Author: James

General

Happiest Baby On The Block

Karen and I watched the Happiest Baby On The Block last week.

In the DVD, Dr. Karp mentions that babies may have come a trimester early and hence cannot support its own head and need constant attention. Then he goes on to connect his own exercises with an experience of the baby while in the womb.

Dr. Karp starts the demonstration by manages to wrap the baby up really tightly like a cocoon, or a straight-jacket. It didn’t seem to have much effect because the baby cried much harder than before. Then he turns the baby on its side position, hisses in his ears so loudly to the baby is stunned, similar to the effect of a tazer, then proceed to shake the baby’s head like washing a bowl of rice. With the shaking, the baby is so distraunt with the movements that the baby cannot actively cry, and eventually tires and gives up Lastly, he introduces a break-through product and technique, called “using the pacifier”.

At the end of the day, some parents may wish to treat their baby’s head like a bowl of rice, but I prefer to use the loving methods, such as Crouching Tiger or the Waltz method. That way I can bond with my daughter, and get a workout in the process.

Kids

Odelia’s One Month Celebration!

Odelia’s surviving one month with Karen and I definitely deserved some celebration! Unfortunately Karen and I were busy gabbing with guests and didn’t have much time to take pictures, but here are a few moments from the video clips we did get.

During the whole time, Odelia was sleeping. Notice her cute, little sleeping pose with her hands on the side of her face.

Then there was the food…

And more food, with Emily and Grandma chatting…

And people enjoying the food, with Karen taking some photos in the background…

Carol first requested the privilege of holding Odelia. Unfortunately the hood not staying on the head prompted a premature ending to the holding session…

Here’s a demonstration of what it takes to request that holding privilege…

A few of our neighbors swung by…

As did Karen’s friends Niels and Erin…

Johnny saying Hi to Odelia…

Later Jun built up enough courage to attempt holding Odelia. Obviously my heart was pounding at the same rate the baby’s heart was beating in the womb, around 150.

And Odelia meeting Sweetpea for the first time…

Paul and Danny came later…

At this point, Odelia started getting squirmy…

And that was the One Month Celebration.

Odelia would like to thank everyone who came and wish to see you all again soon!

Kids

How To Calm A Baby Series Part IV: Robot

So far we’ve covered three different ways to calm your baby, the Waltz, the Curl, and the Squat. They also happen to be three ways you can keep yourself in shape while taking care of a baby, as the three methods amount to aerobics, upper body workout, and lower body workout. However, calming a baby doesn’t have to always be such hard work and can be fun. Here’s the robot method of calming a baby…

General

Baby Wipes

Initially, we had gotten a small pack of Pampers Baby Wipes (image is a bigger version of what we got)…

And the wipes were so soft and moist I loved them.  However, being money conscience, we decided to get a box of Huggies wipe from Costco with coupon, which was very cheap.  After all, how different could they be? 

Apparently a lot.  The Huggies wipes were gritty and harsh, and when I utilitized them on Odelia’s bums, I cannot help but feel like I doing some sanding instead of wiping.  Then I talked to Chris and he suggested that Costco wipes were also soft, so we tried some.

 

They were definitely softer and better than Huggies, but we took out some left-over Pampers from our travel packed and did a comparison.  It was clear that the Kirkland brand was not as moist, and because of that, I noticed it wasn’t picking up as much of the dried deli mustard as it should.

So at the end of the day, we will also be sticking with Pampers, who just keep making great products.  If the Costco wipes were Tissue papers, then Huggies wipes would be paper towels, and the Pampers wipes would be silk.

Verdict

Huggies: Average
Costco: Good
Pampers: Great  <== Editor’s Choice

Tech

So Long, Phone Jack!

Now with the new Network Storage device I purchased, I want a fast way of accessing my pictures and videos. Our typical wireless networks run at 54 Mbps, which is sluggish when it comes to browsing network data. There are times when I would wait my life away for that RAW picture to load, and it certainly can be frustrating.

Enter the gigabit network. The gigabet ethernet runs at 1000 Mbps, which is faster than the computer itself, but the only way I can connect the computers together is to run a forest of ethernet wires around the house, reminiscent of the college days when wireless was not pervasive and hubs were everwhere.

But then a light bulb turned on. I recall that my phone wiring was done using CAT5 cables, so why not rewire it for ethernet? With the cordless and cell phones, who needs phone jacks all over the house anyway? So I ran to the nearest Lowe’s and bought some modular jacks, in case I want to change the ports in the future. I unscrewed all the phone jacks and realized that there’s only a single CAT5 cable that runs throughout the house, which means I cannot have a central switch and there will need to be a switch for every room that needs gigabit access. For now, I just have one other room I need connection for, so I’m fine for now. After mapping out where the cable went, I began replacing the wall plates…

So now most of my plates are this simple, just a plain ol’ Ethernet jack for the gigabit network. The only caveat is that the house is wired with CAT5, but to access gigabit speeds, I need CAT 5e or CAT6 cables. Fortunately, they’re more specs than anything else, so at short distances, I can still access just about as fast as the computers can go. Now I can connect our laptops via gigabit ethernet when accessing the Network Access Storage device, and transfer at as fast as the hard drives/computers would go without running a ethernet cable along the hallways!