One Year Old

Happy Birthday Emily!

Emily enjoyed a quiet and simple birthday at home with the family. I expect they'll all be quite simple until Daddy manages to graduate and get a real job. We still had a good time. She got a few fun presents. Her favorite things to play with were Dad's old cell-phone, Mom's keys, and some D-batteries. However, Mom and Dad have had a lot of fun building things with the Duplo blocks.
She got some very thoughtful gifts, including a package all the way from Australia.
She wasn't sure what to think about all the fuss.
But she knows how to pose for the camera.

We didn't get much funny video. So... we posted boring video. We figure that Grandma and Grandpa will still appreciate it.

Fashion Sense

We have been neglecting our blog for the past little while because life has just been going on normally, except for a few changes. Yesterday I quit my job because it was cutting into Joseph's research time so much and sometimes making me sick because I was so tired all the time, so I'm excited to be a stay-at-home mom in one week and six days.
The summer has been super hot and humid lately, so Emily and I do what we can to still have fun but escape the heat. Today we went as a family to a cool little park in West Austin that has peacocks walking around everywhere. Emily has recently started to show a lot of bird enthusiasm, so she loved this.







Emily's latest accomplishments are her learning to walk (she usually crawls though because it's like five times faster) and her new and developing sophisticated style. Here are some pictures to prove it: You might have to look closely to see her carefully applied eye (and ear) makeup.

This hat is the latest in baby style. Emily is totally a trend-setter at our apartment complex.

She is also learning to type (usually while Joseph or I are trying to work on the computer):
3211111111111111111110.0.0

Research

In other news, my research is coming along a bit slowly, but surely. I'm working with Dr. Dana Ballard, a rather prominent computational cognitive scientist. Although his specialty is directed more toward vision, he still lets me work on motor control. Here's a short video of one of my efforts.

This little inverted pendulum has one degree of freedom: a hinge joint at the 'neck'. That turns out to be enough to let it get around (as long as there's enough friction in the world). Bending shifts the center of gravity in one direction but exerts a force in the other direction (if the foot is touching the ground). The agent has to jump with enough counter-clockwise rotation so that the center of gravity is just left of the contact point. If the center of gravity is too far to the right, it keeps getting faster and faster with every jump until it trips; if it's too far left, it loses momentum and falls over the other direction. If the agent lands correctly, the momentum carries it forward and then gravity speeds it back up as the foot falls forward. Straightening the head pushes against the ground and kicks forward a little. The push lets it jump. The kick starts it spinning counter-clockwise again. It's similar to a potato sack race. Timing is very important. The agent can also do flips, but I haven't been able to teach it to land and keep going.

Queen of the Diapers

This girl never stops making us smile.

On a Lark

We went sight-seeing around campus the other day. It was a lot of fun.This is before we left. I thought Emily looked like Popeye.
This is just before she spilled my drink everywhere. She likes her food with more seasoning than I do.
This is some modern art just outside the art museum. The strands have the feel of solid surgical tubing. Emily seemed to like it.
But when we set her down, she wouldn't go anywhere. There was stuff in her way. Anyone can see that.
It's nice to have a day that we can frolic together as a family once in a while.

A Drinking Problem

This is about a week and a half's worth of milk jugs. They're all two-percent jugs. For some reason, they recently shifted away from the traditional blue lidded standard (Sam's club still adheres to the classic style). We ended up with some skim milk when we didn't notice and careless still bought the blue lidded jug. I'm afraid that most of this trash is my responsibility (Emily helped a little). Amanda usually prefers water, but I grew up in a milk loving family and drink a little less than a gallon per day. Consequently, the price of milk is more important to us than the price of gas.

With Apologies to Mother Goose

Here is a random assortment of pictures of what Emily has been up to today:

Little miss Emily lost her sheep
And can't tell where to find them
Check in the shelves
(For sheep left to themselves
Are often found inside them).
Little miss Emily asked for some help from me,
Reaching muppets we try to keep high.
She sat on her bum,
And started to drum,
And said, "Da da, D'caow--aaaah-dah!"
Then up she took her mother's book
To climb a little higher,
Crawled onto the couch,
Laid back in a slouch,
And found her sheep beside her!
The sheep, so it seems, had followed its dreams
And joined the W W F
But Miss Em can't be beat
She had to compete,
And taught him the Double-Your-Trouble-Fat-Calf scissor hold pin.
She heard her mom sigh and lifted an eye,
To see if there was cause for alarm.
Then Emily saw
Twas a rose from her pa,
Who was trying, her mother to charm.

Ben Franklin

I just finished reading Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson (a couple of months ago), and even though it was kind of long, I am so glad to know more about this founding father! He obviously had his flaws, but overall, what an amazing man!

He was hard-working:

The fable, an attack on the get-rich-quick schemes of the time, went on to preach Franklin's favorite theme: slow and steady diligence is the true way to wealth. He ended by quoting what his imaginary friend Agricola said on giving his son a parcel of land: "I assure thee I have found a considerable quantity of gold by digging there; thee mayst do the same. But thee must carefully observe this, Never to dig more than plow deep." (pg. 63)

He had definite ideas about what was right and what was wrong.
On deciding whether to publish an article which violated his principles:

"To determine whether I should publish it or not, I went home in the evening, purchased a twopenny loaf at the baker's, and with the water from the pump made my supper; I then wrapped myself up in my great-coat, and laid down on the floor and slept till morning, when, on another loaf and a mug of water, I made my breakfast. From this regimen I feel no inconvenience whatever. Finding I can live in this manner, I have formed a determination never to prostitute my press to the purposes of corruption and abuse of this kind for the sake of gaining a more comfortable subsistence." (pg. 67)

He had interesting political ideas that we might do well to consider even today:

"Whenever we attempt to mend the scheme of providence," Franklin wrote, "we had need be very circumspect lest we do more harm than good." Perhaps even welfare for the poor was an example. He asked whether "the laws peculiar to England which compel the rich to maintain the poor have not given the latter a dependence." It was "godlike" and laudable, he added," to relieve the misfortunes of our fellow creatures," but might it not in the end "provide encouragements for laziness"? (pg. 148-9).
"I fear the giving mankind a dependence on anything for support in age or sickness, besides industry and frugality during youth and health, tends to flatter our natural indolence, to encourage idleness and prodigality, and thereby to promote and increase poverty, the very evil it was intended to cure." (pg. 267)

Though hazy, he had an awareness of the presence of an all-knowing god. Calming the delegates when debate at the Constitutional Convention grew heated:

"how has it happened that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings?"
"The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth - that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?" (pg. 451)

From Ghetto to Glam!

Most of you probably know that Joseph and I love to play the piano. Joseph loves jazz and I am more boring, preferring to stick with the music written on the page. Anyhow, last year Joseph's parents bought us an electric keyboard and had it delivered to our little apartment in north Austin. We loved having it but didn't really have a good place to keep it. We ended up keeping it on the side of the kitchen table that we didn't use, even though it was the wrong height and kinda hard to play that way.
This post is a picture record of the upgrade that our piano situation has recently undergone:

BEFORE:
Right when we got the piano we set it up on our coffee table and introduced Emily to it.
She was kind of a reluctant student.
We moved it to the kitchen table. Here it is at Christmas time...
And here it still is at Valentine's.
Here is a picture of our original solution to the problem, but we didn't want to spend the $60 or $70 one of these stands costs so we never bought it.

AFTER:
Joseph's parents recently had this surprise delivered to us. Now we have this lovely wooden stand with built-in pedals and a bench that sits at the right height.
Emily is an eager student and we have loved having a more user-friendly piano in our little apartment!
Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Cooper!!

Mealtimes

You know your baby's a keeper when she eats the broccoli and throws the cheese quesadilla over the side of her chair.PS - that gross stuff on the side of her head is not a growth or abnormality. It is the alfredo sauce topping to the pizza she was eating tonight.

Some fun daddy-daughter mealtime games: