Santa's Magic

Let me begin by saying, Patrick (my younger brother) and I were those geeky kids who pledged their loyalty to Santa long after they knew in their heart of hearts that he had a bit of help from Mom and Dad. Each year, we were completely swept up in the magic of Christmas. Right after Thanksgiving, we would faithfully write our letters to the North Pole all the while defending Santa's good name to the know-it-all 6th graders by confidently pointing out the famous "Yes, Virgina There is a Santa Claus" entry in the encyclopedia. On Christmas Eve, we struggled not to burst with sheer excitement and joy as we wiled away the hours until time for bed. After dark, we'd turn on the radio to hear the Norad Santa tracker update us on the jolly old man's whereabouts. And finally, before heading up to bed, we'd carefully put out cookies and milk for Santa and veggies for the reindeer. No fear of us trying to spy on Santa. We knew good and well that kids who sneak down to get a peek only got coal in their stockings!

Christmas mornings were always full of more presents that we could ever imagine. We'd rush down the stairs after waking Mom and Dad. It was always such fun to see if Santa had eaten all of his cookies. Usually, he could only manage a bite or two and a sip of milk. Patrick and I would nod our heads knowingly. Santa must've been stuffed--after all, he had eaten millions of cookies by the time he came to the Englert household.

There's nothing quite like those wonder-filled days of Christmas past. As much as we often try as adults to recreate the magic, it's never quite the same.

This morning, we decided to take Lucy for her first visit to see jolly old St. Nick. Of course by the time we got to the mall, the queue of hyper kids and stressed moms was already forming. Mothers were frantically putting bows in hair, squeezing unwilling daughters into pantyhose, and cleaning off mouths all in preparation for the most important appointment of the year: those two minutes on Santa's lap.

I could feel my anxiety rising as Lucy happily looked around taking in the sights, smells (a Great American Cookie Company kiosk next Santa's house=marketing genius), and sounds. Just a bit longer I kept silently chanting, my fingers crossed that she'd be smiling once we got to the front of the queue.

And then, my anxiety melted away as I glimpsed one particulary cherubic little boy sitting on Santa's lap. This little towhead, dressed in his Sunday best, peered up at Santa in wide-eyed adoration. Though I couldn't hear their conversation, as Santa spoke to him, the little boy snuggled closer and laid his little head on Santa's shoulder. My eyes filled with tears. Just for a fleeting moment, it was Christmas Eve. Patrick and I were cuddled on the couch, taking one last look at the Sears' Wish Book, dreaming of morning.

Of course, I quickly regained my composure. Before I knew it, it was Lucy's turn to sit on old Chris Cringle's knee. All fear I had of her crying vanished as soon as Santa took her into his arms. "How old is she," Santa asked as Lucy looked around, wide-eyed. "She's four months," I replied. "That's just great. What a special Christmas this will be with your precious Lucy," he said. "You have a very Merry Christmas."

Thanks, Santa. Merry Christmas to you too!

--Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.-http://www.newseum.org/yesvirginia/

How (NOT) to Win the Father of the Year Award or Lucy's $600 Birth Video by Jamie

Well folks, we just got our six-hundred-dollar baby video back and boy am I happy. I know what you are thinking. I can hear you all now, “What these fools paid that kind of money for a birthing video, did they have a crew in there or something?” Oh no, let me clarify something here. I paid $600.00 for a non-professional birth video. One that I actually made with the camera I sold my “never played” Nintendo Wii to get after Emmy the not-quite-a-champion greyhound decided to eat the other small video camera we had. Do I have you interested now?

Let me start by reminding you what I do for a living--I'm an IT professional. It's my job to fix other people's computer mess-ups. Folks, this IT professional is an idiot! We all know we live in this nice new digital age. The cost of video cameras that shoot digitally have plummeted. We purchased ours, as I mentioned already, for the cost of one Wii and some change. I wanted this particular model specifically for the convenience that led me down the road to paying to get something that was already mine back. At this point, I am struggling to not go into some overly rambling technical spew of buzzwords so let me insert below the text I sent some friends after I made one of the largest mistakes of the century.

Subject: Step-by-step, how to win the new dad of the year award.
1. Purchase sd flash camera to use for video recording of the baby’s birth and subsequent various activities.
2. Make sure the memory card is large enough to make you lax in moving things off the camera for backup or archival to dvd.
3. Wait until your wife asks you to let your friends borrow said camera to make a video for their grandpa’s bday to send back to Utah.
4. Take camera upstairs and look for somewhere to move data off to so they can snag it.
5. Find out that you have so much stuff on disk that you only have one place to put it in short order.
6. You place said files from camera onto less than year old Seagate 400gig drive.
7. The copy is uneventful and no errors present. Files are there to be edited later on the mac mini for placement on a proper dvd etc.
8. A few days later fire up the drive to at least back these files up to a dvd or another disk you’ve found to be on the “safe” side.
9. Have the worst feeling ever as your gut sinks and you realize the drive is dead.
10. Realize you suck because you have now lost the only video you have of your first kid being born.
11. This step is optional (and could be delayed until when the wife asks to watch the footage again): It’s where you tell your wife and she goes !@#&^&* on you and beats you down like the sorry sack that you are. (Actual excerpt from email sent to friends...)

So as you hopefully can surmise, I made a big booboo. I broke the number one rule of keeping any important data safe. ALWAYS have more than one copy at any given time. I broke my own rule and it stunk in a major way. By taking the footage off of the camera so that it could be borrowed and placing a single copy, on a single external disk I was practically inviting good ole Murphy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy%27s_law) to come by and pay us a visit. He lives here anyway so it wasn’t a long trip.

Hard drives fail folks. Let me say it again just to make sure we all heard it. HARD DRIVES FAIL. It’s not if, it’s WHEN. If there is anything that is really special to you all out there that only exists in a single place and especially if that single place has moving parts (hard drive). Back it up now, or use a thumbdrive to move it to your significant other’s laptop. Do something, anything, just get those special pictures, videos, etc whatever into more than one place. Heck, I mean while we’re on the subject, let’s introduce a little of what they call in the business “geographic diversity”, that is to make your other copy exist somewhere away from you. This way if something happens to you house (fire, theft) etc that you don’t lose your main and your backup copy of your memories. Have that backup DVD sent to grandmas for safe keeping, or check out some of the numerous online backup firms, they are not that expensive for the peace of mind.

John at hddsavers.com of Florida was absolutely awesome in helping us get the data back. I would have saved a little bit of money had I not wasted many many many hours using some software( great software but i should have just sent this away from the beginning for the sake of time and sanity) until nothing at all would work and the drive finally gave up the ghost. John was able to open the drive up in his cleanroom facilities and do some parts swapping with a donor drive to get it wake up long enough to get the much needed files off. He placed the recovered data on a new external drive and shipped it up to us (keeping a copy until we confirmed we had recieved ours, in case the USPS had a visit from Murphy as well.

Needless to say, my wallet is much lighter now, but I have something back that was irreplacable--watching the miracle of our lives--Lucy--being born.

Lucy's First "Real" Trip to the Doctor's Office

Up until this point in Lucy's 4 months, she's only ever had to go to the doctor for well visits. Luckily, she hasn't been sick (knocking on proverbial wood as I type this) so we've been able to avoid the doctor's office. Today, we made our first trip. Ironically, the visit wasn't so much for Lucy as it was for me.

Most would describe our little Luce as a good baby. For the most part, she's easy-going and happy. She smiles at just about anyone she sees, and she loves meeting new people. However, last Monday began a string of trying days in which our usually smiling baby became a quite the little crier. Unfortunately, Lucy's unexplained crying phase coincided with her first Thanksgiving while her Uncle Patrick, Aunt Amy, Grandpa and Lisa were visiting. Each day, Lucy cried from the time she woke up until the time she went to sleep with a few moments of interaction inbetween. We began to worry. Is she teething? Is it gas? Maybe she's fighting sleep. Perhaps she's too hot. Maybe she's too cold. Is she just bored? Could she have an ear infection?

Finally, after another night of minimal sleep, I made a doctor's appointment this morning. Jamie dropped Lucy off at daycare, and I fully expected to get a call from them about her "fussiness." However, the morning went by with no call. When I walked in to pick her up, Lo and Behold there was Miss Fussy Pants (Jamie's new nickname for her) sitting at the table, watching her teachers, looking around, and smiling. When she saw me, she looked at me and flashed her little sideways grin, with her peacock hair standing straight up. "Has she cried a lot?" I asked. "No, not at all," they said. I packed her up in wonder and headed to the doctor's office with Lucy cooing happily from the backseat.

At the doctor's office, Lucy grinned for the nurse while she weighed her (she's 16 weeks and weighs about 12 lbs. 14 ounces). When Dr. Song came in and asked me to describe Lucy's problems, I could feel my cheeks growing red as I tried to explain her days of crying and our worries about acid reflux, teething, gas, constipation, ear aches, and more. As she examined Lucy, our little bundle of fussiness became the model baby. She dazzled Dr. Song with her bright eyes and smile, prompting Dr. Song to say, "Wow, she's such a laid-back baby." Oh, if only Dr. Song could've been at our house over Thanksgiving...

A few minutes later, we were on our way home with Lucy snoozing happily in the backseat.