Here's a little info about our cute daughter Sydney. Sydney is learning new words everyday. She imitates anything you say. She heard "Wombat" on her baby einstein video and repeated it. She can now say bye and blow kisses with a "muh". When we put her down for naps she'll talk to her self forever. She'll wake up talking to herself in the morning. She use to crawl up the stairs and cry because she wanted down, but was unwilling to crawl down, She's a very cautious girl. She still refuses to walk, she prefers crawling or walking along the edge of the couch (for support). She loves stuffed animals and has many of them. She also loves going outside. If the door is open she'll crawl outside and off the steps. Sometimes she prefers boxes and other assorted trash items to the toys that she has. I'm thinking that our family could have saved a lot of money by going to the back of stores and just getting the boxes for her, at this point she would have been just as happy. She's a funny kid, and I'm not sure what she's going to do when she's no longer the center of attention in February when her sister comes. She's going to have to learn how to share in a quick hurry. Overall, Sydney keeps us very busy, and we love her to pieces.

I've noticed that unlike many other blogs that I read, I really don't talk about my feelings any where here. My wife would probably point out that I don't talk about my feelings at all, except on the rare occasion. I'm sure my readership is significantly high, so it might not be a big deal every so often write a blog post like this.

I've noticed that I'm always dreading to do one thing or another. I'm dreading to go to class or to see a clinic or this or that. I'm not really "enjoying the day", and because of that I'm often not a happy person. Last week I had a test to dread, studying to dread, clinic to dread, etc, etc... When I had a job I seriously dreaded going (mind you it was a call center). I don't like living that way, that is always looking to the future negatively, but I've created myself a bad habit. When I get thinking about what Christ would do, I get the feeling that he would "enjoy the journey". How do I get to that point? Does anyone else struggle with this?

I'll get back to my regular posts next time.

Extreme Home Makeover down my street!
Well, extreme home makeover has taken camp just down my street. There was a Tongan family, the Pauni family, that has light 9 people, whose father died two years ago who are getting a brand new house this week. There were millions (well, maybe not millions) of volunteers out working on the house. They started tearing down the old house on Tuesday and their almost finished with the new house already. There are so many people coming to see the work as spectators. The family is on a cruise in Virgin islands right now while they do it. Here's an article on it at that I found on google. Well, we these guys are going to have the nicest house on the block, and no one deserves it more.

Sydney continues to point out what we need to do in regards to childproofing our home. 

Sydney discovered that the shredder is full of fun paper. Her are a few pics of her fun discover. It's amazing watching her grow. Everyday she discovers a new way to make a mess.

 

I'm trying out Picasa from google. Here is a random pic of Sydney, with enough hair to almost put in pony tails. 

Wow, I haven't written anything forever. Does anyone check this out anymore. My blogs haven't been too interesting lately. I would have given up on my a long time ago. Well, I have a test next week and I should be studying for it, but I some how manage to avoid it. A sign that I need to get out of school.

Well, I'm at an elementary externship working with the speech-language pathologist. I've been surprised that I like it. Its nice to find out that you like your profession. Especially since I've only been taking classes in this field for the last four years! I'm working with kids with either speech problems or language problems. Most of my kids are working on "R" sounds and "S" sounds. Apparently those are pretty hard sounds to make. Facinating for all of you guys, I'm sure. I bet if Nate was reading this he would have stopped reading because I mentioned my major. Whenever I say anything about things that I'm learning at school he makes fun of me, says that I'm trying to sound smart. Whatever.

Anyway, I'll try to write more on here for all of my loyal fans, both of them.

Who knows what they'll do next.

Subject: Teacher Arrested in New York

NEW YORK, NY - A public school teacher was arrested today at John F.Kennedy International Airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule and a calculator.

At a morning press conference, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said he

believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-gebra movement. He did not identify the man, who has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.

"Al-gebra is a problem for us," Gonzales said. "They desire solutions by

means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute

value. They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer to themselves

as 'unknowns', but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, 'There are three sides to every triangle'."

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had wanted

us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more

fingers and toes." White House aides told reporters they could not recall a

more intelligent or profound statement.

Sydney is getting a little sister!!!

3D Ultrasound 1
Originally uploaded by bob jb.

Sydney is getting a little sister!!!
This morning we had our ultra sound for our new baby and we found out that we are having another girl!!! She's health and everything is going fine. Sydney will be about a year and a half older than our next baby. We haven't decided on a name yet.

This was the first time we got to do the 3D ultrasound. You can see that the 3D pictures are orange. Sydney must have thought her sister looked like a lion because she started roaring at her. Goofy kid.

Apparently according to my sister-in-law, Heidi, its "International Talk Like a Pirate Day"... Arrr. Well, I didn't believe that it really exsited, so I googled it. Apparently Dave Barry helped promote the holiday, here's his article about it. Here's what Wikipedia has to say on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day. And here is another webpage about it http://www.talklikeapirate.com/. Well its bigger than I thought.

OH, and to help you out here are a couple of English to Pirate translators: Pirate Translator, Pirate-to-English/English-to-Pirate.

Arrrgh, Shiver me timbers.

The boy dinosaur explains credit cards: (from the http://www.thedinosaurboy.com/)

I got a credit card in the mail! A credit card means you can buy whatever you
want! You can buy anything and you don't even have to pay any money! I got that
credit card for my birthday. I buyed a parasaurolophus with it.

I wished credit cards worked that way, apparently he got credit cards and gift cards mixed up.

I just read this today. Its amazing where technology is going these days.

The first bionic woman by ZDNet's Roland Piquepaille -- Claudia Mitchell lost an arm in a motorcycle accident, but she's now using a 'bionic' arm that she can control with her thoughts. This bionic arm was designed at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago with funds from DARPA. This artificial arm could provide hope for many soldier amputees as well as civilians. But read more...

What will they come up with next.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has always been encouraging its members to live within their means and to get out of debt. Well, they just came up with an on-line free financial calculators that can help figure things out like "How much should I save for emergencies", "How much should I save for retirement", "How long will it take me to pay off this loan", etc. May sound like boring stuff, but it could be useful for those like me who don't know how to figure this stuff out (not like my brother Brad and his wife Heidi, they're both accountants).

Anyway, here is the web site: http://providentliving.org/content/display/0,11666,6657-1-3438-1,00.html

I just that this blog entry by Lindy's 4 year old cousin was priceless: (You can read more like this at The Dinosour Boy's Blog:

Do you know what things would be fun to do on family fun day? Eat a yummy breakfast, like cereal; Get a couple of drinks and watch a show; Play the Land Before Time game for two minutes; put our train set together; go to Dinosaur Days; go to Dinosaur Park; play dinosaurs; talk about dinosaurs; read dinosaur books; pretend to teach a class, like dadda takes a turn, then me, then west. I would teach about dinosaurs.

We could even play computers or go hiking on a trail and look for clues to dinosaur treasure. Maybe even go camping in the jungle. I love party day because you don't need to go to sleep, you can just stay up and watch shows. And dadda doesn't even need to go to work.

Camping photos posted

Sydney in her Camping Chair
Originally uploaded by bob jb.

We started to try to post some of the camping photos from our family reunion at the MMR (Matthew Marrington Reunion). I would have posted more but I ran out of space on Flickr.

Here's a pic of our first ultrasound (no, we don't know the gender yet.) We're scheduled to find out the gender on Sept 19th. We're pretty excited. For more info see the previous post.

Well, I went with Coral's advice and got rid of the snakes. Apparently snakes caught in the wild frequently have paracites which could easily kill off the rest of my animals. We'll see if Lindy lets me have any more snakes. She's already said no spiders (not trantuals). We want to get ourselves a Tom lizard once we get into a house (a tom lizard is our name for a Chinese Water Dragon).

Okay, our big news is that we are going to have another baby!!!! Lindy is due Feb 4, 2007. That means Sydney will be about 1 1/2 older than our next one. Kind of close I know. We are going to find out if its a boy or a girl sometime this month. We're still picking out our boy and girl names.

Next semester we'll be moving back to the greater Salt Lake area where I'll be doing my externship and finish my defense for my masters degree in speech pathology. I'll be at the South Davis Community Hospital doing speech rehab. Then I'll actually be done with school (two kids later).

Here are some pictures of Sydney that we recently had taken. This is the first time she actually smiled for pictures at the portrait studio. The photographer like the bathtub one so much she entered it into a contest. We love our little cutie. By the way, if you want to see more pictures of this girl and be able to open them in a bigger size (printable size for the fam) go to this website: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobbateman/. For Grandma and grandpa in particular, if you go to this website click on the picture you want to print, then click on the "all sizes" icon above the picture. After that there will be a "Download the Large Size" link on top that should allow you download the picture for printing.

I'm actually going to start posting again. I took Jim's advice and got my self a Wi-Fi card and now I have a decent connection speed.

So, last week I almost steped on a Garter Snake right in front of my apartment. What did I do? Well, I did what any boy would do, I went out and cought it. Then I found another one. I assume that they were just babies because their so small. My wife isn't too excited about the idea, BUT she didn't make me get rid of them. Now my animal collection consist of two fire belly toads, a fire belly newt, an African dwarf frog, and two baby garter snakes.

As some of you may know, Lindy's brother is serving a mission in Spain for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We just got our weekly letter today. Apparently he got to play with monkeys on his p-day. How cool is that. Here's his little blip on that.

Well other than that P-Day was really cool today, because, 1) We left the country (sort of) we went to Gebrotar which technecally is British, and 2) (And most improtant of all) I got to play with wild monkeys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was so cool, like I would just lean over a the monkeys would just hop onto my back. Only the smaller ones thougth because the big ones were mean and chased us. For those of you who are wondering Gebrotar is or I guess was one of the English strong holds during WWII So there are cannons there and everything. But what made it so hard to attack is that it is up on these huge cliffs. It was cool, except for the walk up there, I almost passed out, and then I had to buy water up there at the top and it was 2 Euros!!!! 2 Euros for a 10 oz bottle of water!!! But I must always remember that playing with monkeys was worth it.

Now why don't they let us play with the monkeys at Hogle zoo? Or maybe other animals like the bears or the lions or alligators? Probably its for our own good.

Back to school for one more year. I'm not exactly looking forward to school again. As my friend Ziek put it "I'm trunky to be out of school" Look, I'm approaching 30 and I still don't have an adult job, still in school. But alas! This is my final year, finally. (That was redundant). So, I have to admit that I'm envious of those that are done. I'm also house-envy, but I won't get started on that rant.

I don't know how many people have been reading this, but I know that I've been a bad blogger this summer. I checked my email just now to find 45 unread emails (and this was my gmail account that I only give to friends!!!!) My yahoo email had 119 unread emails.

Apparently I need to catch up on things. I don't use the internet at home much because its a dial up. I hate the stupid slow thing and I can't justify getting high speed because I don't have a job. Something about food and diapers coming first, or whatever.

Anyway, I'm done with my externships, so my summer can officially begin. Yeah!!!

I haven't posted anything for a while. I'm not sure if there are a whole lot of people who read this anyway, but I hope no one was much disappointed. I've been at an externship most of the summer. I thought I'd finally put something on here.

Our daughter is a whopping year old now. Her birthday was July 8^th. Sydney got quite spoiled from all of us. We had a birthday party up in Logan with some of Sydney’s friends. Birthday parties for one-year-olds pretty much consist of kids playing with toys and adults chit-chatting. We gave Sydney cake for the first time in her life. We made a whole cake for her to destroy, but then she got really shy about it. She was so dainty about eating the cake. The one time we were encouraging her to make a mess and she refuses. I finally had to help her get a real handful. She was really confused about the whole b-day song and candle thing. We tried to get her to blow out her candle, but she wouldn’t do it. She just looked at it as if saying “What the heck am I suppose to do with this?”

We also had a family party celebrating the July b-days in Lindy’s family. Sydney, of course, got all the attention. She got the little people barn and doll house and a lot of clothes. (It’s a good thing because the kid keeps growing out of clothes.) At this party she got a cup cake and we sang to her, but this time she didn’t like the ritual at all and she openly protested.

Sydney’s finally learned how to crawl and has relished in this new found freedom. She’s also given her parents a run for their money. We’ve been scrambling around trying to baby proof our apartment as quick as possible. Sydney quickly learned how to pull movies off of shelves. Anyone who knows us knows that we have a lot of movies. So, now we’re scrabbling around to figure out where to put movies on the lower shelves. She loves to get into anything that we don’t want her to get into. We she knows that she’s in trouble she’ll look at us and give a big smile so that we won’t get mad at her. We try so hard to keep a straight face, but it’s so hard (for both of us). I’m amazed at how quickly our little ones learn to manipulate us.

Lindy's counsin made a blog for his 4 year old kid called The Dinosaur Boy. It's completely awesome. If you ever wondered about the inner workings of a four year old this is the place to go. Lindy and I read it as often as we can because its so funny/cute.

Here is a sample:

Some bugs are nice and some are mean. Sometimes I wonder why Jesus made mosquitoes have sharp noses. They stick their sharp noses into your skin and suck your blood. They eat blood because that’s what they’re supposed to eat. Some nice bugs are potato bugs, lady bugs, brown ants, butterflies, dragonflies, caterpillars. Lady bugs choose to be nice. They just crawl around and sometimes fly when they see a bigger thing than them.

Spiders are bad bugs. Spiders are not bugs but they look like bugs. Red ants are bad. Flies eat guts! They land on guts and eat them. But flies aren’t mean. We smash mean bugs.

Today I was collecting brown ants and Weston was collecting potato bugs. I put all the brown ants in my dump truck. One ant was carrying food and I took that food he was carrying and put it in the dump truck and I put that ant in the dump truck too. Me and West were smashing red ants. This is a picture of us smashing the red ants.

You'll have to check it out, www.thedinosaurboy.com. It will put a smile on your face.

We're still doing good up here. Lindy ripped one of her contacts, that wasn't good. I didn't know that it was possible to rip them. Sydney got a new car seat because she's getting so big so quick. Now we can’t just let her sleep in the car, because it isn’t the type that you can easily pull out. She seems to have new tricks every week. She’ll try to do patty cake now. She likes attempting to sing. And of course she still loves talking all the time.

I can't believe it’s almost Sydney’s first birthday. She's attempting to crawl forward, but she's not quite there yet. She'll lean forward and grab things, but like I said before, she's much better at scooting backwards. She can however kind of get what she wants because she'll scoot backwards and then turn around. She's funny though. If she can't get something she gives up and starts trying to get something else, or she'll cry.

My research class ends this week. Summer can officially start now (or at least when I’m finished with my proposal). It was actually a fun class. I know, is it possible to have the words fun and research in the same sentence? It was mostly because of the teacher, Dr. Blair, and he was a riot. He has a PhD in Audiology and he use to be the head of department. He's very sarcastic and dry witted. I still don't want to do research as a career, but I came somewhat close to the idea. Now I’m not against doing research in my practice. Okay, I’m boring everybody here who isn’t going into speech-language pathology (and probably many who are!).

For Memorial Day weekend, dad cooked us steaks (second time in one month) and we went to see Mission Impossible 3. It was actually better than I thought. I was expecting a repeat of Mission Impossible 2 (which was completely over the top). I guess low expectations is the key to enjoying the summer line-up of movies.

I’ve haven’t heard good things about X-Men 3 so far. Kelsey didn’t like it at all. I still have to see it because it’s the X-Men, but should I wait to see till the dollar theaters, wait till it comes out on DVD, or go ahead and see it now?

Well, we're keeping busy. I have a research class (I need to be working on my paper for the class right now), I only have a week and a half left of that. We get to write a research proposal and its all due by next Friday. We’re all really excited about spending our summer with such fun events.

Lindy is enjoying the fact that she is done with school forever. She got a lot of money between graduation and her birthday and her first mother’s day. She bought a Nintendo game cube and the games Donkey Konga 2 and Mario Kart, Double Dash. That's been fun. Lindy is becoming an expert at the Donkey Konga game.

Sydney is starting to move around a lot more. Right now she's really good at scooting backwards, but not forwards yet. We're working on that one still. She has decided that everything furry is a doggie. She calls Jack a dog, and teddy bears, and pictures of other furry things. She loves the music on Gillmore Girls; she does a little dance to the music on the closing credits. Overall, she's a very happy little girl. She’s starting to get her sixth tooth in. She keeps getting bigger. We’re not sure how to stop this rapid growth. We just want her to be cute and small forever, but we know we can’t do anything about that.

We have a lot to look forward to during the summer. I have two different externships in speech-language pathology to keep me busy. Sydney’s first birthday is coming up in July. We have our big family reunion in August. Oh, and my birthday is coming up next month!!! Well, it looks like we’ll be keeping plenty busy.

What ever happened to virtual reality? I remember it being the biggest craze. All the videogames were going that way. There were places you could go to play virtual reality, instead of bowling (which kind of is a virtual reality in of itself). It was in, but at some point in time it went out. Or so I thought.

I recently read an interesting book called City of Golden Shadow (Otherland, Volume 1) by Tad Williams. I only suggest you read this if you are big into science fiction. If you are not go read some nice romance novel or something. Anyway, in this book the internet was completely virtual reality. They even had an online game similar to World of Warcraft, but it was completely virtual reality. I thought it was interesting; so, I decided to check out if anyone still is doing the whole virtual reality thing or if it completely went south.

People are actually still making this stuff, but it’s ridiculously expensive. Apparently Iowa State University recently announced an upgrade for their C6 virtual reality room (10x10x10 feet room). It’s costing them about $4 million dollars just to do the upgrade, but people are paying for it to do research and such.

There are whole online virtual communities like Second Life where people can have a virtual life when their bored of their own life I suppose. There is actually an ever going exchange rate for products in this virtual world. You use this money to buy houses or toys or services or whatever. One US dollar exchanges for about 250 Linden Dollars (the currency used in this world). Rates are based on supply and demand and fluctuate just like they do in our real market. Weird.

Virtual reality products are expensive, but their getting better and better. I found this website that was selling all sorts of this stuff. It seems virtual reality never left it just got quiet for a while.

The geeks are still out there making this stuff apparently, but I'm guess us poor geeks can't afford to play with it.

Sydney is now a whopping 10 months old. Here she is showing off her music talent. What she's really doing is attempting to grab the hymn book. She loves books, but not for reading. She likes to eat them. She’s really in to grabbing things. She also loves to play with anything electronic (ie., remote controls, computer keyboards, cell phones, etc. See previous post). She sits up completely on her own and is starting to attempt to crawl. Usually this is an attempt to grab some kind of book or electronic item that’s just out or reach. She also loves her toys. She loves to drop them when she’s in her high chair so that mom and/or dad have to keep picking them back up for her. We’re not quite sure if this is a game for her yet, but it’s quickly getting there.

Occasionally it sounds like Sydney intentionally uses words. For example: the other day Lindy took Sydney upstairs. Sydney was incredibly excited and kept saying “da, da, da, da.” When they got up stairs Sydney looked all around, apparently searching for something or someone. She must have not found what she was looking for because she got upset and started to cry. My wife thinks that she was looking for me and when she said, “da, da, da” she was referring to dad. Unfortunately, I was not upstairs because I was at school. I especially like this story for obvious reasons. Was she actually trying to say dad or was that just a coincidence. We like to think otherwise, but we’re not quite sure at this point.

Sydney also likes to clap. She will almost always start clapping in imitation to someone else clapping. She likes to play patty cake, but she just leaves her hands out so that you can clap them.

She just a bundle of fun at the stage she’s in right now.

Finals are finally over!!!! And now summer can begin. Of course that means I'll be starting summer school next Monday. Oh well.

Here are some Easter pics Sydney. She's our little cutie.

You may have read my previous posting about my interdisciplinary training program, but we got to have the experience of being in a wheel chair. In this class, we learn about different disabilities and we sometimes get to go through simulation experiences so we have a little bit of understanding what it would be like to have a disability.

Last week we learned what it would be like to have a mental disability (like schizophrenia). We got to go through the Hearing Voices Simulation. Basically, it was the “voices in my head” simulation. This is where we got to put on head phones and listen to a simulation of what some one that hears voices might hear on a regular basis. We weren't allowed to talk about what we were hearing with anyone at the time because hearing voices is a very personal thing. While we were listening to the voices we had to do some lovely cognitive tasks like reading an article and then answering some reading comprehension questions about it. We were suppose to put a bunch of toothpicks in a certain shape and then change it by only removing a certain number of toothpicks (personally I don't think I could have done that with or without voices, I'll leave the confusing puzzles to Jim). Then the person putting together the presentation gave us a psychiatric exam, which we all failed (mostly because the stupid voices kept drowning out everything else). Then we were suppose to socialize with the other IDT trainees while still hearing the head phones. We were still not allowed to talk about what our voices were saying, but now that I'm not hearing them anymore (at least not from the head set).

The voices were weird. There were a couple of people in the back ground that were whispering in a way that I couldn't understand what they were saying. There was some kind of heart beat sound in the beginning. Some lady started to tell me that I was the "one" and that everybody believed in me. Then this rude guy started to tell me that I smell like @#$# and that everybody was looking at me and knew what I did. That voice was a little psychotic. He kept swearing at me and yelling at me while the two that I couldn’t understand kept talking in the background, laughing at me.

It was kind of weird. I had a hard time talking to anyone because I couldn't hear them and I was a little distracted. I'm just glad the voices in my head did argue with the voices on the recorder. That would have been really disturbing.

Well, this was Sydney's first Easter. She went to the family Easter egg hunt and everything. (We helped her out a little bit.) Every year Lindy's mom's family has the Easter egg hunt at Granny's home and all the kids look for eggs. They get to have three small eggs and two big eggs. The big motivator is the fact that there is money in the eggs and a couple of them have a lot of money. This year there was a fifty dollar bill, twenty dollar bill, and a ten dollar bill in one of the eggs. I think there were some fives too, but the rest of them had ones. Our dang cousin Carly got the fifty and the ten! Errr.

Sydney had so much fun shaking her eggs. She's only nine months right now so she didn't do much of the work on her own. Next year.

Spring is back and in full force, thank heavens. No more snow. However, can one really enjoy Spring before the end of the semester??? It taunts us with the beautiful greenery and sweet smells while we still in overly warm classrooms learning about who knows what. I just want to be outside 24/7 when we're getting this perfect weather.

Well, I don't have time for this posting, but if everyone else in Utah was going to post about this ridiculous weather than I want to also. Yes we have snow in April. Luckily it’s not sticking to the ground, but it is suppose to be spring. My friend Racheal put it in her blog this way:

"We have been taunted and teased with the prospect of spring. It has been warm enough for the kids to play outside. It has been warm enough for me to wear shorts once, and sandals on numerous occasions."

We have been teased and taunted; toyed with the prospects of warmth. Hopefully the end of the semester will still come at the beginning of May.

Well, now that I’ve wasted some time, I had better get back to school work.

Now, I don't want you guys to think I'm a big slacker (I am, but I don't want any of you to think it). The only reason why I'm justifying making this blog entry is because I'm staying home with my sick daughter. I wrote this on Friday, I just thought that I'd put it up now. It's a little longer, but one long blog every once in a while is permissiable.

I'm in an interdiciplinary training class where I work with all of these different professions related to working with people with disabilities (For example: social workers, psychologists, audiologists, and of course, speech-language pathologists). We also have people with disabilities and parents of children with disabilities participate so we can get there perspective. We get to learn about each others' professions and other disability related topics.

Well, on Friday we were having a disability awareness day. We all had assignments were we had simulated disabilities. We were grouped in pairs for these assignments. One person took the turn with the disabilities and the other was an observer who couldn't help. My group had three people, Amy (audiology), Eric (as he would call it: hit by a truck), and myself (speech-language pathology). Our assignments included using a manual wheel chair to go to the other side of campus to the library to check out a book, hold an umbrella while wheeling our way across campus and getting into a bathroom stall with the wheel chair.

I have a lot more respect for anyone that uses a wheel chair. They are not the easiest things to maneuver. Trying to keep the stupid thing going straight while Eric was making fun of me. He was pretty excited to watch because he had to spend many months in a chair after his head injury. He told us that watching us struggle was "Kicks and giggles" for him. Because of his hemiparesis he could only use one hand to wheel himself around. Eric said that he spent many hours in physical rehab going in circles.

Trying to get into the library was a trick. I couldn't find the handicap button in the vestibule; so, I was forced to open the door by myself, which was a bit of a trick in a wheel chair. The door was so heavy that when I opened it, the chair would be pulled to the door, making it near impossible to open. People walking by probably thought my friends were pretty big jerks, but they weren't allowed to help me. It didn't help that they were making fun of me. More kicks and giggles for Eric.

Holding an umbrella while trying to wheel yourself proved to be quite the trick for me and Amy. (Eric had already completed his tour of duty; so, he was exempt from the wheel chair.) I attempted to hold the umbrella with my knees. That didn't work well unless I hunched over, which just looked silly. I also tried to hold the umbrella with my neck, which was not working. What I ended up doing was trading off the umbrella between each hand while the opposing hand wheeled forward. This turned into a slow zigzag formation. I decided that if I used a wheel chair that I'd rather just get wet than bother. Amy figured it out better than I did. She put the umbrella handle down the back of her shirt and leaned back. She still looked silly, but it did the job.

I won't even talk about the difficult with getting into the stall with a wheel chair. Let’s just say you should go before you have to go or you'll be in trouble.

I think everybody should have this experience. You'll realize that even though places are technically accessibly they may not be practical. Sidewalks are not was smooth and even as you think. Again I have a lot more respect for people who spend there lives in their wheel chairs.

You'll notice the lessening of blog entries as we enter April. We're approaching the wonderfully dreaded finals for spring semester. It’s sad that the most beautiful time of year has to be associated with such a heinous thing, but thus is life. However, this is not a rant as Scott might think, but rather just a notice that there won’t be as many postings for the next month. If I manage to post anything from now until May you will know that I am procrastinating doing any kind of studying (which I am doing right at this moment). So, until May… it was nice knowing y’all.

Show and Tell

Long Tail Lizard and Anole
Originally uploaded by bob jb.

I wanted to bring my pets to show and tell today here on the blog. I have two fire belly toads, Joey and Cleo. One long tail lizard with no name, I have no idea if its a male or female. And I have an anole. I use to have two, but one disappeared, either escaped or died. Oh, and I have a fire belly newt. We call him newty newt. We've had so many animals die that we don't always name them now... well sometimes we're just lazy. Here's a pic of the long tail lizard and one of the anoles.

Well, when I have a lot of homework that I need to do, I tend to look for other things that are not quite as important to do. For example: I've spent a good deal of time putting more picture on the flickr page. Just so all of my procrastination time doesn't go to waste you'll have to look at the pictures. http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobbateman/ In order to see specific pictures its best to either look through one of the three sets (they only let you make three when you are doing the free version) or look up the tags.

During my Spring break I've been volunteering at an adult day center (basically day care for the elderly). Before I start sounding too altruistic I must state that I am required to do a certain number of volunteer hours for a class of mine. On top of that, my wife doesn't get Spring break with me because she's doing her student teaching this semester. So, I'm not going anywhere anyway…. and I have to get these hours in sooner or later, so it might as well be this week Well, my motives might not have been as pure as they could have been, but that's okay, no one is perfect.

I started to talk to this elderly gentleman that I'll call John. Our conversation wasn't exactly deep, but it was pleasant. Later, John introduced me to some of the other people there as his “old friend that came to visit”. As far as John was concerned, we've been life long friends and I just came to visit him (not any of this homework stuff). All of the people there were very nice to talk with. I may have had to introduce myself a few times to the same people, but hey what do you do.

There seemed to be a reoccurring theme in my conversations with these elderly folk. Their family was the most important thing in their lives. Life goes by quicker than you may think. Your kids will grow up in a blink of an eye before you know it; so, don't miss out on them especially while they are small.

I got thinking about how beautiful and cute my little girl is at this moment. The idea of her growing up seems so remote. After talking to my new found friends, I get the feeling that Sydney will grow up before I know it. She’ll be transitioning from diapers to cars and boys in a heart beat. I just know that I’m going to be having a hard time letting my little girl grow up. I figure that I had better enjoy my eight month old while I can.

I also was reminded that people need people, even if they won't remember you tomorrow. John and his friends we’re so happy to talk to me. I’m not sure how many visitors come to the adult day center in our town. These people have so many stories to tell. They are just fascinating to talk to, but we generally don’t have time. Well, I for one don’t have time because of grad school and my little family, but I’m going back again.

I’m going back again to visit my old friend John.

My daughter, Sydney, seems to have a fascination with technology at quite the early age. She’s a whole eight months old right now. She's just like her father in the fact that any kind of technology gets her excited.

For example: the cell phone. If Sydney sees someone holdina a cell phone she drops anything (literally) and seeks to get the phone. When she succeeds, which she does many times, she then attempts to see what the phone taste like by quickly shoving it into her mouth. At this point, we usually attempt to trade the phone with a more suitable chew toy. This is pretty upsetting to Sydney, which she tells us with her healthy lungs.

She also thoroughly enjoys pounding on the keyboard and drooling on the mouse. In fact, she’s a little up set that I’m not letting her do this right at this moment. Well, maybe just for a moment.

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Well, there you have it.

When you begin to learn a lot you realize just how little you actually know. In grad school you learn how much you actually don’t know. Before hand you were in ignorant bliss, but now you know that you don’t know. Most of us would like to return to the beautiful state, but there’s no going back. The funny thing about this whole process is that no one else really cares what you know as long as they don’t need to know it.

When one of my friends who are also college students (particularly grad students), that are going into math, engineering, microbiology, genetics, or whatever, whenever they try to explain to me what they are learning I get lost and/or confused. Part of me really wants to learn what they are talking about and part of me would rather care not. Since I have no time to try to learn all of these fascinating subjects I tend to lean towards the later (it would probably take too much work anyway). All the information comes in one ear and out the other. These conversations generally go no where quickly.

My problem with this whole dilemma is that I am beginning to see the flip side. I’m in school all day learning about speech-language pathology. Naturally, I can talk about this subject extensively; however, as my friends have already learned, no one cares. I’m glad that someone is learning all about math so that I don’t have to. I assume that someone is glad that I’m learning all about communicative disorders so they don’t have to.

In this whole process of becoming educated we learn that we know nothing and anything we do learn we can’t talk to any body about, but we know deep down that someone is glad that we’re learning this stuff so they don’t have to.

Today my little family and I went to Boise, Idaho and watch our cousin's family get sealed in the Boise Temple. It was just amazing to see this family dressed all in white. It reminded just how much I love my little family and how much I want to live with them forever.

The family had been fighting to stay together. They adopted a couple of little girls. One of the fathers (who was in prison) was fighting for the custody even though the mom wanted this family to adopt her girl. She realized that this would be a better life. The father just wanted to get out of prison early. Well, after many appeals they finally won. We're so excited for them.

I just couldn't imagine having to wait for three years before I could know for certain that I would be able to keep Sydney. We're just so excited for this family.

Here is our family, in the snow up in Logan, Ut.

I haven't posted pictures of our daughter for awhile. These are all recent pictures of her. The first are of her and her beautiful dress. The others are of her this morning in her prison baby pajamas.

The semester is half way over for my first year of graduate school in speech-language pathology. I still have way too much to do in the next two months, but it's nice to have something already accomplished. Right now we're learning way to much for our own good in grad school. My motivation to go to class is ever increasingly weak. I find myself chanting the mantra "B's get degrees in grad school" I understand that the original was "C's get degree's", but C's don't get degree in my program, they get you kicked out.

So, just about one more year to freedom, that is... work. Strange idea of freedom, but a way out of student destitution is always nice. And the thought of no more tests is also appealing. It would also be nice to see friends that we once had. This time next year I'll just doing an externship with no course work, living in Salt Lake. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, be it a long tunnel. But at this moment, my lot in life in school (which I’m procrastinating doing stuff for at this very moment.)