Thursday, February 28, 2013

almost there

One more post before the final one from 2012. To start, we have another picture from the window of the Aldea Ninos store. I took a lot of walks down there with Evan—and sometimes Steve—in December, since we were on the hunt for Christmas presents. I think this was the day that we bought Elsa's gifts.

351/366 cigar box mice


That Monday, I took another picture of Evan on the changing table. I had taken similar shots at one week and one month, so I figured I'd take one at two months as well. (Click through to Flickr for links to the others.) I didn't keep up the trend after that, though. I figured the chair portraits each month would be enough, especially since the lighting isn't really the best at the changing table. Evan's also likely to start trying to roll off soon.

352/366 serious business


Speaking of the monthly chair portraits, it was time for the two-month picture on Tuesday. While it was a bit of a balancing act, I was able to get him to sit up much better in the chair than I had the first month. I wasn't able to get him to smile for the camera, though.

353/366 two months


Wednesday was Evan's two-month pediatrician visit, which meant a round of shots to fill in the least fun punch card ever. (Do we get a prize for completing the whole thing?) Like the first time, Evan shrieked and cried right when they gave him the shots, but he calmed down pretty quickly once I picked him up. Then he was okay with his pacifier while I bundled him back up for the walk home. He was also fighting off his first cold—cough and sniffles—so he was a little more subdued for the next day or two.

354/366 least fun punch card ever


On Thursday, my picture of the day was of the fancy pears that my parents sent us for Christmas. They ended up being quite tasty. We used one for the filling of a pasta, we made a salad with them as part of our Christmas dinner, we gave a couple to Dan and Carmen for Elsa, and I ate some as snacks with prosciutto. (I was excited to remember that I could eat prosciutto again after not being able to while pregnant.)

355/366 fancy pears


Friday, the first day of winter (and not the apocalypse), was when I finally got around to doing my follow-up 2-hour glucose test to make sure that the gestational diabetes was gone. I got up before the baby did that morning, left him with Steve and a bottle, and drove over to the hospital's lab. The actual test was much more tolerable than the 3-hour one had been: only two blood draws and no feeling like I was going to pass out. Just for fun, I took along my own testing kit and tested my blood sugar when they did. From the numbers I got, I was actually afraid that I hadn't passed... But my doctor's office called a week or so later and said that everything was normal. Big relief.

Anyway, the picture for that day was the view from the hospital's parking garage, with Sutro Tower in the distance. This is pretty much what "winter" looks like in San Francisco: chilly and rainy.

356/366 first day of winter


And the last picture of the week was from that Saturday, which was when we did most of our present wrapping. I just took a shot of the finished ones on the coffee table, although a few more were added to it later.

357/366 the growing present pile


Next stop: Christmas and the end of 2012. (Finally.)

Monday, February 18, 2013

christmas approaching

Moving on towards Christmas with yet more pictures of Evan and/or Christmas decorations... The first picture of week 50 was of Evan's usual smiley time. Every morning after he ate, I used to prop him up with the Boppy pillow on the floor. I ate my breakfast while sitting in front of him, and he took the opportunity to smile and coo. Of course, it was hard to capture the smiles with the camera.

344/366 smiley time


On Monday, I apparently took a walk to Noe Valley. I had taken note of the Christmas decorations around the Mill store previously, and I finally found the right composition for a picture. The passing firetruck was convenient too.

345/366 noe valley christmas


Tuesday's walk yielded something a bit different. I took a picture of a taxidermied animal in the (fake) snowy window of Paxton Gate.

346/366 snow weasel


And other sorts of animals were the subjects for Wednesday's picture. It started with a change of clothes for Evan. I tried to put him in a Christmas onesie, and he spit up on the collar before I could even get his arms in the sleeves. So then I put him in the knit romper that he wore on Thanksgiving—the one with the very impractical buttons for diaper changes. He hadn't worn it much, and it had been too big on Thanksgiving, but now it fit great. I also crammed his feet into some newborn shoes that we had inherited from Chrissy and Elliott. (No socks... I didn't think they'd fit with socks too.) He had worn those even less than the romper, since they didn't really match many of his early outfits.

Anyway, with the romper and the shoes on, I decided that a photo shoot would be fun. I sat him in the chair in the living room, snapped some pictures, then realized that his stuffed squirrel would help fill the frame. Luckily, I got what I needed before one big spit-up ended our session. (Here's picture that shows the shoes.)

347/366 evan & squirrel


Alyson came to visit after work on Thursday, meeting Evan for the first time. He stayed awake a good long time and stared at her a lot. 

348/366 new friend


For Friday, I took another picture of Evan in his bouncy seat. I was trying for smiles again, but I was a lot more successful with getting concerned looks.

His hair looks darker in these pictures than it does now. I think it's either lightened up or he's lost a fair amount of the darker stuff. Also possible: he needed a bath. His hair does tend to look a little darker when it's nearing bath day.

349/366 concerned look


The final picture of the week features two of the three "official" ornaments for 2012. I previously saw these elves at a shop on Valencia, but I ended up ordering them online later. I got one of each of the three color schemes; the loop on the third elf just didn't fit over the door handle for the picture. These guys kind of remind me of Evan with their round faces and ears that stick out, so they seemed especially fitting to represent the year he was born.

350/366 elves


That wraps up yet another week! Only a couple more to go from 2012...

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

ornaments & baby stuff

Week 49 of 52, the beginning of December. Steve and I took yet another walk down Valencia that Sunday afternoon, stopping at Craftsman and Wolves for a snack and probably scouting out some Christmas presents on the way. The picture of the day turned out to be of some ornaments in the window of Laku. I liked the mouse and the little house, but the tree was also pretty cool.

337/366 mouse, house


I did my Christmas card photo shoot with Evan on Monday afternoon, setting up the big bean bag and white bed sheet in the box window of the bedroom. I think I lucked out with the pose, though. Evan stayed up in the tummy time position for at least a couple minutes—long enough for me to take a few pictures, position props, and then take some more. I wasn't very good about doing tummy time consistently for a couple weeks after this, so Evan got worse at it for a while. He must have either forgotten how to do it or his head got substantially heavier in that time. Anyway, I got a good Christmas card picture out of this, and Evan's getting way better at tummy time again now.

338/366 christmas pictures


I had fewer ideas for pictures on Tuesday, so I resorted to shooting the Christmas ornaments, lined up on Evan's window sill. Although we don't really have the space for a Christmas tree at this point, I still buy ornaments each year to build our collection. My favorites seem to be the felted wool and woodland themed ones, some of which figured into Tuesday's picture. Here we have the pine cone from 2008, the owl from 2010, a rabbit from 2011, and a mushroom that we found at Paxton Gate's Curiosities for Kids during our walk two days before.

339/366 christmas ornaments


Wednesday was a rough one. Around lunchtime, Evan just wasn't going to sleep. It was nap time, but he apparently decided that he needed to eat yet again and wasn't going to go to sleep until that happened. All the swaddling, unswaddling, changing, re-pacifying, and feeding was really getting to me, since I was hungry and my back was having issues that day. The picture below was actually taken after the long nap that he finally took, but his expression in it summed up my feelings about that day pretty well.

340/366 tough customer


The next day was much better. Evan and I took another walk to Aldea Ninos in the afternoon, and I took pictures of the stuffed animals in their window. They had sprayed some fake snow on the glass, so it was extra challenging to get a decent shot. I had to punch up the contrast quite a bit in Lightroom.

341/366 woodland friends


On Friday, it was time to bid farewell to some of the burp cloths we had been using for Evan. They had belonged to Carmen's cousin Amy, and Evan used them for a little while after Elsa. But Dan and Carmen were going to visit Amy in MI the next week, so the burp cloths needed to be returned for use with baby Mia. It was sad, but we got some new ones for Evan.

342/366 bye bye, burp cloths


Saturday's picture was of some more baby stuff. I went downtown during Evan's afternoon nap that day, since I wanted to do a little shopping, and we weren't taking the baby on BART yet. Some of the windows of the Gap store that I passed on Powell featured Baby Gap clothes. While I resisted going inside to buy more of them, there was no reason to resist taking pictures from outside.

343/366 baby gap bear