Ann vs. Jason

By: Ann

A pregnant friend of mine asked me to come up with a list of pros and cons since having Athena.  I thought I’d share with everyone.

Cons:

1) I have to get used to being tired all of the time.  It has become pretty standard to find me  asleep on the couch around 8p.m. daily…probably due to #2.

2) I have to get up really early in the morning  on a regular basis.  I swear this child has an internal alarm set for 5a.m…today being a perfect example.

3)Jason and I are not able to go to the movies as often.  We don’t really know a lot of people in the Bay Area, so we have to rely on the schedule of my brother and sister-in-law (Ahan and Julie).   A couple of weekends ago, I surprised Jason by taking him to go see Watchmen (good movie, but probably not the best date movie).  We had Ahan and Julie watch her.  That was the first time that Jason and I got to do something social sans Athena.  It worked out really great.  One niece got doted on by a happy aunt and uncle and 2 happy parents got to go to the movies.

4)Working: If you told me right now that I was somehow magically independently wealthy, I would stay at home with Athena, no questions asked.  I never thought I’d feel this way because of loving so much what I do and being so work-oriented.

5)I’m in physical therapy due to the birthing process.   I can’t do any abdominal exercises or anything more than a walk without having pain.

Pros:
1)I look forward to seeing her every second of the day.  She has not gotten old to me at all.  She’s generally a pretty smiley and pleasant baby, which makes it easier to look forward to playing with her all of the time.

2)I love seeing Jason play with her.  It makes me so thankful that I found such a great guy and good daddy.

3)She really makes me happy and I feel so proud to be her mom.  I know it’s a bit cliche, but it’s true.  Whenever I think that Jason and I brought this tiny little life into the world, it really gives me chills.  Also, she has not done too many life achievements, yet, but I see so much potential in her.  And, with the risk of sounding a little obnoxious, we really do get stopped at least once every time we’re out with her due to people commenting on how cute she is.  I guess that’s an accomplishment, right?

4)No matter how bad of a day that Jason or I has/have had, she pretty much always brightens it up.

5)Since she has been born, I’ve really been on a baking streak.  I think it’s more having to do with me wanting more natural ingredients in my diet and less processed stuff.  Jason loves this, by the way.  This mean more cookies and homemade goods for him.

6)It’s truly amazing to see her little brain develop before our eyes.  Right now, she’s starting to grab at things.  She’s really starting to notice that she can affect things that are outside of her body, like flipping the light switch or knocking off the spices off of the spice rack (this is Jason’s favorite, I just wish he would clean up after her).

7)The house is a lot more livelier now.  It’s pretty eery and quiet when she’s not here.

8)Multi-tasking: I thought I was good at it before, but my skills have become finely tuned.

9)When walking on the street and passing other parents with babies (while with her), Jason and I always get these knowing nods or smiles from parents.  It’s like a silent exchange or secret club handshake in the form of a nod or smile.  It’s them saying “Hey, we have a baby, too.  We know what you’re going through…good and bad.  Isn’t it awesome?”  I received these same knowing nods when I was pregnant from other pregnant women, too.   However, more times than not, the “isn’t this awesome?” smile was not attached.

We just (a little preemptively) bought Athena this bouncy seat that you connect to the top of the molding on a doorway.  We have to stuff the seat with extra blankets because she’s so tiny.  The pictures are on Jason’s camera and I can’t find all the attachments to transfer the pictures onto a computer.  More pictures to come…

EDIT:  Here are the photos:

Yesterday Athena had solid food for the first time – well, somewhat solid, since it was finely-ground rice cereal mixed with milk. She seemed to do okay with it, so we decided to go for broke today and attempt rice cereal with a spoon.

She seems to have picked up on the whole spoon-goes-into-mouth part:

But not the eating or swallowing concept:

She was trying pretty hard to figure the whole thing out

I have a few more cute pictures in Flickr:

We also wanted to share photos of Athena wearing her denim ladybug dress, so Jeanie could see how cute she looks:

Particularly this photo, the look on her face is priceless:

By Jason

I wanted to share some video from my paternity leave.  A quick apology – this video looks really long, because it’s actually three videos stitched together.  The software for our camera does this by default and I just haven’t had time to monkey with it.

Last weekend Ann, Athena and I drove up to San Francisco to meet up with Tilek and Ralfi from Google Dublin.  I hadn’t seen Tilek since last year when we went to Yosemite.  We spent the day exploring the city.

Our first stop was The Mission, where we wandered around and grabbed some lunch.  It’s an interesting neighborhood, famous for Latin culture and food, colorful murals and interesting hipster shops.  We then drove up to Twin Peaks, one of the best places to see the city:

Our next stop was Haight-Ashbury, famous epicenter of the counter-culture movement in the 1960s.  Now it’s a rather expensive area with a bunch of hippy shops and tattoo parlors.   Athena really enjoyed this part of the trip – the crazy mix of colors was pretty amazing for her.  Tilek and Ralfi were pretty impressed walking down the street – each shop is trying to compete with the others in outrageousness.

Finally we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge and stopped at the vista point on the other side.

Athena had an odd reaction to her first experience with wind – she stuck out her tongue and tried to taste it.  This was actually her same reaction to rain, so at least she’s consistent.

I can’t help but a few more cute, but unrelated recent photos here at the end: