Monday, September 29, 2008

Monday

This morning I was once again compelled by the outfit I found for Z -- compelled to put on an impromptu fashion show.

This past week saw a new thing: the beginning of the teething process. Occasional pain and discomfort for the poor little guy, and lotsa lotsa drool. Not today, though; he was still wearing this onsie when his Mom picked him up.

He'd lost his pants, though. If I've told him once, I've told him a thousand times...

Still had the socks on. Socks make the man.

The morning sky was pretty enough to attempt a picture while driving. (Don't worry, I'd already dropped off Z and nobody's going very fast.)

I took this one just after I got home this evening. (On foot.)

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Catching up

Like Jeff, I have some backlog.

I went to visit Alice, a friend from UCLA.  It was actually kind of a big day for me, because I was still figuring out how to get out of the apartment with Z.  And everything went perfectly.

This is where she lives--Malibou Lake.  It's one of my favorite spots around here.  It's about 45 minutes away, so it was quite an accomplishment to get there on my own with six-week-old Z.

This was Jessica's all female b-day party.  (Jessica helped Mike marry us later.)  In this picture we're doing this little ceremony where we all have to say something nice about Jess and hold these candles.  It started off a little queer and embarrassing but ended up pretty cool.

During the whole party, I was totally working the boho LA mom thing by carrying Z around in a sling.  In fact, a party on Echo Park hillside terrain is really the only practical use I have found for the sling.  I used to wear it around the house just to put Z to sleep, but the idea that one can accomplish household chores while wearing this thing is totally ludicrous!

Before our wedding, we walked Z to a local park to brainstorm our vows.  It got chilly, so I put this thing on him.

And he got an idea about it.

And shoved it in his mouth.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Monogrammed towel from Auntie Jules!

The Flip Off!

Here are all the pics in which Zack is inadvertently (we hope) giving us all the bird. Enjoy!




Saturday, September 20, 2008

Photo Booth Fun

My computer has a camera on it, and without any plan I've occasionally popped off a shot of me and Z. Here are some of my faves.

July 4th


July 8th


July 11th


July 12th


August 15th


September 1st


September 1st


September 14th


Today


Today


Today


Today (much later)

Thursday, September 18, 2008

New clothes!

Since the lad's getting so large we chiseled off a slab of bigger outfits from the mountain of hand-me-downs provided by our relatives, friends and friends of relatives. Part of the fun of my day is dressing him up before we go to daycare in the morning, and then Julie gets to see what I chose when she picks him up after lunch. This ensemble above even drew rave reviews from the daycare staff. The flying saucer onesie came from Adam and Jeannette, and the Chuck-style socks were from Auntie Jules.

This spooky sleeper came from... Tara? Hmm. Julie knows but she's asleep at the moment. Anyway, we love it. If you're looking at how high those leg cuffs ride on his legs you're probably wondering if he'll fit in that thing come Halloween. We're wondering, too.

Grabbing his feet is one of his new skills.

Oh, silly me, this is another picture of the same outfit. But check out the pose he's striking. How could I withhold this cuteness from the world?

This one has cute little bears all over it, and also the word "bear" all over it, which I liked. This morning might be the last time he wears it, however, as you'll notice how both the sleeves and leg-sleeves are being outclassed.

Another close-up! I'm totally pandering to his grandparents now.

Can you see Zack in this picture? No, sorry, he's not in this picture. There have been a few beautiful early morning skies this week and I've caught some images as we head out for daycare. This is a shot down our street.

Tami!

The lateness of this post is beyond ridiculous, since Tami and her boyfriend Aaron came to visit LA from San Diego on 4th of July weekend. Sorry, guys!

I know both of them from Berkeley, where they were attending school and I was hanging out. They're a pair of total sweethearts. Tami was my fan club when I tried to score that Legoland job in 2006 (if you click here you can see a pic of Tami hugging a Lego Darth Vader). They were in town to see friends but demanded a little Zack time that we were only too happy to provide.

And they got us a lemur! This awesome little plush dude makes a delightful "boi-oi-oing" noise when you squeeze him. My excuse for delaying this post is that I kept meaning to take a lemur picture to go with it, and you see from the much gianter baby how long it took me to get around to it. Boing.

I shot the lemur last week and today Tami left a message saying they were coming up again, and I thought I better cowboy up and get this together. I'm sure we'll take more pictures this weekend and by the time I post those Zack will be able to beat me at thumb wrestling.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Belated 9/11 thoughts

Ugh. September 11th took two whole days to whack me on the head again this year, but this picture finally did it. This is Kelly Talty, looking at an image of her father, a policeman who died that day. She was born just a few weeks earlier, so she's seven now. I saw this picture in an LA Times someone left in the lunchroom here at work.

I don't think everyone who reads this blog knows that my brother worked on the 102nd floor of the south tower, but he decided not to attend a meeting that day and instead went to Aon's New Jersey office, where he saw employees sobbing all around him as their coworkers in Manhattan died. Everyone he was supposed to meet with was killed. His boss and his boss's boss were killed. 250 people who worked at Aon died.

And my nephew Aiden, Pete's first kid, was born a few weeks later.

I wanted to post about 9/11 on the day, but I got too busy. Being a parent makes me more keenly aware of the kind of loss we almost had in our family. It wasn't exactly abstract before, but it's much more visceral now.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

And speaking of humongous

One month...

Two months...
And...wait for it...


Three months!


We'll see how many more times I can photograph him in this car seat, which only holds up to 22 pounds!

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Humongous Week for Team Cross

Happy three month birthday, Zack!

We all went back to work this week, including Zack.

Jeff dropped Z off for his first day of daycare, where he is a hit! The staff there love to tell us that he is such a content and smart little guy. It's great. Knowing he's somewhere safe for five hours a day makes me feel much better about being away from him, and actually, I'm really liking the structure of the day.

And a huge plus: Zack sleeps through the night for real now--like from 9 p.m. until 5 a.m.!

This is after we organized the giant piles of work that awaited me upon my return.

I have an ideal part time situation, except that I really don't enjoy my job too much. But I like the people I work with, and I pick up Z at noon!


California law requires that employees have a private area to pump breast milk. Look, here's mine:

That's right. I get my Pump In Style on in the supply closet. Oh yeah.

Zack with amazingly cute accessory


Somewhere in the middle of last week, Shannah sent us this unbelievable hat, which she made. You can see more of her awesome work here.

Zack AS amazingly cute accessory

Z, post eye doc and ready for closeup

Z went to the opthalmologist, who proclaimed him perfect. He has physiologic anisocoria, which means unequal pupils! His left pupil is slightly more dilated. He is now competing for the title of Baby Who Has Seen the Most Specialists Just to Determine He's Absolutely Healthy.

He was so incredibly well behaved and charming at the appointment--just smily and cute as could be, even while getting eye drops to dilate his pupils. I'm so glad he's okay, because my heightened sense of drama kept telling me that his wonderful behavior was just too good to be true, and our happy lives would have to be interrupted by a horrible diagnosis. But nope, he's great! Whoo hoo!

Just a little background, I didn't want to even take him to this appointment, but then my pediatrician convinced me to go to rule out a "growth." Like a tumor. A brain tumor. Yes, that's what she said to me!

I knew there was no way he had that, but after that conversation I made sure we got in as soon as possible so I could just stop thinking about it!

Waiting in the producer's office with Wes & Marion

After his appointment, Z was in a television pilot with his friend Wes! These two finally got themselves jobs. Slackers.

On the monitor

A closeup featuring drool!

I suppose we can't say much about the show, because we might be breaching confidentiality. But there was a dancing transexual. That's one thing.

Zack was so completely mellow during the whole weird experience. But maybe not as mellow as Wes, who slept through it.

Basking in the strangeness

Between coming with me to commercial auditions where I have to sing and mess my hair up to look like I'm on a desert island, and visiting Daddy at his weird job, and now this odd pilot...I kinda think Z will want to run with his arms flailing from the entertainment industry when he grows up. And that's just fine with us!

Wide shot of the strangeness and Z more interested in his own feet

When we got home, I was telling Jeff about anisicoria. It's hereditary. And what do you know? For the first time in over two decades, I noticed this about Jeff:

The left one is bigger! Z has Jeff's eyes!

At Daddy's workstation

Jeff worked at Robot Chicken and we got to see the weeklies on Friday and meet Seth Green. Z was much admired by Seth, who appreciated the "irony" of Z's Darth Vader shirt.

We've arrived!

Sunday we went to the local farmers market. When Jeff was coming down here for visits, we went there and decided we had to have a child so we could come back and show him off to all the Studio City entertainment industry yuppies who shop there. So finally, we achieved that goal! There we were, in the beating heart of it all: kids wearing Obama tee shirts, tots with names like "Maya," boatloads of organic produce, and hundreds of different kinds of strollers and baby carriers. It was fun! Can't wait until Z is old enough to appreciate the petting zoo. I've also seen Ed Begley Junior at this Farmers Market. He had a booth where he sold his green cleaning products.

Picking avocados from the "Land of the Lost" booth

Yes, we even took the baby to Starbucks

Sunday night, Robyn and Brad had us over for dinner, and Avery and Z fell in love. Maybe she could tell he's already got money in the bank.

You might think we're exaggerating, but really, Avery was into Zack.

And her feelings were reciprocated. Later they spent some time cooing at each other. They were having a full on conversation.

Sorry I can't be wittier right now but the action isn't letting up over here and it's time for bed!