Barry’s Daily Web News

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Cortney went in for her final ultrasound today. One of the things we wanted the doctor to check was to make sure we were having a boy. I thought the doctor’s comment was pretty funny (click to size full size image):

The picture shows the baby’s upside-down anatomy.

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Sean was able to repeat every single letter of the alphabet after I said the letter first. He was also able to repeat the numbers one through ten. Not all of the letters and numbers were pronounced correctly, but they were all recognizable.

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We had another hot day today. I went out in the car early this morning, and I thought that the thermometer on the car was broken after the temperature seemed to be stuck on 88 degrees. This was before 8:00 in the morning! I took Sean into the pool after dinner this evening. At this time of year, the house blocks the afternoon sun on the pool, so the pool water was nice and cool at 82 degrees. We will probably only have a weekend or two where we can still go swimming.

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Sean’s words of the day are “get down”, and “don’t touch”. I think Sean interprets “get down” as the act of climbing up onto and jumping on the couch. At times, these words seem to encourage Sean’s bad behavior, not discourage. It also seems that Sean thinks that the words “don’t touch” mean the can of carpet cleaner. This came about after I had tried some potty training this morning. I put Sean in training pants for the first time. He went for over an hour without any problems, then all of a sudden I heard the sound of water falling onto the living room carpet where Sean was playing. I found out that the traning pants are not capable of holding the load of a full bladder. At least I know that Sean has the control to wait until his bladder is full. Next, Sean needs to learn he has the urge to go.

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No movies this weekend.

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We had a baby shower today. I say we, because it was a couples shower. It was at our house, but our friends, Tammy and Wally, took care of the organization and preparation. I spent most of the day taking care of the yardwork and cleaning the house so that everything looked good for the party. I think the party was a success, and everyone had a good time. Most of the people that attended brought their kids, so Sean had plently of company. I narrowly missed out on winning the string length and ice cream eating contests, but it was all in good fun. Cortney won the “dirty diaper” contest, but lost badly at the pickle eating contest. After the party, Sean ended up going to bed quite a bit later than normal. He was upset when the last guests left, and we can’t figure out why. He went to sleep after a brief crying episode.

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I took Sean with me to the Price Club to pick up some contact lenses. For some reason, Sean chose the time at the store to practice saying “mommy”. I got some strange looks from the other shoppers.

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Sean’s word of the day is “chip”, as in taco or potato.

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I’m suffering from a bit of a writer’s block this evening. Cortney took Sean out shopping after dinner, so I didn’t get much time to spend with him today, so not much to write about there. I wanted to write a piece about Janet Reno being a sore loser, but that doesn’t seem to be newsworthy. President Bush gave an impressive speech at the UN today, but it appears to have fallen on deaf ears.

Here’s one good bit of information: Cortney is due less than one month from today, and 4 weeks from tomorrow. We are nearing the final stretch! When I get the chance, I am going to rename the Sean category (2nd link on the top left) to Family. My main purpose of tracking the posts about Sean separately was to detail Sean growing up from the eyes of his father. I plan to expand that idea to write about my two boys growing up together. And, of course, I can’t leave out Cortney’s role in this big adventure. It will be interesting to see what affect that change has on the search engines, since the Sean RSS feed seems to be the topped ranked section of my web page.

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Sean said his name for the first time tonight. I’m trying to get him to answer the question “what’s your name?”. I try to give him a hint by mouthing his name, but he just mimics me mouthing his name instead of saying it.

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We had a break in the weather, with some cooler temperatures in between the rainy humid weather of the last few days and the hot sunny weather predicted for later in the week. To take advantage of the pleasant weather, I walked Sean over to the park. Sean had fun working on his vocabulary, as well as playing on the playground. He was almost able to say “swing”, with just a little trouble with the “w” sound. He did say “monkey bars”, and he was actually able to hold his weight for a few seconds. He was also able to say “slide”, and “up” and “down”. As a bonus, Sean and I were able to see 4 F16 jets flying in formation in preparation for a flyby of the Bank One Ballpark, where they were preparing a September 11th celebration to start the Diamondbacks baseball game. The jets circled overhead at least a half dozen times.

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I updated my navigator links, or “blogroll” to reflect some of the recent web sites have been reading.

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The case for war against Iraq:

“What if Saddam Hussein fails to comply, and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop his program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made? Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction.”

“If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow.” The stakes, he says, could not be higher. “Some day, some way, I guarantee you, he’ll use the arsenal.”

Was this written by some right-wing warmonger? No, Bill Clinton, in 1998.

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This is a very moving piece written by the normally humorous Dave Barry. It’s also the best article I have read on the internet on the eve of September 11th.

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Sean was able to complete his haircut this evening. He didn’t cooperate again tonight. But this time Cortney was with me, and she held his head why I held his arms. He cried the whole time, including the trip home. At least we won’t have to worry about another haircut for two months. I rewarded Sean with a dip in the swimming pool, to wash off the irritating pieces of hair, and to relax and have some fun.