Apparently nobody told David that prohibition is over

And that you can buy beer in a store.  So he got me a beer making kit for father’s day, and he helped me brew it on Monday evening.  It’s an interesting process, you basically make a wheat-tea, boil it, add some hops, then ferment.  

Wheat Tea - MMMM

It was bubbling like crazy on Tuesday morning (which I think is supposed to be a good thing).  While we were making it, the kitchen smelled just like the Coors factory, and then when I changed the exhaust valve yesterday, it smelled a lot like beer, so hopefully it will turn out well.  We had a good time, but David was kinda pissed when I informed him that he was too young to have any when it was done.

Bubbly

Unopened kit in all its glory

David doing QC on Wheat

In other news, David was stung by a wasp last week.  He was standing up, playing in a raised bed in our back yard that’s tailor made for a wasp nest.  We didn’t actually see it happen (didn’t realize he’d been stung until he started irrationally fussing a few minutes later), but our guess is that he saw the nest and decided to explore and/or taste it.  The domiciled wasp likely did not take kindly to this, so he defended his homestead against the aggressor by stinging his index finger.  I’m just glad David didn’t get it in his mouth before the wasp stung, that could have sucked.

Swollen baby hand

for comparison to the other hand

We have a 1 year checkup in Houston sometime in August.  Conveniently, it will be when my sister is due to have her baby.  I'm sure that will please everyone.  It's not really a medical checkup, it's part of a long-term study that David is participating in - they're doing research on how babies' brains can be affected by being on a heart/lung bypass machine at 3 days old.  Even so, they'll undoubtedly do a basic physical exam while we're there. I'll be sure to let everyone know the results when they are available.  I have little doubt that he will be the smartest baby that they've ever examined.  

Yes, that also means his birthday is coming up - July 27th.  And NO, that doesn't mean that you need to buy him anything - especially toys.  He's less than 1 year old and he already has an industrial toy box under construction to house the ones that he has.  All he needs is love and attention, and I'm sure he'll get plenty of that.  

Otherwise, life is pretty good.  Days are filled with crawling and exploring the house and yard.  He still doesn't like to go to sleep, but he seems to enjoy it once he's there.  He got over his illness from last month, which makes paranoid dad happy.  Mom and dad are still managing to stay one step ahead of him (for the most part), although I'm not sure how long that will last.  The consensus among everyone who meets him continues to be that he is the best baby evar.  Not surprising, considering his genetic stock.

Until next time...

David has an email address!

I got an email from my dad yesterday morning, informing me that he'd remembered a gmail address that he no longer uses and that David could have.  Since they have the same name, it worked out well.

Even though I don't watch TV, I occasionally run across a commercial while I'm browsing around on the internet.  A couple weeks ago, I saw one that Google has apparently been running wherein a dad sets up an email address for his newborn daughter and then sends her things while she's growing up.  She gets older, he gives her the email address, she cries, fade to black.  I thought it was a cool idea, the only problem was that you can't set up a gmail account for people who are younger than 13.  Now that problem is solved.

So, if you want to send David a message, you can email him at <firstname>.<lastname> at gmail dot com.  When David gets older and moves out, I'll give him the password and he can peruse all of the things people have told him throughout his life.  I have no plans to read any of this - your emails to David will be private.  I will occasionally open the account up to de-spam it and to make sure nobody has signed him up for daily porn or something.  But I will not be actually opening any of the messages.  This will basically be a write-only time capsule that will be opened when David is all growed up.  So enjoy.  I'm sure he will.