Saturday, June 30, 2018
Wessy says . . .
"papa cura a la gente con medicamentos y con electricidad"
translation: dad cures people with medicines and with electricity [ie, cardiac defibrilation]
translation: dad cures people with medicines and with electricity [ie, cardiac defibrilation]
Thursday, June 21, 2018
Sunday, June 10, 2018
Wessy says...
"Papá, esta ambulancia va a buscar a enfermitos para llevártelos?"
Translation: "dad, is that ambulance going to look for sick people to bring them to you?"
Translation: "dad, is that ambulance going to look for sick people to bring them to you?"
Friday, June 1, 2018
big news
By now, we have hopefully told all of you in person (by which I mean over the phone): We are expecting a new baby at Thanksgiving! Wessy is going to be a big brother! I'm a little more than 15 weeks along at this point, which seems like a solid enough number to make this announcement internet-official.
I've been feeling fine. My first trimester was a little bit rough, mainly because I was working more than full time and doing a lot of nights. I was painfully exhausted through the entire month of April. I had some mild nausea, nothing too unmanageable, and a raging appetite. I swear I have never been hungrier in my life.
Even in the first months of breast feeding Wessy, when my caloric needs were roughly that of Michael Phelps, I was not as hungry as during my first trimester. During the first tri, I could eat an entire large meal and then be as hungry again in thirty minutes as if I had not eaten in days. On my night shifts, I would eat the dinner I brought and then order another take out dinner. All I wanted was fatty, greasy and sweet foods. I was uninterested in vegetables and meh about fruit. I suppose I should not be surprised that I gained ten pounds in the first twelve weeks.
Thankfully, I've worked a lot less in May and consequently have been more energetic and able to hit the gym more. My appetite has normalized somewhat (though I admit that I still indulge more in treats than before) and I'm only eating one dinner a night. Mostly I feel like myself. A grumpy, paunchy, sober version of myself. Some days I even forget I'm pregnant. Then I'll pass a mirror, look at my gut and think, "girl, you look pregnant." And then I remember there's a reason for that.
With my pregnancy with Wessy, I was terrified of having a child. I had no idea what it would be like. Everything was an unknown. I worried about everything. This time around, probably because I have a toddler and a job and whatnot, I haven't really worried much. Not because things can't or won't go wrong, but mostly because I'm too tired to get worked up about it.
Having a second child is also different in that you already know what hard work it is to have a child. We are excited, of course, but we are also steeling ourselves for a higher level of hustle and somewhat different lifestyle going forward. We are basically throwing away our opportunity at being those cool people who still go out and travel and eat at hip restaurants with their one perfectly behaved child and officially becoming Mom and Dad. Might as well buy an RV and some elastic-waist pants now. But I digress. Yes, we're excited. Yes, it will probably be awesome--eventually--but I'm a little scared of the first six months.
Can I say that Wessy is excited? No. Nor is he upset, jealous or confused. The best word I can use to describe his attitude towards the fetus is "uncomprehending." He has decreed that the fetus shall be called "PLANTAS" (he was looking out the window at some potted plants in the yard when I asked him what we should name the baby) and that the baby is a female. I must note that this is Wessy's intuition and not based on actual data--we are going to be those annoying people who are going to wait for the baby to be born to find out the sex.
He kind of understands that there is a baby in my uterus. One day, as I was leaving for work, he asked me, "Is the baby going with you to work?" This morning, he inclined his face towards my abdomen and said "HOLA PLANTAS!" From time to time, he will ask to touch PLANTAS or will volunteer take PLANTAS out of my abdomen through my mouth. When I tell him that PLANTAS has to stay inside for awhile longer, he will helpfully volunteer to help PLANTAS stay put (unclear how he intends to do this--perhaps we have a future MFM on our hands?).
Wessy does occasionally ask some very thought-provoking questions about the fetus. Does PLANTAS have clothes? Does PLANTAS wear diapers? What happens to PLANTAS'S poop if s/he doesn't wear diapers? What does PLANTAS eat? All very logical questions to be honest. He has volunteered to share his diapers and his underpants with PLANTAS but is wary of letting PLANTAS sleep in his old crib. As a compromise, he has generously offered to let PLANTAS sleep in his toddler bed while he himself goes back to sleeping in his old pack and play.
I suspect that their sibling relationship will require some recalibration once (God willing) PLANTAS is actually born, but I'm hopeful that the two of them can be buddies. Having siblings is one of the best things that ever happened to me, and hopefully the two of them will be loving and caring towards each other. Just like me and my siblings when we were younger (LOLOLOLOLOL).
I've been feeling fine. My first trimester was a little bit rough, mainly because I was working more than full time and doing a lot of nights. I was painfully exhausted through the entire month of April. I had some mild nausea, nothing too unmanageable, and a raging appetite. I swear I have never been hungrier in my life.
Even in the first months of breast feeding Wessy, when my caloric needs were roughly that of Michael Phelps, I was not as hungry as during my first trimester. During the first tri, I could eat an entire large meal and then be as hungry again in thirty minutes as if I had not eaten in days. On my night shifts, I would eat the dinner I brought and then order another take out dinner. All I wanted was fatty, greasy and sweet foods. I was uninterested in vegetables and meh about fruit. I suppose I should not be surprised that I gained ten pounds in the first twelve weeks.
Thankfully, I've worked a lot less in May and consequently have been more energetic and able to hit the gym more. My appetite has normalized somewhat (though I admit that I still indulge more in treats than before) and I'm only eating one dinner a night. Mostly I feel like myself. A grumpy, paunchy, sober version of myself. Some days I even forget I'm pregnant. Then I'll pass a mirror, look at my gut and think, "girl, you look pregnant." And then I remember there's a reason for that.
With my pregnancy with Wessy, I was terrified of having a child. I had no idea what it would be like. Everything was an unknown. I worried about everything. This time around, probably because I have a toddler and a job and whatnot, I haven't really worried much. Not because things can't or won't go wrong, but mostly because I'm too tired to get worked up about it.
Having a second child is also different in that you already know what hard work it is to have a child. We are excited, of course, but we are also steeling ourselves for a higher level of hustle and somewhat different lifestyle going forward. We are basically throwing away our opportunity at being those cool people who still go out and travel and eat at hip restaurants with their one perfectly behaved child and officially becoming Mom and Dad. Might as well buy an RV and some elastic-waist pants now. But I digress. Yes, we're excited. Yes, it will probably be awesome--eventually--but I'm a little scared of the first six months.
Can I say that Wessy is excited? No. Nor is he upset, jealous or confused. The best word I can use to describe his attitude towards the fetus is "uncomprehending." He has decreed that the fetus shall be called "PLANTAS" (he was looking out the window at some potted plants in the yard when I asked him what we should name the baby) and that the baby is a female. I must note that this is Wessy's intuition and not based on actual data--we are going to be those annoying people who are going to wait for the baby to be born to find out the sex.
He kind of understands that there is a baby in my uterus. One day, as I was leaving for work, he asked me, "Is the baby going with you to work?" This morning, he inclined his face towards my abdomen and said "HOLA PLANTAS!" From time to time, he will ask to touch PLANTAS or will volunteer take PLANTAS out of my abdomen through my mouth. When I tell him that PLANTAS has to stay inside for awhile longer, he will helpfully volunteer to help PLANTAS stay put (unclear how he intends to do this--perhaps we have a future MFM on our hands?).
Wessy does occasionally ask some very thought-provoking questions about the fetus. Does PLANTAS have clothes? Does PLANTAS wear diapers? What happens to PLANTAS'S poop if s/he doesn't wear diapers? What does PLANTAS eat? All very logical questions to be honest. He has volunteered to share his diapers and his underpants with PLANTAS but is wary of letting PLANTAS sleep in his old crib. As a compromise, he has generously offered to let PLANTAS sleep in his toddler bed while he himself goes back to sleeping in his old pack and play.
I suspect that their sibling relationship will require some recalibration once (God willing) PLANTAS is actually born, but I'm hopeful that the two of them can be buddies. Having siblings is one of the best things that ever happened to me, and hopefully the two of them will be loving and caring towards each other. Just like me and my siblings when we were younger (LOLOLOLOLOL).
Return to Pinnacles
This past week, we returned to Pinnacles National Park for a camping trip! As you may recall, we went there last year at the end of March, and it was an incredible time. This year, being as it was the end of May, it was hotter. Also being that it was a year later, a certain someone was a lot larger and more unruly.
Camping and hiking with Wessy have never been particularly easy. He has always been a restless sort, an erratic hiker and unusually attracted to dangerous things. But this trip set a new watermark for how challenging it was to handle him on a camping trip.
At this stage, we are in the "doughnut hole" of hiking, Wessy-wise. He is generally too large and too squirmy to be contained in a hiking backpack, as was the case in days of yore. If he's a in a favorable mood, maybe we can carry him half or three-quarters of a mile before he starts writhing around and asking to be put down. And it is tempting to put him down, because he's big and heavy. However, if you do, you will probably regret it fairly quickly.
Once you put him down, he will begin his beagle-style explorations of the trail and environs. He will alternate between minute examination of each stone, each leaf and each blade of grass in his purview and erratically bolting towards unseen but attractive objects in the distance. He will either drag pokily along, impervious to any verbal encouragement or threats, or he will sprint headlong down the trail until he inevitably falls and hurts something. He will ask incessantly to go back to the car, or to touch some owl scat he found on the trail or to go to the edge of a nearby cliff to peer at what's below.
So, bottom line, we knew that our usually respectable hiking ambitions would have to be scaled back somewhat on this trip. We would have to try something new for both of us--being patient!--and just let Wessy do his thing. Otherwise, there would be frustration and crying all around.
The first day, we did a fairly mellow hike. It was supposedly to see a cave that was equipped with handrails and steps, courtesy of the Great Depression, but the cave was closed seasonally to allow the inhabitant bats to recuperate from the endless stream of tourists. Nevertheless, we slowly but surely did the hike, alternating between carrying our little angry sack of weasels on our back and letting him lurch around the trail. At the midpoint of the hike, at a reservoir that had been dammed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, we encountered a very bold squirrel.
The squirrel looked very scrappy and experienced, with a partially denuded tail and absolutely no shame or fear in approaching humans. We tried scaring him off with shouting but that was minimally effective, so we started throwing small rocks. This would work for about 30 seconds at a time. In frustration, I angrily yelled "MOVE IT!!" to the squirrel while running towards it and waving my arms. The squirrel was nonplussed but Wessy thought it was pretty funny. For the rest of the trip, whenever there were flies swarming around him, Wessy would wave his hands and shout '"RUBE IT !!! RUBE IT!!"
The second day we took a similar approach and chose an easy out-and-back. Disaster nearly struck mid-way when Wessy had to poop but there was no bathroom. With much effort, we convinced him to poop in the woods and then we packed it out. The whole thing was a little gross, but preferable to either letting him sit in a dirty diaper for the rest of the morning or contending with a set of soiled clothes. Again, we let Wessy do a bit of walking on his own and tried to just sit back and let him go at his own pace without too much prodding.
The wonderful thing about visiting Pinnacles mid-week is that, unlike the weekends, it's very chill. There were very few other people in the campground. For our first night, there was no one in the two surrounding sites, and for the next two nights there was only a quiet older couple who had two grown boys of their own and were exceptionally tolerant of Wessy's yelling and carrying on.
The other great thing about visiting Pinnacles when we did is that there is a pool at the campground. It's really nothing special and I can't say that it's very meticulously maintained, but at the end of a long hot, dusty day there is really nothing better than jumping in a pool. Despite the daytime heat, because it cools off so much at night, the pool was refreshingly cool. Wessy declined to put more than his feet in, but he did enjoy egging and cajoling Stevo and me to jump in. At one point, I told him that I would jump in when he counted to five. He gamely replied "UNO CUATRO SEIS CINCO!!" and then waited for me to jump. About thirty seconds of coaching and cuing later, he did manage to sort of count to five, so I fulfilled my end of the bargain and jumped in.
In the afternoons, we attempted to nap in the tent. Just like last time we went to Pinnacles, Wessy found tent life far too exciting for napping. We did make one key improvement over last time we went car-camping, though. A friend gave us a travel pack-and-play, which we set up inside our gigantic tent. This functioned as a Wessy-containment system that at least prevented him from poking our eyeballs and breathing on our faces as we tried to sleep. So for both afternoons, Stevo and I dozed with the soft sounds of Wessy reading his books (upside down) to himself and periodically yelling at us to wake up. After about 90 minutes, we gave up and went back to the camp store and had some ice cream (really frozen Yogurt tubes) and then hung out at the pool.
I'd say my very favorite thing about camping, and Pinnacles in particular, is how quiet it was. There was no internet or even cell service, which meant that I wasn't distracted by even the possibility of anything popping up on my phone. Because we were out in the woods, there was no way we could get sidetracked by random chores or inopportune interruptions. We just spent time with each other and read our books and enjoyed the simple pleasures of sitting by the fire.
The hot afternoons were deafeningly quiet and still--if we still lived in Santa Rosa I may have found it creepy, but coming from the city, it was just peaceful. Stevo and I both decided that our best family vacations have been when we are away from internet and cell service, or at least in a place where we can easily turn off and stow our phones without a second thought.
The one complication to our peace and quiet were the aggressive campsite raccoons. Much like the squirrel we encountered earlier, these raccoons were heavily habituated to humans. They had no shame in approaching our campsite and rummaging around for scraps of food that may have been left out. They even tried (but did not succeed) to manually open the "animal-proof" food lockers in the campsite. They would scamper away if you yelled or threw something at them, but them come right back to try their luck again about thirty seconds later. If I hadn't been a little worried that they might succeed in unzipping our tent while we were sleeping and rob us blind, I'd have found them more amusing.
Wessy's enthusiasm for camping seemed to wax and wane somewhat, but overall I do think he enjoyed himself. His tolerance of the swarming flies did improve over the course of the trip, and the third night he was so profoundly exhausted from a day of running around that he fell asleep as I was lifting him into his travel crib. Last night, as he was lying in his bed in San Francisco, he asked me if we could go camping again tomorrow. I told him, no not tomorrow, but yes, we will go camping again very soon!
Camping and hiking with Wessy have never been particularly easy. He has always been a restless sort, an erratic hiker and unusually attracted to dangerous things. But this trip set a new watermark for how challenging it was to handle him on a camping trip.
At this stage, we are in the "doughnut hole" of hiking, Wessy-wise. He is generally too large and too squirmy to be contained in a hiking backpack, as was the case in days of yore. If he's a in a favorable mood, maybe we can carry him half or three-quarters of a mile before he starts writhing around and asking to be put down. And it is tempting to put him down, because he's big and heavy. However, if you do, you will probably regret it fairly quickly.
Once you put him down, he will begin his beagle-style explorations of the trail and environs. He will alternate between minute examination of each stone, each leaf and each blade of grass in his purview and erratically bolting towards unseen but attractive objects in the distance. He will either drag pokily along, impervious to any verbal encouragement or threats, or he will sprint headlong down the trail until he inevitably falls and hurts something. He will ask incessantly to go back to the car, or to touch some owl scat he found on the trail or to go to the edge of a nearby cliff to peer at what's below.
So, bottom line, we knew that our usually respectable hiking ambitions would have to be scaled back somewhat on this trip. We would have to try something new for both of us--being patient!--and just let Wessy do his thing. Otherwise, there would be frustration and crying all around.
The first day, we did a fairly mellow hike. It was supposedly to see a cave that was equipped with handrails and steps, courtesy of the Great Depression, but the cave was closed seasonally to allow the inhabitant bats to recuperate from the endless stream of tourists. Nevertheless, we slowly but surely did the hike, alternating between carrying our little angry sack of weasels on our back and letting him lurch around the trail. At the midpoint of the hike, at a reservoir that had been dammed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, we encountered a very bold squirrel.
The squirrel looked very scrappy and experienced, with a partially denuded tail and absolutely no shame or fear in approaching humans. We tried scaring him off with shouting but that was minimally effective, so we started throwing small rocks. This would work for about 30 seconds at a time. In frustration, I angrily yelled "MOVE IT!!" to the squirrel while running towards it and waving my arms. The squirrel was nonplussed but Wessy thought it was pretty funny. For the rest of the trip, whenever there were flies swarming around him, Wessy would wave his hands and shout '"RUBE IT !!! RUBE IT!!"
The second day we took a similar approach and chose an easy out-and-back. Disaster nearly struck mid-way when Wessy had to poop but there was no bathroom. With much effort, we convinced him to poop in the woods and then we packed it out. The whole thing was a little gross, but preferable to either letting him sit in a dirty diaper for the rest of the morning or contending with a set of soiled clothes. Again, we let Wessy do a bit of walking on his own and tried to just sit back and let him go at his own pace without too much prodding.
The wonderful thing about visiting Pinnacles mid-week is that, unlike the weekends, it's very chill. There were very few other people in the campground. For our first night, there was no one in the two surrounding sites, and for the next two nights there was only a quiet older couple who had two grown boys of their own and were exceptionally tolerant of Wessy's yelling and carrying on.
The other great thing about visiting Pinnacles when we did is that there is a pool at the campground. It's really nothing special and I can't say that it's very meticulously maintained, but at the end of a long hot, dusty day there is really nothing better than jumping in a pool. Despite the daytime heat, because it cools off so much at night, the pool was refreshingly cool. Wessy declined to put more than his feet in, but he did enjoy egging and cajoling Stevo and me to jump in. At one point, I told him that I would jump in when he counted to five. He gamely replied "UNO CUATRO SEIS CINCO!!" and then waited for me to jump. About thirty seconds of coaching and cuing later, he did manage to sort of count to five, so I fulfilled my end of the bargain and jumped in.
In the afternoons, we attempted to nap in the tent. Just like last time we went to Pinnacles, Wessy found tent life far too exciting for napping. We did make one key improvement over last time we went car-camping, though. A friend gave us a travel pack-and-play, which we set up inside our gigantic tent. This functioned as a Wessy-containment system that at least prevented him from poking our eyeballs and breathing on our faces as we tried to sleep. So for both afternoons, Stevo and I dozed with the soft sounds of Wessy reading his books (upside down) to himself and periodically yelling at us to wake up. After about 90 minutes, we gave up and went back to the camp store and had some ice cream (really frozen Yogurt tubes) and then hung out at the pool.
I'd say my very favorite thing about camping, and Pinnacles in particular, is how quiet it was. There was no internet or even cell service, which meant that I wasn't distracted by even the possibility of anything popping up on my phone. Because we were out in the woods, there was no way we could get sidetracked by random chores or inopportune interruptions. We just spent time with each other and read our books and enjoyed the simple pleasures of sitting by the fire.
The hot afternoons were deafeningly quiet and still--if we still lived in Santa Rosa I may have found it creepy, but coming from the city, it was just peaceful. Stevo and I both decided that our best family vacations have been when we are away from internet and cell service, or at least in a place where we can easily turn off and stow our phones without a second thought.
The one complication to our peace and quiet were the aggressive campsite raccoons. Much like the squirrel we encountered earlier, these raccoons were heavily habituated to humans. They had no shame in approaching our campsite and rummaging around for scraps of food that may have been left out. They even tried (but did not succeed) to manually open the "animal-proof" food lockers in the campsite. They would scamper away if you yelled or threw something at them, but them come right back to try their luck again about thirty seconds later. If I hadn't been a little worried that they might succeed in unzipping our tent while we were sleeping and rob us blind, I'd have found them more amusing.
Wessy's enthusiasm for camping seemed to wax and wane somewhat, but overall I do think he enjoyed himself. His tolerance of the swarming flies did improve over the course of the trip, and the third night he was so profoundly exhausted from a day of running around that he fell asleep as I was lifting him into his travel crib. Last night, as he was lying in his bed in San Francisco, he asked me if we could go camping again tomorrow. I told him, no not tomorrow, but yes, we will go camping again very soon!
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