Henry is five months old today, and he is wearing the clothes that Stephen was wearing when he was 12-15 months. Soon they will be wearing the same clothes and the same size of diapers. Henry holds his own bottle, rolls over like a champ, and can scoot across the floor pretty well. If you sit him in Stephen's easy chair, he can sit up on his own and watch TV for half an hour or more. It's almost time to start putting him in the highchair, and he is already sitting in the walker a lot. He has slept through the night (9 hours) maybe 5 of the past 7 days.

Stephen woke up Monday morning and decided that he now hates milk. Just like that. Hand him milk, he takes a sip and says yuck! while handing it back. At first I responded by trying to "break" him and not offering him anything to drink except milk. I figured he'd get thirsty enough to drink some eventually. If this is a ploy to get chocolate milk or more juice, it won't work. That lasted a day. Now I give him water all day and don't worry about it. Kids do need a little bit of dairy, but not a lot. The result has been: he is eating like a maniac at every meal. I think he's just switching from getting a lot of calories from milk (like babies do) to getting a very high percentage of his calories from food (like adults do). When he wakes up, I give him one of those Danimal smoothies (basically liquid yogurt with probiotics), then I give him some V8 Fusion with breakfast, and for the rest of the day it's all water... and man can he eat all of the sudden!

About a month ago, one of my hard drives died. It physically was not working... seemed like the motor died. It's not my most important hard drive, so I was debating what to do about it. I dropped it off at a local place for a $50 diagnostic fee. I figured if the fix was over $150 then I would just let it go. It was my windows xp partition, mp3 collection (>100gb), my sample library, my software installers, and some other unorganized downloads. Anyway, the guy finally called me back and said that "100% of your data is recoverable, and it'll be $150. You've already put $50 towards the repair; we'll just apply your diagnostic fee towards that $150." This was a best-case scenario and I gave him the go-ahead.

Well, yesterday I went and picked up the new hard drive. I came home and hooked it up and it was far, far less than "100%." I called the guy and told him something was amiss, and he told me to bring the hard drives back and he'd scan it again and see what was up. When Jaime got back from the library, I grabbed the hard drives and headed back to the computer shop. I dropped the stuff off and gave them a little cheat sheet I made that showed the information about the hard drive (master boot record, number of partitions, approximate sizes of the partitions, file system types, etc). Then, due to the job being incomplete, I asked him for a refund until he could actually get 100% of my data back as promised. He refused. He even refused to refund me for the new hard drive which I had just returned to him. We got into a pretty heated discussion regarding it. My argument was basically that I didn't have to pre-pay the first time, so why am I pre-paying the second time? Additionally, he didn't do what he said he was going to do, which was to recover 100% of the data on my hard drive. He was very defensive about the second statement. My point was that he had 1) my old hard drive, 2) my new hard drive and 3) my money. As a consumer, I have absolutely no leverage at this point. It spiraled into me using words like "inept" and "dishonest," though I did not lose my cool. The problem with these people is that they are used to dealing with customers who know absolutely nothing about computers and therefore they can talk down to everyone. Once I started using terms like NTFS, master boot record, and GRUB, he began attempting to make peace with me. "Look, before you go down this road, let me re-scan it and see if we can't get that other partition to show up." In one sense, that's fair enough, but I've already paid for work which he has not proven he can complete.

We left the house to go grocery shopping at 8:07 this morning. We got back at 9:10am. It was great. The weather was better, no one was at the store, and the boys were still refreshed from their sleep. Stephen stood in the main section of the grocery cart the whole time and loved it. Whenever I'd get something from off the shelf, I'd hand it to Stephen and he would set it down in the cart gently. Somehow we got away with only (only.. ha!) spending $140 at the grocery and $20 at the farmers' market, so we'll see if we run out of food this week. We've changed a lot of our eating habits to try to give our children good habits, and eating healthy costs a lot more. Cheap, processed food is almost exclusively an American commodity (though that is changing), and that kind of annoys me. It doesn't seem like it should cost more for me to buy food that was made locally or naturally, but the cheapest option is indeed to get food that was made on the other side of the country, loaded with corn by-products and filler, frozen, and shipped. As a nation, we are now spending a lower percentage of our income on food than ever before, due mostly to technology. Despite spending less on food, we are also fatter than ever before.

What a day. We went to the farmers' market, played outside with Stephen in his pool, dropped Jaime's rings off to be re-sized (thank goodness for lifetime warranties that include re-sizings), got Stephen a hair cut, and ate dinner at Chili's. Great day. Now I'm going to lay down for bed at 9pm. I'm old. Goodnight.

The differences in our children are quite striking already. First of all you have the size difference. At four months old, Henry (a.k.a. Hank the Tank) is wearing the clothes that Stephen was wearing when he was about a year old, walking around in them. For instance, Henry was just wearing this romper and it was pretty tight on him.

The second thing is that Henry is way more vocal than Stephen ever was. The range of sounds he makes is comparable to Stephen at 18months. Henry is generally more interested in people--emulating sounds, laughing, touching faces. Stephen just wanted to destroy destroy DESTROY.

Without any assistance from me, Stephen started naming 5-6 letters the other day. Since then, we have taught him several more. Now he just brings me all kinds of stuff and we take turns reading the letters. I credit the show Super Why! for getting him interested in letters and teaching him a few. It's the best show around for 1-3 year olds, and it's on PBS so virtually everyone gets it. It teaches the basics of reading and some very basic principles to help toddlers cope with everyday life. There is an episode where the moral is that throwing a tantrum is not helpful and you have to "use your words" to communicate what is bothering you.... that sort of thing. We are transitioning him to sitting at the table with us for dinner. It's too exciting for him at the moment, but he'll settle down and it will be nice for all of us. It won't be long before Henry can sit in the highchair, so we need to free it up at dinner time. For breakfast, Stephen eats a regular bowl of cheerios with milk and a spoon these days; it sure does make things easier!

We've starting putting rice flakes ("cereal") in with with Henry's milk and he's been sleeping 8 or 10 hours at night. Last night he slept a full ten hours, from 8pm-6am. That's ideal as it matches Stephen's schedule and gives us time to do stuff at night. The little guy is rolling over and scooting across the floor like a champ now, too. He held his own bottle the other day while he ate, so that skill is soon to be developed. He is interested in every little thing nowadays, which makes it harder for my wife to nurse him. My two milestones with babies are six weeks and six months. The first six weeks are really tough and things got noticeably easier once we got past that point. We're coming up on the six month mark which gives you another big break because the baby can do things like sit up and hold his own bottle by then.

For some reason I have been very motivated to keep posting on here even though we have all been sick, my laptop was doused in water, and my parents&brother visited twice. The last two weeks have been quite... uh... eventful, but thankfully we are on the other side of it now. I couldn't take another day of Stephen's constantly-running nose or Henry's unpredictable sleep schedule while they were sick. There were a few days where Henry wouldn't sleep unless someone was holding him. One day Jaime held him for 7-9 hours throughout the day and then we took turns snuggling him in bed all night so he could sleep. As soon as he started feeling better, we took him to the doctor and he got immunization shots. He spent the rest of Friday acting pathetic.

We went to the Petting Zoo at Frying Pan Park on Saturday. It was a very different experience from the Reston Zoo--mainly because Stephen didn't get bitten. Also, the Frying Pan Park is completely free. You just kind of walk around and see a bunch of animals up-close. Some you can pet, but there is no feed for sale or anything like that. We saw a gigantic horse born in 1983. He was extremely nice and stuck his monstrous head out so we could all pet him. There are also two large playgrounds there and cheap carousel rides. They give horseback riding lessons in plain sight so you can watch more horses that way if you like.

Stephen has finally learned to stop biting people when he gets upset. But it has led to something else: he bites himself... hard! I find this disturbing even though it is a common response to being frustrated. He has come up with a few labels for things (like his favorite TV show), but mostly he just sits in silence and operates all the electronics in the house. He can use the trackpad on a laptop and choose YouTube videos to watch. He can do pretty much anything on the iPod Touch now, including a perfect drag-and-drop. He knows how to pause and play videos on streaming Netflix, and he can play the next video when one of his episodes ends. He can put a movie into his computer DVD-ROM and play it in Linux Mint.

Henry is much bigger and much happier than Stephen was, though he is a bit more high-maintenance. He smiles and laughs often. He can't roll over yet, but he can turn himself around on the floor (meaning if you set him down on his back with his legs facing west, he can orient himself to be lying on his back with his legs facing east). It really sucks that him having a bad day makes everyone have a bad day. Yesterday he ate all day and didn't take one nap. Everyone suffers during a day like that--the dogs don't get any walks, Stephen doesn't get enough attention, and I just plain hate my life.

It'll be a while until we can sort of get our life back in order. It took until Stephen was over a year old before I could start making dinners before Jaime got home from work and do those sorts of everyday activities. Now Jaime gets home from work later and we go to bed earlier. The nights seem like they are five minutes.

I have committed to not produce or record any new music for the rest of 2011. I'm going to use that "free time" to get practiced up on the guitar so I can play out when the opportunity presents itself. I think Steve's band is slowly dissolving so he is looking to get some gigs with me. If he handles all that part of it, I can just show up and sing pretty (hopefully) and put some of the money into the earsauce fund. Speaking of that, we are going to spend the $250 that we already have in the earsauce fund to get some CDs made, get on iTunes, and keep a stock of CDs at CDBaby. Steve thinks he can sell some at the winery where he works and we plan to give a lot away also.

ps--I let my laptop dry out for over a week and it works.

pps--We waited until 2011 to get a HD television and I think we were about 5 years too soon. I hate nearly everything about this TV. I hate how it takes over a minute to turn on. I hate how it ignores every button on the remote for even longer. I hate how non-HD channels look so awful and some channels are not available in HD. Why did we need this, again?

Yes, I know. I have neglected this whole blogwebsitething. I have been busy. On Monday, I picked up my cousin Sean off the Appalachian Trail. He is through-hiking the entire thing (1900 miles) in five months. Ashby Gap is very close to the halfway point, so I picked him up and gave him a place to stay for two nights. He also went to a on-call Doctor and got a physical that is required for the new school he'll be attending this Fall. It was a good visit. I dropped him off at about 8:30pm on Wednesday night. He only had three miles to go until the next shelter, so he wanted to get there Wednesday night. I took Stephen to pick Sean up and drop him off, and he was very good for both drives.

Yesterday I helped Steve move. All in all, it was pretty easy. Going from one rented room to another usually doesn't involve moving too much crap. Seemed like I hadn't even seen Steve in months, and I think that's actually true.

Stephen was so good at music class last week. He played, he jumped, he danced, he interacted with other kids.. he even led the train (conga line) that we formed and danced around the class. Hopefully this morning is a repeat of that.

I've been watching both boys every day for a week and a half now, and it has gone very well. Surprisingly easy. The "new baby" blues have already worn off. For a little bit, I was adamantly opposed to us having another child, but how quickly one forgets! Henry is barely three months old and I find myself going "we should do this again. it'll be fun." Honestly I'm pushing for an adoption, because the thing I most dread about this process is another one of my wife's pregnancies. That whole thing just sucks for me. Constant whining, snoring, and general helplessness. Taking care of my wife when she's pregnant is way more work than taking care of both of my toddlers.

Well, Jaime went back to work today. Henry has really gotten a lot easier in the past six weeks. He only wakes up once at night. Our vacation went off with barely a hitch. We put Henry's pack'n'play in the walk-in closet in our master suite and Stephen slept in another room.

Stephen hit all the physical-based milestones very early, but he hits the social milestones late. That is becoming quite obvious as we watch Henry grow. He already smiles and laughs more than Stephen did. You can make him smile at will by making funny faces and sounds (something that never happened with Stephen until he was well over a year old).

Their naps were synchronized for a few days. On Monday, they both slept for over three hours at the same time. I need to work towards that as a goal. Honestly, I can only realistically expect their naps to overlap for about an hour a day. Even that would be very helpful.

It seems like a while since we had Henry. I for one never understand how people say "time flies." To me, it seems like we've had Henry for a lot more than twelve weeks. Even if I think back to ten years ago when I first moved to Athens, it seems like... well, about ten years ago. Everyone keeps saying things like "Stephen will be in school before you know it," and I can't help but think "No, Stephen will go to school in about three years." I think a lot of it is that most people idealize the past. It's more like they wish they remembered highschool like it was yesterday. For me, there are no glory years. My life right now is as good as my life has ever been, and why shouldn't it be? You get older, you get wiser, you get a better perspective on life. (It helps that we are leading a charmed life and we have two healthy boys.)

I started a song yesterday using only the violin. Now, I can't play the violin at all--and I'm not just being modest. I just played for about 40 seconds, pretending that I knew what I was doing even though it sounded awful. Then I took that recording and autotuned it. If it works for people who can't hit a note with their vocal cords, it must work for people who can't hit a note on violin. I didn't even tune the violin since I knew I was going to autotune it. Then I split the recording up into about 50 samples and re-arranged them to make the outline of a song. The technique worked. I hope to work on that song a little bit today. What I really should do is clean this house! Maybe I can clean the house while the boys are awake and work on the song when they nap? Who knows, this is all a brand new routine for me.

Wish me luck!

7pm Edit: Today went extremely well. The boys napped for a combined 9.5 hours, and they slept for three hours at the same time in the early afternoon. Stephen behaved very well and Henry didn't spit up one time all day. It was great. If every day were like this, I'd be set.

Stephen injures himself almost daily. He is so fast and reckless that it's nearly impossible to keep up with him. It's all the typical things: he doesn't look where he's going and he goes there too fast. If he manages not to injure himself in the next few days, his face may be free of bruises, scratches, and scabs for the first time in over a month. His legs, however, always have at least one bruise somewhere on them. He had his first big public tantrum at Toys R Us this week. We went there specifically to buy him birthday presents (lots of little stuff plus a Radio Flyer tricycle) and he threw an awful tantrum. After a little of it, I picked him up and carried him towards the checkout and he was really trying to injure me the whole time. Biting, hitting, kicking. It used to be that he was too shy to really flip out in public or in front of his grandparents. I think that time is ending.

He is learning more every day. I have about 50 kids apps (actually I just counted and it's 82 kids apps) on my iPod touch, and he is getting quite good at using it. He won't watch TV, but he can play with the iPod for 30 minutes or more without looking up. He understands how to navigate all around the iPod. He can kill whatever app is running and get back to the home screen, navigate through the folders and choose what he wants. There are animal flash cards (loves those), interactive books, and music apps. The Mulligans gave me a $25 iTunes gift card for my birthday and I quickly spent it all on stuff for Stephen. I also took a chance and spent five dollars on a synthesizer app and it's really powerful and fun.

I was kind of worried that a lot of Henry's early developments wouldn't seem as special as the first time around with Stephen. Let's face it, most of the very early developments in life are only interesting to the close family members. It's things like being able to look around or being able to reach out and touch your face. But I can say with assurance that it is just as special and interesting the second time around. My wife and I sit around and agree how cute Henry is and marvel at every little turn of his head or movement of his legs.

About a week ago, we (Jaime) applied to refinance our home mortgage. We could potentially take our mortgage payment down to $650/month (it's currently almost $1300). There are the typical downsides of having to pay a few thousand in closing costs and re-extending the mortgage to fifteen years from now. We are trying to finagle moving into a single-family home sometime in the next 12-18 months. If we got this mortgage payment down that low, then we could turn a handsome monthly profit on renting out our current place.

Jaime and I both turned 30 in the past two weeks, and Stephen turns 2 one week from today. We are going to celebrate on vacation with all of Stephen's grandparents (and most of his great grandparents) present. Vacation is quite soon. The place is pretty close to our house and Henry has settled down quite a bit in the past few weeks, so there isn't too much to worry about. It's nice. But then, as soon as we get back from vacation, Jaime starts work. That's our next major adjustment.

Two minutes worth of videos from Henry's 9th week. He's starting to come alive and his eyes are turning brighter and lighter.

Well well. We suspected Henry was a big baby, but it's hard to tell without the proper measurements. Jaime took him to his 2month checkup yesterday and he was 15lbs, 110z. He's closing in on doubling his birth weight at two months old (that usually happens between 4-6 months). That weight at his age (9.5weeks) puts him in the "97th plus percentile." Basically, he's off the charts.

Age: 9.5 weeks
Weight: 15lbs, 11oz
Height: 24"
Head Circum: 16"

Related charts, graphs, etc.

To put Henry's weight in perspective, Stephen weighed 16lb 11oz at his 6month checkup. Henry's visit to the doctor yesterday also meant that he got a lot of shots. He did not do too well with them, he had some major pain issues between 5-10pm. Overall, things seem to be going well. I can't believe our vacation is in nine days.