the eelfang chronicles

Dear Seth-o-rama,

You turned 11 months old on Tuesday! You are within spitting distance of one year old, but in the meantime, we’re enjoying each (fleeting) day of your babyhood. And each day you are learning more and more! Sometime in the last month you seem to have mastered turning board book pages and standing up without pulling up on anything. And more and more, you are learning how to really communicate with us. You can tell us you want to be picked up or held, and when you want to go see something — that something is still usually a light switch, the oven or toaster, or the stereo. You are obsessed with all things glowing or electronic, and could happily play with buttons or switches for hours. Mommy jokes that we should just get you a clock radio and a wet washcloth for Christmas, and you’ll be happy. But thankfully, you’re usually happy anyway.

You had a little cold the past two weeks, and it slowed you down slightly, and made you a bit cranky, but you were otherwise not bothered. We also got you a set of real shoes, and you have been practicing walking with them on. With them, we let you roam around the backyard, and you love it. You pick up a wee handful of dirt, or a single leaf, and carry it around while squealing and laughing. You like to practice using a spoon during meals — you can usually pick up the spoon from your tray and get the food successfully into your mouth!

We love your sweet voice. You have taken to making an audible “eating” noise, and are getting ever closer to saying words. You say “ma-ma-ma,” but it can refer either to Mama, or when you’re excited to eat. You say “Da!” either to Daddy, or when you see something really neat. We also love cuddling — you can give us kisses, and lay your head on us.

Getting in and out of the car seat, and diaper changes (still!), are a bit hard for you. We’re also still doing a lot of coaxing to get you to sleep. But could anyone else get us to laugh like you do, by dancing, or taking your socks off and licking your big toes?

You are so energetic and curious, it’s a challenge to keep up with you sometimes, but we will always love you from your great big brain to your busy toes.

All our love,
Mommy and Daddy

On Facebook, a number of friends and family have been giving thanks for one thing a day leading up to Thanksgiving. Since I missed the boat on starting earlier, but have enjoyed reading their posts, here is my list of 25 things I’m thankful for, in no particular order:

1. God’s love

2. Seth — my love for this little man kinda makes my heart burst. He’s so smart, curious, wacky, and sweet, it’s a wonder all that fits into 30 inches.

3. Todd — my love for this (older) man also makes my heart burst. His arms are so comfy, his heart is so big, and he’s also dead sexy.

4. All of the people who work tirelessly for justice, freedom, peace, and care for hurting children, throughout the world. I am in awe of you, and I thank you.

(At this point, should I also be keeping track of how many times I tear up? Cuz it’s a lot.)

5. My family–I love that they are close, both in distance, and relationship-wise.

6. Friends near and far–I love thinking about all the good times we spend together, either talking about Really Important Stuff, or just laughing over nothing for hours on end.

7. Aria and Ethan, and their families–ever since first meeting, I have thought of them as extended family that I never knew I had. In placing their sweet baby with us, we gained not only a son, but amazing (birth)families!

8. Knitting–oh, how its meditativeness and math-iness soothe me

9. Creation–either just going for a walk outside with Seth, or watching a Planet Earth episode, I’m blown away by how intricate, beautiful, and perfect it all is.

10. Mommy bloggers–particularly Soule Mama, Angry Chicken, and now Smitten Kitchen. Whether I only have time to scroll through the pretty photos, or actually get a chance to read their words, they inspire me to no end.

11. Our house–we have a love/loathe relationship, this house and I, but in the end, I appreciate that it keeps our family dry and warm. The other night, I could see that it was pouring down rain, but didn’t even hear it as my two boys fell asleep next to me, and it made me so glad.

12. Music–listening to the same cd a week straight in the car, singing to Seth to buy myself an extra minute in the shower, getting a hymn from church (or more often lately, Whatcha Say — ha! now I have passed the infection along!) stuck in my head.

13. Food and eating–I’m thankful for knowing some amazing cooks, especially being married to one, and the opportunity to eat adventurously. I’m also thankful for the farmers who work really hard to bring us sustainable, abundant, healthy food.

14. Staying at home–I’m ever grateful that Todd supports me staying at home with Seth. I know he would also like to stay home or work from home, but since that’s not really an option right now, he works really hard to support our family day in and day out.

15. …and going to work one day–I’m back at work one day a week, and it gives me a lovely break from home life, and a chance to feel effective (when I’m not busy having nice talks with my great coworkers)

16. Ice cream–mmmmmm. And that Todd and I are getting really good at making a pint of Ben & Jerry’s last for more than a week!

17. Parent friends and family–through advice, anecdotes, and example, I am sloooowly getting the hang of this parenting thing, and feel very supported by others who have already gone through it.

18. The silly moments–these make our days. This morning, for example, I found a little chunk of cheddar cheese nestled in Seth’s belly button a good half hour after breakfast.

19. The library–seriously, I hope whoever first thought of a lending library was showered with accolades and chocolate. We are lucky enough to live close to both a Seattle branch and and King County branch, and go at least once a week.

20. Books–boviously! Another way I interact with the adult world these days. I love diving into a comic, cookbook, or novel at the end of the day.

21. Our church family–our home away from home!

22. Rock Band–see, even Seth likes it!

23. Free produce–we get a free farm box each week as one of my job perks, and it saves time and money, and helps our whole family eat wonderful organic produce. Thanks, FCF!

24. Photos–I was never really a photo person, but I’m learning the value of keeping a small recording of our moments. Already my memory is going (mommy brain or turning 30 soon?), and I like being able to remind myself what Seth looked like as a teeny, tiny thing, or what Todd looked like with longer hair.

25. Being so blessed–for all the things or people who I haven’t shouted out to personally or have forgotten in the above. I really am so, so blessed. Really.

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all! xoxoxoxo

1. We’re going to start featuring some of our family’s favorite books, movies, music, etc in the sidebar of our blog. So if you’re reading this through an RSS reader/Facebook, head over to eelfang.com to see what’s up.

2. Interested in making your Christmas gifts 4% more awesome? When you order stuff from Amazon this holiday season (and heck, through the rest of the year too), consider heading to our blog and clicking on one of our recommendations first. Even if you buy something completely different, Amazon will recognize that you came from our site and give us hugs as a result of your business.

Okay, enough crude mercenary usage of this blog. Betsy promised to write something heart-warming in the next couple of days, and tomorrow is Seth’s 11-month birthday (can you believe it?) so we’ll return you to your regularly scheduled mushiness shortly.

As one of my birthday presents back in August, Betsy signed me up to run a half-marathon in the fall. That weekend is coming up soon – it’ll be the Saturday after Thanksgiving, giving me two more weeks of training between now and then. (I’m thankful that I get a full day of digestion between Thanksgiving and the run. I’ll probably have to do at least a short jog on Friday to work some of the mashed potatoes out of my system before running hard the next day.)

I’m a little concerned about the run, as my training program has not been particularly consistent nor rigorous. This is mainly due to the fact that if I want to go jogging on a weekday, the only time that really works for the family is if I go first thing in the morning, before work, which means that I wake up at 4:45am to go running in the dark. So the fact that I go out running once or twice a week is actually pretty good. These end up being about 2 miles or so – long enough to get my pulse rate up, but hardly long enough for training.

The weekends are when I really get time, and I’ve pushed myself pretty far the last couple weeks, running 8-9 mile courses with some intense hills along the way. That’s still 4-5 miles short of what I’ll need to run, but since I’ve had gas left in the tank the last few weeks when I got home, I think the 13.1 miles of the half-marathon should be conquerable.

I found a nice trail near our house yesterday to go running on. It’s a nice 4 mile greenbelt trail along a creek that winds through the eastern side of West Seattle. The trail keeps stopping and dumping out onto the street before starting again a few blocks later, so it’s hardly a haven from city life, but definitely a good space for a run.

One of the factors that got me back into running this year (after another one of my frequent extended breaks from running) was the book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, by Haruki Murakami. Murakami is one of my favorite novelists, and this book is written in his trademark easy, elegant style. The book is roughly 20% memoir of his life, 20% discussion of the creative process, and 60% why he likes to go running (and some of the most memorable runs he’s gone on).

For runners, I’d consider this to be a must-read, as he describes the running process beautifully, and describes some runs which are going to be in the “aspirational” category for quite some time (including a 50-mile super marathon across the Japanese coastline). For non-runners, it’s probably of more interest to people who are already familiar with his books (and I’m happy to provide recommendations on those), but it’s well-written and thoughtful enough to be well worth a read and to help you understand those crazy friends or family of yours who can think of nothing greater to do on a Saturday than running for two hours in the cold and rain.

Happy 10 month birthday! Sort of… Actually, that was back on October 24th, so we’re closer to your 11th month than your 10th. You are just so active these days, it’s hard for Mom and Dad to find time to write a post. You are a great walker, and that’s definitely your preferred way of exploring the house. As of your 10th month, you were unable to stand up unassisted in the middle of the room, so the only time we saw you crawl any more is when you were making your way to something to pull yourself up on. You walk all over the house now, and love exploring everything you can get to. You’re still obsessed with the kitchen, and the quickest way to make you grumpy is to have Mom or Dad cooking and not lift you up to see what’s going on.

It’s been fun watching you play in the nursery at church. Most of the time, you just run around and raise a ruckus, making noise and chewing toys and leaving a wake of chaos behind you. It seems like some of your little friends don’t know what to think of such a wild guy! But they’ll sometimes get up and play next to you – you guys haven’t quite figured out the idea of playing with each other, but you and Theo sometimes play close to each other and I can make both of you laugh at the same time.

Mom does a great job of feeding you a wide range of nutritious and interesting foods, from hummus to edamame to nori to swai. You’d probably prefer if we just stuck to chunks of cheese and the sweetest fruit purees we could find, but you’re good at trying everything at least once, and will usually eat a good portion unless you really don’t like it. You hate wearing bibs, and prefer to be shirtless when you eat. Your messy style of eating has increased the number of baths you get, but fortunately, you really love bath time.

Every day you just get sweeter and cuter, and you amaze us all the time with how smart you are. We can’t wait to see what you’ll do next!

For the past few months, we had been brainstorming around the house for Halloween costume ideas. We had just about settled on going as Run DMC, but we weren’t entirely sold on the idea. One day when I came home from work, Seth was wearing a red t-shirt and some black/dark navy overalls, and I casually called him “Mario”. Betsy immediately perked up, and the rest is Halloween history. Congrats to Heather, Carrie Ann, Scott and Brandy for your correct guesses!

The only problem was that we weren’t sure where to wear it. We were excited about going to the Olson’s Halloween party, but that didn’t start until 8pm. Since that is Seth’s bedtime, we figured we’d be able to attend for a grand total of 10 minutes before heading back home. And trick-or-treating around the neighborhood seemed a little silly when we would have to eat all of the candy.

We were excited, then, to receive an invite from my sister to go up to Bellingham to join her family and my parents for the day. Downtown Bellingham was hosting a big trick-or-treating party at the local stores, and we were going to go around town and watch Seth’s cousins Saben and Annika collect their candy.

My sister is excellent at making Halloween costumes, and she definitely didn’t disappoint this year, dressing up a scary 4-armed alien and a punk rock grrl.

My parents’ costumes were a little more understated, but they were excellent as well. Even Seth joined them in their theme for a short period of time. (Bonus activity: Try to count how many different people’s arms are trying to hold him in place for that picture, and guess how many other arms are just out of frame! But also notice that he’s smiling and having fun behind the moustache.)

My dad had the hardest time trying to guess what our costumes were going to be. He asked us a series of yes/no questions, and got hung up on the idea that we were fictional characters from modern pop culture, but not in TV, books, music or movies (at least, not primarily known from those sources). What other kind of media is there for fictional characters? Welcome to the 21st century, Dad.

He finally guessed it on the car ride up, but when we got to my sister’s house, she hadn’t figured it out. She had to wait until we changed into our outfits and had the big reveal.

Seth generally doesn’t like wearing hats, so we had to hold it over his head for pictures. He got used to it as the day progressed, though.

I don’t know if a sword is really a canonical accessory for Mario, but you try taking it away from him…

With the eyeliner moustache applied.

Out on the town!

We had a great time. The city was really crowded with trick-or-treaters – probably a few hundred kids, plus families. We even ran into two other Marios and a Link! Seth was mostly interested in the balloons, and would wail in distress everytime we walked away from one. Since there were balloons every 10 feet, that ended up being a lot of wailing.

After a delicious dinner at my sisters, we ended up getting home shortly after 9pm. Seth was exhausted – he slept most of the trip home, and when he woke up when we arrived, he was a cranky baby. We’ll go visit the Olson’s Halloween party next year.