Kate is a phenomenal sleeper.

She was sleeping through the night at 3 months. That’s when we started putting her in her crib full-time.

We put her to sleep every night at 8:30 and unless she’s sick she almost always wakes up 12 hours later. Incredible. I can’t even do that.

Ever since she was three months old her bedtime routine has been pretty much the same. I give her a bath, get her changed, go downstairs to say goodnight to Mommy, and then I take her upstairs to her room. She sits on my lap and I rock her to sleep in a rocking chair in her darkened room. Usually she falls asleep after about five to ten minutes, but sometimes it takes longer – depends what kind of day she’s had.

Once she’s asleep I lay her in her crib, close the door behind me, flip on the video baby monitor and head back downstairs to watch TV or play video games with Tammy. Easy.

Last night was different.

We said goodnight to Mommy, went upstairs to Kate’s room, and I flipped off the light. As I was about to sit down Kate pointed to her crib. I said “Do you want to go in your crib?” and she nodded her head. (She’s good with giving yes/no answers nowadays.)

In my head I thought “Yeah, right.” but I gave it a shot. I put her down on her back in her crib, fully awake. As soon as I let go she said “Byyyyeeee!” and waved to me. Then she stuck her thumb in her mouth and rolled over on her side to fall asleep without my help.

So I guess that’s the end of an era.

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If there’s one thing Orange County has a lot of, it’s gorgeous beachfront resorts. The Montage, St. Regis, and the hugenormous Pelican Hill are just a few, but there are many.

Last month LA county finally got its FIRST oceanfront resort. Terranea just opened last month back in ye-olde-hometown of Rancho Palos Verdes on the site of what used to be Marineland. It’s the only large-scale seaside resort between south Orange County and Santa Barbara.

Check out the map. This place is huge!

In my next life I will be a resort developer because I love these things.

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Remember Rap Chop from a few weeks ago? This video!

TMZ is reporting (ugh, I know) that it’ll soon be hitting your television as an official SlapChop infomercial.

With almost four million views on YouTube, it seems like a shrewd move! The remix is catchy and attention-grabbing, so I can’t imagine this would hurt sales at all.

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Japanese-style RPGs have never been able to capture my attention for very long. All those random battles just get to be tedious and the games themselves are kind of boring. “Oh look, another town. Now I have to walk into every friggin’ house and talk to every friggin’ person. Why is this dude dressed like a girl.” I wish they’d just stop making Final Fantasy games because that whole formula doesn’t work for me at all!

I’m not sure when I was able to find the time to do this, but I played Dragon Quest 8 on the PS2 a few years ago from the very beginning all the way through to the very end – and it was totally fun!

So I’m kind of looking forward to Dragon Quest 9, even though it’s appearing exclusively on the DS. Watch the official trailer (Japanese).

Whenever a new Dragon Quest title comes out in Japan, the whole country goes into a kind of frenzy. 2.34 million copies were sold in the first two days alone. That’s breaks a sales record held by…dun dun dun…Dragon Quest 8.

DQ9 comes to America this fall.

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There’s a burger restaurant near my house that just opened last month – Slater’s 50/50 Burgers By Design. In that month it’s generated incredible word-of-mouth and some impressive Yelp reviews. I just learned about it this week and I’ve not yet been there.

While you can go there and get a regular burger or a turkey burger or veggie burger or whatever, their namesake “50/50″ burger is half ground beef, half ground bacon. Close your eyes and let that sink in for a while.

The menu looks incredible. I like the fact that I can drive three minutes from my house and get a burger with gruyere cheese, cranberry sauce, olive tapenade, and chipotle mayo on it. Thank you AMERICA for being so wonderful and delicious.

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