February 2006 Archives

Today we made a long-overdue trek into Brooklyn to tour Jacques Torres' chocolate factory with our nieces and their parents, and meet our friends Duncan, Judy and Ryan for brunch. We also got to meet Ryan's friend Bridget, a lovely lady from Philadelphia.

After filling up on the best hot chocolate we've ever had (which Brandie will post details about later), we moved over to Bubby's just down the street. It was a great place to take kids and still have a great meal; I don't know why the two are usually incompatible!

It was very cold and windy but otherwise a beautiful day in New York. We hit no traffic whatsoever on the way back and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It felt great to do something touristy and see so many new things. Thanks everyone for meeting us!

Seen here enjoying a lovely lakeside view of Lake Rotorua with friends. We wish him the best, some Old Speckled Hen, pot roast and Tim Tams (or maybe some of Joanna's pavlova, that's good stuff). He'll have to check back for comments a little belatedly because it's already his birthday in New Zealand, and we're all just going to bed!

Our friend Matt turns 34 today! Happy Birthday to you, Space Colonel (sung with all the off-key enthusiasm of the JK team birthday celebrations).

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone out there. We've enjoyed our day thus far and hope everyone is having a love filled day (especially Anthony, whose birthday it is)!

Here is a photo from our recent trip to Reno. On one wall of our hotel room was a mirror, which Sophie loved. While changing into her pajamas one night she broke free, grabbed the scarf her Aunt Lauren made her for Christmas and started dancing in front of the mirror.

As they say, when in Rome...

As the title suggests, no one is really asking but we thought we'd answer anyway. Heck, you've probably even stopped reading already!

Q. This blogging stuff looks like a lot of work. Aren't you a parent? How do you have so much free time on your hands? Is Sophie getting proper attention?

A. No need to call Child Services just yet, or throw us in jail with Britney; putting up a post is about as time-consuming as writing an email. The initial setup of the DAlbum and Movable Type freeware took some time, but now it's literally just minutes to update everything.

Q. Ok, if it's that easy how do I do it?

A. If you want to do exactly what we did, please see How We Setup Our Site from last year. However, there are many alternatives out there now that are even easier to setup and manage. Yahoo360, Blogger, Typepad, etc. all offer excellent services.

Q. Why is your website called "Tiny e Ranch"? Do you really live on a ranch?

A. We used to own .04 acres in Petaluma, California, but it wasn't a ranch by any stretch of the imagination and our domain name had nothing to do with it. "Tiny e" is the nickname (one of many, actually) of our cat, Eliot. Our first attempt at website creation was free through our ISP and dubbed El Gordo in his honor. We quickly used up the available space and decided to pay for our own webhosting and domain. "El Gordo" and some others we liked were taken, so we settled on "Tiny e".

Q. Why is your cat nicknamed "Tiny e"?

A. Eliot was formally named for T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, but also goes by Tiny E or just Tiny, El Gordo, and (affectionately) Jabba. The "Tiny e" came from a Saturday Night Live skit with Nicholas Cage where he played a four-inch tall Elvis who rode around on the dashboard of a car remarking how "huge" things were. The whole miniature Elvis thing seemed to fit Eliot like a t.

Q. Isn't your dog named "Eula"? Do you have an "e" fetish?

A. Eula's moniker comes from a Basque name that means 'The Virgin Mary'. It also means 'Little Bear' in German, and 'End-User License Agreement' in Microsoft. She was originally named Katerina when we got her from the pound, but we both liked the name Ula. We added the "e" after the Microsoft joke opportunity was pointed out to us by some co-workers (geeky industry, games).

Q. Does Brandie's grandmother really drive a convertible Mustang with license plates "MEANMRY"? Is she really that mean?

A. It's true, in fact she's driven several with those plates. Prior to this iteration she had MNMARY but that apparently didn't convey the "mean" part well enough (possibly misinterpreted as "Men Mary" or "Man Mary"). She's a very well-liked and respected member of her family and community, but if you're on her bad side (as I can recently attest with the whole relocation thing), lookout!

Q. Is it true you know Matt Tateishi?

A. Also true. I met Matt almost ten years ago when we worked together at LucasArts. At first I was just another in a long line of out-of-state white guys who sat next to him, but soon we were best friends. He scared Brandie at first but after she made gyoza for him in 100-degree weather they became close. He was in our wedding and is a pro at these sort of Q&A things.

If you have any other questions, please use the Comments field and we'll update the main entry!

Wow, sometimes I am so busy chasing Sophie around that I forget I am pregnant again! It's hard to imagine that we will have a second little one in early May but sure enough, my belly keeps growing and the doctors appointments keep coming.

During our 18 week ultrasound the technician discovered that the baby has what is called Single Umbilical Artery or SUA. This means that the umbilical cord only has one artery connecting it to the placenta rather than two. A third of the time, when this is discovered it is a sign of other developmental problems, usually in the development of the central nervous system, heart and/or digestive system. Our tech couldn't find the bladder so we scheduled a second ultrasound for the next day. The next day they couldn't find the bladder at first and after 10 minutes and two techs the bladder finally started filling up so they could see it. The baby was perfect development wise other than the umbilical cord which means that we just have to monitor the babies growth to make sure it is getting enough nutrients.

I was so thankful that everything was ok, but I have to admit, not a day goes by that I don't worry about the baby getting enough food. We go in this week for another ultrasound just to be extra sure that everything is developing on schedule. Then starting at 32 weeks, I will go in weekly and they will monitor the baby for 30 minutes to make sure that it isn't strained. In all likely hood they will induce labor or if they don't think the baby can handle the stress of labor, they will perform a cesarian. Either way, as long as we get our baby at the end we will be happy.

Sophie is clearly shocked at how old you are, but Eula just misses you. Eliot.. well, not so much. He's just pissed off about living in my dad's barn.

We hope your big day is the best yet, and that you're headed this way for some Yuengling and spiedies sometime soon!

Ok, time is flying by! 14 months! When am I supposed to start using years instead of months? Not this month I guess.

Sophie is still developing at an amazing rate. She is in swimming classes (as you may have seen in previous posts) and during her last class things "clicked" for her. She started kicking and reaching on her own and even blew bubbles in the water. Before she was just so amazed with all of the other kids that she would just stare at them and try to play with them rather than be bothered with this swimming business. She climbs out of the pool on her own and will lean in to me when I ask her to get in the pool with me.

She adds words to her vocabulary almost daily. She will now point to her ear, eyes, hair, nose, mouth, chin and belly and say the word for each of them. She sticks her tongue out on command and will also point to her teeth. Most exciting (for her) is to stick her finger up her nose and say "nose" then put that finger in her mouth and say "mouth". Educational AND delicious!

She is sticking to her sleep routine of going to bed at 8 and waking up at 7:30. Thank God! We need this rest before the second one comes. She's napping once a day for about an hour and a half.

She is very into pushing boundaries. She's always running up to the edge of the stairs and stopping to look at you. Or trying to stand on her push car when she knows she is only allowed to sit on it. She has started hitting herself again when we tell her "no". Which is sad and funny at the same time. Jake has started hitting himself as well when I get mad at him, which is mostly just sad to be honest.

She's always a joy with her deep belly laugh and maniacal laugh of joy near open electronics. Truly her father's daughter. She's currently working on three teeth so hopefully by month 15 you can see some top teeth in her pics!

Happy Birthday Grammy (Mom)! We hope you have a wonderful, sunny day! Can't wait to see you!

From the small window of our trip when no one was actively getting sick. In this one you'll see Sophie getting her first earful of jazz via headphones, thanks to Matt. If it were video you'd see her bopping up and down a little. Enjoy!

Or as I'll always remember it, "Hell At 32,000 Feet".

WARNING! This entry contains graphic descriptions of the flu. Not recommended for the squeamish or those currently experiencing flu symptoms (ie. Susie and Ashleigh, sorry again guys).

First, a little background on the flight. We don't like making lots of connections, especially traveling with a baby, and to get to Reno required three flights. So to save ourselves a leg we decided to fly out of Newark, about three hours from where we live. We arranged to spend the night at my sister's, about 45 minutes from the airport, thinking we would drive down the day before and visit as well as pick up our Pack'N'Play before making the easy drive to the airport.

Then Wednesday night, after my grandfather's funeral, Sophie got sick. Six times. In Brandie's lap. Obviously we didn't want her to travel in that condition and thought about postponing our trip, but we decided to wait and see how she was by Friday morning. If she was ok by then we could drive down to my sister's early in the morning and still make the afternoon flight.

The morning of the flight she seemed to have recovered, so we packed up the car and were on our way by about 10:30. We were cutting it close but thought we'd have a good hour or so for Sophie to play with her cousins before heading out again to the airport.

A good plan, but we tend to think like we're still traveling as dependent-less adults. Due to various circumstances (like getting lost in Stroudsburg, and not realizing Newark's economy lot is barely in the same state as the airport) we made our flight with minutes to spare and without our Pack'N'Play or Sophie's carseat. In all the hurry to make the flight, we forgot to bring them.

Challenges, and stressful to be sure, but we could still rent a carseat with our rental car and buy a Pack'N'Play in Reno.

The rest of that flight from Newark to Atlanta went ok. Sophie still seemed well, and was pretty easily entertained thanks to the books and movies (thanks again Erin & Geoff for the portable dvd player!) we brought along.

The Atlanta airport seemed warm and stuffy to both of us, and as we boarded the plane stiflingly hot. We had barely reached our seats when we realized Sophie had pooped, and moments later that her diaper had failed to contain it all. For the uninitiated, this is known as a "blowout", something that happened a record seven times on our trip.

Swimming upstream against the flow of boarding passengers was bound to piss a few people off, but it was that or wait for the spill to spread. Fortunately I made it without too much fuss into the bathroom.

Now I'm not sure about all planes, but the ones in our experience lack a changing table or other adequate surface to rest a baby on. The toilet seat is the only alternative but it is barely big enough, and requires a lot of juggling to keep her in place. It's difficult enough with just a normal diaper change, but dealing with a full soiled-clothes change in that space is practically impossible. To add injury to insult, there's an access panel hatch within perfect baby reach. Sophie kept opening the hatch so it would fall on her face, leaving her crying and both my hands full on the other end.

A thankfully unharmed, clean and newly pajama'd Sophie & I made it out of the bathroom before the plane took off, but I was drenched in sweat. In hindsight abnormally so, despite the sweltering conditions onboard. I passed Sophie over to Brandie, sat down and opened the little airvent to full, hoping I would cool off quickly.

As we took off, my stomach started to cramp, at first mildly and then very painfully. I wasn't sure if I was going to be sick or go to the bathroom, but shortly after the seatbelt sign was turned off I got up and headed to the bathroom in case of either. Luckily, because it was both. At the same time. On and off for about four hours, the duration of our flight to Reno.

And other than landing, I was out of my seat for the entire flight. I'll spare the more graphic details, but for the remainder of the trip I was in the bathroom or standing at the back of the plane, shivering or sweating as waves of nausea hit me. A few times I fell asleep for five minutes, resting my head on blankets tucked into the grab-bar in the bathroom. Then I'd start spinning and the nausea would hit again.

I felt better as we landed, and other than some dizzyness and light sweats didn't get sick again until two days later up at the lake. Whether it was a relapse or an entirely different bug I don't know, but it felt different. This is already long enough and I'm running into what could be a whole new entry, but I was running to the bathroom again on our return flights.

Needless to say, not one of my better travel experiences. For those readers from Montrose, it was reminiscent of the 1988 Inaugural Parade where George Bush Senior decided to get out and walk, leaving our marching band and the rest of the parade standing and freezing in the sub-zero temperatures. About a third of us got the flu on the busride home, I think.