Child Politik

This article from Newsweek is from a new dad writing about how having a child is causing him to question long-held political viewpoints.  I have to say, that with the little one here now, I too, am looking at things differently, and not so much in a red vs. blue fashion:

• Environmental issues, always something I felt important, have taken on a greater importance in my thinking.  Why can’t we fix the dependence on fossil fuels?  It is not a matter of capability, it is a matter of will, priority, and determination, the things that split the atom, put a man on the moon, won the Cold War, and created a superpower.  Why can’t someone harness that?
• Education… sigh… the combination of having the little one and going to China makes me realize how important education is, and must be, and how little we focus on it in substantial ways in this country.  Can’t some candidate have a truly revolutionary idea and not be restrained by the partisanship of either party’s pet causes?
• Tax policy, again, like the environment, the fiscal state of this country is something that our children have to deal with.  It’s a lot more real thinking the burden large deficits will place on our children in the form of reduced services (and security) and increased payments to the state.
• The state of the nation: I grew up being told this was the greatest country in the world, with the most opportunity, etc… are we making the right decisions now to ensure that when I tell the little one that, I really do mean it? How do we compete in what is an economic and intellectual, not a military, battle with the powers rising in Asia?

The scary thing to me is that for the most part, the people we have making all of these decisions do have kids.  Are they just so insulated by the money and the trust funds of the dynasties they have created or are a part of that these things no longer matter? 

Catching Up

We just arrived back here in Seattle following a week in St. Louis to celebrate the holidays with our families (and see some former co-workers (and do some shopping (and see some friends (and enjoy the StL))))(hope you enjoy the lisp-like parenthesis).  I was reminded harshly by cousin Debbie that I need to post here more often, and of less things work related and more things little g related.  

We’ll see how I do :-)

The Great Power Outage

As part of the other 1.5 million households, we did lose power during the windstorm.  The winds were crazy strong, and when we awoke on Friday morning, alas, no power.  We made the best of it, as the little g and I got to camp out while Libby went to work (the hospital needed all hands on deck as many folks could not make it into work due to trees being down (or garage doors)).  The campus was also without power, so we read a lot of books.  I finished “The World is Flat” after enjoying it for some time.  I had a lot of the same observations while I was in Beijing (and the same fears re: our education system).

By Saturday morning, we were brave enough to head out for some much needed coffee.  Feeling refueled, I headed to REI to pick up a much needed camping stove (mainly so we could get some hot coffee).  The stove provided some much needed hot coffee (and hot meals) during the very cold Saturday night.  Sunday, Libby had to head back to work, but fortunately, around 3 or so in the afternoon power returned.  I quickly did the dishes / laundry (see later point about pug) and turned the heat on.  We happily packed up the stove, maybe we should do some camping now :-)

Videos

 dark outside

Video: really dark outside

libby and grace crave some coffee

Video: craving coffee

our cool little stove

Video: cooking ravioli

grace singing and eating

Video: Grace Eating and Singing

Pictures

Gas Station Lines

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Libby and Grace next to a tree down at the beach

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grace all bundled up for the night

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Trip Home

All I can sa is thank goodness we didn’t go through Denver, instead electing to fly through Phoenix on US Air.

The New Arrival

My new nephew Ian arrived the day after we did.  It was so awesome to see him less than an hour after his grand entrance into the world. Picture available on Mark’s flickr site here.

Christmas

Prior to Christmas, we did do a little bit of shopping for each other and for all of the other folks we were giving gifts to.  This was the hectic part of the trip, as we had planned on doing our shopping the previous weekend in Seattle and shipping things down to StL for the holidays.  The power outage changed that.  That was for the best, we found some great gifts at City Sprouts.

On Christmas Eve, we met up with our friends Pam and Jim (headed soon to Dallas) and Kurt and Katie for a quick breakfast.  We met up for a slow lunch with my parents and my brother and then headed down to St. John’s for Christmas Eve Mass.  St. John’s was (is) our parish of record and is always a highlight when we stop in St. Louis.  It is a really cool, smaller parish with a pretty tight knit group of parishners.  In short, it was nice seeing all those folks.  From there we headed to Mark and Ellen’s (cousins) to celebrate Christmas Eve with my paternal relatives.  Grace got to sit on Santa’s lap (an experience best captured in pictures)

Christmas morning started at Libby’s parent’s house (our hosts for this trip home), where the first of many Grace gifts were opened.

Then we headed to my parent’s house where my dad took what might be the Christmas card photo:

The day was just starting, as we headed to my maternal grandmother’s house, my sister’s house to see the baby again :-) and then to Libby’s aunt and uncle’s house for the dinner to end the evening.  Or so we thought.  No trip home would be complete without a journey to the ER.  Grace had been scratching at her ear and was showing some signs of an ear infection, so at 10:30 we headed down to Cardinal Glennon Children’s hospital to get her checked out.  Sure enough, she had an ear infection, which we got some drugs for and headed back to get a few z’s before packing and heading back.  At least they let her keep the hospital gown:

The return trip was uneventful, though makred by Grace’s first first-class flight.  Due to Libby’s work schedule we needed to head back on the 26th.  That made the one-way segment on the 26th outrageously expensive (everybody else flying back after the holidays away, or onto destination 2 for you folks with family in multiple locations.  When we bought the ticket, it was only an extra $30 for first-class which we took advantage of it.  Grace enjoyed it, especially having a flight attendent to herself to entertain the entire flight.

Then we got here, ordered some pizza and watched what was on the tivo.  Caught a few z’s and got ready for work when I did the most bone-headed thing I’ve done in a few years.  I forgot about the pole right next to me when I was backing out and put a serious crunch in the driver side fender.  I’m such an idiot.

We’ll be calling the insurance company on that one.  Like I said, I feel like a total idiot, but I’m glad it wasn’t a person or I wasn’t driving 70mph on the highway when I had my mental lapse.

 

Finally, about the pug (pictured above).  We found out she’s got a pretty nasty set of kidney stones, and some bizarro liver issues.  She’ll probably be undergoing a pretty big surgery in the next couple of days.  Your doggie thoughts are greatly appreciated.

 

Special thanks to our families for all of the time we got to spend with them, especially our parents.  It was really good to see everyone.  A special thanks to my sister for waiting a few days past the due date to have the baby when we were there. 

more postings coming soon

And this time I really mean it.  I’m waiting for some videos to finish processing up on soapbox and then I will post.  In the mean time, here’s a picture of the little one to keep you occupied!