Two Body Problem

Two Body Problem: Version 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 03:34:00 +0000

The new version of the blog is now live! Hopefully this format will allow us to post pictures and videos frequently without as much work for us on the back end. The blog is divided into three columns. The left column has the main blog posts. We'll try to do a full post once a week (we may adopt a schedule, we'll see). The center blue column houses a number of widgets. On the top is the most recent Flickr photo we've posted. On the right is our Friendfeed feed, which we're calling the Live Feed, and the Vimeo video player. In the Live Feed, you will see pictures and and videos that we have posted on Flickr and Vimeo, as well as Twitter updates. By clicking the comment button, you can comment on all of these. You can also subscribe to the posts, comments, and live feed by clicking the appropriate button.

Like the design? Any questions? Say so in comments!

First steps

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:00:00 +0000

Ezra took a couple of freestanding steps this past weekend. At first we held his hands or his waist and let him walk toward one of us, after a few steps we would let go and he would walk a few steps on his own. On Sunday, Ezra took a few steps away from his walker without holding on to anything. Shanna and I were pretty excited. We know we're doomed, but we're excited anyway.

I should note, we tried getting a video of Ezra walking but we haven't been successful yet.

Happy birthday world

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 03:06:00 +0000

In celebration of Rosh Hashana, Ezra gave a round of applause to the solar system. Pluto was not included, but some comets were.

Ezra hasn't stood up on his own unassisted, but he has demonstrated a few yoga moves.

Sharing

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:00:00 +0000

We're glad Ezra is learning how to share. Perhaps we need to work on him sharing a little less forcefully.

The Pacifier

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 16:00:00 +0000

We were all fortunate that my sister and nephew were able to come down from Seattle for Ezra's birthday party. Ezra and my nephew Alex are about two months apart in age. Alex uses a pacifier quite often. Ezra, not so much. Actually we never had any success giving him a pacifier, he's too much of a purist. We gave up months ago. When Ezra and Alex see each other, however. Ezra can't get enough pacifier, preferably Alex's pacifier. Just to see what would happen, I tried giving him one a few days after Alex left, he reacted like I was crazy.

Luckily we were able to find a second pacifier we could distract Ezra with.

You're not fooling me kid!

Alex normally looks like a clone of my brother in law. He actually looks
somewhat like my sister here.

Bumblebee

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 16:30:00 +0000

Auntie Mara and Uncle Sam gave Ezra this bumblebee ride for his birthday. He's still too small to really use it but he can sit on it when I hold him.

In some site news: I'm playing around with some ideas for Two Body Problem version 2.0. Basically I need to find a way to make the blog less work for me. The goal is some way to post pictures, videos, and tweets quickly and then maybe have a long format "week-in-review" post once a week. I'm thinking about combining Friendfeed, Flickr, Vimeo, and Twitter, in a somewhat pleasing to look at package.

Birthday Party

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:35:00 +0000

Ezra got his first taste of cake. I think he liked it.

We threw a birthday party for Ezra on Sunday. There was something in the neighborhood of thirty people there. Shanna of course, was worried that there was not enough food. We're still eating leftovers. We were fortunate that a good amount of our out-of-town family were able to come to the event.

Ezra seemed to have a good time crawling around the big party room and outside. Unfortnately he was filthy by the end of the day.

We invited some of Ezra's little friends from day care (and their parents). This is Ezra's best buddy. As you can see they have similar hair styles.

Has it really been one year?

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:09:00 +0000

I can't believe it has been one year since this!

With everyone visiting for Ezra's birthday and preparing for his party we didn't have time to post. Don't worry, I promise regular posting will resume this week.

All done?

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 03:39:00 +0000

We've been working on some signs with Ezra. Right now he knows "all done" and "More". Both require some interpretation. For "all done" he shakes both his hands like in the video. For "more" he claps his hands together and says, "mo, mo". It's very cute. Even more importantly, it is really cool to actually be able to communicate! I've always been skeptical of baby sign language, but now I definitely see how it can be helpful. I think the trick is to tie them into motions the kid already does, like shaking his hands, or clapping them together. It isn't really important if the sign Ezra does is anything close to ASL, what matters is we have a better idea of what he's trying to tell us.

Feeling better

noreply@blogger.com (Shanna) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 04:37:00 +0000

It's nice to be finally feeling better.

Ezra's new 'do

noreply@blogger.com (Shanna) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 04:59:00 +0000

Believe it or not - this picture was taken after I cut his hair.

As some of you were aware - Aaron was pretty sick starting on Thursday night. Enough so that he had to go to urgent care on Friday night. (Thank you thank you Patrick!). He had a monstrous headache, stiff neck, and numb fingers. The doctor said it was likely a virus and got him on more heavy duty pain relievers. He was pretty much out of commission all day on Saturday and woke up Saturday night several times with drenched pjs and sheets due to the fever finally breaking. He seems all better - I can tell because the house is clean again.

Kid trickery

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:47:00 +0000

Sometimes we need to trick Ezra into doing the cute things we want him to do. For the time being, we're still smarter than he is.

Smiling contest!

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:00:00 +0000

I was lamenting that Ezra won't smile for long periods of time like he used to. To me it seems harder to catch his smiles on camera. He's a busy boy, and doesn't stay still long enough to catch on camera sometimes, much less sit in one place smiling. Shanna didn't believe me, so we had a catch Ezra smiling picture contest.

Oops, Shanna got too close!

There's that smile! I win!

Visit with Grandpa

noreply@blogger.com (Shanna) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 04:48:00 +0000

Ezra had a mild fever last Thursday which kept me from taking him to daycare. I also got a call from my Dad saying that he had flown a client into Burbank and was stuck there for a few hours. I decided to take Ezra out because (1) it would be nice to see my Dad, (2) it would keep me from going crazy stuck in the house, and (3) it would guarantee two naps - driving there and back (Ezra napping - not me, unfortunately). So we made it out to Burbank airport and found my Dad. He showed us the fancy plane that he had flown down as a co-pilot. Ezra was taken with it - we may have a future pilot on our hands.

We then went out to lunch in downtown Burbank with Dad and the other pilot. We chose a nice-ish restaurant but it had a kids' menu so I figured it was fair game. I sat Ezra in a high chair and within two minutes he managed to vomit up the entire contents of everything I had fed him earlier that day. If I was worried about how much milk he was getting while nursing - I had no reason to be. I knew what was coming about two seconds before the eruption and I was smart enough to reach for one of our handy towels we keep everywhere including the diaper bag. However, I didn't look to see what I was grabbing and instead of getting the towel, I managed to grab a pair of extra Ezra socks. They didn't do much to prevent the copious amounts of ...well you know...from getting everywhere. Our towels and one cloth napkin barely sopped it all up. I decided to steal the napkin because it was too embarrassing to leave it behind. I hope the restaurant understands.

I thought maybe it was due to him gagging on a piece of bread I had given him, however, it was obvious it was the stomach flu as over the next 30 hours he decided to reinact the restaurant scene over and over. Each time we were shellshocked and couldn't do any preventive measures and we ended up with a lot of messes all over the place (bed, couch, me). I need to learn how to actually reach for the proper receptor instead of just holding him over exactly what I don't want him to vomit on (bed, couch, me). I figure I probably have years of practise ahead of me.

Baby mullet

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 04:43:00 +0000

Ezra's hair, unsprung

Ezra has a great jewfro. we were curious how long it actually was uncoiled. It is, as you can see here, pretty long. Fortunately it only stays like this for a few seconds. I had to almost continually pour water on the back of his head to get this picture.

Nothing in particular

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 04:33:00 +0000

We're still in recovery. Here's a video from our Oregon trip. I figured out how to post HD quality videos from our new camera (also how to watch them on the our tv).* To see the video, and all future videos in HD quality hover the mouse over the video while it is playing and click the HD button. This video is one of our first attempts at HD video. It seems that the trick is lots of light. Our indoor videos haven't turned out as well.

* I used iMovie HD on Shanna's mac to re-encode the videos in h.264. You can use Quicktime but you have to pay $30 for the pro version. Although it is probably possible to do, I couldn't get everything to work very well on the pc.

Sickos

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 00:36:00 +0000

Sorry for the lack of Ezra posts. He was sick yesterday for the first time in months and it wiped everyone out. He's feeling better now so hopefully the weekend will go well. I have a few things in the pipe (Shanna has a funny story she may tell too). Stay tuned in the next couple days.

Happy Birthday City of Angels

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:00:00 +0000

Today is the 227th birthday of Los Angeles. To celebrate, we're going to take a family trip to the LA county fair. None of us have ever been. The fairgrounds are actually in Pomona, but it's the thought that counts.

On another LA related note, the LA times recently had a list of what they feel are the top 25 LA movies, or movies where the city is essentially a character in the film. Overall the list isn't bad, I'd probably include a few more. They didn't include multiple films by the same film maker. For example, I'd probably put Fast Times at Ridgemont High up there with Clueless.

Airplane

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:00:00 +0000

This past trip to the pacific northwest was Ezra's fifth round trip airplane flight. Not bad for eleven months. Of course, we've never done a flight longer than 2.5 hours, so don't mail us any awards yet. Usually we try to time the flight so he'll sleep most of the way. On our flight home, however, he was awake for a significant portion. It was also the first time where he took an interest in what was going on. As we were on our final approach into LAX he was facinated by what was going on outside the window. He stared out the window intently as we were landing and afterward as we taxied to the gate. Now if only we could get him to do this for 15 hours or so.

Orange

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 03:00:00 +0000

This past weekend we went to the Orange International Street Fair. For me this consisted of beer and various fried things. Shanna was a little healthier. We had never been to Orange before. It was cute. A little grittier than I expected. We arrived around eleven o'clock and parked just down the street from a church. The bells were ringing and people were leaving a service. On the other side of our car a bunch of shirtless guys were playing beer pong. Somewhat ironic since the festival did not sell alcohol before noon.*

Ezra and Shanna strolling down the street

* I don't know if this is an local blue law or just a fair rule.

Noah's Arc

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 04:40:00 +0000

This past weekend we went to the Noah's Arc exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center. It was really cute and Ezra had a great time.* It is difficult to describe, basically there are a bunch of animals and an arc made out of random objects. Supposedly the exhibit represents the flood story from 500 different cultures.

Ezra really like the water pump. It made it rain.

We tried to have Ezra walk around (holding onto our hands or other objects) as much as possible.

*Even though Ezra enjoyed himself. the exhibit is probably is geared primarily for kids four years old and above.

Analog Attic: Engage!

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:00:00 +0000

Another Scancafe shipment came in so one again I get to subject you all to old analog era photos. These photos were taken by my Shanna's mother in 2001. Shanna and I were recently engaged and we took her parents to the location we had picked out for their wedding. I guess it is only fair for them to see where they are going to spend a small fortune. We didn't know it at the time or we would have dressed a little nicer, but we liked these photos so much we used them as our engagement photos. Shanna's sister made us a cool photo frame using some of these pictures and the paper we used for our wedding invitations. We still have it up today.

The most important part of this picture is that it records that my intramural softball team, the chemistry department Isotopes won the USC dork league IM championship the previous year, with the fewest number of forfeits.

We were married in Malibu, the site of some pretty bad fires last year. As far as I know the site survived. We were underwelmed by the wedding locations in LA we could afford when we drove out to Malibu. Although more reasonably priced it was at least a 40 minute drive from our home. When we arrived the first thing we said was, "too far." After touring the location we had decided that despite the difference, this was where we were going to get married.

Get on the Bus

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:00:00 +0000

Our flight to the pacific northwest last week was delayed more than an hour and a half. Our master Ezra travel plan was put through the ringer. Fortunately we were able to feed Ezra at home, unfortunately our ride to the airport had evening plans and couldn't take us. Our old option, taxi wouldn't work since we didn't want to schlep a car seat. Besides, we've had bad luck with taxis showing up at our home. Plan B was to take the bus.

We've taken the bus before and it has worked out, more or less. It took longer than I would have liked, but I think that was our fault. For the record the MTA airport express bus doesn't really exist, the best bet is to take whatever bus you can to the transit center, preferably one that comes every ten minutes (at one point we were passed by two busses back to back), then the Culver City bus to the airport, which runs frequently. If you give yourself time this is a very hassle free way to get to LAX.

Woodland Park Zoo

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:00:00 +0000

While in Seattle last week we got a chance to go to the Woodland Park Zoo. It rained. Correction: It poured. We didn't see many animals but I noticed that the flamingos were trying to decide which two would head to the arc. In any case, they had a nice indoor play area for the children and Ezra, Alex and Lila seemed to have a good time.

I think this was supposed to be a hollowed out log. It had a mirrored interior floor. Ezra thought it was pretty trippy. (Also, notice the Star Wars T. Pretty snazzy!)

I'm not sure what bongos have to do with the zoo. Hey, who am I to judge. Ezra thought these were cool too. Between this and his piano playing, I'm worried he's going to start going to baby jazz clubs.

Alex seemed to like this fake tree stump. He seemed to enjoy himself even though he wasn't quite mobile. He's since started creeping. Maybe this was the last motivation he needed.

Being the most mobile, Lila probably had the most fun. Also being the most mobile meant that she was the hardest to keep in the giant plastic egg. This would have been much easier with Alex. After struggling with the egg for a while. Someone remarked, "Well, I've seen the kids put it together."

Great moments in management

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:56:00 +0000

Yesterday afternoon this guy, who I see around but I don't really know what he does, came into my office and demanded some sort of report on some project. When he was done barking I looked at him and said, "I have no idea what you are talking about."

I don't think he was expecting this response.

His confused reply, "Oh, I guess I meant some other Aaron." I'm not sure exactly what they teach in management school, but I'm pretty sure at some point they mention how you should probably know who works for you.

Note: More Ezra footage later this week, I promise!