Korey Atterberry’s Idle Chatter

Today Dusty was reading Evan one of his favorite books. It’s a book about colors, with a kitten on each page dressed up in or sitting amongst some colorful object. When she turned the page, Evan pointed at a purple teddy bear and said “purpie!” From that we knew that he associated that page and bear with the word “purple”, but whether he actually understood the concept and knew the color we weren’t sure.

Later we went shopping for a few things and walked past the toy section in Target. He pointed at the giant cage full of cheapo inflatable balls and asked for one. We rarely get him toys, and he was asking very politely so we wheeled him over next to the bin and asked him to pick which one he wanted. I grabbed several balls out of the bin, but he refused each of them and kept asking “Ball? Ball?” “Which one?”, we asked him. “Purpie!” he said. We handed him the ball and finished our shopping while Evan repeated his excitement over his “purpie ball!” Two and a half bucks to teach a color? Money well spent.

Evan started saying an entirely new word tonight, but we couldn’t figure out what it was… It sounded like “Goy” or “Coy” and he only says it when he holds a phone up to his ear. We just figured out what he was saying. It’s “Korey”, but when has he ever heard that word? We always refer to me as “Daddy.”

Dusty’s old cell phone, which she lost in November, had a voice dialing feature. You hold the phone normally, press a button, then speak the name of the person you want to call. Her new phone has that feature too, but she doesn’t know how to work it, so it’s been a couple of months since that’s happened. Today Dusty’s friend came over and brought her phone back- she’d found it in her car.

Evan immediately picked the old phone up and wandered around the room saying “Koy” in the rather deep tone of voice that Dusty used to voice dial. He doesn’t do that with other phones. He’s very smart… it just took his dumb parents a while to figure it out.

Evan is at the stage where he doesn’t quite know the actual word for everything in his world, but he’s found ways to express what he’s observing or thinking.

Whenever he sees a siren on top of a car, he loudly mimics a fire engine siren: “Woo oo oo!” Any construction equipment reminds him of a Wiggles song, inspiring “Dig dig dig dig!” He knows what a wheel is, though he pronounces it with two syllables: “Whee-uhl!” Finally, anytime anything backs up, whether it’s a car, shopping cart, or himself, he’s learned from the forklifts at Lowe’s to say “Mah Mah Mah Mah”, emulating their backup alerts.

A few days ago, there was a snow plow clearing the cul-de-sac across the street from us. Evan sat in the living room looking out the window and was in the same predicament as a chameleon sitting on a television screen. “Dig dig dig dig, Woo ooo oo! Mah mah mah, dig dig, whee-uhl! Woo ooo, mah mah mah!” It’s good thing there weren’t any animals, balls, or helicopters outside, or he might have exploded!

My cell phone service plan was up, so I got an LG VX8300 about a month ago since I had an upgrade discount to take advantage of. I did a little digging and discovered that it’s possible to play videos and music on the phone. First step is to head over to Newegg.com and pick up a microSD card. I got a 1 gig card for $14 shipped. At that point all you have to do is copy MP3’s or WMA’s into the proper folder on the card and the phone will play them. The video is more restrictive; you have to use the 3gp video format. I found an article on how to convert your videos to that format at http://vx8300.blogspot.com/2006/08/tv-movies-and-videos-on-your-cell.html.

I watched about 20 minutes of “Waterboy” as a test, and even though the screen is small, it’s actually pretty watchable. Given the opportunity, I’d choose a TV or iPod first, but in a pinch, the phone works fine. I’ve actually used it in the garage a number of times to play music while I worked on a project. The little speakers sound rather tinny, but it’s better than nothing. When I get a chance, I’ll have to try it with a decent set of headphones.

Tonight I had a pretty light dinner, so I went to the kitchen later looking for a reasonable snack. I grabbed a stalk of celery from the fridge, but I wasn’t sure that would hit the spot, so I grabbed the jar of peanut butter and spread it on. Oh yeah, I should mention that I have a cold and can’t smell very well.

One bite later I experienced the worst taste I’ve encountered. The peanut butter had turned rancid and was now stuck to my mouth, even stickier than regular peanut butter. I swished with about three glasses full of water, a cup of salt water and a mouth full of crackers I brushed my teeth, had a soda and another piece of celery, and the taste finally started to subside. While I had my snack, I sat and watched Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs”, in which the host was rowing a boat across a retention pond filled with manure. The whole time I thought to myself that I wish I’d had a glass of that instead!

In fairness to the peanut butter manufacturers of the world, the jar was significantly past the expiration date, and my wife reminded me that I stopped her from throwing it out. Now I know better… The question is, will I ever be able to eat peanut butter again?

Maybe I’m the last person on earth to know this, but there are free alternatives to the standard “411″ directory assistance phone number.

Try 1-800-FREE-411 next time. It gives you an automated system with voice recognition, and actually worked really well for me. If the automated system can’t understand you, you can get a real person. Now, you do have to listen to a short advertisement, but it’s only a few seconds, and they have to get something for providing this service.

They have a website also, at http://www.free411.com. It was able to find our number just fine, and they have a feature that shows your neighbors as well. For many of them I didn’t know their last name!

After a long hiatus of posting pictures, we’ve finally gotten around to posting our favorite photos of Evan. You can see them on the photos page.

The last update we made was a while ago, so months 19 and later are the new ones.

Last night Evan slept in his “bed” fairly well. He spent the night there, waking up a couple of times (which isn’t altogether unusual for him).

Our little cat Ginger curled up with him for a good portion of the night, since we left the door open and the baby gate up. As you can see from the picture below, he insisted on all his kitties and puppies as well as his cup, but the cow was repeated evicted!

Tonight I’m heading out to the garage again to do some painting on his real bed. Hopefully soon I can post pictures of that.

For the past couple of weeks, we’ve had a twin size mattress on the floor of Evan’s room next to his crib. There have been a few nights where he wasn’t sleeping well, so that way one of us could go sleep in his room to keep him company so the other could get some sleep.

Well, tonight, after his bath, Evan decided he wanted to go to bed. Rather than reach for his crib as he normally does, tonight he laid down on the bed on the floor. Fine by us, if that’s what he wants! We left his room and we could hear on the monitor that he got up and moved around some but wasn’t complaining any. After a couple of minutes we could hear that he’d fallen asleep.

A while ago we thought we’d peek in to check on him. We shut off all the lights and started to open his door, but it wouldn’t move. He fell asleep on the floor against the door He woke up just a little bit ago so Dusty settled him back into his bed (he still refused the crib). I guess we’ll see how he does tonight. We’re building him a special bed, so maybe he’s getting about ready for it!

Last weekend, Derrick, Dave and myself finally got together for a guys-only winter camping trip. It was my first tent-camping trip in a couple of years and the first guy time I’d had in quite some time. In the days preceding the trip, we decided to do a sort-of double trip. We planned to camp from our bicycles on Friday night and head to Jubilee for Saturday.

On Friday night, we met up at the Alta trailhead for the Rock Island Trail. We got reacquainted, shuffled around some gear, and loaded up into my pickup to head to our starting point north of Princeville, leaving Derrick’s truck in Alta. When we got there we set up the bikes and loaded the trailers with our gear. We didn’t all have lightweight backpacking gear, so Derrick and I pulled toddler trailers full of gear. Dave strapped some firewood to his bike rack and carried a backpack.

We’d initially planned to get started on the trail around 4 or 5pm, but due to some unforeseen circumstances we didn’t set out until about 10:30pm. Oh well The temperature was around 40 degrees and it was misting slightly for most of our journey. Unfortunately the hard pack trail was a little soft and made the going a little tough. We took our time (mostly because we weren’t all in stellar shape), stopped fairly frequently and headed through Princeville and Dunlap. About 8 miles in, we were making pretty slow progress. It was about 12:30am and I was having a hard time keeping up, being up way past my bedtime and in awful shape. I usually ride a recumbent, so I was also experiencing the joys that mountain bike seats provide! Derrick lashed my trailer up in tandem with his (each of which weighed probably 50-60 lbs). Obviously in better shape than us, Derrick easily pulled the 6 wheeled monstrosity and we made great time finishing the last three miles.

We pulled in to the Kickapoo Creek Recreation Area around 1:30am It’s a nice little campground accessible only from the Rock Island Trail, and since it was winter it was all ours. We rested for a while at the picnic shelter, set up the tent, sat by the campfire and had a snack. Around 4am we turned in for the night. The temperature was pleasant and I for one slept very well.

In the morning, we packed up camp and looked for a geocache in the campground. We finished the ride back to Alta, picking up another cache on the way. At the end, Dave waited with the bikes while Derrick and I took his truck back up to the top of the trail to retrieve my truck. We loaded up, grabbed some lunch, and headed out to Jubilee.

At Jubilee, there were a number of hunters at camp, but still plenty of room to breathe. We set up camp and started a hike. We picked up three geocaches and made our way back to camp as the sun started to set. After a mighty meal of bratwursts and chips, we settled in around the campfire to relax. As we turned in for the night, the temperature had dropped to around freezing and was rather humid, so we left the door flap partially open. Apparently Dave got cold in the night, so he shut the flap in the middle of the night, resulting a very crunchy tent in the morning. The condensation made the entire outside (and most of the inside) of the tent covered in frost.

On Sunday morning, we broke camp early and went our separate ways. Dave and I were home before 9:30am. I had to travel on business in the afternoon, so it was good to have some time at home before then. I was bummed it was over, though. It was nice to have a little time to be a “guy” again, at least as much of a guy as I ever was, anyway.

Oh yeah, a little epilogue: when I got home, I set out my stuff to dry. I put the tent up in the back yard and staked it down. When I returned from my business trip 4 days later, I thanked my wife for taking the tent down. When she didn’t know what I was talking about, I searched the neighborhood. Despite the stakes and my 6ft privacy fence, my tent traveled about a block and became firmly lodged in the thick woods at the edge of the neighborhood. One pole was broken and I’m assuming the tent itself is a little messed up from the thorns. Oh well, the tent served me well, but new gear is fun too!

For photos of the trip, see the photos page.