Daley Ponderings

Jonathan has gradually corrected his mispronunciation of words as he gets older. The two remaining sounds he has trouble with are hard "G" and "C/K." Around last week, he said "car" correctly. When he thinks about it, he can do it, and he likes to over-emphasise the ccckkk. He still says... (More)

It seems as if Noah is giving us real smiles now. He also is moving his hands and arms more purposefully. Noah really dislikes wet diapers. He seems like the perfect baby to start trying infant potty training with - now I just need to jump in and do it! (You can search for "elimination... (More)

Jonathan seems to think that a baseball glove is for throwing the ball as well as catching it. I told him that if he wanted to throw a ball with a tool, he should get a lacrosse stick, it would work better than a glove. He then asked why a "cross like we have upstairs" (I think he was referring... (More)

Sunday, May 21st, on the way home from church, we saw what a gorgeous day it was and we wanted to go for a sail. We ate a quick lunch and then I took a nap while Jon and Jonathan prepared a picnic dinner and got the boat ready. We were all ready at the same time, and we headed off to the river.... (More)

Good advice: if you're tired, make yourself get some exercise, even (or especially) if you're pregnant! I have observed before that I feel better when I am getting exercise, but for some reason I have lacked motivation to be consistent. Jon has been bugging me a lot about exercising, mostly I... (More)

This is the hardest one I have ever worked on. [ Update 10/24/2006: thanks to you all reading this post and posting other links, I have since found more interesting ones -- look through the comments - the one posted on October 9th appears to be pretty hard, though maybe I just made a mistake on... (More)

Don't ever name your child the same name as you. It confuses everyone, from doctors to insurance carriers to airlines. USAir and United won't let me check-in online any more, since it can't figure out what to do with Jonathan and me. We both have different frequent flyer numbers, but it is... (More)

I got a notification from a credit bureau today saying that a new account had been opened by: Verizon Pen, PO BOX 165018, COLUMBUS, OH 43216. Since I haven't changed phone service since last year, it seemed odd that there would be a new account from Verizon.My mortgage company had their backup... (More)

Jonathan's favorite bits recently are Fluorine, Estonia, Great Gray Owl. I'm pretty sure he does know the Estonian flag, but he has now started this game where he goes through them and calls them all "Estonia." I think he just likes to say the word! But yesterday, he was doing that,... (More)

I wrote it out formally about a year ago but it never got onto the blog. So below is the story. I'll post a comment on Jonathan's first post with a link to this one. Jonathan's Gentle Birth by Heather Daley This is Jonathan's birth story, but to really appreciate it, the... (More)

Guess how hard it is to get phone numbers off of the federal do not call list? You just have to ask, and they will give it to you for no charge (up to five area codes). No verification of the registration information is required, so feel free to sign up as many times as you like with random... (More)

I was talking with a friend the other day about grandmothers knitting and sweaters they give for Christmas. Her comment was, "I loved my grandma, but those things were hideous." Then I related how I always loved the things my grandma knitted for me. I was just thinking about it again recently.... (More)

Well, I followed the directions on one of those "speed up firefox" pages, and found a setting that broke stuff, at least minimally, and it was hard to diagnose. The symptom was a red line through the padlock icon when viewing an ssl page that I wrote in PHP. If I reloaded the page, it would go... (More)

Mom found this house while canoeing in the Merrimack River, and thinks it is just perfect for us. It does look great! There is a lot of land (13 acres) and a lovely place for the Black Rabbit to launch from. We have gotten used to Pittsburgh housing prices, so anything is a shock, but this... (More)

We recently switched our automobile insurance to State Farm, because Amica doubled their rates on our homeowners policy, a bait-and-switch sort of thing - they told me the estimated rate, and I agreed, spent a month trying to get the inspector to come look at the house.The only thing he pointed... (More)