Malia's First Easter and First Catch with Dad

Well it has been quite an exciting weekend for little baby Malia. This past Sunday Malia enjoyed her first Mass with Mommy, Daddy, Aunt Jess and Uncle Jay at St Isaac Jogues. She was the envy of all parents. Once in a while she would get excited - especially during the homily - and Daddy would swoop right in and calm Malia down. She had an episode of crying when Daddy took her out of her car seat, but other than that she was money (Note: the picture is after mass and features Malia throwing a fit because she is tired ):




Malia is a -huge- fan of the Bjorn Baby Carrier. Since she has gained a lot of neck strength lately, she is able to face outwards in the carrier. This allowed for Malia to have her first baseball catch. Malia, strapped to the chest of Daddy, tossed the ball back and forth with the neighbor for over 15 minutes. She really needs to work on her arm strength, but all good things come with time.





Our dog Kit also tried to bite the neighbor; Kit was subjected to a spanking right in front of the neighbor and Malia - unfortunately. And the last piece of news is regrettable - Our neighbors dog Cody passed away about a week ago. He was an older dog, but knowing how much we care for Kit, it couldn't have been easy.

Paternity Leave Figured Out

After only one full week of paternity leave, I am proud to announce that I have figured out the secrets to keeping a baby happy. Here are the things that are needed :

1. One Bumble Bee Nursing Pillow
2. Wired Headphones (to allow Baby to use her hand and feel important)
3. Baby's bottle
4. High powered gaming PC
5. Copy of the latest first person shooter game

The results are amazing! Malia is enthralled with the graphics of the game staying quiet and enthused; Daddy is happy just to play. The bottle is handy in case Baby gets hungry while the nursing pillow keeps Baby snug and warm.

This has been a really great week. I started out unsure of myself, but I kept a log religiously of what Malia's habits were. After the third day, it was obvious she had developed a schedule all on her own. I followed the schedule loosely - wake up at 6 am and feed with mommy then between 8:45 and 9:30 she would wake up again to eat then go back to sleep. At 10:30 she was ready to play... This allowed me to schedule chores to get things done around the house among other things. Here are a couple more pics from the week :

Malia has hands... and she realizes it!

Today, Malia made a breakthrough and realized she has hands that open and close and can be used to grasp things. So far today she held a rattle for 10 seconds, held her clothes to her mouth, pushed on the stuffed dangling monkey in her crib, and held Daddy's hand. What an accomplishment!

She also slept through the night, was nursed at 6 am then went back to sleep until 9:30. Yesterday's rigorous schedule must have really tired this little girl out. Today was cold an dreary. We attempted to take our walk but realized it was too cold. We were also planning on going to the Mount Laurel Library for Babytime and Playgroup, but the library was closed for some unexplained reason. :(

Here is Malia after waking up at 9:30 :

Spring is Here!

The thermometer may read 40 and the sun may be behind the clouds, but looking at our landscaping so far, you would say it is definitely spring!





Last year in the fall, I cleared out the south facing side of my house. There were about 6 "hedge bushes" lining our garage. I first cut them to the ground with a chain saw then -painstakingly- removed the stumps. Now, in their place are 5 Hybrid Tea Roses.

I named them after the females in my life. The middle one is named "Boom" because it is red and the center. The rose to its right is Malia - yellow and bright just like my daughter and the other three are named Babci, KuhnYai, and Jessica. I think Malia is going to do the best.

I also began to remove all of the nasty overgrowth in the back yard. Here is how it started :



Then, with a little help from my wife, here is how it looks today - notice the grass seed. My next little project is going to be to add a scarecrow right where the pole in the yard is.



As a frame or reference, this is how the landscaping looked when we first purchased the house :

First Day of Paternity Leave

Today is my first day of a month long of paternity leave. I feel a bit nervous and a bit excited. The reason I am nervous is because I will have to take care of Malia all by myself - that means no turning her over to mom when she goes into one of her crying fits. But I am also excited because I wont have to go to work and I will get to watch her grow.

My goal today was to get Malia started on a schedule. I am flexible and not much of a schedule person myself, but I don't want to wake up in the middle of the night and I would like "presribed" times of when I can plan on getting things done in the day. I believe that having a schedule will accommodate both of these desires. Malia woke up at 4:15 crying. I got her to calm down by putting a hat on her head. She then woke up at 5:15 and was hungry. My wife wanted to crumble but I put my behind on the line and got her to hold out til 6 am. It's a start. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

Today we went grocery shopping in the morning. Mommy came home for lunch and nursed. After that we went on a long walk in the woods. I made Rib Eye Steak dinner which is on sale at ShopRite and it turned out really good.



Later in the day I got a pic of her napping :

SDTH is in

One of my small stocks, AVAV has a great day yesterday. I sold it, smartly. In one of the press reports another company was mentioned, SDTH. They are a chemicals producer and seem to really be into NPCC. I am not a chemicals expert, but it sounds like NPCC is a "filler" ie instead of using the good stuff to make rubber, you throw this filler stuff in instead. They also use the filler for latex, paper, and adhesives. Their second quarter revenues grew 58%. The NPCC part of the company made up 47% of thhe revenues. Capacity of creating NPCC will increase from 100k to 160k at the end of the year. It will top out at 190k with all current plans finished. Their year estimates for revenue is 98 M. They operate out of China and have just started to go global. Their sales force has double to 60 and the hope to add 5 customers in the next quarter. That is what I will be keeping my eye on. I started with a small position.

LNDC is back in

Landec anounced they are furthering their relationship with Chiquita. They also expect their current contract with agreement to outperform previous estimates. For these reasons I got back in with a small position.