random thoughts and updates

sorry this is a long and rambly post. more to get pictures up for william to look at from work. also just to record stuff for blogging keepsake...

wheee! thomas riding a roller coaster on dad's shoulders.

look how tightly thomas is grabbing william's hair in both fists :)

thomas is about 9 and a half months old. a few funny things we have observed... his fourth tooth finally came in. he was fussy for about 4 days this time. definitely not his usual happy self. i also think he is starting to have a little separation anxiety. he has been unusually clingy lately and sometimes just wants me to hold him. he is still afraid of the dancing elmo doll we got from my mom. i turned it on for the first time in over a month and he crawled right into my arms and clung to me the whole time it was going. and he even turned away a few times as if to say "ah turn off the devil doll, it is burning my eyes!"

sara and tomas switched toys a few weeks ago - thomas is enjoying her toy very much. he's discovered that he can cram the giraffe's entire foot in his mouth. unfortunately i didn't get my camera out fast enough to capture that. i just got the guilty bird in the mouth look. but sara - we'll make sure it is throw in the washing machine before you get it back!

now that he has teeth, another thing that i started noticing is that his spit smells. you know, before teeth, they have such sweet smelling baby breath. just warm slightly moist air. now with food and teeth, sometimes, it smells a little like sour milk or rotten fruit. ha ha.... probably has to do with the last thing he ate. i try not to be too fussy about getting his spit on me. i figured that is just part of being a mom. but these last couple days, i noticed that by the end of the day, I smell like spit. just my whole self, smells like a spit ball. you know, they get spit on your clothes, arms and hands and since he likes to hold onto my neck, i get spit there too. he likes putting as much of his hands in his mouth and then putting that drool covered hand all over the back of my neck. it wasn't so bad when it didn't smell, but now it smells! so i spend the rest of the evening getting whiffs of his spit here and there. yucky!

we spent the day at Berkeley on Friday. as i mentioned below, we volunteered Thomas for participation in their locomotor study. it was actually really fun! we got to see how thomas did in the moving room (a room with moving walls to see how he responds to the movement), to an obstacle course that got progressively more difficult, and the visual cliff. we didn't think that they still did that one - it is the plexiglass on top of a 4 foot drop. they want to see when babies start to realize that there is a drop off and when they will hesitate as opposed to just charging ahead.
to our great surprise, thomas would not crawl off the "cliff" the first time we called to him. we really thought he would just crawl over to us with no regard for the fact that there was a drop, but he didn't. for 2 minutes, he just sat there staring at us and making his noise that he makes when he calls to us. by the 3rd time, he started crying a little and hesitantly stepped off and started towards us. but he was not crawling fast and was obviously distressed that he was crawling in mid air with nothing underneath him. it was so cute and so amazing, he wanted to get to us so badly, that he overcame his apprehension to crawl over. i just scooped him up into my arms and hugged him tight when he made it to the edge. babies are so smart - it has not ceased to amaze william and i.

-----------king size bed----------------

we got our bed! it is big and we love it. we all rolled around in it sunday morning hee hee... and thomas can lie with his head touching william and his feet touching me and we still have space to spare. can definitely fit at least two kids on there. we are ready! and andy - you are right, we are going to get so spoiled in this bed. i don't know how you fit into our full-size guest bed when you come to visit. we are going to have to upgrade that to a queen at least.

of course, i wanted to sleep in the bed the nght we got it, so i spent all saturday afternoon buying sheets for our new bed. i didn't want to wait for Overstock.com to mail it (even though they have some truly fabulous deals on there) so i went to TJ Maxx and Marshalls to see what i could find. the first thing i got was a king duvet cover and sheet set. 400 thread count and even made in italy! i bought 600 thread count sheets for our queen and i don't think the high thread count made them wear any better. maybe if i sat there and ironed them after each washing... but who the heck has time to do that! ha ha... anyways, i figure we are not that high brow. plus we can't feel the difference while we are sleeping in it so as long as it looks nice, that's all that matters. but i LOVE the big bed and thomas loves it too - he did his 4 limbs-thumping-all-at-once happy dance. we got two king pillows thrown in when we bought the mattress, so i bought two accent pillows as well which just happened to match the color of our bedroom set. might as well buy into the whole "bed ensemble" thing right? :)

---------------william's back at work---------------

i spent the day with thomas and we actually spent a lot of time at safeway because he got hungry about half way through errands and i didn't feel like going home to feed him. so i picked up some taco bell for me and went to safeway to get him some food. turns out a LOT of people eat lunch at safeway! i was really surprised but at 1pm, safeway was pretty darn busy. there were a lot contractors just sitting out in the parking lot, eating lunch. inside, the line at the deli never was below 5 people deep and i just managed to get one of 4 tables for thomas and i. lucky timing. we saw young people, old people, working people, high school kids. it was so funny - i never knew so many people ate at safeway. i guess once safeway remodeled their stores and made it more inviting for people to come eat, people came!

---------first gate installed---------

sunday evening before william started work, he installed a gate at the top of the stairs. if i close the bedroom doors, i can hang out in the den upstairs with him and it is relatively safe. he has quickly learned that the gate bars are easy for little hands to hang on to, so he likes to go over and pull himself up. then, he holds on with one hand, while slapping the bars with the other. it is metal so it makes a ringing sound that he likes. also, he likes to stomp his little foot. i tried to capture it - but the picture doesn't do it justice. he is this little, solid 2 foot person, standing there, stomping his foot up and down, while calling out to me. if you look closely, you can see he is even standing on his tip top on his one foot. maybe he will be a ballet dancer... or a broadway dancer... heh heh...

finally, in the den, thomas is always taking all the tapes off the shelf and trying to find a way to stuff his hands in the VCR. yes, we still own one :)

one last week...

boy oh boy i have been taking advantage of william all this week. on Mon, tues and today, i let william take thomas for the entire morning so i can go run errands, as well as just toodle around and do some random window shopping... hee hee. i figure after next week, i won't have the liberty to do this so might as well now!

plus i am posting various pics of thomas that i haven't had time to post, so that william has some pics to look at next week when he is missing thomas. here he is letting us know that he is getting hungry.

tomorrow should be a fun day. we signed up on a couple different baby product mailing lists, so we get all kinds of marketing and product promo junk mail. last month, we got a letter from the UC Berkekley child development lab. they are looking for babies in various stages of locomotion for their studies. i told them i was only interested in the one day studies so they called us this week and said that they have a study needing babies who have just started to crawl. so tomorrow we are headed into berkeley at 10:30am to test his motor control and decision making skills. i am sure it will be funny. speaking of funny - here is thomas' super smilie face. it is his smile that he uses when he knows we want him to smile and he wants to please us and smiles really really big. it is so funny!

anyways, after the study (1.5 hrs) we are going to get some lunch in berkeley and head over to Dirt Cheap Mattresses, featured on Eye on The Bay earlier this year. we are finally going to buy our king bed so after shopping around a bit, i found they had the best deal of those deluxe mattresses with foam toppers built in. they actually have the simmons top of the line one right now that has a removable topper that you can machine wash if you have a front-loading washer. after sleeping in full size bed for 8 years and a used queen (from CL) for 2 years, we finally have a new king bed! woo hoo!

i am sure all babies do this - flapp all four limbs up and down when they are excited or happy or very pleased with something they have just accomplished. this pic actually captures that somewhat - just all hands and feet a blur with excitment.

even though days are warm, evenings have been nice and cold, so we bundle him up at night for sleep. usually a long sleeve onsie and a full body fleece sleeper. sometimes, i even put little long-john pants on under the fleece sleeper. once it starts getting really cold at night, we are going to set the thermostat so that the house doesn't go under 69 degrees. babies are such blanket kickers, there is no other way to keep him warm. and i can't imagine putting more clothes on him - he would be like this little hot dog boy with 5 layers of clothes on :)

here he is bundled up on one of our early evening walks. funny how he tolerates the hat when he feels the cold air. any time it is warmer and we try to put a hat on him (like a sun hat) he just rips it right off. including sunglasses. the days where he just sits passively wearing whatever i put on him are OVER. O - V - E - R. boo hoo...


----------mattress info------------
by the way, if anyone is interested, dirt cheap mattresses (in oakland and SF) has the Simmons Exceptionale King with eurotop/superpillow for $1000 (or $1100 if you want the box spring/foundation). i checked sleeptrain, mattress discounters and mancini sleepworld and it retails for about $2400-3000. they also have the beautyrest plush for $800. good deals for mattresses if you like the foam toppers. these also have the removable top that you can wash - simmons calls it their healthsmart feature. plus the removable top provides a layer of breathable fabric/fill between you and the foam so it sleeps cooler too. when you sleep right on foam, it can be a little warm. so if you are a warm sleeper (aka sweaty) you want some sort of buffer that breaths between you and the foam. but foam is awesome! we are test driving the 3" foam topper that william's sister got from costco and we are completely sold on foam (high density viscoelastic, yadda yadda). we can sleep in and not wake up sore. in fact we can roll around as long as we want (or as long as thomas let's us) and our backs don't get sore. if anything, tummies start to get hungry before any other part of our body gets sore from sleeping for too long. it is great! definitely worth it for a great night's sleep.

one last vacation before william goes back 2 work

we have been doing these little home away from home vacations - i try to find the cheapest nice hotel in an area of nor cal we want to toodle around in and we go for 2 or 3 nights. that seems to work the best for thomas in terms of duration. plus, we tend to get a little homesick after more than 3 days in a hotel room too. here we are on the monterey wharf.


for this last little vacation, we went to beautiful Monterey, CA. it was the BEST weather, we enjoyed good food, a lot of walking and thomas saw his first seals - or rather heard them. he was actually trying to imitate their loud barking. i swear....
oh and of course, we took some more bed pics with Thomas. he just loves those big king size beds! do all babies love big beds? do they just know that they are on vacation? :)

by the way, his face is changing right before our eyes and yes! to cynthia's question from a while back - we do already miss his baby face! it's no fair that they change up so fast on you. william is blaming it on my last haircutting attempt, ha ha... he says it is too short. so i am letting it grow out to see if it makes a difference. i don't think it will - he is just plain ole growing up!

as you can see, Thomas' face is still cute - but not the same baby cuteness. and william has a very mischievieous smile on his face because he has plans to scoop up thomas for a roll-about-the-bed fest...


so home away from home vacations are nice because you don't have to drive far, but you are in a hotel so you can make a nice big mess and they come and clean it all up so when you get back each night - everything is all nice and neat again!

oh - tip for travelling baby parents: ask for extra blankets or bedsheets and you can lay them out all over the floor to give baby extra crawling around space, without having to worry about what gross things might be on the hotel carpet. maybe you guys have already discovered this, but we never thought of it before and this time, it was great! we had two blankets laid over the main section of the room and it was a perfect place for us to lay around with the toys we brought. no more constant vigilance to keep him from the edge of the bed. in this picture, both william and thomas have been hypnotized by teletubbies.

I also started teaching thomas how to shop... he is a very fast learner and has already started reaching for things he likes, like shoes :)


and while i was shopping, william noticed that for the first time, thomas saw himself in a mirror and really might be starting to understand that it is himself he is looking at...

Thomas and Story Time with Mommy

Part of the evening routine before bed-time is story time! Thomas and mommy (sometimes daddy will do it) will sit down for a 3-5 minute story reading.

A few months ago, Thomas would sit still and take in the colorful pictures... But now, he insists on turning the pages before we finish reading it!

This particular book has a "reflective mirror" star on it. Thomas loves to stare at it (seeing another little boy inside the star) and sometimes he plants a kiss...actually a multiple of face plants as if to say...hey, who're you?

Daddy's Mini-Sabatical is almost over...

Job Change From:





To:





I've never considered myself a true Oracle employee even though my paycheck had Oracle stamped on it since January 2005. That was when Oracle completed it's hostile take-over of PeopleSoft. Hearing rumors that my manager's manager threaten one of his directs with termination when that individual applied to another department within Oracle....made me realize that my career at Oracle (formerly PeopleSoft) is a dead-end.

So I interviewed for Siemens Business Services (in Fremont) back in late August. It was a great interview. Subsequently I had two more interviews there. They assured me that they liked me. So I resigned from Oracle without a formal offer from Siemens a few weeks ago.

It gave me GREAT pleasure to resign. I wasn't the only one. Within Sept, two others have left. One went to Livermore Labs, the other to Robert Half International. And just this week, another one left. Back in April, my PeopleSoft manager left to become a teacher in San Ramon. In June 2 individuals in my team quit. By August the team morale was pretty bad... Oracle is doing very little to motivate ex-PeopleSoft employees to stick around.

The company itself is probably OK. I've met 2 classmates this quarter that works for Oracle. How ironic...I had to tell them the same story and they sympathized with me because they've heard similar stories from former PeopleSoft employees that have left their teams.

So, it was my differences with my immediate Oracle management that made my decision to leave quite easy. Despite the perks of being so close to my home (1.5 miles 1-way)...that no longer holds water.

PeopleSoft was a great company to work for. It valued its employees and treated them with respect & dignity. Oracle...well, it's a hit or miss. Some of the ex-PeopleSoft landed in nice patches, some landed in rocky situations.

Funny thing is...if all the good people are jumping ship...who's left? The people who are either 1) too comfortable and don't care about their positions, or 2) those who can't get another job elsewhere. Hm....what a way to run an organization...it's Dilbert's comic at it's best.

Siemens internal recruiter called me today (after I finished the paperwork yesterday) and I will be expecting an official written offer Monday. If I accept...my start date is likely to be Oct 30th.

That means no more naps with Thomas or feeding him breakfast at 10am and watching Elmo's World at 10:40am. That means no more walks to Barnes & Noble with Catherine and Thomas to browse the bookstore and ordering scones & coffee. That means no more staying up late (like now) and reading my textbooks. Sure we can do all that on weekends...but weekdays are so nice and uncrowded!!

However I am grateful that through out this transition, there's great peace about the decisions that were made. That's how Catherine and I know God's will is at work here. Events just seem to fit together nicely and in a very timely fashion! We're so blessed! The only issues were trying to get use to each other being around each other all the time but that passed after a few days.

Ok...enough commentary from dad for now. Will update when I start on the new job. Catherine might have less time to blog...since I'll be working and attend 2 evening classes. But the silver lining is that this is my last quarter at Cal State!

9 months at the doctor's office

finally got some pics with the doctor...

he likes his doctor (dr. tosaic) but we think he is actually starting to remember the nurse that always gives the shots because this time, no matter what we showed him or did to distract him, to keep his head facing forward, he cranned over to try to look at what she was doing. she is actually kind of a loud, heavy-handed woman... maybe that is why they make her do all the shots. heh heh... so thomas was sitting on dad's lap and i was trying to divert his attention but he just strained to see what she was up to. it is so funny! only 9 months old and already remembering that bad things happen when she is around.

he is currently 28.25 inches and 19.5 pounds. he is doing well, but his stupid undescended left testicle just does not want to come down. she said we might want to start thinking about going to a specialist, a urologist/surgeon that does babies. but i am just cringing thinking about him having to have any sort of surgery. we're just going to keep praying for now. God can heal - just depends on the method and the timing. we'll see...

this is funny - thomas is in a bit of a compromising position but the expression on his face... i had to post it, "what are you lookin at??"

swing swing oh the joy!

i read somewhere that once babies can sit up themselves well, they are ready for the infant swing at the park. i finally got to take thomas out yesterday and i have only one word for his reaction... whhhheeeeeeee!!!!!!


this was right after i put him in the swing. it is about 4 feet off the ground so he sat there for a moment contemplating his surroundings. note the rapidly twitching feet, indicating lots of brain activity as he tries to compute what is going on (there were a lot of other kids there playing on the playsets behind us and to either side).

then i started pushing him. :D I think he really looks like william in these pics.... like a chubby william. although the crooked lower lip is from me, the eyes and nose are from dad.
I can't wait until he gets on the slide with one of us!




------------- click click click ---------------

thomas has been a little fussy the past day and today and we couldn't really figure out why. today, william was changing his diaper and he heard this little "click click click". he looked closer to try to see where the sound was coming from and discovered that one upper tooth had come through! it was the sound of thomas clicking his little teeth together! so far only one is showing but i am sure the other one will make an appearance soon.

we started giving him a minimum dose of baby tylenol today to help with any discomfort from the teeth cutting through the gums (just until they are both peeking out of the gums). plus his 9 mo doctor's visit is tomorrow so he has shots and a weight/height check. tylenol will help with any slight fever he might get from the shots... 2 birds w/ one stone. we get to see if he has grown at all! feels like he has not since 8 month but the scales will tell. his face always looks so serious whenever he is lying there naked on that little scale. almost like he is saying "hey now... i am a person, not beef." i'll see if i can get a picture of it.

cornball cheesy-ness

not sure if i am moody or what is going on but tonight i was a little teary as i prayed for thomas. i usually try to put him in the crib before he is completely asleep. he has been good about falling asleep without one of us holding him. (although lately, he has been conning us into giving him a little back rub or singing until he is asleep... he caught us in a moment of weakness and now he objects loudly when we leave before a little rub and a song).
tonight, i just wanted to hold him for a bit. as we have all been noting - these little guys are growing fast! soon they will only want to be held when they are tired. even now, he is getting really squirmy. it is hard to hold him for long and when he wants down, he pushes hard with all four limbs against my stomach and chest. so anyways, i was just holding him in my arms, looking at his peaceful sleeping face. sometimes i bring him over to the little night light in his room so i can see him better :). before i put him down in the crib, i prayed for him and also prayed for all the many couples we know that are pregnant or trying to get pregnant. for some reason, i couldn't hold back the tears. it is no wonder that jesus loved children - they are so amazing, innocent, and pure, etc, etc, etc. there aren't enough nice adjectives to describe their wonder. it made me also realize that it was truly God's grace that all four of us got pregnant at around the same time (there were four of us couples, all seeing who could get pregnant first! :) because it is really hard to know when God's timing is for you. i mean, four out of four! that is amazing odds, esp with 2 of us almost in our mid-30's. figures that you young un's got pregnant first! :)

i was looking back through some of his early pictures and it is hard to believe it is the same baby. i can't believe that little stripped cap from the hospital fit on his head! and even though he was cute, we can see now why people really enjoy them after 9 months - they are so much more interactive and really start to show their personalities.


-------------aptitude or race?---------------

completely different topic but we get this UCLA magazine every month because both william and i are UC alum association members. this month there was an article about the crisis in african american applications. since afirmative action has ended, it has gone down exponentially and this current year of freshmen is only 2% african. wow... that is pretty shocking. they said latin decent and native americans have also fallen. i used to work in HR so my belief has always been hiring always based on skills and fit for the position offered, never based on outside factors (gender, race, religion, special needs, etc.). that transfered over to my thoughts on college admissions, never thought much of preferential treatment for ethnicities because it didn't seem fair. however, william and i just watched "Akeelah & the Bee". it was a great, family movie by the way, a little predictable but completely enjoyable! and it reminded me that there are a lot of kids out there with huge potential but no resources or mentors. so they end up channeling that talent negatively. now i realize that even if their ethnicity got them into college, the opportunities afforded to them once they are there can help them rise above. at any rate, it really surprised me that diversity had dropped so low... at least they are working aggressively to reverse that trend.

another first.... small milestones for baby

last week, we painted the TV room - gray cashmere - sort of a light green/gray color. it is hard to get a good picture of it b/c it's a light color. i really wanted to use this great cement gray color they just put out for 2006, but william really disliked the idea of gray walls so i used the green/gray. it turned out really well so today we started painting the kitchen. it is called "light khaki" and looks like khaki during the day but at night, it turns a very strong green... split pea soup. that was not expected but oh well, that is why i am not a professional designer.


unfortunately william has been doing all the work... i just watch thomas. the hardest i have worked is to dab at the little white pits the roller missed. enjoyable actually. william has been doing the grunt work. thomas was really amazing though - this morning after eating a pretty good sized breakfast, thomas played by himself on the floor for 45 minutes! 45 minutes.... i kept looking over, expecting him to look over at me and grunt, letting me know he was ready to do something different. but each time, he would just look over at me, smile and look back at whatever he was playing with. it was so nice to be able to get some stuff done, but it was a little sad too. i kept waiting for him to lift his arms out to me, but it just wasn't happening. it was like "uh uh... don't come over, i am fine here playing by myself for now. got too many interesting things to look at." getting bigger every day...

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he just started "waving" yesterday too. he even noticed the shadow of his waving hand when he was in his walker last night. he was standing there, leaning over, waving and when i peered over to see what he was looking at... it was his shadow :)