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Catching Up on Family Events

Our family blog is woefully out of date. I’ll also try to catch up on family events, not just Katherine developments, given everything that is happening.

December was a very busy month….

  • Our family flew to DC to help my mom finish packing and move to Redmond. Katherine learned how to use a camera and got into all sorts of things – packing tape, bubble wrap, etc. We got back to Washington just in time to spend a few days with Steve’s parents before New Years!
  • Steve was working hard getting ready for the launch of his product at CES among other activities.

January was even crazier…

  • Steve went to CES (see his blog entries), caught the crud that’s going around, which developed into a bronchial infection just in time for our vacation!
  • Steve, Katherine and I went with the LeVines to Oahu and Maui for a week. The trip was long, even traveling first class, and the passengers behind us told us about how hard it was to travel with their 4 children years ago. (Hmmm…) Katherine and Sid played on the beach. Steve and Eric learned to surf. Steve caught a sand crab, which we didn’t get a picture of unfortunately. Katherine developed a strong appreciation for sea creatures and learned all about sting rays, sharks, dolphins, etc. The trip back was more hellacious since we got in at 1AM, but in all the trip was well worth it. We learned a ton about how to and how not to travel with Katherine to a vacation destination, just in time for #2.
  • Our radiologist confirmed that #2 will be a girl. ๐Ÿ™‚

Our focus in February is on pre-schools and getting ready for the next child.

  • Steve and I have gone to six open houses so far for preschools and I’ve submitted 3 applications for next September. Fingers crossed that plan A or B pans out for next year.
  • Katherine is growing up so fast. She now sleeps thru the night in her junior bed. We moved her stuff to the old guest room this weekend, so she has her own room. I’m also weeding thru Katherine’s old baby stuff and figuring out what we need to do before May.
  • Katherine just started gymnastics class and she’s fearless. She loves the balance beam and jumping into a foam pit that the gym uses to teach equipment to more advanced kids.

Katherine Developments

Katherine is talking like a little person these days. Today while in her car seat, she recited the days of the week and months in the year. According to her calendar, her birthday is in February and the months of June and November don’t exist. Also, there are only 5 days in the week – Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. She’s trying really hard though. ๐Ÿ™‚

She’s also picked up different songs that she changes at whim. She recently started singing the Old MacDonald song, “EIEIO”, where the farmer has a chicken that says “moo,” and all sorts of other non-farm creatures. Other favorites are John Jingle Heimer Schmidt and the Bingo song – repurposed to sing about Katherine and her dog Bisco.

Katherine loves to crack jokes. After the December Tiny Tots concert, she will say that Mama plays violin and Dada plays the sippy cup! Sometimes, he plays the trombone or tuba. She finds ridiculous ideas funny and just starts to crack up. For instance, Steve was reading a book about a girl who has diarrhea among other troubles and is moody (learning about emotions). Katherine just laughed up a storm tonight – and I don’t think she has any idea what that is!

She really started speaking in full sentences right before the holidays (5, 6, 7 word sentences), and her verbal skills are continuing to progress. She asks “Why” all the time. Tonight, she asked “Why Santa in sleigh?” She’ll keep asking until she gets an answer that makes sense. Along with this is her attempt to reason or negotiate with me and Steve and do Everything Herself (ex. “Me [insert verb] myself”).

Key areas for development are still around sharing and resisting the urge to grab toys from others when she’s excited and a bit of stranger anxiety when she’s not with a primary caregiver. We’ll keep working on it.

Network Magic, CES Day 2

Network Magic, CES Day 2

Today was quite an eventful day at CES for Pure Networks and Network Magic.  We demoed Network Magic at the D-Link booth and several of our industry partners stopped by to check it out.  Marty, Brett, and Sherman did a great job demoing Network Magic to visitors at the booth.  We left our wireless AP open so we had plenty of intruders poping on the network.

In the afternon, Steve spoke at a Park & Associates panel on Making the Home Network Work: The Role of Managed Network Services. The panel went really well and we successfully positioned Network Magic as the simple solution to making home networks work for consumers.  There were 50 or so people in the audience, mainly partners and members of the participating companies.

In the evening, we found out that Network Magic got nominated as finalist for Next Big Thing Award for CES 2005. This is a huge accomplishment and validation that Network Magic is truly delivering on a clear customer need for simple home networking.  Kudos to the team for building a compelling product and getting the word out there.

Network Magic Goes Public Beta Today

Today, Pure Networks announced the Public Beta of Network Magic at CES. Network Magic is the product that I and Pure Networks have been working hard on for the last year to make home networking simple. I encourage you to download it, try it out, and send me any feedback.

Home Networking Made Simple

Network Magic is the only software that makes the day-to-day use of your home network easy, intuitive and enjoyable. With Network Magic, you can:

  • Set up Windows home networking in just a few steps
  • Add new devices in minutes instead of hours
  • Get automatic repairs made to your network
  • Share pictures, files, printers and more securely, reliably and effortlessly
  • The Network Map lets you view and manage your entire network from a single screen.

Katherine Turns Two!

Katherine has been looking forward to her birthday for days. On Saturday, we celebrated with a friends and then a family dinner gathering. She was a trooper, staying up until 9PM last night – exhausted but so excited to be “Two!” She is trying to form a V with her fingers, but so far the closest she gets are two intertwined fingers.

The best part about birthdays for Katherine is “chocolate cake.” She woke up from her nap right before Steve got home with the cake, balloons and party platters. We made the mistake of showing her the cake from Larry’s Market. Katherine must have said “try cake…pease!” at least 40 times before the party. She tried crying, she tried pleading, but we stayed firm telling her that we had to wait for her friends to arrive. As soon as her first guest, Sid, arrived she headed to the cake to eat.

What else did she eat before the party? A juice box, goldfish and crackers. The party was a hoot, with boys running around the house, the kids playing and coloring a large cardboard castle.

Katherine’s Vocabulary

Steve and I were debating tonight how many words Katherine has in her vocabulary. I would bet that she has 750 to 1000 words. Steve thinks she has over a thousand, maybe even two. Lately, her verbal skills have just blossomed to less everyday words. For instance, she helped us eat “Tacos” tonight, and played with her “Leap-pad.” She can describe just about everything and help us read books. I bought a book called “Truck in the Muck” last week. After only a couple times reading the book, she now follows along and helps me finish the sentences.

Her Favorite Songs

Thanks to Toby School, Katherine’s learned a handful of songs that she sings regularly. One is about fish swimming in the water. She says “fish shwimming in water, bubble…bubble pop!” and then starts in on ducks paddling. She also sings the main words to “ibby bibby spider” and also hokey pokey. She enjoys having me or Steve sing the hokey pokey; she’ll hold on to one of our hands to stick her foot out and also her hands waving them around – followed by a walk around in a circle. She loves being able to sing the songs and put them different parts of songs together. One minutes she’s singing her ABCs, the next she’s singing about spiders and fish.

ABCs

Katherine’s ABCs deserve a mention of their own because she’s made tremendous progress over the last month or so. Previously, she would say “ABC..Dada.” She heard Sid say his ABCs a month ago and pushed thru the Ds. Now she can say “ABCDE…H..GHIJKLOOOPQSTUVWXYZ now know ABCs sing with me!” She will sometimes skip T and then go straight to YZ, but if I say T!, she’ll fill in the rest of the letters. I think within the next 6-8 weeks, she’ll be able to say her entire ABCs without any issues.

Keeping Pooh Dry

Katherine loves potty training. She will run to her drawer, pull out a pair of Pooh undies and then attempt to stuff both legs into one leg hole. We’ve put her in her undies for up to several hours at a time. She’s done a great job, saying “peepee” and running to her little Baby Bjorn plastic potty in the downstairs or upstairs bathroom just in time to go bathroom. She tries to mimic us by using “paper towel” to wipe and then to flush the toilet. We just purchased today a Baby Bjorn formed plastic toilet seat that Katherine used to go to the bathroom on the “big potty.”

The End of an Era – or Decade

It’s the end of a long era. For the first time in 14 years, neither Steve nor I work for Microsoft. Wow! Friends have told us about this, but I wonder how I ever managed to work. We’ve been sooo busy this last month with family, appointments, Halloween, Katherine’s birthday…The list of things to do never seems to end.

Microsoft Company Picnic

We went to North Bend to the Microsoft Company picnic today – the first time for both Steve and me (believe it or not!) We wheeled Katherine around in her jogger. She hung out with some friends and soaked in all the sights. Key milestones:

  • Katherine ate a small slice of watermelon, all the way down to the rind. Dad also gave her a few licks of popsicles to cool her down. She wasn’t sure what to make of the artificial flavoring and coloring. ๐Ÿ™‚
  • She watched her friend Audrey bounce around in an inflatable thing. Katherine stood on a ledge outside, clinging on to netting and squealing with excitement.
  • She tried pushing a plastic lawnmower, which wasn’t quite stable enough for her.
  • And….she rode on a horse for the first time! Steve held her on the saddle while the horse plodded around the ring.

Katherine Hacking with Dad

Dad’s been working really hard the last couple of weeks shipping Pure Networks’ first product Port Magic. Katherine would watch dad type on the keyboard and stare at the monitor. It was clear to dad that she understood typing on the keyboard created the movement in the monitor. Katherine thought this was a lot of fun, especially when dad would grab the keyboard to prevent Katherine from doing something serious to the PC.

Katherine is Growing Up

I’ve been really busy for the last couple of weeks so I haven’t contributed to the weblog very much. Here’s a brief synopsis of Katherine’s growth over the last couple of weeks. Katherine is intensely interested in the world around here. She struggles to stay awake on the weekend and at night because she just wants to play. She gets herself so worked up that she cannot fall asleep. And she’s so loud. I used to be able to wake up at 1A, change her diaper and get her back to sleep while remaining in a semi-asleep stupor. These nights are over. Katherine screams at the top of her lungs when she’s being changed so I’m wide awake by the time I get her back to sleep.

Christine and I call Katherine “swivel-head” as she now leans back and swivels her head from one side to another to check out her surroundings. It’s fun to watch her take interest in one noise and then be distracted by mom or dad talking in the opposite direction. She’s absorbing her surroundings like a sponge. Bisco has become a great source of entertainment for Katherine. When Bisco comes near, she wants to grab his fur and stick it in her mouth.