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RIP, A10

I know it's silly, but I got sentimental when my trusty Canon PowerShot A10 finally died last month. It was the first digital camera I owned, and got me started on the hobby that now fills most of these pages. It was a Christmas gift from my parents back in 2001, when Becca was pregnant with Eva. Digital cameras were just entering the mainstream, and the A10 had proud printing on the front announcing "1.3 MEGA PIXELS".

Although it's technically far inferior to the cameras I use now, it took some of my absolute favorite photos. A small selection is below.

Eva's morning routine podcast

For us and Eva, getting ready in the morning has been a daily struggle. We are constantly cajoling and browbeating her to stay on task and do the various things she needs to do between 7:00 and 7:30 before she comes down. We tried a bunch of different things -- checklists, reminders -- but nothing seemed to work.

Bid For Brother!

A snapshot of Eva's thoughts on Noah.

Noah's spring conference report

Noah's spring conference was today. Another amazingly long report from Aline.

Noah's winter conference report

Aline, Noah's teacher in the Green Room, put together such a long conference report that I did not have time to scan it all.

Noah's conference report

We have conferences with Noah's teachers twice a year.

Happy Birthday, Eva!

Eva just turned seven.

Life with Eva is a drawing room comedy

Scene 1: Upstairs, Eva and mom.

Eva: I think dad is making crepes.

Mom: Mmmm, crepes sound good!

Scene 2: Downstairs, Eva and dad.

Eva: What's for breakfast?

What does Noah do all day?

You know you've wondered.

Eva in pundit mode

Eva hardly ever sees us watch TV -- we usually only watch movies, and only after she's in bed. So she was intrigued to see us glued to the TV during the Democratic National Convention.

She would have preferred to watch Dora the Explorer, but any TV is better than no TV, so she watched a bunch of the speeches. Here are a couple of her better remarks:

• Noah, we need to turn off this convention. All it is is people saying, Barack Obama will make oil cheaper.
• [After someone in the room said that McCain was smart:] John McCain?!? He is so unsmart. All he does is copy George Bush.

Travelin' Daddy

Eva and Noah both like a song called "Travelin' Daddy". Here is Eva singing it:

Exercise-induced anaphylaxis

Meg is Eva's Kindergarten teacher. One morning, while another parent was dropping off his child, he was chatting with Meg and mentioned that he had been up all night looking after his neighbor's kids. The neighbor had been ill and had to be rushed to the hospital.

Silliness

Eva was in a super silly mood today. A couple of funny things she said:

1. Lying on the sofa, reading a Christmas catalog, with her feet on my lap: "It's good to be tall, because you can read a magazine and have a foot massage at the other end."

2. Driving to a party, talking about housesitters: "When we go away [for Christmas], we will have someone come watch our house. And they will have someone watch their house, and that person will have someone watch their house, and that person will have someone watch their house, and that person will have someone watch their house, and that person will have someone watch their house, and only the last person will have to work, and that person is a tramp."

At least we can still rewind.

For Eva's first birthday, I gave her a remote control. A classic selfish gift, it was intended to keep her from grabbing and chewing on mine.

Noah inherited it when he started showing the same interests (grabbing and chewing). Yesterday, Rebecca noticed that Noah, holding the remote, had something in his mouth. It turned out to be the Play button, one of two he had bitten off.

"Wow, Eva," I said, "you never managed to chew a button off this remote." She replied, "I'm not the chewing type."

I'm cute, now give me some pizza

The morning show on a local radio station has an ongoing feature where they ask kids to write a letter about "why I love my teacher". If they choose your letter to be read on the air, your class gets a pizza party (hosted by the three DJs themselves -- got to love local radio).

You shall have your veng-e-ance

Eva's new "thing" when she gets really mad at me is to do her patented angry face and loudly call me "Lord Cucuface". Those familiar with the Madeline books will recognize the reference.

Where have we been?

Apologies for the long gap since the last update. A lot of stuff has been happening. Not least of which, we moved to Cape Elizabeth (a suburb across the Fore River from Portland) in October. Since then, I've taken only a few pictures and haven't had time to select any for the website.

Two quick announcements

First: a new DVD is available. "Summer 2006" contains all photos from July to September. If you would like a copy, please let me know.

Second: following zero requests, I have added RSS feeds to the site. This means that if you use an RSS aggregator (Bloglines, NetNewsWire, Thunderbird, Safari RSS, etc.), you can include this site and see changes when they are posted.

Noah Hilton Abbott

Noah was born at 6:18 this morning. He weighed 8 pounds, 9 ounces.

Eva's conference report

At Eva's school, The Children's Center, teachers prepare reports on each child twice a year for parent conferences.

Pirates and Thorazine

Eva: What do pirates say?

Mark: They say "arrr", "booty", and "avast".

Eva: Why?

RBB in the Portland Press-Herald

A couple of weeks ago, Becca told me about a crazy case she had. Today, it was written up in the Maine Sunday Telegram, the Sunday edition of the Portland Press Herald.

Eva likes to go first

Eva: Do you need a tissue?

Becca: Yes.

Eva: OK, I'll get two tissues, and I can have the first, and you can have the next.

Becca: Actually, I really need a tissue. Can I have the first tissue?

Eva: OK. There will be two firsts, and I will have the first first, and you will have the next first.

Doppelgangers

Because I have a 401(k) with Fidelity, I get this cheesy magazine once a quarter. When I got the last issue, I was shocked to see Eva on the cover.

This is not a blog

This weekend, I saw my sister Joanna, who had a number of criticisms about the revised site layout. One of her big complaints was the "Blog" section. Joanna knows a lot more about blogs than I do -- she has a blog of her own at http://www.livejournal.com/users/joanna_abbott/. So she spent a few minutes schooling Rebecca and me.

My little online journal, I realized, is not really a blog. People can't respond to my posts. There are no "social networking" features like on LiveJournal...

To do: add badly-implemented blog

All web sites eventually implement blogs.