Ya sabe decir aagua

Oliver siempre dice wawa en vez de decir agua, es asi que desde ayer cuando estaba cambiando su ropa le dije, no hijo se dice; agua, y el me respondia de la misma forma que le estaba diciendo, lentamente. Fue tan curioso escuchar a mi hijo decir lo mismo que dice tu mama.

Ahora estamos en entrenamiento de ojos, nariz y boca. cada vez que le digo ojo, el cierra los ojos y me hace ojito ojito jajaja.

Otra de las cosas que esta semana que Oli empezo hacer es, cuando me ve sentada en el mueble el viene a lado mio y me da un beso en la boca...es tan tierno y obviamente mi corazon se derrite y me lo quiero comer a besos.
Te amo hijito y se que alguen dia leeras estas lineas y capaz con verguenza diras, "yo hize esas cosas??" pero eres un bebe ahora y doy gracias que me quieres mucho y ruego que sea asi siempre. Nos ames de la misma forma que lo hacemos tus papitos. Que no fue facil tenerte aca con nosotros y que tu significas el mas hermoso de los milagros.

Subways

It's funny to think that Oliver is growing up traveling in subways and hardly even knows what traveling in a car is really like other than the occasional trips to California or getting his stingy dad to splurge on a taxi ride. God forbid he grows up in New York, but using mass transit will just be normal to him. I wonder how he would feel about mass transit if we moved to a place where it is limited? Would he think back to when he was younger and was riding the subway, feel nostalgic, and prefer to take the slow bus? Or when we get a car someday, will he just shred those cells that contained memories of mass transit and just enjoy the creature comforts of driving from parking lot to parking lot without getting on a bus or taking a walk to the subway?

Oliver's latest obsession is if fans. He can't resist saying "ahhhhhhh" to any fans that he hears, whether he was just crying or not, and whether they are in his bedroom or on the subway platform. It's quite cute!

Logic-Defying Sleeping

Everyone knows that women don't use logic ;-) but I'm beginning to think that babies don't use it for sleeping as well - at least mine.

Exhibit A: we went to visit Melissa and Jonathan in the BX recently and has dinner at their place. As usual, we didn't get home until after midnight and Oliver missed the 10:00pm cutoff time for sleeping, even if he slept in the stroller on the way home. Logic says that a baby going to bed late will thus sleep in later, much to mom and dads delight. Oliver, however, actually wakes up earlier when he goes to sleep so late. that's just what we want!

Exhibit B: today was a busy day with the second day of the Ukraine/Poland European Cup in action and two big games on TV. Susanna was coming over and we had a lot to get done, so Oliver skipped his normal 1-2 hour morning nap. On the early afternoon he had a short 30 minute nap and then was awake the rest of the afternoon. Logic says that the baby must be exhausted and will go to bed early, but tonight we actually couldn't get get him to sleep despite using all of the tools in our bag of tricks until an hour later the stroller walking in a pitch black apartment finally did it.

Maybe all babies (toddlers?) are like this, but Oli defies logic when it comes to sleeping. Excuse me as I pass out due to exhaustion and someone smoking a joint outside our window here in the ghetto :-/

Growing Up Haines

On a recent slow day at work, I had a philosophical discussion with a coworker about our family trees and the roots that support that family tree, sparked by the fact that my father had recently had our book of Haines genealogy rebound and refurbished. Not knowing his father’s family very well, he had considered recording conversations with his deceased-father’s brother about his father and trying to capture a different perspective of him. Thisgot me thinking back to why I had started blogging some ten years ago – despite being cliché, today really is tomorrow’s history.

Talking more about it, I thought about my now growing family and how everything is focused on our only son right now. Most of our picturesare of him rather than of our whole family. With today being tomorrow’s past,wouldn’t it be neat to have a multi-media documentation of our family as it isday-to-day from Erika and my perspective for our family to someday read? I knowthat reading back through my own blog I feel nostalgic, and I’m sure that someday I will feel the same if Erika and I can commit to keeping this thing upto date. Not only that, but there are small things that I remember from when Iwas a child and there are things that spark memories of that era. What things will Oliver remember as being special times, and wouldn’t it be interesting forus to try to capture those from our perspective? I could ramble on and on butthe conclusion I came to is that it’s never too late to start (or restart!) recording our lives, so why not start now?

Yesterday, despite being a slow work day, was actuallypretty bust. I started my Advanced Spanish 3 class at Hunter college with mostof the same students that were in the Spanish 2 class. I find taking Spanish to be an interesting experience and so different to when I was learning German back at Cal Poly. With German (and before I had lived there), I learned all the grammar, vocabulary, reading, writing, etc. before I could *really* put it topractical use. Of course it’s better this way because once I lived in Germany,I was able to learn the practical part of communication pretty quickly. In Spanish, I don’t know the specific rules, but I actually use the rules when I communicate by implicitly understanding them from being around someone who speaks it. In class, I have difficulty with reading and pronouncing words in sentences out loud (ha!), quickly and efficiently translating and comprehending written text, but I am able to communicate. In any case, I’m looking forward to this second class of Spanish, even if it’s going so much faster than the previous class and I have difficulty in understanding my teacher’s gatling-gun-speed Spanish with a Chilean accent!

Yesterday was also exciting because I finally made acommitment to purchasing a commuting bike. Last year Sean let me use hissailing-boat-like tank of a bike for commuting, which was nice but a royal painto ride. Short crank, fenders, steel saddle bags, wheels that would go out ofalignment on a whim, and just a few gears is not ideal for the windy conditionson Vernon Blvd, my major biking thoroughfare. I bought a co-workers bike thathe was trying to sell after only a year because the “geometry wasn’t ideal”.Huh? Feels fine to me, and thank you very much for the discount! Of course Iimmediately went online to order a New York-grade lock (actually, to save $12 Iordered one-level lower than New York-grade) and picked up a helmet in my localstore. I’m looking forward to riding home on Friday!

Oliver really is a little human now. He can now see (and grab) over the kitchen table, he enjoys dancing to all kinds of music (from Salsa to Taio Cruz to the ice cream truck on our ghetto streets), and especially enjoys holding his shirt up with one hand and playing with his belly button with the other, saying "tickle tickle".