Julian Thinks He Can Run This Blog, Too.: April 2009

Exhausted... It was a long weekend. We spent Saturday doing mountains of laundry (I think the final count was ten loads including bedsheets.) because Mommy had to work both Friday and Saturday. The plan was to get all the household chores taken care of so we could all go car shopping for mommy's new car on Sunday since her current car, Big Red, has seen it's better days and this family needs a reliable and comfortable family vehicle.

But alas, Aunt Jennifer and her infected appendix had other ideas, and a surgery was scheduled for 11:30 am Sunday morning, so the family traveled out to San Francisco to St. Luke's Hospital where the offending (and thankfully useless) organ was removed arthroscopicly. Unfortunately while we didn't make it out to the hospital before aunt Jenny went under, we were able to be there as she came to in the recovery room after the successful operation.

Once released from recovery to her hospital room, the whole family (plus her friend Louis) were able to sit and visit while she recovered. Because the surgery was performed arthroscopicly she was able to be released that day, so we hung out for a bit and once Julian started to get a bit stir-crazy we decided to take him out to Mitchell's Ice Cream (apparently some of the best Ice Cream in the city) which thankfully was only a few blocks from the Hospital. It was one of the first hot days in the city and there was a crowd there when we got there, our number was 09 and they were only calling 52 so needless to say, there was a bit of a wait. When we finally got to order, Mommy got a double waffle cone with Coffee and Mocha Fudge and Daddy got a double waffle cone with Mango and Coconut Pineapple, and Julian got a junior cone with red raspberry sorbet, which was by far the best of the three and probably some of the best sorbet I've ever had in my life. Unfortunately on our walk back to the hospital 2/3rd's of us dropped our ice cream cones: Mommy with a little assist from Daddy and Julian who needed no assistance. Here's some pictures from the aftermath (as I mentioned earlier, it was hot so we let Julian take off his shirt):

Once we got back to the Hospital room, it was picture time for the patient. She was not amused.

Oh, and yes, I am aware that Aunt Jennifer won't be happy that I'm posting these pictures, but I also know that 1) she is still laid up recovering from the surgery and can't do anything about it and 2) won't even know about it for a while because she doesn't have Internet due to her lack of a working wireless router and 3) needs to be a part of the family blog somehow, so it might as well be to commemorate her trip to the hospital.

How will she feel about all this? Well, I'm sure this look just about sums it up:

We tried to get some pictures of Dr. Julian giving Aunt Jenny some tisses to fix her boo-boos:

But for his part, Julian was far more interested in how Aunt Jennifer's hospital bed worked than posing for pictures.

Finally got him to look at the camera at least:

Still, Aunt Jenny got to give a few tisses of her own:

So after the hospital released Aunt Jenny, we got her back to her apartment and got her Rx filled along with getting her some basic necessities needed for her recuperation including some Chicken soup and crackers, choclate pudding and fudgesicles, and eggs and toast. After making sure that Aunt Jennifer was set up properly, it was time for the Journey home. We had driven to the city in Aunt Jennifer's car, (because I had taken it back from the city Friday night after a Quixotic journey to once again try to set up her home internet), so rather than make her travel back out to the city to retrieve it as originally planned, we took a family BART trip back, after a much needed stop at a local pizza place, Haystack Pizza which has a quite good spinach pesto pizza. After the six block walk down to the BART, we were all pretty beat:

Jules was tired and having a bit of trouble on the BART:

It really wasn't entirely his fault, it was a long day for all of us and well past his bedtime:

Daddy was most certianly beat:

Fortunately, Julian was able to rally:

And once again ready for some horsing around with Dad:

And some good quiet time with Mom:

After some snuggling with Mom, Jules was once again ready to entertain, and just in time too because a group of 8 or so High School or college age kids, mostly boys, got on the train at the west Oakland Station... And Jules was in rare form, letting them know in bold declarations that he was "ING OF THE JUNGLE -- ROAAAR!" and also what a dinosaur says (ROAAAR!!!) and what a Pirate says "Arrr, me teetee" and what a Giant says "Fee Fi Rawrrr"... Punctuated with some very serious faces and the occasioinal blank stare... It's really hard to explain, but I'm not exaggerating in saying that literally the whole group of us were laughing so hard at his routine that we were crying... That boy was quite a character.

Fortunately for Mom and Dad, he had pretty much burned himself out by the end of the night, and was well asleep when we got home. It was a long day for everyone, and as I type this, I'm still sore and tired, and I have to give some serious thanks and props to Mommy who was amazing throughout the whole trip despite operating on less thank 4 hours of sleep. I wouldn't have been able to get through the day without her. Julian, for his part, had a few meltdowns- not surprising given the fact that he had to sit in a hospital room most of the day, and I got punched in the face more than once (something we are working on) but all in all, he held up pretty good.

Not a bad day considering.

Here's to loving my family and hoping Aunt Jenny a speedy recovery.

-Daddy.

Happy Spring Beginnings Everyone!

Easter Eve morning we received a package from Grandpa and Nat full of candy and cascarones. We took Julian outside and let him have fun with the cascarones.

Cascarones or confetti eggs are festive, hollow egg shells, filled with confetti, meant to be broken over someone's head(usually broken in the hand right before on broken on somebodies head because of the pain it could cause), usually as a surprise from behind scattering confetti all over the person. This tradition is most often carried out among friends and family. Cascarones derived from Mexico and have recently regained popularity in the southwestern United States. They are used for many different occasions but, especially Easter. Having one broken over your head is said to bring good luck. In Italy, men fill the cascarones with perfume and break them on women they admire.

Mommy forgot to break the egg first, pushing Jules forward. Silly Mommy!

Later that evening, the family colored Easter eggs, which Julian just loved. His favorite thing to do was dip his egg into several colors and then stack them 3 deep into the cups. This activity kept him happy and amused for quite some time.

The finished product! Fancy stuff!

Easter Morning! What did the Bunny bring...

Looks like a Spiderman egg...

And a Chocolate Bunny aka Breakfast of Champions...

"Yummy!"

"Mom, I don't like this collar."

Our super handsome child.

His famous "'ing' of the jungle" pose.

The sun was beaming me right in the eyes!

Easter was a very busy day. First, we headed down to the South Bay to see Cousin Cole.

"Hi Cousin!"

Uncle Jer and Cole.

So cute!

After we visited with Cole we left the South Bay and headed up to Tracy to go to Cousin Caneisha and Desmond's house. There we had dinner and did an Easter egg hunt with all of the kids. Dinner was delicious (imagine a spread of fine cheeses, wine, moist turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, fresh green beens... you get the point) and the kids had a blast playing together.

Jules egg hunting.