We were lucky enough to have our camera nearby to capture Cooper’s first real laughs. He’s smiled and cooed for us, but this was the first time he just laughed and laughed. And of course Teddy became interested at the new baby noises and joined the party.
This was by far the most entertaining thing we’ve watched in a while. Perhaps it’s time for us to get out more. Or perhaps this is home movie gold.
(if you listen closely you can hear someone enjoying watching his puppy in the snow)
(not his best photo — more to come later once we bust out his maggie simpson style snow outfit)
*update: Sandy deleted this pic because she says it’s awful and he looks weird. She’ll post some good snow pics soon!
Since I came into the office today to start to dig out, it was my first day away from Cooper and Sandy. Thanks to technology, however, Cooper and I had our first web-chat today via Skype and it seemed to go well (I did most of the talking).
I kept thinking about those eTrade commercials, though. I think Cooper is ready for his close up.
Well that didn’t take long. Less than a week into his life, I managed to lock Cooper in his nursery. Fortunately, I was locked in there with him. Here’s what happened:
We live in a 80 year old town home. That means lots of stuff is old or needs to be updated or replaced. This includes the handle to the door to the nursery. Last night I asked Jim to fix it so it would be easier to open and close. He was happy to and removed the door knob completely and gave about 15 warnings that if we close the door we won’t be able to open it back up.
Fast forward to 6 am or so this morning. I took Cooper into his nursery to change him and as he always does when he is being changed, he started screaming his head off. Not wanting to wake Sandy, I did what any sleep deprived father would do and swung the door shut. And just like Jim said, without a door knob, doors are tough to open. Diapered and dressed, Cooper went right back to sleep and I was able to set him in his crib to sleep while I began to brainstorm our escape. I tried all sorts of things from strings to hangers, but because we aren’t completely horrible parents, there weren’t any tools or sharp objects which would have been quite useful in this situation.
Fortunately, about 35 minutes later (after I had gotten desperate and was trying to mangle baby hangers), Sandy woke up to find her husband and baby were both missing. She gently called out for us and she was able to bring a wire hanger which I was able to use to free us.
And that is the story of how Adam and Cooper survived their first ‘adventure’. Lame, I know, but as I recover from the traumatic experience, I find that sharing my story is helpful. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.
We’ve been meaning to post forever and had planned to do a mega-post to catch up on everything going on. That mega-post ain’t happening any time soon, so we’re going to start to just post stuff again. The postings will likely focus largely on the newest addition to the “us” category of jack, teddy and us. On that note, here is a video from Cooper’s first full day at home. A little background…we could not get a straight answer from the nurses and doctors at the hospital on how much to feed him. The advice on amounts was all over the board, so we went with the two pediatricians who said to just let him eat what he wants to eat. So we did. We also made the transition from the disposable samples the hospital gave us to a bottle set where we had to mix the formula and the measurements were a bit strange. The following video is the crime scene moments after Cooper signaled to us that he had eaten too much. Enjoy.
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show details 2:14 PM (10 minutes ago)
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— On Sun, 7/27/08, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
From: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: PICKUP LINE
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sunday, July 27, 2008, 8:10 PM
PICKUP LINE
Having already downed a few power drinks, she turned around, faced him, looked him straight in the eye and said, ‘Listen here good looking, I screw anybody, any time, anywhere, your place, my place, in the car, front door, back door, on the ground, standing up, sitting down, naked or with clothes on, dirty, clean . . . it doesn’t matter to me. I’ve been doing it ever since I got out of college and I just love it.’
Eyes now wide with interest, he responded,
‘No kidding. I’m a lawyer too. What firm are you with?’
[If I knew how to imbed video, I would.]
Three updates in order of people’s likely interest:
1) Hint on the last post: one type of M&Ms has nuts; the other does not.
2) Teddy continues to struggle with his back legs, but he is going on steroids on Monday and the doctor is cautiously optimistic that he’ll turn things around in less than a week. He’ll have to stay on the steroids for a couple months, but there is guarded optimism. That being said, the diagnosis (which I can’t remember, but is basically early onset arthritis) is only the second time our doctor has ever actually seen it in a dog, so she isn’t even completely certain. It’s been an (expensive) ordeal, but we’ll keep our fingers crossed that he’ll be turning the corner. If this doesn’t work we have no idea where this will lead.
3) Last June I did a post about how DirecTV’s president actually replied to an email and they did something about our frustrations (DirecTV Cares About Their Customers.). One of the things they did last June was to waive our commitment fee (which is their euphemism for early termination penalty). We were so encouraged by that that three months later when the replacement receiver quit working we decided to stick with them. Problem is, DirecTV’s policy is that any time you get new equipment, you re-commit for two more years. So when I called today to cancel (because our nth replacement receiver also doesn’t work), I was met by a bunch of customer service reps and supervisors who refused to reply logic to the situation and simply repeated over and over that by replacing my receiver in September, I re-committed for 2 more years. The highlights of my calls:
a) being told by Rep 1 that only 2 weeks worth of customer history was available only to have Rep 2 spoke with be able to look at the account history from last year to confirm the commitment fee had been waived.
b) being disconnected by Rep 2 while I waited to speak to her supervisor.
c) being told by Rep 3 that the president of the company doesn’t actually read or respond to his own emails so of course I didn’t actually email with him.
d) being told by Rep 4 (a supervisor in the “retention department”) that she had too much work to do to let me explain everything to her and that the only way to resolve this was to again try to contact the president of the company. Rep 4 did not appreciate the following exchange:
me: what is your name and employee id#?
Rep 4: Jenny, ######
me: and what department are you a supervisor in?
Rep 4: Retention
me: that’s ironic
Rep 4 (angry): and why do you think that is ironic Mr. Zissman?
anyone have any experience with Dish Network? as soon as this is resolved, i think that is where we are headed.
[UPDATE: got a call from the "President's Office" on a Sunday morning confirming that we won't have any fees if wle e terminate. I guess there is a small office of competent people at DirecTV.]
(as opposed to the contents of the brown bag)
…Sandy Marks and Tony Romo that is (QB for Cowboys/Jessica Simpson boyfriend)…wish I had better photos, but I think the evidence is pretty clear…
Happy Birthday San.
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School Considers Selling Naming Rights
Adam is for this. Sandy is not. Thoughts?
Since Adam posted this, I’ll provide a quote from the article that sums up my argument:
“Do you want the Board of Education to become innovative and save you tax dollars, or are you going to worry about the Nike swoosh being in an end zone?” – Wayne (NJ) Board of Education member Robert Ceberio, on high schools turning to corporate sponsorships
(Bergen Record, via SportsBusinessDaily.com)
“If you’re a woman, you vote for Hillary because of what it means to women everywhere,” said Chanpong, a sophomore.
Carreon Aguilar, a senior, said: “If I’m supposed to vote for Hillary just because I’m a woman, that’s kind of sexist.”
The above two quotes are from today’s Washington Post article on Hillary and young female voters. Just thought it was interesting.
So this is what it must be like when Sandy watches football with me (not basketball, though — she loves hoops!)…
We’re watching CNN’s coverage of the NH primary and while I am interested and care about the result, I can’t focus on the non-stop coverage. My guess is that this is how Sandy feels about a football game about midway through the 2nd quarter.
What’s tough is that I can’t pick a candidate…Sandy’s (and a lot of other people I know’s) strong passion for Hillary is intriguing, but she doesn’t quite do it for me. Barack just hasn’t convinced me that he can do anything other than give a good speech, but who knows what he is capable of. Are the criticisms of him as young and inexperienced (and a minority), the same ones that JFK got or is that just modern spin? I’ve always tried to like Edwards and every time I feel like he’s got me, I hear some story about his life that contradicts his rhetoric. But he seems to care most about America and genuinely seems concerned about poverty and the economy. Not sure what to do with him. I’ve also been really intrigued by Dodd, Biden and Richardson, but obviously none of them are going to be a factor (maybe as VP?)
On the Republican side, I’m torn between wanting McCain to get the nomination (because he is the one Republican I think I could tolerate as President) and wanting one of the wack jobs to get the nomination to make a Democratic victory more likely. Still wish Gore would run and no idea what to think about Bloomberg.
Now to Anderson Cooper and the best team of political analysts on television.
UPDATE: So apparently I’m a Kucinich man with Obama a close second…click here to see who you match up with.
You planned to vote for Undecided. Based on your responses, your top candidate for 2008 is below.
| Your Top Match | |
|---|---|
Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich (D)85.71% match You are number 1,954,257 to use the Candidate Calculator. |
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Your Other Top MatchesIllinois Senator Barack Obama (D) – 82.14%
Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (D) – 78.57%
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (D) – 78.57%
Middle of the Pack
New York Senator Hillary Clinton (D) – 75.00%
Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd (D) – 71.43%
Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards (D) – 71.43%
Delaware Senator Joseph Biden (D) – 67.86%
Businessman John Cox (R) – 50.00%
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) – 46.43%
Texas Representative Ron Paul (R) – 35.71%
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R) – 32.14%
Arizona Senator John McCain (R) – 28.57%
Kansas Senator Sam Brownback (R) – 21.43%
Bottom of the Barrel
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R) – 21.43%
Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo (R) – 21.43%
Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson (R) – 14.29%
California Representative Duncan Hunter (R) – 10.71%
