Lots has happened! Keith has a new job and so we have moved to the San Diego area. Although, I've learned that where I live, saying I'm from San Diego is like someone from Vacaville saying they are from San Francisco. And I have discovered the source of the infamous Southern California smog: you have to drive FOREVER to get ANYWHERE!! It's an hour round trip to the post office, same to the grocery store! I need to find a job just pay for the gas to get the grocery store, never mind the groceries!! Anyways just trying to finish unpacking and organizing. Gotta find places to stash everything! I finally got Taki's room all unpacked and sorted out. Keith moved the futon in today too, so it can function as a guest room. He thinks it's weird to make the baby's room the guest room, but Taki can just sleep with us if we ever do have overnight guests. I don't know WHO would want to sleep on the couch when the most comfortable futon EVER is right there!

It's a pretty cute place. Two bedroom, two bath, fully covered huge back porch, big front yard for Hayden to run around in. I was a little worried about the busy street, but after darting across once when my dad was here, he has been really good about staying close. We've also taken the opportunity to move Taki into his own room instead of sleeping next to us. I don't think he's even noticed! He got a little virus when we first moved here and was out of sorts, but I think he's back to his old cheerful, hungry self. We have all tile floors now, which no amount of mopping can seem to keep clean, so Taki helps me out by scooting around. I have to change his shirt at least twice a day. I'm thinking of pinning one of those micro fiber cloths to his onesie. Seriously. I'm going to try that tomorrow. I may have to prototype one of those for the Etsy shop.....

We are close to my sister- and brother-in-law. It's nice to be close to family, especially cousin Caris who is 5 and 1/2 months younger than Taki. He's too beastly to hang out with her right now, but as soon as she gets a little more robust and can keep up with his strength, I'm excited for them to play together. Melissa and I get to have 'sister-in-law dates' when our husbands are both working. It's nice to have some company for dinner instead of warmed over leftovers and the TV.

We have an adorable four year old boy next door who is so polite - it's so adorable. He addresses me everytime with, "Excuse me!" He wore Hayden out today playing fetch! After coming inside, Hayden flopped down on the tile, panting. Then he would get up and find a new, cool spot on the tile and flop down on his other side. He napped this way for a couple hours. Then he scarfed down double-helpings of his dinner!

Other news of interest: Taki has two new teeth, his front ones on the bottom, first the right, then the left. And his top right teeth have just broken through, but not grown down yet. He cut those while he was sick last week, poor baby was just miserable! They are not the ones right in front, but the third and fourth ones over.

At his nine-month check he was still 97th percentile for height, but he's dropped from 97th to 75th percentile for weight. Makes sense now that he's more active scooting around.

His hair is a very light brown that glows golden in the sun. His eyes are a very interesting mix of browns and grays and greens. I'm excited to see what they'll settle into.

I reopened ErikaLuke.etsy.com late Thursday night, and by the next morning (yesterday) I already had two sales! Since I'm not working outside the house right now, I'm looking forward to getting my sweatshop set up and working to get some more stock in the shop. I've got several nursing covers cut and ready to be sewn up and photographed. Maybe my SIL and her sweet infant will model for me! The lighting is really great around here right now and we have wonderful landscaping for the background. I've also got some samples of dresses and hairbows out with my friend Kristen, a wonderful photographer (KristenElardoPhotography.com). So as soon as I get those file pictures back, I'll be able to start marketing my new line of children's apparel and accessories!!!

I feel like I haven't updated in forever, but I guess I'm actually above par for my once-per-quarter average. Anyways, it's been a busy month, with ups and downs:

UP - we went to San Diego at a few weeks ago to have a little family reunion with the Luke side of the family. All Keith's siblings and parents met up at his brother's place to see all the new babies! In addition to Taki, his sister Ashley had a son that is one day older than Taki, and his brother Jason just had a new little girl in February! It was also the first time I met Jason's other boys. MOSTLY a fun and relaxing vacation, except for being bookended with car repair issues: about 4 miles out from getting there, we blew a tire, and the day before going home, the windshield shattered. Good thing we got our tax refund! I'll edit some pics to this post later.

DOWN - dad is in the hospital. Fell off his bike last Tuesday and was taken by ambulance to UCDMC. Thank god the closest hospital is also the area's #1 trauma center. And the fire station was right around the corner, literally 1 minute from where he was. Anyways, he wasn't wearing helmet (let this be a warning to ya!) so he fractured his skull in the temporal/zygomatic/mastoid area. The shock to his brain caused a small bleed that is a minor concern, but it also is causing him to lose CSF out his left ear. They had hoped it would slow on its own, but it's not, and therefore he has severe headaches and nausea. So they installed a lumbar shunt to try to equalize the pressure, but that means they had to upgrade him back to a neurosurgury ward, out of regular trauma ward. AND the shock to his system has pushed him from borderline to full-blown diabetic, so he has to receive insulin and will likely have to continue to do finger sticks and injections after he is released. We are on day 7 here, with at least another 3 days before they even reevaluate him for discharge. It's been difficult trying to find someone to leave Taki with so I can check in on him and look after him as he is and hour and a half away from us, and between my work schedule and Keith's, we're never off at the same time, and my mom is working as well as caring for my great-aunt who lives another hour away. Sigh. Not much sleep lately, for sure.

UP- did I mention that we got the HUGEST tax return EVER? Perfect timing for car repair issues and me missing so much work to go to the hospital.

UP- always the 'up' in my life: TAKI. Still the most adorable, good-natured, calm and patient baby EVER!!! No teeth yet, but he's starting to pull on his ears more, so maybe soon! Also he's sitting up MUCH better, although we still have to make sure he's braced with the boppy or against the wall of his playpen so he doesn't slam his head on the floor when he flops over. No crawling yet, but he does wriggle and roll around to whatever toy is out of reach. Starting to kind of pull his knees under him and completely push his chest and tummy off the floor with straight arms. Not at the same time though.

And we are fully weaned to bottle. Also eating meat with his solid food which is still stage 2. No chunks until he has teeth, but he loves gumming on teething biscuits. Our poor dog is confused because they look a lot like his dog biscuits! :) His favorite foods are pretty much any fruit and the sweeter veggies like sweet potatoes, carrots, corn and even green beans. Squash upset his tummy a bit right now, so we'll try that again later. Turkey is good, but chicken is kind of yucky smelling and tasting. Even mixing in applesauce doesn't quite do the trick.

He's very talkative: lots of babbling that ALMOST sounds like 'mama'. I like to think so, anyways. I've been trying to start incorporating signs for 'diaper change', 'go to bed', 'mama', 'dada', 'grandma', 'grandpa', 'all done', and 'more'. Not sure if mom and Keith are working on that too, but we'll all get there eventually. Will also edit more pix of Taki to this post later.

Today I met a woman who just lost her child two weeks ago. She came into the office and my coworker unwittingly asked how her babies were doing. The woman responded, "The oldest is four and...we lost one two weeks ago." I was speechless and near tears the rest of the afternoon. She was coming in to get contacts because she thought it would be easier to deal with everything than if she was wearing glasses. It's difficult to see when your glasses are fogged up with tears....but did you know that contacts accumulate protein deposits much more rapidly when you cry a lot?

I just thought, "What would I ever do if lost my precious baby? What if it was my fault that he died?" You hear stories of mom's who deviate from their routine or are so frazzled that they forget their babies in the car. How does life ever go on when something like that happens?

What a difference just a short time makes. A year ago, I was 4 months pregnant, and barely showing. A year before that, I had just met the man who would become my husband. At that time, I very much did as pleased; even though I had been with boyfriends for years, it was just never that serious. They were never the guy I could see myself raising a family with and growing old. But because I couldn't fathom marriage and children, it just didn't matter if I stayed with them or not.

But now. Now, my whole world is completely my husband and our baby (and our dog, too!) Sure, I wish I could finish school and bake full time. But I think that time will come all too soon: the time when Taki and his future siblings no longer need me full time, because they have their school and friends and activities. I cringe at the thought when will Taki struggle to break free of my embrace because he is 'a big boy', too big to cuddle with mama. So now, I try to journal and blog to capture the emotions, and take copious picture and scrapbook them to keep those picture in my mind crisp and clear. Already, I look at pictures from six months ago, and he's so DIFFERENT.

Right now, we are trying to get him to sit up, crawl, hold his own bottle, and pick up cheerios to put in his mouth. All steps to necessary independence and away from us. This week I finally made the almost heartbreaking decision to start weaning him. But I'm glad it will be a slow process because he still loves to cuddle with mama, especially at bedtime.

My grandpa passed away on February 23rd, just before dinner. It was a Monday, so Keith was off. If there was one night I ever needed him to lean on, that was it. Taki and I had just seen him the day before. Two weeks earlier he was in the hospital. I didn't take Taki because, well, it's a hospital, and because he was on IV antibiotics, so I didn't want to expose anyone in either direction. He was talking about things he wanted for his funeral because he said he would be gone in two weeks. He was released from the hospital 5 days later and the next day I took Taki to see him. Unfortunately, he was tired and cranky so he fussed at grandpa at bit. Then we went back the next Sunday but he was very sleepy. Masaki came with Nancy and my mom was there so visited and took the last pictures I ever have of him. Then Gary visited the next day and not 10 minutes after he left, my mom was getting ready to serve him dinner and next she knew he was gone. Two weeks to the day from when I first saw him in the hospital.

We had the funeral yesterday. My auntie wanted us to get up to talk about him. But how could I get up in front of all those people when I couldn't even speak? I had to run out to the car to collect myself before going in to otoki, you know, the eating afterwards. Then my auntie hijacked my child!! Just took him and told Keith and me to go away!! She totally man handled him around to visit all her friends, but he's so heavy he was sliding out of her arms, poor guy.

I'm grateful that I got to introduce my son to him and that I have great pictures to show Taki of him hanging out with his great-grandpa. I just wish he could have his own memories of the man he is named after.

For most of my adult life I lived one or two hours away from them, but when I had the luxury of taking them for granted I only visited my grandparents on holidays, and not even all of them, on average about once every two months. My mom always thought I should go more often since I was the only grandchild. I resented that I never had siblings, and her siblings never had children (at least not until I was already 30). I felt it was unfair to have all the pressure put on me: to do well in school, go to a decent university that they could feel proud telling their friends about, have a great career that they could brag to their friends about, and of course dutifully visit every single holiday and family get-together. Several times, I worked shifts, or in the case of the restaurant industry, it is the nature of the business, that I was working on the holiday, so everyone got together without me. And I didn't really see the point to go up before or after by myself. At the time, I though 6 times a year was plenty and way more than many people get to see their families. But my mom let me know awhile back that grandpa felt neglected by me. I don't know. Where is the right balance between working hard to build your career like your family expects you to, and spending all the time with them that they expect you to be there? Now, I still only visit my grandma with about the same frequency because I am working part time, trying to spend time with my husband on our one day off together, and not subject my child to 4 hours in the car too often. Are those the right reasons for not visiting her every week or whatever my mom thinks I should?

I never really believed in heaven or hell like the judeo-christian tradition, because I'm not. But I do think that all the goodness in my grandfather is now coming back to me. Since he has passed away, I was offered a baking job that I'm excited about for the long term career goals it can provide. Actually, at first I interviewed for a cake decorator, then she called today to offer the job, but that it was going to be for a baker and closer to my house!! It's part time, but it has benefits anyways, medical as well as dental and vision, cool, eh?

First picture of the Takeshi's together.

The Kimura men. That's the uncle that endured my early 'baking'.

Last time I saw him.

My auntie's birthday party.

Love this picture...priceless...


So I was on a pretty good clip there for a few posts, updating every week or so. I guess once every three months is good enough now, eh?

Taki will be 6 months old tomorrow. Hard to believe how tiny he looks in the pictures from his birth-day! I have to admit I was never very maternal. I didn't babysit, no younger siblings, no younger cousins until i was 30! But, when I hold Taki and play with him, it is the most wonderful sound in the world to hear him laugh! Good thing he is such a giggle-goose!! And his smile - it just lights up the whole room. Keith watches him while I go to work part time and when I walk in the door it makes my heart surge with joy to see him turn to the sound of my voice and flash his huge, toothless grin! Maybe it's just because he's usually ready for a meal when I get home, but I like to think that he missed me.

As Taki grows and flourishes, his great grandpa, my grandpa Takeshi is weakening. I used to basically live with them. Whenever I wasn't in school, I stayed at their house. My grandpa used to take me around in his big diesel truck around to look at the ranch. Then, usually we'd go bowling with his buddies. To this day I can't figure out why I bowl right handed when both he and I are left handed. This is probably why I rarely score over 100. Grandpa, on the other hand, was amazing. The man had a wicked hook - and whether you believe it or not, he could nudge that ball over just to where it needed to be with a well-timed lean-and-a-stomp!!!!!

His mom, my great-grandma - we called her oba-a-san - is the reason I cook and bake today. I was allowed to get into whatever I wanted in the kitchen and having a sweet tooth, it was usually the sugar and flour to make cookies. Mind you, I didn't know how to read a recipe - and certainly not any I would have found in her kitchen (they were all in Japanese) - but I copied the moves I saw when she or mom or aunt baked....a little flour, a little sugar, butter, baking soda and voila!! My poor uncle usually got benefit (?!?) of my experiments. Sometimes this was a good thing as when I unwittingly stumbled on a mixture that ended up like flat fortune cookies; sometimes the only good it served was the amusement of all, as when I made oatmeal cookies that could have cracked the granite countertop if you dropped them. This was the same time that I actually did try to read a recipe: it called for 'rolled oats'. So I dumped out the Quaker oats on the counter top and rolled them with a rolling pin!!

Tomorrow Taki and I go to see Grandpa. I had hoped that they would have the time to get to know and love each other but I fear that Taki's only memories of Takeshi will be in pictures. I guess I should be grateful that I was able to introduce my son and his namesake to him.