Under-age customers!

The most stupid thing happened to us today. I was supposed to go meet people from my company at O'Neil's Irish Pub by the ATT Arena to introduce them to Nathan. After one hour of packed public transportation -- that's what happens on baseball game days -- I arrived at the pub with Nathan in the Bjorn. I entered by the door closest to the tables occupied by my company and started greeting everyone.
About 5 minutes later, a security guy comes up to me and tells me I can't stay there "because of their policy about under-age drinking". I look at him puzzled: who was he calling under-age? He then pointed at Nathan, so jokingly I answered that Nathan was not going to drink... Well, he was not joking so I did have to go outside. They even felt compelled to close the back door, probably by fear of having me or Nathan crawl back in to have a drink!
Is it possible to be so stupid as to take rules so literally that it would obstruct common sense? The answer is yes, because everyone knows how drunk those little 6-month old babies get... on milk!

We now welcome the first upper tooth!

On Friday night, Nathan woke up every 4 hours which had not happened in a long, long time. Then, same on Saturday... We then suspected that he was teething again. Well, sure enough, we got confirmation today as his first upper tooth (on the right) peeked in. At not even 6 months yet (4 days away), Nathan has 3 teeth!


Can you see it? Not really, hein.


Well, here are the bottom ones then...

BBQ with Téa

Ana are Téa finally came back from Croatia, so to celebrate their return, we had them over for a BBQ.

Picnic at Paradise Beach Park

Today, we had our much anticipated picnic with the Day One group at Paradise Beach Park in Marin. The original purpose of this get-together was for the dads to meet and share their fatherhood experience -- what, we, mothers, get to do weekly.

From left to right: Sam, my friend Zozo, Simon, baby Philippa, Michelle,

me, baby Nathan, Greg, baby Quinten, Connie, Belinda, baby Eva, Steve,

Bill, baby Sophia, Monica, Scott, baby Max, Janice, and Connie's mom.

The other special event of that day was that my friend Alex was in San Francisco for a business trip so she courageously joined us for the picnic. I say courageously because it can't be that fun to join a bunch of new parents and their babies, when you are single! Hopefully, it wasn't too scary.

Well, Nathan wasn't the happiest camper, which is pretty out of character. First, he didn't like to have to stop playing to pose for the baby spinwheel.

Then, he ended up swaddled in a new way and had to give up his "swaddle buster" title. And, finally, had to fend off pirate Eva who kept trying to jump into his Bjorn. So, it was a very busy day for little Nathan!

It was overall a great day and we hope we will get to do this again soon.

Roger Waters with Roger Horwitz

A good friend of mine from work was able to get us a pair of amazing seats for us to the Roger Waters concert in Oakland. I took the BART over from the city (ask me how f*cked up the ticket purchasing process is for both the BART and MUNI is if you want to get me riled up) and met Roger at the arena.

When I got there I was thirsty, and thought I'd be drinking warm beer but it turns out that right next to the beer guy was a fully stocked bar guy. So instead of an $8 crappy beer, I ordered an $8 mediocre scotch and made my way down to our seats.

The show was amazing. The first half they played early hits and a few of Waters' solo songs.

Just before the intermission I received an email on my blackberry. Now normally I wouldn't have been checking my blackberry during a concert, but I was waiting to hear back from a recruiter which I had been working with who was trying to secure me an employement offer from a startup that I was really interested in working at. The email indicated that an offer letter was attached, and that they were willing to accomodate the requests I had made in order to accept the position.

I was on cloud nine!

I went an ordered another scotch, and then enjoyed the remainder of the show -- the full DSOTM album, as well as a few songs from the Wall and again a few solo works from Waters' later career.

All in all a FANTASTIC evening. It was of course tinged with a bit of sadness as I knew that Roger Horwitz and I soon would not be working together any more...

Sam and Steve's excellent first Father's day adventure!

Lila, Deborah and Steve Hartog joined us for a barbecue in our backyard so Steve and I could celebrate our first fathers' day in style! The weather in the Sunset on Saturday was awful so we were very worried about trying to be outside on Sunday -- but luck was on our side and we had FANTASTIC weather. Nathan and Lila both had a nice time, and Steve and Sam appreciated the "it's father's day" clause when diapers needed to be changed.

Blackie's Pasture Walk

Last Friday's walk was in Marin, near Tiburon. It was a gorgeous day -- my shoulders and my back are still feeling the heat!

We walked all the way from Blackie's Pasture to a bit past downtown Belvedère, for a total of maybe 2-2 1/2 hours.

From left to right: Lauren with baby Shea, Monica with baby Sophia, me with baby Nathan, Belinda with baby Eva and taking the picture, Janice with baby Max.


We got to look at the gorgeous houses overlooking the water (3 BR/2 Baths selling for $2.75 M) and finished our first half of the walk at Poncho's something (a Mexican place I didn't know) to restore before walking back to our cars.



What did the babies do during all this time? Except for sleeping, crying and looking around, baby Shea kept loosing his socks, baby Sophia didn't like her stroller too much and preferred the Bjorn, babies Eva and Max were just dandy, and baby Nathan was all smiles for me...

Janice and Max / Belinda and Eva

Poil de carotte

What is so special about today, you may ask.

No, not the grand finale of the Sopranos on HBO tonight -- although very important to some -- but rather that Nathan had his very FIRST teaspoon full of carrot and loved it!

He liked the spoon and was already trying to grab it to put it in his mouth, apparently I was not going fast enough.

Here's the close up of our new mangeur de carottes!

Don't look for strollers!

Although very committed to our little ones, it was finally time for us -- new moms -- to get just one night for ourselves. So, Nicole graciously organized a dinner at Marnee Thai on 9th Avenue for our FIRST Mom's Night Out.

I am insisting on the fact that it was our first because it will not be our last! It was fun and refreshing.

Meanwhile, Dads/Partners were having a lovely time with our bundles of joy. Well, I hope most did... because Nathan ended up feeling colicky that night and Sam spent the most part of the evening trying to console him :-(

(For the grand-parents reading this, Nathan is totally fine now and Sam survived!)

From left to right: Monica, me, Raina, Abby, Nicole, Michelle and Janice.