Saturday, August 27, 2005

Feeding Time - Week 35 (Video 1)



Theo's weaning has been ongoing for the past few months, and recently, he has begun showing preference for certain kinds of food. For one, he seems to like bananas mashed in yogurt, Indian curry as well as certain types of vegetables such as (mashed) pumpkin. He is also very fond of fish as well as fish-tasting (baby) crackers. For me and Mommy D, feeding our little Theo is always a fun yet challenging experience.

As promised, we begin our first installment of Theo's short videos. Here's one 2-minute video showing him playing with his teether which he received from his Lola Nalik. This file is roughly 22 megabytes (I still have to get hold of a video compression software), so those with dialup connections are not advised to view this file.

For the purpose of uploading Theo's videos and photos on the Internet, we have purchased a domain name which provides a whopping 5 gigabytes of bandwidth and 5 gigabytes of disk space. Recently, it has become very cheap! Ours is just US$3.90 per month, which is much cheaper than that of yahoo.com.

Since we begun Theo's blog, which includes photos, and now, videos, we have outgrown the free geocities.com which provides only up to 15 (tiny) megabytes of space and very limited bandwidth. In fact, if you view all of the photos in this blog in one sitting, very soon, the photos will no longer appear, simply because the bandwidth limitation has been (quickly) exceeded. You have to wait for 30 min to 1 hour to view the photos again. Those days will soon be over, esp. after I have uploaded all of Theo's photos to our new server and changed the links in this blog.

After I have reconstructed our website in the new domain, we will make the announcement here, among other fora. So please don't forget to drop by once in a while.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Theo and George McCartney - Week 34 (Video sample)



Now that Theo has become more mobile, we decided to assemble his playpen which was given to him by his godfathers, my friends, Ken and Romy. Inside the playpen, Theo can be left alone without us worrying where he'll go or what he'll put in his mouth.

Surprisingly, Theo seems to enjoy being left in his playpen, as long as he has had his feeding or if he's not wet. We make sure that he's not lonely, though. He's always with Mickey and Rickey Mouse, the stuffed toys that he received from his Grandaunt Nalik, the stuffed handpuppets Broky and Croky, and the stuffed monkey whom we have called George McCartney. In the photo above, you find George riding on Theo's back. From the look on Theo's face, he seems to be a bit uncomfortable, maybe because George was hugging him too tightly.

We recently purchased an inexpensive video capture equipment that will enable us to digitize videos taken by our (relatively old) Sony HandyCam. Thus, very soon, we will be uploading -- not only photos -- but short videos of Theo as well. This will be for those who have broadband connection; those with dial-up connections need not bother with the huge video files.

We are excited about this possibility of sharing Theo's videos in cyberspace and we invite you to visit this blog from time to time because the links to these short videos will be placed here.

Here's a sample. Click on this link and save the file on your hard drive. After the download is complete, view the file using Windows Media Player. This is a 5-megabyte, 30-second video of Theo in action.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Faces - Week 33




It's Obon season in Japan, the time when most Japanese return to their hometowns to remember their ancestors. As such, we in the university are entitled to a 3-day leave at anytime within the month. I chose today until Wednesday. But it's not really your typical vacation. I am using this time for official errands, such as renewing my visa and passport. Both require me to take long (and expensive) trips outside of Tsukuba -- to Mito for my visa and to Tokyo for my passport. In fact, this blog entry is partly being made on a train bound for Tokyo on my 4-year-old PocketPC.

My sister in Tokyo sent me an email Sunday night to ask why there has been no blog update. I was really planning to post an update after I have finished all of my necessary errands, which is now when I am more free. Last weekend was spent going around Tsukuba with Theo and Mommy D since the weather was relatively pleasant.

Now, let's talk about Theo.

When Theo was inside Mommy D's womb, he was an almost constantly rumbling and tumbling fetus (see previous posts). Now that he is out and has gained sufficient agility, we find that he is equally rumbly and tumbly as well, esp. just before bedtime. Like a constipated worm, he would crawl and squirm from one end of the bed to the other. And if we play with him, he would constantly laugh and giggle while proudly flashing his four white, growing teeth, as you can see in the photos above. In one of the photos, you find him sitting on the grass and having a great time. We hope to take him out more often, esp. when autumn sets in and the mercury drops further

In the meantime, we're still keeping busy immortalizing his cute, angelic face with our digital camera, at home and out.

Saturday, August 06, 2005

The Casanova - Week 32



Mommy D and her friends, as well as their babies, got together last Thursday at a friend's place. It was a chance not only for the mothers to exchange notes about parenting; it was also an opportunity for their babies to interact with their peers.

While the mothers were busy discussing feeding techniques, recipes and tantrums, Theo gathered his colleagues to discuss one of the most intriguing questions of evolution: which came first, the chicken or the egg? Despite many hours of discussion, they couldn't arrive at a consensus, and thus, have scheduled another meeting in the next few weeks.

During the discussion, however, our little Casanova developed an interest in Rina. In one instance, he thought that he had stealthily expressed his affection for the girl by carefully sneaking towards her and kissing her. Little did he realize that the mothers were already in paparazzi mode, camera in hand, and happily snapping away at their "love birds".