, you mockers!"

Congrats to R & C on baby Grayson and N & C on baby Miles. Congrats to new parents to be J & S and A & J. And J & D - any day now, any day now!

It's the little things...

Just instant messaged to me:

I thought you'd be proud to hear that Rachel just asked to see "Bob the Builder." She said "Watch Bob." I said "Bob?" and she said "Bob the Builder, Mommy."

Last night Rachel wanted to go downstairs and watch Bear on the DVR. However, I wanted to hang a curtain rod upstairs and I was watching her, so I brought up the OnDemand guide upstairs and showed her three episodes of Bob the Builder. Bear isn't available OnDemand, so I had to choose from Blue's Clues (I'm tired of), Zoobamafoo (I'm scared of), Sesame Street (Rachel is scared of lately) or something she'd never seen before. So I put on Bob the Builder.

That, combined with the fact that she loves going to Home Depot and always wants to wear her Home Depot "smock" every time she goes means I'm having an impact on my daughter. :)

Oh. I should mention that I put up the gate last Thursday night, so now the fence is nearly complete. I mention that here because while I held the drill, Rachel pulled the trigger and drove in a few of the screws. So that means that the fence was a true family experience, with work done by both of my parents, Lori, Rachel and I.