sydney's weblog...

seems baby pages are all the rage these days!

mister AJ has a new friend for me, too! here's Ella's web page

the scary part is, it looks like daddy's influence is spreading. we'd hoped to try and keep it contained to the house, but it looks like some got out.

-syd

my new cousin!

hey everybody, check out my new cousin, Dominick!

welcome to the world, Dominick! can't wait to meet ya in person!

-syd

a wee bit o' the alphabet

so first, you'll have to excuse the audio file with no video...syd was taking a bath, and babbling up a storm, so i pulled out the video camera to use for the audio recording. didn't want to post naked baby video, so you just get the extracted audio. anyway...of course, as soon as i bring in the camera, she goes off-air. this clip was captured in the middle of a couple minutes of "come on, say something" types of conversation. she sings along with a little alphabet refrigerator toy from leap frog, but we didn't really expect her to know what "say your alphabet" meant...

anyway, click here to hear her genius.

-daddy

a collection of shots i never got around to posting last year...

now that i've got the comment spam slowed down a bit, i can actually get around to posting some of the shots from last year...

hey, it's only 3 months...

i've upgraded the blog system, added some comment moderation features to try to cut down on the comment spam...

here's a quick photo to illustrate why parents of small children don't wear a lot of white...

-j

peeeeeeekaboo!

check out my chameleon-like ability to virtually disappear in any room...you can't even see me! here's a hint: look closer at the blinds.

-sydney

oh, no no no, this is not good...

so we get home tonight, and the nanny tells us we've got a problem. naturally, that's my signal to run for the video camera. i have to say, even with the innate knowledge that we could have nothing less than a truly brilliant child, this threw me off my game a bit.

sydney is only 3 days past the one year mark (and yes, i know, i'll post the obligatory cake photos soon), and what you're about to see would terrify any parent of a one year old....

click the photo to play the 2.8MB Windows Media file...

-daddy

upcoming birthday...

note: this link is for grandma's convenience only.

toys-r-us registry

-j

monkey problems

so there i was, just minding my own business, digging through the closet, when i find this big neon monkey! i pulled him out, and he starts makin' all this racket...daddy went to get the camera, of course.

(the video is about five minutes long, but it's only about 9 mb)

-sydney

baptized...

we had Sydney baptized today...fortunately, the catholic church is a little more flexible these days when they check on the sacraments of initiation completed by the baptee's parents, because i'm only hittin' one for three so far.

here's a picture of all of us before going inside:

...and here we are mid-bap:

-Daddy

i am sydney's first black eye...

rule one of baby fight club? there is no baby fight club.

so, as you can see, sydney got her first black eye today. no, it wasn't really from baby fight club...she's been sneaking in some walking when no one is looking, and she crashed into a bit that sticks out on her highchair. (guess who plans to write the manufacturer?)

today was the first day we really caught her taking steps by herself, where we weren't trying to convince her to stand and goad her into taking the steps...she went to the end of the couch, where she usually drops to a crawl, and just walked away instead...

fortunately, i was fiddlin' with the camera at the time, trying to get this picture of her eye...i'd set it to movie record mode, and while i was looking at the controls, trying to figure out how to stop recording, i noticed she'd moved away from the couch, but was still on her feet...five or six solid steps this time, and when she stops, she stands there for a minute before dropping to a crawl, much different than the above instance, when you see her stumble from me to amy with almost no control whatsoever.

anyway, too late to digitize the video for tonight, but it'll be part of the first installment of "Sydney - The Motion Picture." i've captured and digitized over 11 hours of footage already. about 10.5 hours are in the category of "most boring video footage in the world to anybody but Sydney's parents," but maybe we'll throw some music tracks on there, add a bit of CG animation, see what we can do in post-production...

-Daddy

off she goes...

hey there....daddy here...so today, sydney is just over 8 months old, and we caught this on tape...

special thanks to uncle matt, for handling the camera work in this evening's production....it might not look all that impressive on tape but a) many 8-month-olds aren't even standing, or so i like to assume b) it looked much better in real-life c) it is quite a bit more meaningful when it is your own child.

-daddy

my sixth state...

so now i've been to texas (my home state), oklahoma (it's Oh Kay!), missouri (the grandma state), california (where mommy used to live), nevada (pretty lights), and now, the latest addition, florida (the grandpa state)!

here's my photo-documentary of the trip...

and, one final parting shot...on the way back through houston, mommy briefly considered trading in daddy for the world-famous american idol superstar, william hung!

-sydney

who here doesn't like babies?

Just a quick side note from The Daddy...I'll be walking in the March of Dimes WalkAmerica on May 8, 2004, and this year, they've enabled online sponsoring (now that's my kind of charity). My page is at http://www.walkamerica.org/jeff_ferris. The March of Dimes mission is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects and infant mortality. So it's a good cause, unless you're opposed to healthy babies...

-Jeff

couple pictures...

yes, yes, i know...the last post was back in early february. i've got a lot going on, you know? lots of standing to do....a girl's got to keep up with her standing. i've been pulling myself up and holding on to things for about a month now. as you can see, i can now support myself simply by remaining too distracted to realize i'm not holding on to anything:

and since it's been so long, here's a big smile to hold you until the next post...

-sydney