Off-Piste

Actual wild turkeys

2012-02-13T17:34:00.000-08:00

Eric pointed out that my previous wild turkeys were actually Muscovy ducks. Oops.

Then as I was driving last Thursday I came across a grazing flock of actual wild turkeys and they do look a lot more like turkeys than those ducks did.

Picking strawberries

2012-02-08T12:01:00.000-08:00

On Saturday we went to a small farm about an hour south to pick strawberries. It was such a small operation that it sort of felt like going over to someone's house to pick berries. And pet their pig Copper and their chickens, which we did too.

The farmer was very welcoming and happy to talk about how everything works. These strawberries are grown in pots stacked vertically about 5 high, which was a welcome improvement from my image of us spending our morning hunched over row after row of earthbound strawberry plants. The strawberries are actually grown hydroponically though I didn't know that until well after we had left because it looks like they are growing in soil. The farmer asked us to use scissors to harvest only the reddest ripest berries. Emerson loved finding berries in the low pots and snipping them off with the scissors and a little help. Only once did he take off running while holding the scissors prompting the parental observation from Eric: "He's running with scissors."

The strawberries above, minus a few that got eaten along the way, turned into this much jam (plus another jar we gave away before I took this picture):

Won't you be my neighbor

2012-02-03T12:15:00.000-08:00

Our neighborhood, The Shires, is currently embroiled in a heated referendum about whether or not to update the white, wooden mailboxes, many of which are actually green and rotted, with black metal mailboxes, which look like they were designed for mid-century central London as opposed to a Florida subdivision.

There was a neighborhood meeting about this hot topic, and some other neighborhood issues, this past week. Ethan and I went to check it out and see who our neighbors are in this funny little community.

There were about 25 people there, out of something like 235 houses in the neighborhood (which is one of 28 or so neighborhoods that make up the "master planned community" that is Westchase). The crowd was mostly older folks and I was the only "young parent" there. I was really pleased to learn about what kinds of things are happening and was particularly happy to hear some of the ideas coming up like a playground area that would be a 5 min walk instead of a 45 min walk away.

I did have to nurse Ethan part-way through the meeting, which I was able to do very discreetly. After he was done, I was getting him re-situated in my lap when he let out a resounding three-part burp any frat boy would have been proud of. I cautiously raised my eyes to find every eyeball looking my direction. Before I could say a word the guy next to me, who I had never met before, spoke up.

"That was me."

Hammock Park

2012-02-01T15:21:00.000-08:00

We have been trying to explore the parks nearby on nice days and one outing on a recent weekend took us to Hammock Park which is about 25 min away in Dunedin.

Hammock Park is of the "intact ecosystem" variety of park as opposed to the "large lawn" type and they have trails cut through it to aid exploration. As we were walking along down the trail we noticed orange peel strewn around. "Litterbugs," I sneered. "People should know better than to leave their picnic waste lying around."

As we kept walking, we kept seeing orange peels. And whole oranges laying by the side of the trail. It quickly became clear that something else was going on.

It was Eric who first noticed it*: there were wild orange trees and wild clementine trees (or whatever the real name is for those cute teeny oranges) all along the path.

Eric picked one and we all sampled its incredibly sour taste. I guess the squirrels and the other hikers already got all the sweet ones.

*I claim "still dumb from pregnant brain" on this as well as on a lot of other stuff like not being able to remember that thing I was going to do when I came into this room.

Lies I need to hear

2012-01-31T11:21:00.001-08:00

I was pushing Emerson on the swings at the park today while juggling Ethan and generally looking exhausted and disheveled. A mom swinging with her daughter started chatting with me and asked how old Ethan was and then how far apart the two kids are. Her kids are the same age apart but are older now - her younger one looked about four.

"People tell you it gets easier but they're lying," she informed me.

"But they are such kind lies," I said, deciding to continue believing them anyway.

Florida's Oldest

2012-01-30T20:46:00.000-08:00

There's more to Florida than old people. There's old places as well. We checked out two of Florida's oldest establishments this past week.

Columbia Restaurant is Florida's Oldest Restaurant (1905). We went to the Ybor City location to have dinner with a friend of Eric's who was in town for a meeting, and several of her colleagues joined as well. It is a monstrously large place - I believe the restaurant is a full city block - and Eric said that it seats 1,500 people for dinner. It is Spanish food, which makes sense, since they were some of the first non-native people in Florida. It could be considered a tourist trap but the food was actually quite good and those who had the made-at-the-table sangria (extra $2 for the Sangre de Toro wine) reported it was worthy as well. They have two nightly flamenco shows and we dined in between, catching the just beginning of the late show on our way out. At the risk of sounding a bit geezer-y myself, I was kind of glad we weren't seeing the whole show because it was very loud, what with all the stomping.

After a beautiful afternoon at Philippe Park on Saturday, the four of us went home the long way with a stop at Dunedin Brewery, Florida's Oldest Craft Brewery (no year given). The brewpub-chic main restaurant area was full so we found seats in "the nook" (official name, with a sign on the wall), a shabby-not-chic secondary bar area. We ordered the sampler so we could taste six of the beers on tap that day and had to explain to Emerson several times that the small glasses did not mean it was all for him. My favorites were the Apricot (I'm a sucker for apricot-flavored beers) and the Pale Ale. They also had a Nitro Stout and a Nitro Pale, which are carbonated with nitrogen like Guinness to give a creamy head. The Red and Brown ales were fine but not remarkable. Again here we left just as the live music was getting started and while I don't know for sure, I expect it would have been louder than my current grandmotherly taste in live entertainment.

Other old things I am interested to check out: oldest Starbucks and oldest old person's home.

Shot of Wild Turkey

2012-01-23T16:56:00.000-08:00

Took a walk around the neighborhood and spotted these guys hanging out. Note to self: if times ever get hard for us financially, these birds don't seem like they would be very hard to catch.

Things that have happened since Ethan was born

2012-01-22T11:32:00.000-08:00

Contrary to what this blog would suggest, life did not screech to a halt when Ethan was born. We have been enjoying a steady stream of visits from friends and family, enjoying a range of holiday celebrations and in our downtime we are adjusting to life as a family of four. A lot of what we have been up to is well-documented on Emerson and Ethan's blog. Here's a few of the other things that happened that you won't read about there:

Kindle plus newborn breastfeeding plus husband watching older child = lots of time to read. I read The Hunger Games trilogy obsessively and finished it far too quickly. I know it is not great literature and I am not sure I liked the third book at all but there is something about those books that is seriously addictive and weeks later I am still jonesing for a fix. I'm not sure the movie will help but I look forward to seeing it with all the local teenagers. I have also read some other books but nothing worth mentioning.
Two nights out: Eric and I (and Ethan, who slept the whole time) have been out to dinner twice so far. Once just us and once on a double date with neighbors who took us to their favorite gastro-pub where I got to drink a Boddingtons, a favorite beer of mine from my days living in London. Eric ordered the fish and chips but then swapped his regular "chips" for sweet potato fries for reasons I have yet to understand.
Birding! Starting in our own backyard, we are getting to know the birds of Florida. Our pond frequently hosts anhingas, little blue herons, wood storks, white ibis and more and we have a front row seat to watch them eating, swimming, strutting around the grass and flying around. We even went on a bird walk in Lettuce Lake Park with a guy who is apparently a bird expert and about twenty senior citizens, many of whom commented on how nice it was for Ethan to be getting such an early start at birding.
A long journey completed: Two and a half years after we started watching it we finally finished the entire series of Battlestar Galactica. It didn't have to take that long but we got distracted after watching season one and only just returned to it a few months ago. I mostly enjoyed the show, though at times I found it too realistic to be a good escape - too many gut-wrenching decisions and dealing with sadness, loss and life not being the way you want it to be.

Two weeks with two kids

2011-12-27T18:12:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago at this exact moment I was going to bed and hoping that I would not still be pregnant at breakfast.

I wasn't. And for the past two weeks we have been figuring out what life with two little boys looks like.

Eric gets enormous credit that things are as good as they are. No matter how late one sleeps, one does not wake up the next morning physically recovered from pregnancy and labor and Eric has picked up a lot of the slack while I have been recuperating. This in turn has helped me heal more quickly and I have been feeling pretty good.

We have been doing so well, in fact, that we may have gotten a little over-confident: today we went to IKEA, which everyone knows is the K2 of retail.

I carried Ethan in a wrap and Emerson rode in the cart. Things actually went remarkably well until the very end. In spite of taking shortcuts and being very focused, we spent longer than we had intended to wandering around IKEA and Ethan got hungry. This was fine - I am adept at nursing while walking, so that's what I was doing when Emerson tragically dumped his much-needed snack on the floor and then became very sad about it. We recovered and made our way to the check-out.

Because it was IKEA at any time of any day, the lines were epic. Among the impulse buys near the check-out was a huge bin of plush soccer balls. Emerson helped himself to a ball and then proceeded to make a break for the store exit. I, with baby to breast, tried to go after him ineffectively while Eric, trying to steer two unwieldy carts as the line moved up made frustrated noises directed at the carts, Emerson and me.

Emerson's escape route got cut off by two carts pulling out of the checkout and, because he couldn't think of anything better to do, he laid down on the floor in the fetal position, hugging the soccer ball.

"Don't we all want to do that right now?" one of the women next to us in line commented.

Indeed.

Ethan's birth story

2011-12-17T10:12:00.000-08:00

Emerson's birth story started with the Jelly Belly factory tour followed by the Anheuser Busch brewery tour right nearby; Ethan's starts with Family Fun Day featuring Dinosaur World, a fruit punch winery, and Santa at the mall. I guess nothing inspires my body to bring a baby into this world quite so much as ridiculous tourist attractions.

It was at the mall that I first started feeling some light contractions. I didn't want to jinx anything by getting too excited too quickly so I tried to ignore them until they developed into something more definite. Which took a little while. I still wasn't sure if they were worth mentioning to Eric as we were heading to bed at 9pm that night, but I did let him know that something might be happening. (Yes, 9pm. That's how we roll these days.)

I woke up at 11:30pm with the awareness that labor was definitely starting. The contractions were still very manageable but they were more consistent and I could feel they were starting to get more intense. I just laid in bed and breathed through them until midnight when I decided to wake Eric up. Given how crazy it was last time to get the tub filled up I wanted to give him enough time. He got up and went downstairs to start preparations while I stayed in bed a little longer. I was very excited that this meant I would get to meet Ethan soon...and just a little nervous about how hard the labor might be.

At 12:15am I called our midwife Rebecca and gave her the heads up that labor was starting. She said I still sounded a bit too cheery to be in full-blown labor yet but that she was ready to come over whenever we needed her so I should just let her know when to come.

I headed downstairs and labored through contractions standing at the kitchen counter while Eric worked on filling up the tub. I was timing my own contractions and noticed that they seemed to be accelerating. At 12:45 I called Rebecca back and said that while it was probably still a little early, I would feel much better if she were here with us, especially since she lives 45 min away. She said she would be on her way shortly.

By 1am I couldn't manage to time the contractions myself: they were intense enough that I really needed Eric's support with them. He was great at helping me breathe through the contractions and not just make "this hurts too much" noises which are not very useful.

At 1:30, when she should have been arriving, we got a text from the midwife that said the highway was closed and she would be here in another 30 min. I was discouraged by this because I was looking forward to having her support (plus she had some special tricks for easing the pain of back labor, which is apparently a hallmark of labor for me). But I wasn't too worried about it.

So Eric and I continued working through the contractions together. I found that our light brown leather chair helped me with the now incredibly intense and close together contractions and this is where I was when Rebecca finally showed up about 10 minutes before 2am. She brought in all her gear and then came to check in with me.

She suggested I move to the birth ball to labor there for a little while and I immediately regretted leaving the chair: the next contraction was a doozy. As was the next. On the third contraction I suddenly felt that it was time to push and Rebecca knew it too before I even told her. Then my water broke on our expensive new rug. (It cleaned up just fine!)

I had wanted to give birth in the tub like I did with Emerson but the tub was less than half full and the water was scalding hot (Eric learned the hard way the first time that you need the first half of the water to be extra hot because the second half will be cold). Eric began madly dumping ice into the tub while Rebecca helped me walk towards it. We knew it wouldn't be long now before Ethan would be making his big entrance.

I got to the tub but didn't manage to get in it. Instead, I knelt next to it as I felt the next contraction coming. Rebecca asked Eric to grab a towel and when he turned back, Ethan's head had been born. Moments later his body was out as well and Rebecca was handing him to me. It was 2:09am. She had been at our house less than 20 minutes.

The joy of meeting Ethan was immediate. Eric kept saying: "He's beautiful, Ellie." We just looked and looked at him, overwhelmed with amazement and gratitude (and still a little shocked he was already here!). His little eyes peeked open and looked back at us. We all just sat there for a long moment, taking it all in.

And then we heard Emerson shout from upstairs, just like he does when he wakes up from a nap: "Mom! Mom! Dad! Dad!" Eric went and got Emerson and brought him down to meet his new brother.

"Brother," Emerson said. "Yeah."

The next few hours were a happy blur of moving up to our bed, me taking a shower, Eric repeatedly trying to get Emerson to go back to sleep and Ethan's newborn exam where we learned he was 9lb 5oz, 21 inches long and perfectly healthy.

And now we are a family of four.

Family Fun Day

2011-12-13T21:00:00.000-08:00

Eric and I declared Tuesday "Family Fun Day." Eric took off of work and Emerson and I abandoned our usual routine for a day of new adventures.

We started at Dinosaur World, of course. I think the easiest way to explain Dinosaur World would be to say it is like a sculpture garden but in a forest and with dinosaur replicas instead of art. It is clearly someone's dream and you can tell that a lot of thought and attention has been put into making it real.

Emerson liked it starting from the parking lot.

We were literally the only people there for the first hour and a half and it was neat, if a little weird, to have the place to ourselves. We let Emerson roam free and he loved it, except for just a few of the particularly large and scary ones.

Emerson also got to search for fossils in a timed 15 min sand-pit dig where he could keep three of the fossils he found. He and Eric found a lot of teeth and a couple snail-looking rocks just before the buzzer.

On our way to Dinosaur World we had noticed a sign for a winery just a little ways down the road. "Why not?" we thought. This is what Family Fun Day is all about.

Eric did the full tasting - 3 blueberry wines, 2 blackberry wines and about 6 "fusion" wines which are 80% grapes and 20% fruit, for example peach chardonnay and key lime sauvignon blanc. If you like Kool-Aid, this is the winery for you. And the best part: the wine slurpee machine behind the tasting counter (far left in photo, probably acquired when a nearby 7-11 had to close down). We brought home a bottle of the semi-dry blueberry wine and passed on the slurpee (they were low on ice anyway).

After Emerson's nap, Family Fun Day continued at: the Mall. We decided it would be fun to take Emerson to see Santa, though Emerson wasn't too keen on the idea of spending any one-on-one time with Santa so we took a family photo. For the record, I was not expecting to have my photo taken. Here's our last photo as a family of three: I have maximum belly, and Santa's not doing too bad himself.

And, because it was Family Fun Day, Eric and Emerson rode the merry-go-round at the mall as well.

A great time was had by all.

Past due

2011-12-13T09:16:00.000-08:00

My due date, Sunday, came and went without labor or birth. I didn't really expect it to happen this way this time since I was early last time and second babies tend to come earlier than first ones.

It feels like by not going into labor by my due date I have now missed my chance to have this baby and now I will just be pregnant forever.

At the dealership

2011-12-09T11:47:00.001-08:00

I had the unexpected pleasure of spending several hours at the Toyota dealership yesterday. After Emerson and I went to his toddler gym class in the morning the Prius would not start. Emerson's response, after instructing the car in a loud voice "Work!" was to go to sleep in his car seat. I made arrangements for AAA to come help us out, and a mere hour and a half later we were jump started and on our way to the closest Toyota dealership to get the car fixed.

By this point it had been a LONG time since breakfast for both of us and of course we couldn't stop the car to get food on the way over there so we did what we had to do: McDonald's drive through.

And there I was: the 9 month pregnant woman feeding herself and her toddler McDonald's for lunch at a car dealership at 2pm. Apparently Florida is having its effect on me whether I like it or not.

A woman standing near me see Emerson's enthusiasm over the french fries ("More! More!") and says "That's good stuff isn't it!"

"I don't normally eat this stuff," I quickly say more than a little defensively.

"I do," she says.

Skip ahead 45 minutes: Emerson has had half of my chocolate milkshake, half a hamburger bun (the "extra" bun in my first ever Big Mac) and the better part of a medium french fries. I have eaten the balance. There are greasy bits of french fry smeared all over the floor below our two chairs. The window behind Emerson's chair is practically opaque from the greasy toddler fingerprints all over the glass and there are shreds from an ESPN magazine strewn around his chair. The others waiting for their cars are all silently praying that the dealership has expedited the repairs on our car.

Emerson is having a big day. His emotions swing wildly from elated and giggly to furious, writhing on the floor. He is bouncing from one thing to the next - shouting loudly in gibberish at people we do not know, trying to pull down the shabby garland hanging from the service desk, pulling all the magazines out of the magazine rack, jumping up and down on an ottoman, asking me to help him search for pictures of dogs on the available computer terminal, and so on.

He is almost unrecognizable as my son. (Except for the dog pictures - that's a standard activity.)

After several hours of the most basic form of damage control parenting on my part and wild toddler antics on Emerson's part, the car is ready. Everyone is happy about this. Emerson tries to insist that he should drive us home but I veto that and decide that I will drive us instead.

Double gator

2011-12-04T14:35:00.001-08:00

Gator Central, aka the pond in our back yard, is currently home to two alligators. One is about 3 feet long, the other one is a little bigger, probably closer to 4 feet long. Yesterday we saw them both creeping around the pond, eyeballs noiselessly gliding through the water. I was watching one of them through the binoculars we now keep in the kitchen for a close-up view when the whole gator's body came up out of the water for a split second and it's jaws cracked down on some form of pond prey. I think I made a sort of loud squawking sound out of a combination of surprise, fear and delight.

I am still not used to watching nature documentaries in my own back yard.

When we get a dog we will need to make sure it is a big one.

Getting bigger every day

2011-11-22T18:25:00.001-08:00

I think I remember from last time that the last few weeks of being pregnant are a time of big belly growth.

This time I think it might be even more extreme.

Couldn't wait

2011-11-18T17:49:00.000-08:00

Last night it was finally time for our much-anticipated outing to see a live taping of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, the NPR radio news quiz show. In SF, I listened to this show religiously usually while riding my bike to and from work. When we found out they would be taping in Tampa it was not optional to attend.

My mom and Emerson drove me to campus to meet up with Eric a little after 5pm and then headed home.*

Eric and I left his car parked on campus and walked across the river to have dinner downtown before the show. We ended up at a place called Pizza Fusion which makes an effort to use organic, local ingredients and has really decent pizza. I voluntarily ordered a salad with beets in it because even though I usually think beets taste like dirt for some reason that was what I wanted.**

Toward the end of dinner we learned that a group of 150ish bikers doing some sort of event were about to join us at the tiny pizzeria so we got and paid our check quick-like and got out just as the locust-like swarm started to descend but not before I waited the longest time ever for a woman to emerge from the bathroom.

We still had plenty of time before we had to be in our seats so we made our way slowly toward the Straz Center which was just a few blocks away. As we walked, we heard a train and Eric pointed at the clearly defunct, dilapidated train tracks in the middle of the street we were on and said "Is it going to come down this street?" Ha ha, we both said.

And then we saw the light of the engine up the block. The train was moving at about 3 miles per hour and it was either because of that or in spite of that that people kept crossing the street right in front of it. We resisted the temptation to dodge the glacial train and enjoyed watching it go by. It was an engine pulling one car: a huge tank marked as Chlorine. Probably heading straight to the water reclamation facility, or to some really old-fashioned pool supply shop.

The Straz Center was abuzz when we arrived, partly due I think to the number of restaurants that are part of the facility. It seems to be a large complex with a lot of theaters, a lot of restaurants and lot of carpet reminiscent of a roller skating center from the 80s. Eric got a (large) drink and we strolled around to check it out. At 7:15, 15 min before showtime, they opened the doors and flashed the lights, our signal to head inside. Eric was getting ready to down his drink when we noticed people were taking their drinks with them into the theater. What's this? Here's another way Florida, or at least the Straz Center, is unique: you can drink during the show. Remarkable. I suspect I will appreciate that more when I am not pregnant.

This being a radio show I had absolutely no idea what to expect visually from the disembodied voices I so enjoy. My observations (from pretty far away from the stage): Peter Sagal, who I love, is not as warm-feeling in person as he is on the radio; Karl Cassel is exactly as old as I expected and surprisingly spry, Adam Felber was not the skinny young nerd I have always pictured but rather a not so skinny-not so young-not so nerdy comedian type, Faith Salie is much hotter than one would guess from the radio, and Roy Blount Jr is exactly what you would expect.

The Tampa audience was engaged and appreciated Peter's backhanded appreciation of Florida, the governor, etc. The audience did have a hard time not saying the answer out loud in unison during the fill-in-the-blank limerick part of the show.. I think it was Roy who said "This is like church for these people, they can't help themselves."

It was fascinating to hear the unedited show and guess what they would likely take out. I look forward to listening to the podcast (while not riding a bike) and hearing how they edited it. I will also be listening for the sound of myself clapping.

*Actually, as I found out later, to Chipotle for a dinner of burritos
**I don't think it is pica

For the list of Ways Tampa is Different from San Francisco

2011-11-17T20:44:00.000-08:00

Found this frog on the top of the car when I came out of Bed, Bath and Beyond today. I helped him off the car and he hopped into a drainage grate.

Post script added Saturday: I turned on the hose on the patio today and several more of these tiny frogs came hopping out of it before the water came.

Tiny frogs everywhere!

Night out: Hockey!

2011-11-16T14:12:00.000-08:00

We took advantage of Gama being in town to go out Tuesday night to see some college hockey. The match-up was Eric's own University of Tampa, whose hockey team is in its first year as an official team, facing off against the University of South Florida which is also here in Tampa. The event was set up as a fundraiser (with free admission) and they played the game at the St Pete Times forum in downtown Tampa.(One of Eric's students who plays on the team had said that he was excited about maybe getting into a fight on NHL ice.)

We put Emerson to bed and still got there in time for the pre-game pageantry, including the national anthem sung by a small a capella foursome, one of whom had his hand to his ear the whole time, of course. It was neat to be at the arena for such a "small" event where the spectators were confined to a small section of seating, only one concession stand was open and we got to sit a lot closer than we normally do.

This was my first UT sporting event and it set the bar pretty high. Here's a shot of the action:

I didn't set the bar so high myself: I sported yoga pants, a large black maternity t-shirt that the light of the arena revealed had booger stains (not mine) and sneakers, dirty hair in a bun and my scratched glasses. I looked like the exhausted, mega-pregnant mom of a toddler that I am right now.* I guess I thought it would be darker at the hockey game (it usually is a little darker up high where we always sit). I thought about standing at a discrete distance when we ran into students of Eric's so as not to embarrass him but instead I just smiled and tried to stand in the shadows as much as possible.

The game was great fun to watch and when we left after the second period it was 3-2 USF. The final score was 5-4 USF so going to bed meant we missed some good action but for my part it was worth it.

*For the record: in general, I have made what I consider to be an extraordinary effort to present myself well since we arrived in Florida.

Paddleboat Joe

2011-11-13T18:18:00.001-08:00

Eric's mother Joy was in St Pete Beach for a dancing event this weekend and we took advantage of her relative proximity to go meet her for dinner last night. My mom, Emerson and I drove down a little early to poke around the beach a bit and Eric joined us as soon as he was out of an all-day training for work.

Being 36 weeks pregnant, I thought nothing of driving down there with my pants half-pulled-down to take the pressure off my lower belly. I was wearing a long top and no skin was showing or anything scandalous like that. It was just necessary.

So when we pulled into the hotel and the only option was to valet the car, I hastily locked the doors, rolled down my window and told the valet that we "needed a minute" before we were ready to get out of the car. Then I waited for him to get far enough away from the car that I could pull my pants all the way back up before unlocking the doors.

Once again fully wearing my pants, I headed with my mom and Emerson to explore a little bit before we were going to meet Joy. The valet pointed us toward Pirate Island and there we discovered Paddleboat Joe and his fleet (of paddleboats). Paddleboat Joe was an older black gentleman who seemed born for his job: quick-witted and engaging, delighted by everyone who walked by.

It was clear that we had to go for a ride.

If driving a car with pants on was too much lower belly pressure then forget about pedal-powering a small watercraft while wearing those same pants. Luckily, my mother was happy to do the legwork while Emerson and I took turns steering us into the edges of the channel which wended its way around the hotel property, never more than about 18 inches deep.

Eric arrived about halfway through our paddleboat adventure and didn't hesitate to jump on board. I moved to the backseat and chatted with a caterpillar who was hitch-hiking while Eric gave Gail some needed support on the pedals.

When we pulled back into the dock, Paddleboat Joe had a lot to say about our having gained a passenger on the short ride. Eric told Paddleboat Joe that we had offered him $5 to help us pedal.

Good question

2011-11-12T18:05:00.000-08:00

My mother is here for a week which means Eric and I are hitting the town every chance we get.

Friday night we went out for dinner at a local spot near our house. It was the kind of place that could be a chain but isn't (as far as we can tell). When we got there the senior crew and the families with young kids were on their way out and the date night-ers were on their way in.

As we waited for a table an older gentleman approached Eric and asked in an almost accusatory tone:

"Who has the better looking bald head - me or you?"

"Ah, I think that would have to be you," replied Eric, with just the slightest hesitation.

"You got that right!" the man guffawed.

"It's a good night out," Eric observed. And he was right.

35 weeks

2011-11-06T18:21:00.000-08:00

Today I am officially 35 weeks, or about 8 months, pregnant with Groucho, a little brother for Emerson. I'm not really sure where the time has gone, at least partly because I think I am actively trying to repress the memory of our first few months here in Florida in the middle of the pregnancy. But I wanted to take a moment to write down what's going on with this pregnancy because this blog is actually a replacement for my brain which doesn't always hold onto memories so well right now even when I want it to.

This pregnancy has been different from my pregnancy with Emerson in a couple of major ways. For one, I had a sugar aversion with Emerson and while that didn't stop me completely from the occasional cupcake it did mean I wasn't so much into sweets for that 9 months. With Groucho, I have had the opposite experience. I would eat exclusively sugar and be perfectly happy if that were a remotely acceptable thing to do, which of course it is not. Before we knew Groucho was a boy, this made me suspect that baby #2 would be a girl. I guess it just means he'll be a super sweet boy.

As I think is typical, I showed a lot sooner this time than I did the first time around. I had a very pregnant-looking belly pretty quickly this time which was nice in that I got to "feel" pregnant sooner, but was distressing because the trajectory suggested I would end up three times the size I did with Emerson. The good news I can report from 35 weeks that I didn't know at 15 weeks is that I plateaued significantly in the weight gain category and seem on track to be about the same amount of large as I was last time.

For those middle months when we were living in temporary furnished purgatory, I had a lot of back pain and I blamed it on the pregnancy. What I discovered after two nights of sleeping in my own bed is that it was just the terrible, terrible mattress in that grim little condo and my back has been in great shape ever since.

I have also noticed ways that Groucho himself is already different than Emerson. The way he moves around is different - more sharp and sudden movements and more stretching where I feel him seemingly at my collarbone and halfway down my thigh at the same time. He has also not had the hiccups nearly as much as Emerson did.

Groucho is great company and I am really excited to meet him on the outside in not too long.

Not exactly news

2011-10-30T08:50:00.000-07:00

The Onion, always honest in news reporting if not always accurate, had this headline recently: Study Finds Every Style Of Parenting Produces Disturbed, Miserable Adults.

The last line is my favorite: "The study did find, however, that adults often achieve temporary happiness when they have children of their own to perpetuate the cycle of human misery."

Settling in

2011-10-28T17:11:00.000-07:00

Today marks three weeks that we are sleeping in our house. I think I love this house. It is huge and beautiful and we can watch the sunset sitting by the pool like we are on a tropical vacation. And it is falling apart more than I would have expected from a house that is not even 16 years old.

The two major house projects (new roof, hardwood floor installation) that we cleverly scheduled to have completed before we moved in should, if we are lucky, both be finished by early next week. The best worst moment of all happened yesterday when I opened the front door to give the roofer the final check and there was house paint running down the roof and onto the plants and the sidewalk and front stoop. The roofer had gone up to put the final coat of paint on some stucco that they had to replace and kicked over the can of paint. Truly unbelievable.

And it's the little things: Emerson, without even trying that hard, pulled the drapes right out of the wall. The screws holding together the screen covering that goes over the patio and pool are so rusted out that a stiff wind will probably blow the whole thing into the gulf of Mexico. And so on. But then you sit on our new patio "conversation set" and watch the sunset and everything is kind of perfect.

Two years

2011-10-27T17:14:00.000-07:00

Tuesday was Eric and my second wedding anniversary. Neither one of us can recall what we did for our first but I am sure it was wonderful. This one was celebrated in stages: a nice dinner on Sunday grilled on our new grill (a housewarming present from Joy and Dan - thank you!), gift-giving on Tuesday, and then watching our wedding video (thank you Andrew!) on Wednesday.

I'm OK with the anniversary day not being that memorable when everything else in our lives is. As crazy as life is right now, I couldn't imagine it being more fun with anyone else.

A first

2011-10-13T19:55:00.000-07:00

A conference first for me today: at a session on IKEA's partnership with UNICEF they showed a video on the work they are doing with children in South Africa that just got to me for some reason and I cried. A little at first, then more. It was the last part of the session so I knew if I could survive the video I could get to the bathroom and pull myself together.

As I was trying to make my eyes look less red and puffy, other women in the bathroom tried to be nice to me. One woman in the bathroom who had also seen the video said "Oh bless your heart." Another said she had also teared up a bit.

One woman who had been at a different breakout session wasn't sure what to make of it. "Your session made you cry? That bad?"

I don't know if it was the African music or the young children or being really tired and really pregnant or maybe just all of it together. I couldn't help but cry.

I'm hoping for a less dramatic day tomorrow.