Well, for the second time in her short little life, Katherine fell. I'm really bummed, since it happened on my watch, and was, of course, totally avoidable. She fell out of the truck after rolling her car seat over to the edge. I was at the back of the truck, putting some stuff in the trunk. A movement caught my eye, and she went cartwheeling out onto the driveway. My god, my life flashed before my eyes. Thankfully, she landed on her butt, but she did hit her head and elbow on the ground. She's OK. She cried a bunch, and was soon playing away on the living room floor. I kept a close eye on her, but she's fine. I, however, am not so fine. It's just so stupid. I know these things happen, but they happen so fast. She's at an age where you have to be within arms reach at all times, and I guess I really have to be even more careful. I am so happy and lucky that she wasn't injured. OK, I'm off to wallow in self-pity now.

Oh, one other thing. I'd just like to say that I don't like the fact that, "Under God" is in the pledge of allegience. It always made me feel uncomfortable, because I don't really subscribe to any religion. I don't have anything against them, actually. I just don't subscribe to them. But I realize that there is no way in hell, if you'll excuse the expression, that the California ruling is ever going to stand the full bench review, or a challenge by the supreme court. You have to have religion to get into high office in this country, and that's just a fact of life.

I bought another air conditioner today. Kara was pretty worried about the heat in her bedroom. Problem is, we had a little run of heat last week, and they were hard to find. Best Buy had some, but I had to by a 10,000 BTU unit. A bit of overkill for her room, but I have a smaller one from our bedroom that I can move around. Then we can be totally freezing in our room. The stock Best Buy had will all be gone by this afternoon, so my timing was good. Next week is supposed to be a scorcher. So tomorrow is air conditioner install day, which I'm not looking forward to, but at least it will be over with for awhile. My electric bills are going to suck this summer, because we now have four units around the house. But it's an old house, and there's really not much other choice here.

Today is Lobster Day, an annual party thrown by some old friends of ours. Kara has a killer day at work, and I've got Katherine until probably at least 2. She woke up at 6AM, which was a real ouch for me, but I needed to give Kara a break from the morning routine, so we've been rolling along ever since.

OK, well I'm writing to you now from outside, in my garage. Wait, how is that possible, you say. Well, tonight I set up an 802.11b network in my house. Yes sir, I've gone wireless. I can now use my laptop anywhere in the immediate vicinity of my house. I was going to wire the house for a network, but the wireless networks are so cheap now, it's actually cheaper, and much, much faster just to go wireless. I bought a Linksys access point and router, and a wireless PCMCIA card for my laptop. What's more, the whole thing only took about 20 minutes, and now I'm online anywhere.

The reason for doing this wasn't so that I could blog from outside, although that's a nice fringe benefit. The reason is that our study, which was recently refinished, is on the second floor, and the cable modem is in the basement. Rather than trying to snake cables up into the study, I've just decided that it's easier and cleaner to go wireless.

Yeah, baby!

I haven't written because I've been hugely freaking busy. An employee of mine delivered twins late last week, and she started her three months of maternity. Unfortunately, she was managing some key engagements, and I have to fill in, so over the weekend and during the evenings this week, I've been boning up on all the details of the projects she was working on. I can't really talk about them, but they include some wicked-cool implementations of our Trellix software.

Ah, but I was able to make Katherine's doctors appointment yesterday morning. She got a resoundingly positive bill of health, and weighed in a 17 pounds, 2 ounces (75th percentile), and measured 26 and 3/4 inches (between 75th and 90th percentile). The doctor told us the percentiles are really a factor of birthweight, but we like to think she's very advanced.

Hey speaking of music, Kim Davidson asked me to help her out with some stuff she's doing later this summer. I play guitar, you know. So I said sure. Actually, I'm pretty jazzed about it, because I haven't played in front of an audience in a long time, and it'll be nice to do some music. I'll keep you posted so you can all show up and throw rotten vegetables.

OK, so it's been awhile. I had a very tiring week last week, thanks for asking.

The big news around here is the rapid acceleration of Katherine's physical ability. In short order, she has gone from sitting upright, to sitting upright rather reliably (unless she's tired), to reaching objects around her on the floor while sitting up, and returning to centerline. She had also gone from sitting to her stomach to her back a number of times. She is totally done with being a lying on her back baby. In fact, she continues to develop strength in her legs, and I fear that she will be standing much sooner than we expected.

We were at a restaurant over the weekend (don't ask about my diet, OK?), and she was sitting straddled on my leg, with her back to my stomach, and her legs bent on the bench. Without any help from me, she just stood up. She was leaning slightly on my chest for balance, but I was totally surprised. So I gave her to Kara, and she did the same thing. I mean, it's not like she stood from lying on the floor, or even sitting on the floor, but still, her legs are really getting strong.

So today we went out and bought an activity table so she has something to pull up on and play with while standing. She rocked! She pulled her self from sitting to standing using it, and then stood over it and played. I mean, she wobbled and stuff, and once she gets tired she falls back a bit, but she is really cranking on the whole mobility thing.

Over the weekend, a friend of the family who knows a lot about children (Hi Marlene) said that she looked like she'd be walking at 8 1/2 months. Are you kidding me? I mean, she's just a week over six months right now, and she's pulling herself up and standing with something to hold onto. Yikes.

I say, "Yikes", and, "I fear" and so forth because we thought we had a bit more time before this all happened. The house is in no shape for a mobile youngster, and there is no more having her stay where you put her. I mean, that's been gone for awhile, but at least there was a limit to the trouble she could get into. At this point, if you take your eyes off her for a second, just a moment, she'll get into trouble.

On Saturday morning, I had her in her high chair after eating, which is pretty safe, 'cause she's clipped in, so she can't get out. And I ran downstairs for something, I forget what, but I literally ran downstairs, got something, then ran back up, and I look over, and she's holding a letter opening that was on the kitchen table. I have no idea how she managed to pick it up, it was a few feet away from the high chair. And she's sitting there holding it like a dagger in her fist. Luckily, it was not the kind that actually has a blade on it, so she didn't hurt herself in the process.

Kara had a similar thing happen. She had her on the bed, about two feet away from the edge sitting up. She stood back and watched Katherine, and Katherine leaned forward, got onto her stomach, and put her hands over the side. YIKES.

We have a doctor's appointment on Tuesday morning. I'm sure they'll give her another four shots, but I'll have height, weight, head size, and percentile updates.