NSJ

(You have to say the first part of that like a dolphin.)

Jul, Mart, Niko, Lynn, Conner, and Neil all headed down the the Monterey Bay aquarium earlier this week to give the boys a dose of aquatic life.

Lots of visitors this weekend.

[googlevideo]8351689335052568116[/googlevideo]

More…

 

Niko is sitting on his own now, which opens up a whole new dimension of playing. In fact, I believe many babies learn to sit for the single reason that it makes it much easier to play with Legos. It is remarkably hard to play with Legos while laying on your back. The stomach doesn’t leave you any hands free. Legos are the pinnacle of playing (outside of trampolines and zip lines), so sitting is critical.

He isn’t all that stable; a gentle breeze can tip him over. But it is progress none the less. Step 1, sitting. Step 2, Olympic swim team.

On Sunday we headed up to San Francisco to have lunch with Bry, Brigid, and Tobin. We hung out at Yerba Buena Gardens and then had lunch a couple blocks away.

Under Bryan’s leadership, a group of us recently purchased a Steer. So we also picked up some of the beef to move it down to our freezer. The storage freezer is in Bryan’s server room, so I got a chance to teach Niko a bit about data center design.

There are times when a picture is worth a thousand words and then there are times when a picture represents the purest form, the very definition of just one single word.

Sunday mornings are for long walks with the dog, a big old New York Times, and video conferences with Grandma and Grandpa.

Niko slept through the night last night (from 6pm to 5:45am). Ironically Jul didn’t get any sleep because she was worried something was wrong. I think perhaps somebody swapped out our son for another baby last night while we were sleeping. I need to work out some kind of labeling system.

We put Niko in the high chair for the first time this weekend. He is getting the hang of foods like mushed up green beans, mushed up carrots, and mushed up sweet potatoes. The stuff looks and tastes pretty gross to me but I suppose if I had no teeth and had never had any other food, I might be OK with it. Now that I think about it, if my only comparison was formula and rice cereal, I would be ecstatic.

As first time parents, we have unwittingly been entertaining Niko by make noises with our mouths. The “motor boat noise” (blowing air over relaxed lips with a humming sound) is good for easily an hour of fun. It got even better when he started copying us. Super cute right? I sure thought so until the kid put together “motor boat noise” with “eating mushy liquid carrots and beans” turning my cloths and the kitchen into a orange and green modern art painting. He thinks this is the most fun ever (even more fun than quick-changing a diaper in the bathroom of a rapidly descending plane).

I’m convinced there is a huge retail opportunity here. I call it the “parental splatter” clothing line. You decide what you are going to feed your child in the morning, grab the matching shirt, and the new stains just blend into the shirt pattern (we would always incorporate the white spit up splotches — those are “every day” stains). I could even match the labels to make it easier. Grab your “sweet potato and green bean” splatter shirt and you are ready for the day. I’ll market this with my “dog hair” shirts which make it so you don’t have to worry about shedding dogs because your shirt is already covered with hair. Genius.