More photos

We've posted a few photo galleries from a couple weeks ago -- we're trying to work backwards. Please have a lil' bit of patience as we try to raise and photograph, er, Lil' Genghis.


Yes, mom and Uncle Bernie can be goofy.




Was it just five weeks ago she was only eating "clean" pasta?

She likes lasagna and gravity

Click here for more on the title of this post ..


Lil' Genghis is getting more access to table food, and she really likes a lot of this stuff. Witness this adventure last night with lasagna:


mom told dad to send a picture like that to Aunt Leeanne. Aunt Leeanne, no fan of baby-food pictures, physically covered her computer screen so she wouldn't look at that. Whoops.

In our photo gallery, we also posted a whole series of pictures of Lil' Genghis enjoying gravity as mom tosses her around. There are also some videos -- mom reading "Mr. Brown Can Moo ... Can You?", and the little one knocking down the biggest pile of stackers you've seen lately.

The videos are huge. One of these days, we'll get the time to edit them into a short, coherent format. Not today.

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Tech update to the tech update:
Uncle Rodrigo found a bug in our photo gallery, but we haven't been able to track it down. Please let us know if you have a problem.

Aunt Selle said she's having problems seeing our YouTube videos. Dad posted the link to the latest version of the Flash plug-in. Bad idea. Apparently folks all over are having problems with the newest version locking up after a few seconds; One way to fix it is here, though it requires you to use an older version that doesn't work on all sites and has security problems. Yayyyyy technology.

Tech update

If you're having problems viewing the YouTube videos, you might try a new version of Flash, a plug-in for your Web browser.

The entire photo album from the fun in the snow saga is now online.

Fun in the snow

mom, dad, Uncle Eddie, boydog and girldog had lots of fun in the snow yesterday. Lil' Genghis, on the other hand, didn't quite know what to do.

But first, a diversion. boydog's real name is Chewie, and he's a Shih Tzu. A Shih Tzu named Chewie is credited with saving his owner pet's life; ommenters on Fark are tossing around lines about Chewbacca, like "Great, kid. Don't get too cocky." And then there's the link to Holy Shih-Tzu!, which has the funniest banner we've seen in a while.

Anyway, so back to us. Lil' Genghis didn't quite know what to do in the snow:




Of course, the dogs knew exactly what to do: kill dad. Here's the assassination attempt on tape:


But wait! There's more! Just for looking at this page today, you get a bonus video of Lil' Genghis with Uncle Eddie! And we'll throw in free shipping and handling!


And another bonus! We have girldog rushing through the snow:



We have another video, of boydog and girldog play-fighting, much as they'd used to do, but YouTube hasn't even recognized that it's been uploaded yet.

On the tech side of things, YouTube now has a multi-video uploader. So far we're 2 for 3 in Internet Explorer; it doesn't work at all in Firefox 3.0b3.

Behind the scenes, dad is also working to put every photo we have online, beginning with the most recent. He was up until 2 a.m. and up again at 7:30 a.m. trying to get the thing to work the way he wants; more on this later. Beta testers and feedback welcome -- just e-mail him.

Oops, now YouTube at least recognized that there's another video coming. Here are boydog and girldog in rare form. This, pretty much, is what an entire week looked like the first time they met, though she started going for legs and not throat. He still likes being an earring, neh?

Hookers 'n' blow

So Lil' Genghis and mom are in the air at the moment, coming home from a busy week with Uncle Chris, Aunt Lelia and, of course, Cousin Marcus.

dad got busy, trying to clean up the mess. At least they're coming into the airport, rather than a train station or something. At this point, dad's car can just about drive itself to the airport ... or, at least, the strip clubs nearby.

Will mom notice? Probably she'll be more distracted by a bathroom that looks like Borat's house-cow was visiting.

And for Lil' Genghis? She's fresh from a romantic whirlwind with Cousin Marcus, but is destined to come home to one of her first personal letters from Cousin Rafic, "To my dear Valentine" ... Uh-oh. Stay tuned as the love triangle deepens, the bathroom gets scrubbed and the family finds out whether Hope and Faith are real feelings, or just strippers down by the airport. =)

Update

Lil' Genghis is enjoying her last mini-birthday today, because she just turned 11 months old. She learned to stand on her own today, stole some French fries, discovered chicken nuggets, and generally had a good time with Cousin Marcus.

Today is also the eve of an American event known as "Valentine's Day," which is a day many people in Chicago recall fully without nostalgia. For most American men, however, Valentine's Day is a time to honor a loved spouse, girlfriend or carbon-based life form by showing just how guilty the man feels.

There's really nothing guys can do to make the holiday right. If guys plan something sweet and intricate, the women make the guys feel guilty because the women don't want to feel demanding, high maintenance, needy. If guys don't do a good job, they'll feel guilty for scorning a beloved one. And if they take a middle ground, they'll still be made to feel guilty for simultaneously not planning well enough and not being spontaneous enough.

There's really no way for a guy to win.

That is, unless he's alone for the day, as dad is going to be. So maybe he'll buy a nice bone for girldog, the closest beloved lady remaining in the home. And for mom and Lil' Genghis? Well, they decided to be on their own, so that's enough of that. Together, as a family, we'll all celebrate President's Day together, in which dad can teach Lil' Genghis about George Washington's oft-ignored hesitancies toward foreign involvements:

My ardent desire is, and my aim has been, ... to comply strictly with all our engagements, foreign and domestic; but to keep the United States free from political connexions with every other country, to see them independent of all and under the influence of none. In a word, I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves, and not for others. This, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home; and not, by becoming the partisans of Great Britain or France, create dissensions, disturb the public tranquillity, and destroy, perhaps for ever, the
cement which binds the union.

After that, we can move on to discussing Abraham Lincoln's decision to violate the U.S. Constitution and bypass the court system by suspending habeas corpus.

And if all that isn't enough to inspire and/or put to sleep Lil' Genghis, we'll turn on some C-SPAN, damnit, and let her breathe in the majesty of deeply held values and the perceived necessities of compromises.

And if she's still awake after that, we'll entertain her with a tale from her family's history, in which a small bit of compromise or showing of weakness can go along way to achieving the desired ends.

Because if global conquest can't unite a family in purpose, then why do it?

Anyway, you only come here for the pictures.

Just say 'O'

Uncle Chris, Aunt Lelia, Cousin Marcus and Reptile-in-law Phillip live in a nice, newer home in an area with pleasant rolling hills.

The location, in suburban North Carolina, and their home in particular, is a good one for food. By geographic determination, they still have the benefits of Waffle House, and, though that family lives near the border of the safe zone, they still have a reasonable shot at finding decent barbecue and maybe even sweet tea -- all good food from the American South. If you looked hard enough, you could probably find appropriate samples of American Northern food -- good stuff like cheesesteaks, and ... hrm. Cheesesteaks. Come to think of it, the Awful Waffle has an inauthentic cheesesteak impersonation that's not bad.

But even better, the home draws one family member from the American West, and one from South America (not counting Phillip), such that so many more possibilities open up. And with the South American being of Lebanese descent, you can only picture the food possibilities.

Like, kibbe. Oh, kibbe. It's like a meatloaf from the gods, as if ambrosia were consumed by cows' seven stomachs, converted into muscle, and then the cows were shoved into meat grinders. Just yesterday, their whole family*, mom and Lil' Genghis even went to a Mediterranean restaurant picked out by Lelinha, who surely knows her kibbe. (*Their whole family meaning the North Carolina crew; not the cows. The cows, you see, were already shoved into meat grinders, and, you know, it's tough to get a good table if you show up with 1,700 pounds of ground beef.)

And, today? All Genghis wants to do is eat Cheerios.

Somedays you eat cereal, and sometimes the cereal eats at you, it seems.

Meanwhile, dad is hanging out with girldog and boydog. girldog especially misses her rations of Cheerios, which are sorta like baby offal. (Wow, that's disturbing.)

Anyway, girldog isn't one to resist most foods. Let's take a look:

Food	Happy puppy?
Steak?	yes
Bacon?	yes
Bread?	yes
Raw shrimp?	yes
Cheerios?	oooooh yes
Sticky mouse traps?	yes
Empty beer can?	yes
Starbucks coffee energy drink?	yes
Video tapes?	yes
Copy of Michael Crichton's "Airplane"?	yes
Tofu?	What the hell kind of sick bastard are you? You can't feed that to a dog!

And the purpose of this exercise? Dunno. dad got hungry again, though.

Quick update

Sunday is/was Aunt Amanda's birthday! May she have many more years of joy and happiness, and even more time with Isabella. Aunt Amanda was one of the first people to meet Genghis, arriving at the hospital seemingly within minutes from another state way. Happy birthday, Amanda!

Lil' Genghis and mom are on the road. Rumor has it that the littlest lady really seems to like kissing Cousin Marcus. It's good that he isn't a real cousin at that point, yes, and it's true this probably makes Uncle Chris and Aunt Lelia very happy, but it scares the fk outta dad.

Beef is good. Meat is good.

One cool visitor

Uncle Bernie dropped in for one heckuva visit -- a bit more than a day, but a whirlwind day it was. (He's working 2 a.m. to 10 a.m., then 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and then 2 a.m. to 10 a.m. again, after this, if we remember right.)

So he was a bit tired but really, really, really, really excited to finally meet Lil' Genghis ... and boy, was she happy to meet him!

Possible problem: Uncle Bernie has a very serious girlfriend back home in Brazil, but a couple girls here wouldn't mind spending a lot more time with him. He's just that sorta fun guy, ya know?

Light from darkness

dad is feeling a little bit guilty about that last rant, and Lil' Genghis' hometown football team just got spanked in the last minute. Here, we say football to mean, er, football, not soccer. The New England Patriots lost to the New York Jets in this year's Super Bowl.

So let's find some light from the dark times. Among our Dear Readers are at least three big football fans:

Uncle Eddie, who was born in Buffalo and generally roots for anyone except the Patriots ... or more precisely, anyone playing the Patriots ... has plenty of reason to be happy.

Aunt Lelia, whose time served in Indianapolis made her loyal to the Colts, might be smiling because the Patriots were widely expected to face the Colts, who were ousted earlier in the playoffs.

Aunt Leeanne. This one's a little tougher, because God knows she's about the biggest Patriots fan on the planet ... even though a majority of her soul seems to be devoted to the Red Sox. We're not quite sure how one person can fit in such local patriotism (bah-dum) in a single human body, but, it is what it is. Clearly, as a Patriots fan, Leeanne has reason to be crushed. Yet ... the Patriots are led by Tom Brady, whom Leeanne has been stalking for years. Brady knocked up one woman -- to her regret, not Leeanne -- and then went on to date Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen. Now, let's think about this for a minute. That woman's Brazilian, so she probably likes the wrong kind of football even more than she likes the right kind of soccer. Her boyfriend can't even make MVP. Maybe this will help cripple the relationship, making Tom Brady potentially more likely to go back on the market, and thus increasing somewhat Aunt Leeanne's chances of catching him unprepared and unescorted when she begins his enslavement.

See? Light from darkness. Sure, it involves slavery for purposes too nefarious to discuss on a baby blog, but it's all about the positive spin.

Did we mention there's a presidential election coming around in a couple days? =) Yep. Spin.

Baianinha

Madrinha da bateria da Mocidade Unida do Inhoá!, originally uploaded by Bel and Ana.

While all over the US all people can think of is the Superbowl, in Brazil there's another big celebration going on: it's Carnaval and it's time to put on a beautiful costume and go to the street do the samba.

Here you can see Great-Grandma Helena, Aunt Ligia and Aunt Piu getting Aninha ready for her big debut.

O skindo lele!!!

Click on photo to see the full set with Aninha in full regalia :)

A little rant

dad used to have a blog geared toward political rants, but quit that when Lil' Genghis arrived, taking up much of his love, time and anger.

Yet Apple, maker of mom's two-and-a-half-year-old computer that works worse than the ten-year-old PC dad just threw out, is always striving for new ways to piss people off by creating stuff that looks nice but is actually a steaming pile of crap.

There's the iPod, for example, which everyone loves, and which most people seemingly have replaced. And replaced. And replaced. Now there's the iPhone, which sounds fine, except the battery will become worthless after maybe 18 months, and the thing is designed in such a way that you can't replace the fraking battery without returning the thing. I mean, we all want a cute cell phone that quits working after a while and has to be in the mail for a week before we can use it again, right?

This rant was spurned by Apple's reliance on CUPS, the common Unix printing system. It's common in the sense that every Apple computer comes with the same broken, proprietary craptastic version of something that shouldn't even have to be customized. But that would be too fraking easy.

So one Apple security upgrade broke the printing system on mom's laptop. Six months later, dad finally got it working. Then another security upgrade in December apparently took out the print system again. Great. We can compile a new version if we download an archive of 900mb of development tools and install 'em. But, hey, this fraking computer looks cute.

Anyway, this rant's over. Lil' Genghis is playing now, just came out and started to dance to music from "Flashdance." Bad hair, but it's cute to see the dance.

You may return to your regularly scheduled baby blog.