Cousins

This weekend we had a cousin invasion. Theo, Coby, and Haydon played all afternoon in evident cousin camaraderie. I have to say that Shawn and Aaron are attentive, playful, and overall awesome dads. While their women worked and studied they came over with their offspring and played a little magic, drank a couple beers, and generally watched the kids have a blast. I am happy that Theo has 4 boy cousins in town to make mischief with. On another subject, last night we got a great video of T kicking his ball around like an expert soccer player- no hands, fluid movements, no tripping. Derek has still not found the time to transfer our videos from high format HD to blog friendly format, but I will try to get this one on. He went in circles, not losing the ball, and moving very quickly. Theodore is talking a lot more as well. He says drink (dink), up, no (nahnahnah), eat, done (duh, with the sign for all done), bread (bed), ball (ba), and then there's 'nhg' for whatever word he can't say or is too lazy to try. He's a good sound mimic and has recently started to sing with the musical intro to Deep Space Nine. Ever the smiling, laughing sprite, he surprises me everyday with a new trick!

new July pictures

f'n obvious

http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/news/20090713/go-ahead-and-curse-it-may-ease-your-pain
I read this and even though the size and quality of the study was not high quality, it rings a bell for me. I remember being in labor diliated to 8 cm, with parts swelling that should've been opening up paired with the sensation of the baby's head slamming against that part....certain swear words did make me feel better. Although near the end, I was not able to form words- it sounded more like ffffmmmmrrrrahhhh! which I guess could be the motherload of curses all smooshed together. And now I am trying to eliminate these words from my vocabulary because I have a baby that is beginning to speak. The only time that this task is difficult is- you guessed it- when I hurt myself...so I guess I can harken back to the motherload, or maybe go Battlestar with frakin' or even Firelfy and curse in Chinese. Flip, darn, chucks...to me words are words and really there are no bad words just bad intent (Carlin anyone?), but I realize that Theo will have to be socialized with the rest of the world at some point. I guess I can be more eloquent and creative, that is until the next time someone almost rear ends me or I slam my toe into the coffee table. "@@^^****!!"

Wha?

It is hard to say who is to blame here. Yesterday, with his wallet primed, Derek was ready to simulate the economy and drive away with a new car. He went shopping, for sports cars mind you, and could only find one with a manual transmission out of five different companies. Audi, Lexus, Infiniti, Acura, and BMW...all brands with high end, powerful engines, good torque and horsepower- and no real power because paired with an automatic tranny all the fun and experience is sucked out. He commented after his disappointing day that he had more fun driving home our 2002 Corolla (manual) than test driving a 330hp "manual paddle-shift" vehicle. All the expensive tech that is supposed to make these cars faster and more powerful is about as useful as nipples on a breastplate if you can't control the timing of the shift. I mean being in fifth gear going 40? At least give us a taste, even proximity of red on the rpms so we know we're driving a mean, well engineered machine- not a economy starter car. So back to the beginning, whose fault is it?` Do we blame the dealers for this? If they can't sell a manual as they claimed then I can only throw my righteous indignation at the driving populace. Are we too busy eating, texting, and watching movies to be more involved in operating our vehicles? Is it too difficult of a skill to learn? Is this indicative of our laziness? Really people!? I propose we all learn to drive stick first to get a license, then have the choice to downgrade to an automatic. I think it would increase awareness on the road in general. Another pleasant outcome would be that we could find more than one manual transmission car in the frakin state!