December 2004 Archives

It's Christmas Eve morning -- the Big Day, as far as I'm concerned. And I'm actually ready! I've got gifts bought and wrapped and everything. I still nead to clean up the kitchen after yesterday's frenzy, but then it's dropping off the dog, calling my family and driving to Houston.

While we started much later than usual, we did manage to do our share of Christmas baking. We started off with 200+ gingerbread cookies which Meredith and Rita helped decorating. Last Christmas we got the appropriate cookie forms from the CR, so we now made almost a hundred Beehive Cookies (Včelí Ůly). Jennifer baked some Peanut Butter Blossoms and Chocolate Clouds and I decided on a last minute that we needed some non-chocolate cookies and made Cinammon Stars (Zimtstern) last night. For some reason my Eurpean cookie recipes are always much more labor intensive than Jfer's recipes.

Yesterday, I also spent a good portion of the day making Vánočka, the traditional Czech Christmas bread that we'll eat today. I got the recipe and instructions off a Czech bakery site. They even have cool videos about braiding the bread in 4 strands and 6 strands. Maybe I'll try the 6-strand approach next year.

BTW, I've decided that the best thing about being multilingual is that you have access to way more recipes online than if you knew only one language. I don't think I'd dare sending a foreign language recipe through a google translation.

In 1986/87, I spent a school year in Manchaca, TX. This was the beginning of my life in Texas and I fondly think of all the interesting experiences I encountered while exposed to the American Life as an exchange student (this while Perfect Strangers was regularly on TV).

I lived with Tommy and Barbara S. and their two kids, J.T. and Marla, then 3 and 5 years old. My exposure to certain aspects of Americane is thanks to the kids’ TV viewing habits (reruns of The Monkees and The Brady Bunch, the forgettable My Little Pony, and lots of Transformers and Masters of the Universe and, of course, She-Ra and ThunderCats and SilverHawks). I've kept in touch -- rather sporadically on my part -- and got to experience some of the kids' milestones.

Well, last Saturday we got to go to Marla's wedding. It was a nice (and short) mass with a ton of people and a huge reception in Austin. There were lots of vaguely familiar faces I couldn't quite place, but while the kids are now all grown up, the parents haven't really changed all that much. It was great seeing them and watching the pride and wistfulness when they looked at their daughter in the arms of her dashing, white-uniformed, husband.

Se here's to you, Marla and Sean, may you have lots of joy and happiness in your life together!

The Statesman has had a several articles (including this one from The Washington Post). about science education and the attacks on teaching Evolution as part of biology. In a recent Gallup survey, about 45% of Americans "believe that God created human beings pretty much in their present form about 10,000 years ago". In many areas there is a push to gut the science education by proposing warning stickers for textbooks or by pushing for the inclusion of "alternative theories", such as Intelligent Design. Luckily, in some places people are trying to fight this push towards willful ignorance.

The way evolutionary theory is portrayed by its opponents, you'd think it's some random, controversial (among scientists) crackpot idea that's about to corrupt young impressionable minds. Most people arguing against it do not display an understanding of what a scientific theory is and how the scientific method works. So here it is: "In sciences, a theory is a model or framework for understanding". In that sense, Evolution is the same as Thermodynamics or Relativity (and you can make your own warning stickers for those as well, if you'd like :-).

We've settled into a morning routine that's quite changed from the pre-baby times. Wherease Jfer would invariably rise before me (and sometimes leave for workeout before I got out of bed), the roles have changed quite a bit.

These days, when I get up, I let Homer out and start up the microwave to sterilize Jfer's pump and bottles. The sterilizer, which Jfer initially scoffed at, is a brilliant device and a huge time saver.

I then check me email, or whatever, and ten minutes later feed Homer and assemble the pump (another very well designed product from Avent) which hopefully by then has cooled down to a bearable temperature. I'm getting pretty good at this, and could probably do it blind-folded by now.

This morning, Jfer handed me Magda so she could take a shower. I went through my assembly process while holding her on my right arm (which, as she keeps growing, is likely to develop an asymetric huge biceps). No problem whatsoever, thank-you-very-much! Steaming bowl and all. Magda was enjoying watching the whole process and didn't even try to nurse off me (she starting to learn the futility of that).

To my surprise, I don't actually mind getting up before them and watching them sleep in. I do miss those morning walks with Homer, which he nows enjoys a later in the day with just Jennifer and Magda.

I tought Magda that she can use the pacifier to stay happy while I'm changing her diaper when she's starting to get hungry. I know that Jfer doesn't like them, but I prefer her sucking on one instead of screeming her lungs out.

She's not a huge fan of it (yet), so maybe we'll be just using it as a stop-gag, so to speak.

We planted trees in the park today, during this chapter of the continuous saga of the Gracywoods park against the Utilities. Overall, over a hundred trees were planted, withe help from the city's park department and volunteers from TreeFolks and the neighborhood.

Most of the holes were dug by the city yesterday -- except in our section, where we had to dig them ourselves. So now I feel the effects of the spade, shovel and digging bar in all sorts of places. It was a beautiful day for the work, though. Cool and sunny and the top soil was nicely soft thanks to all the rains we'd had.

Jennifer and I donated a Chinguapin Oak to the park, so we'll have to find where one got planted and make sure Homer claims it as his own.

There were news crews frome several stations at the planting today. It's rather ironic how after all the push-back we've been getting from Austin Energy and LCRA, they're making a big PR event out of this. Whatever it takes, I guess.

Holidays are rapidly approaching and I'm starting to dread the gifting part of it. I like giving presents, but more often than not, I don't know what other people really would like to receive. And very often I do not know what I can suggest to relatives when they ask what I'd like for Christmas.

Frankly, there isn't much I want or need. If I covet something, it's either inexpensive enought to buy when I want it, or way to expensive to be considered a gift. Still, when I do come across the odd book or CD or gadget I'd like to get my hands on, I try to remember to put it on my Amazon Wish List.

If you have one of those, by all means make your loved ones aware of it and do keep it up to date, both before the holidays, as well as after you receive anything that's on the list.

Megda is two months old today and how quickly the time has flown. We'll find out at her checkup how much she has actually grown, but she is still quite small. She's fairly easy to get to smile at this point (if in good mood) and has the extensive vocabulary of "aah", "goo" and -- our favorite -- "aah-goo". I'm also thinking that she occasionally says "neh" which sounds awefully close to the Czech word for "no"...

We've been joking that our time is running out under the lemon law (Texas Family Code, Chapter 262, Subchapter D), better known as the Baby Moses Law, which allows a parent to legally abandon an unharmed infant at a designated location. It a pretty cool law, aimed at preventing newborns being abandoned in dumpsters and such, but it's pretty poorly publicized. We've been telling Magda that she better behave, since until yesterday, she was in the 60 day window. But considering her size, she'll be able to pass for under 60 days for a couple more months so she needs to stay on her best behavior a little longer.

But no, we never seriously considered dropping her off at the fire station -- that's crazy talk! If it ever came to that, we'd unload her on eBay :-)

We had a very good time at the annual Burgess Christmas Party. It was Magda's first Xmas party and she looked awefully cute in her outfit (she's getting good use out of it). She also got to see her first camp fire which she liked. After having a fussy day, she was a little angel and stayed quiet and happy in the sling the whole time.

Of course, once we left the party, she decided that it was time to cry most of the way home. I think it was the darkness. We have a nightlight at home (more for our sake then hers, since I don't want to step on Homer when it's pitch dark and I go to picker her up or change a diaper) so she doesn't really get exposed to darkness, except on road trips out in the country. And then she's invariable displeased until we get to an area with street lights. I wonder if there exist night-lights for cars? I hadn't seen any.

I also had a first experience. After she nursed at the party, I picked her up to burp her and burp she did -- loud and wet and on my new shirt. This is actually the first time I'd been spit up on, so I never bother with a cover. I hope this was an isolated event.

Today I got to feed Magda for the first time (photo). Despite the size of my rack, I am not actualy lactating myself, but I have convinced Jennifer that it's time to start a milk reserve. It's mainly in the case of an emergency (like if Jfer gets sick), but I'd also like to be able for Jennifer to have some time off from the baby every now and then -- God knows I would go nuts being at her beck and call 24/7.

Now Jfer's no Brown Swiss (at least no yet), but after a few days of, er, production, I wanted to make sure that the product would be acceptable. So tonight I combined the supply, warmed it up in a sterile bottle and I gave it a try.

I was a bit concerned that Magda may not like the bottle. She's no big pacifier fan, but I shouldn't have worried. She had no problems latching on to the bottle and sucked that milk down like there was no tomorrow. It was great having her on my lap and actually not disappointing her when she started rooting. I only wish there had been more milk.

Jfer had mixed emotions about someone else taking on this job. She needn't worry, though; unless she ramps up the supply, this will be only a once in a blue moon event. As far as nipple confusion goes, there wasn't any. Magda was more than happy to go back to the tap next time she got hungry.

We're still eating leftovers. Last two nights it was turkey-and-ham-and-cranberry sandwiches, and it was turkey and ham with all the trimmings the days before. Usually that would be great, but eating all that turkey is getting pretty old. Maybe I should just "accidentally" let Homer at the leftovers...

Thanksgiving was fun. We didn't have to travel and managed to get Jennifer's dad, step-mom and brother to come and visit. I brined and roasted the turkey - I liked it on Thanksgiving but it's a bit too salty when eaten as leftovers. Everything was good, though, and Dianne brought two very delicious pies.

Last night we had a light freeze and there was hoarfrost on the lawn this morning. It looked awesome in the morning sun, almost Christmas like.

So it's been cold (we stuffed Magda into a bunch of layers during last night's walk in the park) and I had been freezing at work. We had problems getting our gas hooked up and turned on - for some reason the gas company kept trying to turn on the gas late at night, way after our busines hours. After several attempts we caved in and paid their extortion fee so they'd come during the day. So now it's nice and cozy.