So much merry we don't know what to do with it

  
This is our fifth Christmas as San Diegans, but the first one we've spent here. It turns out Aaron's work doesn't accept notes from his wife that read "Please excuse Dr. Rutman from work for the next week. Christmas is very special to him." (He spent much of Christmas day at the hospital). Anyway, SD is a pretty sweet place to spend Christmas. The weather was so perfect, it was as if San Diego was showing off. My parents did the traveling this year and spent the holiday with us. It was great having them.

On to the Christmas morning photos...

These puppets were my surprise for Seth. I worked on them in the evenings while he slept. I made him Joker and Catwoman too. (I wish I had a picture of them). He immediately gave the Catwoman puppet to Ada because she loves Catwoman and he doesn't want to play with a girl puppet, especially not a bad girl. I've been playing Joker in our puppet shows since Christmas because Seth needs a bad guy to pound on. I put a lot of effort into these, but they won't be handed down to his children or anything--these are battle puppets that are already showing some wounds.

I was trying to avoid the Princess craze with my daughter, with its over-emphasis on beauty, but every puffy dress she sees has her mesmerized. She enjoys dressing up as Darth Vader and Iron Man, but she's definitely been wanting something feminine in the costume box. Seth insisted that I make her a princess dress for Christmas because he knew she'd love it. I couldn't resist fostering Seth's interest in doing something sweet for his sister. He helped me choose a pattern and we took a trip to the store for Seth to choose fabric in Ada's favorite colors. (Ask Aaron where's the last place on this earth he's interested in spending time. It's the fabric store. His sweet mother OD'd him on those as a child, so it's funny to me that Seth loves them so much). Anyway, Ada loves her dress, and her fancy shoes too!




This is the Christmas present Seth was anticipating the most: Wolverine from X-Men. When he sat on Santa's lap and asked for a Wolverine costume, I could tell Santa thought he was talking about a brown furry mammal costume. (THAT would have been awesome).
 

Ada fell in love with a pink suitcase she saw at Ross a couple weeks before Christmas. She asked Santa for this suitcase. By the time I made it back to the store, it was gone. Aaron could not rest until he found his daughter a suitcase she'd love. On the night of the 23rd, he found this beauty at Costco, complete with lights and yes, Disney Princesses. Ada approves. Grandma and Grandpa Shields added a second lightsaber to Seth's collection. It's a huge hit. He's constantly practicing his moves in front of the TV's reflection.



Ada was very excited about this Abby Cadabby gift, but was unfortunately quite let down when she found that the doll is unable to hold the magic wand since it's practically bigger than the doll. She now loves them separately. I like how serious Seth and Ada look as they study this Star Wars figurine together.


This watergun and Captain America stuff got huge reactions from Seth. He's so fun to open presents with.


Ada doubled her baby collection. She got a Cabbage Patch Doll. They still feature a signature on the butt, just like the ones I spent unmeasurable amounts of time with as a kid.

sweet, christmas

Cookie time

abstract cookie art, courtesy Seth and Ada:

Magical Turkey Day

We had a seriously fun Thanksgiving. We spent Thanksgiving day at Disneyland with Aaron's family. I knew our kids would love it, but I didn't anticipate them being able to wake up at 5:30am to go,go,go all day until almost 11 at night and be total angels throughout it all. They were in utter heaven, and it made it really fun.
 
Seth's only outburst was when someone in the family sarcastically suggested Seth was too tired to go on any more rides. He had a 10 second meltdown until Aaron suggested "How about we go on as many rides as you want until you pass out, Seth?" He immediately jumped up and down saying "Good idea!" and gave Aaron a hug like he was a hero. That's just what we did. He finally fell asleep on the rocket ship ride with his grandpa at 10:30 (but woke up for one more roller coaster after that, and then he was out).

Ada's only complaints that day were when the rides would go through a dark area (which many of them do). She'd say "I wanna go home" every time it happened. Then she'd get off the ride and profess her love for it. The tea cups were her favorite. Seth loved all the fast roller coasters and is still convinced that the only explanation for Star Tours is that "that room must be magical".



We had a Thanksgiving feast at our apartment the next day. Our kitchen is pretty small and when you cook all the food in one day because you've been partying at Disneyland, it gets a little busy. We pulled it off just fine though.

My kids really know how to keep a feast from getting too classy. Seth sat at the Thanksgiving table shirtless and chewed on a turkey leg like a wild animal. Ada left during dinner to sit on the toilet and came back to the table shouting "my poo poos won't come out!" Thanks Ada. Pass the potatoes.

Unleashing their powers

This was the first year of Halloween where Seth insisted on choosing his costume. I knew this day would come. Gone are the days of dressing him up as Stay Puft, Poncho Villa, Peter Venkman, or a bearded viking. I knew he'd want something super popular that every kid likes, and sure enough, he chose Batman. I was relieved that he wanted to be the 1960's Adam West style Batman, which is way more fun to make than the black, plated-chest Christian Bale style Batman.

As usual, I started out thinking I'd do something really simple and cheap, but I got so excited about all the details, the next thing I knew I was dusting off my sewing machine and designing my own patterns with tons of trial and error. I kept having to remind myself that the average person doesn't care about where exactly the stars on Wonder Woman's cape are placed, or the precise height of batman's boots, so I drew the line on getting TOO crazy. There is a whole community of obsessive costume makers online (the kind who show up in San Diego each summer at Comic Con) who thankfully make me look sane. As painful as the process sometimes was, figuring it all out served to deepen my satisfaction with this project. It felt more like my own art.

I learned a lot during this process and I think it's now safe to say I know how to sew stuff. This, I feel, puts me into a whole new category of the domestic mom. I've fought it based on my own silly sterotypes. It's hard enough to have any street cred as a liberal or a feminist when you're a mormon stay-at-home mom who likes to wear makeup everyday and spends a lot of time in the kitchen, but now that I sew too? How could the Daily Show crowd ever take me seriously?

Anyway, these sweeties are really fun to dress up because they're SO into it! I think a fair amount of two-year-olds would just rip off the wig and play, but Ada loves it along with the rest of her costume. (That could however be more a result of me and Aaron's genetic failure to provide Ada with a decent head of hair. Sorry Ada.) And then there's Seth. The bodysuit part of his costume is the one part we purchased. It's a leotard and tights that we died gray. As open-minded as Aaron likes to be, I could still sense his discomfort when his son kept professing his deep love for leotards and tights and kept wearing them around the house while I made the other parts of his costume. He loved how his costume turned out. We have to remind him sometimes that he's not actually Batman.

Sethy Pants

It's Seth's turn for a post. He's 4 1/2 (and don't you dare call him 4--he'll quickly correct you). Here's what he's like lately:

He took swimming lessons this summer and made some nice progress. However, he's continually troubled by the fact that there is no such thing as a mouth plug. He thinks he could do so many other things in the pool, if only he had a plug for his mouth. How does this kid not notice the bigger problem of nostrils?

He reads. I'll try not to gush too much, but it's really fun. Unfortunately, he's having a hard time applying this knowledge beyond his original set of reading books (Bob books). He has it stuck in his head that those are the only kind of books he can read. When I catch him reading other things, he tries to hide it so that I won't expect it of him.

He thinks it's really subtle and cool to say "zero" instead of "no". For example, I'll ask him if he wants spinach on his quesadilla and he'll put his fingers into an O shape (meaning zero) and gets this smirk on his face like he's done something awesome.

His obsession with superheros has been going strong for the past year. I tell my kids stories before they go to sleep and I'm getting pretty tired of the superhero story formula that Seth wants EVERY night. It goes like this (and he thinks he needs to explain it every night). "I want a story about Green Lantern. First he's Hal Jordan, then he's Green Lantern and he fights bad guys. (Then Seth demonstrates punching and kicking sound effects)" Replace the main character with Wally West who turns into the Flash, Logan who turns into Wolverine, Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent...yada, yada, yada.

Seth loves to play Yuk a Muk. (As a review: you name two foods that are good, but not good when eaten together). Seth is pretty good at it, except that he overuses peanut butter and avocados because he thinks they're disgusting to begin with. A couple of Seth's recent triumphs: ice cream with mayonnaise; lollipops with mushrooms. Yuk a muk.

I used to buy Cheerios for the kids. Aaron introduced them to Honey Nut Cheerios. There's no going back now. Seth loves it with his whole soul. Every cold cereal morning, he requests in the same exact order "big bowl, giraffe spoon, honey nut, milk." He must think I have a terrible memory.

Any mention of eyeballs or stinky things makes Seth giggle. I noticed someone in the hallway at church getting a little laugh as he overheard me telling Seth "The world doesn't revolve around eyeballs, Seth. You've got to stop thinking about them so much."

When he's really hungry, Seth will start to whine for food and complains "I'm tired of swallowing just spit!" He's got a point.

He loves to ask me math questions. Throughout the day I'm answering "what's 10 + 10 + 31?" "400 +2?" He almost always responds with "whoa. that's a lot."

When riding in the car the other day, he said to me and Aaron "Know what I'd do if we had a chip car? I'd chow on it!" That's all. He said it with so much zeal, it was cute.

Seth has every Birthday party theme and Halloween costume planned out until he's about 12. He gets upset with Ada if she dare suggests he's going to be something for Halloween in the wrong order. "NO Ada! I'm going to be a skeleton when I'm six, not eight!" How dare that 2-year-old mess it up.

Seth often likes to strip down naked when he uses the bathroom. He usually begins this process the second he starts heading toward the toilet, so his butt is already visible far before he's there. He starts preschool this week. We hope he won't shame our family when he feels the urge at school.

OB, SD day off

I've been working a lot lately.  I went 18 straight days before a day off last Thursday, so Lindsay and I took advantage with a night out in OB for burgers, a walk, and some photos. It was really rejuvanating to take photos again, as it's been months since the last time I took any pictures let alone serious ones.


Nikkor 12-24 @16mm f/22, 3s; Tiffen 0.6 ND, 0.6 ND Gradient

Nikkor 12-24 @13mm f/22, 8s; Tiffen 0.6 ND, 0.6 ND Gradient

Nikkor 12-24 @13mm f/22, 20s; Tiffen 0.6 ND, 0.6 ND Gradient

Nikkor 12-24 @13mm f/22, 20s; Tiffen 0.6 ND


Here I played with some neutral density filters so that I could get longer exposures without overexposing.  This allowed me to get smooth waters and clouds that looked brooding, all in the early dusk when the sky itself still had a fair amount of light in it. The gradient filter gives me a little more time to expose the foreground without overexposing the sky. Filters are a much more effective way of getting well exposed sunset and dusk shots, as post-hoc digital gradients can brighten up the foreground, but cannot create the detail that you get from a correct pre-processing exposure.

Ada Buh-gay-da

Ada is now 2 1/2 years old. Here's a little synopsis of what she's like at this age.
 
There are certain events and topics she repeats very frequently. These include:

• The San Diego Padres mascot, the Friar. She calls him "funny guy"and often tries to get the family to join in on reflecting with her on how funny he is. (Ironically, among mascots, he's one of the least amusing or funny I've seen)
• The time our fire detector went off when I was barbecuing some chicken that flamed up. Sometimes several times in a day she'll say "remember chicken caught on fire?" Thanks to her, I'll never forget that uneventful event.
• A lady in a dolphin show. Sea World has a dolphin show (it's more like Circque de Soleil with a side of dolphin). There's a lady in a red bird costume who does acrobatics on a rope in the air over the water. Ada always says, "Remember lady turned a bird? She on a black rope!"
• Her nicknames. Ada likes to review who calls her what. She says, "Dada call me Sweet. Mama and Pasi call me Tiny. Doug call me Lizzy Lamb (pronounced Wizzy Wam). Lisa call me Ada Buh Gada (prounced Ada Uh-gay-duh)"
• Santafly. She frequently asks to go to a place called Santafly. We have no idea what she's talking about, but she wants to wear a superhero mask when she goes there and she wants to bring her best friend, Lucy. When Ada's misbehaving, we'll bring it up for our own amusement and say "If you don't stop doing that, we're not taking you to Santafly." Devastation. We're so cruel.
• The phrase "Yes I do."

She's a very focused colorer. She can sit down and color a piece of paper for 15 minutes (so unlike Seth). She uses each color crayon, then sets it down in the "used" pile until she's gone through each color. I honestly like her drawings. Her favorite color is orange. When she sees orange, she says "that's MY color!' Sometimes she'll request that I sit down while she dictates her coloring orders to me. Seth used to ask for octopuses every time, but Ada thinks of the most random and varied stuff. She'll ask me to draw things like egg yolks, helmets, and chairs. She always wants her name on the page, but is never satisfied with just her name alone. She insists I include Seth and her BFFs Sam and Lucy every time.

Sometimes I offer to sing her a song to help her settle down to sleep at night. Not understanding lullaby protocol, she'll interrupt me and put in a request like "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" or "Itsy Bitsy Spider".

Ada continues to love baby dolls. She wraps them up in blankets, changes diapers (has pretty impressive form when it comes to lifting the baby's legs up with one hand and using a wipe with the other), and my favorite is when she cradles a doll in her arms while bouncing up and down shushing her "shh shh shh."

Seth's favorite game lately is "Yuk a Muk". You just think of two foods that are good in and of themselves, but nasty when eaten together. When you think of a decently yucky combo, we say "yuk a muk". Whenever Ada attempts to play, the first of the two foods she mentions is always hot dogs. Her turn usually goes like this: "Hot dogs and chips." Pretty good. "Hot dogs and rice." Okay. "Hot dogs and peanut butter." Yuk a muk.

She is very opinionated about how I wear my hair. Often, if I try to pull it up into a bun to get it out of my way when I cook or something, she gets furious. She instantly breaks into tears and says "get low!" Aaron and my brothers call me "Lo" for a nickname (derived from "Lola", derived from "low-life" when I was a child). I wonder if Ada is actually calling me this when she says "get low" because lately she'll say "Don't be Lindsay! Get Lo!" So, I'm Lindsay with my hair up and I'm Lo, my alter ego, with my hair down? It's difficult to sit Ada down and extract this information from her.

She loves cracking jokes and doing silly things for a laugh. She'll say nonsensical things to get us to say "that doesn't make any sense!" She loves that. A couple days ago, I asked her what she wanted for breakfast, she said "Honey Bunches of...Garbage" and looked around for a laugh. She got us. We laughed. She then stretched for 5 rounds of laughter on that same joke of course.

A couple things she's recently grown out of, but I still wanted to write down:
She'd attempt to do something like lift a big object, huff and puff over it for a minute, then relent and say "I too tiny." Her tininess was a big part of how she identified herself. She's more into being big now. She used to overuse the "f" sound quite a bit, putting it at the beginning of a lot of words. We'd try to coach her to say "clothes" instead of "foze". She'd concentrate and carefully say "c...foze". We're still working on the word "truck" unfortunately.

Some Vacation Time

We recently went camping near the beach in San Clemente. We were with Aaron's extended family. He's got a great family and our kids were in heaven playing with their cousins. It was cute just how entertaining a tent with some sleeping bags was to the kids. Pure joy.
We were a little on edge in the evenings as the place was crawling with skunks. Maybe it was just one skunk doing the rounds, but it was unnerving to be startled by this creature, but you can't jump for fear that you'll startle it in return and get your campsite all skunky skunked. Luckily, Pepé Le Pew kept his stinky stinks to himself. 


(This funny face photo made an impact on Ada. She didn't know this was possible to do with her face, and now does it on a daily basis.)
We spent the next weekend in Newport Beach with my brother's family. Beach houses are a beautiful thing. We enjoyed playing on the beach, finding crabs, riding cruisers, and joking around. Thanks to both families for all the good times!

Update and pics

Not sure why blogging has become so difficult to remember to do lately.  Is it just me, or are most of the bloggers I know slowing down a bit? Is facebook usurping the blogosphere? I personally prefer the blog-thing over facebook as a form of updating the masses on personal goings-on, as it's a little bit more substantive than facebook and you're only sharing your life with people who actually care to visit the site. So, despite our lack of posts in some time, we plan on keeping the blog going.

First an update, then some pics.

I've been at the new job now for a little over a month.  Just getting used to the whole being-a-doctor-and-having-responsibility-for people's-health thing. I just finished a few weeks of night-float, which consisted of 16 hour shifts, from 4pm to 8am.  It was kind of a baptism-by-fire deal--thrown into the action from the outset. As rough as the schedule was, it was a pretty good learning experience.  I covered the patients of 10 others doctors each night--typically about 70 patients.  I stayed pretty busy, even in the middle of the night. After all of the pills and IV pushes I've ordered for Haldol, Ativan, Morphine, Dilaudid, Tylenol PR, plus all of the chest x-rays, CT scans, blood cultures, EKGs, cardiac enzymes, nebulizer treatments, and antibiotics--I'm just beginning to not look over my shoulder when the nurse looks at me and asks, "what do you want to do doctor?"

It really hit home the other day. In medical school I saw several patients who come in very sick, and after struggling in the ICU after some time, pass away.  But a few nights ago, a patient I'd been caring for over the course of a week suddenly passed away.  We performed CPR for 45 minutes but were unsuccessful in resuscitating him. He was only 50 and his expiration was unexpected.  It was up to me to inform the patient's next of kin. Telling that man that his brother was gone was the hardest phone call I've ever made.

Anyway, my rotation on night float is over. I had the weekend off so we went to the beach as usual. I actually brought my camera and got some pictures for the first time in quite a while. I've been slacking in that department lately.

















We're gonna miss these beach sunsets in Seattle.