What a great weekend. On Saturday we set up a babysitter trial. We had someone that Jaime works with come over about two hours before the boys' nap time and we went out and did a lot of errands. We are going to need a babysitter on March 3 when we are attending a concert with Jaime's parents (our usual babysitters), so we set this up for Saturday as a trial run. It went very well. We arrived home at 3pm to find two sleeping children and one babysitter reading a novel on the playroom floor. We went to four furniture stores looking for dining room tables, and ended up settling on the first one we liked from the first store (that sort of thing seems to happen more often than not, doesn't it?). We also stopped by the old condo to get a carload of stuff and grabbed lunch at Don Pablo's.

Yesterday we went bowling for the first time in a long time and Stephen absolutely loved it. It's so cute to watch him carry his own ball up to the ramp. He doesn't understand the concept of taking turns and it can get quite exhausting trying to prevent him from constantly carrying his ball up to the lane. He came very close to breaking 100 on the first game. He uses the ramp and the bumpers, but he didn't receive any help from us.

For a few weeks it seemed like we were lagging with the move and setting everything up, but suddenly here we are, six weeks after the big move date. We have a newly fenced in back yard, we have coverings on all the windows (when we moved we had NONE), we've hung up a lot of our art, we've purchased a lot of the furniture we needed, and we're slowly getting organized. I think this method of a gradual move is better in a lot of ways. You're not pressured to organize everything all at once. You can sit back and see if you like what you've done before you proceed. The initial way that you set things up often isn't the best, and this gives us time to rearrange and think about what we're doing along the way. I think the next trip to the old condo will be the last time moving stuff. Every week we bring 6-10 more boxes of stuff over here. Now it's to the point of fairly useless junk that you own but never use.

The dining room table is supposed to get here "sometime in March." Hopefully by then we'll be completely ready for it. As of now, the dining room is where we put boxes of stuff and art in the interim. So, in turn, I promise you a video tour of the new house "sometime in March."

Dear internet: Ron Paul is not the messiah, nor is he the great satan. I'm so sick of all the hyperbole surrounding this guy. I voted for Harry Browne in the general election of 2000, so I'm no stranger to Libertarian principles, but I really wish these guys would tone down their rhetoric a little bit if they're going to be running for President. I'm not asking Libertarian candidates to sell out or become moderates, but you can't go around preaching "deregulate EVERYTHING" and expect to get elected in this day and age. We already tried having zero regulations, and a percentage of children in this country were working 70-hour weeks in sweatshop-like conditions (yes, I'm making a 150-year-old reference). On the other side of the coin, if you profess to be "afraid" of what Ron Paul's more extreme viewpoints might do to this country, you have to realize that the President does not get whatever they want. Obama's presidency thus far has highlighted this point. If you want to do something that is considered extreme by mainstream America, congress will not pass it. It's that simple.

This guy should be celebrated for bringing a lot of formerly-unspoken issues to the foreground. He should be celebrated for having integrity and making every decision based upon principle, not funding or popularity or political expediency. I really like Ron Paul, but everyone needs to calm down. It's been obvious from the start that he is not electable. He makes Obama look moderate, for starters. His age is also a factor. If given the opportunity, I'm going to vote for him in the Virginia primaries, but not because I think he's going to save our country. It's because I want him to stick around and have his viewpoint heard in the debates. It's because I want to be one of the millions of people sending a message that political expediency does not help me the citizen, but only the politicians. The fact that the media has done their best to ignore Ron Paul--to sweep his candidacy under the rug--says to me that he's doing something right. The people don't want more of the same. In fact we are growing more tired of it every day. I may not agree with all of his viewpoints, but I celebrate the fact that someone truly different is able to make a splash.

(We now return to your regularly-scheduled program).

No good news as far as Henry's sleeping habits, but he sure is cute! When he is awake (23.5 hours a day), he is generally a happy baby. He motors around and gets into trouble. This begins a tough age in my opinion. 9-15 months are pretty labor-intensive times. A lot of following the baby around and telling them "no," removing them from dangerous situations, saving their lives, the usual fare. He is starting to use "mama" and "dada" meaningfully, like when he wakes up at night. If he's not hungry, he says "dada," but if he's hungry, he says "mama."

It seems like Stephen's tantrum stage was short-lived and is over for the most part. I can't overstate how good and easy Stephen is. He is good-natured and does whatever you ask of him. He eats well. He sleeps well. It's pretty much always been that way. We went out to eat with some friends on Saturday, and Stephen sat in a regular chair (no booster seat) the whole time and didn't act up once. He even tried to order his own dinner. "Me. Cheese." Then we went over to M&E's apartment and the boys tag teamed a Pac-Man game for a little bit. It was entertaining for about three minutes.

Here is a video of Stephen when he was fairly close to Henry's current age. It's incredible to me how similar they look and act.

We got some bids on getting a fence. I was pleasantly surprised by one of the prices, so we should have a large fenced-in area in our back yard in a few weeks. We also have blinds and/or curtains on most of the windows now. It was very strange having absolutely nothing on the windows; we felt so exposed. Jaime was getting dressed inside the closet. We bought a desk, hutch, and file cabinet for the front room of the house, and the desk had a piece missing. I called the number on the box and they said it was on backorder and it would take six weeks to ship us a new part. So now I have a half-assembled desk in my living room for six weeks. Fun stuff.

This house was a flip (for the definition of a "flip," consult every show on TLC), and consequently a lot of things were not done correctly. It's just a facade. They painted the floor of the garage with regular old indoor wall paint, so it's already peeling up all over the place. Some of the doors don't latch properly without having to use excessive force. The overflow drain was not installed properly on one of the bathtubs. I added some hot water to the boys' bath and water drained into our kitchen. Sigh. My first attempt to fix that was unsuccessful.

We still have a few loads of stuff to bring from the old house. Steve is coming over tonight to help me take apart the elliptical trainer and move it. That's a big task that's been looming ever since the day we moved.

I'm pretty tired of everyone "villainizing" sports stars that don't deserve it. I understand that everything is supposed to be much more exciting with "good guys" and "bad guys," and I sort of agree with that. It's just that people are constantly barking up the wrong tree. I'm not a LeBron James fan, but I don't get why he has been so demonized. He took a pay cut to go to a team where he thought he could win championships. I thought this is what athletes were supposed to do--chase your legacy instead of a paycheck (I'm talking to you, Albert Pujols). And somehow, even after doing this, he still has the stigma of "Damn that LeBron just playing for money when everyone else is playing to save the dolphins." How did this happen?

That being said, I don't ever root for the Miami Heat, but it's not because of some hatred for LeBron James. It's because you're not supposed to root for teams that don't know what it is like to be the underdog. New York Yankees. New England Patriots. Roger Federer a couple years back.

Now the same thing is happening with Tim Tebow but for different reasons. In reference to Tebow's recent playoff win, Charles Barkley said, "the national nightmare continues." Can someone explain to me how this is a national nightmare? You've got a nice kid who displays more class than almost anyone in sports. All of the experts said he wasn't going to be able to compete at the professional level, and now he's having success against all odds. Isn't this the kind of story that makes sports great? This is like a sports movie with a happy ending.. only it's a true story! A national nightmare? Why don't people say that when Ray Lewis wins?

I could go on for quite a bit more with this theme, but I see no need to. I've made my point.

Hello? Hello.

Yes, I know. I've been neglecting things around here for a long while. I never even posted pictures from Thanksgiving, and now New Years is just around the corner. But I have a bunch of good excuses, I swear. First of all, we moved. Let me rephrase that, we moved quite a bit of stuff. We still have several car loads to schlep from the old house, including my main computer which houses my pictures, my music, etc. Not only that, we closed on the house, my parents visited and helped move, and we spent 5-6 days at my in-laws' house. We spent several days with no internet whatsoever.

So... 2011 is ending, and boy what a year. My second son was born. My wife and I turned 30. We purchased and moved into a single family home. I deliberately took a six month leave of absence from making/producing/recording music, and my time is almost up on that (January 1). I am getting the itch to make some music!

I haven't been taking enough pictures, so I don't have very much to share. Hopefully I can get to my backlog of pictures soon enough. Maybe when we get this place in a little better state, I can record a video tour of the house and post it on here. We are now trying to watch tv via a good old fashioned tv antenna and I am liking it so far. I ordered the leaf plus amplified indoor antenna today. I've honestly never seen such a well-reviewed product. The $40 antenna that I have now can pick up all the channels that I need, but I have to adjust it (move it, spin it, fiddle with the antennas) to pick up different channels, and the leaf antenna is supposed to eliminate the need for that. For $80 and no cable bill for life, it's certainly worth a try.

In our 5-6 day stay at my in-laws' house, Stephen and Henry got to spend some time with their cousin Finn. Everything went very well with Stephen and Finn. They were pretty funny running around like maniacs. We all went to a big playground in a park less than ten minutes away. It was a nice, big playground and Stephen absolutely loved it. He went down one of the biggest slides I've ever seen about 50 times the first day we were there.

Hopefully I can get back into the swing of things pretty soon, but I'm not making any promises. I hope your Christmas was as good as ours.

Henry's 9month wellness exam was yesterday at 3:20. Everything went well and everyone marveled at how big he is. The nurse said Henry is bigger than her 15month old, and he's probably bigger than Stephen was at 15months. According to the (highly suspect and most likely inaccurate) height measurement, Henry is only half an inch taller/longer than Stephen was at that age, but Henry is just big--big hands, broad shoulders.

The doctor also ordered an infant anemia test, which requires drawing blood. This was a disaster when Stephen had to go through it, but the Doctor witnessed his own child being butchered since then, so now he gets everyone to go to the hospital to get blood drawn from their nine-month-old. We have to do that some time soon.

Age: 9 months
Weight: 21lbs, 1oz
Height: 29"
Head Circumference: 18"

Related charts, graphs, etc.

Stephen's 9-month checkup stats.

Henry finally got a tooth--actually three of them. He now eats two tubs of baby food and about 6 Mum Mum crackers a day. So, now that his teeth came busting through, he's eating more, and he's nine months old (tomorrow), wouldn't you think he might be sleeping better? No. But that's okay, he's generally pretty happy these days. We'll take what we can get. He's just about eliminated "spitting up" from his repertoire, which is very nice for the laundry situation.

Stephen's development seems to take one step forward and two steps back. His verbalization of letters and words is worse than it was a month ago for sure. Somewhere along the line, every letter became pronounced like the letter T and the word "me" is now pronounced "be." We call Stephen the fun police nowadays, because he follows Henry around and takes away all of his toys, pulls him away from his activity table, or says "no" (which sounds like doh or dow) to everything he tries to do. It's fairly annoying, but it's not mean-spirited or anything and we should be thankful Stephen is such a good and loving big brother.

We packed up the dogs and a lot of stuff and spent two nights at the Youngs' for Thanksgiving. The first night, both boys slept 11 consecutive hours without making a peep. The next night, Henry was up for maybe 5 or 7 hours when he should have been sleeping. Fortunately he did that on a Thursday night of a four-day weekend, so Jaime had days to recover from that nightmare before returning to to work. Things went very well besides that, though. Good food. Stephen helped make ice cream. I have a couple pictures from Thanksgiving that I need to post, but with packing and doing Christmas stuff and making my annual calendar, I'm a bit behind.

We took our first trip to the DC Improv last night with another couple. It was fantastic. We saw Comedian Bob Marley and he killed. Usually in a place like the Improv, you don't get a set of fully developed material. The comic is working on new material and mixing it with old material--just trying to hone the set to find something that works. This was nothing like that. Every joke was wildly successful and they just kept coming one after the other for an hour. Bob Marley always makes me laugh when he comes on satellite radio's comedy station(s), but I always thought of him as sort of a gimmicky comedian who talked about being from New England and had a thick Maine accent. I was wrong. He did a pretty wide range of material and all of it was so good. He is scheduled to have a Showtime comedy special this spring, so I'm guessing that we heard a lot of the material for that show.

Then of course we got derailed on the way back and probably added 30mins to the drive home. The inbuilt GPS in our Hyundai is completely useless. Fortunately I knew how to get there without the GPS so we had no problems. But then coming home there was a part where K street split into some weird upper level and lower level nonsense, and we chose the wrong one. The problem with DC is that once you get off of your initial route, you can't just go around the block and try again like in MOST CITIES. So we basically went on a sightseeing tour of DC. I don't much mind getting lost on the way home when you have nothing to be late for, but we realized that we forgot to give the Grahams a parking pass for their car and there was a good chance their car would be towed if we got home later than 11pm. So the whole way home there was this tension knowing that the night may have been ruined. We got home at 11:15 and all was well.

We've heard enough about moons and Junes to last a lifetime, but the joke is that some of the old fables about the power of the moon might actually be true.

• The average menstrual cycle for women is 29.5 days--precisely the same as a lunar month.
• The human gestation period is 9 months. But whose months? The average birth occurs 265.5 days after conception--which happens to be the exact equivalent of 9 lunar months.
• More children are born after new and full moons than at any other time.
• More boys are born after a full moon, and more girls are born after a new moon.
• People who are experiencing a lot of stress have an increase in pulse rates during a full or new moon.
• Surgeons have found that around the full or new moons, their patients bleed more.
• When full and new moons occur, more people are admitted into mental hospitals and hospital emergency rooms are busier.
• There's an increase in certain crimes (rape, robbery, assault) during a full moon.
• "Lunacy" refers to the Roman moon goddess, Luna.
• In ancient times, people thought that exposure to the moon could "affect the mind."
• People were advised not to sleep with moonlight shining on their faces, or they would become "moonstruck" (crazy).
• The word lunacy (crazy) is probably derived from ancient observations that during a full moon, mad people became more frenzied.
• The term lunatic fringe was coined by Teddy Roosevelt, who was describing some of his followers in the Bull Moose Party during the 1912 presidential election.

When I was fifteen, some punishment was handed down that I could not watch TV for a while... maybe a month? That helped me realize that TV is really not worth watching, and I stuck with the no TV thing from ages 15-22. My college roommate and I had a tiny TV with an antenna that only got PBS. I much preferred to use the computer and listen to music anyway. Then I moved in with Jaime, and ever since then, we've had cable. TV slowly crept back into my life, as did watching live sports. I now watch maybe ten shows as well as NFL, Tennis, and NBA Playoffs.

I think I've convinced Jaime that there are enough alternate ways to watch TV shows (netflix, DVDs, internet), and we are going to see how it goes in the new house with no cable. Theoretically we should still be able to get all the networks and a PBS station with an HDTV antenna. That way Stephen can still watch PBS Kids in the morning and I can still watch the Redskins lose on a weekly basis. It will be really nice to minimize the number of commercials we see; they are so bad!

We've started the very beginning stages of packing up our stuff, even though we can't move any of it for over a month. Jaime's mom runs the mail room in Jaime's office, so she gives us all the used boxes of copy paper (about 2-4 boxes per day). These are the sturdy cardboard boxes with a little cardboard top that slides on. No tape required. We close on a Tuesday, so I'm going to bring a carload or two of stuff over every night from Tues to Thurs. Then on Friday we can hopefully get a little U Haul trailer and bring over all of the medium-sized stuff like dressers, TV stands, cribs, bookshelves, and maybe the guest bed. Then the plan is to have some movers bring the biggest items on Saturday. I had already decided that I'm never going to move the piano again and we were going to hire someone to do it, and since I'm going to hire someone to move the piano, I might as well get them to grab the couches, our bed, the elliptical trainer, etc.

A goal of mine for the new house is to not amass too much stuff for it. We have set aside the largest bedroom as the boys' playroom, so hopefully we can keep most of their stuff in there. The reason that a staged house looks so nice is because there is the least amount of stuff possible in the house. I don't want it to look like a staged house, but somewhere in between a normal house and a staged house. [By the way, I'm not so sure Jaime shares this goal with me, so we'll see what happens.]