Category: Beginnings

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Awesome Beginnings Children Family Food Friends Games Love Memoir Nonfiction Parents Pregnancy Sentiment

Baby shower!

This week (and next week) is crazytown at work. I have given myself over to it, and just accepted that it’s going to mean full days at work, followed by evenings at the theater, but I just had to get that out there. It’s a lot, and I’m looking forward to a little peace and quiet after everything’s over. (Yeah, right.)

Last weekend I went home-home, and had my first baby shower. It was bigger than I expected (I guess I didn’t pay attention to the guest list), and I had a great time! It was lots of women who have (pardon the cliche) watched me grow up, so that’s always fun. My aunt and uncle came up from Napa, and Drew’s mom and her BFF drove up, and I hope everyone had as much fun as I did.

I mean, it’s either one or the other!
We’ve been splitting our time between this (sock) monkey theme and this jungle animals theme. Settling on one theme was never my strong point.
Christy made a diaper cake! Cute AND functional!
Me and Mom!
Me and long-time friends!
With Suzanne and Bonnie – love you guys!
Our travel system, compliments of my parents!

We are incredibly lucky and very blessed to be surrounded by such great, supportive, generous and loving people. The excitement and the joy has been very encouraging. I am grateful that I haven’t had to deal with people saying inconsiderate or negative things. Literally everyone has been positive and respectful.

When I got regular-home from being home-home, I had a carload full of stuff to unload (more boxes of books from my parents among them), and Drew’s mom had brought back a lot of presents that wouldn’t fit in my car. I reworked the nursery (see, I can call it that now, and not just keep calling it the library) and tried to get rid of boxes and bags, and group things into blankets, feeding, bathtime, etc.

We pushed the stroller/carseat in there, and after a moment Drew said, “Wow. I thought we had this room under control.” It’s a bit of a jumble right now, but I’m hoping we can alleviate that over the next month or so. It’s amazing how much stuff we have amassed – and I thought we were being conservative!

We haven’t taken the plastic off the crib mattress yet, or washed the sheets and made the crib up, but it’s still a good place to store certain things…

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"Other people" Beginnings Being a girl Children Drew Family Fashion Friends Love Memoir Nonfiction Parents Pregnancy

Oh brave new world: Babies on the internet

I have a dilemma. And I know it will be one that people have differing opinions on. But I’m trying to figure out how I feel about it, precisely.

You (maybe) know how on your Facebook timeline, you can scroll all the way back to “born 1983,” and you have blank years between, say, 1983 and 2006, when you actually set up your account. But at some point in the not-so-distant future, there is going to be a wave of teenagers with every single year of their lives filled out, thanks to their overenthusiastic parents.

And I guess no one really knows what this is going to mean for the future. And maybe I’m giving Facebook (or whatever comes after Facebook) too much credit. But I think it’s a pretty safe guess that things aren’t going to start turning backward. Everything’s going online.

When Drew and I got married, we got into a small scuffle or two with friends over the fact that we preferred that people not post tons of pictures of the wedding, particularly if they’re, you know, sitting in the back and taking pictures on their phone. Ultimately, yes, some pictures got posted, and it didn’t really bother either of us. But the other day, I saw that a (far-flung) friend of mine had posted 300 pictures into an album called “Wedding,” and my first thought was, “Oh wow, I didn’t even know she was getting married!” and then when I looked at the pictures I realized it was just a wedding that she attended. (I don’t even think she was in it…just a guest. Which seems extreme to me.)

But at least those people are all over 18. Lately, I can’t stop worrying about the whole phenomenon of posting a million pictures of your baby on your Facebook page. Let me just admit, I don’t think I will be able to resist that, for a couple reasons.

1) How can you not show off something like that? How cute would an Instagramed baby be? Am I right?
2) I’m pretty sure that I’m still like halfway in the closet with this whole “being pregnant” thing, and if I post a couple pictures of me and Drew holding an infant, it’s going to make it a lot clearer.

(There’s also a whole other side issue of the “attention wanted” posts, versus the “for entertainment purposes” posts, versus the “for the family members” posts.)

It’s not just the possibility that one day this kid will want to be the president (ha, yeah right), and won’t want pictures of himself or herself naked in a bathtub. It’s also a safety thing. Drew pointed out there are people on Facebook, who we don’t really know in real life…but we know EVERYTHING about their (very young) children. Like, we could probably use the knowledge we have, to kidnap said children. And we would never do that, because we’re cool, but there are people out there who would totally do that.

I can’t claim to be particularly good at staying anonymous – I’m sure that I’ve accidentally let slip too many details here. Things that I didn’t mean to say, but “oops” happens.

And even if I can resist putting a bunch of pictures – there are still all these other people running around with cameras and phones and wanting to post stuff.

I can be kind of private about some things. And delivery is going to be one of those things. I’m good having our parents in and out during labor, and hanging out…but when it comes down to business, it’s really important to me that it’s me and Drew (and I guess some doctors or something). It fits with our whole “we’re a team” thing.

So I’m going to be pretty bummed if I come home two days later and find out that it’s already on Facebook, because someone jumped the gun – purely out of excitement, I’m sure. But how do you put that out there, without sounding like a total bitch? It’s just gotten too hard to put restrictions on things like that.

Friend anecdotes: one friend was very strict about things early on. She didn’t want her kid posted anywhere linked with his name, or with the names of her or her husband. I think she was thinking about safety. But eventually she’s posted more and more pictures and videos of him on her Facebook, which I’m sure has the highest security settings.

Another friend has been strict the whole time, and her kid is 3 years old. She’s also told family members to take things down because she doesn’t want them just floating out there. She also told us a story about a relative posting a video online with the caption, “[Name]’s first steps!!” And all the family members were commenting and loving it, and she had to say, “Hey, listen, she had her first steps a week ago and her father and I were there you can’t just take that away from us.”

I guess that’s my fear. My long-winded fear. I just don’t want this to get away from us. I want the two of us – Drew and me – to be the keepers of the milestones and the reveals. That’s all. I guess. Luckily, none of our parents are really into Facebook, so they won’t go crazy. Other friends and relatives…might be harder to rein in.

Silver lining, which I keep reminding myself: I am so grateful that this kid is arriving into a world of people excited and happy to meet him or her.

PS. He or she has been kicking the whole time I’ve been writing this – perhaps as if to say, “Moooo-oom, you’re embarrassing me” ?

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Awesome Beginnings Family Love Memoir Nonfiction Sentiment

A Much-Deserved Milestone

My parents are graduating today.

They’ve already sat through my graduations, all of ’em – from kindergarten to eighth grade to high school to college. So you’d think that this would be old hat. But apparently it’s weirder when it’s not you graduating, and you get to evaluate someone else’s major life choice.

Of course, they’ve also spent way more time in school than I did. When you’re a student, every step has such a firm expiration date on it (usually four years, if you’re doing it right) and so, while I felt like graduating college was an accomplishment, it wasn’t exactly a surprise, and I hadn’t been there that long anyway, and also I had to get out of this ceremony and over to Sacramento for a matinee.

But my parents have been teaching FOREVER. I know my mom started officially teaching long after I was in school, but she was there as an aide before that. I have memories from all ages of my mom at school, from monitoring the playground in elementary school, all the way up to middle school. As a substitute teacher, she took my sixth-grade class on one of our end-of-year field trips.

In high school it was my dad who was always around, whether he was actually teaching the class I was in, or just letting me and all my friends use the computers in his classroom during lunch. (I know, we were the most awesome kids ever, right?) He was one of my class advisors, which meant he led all the class meetings and was all over the prom planning. And probably the prom. Which was fine with me, since me and my parents have always been pretty cool.

But they’re graduating today. And I’m pretty sure they will still have to finish cleaning out their rooms next week (I mean, I could be wrong, but I’m just guessing here – teachers tend to accumulate a lot of stuff), but this is it. I’ve known this was coming for awhile now, but I guess it’s just sinking in.

Everyone keeps asking me, “What are they going to do??” and I just keep saying, “They will be busy.” Neither of them is a sit-around-and-do-nothing kind of person. I mean, maybe for a day. But not for much longer than that. So I’m pretty sure they’ll have things to do. I hope we will get to see each other more often.

Whatever they decide, I am super proud of them and they are extremely deserving of this chance to do whatever they want. So congratulations, you two, and definitely take at least a couple days to sit around and do nothing! (And then come visit me!) I love you both!

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Awesome Beauty Beginnings Being a girl Dreams Drew Home improvements Love Nonfiction Self improvement

Spring cleaning

This weekend has been all about cleaning. Yesterday we went down to Redwood City and, along with Drew’s parents, cleaned the heck out of his grandma’s house, since she’s on her way back from Hawaii. It was a warm day down there and by the time we were done, I was seriously worn out.

So this morning we got up and started in on our place – there have been all these things we just haven’t done yet since getting all our stuff into the apartment, and we tackled ’em all. I started with a short(ish) list of things I wanted to get done scribbled on the back of a bill, and then Drew added some things he wanted to accomplish…and 4-5 hours later it looks completely different in here.

At one point near the end of the frenzy, I had this flashback to being a kid, and spending the whole day cleaning my room (thanks Mom and Dad, because I’m pretty sure I didn’t do the bulk of that work myself), and how great it would feel at the end of the day. Peeling back the clean covers on a freshly made bed, straightening the alarm clock on a cleaned and organized nightstand, seeing everything around my room sorted and placed precisely in its spot…is there anything better?

And yeah, I’d say there’s still stuff we can do around here, but it feels more like maintenance now, than “finishing moving in.” And I even dusted things that didn’t look dusty, because that’s the way you keep them from getting dusty! Holy cow, it’s like I’m seriously an adult now. (Wasn’t one of my 2012 resolutions to become an adult? Or something like that?)

I just keep looking around at all the vacuum marks on the carpet, and how there are no clothes on the floor. It just feels so great. This afternoon, once we were done, I was stretched out on the (made) bed in a patch of sunlight, reading a fluffy nonsense book. It was a really great Sunday afternoon moment.

I will use this post – and this feeling – as motivation to keep this up for the rest of my life.

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Beginnings Drew Home improvements Pregnancy Sentiment

Cribs

We keep telling ourselves we have plenty of time to get everything ready for this baby, and that’s kind of true. But we had our crib just sitting around in the box, so today we put it together.

Here’s the “before” shot:

This was an exciting moment – realizing we didn’t need any additional tools and that all the pieces are carefully sorted and labeled for you!

So step one is to…dump all the pieces out onto the ground in a pile. (Bonus points if the pieces are about the same color as the carpet.)

After a false start or two, we got our sea legs and things started coming together.

Love the finished product! We still have 80% of “nursery” stuff to go – including a crib mattress – but if the crib is the centerpiece, then we made some real headway today.

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Beginnings Being a girl Children Friends Love

Masterful suspense

My bff Liz, who is 19 weeks pregnant, is currently in the doctor’s office finding out whether she’s having a boy or a girl. All day long I’ve been getting texts and emails from her, saying “We find out today!!!” “3 more hours!!!” “An hour and 45 minutes!!!” etc.

My excitement is growing, even though technically whether she has a boy or a girl doesn’t affect me. Knowing that she is literally in the appointment right now is very suspenseful. She promised to call me immediately afterward, but I don’t know when that will be exactly…it could be in 10 minutes, it could be in 40 minutes. Appointments are weird.

She told me this morning to “call it” – to guess whether it’s a boy or a girl. I had to admit that I’ve been picturing her with a boy, although I don’t know why that is. A few months ago I was thinking that a girl would be more fun to shop for, but after spending time in baby stores and on baby websites, I now feel confident that there are adorable gifts to be had for babies of either sex.

I know that really, every parent just wants a healthy baby, and whether it’s a boy or a girl is of little consequence. I wonder though – if you really want a boy and it turns out to be a girl, is there more potential for (slight) disappointment in an ultrasound situation, as opposed to a delivery room reveal?

I guess this also leads me to think about loving your baby – when that shift happens. But that’s probably a completely different post.

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Beginnings Being a girl Children Drew Love Memoir Sentiment

This Girl’s Treasure

The other day Drew put on a jacket he hasn’t worn in over seven years (apparently) and said, “Oh wow, guess what I just found?”

My first thought was Twenty bucks??

But what he showed me was kind of way better than that.

This is the ticket stub from the first movie we ever saw together. It was January 9, 2005, it was a Sunday, and I think it wasn’t actually a date.

I remember that I was running late getting to the theater, and parking was hard to find, and he was already waiting and had already purchased his ticket. I don’t remember how late I was but I hope it wasn’t bad – I know now how much he hates being late. Oops!

While we were reminiscing about this movie, I asked him why it wasn’t a date, and why he didn’t buy my ticket, and why we didn’t do anything afterward. His response was, “I don’t know…but don’t worry, everything worked out in the end.”

It’s just so weird to think about – when this ticket was printed, we were just two people who went to school together. And then less than three weeks later we had started down a path that would lead us inexorably to New York City and back, to marriage, to starting a family…and that’s all within eight years. There are so many more years yet to come!

I saved the ticket stub, by the way. I mean…wouldn’t you?

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Beginnings Being a girl Books Home improvements Sentiment Writing

Better late than never

Drew and I are in the middle of moving, as I keep mentioning. In fact we have given ourselves a goal of being completely out of here and living there by next Sunday. Which is slightly daunting.

This afternoon he went by the apartment and realized someone had left two pots of flowers on the doorstep. Since it doesn’t seem to be anyone that we know…I wonder if this means we have really sweet neighbors?

One funny thing that happened today as a result of being so far in the process, is that this afternoon I finished my other library book, and then I wandered around for awhile going, “What am I going to read now?” I had a few choices:

a) go in the guest bedroom and read a Cat Who book
b) read one of the (few) books (left behind) here that I have already finished
c) go out to my car and find something in the trunk

When Drew got home, he pointed out the Amazon box on the floor, under a box of ginger snaps, which I then remembered had 5 brand new books still in it.

See, every time I think we’ve got them all…

The other funny thing happened when we were unpacking all our kitchen stuff this weekend. We were pulling stuff out that we’ve literally never used. It’s mostly kitchen stuff, and, now that I think about it, it’s mostly stuff we didn’t register for, that we still liked, but just haven’t had the chance yet. For example, a sugar-and-creamer set…in a pattern that I totally adore, but we’re just not big coffee drinkers. (We should change that.) There’s also a wedding-style picture frame that we should probably use to display a wedding picture. One of these days.

A friend who was over helping us unpack suggested that it would make a good blogging project – to commit to using those things we’ve never used, and then chronicle that. So hopefully over the rest of 2012, I’ll be making an effort to get some of that great stuff out of its packaging and onto the table.

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Awesome Beginnings Being a girl Drew Endings Home improvements Memoir Nonfiction Sentiment Work

The Devolution of an Apartment

Because I missed the boat on having a comprehensive wedding blog (one of my top 5 regrets ever), I have become slightly obsessive about documenting everything just in case it’s important. Most lately, the devolution of our apartment.

Here it is near the beginning of the breakdown. The hutch is (mostly) emptied out but everything is basically still there:

As the hutch and dining room set move out, everything else starts moving around:

The bedroom and my awesome red shelves, now emptied of books. Well, almost:

The living room only seemed to grow more crowded as we packed, despite my giving away 6 bags of clothes/shoes/etc, and 2 boxes of kitchen stuff, and us throwing away tons of trash:

Possibly making some progress? The desk is gone from the bedroom:

The couches, now freed from their restraining covers, move their waterprint patterns out the balcony and over the side (no room to get them out the front door).

Drew blinds me with the dresser mirror. Maybe he’s tired of me taking pictures while he and his dad move the heavy stuff.

So much room!

Yet still so much stuff!

While Drew and his dad drove the couches to the storage, I made it my job to clean off the bed.

I liked to put blinders on and pretend that this was all that was left. Ignorance is bliss.

The truck filled with boxes:

Our stored stuff, filling up the space:

My plan was to open every cupboard and drawer in the kitchen that still had stuff in it, and close them as I emptied them out.

I got some boxes from work with some strange codes on them…

Progress!

Then a break to take pictures. The masks were mostly because I was using Easy Off in the oven, and that stuff is toxic. But then it was fun to just keep them on.

I am really loving this afternoon spent with my head in an oven. So fun.

Actually, this is preferable.

The final day. Seriously, what is all this stuff.

FINALLY! What a giant bedroom.

What a sparkling bathroom.

What an empty living room!

And of course, to say goodbye, San Bruno had to dress up in its finest.

So long, first apartment in our married life! You were a good little apartment! I will think of you fondly!

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Beginnings Being a girl cars Dreams Drew Exercise Food Home improvements Memoir Self improvement

Setting a routine

We’ve been in our new place for a week now. I can now say comfortably that I do not think we made the worst mistake ever moving out of our apartment. (That was a very real fear a couple times there.)

We’ve now had time to settle in, figure out what stuff goes where, and get used to sleeping in a new bed. We’ve each decided which shower we prefer. We’ve cooked meals in the kitchen. This morning I hosted our book club here and we made lunch for our four-person book club. (It was awesome.) (We should entertain more.)

We lived in the other place for over 2 years. I had a routine down. I knew exactly what I did every morning, and while it was a lot of back and forth from the living room to the bedroom to the bathroom to the bedroom, I knew what each step was and there was a very precise reason I did everything in that order.

But I have to kind of start over here. None of my stuff is in the order it used to be in, for one thing. For another, the bathroom where I shower is not the bathroom where I keep the hair dryer and everything. So there’s a lot more back and forth, because after 4 work days I still haven’t quite figured out what my exact routine is. There’s still a lot of, “What am I missing here?” It takes me a little longer to get out the door in the morning. Which is fine, since my commute is about cut in half.

Drew’s commute is about doubled, which makes our commutes about the same length of time now. Which is nice.

The good thing about getting a chance to recreate your routine, is that it allows you to build in some good stuff. I am trying to build the following things into my routine:

  • Healthier eating, specifically snacking – we’ve purchased a lot of fruit in the last week, and I’m also depending a lot on those frozen vegetables that you steam right in the microwave
  • Cooking dinner – in the last few weeks at the old place, we basically gave up cooking anything besides chicken nuggets on a baking sheet
  • Going to the gym on the way home from work – theoretically I can avoid the worst of rush hour if I wait it out in a spin class
  • More walks – it’s so pretty here, and there are lots of places to explore before hitting the library on the way home.

I also want to try to be more of an adult in 2012: meaning, I want to fold my clothes as soon as they’re clean* and make the bed every day and wash dishes as soon as they’re dirty. Honestly, I have less hope for these resolutions than for the others.

It’s fun to remake yourself every January 1st. And I feel like this year we get an extra boost to help facilitate that!

*I’m rolling my eyes as I write this, since I know that every single clothing item I own is freshly laundered but stuffed into a laundry bag on the floor somewhere. I guess I know what I’m doing tonight.