Husband finally got a chance to upload a bunch of photos from earlier this (mostly cool, wet) summer. I thought it’d be fun to take a cue from Luke and give the blog over to Tashi.
Wait. It’s a baby Yoshi?
Jun 30 2009
Early Summer Roundup
Jun 28 2009
Full Catskills (and NYC) Weekend
We had a full, full weekend, starting with a drive up to the Catskills Friday during the day. (Husband has summer hours and had a full day off for working a full day on another Friday.) We stopped by a farm I found via the google that advertised having a petting zoo AND pick-your-own fruit AND was right on the way to where Matt and Steph live.
Here’s Tashi feeding one of the hungry goats with freaky horizontal pupils. She’s been pretty fearless in terms of animals and bugs so far. I am just waiting for her to “learn” that they can be scary, but maybe she won’t ever. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?
And then strawberry picking/eating. It’s pretty hard, hot work in the midday sun, and worth the $5/quart you pay at the farmers’ market!
Tashi fell asleep for about 45 minutes en route to Kelder’s Farm, even though it was earlier than her usual naptime. That meant by the time we got to the cabin, she was plenty refreshed and husband and I both exhausted. The rain started right as we left the farm and continued into the evening, which we spent getting some supplies at the High Falls Food Co-op and then an early dinner at the Country Inn (it was total children’s hour at 6pm). Husband and I tag-teamed entertaining “up up up”-demanding Tashi who wouldn’t sit for the entire meal (though she did very much enjoy the asparagus soup and the ‘Children’s Pasta’—buttered penne served with freshly grated Parmesan). After hastily eating our Fleisher’s grass-fed burgers (separately), getting the check, and paying, husband and I were nonplussed to discover Tashi wanted to sit down again to eat after we’d wrapped everything up. (She continued to take the multicourse approach to eating—food broken up by amuse bouche of running around and playing with toys—at dinner Saturday and brunch Sunday.)
Saturday post-mom’s run in the country (just a few more weeks of me doing this, I fear), and post-Kingston visit (farmers’ market, Fleisher’s), we pushed Tashi’s bedtime because she’d had a three-hour nap, followed by some brief, older-kid party time at Eva’s 6th birthday party chez Janet and Mark’s. We insured she was completely worn out—to avoid what we endured the night before, a total freakout at going to bed in a strange room in a strange house—by having her run endlessly between Matt’s and husband’s legs (which was something Matt and Steph noted they’d done recently with a dog in the driveway):
Tashi really took to Matt, so we know who it comes from if she brings home a boyfriend 20 years from now with a handlebar mustache. Unafraid of bugs, she was terrified, however, of the Roomba they’ve got. And tiring her out worked: She happily went to bed at 840pm saying “nai-nai.” I’m hoping she acclimates so quickly to a strange setting when we’re in France.
Sunday we went out to Josh and Jess’s for brunch. Izzy turns 1 on Tuesday and it is pretty clear the next time the kids meet he won’t stand for Tashi’s bullying—he’ll be able to fight back.
The kid has well-defined muscles already, seriously. And a moppet of awesome hair. Meaning, he is a mini-Josh.
Still, a wonderful brunch with friends and a longer-than-usual, 2.5-hour-long drive back to the city (during which Tashi slept only 30 minutes, if that) wasn’t the extent of our Sunday. Husband also had group art show at Hudson View Gardens where we met Aislinn and her boys. Tashi and Cassius clearly recognize each other now and egg each other on:
We had them burn some energy at Bennett and Hudson View playgrounds too. It’s still so remarkable and downright nifty for me to watch them interacting like this, given they met (”met”) in utero.
PS Please note every single clothing item in these videos this weekend is courtesy of Nina Ping. Hence all the pink. And for which, pink and all, we are very thankful to Nina and her mom.
PPS I can’t leave out the final weekend event, which is that sister’s husband and husband are at Citi Field tonight—with first-row-behind-third-base seats (!!!) that Amrish scored.
Jun 24 2009
Summer Tuesdays
I have been keeping Tashi home with me on Tuesdays instead of Fridays since the summer (“summer”) started, in order to take advantage of the church playgroup that we used to go to last year. Tashi gets a lot more out of it now that she’s walking and down to one nap. In fact the 930-1130am activity time is just about perfect now. Yesterday Cassius also played hooky from school and we all met up on the church’s enclosed yard, with baby Landis in tow, too. I saw a lot of mommy friends I hadn’t seen in a while (we were all in winter hibernation), and more than one said we were “brave” for having another baby already.
This photo above may be the new Tashi photo smile. You know how kids go through a self-conscious smile phase for the camera? Tashi’s, I am willing to bet, will involve a crinkled nose. She ate about a dozen CSA strawberries very quickly, resulting in a dramatic juice dribble all over her face and clothes. She’s been having some dramatic poos, too, another one up her back in the early a.m. before sleeping, and the pediatrician says it could be anything—too much fruit or the stronger (“stronger”) soy milk or anything really. She also said (and she’s not a parent) that one messy poo a day isn’t so bad. The soy milk, incidentally, is also double the sugar of the old soy milk–because it’s “fortified for kids!”–to be fair, it also has more of virtually every other nutrient and she downs the stuff like a newborn at the boob, which she hasn’t done with any other milk since the boob.
Besides CSA pickup, another reason she’s home on Tuesdays, we hit the drugstore to get a new set of EpiPen Jrs. They expire in about a year or 18 months, and the first lot expires at the end of July. Confusingly, one twin-pack of pens costs $20, but three twin-packs cost $40. So obviously we just renewed it all. If you are the holder of an EpiPen from us, or you don’t have one yet, expect to get a new batch from us soon.
Then I had a bunch of random links I wanted to point to:
+ Tashi is already Elmo obsessed, as I mentioned, and now points to either of our puters or the TV and says elmoelmoelmo over and over again. We are using it sparingly (and I do mean the verb “use”—it’s like a drug) specifically when I need to cut her nails, do her hair, and/or calm her down if she’s particularly cranky. I can see how this is a slippery slope. Here’s the Muppets before they were famous (and child-friendly).
+ A super-cool short film that is not stop-motion (very popular to do these days) but looks like it could be.
+ A piece about people who film and then post on YouTube their home births (!).
+ A terrific book Aislinn lent me that is the polar opposite of the panic-inducing What to Expect When You’re Expecting. It’s called The Panic-Free Pregnancy. (Unfortunately, while disavowing moderate amounts of sushi, wine, and coffee as being dangerous during pregnancy, the doctor does say to avoid peanuts, although the research is inconclusive just to be safe.)
+ This is what we’ll be thinking of on line at the airport.
+ And from the Feebo archives: a post about the CSA, chuch playgroup, and garlic scapes—all which we’ve pretty much repeated again exactly a year later. Tashi took a bite of a scape yesterday, only to make a face and hand it over to me.
Jun 21 2009
Happy Father’s Day
Husband’s only Father’s Day request was to get some rest, so we’ve been taking it easy. We had another “late” night last night—Amanda’s surprise graduation party chez Roxana and Greg’s. She went to be at 845pm, instead of her usual 7pm, but it was an improvement over the 10pm bedtime from last Saturday post-Tish and Eric’s. Then Tashi’s present to her dad for Father’s Day was to sleep in till 830am. Nice!
Here’s a rare photo of husband and child both looking at the camera at the same time, and with no thumb-sucking or eating on Tashi’s part (pink outfit supplied by Nina Ping). We did go to the diner as usual this morning, which was crowded with dads and families. But before that, Tashi discovered that racing with her stroller underneath Daddy’s legs is pretty darn fun (though rather alarming to watch, I’ll admit):
I also did her hair in proper pigtails for the occasion.
Husband got an early Dad’s Day gift of winning poker Friday night, too. He thanks everyone for contributing to the Tashi (and Aguacate) college fund. (We just need another 1,250 wins.)
A surfeit of Tashi videos here:
+ After a nap
+ Listening to the fiddle last weekend
+ With Yoshi
+ Walking to the diner
And at Wave Hill in the rain:
Jun 18 2009
DD and (Another) T
I went all around the city yesterday to see friends. First I started out with breakfast with Ginny, whom I hadn’t actually seen in a long time. She works at Columbia, which is a super-easy commute from Tashi’s school. We ate at the local diner, which happens to be the one that was featured (exterior shots) in Seinfeld. Ginny said her husband John is getting his book published this summer—that’s super-exciting news! See more on his blog (and you can preorder the book here; I just did). We need to get our girls together, hopefully after our trip to Europe.
Then I went to meet Emily, baby Theo (a year younger than Tashi), husband Miles, Emily’s Paris-residing sister Jen, and a few other of their friends at the High Line, the new park built on the old elevated train line that goes over the Meatpacking District and into Chelsea. It’s been getting a lot of press and is well deserved. It’s pretty cool. It’s very arty, actually, incorporating the shapes of the railroad tracks into the pathway and benches, and as a result fits right into this gallery district. I’ll have to bring husband and Tashi back to see it. (See my Flickr set here; videos are TK.)
We had some celebrity spottings. It’s hard to miss someone like Danny DeVito, and when we saw Rhea Perlman next to him, even harder to not notice. Since the park is so narrow, he walked right by, and wouldn’t you know it, was drawn as if by magnetic force field to Theo. (It’s true, few can resist.) He picked him up and smooched him on the nose! Emily and her childhood friend Maria (whose birthday it also was) managed to take some snaps.
Miles pointed out, and he is right, that obviously we knew who he was—when else would you willingly give up your baby to be held by a strange adult male? It makes for a pretty great birthday story. We also saw Jane Krakowski from “30 Rock” (prettier in real life). Lunch was at Chelsea Market, where we ran into Alex, a running and now-pregnant chef I’d been talking to for work, and who was due last weekend but still cooking at her restaurant Txikito. Easygoing Theo was Ergo’d the whole time by his aunt, stopping to play with sugar packets at lunch.
Then that night I met up with Bret to see my old boss Adi speak on an Asia Society panel about Tiananmen Square and its aftermath and legacy, all of which, as Adi pointed out, isn’t actually “history” yet—even though it’s been 20 years, it’s something that is still ongoing. Apparently the discussion was being filmed for C-Span, so maybe I’ll be able to eventually find a link to send to Leo’s dad, whom I know from Hong Kong (and who I realized belatedly would’ve wanted to come along too).
What else: Tashi’s been having some on and off diarrhea issues, which I think I’ve traced to watermelon. I had no idea it was a diuretic. (Kelly told me it was, and I didn’t believe her!) I think the trick is to make sure she eats the fruit first on an empty stomach so that the sugar in it doesn’t interact with other food in her tummy to make her feel bloated and gassy and worse. At least, so says the google.
And this month of rain: Last year at this time we were in Seattle and Portland. In Seattle we had weather like we’re having here—rainy and chilly. I remember being dumbfounded when my friend high school friend Tracy, who lives there, warned me about the weather. The newspaper headlines in Seattle were filled with terms like “June-uary” and “June Gloom.” I have bags of new and Nina Ping summer clothes for Tashi that we haven’t been able to touch yet.
Jun 15 2009
A Year Ago
Some random person made an even more random Tashi photo on Flickr a favorite. This brought me to the photo below, which was next in the photo stream. This is from almost exactly a year ago—Quinn and Tashi last June 27. We had just gotten back from our trip to the Pacific Northwest.
Wow, what a fatty pants Tashi was. I miss those cheeks! Compare this photo with the video I just took of the girls playing at the playground. I mean, the hair alone, not to mention the puddle jumping. Dara had just written about the passage of time with Leo—it’s just wild, seriously, how much they change (even if they’re able to wear the same clothes!).
Jun 15 2009
Nina Ping, Tashi Ming
On Saturday, we tried something new, which was to wake up Tashi from her afternoon nap in order to go out to Tish and Eric and Nina Ping’s house at a decent hour (not 5pm). Alas, the plan wasn’t foolproof. She woke up, seemed fine, then had a meltdown. Husband had also napped, and was just about as happy as Tashi to be woken up. Plying Tashi with apple chips and husband with the promise of a grill, we made it to Tish’s by a little after 5pm anyway, after a lost-shoe-found-shoe incident, a quick stop at the A&P en route, and a torrential downpour.
Nina, who starts kindergarten this fall, was very solicitous of Tashi, calling her Tashi Ming and sharing her Elmo and princess toys, including a mansion-size, pink tent that sits in the family room. Tashi banged her lip at one point but, after wailing for a little bit, recovered quite quickly, I thought. Husband manned the grill while carrying an umbrella, Tish made another of her signature delicious salads (this one with goat cheese, cranberries, pears), and I tried to make sure Tashi didn’t drop crumbs everywhere in the house. (There might be some toddler prints on the windows, though.)
We also took home a giant shopping bag of Nina clothes. Husband said I was a little greedy about it, and it’s true that going through the bins of clothing I got overwhelmed and somehow ended up with four pairs of black pants all about the same size. (Thank you!)
We didn’t end up leaving till 9pm, which meant Tashi was not in the crib till 10. That’s probably the latest ever in a long time. She did pass out in the car after babbling and giggling to herself for a half hour on the way home, and once home, she went straight down, and slept in till 730 the next morning. But her nap Sunday was brief, and didn’t make up for the lost overnight sleep—just two hours. Still, it meant we could actually meet up with Murph and Phil and their twin boys, who have just started walking, along with older sister Ondine, up the hill for a music-filled fundraiser Sunday afternoon. Tashi’s new thing is she won’t let me give her cut-up food. So, she has to hold one entire slice of French toast, pluck her own grapes, peel her own banana, and eat watermelon off the rind, not in pieces. It’s a good thing that thanks to Tish, we have an extra bin of clothing.
PS Be sure to catch what Nina Ping says at the end of the bottom video. She’s hyper-verbal, that little one.
Jun 13 2009
Tashi’s ‘Graduation’
Tashi’s school had graduation on Friday. It’s a bit of a misnomer since only five (or four) kids actually graduate and go from pre-K to kindergarten, but it’s nice to have an end-of-semester ceremony all the same. It was unbelievably cute, as these things invariably are. The theme was New York, so everything was city- and Big Apple-related.
Here’s the walk in, to Frank Sinatra, starting with the youngest babies first:
The school sponsors an internship program for a local high school. The volunteers come once a week for an entire day, and it’s pretty cool that it’s boys, too. They all came to graduate from their internship too—and to help hold babies and toddlers.
Here is Tashi’s debut onstage:
The program for the event was also completely cute. They created a mock Playbill and had individual photos of each of the kids. The line by Tashi’s name and photo was, “Starring in the role of: Future ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Winner.” I think all the parents teared up. I know I did! The night before was the fundraiser for the entire facility (which includes elder and special-needs care), so it was a busy couple of nights. For the fundraiser, we got our friendly neighborhood butcher, Bob, to donate and attend the gala that was organized. Husband also donated a print.
Later on, we went with Kelly and Quinn to Payson Playground, where there was much puddle-splashing with another little boy who was 19 or 20 months old. Note Tashi’s behavior with the older girl who joins in later!
The other day we got an Ouch Report from school stating that Tashi bit another kid (they never tell you who). Since she’s old enough to understand, repeat offenses could get her (us) in trouble, but I think it really has to be a bad situation. Still, husband and I have both experienced her sometimes trying to playfully bite—I say playfully meaning I think she’s playing, but she really bites hard—and when it happened after I got this report, I tried to explain to Tashi that this wasn’t acceptable behavior. I swear she thought my lecture was the funniest thing ever. She laughed throughout.
Jun 11 2009
Another Cousin Graduates
This one from kindergarten, not college! This morning was Rohan’s graduation from the Anderson School, which is one of the city’s top gifted and talented programs. It’s nestled inside another public school right around the corner from where husband used to live on the Upper West Side.
Rohan’s in the back row on the very left in this video. Waiting a long time for the subway after dropping Tashi off meant I missed much of the singing that comprised the bulk of the ceremony, but I did get to hear Rohan’s name during roll call. The kids each stand up, pause, and hold their diplomas for photos, which is pretty cute. They wore graduation caps made of felt. Rohan was the only one in a full suit and tie—pinstriped no less! Afterward we hung out in his classroom while we waited for the pizza to arrive (there was a small snafu involving the unexpectedly early conclusion of the ceremony and the actual opening time of the pizzeria) and I got to catch up with Pat, sister’s nanny, who will have been with the family for six years come August.
Interesting names I saw: Sassafras (a nickname for Cerulean, a boy), Yamani, Saachi, Ria, Montserrate. And the obligatory Cole and Hailee. Rohan showed us his artwork hanging in the hallway. His piece was called “Red & Blue Mix.” One of his classmates titled his “Blood Inside the Body,” which I am still chuckling at.
Jun 09 2009
Aguacate
So, for all those who don’t read Japanese and who routinely ignore things on the righthand side of websites, especially if they’re animated, I am spelling it out in this post. Drum roll… Tashi’s going to be a big sister! We are due November 11, 12, or 13, depending on which method you prefer (the sonogram measurement, the date of last period, or the date-calculating calendar disk thing that all OBs have) which means there’s a chance Aguacate (ah-gwa-KAH-tay, or avocado in Spanish) could be born on the same day as his older sister.
Yup, I said “his.” Though I am 17 weeks in, it was only today that we found out the gender (which was determined from the genetic testing we did about five weeks ago). I was all for not finding out again, but husband really really wanted a boy, and the last thing I wanted was to go through 30 or whatever hours of labor and then deal with slightly disappointed husband. (Needless to say, all we truly want is a healthy child. Really. Okay, an easier labor would be nice, too.) I was fully expecting a girl, because I honestly do not personally know anyone who lives in Manhattan who has two children who are not two of the same. (Unless they ended up with twins, like our friends Murph and Phil, who have a girl and then boy twins.) Seriously. So my thought had been that it’s natural selection—your body knows you’re in a small, confined space and living on top of each other, so it makes sense to have siblings who are the same sex, right?
Regardless, I’m still in shock. Though, this may explain the endless nausea I had till week 16. I had virtually none with Tashi, which goes against the old wives’ tales. The nausea didn’t mean any actual barfing but a serious inability to eat anything but potato chips and candy chews. I am still completely off chicken and, to a lesser degree, fish. Blech. And perhaps it also accounts for the two-hour naps, which have mainly abated, too. (Down to a mere hour.)
When I went to the OB today, I had her write down the gender on a piece of scrap paper (an ad for cord-blood banking, as it happened, which was lying around the waiting room) which I then carried around in my pocket for the rest of the day. I can show you the hole it burned. We were all ready to open it at work, where I spent the afternoon (faxing someone our full tax returns—long story), but then ran out of time. So we had Tashi open it for us right before she went to bed. It was folded up, and she opened the first fold, but completely lost interest before the second, final fold, which to us was pretty funny. The OB had written, “Boy!”
This is an early shot, from the CVS just over a month ago. It looks suspiciously like Albahaca (aka Tashi).
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