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Lightsaber battle

A brief photo manipulation battle between us and my nephew Sam.

Drawing the news

The Atlantic has a great feature called In Focus which collects amazing photos of news events. They had some great ones after Hurricane Sandy, including this one:

Letter from camp

Eva's brief but enthusiastic letter from camp:

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.

Bid For Brother!

A snapshot of Eva's thoughts on Noah.

New web server

We have a new web server! Hopefully you will notice increased snappiness.

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.

Becca, in focus

Becca models compentency in this ad for Maine Med.

Hello, I would like to renew my subscription to Bad Dad magazine

Eva lost the cap for her self-inking stamp, and got frantic trying to find it, because she didn't want it to dry out. I suggested that she check whether it had rolled under the sofa. A few moments later, I heard her exclaim, with amazing calm but with that edge to her voice that instantly tells a parent a child has been hurt:

"Dad! I think someone left some snapping gum under there!"

Some recent quotes

After a neighbor's idling car left a puddle in the street
Dad:Lisa's car peed. [pause] No, not for real.
Becca: Cars don't have penises.
Noah: No. They only have wheels.

Google Maps: Global Warming Edition

Today, my iPod displayed the following disturbing map:

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?

Imponderables

Noah: "Daddy, do monsters have big penises?"

I did not have an answer for that.

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.

Noah's first sentences

One measure of cognitive development is sentence length: how many words a toddler uses in a sentence. So of course I made a mental note whenever Noah extended his sentence length: when he first used a sentence of three words, then of four, etc. Then, of course, I forgot; so I can't tell you what his first three-word sentence was or when he said it.

Here's what I know:

Four words was a few weeks ago: "Mommy eat yummy doughnut."

Five words: I don't remember.

Six words: On...

Happy Birthday, Eva!

Eva just turned six.

Eva's Lullaby for Noah

Eva spontaneously sang a rhyming lullaby to Noah. She and Rebecca later wrote this version down. Becca says the original was a lot better, with real rhymes instead of repetition, but I like it anyway.

My quilt on my wall
My lamp on my drawer
My cards of a matching game
Are all in the drawer

So go to sleep in the crib
That's been waiting just for you
Go to sleep in that wooden cradle
And it's been waiting for you

So time to lay down for the night
And count some sheep
Because everything is sleeping
And it's waiting for you to go to sleep

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).

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.

Noah Hilton Abbott

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

Pirates and Thorazine

Eva: What do pirates say?

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

Eva: Why?

Finally, #1 on Google

Yes, this site is the #1 match on Google. That's the good news. The bad news is that it's #1 for the search term clips of trebuchet launches.

bbott.org also shows up for videos of belly kisses, though not on the first several pages (of delightful porn links). Sadly, searching for mark abbott doesn't return anything until page 8 of the search results.

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.

New site design updated

After much feedback, I have updated the new site design. Here are the highlights:

• The front page is much simpler, as requested. (The previous version looked "like an Excel spreadsheet".)
• No one but me seems excited about having all the different types of content (Photos, Movies, etc.) interwoven on a single page, so this view has been removed from the main page and put on the "everything" link.
• Dates are now in a human-friendly format.
• Representative thumbnails have been added to the master list of Photos.
• Added a Projects category for Mark's programming projects.

I'll mention changes to the Blog in a separate post.

To do: add badly-implemented blog

All web sites eventually implement blogs.