Ann vs. Jason

By: Ann

I forgot to mention that some congratulations are in order for Jason’s brother Ryan and his girlfriend Laura who just got engaged a few weekends ago.  We’re all super excited about the up and coming wedding sometime next year.  Athena will be making her little debut as a flower girl.  She’ll be almost 3 by then.  We shall see what kind of wild card she will draw at the wedding.

Here are some miscellaneous pictures off of my camera from Chicago as promised in the last post. Here’s Cory and Athena enjoying some pool action.

All three zonked out after the Navy Pier.

By: Ann

About two weeks ago on Wednesday, Jason, Athena, and I flew to Chicago to surprise my brother, and later step-dad and mom who were driving through.  We haven’t seen the Chicago gang since Christmas, so the trip was long overdue.  Ever since I found out my parents were traveling through, I knew I really wanted to plan the surprise.  Dominique kept the secret ever since May.  It was great.  My brother was super surprised.  Unfortunately, he had a DJ event that evening, so he couldn’t hang out too much the first night.

The first day that we were there, we kind of took it easy.  Jadyn, Caleb, and Cory had swim classes in the morning.  I dressed Athena up in her little swimsuit so she could enjoy the water, which she definitely did.  She nearly gave me a heart attack by running straight into the water with her shoes and clothes on.  This kid has no fear.  Luckily, she ran into the wading section; however, the water level rises pretty quickly.  I have to get her into swimming lessons.  I have to get myself into swimming lessons, while I’m at it.

In the process of getting my little fish out of the water with all of her clothes on, I dropped my iPhone in the water, total immersion.  The next 24 hours my iPhone spent some time in a bag of dried rice, while I prayed that my phone would work once again.  My brother took my phone to a friend of his who fixes iPhones, and it was as good as new in a couple of days.

As soon as I find my camera, I will post pictures from the pool.  the rest of the day we took it easy, again.  Athena was still recovering from the long flights.  We did have a mini campfire in the backyard later that night and cooked smores for the kids and pina coladas for the adults.  I’ll have to steal those pictures from Pauel somehow.

After (or maybe before) the smores, Athena and Cory decided to put on a concert for us.  It was very cute.  I was waiting for someone to open up the piano, because I knew as soon as Athena saw the piano keys, she would go wild (which she did).

The next day (after swim practice) we decided to go to the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago.  This was the day my parents were supposed to arrive, but we were thinking they wouldn’t arrive until 5pm or so; however, we didn’t take into mind the time change and the chance of, literally, no rush hour traffic on a Friday.  More on this later.

The zoo was great.  I know I’ve seen giraffes before at other zoos, but these giraffes looked so…clean and well-groomed.  They also had camels at the zoo, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen in real life before.

So after the zoo, Dominique tells me that she should check on my brother and see if he had left work, yet, or if he had even heard from my parents.  It’s 3:30 at this point.  Pauel calls back frantic, “They’re in Lansing! They’re in Lansing!”  Lansing is the town they live in.  I thought he was joking at first, because he kind of was using his joking voice, but the way I heard him rustling around in the background with keys and whatnot, made me think otherwise.  I was cracking up at this point.  This was the worst case scenario that my parents arrived at the house and no one was home. No kids. No grandkids.  Nada.  I haven’t heard my brother sound so scared since we were little kids and he had broken something valuable.  Oh how we revert to our childhood ways when we’re all together.  I love it.

Fortunately, everyone was in good spirits when my brother arrived home.  My mom took the opportunity to work on a few things from work while the children were out.  An hour later, when we all arrived back from the zoo, we were able to shock my mom and step-dad with our presence.  It was great to see  the look on her face.

We later had a yummy homemade fajita dinner and then my parents treated everyone to ice cream treats located conveniently just down the street.  After the ice cream, Cory and Athena gave an encore performance, while Uncle Jason presumed his duties as the play slave.

Right before bed, we decided to have a little Dance Party USA and have the kids show off their moves.  Caleb and Cory love to break dance.

The next morning, before heading out to Navy Pier, the kids decided to put on a fashion show with their back-to-school clothing that Nonny and Papa gave them.  Jadyn was the announcer over the baby monitor.  Uber cute.

Later that day we drove to Chicago’s Navy Pier.  We stopped at Bubba Gump’s for lunch and afterwards rode on the ferris wheel and carousel.  It is a very touristy area, but it was fun walking around seeing all of the sites.

When we got back home, it was more time for relaxation.  It was Caleb’s turn to be the play slave for Athena, apparently.

Athena kind of stuck to Cory like glue all weekend.  Jadyn, Caleb, and Cory were all really good about letting us know if Athena was into something she wasn’t supposed to be in.  I think Cory loved the fact that he wasn’t the baby anymore.

The next morning, my parents left, but not without some quick family portraits.

By: Ann

Another sorry for the extreme delay in the updates in the post.  Jason’s surgery went well.  He had no complications and he is back to eating his regular (rabbit) diet.  Jason was never an unhealthy eater, he just inherited the bad genes where his cholesterol and gallbladder are concerned.

A few weeks later we went to a wedding reception of one of Jason’s coworkers, Koklynn.  She and her husband had the big ceremony in China and smaller wedding and reception in California.  We were a bit nervous because we were going to travel 2.5 hours to Sacramento and be out pretty late.  We’ve never been out late with Athena before.  She was great.  She partied and danced all night long until 10:30 and fell asleep in the car at 11:00, just in time for the drive home.  Everyone was very impressed at how well behaved she was.

A few weeks later on Independence Day weekend, we traveled up to Medford, Oregon to see the Oregon Newmans.  It was great seeing my brother, sister-in-law, and baby niece Alia.  Athena’s new favorite word that weekend was “baby” followed by “Alia” (pronounced by Athena Ahhh-leyah).

The picture below is from the  city park in Jacksonville, Oregon.  Athena kept on refusing to admit how cold she was.

This is probably the only thirty seconds in which she didn’t cry when I held her.  That’s okay.  I didn’t take it personally.

On Independence Day, we drove down to Howard Prairie Lake for some lakeside fun.  The babies loved it.  Athena, again, refused to leave the lake even though her lips were starting to pale a bit.

We were so impressed with the fountains in Jacksonville (OR) that we decided to find some in our area.  Low and behold, there were some fountains right in downtown Los Gatos near my clinic.  The fountains were a little much for Athena, but I think she had just as much fun.

Tired baby after the fountains…

The next weekend, Julie and Alia drove in for a wedding.  Athena was thrilled to see her baby cousin again.  She was as gentle as she could be.  Alia isn’t quite crawling, yet, but she was definitely scooting as fast as she could to keep up with her cousin.

The next weekend our friends from Cleveland (Ryan, his wife Jessi, their son Asher, and JJ) came to stay a week with us.  Ryan and JJ went to high school together…and I’m pretty sure Ryan and Jason went to  grade school together, too.  JJ and Jason know each other from preschool.  It was great having them for so long.  Time went by so quick.  The first day that they were here, we kind of relaxed and took it easy.  It’s pretty rough traveling with a baby.  Here’s Asher and Athena playing with some fake food that was given to us by JJ and the Glows.  Later that night I fed the gang with Chicken parmesan.  Since I am a vegetarian, I think little faith was put in my cooking abilities.  I’m pretty sure I surprised everyone with a tasty dinner.  I haven’t been vegetarian all of my life, people.

The next day we went to the Gilroy Garlic Festival.  This festival is supposedly nationally known.  If you’re a garlic lover, this is your paradise.  You can even find weird oddities like garlic ice cream.  It was pretty crowded and hot by the time we ended up giving up on finding the garlic ice cream.

We found out that Athena loves live children’s entertainment.  This is her climbing up on stage to join the other children dancing.

Later that night I fed the gang with homemade pizzas.

The next day, while I was at work, They all headed down to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.  The kids absolutely loved the place.  I wish I could have been there to witness it.  That last time we were there, Athena had a great time, but she was not walking, yet, so we couldn’t go on any of the rides.

Athena has oh so much love to give.

The next day, also while I was at work, Jason treated everyone to some Google lunch.  Who knew that a Google tour would not be as enjoyable running after 2 babies?  After Google, the gang headed down to the Children’s Discovery Museum in San Jose.

Look at my girl climbing where she’s not supposed to go.  Surprise, surprise…

Later that day when I got home from work, we all decided to hang out on Castro Street for some good Mexican food and gelato.

On Wednesday we toured some wineries in Sonoma.  JJ was our designated driver.  We were able to stop at 6-7 wineries which were all okay, but Jessi and I have a distinct taste for dessert wines, which are better found in colder areas, like coastal California.  I guess we know this for next time.  It’s been a while since I have hung out like this sans baby.  Jason was at work (that day and Thursday), Athena was in daycare that day (which she made us pay for later that night) and Asher stayed home and relaxed with his daddy while the girls played.   It was great.

We had cameras.  We were just a little too tipsy to remember taking pictures.  But we did remember to check in on Foursquare at each location (with JJ’s help).

On Thursday, we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  Fishies galore.  It was a big hit with the babies.

Thursday night we took it easy since it was the last night for the Glows.  Asher and Athena ended up taking a bath together, but I had to take Athena out.  She was super excited to have a friend to share her bath with.  She’s usually pretty wild for her baths, but she was particularly wild this time, which was a little much for Asher.  But they made up soon afterward.  Please let it be known that if Rachel B. is unavailable to be Asher’s prom date, Athena has first dibs.

On Friday, the Glows left, I returned to work, and JJ enjoyed her six hour San Francisco tour without having to push any strollers or be in charge of holding Jason’s fancy camera while someone ran after children.  I’m glad she got some adult time.  I was starting to feel a little bad.

The next post will be all about our long weekend in Chicago and how I surprised my brother and mom for a visit.  This plan has been in the works ever since May, so I was glad that no information was leaked to important sources.  We are still uploading many pictures from the visit, so please be patient with us.

Ann has been writing about recent adventures with Athena but I’ll pick up from where I left off, visiting Dublin. One of the most popular attractions in Dublin is the Book of Kells, a 1200-year old illuminated manuscript of the four Gospels. I’m a bit of a history geek but I had heard that going to see the book was a bit disappointing for some people – standing in line for a long time and paying 9 euro to see two pages of one book isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

On Sunday I met up with my friend Tilek and we decided to head over to Trinity College and take a look around. It turned out that you can do the campus tour and see the book for just one euro more. The tour, given by a recent grad, was very entertaining. Let me pose the same question he gave us – what word would you use to describe the color of the clock in the photo below?

Our tour guide had posed the question to tourists from all over the world, and no matter what language they spoke, the answer was basically equivalent to “sky blue.” Except in Dublin, where residents are more likely to see the clocks than the blue sky, and therefor it is known as “Trinity blue.”

The Book of Kells really is an amazing piece of artwork, but so is the Long Room of the Old Library at Trinity College. With it’s carved woodwork and high barrel-vaulted ceiling it’s like a cathedral of the written word.

Afterward we decided to head up north on the DART to Howth, a hilly peninsula on the end of Dublin Bay, and do a bit of hiking along the cliffs. The weather went from cold and gray to sun and bitter cold, but the view of the sea and the coast made it all worth it.

I neglected to bring my polarizer which would have helped with the glare coming off the sea from the evening sun. You can see some photos that did come out in the gallery below.

I got some much better photos the next night, walking along the Grand Canal back to my hotel. The canal was once a major freight and passenger route, but now it’s mostly used as a linear park wrapping around the older parts of the city. The locks are maintained and canal boats still ply the waterway for dinner cruises.

With well-lit streets on either side and calm, flat water it’s a great place to take photos as the light fades into dusk.

I had a lot of fun taking long exposures of the canal boats, headlights streaking by, and even joggers crossing in front of me. I didn’t get back until quite late.

The canal itself isn’t very large – the common joke is that it’s not particularly grand – and it actually reminded me a bit of the Ohio and Erie Canal near Cleveland, since both are maintained now as urban (or suburban) parks.

The rest of the photos can be found here:

By: Ann

So for a few months now we’ve been planning for this weekend.  This was the weekend we were going to start totally weaning her from her pacifier.  We decided to give her one more weekend due to her receiving her 18 month well baby check vaccines the week before last.  I have a trusted source that says that there’s no damage until after 3 years of age, but I’m reading some things on the American Dental Association’s website that damage can be done as early as two years of age with overbites and such.

It hasn’t been easy for Athena.  But it’s no walk in the park for us.  We hate hearing her cry before she goes down to sleep.  It’s like we’re sleep training her all over again, but we’re not thinking that she has stopped breathing every time she stops crying.  However, she is doing better than we thought she was going to do so far (hopefully, this is not preemptive).  We know that she takes security and comfort in her pacifier, but she can’t be a baby forever.  She’s going to have to learn to find security and comfort in something else.  We just have to keep repeating to ourselves that we’re doing this now because we love her and  so she doesn’t have a hard time later in weaning or get made fun of for having any teeth deformities.  I don’t think I took a pacifier when I was little, but I did get made fun of for having horrible teeth.  I’d never wish that upon any kid.

On another note, Athena has been giving us cues that she is just about to urinate or more.  We weren’t planning on starting the whole potty training thing until after we had weaned her from the pacifier, but given that she urinated twice on the floor yesterday (once after taking off her own diaper), we decided it was time for her to be introduced to her potty chair that she was currently been standing on in order to flick on and off our hallway light.

Yesterday I just sat her on it fully clothed.  But today, I sat her on it and four out of the five times I sat her on it, she peed.  She was surprised the first time it happened, as was I.  She looked at me and thought she was in trouble the first time that she did it.  But then she saw I was so happy and she was pretty proud of herself.  Unfortunately, every time I take off her diaper by the potty, she immediately starts to go.  We have to work on aim, but that’s okay.  That will come later.  We are also trying to teach her it’s not okay to step in her potty.  It has a “toilet cover”, but she just gets around that.

In more serious news, Jason’s stent removal surgery is tomorrow (Monday June 7th) at 9:00 PST.  If you follow me on Facebook, I’ll give updates from there if you haven’t heard from me via cell phone (you know who you are).

Lastly, I hope all of my Toledo area friends are safe and sound after that horrible tornado that hit last night.  Pictures from all the damages are pretty sad.  I know it destroyed Lake High School so much that they had to postpone graduation.  One of my high school friends (who lives in Germany) even told me that the tornado made news there in Germany.

I hope all is well with you.  I should be going to bed soon in order to prepare for tomorrow (and any possible nighttime awakenings by my little gal.

Before I go, here are some pictures off of my new camera.  My camera is pretty fancy, but nothing compared to Jason’s camera.  We’re waiting for his new lens to come in the mail in order for us to shoot some 18 month portraits.

By: Ann
We’re so behind in our posts. I think we’re almost 3 months behind. Lots of things have been happening. If you follow us on facebook, then you’re probably already aware of everything that went on. But let’s do a recap.  We’ll start from around March 6, 2010.  Grab a chair and your drink of choice.  You’ll be here for a while.

The weekend after Ryan came to visit us, my brother Ahan, sister-in-law Julie, and baby niece Alia came to visit. They currently live in Medford, Oregon. We went to go visit them in February for a long weekend which was great. They arrived Saturday afternoon and Athena was pretty excited to see another baby around.  She felt pretty proud that she wasn’t the youngest one anymore.

Auntie and Uncle were generous enough to offer to watch Athena that Saturday night while Jason and I went out for a few hours. One of Jason’s coworkers Sandy was having a birthday party, and we kind of wanted to make a quick appearance. However, Jason wasn’t feeling well that evening (the first night of the gallbladder drama).  So we decided against going out.

The next day we did a good amount of hanging out at the house watching the kids play (Athena being as gentle as she could…she really doesn’t know her own strength). We ordered in some Jamaican food from Coconuts, since Jason was still not feeling well and we couldn’t get the babies to be up at the same time for an extended period of time.  We also did some webcamming with Nonny and Grandpa in DC.  Alia looks so totally different now.  She’s such an angel baby.

The next day, Julie and Alia met with some of her local friends.  Ahan was supposed to meet up with her later.  I think Uncle Ahan wanted a little more Athena time which was great.  Jason admitted to feeling better in the morning and off he went to work.  We planned on meeting Jason later on in the afternoon for a Google lunch.

When we were having lunch with Jason, I noticed that his eyes were yellow.  I first thought that maybe it was the lighting because I had never been to this particular cafe before.  But then I looked at my brother’s eyes, and they were definitely not yellow.  It was then that I told Jason that he needed to see a doctor that day because something was going on with his liver.  Ahan and I kind of gave Jason no choice in the matter.  He felt fine, but jaundice is unacceptable in my book.

Uncle Ahan was nice enough to watch Athena for a few hours while I took Jason to the doctor’s appointment.  A slew of tests were done to rule out any horrible liver disease and appointments were made for STAT gastroenterology (GI) appointments and an ultrasound.

When we got back from the doctor’s office, Athena was still asleep.  So my brother met Julie and Alia up in the East Bay for some good times with friends.

Tuesday morning, the Oregon Newmans left.  I feel bad that all of this was going on during their visit.  However, I guess it was pretty much equal to when we visited them in Oregon.  My brother (a pediatrician) was on-call all weekend.  So we were not able to do much or go very far.  However, I’m usually pretty happy just visiting with family.  I never need to have much on the agenda.  Seeing my family is pretty much activity enough for me.

Returning to the gallbladder drama, Jason had a GI appointment later that day.  Between the symptoms that Jason was having off and on for months now (which progressively got much worse the previous weekend) and Jason’s family history, the doctor was half-convinced that Jason had gallstones.  You see, the symptoms usually present much more severe and in people who eat fatty, horrible foods, which is not the case with Jason.

I have to admit that I was pretty scared at this point.  I was kicking myself for not nagging Jason even more for getting his yearly check-up.  Don’t get me wrong, I did my fair share of nagging.  But I felt this could have all been avoided if I was just a little more persistent with him.  Jason is very good at what he does at Google, but,  unfortunately, he doesn’t take time to breath and take care of himself.  I will never again take the attitude of “If it ain’t broke…”

I was really hoping and praying for gallstones, because that would be the lesser of all the evils that were floating around in my little nurse practitioner brain.  A battery of even more tests was run to continue ruling out horrible liver diseases.

Jason had an ultrasound that same day, which did illustrate gallstones in his gallbladder.  I was pretty happy at this point. On Thursday, Jason had a special MRI in order to rule out gallstones in the common bile duct.  The test did show gallstones in the common bile duct.  So, from that day, we had scheduled 2 surgeries: 1) and ERCP, and a 2) laparoscopic cholycystectomy (gallbladder removal) for the following Tuesday and Friday.

So, for the next couple of days we took to eating very light and healthy for fear of ending up in the emergency room.  I know some of you may think that we may already eat like rabbits with my vegetarian lifestyle and such, but these next few days were especially healthy.

Things were going really well.  We even went out to eat with Jason’s cousin Kurt and his girlfriend out to a sushi bar (having vegetarian sushi).  Jason had some mild discomfort after dinner, but he ate much more than he was normally eating this week.

The next day was Sunday.  We had a great afternoon at Rancho San Antonio Deer Hollow Farm.  The 1 mile walk to and back was a little more than I would have wanted for Jason, but he said he was okay.  When we had returned home, we webcammed with our friends Ryan, Jessi, and Asher.  I could tell that he was starting not to feel well.  Things went downhill from there.

Each hour that went by, Jason’s pain became worse.  I finally called the on-call doctor at Palo Alto Medical Foundation, who directed us to the Stanford ER.  I told Jason to take a shower because I knew this wasn’t going to be a quick ER visit.  While Jason was taking a shower, I made arrangements for Athena to spend the night at her daycare provider’s house.  We’re so grateful for Miss Murie.  She’s so great with Athena.  We really don’t have many people to call in the area to take care of Athena, so she was definitely a lifesaver.

By the time we arrived to the ER, Jason was in excruciating pain.  I’ve never seen him in this much pain before.  I had to put my nursing cap on instead of my wife cap, because if I didn’t, I would have been a blubbering  mess shouting orders at the nurses and doctors to do something.

It’s really funny, hospitals…They make the actual patient register for  his/her stay.  Jason kept on asking, “Can’t my wife fill this out?  She is the power of attorney.  I’m really in a lot of pain.”  I felt that they just wanted his signature without caring if he fully understood everything that he was signing.  I know I probably shouldn’t say this about my current employer, but I was a little disappointed in the whole process.  We both asked her if Jason looked like he was in any condition to be signing the documents, and she uncomfortably smiled and said, “Well, if you’re (being me) the power of attorney, I guess you can sign this one, but he has to sign one more” (shoving another document on Jason’s lap, since he was wheelchair-bound at this point).

It was about an hour that passed by until we finally made it to a room with a bed.  He didn’t have a nurse, yet.  I was asking anyone who would listen for warm blankets because he was having uncontrollable chills which wasn’t helping much with his pain level.

The nurse finally came in, followed by the lab technician to draw blood and start an IV.  It was almost comical the way they were bantering back and forth as to who was going to poke him.  The doctor looked at me uncomfortably trying to hide his laugh and he knew I knew what was going on. I just wanted to scream, “Everyone get  over your laziness and just start the IV already! He’s begging for pain meds!”  But, I chose to help and not hinder the situation.  It would have looked bad if I got kicked out my future employer’s institution due to threatening the doctors and nurses.

After they gave Jason the dilaudid (IV pain med), Jason’s pain slowly but surely subsided and I started to relax.  After that, everything was a blur for me.  I didn’t get any sleep that night.  I gladly helped Jason with whatever he needed because the nurses were highly inattentive.

Jason’s first procedure, the ERCP, was the following morning.  They had to urgently put a stent in his common bile duct because he woke up prematurely and was a little combative.  This is pretty normal for kids and for people’s systems that are really clean.

Jason’s parents flew in that evening.  During Jason’s hospital stay, I stayed with him overnight while Jason’s parents stayed with Athena at home. It was a really big help to have them here.  If this was all outpatient, as it was supposed to be, I think we would have been able to handle it.  But, I didn’t want to leave Jason at the hospital all by himself or Athena with Miss Murie for the whole week.  I wanted her to be home in her own surroundings.  It was bad enough her dad wasn’t around.  We’re really grateful to Grammy and Grandpa in Cleveland.

The next day was the gallbladder removal surgery.  I was a little nervous about this due to the doctor saying that the two surgeries so close together was a little dangerous if his pancreatic enzymes were high…which they were.  But the doctor gave me reassurance that everything was going to be okay…which it was.  Jason was discharged the next day.

Jason wasn’t able to lift Athena for a few weeks, which Athena didn’t understand.  So this was very hard on both Jason and Athena.  She finally settled for her mama, but I knew that she was really missing her daddy.

After all of the gallbladder drama, we were scheduled to move in two weeks.  Jason still was recovering from surgery, so no heavy lifting.  I ended up packing the majority of our belongings in many boxes and hiring a moving company suggested by my brother Ahan.  Jason’s brother was nice enough to fly in again and help us unpack, child-proof,  and move heavy things into place.  He also helped me clean our old place.  He’s probably the best brother-in-law ever, but don’t tell him I said that.

Moving and unpacking was not the best way to spend my birthday, but I was just grateful no one was in the hospital.

I think this catches us up now.  Oh, the following week after we moved, I started my new job at Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital Otolaryngology Clinic.  To all of you who don’t know, this is Stanford’s Children’s hospital.  I’m liking it a lot.  I feel like a nursing student all over again, but I’m getting the hang of things slowly, but surely.

Yeah, when Jason and I do change, we really do change.

Jason went to Ireland about three weeks after the move, as you can see from our previous post.  He was there for 2 weeks for business and then I joined him for a little less than a week while Athena stayed in California with her grandparents and Auntie Linda.

You can check out some of my pictures on Picasa.  Ireland was great, but I don’t think I’m going to do this again anytime soon (being oceans apart from my little girl).  I think a much more manageable trip might be our next one to southwestern Ohio for our friends’ wedding while Athena stays with her Nonny and Grandpa in DC.  I’m very happy that Jason and I had some couple time, but I think I would have had a better time if our Athena was there, even if she wouldn’t remember the trip at all.  We just have to get over her eating issues one day at a time, though.

Last week, I received the nicest surprise during my lunch hour.  It was Ahan, Julie, and Alia!

This picture doesn’t do Alia justice since it’s a little blurry (taken with my iPhone).  She’s such a pleasant baby with the prettiest gray(?) eyes that I think may turn to hazel.  I’m told that her eye color changes a lot.  She’s currently almost 5 months old now.

Okay.  That’s all for now.  Jason has been symptom-free since the surgeries.  He now has to have the stent removed out of his common bile duct on Monday, June 7.  Hopefully we’ll be done with all of this stuff after that.  Please send good wishes our way on Monday.