The Paper Game

Thanksgiving 2014:

Christmas Break 2014

Fourth of July 2013:

And, of course, this video from Christmas 2011:

Fleet Week 2015

Last week was Fleet Week, and, more importantly, it was the first chance I had to visit San Francisco since my baby shower in January. Dad, Jill, and Rocket got into town on Sunday even though the Fleet Week party wasn't until Saturday. Clara and I drove down Monday to join them, but Jack had school and wouldn't be able to come until Friday.

It was great getting back into the city. We spent all but one evening on the roof watching the sunset, and it was gorgeous.

I'm also grateful I can do paid work from anywhere I have access to the internet...and to someone else to watch Clara. Jill was particularly helpful in that regard, taking Rocket and Clara to the playground for a couple hours on a couple different days so I could earn some money. Once Everett got into town (Wednesday night) he took turns helping with Clara too, and so I was able to visit family and SF for longer without taking a hit on our income. When we'd first arrived Clara seemed unsure of everyone except Papi (Dad) and would cry if people looked at or spoke to her direclty. But after a day or so she was over it and interacted happily with everyone for the most part.

Another pleasant part of the trip was how Rocket seemed to have done an about face as far as Clara is concerned. Here are statuses I wrote about him: one from our trip to visit them in June and one from this Fleet Week trip:

I didn't mind how he felt in June. He's just a little guy. But it was still nice when he seemed much more open to her this last trip.

It was also sweet hanging out with Rocket in general. We played Battleship, which he was very into. It's good practice for him because he's still learning his letters and numbers. I wouldn't let him look at my board (apparently Dad lets him) but I would give him hints whenever he hit one of my ships on where to guess next. He never says "you missed," opting instead for "you hit the water!" Sometimes if you hit one of his ships, he'll pick the whole ship up to show you where the red peg went in, but then he'll accidentally put the ship back down in a new spot and you'll have to find it all over again. I guess that's a lot more like how real ship hunting would work anyway. :-P

We also spent a couple evenings spinning the wheel in the living room and trying to guess which spot it would land on. The wheel is off balance so it lands on so me spots a lot more than others, which means when it does land on a spot it usually misses (e.g. "the pen Ed stirs his coffee with") it's kind of exciting, haha. One night Kale came over to visit and he and Rocket (and Clara) and I just sat in the living room guessing and cheering. It was fun, especially since Rocket would get so into it.

Of course I took Clara all around the house and there was tons of new stuff for her to explore. She especially loved the double mirrors in the bathroom adjacent to our room, and by the end of the week if I even carrier her toward the bathroom she'd start getting excited and laughing/cooing. We also spent a lot of time in the kitchen, where she played with the farm magnet toys, and some time on the pool table where she examined the overhead lamp and the pool balls. Many times I thought about all my past memories in Jefferson, never imagining what it would be like to have a child, much less imaginging that child crawling all over the very same house.

Jill had a pack-and-play for Clara to sleep in, but I think the unfamiliarness of it (the feel, the smell) made her wake up way more often than she does at home. The first night or two I'd have to get up maybe a half dozen times a night just to pat her butt back to sleep, and it was really exhausting. On the third night I let her sleep next to me in bed and just lined some media room couch cushions on the other side of her. That worked much better. She would still start to wake up but I could pat her without getting up myself, which was easier and faster and she'd fall back to sleep quickly. She'd also roll over and scoot up against me like a little, very tiny spoon, and that was really sweet. And she'd wake up in the morning, not crying, but just cooing and touching my face.

It was pleasant getting to visit Dad, Jill, and Rocket (and then Everett, and then Neil) throughout the week. We had several evenings on the roof, which were really nice, and on Friday, Jack, me, Dad, Jill, Sarah, and Paul and Jennifer all went bar hopping. We went to Top of the Mark, which had an amazing view, and The Saloon, which had a great blues band, and we drank and danced and joked and it was a lot of fun.

Soon it was Saturday and we had the actual party. As Fleet Week parties go, this was one of my favorites. It was the right size crowd--enough to feel like it's happening, but not so much that it was standing room only and a lot of strangers and polite chit chat. In fact I think nearly all the guests were friends of mine (as opposed to friends of Dad's) and it was great to see them. Even Dan and Stephanie made it for the first time since I started inviting them three years ago, and Dan loved it. He used to watch the Blue Angels when he was a kid but hadn't seen them since, so he was pretty into the show, the view, and the country music. And I enjoy talking to Stephanie about mom stuff, as they have a son just over a year old.

Of course Henry and Kale came, tried and true, and so did several of my friends from my grad program who have since moved to the bay area. After the show Henry, Kale, and Fitzy stayed and played games the rest of the day and night. Jill got us to all play several round of the paper game, which were hilarious as usual. 

[Side note: Henry is a total sweetheart. He offers people food and drink and takes videos with my camera because he knows I'd like more of them and like to be in some of them. He's just generally a go-to, helpful guy. At one I was feeding Clara during the Blue Angels show and Henry made a point of standing such that his shadow fell on her so she wouldn't get too much sun. Seriously, how thoughtful is that??]

I took a turn while Jack watched Clara, and then we switched and I gave Clara a bath, which she was very happy about. She needed it too, after so many applications of baby sunscreen throughout the day. After she fell asleep, the others stayed to play more games, but Everett and I took a walk down Marina Blvd to the water and sat at the edge of the sand, watching the Golden Gate at night, and Alcatraz, and talking and smoking cheap cigars. That had been Everett's idea which he suggested before he even got into town, and I'm really glad we planned it because it's nice to get some one-on-one visits amidst the chaos of such a big group. Plus Everett and I have sort of made a tradition of smoking cheap cigars together and talking and I like that. Previously we'd mostly done it at a bridge over a creek behind a neighborhood we used to live in, in Missouri, so now we joke that we have to have cheap cigars near bridges only (old neighborhood bridge, Golden Gate Bridge, haha). Anyway we had good talks and might have stayed out even longer except I had to go home to pump. I was exhausted anyway.



It was great to get to see Neil too, but between all the school work he needs to do, all the work he had to do helping prep for and clean up after the party, and the shorter trip he had, I don't feel like I got to visit with him as much. We did get to talk the first night he got in town. He came up to my room to see Clara (even though she was asleep) and we chatted quietly for awhile, and that was fun.

Anyway, the day after the party was everyone's last day in town and Everett had a list of SF-based things he wanted to do. We walked down Chestnut St, stopping at Barney's and Marina Deli. That evening he, Neil, Jack, Mike and I all went to Poop Island to see the sunset (Jill graciously volunteered to watch Clara again). We hadn't been in so long we weren't entirely sure about how to get there but it came back to us. The parking lot we used to go to was closed off and we had to park further away, but it wasn't too much of a walk and it also meant less other people around. We still got there in plenty of time to see the sunset and take lots of pictures. The pic below is the four guys running to the lookout spot.

I can't help but think about how none of our family lives in the bay area anymore (Ellen moved for med school, and she was the last remaining one) and how it's likely Jack and I will leave the state in a few years to go somewhere cheaper. Maybe Dad will keep the house and we'll have many more visits to come over the years, or maybe he'll sell it and we won't ever really come back. That uncertainty makes each visit even more nostalgic and, in a way, more intensely enjoyable.

Skyping

Had a lot of fun talking with these goofs tonight. Notice Myrna on the far right--watching wistfully, no doubt.

Bedtime stories

I remember being a kid and resting against my mom while she read us stories. And I've enjoyed reliving that nostalgia by watching Jill read storeis to Harrison, Sola, and Rocket. But now I get to enjoy the other side of the equation by having Clara cuddled up on me watching the pages turn as I read her stories.

More days than not I read her a few books throughout the day, and every night we read 3-4 books together as part of bedtime routine, always including "Blueberry Girl" and always ending with "It's a Wonderful World" (which, since it's a singing book, serves as kind of a lullaby).

I love reading to her. I love how she can be making all sorts of loud, bored baby noises until I pull a book out and then she gets quiet and attentive. I love how she kicks her legs when she gets excited from recognizing one of the books or from me singing parts of it. I love how she holds her breath for a secon and then coos "Ba!" when she's happy about what we're doing. I love how sometimes she very suddenly turns to look up at me, as if surprised to realize I'm the one she's sitting on and that it's not some disembodied voice reading the story to her.

And of course I'm happy to be (hopefully) setting the stage for her to have a lifelong love of reading herself. I think about how someday we'll probably read the first Harry Potter book together, and maybe when she's a preteen she'll be curled up in a chair in a living room of a house we live in (that would be amazing) reading Calvin & Hobbes. And who knows what books will come out during her youth that we'll be life-shaping for her. I am so looking forward to it!

9.29.15 - 99th percentile

Today Jack scored in the 99th percentile on his nursing entrance exam and his Pell grant went through to our bank account. Two major victories. We celebrated by trying a place called Pieology, which we originally thought made only pies but later learned makes pizza pies. I got pesto with chicken and pineapple, and it was great. Jack got something with as much meat on it as possible. It was a beautiful night, we sat outside, and Clara slept through most of it and woke up at the end to cuddle and enjoy the evening air. It was a really nice little family date.

9.28.15 - Don & Merlene's visit

Don and Merlene came out to see us last week. They got in very late Wednesday night so they went to their hotel and came over the next morning instead. From there they spent most of each day with us at our apartment, and it was really nice. Like when Mom visited, Jack would go to school and I'd go to get some work done and they'd happily stay and babysit Clara. Other highlights:

On Thursday night Merlene was playing with Clara with the little mirror we rest on the floor for her. Merlene would smile and wave at Clara through the mirror, and much to our delight Clara started crawling toward the mirror! It's the first time we've seen her crawl forward, so we were all pretty excited. She didn't seem to get what everyone was freaking out about, haha.

Their trip involved lots of delicious food. Merlene made tortellini dinner (a Jackson family tradition), and at other points she made taco salad, ground beef potato stir fry, and BLTs. One night we all went out for Shabu (Japanese fondu), which Jack and I had never done before. Don and Merlene even brought some pretty tasty banana nut muffins from the hotel for breakfast, and they also bought us a bunch of Diet Coke and chocolate Skinny Cow ice cream to have around the house.

Shabu

On Satuday we all got up early and went out to do a 5k called the Break Free Run out in Folsom. Side note: the shirts they gave us were really nice quality, very light fabric and soft. So that was kind of pleasant. Merlene even registered Clara in the race so she got her own shirt and number, which we pinned to her stroller, haha.

Clara is number 1447, haha.

The weather was really nice and the trail was kind of pretty--winding through parks behind nice residential areas, almost all of it in the shade. There were volunteers along the route whose whole job appeared to be to cheer all of us on. Near the end there were two volunteers dressed as minions from Despicable Me and one was holding a sign that said "You're one in a MINION!" :)

But even better than the volunteers were these two little kids, brother and sister, standing in their pajamas in the driveway of their house dancing around and waving sparkly pom poms, and the girl was using a duck call whistle over and over. They were extremely enthusiastic.

Clara fell asleep just before the race started and she woke up only a few minutes after we crossed the finish line. Don pushed her most of the way, and he and Merlene got ahead of Jack and me near the end. As Don and Clara passed the announcer at the finish line, the guy said over the bullhorn "All wrapped up and taking a nap, I love it! That's the way to do a race!" We thought that was pretty funny.

We had parked in an adjacent strip mall in front of a breakfast place. When we got back to the car I thought it would be better to feed and change Clara before driving home. So we decided to sit outside the breakfast place and maybe get some orange juice or something, but somehow that involved into eggs Florentine and mimosas, which were absolutely delicious. It was a nice break.

Then I thought Don was driving us back but instead he took a quick detour to see the house where I grew up. It was very nostalgic. We went to the end of the street and saw the old Tot Lot too, and took pictures of Clara there. So surreal to see my baby girl in the same play area I went as a child.

The next day Don got the supplies to fix our living room chair, which had been resting on the ground for months after one of the legs broke. Now it sits at a normal height again and is much easier to get in and out of. After Jack got off work, he and Don went to Ikea to pick out a couch to replace our horrible, sitting-on-metal-bars futon. Jack and I had been unsure about letting Don and Merlene get us such an extravagent gift but they insisted, and I love the couch. Not only is it way more comfortable than the futon had been, it's also one of the first pieces of "real" (read: not from a thrift shop or Craigslist) furniture we've had. I'm hoping it lasts us for years to come.

While the guys were gone, Clara took a nap and Merlene and I got to have a good one-on-one visit. That means a lot to me because I don't talk to the Jacksons that often when we're in different states, and even when we are around each other in groups I feel like most of our conversation is relatively casual. It was enjoyable to get to have a conversation of some depth with her. We talked about parenting and what it's like for her to have adult children. We talked about the apparent gender gap in the way people treat birthdays. It was just a good visit.

After the guys came back, Don and Merlene watched Clara so Jack and I could go on a date. We went to our tried and true favorite sushi place, got our favorite table, and had some very delicious food.

Jack was kind of tired, but it was still nice for some uninterrupted one-on-one time. There was a mom with two girls (looked to be age 5-7 or so) at a table near us. The girls looked like sisters and they were giggling uncontrollably and goofing around with each other and it was really very cute. Jack and I talked about when we might have another kid and thought about what it would be like for Clara to be a sibling. As we drove home from the date we got to see the lunar eclipse. I can't remember if I've ever seen one in person before. It was pretty amazing to watch, although way beyond the capabilities of my phone camera. Don got some pictures of it though.

Click to enlarge.

Today, the last day they were here, they came over in the morning and the guys went to pick up the couch while Merlene and I hung out again. We got to talk about why I'm so behind on my research, which I think was a helpful conversation in maybe getting me back in gear on that.

Later after the guys came back Merlene was talking about how she needs to learn some more kids' songs to sing to Clara, and that segued into her pointing out she knows a lot of Christian songs for kids but she wasn't sure how we would feel about that. I was actually very pleased she brought that up, because it's the first chance I've had to openly discuss our different religious views (mine and Jack's vs. Don and Merlene's). It was something I was nervous about bringing up because it seems like it's easy for those conversations to go sideways, so I was really glad Merlene brought it up herself. We talked about how Jack and I don't expect them to hide such an important part of their lives from our children, and as long as there isn't any "we're right and your parents are wrong" type of mentality we're fine with it. Merlene looked vaguely horrified at the thought and said they'd never do anything like that--and I wouldn't have expected them to, for the record, but it was still nice to have a direct conversation about it. Anyway I was really glad we got to talk about that. I just feel so much better when the people in my life and I can be direct about even tricky subjects.

Anyway, shortly after they left, but one of the great things about a September visit is now Christmas doesn't feel so far away. :)

Butterscotch Banana Bread

Baking Time:  40 minutes

Recipe Makes: 10

Calories:          249

             

Ingredients

3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed

1/3 cup melted butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 cups flour

1 cup of butterscotch chips 

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350F. Combine all ingredients (butterscotch chips last) and mix.  Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 40 mins or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool on rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

9.15.15 - mini FroYo date night & Jack's Joy Inventory

The weather finally cooled down! We went from days pushing or surpassing 100 degrees just last week to a high of only 75 today. It was glorious!

As a kind of celebration, Jack and I decided to have a family outing and go for a walk in the evening. He looked up the nearest frozen yogurt place to his campus, and we dropped by there for a treat.

Left: fruity yogurt with lots of fruit and nuts on top.

Right: chocolatey yogurt with lots of choclate candies and cherries on top.

Guess whose is whose?

We took the yogurt and walked Miss Clara (in her stroller) up to Jack's campus and all around. It's a pretty campus with lots of huge trees. It reminds me of a mixture of the junior college and university I attended for my undergrad. It was kind of nostalgic that way. Jack showed me where each of his classes is this semester and we just chit chatted. At one point we walked past some big leafy trees as the wind was blowing and several golden leafs blew past us and it just made me so happy--finally it seems like summer is over!

After awhile we got to talking about the movie Inside Out again, and discussing which character, overall, we were most like. Jack claimed he was Joy and I was Disgust. I countered that I'm the one with a Joy Inventory, maybe I'm Joy. I pointed out I have 100s of entries in my Joy Inventory, and challenged him to come up with 10 things that give him joy. As he thought of them I started entering them in my phone so we wouldn't forget. The whole walk back to the car (at the frozen yogurt shop) he thought of what would be in his joy inventory, and he ended up with 50 different entries! Here they are:

1. Water so cold it hurts your throat.
2. Express checkout lanes
3. Clara
4. Reel Big Fish
5. Cold brewed coffee
6. Science
7. The smell of fresh cut grass.
8. Upper division classes.
9. Lab partners that actually care.
10. Salted caramel ice cream.
11. Wall ball.
12. Having four new tires on the car.
13. The lymphatic system.
14. Soft, bite-sized chocolate chip cookies.
15. When his head is freshly shaved.
16. Clara's farts.
17. His sleep apnea machine.
18. White Castle crave case.
19. Gas under $3/gallon.
20. Phi Mu Alpha.
21. Patrick Rothfuss.
22. The Dinkles (Peter Dinklage).
23. SG-1.
24. Game Grumps.
25. Quitting WoW.
26. Gunther's pumpkin ice cream.
27. Gunther's walnut ice cream.
28. Riding his bike everywhere/saving money on gas.
29. California rolls.
30. His car horn.
31. Tichu.
32. Lego's.
33. Puzz 3D.
34. The Resistance.
35. Newsradio.
36. Quoting Newsradio.
37. Marrying me.
38. Working on his car.
39. Knowing the way around whichever city we live in.
40. Dad's (Ed's) ribs.
41. Neil's mashed potatoes.
42. Neil.
43. Zachary's pizza.
44. Inside Out.
45. Edoku.
46. Our military.
47. Warrior.
48. Gladiator.
49. Scrubs.
50. Peanut butter m&m's.

Since I already have pictures for some of these things (our Joy Inventories cross over, how cute!) I'm just going to include them here:

7/26/16 - Jack added tshirts without tags and when younger relatives of actors play the actors' younger selves in movies or TV.

Sprinkling!

9.12.15 - Mom's visit

A week ago today Mom came out for a visit!

Jack, Clara, and I all went to the airport together to pick her up. She got to hold Clara right away. Mom and I both hope and expect Clara is more used to Mom because we all Skype together so regularly.

The whole trip was very pleasant and relaxing. Mom couldn't get enough of being with Clara, which worked out really well because either we were hanging out in the apartment together and I could get other things done while Mom and Clara played, or Mom would babysit while I went to Starbucks to do paid work and Jack was at school.

Nice JaMa cuddles.

Mom also babysat so Jack and I could go on a date. We went to see Inside Out in theaters and it was incredible. (Warning: spoilers) It was about a little girl's personified emotions, and it did a great job capturing the bittersweet process of growing up and no longer being a little kid anymore. It was so poignant, and I think it was especially raw for Jack and me, having just had our first daughter. We both cried at one point. We also laughed out loud several times. It was just a fantastic movie.

It was so good, in fact, that we decided to go with Mom and Clara and see it again, this time at the drive in. It was a week night and there were hardly any other cars there. It was pretty hot during the day for Mom's visit, but that meant the nights were pleasantly warm. We got refillable popcorn and some raisinets and we brought our own canned Diet Cokes in a mini cooler. Clara handled it all pretty well. She hung out in her carseat for awhile and then we adults all took turns holding her while she alternated between kind of watching the movie to bouncing in our laps. She only started to get fussy once, so I took her outside the car and held her while standing and swaying side-to-side, still watching the movie. It was surreal to watch a movie about a little girl growing up while holding my little girl.

Anyway, another big part of Mom's visit was her teaching me to use my sewing machine. She bought a pattern and the fabric needed to make Clara a cute red sundress. That was a brilliant idea, because having an actual project to work on allowed me a lot of opportunities to make mistakes and correct them, meaning I learned much more than I would have if I'd simply sewn a few patches on some ripped shirts. It has been really fun learning to sew and Mom was a huge help. I don't even know enough to understand the pattern's instructions without her interpretation. I tried to get as much of the dress done as I could before she had to leave, but couldn't quite finish it. That's no big deal, though, because we opted to make it a size larger than what fits Clara now, so I really have until probably next summer to finish it.

Fitting together the skirt part of the dress.

Making sure the bodice will fit.

Another fun theme of the trip was delicious food. Mom, Clara, and I went grocery shopping one of the first few days and Mom told me to pick out whatever food I normally would like to get but wouldn't spend money on. So we got milk and cereal, Kettle sea salt chips, chocolate fudgey ice cream, and the ingredients for spinach sausage loaf, which Mom kindly made with a fruit salad. Man, that stuff is so good. A different night she tooks us out to dinner at Elephant Bar, and on our two different runs to the craft store (to get a pin cushion and other stuff for the sewing project) we got candy. That was a simple fun way to make it feel like a vacation.

Clara eats while watching TV at the Elephant Bar.

Mom stayed at a nearby hotel for the whole trip. We'd originally planned to have her sleep on an air mattress at our place to save money, but Clara had been struggling so much with sleeping recently that Mom was worried it was be too much, so she opted for the hotel. Then, due to some problems with her room, the hotel ended up refunding her entire stay! So it really worked out well--we had plenty of space from one another and it cost her nothing. 

Because she saved hundreds of dollars, Mom decided to use a little bit of it to buys us some gifts. So she ordered us a few stackable toys for Clara, a food processor, and a second fan. It was all very thoughtful. She's incredibly generous.

On her last day, Jack had to go to class, so it was just Clara and me who took Mom to the airport. We parked and went in with her, waited in line for check-in, and walked with her all the way to the trains that take passengers to the gate area. Mom did pretty well saying goodbye to cuddly little Clara, even though it was relatively sad. It helps to know we can keep Skyping with her later.

Overall it was a great trip and I'm grateful for a generous and loving Mom and JaMa to my baby girl.

Flash mobs!

Pin cushions.

9.3.15 - Clara is 6 months old.

And she can:

• scoot and roll all over the living room
• pick up objects and hold them herself
• drop them in favor of other objects
• babble
• focus on me reading multiple books in a row
• suck on her toes
• interact with people on Skype
• eat some rice cereal mixed with breast milk
• recognize herself in the mirror

And probably a lot more. That's just what came to mind first.

Yesterday morning I woke up at 6am to pump. I was just managing to fall back asleep at 7am when Clara woke up and started fussing. After I fed her she was still pretty wide awake, so I put her down on the living room floor and layed next to her. We just layed on our sides facing each other, and she kept reaching out with her little hands and touching my cheeks and hair, like she was trying to grab my face. She snuggled really close to me although she kept switching from back to tummy and back again. She kept putting her face really close to mine and brushing mine with her hands. It was a really cute, peaceful moment.

Our family's life is very hectic right now with Jack getting back into classes and cutting back on work, and me trying to ramp up work, keep the apartment in reasonable order, and fine time to work on my own project. It's a little overwhelming sometimes but I'm so glad we have Clara. We both love her intensely and it's hard to imagine a life without her now. Plus I think it's probably more straightforward to figure out education and career and paying bills than it is to figure out relationships, marriage, and having kids, so if I had to pick one or the other I'd pick the setup we have now.

Checking out Daddy's lab goggles.