Science News!

I'm way behind on this, but it's time to kill Chrome on my desktop (because "Chrome Helper" has spiked my CPU for the last time), and that's where these tabs have collected. And they're some really wacky fun science news bites. Take for example Irish dance as a treatment for Parkinson's Disease. Turns out, the music and the patterns help Parkinson's patients control their mobility better. Or there's the bit about sourdough bread having natural mold killers in it, staving off mold for nearly an extra week due to anti-fungals created in the sourdough fermentation process.

I'm also loving the follow on news about HIV treatments, where they've now identified 14 adults functionally cured due to early aggressive treatment. Better yet, there's the much more replicable gene therapy treatment for leukemia that cured a patient in 8 days. Seriously, from verge of death to nevermind in 8 days. That's awesome.

Then there's the annoying science news. Sometimes I've wondered why Nicole gets to eat all the bad foods and never gains weight and I eat to fullness and routinely gain weight. Well it could be the microbes in her gut. (The other commonly held theory has to do with a portrait hidden in her attic.) Also in this category is the old wives tale come true about pregnant women gaining a shoe size. I know I'm planning to give up a lot of old favorite shoes at the girly clothing swap this weekend. (Note - if you're reading this and you're a lady and you want to swap clothes, ping me and I'll add you to the list. We're getting together on Sunday afternoon. If I missed you, it's only because Google invites are annoying maddening to manage, not with thought of excluding anyone.)

And for your moment of zen: Ceiliculus. I don't know these people. Well, I don't, but I know people just like them. If not, there wouldn't be a two page analysis on what happened when I screwed up calling and we accidentally created the Dutchess Reel. But there is and it will be published soon.

15 Months

We're running a few days late on this post because big news was breaking. In fact, all of my non-baby-chasing and non-working time was utterly consumed with offer forms, mortgage approvals, and writing and rewriting a pitch letter to make us sound like the most adorable family in the whole universe who you simply must sell your house. None of that matters. The place went for at least $200k over asking. Though we were apparently the second place offer again, though we knew the homeowner personally, though we'd been working on this for 3 weeks, they did not even counter our offer. Two well-educated, well-employed professionals can't afford to buy a basic 30 year old house in a good school district within 15 miles of Stanford. It's just not possible. And yet, the same house would go for 10% of the cost in Sacramento. I don't know what to do about that.

But in the meantime, a ton of other things happened this month. Athena has a confidence of motion that's astonishing. She runs. She often keeps moving her feet while not looking where she's going, which leads to her taking big missteps, running into things, and other general comedy that you just can't actually laugh about because it usually ends with a crying toddler. She gets over it quickly most of the time, but she had a doozy of a landing earlier this month where she scraped her nose and upper lip. She was too busy playing with another little girl and missed the transition from lawn to concrete. Concrete was unforgiving. Hugs and milk later, she was mostly better, but it took a good week for that boo-boo to heal.

This was during a visit from Karen and Rich. We had a great time seeing them again and managed to introduce them to Mongolian BBQ. Apparently, that's not so common in Cape Cod. We also took them out to see Beltramo's, the best liquor store I've ever seen. We toured the gardens of Sunset Magazine.

On an acre of lawn at Sunset Garden 

Found a dandilion

This is when I found out that Sunset isn't universally known. It's more of a west coast thing. Go figure, eh? We also took them out house hunting and to Happy Hollow to watch Athena rampage with the other kids. This time there was the world's most pushy goat that practically knocked the girl over. Luckily I got in the way and that crisis was averted since the wee miss was already sporting her skinned up nose. We also went to bocce in Los Gatos with the Lendvays and Foxes and enjoyed a game of ciders vs. wines, discovering a delightful cider: Angry Orchard Crisp Apple. And yeah, the cider drinkers totally won. Go us!

Athena is in a pretty clingy phase. She sticks to me like glue. If I'm present, then she wants me to hold her, feed her, everything her. So that's at once very sweet and also very annoying. Sometimes Mommy wants a break, but there we were at dinner with Karen and Rich and Karen tried to help by holding Athena's bottle. Athena swatted her hand away and started fussing. We thought maybe she was done. No, that's not it at all. She just wanted Mommy to hold it for her. Sigh. Karen had said that they'd watch Athena while we went out Saturday night. Turns out, this was perfect. We had a great time, just Erik and I having dinner together and then going out to see Argo at the Blue Light Cinema. We called after Argo to check in, and they'd had a totally fabulous night. With me out of the picture, Athena had a great time playing with Karen and Rich. We decided to stay for a second show and got to see Warm Bodies as well. It was the best double-feature we could've picked. Argo was edge-of-seat for well over an hour. Warm Bodies was thoroughly enchanting from start to finish.

The next morning we all headed to brunch at the Naglee Garage. Athena really enjoyed running around the patio.

Playing with Karen

We continue to get reports of super-adorableness from Early Horizons, Athena's daycare. She has become best friends with Clementine. I say to her on the way in in the morning, "Do you want to go play with Clementine today?" And she kicks her feet in glee. One day Athena was absent, so Jessica showed her a picture of Athena on her phone and that made Clementine happier. Later that week, our little sweetie gave Clementine a kiss, because that's what you do with people you love. Now all the experts say that she's too young to really play with other kids. That's just not what we experience though. Wendy said, "Yeah, well you and Erik are two of the most social people I know, so..."

Clementine and Athena at school

Athena is also an enormous fan of peekaboo. A napkin over her head will buy us another 10-15 minutes of sitting willingly at a restaurant. Apparently she's a champ about it at school too. They posted this photo and called her the Queen of Peekaboo:

Reigning Queen of Peekaboo

Early Horizons has a Facebook page for each room in the center. This is one of my greatest joys because they frequently post pictures of her, which totally brightens my day every time.

Athena stole her teacher's belt

Telling tales at lunchtime. 

It makes me feel a little less bad, because I know she's happy and enjoying the world even when I have to be at work.

That said, we did go back to DeLor Montessori to investigate a switch in situations. Schools seem to have an annual fee due in September, and we can realistically take 3 or 4 weeks off of daycare in August/September between Erik's summer and fall quarters. In preparation, we're evaluating where she should go in September. If we decide to stay at EH, that's fine, we'll just take her down to minimum enrollment for August/September to give Erik a little time to work on non-baby things. If we decide to switch, then we'll pause in August and start up again in mid-September. We showed up at DeLor and brought Athena in to see how she'd do and how the 18 months old room works. She did great, almost immediately diving in to play with the other kids and the new stuff in the room. The kids were just finishing up free play and they cleaned up the toys, then sat down to read books for a while. A little girl named Alyssa came over and said, "You have a really pretty necklace." Then she handed me a book and sat down for me to read it to her. I turned to the other teachers and said, "How old is she?" They said, "She's 2. She's just about to move up to the next room." It's amazing how fast kids grow and change at this age. After books, the kids sat down for circle time. They sang songs, with the teachers asking each of them what song they wanted to sing next. All the kids sang and clapped along. After singing was color flash cards. They all knew their colors and after they called it out, they would find someone wearing that color in the room. When that was done, it was time for snacks. All the kids got up and went to the table and sat down and waited while the teachers set out a scoop of Cheerios for each kid. These kids were 18-24 months old. So, I'm kind of down with that actually. I love the idea that the expectation is that they will be civilized - learning to put things away, wait for their food to hit the table, and take turns. After snack came time on the playground. We headed out at this point to get on to work. We chatted with the director for a few minutes, then walked out past the playground. On our way out, Alyssa said, "Bye bye. I hope you come back soon." So that's probably our plan for September, and as a bonus, it's about $150 less per month than at Early Horizons. The only catch is that we do love Early Horizons too, and we'd really miss Clementine.

We went to Sacramento for Nicole's 40th birthday party. It was a horrible drive, taking about 4 hours to get there, but we made it eventually, dropped Athena with my mom, and got to dance a Dancers Anonymous party for the first time in a really long time. We walked in just in time for Mustang Sally, and spent the night dancing to all the old favorites, and taught everyone the Night Fever before all was said and done. The next morning we had brunch with my grandparents. They hadn't seen Athena since February when she was just taking her first steps. This time she spent hours running in circles around the kitchen island.

Hello!

The following weekend, my dad came down for lunch. Athena wanted nothing to do with sitting for lunch at Left Bank, and instead wanted to climb the stairs endlessly.

Les escaliers et l'enfant.

She's into doing everything these days. We stopped by Mice and Wendy's house and saw Michael riding his bike. He set it down and she wanted to get on the bike and ride next. She saw Lorelei climb onto a little yard cart, and she followed her. Then she wanted a ride. Both girls got one from Cyrus before long.

Yes, ferry me, kind sir!

Two girls, one ride.

She's still a huge fan of all the shoes, wearing daddy's shoes around the house.

Yep, these are perfect.

Watch me go!

She also had an evening where she insisted it was time to wear two pairs of pants.

The flowery ones add some flair, right?

Two Pants Dance!

Athena has also gotten helpful, and is actually good at a few tasks. Her favorite thing in the world is feeding the outdoor kitties. She also totally understands the phrase, "Do you want to go feed the kitties?" She'll say, "Kitties!" and jump off my lap and head for the door. This morning I decided to see if it was the helping or the kitties that were the best part. I had a stack of diapers by her door (unboxed after she went to bed last night). I said, "Can you hand me the diapers to put away?" She pulled the first off the stack and handed it to me around the bedroom door, then the next, and the next, and soon they were all put away. I said, "Thank you!" and she clapped and looked so proud. Now to find more household chores she can do!

Still the cutest!

I Have a Catchphrase?

In the past week, it's been made clear to me twice that my big value-add at work is my relentless enthusiasm for upcoming changes to stuff in IT. While I'll be the first to admit that sometimes these changes come with a certain amount of pain, two different people have said that my presentation style really makes everything better.

First I was chatting with Glenn last week and I said that something would be awesome. He said, with a meaningful twinkle in his eye, "It would be completely awesome." When I didn't laugh he said, "You may not know this, or realize this, but your catchphrase in the School of Med is, "It will be completely awesome!"" I smiled and said, "Really?" And he said, "Oh yes, definitely." Immediately I'm thinking, "Sheesh, I'm a dork. I should monitor my language so I don't sound like such an 80s Valley Girl." But he continued, "Yeah, people really look forward to your presentations because they're always so enthusiastic and even when stuff will be tough, there's always some really great benefit they count on you to point out." Then I started musing on making up a presentation Bingo card for the next time I present to them with "Completely Awesome!" as the center square.

Then at the end of my exercise class today I bumped into Valerie from the Classics department. She said, "Oh hey, you're the famous Ammy. I love your presentations." I blinked and said thank you and she went on to sing my praises some more about how she "was sad when Sarah Straight left the university because I figured there was no one who could bring so much enthusiasm to IT stuff, but then you came along and it was perfect." We chatted for a few more minutes, then went on with our day and I floated back to my desk on a bubble of, "People like my style. I'm good at my job. Yay."

So, y'know, that's completely awesome.

Internet Famous

Some days are weird. Some days you get a call from a writer at Men's Health magazine because she saw that you taught a class on iPhone and iPad at Stanford. And well, expert in a topic at a prestigious university is great for articles. So some days you get back to your desk, email your friends, come up with a few good examples of weird, cool ways to use an iPhone, and you send it back to said journalist, with that caveat that your examples seem way more Mom-centric than Manly Men's Health-y. Then the journalist asks you to talk more about life at Stanford and why smartphones are cool, so you write a quick paragraph or two and send it back. And then some days, say about a week later, you find yourself published on the web.

Somehow I suspect this will generate less chatter with my friends than our Halloween photo on BoingBoing. On the other hand, I suspect it may lead to other journalists stumbling across my name and asking me more stuff in the future. Because hey, nominal expert in a topic from a prestigious university is great for articles.

Baby Loves Samoas

Sunday night, after a lovely dinner of pot roast and asparagus provided by Mrs. Lendvay, we sat around playing the latest expansion to Cards Against Humanity. Our hostess busted out the remainder of a box of Samoas to be consumed by the assembled crowd. One cookie sounded just about perfect. Little miss Athena toddled over and grabbed my cookie. I thought sure she'd be feeding it to me momentarily. That's what she always does. She never actually eats food unless it's a puree or her baby cereal or a Mum Mum. But she licked it. And she liked it. And she ate the whole thing.

Seems good...

What? I steal food now.

Chillin' with my cookie.

Of course, it's important to remember that Girl Scout Samoas are covered in chocolate, caramel, and coconut. This got messy really fast.

Extreme cookie joy!

There comes a moment where you realize that you have the best friends in the world when one grabs the camera while the other grabs the baby wipes.

14 Months

We've had a roller coaster week. We bid on a house. We got into the final two offers, but lost out to an all cash offer. We'll never be able to compete with that. It's hard to summon the courage to keep trying. This place was a compromise in some ways, being smaller than we'd hoped for, but was ideally located. In fact, it was next door to the school we'd like Athena to go to. That alone was worth a whole lot. But apparently it was worth a lot to someone else who has more money than us, so none of that matters. I hope that somehow in the next four years we'll be able to find a home that is a better fit for us, but I'm losing faith. Prices are rising far faster than we can keep up. Perhaps private school will be in Athena's future after all.

Daylight Savings Time threw Athena for a loop. She spent the following two weeks waking up 2-3 times in the night. Just as we reached the end of our rope, Erik decided to pump her full of as much food as he could between 6 -10 p.m. and then put her to bed later. It worked! And from that night forward, she went back to her usual routine of going to bed between 9 - 10 and waking around 7. One Saturday morning she let us sleep til almost 10. It was magical.

She is such an affectionate little girl. When she sees us, she routine reaches out for a big hug and then plants her mouth on your face and says, "Mwah!" Repeatedly. And then, if the other parent is around, we get a round of pass the baby so that she can do it to each of us in turn. When we leave her at daycare, she blows kisses to us as we leave.

Mommy is definitely the center of the universe. Daddy is good and lovely as long as Mommy isn't present. If I'm there is there, then she'll follow me around, demand to be held, and cry if she doesn't get her way. We're working on boundaries with this.

In the evenings, we've been playing with a ball. First it started with us throwing the ball and her going to fetch it. Now she wants to throw it too. This sometimes works out to bounce it somewhere near one of us. Then we bounce it around and get it back to her. The whole time she giggles madly like this is the best thing she can possibly imagine. It's nice that the world is this simple some days.

Shoes are still the best thing ever. The other night at Cyrus and Athena's place, she picked up a pair of Lorelei's shoes and wanted to put them on over the shoes she was already wearing. Erik helped her into them and she walked around, pleased as could be with her four shoes on.

Robeez plus sandals

Why yes, my feet ARE fabulous!

Kickstarter

This has been an interesting week of serendipity for me. On Wednesday, my Facebook feed lit up with the video for the Veronica Mars Movie Kickstarter.

Yesterday, Ariel posted about getting her GoldieBlox. I too funded that project and had one coming for Athena. It arrived today. I showed it to a coworker who was curious who immediately thought it was the coolest thing she'd seen all week and was ready to get one for her niece's birthday. I mean really, how many toys come with a pet sloth? This one does! Since Athena can't use it for a year or two, I'm sure she won't mind me play-testing it a little.

So then I went back to check on how the Veronica Mars Kickstarter was going and realized I'd missed some news. It was done. The movie was totally going to happen. After years of being told by studio execs that there wasn't a market, the market said, "I think you're wrong and I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is." And by market, I mean people. Lots and lots of people.

And that's what's magical about this new Kickstarter and IndieGoGo paradigm. Someone says, "No really, I think people want this." And then the world gets to say, "Meh" or it gets to say "Hell yes!!!" For Veronica Mars, that was a resounding Hell yes!!! In one day, they got their funding. Not even one day: 11 hours. That's awesome.

This inevitably begs the question - "So hey Joss, about Firefly...?" Joss is no fool. He's already responded. Still, the trailers for Much Ado look delightful.

St. Patrick's Day!

The annual day that the rest of the world cares about Irish dance is fast approaching. This year it lands on a Sunday, meaning that all weekend long there are various opportunities to dance! Here are the events I know about:

Friday, March 15, noon-1 p.m.
Driving with Fergus
Oakland City Center
This annual tradition brings out lots of old friends who work or live nearby. It also usually gets local news coverage. Dance like crazy AND appear on tv? Heck yeah! The band plays a 1-hour lunch time set. Arrive on time for the most dancing! Lunch usually follows, often at Le Cheval (because what's more Irish than Vietnamese food... wait...what?)

Saturday, March 16, 8-11 p.m.
Stanford Ceili Presents the 3rd Annual St. Patrick's Day Extravaganza
in the Old Union Clubhouse Ballroom, Stanford on campus
Live music led by Dave and Anselm, but it's a pick-up band like the old days at the Starry Plough or Alameda Ceili, so if you want to play, bring and instrument and join in!
Dances go Waltz>Dance for Everyone>Dance for Those Who Know. Even if you've never made it to ceili before, you can probably do 2 out of 3 dances. 

Sunday, March 17, 1:30-4:30 p.m.
Craig Johnson of Bangers and Mash leads a dance band playing tunes just for dancers at Surf Spot in Pacifica: http://surfspoteats.com/.
Craig offers all-we-can-dance tunes while we enjoy cocktails and nosh on the beach in Pacifica. Derek from Surf Spot contacted me a while ago via an old friend and started arranging his St. Patrick's Day plans. He wants music and dancing to go with his usual Sunday afternoon crowd. I said, "So you really want us crazy dancers?" He said, "Yes!" Let's get out there and show him our stuff. Apparently, they've got a lovely deck that needs some dancers to break it in. 

So that's the big plan so far. Who can add more dancing opportunities to this madness? 

P.S. Pass this on to anyone who dances! The more the merrier!

Transformation

Before my eyes, Athena is steadily transforming from a baby to a toddler. She now walks wherever she wants, but more than that, she's enjoying very different things.

I suggested to Erik on Friday when he was at loose ends for an hour that he take her to the park and push her on a swing. I figured she'd like it. Sure enough, it was awesome for her.

On Sunday, I took Athena to Happy Hollow in San Jose. They have a petting/feeding zoo area with goats and sheep and a donkey and a zebu and three little Shetland ponies. I dropped a quarter in the food machine and handed her bits of food one by one that she held out to the various creatures. She fed them the same way she did with Maggie or Pepper. She marched right up to the goats who were in a big open area and started offering them food. They used their lips and took it from her. The ponies in their pen reached out and hit their hooves on the ground and she didn't mind a bit. Another mom said, "How old is she?" I said, "13 months." She said, "She's not scared at all! I'm amazed." Her kid was busy cowering from the goats. Well of course she's not scared. She's been trained to feed treats to the cat from as soon as she could sit up! So once again, I embraced the certain knowledge that it's all in what we're exposed to and what's expected of us. They arrive preprogrammed with a bit of personality, and how that gets shaped is up to us. So far, we're doing a-ok.

She also enjoyed playing on the play structure for the 2-5 year old set at Happy Hollow. She climbed the stairs up to the top, and then I sat her in my lap and went down the slide. She went around and climbed up again. I sat her in my lap and we went down the other slide. Then we caught up with Jeff and Connor and I said, "Hey Jeff, could you spot her at the bottom?" Sure, he says. So I send her down the slide by herself. Big smiles, then looking back to see if Mommy was leaving. I slid down right behind her, and not a hint of fuss.

It's just amazing how fast it all happens. Just a few short months ago, she was so helpless. Now she's getting to be downright gregarious.

Tardy Baby Update

My dozen readers are probably wondering what the heck happened to their 13 months update. Between work, various bouts of the sick, and travel, it just didn't happen. Sorry! That said, here's the highlight reel.

Athena is now walking, talking, signing, and throwing her first temper tantrums. Yeah, temper tantrums. At this point, they're small and kind of funny because they're usually when we're around the house and she's bored and wants mommy or daddy to do something for her and we're not cooperating. She'll burst into tears, lie down, and kick her heels on the floor. So far my reaction has been, "Sorry sweetie, I can't do what you want because I don't respond to tantrum. Look - a distraction!" Then I shake a toy or get out a book and start reading to myself til she gets curious and wants to see. Hopefully she'll learn quickly that pitching a fit is the least likely way to get what she wants. I think she's just a tad frustrated at the moment because she can't communicate as well as she wants to.

But we're getting there! She now says Mama, Dada or Papa, Kitty, Uh-oh, and Bye-bye. She calls Pepper "Papa kitty" and thinks all of the cats are the greatest thing ever. Heck, even Leeloo has realized that Athena is the resident cat-treat-dispenser, so she's going to have to suck it up if she wants the Greenies. She has even let Athena pet her once or twice. Athena also has full mastery of "all done" and "more" in sign and does several things on command - blow a kiss, wave bye-bye, high-five.

Mommy is still the alpha and omega, but Daddy plays her favorite game: flop on the bed. This involves  pulling her up to standing on the bed, then letting her fall slowly backwards to sit and then to lying down. She giggles like mad, then pulls up to start over. I'm pretty sure Daddy could do this for an hour before it would bore her.

As for events this month, Athena had her 12-month well-baby checkup. She's developing totally normally, and she's no longer relentlessly average. She's a little shorter than normal. I'm okay with that. Basically, everyone assumes she's advanced for her age, when really, she's pretty normal. Still, she gets treated like she's impressive, and that's just fine by me. She is impressive, and the whole world is welcome to reinforce that. (It certainly worked out well for me as a kid!) Athena also had her first dentist appointment. Her teeth are coming in normally with no crowding. Dr. Rabitz office in Willow Glen was totally awesome, and Athena charmed everyone as she toddled out, waving bye-bye to everyone as she left. She doesn't need to go back til she's 2 1/2 unless there's a problem, so that's cool. Apparently babies don't need to worry about tartar build up every six months. Nice!

We had a totally awesome time at DunDraCon. We checked in Friday and Erik made it into the Friday night L5R game, so Athena and I hung out with Jeff and Bit. On Saturday morning, we both made it into Aaron's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy game, and that was made possible by Elizabeth's offer to babysit for us. For this we're eternally grateful. Saturday night I played in the Mutant Saga game while Erik had baby duty. On Sunday, Erik ran his annual Seventh Sea invitational. Sunday night we had dinner at Eddie Papa's with John and then hung with the peeps in the Team Volare room. We finished with our annual bacon breakfast orgy with the Schluntz family.

This was the moment of impending doom though. My tummy was a bit off, so I abstained from the bacon, opting for a cup of water instead. Before 3 p.m., it went to Sean and Logan barfing. John called Becky to warn her what he might be coming home with. She escaped to a friend's house. Before it was over, Erik, Sean, Logan, John, Elizabeth, Autumn, and myself had all gotten sick. The baby escaped this fate. There are few stranger moments than dealing with a happy perky toddler while feeling an overwhelming need to lie down or barf. While I lay suffering in bed on Tuesday, I learned that my new favorite word ever was "daycare." For hours, they took her and kept her happy and entertained while I tried to sleep in peace. It totally worked and I was ready to be Mommy again in the evening.

On February 23rd, we went up to my mom's house for a luncheon/grandma's birthday/chance to see Kattie visiting from Sweden. We had a lovely time, and this was when Athena decided to get confident about walking. Sure, she took her first unsupported steps on her birthday, but after that, she never went more than a few tentative steps before deciding the walking thing was no good and she dropped back to a crawl. At my mom's place, she just kept going. She walked around the table. She walked into the kitchen. Everyone else was saying, "She's getting good at walking." And we replied, "Yeah, as of today." That night we took her to Gaskell's where she got to wear her pretty blue dress one last time. Only now, instead of being the shoeless wonder, I decided to see if she'd let me put shoes on her. Figuring this would end in screaming, I slipped them on. She didn't mind. She didn't even mind when she started walking around. Let's just sum up February 23rd as being one of the more surprising days in recent history.

This past weekend we drove down to Disneyland for one final use of our Annual Passes. It'll be a while before we renew, but it's been a great year of trips. We stayed at the Howard Johnson on Harbor this time and I was once again reminded that I really like that hotel. They provided a really nice crib for Athena and had it set up and ready for us when we checked in. This was a godsend as we drove down and arrived late on Thursday. In the mornings, Athena would wake up and peer over her crib at us in bed and say, "Mama. Mama. Ma ma ma ma ma." I'd go scoop her up and bring her to bed with us and kiss her. One morning she kept rolling side to side to kiss each of us. It was heart-meltingly cute. Many "mwah!" kisses later, we got up, got dressed, and hit the park.

Out side enjoying the patio at the hotel.

Sit, then stand, then clap!

Yay!

Enjoying Disneyland with Daddy.

Listening to the piano player.

Loving the big marble in Tomorrowland.

Teacups with Lorelei

So that brings us to day 405 since Athena arrived to share the world with us. Life is good, if a bit exhausting. This weekend has little more than an annual vet appointment for the cats scheduled as a must-do, and that sounds pretty good.

Baby Update - Day 382

I like babies. The whole idea of Athena becoming a toddler has worried me more than a little bit. But I have to admit that the past couple of weeks has been a blast. She keeps demonstrating that she's comprehending and adapting more and more each day.

She moved from the infant room to the pre-tots room at daycare and after months of encouraging her to use signs for "more" or "all done" at meals, the very next day she promptly used both correctly at dinner. We praised the staff for being miracle workers and they laughed with us. After many tears when she first started going to EH, she now plops down, starts playing, and when I say, "Bye bye Athena!" she looks up, waves, and goes back to playing. I'm still amazed.

Her other dinner time trick is that she's developed a real love for putting the lids back onto the food packets. She can now easily negotiate getting the cap on the stem and twisting it closed. Sure, she's watched me do it a million times, but now she actively wants the lid, not to chew on, but to put back on the food.

Just today she boggled me a little. I presume we're still a few months from real words beyond Mama, but I said, "Wave bye-bye to Pepper Kitty. We'll see her tonight." Athena enthusiastically responded with a wave for Pepper and "Bye-bye. Bye bye bye." I... yeah, that's what I said to do. Nice going kiddo!

Earlier that morning, Erik helped me get her sweater on. She's so consistent about putting her arms into sleeves. Offer a sleeve and she puts her hand into it and away we go. We fumbled a bit with the sweater this morning, and Erik helped us get it back on, then kissed me goodbye. Athena watched this from my arms and then put her hand to her mouth and said, "Mwah!" and blew us a kiss. We again looked at each other like, "Did that just happen?" Yes, yes it did. Wow.

She's gotten better at petting Pepper too. And Pepper tolerates her affection with the love of someone who has been fed many many cat treats. Athena's favorite evening activity is reaching into the bag of Greenies, pulling one out, and handing it to Pepper. Pepper ends up getting six or seven Greenies a day this way and they've worked out how to do it so gracefully where Pepper's pointy fangs never bite the baby. Meanwhile, the other night Athena came in and started petting Pepper. Pepper doesn't run or anything. Athena is occasionally still a big more pat the kitty than pet the kitty, but she's gotten much better. Many refrains of "pet gently" have done their job. Anyway, she was petting Pepper, who lay down on her side. Then Athena leaned down and put her head on Pepper for a hug. Pepper totally rolled with it. These are the moments when I wish I had an embedded camera with a thirty-seconds back reel that I could play back at a whim and record. Meanwhile, Leeloo is still terrified of the baby. Oh well.

Also, she loves playing chase with Daddy.

Science News!

I love science, so Valentine's Day is a great time for a Science News post.

I loved this team's approach to sharing some science news. Sure, their paper was published in Nature, but then they got the word out with LOL Cats and YouTube.

Then Robert Krulwich posted about this cool application of nanotech - a hydrophobic, oleophobic coating. It was cool enough that I made Erik watch it. He got kind of giddy because this could conceivably be an engineering application of the work he was doing in his PhD.

Then there's the ever popular science news where they try doing something that we all saw on Star Trek. In this case, it's wiring up rat's brains to see using a technology similar to Geordi's visor.

Ever near to my heart is some recent Stanford research on child development. Specifically, it's amazing what a difference it makes to say to a child "You worked really hard on that. Good job!" rather than "Wow, you're so smart!" Ultimately, kids who hear the former are far more likely to persevere when things get harder, and saying it matters from as soon as they have a basic understanding of language.

And as a perfect capstone for Valentine's Day, new research is showing that monogamous couples may have a bit to learn from those who are consensually nonmonogamous. This includes things like "people who cheat on their partners sexually are less likely to engage in safe sex while doing so than are people in consensual nonmonogamous relationships" and that when jealousy occurs, those in consensually nonmonogamous relationships are more likely to discuss the situation and negotiate boundaries that everyone can live with.
I hope everyone has a happy, safe, loving Valentine's Day!

One Year Old

Dude - we totally kept a baby alive for a whole year! Go Team Woodbury!

Athena remains relentlessly average. Most kids walk around their first birthday. Tonight at dinner at Aqui, she took several tentative steps in a row away from dad towards me. That's my girl, ever on time. (I am one of the only people I know who went into labor ON my due date.) There was much cheering from the assembled crowd. Go baby girl! Go!

Meanwhile, I promised her (and myself) that I'd breastfeed for a year. We made it! Whew! It was a hell of a lot harder than I expected. Constantly having to plan every few hours around "and then I can pump..." made things extra complicated. Now having reached my goal, I'm at once torn between relief and fear of letting it go. Once it's gone, it's gone, no matter if Athena needs the extra power of a little fresh squeezed boob to help her get over a bug or just to provide the very best nutrition available. Were she a little more interested in other foods, I'd probably be more ready to go, but she still gets fully half her day's calories from milk, so this is hard. That said, I'm already down to producing about 10 ounces a day, so bringing that to a close won't be difficult, physically. Were she actually nursing at the taps, I suspect I'd just let her keep doing it. But since I usually miss out on putting her to bed because I have to pump, I think I may actually get more connection with her by ending this rather than continuing.

Last Wednesday was an eventful day. We made an offer on a house on Tuesday night, and I spent all day fretting over what we'd do if it got accepted. It was a lot of money. It was all of the money. But we could've done it, and it would've been a great house in a great location and a great investment. Meanwhile, at work I was scrambling to get several things done while my brain said, "What if you get it? Was this the right thing to do? How are we going to pay the bills? What if you don't get it? Are we ever going to find a place or did we miss our chance?" In that sort of state, I find myself flipping through stations on the radio on the way to work, not really hearing anything, but wanting to hear something different because what my head is saying is just too damned loud and I've heard enough. We went over to see Kev and Rachel for dinner. When I walked in, Athena looked up from Erik's lap and said, "Mama!" It's amazing how awesome that is. Anyway, we got a call from our realtor. While we'd offered $50k over asking price, there were other offers that were $150k over asking price, so we were no longer in the running. It's a seller's market to be sure right now.

Athena doesn't like solid food. She likes milk and she likes purees. She will cheerfully eat baby cereal or a thoroughly mashed banana, but hand her a rice cracker and she tries to feed it to you. Crunchy foods are for adults, silly mama. Cheerios? Nope. Happy Tot Puffs? No, thanks. Super mushy boiled carrot? Not gonna happen. She still merrily mouths darned near anything she picks up, unless it's food, in which case she has a bizarre sixth sense to avoid putting it in her mouth. I've asked friends about this puzzle, but none of them haven encountered anything like it so are a bit short on advice other than, "She'll eat when she's ready." Meanwhile everyone kept pressing us on birthday plans. With choruses of "Well you've got to let her destroy a cake!" I finally challenged Rachel to try to make a cake that Athena might try to attack. She made an amazing cake with carrot and peach puree included and red cream cheese frosting. It was delicious. Unless you were the baby. She didn't want anything to do with it. We tried to feed her a spoonful of peach puree with a little frosting, but that still looked too much like solid food, so not even the promise of sugary frosting could woo her to the side of "sure, I'll try it." So we wait. She'll figure it out eventually. There just aren't twenty year olds who never ate more than pureed baby food, so I'm not going to fret.

Meanwhile, on things I was fretting about, we got Athena tested for lead. There was an article in Mother Jones about lead in gasoline and how it correlates to the crime statistics in the last century. It was a compelling read, and had this lovely bit right at the end:

As it turns out, tetraethyl lead is like a zombie that refuses to die. Our cars may be lead-free today, but they spent more than 50 years spewing lead from their tailpipes, and all that lead had to go somewhere. And it did: It settled permanently into the soil that we walk on, grow our food in, and let our kids play around.

Remember what we spent our summer doing? We remodeled our garage. We stirred up and tracked in all kinds of dust, dirt, and whatnot onto the kitchen floor where Athena was learning to crawl. After months of doing everything just right while she was in-utero, and months of avoiding BPA and pthalates in bottles and baby toys and feeding her organic fruit purees and all of that, had I blown it all by causing her to ingest a ton of lead? Well, thankfully, it appears that's not the case. Her blood tests came back totally normal. I tell you though, it's hard to really go with "God made dirt and dirt don't hurt" these days on so very many levels.

It's late, and the day starts extra early tomorrow. I'll tell you all more later, but for now, good night.

Science News!

I simply must close some tabs, so here's some awesome science news!

Vasalgel (or RISUG) is steaming towards human trials in the U.S., and I couldn't be more excited. It's a non-hormonal, non-obstructive, permanent til you want it removed birth control method for men. It's brilliant. Better yet, it may be unexpectedly good at blocking HIV transmission as well. This is a dream come true. If only there were birth control this awesome for women!

Traffic jams. The good news for me is that nothing is as bad as October/November for my commute. There are days now that are bad, but it's not every single day like it was in October. But what causes them? Scientific American has a great little explanation of how it works, and why it takes so long after the accident is cleared for traffic to start flowing normally again.

Vaccines do not cause autism. Preventable life threatening childhood diseases cause babies to die. No really, it's that simple. So why did congress hold hearings on antivax stuff again last November? Because they're quacks promoting quackery and I'm sick of it. Get your vaccines. Get vaccines for your children. It matters that most of us have them. It's not just that those who don't get vaccinated will get sick. It matters for little baby girls who are too young to get the vaccine. And if what happened to Dana had happened to Athena, you'd better be sure I'd be doing more than a web site. I'd probably be in jail for murder.

Meanwhile, I loved this yesterday:

From "I Fucking Love Science" on Facebook

Turns out though that sometimes antibiotics aren't even the answer for bacteria. For C.Diff., a nasty gut infection, the right answer could come from someone with a healthy gut. Or 10 someones. And but healthy gut, I mean... well, you should read the article.

11 Months - Addendum

Folks have asked about Athena's milestones. She's not walking on her own yet, but we're likely less than a month from that. We'll see.

My very favorite thing she does is when I first see her after a long day, she gives me a big hug and then starts going, "Mwah mwah mwah" on my face. They aren't kisses so much as big open mouthed touches, but the intent is all there and darned if it doesn't just melt my heart every time. I'll kiss her back and we'll trade back and forth for a few minutes.

She's tried chicken and turkey now. Lisa at daycare says she's probably going to be a vegetarian for a while longer. They were not met with joy. She tried cherry apple yogurt and that met with approval. Shortly she gets to try the series of late fruits and veggies like strawberries, corn, and raspberries followed closely by tree nuts and peanuts. So far, she's shown no allergies to anything, so we're hoping for the best.

11 Months

We're home from Christmas in Cape Cod. Athena did pretty well on the plane coming out. We picked a flight that took off around the time that she usually grabs her first nap. The flight was then delayed, and we left the ground a bit more than 2 hours late, so that plan was rather short circuited. Where I expected her to be grumpy and crying and difficult, she instead enjoyed herself thoroughly having a leisurely lunch at the airport followed by toddling around making friends with everyone in the terminal. One woman just adored her, letting her pet her fur coat and play with her sparkly rings. Our girl is a girly girl already. I fear for my days of pink and glitter.

We arrived much later than planned, but made it back to the Cape where Athena got to meet her uncle Greg and meet Maggie, the Portugese Water Dog. Maggie was uncertain about this small creature that seemed to be soaking up her attention. Athena just giggled at Maggie and tugged on her fur. Maggie was tolerant and gentle. We all tumbled into bed in the Admiral suite, a gorgeous 500 square foot master suite at the Old Manse Inn.

We awoke to a bright December morning and met Erik's Aunt Denise and Uncle John over a breakfast of waffles and bacon and sausage. We spent a leisurely day playing Ticket to Ride with Greg and wrapping gifts and chasing Athena up the stairs. She's decided that climbing stairs is awesome. She has not yet figured out how to get down stairs. Currently, I'm very grateful there are no stairs at home. We finished the day with an amazing seafood paella.

Yum!

Christmas morning arrived and we bundled up and headed over to the inn, Athena dressed in her baby Santa dress (thank you Sarah!). She likes to tear paper, so that part was just fine by her.

Christmas morning with Daddy

Merry zerberts!

Step 1: Tear paper

Step 2: Inspect closely

Stockings with Gigi Karen and Grandpa Rich

Ornaments are fascinating!

Christmas Day stroll to the beach with Maggie (and Scott and Jess and Snickers).

She was of course showered in far too many gifts, so figured we'd have to ship things back, but we managed to squeeze it all into our luggage. Karen got me a gorgeous Queen of Holloway dress and a Tommy Bahama shirt for Erik. Erik won the day though with the best gift ever: a pin-up calendar filled with the men I love being so very very cute - Mice as a soda jerk on skates, John toasting a marshmallow, Frederik cooking in an apron and little else, Erik making cocktails with beakers and test tubes. It is the most amazing thing I've ever seen. The best part was that the men of my chosen family were so dedicated to successfully completing a creative project like this. It's possible they've totally blown their cover now and the ladies may have much higher expectations in the future. Word is that I have Joshua Brooks largely to thank. He'll get his real, full-body tackle thank you next time I see him.

Mr. October

Meanwhile, we got Greg a copy of Cards Against Humanity. Erik was a little dubious about whether or not it would be well received, but this replaced the planned afternoon of Apples to Apples and much hilarity was had, though Aunt Denise, after seeming to enjoy playing, declared that this game was what was wrong with the world and why things like the Newtown massacre happened. I think that's probably setting the bar a tad high for a card game, but there you have it.

On Boxing Day, most of the family headed out, so we went up to Province Town to see the lobster pot Christmas tree and have dinner at a delightful place called Napi. Hooray for the little artist's community, because damn that was some mighty fine crispy duck, and the Chinese dumplings with scallops were also fabulous, and the peach martini was delightful without being at all too sweet.

We topped off the visit with another leisurely day and some Thai food. Athena had perfected the procedure for getting a cookie out for Maggie and feeding it to her. Maggie never really got too sure of what to do with Athena, but definitely thought that she was great for doling out cookies.

On Friday we headed back to Boston, with a quick stop for lunch at Legal Harborside, and then scooting out to the airport. I really have the best in-laws a girl could ask for. They are warm, welcoming, and always willing to help and snuggle the baby girl. My only wish is that they lived closer so that we could do this more often. If only I could convince them to have an inn in say Half Moon Bay instead of Brewster, my life would be perfect. Instead, we hopped on a plane and came home. And babies on a plane are not really fun. To be fair, Athena did relatively well, especially considering the trip home takes 6 1/2 hours. She probably cried for maybe 15 minutes of that in total. But we had to keep walking her up and down the aisle. As miserable as it is for any of us to sit in those awful chairs for hours, an 11 month old just does not understand why she has to stay stuck there. So, I spent more time going up and down the aisle than I have in the sum total of all plane rides I've ever taken. Luckily, there were some good natured folks who played with her, making faces, sharing their own kid's books, and giving high fives. Athena has gotten very good at giving a wave on cue, and seems to even understand when I say, "Wave hi!" or "Wave bye!" This definitely charms folks when she looks out from under large dark eyelashes and waves at them.

Earlier this month we enjoyed another visit to Dickens followed by dinner hosted by the Lund's.

Our family at Dickens

Soup night at their house has rapidly become my favorite part of the holiday season. It's simple, but Rebecca's parents are such delightful hosts, and the laughter and stories remind me so thoroughly what an amazing group of friends I have.

Thank you!

Since Becky is expecting a new arrival of her own in May, it was great to have Athena toddle around and find all the not-quite-baby-proof things in the house for them. Athena even tried the butternut squash soup that Becky made and this year I got to drink the hot buttered rum, complete with Andrea's Panty-Peeler rum. Yum!!!

The next day we checked out the Mythbusters exhibit at the Tech Museum with Cyrus and Athena.

Cliff hanging

The first part is a lovely view of Mythbusters artifacts. The second part is do-it-yourself Mythbusting, including dodging a bullet, running or walking through rain, yanking a table cloth, hanging from a ledge, toast dropping butter side up, driving blind, and so on. Athena toured it all in her City Mini and stayed awake and engaged til we headed to lunch, where she promptly passed out and let share a meal together. We finished with a tour of Christmas in the Park and bumped into a pair of storm troopers. Only my baby has gotten so many pictures with storm troopers before her first birthday.

Storm troopers with festive hats!

Athena also had her first ear infection. At daycare, she's been suffering a series of colds. It's sort of the normal consequence of daycare. One cough got bad enough that we decided to haul her in to the doctor. The doc wasn't too worried about the cough, but discovered she had infections in both ears. She didn't mention that to us! So we gave her a dose of antibiotics twice a day for 10 days, and soon she was all recovered, ears and cough and all. We're just really glad we caught it before getting on the plane!

My mom drove down to watch Athena so that we could work at Gaskell. We've had to admit that we can't really continue to *work* Gaskell. We told the committee that we were going to have to give up being part of the committee. This is a loss for us, because I really want to help the ball succeed. I've been going for nearly 20 years now, and I dearly love it. But we don't make money doing it, and we can't really work it while wrangling Athena, so barring my mom coming down every time we need to work it, we can't really afford to spend $200 on babysitting to make it happen. So this was our last ball as official members of the committee. At least we went out with a lovely December ball and I got to wield my favorite card from the Hallelujah Chorus.

We also had another round of adventures in house hunting. We finally saw another place we really liked, but the location wasn't ideal, so after a few days of dithering, we opted not to place an offer after all. Then our realtor got an inquiry from someone in just the right neighborhood who was considering putting his place up for sale. We went and looked and while it had some issues with dry rot on the gutters and needed a kitchen remodel badly, it could work, so we moved ahead. However, the owner had a fairly overinflated idea of what his place was worth. He believed that his 2 bedroom + loft, 1600 square foot home on a 4000 square foot lot was comparable to a 4 bedroom, 2200 square foot home on an 8000 square foot lot with a gorgeous remodel and a Viking stove in the kitchen and... well, yeah, that didn't work out. So, back to the drawing board. We keep hunting.

Just before heading to Cape Cod, we went to a holiday party at Matt and Michelle's house. This was just the sort of thing I needed - a low-keyed party with lots of folks and lots of kids. The kids played with the toys and the adults enjoyed food and drink and talking. It was just perfect. Michelle wanted to give Connor's Radio Flyer Rocket to Athena since Connor had lately outgrown it and Athena was a baby girl with a space-themed room.

Why yes, I am ready for Jupiter!

Athena got to try it out the next morning and immediately figured out that if she pushed it around the house, she didn't have to crawl. She could just lean over and use it as a walker. Soon she was using it to roll all over the house. We suspect we've got less than a month before she's just running on her own, but she doesn't quite have the balance for it yet.

The day after getting home, we headed straight up to Sacramento for Christmas with my family. Now our holiday travels are done. Whew! Now to let Athena play with the toys, unpack, and get ready for the new year.

And now, your moment of zen: