Date night and Family dinner

And so now that I'm done with my little rant, I'll get back to the good stuff.

Without elaborating, I really must get another job. This job is making me crazy and I just don't seem to click with the people that I really need to be clicking with in order to have a better work experience.

So after last Thursdays fun, I had to go and work the night shift on Thursday night. It was the worst day I've ever had at any job. My coworkers mother died unexpectedly and it was so incredibly heartbreaking that I was basically unable to function for the entire evening. Then there was a sick call and a scheduling snafu on Friday morning, so I ended up not being able to leave until 9am on Friday. There was so much cleaning up to do at the house that I only got a couple of hours of sleep and then had to run around like crazy to get the place picked up before Emmett's Mom arrived for the ball game. Once she got there, I was racing around to get ready so that I could get back to work by 6pm. I was 18 minutes late, which is something I REALLY don't need right now, since I'm already having so many problems at work. I got home that night at 3am and finally managed to get some rest.

I slept in until almost 10am on Saturday. Once I finally got up we all got ready and went to the farmer's market. I took care of Tommy, who was running around like a crazy child while Emmett and his Mom did the shopping. It was actually pretty fun. Thomas seemed more interested in running around than grabbing the veggies and throwing them. He tried to do that a couple of times and I managed to stop him before any damage was done. After the shopping was done, we walked to Bell market and picked up a few more things before walking home. It was nice to get out and do some walking. After we got home , the Giants game was on TV, so that meant that Emmett and his Mom would be glued to the TV for the afternoon, while Tommy napped. I watched the game with them for a while and read the newspaper and before I knew it it was time to get ready to go out on our big date.

I wore a black dress with spaghetti straps and a sheer black top over it, along with my good wool winter coat as it was pretty chilly and (in California) it always gets very cool after the sun goes down. Emmett wore my favorite blue shirt, he looks so good in it the way it reflects his blue eyes, and nice black dress slacks. He looked great and I felt good about what a handsome couple we were, aside from my fatness that is. arrrgghhh

We went to this incredible Argentinian steakhouse. It was out of this world. I never knew that steak could be a sensual experience like chocolate or strawberries and champagne, but IT CAN!! It practically melted on the tongue, I swear. We brought our own wine and then corked it for us. It was a perfect compliment to the steak. We had empanadas for appetizer and side dishes of potatoes ( mashed for me and roasted for em), but those were just filler after we tasted the steak. Mouth watering. Amazing. Yummm!! I'm getting hungry again just thinking about it. We had chocolate bomba for dessert, which we split. It was also mouth watering, like a gigantic chocolate truffle but with mousse inside it and surrounded by layers of raspberry syrup. mmmmmmmmm it was SOOO good!

After dinner we walked slowly back to the car and talked. It's nice after you've been with someone for so long you can just be comfortable and talk and be so relaxed. We were both sort of at loose ends for what to do next, it was still pretty early, but too late to go down to the south bay to my friend's housewarming party and too late to go to a movie. So we drove around the city for a while and talked and then went home a little on the early side and hung out with Emmett's mom for an hour or so before all of us went to bed.

On Sunday everybody left me. Emmett's Mom left early and Emmett left to go on a 17 mile run. He did great! I really am so proud of him, I just wish he weren't so dern tired all the time. After he got back it was time to get ready and go over to Emmett's dad and stepmother's house for dinner for our birthdays. We had a great visit. Tommy was a little bit rambunctious (more even than usual) and I had to give him several time-outs, but he took them well and seemed like it helped a little bit. He refused to eat any dinner and made a huge mess at the table. I was pretty embarassed, but we got it cleaned up and gave him time out (yet again!) and just tried to move him into another area and/or find something to capture his attention. The food was (as always) absolutely incredible - Emmett's dad and stepmom really know how to put on a spread, I'll tell ya!! The appetizer was deep fried tomato slices that were made into a kind of sandwich with smoked salmon, basil mayonnaise, and argula. So good! The main entree was halibut with a delicious vegetable couscous on the side which was also amazing. For dessert there was a tiramisu-like cake from a very high-end bakery, marinated pears (which were heavenly) and raspberries with a mixture of high end white soft cheeses lightly sweetened to dip them in. To top all that off, they opened up a bottle of Dom Perignon, which I have been wanting to try for like 20 years, every since I first heard of it. It was very good, but my tastes are just not there I guess for champagne, because it was as incredible as I thought it should be for $100 per bottle (just being honest, not to sound ungrateful). I was totally stoked to finally try it!!

By this time we were just so stuffed and it was time to get on the road as it was past Tommy's bedtime. Emmett and I hung out for a little while longer and then headed up to bed ourselves.

And that was the weekend. I think I'll wait to recap the week until tomorrow or later tonight. There's not all that much to say, so we'll see...but I will have to recap some of Thomas's latest developments then.

Love,
Melissa

Marriage question...arrrggghhhh!

Sorry about the abrupt cut off last time...but as you know, when Tommy calls, I have to go. I also am trying to not shove his breakfast in his face and turn on the TV every morning to give myself a few extra minutes of computer time (although I must admit that is exactly what I am doing today).

I have a little rant for the day -
People keep asking, especially now that we are "offcially" planning to have more children, when Emmett and I are going to get married. I must admit I am terribly sick of that question. I mean, how do people expect me to respond to this? The truth is that I would love to get married at this point, but Emmett takes the whole marriage thing EXTREMELY seriously and wants it to be something completely separate from our roles as Thomas's parents. The inherent problem is that there is no way, of course, to separate our roles as Tommy's parents from the rest of our lives, and so we are kind of stuck at this point. I cannot hog tie him and force him to the alter, and I wouldn't want to even if I could. I basically pushed Jon into marrying me and I'm not interested in doing that again. If he wants to marry me at some point, great, and if he doesn't then there doesn't seem to be a whole hell of a lot I can do about it. I'm just happy that for all intents and purposes we are a family and plan to stay that way for the forseeable future. And I guess there is a part of me that respects Emmett's viewpoint. I'd much rather have him take this seriously and wait than jump in without a care. I waited nearly two years for Emmett to say "I love you," and when he did I knew that he really meant it and therefore it meant more to me coming from his mouth than it did from any other man that I've ever known. Okay, enough about that. I just wanted to get that off my chest.

Er, I think that Tommy's Elmo tape just clicked off, so I'll be back to write more in a couple of hours after he goes down for his nap.

Love,
Melissa

Coyote Point Museum and St. Vincent de Paul

And so it goes...

I left off with last Thursday. The Coyote Point Museum was cool. We didn't make it in time for the fox or otter feedings which was kind of a bummer, but I decided we needed to make an effort to go anyway. It was worth it - all in all Tommy is a little young for it, some of the stuff is more geared towards older children and they don't have anything that is specifically geared towards toddlers. They have a Toddler Tuesday twice per month, but based on what I've read about that, even that doesn't seem truly geared towards a young 2 year old. Still, there were things that Thomas definitely enjoyed. He liked the bee/honey making exhibit and got a big laugh out of the my saying that bees go "bzzzzzzz", that sound makes him laugh. We walked around a bit more inside the museum, but pretty much everything inside was just too old for him. There were these metal dinosaur molds and the idea was to put a piece of paper over them and then rub a crayon across them and you get this cool dinosaur picture to take home, but Thomas couldn't hold the crayon on it's side, his hands aren't that dextrous yet, so it was frustrating for him. Although they had lots of exhibits that were aimed at children, generally he is still a bit short for those and I still had to hold him up a bit so that he could see them. They have a fish exhibit that he really liked as well, and even a little bench thing that the kids can crawl up on so that they can see better, but Tommy tripped getting down and fell on the hardwood floor. He wasn't hurt, but it kind of emphasized the point for me that the museum will be a better place for him when he is a bit older.

[The thing is this: most of these kinds of places (zoo, museums, etc.) offer memberships. Basically you pay one price for the whole year and you can go for free as many times as you want. I think that it would be fun to have a membership somewhere to encourage us to go a lot - but I want it to be somewhere that will continue to be interesting after the 100th visit - haha - and also somewhere where there will be lots of opportunity for learning. The Coyote Point museum has lots of cool events like storytime and environmental workshops for little kids and that makes it an attractive choice. It's also a pretty easy drive from where we live. But I think I'll wait at least another year before buying a membership there. Right now I think the zoo would be a better choice - he definitely seemed to get a lot out of that experience. The other issue is that it's going to start getting colder soon and there will be a lot less opportunity for outdoor activities.]

After we were done inside the museum we went outside. They have a large outside area with live animal exhibits that is pretty nice. Tommy always enjoys these. They had a species of small owls and Tommy kept saying "baby owl", which I thought was cute. They had a coyote (those things always give me the creeps!), a golden eagle, some ravens (again, creepy!), fox, several species of snakes, a large aviary that was kind of fun because he could get out and walk around and it also had turtles and fish which he likes, skunk, raccoon, fox, porcupine, a bobcat, and an otter which was sleeping while we were there. Tommy got a kick out of the animal exhibits and I enjoyed them as well, although many of the mammels were sleeping or in places in their enclosures where you couldn't see them. Maybe one day over the next couple of weeks I will take him to the Oakland Zoo so that we can check that out. Also, when it gets colder I want to take him to the Exploratorium. When Jeanine (Emmett's sister) took her daughter and her daughter's friend there over Labor Day weekend she said that they have a toddler area now that Tommy would probably enjoy.

All in all it was a fun experience at the Coyote Point museum. We were there a couple of hours and that seemed to be enough, which has it's benefits as well. Sometimes its nice to go somewhere where you are not going to be gone 8 hours at a time to see the whole thing.

Since the museum is in San Mateo, which is about 10 miles south of my house, I decided we might as well go a little be farther and go back to the St. Vincent de Paul resale shop that is right by where I used to live in Redwood City. That place is the BEST resale shop I have seen, and by now, believe me, I have been to a fair number of resale shops. The merchandise is several notches above the Goodwill or Salvation Army because it's all in *great* condition, but it's better than Savers or some of the other resale shops because the prices are so INCREDIBLY low. I'm just going to have to make a point to go there every couple of months and stock up on clothes for Tommy because here in the Bay area where everything is so outrageously expensive, it really is the last bastian of great deals. I bought Thomas 7 books for $4, including an Elmo/Sesame Street book that he is just crazy about and a small board book version of Goodnight Moon which is his favorite story overall. I bought Thomas a bunch of designer clothes - almost all of them were Gap, Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, etc. - in nearly perfect condition, and I didn't pay more than $2.50 for any individual piece. In fact, I got a wonderful pair of blue cordoroy pants that are like new, Ralph Lauren, for $1. As I said, it was amazing. You still have to pick through a lot because they are not sorted by size at all, all the children's clothes are just heaped in one area of the store, but the thing is that none of the clothes are in crappy condition, so you don't have to examine them for missing buttons or stains like you do at other resale shops.

Oopps, gotta run...Tommy's awake.

More later,
Melissa

Birthday reflections

Ahh, another birthday down and I've finally caught up to my friends who have been 33 for awhile now. :-) This one was not a big deal. Emmett said he kind of struggled with 33 because it sort of marks that transition between early 30's and mid 30's but for me it's just not that big of a deal. I think for me it has a lot more to do with where I am in life when these birthdays hit. Right now I feel pretty good about what's happening and where our future lies. I'm finally (at long last) getting my financial picture together. It's going to be a long haul and will take a long time, but I finally feel that I'm definitely on the right track since all of my bills are either paid or being paid monthly and I have a savings account that has >$10 in it haha. As I said, it will be a long recovery both from the feeling in my 20's that I needed to live for the moment and squeeze everything out of it (something I must admit I do not regret all that much) and the year off work for both Emmett and I when Tommy was born that so depleted our resources.

Anyway, I am now officially 33 years old. I can remember turning 22 right after I started working and POH and saying that I was still 21 - that after 21 I didn't need to have anymore birthdays. It is scary getting older and knowing that you can't go back and be young and youthful again or go back and do anything differently, etc. But it's nice to have 33 years of life experiences. I look at the first 2 1/2 years that I was in California and it was such an amazing time of pain, growth, delirious freedom, exploration, new experiences, romantic pain, romantic joy...I'm so grateful for that time and all the lessons I learned. I can't imagine where I would be right now if I hadn't had the strength and determination to do that for myself. It's because of all of that that I could embrace the unexpected pregnancy with Thomas and the transition in life from 'it's all about me' to 'it's all about him' because I did have my time and I utilized it to the fullest extent. Of course, I could have done more, had more experiences, but I think it's good to have had Thomas while I was still relatively young. I'm happy with things overall. I need to find a new job before I go completely mad, but that's small potatoes compared with some of the strife that I've faced.

Yesterday was an okay day. I spent too much time on the phone and the result was that that there wasn't enough time to do the things with Thomas that I wanted to do. By the time I was done talking to all the friends and relatives it was time for Thomas's nap and by the time he woke up - er, actually I had to go upstairs and wake him up - it was 3pm. So I did take him out and we went shopping, but given that he had no real exercise in the morning, he wasn't particularly receptive to sitting in the stroller all afternoon. We went to Ross and I bought him three shirts and an outfil in size 3t since he is wearing 2t now and will soon outgrow them. From there we went and got my car washed - it was filthy! Across the street from the car wash is Jack in the Box and I treated myself to a real ice cream milkshake - yummy!! (and oh so naughty haha). After that we went to the mall and I bought some books (1 on keeping your toddler busy, it's a book of activity ideas that I desperately need for days when I'm home with Tommy, and another animal book for Thomas), then went to Gymboree and bought Thomas this really cool warm up jacket that looks like something Emmett would wear and it was on sale for only $7. I took a look around Children's Place but didn't see anything I liked. I didn't dare go into Macy's or Nordstrom for fear I WOULD see something I liked. :-) So we headed home and go there 5 minutes ahead of Emmett who was running late.

He walked in the door looking so wonderful. He always looks so hot in his business suits that I am reminded how lucky I am to have such a handsome partner. Of course, the dozen long stemmed red roses in his hand complete with baby's breath and ferns, didn't hurt matters. :-) :-) Happy birthday to me! He was too tired to barbeque which was our original plan, so the three of us went to this VERY casual restaurant called Gunters and had dinner. It was fun, an appropriate place to have Thomas and they had the Giant's game on which was also nice. The Giant's won on my birthday which made me happy. After dinner we stopped at Safeway for a few items and then went home.

At home I opened my cards and presents. Fun! We put Thomas to bed and still had a couple of hours left over to watch the last of the baseball game and talk a little bit. A good day. Pretty mellow.

Today I'm hoping to get Thomas out of the house early and take him to the Coyote Point museum. They have animal feedings at 11:30 and 12, so we will have to be pretty speedy this morning.

Well, better sign off for now. Hope everyone out there is well.

Love,
Melissa

Happy Birthday to Me :-)

So here goes, the latest and greatest from the Buckingham-Nolan household.

I'll start back with last Thursday since that's where I left off. After having such a wonderful day at the zoo on Wednesday, I knew that I had better be a little more productive on Thursday. We got up and I let Thomas watch Sesame Street while I folded some clothes and put another load in the washer. My goal that day was to have a reasonable balance between spending time with Thomas and getting some housework done - this is a very difficult task for someone as black and white as I am - I either want to clean the entire house from top to bottom or I want to focus on spending as much time as possible with my son. It is very hard to strike a happy medium with both.

After breakfast time, Thomas and I spent some time together until it was time for his nap. While he was napping I ran around like a maniac picking up the house, vacuuming the rug, and doing the dishes. After those things I started making dinner, since I was making a tuna casserole I could get everything done ahead of time. Plus, I had to leave for work at 5:30pm, so I wanted to be sure the food was ready for the boys when I left. Thomas got up from his nap and I had to find things to entertain him so that I could finish up the tuna casserole. Then I took a quick shower and got ready for work. My hope was that we would have an hour or two left over at the end so that we could go for a long walk in the stroller and go to the park so he would have some time to play. This didn't happen, because by the time I got everything done we only had about 1/2 hour left, so we went for a short walk. Thomas is so curious right now that a short walk isn't all that much fun for me because he wants to go up on everyone's porches and sit down on their stairs and all kinds of things. If I can get him to walk past two houses I have accomplished something. I would have taken him the stroller, but he didn't seem to want to go in the stroller and I do think it's important not only for me to get exercise but also for him to get plenty of exercise, especially at this age. I have noticed that he is much more manageable when he has gotten lots of exercise and is a little bit tired out. It is just difficult to find safe places where he can and will run around. He's still a bit small for a lot of the playground equipment. The pool is wonderful, but our weather is such that it's not warm enough quite often for swimming.

I went to work and worked my first 6pm-2am shift. It went very well overall. I really like the shift because there is no daycare needed, Emmett and I can pass Thomas off at the front door. And I get a full day with Thomas before I have to leave as opposed to the 4-12 shift, where I only get until 1pm when he goes down for his nap. By the time he gets up I usually am in an all-out race to get out the door by 3pm to get to work on time. The only hard part with the 6pm shift is that at 11pm you look at the person working next to you and realize that they only have 1 more hour to go and they get to go home and you have a full 3 hours left to work! Yuck! Also, I get a lot less sleep, of course, because I still have to get up at 7:30 the next morning, even though I've gone to bed at 3am. That didn't seem as bad, though, for some reason. I was sleepy, but it was manageable. It will probably be a lot less manageable when I have to several of those in a row, but for now it was fine.

I don't remember anything significant about Friday. Olga has made us commit to having Thomas at the daycare a minimum of 2 full days, so I took Thomas early, even though I didn't have to go to work until 4pm. I was intending to go home and get more sleep, but ended up reading a book for most of the rest of the time I was home. Work was good, I worked in registration, so that's always a little bit easier.

Saturday morning Emmett was doing a run so I had to get up with Tommy. I was a little bit upset about this because I forgot and so I stayed up really late reading that book the night before and ended up only getting a few hours of sleep. I was pretty cranky. I brought Thomas in the bedroom with me and let him run around our room for a while and play. One of the nice things about the fact that our bed is on the floor (can't fit a box spring up the narrow staircase of this old house and the window is WAY to small to fit it, so we have no box spring, which means we can't use the frame either. This results in us sleeping on a mattress on the floor. I wanted to get a split box spring so that we could rejoin the rest of the world on a normal bed, but Emmett thought he would be claustrophobic because he would be too close to the ceiling if we were on a regular bed since the ceiling over our bed is sloped. It's kind of hard to explain.) is that Thomas can run around and jump on our mattress and generally have a great time without fear of falling off the bed or hitting a headboard.

After a while we went downstairs because Thomas wanted to eat. He says, "Eat. I eat!" whenever he's hungry. He's starting to also voice a preference for what he wants to eat, which is cool, even if we don't always give it to him. This morning he wanted rice for breakfast. I probably could have just given him the rice, but since he'll probably be eating rice for lunch I wanted to give him some Cheerios for breakfast. He always loves Cheerios! He says, "yummmm". :-)

I've got to speed this up now. Sesame Street and Teletubbies are over and the boy is loose and likely to get himself into all kinds of trouble.

Emmett went to the farmer's market, thank God, so we finally have the good bread, and some fresh fruits and vegetables in this house.

[It's a little bit later now and I just put Thomas down for his nap. Poor boy hasn't had any fun today, basically been placated all day so that I can be on the phone with various friends and relatives.]

Anyway, Emmett finally got home from doing all his errands and I got a little bit of a break. I didn't get a whole lot of time, though, and all too soon it was time to go to work. Work was super busy, but at least I was working with someone who is good to work with, very easygoing.

Sunday. We got up fairly early [still no sleeping in for me!] and got ready and headed over to the flea market that I've been wanting to go to since we moved in, but never have managed to find the time or the inclination to actually DO it. It's in the same place as the farmer's market is on Saturday. It's pretty small, but lots of really good stuff, not so much like those 6 pair of socks for $1 (Emmett's words) type flea markets where all the stuff is the worst quality imaginable. No, this was more like antiques and various odds and ends but mostly high quality stuff and lots of unique things. I saw a wonderful wing back chair that I really wanted to buy (only $40 and it was antique, not reproduction, and newly reupholstered) but we only brought $13 with us to stop us from spending too much. Emmett found a gorgeous antique kitchen chest thingy that was from the 19th century, really nice, for about $500. We bought a couple shirts for Thomas (50 cents each) and some books (also 50 cents each) and that was about it. It was a fun experience and Emmett and I had some really good conversations on the way there and back.

After we got back, Emmett ran 16 miles and Thomas took a nap. I tried to lay down, but by the time I got down Thomas was back up. I went into his room to convince him to go back to sleep and after a 1/2 hour or so he did lay back down and we both napped in his room for another 1/2 hour or so before it was time for me to get up and get ready for work again. Emmett got home about 3:31, so RIGHT before I needed to leave, and I headed out for my 4th day in a row of working. Yuck!

The night at work was busy and I worked with this woman who is super high-strung, which is never fun because I was very tired and being around her just exacerbates the situation.

Also on Sunday I had gotten a call from a coworker who asked me to work for him on Monday, so Monday morning I was back up and rolling to get back to work again, 10am-6pm. I came home on Monday and made Uncle Cosmo's Greek Chicken, it was really yummy. Chicken breasts stuffed with a combination of feta cheese, lemon juice and oregano. Then simmer them in a broth of water, chicken bouillion (sp?), fresh spinach, and tomatoes. I served this on a bed of rice that I seasoned with saffron. It was very yummy! The only thing I will do differently next time is to buy some fresh oregano, I used the dried spice and I think I also used too much of it because the flavor wasn't quite as good as it could have been.

I was finally off yesterday after working 5 whole days in a row - you can imagine that I don't get TOO much sympathy from Emmett on this haha. Yesterday I did a little bit of clean up and spent some time working with Tommy and playing with Tommy. We did a 'battle of the animals' with his little plastic animals to see who would win. I think I was having more fun with it than he was and it definitely got Emmett's attention because after Tommy went to bed we had this long discussion/debate about the battle of the animals and which animals would be strong on what things and how much alligators weigh and how much Siberian tigers weigh. It was very fun and funny and one of those great moments in a relationship that are very light-hearted and yet we both learned. I had no idea that an alligator could weigh up to 2200 pounds and Emmett had no idea that a tiger could weigh up to 700 pounds. So we both learned something from each other. :-) I voted for the tiger to win the battle of the animals and in the end I think that Emmett conceded that it would probably win at least in the absence of the elephant. The elephant figurine was missing, so he felt that would change the outcome, I'm still unconvinced. I think the tiger trumps all! Anyway, we had fun with it.

Except that all that kept up us up till almost 11pm, so I wasn't going to get as much sleep as I wanted. Oh well....it was worth it.

I slept in a little bit today, didn't get up until Tommy work me around 8:30am. I have talked to Grandma B., Mom, Doug, Henry and Emmett (who sang a very sweet song to me over the phone).

I'm still deciding what to do with the afternoon...will recap that tomorrow.

Signing off now,
Love,
Meliss
a

Tommy's first joke!

I'm going to keep this short, since this is a rare evening post - I always hate to waste ANY of my family time - I'm so terribly possessive of that time, but I guess that's a good thing. Sometimes we DO learn from our past mistakes, haha.

Anyway, I'll catch up with the rest of last six days or so tomorrow morning (hopefully!) although Thomas has been getting up before 8am lately. This is a bad thing because it definitely shortens my morning time to myself, but it's a good thing because it means that he's not so exhausted on mornings when he has to go to daycare. I have read that it is normal at this age to start sleeping a little bit less. He's now sleeping about 11 - 11.5 hours at night and taking anywhere from 1-3 hours of nap during the day, so he's still on the high side of normal.

Today he made his first joke! He and I were going through the flashcards together. Each one has a letter on one side and a picture on the other side that depicts something that begins with that letter, 'a' on one side and then picture of an apple on the other side, for example. Anyway, we got all the way to the end and the last card was 'z' for 'zebra'. Tommy said 'zebra' and wanted to keep that card. A few minutes later he still had the card in his hand and he said "horsey".

I said, "nooo, zebra."
He said, "horsey."
"Zebra."
"Horsey."
"Thomas, it's a zebra."
"No. Horsey."
Finally, he wore me down. I said, "Fine, Thomas, whatever. You're right. Horsey."
What do you think he said?
Yup, you guessed it. "Zebra," and laughed.

Is this normal? I was so surprised. It's hard to explain, but it was very clear that he knew from the start of the conversation what he was doing. Sometimes that child really freaks me out and I just don't know what to think of it. He's a strange one, that kid. Strange and wonderful.

I'll write more about our day together today and the latest tomorrow. Right now it's off to spend the last hour of the day with my love.

Good night,
Melissa

Tommy and Mommy go to the ZOO!

I can't believe I forgot to bring the camera....ARRRGHHH!!

But anyway...

For those of you who have read a few of these blog entries, you can begin to see the recurring theme in how I always start them...you can say it along with me if you like...."I have to make this quick because I don't know how much longer Tommy will be sleeping." There. Now that we have that out of the way....

Yes, yesterday I took Thomas to the zoo. With three and half days off in a row (I don't have to be at work tonight until 6pm) I have vowed to make sure that Tommy and I got to do something fun together this week...something more than just going to the park or going for a walk, although we both always enjoy those things. The weather has been so nice, though, that I'm waiting until it gets colder to do things like children's museums and those kinds of things that can be done indoors. I'm also wondering if he is old enough yet to like going to the movies. I was thinking of taking him to a movie where it's aimed at children and Moms during the day. That way he won't be disturbing anyone else's viewing experience.

As usual, I am digressing. When I woke up yesterday the weather looked really good. So after Thomas got up, I got him his breakfast, got him dressed, and packed a bag with diapers, snacks, sandwich, multiple layers of clothing [since San Francisco has so many microclimates that it might be 20+ degrees colder 3 miles away from your house], sunscreen, bottles and water. We actually managed to get out the door by 10am, which is pretty good. I stopped to get a soda, since they charge about $3 or $4 for one at the zoo, withdrew some cash from the ATM, and we were on our way. It was a relatively cheap outing, too, since I had an Entertainment Book coupon for 50% off of my admission (bringing it to $5) and Thomas is still free until he turns 3. I did pay for parking (another $5), since I haven't gotten around to renewing my license plate tabs yet (tssk, tssk, I know - btw, they don't renew on your birthday here like they do in Michigan, they renew whenever you first licensed the car, so I've been remiss for a while, I'm embarassed to admit) and I didn't want to take a chance of getting a ticket while parking on the street. I'm just dreading going to the DMV because it takes about a half a day of standing in line (literally!) . I decided I'm going to do that at the same time as I renew my driver's license this year, so I only have to waste one day on the whole thing. In the meantime, I have to be a bit careful about parking because it's a $50 ticket if one of those damn meter maids sees that my plate is expired. I am not going to digress further on a rant about the price of tickets in San Francisco or about the DMV here which is so bad that about 1/4 of the cars that you see driving around have expired tabs, because NO ONE wants to wait in that long line so EVERYONE puts it off as long as possible.

But all of this has nothing to do with my wonderful day with Tommy, now does it? We got to the zoo about 10:45 or so. The first thing I showed him was the zebras and giraffes since they are very close to the entrance. He seemed a little unsure at that point, as though was having a hard time absorbing that those were the same animals as the ones he sees in book and the little figurines that he plays with.

Here, I will take just a moment to digress again. About a month or so ago, I may have already mentioned this, I bought Tommy a tube with these little tiny (about two inches or so) plastic wild animals. There are 12 of them: camel, elephant, lion, tiger, zebra, giraffe, alligator, hippo, rhino, panther, bear, and gorilla. He LOVES these things. He immediately learned what they all are, and much to my surprise has no trouble distinguishing between the similar ones like the rhino and the hippo. He plays with these things CONSTANTLY. He will arrange them all in a line and make a 'choo choo', he will spend time counting them in and out of their plastic tube, He will talk about them. Any game or interaction that you have with those animals and you have got that kid's attention. He is enthralled with these animals. So that is why I thought, oh, I'm going to be the hero of the day, SUPERMOM, when I take him to the zoo to see them all in person. hahaha

And so...I was a tiny bit disappointed with his initial lukewarm reaction. I needn't have worried. Once he saw the zebras and the giraffes he started saying, 'lion, lion', so I took him over to see the lions, but they were sleeping and it was hard to see them. Tommy pointed and said, 'lion sleeping', it was sooooo cute. Next we went and saw the elephants, and he seemed shocked at how big they were, but recognized them immediately. We went and saw the tigers next. This is actually a really cool display because one wall of the tiger enclosure is made of glass and they seem to like to hang out there, so you get incredibly close to the tigers, like about 3 or 4 inches away through the glass. There was a female and she was lying down and a male who was pacing sort of anxiously back and forth in front of the glass. Thomas was asking if they were Mommy and Daddy tigers, so I looked and little closer and pointed to the one that was pacing and said 'Daddy Tiger' and to the one lying down and said 'Mommy Tiger'. He repeated this several times, another outrageously cute moment.

We walked around a bit more and then I decided to take him to the Children's Zoo section figuring he could get down and run around a little bit more in there. First we did the little nature walk thing and he had a good time splashing in puddles and running around on the little trail. Then I took him on the other side where they had a "Birds of Prey" exhibit which was totally cool. He could get pretty close to the birds since they didn't have wings and just sort of sit on these perches about 6 feet or so from where you are standing. Of course, he liked the owl best, since he knows what those are also from a couple of his books. That's when he started wanting me to lift him up at every exhibit so that he could see better. I held him while he watched the owl. It was very vocal which was cool. I had Thomas make "whoooo whoooo" noises at it and he seemed to get a kick out of it when it made those noises alson. From there we checked out some turtles, where Thomas met a little boy that he decided to hug and kiss. Fortunately, most parents think his hugging and kissing are cute, so, as long as they seem okay, I let him give the children one hug and one kiss and then make him come along. Outside of that exhibit there was a sculpture of a turtle that was made for the children to play on. He loved that and I finally had to virtually drag him away from it. He kept climbing on and trying to ride it.

From there we went to the petting zoo. Frankly, he's a bit young for this exhibit, because he doesn't get act the way he should. He was a little rough with one of the sheep. And, at one point, they have these brushes so that the children can brush the goats, he threw his brush into the duck pond. Fortunately it floated, so I was able to reach in and grab it, but I was a little bit embarassed. It was a cool little farm area and he seemed to really like all the farm animals walking around. We were able to go into the barns and see the animals there and they had a horse and a cow and tons of roosters. There was lots of interesting information, but I couldn't read it because I needed to keep an eye on Thomas. Finally, I got him out of the petting zoo and took him to a shady spot where I fed him lunch and applied sunscreen, worried that I'd already waited too long, but he seems to not be burned today. Then we left the Children's zoo and headed over to the playground. I helped him swing on the swing and slide down the slide and we had a good time. After lunch and play I figured he'd be pretty tired, so I took him to the Leaping Lemur cafe and got him some milk and myself a hot dog and found a quiet little spot in an outdoor theater that they only use during the summer months. I thought I'd give him the bottle and then let him take a little nap there.

No luck with that. He was WAY too wound up for a nap. So I finished my hot dog and we got up and kept going. I should add here that I was very relieved that he seemed to be pretty cooperative whether sitting or walking. When he was walking he pretty much stayed with me and when he would run off I could call his name and he would turn around and look at me. I would say, 'come here' and he would say 'no' and I would starting counting '1....2...' and by the time I got to 2 he would start running back towards me. This was pretty reliable, so it made the whole day more manageable than I would have thought and WAY better than the last time that Emmett and I took him. The only really hard part was getting him into his stroller after he'd been walking around because he didn't want to be confined (of course).

We mosied over to the lions den again because they were feeding the big cats at 2pm. So we hung out at the cat house thing and waited for a while. It would have been great if there had been benches or something because I was getting a bit tired by then. No such luck. They did the big cat feeding and Tommy seemed to really like that because you're able to get pretty close to the lions and you can actually see them really well and about 10 feet away. One of the younger lions (19 month old female) was playing with this lion toy that was hanging and it was really fun to watch - like watching a 320 poung housecat playing with a cat toy, really and truly.
Tommy got a kick out of that and talked about 'lion toy'. Awwwww.

After the lions we walked around some more. We went to the new Africa exhibit which is very interesting, very nicely done, but still sort of in the process of opening. There will be more animals there eventually and the giraffe house is closed right while the giraffes get used to their new area. You can still see them outside. There are a family of gorilla females, sadly, the male of the family died earlier this year. I think he was the one that the UCSF doctors had operated on. We saw the ostriches and got a closer look at the zebras. From there we did another loop and looked at the koalas, kangaroos, polar bears, spectacled bear. Then we went into their tiny rainforest house and saw the anaconda and the alligator. I don't think Tommy saw or understood the anaconda, but he liked the alligator, which was actually a caiman, smaller than an alligator. From there we looked at rhinos. This one rhino seemed to like us because it followed us all along the width of it's enclosure as we walked by. Then we looked at the elephant again and hippo and the white rhino.

As you can imagine from this recap, by this time I was pretty wiped out. We got in the car at 4:45pm, so it was a FULL day at the zoo. I had been on my feet walking pretty much the whole day and spent a lot of the time hauling around Tommy (who weighs over 30 lbs) and trying to push the stroller at the same time.

We got in the car and drove home and I immediately started making dinner - stuffed pork chops mashed potato pancakes (? - do not try this at home! haha), and broccoli. It turned out to be a pretty yummy dinner and earlier than our usual time. We put Thomas to bed early, since he hadn't had any nap other than the 15 minute nap he took while we were driving home from the zoo.

Emmett and I laid on the couch and watched a National Geographic special on Mayan archaeology, it was great and reminded me of what a great trip I had to Belize and Guatemala back in 2000. I must get back there one of these days.

Well, better run and check on that boy. He's still a little bit congested, so I have him some Benedryl before his nap, hopefully it will keep him sleeping long enough for me to take a quick shower, haha.

Love,
Melissa

Tommy is sick!

As always, gotta make this quick, Tommy will be awake any moment now...

Sunday night was the night from hell. Tommy had some kind of illness, he's been congested for a while, but it seemed like something else was bothering him as well. About an hour or so after he went to bed he woke up in a complete and total meltdown. I haven't seen him like that since he was a little tiny baby - he screamed at the top of his lungs for almost 45 minutes. Both Emmett and I were trying so hard to comfort him and he alternated between clinging to us and then when we couldn't seem to help him, he would swing at us. He was completely out of control and nothing we could do would seem to help him or calm him. We gave him a bottle, but he threw it across the room. It was scary and sad and awful. I don't know even now what was hurting or why. At the time I was thinking of an ear infection because of the swim lesson on Saturday, but by Monday he didn't show any other symptoms or fever or anything. He still might have had some kind of ear problem because he did say to me while we were in the car on Sunday, "Mommy, owwwie ear". Anyway, it was awful. I was sitting there debating whether or not we would have to go to the emergency room when he finally cried himself into exhaustion and fell back to sleep.

He got up again a couple hours later and I got up and talked him through it. He got up a third time another hour or so later and I was so tired, debating with myself, 'I should get up. Emmett has to work tomorrow and I don't so I should be the one to get up. ' Then the other side saying, 'but you have to patient with him all day tomorrow, so Emmett should get up this time so that you can be rested to be with Tommy all day' In the end, that side won out and I nudged Emmett awake and asked him to get up with Thomas. Well, poor Emmett. He got the short end of the stick that time because Tommy had vomited all over his bed and Emmett had to clean everything up before he could come back to bed. The good news was that Tommy was so utterly and completely worn out from the vomiting and the crying and all that that he went right back to sleep and did not wake up again until 8:30 in the morning.

I decided to go extra easy on him yesterday. He seemed much better when he woke up in the morning, no fever or anything and his mood seemed much better. We watched Sesame Street and Teletubbies and played with blocks for a while. I had been planning to take him to the doctor's office, but he seemed so much better that I decided against it. [I think I forgot to mention that on Sunday night he had also been coughing and wheezing - another bout with his asthma. But we managed to give him two puffs on both his inhalers and it worked like a charm! The coughing stopped immediately and hasn't been back since - YAY - the wonders of modern medicine at work!!] After a while he said he wanted Simba - so I tried to put in the Lion King DVD which we hadn't yet watched, I thought it would be such a huge treat for him to see the cartoon that goes with the music that he loves. Well, we got about 1/2 hour into it and the dvd stopped working so I don't know if it's the dvd player or the dvd itself but it was SOO frustrating!! I think I was more into the show than Tommy and wanted to see it worse than he did, so I was completely frustrated!!! I never did get it fixed and that made me sort of cranky, although I know I should not have allowed it to.

Tommy took about a 3 1/2 hour nap yesterday, which was due in part to his illness and in part to the Benedryl that I put in his bottle to help with it. I slept about 2 hours of that and then tried to catch up with e-mails, etc. I also gave another go at trying to fix the Lion King, still didn't work. I don't know why I have such a hard time letting go of things - I'm so bullheaded sometimes!!! haha - no comments from the peanut gallery, please! :-)

After his nap I was in a big hurry to get out of the house because we need to get some groceries. Of course trying to rush with a toddler is never a good thing, so that just increased my frustration. I really wanted to walk to the grocery store to get some exercise (it's about 3/4 of a mile each way), but I knew that it would add some time to everything and then dinner would be late and Emmett would be upset, etc. etc. In the end I decided that Emmett would have to deal with it, because if I didn't get out and get some exercise and work off some of my frustration, we weren't going to have a very good night, anyway. So Tommy and I walked to Bell Market and picked up a few staples, like bread and milk and potatoes and walked back home and I felt much better afterwards. We gave Tommy some leftover pasta for dinner and then Emmett gave him a nice bath. After Tommy went to bed, Emmett and I had a yummy dinner of Rockin Oysters Rockefeller (yummy!!) that I made from the fresh oysters I bought on Sunday and also mashed potatoes and salads. It was a pretty good dinner.

To round out the evening, Emmett and I sat and read for about a half hour and then went to bed early. I love not having to go to work!

Well, better run. I need to check on Thomas and I want to get moving today so that he and I can go and do something really fun.

Love,
Melissa

Weds - Sat. Recap

Wednesday was a great day! After I wrote in the blog, I got Thomas up, gave him some breakfast and watched Elmo with him. I called the Brisbane Community Pool and found out that they had rec swim from 11:30am - 1:30pm, so I got him ready and we went to check it out. The weather was really hot, so it was a perfect day. At first Thomas was not interested at ALL in getting in the water, but I eventually managed to coax him in. He's so funny - it took like at least 15-20 minutes to convince him to get in the water and then once he got in the water is was nearly impossible to get him out!

The incredible thing was that he remembered the game that we played the last time we were in Florida in June!! Very strange, I didn't think 2 year olds had that good of a memory, but right away he wanted to get out of the pool and then have me hold his hands while he jumped in. Over and over again. It was really fun and so wonderful to see him laughing so much. I also made up another game where we counted while we marched out of the pool and then turned and marched back in. The simplest games keep him enthralled. He did that several times. I should add that the toddler pool was closed and so we were using the zero depth entry for handicapped people. It was cool and we had a really good time together. He saw something that made him think of Ernie the Sesame Street character. I could not for the life of me figure out what he was seeing but he kept pointing and saying 'Ernie, Ernie' - so finally I had to tell him that no, Ernie was not here, that Ernie was taking a nap. He seemed to accept this and we went back to playing, but the whole thing was sort of strange. Finally I got him out of the pool, with minimal fit throwing, got him changed and took him home for his nap. He took a pretty long nap and I was able to pick up the house a little bit and also check out some e-mails and pay my bills. I talked to Emmett and he said that he was going to come home early so I suggested that the three of us go back to the pool, since they have more rec swim from 4-7pm and normally Emmett would be home too late. He agreed.

It did start to cool off in the later afternoon, so I was concerned about whether or not Emmett would have fun in the pool, but he seemed to enjoy getting to play with Thomas for a while. Then he got cold (of course) and just sat on the side of the pool while Thomas and I played a little bit longer. Afterwards, we all went home and had dinner (don't remember now what we had).

Wednesday night I started a three day stretch of night shifts - and they were brutal!! Super-busy nights and I wasn't sleeping very well, and so was extremely cranky and tempermental.

By Saturday morning I was completely wiped out. I had been planning to go to Thomas's first swimming lesson and then to a lobster feed that one of Emmett's friends was throwing - all the lobster you can eat for free! Mmmmm MMmmmm But after the horrific night shifts I had worked I just decided to cancel all of it. Emmett took Thomas to his first swimming lesson. He said it went pretty well. Tommy had a tough time concentrating - he lost focus a couple of times and wanted to get in the lanes with the lap swimmers. Alternatively, he would look out the windows and see the people on the elliptical machines and yell "ahhh bike", "ahhh, bike". It is always going to be a challenge to keep this kid focused. I am going to trust Emmett's judgement on this - since he had ADHD and overcame it to not only finish high school and college with good grades, but he was accepted in both cases to prestigious private schools and received scholarships to both (scored top 5% of the nation on standardized tests). So I trust that he will get Thomas over his ADD hurdles.

Anyway, Thomas and Emmett had a good time at the swim lesson, they even practiced going underwater! Thomas seems to be getting more and more okay with that. I am happy that I will get to take him to the lesson next week and SO relieved that it went so well. Emmett said that there was one woman and child where the child never did get in the pool!

Afterwards, they came home and Tommy took a nap. After his nap the two of them went to the lobster feed while I slept. I got up around 4:30 and took the extra time to myself to relax, eat some breakfast (meals get so screwed up when you work nights). They got home around 8pm, and Emmett had brought home two leftover lobsters for us! Yummy!!! We hung out together, had the lobsters, split a bottle of wine, and watched the movie Fools Rush In, which, if anyone has ever seen it, they will know how much we relate to this film. ;-)

And that pretty much catches us up....

Love,
Melissa

A Sunday to forget...

I'm still not writing or exercising as much as I'd like to, but will just have to press forward and try to make progress. Fortunately I have a little more time this week during the week, so maybe that will help. I also want to make sure to plan some fun things for Thomas, keep his little brain stimulated.

I felt very bad today because it didn't end up being a very good day for he and I. Thankfully, these days we have more good days than bad days, when he was a baby it was so hard because he cried so much of the time and after hours of that I just had such a hard time maintaining my patience. It's funny, once you are removed from it, you think, how could I have been so impatient with a helpless infant? But when you are alone with a child all night and they are crying for hours and hours at a time at the top of their lungs and you can't figure out why no matter how hard you try and you feel so helpless, it's so unbelievably hard to keep your cool sometimes. Thank God I had my Mom there sometimes to talk me down. I don't miss those days, I tell you. I am very excited to someday have more children, but I am definitely not so excited about dealing with that first 6 months- 1 year again. I think about mine and Emmett's decision to have not 1, but 2 more children and I wonder if I'll actually go through with that. Two more infants may be more than I can handle. Maybe one more of our own and adopt one that is a bit older? I guess we have plenty of time to decide on that haha

Anyway, Thomas work up on the wrong side of the bed today. He was just completely cranky all day long. The slightest thing would send him into a temper tantrum. We got up about 8:3am, I was surprised that Emmett slept so late, but I think it was just because we stayed up till almost 1am, which is incredibly rare for us. Pretty much immediately, Emmett plunked himself down for a day of sport spectating, BORING!! The Raiders were playing Pittsburgh, after that was channel flipping between the 49ers and the Giants. I made him a nice breakfast, bacon, eggs and toast and then just sort of laid around. As I mentioned, Thomas was in such a terrible mood that we put him down for his nap almost 2 hours early at 11am because he was laying on the floor and rubbing his eyes and generally acting tired. I napped while he napped, then got up and took my shower and started to get ready for the day. Emmett suggested and I concurred that today would be a good day for me to take Thomas and go out for a while. I definitely understand how he might need a break, after all he works all week and then does a lot of watching of the kid on the weekend, so if he asks for a break, I definitely try to give it to him. I had been having a hankering for oysters rockefeller (strange, I know - I got it in my mind because I was thinking of having a dinner party for Emmett's birthday and he likes them so much, so I was looking up recipes and that made me start to get hungry for them), so I decided to take Thomas for a drive up to Point Reyes and buy some oysters at Johnson's Oyster farm up there.

Thomas and I left about 2pm, got gas and headed out of the city. It was an okay drive except that Thomas got into one of his "Mommy...Mommy....MOMMY....MOMMY" modes where he just keeps yelling my name over and over again. Then he was dropping his little toy camel on the floor of the car and then yelling for me to pick it up for him - which consists of him yelling over and over again "camel...camel..CAMEL...CAMEL", well, actually, since he doesn't say the 'c' it's more like, "amel...amel...AMEL...AMEL" lol I reach back and pick it up for him and, of course, 60 seconds later he drops it again and we repeat this process indefinitely, which means until I lose my patience and refuse to get it for him and then he starts crying...arrrgghhh...some days are pretty frustrating. Additionally, my car is running really badly, which didn't help my stress level at all. I really have to take it in and get it fixed. But it's the strangest thing because all day it ran REALLY bad, jerking all over the place and stalling, it was horrible. I told Emmett we would have had a smoother ride if we had gone to Point Reyes on horseback. But then tonight when I drove to work it was perfectly fine ?!? so that makes me a little reluctant to take it in when I know someone is going to charge me an arm and a leg to fix it. I'm also thinking I might take it down to Salinas or somewhere where the cost of doing business is much less in hopes that they might be more reasonable if it ends up being a big thing.

I always digress...anyway, we finally got to Johnson's. It was almost a 2 hour drive, and I took a huge mug of coffee with me for the trip, so I had to pee so bad by the time we got there I thought I was truly going to burst at the seams. I whipped Thomas out of the car and decided first to check the place out a bit and then going and use the port-a-pottys that I saw on our way in. It was a cool place and if we'd left a little earlier in the day, or if the day had been going a little smoother I would have liked to have taken Thomas for a little walk around there. It's very beautiful and very remote and would have been fun to take him for a little walk. But I was just pretty frazzled at that point. And then it turned out that they had sold out of whole oysters for the day and all they had left were the jars. For whatever reason, that didn't upset me as much as it might have, at least we got out of the house and I got to check the place out. Plus, I also knew that all of the little grocery stores around there carry whole oysters that are pretty much just as cheap, so I wasn't that upset. I debated whether to buy a jar, but the need to use the bathroom was so pressing that I retreated with Thomas to the port-a-pottys and decided to decide after we used the bathroom. It was super windy out there and when I started to open the door, the wind grabbed it out of my hand and whipped it open and I was very glad that Thomas wasn't in the way - it would have sent him flying. I HATE having Thomas in port-a-pottys. He's so curious about everything and I am nearly hysterical about him touching ANYTHING in there so I get very tense and start yelling and that never helps the situation one little bit. So I rushed us in and out of there as fast as possible, but Thomas kept trying to go back in and check things out and I kept trying to get him out of there. Finally I grabbed his hand and started walking him away. Well, at that moment the wind caught that door again and whipped it open and it hit him in the back and knocked him over onto his hands and knees in the gravel and he started bawling. I felt terrible for him and held him and picked him up right awy to cuddle and calm him, but I have to admit, there is a sick side of me, that same side that laughs at American's Funniest Home Videos, that was sort of laughing. I know that that sounds really terrible, and I would add the caveat that it would never be funny if there was any chance he'd truly hurt himself, but the thing hit him in his diapered butt and he had on long pants so the gravel wouldn't hurt him either. It was just the suddenness of the whole thing and that shocked look on his face that made it all very America's Funniest Home Video-esque. I don't think this is sounding good, so I'll stop.

I decided to buy one jar of oysters and so we did that and got back in the car for the drive home. I stopped in Inverness and bought some of the whole oysters at the local grocery. I tried to get Thomas and I some lunch, but he was being so fussy that I didn't think we had a prayer of having a sit down lunch. I decided to drive back via highway 1 so that it would be more scenic and that was very nice. Thomas fell asleep and it was nice to be out of the city for a while and enjoy the incredible scenery and sense of peace that I seem to get when I'm out in the wilderness and/or near the water. We got back to the city a little after 6:30 and Emmett asked me to pick up Chinese food from Ton Kiang, which I must say, is the best Chinese restaurant I've ever been to, it's wonderful. I picked up the food and then proceeded to get into a traffic jam on the way home, the car was stalling every other minute and Thomas was yelling in the backseat that his seatbelt hurt. It was like a three-ring circus and all we were doing is driving home. Ahhhh, I guess some days are just like that. :-)

We got home and I was still stressed from what should have been a fun outing but instead just radically increased my stress level, so Emmett took over and got Thomas ready for bed. I went upstairs and read his book and then went back downstairs and took a nap on the couch until it was time to leave for work. Ug, sometimes it is so painful to get up at 11pm and head out for an 8 hour shift. At least tonight was registration, which is infinitely easier than being the unit clerk.

I think I'll put the rest of the weekend recap in a separate entry so as to break it up a bit...

Love,
Melissa

Four Day Recap

Well, as usual I have very little time to write this. As I was eating my breakfast, I could hear Thomas upstairs making noise in his crib, so I will check on him again in a few minutes, but since he is already awake, that mean very little time to write. It's funny, he's a strange kid sometimes. As incredibly impatient as he is about almost everything, it turns out that he is fairly patient in the mornings. He often wakes up earlier than I thought he does and just sits in his crib and hangs out until someone comes for him. Emmett's niece Sienna mentioned to me over the weekend that she woke up and saw him just sitting in his crib hanging out until he saw that she was awake then he stood up and wanted her to get him up. Since I've been getting up earlier I have often noticed sounds coming from his room long before he actually gets up. Strange.

So on to a recap of the past few days...

The Labor Day weekend was great. Truth be told, I had been a little disappointed about not going away for the weekend, but that had not been an option since Emmett's Mom had wanted to come for a visit. I really wanted her to come because I know she has had some stress in her life and I wanted her to be surrounded by loved ones. The plan was for her to come up on Saturday, spend the day with the three of us, babysit Saturday night so Emmett and I could go to the movies, stay on Sunday and go to a baseball game, and then leave Sunday late afternoon so that she could have all day on Monday to do stuff at her house. Thursday night Emmett's sister Jeanine called and said she wanted to come with her daughter Siena, and bring one of Siena's friends. Oh yes, and they would be coming early Friday evening. Of course that was fine (my Grandma Haggard taught me that you almost never say no to family - she always says "you just DO for family") - but I wouldn't have said no anyway because I like hosting and I really like Emmett's sister and her daughter - it was just a little bit er, surprising, because our house was completely trashed and I was working Friday evening and wouldn't be able to help get it in shape. Plus, we were wondering a little bit where everyone would sleep - our house is pretty small and that's three children and four adults to house. But it all turned out perfectly. I felt a little bit bad that Jeanine was sleeping on the couch, but she seemed okay with that and we had a WONDERFUL visit! It inspired me to want to have the whole family up one of these days for a gathering of some kind. Our proximity to the airport means that there are always hotels very close by and sometimes you can get amazing deals. Most everyone could stay here and maybe we could build a ramp of some kind for Uncle Paul's wheelchair so he could get up our front steps.

Jeanine, Siena and Angelica (pronounced an hell' i ca - she goes by "Hellie") got there just before 8pm on Friday - Emmett was going crazy trying to clean the house and keep Tommy out of trouble all at the same time. The house was in reasonable shape - except for the floors which were covered in dog hair arrrggghhh - someone commented over the weekend that we should take up knitting. haha very funny. [I'm going to stop here for a moment and go and get Thomas, I'm sure he's awake by now, so I better get him up and prepare a bowl of cereal for him. I'll let him watch Elmo and maybe Teletubbies while I finish this]. Okay, I'm back. That was the easiest it's ever been to get Tommy up and get him moving. We were back downstairs in 10 minutes. Tommy is watching Sesame Street while I write. Now, where was I? Oh yes...

So Jeanine and the girls got there just before 8pm. I had been asked to work 10am-10pm instead of 4pm-12, so, although that left me able to make almost no contribution to the clean up effort, it did mean that I got home in time to see everyone before they went to bed. Emmett was talking about how Siena calls me her aunt - I think that was strange for him, but he actually seemed to like it. It's fun for me since I will never have any nieces or nephews that are directly related to me. Basically, I got to say hi to everyone and then we all went to bed.

Saturday morning Emmett got up early and went to the farmer's market for some fruit and stuff and then on the way back stopped at the bakery, Lido's, and picked up some fresh pastries. The girls slept alright in Thomas's room, which was a relief. I know it has to be hard for them to not make noise and wake Thomas up during the night. He did wake up once during the night and it seemed that that didn't disturb their sleep too much. All in all, the upstairs sleeping arrangement was a surprising success. I was pretty skeptical about having all three kids in the same room, but it worked out fine. Our backup plan was to have Thomas sleep in our room and that would have been less than perfect. Thomas always sleeps better when he's in his own space.

Emmett was thinking we would all go to the Embarcadero Farmer's Market around noon. That's the high-end farmer's market that is more of a spectating farmer's market for us - it has the very high end cheese, wine, produce and meats - boutique food (how strange is that? Relatively unique to San Francisco, I'd imagine). We don't buy our stuff there, but Emmett likes to go and window shop and Jeanine liked it the last time she was here, so he thought it would be fun. Unfortunately, the time it took to get everyone showered and ready for the day sort of stopped that. Emmett's Mom got there around noon and I hadn't even showered yet since I was the last one in the bathroom that day [we do have two bathrooms, but apparently no one - myself included - wanted to use the upstairs bathroom to shower - the water pressure up there is abysmal]. Jeanine decided to take the girls to the Exploratorium, I have really been wanting to go, but Emmett said that Thomas is too young to be able to enjoy it so they went and we stayed at the house with Emmett's Mom and hung out. It was sweltering hot, I guess fall is finally here in San Francisco because it was boiling hot and sunny all weekend. It was wonderful, just a bit hotter than I would have liked, but so much better than the cold and fog we have had ALL summer. We filled up Thomas's pool and Emmett and I got into it with him while Emmett's Mom sat next to it and dipped her feet in.

After a while it was time for Emmett and I to get ready for our big date. I wore a black skirt, blue button up shirt and low heels with no nylons (too hot for nylons!) . Emmett wore a tight-fitting long sleeved t-shirt thing (so sexy!) with his hiphugger jeans. Emmett had read somewhere that some people were reviving the original Burning Man concept on Baker Beach in San Francisco. [for those who don't know, Burning Man is a HUGE festival that takes place in the desert in Nevada every year - this year there were about 35,000 people camping out there. It is a combination of art festival, hedonism, and anarchy that prides itself on it's ability to self-govern by having people being responsible for themselves. It actually works! My former boss used to say that he HAD to go to Burning Man every year in order to restore his faith in humanity. The name comes from the fact that they burn all the artwork as well as a 100 foot or so - I don't know the exact dimensions, but I think that's right - wooden figure of a man in what ends up being a HUGE inferno. Anyway, I could go on and on about Burning Man, but if you're curious look at http://www.burningman.com ] . Anyway, the festival started out on Baker Beach some 18 years ago and so some people wanted to bring it back to it's more folksy roots. So Emmett and I bought a bottle of wine and headed out to the beach. There weren't too many people, maybe 100 or so total, and some of those were just hanging out on the beach not related to the burning man thing. Of those 100, about 25 were naked, which is pretty normal for this kind of thing. It was funny to see the naked people playing volleyball and hanging out like it was no big thing. We found a spot off by ourselves facing the water and drank our wine and talked. It was absolutely amazing and wonderful. We watched the sun go down - Emmett got extra bonus points not only for romanticism but also for the combination of romantic setting and just off to our right the California-esque weirdness of the naked celebrants. After the sun went down we finished up our wine and walked over to the fire where they were burning effigies of various people. Of course the vast majority were effigies of G.W., but that's not really surprising. What is unique is the time and energy that people put into the paintings and works of art depicting him just so that they can be burned. It was fun! There was a naked girl there who was doing a fire juggling thing that was particularly amazing. The whole thing was pretty surreal to me. It was one of those moments that made me think, wow, how far I have wandered from home. It is fun to have Emmett by my side, someone who is in some ways so much more "normal" than I am, and yet this kind of thing is not so surreal to him, of course, having been born not only in California, but in a hippy commune in the late 60's. Things like that have just always been a part of his reality. Alas, again I am digressing. It was so much fun and I had a great time.

Afterwards we climbed back up to the car and went to the Beach Chalet restaurant, which is overlooking the beach at the end of Golden Gate Park. We had a totally yummy fondue for appetizer. Emmett had Shepherd's Pie for dinner and I had a seafood cioppino, which was delicious. After dinner we headed home, feeling happy, having our bond sort of refreshed by the evening out together.

In the morning we got up fairly late - Emmett left right away again, this time to go and get in line for Giant's tickets for everyone. He called and the bad news was that the only tickets he could get were Standing Room Only, a pretty painful concept considering that it was so bloody hot outside. I was NOT going to stand outside for 9 innings in 90+ degree heat. No way. We all got ready and took separate cars so that anyone who wanted to wimp out and leave could do so without making the others leave. Emmett did bring one portable stool so there would be one seat. Tommy and I headed over there around 12:45 and had to look around for parking because I was determined not to spend $20 for the stadium parking (!). I found a little garage about 1 1/2 blocks away for $10 and was delighted - it was almost a shorter walk than the $20 parking. We met Emmett at the gate so he could give us our tickets and then went to where he had held a good spot for us to watch. It turned out to be an AWESOME spot to watch and because he was there so early we were right up against the railing. Additionally, we were in a spot where we could sit down on the cement and still see the game, so that was great too. It ended up being way more fun than I was expecting. The only downside was that Thomas started to get really cranky and SBC Park doesn't have much for very little children. They have some VERY carefully monitored slides for bigger kids and a little kids baseball diamond, but Thomas is way too young for either of those things. We did take him on one of the slides, even though he was too small. I waited at the bottom and Emmett was at the top, when it was Tommy's turn he balked a little bit, so before the attendant could say anything, Emmett scooped him up and they went down together. The guy at the bottom yelled at Emmett, but it was over and done by then.

We ended up staying for all 9 innings because it was so much more fun and the Giant's won 4-1, so it was a high. Emmett's Mom bought Tommy a SF Giants hat, and I think the best part of the whole day for her was when Tommy was yelling "go Giants!" over and over and really loud. She is the biggest baseball fan I've ever known - even more so than my grandparents.

After the game we went home and barbequed for dinner. There was chicken and steak and Emmett's Mom boiled some pasta. We put some parmesan cheese and the rest of my cioppino from the night before on it. We barbequed some veggies. It was yummy and the weather was starting to cool off, so we ate on the deck. It was a great family meal.

After the meal, we hung for a while and then Kathleen (I guess I could stop just calling her Emmett's Mom) asked if someone would go down to the avenue and get some ice cream for later. I took Siena and Hellie and we went. It was fun - they are the greatest girls. Very well-behaved and they act like I would expect 11 and 12 year olds to act. They are still very girlish, not trying to be adults yet, but right on the edge where they soon will be young women. It was fun and I really enjoyed spending time with them. We got the ice cream and came back. The whole group watched the Starsky and Hutch movie which was pretty funny. It was a good movie for everyone to watch together, not too adult but not a kids movie either. Great choice and I was glad that we had it in our cue waiting to be watched. It was a really good family day. Everyone was together all day, everyone got along great, and I think everyone had a really good time. Very satisfying.

Monday morning Kathleen left before anyone got up. Emmett, for the third day in a row, got up before anyone else and left. He was going to secure a spot for us to barbecue. We had planned to get a spot at Golden Gate park and meet up with friends for a Labor Day picnic. Of course, when we made the plans we didn't know that Jeanine and the girls were coming, or we probably would not have, but oh well. I stayed home until about 12:15 or so with them and then rushed around to get Thomas and I out the door and to the grocery store and then to the park. It turned out that the only people who actually showed up were Henry and Desmond. Emmett's Dad was there when I got there, but left short thereafter. I think two things played a big factor: the heat and the fact that we didn't send out the info until 5-6 days beforehand. Emmett was pretty disappointed, he tends to take those things way too personally. I was only dispointed since I would have preferred to do something else if I thought no one was going to come. Ohhhhh well. All's well that ends well and we did have yummy hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill and the guys played some frisbee and hung out and talked, had a couple of beers and read a little bit. Sort of relaxing, although would have been more relaxing if Thomas hadn't been busy trying to get into everything in sight.

Back at home we snacked out of the fridge for dinner and then Emmett took a long bath before bed. We went to bed a bit early since both of us were working on Tuesday.

Tuesday was another long and hot day in the emergency room. Would be nice if the air conditioning worked in a uniform fashion. After work I went home and Emmett and I made pasta primavera - yum yum, and so healthy. I need to get back to losing some weight now that the holiday weekend is over.

A couple of other notes on Thomas - he has learned who he is. He still won't answer when you say "what is your name?" he will say "name", but if you say "who are you?" he will answer, very clearly, "Tommy". Also he recognizes himself in photos. If you point to his photo and say who is that? he will answer "Tommy". Fun!

Last night I was sitting on the floor in the bedroom and kind of as a joke I asked him to go and get me a diaper, and he did it! Then again today I was in the study and I asked him to and bring me the phone and again, he did it. His comprehension is even better than his speaking vocabulary which is already pretty impressive. I'm very proud of him (maybe you didn't notice). I am going to try to find a book of activities and games to play with him at home on the days when we are here together. I want to make better use of that time, since there is not enough of it.

Well, better run, this is already incredibly long and I'm on borrowed time before Thomas wakes up from his nap.

Love,
Melissa

Tommy is counting!

I have to make this quick, for sure, but there is so much to recap over the last three days that I don't want to leave it all for tomorrow morning.

First and foremost, my parents survived Frances. The only damage was to one of their trees, it lost some branches. It is a great relief - they have been waiting and nearly going insane with anticipation over this whole thing. I wasn't overly worried, but it was kind of this dark cloud hanging around the edges of everything, so I was glad to hear that it was over and all was well.

The next thing that's important is that Tommy has started counting! Not just reciting the numbers, but actually trying to count things, like when he stacks his blocks he will count them as he's stacking them...'1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10' - all the way to 10!!!! Yesterday when we were coming home he counted the stairs as we went up them...he's doing so well, and I'm so proud! He started this while Emmett's Mom was watching him on Saturday night and when she told me she sounded so amazed that it made me even more proud. haha They were using his blocks to build a fort for his jungle animals that I bought him last week. He loves them and has already learned what all 12 of them are. Granted, he knew some of them before, but he's still learned some pretty amazing things - the most amazing in my book is that he can distinguish the hippo from the rhino 100% of the time!!!!!! He's so smart sometimes it scares me - hahaha - no, I'm not a proud mother or anything ;-).


Well, more in the morning, I'm pretty tired, it's way past my bed time. I never thought I'd see the day I'd be going to bed at 10pm every night. Life sure has a way of changing...

I'll write more in the morning,
Love,
Melissa

Tommy Tales

Not sure (as usual) how much time there will be. It's almost 9am and Thomas still hasn't gotten up, so I thought I'd go on and start, but he will probably be up at any moment, so...

I did make it to the gym yesterday, yay!! The only thing was that I had prepared myself for a more 'relaxed' work out, I was planning to swim a mile, and it turned out that the pool is closed this week for cleaning. Ahhhh well, so I got there and discovered this and realized I was going to have to run, which I wasn't prepared for. I did the bike first for 30 minutes (about 11 miles), so I could talk myself into doing the rest. Then I did get on the treadmill and did my 2 miles - running the first one and then walking for about a half mile and then running for the last half mile. I felt good afterwards, so that was a good thing.

Thomas did okay in childwatch. It's really hard to leave him sometimes. He does fine being left places as long as someone is paying attention to him, but if I try to distract him with a toy or something, he will not let me leave, so I basically have to wait for one of the staff to come and help distract him. It's funny because when I just try to give him a toy and say, "okay, say bye bye to Momma now, I'm going to go for 1 hour" - he will cling to my legs and yell my name over and over. It breaks my heart. But then if one of the staff comes over and engages him, he won't even notice that I'm leaving or care. He loves attention, that kid. And he doesn't seem to care too much who is giving it to him, haha. But I should add that he's always happy to see me when I get back, which warms my heart. The staff at San Mateo was ooohhh and ahhh ing about how cute he is, how much he loves Elmo. He was dragging around a stuffed Elmo doll and I knew it was going to be difficult to convince him to leave it behind. I tried to talk him out of it for quite a while, told him that Dipsea and Po were waiting for him in the car, c'mon baby, let's go to the car and see Dipsea and Po. He wasn't buying into it, so finally I had to just grab him and go. Of course he was upset, but he got over it so quickly that he was fine by the time the door closed behind us.

I tried to get him signed up for his swim lessons. Emmett didn't want me to take him during the week because he wants to be able to take him sometimes to the lesson, which I can appreciate and understand. Unfortunately, the Saturday class was full, so we are on the wait list. We will keep our fingers crossed that a space opens up for us. Otherwise we will start the swim lessons on the first of October during the week and I will take him. I'm half excited and half apprehensive about how the swim lessons will go. If he likes the whole thing it will be a wonderful experience. If not, it will be unpleasant, to say the least. So far his reactions to swimming have been pretty mixed, so we'll have to see.

We left the gym about 1pm, which is pushing my luck since that is Tommy's nap time. I have to spend the whole 15 minute ride home trying to convince him to stay awake. It was so funny yesterday because he was giving me the dirtiest looks whenever I would turn around and call his name. He was so tired, poor sweetheart. His eyes had this sort of dull, glazed look that told me he was half asleep already. First I distracted him by giving him crackers. Then, when he was obviously not hungry anymore and wouldn't eat anymore it got even harder. I was singing out loud to the radio, gesticulating with my arms and hands to try to engage him and then turning around and calling his name when it looked like he would nod off in spite of my efforts. Then, as we neared the home stretch, the freeway runs along the bay and so I pointed and said loudly, "WATER!", that got his attention for a minute and he pointed and said "water!" and looked out the window for a few seconds, but then fell back into his stupor. As we pulled onto the exit ramp, I saw his eyelids droop down once, and I quickly called his name (if looks could kill, I would have been dead for sure then) . Finally we made it home and I gave him a bottle of milk and put him down for his nap. He didn't let out a single peep for an hour and a half.

I ended up letting him nap too long and then we were rushed so that I could get to work on time. The more stressed I got the more upset he got and started fighting with me and kicking so that I couldn't get his pants or diaper on. Eventually I had to resign myself to being late to work and just calm down so that we could actually get moving, but it was very stressful. I dropped him off and rushed to work, but was 14 minutes late. Not good. I've GOT to make more of an effort when I work the 4-12 shift, I'm late way too often when I work that shift because I try to extend the afternoon too far before I get ready for work.

Emmett and Tommy went for a run with Brian after work. Unfortunately, it didn't go too well. Emmett's knee is really bothering him and he is unsure if the injury will heal in time for him to complete the marathon training. He sounded really down about that last night.

I called them in the evening and it sounded like Tommy was very happy, so I was relieved that the stress he and I had during the afternoon hadn't spilled into his evening with his Dad. I got to talk to Tommy on the phone and he said, "hi Momma" and then a bunch of other stuff that I couldn't understand, but I was just so excited that he wanted to talk to me on the phone! He said my name a bunch of times - he has recently started calling me "Mommy" as well as "Momma" - and when Emmett took the phone back he insisted on taking it back from Emmett so he could talk more! It was great. He sounded like he was really trying to tell me something. He was talking about 'football' - which he says really funny because he pronounces 'football' very slowly and carefully, like 'fooootttt ball'. He also is CRAZY about baseball, which he calls 'b-ball'. He has seen so much baseball with his father (and I'm not saying this is a good thing) that he knows it's 'b-ball' when he hears about 3 seconds of the Giant's announcer's voice.

I got to leave work an hour early last night which was nice because it meant an extra hour of sleep for me. Tommy got up in the night last night, poor baby. He has been getting up a fair amount lately, not sure what is up with that. At least it never takes long to soothe him, I give him a bottle of warm milk and talk to him for a few minutes and then he goes back to sleep without a problem.

I have to run now, if that boy isn't up by now, he should be - so I better go and rouse him.

Love,
Melissa