Tuesday, April 29, 2008

DSRL-licious

Yum. Playing with the new camera while Samson naps upstairs, the wind is doing a number on the trees outside my window, and Nanna's snoring threatens to wake the two other animals sharing the sofa with her. Game 3 starts in an hour, and I just found a bar of chocolate in the fridge.

Best. Tuesday. Ever.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

MLK Day is now in April

Happy birthday, my new little friend! Welcome to life. Don't worry, you ended up with two very cool parents--they have four cats between them. And Portland will be an awesome place to grow up. It'll still be a few months before you have to really learn about this thing we call horrible crap ass Pacific Northwest weather. And as soon as you're old enough to cut your mommy a little bit of slack, Samson and I will be up there to say howdy, and take lots of pictures of your sweet golden locks.

DSLR-adical

Our recent decision not to buy a house has left us feeling a bit more financially free and unfettered than we usually feel. Combine that with the new and exciting holiday of "Mother's Day" and you've got a recipe for a fancy new camera. I miss the good old days of film cameras, and that summer semester that I took photography back in college was one of my favorite for sure. I think that sense of nostalgia mildly influenced my decision to go with the Nikkon D40 over the Sony A300. Even though the Sony lets you shoot without holding the camera up to your face, I just don't think that's a feature I care too much about.

In awful timing news, my iPhone decided to break yesterday, just hours after Dedi sent me the text that she was at the hospital awaitng the epidural. There must be a new little baby up in Portland by now, and there's probably a wonderful voice mail with the details as soon as I get my damn phone fixed. Damn it.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Pics from the Sea Ranch



Happy Passover, and please pass the matza. We all had a great weekend at the Sea Ranch. Tennis balls were chased, deer were growled at, matza was gummed until it became a lumpy paste-like substance that I wiped on my pants. And Samson started to sit up! On his own! For extended periods of time! I'm still kind of shocked!

More pics are on Picasa Web.

Now it's all about counting the minutes until Auntie Mir gets into town tonight. I thinks it's around 540 minutes.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Back to Basics

We're off to the Sea Ranch for the weekend to spend Passover with our families. Samson gets all the benefits of being the first grandchild (even though his paternal cousin is 5 weeks older) and is sure to spend the whole weekend being whisked from lap to lap, being taken for walks, cuddled up nice and good, and shown more patience than he deserves. He's actually been awesome to be around this week, ever since I upped his calories per the doctor's recommendation and started giving him an ounce of prune juice a day. All it took was more food and a daily poop. See, he really IS just like us!

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

He's Defying Gravity

Funny thing, he really enjoyed the show tunes, but wasn't too interested in Bon Jovi.



So no house for us. This is OK, we are far too free spirited to commit ourselves physically to San Francisco or the Bay Area. We are a butterfly, free to flutter around wherever our whim takes us. And the best part is, I get my Sundays back.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

MIA

I've been a little overwhelmed this week, and I'm having a hard time blogging. Chances are that this will continue for the next little while. Basically, we're having a hard time making a decision about the house, whether or not we want to spend the money it will take to make the house our home. This is a ludicrously difficult decision.

Samson is doing very well these days, except for the return of the constipation issue. He's generally happy, getting more and more active--lots of rolling over from both tummy and back, and climbing all over mommy's lap and legs. So all is good, the weather is amazing, my mother-in-law is in town for a visit, and we're off to the Sea ranch for Passover on Friday.

If anything happens or I get over my general sense of deer in headlight-ness, I'll post some more. But I probably won't be around much this week.

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

The Friendly Skies



We're back from our long weekend. All of my airport security anxiety, seating assignment anxiety, screaming baby on the airplane anxiety a distant memory. We had terrific visits with my Illinois family and our Minneapolis friends, and we're glad to be back so we can transition smoothly into escrow anxiety, loan anxiety, and home inspection anxiety.

Unseasonably high temperatures in Chicago meant a nice afternoon trip to the park with my many little cousins, and included Samson's fist ride in a baby swing. Which. He. Loved. Yes, video will be posted soon enough. Unseasonably low temperatures in Minneapolis meant Samson's first glimpse of snow through the living room window, and it also meant that we spent the afternoon at the Mall of America instead of walking around one of the lakes because it was too damn cold for any outdoor shenanigans.



Samson did very well on all three planes, making friends and influencing people wherever he went. I won't say I'm in any sort of rush to fly with him again, but I'm much less scared of flying to Israel now. It may not be fun, but it certainly isn't as bad as it could be. It helps to be organized, prepared, and extremely flexible. Also prozac is helpful.

Thursday, April 03, 2008

For reals this time

All right. We're in escrow, the loan is locked in and ready to go, I've signed my name about a billion times and initialed ten billion more times. The inspectors are scheduled for next Thursday. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

Twelve hours from now, Samson will be on his first airplane trip, quietly playing with one of the forty eight toys that I've packed for him and razzing our neighbors. Mark my words.

Have a great weekend, everybody! Up, up and away!

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Back on the roller coaster

OK, now is the time to buy stock in Prozac and any of your more popular mood-stabilizing drugs. And chocolate.

We seem to have bought our first home today. We passed the first hurdle anyway, which was getting our offer accepted by the sellers and signed. That took about a week and a half. The next hurdle will be to finalize our loan, and then to meet with inspectors and make sure the house isn't actually a cardboard cut-out of a house with flowers drawn on the front in crayon. Because it totally could be.

Aaaaaand in the middle of all of this we leave for Chicago and Minneapolis on Friday. First trip with the baby, and at this point I'm dreaming about quart-sized zip lock bags filled with baby Tylenol and Desitin.

Oh, speaking of baby, guess who learned how to razz today? And guess who looooves to razz? At his mom, at his dad, at the dogs...

Samson: Month Five

Dear Month Five,

I can't believe I'm actually doing this--I've never written a love letter before. OK, I've never sent a love letter that I've written before, but Scott Baio knew how I felt. He didn't need to read the letter.


I've never met a month like you before. You're different from all the other months. You don't contain nearly as much crying or constipation as month four did, and you've got more smiling than all the other months combined. Add that to all of the toy grabbing and rolling over and you just might be the best month ever.



I know you're not perfect. You've contained some episodes of extreme neediness and general disdain for Baby Boot Camp. And I'm not a big fan of this whole waking up every night at 4 am to eat thing that's been going on for the past two weeks, but I understand. We'll work on it together, maybe we'll even ask month six to help us out with this one.



I've got to hand it to you, month five, you really employed some slick new strategies this month. Every time I started to get antsy with some of your less desirable qualities, you took the perfectly mundane bits of everyday life and shone a new, softer and more perfect light on them. Like those morning smiles from the baby when I go to get him out of his crib...I just melt every time. And you've really provided a great backdrop for physical development as well--obviously, the rolling over is a huge milestone, and you played a tremendous role in that achievement. But you've also been involved in this fascinating almost-sitting-up that been going on for the last week or so...it's no wonder the baby gets so hungry in the middle of the night.



It's been great having you around, month five. I've completely and utterly fallen in love with you. Your playdates in the park, your excessive use of the jumperoo, your day trips to the city and meals with friends. Sure, you're not as flashy as month one. You're not full of airplane trips or visits from Israel Safta like month six. But you've been the kind of month a girl could really fall for. I'll never forget you.

Love,
Deborah