One year later

Blogging is tiring.

Trip to San Diego

We took Natty to the San Diego Zoo. Natty can't hold back her excitement.

In case you are confused, the real elephants are in the background.


Surprisingly enormous hippo butts.


Surprisingly dirty panda butt.


A panda tree bearing panda fruit.


Our new Ergo baby carrier gets a workout.


The most popular chrome polar bear in the world. About 20 people cut in front of us to take a picture just like this one.


Humprey's Half Moon Inn & Suites. Highly recommended.


On the balcony overlooking the marina.

Eating brunch at the Hash House A Go Go with Rhon and Esther. We miss you guys!


Sunny's biscuits and gravy. My hand is there for scale.

Dancing Queen

davy will be very surprised that I'm writing a post. it will be very short unlike davy's witty and humorous ones with links to obscure and somewhat disturbing images.

so, our little girl definitely has rhythm. these days you can find Natty groovin soon as music is playing. she sometimes move from side to side to start then she moves forward and back while moving her head. it is the funniest thing. she sure is like her mama in lot of ways. she LOVES food, LOVES parties and LOVES to dance. here's a video of her dancing. she was being modest since the tape was rollin. maybe y'll can come see for yourself when she really turns it on. watch out kristi yamaguchi.

Perfect 10

Natty is going to hit the big one-oh. 10 months. It seemed like yesterday that she was just a tiny little baby who could only sit and say gibberish. Oh right, that was yesterday, and the last 2 months for that matter. She is still under 14 pounds and just a little over 2 feet in length. She is trying to compensate for those meager measurements by having an enormous head in proportion to her body. Just kidding, Natty... you're perfect in our eyes.

Mother's and Father's Day have come and gone. As first time parents, we took special pride in these two holidays although we didn't go over the top in celebrating. It will be nice when Natty is old enough to genuflect before our parental majesty but until that day comes, we are in total servitude to her. For now, she is a pretty low-maintenance infant. She cries only when she is tired or left in a room alone. She's not very discriminant about who is in the room with her as long as someone is there. Little by little, she is becoming more forceful about the things she wants but those who have spent some time with her often remark about how "easy" she is. It won't last, we know. But it's wonderful in the meantime.

In other developmental news, she does NOT:

• crawl


• stand with help


• sit herself up


• have teeth

She does:

• stay in a seated position
  
• laugh at our silliness


• like to splash in the tub


• eat lots of fruit


• babble like a Pentecostal
  
• scratch at everything and everybody near her

We introduced Natty to our friends' dog, Piper. Piper is a female pug and when she got up in Natty's grill, Natty freaked like Julia Stiles did when Matt Damon put a gun up to her noggin in the Bourne Supremacy. Piper could have been on fire and sprouted tentacles and I don't think Natty could have been more scared. Since then, though, we've been trying to get her comfortable being around our friends' dogs. She felt pretty comfortable with this one:


Maybe it's because all pugs look like they've been victims of those exploding cigars you see in cartoons.

We've begun preparations for Natty's 1st birthday party. It will be on the afternoon of Saturday, Sept. 13, at a park in Temple City. Hopefully the temperature will be below 110 degrees.

Enjoy your summer!

9 months

Just checking in. I'm losing the battle with bloggers-block...

Day Trip #2: San Diego

I took a week off from work last month and on one of those days we decided to visit the 2nd largest city in California. We learned a lot from our first day trip to Santa Barbara on how to manage a road trip with a baby. In Santa Barbara we were paranoid about trying to stick to Natty's feeding and sleeping schedule so we cut the trip shorter than we had liked. In San Diego we enjoyed ourselves a lot more by just going with the flow. It helped to have good friends down there who absolutely love Natty.

In fact, visiting friends was the main part of the trip. We didn't do any sightseeing or go to the beach or "get our drink on" in Tijuana. We met up with our friends Rhon and Esther who recently moved down to SD for Rhon's work.

They're food people just like Sunny is. They have a passion for good food that I, as a person with very unrefined tastes, can't get on board with. You would think I was a food person if you got a look at my waistline and puffy face but I usually eat only to stave off the stomach growls that so often embarrassed me in my classroom days. Sure I enjoy the occasional steakhouse now and then, especially when I'm with my brother (another notorious foodie), but I'm just as content with a frozen burrito as I am with a Chipotle barbacoa burrito with guacamole. Sometimes.

Rhon and Esther took us to the Cottage in La Jolla for lunch. Characteristically, I don't remember what I had but I remember that it was pretty good. Sunny could tell you what everyone had like Rain Man could recall phone book entries. She'll often remind me if I liked or disliked a menu selection when we go out to eat.

"Hmmm... I think I'll try the sesame chicken," I'll say.
"No, you didn't like it cuz it had bones in it."
"Oh."
"You liked the mochiko chicken when you had it 2 months, 12 days, and 7 hours ago though."
"Oh."

If Sunny could harness her food memory into say, Jeopardy memory, she would be the next Ken Jennings.

I digress. After lunch (and dessert) the girls went to visit Joanie and her daughter Cyan while Rhon and I watched Live Free or Die Hard on Rhon's Blu-ray. There's no better time in San Diego than watching a really good movie from the year before. After all, it's not like Natty is going to appreciate LegoLand or SeaWorld at her age.

It was a fun trip and it was just what Sunny, Natty, and I needed.

I'm still here.

Your eyes do not deceive you. This is a new post. Actually I don't know why I'm even bothering anymore since my lack of posting has driven both my regular readers away. But I'll soldier on in the hopes that one day Natty will read and appreciate these sporadic posts.

All in NatalieLand is fine and good. There may be a painful experience ahead but these last two months have been marked by developmental milestones and lots of smiles and laughs. Since my last post Natalie is now:

1) Sitting up. She finally has the neck muscles to prop up that big 'ol head of hers. She can't sit up by herself but when we put her on her tush, she can stay there for a long time. It's entertaining to see her sway from one side to the other as she instinctively tries to compensate for her big 'ol head pushing her center of gravity up her tiny body. It's like balancing a baseball bat vertically on your palm. With a bowling ball crazy-glued to the top of the bat.
Viewer note: Prepare to turn your head to the side in 8...7...6...

2) Rolling over. She can roll over from her tummy to her back. I'm fairly confident that she can roll from her back to her tummy but she refuses to do so because she absolutely detests being on her tummy. I have no idea how she is going to learn to crawl if she can't stand to be on that side of her body. The fact that she hates that position didn't stop us from putting her on her stomach over and over and over again just to watch her roll over. Trauma for her, good fun for us.

3) Eating solid foods. Or should I say, "solid-er" foods. Sweet potatoes, carrots, and bananas are probably her favorites. She had a bad reaction to single-grain rice cereal (ostensibly the food least likely to make a baby throw up). We are going to see an allergist to find out if she has a food allergy and we're praying that the vomiting episode was just a freak coincidence. The other extreme is that she may have celiac disease. I'm dreading the blood test that she will have to take because the doctor warned that finding a vein in a baby's arm can take a while and it can involve some poking around. It makes me sad just thinking about it.

But Natty is oblivious to all of that. She's been a joy, laughing and smiling with more regularity. It's hard to express in words how blessed we feel for being entrusted with her. Thank You God!