Ann vs. Jason

By Jason

Eating is not something you just know how to do – it’s a skill that must be mastered.  This post will show the remarkable progress made so far, starting from our first attempt at spoon feeding with Athena:

Despite the setbacks Athena was ready for a second attempt.

Though we didn’t quite get all the rice cereal in, the second try involved a lot more actual eating and much more enthusiasm for spoons.

Something you might notice in the photos is the way she keeps trying to grab the spoon as Ann feeds her.  This little girl just wants to do everything herself.

The next food on the menu was peas.  Which apparently were delicious:

We make a big deal about it when she eats solid food, look how pleased with herself she looks in this photo:

The peas were so delicious, in fact, that at the end Athena grabbed the bowl and tried to lick it clean.

Here are Ann and Athena hard at work:

I’ve got lots of additional messy feeding time photos up at Flickr.  Finally, here’s a 10-minute video of Athena’s first experience with sweet potatoes.  Enjoy:

By Jason

Athena is now very mobile – we can’t just let her play in her jungle playset, she’ll find her way to the nearest non-baby-toy object and put it in her mouth.

Here’s evidence:

This week Ann gave her some mashed green peas and she absolutely loved them. Next up we’ll post photos of the messy meal, look for that soon.

In other news, last week I got to tour the solar panels up on the roof at Google. Head over to my blog to read more.

By Jason

Since we’ve been back from our travels, Athena has aggressively pursuing the relevant developmental milestones.  She’s getting very determined, and when she wants to turn around and be held facing forward or grab a particular toy, she is not easily distracted from her goal.

One major new skill is creeping.  Creeping is the term for getting around on her belly but not actually crawling.  What Athena does is actually more accurately called inchworming, since she plants her face and hands on the floor, scoots her legs up, and then inches her way forward before starting over again.  As of this writing, she’s getting very close to actually crawling, so I’ll have to get some video soon.

The other major accomplishment to mention is teething.  Teething is horrible.  I don’t know whose idea this was, but her gums hurt and she doesn’t know why and she doesn’t like Orajel or baby ibuprofen, even though it makes her feel better.  Feeds have become a bigger challenge, and she’s too sore to be the reliably happy baby we’re so used to.  We ended up not going out to dinner for Mother’s Day (getting takeout instead) because we didn’t want to chance it.  Hopefully this tooth will pop out soon.

Visiting with Uncle Ahan:

Playing Rock Band at Google on a Saturday afternoon:

Athena hanging with Sandy:

In general Ann and I have been doing alright.  I’ve had a head cold that refuses to completely go away for about two weeks, though it seems to be on it’s way out now.  I’ve been pretty busy at work and having my ears all blocked up has made it hard to lead meetings and such.  Ann has been busy drawing up plans for a grant application at her clinic, they’re hoping to redesign the floorplan and make their space more efficient.

In fact, it was after a trip to her office to measure walls that we stopped by Kelley Park in San Jose.  Kelley park isn’t particualrly famous but it reminded me a bit of the Metroparks back in Cleveland – there’s a lot of trees, a creek, picnic tables and interesting sections.

Athena enjoying the koi pond in the Japanese Friendship Garden:

More fun with mom by the pond:

The Japanese park is on two levels, with ponds connected by streams.  Here we are at the upper pond:

This picture was fun – we tried to sit Athena down in the grass for a photo but she immediately flipped herself over and started pulling up the grass.  It was pretty much the most amazing thing she had ever discovered.  If we had left her there I have no doubt she would have defoliated the entire lawn.

Athena also enjoyed clawing the bark off the trees:

She’s not really waving, but we’ll say goodbye with this last photo:

By Jason

The second leg of our Easter trip was to Cleveland to see my side of the family.  It had been a while since Mom, Dad, and Ryan last got to see Athena in person and there were of plenty of new people for her to meet, including her great-grandmother.

We flew in just before the customary early Easter dinner.  Athena by this time was an experienced flier.  After a brief stop at my parents’ house we went to Gram and Aunt Linda’s to see everyone.  I was a bit worried that Athena would be overwhelmed by all the people and the attention but she was fine.  Here is Athena’s cousin Luke with her Uncle Ryan and Fake Aunt Laura.

Aunt Sue holds Athena while Ann examines the loot.  We came home with a ton of new clothes and toys.

Gram was overjoyed to hold her great-granddaughter for the first time.  I have to post these two pictures, I especially like the second where they are both smiling and looking off-frame.

After eating we did several rounds of family portraits.  My Nikon D60 is nice enough that we didn’t really need to run off to a studio or hire a photographer.   To be honest I’m not entirely happy with the shots – I couldn’t convince the rest of the family to wait a bit before taking their own photos, so a lot of the sunlight I was counting on was blocked and many shots have people looking in different directions.

I’ve got a bunch more family shots in the Flickr album but I had to post the four-generation shot (above) and the big group photo (below).

Athena and Luke are only a few weeks apart in age and they got along just fine.

It actually took a little while for them to both figure out there was another tiny person there.  In this shot they look like they are playing together with a baby book but at this point they hadn’t really noticed each other yet.

Of course, Athena’s first reaction to anything (or anyone) novel was predictable:

In the end they did interact quite a bit.  Here’s a shot where they were holding hands.

I like this picture of the three of us a lot.

In this rather goofy photo, Ron and Ann test out the hypothesis that two babies together might be as tall as my mother.  Not quite, but check back in a couple months.

Later we headed back to my parents house and met up with Ryan and Jessie, who have their own baby on the way.  Judging by the ultrasound, their kid may already be taller than my mom.

We got to spend some more time with Mom, Dad, Ryan and Laura the next day.  Here’s the correct way to feed a baby:

Here my brother demonstrates his  incorrect, cry-inducing method:

Ryan had already been in town a few days and had cleaned out the closet of our old bedroom.  He found boxes with our old toys, including Transformers and various super hero action figures.  It reminded me of a Christmas morning, somewhere around two decades ago.  In retrospect, we had a lot of toys – though I clearly remember most of my friends having many more.  I guess at that age I judged anything short of the full collection of every available Autobot as insufficient.

Spending time with Mom and Dad:

My Dad quickly figured out Athena’s sense of humor.

This is interesting, though you’ll have to click through to see the full-sized photo to read it.  It looks like a note sent to my Grandmother when she was getting married.  You can see that my sarcasm is clearly genetic.

Later that evening we met up with a bunch of friends at Tommy’s on Coventry in Cleveland Heights.  This is our favorite restaurant, so we always make a point of visiting when we’re in town.  The photo below is the result of Ann asking if someone could hand her something for Athena to play with.  Clearly none of these people are responsible enough to be parents.  We hung out at Jess’ place for a while afterward.

Our last day in town got off to a late start, and we didn’t leave my parents’ house to see Gram and Aunt Linda until much later than we originally planned because all three of us kept dozing.  Athena took an epic, almost 4-hour nap, probably just exhausted from all the excitement.  Ann was actually pretty sick and I (it turned out) was coming down with a stomach virus.

We eventually did get ourselves together and went to Mariachi Coco’s to meet up with even more friends and family.  It’s getting late, so I’ll have to refer you to the Flickr page for photos (to be honest there were so many people that I didn’t get a lot of shots) but it was a great time.  It’s really too bad we couldn’t stay longer and spend more time catching up.

By: Ann

We’re sorry for the delay in getting this post up.  The Morrison household has been one big germ cave ever since this trip.  There hasn’t been one week where one of us has been affected by a cold or stomach bug.  But, we’re on the mend, kind of.

Our trip started on the Thursday before Easter.  We arrived in Chicago late at night after one long and one short flight to Chicago.  Athena did wonderful for both flights.  She either played, ate, or slept. We were more than a little nervous about this flight.  We did do a dry run with our Vegas trip, but this flight was obviously much longer.

Thursday night we arrived in Chicago and were greeted at the airport by my brother Pauel and niece Jadyn.  Jadyn got a chance to stay up super late in order to meet her baby cousin.  She was pretty excited about it all.  It was really great having Athena meet her Uncle Pauel and Auntie Dominique and the gang.  Athena was quite the hit.

The next day was filled with a lot of relaxing, Jason (being the play slave that he is) getting placed in jail 42 times, and making homemade pizzas.

The next day we set out to see Caleb’s soccer debut.  It was a great game.  I was expecting a lot of organized chaos, but all of the children really were able to play really well.  Also, I’m pretty proud to say that Caleb scored all of the points for his team…even if it was only one point.  The excitement was just too much to handle.

Cory was a little incognito the whole weekend with a stomach virus.  Here he is braving the windy weather.  We were so proud of Caleb for his goal, that we took him out to eat at Cracker Barrel.  Ah, Cracker Barrel.  We’re really in the midwest now.

After the game, we tried for some family pics before opening our Easter baskets.

Later that night we decided to do Easter baskets early because we had a flight to catch to Cleveland the next morning.  Here’s some grass pictures.  We all got a little carried away with the plastic grass.  I remember when I was a kid, it only came in green.

Athena was pretty tired from the big day.  She needed some cuddle time with Uncle Pauel.

It was really great seeing everyone again, especially the kids.  They’re getting so big and smart.  I can’t wait to see them again.