Danielle

Posted on  December 15, 1995 Christmas 1995 was marked by me moving into a 2 bedroom apartment. As such my main focus was on setting up a bedroom for Danni. So her Christmas gift this year was a new, complete bedroom set. Obviously that would not do for a 3 year old so I had also purchased some other toys for her. I also decided to get the artificial Christmas tree this year. It really confused Danni because she was used to cutting down a Christmas tree as it was a Flood custom. I had to explain to her that we were gonna build a Christmas tree and that she could help. After some initial hesitation she got into it and help me put the tree together and decorate it. Danni came over after spending Christmas morning over Beama's and opened her presents with reverence. She really knows what presents are and how to open them now! After doing that I told her to put her toys into her room. She seems sort of fully furnished (something Daddy worked furiously on putting together the day

Posted on  November 11, 1995 My mother has become ill with cancer and for Thanksgiving this year my sisters Tina and Cindy decided to visit with Mom. I decided that this would be a good time to take Danni for her first real trip with daddy away from mommy and also visit my mother. Danni did well on the plane even though it took of early in the morning. When we arrived in New Jersey on Thanksgiving day we were picked up by Aunt Tina and taking to Grandma's house. Thanksgiving dinner itself was good and the relatives really enjoyed having Danni around. During the next couple of days we stayed at Grandma's. Danni got some early Christmas gifts and everybody enjoyed how cute Danni was. We went to New York to see Rockefeller Center, various store's Christmas displayes and other such sight seeing in the big city. There were street Santa's, which Danni was excited to see and other things. Danni seemed to take New York in stride and Grandma seemed to manage. In a fit

Posted on  October 22, 1995 Recently Danielle was playing on the computers. Often I give here something to drink while doing so. This time she had chocolate milk. Well she spilled the chocolate milk and it began running under the computer! In a furry I tried to clean up the milk before it damaged the computer. Danielle knew that that was a no no and she sensed that I was upset. She kept saying that it was just an accident. It's difficult to hold one's temper when just and accident is threatening to ruin an expensive piece of equipment like the computer. I was trying to explain to her that some accidents are not good and that she should be more careful. I decided to tell her that if she could not handle being careful with a drink around the computer then she could no longer have them by the computer. She could sense that she did something wrong and that Daddy was upset. She was sitting on the floor by now and was like a dog with its tail between its legs. Then she looked up

Posted on  October 28, 1995 Danielle's questions are really getting tough now! All children eventually get to the "Whys" and parents are expected to answer these questions even when no answer seems possible. You also must balance between honesty and answers that are too detail for the child's understanding at this point in their lives. Children have a knack for coming up with interesting questions and for looking at things with a totally different viewpoint than parents are used to. They are often refreshingly honest too. For example, I was trying to explain to her how you really need to brush your teeth because the food gets in there and eats way at your teeth causing cavities. Then you need to go to the dentist to get them fixed and that can hurt. Danielle looks at me and askes "What happens if you don't eat?". Later Danielle asked me "What happens if you go to sleep and you don't wake up?".

Posted on  August 9, 1995 Urged on by the chance to get to the "Big girl class", where Danielle's new preschool friends, Adam, Trevor, Marty, and Christine have when, Danielle has taken to potty training very quickly. It has surprized me how quickly and how completely she has become interested in the potty. She now even gets up in the middle of the night to go potty by herself! It is wonderful not having to deal with diapers any more and I can see the sense of accomplishment and the pride of big girl'ness on Danielle's face. Also, things like the bottle is old hat to her. Big girl is the label you must use for her or she gets upset.

Posted on  May 10, 1995 Recently Dannielle has learned to use the mouse on the computer. She was usually pretty attentive when we would play computer games together often pointing out on the screen what she wanted the mouse to do but I had to do it. We would even play a "concentration" type game where one has to remember and match up like pictures on "cards" that were turned around. She was good at this, solving even the most difficult level. Now, however, she can do it herself! One day I just decided to not help her because I was busy trying to get dinner ready. To my surprise she started using the mouse to do her own playing. She was extremely proud of herself, as was I, and motivated to do more. She played the "concentration" game and solved it all by herself! She now also plays PuttPutt by herself. It's as if it finally clicked (no pun intended) with her. Occasionally she'll say that she wants my help or that she cannot do it. Then I'l

Posted on  April 15, 1995 For Danielle's 3rd birthday I decided to take her to Disneyland. Mary-Anne also came with us. We settled into our hotel and then went to Disneyland the next day. My plan was to do Disneyland in the morning, then go back to the hotel for lunch and relaxing returning to Disneyland for the afternoon/evening so that we could watch the parades and fireworks. For the most part we sticked to that plan and it worked well. Danni was excited to see all the Disney character that she has grown to know watching all of the Disney movies. At first she was slightly frightened by the huge Disney characters but warmed up to them pretty quickly. We also went on many rides. Danni would complain that Daddy only liked the scary rides because she was too young for some of them and didn't like the ones that moved too quickly or were slightly scarey. This limited which rides we could go on to things like the Tea Cups and "It's a Small World". Danni really

Posted on  January 6, 1995 I took Dannielle horseback riding this month. I have gone to these stables before mostly to show Dannielle the horses as she was afraid of them. This time she seemed to like the idea of trying to ride one. Well we tried but she was just to scared of the horse. So we hung around and watched other little kids ride horses. Eventually Danni wanted to try again. I was leary as she was scared the first time but she managed to get on a pony named Aboo (after the character in Disney's Aladdin movie). After getting accustomed to Aboo she was even saying "Gittiup!". I quickly taught her the other command: Whoa!

Posted on  January 10, 1995 I took Dannielle ice skating this month after she seemed interested in figure skating on TV. We had a blast and went for about 2 hours. My back was hurting because at her age ice skating consists of raising her hands and me pulling her around the ice.

Posted on  January 18, 1995 Recently Danielle was having diarreah(sp?) and had green "poopies". We talked about the green poopies and how she didn't know that it was coming and that her tummy didn't feel good, etc. Her Mom was also not feeling good recently and stayed home from work keeping Danni home from preschool. I talked with Danni about her Mom not feeling well hoping to relate it to when Danni wasn't feeling well. Well the association was made but in a strange way. When speaking about Mommies bad tummy Danni told me that Mommy was in the bathroom a lot. I immediately understood that her Mom must have regruitated. But Danni put it into words that only a 3 year old could "Yeah, she had green poopies come from her mouth". Kinda gross but cute.

Posted on  January 28, 1995 During this month we've had an unusual amount of rainfall here in Northern California and as a result it seemed pointless to wash the van. However one day Danni insisted that my car was dirty and wanted to go through the car wash even though it was still raining. Rather than try to talk sense into a 3 year old I gave in and decided to wash the van for the fun of it. The van is big and I get worried that the automated car washes may damage it so I got out of the van and folded back the side view mirrors. When I got back into the van Danni said "You're car got ears!".

Posted on  December 25, 1994 I'd say that Christmas 1994 is Danni's first real Christmas. I've started trying to teach her Christmas songs by singing them to her. At first she would stare at me in amazement. "Daddy's singing differents songs" was her expression, but soon she was determined to learn to words to these new, unfamilar yet wonderful songs. Jingle Bells was the first one she took to. She liked the chorus because it was easy for her but she insisted on me singing the other parts too. What I was unaware of was that she wanted me to sing these because she was learning the words. She also like the Oh! and Hey! parts of the song. At Thanksgiving I took a vacation but by the time I was back Dannielle had Jingle Bells down. I turned to her an asked if she knew any other Christmas songs and she thought for a second and to my surprize started belting out Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer with all the words. She now loves to sit on Santa's lap and to w

Posted on  October 13, 1994 Turns out that "Nicky" is actually "Mickey", or more correctly "Mickey Mouse"! Dannielle seems to be attributing anything that is bad with Mickey Mouse as if it is her imaginary friend. She still likes Disney videos and the like and is not terrified when she sees Mickey Mouse on the screen. This is getting hard to try and comfort her from this imaginary friend. One morning she woke up screeming, obviously a nightmare. I talked with her about it and she said that Mickey bit her! How frightening to have a nightmare end up with an actual attack. Later that day, after her nap, she woke up and told me that Mickey said he was sorry! Looks like I gotta let her work out the problems with her own imaginary friends! Mickey seems to have lost favor. Now it's Pinocio!

Posted on  September 4, 1994 Danni started attending Primary Plus preschool this month. Her mother and I put her in here so that Mary-Anne could start working. The preschool seems like a well run school. It is really daycare with some schooling. It is in an only public school that they have bought and converted. Danni is at a good age for this as she always likes being with other kids and making friends. I believe she is having some trouble though with some boys picking on her (little boys can be rough). She sometimes seems fearful and mentions that "Nicky" did something to her. I'm trying hard to balance between understanding her and trying to overly protect her and realizing that she must also learn to deal with other kids. I've alerted the teacher that somebody named "Nicky" may be picking on Dannielle and to keep her eyes open. Meantime I try to explain to Danni that sometimes kids are a little to rough and sometimes they come around. I point out

Posted on  September 10, 1994 Dannielle's first trip to the Circus was nothing more than the best! Ringling Brothers and Barum Baily Circus AKA The Greatest Show on Earth. I tried real hard to get Danni to take a nap before we went but she never did. She were real tired by the time she, her mother and I got to the San Jose Arena where the circus was at, but the look of surprize and wonder in her eye was well worth it. She tried desperately to stay away and managed to do so for the entire show, switching between Mommy's and Daddy's lap. She really liked the little baby elephants that the circus had named Romeo and Juliet. We had also gotten Danni a few toys and coloring books featuring these baby elephants which she seems to enjoy. I can only guess that Danni must have slept like a rock after the circus as she was pretty pooped by the end of it.

Posted on  July 10, 1994 To understand this story you must know who PuttPutt is. PuttPutt is a cartoon car who lives on a CD ROM. He is part of a interactive, multimedia game that I got for Danni. In this game you have to "solve" the problem by getting a balloon, a dog and washing PuttPutt the car. You travel around meeting other characters and can use a mouse to select object on the screen which make noises, spin or talk to you. If you do all that you are supposed to you join the parade and effectively win the game. Danni loves the game and we play it often. One day, Danni noticed that my van was dirty. I thought it might be interesting to take her to a car wash. Ya know, the kind that you do yourself with the spray gun. Thought she might enjoy helping. We were gonna go to the Gilroy Garlic Festival (which usually has a dusty parking area) so I decide to delay washing the van until we got back. The festival was fun. We got a Simba balloon (Simba is the baby lion in

Posted on  March 3, 1994 One day Danni and I were running behind schedule. I had got pizza for dinner and decided to rent a video for Danni (I was sick of Winnie the Pooh and wanted something different myself). We went to BlockBuster and got Snow White. I handed the video to Danni (she likes putting them in the VCR), turned on the TV and VCR and proceeded to get dinner ready. Danni was having trouble with the tape. She got it in and it started to play but then stopped. "Help me Daddy" she said. I came over and ejected the tape. It was all tangled up as often happens with audio casettes. This was the first time this ever happened to me. So I took the tape over to the bathroom, got a powered screwdriver and started to remove the screws in the tape case. I took the tape apart and examined the mechanisms therein. I was trying like hell to fix the kink in the tape and get it all back together again. Sweat was pouring from my brow and dropping on the tape. Danni came into the

Posted on  February 14, 1994 We are trying hard to get Danni interested in the "potty". One day I had her at a petting zoo. She was generally interested in the "Oink Oink" (pig) who was sleeping at the time. "Wake up Oink Oink! Wake up Oink Oink!" she said gentlely nudging the pig. She was a little afraid of the goat because of its size. Then I noticed that the goat was ah, relieving himself and thought that it would be a good to show Danni that other animals urinate too. "Look Danni, the goat's going potty" I said and she acknowledged that saying "Goat goes potty?". "Yes", I said, "the goat goes potty too". "Oh", she said, "goat goes potty". Later that day, when returning Danni to her Mom, we were discussing what we did that day when Danni looked at her Mom, spread her legs apart, bent slightly forward and said "Mommy, goat goes potty!".

Posted on  April 15, 1992 What can I say, like most fathers I'm extremely proud of my daughter. She's a treasure to me and many other people say that she is adorable. Who am I to argue? She was born on April 15, 1992 (my little tax exemption!) after a mere 3 and 1/2 hours of labor at exactly 12:36 AM. Her middle name is derived from Rose Faria, her great grandmother (my grandmother) and Mary, her other great grandmother (Mary Shaw from her mother's side). One of her hobbies is going to baseball games (she likes the Giants, naturally) and, like many other kids her age, she likes to eat ice cream. Above is a unique photo that captures her doing what she likes best.

Posted on  May 8, 2004 Recently Danni got accepted into the church band. It's pretty cool what Christian musician's are doing now a days. For Danni's birthday this year I got her a bunch of Christian CDs because that's what she wanted. She sings them in the car with me all the time. They are pretty good. Wish I had more time to learn them so we could do them together. Gotta get her to rip them and push them out to my server. Danni also recently got her computer up and running. IM'ed with here for the first time last night. Well I've IM'ed her before but this is the first time she initiated it.

Posted on  March 3, 2004 Recently tragedy struck Diamond, Danielle's dog. Mary-Anne, her mother, explains: Hello All,  I wanted to let you know about our little sheltie. The gate got left opened by Accident on Tuesday and I was inside with 2 toddlers and a newborn. When I noticed that Diamond wasn't in the back yard I went out and called for her. She was on the other side of the gate. As I let her in I noticed that she was not walking on her front left foot. I picked her up to see if she had something in her foot and realized there was something terribly wrong with her leg. I called Stuart and the Vet right away. I called Poppy and she called her husband for me (needless to say I was quite upset) He rushed over from his job at our church and took the dog to the vet for me. Stuart met him there and we found out she had a Dislocated leg (Same Elbow as mine same type of brake)They took ex-rays and bandaged her up and we need to keep her quite for a week. In a week time

Posted on  February 13, 2004 Danni and I are currently fighting. I grounded her for misbehaving and, of course, she doesn't like that. She asked me to move the punishment to next weekend, which defeats the purpose really. It's a pity that this is ruining Valentine's day for us...

Posted on  January 14, 2004 Well Danni's new bedroom set arrived today and I spend time putting it together. I have to admit I think she picked out a nice set. I think she feels that she has her own style and taste and that she got what she wanted. Mary-Anne and I switched Danni's normal Tuesday night with Wednesday night so she get's to sleep in her new bed. I sure hope she likes having two mattresses. She said that it feels soft for her and she likes it but I guess we'll see...

Posted on  October 31, 2003 Halloween was relatively uneventual this year, especially compared to last year when my wife was thrown in jail for domestic violence a week or two before. Danni was a biker chick and she and her best friend Destiny, did some trick or treating at Uncle Kevin and Poppies for a while. They seemed to like one house where the teenage boys of the house dressed as Freddie and Jason, etc and would scare the trick or treaters. I think it's more a girls and boys sort of thing but the scare thing is fun at Halloween. Then we went to Destiny's neigborhood and did some trick or treating there and finally at my new apartment. Seems to me that every year more and more people simply don't do Halloween. I mean many of the places we went to had lights on, often with Halloween decorations and still nobody would answer the door. Seems just rude to me. I guess it was just different when I was a kid back in Jersey although there were many houses that didn

Posted on  October 30, 2003 Went over Mary-Anne's today to carve pumpkins. It was nice to be involved in a family activity. The pumpkins came out pretty good too. Ready for Halloween. After a very hot October this year the temperature finally dropped to be more fall like.

Posted on  October 29, 2003 Yesterday we went to the Pumpkin Patch in Morgan Hill as is customary. I had bad vibes going there since last year it was so horrible with Olga being upset and all. We went at night so we didn't have much time and none of the side shops were open. We just did our business and got a single pumpkin this year and left. Danni really did all the work by rolling the wheel barrow and hauling the pumpkin and all.

Posted on  October 1, 1997 I had just come back from visiting my Mom and had been away from Danni for a week. Mary-Anne was kind enough to pick me up at San Francisco Airport. Danni was glad to see me and woke up immediately when she heard my voice (it was late and she was sleeping). We were waiting for my luggage when Mary-Anne had said that Stuart, her husband, was in the van circling the airport in order to avoid having to park. She said that Danni was tired and that she had debated leaving Danni in the van with Stuart. At that point Danni stood up, stamped her foot and said " I haven't seen my Daddy in one whole week and you wanted to leave me in the car!  I don't think so! " I told her Mary-Anne that I didn't think that she should be teaching Danni the "I don't think so" phrase that Mary-Anne was tending to use a lot as of late.

Posted on  January 1, 1997 Recently I got a cat for Danielle. She wanted a kitten but kittens are not typically born in the winter. We settled for 1 year 3 month old "kitty". We got her from the Santa Clara Animal Shelter and her name was Jinx so we kept that name. Jinx was a typical kitten and was kind of shy and not wanting to play. All Danielle wanted to do was play with Jinx. Danielle was not too familiar with how to play gently with kittens but I figured that she'd learn soon enough. One day while at my computer I heard Jinx meowing pretty loudly and I called out to Danielle " Danni! What are you doing? ". Danni said " Teaching Jinx how to tumble. She's not too good at tumbling ".

Posted on  December 26, 1996 I had Danielle for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. It was interesting having her for the night and her excitement level was up about Santa Claus. We had watched a couple of Christmas videos including The Santa Clause by Tim Allen in which Tim becomes the Santa Claus when he accidently kills the old Santa. During the movie it is said that Santa Claus will come down the heater if the house has no chimney. As a result Danni insisted that I hang her stocking next to my heater. Mary-Anne describes a story about Danielle and Christmas: Danielle was being a pretend reindeer and we wanted her to stop so we could decorate the tree. Danielle had been talking to the tree since we had cut it down. She would tell it not too worry that we were taking it home and he would have a nice place to live. We told her that the christmas tree was scared that she was being a reindeer cause reindeers eat christmas tree. She apoligized to the tree and promised she woul