John Mayer...I love this guy's music. Especially the lyrics...as I near my mid-life 40 years old. FORTY!
Anyways, check it out if you can...
"Stop This Train" - John Mayer/Track 7 on Continum
No I'm not color blind
I know the world is black and white
Try to keep an open mind but...
I just can't sleep on this tonight
Stop this train I want to get off and go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
But honestly won't someone stop this train
Don't know how else to say it, don't want to see my parents go
One generation's length away
From fighting life out on my own
Stop this train
I want to get off and go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't but honestly won't someone stop this train
So scared of getting older
I'm only good at being young
So I play the numbers game to find away to say that life has just begun
Had a talk with my old man
Said help me understand
He said turn 68, you'll renegotiate
Don't stop this train
Don't for a minute change the place you're in
Don't think I couldn't ever understand
I tried my hand
John, honestly we'll never stop this train
See once in a while when it's good
It'll feel like it should
And they're all still around
And you're still safe and sound
And you don't miss a thing
'til you cry when you're driving away in the dark.
Singing stop this train I want to get off and go home again
I can't take this speed it's moving in
I know I can't
Cause now I see I'll never stop this train
For those that are lyric-interpreting challenged (like me)...read:
http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=3530822107858615298
heres what john said about this song on 98.7:
"i have no idea how i'm going to play this live, because it's definitely the most emotionally confrontational song for me....ya know, time is moving forward, all the time, and we know that, but..its kind of like running out of a continually burning hallway- and you can't go back and get your stuff. and all i wanna do is yell, 'i wanna go get my stuff!', but people are going, 'you can't! keep running!!'. and this fireball's coming up behind you, well it's not exactly as indiana jones as that, but it feels like that sometimes... so this is a song begging to go back and uhh, it's called 'stop this train'"..... :)
This line just cuts like a knife:
"Don't know how else to say it,don't want to see my parents go
One generation's length away
From fighting life out on my own"
Sniff sniff... :) I'm getting sentimental in my old age. Well, actually I'm also impacted by several friends' parents passing away due to illnesses and cancer within the last 2 years.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
sick sick sick and hotmail vs. gmail
thomas with his shaggy, 70's, bruce lee haircut.
mommy's putting the squeeze on his cute fat little head... :)
so thomas is sick again. again! he was sick from jan 22nd to feb 3rd, 2 whole weeks. he recovered but he had this really flegmy sounding cough, that never went away. on sunday he started getting a runny nose again. by monday it was a full blown cold, this time with a very productive sounding cough. only babies do not know how to hock lugees!! so yesterday night, thomas woke up coughing at 11pm, gagged as a lugee got caught in his throat and puked out his entire dinner. he was crying and it was so sad to see. i had just showered but i hugged him to me as close as i could anyways - he was crying in so much distress, yet trying to suppress his coughing because he was starting to realize that is what makes him gag. oh and wow - puck really smells terrible. the last time i puked was in college (LONG time ago)... i had no recollection of how terrible it smelled. so at 11 at night, we had to undress him, give him a partial bath and get him dressed again. he was sleepy but so miserable.
we are taking him to the doctor today to make sure that he doesn't have bronchitis or croup or something that can be treated. i am pretty sure that this is just a cold and that we just have to ride it out, get him rest, fluids, humidifier and keep him warm. but for william's sake, i am going to make sure that there is nothing else we could be doing. william (as many of you know) likes to have his bases covered. and you never know - it could be something worse.
from what i have heard, between 1 and 5, kids get sick a lot. after that it slows down b/c they have built up a little immunity. i think this is just part of parenting. but so william thinks i have done my due diligence, we are going to the doctor to make sure. i guess due diligence is a good way to prevent having to second guess yourself.
on a positive note, last month, thomas discovered blueberries and still can't get enough. he likes to stuff as many as he can in his mouth and will stop at nothing to get at them if he knows you have some. here he has partially climbed into dad's lap. we have to be careful about how many he stuffs in there b/c more than 3 and he tends to choke on the skins. silly piggy! not sure if you can see in the pic, but he has stuffed his mouth pretty full and is still reaching for more.
i can't really adequately describe what it feels like to watch your husband and your child snuggled together. but i read this little quip online and it was much better so ...
"A kind of fierce joy clutched at my heart. I would kill for them, die for them. The work, the constant, backbreaking effort, is nothing compared to the gift that is our small sweet family. This is what it's all about." (from babycenter.com, "tending violet")
and this is really what life is all about! :)
---------------------------HOTMAIL vs. GMAIL---------------------------------
on another note, have any of you tried the new hotmail office live beta version? i have an old hotmail account that i kept only for junk mail, online sign up and receipts (basically any site that requires me to plug in an email). i converted over to office live in feb and found it is pretty slick. it works almost like ms outlook now. plus william and i started using the calendar feature on hotmail and shared it out to each other. now, if we need to know if the other has something planned, we just check our hotmail calendar. pretty nifty! i have pretty much stopped using my palm. (sorry john...). then i discovered that for only $20/year, i can get rid of all those annoying ads on hotmail. it is like the whipped cream on top of a sundae! yes - you too can enjoy peaceful email time, free of flashing dancing pigs, blinking "low mortgage rates" and "hot singles waiting for you to call" for only $20 for the entire year. it is GREAT! the only reason i stayed with myway email for so long is because it had no ads.
my dilema is that i have this gmail account that i started a while ago and i really like some of the gmail features: the view, the way the threads tab, emails addresses on the left, the sort, search and label features. but the calendar is not as intuitive as the hotmail calendar. so switch all my email back to hotmail or switch over to gmail and just keep the hotmail for junk mail and calendar?? tough call.
i think i will ruminate on it a few more weeks. switching emails is such a pain and i don't want to have to do it more than once. i think the last time i switched was in 2000...
mommy's putting the squeeze on his cute fat little head... :)
so thomas is sick again. again! he was sick from jan 22nd to feb 3rd, 2 whole weeks. he recovered but he had this really flegmy sounding cough, that never went away. on sunday he started getting a runny nose again. by monday it was a full blown cold, this time with a very productive sounding cough. only babies do not know how to hock lugees!! so yesterday night, thomas woke up coughing at 11pm, gagged as a lugee got caught in his throat and puked out his entire dinner. he was crying and it was so sad to see. i had just showered but i hugged him to me as close as i could anyways - he was crying in so much distress, yet trying to suppress his coughing because he was starting to realize that is what makes him gag. oh and wow - puck really smells terrible. the last time i puked was in college (LONG time ago)... i had no recollection of how terrible it smelled. so at 11 at night, we had to undress him, give him a partial bath and get him dressed again. he was sleepy but so miserable.
we are taking him to the doctor today to make sure that he doesn't have bronchitis or croup or something that can be treated. i am pretty sure that this is just a cold and that we just have to ride it out, get him rest, fluids, humidifier and keep him warm. but for william's sake, i am going to make sure that there is nothing else we could be doing. william (as many of you know) likes to have his bases covered. and you never know - it could be something worse.
from what i have heard, between 1 and 5, kids get sick a lot. after that it slows down b/c they have built up a little immunity. i think this is just part of parenting. but so william thinks i have done my due diligence, we are going to the doctor to make sure. i guess due diligence is a good way to prevent having to second guess yourself.
on a positive note, last month, thomas discovered blueberries and still can't get enough. he likes to stuff as many as he can in his mouth and will stop at nothing to get at them if he knows you have some. here he has partially climbed into dad's lap. we have to be careful about how many he stuffs in there b/c more than 3 and he tends to choke on the skins. silly piggy! not sure if you can see in the pic, but he has stuffed his mouth pretty full and is still reaching for more.
i can't really adequately describe what it feels like to watch your husband and your child snuggled together. but i read this little quip online and it was much better so ..."A kind of fierce joy clutched at my heart. I would kill for them, die for them. The work, the constant, backbreaking effort, is nothing compared to the gift that is our small sweet family. This is what it's all about." (from babycenter.com, "tending violet")
and this is really what life is all about! :)
---------------------------HOTMAIL vs. GMAIL---------------------------------
on another note, have any of you tried the new hotmail office live beta version? i have an old hotmail account that i kept only for junk mail, online sign up and receipts (basically any site that requires me to plug in an email). i converted over to office live in feb and found it is pretty slick. it works almost like ms outlook now. plus william and i started using the calendar feature on hotmail and shared it out to each other. now, if we need to know if the other has something planned, we just check our hotmail calendar. pretty nifty! i have pretty much stopped using my palm. (sorry john...). then i discovered that for only $20/year, i can get rid of all those annoying ads on hotmail. it is like the whipped cream on top of a sundae! yes - you too can enjoy peaceful email time, free of flashing dancing pigs, blinking "low mortgage rates" and "hot singles waiting for you to call" for only $20 for the entire year. it is GREAT! the only reason i stayed with myway email for so long is because it had no ads.
my dilema is that i have this gmail account that i started a while ago and i really like some of the gmail features: the view, the way the threads tab, emails addresses on the left, the sort, search and label features. but the calendar is not as intuitive as the hotmail calendar. so switch all my email back to hotmail or switch over to gmail and just keep the hotmail for junk mail and calendar?? tough call.
i think i will ruminate on it a few more weeks. switching emails is such a pain and i don't want to have to do it more than once. i think the last time i switched was in 2000...
Friday, February 16, 2007
visit from baby Alexya
my co-worker from merv, Jessica came by to visit last week. it was SO cute! thomas is so aware of babies and other kids that are his size or smaller now. he saw me rocking her car seat so he tried "rocking" her as well. he was so curious and wanted to touch her feet. he was being a complete and total ham!
it is amazing to see social development in our babies - how he interacts with kids now, when just a month ago, he really wasn't interested. last sunday, when liz came to the toddler room to drop ethan, she sat ethan down on the floor. Thomas did the most amazing thing yet - he actually walked over, grabbed both of ethan's hands in his and flapped both them up and down a little while smiling at us. it was so break your heart cute, just makes you want to explode!
it is amazing to see social development in our babies - how he interacts with kids now, when just a month ago, he really wasn't interested. last sunday, when liz came to the toddler room to drop ethan, she sat ethan down on the floor. Thomas did the most amazing thing yet - he actually walked over, grabbed both of ethan's hands in his and flapped both them up and down a little while smiling at us. it was so break your heart cute, just makes you want to explode!
Happy Valentine's day and Congratulations!
here's our little HUNK a Burning Love on valentine's day. I found the onesie at walmart of all places for only $3. so we have been calling him our hunka burning love for the past week. :)
* * * | | * * * | | * * *| | * * * | | * * *| | * * * | | * * *| | * * *
Also Congrats to Robin, my dear college friend, and her husband Stanley! Their son was born last friday 30 minutes after midnight, Holden Yung, at around 6 and a half pounds. welcome to parenthood!!
Incidentally, if you are looking for a cute baby shower gift that is different, funny onsies at: http://milkbomb.com/mm5/merchant.mvc - for the very hip baby... we like "live free or cry" and "our little tax write-off"
* * * | | * * * | | * * *| | * * * | | * * *| | * * * | | * * *| | * * *
lately, thomas has been a monkey. he has discovered that standing on things, any thing, gives him additional height. on Monday, thomas used the boppy pillow to climb onto the sofa all by himself. he also stood on the kitchen stool to get a better look over the child-gate, and climbed into his toy bin (on top of all the toys in it) to get to the stereo that I thought I had made inaccessible with chairs.
I have two other close college friends that just became pregnant as well! so it seems love is in the air... plus of course, johnny & betty. wow lots of babies coming this year. the golden pig is seeming golden after all. we know 4 other couples that are trying. pray for strong swimmers! ha ha...
* * * | | * * * | | * * *| | * * * | | * * *| | * * * | | * * *| | * * *
Also Congrats to Robin, my dear college friend, and her husband Stanley! Their son was born last friday 30 minutes after midnight, Holden Yung, at around 6 and a half pounds. welcome to parenthood!!
Incidentally, if you are looking for a cute baby shower gift that is different, funny onsies at: http://milkbomb.com/mm5/merchant.mvc - for the very hip baby... we like "live free or cry" and "our little tax write-off"
* * * | | * * * | | * * *| | * * * | | * * *| | * * * | | * * *| | * * *
lately, thomas has been a monkey. he has discovered that standing on things, any thing, gives him additional height. on Monday, thomas used the boppy pillow to climb onto the sofa all by himself. he also stood on the kitchen stool to get a better look over the child-gate, and climbed into his toy bin (on top of all the toys in it) to get to the stereo that I thought I had made inaccessible with chairs.
I have two other close college friends that just became pregnant as well! so it seems love is in the air... plus of course, johnny & betty. wow lots of babies coming this year. the golden pig is seeming golden after all. we know 4 other couples that are trying. pray for strong swimmers! ha ha...
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
more pic updates
almost matching socks, happy feet :) notice how william puts thomas' socks on exactly the same way he puts his own socks on. ha ha...
our house cat, scsi is pretty good at avoiding thomas. whenever he seems thomas rumbling up, he heads the other way... or he makes sure he is settled in a spot that thomas can't reach. our other kitty, maggie is so good with thomas. she has absolutely no sense of the impending doom, looming above her. btw, absolutely no kitties were harmed in or after this picture! luckily he did not clobber her. he dropped the pins and grabbed her with both fists. she actually takes this as petting so she just keeps purring away.
proper posture when riding toy cars is very important. here thomas has just gotten a push from dad. with our slippery floors, he gets some pretty good speed on his little riding toy.
thomas loves riding anything with wheels!
our house cat, scsi is pretty good at avoiding thomas. whenever he seems thomas rumbling up, he heads the other way... or he makes sure he is settled in a spot that thomas can't reach. our other kitty, maggie is so good with thomas. she has absolutely no sense of the impending doom, looming above her. btw, absolutely no kitties were harmed in or after this picture! luckily he did not clobber her. he dropped the pins and grabbed her with both fists. she actually takes this as petting so she just keeps purring away.
proper posture when riding toy cars is very important. here thomas has just gotten a push from dad. with our slippery floors, he gets some pretty good speed on his little riding toy.
thomas loves riding anything with wheels!
i sort of look like Thomas
william has been scanning in a bunch of photos from my parents. i wanted to convert to digital in case something ever happens to the originals. don't want to lose them! thomas is so cute and seeing my baby pics, it is obvious he got the cuteness from william's baby stage b/c i was not a cute baby. i had NO hair until about 10-11 months. not cute! when my hair finally grew in, i finally started looking more like a girl :) here is my dad when he was only 25-26 years old. he only weighed about 115 lbs!
my mom was only 24 in this next picture. at least now, i can see more resemblance of my toddler self to thomas. especially the nose and mouth!
i forgot to mention... i got a chance to babysit my nephew and neice a couple weeks ago. my neice, Ariana, is really really cute. i was renamed auntie poo and she was auntie pee, for the night. she was very helpful with her baby brother - telling me what her mom and dad usually do. i guess i could have re-read the instructions they left, but it was more fun asking ariana. :)
towards the end of the evening, we went upstairs to get ready for bed. she was actually not wanting to brush her teeth - and little 3 year old girls are quite squirmy when they are trying to worm their way around you. she was trying her best to "sneak" out the door, but luckily i have been sneaky myself (as a wayward youth), and managed to keep her in the bathroom and get her teeth brushed, face/hands&feet washed, and night diaper on. luckily i had baby brother asleep by this time.
once she was in bed, she didn't want me to leave. and her other auntie, Debbie, wasn't joking when she said that ariana's room is pitch dark at night. i mean, it is not completely dark, but you can't see anything in front of your face with no night light. so there we were, i was sitting next to her bed and every minute or so, this little dainty hand reaches over and touches whatever part of my face she gets to first and then settles down again. she would also chime in with her sqeakiest little girl whisper saying "you sound like mommy". our voices are pretty similar, just different pitches. ha ha... so funny! and cute too. well, i guess if it was thomas doing that to me every night, it wouldn't be cute, but it sure is cute when it is your neice! :)
my mom was only 24 in this next picture. at least now, i can see more resemblance of my toddler self to thomas. especially the nose and mouth!
i forgot to mention... i got a chance to babysit my nephew and neice a couple weeks ago. my neice, Ariana, is really really cute. i was renamed auntie poo and she was auntie pee, for the night. she was very helpful with her baby brother - telling me what her mom and dad usually do. i guess i could have re-read the instructions they left, but it was more fun asking ariana. :)
towards the end of the evening, we went upstairs to get ready for bed. she was actually not wanting to brush her teeth - and little 3 year old girls are quite squirmy when they are trying to worm their way around you. she was trying her best to "sneak" out the door, but luckily i have been sneaky myself (as a wayward youth), and managed to keep her in the bathroom and get her teeth brushed, face/hands&feet washed, and night diaper on. luckily i had baby brother asleep by this time.
once she was in bed, she didn't want me to leave. and her other auntie, Debbie, wasn't joking when she said that ariana's room is pitch dark at night. i mean, it is not completely dark, but you can't see anything in front of your face with no night light. so there we were, i was sitting next to her bed and every minute or so, this little dainty hand reaches over and touches whatever part of my face she gets to first and then settles down again. she would also chime in with her sqeakiest little girl whisper saying "you sound like mommy". our voices are pretty similar, just different pitches. ha ha... so funny! and cute too. well, i guess if it was thomas doing that to me every night, it wouldn't be cute, but it sure is cute when it is your neice! :)
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
busy busy
wow life's not getting any slower. i haven't had much time on the computer with thomas being sick. i guess as with anything, it is also as busy as we make it :)
thomas is definitely not slowing down either. he walks as much as he can now. he only crawls if he has fallen down and finds it convenient to crawl towards some item of desire. or like in the photos, when he purposefully falls on his face in order to test the softness of something.
when he is really tired, he does this drunken walk. especially when he is tired but still holding objects in his hands. then it is almost like his feet go in a completely random pattern! plus he loses his balance a lot more so we have to be more vigilent about making sure he doesn't face plant on something that will really hurt.
it took about 2 weeks for thomas to fully recover from his first real cold. for some reason, days were more hectic with him being sick. the worst part was the bad runny/stuffed nose. he was definitely phlegmy and had a cough as well, but luckily, no fever. he first started showing signs of being sick on jan 21st. by this past sunday (2/4), he was pretty clear (except for a little residual stuffiness) and by monday and tuesday, he was back to his old self...
do babies have an old self? he changes so fast! i do know we spoiled him a lot the past two weeks, knowing he was uncomfortable, so i will probably spend the next month undoing a lot of that. especially the TV watching. now that he walks more, he loves exploring the fridge and helping us empty the dishwasher, utensil by utensil. he also loves checking areas that are off limits to see if they have magically been opened to him. he demonstrated on sunday at john & liz's place that he has very keen radar for things that block areas he wants to reach (like stairways). as SOON as they are moved, he drops what he is doing and goes zooming towards the forbidden area.
about TV... when he was sick, i pretty much let him watch TV whenever it was eating time, so that he would have something to focus on other than the fact that he couldn't breathe. i think there are days that he watched 2 maybe even 3 hours of TV (between sesame street, teletubbies and curious george). it takes a long time to get a full meal in him sometimes. in the last month, he has stopped eating as fast as he used to. there are days when it feels like all i have done all day is feed him. blah....
anyways, this week i backed it down to 1 hour in the morning. but he does try here and there to turn on the TV. so i turn it off and tell him it is not time to watch TV. but he is pretty persistent sometimes. luckily, at this age, it is easy to redirect with a book or toy. but man, TV is soooooo hypnotically evil. he just sits there and stares. and at times, he squeals, giggles or grunts in response.
------------books and a not so hot craigslist deal-------------
one thing we have discovered is that he loves books. i read with him at least 4-5 times a day because he just pulls books out and sits down to flip through the pages in his own random way. whenever i see him "reading" it always pulls at my heart and i have to go over, pull him into my lap and read with him. i love it!
to feed his desire for books, i have been searching for used children's board books. i found this lady on craigslist selling 164 books for $100. well, i don't want that many books so i asked if i could pick out 50 for $40. she agreed. once i got there, i found that many of the books were paperback baby books, so they are more like thin pamphlets. and it was not just baby books, everything from 1 to grade school. she did have some larger books (like this colorful tome filled with fables, songs and nursery rhymes. and this 5 pack of HUGE disney classic story books). so i ended up with 71 books for $60. it is not a bad deal at all, but I do wish I could have worked her down to $50. what i did learn is that indian women are the toughest bargainers in the world!!! i know it is a stereotype (like korean women being totally superficial :) ha ha), but i thought i was a pretty good wheeler & dealer. so i walked in thinking i could talk this lady down once i saw what she had to sell. instead, she had me in there for an hour, haggling back and forth. she even pulled out a calculator to try to make sure she was not getting shafted. and she tried to tell me that i had taken most of the best ones (even though i didn't). at least we remained pretty civil towards one another and it never turned ugly (or i would have just walked away). so she softened me a little because she was nice about dealing. but boy, i always thought i could drive a hard bargain... i met my match! :)
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