Effing The Ineffable

will just let these pictures tell their own stories.

My daughter Lylia has been developing communication skills for a while now. It's a pidgin of sign language, babble, Japanese and English that is as academically fascinating to me as it is unbearably cute. Her current lexicon includes "da'ee," (daddy) "hat," "go," "hai,"(yes in JP) "itai" (ouch in JP but also 'bad' for her), "iku" (go in JP, and yes she uses both words selectively) "Jin" (my brother in-law) and "Tan" (for my mother in-law's dog Candy). She has pantomimes for elephants, rabbits and fish. She mimics the sounds of dogs using JP onomatopia ("wan-wan") and cats using EN ("mao"). One word that is noticeably missing, however, is for her mother. Not for lack of effort, mind you; Ai-chan has been speaking in the third person for the last year and a half, and every time Lylia mentions ANY living being she's been compelled by "mommy" to do roll call of every other person in her life. The results have been hilarious at times; my daughter's called my wife "ba-ba" (grandma in JP), "pai-pai" (boobies in JP), and in a particularly mean twist, "Ai." Now I've got any number of theories about why this is so, but in the interest of your time I'll leave them and get on with the story. So, Friday morning, my living room. Ai-chan is on breakfast detail and I'm on daiper duty. Lylia lives to help out daddy of course, and has come through with some magnificent turds in her daiper. While she and I are wrestling over possession of said daiper and said turds, we are also watching TV. This particular morning (as every other morning) it's NHK educational programming--think PBS--and a show called "Pitagoro Switch." It's a good little show actually; focusing on cause and effect, associative visualization, and-- Ahem. Sorry. Anyway, this song starts up on the TV. It's called "Papa, Mama, Boku / Inu, Neko, Zoh." The only lyrics are the title of the song repeated, and in time to the song photos flash by, relating to a dad, a mom, a little boy, a dog, a cat and an elephant. (There. You just learned six words in Japanese!) Lylia starts to get excited at first, barking when she sees the dog, meowing at the cat, and fiddling with her nose at the elephant. I take advantage of her distraction and start getting her poop-free, and I have to confess I didn't notice at first that she had stopped squirming and was focusing wholly on the television. As the song was ending though I looked down and saw her blinking at the screen; then "Mama." "What..?" "Mama. Mama." It was my turn to blink. "That's right, boopsie." Slowly, I lifted my finger. Was I really seeing this? I pointed to the kitchen, where Ai-chan was at the stove scrambling eggs. "Lylia, who's that?" A tiny finger mirrored my own, pointing to the kitchen. "Mama. Mama." As quickly as I could with hands that were starting to shake, I finished closing her daiper. I got Ai-chan's attention away from the eggs. I kneeled down to my daughter and pointed at myself. "Lylia, who's this?" "Da'EEE!" "And...who's that?" "Mama!" I had really seen it. I had watched my daughter make the associative leap from sound to object. I had watched her learn one of the most important words in her life. And as she kept repeating, "Mama! Mama! Mama!" while hugging her mother, I heard how much joy it brought her to finally have a name for the person whom she loved more than anything else in the world.

feels blessed to have been given such a beautiful and wondrous miracle of a blackmail photograph.

: These photos are only a small slice of my daughter’s first year with us. As such, it is but the barest hint of the joy and fulfilment she has brought into our lives.

: Now THIS is how you make some mind-blowing pixel art.

: Remember that post I made a while back about re-colored historical photos? BAM.

sat on this particular milestone for a couple of days, but here it is: My daughter, Bridgette Lylia Cruz, stood unassisted for the first time on July 21, 2014. ...what? No, it's just raining on my face.

:The old 38 special. And so here I am again, finished with another trip around the sun. Before I get all caught up in the middle of the next one... Thank you for all the birthday wishes, online family and friends. Those few moments it took each of you to send them add up on my end. At this point in the game I guess it's silly to complain about working on my birthday, especially when that day happens to be one of my favorite days of the work week. I got a surprise cheesecake, a free lunch, and a massive compliment--so thanks to Kazuko, Tommii and Kawori, respectively, for making it a pleasure to BE FORCED TO WORK ON THE DAY OF MY FRAKKING BIRTH. (^O^) You might notice my birthday dinner...started...as a pair of pizzas from Domino's. This was neither a a simple whim or a puerile indulgence. Google "The Tau Manifesto" for more information, unless you've already read it; in which case you're awesome. Equally calculated but entirely non-mathematical was the debut / return of the culinary villainess called The Heart Burninator. She's not as dastardly as her cousin the Pizza Taco (Google it, ye brave and hungry), but she is evil, and totally worth trying once. As for loot and general debauchery, this year I have made the executive decision to postpone festivities until next month, July 28. The reason is as singular as it is gigantic, and as childish as it is monstrous. I would go into more detail, but instead of clearing things up with a wall of text, let me just leave this link here: http://eff-the-ineffable.tumblr.com/post/85262294671/doesnt-need-skydivers-or-ken-watanabe-or ...and on that note, I'm out.

I'll let you try my WU-TANG style

presents his daughter: the only baby in existence who CAN'T WORK A PACIFIER.

is enjoys the happy time everyday by reverse junior mint! #EngineeringGenius #EnglishIncompetence

is forbidden by the OPB statute of limitations to post video of his daughter's first meal. Ostentatious photo collages, however, are safe.