Master of the Universe

Something occurred to me while we were in Cleveland visiting McCall's family. Harper was playing with a new toy that McCall's mom, Susan, had bought for our visit. Well, actually, calling it a "toy" is understating it a bit. I believe they actually call it an "exploration center". If you're a parent, you know what I'm talking about. These mega structures make the Ewok Village I had as a kid look like Lincoln Logs!


"Harper" loves her Exploration Center!

Anyway, Harper was playing and McCall, Susan, and I were all looking on. Since the activity center was made post 1990, it of course emits lots of sounds and plays songs in six languages. Harper triggered the alphabet song, or something and started to bob her head back and forth. To encourage her sense of rhythm and dance, we all started bobbing our heads and rocking back and forth. The funny thing was, we all started pretty much in unison.

Harper laughed delightedly and started to rock more enthusiastically in response. As soon as the song stopped, she played it again and we all bobbed and rocked together. It was then that the afore mentioned something occurred to me.

Harper must think she controls the world. If she wants us to rock back and forth all she has to do is play some music and we join in. If she wants to play chase, she simply gets up and walks away. As soon as she sees one of us coming after her, she starts running. To her we're just the huge automatons that serve her, clean her, and make her laugh. And I think a lot of babies probably feel this way.

However, the truth is, she doesn't control anything. The only reason I'm rocking to and fro, is because I know that doing so will cause her to do it even more and she's super cute when she's jamming out. I run after her because I don't want her to get run over and as soon as I catch her, I scoop her up and drop her back down where I want her to be, regardless of her will.

I know a little girl who's in for a very sad day when she realizes that she doesn't control squat! In fact, I believe that day, the very instant of that realization, will be quite significant. I believe it will mark the end of her infancy, and the beginning of the long, difficult road toward maturity. But for now, I'm happy to be her puppet. After all, she's usually only pulling on my heart strings.

Barnyard Baby

Last week we flew home to Cleveland to visit McCall's family. Yes, you read correctly, I said we FLEW. For those of you who don't know, flying anywhere is a huge accomplishment for us. Not only were we going with the squirmiest baby on the block, but McCall has a horrible phobia of flying.

However, Kaiser Permanente hooked us up with some meds and McCall was, let's say, on a different plain on the plane. But before she was able to pass out, she had to deal with Harper while I wrangled luggage. And it wasn't until we were in the air that Harper finally went to sleep and McCall could relax. I have to tell you how proud I am of McCall, she was a real trooper and held it together. Way to go, babe!

While in Cleveland we stayed at McCall's mom's house which is called Critter Ridge Farm. It's just a house and a barn on about a half acre of land, but doesn't it sound cool? I've always loved properties with names: Camelot, Monticello, Southfork Ranch. We live in an apartment which I think automatically forfeits the right to name our home. Besides, if we were really honest, we'd have to call it something like Ant Springs, or Mount Toys, or Air Conditionless.

The Critter Ridge barn houses a variety of animals and McCall's mom, Susan, feeds and takes care of them every morning. She has two pigs, a goat, a sheep, a llama, and two alpacas. And those are just the barn animals. Inside the house is a cat, a horse dressed up as a dog called Charlie, and an African Grey named Einstein.



Harper made fast friends with Charlie and in the mornings went out with McCall and Susan to help with the animals. Here are some of Harper's animal exploits caught on film:


Harper Jo with Charlie


Harper with Peekaboo the cat


Susan and Harper prepare to feed Otis the goat


Harper and the animals size each other up


A kiss for Charlie

I love the following series of photographs. The sheep must have said something that Harper didn't like because she suddenly got very upset.






Here comes Charlie to the rescue!

Words Harper Can Say

Harper is now 14 months old and is about to enter a period of time when her vocabulary will explode. So we wanted to gather a list of all the words she can say after one year, and if applicable how they actually sound coming out of her mouth.

Mama
Dada
No
Uh oh - said whenever she drops anything, sometimes ad infinitum.
Kitty cat - "kee ca" - we have three cats.
Belly Button - "beh-wi bu-un" - Harper is obsessed with her belly button. She is constantly touching it and likes to touch ours as well. We've been forced to cut the bottoms off some onesies because she can't sleep without access to it.
Up
Down - "dow" - I suppose it's possible she's actually just expressing an early interest in stock trading.
Amen - "a-me"
Wow - she seems very impressed by flagpoles and tall trees.
Bye bye - "bu-bye" - Usually accompanied by a wave of her hand, and usually after the intended recipient of this gesture is long gone.

Thankfully she can't identify any television characters like Elmo or Dora yet. I think this is more because we never watch those shows. Instead she watches a lot of the Simpsons.

A Day at the Aquarium

A few weeks ago we went to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. This is a pretty nice aquarium with lots of displays and much to see. Currently they have a big exhibit on the history of surfing which includes a life size model of the Silver Surfer as a part of a tie-in with the Fantastic Four. Pretty sweet.

Sure, he can save the planet, but can he save the movie franchise?

Harper had a terrific time looking at all the fish. She was so enamored with the first tank she saw that we had to pry her away and explain that there were other things to see.

"You mean there's more?"

She especially liked the touching pools where you can touch various fish and stingrays. My favorite part was the Q&A session with one of the aquarium employees who was "pretty sure" that stingrays are either hatched from eggs or live birthed. One of the two. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's one of those too, sweetheart.

Harper loving the Touching Pools

They also a have a small aviary which houses several lorikeets. Harper had fun watching the birds fly all around her. They are very friendly and will even land on you.


It really was a fun day. The whole family had a good time. And I think we may even have a little surfer girl on our hands.

Shortly after I marked her height, we were asked to leave.

Birthday Bash

We recently celebrated Harper's first birthday with a big party and it was a smashing success. I have to admit that prior to the big day, I was very nervous and a bit skeptical that we'd be able to pull together everything McCall had planned. There were a lot of elements and it felt like the final task on the Apprentice!

The first major job we undertook was converting the dead wasteland that existed between our building and our neighbor's into a fun family side yard. Here are before and after images:

Before


After


In addition, we had three kiddie sized pools out front, sidewalk chalk, a baby swing, several play areas and a mini petting zoo. The petting zoo featured four ducklings, two bunnies, a baby pig, and a goat.

Here are some pictures of our front yard in the midst of all the birthday commotion:

Kiddie Pool

This bully wouldn't let anybody else near the pool.

Petting Zoo

It's hard to tell, but there really are animals in there.

General Frivolity

You could've cut the fun with a knife!

One of the highlights of the day was our good friend Eric Bryant performing Harper's baby dedication. A baby dedication is basically our public declaration as parents that we will do our best to raise Harper with the understanding that she belongs to God, not to us. We will attempt to love her in the same unconditional way that God loves us.

Big thanks to Eric!

It really seemed like everybody had a great time and we were so thankful for all our friends and family who joined us. Thanks for making Harper's first the best birthday she's ever had.

Sesame Asylum

Generally speaking, I watch a lot of really bad television. Don't get me wrong, I also watch a lot of great TV. McCall and I love 24, Lost and Heroes. But we do watch quite a bit of VH1's Celebreality lineup. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you are a healthy well adjusted citizen. If you do, you should be ashamed of yourself (although Surreal Life Fame Games was SO good).

Anyway, now we have to TiVo shows that Harper can watch. If she watched the shows we watch, she'd think that torture, gunfire, and super powers were part of daily life. She'd also think "bleeping bleep" are the most common words in the English language. So now all kinds of crazy shows are popping up on TiVo that range from the fun and tolerable (Johnny and the Sprites), to the PC indoctrinating (Happily Ever After: Stories for Every Child).

However, it's hard to beat the old standards, and Sesame Street definitely fits into this category. But, as I was watching it the other day with Harper, I realized something a bit disturbing. Sesame Street is full of crazies and alternative lifestyles. Below are the list of offending characters on the show:

1) Big Bird:

A Beautiful Mind? I don't think so!
Okay, lets start with the kingpin. Big Bird is one giant, yellow paranoid schizophrenic. He has visual and auditory hallucinations that take the form of a woolly mammoth named Aloysius Snuffleupagus (aka Mr. Snuffleupagus or Snuffy). Big Bird exhibits all the classic signs of PS; he is delusional in his belief that Snuffy is real, and carries on conversations that only he can hear. Nobody besides Jack saw Tyler Durden and nobody besides Big Bird sees Mr. Snuffleupagus, draw your own conclusion.

2) Cookie Monster:

Not Pictured: About a million trillion other cookies he's eaten.
Cookie Monster is an addict. His addiction takes the form of an eating disorder focused on cookies. Cookie Monster needs serious help and I believe he should start going to Overeaters Anonymous meetings and get a sponsor. During the episode that I saw, he had an enormous cookie, at least four feet in diameter, which he ate in less than one minute. He tried to contain himself. He started by only taking one bite. But his addiction wouldn't allow him to stop. Pretty soon it was all crumbs dropping out of his mouth. I really think it's wrong of the Children's Television Workshop and PBS to exploit his weakness for their own profit.

3) Count Von Count:

The Count was later found dead from hypothermia.
Otherwise known simply as the Count, this poor soul clearly suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. He has an irrational need to count any and everything in sight. He is most affected by repetition of sounds (e.g. clock chimes) and a need to sort items (such as snowflakes) into groupings of successive integers. What may be most disturbing about his illness is the heightened level of mania he displays while acting out. The Count laughs uncontrollably between each item he counts. These empty guffaws obviously mask a great deal of emotional pain and distress.

4) Bert and Ernie:

Gay or Not Gay?
These may be the most controversial of the Sesame Street characters. Are they gay? I don't think so. At least not Bert. Any gay man with half a brain would get that unibrow waxed post haste. Plus neither has any fashion sense and their hair styles can best be described as Troll. And while they share a bedroom, they sleep in separate beds. That's not very gay. They aren't homosexual, they aren't even metrosexual. They are just a couple of buddies too broke to get a two-bedroom apartment. All that being said, there's definitely something odd about Ernie's obsession with his rubber ducky. I can't quite call it a psychological disorder, but it's not normal.

Caption Contest

Here are some pics from Harper's last photo shoot. Leave your own ideas for captions in the comments area.

1)Pink cowboy hats. The next big rage!


2)Shut up! Seriously? Memoirs of a Geisha is out on DVD?


3)Eat your heart out, Anne Geddes.


4)Who me? I didn't do it.


5)Um, you're going to need a lot more than this.


6)This is my favorite part of my belly, right here.


7)BUSTED!