So far.....

Hi everyone! This is Nerdstar and I'm just here to put in a long overdue entry. We're about 11 days away from Noah Maxx's first birthday, and 4 days away from B's gallbladder surgery. Life is moving on in its usual fast pace.

After almost a year into my tenure at the big bad defense contracting company, I've arrived at the conclusion that it's no longer worth it, the long commutes, the cooperativeness at work, and management whose sole concern is profit and nothing else. (It's really what companies are supposed to do anyways, but there are better ways to do it and keep the employees somewhat happy, aren't there?) So I'm going to try and look for a hopefully better alternative...wish me luck!

Noah Maxx, at almost one year old, is amazing as usual. I'd get such kicks out of watching him crawling at lightening fast speed, his determination, feeding his huge appetite, and "conversating" with him in his baby speech. Heck, we've even napped in sync! Took a rare nap yesterday while he was taking his, not only did we we both sleep for almost 2 hours and both of us were also so quiet that B. thought that she had to check on both of us to make sure that we're still alive!

Hope that B's surgery goes well. Noah Maxx and I will be at the hospital waiting for her while the surgery and the recovery are taking place. I really hope that there are spaces that he can craw around and explore in!

Little Changes

No, this isn't our version of Big Pimpin'.


I sold my motorcycle this evening. I really miss riding. There's just not much out there like it. It takes enough concentration, and then if you're lucky, there's nice enough scenery to push out all other thoughts. If you know me at all, you know that's a big deal. My brain is deadly.

But, I've never really enjoyed riding here in northern Virginia. Yes, you can get out into horse country, but I'd need a GPS for that. I enjoyed riding with a group our first summer here, but it fell apart and finding another one just didn't happen. Then, well, Noah came along. And while I don't have to sell it, I could ride on some weekends if I really wanted to, it's just not worth the time away and the inherent risk.

My current daydream is that in a few years we'll get a nice little RV and a couple of mopeds and do some of our big road trips.

Buttons and Stairs

It appears we're in a stage where Noah is doing new things all the time. A few weeks ago we bought him a helicopter that plays music and stuff. Last week he figured out how to push the buttons to get it to play different songs. I think we only showed him that a few times.

He's been pulling up on just about everything in the house for a couple of weeks now. He's not walking, though. I try to get him to practice, but it's too slow, so he speed crawls around instead. As I've said, we spend most of time upstairs. There's a gate at the top of the stairs because he is fearless and would go head-first down the stairs given half a chance. But yesterday we were downstairs before heading out to run errands and he crawled over to the stairs and pulled himself up on the first one. I had a feeling he was going to start climbing up so I stood behind him. Sure enough, he just started climbing on up - no hesitation. I let him get about four stairs up before getting him down.

We keep saying he's been ready to run since he was two or three months old. It's crazy to watch him get closer and closer to being able to. We have no idea how we're going to keep up with him!

11 Months

Wow, 11 months. The big 1 year is coming up soon!

You're doing new stuff on a regular basis and continue to be quite the goofy boy. You still do your inchworm, military, special olympics style crawl, and pull up everywhere. You still like to throw balls and go get them. You're changing your nap schedule, which is good. You insist on sitting on my lap when I'm at my desk. You still love going out to eat, and we think you did your first flirting with a lady at the restaurant the other day.

I got you a mirror yesterday and we think you loved seeing/playing with yourself more than anyone else. You waved at and smiled at and kissed yourself in the mirror. It was cute and funny.

You take in the world with your serious face on. You laugh with us.

We still love you more than anything and love hanging out with you. We know you're just going to be even more fun in the future.

Favorite Video

So far Noah doesn't watch tv. That's 90% because there isn't a tv upstairs where we spend most of our day. But the times we are downstairs where the tv is, even with kids shows on, he doesn't really pay much attention to it. He's a boy in motion and wants to stay in motion.

Nerdstar and I both spend a good amount of time on the computer, and he likes to sit in our lap while we do. She watches entertainment/interview shows from Taiwan with him on Saturday mornings. We both find him a few kids' videos on you.tube.

We both think this is a really cute video for Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - and Noah really seems to like it.

Protect MY Family

Apparently, election season has begun. Oh joy. I think I read it's 505 days until the election, and yet, here we go.

Naturally, both parties become all about "family" during election time.

But I'm pretty sure none of them are about helping or protecting my family.

It got me to thinking about the "It Get's Better" campaign for gay young people. I think it's a great project, it's just not something I'm all that into.

I thought it would be cool to have a "This (insert family photo) is my family. Protect it."

Yes, that's a huge part of the gay marriage fight. But it's also about adoptions laws, property rights, inheritance, etc. (Gay marriage would solve all of it, but I'll take it piecemeal if I have to.)

But it's like my type of family doesn't even exist in the eyes of most politicians - local, state or national.

So, I was thinking last night how to change that. How to literally put our faces out there. Sure, there could be a FB campaign, or you.tube or whatever. I don't know. How effective are they?

Just my thoughts last night.

General Update

Things are good.

Noah's getting good at pulling up on things and trying to balance standing up more. He thinks it's a blast. I'd say there's at least a small chance he'll be walking by his birthday. He's so ready to run around.

We're still working to get Noah's skin all cleared up. Took him to another dermatologist Friday, she gave him some stronger ointments. Two weeks or so ago, his skin was at it's all-time worst. Today it looks just about the best it has. We think it's due to the Chinese herbs we get from Austin. The derm wanted us to stop using those with these new ointments, we think otherwise. We'll see if this is just a good part of the cycle or if maybe he's turning a corner and getting better. It's hard not knowing a real cause or cure, everyone says he'll hopefully grow out of it one day.

One of those little things about being a parent with a baby/toddler is the not going to movie theaters anymore. Now, we had gotten to where we didn't see a lot of movies in the theater anyway - too expensive, too many people making noise, hot theater, etc. For 95% of movies, I really would rather sit on my sofa and watch them in peace and quiet at home. But, that means I'm watching the movies when everyone else has forgotten about them. Watched True Grit over the weekend. Can't say I thought it was as great as everyone else seemed to.

Speaking of hot theaters - what's up with that? In Texas, where it's hot as hell half of the year, public buildings are generally freezing, as they should be. Here in Virginia where the weather is a little milder, the malls and theaters are hot and icky. Bleh.