Easter Morning 2013

Since we decided to stay home for Easter this year, here is a quick post to show Jackie on Easter Morning.

Sequestered in her room while the Easter Bunny makes the finishing touches

What you don't see here is that she was trying to dump a bottle of shampoo on the floor

How many years bad luck for opening an umbrella indoors? How about a Nemo umbrella?

Quite a hall... half of this stuff is recycled from last year... I don't think she notices.

Run Run Run

Our little Easter Bunny...Dad was also wearing bunny ears

Darth Vader slippers

New books

Sneaking away to eat jelly beans

Mommy egg and Jackie Egg

Too much candy?

The fake grass is always a bad idea... the baby needed a "nest"

Happy Easter Everyone!

Rescue at Sea

I came across this today on a linkedin message board for Kings Point Alumni. Here is a Coast Guard medevac from the S.S. Horizon Trader. This was the first ship I sailed on as a cadet, so it's pretty neat to see. I remember how she used to roll. My cabin on board was for repatriating other officers, so it was pretty simple with two bunks, but it was the only cabin on the ship with the bunk situated perpendicular to the length of the ship rather than parallel. So when she use to do these 35 degree rolls, I'd get rocked to sleep like a baby instead of thrown out of bed onto the deck.

The ship was named the Sea-Land Trader when I was on it, and she's turning 40 this year. She was built at the Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula Mississippi back in 1973. I did my college internship at that yard back in 2001.



The crew member being evacuated was another Kings Pointer, and apparently is OK.

Hair Cut Part Duex

Jackie had her second haircut a little over a week ago, and by special request I shall post the pictures.

"what ees thees?"

"Look Mom... what's that?"

Pretzel's are the only way to sooth the beast

So grown up looking... slow down kiddo.

Hopefully Jackie's last mug shot

Breakfast of Champions

Happy March everyone!

I'm happy to announce that the Entenmann's Chocolate Donut Bakery will be able to stay in business for another generation.

Jackie has taken up the family breakfast habit of Chocolate Frosted Entenmann's donuts like Daddy and Grandpa Ken.
 

Snowpocalypse 2013

Captain Nemo surveying the carnage he has created

We were spared most of the Nemo's wrath here in Bridgewater, we ended up with a few inches of snow on the ground. I think the Grandparents up in Bergen County had around a foot, and I have friends further north, that got the full brunt of the storm, three feet maybe more.

 This is the Nemo that visited Bridgewater, much more playful.

We haven't had too many good snow storms in the last few years, I really think this is the first time we were able to get her out in the snow so she could explore a little and play around. I'm told the snow was " 'licious" and cold. The tasty snow, was not yellow, Rocky was confined to the back yard, while we were out front with Jackie.

Here are some video's of her exploring a bit.




Here she is helping us shovel and clean up the yard. The shovel was one of her favorite Christmas gifts from Santa for some strange reason, and I'm glad she was able to put it to use.




I was instructed that I was to do snow angels with her, so Grandpa Ken would not be seen as a liar, (apparently he promised that I would). So as proof, I am posting the video. She didn't quite get it, we tried a few times, but maybe she will remember for next time.

The On Demand Generation

I was preparing a little post on the snow we had Friday/Saturday, with some video clips of Jackie playing outside in the snow, really for the fist time at our house, but really there has been something bothering me in the back of my mind as I watch my daughter interact with the world around her.

We're spoiled today, we don't really have to wait for anything, at least entertainment wise. We've got computers, where we can pull up an infinite amount of knowledge on a whim, we've got cable tv with hundreds of channels of infinite entertainment possibilities at the push of a button. Offerings are available in standard and high definition, nothing is ever on, but there is plenty of choices. We've got as part of our cable subscription access to video on demand services, where we can select thousands of free programs to watch. We pay extra for HBO, which has it's own demand service that is available from a computer, a laptop, a tablet, X-Box, and any number of standalone media devices, I can catch up on episodes of the Soprano's from my cell phone if I wanted a stiff neck, and worse eye sight. We pay annually for an Amazon Prime membership, which is a great service, which now gives us 10's of thousands of free movies and tv shows to choose from, again, from a number of devices. We have a netflix subscription which gives us even more content to choose from, also with ease from any electronic device in the house. I suspect at some point I'll be able to watch old A-Team episodes from the toaster.

We have a DVR which let's us record multiple shows at a time, we can only do two, but I see they offer devices where I can record up to 5 programs at once. I was musing the other day that I can't imagine why this would be needed, but on further reflection I'm sure we'd find it handy at some point. It seems we have so many shows, that are "must see" each week. I'm happy to have a few of them going away this year (don't get me started on how crappy The Office has been in it's final season). We can watch all these shows that we can record from any TV in the house. We can rent or purchase any movie without having to put on pants to go to a brick and morter store. The netflix dvd subscription brings the primo movies right to the mailbox a few times a week, when we are making sure to take full advantage of what we pay for. If we are feeling really old fashioned we can go to the library, where at least in Bridgewater they have a DVD section that rivals any old video store. If they don't have it we can have it from anywhere in the Somerset County system in a day or so... even video games if we want.

We have a few of those kindle fire's now, where we can call up almost anything at any time. Jackie has become unfortunately quite fond of it. They even have a kid mode, where for the low low price of a couple of extra bucks a month on the Amazon Prime membership, there is an endless world of kids content. Which I think is part of the reason I'm writing this. We have to be careful, I'm sure there are many first time parents out there experiencing the same thing. It's so easy to calm them down by giving them what they want, Jackie is obsessive over certain things, like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Super-Why? and certain other Disney movies. Tonight it was Alice in Wonderland. We caught the end of it yesterday, and we switched it off to watch "The Great Muppet Caper" which I had "DVR'd", so I promised we'd watch it today. I've been under the weather and Alison has been uncomfortable, so it's so easy to just pop on a few episodes of something or another, and she'll sit good as gold soaking in all the stimulus from the idiot box.

Until she wants to watch something else, which is relatively easy to oblige, until she want's to watch something else... and God help us if what she wants to watch isn't available on demand. Some shows or movies aren't included in the subscription, so we have to wait.... well with the technology we have these days waiting is never welcome. "Follow That Bird" was available I guess for only a limited time on Netflix, she wanted to watch it the other day, and it wasn't there. My solution was to order a copy for 5 bucks so we own it, because she really likes it...(and I do too, I mean, how can you not smile at the grouch anthem). But really I shouldn't have done that.


I will admit to having played catch up on a few shows, we sat down to watch the first episode of "Game of Thrones" a little over a year ago, and ended up losing an entire Saturday to the show, since all 10 episodes where there to watch immediately. Recently we consumed almost 4 seasons of AMC's "Breaking Bad", and we just started working our way through "Parenthood" on NBC. So even the adult's fall into the trap of having everything served up on a silver platter as soon as we want it. But we're used to waiting for things. We grew up that way, waiting for Saturday morning with anticipation so I could get my weekly fix of "Muppet Babies" or knowing that they only showed one episode of GI Joe and Transformers after school each day, so we had to be good or we'd miss it. Or having to save up money from the paper route to buy a Nintendo game we had been wanting.

Jackie's generation will never really know that, unless we teach it to them. For us it's the way things were, and I'm sure with even less options or my parents and or even older generations with a few channels, or no channels, or having to wait for movie serials, or who knows what passed for entertainment in the hellish days before motion pictures! I think we've hit a point we're maybe we've got a real problem though. No one has to wait for anything anymore, and these kids are growing up without having to learn that they need to be patient to get what they want sometimes. We have to force ourselves into being technological luddites from time to time, in order to teach a valuable lesson. Tonight we had a few moments of melt down and TV time abruptly ended, and once we got over the initial crocodile tears of having lost the privilege of watching Alice in Wonderland, we read some books, spent some quality family time together and got ready for bed. Which is great, I mean this is not an abnormal thing for us to do, we try to limit the TV and movies and games, but it's such an easy trap to fall into. I am genuinely fearful though at the though of seeing a generation that has grown up without ever having to wait for anything. What horrors await the poor teachers that have to deal with that? What kind of employees will they become when they are all grown up? If we create them through our absent parenting, what kind of parents will they become?

Are the Amish taking converts?

Allow me to introduce myself... they call me Professor Coldheart

So what was that about a new years resolution to post more frequently? Hm... I'll have to try harder. I have had a bit more success with one of the other resolutions, giving Rocky a nice long walk every morning. I of course, waited to start this until last week. Monday morning walking out side was getting punched in the stomach and that was the warmest day all week.

I still haven't even posted about the big news, really we've had a few big news stories since my quasi hiatus about five months ago. I'll get around to it eventually even though I'm sure most all of the readers if I still have any left are aware of most of our mundane happenings.

Anyway, back to the point of this post. Jacqueline has been more and more precocious, and I just wanted to share a few of the recent examples with everyone. Seems like she has new stuff and surprises for us every day. For example, today I came home and she was climbing on her cardboard building blocks. I told her not to do this, and she told me to go back to work. So that was a fun one.

I seem to have a penchant for trying to expose her to things from my childhood. I'm sure that as she grows this won't be as appreciated, but who knows. She is still so very young and I need to remember that, but so far she has surprised us in her willingness to try new things. When we brought her home from the hospital I put a small stuffed Ewok from Star Wars in her bassinet to watch her.  It's still in her crib and she can't sleep with out it. Not long ago as she was learning to say more and more words, I would hold up her animals as we got ready for bed. "Ducky", "Mickey", "Minnie" she would exclaim as i picked up each one. "Ewok" she shouted when I picked him up. I don't really even remember trying to explain that one to her, but she must have picked it's name up in passing.

For Christmas one of her books she got, was this one Darth Vader and Son, we sit and read it every once in a while. It's probably not a great book for a 2 year old, but she likes the pictures, and she likes "robots" C-3PO and R2-D2, and she likes, Darth Vader. My two year old is a fan of one of the great film villains of all time in his watered down version, and possibly the movie version. She demanded we watch Star Wars when I told her the robots were in a movie.

Here are a few videos of her watching the robots. It didn't hold her attention too long, but it was dinner time and she didn't nap well.

I love how in this video her kid books are off the side and she is looking at a book of Van Gogh paintings.

She is a very sympathetic child as you can tell, note her real concern for Luke while is incapacitated by the Sand People.

There is a follow up book on Darth Vader raising Princess Leia that we are looking forward too when it comes out.

Now back to the title of my post. I remember from when I was a kid, and I'm sure this sucker is still on a vhs tape in my parents basement watching a Care Bears episode with a villain named Professor Coldheart, ( I probably looked like him in the picture above after my morning walks with Rocky last week). Well it turns out that was the first Care Bears animated special, before it was a regular TV show and after it was a greeting card and toy line. That episode was called Care Bears and The Land Without Feelings or something. Jackie has been exposed to Care Bears in their current CGI versions, I think from the Hub channel which exists purely to sell Hasbro toys to kids and caters to nostalgic 80's kids/parents like myself. So I went looking for the Land Without Feelings and found it used for three bucks on Amazon.

$3 for a 22 minute TV episode I guess is not a great deal, but I thought she might enjoy it, and she has. Maybe too much. She is emulating the bratty kid from the show, that wanders into the "Land Without Feelings" and gets turned into one of these horrible looking frog/slave kids.

The kid from the show says "I don't care" a bunch of times, until he's within earshot of our antagonist. Well Jackie now says that too. In this video after she got done saying it to me at dinner (she was trying to be funny parroting the line from the show), I got her to say it a few times for me in the hallway.

The good news that if we can pull off the Care Bear stare.. we can snap her out of it. I would be this Care Bear with the half full beer mug on his belly, Drinky Bear I guess would be my name. I found this image on google from someones ebay listing...

The pink elephant is fitting, an homage to my favorite scene from Dumbo if you will.

Jackie somewhere along the line learned about cow boys, she has a straw hat and a zebra to ride around on and say "yee haw". This little straw hat which she loves, has become her cowboy hat. Apparently she has been roaming the living room on her Zebra while I am at work looking for adventure saying she is a cow boy.

Anyway, it's late and I have an early meeting so enjoy the update!