The Energy to get a kid into the bath is equal to get a kid out of the bath, which is greater than the Energy to power 10,000 homes.

We do have a video camera, and it has more features than I’ll ever use, but it uses mini tapes, and it’s difficult to capture the video on computer to edit or publish here. It’s also not as ultra-portable as the Mino Flip HD. I’ve been interested in it ever since I saw David Pogue review it on The New York Times “Circuits” show a few months ago.

The package includes a soft pouch and wrist strap, plus composite cables for quick playback on your TV set (but that’d be in SD, obviously, given the cable). The product itself is well-designed in terms of UI, stripping down the feature set to only the bare essentials. It has only the most minimal controls, to make video capture simple.

I took two quick test videos, one of Sophie and one of Sammy. The first test video, of Sophie, quickly showed that I don’t have a steady hand and should really use the tripod.

For the second test video, I used the tripod, which helped the stability a lot.

The light wasn’t great for either test, and it looks like the Flip did a better job of handling low light conditions than our handheld Canon camcorder.

The Flip does capture in HD (see below for specs), and it was very simple to use the built-in USB to transfer the videos to my computer. After installing the software (automatic the first time you attach the Flip to your PC), transfer only took a few seconds.

The supplied “FlipShare” software is a little too stripped down. While it has very basic editing (titles, clip beginning and end, organize clips into a single movie, add music) and has functions for uploading to YouTube and other sites, there’s not enough control over the file conversion.

My one minute Sophie sample file was 70 megs in the native MP4 (H.264/AAC) file format, at 1280 by 720 resolution. FlipShare can convert to WMV on a PC (or apparently to MOV on a Mac). So I had it convert for me, but the version it produced for sharing via e-mail or uploading to a web site was 10 megs, in 640 by 360. It didn’t offer me an option to change that resolution or compress further. Ten megs a minute isn’t bad, but is too big a file size for uploading here to zeigen.com.

The YouTube upload is seamless, however, and it’s painless to embed (plus I don’t have to pay for hosting — thanks, Google!). The first test is below.

See, I wasn’t kidding about the jerky video. Sophie is now 18 months old.

Overall I haven’t used the Mino Flip HD enough to give a full review but I’m cautiously optimistic.

• raging keg party
• redecorate house with a “Lord of the Rings” theme
• teach Sophie (now 18 months old) how to play poker
• all fast food, all the time
• see how high I can pile up dirty dishes in three days

In other news, Sophie has a new word! That’s the good news. The bad news is that the word is “no.” Except it really should be written as “NOOOO.”

Now, more than 50 years later, someone should write a book about any eight random senators that we have today, listing all the pork and entitlements and gerrymandering they fought for, while promoting politics as usual. It should be written in list format, in the world's ugliest font. Call it Profiles in Courier.

So, this is for you, Barbara…

Not the greatest shot, I know. (The one I liked best is next.) But this is the one Sammy wanted to give you.

Sophie has become a much more vocal (and strident!) babbler. In the last couple of weeks she’s learned how to sit up by herself, and she can roll over adeptly now, but still no crawling. She’s moved from baby food level 1 to 2 to 3 to real solid food quickly, and in just two days went from being unable to pick up a piece of cereal to mastering the pincer movement pretty much right on.

The other night as Kimi gave her a bath, she started splashing the water and cracking herself up. Over and over and over.

This last weekend for Father’s Day we joined up with Kyrie, Jack and Andy and headed up to Pier 39 for lunch at a crab place and a visit to the Aquarium of the Bay. A better father’s day I can’t imagine.

* * *

While I was feting twins, Kimi took Sammy and Sophie to the Hiller Airplane Museum, which never gets old for Sammy.

Me: Sammy, what did you see at the airplane museum today?
Sammy: Airplanes.
Me: What kind of airplanes?
Sammy: Old airplanes. With wings!

* * *

Yesterday was Sophie’s eight month birthday. She babbles incessantly now, has the tiniest of teeth buds coming in, gives a smile to everyone, likes to wave somewhat erratically at people, and can roll over, but seems to show no interest in crawling. We’ve started the ferberizing to break her of her 3 a.m. feedings, and so far so good; she slept through the night for the last two nights.

* * *

Yesterday was also photo day at Sammy and Sophie’s school, and in addition, teachers’ lunch out for Sophie’s class. This semi-annual event asks the parents to donate their time and a little money for the teachers to get an escape, while parents come in during the lunch hour to watch the kids. There are eight kids in Sophie’s class, ranging from four months to almost a year old. For the noon to 1 shift where I helped out, we had five parents. When we first started our shift, the teachers had left us well-fed, happy, clean-diapered kids. Within about, oh, ten minutes, half of the kids were bawling, and most had dirty diapers. We parents just looked at each other and laughed. What a profoundly difficult job. The two teachers handle four infants each, with aplomb. We parents were having difficulty with less than two each. Things soon settled down though, and the hour ended up flying by.

* * *

While the photographers set up outside the school and we lined the kids up to have their individual and class photos taken, smoke and haze filled the sky from the nearby Santa Cruz mountains fire. Yesterday morning over 3,400 acres had burned, dozens of homes were destroyed, and the fire was less than 1% contained. Even though we were fifty miles away, kids rubbed their eyes and coughed; and the strange air reminded me of a smell from my childhood, in London: walking down the street in winter evenings, with seemingly every house having a fireplace with a blazing wood fire, smoke pouring out of chimneys, getting on your clothes.

Chim chimminee, chim chiminee, chim chim cheroo.

I was very glad to see the unexpected and unseasonable light rain today, giving the firefighters the break they needed to control the mountain blaze. The dull weather was not so much fun for five-year-olds attending a birthday party, but everything in life is a trade-off.

* * *

Earlier in the week, I caught Speed Racer and then snuck in to a showing of Prince Caspian. It took me about thirty minutes to catch on to Speed Racer’s vibe, but once I did, I loved it. I think this is a vastly underrated movie. The critical smackdown is somewhat intense; I guess most of the critics never watched the original cartoon, because I think the movie catches the goofy tone of the movie pretty much perfectly. And the visuals do not disappoint, exceeding even the hype.

Prince Caspian, on the other hand, is a dreadful bore, missing all spark of charm and whimsy of the first Narnia movie, laying the religious theme on over-thick, and really missing the point of the book (which I read probably twenty times before I was 12).

Speed Racer is over two hours but feels like 60 minutes. Prince Caspian is over two hours but feels like three or four.

* * *

Rob and I have been playing a new card game, Race for the Galaxy (which Steve and Larry introduced me to when they visited a couple of months ago). We play whenever we get a chance. I love this game. It’s a bit fiddly to learn, and the fact that you’re not directly interacting with your opponents takes a few plays before you understand how you can actually have a huge effect on your opponents’ play — but it’s such a short and intense game, I find myself even dreaming about it. Get this game!

* * *

Kimi gave me the new Flight of the Conchords CD for my birthday (among a lot of other CDs, thanks sweetie!). Although I loved the first season of the HBO show, I had thought some of the songs were hit or miss. But I was able to really listen to the lyrics (thanks to the iPhone making it easier for me to carry around music), and now I love all the songs. Buy this CD. Please mister, you won’t regret it.

* * *

There’s a friends-and-family deal at TiVo right now for a TiVo HD. If you’re a friend or family and want a new HD DVR, drop me an e-mail.

* * *

While I do aim to generate content, rather than pass along content from elsewhere, here’s a link. I have to say I applaud these two for their convictions and avocation.
* * *

Kimi: “Your blog is so random. No one likes all the content. No one!”

Guilty — variegated miscellany is what this is. I do tend to be all over the place. Everything’s connected, somehow. Just think though — there are half of the categories listed on the right not even touched by this post. But comments are what I like best, so let me know what you’d like to see more of, and less of.

On Thursday last week, one of Sammy’s teacher’s reported that Sammy had a condition that I will not describe in detail (this being a family blog). Friday it continued, even causing an accident on the floor at one point. But then he was better. Friday night, Kimi gave me a break and I snuck off to see Iron Man (thoughts on that later). Saturday morning, Sammy woke me up at 5:45 and I felt miserable, my stomach in knots, weak, in pain. I soon discovered I was suffering from that same unmentionable condition as Sammy.

Now, previously, Kimi had worried that handling the burden of watching the kids mostly solo (while she recovered from the back surgery of two weeks ago) was too much for me, but I dismissed her concerns. After all, I had handled the first weekend all right, right?

(I had taken Sammy and Sophie to Happy Hollow on Saturday, and we went out all day Sunday as well. For once, work on Monday felt more relaxing than the weekend…)

But now Kimi was right, the lack of sleep and Sammy’s bug had caught up with me, and I hadn’t arranged any backup. I was too exhausted to call around much, but our usual fallbacks for help with kid care were either out of town or dealing with their own kids. So, Kimi, despite recovering from back surgery, stepped up while I recuperated, and John and Yvonne helped by taking Kimi and Sophie out to a rummage sale in the morning while Sophie and I slept. Then Kimi took Sophie in the afternoon while Sammy and I napped. By the late afternoon, I finally had started to feel better. I didn’t eat a thing all day. On Sunday, I was still a bit weak, and still dealing with the condition, but was mostly better. (The only thing I ate on Sunday was half a rice cracker.)

Kimi was now exhausted, however; still, she kept Sophie while I took Sammy for an abbreviated version of our usual morning cafe-and-Farmer’s-Market routine, picking up some food for a barbecue with Rob and Kelly at noon. (Which was fun.) We all took it easy that afternoon.

Alas, the bug that had bit Sammy and me then got to Kimi at around four in the morning on Monday. Only she got it much worse than either of us. After I dropped the kids off at daycare Monday morning, her condition had got much worse. She was alternating between being unable to get warm from chills and unable to cool down from hot flashes. She wasn’t able to keep food or even water down, and was in so much pain that Urgent Care was the only option. They saw us right away, which gave me hope, but then it was so inefficient: First a nurse took her vitals. Then wait 20 minutes in the room. Then another nurse for more vitals. Wait 20 more minutes. Doctor finally comes in, asks all the same questions. He gets called away (it is an emergency room after all). Wait 20 more minutes. He comes back, resumes exam. Decides it’s the same stomach bug. Writes an order for anti-nausea shot. Wait 20 minutes. Nurse comes in to give shot. Wait 20 more minutes. Doctor comes back to re-examine. Writes a prescription for anti-cramping. Kimi convinces him she needs a pain-killer, so he grudgingly orders some vicodin. Wait 20 minutes. Wait 20 more minutes. Meanwhile Kimi is moaning and shivering from the pain (although no longer nauseous). I go looking for a nurse for the pain. Finally she arrives, Kimi takes the pill, we get a wheelchair, off to the pharmacy, then finally to the temporary home so she can sleep. I’m still a bit weak (plus it’s been weeks since the kids have slept through the night — the 3am and 4am back-to-back wakeups are really getting to me), so I grab a couple of hours before it’s time to get the kids. So much for work on Monday.

Today we’re all better, finally, so that’s a relief. And both kids slept through the night last night (well, at least they did after 10pm — before that, not so much). And even better, Sophie slept in until 6:30am and Sammy until 7am, so everyone had eight hours.

Twenty-four hour stomach flu bugs — put them on your list of things to avoid.

* * *

This next part I wrote a week ago but never got around to publishing.

* * *

Last Wednesday, Kimi and I checked in with our contractor to see how the house reconstruction was going. They’ve been at work for a week, and in that time have removed all the carpet and old flooring down to the foundation (revealing far more cracks and patchwork than we had imagined even pessimistically), knocked open the walls we’re removing, and removed the shower in the master bath where they was extensive dry rot and termite damage.

Sammy was with us, because he was in a weepy mood and didn’t want to be left with the sitter; he seemed to take it all in stride, asking (as he frequently does these days), “What’s that!?” with great interest as each barely-recognizable-room was explored.

It’s been a bit challenging to live in one big room for the past few weeks as Kimi recovers from her back surgery on April 22. The good news is that Kimi’s back pain is gone, and she’s recovering from the surgery well (after being initially underprescribed for painkillers). She’s still supposed to be taking far more bed rest than she actually does, and for another week she’s not allowed to drive, and for five more weeks no bending, twisting, or lifting anything more than 8 pounds.

* * *

I took a fair number of pictures from the Happy Hollow expedition on Saturday, April 26. It’s conceivable I might actually load them and publish a couple. Suffice to say a great variety of happy experiences were enjoined. Except for me keeping him out long past his normal nap time, which caused quite a host of difficulties for the rest of the day.

* * *

Kimi: [reading from a new book about Africa, picked up at Sunday's rummage sale]: This is a picture of a pygmy hippopotamus. Can you believe there used to be hippos that small? There used to be a lot of them in Madagascar, but now they’re all gone.

Sammy: Now they’re pretend.

* * *

Update, 12:40am Wednesday: Sophie’s turn. She just went through three cycles of throw-up/clean-up and is now out of clean pajamas. She seems to be in good spirits, despite all the vomit. She is now on my lap wrapped in a towel, while I wait to see if she throws up a fourth time, babbling happy noises that sound suspiciously like “uh-oh.”

Sophie gave us a wonderful present last night: I took her with me to drop John and Yvonne off at the airport at 10pm (their flight was delayed 3 hours, yeowtch), and she slept from then until around 7am. Nine hours is her longest stretch of sleep by a huge margin. She’s not quite ready to sleep through the night regularly (she just woke up a bit ago, for example, and needed a bottle). But man, I am very pleased she’s starting to be able to sleep for so long.

Kimi pointed out to me that Sammy had started a new game with her, his way of telling a joke: He’ll rhyme a word with another word when answering a question, and laugh uproariously. “Sammy, ready for bed?” “Yes mess!”

At bedtime, when we’re done with the stories and I turn out the light, I always tell him, “Time for sleeping. Head on the pillow. No more talking.” (That’s in addition to the gushy stuff about who loves him.) Tonight, it was “No more talking, no more walking” and he thought that was hilarious.

Okay, I’m rambling now. Night! Merry Christmas!

This morning Kimi went to Sophie’s upcoming classroom’s Christmas party. (Sophie will be joining the “Butterfly” room at the Children’s Preschool Center in Palo Alto starting mid January.)

Yesterday, Kimi went to Sammy’s CPSC classroom’s Christmas party (he’s in the “Hummingbird” room).

Last week Kimi and I went to TiVo’s Christmas party.

I think that’s it for parties until Christmas itself.

Kimi dressed Sophie for the occasion and I have to say, as biased as I am, I think she looks adorable. She’s starting to smile a lot more, although not reliably enough that I’ve been able to catch it well in a picture.

You can’t really tell in the picture, but Sophie has some infant skin conditions. There’s her “cradle cap,” which is a euphemism for all kinds of crusty gunk on her scalp. There are her “angel kisses,” which is a euphemism for blotchy red skin on her face. There’s her “stork bite” which is a euphemism for a bunch of red bruising around her left eye (birth trauma, a side effect of her rapid delivery). All of it should fade in a few months. She’s definitely filling out, much like Sammy did at the same age — she’s really pudgy! Almost 12 pounds now.

At 12 pounds, an infant can start possibly sleeping through the night. Sophie’s not to that point yet regularly, but she is starting to sleep in 5 hour blocks now. She’s had 1 or 2 nights where she slept for 8 hours. Not consistent yet, though. Sleep glorious sleep, how I miss you.

We had our friend Howard over on Sunday for a quick visit; he brought his son Ethan and his twins Brian and Katie with him. Sammy had a great time. Howard, who works for Pixar, was impressed by Sammy’s Cars paraphernalia: Sammy was wearing his Cars shirt, Cars shoes, and had his Cars jacket nearby, and was playing with his Cars speedway. (“Speed? I am speed!” “You’re one gutsy racer!” Repeat ad infinitum.)

Good thing we didn’t show Howard the Cars towel, Cars socks, and all the other Cars toys. But anyway, Howard was telling me about the first year after his twins were born, and how crushing the exhaustion and sleep deprivation was for that entire first year. I have to say as hard as it is having a 2 year old and a 2 month old, at least we’re not dealing with twins. I am in awe just thinking of it.

In contrast, Sophie needed feeding at 3am, 5am, 6am and 7am. So Kimi didn’t get much sleep.

Sophie’s sleeping calmly now, and Kimi’s napping (I napped earlier). Having Jen relieve us for naps is great. Jen’s on vacation Thursday and Friday, however, so the next four days it’s just the four of us.

Today, Monday, October 1, begins the second week of my paternity leave, and Sophie is now eight days old. She’s starting to fill out a bit. The bruising around her eye (from her quick entrance into the world) is starting to fade. She’s been a great sleeper. In the photo here, Natalia (Talia) is holding her. Talia is our nanny Jen’s daughter, and she and Sammy are great friends. Having a nanny has made things a lot easier on us than when Sammy was born; Jen is a lifesaver.

Sammy has been very resistant to napping and has been throwing fits at bedtime. We’re trying to spend as much time with him as we did before Sophie arrived, but I know it’s a very confusing transition for him to welcome someone new into the home.

Tonight we’re going to have Tom, Jennifer and Miranda (Kimi’s uncle’s family) over for dinner, and Kimi’s cooking now. She wasn’t able to cook much in the last few months of her pregnancy, and I think she really missed it. It smells delicious!

Fortunately we are having John and Yvonne over for dinner. Our neighbours Corey and Denetra (with their daughter Kaitlin) dropped off some delicious manicotti for us.

We also had John and Yvonne over yesterday, on Saturday, when Sophie was a bit more awake.

My favorite part of today was when Kimi, Sammy, Sophie (in a baby bjorn) and I took a walk around the neighborhood, a full family.

My least favorite part of today involved bodily fluids. Lots of bodily fluids. Let’s just say that my newborn-diaper-changing skills need practice. And the other part was when Sophie expelled pretty much all the milk she’d just had — we were probably trying to feed her too much, because at her checkup today she only weighed 6 pounds and 4 ounces. She was 6 pounds 15 ounces at birth, and 6 pounds 5 ounces when we left the hospital on Tuesday. So with all the feedings and everything, she still lost an ounce in two days. We’ve got to reverse that trend ASAP. Other than that, Sophie’s checkup went well. We love her pediatrician, Dr. Patricia Samson. Kimi’s milk come in this morning, and Sophie just had a big feeding, so we’ll see how things go from here.

Another major milestone today was Sammy was dropped off at school (by me, fumbling my way through the dropoff procedures) and stayed there by himself for the first time. Not a full day yet, but the head teacher said he did really well (after he bawled a bit when I left him). I was very impressed by the classroom, the teachers, the procedures, and Sammy’s classmates. Some of his class seem a bit behind him, but one little girl was so incredibly verbal: coming up to me and asking me if I was Sammy’s dad, and inviting Sammy to play with her — all using complete sentences. Sammy’s got some competition. He took home some polaroids of him playing with trucks and looking at toy fire engines, and told me had fun and likes school.

I think he really gets that Sophie is here to stay.

I’m way behind on putting up some photos and writing up Sophie’s birth, but there’s one photo from yesterday that leaves me breathless. I’m pretty tired so I’ll just put up the one for tonight. My thoughts are with you all, and we’d welcome some visitors if you’re in the area.

I used the “Email Photo” feature to send a photo (the first one I included in the blog entry below, the one with Kimi and Sophie taken minutes after Sophie was born). I heard the “whoosh” sound to say the e-mail was sent. But it didn’t get delivered, didn’t get put into my Yahoo mail Sent folder, no error messages no nothing. I don’t even have a record of who I need to apologize to.

I don’t know if it’s the iPhone’s fault or AT&T’s fault or Yahoo’s fault, but in testing right now it’s totally random whether the photos I mail get delivered or not.

I at least called my immediate relatives to tell them the news, but some of my cousins — Mark, Tracy — and closest friends — Howard, Ken, Bob, John and many others — never got the news or photo.

In testing earlier, only 2 of my 10 test picture mails arrived (all going to the same address). But just now 2 out of 2 were delivered fine. In perhaps related news, different apps (photo, iPod) seem to be crashing a lot. My iPhone is unmodified if that makes a difference.
There’s a lesson about reliance on new technology in there somewhere. But I’m too furious to see it right now.

We had Jen bring Sammy to meet his sister at lunchtime today. Sophie’s been sleeping soundly and eating well. We couldn’t be happier.