Baking

From Baking

Amelia help K bake Xmas cookies yesterday

Amelia Goes For a Swing

We put Amelia in one the toddle swings at the park today. She loved it.

Amelia Meets Grandma

From Grandma Georgine Vists

Amelia got to meet her Grandma Georgine for the first time this week. It was a fun time. I think they both fell in love.

From Grandma Georgine Vists

Contacts

From Gateway Park

I first got glasses, 15 years ago when I was in the 7th grade, since then I have worn glasses nearly every waking moment. Partially because my eye sight had deteriorated to the point where I would need mega coke-bottle bottom glasses, and partially cause I had never tried contacts before, time I decided to give contacts a try. Amelia's new found love grabbing my glasses also made switching to contacts seem like a good idea to try.

So far I love them. Why I waited so long to try them will forever remain a mystery too me. They far more comfortable and easy to put in then I feared they would be. Still after living about half my life glasses always on, not wearing them is a strange experience. I am a major fidgeter, a lot of my fidgeting used to involve my glasses, now when I reach absentmindedly reach for them they are not there, which feel weird in an almost indescribable way. Taking a shower also feels very odd, I took me a while to realize that the reason that showering seemed oddly different was that for the first time in years I could actually see things while showering. Bizarre.

So based on the early returns, not withstanding a few torn contacts, that my experiment with contacts is a smashing success.

From SanDiego

Kyai'u

My parents had to put their dog Kyai'u down today. While this comes as no surprise, he was over 15 years old and on his last legs seemingly for years, it still makes me very sad. He will always hold a very special place in my heart because he was my first dog, and has been part of life for a little more than half of my life.

We got Kyai'u in 1993 when I was in 7th grade, for a long time prior to that my brother and I had been begging my parents to get a dog. We finally won my mother over and my father while not explicitly supporting getting a dog dropped his opposition (despite this opposition he would soon become one of Kyai'u's biggest fans. So minutes after my father left town on business trip, we were in the car on the way to get a dog.

As 13 year old boy, a toy poodle was certainly not my first pick when it came to dog breeds. But I really didn't care, I was getting a dog and could not have been happier. Bringing Kyai'u home is without a doubt one of my favorite childhood memories.

Kyai'u was a great dog, he was smart, loyal, affection, and despite very small size believed has was the toughest dog on the planet (an attitude that almost got him killed more than once). He was everything that a dog should be, and was case in point why dogs are considered man's best friend. Throughout my junior high and high school years one of my favorite of my days was taking Kyai'u on a walk after dinner. He was my loyal friend what more could I have asked for.

While it makes me sad that my time Kyai'u has come to end, I feel better knowing that he lived a life will lived and that my life greatly enriched by his being a part of it. He truely fufilledhis purpose as a dog.

Good dog Kyai'u.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Tupperwear!

Amelia has acquired many toys in the five and half short months that she has been alive. She loves most of them, but none of them are her favorite toy. That honor goes to the humble tupperwear container. As fare as Amelia is concerned nothing compare to the joy of tupperwear. She can easily manipulate it, hold it all kinds of crazy angles, it has plenty of corners and edges to chew on, and the way she can see things through yet not reach through and touch what she is seeing blows her mind. So huzzah for tupperwear.

Kicking off Marathon Training

Now that the weather has cooled off a bit. I have decided to begin training for my next marathon. It now been a year since my last one, and I am beginning to feel the itch to run one again. So yesterday afternoon I went for a relatively easy 12 mile run. Dang, is it nice to be able run in the afternoon again.

Cutting through the soft sand of the open desert is always very tiring. It always reminds me of those dreams where I am running but my legs don't work right and feel bogged down. Still running though such soft sand is an excellent workout.

I love running along the railroad track because of the line of salt cedars that the railroad has planted as a windbreak creates some rare shade. I do find it ironic that while railroad is spending time and effort maintain its windbreak of salt cedars a few miles away along the river versions agency are spending a lot time and money trying to eradicate salt cedars which are a horribly invasive non native species.

Often when running along the railroad track a train will come up from behind me. This is no real safety issue as I run well off to the side of the tracks and can hear the train coming long before it gets to me. Still the engineers always see to think it is necessary to sound the their whistle when they are just a few feet behind. Damn, that almost make jump out my skin.

I love running through the farmland this time of year, all the lettuce and broccoli fields are so pretty, such multitude of shades of green. I also really enjoy the strong salad bowl smell that these areas have, for example when running by broccoli fields the smell broccoli can be almost overpowering. But in a good way, it is such a green and alive smell that I love.

I love running along the canals that crisscross the area. Not only only are the beautiful, they area always accompanied by canal service roads which make the perfect place to run. The are flat, not paved, run for miles, and have next to no traffic.

The Scourge of Baby Pattern Baldness

Amelia is balding faster than a 40 year old man.

From more amelia

3 Days old

From 7-5 amelia

6 weeks old

From August 11 Amelia

3 Months old

From bath time

4 Months old

From Reaching

4.5 Months old

From Tupperwear

Today

Running

The jogger finally came in the mail. The best part about is that it our car seat snaps into, so I don't have to wait until Amelia is older to begin taking her on runs. We can go now.

Running with the dogs and Amelia is still a little bit tricky, but with a little practice we will master it. Amelia though loved, her were filled with wonderment. She loves to be moving. It even made her smile, something she has only begun to do

Amelia Meets Haley

This weekend Amelia got to meet her cousin Haley, technicaly her second cousin but since she will never have any first cousins as close as she will ever get. It was fun to bring them together, espcialy since they are only a month a part in age. It was amazing to see the differnce between a two month old and a three month old. Amzaing what a differnce a month can make in the development of an infant.

Bowling

We went bowling with some friends last night. Amelia came a long and had a blast. This is the 2nd time that we have taken her to the bowling alley, and she loves it. She loves all the activity and sounds, she was wide eyed with wonderment the entire time we were there. She especially enjoyed "Xtreme Bowling" which is when switch off the regular lights and turn a bunch of black lights, you could tell that she thought was about the most amazing thing she had ever seen.

Amelia Update

I have not posted for a while, so I feel like doing an update on Amelia.

The dogs continue to bond even more with her. The just want to be near her. They also see to recognize how fragile she is. Normally they are like two bulls in a china shop, but they are very calm and careful around Amelia. This good, because one of main worries was them running her over due to there oafishness



Amelia is coming to really love going in the pool. But of course when it is over 110+ who doesn't enjoy the pool. Especially now that I finally admitted defeat and hired someone to clean the pool. I don't know how they get is so blue, I never could.



Now that she can mostly hold her head up, we have started to put her into her bumbo. She loves it. She is so much happier when she is sitting up and able to see the world around her.



Just for fun we stuck her in her high chair for the first time, just to see what she would think. She liked sitting at the table with us while we ate.



Amelia has also rolled over from front to back for the first time. She is not doing regularly, but she has done it a couple of times. She always looks shocked that she some how ended up on her back.


More pictures here

Amelia Goes For Her First Swim

K & Amelia


In Goes Amelia



Legs All the Way


Going In


Berkeley & Zack Join the Party


Berkeley Shakes Off

Bottle

This weekend we gave Amelia her first bottle, it was a truly amusing experience. As is normal for her she was howling with hunger when I presented her with the bottle. She howled even louder because the bottle was not what she wanted, then I squeezed the nipple so a little milk shot it to her mouth, the look of shock on her face was priceless. To her the idea that milk could come from somewhere other than mommy was totally mind blowing. It was fun to watch her try to process this new development.

Berkeley and Zack Heart Amelia

Berkeley & Amelia

One of things that we most worried about before bringing Amelia home was how the dogs we react to her, we need not of worried. The dogs love Amelia. They took to her almost instantly. Zack is thrilled to have a new purpose in life, protecting Amelia.

One can almost always find Zack positioned very near where Amelia is sleeping keeping watchful eye over her. The minute she starts fussing he goes crashing though the house to find us to let us know about it. He is just so thrilled to have some to protect. Berkeley has always lacked a protective instinct, but she does like to be as near to Amelia as she can.

Though they have been thus far foiled by the diaper vault, the dogs are present at every diaper changing, just waiting for that one time that the diaper gets improperly placed in the vault. There two favorite things to eat are poop and paper products, there could be little else as appealing to them as combo of there two favorite snack items.

My Two Favorite People

I love this picture

Back to Work

Gratuitous Baby Picture

I have gone back to work for a few hours a day. and finding it kind of a surreal experience, as unlike my home life where everything has changed, nothing has changed at work, the same massive piles of unorganized papers sit where I left on my desk, the same dozen windows that I left open on my computer on the 16th where still open on my return this morning. Sitting back at my desk I could have been just down the hall getting a cup of coffee rather then being gone for 11 days having my totally changed.

In some ways this is a welcome comfort. Becoming a dad has been the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, however on some levels it is all unnerving. There is no easing into parenthood, a little person shows and boom, you are a parent. It kind of feels like being asked to drive in heavy freeway traffic during a blizzard the first time you ever got behind the wheel of a car. It is nice to spend a few hours where everything familiar and I feel like I am in total control. However I would still much rather spend all my time with Amelia.

Amelia's First Bath

Yesterday Amelia's umbilical cord stump fell off, so we were able to give her first real bath. Nothing like the smell of clean new baby. Now if only the dogs were so easy to bathe, which is today's task.

The Arrival of Amelia

K Mowing at 6:00 AM

The Friday before last while at dinner K began to have ever more frequent and strong contractions. We thought she was about to enter labor, my mother booked a flight to come to town the next morning, then contractions stopped.

The next morning I woke at 6:00 AM to K mowing the front lawn in some sort insane nesting/labor inducement bid. It must have worked because when she came in she noticed that her shorts were all wet, her water had broke. In what amounts to truly amazing timing that was right when my mother showed up and we were off to the hospital.

Off to the Hospital

At the hospital it was confirmed that her water broke and she was admitted. We were told that because her water broke that Amelia would have to be delivered within 24 hours. However she still was not having contractions, so we just spent the afternoon just sitting around waiting for it all the begin.

Waiting

Early Saturday evening they decided to induce labor, it was also it this point that K got an epidural. The contractions started coming fast and furious. However thanks to the epidural K says that the only reason she knew she was having contractions was by watching a monitor that she was hooked to that showed such activity, a major relief for her. According her from the boobs down she felt nothing. Then sometime around 10:30 it came time for the pushing. Sadly the epidural did little to block the pain of this as K was quickly in tears of pain. But in a short 20 or so minutes the tears of pain were instantly changed to tears of joy when Amelia was born at 10:56.

K Meets Amelia

Meeting my daughter for the first time was an experience amazing beyond words. The second that she wrapped her impossibly tiny hands around one of my fingers, I fell totally and absolutely in love with her.

Amelia Grabs My Finger

Amelia

Happy Family

Me and Amelia