'tis almost time...

So Aunt Vanessa and Uncle Emerson are in the last stretch, it's home run time. We can't wait to meet you, Cousin Valentina!!
Here's a pic of the proud parents-to-be.

Health update

mom made a conscious decision to keep this blog upbeat, keeping discussions of any medical problems or illnesses off the blog. Well, we're delighted to tell you today, Dear Reader, that the surgery was a success:



Beyond Uncle Rodrigo's health problems, though, Lil' Genghis got her first piercings today, little adornments for her ears. It's traditional for Brazilian girls to get their ears pierced, but a little less traditional to have tubes stuck in 'em so some puss can leak out.*

She went under a brief round of general anesthesia today and woke up, pretty disoriented, with the ear tubes, which should fall out in about 18 months. Until then, they'll be helping keep her inner ear free of fluid build up. Literally every time she went to see the doctor since last September, she had an ear infection -- at least six infections in nine months, and, we suspect, more infections earlier on that we wrongly attributed to stuff like colic.

So she's doing fine now with the tubes, which are a common surgery, and they should reduce the number of future ear infections, if not beat 'em off pretty much entirely. Time will tell. This has, with the possibility of an early bovine-American secretion allergy, been her only health stumbles. We think her vocabulary will soon take off now that she can actually hear -- imagine that!

And a special call-out to Aunt Catherine: In the recovery room, she got a little Strawberry Shortcake sticker and seemed pretty darned happy about it.

For those of you wondering, mom is recovering quite nicely.



* Would "Leaking Puss" be a good band name? mom still likes
The Horny Polentas," but dad is partial to "Occupied Montana."

A very special day

Today is Grandma Biziza's birthday, hooray!
Here's a nice pic of her along with a slightly younger (er...) mom.

Happy birthday, Grandma. We love you!

Now on to some quick news about lil genghis: today she said thank you, which made mom burst with pride. That was said when she didn't want to eat any more of her cheese, spat it out and handed it to mom, who picked up the amorphous goop and was thanked. Awww.

Happy birthday!

Today was the actual birthday of one of mom's good brothers, Uncle Marcelo, as well as the birthday celebration of Aunt Rebecca's and Uncle Josh's Cousin Jacob (Cousin J.D.). Pretty cool stuff!

We'll try posting some videos and photos from the American birthday bash. We, er, didn't get a chance to call Marcelo because of the -other- birthday. But, Dear Reader, we can share with you some of Uncle Marcelo's favoritist things.

He's a talented guy, you know, who can enjoy and understand the Peter Principle as easily as he can make a box of Kraft Deluxe mac and cheese, or a stellar piece of music. Here's some of his performances:


And a completely different style/genre:


Uncle Marcelo is a very talented young man, and, dang, he's so good with his niece. =) Happy birthday, sir! May you have many more of health and happiness.

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Still here?

Oh, yeah. mom wanted to make this blog post a little more universal, to acknowledge that Uncle Rodrigo is one year closer to an official finding of senility. Yeah. "But he's the godfather!" ... yeah ... ready to leap to his Catholic duties, he is. Heh. Heh. We said "duties." Heh. Doody. Heh.

Nerdly updates

There's a new slideshow over there --------->

Behind the scenes, the photo gallery server has gotten some new software upgrades, including support for PicLens in each gallery with pictures.

Scream if you have a problem.

And if anyone understands just how Apple bastardized the Unix startup system, please drop us a line so we can get mom's laptop printing again. Not to name any names, but as usual Uncle Rodrigo is out of his league.

Oliver visits!

Lil' Genghis got an extra-special treat over a long holiday weekend -- a visit by Cousin Oliver with Uncle Eddie and Aunt Amanda.

We got a bunch of still photos, too, but are just posting the videos at the moment -- there's a lot of fun stuff here, including Lil' Genghis saying "Duda," the nickname for her uncle.

Almost everyone in question is here:


Here's where she calls "Duda" and shows off some of her walking skills:


Walking? Did we say walking? She's going really fast here:


She was even running from a stalker:


...

...

Now, speaking of stalking, boydog took a tough hit in a chase with girldog.


Let's go to the slow-motion tape on that one:


Is it just me, or at slow speed does boydog sound something like the bad guys in the "Alien" movies?