Abulsme.com » Alex

Showing Grandma Where to Look

Abulsme — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 07:24:29 +0000

Taken 2010 May 31 22:25 UTC

Mmmm… Orange!

Abulsme — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 10:44:36 +0000

Taken 2010 May 31 19:31 UTC

Playing Together

Abulsme — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 04:37:29 +0000

Taken 1 Jun 2010 00:26 UTC by Ruth Brandon

(Edit 05:00 UTC, corrected timestamp and adding attribution, this was from my mom’s camera, not mine, so the timestamp delta from UTC was different, which also means I posted this picture out of order, before others I would have posted otherwise. I can not say how much it annoys me that the EXIF data doesn’t include the timezone. I look forward to the days of ubiquitous GPS within cameras, including not just geotagging, but properly synchronized timestamps either in UTC or with included UTC offset.)

Sunday in the Family Room

Abulsme — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 04:08:11 +0000

Alex and the Geek Clock

Abulsme — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 00:49:09 +0000

Taken 2010 May 31 23:05 UTC

Alex Turning Ten (Months)

Abulsme — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 00:59:08 +0000

In just a little while… not that many minutes away now… specifically July 14th at 01:29 UTC… which is July 13th at 6:29 PM Pacific or July 13th at 9:29 PM Eastern… Alex will be a whole 10 months old. Two digits on the months now. And coming up on one year pretty darn fast!

There will, of course, be a video of highlights from the last month. But probably no earlier than this weekend and perhaps later. We’ll see how things go. But I will do better than I did on the Month Nine Video. Promise. I hope. :-)

Highlights of Alex Month Nine

Abulsme — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 00:31:25 +0000

This is way way late. I should have posted this a month ago. It covers Alex’s ninth month, which goes from May 14th to June 13th. I’ll be posting about Alex turning 10 months old in not very long at all. But hey, what can I say, I had a lot of other things going on and just didn’t get to it.

Also, knowing that really I am doing these videos for ME, and not for anybody else, I didn’t even attempt this time to get it to be particularly short. I realize for folks out there who might care, posting 20 second or 30 second clips when there was something fun to show would get more people to watch, but whatever. Nobody except maybe his Grandmothers (maybe) will watch more than 2 or 3 minutes worth of this stuff (max!). I know this!

But I like doing them monthly rather than as one offs, and at that point there is a bunch of stuff, and picking the best two minutes or whatnot would just leave me missing stuff I cut out. So whatever. Almost 10 minutes this month. For the one or two of you who might watch past the first few seconds, enjoy!

And maybe I’ll get month ten done before his first birthday. We shall see!

Oh, and for those who need it… Direct Link to YouTube.

Actually it is a Labyrinth

Abulsme — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 22:37:48 +0000

Taken 2010 May 29 23:16 UTC

Alex and Lucy Lumphead

Abulsme — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 18:41:52 +0000

Lucy Lumphead has been circulating in my family for many decades. She started off as something between my Grandmother and her sister Norma Louise. Lucy arrived here last Christmas and will stay until we pass her along to another member of the extended family, most likely a family member with young children. As tradition has it, she will get a new outfit first.

Picture taken 2010 May 28 22:06 UTC

Go Alex! Go Alex!

Abulsme — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 22:19:51 +0000

Playing Peekaboo Barn

Abulsme — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 06:23:56 +0000

Taken 2010 May 29 04:29 UTC by Ruth Brandon (if I am reading her timestamps correctly).

You Got My Glasses!

Abulsme — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 04:33:06 +0000

Taken 2010 May 28 22:07 UTC by Ruth Brandon (If I am interpreting her time stamp correctly.)

Peekaboo Sequence

Abulsme — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:38:38 +0000

Series taken from 2010 May 28 05:13:48 UTC to 05:14:14 UTC. Shown 2x Actual Speed.

Grandma B Arrives for her Visit in May

Abulsme — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 02:41:02 +0000

Taken 2010 May 27 03:53 UTC by Amy Roney

Pondering the Tag

Abulsme — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 15:23:28 +0000

Taken 2010 May 26 02:49 UTC by Amy Roney (if I am interpreting her timestamps correctly)

Alex Turning Nine (Months)

Abulsme — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 14:54:08 +0000

Well, here we go again, as time just relentlessly moves forward. In less than 10 minutes, at 15:00 UTC today (8:00 AM Pacific, 11:00 AM Eastern), Alex will officially be nine whole months old. Sometime “soon” I’ll post the video highlights of month nine, but in the meantime, I’m just acknowledging the milestone. Congratulations Alex!

Randomly at Maple Valley Days

Abulsme — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 02:27:44 +0000

Picked a random spot within ten miles to go to because it was nice out. Got there then looked for nearby stuff. Headed toward an arboretum. Found a local annual festival called “Maple Valley Days”. Now we are exploring.

Discovery

Abulsme — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 02:40:04 +0000

Taken 2010 May 9 22:23 UTC by Amy Roney (if I am interpreting her timestamps properly)

Just Cruisin In My Cart

Abulsme — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 07:29:46 +0000

Taken 2010 May 9 00:45 UTC

Poohed

Abulsme — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 02:11:48 +0000

Taken 2010 May 8 23:19 UTC by Brandy Donaghy

For Gary C: Wachoo Talkin Bout Willis?

Abulsme — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 02:16:07 +0000

Taken 2010 May 8 20:13 UTC

Gleeful Steps

Abulsme — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 06:06:30 +0000

So, I was going to post today how right after my post on Recent New Alex Tricks I realized I’d forgotten two… he’s started initiating peekaboo games using napkins or blankets or whatever is around and, very important, he has learned to stick his finger up his nose.

But, those were somewhat overshadowed about an hour ago.

I hadn’t mentioned it here yet, but my mother was visiting over the holiday weekend, and she helped him get confident pulling himself up on a toy rolling lion thing and then using the lion as support to “walk” as he pushed it along. He would also do the same with his high chair. Today he decided to see if he could do without the lion.

So it is just after dinner. Brandy is holding Alex on the table (yes, yes, we know) and he is bouncing happily. He tries to crawl across the table to Brandy’s laptop, but she won’t let him. So he bounces some more. At one point, he looks toward the laptop, scrunches up his face and makes a determined sounding yell and his whole body tenses up. A few seconds later he lunges forward out of Brandy’s arms toward the laptop… and finds himself standing. Just for a second. Then he sort of hops forward and takes a couple of barely controlled steps before Brandy catches him and pulls him back in.

He is now hopping up and down screeching with joy. Over the next ten minutes or so he does it over and over again. Bounce bounce bounce bounce in mommy’s arms… jump forward… stand for a few seconds… one or two steps then fall backwards into Mommy’s arms or sit down… Yelling and jumping and smiling excitedly the whole time. And of course all on the dining room table.

Eventually he was done and retreated to his mom. Afterwards he was happy to crawl around a bit before his bath rather than try for more steps. This is still an experiment, not an actual mode of locomotion. He continued to be very excited through his bath. Then it was time for a little snack, and then to crash. It was a very exciting evening.

For all of us.

Another Chat with Grandma B

Abulsme — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 05:21:14 +0000

Taken 2010 May 6 02:49 UTC

Recent New Alex Tricks

Abulsme — Mon, 31 May 2010 23:58:27 +0000

I haven’t done this kind of an update in a bit, so here goes…

Words: Dog, Up, Nana (Banana), Look, Book, Goat, Duck, Hi, Yeah, Mama, Dada
Waving: He waves like mad at all sorts of things, but especially if you wave at him. And if he waves and someone waves back he enjoys that very much.
Clapping: His Grandmother always clapped to him on his video chats. About a week ago he started clapping back. Now he claps all the time.
Pointing: About a week ago he started pointing at things that he is interested in. He will point at an airplane and track it across the sky. He will point at something across the room and continue to point straight at him as you carry him toward it until he can touch it. He will also just generally point where he wants to go when he is being carried.
Light Switches: He can reliably turn light switches off. He can sometimes turn them back on, but it is much harder. There is a switch by his changing table, and he almost always turns it off as soon as we sit him down there.
Steps: He can climb up steps with ease. Today for the first time he climbed all the way from downstairs to upstairs. He can’t quite do going DOWN stairs in a controlled way, so of course someone is always right there with him.

More to come before long I’m sure. And I’m sure I forgot some as well.

Siblings Getting Coffee (uh, or other drinks)

Abulsme — Mon, 31 May 2010 02:44:18 +0000

Taken 2010 May 4 21:11 UTC by Brandy Donaghy

Sam and Alex Video Chatting with Cynthia

Abulsme — Sun, 30 May 2010 06:16:50 +0000

Taken 2010 May 4 02:19 UTC

Alex says Let Me Out!

Abulsme — Sat, 29 May 2010 17:06:35 +0000

Taken 2010 May 2 03:37 UTC by Brandy Donaghy

Highlights of Amy Month 175

Abulsme — Mon, 24 May 2010 14:19:29 +0000

Since I’ve been doing these videos every month for Alex, I didn’t want Amy to be left out or anything, and as it turned out, she was turning 175 months old soon after I thought of this, so I started collecting video of her as well as Alex. So here, designed to be exactly the same length (plus or minus a second) as the last Alex video, is a set of highlights of Amy’s 175th month. This covers from April 21st at 05:46 UTC to May 21st at 16:15 UTC. Congratulations Amy on turning 175 months old a few days ago! Woo!

If you don’t see the embedded video above for whatever reason, here is a direct link to YouTube: Amy’s 175th Month

(Edited 19:42 UTC to embed and link to corrected video fixing an error in one of the captions.)

Alex is Coming for You

Abulsme — Sun, 23 May 2010 19:00:30 +0000

Taken: 2010 Apr 24 23:19 UTC by Amy Roney

Alex Meets A Hamster

Abulsme — Wed, 19 May 2010 06:33:30 +0000

Taken: 2010 Apr 17 20:44 UTC by Brandy Donaghy

Highlights of Alex Month Eight

Abulsme — Mon, 17 May 2010 16:00:53 +0000

OK, I know the video is a bit too long. Eight minutes. But hey, I know nobody but close family and perhaps a few friends is going to watch the whole thing anyway. And it was late and I didn’t want to edit it down any further. So eight minutes it is! Anyway, enjoy some highlights of Alex’s eighth month. (This covers 2010 Apr 13 18:02 UTC to 2010 May 14 04:31 UTC.)

If you don’t see the embedded video above for whatever reason, here is a direct link to YouTube: Alex’s Eighth Month

Profile Pic

Abulsme — Sat, 15 May 2010 22:53:44 +0000

Taken: 2010 Apr 13 01:41 UTC

I’ve been using this as my Facebook profile pic for the last few weeks.

My God! It’s Full of Stars!

Abulsme — Fri, 14 May 2010 08:18:14 +0000

Picture taken: 2010 Apr 3 04:39 UTC

2001 reference free of charge. You’re welcome.

Alex is Eight Months Old! Woo!

Abulsme — Fri, 14 May 2010 07:38:35 +0000

Just a little over 3 hours ago at 4:31 UTC (9:31 PM on the 13th Pacific, 12:31 AM on the 14th Eastern) Alex turned 243.494799 days old, otherwise known as 8 months old. Congratulations to Alex!

I was going to stay up really late (possibly all night) to put together the monthly Alex video highlight reel and have it out by sometime in the morning, but then a brief interlude of common sense flitted through my brain and I realized I have a full day tomorrow, starting less than six hours from now. So I’ll save putting together the “Eighth Month” video for the weekend.

But I thought I’d still take a moment to note the milestone.

Alex is getting SO OLD! :-)

No More Drumming in the Crib

Abulsme — Tue, 11 May 2010 03:54:10 +0000

Taken just a few minutes ago. Time to lower the crib yet again.

(Note Added May 12th 02:22 UTC – The exact time of the picture was 3:43 UTC on the 11th.)

Strolling

Abulsme — Mon, 10 May 2010 07:41:38 +0000

Going back a little further back than I’ve been posting lately because of reasons that would make sense only to me. No good timestamp, but my best guess would be sometime in the hour or so before 21:59 UTC on February 21st.

Happy Alex

Abulsme — Mon, 03 May 2010 07:49:39 +0000

27 Mar 2010 00:01 UTC by Brandy Donaghy

Alex Uses Words

Abulsme — Sun, 02 May 2010 22:28:54 +0000

Well, pseudo-words perhaps… sounds really close to words, used in a predictable fashion in the right context more often or not, but not yet clear enough or consistent enough to definitively call talking… lets see…

Ning: He has been using this consistently for at least a month or two now to say he wants to nurse. Not English of course, but he gets across what he wants.
Mamamamamama (with a variable number of ma’s) and Dadadadadadadada (with a variable number of da’s). Over the last month has started to use these in the right contexts (when the appropriate one of us is present) rather than just randomly.
We *think* we’ve heard him sometimes trying to say Amy, but not consistently enough for me to say that for sure yet.
A couple of times I’ve heard him say something like “ogdidi” when reaching for Roscoe, but that could be coincidence.

Then the new stuff this last week…

From Brandy on Wednesday (16:47 UTC):

So… I was sitting at the kitchen table feeding Alex. He decided he didn’t want any more cream of wheat, shaking his head and making a face, saying “nana nana nana.” So I went and got him a banana. Now he is quite happily sitting and eating it.

Since then he has been using “nana” on a pretty regular basis when confronted with the yellow fruit.

Then from Brandy on Friday:

17:59 UTC

Brandy: … I think Alex can say dog.

19:11 UTC

Sam: Like actual dog? Or ogdidi?

19:21 UTC

Brandy: ”Dog, dog, dog, hi dog, good dog, dog.”

19:26 UTC

Sam: Hi? Good?

19:30 UTC

Brandy: Oh yeah. Now, he could have just been making sounds, but when I went into the room he was looking over the edge of the crib at the dog. If he repeats it then we’ll know.

Now, so far I don’t think he has repeated that. Not in front of me anyway. I’m always away when the good stuff happens. :-) He probably doesn’t want to do it when he knows non-dogs are listening. :-)

Anyway, most of this is still of the sort that is subject to optimistic parental interpretation rather than being absolutely and incontrovertibly words. But he is babbling pretty much constantly. Some of the babbles will inevitably become actual English words at some point. And the parental mind strives to find patterns and meaning. :-)

Through the Bars

Abulsme — Sun, 02 May 2010 00:18:08 +0000

21 Mar 2010 21:13 UTC

Alex meets Ivan and Juana

Abulsme — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 02:33:04 +0000

16 Mar 2010 02:03 UTC

Teeth

Abulsme — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 02:11:17 +0000

25 Apr 2010 01:41 UTC

Contemplation

Abulsme — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 20:36:52 +0000

2010 Mar 7 23:03 UTC

Well Hello There

Abulsme — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 17:13:50 +0000

2010 Mar 7 23:02 UTC

Alex’s Bad Day

Abulsme — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 00:57:15 +0000

2010 Apr 16 5:22 UTC

So… transcript starting with the text from Brandy saying that Alex was crawling for the first time…

2010 Apr 16 3:20 UTC

Brandy: He’s crawling.

Brandy: Like, on the knees crawling.

Brandy: Where is the camera?

Sam: Did you get video???? Cam is at top of stairs I think.

Sam: Woo!!!!

2010 Apr 16 3:33 UTC

Brandy: He is upset with me.

Sam: Because you got the camera?

2010 Apr 16 3:50 UTC

Brandy: I bumped his head pulling him out from under the table.

Sam: Oh

Brandy: Then I put him down on his feet. He started to fall and I scratched him when I caught him.

Sam: Oh

Brandy: So I picked him up to hug him. He twisted around and I poked him in the face.

Brandy: So I have him ning, and now he is bouncing happily in his jumper.

Sam: Oh

Sam: OK. :-)

And then, a little over an hour later when Amy and I got home, we were greeted with Brandy, Amy and Roscoe sitting at the top of the stairs and Alex sporting the black eye visible in the picture above. The story:

Just a few minutes ago we were finishing up his bath, and he stood up and fell on his fist.

Uh huh. Likely story.

Um, well, actually given the previous couple hours, completely typical. :-)

Oh, and of course he is absolutely fine. Just being a rumble tumble little boy.

Crawler

Abulsme — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 03:42:52 +0000

Brandy just texted to let me know that Alex just managed a real full fledged crawl on his hands and knees. Woo!

Nothing will stop him now!

Some New Alex Stuff

Abulsme — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 06:58:04 +0000

Even though I just posted the Seven Month Video on Tuesday, thought I’d also do a quick text post mentioning some of the new fun things Alex has been doing lately. Lets see…

I neglected to post way back in early March when he first started feeding himself things like Cheerios and the like. He now likes a wide variety of finger foods and such of that sort, along with the other various sorts of mushier foods (and of course mother’s milk) that he’s had for quite some time.
He’s moved from pulling himself up to a standing position for the first time to doing such at every available opportunity using everything from desks to the dog as things to pull himself up with, and then once up almost immediately starts letting go to see how long he can stand before he has to grab on again (or fall).
He’s scooting all over the place. Not quite a crawl yet, as he’s not on all fours, and while it takes a lot of work and sometimes he gets frustrated, he is quite mobile and can easily get from one side of a room to the other if he really wants to. And of course if you give him a finger or two to hold on to, he’ll gladly walk all over the place (with that help) as well. That is just great fun!
On Tuesday afternoon while I was at work and Brandy was at an appointment and Amy was taking care of Alex, he decided to jump off the changing table mid-change, resulting in a three foot fall to the floor and quite a bit of crying for Alex, and quite a bit of worry and stress for Amy (and the rest of us until we got home), but without any actual damage. As a side benefit, when we were at the precautionary doctor visit a couple hours later, he stood on the grown up scale by himself for the first time rather than lying in the baby scale.
He is now also responding explicitly to a few types of requests he understands. So Brandy will say “Alex, stand up!” and he will pull himself up and stand and smile. And when you ask to pick him up he’ll put his arms out in the “OK, pick me up” position. And generally he is paying close attention to what we say, and responding in appropriate ways more often than not.
On Wednesday Brandy reported this story: ”He was in his high chair and having an snack. Then he looked at me and said ‘Ning!’ I looked at him and said, ‘You want ning?’ and he got excited and said ‘Ning!’ We had a conversation, and understood each other completely!” (Alex says “ning” a lot when he is really hungry and wants to nurse… not quite a word, but he has been consistent in how and when he makes that particular sound going back quite a bit.) And there are a lot of “DaDaDa” and “MaMaMa” and such, but they aren’t quite always in the right context yet, so I’m not prepared yet to say he knows what he is saying. :-) But ning? When he says ning he means ning. :-)
He plays Peekaboo Barn on my iPhone and knows exactly how to make it do what it does: He carefully touches the iPhone screen to make it open the barn door and show the animals. Then he gets excited and smiles when the kid says the name of the animals. He also plays Laugh and Learn Peekaboo on our computers. Unlike the great care he takes with the other game, with this one he gleefully starts pounding keys on the keyboard as hard and fast as he can.

Anyway, all the usual stuff for this age I suppose, but lots of fun to watch the new things develop as they happen. Every day something new. He is learning and growing and figuring out this whole stopping being a baby and instead turning into a toddler thing very very quickly. It is just scary how fast time flies with this sort of thing. It was just yesterday he was born, right?

Seven Month Alex

Abulsme — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 16:23:54 +0000

At 18:02 UTC today (11:02 AM Pacific, 2:02 PM Eastern) Alex will be exactly seven months old. Instead of just an “interview” here are highlights from Alex’s seventh month. Well, the ones we happened to catch on video anyway. Of course lots more happens off camera. :-)

For those who need or want it, here is the direct YouTube link.

In the Glow

Abulsme — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 06:17:04 +0000

2010 Mar 5 05:45 UTC

Spoon? What Spoon?

Abulsme — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 02:52:55 +0000

2010 Mar 5 04:56 UTC

Another Three Gens

Abulsme — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:37:14 +0000

Once again no reliable timestamp, but my best guess would be between 2010 Feb 24 23:00 UTC and 2010 Feb 25 01:00 UTC. I could be off though.

Siblings

Abulsme — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 02:25:08 +0000

We finished the pictures from my DC family’s visit in February that I had myself, but Cathy shared some of the ones she took with me as well, and said they are OK to post. The date/time stamps on these were all wrong by the time they got to me, but I believe this one was from February 21st sometime after 22:15 UTC but before 23:29 UTC.

Seeing the Light

Abulsme — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 02:45:40 +0000

2010 Feb 28 03:29 UTC

Imitation

Abulsme — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 01:52:10 +0000

No fancy video, but I thought I’d pass along that last night when Amy was making some funny faces and noises for Alex, Alex responded by imitating and doing the exact same thing back, which caused Amy to yelp and squeal and hop with joy, which caused Alex to get a huge smile on his face and jump and hop and giggle. The two of them proceeded to go back and forth with who was doing the odd smacking motions and sounds with their mouth, and who was laughing and giggling and squealing. This lasted probably a good fifteen minutes before Alex got bored and decided he would rather do something else. :-)

Handing off the Winkle

Abulsme — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 03:23:29 +0000

2010 Feb 25 03:59 UTC

In His Room

Abulsme — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 07:57:50 +0000

Last night was Alex’s first night sleeping all by himself in his own room rather than just a foot or two from Mom. Right now he is working on night number two in his room.

This may be a small milestone for Alex, but I think it is an even bigger milestone for Mom.

First Standing

Abulsme — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 20:57:54 +0000

At 19:32 UTC today, a little under 90 minutes ago, Alex did the pulling himself up from sitting to standing with no external human intervention for the first time. Yay Alex!

Alex with DC Grands

Abulsme — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 02:03:11 +0000

2010 Feb 25 01:14 UTC

I actually liked a different one taken three seconds earlier a bit better, but this one was on “the list” so I used it instead, even though that violated my rule of not letting the list affect my editorial choices and just cropping or blurring or skipping ones not on the list.

William and William

Abulsme — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 06:58:48 +0000

2010 Feb 25 01:13 UTC

That would be William Maynard Minter and William Alexander Minter of course.

Alex at Six Months

Abulsme — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 20:54:34 +0000

So, everything was still busy being transferred from my old computer to my new computer when the actual moment happened slightly over 13 hours ago at 7:33 UTC on March 14th (11:33 PM on the 13th Pacific, 3:33 AM on the 14th Eastern), but Alex is indeed now 6 months old. Half a year. Wow. The now semi-traditional monthly video was actually filmed a couple of days earlier on the 12th. But here it is. Happy half-year birthday Alex!

For those who prefer it to the embedded version, here is a direct YouTube link.

Alex and Grandfather M enjoy the Aquarium

Abulsme — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 03:52:59 +0000

2010 Feb 21 23:30 UTC

Alex meets Grandfather M

Abulsme — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:07:23 +0000

2010 Feb 21 04:46 UTC

Grandma S meets Alex

Abulsme — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 20:50:58 +0000

2010 Feb 21 04:45 UTC

(Grandma S was very self-concious about which pictures including her were posted online, providing a list of pictures that were "OK". This picture was not on that list so I had to blur her out… so she isn’t "really" in the picture… even though it looks silly. I am being sure to make my choices of which pictures to post uninfluenced by the list she sent, not looking at the list until after I have chosen that I am going to post something, then if it isn’t on the approved list I will just crop her out if I can or blur her face out of the picture if cropping doesn’t work well.)

Hard at Work

Abulsme — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 04:10:52 +0000

I Said Don’t Lick Me!

Abulsme — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 07:01:09 +0000

Alex at Five Months

Abulsme — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:15:19 +0000

Yes, it is time for the now semi-traditional interview with Alex as he turns another month older. This clip was taken just under two hours before Alex officially turned five months old at 21:04 UTC today (that’s 1:04 PM Pacific, 4:04 PM Eastern), or a little over two hours ago as I post this. (Remember, months are 30.4368499 days long or so… )

Wow, has it really been five months already?

I definitely already can’t remember what life was like without him around.

Alex Loves His Fish

Abulsme — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 09:08:32 +0000

He will sit and happily watch the fish for long stretches of time. Eventually he will get frustrated when he talks and talks and talks to them, but they never answer.

Alex Mass Doubling Time

Abulsme — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 19:44:05 +0000

It was close yesterday, but as of today based on the overall trend line for Alex’s mass…

Alex has doubled in mass!

Anyway, it looks like he is doubling every 148 days.

Assuming an exponential growth pattern…

His mass will exceed my own when he is 1.8 years old.

His mass will exceed that of the Earth when he is 32.6 years old.

Such a big boy!

(Note that this is of course dependent on the exact methodology I use for drawing the trend line, but I like how I draw the line, so I’ll stick to it! It is better than just looking at today’s reading vs the first one right after he was born… human mass fluctuates and there is non-trivial experimental imprecision, so it is important to look at trends over a bunch of data points, not individual readings. And I’ll be sticking to the idea that his growth will be exponential, even though you can clearly see that the shape of the curve is not exponential. I’m sure that is just an anomaly, and it will become exponential any time now. )

Things I Have Learned Recently

Abulsme — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:28:43 +0000

How to roll over.
How to take off my own socks.
How to drink from a sippy cup I hold by myself.
How to drive Mom’s car.

Enjoying a Good Book

Abulsme — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:14:17 +0000

Visiting Ikea

Abulsme — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:08:15 +0000

I just realized it has been something like two weeks since I’ve posted pictures of Alex. Way too long.

Alex’s First Email

Abulsme — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 21:51:16 +0000

After having recently learned how fun banging things with his hands is, I of course put Alex in front of a keyboard. Here is the result:

From: Samuel Minter
Date: 23 January 2010 01:38:33 GMT
To: (various family members)
Subject: From Alex

/ b nj9uyt÷≥fc98uAZ8mioi8i x7ggtgggggggvvfgd33hn cgnc frrccfdv c vvvvjj b.l.;l/Ωzn bg

/”[;liu7ytgcxz555 v e3xy7tej 6fv6 byv cccc

Presumably there will be many more in the future.

Four Months in the World

Abulsme — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:30:29 +0000

A day after my Four Years in the Jungle post, it is time to note that a little less than five minutes after I make this post, at 10:35 UTC (2:35 AM Pacific, 5:35 AM Eastern) Alex will turn four months old. (Keeping in mind of course that a “true” month is 30.4368499 days… )

As with last month, I’ll let Alex share a few of his thoughts on this milestone. This time his comments were recorded during a video chat he was having with his Grandmother B at around 3:45 UTC on the 9th.

He would like to add that over the last month he has gotten to really like his mushy foods in addition to his milk… especially that apple stuff… that he really can figure out how to get the spoon in his mouth by himself, and he prefers it when we let him try, even if he sometimes (OK, often) misses his mouth. He likes his toys quite a bit thank you and he really doesn’t understand why it seems we can’t always understand what he is saying when he talks. He also appreciates the help standing and stepping, because although he’s working on it, he doesn’t quite have those things down yet, but practices whenever he can. Oh, and he particularly enjoys pulling his sister’s hair. That makes him laugh.

January’s Favorite Toy

Abulsme — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 20:00:39 +0000

Suspicion

Abulsme — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 09:39:55 +0000

And Goodnight Mouse

Abulsme — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 02:52:20 +0000

Happy Alex

Abulsme — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 02:41:08 +0000

Alex Helped Santa

Abulsme — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 23:29:16 +0000

In the Big Chair

Abulsme — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 03:48:15 +0000

Alex at Three Months

Abulsme — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 17:16:23 +0000

Just over 17 hours ago, at 00:06 UTC on the 13th (4:06 PM on the 12th Pacific time, 7:06 PM on the 12th Eastern time) Alex turned three months old. Exactly five hours earlier, he shared a few thoughts.

Post Baby Sleep

Abulsme — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 00:16:59 +0000

Although the frequency has slowed, I still occasionally get people asking how I am sleeping what with a baby in the house and all, and everything everybody always says about no sleep when there is a new baby. I’ve been meaning for a long time to post about this, since at least October, but am just now getting around to it. Anyway, because I am certifiable and track everything, I can give some quantitative answers to the sleep question.

Here is a relevant chart:

This is a chart with daily values of the percent of the previous seven days I spent asleep. (Click the chart for a larger version.)

Unfortunately I did not start tracking this number until August even though I had the capability to do so earlier. If I had started earlier we would have had a better baseline to do a longer term before and after comparison. In this chart I have used the smoothing factor for the trend line that I usually use for my one month charts, rather than what I would normally use to show the amount of time shown here. This allows me to show a little more responsiveness in the trend line to short term changes. For a current chart with my normal smoothing values, see here.

Anyway, if one looks at how much sleep I was getting immediately before Alex was born, it is at about the 30% level. That would be about 7.2 hours per day of sleep. You can clearly see the deep dive down to about 14% (about 3.4 hours per day). But this does not last very long. 17 days later I recover to the immediate pre-Alex level. Of course I don’t stay there for long. You can see I move up and down between about 24% (about 5.8 hours a day) and 31% (about 7.4 hours a day). If I had to hazard a visual guess at an average for October and beyond, I’d say about 27% (about 6.5 hours per day).

Because I only have the month or so of pre-Alex data though, it is hard to see if there is a distinct before and after longer term change. As you can see, I did have a pre-Alex peak of 34% (about 8.2 hours per day) that has not yet been equaled. But it impossible to say if that was an abnormal peak. Also, there was a dip down to 20% (about 4.8 hours per day) at one point when I was staying up late on a couple of personal projects. So the “normal” range may have been pretty wide to begin with.

So the 17 day “back to normal” recovery time is probably about the best estimate that can be made with this data. I’m still annoyed for not having tracked this metric for longer. I had the ability to do so starting approximately in February, but I didn’t. Oh well.

Now, this does show however that aside from the one peak in August, I’ve never been close to the 33% (8 hours a day) generally recommended sleep level, and I’m not very consistent at all in terms of how much I sleep. Oh well. I doubt I’m really all that atypical on that front, although I must admit I would probably enjoy it if I could get and keep my average closer to that 33% level.

Finally, and this is an important point, this is MY recovery time… but BRANDY was the almost exclusive source of food and was the one that was almost always the one who got up and stayed up nights with Alex when needed. So HER chart would look vastly different, and her sleep recovery time much longer, if it has even recovered yet. I can’t show any graphs of that though, as Brandy won’t let me hook her up to machines to monitor her at night. I have no idea why.

A Few Minutes with Alex

Abulsme — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:24:45 +0000

Not doing any tricks or anything, just being Alex for a few minutes.

(From November 18th.)

Learned by Alex This Week

Abulsme — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:51:34 +0000

It is fun to watch your feet while you shake them and try to grab them
The bassinet really is an OK place to sleep at night
If you try really hard, you can make your hand reach out and you can actually grab that shiny spoon, and then you can wave it around for a bit before you throw it!

Videochat with Grandma B

Abulsme — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:26:35 +0000

Smile!

Abulsme — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 18:05:04 +0000

(Photo by Brandy)

Turning Two

Abulsme — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:08:04 +0000

Keeping in mind that as far as I am concerned a month is 30.4368499 days… at 13:37 UTC today… (That’s 5:37 AM Pacific, 8:37 AM Eastern)… just over 30 minutes from now as I write this… Alex will be exactly 2 months old. He’s really getting up there! It even looks to be likely that he will sleep through this milestone.

Alex at Work

Abulsme — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:37:07 +0000

Having None Of It

Abulsme — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:02:18 +0000

By the Fountain

Abulsme — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 06:12:18 +0000

(Photo by Amy)

Most of the Whole Family

Abulsme — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:13:52 +0000

(Minus Mike the skink, some fish, and the airbrushed out head of the camera shy one.)

[Photo by Leslie]

Look What We Found

Abulsme — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:43:35 +0000

And then Cynthia had to leave, which made me sad.

Comfortable Place to Rest

Abulsme — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 07:20:35 +0000

Sharing the Hat

Abulsme — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 06:33:21 +0000

Opening Wide

Abulsme — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:56:56 +0000

Birthday Lunch

Abulsme — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 01:31:56 +0000

Blurry But Cute

Abulsme — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:42:50 +0000

Alex Meets Cynthia

Abulsme — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:22:34 +0000

Grandma Squared Plus Alex

Abulsme — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:54:59 +0000

Three Gens

Abulsme — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:58:34 +0000

Alex Meets Grandma D

Abulsme — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:17:49 +0000

Alex and Grandma B

Abulsme — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 06:49:08 +0000