Bloggogriff

Non-Owen-related post: If you, like myself, were once an avid reader of the comic strip For Better or For Worse , only to become disheartened and finally disgusted by the begging-for-deconstruction train wreck it became, yet unable to look away as Liz's sentencing, oops I mean "wedding," to the Most Boring Man Alive unfolded in excruciatingly slow motion all this summer, run don't walk to this blog .

We made it through the first week of classes. Owen continues to do very well in day care. I am somewhat amused when I drop him off in the morning because all the toddlers are crying and Owen is completely calm. I'm sure our turn will come in a few months, once he gets old enough to have separation anxiety. It's Owen's four-month birthday today. Here are some of the things he's been up to lately: 1. Hand control. He's made amazing progress in the last month with the use of his hands. It's basically no big deal to him anymore to see what he wants, reach out, and grab it. 2. Laughter. He's laughing every day now. The other night he actually cracked up. He was lying in his crib trying to convince me he wasn't tired (cooing, smiling adorably) and I was trying to keep my go-to-sleep "game face" (neutral expression, avoid eye contact). Eventually I just had to laugh, and then he started laughing, got completely carried away, and didn't stop for at...

The man hit the big 6-0 today, and he's on about four different painkillers for a herniated disc, so give him a psychic hug if you are reading this. In other news... I went back to work last week. Owen seems to be adapting to day care very well, and I got out of several boring pre-planning meetings to go over and nurse him, so that was not too bad. Classes start tomorrow. Our back-to-school week was completely tumultuous this year because someone decided to buy the entire faculty new tablet PCs for classroom use. Sounds like a good thing, right? Uh, except that: 1. Tech training sucked up a whole day of pre-planning week, and; 2. Everyone has to transfer all of her files to the new machine, and; 3. The PC users all had to learn Vista, and; 4. The Mac users all had to learn Windows, and; 5. This was all just dumped on us with no sense of buy-in whatsoever. Did I mention that practically my whole department were Mac users? Several of whom have NEVER used Windows?

AAAUGH I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S EVEN MORE F***ING BEACH VOLLEYBALL JUST SHOOT ME NOW....

Near the end of her visit, Mom decided to enter the San Francisco Marathon/Half Marathon that took place on August 2. She did the half marathon and came in 3rd in her age group. Owen and I didn't even get to see her finish, because her time was about 15 minutes faster than she had expected. This week was kind of a blur. Mom left on Monday, Eric came home on Tuesday night, and Owen's uncle Darren and aunt Kate arrived on Wednesday morning. Here they are sitting on the Embarcadero during a baby-feeding break. It's hard to believe that I only have one week left until school starts and Owen will be starting full-time day care. Where did the whole summer go?

Okay, so I haven't done such a good job keeping up with the photos the past few weeks. So now you will get a lot of them all at once. First of all, Eric left town for Woods Hole. Here's Owen watching him pack. Then Grandma Toni came to visit for two weeks! We did an overnight road trip to Yosemite National Park and back. Owen was not so impressed with the waterfalls, but he really loved the ceiling fan. (See shot of Owen on bed, gazing happily at ceiling.) That little birdie in the last photo decided to join Mom and me for breakfast on our balcony. More to follow immediately...