A Decade of Valentine's Days

I hardly ever update this blog anymore, and when I do it's usually to talk about Jack or my progress at school. But in spite of the fact that the few people who still read this blog do so as an addendum to Beverly's, I hardly ever talk about my wonderful wife. Well, it's Valentine's Day, and the card I bought didn't have room to write as much as I usually do. So it's time for a little web-enabled PDA. (This isn't a first. If you want a chuckle and haven't seen it before, check out the formerly secret online note I sent her on our six-month anniversary.)

This morning, it occurred to me that today marks my 10th Valentine's Day with Beverly. It makes me feel like we should be doing something bigger, but we've got a baby to watch and money to save, and we have a history of pretty mellow Valentine's Day celebrations. I know that it will still be romantic, though, because it always is ...even when we were living in Queens and had a candle-lit Valentine's Day dinner of hot dogs. Honestly, every day with Beverly is romantic, even if we've gone from cuddling in our college dorm suite at the end of the day to cuddling with Jack.

Maybe all couples do this, but Beverly and I regularly sit around wondering whether everyone thinks their relationship is as great as we do. Our sense is no, that we are incredibly lucky to be so in love. A few days ago we were talking about what makes a successful marriage, and I identified three things: friendship, attraction, and work. You have to friends, and we're lucky enough to be best friends. Mutual attraction has to be there, so it's a good thing I have such a sexy wife. And being a spouse is also partly a job. That's all it used to be in most cultures, and I think sometimes we forget that having a supportive, hard-working partner is just as important as the romantic stuff. Beverly agreed with this list, but she also added "respect," which I guess is really what ties it all together.

I don't mean to just randomly pontificate about love and marriage. But what's amazing about Beverly is how much friendship, love, hard work and respect she's shown me over the years. This past year especially, she has been absolutely amazing. Beverly's typical day involves feeding Jack breakfast and getting him ready for the day, heading out for an intense and challenging day of consulting work, keeping the checkbook balanced, coming home to feed Jack dinner and play with him before bed, exercising, making a delicious low-calorie meal from scratch, making baby food for Jack, and spending quality time with me. It's a good thing I'm not prone to guilt, or she would really make me feel like a slacker!

So hooray for my wife, for the baby who's living evidence of our love, and even for Valentine's Day. It may be a manufactured, commercial holiday, but what it celebrates is pretty great. Happy Valentine's Day, everybody!

Currently Listening You're Awful, I Love You By Ludo see related

That's a good-looking baby

Another comparison shot

Another couple of months have passed, so it must be time for me to post another blog entry! You may remember how much Jack grew in his first couple of months. While he's not growing quite as fast anymore, check out this comparison of when he was less than a month old to the way he looks today:

Crazy, huh? He's actually over the weight limit for the bassinet now, so we've put it away until it's time for baby #2.

By the way, thanks to everyone who filled out my survey!

Procrastination Update

Hey, everybody! As the summer winds down and my internship at Mattel is almost over, I'm finding myself with a little more time for stuff like updating my blog. I don't have any big news at the moment, but I thought I'd update with some pictures from the past few days.

First up is a great one that Zach sent me, taken on Saturday night. After taking care of Jack on Saturday while Beverly attended a friend's wedding shower, I spent the evening celebrating Zach's engagement to his lovely girlfriend fiancee Sandi. Zach spent much of the night mingling with his many guests, but I got to spend some quality time with my buddy Joe. I've known both of these guys since middle school, but they didn't meet until after we all graduated from college. Now they're frequent collaborators, and Zach is producing Joe's next film!

Joe tries to hide his jealousy at our stylish striped shirts

And because there can never be too many cute pictures of Jack, here are some extras that Beverly didn't post in her latest entries.

He looks so funny whenever we put him in pants

Jack is kicking a lot lately, and likes it when I apply counterpressure with my hands or feet

These tummy time pictures are great for showing off Jack's oh-so-vertical hair

Jack is doing really well lately. As far as I can tell, he's doing all the developmental stuff he should: smiling when he sees us, batting at objects, lifting his head a bit, sleeping at night, and growing at a steady clip. And during the past couple of nights, he's been getting back to his schedule of uninterrupted sleep. He's such a good little baby! I keep wondering when he'll start to act more like the little terror that I was.

While I've had an awesome time at my internship this summer, I'm looking forward to the two weeks of vacation that will start for me next week. For part of that time, my dad and brother will be coming out to LA and visiting Jack. It will be fun to see their reactions to how he's grown, and I'll relish the chance to give my big brother some last-minute parenting tips before he has his own baby to take care of!

Currently Listening Zeitgeist By Smashing Pumpkins see related

The incredible growing baby

   Wow. Today Beverly posted a picture on her blog that really showed me how much Jack has changed in his first seven weeks of life. Compare little Jack on his first or second day...

...with the big chubby baby he is today!

So far (knock on wood), he's been a really easy baby. Once we got past the overwhelming "oh-my-god-this-is-harder-than-a-puppy" first couple of weeks, it's been smooth sailing. These days, he's letting us get almost full nights of sleep. And he actually seems to like us now, which is nice.

Other things in our lives are going similarly well. I have two weeks left at Mattel, and it's been a fantastic summer. Working for a toy company has been even more fun than I could have hoped. I head back to school in October, and I'm looking forward to a pretty easy schedule of classes (only three days a week). I've also managed to secure a sponsor for my "Applied Management Research" program, a sort of sic-month, part-time group internship that the second year MBAs do at UCLA. I'll be working for video game company THQ on a very cutting-edge marketing project.

So as usual, life is good! Now I'd better get back to work.

Currently Listening The Fragile Army By The Polyphonic Spree see related