Retirement already?

Should I be worried that Nyssa is only 2.9 and already contemplating retirement?


and again:


I tried to get her to only wear her underpants, but happily Nyssa was anti-thong.
So what is happening around here.?. Not much, and a lot. Leila is thinking about walking. She's starting to stand by herself for seconds at a time, and she loves to take steps if you are holding her hands. She'll walk until her thighs are burning. She is also climbing stairs, which is ridiculous.
I think that comparing siblings is a faulty comparison. I simply do not remember what and whens of what Nyssa did or didn't do. But here is one real difference between the two: Leila is much less concerned for her physical well being than Nyssa. Nyssa was never a risk to climb up the stairs, she was not a risk to fall off the bed, she was (IS) always hesitant about where her body was and what might happen to it. Leila bumped her head more this weekend then I think Nyssa has her entire life. I think this is good, leading with your head. We were eating dinner on Friday night and Leila was screaming her head off in her high chair, so we'd put her on the floor and she'd try to climb on something and fall down, so we'd pick her up and she'd start to scream so we'd put her down and she'd bump her head and we'd pick her up.
There are 2 times when I am a bad father. When I am lying down and thinking about sleep and when there is a plate of food in front of me, especially at dinner time. So when Leila is performing her shenanigans it is maybe my fault cause I am not paying my most attention, so I decided to pay attention and put her in a safe location where she couldn't hurt herself. So I did and turned back to my plate, and 2 seconds later she is crying and screaming and Katy is picking her up, and she has a giant welt on her forehead. This would never have happened with Nyssa and it might drive Katy bonkers by the end.
Here is a good example, Nyssa was standing on her booster seat and I said, "Careful. You might fall." and then I thought maybe I was being over protective so I said, "Honey, I was just trying to let you know you might get hurt. Would you rather I let you find out for yourself or give you some warning?" and she said, "Give me some warning." How cute is that!?!
This is maybe my favorite video from the recent batch of videos. Even with the fuzzy UHF aspects to the front and back of it. I love Leila's tongue, I love that she and Nyssa are all kissy face, and I love that I am sitting on the couch 1000% belly. What a dad!

An extended video

I started a folder on the desk top of my computer with videos and pictures for this blog. I opened it today and there were like 20 videos in there plus pictures. That would take me forever to upload here, and then you'd all have to go along and look at each one and it would take you forever. So I decided to throw it all into the iMovie program that came with my computer.
Here is what I did. I selected all of my items in the folder and drug them into the imovie thingy.
Then I pulled them into the bottom section. I put a picture at the beginning and one at the end.
Bookending, baby.
Feel free to not watch the video. It's like 8 minutes and not sequential. Although there is one spot near the end, which is kind of tricky and you need to pay attention. It seems as though I did it on purpose, but I didn't.



What I learned was the magical mix of picture and song. I chose, Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" because it is pretty and sweet, its my friend Sharon's favorite songs, and Judy Garland is one of my dad's favorite singers. And I chose Joe Strummer's "Johnny Appleseed" because he is the best there ever was.
"Somewhere Over the Rainbow" is a song about hope and longing and I guess childhood and growing up and "Johnny Appleseed" is a "toe tapper" and is also essentally a song about hope and moving forwards.

But in part, listening to the music the videos seem almost solem and I'm afraid elegaic. When you upload a picture into iMovie it automatically plays them in, "Ken Burns Effect," which moves into a portion (focal point?) of the picture when I combined the photo's with music (especally the final one) it seemed over dramatic, almost sad. So I took the effect off. And taking it off the last photo I decided to take it off all the pictures. Now, maybe they feel stagnant.

We went to Madison for the 4th of July. It was a lot of fun and i'll put some pictures up when I get them. A big question of the weekend is whether Leila looks like what Nyssa looked like when she was 9month. At the end of the the video there is a clip of Katy singing Toe-knee-chest-nut with Nyssa on her lap. (Katy thinks this clip is proof that Nyssa could point to her feet when she was 9 months old...however, the truth is that Nyssa was repitiously grabbing her toes--she was doing it all through the song--and so i asked her to grab her toes...i.e. setting her up for success. Katy thinks the fact that she "points" to her feet is proof that she "knows" her feet. but if you examine the video you'll see she is pointing at her feet on her own before I ask the question. So, blah Katy.) The next clip is of Leila pushing her walker. My vote for the look like or not question is YES. Obviously not identical, but if you have spaced out at the end of the ToekneeChestnut, video you'll be confused when Katy says, "Nyssa."

I feel like this is boring. probably because it took like 45min for the movie to load.