Clearly not born in a barn

Or is it 'raised in a barn'? Anyway, one of Zachary's favorite games is "open/shut". He finds a cabinet, child gate, or door, and starts opening and closing it. If one of us is around to offer commentary (e.g. saying "open" when he opens the object, and "shut" as he bangs it closed), that makes the game more entertaining, and he'll swing the door open and shut rapidly to see if we can keep up. Pretty complex rule structure, huh? The game only occasionally ends with a pinched finger - generally he's pretty good and careful about keeping his hands out of the way.

Lately he's gone beyond just opening and closing; when he walks up to an open door or gate, he simply must shut it. Sometimes it's after he goes through it, but just as often it's when he's still outside of the room that he was so interested in until this door thing showed up. Last night I was getting him ready for bathtime, and he was happily playing with a toy while I went to start filling the tub. I heard his door close seconds later -- I think he just wanted some private time. Same thing when he crosses from the kitchen into the music room - he has to close the child gate behind him (much to Korby's disappointment).

Another recent open/shut development: today I dropped a little toy into his rocket car's trunk while he was playing the open/shut game with it. The next time he opened it, he held it open long enough to fish the toy out before continuing the game. Then when he opened it again, he dropped the toy back in. There could be some complex choreography starting up soon - is Zachary's next stop Stomp?

Home from the range

Home at last, and for good! Well, for two weeks at any rate. The rest of my trip to Texas was a combination of productive (Austin, Dallas meetings and conference) and a good opportunity to catch up with friends and family (Austin, Fort Worth). I did get to have dinner with my hurricane evacuee cousins in Austin (at a tasty seafood place), and they were certainly handling things in stride. Hopefully in the next few days (if not already) they can head back home, where another cousin who stayed reported there was thankfully minimal damage. The rest of my conference went really well too; one of the highlights was an event called 'Iron Composer Texas', featuring 3 competitors who were trying to produce just-in-time sound effects and music for a video game played live by two volunteers from the audience, and who were then judged by 3 'American Idol'-style judges. (The contestants had been allowed to prepare a musical keyboard full of sounds, and were given a 'secret ingredient' at the event that they had to incorporate into the performance. The secret ingredient was of course cowbell.)

After the conference, I drove back up to Fort Worth for another meeting as well as further catch-up time with friends M and K. I met M at his university, where I got the full tour of the school. Their football stadium was completely open, so we even got to walk out onto the field and speculate as to whether one could touch a goalpost (answer: not with our combination of height and jumping skills). I also picked up a Horned Frogs (their mascot) little t-shirt for lil man, though they had a pitiful 18-month selection, so he got his very first "2T" shirt. Hopefully it'll fit him, or will at least by winter time (aka today, but more on that in a bit).

Thursday night we met up with several other friends (one of whom I'd known since elementary school) for a tasty dinner at an all-vegan restaurant. I was astounded by the selection; it's so much easier when there are only 1-2 things on the menu that I can eat. Oh, and they had hilarious names for their faux meats and dairy: bacun, san'iches, cheez, and i-scream. We actually passed on the desserts to enjoy them at another restaurant next door. It was great to see everyone, enjoy a good dinner together, and get a little bit caught up on the news.

Friday, M and I went to breakfast at the Paris Coffee House. The name is perhaps a bit misleading, this is the epitome of a great southern diner. And I think this place is the antithesis to the vegan restaurant; when I ordered eggs and biscuits, the waitress quizzically looked at me and asked suspiciously, "No meat?" Same response when M bypassed their bacon, pork sausage, and other beefy entrees. But the biscuits were excellent.

Random musings on the Lone Star state:

• They've got a serious love of concrete there - the number of freeways alone is pretty impressive (even the major north/south freeway I-35 breaks into I-35 W and I-35 E branches hitting both Dallas and Fort Worth, leading to interesting directions like 'take I-35 east north'), and I lived in LA. Now overlay multiple freeway labels (at one point the road I was on seriously had five freeway names, including interstate, business loop, Texas state route, turnpike, etc.), extensive service drives ('frontage roads'), giant ramps, and cloverleaf entrance/exits, and you've got a recipe for 79,000 miles of public roads. Yikes.


• "News" stations get pretty scary between Austin and Waco. I was trying to find some news, and heard this unbelievably biased and racist story criticizing employees who had gone on strike at their company for not letting them move their break to sunset during a religious observance. Here's a somewhat less biased version (less biased from FOX news?), but the radio version talked about the workers not being or becoming 'American,' and stayed about a half step from suggesting these workers were militant extremists.


• There's apparently a large and tourist-promoting Czech community in the town of West, Texas. (Yes, that's right, not West something -- just West, which is actually in northeastern Texas.) I don't think I've ever seen highway signage before for a Shell gas station telling you to stop and try their kolaches. T and P, take note for the next time you're in Texas. :) I asked friend K, and her history of Texas class paid off -- she had good detailed info on why Czech and German communities moved to the middle of rural Texas in the mid 1800s.


• Overheard on the radio: "It's going to be unseasonably cool today: 83 to 87 degrees." By contrast, Seattle is 55 degrees today. And rainy.

A huge thanks to M and K for hosting me; I had such a nice time visiting some of their haunts and getting to know their city a bit!

I Don't Like Ike

The Scoot road trip continues; about 12 hours after returning from Orcas Island, I was back on the road today for a conference in Austin -- this is hopefully my last business trip for quite some time, and likely my second-to-last trip overall for the rest of the year. Boo on the timing; Meh worked today, so it was a bit of extra stress on her dealing with my company's backup care scheduling that I would've preferred to avoid (well, along with all of the travel to begin with).

The flight was uneventful and I arrived in Dallas/Fort Worth in time to meet up with friends M and K (friend S joined us for a bit) for a tour of their cozy home and a late lunch. (Random story: an entire large family walked in and sauntered to the table behind us. And I do mean sauntered -- the kids were all in powder blue cowboy jumpsuits and boots, complete with jangling spurs. Wow.) We then enjoyed some authentic Texas gelato at their favorite local market, where I picked up snacks for the drive down to Austin. Then I was, as they say, "on the road again..." (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Any whining I've done in the last few weeks about challenges dealing with Zachary in one-room hotels and cabins seems completely inappropriate and out of place now. The drive down didn't give much hint as to damage from Hurricane Ike, other than frequent digital freeway signs warning people not to drive to Houston, and a few seriously angled (but still intact) telephone poles along the side of the road outside of Waco. M and K reported that the previous day, when Ike had passed through Fort Worth, it had spun down to mainly rain and a bit of wind. And Austin itself seems to have fared pretty well too.

However, the story changed dramatically when I pulled the car into the hotel -- the lobby is crowded with families, children, and lots of dogs. (Thankfully, the hotel appears to be dog friendly -- there were even bowls of dog biscuits up at the check-in counters.) As I'm guessing is likely true throughout the city, the hotel is filled with folks fleeing the hurricane. It sounds like power won't be restored to some areas for a month or more, so they may be here with nowhere else to go.

After talking with members of my extended family (from a Houston suburb, and who ironically evacuated to a hotel I must have just driven past on my way into Austin), it perhaps doesn't sound like it's quite so dire for those who evacuated ahead of time. My cousins sound like they're faring pretty well, and we're going to try to meet up this week. But still, I can't even imagine such a life disruption. Everywhere I've lived there's some kind of natural disaster waiting to happen - tornados, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc. But despite the fact that hurricanes at least provide some warning, they still seem the most terrifying -- Zachary's Mima and Papa are so brave to deal with these storms year after year!

Island life

Once more (and theoretically for the last time this year), Zachary got to travel with us on a trip. But this was not a cross-country trek, nor even a flight down the coast. Nope, just a quiet holiday getaway with friends J & S (and quite a few other friends as well who joined us the subsequent day) at a lovely retreat on the gorgeous Orcas Island in the San Juans.

Car travel was enoromously more straightforward and comfortable for all of us. Zachary got to sprawl out in the back seat -- well, in his car seat still, but it was certainly more comfortable than an airplane. And his stuff certainly sprawled out over the backseat and trunk. While Meh and I easily packed into less than a suitcase each, he filled ours, a few backpacks, canvas bags, and introduced a few additional items to lug to the cabin (in particular, his pack and play; at least we didn't have to deal with any "death cribs" this time around). The journey also featured the happy return of the ferry ride; Zachary still loves them, and was happy and talky throughout the journey. Plus he cruised around the deck fence with mommy and daddy.

The trip itself, while perhaps not 'relaxing' in the traditional sense, was still a very nice slowdown from our other travels and even at-home life. We stayed in a cute cabin overlooking a meadow (and with views through the trees down to the bay that was the resort's namesake) where deer and bunnies kept popping up to graze. Zachary didn't show tremendous interest in them, though a few other guests' dogs had him pointedly saying 'dah' and smiling at them. Another milestone relating to canines - while reading his favorite doggie book, he responded to Meh's renditions of the dog sounds by repeating a similar dog 'whimper' noise, and the next day was making other dog-like sounds.

We had a nice combination of hiking (we walked around a beautiful lake), exploring (driving to the top of Mt. Constitution to take in stunning views of all of the San Juan islands -- apparently you can even see as far as Victoria on occasion), strolling through the cute sea-side communities (we even found the cozy Orcas Island Library - complete with hand-painted ceramic shelf labels), and enjoying some seriously good food. The weather was glorious, and the scenery simply couldn't be beat. The pictures pretty much speak for themselves:





Zachary did amazingly well, though of course sleeping in a one-bedroom cabin was a challenge (we went to bed when he did, though those 5 am wakeups were tough) and 'late' dinners (e.g. 6 or 6:30 pm) tended to push his patience a bit. I'll share one other possibly slightly off-color, but utterly hilarious story of our trip. When we arrived on the first day, we all went out to lunch together. Zachary was enjoying and talking about his lunch happily in the (nearly empty) restaurant - one of the benefits to showing up before the big tourist weekend rushes. Then he started making this crazy smile and freezing in place. We figured out that he was just straining to, um, use the facilities (do diapers count as facilities?), and while in the past this has gotten him red-faced and clenching his hands out in front of him, this time it was accompanied by a crazy half-squint/half-bug-eyed grin that just had us all in stitches as he repeated it about 10 times during lunch. J caught a video; I'll have to post it when we grab a copy.

No more tears?

As a hopeful sign that Zachary is fully back into his routine and comfort zone, I was able to put him to bed tonight without any crying -- while I was in Japan, Meh reported that he was taking a while to settle at night, so maybe he just feels more settled with the whole family together again?

Today also marks the day Zachary turns 13 months old. Yes, I've got to update the stats counter on the blog to start counting in months instead of weeks at some point. (And then soon enough we'll just be counting in years - crazy!)

Skin conditions are a natural part of being a baby (most parents we've talked to have confirmed that 'baby-soft skin' is somewhat of a myth/misnomer). Zachary had a little baby acne thing going, so today I took him to the doctor and they gave us an antibiotic. Thus far I've got three complaints:

1. Why does it have to be pink? Okay, fine, it's "cherry flavored", but does that really help 'sell' the taste experience to Zachary? All this means is that we stain his pajamas, the floor, and our own clothes when we administer it. Clear would be just as effective medicinially I suspect.


2. The dosage is 6 mL. The pharmacy was kind enough to give us a dosing syringe -- but with markings only up to 5 mL. So yes, it takes two draws to get the proper medicine out of the bottle, by which time he's again squirming free.


3. Children's medication is always ridiculously sticky. This is icky twofold -- from #1 above, we end up getting it on us (and Zachary around his mouth, on his clothes, etc.), and secondly, even just drawing it from the bottle, you end up with a syringe that's sticky inside and out. So now I'm fishing around for kleenex or wipes for Zachary, myself, the floor, and the syringe.

Changing Zachary is becoming more and more of a challenge - he hates being laid on his back and is constantly trying to roll away. Meh has mastered the art of the standing and crawling changes, but I'm still too afraid of, um, something rolling away onto the floor when I open the moving diaper target. For now I have to resort to distraction (toys, songs, and tummy raspberries) to get him to somewhat stay still, but I suspect this won't last much longer...

Eat your booty

I got back from Japan yesterday morning, and the little man and I got to spend most of the day together. Zachary already seemed different than when I had left - even more interactive, playing, and verbal. He also now has a fifth tooth coming in (bottom right-of-center, for the inquiring grandparental minds). He was singing for mommy this week while I was gone:


A somewhat new food in Zachary's cuisine since I got back is what Trader Joe's used to call Pirate's Booty (really? a Wikipedia entry? What doesn't that thing cover?!), but recently replaced by their own brand of (suspiciously still maritime/treasure chest-themed) 'Unburied Treasure White Cheddar Corn Puffs'. He loves them as a snack or at dinner time, though he still hasn't quite figured out the whole "biting off a piece" concept, and stuffs them into his mouth whole.

This leads us into a review of his current dietary state in general, which is an occasional concern, such as on our recent trips to NY and LA (where we went to fruit markets or grocery stores to stock up on Zachary-friendly cuisine). Apparently any hint or mention of a child being a 'picky eater' is taboo and actively discouraged by the child care folks in the know -- at our otherwise consistently supportive parent-baby sessions, Meh was actually chided at the final graduating class a few weeks ago for even suggesting such a thing within earshot of Zachary. Wha? Anyway, here's my current understanding of his eating standards:

1. Finger foods must be consciously grabbed by Zachary. Anything placed in his hand or inadvertently dragged/brushed in passing is unacceptable and elicits hand shaking until the item is flung in a random direction.
2. Items must not be sticky or gummy, since this may lead to violations of #1. ("Wet" appears to be okay, since his favorites include fruits.)
3. Spoon-fed items must be accompanied by live entertainment (and occasionally by a second spoon that he must hold). The choo-choo train and Jaws theme are his favorite delivery mediums.
4. Items with complex textures are not generally acceptable. This has been proven thus far by pizza, waffles, and quesadillas that included more than just cheese and a hint of carrots.
5. Items must more or less fit in his mouth whole; biting off a piece is unacceptable. (There was a hilarious example last week where I gave him a rectangular Japanese rice wafer we'd gotten. He insisted that it must be eaten in vertical orientation, so he was getting frustrated and having issues trying to chew it while it propped his mouth open.)

Of course all we can do is continue to offer these other foods; as our doctor reminded us, it's pretty uncommon for a child who has been consistently offered foods to starve. And Zachary certainly is doing fabulously with the foods that he does like; tonight he ate about a half of a quesadilla, a small bunch of grapes, a few mommy-picked blackberries, a handful of pirate's booty, apple sauce, and one and a half rice cakes. Korby got the honor of eating the rejected pizza and late quesadilla and grape bits; I think he's looking forward to mealtime more than Zachary is.

Today, Zachary took 3 quick little steps in a row! He was cruising around and then holding onto mommy, and she backed up - he responded by walking back over to her and grabbing her skirt. I tried to replicate it with daddy, but he preferred to just keep crawling towards me, which was its own brand of fun entertainment for the little man; we had a few chase daddy around the kitchen sessions this afternoon while mommy was at work.

Home is where the layover is

The remainder of our Los Angeles trip just flew by - it was so good to see so many friends and to be able to celebrate with R and M on their wedding day, though both Meh and I looked at each other on our drive back from the SeaTac airport and simultaneously sighed 'home'. That was last night. Today I'm off to Tokyo for the third and final installment of this year's Gamefest conference. Never a dull moment!

Wrapping up our LA trip, Monday morning we headed off to visit one of Meh's oldest friends C, along with her husband M and their two young sons. Zachary was moderately fussy, but locked onto the excellent large ceiling fan they have in their family room and became happy. We had a nice breakfast with them and tried to get caught up, though eventually my cat allergies got the best of me (didn't actually see the kitty though - usually they sense these things and do everything in their power to be all cute and pettable, forcing me to pet them with pens and such to avoid the direct contact) and we had to make an escape.

Then it was back into the city for lunch from my favorite kosher deli. Between the young children joining us (we got to see friends T & S and their daughters M & R) and the potentially large party, we elected to do takeout. (I also pondered the fact that Zachary's favorite lunchtime food is actually dairy, and thus likely wouldn't be allowed in the door at the deli.) Friend J graciously hosted us, and friends (M and C) and family (Aunt K) came by and joined us for various amounts of time. Friend M brought Zachary a cute onesite and an excellent cushy football toy branded from his daddy's school - fight on!

The flight back (Zachary's 24th! I'm feeling I should start tracking these on his stat sheet on the right column of the blog) was thankfully smooth, though on this plane our so-called "bulkhead" seats were really just regular seats right behind the first class row, with a little curtain - no bulkhead, and thus not much real extra space for ground exploration for the little man. Still, he was so tired from the weekend's activities that after I changed him (in a restroom that, hooray, finally had a changing table), he conked out on mommy pretty quickly, and slept through to the landing. Hopefully Zachary will adjust back to his regular schedule smoothly -- he was such a good little boy during all of our summer travels this year!

Bridal trails

Continuing our LA trip adventure on Sunday morning, we had a tasty breakfast at one of our favorite LA breakfast joints. (As with New York last week, I was astounded to arrive at a generally popular and crowded restaurant and have it be virtually empty - then again, we were there by a little past 8 am.) Well, my breakfast was good at least - Meh had some kind of super-rosemary in her eggs that she said tasted like either perfume or window cleaner. Yum. Zachary again dissed eggs, toast, and even most of the fruit bowls that Meh and I had gotten - so it was another breakfast of mostly just grapes and Cheerios for the little man.

After breakfast we headed onward to meet up with friends M and L and their daughter C for brunch/lunch. (Our visits really do seem to center on eating opportunities, no?) Zachary played while C tried to interact with him, and the adults kind of sort of got to catch up in between playing with the kids. But it was again so nice to just spend some quiet mellow time in our friends' home and hang out. Zachary was a big fan of their mini-kitchen toy set, and played with plastic eggs as well as a few of C's other toys (drawing some concern from her at times) and walking around with their little plastic walker. Lately I've noticed that when Zachary finds a toy that he likes, he'll sit on the ground and drag it around himself in full circles. Meh says he's done this with his blocks as well; not sure what exactly this behavior signifies, but it's cute to see him do it with such focus and thoroughness.

Then we headed back to the hotel, the little man taking a cute little nap in the car en route, and waking up smiley like so. We had a little extra time before the evening wedding, and it was another fairly hot LA day, so we attempted to go down to the pool with the little man after our success at C and L's yesterday. He was very happy to be getting in, but quickly started to shiver once he was actually in the pool - looks like it wasn't heated to his liking, so we ended up bailing on that plan, drying off next to the pool and just enjoying the warm weather for a bit.

Meh and I had a wonderful time at the wedding. The venue was the Los Angeles Equestrian Center (several horses crossed the road in front of us as we entered - yes, to get to the other side), and it was beautiful, with a gorgeous shaded alcovey outdoor area with a waterfall for the ceremony, and a great room with band and excellent food for the reception and celebration.

We arrived a bit early so I could rehearse the last of the music with the musicians, and Meh took the opportunity to snap some nice pictures and catch up with some wedding party members. The ceremony was lovely, and I hope that our music added to the experience. It was special for me to be able to play some of Meh and my wedding music again, in addition to some pretty melodies that had special meaning for R and M. When arranging music for a wedding processional/recessional, I generally put in a few potential spots where the music can loop, since you never know how long a procession will take. (Hm, I guess it's like video game music in that way.) This was one of the first times I'd actually needed to use all of the 'loops', with the large wedding party and extended processional path.

Then I got to put the viola away and enjoy the wedding festivities. One fun tradition that you can't get enough at weddings is the concept of entertaining the bride and groom through shtick and props. Of course, the weddings these past two weekends have certainly demonstrated that in spades; friend E had brought a bunch of 99 cent store (though perhaps not for long?) props, including some silly glasses and hats that made their way around the table. My hat was deemed a cute option for Zachary, so we kept it. Pictures in the next post I'm guessing.

A huge huge thank you to R for babysitting him while we went to the wedding; she did an amazing job with what sounded to be a very cranky Zachary while we were gone. We got back to the little man sleeping soundly in his crib (don't worry, he woke up several times later that night), and were so thankful that R took such good care of him and let mommy and daddy celebrate at their friends' wedding!

Da is the word

Incidentally, this trip's hotel again lacks a proper pack-n-play -- what gives? Thankfully, this is at least a newer model than the New York hotel's "death crib", and it has a mattress that actually properly and snugly fits it. Still, Zachary was not a fan and took a while to get down the last two nights, and woke up multiple times in the middle of the night as well. And the hotel room is just a single room, so there's no separate area to hang out -- when he goes to sleep, we go to sleep.

Another hectic day of visiting friends and wedding activities. In the morning, we enjoyed the hotel's cafe for breakfast; Zachary had grapes, some whole milk, and even perhaps a blackberry or two (he still isn't always sure what to make of them). Then we were off to scenic Cal State Northridge for my rehearsal with the musicians. I'd offered for Meh and Zachary to drop me off, but he was mostly mokeyfied, so they came along. The classroom we rehearsed in had lots of chairs for him to cruise around, and he was happy to listen to the music and toddle around - though the room was unfortunately not air conditioned and apparently not cleaned recently; Zachary's feet and legs were nearly black after crawling around for a bit. Ew.

After rehearsal, we met up with one of my oldest elementary school friends and his family. C & L have two super-cute kids and an adorably fluffy dog (a goldendoodle - and of course these pooches have got their own website), and it was nice to just hang out at their lovely home, have a mellow lunch and early afternoon, and just catch up. They also have a fabulous (and warm) pool, so I got to take Zachary for my very first swim with him. (He's been taking those classes with Meh, but I've been the observer on the few occasions where I've come along.) Zachary was extremely happy, smiley, and making lots of noises and splashes in the pool.

We headed back to the hotel to meet up with friend C for dinner. Zachary again fell asleep on the drive, but the rule in LA is that everything is roughly 45 minutes apart in traffic (paradoxically, it appears to be irrelevant whether it's 30 miles or 3 blocks), so it was once more a brief nap. We then had playtime in the convention center attached the hotel, which has nice large carpetted floors and of course the highly desireable air conditioning. Zachary continues to love wheels, and we developed a new game of him chasing mommy and the stroller:


I also caught this super-cute conversation between mommy and Zachary, the source of today's blog title:


In the evening, I was off to the wedding's rehearsal dinner; we have a babysitter booked for tonight, but last night Meh just wanted to get Zachary down early (and try to go to bed early herself too), so I represented the family. Got to catch up with a few former Seattle friends now living in LA, and of course congratulate the bride and groom before things get too hectic tomorrow.

Coast to coast

One crazy sleep-deprived wedding weekend deserves another, as I always say. So after returning from my brother's wedding and getting us all somewhat back into the swing of things at home for a few days, we were off to Los Angeles for our friends' R and M's wedding this weekend. On the plus side, LA is the same time zone and a much shorter flight (a little over 2 hours). On the minus side, little man was still travelling as a lap infant, and I was bringing my viola along as one extra carry-on (I'd organized and was playing the ceremony music).

Thankfully, Alaska Air is pretty aggressive about offering fairly exclusive seat selection options for their frequent flyers, so I had snagged bulkhead rows both directions. At checkin, there were a bunch of available seats, but as I feared, it was more about them not yet freeing these seats for general assignments than it being an empty flight. So we did end up with an occupied third seat in our row, but Zachary didn't mind as he had plenty of (questionably vacuumed) floor to play on before and during the flight. Only one nuisance - he fell asleep in the ergo, and as we prepared for landing, the flight attendant told us we had to remove him from the ergo, even though he was fully secured and Meh was holding him. Thankfully he stayed asleep, though he remained in the exact same position as in the ergo - goofiness to make such a random requirement.

Our LA trips are always fairly hectic, with so many friends to catch up with in compressed timeframes. This trip was no exception; after the prerequisite stop for lunch at In-N-Out (surprisingly disappointing - how did they manage to let grilled cheese get cold?), where Zachary enjoyed his first grilled cheese sandwich (while foresaking the french fries), we immediately headed off to meet up with Aunt K (Zachary's great aunt K) in the Hills of Beverly. She intended to take us on an LA cupcake tour; two of the big ones are right down the street from each other. I was surprised that the first one was a familiar site from our NY trip the week before -- even the cupcake shops are franchising now? Meh and I had a jelly-filled cupcake that was far superior to her NY one, so Crumbs is back in our good book. We then made multiple attempts to hit the other Beverly Hills cupcake shop, only to be stopped by out-the-door lines each time. Zachary wasn't happy to stand still, so we meandered around and up and down Rodeo, grabbing a whole milk for him from an ice cream shop before stopping at a giant planter for him to laugh, play with, and occasionally try to eat the rubbery leaves of a funky southern California bush.

From there, we were off to dinner with a few friends at a kid-friendly burger joint. Well, it would have been even more kid-friendly if we didn't have to wait 45 minutes for the one 'big table' at the restaurant, which they had decided our group of 8 plus 2 kids required. On the plus side, it worked out well for everyone to arrive and enjoy dinner together. Zachary made friends with young L, and of course continues to love and respond to friend J with crazy near-hysterical laughter:

Free return trajectory

The J & B wedding celebration wrapped up on Sunday with a nice brunch hosted by the mother of the groom. Meh finally got an opportunity to catch up with folks she hadn't had much of a chance to see at the wedding. And Zachary was mostly happy through the brunch, particularly once we found him some (what else but) grapes and blueberries, though eventually the exhaustion did once again catch up with him. He slept much of the ride to the airport - which we incidentally grabbed a town car for. The difference in driving styles from herky-jerky cabbie to 'yes we do realize we have passengers' smooth-driving town car was well worth the like $5 fare difference.

We were dreading the return flight, but did everything in our power to make it a little more bearable for Zachary and Meh. Check-in took ages, which I thought spelled disaster, but I told them our sad story and they recommended keeping the car seat available in case any seats were available at the gate (they thought a few might be). At the gate itself, they insisted that the plane was full and possibly even overbooked, but at the moment we boarded, the gate agent told us that there was an empty seat a few rows back and that we should ask the passengers there if they would trade. They graciously did, and Zachary got a seat to himself - woo hoo! The change was dramatic; he was happy to sit in his spacious window seat, look out of the plane (saying 'da' to passing planes and cargo trucks), fell asleep pretty quickly into the flight, sleeping through much of it, and more or less happily playing through the remainder. We were really grateful to the ladies who switched with us, and tried to offer to pick up their plane food and/or drinks - they declined (perhaps wisely, based on the typical quality of plane food...)

Hooray for being home! Zachary has been catching up on sleep in a serious way, doing 13 or even 14 hours a night. We're hopeful he'll be fully recharged for this weekend's Los Angeles trip, which is quite possibly his last of 2008.

Guess who's (not) coming to dinner

Saturday was the big wedding day! Zachary had again been displeased with the so-called hotel crib, and ended up sleeping in bed with us. It was impressive that even in a king sized bed, he managed to nearly push both Meh and myself out of it; I think he was sleeping diagonally by the end to maximize his space. This meant that he was again up pretty early. So we decided to get him outside once more, since the walks seemed to make him happy. We journeyed the few blocks from our hotel to the famous Carnegie Deli, where he was clearly exhausted and not particularly happy.

Two minutes later he was asleep in the little umbrella stroller, and slept through the whole meal - the juice we'd gotten for him was for naught (though he drank it later in the park). The waitstaff kept coming over to fawn over him. I was surprised by how empty the deli was, though then again, who's already up and out to breakfast at 8 in the morning on a Saturday? Since we hadn't been sure how long breakfast would take, we were actually already in our clothes for the ceremony, so we decided to wander up through Central Park towards the wedding venue. (Incidental trivia: Manhattan streets are apparently roughly 1/20 of a mile. Where I grew up, they were 1/12 of a mile. So whereas I was impressed that we eventually made our way up 43 blocks to the venue, it was actually just over 2 miles rather than nearly 4.) We had a nice walk with the little man, who was mostly happy, and kept getting distracted by passing dogs. We ended up making it up to the venue just in time for one of my wedding duties -- warning park-goers hanging out by The Pool that a wedding would soon be occurring.

The wedding itself was simple and beautiful; the family walked down from 100th Street and had a small ceremony by the pool. B and J had written their vows, and they both looked so happy -- everything was just perfect! Zachary was getting fussy after the wedding while the families were organizing lunch back down toward the hotel, and we were concerned about him getting angry in a cab (or waiting for a delayed lunch), so we popped into a local Ethiopian restaurant (blissfully empty, though the food was great) with friends V, S, and their twins, who had met up with us at the park after the ceremony, and Zachary enjoyed a lunch of grapes, cheerios, and quite a bit of injera, while the grownups caught up. Zachary eventually wanted to explore, so he crawled around the restaurant (occasionally stopping to pick up and eat one of the cheerios he had scattered - ew!).

After wrapping up lunch, V and S were gracious enough to drive us back to our hotel (they'd even brought a third carseat for the occasion!) on their way out of the city, and we visited with Zachary's grandma and bubbie for a bit before getting ready for the wedding reception.

The reception was at the glorious Bryant Park; there were photographs in the park followed by a cocktail hour on the roof of the restaurant, followed by dinner and dancing in the restaurant itself. Zachary fell asleep before the photographs (leaving all of Meh's wedding photos with him in the ergo on her front), but woke up at the reception and was getting increasingly unhappy/frantic. We took turns walking him outside and soothing him with a funky projected animated plant thing in the restaurant (don't ask), but eventually it got to be too much for him (and Meh), and they ended up having an early evening. Definitely appreciating the concept of the babysitter and baby-free wedding reception, which we'll make an attempt at this coming weekend with Zachary's last flights for some time, down to LA. The rest of the wedding was, though somewhat lonely without Meh, certainly a fabulous evening of dinner, dancing, and celebrations. The Michigan gang performed this classic tune for the groom. If you can understand any of it from this posted performance, more power to you.

Jumping the Sark

After hiking back across Central Park (I actually elected one of the car thoroughfares to avoid getting lost, which made for a somewhat boring and exhaust-filled hike), I met up with the groom at his apartment. He had everything all organized into a bag for both the wedding and reception - I walked out carrying two wedding bands, cash payments for the DJ and photographer, and all of the documentation required by the state for the ceremony. Needless to say, I held onto that bag for dear life the entire subway ride down to the bachelor party. My favorite part of the trip was a large group comprised of two religiously observant moms and perhaps seven kids who piled onto the subway, at which point one of the mothers loudly barked out orders for who was to sit where, with excellent names like Mirele and Moishe coming up. The moms then proceeded to speak Yiddish the entire subway ride; it was great to hear the language being used.

B had very few requirements for his bachelor party - a few close friends, a request for sushi, poker, and a request for 'Cutty Shark' alcohol. I'd never heard of it, but looked it up, found a drink called 'Cutty Sark' (I presumed related to the Clipper ship/tourist destination we'd found to be under construction when we tried to visit on our last London trip), figured B had just spelled it wrong, and passed the request on to some of the attendees to grab some

When folks showed up, we had a hilarious series of stories of trying to get this whisky -- a few liquor store owners hadn't even heard about it, others had reported that it was really bottom shelf stuff, another said "that's what my dad drinks", and so on. B revealed that 'Cutty Shark' had been our Zadie's (grandfather's) favorite drink, and I realized at that point why the label looked familiar. At this point I called him on the Shark/Sark discrepancy, and he was totally dumbfounded - it became a running joke of the evening.

We added in a classic childhood video game favorite of B and his friends, and an excellent round of the party game "Celebrity". Everyone had a great time (pictures here - don't worry, nothing too risque).

Meanwhile (who am I kidding, everyone just wants to know more about Zachary!), back in Manhattan, Meh and Zachary had an earlyish evening back at the hotel. He figured out the zipper on Meh's backpack, opened it up, grabbed her wallet, and opened that up. Meh caught this video:

Nightmare at 30,000 feet

Well, it was bound to happen sometime. On Zachary's 21st flight (and still no frequent flyer miles to show for his journeys!), we finally had a total meltdown. Big time. Of course it had to be his longest flight yet, which made for unhappiness both from Zachary, Meh, and likely everyone around us.

The day was pretty much cursed from the start; I had to run a few errands before we headed to the airport, so we got off a few minutes late. We dropped off the car and headed to the terminal, and here the problems started to mount. Here's how it played out:

• We checked in at one of those self-serve kiosks. You then have to wait for the agent to call your name and get your bag check tags and such. Okay, so we stood there. And stood there. There wasn't even much of a queue, but people who had checked in after us kept getting called up. At first we assumed they must just have earlier flights, but 25 minutes later, we still hadn't been called. The gate agent finally motioned us up after noticing us standing around with Zachary starting to get annoyed.


• The umbrella stroller had to be checked in at a different location around the corner, adding more time and luggage dragging.


• The security line was quite long, so the TSA agents were sending everyone to a different security checkpoint halfway down the terminal in the wrong direction to our gate. And Seattle is apparently experimenting at this station with breaking people up based on "special needs", "families", and "seasoned travellers". Now granted, the "families" line did have more friendly and helpful TSA agents, but this still seemed like a lot of additional queueing for not much differentiation of service.


• Now we were through security, and Zachary, Meh, and I really needed to get some lunch before the flight. It had been so long since we'd started our check-in attempt, that I for some reason misremembered the boarding time, so I thought we had 15-20 minutes to eat. We grabbed tasty food at a litte airport restaurant (including a rather crazy triple grilled cheese panini concoction that Zachary loved). I looked down at my watch, and it was the time that I'd remembered that we were scheduled to board. Then I thought, and realized that this was actually only 15 minutes before the flight was due to take off. Hm, tight boarding time. Or perhaps I'd just remembered wrong. Crap. We started heading for the gate, then had to break into a run when we heard the 'final boarding' 5-minute warning for our flight. Of course, the gate was at the furthest possible corner of the terminal. Needless to say, we were the last ones aboard, even behind an unaccompanied minor who was being assisted onto the plane. Thankfully there was plenty of overhead storage, and we got settled in as they closed the door.

Zachary was almost immediately fussy, and of course there isn't a whole lot of room to entertain him. Despite cheerios, star puffs, menus, magazines, toys, and books, he could not get happy, and eventually started that special kind of hysterical and inconsolable crying that particularly upsets mommy, daddy, and of course other passengers. For the next two and a half hours, this was our flight, and there was nothing we could do. He finally fell asleep for 30 minutes, woke up somewhat angry again, and was finally semi-alert and just fussy for the remainder of the 5 1/2 hour flight. Ugh.

His happiest part of the day was the cab ride into Manhattan (also known as the one reason we'd lugged his carseat along, though carseats aren't actually required for cab passengers). In the time since my last visit, most cabs appear to have upgraded to these fancy video screens that can show news, maps, etc. Zachary was happy and screechy throughout the ride, even getting our cabbie to chuckle a bit.

We arrived at the hotel and had a perfect end to the day -- first they couldn't find the reservation (turns out despite my several confirmations that they didn't have the dates right), then they hadn't had us down for a crib (that honor had apparently instead been granted to my mom's room). We got into the room, which itself was nice and even had a second room that would be perfect for him to sleep in -- but then they wheeled in the crib. And I mean wheeled; this was one of those lovely institutional all metal, bottom-to-top-bars cribs of the late 1970s. With a wood plank attached with nails and screws as the base/box spring. And an ill-fitting mattress leaving a gap of a couple of inches to the end of the crib, with that plank exposed. I stuffed a blanket into the gap, but we were both a little wary of the crib. Zachary was moreso -- whether the crib, the new surrounds, or the horrible flight, he was again beside himself pretty quickly, and 20 minutes later, we were all trying to sleep in the same bed in the other room.

Zachary got about half the sleep he usually does, and the next morning we were up by 6 am and ready to wheel around the city. We ended up walking down towards the wedding venue to meet mima, papa, and my friend C for breakfast. Zachary alternated between happy, screechy, and completely monkey-fied as we walked down Avenue of the Americas, but got happier as we made our way into a fancy breakfast place ($3.50 for a muffin? Yikes!). Mima had gotten him a fun puppet that moos whenever you close its mouth (I later figured out that it actually moos some nursery rhymes, you just have to get it to moo semi-rhythmically to determine what they are), and he really enjoyed it.

We parted ways with mima and papa walked back up toward midtown, passing the famous Ghostbusters lions of the New York Public Library on the way. After a nice walk through Central Park (where we walked past the cute Alice in Wonderland statue and enjoyed the shady escape from the 80+ degree temperatures), we met up with friend C (a different C than from breakfast) for lunch at a tasty kosher dairy restaurant, and friend V joined us on his lunch break as well. Afterwards, we hiked uptown to what is generally considered one of New York's top cupcake-specializing bakeries. Meh picked up a 'devil dog' cupcake (a la hostess cupcake, with chocolate with creme filling and vanilla frosting). She ate it later that night and reported that it was somewhat disappointing. From there, I was off to my brother's to help with pre-wedding preparations, and flagged a cab for Meh and Zachary, feeling a bit like a native when I told the cabbie where to take them.

Meh reports that our readership prefers the (ahem) shorter entries, so I'll break things up a bit for the posts on our New York weekend - to be continued!

Ground floor

Another allen wrench-marked milestone -- this morning I finally dropped Zachary's crib mattress down to the lowest setting. Really this changes it from a 'crib' to just a really small square footage bed with high surrounding railings. Some mornings when we go in to get him, he's happily standing and cruising around the inside of his crib. Zachary continues to be more active and interested in the goings on around him. He's also talking more than ever; this is particularly apparent in the car when Meh or I put on NPR. I don't know if he thinks he's carrying on a conversation or just disagrees with their liberal bent, but he chats up a storm.

This morning we also had the first hint of a step! He was standing in front of mommy in the kitchen and decided he wanted to check out the magnets on the refrigerator. He turned around and took one tentative step. Then sat down and crawled a bit to reach his destination. But it's certainly a start. He's also taking more and more interest in Korby (and Korby for his part is licking Zachary's face and hands more and more - not sure if that's interest or just more food being handled by the little man):


Today was the one day a week that Zachary visits his nanny, but she was unfortunately under the weather. So Meh and I both worked half days and did the hand-off. Actually, I ended up working a bit more than half a day; Zachary was happy at the office playing with his toys (and then one of my computer bags, then a box from some computer gear), so he hung out with me for a bit before we headed out. He even sat through my annual performance review meeting -- an excellent way to ensure your manager says nice things about you. It was actually pretty funny, he started playing with the recycling bin, then fished out a printout and started shaking it around.

Zachary's favorite summertime toy is our portable air conditioning unit. In the last few days, he loves to end his day climbing between it and his step stool, frantically shifting the vent left and right and smiling as the air whips his hair:


Tomorrow we're off on Zachary's 21st career flight, the cross-country journey to New York for his Uncle B and Aunt J's wedding! We're thrilled for J and B, and very excited for Zachary to be able to spend time with his family again. Hopefully the 5 hour 35 minute flight will pass quickly for both the little man and for us!

Zachary's Magic Schoolbus (and Trike)

For Zachary's birthday, he received several new modes of transportation -- a large battery-powered schoolbus (an electric vehicle? Who knew children's toys would be so with the times!) and a neat and attractively primary-colored tricycle. The little man gave the bus a few spins last week. Here's a video:


And Saturday night, I finally assembled the trike. It came in a giant box, which of course the little man loved to use as another toy this morning. Assembly involved good use of allen wrenches, screwdrivers, and featured instructions in a dozen languages, and even a 'supplementary instruction for installation procedures' sheet. (Ouch to whoever missed that step in the original printouts.) He loves the trike, though he won't be able to reach the pedals for a little while yet.


Thanks to grandma and Aunt K for these, and to everyone else for all of his excellent and thoughtful birthday gifts!

Please do not touch glass

First he was trying to stand in the bathtub - now Zachary's trying to stand all of the time. This would be okay, except it makes for challenging and extra-squirmy diaper changes. I've tried distractions, changing him on the floor (Meh reported he almost rolled off the changing table), changing him standing up, on his tummy, crawling away from me - they're all pretty dodgy.

Today thankfully he was somewhat cooperative when I had to change him at Meh's work; the men's room had one of those changing tables, and I prepped everything to go before putting him up there, but as long as I sang and had him laughing (today's favorite song: "Who Let the Dogs Out" -- who knew?) he stayed still.

The two of us also visited a group of old friends that we hadn't seen in a while for a brunch/lunch party, and there were so many kids about - it's a little sad that we'd all lost touch in part because of our new families (and in part due to geography; folks were visiting from Boston, northern California, and even *gasp* Sammamish) but it was great to catch up. Zachary had a nice lunch with the other kids at the table, a few of whom were just a few months older than him but already even so much more communicative.

Zachary continues to interact with Korby more and more. Here he is watching Korby on the porch -- just moments before, Korby had wandered away and he'd happily hollered through the glass door for him to come back and play some more.

About face

I'd forgotten to mention a host of milestones Zachary has reached in the past few days:

• On the morning of his birthday, those two teeth we'd started seeing hints of two weeks ago poked through. They've been growing out very quickly since then, and he's now quite close to having a matching top and bottom set!
• One year marks the recommended time to turn those convertible baby carseats around -- so yesterday I made the flip in both of our cars. It was weird to drive and not have the easy view of him in the giant baby mirror we'd positioned over the back seat - now we've got to crane our heads to see down to the actual little man. Though he'd already had his first forward-driving experience last month, he was quite happy and talky to be driving facing forward -- Meh was concerned that with the new perspective on things he wouldn't be sleeping in the car anymore. But this afternoon he did indeed conk out on our way home from my office.
• He's continuing to be more curious and exploring everything around him. I got one of those giant fence things to put around our bookshelves, but he's still wandering into Korby's room, checking out things in the kitchen, showing an interest in outlets (thankfully all have plastic safety covers, though that makes them impossible for me to actually plug anything into!), and is starting to stand up alone for longer periods. He's also been trying to stand up in the tub, which is a little worrying - time to get one of those bath matts I think.

This morning was Zachary's one year check-up. His doctor was wonderful as always, and everything was looking very good with his motor skills and behavioral development. The vital stats:

Weight: 20 lbs 14 oz. (40th percentile)
Height: 29 1/2" (45th percentile)
Head circumference: 45.8 cm (40th percentile)

(The grandparents are likely simultaneously kvelling over his weight and worrying about the height going from 75th to 45th percentile. Remember, baby Scott was consistently off the bottom of the chart. And again, childhood height has no correspondence to adult height. Well, except in my case I guess.)

We chatted with the doc about table foods, and she agreed that he's ready for most everything that we eat. Oh, and he can start having cow's milk -- so he and I went to the store and got some tasty whole milk, which he seemed as happy to drink as formula for his afternoon snack today. He got four shots, including the long-awaited make-up for the one everyone had a shortage of six and three months ago. As with before, the sadness after the shots went away quite quickly - he's such a good little man!

How does "Happy Birthday" sound on a zither?

It's nearly inconceivable that Zachary is already a year old - happy first birthday, Zachary! I'm so glad that I got back in time for it -- when he woke up and came into bed with us, we sang him happy birthday and he gave us a big smile, before climbing all over me and pulling at my face. Then it was present time. He'd received cute cards and a variety of gifts (toys, blocks, books, clothes, a giant puppet theater, a tricycle, and much more) from friends and family over the past few days - thank you so much to everyone for their generosity and for helping us celebrate his birthday!

I'd brought him his first proper Paddington Bear from Hamleys (don't worry, I selected it after that conference call), along with a bobby (British policeman) rubber ducky and a battery-powered floating turtle that sprays water out of his shell. Zachary was somewhat interested in the last two when we used them for baffy time, though I think Meh and I enjoy the spraying turtle more than he does. Meh got him special baby crayons, a pirate doll, and three excellent books (including a replacement for the ABC's book we loved but had lost months before). And of course Meh brought her mad skills to bear to properly celebrate his birthday.

Meh makes amazing cakes. (Ask her to read that sentence aloud for proper 'Meh' emphasis.) And pies. And cupcakes. Really, if it's dessert, and she makes it, it's going to rock. But she truly outdid herself for Zachary's birthday. After brainstorming a variety of themes over months, she struck on the brilliant idea to create an alphabet block cake with a "1", a "Z", and objects that begin with the letter Z. For those who aren't yet zither enthusiasts, enjoy the Wikipedia entry, though my favorite was the amazing zebra. Of course the cake also matched the party's theme colors of brown (chocolate cake), white, and blue (fondant) -- friend J approved emphatically, as it was close to her own wedding colors.

A principal requirement of the first birthday is the first exposure to serious amounts of refined sugar, and Zachary didn't disappoint, with a series of faces and grabbed fistfuls of cupcake and frosting to keep everyone entertained. Note also his birthday hat and the clearly-designed-for-one-occasion '1st Birthday Boy' bib.

Lon-done

Here I am, trip wrapped up, waiting for my flight in the Holideck. No, really. It appears that a bunch of airline business lounges just banded together to make a single massive 3-floor lounge. There was no signage specifically for my airline, so I was wandering the terminal shops for a bit first - feeling a bit dumb for walking up and down Regent Street today shopping at the same stores that are right here in the airport. Granted, even 'duty free', I'm sure the airport versions are pretty marked up, but that's still a few extra hours, streets, and tube rides that I was carrying everything around.

Incidentally, that earlier central London shopping trip led to a pretty funny scenario - I was walking out of Fortnum and Mason after purchasing Meh's favourite chocolates and our favourite teas (you simply must add the 'u' when talking about proper British tea), and my phone started ringing. The caller ID showed a Seattle area code, and I figured it was someone from home who I could just call back when I got back to the US, where it wouldn't be $1/minute. Then again, it was 11 am at the time, so 3 am at home - more likely a coworker also in the UK. Whoops, yup, a question had come up at a meeting, and they were wondering if I could do a conference call. So a few minutes later, I took the call at the most unlikely location: on the third floor of Hamleys (London’s answer to FAO Schwartz) toy store in Regent Street. Nothing like discussing technical audio topics while winding through displays of stuffed animals, dodging silly magic-trick-performing employees, and checking out an impressive life-size Lego Indy display.

The conference went very well - we ended up having more than four hundred people attend! As one final challenge thrown my way, I was asked on the morning of the event if I could introduce the keynote speaker. So I got to take that treacherous two-step walk up onto the stage, with giant video screens behind me projecting, um, me, welcome everyone to the event, and introduce the speaker. It seemed to go okay, though I felt a little odd that everyone was welcomed to the conference by someone they didn't see again throughout the day unless they happened to attend the audio talks.

Well, my flight will be boarding soon, so time to wrap this up. Seattle may still be twelve hours off, but very much looking forward to being back with my wife and son later tonight, and celebrating Zachary's first birthday tomorrow!

Mind the (5 day) gap

It's been a whirlwind trip to London - my first 'long haul' flight away from the little man has occurred right before his first birthday, and I miss seeing, hearing, holding, and playing with Zachary. And I miss his mommy very much as well, and can't even imagine how she continues to be so amazing and incredible with Zachary while daddy is across the pond. I haven't exactly 'missed' the weather, as it pretty much came with - overcast, 60s, and frequent showers. (Of course, last week it was apparently 'glorious', and this week it looks like it's nice in Seattle, so just poor timing on my part.) Glad I brought an umbrella, especially since I forgot my coat. On the plus side, I have gotten to see two other youngster friends -- or their parents at least; I keep visiting in the evenings, and the kids are already asleep (hopefully for the night).

The night I arrived, I fought the urge to go to sleep at 5 pm, and wandered out of central London to visit for dinner with friends N & S (and their young sons J & R). It was so good to catch up with them (as well as grabbing and enjoying a tasty kosher burger). Son J (not yet 3), allegedly asleep, even heard me come in and wanted me to come say hello. His room was totally dark, and by the time I got up the stairs, he was mumbling that he just wanted to be back asleep. Ah well, good to almost see him. Baby R (now 3 months old) slept through the whole time I was there, so we'll have to just keep looking out for posted pictures for the time being.

The next day I was off to Brighton for work, and then planned to meet up with friends T and B and their son T (just days older than Zachary; Meh and then I spent a lot of time with T and T in our parent/baby class and subsequent playdates - a picture of the two boys together can be found at end of this blog post). My meetings ran long, and the trains and taxi took a little while, so I ended up arriving just after T's bedtime and didn't get to see him. But his mom (mum?) T and I had a lovely dinner together, I fawned over their amazing English home (complete with greenhouse-like dining area and a large properly-maintained garden of course), and we exchanged pictures, videos, and tales of the two boys. She also had me write little notes in the gifts we'd sent T for his birthday this past week, two of our favorite books. Oh, and I got to see another of his birthday gifts, a customized (customised? Sorry, I'll stop now) book about T (with cute cutouts of a photo of his face placed on each of the illustrations), and one page (as well as the back cover) talk about him playing with his best friend Zachary. Awwww! It actually says Zachery (so begin the challenges of misspelled first and last names for the little man), but it was so super cute and fun to see.

Today was setup for my conference. Everything is mostly looking to be in good shape; hoping that things go well - for the first time I'm actually in charge of all content coordination, not just my own track, so it's been a little more interesting gathering and tracking all 43 talks and 26 speakers. But hopefully the ~350 people who come tomorrow will get a lot out of the presentations and discussions! The conference is at Chelsea Football Club, so we got to walk down towards the pitch and check things out in between setup. I still say organizing a friendly (e.g. a soccer/football match) for the attendees would be a blast, though I'm not sure the club would agree. :) After set up, I took the speakers out to dinner at one of Meh and my favourite London restaurants. (As I understand it, friends M & K took a cooking class at this same restaurant's "home office" in Thailand during their vacation there.) It was yummy, and very nice to be able to celebrate everything being wrapped up and hopefully ready for tomorrow.