Karate kicks, push-ups and shots

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This time last year, we’d just taken Finlaggan to San Diego for a long weekend. Going back to work after that was much more difficult than going back after his first 6 weeks. For one, we probably bonded better in San Diego than before: there was more interaction between us, I was in less pain, we did many things together like going to parks and museums, and I carried him everywhere in a wrap. I think that trip really cemented our relationship as mother and son1, and made up for the too-short “maternity leave”2.

So going back to work again that week was tough on all of us. I have to write this down while I remember and while we’re both still happily married: Patrick is the most awesome spouse/partner/co-parent who I could possibly hope to have. His dedication to making it work for all of us led to me keeping my job, him taking the next few years off his own career, and us not having to struggle to balance baby-work-life.

Alright, back to my son, who is the only reason you3 stopped by today!

Day 63
We’d already established early on that our son is a very sweet boy when he’s not hungry, gassy, sleepy, over-stimulated etc etc. And when conditions for prime-Finlaggan-ness are met, this is our reward. This is possibly the best photo we have that completely captures the burgeoning personality of Finlaggan.

He really nailed the whole push-up thing in San Diego, and continued to practice it everywhere. Everywhere being home and my office.

Day 57
Ready…
Day 57
Push…
Day 57
And relax!

Day 63
We started going to our local park as soon as we got home from our 2 day stay in the hospital. This would horrify most new parents and grandparents, who on the whole don’t go out much in the first week or so. But we had decided that if Fin was healthy and we could find the right baby carrier, we would go out everyday with him even if only to walk the dog. We’ve never regretted it. Just going outside instantly calms him down when he’s having a tantrum or bad spell, even now.

Day 64
Finlaggan’s first vaccinations went as well as could be expected. Minimal crying during and after, helped greatly by our pediatric nurse’s great skill and speed. The only evidence: tweety bird and snoopy plasters!

Day 66
Most new parents would document the date and time of every achievement of developmental milestones. We completely failed to4, what with being somewhat overwhelmed, and are lucky enough to have been trigger-happy at times to know that he could make a fist, like so.

Day 67
And hold his giraffe.

Day 68
And watch his fruit mobile. The giraffe and fruit mobile were excellent hand-me-downs from our ex-neighbours, who have gone back to Europe and who we miss. This reminds me that I completely failed to write thank you notes after Fin’s birth for all the really useful gifts from fellow parents.

Day 69
Just one more photo until next week’s photo-dump. This time of my awesome twosome.

1 As opposed to baby and food source. Prior to having Fin, it had not occurred to me, nor had I read about how the mother’s ego is usurped by the baby for the first few weeks. Some people may be fine with it, but they probably make more oxytocin than I do.

2 6 weeks is the legal requirement in the US. It’s too short. It will have implications for the mental health and development of the coming generation. While on this topic, I’m still really annoyed with our HR department for their unpleasant treatment during my maternity leave. While our university has a system in place, it’s not well publicised and they spent more time telling me what I did wrong and threatening me with negative consequences than helping me follow the system. Being a postdoc doesn’t help since most administrators view postdocs as an unnecessary evil in research universities, who cause them more trouble than they are worth. Let’s not get into this now; a post may follow in future years when I’m no longer a postdoc and can discuss the discrimination more rationally and objectively. But let me just state for the record that I am unimpressed by how administrators view and treat postdocs, especially those with “awkward circumstances”, like having kids or being foreign, and this is not unique to me or even my current university. The system is broken, and it suits universities to keep it broken.

3 You being Fin’s grandparents…. To the rest of you loyal blog readers, sorry…. This has turned into a look-at-my-cute-baby blog. But I can’t help it. Finlaggan is great!

4 One of his first deliberately used words/phrases was “Uh-oh”. And I can’t remember when he said it! Also can’t remember when he started saying Mama or “Em” for milk (with hand sign). I guess it’s enough to vaguely remember that “Uh-oh” came before Mama…

Easter dinner

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Easter dinner by framboise
Easter dinner, a photo by framboise on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
Spring clean of patio (strip of concrete by door, really) meant we could finally drag our dining table out of its cramped corner and have friends over for dinner.
Roasted chicken and grapes by P. my contribution: chilling wine and scrubbing our so-called patio.

And keeping this monster entertained:
Smile!

Waffling on and on

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We have something of a love-hate relationship with our waffle maker. Back in the day of believing that Krups doesn’t make crap, we bought an electric waffle maker. All attempts at waffle-making with the included recipe and several epicurious versions resulted in things which resembled waffles, but were nothing like. Examples:

Waffles and blackberries
Too dry. Tasted like weetabix.

Nest
Too soggy. Tasted like my insoles.

After a few more similar attempts at waffles-that-didn’t-taste-like-the-waffles-of-Belgium, we stashed Krups-kie away on the top shelf and forgot about him. But things got moved around in the kitchen, and Krups-kie’s gigantic box migrated into my baking drawer. MY baking drawer. Where it took up space and prevented easy access to the baking trays. Much muttering about Krups-kie’s white elephant status ensued until I gave Krups-kie an ultimatum: prove yourself useful or to Goodwill you go!

Poor old Krups-kie appealed to me, he appealed to P, he appealed to my second stomach, but to no avail! Then, with a stroke of genius, he appealed to Finlaggan’s Mama1: Fin, purveyor of all things starchy, might just fancy waffles for his Sunday breakfast. Cogs churned, and so did butter. This crapskie Krups-kie that was taking up precious bakeware space might just have a reprieve. But a little more reading and researching of electric waffle techniques was needed to prevent Fin’s First Waffle from being an abject failure. The interwebs to the rescue!

I’ve lost the original link now, but a review of a different electric waffle maker on Amazon2 had a few really useful tips. And P added a few from his none-too-successful relationship with Krups-kie.

  • Oil, oil, oil. Grease every micrometer of the waffle maker with olive oil or butter3.
  • Heat, heat, heat. Always allow the waffle maker to reach its optimum temperature before adding the batter. It may ping or a light may come on or go off. In the case of our Krups-kie, the green light comes on while it’s heating, and goes off when it’s ready. Counter-intuitive, no?
  • Pour, pour, and spread. P’s top tip is to make sure all the studs are covered. Our Krups-kie takes ~ 1/2 cup of batter per waffle. I would measure it, but P wings it and the whole thing floods out, leading to much cleaning with towels and toothpicks.
  • Patience, patience, patience, but don’t let it burn! This bit is trickier. For a given recipe, leave the waffle maker closed tight until the recommended time (unless the waffle is burning; use your nose). Leave it closed if it’s still steaming. Check every minute until you have a golden brown waffle. But leave it too long and it will dry out or burn. Remember the time for your first, failed attempt at perfection. Try and try again with variations until perfection occurs. WRITE THE TIME AND CONDITIONS DOWN IF YOU DON’T WANT A DIVORCE.
  • Try, try and try again. Especially if it’s detailed in your pre-nup.

Pouring the batter
Krups-kie’s fight for survival.

P1060269.JPG
Krups-kie trying his best.

After a lot of faffing… Actually, no. Despite our inherent distrust of Krups-kie, he delivered on first go.

P1060258.JPG
Ugly, but just right. But what says Finlaggan, judge of all things starchy?

hi Waffle!
He likes it! He really likes it!

Good old Krups-kie now sits with pride on the dining table4.

1 aka me.

2 All hail the mighty Amazon. Or if you’re an independent bookstore: All despise the soon-to-be monopoly.

3 Choose your oil with care. Some oils break down into all sorts of nasty free radicals with heat. I’m sticking to olive oil or butter (saturated fat) for heating until I can find the enthusiasm to do the research.

4 That may have more to do with my refusal to stick his big box back in the baking drawer than to do with his new golden-boy status.

Baby goes to San Diego

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It’s been over a year since Finlaggan added some spice to our lives. Too much spice to do much other than upload occasional photos to Flickr. And since I’m work-avoiding, I’ll start an irregular series of posts of old photos that we dumped unceremoniously on Flickr1.

First up, Finlaggan’s first vacation! To San Diego! Just 2 hours down the 405! With an excess of exclamation marks!

Day 52
All dressed up to go to San Diego! Cute octopus suit from Aunty C/Uncle V. Being the cheapskates that we are, we hadn’t gotten Fin many nice clothes for the early months since, as all parents know, they get covered in spit-up, pee and poop. But one nice suit per size range means the kid gets to look cute in some of his photos.

Day 55
First outdoor push-up! His real first push-up was probably at home or in the insalubrious location of my office. It’s only been a year, but that memory has already been pruned away by my highly efficient hippocampal-cortical roomba.

Day 53
Napping by the lotus-less pond. This baby wrap was by far my favourite way to carry young Finlaggan. It can apparently be used even now, but I can’t bring myself to try it. He’s heavy!

Spikey
First taste of modern art sculptures! I’d decided that Fin was going to love modern art, circa Continue reading →

Spring picnic

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In keeping with our resolution no. 1, we had our third monthly party of 2012: a spring-time picnic. There’s a nice park on Pico and Virginia Ave in Santa Monica1 with two, yes two, playgrounds: one for toddlers and one for older, more agile/boisterous kids. And we like going on a Saturday morning when there’s a Farmers Market with the all-important coffee and croissant stall2.

So it was a no-brainer to gather some mates for bread and pickings on the grass on a perfect spring-time afternoon3. Fin enjoyed getting his mucky paws in all the food, and we had a nice time sunning ourselves and shooting the breeze.

Guarding the baguette:

Fin and baguette

Peeking over the playground wall:

P1060461.JPG

Even managed to take Fin for a spin on my new (second-hand) bike4.

New bike

1 There are many nice parks in Santa Monica. Los Angeles, the city, could try a little harder to meet the pretty high bar set by SaMo.

2 So sorry, Sunday West LA FM! I still love you the most, but Virginia Ave has a playground!

3 Thunderstorms were forecast for the following day. Yep, thunderstorms in desert-land LA. On the same weekend that Scotland had their 20+C heat wave.

4 We hardly ever drive to the park; it somewhat defeats the purpose of going to a local park, you see. So we walk. But this is how our best intentions can screw us over sometimes: we thought we’d bike to the park and save ourselves aching backs from Ergo-ing the now quite heavy baby. In the end, I cycled, and P took the car… to get an inner tube without a dang hole in it!

Le Premiere Anniversaire de Finlaggan

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Finlaggan is one1!

On the first anniversary of his birth2, we had some train cake and lots of singing of Happy Birthday over Skype with first his GrandDad in Scotland, then PoPo and GongGong in Singapore. Kid’s growing up thinking his grandparents live in the laptop.

1

To celebrate, we had a big bash with beach balls, butterfly cakes and balloons on the beach3.

ooh...

As with all outdoor parties, especially in February, it could have been a wash-out. The day started cold and gray. There was a lone baby in red playing in the sand on his own. The party guests were nowhere in sight. At one point, a little girl and her mother came by to check out our balloons and chat, and I very nearly invited complete strangers4 to Fin’s birthday because I thought no one would show5.

Lonely baby chasing a helicopter:

Chasing the helicopter

wind blown balloons

But the sun came out, our friends came (we all live on LA time or have kids; same effect), and we had a great time doing birthday-y, beachy and nerdy things together!

Like body-writing SCN6, the coolest, most important 20,000 cells of the hypothalamus:

S C N

Scavenging scraps of empanada crusts7:

Playing with ribbons:

i see ribbons!

Scrutinising birthday cards:

P1060003.JPG

Sometimes we feel really guilty for having Fin so far away from his grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. But to make up for it, we have wonderful friends and colleagues in LA who act as substitute aunts and uncles, and their fabulous children are great playmates for Fin.

Guess home is where you make it!


Fin and nerd, photo by friend of nerd.

1 Well, he turned one in Feb, but I’m a slow blogger. Posts from 2008-2011 are still waiting to see light of day. Even glaciers move faster.

2 Henceforth referred to as birthday in keeping with convention even though it doesn’t make any sense to me since a birth-day can only happen once and thank bloody goodness for that!

3 And this constitutes our second monthly party of 2012 (see resolution no. 1).

4 They weren’t strictly strangers anymore since we chatted for a bit. They were also most likely the smartest dressed folk I’ve ever seen on Venice Beach. I wished afterwards that I had asked them to stay for some cake if only to up our style quotient.

5 I wonder if Fin’s mother has deep-seated insecurities about being the class nerd whose birthday party was always under-subscribed compared to the cool kids, possibly because it was always during winter break. But her real friends always showed up, so everything worked out a-ok.

6 SCN, short for suprachiasmatic nucleus. My friends and I are nerds by profession. This is considered fun for us.

7 Baby is turning out just like his parents: human trash cans, the two of them!

Fin working out in my office

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Day 50, originally uploaded by framboise.

This time last year, P and I were scrambling to get his poster made for a conference in San Diego. We piled Fin and all his baggage into the car and drove down for a long weekend.

Since I was back at work by then, Fin and P came into the lab so that P could pop into his old lab and work. And Fin hung out with me in my office. Here he is, lying contently on my desk, between attempts at push-ups.

Via Flickr:
tired from doing too many baby push-ups on my desk

Noodles in Vancouver

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In honour of Noodle Month, here’s one of those foodie posts lurking in the depths of my drafts folder1.

Let’s imagine you’ve just arrived in Vancouver and hosteled yourself in your new (fancy-pants) accommodations. What’s the first thing you do? Unpack? Freshen up with a post-flight shower? Take a power nap? For my family, the first task at hand is always to find somewhere to eat! And there we ran into our first dilemma of the trip: WHERE to eat?! A check of the usual foodie websites did little to help our decision; everyone had nothing but nice things to say about everywhere within a 1 mile rambling radius of our fancy-pants digs (Coal Harbour/Downtown area).

And that is how we ended up at Sanpachi Ramen, just across the road on Bute St. Yes, we travelled 3 hours from ramen-land LA2 to ramen-land Vancouver

Sanpachi Ramen, Coal Harbour

The broth was good, the noodles firm, and the char siew tender; a good pass on all the critical components of ramen.

And thanks to my foodie-cousin3, we had an excellent tour of the Hong Kong food in Richmond, BC, where we had the best wonton mein I’ve had in years4!

Wanton shuigao mein at McNoodle House, Richmond

Perfectly al dente noodles with that characteristic bite and colour of lye noodles, with bite-sized meaty suigao and super-slippery wonton that can’t be eaten without some slurpage.

Vancouverites certainly know their noodles!

More photos of our too-short stay in Vancouver over on Flickr.

1 That is a total, 100%, complete falsification. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as noodle month; I’m just tired of having all these drafts cluttering up my dashboard. This is what we call in my lab: hypothesis after data.

2 We live pretty close to the Sawtelle Japanville cluster, and have a choice of 4 great, cheap ramen joints. Yeah, someday I may even share the addresses.

3 Who I now know reads this infrequent weblog, and must give top props to for being the ultimate, awesom-est Vancouver host-est with the most-est.

4 Gratuitous baby photo at McNoodle House, Richmond, BC.

Playground etiquette

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There are no doubt written and unwritten rules about hogging playground equipment1. But sometimes, I don’t give a hoot and hog2 the slide anyway because this is my view from the bottom:

Baby loves the slide!

1 Sometimes, I think parenthood is like a bloody high school clique and that the uninitiated are left out in the cold, far reaches of the playground, waiting patiently, futilely, to use the baby swings. Reading several etiquette guides nearly put me off going to a playground.

2 Because this is the interwebs and because there are many folks with strong opinions out there waiting to pounce on those of us in clear need of guidance, here’s the “sitch”: we went down the slide < 5 times, and shared nicely with the other toddler who was also in the mood for sliding. So there. We hogged the slide together.