Memorial Day Weekend 2009

Last weekend, we were out running errands, as we typically do on the weekends. We were starving with the kind of hunger only large amounts of fat and cholesterol can sate. So, we decided to head to Mighty Fine Hamburgers. I went into the bathroom to wash three baby spoons for the little man. An older lady saw me and asked, "Are you feeding three kids?"
"No, this is in case he drops one," I replied.
"Oh, you are so prepared!".
"Well, not actually, I just bought these spoons at Target, because I did not plan ahead."

But that was last weekend. This weekend was Memorial Day Weekend. We didn't go out of town, but stayed home. A staycation, I've heard it called. We didn't go to any parades, but silently thought about family members who have served.

A new thing for us as a family, though, was taking the little man along the Lady Bird Lake trail (formerly known as Town Lake trail). The weather was beautiful yesterday and it was an all around perfect morning for a stroll. Those not from Austin may not know that the underside of the Congress Avenue bridge is home to the largest population of Mexican Free-tailed bats. Even though I've lived here for many years, I just learned that the bridge was renovated with special channels specifically for the bats to nest. As we passed under the bridge, it almost seemed like the wheels of the jogging stroller were suddenly squeaky, but it was just the colony saying hello to joggers, bicyclists, and strollers below. Here is a little slideshow of our little nature walk.



Since it was a hot weekend with highs in the 90s, we had hoped to go to the nearby public pool. But alas, the little man is down with a little cold. He just has not been himself, quite cranky and fussy. I think we have really started the long hot summer months here, so, I'm sure we will have many more opportunities this summer to hit the pool.

On the home front, we finally got the flooring installed for the new part of our living room. Here La Princesa is modeling the new floor.


My favorite tweet of the week is actually related to Memorial Day:


Random thought of the week: Due to the marvelousness of iTunes random play, I just noticed that both Marco Antonio Solís and Maná sing "Si No Te Hubieras Ido". I can't decide which I like better. They are both pretty good. Marco Antonio has a superb voice, and the Maná version has a bit more of a rock edge.

Hope you had a swell weekend and hope you are all doing well.

Action, no action, and eating better

Star Trek was awesome. I saw it at the IMAX yesterday afternoon with work folks and D. I want to see it again. I won't give away anything about the movie, but it was a very clever way to refresh the movie franchise. If you are a Trekkie, no doubt you will see it. But I think even if you are not a Trek fan, you would enjoy it as well. Lots of action and adventure.

Not much action has been happening lately with the home improvement project. There has been a lot of waiting. We had some more cement poured in order to raise the floor level a little bit. So, we have been waiting a few weeks until that cured. I think next week we will see some more activity in the way of second coat of paint and floor installation. I'm really, really, really ready to get my house put back together a little. We still have most of the living room stuff in boxes, so things are not so accessible or ergonomic around here.

My favorite tweet of the week is from Sara Gilbert (of Rosanne fame):

Yeah, I do that too (the sneaking part). I don't want my son to see me eat any bad stuff like cookies (which he usually requests at least once a day). Not that I eat them a lot, but I try to be conscious of it. Most days, it seems all I can get him to eat is cereal. And sometimes fish sticks. He really likes fish sticks, but I myself can't eat that everyday. But it is funny how his favorite word is now "nah" and he uses it the most at meal time. I cannot get him to eat vegetables for the life of me. I know it is a common dilemma, though. However, I was very happy this morning to get him to eat a little papaya.

Hope you are all doing well, and eating well too!

Signing and playing in the mud

The last few weeks, the little man has been signing a lot. His daycare teaches the kids how to sign American Sign Language starting in the infant class, but he has just now started signing words himself. The words he now knows are: more, food (which, for him, sometimes means drink), milk, cracker, finished, please, bye-bye, and down. We also sign to him, water, and thank you. It has been amazing that he now lets us know when we wants to eat or drink something, and when he is finished eating. Now if I can only convince he should be eating more than crackers!

This weekend, we started working in the backyard a little bit. Actually it was D doing all of the hard work digging holes, and the little man and I picked up sticks and rocks so we can eventually mow. It had rained last night, so the ground was nice and wet, and very sticky. We don't usually go outside when it is wet, but, decided we needed to today. I think this was the first time for the little man to play in the mud. You can see from the shots below taken from my mobile phone, he got a bit muddy.


Look at those cute chubby and muddy legs!

He actually didn't know what to make of the mud. He kept wanting me to wipe it off of his hands. Not sure if we will have a neat freak on our hands.

He has lately been showing more acceptance to wearing hats. He used to hate it, but then there was hat day at school a few weeks ago, and the teachers said he actually wore his hat a little bit. Since then, he will wear a hat from time to time for a few minutes. Mostly, he loves to practice taking it off and then putting it back on.

If you have been following my tweets (that is, my posts on twitter.com/cmsadler), you already know that there was a school closure for swine flu here in Austin. And though this is not the little man's school, it is where we take him on the weekends to play. The school is a pre-kindergarten school, so their playground is very suitable for his abilities. We have taken him to the nearby park, but there are so many other bigger kids, we really have to make sure he doesn't get run over by them. Anyways, the news story that ran on our local station was that the Lucy Read School was closed for a probably case of swine flu, and they showed school district employees sanitizing the classrooms. Well, yesterday, we wondered if they were done cleaning the school, and decided to go over there to play. As we drove by, we saw a crew in the playground hosing off the equipment. So, hopefully next weekend, we will get over there and he can play.

One of the things that I have been enjoying lately is doing video chats with my parents. We have been doing weekly phone calls, usually Sunday evenings since, I don't know, since forever. Anyways, as we both now have MacBook Pro laptops, we have everything we need to do a video chat. My parents really enjoy seeing the little man. And he really enjoys it too. He loves to blow kisses and say "hi". But he doesn't stay in my lap for very long. I try to aim the camera so that my parents can see him running around. He loves to do show-and-tell for them. Usually I will say something like, where is your dinosaur?, and he will find it and show it to them. Here he is showing them his basketball.


I hope this post finds you all well.