13 Months

The girls are 13 months old today (well, yesterday since its now after midnight.) Its amazing how Hirono and I have completely changed our lives to revolve around those exhausting little bundles of joy.

Today's major developments are two-fold: One for work and one for Alisa.

Yesterday Alisa showed signs of responding both affirmatively and negatively. For a week or more both girls have been able to shake their heads "no" appropriately. For months they've clearly indicated when they meant to reject something (like overly bland ground mutton for dinner.) Today Alisa clearly shook her head no or yes according to questions, sometimes verbalizing with the correct intonation. For example, she correctly answered questions like:

"Do you want to go to bed?" - yes
"Do you want a bottle?" - yes
"Do you want a strawberry?" - no
"Do you want some Cheerios?" - yes
"Do you want me to change your diaper?" - no

Life is becoming much easier from even this simple level of communication.

For work, I've finished a second draft of the Chocolate Factory documentation. This is the project coming out of my study of the Theory of Constraints and applying it to the product I'm leading. The rubber is starting to hit the road and peoples' work is now beginning to be affected by this effort. So far, so good. We're about 6 months into a 5 year effort. Momentum has not yet reached a critical level, and probably won't for another 15 months; but, it is still getting traction.

Update: Alright, it isn't just a fluke that Alisa is answering questions. This morning when asked one of the same questions as yesterday ("Do you want me to change your diaper?") she answered affirmatively. She then scooted over to the changing table by herself.