Category Archives: Birthday

These Aren’t the Pics You’re Looking For (Spring and Summer 2010)

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I realize that our readership (by which I mean: grandparents) is probably vastly more interested in photos and a blow–by–blow (in some cases, literally) description of what transpired over the holidays here in San José this year, but there’s an really good reason they’re not ready: they’re not over yet. In fact, I have the week between Christmas and New Year’s more or less off this year, so there should be plenty of opportunities to shoot more pictures and video and, if previous years’ patterns hold, get them posted sometime in August.

In the meantime, we’ve had a giant pile of pictures from spring and summer 2010 sitting around, un–sorted, un–reviewed, and un–published for the last four years. This is my attempt to rectify that oversight. Note that while this may seem like a ton of photos to drop on you all at once, rest assured that these constitute less than half of the original set: believe it or not, this is a carefully curated selection.

There was a lot going on that year, including Joe’s fourth birthday and his first ride on the Junior K bus, but in going through the pictures, one particular memory jumped out at me: the ceremonial walk around the field at at San José Giants game for the kids in the Fearless Baseball program at Primary Plus. The march itself was unremarkable—just a bunch of kids in baseball uniforms wandering around a minor league ballfield, albeit with some classic Mason–and–Joe horseplay—but, following on the heels of her legendary meltdown at PAL soccer night at the San José Earthquakes, it did feature Julia expressing what can only be described as unbridled terror at being confronted by a large crowd (and probably mascots), even with Julie there to hold her hand. As we face down various manifestations of her forceful personality going into adolescence, it’s helpful to remember that it wasn’t so long ago that she was just a scared little girl who wanted her mommy.

Gallery: Spring & Summer 2010.

Julia’s Birthday & Back to Booksin

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It’s been a busy fall since we returned from our trip to Texas. The kids started school in mid–August—which seems awfully early to me—and Julia had her tenth birthday at the end of the month. As she has pointed out on many an occasion since then, she is no longer a “little girl”: she is in double digits. To celebrate, we have pictures.

Both of the older kids are gradually acclimating to their new classes. Julia seems to have clicked with her teacher, Mrs. Kammann, and has been doing a reasonably good job of getting her work done in class and at home: so far, there have been many fewer battles over homework this year than last year. Of course, some of that may be down to the fact that there seems to be less homework than there was last year, but a positive step is a positive step.

Joe got off to a bit of a rocky start the first couple weeks of school with his teacher, Mr. Alderette, and threw several of what we unaffectionately call baby fits; the name comes from one of his preschool teachers, which should give you a pretty good idea of what kind of behavior we’re talking about. One such incident was bad enough that the school actually called me at work to let me know what had happened: Joe got frustrated that he hadn’t finished a particular project when Mr. Alderette told the class that time was up, and Joe flatly refused to comply. Eventually, the office was called, and the assistant principal had to take Joe out of the classroom to give him a chance to calm down.

That was about a month ago, though, and Joe seems to have adjusted his behavior in the weeks since. We’ve been checking in with jim on a daily basis to see how he’s been doing, and it seems as though things are slowly getting better. He has always had a bit of a hard time dealing with situations in which things go poorly, whether it’s getting problems wrong in class or striking out in baseball, and we’re focused on helping him learn how to deal with those kinds of truly inconsequential failures.

In the meantime, Joe has been working extremely hard to come up to speed on the clarinet. We’re just a few weeks into his first year of band, and he has already progressed to the point that Julie has been encouraging him to try out for the advanced band as soon as tryouts begin. He derives a tremendous amount of pleasure from learning how to play the notes he needs to get through each of the songs, and he keeps pushing ahead every time he practices. He has made a tremendous amount of progress in a very short time, and it’s been delightful to see him working so doggedly to achieve his goals.

Finally, at some point in the last week—it’s hard to say exactly when, because the older kids have been at home for fall break, and things have been chaotic around the house—William took his first, halting steps on his own. He first did it for me yesterday, at Joe’s soccer game, and I managed to capture a few seconds on video, which I’ll edit and upload later. He still has a ways to go before we can really say that he’s walking, but this is an exciting development nonetheless. He remains pretty quick on all fours, so that somewhat reduces his incentive to get up and walk, but I’m sure he will be very happy to be able to chase his big brother and sister around more effectively.

Gallery: Julia’s Birthday & Back to Booksin.

Mom’s 65th Birthday / Training

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Turning our attention back to the halcyon days of 2009, here’s a set of photos highlighting my mom’s 65th birthday. For the occasion, my dad arranged for the two of them to travel to San José, and for Bill and Leah to fly in from Colorado Springs. For some reason, Joe spent part of the visit dressed up in one of Julia’s old Disney Princess outfits; we’ll need to keep those pictures handy in case he steps out of line as a teenager.

In other exciting news, Julia hit a big milestone yesterday: she went with Julie to Nordstrom to be sized for her very first training bra. Needless to say, she was extremely excited to take this step, and throughout the afternoon, she happily switched among the three bras she brought home. For the first hour or so, she complained a bit that it was uncomfortable, but by the end of the day, she hardly noticed it was there. For obvious reasons, we’re not posting pictures.

On the topic of training, we finally took the training wheels off of Joe’s bike a couple weeks ago. All things considered, he’s doing pretty well. He was up and balancing on his own a few tries after the wheels came off (though he certainly had plenty of practice with them on). We’re still trying to work out the kinks around turning—so far, we’ve only gone around the block counter-clockwise—but he will definitely be speeding around the neighborhood by himself by the end of the summer.

Joe Turned Three

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In honor of Joe’s recent seventh birthday, we’re taking this opportunity to post heretofore unpublished photos from his third birthday, all the way back in 2009. The set includes a number of highlights, not least of which is the awesome cake Julie made in the shape of a dinosaur train.

This update also includes Joe celebrating wearing his first pair of big boy underpants. That day, when we thought we were done with diapers once and for all, was a happy day indeed.

In more recent news, the additional time I’ve been afforded to spend with my family has been productive. We moved a tremendous quantity of books, mementos and other artifacts up to the attic this week, and are finally getting close to being ready to paint Joe’s room. We also took the training wheels off of Joe’s bike last weekend; we’ll have a post with pictures shortly, but he’s getting the hang of it as long as we stick to left turns and don’t ask him to brake.

Back to School / Julia Turns Eight

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As seems customary around these parts, Booksin Elementary posts its class lists on the Friday before school starts. Presumably, this strategy is designed to prevent parents from complaining about their kids’ classroom assignments by leaving them as little time as possible to mull them over. I’m not sure it works, however, judging by the amount of grousing we heard outside the school library where the class information was posted (No, it’s not posted online. That would be crazy).

Joe ended up assigned to Mrs. Glenn’s class. She was new to us (and to Booksin), but coincidentally, she’s teaching in Room 3, where Julia had kindergarten with Mrs. Romero. Unfortunately, she missed the first few weeks of class while she recovered from hip surgery that was performed over the summer. Thanks to silly insurance company rules, she couldn’t even come to campus during the day while kids were present until she was off disability. She’s back now, and she and Joe seem to be getting along famously, though she’s asked him to sit at the back of the class since he has a propensity to stand while he’s doing work.

Julia ended up in Mr. Alderette’s class. We heard through the grapevine that he was a bit strict (see the bit above about grousing), but so far, he and Julia have clicked well. In fact, he’s unlocked the heretofore unknown secret to motivating her: stuffed animals. He’s been giving out Beanie Babies—rechristened in this context as Brainy Babies—as rewards for completing online math lessons. So far, Julia has accumulated close to a dozen of these, and is in real danger of being squeezed out of her own bed.

We’ve posted a few pictures from the first couple months of the year, including a few from the time the kids in Joe’s class got a visit from SJ Sharkie, the San José Sharks’ mascot, to commemorate their participation in the Reading is Cool program, a monthly contest in which they track the number of pages they’ve read and the top reader in the class gets a medal at the end of the month. Joe was the winner the first month, so he got a prize from Sharkie; Mrs. Glenn was kind enough to give us a heads-up a week or so in advance, and Julie was able to be there to capture the occasion on video.

To me, the most notable thing about the clip is the fact that Julia would have been completely and utterly unable to handle it, as she’s still possessed by an unmanageable fear of mascots.

Of course, with the start of the school year comes Julia’s birthday. Grandma Flack was in town this year to help us celebrate, and we took the kids out to Benihana for a treat before opening presents at home. Naturally, there are photos. Apologies, though, for the noisy quality of some of the pictures: we’re still relying on our phones as cameras most of the time, and they didn’t do very well in the low-light conditions of our living room this time around.

Joe Turns Six (and the Ghost of Christmas Past)

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It’s summer here in San Jose, so naturally I’m staying inside to post pictures of the kids. The alternative—working outside in the yard—is too frightening to contemplate.

We actually have two new sets of pictures up on the site this weekend. The first is a batch of photos from the last month or so, including Joe’s sixth birthday. The second takes us a little further back in time, all the way to Christmas 2008.

Seeing as it’s early June, the biggest news, of course, is that Joe’s birthday has come and gone. We played it pretty low key this year: just the family, Joe’s choice of dinner (cheeseburgers cooked on the grill) and an ice cream cake. Lego Ninjago seemed to be the overriding theme. It’s become cliché to comment on how different Lego sets are from the ones people my age had growing up, but, well, they’re definitely different. Nevertheless, there are certainly worse pastimes, like his other obsessions, Sonic and Mario.

Speaking of toys I had growing up, my parents sent us a Magic Shot, which is a near replica of the one my brother had when he and I were little—it even has the same half-functioning bell. Magic Shot consists of a plastic box, a magnetic gun, and a slew of metal BB pellets that you can shoot at targets inside the box. Now that’s a good, old-fashioned toy.

I apologize for the somewhat low quality of the birthday pictures: our main camera is broken, and Julie’s fancy new phone wasn’t charged, so we were left to capture the moment with my old phone.

Just about a year ago, Joe had his first visit from the tooth fairy after he lost one of his bottom front teeth. This seemed a bit early, as Julia still hadn’t lost her first tooth yet, but still within the realm of reason: his teeth came in earlier than hers, after all. Well, as of this writing, Joe has lost six teeth altogether, including his two top front teeth and both lower canines just in the last couple months. Suffice it to say that he’s not gnawing on a lot of beef jerky.

At this point, I have no idea if this is completely normal, cause for panic, or something in between. We’re going to give it a couple weeks to see if his permanent teeth start poking through his gums. He still sucks his thumb more or less compulsively, so that may be a factor. He’s also been playing with his “loose” teeth constantly, so I’m vaguely concerned that he’s actually making them loose in anticipation of the big tooth fairy payout. If this doesn’t stop, we’re either going to have to coat his fingers with something foul tasting or give him a quick lesson in economics: he might be a bit less excited about the dollar coins the tooth fairy brings if he understands that each of them covers about fifteen seconds of a college education.

Julia is Six

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It’s a bit cliché to say that it’s hard to believe a child has reached a certain age, as though she went to bed a toddler and woke up in junior high. This isn’t really the case for us and Julia—or, perhaps, for parents in general. Sure, sometimes it seems like it was just a few months ago that we brought her home from the hospital, or just last week that she was trying to make sense of Cheerios. Some days, though, I can feel each and every one of the last 2,191 days in my muscles and bones; on days like those, it seems hard to believe that we’ve got another 4,400 or so more in front of us.

Either way, Julia has given us a truckload of memories over the last six years, and there’s no more concrete evidence of that gift than the fact that we now have more than 11,000 photos on our computer (mental note: back up computer). Admittedly, we’re a little behind in terms of actually publishing them, but here’s a step in the right direction: pictures from Julia’s blowout birthday celebration yesterday, with some bonus shots from the first day of school.

We started out with the first soccer game of the season at 9:00 in the morning. Some of us were a little groggy, but at least it prevented us from deviating too far from the weekday sleep schedule Friday night. Julia’s team won, which is hardly the point, but it was a bit of a nice change: they’ve now won more regular season games than they did all of last year.

As an added bonus, one of Julia’s oldest friends, Molly Gosling, is on her team. Julie and Molly’s mom were both in the same mothers’ group when the kids were newborns, and both girls went to Action Day up until preschool. When they were about three, Molly moved to a different school and Julia stuck with Action Day for another couple years, so they haven’t seen as much of each other lately. Thus, it’s a treat for them to get together twice a week for practice and games.

After soccer, we took the kids to Happy Hollow with some of Julia’s friends from school. I’d never been to Happy Hollow before, so it was an educational experience. It’s a combination petting zoo, playground and amusement park, and most of the activities and rides are aimed at kids under the age of 8, so it was right in our group’s wheelhouse. Julia and Joe rode a roller coaster for the first time; Julia loved it, but I was actually fairly surprised that Joe was game. He didn’t hate it, but certainly wasn’t up for a second ride. Instead, he insisted that we go on Danny the Dragon or, as he called it, the “dragon train,” which was essentially a chain of wagons pulled along a wooded path past little displays depicting scenes from children’s literature at 2 miles per hour by a golf cart disguised as a large, green dragon. It was definitely more Joe’s speed.

We took a short break when we got home from Happy Hollow—the kids were fine, but I was dead on my feet. Then, Molly, Phoebe and Zoe came over for a sleepover. We went to McDonald’s for dinner (Julia’s choice), ate some cake, and watched Enchanted. It ended up being a pretty late night, but the kids were pretty well-behaved, considering there were five of them squeezed into the bedroom. Sadly, Molly decided she wanted to go home around 11:45, so her mother came by to pick her up—luckily, they live just a few blocks away. She probably ended up sleeping better than the rest of the girls, considering they were all awake, predictably enough, by 6:30 this morning.

Catching Up: Joe Turns Two

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We don’t have much new to post at the moment—swimming lessons are done, and baseball is just getting started—so it seemed like a good idea to get caught up on some of the pictures we haven’t gotten around to uploading. Like, for example, these photos from around Joe’s second birthday… just in time for his fourth birthday this June.

There’s also a short video of the kids playing in the wading pool. Looking at it now, two years later, it’s remarkable to see how little their interactions have changed.

Joseph’s Birthday Time Warp

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Seeing as Joseph is turning two in just a few days, it seems only appropriate that we post last year’s birthday pictures this weekend.

It’s also worth noting that Joe is moving up to Room I at daycare next Monday, after having visited part-time for the last few weeks. Room I is more or less the two-year-old room, the last step before preschool. Because he’s moving up, we’ll no longer fill out the day Infant Care Report sheets when we drop him off, and we’ll no longer get an itemized breakdown of what he ate, when he napped and played outside, and how often his diapers were changed at the end of each day. I’ll miss it.

Shame

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So, it’s been a while since we posted anything. I could offer the usual litany of excuses: work has been busy, the kids have been a handful, British soldiers demanded to be quartered in our house, etc., but that wouldn’t change the fact that we haven’t posted pictures in a very long time. So, without further ado, we have:

  • Various pictures from early 2007, including Valentine’s Day.
  • Photos taken during the last days of Naveen’s stay in California, which roughly coincided with Grandma Flack’s spring visit. Naveen was one of Julia’s oldest friends: she and he were born two days apart, and his sister Asha was born mere hours after Joseph.
  • A few outdoor shots of Joseph’s first experience with people food (assuming you consider star-shaped puffs of carbohydrates and air to be “people food”), with a few other roughly contemporaneous pictures thrown in for good measure.
  • This year’s Easter photographs, now with more clothes. Plus, a few other delightful images from last Spring. Warning: judging from the previous set and this one, we were on a bit of bathtub kick earlier this year.
  • Action-packed snapshots from Day Out with Thomas (and Molly). It’s never too early to immerse your children in the consumer culture.
  • Long-overdue pictures from Julia’s birthday, way back in August. There are a few odds and ends from July in here, as well, notably some swimming pool pics from Brayden Hom’s birthday party.

You’ll probably notice that these latest sets of pictures are hosted on a different web site from earlier albums. As it turns out, Sharpcast is in the process of creating a new platform for storing photos and other kinds of files—this is one of the things that’s kept me busy the last few months—so I’ll be using the new system going forward. If you run into any problems viewing the pictures, just let me know.

Still to come: Grandma and Grandpa Wong’s two visits; going to the beach for Mother’s Day; Joseph’s first (sort of) haircut; Halloween; Thanksgiving; and Christmas preparations.

But we’re making progress, really.