Hi, everyone! It's been a rough few days over here. My mom got sick last week with a very severe cold. (Yes, all adults and Jack have had the flu shot.) Then, on Sunday, both Jack and Derek started exhibiting symptoms of this cold -- low-grade fever, coughing, congestion. Luckily, Derek's symptoms have been pretty minimal, but poor Jack has been hit pretty hard. He's on the mend now, but this is the first time he's been sick for more than 24 hours. So far, Johnny has kept it at bay (knock on wood). I feel a strange tingling in the back of my throat, but I've been assaulting any potential illness with Cold-Eeze, Theraflu and lots of gargling with salt water. I would take Nyquil preemptively, but with my luck, that would be the night Derek decided to get up and eat. So we'll skip that for now.

Meanwhile, we're in the full swing of Thanksgiving prep. Johnny's parents get here tomorrow. Today, my parents and June left for a mini-vacation to Las Vegas. (I love Vegas! June is doing a rotation there next summer, and I can't wait to go visit her.) My mom will be hanging with June for the next 2.5 weeks, while Johnny's parents are here. We're looking forward to seeing them and to hosting our very first Thanksgiving in our house. I'm roasting a turkey and making all the trimmings. Victoria is bringing a delicious-sounding apple cake. I'm going to be dieting for the next two days in order to justify devouring half of the cake by myself.

Anyway, in the midst of all this busy-ness, I wanted to share a funny story from the weekend. Friday night, Johnny and I were watching a Family Guy episode on our DVR. In the episode, Stewie walks up to Brian and says something to the effect of, "Brian, can you take me to Baby Gap? I want to look like a little douche." The next morning, I picked out jeans, a T-shirt, and a zip-up sweater for Jack to wear. All of the stuff was from Baby Gap. As Johnny zipped up Jack's sweater, he looked at me over Jack's head and said, "Aww, our little douche." I laughed. Jack was seemingly not paying attention.

A few hours later, as I put away Thanksgiving groceries in our spare fridge (in the garage), Jack ran up to me. He had been playing in the yard with Johnny. It was getting chilly, so Johnny had just put on his sweater. Jack pointed to his sweater and shouted, "Look, Mommy! DOUCHE! DOUCHE!" Oh, my God. It took all my willpower not to laugh. It was hilarious! But, I think that definitely cost us any chance of winning the Parents of the Year award. To be honest, we probably lost our chance a thousand "offenses" ago.

OK, now back to the laundry. Thanks to all the cooking my mom did before she left, I don't have to make dinner tonight. I'll use my spare time after the kids are in bed to make some turkey stock in advance, for the stuffing and gravy on Thursday.

I hope everyone (Stateside, that is) enjoys the short week!

Jack started preschool today! He'll be going every Tuesday and Thursday morning (9 a.m. to noon). We dropped him off, and I stayed for about 15 minutes. Right away, he started playing with the toys, and when I went to say goodbye to him, he eagerly showed me that he was cooking an apple (a toy apple) in the (plastic) microwave. I said to him, "Mommy's going to go home, OK? You stay here and have fun, and I'll be back for you in a couple of hours." Jack didn't even look at me. He kept playing with his toy food and said cheerfully, "OK, Mommy! Bye, Mommy!" I almost cried! When I left, he didn't even look back. I waited outside the classroom with my mom and Derek for a little bit in case Jack melted down (the teacher's idea), but nope, Jack did not look around for me at all. The teacher had thought maybe he'd cling a bit since it's his first time in this sort of environment, but apparently not.

I got to pickup early today, and Jack was happy to see me. He informed me that he had "a great time, Mommy!", that he ate apples and water for a snack, and that he had new friends. When I asked him what his friends' names were, he said, "Jack, Jack, Jack ... and Jack!" Um ... OK. His teacher said that they painted, and Jack did great sharing toys with other kids, and even went potty. He didn't ask her to go, but he did go when she reminded him.

When Jack got home, he wolfed down four chicken nuggets, a big handful of peas, a string cheese and a sippy cup of milk (about nine ounces). Whew! Now he's napping. Although seeing Jack in a classroom, with his own cubby, made me and Johnny a bit wistful, I'm also very proud of my independent, friendly big boy. I know this is good for him, to be doing something other than playing with his same old toys or watching PBS Kids and Playhouse Disney all morning. It's only twice a week, but it still feels like a big transition! We'll see how he does on Thursday.

I'll have to add some pictures later. Hope everyone's having a great week!

Today, we went trick-or-treating at Mattel (where Johnny works). Jack had fun doing this last year, but this year, he really understood what he was doing! It was a terrific morning, and great practice for "real" trick-or-treating tomorrow night. I know you're all curious about what Jack was for Halloween, so here we go ...

Yup! We dressed Jack as his favorite monkey, Curious George. When we decided on this costume a few months ago, Johnny piped up with, "Hey, maybe I can be the Man in the Yellow Hat." Well, of course he had to be! I love that my husband is willing to don a hideous bright yellow costume to make our son happy. Ha. At first, Jack was upset that his beloved Baba was now someone else, but after a while, he became delighted. He was in love with his George costume and couldn't stop looking in the mirror.

Oh, and I know you're going to ask: What was Derek's costume? Some of you may recall that Jack was a peapod for his first Halloween. Having gone through the rite of passage of dressing up my first tiny infant for Halloween, I have now become wiser (and some may say more cynical), because Derek went sans costume. He simply wore an adorable Halloween-themed outfit that our friend Jill gave us, along with a Halloween-themed bib. Next year, when he's actually walking and aware of Halloween, we'll get him his very own costume (I thought about putting him in Jack's monster costume from last year, but decided that would be patently unfair).

Who needs a costume to be cute? ;) 

My mom got Derek a really cute, tiny felt Halloween basket. We attached it to his stroller with a plastic hook.

Jack took great care to get two pieces of candy at every trick-or-treat station at Johnny's office, and placed one into Derek's basket gingerly. It was really heartwarming.

I don't think Jack ever wanted to leave Mattel. He's a lucky boy ... not everyone gets to say that his dad works at a toy company!

Enthralled by the balloons in the lobby

In the Mattel cafeteria

With Daddy at his desk

Here I am with Derek

Yes, I do also have a costume, but it's a devil costume that involves a tiny red dress. I'm wearing to a party with Johnny later tomorrow night ... I didn't think that would be appropriate to wear to Johnny's work!

Derek looked around excitedly while we went around getting candy. I loved looking at Barbies, Hot Wheels and other toys in progress. I did have to sign a nondisclosure form before going in there, so I can't talk about any of it here, but it was awesome.

I hope everyone has a great Halloween! I can't wait to see all the pictures on your blogs.

One of the beauties of living in Southern California is that it's perfectly plausible to splash in the beach and visit a pumpkin patch on the same weekend (and to have said weekend be in mid-October, no less).

On Saturday, we visited Donna, Scott, Madi and adorable baby Joshua! Unfortunately, I forgot the camera at home, so there are no pictures to document the great time we had.  They took us to Lake Mission Viejo and set up a wonderful spread of snacks for us to enjoy. Jack loved the "beach" and kept running into the lake. He didn't even mind falling facedown in the water (Johnny picked him right back up, of course!). It was a really hot day, but we didn't anticipate that Jack would go into the water. However, now that Jack is potty trained and in underwear, we simply stripped him down to his skivvies, and in he went! (I had some spare pairs with me, of course, for him to change into for going home.) Jack also delighted in his first episode of public urination ... a distinct advantage of being a boy. He's still talking about "pee-pee tree," and whenever we go anywhere (say, the Target parking lot), he requests "pee-pee tree." Sigh. Anyway, we had a wonderful time and can't wait to hang out again!

Sunday, we went with my Meetup moms group to Tanaka Farms in Irvine. I used "with" loosely -- everyone was supposed to meet at 11 a.m., but of course, schedules are hard to coordinate when you're dealing with toddlers and babies, so everyone ended up going at times that were convenient for them. We went in the early morning. Anyway, this is a real farm that's open to the public. In the fall, there's a huge pumpkin patch -- a real one, where you can cut pumpkins off the vine. There was also a petting zoo and tractor ride. We talked up the pumpkin patch trip all week, and by Saturday morning, Jack was very excited to go to the "fahm" and see "ginkins" (for some reason, Jack can't say "pumpkins" or even "pumkins." He says "ginkins"). Jack loved it! Derek slept in the BabyHawk the whole time, but I'm sure he'll love it next year.

Jack and the ginkins

The whole family!

Have I mentioned that I love the BabyHawk? Unfortunately I'm not modeling it very well in this picture -- it was tied a bit too loosely here.

Some of you might recall that we had a disastrous petting zoo visit last year, which ended up with Jack in tears and June with a torn shirt. This year, Jack fared much better (this could also be due to the fact that Tanaka Farms fed its petting zoo animals instead of starving them). He loved reaching into the cup of food that Johnny bought and feeding the animals. Whenever he did, he would open his mouth and say "aaah," just like we used to do when feeding him baby food. Cute.

"Ahhh, baby sheep!"

Next, we went on the tractor ride (or, as Jack would say, "wide tra-cker"). Since Jack loves tractors (and anything with wheels, really), this was his dream come true.

Hooray for tractors!

"Yook! Ginkins!"

After we picked up our pumpkins (a big one for Johnny to hold, and a little one for Jack; my pumpkin was Derek), Jack ran through the hay maze.

Whew! It was fun, but extremely exhausting!

Now, I have a couple of videos to share with you. The first is Jack excitedly imitating June and Charles' "crazy wave" arm motions.

The second is Jack "reading" Goodnight Moon. It's so cute. He'll go, "Night night, cow jumping moon" and "Night night mush."

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OK, I think that's all I have for tonight! Hope everyone is having a great week.

Happy birthday to me! I turned 29 last Wednesday, and this weekend was filled with mini celebrations. This year, I didn't want a party because a) it's not a milestone birthday, and b) things have been so busy lately that I didn't feel up to one big shindig. I wanted to have more manageable gatherings, if you will.

On my actual birthday, I went out to breakfast with Johnny and Jack, while Derek napped at home, with my mom holding down the fort. Afterward, I went and got my awesome new phone, a purchase generously funded by Johnny's parents (thank you!). I got the Samsung Reclaim, which is made with recycled plastic, and just as importantly, is stylish and features a slide-out keyboard. Now I can check personal and work emails, access Facebook, look up things on Google, and text so much more easily! I'm hard-pressed to think of what my phone can't do. This purchase came just in time, because right after I left the Sprint store, I headed to the dentist's office for oral surgery. I've had a lower bottom tooth that's been jutting out forever. Despite three rounds of orthodontia, it just keeps slanting forward, so much so that the root was almost completely exposed. Yikes! My birthday happened to be the only day that the two dentists who would need to work on me (one to extract the tooth and put in a bone graft, and the other one to bond a temporary tooth in its place until I can get an implant) could coordinate their schedules. Since I didn't exactly want to go around with a hole in my bottom row of teeth, I said, "I'll take it!" Johnny was kind enough to take the day off to help with the kiddos, and so we could spend extra time together on my birthday. Anyway, the procedure went pretty well, and I discovered that I love laughing gas.  It did suck that I couldn't eat for the rest of the day, but hey, that helped me lose a pound!

Friday night, the festivities continued as I went out on the town with my friend Milena (Marcus' mom). We've missed hanging out with each other since I moved. We used to get together several times a week, since we lived so close to each other. Hanging out without the boys is even more rare, so when she suggested that she take me out on the town for my birthday, I agreed right away. I took the chance to get all dolled up. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera at home that night, so this is the only picture I have of my outfit:

Look! I'm not in sweatpants, Bermuda shorts or jeans!

Haven't finished with the "postpartum weight loss campaign" (that's what Johnny calls it) yet, but I think I did all right! Anyway, Milena took me to Katana in West Hollywood for dinner, and then to the Sky bar/lounge across the street. It was one of the few nights I've been out barhopping in LA (I got pregnant with Jack shortly after moving here), and I had a great time! It made me a bit nostalgic for our time in New York, when of course going out was de rigeur on weekends. At first, Milena and I felt a bit out of place in a sea of glamorous people (it's a bit disorienting to go from "Where are the high chairs? The sippy cups? Does someone need their diaper changed?" to "Yes, I party all the time"), but soon we got into the swing of things. A couple of cute Australian guys who were undoubtedly hoping to get lucky while on vacation approached us at Sky. They were nice, and we talked to them for about 45 minutes, enjoying their accents, but eventually it had to come out that both of us had kids, and that I'm married. The guy I was talking to was saying how his only serious relationship had been in college, and then he asked me, "So, what's your romantic predicament? Or are you single?" And I was like, "Well, speaking of college sweethearts ... I'm married to mine." Pause. The guy recovers and says, "That's great! Where is he tonight?" And I reply, "Oh, he's at home, with our boys. We have a two-year-old and an almost-three-month-old baby." Awkward pause (in which I just wanted to laugh). The guy goes, "You just had a baby?" I nod. In my head, I'm thinking, I wonder if I can count to three before he extricates himself from this situation. The answer is no. I had literally gotten to "one, two, thr ... " in my head before he says, "So sorry, but I have to use the restroom." Ha! I have never seen someone run so fast! Something similar happened with Milena and her dude. Poor guys. They were probably like, "Why did we waste our time with moms?" Later on in the evening, we ran into two guys who tried to pick us up by pretending they were ambassadors from some made-up country, and we had fun joking around with them. I think they were disappointed that we didn't believe them, though. We finally left the bar when it closed at 2 a.m. Definitely not something I'm going to do often, but it was fun to have a girls night out! We'll be doing the same thing for Milena's birthday in early November, and I think June's going to come with us too. Should be fun!

Saturday, Aunt Kathy and Uncle Bill brought some delicious takeout and a mocha cheesecake for lunch. June and Charles joined us, too.

It was great to spend time with June and Charles. I've barely seen June since the poor girl has been so busy kicking ass at optometry school. Let me tell you, if you live in SoCal and you need your eyes examined, June will be the girl to look for starting in the summer of 2011 (when she graduates). She knows her stuff! And she's (here comes the pun) easy on the eyes! Hahaha.

The rest of the weekend was spent just chilling with the fam. We had the chance to take some cute photos of the kids.

Jack, being a goofball

Don't you love Jack's trendy hoodie? I got it at Target. It has skull and crossbones and little ghosts on it, and there are some speech bubbles that say "boo" on it. I love Target. Can I live there?

Here's my cutiepie, Derek, with his new teething toy, Sophie the Giraffe. She's all the rage these days, what with being made in France out of some fancy-schmancy natural rubber with a calming scent. You might think three months is a bit young for a teething toy, but believe it or not, one of his top right teeth is coming in. You can feel it along the gum. I was like, "WHAT?!" when I felt it last week, since the "average" age for a first tooth is six months. Jack didn't get his first tooth until seven months. After I got over my disbelief, I used it as an excuse to go shopping and get the cute trendy teething toy. Is there a problem that shopping can't solve? (Just kidding. Kind of.)

And here's Derek again, rocking out in the awesome onesie that Shelly and Shaun bought him.

Hmm, I had uploaded some pictures of Derek doing awesome at tummy time, but it appears Xanga didn't take them. Grr! Well, they're on my Facebook, for those of you who have friended me on there. Tomorrow I'll also add a cute video of Jack. Good night!