It has been a long day today, that’s for sure… 🙂

Today Beth brought Kirstin out and about in the ‘Real World’ outside of the house. It was a good experience, I believe, and several people got to meet her (namely at my office building and over at Willie’s (the fantastic grocery store)) for the first time. She did pretty well overall as well. That’s always a plus.

Beth went home then around 1pm, and I stuck around at work for a few more hours (I got home around 4). I had a fairly productive day, but it’d have been nicer to get a few more things done. Ah well. There’s always tomorrow. 🙂

So I came home, sat down on the couch, and read the paper. Pretty soon it was time to head in for church (outing number two in the same day). That experience also went pretty well. She got to meet more people and it also got Beth out of the house for a bit more time — another plus. Kirstin’s really not to any point where she interacts with people, so it’s a lot of staring and whatnot…but there’s nothing wrong with socializing the child from the beginning.

On our way home after church and choir was done, we had to make a quick stop by Beth’s long-term sub’s house (to exchange some items). It’s really not that far out of our way (rather than take a nine-mile diagonal drive, we instead go five miles straight West (which is about where she lives) and then seven miles straight North (back to our normal road)), so it wasn’t that big a deal, and it’s also a change of scenery. Anyway, while Beth and her sub were socializing (I stayed in the car with Kirstin), I decided to do something that I’d seen done by a few other people. I’m going to take a picture a day of Kirstin and put it in its own set, Kirstin On A Daily Basis. The idea is simply that (especially when viewed as a slideshow) one can view the gradual progression of how she changes (daily) over a long period of time. How long a period of time? I don’t know. I’ll keep doing it (hopefully daily or at least close to that depending upon the situation) until I don’t see a good purpose in it anymore.

I recently ran across a family of five who have taken yearly pictures since 1977. That’s a 30-year set of photos. Granted, those are once per year…but it’s still cool too see. Another one I saw was a fellow who has taken his own picture daily for over eight years and made a video of that. That’s a bit less interesting to me (because he was in his twenties if I recall correctly) since he doesn’t really change that much over a period of time. But, the principle here would be to see the very big changes that take place in someone so small.

So, we’ll see where that leads us. I imagine as time goes by I’ll probably slow down the frequency, but who knows. I’m kinda excited. It gives me a purpose to take at least one picture of her every day I can.

Anyway, in other news, I went to the County Recorder’s office today to get a few copies of Kirstin’s birth certificate. While that process itself is fairly uneventful (although I had a good experience there), I was surprised to see how birth certificates have changed over the last nearly 27 years. I don’t look at my birth certificate often (although I usually get it out of the safety deposit box when I travel to Canada — just in case since I haven’t renewed my passport yet), they really have changed over time. Mine (an original) is fairly ornate (with a gold foil embossed seal) and utilitarian with its typewriter print over line blanks on a form. Hers is on a unique linen paper (kinda like currency) with multiple colors and pretty basic with its layout of information.

So anyway, it’s now after 11pm as I finish this post, so I’m going to bed. We’ll see what tomorrow brings!

Until then…

–MZ