Hannah update: 1 year

Hannah turned a year old earlier this month. Hard to believe a year has passed already. Unfortunately, she doesn't have a doctor's appointment for a bit yet, so I can't give any official growth statistics. We have noticed, however, that her 6-9 month wardrobe is finally getting a bit tight, so we think she's had a growth spurt.

Developmentally, Hannah's still at or above where she should be. She's been walking since 10 months, which is well ahead of when either of her brothers started walking. Her vocabulary pretty much only consists of "mama" right now. Sometimes she'll say "baba", which usually refers to a baby doll. Rarely she'll manage "dada". Dorothy has tried to teach her some sign language, but she doesn't yet consistently use any of it. And at the moment, she's up to seven teeth: four on the top and three on the bottom.

Hannah's already taken on a chore for herself. If she's around when I start emptying the dishwasher, she'll bring me the silverware to put in the drawer. Usually this means one piece at a time, although recently she was doing two — on in each hand. The bad part is when I start putting the dirty dishes in, she'll still try taking the silverware out to put in the drawer.

Hannah has an amazingly good temperament. She fusses when she's hungry and sometimes when she doesn't get her way. We recently bought a gate and when we put it up between the living and dining rooms, she did not like it if someone went over it without her. We've since moved it to between the dining room and kitchen and that doesn't seem to be as traumatic. She doesn't fuss so much when she's tired; she just keeps going until Dorothy nurses her or she's put in the car, in which case she'll fall asleep quickly. She doesn't fuss over wet or dirty diapers, which is sometimes to her detriment because if it's a day where we're busy, busy, busy, we'll sometimes forget to check her diaper as often as we should.

Hannah's still not sleeping through the night, though. Well, at least most nights. She'll go to sleep around 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. and stay asleep until around when Dorothy and I go to bed two or three hours later. Then she'll wake up, but go back to sleep until 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. After that she's a bit restless until, of course, around 6:00 a.m. when I get up.

Hannah hasn't had a proper haircut yet, but Dorothy did trim her bangs a bit, as seen in the adjacent photo. Note that her hair was wet, so it's not its usual, curly self. As I recall, Dorothy was able to get the trim done without major drama.

For her birthday party, we invited her grand- and godparents, plus many friends who had children around her age. All the grandparents plus a great-grandmother and two out of three godparents made it and a few friends. It seemed like everyone had a good time. The party had a zoo/jungle animal theme and the kids seemed to have fun playing with inflatable, ball-shaped elephants, lions, and other animals.

So here's to Hannah celebrating a year of surviving being in the same house as her brothers. She's managed to avoid major injury so far. Life is certainly getting more interesting since she got more mobile, such as the scare with the paperclip. We look forward to what the next year will bring.

Mantlo in Wizard

The latest issue of Wizard (#215, Sept 2009) contains a five-page article about Bill Mantlo. Titled "Tragic Talent," this article by Christopher Lawrence doesn't cover much ground that Mantlo fans don't already know, but it's great for younger fans who might not be aware of the breadth of his work. It summarizes his career, focusing, of course, on the accident that has put him in nursing home for the rest of his life. And it has some nice quotes from other pros who knew and worked with Mantlo during his career, including Keith Giffen, Mike Mignola, Carl Potts, Roger Stern, Walt Simonson, and Al Milgrom, who was Manlto's editor on Rom. Perhaps best of all, however, is the original, two-page spread by Greg Horn featuring a figure in Times Square surrounded by signs with some of the characters Mantlo was most associated with, including Rom.

If you're searching for it on the stands, note that there are two different covers. One features a jam cover of Marvel heroes for Marvel's 70th anniversary. The other features a photo of Iron Man from the movie for the story on Iron Man 2.

Thanks to Jerry Whitworth for the tip.

Rom tidbit of the day

In searching the Web, I came across the following tidbit from The General Mills/Parker Brothers Merger by Ellen Wojahn (2003).

Most interesting for the designers and marketers in-house, ROM made breathing sounds that made for great intra-office obscene phone calls.

No doubt this occurred to many people who had a Rom action figure back in the day, but I must sadly confess that I'd never thought of it.

The Rom trademark saga continues

The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) has updated half of Hasbro's trademark claims, namely those for just the "Rom" mark, with Hasbro's response. Sadly, the ones for "Rom the Spaceknight," which were the ones initially refused in part because of Marvel's "Spaceknights" trademark, have not been updated at this time. I would ascribe this to delays on the USPTO's part in updating their databases, not Hasbro's in responding, but that's only a guess.

In essence, Hasbro's lawyers did three things for each application. First, they disclaimed any relation to Rom and computer memory, essentially saying that their product is not called Rom because it contains Read Only Memory computer chips. Second, they narrowed the classifications on each one to show that their products would not conflict with those of other companies that already have related trademarks. And third, they reiterated that the applications were for "intent to use" and that "at this time [Hasbro] has not yet developed specific, detailed factual plans for the goods/services" (where it's "goods" or "services" depending on the application in question).

Despite their supposed lack of detailed plans, the new classifications give us a much better idea of Hasbro's potential plans for Rom: market the stew out of him. The new classifications include action figures and vehicles(!), playsets, plush toys, stuffed toys, ride-on toys, building toys, inflatable toys, water squirting toys, board games, card games, electronic hand-held games, and jigsaw puzzles. And that's just the toys and games application. Then we have computer games, video games, gambling machines(!), movies, television shows, DVDs, and soundtrack albums spread across two more applications. And finally, we have just about every paper good and office supply imaginable: coloring books, story books, fiction books, party supplies, wrapping paper, trading cards, lunch bags, book covers, posters, pens, pencils, stationery, rulers, and temporary tattoos. In essence, think of all the common Star Wars products created in 30+ years. Hasbro wants to leave the door open to make those for Rom.

There's one, however that may bite them in the butt: comic books. Fine for the plain "Rom" applications, but if they include that in the "Rom the Spaceknight" ones, they'll run smack into Marvel's "Spaceknights" trademark. This is the response I anxiously await to read. And after I do, I'll let you know about it here.

[Next trademark update]

Hannah update: 9 months

By popular demand, Hannah updates are back. In short, she's doing great. She's running small on most measurements, particularly weight, but developmentally she's exactly where she should be, if not ahead. For the record, the measurements were 27.75" long and weighs 15 lbs. 2 oz.

She's dangerously close to walking. She can walk as long as bigger person holds her up or she can cruise holding on to furniture. In fact, she seems to prefer cruising to crawling. I fully expect her to be walking before 12 months.


She also has gotten her first two teeth. They're the two bottom ones. Hopefully you can make them out in the adjacent picture. She was starting to eat solid food even before the first tooth came in, but still gets plenty of mom's milk, too.

We had a scare over the weekend. Hannah spilled a container full of paper clips. Dorothy thought she had picked them all up, but then Hannah found another one, which Dorothy got away from her. Then, just a bit later, Dorothy thought she saw Hannah put something in her mouth. She checked and couldn't find anything, so she thought maybe she'd imagined it. Just a few minutes later, though, Hannah started choking. She spit up a bit of food and seemed to be fine, but that was scary enough that we took her to the pediatric ER.


It turns out they make teeny little hospital gowns for babies, as seen here. There was a bit of a wait, but it wasn't too bad, and much more pleasurable than going to the regular ER. Finally, we got an x-ray technician who loaded Dorothy and me up with lead smocks, as it was our job to hold her still during the procedure. We had to remove Hannah's cloth diaper, because of the snaps on it. The technician then seemed way too concerned about exposing her privates during the procedure. I mean, give me a break, she's just nine months old and the only people there were him and the three of us!

After another wait, we got the good news that nothing was found in the x-ray. So one $175(!) co-pay later, we were free to go. The cost made us feel a bit silly about the whole thing, but really, the peace of mind is priceless.

In other family news, our church had its music camp a few weeks ago. It was the story of the apostle Paul. Walter played the part of Peter. His main job was to do roll call for the rest of the apostles, which he did well. Andrew—seen here with his friend, Andrew—was in the sailor chorus, but also got to "stone" Stephen, which is what the costume he's wearing in the photo was for.