Sebastian just made it up his first set of stairs. One full flight from our fifth floor to the top of our building. There’s no stopping him now. My dad (who’s visiting us at the moment) is convinced our little rug rat will be walking before he heads back to Florida in two weeks. I won’t bet against him.
And here’s a video of Emily singing along with her favorite song from The Lion King while mattress bouncing.
I’m very upset with YouTube and am considering jumping ship.
I’ve used their video hosting services for well over three years and I currently have 86 videos uploaded to their site. I understood (somewhat) when they removed the sound from one of my videos that used a Barenaked Ladies tune as part of its soundtrack. But they have recently started deleting some of my videos “due to terms of use violation.” They have been flagged as “inappropriate” and have been completely removed from their servers along with all of the comments attached to them. These were videos of my daughter – one on the beach and one in the tub. In both videos, she was just one year and a few months old.
I disagree completely with the label of “inappropriate” that was slapped on these videos, the same way I am appalled at how Flickr has been deleting photos of mothers breastfeeding from people’s accounts without prior warning. I don’t mean to tempt fate, but the inconsistency of their rulings also has me baffled as YouTube has decided to leave a similar video of Emily in the bath online. I want to be able to share my videos, my photos, and my joy with my friends and family all over the world and, if YouTube won’t let me do it, I’ll find someone who will.
Enter Vimeo. I was very happy to see that the very first bullet point under the Content Policy of their Uploading Guidelines states, “No sexually illicit material or porn. Non-sexual nudity is okay.” And why shouldn’t it be?! Prohibiting bathing babies and breastfeeding mothers is tantamount to deleting all photos of people wearing flip-flops just because 1.1% of the population has a foot fetish. I don’t need YouTube to protect my family. That’s my job.
So I’m considering making the switch. But I need to make sure that the quality of my hosted videos will be as good as (or better than) with YouTube. So here are two videos from the exact same source, one hosted on YouTube, one on Vimeo. Please have a look and let me know if you notice any difference between the two – either in image/sound quality or ease of use in the user interface. Your feedback will help me make my decision:
After putting Emily to bed, reading her a story, and kissing her goodnight, she usually makes one final request just as we’re tiptoeing out of her room. It could be anything: a glass of milk, to speak with mommy, a different blanket, etc. You know, in an attempt to stay up just a little bit longer. We always say the same thing, “OK, let me just do [x] first and then I’ll get it for you.” Knowing full well that, by buying those extra few minutes, she’ll be fast asleep by the time we get back and thus we won’t ever have to follow through with the request.
Tonight, I was at work so Jan put Emily to bed. Sebastian started crying just as she started the bedtime story. Jan gauged the situation and decided that she had best finish the story before attending to a very hungry Sebastian. So she finished the story, hurriedly kissed Emily goodnight, and said, “Let me just feed Sebastian and then I’ll come right back and tuck you in.” Emily, apparently catching on to our trickery, declared, “Oh no you won’t. I’ll be fast asleep!”
So cute.
And speaking of cute…
I’m totally geeking out right now. You see, I’m thinking about getting myself some new toys. It’s very exciting stuff!! But not just any old gadget will do. It’s gotta be the best. This is what I’m looking at:
A new phone
I want to combine the sleek screen, media playback capabilities, and personal information management of my Palm T|X with the intuitive and sturdy build of my current Nokia phone. It’s gotta be able to handle any video format I throw at it (without having to convert!) and easily sync with any calendar program I need (and work on my Linux platform!). I’d like it to run Android since it’s open source and has the brightest future.
The best phone out there: HTC Hero
Here’s a review. The only reason I haven’t bought one yet is because I’m currently tied into my current contract until February, by which time Android 2.0 may be out and who knows what kind of new phones to go with it!
A new media player
I’ve been using my Rimax Alum Plus for over two years now to watch digital content on my TV. And it’s been OK. But with the purchase of a brand-spanking-new Sony Bravia 32V5500, it’s about time we got some HD content up on that bad boy. Also, those 500 GB on internal storage are disappearing rapidly. So this new media player should handle ANY video file format, be expandable, connect easily from any media server to the TV (PC, USB, network, etc.), have an unobtrusive footprint, and a pleasant GUI. And of course, support HD!
The best media player out there: WD TV Live
Here’s a review. The only reason I haven’t bought one yet is because they were just released in the US this week and haven’t hit Europe yet. But they should be here any day now. Any day…
Here’s a quick update to last week’s Sebastian update. Yes, an update update. With bullets.
And here’s another video from about a month ago. No recent accomplishments featured here, but kinda cute all the same.
Little Sebastian turned seven months old when we returned from our trip to New York. Since then, he has shifted into high developmental gear with many changes coming fast and furious. The week after we returned home, his first tooth broke through. The week after that, his second. The next week, his third. That’s two on the bottom and one on the top, for all you fans keeping score at home. I’ve graphed these numbers and, according to the chart and given his current rate of tooth growth, by the time he is one year old he should have 21 teeth. Now that’s science! An unfortunate side effect of all this dental augmentation is that the poor little guy is waking up every hour all through the night. Poor Sebastian. Poor Jan.
I believe I mentioned that Sebastian started crawling while we were on holiday. Mostly backwards. Well, there’s no more of that. Now we’re all forward all the time. Except when we’re sideways. Nothing is safe any longer around the house. If you don’t believe me, feel free to ask the potted plants, electrical outlets, and Emily’s drawings. They all have sad stories to tell. While he enjoys being an upwardly mobile quadruped, he is never happier than when he’s standing tall on two feet, jumping up and down, and walking around the house (with the guiding support of his friends and family, of course). It’s only a matter of time before he’s jumping off the couch.
And after milking it for the first seven months of his life, Sebastian has finally started with the hard stuff. Well, if you can call oatmeal cereal “hard”. We try to give him some cereal every night. It usually goes like this: I try to feed him a spoonful, he tried to grab the spoon, I pin his hands down and insert spoon into his mouth, he makes the Yucky Face, eventually swallows it, and then giggles and asks for more. Repeat. We were very diligent when Emily starting eating solids, making all of her foods from scratch at home, making sure to not introduce a new food until numerous days had passed and we were sure she didn’t have any food allergies, and never letting her eat anything with gluten in it. We were having lunch at a restaurant today when Sebastian grabbed a slice of bread off the table and started chewing on it. Jan and I both freaked out for a split second, looked at each other, and we both calmly said, “Fuck it”. He gnawed on that slice of bread for half an hour and loved every minute of it. Then he went nuts on the lettuce. There might have been a bit of olive oil on it. Second child syndrome in full effect.
Hey, wanna see the lovely photos I took while we were in New York a few weeks ago?
I should warn you, there aren’t really any touristy photos of skyscrapers, bridges, or hot dog vendors – most of the pictures are of my family and friends during the week of my cousin Jennie’s wedding. But they’re still pretty good! At least I think so.
My largest single set to date, there are 81 happy photos here. Feel free to reread my previous posts of NY week 1 and NY week 2 to get a better idea of what’s going on in the pictures.
As always, you’ve got two ways to enjoy the photos:
Fancy-shmancy full-screen slideshow
Bog-standard Flickr set
Enjoy!
Day 8
The week before we left for the States, I recorded a series of marketing videos for HP in Barcelona. The day after we arrived in New York, I get a phone call from the production company in Spain asking if I could come in to the studio the next day for a simple rerecording of three lines of dialog. I point out how difficult that would be considering my current geographical location, they freak out, and so began the manic search for a New York-based sound studio that could record 20 seconds of my voice and send it to Spain ASAP. Thanks to the generous help of many good friends (thanks!), I went into Manhattan on this morning and, after working as a professional voice actor in Europe for over a decade, I recorded my voice in an American recording studio for the first time! That was pretty cool.
With the hectic insanity of my a.m. audio adventures out of the way, I made my way back upstate to Cookie and Mike’s house in record time where I promptly loaded up the minivan with Jan, the kids, my mom and Phil, and GG and we drove to Stamford, Connecticut to meet up with my aunt Amy who was staying at the house of her very good friends Lauren and Howard and celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary. Well, we thought it was just going to be them at the house. Turns out their entire family was there!
We had cocktails in the backyard, relaxed on the beach, passed Sebastian around for a while, and had a wonderfully grandiose family-style dinner thanks to our wonderful hosts. All very civilized and lovely.
Day 9
Much of this day was spent poolside, gathering our energies, greeting the throngs of cousins who were all converging upon us in preparation for the weekend’s big event: Cousin Jennie’s wedding. Fourteen people slept at Cookie and Michael’s house that weekend, and we were all joined by the complimentary group of six cousins staying at Ali and Philip’s house that night for a scrummy Chinese take away dinner.
Day 10
It was nice waking up a little bit later than everyone else in the house and getting dressed and ready to go out a little bit slower. It’s not that we didn’t want to sit through Saturday morning temple services with two small children. It’s just that we didn’t want to sit through Saturday morning temple services with two small children.
We made our way down to Jennie and Ben’s temple over on the Lower East Side just in time for the end of services, but right before the family brunch was about to start. Score! Three bagels and a couple of pounds of tuna salad later and we were driving back up to Cookie and Mike’s house with the Cousin Armada in tow, but not before making a pit stop to see Aunt Penny, whom I hadn’t seen for well over a decade! Seeing her was nice.
So we had the 20 cousins from the night before plus GG, Aunt Ruthie, Aunt Amy, and my sisters. Some sat around chatting. Some partook of the pool. We all ate pizza.
Day 11
This was the big day. The reason we were all there. Jennie’s wedding day! But it wasn’t until 5:30pm so we all jumped back in the pool for a few hours.
Of course, there was another event that made this day special. It was Emily’s third birthday! We were able to drag her out of the hot tub just long enough to scarf down some chocolate birthday cake. Much fun (and cake) was had by all.
Jennie’s wedding was sublime. From the trendy Village loft locale to the stunning bride’s maid’s dresses. From the sunset view over the Hudson River to the rooftop sushi bar. From the emphatic and vertigo-inducing hora to the wedding singer rocking out to some Coldplay (and doing it well!). The wedding was wonderful.
I spent 87% of the wedding dancing with Emily. I soon discovered that our little dace floor zombie, once she stays up at least five hours past her bedtime and is seriously jet lagged to boot, can become quite surprisingly violent if you try to explain that she isn’t allowed to join in during the bride and groom’s first dance. She was up and dancing non-stop until well after midnight, though I think her brain fell asleep somewhere around 9pm.
It must be documented that Emily thought Jennie to be so beautiful on her wedding day that she must have been a princess. Just like Cinderella. It was because of this, and only this, that Emily was found on several occasions looking under Jennie’s dress in an attempt to verify if she was indeed wearing glass slippers.
Day 12
It was on the informational Web site, so I imagine all 240 wedding guests knew about the brunch at Erica’s apartment the morning after the wedding. You could probably fit 15 people in her apartment at any one time. If they all held their breath. And you stuck three out on the balcony. So we decided to arrive casually late in the hopes that most people would have already eaten and left. We made the wise decision. More bagels and lox and lighthearted family shenanigans served as lovely closure to an already lovely event.
After seeing Jennie and Ben off to Greece for their honeymoon (that’s where we went, too!), I sent Jan and the kids back up to Chappaqua with Cookie and Mike. I had a date with longtime college friend Lori down on the Lower East Side. We met in a playground under the Williamsburg Bridge where I had the pleasure of finally meeting her two kids and her husband. Lori and I hadn’t seen each other for 10 years but, after a couple of minutes, it didn’t seem like more than a few months had passed. After watching her kids go nuts in the park for a while, we headed uptown where I was supposed to buy theatre tickets for the evening’s main event: In The Heights.
Lori couldn’t stay in the city for a show so we said regretfully goodbye and I was left at the TKTS booth to buy tickets for myself, Brian (who had already seen the show but is addicted to it), and Aunt Amy (who really wanted to see a different show but I convinced her to join us). Amy soon showed up and we went out for some fantastic Italian food with a friend from California and then we met Brian at the theatre. I already knew the songs from the show so, since the soundtrack is 90% of the book, I knew I was going to like the show. Without going into a detailed review, I’ll just say that I was very right. But it’s a shame I didn’t get to see Lin-Manuel Miranda perform before leaving the production. Alabanza!
Day 13
Very relaxing day. Very little to do. I invited a couple of more college friends – Melissa and Rob – over to the house for an evening “So, what have you been up to for the past 10 years” session. It was so nice to see them and catch up. It’s amazing how so many of my friends look exactly the same as they did over a decade ago. Maybe my eyes are just getting older. I was reminded, however, of my friend Brian’s review of our 15 year high school reunion. He commented on how, even though we hadn’t seen each other for the longest time, we still knew many details of each other’s lives thanks to being connected on Facebook. So a lot of the big news, I already knew. But it’s always the details that are more fun, anyway 🙂
I didn’t take a single picture all day so I’ll end this day’s summary with a picture of my cousin Marcy making a silly face.
Day 14
On our last full day in The States, we monkeyed around in the Bronx Zoo. Most of our time was spent in the kiddies section of the zoo, which was fine with me. The more climbing, rolling, sliding, and jumping the better! The hours flew by like minutes and we were forced to make a swift exit in an attempt to pick up GG and Aunt Ruthie and swing by Alice and Phil’s for dinner before Emily turned into a werewolf. Had a great time in a perfect little Italian restaurant where the Veal Cutlet Parmesan sent me reeling. We had to say goodbye to cousin Ali but not before she tried to rent us half her townhouse. We considered the offer but dutifully declined. Not this year. Too many things waiting for us back home in Spain.
Day 15
Last-minute packing. Rushed cleaning. Sad goodbyes. It was so nice having the entire family meet Sebastian for the first time and get to know the young lady that Emily has become. Life marches on so fast.
We had such a wonderful time in New York and we have cousins Cookie and Mike to thank for almost all of it! They are the most amazing hosts one could ever hope for. They did so much for us while we were there. And this was all while they were planning their daughter’s wedding! I do not want to even imagine all of the preparation, work, phone calls, emails, and stress that were going on behind the scenes, but they held it together, never broke stride, pulled off an incredible and memorable event, and always made time for us. There is no way we could possibly express our gratitude for all that they did for us. Thank you.
I only took one photo on our last day but it was out of focus and boring so I’m not gonna post it. I will instead leave you with a photo of our glorious hosts, carrying bagels, preparing to give away their eldest daughter the day before the wedding, and under the watchful eye of the New York Police Department.
Here is a list of seemingly nonsensical and unrelated words that will probably mean nothing to you but will serve to bring back other very valuable memories of this week for us: Smithtown, speaking in tongues, botched order, break the ice, Shabbat photos, Elmo’s violin, wet shirt, liver spot, lumpy, queue flirting, headphones
More photos to come…
Day 1
The eight-hour flight was better than anticipated. Kids behaved fairly well, aided by the presence of those handy-dandy individual video screens. Nobody slept as much as they should have but we all survived. And nobody was sick for the first time in I don’t know how long!
We received a wonderfully warm welcome when Cousin Ali picked us up at the airport and drove us to cousin Cookie’s house where we were to spend the next two weeks. On the way, we stopped off at the rental car place. I realized that my American driver’s license had expired seven months ago but my Jedi mind tricks persuaded the nice gentleman to overlook that insignificant detail and add my name to the insurance anyway. Minivan!!
Cookie and Mike, our amazing hosts, were poolside when we arrived, along with their friends from Madrid who had landed just a few hours before us and who were to fly back on the same day as us (coincidence?). Emily jumped in the pool with the two Spanish kids while Jan and I unpacked, occupying the entire basement which, according to my measurements, is larger than our apartment.
Our first evening was filled with margaritas, Spanish music, exotic wines, tender steaks, and pleasant conversation with good people. The kids went to sleep at 7pm (1am Spanish time) and we hit the sack, completely wrecked from the long day’s journey, at around 11pm (5am!!).
Day 2
Emily woke up at 4am. So I woke up at 4am.
It rained a miserable rain all day. So we spent the day at the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, Connecticut. After a kiddie IMAX movie about animals (Emily’s first cinematic experience), we saw sharks, jellyfish, seals, and all of the fish from Finding Nemo. My favorite part was the neon-colored poisonous miniature frogs while Emily enjoyed the children’s playpark best.
Day 3
Emily woke up at 5am. So I woke up at 5am.
It rained a miserable rain all day. So we spent the day at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. We explored dinosaurs, sea mammals, the Mayan culture, and lots and lots of birds. My favorite, as always, was the life-size blue whale hanging from the ceiling while Emily preferred to run around and jump off of all of the benches in the museum. We didn’t get to sit in any one place for too long. Jan made the astute observations that, if you don’t get to stop and actually read about any of the creatures you’re passing, you might as well just be in a stuffed animal toy shop.
Day 4
Emily woke up at 5am. So I woke up at 5am.
The rain had finally stopped and the beautiful sunny weather that we would enjoy for the rest of our holiday had begun. So we spent the entire day relaxing by the pool in an attempt to squash any last remaining trace of jet lag. Long-time college friend Joe came by to partake in our aquatic adventures.
Day 5
Emily woke up at 6am! Hurray for little miracles.
Off we went to the twee little town of Littletown, Connecticut to meet up with the famous Jerry and his beautiful family. We met at the always lavish Sandy Hook Family Diner for crab cakes and cheeseburger club sandwiches. Then we picked up entirely too much ice cream on our way to a surprisingly well-equipped Littletown parks and recreational facility. Emily and Harry went nuts on the sturdy and plentiful playground equipment while Jerry, (big) Emily, Jan, and I had a lovely chance to shoot the shit and catch up under the blazing Connecticut sun.
Side note: Sebastian had his first real food this day. We mushed up a banana for him. He didn’t like it.
Day 6
Who knows what time we woke up? I lost track. (Is it correct to add a question mark to the end of a rhetorical question? It doesn’t read correctly to me.)
Good buddy Steve came over for a much-needed catch up session before we headed down to The Westchester to meet Joe, wander about aimlessly, and stuff our faces at The Cheesecake Factory with some very tired kiddies in tow. Bang-Bang Chicken and Shrimp!!
Side note: Sebastian decided to start crawling this day. Exclusively backwards. Maybe it was the banana.
Day 7
One week into our holiday, we finally made it down to Long Island where we were invited to a backyard barbecue at my high school buddy Brian‘s house. Good grub and good friends kept us happy and busy while Brian and Angela’s daughter Ella teamed up with Emily to jump in her ginormous bouncy castle, count the backyard stepping stones in Spanish, throw some balls all over the place, watch some Dora, chase each other around the living room, and share some ice pops. Good times.
We headed back to Cookie and Michael’s house where GG and Aunt Ruthie were waiting to have dinner with us. The family invasion had officially begun! But this was only the beginning. Later that night, we picked up my mom and Phil at the airport and the rest of the family would all trickle in over the course of the next three days. All five gazillion of them! After all, there was a very important family wedding to attend. But I’ll leave the events of Week 2 for my next blog entry…
Here is a list of seemingly nonsensical and unrelated words that will probably mean nothing to you but will serve to bring back other very valuable memories of this week for us: chocolate milk, ramming speed, night terrors, Beach Bum, 100 degrees, Wolfy, bathroom floor cleanup, waiting on the front step, Tom Tom, backing out of the driveway, wet sneaker cups, ice cream damage control, hypnotic fairies.
More photos to come…
The light was just right. The composition had taken care of itself. The images were adorable, timeless, and yanked at your heartstrings. Jan and Emily sat next to each other, each being pampered and primped, as they sat in the hair salon together today. Emily had a serious look of concentration on her face from atop her special child seat on the barber chair as she observed the young stylist spritzing, combing, and cutting her orange locks. Jan calmly watched her own progression while proudly sneaking peeks at Emily out of the corner of her eye. I sat between the two girls, grinning enormously, while they both looked miles into the mirrors in front of them. The sun streamed in from the street-side window behind them while quirky Italian lounge jazz filled the old-world hair salon. The moment was absolutely beautiful. And I didn’t have my fucking camera with me!!!