Ana lives vicariously

More rewind posts. Rewind to early January/February...

So it finally happened. And I guess I should feel proud that it has taken three years for me to start making my child live out my dreams, but it's not like I could have forced him to play the piano at 1 year old, so maybe I shouldn't feel so proud of myself.

But I digress...

I can't ice skate. I mean, sure I can awkwardly navigate around the side of an ice skating rink, but given how prone I was/am to breakage, I'm afraid ice skating and I were never meant to be. I guess that's why I really wanted Jack to learn how to ice skate. The ice skating class was full, so mean mom that I am, I put my little manly man in the hockey class. :)

Meet my little hockey player in his "patootie pants"



Jack was by far the youngest guy out there, but bribed by a mini cupcake of his choice at the cupcake bar afterwards, he cheerfully attended 3 lessons, and tearfully attended 1. He was making progress but then we missed a week to attend a friend's birthday party, and the next time we went back he sat himself right down on the ice and refused to stand up again. I forced myself to concede that maybe not all my dreams for him can be fulfilled by his third birthday and that was the end of my little hockey player. Maybe we'll try again next year?



I loved that Zack knows how to skate and I can trust that even if I'm insane and I put my just barely turned 3 year old on the ice, he can take care of him.

To quote Jack, "Our papa's a rock star!"

What should Zack read?

So a very popular question during the Harvard MBA interview is what are you currently reading. I am going to spare poor Zack and not admit what he was actually reading when he learned of this question. He has since started reading Clayton Christensen's book, who is a Harvard Business professor. He was genuinely interested in this book, and wants to read some of it to prepare regardless, but I think it might seem a bit of a kiss up answer. What do you guys think?

What do you think he should be reading??????

Jack turns the big 03!

**rewind the clock to January 17th....

For Jack's third birthday we promised to take him to Disneyland for the first time. He has been telling practically everyone he met for the last 6 months that he gets to go to Disneyland on his birthday and even though he had no real idea what Disneyland was he knew enough to be super excited. We decided to make it a two day long Disneyland celebration since he was free until he was 3 and then free on his birthday and we thought it might make it a more manageable experience if we weren't trying to cram everything into one day.

Friday we drove down to Disneyland in the early afternoon. The lines weren't bad at all, in fact Jack was so excited to actually be at this elusive Disneyland that he even enjoyed the lines. We started off on the Rockets, Storybook boats, Dumbo, and then the main event itself, Autopia. Zack must have taken Jack on Autopia at least 10 times over the course of the two days. Finally, we stopped to see the Fantasmic fireworks show. Jack was really excited to see fireworks, but we forgot that the beginning of the show was a bit scary, so at Jack's request, we went into the New Orleans' square and "hid" for a while. We taught Jack to listen to the music, and when the music no longer sounded scary, it was time for us to go see the fireworks.











Disneyland - 1 Jack - 0



Saturday morning Jack woke up to our hotel room being covered in streamers, Happy Birthday signs, presents and the requested lemon cupcakes.







After breakfast cupcakes and presents, we headed over to Disneyland to meet our fantastic friends, Bruce, Maryanne, Zoe and baby Audrey at the Breakfast with Minnie where we tanked up on food and Jack got his first glimpse of the lifesized Disney characters. He was a bit reserved at first, but warmed up towards the end. Jack's biggest birthday wish was to meet Mickey Mouse. When Jack finally saw Mickey, he ran right up to him and gave him the biggest hug like he had just found his long lost best friend. I was too busy enjoying the tender moment to remember I had my camera in my hand. Right before we had to leave, I managed to snap this picture to at least remember the meeting.



Our second day introduced Jack to roller coasters (which he loved)



The Teacups (which he loved)



Autopia, Autopia, Autopia, and did I mention Autopia?

The dreaded Jungle Book Cruise (which brought Jack to tears). We shortly thereafter realized that he was old enough to understand what the tour guide was saying (ie. "Oh no when hippos ears shake that means they are going to eat us") and not old enough to know that it wasn't real, especially given how much time we had spent at the Wild Animal park and the Zoo lately.

One of the best parts was getting to see these two friends together again. Thank you Maryanne and Bruce for making Jack's birthday fabulous!







Disneyland - 2 Jack - 0

Portraits

The other day we were out in back drawing with chalk and Jack made one of his first attempts at drawing a person. He loves to draw, but up until now cars have been his obsession so he rarely ever strayed from them to other forms.

Jack's drawing of me...





Now, I will be the first to admit I have put on a few pounds due to inactivity and "woe is me" cake and Ben & Jerry's ice cream consumption, but really, a pig's nose?

Needless to say as soon as Zack got back from work that evening I went running.

It should be mentioned that Jack's next drawing was of Zack. He started off by saying, "okay, Papa needs a big head" and then proceeded to draw a ginormous circle for Zack's head. Given his mom's pig nose, mohawk hair and his father's melon head, it's amazing that Jack turned out as cute as he did!

The Zackrison House Goes Dark

We are grateful that our Christmas lights helped us celebrate the Season.
We are grateful that our Christmas lights warmed the heart of a Navy Seal risking his life in Oman during his final deployment.
We are grateful that our Christmas lights marked the celebration of Zack's birth.
I am grateful that today, March 27, 2009 is the first night in nearly five months that the Zackrison house is dark.

Take that SDG&E!

(When I complained about the electricity bill last month and the contribution that the "Christmas" lights made to it, Zack told me I should just put the heat on less. The man definitely has his priorities!)

Finding Meaning

One** of the hardest things about losing another pregnancy is that your reason and purpose suddenly disappears. For weeks the vomiting, lack of energy, feeling of not being a good enough mother to my child or wife to my husband has a purpose. The fact that my house is a mess, I haven't cooked a meal in heaven knows how long, and my body is getting softer and less toned thanks to my doctor's request that I don't exercise -- it's all okay, because I am doing it for our family. I am doing it so that my child can have a sibling to share his hopes, dreams and life with, a friend that will be around long after Zack and I are no longer. I am doing it so that our hearts can expand and learn to love even more then we know how to today, even more then we think possible. After suffering through another loss, it is in the arms of my husband, my mother, and my child that I find peace and help in refocusing my purpose. And, it is in my child's arms that I gain the faith to move forward, remembering how worth the wait he is, and find faith to begin again with purpose.

Jack learns to write

Both mother and father are so proud...

Jack's thoughts

I am constantly asking Jack, "do you know how much I love you?"

The other night in the car, Jack turned to Zack and asked "Papa, do you know how much I love sugar?"

So, so much.

This morning when I came downstairs Jack said, "Hey Mom, do you know there is a place called Hidden Valley and they have lots of vegetables there? We should go there sometime." I think he must have seen the Hidden Valley Ranch commercial a few too many times. I can't understand why he would want to go there given his distaste for all things vegetable and his apparent love of all things sugary.

Directions to Jack's work

Tonight at dinner Jack gave us detailed directions of how to get to his work.

"You go to ESPN and then take a right turn at dot com"

I'm thinking maybe we have been letting him spend a little too much time playing games at espn.com

An Ilich Christmas

Growing up our family observed Christmas and New Year's according to the old calendar. That meant that Christmas came every January 7th. Christmas in our family didn't involve presents or even a tree, and in spite of, or maybe because of this it was a special day in its own way.

Every January 6th (Christmas Eve) my family would gather in the evening at my grandparents house. There were years that we had more then 25 people, and others just 6. My grandmother would fix a "fasting" meal (meaning no animal products - fish is ok) and we would set a table on the floor. She would have us lay a red table cloth over the floor and then place all of the food on it.





Next came the fun part. We would recreate part of the manger scene. The adults would be hens and their role was to "quaw" and the kids would be chicks and our role was to "pew" (I am still a chick at 28...I think I may always be...). The oldest male would then take a basket full of hay, walnuts, wheat and coins and forming what I will call a tango line for lack of a better name, we would line up from oldest to youngest and assume our respective hen or chick roles, quawing or pewing as we moved from room to room throughout the house as the hay, walnuts, wheat, and coins were thrown all over. We would then sit down on the floor for dinner and the kids would look around trying to spot the largest coins during dinner so once we were released we would run as fast as we could to collect the most money.

Since we live in San Diego, we decided we were close enough and it meant enough to us to have Jack and Zack experience an Ilich Christmas Eve. Jack had a wonderful time and I think he got a kick out of seeing all the adults in the room behave so strangely! It was a touching experience to see my child experience something so special to my family and dear in my own memories. Jack is an amazing child and breaths new fresh life into our family. He re-animates everyone and I see through his eyes the vibrancy of my family.

Jack even had his first "kolo" lesson (traditional Serbian dance) from Baba and Tai.







This year Jack lucked out and got to collect all of the coins without competition. He even managed to walk away with a few extra dollars thanks to Deda and Mark.

I am so grateful for the traditions of my family and for a loving husband who understands the value of teaching our child who he is and the traditions he is a part of.

**as a side note Jack asked to eat dinner on the floor all the rest of the week...

Where did this kid come from?

Yesterday while Zack was in the closet getting dressed for work and I was in the bathroom doing my hair and getting ready for the day, Jack sauntered in and walked right up to Zack in the closet. He looked at him and said,

"Alright people, what's the plan for today? What are we going to do with our lives?"

Seriously, where did this kid come from?

The 2009 Car Show

There are few things in life as awesome to Jack as the car show. We have taken him every year since he was born and I am not exaggerating when I say he has LOVED it since he was a baby. This year did not disappoint. Zack, Jack, my mom and I all drove down to the car show together and Nicky, Dani and Bobby met us there. We were there for nearly 3 hours while "the boys" (read Zack and Jack - Nicky only made it about an hour) sat in and pretended to drive almost every car. As in years past, Jack's taste got more and more discerning as the day progressed and he became more interested in the high end cars then mere Fords and Chevy's. By the end Jack was so tired, but refused to admit defeat and go home. Instead he found a cozy place to lie down for a quick pick me up.

Catch Up Christmas

You know life is crazy hectic when I am finally sitting down to record our Christmas one month later. Maybe I can blame my delinquency on the fact that our tree is still up and our lights are still on the house thanks to Mr. Christmas and his three foot tall elf. (on a side note, when I get back from the gym in the evening Mr. Christmas is typically listening to Christmas carols...). I finally lost it last night and informed Mr. Christmas that I couldn't take it anymore and the tree and lights needed to be gone by Saturday night. I felt like Scrooge, but come on -- our neighbors are going to start sending us nasty notes. Not because the lights are still up, but because they are still on each and every night!

Alright, back to Christmas. We had a great week leading up to Christmas which included trips to the Del Mar Festival of Lights, the Christmas house, visiting Candyland, throwing snowballs, sledding, and seeing Santa (from afar).





Christmas eve we had our neighbors over for dinner. They made crab and we made prime rib. Zack insisted we document the deliciousness which was our dinner by taking a picture...

Dani, Bobby, and Nicky stayed over until about 10 at which point we separated and wished Santa good luck with all that still needed to happen. Zack and I woke up at 8 completely thrilled that our elf had given us the gift of sleeping in a bit. We showered, dressed, made breakfast burritos (once again Zack documented it)


and orange rolls. 11:00 rolled around and we still hadn't heard from Jack. I went upstairs and woke him up. He immediately told me he was hungry and my initial thought was this kid is going to throw up. I tried to keep my negative thoughts to myself and consented to make him his requested hot dog **warning lights should have been going off...



He ate one bite and then threw up all over himself, me and our floor. (That picture was taken literally seconds before and if you look at his face you can almost see what's going to happen next!). The rest of the morning past in a blur of throw up and presents. Jack was so sweet and would open one present and then throw up (a gross side note, this was the first time he could tell me he was going to throw up and then throw up into a bowl instead of all over himself and me which was AWESOME). After a few presents Jack told us he was too sick and tired to open more so we took a break on the couch. Jack said he wanted a nap and after Zack gave him a blessing he took a short one hour nap and woke up hungry. All he wanted was an orange roll and I was too tired to say no.



He ate it and was a changed little man. He had energy and quickly remembered he had a ton of unopened presents and went to work.





It's moments like that that I am so grateful for Zack and the power of blessings. It was our Christmas miracle.

The highlight of Jack's Christmas was undoubtedly getting his ATV.



It was the one and only thing he asked for from Santa and he was thrilled. He spent an hour on ichat with my mom showing her all of his tricks and telling her what they were called.

It was not the day I had imagined, but it was perfect in its own way.

Catch up

One of the best things about living in San Diego, besides the fact that we are spending our weekends at the beach in January, is living closer to family. Jack and I have made several trips "up" (see Rachel and Zack -- I am trying) to Irvine to meet either Baba and Tai or my dad. We meet at the Spectrum which is perfect because it has CPK (which is still Jack's favorite restaurant and seems to hold some unknown power to calm him out of acting like a three year old at a restaurant) a fountain to play in, an ice skating rink, a carousel and a Ferris wheel. The first time we went, we met Baba and Tai and had a blast. Jack rode the carousel with Baba and after they left he convinced me to go on the Ferris wheel with him. Let me start off by saying I have an unreasonable fear of heights. (Maybe semi-reasonable in that I fell off a cliff once which hiking and managed to hang on to a branch about halfway down while one of the cars below mercifully stopped and the driver climbed up to rescue me). But that's another story. My fear of heights extends to Ferris wheels. Why anyone on earth would think sitting in a metal cage teetering high up in the air is fun, is beyond me, but Jack really wanted to go. I decided I was 28 years old and I was mature enough to go on a Ferris wheel with my child. We got in and seriously 30 seconds later I was in full panic mode and could not for the life of me look up. Jack sat next to me happy as a clam pointing out how windy it was, how many tiny cars we could see, hey, we could even see the ocean, and all I could do was wrap one hand around the metal pole in the center of the death trap and the other around Jack so that I could save us both when the thing collapsed. Jack, needless to say, noticed I was acting like a lunatic and asked me what was wrong. I wrestled back in forth as to whether to admit to him that I have fears (like plummeting to our death) or keep it from him so my fears wouldn't affect him. I finally decided it was okay for him to know that I got scared sometimes, so I admitted that I was scared and when we finally made it once around the death trap I asked the conductor to stop it and let us off. He laughed and asked if Jack was too young and scared for it, and I admitted I was in fact the one that was too young and scared for it.





The next time we drove "up" to meet my dad at the Spectrum, my dad lovingly agreed to take Jack up in the Ferris wheel and despite making fun of me, the two of them had a blast together.




Anyone else want to meet us at the Spectrum?

A sight that warms my heart

Growing up, every other Sunday morning we would wake up to my Dad playing his guitar at the kitchen table. I loved waking up to those sweet relaxing mornings. My dad was taught how to play the guitar (along with my uncle and aunt) at a very young age by my grandfather who was a professional musician and had his own band. He was a tremendously talented guitarist and my dad follows in his footsteps.

A few weeks ago, while we were in LA visiting, Jack noticed Deda's guitar and asked him shyly if he could play it. The picture of my father sitting "teaching" Jack how to play the guitar will be one I will treasure always.

Jack's wisdom

Last night while we were driving back from the Del Mar Holiday of Lights, Jack and Zack started talking about one of Jack's favorite subjects - breaking your or other people's heads. He is obsessed with the idea that people will break their heads and fall out of their cars in an accident (btw, this is a funny idea to him). As a natural follow up to the conversation they started talking about what happens if someone breaks their head. Where do they go to get help? Zack brought up the idea that they would have to go to the hospital to see Poppi to get their heads fixed. Jack replied, "well, actually** some people go to Nordstrom's to get their heads fixed."

Not exactly the same type of "head fixing" but more true words were never spoken.

**actually is Jack's favorite word right now. The majority of his sentences start with, "well, actually mom..." and then he tells me why I am wrong about whatever I said.

Is Christmas over yet?

Every year I promise myself I will keep sane during the holidays and every year I hit the point of chaos and frenzy. Jack is already Christmas-ed out and it's not even here yet. We are going to the temple to see their nativity show and lights tonight which I am hoping will help all three of us realign ourselves with the true meaning of Christmas. I hope then I can forgive myself that not everything got done perfectly and Jack probably has watched more tv and played more computer games then is good for him as I have scrambled to wrap, shop, bake and cook this holiday season.

Pure Happiness

There are moments that catch me off guard when I am overcome with the pure goodness and joy in my life.

Here are a two of the main reasons...



These two guys have my heart stretched so full with love it hurts sometimes. They make me better then I am.

I truly am the luckiest.

Wake up calls

This morning Zack was awoken by Jack screaming at him from his crib,
"Papa, you're a rockstar!"

Love it.

Two times a charm

So last week brought a new experience for me. I was laid off. Not once, but twice. How is that possible? Well I got laid off on Thursday afternoon, and then again Friday morning. The details are a bit too complex to dive into, but the official position is "I have been laid off and we are working out transitioning my responsibilities."

There is a lot more to be said, but that's all I can say today. Except maybe that I don't recommend the experience -- even once.