Video/Photo Backlog

I'm a little behind in posting some of the videos and photos that we've been taking. So, here's a quick "January in Review"...besides, I'm procrastinating on writing my New Years letter and this'll fill up the time nicely. (note: you have to double click on the play button)

La Jolla Cove
Last week, Ari and I drove down to La Jolla Cove to hang out, people watch, chase some seagulls and have a snack.

Del Mar Beach
This past weekend hit 70 degrees so we decided to take advantage and go to the beach on Sunday. This video (may be boring to grandparents ;) gives a 360 of the beach and part of the park around it. This area is one of our favorites. The whole town of Del Mar is pretty cool. Funky shops. Arty. Lots of alternative and complimentary medicine, massage, etc. Very laid back.

Dancing Queen
Ari's been working on his dance moves. I only caught a few seconds but it was worth it.

Cinnamon Toast Mornings

Ari's just gotten up and is sitting on my lap at the kitchen table while I read devotions with a cup of coffee. He reaches for my cup...huh...that is not going to taste good...

"Would you like some juice?"

"Juusshh! Juussh!" he exclaims with a gigantic grin and practically falls off my lap to get to where we keep the sippy cups.

I am 100% sure that this is Ari's first clearly understood and clearly intentioned word. Juussh. He's been saying it now for about a week. Clearly, I'm a little trigger shy (have been a little too quick to jump on the word bandwagon in the past), so it takes me a while before I'll declare it an official "word". He's said words that have the intention of "kitty", "dadda" and "grandpa/ma" but this is the first really consistent one.

As a reward, I hand him his apple juice. "Juice," I say.

"Juuussh. Ha ha!"

We have contact.

He's been quite the entertainer this morning. We had eggs and cinnamon toast together and he kept hiding his toast strips under his sippy cup, holding up his hands in a "where did they go?" pose, and then whipping off the sippy cup and pointing at the toast underneath with a huge smile. "There they are, Ma!" He's been into that "Where's Ari?" game as he hides behind a chair or in his closet...or under his blanket. And then charging out to "surprise me" with a hug. Very cute. Oh how quickly they grow up. He used to just get a charge out of it when I'd surprise him - now he's got to do it in order for it to be fun.

After breakfast he walked over to one of his toys and started kissing the little playthings sticking off of it. Too cute - especially when he started kissing the dragon puppet (below). 'Course, he won't kiss us but at least he is demonstrating affection for inanimate objects....hmmm...

Happy New Year!

Seven days late.

It's been a slight whirlwind ever since we left for "Christmas in Michigan" last month. A whirlwind of visiting, eating and illness with no end. So, due to a travel and recovery-induced hangover, it's taken me a while to post anything over the past 4 weeks. Sorry 'bout that.

We managed to get all healed up for our New Years Eve with friends. Ari was recovering from his second (yes, second) bout with allergic reaction to antibiotics. This can't be good. All in all, we landed in the clinic three times in a little over a week. Once with bronchitis and twice with an allergic rash. To different antibiotics. Oy vey. New Years Eve day found us praying for a short line in the waiting room because we had to truck down to our friends outside of Detroit that evening. Luckily, it worked out. Ari was prescribed a steroid and we rushed through our showers and instructions to grandma and hit the road.

It was a wonderful, quiet New Years for us. With good friends, good food and good laughter. God bless them, they had offered from the beginning to host us for the whole night so we wouldn't have to drive. That turned out to be fortuitous for a couple reasons. 1) a bottle of wine each, and 2) eight inches of snow overnight. We woke up New Years Day to the most beautiful winter wonderland imaginable. It actually made me want to move home and deal with winter again.

However, by the time we were getting on the plane back to San Diego (after experiencing two major snowstorms in three weeks), we were all ready to leave the snow. Ari had had it up to here with the snow pants and jacket. His mittens wouldn't stay on and he couldn't move with all the padding. He's not used to that. He's used to going outside, unencumbered, anytime he likes (well, anytime I like). He's, well, he's soft. Southern California soft. Crap. Now, I've always been soft...don't like the cold...but I didn't want to raise my kids that way. Huh.

Anyhow, we've been back for a few days now and "Wendy's Got Her Groove Back" so it's time to update the blog. Not much else to report other than it smells like eucalyptus and pepper trees with a hint of jasmine outside, it's perpetually in the 50s and 60s, usually sunny and there's a 10 minute drive to the beach. Now if that's not an advertisement for come visit over the next 3 months, I don't know what is.

Happy '08 and love to you all!

Rhett Butler in the house

We have a charmer on our hands.

This charmer likes to infiltrate the very large CD/DVD wall rack in our living room. It has a child fence barricade around it - for obvious reasons. CDs and DVDs present a pandora's box of attractive off-limitness and endless possibilities for "sorting" and "fingerprinting". Ari also likes to select a CD, carry it to the player and proceed to play the damn thing. All this compliments of my mother who, in her grandma joy over the holidays, painstakingly showed Ari how to operate their CD player (which has the added bonus of lighting up in a lovely shade of blue...ours does not light up).

But I digress...this barricade worked just fine for 5 months. Kept Ari out. Kept Sascha's meticulous alphabetizing in order. Upon our return after the holidays, Ari discovered that he could move the barricade..."You mean it's not screwed to the wall? No shit!? Wish I'd've noticed this sooner."

Oh joy. For him.

Now, whenever it's a little too quiet in the living room, I know just what to call out, "I said no, Ari." And the delicate dance begins - I don't want to make a huge deal out of it and have it become a locking of horns, nor do I want to shirk discipline and boundaries. So I walk up to the little thief-behind-the-barricade, say "no" and ask him to put the CDs back. He shakes his head and hugs the CDs. I ask again and then I make him. He usually shrieks and goes stiff. I then proceed to drag him back to the honest side of the barricade and shove it back up against the wall. I think it's become a locking of horns anyhow.

This happens at least three times a day.

Until this afternoon.

I managed to catch him before he entered the danger zone, as his hand was on the fence. I shook my head and said no and came over to sit down next to him. Choosing a new approach, he smiled dazzlingly at me and reached out with both his hands to pat me on the shoulders. Hard not to smile at that but I managed a poker face. He tried to move the fence again. I said no. He let go of it and gave me a hug and then touched my nose. "Yes, Ari, that's my nose, thank you." He giggled. All the while smiling like a con man, practically batting his eyelashes. He made another attempt. Another no from me. Another nose touch and then a stream of babble that gave the impression he was trying to explain why it would be good for me to allow him back there. Then a nose touch, a cheek pat and a touch to my hair. By this time, I couldn't stop laughing. Where on earth did he learn this stuff? Certainly not from his father and most definitely not from me. Sesame Street maybe? I knew Elmo was up to no good...

Finally, brilliance struck and I said excitedly, "Ari! Where are your toys?!" He pointed just as excitedly and we moved on to destroying block buildings. CDs forgotten. Thank God.

So, I'm wondering if this little gift of his will continue on through life or if it'll deflate when we move the CDs to a safer location. Not quite sure which option would be preferable. On the one hand, it's awfully cute at 15 months. On the other hand, a gift like that could land him in prison...or shacked up with a sugar mamma...in 25 years.

Or maybe he'll just really rock in sales some day.

Merry Amoxicillin

What's Christmas without a little antibiotic?

Yep. That about sums it up.

It's before 7a.m. I'm up and definitely not going back to bed until this Alieve kicks in. Ari and I flew into Detroit last Friday, stayed with friends over the weekend, picked up a pathogen somewhere in there and have been squaring off with it all week. It finally won yesterday (Sascha's first day reunited with us) and we had to take Ari into MedExpress for some antibiotics. Bronchiitis and pink eye for Ari. Wretched sore throat and potential bronchiitis/pink eye for me. Merry Christmas, baby.

Despite intense exhaustion and because I can't sleep without extreme pain, I thought I'd fire up the old blog and sit down with a nice cup of Chamomile (unfortunately, coffee makes my throat feel like hamburger), and record some thoughts.

So here I sit, on The Day, battling oncoming bronchiitis. This Day has the added bonus of landing on a Sunday, the Actual Day (not everyone will understand this and that's okay). Here are some included bonuses...It took two hours last night to bring down a 103 degree fever and, after battling fever all day, Ari's understandably pooped. Last I heard, there's a storm coming in from the West (where the rest of our family is coming from today). And my brother may be stuck in L.A...or Chicago. We're not sure yet. And so, our annual 12/23 Observation and Guinness Glass Lift to Matt may have to be held in Saginaw. Perhaps sans a few family members. Well, poop. As long as they all arrive safely...

Clearly, I'm not thrilled. And to top it off, someone else is living in our house...the one in Ann Arbor. Yes, I am aware that we sold it - and one aspect of selling a home is that a stranger then occupies said home. I get that on a cognitive level...it's just the emotional level that's f-ing me up right now. I made the mistake of doing a drive-by while I was in town last weekend. All the lights were blazing and the shades were open and I could see quite a bit. The new owners painted a hallway. I wasn't too insulted at that, not everyone is as brave with color as I. However, they had the absolute nerve to replace the lovely green glass lampshade in the kitchen. I loved that thing. It was one of the only things we kept after the remodel. Now it's probably wasting away in a recycling center or, God forbid, in the trash. I hate them, the new owners. Just because of that. But it's their house, not mine...even on December 23.

So what does one do? Shed some tears and move ahead. You accept that life changes. The Way I Want Things isn't always going to be and you can't force new circumstances into an old mold. Such is life. You've got to ride with the current or you're going to be left behind, swirling in the rock and sand, bitter and dissapointed. And the last thing I want to be is bitter and dissapointed. This world doesn't really have time or space for that. And rightly so. Dwell, if you must, for a while (and believe me, I did). Muse. Figure it out. Reconfigure. Work your way through it. Bit by bit. But at some point you've gotta just move ahead and say, "Wahoo". "When was the last time you said Wahoo?" (Bonus points if someone comments with the movie from which this quote is taken.)

I hope Matt understands that trekking to Ann Arbor for his Anniversary today is kind of out of the question. I'm sure he does. I hope his family knows that I love them, if The Great Germ Battle prevents me from calling them. I hope today passes peacefully. And I hope everyone else facing a Day this season finds peace as well.

So here's to 2008...it'll be a Wahoo kind of year.

Record Waves Today

They've reported up to 19 foot swells today. I guess it's a winter thing. So I headed over to the beach, lucked out with a parking spot, and took some footage. I guess you can't really tell from the video how big they are. Obviously. Just take my word for it. Pretty big.


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here's a picture...

Parenting

Today's highlights...

I haven't had any coffee yet today, not to mention a shower. Ari finally is down for his nap, 2 hours late (postnote: which lasted 40 minutes). The dishwasher is still full from last night's wash. Today's dishes are piled by the sink. Our cooking utensils are strewn on the floor and tucked into various corners throughout the kitchen...Ari's hiding spots. A box of colored pencils has exploded, compliments of Ari, all over the office and the contents of the trash can have been "categorized" on the floor next to the desk. The house smells like a deep fryer from last night's Hannakuh latkes and every window is open. I have a Cheerio stuck to my sock, black handprints on my sweatshirt...and something sticky in my hair. I think it's applesauce.

It's 3:14 p.m.

I'm not sure where things went wrong today. Perhaps it was the lack of early a.m. caffeine or perhaps it was the doughnut (oh scurge of the breakfast world) I ate at the Saturn dealership instead of breakfast. Maybe it was due to stopping at the beach on the way home to see the record winter waves...which threw off our schedule and let Ari get a 20 minute snooze in before his official naptime.

Or maybe it's just Wednesday.

Tired momma that I am, I was going to crash myself after the bugger went down. But I decided to brew a pot (for which I will certainly be up until 2 am) and get some words out instead. Sometimes, when you're drained beyond words...words are what you need to regain your energy. Some of you out there will get that. High five to the writers in the crowd.

Which brings me back to my chosen subject today. Parenting. I am such a novice. Sascha and I are finding that we must actually parent now. It's a verb, parenting. Discipline. Leading by example. Being firm. Trying not to actually yell "stop" at the top of your lungs (at which I failed today). For the first year, our primary job was to keep him alive and try to avoid an attachment disorder that could possibly land him in prison one day. Now, it's pro-active stuff. And he knows how to communicate "no" and use his legs to run away. Exhausting.

Sometimes my breath is knocked out of me when I consider the enormity of the commitment we've made here. I mean, this is forever. This is life. This is another human being with a personality and preferences all his own, dependent upon me 24/7 to care for him and lead the way and make sure he eats his vegetables (which he doesn't). I mentioned this "breath-knocked-out-of-me" phenomena to a dear friend the other day. She has two kids and knows all too well what I'm talking about. She replied to my wonder with, "Yeah, I try not to think about it."

Good choice.

I don't know. Frequently I feel that I'm in over my head (to our dear parents: this is not a call for help, I'm not losing it, it's just random musing). And I know almost every other new parent feels the same way. For example, today I learned that we have a biter on our hands. Lately, if I don't pick up the cat bowls first thing in the morning, Ari's sees fit to quickly and surrepticiously eat any leftover kibble. So, when I see this happen, I go swooping in with the old Mommy Index Finger to rid his baby mouth of said kibble. He HATES this. Gets so mad. Today, he bit back. Just clamped right down on my finger, hard. Then, after I pried my finger out of his mouth, he clamped down on my hand. I still have the mark from that one. What the...? From whom did he learn this??

So. How does one handle this? After an incredibly firm-yellish "no bite" from me, he walked about 4 feet away and hung onto the scratching post (notice a cat theme here) while I stared long and hard at him. Silently. We sat like that for about a minute. Me staring with displeasure. Him whimpering, stepping back and forth over the scratching post and glancing at me every once in a while. Then he started walking towards me...then apparently thought better of it and circled back around to his standoff position. After a moment, he plastered a huge grin on his face and walked over to me with his arms out in hug position. Like Jesus, welcoming a wayward lamb to his fold. I don't know if he was asking for forgiveness or giving it. Still not sure.

So this has been our day. Oy. And I didn't even mention the epic tantrums he's been perfecting. Although I hear from friends that that's pretty normal as well. Ah. One year old. And I thought it was "The Terrible Twos".

I guess that's about it for now. Sascha's home. And I'm taking a Moment for Sanity's Sake to finish my coffee and this blog before we head out for dinner. Yes, I've boycotted cooking tonight. Mom needs a burger and a beer. Let's just see Ari throw Red Robin's macaroni and cheese on the floor for a change. Luckily, he's cute.

Sticky-haired mom, out.