Going Live

My team and about 1200 people have been working toward this moment for almost 2 years. We're going live with our product (and shipping the boxes) in less than an hour. Wish me luck.

I Don't Miss Those Days Too Much

We visited a very good friend of mine today who has a 29 day old baby. There's something extremely precious and satisfying about holding a tiny baby in your arms. Many times I feel nostalgic thinking about the girls when they were so small. But, you know what? I'm glad they're over and done. Those were very hard days.

In the meantime, the girls just keep growing. Leia is up and down the staircase like its nothing. She even carries things in her arms now as she climbs them. They both speak in sentences, though Alisa's pronunciation is way easier to understand. Leia seems a bit confused by the fact that she hears so many different languages all the time (mostly 3: English, Spanish and Japanese.) So Leia's words are a bit jumbled.

The scary story of the day is that after going to Japanese class this morning I mentioned we need to go shopping because I need a new pair of jeans. Alisa's face immediately brightened up and she screamed out in joy, "Shopping!" Oh, brother...

PIL

A friend and I went to see PIL last night. It was quite entertaining. I didn't know what to expect from the show and never really have been a PIL fan anyway. A couple of years ago I saw Johnny Rotten lead a revamped Sex Pistols at the Warfield to good effect. Although I didn't know 95% of the songs, PIL was more fun. With the Sex Pistols, Johnny Rotten just let out some pent up frustration. The crowd at the Sex Pistols was a bit of a pain in the ass as well. Johnny Rotten's approach to PIL looked very much like he exposed his raw heart and soul to the crowd. People were a little surprised and dumbfounded by much of what happened on stage, often seeming to not know how to respond. I walked away with a better, if more complex, opinion of the infamous front man to punk's seminal band.

Proud Daddy

I'm so proud of my brave little girls today. We went to The Jungle today to help them work off some excess energy while the weather was still nippy. They should more courage than I ever expected by wanting to climb all the way up to the third level and clamber about over the nets, while still only one year old. They were by far the youngest of the climbers. The only problem is, I was more exhausted afterwords than they were!

Terrible Twos

Oh, yes. They are terrible. I've got a headache and a gouge taken out of the flesh of my face today from the tantrum twins.

Now I Know Why

I've been out of marijuana and not smoked in a long while now. This morning I remembered why I sometimes wanted to smoke a bowl after taking care of the girls. Holy cow! One tantrum after the other. I finally just put the new tricycles away in the garage and they immediately stopped crying - at least for about 30 minutes before something else started setting them off. Ugh. Rough day.

Alphabets and Tricycles

Theresa, our nanny, brought a Hello Kitty tricycle from a friend yesterday. Before putting it together we knew we had to get a second one and put them both together at the same time. So we dropped by Toys R Us and got a pink Radio Flyer. With both tricycles put together, the girls carted around the kitchen/dining room/hallway/family room circuit for a good hour. They haven't gotten the hang of pedaling yet; but, Leia is pretty close. She'll probably start pedaling in a week or so - or maybe tomorrow. You never really know.

Alisa, always a lover of books, is smitten with the original stories of Winnie the Pooh on Hirono's iPad. She's been singing the alphabet song for a couple of weeks now and finally, today, she actually spoke the entire alphabet. No singing. No missed letters. Twice - once in the morning and once in the afternoon. At Toys R Us she also got interested in the book section and a bunch of alphabet magnets. This is definitely a welcome development.

Another new thing for Leia is the love for a Japanese dance/exercise from the show "Pythagoras Switch". The dance is called the Algorithm March.

Truth is Stranger Than Fiction

Something I never predicted. In all my years of studying medieval history and playing historical games, this never came up. It actually pleases me to no end to discover that Antiquity Britain was multi-cultural.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/living/article7042984.ece

Down and Out

Hirono is celebrating shipping the iPad tonight with her new team at Apple. I was left taking care of the girls. At this point they're fast asleep.

Hirono usually stays with the girls for a while putting them down. I'm generally more adamant about leaving them to sleep on their own. Tonight was the first time I could put them down for the night without Hirono being here. They cried about 90 seconds wanting Mama. Then they went to bed and I walked out of the room. They basically went to sleep on their own for the first time tonight.

Nice!

How Can You Not Fall in Love?

Sweethearts