family, woodworking, photography, K-pop
My sister Jan had her baby on Sunday! The delivery went smoothly and both Jan and baby are doing well. Little P weighed 6 lbs, 12 oz and was 18 inches long. He is breathtakingly perfect and adorable. (What’s that? You hear a strange sound? That’s just my ovaries squealing in envy–never mind them.)
I am going to spoil this kid rotten.E had a great birthday yesterday. My sister-in-law Miranda and I took the kids up to Discovery Gateway, a children’s museum in Salt Lake. They loved it. There was lots for them to do and explore.
L and E in a fire engine conveniently built with two steering wheels.
E and L at a construction play site.
Clambering around in a defunct Life Flight helicopter than was donated to the museum.
A, Miranda’s daughter, was a trooper while we were there.After we got home I baked E some dairy-free, egg-free cupcakes from a mix by Cherrybrook Kitchen and then E and I went to the store to buy him some balloons (still one of his very favorite things). When N got home from work we had dinner and then cupcakes and presents.
The cupcake (and frosting) was well-received.
We gave E a Yo Gabba Gabba themed toy guitar. (He keeps unwinding the strings on his ukulele so we thought he’d do better with a string-less toy.)
And this toy car. Both were big hits.E had a great day. He learned the word “birthday” and kept shouting it in excitement. It was a lot of fun.
My sister-in-law Miranda asked me to take a few photos of her son L to commemorate him at two years old. L’s a real cutie and it was fun to take his photo. L is two months older than E (E’s birthday is next week) and it’s always fun to see the two of them together.
Unfortunately E’s been having bouts of separation anxiety lately and he really freaked out when Miranda held him out of the way while I was taking L’s picture. He thought I was trying to dump him off for babysitting.
Miranda, unlike me, is a great seamstress. While we were at her house she presented E with his birthday present: a stylish three-quarter length coat she had sewn herself.
Unfortunately even receiving such a great a gift did not do much to assuage E’s abandonment fears.
But eventually time did. After a while E figured out I wasn’t going to go anywhere and relaxed enough to play with L. The two of them looked very dashing together in their coats.
Dear E,
Watching you grow continues be alternately fascinating, exasperating, and adorable. And at times it’s all three at once. Sometimes I’m struck by the smallness of you, by how little and defenseless you still are and I feel a surge of mama lion protectiveness and just want to hold you close. And at other times I look into your defiant eyes as you’re glaring at me for not giving you whatever it is that you want and it’s as through the years have already streamed by and you’re sixteen and mad at me for not letting you borrow the car.
But fortunately you’re still mostly adorable. Your love affair with the moon continued this month. You still insist that any round object depicted in the sky is the moon, even if it’s daytime and there are cheerful yellow lines radiating from it. N and I realized the other day that since you go to bed at seven and the summer days were so long that you had actually never seen the moon in person. So when we were driving home the other night and saw a big harvest moon we pulled the car over and got you out of your seat and held you up to the sky. “Look, it’s the moon!” we said and pointed you at the sky. You squealed in excitement and shouted “moon!” and as soon as we set you down you ran down the sidewalk trying to catch the moon. You were so excited that you didn’t look back even once.
This last month my mother went to Korea for a month to visit relatives and so while she was gone your Uncle Steven came to stay with us for a few weeks. At first you were apprehensive about having a house guest; I think you thought we were going to leave you with him for babysitting. But once it became apparent that we weren’t going anywhere you quickly warmed up to him, offering him your hand when we were out walking around and giggling when he would plant a kiss on the top of your head. The three of us went to quite a few places together: the state fair, the aquarium, the dinosaur museum, and to the canyons for a train ride through the mountains.
While Steven was here I would get flashes of déjà vu now and then. Because he has special needs and both my parents worked when I was a teenager I often cooked meals for the two of us and shuttled him around in my car and it was at once strange and familiar to be doing these things again after so long away from them.
I didn’t realize it until just now but helping to look after my brother helped prepare me to be a mother in several ways. It taught me how to be comfortable and patience interacting with someone who can’t communicate back as fully as I can. It also taught me what it’s like to be loved with a love so guileless and pure that there simply isn’t any reproach between you–except maybe for the small one you sometimes feel that you aren’t quite the person they already think you are.
Love like this propels me forward into becoming whom I want to be.
Love,
Mama
Both E and my brother Steven love trains. So last week we drove up the canyon to Heber City and we took a ride on the Heber Valley Railroad. There were two trips to choose from: a 3-hour trip and 90-minute trip. We went on the 90-minute trip and it turned out to be just the right length. The ride was a lot of fun. You could sit in the open cars or in the old passenger cars. We switched between the two.
Chugging along next to a reservoir.
E and his Uncle Steven.
E liked climbing around on the benches.
The wind gives E a stylin’ do.
The fall foliage in the canyon was a nice bonus. It was breathtaking.The only downside to the trip was that E got carsick on the drive back home through the canyon and threw up a couple of times. It put a bit of a damper on things. But overall it was a really nice outing.
If you’re local and have avid train fans in your family I think it’s worth going once. The train rides are fairly pricey ($24 for 90 minutes, $30 for 3 hours), but kids under 3 are free which helps. I don’t think we’ll be going again anytime soon but I’m glad we went this time.
Foliage in the canyons, taken earlier this week.I love fall and October in particular. Besides Halloween, a holiday that legitimizes buying 5 lb bags of candy and dressing toddlers in cute costumes even against their will, October also includes my birthday (*cough*next week!*cough*) and my church‘s semi-annual worldwide conference. Here in Utah the conference is televised and curling up on the couch listening to the inspiring talks always leaves me refreshed and recommitted to be better person.
It’s been a crazy-but-fun two weeks shuttling Steven and E around to various attractions but I’m a bit wiped out now. Steven flies home today and after I get back from the airport I might try and catch a nap–either that or get started on the huge laundry pileup I’ve been neglecting. How funny is it that I’m looking forward to doing laundry all day tomorrow while watching conference? It probably has something to do with the fact that I’m wearing yesterday’s socks again today. (Too much info? –probably.)
Anyway, I hope you have a great weekend (and an abundance of clean socks)!
Last night was the second week of woodworking. I didn’t post about week 1 yet so I thought I’d post pictures from both weeks today. I hadn’t quite figured out how to fix my jewelry boxes so for the first two weeks I worked on cutting boards.
The lumber: (from left to right) walnut, cherry, and maple.
I cut the wood into strips of varying widths.
And glued the strips together.
Then last night I sanded the panel smooth and then cut it into strips.
I flipped every other strip around (to make the pattern) and then glued them all together.
These cutting boards are kind of addictive. There’s a lot of saw work and sanding involved but I think they’re really fun to make. I had some leftover wood and so I started another one.
Steven tagged along with me to class the last two weeks. I thought he might be bored but he wanted to go again last night so it must have been kind of fun for him.My older brother Steven has some developmental disabilities and consequently lives with my parents. Last week my mom went to Korea to visit relatives and so Steven came to stay with us for a few weeks while she’s away.
On Saturday I took E and Steven to the state fair (fortunately one without an insane escaped killer on the loose). We rode some rides, walked through the midway, and petted the livestock. E loves rides and went nuts when we rode the ferris wheel and carousel. The weather was quite hot so after a while he kind of wilted, but overall he had a lot of fun.
The beach condo my family stayed out was on the Olympic peninsula and about 10 minutes away from the small town of Sequim. It’s a great little town. Because it’s in the rainshadow of the mountains it receives a lot less rain that the surrounding areas. The climate is great for growing things, especially lavender.
While we were in Sequim we stopped by Graysmarsh Farm to pick some raspberries and buy some lavender. E had a fun time roaming up and down and rows and eating handfuls of raspberries.
E examines the raspberries.
When he got bored with the berries he entertained himself with some of the handy sticks lying around.
Everyone enjoyed feeding E berries and he was more than happy to keep eating and eating and eating them.
I had never seen such huge raspberries before. They were incredible.
We ended up with two big buckets of berries. We ate one of them and then froze the rest.
By the time we were finished everyone was tired and E was tired AND grimy. But everyone had had a good time.
E and I arrived home yesterday and we were both super happy to see N after being separated for about a week. I guess that after our horrid flight to Seattle where we sat on the tarmac for an hour (half an hour at both ends!) I was due for a dose of good flight karma because yesterday E fell asleep on my lap as soon as we took off and he didn’t wake up until the landing gear hit the ground. It was amazing because E never sleeps when someone’s holding him.
The only unpleasant part of the flight were the grumpy old people sitting behind me that started loudly complaining about having to sit behind a baby as soon E and I sat down. Things like, “Oh great, we have to sit by a screaming baby” (E was not screaming) and “this is going to be miserable” were said repeatedly AND loudly. Did they not think that I would be doing everything in my power to keep E quiet? I didn’t want to bother anyone. I was stressed out as it was. Sitting in front of them was already making me ten times more nervous than I would be otherwise because they were chomping at the bit to be critical. And the flight hadn’t even started yet!
My sister Jan was actually on the same flight but we had been unable to get seats together. But I was able to switch seats with someone and sit next to her. I normally never do this sort of thing, but as I was changing seats I looked the old people in the eye and said, “Don’t worry, we’re moving so we won’t be inconveniencing you.” They looked a little stunned for a second (maybe they didn’t realize how loudly they had been speaking?) but then they started congratulating themselves on their good fortune–while I was still standing right there. Argh!
Okay, now that I’ve vented about the mean old people I’m ready to move on. *Exhale* All and all, it was a wonderful trip. Besides spending time with family my favorite part of the trip was the food–the food was GLORIOUS.
Photos and details tomorrow!