Bronson: Weeks 4, 5 & 6

Over the past 3 weeks Bronson's been doing his usual; eating, sleeping, dirtying his diaper... Lately he's started crying without cause, as is to be expected. In week 5 he really started tracking things with his eyes, namely myself or Matthew. He's started sleeping longer, 5 hour nights on his own in his bed. However his preferred sleeping place is in the arms of someone, anyone really, but if it's mom it's even better because then dinner is nearby.
He really likes his vibrating chair, although he prefers if we're rocking it with our foot, as well as it vibrating.

This week (week 6) he's been showing some hand eye coordination, he often grabs my necklace, and he's definetly getting better with the neck support. Although he's gotten longer, his belly has also gotten bigger! He no longer automatically grips your finger when you put it in his hand. He's started to mimick, as well. I've taught him to air kiss, and when he's having trouble latching for food, I show him how he needs his mouth to open wide, then he does it. We've also been dancing with our hands, and he's been mimicking my smiles.
He's also started smiling for comforts other than gas, gentle tickles will do it, or playing. My favorite is when he's sleeping, he often opens his eyes a slit and looks to see that I'm holding him, when he sees where he is, he then smiles at me and goes back to sleep.

Our Apartment

Our apartment in Pasadena is awesome! When we left Victoria, Matthew and I were sad, we thought we'd never have such a great apartment again... but we were wrong. While the windows are fewer than in Vic, and our views consist of the apartment next door, or, the other apartment next door, the general layout and size of this place is super!

We have two bedrooms, one for B, and two bathrooms, that's right, the baby has his own full size bathroom! The kitchen is large and new-ish, there's a dishwasher and a full size fridge. The dining room is separate from the living room and lit by a chandelier, and the living room is huge. The balcony is fair sized, certainly big enough for painting on and drying paintings on. We have a tree already - my parents bought us an orange tree and it's doing fantastically - I'm hoping for oranges within the next year.
Out back of the building is a small grassy yard with a shady tree and a sandbox and childrens playhouse. All 10 apartments in the building are filled with families wherein at least one parent is a grad student at CalTech, so everyone is pretty much in the same boat as us, and often when Bronson's crying at night, we can hear other children crying too, so we don't feel that we're disturbing anyone at all.

The apartment is located half a block North of CalTech, a 10 minute walk from the Astronomy building. 12 minutes south brings us to the CalTech gym, pools and sports fields where we play soccer every Saturday on the Astronomy intramural team.

We're about 6 blocks from Target, a mere 3 minute drive... to the west is South Lake Avenue, a famous shopping area of town which Bronson and I walk to frequently (only 3 blocks). Lake Avenue houses bookstores, childrens toy and clothing stores, adults clothing stores, food places, neat shops, movie stores and our local grocery store; Pavillions which is an offshoot of Vons, which is an offshoot of Safeway. Basically, we're still getting Safeway brand stuff. Even the cucumbers here still come from BC.

To the West is Bronson's future nursery (the CalTech nursery), once he needs one, just 1 block away, the Pasadena City College, where I may take an art course or two, and the library. These are ~4 blocks away, however half a block to the west is a corner store/deli and a great park including the whole kid play area, basketball courts, tennis courts, a baseball field and picnic area.

Anyhow, the moral of the story is - we have lots of room to entertain houseguests, we're near a lot of great places to visit and you'd even get your own bathroom complete with tub and shower, so come one, come all to visit the California Stevensons.

I should also mention that our apartment came with an air conditioner (Thank goodness, even cloudy days are pretty hot down here)!

Baba & Gedo

I've been feeling quite... let's say domestic, of late. Baking, cooking elaborate suppers, decorating, cleaning and looking to entertain guests. The nesting continues, it seems.

Looking through my cooking books, I started to notice that there were quite a few recipes written by my grandmother (Grandma Kay, who would be Bronson's Baba) I started to mark the recipes that were from her and subsequently have unlocked a gold mine of all my favorite foods that she used to make me. Her slush and pizza dough and oat fudge bars... needless to say I've been thinking of her and cooking up a storm. I'm so surprised that after getting rid of 3/4 of our stuff and moving to another country I've been able to find family memories (heirlooms?) I never even knew I had.

Here's grandpa Tony (Gedo) and Bronson

Time with my family

Before driving down to California to meet up with Matthew, I spent a week living in Port with my parents and Bronson. It wa definetly very odd sharing my old room with my baby... but all in all it was a good visit - my parents got me hooked on about 6 tv shows in 2 days and Matthew had to work to undo it all once I got down here. So, no the California Stevenson's do not have cable, instead Jennifer has a dvd buying allowance amounting to about 2 show seasons/month and has already caught up on all there is to know about her current favorite show Gre's Anatomy.

Small towns are interesting little things, at a baby clothes store I was asked who the father of my baby was !!! and a trip to Wal Mart with my mom involves alloting ~ 30 extra minutes to show off her grandson to everyone she sees (I'm not complaining, I like to show him off too, I was blessed with a darn cute kid)

On this note - apologies Spence I think we got you in trouble with your grandma for not telling her you'd already seen the baby!

The best part about grandparents, aside from the wardrobe and etc's they provide the baby with is that their answer to the question "Will you hold the baby while I..." is always "YES!!!"

Grandma Diane


Grandma Val


Grandpa Tim


Grandpa Alan

Bronson's Baptism

Bronson was baptised on September 10th at Fairfield United Church - rumour has it that he was the youngest baby to ever be baptised there. He looked dashing in the crocheted gown he wore (par grandmere Lorraine), and got many compliments, he also got quite hot and had to change for the afterparty... I mean sunday school and coffee time (hence the onesie in the pics) :)



Bronson with his godmother Sabrina

Fraser & Sarah

Good friends of ours, fellow gamers, and now husband and wife!

Fraser and Sarah got married in Courtenay, BC on September 17th, the day before Matthew left for California. It was a beautiful wedding, and Bronson especially enjoyed the dance floor (he managed to sleep through his dad forcing him to dance to fast, loud music, but once we took him upstairs to bed, he woke instantly)

We had a great time and want to thank Fraser and Sarah for asking us there, and for including Matt in the party as a groomsman.

As wedding favours they gave out cds of their favorite romantic songs, currently my favorite cd.
One song in particular however is making me miss them very much - the song goes "If we're lost, we'll be lost together..." and it really reminds me of a story I heard about Fraser getting lost on a hike with friends and having a total meltdown. Fraser - I think you picked well with the Sarah choice - she'll do a good job of helping y'all find your way, so stay calm and dress warm :)

Here are picture of Bronson at 2 weeks old in his little tuxedo;

We have arrived!

Well, Bronson and I have arrived and settled in to our new abode in Pasadena. We've been here for almost 3 weeks now, we're completely unpacked and leading relatively normal lives...

Matthew's been doing the school thing, it's rather hectic, but he's holding up and Bronson has been concentrating on growing... he's outgrowing clothes and fitting new ones, and it's pretty exciting. As for me, I finally threw my back out - those who know me well probably put bets on how long it would take for that to happen, thank goodness it was after the 4 day drive to get here, nevermind the packing oh yeah, and the labouring and birth :)

My back felt alot better after 3 days of icing and lying around, so on Saturday I played half a game of soccer [Matthew and I switch at half time so that one of us is with Babe at all times], and that was a bad idea, now I'm pretty badly sore again and I've promised not to play next week on penalty of chocolate being withheld for a week.

Anyhow, to avoid the mishmash, I will follow this up with specific pieces about life over the past few weeks, after a quick mention that I'm painting with oil again! Yay! and I've done 4 new pieces and found an amazing art supply store called Blick, so I'm quite happy with the space our family has created down here. In fact, I think we all are.