SINCLAIR LOVES HAWK - XOXOXOXOXO!

These are some out takes from today's play date that "Hawk" Cockrell and Sinclair had in our back yard. I posted a few of the moments we captured ....they all brought a smile to our faces.

"Oscar Wyatt" - our cat even got in on the play time. We also saw some rafters racing down the bayou. Mother nature was in a great mood and it showed!

Estela and I decided that we cannot wait to show these two all their photos fifteen years from now - on their first date!

Sinclair just hanging out with her God Mother, Auntie Melissa....we all spent a few hours basking in the perfect weather!!

Here comes the bride....

I have been trying to prepare all week to start packing for South America for my (bonus) son’s wedding. Daniel and Veronica have naturally chosen her home town Guayaquil, Ecuador as the location. Veronica and her lovely family are from Guayaquil and these precious kids met four years ago at the University of Miami. I must be honest when I say, I have felt so lost over the past month. As many parties as we host, I feel like Ray Charles preparing to drive in the Indy 500! I am somewhat at all the events that will occur or even how to pack. I was told (bilingual) Mass begins at 10 PM and probably lasts a while (i.e. pack a snack) ….Mass could last at least an hour. I should be good to go on a few years worth of sins after that purging. I do know that the black-tie reception starts at MIDNIGHT and goes until sunrise. This has me most stressed, since personally I think If I stay up for Letterman I am really running hard. There is a seated breakfast for everyone at 7:30 AM. I have pondered that Latin’s must have some internal timing chip they are born with that allows them to tweak their body clock at their leisure. Upon inspection, the Bride’s side has included 1,800 guests!!!! (I keep having the movie "March of the Penguins" in my mind imagining that many people in black tie) I cannot even begin to fathom 1,800 guests. Even for Texas that is HUGE! The longer I thought about it, I guess everyone channels their inner-Princess Diana at one time in their life. My jaw dropped faster than the speed of sound when I heard some of these statistics. When my girlfriend Eva asked me how many were coming from the US (which I didn’t know the answer) I told her “I assume we will just rent friends when we get there."


Here is another kicker, the Latin based guests do not RSVP. I asked Veronica "do you have a service that handles all the RSVP's?" She said "RSVP's are mainstream in America. People in Latin countries would never do responses. We prepare for the full amount of guests invited" I have long heard about these type wedding extravaganzas in Mexico City and Monterrey but obviously have never experienced anything like this.


Veronica is the oldest of four gorgeous girls. Have a moment of prayer for her Daddy...he gets to do this three more times over the next few years!


I am going to try to blog as I go along each day. Bear with me as I report from the front lines…..

Ohhhhh Lucille!!!!!!!!!!!

Last night was our baby nurse, Lucille's 50th birthday. We took this photo for her as we were leaving for her surprise party. She now works for our friends Chip and Jenna taking care of their gorgeous twin boys, Rees and Parker - whom also happen to be our Godchildren. Lucille fondly dedicated the first six months of Sinclair's life to our family.

It seems like only yesterday I came home from the hospital, with no idea of what I was about to encounter into my virgin trek of Motherhood. I had no experience with babies, much less preemies. Then I was dealing with post surgical complications. On day two, one of my dear friends, Courtney called and said "isn't being a new Mother the most wonderful experience?" (spoken by a woman that has a bigger staff than the White House) That was about the moment I lost it and the waterworks came out. Honestly, I had never felt more vulnerable in my entire life. This little (five pound) pink body with bigger lungs than anyone I had ever encountered on Bourbon Street constantly required techniques I was not sure how to confidently administer.

God works in mysterious ways. Fortunately, Courtney had her son a few months before Sinclair and her baby nurse, Lucille was just finishing her job with them less than a mile away and was planning to head back to New York City. For the first time in years she did not have an immediate job following her last. Courtney had a brilliant idea to bring her down that instant to meet us. After I hung up the phone, I reflected that my girlfriend went to Columbia and graduated Magna Cum Laude and this was quite possibly the best idea she has ever had! I was truly a basket case. I am sure this was not Lucille's first time to deal with a hormonal young Mother. I will never forgot her surveying a stack of all the "Sleeping Baby" and "Newborns for Dummies" books I had earmarked - Lucille then inquired in her native Trinidad soothing tongue "if you wanted me to work for you and your husband when would you like me to start?" I looked at her matter of factly, and said "What the hell makes you think you are leaving?"
She was a smart woman she brought her suitcases with her. Another reason I knew this was not her first rodeo. Well, what was suppose to be a three week gig turned into six months!!! God, was looking out for us when Lucille came into our lives. She instantly became family. She was 48 at the time and had seven children and eight grandchildren! She showed us all sorts of tricks and techniques . John fondly called her the "voodoo baby whisperer" -- Sinclair could be hysterical and Lucille would touch her while talking in Tobago speak and my child was a "fixated kewpie doll" instantly. She and John also have a very special bond - she LOVED going with John and Jack Rains to the Aggie football games! What a trooper!! She was CRAZY for college football! Keep in mind, this is a woman that never knew it existed. Then again, most people outside of the South don't. When John came home he would have stories how she had the suite dancing the island moves to the Aggie Band!! I think she even taught Gov. Perry a move or two!

It was a sad day in our house when Lucille moved on. I cried (harder than the day she showed up) - John got misty, Daniel smothered her with kisses and Hailey with hugs! Sinclair and I were especially grateful for all the confidence Lucille gave us those first few months.

Tonight, Sinclair, JoJo, myself, Marlene and Jack honored her at her party. There was so much overwhelming love in the room for this woman.
Sinclair was blowing her kisses when we left -- that is the moment it dawned on me how much my own little angel had grown, as had I.

Excuse me...do you have a license to carry that TuTu??

Yesterday, was a little traumatic for all of us. Our cat fondly named "Oscar Wyatt" (approximately 6 years old, 22 lbs. and in his tenth life) loves to bring all sorts of animals in off the bayou. We have had many birds, rabbits, nutria and even a turtle! Yesterday was no different. After he plays with his new "friends" he has his way and then they suffer a dark demise. I will spare you the morbid details --- but you get the picture. As we were walking out in the backyard to play he left an Easter bunny offspring as a present on our backdoor. I screamed and Sinclair cried....then on cue the dogs went crazy! When John got home I made the announcement Oscar, like his namesake, legendary Texas oilman, Oscar Wyatt will be going "away" for a while. John loves this crazy cat and I don't think he think I will go through with giving it away but I have already packed his litter box - he is OUT! I had already had the "last straw" about six months ago and it went down like this:



A BAYOU RODENT FIRST BELIEVED TO BE A "RIVER RAT" LATER CONFIRMED TO BE A NUTRIA CAUGHT INSIDE A WATERFRONT BAYOU HOME --- THE LADY OF THE HOUSE, KRISTI, WIFE OF INTERNATIONAL OILMAN JOHN WAS HOLDING HER SMALL INFANT BABY WHEN IT RAN IN FRONT OF HER IN HER LIVING ROOM AS IT WAS BEING CHASED BY THE HOME OWNERS TWO FIERCE KILLER KING CHARLES CAVALIERS. THE HOME OWNER, MOMMY-CORPORATE WIFE/PREMENSTRUAL NRA MEMBER QUICKLY BALANCED HER 8 MONTH OLD ON HER HIP AND SHE DESPERATELY SEARCHED FOR HER GLOCK 9 MM HANDGUN (WHICH SHE HAS A CONCEALED LICENSE TO CARRY). REALIZING IT WAS TRAPPED BETWEEN HER BEIGE SILK WALLS AND HER ROSE TARLOW SOFA. "MOMMA BEAR" WISELY DEBATED TO CALL HER CONTRACTOR WHO IMMEDIATELY CALLED OUT THE CALVARY "RAT SWAT" TO USE INTERVENTION FORCE TACTICS. AFTER A MORNING OF NEGOTIATIONS CAPABILITIES HAD TO BE ENFORCED WHICH LED TO THE DISEASE LADEN CRIMINAL TAKING ITS OWN LIFE. THE BAYOU RODENT DRESSED OUT AT ALMOST EIGHT POUNDS!!!!!! "RAT SWAT" HAS VERIFIED THAT THE FAMILIES HOUSE CAT, "OSCAR WYATT" (THE MOST FEARLESS TOMCAT ON THE BAYOU") BROUGHT THE RODENT INTO THE HOUSE THROUGH THE DOGGIE DOOR. "OSCAR" HAS BEEN BROUGHT INTO INTERROGATION AND HAS SINCE BEEN DISCIPLINED. THIS IS NOT HIS FIRST OFFENSE.


WHO THINKS ITS EASY LIVING IN RIVER OAKS??


After getting everyone calmed back down, Sinclair and I retreated to her room where she choose a pink tutu to play in and get her mind off the drama!


This is her "what's up with our crazy cat" pose?


"GaGa, you think it's safe to come out?"

This would be the face (sound) Oscar makes before he takes his prey down....ROOOOOOOOOOARRRRRRRRRRR!

Daddy finally made it home from the golf course and we had to reiterate the whole story again in "Babyspeak" (which is lots of hand gestures) with Filipino, Hispanic-Texican and Polish outtakes!




After the "Stephen King/Easter Bunny firedrill" -- Sinclair was famished!! Needless to say, Rabbit was NOT on the menu!

Happy First Birthday, Sinclair

This week we celebrated our little muffin's 1st birthday.... It was one for the record books!

Life at Mach .10

This week has been really nuts for me. My sweet husband is in London working and had to miss Sinclair's actual birthday. I am having an OCD week, preparing for my daughter's big day. Right before John left the country the computer started going out. Well, OF COURSE we don't have a "normal" computer setup .....our home system is linked to the Hubble telescope, can be morphed to oil wells in West Africa and can instant message Buckingham Palace!!! All these crazy things that are not really required, but unfortunately to run at supersonic speed you have to have all these "extras" -- well, when it hiccups it is a ten on the Richter scale. I have had no computer since Saturday (the Internet is to me what Heroin was to Robert Downey Jr) and have literally broken out in hives, dry heaves and have had what resembles cold sweats. Not to mention my poor blogging audience has been deprived on the up to the minute Sinclair updates as they occur in "real time" The funniest thing out of this Comcast disaster is the iPhone I LOATHED has come in handy surfing the net. Ironically, I may like that little gadget after all! As most everyone on the planet knows, in the decree of the highest power in the state of Texas, Gov. Rick Perry announced a year ago that July 11th was officially "Princess Sinclair S. Day" -- (we got a fancy decree delivered from the Gov's mansion in Austin) which means yesterday was her first birthday!!! Last night, I fondly called her birthday dinner theme the ANTI-Atkins birthday: Mashed potatoes, cream gravy,fried corn, green beans, fried venison backstrap, cornbread and dewberry cobbler - the ONLY thing that did not have bacon drippings in the ingredients was the Bluebell Homemade Vanilla ice cream! Basically, I call it my "death row dinner" - these are all the things I would want to eat if it were my last day on earth!

Sinclair had a ball!! Her birthday cake was her FAVORITE thing of her Daddy's -- a Blackberry! She has on of my old ones and takes it with her everywhere! My friend Nadine did a great job of copying it to make it look so authentic.

Nothing is slowing our little Princess down. Today we went to the pediatrician and he was blown away by her "growth spurt" (almost 3" in two months). Lately, we have been working very hard on our communication skills. Sinclair is 99 percentile in height at 32" and 40th percentile in weight at 20.2 lbs. Dr Lange inquired if she was crawling good and about that time I let her down and she took off trotting in a fast walk towards Nanny Marlene where she proceeded to hold up one arm with fingered pointed up when I asked her how old she was. She points to her mouth. tummy and head. She can say "Dada" (of course) "duck" - also when you ask her what the duck does she says "quack" and she follows up with "Eeeee" (which is Ollie, her puppy) Dr Lange assured me this was "at minimum six months ahead of where she should be" -- ideal considering she was five and a half weeks early. John and I are both so proud of her progress. Her little personality just bubbles over and she bounces just like the spun gold curls that adorn her sweet head. Now, we are preparing her BIG birthday party with her friend William this Saturday. They share the same birthday, although William just turned four years old. William's beautiful Mother and I are the dearest of friends - they relocated here from New Orleans after the storm. We decided to host this birthday for the two of them and in lieu of presents we asked for donations to be made to the ESCAPE family resource center. Eva and I are both thrilled over the donations this Race Car/Mother Goose party is generating. Daddy will be home tomorrow and Sinclair and I both have missed him so very much -- the dust is always settled when Daddy is around. He is our "Knight in Shining Armor"

Rain, Rain PLEASE GO AWAY.....

Houston has received so much rain in the past few weeks that even Fred Astaire would have a hard time finding sunshine with his "wellies" on!

Dad and Sinclair catch a few moments between thunderstorms....the constant rain has left our Bayou swollen

My cousin Al's theory on the iPhone .....

Ok, I cannot say so far my iPhone and I have "bonded" I still cannot let go of my blackberry (THANK GOD I did not switch my #) -- Yes, I had to drink the kool-aid and get the newest, latest greatest gadget. So far, the touch screen is not doing it for me. Forget about drunk dialing on this puppy.

My cousin Al is the ultimate teckkie (he runs IT Dept for a major University and in his spare time he writes extra point questions for the Mensa folks) ....I aspire to be one tenth as smart as he is about the computer world one day! What I find amazing is how smart he truly is and they put ME in Forbes as "Queen of the Internet" --- that seals the theory sex sells!

Ok, back to cuz....here is what he sent my brother and I today. Keep in mind, the three of us are the computer self-appointed consumer reports "in the know" of the tech world.

No replaceable battery? That totally sucks.

“Unfortunately, the Phone does not have a battery that a user can replace. That means you have to send the iPhone to Apple to replace the battery after it's spent (Apple is estimating one battery will last for 400 charges -- probably about two years' worth of use). No, you don't really need a removable battery in a cell phone, but like many things missing on the iPhone, it would be nice to have, especially for such an expensive phone.” ------ I definitely can’t use one because of this-

• that there's no voice dialing -- Haha! Blackberry does this.

• “We just don't understand, however, why Apple doesn't include multimedia messaging.” – Nor do I! Blackberry does.

• “Worse: you can't cut and paste text when composing messages.” ----- That puts it in the amateur category if you ask me.

So far, I am leaning to the left on the Apple -- as my bonus son Daniel says "it will be the coolest iPod made but I would not hold it out as the greatest phone"

Alas, they are both right!

Mini-Me....

My Mother gave me this photo (pardon the grainy scan) this week. From the date on it, we estimate it was taken almost thirty years ago to the month. Ahhhhhhhh youth: no split ends, no body fat and a great sunkissed tan. Life was good then! Then again, I looked at the other photo and realized it's much sweeter now!

Recently my dear girlfriend Lisa Jane took this "Mommy and Me" photo session of Sinclair and I for her first birthday. I can see a little resemblence....can you?


Seeing these photos reminded me of a great prose on life....Enjoy!


"Ladies and Gentlemen, if I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The longterm benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.

I will dispense this advice now. Enjoy the power of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have started to fade. But, trust me, in 20 years you will look back on photos of yourself and cannot recall in a way you cannot grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you actually look....you are never as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future; or do worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind of things that blindside you at 4 PM on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing everyday that challenges and scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste time on jealousy; sometimes you are ahead, sometimes you are behind....the race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive, forget all the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep all your old love letters, throw away all your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life....the most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I still don't.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees, you will miss them when they are gone.

Maybe you will marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you will have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you will divorce at 40, maybe you will dance the "funky chicken" on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do don't congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either -- your choices are half chance, so are everyone else's.

Enjoy your body, use it everyway you can...don't be afraid of it, or what other people think of it. Your body is the greatest instrument you will ever own.

Dance. Even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them. Do not read beauty magazines, they will only depress you.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they will be gone for good. Be nice to family; they are the link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in gepgraphy and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old and when you do you will fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders. Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, that one never knows when it will run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair, or by the time you are 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But, trust me on the sunscreen....

The Second Coming 2.0

Well, I broke the news yesterday to my husband he is married to a gadget geek. He took the obvious pretty well. He asked me if I wanted an iPhone for my birthday and I scoffed and said "absolutely not" (imagine my 40 lb eye roll) I said "can you think of ANYTHING more stupid than those people standing in line to get one of those things?" Just another year past, thank goodness all the hullabaloo from the iPhone was detracting from my birthday. The legends say Woz and Steve (Apple founders) love to pull pranks, I am just thrilled they did it around the time of my birthday. OK, after watching the news and seeing folks camping for days on end I kept thinking maybe it would be cool to have one. By Saturday morning I was perusing the Internet and came across a gentleman from the suburbs that did not wait long at all after 6 PM on D-Day to get his. In fact, he was an employee of AT&T. I paid a mere "Ben Franklin" over cost and he even brought it to me!

What do I really think of it?

Well CD players and iPods both play music. But elegant design at the fundamental level of how it plays tunes is what helped it transcend the category. From what I saw, first hand, I think the iPhone is going to do this for cellies. I am not ready to part with the blackberry until I get the hang of this little guy that has come to live on my desk.

First thing I did? I called my mom. "Mom," I said. "I'm calling you from an iPhone"

Mom says, "Where? Huh? Who?"

I said, "Uh, its a gadget people have been waiting for for a long time. Never mind, I'll call you later."

Then I dug into the features.

It's easy to say how it worked -- it did just the way it's supposed to, per the Keynote. The experience is very OS X like. So, lets go through each feature. Keep in mind this isn't the final firmware or hardware. They have months to fix whatever I bitch about.

Phone calling: Sound is clearer than average. The number pad is tucked away, so they depend on you having most numbers in speed dial. That's ok. Soft buttons are never going to be as fast as hard buttons. These were good, there wasn't much delay. But without tactile feedback, its a little strange. (The faux dialtones are cool.)

Screen: Most gorgeous ever. Flawless. Dark, and contrasty. Bright colors. Photos looked natural. Touchscreen was better for multi gestures, but the screen itself had a bit of rubbery feel as I flicked through with a single finger.

Gestures: They work! Multi touch is great for zooming photos. I likey.

Video: The pirates of the Caribbean video was supposedly 640 by 480, but looked kind of blown up. I'm being picky, though. You can set the video to native res, instead of filling the screen. Maybe that was the 320 version of Pirates. I'm being picky.

Music: Um, I flipped through some songs, but without headphones, I didn't listen.

Images: I could pull up my Diva Gumbo blog pretty fast. Thumbnails, and zooming using gestures. As you'd expect.

Browser: Perfect rendering of the page (saw the apple page and Google news) Like the opera browser, it scales down images. Didn't check Flash or Java/Javascript support. Flipped to landscape when I tilted (but only one side.) Zooming in with a touch and then back out made sense. And landscape mode is awesome.

Keyboard: The soft key, on screen buttons are small. Think index finger, not thumb. Maybe I wasn't doing it right. The keys pop up when I put my finger down on the keys, but do you think the proximity sensor knows when I get close (but before I touch), and if I hover with my digit, it'll blow up the keys so they're easier to hit? (Am I making sense?)

SMS: I didn't but this feature will be imperative in my family

Email: Typed around a bit. Wish the fields for To, and CC were smaller fonts. But I guess when you go to the main message field, it scrolls down.

Google Maps: Perfect. Maps DL'd slower than I'd have liked

Widgets: Weather and Stocks are identical to the OS X Dashboard Widgets. Great

Camera: The camera didn't refresh fast in the dark meeting room. I wasn't that impressed, but it was pretty dark.

Multitasking: Have not had time to check! Too busy with an infant and a blog!

Quite frankly, I’m just glad the damn thing is now out so we can move on with our lives. As a gadget junkie, I really want to like the iPhone - I think the touchscreen is a great new approach to things, and look forward to seeing it stolen and adapted for other phones. I figure for now I will enjoy it -there’s a lot of things Apple got right, and to borrow from a conversation I had yesterday, the phrase “Do you want to see this YouTube video on my iPhone?” will undoubtedly be replacing bad pick-up lines across the country. God bless you, Steve Jobs.

(note to readers: this blog was typed on my Windows Vista PC -- damn you, Bill Gates!)