Ken's Silly Little Blog

Is it too young to introduce a baby to drums?

bowley — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 19:25:08 GMT

Ayla has this strange way of letting us know that she is hitting one of her milestones in development. When she started mimicking sounds, I used simple words like "hi", "hello", and "Ayla" that could be made without forcing her into complicated mouth positions (reminder, she is only 3 months old). When Joy was dropping her off at daycare one morning, Ayla looked up and clearly said "Ayla", which shocked Joy and the daycare worker. The shocking part was that this was the first time she had clearly made an 'L' sound, and she hadn't been prompted to say it either. Ayla has since incorporated her name into her normal vocabulary, and it can often be heard in the middle of cries or general babbling. The most recent milestone she revealed to us was rolling over. She's been able to turn herself over with some effort since 3 weeks, but it always seemed like a coincidence.. although a highly repeatable one. On Friday, she decided to show us that she can roll over on purpose. Starting from her back, she tucks her arm against her side, then uses her foot to push herself over onto her stomache. After doing this quickly a few times to make sure we got the point, she then pushed with her arm and continued in the same direction onto her back again. I figure that since she is trying to do so well, I would try teaching her how to play the drums. Do you think that 3 months is too early?

Life is starting to look a little better

bowley — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 00:35:11 GMT

I've never been one to show a whole lot of emotion, but this past week has had me break down in a set of tears on multiple occasions.. all of them have been tears of happiness! On Saturday August 4, 2007 my beautiful daughter, Ayla, was brought into this world. That's right.. I'm now a daddy. I now understand every one of those moments that I saw my dad cry for what I always pictured as "no reason". I can now say that I have been so happy that I've cried. I was finally able to bring my wonderful wife and daughter home from the hospital on Wednesday evening, and then on Thursday (with little sleep) I drove across town for a job interview. This isn't just a job to bring in some money, it is one of those jobs that sounds really freakin' cool on a resume, or when talking to old friends from high school. The problem is that I had zero time to brush up on anythying before going to the interview, and I hadn't had much decent sleep in the past week and a half. I was running on empty, and I had to answer technical questions. Most of the questions were ones that I could answer in my sleep (and I _did_ answer them in my sleep), so I got lucky. The best part was when I talked to them on the phone today (Friday) and they asked me two questions: 'When would I be available to start' and 'Would I be happy with a specific offer'. Wow.. just a couple weeks ago I was trying to figure out how to pay a couple bills since work had been slow, and planning on being a stay at home dad for a while. Now it looks like I will have a job that sounds interesting, working with intelligent people. I'll really miss the opportunity to play stay at home dad, but now I can do more to provide for my family in a financial capacity again. There are still issues to deal with, but they look to be changing from largly financial, to mostly logistical. Life is a journey with many adventures along the way. I may not know where I'm going, but I'll damned sure try to have fun along the way!

Buy Me A Motorcycle!

bowley — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 22:15:57 GMT

I was browsing the web the other day, and I found this guy trying to get people to donate money so that he could by a Ferrari. This just didn't seem right... with today's gas prices, a Ferrari doesn't seem like the best choice of vehicle. I figured that I would create my own website so that people could donate money to buy me a motorcycle! Of course the money will also go towards MSF courses, and getting a motorcycle for my wife too. So if you have a PayPal account, and have some extra money just buring a hole in the account waiting to be spent on something, then please... PLEASE... visit http://buymeamotorcycle.trod.org