Random Update Archive

Random Update Archive

7.8.08

The Guess Who Game

Which baby is Anika and Which baby is Sasha?

1.1.08

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01.02.07

I was loading the dishwasher tonight and Sasha was running around the house saying "Gimme Candy!" After Mommy didn't surrender to her sugary demands, she toddled into the kitchen to work on Daddy. The dishwasher was open so she grabbed a steak knife out of the utensil receptacle. So when I turned around to put the last items into the dishwasher, I see a two year old brandishing a 5 inch blade at me and saying "Gimme Candy Daddy!" I was able to disarm her before any real damage was done.

11.26.07

With Christmas fast approaching I decided that we would do some "Christmassy" stuff with Sasha to get her excited about the holiday. On November 17th we were driving to the Norfolk Grand Illumination Parade. That's the Festival where they light up all the buildings in Norfolk and Portsmouth with the holiday lighting and then have a huge parade. Before we got on the expressway, I crashed into a decorative boulder that had presumably fallen off the back of a landscaping truck. One of the front tires exploded and the rim was destroyed. Needless to say we didn't make it to the parade. So last Saturday I decided to take her to the Holiday Illumination Celebration at The Founder's Inn. We spent the day there watching Irish and Polynesian dancers and a marionette puppet show. We ate cotton candy and giant pretzels and popcorn. We watched kids get their faces painted. We got balloon animals from clowns and visited with Disney characters. Santa sang us songs from around the world and Sasha got to sit on his lap and make her official request for a Jack-in-the-box. We went on a horse drawn carriage ride around the grounds and watched the Grand Illumination when they turn the lights on all at one time. One of the last events of the evening was a reading of the Nativity story by Pat Robertson. The Founder's Inn is owned in part by The Christian Broadcasting Network and/or Regent University which is all headed by Pat Robertson. One of the CBN shows is the 700 club. The Christina Daily News show. Their cameras were there all day so I had a feeling we might show up if they ran a segment on the show. On Monday, November 26th, they did air a segment on this year's Illumination Celebration and there is footage of Alan and Sasha on their carriage ride and also being read to from the Bible by Pat Robertson. I don't know how long this link will be available but it can be seen here. If the tab for "shows" is selected then pick the episode for The 700 Club: November 26, 2007. If you can load this video on the 700 Club website and fast forward by sliding the little ball under the video window to about the 40 minute mark you will see the segment with Alan and Sasha. You only see our backs on the carriage ride, but during the profile shot of Pat Robertson, Alan and Sasha are right center screen (Alan keeps looking up at the ceiling for some reason.) The 700 Club is a internationally syndicated show and is broadcast just about everywhere on Earth.

03.14.07

I've been really sick with the flu and a high fever all week. So I haven't been able to get near Sasha at all. No kisses or cuddling with Daddy. I'm probably more upset about this than Sasha, but I'm sure she'll be happy when we can start snuggling again. Anyway, over the last day or so Holly has started to show symptoms too. On the way home from school today, Holly told Sasha that "Daddy is still sick, and you won't be able to play with him until tomorrow." Then she said "I'm also starting to feel sick. Who will take care of Sasha if both Mommy and Daddy are sick?" Sasha thought for a minute, "ummmm, uhhhhhhh, hmmmm" she said.... and then she had her answer - "Oh! My Dentist!"

01.19.07

Let me start by saying, although this is a horrible admission of parental irresponsibility, that Sasha has watched many, many scary movies in her life so far. The First movie she ever saw, when she was 6 days old, was George Romero's Dawn of The Dead. Since then she's pretty much watched whatever I happen to be watching (although I did make sure she was not in the room when I watched Pink Flamingos again last year.) I assumed she really didn't know what was happening on screen, was too young to know that she was supposed to be scared of horror stuff, and usually didn't really pay close attention to anything anyway. These assumptions are apparently no longer true. Last Friday we had the neighbors over to watch a movie. We decided to watch the 2005 remake of War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise. I assumed this was a safe selection for their 12 year old daughter and I knew Sasha could watch it because the two of us had just watched it last summer together. So we're all sitting there and during the scenes when the lightening is striking everything, Sasha got out of her chair and crawled up in my lap. She didn't cuddle, she just sat kind of bolt upright and watched the screen. Moments later in the film, one of the alien tripods bursts up through the city street and starts attacking. The Tripods make this loud bass mooing sound and as soon as it started to break through the street and honked it's loud roar, Sasha leapt off my lap and went running across the room and up the stairs whimpering and crying. Holly went up and comforted her and read her some bedtime stories and put her to bed so all was well in the end, but I guess the era of age appropriate movies has, unfortunately, begun.

01.02.07

08.01.06
Sasha Loves to "dip" her food in condiments of any type but her favorite, by far, is ketchup. She eats ketchup with dinner almost every night and dips everything in it. Spaghetti, peaches, bread, corn, green beans, fish, etc. Everything gets dipped.

Some other updates that are not really first include: Sasha's favorite book for the moment is Green Eggs & Ham by Dr. Seuss. She insists Holly or I read it to her every night. She received a Laurie Berkner DVD of songs for her birthday and has now choreographed elaborate dance routines for most of the songs. These routines are then performed every single time the DVD is played. Sasha can also sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and her ABC's. Most of the words aren't there yet and the ABC song is more like the sounds of the letters rather than the letters themselves but she can identify the letters and she knows the tune to both songs so you can tell what she is singing. She's also very adept at matching games. She has a Sesame Street book where you find things on the page (Kind of like Where's Waldo) and she's able to find just about everything. I've tried it with other books too just to make sure it's not a memorization trick and she can usually find what I ask her to look for. It's neat.

04.05.06
Sorry about the delay in getting pictures and updates posted during the second half of March. I'm hard at work editing the hours and hours of video that will soon be the Sasha Year 2 DVD. I'm pushing for a Release Date sometime in June but principal photography is still ongoing and the cut-off date for that is not until the end of May.

03.03.06
Sasha's newest thing, besides the animal impressions, is a little game she has created called "Uh-Oh" The way you play "Uh-Oh" is you do something to precipitate an "accident" and then stand there innocently and point at what you've done and say "Uh-Oh" as if it was an uncontrollable act of nature.

For example you snatch Daddy's glasses off his face and throw them across the room. While you're doing this say "Uh-Oh" as if it was all a big mistake.

Or you swipe Mommy's wallet, empty everything out of it, throw the credit cards and other items onto the floor then take the cash and run as fast as you can into the other room, throw the money on the floor then point at it and call out "Uh-Oh!"

02.19.06
Sasha has a new game called "Duck, Duck, Duck." Basically she just pats you on the head and says "duck" until she gets tired of it. The game can be played with one or more people depending on who's within reach.

02.04.06
I take Sasha with me pretty much everywhere I go (except to the movies.) In stores she is always a big attention grabber. Ever since she born, people of all sorts come up to look at her and say how cute she is. When I say "people of all sorts" I really mean it. Sasha is universally adored and not just by women. I've had big burly biker / truck driver type guys come up and baby talk to her. Kids of all ages, including sarcastic moody teenagers, brighten up in her presence and are happy to have seen her.

Admittedly, one of the things I like about lugging her around everywhere, is that people all seem to LOVE Sasha and since she's with me, I vicariously get some of her attention. I'm not exaggerating when I say this. Sasha has never heard an unkind word toward her or felt the hurt of a mean glance from someone until today.

I always bring Sasha on my cheap DVD buying expeditions to the local pawn shops in town. Most of the people who work at these places actually know her because she's with me all the time. When she was little I used to just hold her as I perused the movies. Now that she's older she likes to be put down so she can explore a little. She usually just stands in front of me holding onto my pant leg and fiddling with the DVD's on the bottom rows.

Today we were looking at movies, and although I was to her left, Sasha reached up with her right hand and accidentally grabbed the pant leg of this guy who was standing next to me. I assumed he would react as the countless hundreds we've encountered in the past. When Sasha looked up at him with her big baby eyelashes and adorable little piggy tails this guy just looked down at her like she was annoying him. Then he looked at me like "would you get this thing away from me?"

I was so shocked by his reaction I didn't know what to do. I said "No, no Sasha, I'm over here," smiled at the guy and pulled Sasha over to the other side of me. I don't think Sasha noticed anything had happened because she immediately set to the task of removing DVDs from the shelf I put her in front of. But for the rest of the day the encounter stuck in my mind. What the Hell was this guy's problem? What a jerk!

So anyway, apparently Sasha has made her first enemy.

09.13.05
I'm so bad at the written part of this history. The photo record is pretty comprehensive but I never remember to update this section. Actually I've been slacking like crazy on the whole website. I haven't written a movie review all summer.

It's really Sasha's fault. I can't just sit her on my lap and work on the computer anymore. I can't even put her down next to me to play because she's all over the place now. She can toddle away in the blink of an eye and be halfway up the stairs before you turn around.

It's great really. We can finally PLAY together. We can build towers with blocks or color with crayons. We can read books and play with all my old Fisher Price people that I've been saving since I was a kid. We can go on bike rides or play at the park. And I mean really play. We used to go to the park and I would carry her around or push her in the stroller to the swings but now I can just put her down and she'll tear off right over to whatever she wants to play with or on. We can chase each other around and she can actually run. It's so cool.

She can give perfect kisses now too. She'll come up to you press her lips against your cheek and make a big smacking kissy sound. When I carry her she wraps her little arms around my neck and hugs me. Sometimes she'll run across the room, stick her head between my knees and try to wedge her way through to the other side like I'm a human tunnel.

She babbles all the time. She can say "kitty" but right now it seems to apply to all animals and some inanimate objects. My favorite thing she says is when I walk into the room, she gets a big smile on her face, her eyes light up and she says, "Hi daddy!"
I LOVE THAT.

There's so many new things every day. It's really impossible to document all of them. I don't remember what it was like myself but imagine what it would be like if everything was new to you. Every taste, sight, smell, touch and sound. I forget about that sometimes. Even the stuff that we take for granted is new to a baby. She ate her first slice of pizza today and loved it. I love pizza too but I don't remember my first slice. It must have been wonderful!

Anyway, I'll try to keep this journal up to date better but I've never been good at keeping a chronicle. I'm pretty good at keeping the photo record so we'll have to just accept these written updates, more or less, as a supplement to the photo archive.

08.17.05
We're all unpacked now and moved into our new house. You've probably seen much of the new place from the last few picture series. Sasha has her own room and even Alan has a work-room all to himself that he has decorated like a teenager. Lots of developmental stuff has happened over the last month but I've been too busy with the vacation up to Michigan and the move to document it all.

Sasha has enough teeth now that she can pretty much eat whatever we're eating. She can not only walk now but she can run. Fast. Her favorite thing to do is to swipe something out of my work room and when I say "No" she runs top speed down the hall into the master bedroom and around the corner to hide. Her theory apparently is "if he can't see me then it's OK to play with this power drill."

08.06.05
Sasha's Growing! She had her 1 year check up and she's doing fine. She's not gaining a lot of weight, but Dr. Kevorkian says she's just burning off a lot of calories now that she can walk and run. See Sasha Run, Run Sasha Run!

07.30.05
Sasha's 1 year old today! Lots of new pictures are on the way!

06.17.05
Sasha's toddling! She walks a few steps from one thing or person to another but only when she doesn't really realize she's doing it. If you try to make her do it she just falls forward or on her butt. She can also walk while only holding onto one hand now so that's a big new thing too! At this rate she'll probably be up and about by the middle of next month just before her first birthday. Which is good because I was gonna have to return her to the hospital as defective if she couldn't walk by age 1.

06.07.05
Sasha can almost walk! She can take 1-3 steps to get from one obstacle to the next. She can't reverse course or just stand up and start walking but she can pull herself up on something and then move around from there. She's also starting to climb. Yesterday she was standing on the tray of her feeding seat to get a better look at what was on top of a dresser.

06.05.05
Sasha spends her first day at the beach. We drove down to Cape Hatteras for the afternoon. We decided before we went that Sasha would need one of those baby beach tents to protect her from the sun. I went out on Saturday to buy one but they all seemed so junky. Like more for play than real use. So as I was leaving Target I saw this small pink dome tent. So I figured, for a few dollars more, I might as well just get her a real tent that she could use in the house, at the beach and in the back yard of the new house. Well I got home and set it up and it was HUGE! I thought it was just gonna be a small little pup tent and it ended up being this giant 3 man sleeper. The whole family can fit in there and there's no way we can set it up for play in the house. It's just too big. But it sets up easy and ended up working fine at the beach. You can see it in the pictures. We had a great day at the beach. Sasha got to play in the waves, I got to go surfing and Holly got to read and sit in the sun.

06.03.05
Sorry about the lack of photos and updates but I've been working on Sasha's DVD for the last week and a half. Sasha: Year 1. It took quite a while to sift through all the video footage from the last 9 months (about 15 hours worth) and edit it down to a 50 minute movie that people might want to sit through. Then to use up the extra space on the DVD I added 4 slide shows that cover the last 9 months as well. The movies and slide shows were edited together and then music soundtracks were added to enhance the viewing experience. The pictures were all taken by me and Holly and a few by Holly's dad. The video was pulled from low-res footage that I shot with my Kodak digital still camera (the clips you see on this website) as well as footage that I shot with my old Sony Hi 8mm video camera and a little bit of new footage shot with my new Canon Elura 85 digital video camera. It was all edited together using Sonic MyDVD software. A few people will receive advanced copies in the mail this week and I'll have more copies available for friends and family as we see you later in the year.

05.25.05
Sasha can now wave and say "Hi". It's exciting because she seems to actually know what she's doing. It's not just a random sound and gesture. I'll shoot some video of it this weekend. She can also distinguish between Holly and me and calls us "Mama" "Mom" Mommy" and "Dada" "Daddy."

5.20.05
Question: Who's Watching the Baby?
Answer: Apparently Nobody.
While Holly was taking a shower today she told me to keep an eye on Sasha. I was working on the computer and assumed she was in the living room watching cartoons. A few minutes later she comes crawling into the computer room with a mouth and two fists full of cat food. I scoop as much out of her mouth as I can with my finger and knock the rest out of her hands. Then I followed the trail of cat food into the kitchen where I found Mishka's food and water bowls both tipped over and scattered all over the floor. We knew that one day she would probably reject our vegetarian upbringing but we assumed it would be much later in life and that her first choice of meat would be something more appetizing than horse, rat meat or whatever it is they feed cats these days.

5.13.05
Here's a funny story. Sasha always attracts adoring crowds of people to her when we take her out in public. I suppose all babies probably do, but here's an example of Sasha's cuteness. She has a little turtle toy that she brings to play with when we go out to eat. Holly wanted to go to P.F. Changs for Mother's Day dinner on Monday (less crowds the day after Mother's Day.) We don't usually go there (we went once before) because it's too expensive, the waiting time for a table is insane and it's a chain restaurant but this was a special occasion. So we went and had dinner. Then on Friday we decided to go out for lunch. When I went to get the turtle, I couldn't find it. After we looked everywhere, we decided it must have been left at P.F. Changs on Monday. So we drove over there after lunch and Holly ran in to see if someone had turned it in. She walked in, on a busy Friday evening, and said; "This is gonna sound stupid and I'm sorry to bother you when you're so busy but we were here on Monday for dinner and..." then hostess interrupted her and said "You're here for Sasha's turtle!" She then produced the turtle from behind the counter and handed it to Holly. I don't even remember telling anyone her name but she must have made an impression with the staff.

5.10.05
Not much news to report since Sasha was sick. The day after the hospital the fever broke and she got a little rash on her chest and back, then that dissipated by the following day and it was all over.

Probably the biggest news now is that our search for Sasha's New House is over and we finally found something we liked in a good area that we can kind of afford. So pretty soon Sasha will have her own room and a little yard to play in. Hurray!

4.27.05
Sasha is sick! I was hoping to make it a year without her getting sick but one of the germ encrusted kids at the mall must have licked her or something last week. She started to have a fever on Monday afternoon 102-103^o. We called the doctor but couldn't get through before the office closed. The next morning, yesterday, it was down to 101^o but then at 3:30pm it shot up to 104^o so we called the doctor again and they told us to take her to the ER at the Children's Hospital in Norfolk. She doesn't really have any other symptoms. She's not really sick. She's kinda tired but other than that she's been eating, playing, singing and crawling around like normal. So we took her to the hospital. They admitted her and her temperature had moved up to about 104.7^o , then we sat in the waiting room for like 4 hours. They were able to check her out at about 7:30pm but besides the fever they couldn't find anything wrong with her. She was happy and playing in the emergency room. She really liked her hospital gown (see above). They said it may be a virus that just hasn't displayed any other symptoms yet so they sent us home and told us to follow up with our doctor. We'll be doing that later today.

At the hospital Sasha was obsessed with peeling the "Hello My Name Is" sticker that they make you wear in the ER off my shirt. At some point after we got home she got a hold of it and while I was feeding her dinner I found what was left of it in her mouth. About 1/2 of it had already been consumed.

4.20.05
Sasha can stand by herself now. It's cool. She falls down when she tries to walk anywhere. I expect she'll be walking in the next few weeks. Hurray!

4.15.05
I do this all the time but today it started working really well: Sasha's usually really chatty when she wakes up in the morning so today when I said "Hi" to her she said "Hi" back! So then I said "Hi Daddy" and she said it right back and has been repeating it all morning! It's so cool! "Hi Daddy" "Hi Daddy" "Hi Daddy" "Hi Daddy"

4.13.05
Well, that was a long stretch with no updates. It's the end of the semester and Holly is pretty much using the computer all the time in the evening so I haven't had a chance to do any updates. Also Sasha can't fall asleep unless someone is in bed cuddling her so with Holly doing work I've been on cuddling duty so I've been going to sleep earlier. Sasha's cruising is getting more complex. She can take a step from one thing to another across open space now if she has to. She can also stand on her own without holding anything for a few seconds until she realizes she's doing it, then she falls. Some of the cuter new things are a little noise she makes when she yawns and she babbles in sentences and does something that sounds like singing too. I got my new digital video camera today so the Sasha Kai Motion Picture Studio will soon be in production.

3.28.05
Sasha is cruising like crazy. "Cruising" is when babies walk around the room by holding onto things like couches, chairs and tables. She crawls so fast now, she is gone if you just turn around. Her hair is getting longer but it's still not long enough for me to put in a little Pebbles tail off the top of her head or the little piggy tails on the sides that I so desperately want her to wear. The weather is getting much better and the buds are coming out on the trees. It's about time! Spring is almost a month late this year!

3.27.05
The visit with Grandma & Grandpa was a complete success! We watched movies ( Best in Show & A Mighty Wind) and drove back and forth over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel after watching a documentary about how it was built. We ate at Hot Tuna, and a neat little place on the Eastern Shore then hung out at another beachfront hotel. We couldn't get into the pool this time though because there were too many kids! Before we took Grandma and Grandpa to the airport we showed then Sashi's play ground at Trashmore.

3.25.05
Grandma & Grandpa Wiseman arrived last night. Today they went with Alan and Sasha to look at a townhouse and later today, after dinner, Sasha will get to go swimming again and play in another hotel room down at the beach!

3.20.05
I'm failing miserably at updating this on a regular basis. The weather here was crazy this week. It was cold and rainy and then today it was warm and sunny. Sasha and I went to Trashmore and played for about 2 hours and watched the skaters and ramp bikers. Karen and Carol from my team at work came for a visit but were here on what may have been some of the worst days of the entire year. We went out for dinner with Sasha on Thursday at Mahi Mah's down at the beach. I feel bad because the day they left it was sunny and then the weekend was nice and warm. We didn't even wear coats today! Sasha is now able to crawl with startling speed and efficiency. If you turn your back on her she will be in the next room in a matter of seconds. She has a pretty big vocabulary of baby talk now. Mama, Dada, and Baba are the main ones. We're trying to teach her "kitty" when she sees Mishka but all she can say is something like "kiki." She's eating stage 2 foods now but we haven't started her on any solids. She only has the nubs of her two front bottom teeth so she wouldn't really be able to chew anything yet. I know other people tell me to give her Cheerios and stuff but I'm scared she'll choke.

3.13.05
Well this was a big weekend for Sasha. Grandma and Grandpa Fisher came to visit and on Sunday Sashi went swimming for the first time! That morning Sasha and I went to buy her a swim suit and some swim diapers and when we got down to the beach I also bought her a little inflatable ring to float around in. She loved the pool! I pulled her around in the water and she floated in the ring while Mommy, Daddy, Grandpa and Grandma bopped her around the pool.

Another fun thing is that Sasha can give kisses now. She's done it before but it was never consistent. She now applies the technique from the nose beep game and leans in and touches her mouth to you when you make a kissy noise. She can't do the kissy lips yet but it's like a nuzzle-kiss which is good enough for now!

3.11.05
Sasha and Holly spend the day down at the ocean front in Grandma and Grandpa's fancy hot tub hotel room.

3.10.05
Grandma and Grandpa Fisher have come to visit Sasha!

3.7.05
The weather was like summer here today so we all went to the park after work. Hurray!

3.6.05
I taught Sasha this trick where you point your finger at her nose and she leans in and pokes her nose to the finger and then you have to say "beep."

3.5.05
Now that Sasha can crawl she's starting to pull herself up to a standing position so I had to lower the base of her crib all the way down. Now if she pulls herself up on the rail she can't throw herself over the edge. She has no concept of falling yet. She took a header off my office chair last week and she is constantly trying to throw herself off the bed when we play steamroller.

3.4.05
Sasha can now crawl everywhere. She is in constant motion. Sorry about the lack of updates over the last week. I was moving the whole website to a new host and it literally took a week of downloading and uploading to do it. The big news this week though is the crawling. She can also say "Daddy" now as well as "Dada" but she still doesn't really know what she's saying.

3.1.05
New Monthly Photo Caption Contest for March!
The Sasha Kai Monthly Photo Caption Contest! Lets All make Fun of My Baby!

2.26.05
Well I'm already falling behind with my updates. One of Sasha's accomplishments this week is that she is now obsessed with making raspberry sounds. She does it all day long. It's funny. She's like that orangutan in Every Which Way But Loose. She also babbles all day now. It's like she's carrying on a non-stop monologue of baby talk. Her new tooth doesn't seem to be bothering her but it hurts a little when she bites me and Holly. I used to like it when she chewed on my fingers but now I gotta worry about that little chomper. Her crawling is really getting better. You can put her down in one place and a few minutes later she will have crawled, squirmed, pushed and rolled 5 feet in any direction. So gone are the days when we could leave her unattended for a minute. She's starting to get into everything now. We'll have to baby-proof soon.

2.18.05
I had the day off so Sashi and I went on a "mystery trip" to a mall play-land that she'd never been to before. She loves playing with all the other kids. And since kids are fascinated by babies Sasha is always the star of the show. She just kind of sits on a toy and holds court while all the other children gather around and adore her. I'll get the pictures posted in the next day or so.

The Sasha Kai:
Year 3 DVD
Is Now Available!

Release Date: 07/07/07

The Movie Event of the Summer!

Praise and Scorn for
Sasha Kai: Year 3 DVD

“After seeing an absolute masterpiece like Sasha Kai: Year 3
it makes me embarrassed to call myself a film maker.”
- Steven Spielberg

"Set your TIVO’s to stunned!"
- TV Guide

“Spartans, tonight, we dine in hell!
But first you gotta see this DVD. It flippin’ Rocks!”
- King Leonidas

"Pretty colors!"
- USA Today

“The peace and beauty of this infidel spawn makes me wish I had a nuclear
enrichment program that I could suspend development of….
but I don’t. Really. I’m serious.”
- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

“I have seen the future of entertainment, and her name is Sasha Kai.”
(paraphrased from Quatrain # 736)
- Nostradamus

“I’ll tell you what’s scary! That girl’s talent!
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha! I’m hilarious!”
- Stephen King

“I’ve been saying it for years and years….The Sasha Kai: Year 3 DVD is,
without a doubt, one of the greatest DVD’s ever.”
- Alex Jones

“We, and therefore the democratic party and liberals everywhere,
give this movie our seal of approval.”
- The New York Times

“Why does this stupid little girl, who seems to be famous
for no apparent reason, get so much exposure?”
- Paris Hilton

“I saw a scene where’s she’s holding an
American flag, that means it’s good, right?
- Sean Hannity Fox News

“Meesa thinkin itsa be needin a muy muy
funny digital sidekicken character.”
- George Lucas

See the Teaser Preview Trailers for
Sasha Kai: Year 3
Warning!
These are huge files. Not like the little clips I usually have on my website.

You Must have Quicktime to view the clips.

Be Sure to Turn Up the Volume on Your Speakers First
The Sound is Part of the Show!

Sasha Kai Year 3 "Tarantino" Teaser Trailer 3 (30+ MB)

Sasha Kai Year 3 "Hi Everybody" Teaser Trailer 2 (16+ MB)

Sasha Kai: Year 3 "Event" Teaser Trailer 1 (52+ MB)

The Sasha Kai:
Year 2 DVD
Is Now Available!

Release Date: 06/12/06

The Movie Event of the Summer!

Praise and Scorn for
Sasha Kai: Year 2 DVD

"Wow, here's an example of someone who completely misunderstood
the cautionary message of The Truman Show"
- Village Voice

"Fascinating, Absolutely Fascinating"
- Stephen Hawking

"Riveting. Almost makes you forget about Global Warming for a couple hours"
- Al Gore

“Citizen Kane, The Godfather, Sasha Kai: Year 2”
- New York Post

"This little girl is ugly and I hate her"
- Ann Coulter

"The Most Anticipated Movie of the Year."
- Variety

"And in the year two thousand and six,
a disc will chronicle the second age of a beautiful girl-child,
and it will be awesome!"
- Nostradamus

"My second favorite movie of the year,
after The DaVinci Code"
- Pope Benedict XVI

"This is the King of DVDs!"
- James Cameron

"Only Democrats would love their child this much"
- Bill O'Reilly

"The feel-good DVD of the year!"
- Los Angeles Times

"What summer movies are all about!
It's bigger, better and badder!
Makes that Year 1 DVD look like Kid's Stuff."
- Newsweek

"If she was a couple years older, I'd marry her!"
- Tom Cruise

"Gripping, Not for the faint of heart"
- USA Today

"First-rate edge-of-your-seat family fun loaded with suspense,
whiz-bang action and non-stop excitement"
- Fox News

"I'm not sure what the message was. Is the baby a Democrat?"
- Michael Moore

"As with most sequels,
this Year 2 DVD is more quantity than quality."
- Chicago Sun Times

“A Once in a Lifetime DVD Watching Experience”
- The New York Times

“It was like I was there, pushing her on that little swing.”
-Mr. T

"Another Left Wing Liberal Love-Fest"
- Rush Limbaugh

"The Home Movie Event of 2006."
- TV Guide

"That Baby's Bankable"
- Wall Street Journal

"Best Soundtrack Ever"
- Rolling Stone

2.16.05
Sasha's first tooth pops through! It's one of the bottom front teeth. Actually both are coming through at the same time. I ran up to the drug store after work to get her some baby-anbesol to help with the pain. She's been up all night for the last couple days and now we know why. Hurray!

2.16.05
Sasha getting really good at reverse-crawling. She can push herself backwards all over the floor now.

2.14.05
Sasha's First Valentines Day! She has a present for her Mommy that she picked out herself!

2/14/05

Happy Valentines Day!

,Love Sasha

2.13.05
Today we didn't do much. Just hung out around the house. Holly had school work and I was working a weekend shift. Sasha played around the house all day, worked on her crawling, and then we all went out for ice cream at Dairy Queen! Later in the evening Sasha gave me my Valentines Day present and card!

2.12.05
I gave Holly her Valentines Day gift from me. It's a picture frame with a bunch of the best pictures of her and Sashi in it.

2.9.05
Sasha can get up on all 4's into a crawling position and rock back and forth now. She'll be off and crawling any time now! She's also getting pretty good at cruising (holding onto things like chairs tables and walking around.) See this week's pictures.

2.8.05
Sasha and Holly went to play at the mall again today. She laughs at the older kids as they run around and play. She can almost crawl now. I like to put her on one side of the sofa at my feet and she rolls and climbs and crawls her way up toward my head at the other end. I also do this thing called "beauty shop" where I sit her on the couch and lay my head in her lap and she plays and pulls on my hair.

2.7.05
Sasha can kind of self-feed with a bottle now. At one point today I put a little water in the bottle and she grabbed it out of my hands so I just let her try to do it herself and she did. I guess she's on her own now.

2.6.05
Sasha went Valentines Day shopping with me today to get presents for her Mommy. She even picked one out herself when I let her stroller linger by a display in Kohl's for too long.

2.5.05
Today Sasha witnessed her first Polar Plunge down at the Ocean. Thousands of crazy people dressed up in costumes gather pledges and then run screaming into the freezing cold water all at once for charity. I'll have some pictures posted in the next week or so.

2.4.05
Sasha had carrot baby food for the first time today. She liked it. She seems to like orange food the best. Her previous favorite was Sweet Potatoes.

2.3.05
Sasha's been saying "Dada" all day. Holly and Sasha went to the play area at the mall today and Sashi made friends with a two year old boy who invited her back to his hotel room for a dip in the pool and to watch pay per view. It would have been her first date! Kids are just growing up so fast these days.

2.2.05
Rise and shine campers, and don't forget your booties 'cause it's cooooold out there today. It's Groundhog Day! Well the bad news (for those up in the North) is that Sasha did see her shadow today. So you can all expect 6 more weeks of winter (for the people in Michigan, amend that to almost 6 more months.) I suppose it's not really fair because it's always sunny here in Virginia Beach and Spring is just a couple weeks away!

2.1.05
New Monthly Photo Caption Contest for February!
The Sasha Kai Monthly Photo Caption Contest! Lets All make Fun of My Baby!

Sasha had her 6 month check up today. All is well and she's super-tall for her age! Click here to see how much she's grown. She got a record FIVE shots today, including the much sought after Flu vaccine. So at the very least Sasha will survive this flu season even if her parents don't. Her legs are now covered in cute little band-aids and she's dosing the baby Tylenol every 4 hours or so.

1.31.05
Today we took some pictures of Sasha with her 6 Month birthday cake. (We were gonna do it yesterday but she has a cuter dress on today.) I rolled around on the bed and on the couch with her so she could practice crawling, sitting up and turning over. She also ate banana baby food for the second time and this time she liked it! Her favorite is still sweet potatoes but for now bananas seem to be her second favorite. The rice cereal gruel is still tolerated but has never been a favorite.

1.25.05
New Years Resolution: After Sasha's big Six Month Birthday on January 30th, I will be posting lots more updates here that will become more of a daily journal of Sasha's adventures. I regret not having done this from the beginning. So much has already been lost and forgotten. I hope my meager photographic offerings provided ample evidence of the last six months.

12.21.04
Hey Michigan! You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout I'm telling you why.....Sasha Kai is coming to town!

12.1.04
New Monthly Photo Caption Contest for December!
The Sasha Kai Monthly Photo Caption Contest! Lets All make Fun of My Baby!

11.30.04
Sasha's 4 Months Old Today!
Click here to see how much she's grown .
(Her height is in the 90th Percentile and Weight in the 70th)

11.16.04
The Presents for Sasha Gift Registry is now available for all your Sasha gift buying questions.

11.1.04
New Monthly Photo Caption Contest for November!
The Sasha Kai Monthly Photo Caption Contest! Lets All make Fun of My Baby!

10.30.4
Sasha's 3 Months Old Today!

11.1.04
New Monthly Photo Caption Contest for October!
The Sasha Kai Monthly Photo Caption Contest! Lets All make Fun of My Baby!

9.13.4
New Sasha's World Contest!
The Sasha Kai Monthly Photo Caption Contest! Lets All make Fun of My Baby!

9.30.4
Sasha's 2 Months Old Today!

8.30.4
Sashi's 1 Month Old Today! Hurray! Hurray!

8.15.4
Sasha's World Update. You've seen the photos. Now read the exciting and fascinating detailed account of the actual birth of Sasha Kai !

7/30/04 Sasha Kai: Life on "The Outside"

Sasha was born today. My baby girl. My sweet little daughter. If I don't count the time when I got my picture taken next to the Oscar Mayer "Wienermobile", then this can truly be called the proudest moment of my life.

The actual birth of a child is nothing like what you see in the cartoons. And no matter how many books you read you are never really prepared. At the time I was reading the 1950's Sci-Fi Classic Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein and it offered little to no advice.

The day started like any other, with Holly waking me up at 6am complaining about terrible contractions and labor pains. We both felt sure that this was "false labor" or what the medical texts refer to as "Not Real Labor." We came to this assumption because about 48 hours earlier the doctor at Holly's weekly check-up told us that Sasha had not dropped yet and Holly had not even begun the pre-birth stages. He scheduled us for a test the following Thursday to assess whether induction or C-Section would be required. Based on this information I went ahead and made dinner reservations at Holly's favorite Italian restaurant for our 10th Anniversary on Friday.

The fake contractions continued through the morning but we tried to ignore them. I got out of bed at 8am and logged into the computer for work. After about an hour we decided to time the contractions and see how close and long they were. We clocked for an hour and they were pretty much 5-6 minutes apart and about a minute long. So we called the doctor and they told us that it was time to go to the hospital.

There was a whole list of things that we needed to have done and packed in advance before we left for the hospital. On the morning of the 30th, we had about half of the list complete. So for the next hour, as Holly tried to get dressed I ran around and packed stuff. Then we hopped in the car.

We stopped at 7-11. Holly was told to eat something on the way to the hospital because once you are there they will not feed you until after the baby comes. She wanted a Gatorade and a couple Powerbars. As she sat in the car contracting, I ran in to buy the stuff. I get to the energy bar section and they're out of Powerbars. I run out to the car and tell Holly. She says just get any yogurt fruit bar they have. I run back in. They have no yogurt fruit bars. I run back out to Holly. She says something like " Just get me something that looks good! I'm having a freakin' baby here!" So I grabbed a few bars and a couple Gatorades and we were off to Chesapeake General Hospital.

We got to the hospital and rushed up to the delivery floor as we were instructed in our parenting classes and tours. They didn't have a room immediately available but they were cleaning one up and it would be ready in a few minutes. We sat in the waiting room and watched part of an episode of Full House. It was the one where Jesse (John Stamos) is having trouble because his girlfriend makes all the decisions in their relationship. Also Danny (Bob Saget) is frustrated because oldest daughter D.J. won't stop talking to her friends on the phone. We didn't see how it ended but I made a mental note to get Sasha her own phone line as the episode suggested. Who would have guessed that Full House would provide my first tip on being a parent? I always assumed it would have been The Cosby Show.

They showed us to our "birthing suite" and we settled in for The Miracle of Birth. They attached Holly and the baby to the little machine that goes "ping!" and we were on our way. Holly immediately asked for as many drugs as State laws would allow. Unfortunately she had not yet achieved the point in labor where drugs could be administered. So we just waited. Holly contracted and I read Entertainment Weekly and watched the 1979 O.J. Simpson action film "Firepower."

Finally Holly had dilated to 4 cm and they gave her an injection of pain killers. They compare the effect of the drugs to drinking a 6 pack of beer. Lucky for me Holly's not an "angry drunk." If someone is having terribly painful contractions, giving them a drug that releases inhibitions might not always be the best idea. But Holly has always been a goofy babbling drunk so it was nice to see her relaxed and yammering gibberish like in our old M.S.U. bar hopping days. After a little while she kind of passed out.

It was now about 2pm and I was starving. I hadn't eaten yet for the day so I asked the nurse if there was time for me to duck out and get lunch. I left Holly in her pregnant drunken stupor and drove over to Zero's (My favorite sub shop.) I quickly munched down a 12 inch sub and an order of curly fries in about 5 minutes. As I was half way through the sub I started to feel like I was gonna miss the delivery so I ate faster. The people in the restaurant must have thought I was insane.

I got back to the hospital and Holly was still passed out. The doctors came and checked her again and she had made no progress. They decided to manually break her water. Once this was done they attached a fetal monitor to Sasha. Unfortunately, for the next hour as Holly had contractions, Sasha's heart rate would dip.

Just before 5pm Holly sent me out to ask for more "Happy Drugs." I met the nurse and the doctors who were on their way to our room. They had decided that, based on the fetal heart rate, the baby was in distress and a C-Section would be necessary.

Now, Holly had always wanted a C-Section to begin with. She had never wanted to go though the painful horror of regular childbirth. So aside from little Sasha being in distress, things were going as hoped. They took Holly away and prepped her for surgery. They gave me the full body space suit that you can see in the pictures and told me to put it on and wait. So I waited. And waited. I stepped out in the hall a few times to see if they had forgotten me. I had a little kid who was walking by take my picture in the space suit. I thought about what would happen if I was mistaken for a doctor and told I was needed in surgery. I decided that I would fake my way through the operation. Finally the nurse came and took me into the operating room. The anesthesiologist looked at me and told the nurse that he needed the doctor, not the husband. I had come this close to performing my first C-Section.

They sent me back for a few minutes. I had just enough time to finish my 7-11 Alan's Special Blend Slurpie that they said I had to leave behind in the room. The Alan's Special Blend Slurpie consists of red, blue, and purple Slurpie mixed together in layers with just a touch of Mountain Dew on top. It's delicious and very refreshing!

When all was ready they called me back in. There was a stool placed by Holly's head. The anesthesiologist told me to stay there near him and Holly because in addition to tending to Holly he would also be assisting me in case I fainted. I told him there would be no fainting. For I had just recently watched the "chest burst" scene in Alien and felt sufficiently prepared for the experience.

If you've never seen one, an operation is a very rapid thing. It goes by super fast and is so harsh and violent looking it's hard to believe that any good can come of it. They took a scalpel and sliced Holly's belly open. Then they took a little laser beam and started cutting through all the fat and muscle. When they encountered things (organs and such) that were in the way they simply pulled them out and set them on Holly's chest. Within seconds Sasha's head popped out of the huge gory chasm that was Holly's abdomen. Just like the scene in Alien! The umbilical cord was wrapped twice around her neck. That was what was causing the heart rate to drop when Holly would have a contraction. The doctor uncoiled the cord and dangled Sasha upside down over Holly. Then he cut the cord and handed her off to the two nurses who were waiting with an open blanket. It was about 5:30pm at this point.

I stayed to watch the after birth. The placenta is much bigger than I thought it would be and kind of looks like a giant gooey slug. As there was nothing more to see here, I decided to go watch Sasha.

She hadn't really made a sound yet. Not during the birth or the part afterwards where they rough her up with the towels and clean the gook off her. She was calm one moment and agitated the next. She looked like she was crying but no sound came out. They said this was probably because of the cord being wrapped around her neck. After a few minutes she started to bleat a little but was pretty quiet throughout the whole measurement and cleaning part of the show. I took pictures non-stop. Then they wrapped her up and handed her to me and I was able to take her over to where they were putting Holly back together so she could see her. Holly was pretty out of it so I accompanied Sasha and the nurse to the 4th floor baby aquarium.

The baby aquarium is the hospital nursery that you see on TV and in movies where people can come up to the glass and see the babies. Sasha got the bed by the first window and the larger reviewing window. So she was basically the star of the nursery. Like first chair in an orchestra. Then she got her first bath. She didn't seem to like it and was very cold and shivering. The nurse then dried her and put her back in the cradle.

They attached a heart monitor and stuck her under a heat lamp like the ones that keep the fries warm at Burger King. I just sat with her and snapped about 100 pictures. Then I remembered that the last time I saw Holly she was laying in the operating room downstairs with her guts splayed open. So I left Sasha and went to see how she was doing in recovery.

Holly was awake and dazed in the recovery room. I told her about the birth and all that had transpired since. I told her Sasha was perfect and all was well. Then I mentioned to the nurse that Holly had to be ready to go in about 30 minutes because we had dinner reservations for our 10th anniversary and I had a special present for her. The nurse suggested I give her the present here so she could enjoy the moment as well. So I presented Holly the anniversary ring I had bought for her. It has three little diamonds that are supposed to represent our past , present and future. Now I don't like to have the symbolic meaning of inanimate objects thrust upon me so I decided to tell her that the stones represent Holly, Alan and Sasha. Our new happy little family that began on our 10th anniversary.

After the presentation of the ring I started to miss Sasha so I left Holly and went back up to the baby aquarium. They said Holly would be moved to her room in about 30 minutes. I sat in the nursery and poked Sasha and took pictures of her and called people for about an hour and a half. Then I went down to see why Holly had not been brought up yet. They said she was on her way but I couldn't see her because I had stripped off my space suit. So I went back up to Sasha. Finally they wheeled Holly in her bed past the large aquarium review window so she could see me and Sasha in the nursery. I gathered my things and helped Holly get situated in the room.

Soon they brought Sasha in to meet her mom for what was essentially the first time. Holly started feeding her. We all sat together for a while and got to know each other. Soon Holly and Sasha got tired and I was pretty tired too. It had been kind of a busy day. So Sasha went back to the baby aquarium for the night, I tucked Holly in, went down to peak at Sasha one more time and then drove home. When I got home I made some dinner and spent a couple hours putting the first day pictures up on the website so Holly's family could see her before they left for Copper Harbor the next morning.

I was very excited and exhausted at the same time. Sasha was finally here. She was perfectly healthy and born on July 30th. The best anniversary present ever.

Click Here to Read My "Before I Was Born" Journal

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