This weekend wasn't quite what we expected...

It began normally enough. Porch time. Oggling the basketball players at the park. Trader Joe's run...

...emergency appendectomy.

Indeed, Saturday afternoon had us putting in a call to my Dr. Parents to describe a slight but suspiciously persistent lower abdominal pain, a phone call that ended with us visiting the ER. 

When we arrived at the hospital an EMT took Jacob's temperature and checked his blood pressure and got him to describe his symptoms. 

EMT: "How would you rate your pain on a scale of 1-10?"

Jacob: "Ummm. 2."

EMT: (unimpressed eyebrow raise) "Really?"

Me: (unsaid, but aptly communicated in a telepathic glance at Jacob) "Just lie, my stoic darling, or we will be here forever."

Jacob: "Well, when I poke at it, maybe a 3."

Me: (Hangs head.)

EMT: "OK. Why don't you go have a seat over there."

And 11 hours later Jacob found himself with - as he has become fond of saying - "an appendix shaped hole."

Here he is on his gurney in the ER hallway - where he perched for 8 hours as intern after resident after attending prodded at his stomach. Each assuring him that it was probably nothing since he wasn't hurting too badly, but they were going to do some tests just in case.

The CT scan revealed - as one resident explained it - "angry appendicitis."  So into surgery he went. (The same resident informed me over the phone immediately after the surgery that it "went perfectly" and that they'd "found the appendix and took it out.") 

I spent the weekend bustling around connecting Jake with babysitters, parallel parking, and trying to play the attentive encouraging wife to Jacob - especially since he's the hippy's kid and he needed some support while going up against the big bad machine, and I'm the doctor's kid which apparently makes the hospital...like...my backyard or something.

Post-op and not too worse for the wear. 

Many HUGE THANK YOUs to this lady and this lady who came to our baby watching rescue. 

Currently, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the leaf blowers are humming all over West LA, and both my needy boys are doing me the favor of napping at the same time. 

Pleasantness be mine.

7 Quick Takes - Milestones

- 1 -

So today we're talking milestones. I'm not a milestone fan, primarily because Jake took forever to hit the primo importante Smile Milestone. Thanks to Babycenter, when Jake was 4 weeks old I began holding my breath in rapt expectation of that glimmer of joy. I watched and I waited and I waited and I prayed, but nary a smile was in sight. Two months old, friends, two months before I got a grin. 

So I stopped paying attention to when baby was supposed to do X, and I have only loose records of when Jake hit any big milestones. So today I endeavor to record some of what baby has learned...as if I'll ever forget...

- 2 -

I dutifully noted on the blog when Jake first started saying "ball." Well "ball" still makes up 90% of his vocabulary. Anything vaguely spherical, circular, or cylindrical is a ball. If it bounces it's a ball, if it rolls it's a ball, if it gets thrown it's definitely a ball.
 

 

"Ball" peppers his days and consequently mine too. It's the first thing he says in the morning; he sings it in the car; he shouts it in the tub and murmurs it in his sleep.

- 3 -

My mother reminds me that saying "ball" early runs in the family. Jake has an uncle who also shares the fascination. It was my brother Scotty's first word. On a car ride home one night as a "ball"-loving little tike, he famously looked up into the sky and so dubbed the moon.

- 4 -

Jake does say other things. Well...three. He says three other things. And I'm not sure he knows what they mean. One is the obligatory "mama." While he is slowly associating this with me, "mama" is also my iPhone, airplanes, our neighbor's dog, and Jacob (even though Jacob is often called "ball ball").

- 5 -

He repeats "Uh Oh" whenever he hears it. And he says "go."  He doesn't know what either means, but he repeats them. And he very adorably learned to respond with "Go!" whenever anyone says "Ready. Set." (Even though after a "Ready. Set." you just as often get a "Ball!")

- 6 -

So I have a kid who runs around all day saying Ball, Go, and Uh Oh...I know...I'm nervous, too. 

- 7 -

And finally, the reason for this milestone-ish update: Jake took his first steps on Monday - his first steps at a not too shabby 13 months old. He still only walks when he's in the yard or at the park, and he's very particular about this, but I'll take what I can get. I've posted a video of a couple steps here for those of you who want to marvel at his 17 seconds of agility.

Jake Man Walking from therhodeslog on Vimeo.

Go see Jen for all the Quick Takes. And Happy Friday!

Where were we?

Oh that's right:

In Seattle, getting our shoes wet and freezing our glutes off waiting for the boys to finish. 

Which they all did. Brothers 2, 1, and 3 (respectively).

 

 And good ole dad with ole time friend/brother #3 namesake/teeth-straightener of all the Ramsay children Robert. 

Not pictured: the 90+ pounds lost collectively by the men in the above 4 photos.

Travel Tableau pt. 1

I emerge from the blogging desert with a record of our travels over the last few weeks. At 11pm Sunday night we found ourselves in LAX exhausted from foreign festivities. Over the past three weeks we've been on a glorious jaunt about the country involving relatives and friends and races and breweries and babes and Icelandic chickens and weddings and rainstorms. Below are a few anecdotes from our adventures and much more than a few photos.

Our first leg took the Cub and me to the Ramsay homestead where we reunited with our goat Beatrice and played with puppies and hatched baby guineas and met my Icelandic grandmother's Icelandic chickens. Collectively we were only bit by about 12 mosquitoes and had but one run in with a scorpion.

Soon we found ourselves in the grand Dallas Metroplex where we me up with the Pops, so he and I could become Godparents to the adorable Emma Grace

 

Jake made his Aunt Lily follow him all around the foyer for the entirety of the baptism, but he enjoyed the after party thoroughly.

as did I

And Jacob got to chill with most of his sibs + offspring.

 

After Dallas we parted ways with Jacob and made our way with my family to Seattle for some sightseeing before our Rock'n'Roll run.

The race was great.

Four years ago we ran a marathon in Rome together and decided we liked this whole family reunion/race thing, and Seattle became destination dos. I've been fighting off a running injury, so I scratched as a marathon hopeful and joined up with my sister and the lovely Jordan to do the half. Here is the whole troop at the beginning.

Some of us at mile 6:

 

I wasn't sure I would even finish, but thanks to a little persistence and a lot of 12 minute miles the race was conquered and the old hip seems no worse for the wear. We were only beat by one pregnant woman and were thus riding pretty high.

Alas, photos were not taken of the half marathon finishers, but here's a picture of me nursing five minutes after the race. My kid is patient like that.

Then we went to watch the 26.2ers finish up with Jacob's Aunt Mary and Uncle Steve - some Seattlans who came out to cheer.

Nana and Lily win the trooper awards. Nana for weathering the weather and Lily for finishing her first half marathon with a blood blister the size of Louisiana.

We were stalwart even as the winds blew and the rain came and the temperature dropped way below summer-appropriate levels.

I will unceremoniously leave you on the edges of your seats - and Jordan shivering in the cold - since my blogger is being glitchy. Tune in for some photo finishes soon.

Beekeeping IV

A lot has been happening with our bees as of late. Indeed, I've resisted updating you about them precisely because every few days the story changes a little. 

I suppose it all began when Jacob relocated the hive from its perch down in the yard. The beehive was seriously cramping my clothesline, so I insisted that he find a different spot for them. 

And he did. About 30 feet from our front door. 

He sat down to dinner with me that night and stated blissfully, "Now they really feel like pets." 

Things continued merrily in this manner for a few weeks. The bees would get Jacob's last goodbye as he left for work and his first hello as he returned. (Bitterness? I don't know where you're getting that...)

  

A few weeks ago our hive split. This happens (apparently) when there are so many bees in the hive that when they hatch a new queen, instead of the pleasant fight to the death with the old queen, the regents make a truce and the new queen flies away with half the bees.

Read that last sentence again and muse for a moment on just how cool bees are.

Not cool? You say.

Try this: bees have sex while flying.

I know. Cool. I told you.

Anyhow, back to the saga. Our hive split one afternoon while Jake and I were playing on the porch...which we do...sometimes... 

The air filled with the familiar cloudy buzz of swarming bees, and Jake and I retreated to the house and then proceeded to take this picture for the blog:

 

And where did this new group of buzzers decide to relocate? 

A tree...next to the clothesline. Jacob put them in a plastic bin that evening when he got home from work and spent his lunch hour the next day driving to the other end of the world to buy a real deal bee box for them. Unfortunately when he got home that evening, they had ditched the plastic bin and were no where to be found.

So we were stuck with no new bees and an 80$ bee box tab. 

It wasn't all a tragedy because at least I got Jacob to hang dry the diapers since the new swarm of bees was so close to my clothesline. You cannot see them but they are nestled happily in that orange tree with the bougainvillea in it.

That WAS the end of my story. Until two days later...they came back. 

And this time we were ready.

So now...now we have two beehives. In the middle of Los Angeles.

And the end of the story is this:

My old Ikea curtains doing what they never knew they were always meant to do: straining Rhodes honey.

It was a good day. And a good year.

Our little Cub turned one yesterday.

We celebrated with friends.

We remembered to put him in his hand me down birthday shirt and even managed to balance the birthday hat I made for him on his head for a picture.

What a year. What a year this has been.

7 Quick Takes

- 1 -

Granddaddy Rhodes died on Wednesday. The illness came on suddenly, but it wasn't really a surprise. We thankfully had a bit of a goodbye with him over Christmas when we visited. He kept bees like Jacob; he had multiple hives going till the day he died and even had an observation hive in his house. The Mennonites don't do pictures, so I don't have one of him. But in tribute, I'll post this one of Jacob and his bros from when they lived in the community in 2002.

 Jacob and brother John were able to catch a redeye to Kentucky on Wednesday night. So papa is in good ole KY, and Jake and I are home alone.

- 2 -

Even though tragedy should make me chock full of grace and understanding, four days of single motherhood has me feeling pretty sorry for myself. Especially since we have teething pains to pepper sleepless nights and since Jake's mild anemia is calling for lots of iron rich foods on the north end and making the south end a sh** show...literally.

- 3 -

Last night while watching TV I managed to spill beer on the couch and found myself mopping it up with an obliging prefold that was lying on the coffee table. Just another reason to cloth diaper.

- 4 -

Drinking beer alone not classy? Well I opened a bottle of wine that was utterly undrinkable and instead of waking baby and packing us off to Trader Joe's for a new one I opted to have beer instead. But you're right. I probably should've had scotch.

- 5 -

Jake despite his weathered 11.97 months status is showing no interest in walking. But he is showing lots of interest in the feet of our patio chairs (which currently live upside down and serve as a baby barricade) and the laundry basket.

- 6 -

And he'll even play with real toys sometimes. Like this morning I found him looking at a book.

And in the bath he has a grand time with his rubber duckies which I have affectionately named

Mama Duck           &           Papa Duck

- 7 -

If you feel like reading something more meaningful then you should visit Lizzy for the sweetest little love story with all its adorable college awkwardness. Or go see Jen for more quick takes.