Now With Video

dada-clip-01
Originally uploaded by drmacro

Flickr now supports the uploading of short (90-second max) videos. Before I started using it as my primary computer, Dada would entertain herself by using the Mac's built-in camera to video herself. This video is pretty typcial of the result.

Skates!

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While I'm trying to avoid work I might as well make another blog post.

To continue the Super Why theme, Wonder Red wears roller skates and Dada had been talking about skates for a while, so yesterday we went and found some skates small enough to fit her.

This is Dada on skates for the first time. She was remarkably good at--we showed her how to use the toe blocks to stop and get up after falling down and she picked it up immediately.

She was also exhausted after about 10 minutes of skating, which also has its advantages...

Princess Presto

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I've finally gotten around to uploading most of the backlog of pictures we've taken over the last few months.

This is a rather random selection. Dada has been getting deeply into the PBS Super Why show, which is great for teaching kids reading and spelling basics. She alternates between pretending to be Wonder Red ("With word power!") and Princes Presto (with her magic spelling wand).

Here she is in one of her Princes Presto outfits, although she appears to be carrying Wonder Red's Wonder Word Basket (or maybe it's just Easter eggs, not sure).

On the reading front, Dada is starting to read and write basic words. She can make it about halfway through Hop on Pop before running out of attention and spends lots of time writing lists of words.

She's also spending a lot of time playing the Super Why games on the PBSKids.org site, although I'm not sure how much actual learning value they have, not that we worry about that too much.

RIP: Forrest the Basset

Forrest the Basset

I am sad to report that our dog Forrest finally succumbed to the cancer with which he had been living for the last year or so. He never seemed to be in any pain but the cancer finally made it impossible for him to eat. At the end he was too weak to stand on his own. He survived much longer than we originally expected--when he was diagnosed we were told that he probably just had a few weeks but he survived more than a year on a simple regimen of Prednisone.

Forrest was about 13 years old. We adopted him when he was about a year old, just after we had moved to Austin. He was the friendliest dog in the world. He loved everybody.

We will miss Forrest terribly. He was our first dog and now our last dog (at least for now). Now we are just a one-cat family, having adopted Helen last December.