10 Months Today!! Yeah!

I am the cutest thing in my parents world. I am saying Momma, Dadda, Down, Yeah, No No No No No, Pink, Again (More like Gin) and I am signing Milk and More and one more in the video. Momma is so proud of all of my achievments in just 10 months. I am growing out of clothes faster than she can put them away. I already wear 12 months and some are just getting too small, like when momma tries to pull them back off my head! My only complaint hear is: they never ever feed me enough. I want more more more. All in all life is good in the A hood. Peace out loved ones. I am learning your faces through pictures already. Sorry for mommas blabbing on the video but I sure am cute.

Pictures from the trip. Explanation in previous post

Story of our trip in the previous post. Had trouble posting pictures because the I.T. guy was fooled by the "Add Image" window being behind the main blogger window. I.T. Guy loses 4 nerd points for getting fooled by Google. Enjoy the photos. We enjoyed taking them and posing for them.

Many many miles, and finally home again

For me it started August 7th, when I left for Las Vegas on business. In the Las Vegas Hilton lingered the stale aroma of smoke and peanut butter and banana sandwiches - perhaps not too different from a day some 40 years ago, when Elvis Presley stepped foot in those same hallowed halls. I guess that's a nice way of saying the place smelled funny, the shower fixtures were probably put in before Elvis left the building, and if it were my dime, I'd head back to the Stratosphere. Of note, though, I'm pretty sure I saw "Jaws" from those old James Bond movies as I was checking in. Pretty distinctive looking guy.

Arriving back home on Sunday night, we relax before a big day of driving on Monday. It was now time for our first vacation as parents, and even scarier... our daughter's first road trip. By my best estimates (actually Google's best estimates) our trip took us over 2300 miles through four state capitols and six states (actually seven if you count the wrong turn we took that briefly landed us in Michigan).



Had a great time in Chicago and then at the beach in Indiana (yes, the beach in Indiana) with family and friends. Visited Chicago's Shedd Aquarium, ate deep-dish Chicago pizza, partook of some delicious 14-year-old single-malt scotch, and waded along the southern shores of Lake Michigan.

For some reason, I'm unable to continue to add pics to this post, so I'll continue with my long-winded story and post pics in the next posting.

Where were we? Ah, yes, leaving Indiana to drive back up through Chicago to the outskirts of Milwaukee. Note to self: Never drive back up through Chicago. We got from the Indiana line almost to downtown with little or no incident, and then we hit traffic - not exaggerating, 35 miles of traffic. Finally, just south of Wisconsin, we broke free.

Next on the agenda was the Milwaukee Irish Festival (curiously co-sponsored by the Milwaukee Scottish Arts Council) where we had a great time with the Killer Leprechaun, his twin brother Zamfir who looks nothing like him, and their older brother who we'll just call Larry.

From there we headed west again, stopping in beautiful Nebraska to visit some friends. No kidding, beautiful Nebraska. If you ever get a chance to stray off of I-80 north of Lincoln and West-by-northwest of Omaha, I'd recommend a visit to Fremont, NE. While you're there, check out the lakes and the cliffs on the banks of the Platte River. We checked out Hormel Park, a nature preserve brought to you by the makers of Spam. Ironically, we were told that Spam costs the same in Fremont as it does in any other town across the U.S.

Fremont was our last stop before Colorado. We made it 2300 miles in a car with very few complaints from Baby V. I guess she's inherited the much-coveted road-tripping genes. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the pictures if you happened to read the next post first. Thanks to everyone we visited on the trip. We appreciated the hospitality everywhere we went. It was great to see everyone and finally get everyones' updated email addresses. We'll now be forwarding you some chain letters telling you that you're our best friends and threatening eternal bad luck if you don't forward our message to 10 of your friends within the next hour. If you do, however, decide to forward our messages, "something incredible will happen". I knew this guy who knew this lady who had a cousin whose mother-in-law forwarded this message, and she won the lottery three days later. It's true. I read it on Snopes.

5 months as of today.

I don't have too much to say just a few pictures to post. Some of our favorites and some new ones. Much love to all.

Four Months and Still Growing

I have taken my time to post this knowing everyone wants to see it but also being very busy with my baby girl. It is official she weighs in at 13 pounds 4 ounces and is 24 1/2 inches long. That makes her 62 and 76 percentile for height and weight. Her head is 16 1/2 inches and makes it 85 percentile. So her big head can only mean one thing. She is very smart. She is smart, happy, growing and thriving. We are on the other hand, tired, and don't have much free time. In all of this I would say just so very happy to be first time parents and loving that she is soooooo perfect in everyway. Oh yeah she got to start on cereal yesterday too, so the sleeping through the night should be happening very soon.

How would Jesus drive?

I didn't know whether to call this "How Would Jesus Drive" (HWJD), or "It's a Jeep thing, Jesus wouldn't understand".

So I was on my way to work today, driving in the middle of three lanes admiring a tricked-out Jeep in front of me. It was lifted, had fat tires, and a roof rack that could carry all the fixins for a weekend camping trip. We're at a red light in the middle of three lanes when the light turns green. We get through the intersection, and are within about 300 feet of where the right lane ends. All of a sudden, another equally tricked-out Jeep (this one is yellow with a big snorkel) steps on the gas and launches out into the soon-to-end right lane. He passes me and hops back into my lane just past where his lane ended. He had to squeeze me out of the way in order to get in front of me as he did. Naturally, I honked. Naturally, he flipped me off and slammed on his brakes. In addition to the snorkel and the sweet yellow paint job, this second Jeep had one other distinguishing feature: a cowbell with a cross painted on it hanging from the trailer hitch.

My first thought was that this guy was trying to get ahead of me so he could catch up to his 4x4 brother and they could share a "Jeep thing" (and possibly phone numbers). But I don't drive a Jeep, so I didn't even try to understand. Bottom line, it didn't look like they were together, so the guy was either just passing me to be an ass, or he wanted to rub his "Jeep thing" up against something that looked similar. I guess the real bottom line was that this guy was advertising his righteousness while driving like an idiot. How would Jesus drive?

Mom's First

There are so many firsts for me. The main one today is my first child. Her name is Little V and I think she is the cutest thing in the world. I am proud to show her off to all of my friends and family. Things were more than a little rough to begin with but now things are A OK and I am proud to be her Mamma. So this is also a first in that it is my first blog about Little V. Hope all is well for you and yours. I tried this one time a couple of days ago and wouldn't you know it, it wouldn't work for me. So here is try # 2 and the next first. Smiling with just a little coaxing.

you run and you run to catch up with the sun...

Time to blog? Looking back to the last post, and knowing that our daughter is now eight weeks old, I'm feeling like a slacker. I finished the previous sentence over an hour ago, then had to attend to some baby time... exactly what I was going to write about. Parenting does take some time... time otherwise spent goofing off on the computer, I guess. I have to give it up for all of you parents out there, especially those with more than one kid.



Also wanted to pop on and add links to friends' and relatives' blogs. Would have written more, but it's getting to be bed time. My daughter and I have a busy day at work tomorrow.

Peace. More in the future.

28 days old and dreaming

28 days of life, 20 hours per day of sleep. What do you dream about?

How do you define consciousness? Do you follow rational thought and believe that, "I think, therefore I am?" Do you believe that the world has to be experienced through the senses as the empericists do? Is our consciousness the sum total of all of our experiences?

Western psychology calls the infant's mind a "tabula rasa", or blank slate. It is a mind devoid of judgment, opinions, and prejudice. Eastern philosophy would refer to this state of mind as "the uncarved block", or (coincidentally enough) the p'u. It is the state of mind that Taoists and Zen Buddhists strive to return to in life, but which we all possess at birth.

Why is it so cute when she stretches, gets startled, sneezes, cries (sorry Little V), burps, or sleeps? Because it's just what she does. Her only motivation is for comfort - she's just doing what she has to do. Maybe it's so cute because she's teaching mommy and daddy about what the essence of life really is - a good nap, a good stretch, a good meal (and the of course the consequences thereof).

Just be, Little V.

...and so it begins

At long last we have given into the pressure of the "blog-os-peer". That's right, Bento Box W has now been served. For those unfamiliar with Japanese cuisine served here in The States, a Bento Box is a chef's special, a combo platter, often containing a diverse array of samplings from raw tuna to tempura fried sweet potato... from octopus salad to miso soup... from california rolls to red snapper... mmmmm... red snapper... allglglglglhglhglhglhg. But I digress.

Here at Bento Box W, we strive to bring you an eclectic mix of posts, from baby photos to snowboarding; from Winnie the Pooh to Star Wars; from family fun and vacations to the least boring of our daily activities.

So let's start with a delicious appetizer of baby photos. We're starting this way for a few reasons:

1. We have this new baby. Her name's Vanessa. She was born January 4th, 2008 at 5:42 PM. As her proud parents, we think she's darn cute, so what better way to start a blog? Actually, Vanessa is perhaps the biggest reason we were finally persuaded to start a blog.
   
2. As Vanessa as born while Colorado's great Rocky Mountains were getting pounded with snow, Kevin (dad), has no snowboarding pictures to post.
   
3. Jill (mom) signed a waiver when she was pregnant absolving herself of all responsibility for anything. Citing "pregnancy brain", also known as "placenta brain" in the Greater Midwest, Jill has requested absolution from decisions, placement of items, directions, schedules, and all forms of documentation. This includes blog posts. Therefore, those looking forward to posts about Winnie the Pooh, the glory of cottage cheese, super-soft stuffed animals, celebrity dirt, and internet deals will have to wait.

Welcome to the world, Little V. We'd hoped someday you'd join us. Thank you for making your way into our lives.