The Little Swimmer

At 6 months old, Nathan was a great water-baby. He loved it. 8 months and not a lot of practice later, Nathan's brain became big enough to realize that water can be dangerous, and he has become a little skittish of being in it.

This weekend, Alex and I spent a bunch of time with him in the pool at UCSF and at La Petite Baleen and I'm happy to report that, at least for today, he seems much more comfortable in the water again!

Suffice to say that Alex and I will endeavor to be more consistent with Nathan and water so we don't lose all the progress he's made!

Blah blah blah

This morning has been full of fun... Nathan was wanting to eat some confiture ("tshure") and so I told him, "say 'je t'aime maman' and I think you'll get some."

So he immediately said, "t'aime maman."

Alex melted and of course Nathan got his bread with confiture.

I wanted in on this action, so I said "Nathan -- say 'Papa is awesome!'"

He replied, "blah blah blah?"

Googoo! Teur de papa!

This morning I was sitting down to blog an entry about something cute that Nathan did (awwwwwww) and I pulled up Google to get to my blogspot account.

Nathan immediately pointed at the Google logo and said, "Googoo ..... teur de Papa" (ordinateur = computer in French).

Like his Papa, Nathan is a real "Google guy!"

S'assoir

Nathan's most recent favorite word is "s'assoir," which in French means "sit down." When he says it, it normally comes out sounding more like "shaaashua" but we can definitely tell what he means.

This evening at dinner, he used it to make sure Alex and I understood that he wanted his "nounou" to "shaaashua" next to him at the table.

He tried feeding him a few tortellini, but apparently his nounou wasn't hungry, no matter how many times Nathan insisted ("Nummy nummy?").

Tonight at dinner was also the first time Nathan said "please." Alex was drinking a glass of ice water, so Nathan said "glacon" ("ice" in French). Alex gave him a piece of ice and he was in heaven! ("Hot. C'est chaud! C'est froid.")

I told him, "Say please, Nathan." He looked at me a little bit, and then asked his mom for another glacon, and added "please" at the end.

Tea and Nathan

Our friend Ana across the street captured an awesome video of their daughter and Nathan. Looks like they like each other... we'll need to keep an eye on these two!

Before you watch... A little background which will make this even cuter: In the beginning, Tea actually tries to say Nathan's name and it comes out sounding like "Neeenya." Nathan responds to this by agreeing that yes, Tea is a "nina" (girl, in spanish). Over and over and over again.

Picnic at Paradise Beach

Belinda (and Steve, and Eva) organized a picnic for our whole crew at Paradise Beach park this weekend. The friends, food, and location was fantastic! And the kids, who last year were much easier to handle, had a lot of fun running around and playing in the dirt!

Donnnnne!!

When Nathan wants something (like the camera, in this case), he doesn't mess around.

"DONNNNNNE!"

Safari West

Nathan, Alex and I went on a Safari (in Santa Rosa, California). The weather helped to make it seem VERY authentic -- 100F at the park, and up to 105F on the roads on the way home.

Even though it was hot, Nathan had a fantastic time looking at the animals and running around, sticking his fingers in every pile of dirt he could possibly find.

Zen and the art of hitchhiking

It was a gorgeous day down on the peninsula today when I left for my commute home. I had the windows rolled down, the music turned up, and there was no one on the road so I was able to go "the speed limit."

Suddenly, a bee got caught up in my airflow, smacked into the b-pillar, and landed on my lap. I was a little panicked at first, but realized that the bee was probably just as confused and surprised as I was. As long as I didn't do anything stupid, no one was likely to get hurt.

I immediately begin to think of ways to get the bee out of the car, but based on my current speed, I decided that it would be very difficult to pull off without a) pissing off the bee, b) squishing the bee and making a mess or c) driving my car into the median.

I didn't want to kill the bee. And I didn't want to get stung. And I certainly didn't want to make a mess in or OF my car. So... I decided to wait. The whole "smacking into the b-pillar" ordeal must have really taken its toll on him, as the bee was quietly hanging out on my leg for about 30 minutes. He occassionally would make a few tired steps, or "clean" his antennae or hind legs as if to say, "yeah, I meant to do that."

As I was driving north, further and further away from where I had bee-friended this little guy, I couldn't help but think that even though I hadn't killed him in my car by smashing him with a book or a shoe or the like, the fact that he would be 30 miles away from his hive would surely cause him some duress. That made me a little sad...

...but I got over it. When I got up to the entrance to 19th street, I finally was able to slow down enough to where I could safely open up my driver-side door and "flick" my little friend out of the car, to the safety of the cold hard concrete, upon which other motorists were happily traversing.

"Bee free, little friend!"

Martha visits

Last night, Maria... tonight: Martha... we're a very "M"-visitor-enabled-household chez nous, recently. Nathan loves it - what's not to like about women coming to the house and thinking "you're all that."

We met Martha 6 years ago when we were all on our honeymoons and have kept in touch with pictures, emails, and cards over the years... she was in town for a conference, and made the effort to stop by! She has 3 boys of her own, so she and Nathan hit it off right away.

It was great seeing her, and we hope to make a habit out of seeing each other!

(p.s. Martha is also a self-proclaimed "avid reader" of our blog! I was wondering who was making our page view stats go all kablooey!?)

Maria visits

Our friend Maria visited us again on a spur-of-the-moment-type-trip-from-Taiwan (you know how THAT goes). She spent 13 hours on an airplane, landed, checked into her hotel, and came directly over to our house for a nibble and some wine. She was then going to meet up with some friends to have a few drinks with them.

Alex and I were tired just thinking about it.

She and Nathan saw eye-to-eye, though, and Nathan couldn't stop saying "mee-a, mee-a" (which we found out was Maria's nickname ("Mia") when she was much younger)

Geee-ma gets a little sugar

My mom travelled for two weeks this summer visiting my sister and I for a week each. While she was here, she had a tremendous amount of fun with Nathan (and vice-versa!)



Here she is getting a little sugar from the little munchkin. He obviously wasn't enjoying himself...

More comfy comfy sleepy sleepy

The iPhone - and why I love Apple customer services and CraigsList

As many of you know, Alex has recently been converted to the cult of the Blackberry. Hers is red, so it's really more of a Raspberry. While she loves her iPhone, we both appreciate the fact that BMC pays for her entire Blackberry bill. So, about a week ago we decided to sell the iPhone.

However, the faceplate was damaged -- a hairline crack from the top-right to the bottom-left of the device. It happened when she took it out of her purse -- just around the time she got her new Blackberry. Those that know her know she's a bit of a maniac about keeping things "new looking" so it isn't something she did, and that it was probably more a design flaw than negligence.


All that being said, we still figured we were out of luck... no way the folks at Apple would replace it for free, and I didn't want to spend money fixing something just to sell. So, we decided we'd try to sell a scratched iPhone. That'll take the wind out of your sales (pun intended)...


Yesterday, while trying to deactivate the iPhone with AT&T in preparation for our sale, I mentioned the scratch to the AT&T tech support person. He said I shouldn't get my hopes up, but that he thought they might replace the unit for me. He transferred me over to the Apple support hotline and we made an appointment at the Genius Bar at the Apple store on Chestnut street for them to take a closer look.


Today, Alex, Nathan and I took her "previously loved" iPhone to the Apple store and waited patiently (10 minutes -- we showed up early?) for our turn with a Genius. Nathan liked the waiting part quite a bit, as he was able to touch the fancy Mac keyboards without anyone telling him "no no no!"


When it was finally our turn, our Genius took one look at our iPhone and said, "yeah, we can swap that unit out for you. Have you backed up all your stuff?"


My jaw dropped. I was stunned. And thrilled.

"Er, yeah... we wiped it out yesterday."


"Great," he said as he picked up our iPhone and put it into the now-empty box where the replacement unit had been. "Give me a second while I activate your new phone. What's your phone number?"


I gave him our number. And then, in less time than it took us to wait for a Genius to become available, we had a brand new iPhone in hand, and were on our way to lunch.


We ate lunch, triumphant.


And this effort actually translated into a VERY quick sale -- A little later, Alex posted the iPhone to CraigsList and within 1 hour someone from Daly City was standing outside our front door with cash in hand!


Three cheers for Apple Customer Care, three cheers for CraigsList, and three cheers for bargain-hunting Apple iPhone lovers (thank goodness they hadn't read that the new iPhones, likely being released tomorrow, will be twice as fast and have subsidized prices!!)

Comfy comfy sleepy sleepy!

Agua, aqui!

Tonight in the bath Nathan was pouring water out of a bottle on my hands or in a little plastic tub he plays with. I would say, "pour the agua aqui" and glugluglug there it went!

On a lark, I pointed at the top of his head (I'd tried this before, and it didn't work) and said "agua, aqui?" and this time he slowly raised the full bottle over his head, and dumped it all over himself.

He was quite happy with himself.

(video example from a few nights later while taking a bath with Mami)