You Can't Always "Undo"

Every once in a while you get a reminder from life at what an idiot you can be. It's a lesson on how, even though you have a lot of things figured out in life and have been successful in many areas, you're not perfect and occasionally screw up big. Well, today is one of those days.

With Sam gone, I have been spending several evenings putting together a video DVD of Morgan's first year of life. It has photos and videos and music, and I was planning on sharing it at her upcoming birthday party. It would be a keepsake for us and her to have and look back on. I was just about finished with it and was pretty pleased with how it turned out. I just had a few more things to add, but was running into some computer troubles. My hard drive was getting a little full with all the photos and videos, so I couldn't add the last few videos I wanted to my project. Well, here's where the idiot part of my brain took over. I deleted files from my computer to try and free up space. I happened to delete videos, which take up a lot of memory, because I thought they were duplicates (some in iPhoto and some in iMovie). Well, I got a little surprise when suddenly parts of Morgan's movie were blank. Hmmm...that is weird. It wasn't until this morning when I sat back down to "fix" it that I realized what had happened and that those videos were gone for good. (Yes, I emptied the trash.)

NOOOOOO!!!! A time machine would be pretty handy right now, I was thinking, so I could go back and undo what I did! Fortunately, the videos that were deleted were just from this summer, and not her whole life. But there were irreplaceable: Morgan's first time playing in the sand, saying "Dad," crawling around, Father's Day with Sam, playing in the pool..... if I think about it more, I might throw up. I am so pissed at myself for such a simple lapse of judgment - actually more like technological ignorance. There is a slim chance I can recover the files with some expensive software, but I just have to live with the consequences and put things back in perspective. So as I have been talking myself down from this anxiety and anguish (where is Sam at a time like this!?), I have realized: Morgan is happy, healthy and that is all that really matters; it was only 3 months of her life that are gone and we still have all the photos; I'm not a horrible mom for accidentally deleting those videos; I need to accept that I screw up sometimes. Besides, Morgan is going to keep on growing and changing and we will have so many more cute and funny moments to capture in the years to come (backed up on an external hard drive, of course!)









Here's Morgan getting tickled by Grandpa Fred.
Top photo: Morgan and I video chat with Sam in China.

Flying Solo

Sam is in Hong Kong right now, and I am watching my daughter bang her head against the sliding glass door, with a smile on her face. Hmm ... I'm trying to picture the next 12 days without Sam around. Fortunately, my parents are coming to visit this weekend to keep me company and provide some adult conversation. I also have to live without a camera until he gets back, something that I probably need a 12-step program for. But I think I will survive going cold turkey. After all, Sam has to live without his cell phone while he is traveling. We are hoping to use the computer to iChat if we can find a convenient time to talk between the 15 hour time difference. But with the camera on our computer we will be able to see each other, and more importantly, Sam and Morgan will be able to talk to each other. He has an amazing itierary planned, going to Hong Kong, Shenzen, and Shanghai. The group will visit businesses, do cultural stuff and tours, and have free time too. Even though he's hardly had time to think about this trip amid the job search excitement, by the time he left he was really excited. I would be too!

On another note, I was informed that the power at my house is going to be off most of the day due to local powerline work (great) so I will wrap this up and figure out what to do with Morgan. Here's a little video from a week or so ago. Morgan figured out what shoes were and tried to put them on!

GO DUCKS!

Well, it's officially Duck football season! We had a great time last weekend tailgating with Erica, Todd, the kids, .... and Morgan! Yes, it's never too soon to start exposing your offspring to six straight hours of drinking beer, eating sausage products, and talking football surrounded by people dressed in way too much yellow and green. But that is what football season is all about! The weather was perfect, and it was fun for me to get to tailgate again. (I seem to remember being a little busy last September...) And as you can see, Noah and Avery love playing with their little cousin. In case you're wondering, Morgan and I didn't go to the game. Instead, we had a girls' night with Erica and Avery at home, watching the Ducks whoop the Huskies from the comfort of our couch. Here's some clips of Morgan experiencing the fun of tailgating. She seemed to have a great time, especially doing "cheers!" and taking some steps. GO DUCKS!

(PS: I apologize to my "Beaver-Believer" relatives on Sam's side of the family for this blatent promotion of the enemy ... but I'm hoping you can overlook it because Morgan is so darn cute!)

Peekaboo Revisited

Morgan loves playing peek-a-boo with everyone - Mom and Dad, the lady in line behind us at the grocery store, the lifeguard at the pool.....everyone. But she has gone back to her early days of playing it with herself. Now, she likes to scoot over to the kitchen, pull the dishtowel off the oven, and fling it over her head. At least this keeps her occupied while I clean up ... unless I pull out the camera and film her!

Morgan in Action

Being home with Morgan, I have lots of time to take videos of her doing funny things. Of course, maybe they are only funny to me because I don't have much of a social life these day. Here are a few recent ones of Morgan. She is certainly more adventurous and reckless with herself. She is also a girl who knows what she wants. Some new things she has picked up just this week are: crawling (finally) on her hands and knees, giving high-fives, saying "hi," and she's in the process of learning the very important "cheers!" with her sippy cup. Here she is doing a couple of her favorite activities: pulling all the tupperware out of the drawer in the kitchen and breaking apart her plastic beads.

And.....if you haven't heard, Sam's interviews went great, and we think that several of his top schools are interested in him. University of Portland is still at the top of the list. Some other contenders are Chapman, Santa Clara, Victoria, Marquette, and Boston College and Babson are still possibilities. He should hear about site visits in the next month or so. Now, we wait! :)

All Morgan, All The Time

It's been Morgan 24-7 around here this summer. In addition to being home with her full time, I am also parenting solo while Sam is in Anaheim at the business conference he's been preparing for the past three years. It's also a recruiting fair, and he's had five interviews already and has more today. They have all gone very well, and he is learning more about the schools to which he's applied. By the time the conference is over, he will have a better idea of which schools want him and which schools he wants to work at. Then, we hope to hear that he is a top candidate at a few schools and they want to invite him for a site visit in September or October.

Anyway, summer is cruising right along, and it's so hard to believe it's the middle of August already. That means only a couple of weeks before I am back at work again, and we are still in search of child care for Morgan! Now that she is older and more of her own person (not just the tiny newborn that just laid there), I feel much more concerned about finding the right place for her. I guess you could say I am a lot more attached to her now. :) While this is stressing me out a little and I'm kicking myself for not figuring this out months ago, I think we are actually close to finding something for her. Meanwhile, Morgan and I are going to a mommy-baby swim class at the neighborhood pool. Morgan loves it, but is not very good at paying attention to the teacher! She smiles and flirts with the lifeguards and watches the 4-year olds yell excitedly (or cry in misery) in swimming lessons. Let's hope Morgan still loves the water in a few years!

Our happy girl continues to grow and change all the time, and as her first birthday approaches, I feel myself analyzing her for hitting milestones. She's actually seems kind of on the small side, and at her last doctor's appointment didn't seem to grow much. She was such a chunk her first few months, that it is strange that she is a little on the small side. But the doctor wasn't worried, so I'm not. She eats a lot and really loves feeding herself finger foods. Lately, she loves bits of sliced turkey, bread, sweet potato, banana, avocado, and anything else I can scrounge up. The girl can eat! And she drinks out of her sippy cup (with gusto) all by herself.

As you can see from the picture, Morgan has figured out how to pull herself up. She can't quite do it on the higher furniture yet (I helped her up to the coffee table), but she loves getting up. In fact, she has this new love for climbing everything! I often feel like a human jungle gym, as she climbs up me, grabbing onto any appendage or clothing she can sink her nails into. It's fun. Not really, but I try to remember there will be a time when she probably won't even want me to touch her, so I'm trying to enjoy it. But having an upwardly mobile baby makes me feel like I am a spotter for a gymnast on the Olympic team. Only my athlete is uncoordinated, has very little training, and has a head that is one third her of her height! I try to be nearby when Miss Morgan starts to climb, but she will have to figure out gravity sooner or later, much to my chagrin.

Morgan's personality continues to blossom too, and she learns new things so quickly. She started saying "dog" whenever she saw one or heard one bark. When the phone rings and I know it's Sam, I will say Daddy, which excites her a lot. So now when the phone rings she says "Dad." Of course, she probably thinks the word for phone is Dad, but we will straighten that out later. I also think she says "what's that?" because we say it so much to her. And I heard her say "Mama" the other day at the park, so I look forward to hearing that directed at me (hopefully only when she's really happy, though!) The teething seems to have subsided - she got three in at once. But Morgan is still having some bedtime "issues" (a.k.a. falling right to sleep, but waking 30 minutes later and screaming until she hyperventilates). After a frustrating night by myself last night, I have recommitted our family to a strict bedtime routine, and making sure Morgan goes to bed before she gets too tired. (Overtiredness, as most parents already know, is the root of all evil!) The new theme of our bedtime campaign is: "No More Tears." When I realized it was an Ozzy Osbourne song, I knew it was perfect. (Sam loves Ozzy.)

Moving On...

Today, Sam's parents are moving to downtown Portland, and we are really excited for them. Last weekend Sam, Morgan, and I were up in Hillsboro helping Sam's parents get ready to move out of the home they have lived in for 29 years. This has been in the works for nearly two years, as they have planned and prepared to downsize and move to the Pearl District. Sam, Kim, and I are all very excited to see them make this huge life change and make a fresh start. It will be fantastic for Dinda, because there will be so many more accessible things to her downtown. For Ron, he will get hours added to his day because his commute will be only a few minutes. And, selfishly, we love being in the Pearl and look forward to lots of good times (and hopefully a place to crash) in the future.

I asked Sam if it was hard for him that his parents were selling his childhood home. He said it wasn't because he was so happy for this new chapter in his parents' lives. If my parents were moving from their home, I don't know if I would be quite that rational. Besides the emotional pull to the home you grow up in, there is the inevitable material connection that you cannot escape. When your parents live in the same house, as both our parents have for three decades, there is a lot of crap, uh...I mean memories... that can accumulate over the years. (Maybe that's why I'm glad my parents have no plans to move!) So, along with helping box up collectibles and dismantling the coolest garage in Washington County, we also had to come to terms with what was in his parent's attic. Sam and Kim had several boxes that needed to be sorted. They were full of all the childhood memorabilia that loving parents keep over the years: first doodles, report cards, school reports, sports photos. By the end, much of it went into the recycling bin or to the Goodwill box, but not before we all had some great laughs. Some particular highlights were seeing Sam's prom pictures (he and his date posed with a rose bush), school photos of Sam's "jaws" phase (when he had silver teeth), Kim's horse statue collection, a bunch of sports photos of Sam (often with Ron as a coach), water skiing pictures, funny stories written for school assignments, Kim's volleyball "shorts," and Ron looking like Clark Griswold in an old family vacation photo.

I have lots of great memories of 774 SE 39th Court: meeting Sam's parents for the first time, standing in their kitchen announcing our engagement, politely watching an OSU sporting event with Ron, eating lots of good food with family and friends, Christmas Eve cocktails with both our families, moving in with the in-laws at various times as we transitioned from one apartment (or country) to the next, experiencing a Holloway Christmas complete with ceremonial fire lighting (there is a strict protocol that must be followed) and model train set up (I even have my own train car), and watching Morgan play with her grandparents and great-grandma in the family room. But my last happy memory of this house is Ron, Dinda, Kim, Sam and I sitting in the garage, surrounded by boxes, laughing hysterically last Saturday at old photos and memories. I guess all that stuff isn't crap after all.