Talking

We all know that Jack has a Mommy who won't shut up, so it's no surprise that he's a big talker. It's funny, around town here in Cupertino, everyone seems to notice how often he talks and how clear he is. I was at the park last week and there was a grandma there with her granddaughter, who was probably around 3. (I should mention that Cupertino has the #1 school system in the state of California per their scores - just announced - and the population breakdown is decidedly Asian. We are definitely in the minority. However we are thrilled to be here, because as Justin can attest, we went to the Cupertino library on a Sunday afternoon and every single study table - about 300 of them - was taken up by a child and his/her parent. It was truly amazing. We know that Jack will be in a good place if we can get him in the schools here.)

Anyway, I digress. So I was at the park, and Jack was playing on the slides with this little girl Ava. He was telling her "this slide" and "I did it!" and "Momma duck and Daddy duck" and all the other things he loves to say. Her grandma was amazed. She kept asking me "how do you get him to talk like that? He's so smart!" I said that he had been in daycare (I credit Mountainside for a lot of his talents) and that I always keep up a steady stream of conversation with him (which is true. He's my only source of conversation most days. I tell him about news, current events, music, books I'm reading, etc etc.) This grandma was so taken with Jack and his language skills that she asked "are you here at the park every day at this time? Can we set up playdates? Ava needs an influence like him, a kid who is very vocal, to teach her how to talk." Needless to say I was flattered and a little overwhelmed - parents will do anything here to give their kids a leg up and that kind of scares me. It reminds me a lot of the Tiger Mom (see here if you haven't heard of it: http://abcnews.go.com/US/tiger-mom-amy-chua-controversial-book-parenting-guide/story?id=12767305. ) I don't want Jack in some super competitive school environment, but I do want him challenged...so it's all a big learning curve for us!

The point of my story is that Jack is a big talker. He is very outgoing and he will say just about anything to anyone. He also means what he says. He doesn't just ramble on. Some of our recent conversations...

• Setting: Target. At the checkout line. Jack: "Momma, I put on belt." (He wants to put all the things we buy onto the belt when we pay.) So he does, and then yells, "I did it!!!" as he claps his hands. I go to get my wallet and he says "Momma, money." Me: "Yes Jack, we have to pay with money, Would you like to help me scan my credit card?" Jack: "MY money!" as he pulls the card out of my wallet and hands it to the cashier. She says "thank you." He says, "Thank you. Welcome. All done. Bye bye!" 
• Setting: Car. Justin driving. Jack from the backseat: "Daddy, this way!" as he points to the right. Justin: "OK Jack, we will go this way." Jack: "No, Daddy, THIS way!" pointing the other way. Justin: "Jack, make up your mind. We are going to dinner. What do you want to eat?" Jack: "Quesadilla. Beans. No rice. Hummus." Justin: "Do you want a sandwich?" Jack: "No, quesadilla Daddy." Justin: "Do you want chicken? Macaroni and cheese?" Jack: (getting frustrated) "NO DADDY, quesadilla. NO RICE!" OK OK OK, we hear you little man! 
• He loves to play the "what does ___ say?" game. Usually it's with animals and it's fairly mundane, but some of his newly acquired ones (and this was with no help from either of us) include... "What does Mommy say?" "WHOA WHOA WHOA!" (I do say that often when he's doing something bad.) "What does Daddy say?" "Work, MY money!" (HAHAH SO FUNNY, no idea where he got it but he says it every time we go to pick up Justin.)
• He's got the noises for ambulance and firetruck down, and he's working on police car. If we hear them (and we often do as we live on the highway) he yells "AMBULANCE!! FIRETRUCK!" It's pretty amazing.
• He knows the numbers one and two, and we are working on three. He always tells me that he has two cars when he's holding one in each hand, which is pretty exciting.
• He's an iPad MASTER. He can get into any game or app, on the internet, and scroll all over it. He knows it's an "iPad" and he asks for it by name. Kind of scary actually. He also knows Daddy works at Apple but I think that confuses him because he thinks of the fruit. 
• He loves to copy us. At the pool, if one of us lays down in a lounge chair to take a break, he climbs up on one and stretches out and pretends to read a book. Or when you are helping him go to sleep and you're laying in the room with him, he fake snores when he lays down. It's hilarious and I try so hard not to die laughing...and I am usually pretty unsuccessful. 
• He's great a peek-a-boo and he is getting VERY good at hide and seek. He's a great "hider" but he starts to cry if he can't find you within 5 seconds of being the "seeker."

Jack's Toy Car

There is this super cool RC-car race track at the mall here (http://www.insidelineracing.com/). Justin saw it back when he was a bachelor here and thought Jack would love it - and he did. He would sit for 20 or 30 minutes mesmerized by the cars going round and round.

Today actually turned out to be overcast and a little chilly (shocker, since every single day has been perfect since we've been here!) Justin thought getting Jack his own little RC car would be a good idea. Jack loved it...and was super frustrated by it...all at once. He wore himself out chasing it around. When we told him that the car had to rest and "go night night" he put it back in its plastic casing in the box and told us all to "shhh, car night night!" Here are a few videos that I caught on the fly - sorry they aren't great.

Apparently only one video loaded. Oops. I will try loading more tomorrow. Our internet here isn't wonderful. 

Some other side notes:

• Everything is "my ____" or "mine _____." This is cute, the first 12 times. After that it gets super annoying. He whines "my chocolate milk" or "my firetruck" when he wants anything (for example) and when he doesn't immediately receive it, he says "Momma, GET IT!!" which we are definitely trying to discourage. He is, however, very polite, and says "thank you Momma" or "thank you Daddy" just about every chance he gets. 
• Bedtime. My sweet, wonderful sleeper has gone from a boy that we could put in bed and shut the door to fighting us at every moment. His bedtime has steadily creeped up from 7pm to now 8pm or later. He still wakes up by 7am every morning, and it's killing naptimes and regular schedules. I am trying to cut us all a little slack as we are in new surroundings, in a new time zone, and Mom and Dad are a little stressed out from work, new things, and selling the house. So hopefully once we get into a permanent location with his own bed again, this will go back to normal - but I know bad habits start fast so I am trying to keep a handle on it. He's mastered the "water," no "book," no "Daddy's bed," no "milk..." stalling tactics, paired with the fact that he can get out of his bed...makes for a rough nighttime routine. 
• He's still my healthy, diverse eater (thank goodness!) He eats what we have most nights, and he loves hummus, bananas, strawberries, blueberries, pineapples, apples, peanut butter, spinach, broccoli, and cheese. My "failsafe" foods are mac & cheese and peanut butter crackers, but he eats many varied things and for that I am grateful! I have heard this will change but I hope not. I like that we can go to any type of restaurant or have anything for dinner and he will at least try it (pork, chicken, turkey, sushi, chinese, etc etc)
• We are on the search for a house but we are also looking out for a daycare for Jack. I have been at home alone with him for four weeks and I am admitting that I can't keep him engaged or structured nearly enough. I think I found a good one, so stay tuned. We are looking to get him into a part time program of at least Tuesday and Thursday mornings. This will give me time to look for a house, unpack when we finally do move, and (maybe) interview. Still deciding if I am going back to work or not. I will keep you posted on that too!
• Daddy and work. Justin is LOVING his new job at Apple, which is great. Jack has wrapped his head around the fact that Daddy goes to work every day ("my work") to make money ("my money") and that Daddy makes speakers ("my speakers.") Anytime Justin's not visible (meaning he's in the shower, in bed, or in another room,) Jack reassures himself under his breath that "Daddy work. My work." I think this is his way of saying to himself that Daddy will be home at the end of the day and he isn't gone for a really long time again. We are still working on the separation anxiety from Daddy!

Overall we are all very happy and we really like the new area that we are making home. We can't wait to show it around and we are slowly learning our way. We will be THRILLED to finally be in a permanent house once we find one and sell our house (which is going good but not talking about it as to not jinx anything...) 

More soon...

Happy Hollow

Today Jack and I were on the search for something new to do. We had a super fun weekend with Daddy and we needed to get out and run off some energy. I heard good things about Happy Hollow Park & Zoo in San Jose (See here: http://www.hhpz.org/ ) and so I thought maybe I'd take Jack and see what the fuss was about.

Despite a few wrong turns, we found our way (and inadvertently found a Wal Mart! Yay!) Jack ran right to the huge treehouse climbing gym, complete with super awesome slides and lots of mesh space to climb on. He went right to the top (see below.) He is such a little daredevil and is not scared of heights or big kids!

He did pretty well, but I had to come up after him. Right after this picture was taken, he lost one shoe, which I had to run down and get, while he proceeded to run to the GIANT (I am talking three-story-tall loop) slide and go down. I ran to the top and had to slide down after him!! He was so fast but he had a great time. 

The good thing about this place was that it was geared mostly towards kids ages 2 - 5. Lots of the rides were for younger kids, which was great. Jack LOVED the vintage firetrucks and police cars ride, complete with buttons that rang the bells and clanged the sirens. He must have gone on it 12 times.

The sad thing was the I left my camera in the pool bag, so all I had was my cell phone to take pictures. He wore himself out... but didn't take a nap until 5pm when we were on our way out to dinner. Oops. Let's hope he decides to go to bed tonight...

Stanford's Family Carnival

We were lucky today to catch up with our good friends Abby and Jesse Birbach, and their daughter Molly (and baby #2, coming in October!) Abby was my roommate and one of my best and longest friends at Tech, and Jesse is in law school at Stanford so we jumped at the chance to visit the campus and Palo Alto. We hadn't seen either before and it was a beautiful day for some exploring!

Abby and Jesse live in the graduate housing area at Stanford and today there was a family carnival. The kids had a blast, and we even tried out Abby's new double BOB stroller...

Jack was excited, Molly was a little confused as to why she was sharing her stuff with this other kid...

 The carnival was awesome. It had a petting zoo, horse rides, a little train, magic shows, and lots of snacks. Here is Jack taking in the horses...would he try riding one??

"I don't know, Mom...."

Miss Molly hesitated at first and then decided she wasn't a huge fan of the horses after all. But we did get a photo op!!

Jack did okay, but he refused to hold onto the horse's saddle, reigns, or anything else that would make him stable. He just had the same look of confusion as he did for Santa and the Easter Bunny...

"Look Ma, no hands!!"

 After riding the horses, we got some sno cones...

And the Palo Alto fire department let us all take pictures in front of their truck! It was super cool and Jack loved it, but he wasn't too keen on pictures at that point. It was time for lunch.

Daddy tried to make me wear this stupid hat...but no.

Focus on Jack

So in all the mayhem of moving, I haven't written about Jack's development lately. Maybe it's because I am spending every hour of every day with him now, or I am just able to focus more, but I realize now how much he really does pick up and how much he really can say. We are working on "I love you" - both the words and the signs. Hopefully he will get that soon. It's pretty much the most rewarding thing in the world to hear your child say "I love you, Mommy."

Some of his new favorite words and phrases are:

• "I did it!" - I don't know when he started saying this, but it's become a new staple, and he says it over everything from getting out of bed in the morning to eating a bite of food to untying his shoes. He yells it very loudly and is always super proud of himself!
• "Bathroom" or "poop" - I am taking this as a good sign, because he always tells me now when he's pooped and he often makes comments about "bathroom" or "Momma potty" when he sees me go. I figure the fact that he's aware of his dirty diaper, and asks to be changed, is good! We will work towards potty training again when we are settled. It would just be too much for him right now.
• "More" and "Again" - he likes to demand over and over when you are doing something fun...even when it's way past being fun for you.
• "No Momma!" - said whenever I try to sing along with anything. If a song is on the radio, TV, or even if I am singing a lullaby, he very adamantly yells "NO MOMMA! NO!" like he knows I am tone deaf. He never says it to Justin!! No fair!
• "Firetruck" - this started because Justin downloaded an iPad video about firetrucks. Ever since then he walks around asking to watch it, and he says "pie-tee-tuck" (or something like that) over and over. He also points them out on the road, very enthusiastically! This was made even cooler to him because he got to see real life firetrucks this morning, when he locked himself in our master bedroom. I panicked, and the maintenance office wasn't open yet, so 911 it was. The Cupertino FD showed up in 6 MINUTES FLAT (that made me feel lots better) and unlocked the door quickly. It was very scary and embarrassing, and let's just say that I have all of the proper tools now to unlock every door in our apartment :)
• Other random words he's picked up and says with regularity: police car, big truck, tractor, cheese, shower, TV, Bob, Thomas, "car coming!", Daddy duck, Momma duck, Baby duck, slide, water, juice, yogurt, shoes, "Daddy work," money, diaper, coffee, etc etc etc... I feel like he copies us and learns new words every day!

Here he is saying his version of "firetruck" ... 

Welcome to California...Take 2

I have no idea why Blogger "ate" my last post, although it keeps saying "ERROR: you have edited this post in multiple places," which is probably true because we have approximately 15 iPads, iMacs, and MacBooks lying around....

[EDIT: For some reason, when I posted this, my last post "reppeared" ... so now you get the same story, in two versions. Oh well!!]

So here it is again, with new and improved pictures!

We have been in California for almost a week. It's very hard to believe. It feels like it's been longer!

We are currently in temporary corporate housing, which is 0.4 miles from Apple's campus. It's been nice because Justin's started walking to and from work most days (which have been beautiful, see below!) and it doesn't take him long. As you can see, it's a nice complex, but the parking is a bit tight and maneuvering in and out of that garage is tough sometimes. I am thankful that we are all getting lots more exercise!

When we first arrived, we were all a bit jet-lagged (well except Justin who seems to be immune to that.) Here is Jack lounging in our living room, watching California PBS, which has a lot of the same, but not all of the same, shows! It's been hard adjusting to a few things, mostly that we don't have a DVR (eek! How will we ever survive!) and also that everyone on the east coast posts things on Facebook three hours before they come on TV here. However, I am looking forward to football season, because 7:30pm or 8:00pm games will be on at 4:30pm or 5:00pm here and I will actually be able to stay up and watch them!!

Out kitchen - nothing exciting, but not too bad!

Jack and I have done LOTS of exploring. I have gotten lost quite a few times but that's how you learn, right?? We did spend some time at the pool...the weather has been beautiful (70-80 with morning fog that burns off by 10am for brilliantly sunny days!)

We also went to dinner with Daddy on Tuesday at work. Here are our visitor badges. I would have taken more pictures, but I probably would have been tasered.

In our explorations, we found this awesome park. (http://www.cupertino.org/index.aspx?page=591) Cupertino has lots of pretty parks, and we still have lots to explore, but Jack loves the ducks at Memorial Park. He asks every morning now to go and feed the "hungry Daddy ducks, Momma ducks, and baby ducks." It's so cute!! He loves getting down on their level to look at them.

One Momma and SIXTEEN BABIES!!

Sometimes the geese overrun the ducks.

I also successfully found Jack a pediatrician. (www.doctor-stein.com) He had a meet-and-greet appointment on Thursday and she said he's doing great (as we all knew!) The only oddity was that apparently the pressure on the airplane made his right ear tube start to dislodge. It's been 13 months since his surgery, so this isn't anything unusual, but it is something that we will have to keep an eye on if he starts getting ear infections again.

I will write more soon! Tonight Justin's old boss from Bose is in town (random!) so we are going to have dinner with him and his wife. I will be sure to post pictures from this weekend soon.

One thing that is very different here and is amazing is the produce. It's way cheaper than it was in Massachusetts, and much more abundant. Jack and I stopped at this little roadside store yesterday, and I snapped a picture. I am not sure if you can see exactly how fresh this stuff is, but it was amazing. We had fresh spinach with dinner and we had amazingly beautiful oranges, apples, bananas, and grapes as snack food. Yum!

Oh and Happy 5th Anniversary to my wonderful husband!!

Welcome to California

On our first day here, we were all a little jetlagged. Jack did pretty good overall, but spent most of Monday and Tuesday sleeping. He woke up looking groggy both mornings:

I snapped a few pics of our temporary corporate digs. It's in a pretty nondescript apartment complex and everything is pretty neutral, but it really is enough square feet for us.  It has two bedrooms, two baths, a pretty small kitchen, a living room / dining room, and a little balcony. The best part is that we are on the third floor, so there's no one above us. The worst part is that we're on the third floor in a building with no elevator.

Jack enjoying California's PBS station.

Jack's room. Oddly enough, the place doesn't have widow
coverings, so Justin hung extra blankets from the blinds.

 We got Jack a bedrail for his twin bed, because on Tuesday night, I found him curled up with his pillow and blanket in the far back corner of the walk-in closet in his room. Oops :) Other than that, he's been doing fabulous in his "big big boy bed!" And the change of scenery in his room really hasn't messed him up at all.

Kitchen.

 The apartment does have an awesome pool and deck with a hot tub, which we visited on Tuesday. Jack loved it! He had a blast "swimming" and has been asking for the pool ever since.

On Tuesday night we went to visit Daddy at work for dinner. Here are our visitor tags. I couldn't take any more pictures than that, or I think I would have been tasered by the security guard.

On Wednesday, Jack and I explored Cupertino a little more. He got a haircut, we went to Target, and did other routine things. We stumbled upon this awesome park in the middle of town. It is huge, with tons of water fountains, bridges, and playgrounds. We were there early, but we went back in the afternoon to play with other kids. He had a blast. He especially loved feeding and chasing the ducks. If you know me at all, you know I am obsessed with ducks and I love watching them, following them, and feeding them. It seems Jack is the same way!

Throwing crackers to the geese, mostly.

He liked to get down on their level to look them in the eye.

One Momma duck and SIXTEEN baby ducks!! (I counted!) 

"Daddy duck!"

We Made It!!

We had a long week last week getting ready for our big move on Sunday. First, we welcomed Daddy home early Monday morning. Jack was thrilled to see Justin (in fact, I think "Daddy" has now replaced "Mommy" as his most-said word.) Justin somehow went from San Francisco to Hong Kong to Shanghai to San Francisco to Boston in a five-day period, without any jet lag!!!, and he hit the markets in China to get all of us super cool silk loungewear. Here is Jack's outfit:

"Mom, I think this is pretty cool! Especially because DADDY is home!!"

I can't describe the feeling of having Justin home again. I think I drove him a little crazy because I was constantly following him around, just wanting to be near him. I am amazed sometimes at how strong my husband is and how he handles huge, life-changing events (the stress of a new job, being away from us for six weeks, a trip to China, all of the moving arrangements, getting the house ready to go on the market, preparing for a 6.5 hour flight with Jack, etc etc etc...) He truly is stronger than me emotionally because I was kind of a wreck. 

We spent Monday and Tuesday having inspection after inspection on our house from the relocation company, the realtor, and other parties. Tuesday afternoon, they came to pick up my car. Here it is getting loaded onto the shipping truck. Sniff sniff! I think this is when it finally became real in my mind. We probably won't see it again until late this week. It's currently in Kansas :)

After that, things picked up. Jack had his last day at school on Friday, where he proceeded to get a fever on his last afternoon. After a lot of rest, he seemed to be doing better on Saturday. We spent time with lots of old friends, including Carmie and Dan from my office, and Sam, Tony, Raegan and Colin Breen on Saturday night. They were nice enough to bring us pizza for dinner as our house was pretty much all sterile and packed up! (And we had no way to dispose of trash on Sunday!) 

For me, it was a blur of sleepless nights and stress and nostalgia all mixed together. I am proud to say that I lived in Boston, that I am "from Boston," that it was home. I will miss our house (mostly.) But I am excited about so many more things, including spending some relaxing quality time with Justin exploring our new home. While Justin was with us last week, we spent so much time and energy getting things ready for the move that we didn't really get any quality family time. So that, I am very excited about.

On Sunday afternoon, after a last-minute scramble, we headed to the airport. Justin, who was cleaning out the basement and garage all day, didn't help me pack. When we finally loaded our rental Prius, we both panicked. How did we get this much stuff??? Here is a list of what we brought with us and had to carry BY HAND through the airport because someone (cough cough JUSTIN) wouldn't pay $5 to rent a cart:

1. Large red suitcase (the biggest the airline would allow...mine)
2. Medium black suitcase (Jack's)
3. Small blue suitcase (Justin's)
4. Umbrella stroller
5. Car seat
6. Diaper bag (Jack's large one)
7. Backpack (Justin's)
8. Backpack (Jack's)
9. Big camera backpack (Justin's...)
10. Jack's lunchbox

Anyway, somehow we made it. We checked most of the stuff (but not enough!) and got on the plane. Thankfully it was an on-time flight and they even made it faster than usual (in 6 hours, 10 minutes.) It took off at 3:59pm. Jack was wide awake and super excited about his "hair pane ride" and made sure to show everyone his shirt. He even got ahold of the camera at one point and took this picture. Good job buddy :)

Jack's got mad photography skills.

Poor Justin, who had been working non-stop all week (well for a bunch of weeks!) tried to get some sleep. Jack wasn't having it. He'd wait until Justin dozed off and then poke him in various places, or take off his glasses, and yell "Daddy!!!! UP!!!" 

"Daddy!! UP!!!"

We entertained him as best we could with TV, movies, books, markers, stickers, food, water, milk, juice, walks to the bathroom, and help from some nice flight attendants. However, he didn't fall asleep until 5 hours or so into the flight (at about 10pm EST, 7pm PST.) 

FINALLY!!

He was then immediately awake when we landed and deplaned, and all through baggage claim, getting the rental car, and getting all our stuff (see above!!) into the car. We do have a very nice rental car, which is good. Much better horsepower than the Prius. :)

Driving down to Cupertino, I remembered why we moved. The route is so beautiful with mountains and palm trees all together, and everyone is so nice. We made it into our temporary place (it's a pretty nondescript apartment, a lot like what I lived in at Polos on Park in Tallahassee.) We have two bedrooms: one king bed and two twin beds. Jack did great in his twin last night but he was pretty exhausted. 

Jack woke up this morning at about 5am PST (8am EST) which was pretty good, I thought. He went down for a nap at 10:30am PST (1:30pm EST) and is still asleep (it's 12:15 now...yay!) I hope he gets a good nap and won't mind staying up a little later tonight to get onto California time. I think it's going to affect him less than it will me!

The only hiccup happened when we got into the car to take Daddy to work. Last night, we were both starving so I had run to Whole Foods to get dinner. I accidentally left the lights on our rental car when I parked it in the garage...oops. Poor Daddy had to walk to work. Luckily it's not too far, but still. I felt ashamed!!

I will post more soon, pictures of our digs and our new town. I just wanted to commit our trip to history and let everyone know that we were doing A-OK!

Goodbyes are hard.

This has been a very stressful, busy, exciting week in our home. We welcomed Daddy back after a six-week hiatus on Sunday night, and dove right into getting the house ready to go on the market. We had all of our inspections, signed papers with our realtor, and the week flew by. It has been bittersweet for each of us. I picked Jack up from his last day at Mountainside today and it broke my heart. He has been so successful there and has flourished in a way that I am not confident he will at home with me. He formed real bonds with his teachers and friends. Saying good bye was very, very difficult for both of us.

It also feels like the end of an era. We are saying goodbye to our time in New England. It has been such a period of learning and growing for all of us individually and us as a family. Jack was born here and we brought him home to this house. We made friends that will last forever. We learned how to survive in feet of snow and three straight months of dark :) We are very excited to start a new life on the west coast, but we will always hold Boston dear in our hearts.

On Sunday we fly. I will post more then!