I have a few days off, but oh so much to do! But I promise to post christmas II pictures soon.

//www.youtube.com/get_playerI'm testing emailing a video to my blog. If this doesn't post right I'll fix it later.
UPDATE:  Sweet.  I got an iphone 4 for Christmas and it does some nice stuff.  Like this!  Jack had a great time at the zoo.  We got a membership for Christmas too.  We love gifts that last a long time.  I think Ben and Jack will get good use out of it.  One nice thing about the membership is you don't feel like you have to get your money's worth for each visit, since they are unlimited.  So instead of rushing around to see everything in one day, we leisurely hit a couple favorites.  Just the birds, some apes, and the mountain sheep on the way out.  An hour was the perfect length for Jack.

Because of my work schedule, we met my family for Christmas on the 29th-1st.  We went to our place in Bailey to cozy up and celebrate in the grand, Waterhouse way.  This is a lot of pictures, and there are more on flickr.

Reuniting Jack with my family:

Showing off his table manners:

We arrive in Bailey. The rest of the family spent the night.  I was on call and stayed in Lakewood until the morning.  


Jenn doing her sinus therapy with husband's help:

Let the presents begin!  Oof, heavy:

Kinects for Ben and Andy and Jenn, and a Kindle for Jenn (now everyone has one!)

 Jem fished her present out of a bag when no one was looking:

What a nerd:

Can you believe this?!  Mom made this aviator sweater for Jack, it's incredible!  The helmet comes from Soil, that independent children's clothes crafter I love.




Jack was happy with the paper, but occasionally needed pieces fished out:

 I love this, we're all pointing to the ball he just opened, and he hasn't noticed it yet:

Another amazing homemade gift - Amanda wrote two children's books for Jack.  The ABCs of Zelda and a counting book of Mario.  They are absurdly nerdy and cute.  I'll have to post a detailed walkthrough of the books later.  

Dad strumming his uke from Andy:

And then he whipped out his own crazy handmade gift of the year - cigar box guitars.  These are so beautiful and they sound great!




 Dad got Mom a cool microscope, and brought creepy crawlies to test it out:

 My lame homemade gifts this year, but they crack me up.  I made Amanda and Andy and Jenn BLANKET STATEMENTS!

Sometime while we were opening presents it started to snow.  A white Christmas!

 That night I gave Jack a bath in the kitchen.  I've decided using storage tubs is a genius bath method.  Yesterday I gave him another bath in a tub in the tub, catching all his splashes.  I could sit in the bath fully clothed to support him, and use less water to fill his small tub.  We've taken to calling them "tub tub baths."

Too many presents ;-)

The adorable outfit from Jenn and Andy:

A hiking backpack.  I think he likes it!


And a final cute outfit to finish them off!

Oh, what a glorious Christmas.  We were all severely spoiled.  I also got a swift and winder, yarn and fibers to spin, fancy fabric, some art, many little gadgets, silpats, lotions, a ballet date (babysitting included!) and the aforementioned iphone 4.  Later Ben picked up an AT&T microcell device.  It gives us five bar coverage all throughout our house.  I'm thrilled!  We canceled our Vonage house phone plan today.  My big gift is a trip to Boston this spring to attend the nephrology nursing conference.  We are both daunted (because of the ten month old who will accompany us) and excited by the idea, and very grateful for the trip. What will come in the oh-1-1?  I'm excited to find out.

Here's the zoo video from earlier in full quality, plus other photos from our outing. (Click the little square of arrows to make the video fit your screen, if it's too long.  The phone takes a weird aspect ratio of video.)

Meeting birds from Rachel Mason on Vimeo.



Jack in the Bird World from Rachel Mason on Vimeo.

//www.youtube.com/get_player

Jack is going to need a proper dresser in his room soon.  I'm sick of modern particle board crap that falls apart after 5 years.  Good quality new wood furniture is frighteningly expensive.  So I've started an extremely passive search for a vintage dresser.  Mostly this involves trawling through craigslist once a week for mid century dressers, and cursing when I see the ones I like were quickly sold.  One time while driving home via 44th I made Ben stop for some "antique" shopping.  Mostly crap, but there's a new store that specializes in mid century furniture called Retro Consignment.  I was stunned at the fabulousness we saw once inside and couldn't stop taking cell phone photos.  Observe:

 On the left is a vibrating belt exercise machine, with sleds behind them.  They also had bizarre water skis, looked like 1940s or 50s.  On the right an array of typewriters

 A beautiful, working projector on the left, on the right I want this blue chair and love seat set.  But so impractical for my big boys!
 I swear that we had this exact stereo when I was a kid.
 A decent dresser we were considering. (Just browsing for now.  We had no transport to get large furniture home and, more importantly, no money post-holidays for furniture purchases.)
Also loved this teal sofa.  They had brilliant old television sets.  Not pictured is the wet bar I saw and was seized with an inexplicable urge to OWN RIGHT NOW, OMG I ALWAYS WANTED A BAR.  Ben shook his head and herded me out the door soon after that. 

I will be back with fists full of cash.  Oh yes, give me time.

I had a mini-vacation of 6 days off last week.  No reason, it's just how my schedule worked out.  When I started up again last week . . . there's really nothing interesting to report.  I had some sweet old men patients.  Love them.  Treatments went well.  Still working on cultivating good rapport with the docs (they are kind of aloof).  I was on call this weekend.  I worked a full Saturday and 7 hours Sunday.  Yesterday and today are off.  Yesterday was spent doing blessedly little.  A few chores and errands, a long walk with Ben and Jack.  Lots of Jack time.  I made Ben go to the library to study so I could "feel like a mom" and have alone time with my little dude.  Last night we stayed in.  Played some Dance Central on Kinect.  Watched TV and munched on PB and chocolate chip cookies.  Why can't I make PB cookies that are soft and chewy?  It's impossible!

Today doesn't feel quite so free.  Although I got to sleep past 5 am (for real!  Jack didn't wake until 6!), and I'm twiddling my thumbs so I started this blog post, I have a full day.  A conference call in 30 minutes to discuss opening our new dialysis unit tomorrow.  Then the first dance rehearsal for Amanda's school.  With drive time I'll be gone from 1:30 to 6.  Need to put together a meal plan and shopping list for Ben too.  Not much I know, but it means if I want to knit today I better do it now while Jack is napping.

Here's a Jack video, because, why not?

Disappearing Food from Rachel Mason on Vimeo.

It's fitting that the flash makes him look like a demon child. That little white razor tooth clawing its way into existence has caused me hell this week.

Jack spontaneously started doing this.

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A New Game from Rachel Mason on Vimeo.

Our amusement will likely be short-lived.

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Dancing? from Rachel Mason on Vimeo.

After dinner (Jack takes longer to eat, he’s still working on his shepherd’s pie) I finished an episode of Psych. The theme song came on and he started dancing just like that! Ben said he trained him to dance to it. I can get him to dance with me to other songs too.

Going back to my roots. Hopefully in a good way...

I had Kelly put purple streaks in my hair again.

This is what happens when you watch Scott Pilgrim the night before your salon appointment.

It's very subtle, especially compared to my college days:

But it's definitely hidden in there, 6 or 7 little chunks of violet glory.  Purple enough that I don't feel like such an old lady, but subtle enough I don't think anyone important at work will notice and report me for "unnatural hair color" violation. 

I'm happy many of your enjoyed some Motherboy dancing (Arrested Development fans out there? you like that?).  Since some of you asked, we were dancing to Kate Nash "Pumpkin soup."  I'll have to post some video of Jack dancing to the Psych theme song.  He gets his boogie on STAT when you turn it on.  Maybe tomorrow, on this 8th month birthdaythingieIvebeendoing.  I have a full shift and then I'm on call, but I'll do my best to get photos up.  Saturday, if not tomorrow.

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Favorite Song? from Rachel Mason on Vimeo.

We love you, Jack. Now stop growing up so darn fast.

Last night I played pub trivia in the largest pub trivia contest in the USA.  Roughly 150 teams (900 people) gathered at the Fillmore for an extra special night of Geeks Who Drink trivia.

It was kind of disappointing.  The entertainment was pretty bad and the night went on long, despite shortened times to answer each round.  It was hard.  The categories weren't very fun, like they usually are at our local game.  It didn't feel especially geeky.  Bummer.

But overall it was a fun night!  We placed 27th overall.  27!!!  I'm proud of us.  We wanted to make top 50.

It was like a normal trivia night.  8 rounds with 8 questions each.  Second round is music, fifth is visual, seventh is audio (video in this case, since they had screens).  Second and Eighth rounds are work double points.  You have a joker you can use one time on any round to double your score.  You write your answers on the score sheets provided and turn them in for tallying.  No cell phone use allowed during game play.

Differences from a local game: tons of people, reserved table with our team name and score sheet pre-printed.  No repeats of questions.  The question was printed on the screen as well as read aloud (wish they could do this locally). Two minute timer after each round to complete your answers.  This drastically cut down the amount of discussion and thought we could put into our answers.  You have much more time locally.  No internet bonus question or free drink speed-answer questions.  The drinks were hella expensive and no pub food to order. The chairs less comfortable than at the Bulldog (impossible but true!).    Super tight security with proctors watching for cell phone users. 
Huh, I sound pretty crabby about it, don't I?  It really was fun and kind of a crazy thing to do with your weekend. I'm waiting for them to post the final scores and total list on their blog.  Here's a summary of the categories and how we did.

1) Cold Facts on Colfax (A random knowledge round using keywords "cold" or "fact" or "Colfax" in either the question or the answer.
Score = 5/8

2) Music Round. Identify the song and artist or album (as specified) played by the live mariachi band.
Score = 13/14 (They tossed out one song, or else we would have had 13/16).
We should have jokered this round but we didn't know we did so well because a few were wild guesses.

3) True/False about True or False (each statement had "true" or "false" in it, was the statement T/F?)
Score = 3/8

4) Pop, Culture (basically a random knowledge round using those keywords)
Score = 3/8

5) Visual Round "No, Ship!"  Name the boat pictured.
Score = 6/8

6) Dowdy with a Chance of Meatballs (Feminism and meatball subjects, but hardly.  More like random knowledge.  Hated this round)
Score = 2/8

7) Identify the movie clips played.
Score = 6/8

8) Random Knowledge
Score = 8/16 (jokered for total of 16 points)

I'm sick again.  AGAIN!  That's three colds in as many months.  Jack started a runny nose a couple days before me.  What is it with kids and germs?  Before Jack came along I went 12-18 months between colds. 

I felt crappy and feverish this morning and called in sick at 4:55.  By 10 I felt a bit better and was very glad I took the day to rest.  With a high of -6 degrees, I couldn't have picked a better day to stay home.  I spent a lot of time on the couch building a mountain of soggy tissues, watching Ben and Jack make each other giggle.  Perfect entertainment.

He taught himself to clap yesterday. It's pretty darn cute.

Taught himself to clap from Rachel Mason on Vimeo.

We spent some Christmas money on new blinds for the living room.  Aren't they lovely!?  They are faux wood blinds from Bali via Lowes.  They were having a sale, with free upgrades on the valence and cloth tape.  Score!  The biggest treat was paying for installation.  I felt the tug of penny pinching, that little voice in my head saying "you can do this!  Why pay someone else to do something you can install yourself?"  Well, little voice, BOO YA! Installed in 15 minutes while I was away at work this morning.  No need to fiddle with tools and balance precariously on couches while marking a level with pencil, or worry about entertaining the baby and keeping the dog at bay.  Let professional dude do what he does.  Merry Christmas, indeed!

Canceling church because of weather is the closest a nurse can come to having a snow day.  (I texted my mom that our church was canceled and she asked if it was for the weather or the superbowl.  What??  Uh, I don't think that has ever happened, Mom.)  (I'm going to assume she was joking.)

  It's been snowing since yesterday afternoon - thick, wet snow with a layer of ice underneath everything. 

We're spending the morning doing very little.  Laundry, TV, playing.  We also send each other goofy things we find on the internet.  Like this and this and this.  I've discovered that Ben did not know who Anderson Cooper is, did not know about the Remix the Clips game on Jimmy Fallon, and has never seen rice krispies treats made with fruit pebbles.  It's amazing how we can spend so much time together and still live in different spheres.


Last night we ordered Dominos pizza and watched OSS 117 on Netflix watch it now.  Dinner and movie without leaving the comfort of home!  Ok, I lied.  We only watched 57 minutes of OSS 117 because it was 10:30 at that point and apparently we are old people who can't stay up very late anymore.  We'll finish it later.  So far it's pretty funny.  Like a French version of Hot Shots.

We're trying to reach our friends to find out if the superbowl party this evening has been canceled too.  What am I going to do with 32 deviled eggs if it is?

I was tempted to post about my rehearsal today, but my sister beat me to it!  So I'm going to let her tell the story.  Read her post here about our solution to bad weather.  I spent about an hour putting together 2 versions of the dance section, with 5 additional videos breaking down parts in more detail.  It sure beats the 7 or 8 hours I would have spent getting up there, teaching, and driving home.  Amanda showed me the last run through they did and I'm so impressed!  I'm so tickled seeing 30 kids following my image on a screen :-D  It was funny seeing them all drop their right arm at the end pose, something I did casually as the music faded out, it was not meant to be a dance step.

PS, I think this is the one they were watching in her clip.  I'm too embarrassed to post them all ;-)

Blackberry lavender for Ben, cherry cordial for me.

I worked on the 14th so today is officially Valentine's Day for Ben and me. We exchanged chocolates, had lunch out, and browsed FT. I think a walk with a cranky baby is in our near future.  Here's some random pictures and thoughts.


Jack practicing his standing skills (Grade: C+). At a Super Bowl gathering he "played" with Zach, a friend's baby who is familiar with other kids via daycare.  Jack was stunned by this other being who attempted to interact with him.

The other day Jack grabbed a bag of Salt and Malt Vinegar Boulder Chips off the table and scattered them on the floor.  I'm still sad.  Those were good chips!  

Speaking of snacks, there's a new Dr. Pepper called Dr. Pepper 10 (Ten?).  It's pretty good.  Oh, the exciting life I live.

Molly enjoys her new view.  I wanted to make a grumpy troll face on our grill snow fall, but it was too cold. Most of the snow has melted and today we're gallivanting about without jackets. (Picture from last week, before snow melt)

Getting excited for our trip to Boston next month.  Our friends graciously offered to pick us up at the airport!  Oh my heavens, I can't explain how happy this makes me.  We were seriously stressing out over the plan to get a taxi and install a car seat and cart all our gear alone to the airport.  Friends are the best. 

Ben bought me irises.  I love early spring flowers.  The purple is my Coraline sweater.  I'm getting stockinette ennui.  I picked up some fabric at FT today.  Hopefully an easy, fast project will recharge my knitting juices.  Oh, we ate at Chipotle today.  After jealously watching us scarf burritos, and scattering the bites we gave him on the floor, I bestowed a basket on Jack.  He thought it was dang fantastic.

Flannels purchased today. Must make more baby blankets! They have even more vinyl coated fabrics.  I'm going to pick a pattern to lay out under Jack's high chair.  Meals are getting messy!

I'm getting even MORE excited for our trip to GJ this weekend.  It's my Bday, but mostly I'm excited to leave work behind and see my family.  I love the Roots on Jimmy Fallon, and we discovered their appearance on Yo Gabba Gabba (we watch their songs online for Jack). 

I LOVE this song.  Like, I completely, utterly adore it.  It makes me a little tearful and burst with joy to see Jack clap and squeal while it plays.

Done!

Well, maybe not.  I might blanket stitch around the edge with yarn.  But it's in a functional state.

After a relaxing long weekend in Grand Junction I'm back to work, starting with a Rapid Response not one hour into my day.  Blerg.
 
But we had a great time. I love watching my parents play with Jack.  His every whim to be picked up was catered to.  It was a treat being together with all my siblings.  There were three dogs in the house causing much craziness.  And, of course, I came home with bags of lovely gifts.  I took many pictures and videos, but like I said: blerg.  I'm digesting leftover lasagna and chocolate cake while surfing on the couch under a quilt. I can't be bothered with photo editing now.  Mostly I got on blogger to pass on what Ben told me when I got home:

"Here's a pro-tip for you: don't take a baby to the car wash." 

Noted.

Ben took Jack to the Mexican grocery store while I worked. I hear it was like a magical place for him. Bright colors, kids, and loud music.

Sigh.  Looking through these I realize the vast majority are just of Jack.  Why didn't I take any with Jenn and Andy??   I guess that's what my life has come to. Anyway, here's a nice summary.

 Stopping in No Name for a rest room and milk break.  We made the trip with just two stops (right, Ben?).  On the way home we made only one stop.  Not bad!

 Grocery shopping on arrival.  With my family it's all about FOOD!  Jack got a lot of experience with solid foods over the weekend.
 His first balloon, dinner with Richard, parents, and Amanda.  Jack handled it pretty well, considering how overwhelming a visual and audio experience Red Robin can be, the strong desire for family to pass him around, combined with having spent five hours in a car seat.  He's such a good kid.

Not many  pictures from Saturday morning and afternoon.  Where I wanted to kill our dog for going #2 in the bedroom at 6 AM.  After the sun came up all was better.  The smell was gone, Jack was cute, family lazily emerged from soft beds having enjoyed sleeping in.
 My mom gave Jack a spool of ribbon to play with.  Ribbon and yarn and cloth = his favorite things. Can't wait for this guy to try spaghetti.

We had lunch at Cafe Rio together before splitting to go shopping.  Andy and Jenn took the dogs out and went downtown.  Amanda and I went a little crazy at Ulta.  We all met downtown in the yarn store and got Palisade Peach fudge across the street before hurrying back home.  During all this Ben took Jem and Jack over to Grandpa Rick's for playing. 

That night Kristin and family came over!  Coral is so crazy cute.  I took a bazillion pictures of them (all on flickr).  I love how they're looking at me like they need a cue  Uhh, are we supposed to play together or something?  At most, they poked each others' faces.  Love it. 
 Comparing baby shapes. . .
 We made several attempts at getting me and Kris together with our babies.  Not very successful.

 I think this is as close as we'll get. 

 Jem was determined to sleep in Amanda's bed that night.  She was not amused.
 Beautiful clouds Sunday morning. 
My folks enjoyed the excuse to get out their hard chairs during church to keep Jack quietly happy. 

 Back home for a quiet afternoon.  Jack does his "Behold!!" pose for bubble wrap.  Ben pointed out that it's like what Link does when he acquires a new item in The Legend of Zelda. 



Love this.


Pasta making!  I had a birthday lasagna with salad and garlic bread, with chocolate caramel cake for dessert!




In the hyperactive state right before bed, playing with Grandpa and Amanda.

 Back on the road home.  Here we are after a snack break in Eagle.

 The roads were nice (this is Vail) and somehow we missed the Idaho Springs ski-traffic jam.
 Jack got pretty bored towards the end.  I caught him feeling around outside his chair for something to entertain him (he found my knitting bag, luckily only went so far as the handle).

Oh so happy to be back home and not in a car seat!

My little Jack is one month older today! 


This week has been the week of the tongue. 

And a third tooth!


I've caught him in the crib rocking on all fours, but he still favors rolling for getting around.




He's a pro at clapping.  We were at an Oscar party and he couldn't help himself from dancing with every song and clapping for every speaker.

I love LOVE this photo.  I have been trying to capture this look since he was born.  We first caught a whiff of it when he was one week old.  Remember this?


So tiny!  Back to the present . . .


Ben enabled Jack with his first "sword." 

He's been carrying it around all week.


We love you, Jack. We're so happy that you're part of our family.

Wow, today feels great!  Don't you love it when your internal light switch flips on and you get things DONE? I haven't felt like this since . . .  September?  Pre-Jack even?  Maybe it's the gorgeous weather today.  Not getting called back to work like I expected last night helps too.  (There's a CRRT I was SURE would clot before midnight.  I guess it didn't.)  Here's my day so far, and it's not even 4pm.

• Cleaned up the clutter in the living room
• Rearranged dining furniture
• Vacuumed (it's a big deal.  Really.)
• Helped Jenn with a knitting pattern question in an overly long email
• Fed Jack milk
• Played with Jack
• Fed Jack chicken and veggies and a sippie cup of water
• Did not have to change Jack's clothes
• Re-cleaned off the table
•  Installed a new car stereo

• Yo, did you catch that?  I INSTALLED a car stereo.  Like a man.  Wiring and everything.
• Got Ben some new banjo strings
• Got drinks and tots at Sonic happy hour with new car stereo
• Started cooking dinner
• Loaded dishwasher
• Blogged a couple times
• Backed up my iphone and hard drive
• Baked cookies

 What's left for the day?  Finished the pork fried rice for dinner, eating cookies, and knitting while watching Jimmy Fallon.  Maybe a block walk with the baby and dog.  They like that sort of thing.

Here's to days off!

PS: new car stereo is awesome.  I paid even less than that, using birthday money.  It has a USB and aux port on the front, so I can charge my phone while playing music directing from it, with controls on the stereo.  Mmmkay, going to eat cookies now.

Another day off today, with much less done, but the same warm feeling.

I spent a lot of the day knitting and watching silly tv murder mysteries (psych, bones, and castle).  Also playing with Jack.  I took him up to the mountains for rehearsal today.  The kids are doing quite good.  They know the dances well enough to pass the point of embarrassment.  It's a respectable attempt.  Let's see if in the next two weeks we can tweak them to the great level.

Yeah . . . really didn't do much.   Made lunch and dinner and indulged in some baby time.  And I'm ok with that.  :-)

Ben and I are bad at going out on dates since we became parents.  I could count on one hand the number of dates we have had since last summer.  Let's see, The A Team, Inception, Scott Pilgrim, the zoo date, . . .  that might be it.  Did I miss any, Ben?  Maybe we went to Virgilio's once without Jack?

Luckily, I have an awesome sister who helps us overcome this.  For Christmas we received tickets to Colorado Ballet with babysitting included!  Today I cashed in.


We got all dressed up to see a matinee of Romeo and Juliet.  Fantastic show, if a little light on the dancing and heavy on the emoting as it wound down.  Sumptuous costumes, interesting choreography, and a live orchestra.  So much fun.  I only wish they could have gotten together in the end ;-)

After the show we walked a few blocks down 14th to a new restaurant, Euclid Hall.  We were surprised when they told us it was 5280 Restaurant Week!  We usually look forward to this every year but hadn't given it any thought this time around.  Participating restaurants offer a special menu of options for a dinner for two for $52.80.  This place had most of their menu on the list.  We took advantage of it and had an awesome meal.  We ordered:

Pickle Sampler (Sweet Bread and Butter Pickles, Hops Infused Pickle, Hot, Spicy and Very Sincere Pickles, Seasonal Pickles)
Roasted Cauliflower Salad, shishito pepper marmalade, Haystack goat cheese, scallions, tempura crunchies
Beef Short Rib Kielbasa  
Boudin Noir, avec curry e aubergine
Roasted Duck Poutine, duck gravy, black pepper, Wisconsin cheddar curd 
Griddled Camembert and Peach Preserve Sandwich, Waldorf salad
Red Velvet Cupcake, 7 minute frosting
Funnel Cake Fried Bananas, peanut butter caramel

So yum.  We got home in time to chat with ma soeur for a bit and put Jack to bed.  Thank you again, Amanda, for a wonderful afternoon out!

I grew weary of my purple cardigan, with its endless all knits, then all purls.  Such tiny yarn, and wo, I'm so far from the fun smocking section! So I cast on a new cardigan with my handspun yoke.  It's bulky and uneven and quite fun.  This one starts with the patterned yarn (top-down knitting, my other cardigan was bottom-up knit).  I tried it on tonight to see if it's fitting ok.  Not bad!  Sure I could tweak it here and there, but it's kind of a rough and wild cardi.  I'll keep going.  Hopefully I have enough yarn to finish! I'm all out of matching roving to spin any more.

(The pattern is the Shalom Cardigan.  I'm doing it with 7 mm needles, no mods to the pattern so far.)

As 19 hour shifts go, this was a good one.  I got to work at 5:30 to start setting up for the day.  The first patient I was supposed to do as a portable in her room.  Her dark, warm, room that was not in the ICU, she was just on isolation for flu.  I was not happy about spending the morning in there wearing a hot gown and mask in this yucky room with what turned out to be a very crabby, whiny lady.

But hurrah!  Someone in the ICU showed up who was more emergent so I started on her instead.  The second lady was in kind of scary shape.  Her K was 6.9 and her heart was in a wide QRS tachy complex.  While I was setting up machines her telemetry was dancing all over the place with missed beats and other scariness.  They had an AED next to her just in case.  But lo, within 20 mintues of me starting treatment she smoothed out into a sinus rhythm.  Science is real, yo.  I was happy about that, plus she had a really nice nurse for me to work with.

I was ready to head back to the main HD room of craziness, but another ICU emergency appeared.  This one a patient I know very well who had a K of 8.0.  Geez, people!  Again, within an hour she was doing much better.  These two portable treatments were very low stress compared the frantic pace of working a Monday in our room.  I even finished a book.

So when they told me I had to stay because I was on call to do two patients in our unit who wouldn't be done until midnight, I was ok with that.  I was long over due for some call back.  I have pretty good luck with not having to go in very often.  I took a real dinner break before going up there around 8:30.  My first patient came off about 30 minutes after that and I was down to one really nice guy who just couldn't breathe well.  It was cool to be able to get him from 10 L at 88% to 5 L oxygen at 100% as the treatment went on.  There was a fair amount of chores to do that the day team didn't have time to get done, so that kept me occupied.  When the timer rang I quickly got the patient out of the room (yay for fast clotters!)  and got in my bed by 1:30 am. 

The saddest part of the night was when Brian texted me to say trivia round 7 was about musicals!  Boo!  Wish I could have been there.  Oh well.  Not bad.  Not bad at all.

(PS: Potassium (K) should be between 3.5 and 5.0.  You can get admitted for dialysis when it's at least 5.2.  Higher than 6.0 things get a little scary for your heart).

I hear you.  You don't want texty posts about work.  You want Jack Action!  I can deliver :-)

We started playing catch with Jack. I thought it was luck that the ball rolled back to me, but now I'm thinking he actually guides it. Cooperative play is da bomb, y'all.

Here's more playing catch, shot from a fun angle. He stops playing part way through and flops around, ending with a fart.



This last one is for Betty. She wanted to see how Jack motors around. Of course, he slowed down right when I pulled out the camera. This movie is slower in action, but it does show off his maneuverability.

We detoured from the usual block walk to roll on the grass in the little park near our house.  Jack was fascinated by this ground, covered with this crumbly stuff that he could pick up.

Ben noted the lack of ceiling and starting tossing Jack around, to his great delight. 


Some video of the adventures.

Hey, fellow high school friends, check out these two dads and their cute kids.  Can you believe it?

Jack has really advanced his motoring over the last week!  He picks himself up off the ground to a sitting position and goes back down on his own.  He gets in a crawl position, but only advances one knee before giving in to rolling again.  Ben helped me get some video of him, because every time I whip out my camera he stops moving around.  (The last minute or so of this is pretty boring.  I just kept the camera rolling with no real action.  A true snapshot of our home, I suppose).

I'm cleaning out my phone because we're leaving town this weekend and I want to have lots of space for new pictures and videos!  That's right, we're packing up our almost 10 month old across the country to Boston.  I'm attending the ANNA conference there, we'll see some friends, maybe Grandma, and get a little old country flavor.  So here are some random pictures I liked.

Since I won't be posting much video this next week.

"he made his first fort." Love it. He's total boy.

Getting the wiggled out before our flight.

Dia is so hipster ;-)

Ps we landed safe and sound. Jack was a handful but fairly quiet. Can't imagine doing this with a generally fussy kid.

Whew! The Boston airport is so close to everything, I made it to the opening session even. Our hotel is beautiful, they even got us a crib! Glory be! Ben took jack to cate and trevors house to (hopefully) nap while I'm here. Then I'll brave mass transit alone to meet them for dinner. What a day!

This adorable band of boys led us to the exhibition. Wish I could have stayed for the show but I want to see my own boys!

Inspiring talks so far.

Oh right, Jack is ten months old now! fancy photos to come after the travel (maybe).

Walked to the public gardens this morning. The lake was drained! Boo, I wanted to see the swan boats.

Walking on the freedom trail to the science museum.

A snack on the north end, from a shop with a cat.

Apparently you can't walk directly tithe science museum. You can walk in a giant 45 minute loop though.

Please sleep until Kansas.

And thus ends our epic adventure. Home safe and sound, jack did even better on this flight, slept 2.5 hours of it. We had our usual conversation on I70, professing my love for Colorado while cursing DIA. Chipotle, a lonely cat, and a giant pile of laundry await me. So TTFN!

• Take the time to count your daily diaper usage for a few days before your trip.  We could have halved the number of diapers we took.
• Apparently the TSA has to check one of each KIND of baby food puree you bring through.  Our DIA guy was nice and told us he would check only one out of three kinds (Beechnut jars, Gerber tubs, and an individual applesauce cup). We also could have checked all but one jar for the flight, but we were keeping the food together.
• If you are lucky enough to get a seat for your baby, use it with the carseat facing forward.  We did rear-facing on the way out.  Although it was nice to have Jack facing me, his car seat was very upright and we were still restricting the chair in front of him.  On the way home we put it front facing.  He had a lot of room to recline and no one in front or behind him was restricted.  With the cramped upright seat to Boston he slept 45 minutes, with lots of head lolling and furrowed brows.  With the reclined seat to Denver he slept 2.5 hours with that blissful pale baby face.  
• We need to teach Jack to drink with a straw.  That's how restaurants serve him water, and it would be so much neater than his sip and spit method from a cup.
• When you have two sleep sacks and one has been used for a week and one has been freshly laundered, take the dirty one.  We took the clean one.  Not sure if it would have made a big difference, but he was pretty freaked out about the strange room and strange crib.  A familiar scent on his blanket could have been soothing.
• We need to teach Jack to leave place mats and plates alone.  We cleared his table space like we do at home when we ate out.  It's works, but I felt embarrassed for the mess he leaves on the table. 
• Umbrella strollers rock for travel.

Click on any pictures to see them bigger. These are more are posted on my flickr site here.

I surprised my family in the parking lot of GJHS, where they were participating in the community Knowledge Bowl.  We took turns watching the teams and playing with Jack, who was thrilled to be out of the car.

I love seeing all three of our cars in the driveway, in red, white and blue (Amanda's, Andy's, and mine)
We surprised Richard after dinner.  He didn't know Jack and I were coming to town either.
A bath the next morning, then hanging out all day. 


We tried to get some family pictures in the squinty bright sun.  Not sure any of these are worth printing, but they were fun!


Andy and Amanda left Sunday afternoon-until I-70 closed in Vail, so Amanda had to come back an extra day. Yay!



At dinner we video chatted x 3 = Betty in Maine on the macbook using Gmail, Ben in Denver using Facetime on the iPad, and Andy and Jenn in SLC using Facetime on the iPhone!  Nerdtastic.


Jenni and Brian stopped by to say hello, and later Kristin brought Coral over.  I love seeing our babies growing up at the same time! 



And that's it!  Absolutely nothing exciting, just lots of family time.  It was awesome.  Up next: videos.

Ok, this first one is from before the trip, but I think it's funny.

At Johnny Carino's


A good example of his crawling


Learning to sword fight


Sharing a snack with Coral


And finally, ecstatically playing with Dad when we got home

One more video, this time from Boston.

Ben sent this to me at work. I love their hair.

Salt, the new restaurant where toms tavern used to be. Hee hee, love being our wandering without worrying about Jack. Thanks for sitting, Amanda!

 So weaning.  Hmm.  It's hard to get going.  I'm vacillating between slowly taking Jack off breastfeeding and to only milk/formula in bottles (ie, not decreasing his feedings, just taking me out of the equation) and not doing anything.  Just riding it out.

He bites me.  It's not a sudden bite that I can discipline.  It's a slow, absentminded clamp down that leaves deeps marks on me.  He doesn't eat as much when I feed him versus a bottle, so he doesn't sleep as well after I feed him.  I'm tired of pumping at work.  I broke my pump, in fact.  Ben fixed it by wedging a thick fold of paper in the interior.  But it worries me that it could break again at work and I won't have the time to fix it.  I don't need that kind of anxiety.

So I've told myself for at least a week now that I'm going to cut my feedings down from 5 to 1 when I'm home.  Ideally I'd keep the bedtime feeding.  I've made it down to 3.  Things keep happening that make me change my course.  When I'm in the moment, I tend to rely on breastfeeding.  But then I'm feeding him and he's not getting much and he bites me, and I resolve to quit.  Back and forth and back forth.  Maybe I should quit cold turkey? I have conflicting feelings about the guilt of switching to all formula too.  Milk is free!  Healthier!  Formula stinks!  It's expensive!  But, I don't want to keep pumping.  Clearly this milk thing has to end SOME day.  He can have cow milk soon anyway.  Back and forth and back and forth.  I just finished Tina Fey's Bossypants book.  The chapter on child raising and her breastfeeding experience is hilarious!  Here are some quotes:

"If you choose not to love your baby enough to breast-feed, you can pump you milk using a breast pump.  (This may be easier for the modern mom because it is an expensive appliance and we're more comfortable with those than with babies.)"

"If you've ever opened a can of infant formula mix, then you know it smells like someone soaked old vitamins in a bucket of wet leaves, then dried them in a hot car."

"Teat Nazis are a solely western upper-middle-class phenomenon occurring when highly ambitious women experience deprivation from outside modes of achievement.   Their highest infestation pockets are Brooklyn and Hollywood."

(Seriously a fun book.  Family, it's on kindle.  Miranda, I was laughing with you through a lot of it.  Let's enjoy a couple more.)

On making "me time" for new moms "Try to establish that you're the only one in your family allowed to go to the post office."

"By nineteen, I had found my look.  Oversize T-shirts, bike shorts, and wrestling shoes.  To prevent the silhouette from being too baggy, I would cinch it at the waist with a fanny pack.   I was pretty sure I would wear this look forever. . . I was nailing it on a daily basis.  Find something like this for yourself as soon as possible."

Here's Ben and Jack in green and khaki, pretty much nailing it on a daily basis.  


Obviously I'm done talking about breastfeeding.  Because all the guys who read my blog probably stopped reading already.

So can I tell you how upset I am about fashion right now?  I have a little spending money and want to get myself some nice, hip clothes so I can stop feeling like a college student.  But in Boulder all I saw was this and this and this.  Gah!!  Are they going to start packaging the laundered BO smell of thrift stores as well?  I ended up with a Colorado T shirt from Urban Outfitters.  Ben pointed it out to me because he knows I have been looking for this shirt design for about ten years.  It made up for the utter trash everywhere else. (But doesn't help my campaign to stop looking like a college student.)


I made some chocolate crinkle cookies week.  If I hadn't run out of 2% milk they would already be gone.

Ben cooks dinner more than I do these days.  It's pretty awesome.  Last night I came home to sloppy joes and mashed potatoes with veggies, jalapenos and cheese mixed in. 

Amanda and I are planning Jack's first birthday party.  I KNOW.  The first year goes so fast.  I miss they days when I could cage him in my arms and force him to snuggle.  Now he digs his fingers into my eyeballs and I release him quickly. Anyway, the party is turning into quite the craft extravaganza.  I hope people come. 

The Big Bang Theory is a great show.  My family has been telling me this for years and I never "got" it.  I wish I could watch them on netflix instant.  We might reactive disk service for a month so I can get the other seasons.  Maybe in the summer when the TV slows down.  Wait! No, the summer means Doctor Who and Burn Notice and SYTYCD!  Hmm.  Not enough time in the day for all the chill-axing I want to do.  Ben turned me onto a new Fox show, Breaking In.  It's pretty good, which means it will probably be cancelled soon.

Oh, I wanted to mention that we found Twiglets at an import store in Boulder.  We bought them for Amanda for sitting, because they are mentioned in Spaced a couple times, so they must be a British thing.  Well, four days later the bag is sitting uneaten on our counter (that's pretty much unheard of for snacks in our house).  It turns out they are Marmite flavored.  Does anyone want some Marmite chips?




 Jack's new mobility has lead to several head bonks a day.  Sunday he gave himself three good ones.  Here's a big one he gave himself with a door.  You can't really tell, but it's raised and blue and cut.  This guy needs to understand that we want his middle name to be IRONIC.

And that's about all I can think of to say right now.  Felt like my blog posts were light on text lately.  This should buy me a few more straight from the camera posts.

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I thought I was spared.  But no, 18 days after Jack and Ben started their colds I came down with a scratchy throat.  It's not so bad yet.  Just makes me want tea and toast.

(Germy buggers)

By the way, I'm done breastfeeding.  The night Jack turned 11 months was the last night I fed him.  It's been all bottles ever since.  I have mixed feelings about it, but I'm trying to focus on the positives - I actually relax during my breaks at work now!  I'm not red and torn in places you do not want to be red and torn!

 (Left: New at this.  Right: Old pro.)

He non stop crawls.  This is the view our parents get while video chatting.


With the warm weather we are visiting more parks.  Jack still loves the swings.  Ben took him to an old-fashioned (ie our childhood) metal and wood playground.


Want to see a baby's first time in sand?

This holiday is awesome!  I awoke to breakfast in bed: thick bacon and eggs cooked perfectly, toast with elderberry jam, and chocolate milk!  Jack scribbled on the card Ben made me :-)  Also on the tray was a ridiculous spa package!  He bought me a massage, pedicure and manicure in Belmar.  I can't wait to use it!  I'll get the massage soon, and maybe save the nail work for Jack's birthday weekend.  I'll have four days off to enjoy beautiful hands and feet before work ruins them again.

Then off to church for sacrament meeting.  Our church really celebrates Mother's day well.  Our ward has a fantastic tradition of giving out chocolate instead of flowers to all the ladies.  For the first time I took that chocolate without any doubt that I deserve it. 

We went for a family walk on a new to us trail along Clear Creek in Wheat Ridge.  It was HOT.  It's far to early to be this hot.  Jack loved being in the backpack instead of a stroller. 

Now Jack is sleeping, I am blogging, and Ben is making mint iced tea.  In an hour we are going to watch Doctor Who across the street.  Then we'll whip up some chicken and chana marsala with rice for dinner, hopefully followed by Breyer's Mint Chip ice cream.  What a lovely day. 

Serin has a wonderful tradition of taking pictures with her kids each year on Mother's day.  I decided to start the tradition myself.  But when have I ever posted just one picture?

I think it's official - Jack's first word is "dog."

We noticed during the last week that he's been saying "dadadadada" and "duhduhduhduh" when he sees Jem.  Yesterday and today he's been working hard on it, saying "dddddddddddduh" with a strained look on his face.  Actually making his hypochondriac parents wonder if he has a stutter.  But I think he was just concentrating on the sounds.*

I wasn't sure when a parent should declare a first word, since it's kind of a work in progress for so long.  He's been saying mamama and dadada for a long time, though not exclusively about us.  In fact, Dad usually gets a "Hi-yeum!" and I get "Hi!" when I come home.  Ben thinks he even said "nana" when offered a banana yesterday. 

But today with prodding from me he definitely said "dog."  He even said it at the grocery store to a guide dog.  Ben says he heard Jack duhduh to Molly once, and I saw him saying it to a monkey puppet.  It's a non-specific term, but I'm still going with FIRST WORD TODAY!

And lucky you, I have video!  I threw in his attempt to blow a kiss.  Another brand new skill. 

*Miranda, if you would be so kind as to review the short dddehdeh he does in the beginning - an abbreviated version of the strained d sound he was doing all day, and assure us that our 11 month old doesn't have a stutter, we would very much appreciate it. We know we are overly worried idiot parents, but we still want to know.

Hey look, acute care dialysis gets a cameo in the news:

Those red and blue lines filled with blood - that's what I do!  Yes, my patients often look like this. and sometimes worse.

Amanda beat me to posting a video of Jack's latest game/trick.  Tell him something amazing and he'll tell you it blows his mind.  I have three videos on my phone of him doing this.  But while I work long shifts and my sister is home for the summer, and she comes to the rescue to babysit for a sick/in school husband TWO days in a row, that gives the aunt the advantage.  Either way, I'm glad one of us could share this mind-blowing game.

Found an old business card in my parents' basement. I'm guessing circa 1995. Very Max Fisher, says Ben.

It's not his first time swimming, but his first time having fun!
(sorry for the low res, taken straight from phone)

Amanda said: I keep looking at your blog for updates, a summary of your GJ trip, etc.

The purpose of our trip was to attend the wedding ceremony for our dear friends, Jeff and Mavi.  They held it on the Monument, right on the edge of a cliff at sunset.  It was gorgeous. 

I love her dress, hand made by the bride - of course!

Who's that on the left?  Ben and Brian participating in a brass quartet to accompany the ceremony!  Jeff requested that Ben play for them.  Now, he hasn't played in 12 years, since his marching band days in high school.  But he rented a baritone and practiced practiced practiced to play for the wedding. 






Jenni and I were duly impressed by their chops.

The wedding was so much fun.  They had a reception dinner at Dos Hombres where I met some of their crazy friends from NY.  The next day they had a picnic in Lincoln park.  I wish I hadn't gotten sick so I could have enjoyed it more and talked with the bride and groom longer.  But it was still fun, and great to see old friends like Katie L. and Katie H. and Neil (with new fiance, Novolin!)  I wish all my old friends ever would just move to the Denver suburbs and entertain me.  Is that so much to ask?

As promised to Amanda, here are some more videos of Jack's trick.  

Here's Amanda setting him up. He had just woken from a nap and was a little slow. But still eager to play.

Here he is just after learning the trick. He's eager to do it, and it's usually a domino chain of explosions.


Other tricks that Jack has recently learned:

• blowing air
• kissing your cheek - usually a gross, open-mouthed press to your cheek, but tonight he actually make a puckering lips smack!
• holding the phone to his shoulder/ear region
• pretend washing the table with a napkin
• Putting pencil to paper
• Can balance on two legs for a few seconds (only done twice, he doesn't seem to like it yet)
• Fast at climbing up stairs, can go down backwards with lots of prodding

Other things he can do, learned/mastered in the last month or so

• Cruising!
• waving bye bye
• high fives
• nodding yes
• standing in his crib after naps
• "Da" has been generalized for many things, but with tones. Mom, Dad, bottles, animals, fruit, all "da!"
•  Sorting, stacking rings, putting straws in cup lids . . .any kind of "this" goes in "there" task

And reading by osmosis!

(There, Amanda.  Blog updated.  I'm going back to sipping tea and doing nothing.)

*A Rather Lovely Inheritance – C.A. Belmond
...Still leaving over 150 archived books in our collection I haven't even looked at.  But I'm not a total moocher.  I sought out several of those above, and will soon be adding more:

At trivia this week Erin and I confessed our love of TV.  It seems like all the cool people say they don't even OWN TVs, let alone enjoy a show or two.  Well, gosh darn it, I LOVE television.  It's the most relaxing part of my day.  You should see how I held it together last night when Ben noted our DVR failed to record this week's So You Think You Can Dance aka SYTYCD aka "The Dance Show" competition episode.  I didn't even cry.  It helped that I had just indulged in an 80 minute episode of a British lovefest called Sherlock.  I mean, the actor is named Benedict Cumberbatch for goodness sake! Whoa, I got way off topic there.

I just mean to say that I love TV.  I recently got Amanda hooked on Battlestar Galactica, bought Ben all of Cowboy Bebop for Father's Day, and gave Erin a list of shows to persue on the back of a beer coaster.

I thought it would be fun to list some of my all time favorite shows and where you can find them.  You know, if you find yourself hiding from the heat in your basement den after the baby has gone to sleep and you have the next day off work and just want to be entertained for a while.  So in order of my brain's wandering, here is my list.  (I starting trying to indicate whether these are listed on Netflix instant, DVD only, or hulu, but it got way out of hand.  You'll have to search for yourself.  But know that most of these I do not watch live.)

Sherlock
The IT Crowd
Doctor Who
Spaced
The Big Bang Theory
Community
The Office
30 Rock
Burn Notice
The Good Guys (sniff!)
SYTYCD
How I Met Your Mother
Better Off Ted (sniff!)
Arrested Development (sniff!)
Veronica Mars
Psych
Bones
Angel
Glee
Castle
Better With You (don't be hatin' on me)
Friends
Seinfeld
Firefly (sniff!)
Evagelion
Cowboy Bebop
Mushii
Battlestar Galactica
Twin Peaks
ADD ON Pushing Daisies (sniff!)

Hmmm, that might be all for now.  I might add on to this later.  Help me in the comments if you can!

Here's a slice o' Jack for your Monday - my day off!  (My glorious day off!  The first in two weeks where I can breathe through my nose and have an appetite and keep food down and don't hack up loogies from my rattled thorax!)

I love days off. I've only been awake three hours but I already:

• Took out trash from the whole house
• Moved the swamp cooler to Jack's room
• Did the dishes
• Cleared out the living room of junk
• Scrubbed the microwave
• Prepared our dinner to marinate
• planned grocery list
• and of course played with Jack and fed both of us

I REALLY want to mop the kitchen when Ben gets back from the library, in case Jack wakes up and needs to be entertained away from the kitchen.  It's his favorite room lately.  I'm pretty terrified that this happened the other day:



Too soon! Too soon! Curses to all the men in family over 6 feet tall!

I haven't been terribly impressed with any couples' dances on SYTYCD so far.  Yes, the dancers are all top notch.  But the choreography hasn't had any stand-outs yet. 

Well, then I noticed that I've re-watched this piece four times already:

http://www.hulu.com/embed/8oE0VMgSa37bcWyDL9mBtA

Ok. So that was a ball of awesomeness. And by Sonya Tayeh no less. She can really pull it out sometimes. I think they are over-using her this season. Her couples' dances all start to feel the same. But this group number makes up for all of those. Great costumes too. And shoes! Thank you for putting your dancers in shoes! (shaking fist at Tyce Diorio)

Hooray for getting off work early on holidays! Hooray for friends with pools!

Wish I was home. Ben sent this too me at work.

I recorded one of our efforts to help Jack stand. He's just nervous to let go on his own.

But I happened to catch him taking a step!

We were suddenly in darkness.  He did it several times before I pulled out the camera.  Ben said "I guess we'll just be in the dark now."

Amanda has been in Peru.  Among much other awesomeness, she got to see condors in the Andes.  While discussing their wingspan over Old Chicago entrees (and Jack eating his weight in garlic bread), we figured each wing is about as long as my sister-in-law, Jenn.  So of course Ben made this:

Be happy, Jenn, that we found a full body picture of you aside from the one in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

With the day off (but call tonight) I took Jack to Park Day, as hosted by friends from church. They arrange a schedule of different parks for each Tuesday over the summer. Jack is just getting to the age and ability where he can enjoy playgrounds.

He liked the slide too, but I have to arrange him at the top because he keeps trying to crawl down it head first.

Today's Park, Ray Ross in Lakewood, has a "splash pad" with water jets. I did not prepare well because I mistakenly assumed Jack would be scared to be with all the other kids splashing about.



Wrong. With shoes off, he crawled into the mini pool the older kids made by sitting over the drain. Then he crawled over to this bigger water jet after a big kid abandoned it. It was a bit much for him and he gets a little exasperated. I love how he decides to try the smaller jets, then quickly changes his mind for the big one again!



I wish we could have stayed longer. But I only brought mango and graham crackers to eat and lunch time was swiftly approaching. Also, without swimsuit or towels Jack didn't have anything to change into after being thoroughly soaked. He was too wet to enjoy the playground equipment. We tried, but he stuck to everything. Next time I'll do better. Hey, at least I remembered sunscreen and a hat today!

Miranda beat me to jumping on the friendship bracelet revival that's happening in the online fashion/craft community.  But she forgot that the best way to make them is safety-pinned to your jeans.  That way when you stand up to get another Capri Sun, you can go back to knotting while watching Duck Tales in a different place because your kid brother took your spot on the couch.  

For my first bracelet I picked the most nostalgic color combination I could.  I remember thinking one day in the second grade "Gosh, I can't go wrong pairing pink and teal!" Lavender and cornflower round out the set.

I hoard craft supplies.  This is my original box of embroidery thread from 20 years ago.  Note the fancy-pants ombre and glitter threads in the upper left boxes.  I believed those cost 1.49 each, THREE times the normal cost of embroidery thread in the early nineties.  I saved them for special occasion bracelets.

I've made five bracelets over the last few days.  They are quick and colorful.  Wish I could wear them all summer until the break off.  But I'd rather not risk getting blood on them at work.

I had the pleasure of returning to my women's clinic for an annual check-up.  I grinned when I saw Jack's birth announcement on the big wall outside their ultrasound rooms.  Totally the cutest on the wall.  While waiting in the tiny room (getting the cold sweats in my flimsy thigh-high, open-backed gown) I wrote down all the names on the birth announcements they had on this smaller bulletin board.  So I present to you a sample of baby names in the Denver Suburban Area for 2010:

Ethan
Zeke
Alexander
Axel
Trace
Kaimani
Lydia
Brody
Layne
Noah
Wallace
Jon
Kailynn
Isabella
Zoey
Aletheia

Conclusion: I think if we had a girl someday I could totally pull off "Anathema."

It's either a sign of the second coming, or a sign that it's too hot. We all take refuge in the basement.

I don't buy a lot of frivolous things.  Unless you could chocolate and diet coke.  But every once in a while I go on a spending spree.  I've got a bit of Christmas money in my savings account that I can dip into when the urge strikes.  Here are some recent purchases.

A dresser for Jack's room. 

He outgrew his changing table in length and I've been window shopping (online) for a vintage dresser since he was an infant.  Finally hit a good one on craiglist for the right price.  I love solid, old furniture.  Now I have my eyes peeled for a coordinating nightstand. 

With a salon appointment next week, I was inspired to do a little making-over of my image. 

I ordered some hair feathers from Etsy.  Now I look like this:
Ha!  Just kidding.  I ordered some brown and purple and only one thin stripey that is currently in my sister's hair. I put some in partly hidden just to see if they work well (yes!).  I'll put them in more obviously after my visit to the salon this week and before the trip to San Diego. 

I also go these, courtesy of my personal family ophthalmologist:
It's handy having a prescriber with you in the store, and a long time user to give you tips for putting contacts in.
 Aren't I alluring?  It will take some time to get used to them.  But I'm already loving being on the computer without my glaring, scratched up glasses.  Speaking of which . . .

I ordered these:
They are the Webb frames from Warby Parker.  It's a great glasses company.  You really all about them on their site.  I love their vintage style frames, the try at home offer,  and the buy-one-give-one program they have.  Ben scoffs at how hipster they are, including their name-which comes from two characters of Jack Kerouac.  You probably haven't heard of them ;-)

After a particularly rough crash, Jack resolved his tears with this bicycle toy kept on a high shelf.  I pulled out my camera when I noticed him making his "vroom vroom" noises.  Ben taught him that, of course.

Ben and Jack went hiking with Grandpa Rick in Fairplay.  There are many beautiful photos on Ben's flickr page.  I love this portrait:
I took a video of Jack and me on the porch for my Dad's birthday.  The lighting was weirdly ethereal so I snapped a few photos too:


Ben calls these PJ's Jack's sorority shorts:

Last weekend my parents came to visit!  I have so much fun seeing them, and Jack had a blast too. It was too hot for most of the playground equipment, but he likes stairs enough to be happy.

And he got a sunscreen-as-hair-product do in the shade.
They brought us Palisade peaches.  Jack ate three that day.


A quick stop at the Apple store to swap out a broken iPad.
Then Jack was let loose in the play park.  Holy cow, did he had had fun.
This was the first of many many times climbing up the water rapids.  It was incredibly noisy there, but I could see Jack's mouth moving the whole time he played.  They tell me he was going "Da! Da! Da! Da!" non-stop.

I made an appointment for Jack with my stylist.  I wanted to take pictures while his hair was cut and she offered to do it for very little money.  It sounded fun!  But we couldn't get a non-nap time appointment for a couple weeks.  This weekend his mullet has been looking pretty rank.  I decided I couldn't take it anymore.  As soon as he woke from a (3 hour) nap I whipped him onto the back porch with a bowl of mango, stuck the camera in Ben's hands, and went to work.

Pictures!

 Above, ready for church.  Mulleted.

Below, the last gasp of the mullet.


Below, first snip (Sniff! My baby is gone!!)

Below, lots of head turning.  He tolerated it very very well.  No tears or fussing.  Just a lot of curious turns.


 Above, all done!  A celebratory bite of mango for Mom!

Below, my handsome boy.

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Me and me siblings, reuniting this weekend. I love this photo.

Were having lunch with the ocean crashing in view out the restaurant window. Jack is spooning himself ketchup.

What do you see?

Jenn educating us about all the birds in the aviary.

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Back from vacation, feeling fat and bloated.  Last night after work I trolled the internet for dance classes and found the Wheat Ridge Rec Center, the gym I've been using since Miranda's postpartum days, offers a zumba class at a convenient time today.  ("Zumba! Ditch the work-out, join the party!") 

Possessed with self righteousness and a fervor like it was January 1st, I lay myself at the feet of Kris, our zumba instructor.  Super tanned with a belly ring, spiky red hair with blond highlights, neon green mini skirt, and a Britney mic, she whipped me for an hour.  Twenty minutes in I looked in the mirror and saw that I was lobster-red and dripping sweat.  I don't know how I made it through all of class.  Kris bounced over after class and invited me to keeping coming.  I told her it depends on whether I wake up paralyzed with muscle ache tomorrow, or if I can manage to grunt my way through my shift.  Zumba!

(I recovered surprisingly well after Zumba.  Looks like I have a new exercise plan)

We got home Sunday afternoon.  The blast of hot dry air on the bridge off the airplane made me miss the cool ocean breezes already.  Jack has been sleeping a lot, trying to make up for the sleep he missed from having too much fun.

I posted all of my photos on flickr here, and I see Amanda has done the same. 

I'll take you through some favorites.  Disclaimer: they are kind of crappy, all from my phone, and mostly of Jack.

We arrived!  We're on the beach!

 Jack spent at least half of the trip on those shoulders.
 My heart was thumping every time my family let Jack peer over a pier.


 After a morning nap I rolled Jack onto our patio. How cool is that?
 We all bought hats at the CVS down the street to keep the sun at bay.
 Bib buddies at Joe's Crab Shack
 After lunch we went to the zoo!
 The aviary was the best part.


 (heart thumping)
 Even though we were hot and bedraggled (is that a word? like, the opposite of bedazzled?) and he missed his afternoon nap, Jack was dancing and clapping to the live band on the way out.
 Ben and I took a long scenic tour around town after the zoo, to let Jack snooze in the car before dinner.

(Somehow I missed taking any pictures of our dinner with the Waterhouses and Wargos and Evans!  It must have been the stress of keeping Jack controlled in a fancy tablecloth restaurant with accented waiters.  Amanda has some pictures on her site)

Jack played with a real, regular telephone a lot.  Amazing how he automatically knew what to do with it.
 Saturday was all about the beach.  Here is Ben with our hotel right behind him.  Seriously, this was a fantastic hotel.  Crazy good location in the heart of Pacific Beach, beautiful rooms, good breakfasts, and very kind staff.  Hooray for the Ocean Park Inn!
 The sand is serious business, you guys.
 The water was chilly and Jack wasn't a fan.  But he liked jumping around in Dad's arms.
 Playing in the sand with Sadie and Lexie, Natalie, George, Sylvie, Larry and great-grandparents (more pictures on my flickr)


We dipped in the hotel pool after the beach for some real swimming, but Jack was exhausted.  Wouldn't you know, we went to the hotel room for a nap and got this instead:
 (My dad worked his sleep voodoo magic.  My parents babysat him while Ben and I strolled to Fatburger and a Mexican hut.)

More PB walking
 (He's pointing to our hotel ;-)
 Too bright!


Our flight home was easier than the arrival.  Jack slept for half of it and we were bumped to a stretch seating row.  After I took him through security Ben exclaimed to Jack "Uh oh!  You were recruited!"
Thank you mom and dad for a wonderfully wonderful summer vacation!

He doesn't play the "how big is baby" game.

He won't point to nose or ears yet.

He's reluctant to high five.

He doesn't refer to us as "Mama" or "Dada" yet.

But he can quote Doc Brown from Back to the Future!

As you may know, Ikea finally FINALLY opened in Denver.  I've been waiting about 8 years for that to happen.

We waited for the crowds to thin before checking it out.  We are now a 3 Poang household.

Jack obviously didn't read the instructions.



Ta DA!  POANG!!

Beige was the only option. I did a 10 minute crap-tastic safety-pinned cover for the new chair, since my patience for deconstructing and reconstructing patterns to sew is zero. I think it turned out okay! Ben gives it one day before Jack discovers the metal clips on the back.

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I started editing a walking montage video.  Jack really started walking two weeks ago on Sunday. But that video edit is still on my computer with more clips on my phone waiting for upload. So with concern about time and never posting ANYTHING, here is a poor quality email post straight from my phone. He's become quite skilled in very little time! This was Wednesday at the Cherry Creek mall.

Jack fell down the stairs yesterday. He was leaning on the baby gate, it gave way and he tumbled all the way to the basement. He recovered pretty fast. His face looks worse today. The accidents are only going to get worse, right? {mom sigh}

Amanda got us discount tickets to Les Miserables, the 25th anniversary tour using her magic drama teacher beams.

I missed the turntable, especially in One Day More. But aside from that it was a fantastic performance. Really incredible singing, and the trimmed down version clipped along at a nice pace (one verse of Castle on a Cloud is plenty, thank you very much).

I rooted through my ticket collection this morning and found my old stub. (Ben laughs at my ticket collection. Calls it my secret hoard. But when you've done it for over 20 years it's hard to stop.)

Ikea-ed! We tripled our media storage in the basement. Also important, these are bracketed to the wall. Our old, tall bookcase wasn't and I've caught jack pulling on it a couple of times.

Organizing one part of the house inspires me to do others. After I sort the books scattered about, my craft area needs an overhaul. Then our basement storage room. It's taken a beating with baby and maternity storage.

(Static hair at the playground.)

Wow, yesterday was a bad day at work. Over 15 hours long, had to start the day alone, complicated patients, and a code blue. I thought about blogging more about the day, but frankly I want to forget it.

Today we signed a new mortgage that will save us oodles of money, had lunch at wich which, and now we're playing in the cool fall breezes at a playground. Three cheers for days off!

Shouldn't there be more days off? That's what I wonder when I'm at work and Ben texts me adorable photos like this one:

We stuffed our faces with garlic knots from Virgilio's.  I'm still mourning the closing of their Lakewood restaurant.

Today we went to the zoo!  Not pictured, the cupcakes we ate afterwards from Lovely Confections.  Here Jack and Wolfie take turns pointing at the elephant.  Wolfie is his play buddy that we know from our doggy daycare owners.





The Lorakeet exhibit was so cool!  There were about 50 birds living in there so you saw them everywhere you turned.  You could buy little cups of nectar to feed them.  They hopped right on your your hand!


By the end Jack was like "whatev's" to these enormous gorillas right in front of us.  Time to go (get cupcakes!).

It's the swank new McDonalds near us. No wonder the parking lot is always full!

Have a bowl of Boston Bibb for lunch!

It's a chilly fall day. We have our cardigans, string cheese, and zippy cup. We're off to the mountains in search of fall foliage!

Some of the trees have shed leaves already. It's hard to time it. But it's pretty enough!

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Today was a total success!  Jack took 6 naps today, one mini nap during each section of driving plus one at home in the afternoon.  We found the coolest playground in Georgetown.  I took a lot of photos, they are all on my flickr page.  We ate lunch at Smokin' Yards BBQ in Idaho Springs. 

At home I took a nap in the basement and Ben got a little homework done.  I made chicken and zucchini pasta with pesto and green beans.  Jack ate really well today!  He's not very voracious for us and gets fussy about whether he will feed himself or let us feed him.  So it's a good day when he puts down a good amount - even greens! 

We took a stroll around Target to get autumnal-themed candies for work tomorrow and a frozen pizza for Friday's dinner (yes, we are living large!).  After Jack had his milk, Good Night Moon, and his teeth "brushed" Ben and I watched Community, Parks and Rec, and Big Bang Theory.  Dishes, blogging, pack a lunch, and I'm off to bed!

We hear about other friends' babies talking and worry that Jack doesn't talk yet.  It's not that we're fretting, but there's a twinge of "oh! why isn't MY kid saying words yet?  So I made a list to make us feel better.  Apparently, speech therapists include signs and animal sounds in their word count.  Jack just turned 16 months old.  And he's still the best, even if he doesn't have many words.


Words
Jack's only, but much repeated, word
Da = dog, dad, cat, animal, baby, . . . thing

Said a few times but not consistently
Buh = ball

Said once
Joo = juice
Nana = banana
Bohk = book
Weeza = weasel 
Kittah = kitty

Animal sounds
Strongly knows with animal name verbalized OR shown picture prompt
Wolf = howls with head back
Tiger = roars with claws (kind of a "raaah")
Monster = growls with claws (more of a "graaaw")
Dog = woof

Knows weakly with verbal sound demonstration AND picture prompts
Monkey = ooo or hah with body bobbing
Owl = haaa
Sheep = bah

Signs
More (which he morphed into "want" and uses when being polite, kind of like "please")
Drink (also morphed to "want" when he strongly wants something)
Sleep
Thank you (with prompting)
Up
All done

So far today I have:
Ridden in 5 cars
Flown in a plane
Driven in 3 states
Been peed on
Been attacked by a vulture
Ate a hamburger with Canadian bacon
And there's a rifle in my trunk.

The Sing-Off is my holiday season guilty pleasure.

I love the colorful, coordinated clothes.  They make me a smile.
I love that it begins in the fall and ends right before Christmas.
I love Ben Folds.  And that they ditched the stupid girl judge for a smart girl judge. 
I'm rooting for Afro-Blue, Urban Method (yay Denver!), and Vocal Point (meh, BYU).

But the best part for me is I can watch it with Jack.  He has started dancing for real - picking up his feet and spinning in circles.  And he LOVES to clap with the audience.  When the DVR hiccups he signs for "more" and nods at the TV until it starts again.
 

I mean, who wouldn't like this?

(PS, I watch these behind schedule, so no spoilers please!)

Lest you think I live a life of leisure, you should know I had to work 8 hours on Sunday.  Blech.  I hate my weekends on call.  The worst of it is the on and off of patient treatments.  It felt like hourly the plan was changing.  I can't stand that.  So just know that I choose to blog about my days off because those are the fun days, the days I live for. 

Like this morning.  Happily I did not have to go back into work last night, despite being paged at 5 AM.  I slept in until the sound of monsters in the living room woke me up.  Jack was running around in his PJs growling and roaring.  I poured myself some cereal and a small bowl for Jack.  I've finally learned that he is a social eater and throws a fit if I'm eating and he's not.  Rather than share my food I try to get a snack size for him.  Once at the table, he demanded I put some entertainment on the computer.  Spoiled? Yes, probably. 




You can watch the video we were watching here on Hulu.

Despite a slight cold I'm going to Zumba this afternoon.  It will be my fourth class.  I went twice in August, then couldn't go back until last week.  Strange that I was scheduled for Mondays and Wednesdays as soon as I had a class I wanted to attend.  Last week they gave us coin belts to jingle on our hips and that made it even more fun!  I found one of our routines on youtube, if you still have no idea what I'm talking about. 

Jack's Halloween costume is done.  You all are going to DIE from the cuteness!  I have no idea what I'll be yet.  Motherhood makes you selfless that way ;-)

Pumpkin gathering yesterday before the snowstorm today.

Jack has the process backwards. Brian shares his goop joy.

Jack learned the trade of trick-or-treating fast! I met Ben at the mall after work. Jack has a death grip on his candy bucket. He's convinced a few ladies to give him seconds with his nodding + "more" signing. Video and high quality costume photos to come.

Wow, I took a lot of pictures since Saturday.  This includes 188 takes from our costume photo shoot in the park.  But it's REALLY hard to get a picture of a toddler not staring at the ground and not turning away from you, so I feel justified.

Since I mentioned it, here are the final costume pictures!

 (Unlike Miranda, I WORE a costume but people didn't realize it until I asked them to guess who I was.)

Not Robin Hood, not an elf (especially not a "she's so cute!" elf- he must really need a haircut), and not a little green giant (whatever that is).

Da daaaa, dadadada daaaaaaa!







 (Hey, I promised lots of photos, didn't I?  This is down from 188 remember.)

We carved pumpkins with Brian this weekend, as you are already aware (I think I fixed the video).




We also went to a party thrown by the parents of Jack's play buddy, Wolfie.  Wolfie has an awesome toy room.  

Sunday Ben decided we would wear costumes to church.  Those pins are QR codes, that when scanned with your smart phone bring up our costume photos. 

And finally we arrive at tonight, the Big Night.  By a Halloween miracle I got off work a little after 4 and dodged a callback, giving me time to meet Ben and Jack in the middle of their trick-or-treating outing.  I about died when I walked up to this:


More photos and videos:






(Ben's gentle, fatherly pushing in these photos turn my heart to mush)
This sexy nurse at the Chinese Massage store asked for a photo with Jack.  We hope she recognized him. 
People aged 18-30 seemed to get his costume.  The game store people didn't ("Oh, he's a little Zelda!") and Ben will never forgive them.

The only actual trick-or-treating we did was Brian's house, and Jack was too scared of his ghoul bowl to take any.  

Back at home he was excited to light the pumpkins and greet the kids.  I had to put a bowl out after bed time to prevent door bells from waking up Jack.  Overall though, Halloween is so much better with a kid than without.



There is all kinds of sticky in my house now.

I've been doing fun crafting and cooking today. But it's all secrets so I can't show pictures. Here's jack stomping the park in his boots instead.

I can share one of my secrets from last week now.  For a couple years I have been making homemade marshmallows for my Dad and other family and friends.  But mostly for my Dad.  He's a hot chocolate fiend.  With the snow last week I realized:

So I sent this card with a package of vanilla bean fluffy confections.  As you can see, Jack was a huge fan.  We gave away most of them to Amanda and my coworkers (where I endured much heckling because who MAKES marshmallows??) (they are slowly getting to know me - word is out that I can spin yarn).

This is my favorite recipe if you want to make them yourself.  Be sure to try them with peppermint flavoring!

Shellac manicures: as awesome as everyone says. I'm a fan. Treated myself to join Amanda in her preparations for Paris.

The Sing-Off: super sad Vocal Point are gone. But I love ALL the groups now, so I'm sad that any group has to go. (Ben is ecstatic Colorado beat Utah.)

I love it when I pack an awesome lunch. Chocolate and Cheetos, DPT, an a roast beef sammy with pickles. It can brighten a day.

PS I totally had a breakfast with bran, flax, oat, and other health-nutty things in a bar so you can stop judging.

Love it when:

I'm off on Monday
They overstaff me on Tuesday
Allowing me to stay up late
And Ben puts Jack to bed
So I can go to trivia

Kind of makes up for working 13 hours on Sunday.

This was fun to make!  I might have missed some childhood drive-throughs.  Surely a girl born in Maryland has been to more small eastern states?

(Map has been updated with new info from my fam: increased from 54% to 70%)
visited 35 states (70%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

My world map isn't as impressive.


Visited 14 states (6.22%)
Create your own visited map of The World

I'd love to see the maps from the impressive travelers in my family - like the one carousing in Paris right now.

Yay!  I'm done with my scheduled shifts this week.  I only have to be on-call on Turkey Day and I'm low on the tree (so finger crossed no calls!).  Then I have three glorious days off.  The Grandparents Mason are here giving Jack almost non-stop giggles.  There's a cheese log in my fridge.  What could be better?

I'm unwinding with Newsies mash-ups.  You know I love me some Newsies.  I have my ticket from the original release almost 20 years ago.  (Whoa.  I am getting old.)  I would LOVE to see the new musical in New York.  I hope there's a performance on the Thanksgiving Parade tomorrow.

Oh, what's that?  You want to see the mash-ups too?  Let's do it, ah-break it dowwwn!  (Love me some DJ Lance too.)

I just watched 14 of those.

There's a solo of Christian Bale dancing to Santa Fe too.   I kid you not: I memorized this as a pre-teen.  I think this works amazingly well with Gaga.

It's off to work I go!

I should be done by dinner. Please please stay quiet, stupid pager.

It doesn't feel like Thanksgiving without my grandmother's buttery rolls. Here's a photo of her making them today, sent from my dad.

Remember way back when I used to post photo-heavy blog entries of Jack every month?  And then he turned The Big One Year and I stopped doing it?  Well guess what.  It's been six months already!

While I was desperately trying to get a fistula to work this morning (end of story: I failed) Ben took up the old Nikon to take some adorable portraits of our buddy.  Our dude.  Our little guy. 



With his haystack hair

 And buck-toothed devilish grins


Strutting around the house like he owns it.  He not only walks, he runs and dances too. He can go down the slide by himself and climb up on the chairs to sit at the table (or on the table, if he can get away with it).


Killer abs ;-)


So many teeth!  He is getting the first of his canines now.  I'll be glad when that's over.



He's a total charmer.  He signs really well and is adding some small words.  He can say "teh tah" to ask for the Turtle song.  He likes Itsy Bitsy Spider and Monkeys Jumping on the Bed too.  He picked up the choreography to each song right away. 


He's curious and gung-ho.  We have many head bumps and scrapes and tumbles from his adventures. 


This is a paltry description of the many wonderful things Jack can do and is learning every day.  It's incredible how he absorbs everything.  I'll give up trying to summarize it here.  Every new age is my favorite age.  I miss my baby, but I love my toddler even more.




PS: Here is Jack one year ago.  Mind = Blown.

My shellac nails were immaculate for 14 days as promised. This chip on my index appeared tonight after:
6 shifts at work
2 candy making sessions
3 Jack baths
Cooking and scrubbing up after a full turkey dinner on Sunday
Plus normal wear and tear
Color me impressed!

Monday and Tuesday I trekked up the mountains once again to begin the school musical.  We held an information meeting and dance workshop Monday.  Today we auditioned 34 kids - each with dancing, singing, and acting; then cut it down to a callback list for Thursday.

I sadly had to return to Denver, back to life and nursing.  I get so excited to do the musical every year.  I really love teaching the kids to dance, and it's nice that the director does not care about my lack of credentials.

This year Amanda's assistant volunteered to do a behind-the-scenes film series.  He's serious about it!  Look what he's already posted about the first day.

I should cast the little 2.5 foot guy, right? Good moves on that one ;-) This will be so fun to have movies I can share with you.  Of course, that means subjecting you to my ever-increasing jiggliness.  Seriously, what do I call a post-partum pouch that is now 18 months post-partum?

And if this prompts the same question as Ben ("What are you wearing??"), teachers use one legwarmer to make it easier for kids to differentiate legs.

This little break from work is a time for getting things done! DIY presents: done! Laundry: done! And dinner of little hand pies with beef and potato filling: done by 11 am!

Amanda really outdid herself this year. She gave Jack our whole family rendered in dolls. Insanely cute!

From left to right: Andy, Jenn, Susan, Will, Amanda, Rachel, Jack, Ben, Betty, Richard