Last week, all four of us packed into the car and drove to North Carolina. That’s about a 10 hour trip with no stops. All in all, we made the trip in about 13 hours or so. That’s pretty good, I think.

Ever since Chris and Toni moved south a couple years back, they’ve been inviting us to come down to see their new digs and visit. With the whole pregnancy-thing blossoming into the newborn and then baby-things, it was tough to find a good time to travel. We finally bit the bullet and made the decision to go.[readmore]

We left at 10am on Thursday, May 16th planning to get to the Richmond, VA area that afternoon and meet one of Robyn’s Twins Mom internet message board friends and her family for dinner. Right from the start things seemed to go well. The new portable DVD player that we had purchased was keeping the kids entertained and relatively quiet and the recently arrived [amazon=B000NVZE5M]GPS unit[/amazon] was taking us on an unexpected, but more direct and definitely faster, route. Our first stop came after about 4 hours or so and landed us at a McDonald’s in Havre De Grace, MD. We stopped, stretched our legs, hit the bathrooms (I couldn’t hold the coffee that I had had that morning any longer, so this stop was mainly for me!) and got something to eat before getting back on the road. I believe we got as far as south D.C before making a quick stop to call Robyn’s friend and let her know where we were and give her our estimated arrival time. Then it was back in the car and through the thickening traffic until we made our last stop just outside of Richmond in order to get gas and let the kids cool down. We arrived at our very nice hotel in Chester, VA at about 5pm. Since we were going to meet Angie and her family for dinner, we didn’t have time to do anything but get our stuff into the room, change the kids’ diapers and tidy up a bit before heading back out.

It was nice to have dinner with Angie, her husband and kids. Although we had never met in person, there was the shared experience of having boy/girl twins and all that goes along with it. Her kids were certainly the most polite three year olds I’d ever met, saying lots of “pleases”, “sirs” and “ma’ams” throughout the meal. Chloe was keeping me on my toes and it really wasn’t until the very end of dinner that I got a chance to shove my meal into my face.

The hotel stay (which was one of the things that was worrying me most about the whole trip) went really well. Chloe and Gabriel were really wound up, so they didn’t get to sleep until about 11pm. But once they were out, they slept soundly through the night until almost 8am the next day. We couldn’t have been more happy and impressed with our kids.

After a quick breakfast, it was time to pack the car and get back on the road. Unfortunately, Friday did not go quite as well as the day before. The kids were just sick of being in the car and watching the same Elmo DVD over and over again (we had others, but they didn’t want anything to do with a non-Elmo DVD!) so we made several stops throughout the day. Our arrival time at Chris and Toni’s was about 3pm on Friday. A little later than expected, but not too bad.

[b]Lessons Learned[/b]
[list]
[*]GPS is a MUST-HAVE for long trips to unknown areas with children
[*]GPS will get you where you want to go. It’s like The Force – trust it even if it seems to be taking you in the wrong direction!
[*]In-car DVD player is a MUST-HAVE for long trips with children
[*]Always have more than one Elmo DVD for long trips with children
[*]Don’t drink a large Dunkin’ Donuts coffee before leaving on a long trip with children
[*]Chloe and Gabriel will sleep anywhere
[/list]
[/readmore]

Now that the kids are watching some TV and we’re liking the 15 or so minutes that [readmore] it gives us to get stuff done around the house it’s the perfect time for the little LCD display with built-in DVD player that we’ve got in our bedroom to go on the fritz and stop playing DVDs! It will play some disks with almost no problem – sometimes there is a little stutter here and there, but nothing too bad while some do not even load to the menu – particularly the Baby Einstein DVDs that we would rather the kids watch. We purchased the extended warranty when we bought the TV a couple of years ago. I don’t generally buy these warranties on consumer electronics, but the salesman seemed pretty sincere when he told us that the built-in DVD player [i]will[/i] stop working and that this would entitle us to a replacement.

I guess it’s time to see if Circuit City stands behind their extended warranty plan.[/readmore]

[list]
[*][url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1568984480/bujinkanmartia0b/]Thinking with Type[/url] is a great introduction to typography. There is a whole culture around type usage and type design that I never knew existed. Sure, I love to download fonts, but this book, I think, has made me a bit of a font snob. I feel like a few good fonts is all we really need (and as web designers/developers/publishers, we really can only rely on a few) rather than the bloated list that now resides on my machines. So, now I know what [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descender]descenders[/url] and [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascender]ascenders[/url] are and the differnce between [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Em_(typography)]ems[/url] and [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_(typography)]ens[/url]. The author also goes beyond just type itself to discuss the methods of using it to create or enhance the material that is to be printed. It’s really a great book that has opened my eyes to a [url=http://www.ilovetypography.com]world[/url] that I never knew existed.
[*][url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1416552510/bujinkanmartia0b/]Duma Key[/url] by Stephen King. I seem to be on a bit of a King roll lately. I decided to read this after having read some good reviews on Amazon. I’m glad I did. It’s a tidy little story about a man who loses his arm (and nearly his life) in an accident and “retires” to a little island in the Florida keys to recover. As you can imagine, crazy shit starts to go down. Interestingly, King chose to tell this story in the first person. I’m not sure how often he has done that before, but I can’t think of any that I’ve read up to now. Short stories, yes, but not a whole book. As usual, his characters are so well written and mostly likeable that I read through the whole thing rather quickly. I’d recommend that you take this book with you on a beach vacation.
[*][url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590595335/bujinkanmartia0b/]DOM Scripting: Web Design with JavaScript and the Document Object Model[/url] – I bought this book a while back but never really made it through the whole thing. I guess I filled my brain on the first two chapters alone and didn’t need to continue for a while. It’s been sitting on my shelf mocking me, taunting me “Come on you loser, you want to know more about getElementsbyId and what makes that shitty [url=http://www.jquery.com]jQuery[/url] code that you’ve been playing with tick.” Ehhh…yeah, so that’s what happens while I’m in my office and my mind wanders.
[*][url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553287893/bujinkanmartia0b/]Rendezvous with Rama[/url] – In tribute to the recent passing of Arthur C. Clarke, I decided to sit down to a few of his more popular novels. This one was on the top of the list. What can I say, the man was a genius and wrote like I would expect a genius to write.
[/list]

As mentioned [url=http://don.oninohana.com/blog/?postid=276]a few entries back[/url], Chloe is really starting to talk. Although the “Me make poo poo” thing may have been a misunderstanding. The next day after the first spoke those words, the said the same thing a few times, but this time she was pointing at Gabriel’s shirt that had Winnie the Pooh printed on it.

“Me make poo poo” = “Winnie the Pooh (poo)”

Yes, Gabriel and Chloe tend to add an extra “poo” on the end of the famous bear’s name. That’s always good for some laughs.

Anyway, as I was saying she is really making strides with her language. One of her recent catchphrases that just cracks me up everytime I hear it is “Down me”. This indicates that she wants to get down from somewhere. I’m not really sure what I find to be so funny about it…maybe it’s her tone of voice. It’s kind of monotone and she tends to speak her little sentences very quickly.

Gabriel is steadily advancing as well, but lately, he’s been letting his hands do the talking. He’s taken to hitting and pulling Chloe’s hair whenever he wants to get our attention or take something with which she’s currently playing. This was a stage that he went through several months ago that luckily passed pretty quickly, but now it’s back with a vengeance. Yesterday, he got six time-outs for misbehaving. Oh yeah, we’re trying to use short time-outs as suggested by our pediatrician. I’m not sure that he understands the concept yet as they don’t seem to be leading to any changes in his behavior.

Any suggestions from my faithful readers?

Against all odds and to our great surprise, we’ve managed to avoid using TV and DVDs to keep Chloe and Gabriel entertained until late last week. That’s almost 20 months with no television (for the kids). We’ve been watching all along although at a MUCH diminished level as my two almost-full DVRs can attest. I can’t say that I miss it all that much. Sure, there are a few shows that I watch on a regular basis like Lost, Battlestar Galactica, Mythbusters and Dirty Jobs but almost everything else has fallen by the wayside.

Why have we waited so long? When Gabriel was discharged from the NICU, one of the doctors gave us the whole rundown on “how to be a good parent to a preemie” and his speech included the medical establishment’s recommendation that television not be a regular part of our childrens’ routine until they are about two years old. We laughed and the doctor, taking off his proverbial doctor-hat, said “I don’t know if this is possible, but you can try.” Lo and behold, we managed to almost make it to 24 months. Sure there were some Baby Einstein videos on now and again (especially when the kids were still little enough to sit in their bouncers) but we don’t really count that as “regular” watching of TV.

Since the only TV we have upstairs is in our room, we put up a gate and the kids sit or stand outside our bedroom door to watch. It’s a very cute scene to watch as they repeat the words they’re hearing or make animal noises when they see something they know on TV.

This was my birthday present.
[img]http://houlenberg.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=3318&g2_serialNumber=3[/img]
Ain’t she pretty? It’s been a while since I’ve used an SLR and I’ve never had the opportunity to use one with autofocus prior to playing around with a friend’s camera a few months back so I am amazed by the technology and versatility.

I got an SLR for Christmas one year (I think I was 14 or 15) when I was intent on becoming a photojournalist and was really into taking “ninja pictures”. In addition to just trying to take cool photographs, I liked the technical aspects and knowledge that were required. Finding the “right” shutter speed and aperture setting for the film and conditions and the desired outcome while maintaining focus and awareness of just when to find that perfect shot was, and still is, very exciting. I’m looking forward to really getting to know the camera and taking some great photos.

Robyn thinks that Chloe spoke her first “real” sentence today. [b]”Me make poopoo.”[/b] I don’t doubt it, the girl’s been talking up a storm lately.

I’ve gone desktop and I don’t think I’ll ever go back….

I’ve been loving Google Reader since I started using it last year, but I’ve been increasingly annoyed at it’s slow load times with large or frequently updated feeds and (few) display quirks in [url=http://www.opera.com]Opera[/url]. I already stopped using Gmail a couple months back in favor of my longtime Yahoo! Mail account once Yahoo added the ability to send using your own POP3 account. Yahoo has never failed me and I like the straightforward interface (I have not updated to the newer Outlook-style Yahoo mail).

So, while I had some time on Monday and Tuesday, I gave [url=http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/FeedDemon/Default.aspx]FeedDemon[/url] a try after reading several good reviews. I’ve never used a desktop RSS reader, so there was a little bit of a learning curve with the interface, but right away, I could see that this was much speedier and just as functional. Because I use a few different machines, I signed up for a [url=http://www.newsgator.com]Newsgator[/url] account in order to synch my feeds (which is what I really liked about Google’s app) for reading on another machine with FeedDemon installed or on the Web via NewsGator’s web-based reader with which I have barely played around. I can definitely say the synchronization works well and now that I’m accustomed to the interface, I really like it. There seems to be a lot of customization available including the ability to create command line scripts to send items to different services or save them to a file, etc.

Okay, one more Houlenbabies entry for today. BTW, I’m home all day yesterday and today watching the kids while Robyn does her training for her new outside-the-home job, so I’ve had some time to catch up on some stuff I’ve been wanting to get done, but mostly I’ve been playing with the kids and surfing the web.

After we put Chloe and Gabriel down for the night last night (actually, it’s barely night at 7:30pm anymore), the music from their little star projector stopped and it was quiet for a about 15 seconds. Usually during this time, we wait and listen for any rustling noises on the baby monitor that might indicate someone is still awake and is getting ready to let us know that we need to take some action to help one of more kids get to sleep. But last night it was quiet after the music stopped. A few more seconds elapsed and then Gabriel’s little deep voice was heard saying “All done.”

Robyn and I looked at each other and started quietly cracking up. It was quiet for the rest of the evning.

Robyn was wearing this shirt the other day
[img]http://www.oninohana.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=3314&g2_serialNumber=3][/img]
As a side note, she tells me that she wore this to bed every night for the duration of my trip to Japan last year…actually it was almost 2 years ago. Seems like just yesterday…. Anyway, while she was wearing it the other day, one of the kids pointed to the little sumo guy and said “Daddy”.

Gabriel now regularly calls his sister “Clokey”. It’s pretty much how he has pronounced her name for the last few months, but now he really calls her by name (or at least his name for her). It’s very cute.

We finally got the kids’ MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccinations last Friday. This is normally administered around 12 months, but we decided to put it off a bit. Back when we decided to do this, the doctor that we usually see at our pediatrician’s office was not very supportive of our decision and, in fact, gave us a stern talking to about who we should believe when it comes to medical journals and pharmaceutical research. Since that time, we have not been back to see that particular doctor. Instead, we’ve been seeing Dr. Walsh who is a mom of twins and (obviously) a woman. Overall, she’s been much more supportive of our decision to wait on some of the vaccines and seems to have a nice bedside manner.

I could get into the whole MMR-autism thing, but I won’t. We’re pretty much of the opinion that there is no link, but it’s very difficult to be in the position of having to make a single decision about a vaccine that could impact the lives of your children. When we initially agree that we would wait, the likely threat of measles seemed to be way off and not something with which we would have to deal. So, we were surprised when my mother in law called last week to tell us that she had just read that a baby, who had just returned to the States from Israel (and residing on Long Island) had been diagnosed with measles. After doing a little research, I found that the CDC had released a measles advisory for those travelling to Israel.

Now, for most, this would not be a big deal if you weren’t planning on going to Israel. Well, what are the odds of our unvaccinated children living right across the street from husband and wife flight attendents of Israeli origin who also happen to be living an “holistic” lifestyle and have not had their kids vaccinated either? Pretty low, right? So, we decided to get the vaccination a month ahead of our schedule.

Our kids are doing great.