Manbaby

In the spirit of Manbabies.com my friend Mehtul sent me this last week. I laughed till there were tears in my eyes and then I passed it along to a ton of people.

Kaden's First

The past year feels as quick as the turning of a page. As fast of a passage of time that I have ever experienced. Kaden is growing like a weed and Crystal and I pretty much have a handle on this whole parenting thing, for now at least. Saturday (4/10/10) was our little boys first birthday. Crystal and I both had the week off so we spent it running around town with him getting ready for his party and having fun. Two days of yard work and a day of house work later and we had a head count of 46 at our house over the weekend. He got more gifts than he knows what to do with and we were happy to host a large crowd of family and friends. The rest in in the pictures...

Kaden in Autumn

Say goodbye to the heat of summer and hello to the cool breeze of fall. Kaden has not had a post specific to him in sometime. Even though pictures of him still flow like wine, words are always good for a growing boy. Pay no attention to the Dad behind the curtain who hasn't posted a video since July. I will right wrongs, fear not.

Back to the topic at hand, Kaden is on the move. He is rolling from stomach to sitting up like it is the greatest thing since a knife met baked, leavened and kneaded dough. His crawl is getting coordinated, as knees and hands become aware of each other, he is getting from one side of the floor to the next. Apparently unsatisfied with just sitting and crawling he has started to stand. We have found him on numerous occasions holding on to the rails of the crib to keep his balance in a wobbly, but confirmed case of standing up.

He recently found his voice. Mind you he isn't reciting Walt Whitman at the dinner table, but none the less he is vocal. "Da da da da" and "ma ma ma ma" are his favorites, but he goes from hard to reproduce clicking noises to shouting for joy in restaurants. In other mouth related news, we have teeth! As previously mentioned, but now there are five. They are razor sharp too. Don't have a pacifier, think your hands are clean and want to sooth him with a digit? Think again, those things hurt like the dickens.

Being a Dad was fun already, but now that he is starting to get a personality it is just getting better.

P.S. New video is forth coming, Tabib scouts honor.

Too Fast...

Kaden is growing up too fast! At five months he has two teeth, has been rolling over for months and is starting to show signs of crawling. The picture above is from earlier this week and is where I find him more often than not now when left to his own devices. He rolls from his back to his stomach, then gets up on all fours and rocks. His legs are going, but his hands aren't quite there yet. When he does work it out I'd imagine he'll be a handful trucking all over the house. I'd do well to pick up the baby gate sooner than later.

Development numéro deux, he is sitting up on his own now. I guess plopping him down in the bumbo once in a while is helping. At first he could really only do it with two hands on the ground in front of him. Even then he would lose his balance and fall to the left or right. Lately he can take one hand off the ground and remain upright and also self correct when he leans too far forward.

And finally it is a bit of old news now, but he has been consuming solid food since the beginning of August. He went from rice cereal to an assortment of vegetables in no time. He is now comfortable enough with it to make a mess every night. He has only upended one container of carrots into his lap, but he is always happy to grab for the spoon or stick his hands in his mouth. That means bath time every night, which works perfectly into his bed time schedule.

My only fear is missing out on something. Now that Crystal and I are both back at work we try to maximize our time spent with our little man in the evenings and on weekends. I guess if he crawls at the babysitters first it won't be that devastating, but I'll cross my fingers and hope that it is at home with us.

Mother's Day 2009

Sunday was Crystal's first Mother's Day and as such we gathered our respective mothers and went to Lewis Ginter for a picnic. I started off the morning with breakfast in bed for Crystal and then we started getting ready to go to the garden. When we arrived the weather was as nice as it has been all year and it seemed like the whole garden was in bloom. The smooth jazz wasn't really my thing, but everyone else seemed to enjoy it well enough. We packed all kinds of tasty treats, spread a blanket and just chilled at the park for hours.

Crystal and Kaden

Kaden in the shade

Our little family

Three generations

Gabriel, Crystal and Kaden

Wanda, Elizabeth and Kaden

Mom and Dad

Group shots are fun

Bringing Home Kaden

Kaden Adam Tabib was born April 10th, 2009 at 3:54 am. He was 8.7 pounds and 21 inches long. A big healthy baby by my estimation, considering I was 12.13lbs.

The tale of his birth starts with a car that finally gave up the ghost. Crystal's car has been huffing and wheezing its way into a shallow grave for the past year. It has served her well though, originally as a last minute replacement to her first car that she totaled with two years left of college. Since college it took on the strict role of commuter, shuttling her to and from work five days a week and laying dormant otherwise. When it finally decide to go to car heaven on Thursday April 9th, it left Crystal in a panic.

With a new baby on the way and the expenses that accompany such tiny old men (diapers, day care, etc...), she turned into stress tsunami. The perfect storm of accountant, panic and unlikely miracle worker. I assured her as best I could over the phone from work and when I got home we became the proud new users of Quicken online. After two hours of web 2.0 budgeting she had either worn her self out or was at least some what soothed by glossy pie charts of our worldly income.

Around 9pm she went up to bed and I set about to gaming the night away. Fifteen minutes later she was back in my office complaining of mild pains in her abdomen. "Running cramps that go from front to back" is the way she described it. I'm no stranger to a running cramp, so we decided she should try and sleep on the futon in my office and we would monitor any other pain she might be in. Soon enough I had my Touch stopwatch and a spreadsheet tracking what we finally decided were contractions. At midnight they were five minutes apart and had gained in intensity by leaps and bounds.

I quickly packed up the car and we drove to the hospital. By the time she was admitted and into labor & delivery she was greatly pained by said contractions and her body was fighting the doctor who was trying to giver her an epidural. Many tears and hand crushes later she was numb from the waste down and we were napping. Only three hours at the hospital and the nurse came in with the news that it was time to push. I'll leave out the details of the actual pushing dear reader, it could get graphic and I'd like my lovely wife to maintain at least some of her modesty.

An hour of pushing later and he was born. Previously, I thought I had at least some inkling of what the feeling of being a father would be like. I will be frank and tell you I was wrong. It was the best feeling I have ever experienced in my life hands down. It was an emotion that I don't think I could ever do justice to in words, so I will leave it at that for now. We spent about an hour with just the three of us in the delivery room and then finally called in the grandparents to come see there new grandson.

The rest of the time in the hospital is a blur. We had many visitors, sleepless nights, emotional highs & lows and an underlying desire to just go home with our preciously little gift. When Sunday finally came around we packed up our things and left just afternoon to go it alone as new parents. The rest of the story is best left for another time as I am already six paragraphs deep and could expound for six more I'm afraid. I'll go into the details of the first two weeks in a coming post, but for now please enjoy the video above and all of the pictures we have been taking daily.

I'm back on Tumblr after my extend two week baby break by the way.

It's a...video

Previously on the bee log, I posted the day after we found out that we were having a boy. I ended up recording the ultrasound and little bit extra that day with the intention of putting together a short video of the event. Things got busy and I put it off more than a few times. There is no excuse that satisfies me at the moment in any case.

Well now it is just days before the little man shows up and I would be remiss if I didn't post an ultrasound from December prior to him getting here. So last night when I got home from work I sat down with the intention of posting it and doing it right. Right meaning high quality and small file size. Thankfully I built a HD template in my video editor (Sony Vegas) now, so in the future I can edit and go straight to the web.

Note: The editing is no where near what it could have been, but in the process of building a template last night I had to redo the whole edit I started in December of last year. Not the best work I could have done, but I have big plans for future videos.

Nursery: Part 2

When we last left the nursery, two weeks ago, Crystal had secured an overhead projector and I completed the outline for the mural. Last weekend we went out to a local craft store and picked up paints and brushes, but did not get around to actually painting. So with less than a month away from the due date we started painting this past Saturday afternoon. Four hours later we ended up going out to dinner with Crystal's parents. When we returned home Crystal hit the bed and I went in to finish off the last of the first coat.

Sunday morning my body woke me up at the unreasonable hour of 9am. I guess it knew I had second coats to complete and details to wrap up. Another hour of work and the mural was complete. I still have plans to demo, paint and reassemble the nursery closet, but for now the mural is done and the results can bee seen below...

Supplies
All painted up

George, Curious George

My lovely assistant

The lighting and blurriness is terrible in these pictures, so don't be surprised if a new set show up soon.

Nursery: Part 1

We started our nursery before we even knew that we were having a baby. We wanted a baby and that was a good enough reason to re-purpose my old charcoal gray office with a can of primer and two cans of canary yellow. Once a baby was on the books we started in with the furniture and decorating. Below are pictures of the nursery as of this past weekend...

Crib and Crystal's custom shower curtain curtains
Changing table, monkey shelf and growth chart

Time to take notes?

Nope, time for a mural...

...of Curious George

Part 2 will be painting it

I hope Kaden likes monkeys...

Pregnant

Crystal and I had the day off Monday because of the first big snow in three years. We spent the day in our PJ's cleaning up the house, doing laundry and working on projects in the craft room. To end the day we went to our sun room to try and take a picture worth hanging in the house proper. Above is the result of those efforts, there are tons more, but this is the first one I got a chance to pass through Photoshop to make it black and white. I consider myself a very amateur photographer and would like to take some classes one day, but for now I'll just keep snapping away. I'll try and get a whole gallery up in the coming days and link it to this post.

Kaden is just seven short weeks away now and getting more photos and videos before he comes is one of my goals. I know I will be eating gigabytes of space once he is here, but it would be neat for him to see what we were like before he came into this world.

Disparate Devices

I have owned a mish-mash of MP3 and video playing gadgets over the past eight years and none really scratched my itch. For Christmas this year I made the decision to ditch the hammy down zune I was borrowing from my brother and eighty six the iPod nano I have been relying on for three years. Both get their jobs done, albeit remarkably slow in the Zune's case, but carrying two devices around is a royal pain in the ass.

So out with the old and in with the new. I got my iPod touch a week before Christmas and loaded it up with apps and podcast galore. It covers everything I was getting out of the Zune and nano, but also opens up other functionality. Having a tiny device that can browse the web, check the weather, get movie times and play games is freaking cool. Granted open WiFi is to Richmond, VA as war mongering is to Switzerland, but the WiFi in my house and the few restaurants we frequent means it still gets it's fair share of use.

1Up Fallout Continued
The former crew of the good ship 1Up Fm have already banged out two episodes of their new show Rebel FM. Where the first episode was audio murder they cleaned up the second with better equipment, definitely worth a listen. Ryan Scott has announced his newest podcast Geekbox Radio, the crew yet to be announced, but it should be out Friday at his site Geekbox. Finally the 1Up Show crew is brewing up something at talking orange, no clue on what it is, but a safe bet would be a videocast of some sort.

Guild Progress
We downed every boss in the game a while ago and are now relegated to doing heroic (25 man) achievements. Lately we have been trying for Sartharion with three drakes up, but are hitting a wall. It will come with time, but what I really want is a crack at Ulduar.

Vacation in Review

Jesus's birthday is a great reason to take off from work and recharge the batteries. Consequently I took two weeks off the blog too, not that writing here is work, but I don't do well without a schedule. Waking up at 12pm every morning and staying up till 3am every night is not conducive to a lot of things it turns out.

What I did do was a ton of house work and maintenance. Specifically Kaden's nursery. Crystal is a planner, so when we decided to start trying for a baby, we decided to move my office and start painting. My current and old office are a dark charcoal gray so it took one coat of Kilz and three coats of yellow. By the time we rolled through the second coat of yellow Crystal was pregnant and sick. So, the room sat with two coats of paint until Christmas vacation. I also steam cleaned the rug, put up a new ceiling fan and purchased and assembled a bunch of furniture. Don't worry I plan on doing a fascinating nursery post in the future with pictures. I know you will wait with bated breath.

Aside from house work I played a ton of games. The list is long so I will do a seperate wrap up and review in a future post, bated breath etc. I also caught a few movies and watched two seasons of an anime called Code Geass all of which will be reviewed here as well. Lastly on the media front I picked up the new WoW novel Night of the Dragon which I am more than half way through and really enjoying. Expect a post.

Finally, seeing as it is a new year, some New Year's resolutions are in order:

- Ride at least twice a month
- Ride more miles in the current month than I did the previous
- Ride and camp more
- Try a new recipe a month
- Improve my writing
- Take more photos
- Improve my video editing (and post more videos)
- Lose weight (see riding goals)
- Take at least one grappling or BJJ class
- Read more comics
- Build an arcade
- Finish a 40k army
- Organize my workshop
- Back up my data
- Become a good Dad

Flash Game Fun
The best flash game I have played since the inception of the interwebs is Auditorium. Describing it in words does it a disservice, but the best I can do is to say that it really must be played to be appreciated.

My Lonely Bike

Boo to the man who lets his tires go flat, his chain dry up and his ride sit unloved through the autumn and winter months. Sadly on this day, I am that man. The excuses run far and wide with various amounts of depth and breadth, but it all boils down to a few key steps.

1. It got hot
2. Crystal got pregnant and sick
3. Video games
4. It got cold

Of the reasons listed above the only one I could shamelessly defend is Crystal getting sick. It got bad there for a while and I was more than happy to put everything on hold to take care of her. So great I have a reason I didn't ride for roughly 2-3 months out of the 5-6 I have been sedentary.

So what is a boy to do? Circle the wagons and get back on the saddle is what. Grant is down with a bum leg, but the rest of the crew is out there. I'm sure Russ, Mehtul, Landon and Hose have been riding. I need to reach out and force myself back on the bike so I can see my friends with greater frequency again. I need peer pressure, obligations and commitments. Here I come!

Site Watch
Slate is already a site you should be checking on the regular, but the second annual "Year End Gaming Club" is worth every minute it takes you to read it. The authors come from various organizations of various renown and are all worth reading. Specifically, Newsweek, MTV, New York Times and Slate. Go to it.

Guild Progress
Malygos 25 (753rd US) down and only tough achievements to keep us busy until the next raid instance. I picked up my valorous shoulders and chest last night and its on to crossing my fingers and wishing for a Torch of Holy Fire tonight.

It's a...

Yesterday we had another big milestone on the path to parenthood. Crystal had her monthly check up, but we also had an appointment to find out what our little rug rat is going to be. We spent the two days leading up to the big reveal like kids on Christmas eve. To preface the announcement, I have been predicting boy from the start and Crystal's guess has been girl, based on dreams and all manner of old wives tale test. So with out further ado...

We're having a...Boy!

Kaden Adam Tabib to be exact, we have had two names picked out for a while, so it is nice to put a name to the baby bump Crystal has been carrying. The name is a variation of the arabic name Kadeen which means servant of God. We wanted a name that could be used in both english and arabic, but also had some meaning behind it.

So now its on to shopping more gender specifically for the nursery and other bits. We have been furniture shopping twice now and I think we are good to go on what we want. The room needs another coat of paint, but it is two coats into a pastel yellow color already. We both have some reading to catch up on too. There are so many things to do now and he will be here before we know it.

I have a video of the ultrasound I need to put up on the interwebs. It runs for around 5 minutes, but is recored in HD widescreen so I need to mess with some settings to get the size down. Hopefully I will have it up for Tuesdays post.

That There is a Baby

Seeing Crystal's stomach get a little bump hasn't really made ze baby seem real for some reason. It could be because she is just starting to put on weight after dropping 21 pounds in her first trimester. That or the last time we saw our child to be it was a gray oval with a heartbeat. In any case the baby we saw last Thursday and seen above looks just like a miniature human. No more tadpole alien for us. That thing has a nose and five fingers, click it for a bigger view and see for yourself.

We took our first steps toward baby prep over the weekend by making our way to Babies"R"Us. Surprise, there are lots of babies and baby related items there! I am sure I will have intimate knowledge of this fine establishment as they drain my wallet for the next two years. Baby paraphernalia is ten kinds of expensive. Does bargain shopping for your heir make you a bad parent? I hope not. I also hope that our bay wants for nothing.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
In semi baby related news, Crystal was feeling well enough to attend a moving picture show this weekend. An event we have not partaken in for what feels like ages. Unfortunately we saw a film that could easily be saved for DVD release or even skipped if you are cynical enough. It wasn't horrible by any means, but mediocre is mediocre. The characters and writing seemed almost too life like and by extension a bit mundane. Regardless of how plain the movie felt, I also felt a bit too old to be watching it. Like the target demographic was 16-23 year olds and we slid in the back door undetected. I guess being awkward around girls and not knowing what you'll do after high school aren't really topics that speak to me these days.

Site Watch
I usually like my online comics funny and well drawn, but I'll make an exception for super funny and lazy stick figures. As long as the funny is super of course and that is were xkcd exist. The tech, math and science jokes are usually right up my alley, but can occasionally go over even my geeky head. Monday's comic was particularly good.

House of True Ash

Crystal is recovering at a rapid pace these days from first trimester woes. She is not out of the woods yet, but the trees are becoming less dense every day. A by product of all her down time was an opportunity to watch television. Not a hobby I care for usually, but I discovered a gem and polished the dust off of an old favorite.

True Blood
I like vampires and HBO makes good shows, that was the simple thought process that went through my head when I decided to sample True Blood. Alan Ball's work on Six Feet Under and American Beauty helped too, but the series is five episodes in and already standing on its own. The back story is simple, Japanese scientist invent synthetic blood and vampires reveal themselves to the world now that they are no longer forced to feed on humans. The shows story focuses on a small southern town and how they deal with the new addition to society. It is humorous, on occasion a little spooky and deals with vampires in a similar manner to civil rights and gay rights. A good mix of character development and mysticism, defiantly worth your time if you are already paying for HBO.

WoW: Ashbringer
The World of Warcraft comics have been largely a disappointment to date and would have been dropped by now if not for a saving throw from the lore nerd in me. So I was not expecting much from the Ashbringer origin mini series. What I got was mediocre sure, but it was better than the on going books. Not a stellar review I know, but if you play WoW and the back story interest you at all it is worth reading. At least the comics are bringing some loose ends up to date for the coming WotLK release this fall. King Varian is back on the thrown and Ashbringer is cleansed and in the hands of Tirion Fordring. Oh nerd alert on this section, but I guess it is too late for that.

House
Crystal has been on to this series from the start and I only started watching last season. I often refer to it as "The best show on TV" now, as I feel it is the best show on TV. Simple enough right? I think what draws me to a hospital show like House and pushes me away from a show like Grey's Anatomy is the tone and focus of each. House is a mystery first and a character drama second. The case the staff is working on trumps their own issues and drives the show forward. Grey's on the other hand focuses way to much on the insignificant personal drama of its characters and near ignors the medical cases. My technical mind will always have a penchant for a good mystery over peoples petty shit I guess.

Hospital Life

There was no post on Wednesday because they don't make wireless internet available in our local hospital. "ZOMG! Who was in the hospital?" you say and I say...

Crystal, as of Monday morning was going on a pretty tough two weeks and when she arrived at work she threw up twice, felt dizzy and saw spots. A call to her doctor won her an all expenses paid trip to the hospital to be observed for 24 hours on an IV to treat her dehydration. I left work early, picked up some entertainment (comics & podcast), took Macy (our dog) to the in-laws and showed up at the hospital at noon.

She was in good spirits, drinking lots of water in conjunction with her IV and was trying to find something to watch on TV. We chatted late into the night and I slept very little worrying about her in the torture rack the hospital tried to pass off as a recliner. The next morning she upgraded to solid foods and was still feeling well. At noon they unhooked the IV and sent her home. I got her set up on our couch with the remote and some snacks and made my way into work. When I was walking through the parking lot of my office she called and told me she had thrown up. Two hours later the second call came and she had thrown up three more times. By the time I left an end of the day meeting she was headed back to the hospital.

I packed up my stuff again and it was off to another night of hospital TV. She fell asleep early, I watched House and read comics. Wednesday morning she had a bit of solid food for breakfast and then my Mom tagged in, so I could go to work. At 11am they took her off the IV and observed her till 6pm that night to see if she got nauseous. She didn't and I took her to her parents house so I could do some grocery shopping, fill prescriptions and clean the house a bit. When I finally got her home at 9pm she was fast asleep soon after.

It has been an exhausting week and I have felt powerless to help my wife on far too many occasions. Thankfully the doctor assures us that the baby is healthy, this is not uncommon and that it usually goes away after twelve weeks at the latest. We start week ten tomorrow and I pray that it is not as tough on her.

R.I.P. The Brodeo
Damn it all, Jeff Green left for EA and I thought GFW radio would continue. Now comes the news that Shawn Elliott is leaving for 2k Boston to work as an associate producer on a secret project. I hope "secret project" is code for my favorite new podcast that makes me laugh out loud at work and also makes me think more deeply about this hobby called gaming. The Brodeo will be sorely missed by my ears and a large portion of the internet.

With Child

That's right we are expecting! We have talked about having children since we started dating some eight years ago, but we did not do so with regularity or serious intent until we got married. The plan was to wait five years post marital start line, so we could spend time enjoying each others company. Well we are at three years and change and we are both ready to share in each others company and a babies. It just felt like the time and we could not imagine anything in our lives that we would not want to share with our child.

I am nervously over joyed about our big news. I can't wait to hold our new born child, but what if I'm a horrible father. Sure everyone says "Oh you'll be great", but serial killers and dictators have parents who were probably told the same thing. I'm not the type to worry or get worked up about stuff like that though, so rest easy friends and family who might contact me to tell me "Oh you'll be great". I'll read the books, listen to the conflicting advice and hopefully filter it all down into what I think makes for a good parent.

We had our first doctors appointment the other day or the "Shit just got real!" appointment if you will. We got to see the babies heart beat and a blurry oval that the doctor assured us was the baby. Crystal had me throw out all of our turtle soup, shark steaks and sword fish fillets because she can no longer eat them. I also got to sit in on her yearly check up, which was awkward to say the least. Lets just say my doctor never gives me an over sized paper towel and a directive to get naked by the time they come back.

The icing on the baby cupcake is the gear and gadgets I get to pick out. I am on the hunt for a digital video camera to record all the moments no self respecting guest to our home will actually want to watch in ten years. I'm also looking for a manly diaper bag. I don't plan to be caught out on the town with a paisley explosion Vera Bradley over my shoulder. There are a bunch of options, but I am leaning toward a messenger style bag customized for baby care. I picked up two new domains earlier this week as well in anticipation of the media blitz we will force on family and friends. More on that in the future though.

Site Watch
Dad Gear has stuff that I would actual wear and/or carry, I guess that is a strong enough endorsement.