Das Mami and Tavi Nendi come to visit!

<this post is later than it should be - all Nuwan's fault, but I'll forgive him just this once>

Das Mami and Tavi Nendi

Callum finally got to meet his uncle this month! His Das mami and his girlfriend (hereafter Tavi nendi), came to visit! There first comment was "He's so small." And then Callum spewed everywhere.... perhaps he took offence and being called small? Perhaps he wanted to christen Sea-Tac. Who can tell?

Fun in the car

Callum has totally benefitted from having companions in the backseat while he travelled. Every time he got grisly Tavi nendi would put his hands together and sing "clap, clap, clap". Now we have a baby who practically claps on command. All it took was 3 weeks of constant "clapping".... easy as pie.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, then you'll know that the Giniges travel to eat. As a matter of fact before they even got here Dasi was clear that he was coming to eat, and eat we did, all of us.

While they were here

Since they were here to eat, we expressly planned our days around food - at home, out and about, at fancy places and cheap-and-cheerful diners. The US is awash with food options, some of them great, and some of them horrible, so it as much an exercise in exclusion as it is anything else. We managed to squeeze in:

• Awesome burgers, and surprisingly good burgers
• Solid BBQ and whiskey, from both a restaurant and the Ginige residence
• Crabs galore
• Divine brunch here and here (both in San Francisco)
• Fusion (??) Indian food (again in San Francisco)
• Bagels! 

The two of them also commandeered the kitchen at regular intervals, turning out wonderful meals - delicious payment for their accommodation!

At the end of the trip, Dasi reported that he had put on a good many kilos to his waistline, so from that perspective it was mission accomplished. That, as always, is surely a sign of a good holiday!

San Francisco

We all headed down to San Francisco for a few days to enjoy one of our favourite places in the US to date. We booked an apartment near the Painted Ladies at Alamo Square Park, and it was always nice to head out for the day and see a cultural landmark from the days when TV was wholesome and family-oriented (I'm showing my age here). This perk came with a downside though - an inability to find a parking spot easily (leading to Nuwan circling for 45 minutes once trying to get one, finally jamming it in backwards up a hill against a wall... don't ask...) as well as the incessant stream of tourist buses singing the "Full House" theme song. 

Notable highlights from our trip:

• Dasi stacking it down a hill while cycling, then losing their ferry tickets for their return trip and having to pay for them again... only to discover them in the laundry once back in Seattle
• Nuwan and Dasi almost getting arrested when trespassing on restricted federal land when photographing the Golden Gate bridge
• La Boulange bakery (fantastic pastries to kick off a morning)
• Buying ridiculous amounts of macarons because we could. Passionfruit, lychee... who could say no?
• Driving back and forth between the apartment and the Australian Consulate because we (Nuwan) kept forgetting documents we needed to present to them
• Callum cracking it in the car while stuck in traffic going from the airport to the city
• Callum cracking it because we took him out for dinner, and forgot to strap him into his carseat before he fell asleep
• Finding the most inauthentic pizza in Sausalito, because everywhere else was packed to the rafters. American pizza can be surprisingly good... this place was a notable exception

Baseball anyone?

Dasi and Tavi wanted to check out a couple of American sport leagues games while they were here. They headed to a Sounders FC game one night, and went with Nuwan to a Mariners game on another. Being the meticulous planners we are *ahem*, we had all these dates in a shared calendar so we could keep track of everything that we were planning to do. Dasi bought the tickets in Australia, and put the game in the calendar. All was well. 

In the words of Nuwan now:

"We headed into the city after work, and made good time too - traffic was unusually kind to us that evening. Parked the car, headed to the gates with our tickets, excited about watching our first baseball game. I gave my ticket to the attendant to scan, and started walking through the gate - but the gate didn't open, it buzzed at us like there was an error. The attendant had a closer look at the ticket, at which point she exclaimed 'This was for last night's game!'

"When the game went into the calendar, it went in at the correct time... for Sydney. Of course, when viewing the event in Seattle on the calendar, the timezone translation didn't work, and it appeared on the next day. None of us had thought to check the physical ticket itself until we actually got there! On top of that, we were incredibly fortunate that there was actually a game on at that time - we could have turned up and it could have been a ghost town... apparently they play back-to-back games in baseball.

"So we sheepishly found the customer service desk and explained our predicament, putting on our best bogan Aussie accents to try and explain our mistake away. The person behind the counter was fantastic - a key taps on his keyboard to confirm our story, and he issued us new tickets in roughly the same area. We got our baseball experience in after all, it just took us a little longer than we had anticipated to get through the gate. Still made the first pitch though!"

Damn those timezones... all was well in the end, thanks to some strongly applied Aussie bogan accents and the great customer service staff at Safeco Field. 

Solids

Callum started on solids this month (July), a little earlier than the promised six-months but our Doctor thought it worth a try to try and help give him a slight caloric boost to make up for the:

1. copious spitting up
2. constant movement

We started on plain old baby oatmeal but have quickly graduated to fruit, vegetables and last week even a meat ball. It's a lot of playing and exploration at this stage and unfortunately more food ends up on the floor or the kitchen counter or clothes than in his mouth, but I think that if food isn't fun at this stage, it might not be fun when he's older and we actually want him to eat 3 meals a day.

Our first taste of oatmeal...we weren't sold on it then and we're still not sure. 

Watermelon! Now this we love

 It's been fun picking things off our plates and letting him have a taste and this mini Ginige has a definite taste for Guacamole!

On the move

So, the doctor suspects the Callum's slight figure might have something to do with his constant moving. Here are some videos to illustrate my point! This kid is in an hurry of some sort to get away from us.

And then there is this... this baby can move!

Date night

Nuwan and I were treated to our first date night since Callum was born. Dasi and Tavi very kindly bought us a voucher to SkyCity, the restaurant at the top of the Seattle Space Needle.  It was a wonderful night and Callum was on his best behaviour.

The restaurant is one of those revolving ones, but revolves a lot faster then you would expect. The waiters and friendly and even offer to give you a geography lessons as the restaurant revolves.

We had mango margaritas!

....lobster tail

Clams with chorizo

Halibut...

May/June

We left on a jet plane

Do you know one of the great disadvantages of having family everywhere in the world....world travels with a baby. Now, before we subjected dear Callum to over 14 hours of flights we figured the smart thing to do was test him out... right? What is our darling first-born but a much-loved social experiment?

When our bank dropped a leaflet in our mailbox about a special deal with Virgin America, we figured it was a sign. We booked tickets to LA, I have a cousin there, we had some consular business to attend to (the grand process of Callum acquiring 3 birth certificates and passports) and there was some sightseeing to be done.

We left on a Friday morning, it was cold in Seattle and we'd collected oodles of advice from friends, mother's group and blogs.....what to do/what not to do on a plane was on repeat at our house.

• Do wear onesies - no fancy outfits
• Do feed on the way up and down
• Do try to get baby to sleep
• Do gate-check the stroller and capsule
• Do pack plenty of outfits for the plane
• Do prepare for the tiny airport toilets
• Do prepare to be stopped every 2 minutes by strangers who want to ogle, ooh and ahh at your baby

We felt prepared!

Rookie error #1
First rookie error happened less than an hour in....did you know that the airport has a family line? We found this out after waiting in the super-long regular line for....oh I don't know....about AN HOUR!

Rookie error #2
Second error, we were under some ridiculous illusion that airport security cared about sleeping babies. We had to break the cardinal rule of "NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING BABY!!" so that Callum's capsule could be up-ended onto the security belt. As we tried to get myself, Nuwan, Callum, stroller, capsule, nappy bag and a backpack through security I was incredibly greatful there were two of us and we weren't trying to manage single-handedly. Whether is policy or just general lack of awareness the staff sit firmly behind the conveyer belt as we try to manage all this by ourselves. I heard a woman travelling alone, with a nine-month old, wondering out loud why no-one was helping her.

All aboard!

We boarded the plane. We took our seats and Callum was immediately fascinated by planes outside the window, he wanted to stand and settled right in!

We fed on the way up and Mr C promptly fell asleep, and asleep he stayed for an hour and a half. About 45 minutes before landing he woke up, he played a little, looked around a lot and fed on the way down. He was so good, the lady in front of us asked us for our secret....admittedly we chalked it down to luck.

Rookie error #3

We thought we were in the clear. We took a shuttle into the Thrifty office to pick up our car. As Nuwan did the paperwork I fed Callum, and as I fed Callum his stomach made some joyous and odorous rumblings. When finished I put him back in the stroller and got him to lean forward, as I did I saw all the signs of a number 3. So it happened that the first thing we did in our new car was conduct a thorough nappy and outfit change.

LA was the hottest places that Callum has been and he coped beautifully. He coped with the napping on the go and even coped (reasonably) well with sleeping in a hotel room in his travel cot. He coped with feeding in all manner of weird and wonderful places. He coped with long drives and even coped with his first trip to the ocean.

All in all it was a successful first plane venture and first holiday venture....and it wasn't a fluke....he was fine on the plane home as well!

Everyone told us we had to have In N Out burger when we were in LA. It was pretty good...!

Jumperoo, Bumbo, Antilop

Some quiet reading in the Bumbo

Supervising the outdoors from his favourite vantage point

A question for your non-parentals out there ; do the above words sound like jibberish? Well, a few months ago, they did. Now, they're part of our everyday vocabulary. 

Callum has been slowly discovering these additions to his toybox and it's fascinating watching as he approached each gingerly at first, with extreme caution. He slowly increased the amount of time he spent on each, and reaches further, played longer and engaged more eagerly. Today he is jumping with both feet in time and playing with the attached toys in his jumperoo. He's reaching and chatting in his bumbo and enjoys staring at leaves and looking out the window in his highchair.

The rainforest jumperoo, complete with shoebox to add that extra height.

First Softball Game

One of the charities that Nuwan sponsors, United Way, sent us tickets to a charity softball game this weekend just gone. It was our first time at Safeco stadium and Callum's first sporting even (I don't think Appachchi's volleyball playing last weekend counts)

A series of firsts

The first roll

Admittedly this happened a few weeks ago but it's taken me a while to catch it on camera. We've encountered a few issues...namely the screeching. So, the little man has learned to communicate. It generally sounds like grunts, and squawks and lots of effort. Unfortunately, when I point the camera in order to capture said "roll", the grunts and exertions make a simple roll sound like an act of torture. This rendered the several videos, some with successful rolls, others not, unusable. 

The first pair of shorts

In got sooo hot in the last few weeks (read 25 degrees +) that Callum got into his first pair of shorts. It was a momentous occasion !

The first haircut

It was with horror and embarrasment that Nuwan and I spotted that Callum's hair was looking decidedly mulletish. Not only was there a "party" in the back,  a la uncle Jesse, there's was a wispy haired party in the front. It was to try and remedy this disaster that we headed to DOOZ at Bellevue to give Mr Callum his first haircut. We were excited....we told the grandparents and the aunts and uncles. They were so excited that every time they saw Callum leading up to the event, they were convinced he'd already gotten his haircut.
Alas, there was one critical step I'd forgotten. I'd forgotten to tell his Seattle grandmas. It was lunch at Grandma Gill's where I casually mentioned our weekend plans.
"Callum's getting a haircut on Saturday." I said to Grandma's Sharon and Gill.
Jaws dropped, gasps ensued and looks of horror were exchanged. I was expressly forbidden from touching a hair on my precious boys head.
"But his wispy curls will be gone." They cried
" Quick, let's count the curls."  They said, united in their efforts to thwart Nuwan and I.

Ultimately, we were given reluctant permission to trim just a little to maintain his "coolness".

So, with reluctant permission in hand, off we went to DOOZ. Callum was photographed and placed in his bumbo chair.

 His hairdresser placed a cloak around his shoulders and Callum processed to chew it with vigour....mmm tasty plastic.

 The hairdresser declared him the calmest baby she's ever seen and was impressed by his cool. He happily chewed on his hands as his hair was neatened and trimmed ever so slightly. An after photo was taken and he received his very own mini-ducky.

Now, we did run into Grandma Gill the following day and either the haircut was so subtle she didn't notice it, or she was too polite to mention the massacreing we doled out onto our first born.

The first Mother's Day

Sunday was my first Mother's Day...yay! I was woken at 6:30 (the why's of this follow) by Callum and Nuwan and given my first mother's day present. A lovely Le Creuset loaf pan and a new French inspired apron and oven mits.

Callum apparently heard me complain about my missing loaf pan and in his own words "you can never have too many aprons"....agreed!

After Callum went to bed Nuwan even cooked me a delicious chorizo and prawn risotto which I enjoyed with glass of my favourite Semillion.

The first 5k

We woke up at 6:30 and woke Callum up in order to take Callum out for his first mother's day 5k run. The weather wasn't great but as we got out onto the course we were greatful for the cool rain rather than the hot sun of the past few days.

Here's a few happy snaps of us coming into the finishing line. We made it in under an hour! Yay!

The first passport

I have sort of accepted that I have a Yankee baby. That didn't stop us from registering his birth with the Australian consulate in order to obtain his Australian citizenship. Along came his citizenship ceritifcate in the post, with a slightly unexpected surprise.

Woops, we now had a child that could not travel back home! So we are now in a frantic effort to get his Australian passport so that he can actually enter his homeland....geez. 

The first of many conversations about life

The first time laughing at a "Dad joke"

Summer is coming

People loved to tell us depressing tales about what Seattle weather was like over and over again. One thing we did hear as well was that as soon as the sun was out in Seattle, people run outdoors, jump atop bikes, into kayaks and into runners and soak up the vitamin D. Now that it's coming onto a year of us being here, this is exactly what we've done. I mean, the only thing Callum gets apart from breast-milk is his daily (when his parents remember :P) dose of vitamin D drops.

We've had a few spells of good weather and we've used it to try and see some of what our new home has to offer. Now that I'm no longer limited by morning sickness, reflux or the "don't eat that or your baby will have two heads" diet, our options have certainly expanded. 

Kirkland Waterfront.

When the sun peeked out of the clouds a few weekends ago, Nuwan, Callum and I headed for Kirkland on Lake Washington. Kirkland is a cute, lakeside  town that has plenty of great dining options as well a lovely waterfront complete with a "fake beach". 

Fake Beach: A portion of waterfront land that is covered in imported sand to resemble a real beach. Seattle is rife with them.

We popped Callum in his pram and he prompty fell asleep thanks to the bumpity, bumpity of the stroller on the pebbles. Nuwan and I then hunted down some Banh-Mi (pork rolls) and happened upon a tea shoppe that sold New Vithanakande Tea.

We stopped at my favourite shop, Sur La Table, where I proceeded to break a creme brulee dish (sigh, the shop assistant assured me it was stacked incorrectly), bought a set of insulated glasses for half their value (they were priced wrong) and generally decided that we have an undue fascination with cookware. 

It was a beautiful day and even Callum enjoyed the sun. However, it became pretty clear that our little man hates the sun.

The Skagit Tulip Festival

Every year Skagit county, north of Seattle, hosts a tulip festival. It's a beautiful display of flowers and colour. We decided that we were going to make a day-trip of it. It was a risk, spending the WHOLE day out with Callum and there's always the Seattle weather to contend with. We drove up in pouring rain, it kept raining as we found parking, it continued to rain as we walked around the fair set up in the town. Thankfully, it stopped raining as we got to the tulip fields and gardens themselves. Unfortunately, the rain did leave a muddy mess. 

Nuwan and I love fairs. All those home-made goodies, artisan products and endless oppurtunities to part with money. We all came away with presents. English toffee for me, bbq sauce for Nuwan and a set of hand-made washable dinosaurs for Callum. We also had some "first" all-American experiences, we shared a corn-dog (weirdly sweet) and discovered what root beer was. Well, sort-of. The helpful people at the root-beer stand said 

"It's sweet and is made from some root." hmmmm. 

The flowers were spectacular and even though it got a bit chilly, and the Cal-man got a bit cranky, we thoroughly enjoyed the day. 

Mothers group

Mother's group is turning out to be a lot of fun. We've met some lovely new "moms" and Callum is making friends. Though, I was informed today that occasionally my Australianisms cause confusion during sharing time.

"What's this 'cot' she keeps talking about?" 

Callum looking somewhat forlorn. 

Cinco De Mayo

A "mom" at mother's group asked last week what people on the west coast did for Cinco De Mayo. A picnic was quickly organised at a local park (over facebook of course) and we ventured out to make use of the fabulous weather. Another mom volunteered to bring plates and cups, left over from tail-gating season. "I hope you like purple and gold she said". There was a promise of skinny-girl margaritas and all in all, Nuwan and I had no bloody idea what was going on.

Firstly....we had to ask. What is Cinco-De Mayo. If you haven't already searched it. it's

Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for "fifth of May") is a celebration held on May 5. It is celebrated in the United States and regionally in Mexico, primarily in the state of Puebla, where the holiday is called El Día de la Batalla de Puebla .It originated with Mexican-American communities in the American West as a way to commemorate the cause of freedom and democracy during the first years of the American Civil War, and today the date is observed in the United States as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride.

At Newcastle Beach Park 

Our lovely mother's group

Next....what is tail-gating and why does it result in left-over purple and gold plates? Tail-gating is the custom of hanging out and socialising in the stadium car-parks before and after sporting games. Literally, hanging out at the tail-gate of a vehicle. People often bbq food, drink and generally have fun. Now, the purple and gold? I was just getting to that. The University of Washington's football team, the huskies, are coloured gold and purple and this couple are "u-dub" alumni. Make sensus?

In his NYPD shirt from Punchi and Bappi :)

Now the Skinny-girl margaritas are just a normal margaritas, made with "skinny" ingredients that are not as fattening. It was invented (I use the term loosely) by someone called Bethenny Hesse, who everyone agreed was tres annoying, apparently.

Who'd've thought that moving to an English Speaking country would involve picking up a whole new language!

Six weeks with Callum

Visitors

Wow….did we get busy after Callum got here. Nuwan and I were amazed at our popularity….alas it wasn’t true…it was all about Callum.

We had both sets of grandparents and punchi and bappi and various times. Callum got thoroughly spoiled. I would feed and suddenly he’d be whisked away for a cuddle or a burp. Callum was still a true newborn at this stage and adhered to the old adage of sleeping like a baby. He certainly did!  We even had to wake him to feed him. There really is nothing as nerve wracking as being a new parent. There is a little person who is totally dependent on you, relies on you for everything. Unfortunately the only feedback you get is tears or snores which are hard to discern. What’s a hungry cry? What’s a sleepy cry? What’s a “nappy change please” cry?

Thank fully we got a nice pat on the back when we went to see the Child Health Nurse at the hospital. Callum was putting on weight, he was feeding well and he was doing all the right things. Unfortunately his bilirubin was a bit high and he looked a bit jaundiced. It wasn’t too serious thankfully but she wanted us to be cautious….off we went to the Drs.

WARNING : POO STORY

We’d been out for 3 hours by the time we went to the Drs….and when the nurse asked us to take of Callum’s nappy….he’d made a large deposit. As we took it off Callum decided it was an appropriate time to wee all over the table. Unfortunately this only helped spread his deposit all over the table. Nuwan and I, being the responsible adults that we are, burst out laughing. Callum had had his first Poonami!

Callum’s jaundice got better on it’s own with lots of feeding and probably lots of cuddling.

Getting out and about

We also got out of the house as much as possible. We had to go out for Appachchi’s birthday after all. We headed out for brunch to the Pomegranate Bistro. A nice little restaurant in Redmond that was firstly family and baby friendly and secondly had really good food.

We also took the parentals out for proper American bagels, I mean when in Seattle right?

Nuwan took them to Pike Place so that they didn’t leave Seattle without having experienced what it was most famous for.

We’ve been on our own now for 3 weeks and we’re doing pretty well. Here’s some photos to prove it! 

Wonder Weeks and growth spurts

One of the scariest thing about being a parent is going to a bookstore….have you every looked in the “baby” / “child” section? You’ve probably heard of  WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE EXPECTING, but that is merely the tip of a truly titanic-worthy ice-berg. Every quack and his/her dog has written a book about how to make your baby sleep, eat, poop and boogie.  It’s terrifying as a new parents because what I imagine is hidden in those pages is a myriad of things that we are probably doing wrong. Ways we are probably spoiling poor Callum for life.  It’s a mine-field out there and we decided the best strategy was ignorance, it is bliss right? We’ve read a bare minimum of what to do and are hoping that Callum will thrive by sheer dumb luck. I figure our parents didn’t have Doctor Spock advising them at every turn, they went by instinct. For what it’s worth, Callum seems pretty happy so far!

Having said that we did have some lovely Seattle friends impart their knowledge via books

So far we’ve survived the 6^th week growth spurt, we’ve had his one month birthday party and

Callum doing what Callum does best!

Callum learned to write...isn't he impressive :)

Okay.....so Ammi and Appachchi were so impressed by our little man in the tub that we decided to photograph him. Of course as soon as we took this photo Callum decided to do what he does second best...poop! 

We're trying to teach Callum to take the bottle. This would mean that I could step out for an hour or two...so far we've not had any success. Nuwan has to give it to him, otherwise he can smell me. It usually ends in someone screaming...not always Callum. We shall keep trying!

Callum turned 1 month during this time. Here he is in his Lankan cricket shirt that his mami and nendi made him. Patriotism starts young in this house. 

Just chillin...

Just sleeping...

He also grew out of his newborn suits. We had to pack them away and move on to his 0-3months suits. It was a sad day :(. 

Enjoying some sun with Ammi 

Callum loves to read, especially his special book he got from his Aunty Jill.