indian summer vacation

The way Joe and I schedule our lives we end up planning most of our family vacations more than a year in advance, and around the Spring of 2011 we made plans to rent a cottage in Jamaica for summer vacation the following year. Well, turns out that despite my neurosis about planning things well ahead of time, you actually can make plans too far in advance, because it turns out we were a little busy this past July. Luckily, the rental place was very nice about allowing us to reschedule once we told them the reason, and so we took our family summer vacation and moved it to a week in the fall. To this week, as a matter of fact.

It actually doesn't take that long to fly from Atlanta to Jamaica, but we did have to take a car to a shuttle to a monorail to a plane to a van, so it ended up being a fairly grueling trip for the three kids. Luckily we now have no other plans for this week other than to hang around and let the kids beach and pool themselves stupid.  So you know.  Vacation.

We invited my parents to come along with us for the trip too, because it's nice for the kids to be able to spend time with them, and also (selfishly) it's nice to have another two sets of eyes around to make sure no one's playing with anything dangerous/inadvisable/flammable.  Here are each of them holding the only remaining grandchild who will agree to sit on their laps.  In the picture on the right, Nina, like Kuato, wants you to open your mind, Quaid.

(I should also note that my dad came into town one day early so that Joe could do a blepharoplasty on him, which is why his eyelids still look a little bruised.  He would also want you know to know, however, that he got this done only because his lids were drooping and obstructing his vision, and not for purely cosmetic reasons.  Now, I don't know nothin' about no oculoplastics, but I do know that doing a good blepharoplasty is sometimes a tricky and subtle business--particularly on Asian people--but even just three days post-op, I have to say that Joe did a really amazing job.  First off, my dad can see better, so already: success.  But as someone who has been looking at my dad for my entire life, I also have to say that even this soon postop, he also looks really good and natural and himself, which is important.  So good for him, and less good for, you know, Kenny Rogers.)

Anyway, so we're here.  Cal's having fun swimming, Mack's having fun bobbing, and Nina's having fun lying in a variety of shady spots and looking at the ceiling fan in the bedroom.

I suppose there might come a time where our travels might not so reliably involve going to the beach.  Just probably not anytime soon.

Vacation!

almost heaven

Hello there.

We're spent last weekend in the North Georgia Mountains, which is a thing that people do down in the South (see: John Denver's entire catalogue).  With the exception of going camping an hour away last year, we've never been, but no surprise, it's really very pretty.  For reasons that are boring we ended up staying at a cabin different than the one we originally intended to, so instead of a creek and a cornfield we got a river and some train tracks.  But they were very scenic train tracks.  Also: OMG TRAINS.

Anyway, there was Nature's Majesty and good weather and s'mores, and not to put too fine a point on it but inside the cabin was a TV that got both The Cartoon Network and Spike TV, which should, in my opinion, be renamed "The Star Wars Network" since that's basically the only thing it plays in the evening.  Not that anyone here is complaining.  (I'm outnumbered, obviously.)

Oh, the weird chemical salt crystals that we got to throw into the fire to make it all rainbow and mystical worked very well, by the way--the kids were impressed.  We just had to make sure that we were done with any fire-based cooking before we threw them in, because I'm pretty sure that eating foods cooked over copper salts and whatnot is probably not the healthiest thing in the world.  Then again, neither are s'mores, so whatever.

And whatever, I know that looking at other people's vacation-y photos is mostly boring so I'll spare you the entire set, but OK, just a few more.

Here Cal found a bird feather and was like, "Look Mom!  Like Harry Potter!"  And I was like, "Oh, that's nice, what a pretty fea--AUGH! DROP IT!  WASH HANDS!  WASH HANDS!" when I noticed the rest of the bird carcass, mostly picked clean but still with very readily identifiable calcific anatomy scattered clustered in a heap, about three feet away.  Nature's Bounty indeed.

(No, I didn't take a picture of the bird carcass.)

I read a bit about tubing on the river before we headed down, and I kept wondering how exactly it is that you get back to the starting point after you're done with your tubery.  I mean, isn't it far to walk back?  And isn't it unweildy to have to carry your tube overland all the way?  My more outdoorsy sources tell me that most people either plan a ride or have two cars, one for the starting point and one as a pickup vehicle downstream.  Which seemed...complicated.  Also, more planning than we were willing to put into the endeavor.  Our solution, therefore, was to just tie a rope to our tubes and drag the kids around in the waist-deep water like we were walking the dog.  A little labor intensive, but it worked fine, and we were able to recover 100% of our children at the end of the day.  Even the spare child.

(WHICH ONE IS THE SPARE?  I'll never tell you.)

(It's Cal.)

Anyway: the Blue Ridge Mountains!  You are very nice, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter!  If it also looks like this little getaway fulfilled my major criteria of taking vacations in places where seemingly no other people are, your perceptions are largely correct.  I mean, I'm not exactly sure where all the people all were--it was a holiday weekend, after all, and it's not exactly some remote secret getaway spot (it seems, in fact, like the default weekend getaway spot for a lot of people because it's so close by--kind of like the Hamptons is for New York except more rustic and with 99% of the snobbery and exclusivity excised) but with the exception of hearing our neighbors once in the evening and seeing a few kayakers hurtling by, we hardly saw any other people the whole time we were there.  Which, to be clear, was fine with me.  Interacting with humans is very taxing, you know.

(And no, as usual, we didn't actually catch any fish.  That said, it didn't seem to detract from the experience at all, so who cares.  Live on, little fish.)

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I'm posting pictures anyway, so here, this thing:

32 weeks

33 weeks

I would describe pregnancy at this point as inconvenience and discomfort tempered by impatience anticipation.  People keep asking me how long I'm going to keep working and I tell them all that I'm going to keep showing up to work all the way up until this baby deplanes, because really, it's the fastest and most interesting way I know to pass a seemingly interminable span of time.  Getting through the third trimester at times is like the graph of y = 1/x.  As x approaches zero, time approaches infinity.

So what, like, four to six more weeks, right?

Tick tock.

better than a maxi van, I suppose

So!  I guess we bought a minivan!

I would post a picture but I'm not really sure what it looks like yet--and yes, that's precisely how much interest I have in cars.  I do know what kind of car it is, though.  It's a Toyota Sienna.  Which is a kind of minivan car.  Joe and I very briefly went to both a Toyota and a Honda dealership during our date night while Joe's parents were watching the kids (because the only thing I can imagine more nightmarish than bringing your kids to a car dealership is maybe bringing your kids to Ikea when those kids refuse to be left  in Smölville or whatever the hell that Ikea kids' penitentiary is called). Honestly, they're very similar cars, but we kinda liked the Sienna slightly better.

Anyway, I found a good deal online for below the MSRP with good financing options blah blah blah financial talk and Joe had an early afternoon off while I was on call and I told him to just go get the damn car because it's not exactly like I wanted to spend a weekend myself in some car dealership back office arguing with Jerry Lundergaard about not getting that Truecoat and fine, he'll do a damn lot count, what the Christ! So Joe did. Get the car, I mean.  The reason we don't have it in the driveway yet is because we decided to listen to everyone on the planet and get the leather seats after all (I always thought of them as some sort of unnecessary luxury option, like a seat warmer, until the cleaning benefits were pointed out to me) and the leather seats take about a week and a half to put on.

I think the car is grey, with a beige inside.  That's...about as much as I know.  Whatever, Joe saw it.  I'm sure it's fine.

So!  Minivans!

*          *          *

I like to think that we're generally financially cautious.  For example we decided, after some consideration, that we probably shouldn't get a new car and have a baby and landscape the backyard at around the same time, so the backyard improvements are shelved until at least next year.  Which is fine.  I mean, it would be nice to have a swingset upon which evict the kids from the house, but what the hell, indoors is nice too.  All the better to develop osteomalacia, kids.  Now do like on "Mad Men" and go watch TV.

That said, on the way home from Hilton Head I made a declaration.  (I do that sometimes.)  I declared that we should live frugally in so much as it was possible, but that also, we should try to take trips together as a family as much as we were able.  They don't have to be big trips or expensive trips--I'm not talking about flying us all to Rome or anything.  But just little day trips.  Weekend trips.  Stuff like when we went camping last fall, or when we lived in New York and used to go to that pick-your-own-fruit farm.  Just time away, all together, making memories, on purpose.  Spring Break was great but since we've been back, I've really noticed how little time we're all able to spend together, and how much, during the course of a normal week when the kids are going to school and Joe and I are at work, that time together is purely process-driven.  It's all: rush home, get dinner into gullets, homework, bath, snack, bedtime.  The weeks blend together.  And they go too fast.

So on the spur of the moment, Joe and I decided that, instead of staying around town for Memorial Day weekend (which was the original plan--and I'm sure if we did the weekend would have been consumed purely by errands and minutiae) we were going to take a small trip, a family trip, and spend time together as a family of four (well, five--we're bringing the dog) before we expand our ranks.  Kind of a babymoon for all of us.

Therefore, we decided to rent a cottage in North Georgia--a little short notice, most of the cottages were already booked up because most people are smarter and think ahead--but we found one that's close enough and not too expensive and folksy looking as all hell.  I think it's across from a cornfield, actually.  Also I think there's some sort of fishing creek right nearby not to mention a fire pit outside the house, and what the hell, your kids are only young once.  I think they're going to love it.

It's funny, because I've been kind of stressed out about all manner of things for the past few weeks--just about all the usual, like time and money and kids and job stuff--but now that we have a little something planned, I feel a lot better.  It's nice to have something to look forward to, with people that you like.

And since we'll have a minivan by then, think of all the crap we'll be able to bring with us!

How about you guys?  What small do you like to do for quality time with your families, and what bigger things are worth the splurge?

mostly just pictures of stuff

So first of all, thanks so much to the South Carolina Medical Association for having me come and speak.  Is it uncool to admit that I've never been a keynote speaker for anything before, so it was just super-exciting for me to say that I was?  Anyway, it was a honor to be there, and the location wasn't bad either.  I figure planning conferences in South Carolina are just full of tough decision, choosing between one incredibly scenic location over another.

Anyway my original intent was to bring Joe and the kids, but I was speaking on a Saturday afternoon, and everyone has school or work on Monday (I'm actually on call tomorrow night), and in the end it didn't make financial sense to buy four plane tickets to fly in for, like, a day and a half.  So instead I just looked at all the other kids on the beach and felt morose.

Anyway, this morning I took a really early morning flight home and took my kids to the playground and Lo, everyone was happy.

Hope you had a good weekend too.  And if you live in Atlanta and are thinking about rupturing your aortic aneurysm anytime soon, please do me a favor and try not to do it tomorrow night OK THANKS BYE.

update, texas-sized edition

You know, it was one of those things after I got back from vacation where three days back into it, I felt like I'd never been on vacation at all.  Anyway, things have been busy at work (and is it really necessary at this point to say yes, I work BOTH IN AND OUT OF THE HOME--but when I talk about being "busy at work," mainly I mean busy at that place that I go to outside of my house for my job where I take care of people to whom I'm not related and for which I earn a salary; and I think most people, including my children, understand that distinction). But let's jump right back into it, shall we?

I flew into San Antionio Monday morning for one of my not-hectic-at-all-minimization-of-dereliction-from-parenting-duties speaking engagements (usually I fly in and out in 24 hours--sometimes I even avoid staying the night if I can but there were actually no available late evening flights available between San Antonio and ATL).  This time I was speaking at the annual meeting for American Academy of Anesthesiology Assistants in San Antonio, a city I'd never been to in a state I'd never visited, except through the window of "Friday Night Lights" and various cryptic tweets I'd read about SXSW.  Like I said, I was only there for 24 hours, and the only reason I even got a chance to walk around was because my flight wasn't until 12:00pm, but here's one thing I learned--the Alamo is actually really small.

I didn't want to pay to go inside because I am CHEAP, but I am told by reputable sources that Pedro and Inez do not actually live inside, making tortillas and fashioning clay pots in the adobe manner, so what's the point?  (If you don't know what I'm talking about, please watch "Pee Wee's Big Adventure."  Then watch it again.  Once you get up to, oh, say, five viewings, then we will be friends.)

Speaking of which, really, the only reason I wanted to go to the Alamo was to see if there was any Pee Wee themed merchandise for sale (t-shirts with a bike on them, maybe those cowhide chaps Pee Wee wore during the rodeo scene, what have you) and yes, I knew they make a shirt like that at Threadless but they are SOLD OUT at the moment.  And anyway, that's cheating.

So basically, most of my sightseeing entailed walking between my hotel and Alamo Plaza three blocks away, but that was fine.  San Antonio, you are sunny and sell a lot of creepy Dia De Los Muertos stuff.  Thanks to you and to the Quad A for being such good hosts, it was a fun time, if fleeting.

Anyway, when I found out about Thing 3 I stopped taking future speaking engagements, but I'd already committed to a few almost a year in advance and as a result I just have one more at the end of this week.  Saturday I'm flying into Myrtle Beach (for 21 hours) to be the keynote speaker at the annual meeting for the South Carolina Medical Association.  And then I'm done with non-Category 1 CME extracurricular business travel. DONE.  It's been really fun and I've met so many interesting people (also as a classic introvert I see it as a good part of my social conditioning to be forced into these kinds of situations--schmooze fests, speaking in front of large groups and the like) but I'm in my third trimester now and I'm going to have three kids and I've used at least three weeks of my own personal vacation time over the last year in order to be able to do these speaking gigs, not to mention the many, many hours at home on the weekends or post-call to work on the slides and the talks themselves.  So like I said, it's been fun, but one's time and energy resources are finite and I need to start taking time from Pool A and start pouring it into Pool B, you know?  (Pool B = the birthing tub.  No, just kidding, I'm not using a birthing tub.  I think they're fine and all, but having seen a number of deliveries not my own, I just have to think--just how, uh, turbid does the water look like in one of those birthing tubs, and how long do you have to sit marinating in it?  OK, sorry, resume your meals.)

(I'm not a prude, I swear.)

(THERE'S POOPING THOUGH.)

SEGUE AHOY!

One of the ways that I will surely spend all my luxurious free time is playing "Draw Something."  I know, I know, I'm behind on this one, but seriously guys, it's super fun.  And this is coming from me, a person who really doesn't play online games at all.  I don't play "Words With Friends."  I tried it out briefly but then lost interest with "Plants vs. Zombies,"  I don't even play "Angry Birds," you guys.  ANGRY BIRDS, the most merchandised, cross-marketed app in the whole universe!  But "Draw Something" is really fun.  It's just Pictionary, basically, but easier, because they tell you how many letters the word has and gives you a pool of possible letters to choose from.  I didn't think it would be very extremely obsessive-making only yes, it is very extremely obsessive-making, and though I don't really draw well, I like to pretend that I draw marginally better than the average person so it's making me OMG#$%^% SUPER COMPETITIVE in ways that are perhaps ultimately unflattering.  I even got these specifically so that I could play "Draw Something" better.

(They're styluses for drawing on capacitive screens, non-nerds.  Only perhaps I have out-nerded even the nerdiest nerd becuase because I keep accidentally calling them "stylets," like HI, THINK ABOUT ANESTHESIA MUCH?)

Anyway, "Draw Something."  It's fun!  We should play!  (And no, this is not sponsored, no one is making me say this--besides, there's a free version too.)  Now someone please tell me how I can get more colors for drawing because how am I supposed to draw anything without green or brown, I ask you?  (I'm pretty sure the answer is to get 50 squijillion more coins, but I can't even figure out where to find the extra colors in the app.)  OK!  Thanks!

And now for this thing:

27 weeks:

28 weeks:

I had my glucose tolerance test yesterday which hopefully goes well (they don't give you the results immediately but they said they'd call if it came back with glucose crystals in it).  You'll remember I failed the initial screening last time with Mack, but that was because they said that I only had to fast for 4 hours and my test wasn't until the afternoon. And since I was at work I was starving and since, again, they said I could eat something that morning I did. And maybe that "thing" was a bagel with cream cheese.

Anyway, this time I got an early appointment and I didn't eat anything, so hopefully I can avoid the time vortex that was the three-hour extended glucose tolerance test.  (I did pass that one with Mack, by the way, at which point the phlebotomist told me that even though they say that you only have to fast for four hours, everyone who has an afternoon lab draw and eats in the morning fails, so...the more you know.  NBC rainbow shooting star graphic, tinkly music.)  Anyway, on the ultrasound yesterday Thing 3 was measuring exactly average for growth (50th percentile) so my concerns about the Diabeetus are minimized versus my first two monster children.  Although...I can't deny that as an Asian parent my first thought when he told me was, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE'S JUST 'AVERAGE'?!  99th PERCENTILE OR BUST!"

OK, I gotta go work on my slides for this last talk on Saturday.  Stay out of trouble, kids.

all good things

Usually by the end of a week of vacation I'm about ready to get back to work.

This time around...not so much.

We had a lovely time at Hilton Head (not that you can tell from Mack's expression--he looks like he's in the final scene of "The Blair Witch Project" there) but all good things must come to an end, and now we're back. We've already booked our stay for Spring Break next year (taking a little bit of a gamble, in that I don't know precisely when Spring Break 2013 is going to be yet, but historically for the Atlanta Public School system it's the first week of April, so I guess we'll just sit on that week until there are indications that we have miscalculated). I don't think that we've had any real family time off since Thanksgiving, and it was very nice just to be in a quiet sunny place where the kids could have fun and we could just...sit. Sit and be. And poke dead jellyfish with sticks.

Anyway, we got back to Atlanta Thursday afternoon, and Friday I took the kids to Target with me to load up on Easter stuff for our third annual celebration of Easter Sunday since I decided in 2010 that we were going to start celebrating Easter Sunday in the purely sacrilegious, secular sense.  All the candy, none of the guilt and boring church bits!  And I only had to re-hide the eggs once this year!  (I thought Mack would be all into the "hunt" aspect of the Easter egg hunt, but once he figured out there was candy inside them, all he basically wanted to do was open them directly into his gullet.)

Joe's parents are with us, so we're going to have a big family dinner tonight for the holiday, in which a spiral-cut ham will play a prominent role. (I think this is traditional? For Easter? Or maybe just traditional for big family dinners. DON'T ASK ME, I'M NEW.) So I should probably head on down there to see if I can help arranging the cutlery or what have you, but I'll leave you with these past three weeks of belly shots. (Not to be confused with Jell-o shots.) Sharp-eyed readers will note that I don't have a photo for 23 weeks, but that's because I was very busy at work that week and kind of forgot to take one.

24 weeks:

25 weeks:

26 weeks:

As an added bonus, you too now know the secret for extremely cheap but marginally cute non-maternity maternity wear, which is elastic waisted skirts from Forever 21. They are awesomely easy (if not, you know, masters of cut and drape or high-quality fabric) but come on, they only cost, like, $6 each! So just get them, who cares!