The DLP's Cheating. How Can I Reprogramme Her?

So I'm sitting here at 0-dark-thirty having just 'fed' The DLP, and I'm reminded of an old comment about a lecture being the perfect way for the notes of a teacher to be transferred to the notes of a student without passing through the minds of either.

Christine had her first night out last night, going off to the movies with Jayne and had a great time. So I'm looking after Marnie. Which is fine, but involves bottle feeding. Which seems a really effective way to transfer milk from Christine to The DLP's vest via the excellent pump of The DLP's mouth without going anywhere near her stomach.

I can see I'm really going to struggle with child logic. You know the kind of thing I mean - I'm hungry so I'll spread my food across my face; I'm tired so I'll scream until I knacker myself asleep; I want fed so I'll make sure my mouth isn't in the right place. Maybe it's just me, but it feels like someone needs to do a little redesign on the programming. Oh, wait, isn't that what I get to do over eighteen years of growing up...oh joy.

As I say, it is rather early in the morning, and that may be shading my thinking. On the whole, The DLP's being very good. There's usually a reason for what little yelling she does, and she's mostly in a good mood.

She's turning into a petite baby, long, and slightly on the low side weight wise but well within average. You know how some babies have disproportionally large heads and faces? Well, The DLP is not one of those. She's a small, perfectly proportioned little human, and it can be quite unsettling just how often you think there's a tiny wizened ancient sitting on the sofa.

At 2 1/2 months, she's had her first immunisations, which involved some positive yelling due to the nurse vigorously using the same size of needle despite commenting on The DLP's skinny legs.

Christine was back in hospital yesterday for a final check on the abdominal pains she was getting a while ago. She's been fine for a while, and she got the all clear yesterday. Other than that, she's doing the Mum thing well, and is meeting up for Mum-coffees.

She's taking The DLP to water babies with one of the other mums and her son next week, so hopefully The DLP will enjoy that and take to being in water early. It seems babies can take to it quite naturally - returning to a liquid environment and all that, so here's hoping.

I've started my new part-time job at the School of Engineering, but I'll come back to that in later posts when I've got my head round it. In the meantime, I've been tinkering away with a few things in the wee small hours, including a webpage looking at the reality of the Indiana Jones movies (can't think why I started that at the moment...).

I also found this lecture by Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor "Faith in Britain: A Personal Perspective" an interesting view on modern faith and atheism and the doubt that connects both. (if you're interested in reading the transcript, due to poor web design you need to click on the red lined box under the Caridnal's name on the RHS of the page).

And on a lighter note, I'm afraid I've been back trawling the LOLcat archives...I blame you, Zan. What I want to know with this pic is - this looks like fun. How can I get a similar pic of Glaikit without Christine killing me?




Cheers.

Groan

I have no intention of turning this into a joke page, but in the spirit of a bank holiday weekend, I thought you might appreciate this one, courtesy of Helen Jones.

"A thief in Paris planned to steal some paintings from the Louvre.

After careful planning, he got past security, stole the paintings, and made it safely to his van.

However, he was captured only two blocks away when his van ran out of gas.

When asked how he could mastermind such a crime and then make such an obvious error, he replied, 'Monsieur, that is the reason I stole the paintings. I had no Monet to buy Degas to make the Van Gogh.'"


Over the weekend, I will get on with a posting bringing our activities up to date. In the meantime, have a good one.

When Marnies Attack....

the first signs are a strange glazed stare, followed by a horrible but oddly unscary sliming....












When she's not oozily threatening the world, Marnie's smiling a lot more now, like she's getting to know what it means. She's standing (with balance support) as well, getting quite upset in the morning when she's not upright on her own legs.

She's recovering from her first bad cold - snuffling through feeds and sleeping. Not very pleasant, but it has its bonuses - she's discovered she can move her nose even when her head's held to administer the saline drops. Chasing a nose around a face is a new experience for me.
More's the pity for Christine, Marnie's got wickedly pointed fingernails she'll want to keep in later life, but she doesn't have control of them yet. Luckily she is recovering nicely from her schlager scar.

Christine's doing much better - the antibiotics seem to have sorted most of the pain in her abdomen so she can move a lot more easily now. Back driving again, she says she never realised how house bound she could become without being able to drive.

Mum and Dad were still visiting until Tuesday, doing sterling work. The garden got its first mowing and looks the better for it. Pimms on the lawn, we think?

The garage (yes, we finally have an operational garage again! Yay!) is pretty organised and full of boxes, and loads of little jobs were knocked off as well as the day to day cooking, washing, etc. Of course, those all went by the wayside whenever M wanted to play or to be taken for a walk. Who says family don't make good visitors?

We did allow the workers a few days off. We visited the Museum of Welsh Life, where they've just re-erected St Telio's Church (pictured) after moving it from Glamorgan.

We spent another pleasant day in the Independent Kingdom of Hay-on-Wye (most famous export, second hand books). Not the most organised bookshops, but if you've time to browse (and, to be honest, you don't go to Hay in anything like a hurry), you'll find all sorts of odd books. Except magic books. I believe there's a conspiracy to keep the secret from the public. Even in a shop with hundreds of thousands of books, only two on magic?

On the work front, I've submitted the final report for my industry engagement project in the School of Engineering, and that project is now successfully closed. We managed to interest 40 odd companies to look at collaborating with the School, and I'll be interested to see what comes of those contacts over the next year.

I start a new contract at the School on Monday, this time with the Knowledge Engineering Systems. I'll be a research assistant with them part-time for 12 months, looking at artificial intelligence and eLearning as well as engaging with industry for that group. I'll also have a a couple of days a week to pursue work through our own company, or more likely, look after Marnie!

And just in case you were wondering, Glaikit has found a very naice new home right outside our door on top of the cupboard - just at head height...quite disconcerting at 3 am.

(I can haz hom, perhaps? - OK, I've been looking at the wrong websites, Zan, or maybe it's the right ones...)

It's Been A

Busy Few Days.

We've had loads of family visiting - they keep muttering something about wanting to visit a new arrival? Barbara and Linda were down last week for a few days, having done the run from Glasgow in one day. Although it gave Linda (still to pass her test) some good experience driving as they came down through central Wales, having done a similar trip over Christmas, I don't envy them the journey. Though we were very pleased that they had.

We had a quiet few days with them doing sterling work around the house doing fascinating things like the washing, which left us to look after Marnie - although there were a few interesting experiences for Marnie along the way...

They disappeared back up the road again on Thursday and Mum and Dad arrived on the bus that evening. They'd travelled all the way from Sheilbridge by bus, stopping off overnight with the Glasgow Aunties. They'd just about time to meet Marnie when Peter and Chris arrived after a flight from Vancouver delayed by 6 hours. Which gave Dad and I a chance to witness Cardiff on a Saturday night as we waited at the train station for them...

During the usual whirlwind visit where Lots Got Done (many thanks for all the work, next time we'll try and do things you actually want to do rather than just stuffing Marnie into your arms to listen to your (very effective) singing), and we had a meal at the Pearl of the Orient in Cardiff Bay.

Marnie seems to have enjoyed all the attention, and certainly never let it get to her head. She griped and gurned as usual, but did take it upon herself to practise her smiling, even though she sometimes resorted to booting me in the stomach to get my attention first. And she's not too fussed about formal family photos, either...Yes those are her arms and feet moving at an incredible rate of knots to go with the screaming.

She's certainly growing - she's out the first few babygros already. And we discovered Christine eating cucumber really doesn't agree with Marnie - cue room shattering bottom booms. She likes standing, taking her own weight with assistance to balance, but I can only hope that's a reflex which will fade and come back - it's too early to even dream of her making her own way around our house at the moment. As you can see, she's also practising for a starring role in a popular TV show:

L: Marnie R: Sontaran

We're getting back to a good night's sleep - although that's a relative idea; when you're woken from 5 hours sleep and then get back to a further 3 hours, technically you have had 8 hours, but it's not quite the same...

If you're interested, I've posted more pictures on the Marnie set on Flickr. Check out the link at the top right of this page as well.

Cheers,

TheStewarts