Hangin with Mia & Mikyle

Today was fun - we caught up with Mia & Mikyle and spent lots of time with Jacque, too! I snapped some cute pics, which I've posted below with captions. I swear you can just read their little minds sometimes. I can't wait 'til they can talk!

Hey, little lady - whatcha got there?Wait, Mia can have one but I can't?Don't worry, Nick - I'll share mine with ya!First though, I'm gonna slap ya on the head for no particular reason. Ha! Gotcha!Uh oh ... I made you cry! Sorry!But I do like his hat. It suits me, no? Okay, I feel better. The cracker lady gave it up. And Mia got tired, too - she passed out on her mom, wearing my hat of course.Look! In the end I got to take the whole box of crackers just for myself!

When food is love

I'm Greek, so I know a thing or two about eating. In fact, I've never been a skinny-minny because I love food. I love eating out, but I also love dining in. What I've realized since having Nick is that 1) home-cooked food makes babies (and hubbies) happy, and 2) I am like my mom in that I have an arsenal of five things I make really well, and I tend to rotate those recipes, most of which are hers. What are my five, you ask? Lasagne, chicken enchiladas, Greek chicken and rice, chicken and dumplings, and Nick's favorite, chicken stew which is pretty much the same base as chicken and dumplings with a variation on the starch. I just realized that all my specialities are composed of one meat and starch or another. Hmmm ... no Atkins dieting around here, I guarantee!

I usually cook for him once a week, a big enough portion to last until Wednesday or Thursday by which time he is tired of whatever I've made (unless it's lasagne - there is so tiring of lasagne he told me). So yesterday I made chicken stew with his favorite wide egg noodles. He is learning to eat with a spoon though he really just plays with the spoon while I feed him or cut up pieces he can pick up himself. Here are snaps from yesterday's lunch. He loves picking up the egg noodles out of the bowl with his hands and slurping them up.

Cleaning the aftermath is so much fun.



Oh, and yes his shirt does say My Mom Rules, 'cause I do.

Cat Bongo

He loves it, she hates it. I'm sure in her cat dreams she fantasizes about the peaceful days before Nick arrived on the scene. Poor Wee.

Sierra's 1st birthday party

Was so much fun! Here are pics with captions.

Ooooh ... we're at a park with lots of grass and concrete I can run on? I'm outta here ...Sierra loves her daddy!Wasn't her cake beautiful?I'm all about a good piece of cake ... and this one was delicious!Sierra's mommy is so nice.Mama says I'm a flirty birdie.I just like pretty girls! And Sierra is especially sweet ... can she come home with us?Yeah, she gave me her number...We had so much fun.And Sierra got so many goodies. It was fun to share her special day!All that fun really wore me out, though; I fell asleep the minute mom and dad drove away.

Justification

I can't resist a pretty orchid. I just can't. For some people the weakness is shoes (ahem, you know who you are), for others it's jewelry (and I'm there, too) but for me, it's all about orchids. I pretty much stick to one kind, phalaenopsis, but this dendrobium nobile almost reached out and bit me yesterday when I went to Trader Joe's! It's called "Kahala Sunset" and I'm telling you, it's a little slice of magic.
Be honest now, you would have bought it too, right? If my husband asks, I'm just going to say, "Oops! It fell into my cart and what was I going to do, leave it there?"

Hat, shmat

I know you say it makes me look handsome, but ...I think it makes me look like a girl.

Farewell to Month 14

Nick turned 14 months old today, May 31. Tomorrow starts the first day of his 15th month of life. So what milestones did month 14 hold?

1) Mastery of the Sippy Cup (and the end of my search for the perfect leak-proof SC, as well).2) Ability to walk steadily on his own as long as he wants. We are getting him used to walking in his Robeez, which is taking some practice. He just prefers to walk barefoot.
3) Distinct speech in the form of of "mama" and "dada" said to the appropriate people (not all the time, but sometimes) and mastery of some sign language, including the sign for "more".
4) Addition of some dance steps to his walking routine (mostly in the form of bending at the knees and bouncing up and down).
5) Replacement of his Snugride carseat with a super-plush Britax Decathlon that he loves, not only because it's soft and comfy but because he's now facing forward! So much to see!
6) A new skill acquired just two days ago - if you raise your arms up, he'll raise his too. It's pretty cute. I have fun making him do it over and over and over.

Today we celebrated the end of this month by having lunch at Estancia in La Jolla. Nick loved the goat cheese appetizer we ordered and shared my brie-coated hamburger with me. Gone are the days of babyfood, I tell you. If I even show him a jar of baby food he starts crying. He's a big boy now. He washed his burger and goat cheese down with apple juice and was as happy as one little man can be. We let him roam the grounds, under close supervision of course, and stretch his walking legs. It was such a beautiful day, and a wonderful way to welcome this next new month of his life.

Why is it so hard to follow your own advice?

I'm really good at giving advice (like really, really good). I try only to give it when it's asked for. But when you ask, I give and I tend to be right a lot of the time. For the life of me, though, I cannot give myself advice (or follow the advice I give others).

Someone a long time ago gave me really GREAT advice that I find hard to live by. She told me, "If you want something, imagine it, and then claim it for yourself." In other words, work toward your goal as if it's already in place. I guess I should qualify this by saying I've claimed many things when they come to my work. I always imagine where I want to be professionally and poof, I somehow end up right there. In my personal life I'm not so gutsy.

That's because if I were to imagine what I want for myself and claim it, a lot would change. When I claim my work goals, that's just about me. In my personal life there's my family and people I care about whose lives are impacted by my wishes as well.

What has happened lately is that I'm not staking my claim in my life, but at night when I dream that's all I do - see visions of this life I'm desiring in all its glory without any sacrifices. I find myself looking forward to bedtime lately. This morning, for example, I fought so hard to stay in my dream.

Anyway, that's where I'm at for today. Oh and trying to get well, too.

We're sick :0(

Down for the count, the lot of us.

Check out this morning's glassy-eyed stare:
The only thing that made him smile at all was playing with Bella, who humored him generously.
Be back soon.

Professor of the Year!

I am so excited. At the annual Graduate Luncheon today I was honored as Faculty Member of the Year. This award is given by the students, so it's particularly special to me. However I must say that winning came as a big surprise because I was on leave for half of this academic year! It's nice to know that my work was recognized even in my absence.

There was also a staff award and a number of student awards. We were seated with the dean and VP of student services at a table right up front.
Each awardee was called up and comments from those who nominated them for their award were read to the audience. I was so flattered by what students had written about me, that I boosted their confidence in their abilities, that they felt I was available and accessible to them, and that I had pushed them to reach their full potential.
Here are some other pics from the day: Me with my dean, Paula Cordeiro. And me with my colleague and friend Laura Stein who won the Staff of the Year award. This was a day I won't soon forget and I am so grateful to my students for giving me this incredible award. Thank you, thank you!

Meditation on teaching

Every semester I say that I am not going to assign final papers so I don't have to spend two weeks doing nothing but reading and commenting and grading and agonizing, especially now that I have a baby for goodness sake.

And yet I did assign big papers to both classes and here I am, reading and commenting and grading and not resting like I should.

But beyond the sheer drudgery of it all, I wonder if organizing a class this way really maximizes what people learn.

So I am thinking about changing the way I structure assignments in the fall. The university doesn't mandate anything about how we design our courses so I have a lot of freedom. Just because I always had to write final seminar papers doesn't mean my students have to; I didn't learn a great deal from writing mine, and when I read their words I sometimes feel like there's nothing behind them. Like they banged these things out the night before just to get done.

Not to learn. And I entered this profession to make people think.

I have a few months to think about all of this before the next round of syllabi need to be finished. If you taught master's and doctoral students, what kind of assignments would you give them?

"Nicholas, you gotta shake, shake & bounce!"

Nick started music class last week and man oh man, does he love it. My friend Malu and her son Ben, who is 18 months old, have been going for a while and invited us to join them. I'm so glad we did! The teachers have (between them) dozens of years of public school music teaching experience and it shows; they were so good with the kids, very patient and kind. Nick is normally pretty gun-shy in new environments, slow to warm up and get in the mix. But not this time! He was jumping out of my lap, going and touching the other kids and playing with the toys he was given. My favorite part was that he really liked the teachers and listened to them. It was the first glimpse I've had as a mom of what his school days will be like.

At one point they were dancing to a song that said "shake and bounce" and Nick was just standing there, so one of them said, "Now Nicholas, you gotta shake and bounce!" and he did! He started bending his knees to the rhythm and I swear, it was the cutest thing I've ever seen. He does it now at home, too, especially if I "dance" (meaning bend at my knees to the rhythm) with him.

How he went from taking his first steps to dancing in just a matter of weeks, though, I do not know!

Five on Friday

The "Things I'm happy about this week" edition!

1. It's almost summer! And that gloomy weather we had for about a week is gone ...
2. I have a beautiful new LG steam washer and dryer set that was ridiculously expensive but actually makes doing laundry almost painless. It even steam washes and dries dress shirts so our dry-cleaning bill is about to drop significantly! (Author's note: I am officially old for being so happy about appliances.)3. I bought Nick a pair of camo-colored mock Crocs this week and I think they are super cute.4. Speaking of Mr. Pickles, he took a tumble on Wed. that landed us in the ER for 2 hours. He tripped and fell forward onto the edge of a chair while Dave and I were both watching him. We were so scared because he actually had an indentation in his head! But by the time we got to the ER it was gone, he was in a giggly-good mood, and he had no swelling or other signs of trouble. He has been a little fussy since then, mostly tired I think, and though he looks downright miserable in this picture I'm posting it so you can see that there's almost no bruise!5. I finally got some pictures framed this week. See? Now, where to put them ...

Hope your weekend is warm and wonderful.

Love, Happiness & Chit Chat

Just today, in time for Mother's Day, he has started talking. Okay, so it's more like yelling and it's technically not English. I'm sure it makes a lot of sense to him, whatever he's saying. I try to dialogue with him, like, "Really Nick? And then what happened?" Here's a sample interchange:

Nick: "Dar woo wee gee! Ma goo ma gaaa!!"
Me: "Okay buddy, I'm doing the best I can."
Nick: "See gee waga! Me wa do boo."
Me: "I agree, Bella is the most beautiful dog in the world."

He did say "duck" today, twice, really loudly. I asked Dave, "Does that count as his first word?" Dave said, "No, he has to say it a lot before it's an official first word." As if we know.