Lazy Post!

Instead of writing anything today, I shall be lazy and give you a picture of a moose fighting a jackalope.

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Space

It’s nice to have your opinion of your child verified by other people. Now that she’s in school, we can get feedback from real professionals. And if you think spending your whole day in a room full of two year olds doesn’t take a professional, than I suggest you try it.

Abigail is taking to school really well and her teachers are very impressed with her, particularly her verbal skills. She is able to have a conversation, pay attention and follow along very easily. And open doors. I’m sure they love that.

But her napping ability, not so much. She hasn’t slept at school once yet. The upshot of that is we get back an extremely excited, overstimulated toddler who is running wildly along the jagged precipice of exhausted madness. Today she had a bit of a meltdown before bed. Half of what made her so mad was that we were asking her to do something – anything – different from what she was doing. The other half was that she didn’t at all like whatever it was that she was doing.

I was giving her a bath in the middle of this, attempting to wash her hair, when she turned to me, mid-tantrum and said, crying, “I need some space, Daddy!”

And she really did. I backed off – after negotiating with her for the release of the remaining shampoo in her hair – and for a few minutes she was calmer.

The point I’m trying to make is that we’re pretty spoiled. She’s able to communicate with us and make her feelings clear, even when it’s something more complex, like “needing space.” And she’s able to calm down and listen, to the point where she can deal with hair rinsing mid-tantrum.

I’m just saying, she’s awesome.

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Parental Downtime

Nothing keeps you from posting on your blog like a visit from your parents. Mine were here for two weeks and we saw them pretty much every day. While this might sound hellish to some people, I actually like my parents. Go figure.

The more significant aspect of the visit is that Abigail really likes my parents. She wanted to spend even more time with them than she did and spent much of her time talking about them when they weren’t there. I call that a win.

And just yesterday, only hours after they left, Abigail and I had this conversation:

Abigail was in the back seat of the car, as I drove us to Trader Joe’s. “There’s a bug in my mouth!”

“There is? Why is there a bug in your mouth?”

“I was chewing on him,” Abigail explained, laughing.

“Ah. I see.”

She started laughing even louder. “He’s tickling me!”

You’ll note this has nothing to do with my parents. This is largely because I wanted to mention my parents trip and how great it was, while also using an conversation that I found amusing. If I’ve manipulated your expectations in forcing these two ideas into one blog post, I apologize.

I don’t really, but there it is.

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The Quotable Daddy, Addendum

“Watch out, Abigail! Displacement!”

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Abigail’s Diagnosis

In this episode of “Doctor Gorman: Medicine Toddler,” Abigail uses her new doctor kit to make a startling medical discovery.

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Web Footprint

Inspired by the photo stuff lately, I decided to do a google images search for myself and see just how much of me is out there.

It turns out, not so much.

The first image that came up for me was for one of those “find this person” websites. While I’m sure they do a brisk business what with all the groupies that I’m sure are clamoring to track me down, I’m not sure they are using the right photo.

This, my friends, is the first picture that comes up on google when you search for “Alex Gorman”.

They also lie about my age, which is generous of them.

The next pictures related to me are several pages down, and are an ice cream treat that I thought looked like a Dalek and the manual for our thermometer.

You have to go a couple more pages after that to find an actual photo of the man himself. And here it is.

I’m not sure I’m putting my best foot forward onto the internet. After 12 pages of searching, those are the only two pictures of me that came up on a google search.

In fact, other people look better in a search for “Alex Gorman” than I do. Let me give you an example of how this isn’t right; you only have to go to page six to find this:

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One of the Things I Can’t Stop Thinking About

I saw this link a few days ago and I can’t get it out of my head. I suppose I mean literally…

Suren Manvelyan took macro photos of people’s eyes, showing detail I’d never seen before. They’re truly fascinating. Here’s an example of what I mean.

You can find the rest of his pictures here.

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Then and Now

Talking to Ben about his trip to Europe yesterday inspired me to look this guy up again. His pictures are truly awesome. Which is why this post gets that tag, you see.

He takes pictures of modern Berlin and juxtaposes with images of the city post-World War II. I’ve borrowed the one below to entice you over to his website. It really is an amazing idea and really brings history to life.

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The Quotable Abigail, Part 4

On her Benjamin Button-like view of the world: “Those jammies are getting too big for me.”

On food: “Only pancake is food.”

On having it all: “Abigail has a crown, and a piggy …”

On plans, optimistic: “Now we’re going to go to the room and not brush teeth.”

On where Daddy should go: “Please, go in the trash can, please.”

On Henry’s name: “Henry’s name is Doe. That’s Doe’s tail.”

On her interpretation of Mommy’s interpretation of how Daddy is handling the marinade: “Daddy is going to go to crazy.”

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Elves!

I think my favorite Elfquest memory is actually of my father. I was a big fan, and the storyline held me captivated, but what I remember is giving them to my dad to read. He would taken them with him on his commute and while other bus riders were flipping through the pages of the Wall Street Journal and the San Francisco Chronicle, my dad would open up his bag and pull out a copy of Elfquest.

I’ve always thought that was awesome.

The reason I’m bringing this up today is because last night I discovered that you can read every issue of Elfquest ever made on their website. I only really read the original series, so I can’t recommend much more than that.

The first few issues are pretty cheesy – it was the 70s, remember – but the style really builds as you take it forward. If you can get past the cliche and back story loaded first issue, you will find a really compelling epic with a lot of interesting, dynamic characters. Frankly, I’ve been tearing through the series all over again.

I mean, working.

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