happy half birthday D!

Here are 7 pictures for D’s first 6 months.  We love him so much.

 

     

 

permit – yes!

 

Recently we got our building permit, which means we have 18 months to start building.  You can renew the permit, but we hope to get started before then.

Jack has been working hard on the construction docs.  Yesterday we went on a “date” to Ikea to talk about all sorts of things.  Amusingly EVERYONE else in the store was either very pregnant or shopping with kids in tow, or both.  We spent two hours there and were pretty glad not to have D with us.  Jack has some cool ideas about building around Ikea cabinet dimensions so we bought a few small pieces to measure.

return to Montreal

 

At the beginning of the month the three of us spent a long weekend in Montreal, for the wedding of one my old roommates.

Things that went really well:

• Meeting the partners of my two favorite roommates!
• Traveling three times zones east was way easier than traveling three time zones west.  We did our best to keep D on a Seattle schedule and we still got to do evening activities, like the wedding.
• We rented a little apartment in the Plateau through airBnB. It was in a charming neighborhood and it included a playpen/baby bed.
• There's a “new” route 747 airport shuttle bus which has replaced the metro-metro-bus-bus route I used to have to take to the airport. Back in the day, the second bus didn’t even run on Sundays so Jack and I had some long cold walks across expanses of highway and airport parking lots.  This new bus is quite an improvement.
• With Jack’s enforcement, we didn’t check any bags so we were able to hop on an earlier connecting flight from Chicago to Montreal.
• We had putine at the Mariott, which is only the 2nd or 3rd time I’ve had it and Jack’s first time.  It was decadently tasty.
• Bringing the stroller, after some debate.
• D likes looking out windows and watching the ground from the airplane window was fun.
• D got a cute new hat and some adorable booties.

Things that didn’t work so well:

• I had to bring my laptop and squeeze in a day’s worth of work due to an important deadline at work.  Lame.
• I kind of forgot that credit cards are not as ubiquitous as in the US and so after intentionally spending most of the 65 CDN I found in a drawer at home, we found ourselves in the unpleasant situation of having no way to pay for the meal we had just eaten at a diner.  We were traveling light with one credit card and we were nine dollars short.  Jack had to go to the bank and then eventually back to our apartment and to the bank again to get a debit card, which worked at an ATM but not at the restaurant.  I got to entertain D for an extra hour as a voluntary hostage at the restaurant.  In addition to Canada’s less credit heavy style, they, like the rest of the world, are switching over to chip cards.  I won’t travel abroad relying on our out-dated and unsafe magnetic strip cards again.
• The Chicago airport was backed up when we passed through it on the way home.  What’s new?
• This resulted in us missing the last light rail when we got back to SeaTac.  Without a car seat, a taxi wasn’t an option so we had to call Jack’s step dad to come rescue us at midnight and drive us home. 

Returning to a once-familiar city after several years was interesting and mostly quite pleasant.  While we were in school, Jack visited enough times to also notice changes.  We saw the city with older and better traveled eyes, which led to lots of interesting discussions. 

I think walking around with Jack (and D) has to be one of my favorite things to do.

 

Seattle celebs

I get excited about Seattlites of our generation who make it big.  It's even better when I personally appreciate their talents!

My current list consists of hip hop artist, Macklemore (aka Ben Haggerty), and the web comic author, The Oatmeal (aka Matthew Inman).  

I can't help but consider them in the context of other local celebrities though.  My dad's generation of Seattlelites includes Bill Gates and Jimi Hendrix.  I would posit that, outside of the performing arts (Michael Jackson) and politics (Obama), Bill Gates is the single most globally known living person.  Counter suggestions are welcome.

I wonder if anyone from our generation will achieve that level of fame?

enough with the guns

 

It has been a week where crime is too close to home, which merits a follow up to my 2013 post, crime and cars in the Central District.

On Wednesday there was a 10:40 am (!!!) shooting at 2nd and Yesler, an intersection I walk through several times a week that is only a few blocks from home and work. 

After reading about it on Wednesday, I made the mistake of leaving the SPD blotter site open on my work computer so that on Thursday I looked at it again and learned of several other recent, gun-related crimes in the Central District.

These incidents can mostly be divided into gang/drug violence and thefts.

I can't do much about the former beyond (the obvious choices of) not buying, selling or using drugs or joining a gang. As for latter, it feels like a balancing act between taking reasonable precautions and not getting bogged down by fear. 

If I am ever targeted, it will most likely be a theft.  At a low moment this week I was considering that I should probably visualize myself compliantly handing over whatever material possessions are demanded, so that I don’t exercise some silly protective instinct that put me and mine at risk over a few hundred dollars (max) of stuff.

Sigh.

At times like this, looking at the street photos, brief interviews and comments on Humans of New York restores my faith in humanity.

Hawaii pictures

 

This is a belated picture-heavy post on our trip to Hawaii in early August. The three flights weren’t too bad.  We saw an 18 month old flying and made mental note to avoid travel at that age.

First we were on Oahu, for a lovely wedding.  Thankfully the double hurricane that was forecasted, turned in to a single tropical storm, so we just had a day or two of heavy rain and some emergency precautions in Honolulu.

D slept on a thermarest, which worked well in Boston at 6 weeks but not so well at 3.5 months.  He started rolling over and waking up angry and on his face.  That marked the unfortunate end of swaddling and the beginning of a tough sleep month. 

D seemed to enjoy the water and standing in the sand.

 

We had one very long day between our 10 am checkout and 10 pm inter-island flight.  We passed some time walking around Waimea Falls. There were some beautiful trees and flowers.

On Maui we went to the beach several times and visited Haleakala national park, which is a 10,000 ft high volcano.

 

We put a lot of (very natural) sun screen on D.  Keeping him out of the sun and spending a bit too much time in the car was rough.

We watched some impressive surfers and saw four big sea turtles.

On our last day went on a snorkel boat and had a great time.  We bought some underwater pictures they took, but managed to immediately lose them, so this is it.  You’ll just have to imagine how cool we looked under water.

We had a lot of fun, interspersed with a bit of baby-related stress.  My advice for next time (or for friends) is: 1) expect jet lag, even if you don’t think your baby has a strong sleep schedule 2) plan ahead for naps, especially when a hot parked car is not an option 3) minimize car travel.

daycare success!

'Tis the season of back-to-school and D started daycare today.  

Jack brought him in, I visited for a lunchtime snack and we picked him up together. He was put down for two naps by teachers and one by me.  At the end of the day he is happy and only a little hungry as the third bottle feeding didn't go down until I got there.  They have lots of fun toys and he gets to sleep by a noisy vent which functions as a white noise machine. 

I'm very pleased. 

resemblance and coloring

 

When you’re pregnant, people ask “Do you know if it’s a girl or a boy?”  Then after the baby is born it’s “Who does he look like?” and “Do you think his eyes will stay blue?”  We do see a lot of baby Jack in D.  While eye color prediction seems like it could be done scientifically (unlike gender prediction) our answer is still… “We have no idea what will happen.” 

Jack is on the left and D is on the right.  Both are about 4 months old.  Help - I’m surrounded by cuties!

My most obvious contributions to D so far are his dark hair and his fabulously arched frown (which thus far eludes the camera).

Here’s a progression of my coloring through age 3.5, though it’s hard to see eye color in photos.  My dark hair and hazel eyes arrived relatively late

         

Jack was blond, by which I mean white-haired.  Today his eyes are still very blue, but they are less saturated than when he was a little kid.  Like me, his hair color settled down to the current color around first grade.

      

Lastly, here are some kind of creepy close ups of our eyes that I just happen to have lying around.

birthday charities

 

This year I picked a subset of the recipients from last year (2013 charities).  The task of donating (and writing this post) had to fit in to one of D’s 45 minute naps.

According to this, it was a good year for women and a bad year for Seattle food banks.

Honolulu nuptials

 

Last weekend we attended the long anticipated wedding of some good friends in Honolulu.  It was a beautiful and touching ceremony.  Jack was in the wedding party and reflecting on what he wanted to say in his toast, caused us to recognize what a great couple they are. 

 

D was a hit with the ladies (and gents).

divisions of new parenthood

Beyond the obvious separation of tasks that stems from breast feeding, I find myself dividing tasks according to these questions:

Can I eat it with one hand? (bad news for my go to meal of soup)

Does this task make disruptive, sporadic noises?

Do I have to bend over to complete this chore?

Does this  job require two (adult) people?

Will I be able to hear D if he wakes up while I do this? 

My mom's insistence on not putting clothes on the floor is starting to make sense. 

Also, I can peel a hard boiled egg with one hand.