If you have an iPhone, they just released an application that allows you to blog from anywhere on your Wordpress blog. This post was created to test that app out. The photo below is of my daughter. I wanted to test and see how well the application worked.
…when we found out we were pregnant. My wife’s face began shining with light from her heart. Our thoughts instantly went to diapers, maternity clothes, cribs, blankets, etc. But after the consumer in us finally gave in to the parents in us, we began thinking again of the child. A girl or a boy? Did it matter? No. It didn’t. We were going to have a child. A wonderful, beautiful gift. We had been married and trying for about 3 or 4 years. This news made those years worth the wait.
Then she was born.
Wait. I’m getting ahead of myself here. She wasn’t born instantly as we all know. She began as a mood in my wife. Guys with kids know that mood. It’s that swinging mood that punches us in the face or kisses us behind the ear. Then it was the craving mood. Ice cream and pickles? I hear people mention that one every once in a while. Sorry guys. It’s normally much weirder than that. I’m not going to describe the combinations of food that my wife craved because if you’ve just eaten your food won’t stay in your stomach.
Finally, I got used to the moods. But the moods were easy compared to the days in the hospital. Those days when your wife is screaming as if the child is ripping through her very heart on the way out. She’s screaming in such a manner that you’d do anything to take the pain away. So then the other screaming starts. The screaming that comes form the husband to the nurses to get his wife some darn pain medication. Then there’s the scream of the husband as his hands get crushed by his wife. And finally, there’s the scream of the child.
It’s a beautiful sound. Or so I’m told. They took her in the delivery room while I was outside talking to my mother. “Oh, it’ll be another 20 minutes Mr. White.” “Ooops. Sorry. She was ready in 5.” Thank you very much Ms. Nurse.
But then I saw her. My daughter. And I fell in love for the second time in my life.
If you haven’t heard of Spore, then you’re either really not into computer games, or you’re hiding under a Craygor. What’s a Craygor, you ask? I’ll show you:
It’s a dragon creature I created using Spore Creature Creator. What that screen doesn’t show you are the creature parts options on the left that remind me of wine refrigerators, except in this case you’re picking noses, eyes, ears, etc.
I went ahead and purchased the full version of the creator. The trial version is available at the Spore.com website. My daughter and I have made over 30 creatures so far. Here’s a few:
Yes. I put Craygor in there too. Wanna know why? Because those PNG files that you see are actually saved creatures. You can literally right-click on them and save them on your computer and put them in your own copy of the game right now if you have it. The data used to create the creatures is saved right in the image file.
If you’ve got kids who love to play with clay, this is a really easy and non-messy way to do so. I know. My daughter loves it. Her hands don’t turn colors and there’s not bits and pieces of clay stuck in our carpet.
This stuff goes out in the family newsletter so I sometimes forget to let my readers know. At least those who are actually interested in what goes on in my life. My daughter had her tonsils removed this past Wednesday.
She’s doing good now although it was a rocky road for a bit there. We found out that she’s sensitive to Codeine. She’s not allergic, but it messes up her stomach bad and that was the pain medication they got her. We finally got her off it a couple of days ago and everything got much better.
Oh, and while she’s around the house getting all nervous about her tonsils coming out and I’m minding my own business doing some “window shopping” at a sale, I suddenly got an abscessed tooth. But the soonest appointment is the Friday after she gets her tonsils out. So last week was a rough week for all of us as although my wife was not suffering from painful experiences, she had to deal with two very grumpy family members.
Have I mentioned I love my wife?
So there you have it. Sorry I forgot to mention this stuff. But everything is cool now.
It’s non-existent. Seriously. We started one last year, but, well, let’s just say there’s not a green thumb in the family. It’s really sad when a fake plant turns brown under your care. I love Ken’s trees. But could I ever grow one? No. I think I might be stuck to fake plants and neat garden decor.
But we’re going to try. In a couple of weeks we’re going to go to the local plant nursery and pick out some flowers that Nicole likes, plant them, and put a cute little white picket fence around her garden. She really wants one, and her current garden is rather boring. The only flowers there are dandelions, and I’m guessing those don’t really count. Too bad weeds don’t count. Those I can grow.
So, does anyone have any suggestions of plants that are easy to maintain but look pretty? I could use some professional help (in more ways than one, but in this case I’m talking about the gardening kind).
Seriously. A full cycle of life took place about five yards from me for the last two weeks. There were some robins living in a nest on the side of the next door neighbors house. We watched the mom stay in the nest often. Then the mouths started peaking over the nest (They really do look like little Venus Fly Traps). And then the babies got bigger. Today, they left. This morning. I’m sad.
No. I’m not on drugs (Although going to Malibu for drug rehab might make it worth it). I’m just sad. Not in a bad way. But watching those birds was like watching my own daughter grow up. She’s 8 now. 8. She’s having sleepovers. She has her own cellphone and computer. My own baby is slowly leaving the nest. Only another 10 years and she’ll be off to college. I know. I know. “Only 10 years? That’s a long time, Mike.” Not to me. 8 years hasn’t been long enough. But let’s get back to the birds. I noticed a few things while watching them:
That’s only three of the many things I noticed while watching the birds when I was outside. Notice I haven’t tagged any moral advice onto those observations. I thought of many ways to relate them to my life and life in general. Then I thought of ways to relate them to many other facets of daily living. But I want you to come up with your own insights. What could those observations mean to you? Feel free to share. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. But I ask that you think (”think” being the operative word here) about each of those observations and apply them to a situation in your own life. What could we learn from the birds?
Following is a picture I took with my phone. You can barely see them. I didn’t want to get closer because the parents kept watching me if I tried. And I also know that if the parent birds smell human smell on the babies or near the babies, they won’t take care of them anymore.
EDIT: Notice the portion that has been struck through? Well, Margaret has corrected me on that in the comments. Make sure to read them. She’s very knowledgeable about birds. But this leads me to one moral I will go ahead and include in this post:
Don’t always believe your parents when they tell you not to touch an animal because the animal’s parents may not take care of them anymore if you do. They might just be trying to keep you from touching the animals.
I’ve got to show you this picture:
That is my daughter holding a her poster and the copy of the 5th place award certificate she got for that poster. Over 300 children entered and she got 5th place. She also got a couple of t-shirts and a cash reward of $20.00. I’m quite proud.
As a matter of fact, her mommy and I have been looking around at swing sets to see if maybe we can give her a reward after school. Not just for this, but because she also has perfect scores in school and she’ll have perfect attendance at the end of the year. Not to mention first place in the Student Technology Leadership Program (STLP) contest for the district. Me proud.
I kind of wish we lived on the West Coast of the United States. See, my daughter wants to be one of two things when she grows up: a teacher or a star. And no, I don’t mean the kind of star that shines in the night (as long as you don’t live in a polluted area that is). She wants to be a star on television.
Well, a friend of mine pointed out a place that exists on the West Coast called Gonnabe. That’s a quick little Hollywood Reporter article that mentions it. Since I don’t have “connections,” Gonnabe sounds like something that would come in handy if I knew my daughter really wanted to be a star. After all, she really wanted to be a puppy when she was younger, but she doesn’t want to be that now.
I guess that everyone would want to be a star. Come to think of it, I’d like to be a star myself. Too bad I’m too old for Gonnabe. Hmmm. Maybe if I shave and lock myself in a freezer for a few days so I can shrink. Maybe I’d be able to do it then? Nah. I’ll stick to hiding on this side of the screen.
Seriously, keep your eyes and ears open for this one when it arrives. Supposedly there’s a chance they’ll start working with kids throughout the United States. So if your own daughter or son wants to be a star, they just might get their shot.
I know. I know. You want to know who won the contest. I’ll be posting about it tomorrow and I’m trying to prepare a fun way of announcing the winner. But today was my daughter’s birthday and since we had a snow day here, I’ve been hanging with her most of the day. Make sure to go tell her Happy Birthday over at her blog:
She does read the comments and loves them all. 
(For more information about my dieting and weight loss, click here. For more information about the specific foods I eat, click here.)
My wife and I were avid players of World of Warcraft the Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game (I’m so glad they came up with an acronym for that one). We used to play often with our friends online. However, after a few months we ended up getting bored. The game offered tons to do, but it just didn’t provide the right kind of things to do to keep us interested.
However, after a few more months, I decided I wanted to try the board game. Again, we loved the MMORPG, however, we got bored with it. But we also love board games. So we figured the two put together would be a wonderful addition to our collection of board games.
So, a few months ago I purchased World of Warcraft the Board Game. I wanted to try it out. About 3 days later it showed up at our door. I hurriedly tore through the packaging and got to the 9 pound box. 9 pounds! That’s a lot of stuff. I opened the box and beheld the exquisitely crafted playing pieces, the beautiful map drawn on the board, the artistic cards, and the huge rulebook.
Over the course of a week I spent time reading and rereading the rulebook. I wanted to know exactly how the game worked and how it compared to the MMORPG. The rules were great. It fit the player versus player aspect of the MMORPG very well and made for an extremely strategic experience. I’m a fan of strategy so this game would work out nicely.
After reading the manual, my 7-year-old-daughter (Nicole) and I took a few hours one day to organize the game. See, she had watched us play the computer version so often that she was just as thrilled to try the board game as I was. And since the game allowed for teams in which one parent could be against the other parent and our daughter, it made it so a 7-year-old could play because she’d have help from her teammate.
We carefully pushed out all of the cardboard pieces and placed them in little zip top plastic bags. We separated them by categories. We even placed each character and all pieces required for the characters into separate bags. This made it easy to grab what was needed for each character chosen to play with in the game. Since I had read the rules it was easy to categorize the pieces into each bag.
About 2 days later, we pulled out the game and sat down to set it up to play it. It took a little while but soon, because of the work my daughter and I put into it, it was ready to play. So we began. About 30 minutes into it, our daughter was asleep.
After my wife and I finished playing the game, we decided it just wasn’t a game for us because there’s no one out here to play it with. So the lucky purchaser of this game gets a game that has only been played once. They also get hours of setup already done by myself and my daughter including all of the plastic bags and the organization.
I really hope this game finds a good home. It is a great game that brought my wife and me some enjoyment and a laugh over our daughter falling asleep. If the buyer has young children, they may get a chance for that laugh also. If not, they’re getting a well organized and fun game to play.
Blood Sugar: 113
Weight: 281.8
Fat Percentage: 48.2
Water Percentage: 30.3
Muscle Percentage: 34.8
Fluids: Water (16 oz - 5 times a day)
Exercise:
20 Curls of 85 pounds
Meal 1:
6 inch Tuna Subway Sandwich
Multivitamin
B150 Vitamin Complex
Snack 1:
1 Slim Fast 220 Calorie Optima Bar
Meal 2:
Round Steak
Rice
Gravy
Snack 2:
1 Slim Fast 220 Calorie Optima Bar
Meal 3:
Oatmeal