Meet Me In St. Louis

We were off in St. Louis for Memorial day weekend, visiting our old college campus and seeing college friends. For those of you who don't know, Brian and I both went to Washington University, which is convenient for these kind of reunion trips. It was a blast to see everybody and reminisce about good old times while taking in the familiar sights. The original intent of the trip was to meet up with Liz, Lizzie, Jasenka, Esther, Dan, Tyler and their signficant others. In the end, Grandma and Grandpa Koster, Uncle Tony, and Aunt Katie surprised us by driving to St. Louis to see Claire! We aren't even going to pretend that they wanted to see all three of us...we accept the fact that she is cuter than us.

We took Claire to her first baseball game, Cards vs. Royals. She slept from the first pitch all the way through to the fireworks at the end of the game with the Cards winning 5-0.

Grandma and Grandpa snatched her up at the botanical gardens and we had a good chunk of free time! Claire was extremely sociable and in a good mood, despite the sporadic rain showers.

Claire slept through most of our campus tour, which was probably a good thing because it is sooo nice now, she might have cried until we let her go to school there.

Brian was worried the Economy or Compact car we normally get from Priceline wouldn't be big enough so he decided to splurge the $17 a day for a "Premium" car. What they didn't explain to us was that "Premium" actually meant "Your Grandpa's Car". It might be hard to tell from the picture, but we spent the weekend driving around in a Mercury Grand Marquis. Aside from looking like a car you have to be at least 75 to drive, its hood was so big it was hard to see out. Aside from the fact that people we're pointing and laughing when they saw us drive by and we DIDN'T have white hair, the car did have several advantages. First was the ultra-smooth ride, which although it was nice, Claire didn't fall asleep as easy in the car because she didn't feel the normal vibrations of a moving vehicle. The second is the amazing amount of trunk space. This made the car equally good for a mobster as two people fit comfortably. Liz and Lizzie proved it by getting and closing the top. We believe that 4 maybe 5 bodies would fit if you were in a pinch.

We were very impressed with Uncle Tony's baby-holding skills, considering his lack of experience in this area. As you can tell in the picture, Claire demands a standing position more and more these days. She can't talk yet but she lets you know how she wants to be positioned!


We also spent a significant amount of time with the Small's (that's their last name, not any indication of their size). Yet somehow we didn't manage to get any pictures of Tyler or Trish Small... again, not because of their size. I promise that we did see them though. Tyler and Brian went for runs together both Saturday and Sunday and although Brian is significantly out of shape he did manage to chase Tyler around the park, through the University and through Clayton. Tyler was going signficantly slower than his normal 5:40 paced 18-miler on Sunday mornings, but it appeared he had a good time nonetheless. At the very least, Brian is very grateful for Tyler kicking his ass around the old school. The biggest highlight of running around St. Louis was
undoubtedly seeing all of the changes that have happened in the last 9 years. Both the South 40 and the Hilltop Campus (excuse me... the Danforth Campus) have changed significantly but the most shocking change of all is the fact that the old house Brian used to live in on Forsyth was gone. Not just altered, gone. The entire house had been torn down and a brand new one was built in its place. Old the old memories, the tire swing out front, even the big tree holding the tire swing were gone.

Another highlight was seeing the "Festival of Miles" put on by the Big River Running Company yearly and held at St. Louis University High. Apparently a bunch of famous runners have gone to this school but the only one I know is Tim Probst captain of the 1996 Washington University Bears Cross Country team. This year's goal was too gather a sufficiently elite group of runner's such that at least one of them would break the 4 minute mile. Tyler and Brian weren't invited but in the end it was an amazing race in which not 1 but 3 people broke the impressive barrier. (The winner ran 3:55).

If you ask Claire she might tell you the highlight of her trip was going to Ted Drewes for the first and second times. Although she didn't get to consume any tasty concrete's she did get an excellent picture of with one.

A final note... After being depressed that Chuy's was no longer around (apparently they're rebuilding somewhere else), Tyler recommended we go to "Mi Ranchito" which is just off the loop in a less than ideal part of the city, but man is it good food. Next time we visit, we'll definately be consuming more of their tasy fare and washing it all down with Ted Drewes.

Claire Laughing

It is very easy to make Claire laugh now. This video is awesome:

Claire in her "pool"

It was another hot day in the 90's so we ventured out and bought a toddler-tub for Claire, which we could double as a "pool". We didn't know what to expect when we put her in the cold hose-water, and she pleasantly surprised us by not screaming. In fact, she seemed to enjoy the experience, especially when we put her in a reclined position so she could kick. Unfortunately we didn't get a video of all the kicking as water was splashing everywhere. Plus the kicking was, for the most part, a result of Claire being naked at the end of her bath and she revelled in the freedom. (No naked video in case she sees this when she is a teenager.) Anyway here's a couple of videos of her initially getting the feel for the situation. I think she was a little confused by the concept of taking a bath with clothes on, in cold water, outside on the lawn. Hence, she was awfully quiet for once!

I'm sure you are all curious about one thing: No, she did not go to the bathroom during her pool experience. We lucked out!

It's time for a photo update!

Claire's latest trick is getting pulled up to sitting and then staying there unsupported for a few seconds. She REALLY likes this. I can't tell you how often she yells for someone to assist her into sitting so she can look around and drool.

As far as fashion goes, I think we may be pushing it with these little baby head-bands. Somehow on Claire they just look like mini sweat-bands. Maybe it's all that hair shooting out in all directions.

Tummy time is getting better and better for Claire. She is reaching for toys in this position now, and staying for 10-15 minutes so long as there is something entertaining to watch (like mommy watering the garden and dodging the bees).

This is Claire's "gym", where she admires herself in the mirror and pets the toys hanging above her. She surprises us sometimes by rolling onto her side or scooting up with her legs. For the most part however she is in the cute babydoll stage where she stays where ever you put her.

The First 100 Days

The American public and the international media recently got a chance to analyze and reflect on President Obama's first 100 days in office. The fact that it's 100 days doesn't really mean anything except that it's a nice round number that everyone can easily remember and it gives the President enough time to either do a bunch of really cool things or to do a number of stupid things that SNL can write skits about. As Claire was born only 10 days after Obama's inaguration that means that we now get the chance to analyze and reflect on her first 100 days.

Coincidentally Claire's century mark was reached the same day as Mother's day so we happened to have a big celebration that she probably thought was for her. How do we assess how good of a baby she is? We don't have much to compare her to. Perhaps the next baby is in trouble as I can't say that I would have dreamed these first 100 days could have been as easy and as rewarding as they've turned out to be. Since I like quantitative things, I'll grade her on several different categories on a 1-5 scale (1 being she's downright terrible and 5 being incredibly amazing... everything else is somewhere in between. Except for 4, If I score her a 4 its like a wildcard in Poker, you can use it as any score you want).

Sleeping: 5 --> I don't think we I could hope for this to have gone any better. 9-12 hours a night with several long naps during the day makes for a happy mother and father.

Eating: 5 --> She's gaining weight like crazy and loves to eat, and once her parents were trained in how to bottle feed her, she did fine with that too.

Communication Skills: 5 --> I know I'm sounding like a broken record, I'll mix it up here soon, but she really is an amazing talker. Aside from all the other parents at daycare commenting on how much she's talking already, an excellent example came on Mother's day. We met up with the Winkler's and Claire and Sophia had another play date. (More on Mother's day later) When the two of them were put face to face, Claire decided she needed to tell Sophia all about the clothe's she's been wearing, about life in San Jose, about her friends at day care, about the trees, Hawaii, and everything else she'd seen. She did this directly into Sophia's face for a good 5 minutes and probably would have continued had we not finally pulled her away. Her voice was getting loud and somewhat angry toned but I think it was mainly because the stunned Sophia was giving her the silent treatment.
Pooping: 4 --> I'll give this the wildcard score as Claire's poops are irregular and unpredicatable. Sometime's she'll go days without pooping only to do it when we least expect it or when it's really inconvenient to change her.

Moving: 1--> It's probably not fair to assess her on this yet, but compared to most other humans, she's very bad at moving. She always stays exactly where you put her and has never crawled or been able to sit up on her own. If we hold her in the standing position and move her legs forward, she sort of emulates walking, but she's definitely never done this on her own.

Patience: 1 --> Another area she definitely needs to work on. In most religious circles, squares, and triangles, Patience is considered a core virtue. But I say patience is all about perspective. Consider if you called up a pizza place and you had to wait 30 minutes for your food to be delivered. Not bad right? Now consider a 1 day old baby. If she had to wait 30 minutes for something, that would be like 1/48th of her life.

I could probably go on all day rating her based on different traits, but patience isn't really a virtue of mine either so I'll wrap up my evaluation by giving her the overall weighted score of 4.8. That's roughly equivalent to an A+.

This weekend was chalk full with action. (Speaking of "chalk full" I just looked up the expression and it turns out I don't even know how to say or spell it. The expression is actually "chock full" and here is its very vague definition from a reputable online etymology dictionary:

chock-full
c.1400, chokkeful, possibly from choke "cheek." Or it may be from O.Fr. choquier "collide, thrust." Chock-a-block is nautical, said of two blocks of tackle run so closely they touch.

But that was clearly a tangent. Mother's day was nice. In addition to a lovely breakfast at the Los Gatos farmer's market (excellent place for Nutella and Strawberry Crepe's on Sunday) we had the aforementioned rendevous with the Winklers and did have a nice lunch at Stait's cafe in the city of redwoods. We also ventured out again to the drive-in and saw the very excellent Star Trek movie. Well done Mr. JJ. Oh, and I also decided that the guest bathroom (where we will soon by bathing Claire) is not up to par with the standards of excellence I demand from things associated with my baby and thus decided to tear out the floor, sink, toilet, walls, lights, tub... well yeah everything. In my copious amounts of spare time I'll be putting it back together and building her a nice little haven where she will undoubtedly refuse to use unless we bribe her with Nerds for being a good little toddler.

FYI: The above picture is what a baby looks like after sticking her finger in an electrical socket.

Whistle While You Work

If you were magical and had the ability to travel through time, here is a neat trick to understand the close mother and daughter bond that Claire and Sarah share. Using your power to bend the space time continuum pick any random time over the last 94 days and travel to that time. Then take out your hourglass (as a magic time bender you undoubtedly have one of these) and turn it over. During the course of that hour observe Sarah and Claire. It would be absolutely certain that at some point while at least one grain of sand is still flowing, Claire and Sarah would be within 50 feet of each other. Yep, Sarah and Claire have never been apart for more than an hour.... Well that is until today.. Today Sarah broke that record, smashed it in fact, and spent roughly 10 consecutive hours no closer than restraining order distance. She did this not because the two of them had a big fight, but because after 18 weeks at home, Sarah returned to work today. Like good parents, rather than leaving her at home with a bottle and a couple of spare diapers, we decided it prudent to drop her off with a stranger... Okay, maybe not a complete stranger. I think we talked to her on the phone once and met with her in person for 15 minutes on a couple of different occasions. So after a total of about 36 minutes of communication, we left our first born child all alone with her. When we got to Sandy's house (she aptly calls it Sandy's daycare) we were the first to arrive as we wanted to make sure we had enough time to get to work on Sarah's first day back. After that, the whole process was a blur, but it did involve us handing the baby to the caregiver and walking out the door, leaving our wide-eyed baby staring at us, wondering what was going on. I don't think I'll ever forget that cute little face watching intently at us as we walked down the driveway. I can't imagine what she was thinking, but she didn't cry, she didn't fuss, she didn't even let out a whimper, she just watched as we slowly turned around, got in the car, and left. Sarah has been talking about how hard this might be for days, but I figured it wouldn't affect me as I've been going off to work for several months. But today was different, I somehow felt like I'd betrayed my little girl. We spent 3 months building up this trust, only to leave her at the doorstep of a stranger. What indication would she have that we'd ever return? For all she knew, she'd just been given up for adoption... (Dramatic Pause as the audience wonders if we'd ever return..... 10 hours passes, or passes magically if you have the aforementioned powers ....) But luckily for Claire, she has two loving parents and she had not been given up for adoption and at a few minutes before 6pm in the evening we showed up at the doorstep, pushing each other out of the way as we attempted to be the first to see our daughter. We had worried she'd cry and scream all day. We had worried she wouldn't eat. We had worried she would lash out at us as we arrived. But none of this happened. Our cute little angel had slept half the afternoon, taken several bottles on command, and appeared extremely happy to be in the company of some many big brothers and sisters. The first day jitters now gone, Sarah and I are really happy to have found Sandy and for all the wonderful opportunities that await Claire as she continues to grow.

Let's All Go To The Movies!

Remember Daddy Warbucks? He was the bald millionaire who adopted orphan Annie in the movie named after that cute little redhead. Arguably his most famous line was when they zoomed in on his animated face and he proclaimed "Let's all go to the movies!". The clip oftens plays during previews when they show the long nostalgic montage showing the best lines from movies of yore. Its such a vivid image, I often dream about Daddy W. and Mr. Clean fighting over who has the balder head. Where am I going with this post you ask? Well its not where I'm going, its where we went. If you didn't figure it out from the title, the Sivitz family ventured out to the movies for the first time this week. But wait, a 3-month old in a quiet movie theater? That doesn't sound like a good idea. True, but we thought the same thing too so we stepped back in time and went to the Drive-In. Yes, San Jose has a Drive-in theater. Complete with a covered concession stand and staggered large parking spaces that not only create a better view of the movie, but offer a much bigger buffer in case your car should turn into a screammobile. Our little Claire did scream a couple of times but overall she was pretty good. In fact, I think she only screamed when we forced her to watch the terrible movie on-screen. We saw "Ghosts of Girlfriend's Past", which Sarah had no trouble getting me to go see because of my deep down infatuation with Jennifer Garner. However, it really wasn't a very good movie and I'd reccommend you save a few bucks and go stick your head in the freezer for 2 hours if you want a similar experience. The best part about the whole experience was the satisifcation that Sarah and I got from looking over at the car next to us at the end of the movie and seeing a couple strapping their young twins into car seats and driving off. At least now we know where to go if we're looking to meet other parents in the future.