I have begun the work on the table and have finished the initial machining of the table top. Right now it looks REALLY big, but it will be cut down to 36″ x 48″ and will be a little more manageable. The grain on the wood is gorgeous and I am struggling with the idea of painting over it. We’ll see how that goes when the table is done.
Well, the woodworking bug has bitten me and thanks to the woodworking class that AJ got me for Christmas, I am taking on an ambitious project. I am going to build Cora a play table. I have already selected the material and it is American Red Oak. I know, I know, solid oak furniture for a 1 year old. I have also learned how to use Google Sketchup. This is quite a program and has been useful in designing the table. Below is the image of the table to date. In case you are wondering, the white cylinder is a roll of butcher paper for coloring. As I go down the path of building the table, I will be posting additional pictures showing the progress of the table. As a side note, I am going to take the Sketchup image to a place here in Seattle to get it 3D printed. That should be interesting and give some exposure to using a 3D printer.
Yes I know it is already 13 days into the year, and while some people have even said it’s too late to bid anyone happy new year anymore, I still feel like I should commemorate the turning of the year with a few notes on 2012.
Mostly notes about Cora, let’s be honest with ourselves.
Cora started 2012 at 4 months old, full of giggles, funny faces, and physical feats to astound even Dr. Sears*. She finished at nearly 16 months with lots of new skills. Capable of walking, running, tumbling (usually due to over-confident running), 14 teeth, a very strong sense of self, and a few words: Mama, DaDa, Yummy and Whoa! She could whistle a few notes while working hard at being cute. She could ride her rocking horse by herself; recognize a few colors and lots of other things in her favorite books. There are countless others I did list, but those are definitely a few of my favorites to end the year.
Some tidbits about the parents should be mentioned:
Daddy made it through a significant promotion in his career despite having an infant and nagging wife at home. Mama managed to work a full year, full time for the first time in about 4 years. We all decided it was good to keep the extra-curriculars down to a minimum otherwise, so ultimate and baseball took a bit of a back seat. We had to say goodbye to several important folks in our lives. Grandma Miller passed in June, and Cora’s sitter, Miss Marilyn passed in July. Those events, coupled with a lot of trips to see/meet family and friends took up plenty of time.
* these feats might be drummed up a little in my head, but some of the pictures/video from Christmas 2011 make me believe them 🙂
Ok I didn’t come up with that witty use of Potty Train as a metaphor. BUT, Cora is trying to help us out by learning to control and communicate her need to evacuate. Here she is catching up on some reading while relaxing on the pot.
Some favorite cues Cora likes to give to let us know it’s time to go:
I’m not sure where she picked these up, but I do know that they are working. Once again we are excited about poop. Being a parent is definitely not exactly what we expected in terms of highs and lows! Honestly though, we have a great sitter who works very hard to help encourage her potty training adventure. He’s always willing to let her get on the potty at daycare and he clearly is understanding her cues there as well. He also reports on the activities and lets us know how things are going. Really great support system.
I’m also reading this book to see if we can take this potty training thing to an end pretty soon. Someone thinks it should be possible. Wish us luck! It’s actually a lot more fun than I thought it would be, but leave it to Cora to make something that should be stressful and unpleasant and turn it into a good time.
Now that we have a blog (I don’t know if 5 years counts as a recent addition), all I ever do is think about what a great post <insert pithy title of a life moment here> would make. Do I ever get to write that post and insert all the cool media? No. When I sit down to actually write a post I have completely forgotten what I wanted to share, what pictures best tell that story, and who to send the details out to. It’s a mess. I do so very much miss all my friends back in Texas, the family we used to be able to see more regularly, and the warmth of the Texas sun. Blogging almost makes that more painful to be away from, because what I really want to do is experience it with those loved ones.
Missing you all….
Towering at 30″ tall, weighing in at a hearty 22 lbs, and packing a punch to bring down the toughest plush toys, Cora has thrown the gauntlet to ANY prehistoric/Japanimation creature that wants to cross her path.
This little girl has shown virtually no fear up to this point in her life. Older children, vacuum cleaners, popping balloons, head bonks, scraped knees or high-flying baby press-ups, no sweat.
A couple months ago I dedcided that the reason that I never get as far on some of my personal projects because I just didn’t have a space to work on them. After talking with AJ, I bought a table saw, talked to my Dad and set out to build a workbench. I found the plans for what looked to be a simple workbench made from 2x4s and the plans even said it would take a weekend. Well a weekend turned in to a couple of months, because the author probably didn’t have a 1 year old at home, had a complete array of tools, and had a good idea of what he was doing. Unfortunately, I had to work within the constraints of all three, but I finally finished the bench, and it looks great. It has as many flaws as I do, which is more than I care to admit, but it will be a great area to work on family and personal projects. Below are some pictures of when the bench was finished and after it was put in to “service”.
Most people who know me, know that I have very strong feelings about the differences between the National League and American League baseball. I like to say I was born and raised in the National League, and one thing I can say is that I will always root for the National League. The current changes to baseball involve the Houston Astros moving to the American League West Division. (It makes absolutely no sense that they would be moved to the same division as the Texas Rangers, but it would be a long post at some other time to talk about Bud Selig as the commissioner). The Astros move presents a big dillema for me. I have been a fan of the Astros for over 30 years, and in that entire time, they have been a National League team, no problem. As of 2013, they will be an American League team and I have found myself at the crossroads of maintaining loyalty for a team I have been a fan of for so long, and the strong, almost religious, beliefs I have about National League baseball.
In the end, I found a compromise which works for me. I cannot simply stop supporting the Astros – period. I will continue to cheer for them as they rebuild in to an American League team. When it comes to the World Series, I will root for the American League, and I can’t reiterate this enough, IF AND ONLY IF the Astros are the American league representative. Otherwise, the National League will still be my favorite, and I will still crack jokes about how American league baseball is akin to little league.
To show my support for the Astros, I have already started wearing the new logo ( an on-field fitted hat of course), which I think is awesome. It is reminiscent of the 80’s logo. In fact. I think the whole new look will be like throw back every night, except for the rainbow, which I will not miss.
For those who understand or feel strongly about baseball, you will understand the level of debate I had with myself and how hard this decision really was. At the end of the day baseball is baseball, and it’s a great sport to play and watch from the little leagues to the major leagues.
Two weeks ago the computer that had driven my/our web sites, and served as my lab environmnet died after 9 years of service. The system has since been replaced and everything is back up and running. Today ‘kp-vm01’ will be taken to be recycled, so we say a tearless goodbye and thanks. – If you look close you can see a 3.5″ floppy drive. Remember those?
We celebrated Cora’s first birthday in several phases, that lucky little gal. First phase was in Texas, with family and good friends in Houston and Dallas. In Dallas, she was able to meet for the first time her maternal-paternal great-grandparents, Granny and PawPaw Henderson and Grandpa and Grandma Thomas. She also was able to meet several cousins (Liz and Will, Sam and Tameka, Rachel and RaShad, Lydia, great-aunts and uncles and cousins Becky, Doris, Town and Stace, and I’m sure I missed somebody… big families == BIG LOVE, right?).
The second installment was a birthday party at the park near our house in Seattle. Once again, that girl has everything anyone could ever ask for. Mama and babe both had runny noses and low grade fevers, but that little Bam Bam didn’t bat an eye. I can’t say the same for myself.
And in case you were wondering why this post took almost three months to appear, happily our blogs are back up, the webserver, fileshares, etc. are all rocking big boy style, and the posts will flow aplenty now… because Sean also figured out how to add time in to the day while he was learning Linux.
