two months in to the second time around

 A friend of mine with a personal blog does all of her posts  as a list of three items related to a theme. I find myself thinking up posts with that format now as well, though I often don’t managed to write them.   Now since I am writing this post on my phone, via dictation, I think a nice simple structure is helpful.

Dd is now about two months old.   I have lots to say about our experiences so far but will limit myself to three ways parenting has been different the second time around so far.

1) nursing
Nursing a newborn requires a lot of learning on the part of both the mother and the baby, but this time I was surprised by how much my prior knowledge helped. Dd regained his birth weight a little bit faster than D did.  I was less concerned about the initial pain and more confident that we would get through the tricky beginning phase.

2) confidence
 Many people have told me that their second child was much easier because they weren’t “freaking out about things.”  I bristle a little bit at describing our first parenting experience in that way,  but certainly recognize that we have more confidence this time.    Talking to other new moms I am feeling very grateful for Jack’s competence.   One night a week we’ve been doing a complicated routine where I walk both boys to swimming pool for D’s lesson, then Jack meets us there and we transfer Dd  (often asleep) in the carrier from my body to Jack’s body. Then Jack helps D get dressed while I swim laps and meet them at home for dinner.   I think this is much more than the average first time dad could handle.

3) schedule
Parenthood imposed a higher degree of scheduling on our lives  and most of the schedule marches on despite the fact that I am on maternity leave.  We still have dinner times and bed times and preschool obligations. While I dislike dragging Dd along in the car to drop off D, I feel like the structure and social contact required by D’s life reduces my risk of depression while facing a dark winter with a young baby.

Rattlesnake ledge

This has been a good year for hiking with D.  In the space of a few months, the idea of asking to be carried has disappeared from his mind  and we have done several hikes in the 3 mile range.

This past weekend we did his longest hike yet, up hill for two miles and back down again at Rattlesnake Ledge.   The distraction of friends is quite helpful,  but it also adds drama. On this hike there was a lot of interpersonal distress about whether all three kids would hold hands and be a train or whether they would exclude the smallest kid.   I can still hardly believe that we found ourselves saying things like “If you can’t all get along we will have to turn around now and not make it to the top”  when it seems so recent that he was complaining about being tired and unable to go on.

We are so excited to be at the point where D is getting to be a good walker and Dd is still easy to carry.

happy Halloween!

This was D’s first time carving pumpkins.  The two part mouth was his idea.

I didn’t argue when he wanted to wear the ghost costume I made last year for a second time!  His preschool paraded around the block and then we went trick or treating with friends in Leschi again, after eating spooky spaghetti.  It didn’t even start raining until we’d already decided we were done for the night.

happy birthday, Dad!

A few weeks ago we celebrated my dad’s 70th birthday with brunch at our house.  The fall is the prettiest time of year in our neighborhood, I think, and it’s nice for us to have the motivation to clean off our dining table every now and then and see our house looking closer to the way we envision it.  We made buckwheat waffles and cardamom vanilla waffles with all kinds of toppings.  I’m not a fan of maple syrup so I like the variety and my new favorite topping is applesauce with chunks of candied ginger in it. 

Right, but back to my dear old dad -  we are happy to get to spend regular time with him and our families.  I hope we’re in such a good place when we turn 70, or rather 71 and 70.  We’re at that thought provoking point in life where my parents are twice as old as I am.

pictures of baby Dd’s first two weeks

a tribute to Emo

In late September (on the 23rd) we had to say goodbye to our beloved cat, Emo.  We had a good nine years together starting from when we adopted her over labor day weekend of 2009.  She was a remarkable cat for her small size, seven pounds in her healthiest years, and her extreme affection and sociability. She liked everyone (except 1.5 to 2.5 year olds) and was not the type to hide during a party.  Rather than being a lap cat, she was more of an as-close-as-she-could-get-to-your-heart cat.  When we got her at age six she was extrememly playful and jumped with impressive athleticism that puts our one year old cats to shame.  She remained interested in play until some point last winter.  Even as D passed through the phase where he couldn’t touch things without grabbing them she was extremely gentle.

She’s well documented here on this blog.  Some of my favorites are the Korat cat from the frat about her probable breed and fancy first home and Emo unleashed which has a video of her exploring outside of my parents’ house.  Back before we had D, we also made a fun photoshopped calendar of her.

Like most pets, she was a huge part of our lives and a review of our years together is really a review of everything important that happened to us during those years.

She came in to our lives in our second year in Boston, at a really lonely point in my life.  She made me much happier.

In 2010 she helped Jack deliver the final clue in his surprise wedding proposal.

In 2011 we suffered a cross country flight with her (really with the woman in the seat next to us) and we left her in the care of Jack’s dad and step mom for six months during our Grand Adventure.

We were reunited in 2012 and had a few quiet years until D came in 2014.  In 2016 we moved in to our house, doubling or tripling her living space.  She learned to trust D again and then we introduced the kittens in 2017.  They spent a year together and never quite became friends, though she and Luna lay side by side on the couch over the winter and I’m pretty sure I saw Toru lick her face a few times.

This was our first time having to make the decision to put a pet down and it was really difficult.  In July the vet said that her blood work almost certainly indicated something major, like cancer.  She suffered from some difficult-to-treat ear infections over the summer and lost a lot of weight.  The final straw came the night before her last day when her back legs appeared to stop working fully and she seemed pretty miserable.  She also spent most of her last few weeks on the roof and we knew that with the oncoming rainy season and new baby she wouldn’t have much attention or sunlight, which were the things that still seemed to bring her joy. 

In Boston, including the proposal

Emo and D

In our Seattle apartments

On one of her rare outdoor adventures

At our house

September 2019

la boîte

One of the oddball things I wanted to do when building our own house was make a space for a batting cage for baseball practice. Originally, i was thinking of a place where you could pitch or hit, but that would require 70-75 feet of space, so when we started seriously looking at the lot we eventually bought (only 45 feet long) I revised my mental picture of how I would use it.  

In the end, I was able to carve out a roughly 12' wide space along the side of the house which is fine for batting practice, at least.  This is why the first floor of our house is smaller than the 2nd and 3rd floors- which wasn't easy to build (that's why we have four big steel beams) but actually fine for how the house works- especially because we were limited in the total amount of floor space by the zoning code.  It's nicer to have that space on the top floor than down on level 1.  The overhang provided by the house also gives us dry access to the bike / outdoor equipment storage accessed from there. 

During the design process, Cari decided we needed a shorthand way to refer to the space, so she coined "la boîte." Totally works for our family, and I think I have heard the grandparents start to use it, as well.

This spring I was able to order a net online and put it up so that I could start using the space for hitting.  La boîte is too tight for regular balls to ever be used in it (I think even tennis balls may be too much), but I already had a golf-ball-sized whiffle ball pitching machine, and I been able to use that.  Cari was also kind enough to give me soft-toss a fair amount, as well.  The net I ordered was sized to hold in golf balls, and it's nice to never, ever have to worry about one escaping.  The net is only 34 feet long (the length of the house - I was able to order a custom size) and that is plenty to get good batting practice.

It has been really gratifying how much D has used the space, as well.  We want to thank our parents for indulging him with countless hours of "baseball" down there while they are taking care of him.  He is far more excited for T-ball to start up again next spring than he was when it ended in June.  

Eventually, I would like to be able to push the net together and roll it up somehow to clear the space below, but that is pretty far down the list.  At first I felt a bit embarrassed about having the net hanging down from below the house, but, like most things, I got used to it and it doesn't bother me anymore (can't speak for Cari on this one).  Someday, I am going to get the outlets working down there, maybe some lights on the underside of the house, a new (small foam ball) pitching machine, and practice lots. Maybe I will hit a baseball over the outfielders head next year!

roof is a wrap

It only took us the seven months from March through September to finish our roof, but we managed to finish before our overdue baby arrives!

Here are the posts on the pavers and the first planter boxes.   Now we (95% Jack, 4% me and 1% D) have finished the boxes around the perimeter along with the drip irrigation system.   We also planted some bulbs I’m excited about and come spring we want to put in grasses on the north and south perimeters.

August was so miserable with the wildfire smoke we didn’t have as many dinners (or parties) on the roof as I would have hoped.

A few of the plants we are hoping will make it through the incredibly windy winter are a new zebra grass, two kinds of junipers, some boxwoods and a dwarf spruce tree. 

I say that we’re done, but really there’s always more to do in any garden, right?  

While I’m sharing pictures, here is one of the progress on the six new townhouses being built across the street.  We have no beef with them and are kind of happy about where they sit on their lot in relation to our windows.  I’m excited to see what kind of street trees they put in since that side of the street doesn’t have power lines and the previous trees were only about five feet tall, which seemed like a wasted opportunity!