drew’s news

Hope your new year is off to a decent start. Happy belated New Year everyone! (Or maybe I should say “Happy Lunar New Year” and then it won’t seem so belated…) This year we decided to stay put and had some good family time at home. We got a little tree and some little decorations, helped Leo unwrap his presents, and generally braved the extreme California weather (as evidenced by the photo at right). My folks paid a visit for a fun few days, but mostly we chilled out and fought off the seasonal colds. Unfortunately we had to take Leo to the urgent pediatric care on Christmas Eve as his runny nose had become a wheezing cough. Luckily (for us, not for them I guess) we made it 15 minutes before they closed, and went home with a nebulizer.

We took some of Leo’s gift money and got him a comfy chair, which he seemed to appreciate. Sometimes he likes to sit in it and flip through his books, but most often he prefers to sit in mom’s or dad’s lap for stories. He weighs about 25 lbs these days, and in addition to stories he really likes running, jumping, and kicking his soccer ball. It’s already getting difficult to imagine the days before he could walk, just a few months ago! I used to find it strange when I’d ask other parents about their kids’ milestones and they couldn’t quite remember, but now I can directly relate. Ask me when Leo started crawling and I’d have to go look in the little calendar journal we managed to keep for the first year. Well, best wishes for 2009. Don’t forget to stop and savor the moment once in a while…

OK, it’s obviously way past Halloween, but I really wanted to post this snapshot of Leo in his costume carrying his little pumpkin. (If you were stumped, it’s a turtle costume, complete with a little shell velcroed on the back.) He was very excited about having his own pumpkin. We had brought some pumpkins home about a week earlier, and he quickly established ownership over the one that he could lift. Several times a day he would lift the pumpkin from the shelf it was resting on, carry it across the living room, carefully set it down on the file cabinet next to the stereo, and step back with a satisfied grin. Then a little while later he’d carry it back to the shelf.

Well, it’s been an exhausting Autumn for us and we’re looking forward to some relaxing downtime during December holiday season. Here’s a very belated “Happy Halloween”, and a somewhat less belated “Happy Thanksgiving” too!

A couple weeks ago we attended the wedding of our friends Derek and Patty in Yosemite National Park. The newlyweds are both avid rock climbers who recently scaled the face of Half Dome, so the Yosemite valley was the perfect setting for them to tie the knot. It was a great party (with amazing scenery of course)! Congrats to the bride & groom; unfortunately we had forgotten our camera so I don’t have any photos to post. This is the first wedding we’ve been to with Leo, who I may have already mentioned is quite mobile these days - we spent most of the evening chasing him around…

We stayed for the rest of the weekend and hung out in the valley with our friends Bob and Rich, his wife, and their twin daughters. They graciously sent us some of the photos that they took, and I’ve posted a few of their pictures below…

Rich had rented a surprisingly nice house in a small housing community within the park called Foresta, so we were able to cook our own meals, do laundry, etc. Rich’s daughters had fun chasing Leo around the establishment, and Leo had fun playing with all of their toys. We managed some short walks with the kids - up to Bridalveil Fall, and down to a sequoia grove near the western park entrance. And we spent part of an afternoon hanging out at Sentinel Beach on the banks of the trickling Merced River, which was a great spot for the toddlers (OK, the grownups too) to splash around in the cool water for a while.

I must say that it was refreshing to see a sky full of stars. As we sat on the deck gazing up at the Milky Way cutting across the clear dark sky, I realized that I need to make a point of “getting away from it all” more often…

Last week we headed out to Arizona to celebrate with my parents on their 25th wedding anniversary. They threw a wonderful party, with good food & drinks, cake, dancing, and some touching speeches. It was great having the extended family together for a few days, and Leo had fun hanging out with his grandparents (and aunties & uncles) and running around with his cousins. (Yes, he’s quite mobile these days, with plenty of scrapes on his knees, elbows, and cheeks to prove it…)

There were a few dramatic thunderstorms for the first couple of days (in fact, the night before we arrived in Phoenix a small tornado tore up trees throughout downtown!), but the weather soon cleared up and we got in some good sightseeing too. We spent most of our stay in Sedona, where we gazed at the red rocks and took side trips up to Jerome (a cool ex-ghost town) and to some nearby native American ruins. We also spent a wonderful day up at the Grand Canyon. The visitor center at the south rim is only a couple hours from Sedona and makes for a solid day trip. The view from Mather Point is quite fantastic. Thanks Dad for being a great tour guide, and happy anniversary!

Our friend Alex stopped by the other day with his camera gear, and snapped some wonderful photos of Leo. I couldn’t resist posting a few. Not bad, huh? Alex is quite good - you should check out some of the stuff he’s got posted on his blog (http://www.door51.com/blog)!

Here’s Leo with a drum that he has taken quite an interest in:

…And a family shot (albeit without the dog - it’s next to impossible to get both our squirming kid and energetic dog to sit still long enough for a photo):

Thanks Alex!

Leo officially took his first steps last night! We were hanging out in his room before bedtime, just winding down. He was standing against the futon like he usually does, and I guess he wanted to go pet bother the dog just a few feet away. Without hesitation he just turned and started walking towards her! He took 4 clean steps before I think he realized what he was doing, then he got kind of a bewildered look on his face and fell on his butt. He grinned as we started clapping, then he started clapping too…

Our dog Uma is always on the lookout for anything that might be edible. Not unusual I suppose. Well, her apetite almost did her in this weekend - she ingested some bits of vegetation from an oleander bush and wound up spending the night at the emergency pet clinic.

We had just returned from a walk, and Daph was brushing Uma out front and noticed that she was quietly munching on something. She tried to get whatever it was out of Uma’s mouth, but Uma stubbornly swallowed it. Daph got a bad feeling as she noticed the leaves and dried flowers on the sidewalk - droppings from the oleander bushes that line the walkway. Within minutes Uma’s demeanor drooped, and she proceeded to puke several times. She shuffled inside with her head hanging low, lay down in the corner (clearly very uncomfortable), and didn’t move. She’s usually tired after a long walk, but not like this.

We did a quick internet search and got a consistent message: If you suspect your pet has ingested oleander, take it to the vet immediately! Yikes. Uma was barely able to make it out to the car, and as I drove to the vet she just burrowed her face in my shoulder. The vet quickly took her in and said to call in a couple hours if we didn’t hear from him - and we didn’t want to hear from him.

So we waited.

Thankfully we didn’t receive any calls, and when we called in later we were reassured that Uma was stable. It was a close call, said the vet. When we brought her in, Uma’s heart rate was nearly double what it should have been, and her gums “looked like crap”. They induced vomiting again, gave her lidocaine to try to get her heart under control, and charcoal to soak up the toxins. It worked. They monitored her for the rest of the day, and advised us to take her to the after-hours clinic for continued observation overnight since her pulse was still high when the vet’s office closed.

So we changed venue, and picked her up again yesterday morning. She was exhausted, but today she is starting to perk up again. I guess we’ll try to get the oleander bushes along our walkway removed. After learning more about the extremely toxic nature of this plant, I’m surprised it is so commonly used in landscaping. Apparently small children can die from ingesting just one leaf, and it has been used by adults to commit suicide. Knowing this, I don’t think oleander would be my first choice for shrubery to line the path to our front gate…