By Julie

Last week, Ana discovered during her nightly peek at the aquarium that the fish had died of a disgusting white fuzz that enveloped their entire bodies. Kevin looked it up and learned that it was a fungal infection that took over the gills, i.e. they had been suffocated to death.

I left the room and asked Kevin to scoop out the bodies because my stomach couldn't handle it. In comparison, the kids handled the deaths of their pet fish just fine, until Alex discovered that there was one last fish still alive. When he was told it probably wouldn't make it, he took it very hard. Poor kid.

The snails are still alive and well though, and Ana still visits them every night. In a couple of weeks, once Kevin has gotten a chance to clean the tank, we'll get some more fish. Or who knows, maybe we'll let ourselves be talked into getting a crab or tortoise.


This weekend we invited some friends over. One is expecting a boy only a few weeks after my due date. She was happy to take our old baby boy clothes off our hands, so I spent some time weeding them to make sure nothing inappropriate got passed along. Like this gem of a vest. I don't know about you, but "star warm" sounds way too hot to me. I don't think any baby needs a vest that will keep them THAT warm.

Today was all about me - and Cesar Chavez, I suppose, but mostly me. Kevin and I both had the day off, and he took me out for brunch and shopping. We stopped at the Kiehl's counter at Nordstrom where I embarassed the saleswoman asking if Kiehl's made nipple cream. (They don't.) Then we went to Macy's because I've been so very depressed about my lack of clothing options. Many of my maternity outfits are 10s on the cutesy scale, which was fine back when I didn't need people to take me seriously. But things are different now. So, despite having only 4 more weeks to go, we got me some new shirts all in the name of workplace effectiveness.

Labels: kids, pets, pregnancy, shopping

Comments (0) | Link to this entry

By Kevin

When I started talking about getting a 'sporty' car a few years back, I saw it as the final realization of a dream that started when I was about fifteen. My first two car choices were driven primarily by a severe income shortage. The 70' VW Beetle that was given to me with only 220,000 gentle miles on it and the '93 Civic VX hatchback which was the first car I actually bought.

These days when I think back to '93 it's usually to recall the year in which I met Julie. We got married a year later, started talking about having kids, and rather suddenly I found myself driving an '00 Honda Odyssey. Now there's nothing at all wrong with the Odyssey. I still think it's the greatest minivan on the planet and when I bought it I was very much taken with the idea of carting the family around in a big comfy boat van.

As the kids grew up and started calling it "Daddy's car" to differentiate it from the Prius which was of course "Mommy's car" I started to think that perhaps it would be fun to get something a little smaller and more responsive. I missed driving a manual transmission and feeling a connection with the pavement.

Which takes us back to the quest for a 'sporty' car and several years of trying to reconcile my new, family-oriented life with my nearly twenty year old lust for something fast and entirely irresponsible. I have read reviews, stared at specs, and created massive spreadsheets. It turns out the main problem I had wasn't picking a car, it was picking an acceptable level of practicality. All the cars I wanted in my teens were two-seaters or 2+2 at best. Given the realities of picking up the kids after work every day, these cars would end up sitting in the driveway while I slogged around town in the minivan M-F. Then there were the times I swung the other direction and convinced myself that I really didn't need much 'sport' in my sports car to be happy.

K: Well, I've picked my new car.
J: Again?
K: Yep. Civic Si Sedan.
J: A Civic?
K: No no, it's fine, it's a 5-seater. They're bigger than they used to be.
J: A Civic?
K: It's the Si...
J: Your mid-life crisis car will NOT be a Civic.

Well, I'm definitely too old to be having a quarter-life crisis so lets call this a one-third-life crisis. Whatever. I'm fortunate to have a wife who absolutely refuses to back down when she knows I'm being a stupid-head, so she forcibly kept me away from Honda dealerships until I found something better.

Yesterday she bought it for me.



Seats five. 6-speed manual transmission.
Five doors. 1/4 mile in low 14s @101mph.
Room for groceries. Turbocharged 2.3L DFI.
Nice smooth ride. 18" alloys on multi-link suspension.
Did I mention the five seats? Limited slip differential.
$21,800. 263hp and 280ft*lbs of torque.

When Alex first saw it yesterday he said "Yeah! Daddy got his race car!" and when I picked Ana up from the babysitter today she ran out into the driveway, hugged my car (!) and jumped into her car seat.

Labels: kids, midlife crisis, shopping, toys

Comments (3) | Link to this entry

By Julie

Today I got a call from Alex's school. He had an allergic reaction to freshly mowed grass and was waiting in the nurse's office. When I picked him up, his eyes were still puffy, poor thing. I asked how I would go about keeping a bottle of Children's Benadryl at school in case this happens again, and they gave me a form for his doctor to sign.

Alex inherited allergies from both of us. We react to similar things but to varying degrees. I'm much more allergic to grass than Kevin is, and he is much more allergic to cats than I am. The list goes on. This season has been particularly bad for me. I've been alternating between Sudafed and Benadryl, i.e. whenever the Sudafed starts making my nose bleed, I switch to Benadryl, and whenever the Benadryl makes me too sleepy, I switch back to Sudafed.

In related news, we've been trying to hire a gardener for a year now. The latest attempt occurred this past weekend. The fellow had left an ad on our doorstep, but when I called and asked him to come give us a quote, he didn't show. I guess business has been too good.

Labels: allergies, gardening, kids, meds

Comments (0) | Link to this entry

By Julie

Monday morning, while I was still struggling to get out of bed, Kevin went to the kids' room. By the time I finally got up, they were already out of pajamas and in their school clothes. Kevin pointed out that he had dressed them both in green.

"That's nice," I said absent-mindedly. Meanwhile I dressed myself in blue. It wasn't until I got to work that I realized it was St. Patrick's Day. Duh.

I'm in the 34th week now. For some reason my weight hasn't changed. I'm still at +20, but it feels like +100. My backaches come and go with no apparent cause other than the fact that I'm in the 3rd trimester. When I sit too close to or on the ground, it takes me a long time to get up on my feet. And forget about climbing stairs. You might as well be suggesting I climb Mt. Everest.

The baby's movements have been intense. Sometimes she'll jab or kick so hard that you can actually see her fist or foot against my skin, stretching it several inches out. Kevin has been taking video. I'm too self conscious to share them at this moment. Maybe I'll change my mind later.


We've had American Idol Encore for 5 days now and we're still singing our hearts out. Alex has almost mastered "Black Hole Sun" and "Rio," and tonight he started learning "I Just Died in Your Arms." Kevin's been getting great scores on pretty much every song he tries, even ones with female vocals, like Madonna's "Holiday" and Fergie's "Glamorous." My (now not so) secret ambition is to get 100% on "Midnight Train to Georgia." You can stop laughing now...

Labels: kids, music, pregnancy, toys

Comments (0) | Link to this entry

By Julie

Busy Saturday. Enjoyed dim sum with my parents and sister's family, then ran a ton of errands, including a stop at Petsmart, where the kids bought some snails and fish. Meanwhile, I picked up literature on Petsmart's doggy day camp. Daisy is a friendly enough dog, but she doesn't socialize with other dogs much. Even though we count several dog owners among our friends, we rarely see each other while with our dogs. Maybe it would be worth 20 bucks to let Daisy enjoy a day among other dogs.


Saturday evening was spent singing ourselves hoarse playing our newest Wii game, American Idol Encore. From left to right, these avatars represent Kevin, Alex, and me. I know the butterfly wings look silly, but the kids like them, so they're staying put for now. I don't think we'll be getting Guitar Hero III or Rock Band anytime soon. I'll concede that the Rock Band drum set holds some merit because it actually teaches kids how to play a real life musical instrument, but the fake guitars just seem silly, especially since we have two real electric guitars. If Alex ever wants to play, we'll sign him up for lessons. Or he can just go over to his friend J's house because J's older brothers have Guitar Hero III.

This afternoon J invited him over to play. He lives in the same tract we do, a stone's throw away. A couple of years ago, when Kevin was over there during J's birthday party, a fellow parent commented on the very bling bling car in the driveway next door, and J's dad said his neighbor was a member of an extremely well-known hip hop group.

This is not the only person we know of in the entertainment industry that lives in suburbia. There's the movie producer that lives up the hill on a horse property, the drummer we met at a friend's dinner party who still calls the suburbs of San Diego home despite using L.A. as his official address, and the notorious rapper who lives about a mile from our babysitter's house in the next city over.

Not too long ago, the rapper came up in conversation with a friend of ours, who refused to believe that a guy with such an urban musical persona could possibly live in the suburbs. Her doubt was so contagious that we ended up fact-checking ourselves. Since then Kevin has confirmed that not only did this guy coach his son's football team, he even started his own league. (Plus the police recently came to his house... but we really don't need to go there.)

Today it occurred to me that perhaps the suburbs might be the best place for famous people to hide live. The public expects celebrities to live in places like the Hollywood Hills or Malibu, and they even take tour buses that drive them around so they can ogle these houses, but I doubt they would make the 40 minute trek out to Walnut to stare at nondescript tract homes, where the only way you could possibly stand out is if you didn't maintain your front yard according to city code.

As for the neighbors of famous people, what's their incentive for guarding these celebs' privacy? Well, I for one wouldn't want tour buses unloading camera-wielding groupies on to my lawn. I think that's incentive enough :)

Labels: famous people, kids, pets

Comments (0) | Link to this entry

By Julie

Yesterday morning, on the drive to daycare...

Ana: Mommy, can you still call me Ana when I'm big?

Me: Of course, sweetie.

Ana: Can I still play Littlest Pet Shop when I'm big?

Me: You can play with Littlest Pet Shop for as long as you like.

Ana: *beams*


When I got to work, I had to write a report on what I've been doing for the past 2 months at the request of a higher up, with time estimates for each project. (It wasn't targeted at me; all of my coworkers had to do it.)

I have mixed feelings about this kind of thing. Sure, it felt good to see how much I've accomplished, but I already spend 2 hours a month writing reports with similar content, and this report just added 2 more hours to that time. I could have spent those 2 hours doing something more productive.

Today was a good day. I stayed home, supposedly to sleep in (2.5 hours), eat all day (20 min) and do nothing (0 min), but I ended up cleaning the kitchen (1.5 hours), filing paperwork (1 hour), stopping by the post office (10 min), going to the credit union (1 hour), and writing a letter to the editor (2 hours) in which I referenced Jay-Z AND Neal Stephenson. Kevin was so highly amused by the letter he ALMOST forgot to remind me about how I should have been taking it easy.

Labels: famous people, kids, toys, work

Comments (1) | Link to this entry

By Julie

Yesterday I finally opened The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl and ended up inhaling it in one sitting. It was a fun read. The reason I was home wasn't so fun though. I woke up feeling awful, tried to drive to work, almost passed out on the way there, and barely got myself home before blacking out on the sofa. I didn't wake up until 2pm!!!

3 days of sleeplessness + horrid back pain + killer allergies + taking pills on an empty stomach + pregnancy in the 3rd trimester = wanting to barf and black out

I was already planning on taking tomorrow off, but I guess my body couldn't wait 2 days. Today I'm completely back to normal though, knock on wood.

Labels: allergies, books, meds, pregnancy

Comments (0) | Link to this entry

By Julie

Today I submitted my leave of absence paperwork. I'm taking off the tail end of April, plus all of May, June, July, and August. This by far will be the longest period I've ever been off work.

Meanwhile, Kevin is remodeling the nursery. He's ripping out the carpet, installing wood floors, removing the popcorn ceiling, painting the walls two tone, installing a chair rail, and putting in new light fixtures.

I just realized after looking at Jenny's pictures that I haven't taken any pictures of my belly this entire pregnancy. Not that you'd be able to tell the difference from one week to the other anyway, considering how my uterus wasted no time stretching out. By late first trimester, even though the baby was only a tiny peapod, my belly was already as big as it is now. I guess that's how things work after having two kids.

I've only got 6.5 weeks to go, unless baby#3 decides to come early. Alex was 2 weeks late and a touch under 8 lbs, and Ana was 1 day early and 7.5 lbs. If baby#3 follows their lead, she'll be 2 weeks early and 7 lbs, hehe.

Labels: home improvement, pregnancy

Comments (0) | Link to this entry

By Julie

Friday I took the kids to the doctor for their annual checkup. Alex was lucky because he didn't have to get any shots, but Ana had to get a TB test in order to register for preschool in the fall. The doctor also offered to give her the three boosters that she'll need for kindergarten, but seeing as she was already starting to look agitated during the vision test, I figured I'd do all of us a favor and skip those shots until next year. When the nurse came in with the TB test in a gigantic syringe, Ana started crying, and having to hold her down while the nurse pricked her arm broke my heart.

Saturday passed in a haze as I worked from home. Still, it beat having to travel. Even though I was completely occupied all day, I was grateful to be able to hear the kids playing in the other room and kiss them good night.


Today, after Alex got a much needed haircut and we got some groceries, we took the kids to the store to let them pick out toys using the gift cards they got for their birthdays. While Kevin and Alex headed over to the video game section, I accompanied Ana to the toy section. I was curious to see what her interests were these days. As the younger sibling, so often she ends up playing whatever her big brother wants to play. I was very hands-off as she wandered through the aisles aimlessly, stopping once in a while to point out a toy she already had or examine one she didn't have. Finally she picked 3 toys.

Her first pick was a gorgeous wooden box with 9 games that included chess, checkers, Chinese checkers, etc. I think this toy reflects Alex's influence. He's taken chess lessons for the past 3 years and talks about them all the time. She's probably curious to see what the fuss is about.


Her second pick was a medic kit with a stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, thermometer, syringe, and bandage. I guess Friday's trip to the doctor's office was still on her mind. When we got home she had me play doctor for all of her stuffed animals. Most of them were healthy, but whenever one was sick and had to get a shot, she gave it lots of comforting.

Her third pick was a Mr. Potato Head set with three characters. It reminded her of a similar toy at daycare. She still has a ton of gift cards left, so Kevin will be taking her back to the store again in a couple of months when I'm home with the baby. I'm curious to see what she will choose then.

Labels: kids, parenting, toys, work

Comments (1) | Link to this entry

By Julie

Last night was Alex's last piano lesson. During the last 15 minutes he and his classmates performed a mini recital for the parents. It was adorable. I asked Alex if he wanted to sign up for another round of classes, and he said sure.

That picture up there is among the first I've taken since Ana's birthday party. I haven't been in a picture taking mood lately. In fact, I haven't been in a mood to do much of anything lately. The third trimester is taking its toll on me. I'm at +20 lbs but it feels like +50 lbs. For the last week and a half I've been coming home from work exhausted every evening with my back feeling wretched. The only recent day when I've felt good was during my last checkup, when my doctor expressed shock at how well I was doing. As he put it, this is usually when pregnant women feel the most miserable. Ah, the irony!

Meanwhile, the only thing that's been cheering me up is watching Youtube videos. Check out this hilarious interview with Daniel Radcliffe on the Ellen Degeneres Show. Hee! This interview with Emma Watson and Rupert Grint on French TV is pretty cool too (:

Labels: famous people, harry potter, kids, music

Comments (0) | Link to this entry

By Julie

Like many kids, Alex used to assume that a baby comes out of a mother's belly button. Why kids think that, I don't know, but everytime he's brought it up, we've corrected him. "No, the baby comes out of the birth canal."

A couple of days ago the topic came up again. So I showed Alex a cross-section of a baby being pushed out of the birth canal in the book, What to Expect When You're Expecting. Then he asked something like, "But where does this happen???" That's when it finally dawned on me that Alex had no idea where the mysterious birth canal was located on the human body. So, I drew a picture.

First, I drew two buttocks as viewed from the side, one for the boy, and the other for the girl. This elicited some giggles, but it served a purpose: everybody knows where the buttocks are. Then on each figure I drew the stomach and thigh. Again, for triangulation purposes.

The next part was tricky. As I drew a p*nis on the boy, I did so as matter-of-factly as possible. Ana continued giggling, but Alex just grinned a little with no other reaction, so I continued. I drew a dot to show where the uretha was on the girl to show that hey, look! They both have the parts for peeing and pooing!

And then, on the girl I drew a small line between the urethra and the buttocks. I pointed to the line and explained, that's where the birth canal is. As I watched him furrow his brow in concentration, I said, only girls have this part, that's why boys can't have babies.

I went on talking about what's going to happen in a month and a half when baby#3 comes. I described what contractions felt like, and when Alex expressed concern over my welfare, I assured him that the doctor will give me medicine so I don't hurt too much. I also described the process of pushing the baby out as being similar to having a bowel movement, which made him guffaw, and the need for the mother to rest lots so she'll have enough energy to push, because otherwise the doctor will have to do surgery to get the baby out. This last statement made him nod solemnly.

At that point, it looked like the conversation was coming to an end, so I asked Alex if he had any other questions. He looked down at my diagram once again and said, "The boy's butt is bigger than the girl's butt."

While Ana laughed uproariously at her brother's outburst, I erased the girl's butt and made it a little bigger. Then Ana took the picture and started drawing little lumps of poo beside each figure. Meanwhile, Alex left the room to start up a video game.

I think it went well...

Labels: kids, parenting, pregnancy

Comments (3) | Link to this entry

By Julie

At age 4 Ana is all but completely potty trained. She wears her big girl underwear proudly and goes to the bathroom without prompting. Most mornings her Pull-Ups are completely dry, but she needs a little extra encouragement to get to 100 percent, so we're introducing a game we first created back when Alex was her age.

Here are the rules: every morning Ana wakes up, if her Pull-Ups are dry, she can put a sticker on her calendar for that day. Every time she reaches 5 stickers, we draw a circle around the 5th sticker, and she can pick a prize out of a bucket of wrapped toys.

Over the weekend Kevin and Alex went shopping for toys to be prizes. I wrapped them all individually and printed blank calendar pages, which were then pinned to the wall in the kids' room. When we explained the game to Ana, she was so excited she could hardly contain herself. She already has 2 stickers because her Pull-Ups were dry both yesterday and today. Now all she needs to do is stay dry for 3 more days and she gets to pick a prize.

The other things I'm hoping to teach her with this game are to be more self aware ("If I want to be dry in the morning, I'd better go pee before bed."), to motivate herself ("Look! I only have one more sticker to go before I get another prize!"), and to get her into the habit of looking at a calendar regularly.

That last goal sounds almost silly compared to the other two, but frankly I think it's just as important in the long run. Calendaring is the first step to learning how to manage one's time, and to be totally honest, it's something neither Kevin nor I learned until college. I figure I'm giving my kids a huge advantage in life by having them start doing this at age 4.

Curiously, Ana asked if Alex would get to play the game too. I explained that he played this game when he was 4 (it's the reason he's got so many Thomas the Tank Engine train cars) and now he's moved on to the allowance game. It's similar to the potty training game in that there's a certain number of days involved, and if he's a good kid for that number of days, he gets his allowance. We started him on this game at age 5, right after he graduated from the potty training game. If all goes well, Ana will start the allowance game at 5 as well.

Labels: kids, parenting

Comments (0) | Link to this entry

By Julie

Even though Alex gets his school picture taken in October and we receive his portraits only a couple of months later, every year it takes forever for the class portrait to get delivered. This year we finally got it on Friday. I've been pondering it curiously ever since. There are 17 kids shown. Alex says there are actually 19 kids in his class, one having enrolled later in the year, so I think the last one must have missed picture day.

The racial breakdown of the class is hard to miss. Kevin chuckled over the fact that there's only one obviously white kid in Alex's entire class. Counting Alex and a few other mixed kids, I guess you can say there are 3.0 white kids in the class. The rest are about 1/3 Hispanic and 2/3 Asian or Pacific Islander. This year there are no black kids in his class.

What I noticed though was the gender breakdown. It's about 50/50 male-female, and as I learned back in January, if you invite all your 2nd grade classmates to your birthday party, you can safely assume no one of the opposite sex will show up. Even though Alex sometimes mentions the girls in his class when he recounts his day, for the most part he plays only with the boys. At age 7 or 8 these kids are already self segregating by gender.

The reason this is on my mind is because they're only 6 months away from becoming 3rd graders. That was the age I found out many of my classmates already knew about the birds and the bees. Here's how it happened: I asked my mom for a box to take to school to turn into a mailbox for my Valentine's Day cards, and when I took the empty tampon box she gave me, several of the kids laughed and made interesting gestures. Despite both knowing very little English and nothing about sex until that point, I quickly figured out what they were talking about.

Kevin thinks there must have been an extraordinarily large number of younger siblings in my 3rd grade class as the only reason he first heard about sex at about the same time was because of his same-aged cousin who had an 11-year-old brother. Either way, time is of the essence. We've got an 8-year-old son whose closest friends all have older siblings, and we want to take advantage of the fact that he's still willing to talk to us about anything, including stories about stuff the girls at school keep doing that have way more subtext than he realizes.

Back when I was a kid I would have loved a book about sex, love, and relationships as I knew no adult was going to tell me anything worth knowing, and fortunately there are plenty of kid-friendly books on these topics now. But frankly, now that I'm a parent, I think it's going to take more than a book to do this right.

For starters, Kevin is wondering whether he should stop skipping over certain parts of the Piers Anthony book he's been reading to Alex at bedtime, stuff like his eyes lingered on her alluring curves -- excuse me while I giggle madly... okay, I'm done -- because including them might draw out questions from Alex. Hmmm.

In other news, I discovered to my great annoyance that someone has stolen our code and posted it on this website: http://senibudaya.blogspot.com. From clues in the source code I'm guessing it's a guy, and he seems to have done it sometime ago as the stolen code resembles Juvin.com circa 2005. So I sent the following message to Blogger, hoping they would contact the user:

Subj: Blogspot user stole our content

The blogger at http://senibudaya.blogspot.com/ is hosting our content on his site without our permission. This includes the Flickr badge as well as other files referenced in his source code.

We have always had a clear copyright notice posted on our site http://juvin.com, i.e. (copyright symbol) 1998-2008. We have allowed individuals to republish our content twice in the past. This was not one of them.

We request that our content be taken off this site immediately.

Blogger replied with a very long and tedious message that began with

Hi there,

Thank you for your note. It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the text of which can be found at the U.S. Copyright Office website: http://lcWeb.loc.gov/copyright/ ) and other applicable intellectual property laws, which may include removing or disabling access to material claimed to be the subject of infringing activity.

To file a notice of infringement with us, you must provide a written communication (by fax or regular mail, not by email) that sets forth the items specified below. Please note that pursuant to that Act, you may be liable to the alleged infringer for damages (including costs and attorneys' fees) if you materially misrepresent that you own an item when you in fact do not. Indeed, in a recent case (please see
http://www.onlinepolicy.org/action/legpolicy/opg_v_diebold/ for more information), a company that sent an infringement notification seeking removal of online materials that were protected by the fair use doctrine was ordered to pay such costs and attorneys fees. The company agreed to pay over $100,000. Accordingly, if you are not sure whether material available online infringes your copyright, we suggest that you first contact an attorney.

So the burden of proof is on us, and if we can't adequately prove it, we might have to pay the loser attorney fees??? What the hell?!

Incidentally, the two people that I had allowed to use content off our website were both authors. One wrote a book on fortune cookies and cited my fortune cookies page (it's no longer up), and another was writing a college textbook about the Internet with a chapter about blogs. They even showed me how they were going to use the content so that I knew they were going to present it in a professional way.

I guess what bothers me other than the fact that this loser didn't bother asking for permission is that he's totally mangling our content by presenting it on that hideous page. It's as if he was trying to learn HTML and failing very badly. Someone get this guy an HTML for Dummies book, please!

Labels: books, kids, lusers, parenting

Comments (3) | Link to this entry