Edie|Bill|Maia|Lucy

Happy Holidays to all!

2010-12-20T08:24:00.000-08:00

2010 has been a full year, with lots of work (what's new?), a change in school for Maia, Lucy showing a strong interest in learning how to read and learn a few words in "Spanish" (aka Mandarin), Norris celebrating a milestone birthday, 3 Grammys for the SF Symphony, and lots of running for Bill.

At six, Maia is thoroughly enjoying first grade at Chinese American International School (CAIS), where she continues to learn in English and Mandarin and has managed the transition from Starr King well, making new friends in her new school quickly. This fall has seen an explosion in her reading fluency and her print writing. She also likes to ask her Baba (Bill) to do math problems for fun.

Earlier this year we discovered that Maia has a mesiodens, or extra tooth. Maia is looking forward to the promise of an extra payment from the tooth fairy when the time comes. In the meantime, she has lost 4 bottom teeth and one front tooth, with the other front tooth ready to fall at any moment (probably by the time you read this post!)

In her free time Maia enjoys playing "Hamster" with her friends, doing the monkey bars, drawing, and teaching Baba Chinese. She is very attached to her 'pets' which include a purple monkey named Blueberry, a giraffe named Giraffey and an invisible bunny named Snowball. Her fondest wish (and one that is unlikely to be granted) is to get a hamster of her own. Or, she would settle for a Beta fish (also highly unlikely).

At 3.5, Lucy is doing her very best to keep up with Jie Jie (big sister). She is determined to become an independent reader just like Maia, and "reads" us many books she knows by heart, like The Foot Book or Little Miss Fun. When given a choice between items, she always asks, "Can I have the Left one?" Lucy is also becoming a strong pre-reader and enjoys doing games on the computer. She likes to (and demands that we let her) control the mouse or trackpad all by herself.

As for the grown-ups in our household, we celebrated Norris's 75th birthday in April with a visit from her best friend Annie, and topped it off with a night at Yoshi's hearing Nanci Griffith. This year Norris has developed a few new friendships that have really enriched her social life. She goes to see all kinds of interesting independent and foreign films and is exploring new culinary corners of San Francisco.

Highlights for me (Edie) included news that the album of Mahler Symphony No. 8 and Adagio to Symphony No. 10, by the San Francisco Symphony and MTT, won an astounding 3 Grammys. Work continues to be both challenging and fulfilling, with a final Mahler album released in September and new recordings coming through the pipeline. And a final series of Keeping Score programs next year - watch this space.

On a personal front I really enjoyed the trip to Disneyland with the girls and friends Russell and Cathy, cousin Pauline and cousin Vera and her husband Stephen, and all of their kids. Can't wait to do that again! I've also tried, sporadically, to keep an exercise program going - adding Bikram yoga to the mix semi-regularly this year. (With a latte at Arizmendi often afterward as a nice reward!)

In early November, I had laser eye surgery on both eyes, and can truly see the world without corrective lenses for the first time in over 30 years! At last check my eyes, formerly approx -10 diopters (roughly the equivalent of 20/1600) were measured at 20/25. I still find myself occasionally reaching for glasses on the nightstand when I awake! But it is a wonderful thing and I am so grateful to Bill, Norris and my parents for their help and support that made doing this surgery feasible.

Bill started the year celebrating his 40th birthday with a 40 mile run from Point Reyes lighthouse to Pantoll Station, on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County. Friends Carlin, Dane, and Martha helped run part of it with him, with Carlin's wife Emily crewing the whole way. Later in the year, Carlin and Bill would choose a 50-miler in the Headlands together, cheered on by staff from CTL at the end. Highlights at work this year include additional work ahead for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS in studying the impacts of educational media on young children's literacy and math skills.

We hope to see you all - in person or virtually - sometime in 2011.

Happy holidays!

Best of 2010

2010-12-12T22:13:00.000-08:00

Dear Santa

2010-12-06T21:59:00.000-08:00

The girls are still very much in the 'Santa' zone. I feel like at 6 Maia might be old enough to get the drift but if she does, she hasn't let on one bit! So this year we wrote 'Dear Santa' letters. Maia wrote hers all by herself, while Lucy dictated her letter to me.

Maia's letter to Santa

Note the "Follow your heart diary" is a tiny little book with a lock and a picture of a kitten on the front "Mommy, it's so cuuuuuuuuuuuute!" that I had to make special arrangements with the school librarian for because it was, of course, sold out....

Lucy's letter to Santa

Will have to make a run back to Talbot's Toyland in San Mateo, where Lucy saw the *exact* Dora sticker book she really really wants.

I Love Lucy

2010-06-08T23:17:00.000-07:00

Lucy turned 3 today! It is hard to believe our baby is 3. She is so very much 3—"No" is the automatic word that comes out of her mouth almost any time of day, no matter what I am asking her. I have to remind myself time and again that "no" is the first (and maybe only) form of empowerment pre-schoolers have at their control.

We have nicknames for her but for the most part she is very firm. When we call her "Lulu" or Lulamae or Lucy-lu, she corrects us. "No, I'm just Lucy."

She loves a book called Pinkalicious, about a girl who eats too many pink cupcakes. But adorably, Lucy calls them "pupcakes". "Mommy, can you make me more pink Pup-cakes?" Who can resist? So we have had more than one batch of hot pink pup-cakes in our house.

Lucy eats like a bird but she hoards her food. Even if she isn't going to eat it all she refuses to share and gets very upset if we clear her plate before she says it's ok.

Her favorite foods include watermelon, peanut butter, butter (which she would eat straight, by the stick if allowed), corn (with lots of butter of course). Every day on the way home from school she asks for a "ganilla bar". I just love how she says that. Her ganilla bar of choice is Nature Valley Peanut Butter.

Up until two days ago she was extremely attached to her blankie, her "ruǎn bèi bèi" (soft blankie). She actually has a pile of blankies but her favorite is a satin pink and white checkered Cocalo blanket - we got her a different Cocalo blanket as a back up because her fave has been discontinued. So the original is called jiù de (old one) and the newer one is Xing de (new one).

However two days ago she moved to her "big girl bed" and she has firmly associated both jiù de and xingde with her crib, as she refuses to sleep with either one in her new bed.

Recently Lucy is fascinated by puzzles and she is quite good at them. She can work on 24 piece puzzles and turn each piece patiently until she gets it right, then when the puzzle is done she will mess it up and start over again right away.

Lucy enjoys playing with apps on Bill's iPod Touch. She has a unique ability to prod and poke the buttons on screen until all of the app icons are quivering, which apparently is how you delete an app. I have no idea how to get into that mode but she has done so quite a few times.

Two weeks ago Lucy switched classrooms at school - she has moved from the Elephants to the back pre-school room. It's been a bit of a rough transition as a few of her favorite teachers have coincidentally left the school to pursue other professional goals.

A week ago we went cold turkey with Lucy and switch to underpants during the day. Whoo! It's been a bit of an accident prone week but she is so excited with all of the signs of being a Big Girl - big girl pants, big girl bed, and turning 3!

Lucy is starting to get excited about picking out her own clothes. Many days she picks out multiple layers and wants to wear them all at the same time. She also adores her shoes - her favorites are some "sprinkly" pink sneakers, her flip flops, and the newest pair some pink sprinkly ballet flats. She's taking after her big sister and says Pink is her favorite color.

Most of the time Lucy and Maia enjoy dressing up in matching PJ's at bedtime and occasionally in matching outfits. It's pretty adorable, wonder how long they will like matching?

Lucy's speech is extremely clear for a 3 year old and - perhaps I am just too used to hearing her talk - but it seems like her diction is very precise with relatively few toddler pronunciations.

Ariel Birthday Cake

2010-06-06T09:31:00.000-07:00

Maia Reading

2009-12-28T21:28:00.000-08:00

Maia has been reading words here and there, has begun putting things together and can spell quite a few words by memory. But she is also lacking in motivation and says she hates reading, sometimes. I think it's because it is tiring and difficult, and she feels out of control.

Tonight she did her best reading yet. At bedtime, instead of asking me to read books to her, she picked out three early reader books and read them all to me and Lucy. Then, she wanted to read one more. She picked out Ten Apples Up on Top! First she said she just wanted to point out the words she did know and let me read the rest, but as she got into it she proceeded to read the entire book to me and Lucy. I'm so proud of her! Yay Maia!

(The other books were Loose Tooth, Get Out of My Chair, and Big Egg. All recommended!)

Lucy Lotsa

2009-11-08T07:29:00.000-08:00

I started this note a few weeks ago and never quite finished it.... most of it is still true!

Lucy is 2 1/2 and doing typical adorable things for her age.

When she's quantifying things it's 1, 2, Lotsa! And Lucy wants Lotsa of almost everything. This morning she insisted on making Lotsa oatmeal (instant kind).

She still says "Can you carry you?" even though she sometimes knows who "me" is.

I try to call her all kinds of silly nicknames (Lulu, Lucy-lu, Lulubelle) but she insists on being called only Lucy. "No, I'm Lucy!"

The other day she started calling me "Edie" and Bill by his first name as well. She says it with an impish smile on her face like she knows that it's not the usual name.

She likes to pick out her own clothes these days, and sometimes manages to put all the clothes on herself (often backwards but at this point I'll take it!). It seems like her desire to control what she wears has developed earlier than Maia's did.

Her favorite dress to wear is Halloween, also know as her Fancy dress. Her pre-school class had a Fancy Nancy inspired tea party and that was what she chose to wear, and again at Christmas.

Maia - Fall 2009

2009-10-29T20:24:00.000-07:00

To my dear Maia: you have brought so much love and joy into my life as a parent. These 5 years have gone by so fast, and I am awed by your beauty, sweetness and creativity. Maia turned 5 a month ago, and it's just been too busy around here to really reflect on that huge milestone until now.

As if there were any doubt, Maia is a real grade school kid now. She has a uniform dress code at school, and somehow seeing her in her navy and white outfit with her backpack on just seems so grown up. She is mostly self sufficient in getting dressed, getting ready, and sometimes helps make breakfast (either waffles or cereal). She also helps Lucy when asked (and when Lucy allows it!), putting on her shoes or helping her get buckled in the car seat.

Two months into Kindergarten, it feels like she's doing really well. She's one of the youngest in her class and noticeably smaller than a few of her friends (one of whom is a full year older than her). But, she seems happy enough. Her school's mandarin immersion program has her with her primary teacher in Chinese 80% of the time. The other 20% is spent in English Language Arts and enrichment (music, art or nutrition) with one of the two other K teachers at her school, so that she completely associates her primary teacher with speaking only Chinese. Maia was designated the 'star of the week' in her third week in class, with the teacher saying:

Maia is an attentive listener and fully participates during whole group lessons. Maia is not afraid to ask questions to ensure comprehension and consistently stays focused on tasks at hand. She is also caring and kind toward her peers, and never hesitates to lend a helping hand when asked.

The class often does 'centers' which are activity tables where each student works independently. Maia's favorite centers are the drawing table and the building blocks table (I think there are some kind of puzzles or something, kind of tangram-esque.

Her oral and written Chinese vocabulary is already pretty impressive - ability to write in Chinese numbers up to at least 20, plus basic frequent characters:
人个大小天中上下日月 (person, piece, big, small, sky, middle, up, down, day, moon/month)
一二三四五六七八十 (1 - 10)
She gets a homework packet every week and is able to complete the 10-12 pages on her own with minimal supervision, just a little nudging to get it done and check her work. And, for the most part, she is happy to do it.

Today (Oct 29) we had our first parent-teacher conference with Chang Lao-shi. While we expected the report to be good, we were really gratified to hear the many ways she is shining at school. The teacher reported Maia to have a love of learning, strong numeracy and ability to start 'translating' internally in terms of math concepts, excellent writing control and retention of vocabulary, strong understanding of the instructions and directions (in Chinese), and an exceptional willingness to help others by sharing her understanding, in other words to translate material given to her in Chinese into English to explain to peers. We were also assured by the teacher's awareness of the need to keep Maia challenged, that being cited as her one learning goal for Maia in the next quarter. I have to say I think that Maia has an outstanding Kindergarten teacher, and I felt this came through 100% in our conference with her.

Socially Maia has one classmate she absolutely loves at school, Ruby, who is her new best friend. She still maintains strong ties to her preschool friends especially Leila, and is becoming attached to a girl Kaelyn who we carpool sometimes with. As the smallest girl in her peer group, many of her friends seem to love to hug her and pick her up (kind of bear hug around the waist). It's kind of funny, I've seen a lot of kids pick her up.

She's particularly prolific in art, drawing constantly in almost all of her free time. Lately her favorite subjects are her family members, unicorns, and dragonflies and fairies. She's taking an art class called Junior Picasso through the Sharon Art Studio, which has vastly improved her figurative drawing so that the people have what I think is pretty amazing balance and proportionality for a 5 year old.

Extracurriculars currently include the SF Girls Chorus (preparatory chorus), gymnastics, and swimming. She is happy with all of the activities, except swimming which has frankly always been a struggle with her and we've agreed to give her a break after the end of November. At this point she has enough swimming skills to be semi independent and to swim (the narrow way) across a swimming pool, but probably is not really able to be water safe. But, her progress has plateaued and I think we all need a break.

At home, she continues to be closer to me and to retain a strong need for love, affection and approval from all family members but especially me and Lau Lau. When there is a change in routine -- a family member traveling -- the emotion can hit Maia very strong and she gets really weepy talking about the person who is gone. She is a kid who seems to really need the solidity of being surrounded by her few near and dear family and friends. She can be shy in new situations and generally does not have a boastful or show-off personality. She still gets totally goofy and silly and tells long drawn out stories and jokes that would be funniest to other 5-year-olds.

One interesting new development is the burgeoning sibling rivalry. When Lucy was an infant and young toddler, Maia completely doted on her. But as we've noted time and again, Lucy is fiercely independent and literally pushes Maia away time and again. As Lucy is becoming a much more capable pre-schooler, Maia's seeing how much Lucy is competing for her share of love, attention, and well, just stuff. I guess we were spoiled in that there was virtually no jealousy from Maia in Lucy's first 2 years, and now it is coming out strongly. I'm currently reading Siblings without Rivalry to get a sense of perspective on the dynamics. I guess it's just part of parenting.... hopefully one day they will be friends and cherish each other, if not now.

Last Day of Summer

2009-08-23T20:40:00.000-07:00

Well, technically summer may continue til Labor Day or even Autumnal Equinox (depending on your definition) but for us, Summer is definitely over. It flew by. With Maia still in her year-round pre-school and Lucy in year-round daycare this summer, there wasn't much change to our family schedule. But both Bill and I were working terribly, horribly hard and it felt like the leisure was very little indeed. We had a camping trip over the 4th of July weekend and a week at a family camp on a farm in Northern CA (Emandal) in August. Our friend Andrew from NY visited for a long weekend and we got to steal a brief dinner with Kelly Pete and Mimi from Durham NC, a day trip to the Monterey Aquarium and that was about it!

And with the end of summer, we set off on a number of transitions in our family:

Tomorrow Maia starts Kindergarten at Starr King Elementary in the SF unified school district. As all of you who've followed our school search know, this was a school we got into very late and with a lot of hand wringing and worry. Maia will be in the Mandarin Immersion program, meaning that she will learn 80% of the material in Chinese and 20% (basically literacy) in English. Maia's primary teacher will be Mrs. Chang (Zhang Lao shi), who has been at the school for 3 years, and her secondary teacher for the English part of the day will be Mrs. To (To Lao shi).

Maia has been extremely attached to her pre-school teacher, Erin. Maia has a tendency to be overly emotional and clingy (with me, with her teacher) so I am a little worried that the Kindergarten teacher--with 21 other students to attend to--will not be able to serve her emotional needs. But, it will be great intellectually. Maia will know enough Chinese to feel comfortable the first day, but will have a lot to learn. In reading and writing, too, she will have lots of growth opportunities. She actually could be reading independently by now if she wanted to (based on her letter and sound ability) but she gets somewhat bored by it. This has been surprising to me, that she has not been more eager to read independently, but I am sure it will come quickly to her in Kindergarten.

Lucy starts pre-school at C5 (the same school Maia attended) in a week. She has been flourishing at the family daycare where she's been. She also has a tendency to strongly prefer one person (Betty, the owner of the daycare) and with only 5 kids and a strong will, Lucy has mostly gotten her way. In a larger group situation with some behavioural norms, I actually think the pre-school transition will be harder for Lucy than it was for Maia. It was a piece of cake for Maia to adapt to the pre-school setting. Lucy will have more socializing to do, but I think it will be an excellent experience. I've met her teachers and they seem very nice.

And, Bill starts a new (part-time) job on Sep 1st! He will be taking a part time position as a director of research at the Gardner Center for Youth and their Communities at Stanford. It will be a bit of a juggling act but I think he's very excited. Congratulations Bill!

Below is a slideshow of some of our summer highlights:

Lucy is 2

2009-06-08T22:43:00.000-07:00

Our Lucy, our little baby girl, the gorgeous apple of my eye, is 2 today. As usual, it feels slow and also incredibly fast. Can 2 years have passed?

She had her 2 year doctor appt yesterday and she's 23lbs 4oz, 32.75". I think she's in about the 15th percentile for both height and weight. In the past year she's gained 5 pounds.

I love this age, the verbal explosion is incredible and the knowing, and evidence of thought and comprehension, the first self reliance and beginning of her capable self. As we've mentioned before, her personality is a strong one - an independent, self-directed girl with a strong will. She's deep, and incredibly smart. Playful at times, and when happy she is just the most utterly charming and beguiling little girl. She's not girly or princessy, but very neat.

She's not a cuddler but lately she has been very kissy in the morning, wanting to give dozens of smooches to me. She's quite physically strong and can run or walk quite a long way for a little girl. She has particularly strong attachments to me, and to Nai Nai and Lau Lau and her daycare provider Betty.

Lucy loves having her hair fancy - the more jia zi (clips) as she can get into her hair the better. She loves to play with her dolls, especially Baby Violet. She loves being covered in her 4 favorite bei-bei (blankets): po-ka-DOT!, ran ran (soft), hong bei bei (red blankie) and the newest addition, rainbow which was hand knit by her Nai Nai for Maia. I'm at the point I won't let her touch any other blankets because she will get attached to them and then won't go to sleep without them.

She asks to hear or sing "Hush Little Baby Don't Say Word?" all the time, or "Round Round" (Wheels on the Bus), or "Baby Booga" (Baby Beluga). She sings a dozen chinese songs to herself, all of which she learned at daycare and we don't know the lyrics. She also sings the little greeting/parting song from her swimming class with the names of the kids in the class. "Goodbye Leo, Goodbye Adrienne, Goodbye Leila, we see you here next time." I'd say the tonal qualities of her voice and sense of pitch are not as good as Maia's (at the same age) but she makes up for it with enthusiasm. :)

Lucy also is just an incredibly strong individual and is entering her real terrible twos, lots of "no!"s and mini tantrums. She wants to do everything herself, of course -- climb into the car, open the door, turn on the light, buckle her seatbelt. Many of these are things she can't do yet herself but still has a fit when she isn't allowed. I try to remind myself that it is all about testing limits and independence.

She's not a particularly compliant little sister, no shadow of her jie jie, this one! She more than likely will lead the charge with the two of them mostly because Lucy won't want to follow and Maia is, on the other hand, fairly flexible. I asked Maia today if she remembered the time before she had her sister, she nodded and said she was happy to have a sister and she loves Lucy so much.

To my little Lucy, I love you so much, too. You mean the world to me. May your brightness always shine through and may you blaze your own trail.

Click here to see the post with photos from her first few days. And here for the post on her 1st birthday.

Maia - photojournalist

2009-06-08T22:40:00.000-07:00

Recently Maia took our good camera, the SLR, around the house to capture some shots. I was concerned about her ability to handle the camera without breaking it, but she did some amazing photos! This is the Nikon D40X, which has a viewfinder and does use the picture viewer for framing the shots.

A Lovely Sunday

2009-04-12T19:57:00.000-07:00

We had just a wonderful day today. It happens it's Easter Sunday, but that had only a little to do with the loveliness.

This morning Bill rose with Maia, who unusually was up earlier than Lucy around 6:30. At 5 til 7 I roused myself because a) I could hear Lucy calling my name from the other room and b) I knew Bill was due to leave the house at 7 with his running buddy and friend Carlin. So, I gathered myself and the baby and found Bill and Maia playing catch in the living room with a small soccer ball, and laughing. 5 min later to the honk of a horn, Bill was out the door and it was me and the girls.

Lucy went to the kitchen with me to have a bowl of cereal with milk. At 22 months she can sit and feed herself and mostly is neat enough she doesn't need a bib. And she loves cereal, today a mix of GoLean Crunch and Special K. (She loves breakfast foods in general, her latest favorite being "ban-CAKEs?")

Maia had already eaten breakfast and I set her in front of the TV to watch an episode of Dora the Explorer, while Norris and I struggled to make the coffee for the day. After Lucy was done eating, she joined Maia to watch tv while I bought myself another 15 min or so of rest/nap. When TV time was over, I mentioned to Maia that she could open the treats I had gotten her for Easter. Then - and only then - did she go and take a close look at her little basket of beautiful sugar cookies and jelly beans. Such a well mannered child, always waiting to get permission to do things! Lucy, as usual, took 2 bites of the yellow chick cookie and then had no more interest in either the basket or the cookies.

Next, our first activity of the day, groceries! We went to the new Trader Joe's at Stonestown Mall, and had a nice time picking out snacks and staples, and eating the eggs and ham they had for a sampler. Maia is so helpful in the grocery store now and Lucy, for the most part, can sit through it. Sometimes she has a hard time deciding which item she wants to hold, til her arms are overfull with 4 or 5 new purchases, but today she was quite content. No whining, no begging for treats. Whew! This TJ's has a children's play area right by the registers and since they were so good I let us linger for an extra 5 minutes to play.

When we got home Bill was back and showered already. We set the dozen eggs to boil right away. When they were ready, we prepared the dyes using food coloring and vinegar, and took bowls out to our backyard to keep the mess contained. Maia decided to put stickers on the eggs for decorations. We ended up with some pretty nice, basic eggs.

Then, after lunch - featuring eggs - Lucy went down for a nap and Bill went off to sit (meditate). That allowed Maia and I to set off to do the next project, cleaning the Prius aka Mommy's car! Maia just loves washing my car, and she got all dressed up in her rain boots and raincoat. She soaped and soaped the car sides, and wiped the dirt off, and did a wonderful job. On the inside, we scooped out all the food wrappers and books and cheerios and toys and clothes and cheerios that were on the floor, then Maia took a Dustbuster to the car. Again, she did a great job. We used wet wipes to rub off spilled milk stains (my car was really disgustingly dirty) and finally, Windexed the windows. And voila! my car is incredibly, incredibly clean.

After all this activity I was pooped, but Maia really wanted to either ride her (trainer) bicycle or fly the pocket kite we've had for months. "Mommy, it's SUCH a nice day outside, shouldn't we go take my trainer bike for a ride? Or go to the beach and fly my kite?" she asked so sweetly, who could resist. Since it was windy out, we bundled the girls up and took them to Ocean Beach. It was super bright and sunny, and none of us had sunglasses, which was a problem because the wind was blowing a fine dust of sand everywhere, especially in our eyes. So we stood on the sidewalk and attempted to fly our small, simple kite. It was a total bust, but still a fun time and Lucy had a gas running up and down the sidewalk.

And finally, off to dinner at Andrew and Syvia and Toby's house, with Nai Nai and Hana along for good measure. We ordered yummy persian takeout food, and hung out.

This was such a nice, lovely, simple day. Nothing too unusual, I hope to remember it for a long time and to have many more like it.

Flogging my work

2009-03-11T15:07:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm pushing this book/CD that was just released by Harper-Collins for a couple of reasons. First, it is a children's book about classical music and the orchestra. Second, it was written by Lemony Snicket and third, there is a CD in the book/CD package that includes the music with narration by Lemony Snicket. It's not as dark as some of the other Lemony Snicket works but has a bit of orchestra humor involved. I helped produce (as in get the people needed to do the engineering etc, not actually producing the record) the audio CD and I have to say I've enjoyed it and it has grown on me over time. Great for kids in the say, 5-10 age range?

There's also a video interview of Lemony Snicket and Nat Stookey (who composed the music) produced by my friend Oliver, that is fairly entertaining.

16 things I love about my kids

2009-01-14T19:43:00.000-08:00

My friend Rebecca sent me something about writing 16 things to share about yourself, as a chain email. I have yet to complete that task but lately I've felt that the days/weeks/months of these precious children are flying by. Maia is a kid, a real kid and not a toddler. Lucy is a real toddler and not so much baby. It's great they are growing brighter, stronger, more independent every day. But oh, it aches too. So I thought I'd try to write down a list about each of my kids.

Maia: 4 years, 4 months
1. Her (and my) new favorite endearment is "I love you more than Bacon" (from a button that 'Santa' gave me)
2. She can write all of her uppercase and lowercase letters.
3. She draws pictures that look like things.
4. She loves hearts, rainbows, butterflies, and of course princesses.
5. She will sit and work on an art project by herself for up to an hour (drawing, using glue stick or tape, cutting paper).
6. She calls her new Hello Kitty clock a 'timer' and corrects me if I don't.
7. She likes to play 'catch-cute-butt' which is basically tag but only on the you know what especially when she's naked (ok maybe this is a game we should outgrow, but she thinks it's hilarious)
8. She can spell the names of her family members Mommy Baba Nai Nai Lau Lau Lucy Hana
9. She loves Caillou and sings the theme song perfectly, including the little laugh at the end.
10. She has tried to do some of the things she sees on Caillou, art projects and such.
11. She tries to help Lucy when L. is crying or upset, even if the help is sometimes misdirected (like giving Lucy a doll she's not remotely interested in).
12. She has the sweetest smile when she's happy.
13. She says "Mommy, you're always right" when I tell her something that turns out to be right.
14. She has decided what she's going to be for the next 3 Halloweens: Cinderella (with the dress Santa brought her); Santa Claus; and then Angelina Ballerina.
15. She can count to 50 or so (depending on the day) but still often forgets 15.
16. She calls things that are glittery (glitter, sequins etc) "sprinkly".

Lucy: 19 months
1. Lucy loves to wear Maia's shoes around the house.
2. She says "Ha'py Sheeby" when she wants us to sing the "Happy Birthday" song
3. She is learning new words in both Chinese and English almost every day.
4. The first thing she says in the morning is usually "Maia?" followed by either "FanFan" (food! food!) or "Ah Wan' Caillou!"
5. She has a favorite blankie "bèi bèi" but also loves most blankets.
6. She does a little dance to music, swaying side to side and swinging her arms. I must videotape it.
7. She loves to go swimming with Baba.
8. She can be fiercely independent.
9. She loves climbing the stairs from our garage and especially loves 'holding' the handrail which she can barely grab with the tips of her fingers.
10. She can be very snuggly.
11. She tells us when she needs her diaper changed by saying "chòu-chòu" (80% accurate on whether she really does need a change)
12. She likes to read books, especially Ha Ha, Maisy!
and Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb
13. She has the cutest tiny rosebud mouth that I just adore.
14. She's learning how to jump (with liftoff).
15. She loves pizza and pasta ("mo' pa'ta?")
16. She is a naturally neat eater and wants me to wipe her mouth or hands when they get sticky.

We complain about our children all the time but there's nothing like the love we have for them. Thank you Maia and thank you Lucy for enlarging my heart and my life.

A Coloring Book

2008-12-24T13:18:00.000-08:00

Maia and Lucy have been fighting over toys a lot lately. The other day Lucy was drawing in Maia's jumbo Princess coloring book. I knew taking the coloring book away would cause tears, so I suggested to Maia one of the strategies we use which was to give Lucy something else to play with. Maia ran off for a while and when she came back she said she had made a coloring book just for Lucy. And here it is, 7 pages with different art on each page. She even lettered "To Lucy From Maia" by herself in funky bubble letters.

1. Bear Paws
2. Inscription
3. Heart
4. Butterfly
5. Star and moon
6. Shark
7. Blimp (we've been fascinated with the blimps that have been flying overhead in SF)
8. Shapes

All put together with a tape binding. I was pretty blown away by her initiative, self-reliance, creativity and execution. We're wrapping it up to give to Lucy for Christmas.

Happy Holidays

2008-12-23T07:37:00.000-08:00

A selection of favorite photos from 2008.

Finger Puppets

2008-12-04T00:30:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend one afternoon Maia was busily working away at something in the kitchen. I was glad that she was self-entertaining and not too concerned about what she was doing. A little while later she came and showed me that she had made "finger puppets", little strips of paper that she cut into a band, drew a face on each, and then taped in a ring around her finger. Ok, the finger puppets looked a bit like a bandaid with a face on it, but the kid is 4 and she did this on her own, of her own initiative and required no adult assistance! Wow! I was really impressed that she was able to do everything - gather the necessary materials, cut the paper, draw the faces and tape the puppets together.

She had made several of them (a few for my secret upcoming birthday present, shhh!).
Today in the car ride home I asked Maia what made her how she came up with the idea to do them. She said she saw Caillou make them. And who says kids aren't learning from the media?

Caillou

2008-12-04T00:24:00.000-08:00

Generally during the week the girls are allowed to watch 1 kid program (30 minutes long but minus sponsors, about 25 minutes) on TV. Usually after breakfast while Mommy is trying to get ready for the day.

For a long time Maia called everything she saw on TV "movies". "Can I watch a movie?" TV shows were regular movies and actual feature films were long movies. Lately she is getting the drift that what we watch is actually television, but most of the time we still call it a movie.

Anyway, for the past month or so, the show of choice has been, definitively, Caillou. It's about a little 4-year old boy, and shows a lot of situations and interactions of a typical 4 year old. The minute the show comes on she is singing along with the theme song: "I'm just a kid who's 4, each day I grow some more, I'm just exploring I'm CAIIII LLOU, CAIILLOU! That's me! HEeeheehee". Maia even fits in the little giggle at the end.

I asked Maia why she likes Caillou and she said it's because he's nice.

Bernie Kaplan: In Memoriam

2008-12-03T20:19:00.000-08:00

"Cliches in capsules corrupt discourse."

That was the caption beneath Bernie's picture in the Clark University student newspaper that went with the article about his winning an award for outstanding undergraduate teaching. The move, so Bernie, and its effect, so Burkean (his great influence), does in fact somehow encapsulate a part of what made this man so special to me and to so many others. Sad, as it was the case for many students, that the poor student reporter probably had no idea that he'd been had by Bernie's comic genius.

I do remember sitting in Bernie's office--where he held all his classes--and laughing an awful lot. At Bernie's raised eyebrows as he articulated a viewpoint that you know lots of people believed but that he wanted you to take less seriously. At Bernie's gestures of self-criticism, as when he would say things like, "The problem is with people like you" and then point back at his nose while making cross-eyes. And when you could see how he would take an idea someone posed, just draw it out to the extreme, to illustrate Burke's point that in taking up points of view, human beings are "goaded by perfection."

Beyond the laughter, though, I did a lot of hard and difficult thinking, undoing and redoing of conceptual schemes and beliefs about life, language, consciousness in and around Bernie's classes. From psychology as a human science, I learned that the greatest psychologists were often writers, whose inhabiting and inscribing of different persons could provide profound insight into the capabilities of the human heart for good and for evil. From "Interpretation of Dreams" came a deep appreciation of Freud's writings, something few are exposed to in this day, since it is so easy to poke holes in his mythology and miss the genius of the great metaphors of biting, chewing, and pinching off as dynamics that happen in inner life and aren't just bodily processes. From the "Psychology of Love and Hate," I wrestled with my beliefs about human nature and came to love Denis De Rougemont's categorization of western and Eastern mysticism embedded in Love in the Western World.

You can't talk about Bernie without talking about Kenneth Burke. Not only did Burke provide Bernie with the only thing close to a "method" that might characterize his incredible approach to thinking in dramatism, but Burke's own tropes in his writing were fundamental to how Bernie encouraged us to think. "Perspective by incongruity" is one I am revisiting now, the idea that by putting "unlike" objects or concepts together, you get new insights into social reality. A favorite is Burke's notion of "trained incapacity," a phenomenon we all know (learning a way of doing something so well you can't do it any other way, even when it's called for), but that without this term, you don't think about it. Leading to another Burkean insight Bernie understood so well: "Every representation is a reflection, selection, and deflection of reality." Or as another scholar put it, "No representation without taxation." I remember I hated this one, as I think all undergraduates seeking pure systems really do, to have to come to grasp with the fact that your new favorite system of thought comes with a price tag, pushes away truth even as it tries to grab hold of it.

Bernie was above all a great mentor and teacher. When I went to Clark, I had a clear career path: to study geography there to become an urban planner. I would have chosen some other place, had I wanted to study anything else. But in my first semester, I decided to take Bernie's class, "Psychology as a Human Science." It blew me away; I couldn't stop thinking about it. I loved that Bernie had a pile of books assigned, but that you could read whatever you wanted from within the pile and then write about it. I must have said enough in class and in the TA sessions to capture his attention, because when I went through the dark cavernous little hallway into his office to see him the next January to ask permission to take another class, he simply said, "So I am going to be your advisor, right?" I became a double-major in psychology shortly thereafter, and in my sophomore year Bernie asked me to TA his introductory class along with graduate students who are my colleagues today, Kevin O'Connor, Leslie Herrenkohl, and Lisa Comparini. Even as I was challenged by him, I always felt supported by him, loved by him. His pride in me meant the world to me, and I only wish I had done more when he was alive to let him know again and again what he meant to me, to so many of us who were his students at one point or another.

I came to understand my undergraduate career as having majored in what was known among some undergrads as "Bernie Studies." There were, to be sure, other faculty members who were part of this invisible department (Walter Wright in philosophy, especially, and Lois Brynes who taught adult education). And if you majored in Bernie Studies, at the end of the day you realized that even underneath this constant questioning and challenging, there were some core insights about the nature of who we are in this world that Bernie had. One was that he believed the goal of development was as the adage says, "to become who we are," and he really enjoyed being around people and mentoring people who seemed to have this as a conscious aim. And as open-ended as that task seems, I think Bernie thought he knew something about how we go about that, through loving and working as Freud said, and by figuring and refiguring our world. The latter, for Bernie, could be encapsulated by those great "master tropes" of metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony. Northrop Frye's casting of these ideas may have little sway over literary critics today, but I have no doubt -- as Bernie had no doubt -- these are the tools of meaning making, our "equipment for living" as it were, for living the good life and making it better.

Bernie, we will miss you. You will forever in my mind be sitting on your stool at the end of that long table piled full of books, smiling at your students with a twinkle in your eye, and enjoying that sweet little cigar.

National Day of Listening

2008-11-28T13:26:00.000-08:00

Today Maia and I interviewed my mom as part of the National Day of Listening. The project is related to StoryCorps, as heard on NPR, and is a project to encourage people to learn about the stories that shape their friends and family members' lives. Maia's and my interview was short (owing to four-year olds' attention spans), but we learned a lot all the same.

As a son, I appreciated my mom's foggy memory for the awful things I did to my brother as a kid (destroying his favorite fire engine was an exception) and her vivid memory of her own wrongdoings. She told a story of how she and her friend Harwell had been jumping on a big four-post bed and managed to break it.

Maia found it funny that I'd been named for a cousin of hers called "little Bill." Little Bill had been a beloved cousin who died over the Himalayas trying to fly in supplies to the Chinese during World War II. I'd known this particular story, but I wanted to hear it, too.

I really appreciated hearing her story of her own Danny, her grandmother, who had been a feminist of the times and had traveled to Europe on her own.

Maia's main question was about what her Nai-Nai felt when she and Lucy were born. Mom explained to her that she met Maia a little after she was born, since she was living in Nashville at the time, and she met Lucy the next day. She said, of course, she was so happy to have a grand-daughter. As she put it, it was particularly special for her to know there were three generations of relative alive and (now) living under one roof.

Wishlists

2008-11-26T21:23:00.000-08:00

I've added Amazon.com Wishlist links for Maia and Lucy on the right side of this blog. These are my interpretation of things the girls would enjoy. While the things on these lists would be great, they are suggestive and other things are great too. Always, always, books and music CDs are wonderful for us.

If you have suggestions for your little one(s) let me know.

What Lucy Doesn't Know

2008-11-22T09:20:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I asked Maia to take charge of Lucy, and bring her into the kitchen. Maia stood in the doorway calling Lucy to no avail. Finally, she turned to me and said, "Mommy, I don't think Lucy knows what her name is."

Once again, Maia, summing up the obvious.

Shower vs. Bath

2008-11-12T19:09:00.000-08:00

Maia at 4 years and 2 months old, has suddenly decided she would rather take showers rather than a bath. Perhaps this started at the swimming pool, where she rinses off after each swim lesson in a nice warm shower. She says, "I like the pool shower better because it is rather smaller than Mommy and Baba's." But she says she wants to take a shower every day instead of a bath now. Huh.

Hey Baby!

2008-11-09T08:16:00.000-08:00

When Lucy is in a good mood, she is an utter delight. In the mornings she loves to play a game - there's a French door to our den right next to our computer that leads to the entryway. Lucy walks to the door and looks through, saying "Hey baby! Hey baby!" until we open the door and let her in. Then she closes it again. She's also very interested in feeding Hana our dog, and keeping track of everyone in the family.

Right now she's playing with a bucket of magnetic letters with a lid. She brings the closed bucket to me and says "Kai Kai! Kai Kai (open open)". The enunciation of the "Kai" is very soft, the first sound almost makes it sound like "gai". When open, she puts it on the ground, drops a few letters in and closes the bucket very carefully with two hands. Then she puts the handle over her arm like a purse, and walks back to me, starting again. Once when I opened it for her she said "xia xia (thank you)". I just realized maybe she has a slight Shanghainese accent (they say "Xa Xa" instead of the mandarin "Xie Xie") because her daycare provider is from Shanghai originally.

She loves putting on "mittens", any kind of sock, oven mitt or something she can wear on her hand. We have a little lion mitt/bath washtowel that she wears and when she does, she makes the cutest roaring sound. (Video to come.)

A Scare and A Helping Hand

2008-10-29T23:53:00.000-07:00

The Scare
The other night Lucy had an accident - she reached up and pulled a container of extremely hot food down from a countertop resulting in a 2nd degree scald burn. It is extremely upsetting and looks awful, and resulted in her first ER visit. We are so lucky that the scald was not worse and that it ended up on her neck, not on her face, ears, head, or hands. We've been taking her for daily follow ups at the doctor to make sure it's healing well. She is a miraculously happy camper and aside from disliking having the antibiotic ointment applied to her burn, just as bubbly and happy as ever.

A Helping Hand
Right when we got home and I was figuring out what to do - assessing how serious the injury was, phoned the after hours advice nurse, then searched the Internet, then called a few friends with medical training, then debated a trip to the ER.... Maia, in her 4 year old sensitivity wanted to know what was happening and seeing that I was stressing out, really wanted to help. She suggested that I write a note to the doctor to explain what happened. I absentmindedly agreed because well, I was trying to figure out what to do! Seeing that I wasn't seriously taking her up on her suggestion, Maia got out a pen and paper and asked me to spell out the words to write her own note to the dotor. She wrote without any help (except for spelling):

Lucy Lucy
Dr. took
Hand
Red burn

When I saw her note, it ust made me really stop what I was doing and embrace my big girl. What a thoughtful and caring person she is. What a girl. (I took the note with us to the ER, though I didn't give it to the doctor - this one is a keeper!)

I've learned that scalds are one of the most common childhood accidental traumas. It can happen in an instant and the degree of injury can be from mild to extremely serious. Again, after learning more I am so relieved it was not worse. Once your kids are mobile, they can surprise you with how high they can reach, how far then can go.

Lucy vocabulary at 16 months

2008-10-13T20:42:00.000-07:00

Since we cataloged Maia's speech at this age, thought I'd give this a shot. She has a pretty balanced English/Chinese vocabulary.

Bill says her first word was "Baba" ;)

Nai Nai - 3 meanings, milk, nurse (mother's milk), Grandma
Gou Gou - dog. She often also says "woof woof" when she sees a dog
Mao Mao - cat
Niao Niao - bird
Hai Yao - want more (and putting two index fingers together in sign language)
Go luh - enough (had enough)
Baba - daddy
Mama - mommy
Lau Lau - Grandma
Kai Kai - open
Jiao - foot
Bi-ze - nose
xie-ze - shoe
bao bao - pick up/carry
geng (should be deng, she swallows the first sound but always means "light")

shoe
brush (like for toothbrush)
sock
fish
apple (the cutest. A-pul?)
bye bye
bite
no
lulu

People
Maia
Emo (Elmo)
Betty (daycare primary person)
Mai (helper at daycare)
Ruby (Betty's daughter)

It's clear when we speak to her that she also understands much of what we are saying to her, in both English and Chinese.

Well in comparison she's not too far behind Maia!

Compare and Contrast

2008-10-13T20:09:00.000-07:00

When you have one child you marvel at what he or she says, does, thinks. You feel once you've been through a stage, you know what X (6 months, a year) is like. With a second, you start to see the individual differences. For example, Maia probably took an earlier interest in books, loving reading and being read to. (she had the advantage that we had more time to read with her.) Lucy is now catching up but where Maia liked any book we read to her, and to this day picks books for bedtime in a seemingly random manner from the bookshelf; well Lucy has her mind clearly set on exactly what books she does and doesn't like. In addition to the previously mentioned Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, Lucy these days loves Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb and Elmo's Birthday Party, and Go Dogs, Go!

Lucy's vocabulary, while not at the level of Maia's early speech, has started to expand and also (to her parents at least) is pretty clear. Kai, Kai, she says, pointing to the TV (On, On!). Emo, Emo! (A sudden and recent infatuation with Elmo though the girls both enjoy Caillou so that has been dominant in our house lately.)

I find that at 16 months, Lucy is obsessed with pens, crayons, drawing tools. She will draw with anything, on anything. She's drawn on her hands, face, mouth, floor, table, softa. As we've mentioned before, Maia as a baby hardly ever even tested out anything off limits, we could have gotten away with no childproofing. With Lucy well, hide the Sharpies!

Maia has and will probably always have a sweet tooth, dinner is pretty much a through-line to dessert. Lucy is just not that interested in sweets, loves broccoli, green beans and savory things. They do have in common an almost sure-fire favorite dinner - chicken veggie potstickers.

We tried our best to encourage a lovey attachment for Maia, to no avail. But she was a big time pacifier girl, loving her binky until she was over 2 years old. Lucy, who is still nursing will take no pacifier, thumb, anything to soothe except well, mommy (which is really getting old at this point for mommy). (Side note, Maia asked me one day if I was done "boobing" Lucy which cracked me up.) What Lucy does have which Maia never did, is a growing attachment to a particular silky-soft blanket. "Bei bei!" she cries when she is tired. It is not a comfort to her in that it will soothe her down quite yet, but she does love it and clutches it when she sleeps.

Maia lately has been really into baby play. She and Lucy went for a play date at her friend Leila's house today (Columbus Day) and her report on the day was "well we played doctor-baby and then we had snack and then Lucy was in the chair and she fell and she was crying and then we played doctor-baby and then we watched a movie and then we played doctor-baby." (Lucy was fine.) This is the prevalent game at pre-school too. She told me one day "I want to be the mommy, Leila always makes me be the baby." but I think they have started to rotate roles a bit more evenly.

Today Maia was quietly doing an alphabet sticker activity book while I was semi-napping. She turned to me and said "You can make 'I' three ways. There's the line with a dot, the line with nothing, and the line with another line at the top and another line down." I am still amazed, all the time, by her powers of deduction, reasoning and observation. You really cannot sneak anything by Maia.

Maia's Birthday

2008-09-21T22:17:00.000-07:00

Most of you know Maia just turned 4 (many updates, tweets, etc). Bill has posted his thoughts on Maia at 4, and thought I would do the same. We are recording a lot of these thoughts both to share and to keep a journal for the girls as we certainly are no keeping any kind of record book.

At 4 years old, Maia...

... says her favorite color is now PURPLE, not pink!
... (or sometimes she says her favorite color is "every color in the whole wide world")
... likes playing with dolls and stuffed animals, making schools and being the teacher or mommying them
... is still kind of a silly goofy kid
... but is also feeling like snuggling and hugging is for little kids (boo hoo for mommy!)
... says her favorite thing to eat for dinner is spaghetti with meatballs, and her favorite ice cream is strawberry (though she also loves Cherry Garcia)
... can sight recognize a few words like her name and Lucy's name
... but is not really sounding out or trying to read beyond the words she already knows
... can write most of her uppercase letters and enjoys writing words if we tell her the letters
... is drawing some really nice figurative art
... is still mostly a mommy's girl most of the time
... weighs 35 pounds (50th %ile) and is 39" (40th %ile), guess she's not going to be tall

Here are some recent photos:

Maia at 4, Baba's Reflections

2008-09-20T21:06:00.000-07:00

In the last couple of weeks, Maia has taken to giving explanations and offering complaints that are accompanied by a gesture she must have learned from one of her teachers at school. She says whatever she says, and while doing so, holds her arms up and hands out as if in fake exasperation. It's one of those little signs that our little girl is beginning to try on yet another channel of communication.

If I had to say there was one quality of Maia that has been something that defines her and that others know her by it is her expressiveness. When we recalled the story of her birth together today, I told her that when she came out of her mommy's belly, she was talking already. I remember the moment still -- it was as if there had been a conversation she'd begun in some other lifetime that she was going to continue into this one. She hasn't stopped talking, singing, or gesturing since.

Maia has a real curiosity that is also insatiable, and readily expressed. In the last month, we've discussed the nature of morning glories, how to make maple syrup, and stars. She followed the sweet YouTube video on maple syrup making up to the point that the family gave a tour of the facilities they used for boiling the sap, then made that gesture and said, "It's so complicated I can't understand how they make maple syrup!"

Exploring new and old media with Maia has been a joy for me in the last year. As part of my work, I am serving as an evaluator of CPB's Ready to Learn initiative, studying whether new shows at PBS like SuperWhy! can impact young kids' literacy skills. We've watched these shows together, which has been fun, but even more fun has been exploring old clips from Sesame Street and Electric Company together on YouTube. She won't watch Sesame Street episodes from recent years, but she and I both really love the Yip Yips. She also loves the SS clip where an orange sings Carmen, but none of us can stand the off key version sung by the orange.

Maia has a real gift for song and music; she's now taking a class at the Conservatory of Music that blends singing with rhythm. She is really taking to it, and she is such a natural. I hope that singing brings her as much joy in the future as it seems to bring her now. At our recent family vacation in Cambria, Maia performed "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" for the entire family. Unselfconsciously, and with perfect pitch. Wow.

With Maia, feelings run deep. She knows "upset" and "joy" at extremes, and if there is anything that I think challenges us as parents, it's how to help her with the upset part of those extremes. It is a great gift to be able to feel this way; I trust that over time, she will learn to live her feelings in ways that bring happiness to herself and that her openness and compassions are gifts to all who meet her.

Maia, thank you for joining our family and enriching it so.

Love, Baba

Britax car seats on sale

2008-09-17T18:40:00.001-07:00

As you all know, I am a big fan of Britax car seats. We have Roundabout and Boulevard car seats, and a Frontier booster seat. I plan on getting one more Frontier. However Britax is very expensive. (somewhat) good news is that right now Britax is on sale (through Sep 21) on many sites including BabyUniverse.com, BabyAge.com, Amazon.com, and others.

I personally plan to order through my Ebates.com link, which will yield an additional 5% cash back through Paypal, free shipping and no sales tax to CA on BabyUniverse.com. This brings my Frontier from $279.99 plus tax down to $237.49 delivered. For a seat that is going to last me the next 6 years or so, not too bad.

Happy shopping, everyone.

More Lucy developments

2008-08-26T22:17:00.000-07:00

It's been a month since I posted anything - we'd been keeping an eye on Lucy and wondering why she hadn't started really walking yet. While she has been taking 2 or 3 steps at a time for a while, she really doesn't want to walk and in fact cries when we try to get her to walk.

She has a significant inward turn of her legs, particularly the left leg, and both Bill and my mom were concerned enough to ask our pediatrician, Dr. Fung, about it. Wondering if she has a developmental problem (and remembering that Maia was born with hip dysplasia), Bill took Lucy into the doctor last Friday....

The message must have gotten into little Lucy's head because over the weekend it seems she just really decided she could, and would, start walking. Now she can walk all the way across the room. It's so fun to see her and she's so proud of herself. Video coming soon...

In addition, she has really taken to reading books, one in particular. She will carry Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? all over the house and loves to read it. Which is kind of nice as it's the only book Maia still claims she can "read" to Lucy.

Lau Lau (my mom) reading Lucy's favorite book on 2 occasions in Cambria:

Lucy Stands Up!

2008-07-21T23:25:00.001-07:00

Lucy has made two different breakthroughs:

First, she's started blinking at us. It is the cutest thing ever. See video here. She does it when we do it at her, but she has also initiated the blinking, like she wants to send a little extra love our way. At least that is how I am reading it.

Second, she started standing up (No hands!) about a week ago. She's been cruising for so long, we were sure she would be an early walker. But she's been pretty content with her combination of cruising and crawling, climbing up on stuff and apparently in no hurry to walk. She doesn't even like to do the pseudo walking when you hold her hands, she cries and tries to get down.

So here she is at 13+ months and one day she just pushed herself up and stood (in the bathtub no less). She's actually taken a freestanding step once or twice since then, but we haven't caught them on camera. Toddling walking is sure to follow shortly.

Lucy Stands 1
Originally uploaded by eeds@sbcglobal.net

Maia Earned Her First Ribbon

2008-07-21T22:35:00.001-07:00

Both of the girls seem to be in the midst of some real growth spurts, both physically and emotionally. It's been a slightly turbulent summer in that whatever they are both developing is coming out as a lot of neediness, clinging, crying, tantrums. Maia, who has been pretty good with bedtimes for a long time, has gotten back into begging, whining, negotiating. And when I am out or going out, she has had a crying tantrum the moment I put my coat on and am going out the door. It's very difficult to deal with sometimes.

Maia Earned Her First Ribbon
Originally uploaded by eeds@sbcglobal.net

On the positive side, growth for both of them. Maia has switched to a new swim school, La Petite Baleen, and I cannot say enough good things about this school. This is the third swim school we've tried with her; she has always been very afraid of the water, unwilling to try, not having fun. In 4 weeks at LPB, she has gotten comfortable putting her face in the water, swimming with goggles and starting to get into a more horizontal body position. And she is relaxed in the water and having fun! It has been wonderful to see, and she earned her first reward ribbon, a Rainbow Ribbon.

She's started a new 4-week Pre-K summer camp at the private Chinese American International School here and just seems so, well, grown up. I want to take this moment to note a few things I just adore about my 3 3/4 year old. Those little mistakes and misconceptions she makes that perhaps should be corrected but I figure, it's cute and she'll get it right soon enough.

- Grammar - especially irregular verbs - she often does regular form. "I eated my whole lunch!"
- Sizing - she often tells me things have grown too long, or too big, when in actuality they are too small. I guess it's the relationship of herself to the clothes, she's trying to explain.
- Fifteen. She just consistently counts and skips fifteen. Is this a hard number to remember? Perhaps. It's just so consistent, I want to give her a little love squeeze every time.

Backyard vacation - Santa Cruz

2008-07-05T21:04:00.000-07:00

We went to Santa Cruz in June for a week, rented an awesome beach house with Bill's brother David and his family. Altogether there were 10 of us in the house and it was a great place, house, town etc for families.

The house was a big Craftsman. Ok, some of the decor reeked of 70's er, chic. The bamboo shades didn't work that well. The kitchen could use a few sharp knives and better dishware.

But it was 1 block from Lighthouse Field and a really pleasant walk to the shore/beach, and just over a mile from the boardwalk. Getting downtown required a car, but was an easy drive. We spent our days going to the beach, strolling Pacific Ave, exploring little neighborhoods and bakeries. One afternoon we went over to Felton to ride the Steam trains. A day at the Boardwalk was plenty for all of us, and a day trip to Monterey to see the aquarium.

All in all, lots to do and yet a nice laid back place to not do anything. We highly recommend it.

Lucy is 1+

2008-07-05T20:44:00.000-07:00

Ahh, the second kid. Lucy turned 1 almost a month ago. No blog post. Oh well. Belatedly, here are some photos and comments on our second child.

Lucy is still a petite little thing. At the 1-year doctor's visit June 10th she weighed 18 lbs. 4 oz. We are to take her back in a few weeks to see if her weight/growth is at least tracking by growth percentile, in other words she's just growing at the same rate as bigger kids, just from a smaller staring point. Otherwise she is doing great.
As I posted in May, she is still the most single-minded kid. If she wants something, nothing else will do and she puts up a fight if you take it away from her.
She generally likes to play and explore on her own, though always in sight of Mama. Since just before she turned 1, she's been in a serious mommy-attachment mode (separation anxiety). The only other person she is really attached to is Betty, her daycare provider. Lau Lau, Bill, Nai Nai and Maia are all just tolerable on a good day. Obviously this is stressful to me and everyone else who wants to help care for her. Hopefully it'll be a relatively short phase.
Still nursing like a champ, don't know when we'll be able to wean her. With me she drinks only maybe 6-7 ounces of milk in a day though of course she is also demanding breastmilk quite often. But even at daycare, she often drinks no more than 10 ounces. Obviously this is related to the growth issue.
She is not really a picky eater from what we can tell, though who knows when she eats but 3 bites of anything and then pushes it away. As in the video where Lucy said "No", now it's more like "no-no-no-no-no-no". Her pronounciation is more like "nu" so it's "nu-nu-nu-nu-nu-nu".
One of her favorite games to play lately is to feed Mama. Especially when she's bored of eating her own food. She'll say "Aaah!" and open her mouth to show me that's what I'm supposed to do, then stick the food in my mouth. Unfortunately she doesn't distinguish between chewed and unchewed food, so I need to keep an eye on what she's giving me.
Still not walking and not really standing unassisted. We think she can if she is just interested, she can stand holding onto something forever. But perhaps this will come all of a sudden in the next few months.
Sleep! Or more like NOT. She still wakes up at 3 am every morning and sleeps with us. Some of this is obviously us not training her, but the kid has a pair of lungs on her and we are just too worn out to really push back. (You try sleep training a shrieking, screaming baby at 3 in the morning!)
And of course, when she smiles she still can just light up any room.

Love ya, Lucy lou.

The 6 O.M. Store

2008-07-01T20:53:00.000-07:00

Background: for some time we have instituted the "6 am rule" that Maia can't climb into bed with us (me) until 6am.

Maia has a vacation day tomorrow and Nai Nai (Norris) is going to look after her. While tucking her in bed, I asked Maia what she might do with Nai Nai tomorrow. Maia said, "I think we should go to the 6 O.M. store."

Me: The 6 O.M. Store? What's that?

Maia: It's where you buy clocks that say 6 O.M. (giggling) And you press the button and then it is 6 O.M. and you can climb into Mommy's bed!!!

Awwww

Thinking About Car Seats and Boosters

2008-06-23T16:42:00.000-07:00

First off, I realize that writing this post may position me as a paranoid mom. I am pretty lenient on my kids about some safety things - exploring their environments, letting them fall. I take car and car seat safety very seriously.

With Maia turning 4 soon and about 35 pounds/38”, I wanted to look into bigger car seats and/or booster seats. A lot of the information can be confusing but I wanted to figure out what we need – there’s a sale on Britax (my favored brand of car seats) at many retailers through the end of the week. (Good prices at AlbeeBaby.com and BabyUniverse.com especially.)

A lot of parents seem to want to know the minimum age when they can move their child up to the next stage - forward facing, into a booster seat, into a seatbelt. However the question should be the opposite - how long can you keep your child in the safest possible position (rear-facing, 5-point harnessed, boosted). Here are the guidelines I’m going by:

1. Keep Baby Rear Facing As Long as Possible

Children must stay rear facing until they are both 1 year and 20 lbs. However this is a minimum, and many child safety experts recommend that the child is rear-facing until the child reaches the maximum height/weight limits.

For our Britax Roundabout/Boulevard seats, Lucy can be rear facing until she is 35 lbs or her shoulder height is 16”. Realistically I don’t know if she’ll be rear facing to 35 lbs. – that would be until she is 4 yo – but there is some compelling arguments to do so.

Article: Why Rear-Facing is Safest.

Video: The Importance of Rear Facing

2. Use a 5-point Harness As Long as Possible

The appeal of the booster seat (used with a seatbelt) is that it is lightweight, easy to use. However even properly positioned, a seatbelt with booster is simply not as safe as a 5-point harness.

Again, many parents assume when their child has grown out of the car seat at 40 lbs. the next step is a booster seat. Most boosters say they can be used at 30 lbs., right?

Car seat manufacturers are now making seats that can be used to 60-80 lbs. This site lists car seats with high weight limits.

Article: Don’t Move Kids to a Booster Seat Too Soon!

Video: Importance of a 5-Point Harness Carseat
(Kyle David Miller Foundation - this video is gut wrenching for any mom to see but it convinced me.)

3. Always us the Top Tether

It can be difficult to achieve a secure installation – your car seat really should move minimally side to side and should NOT move forward, if you have installed it correctly. This should be possible with either LATCH or with a seatbelt, and with a top tether (a hook that keeps the movement of the top of the car seat minimal).

4. Car Seats Expire After 6 years

We were given a number of used car seats when Maia was a baby. I have since “retired” all of these seats, which were manufactured in 1996-98. The manufacturers say that the seats expire after 6 years and I felt it was best to invest in seats that will last for both Maia and Lucy.

For all of this information and a lot more including reviews of specific seats and a great FAQ, visit car-safety.org.

Even with all of this research I am still figuring out my plan for seats:

Prius
Maia: Britax Roundabout Leopard FF *
Lucy: Britax Boulevard Taylor RF

Honda
Maia: Graco ComfortSport Marcus FF **
Lucy: Britax Roundabout Tan Swirl RF

Corolla
Maia: Britax Wizard Denim FF

Volvo
Maia: TBD
Lucy: TBD

* To be replaced by Britax Regent Car Seat or Britax Frontier Combo Carseat/Booster

** Note while the Graco ComfortSport is an affordable and highly rated model, I hate ours. If you are interested in buying it from me make me an offer. It's about 2 months old and very lightly used. I can check manufacturing date but it should be April/May 2008.

Braving the World of SF Education Blogs

2008-06-12T13:55:00.000-07:00

As I start looking more closely at local school options, I've been reading a local education-issues blog called The SF K Files. Started by a local mom, it has a pretty serious following and an active community of comment contributors. Recently I sent in this question to the blogger, which she posted with the title "Gifted children":

"One of the things that is attractive about many private schools is that they (purport to) cater to children's individual learning. One great fear about SFUSD and the whole climate of NCLB is that the system is expending many resources (money, time, focus) on those who are lagging. As a member of this community and world, I want every child to have an equal chance to excel. As the parent of my daughter, I want her to be challenged and not be penalized because she is 'ahead' of where others in her class are." (Full post here.)

Well I've gotten some helpful advice but sure enough, the blogosphere is also dumping on me for even suggesting that my daughter might be smart. One particularly mean remark:

a wake up call to the OP: your daughter is not gifted. i know many children entering k who are reading and my son can read adult books, count to 1,000, can add and understand fractions. and he is going to public school where we imagine he will thrive because he is a smart curious kid and we are involved parents. i feel like many on this board suffer from the lake wobegon effect:

the real and pervasive human tendency to overestimate one’s achievements and capabilities in relation to others.

Geez! Even though I was forewarned about possible snarky comments and tried to put on my flak jacket, it was difficult to feel misunderstood. There are fights on this particular blog all the time so I shouldn't be surprised at the responses, but it's been more difficult to not take it personally than I would have thought.

My inclination is to add more to the picture and background. "No, I didn't actually mean gifted as in genius, I don't think that Maia is a genius. Just wicked smart. ;)" But I have a feeling that adding more detail to the discussion will inflame the negative people on the blog. So I'm writing about it here instead, in my own private little world.

Change of topic

Another blog I started reading recently had an excellent post about safely installing and using child car seats. Read here. Highly recommended.

Free to Be You and Me

2008-06-10T06:49:00.000-07:00

As a kid one of my very favorite albums was Free to Be You and Me, the collaboration between Marlo Thomas, Alan Alda and a bunch of other celebrities. I knew it as a book and a double-album. Believe it or not, I never knew there was a film of the same name. I just found this awesome clip of "Brothers and Sisters" on YouTube. Many more segments exist - ain't YouTube great?

New Project - SF Schools Wiki

2008-05-30T19:32:00.000-07:00

We've been starting to think about the school selection process for Maia. As a way to catalog our thoughts, and provide a resource to friends and other parents in our situation, we've started a Wiki called SF School Research Wiki. If you have any comments or would like to contribute to the Wiki, please let me know. I am definitely hoping this will be collaborative effort, not just from Bill and me.

Geeking Out Researching Schools

2008-05-23T19:16:00.000-07:00

This week, I attended a workshop on hierarchical linear modeling. It's a fancy statistical technique that helps you deal with data that are "nested," e.g., kids are nested in classrooms, who are nested in schools. We should have been analyzing our data in education research using this technique all along, but it wasn't until we got some sophisticated software we could do it very well. It was a fun workshop that made me wish I'd taken more mathematics and statistics in graduate school.

I used my time practicing with the HLM software to look at some data on SFUSD elementary schools. I've been puzzled by what I see is a dynamic going on that leads individual middle class parents like us to opt out of the system . SFUSD loses kids every year; the ones it loses are replaced by kids who are more economically disadvantaged than the ones they replace. To maintain a balance across schools, SFUSD uses a "Diversity Index" to maximize diversity within each school. In principle, this creates schools that are integrated across class lines. But as middle class parents look into schools, they are likely to see schools where very few kids and parents are like them and have the advantages and security that money can actually buy. So they decide to move or look into private schools, making the system that much less representative of the actual wealth that exists in the community.

The reality is much sadder. There are a handful of schools where the concentration of low-income kids is very small, and where those of us parents who are going to try and go for the public school system are all trying to get in. These schools have a reputation for being strong (based on test scores) but what really is going on is that these schools begin with kids who have fewer issues ancillary to schooling (and that are associated with poverty) that teachers have to deal with. Parents look in, see what they like, see kids and parents "like them" and want their kids in there. Parents like us, that is, with means and the ability to look carefully at the system and the options.

Here's the troubling dilemma for this parent/researcher: the real beneficiaries of the public school choice system in SFUSD are people like me, not low-income families for whom this policy is targeted. Here in SF, the "Diversity Index" plays a much smaller role than you would think in deciding who gets into desirable schools; demand is a much larger factor. What's worse, and my fancy modeling techniques show it, is that the popularity of a school is not only associated with how many low-income kids are in the school, it actually drives that concentration down in schools. So those schools are becoming more full of advantaged kids, despite the Diversity Index. Meanwhile, the kids living in the Bayview and going to schools with high concentrations of poverty are the ones struggling, and in a few cases, more kids get in and are admitted than actually go there every year.

This wasn't quite the dynamic I was expecting to see, given what I know about declining enrollment overall in SFUSD. But it does confirm a belief I have that there is something fundamentally wrong about the conservative argument for school choice, namely that the only people who really have "choice" are those who are good at negotiating the system or people like me who can use fancy statistical techniques and plot residuals to figure out what schools are less popular than they should be, so my daughter can go there.

We really need an equitable school system, where excellence and equity aren't seen as things we have to trade off. To get there, we need the thing folks hated in the South but that has worked in a few districts there -- busing and metropolitan government. Busing makes real integration possible, and metropolitan government where suburbs are part of the school system allow there to be a strong commitment on the part of middle-class, "majority" parents can believe in. I (sadly) don't believe this is possible in the Bay Area, but it makes me want to move to places in the South like Raleigh or Charlotte where integrated, good public schools are a reality. If you want to read more about this very issue, my favorite book on this subject is called The Silent Majority, and it focuses on the politics of school integration in 1960s Atlanta and 1970s Charlotte. It's a good read, and will convince anyone of how difficult this issue is to get right....

In the meantime, if anyone would like to know more about my fancy models, I am happy to share them.

Books We Love

2008-05-20T23:02:00.000-07:00

Reading books with Maia is a treasured part of the bedtime routine. But some nights we are, well, a bit tired. Some books we just don't like and then there are some books we never tire of reading, even night after night.

Off the top of my head, here are my favorites for babies/toddlers:

Good Night, Gorilla - Peggy Rathmann
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? - Bill Martin Jr./Eric Carle
Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me - Eric Carle
Is Your Mama a Llama? - Deborah Guarino, Steven Kellogg
Mama, Do You Love Me? - Barbara M. Joose, Barbara Lavallee

For pre-schoolers/early readers:

Silly Sally - Audrey Wood
Planting a Rainbow - Lois Ehlert
Ella Takes the Cake (anything from the Ella series) - Carmela D'Amico
The Mountain that Loved a Bird - Alice MacLerran and Eric Carle
We're Going on a Bear Hunt - Helen Oxenbury

Most of these seem like they are either classics or future classics. I guess there is a reason why. What books would you recommend we add to our heavy rotation?

Remember when...

2008-05-14T22:54:00.001-07:00

One of the reasons I keep this blog is to remember the things my kids were doing, when I am long past remembering this particular age or stage.

For Maia, 3 1/2 (and very proud of it) -

She can write her own name, and yesterday she wrote "Lucy" without spelling help. Her writing can careen all across the page and her M's are kind of distinctive. She doesn't have a sense yet (nor should she) of how to space the letters to fit the space.
She loves playing "baby" with her friend Leila at school. She said yesterday that she is always the baby, and Leila always the mommy.
She wants--no, demands--a snack in the car every day going home from school. Her favorite is a granola bar (Quaker Chewy, Peanut Butter & Chocolate Chip).
Recently I had only a Special K Raspberry Bliss bar (a cereal bar with dried raspberry bits. She asked me, "Mommy, how do they make the raspberries so small?" When I replied I didn't know, she said "I think they have a machine that makes them small."
She loves playing with water and can spend hours washing things in the sink, soaping and rinsing them until we remind her that water is a limited resource.
She is totally into Why lately, and in a totally exhaustive way. When I say I don't know, she asks "Why don't you know?"

Lucy is 11 months. Don't know how much she weighs, somewhere in the 18-19 pounds range.

She is totally directed, if she wants something she really doesn't accept substitutions.
She is very much on the move, a really efficient (fast!) crawler. She doesn't seem close to walking yet though she can stand holding on to something forever.
She's eating a lot of finger foods and just adores strawberries. If she sees them and doesn't have any in front of her she starts howling.
She's acquired quite a few words. She can say MaMa, BaBa, JaJa (Jie Jie/Big Sister), NaNa (Nai Nai/Milk), Dan (Deng/Light). WahWah (Doll). Like Maia I guess most of her early words are Chinese.
She's also learned from me the baby sign for Milk. Since she still loves to breastfeed with me, she will start saying "Na-Na" and pumping her hand in the sign for Mlik as soon as she sees me when I get home. It's cute though I wonder how long I will last nursing her (just mornings/evenings).
She obviously also understands a lot of language around her. If I ask her "____ zai na li?" (where is _____?) she will point at the person or object.
Like Maia as an infant, Lucy wakes up in the best of moods. She wakes up like clockwork at 6am ready to play. She sits up on her knees and bounces with an impish grin on her face and cracks herself up with the joy of being awake and alive. If I wasn't so tired it would really be delightful.

Some recent photos of the girls (and some friends):

Starting the Search for Kindergarten

2008-05-09T22:49:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday I attended the Kindergarten Information Night at the JCC. (My notes here.) This spring event is the official kick-off for parents seeking Kindergarten placement in the 09-10 school year in SF. It seems like a long way off but actually it's really just 8 months until school applications are due, and about 10-12 months from when assignments/acceptances are sent out.

I don't know how it is in other areas. In SF the school search process can be notoriously time consuming and frustrating. There is kind of an obscure lottery-based placement system, and of the 71 Elementary schools in the district, there are about 20 "desirable" schools that everyone is talking about. Of these, 10 of them had over 10 "requests" per available seat. There are plenty of stinkers in the rest of the pile and my perception so far is many parents start out dreaming that your child will get into one of the hot schools, and end up trying to make sure they don't end up in one at the bottom of the pile.

I have read quite a bit of advice (already) and it ranges from "soak in as much information, tour as many schools as possible" to "understand that it is a lottery and you really have no control over anything, so don't overdo it".

Being all into Web2.0 stuff anyway, as well as slightly compulsive about keeping my thoughts and notes together, I decided to create a wiki for my school search. I'm hoping some other parents we know will contribute to this wiki as well, but honestly if just Bill and I use it to collaborate on this search I think it will be useful.

This is just the beginning and more will be posted either here or on the Wiki as the yaer unfolds.

Photo of the Day

2008-04-29T10:14:00.000-07:00

Family Practice

2008-04-26T06:41:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking with a friend in my Sunray sangha about practice, and she said that at present, her main practice was "family practice." Like us, she and her partner have two kids, and the focus of their own spiritual growth is bound up in helping their daughter and son to grow up to be healthy, happy human beings.

As I thought about it, there are so many ways that family life provides me with the opportunity to practice not just patience (something parents usually think about when thinking about what parenting teaches them) but also compassionate mindfulness. In fact, a few weeks ago, I had an experience with Lucy that provided a really powerful metaphor for understanding my sitting practice in mindfulness.

Lucy, like her sister before her, really knows how to fight falling asleep. When she is overtired, it's especially hard to get her down for a nap or to bed. But I've discovered that one surefire way to get her down is to hold her gently but tightly in my arms. She will flail about and cry in waves, and eventually, she settles down and falls asleep. It works every time, I find, but it often takes 15 to 20 minutes at least until she gives up the ghost.

When I first discovered this, I immediately saw a connection to what it's like to tame the mind in meditation. "Taming the mind" is a metaphor for mindful attention used in the Dhammapada and often taught by the Buddha. The metaphor implies that our usual state of mind is untamed, wild, or, as some Buddhist teachings note, like a monkey. When I first sit down to meditate, my mind is usually untamed. Like Lucy, inside my thoughts are flailing about, and even if I am not crying, my thoughts are the cause of both subtle and not-so-subtle forms of suffering. They involve planning, hoping for something to be that isn't, regretting, and so forth. As time passes on the cushion, there emerge moments of quiet, followed by thoughts flailing me about again. Eventually, if I sit long enough, I don't fall asleep, but those thoughts give up the ghost, and I experience a deep calm and peace. It's not a permanent calm, no more than a nap is a version of ultimate freedom or liberation, but it's one that creates a strong imprint on me, a reminder of why I practice.

Just as holding Lucy still is important to getting her to sleep, "holding" the mind is important to the process. It's not the same kind of holding, in that really what's important is paying attention to the breath, coming back to it again and again. It can't be too harsh a focus, just as if I were to hold Lucy too tightly, she wouldn't relax but would get upset. That holding has to be compassionate and kind to be really effective.

Just the other day I told my friend Shelley that there's a kind of "infinity" in what one can learn from being a parent. I never imagined I'd learn something from being a parent that would help my sitting practice, but Lucy's helped me understand compassionate mindfulness in a deeper way than I've ever understood before, and she's just 10 months old.

Birds and the Bees - I'm not ready!

2008-04-22T22:24:00.000-07:00

Driving home from work/school, with Maia in the back seat, we had the following conversation.

Maia: Mommy, why when you were in the hospital did you have to stay until the baby came out?
me: Well we really wanted to meet her and we couldn't leave before she came out.
Maia: But she was in your tummy and it's all closed up.
me: Yes, but at the hospital the doctor helped me get her out.
Maia: But there is no hole, she was inside.
me: Hmmm. Well, actually there is a hole but it's very small and you don't know it's there. When the baby comes out it's like magic.
Maia: But where is the hole?
me: Ummm, it's near where your pee pee area. But it's not the same.

(pause)
Maia: But if it comes from your pee pee area it will get germs on it.

Oh dear, I don't think I'm ready to answer these kinds of questions!

Sibling play

2008-04-22T22:20:00.000-07:00

Last night I noticed for the first time Maia (3.5 yrs) and Lucy (10.5 mos) actually playing together. Maia was crawling up and down the hall like a dog. Lucy, in the bathroom, poked her head out to look at Maia, cracking up, and retreated to the bathroom. Then she poked her head out again to see if Maia was still crawling around -- kind of Lucy Peek-a-boo. Each time Lucy popped out Maia would crack up and crawl faster, which made Lucy crack up too. This went on for several minutes. Just awesome!

Lucy's Lovey

2008-04-20T21:00:00.000-07:00

Maia loved her pacifier, so much that I had a hard time taking photos of her without one in her mouth. Lucy, not so much. So I have been pleased to see that she seems to be developing (or willing to my encouragement of) an attachment to a love object ("lovey").

While I was in France I bought Lucy a Corolle doll, Miss Grenadine. I mentioned earlier that I think Lucy sometimes says "wa-wa" about her doll. I snuggle it in between us when I'm putting Lucy to bed, and she grabs and strokes the doll. I am hoping that this will be something that she attaches to, for security or whatever. (I did buy a second doll just in case this works out.)

Anyway interested in hearing if anyone successfully developed a lovey for their child, whether and how it helped in the chid's emotional development, and any issues with having that security item.

Playing Tourist at Home

2008-04-20T20:07:00.001-07:00

Today we decided to go out to see a little bit of the city we call home from the tourist's vantage. This all started because of a lovely book called Goodnight, San Francisco. This lovely book takes readers on a tour of attractions around our city. But since Maia has not been to many of them, it seemed to me that she would not appreciate the finest points of having the hometown version.

So with Vid, Kristen and Taj, we decided to have a little hometown adventure. First, we took the California St. Cable Car from the starting point at Van Ness & California, to the end at Drumm Street (Market/Embarcadero).

Once we arrived at the end, we made a detour through the Hyatt Regency SF at the corner of Market & Drumm Streets. This hotel brought back childhood memories for me. As a kid whenever we had out of town guests my parents always stopped here as part of the whirlwind tour of the city sights. (I'll ask my parents what else was on the list.) The cavernous atrium, the funky massive gold ball sculpture with the mesmerizing water fountain, the glass elevators. We all took a ride up and down to the highest floor, which was fun and free!

Then a stroll through Justin Herman Plaza . Taj and Maia both enjoyed the crazy fountain sculpture thing. It took a while to tear the kids away but eventually we made it to the Ferry Building, where we had yummy lunches at Mijita (Maia and I got take out sandwiches at Lulu Petite and I bought dessert to bring home—the best lemon merengue tart— at Boulettes Larder.

All tired and ready for a nap, we made our way back to our starting point on the 1 California MUNI line.

It was a great adventure here in our own back yard and a reminder how fun it is to see everything again from the eyes of the kids.

10 months of Lucy joy

2008-04-08T20:48:00.000-07:00

Lucy is 10 months today. What a sweet whirlwind it has been. I think she's just about the most gorgeous baby I've ever seen (a bit biased). I can spend hours just watching her, holding her, reveling in her. Not that I have that much time. Did I spend this much time completely swept away by the sheer physical beauty that was Maia? I think with Maia it was more about the joy of interacting with this little living creature.

Lucy is such a sharp little thing. Lucy's daycare caretaker, Betty, is always saying Lucy "Hao Ling" - literally, 'clever' but really so much more than that. She is starting to say some slightly recognizable words in her babble. I can hear 'mama' and 'wa wa' (doll) sometimes. She definitely knows when we are telling her not to do something.

She's also got a strong will and very much knows what she does and doesn't want. I've already posted the video of her shaking her head no and of her ripping up toilet paper and putting it in her mouth . She loves to reach into our dog Hana's bowls and spill the water or food out onto the floor, making a beeline for the bowls or the toilet paper any time she thinks the coast is clear. She also will stretch her little body to try to reach things she really wants, and is very vocal if you take away a toy she wants or likes.

She often likes to smile and stick her tongue out of her mouth, and has a happy and slightly mischievous air about her. She's working on her 3rd bottom tooth (5th overall) and she still wakes up in the middle of the night and most nights I'm too tired to battle it out with her.

Lucy is just starting to get better at mealtimes. She simply hates to be spoon fed practically anything, but especially green veggies. She'll tolerate sweet potatoes and carrots, and mostly like to self-feed on pretty much any kind of carb - noodles, crackers, cheerios, bread, pizza crust.

Maia is so in love with her little sister too, it is great. We've been fortunate in her general adoration of Lucy. Interestingly, I think Lucy is interested in and amused by Maia, but she doesn't necessarily seek her out or follow her. Maybe she's just a more independent spirit, or maybe that comes later.

10 months goes by so much faster and there is a lot that I no longer even remember about Maia at this age! I was just reading some old blog posts about Maia when she was just over a year. A few of those qualities I had completely forgotten. So to trying to write down a bit more about Lucy as she develops and begins to show who she really is to us.

More YouTube

2008-04-03T12:01:00.000-07:00

Dance Party

Maia SuperWhy Dance re-edit

Mommy's Office

2008-04-01T21:12:00.000-07:00

Today I took Maia by my office at the end of the day. She was excited because she remembered it as the place "Somebody gave me a cookie." This time around she got 2 cookies -- Girl Scout Cookie season swept through the SFS recently.

While waiting for me to shut down my computer, she asked about the Altoids gum on my desk.

Maia: "Is that gum for you, mommy?"
Me: "No, that gum is for people that I have meetings with, in case they want some." (truly)

Maia: "Mommy, some day when I'm bigger can I have a meeting with you?"
Me: "Sure Maia, we can have a meeting."
Maia: "And then I can have some gum!"

YouTube videos

2008-04-01T21:06:00.000-07:00

A couple more YouTubes:

Lucy Playing with Toilet Paper in the Kitchen

Lucy Shaking Her Head -- to any food we try to feed her

Maia doing the SuperWhy Dance

(Note I used an evaluation of a program ProShow Gold to rotate the video 90 degrees, but I'm not sold on the program overall. At least I'm checking out some other video software before I put any money down.)

Maia-isms

2008-03-18T21:18:00.000-07:00

Last week Maia and I were at Walgreens, and she pointed at a chocolate Easter bunny on the end cap. She said very seriously, "Mommy, sometimes can we buy one of these to feed to the mice in our garage?" She remembered last summer when I baited our mousetraps with leftover easter bunny chocolate!

Sandy sent me the following story from babysitting last weekend:

After requesting to be "patted" she (Maia) declared, "Sandy, it is very important to love your ow-en self. (PAUSE) and I love your ow-en self and I love my ow-en self."

There was one more from today... I'll update this if I remember it.

Videos from ski trip

2008-02-21T20:02:00.000-08:00

Maia skiing at Northstar.

Baby Noah in the bathtub.

A little Lucy Video

2008-02-14T23:52:00.000-08:00

I'll post more about our little Lucy. She's 8 months and just growing and changing. So ready to charge ahead in the world. But for now, here's a little video.

Maia is such a kid

2008-02-14T23:36:00.000-08:00

I really feel like Maia is such a kid now, long ago having stopped being a baby and now not even a toddler. She is starting to have the motor skills for writing. Here's a picture of an envelope she addressed to her friend Daniel all by herself (I dictated the spelling to her). She can definitely do "MAIA" all by herself though.

She can be really giddy and silly, so goofy and she does a little hopping dance when she's in a really great mood. I'll try to get it on video some time. But mostly, she can truly be so independent. Of course she wants me to do things for her that I know she can do, and insists on doing things by herself that are beyond her ability. But she just doesn't need me the way baby- and toddler-Maia did.

Tonight at bedtime she said to me,

I love you Mama. I really love you, and I love Baba, and Hana, and Nai nai, and Lucy. And I love myself.

How great is that?

This video is actually from December:

Web 2.0

2008-02-14T23:15:00.000-08:00

For both work and personal interests, I've been using and exploring a number of "web 2.0" services lately. Here are a couple of them that I have been enjoying and plan to continue using:

Facebook. Even though FB seems to be riding dual tidal waves of overhype and criticism in the press, I personally find it very enjoyable and entertaining. There are thousands of apps that are razor thin in terms of ... um, intellectual value. But they are entertaining. I think my favorite pointless app is my friend Chris Lunt's "Piñata" app. Try it. You may find you like it.

I also found this blog article about essentially the psychology of Facebook apps very interesting. Not sure how it will make any impact on me personally or professionally, but fascinating.

But mostly, Bill and I agree that the most interesting part of FB is the status updates, which give us big and little windows into the lives of friends both near and far. Such as my friend David, on vacation in Hawaii (which I knew from his update) emailed and said as a side note "it sounds like you've all been sick". When personal friends put snippets of interesting projects they are working on, it illuminates our understanding of what they do. Or adds a personal layer to people we know mostly professionally. Perhaps we should start to use Twitter though I haven't quite been convinced of that one, yet.

Del.icio.us. Ok aside from the truly ridiculous service name (I can never remember where the periods go) this has been a great quick bookmark/categorization tool. We all use multiple computers and bookmarking is just not that effective. I do work research at home, or come across articles at work that I'd like to spend more time on personally. It's just great. I haven't really gotten into sharing my bookmarks with other people (or sending bookmarks for that matter) but if you use del.icio.us, perhaps we can connect. Note if you decide to try Del.icio.us, I highly recommend getting the browser buttons for your browser. Then you're 1-click away from bookmarking useful stuff.

StumbleUpon. I can't say that I am personally a big user of this site, however the traffic it routinely generates to my work website Keeping Score is pretty invaluable. in theory if I had more time to just explore the web, I think I would like this tool - randomized popularity rankings. It brings back the experience of "surfing" as we first experienced the web.

LinkedIn. This one I find to be kind of neutral. It hasn't shown a lot of value to me personally and I have a pretty decent network, but I'm starting to get requests to connect my contacts to each other, or interesting job postings that I think could at the right place and time allow friends of mine to find their next gig (no, I'm not looking) .

So that's it from my end. What sites/services do you use and like?

The Experience of Generosity

2008-01-15T06:18:00.001-08:00

The Experience of Generosity

This morning on the way to work, I listen to an audio recording of a talk by Gil Fronsdal on the topic of generosity. Gil asked those present to recall situations in which they had been the givers and receivers of small, incidental acts of kindness. He also asked people to think about a time when they had received some larger gift and a time when they had given something to another person that required a great sacrifice.

In listening to the audio and in thinking of receiving a larger gift, I was reminded that I had last spring thought to write down some thoughts of thanks to my boss at SRI International, Barbara Means, for a great act of gift I received from her almost eight years ago. I know this gift required her to risk much on her part, and she had to take a leap of faith, in fact, in my abilities as a researcher. That gift was to promote me to the next level of researcher in our organization.

At that time, I was at a point when I realized I was going to need more money to help care for my mother in the future. (It turned out that my mom would move in with Edie and me much later, but I didn’t know that at the time.) I approached my boss and told her that I was going to have to consider leaving and going into industry, instead of staying at SRI. I didn’t particularly relish this prospect, as I was unsure of how well I’d do as a researcher or consultant in a Silicon Valley business. But it was 2000, and I had confidence I could go out and find the high-paying job I needed to support me and my mom.

From a business perspective, a promotion is not a “gift” at all, but something one has earned. And I am know that there were grounds my boss was able to use to support an argument for my promotion. But for me, this was truly a gift, because it allowed me to continue doing the work I felt the clearest calling to do. I’ve since spent eight more years studying, writing, speaking, and consulting to programs as an evaluator, doing things I love (often too much of what I love, but that’s another story). So this act was, from me as a recipient of it, a great act of love and generosity, one for which I am immensely grateful. I’ve always been thankful for that moment, but in the past 2 years, as I look back on that moment, I realize how important and pivotal it was. And for that, I am deeply grateful.

Lucy is not a Foodie

2008-01-12T21:16:00.000-08:00

Lucy—now 7 months—has been on solids for about a month now. After a strong start, she has turned into a kid who simply is not interested in food. She won't open her mouth up for the spoon, and grimaces and makes wretching sounds when I manage to stuff a tiny bit of peas/carrots/oatmeal/sweet potato in her mouth. It's really strange to me as food is such an exciting development. I'm not entirely sure if she is put off by the smell and taste, or if it's a texture thing. Or maybe both. Maia just loved food as a baby and to this day I think some of her happiest moments are eating — her teacher Ryan has told me that Maia's favorite time of the day is the end of snack when all the other kids go off to play and Maia can eat all the fruit left on everyone's plate. But Lucy... little Lucy is just proving to be completely uninterested. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, the kid didn't want anything but Mama's breast from the start. Sigh.

Maia cracks me up sometimes

2008-01-07T15:37:00.000-08:00

A couple of things that Maia says just crack me up. She knows sometimes I throw food out of the fridge but for some reason the explanation -- food "going bad" -- doesn't really stick with her. She asked me very seriously, "Mommy, does chocolate bad out?"

Another thing that is really difficult to explain (you try) is time. Specifically, we often mention things that will happen 'tomorrow'. So she says "Mommy, when I wake up is it going to be tomorrow?" to which I usually answer yes. But the next day, it is really confusing.

"What day is it now?" she asks.
"Well, today is Monday."
"But it's tomorrow! Tomorrow! You said when I wake up it's going to be tomorrow."

Lucy's Middle Name

2008-01-03T21:30:00.001-08:00

Lucy hit 6 months in early December. I can't believe half a year has just flown by! I didn't write about it at the time as we were busy. She is 16.25 pounds, wearing size 3 diapers. 75th %ile in weight, somehow she's turned into a chunky little thing. In the past month she has developed two bottom teeth, though I haven't gotten a good shot of them as she hates to have me probe her mouth or touch her face in any way.

We've been joking around here that Lucy's middle name should be "Trouble". The girl is fast and on the go. She can crawl and pull herself up to kneeling by grabbing onto furniture, and is trying to stand up. We expect she'll be walking by around 9 or 10 months. (For any non-parents reading, most babies learn to sit up at 5-6 months and crawl around 8-9. Maia was fairly typical.)

Lucy grabs onto pretty much anything that is not child-proof: electrical cords, small sharp objects. One day I caught her with a ballpoint pen in her hand. Then I realized she had drawn lines all over her face trying to put it in her mouth.

I'm thinking about getting one of those play yards that fence the baby in. We've started putting latches back on our cabinets. With Maia, we child-proofed and found she just wasn't that curious. With Lucy, we have to be on the watch always.

When you have one child, you think you understand babies, or at least ____-month olds. When you have two children you realize that your first doesn't necessarily prepare you for your second.

One thing is for certain. I am more in love with my little Lucy every day, and it in no way takes away from how much love I have for Maia. It is remarkable.

Christmas

2008-01-03T21:10:00.000-08:00

My family traditionally has a big get together on Christmas Eve at my aunt Marjorie and uncle Dah Yu's house in Los Altos Hills. This year there were 8 kids aged 1 month - 12 years, which made it fun. My uncle D.Y. helped Lucy show off some of her moves.

We got home late and Maia went to bed late.

So come Christmas morning, Bill, Lucy and I awoke as usual around 6:30am. Bill got the video camera out (still haven't figured out how to get the videos onto the computer...) and made the coffee. Then we went and roused Norris, certain that Maia would wake at any moment. 7:00 rolled by. Then 7:15... finally at 7:30 Maia pops out of her room, and wanders in, completely missing the very large and prominent dollhouse that is the centerpiece of our Santa dilemma. She was kind of excited about the dollhouse but not overly so, wanted to start opening presents. Last year she wanted to play with every toy she got. This year, when the wrapping was ripped off she asked "Where's my next present?"

[Aside, thanks for all the advice on Santa. We ended up building it the day before (fortunately it was actually easy to assemble!), and putting a note from Santa on it. Maia seems to like it and when asked what she got for Christmas it's the first thing she mentions. But there isn't any effusiveness about the fact that it was from Santa.]

In the afternoon we had our second annual Christmas Open House and a whole bunch of friends and family came by to hang out and share the afternoon. It was a blast. This was one for the memories. Hope yours was warm and fuzzy too.

Getting in the Holiday Spirit

2007-12-18T22:25:00.000-08:00

The Santa Dilemma

2007-12-11T21:22:00.000-08:00

Bill expressed his reservations about collaborating with the whole Santa myth (I believe the words he used were "I don't feel right about lying to our child"). But I didn't see the harm in it. We are seriously secular about Christmas. Last year we (well I) dragged Maia to see Santa at the mall.

We've read How the Grinch Stole Christmas. But other than that, Santa wasn't something we built up, talked about, made threats and/or promises about. Well, I discovered that whether we want to be complicit or not, things have changed.

Maia has mentioned to me — REPEATEDLY — that she really wants this dollhouse and hopes Santa will bring it to her. I've assured her that I know she wants this dollhouse. We've had discussions about the many toys we will have to give away to make room for a toy as big as this dollhouse.

The other day we received a package in the mail - gifts from our friend Elaine in L.A. The gifts were not wrapped in the box, and I told Maia not to peek as they were for Christmas. 15 minutes later, seeing Maia peeking into the box, and I sternly said "Maia, I told you not to peek. I don't think Santa brings things to girls who peek." Those words came out of my mouth without really thinking. Maia burst into tears, hysterical at the thought that Santa wouldn't bring her anything and specifically that he wouldn't bring her the yellow dollhouse.

I hadn't really considered whether Maia was bought into the concept and mythology of Santa.

So now my dilemma: how do we handle the problem of Santa Claus?

And secondarily - I've bought the darned dollhouse. Do we give all the credit and glory to Santa? Or leave Santa to others and sign the tag From: Mama and Baba?

Maia to Mama

2007-12-06T13:30:00.000-08:00

Mama, you're the bestest.

How did I get so lucky?

Lucy - almost 6 months and first food

2007-12-05T21:57:00.000-08:00

Lucy is going to be 6 months on Saturday. We started her on rice cereal this past Sunday:

She loves it! She's also getting so much better at crawling, even moving forward a little bit. She rakes the floor in front of her to get at things she wants to grab.

And just last night I put Lucy in her crib in Maia's room at bedtime - no kids in our room! (At least until 11:30 when she woke up and I caved in....)

Our Xmas tree

2007-12-05T21:34:00.000-08:00

This year I was heavily debating the xmas tree dilemma, specifically what is greener to get, real or fake? For a while now I have been thinking about getting one of the pre-lit trees at Costco.com - until I read the warning.

WARNING: This product contains lead, a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. Wash your hands after handling.

Hmmmm. Then I went towards getting a high quality, pre-lit fake trees like the ones at Balsam Hill (after verifying the relative lead content of the trees of course).

Finally, after reading this article in the SF Chronicle, I was swayed to go to a tree farm and cut down our own tree. We went to Rancho Siempre Verde (recommended on the SFGate.com Poop blog). It was great! We had a beautiful drive down the coast and we were each bundled up for the (relatively) chilly 50 degree weather. Maia dressed in her raincoat and rain boots, to be super prepared for anything.

After a short stroll through a rather scraggly field of trees, we came upon a few that looked less picked over, and found our tree.

We had a great time. Next year I think we'll probably do this again, allowing a full day to enjoy the journey and stop by some favorite spots like Duarte's in Pescadero.

And finally, the fully trimmed tree in our home:

latest photos

2007-11-23T21:43:00.000-08:00

I've posted some new photos from November including some pix taken at our friend Matt's mom's place in Muir Beach. Sadly they are moving to Salt Lake City. We will miss you guys!

Who and What I am Grateful For

2007-11-22T08:44:00.001-08:00

There is no national holiday for me as wonderful as Thansgiving. A time when we honor a brief time of peace and reconciliation between two peoples seeking to find a way to share a land of bounty, a time when we are reminded that gratitude is a disposition, attitude, form of expression that makes us greater as human beings.

So, on this Thanksgiving day, I express my gratitude....

...for my daughter Maia, whose face I am about to paint
...for my daughter Lucy, who reminds me to smile big and wide
...for my wife Edie, whose love and endurance amaze me
...for my parents, who helped love me into being
...for my many friends, who know me inside and out, how I really am and not just how I want others to see me
...for the warm home I share with Edie, Maia, Lucy, my mom, and Hana
...for the opportunities I have had in my life to learn to express myself in writing
...for the opportunity to help out friends seeking to realize their dreams in life
...for the sunlight that falls through the windows
...for my many teachers in this world, both the people who taught me kindness, compassion, and the exercise of skillful means and the trees, mountains, and rocks that have shown me how to be
...for the beauty of the Earth, which is so fragile and precious
...for the Great Mystery that is life, that is the journey to freedom, to becoming a real human being

Ga li i li ga
For these I am thankful

My mom's group

2007-11-14T00:09:00.000-08:00

When Maia was 1 week old learned she had hip dysplasia (DDH) and needed a Pavlik harness for 12 weeks. At the time, we were a wreck. Our perfect, beautiful newborn was not perfect and there was a big ugly, confusing mass of velcro wrapped around her legs.

After the diagnosis Bill dragged me to DayOne to attend my first new parent's (mom's) group. I met a group of moms there who were my lifeline then. Some moved away to be closer to family, or to the suburbs for the good school districts. But the rest have remained friends. All of us but one have had a second child or have one on the way. Only one mom is talking of having more than two. Like any group of friends some of us are closer than others. Each has a different personality and we bring such different points of view for parenting.

Jane is a lawyer and incredibly organized, always thinking through parenting choices in the most logical manner. She has a patient way of explaining things to her daughter that I just admire, especially when I'm about to lose it with Maia.

Suzanne is a bit of an earth-mother. Her is comfortable with herself and her own limitations and she doesn't put on any pretensions. She always seems grounded and she has a realness that we all appreciate.

Randi is the career woman who just went through a helluva year and is holding onto her son's babyhood. But she also knows it. She starts most questions off with "Do you think it's bad that I ....?" Most of the time though she can laugh at herself. She's also generous and loyal and a kick to be around.

Caroline is the charmed one, the elegant Dane with the Swiss-French accent. She's always chic, her babies are gorgeous enough to appear in magazines (and have), her husband is the handsome doctor in the bank ad. But she has problems just like the rest of us and she's so darned nice, you can't envy her.

I'm, well, me. I'm the organizer (in a different way than Jane).

But somehow we all make sense as a group of friends. Last week we had our mom's night out - the first in a long time - and it just made me so grateful to have these women in my life.

Here are some photos (we were hanging out in a mansion with Caroline, who was house-sitting. What an amazing view!)

Pictures & Video

2007-11-12T20:02:00.000-08:00

Some recent photos of the girls from Halloween are posted here:

Also a few new videos of Lucy coming along. She's 5 months and on the verge of a couple of breakthroughs - crawling (or at least scooting backwards), sitting up, and gaining dexterity with her hands. Here's a video of her sitting and playing in the blow-up tub.

Deb Kim Emery, 1972-2007

2007-11-02T15:54:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, our dear friend and my colleague Deb Kim Emery died. She suffered a major stroke last Thursday. At 35, she was one of the most alive people I knew. I had always suspected, but now know, just what a profound impact she had on everyone she knew. As my colleague Milbrey McLaughlin said, hardly anyone who passed through Deb's life actually got through; she loved and was good at cultivating connections that were at once personal and that touched what each person she knew was passionate about.

Deb is survived by her loving husband, Brian, and her daughter Kaia, now three and a half years old. Her family has asked that her friends write letters to Kaia, to go into a memory book that will let Kaia know who her mother was. Below is my letter to Kaia, shared here for our friends and families to see. I want everyone to know what a beautiful, sweet soul the world has lost. Deb, wherever you are right now, I wish you peace; may the love you shared be free to expand in ever greater circles. Though life ended too soon for you, I hope you know your life was full and complete.

Dear Kaia,

I met your mom when she was 27 years old and a new graduate student at Stanford University. I was at a talk by a professor, and at the end of the talk, my colleague Elaine and I asked a question of the professor and talked about some work we were doing related to community technology centers. Your mom had worked in East Palo Alto, at a center for low-income youth, to help them learn all about technology, so she was interested in what we had to say. Your mom came bounding up to us afterward. She wanted to be part of what we were doing. She had a big, eager smile on her face, and we were so happy she came up to us. That single moment is but one illustration of your mom's passion for what she did and her courage to connect to others who shared her connection. Many other people who knew your Mom had stories just like this one.

As I got to know your mom better, I realized she was really good at organizing people and projects. She had a real knack for connecting people with passion with people who had expertise and knowledge that could help someone form a passion into a line of thinking, a project, a career. She ran a program at Stanford for master's students, and when she died, she was running a program for undergraduate students to help guide them toward an understanding of youth development. We were teaching a class together when she died, on a topic that both of us loved dearly, youth development programming. Your mom was very good at what she did, and her last job suited her talents and passion to a "T". I hope that, like your mom, you find your passion and life and find a way that you can work and support your own family by following that passion.

I was one of the people who helped your mom write her dissertation, the long paper she had to write to get her doctorate in education. I was by no means the main helper--your mom’s friend Shelley Goldman played a much bigger role than me--but I remember how much your mom put into it. It didn't come easy for her; she sometimes struggled to find words for what she saw with her own eyes and knew with her heart. I say this, because I want you to know that your mom was persistent in the face of adversity and saw things through to the end.

Your mom was not only a colleague but she was also a dear, dear friend to me and my family. When we had known each other less than a year, your mom was so kind to invite me to your mom and dad's wedding ceremony. The invitation said "+ 1 guest," and I brought Edie, who is now my wife. I was nervous about it, but your mom and dad thought they recognized Edie's name. They'd all gone to school together at Gunn High School in Palo Alto. When we got to your mom's wedding, Edie knew more people than I did. She was good friends growing up with your Aunt Dawn. So we have some deep connections to you and your family. We hope we can be a good aunt and uncle to you. We owe it to your mom.

Your parents' wedding was important for another reason to me. You see, your dad loved your mom as much as any husband can love his wife. Your mom was dressed for part of the ceremony in a traditional Korean dress. Your dad knelt before her, looked into her eyes, and just broke down in tears. He was so in love with your mom at that moment; I cried, too. I've never cried like that at a wedding before or since. Such love as that is the rarest of gifts. I hope you find a partner some day that you can love as much as your dad loved and still loves your mom.

As I write this note, I am still teaching the class that your mom and I planned. I already miss her, and she is barely gone. She always made sure that when we were working on something together, I was taken care of. And by taken care of, I mean both personally and practically. When we would meet to plan the class, she'd ask me about Edie, Maia, and Lucy. She'd ask about my mom, who lives with us. And then she'd take care of contacting people to come visit, setting up technology for class, making sure everything ran smoothly. She took pictures so we could remember what we did together. The last conversation we had was the last full day she was alive as your mom, and it was so characteristic of her. She was not planning on being at class the next day, and so she gave me instructions about how to help the students we were teaching with their projects. There was care and concern in her voice; she wanted to make sure I understood. I did; I was grateful for our conversation, our collaboration, our friendship.

May you be protected and safe always, Kaia.

May you be happy in life, Kaia.

May you always be surrounded by love, Kaia.

May your body be healthy and strong, Kaia.

May you be at peace and at ease, Kaia.

Quick hits

2007-10-30T22:13:00.000-07:00

The other day Maia came home and said she wanted her pasta to be really high. I had no idea what that meant but dutifully pulled out the requested ingredients - pasta, corn, ham, and pizza sauce. She then constructed her own recipe - pasta corn ham sandwiches. Yum yum.

And then yesterday Maia read her first word with Bill. They put together some letters on blocks and she sounded the whole thing out. This photo was a second run at word sounding, so this isn't the first word (I think it was "CAP" or something like that). But she was so excited and we were thrilled for her.

(and today coming home from school she had a tantrum like she's never had before. Like they say, new developments in one area often result in regression in another.... sigh. )

MTT Asks and Answers

2007-10-25T13:03:00.000-07:00

MTT posed a question on Yahoo! Answers and over 1,000 people responded. I thought it was fun to look through the comments.
Read the question and answer here.

Spelling Things Out

2007-10-21T21:26:00.001-07:00

I meant to post this the other day - lately Maia has been getting the idea that letters spell words. So these days riding around in the car she will name a random bunch of letters - K-O-I-E - and ask "What does that spell?"

Our days of spelling things we don't want her to understand are long gone.

Making Memories with Friends

2007-10-21T19:27:00.001-07:00

Today was a great day for making memories with friends. Russell, Cathy, and Josie came over, as did Kristin, Vid, Taj, and Kristin's parents. We got together to celebrate Russell's birthday, and also to carve pumpkins. We laid out a blanket for the kids out back, Edie baked a cake, and the sun shone brightly in the October sky.

Moments like this just fill me up with joy and appreciation for what is most important in life -- spending time with friends, celebrating new life, and marking the passage of the seasons. How precious to have friends and family as these.

Harvest Moon Reflections

2007-10-19T14:32:00.000-07:00

In the Tslagi tradition, the Harvest New Moon marks the end of one year and the beginning of the new year. As such, it is a time to notice what has been harvested and completed and also what is new and emerging. It is also a time to notice what is dying, and what is being born anew. I had a week last week where I could not help but notice these dynamics.

On a site visit for work to Tallahassee, Florida, our host took us to the beautiful Wakulla Springs .
Wakulla Springs is one of the largest and deepest freshwater springs in the world. It is also home to such a great variety of wildlife, which was so wonderful to be able to see from inside a motorized boat. Seeing a family of manatees was really incredible. I'd seen manatees once before, but they are such a sight to behold, large and slow moving beneath the crystal clear shallow waters of the river.

Wakulla Springs (FL)

Sadly, it turns out this beautiful spot is in many ways dying. The waters that were crystal clear and blue just ten years ago are becoming clouded with pollution from nearby fields and septic tanks. The backs of the manatee we saw there were criss-crossed with scars from boats that had threatened their survival. And even the gas-guzzling boat we toured the springs on was contributing to this slow death. Springs like these are so vital to species like the manatee, as they offer protection and just the right temperature to live. They also provide people and animals with fresh, cool water. My heart was heavy to learn of how this beautiful place that seemed so preserved and cared for was in fact becoming polluted and less pristine.

Two days later, though, I felt uplifted as I listened to NPR for the two-hour drive from Tallahassee to Jacksonville. Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had won the Nobel Peace Prize. The very people who represent the awakening of human consciousness to the reality and threat of climate change had been honored for their work. And there they were, on the global stage, and the world was saying, "Yes, we hear the cries of the Earth, and we honor you for tuning our ear to hear." So even as we notice the dying, we can take some comfort in the fact that the world may in fact be waking up. Maybe, just maybe, we'll begin to work again to clean the waters of those beautiful Wakulla Springs....

Video of Lucy

2007-10-16T22:45:00.000-07:00

Early Math?

2007-10-16T22:43:00.000-07:00

Maia has been really into eating Altoids mints, which I have in my car. Today when we got into the car she said "Mommy, I want to have THREE mints. Two white ones and one pink one." That made me go huh.

Lucy at 4 months

2007-10-08T21:53:00.000-07:00

Lucy turned 4 months today and had a doctor's visit. From month 3 to month 4, it feels like she has put on a lot of baby weight. (Stats: 13#10oz, 25"...) Gone is the little tiny, dainty newborn we had. Now she's got chub. And cheeks.

She is an altogether pleasant baby. Most of the time she smiles, bubbles, gurgles her little mouth. Everyone who sees her says she is the smiley-est baby. She doesn't cry habitually, only when (it seems) she actually wants something. Dirty diaper. Hungry. Tired. Lonely. There you have it, the four causes of crying. I find even her wailing to be somewhat, well, cute.

These past 4 months have gone by in the blink of an eye. I guess in part just because we are busy -- little Lucy is definitely along for the ride, and the ride is taking us wherever Maia's social calendar directs us. Mostly these days it's play dates and birthday parties, with an occasional play date for us parents i.e. with our friends, who happen to have kids.

With Maia I spent hours in new-parenting group discussing every little thing. I went everywhere with Maia, I went to Target, and Costco, the movies, play dates. Maia had new clothes and when I heard about a new toy such as the triangle-prop for tummy time, I rushed out to get one for her. Lucy has a paltry number of age-appropriate toys, mostly because I either lent out the ones we had or I can't be bothered to figure out which ones to pull out for her.

Bill's had some parenting guilt at the lack of reading specifically to Lucy. I don't feel so concerned, let me know if I should. I have been telling myself Lucy gets plenty of "second-hand reading" by being in my lap while reading to Maia.

For a lil one she has accomplished a few new tricks: copious amounts of bubbling at the mouth, the cutest baby babble (if I can figure out how to post audio here I'll put a clip), the rolling over mentioned a few weeks ago and lately she can pivot around. We like to call her Lulu, Lulu-belle, Lucy-lou, or just Lu. It's a nice name that offers lots of options.

Lots of people have asked us how it's going with two in the house. I have to say, I don't really have a basis for comparison but it feels pretty nice. I am looking forward to when Lucy and Maia start having a little more two-way interactions. I am hoping to sleep some day. But overall, life with two little girls in the house is pretty good.

Maia turned 3!

2007-10-02T23:00:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post about Maia at 3 years old. Between work, Bill traveling, and Maia getting a nasty virus (cold/flu type thing) last week, I've been a bit tapped out. Here's a picture of Maia at her birthday party, celebrating with her much desired butterfly (ice cream) cake.

We had a butterfly themed birthday party, thanks to the suggestions from my post about gifts and birthday parties. We did the book-exchange idea as suggested by Jack and inspired by Emily Bazelon. We did get (buy!) a bounce house, justified by the thought that we can trot it out for the girls' next 3 (Maia) - 5 (Lucy) birthday parties. It was a big hit at the party.

On her real birthday I took a the camera to school and got a great photo of Maia with her primary teacher, Esther. People say they could be related.

At three Maia is....37.5" tall (65%ile), 30.5 pounds (50%ile). Her favorite color is pink. Her favorite food is ice cream (strawberry). She loves to do letters on the computer and to watch TV shows, especially Dora the Explorer and recently, the new PBS show Super Why. She can be really goofy and silly, enjoying rhyming and silly words. She loves her Music Together music.

Maia's drawings are starting to be kind of figurative, I'll scan one in soon. The other day she just about blew me away because we were at a birthday party playing with sidewalk chalk, and she said "Look Mommy, I made a 'A'". And she did, and it really looked like an A!

Of course I can hardly believe it's been 3 years since I joined the parenting ranks. We have a great kid. Even if I complain about her all the time.

Mouse update

2007-09-17T22:54:00.000-07:00

I realize the mice might not be that exciting a topic but it's on my mind. After catching 3 in the live traps, we had not caught any for quite some time. Mind we you have at least 6 or 7 live traps in our house at this point. We could still hear them running around at night, so we decided to "escalate" the situation i.e. use snap traps. Our pest man had told us that snap traps are far more effective than live traps and sure enough, they are working. We have caught (killed) 4 mice since setting them. But it is truly gory business and seeing the little caught ones makes me feel sick to my stomach.

Because Bill was really against kill traps, Norris and I have been dealing with disposal of the bodies. Norris has amazed me with her bravery in pulling them out. She says a little prayer "Om mani padme om" and wishes them a better next life.

Anyway, I guess the little squished mice are weighing on my conscience. It makes me really sad though I wouldn't choose to let them stay in our house. I wish there were a way to show them - choose the live traps! we'll set you free!

Lucy is 3 months

2007-09-16T21:19:00.000-07:00

Boy, that went by fast. Lucy turned 3 months old on September 8th and I have been too busy to even note it's passing. After returning from a quick vacation to Boston (trip photos here), I returned to work on the 13th. So Lucy started daycare with a trial half-day on the 10th. Still not taking a bottle at all. We had tried about 4 different types of bottles and nipples. The kid must have sensed my desperation because after the half-day trial, I was about to despair of her taking a bottle at all, and then she started sucking. Since then she has reluctantly taken a bottle or two every day. Most successfully from me, and ONLY when she's ravenously hungry. But I'm happy she's taking it at all.

Besides that, yesterday after all the excitement of Maia's birthday party, Lucy and Maia and I were hanging out and she (Lucy) rolled over, front-to-back. Three times! In both directions! I am so excited. My little girl does tricks now!

Mice

2007-09-03T22:07:00.000-07:00

The mice are still with us. In fact I feel they have gotten downright aggressive. It's like they feel entitled to our house. On Friday night there was one in our bedroom and every time I got down with the flashlight it stood still. When I got my light off and back into bed it started scratching around again. Bill fled the room for the den (in his defense he had gotten 4 hours of sleep the night before) leaving me and Lucy to sleep -- or not sleep -- with the mice. Anyway, did you ever notice how many mice and other rodents are heroes of popular books? Maia has just gotten really into Angelina Ballerina, plus her favorite movie is Cinderella, in which I used to be quite fond of the singing and dress-making mice. It's downright annoying.

How to Cope: Living with an Almost Three Year Old

2007-08-30T23:00:00.000-07:00

I feel like lately all I do is whine about Maia's tantrums and behaviour. It feels like we have a tantrum a day, and often it's the first thing that happens.

Last Tuesday we had a fine morning until I unthinkingly pushed the elevator button, which incensed Maia and put us into the catch-22 of not being able to go back, but not being able to go forward. We couldn't undo my pushing the button, we couldn't get in the elevator and every time the door started to close her screams hit a new, higher pitch.

Then Wednesday she slept in later than usual which you would think is a good thing. But no, this week Maia's learning group at school is in transition to a new classroom. The new classroom has outdoor play right at 9:00am which makes it's really REALLY important to get to school by 9:00am, otherwise drop-off is all messed up. You all know the backwards time math - must stay with clinging toddler for 15 minutes, car ride is 30 minutes with traffic and parking, getting into the car can take 15 minutes in itself. Sooooo. 7-7:30 begging Maia to get up out of bed, followed by 15 minutes pleading with her to put her clothes on, followed by a full-on tantrum/power struggle including the oh-so-scary "I'm calling your father" and threats to either a) take her to school naked or b) leave her at home and not go at all. Which both clearly violate the never-threaten-an-unacceptable-outcome parenting rule. But I blew my cool, lost my equilibrium. I was at my wits end.

The thing is, I really don't like myself when I get pulled into the spiral, getting angry, feeling frustrated. I know all the books say that what the toddler needs is calmness and that answering in anger is absolutely unhelpful.

Well I have no answers although I did find this article to be helpful to me, both in describing exactly my experience with Maia, and some advice I am hoping to try. The worst thing is that I continue to get myself caught in a loop of trying to reason with Maia to get her through the tantrum. Must remember, toddler's brain short-circuits during tantrum.

Maia's interest in rhyming has been really high lately. When we ask if she wants something, she will giggle and say some nonsense word that rhymes instead. Like if we say "Do you want dinosaur chicken nuggets for dinner?" she says "No, I want minosaur plicken duggets!" It's actually pretty cute and funny. We got a book from the library called Fun Dog, Sun Dog that is a rhyme-based text. It's cute, she's enjoying it a lot. So the other day we rhymed Dinosaur with all the letters in the alphabet, until we got to W. Then I said "Winosaur (or whinosaur)" and hit upon the humor. For the past couple of days we have been saying "Don't be a whinosaurus" when she starts whining. It seems to help a little although it isn't a fix-all to the whinys.

On a fun note she has been pretending a lot to go on trips. Yesterday she went to "Alcanero" and today it was "Alcasandy". Both trips required packing her play fruit into bags and getting on an airplane because it is really really far away. And she has been saying to me all the time, "Mama, I really really love you."

So I guess living with an almost 3-year-old isn't all bad. :)

New photo albums

2007-08-30T08:46:00.000-07:00

I'm testing out another photo service, SmugMug.com. Here are a couple of photo galleries I've put together.

Maia from birth to present

Lucy Naming Ceremony

What do you think?

Lucy's Baby Naming

2007-08-26T17:27:00.000-07:00

Today we celebrated Lucy's baby naming in a ceremony in our back yard. The tradition of the naming ceremony comes from the Tsalagi (Cherokee) tradition, and is passed down to us through the generations from the Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo. Grandfather Dane Larsen performed the ceremony for us, with wide participation from the California sangha. We were also blessed with conversations Bill had before the ceremony with Venerable and with her sister-in-spirit Grandmother Patricia, who offered their prayers and blessings for the day.

We invited lots of friends and family who were not familiar with the tradition, and many others who had attended Maia's naming ceremony and been part of our wedding, which included many elements from the Tsalagi tradition. Grandfather Dane's explanation of its purpose and flow was especially helpful to them, but especially, it seemed, to Lucy herself, who hung on every word he said (see below).

Lucy Listens to Grandfather Dane

As the fire burned in the center, we offered prayers to the four directions, singing the Adawi chant. For a brief while, Lucy let Dane hold her up. He said he felt that she was just really absorbing it all, much like a sponge. When she had filled up, though, she asked to be given back to mama, who took her into her arms for the rest of the ceremony.

Facing the West, the Direction of Transformation

Edie and I had the opportunity to give voice to our own commitment to baby Lucy, and we invited everyone to offer blessings of cornmeal and their own words of commitment to her. Lucy's Lau Lau (grandmother Yvonne Cheng) shared Lucy's Chinese name, Jia Yun, which means "adds sunlight," along with the family tradition of giving Chinese names with the word Jia or "adds" to all the grandchildren. Grandfather Dane shared that the elder who blessed the ceremony (and gave permission/requested us to take pictures on this sacred occasion) had seen similarly that this new baby's name was "light." How auspicious that the Chinese and Tsalagi wisdom streams flow as one in the naming of Lucy. "Lucy" itself means light in Latin, so we have the Western tradition in harmony as well!

Lau Lau and Lau Ye Offer Cornmeal to Lucy

There was quite a dance of energies before, during, and after the ceremony, as everyone moved in and out of celebration, sacred space, and tending to the many children in attendance. We are so grateful to share these milestones in life with all of our friends, family, and sangha. We are especially grateful to Grandfather Dane and to Martha for sharing so generously of their time and wisdom in offering this ceremony to our growing family.

All Blessed Out

The Whole Family

Additional photos can be seen here:

Lucy Naming Ceremony

Mouse Practice

2007-08-25T08:24:00.001-07:00

We're getting a lot of opportunities for equanimity practice these days around the house. We've trapped and released three mice, but they keep scurrying about in the middle of the night. They're running in the floor boards, making holes, and nesting. Last night, at midnight, Edie found a big nest in our front closet. The morning started for me with cleaning it out, throwing away clothes and other things ruined by the mouse droppings. And still, we know, they will keep coming, until they all have been trapped, whenever that is.

Feelings of anger arise, from being disturbed in our home, for the damage the mice are doing to it. For me, lying on the floor next to Maia (who woke up in the middle of the night), there was the additional fear of having mice skitter over me in the middle of the night. I could hear them not far away, so I knew it was a real possibility. We'd just filled one of their holes in the girls' room with steel wool a day earlier.

This morning, though, I feel grateful for the opportunity this experience is bringing me for looking clearly at aversion. Aversion, one of the "three poisons" of the mind, the desire to avoid, push away, and turn away from things as they are. With the mice, aversion is right there in your face. And when things are in your face, there's this incredible clarity that can arise. Pema Chodron puts it this way:

When we meditate, we're creating a situation in which there's a lot of space. That sounds good but actually it can be unnerving, because when there's a lot of space you can see very clearly; you've removed your veils, your shields, your armor, your dark glasses, your earplugs, your layers of mittens, your heavy bots. Finally you're standing, touching the earth, feeling the sun on your body, feeling its brightness, hearing all the noises without anything to dull the sound. You take off your nose plug, and maybe you're going to smell lovely fresh air or maybe you're in the middle of a garbage dump. Since meditation has this quality of bringing you very close to yourself and your experience, you tend to come up against your edge faster.

The mice do make us feel like we're in the middle of a garbage dump, and certainly I think all of us are on edge. And since we're a family, doing this practice together, it's a challenge to see and notice when one of us is on that edge and needs a bit of relief from it. Edie was definitely there last night, and by the time I finished cleaning out the closet today, I was pretty close myself.

Thich Nhat Hahn reminds us, too, that what causes aversion is just part of the larger cycle of life, and that the smelly goes hand in hand with the fragrant:

Garbage can smell terrible, especially rotting organic matter. But it can also become rich compost for fertilizing the garden. The fragrant rose and the stinking garbage are two sides of the same existence. Without one, the other cannot be. Everything is in transformation.

So we continue to wait for our traps to work, and in the meantime, get lots of time to observe aversion, which is really the same thing as the practice of equanimity.

Lucy at 2 months

2007-08-13T20:42:00.001-07:00

Lucy turned 2 months last Wednesday! She is growing and developing beautifully. Today she had her 2-month doctor's visit. Here are the stats:

10 pounds 10 oz. (55th percentile)
23 inches (80th percentile)

Besides that, she is very smiley, and makes social smiles in response to other people. She has some cooing and new cute sounds. She still spits up quite a bit, and still refuses to take a bottle (much to my dismay). She really loves the aquarium bouncey chair we have, and is actively engaged in making the sounds work by kicking. You can see her flailing her arms and legs and looking disappointed when the thing is off.

From Lucy Photos J...

Days of emotional turbulence

2007-08-12T21:47:00.000-07:00

Lately Maia has been going through a touchy phase, where the littlest thing can just set her off. We get reports on her moods from teachers, just as you might a traffic report. Storm clouds threatening.... Partly cloudy.... The problem is that I think Catherine Newman's passage in Waiting for Birdy kind of sums it up:

"Ben, meanwhile, is getting more easygoing by the second. You know what I love about three-year-olds? They're just so flexible. So come-what-may. Nothing needs to look a certain way or be done in a particular order. They're always like, "Hey, Mom, however you want to do it. That's just great with me.
"I'm kidding of course."

We think it could be because most of Maia's classmates have already transitioned to the next classroom, leaving her and her friend Leila with a bunch of new 2-year olds. Or it could be that 2 of the teachers have left for other schools. Or it could be her internalized resentment of her baby sister. Or it could be that she is getting the hang of potty training (yes! underwear all week long and only 1 accident!). Or it could just be that she's almost 3.

We get into a lot of difficulties around keeping to a time frame, for example me wanting to leave the house within 2 hours of starting to get ready to go. A couple of times lately we'll start with me asking her to do something, like put on her shoes. First I ask sweetly. Then not so sweetly. Then begging. Then commanding. Finally, threatening. A couple of times after these escalations Maia has said in a small voice "Mama I want you to be nice to me." While we do have discussions about why I end up being not so nice, i.e. you can help me not get so frustrated by doing something the first 5 times I asked, it does just kill me a little bit. How do you avoid invoking threats or using "that voice"? Does anyone actually manage to?

Lately Maia just loves to wear dresses. In the morning she says "I want to wear a beautiful dress." and one white frilly one in particular is her favorite. She calls it her "wedding dress". When she has a clean dress that meets her approval she wanders around the house saying "this is a wonderful, wonderful, beautiful, beautiful dress!" It is really cute.

Caught a Mouse

2007-08-12T21:44:00.000-07:00

We caught one using the Havahart 2-Door Mouse Trap. It's in the storage closet right now. Norris and I decided we would "free" the little guy tomorrow in a park, assuming his night in captivity doesn't give the critter a heart attack. I am not looking forward to picking up the cage and trying to get the door open, it is definitely freaky. Do mice bite?

We have mice

2007-08-05T21:56:00.000-07:00

Ugh. We have mice. First sighting was a while ago, in the garage. Actually just evidence of mice (chewed bag of rice, poops). Then one day while eating lunch, Norris saw one scurry across the kitchen floor. Then we heard them in our bedroom, possibly because of the cornmeal and water on Bill's shrine. We've set a bunch of humane live traps, to no avail. However for a week or two there were no new sightings.

Unfortunately the mouse or mice are back. In the past couple of days we have seen mice at least 3-4 times in different areas in the house - our storage closet (home to pounds of Costco purchases so no surprise there); our den (no food and lots of light and human activity - hopefully the mouse was lost) and most disturbingly in Norris' room coming OUT of the bathroom.

The idea of the live humane trap is definitely more appealing than the kills-them-dead snap traps. Either way you end up having to deal with and handle a mouse which frankly gives me a sick feeling in my stomach. I want them gone but I don't particularly want to catch them.

So far Hana has been no use whatsoever and has shown virtually no instinct for knowing when the mice are present and where they are.

The good news is this whole mouse problem makes cleaning poopy underwear seem quite fun.

To Gift or Not to Gift?

2007-07-28T20:47:00.000-07:00

Maia recently attended a party for twins in her preschool. The twins' party was at the Bay Area Discovery Museum which is an awesome place but the price is not insignificant. The guest list was also pretty extensive, at least 12 kids. I couldn't go but asked Bill to scope out whether this party was the standard for this new pre-school set of peers. Thankfully the other parents seemed to feel it was a bit overwhelming and not low key. Still I have been mulling what to do for Maia's upcoming 3rd.

Last year we had 4 kids, a jump house borrowed from Alison, and decorate your own cupcakes. It was in our backyard and felt perfect - fun, low key and basic but still a celebration. We also asked each guest to bring a gift for a 2-year-old and then exchanged presents so that each guest got to open one gift. I kind of liked that because it made it so that Maia got a present but we didn't have some crazy huge pile, and the other kids got to participate in the presents too. But it was a little confusing to explain what we were trying for.

I'm intrigued by this trend toward no-gift or gifts-for-charity parties, described in this article in the New York Times. But I just don't know if I feel right doing that with (to?) Maia.

And beyond that, I want to let Maia go to the party store and pick out the invitations, decorations, etc. But I want some control - I am dreading her choice which will surely be the Disney Princesses, particularly anything involving Cinderella. (Maia constantly asked me to buy Cinderella toothpaste, band aids, etc. despite the lack of Disney princess branded items in these categories.) So early to feel pressured - do I let her get what she really desires which I am not comfortable with, or do I find a reason to place certain themes off limits? I'll post with how this all turns out. In the meantime, any thoughts or suggestions welcome!

Parenting challenges

2007-07-27T23:14:00.000-07:00

More on potty training... Maia has been somewhere in between, wearing underwear sometimes and pull-ups other days. What I have found most difficult is to keep my own emotions and reactions in line with the proper parenting tone. The accidents surprise and exasperate me, and me angry and frustrated. And then I have to clean up the mess!

The other day we had a really tight schedule in the morning, starting with visit to a Family Day Care for Lucy (one we really liked). As we were getting ready to leave with 20 minutes to make the 25 minute drive to school and a parent-teacher conference scheduled, Maia said in a small voice "Mommy my socks are wet." I was already stressed about the clockwork. We were caught with no back-up clothes as we don't pack a diaper bag to get to school. (Note to self, stash emergency clothes in the car at all times.)

Even though I know that this is the point - she does not have full control of her body, isn't aware of her functions, it was really hard not to react in a blameful, upset way.

Another thing Maia does much with me (much more than with Bill) is that she tends to climb all over me. She has never been a child to sit quietly in my lap, but she wiggles and jumps and moves all around. Lately it feels like she is always in my personal space and I have been realizing lately that it really bugs me. I feel like I'm always asking her to back up, give me space, and I find it uncomfortable that my little person ~ the darling of my eye ~ is constantly making me feel crowded and pressed upon.

Anyway the point is for any of you who are reading this, I'm sharing my reality and maybe some days it's your reality too.

Going to Carolina in My Mind

2007-07-27T19:42:00.001-07:00

In early July, Maia, mom, and I traveled to Charleston, SC, to see my brother and his family on their two month break in the U.S. These mandated breaks between State Department gigs I think are intended to keep people from "going native," but I think for my brother, the risk was increased by seeing U.S. prices again after 2 and a half years in China. Nonetheless, I think they were happy to be in the states, and we were glad to get to see them.

The trip there was an adventure that included a 7-hour delay in Dulles. Maia took it all in stride, though us adults were tired. When we finally landed at 1am in Charleston, the airline had lost the car seat. Thanks to Hertz, we made it to my uncle's house, where my dad and stepmom Lee greeted us.

Maia Lounging at Dulles Airport

One of the first things we did with David, Amy, Avery, Luke, and Claire was to go with them to the South Carolina Aquarium. This is an absolutely amazing place, and I recommend any visitor to Charleston, with our without kids, to there. There's a tank that's quite large and comparable in my own mind to the large tank in Monterey. Plus, the whole place is organized into sections based on South Carolina geography. The otters from the Upcountry were a big hit with Maia, as were the loggerhead turtles of the salt marshes along the Lowcountry coast. Afterwards, there were many moments of cuteness as Maia and Claire played together.

Claire and Maia Check out a Frog

The next day, we spent a coolish (by South Carolina standards), overcast morning at the beach. Maia's come along way in being able to walk in the sand and enjoy herself at the beach. In Hawai'i, at age one, Maia would not even step on the sand but had to be carried across it. She had a great time with her cousins, including Luke, shown here in his sporting outfit.

Luke Gives the Beach a Thumbs Up

The next day, we got tickets to a mid-day (yes, mid-day) baseball game to watch the Single A Charleston RiverDogs lose to the mighty Sand Gnats of Savannah (and yes, that's really the team's name). We'd hoped to get tickets to a night game a couple of days before, but the game was sold out, as Charleston native son Steven Colbert was throwing out the first pitch, or rather first pint of his new Americone Dream ice cream flavor.

Luke, John Kennedy, Avery, and David Watch the RiverDogs on a Hot Muggy Day

The next day we headed to the Charleston Children's Museum. This was a terrific little museum, and it kept Luke, Maia, and Claire occupied for a couple of hours rolling golf balls down chutes, playing with water tables, shopping, playing on ships, and even dressing up. Our little clown particularly liked her court jester costume.

The Jolly Jester Just Maia

On our last day in Charleston, we celebrated Luke's fourth birthday together. He and Maia had great fun playing with my dad that day; he had them in stitches as they yelled to him "Wake up!" Luke also received many, many dinosaurs that day.

Loads of Fun with Ye Ye/Grandpa Rich

We brought back Maia's cousin Avery with us to San Francisco for a few days as well. We had a great time together, and then my mom and I took him down for a three-week stint at Johns Hopkins' talent development program in the summer, where he took a class in chaos theory.

Outsmarted by a Toddler

2007-07-27T19:39:00.000-07:00

Maia often resists telling us what she did at school at the end of the day. When asked what she did at school, she will often say, "I don't want to tell you."

Feeling smart, I decided to try and outwit my nearly three-year-old daughter:

Bill: What did you do today at school?
Maia: I don't want to tell you.
Bill: If you did want to tell me, what would you say?

Then, without losing a beat:

Maia: bodie bodie bodie.

The Nunnehi

2007-07-20T18:45:00.000-07:00

For the past couple of weeks, Maia has been asking me to read some of the "stories with no pictures" that I bought recently and have introduced into her bedtime routine. The stories are about the Nunnehi, or the Little People of Cherokee and other Native American nations.

One story in particular Maia is drawn to, about a boy, who in the midst of a famine in his community, follows a little man to his clan's home underneath the river. There, the little boy is fed a delicious meal of meat and plays with the children of the Nunnehi. Miraculously, the meat he and the clan eat are reincarnated as live animals at the end of his meal. The next morning, he returns to his family, who are relieved but disbelieving.

This kind of story is just the kind of story that can capture the imagination of children Maia's age and older. I find it enjoyable, but also challenging. The Cherokee believe that the Little People are real, though even in stories like this one, it is clear that they are invisible and that not all people believe in them. In the particular story about the boy who visits the Nunnehi, the man asks him to do the impossible -- to walk on water to descend to the Nunnehi's homes -- and only when the boy acts and follows the instructions does the water turn into long waves of grass surrounding a dirt path. I can't imagine if this story were real that I would follow such instructions.

Is this a story about faith? In part, I think so. But I also have come to another view of the story, having read it a few times now. I think that all of us have things that we feel called to do or instructions we're asked to follow that, if followed, we believe would satisfy our hunger. The boy was hungry, and also curious. But he, like all of us, often have beliefs that make us believe that we simply can't do something to help us reach our destination. The impossible is a part of our lived experience all the time; sometimes things are impossible because of social conventions, or we lack the resources, or time. What matters is that some aspect of the impossible is in our own minds, and is something we need to overcome if we're to find a path we've never seen before.

Reading to Maia this story over and over, I seem to get a lot of time to think and rethink its meaning. For her right now, it's just "the story about the man" and a part of our ritual of slowing down, the last thing I read to her before the lights go out. And for us someday in the future, its meaning will be a reminder of our connection as father and daughter.