Maria Kelley: Vegetarian?

Our good friend, Maria Kelley, was in San Francisco for a friend's wedding, so she came by our house for a visit -- and to meet Nathan!

Linda made a fantastic dinner and we were three-quarters of the way through the meal when we started talking about Maria's life, job, and eating habits in Taiwan. It turns out that she doesn't eat meat anymore because she's not always certain what kind of meat she's eating.

We were horrified. We had served her Chicken and she was quietly munching down on something she hadn't eaten in years.

Luckily, she had faith in our little Chicken and very politely put Linda, Alex and I at ease...

Next time she comes, we PROMISE to try and remember that she's a vegetarian -- and we beg her to mention it, just in case!!

Vroom, vroom

For his 8th month birthday, Mamili got Nathan his first car. Check it out!


Hopefully this will give him all the stand-up time he needs. Since last week, all Nathan wants to do is stand up: he pulls himself up on any piece of furniture he can get a hold of. Even at bedtime, we are not yet out of the room that he's up in his bed! Needless to say that it has been very disruptive on his sleep. Why sleep when you can stand up?

Snippety crickets

With that long hair in the front, it was finally time for a little haircut. Yes, yes, you read correctly. Mamili took Nathan to a place on Sacramento Street called Snippety Crickets that specializes in haircuts for kids. Nathan had a toy to distract him while his hairdresser was cutting away, which brought Mamili to tears: "Oh, no, my baby's hair!!!"

The unhappy look on the picture is because he had to leave his toy for a second to look at the camera. Ah, les paparazzi!

At the end of the cut, the hair "stylist" took a picture of Nathan for their "wall of fame" and gave me Nathan's hair in an envelop as keepsake. Very nice touch...

PS: It looks better the second day!

Baby picnic... take 2

Our second "baby picnic" was in Russian Hill at Belinda and Steve's house. The plan was to spend the afternoon at the Michaelangelo Playground but the overcast weather made it easy for us all to want to stay indoors in the comfort of the Rowbury's home.

We are a lot of people and lots of babies everywhere. Nathan had a blast (here with his friend, Lila).

Lunch at the Sorkin's

This lovely Sunday, we all gathered at the Sorkin's house for lunch. Nathan and Abby really bonded as big cousin Abby was showing him new tricks!

Eric Sasson vists

Our good friend from NY, Eric Sasson, came into town on his way to an exclusive workshop for writers, the Squaw Valley Writers Conference. While he was here he stopped by our house to meet Nathan and have lunch with us. Next time he's in town he will most likely be a published writer and may not have time for us "little people." However by then Nathan will be a bigger little person...

Nathan le Plongeur!

Jill and Noah visit San Francisco

My cousin Jill's fiance, Noah, is doing some consulting out in the East Bay and Jill came to visit him for the weekend. On Sunday they came by our place for a quick tour of the Inner Sunset, and lunch at the perennial favorite, "Park Chow." Alex, Nathan and I enjoyed meeting Noah, and we look forward to seeing them again!!

A little more laughter

Listening to this never gets old. For us.

New way of walkin'

So Nathan has succesfully made the transition from a sedentary desk-jockey to mobile menace. He started really moving last Sunday, and here we see him being lured around our bedroom by his second favorite magazine, "Parenting" (his first favorite being the "Economist").

Back to work

After 7 months of maternity leave, today is my first day back at the office. Even though I had prepared myself mentally, nothing can make you ready... I woke up at 5:30 am with an ear pain, had a pounding headache at 8:00 am and nausea started at about 9:00 am.
I started the day with Nathan's first feeding, then ran around trying to get ready. Nathan definitely noticed something was off this morning and just wanted to be held which didn't help with getting ready! Everyone was stressed, even Mamili as it would be her first day alone with Nathanou.

After quick goodbyes, I got all my stuff in the car and started driving away. The drive was long but uneventful. Accompanied by James Blunt, my mind was wandering and doing a recap of the past 7 months, tears were coming up: How would I be able to leave my baby all day? As I passed Palo Alto, fond memories of car pooling with Sam came back -- still 30 minutes to go... Then, I made the rookie mistake of taking 85 N which has always bad traffic no matter what time of day.

Got to the office at around 9:00 am and went straight to my desk. Well, let's say that things were not exactly how I had left them: all the power cables, the mouse, the white-erase board, garbage bin and my chair were gone. So, my first action back on the job was to file a trouble ticket with facilities!

Nobody seem to expect me so I decided to come home early to make Nathan's last 2 feedings of the day. Separation at bedtime was hard, I would not see hime for 12 hours and after a day away from me how could he be sure he'd see me again...

I know it will all be ok and it is an adjustement for everyone in the family, so we'll keep working at making this a smooth transition.