Steelykid!
drorzel | July 7, 2009A bunch of heavy stuff on the blog today-- quantum physics, insulting journalists, political activism. Here's a cute baby video to lighten the mood:
This is Steelyid demonstrating her climbing prowess, just in case anybody suspected that Saturday's filler picture was staged. She can actually go quite a bit faster than this, but she kept stopping to mug shamelessly for the camera.
drorzel | July 5, 2009A reading from the Book of Genesis:
1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make plastic cups that can stack atop one another. And let us make them of many colors, lo, for that would be cool.
4 And they said, Go to, let us stack our cups to make a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us put a duck upon the top, because ducks are pretty neat.
5 And SteelyKid came down to see the city and the…
drorzel | July 4, 2009SteelyKid shows off her recently expanded climbing ability:
I could attempt to make a strained connection to the Fourth of July by making some analogy between a baby climbing stairs and the need for constant slow improvement in the national character, or some such. But really, it's just a cute baby picture being posted as filler.
Enjoy the day. I hope you have better weather than we do.
drorzel | July 2, 2009SteelyKid has recovered her usual energy level, as you can tell by the giant debris field she's created in the living room:
Looking at her there, among the scattered toys with Appa, you might be saying "Boy, what a great big baby she is!" It's all a matter of perspective, though:
She's still pretty small standing next to me...
drorzel | July 1, 2009Whoever came up with the idea of making little string bikinis in infant sizes should be beaten to death with Barbie dolls.
Seriously. The world does not need 6-9 month size versions of the useless "swimwear" that gets modeled in Sports Illustrated. We barely need the adult versions.
drorzel | June 26, 2009I'm headed home to give a speech at my old high school's graduation. Which is a weird feeling-- I don't feel like I'm really old or successful enough to be on the lecture circuit. Then again, it is twenty years since I graduated there myself, which means I've been out of high school longer than most if not all of them have been alive, so...
Anyway, to give you something to look at while I'm off speechifying, here's some video of SteelyKid:
In this clip, she shows off two new ridiculously cute behaviors: the "hold my toy" game where she hands something to you, then takes it back; and tool use…
drorzel | June 25, 2009SteelyKid is pondering a life as a costumed crime-fighter-- she's got the pseudonym for it, after all-- and here we see her trying out a catchphrase to strike fear into the hearts of naughty people:
"Spooooon!!!"
Actually, that's lifted from somebody else. Probably needs more work.
The traditional Appa-for-scale picture:
The spoon doesn't have any food on it, but it's soft plastic, and she likes to chew on it. Whatever makes her happy.
drorzel | June 18, 2009Another arbitrary numerical signifier for Daddy! Yay!
Not the best Appa-for-scale picture, so here's one from earlier this morning:
Appa likes having his belly rubbed, I guess.
And that's it for me for tonight.
drorzel | June 11, 2009You get Baby Blogging early today, because I have a ton of grading to finish today, and don't have time for bloggy things. This week, SteelyKid shows off two new-ish skills:
She can stand up, and she's strong enough to lift a bison! Look out, world...
If you're clicking through to warn us that allowing her to stand up in the Pack and Play is a sure route to Instant Death!!!!1!, please don't.
drorzel | June 6, 2009SteelyKid attempts to show off her street cred:
Of course, her attempt at looking tough is kind of undermined by the Princess Tutu type duck on her hoodie...
That's ok, though, because it's all fun:
Getting pictures taken for the blog is funny...
drorzel | June 4, 2009My mom was in Saratoga Springs for a meeting, and stopped by tonight to make a guest appearance in this week's Baby Blogging. Here, SteelyKid shows off how she can haul herself into a standing position on the big tub of outgrown baby clothes sitting in the living room:
"How do we know she did that herself?" you ask, you skeptical baby-doubter, you. "Her grandmother is holding her up!" Well, this picture should remove any doubt:
"Look, Internet people! No adult support needed!"
This, like most developmental milestones, is both exciting and terrifying. She's crawling all over now, and hauling…
drorzel | May 30, 2009I don't intend to turn this entirely over to Video Baby Blogging, but SteelyKid has been adding new tricks at an amazing rate, and I have the camera... Here, she showcases her newfound mobility, and her inherited taste in entertainment:
The odd one-leg-under crawling style seems to be a local maximum-- she can get up on all fours in the classic crawling posture, but she doesn't have the mechanics entirely worked out, and makes faster progress with her left leg folded under. In the tradition of her experimentalist father, she doesn't see an immediate need to fix what's basically working.
The…
drorzel | May 29, 2009SteelyKid's day care is closed today for a Jewish holiday, so she's spending the day at home with her grandmother. It was a real struggle to get my mother to come up for the day...
Something I'm sure is on the agenda is playing with her shape sorter box, which she was good enough to demonstrate on video:
Note the highly advanced technique-- if it's not quite working, pound on it. She gets that from me.
I cheated a tiny bit with the video, arranging it so the round hole was closest to her, and handing her one of the round objects. She hasn't really grasped the idea of the different shapes, yet…
drorzel | May 28, 2009This week, a special Literary Edition:
Those are the first pass typeset proofs for the book, which just arrived in the mail today. Aren't they adorable?
Oh, okay, fine. You're just here for the conventional cute baby pictures:
SteelyKid's rapidly expanding bag of tricks now includes standing up. More or less. She can haul herself up into a standing position more often than not, and can steady herself on solid objects. Kate's ready to catch her if she falls, but not really holding her in this picture.
She doesn't really crawl in the usual way, but she can scoot around surprisingly quickly…
drorzel | May 21, 2009Kate here, reporting that SteelyKid says,
"Being sick is fun! I get to take baths at 10 o'clock at night, and play on nice soft towels, and have Mommy's undivided attention all day long . . . "
(She's fine, was sick last night but is rapidly improving over the day—her appetite is almost completely back to normal and she's in a good mood, as you can see (she looks a little bleary because she just woke up). Nevertheless, we both look forward to Chad coming home . . . )
drorzel | May 14, 2009This is Week 40 of Thursday Baby Blogging, meaning that SteelyKid has nominally reached the point where she has been out in the world as long as she was gestating. Let's see what she thinks:
SteelyKid says "Huh? I thought that wasn't for another couple of weeks..."
And it's true, she was late in arriving. So, the official celebration of gestational breakeven will be a couple of weeks from now. In the meantime, let's just leave her to wrestle her bison...
drorzel | May 13, 2009It has come to my attention that unspecified people are having a bad couple of days for unspecified reasons and could use a pick-me-up. Thus, I give you the cutest laughing baby in the universe.
Hope this helps. Have a nice day.
drorzel | May 7, 2009It's been an uneven week for SteelyKid. She was a litle bit sick last week, and really only got better last weekend, only to turn listless and feverish at day care Monday. This led to yet another trip to the pediatrician, at which we learned that waking a sleeping baby up to press a cold stethoscope to her chest is the End of the World.
She's improved dramatically from that unpleasant visit, though, and did some painting yesterday at day care, and today felt well enough to wrestle a bison:
That's not the best Appa-for-scale picture, but how could I resist that expression? For a wider angle…
drorzel | May 4, 2009SteelyKid is not yet at the stage where I can usefully read to her-- she likes sitting on my lap while I read just fine, but she's more interested in trying to eat the pages than listening to the story. I was reminded this morning, though, that when she gets to bedtime-story age, I'm going to face some real dilemmas. Some of the classic stories teach dangerously wrong lessons about physics.
Take, for example, the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears (referred to at the end of the previous post). In the usual telling, Goldilocks comes upon the Bears' house and finds three bowls of porridge…
drorzel | May 1, 2009I'm walking a little gingerly today, thanks to an injury to my left foot. Sadly, this was not the result of anything cool, like rescuing orphans from a burning building, or dunking a basketball in order to win a league championship. Instead, I bruised the bottom of my foot by landing on one of Emmy's bones while frog-hopping across the room to entertain SteelyKid.
This is in a fine family tradition-- my father once blew out a knee trying to do the cossack dance for me-- but it's worth it. In the last week or two, she's started laughing just about every time she sees me-- evidently, I am the…