time for ice cream

As little Emily contently lays by my side on our bed, just watching me sit, type and eat a popsicle, I'm really thinking that Amy and I are pretty lucky. Besides the occasional outburst that usually means Emily is hungry or trying go to the bathroom, she's generally a very happy baby who loves to watch her Mom walk around and enjoys listening to her Dad sing goofy songs. So far. Knock on wood.

Grandma Peterson is here this week and has made it possible for Amy and I to enjoy some downtime. On, Sunday, we braved the heat and walked a mile to Mitchell's Ice Cream Parlor on Valencia. I'd never been before and now wonder how I could've avoided such an amazing place for the past 9.5 years. My scoop of sweet coconut ice cream had bite-size chunks of coconut! Delicious. Amy opted for the Praline ice cream and the couple bites I stole reminded me of the candied pecan treats we'd get in Louisiana.

Another funny Emily anecdote - she's starting to fake sneezes. She'll have a fit of several sneezes at once and then add another of her yelling for good measure.

Uh oh. She's making zombie eyes (rolling into the back of her head). Time to put her to bed. She's still fighting her cold, after all.

-M

holding down the fort

Today was my first day back at work. It is very hard to believe that the past two weeks of Emily's life have already passed by and that my "bringing home the bacon" duties have to resume. While it was only a half day, it still felt difficult leaving. The day's best moment was coming home and walking in to a smiling Amy and a sleeping Emily - great success! It filled me with a lot of pride and happiness to hear that Amy managed just fine.

In other news, Emily has the worst congested nose. Every breath she takes sounds like she's got a throat full of saliva. We've heard that near the one month milestone, she starts to develop more saliva and the congested sounds are normal. And with her heightened growing abilities (ha ha), it's very possible she's two weeks early with that as well. The good news is that we have a weight check tomorrow at the pediatrician so should be able to find out how bad the congestion really is and if we can use our suction plunger on her. Fun!

Happy two week birthday, Emily! How can it feel like a year ago that I cut Emily's umbilical cord, and yet feel like it was just yesterday that we left the hospital? Weird.

-M

More weekend cuteness

She loves her blanket! She loves it so much, moments later she spit up on it.

Mom & Emily napping.

-M

What we've learned so far...

Emily has come a long way in the past 9 days.

What do we know about her so far?

She often doesn't know when to stop eating! This may be a contributing factor as to why she's already exceeded her birthrate a week early and is hovering around 8.5 lbs. Well done!

She loves being held. Her little cries are often quelled when one of us picks her up and cradles her.

She loves going for walks and car rides. Today she went shopping for outfits with her parents in Noe Valley and then to Trader Joe's. Yesterday, she went to Babys R Us and Target. The previous two days she went for walks down Cortland Ave.

She's also a very good sleeper (so far). Her Mom & Dad got 8 hours of sleep last night!

-M

Umm.

I just witnessed 8 day old Emily roll over on to her stomach in her crib this morning. She stayed there for about a minute and then proceeded to roll back on to her back. I hope that's normal.

-M

Emily Ann Peterson

Seems like ages ago that Matt and I took a stroll around Bernal last weekend on my due date wondering when this little one would appear. Our inability to plan and prepare for her precise arrival was difficult for the two of us who love to be organized, yet looking back I think things went as well as if we had planned it all out. From going into labor when Matt was home, to our midnight check-in at the hospital, to the giant room we were assigned that was spacious enough for me to walk around in, everything worked out perfectly.

Our hospital experience was incredible—couldn’t have asked for better treatment. After being in labor all day our doctor’s shift was scheduled to end at 6pm the evening I gave birth, but since I was 9 centimeters dilated she stuck around another 4 hours to see me through to delivery rather than pass me off to another physician. Then during our 2 days of postpartum stay we were treated to round the clock babysitters, room service for every meal, and nurses to answer all our baby-related questions. Part of me was reluctant to head home Friday evening, but I was also excited to introduce Emily to her new nursery. And what a perfect way to celebrate our 5th anniversary by bringing home our new baby girl!

Last but not least, the entire birthing experience was incredible because Matt was such an amazing coach/partner/cheerleader during all 24 hours of labor, supporting me every step of the way. Even as the nurse urged him to take a break and head to the cafeteria for some food & rest, he insisted on staying by my side through it all. He was consoling when I felt overwhelmed, reassuring when I doubted my strength, and comforting when I just needed some love.

On her 5th day here, I’m still in awe of how big Emily is and how well she’s doing. We’re quickly figuring out little routines and methods for changing, feeding, soothing, and waking her. Each day presents a new challenge, but luckily we’re gaining confidence all the time and so far have kept her pretty content :)

She's Arrived!

We're happy to announce the birth of our baby girl. Amy and I will be figuring out the name soon. Here she is about 8 hours old.

Stats:
- born at 10:12PM on May 26
- 7lbs 12oz
- 19.5 inches long

Many, many more details to follow. And many more photos. Everyone is doing fine!

Love, Matt & Amy & ????

It records 1080P video?

Using good old fashion numbers, triangle graphs, and budget analysis, I convinced myself (and Amy somewhat) that buying a DSLR camera would not spiral us into debt. The actual truth is that I realized I had been double counting rent (and subsequently mortgage) payments in my financial spreadsheet. I think the lesson here is never trust Microsoft Excel when purchasing electronics. Or something.

Anyway, here's what I bought last weekend and only last night opened up (15% restocking fee at Best Buy on opened items gave me reason to pause and really reevaluate the decision).

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos550d/default.asp

I hope I can learn how to use it before baby shows up.

-M

PS. Don't tell Amy that I'm going to need some accessories for it!

Mother's Day

With my due date 2 weeks away (!), I assumed I would be waiting until 2011 to celebrate my first Mother's Day. But thanks to some amazing friends and family, I was reminded several times this week that housing this little girl for the past 9 months qualifies me to celebrate this year.

First, on Friday I was surprised to find these beautiful flowers sitting on my desk from a very thoughtful coworker. (Yep, those are real lemons!) Then yesterday another friend treated me to a Mother's Day tea service in the city. We indulged in scones and finger sandwiches before ending the meal with a delicious strawberry shortcake and lemon madelines. Even my yoga instructor had a present for me after class: a super soft plush puppy dog (which to Matt's delight resembles a golden retriever) and a teeny-tiny summer jumper (with matching bloomers) for a special occasion. To top it all off, today Matt made me a delicious Mother's Day breakfast.

All in all a great first Mother's Day!!

-a

The Painting Part 2

Painting goes so much better when you have a competent team of professional tradeswomen.

Here's the new nursery, fresh with teal! The room now features rolling hills of grassland, and if you look closely, you can see a wild 4-plug outlet grazing!

-M

The Painting Part 1

Remember this photograph? Well we finally decided to do something about the pink.

Selecting a color for the nursery was more challenging than I had anticipated. I was really excited about warm colors like peach and orange. Once we got them on the walls, however, the natural wood turned them into flesh tones. Ack! I can just imagine showing the nursery to friends and family, "welcome to our skin-colored nursery!" Fortunately, Amy has a lot of artistic common sense. She suggested abandoning my enthusiasm for warmth, and instead exploring teals and light greens, and voila, we've got a real winner. Can you guess which we selected? Not much of a game since I'm about to post the new pics next.

-M

Rose infestation

This is a pic taken today of the rose bush/tree outside the nursery window. If we let them go this year, they have the potential to take over the backyard.

-M

Where's the fog?

Having planned to burn off calories from the night at Town Hall, we drove up to Point Reyes to walk on the beach and hunt turkey vultures last Sunday. The wildlife didn't disappoint - multiple turkey vulture sightings (with some near fly-bys), lots of quail poking around, a few sun-bathing lizards, an elk that resembled a mountain lion, small rock crabs patiently waiting for the tide to return, and a snake a little larger in diameter than a hot dog.

The first of two hikes to the beach allowed us to go "off-roading" a little with the tide low, and off in the distance we could see what appeared to be a slow moving, very tall, mountain lion. Luckily, we brought Amy's less-than-clear binoculars, inspected the animal, and inconclusively concluded it must've been an elk.

At one point on our second hike, a snake poked out of the weeds on to the trail, and surprised me enough that I instantly went into protective fatherly mode and grabbed Amy's arm. What didn't register in my head was that Amy was already trying to back away and I was actually keeping her from retreating. I'll need to hone those skills a little bit.

Oh, and no fog this time. Perfect weather.

-M

Town Hall

Still taking advantage of quality "just the two of us" time, we've recently made a couple dinner reservations at fancier places in the city. Town Hall is one of our favorites and our experience last Saturday just further solidified it. Not only did they seat us in the front corner surrounded on two sides by windows, they also surprised us with a Happy Anniversary dessert treat. We split a warm asparagus & carmelized strawberry salad. Amy had their famouse buttermilk fried chicken and I had the pork loin. We love that place.

The two of us, very full.

-M

Bernal Food

It was neat to see that our cozy SF neighborhood, Bernal Heights, had a little article written about it in the online version of the New York Times. We've noticed several new spots and are glad to hear that the "drug trade" has diminished in the past few years. Sheesh.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/dining/07sfdine.html

-M

Progress!

The lack of posts must mean we're busy making progress, right?

Last night, after our weekly doctor's appointment, we took our tour of the hospital (CPMC). Besides wandering through the eerily quiet halls, we got to see a delivery room, and a postpartum room. Everyone was very friendly so that makes us feel at ease.

After the hospital tour, we began the first of three "just the two of us at a fancy restaurant" night's out. Last night was B-Star on Clement Street and it was really good as usual. This Saturday is Town Hall; the following Saturday we go to Slanted Door.

Beyond that, we spent what felt like half the weekend organizing all the nursery. Her drawers are stocked and we're buying time by using a rug we already own.

We've got appointments to visit potential pediatricians.

We're selecting paint tonight for the nursery.

We're buying shelves for the closet.

Lots of progress!

-M

Everything in its right place...

What are the chances:

1. Radiohead's lead singer, Thom Yorke would be in concert (with his other group, Atoms for Peace) a month before I'm due?
2. Thom would humor the crowd and play a few Radiohead songs?
3. And one of them would be our wedding song???

I’d say those chances are slim to none. But that’s what happened last night. Pretty magical. And we’re happy to report that baby girl was very well behaved during the concert—she even bopped along to most of the tunes. Seems she’s destined to inherit Matt's musical tastes :)

-a

Look how far we've come...

Can't believe we've got less than 6 weeks before baby girl arrives. Seems like the past 8 months have flown by! Looking through old pictures this evening, I realized not only have 8 months flown by but the past 5 years have too. Not sure how we'll celebrate our anniversary this year since we may be a family of 3 by then, but I know she'll be the perfect present for both of us.

-a

The Nursery

With help from the Peterson & Grohowski families' generous gifts, the nursery is coming along quite nicely.

We're planning to use the small dresser on the left as a changing table and have put the Tord Boontje Midsummer Pendant lamp (the weird red and yellow glowing thing) above it with the hope that it'll keep baby distracted.

Here's a pic of the crib (thanks Mom G!), all decked out with cool mobile (thanks, Erica!), and knitted blanket (thanks, Mom P!)

Now we just just need to cover the floor somehow. Any suggestion on rugs?

-M

Shower

Had a whirlwind week, beginning with my shower last Sunday. Started out with relaxing mother/daughter mani-pedis, then the fun extended to Becky's apartment with my friends. Many thanks to Becky and Mom G for hosting the party: from the decorations, to the favors, to the games it was the perfect shower for me :)

The diaper cake Becky made us--in addition to a 4 foot lemon tree!! Hello freshly made lemonade!

Some of my friends at the shower.

Me and Mom G at the flower market :)