We’re experiencing a very rare thunderstorm in Southern California. At first we heard thunder and were trying to figure out what it was. Where we’re located, booming noises are more likely to be coming from one of the nearby Marine bases.

We were all in our bedroom, listening intently for distant booming noises. When we finally heard something, Anna’s eyes opened wide and she asked, “What was that?!” After a brief pause, Tara replied, “It was me. I pooped.”

I realize at this point that I am posting so infrequently that I’m probably just talking to myself. At least I can consider myself in good company.

Summer is officially over as Anna has started the first grade. The first day was mildly traumatic as we would expect, but since then everything has been going well. This week will be our first full week and hopefully we can get our daily routine down. The next few weeks will be very interesting as I have two shoots coming up for Hawaiian Tropic pageants, and some of my volleyball crew are considering making their own calendar. I have a business trip to Singapore next month, and we’re trying to squeeze in a weekend getaway in there too.

I got fed up with my old Mini-DV camcorder and bought the cheapest HDD-based camcorder I could find, the Panasonic SDR-H18. It records to an internal 30GB drive or a SD or SDHC card. It then connects to the computer just like an external hard drive, and I figured out the command line magic so that I can go from camera to completely full single-layer DVD in 2x real time. At this point I want to capture, save and distribute. Editing is for people with more time and skills than I have.

I’m sure there’s a ton more stuff going on at that point than I am able to recall, but I’m sure I’ll remember and forget it about 73 times between now and my next post three weeks from now.

Tara used the potty a couple times this weekend. We haven’t much been pushing her toward it, and for the last couple months she has acted like the potty was just a seat you sit on while pushing wads of toilet paper between your legs. I had the bright idea of taking the toilet paper off the holder and telling her that she could have it back when she put her pee in the potty. Sure enough, it worked the second time I tried it, and she has used the potty three times since. She still goes in her diaper too, though, but it’s clear that progress is being made.

The dark side of Tara’s maturing is that she’s picking up some undesirable vocabulary. Anna has been reading the Junie B. Jones series of books, and recently got some on tape¹ from the library. They’re funny books, but the language isn’t really appropriate for a two year old. Tara has been repeating phrases like “shut up” and “stupid dumb lady” with her usual cheery monotone. It’s hard not to laugh.

¹ Tara extracted the tapes into a big, spaghetti-like pile on two occasions. I hope they still work.