Simon ate "solid food" for the first time today! 

At first he didn't quite know what to do with the spoon, so he pushed the runny cereal out with his tongue.  I then remembered reading in the Baby Book to try giving some cereal from one of your fingers.  I did, and was able to deposit enough cereal on Simon's tongue so he didn't expel all of it.

He seemed to like the flavour of the breastmilk fortified cereal but just wasn't sure of the texture.  After a few fingerfuls, I tried using his baby spoon again and he gradually got the hang of it.  He would also suck on his lower lip to clean up some of the cereal that dribbled onto his chin.

Incredibly, most of his first feed ended up in his mouth!  I hope this is the beginning of the makings of a foodie!

Roland and I are very sad that Tammie and her twins, Benjamin and Michaela, are moving back to Ontario. 

Tammie and I have had special times commiserating through our pregnancies and births, and sharing the joys of our babies.   I will miss seeing our kids grow up together and I'll miss growing as a parent with Tammie.

So good bye for now.  We love you all.

Since I've been working more closely with parenting programs and babies, I've been very sensitive about using the word "good" to describe babies. When I hear people ask if a baby is "good", my skin crawls because it infers that a baby can also be "bad".  Babies can never be bad.

I understand that by using "good" people mean that a baby is quiet, passive, undemanding, etc.  But surely people can think of other ways of asking or talking about a baby's personality, habits, temperament or behaviour.

Perhaps I am even more sensitive about the issue because Simon does not fit into the quiet, passive baby mold. He is very vocal, active and animated. He seems to be able to clearly display his emotions when he is happy, excited and content, and as well as when his needs are not being met.

And that is not "bad" at all.

Joey (the happiest geek on earth) is asking for fav Canadian 80s tunes that weren't a hit in the States for a CD he is making for Wendy (very cool Bostonian and Joey's partner).

Almost all of the ones mentioned in the 85 comments so  far are favourites of mine, here are a few that haven't been mentioned so far:
Breeding Ground - Reunion
Teenage Head - Let's Shake, Teenage Beer Drinking Party
L'Etranger - geez, I can't remember any of their songs now, but I loved their stuff back in the day
Andrew Cash - Trail of Tears

A couple of weeks ago, Simon figured out that jumping is lots of fun. So he insists on having a few jumping sessions a day: we hold him under his armpits and let him jump on a padded surface like the carpet or his lambskin.

I'm amazed at how strong he is and how he intuitively figured out how to bend his knees, drop his weight, and push off. And he does it over and over and over again. We usually tire of this new game before he does.

The other day he had the opportunity to try out Ben and Michaela's (the twins) jolly jumper....hot dog! He had a heyday! I guess a jumping device of some sort is on our shopping list.

A couple of weeks ago, Simon and I attended a week long Parent-Infant Mother Goose camp and had an absolute riot!

The premise of Mother Goose is for parents to bond with their babies through songs and rhymes. Young children develop preliteracy skills while parents have a chance to meet other new parents.

So we've learned a number of new songs, stories and lap games to keep Simon entertained. It's amazing how he recognizes certain songs and reacts to them in certain ways. I can't wait until the fall when we can enroll in a 10 week session.

This week Simon has figured out how to roll.  At first it took quite a bit of effort to roll then prop himself on his elbows to look around.  There was a lot of determined grunting. But now he is rolling from his back to his belly and back over, usually with a good long pause propped on his elbows to survey his surroundings.

In fact, he's had so much practise that he now quickly flips from his back to his belly.  And he props himself up and looks around for several minutes before he tries to scoot forward. 
We are entertained by watching him look around and enjoy his surroundings and by discovering how determined he is.

It looks like we are moving to East Van. Real estate is ridiculously priced in the city of Vancouver and we don't have the over $500, 000 needed in our beloved Kitsilano for a townhouse.

Fortunately, there are lots of great neighbourhoods in East Van and it looks like we'll be living in a decent one close to Trout Lake (perfect for the East Van Farmers' Market) and close to Commercial drive (perfect for La Grotta del Formaggio and Santa Barbara Market).

More if/when the deal closes.

Words to live by!

Don't waste time striving for perfection in things that don't matter; for these things accept the advice of experts you trust and/or take what's good enough.

From Commencement 2004 - Barry Schwartz:

QUOTE

I don't believe that society, or individuals, automatically self-correct. I think acts of will are required. And I have tried to suggest several things that you should will for yourself and for others, and work to achieve. I wish each of you a life in which good enough is good enough - a life governed by reasonable expectations, and filled with love and with work that is a calling. A life as part of a community that listens to you just as you listen to it.

UNQUOTE

Amen!

From stevenberlinjohnson.com: The Body Count:

QUOTE

To make a decision as a country to unilaterally invade and overthrow another country without confronting these images, and weighing them in the moral balance, is pure escapism of the worst kind. The fact that the US media has not had a daily tally of estimated Iraqi civilians killed is shameful; how are we to gauge whether our humanitarian ends justify the violent means if we're sheltered from the violence at every turn? It is not propaganda to be subjected to these images; it is moral accountability. Sitting in that theater, trying not to avert my eyes, I thought of all the times Jeff has invoked his first-person experience of 9/11 in debating the war on terror: seeing the violence and the suffering up close clearly colors everything he has written about our response to the attacks since then -- as well it should. But the media and the government have studiously kept us from comparable images of the violence that we've initiated in Iraq. Has the Bush administration ever released an estimate of total civilian deaths in Iraq? Is this not a relevant number? Shouldn't there be a national debate over how many innocent deaths we're willing to tolerate for the hope of planting democracy's seeds in the country? Is it appropriate, for starters, to kill more innocents than Bin Laden did on 9/11? We don't know, because even raising questions like these might undermine morale. To that I say: if we're not grownup enough as a nation to confront these questions and still support our troops, then we're not grownup enough to be starting elective wars in the first place.

UNQUOTE

The Dutch and the Germans love eating herring. And so does Barb. But I don't. It's definitely a matter of taste or Geschmacksache as the Germans say.

Here's two videos of Dutch eating the "new herring" in a Dutch stylee (raw, dipped in onions and eating in a rather graceful :-) style, oodles of fun for 1.50 Euros) and one of the Dutch vendors preparing the herring.

• Barb eats herring (16 Megabytes AVI)
• Dutch vendor prepares herring (8.9MB, AVI)

Holland has Euro2004 fever now that they made it into the semi finals.

I was lucky enough to be at a Rotterdam bar on the night (Saturday night? jet lag is making my memory hazy!) Holland beat Sweden to make it into the semi finals.

Here are some videos (warning, big files and dark videos, turn up your brightness!) :

• euro2004.holland.beats.sweden
• euro2004.holland.beats.sweden.singalong
• euro2004.holland.beats.sweden.honking
• euro2004.holland.beats.sweden.honking.american.dream

Bonus video:

In a Mellow Tone at the Rotterdam Jazz Festival.

Also check out My Euro 2004 Holland Beats Sweden photos over at Flickr.

Check out our Rotterdam photos starting with YVR, Air Transat to Rotterdam photos on Flickr.

Gas...not exorbitantly priced petrol.  I'm talking about gastrointestinal gas.  Not mine, but Simon's.

A few weeks ago I finally figured out that gas has been causing Simon's early dawn grunting and restlessness.  Because he's been so miserable, I've resorted to giving him a dose or two of Ovol (not without guilt!).

At the Kitsilano Parent-Infant group a few weeks ago, the topic was infant massage and one of the benefits is to help relieve gas.  I looked up massage techniques in Infant Massage:  a Handbook for Loving Parents by Vimala Schnider McClure and tried them out of Simon.  I think the massage actually helped, as Grandma Sofia reported that Simon tooted away while she held him after a massage session!

Or should this be B is for Black Helicopters?

Anyways, we need to do something about Sudan and we need to do it quickly. And the real answer to prevent and fix the Sudans/Rwandas/fill in the ridiculous numbers of genocides perpetrated by humans against humans in every continent over the centuries, etc. of this world is to have a real world government. No borders here ; the concept of super powers and nation states are obsolete and need to be re-thought (and no, I don't have the answer).

Finally, the reality of today's UN is a joke. We need a UN, just not the UN we have today. What we need is a UN that is non corrupt and representative of the entire world and not caught up in red tape. A tall order to fill!

Here's my dad's more detailed explanation of Simon's Chinese name:

"His given name "LUP YUN" means "grown to be a person with kind heart and love".  LUP means "to establish" or  "to grow or to become".  YUN means kindness, humanity, love, benevolence, and is the most important merit of all merits/virtues. "

On my way back from buying a mattress for the baby's crib at Sears (25% off today and yesterday only!), I shared the elevator down to the parking lot with two young women of Asian heritage who were loudly gossiping about plastic surgery.

At first I didn't clue in or really listen to what they were talking about but then they started going on about how one person went to a B from a C (or was it from a C to a B?) and how it cost $6000 for one person and $6500 for another.

Hmmm, I must be getting old and pretentious (and I know that breast reduction can relieve back strain in many cases and is therefore essential rather than merely cosmetic) but all I could think was: O tempora o mores. If only the energy and money that devoted to needless plastic surgery was diverted to something more meaningful, what a wonderful world this could be.

My parents picked out a couple of Chinese names for Simon before his birth and we had decided on one soon after his birth.  We couldn't decide, however, how to transliterate it into English.  As we were nearing his birth certificate application deadline, we had to decide.

So Simon's Chinese name is Lup Yun, meaning "upholding kindness, compassion" and is based on the first Confucian virtue.

I want a Glidehouse in a Vancouver stylee. In other words, one designed for our sub-tropical gray, rainy weather rather than the sunny weather of Novato. And I don't mind if it's smaller. I think a family of four could live in 1200 or even 1100 square feet if the layout is right.

(Via Troy Angrignon) - From The Fab New World of Prefab Houses / SF architect brings eco-friendly, modernist design to the average home buyer:

QUOTE

But for this native Iowan with an amazon's stature and a schoolgirl's expressivity, the solution was neither to resign herself to becoming a lifetime member of the Tenants Union or pack off for more affordable pastures. Instead, Kauffman and Cullen surveyed the ruinous real estate landscape and decided to build.

They found a half-acre lot in Novato and began designing a home for it, something ultra simple, modern, green. Something affordable. She called it the Glidehouse.

The house that emerged was a long, low-slung, understated dwelling -- a marriage of Californian warmth and Japanese precision -- with a slanted roof and a long wall with a series of 8-foot-wide sliding-glass doors that can open onto a view or close off the interior from the elements. Louvered panels slide into place over the glass to create protection from the sun while still letting the breeze in. With only 1,344 square feet, the home includes a long great room that includes a kitchen, an eating area and a living room, as well as two bedrooms and two baths -- one with his-and-her stainless steel basins and a giant slate shower.

In both its design and its use of materials, Kaufmann incorporated the latest ideas about energy efficiency. She used not only standard green products such as bamboo flooring but also more unusual ones like blown insulation and concrete countertops mixed with recycled paper and fly ash, a coal-waste product. Rows of clerestory windows (those set in the upper portion of a wall to maximize natural light) reduce the need for daytime electricity and function as a natural system for ventilation and temperature control. The metal roof, made of Galvalume, a sheet metal with a zinc-and aluminum alloy coating, is designed to easily accommodate solar panels.

The pièce de résistance was the exterior -- a shell of organically mottled, rusted Corten steel resembling the curving sculptures of Richard Serra.

UNQUOTE

Much as I it pains me (a believer in The Enlightenment and Rationalism) to admit it, everything including rationalism has its limits and limitations.

From Lion's Den - Lion Kimbro's Personal Web Site - Trans-Rational:

QUOTE

I had the priveledge of talking with Michael Erickson, a cartoonist, over on the Visual Wiki.

While we were talking about "old academic prejudice against pictures," he passed an idea on to me: That maybe rationalism isn't all it's cooked up to be.

Here are the main two paragraphs of it:

Prior to the renaissance, almost everything was driven by superstition or the "rules of thumb" that were known to work. Rationalism introduced the notion that logic and reason could help you figure things out (thus becoming the cornerstone to the scientific model), but it leaves out a lot.

Having seen the result of convoluted logic collapsing complex computing systems ought to convince anyone that a good thing can be taken too far, which is the case where it comes to the "logic" and "reason" that drove the "modern" mindeset of the 20th century.

If you grok that completely, especially about "Rationalism" being taken "too far," then you have no need to read the rest of this blog entry.

It took me a while to learn what he was teaching me.

I didn't think much of it, originally, but it sort of took to some of the good soil in my mind, and over the next week or two, grew quickly. I would be walking, or doing the dishes, or testing games, or whatever- and find my mind chinking out the pieces around this idea.

I started to see it.

UNQUOTE

(via Troy Angrignon) - Excellent series on the homeless in the SF Gate. Must read for Vancouverites.

This is the sound of our baby crying. Even his crying is cute!

Hello, hay fever is bad, hence the voice!

Words to live by!

From Fast Company Now - Tea for Truth:

QUOTE

What really clicked was a study my business professor Barry Nalebuff had done of the tea industry in India. He said we could even call it Honest Tea. When you have the opportunity to do something that's socially responsible, you have an obligation to do that.

So we brewed up some tea and took it to Whole Foods, and the buyer said, OK, we'll take 15,000 bottles. Now we really had to make the tea. Slotting fees? I couldn't do that. The business was me and these thermoses. We still got into our first set of stores. We eventually became the best-selling tea in the mid-Atlantic region. Then we became the best-selling tea in the natural foods category. And now we're in the Inc. 500.

Why did we call it Honest Tea? It is a less sweet drink. There's a social and health benefit to this. Look at the rise of juvenile diabetes. I try not to sell you as much on the brand as on the business. But there are bottled drinks out there where one bottle exceeds the U.S. RDA for sugar. Our teas are organic. There are no pesticides or herbicides. That's important because tea is never washed. The first time tea is washed is when you add hot water to your tea. Those are nice benefits. Honest Tea is the first company to have a fair trade bottled tea. Every time we sell a bottle, we have a positive impact.

We also try to create an authentic, honest product. We don't oversell. We try not to. We try to let people see what's in the product. We disclose as much as we can. There's nothing in here you can't pronounce. We try to sell a product that is what it says it is. That really inspires me and our company, but it isn't easy.

UNQUOTE

I am glad the Canucks won game 6 but I was not happy with the officiating. Totally inconsistent. In this game they basically didn't call any penalties unlike earlier games in the series.

As I said beforeL enforce all the rules all the time. That along with banning fighting would go a long way in helping NHL hockey eliminate its culture of violence.

Our son will definitely learn Cantonese and English since Barb and her parents speak Cantonese all the time and have every intention of speaking it to him! I fully support this. I love Cantonese's earthy, rich, organic tones and flavour. Lots of great expressions; a wonderful street language. And the grammar is very similar to Mandarin should he ever decide to learn that. As the kid's knowledge of Cantonese grows, so too will mine albeit at a slower pace of course.

As for other languages that I have some knowledge of, hmmm. I don't really speak Filipino but I do know the food words. So he definitely will learn the Tagalog (and Pampagueno, our Filipino dialect) food words that I know. And it goes without saying that we will cook all of the Filipino dishes we know for him!

I do speak pretty good German and have a large passive French knowledge and Barb's Mom speaks Mandarin.

So at the risk of linguistically confusing the kid (which I doubt) I will try to speak German to him and get Grandma to speak Manadarin to him. Please leave a comment if you know about German speaking pre-schools etc. in Vancouver.

And I will contact other parents who have a similar knowledge of German and see if I can get the kid into some sort of German daycare/pre-school.

Since this is Canada, we will, put him in French immersion if he shows a desire and the temperament for such a thing. Way too early to think about that!

But in the end if he doesn't end up being a polyglot, no big deal. I think it's more important to expose him to the different languages and get some level of fluency than to worry and obssess about him being totally fluent in any of the languages. The only language that he must speak well is English!

C is for cabbage.  Cool cruciferous comfort.

Not only is it a nutrient packed vegetable, it doubles as a soothing compress for  milk engorged breasts!

Simon Lewis Tanglao (Chinese name forthcoming as soon as we figure out the transliteration!) was born 1:50a.m. Saturday March 27, 2004.  He weighed 6 pounds 12 ounces and measured 49 cm.

He was born on the floor on top of a Thermarest in a single care maternity room at St. Paul's Hospital after 50 minutes of pushing and a total of 7 hours of active labour (at home and in jacuzzi in the hospital).  We were fortunate to have a natural childbirth without drugs or stitches or tearing.

He has a full head of straight, black hair like his Uncle Mike when he was born.  His hair isn't curly like his father was at birth, yet!

We would like to thank our doula, Lolli Comar, for her wonderful help and support.  It wouldn't have gone nearly as smoothly without her.  The midwives (Linda and Andrea) of the Midwifery Group were also fantastic.  We highly recommend both a midwife and a doula if it's appropriate for your pregnancy!

(via Halley) - Awesome!

From Families of 9/11 Victims Laud Clarke for Apology:

QUOTE

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Relatives of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks praised former counter-terrorism official Richard Clarke on Thursday for publicly apologizing for not doing enough to prevent the tragedy.

Clarke, whose credibility has been questioned by the Bush administration, began his testimony on Wednesday to a commission probing the attacks by asking for relatives' forgiveness, prompting cheers, gasps and sobs from the packed hearing room on Capitol Hill.

UNQUOTE

Words to live by from Britt Blaser (who's a Vietnam Vet and therefore knows a bit more about war than most of us):

QUOTE

The Iraqi war was a catharsis, not a strategy, the equivalent of kicking the dog after a bad day at the office. Does my analogy belittle the agony of all those families? Think about it rationally: our problem was in witnessing all that agony all at once, so dramatically, and dwelling on it for months. It built a dangerous list in our heads. Every life is precious but most end badly, with tubes and machines and grieving relatives around us. Multiply the affect surrounding those individual deaths times 3,000 and it's probably the same as 9/11.

Living fully and free is more important than a specious guarantee of domestic tranquility. The list of blessings in an open heart trumps the list of threats in a timid head. Our spirit is destined to celebrate the universal dignity of life and keep the hope that tomorrow, everywhere, can be a renaissance of understanding.

UNQUOTE

Here's where I am coming from: I am not a 'real'  NHL fan.  I watch hockey only during the playoffs because the regular season is boring and much much too long. But I did play hockey from the time I was 6 until 16.  I loved playing hockey.  Even today, the sound of blades on freshly Zambonied ice is one of the most wonderful sounds in the world to me.  I was the smallest kid on the team and I loved to hit and throw  body checks but I was so small that I don't think anybody noticed or I could possibly have hurt anybody!

I quit because I couldn't stand how the overly competitive parents of the other kids transmogrified a fun game into a win at all costs battle.  And we weren't even playing competitive hockey.  I played in the lowest level house league!

Having said that, I think both Todd Bertuzzi and the NHL need counselling.

Both seem to be a bit off.

The NHL is the only professional sport where fighting is tacitly condoned? Why? In my opinion, there is no reason why  in 2004.   The only possible reason could be because of the hockey culture of violence is so ingrained that like an addict, it doesn't see that it's time to give it up.

Todd Bertuzzi is a gifted player who obviously needs anger management counselling for abusing the magnificent physical attributes that nature has blessed him with.

What's my armchair quarterback prescription for the NHL?

Easy, get rid of the hockey culture of violence and make the game more entertaining!

First and foremost, enforce the rule book.  Whether it's the pre-season, the regular season or the Stanley Cup Game 7, enforce the rules at all times!  Ban fighting by having an automatic game misconduct for fighting.  And automatic penalities for stick work above the knees.  Finally,  get rid of the rule where a penalty is cancelled if the other team scores.

I really don't have suggestions about making the game more entertaining.  I don't watch enough NHL games to have any insight into why the games are so boring! But anything that increases the flow of the game such as getting rid of the red line should be considered.

I've been working in the pregnancy field for over 10 years now and I've supported women with all types of pregnancy symptoms and experiences.  I consider myself pretty lucky with my own pregnancy...no nausea, no aching back, no headaches, good appetite.  I have, though, developed carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS).

CTS during pregnancy is generally caused by fluid retention/edema especially around the wrist.  The edematic tissues put extra pressure on the carpal tunnel through which a nerve to the hand runs.  I'm just one of those lucky women whose bodies is holding lots of extra fluid!

Up until now, I hadn't known of anyone who had developed pregnancy induced CTS.  I started to experience the tell tale symptoms in mid-December--first it was slight numbness in the thumb and first 3 digits of one hand, then in both hands, then a burning sensation running up my one arm.  Worst of all, this happened at night while I was trying to bank on precious sleep.  During the day, though, my hands were fine.

So I resorted to sleeping wearing wristguards and have been, for the most part, able to sleep without having to wake to a burning arm. 

Of course, things have gotten worse and my hands have developed numbness all throughout the day.  It's not usually painful, just numb and annoying.  I've tried almost all the "remedies" out there and nothing seems to help.

I'm a very tactile person and I've always used and depended on my hands a lot.  So not being able to feel things is affecting me in profound ways.  It has definitely slowed me down:  I can't type as fast or accurately (what key am I pressing?), I can't cook quite like I used to (hmm...I can't feel my hand...time to put the knife down), I've lost some hand strength (is my climbing career over?), and I've had to become more dependent. 

I believe that every pregnant women encounters a challenge during her 9 months.  CTS is mine.  I'm not complaining, things could be much worse and I'm still maintaining that it's better than the nausea I could've had.  I know it's temporary and there's a lesson for me in this challenge.

I am not a woman and will therefore never experience both the pain and the accompanying joy of labour and child delivery.

I respect the right of choice.  So if some women want an Elective Caesarean Section (ECS), that is their choice and their right.

But, it wouldn't be my choice.  I think for some people, ECS should stand for Extreme Control Syndrome.  An ECS is symptomatic of our Western desire to control everything right down to the birth date of our children.  But life (and children) is just not like that! You cannot control everything!

For me, parenting is not about control.  I think the best parents are not controlling; instead they give a meaning to and help harness the flow of their children's lives rather than controlling them.

This is not easy! And what do I know since I am not a parent yet?

We'll see how easily my idealism translates into action in the coming weeks after the baby's birth!

Hello, it's our first official post to this blog and my last official day at work before my maternity leave!!  A new beginning for us.

I'm looking forward to my days of motherhood ahead but not to facing all the work I need to do to finish handing off all my work responsibilities and saying 'Ciao' to my team.