Year of the Snake

Today is The Dragon Boss' last day as a zero year old and this is the last of the hundreds, and more likely, thousands of pictures of his first year. Had he been born tomorrow instead of exactly one year ago, then he might not be The Dragon Boss, but The Serpent Boss. 

The Window

The Dragon Boss loves the living room windows. It's his domain back there behind the two chairs, with the ledge just high enough that he has to stand on his tip toes to see what he's missing out on.

If the soccer ball falls under the chair he can get down low enough to grab it. If he's doing the counterclockwise loop behind the chairs I'll surprise him on the fireplace side which makes Whit laugh and laugh which makes his dad incredibly happy.

But while he'll tire of that after two or three times, what he doesn't tire of is looking out that window. There's a lot going on out there and he wants to be part of it.

Single Dad Observations

Change takes time. Just ask a California gay couple or female executives. Sheryl Sandberg says three decades after women became 50% of college graduates it's a shame they're only 16% of Board members on Fortune 500 companies while two weeks as a single dad showed it's not just Fortune 500 companies that haven't changed.

Two comments stand out. The first was from a Walgreen's clerk who told me sometime last week when I checked out with one item, Johnson & Johnson No Tears soap, Do not leave this on your desk. Hmm, I laughed, but not sure what he meant? Does it look like alcohol, I asked? No, I'm pretty sure you were told, DO NOT FORGET THE BABY SOAP.

The second was from our French office manager, who when she learned that Baleen was gone for two straights weeks said, Now you know what it's like to be a working mom. Yes, I thought, it's a lot like what I do each day, which is a lot like what Baleen does each day. We're a team. 

Baleen's Back!

Baleen returned from two weeks in freezing London and humid Brazil (having packed for something in between, which left her a little like a hybrid bike, too slow for Hawk Hill and too valuable to be locked outside Papalote) wondering if The Dragon Boss would shun her like she'd heard from Henry's mom that boys tend to do when their mom leaves.

She got off that plane at 10am, showered at home, and went right to the park to the biggest grin and hug, she said, melting a mom's heart. The snuggle didn't last as long as Baleen would have liked, there was a leaf on the ground that soon looked more interesting, but it was definitely a grin and a hug.

They spent the rest of the day together and by the time I got back from work TDB was happy to see me, but happy mom was back so it was a family of three again.

Rags

Of the things I can't wait to tell Baleen when she returns on Friday, what The Dragon Boss wore isn't high on the list. If I don't show it here, I might not mention it.

I'm sure Baleen thinks I put him in the Bulgarian gymnastics pants every day, the ones that 3-Speed said give his legs that oh-so-familiar bowed look, but that's not true. I had three thoughts each time I tried to wrestle TBD into his clothes.

1) Would Baleen like it and if she would, I don't dislike it, do I? 2) It doesn't have too many buttons, does it? 3) Since it's raining, let's go with something dark. Baleen, here's some of what TDB wore these last two weeks.

Just a man and his diaper

The Luke Perry look

Stripes like mom

Who cares if I'm wearing pajamas outside? I'm operating heavy machinery.

Goin' Places

It's a whole lot easier spending 48 hours on the move with The Dragon Boss than watching him move so when he woke up on Saturday morning just before six, as he's done all week, we had our breakfast and got on out of there, first to The Mill on Lower Divis, where the old biking breadmaker now has a roof over his head, then home for a nap, because, after 10 1/2 hours of sleeping, three hours of waking is about all we can take.

The place where good bread is made

A detour on the way home before the day's first nap

When TDB woke up, it was another quick meal, then off to Pac Heights to pick up Uncle Slim, the pre-TDB friend who's made it into the post-TDB world, then off to the Dipsea steps to meet Henley and Annie et al for a hike to the Tourist Club.

That required another nap, a little indoor wrestling, then bottle, bath and bed before Sunday's trip to Golden Gate Park to see what San Francisco does on a Sunday. They play volleyball, lindy hop by the deYoung, roller skate near 6th and Kennedy and drink lots of beers from cans. TDB? He likes to wrestle bike seats laying on the grass.

Boom Town: The Barbary Coast's rowdy, anthomaniac's past

The Cranes of the Dogpatch

It's Carb Week here in the Mission suburbs where dinner so far reads pasta, pasta, pizza, pasta. These meals have all been drive-by's - Lucca's on the way home, pizza from the freezer - but that doesn't mean I won't travel for flour.

Yesterday morning took me to the Dogpatch, past all the construction around the new UCSF medical facilities; past 34 acres of the Portrero Power Plant that cranked out 141 years of energy for San Francisco shipbuilders, for Claus Spreckel's California Sugar Refinery, and for residents of what was then called the Central Waterfront; past the big ships doing I don't know what docked just south of Mission Bay, to the pop-up Thursday morning bakery of Greg Mendel and what's been called the city's best croissant.

Good thing I did, too, because yesterday was his last day in that location. One can master yeast, it seems, but not finding a place to sell your bread. The texted picture to Baleen in a London conference room was enough for her to declare that I'll be back when he finds a new location, but next time with Baleen and The Dragon Boss.  



Ride by here...



...and here...

...and here...

...to get to here.

Bedtime Stories

Baleen was worried that in her two weeks away The Dragon Boss would forget all about her and hold it against her when she returned and not let her put him to bed with a bottle and a bedtime story as she normally does.

I promised her that TDB wouldn't forget her or punish her for leaving and that he really wouldn't even know the difference, but just to make sure, we've been reading stories that remind him about Baleen.

Normally that's Baleen's territory, the reading, as I can't quite remember to grab the bottle, the binky, the sleepsack and a book and just tell him a story instead, but to make sure, I've put 365 by his bed each night and when it's time for bed, we flip the pages and talk about Baleen.

Boys Gone Wild

Baleen's gone for two weeks, off to London and then straight to Brazil because her employer needs her in those two places and won't pay for her to come home in between. She's very sad, especially today this day of departure with her afternoon flight to Heathrow so she walked The Dragon Boss to the park on his daily jaunt with Rowan to say goodbye.

While we are sad, and we do wish that mom was here, too, we're making the best of it. It's whole milk and carbs on day 1 and tomorrow night is looking like more of the same.

We've got an itinerary of bike rides, maybe an East Bay hike, and if mom has her way, a shopping list for our second father-son IKEA trip. We'll just stay away from the horse meatballs.

Walked

The Dragon Boss has definitely walked. We're not ready to say he's walking, as his preferred travel mode is still crawling or being carried, but he's definitely walked at least 50 steps by now.

The first steps were in January. He'd been standing on his own for a few weeks and walking with his hands on something, like the wall or the coffee table, so when he stood up in front of Baleen from a sitting position, we weren't ready for the two wobbly steps he took to Baleen's arms. Did he just walk, Baleen asked? He did, I said, and then we clapped and hugged him to let him know that he'd done something good, which probably didn't impress him all that much as we clap in unison a couple times a day at such tasks as eating puffs on his own or pointing to the soccer ball and saying, Ba.

We didn't see a repeat of those independent steps for another week and then it was a few days before they appeared again, but in the last week, it's been a few times a day now. It's still never more than 2 or 3 steps at a time and it's really, really hard to prompt him to walk, he seems to do so when he wants to and only when he wants do, but we can definitely say without hesitation that TDB has walked.