Wiggle Worm

Phoebe is now an expert roller - she can even strategically roll/scoot to accomplish small tasks.  This new skill is primarily used at baby group to steal toys from other kids.  Last time we went, Phoebe kept rolling from side to side to steal things that the babies next to us were playing with - I hope we don't have a tiny bully on our hands!  Phoebe is constantly on the move.  Whether she is on the ground or in our arms, she is always flopping, flipping, wiggling, and squirming.  While it has been fun to watch her explore more, it also makes a lot of things more difficult.  We definitely have to keep a much closer eye on her and previously easy tasks (say changing a diaper) are infinitely more difficult now that the munchkin cannot hold still for two consecutive seconds:

Oh, were you trying to change my diaper?  Good luck with that.

Phoebe is even on the move in her sleep.  While swaddled.  We used to plunk her down in the middle of the Pack and Play and she'd be in the same spot when she woke up.  Now, despite being put to sleep in the middle, when she gets up she has usually wiggled her way into a corner, or smashed herself up against the side.  When we put her to bed, Phoebe is in a sleep sack with a velcro swaddle, so it is especially impressive that she manages to move so much.  She flops around by arching her back and flinging her feet in the direction she wants to go.  If this keeps up, we feel like we're going to need to wean her from the swaddle so her arms will be free in case she accidentally flops into a position that she needs to get out of.

Of course, Phoebe's main motivation for mobility remains her frantic desire to catch a kitty

 
Phoebe is obsessed with Danger.  No matter what else is going on, if Danger walks past Phoebe immediately focuses on him and tries as hard as she can to move in his general direction.  Danger, for his part, is really good with Phoebe.  He lets her get fairly close and despite her grabby nature, he has never taken a swipe at her.  Today Danger accidentally got too close to Phoebe and she grabbed his tail - really hard - and would not let go.  Danger just meowed and looked at us (where as if either Jeremy or I had grabbed his tail, we would be writing this update from the ER).  Danger has also learned that when he tolerates attention from the baby, he gets some kitty treats.  Every time Phoebe touches him, he runs over to the treat drawer and waits to be compensated for his suffering.  We're a little worried that he is going to start trying to draw fouls from the baby to score more treats.  Maybe we've been letting Danger watch too much NBA. 

Grandma is coming! Grandma is coming!

My mom is coming for a visit on Thursday and we can't wait for her to get here!  We have tons of plans for grandma's visit!  My mom sure can pick great times to come - her last visit was during the worst of the colic phase and this time she's coming just in time for the worst of teething - grandma must be a sucker for punishment :)  Last time mom was here she cleaned our apartment, filled our fridge with food, baby sat so we could have a night out, and spoiled Phoebe rotten.  We're looking forward to more of the same - we even have a restaurant all picked out for date night.  I also haven't forgotten that last time mom was here, she offered to help me figure out how to create some more storage in our laundry room and kitchen - it will definitely be a busy visit!  The super-exciting thing we'll do this visit is make and store a bunch of baby food!  I can't wait!  We'll see you Thursday mom - Phoebe and I will be waiting at the airport!!

Lots of Updates

I am "multitasking" in a meeting right now (shhhh) and since I'm not on my regular computer I don't have access to pictures, but I thought I'd give a few quick updates on what we've been up to since the great stomach virus incident.  Phoebe has turned into quite the social butterfly, and we've really enjoyed taking her out to visit with friends and to introduce her to new places and experiences. 

The weekend after the stomach flu, we went to a graduation party for the seniors in our department on Saturday.  It was really fun to introduce Phoebe to some of my students - although several of them didn't know her name, so they referred to her as "mini-Kate" throughout the night :)  The party was at the home of another faculty member and it was beautiful!!  The directions to get there were pretty crazy (e.g. "look for the white arch, drive under the arch and angle left through the green gate") - quite the adventure.  The house is nestled into the hills, is full of windows and has an amazing view of the valley and mountains - definitely a reminder that we live in a beautiful part of the country.  Of course, we figured the only way that we would ever live in a house like that is if the hosting faculty member would adopt us :) 

That Sunday, we all went to Palo Alto for a birthday party - Phoebe got her first official invitation!  A friend of mine from graduate school has a little boy who turned one and they had a lovely party!  We all had a great time and Phoebe especially loved watching the older kids attack the pinata (there were only two minor injuries involved).  While we were there, we met another couple with a baby the same age as Phoebe.  This baby was normal four month size which just kind of drove home that Phoebe is giant for her age.  We joked that we hope Phoebe never wants to take up ballet because she clearly will never have the necessary petite frame.  A friend said "well, it's never too early to get her excited about rugby" :)  After the party we met our friends Kristen and Geoff and their little boy for dinner.  Their little boy knows lots of cool tricks, among them, he will give you a fist bump.  At one point he gave Phoebe a fist bump and she just happened to be making a fist at the time, so he assumed she was hip to the game.  Sadly, the rest of the night any time a fist bump was attempted, Phoebe left her little friend hanging - it was adorable to watch him repeatedly try though!

On Thursday, Geoff came down and he and Jeremy took Phoebe to watch the tour of California (a big bike race) since the route went right through Fort Ord this year.  A good time was had by all.  This weekend was graduation for my students, so I had a few events I had to be on campus for.  Other than that, we mostly hung around the house, did chores, and ran errands.  This weekend was a little rough because Phoebe has been really grumpy.  We are pretty sure she is teething.  Both our babysitter (who has three kids of her own) and Geoff independently suggested that they thought the munchkin might be working on a few chompers and we agree!  Teething definitely means that the fussbudget is back (at least temporarily).  It is hard for us because we just want to make her feel better, but there isn't a lot we can do.  We've been giving her lots to chew on and we make sure we take her out at least once a day - having a change of scenery and strangers to flirt with seems to take her mind off her discomfort at least temporarily.  We don't want to give her Orajel  or Tylenol - the former because the FDA has issued warnings about it (also the pediatric dentists says it doesn't really work) and the later because our doctor is really against giving medication for anything other than a fever, and we agree - we don't want to get into a cycle of continuously giving her Tylenol over a long period of time. I tried to get a picture of the little pre-tooth bumps in Phoebe's mouth, but that just isn't going to happen.  The little grumpus has been particularly uncooperative when we try to check them out. 

The other thing we've started to do is wash Phoebe's 6-9 and 6-12 month sized clothes and add them to the rotation.  My friend Kirsten gave me great advice that you should occasionally try the bigger sized clothes because you never know when they'll start to fit and you don't want to have a bunch of stuff that never gets worn.  A few weeks ago, we realized that Phoebe was starting to outgrow some of her 3-6 month clothes so we broke out our 6+ stash.  Some of it is still big, but some of it actually fits pretty well.  Thanks to my mom and some garage saleing/consignment storing that Jeremy and I did, Phoebe has most of what she needs.  The one thing I had to order is jackets.  It gets chilly/windy here, so we typically dress in layers and always make sure we have some sort of jacket tucked away when we go out.  I had gotten this really cool sweater at a garage sale that I was planning on using as Phoebe's 6-12 month jacket.  When I went to throw it in the wash, I realized the care tag was suspiciously long - uh oh.  It turns out the care instructions were: hand wash in cold water with mild soap.  Do not twist or ring.  Lay flat on towel to dry. ... for best results DRY CLEAN?  What?  Yeah, Jeremy and I don't dry clean our own clothes.  Or rather, we do about once every two years when we get invited to either a wedding or a funeral and we have to frantically find and clean Jeremy's suit.  And hand washing?  No.  If I have something that says "hand wash", I throw it in with the rest of my clothes on the permanent press cycle with our regular detergent - if it doesn't survive I assume it just wasn't meant to be.  (I did at one point have a small pile of laundry set aside to hand wash, we moved it.  Dirty.  Three times).  We are just not hand wash people   Having seen what Phoebe does to clothes there is just no way we are hand washing anything of hers either.  Given that we are often doing baby laundry at odd hours of the night/morning because we just used up the last clean sheet/sleeper/blanket everything just needs to be able to get thrown in the washer and the dryer with regular detergent and no fuss.  Instructions that say hand wash might as well say "wear once and discard".  Luckily LL Bean makes lovely baby fleece jackets that are machine washable, machine dryable and have a lifetime guarantee.  SOLD!

Since the sweater was lovely, I took it to mom group to see if anyone else wanted it.  There were no takers.  One of the other moms said "It is a great sweater - it would be the perfect jacket for a baby that doesn't drool or spit up or ... eat anything" - and we all burst out in giggles.  Another mom pointed out that probably the reason the sweater looked brand new despite being used is that the previous family never wore it either.  We joked that the sweater was probably passed from family to family as busy mom after busy mom took one look at that hand wash/dry clean label, snorted, and threw it in the garage sale pile.   I would like to say the cycle ended with me, but I threw the sweater in the donation bin on my way out of class.  I am sure that somewhere out there is a mom who happily hand washes baby sweaters and more power to her - she has a lovely gender-neutral fair isle sweater headed her way.  I think Phoebe is a fleece girl all the way (just like her parents!). 

Speaking of why Phoebe only wears machine washable clothes ... we have started some simple solids!  I was hoping to write about that, but I think I'll wait until I can post pictures (who doesn't love a good baby-smeared-with-food picture).  Whew - that was a lot of updates.  I think I am finally (mostly) caught up and this meeting is wrapping up.  I have another meeting this afternoon though, so if I left anything out I can do another post then :)  Happy Monday Everyone!

Go Bulls!

In case you didn't know, Jeremy and I have what is called a mixed marriage.  When it was just the two of us, it was easy enough to each do our own thing, but when Phoebe entered the mix we had to make some tough decisions about how to raise our child.  After much discussion, we arrived at the compromise that she would be a fan of Chicago professional sports teams, but would cheer for the University of Michigan in all college athletics (GO BLUE!).  Anyway, the Bulls are currently in the playoffs so a couple of times a week, Jeremy watches a game. 

In general, we try not to let Phoebe watch too much TV (even though I believe I have conclusive proof that my dad was wrong about the whole TV turning your brain to mush thing).  We do make exceptions to the TV rule occasionally.  Especially when we are feeling lazy.  The last playoff game came on a day when Phoebe had been particularly fussy and we were both tired, so we decided she could have at 60 minutes of overstimulating TV goodness and watch the Bulls (it really is too bad that they don't have a Nobel prize in parenting because we would totally win it).  When I poked my head into the living room from the kitchen, this is what I saw:

In case you can't tell - that baby is GLUED to the TV.  Oh well.  Not our proudest moment as parents, but I am sure we have committed/will commit far worse parenting sins.  In fact, to make things easier for everyone, we're just keeping a list of all the ways we screw up as parents.  We figure we can just give it to Phoebe's therapist some day and save her at least a dozen billable hours. 

We did try to get her a mini Bulls t-shirt, the Old Navy out here (of all places) had baby Bulls t-shirts, but Jeremy thought if we bought one too early, it would jinx the Bulls chances of getting into the playoffs.  By the time the Bulls were sufficiently advanced that t-shirt purchasing seemed safe, Old Navy only had 5T shirts left.  The guy said the closest store that still had 6 month sized ones was 30 minutes away - at which point we decided our fandom had its limits.  I think we're more like 10 minute drive for a baby t-shirt type fans - 30 minutes is just plain crazy!  I pointed out that Old Navy did still have 6 month sized t-shirts for the Lakers and the Celtics, but Jeremy wasn't persuaded to change his allegiance, so Phoebe just watched the game in her PJs. 

They're Ba-aaaack

Remember a while back when I posted about the ferocious gangs of wild turkeys that roam our neighborhood causing trouble and looking for blood?  They're back.   And they mean business.  Tuesday when I got home from work there were three turkeys hanging out in our driveway.  That left me in a bit of a pickle because I usually park in the driveway.  I tried to pull part of the way in, but the turkeys weren't budging.  On top of that, one of them shot me a look that definitely said "just try to park here lady - make my day".  Needless to say, I was not about to mess with that turkey, so I parked down the block.

Now, I had another issue as the turkeys were blocking my path to the front door and it did not look like they were going anywhere any time soon.  Keep in mind these are not your delicious, lovable Butterballs - these are GIANT KILLER TURKEYS.  Just as I was starting to imagine the local news headlines that would result from my early demise via turkey mauling, I remembered that we had a back door.  Unfortunately, our back door doesn't open with the key.  No worries I thought - surely my loving husband will come open the door.  I walked around back, let myself through the gate and called Jeremy.  No answer.  I killed five minutes and tried again.  Still no answer.  Now I was really worried - I was clearly going to have to go around and face the killer birds.  Not to mention, by now they would have had time to split up and block my retreat to the car as well. 

Luckily, as I was rounding the corner of the building, one of the guys from the end of the block (who was apparently really worried that the turkeys would poop on the sidewalk) drove past and started blasting his horn.  I don't think the turkeys were scared as much as they were annoyed.  I am also pretty sure they jotted down the guy's license plate number as they retreated (if I were him, I'd sleep with one eye open).   Anyway, 15 minutes after arriving home, I finally made it (unharmed) through the front door.  You would think that after all of that, my husband would be (a) relieved that I made it home in one piece and (b) apologetic about missing my call and thus leaving me at the mercy of the turkeys.  Let's just say, you would be wrong.  Jeremy is still making fun of me days later.  Whatever.  I didn't get eaten by turkeys so I am still going to call it a win. 

Mommy's Girl

The other day, Jeremy went out and picked up coffee and bagels for breakfast.  Phoebe desperately wanted to get at my Starbucks!  Every time she saw the cup, Phoebe would fling herself towards it.  I (obviously) didn't give the baby any coffee (I desperately needed it all for myself) but it does make a hilarious picture!

Movie!

Here is our attempt to take a movie with our camera.  At some point we really need to get an actual video camera, but our regular camera does ok.  Phoebe loves her daddy!  The two of them have a bunch of games that they play together.  This video showcases two of the current favorites: "tickle feet" and "touchdown" - enjoy!

Baby's First Stomach Virus - YUCK!

It has been a long time since our last post - for good reason - we had a stomach virus sweep through the family last week and we're just starting to return to normal.  We knew that when we started Phoebe at daycare, there would be some germs involved.  I don't think we were quite prepared for months of unrelenting illness.  Pretty much since the munchkin started daycare one of us has been sick - while Phoebe is usually the first to get sick, Jeremy and I always seem to end up with a worse case of the baby-disease-du-jour.  We joke that our daycare center is probably secretly backed by the CIA and the CDC for biological weapons research.  Nobody ever suspects the babies!

This latest round started last Tuesday.  Phoebe went to a half day of daycare while Jeremy worked in a coffee shop nearby.  After he picked her up, they came and ate lunch with me and then went home for some quality baby-daddy time.  Phoebe was a little fussy, but we didn't really think anything of it.  Before bed she drained a huge bottle and snuggled right down to sleep with no problems.  I headed up to bed around 9:30 and I had just pulled up the covers when I heard a pretty gross sound coming from the pack-and-play.  At this point, I wasn't quite sure what was going on, but it was clear that something wasn't right, so I called for Jeremy while I fumbled for the light switch. 

Jeremy got there just as I got the light on and we saw that Phoebe had vomited up the entire contents of her huge pre-bed time bottle.  We're pretty familiar with spit up, but this was something entirely different.  She was soaked, the bedding was soaked ... there were puddles.  I snuggled Phoebe until she calmed down and then cleaned her up while Jeremy changed the sheets on the Pack and Play.  At this point, I was a little worried about the munchkin but Jeremy figured it was just a huge spit up and even said that next time I called him like that, there better be blood involved.  Hmph.

It was probably about 20 minutes until the next vomiting episode (and our 2nd baby wardrobe change of the night).  This time, there was a bit of leftover bottle contents, but the rest was greenish-yellow.  Then there was another all green-yellow puke (this time I was holding Phoebe when it happened so we both got new clothes).  At this point even Jeremy agreed that we should call the on-call pediatrician.  The on-call doctor was great!  He answered right away and was very helpful.  He sent us out to get some Pedialyte and said to feed Phoebe only Pedialyte until the morning and then bring her in to get checked out.  While Jeremy ran to the grocery store, I rocked Phoebe who vomited again (more clean clothes!).  When Jeremy got back, we tried to feed Phoebe some of the Pedialyte, but she was not a fan.  We finally got her to drink a little and it pretty immediately came back up.  At this point, pretty much all the baby bedding we own was dirty, not to mention I had gone through several shirts and Phoebe was on her fifth sleeper of the night.  We threw in some laundry and decided to see if we could all get some sleep.  Unfortunately, the poor little munchkin just kept puking.  Since she kept throwing up and she wouldn't drink anything, we started to get very worried about dehydration (this is a big concern with infants since they are so little).  We called the doctor back.  At this point he said we might want to go ahead and take Phoebe to the ER to get checked out. 

At the hospital, despite continuing to puke (including once in the car and once all over the triage nurse's office) Phoebe was actually in a pretty good mood.  Between bouts of vomit, she smiled and flirted with all the nurses and doctors.  Jeremy and I were exhausted (we were at the hospital from 11 PM to 4 AM) but Phoebe seemed wide awake, cheerful, and ready to party.  The nurses had to keep devising new methods of keeping her pulse monitor on since Phoebe kept kicking it off.  Here Jeremy is trying to reattach it yet again:

(Sorry, not a great picture, but it was taken with a phone and Blogger helpfully rotated it for me)

The doctor in the ER gave Phoebe some medicine to help with the puking and (after vomiting up the first dose and getting a second) it really seemed to help.  The nurse gave her some Pedialyte (and showed us how adding a splash of juice makes it much tastier) and Phoebe was able to keep it down, so they sent us home. The whole thing was one of the scariest things we've faced as parents so far!  

Despite being up all night, Phoebe only slept for another four hours after we got home.  Wednesday was a rough day for everyone.  We took Phoebe to the pediatrician for a follow up and he said that there was a bug going around, so she probably had that.  He told us to expect a few days of diarrhea and to add a few bottles of Pedialyte to Phoebe's daily intake.  Luckily, the little munchkin seemed to skip the next phase of the bug - although we kept her in disposable diapers for a few days just in case - our dedication to cloth diapering has its limits.  There were a few days of pretty light eating, and fitful sleeping (several long stretches of awake time at night) but other than that, Phoebe seemed to bounce back very quickly.  

It was a different story for me.  I started to get sick Wednesday night.  I was up pretty much all night and then was a complete mess all day on Thursday.  I will spare you the details, but as an example, on Thursday I ate five oyster crackers for lunch.  It took me two hours.  Yeah, it was that bad.  I was still in really bad shape on Friday.  I had some meetings I had to go to, so I went to work anyway which was not a good idea. Luckily Jeremy managed to escape most of the killer stomach virus and only felt a bit under the weather for a few hours on Friday. 

Typically I try to clean with only environmentally friendly products and to avoid antibacterial products (that's a post for another day), but after this, we did feel the need to wipe down the bathrooms with disinfectant.  Hopefully we've killed the germs and we won't be getting a second go-round with this lovely virus!  We are all pretty much back to normal now, although I am extra sensitive to noises from the Pack and Play in the middle of the night.  We're even all caught up on laundry :)

On the Move

Phoebe is getting better at using a combination of rolling, scooting and turning to move herself around.  She still can't get too far, and her aim isn't great, but it is clear that she is determined to conquer mobility.

Here is a sequence from the other day.  We had put her down in the middle of her playmat, she somehow scooted to the edge and then:

Mother's Day

Being a mother has really made me appreciate my own mom a lot more :)  Thank you for everything mom!  Happy Mother's Day!! 

On Mother's Day and my mom's birthday, John's friend Nephtali always tries to call my mom first so that he can maintain his position as "favorite child".  This year I think I managed to beat him - but since John was already over at the house I think I still only came in second.

We had a pretty busy weekend here at the Gottwood house.  Saturday I volunteered at an outreach event for middle school girls, so Jeremy and Phoebe got to hang out all day.  Apparently Phoebe decided to take a three hour nap but would only stay asleep while Jeremy was holding her - so they got a lot of snuggles!  When I got home we went to the local deli and met some friends for dinner.  It is so nice to be able to take Phoebe out more.  It is also really nice that all of our friends here really like her and are always happy to take a turn holding her for us. 

Today we ran a lot of errands and got Phoebe a nice new floor mat for rolling around on.  We didn't get it set up until after she went to bed, so we'll have to post pictures later in the week after she gets a chance to check it out.  This evening we went to my friend Bude's house for dinner - it was delicious!  She and her husband made yummy homemade Chinese food and Jeremy and I both stuffed ourselves.  Bude has an adorable kindergarten aged son, and we always have fun playing with him.  He is really into dinosaurs right now so we all took turns playing a made up dinosaur game that had an awful lot of rules (and Bude's son always seemed to win) :)  We had a great time and Phoebe did great - until the very end.  We ended up lingering a bit too long over tea and dessert and definitely passed the point where she turns into a pumpkin.  Now we know we need to keep an eye on the clock when we're out with the munchkin - it is in everyone's best interest if we are home by 7:30 at the very latest. 

Hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day!!

BIG Baby

Yesterday was Phoebe's four month appointment at the pediatrician.  She is perfectly healthy and HUGE for her age.  Here are the stats:

Head Circumference: 42.5 cm (90th percentile - this is up from the 25th percentile last time - so clearly her noggin has been doing some growing - making room for giant brains we hope!)
Weight: 14 pounds, 4 ounces (75th percentile)
Length: 27 inches (97th percentile)

The doctor looked at the numbers the nurse wrote down and then went to chart Phoebe's progress on the graph in her file.  The doctor looked up and said "that can't be right - I am going to have to remeasure her" - then she got exactly the same measurements as the nurse.  Apparently Phoebe had a GIANT growth spurt some time in the last few months.  We're guessing that explains her never-ending appetite and occasional grumpiness.  We also figure that this is probably a good indication that Phoebe got some Grandpa Lockwood genes since Jeremy didn't make it to 27 inches until around the ninth grade.  Phoebe's length also means we only have two more inches until she outgrows her infant car seat!  Yikes!  She's also quickly outgrowing her 3-6 month clothes - in length, but not in width.

The other exciting news from the doctor is that we can start Phoebe on solid foods whenever we want!  For a while now, Phoebe has shown a lot of interest in what we're eating.  I occasionally have to pry a handful of my dinner out of a tightly clenched baby fist.  We're going to start with some really thin rice cereal this weekend to see how it goes.

Since we were at a well-baby visit, of course there were shots.  Phoebe got three shots and an oral vaccine and she did really well.  It is so sad to watch the look of shock on her face when she gets stuck with the needle but after just about a minute of crying, she settled right down and was pretty much fine for the rest of the day.  We even went to the farmer's market and out for frozen yogurt in the evening!

The doctor said that Phoebe is doing great!  We're even going to taper her off of the baby Zantac.  The only potential issue is that right now Phoebe has a click in her left hip.  The doctor said it isn't anything that needs to be addressed right away (and could just be a side effect of the crazy growth spurt) but that we should keep an eye on it and if it gets worse we'll get a baby x-ray to check it out.

May the Fourth ...

For those of you that aren't GIANT nerds (which probably is a very small set of the readers of this blog) today is Star Wars Day.  (May the Fourth be with you - get it?)  Anyway, in honor of the "holiday" we dressed Phoebe in her Darth Vader t-shirt:

Frankly, I think she looks a little too happy to be representing the Dark Side :) 

Jeremy spent all day saying "Phoebe, I am your father" in his best Darth Vader voice (which actually ends up sounding a little more Terminator meets Homer Simpson than James Earl Jones).

I think it is the lady bug socks that really make the outfit :)

It's even more menacing when you add a lacy sun hat and ruffle-butt pants. 

Clearly poor Phoebe is doomed to a life of being the child of nerds.  At least she seems to be taking it all in stride for now. 

Danger's #1 Fan

The cats are not exactly thrilled with our decision to bring Phoebe home.  However, Phoebe is completely fascinated by them - especially Danger.  Every time Phoebe sees Danger go by, she flings her body in his general direction.  I think that her main motivation for learning to crawl will be to catch the cat! 

(In the pictures that follow just ignore my outfit please.  We spent most of the day cleaning and doing chores, so I am definitely not looking my best.  However, please feel free to admire the cleanliness of the kitchen floor)

The first three pictures show Phoebe and Danger sizing each other up:

Then ... it was all over.  Phoebe grabbed a giant chunk of Danger.  Clearly we have some work to do teaching the baby about being gentle with the kitty!

Happy 4 Months Phoebe!

Yesterday Phoebe turned four months old - where does the time go?!  To celebrate we spent the day in Santa Cruz at Day by the Bay.  Day by the Bay is part of the alumni weekend celebration at UCSC (where Jeremy goes to school).  There are a bunch of campus and local organizations that set up on one of the big fields and everything is open to the public.  One of our favorite stops was the food court - although it wasn't very balanced.  You had your choice of 3 different wineries, 2 different microbreweries, 3 different cookie shops, ice cream sundaes, corn dogs and garlic fries.  So basically, it was the perfect lunch :)  We all sampled various beverages, split a few orders of garlic fries, and then Jeremy (in the name of science) made sure to sample cookies from each of the different bakeries in order to figure out which was the best. 

We drove up to Santa Cruz with our friend Leslie after a quick stop for sunscreen and Frappuccinos.  Once we got there, we met our friends Geoff and Kristen and their little boy.  A little later, we met up with our friends Sathya and Noga for some real dinner.  I'm not saying that the booze and cookie food court wasn't great and all - but we figured that at some point we needed some actual sustenance.  To set a good example.  For the children. 

Between Day at the Bay and dinner, we wandered around downtown Santa Cruz.  I really like Santa Cruz!  It reminds me a lot of Ann Arbor, only bigger.  The UCSC campus itself is beautiful!  I don't know how any of the students there ever get any work done.  Before we left, we charged up the camera and I intended to take a ton of pictures.  We ended up having so much fun, we just kept forgetting to take out the camera.  From our big day of fun we have a total of ONE picture

That is Phoebe, me and Sammy the Banana Slug, the UCSC mascot (yes, Jeremy is officially a banana slug!).  I was pretty excited to get our picture taken with Sammy, but you can see that Phoebe is less than thrilled.  It looks a little bit like she is scoping out the crowd for some potential new parents.  Maybe ones that won't totally embarrass her by making her get her picture taken with a giant banana slug.  Sorry pumkin!