This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter). Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon

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Almost Dinner


Crunchy!


Cheeseburger

On the Ferry

Reunion with Grandma B

[tube]viHBOzg5O8w[/tube]

Shot around 06 UTC today.

Alex gets my iPhone and Tweets to @ActuallyNPH


Alex is 15 Months Old Now!

(Picture taken 2010 Dec 7 03:28 UTC)

As of the time this post goes live… 05:54 UTC on the 13th (9:54 PM on the 12th Pacific, 12:54 AM on the 13th Eastern) Alex will be exactly 15 months old. I’ve fallen way way behind on posting pictures and video and such, just too many other things going on. Maybe I’ll catch up eventually. :-) But of course time keeps on marching, and Alex keeps growing and learning new things every day.

Lets see, some things from the past few months.

  • Well, just in the last few weeks he finally really “gets” coloring and is grabbing his coloring book and special pens that will only color on THAT book and excitedly using them.
  • He is very good about following “Please take this to mommy” type instructions. He understands, runs to do what was asked, and claps for himself when he does it successfully.
  • When he finds coins he runs to one of several coin jars we have in the house and puts them in. (Also followed by a squeal and clapping.)
  • He knows how to turn on his iPod nano and change songs, and will happily find something he likes then dance to it, holding the iPod to his ear.
  • Almost anything thin and rectangular is a phone. He’ll pick them up, hold them to his ear, and talk and talk and talk. If it is a real phone with someone on the other end he gets even more exciting and he will pace around the room while talking to them.
  • He will run up to his sister’s door and knock until she comes out and plays with him.
  • When he is bored with what is on the TV or the music that is playing on our family room entertainment system he knows how to change what is on or turn it off. Even if the rest of the family is watching.
  • He sneaks the dog food all the time. Both he and the dog enjoy this quite a bit.
  • He will try to get the dog to chase him as well, running up to the dog, then running away squealing and laughing. Sometimes Roscoe will follow.
  • His vocabulary continues to grow of course. Most sounds still aren’t words, at least ones we can understand, but the percentage that are increases every day.
  • He is all about putting things away (sometimes the right place, sometimes not, but that doesn’t matter, does it?)
  • This also includes things like trying to plug headphones in. Sometimes where they belong, sometimes not.
  • He will help put on or take off his shirts by putting his arms up appropriately.
  • He climbs everything, and (usually) can get down safely on his own.
  • He knows how to take apart his potty piece by piece, then touch the two contacts together to make it sing. He’ll occasionally sit on it too, but of course would not even consider making it sing the way you are supposed to.
  • He has several more iPhone apps he likes, including one where he pushes piano keys and makes music. He also now knows however how to push the button to get to the main menu when he is done. He hasn’t quite gotten yet how to START his games though.
  • Although he has used utensils to eat for a long long time, he is now pretty darn good at using both forks and spoons. (Knives, not so much.)
  • And lots of other stuff…

As I write this (a bit before it is scheduled to post) it is time for dinner now, so I need to stop. But anyway, Alex is 15 months now. A year and a quarter. He is so big! Oh, and quite a personality too. :-)

Checking Out the Fountain


Seven Years

While we were all driving in the car a few days ago, Amy pointed out just how long we’d been together as a family. Namely a pretty long time. And more specifically, now that I checked it out, at the moment this post goes live, it will have been exactly seven years since I made a post publicly mentioning that Brandy and I were a couple. Now, we’d been “dating” for probably at least a month before that, maybe more, and we’d known each other for well over a year at that point, and it was still a while little longer until Brandy and Amy actually moved in, but it seems like as good a starting marker as any.

So, seven years. During that time we’ve lived together at five addresses in three states as I worked for three different companies in a variety of different roles. We lost Brandy’s Dad. We also lost a few good pets that we loved dearly. We adopted Roscoe. Amy has grown from elementary school to high school and from a bubbly little kid to a wonderful almost-adult. Brandy has gone from being a Real Estate Agent to a Stay-at-Home-Mom to a College Student. And of course Alex was born and has grown into a sparkly eyed toddler and is doing exciting new things every day.

We bonded into a family almost from the very start. As with any family there have been ups and downs, but overall it has been a very good seven years. Somehow, simultaneously, I can’t believe it has really been that long, and I can’t believe it was ever any other way.

Thank you Brandy and Amy and Alex for these seven years.

I love you all very much.

Doing the Crossword Puzzle