Don Murray, P.Eng. - Photo Friday: Self-Portrait

I’m stretching the rules a little here: this photo was actually taken by Corinna.

Other words

Nathaniel can also say sausage “autage”, bad (not that he is ever…), bed (refers to a nice red silk Pottery Barn comforter that the kids have claimed as theirs), scootch, stairs, medicine “medeeche”, juice (referring to Mommy’s beer when we went out for dinner the other night). Again, I’m sure there are words I’m missing, he learns new ones daily! Oh, we can’t forget buttons and buckle!

Nathaniel news

It’s been too long since the last blog… Nathaniel and Alice had their latest vaccinations March 24th, the day after Don was laid off from Pason… Nathaniel weighed 21 lbs, and is 75% for weight and 90th for height- the tall Murray! I keep meaning to update Nathaniel’s progress- he knows so many words now!! Here’s the list I can try to think of: Car (has been saying this for months), Truck (“uck”), Plane (“pane”), Alice (“acss”), Mama, Daddy, Bye Bye, Toothbrush (“busch”), Uncle “unco”, Auntie “a-tee”, Cassie “ca-he”, Chase “teace”, meow meow (“mao mao”), puppy, mess, ba ba (for his bottle), wee, two, bo-bo, hug (“ug”), remote (“mote”), dragon (“a-gon”), rock (“ock”), happy “a-py”, no, phone “oan”, toes, hot, motorbike “mo-mo”, uckie, nose, eyes, blackberries “blackie”, noodles “noonoes”, apple “app-o”, ball, horse, owl, book (a new word this week), up, down, go. He learns new words almost daily. He loves to sit and read books, and will often gravitate to the bookshelf while Alice happily watches treehouse. His favorite books are the happy baby words ones, where he can point to things and say what they are. The most important word is “B”, for his blanket- his most worldly possession (I think he loves it more than me!) And now he can put 2-3 words together, ie/ go-go-go (this is what he says as soon as he sees hockey on TV), bye-bye, no no, etc. This week he also learned how to blow kisses–the most adorable thing! And he knows all his body parts and proudly points to them when asked ie/where’s your fingers? He is smart, and I kiss him all day long!!!

Installing Fedora 10 from USB drive

I’ve got an old IBM ThinkPad R51 that needed an upgrade. The CD-ROM has become flaky, so I wanted to install from a USB thumbdrive. Turns out this was pretty easy.

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Nathaniel's Favourite TV

Things Nathaniel likes to watch on TV: dogs (we’re watching the Iditarod Great Sled Race right now); race cars (Nathaniel watched some of the Daytona 500 with me in February); steak commercials (each time ads for The Keg appear, Nathaniel points and laughs); Barney (daddy is not a fan); Four Square on Treehouse.

Nathaniel news

Since our last post, Nathaniel has grown a lot! He’s fully walking now; he tries to go so fast he’s almost running!!! It sure is hard work trying to keep up to Alice! He’s learned a bunch of new words too. A few days ago he learned to say “da-ddy”. His favorite new word is “car”, which comes out more as if he has a British accent; it sounds more like “ca”. His most favorite activity as such, is to stand on the bonus room window sill and watch the parade of cars go by (yes, every day there is a parade on Copperfield Blvd., don’t you know!). He cries when you take him off, and will point to the window and say “ca” to get you to take him there. His word for Alice sounds more like “Ala” now, and he can now say “cracker” aka “ca ca” since our discovery of peanut butter cracker sandwiches. For a few weeks now he’s been able to say “ba ba” for his bottle, which he says when he’s thirsty. A minor note, the last post said Alice had the flu- well she was better after 6 days or so, then Nathaniel got sick. So he was sick for his 1st birthday, not fair at all. He was vomitting/diarrhea for about 5 days, and took a few days after to get back to his normal self. Then he had a growth spurt to boot, so was eating up a storm! He gained back the weight he lost, and then some. He’s never been a chubby baby, but he is strong! 2 weeks after his actual birthday, we had a party with the 4 of us and opened the family gifts.

Nathaniel turns 1!

Nathaniel is 1 year old today, not a “baby” anymore. Well, a big baby, I guess. Chasing after his big sister, he’ll be a big boy in no time though. Today, Alice has the flu; she’s been sick since 2am, vomiting every 1/2 hour or so until about 4pm. Poor girl… we’re glad though that Nathaniel isn’t sick on his birthday! Nathaniel has changed lots since our last blog; he can easily walk 3-4 steps without falling on his bum, but can go 9 or so if he really tries. He talks up a jabbery storm, telling all sorts of stories, and is a funny boy! He loves to play games- peekaboo, hide and seek and tug a war with his yellow b (his most favorite blanket that must be with him at all times, received at birth from Auntie Wanda- gee, thanks auntie!) We’re lucky if we can get it away from him long enough to wash it… yes, it serves as comfort, as well as having other functions such as a napkin! He can say “nana”, “dada” and mum mum mum; Alice is pronounced “AAAA!”, he can say “up”. He claps his hands when you tell him to clap, and waves as well. He loves when you tickle him, and giggles up a storm! He’s been sleeping through the night since about 10 1/2 months. His naps the last week have been off kilter, I think he’s transitioning to only 1 nap/day (sleep is for babies!). Most days now he does only have 1/day, depending on when he wakes up.

Nathaniel's First Teeth, First Christmas

On Christmas Eve (Dec 24, 2008) we noticed that Nathaniel finally had a tooth break through his gums. It was one of his bottom incisors. Kind of funny that Alice got her first tooth at Christmas too. Nathaniel seemed to like Christmas. He didn’t try to unwrap anything early, nor did he bother the tree at all. Not what we expected. But on Christmas day, he did kind of figure out how to unwrap presents. Alice enjoyed her Christmas too. She wrote Santa a letter (with Mommy’s help), asking him for Baby Belle, Baby Belle Bathtub, and the Sleeping Beauty movie. Because she’d been so good all year, she got all three of her wishes! Nathaniel asked for more things for the Thomas the Tank Engine train set, and he got that too. Alice took her time opening presents. We let her go at her own pace, and she seemed to enjoy that more. As she opened a new toy, she could take a little time to play with it right away. This was better than what sometimes happens: a furious and un-enjoyable rush to open everything as quickly as possible. Nathaniel is getting really good at standing on his own. He can take a step too, but mostly sticks to the perimeters where he has some extra support. He still adores Alice, and is a generally happy little boy. We’re also starting to see clear communication from him. He can shake his head for “no” and “yes” – mostly he says “no.” He tries to say:

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Nathaniel sleeps through the night

Well, it only took 10 months, but Nathaniel slept through the night last night, 11 hours. Of course Don and I didn’t sleep that much- I woke up around 5am, couldn’t go back to sleep. I got around 7hours straight- an unknown phenomenon to my body this year, it thought it had enough I guess. I know now why my parents have gray hair. It’s not because Chrissy and I were terrible teenagers, it’s simply because they had children!!!! It ages you like nothing else can… Currently Nathaniel is into everything, He can climb onto stools, turn the taps on for the bathtub, gets into any cupboard or drawer. And for whatever reason, when he hears or sees a gate open, he makes a b-line for it. A few weeks ago he took a tumble down the stairs- all 12. He was okay, but don’t you think he’d remember that it maybe wasn’t such a good time? He’s still too young to process reason, I guess. He points at everything, and says “up”. He loves lights, and the celing fan. He knows that if you turn the switch, the fan will come on- as soon as you turn it, he looks up and points.

Sandbags, shoes & sleep

Nathaniel is so strong and active, we have to weigh his high chair and jolly jumper down with sandbags. And, the 10lb ones we’re using don’t appear to be heavy enough… yikes, I know! As for shoes, he’s in a size 5. Yes, size 5. Sleep? We don’t get much. This whole year has been pretty consistently low in that cagegory. Nathaniel is 9 months old, and still wakes at least once to eat. He eats full bottles when he does eat in the night, so it’s not like he’s waking just for the fun of it (though, sometimes that is the case). Sometimes he’s up every 3-4 hours, and sometimes (if we’re lucky) he’ll go longer. ie/ bed at 7:30pm, up at 11:30 to eat, then right back to sleep, and then not wake again until he’s up for the day (anywhere from 5-6:30am- still night time in Mommy’s book). A few weeks ago we started limiting his naps to only a max. of 45min. in the am and pm. So 1 1/2 hrs. total for naps, half what he used to nap. For the most part, this has been effective at ensuring he dosen’t wake up in the middle of the night to “play”. Who wakes up at 2 or 3 am to play? Nathaniel.