toby of the day, 7.24.2008

the first bear jacket we ordered for toby was a wee bit tight in the shoulders, so we returned it for the next size up. I now worry a little about what we're in for. if these sizes are correct, toby will suddenly go from his current, normally proportioned size, to something more akin to an orangutan. we haven't decided whether or not to return this jacket, if only because it's been an endless form of entertainment, watching him try to pick things up through the super long sleeves. and really we only have so many more months of this, where we can giggle as he flounders about because of something we've attached to him, before he starts to remember these episodes and will someday recount them to his psychiatrist or a jury of his peers. so until that happens, we should all enjoy this video of toby the bear vs. the wily TOOTHBRUSH.

toby of the day, 7.20.2008

I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I used to do bikram yoga. Not like once or twice, oh no, I mean like 4 times a week, for two plus years. Indeed, despite all my anti-corporate ranting, I was addicted to corporate yoga. The studio I went to is only a block from our apartment, it’s got an environmentally friendly heating system, has rubber floors (why all other bikram studios are carpeted I’ll never understand) and the teachers and owner are all very friendly. But still, despite the special touches, it is corporate yoga. And even though part of me, the scientist part, would laugh at their exclamations that yoga (but, naturally, only this particular yoga) would cure everything from acne to liver disease as long as you went to enough classes, the part of me that reveled in having toned arms for the first time ever was convinced that it would, and even more, that if jon would just start going, his thrice broken knee would be good as new. The kicker though, the thing that kept me there for so long, was one teacher that I had who was almost run over while riding her bicycle. Somehow she saw the car out of the corner of her eye, realized it didn’t see her, and in the split second before it would have crushed her, she leapt straight up into the air, bounced off the hood and landed on her feet, while the car plowed down her bike and dragged it a block before stopping. Bike: totaled, superhero yoga teacher: grumpy but otherwise fine. Surely with enough classes, I could be a superhero too. But it turns out it doesn’t work that way. Maybe it’s because I switched over to iyengar a couple years back and 10 minute headstands are not the path to flashy superpowers, or, more likely it’s because I have the natural agility of a sleepy turtle and at this point nothing is going to change that. Case in point. Today we were walking on 16th street in the mission. I was multi-tasking: chatting with isaac about some mediocre Italian place we were passing, reading some signs on the sidewalk, and mentally noting the strange trail of blood that we appeared to be following and thinking that there often seems to be a strange trail of blood on 16th and wasn’t that weird, when a bicycle zipped past us on the sidewalk. I looked back to be sure that it hadn’t run over jon or toby and as I turned back around, I saw the panicked face of a 10 year old kid, inches from my own. His mouth was open, his eyes were wide, and he was moving really, really fast. Yes, today I was run over by a 10 year old on a bicycle while walking on the sidewalk. Fortunately I was wearing our incredibly dorky diaper bag backpack, which provided some cushioning as I was knocked flat on my back. And very fortunately I was not carrying toby either in the front or as a backpack. I was mostly alright, a little scraped and bruised. But, my superhero dreams were dashed, unless there is a plan in the works to create a comic book series about a flexible but extremely slow, sleepy, and distractible turtle that saves the world, perhaps by remembering obscure and meaningless details. Maybe that should be my new dream.

toby of the day, 7.17.2008

prior to toby’s birthday keg, the last time jon and I bought a keg was for our wedding. That night, jon and I did keg stands in our wedding attire, and then passed out, leaving our unguarded keg on the porch where it was stolen by some rascally teenagers. I felt this made for a fitting story, but some of our guests, perhaps outraged that those snot-nosed kids got the best of us, or perhaps just grumpy that their “hair of the dog” hangover cure plans were thwarted, wouldn’t let it go. And so instead of just sitting in bed the next day lamenting our decision to hold the wedding so many thousands of feet above sea level, I got to file a report with the local sheriff’s deputy where he asked me a series of questions to which I could only feebly mumble responses, all while hoping he would quickly realize that my recollection of the previous evening was sketchy at best and that would be the end of questioning. Of course, they never found our keg so my interview with the deputy just resulted in us keeping a copy of his business card next to copies of our invitation and other wedding keepsakes. Today we had to do what we didn’t have to do that last time, return the keg to the place of purchase. I don’t know whether it was the academics or children under 4, but someone at toby's party wasn’t drinking their fair share and so try as we might we were unable to float the keg. But rather than let those last few gallons go to waste, we emptied them into our beer brewing bucket, equipped with a spigot, which is now sitting at the top of our stairs. The beer has taken on the quality of a cask conditioned English ale: room temperature, minimal carbonation. I’d actually say it tastes better than it did on Saturday. Which is good, since it is atop our stairs, you can’t really make it into the house without pouring yourself a glass or two. And so I do, and no crazy kids can stand in my way. Well except for toby. Fortunately he’s not allowed near the stairs yet, so it looks like the coast is clear. Of course, it all reminds me a little of the simpson’s episode where homer keeps nibbling on the last few inches of some 20 foot sub he started months or years before. But jon and I have agreed, the second time either of us has to go to the emergency room for skunked beer related illness, we’ll totally get rid of the rest of the keg.

toby of the day, 7.12.2008

today we celebrated toby’s first birthday with all of the acoutrements that you would expect: balloons, bubbles, cupcakes, bouncy castle, catered Indonesian food, a keg of anchor steam plus 50 some people to help drink it. Hmmm, so now that I think about it, aside from the bouncy castle and the sign over the chicken satay that said “contains peanuts” it could easily have been mistaken for a 34th birthday party, because nothing says happy 34th like a bouncy castle. But in some respects, it was a party for jon and I as well, because toby has made it to his first birthday with just a little help from us. I’m sure he’ll tell you that he would change his own diapers, make his own milk, and sing himself to sleep if only we would just step aside, but I feel like we play at least a minor role in maintaining his health and happiness. At least until he can reach the knobs on the stove himself, then I figure we can start charging him rent, or at least have him fix us some bacon when he gets up early on the weekends. It was a great party. Toby was a gracious host; everyone was shocked at how well mannered and jovial he was despite not getting an afternoon nap. In contrast, jon and I were shocked to hear that such a thing as an afternoon nap even existed. Whatever. Next thing you’re going to tell me that walking makes babies slim down. Don’t make this into a house of lies, I’ve seen the truth, the chubby, chubby truth. And no amount of walking is going to change it.

toby of the day, 7.10.2008

do you have any idea what you were doing 1 year ago, around 1:59pm? I do. Not what you were doing, of that I have absolutely no idea. Unless you’re toby, in which case you were taking you’re first breaths of air. Nothing in my life has been the same since. But then again, nothing in his life has been the same either. I imagine that at least a few times in the 9 months prior to that moment, after, say, a meal at spices or a yoga class where I spent a lot of time standing on my head, toby might have had wondered to himself, “what the hell is going on!” But I suspect those moments pale in comparison to the moment he flung himself onto my ob’s lap. Since then he’s learned to eat and drink, roll and crawl, walk forwards, backwards, and sideways, spin in circles, scream in a soft, high pitched voice, scream in a loud, lower pitched voice, pontificate about the ways of the world using only sounds that end in aaaa, smile, laugh, and steal the hearts of muni patrons and pedestrians everywhere. It’s not often that you can pinpoint a moment when your life changes forever. And even though I quite enjoyed the life I had before, and I’ll admit that I miss sleeping through the night and getting to leave the house after dark, but when he walks up to me, already giggling, to show me the piece of carpeting that he has in his mouth so that I’ll chase him across the room and tickle him until he gives it up, well, I just can’t imagine ever going back to my life before that moment. Happy birthday toby!

toby of the day, 7.4.2008

for the fourth of july weekend we went to boston. And it was crazy. Not like crazy full of keg stands and beer shotguns, and I guess not crazy like toby was screaming and throwing fits or anything, and not crazy as in our days were packed with touristy times on the freedom trail. Ok, so maybe it wasn’t crazy. It was fun though. We saw jon’s parents and his brother micah, his wife stacey, and their daughter sylvia who is 7 months older than toby. If you took toby and stretched him out so that he was 5 inches taller and 5 pounds lighter and you taught him to say a lot more than uh-oh, you would have sylvia. It was pretty cool watching them together, even if toby looks a little bit like a baby hippopotamus next to her. And in case that wasn’t enough family, my dad and his wife betsy came up from florida and my brother came up from new york to enjoy our rare visit to the right coast. The last time they saw toby his repertoire of tricks included laying on his back and pooping. Needless to say, they were impressed by how much he’s progressed. We saw our friend eunjin, her husband brian, and their new baby. If toby is a baby hippopotamus, their son Jacob is something that could eat a baby hippopotamus for breakfast, and he’s only a few months old. We also had a luxurious brunch with our friends kathy and david, who recently moved from san francisco to boston, proving that it is possible to leave the bay area. And given the spread of cured meats, funky cheese, and home baked goods they fed us with, apparently you can even live well. Toby slept through the redeye that took us there, and was surprisingly well mannered on the 6 hour flight home. I think he’s just trying to lull us into a false sense of confidence, making us believe that maybe our 11 hour flight to japan in september won’t be so bad after all. And then, bam, somewhere over the pacific he’ll release his inner hippopotamus. and once that hippo is out, well, you know how hard it is to get a hippo to stay seated even if there’s a good in-flight movie. I guess as long as he doesn’t stampede the flight attendants, we’ll consider it a victory.

toby of the day, 6.29.2008 again

so when my family first moved to miami from detroit when I was 5, we would swim in the pool all year long. But then, as we adapted to florida's pseudo seasons and lost that insulating layer necessary to survive a Michigan winter, we found swimming during the winter to be too cold. so even though my dad would have to clean leaves out of the filters and algae from the bottom of the pool all year round, we would only take advantage of it in the months when the water felt more like a bath, and the air more like a sauna. We would often get visitors from back in detroit or some other northern clime during what we considered to be the off season who would insist that the water was fine. But I knew better. I mention this because I think lemons are our off-season pool and today toby came to visit them from the yukon. For breakfast, he ate some lemons. And by eat, I mean eat. We let him taste them, assuming that he would make a face and recoil and we would all have a good laugh. And based on the faces he made, it wasn’t that he couldn’t tell that they were sour, or appreciate that sour is a somewhat uncomfortable taste. But he would make that face, that "this is unbearably sour I can't believe you're letting me eat this" face and then immediately ask for another taste, and another, and another. Apparently he believes that if life gives you lemons, you just eat them. I'm not sure yet what he thinks you do when life gives you vinegar, but we’ll let you know when we find out.

toby of the day, 6.29.2008

lately, jon and I have been watching eurocup games on our computer at night after toby falls asleep. Streaming games on our laptop is akin to watching someone playing soccer on a commodore 64 circa 1984, except with irish accented commentary. there is a tiny bunch of pixels that jump around the screen (for you non-soccer fans this pixel cluster is known as "the ball") and are surrounded by colored blocks of pixels. our best guess is that these are players. But it’s the best we can do, since we don’t have a tv or cable, and there are only so many lunches we can spend in local bars. Today, we watched the finals at kevin and jess’ house. Because I “lived” in spain (ok, I spent 6 months studying art history in Madrid when I was in college), I of course rooted for my home team. They haven’t won a cup final since 1964. Fortunately, I’m writing about this a month late so I suspect I won’t ruin the game for anyone when I tell you that spain won. Of course, much of our time watching was actually spent chasing toby as he wandered into the kitchen to visit the new puppy kevin and jess brought home yesterday. I suppose that's an advantage of taking a lunch break to watch a game in the bar while toby is at day care. at most, at the bar you might have to contend with the occasional drunken regular who would be at the bar, soccer or not. and while they might be mildly irritating as they chatter at you about inane things, usually you don’t have to chase them around to ensure they don’t get nibbled on by a teething puppy while they try to pull on its ears. At least that's been my experience so far.