Kaeta stories
Here are a few Kaeta stories I've been meaning to blog. The other day we had some friends over, and I had a beer with dinner. The bottle was still sitting on the table half-full as we were cleaning up after eating. I was putting a plate in the dishwasher when someone gasped -- I looked up, and Kaeta was drenched! I thought she'd spilled some water, but then I saw the beer bottle she had dropped. I picked her up and took her upstairs to change. On the way up, I asked, "Kaeta, did you drink any of the beer?" She said she had. "Did it taste good, or bad?" " Bad!"
Yesterday I was reminding Kaeta how to spell her name. ME: K-A-E-T-A. Kaeta! Can you spell Kaeta? HER: A-B-C-D... F-G... Kaeta!
In her bedtime storybook tonight, there was a picture of a band with four animals playing instruments. I asked Kaeta about it: ME: What's that? HER: Piggy. ME: What's he doing? HER: Playing drums! ME: What's the monkey playing? HER: <unintelligible> ME: It's called a clarinet. Can you say "clarinet?" HER: clare-net. ME: What's the bear playing? HER: Hide-and-seek!
One good poop story deserves another
Kaeta is potty training, and she's doing really well. So sometimes we let her sit alone on her potty for a few minutes and just check on her every so often. The other day she was in the bathroom alone, and then we heard her messing with the toilet seat, so Karianne went to check on her. She had pooped, then decided to empty it into the big toilet herself. She'd gotten the lid of the toilet up and was scooping the poop out of her potty with her bare hands. Poop was smeared all over the toilet seat, on the floor, and of course on her hands and arms up to the elbows. What a mess!
I got poop in my mustache
If you don't want to hear a poop story, you should skip this one. And the next one. In fact, to be safe, you might just want to go read a different blog altogether. When you have a boy, everyone warns you about "getting sprayed." From my experience, this is a valid concern, but Jonah has only peed on me a couple of times. But let me alert you non-parents to a much grosser possibility: projectile poopies. Our friends the Wards were visiting us on the weekend of Jonah's baptism. We were all getting ready to go somewhere, so I went to change Jonah's diaper. Let me tell you, I never even saw it coming -- it just shot out of him like a bullet. It wasn't a lot, but some of it got way up on a shelf on the wall, and a little dot of poop hit me right on my mustache! Karianne called something from downstairs, and I replied, "I've got poop on my face!" Even as the words were coming out, I realized I should not admit this -- I might never get smooched again! Fortunately, she didn't hear me. "What?" "Nothing!" I let a couple of weeks pass, then spilled the beans. A poop-in-the-mustache story is just too good not to tell.
I have so much to tell you!
I've been meaning to blog a whole bunch of little things lately. Here are the non-kid-related things, and I'll put some kid stories in another post. Nerd QuotientMy nerd points went up big time this month -- I had a short article published in 2600 magazine! 2600 is "The Hacker Quarterly," and I wrote about how to decode some encoded information in the HTML source of a site called experts-exchange.com. I wrote under the pseudonym "Phatbot" (a Futurama reference), and for my trouble I get a 1 year subscription. Special Note to my Mom and Dad: Don't rush out and buy the magazine, it's really not that big a deal. I'll show you my copy sometime. Handiness QuotientWhen Jonah was born, I decided I wanted to start working on becoming handier. We needed some shelves for our bathroom, so that became my first project. I bought boards, shelf brackets, a jigsaw, and some stain, and a mere two months later, I made these:  From a distance, they don't look too bad! And I learned a few things (like: beveling with a jigsaw is hard. Next time around maybe I'll use a router).
A Little Behind...
 Okay, so we've been deadbeats lately when it comes to blogging. Butt at long last, here are some new photo galleries from the last several weeks.  ("Mom! You're embarrassing me!")
Kaeta was good at the mall
Radiolab: The Ring and I
Radiolab is a show on NPR that everyone should listen to. Today while driving home from work, I started listening to a recent episode called "The Ring and I." It's about Wagner's The Ring Cycle, which is a 4-part opera that lasts for about 18 hours. Now, a brief digression: Once I was reading an article about opera, and someone had left this comment on the article: "I just saw La Traviata and really enjoyed it. It was my first opera. I think I'll try The Ring Cycle next." To me, this is like saying, "I like spaghetti. I think I'll spend the rest of my life in Italy." 18 hours is a long time, people. But "The Ring and I" (available here) makes it sound pretty interesting -- apparently Tolkein borrowed the idea of a ring of power from it. They compare the use of leitmotifs to guitar riffs (featuring the riff from Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love"). And I learned that the stereotypical image of an opera singer as a husky gal with blond braids and a horned helmet comes from the second part of The Ring, The Valkyrie. The Valkyrie in question is Brunnhilde, a character drawn straight out of Norse mythology (like a lot of stuff in The Ring). But I told you all that so I could tell you this: I have decided what my life's work shall be. It's going to be a rap epic -- a rap song of unprecedented scope and daring. In it, the hero fashions a gold chain of infinite power, which allows him to bust the phattest rhymes imaginable. It will be 18 hours in length, and it will be called: The Bling Cycle.But until I get around to that, you might enjoy this rap song by one of my favorite Nerdcore rappers, MC Frontalot. (If you're unfamiliar with nerdcore, well, that's a whole other post... Just check it out.) It's called The Rhyme of the Nibelung, and it's about The Ring, and it samples from The Ride of the Valkyries. Lyrics are available here.
Future Mountain-Mover
Tonight at bedtime I read one of Kaeta's favorite Dr. Seuss books, Oh, the Places You'll Go. Near the end, there's the line: "Kid, you'll move mountains!" Tonight I was really into the book, and when I got to that line, I set the book down, picked Kaeta up over my head, and said, "KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!" She got this big smile, and then she shouted, "I MOVE MOUNTAINS!" Then I put her down, and she gave me a high five. I love being a dad!
Anniversary Present
For our 5th anniversary, I asked our friend Kellie Ryan from Pittsburgh to do a drawing for Karianne based on one of our wedding photos. It turned out great! .JPG) .JPG) From even a few feet away, it looks like a photograph -- she did an amazing job. You can check out her art here. Thanks, Kellie!
Christmas Photos
Yes, I know, we haven't even posted Jonah's baptism photos yet... but in an attempt to stay current, here are some Christmas galleries: 1. The Zilker Park Christmas Tree. This is a big tree made out of lights. The tradition is to stand underneath it, hold hands with someone, look up, and spin around. Given her proclivity for spinning around, Kaeta had a blast! 2. Christmas presents. Two words: Elmo. Couch. 3. Christmas Pooh. Aunt Laurie surprised us with an 8-foot Inflatable Pooh Bear lawn decoration back in December. These pictures are not from Kaeta's first encounter with it, but she shows the same enthusiasm every time, so they might as well be. The first night I set it up, I took her outside and said, "Kaeta, who's in the yard?" And she immediately said, "Tigger... *gasp* Pooh!" It was a big hit. And here's a New Year's wish from Jonah:  Okay, just kidding, here's a cuter picture: 
Quotable Kaeta
Things Kaeta said at dinner last night: - I want some salad, honey!
- Hey! I'm sticky! (pronounced "ticky")
- Curious George naked baby!
Also, we've been singing with her at bedtime, and one of her favorite songs is "Away in a Manger." She sometimes walks around singing the whole first verse by herself (at a VERY high pitch, incidentally). One of the lines is "The stars in the sky looked down where he lay / The little Lord Jesus, asleep on the hay." So last night, Karianne was putting Keata to bed, and during her bedtime prayer she sometimes pauses to let Kaeta complete a phrase. She said "Help us to sleep..." and expected Kaeta to say "well." But instead she said, "On the hay?"
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