Trent's Words

Trent can say several words now. He says "Mommy" quite clearly and unambiguously. He also pronounces "Bye" correctly and uses it in the right situations. He says "Da" or "DaDa", but not as well as "Mommy". He has other words that he doesn't pronounce correctly, but that he does use consistently to refer to things. He uses "Ba" for his bottle. He says something I don't know how to spell that means kitty. He uses several other sounds for several other things. Tina things he has about a dozen words total.

The Quest for a Wii

After many weeks of polling various stores, Tina and I finally managed to acquire a Nintendo Wii. It's the latest console game system from Nintendo. It was designed by Nintendo to have appeal beyond the typical gaming market. It has a new controller that has many revolutionary features. The controller allows the user to aim a cursor on the screen by pointing. The controller has accelerometers and level sensors. It's really pretty neat. The systems comes with Wii Sports. It includes simulations of bowling, golf, baseball, boxing, and tennis. The neat thing about the game is that playing the game involves making the actual motions associated with real sport. They're all games that you play standing up. When you bowl, you bring you arm back and swing it through in a real bowling motion. When you golf you swing the controller like a golf club. It's really a very neat system. In addition, we've also been playing WarioWare: Smooth Moves. Smooth Moves is a game made up of over 200 very small micro-games. The idea is that players are presented with very simple puzzles to solve and only a few seconds to solve each one. Last, but not least, is Legend of Zelda. I've never played a Zelda game before. So far it's been a lot of fun. It's an interesting cross between Ultima and a Sierra Online game.

Superhero Dating

In honor of Valentines Day, digg has link to an online quiz that matches you to your idea superhero mate. I had no idea what to expect from my results. Tied for first place were Psylocke and Jean Grey. Lois Lane was second place. I've certainly never thought of myself as a Lois Lane kind of guy, though I'm not familiar with the actual comic character, only the various TV and movie portrayals. [Update 2/17/07] Tina took the test as well. Her results indicates that her ideal superhero mate is Beast with Nightwing a few percentage points behind.

Trent Pulls Up

Trent can now pull up. He can also perform a slow hand a knee crawl. What he cannot do, is pull up and then get back down safely. Seems to be a little flaw in the process there. Almost as if the human development process where randomly evolved instead of intelligently designed. Anyway, when we put him in his bed, he'll sometimes feign sleep, wait for us to leave the room, pull himself up on the side of the crib and start crying. Then, if we don't get there in time, he'll fall to one side or the other and invariably knock his head against the side of the crib.

Trent's First Trip To The ER

We've just returned from Trent's first trip to the emergency room. Trent was having difficulty retaining fluids and was becoming dehydrated, so his pediatrician recommended taking him in to the ER to receive intravenous fluids. So, Trent had an IV put in his arm and we had to keep him calm and still for a couple of hours while he took on fluid. He seems much better now, and we've been able to get some oral hydration solution into him without him bringing it back up. On bad news side, Tina appears to be coming down with the stomach flu now.

Trent's First Illness

Trent has gotten through his first eight months of life without an illness. Now in his eighth month he's come down with some sort of stomach flu. He's been suffering from diarrhea and vomiting. To his credit, he's been a real trooper. He's been mostly cheerful despite spewing formula all over himself on several occasions. The main challenge now is to find some way to keep him hydrated until the virus runs its course.

Trent's Progress

Trent seems to be on the verge of crawling. He can already go pretty much anywhere he wants by crawling on his stomach. He gets up into the crawling position and tries to take that first move forward and collapses back onto his stomach and crawls from there. He also is so close to being able to get himself into a sitting position. He can jack himself up onto one arm. If he could just get an inch or two higher, he'd fall into a sitting position. If I stand him up against the Superyard, he can grab a hold and stand up by himself for brief periods of time. Trent has also shown signs of playing Peek-a-boo. When given a cloth, he will sometimes cover his face with it and then pull it back quickly while laughing hilariously. It's hard to tell whether he's doing it as part of a game or not, but he does repeat the behavior, which seems like an indication. One last new behavior to mention, Trent now guestures with his arms to indicate that he'd like to be handed off to someone he sees nearby.