The Small Family     

First of all, hope everyone had a merry Christmas! I know we did, and our week leading up to Christmas was hectic and fun! Well, for the most part. Our older pug, Luna, wracked up $800 more in vet bills this week, so that wasn’t overly fun…but the rest was good. (Long story short, she needed a very expensive dental cleaning. Ouch.)

Early in the week, with Theo on the road to recovery from his weekend cold/fever, we ventured to Livermore to visit one of my authors: a professional cellist. Knowing of Theo’s great interest in music, Jim invited us over to play instruments. So Theo got a lesson in cello, piano, and (his favorite) synthesizers! Theo was mildly interested in the cello, fairly interested in the piano, and very interested in the synth, which Jim had hooked up to his computer, so they were able to play with some software and create some really neat sounds. Theo was happy as a clam with all those buttons to push and sounds to create! We spent about an hour with Jim and had a lot of fun.

As a side note, we took a back road to Livermore that wound around Mt. Diablo State Park. It was quite pretty (and a relaxing drive) until we got closer to Livermore, where we hit a bunch of fog. Theo announced, “It’s really, really foggy! If we had a big fan, we could blow the fog away!” I thought that was pretty cool--it’s neat to see problem-solving in action at this age! He’s right--if we had a huge fan, we could’ve blown away all that pesky fog!

On Thursday I met our friend Roxann (from graduate school) at a huge indoor play area called Superfranks, in Pleasanton (next to Livermore, actually…). Roxann has a son just a couple of months younger than Theo, named Tico. Theo doesn’t so much play with other kids yet, but he enjoyed being there, and together he and Tico spent 2 ½ hours exploring the different play areas at Superfranks. I’m getting payback, by the way--Theo announced that one room was “really, really boring.” Why is this payback? My Mom still complains to this day that whenever she would pick me up from school when I was young, she would say, “How was your day?” and I would reply, “Boring.” She’d say, “What did you do?” and I’d say, “Nothing.” One day she finally blew up and said, “You always say it’s boring! Can’t you ever say anything else about it?” I seem to recall replying something along the lines of, “No, I can’t. It is boring.” So ha ha--this is payback time, isn’t it?!

On Friday, we had our annual holiday lunch with my two best friends, Lisa and Jeanette. Jeanette lives in Sacramento (more or less), and Lisa lives in Seattle, but we still manage to get together every Christmas for lunch. This year, we had little boys all around: Cason (Lisa and Chris’s son) just turned one, and Jeanette and Brian’s son, Justin, is 2 ½ months old. So, we held our lunch at our house, since it was a convenient halfway point between Sacramento and Santa Cruz (where Lisa, Chris, and Cason are visiting Lisa’s parents), and it was much easier than braving a restaurant with three little boys! Chris took the day off and made homemade pizzas and a delicious salad. He even made the pizza crust and pizza sauces (one pesto and one red sauce) from scratch. They turned out delicious, I must say! And I ordered a selection of mini-cupcakes from a local cake shop, so we feasted on those for dessert.

I’ve been best friends with Lisa since kindergarten (32 years!), and Jeanette joined us in junior high (25 years!), and I think it’s pretty cool that all three of us happened to have baby boys within a 3 ½-year span. And soon, we’ll have one more little boy to round out the quartet!

On Saturday morning, Chris, Theo, and I ventured down to San Jose to do a Christmas celebration with Grandma Kathy, Papa, Aunt Tanya, Uncle Steve, and Nik. The boys did great--they had a ball opening their gifts--and Grandma and Papa prepared a delicious brunch of two types of stratas, fruit salad, and homemade coffeecake (a family recipe on Papa’s side). It was a nice, relaxing way to spend Christmas Eve.

We had Christmas morning just the three of us at our house, and it was nice and low-key. Theo got one “big” present, which was the karaoke machine he had asked for, and then we got him various little gifts, too--a doctor kit, a small globe, an animal Yahtzee game, a “Peter and the Wolf” CD, and a couple other small bits. As predicted, the karaoke machine was his favorite gift from us--though he doesn’t get the “karaoke” part of it. He just uses it as a CD player, but he’s happy as a clam. It’s funny--he doesn’t really get the concept of asking for certain gifts for Christmas, which is fine with me, as I prefer surprises anyway! But that karaoke player was the one thing he really wanted--and even on Christmas morning, he kept saying that “Santa might bring you [me] one!” We held that gift for last, knowing that we wouldn’t see him the rest of the morning once he opened it, so we got to watch him enjoy his other gifts as well. We had told him that he could ask Santa if he wanted something special, and Santa might bring it, but Santa also might choose to bring him other things he hadn’t asked for, and they’d be just as fun. He seemed pretty Zen about the whole thing--but he sure was hoping that CD player would be among the gifts!

My sister invited us for Christmas dinner, so we headed over there in the mid-afternoon. My Mom was there as well, along with my brother-in-law’s mother and sister and a couple of my sister’s kids’ significant others. So it was a full, fun house. Theo had lots of people to talk to, and he did great despite missing a nap for three days in a row! Auntie Lynnie had bought him some cooking toys (a blender, a toaster, and a mixer), along with a chef hat and apron, and he was in seventh heaven whipping us up “Jamba smoothies” in his blender. It’s funny--he even taps the blender bottom the way they do at Jamba to get the smoothies out, and my sister commented, “You can tell he’s been there a lot!” But in reality, he hasn’t--I’ve taken him maybe six times over the past six months. I guess he’s just that observant that he noticed how they get the smoothies out of the blender, even though he hasn’t been there often. He does have a favorite order there, though: a peach all-fruit smoothie and a bag of pop chips (baked potato crisps, basically). I always have them split the smoothie (16 ounces) into two child-sized cups, and it used to be that he’d drink one and I’d drink the other. But now the little smoothie hound drinks both! Sigh--so much for me getting some! I’ll just have to start ordering my own….

And so wrapped up our whirlwind Christmas week! This week Chris is off work, so we’ll be doing some fun things during the week. Not sure exactly what yet, but we’ll think of something! Hope you all had wonderful holidays! I’ll wrap up this post with a quick Garbanzo update: He is now almost four pounds and about 19 inches long. So, he probably won’t grow much taller over the next two months, but he’ll continue to put on weight (probably mostly in those huge cheeks--ha!). I’m reaching the point of being “done” with pregnancy. I mean, my pregnancies aren’t terribly difficult, and I love the feeling of him moving around in there, but I’m getting to that uncomfortable “okay, looking forward to this being over” stage. It’s funny--with Theo I was eager for him to come because I just wanted to meet my little baby! With this one, I am indeed eager to meet him, but I’m wiser now--I realize just how much easier it is to care for a baby on the inside than when he’s on the outside! I mean, right now I just basically take care of myself, and he’s cared for. But once he’s on the outside, all hell breaks loose and life is suddenly exhausting chaos. I know this now--as a first-time parent, I really don’t think you have any clue! So part of me is happy to let him continue “cooking” in there, where he’s easy to take care of. And part of me is eager to meet him--and eager to reclaim my bladder and ditch my aching back! Ah well, soon enough. I have him pegged for arriving in six weeks. Chris has guessed seven. His due date is technically in eight weeks, and he could arrive anytime in the next 10 weeks. We shall see--but either way, we’re getting close!