Halfy birthday to you

Six months old today. Wow. We were just talking about how the Ryan babies don't seem to stay baby-ish very long, that the time when she could stay still in our arms and let her head loll back and forth seemed to last, what, three days maybe. And we talked about how it's gone forever and if we want that feeling again, we'll have to have another baby.

Maybe that's why I'm typing with one hand while the other one applies pressure to the gaping knife wound on my chest.

Hopefully, this video works. If it does, there will be more to come of the first attempt at solo eating.

(Lake's, not Dad's.)

Hello again

OK, so my three-times-a-week posting has become once a month, which I'm sure surprises you all. Also, my main motivation for sitting down at the computer with this picture was that I thought it was a video. So either I erased the video or I never recorded video in the first place, whichever explanation you think makes me sound more out of it.

Anyway: 5 months old (as of Sept. 18), about 20 pounds, big smiles for everybody, most popular kid on the playground at school. Misses you all.

Lake, meet lake

Summer's over. School starts tomorrow, John goes back to work tomorrow (full-time, yes, but that's another unexpected story). Over the weekend we were doing an inventory of our activities during the break. We did a lot, particularly when the boys and I rode the Giant Dipper at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and somehow turned a discount night ($10 all-you-can-ride bracelets) into a $100 boondoggle. I was pretty proud of myself on that one.

We also saw Lake develop a wonderfully peaceful personality, as we hoped when we named her. But in scanning the months, we realized one thing we hadn't done: At four months old, Lake hasn't been in a lake.

It isn't as easy as it sounds. First of all, there aren't any lakes in San Jose. A few yucky reservoirs maybe, but nothing that was actually a body of water before the white man arrived in California. Also, we had planned to go to Tahoe at some point, but the weeks just got away from us. For that and a hundred other reasons, we were not allowing her to live up to her name. Shame on us!

So today, on the final day of summer, we went to Horseshoe Lake in Fremont and let her dip her toes. She was thrilled, as you can plainly see.

I hope this qualifies as a baptism?

A visit with NiNi

All right. After a month's (or so) delay, here's the next post. It isn't much in the way of writing; apologies for that. I'm going to really start to update this thing at least three times a week from now on, so send those angry e-mails if I don't.

Anyway, here are some pics from the four-day trip last week. (Linda and I aren't in them since we weren't allowed to hold the baby.) There's video too, but it's all too big to be posted here, so we'll have to look at some editing software.

You should know, we had the camera out all week, yet still it wasn't enough to prevent NiNi from whisking everyone to Picture People for an Official Photo Shoot. Basically, we drove from the house where we were taking pictures to the mall where somebody else t pictures. We don't have a scanner, though, so can't post those pics here.

So the amateur shots of Miss Lake and her two big boy heroes*








































*She really has taken a liking to them, and they to her. Future post coming up exclusively devoted to how the four of us managed the first few weeks of Mom's return to work. WARNING: Much discussion of poop.

Your wish is our command

OK, we can do that.

Many pictures of Lake

I have been falling behind and I know you're all just coming here for baby pictures anyway. So here they are, in a rough one-week sequence. (I say rough because we don't have our camera out all the time, so it's give or take two days on some of these. Also we don't have any prints of Lake pictures in our house yet. When Riley was born, I believe we took enough pictures to make an animated flipbook of his first two months -- and had every frame developed at the one-hour photo stand. Curse of the third child, I guess.)

0 weeks: The first picture (the first we could find of her without any other people in the frame anyway. Taken Day 2.)

1 week: "I don't even remember this picture," Linda says now. She's already forgetting the joys of early parenthood and wants to experience them agaiHAHAHAHAHAHA

2 weeks: Big NBA fan. Cries like a superstar looking for a foul, too.


3 weeks: Dad, when I grow up can I lie down on the couch instead of in my crib?


4 weeks: So this is what the world looks like from up here.


5 weeks: Lipstick and eyeliner? Already?


6 weeks: That's Miyuki. Lake is either really comfortable with her or really confused by the other Asian woman smiling all the time holding her.

7 weeks: She's trying valiantly to hold her neck up, which is more than we can say for someone else in this picture watching the playoffs.

The words every father longs to hear

This is Brady. He turned 6 on May 19. The above picture, taken May 18, is believed to be the last picture taken for all time of a 5-year-old boy in the Ryan/Tsai family.

This is how Brady greeted me when I got home from work tonight:

"Dad, can you play 21 with me? I got it all set up. You're the banker."

After dabbing the tears from my eyes and thanking the heavens, I started dealing.

Happy belated Mother's Day!

(Ed. note: Riley was playing the Wii.)

I was wondering what to write about Linda on Mother's Day, and I figured the best tribute would be to just deliver in the only manner I know how. So this is two days late.

Linda asked me not to post a picture of her, so, figuring it was Mother's Day after all, I complied. But let me just say to all who ask how she's doing (which is everybody): She looks great. I don't know for sure, I suppose, if she feels great; but if she doesn't, she sure is doing a nice psych job on me and everyone else. Her calm and ease in dealing with the whole transition is actually kind of intimidating to me. That's why I'm currently in my second week of hiding out at work.

Linda's starting to get out and about more now. Hopefully, the fact that I realize how easy it is to take her for granted will prevent me from taking her for granted. Hopefully, anyway.

The winner of the grandparent contest

The contest being "First Grandparent To Hold The Girl." The winner is Chun-Mei Tsai, a.k.a. Puo Puo. (There was some debate in the house about whether that designation might be spelled "Po Po," but we didn't want to end up on the FBI's Gang Watch list, so Puo Puo it is.

Hi. My name is Lake and ... Wait. MY NAME IS LAKE?!?!

Yeah, that's me, Lake Duo Ryan, born April 18, 2008. I guess you could say I'm the reason my dad finally got this family blog thing going. So I'm here, and let's get first things first.

*I'm a girl.

*"Duo" is my Chinese name. For the Anglos among you, it is pronounced like you're saying "Duwa?" and it means "abundant" or "more." And I certainly am more.

*"Lake" is ... shoot, I've been sitting here for nine days trying to figure it out myself. Sometimes, my brain's working so hard coming up with an answer that I cross my eyes and I just poop, I'm so confused. When I asked my dad about it, he referred to this scene from "Animal House:

Kroger: "Why Pinto?"

Blutarsky: "(Buuuuuuuurrrrrp) Why not?"

But I pressed on. Both of my parents have been trained in the journalistic art of annoyance, so I took after them and kept asking, and here's their answer: "We actually thought of this name many years ago, before Riley was born. When you came around, we brought it up again because to us, a lake always means peace and calm and a sense that the world is all right. And that's what you bring to us: Our lives come back to that place where we don't worry about what's behind or off to the side, we simply enjoy what's in front of us."

Whatever. I think it took Dad three glasses of wine and a shot of tequila to come up with that.

I'm enjoying my time so far, in large part because of my mom and big brothers and I suppose Dad too. Riley pushed me around the block in the stroller yesterday; he's also giving me lessons on what it means to be cool and aloof. Brady, he always holds me and kisses me and wants to come and say hi to me, and he still climbs into bed and sleeps with me and Mom and Dad. What a sweet little boy. Except he isn't very little.

Mom's not up for pictures yet -- I think she looks pretty but I guess I am wearing her out -- but here's one of me with my guys on my first day ever:





I can't wait until I'm old enough to sit on top of Dad's head and slide down the left side. Who needs to go to the park -- look at the slope on that thing!

You'll hear more from me soon enough. But just know that I wasn't the one who picked the name Lake. I heard my parents talking about it for six months but I didn't think they'd actually do it, so I'm as puzzled as all of you.

But when I'm on the medal stand at the 2030 Olympics showing off my silver in the snowboard half-pipe, it is going to sound pretty cool.