A Fall Day in the Mountains

I have always enjoyed seasonal activities, so last Sunday Liam and I joined some friends at Riley's in Los Rios Rancho, near Yucaipa. It's a great little place you can go to pick apples and pumpkins and enjoy some great BBQ and apple pie. There's even a little country store there if you'd like to do a little shopping while you're at it. It was great to get out of the city for awhile and enjoy a beautiful mountain day. This was the first outing I've had with Liam that I felt he was ready to get down and walk around, and--as you can see from the pictures--he had a lot of fun exploring his surroundings. I admit a major motivation for me in making the trip was to get a few cute pictures of Liam playing in the pumpkin patch and toddling around the ranch. I may be biased, but I think it's safe to say, "Mission accomplished!"

Look at that big boy getting around in shoes!

Liam did a great job getting around in spite of the uneven ground. He did take several tumbles, but none of them seemed to phase him. I was also happy to see that he doesn't seem to mind having shoes on--they didn't seem to trip him up very much, either.  Since Liam is still new to walking, I was able to keep up with him pretty easily this time, but I have a feeling this job won't be so easy in the near future! On this particular trip my main responsibility was to keep him from putting things he picked up off of the ground in his mouth. For the most part he was far more interested in the dirt than the bright, orange pumpkins, which is why in most pictures you see his little hands holding the dirt and other debris he collected during his explorations. Yay, dirt!

Mommy and Liam--this one is my favorite. 

I call this one, "Baby of the Corn."

Chasing Liam

Over the past year I've enjoyed taking Liam to the Villa's Outer Peristyle garden for little photo shoots with a beautiful backdrop. It used to be so easy--I'd lay him on a baby blanket, try and make him laugh, and snap away as he remained (pretty much) in the same place. Those days are no more. My baby boy has learned how to walk, and there is no getting him to hold still anymore. As you can see from the pictures, all I can do now is chase him around with the camera and hope that the shutter speed is faster than he is!

Our New Home

It was a daunting task, but over one weekend we moved out of our old apartment and into our new one. It was a hectic and VERY long weekend, but now it is over and it is time to begin unpacking and settling in to our new home. Actually, although we still have a couple of stacks of boxes left (mostly books, of course!), I was able to  unpack most of our stuff over the past week or so. I tried to unpack a box or two each night after supper, so by the time my work week was through we were much closer to making our living room a box-free zone. Unpacking is definitely easier than packing, although it's a challenge deciding where things should go. Anything that is of questionable value to have around on a daily basis is now being relegated to our garage space. With the luxury of storing things in the garage, I find that our new closets are quite spacious. Even after everything is unpacked, I think we may still have a little room to spare.

We have been in our new place since the first of October. As you can see from the pictures, we are settling in, but we don't have our family pictures or other decorations up, so the walls still look rather bare. Once we have more homey things up, I'll take pictures of the other rooms, but for now the living room is the most settled. I admit that, looking at the empty apartment, I wasn't immediately sure how "liveable" the space would be for us, but the more we've settled in the cozier and homier it feels. In part that is what happens to a space with you fill it with your things, but Eric and I both agree that this apartment feels homey in a way that our other one never did. Why that is, I don't know, but there you have it. At first Liam was a bit wary of the new place, but after fifteen minutes or so of fussiness and confusion, looking around with wide eyes, he started puttering around and didn't look back. It's only been a few days, but so far everything that I thought I would like about the place is proving true, making the drawbacks fade into the background. I'm looking forward to continuing make the place our own and adding more homey touches, like getting our pictures and wall hangings up.

Auf Wiedersehen, University Village

Sometimes it happens that when you finally prepare to leave a place you've been for awhile, you get a little nostalgic and think of the things you will miss about it. That is not the case with the apartment I am leaving behind this week. Instead, once I knew positively that we would be moving, all of the things that ever annoyed me about the apartment and the complex itself became even more glaring and annoying to me. The fact that the garage entry gate often doesn't work, the numerous gates and fire doors of the complex that make navigating sidewalks and hallways with a stroller maddeningly difficult, the way that the halls echo and carry the noise of screaming toddlers and kids, the frustrations of dealing with the laundry room, and so on--all of these things in the past month have only increased my frustration and anxiousness for change. To a certain extent, the degree of my frustration and eagerness to leave what is really a very nice apartment and apartment complex (especially for our budget) kind of surprises me. When Eric and I moved in we certainly considered it a serious upgrade and were very pleased with the perks of living in university family housing--subsidized rent, free internet and basic cable, and a far larger and nicer apartment than we could ever hope to afford in that area on our modest budget.

Times change, I suppose. When Eric and I moved in we were newly married and child free. We didn't need to fight with gates and fire doors while pushing a stroller or strategize about how to get to and from the laundry room with both the laundry and the baby in tow. Also, I think once you become a parent, you become much more focused on things that make your life easier and save you time. Once we had Liam, our situation and priorities changed considerably, and--ironically--the university family housing complex became a less accommodating place for us to live. Granted, it would be an even more inconvenient situation if we were not in an apartment on the first floor (the buildings have no elevators), but we've still become weary of the inconveniences we've had to deal with on a daily basis. Plus, all that aside, let's face it--you become less tolerant of present annoyances and frustrations once you have an end to them in sight. All month long I've had an eye on the calendar, counting down the days, and today September is finally at an end.

Tonight we'll spend our last night in the apartment we entered as newlyweds and now leave as new parents. Oh, I suppose there are things I will miss about the place, but I'm looking forward to tomorrow and hope that the changes it will bring will be as positive for our family as we think they will be.

Moving South

As the crow flies, our new home in Redondo Beach is less than twenty miles from our current location in West L.A. Although it may be hard for non-Angelinos to comprehend, this move constitutes a complete regional shift around here. It all comes down to traffic--the congested surface streets and clogged freeways of this city make traveling less than twenty miles an hour-long drive most of the time. I know all of this, of course, but it wasn't until this week that I started to think about our move in more concrete terms, and I realized this change in our base of operations is going to have an effect on more than our commute.

For example, one of my first belated realizations was that we're losing all of our awesome West L.A. delivery options. We currently have a stack of take-out menus nearly three inches thick. Having grown up out in the country where no one delivers, being able to just pick up the phone and order dinner has been one of the perks of living in the city. Alas, we will be saying goodbye to places like Gaby's Mediterranean (my particular favorite) and Chili Thai. Another change will be switching our medical group to one based in the South Bay. Driving to West L.A. for doctor's appointments would turn an errand that should take a couple of hours into a day-long excursion. (Also, I don't want to even think about a late night drive from Redondo Beach to an urgent care center in West L.A. when Liam gets sick.) Other repercussions will be felt in our social lives and circles. No doubt we will see our L.A. groups of friends less, and will see more of those who are located closer to our new place. One other significant factor--if you have lived in the city proper awhile--is that the decision as to whether or not you will go someplace will not be dictated by the parking situation. So many places in the city have no parking, scarce parking, or outrageously expensive parking that it truly is a consideration when you plan to go somewhere. In the South Bay, however, parking lots and free parking abound. I'm sure there are other incidental consequences to this regional relocation that I'll realize with time, but these are the ones I can foresee right now.

As for more negative consequences, the biggest will be longer commutes for Eric and I since he works at UCLA and I work in Malibu at the Getty Villa. Those daily drives to and from Redondo Beach will no doubt take every bit of an hour, if not longer on some days. Still, if you consider we're taking on a longer commute in exchange for eliminating the distance between us and our child care provider, it's well worth it. I'm sure Liam will also appreciate not having to spend two hours a day in the car, and I will definitely appreciate not having to spend four hours a day in the car. As it is I've only been doing it for about a month, and it is absolutely exhausting. Add to the daily traffic stress the stress of packing and preparing for a move on rather short notice, and you have one heck of a frazzled Amber.

We're almost there, though--just a few more days...