Movie Night

Friday night, Mel and I went to a movie in a theater for the first time in over a year. The last movie we saw in the theater being Robin Hood starring Russell Crowe. My sister came over to babysit her niece and nephew, so Mel and I started our evening by having dinner at Olive Garden. I had a new dish from their Four Cheese Pastachetti with Grilled Chicken. Lately when I have tried different dishes from my typical choices at restaurants, I have been a little disappointed. This dish however, did not disappoint. I enjoyed it.

After dinner we went to the theater to see Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. I enjoyed the movie. It was not as good as the original Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but it was still good. And while it is difficult for us to get out to movies as much as we would like, I hope Mel and I can make it to another movie or two this summer.

Progress with Walking

In the nine days since Maximus began walking, he has made a great deal of progress! The first couple of days, he just walked four or five steps before having to grab onto something. Now he can walk the entire length of our living room. I have also noticed that while he still does crawl some, if he has any real distance to go, he is much more likely to walk than to crawl. There is no stopping him now!

Maximus Walks

Today Maximus walked on his own for the first time. Oh, he has taken a couple of steps without any support, and he has cruised along furniture for the past several weeks, but today he took several unsupported steps. To celebrate, we went to Stride Rite and bought him a pair of size 6½ shoes.

I'm Christine O'Donnell, and I'm Not a Witch

Is Christine O'Donnell implying that there is something wrong with being a witch? And what if I am a witch, then how is Christine O'Donnell me? Incidentally, another thing that Christine O'Donnell isn't is a grammarian. Otherwise she would know that "None of us are perfect" is incorrect. She should have said, "None of us is perfect."

Cuteness of the Day

I'm not sure why someone put two bunnies in paper cups, but they sure are cute.

Six Months

Six months ago yesterday, Maximus Xavier was born. I can not believe that he is already half a year old! He has grown so much since then. He weighed seven and a half pounds when he was born. He is now over eighteen pounds in weight. He is also quite tall. His feet hang over the end of his infant car seat.

Maximus is usually in a great mood, smiling most of the time. We took him to get his pictures taken yesterday, and he did a fantastic job. He did much better than Emma did when she got her pictures taken when she was six months old. Emma was not very cooperative, but Maximus was. The only problem he gave us was that after falling over once, he didn't seem too keen on sitting up on his own. Of course, Maximus is still pretty new at sitting up. He can't get himself into a sitting position, but if someone else sits him up, he can usually maintain the position for a couple of minutes.

Besides sitting, Maximus has begun rolling over from his tummy to his back. In the past month, until last night, he had rolled himself over three times on his own. However, this was not a feat that he would repeat. Last night, this all changed. I placed Maximus on his tummy, and after a little bit of whining, he rolled over onto his back. I put him back on his tummy, and he immediately rolled back over again. He did this a few times in a row, so I got the camera out to make a video of this. At first I thought he wasn't going to do it again, but then he did.

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day everyone. Below Superman is a patriotic video, but please use caution as it contains explicit lyrics.

Another Zoo Trip

Today we made out fifth trip to a local zoo for the year. This time it was to the Minnesota Zoo. In fact, only one out of our five zoo trips this year hasn't been to the Minnesota Zoo. Anyway, we had two things we wanted to be sure to do at the zoo today. We wanted to give Emma a chance to play in the splash pad there, and we wanted to see the baby camel which Mel recently heard about. Emma did get to play in the water, and she had a great time. Unfortunately, we failed to see any baby camels. All of the big camels were all sitting down close to each other and we couldn't tell if there was a baby among them. Oh well. We can always see it later. We didn't spend too much time at the zoo though as Max seemed to be a bit overheated. One other thing that we did end up seeing at the zoo today though was the prairie dogs playing.

Happy Pre-Independence Day

It was 234 years ago today that the Second Continental Congress voted to declare the United States to be an independent country from Great Britain. And in honor of that, I am presenting here Stars and Stripes Forever being performed by the Muppets.

Como Park Zoo

This afternoon, after waking Emma up from her nap, we all went to the Como Park Zoo. One of the things we wanted to see at the zoo was the polar bears in their new habitat that opened earlier this month. The Polar Bear Odyssey was very crowded with people who wanted to view the two polar bears. We were able to get in and see them though. Emma loved the polar bears.

Another exhibit we visited while at the zoo was Blooming Butterflies. This temporary exhibit immerses visitors in the butterflies' habitat. There were butterflies flying all around us. At first it seemed that Emma was a bit apprehensive about having butterflies fliying so close to her, but she quickly adapted to them and enjoyed walking through the exhibit, looking at the wide variety of butterflies.

There was one animal at Como Zoo that Emma did not enjoy seeing on our visit today. She did not like the sea lions, due to their loud barking. Emma just does not like loud noises, and I think she may have found the noise from the sea lions to be frightening.

Brown Bears

Last month the family and I went to the Minnesota Zoo where we saw the brown bears wrestling. As I promised then, here's the video of the bears.

Farm Babies!

During the month of April, the Minnesota Zoo is featuring farm animal babies at the Wells Fargo Family Farm. As we had nothing else planned for today, we decided to go to the zoo to check them, and the other animals, out. This was Max's first trip to the zoo, however he ended up sleeping through most of it. At just ten weeks of age though, he probably wouldn't have gotten much out of the experience even if he had been awake. Emma had a great time though. She was a bit apprehensive about looking at the bears. For some reason she has been having bad dreams about bears roaming around outside the house. These often coincide with when they sing the bear hunt song at daycare. On our way to the zoo, Mel told Emma that the bears couldn't get her because they'd be locked up in a cage. Emma did eventually go up to the glass to see the bears, and she did enjoy watching them swim. As we looked at other animals at the zoo, Emma just kept wanting to move along to the next animal. She continued to do that until we got to the prairie dogs. She just wanted to keep looking and looking at them. Prairie dogs must be one of her favorite animals.

When we got to the farm area of the zoo, Emma at first did not want to pet any of the animals, but when we got around to where the goats were, she decided that she did want to feed them. Fortunately Mel had a couple of quarters in her wallet, so we were able to buy a handful of food for the goats. Emma had a great time feeding the goats. I thought she might not like the goats licking her hand, but she did not mind it one bit. In fact, once the food was gone, she wanted to get some more to continue feeding the goats.

After viewing the farm animals, we had our lunch and then went through the Tropics Trail portion of the zoo. It was very crowded there this afternoon, and the animals were especially active. We had a good time watching one of the gibbons swinging through the trees. I don't think I have seen a gibbon that active at the zoo in a while. Of course, the last time I was at the zoo, the gibbons were not on display. I am looking forward to the new animals they are adding to the Tropics Trail this summer. Emma is especially looking forward to seeing the crocodiles!

Grammar at the Grocery

Thank you "Weird Al" Yankovic for making this grammar correction at your grocery store. I hope everyone takes your lead and starts correcting all such signs they encounter.

Killer Fish

In case anyone is curious about the fish in my aquarium that has killed almost all of its tank mates, here is a video of it. This is my black-banded lepornius which I have recently bogged about, on both December 19 and 31. Perhaps it is my fault this fish decided to eat his companions. Maybe I hadn't fed them enough. The last time I fed the fish, I thought I put too much food in, but the lepornius quickly ate it all up.

Emma's New Favorite YouTube Video

Just a few days ago I wrote about Emma's watching of Sesame Street videos on YouTube. Well, she now has a new favorite video, it is a video of Elmo's daddy singing to him about using the potty. Emma now comes up to me when I am in the office and tells me she wants to watch Elmo use the potty. It is kind of cute.

Celebrity Lullaby

Recently, I began using videos on Sesame Street's YouTube channel to keep Emma entertained while I do some tasks such as washing dishes or vacuuming the basement. I like that Sesame Street Workshop has put up videos from older episodes of Sesame Street. I really feel that the program was more educational back when I was a kid than it is today. Today it almost seems that they should just rename the program The Elmo Show.

Anyway, the first time I checked out the Sesame Street channel, the video that came up initially, and began playing automatically, when I first did this was a video of Ricky Gervais singing a "lullaby" to Elmo. The song also teaches about the letter N. Emma did not care for this video the first time she saw it, but she now enjoys it a lot and will sometimes come into the office while I am at the computer and ask to see the "Elmo lullaby." I actually find the video to be pretty entertaining as well, which is something which I can not say for much of the more recent Sesame Street programs I have watched.

The Dentist

I had to go to the dentist this afternoon to have some work done on my teeth. I had some cavities and a few fractures that needed filling. Despite what Mel insists, not all of these dental issues were my fault. The dentist even told me that the fractures had been beyond my control. Mel is right though that I need to brush my teeth better. Anyway, I had a few fillings put in today. I have to go back on Wednesday for the rest. The whole process was rather painless. The dentist did a really good job of numbing my gums prior to injecting the anesthetic into them. I barely even felt the needle as it entered my gums. The wort part of the whole ordeal was having to sit in the dentist's chair for almost an hour and a half with my mouth open most of the time. That was not the most comfortable position to be in for that long. After leaving the dentist I had to stop at Walgreens to pick up a night guard for my teeth as my dentist told me that she saw signs of my grinding my teeth at night. I am going to wait to use it until the remaining teeth are done Wednesday night since the work she does then will likely change the impressions that my teeth leave.

And while I didn't have any experiences like this kid, David, when I left the dentist, for some reason I feel the need to further spread this video which has already had over forty five million views on YouTube.

I Gotta Feeling

I found this lip dub of the Black Eyed Peas song "I Gotta Feeling" thanks to @billprady on Twitter. It features 172 communications students at the Université du Québec à Montréal and was filmed in September 2009 with a single shot. This is a really fun song.