Mommy and Daddy and Grandmommy took me to a really special place called Disney World. There was so much to do there! I got to meet Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse, Tigger, and a bunch of other strange creatures. They were much bigger than me and at first I was scared, but then I felt better (once I was sure that they wouldn’t eat me).

Also, I got to go on a bunch of rides. I got to go on Buzz Lightyear (twice), It’s a Small World (three times), Peter Pan (twice), Spaceship Earth (I was tired and I fell asleep), and Winnie the Pooh. I also went on Pirates of the Caribbean. It was spooky but I wasn’t too scared.

We also went to fun dinners and breakfasts (which is where I got to meet all the great characters). I also got to go to Typhoon Lagoon and splash around in the kiddie area.

And while we were there I also got to see Unkie Boo! We all went to this really neat dinner at the Polynesian hotel where they had a show with people singing and dancing. The food was yummy and I ate lots of pineapple!

Here are a bunch of pictures from our trip.

Oh no! Rodents of unusual size!	This place is cool.	The only way they could get a picture of me with these darned mouse ears was when I was asleep.	They’re everywhere!
And giant puppy dogs too!	Can you tell which one is me and which one is the tiki doll?	You’re not going to eat me, are you?

Wow, what an adventure I was on! Mommy, Daddy and Grandmommy took me all the way to California, which is very far from here. Daddy had a conference to go to in a place called San Jose, so we all went together and took a really neat trip.

First, I got to go on an airplane. It was tight, and I had to sit in my car seat which I didn’t like too much. I was cranky for having woken up so early and didn’t sleep very much. Mommy tried to keep me entertained with some Baby Einstein videos. That helped a little.

When we got there, we saw all sorts of neat stuff. I got to go to the beach and see the Pacific Ocean. Then we went up to Marin County (driving over the Golden Gate Bridge) and walked through Muir Woods. Mommy and Grandmommy took me to Grandmommy’s favorite needlework store in Alameda, and then we went to Berkeley to meet a friend of my mommy’s for lunch.

Some nights, Grandmommy would babysit with me while Mommy and Daddy went out to visit other old friends of theirs from when they used to live in California. We all went out to dinner one night in Palo Alto and got to see a bunch of Mommy’s old friends from her jobs here. Another day, Mommy and Grandmommy took me to the Children’s Discovery Museum in San Jose and I got to play with lots of fun things!

Of course we also got to go to San Francisco. One day, Grandmommy and Mommy took me shopping, and then we went to lunch in this really great place that served yummy scrambled eggs (near the neighborhood where Mommy and Daddy used to live). Anther day, we all went to Fisherman’s Warf and I got to see all the sea lions sitting in the sun.

Then we got on another airplane and flew home. It was an overnight flight, and I spent most of the time sleeping on either Mommy or Daddy. We didn’t sleep that well, though, so we slept a lot when we got home.

It was a really fun trip!

There’s this strange yellow thing in the sky. It’s kinda warm and it glows. It scares me.

I got a lot of owies today. First, I was drinking my sippy cup when I bumped into the big football cushion in the living room and fell down. I must have bit my lip or something because it started bleeding. That made me cry.

Then later, I was holding a book and running in the living room. I tripped over something and the edge of the book hit me around the eye. It left a line from my forehead to under my eye and I cried again.

But it wasn’t that bad of a day. Mommy took me to a park in the morning and I got to run around on the grass and climb up and down the steps of the train slide.

Today Mommy took me to the mall where we met up with Ben and his mommy. We played in the indoor play area which was a lot of fun. There was a bridge with steps leading up to it that was a lot of fun to climb up on. But every time I tried to get down I fell, but that didn’t bother me much. There was also a tunnel that I had fun crawling through. Every now and then I’d try to make a break for it and run out of the play area, but Mommy always caught me and brought me back.

After we were done in the play area, Mommy and Ben and his mommy and I walked around the mall for awhile. Mommy got me more bubbles and some shorts for herself. Then we had lunch. Mommy let me try a piece of pizza but it was too hard to eat (I don’t have enough teeth yet).

Today, Mommy and Daddy and Grandmommy took me to a Celtic festival all the way in Virginia. It was a lot of fun! There was all kinds of fun music, and lots of neat things to buy, and yummy food. Daddy bought me bells like we use in Little Gym. For lunch, I had chicken fingers and french fries and frozen custard! There was a kid’s tent and I got to play with Duplo blocks. There was another kid building an airplane out of Duplos, and I helped by handing him stuff. It was also really hot, so I drank lots and lots of water, and even some lemonade.

To get there, Mommy and Daddy turned my car seat around so that I got to face the front! It was really neat to be able to see where we were going like that.

Grandmommy’s here! She came to visit us today and is going to stay for the whole weekend.

Sammy’s having his mid-nap fuss a little early today, it’s only 1:45.

Anyhoo, you may recall that a couple of weeks ago I blogged about something called Pzizz. It was for a MacZot blogzot, which is where the more people blog about a product, the cheaper it becomes until (hopefully) it’s free for everyone.

Well, it didn’t quite make the free for everyone level, but since I blogged about it I got serial numbers for the nap and sleep modules.

Okay, the premise for something like pzizz may seem a little hokey to someone like me who knows nothing about the science behind it, but I tell you, I love it! It’s basically gentle, sleep inducing sounds accompanied by a calm voice sending you relaxing vibes. You can either play it through the computer (although with my MacBook Pro’s slightly tinny speakers, this is not an ideal method), or export it to iTunes for loading into your music player of choice. The nice thing about it is every time you run the program (or export the files), you get a newly-generated program. When I try to fall asleep to my own music, I begin to “anticipate” the music because I’ve heard it so many times. With pzizz, you don’t have that problem.

And at first I thought the voice that tells you things like “Thoughts are just thoughts; you don’t have to think them” would be a little annoying, but really it works. And if you really don’t like the voice, you can limit it to the beginning & end, or eliminate it entirely.

One thing you have to do is make sure that you have the file in a playlist all by itself, or else your iPod is going to move onto the next pzizz file when it finishes the one you played. You usually don’t want that.

As for the sounds themselves, they’re kind of new-agey, like Enya slowed down even more, mixed in with other gentle sound effects like ocean sounds, etc.

The only thing pzizz doesn’t do is actually find you 20 minutes to use it. But now that Sammy is taking a regular nap in the afternoon, I’ve been able to squeeze in a 20 or 30 minute “energizer” nap before running around and doing the zillion chores I have to do every afternoon while he sleeps. I’ve also used the “sleep” module when going to bed at night. Now, it’s kind of weird to go to sleep with earbuds on, but until I put an iPod speaker setup back in my bedroom (really I just need to grab a pair of powered computer speakers I’m not using), it’s the only way I can use it in it’s sleep mode. At some point during the night, I vaguely realize that I have earbuds on and nothing is playing on the iPod, and I manage to plop the whole thing on my bedside chest.

All in all, I give pzizz a big thumbs up.

Sam officially has two words in his “active” vocabulary.

“Kitty” is used to describe any creature, real or simulated, that’s fuzzy or furry. Thus, the cat is “kitty,” as is his teddy bear, pictures of any animals in his books, or any furry mammal he sees outside.

His other word is “daddy.” It’s clear, and unmistakable. He points to his definition of the word “daddy” and says it for all the world to hear. The problem is that in his world, I am “daddy.” sigh

The kid is a tornado in a ~31 in, ~24 lb package. I can easily describe him in one word: kinetic. Literally, he doesn’t understand the meaning of the word “stop.” And after a day spent trying to keep up with him, I need a full hour to undo the damage to my living room and kitchen. Then the morning comes and we’re right back at it. I’ve really got to find somewhere to go tomorrow where he can wreak havoc and I won’t have to clean up the mess.

And after about a year and a half of not working and not really looking for a job (Sammy keeps me quite busy, thank you), I’m on the verge of having TWO. First, this company in Columbia (Maryland) interviews me for a third time (counting the initial phone interview) and it goes really well. I answer all their tech questions, I detail all my PHP coding philosophies, and I get really good vibes that they might be hiring me for their team lead position. But as of yet I haven’t heard anything from them.

Then Jay from California emails me, saying the project he’d been telling me about weeks ago will probably be coming through soon. He’s got to meet with the client again, but it looks good. The pay is a little low, but it’s telecommuting. It’s 120 hours of work due no later than 6 weeks. Can I do this without having to put Sammy in day care? I don’t know, but it’s not worth my time to get day care for him for a short duration project like this.

I just know Murphy’s out to get me, though. I’ve told Jay yes, I’ll do it, but I know that as soon as that becomes official, I’ll get an offer from the place in Columbia. Or maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. After all, I have no guarantee that I’m going to get the job, but man I aced that interview.

I’m exhausted just thinking about all this.

Mommy took me to see the butterflies today, just like we did last year. We went with Ben and Henry and their mommies. First, we took a long walk through Wheaton Park, then we walked around Brookside Gardens. Then we went down to the butterfly exhibit. There were lots of butterflies and I saw blue ones and orange ones and white ones. But what I liked the most was to walk back and forth on this little stone path. I could have done that all day!