I shot a bunch of Harper videos, so here are a bunch more. Enjoy!
My mom requested one of Harper pushing her toy stroller around.
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Here she is crashing before bedtime…
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Here’s Daddy trying to read her a story, and Harper not paying attention.
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Here she is (on a different day) refusing to go to sleep.
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And here she is in her “puppy free zone” antagonizing the dogs.
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We’ve got plenty more where those came from… especially with her birthday on the way!
Here’s a video of Harper keeping time with Daddy. She’s getting pretty good, as you can see!
So, I’ve been slacking a bit on the weekly videos, and for some admittedly lame reasons. But I’ll make it up to you all today by posting THREE videos of the baby girl in action.
My brothers complain that these videos are dull. To which I say, you’ve got to appreciate these for what they are: raw, Cinéma vérité films from my point of view. When you watch these videos, you’re seeing what I see every day. You’re not just there with our family – you’re literally a part of it.
And in that, there’s a lot of joy watching Harper bang on her high chair tray to demand more food, seeing her grin as she smacks her sippy cup onto the table and makes a big mess, or cringing in horror as Bastian walks up and starts licking her on the face and she shows approval by smiling and trying to pet him. Such is our life.
With that said, here are the videos. Enjoy!
OK, so I (Sean) admit that I’ve been neglecting a to update this blog… well, at all since the promise of some weekly videos of our daughter. Our intentions have been good, but we’ve been quite busy with getting sick, getting well, traveling, buying bicycles, getting sick again, and having a ton to do at work. Also, I haven’t put the time in yet to figure out how to pull the videos off my iPad (which is nearly full, thanks to a bunch of games and iTunes U videos I dowloaded and have yet to go through), and I really think I need to invest in a better video recorder anyhow since the iPad video and sound quality are pretty poor. My old point-and-shoot camera does an OK job, but it’s a real hassle to get the videos up on Youtube due to a proprietary video format it uses.
Anyhow, here are the highlights of our recent adventures. I promise we’ll put up some pictures and videos soon. I’d do it now, but Harper’s asleep, and the photos I’ve been taking lately are not great in quality.
We bought bicycles. We’ve been meaning to do this for awhile, but we finally got around to doing it. We also bought a bike rack for the CR-V so we can ride the numerous (and high-quality!) trails in the St. Louis area. The plan is to go every Saturday or Sunday morning. If you ever want to ride with us, let us know!
Harper has more teeth. She’s just pushing out her upper molars now … and she’s far ahead of schedule on that front. Most babies have 4-8 teeth by their first birthday. Harper’s going to have ten. But it’s probably for the best, because she loves the meat her mother eats and my Morningstar vegetarian meat-alikes.
Sean’s employer is enjoying a record year. Me, my boss David and my associate Joyce (as well as all of our other staff!) have all been working really hard to crank our business up. It’s been a wild ride, but a worthwhile one. We’re already set to make our year by the late summer, and if trends continue, we’ll go far beyond it. This has meant that I’ve had to shift into a more managerial role and get better organized, but hey; that’s part of keeping a business running.
Stacie’s maybe going to get to work from home this summer. We’ll see. A lot of things still need to be decided. But if it happens, Stacie will be able to shave her 10-minute commute down to the time it takes to get down the stairs. We’ll have to completely redo our front bedroom to become a professional home office, but that’s not such a big deal. It will only become a big deal if we decide to have another child (something we’re currently not planning until Harper is out of diapers!)
Harper is crawling, babbling and showing signs of being much more socially aware. She’s got a little stranger anxiety right now, but it’s getting better as she gets more familiar with the idea of other people. Daycare helps her a lot in that regard. She’s going to be a ton of fun at her first birthday party.
Speaking of which, if you’d like to attend her party, it’s April 7th and the Casa de Jordan. Cake and ice cream will, of course, be served, and the “cake smash” will be recorded to put up on Youtube. You don’t need to bring a present or even a card; you CAN bring a nicely-decorated empty box, if you like, or some small toy, favorite book or hand-picked piece of clothing (18 months is her current size). But only bring a gift if you feel the need to. Harper isn’t old enough to know better, and she definitely has plenty of stuff already.
That’s the story, folks! Hopefully, the act of getting off my duff and writing this will help me and Stacie to contribute more often!
-Sean
I’ve decided that I’m going to put up weekly videos of Harper doing whatever it is she’s doing that week. I’d like to say that I’m doing this just for the joy of sharing my wonderful daughter’s growth and discovery with our friends and family, but I do have an ulterior motive – I want to stockpile a bunch of raw video so I can create embarrassing videos about her to use to scare away future gentleman callers and to give her future spouse second thoughts at the rehearsal dinner.
I’m such an awesome dad, aren’t I?
Anyhow, in this week’s edition, Harper demonstrates some of her mobility skills. I’ve got a couple of videos – one of her on the floor and one of her in her walker. Enjoy!
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Here are a couple of videos I shot of Harper today. It should give you an idea of the pseudo-crawling she’s figured out for herself. (She’d FAR rather be walking.)
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Note that Harper is not at all afraid of the dogs; she loves them, and they love her! A few minutes after I shot this, I opened the gate, and Bastian kept trying to sneak in her room to be with her while she napped.
Photo Credit: Nomadic Lass (Flickr.com)
Most of the folks who are reading this probably know that it took me ten years to finish my undergraduate degree – I started in 1998 at the University of Illinois, dropped out/was kicked out of my journalism program in January of 2001. My story up that point isn’t so unusual, though I made it farther than most people who drop out do. What is less typical is that I managed to turn “some college” into a full-fledged degree a few years later - I returned to school at SIUE in 2007 to enroll in business school. Fortunately, the intervening years made school a much higher priority for me; I graduated summa cum laude in the summer of 2008 and then went on to get my master’s of marketing research the following December.
But for me, going back to college was for more than a piece of paper. It was a calibration of my life’s trajectory that allowed me to sail over the ceilings I might have encountered on my prior path and to make my way into places I never dreamed I’d be.
Prior to going back to school, the best I was able to achieve myself was a retail management job where I made around $32,000 a year (plus whatever bonus I could eke out). I was constantly frustrated by the company I worked for because the people who made decisions about my life seemed to have no idea what I was dealing with on a daily basis. (And, even worse, they didn’t seem to care, since their offices in Grapevine, TX were far removed from the ins and outs of my Shiloh, IL retail store.) My relationship with my wife was as poor as it’d ever been, and I was getting so stressed out that I was developing a twitchy eye and constant nausea. I didn’t get much sleep, and I absolutely hated my boss. (The feeling, I’m sure, was mutual.) Read the rest of this page »
Photo credit: Shivapat (Flickr.com)
I’m a fairly apolitical person – I see politics as being a masquerade being played by people who know exactly what’s going on, but who have to keep up the theatrics to remain in power. While I’m often interested in seeing how the game is being played, I don’t take much of any of the political stuff too seriously. I’ll make an exception when my convictions tell me that it’s time to make a stand, but I also recognize that 99% of what goes on in the political sphere is something I’m better off not fretting about.
One thing that has been troubling me greatly about our culture, however, is the rather strange idea that the poor and the needy are somehow too lazy to get jobs and that the best course of action is to show these folks some “tough love” by refusing them welfare, food stamps, basic healthcare or housing – in other words, to turn them out into the streets and force them to fend for themselves. This idea seems peculiar to conservative Republicans, which makes it all the odder to me because many of these people identify themselves as being Christians, often to the point that they refuse to vote for someone such as Mitt Romney because they perceive that he, being a Mormon, doesn’t share their values. Read the rest of this page »
Here’s Harper’s current favorite toy: a Fisher Price “Laugh and Learn” Picnic Basket that my Grandma Jordan got her for Christmas.
What’s sad is that Stacie and I wind up singing these songs when Harper’s asleep because they’re addictive little earworms that we hear all day long.
About a minute in, Harper says my favorite word with a little bit of prompting.
Also, note that Harper is wearing her rocket ship, glow-in-the-dark pajamas. Thanks to Auntie Dylan for those!
Photo Credit: Anne Davis (Flickr.com)
Every now and then, someone takes it upon him or herself to point out to me that I’m a huge hypocrite in some way – often because I’m a vegetarian who wears leather shoes and belts or because I will cook and serve meat to my family and guests without partaking myself.
To which I respond, “I am a hypocrite.” I’ve never claimed otherwise. It would be nice if I could be consistent about everything I say and do, but the mere fact that I’m human means that it’s unlikely to happen.
For example, I ride the MetroLink to work most days because it’s cheaper, greener, and allows me to work on the train if I want to. But at the same time, I’d be lying if I said that I enjoy riding the MetroLink or that I wouldn’t rather drive my car. If I drive, I can get from my daughter’s daycare to my office in about 30 minutes. If I take the train, it takes me 15 minutes to get to the train station, 45 minutes to get to the stop closest to my office and another 10 minutes to walk to my building. Any efficiencies I generate on the train with being able to get some work done are lost by the time it takes to get to and from the train station. I more than double my commute for the sake of my principles. Read the rest of this page »
