Trollies, Warm Drinks and Some INTERACTion!

Baby pictures are getting trumped by food, drinks and general San Francisco awesomeness. (I failed to bring my real camera so forgive me for all the cell phone pictures.)

Mike and I attended the Responsys Interact 2013 marketing conference this week. It was three days of mind exploding knowledge, what an experience! Our journey started of with a day-long workshop on responsive design. We heard from marketers at Nordstrom, Williams Sonoma, Verizon, REI, Obama for America and National Geographic to name a few. It was a great mix of business and inspiration. We had the opportunity to hear from Bert Jacobs, CEO of Life is Good, and Captain Sullenberger, the US Airways pilot who landed Flight 1594 on the Hudson. A passenger from the flight also came up to speak about the experience. 

Aside from getting to pack my brain full of marketing ideas and inspiration, I got to enjoy the city. We rode the trolly up and down the San Francisco hills. I had no idea the skill involved in maneuvering a trolly throughout those streets. They don't just drive themselves!

We enjoyed delicious french onion soup at Cafe de la Press the first evening. The next night we started our meal at Wayfare Tavern with bacon wrapped dates and some seriously gourmet deviled eggs (complete with flower garnish).

We wandered through some unique and amazing hotels. 

We enjoyed warm drinks at the Buena Vista after visiting Ghirardelli Square. 

 and visited Fisherman's Wharf. 

A big THANK YOU to Andrew who was a rockin' single dad for 3 days and 2 nights with a sick baby. He made it easy and mostly stress-free to take advantage of this great opportunity I was offered. And Mike was an AWESOME tour guide and traveling companion who happily accommodated my slightly inconvenient pumping schedule. I'm so lucky to have had such a great experience!

Of course I wouldn't end the post without baby pictures....

Now that Aiden can crawl he pretty much just crawls to all the furniture he can pull himself up on. 

The best toys are toys that aren't toys. TROUBLE.

We visited Mama Hinck at Debbie and Gabe's who got Aiden this 

adorable dino outfit and a few new books.   

A Baby With Moves

Aiden's first attempts to crawl were more of a bear crawl.
I caught one of his first few successful attempts to crawl on video.
Now that he can move around, he explores the room and finds toys on his own.

Enjoying some sweet potatoes, another outfit ruined by one meal. 

Yejin came over with her parents Jina and Jeremy for dinner Saturday. Aiden made the blocks "messy" which she did not appreciate. 

We visited my office to say hi to Mr. Mike where Aiden very successfully used Mike's Mac to update his contacts and download a few things. Then we headed to Andrew's office to see 

Scott and meet Master Chief.  

So Many New Things

So many new things happened this week...

Played outside in the grass

Sitting up (a necessary step to crawling)

The beginning of crawling, the beginning of baby-proofing, he's starting to maneuver himself around. 

(pay no attention to the cord behind the chair) 

Went to swim class with mom. 

Swung in the park with his dad and tried out the slide. 

Had a little party for one of our birth class moms getting married in two weeks. 

We had a very relaxed mother's day. I stayed in pj's all day and Andrew took Aiden on their own adventure, so I could enjoy the house to myself. This is my favorite picture because he is keeling over with laughter...

Broccoli successfully DESTROYED! We've been using these mesh bags to help Aiden learn to feed himself (plus they make clean up easier). He loves them because he's far more successful at eating from them than his own hands. 

We've discovered a good trick from daycare. We put an oversized t-shirt on him while he's eating. We aren't ruining outfits at every meal now and it catches all the food that falls into his lap. We remove the shirt and then it's just a quick wipe of his hands and face when he's done eating. Sharing eggs...

I made some delicious BBQ bacon burgers this week. There was too much burger goodness to worry about a bun. 

Andrew cut off all his hair :)

6 Months!

Whoa! Time is definitely speeding up. Aiden weighed 17lb 4oz and measured 27 inches tall at his 6 month appointment this week. He only had to endure 3 shots instead of 4 this time and he did very well. He rocked his pink band aids like a champ!

We hung out with Emily twice this week while Tom worked second shift. She took us to Carkeek Park in Seattle. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful park!

We went over to Rob and Des' to meet two day old little Ben (aka Nacho) this weekend. 

 

So tired...

 

This was Aiden's second swim class. He's learning to climb out of the pool (as much as a baby can)

 and of course going under water (turn your volume down before playing, the pool noise is loud)

Crawling is just barely out of reach.

Since Aiden was about 3 months old we've been going to parent-baby class for working parents every other Sunday with Wendy, one of the instructors from our birth class. It's pretty informal and the conversation is usually led by the parents. Wendy usually provides topics, resources and suggestions. This weekend we discussed managing frustrations and staying connected with your partner which I thought was very useful. Wendy discussed trying to give each parent 20 minutes to themselves each day, guilt free to do whatever they want (not chores or baby related stuff). Together you should try to get 20 minutes of uninterrupted quality time reconnecting each day. These amounts of time aren't huge, so it may not seem that significant? But when your time and energy are completely consumed by work or another person each day, 20 minutes to yourself can be a lifesaver. Wendy pointed out, and I've noticed it's very true, you can't recharge in one big chunk of time every 2 or 3 weeks. A little bit each day helps maintain sanity much more effectively. I've found 20 minutes to be a realistic goal most days. Trying to get 2-3 hours to yourself every now and then becomes a stressful attempt to coordinate and predict schedules. I have been leaving Aiden at daycare for another 30-40 minutes after I get off work a few days a week and getting time to myself home alone. Since I get off early anyway and daycare is only 5 minutes from the house this works out really well. Aiden usually goes to bed around 8 and Andrew and I will usually catch up at that point while getting bottles ready or doing any random cleaning that needs to be done. It's nice to do that stuff together because we can chat and get things done twice as fast. We've been watching Once Upon a Time together on Netflix and playing board games. I go to bed early so Andrew gets time to himself later at night. My mom also gave me advice that I think is very true... if Andrew and I take care of each other everything else will fall into place. It is  a very tough balancing act and is most often still unbalanced. But it's better to constantly be making a small effort rather than waiting to try and work on everything all at once when we magically have tons of time.