Browse Month: November 2008

What a good boy.

Last night I babysat Jack and he was quite the entertainer.  When I arrived, he was a little whiny as if he knew that his parents were about to leave.  Fortunately for me, he quickly forgot about them once they left.  We read books, he played the piano for me, he pushed his wagon around the house, and he also showed me how he likes to harass the cats.  It was all very cute.

By 8 pm, he walked over to the baby gate in front of his room and seemed to signal that he wanted to go inside.  I guess it was time for bed.  I grabbed his warmed bottle and we sat down for “Goodnight Moon”.  Then I plopped him into his crib and he turned on his sleeping music.  I tucked him into his sleeping sack and gave him his bottle.  Just as Ryan said, he downed the bottle in just a couple minutes and gave me his sleepy eyes.  I gave him his horsie blankie, said “goodnight”, and turned off the light.  He immediately whined loudly and tried to stand up at the rail but he quickly began talking to himself and mouthing his blanket for the next couple minutes.  Soon enough he was out like a light and the rest of the evening was a piece of cake.  Perhaps he knew that it was his mommy’s birthday and had to be on his best behavior or maybe he’s just a good boy.  I’ll never know but at least he was an angel that night that I was in charge.

All done!

Yay, the election is over.  I can now walk through the streets of San Francisco without the barrage of Obama this and Prop 8 that.  Hopefully Prop 3 will pass so the hospital will get some desperately needed funding.  It’s sad when I’m supposed to be doing feeding therapy and we don’t have any food.  Parents are having to bring food or I end up buying babyfood at Target.

But I digress…This truly is an historic day for us as a country but I hope that there will be more to it than just a sigh of relief in the coming months.  Growing up near the “Orange Curtain” and now living in SF has given me two very one-sided views of the world and I know that a lot of people voted strictly along party lines and not because they necessarily believed in their candidate.  Yes, we’re in debt.  Yes, we are in war.  Yes, President Bush sucks.  Let’s get over it and talk about something else.  I would like to see a happier, more optimistic world that prefers to debate about which is the best Halloween candy.  I’d like to live in a community where I don’t have to go to work with grumpy liberals who constantly complain about our healthcare system and economy.  I like all of the people I work with but when politics come up at lunchtime, I just have to pick up my things and finish my lunch elsewhere.  Most would say that I’m a passenger in life and I tend to go wherever the car takes me.  Nevertheless, I would like to be able to stare out the window and enjoy the ride as well.

6 and 13 Years Later

Today, Jes and I celebrated our 6th Wedding Anniversary and 13th year together as best friends.  Instead of taking a trip, we decided to stay local and nerd-it-up at the brand-spankin’-new California Academy of Sciences.  We got up early to take a 45-min ride on Muni and walked another 10 minutes through Golden Gate Park to be greeted by hundreds of other guests hoping to do the same thing.

It was crowded and crawling with children but it’s a really cool place to visit.  The architecture is interesting and they have some pretty fun exhibits.  I think we spent an hour in the aquarium exhibit alone and actually didn’t go into the 3-story rainforest because the line was too long.  Thank goodness for the annual membership because we’ll have to go back for that part.

For dinner, we went to Spruce.  I had the honey-lacquered duck with foie gras and cinnamon apples, which was oh so tasty.  Jes’ pork tenderloin and pork belly were also very good.  Back when I was a poor grad student and Jes had lost his first dot-com job, we started a journal that began with a bunch of wish lists and was a reflection of things we enjoyed doing together. The journal has evolved over the years and it’s become a tradition of ours to go through it each year on our anniversary to recount the events of the past year.  So, we did just that over dinner.  We also made plans for the coming year and added to our “Lifetime To Do” and “Places We Want To Visit” lists.  Each year the lists get longer but we also get to check things off too.  It’s funny to see how our priorities change each year while so many things remain the same.

All Growns Up

Little Jack is a whoppin’ year older today.  I can’t believe it’s been a year already!

Congratulations to Michelle and Ryan for surviving their first year of parenthood!