Recent Tau smarts:

• Sunday night, I put Tau in new pajama pants. The long-sleeved top didn’t fit over his cast, so I dressed him in an older short-sleeved top. He gets pretty spinny just before bed and was paying exactly zero attention to the PJs — throwing assorted animals out of the crib and doing twisted manic somersaults was far more exciting. Monday morning, I wake him, stand him up in his crib and turn to get his clothes for daycare. Looking down at his legs, he tells me, “Tau’s pants …” Hands on the hips in indignation. “NEW!” (more…)

Palm tree burning in our neighborhood, Oct. 22, 2007.
Credit: K.C. Alfred, San Diego Union-Tribune

Now that we are home and safe, I’ve been thinking about what I’d like to add on the wildfires that have so scarred our county. And my arms feel like lead. In part because we are mentally and emotionally wiped out. It’s been a long week and we’re so looking forward to turning the page on a fresh one come Sunday night.

But also in part because when you see how monstrous not one but five simultaneous fires in your region can be, you end up feeling a bit small and unavailing. You realize how little power you have to change the course of nature and how you really ought not to place much importance on building a home or a certain way of life because it can all be taken from you in a matter of hours.

So here I sit, feeling a bit silly again about the name of our blog. These past few days in San Diego were not good at all. In fact, for those who lost family members and homes and livelihoods, they were very, very bad. And when a natural disaster hits your community as badly as this one did, everyone feels it. (more…)

We are home and all is well. No damage to our immediate neighborhood. We’ll add more news once we are settled and rested. Even though we are home, we have been told to be ready to evacuate in event things change drastically. Basically, it would take a new fire for our neighborhood to be affected.

We are at James and Vix’s place and had a great day — unplugged from media.

Just checked the web and learned that they are reopening areas in our neighborhood, and we called our answering machine this morning and it answered, which we took to be a good sign.

Will probably spend the night here and head home tomorrow.

We are checking out of our hotel to go and stay for a while with our friends James and Vix in an area called Pacific Beach.

Erika and Tad, thanks for the offer to stay at your place but we figure that if we go to PB, we can’t go any further West — they are literally blocks from the beach.

If nothing else, this gives our families the peace of mind that we are TOTALLY safe and will not need to move again until we can hopefully go home.

James and Vix are about 10 miles away and the roads are good. They may be out this morning. If so, we’ll take Tau to the beach for a bit of normality. It may be tonight before we can update you all again.

Tuesday 2 a.m., but it still feels like Monday night. Can’t sleep so thought I’d send an update. If all is safe to travel, and if we need to move, we’ll probably go to stay with friends not too far away tomorrow late a.m.

Will let you know when we are “settled.” Don’t worry if you don’t hear from us; there are sporadic power outages and so Internet access is spotty.

- S

This post is mostly for our families. We are still safe. They have evacuated an area a bit North of where we are staying because they expect one of the fires to burn along one of the canyons and through almost to the coast.

We are watching updates on the news and if it comes to us needing to leave again to go South, we will do so well in advance. We have offers to stay with two sets of friends that are well out of the way of the fire.

We have wireless access in our hotel room and brought a laptop with us, hence the update Again, please don’t call; we are fine. If you don’t hear from us, please assume we are OK. We will contact you if we need to move.

Access to the following two web sites is a bit slow, as many locals are checking them constantly, but they do provide up-to-date info. Please wait a while before trying to access them.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/
http://www.kpbs.org/news/fires

If you hear of homes having burned in Poway, please don’t assume ours is gone. We live in the very urban area of the city and only evacuated to avoid any possible traffic jams. Most of the houses that have burned in Poway are on the NE more rural outskirts, where there are a lot of smallholdings and fancy estates.

Love,

Sue, Dave and Tau

PS: We are grateful for Playdoh, the Dinosaur book and the Chili’s restaurant just next to our hotel

As you will see from the TV reports, our neighborhood was affected by the Witch Creek fire. We think our exact area is still OK so far but no news.

We are fine and got out just before our neighborhood was evacuated. We are at a Holiday Inn in Sorrento Valley near Dave’s work. There is a business center here in the hotel, so we will try to post daily updates on the blog.

Please DO NOT worry … we are fine with plenty of food, TV, a king bed and internet access.

Just a few days old 

Introducing our newest nephew, Tait Everest Walsh, born to Stu, Kristi and Kai on August 28th at 7:19 a.m, weighing 6 lbs, 7 oz.

Yes, this post is long overdue. It took a couple weeks for the busy parents to send pictures and then even longer for me to remember to ask them if they were cool with me posting them.

We haven’t had a chance to meet him yet but from what we can tell when we talk to them on the phone, the young man has a healthy set of lungs on him! He’s gonna need them for family get togethers!

Welcome to our world and family, baby Tait!

Kai with his new little brother

At the door this morning. “Tau, wait! Mommy needs to put on her shoes … uh, boots …”

Turns around, staring at my boots for the first time because the new word (it’s only just cool enough to consider wearing boots) … the NEW WORD! … has alerted him to something that needs to be examined, explored, filed away in his little Rolodex of comprehension.

Tugging them on, showing him the zippers. “These are Mommy’s boots.”

“Boo-bz?”

“No … boo-ts. Boots.”

“Boo-bz.”

“Boots.”

With certainty: “Boobs.”

“OK dude …” Can’t beat ‘em join ‘em. “If you say so!”

Mommy’s boobs. On her feet.*

Nice!

* If I was Jessica at OTJs, I’d be breaking out my Photoshop skeelz right about now.

Working Playdoh, eating dinner and wrestling a rubber snake. All with one hand. The other, after seeing the orthopedic specialist after Saturday’s fun and games, is now in a dark blue fibreglass cast.

This post is part of Blog Action Day, a day of environmental discussion and participation by bloggers around the world.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

No, it’s our laundry. Our humble jeans, shirts and towels hanging on a $9.99 clothes horse, saving us a bit of money and helping to fight global warming.

Did you know that dryers use five to ten percent of residential electricity in the United States? That cutting the number of times you use your dryer by just one load a week reduces CO2 emissions by 200 pounds a year? Hard to know what that means in the global scheme of things but every little bit helps, right?

Dave and I were both raised in South Africa, where the hot, mostly dry climate means that the vast majority of people dry ALL their laundry outdoors in the sunshine on washing lines. Our childhood memories are of folding crisp, bone-dry towels, of chasing our siblings through lines of flapping bedsheets and of learning to hang t-shirts so that they didn’t dry all pulled at the peg marks. (more…)

Oh my. I’ve been trying to tell you all about our lovely week away in Santa Barbara for two weeks. And every time I do, we end up having to take our kid to the emergency clinic and so I tell you about that instead.

So, the short version, lest we be interrupted again. And to be honest, it’s Sunday evening and I’d like an early night but I really want to tell you about the fabulous time we had away.

We love Santa Barbara. Love it more every time we go there.

This time, Dave booked four nights in a snazzy little condo he found on the Internet. A property belonging to a couple that have clearly traveled extensively, as evidenced by the eclectic decor and shelves and shelves of travel books. I should mention the gourmet kitchen and the comfy couch that was big enough for all three of us to sit on to watch Clifford the Big Red Dog and the toddler-proof, easy-clean hardwood floors. No carpet to stain. But instead, I’ll suggest you go and take a look at our Santa Barbara set on Flickr. It really felt like home without, you know, feeling like home. (more…)

Grandpa Gerald and Tau, January 2006

Happy birthday, Dad!

Hope you had a nice time celebrating at the ‘Berg.

… monkey get into trouble too.

Guess who’s been trying to climb out of his crib? At nap time yesterday, Dave and I lowered his crib side and gave Tau a very serious lesson on climbing out of his crib carefully. He’s tall enough to lie on his tummy, swing both legs over the crib side and slide down backwards ’til his feet touch the floor. We practiced over and over again and then Dave went out to the hardware store and to get a haircut.

Instead of just putting him in his crib and leaving, I practiced the getting-out routine again with him and then told him (again!) that it was time for his nap and tucked him in. By this stage, he was silly-tired, if you know what I mean, so I lingered in his room, tidying out his clothes drawer and filing books back on his shelves. The side of the crib being down was clearly a novelty and every time he tried to climb out, I made him lie down and tucked him in again, told him it was time to go to sleep.

As he started settling down, I turned (not two steps away, I swear) to move a pile of too-small clothes from the floor to a chair so that I could fold them. And then I turned back to see if he was getting drowsy … just in time to see him launch himself over the side of the crib, fly through the air and hit the carpet, face and then chest first. Thud.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! You can imagine.

Surprisingly, after all the tears and wailing, there was no blood and no swelling. Just a limp-limbed little monkey, clearly exhausted and in a bit of shock. He fell asleep, snuggled on my chest and arms around my neck, about five minutes after the fall. (more…)