Not even a month after entering the world, Najwa went on her first shopping trip ever. And following in the footsteps of her mother, her first shopping trip was to DSW.
So, here we are a year and a half later, and Najwa is back at DSW, only this time she’s the one doing the shopping!
Now if they’d only open the DSW in Columbia Heights so we don’t have to keep going out to Virginia!
Anyone with a child — especially a 17 month old who’s practicing for the terrible 2s — knows going shopping is like stepping into the unknown. One moment your little angel is flashing that adorable smile causing all the old ladies to “oooh” and “ahhhh,” but the next she’s terrorizing the fellow shoppers. If you get separated from mommy and baby, just walk towards the screaming a few aisles down and look for the flustered parent.
What works one trip to the store is obsolete by the next. Pacifiers are passé. You can hand them anything for a moment before everything ends up on the floor. But every now and again, something happens that calms little angel down and takes her attention off re-merchandising the store for a few minutes…
It’s pretty amazing, almost scary, what babies will mimic. Though it was a bottle of cold syrup for her nasty cough, Najwa was going through the motions of putting on lotion or baby oil.
Overcoming fears is obviously one of the challenges we all encounter. One of mine [mildly, not phobicly] has always been heights. That’s why the plan is to skydive, bungee jump and one day go hang gliding. I also have a fear of burning or drowning to death, but I have no plans on taking on those fears head-on.
As Najwa gets older, she will encounter many fears of her own. One already is the Cookie Monster and those weird eyes that never coordinate. She’s not too fond of Yo Gabba Gabba either.
The other day we were around the corner by the alley. Najwa is always looking down the alley as if she wants to explore. Usually we’re on the way somewhere and don’t have the time, but this time, I let her have at it…
I remember when Eric’s fiance, Vickie, said the two things she was most excited about in the raising of their daughter, Erykah, was first when Erykah was able to burp on her own and when she could hold the bottle on her own. Nduku and I were still new the parenting thing and didn’t quite get it then. It didn’t take long before I was waiting for the day Najwa could hold the bottle on her own.
And yes, it’s a moment of progress that doesn’t get as much attention as potty training and the first word. But then, the next phase kicks in. It was one thing to hold the bottle in one hand and the remote control in the other; that was okay. But it takes two hands to spoon feed a child. And sometimes that’s not enough.
So the other day, why not, let’s let Najwa try to feed herself…
Just a small moment in time of Najwa at home…
Another one of those small Najwa moments in time captured on video. When Najwa starts watching the TV, there’s really not much you can do to get her attention, other than turn it off. Of course she’s learning how to turn on the satellite box and the TV on her own.
As we look back to this day, the shows she likes [that we'll let her watch] may not be popular in the future. I grew up on Tom & Jerry, He-Man, The Flintstones, GI Joe, Transformers and Autobots, Scooby, Thunder Cats and a bunch of others I’ll remember after this gets posted.
Najwa’s generation include Dora the Explorer and Diego, Caillou, Blues Clues, Elmo and the Sesame Street gang [I watched that, too], Chica and the Sunny Side Up Show, Nina and Star with the Goodnight Show, Chuggington, Tinga Tinga [actually, I haven't seen this lately], What’s Your News?, Monkey See Monkey Do, The Wiggles and some others I’ll remember when Najwa jacks the TV from me.
Then again, maybe when Najwa gets my age TVs will be pass´e; and her kids’ shows will be in 3D on handheld entertainment devices.
One of my homeboys told me that posting all this “crap” about my girl was annoying. Wait until he sees this…
Video of Najwa playing in the water when we were at the Sculpture Garden’s fountain at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.
One lazy day, doing nothing but watching some Sprout TV, Najwa decided to add some sound effects to whatever we were watching. She’s developed a nice little range of sounds to her repertoire and is going to be a chatty one when she figures out the meaning of whatever she’s saying.
Here’s just a sample…
It’s been a while, but it still happens. No warning signs, no gut feelings, no way to know that Najwa is about erupt like Mount Vesuvius spewing formula everywhere!
We were heading home the other day, just passing U Street when all I heard coming from the backseat was Nduku spouting the long version of OMG sprinkled in with a few other expletives. Najwa had just downed another bottle of lactose free formula, but apparently there wasn’t enough room for it in her tiny little belly. So what goes down, must come out all over her clothes, the car seat and a little contact spray for Nduku.
I couldn’t assess the damage from the front seat, so I was going to stay the course. But from the sounds of disgust Nduku was making, it became obvious I had to pull over. When she handed me Najwa’s bib, I could tell that all five ounces got evicted from Najwa’s stomach.
We had to take her pants off and figure out how to clean out the car seat before we got back on the road. To make it easy, we put Najwa in the passenger seat [while parked of course], and it didn’t take her long to find something to satisfy her curiosity.
Initially I was simply looking to capture this moment in time by piecing together some videos of Najwa. Then I had this idea that maybe I could figure out how to add some music to the video — considering Najwa doesn’t really say much anyway. Then what if I sprinkled in a few pictures here and there of Najwa between the video clips?
Figuring that out was the easy part. The hard part was which of the hundreds of hundreds of pictures of Najwa do I use? The video was turning into the story of Najwa from birth to just shy of 10 months old. And as I was putting on the finishing touches, how could I do a biography on Najwa without her mother Nduku!?
Now, I had thousands more pictures to choose from! I started to look for a much longer song, but L!ssen’s live version of “Sunshine” said exactly what I was saying with the photos. And of course the soundtrack had to be go go…
It’s an amazing moment to see your little one eating from a spoon. Najwa is slowing graduating the bottle, but after eating puree foods, she looks like she has no eye-mouth coordination. Food goes everywhere. Thank goodness for the genius who invented the bib.
But Najwa’s learning how to pull the bib off. It doesn’t take much effort considering the Velcro wears out after a while. So, feigning a genius myself, started using a snack clip to keep Najwa from being able to pull off the bib. I showed Nduku and she, too, is now using the clips.
But an amazing thing happens when you bring two different cultures together. Though English is spoken regularly in Kenya, their English is born from British English and literal translations from Swahili to English don’t always make sense. So the other day when she asked for a “peg,” I literally had no idea what she wanted nor why she would want a peg. A peg? I know what a peg is, but really, what’s a peg? It’s simply what she calls the snack clips.
And that got me thinking about this video I found years ago about the world’s greatest practical joke…
Anyone who really knows me [more like everyone] well enough knows I’m anti-Walmart. They’re not as bad back when the anti-Walmart campaigns planted their grass root seeds, but they are still a company that causes as much havoc when they show up to town as they do good. What’s the point of saving .13 cents for some microwaveable popcorn when your taxes edge up .14 cents because of the residual impact Walmart has on a community?
Arnold finds a gem…
As Najwa approaches her 6th month birthday, she has really started to develop her personality. A little feisty, a little fussy and a lot of fire. She’s discovering all those limbs are hers and she can control them with a little effort. She’s a happy baby when her stomach’s not empty, and she isn’t shy about letting us know when she wants some attention.
And Najwa’s getting used to the camera being pointed at her constantly. It’s amazing the things babies do. One moment they sleep 16 hours a day; the next they’re at the top of their lungs saying something that not even they know what they’re saying. But it’s so cute you just marvel and let ‘em rip…
One day you’re sitting there with this bundle of joy, a newborn that can only sleep, eat, cry and that other thing. You handle her with care, as if she’s a piece of glass. You would get more sleep if you weren’t sleeping with one eye open and jumping up when the furnace turns on thinking it’s the baby.
And then within a few months, that newborn makes all these silly sounds, she sneezes, gets the hiccups, rubs her eyes when she gets sleepy and all you can do is marvel wondering how you did it.
Najwa is only 4-months-old and already I don’t recognize that newborn. And I’ve become obsessed with capturing these moments before they’re gone…
Check out more photos/videos of Najwa…
“My PB Sneak?”
“My Peyton Manthing?”
“My Adrian P*nison?”
“My Danny Woodhead? That’s not even a joke. I just think he’s a good player. Might name my…”
LeBron James has nothing on this Brett Favre commercial starring, well, just watch it…
Sometime last year my mom asked me to get some bottled water, but not the Deer Park in the new bottles where the middle was squeezed giving it more of a figure eight shape. She said it’s the same price but less water. Fair enough.
Then I saw recently a news report [can't seem to find the link though] where some companies were making their cans or bottles with indentations to the containers so that it held less content of whatever it is, but you couldn’t tell from looking at it from the outside. Even if there was 1 ounce less content, they saved millions of dollars from the volume sold at less content.
Then there’s this video of someone who tested out the difference between a small beer and a large beer [a $1.25 difference] from a Seattle Seahawks game…
It’s every parents’ greatest anticipation. The first word!
Science made it so babies say dada before mama. The d sound apparently is easier for babies to sound out first. But sometimes a baby’s first word is bird or ball. Najwa’s actually many months away from her first word [which I was hoping would be "Hail to the Redskins"], but she sure is trying to say something here…
Christmas came a week early this year! Out of the blue a few months ago, Prince announced some concert dates, and being a Prince fan since I was old enough to listen to him, it was an obligation to be there. As it was for Daz. And Mike. And Chad. And Dana.
Davita and Chad McKelvey to the left, Dan Saxon with Daz in the front, me and Nduku in the middle,
Mike and Jenny Jackson next to Anne on the far right
Slowly but surely I’m figuring out this thing called technology. After many, many years I gave up on designing my own template for my blog and just downloaded one I’d never be able to design. I’m getting better at integrating Facebook with my blogs, though I haven’t done it on this site yet. And just yesterday I uploaded my first YouTube video.
Of course the video is of Najwa as she discovers her right hand!
What made Tom Hanks’ performance in “Castaway” remarkable was how he was able to keep the audience’s attention with little to no words spoken outside of “Wilson!”
Another movie just released this year does the same thing, though there’s no acting and the stars can’t even talk yet!
Nduku and I put “Babies” on our list of Must See TV not only because of Najwa, but the concept is different and the trailer was intriguing. It’s a documentary which follows four babies simultaneously from birth to when they just start to walk. Each baby is in a different region of the world — San Francisco, California; Opuwo, Namibia; Bayanchandmani in Mongolia and Tokyo, Japan — and just watching them do what babies do is pretty amazing, even if you don’t have kids…
Chad Ochocinco? Nope. His new teammate T.O.? Nope. Try the Iceland soccer team…
Then again, check out Danish superleague-club FC Nordsjælland…
For those of you whose TiVOs forgot to get set, here is Prince on The Jay Leno Show performing “Ol’ Skool Company” where he starts out saying, “The White House is now Black,” and goes on telling it like it is…
Sometime last week the TV just happened to be on, turned to The Jay Leno Show [the cable's not hooked up in my room, so no NFL Network for a minute], and I heard this band performing. They sounded good, really good, but I didn’t really pay that much attention to the TV, only bobbing my head to their song “Wall of Sound.” Then I heard one of them strumming on the guitar, looked at the screen to see who it was, and to my surprise, none of them had any instruments!
Maybe you’ve heard of Naturally 7 already, and I’m just late. Or maybe I’ve heard them on the radio before and didn’t realize they perform with no instruments. Maybe because they’re not as commercial as the musicians played approximately a dozen times an hour on the radio they don’t get the attention that they should get.
Whatever the case I’m sure this will be a bunch of others’ first time hearing Naturally 7 perform as well.
As the Super Bowl approaches, one thing everyone anticipates is which of the commercials is going to be the best. There are web sites out there where people critique the commercials. Some people pay more attention to the commercials than the actual game. The commercials have become so much a part of the Super Bowl that they probably get higher ratings in their 30 second slot than most TV shows on any given night.
So, to prepare for the commercials showdown, here’s some that you’re sure not to see during the Super Bowl, if on TV at all. Some are funny, some are foreign, and best of all, some are banned:
Today is the day we swear-in our first African-American president!
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