The Big Day

Caption Contest

Bach Party

Sorry, things get a little fuzzy here for some of the guys.







By the end (3 am), lil' Benji was all tuckered out.

Photo of the Day - (Yet Another) Rehearsal Dinner

Last weekend I had the pleasure of being one of Ben Utter's groomsmen. It seems all my friends are getting married this year. If you're my friend and you're not yet getting married this year, watch out for suspicious women with cake samples.

To Ben and Brandy: I sincerely hope you're not spending time checking our weblog on your honeymoon, but if you are, you should know that I have a CD with your names on it with all the images I shot for you to claim when you wish.

Photo of the Day - Arkansas Stream

This is from a stream I visited with some friends outside of Mountain View a few weekends back. They were fishing for fish, I was fishing for photos and found three snakes. More later.

Happy 3/4 Birthday!

Today marks Eleanor's ninth month in this world. She's pretty happy about that.


She now has five teeth-three on bottom, two non-front teeth on top. Eleanor's favorite thing to do these days is roll around. I'm hoping that she can hold off on the crawling for about two more weeks. That's when we move into a bigger apartment.

Eleanor also likes playing in boxes.

I guess it runs in the family.

The Hat

Fifty bonus points to anyone who can guess who this hat belongs to.

Something Old, Something New

This series of photos is of Matt and his dad and a dulcimer. (You can click on it to make it bigger for easier viewing.)




These photos are of Eleanor and Matt and a dulcimer.

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday
Originally uploaded by bendblock.

Look, we are wearing pretty clothes. I have to admit that I conformed to the culture and dressed Eleanor up in a lacy dress with lacy socks and shiny shoes. My only consolation was that her dress was in the style of Jackie O.

In other news, it's hot. When we were in Indonesia, it was hot. I probably complained about it more than I remember, but I don't remember complaining that much. We expected it to be hot. Cars didn't have "air cons." When we got too hot, we would retreat to our nice climate controlled bedroom and watch movies on our laptop.

Now it's hot again. This time we didn't expect it. Not because it's April and in the 90's, but because we live in a climate controlled world. Our lives consist of moving from one cooled box to another. The box where we eat and sleep is at this time not cooled. I've been complaining about it almost non-stop. Last summer I complained to the management no less than ten times about the lack of coolness. Each time the (insert adjective here) maintenance man would “re-charge” the unit, meaning he refilled it with some form of Freon. That ozone-depleting chemical would leak out into the environment, killing small woodland creatures in its path and make its way up into the air where it would eat away at the ozone layer. I’m sure that’s why it’s 92 degrees in April.

Eleanor now has four teeth, but not the four you would expect. She has her bottom front teeth that have been there for three months or so, and two top non-front teeth. She is toying with the idea of mobility. Strange baby. She’s been reading quite a bit lately and is a pro at turning pages. She really likes to turn the same page back and forth. We took her to an amazing Good Friday service featuring Waterdeep (or at least Don and Lori Chaffer). Eleanor sang along with Lori on one song and thoroughly enjoyed the music. We did too.

You can see more pictures of our darling and other people and things of interest by clicking on either the picture in this post or on the "Flickr" link on the right side of the page.

Pod ----------------------------------------------cast

Matt's Favorite Podcasts (in order of most anticipated and listened to):*

They Might Be Giants Podcast
Everyone's favorite Nerd Rock band discovers the ideal venue for their blend of creative sounds and paranoia. Don't miss an episode!

Electronic Periodic
30 minute mix of new, interesting, ambient to trance music, great for studying, writing or chilling, and the host is a robot!

Religion and Ethics Newsweekly
Audio of the weekly PBS program reporting on religious and ethical issues in the world. A little dry and a little detached but nobody else is really doing this kind of journalism well.

Digital Planet
BBC World Service radio programme on technology stories from around the world. Tech isn't just for the rich anymore. Interesting stories you won't hear on CNet or ZDTV.

Various NPR Podcasts :
NPR: All Songs Considered
All Thing's Considered's Director, Bob Boilen, sifts through the thousands and thousands of CD's folks send him to use as between story music "buttons." An abbreviated version of one of the web's best source of "new" music from a myriad of genre's.
NPR: Music - Stories about music.
NPR: Religion - Stories about religion.

The White House Presidential Podcast
When he speaks, they podcast it. Great if you need audio samples of religious rhetoric invoked to support political and military action.

What are some of your favorite Podcasts?

*Note: I've provided the url addresses for the respective sites about these podcasts. You'll need to find and click on the "XML" or "Podcast" buttons or paste the URL ending in .xml into iTunes or whatever podcast aggregator you use in order to subscribe.

Happy 2/3 Birthday!

Rice
Originally uploaded by bendblock.

Today Eleanor is eight months old. We celebrated by going to the library. We met a librarian named Eleanore. Eleanor chatted with all the books.

Eleanor prefers feeding herself to being fed. She joined in the Chinese food with us. All she ate was steamed rice, but she enjoyed it quite a bit.

Q U

Eleanor made her first music video today. They Might Be Giants, one of Matt's favorite bands, has two children's albums: No and Here Comes the ABC's. They have ingenius songs like "Alphabet of Nations" and "C is for Conifer." "QU" was Eleanor's song of choice for this video. We hope you enjoy.



Video Sharing at DropShots.com

The Banana

This morning I left innocent Eleanor in her booster seat for a minute while I stepped into the kitchen to mix up some oatmeal for her breakfast.



She clearly had other ideas about breakfast. I didn't realize this was within reach.



Since it was requested, I broke off some bite size pieces for her to try to eat.




It took awhile for her to catch all those slimey bits, but the reward was sweet.



And a totally unrelated picture. Eleanor loves licking mirrors. We don't know if she is trying to kiss herself or taste herself.

Toy of the Day

Eleanor discovered Ralph.

The Take Things Out of the Basket Game

The Take Things Out of the Basket Game
Originally uploaded by bendblock.

Eleanor's new favorite game is taking things out of containers. She has a basket of small board books, a basket of toys, and a mixing bowl full of ducks. All are emptied (and refilled) numerous times a day. She has begun to show preference for a certain toy (a giraffe) and will work with the agility of the toy claw at an arcade to get it out.

Graphic

A few days ago I picked up Frank Miller's graphic novel/comic anthology "Batman: the Dark Knight Returns".



It was great. I couldn't put it down. If you liked last year's Summer film, "Batman Begins," then you might want to pick it up and see where a lot of the ideas came from for fleshing out Batman's psychological depth.

It reminded me how much I used to love comics. Last year I read a graphic novel entitled "Blankets" by Craig Thompson. It is perhaps the most powerful use of the graphic medium for narrative purposes I've ever seen. Beautiful. It got me thinking that I might like to try again at my childhood ambition of drawing a comic (if not a 600 page novel). And I did have hundreds of minutes to kill working at the clinic. Below is what happened.

***





My problem is that I never finished it, and I'd like to. So I'm taking creative input on what should happen next. You, our loyal readership, must help me finish what I started. What should happen next? I'm trying to stick with the theme of no dialogue, but I can be swayed. Let me know what you think and I promise I won't leave you hanging. But in the mean time, I'll have to find that legal pad again...

Daffy Dills

We took Eleanor to Wye Mountain today to see the flowers.



She looked at them,


felt of them,


and, of course, tasted them.


Our good friend Chessie sent Eleanor this adorable outfit months ago. Thanks Chessie!

Sophie and Eleanor

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Don't worry. Sophie had just brushed her teeth.

A Beautiful Monday

Matt stayed home from work today. Since he worked all weekend, he has quite a few extra hours to take off when he wants. We decided to take advantage of the lovely weather and go for a picnic. The last time I took Eleanor to the park, I let her play in the grass. My mom saw those pictures and said, "That poor girl needs some toys so she doesn't have to play with just grass." (Just for the record, we have toys coming out the qua-zoo.)

Thanks to her Mimi, Eleanor has fun little cars intended for outside play (and chewing).



She played with them for a while, but then went back to playing with (and eating) the grass.



Then Eleanor's good friend Sophie came over to play. Sophie is a very patient beagle. Eleanor was eager to explore this strange new animal. Sophie felt the same towards Eleanor. I think they will get along well.

On Call

When you get assigned to weekend call as a chaplain at Baptist Hospital, you are responsible for Pastoral Care needs from 8PM Friday night until 8AM Saturday and then again from 4PM Saturday until 8AM Sunday morning. I was on such an assignment this weekend and had perhaps the busiest weekends of call I’ve ever had. But nevertheless it is a good example of the kinds of work we do in terms of crisis response.

Without getting into too much detail (and violating the privacy of our patients and their families), Friday night at 9PM I was called in and didn’t finish until 4:30AM. I worked with the families of two trauma victims flown by helicopter (Med-Flight) to our hospital from scenes of accidents, one “code-blue” patient (either their heart or breathing have stopped and the staff is attempting to revive them), one brain dead patient whose family was continuing to arrive, and two deaths. Saturday night I was called at about 7:10PM and came home at 9:15 for thirty minutes before getting called back and staying until 3:30AM. Last night I worked with the families of two Med-Flights, the same brain-dead patient, and one other death.

People often ask what exactly that we do as chaplains in situations such as these and that’s difficult to explain in detail but it can mostly be summed up by our being present with families in crisis. At times we pray with and for patients and families, at times we help people know what to expect when their family members are coding, or have died. Other times we act as liaisons between medical staff and patients. We sit with husbands of wives who have been whisked away into emergency surgery in the middle of the night. We walk with grieving mothers who can’t bear being confined in small rooms laden with news of death. We listen to mothers exclaim their raging incomprehension at the meaninglessness of a bullet inside the heads of their sons (twice this weekend, actually). We look on with helplessness as a mother learns that her baby did not survive the accident* and she groans in incomprehensible pain. Today I am glad the baton of “call” has been passed to another chaplain as I am exhausted physically and emotionally, but knowing what its like to feel alone in the midst of the fear of a medical crisis, I’m glad I was able to be there for these people this weekend.



* I spent a few extra minutes this morning making sure Eleanor’s car-seat was properly configured. Perhaps this is making me a bit paranoid but I don’t want any of my friends with babies to go through what I saw last night. Here are a few notes (courtesy of Melody) on car seat safety.

A Few Notes on Car Seat Safety

- The safest place for a baby is the center of the back seat. Never put a car seat in a front seat with an airbag.
- Watch weight and height limits. If the baby’s head is within an inch of the top of the car seat, the seat is too small.
- The carrying handle on infant car seats needs to be locked down (not above the baby’s head) when driving. The principle at work here is that in an accident the seat will flip up towards the back of the car, creating a kind of safe, shell of hard plastic around the baby, covering the top opening. If the handle is up it will interfere with this protective action.
- The little plastic clip that holds the straps together should be at armpit level.
- For rear facing babies, the straps should be at or below the shoulders. For forward facing babies/children, the straps should be at or above the shoulders.
- An infant is safest when facing the rear. To protect little neck muscles, keep the baby facing the rear for as long as possible. One year AND 20 pounds is the minimum for turning them around.
- If the seat can move an inch in any direction after installed, it is not installed properly.
- The straps need to fit snug on the baby. If you can pinch it together, it’s too loose.
- http://www.aap.org/family/carseatguide.htm for more information

Tujuh Bulan

Grass
Originally uploaded by bendblock.

Seven months. We celebrated by going to a nice park and sitting in the grass. Eleanor loved the grass and watching a mob of preschoolers play.

I was looking at the shirt that she is wearing this morning and thinking, "if this were in my size, I would wear it." I don't think I would wear the matching hat though.

Video of the Day - Party in Realtime

Video Sharing at DropShots.com

Okay. So I don't blame you all for not commenting on that last one. A little dark and self-indulgent and really 66% rerun photos but I wanted you to get the effect of them all together.

On Tuesday, February 28nd, 2006, Melody surprised me with the a 1/2 birthday party (to make up for the one we altogether ignored in the wake of Eleanor's arrival). It was amazing. This video is a little bit of the fun from that night. For inquiring minds the folks at the party are depicted as follows:

Matt Cleveland, Allison Cleveland, Kim Cleveland, Tiffany Stephenson, Donnie Stephenson, Meg Baumgardner, Eleanor Lumpkin, Melody Lumpkin, Joey Utter, Ben Utter, Josh Williams, Ayumi Williams, Brandy Ussery, Joel Anderson and again, Ben Utter. Hah, and you thought you all could attend my surprise 24 & 1/2 birthday party in anonymity.

I just have to brag that I have a good wife who still manages to surprise me (though I am terribly gullible). And she made a chocolate cheese-cake, to boot (or rather, to eat). And I stil have 1/2 a slice.

Photo of the Day - Delayed Tryptych Fulfilled

A ghost

is born.