Very Sad News

As some of you may know, we have been experiencing complications with Cheryl's pregnancy, and it is with heavy hearts that we must now announce the loss of our baby. We ask everyone to please understand that we are not yet ready to talk about this devastating experience, but ask for time to get in touch with each of you as we are ready.

This is the only blog entry we'll post on this topic.

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Stardate 61228.99 - Erection Getting Bigger

As you can see the construction across the street has come a long way recently. We learned an important lesson from all of this - the height of commercial floors is greater than that of residential floors. The building is only 15 stories tall, and we are on the 13th floor, so we figured we'd be looking at the very top of the building - which is supposed to be all glass and offices. Well, the part that is all glass is another couple of stories above our floor because the floors don't line up. Lesson Learned. At least the crane isn't directly in front of our window anymore.

Not that it really matters, because we'll probably be moving soon to our new place, pending Co-Op board approval. And the meeting has been scheduled.




So you probably won't get a view of the final building from this perspective, as it isn't scheduled for completion until March of 2008. We'll still be in the neighborhood, however, so I'll walk by sometime next year and take a final picture. As a reminder, here is what it is supposed to look like when completed.



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Supplemental - Loren in the Sand

Very short video of Loren in the sand.



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Stardate 61226.75 - Loren Pictures

It has been a little while since I have posted anything for a variety of reasons, but we had a great day with Loren on Saturday and we even remembered the camera so without any further introduction are some pictures of Loren (now 16.5 months of age), including some elephant shots to replace the ones we had here from my old camera phone - just to make James happy.








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Stardate 61192.30 - Elephants

The weather was nice this afternoon so we went to the playground for Loren to play. She really enjoyed the elephants, and wanted to ride one.





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Stardate 61187.83 - Loren's Breakfast

This morning Cheryl made chocolate chip pancakes and Loren enjoyed them, as you can see from the photo.


We also sat down today and tried to come up with a list of all the words Loren knows, since her 16-month birthday is tomorrow. Here are the words Loren coherently says and understands what they mean, in no particular order:

No, backpack, Mommy, Daddy, Up, Down, Map, Car, Cat, Cup, Mama (bananna), Ma (milk), Cracker, Pear, Dog, Duck, Quack, Cow, Moo, Pig, Oink, Frog, Baa, Neigh, Eye, Bye, Elmo, Bert, Ernie, Juice, Book, Star, Clock, Pano (Piano), Barn, Plane, Bus, Truck, Dora, Katie.

40 words is pretty good for a 16-month old, and these were just the ones we could come up with and write down over breakfast this morning.

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Stardate 61178.96 - Loren Swings

Loren swings at the park.



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Stardate 61172.00 - Movie Review: Red Eye

Cheryl and I watched Red Eye Saturday night. We give it two thumbs up. It wasn't a great movie, but it was good and it kept us entertained and the tension was good. It was fairly predictable and got off to a bit of a slow start, but again - the tension was good and the ending moved along at a pretty good clip. There were some real moments of suspended disbelief you had to endure, but as I said - it was entertaining.

Now after Flight Plan, Panic Room, and Red Eye we need to stay away from the woman in distress genre for a while.

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Stardate 61171.95 - Escape to Jersey

Today we went out to NJ to visit with Cheryl's parents, to take Loren to "the farm", and to go to Costco. We got 2 out of 3 accomplished, so that was not too bad. Loren fell asleep in the car during our early drive out there (at 0945) so we overshot our exit and started to come back up by way of the beach to keep her plenty of napping time in the car. The problem was that Cheryl was hungry (eating for 2 and all that) so we stopped at a MacDonald's to grab a late breakfast. Of course, Loren woke up as we were ordering from the drive-in.

And I'm sorry, John, but MacDonald's was awful. They didn't have any biscuits left (but didn't know this to tell us until after we had ordered and had gotten to the pickup window), so our Sausage Biscuits became Sausage McMuffins. And then mine turned out to be ham - not quite what I had ordered...in fact, not what I had ordered at all. And they didn't give us any cream for the coffee - they didn't even ask! Crappy experience.

So with Loren now awake, we aborted the beach drive and went up the Parkway to Cheryl's parent's place where we visited for a while. And since we were going to be out there with easy access to "free" laundry service we went ahead and took Loren's laundry with us (we're still doing her laundry ourselves rather than sending it out with ours - that way we know it is being washed in dye-free and all that other good stuff detergent).

Cheryl and her Mom drove out to Longstreet Farm in Holmdel Park while her Dad and I worked on individual job stuff (he installing software, me doing expense reports). I started the laundry and was supposed to be keeping an eye on it but I forgot so it sill had to go into the dryer when Cheryl and her Mom got back, cementing the fact that we would not be making it to Costco today.

Loren had a good time and enjoyed the chickens most of all. She also wanted to climb into this wagon but Cheryl wasn't sure if it was just a "display" and so Loren had to be content just standing beside it.



It was cold and flurries were coming down during the trip. We all had hot coco once they got back, and after a snack for Loren ahd folding of the laundry we were ready to drive back into the city. By this time it was pretty late so we decided not to stop at Costco on the way home - we'll save that adventure for next weekend.


And I guess one thing I should mention is that we had one other purpose for the trip - making sure the car didn't smell like vomit. As you may recall from an earlier post, Loren had a stomach bug a couple of weekends ago and threw up in the car 3 blocks from home. Apparently my cleaning up of the vomit and Febreze did the trick as the car smelled fine - no trace of vomit!

Ah, parenthood.

P.S. And Happy Birthday to James!

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Stardate 61169.34 - Playdate and Walk

Today Vlad and Inna came over with their son David for brunch. Cheryl made pancakes, fruit salad, sausages, and had a cake for dessert since David's birthday was yesterday. Loren was very sleepy after having woken up at 0530 Saturday morning, but managed to stay awake until they arrived and then had fun playing near David (since they are too young to really play with each other).


After brunch we decided to go for a walk, and we strolled by the building where we are buying the co-op. The co-op board package was submitted late this week, and we'll probably have a board interview this month. Closing is estimated for May 1. Our place will be on the 7th floor.



We then strolled up the east side walk beside the FDR, with the sun overhead, blue sky, a few clouds, and temperatures in the low 60s. We walked all the way up to Gracie Mansion because Inna had never been there before. Shortly after we started playing at the playground in Carl Schurz Park, the temperatures began to drop and the wind began to blow. Loren, who seems to be fighting a bit of a cold, started to shiver.


By the time we got home, temperatures had dropped 15 degrees and it was pretty darn cold with the wind chill. Vlad, Inna, and David drove home and we went back to the apartment where I had opened all the windows before we left to air out the place (it gets stuffy over the winter). It was pretty cold in the apartment when we got back and the wind had blown a few things onto the floor in the bedroom but closing all the windows warmed the place back up.

I took a short video of her on the swing in the park and I may post that tomorrow.

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Stardate 61167.47 - Calling All Blackberry Users

Attention all geek friends of mine, and any non-geek with a Blackberry, and any random reader with a Blackberry.

I'm thinking about purchasing a Blackberry, but I want to know if people have any particular praise or scorn for specific models.

I'm also thinking about purchasing either an unlocked phone or a Cingular-specific phone from eBay since my Cingular contract is not up for another 10 months. If anyone has any experience in purchasing phones not from their cell provider and actually getting them to work well, I'd appreciate hearing your story.

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