Shutterbug Mama

...we had the perfect autumn weather in chicago this past weekend—deep blue skies, fluffy white clouds, enough wind to make the falling leaves dance spiraling downward to their demise, cool crisp air to remind us we were definitely in the depths of autumn, and bountiful sunshine to warm us from head to toe.

... on saturday, the cultural center was having a huge halloween event for kids including a couple Chic-a-go-go parties. we met up with my friend Lori and her family who were in town from grand rapids, mi. lucky for me, lori is a super photographer, or i’d have no good photos of cadence in her black kitty costume. that’s lori in the photo above with her super cute son SuperDev. the next few photos are by lori.

the cutest kitty cat of them all, originally uploaded by lorilea.

i realize that cadence was a kitty cat last year, but i was way too lazy to find her another costume this year, and since she has not yet learned to ask for things that require purchasing power, i figured we’d give the meow suit one more chance. it was a little small for her, but nothing some holes and a shoelace couldn't handle.

kitty in a sea of crazy costumes, originally uploaded by lorilea.

one of the quirks of chic-a-go-go (besides their host miss mia) is the way it attracts adults as well as little kids. on a normal taping of the show, it’s not unusual to have a room full of hipster twenty-somethings and indie rock parents mingling with all the kiddies. at this particular show, cadence was mesmerized by a full-sized bug-eyed alien and a mexican wrestler dude dressed a la Nachos Libre. i think all the different costumes made cadence wonder what the hell was going on, and she spent much of the time lost in the midst of surreality just staring at people.

two tired toddlers..., originally uploaded by lorilea.

our visit w/ lori and scott and dev was short, as both our kids were needing a nap after the chic-a-go-go excitement. next time, though, we’ll have to get lattes @ metropolis, right, Lori?

...we put cadence in the stroller in case she wanted to snooze, and we went over to millennium park. i figured as long as we were downtown and the weather was as glorious as it was, i wasn’t in any hurry to get back home to the northside. due to the beautiful weather, the park was full of happy smiling people lollygagging leisurely. it’s amazing the effect a little good weather has on the moods of people who’d just spent the past couple weeks freezing their butts off.

...i have to admit that i’m a little bored with millennium park by now. notice that i am not posting any photos of the bean. it’s always fun, though, to people watch, and there were plenty of chances to do that saturday.

...cadence, who should have been napping by now, was energized by the vast green lawn behind the pritzker pavillion and ran her dad ragged. for almost an hour. nonstop...in this photo, she may appear to be running to give someone a hug, but be ye not deceived! she's actually trying to steal a stranger's frisbee.

...we had to leave around 2pm so that ted could get ready for a show that night with tim lowly. they were playing a show again w/ emo boys sleeping at last, this time at moody bible institute (the christians like the nice clean positive lyrics of SAL, i guess), which i found humorous. esp when ted told me that they had posters for the show that said "SLEEPING AT LAST w/ Tim Lowly". i'm still chuckling about that one.

...so cadence and i spent the evening together, just the two of us, as we often do when ted's out rehearsing or recording or playing shows or doing chi-gong. unfortunately, the only nap she'd had was the 50 minutes or so in the car ride home, and she started telling me she wanted to go to sleep really early. i was on the phone w/ josh when he reminded me about the time change the next day, which meant that i had a nearly asleep toddler on my hands at what essentially would be 6 pm, once i accounted for the hour gained the next day. since i didn't particularly enjoy the thought of cadence waking us up at 4am for her waffles and elmo, i spent the rest of the evening devising ways to keep her awake. in addition to a bath, which is always good for an hour of awake time, we built a menagerie of toys with both her sets of nesting blocks, we created a half-pipe for her matchbox cars, we played catch, we emptied out all her toys and then put them away again, we sang some songs, we did some dishes, and finally i put her down for bed at 10pm, or 9pm with the time change, which meant she'd sleep until at least 7 the next morning. whew!

...anyhoo, the extra hour of sleep sunday morning was greatly appreciated in our household, as we had to be at church by 9am for a parenting class we've signed up for. sunday was another beautiful day, and we went for a long walk in the woods at the grove in glenview in the afternoon. we went over to my mom's afterwards, and she was nice enough to offer to watch cadence so ted and i could go out for dinner by ourselves. as much as i love taking cadence everywhere with me, the one place i get really stressed out with her is at restaurants, so i was totally happy to take my mom up on her offer. we went to the yard house in glenview, which has like a gazillion beers on tap and had a nice quiet dinner. the perfect ending to a lovely weekend!

...this is just a really quick post to declare my membership at minti.com, a sort-of myspace for parents, minus the sleaze and band whores. my profile is at sierraromeo.minti.com. i admit i am totally a joiner. friendster, myspace, flickr, now minti. maybe it has to do with being raised in a cult that i'm perpetually pledging my allegiance to various groups. anyhoo, if you want to be my mintister, i'd be happy to oblige!

...so yesterday, i took the afternoon off from work. ted and cadence picked me up in lake forest and we drove 15 miles to campbell airport in grayslake, where ted's parents met us in their plane. ted's dad is an avid pilot and has been wanting to take cadence flying for a long time. even though she's been on two commercial flights to the west coast, a ride on a 6-seater twin engine is an entirely other experience.

...cadence was excited and couldn't wait to go "up the sky" as she puts it. i have to admit i was excited myself, as i haven't been up in a little plane since josh took me up at least 4 years ago.

...it was a beautiful day for flying. although it was chilly, the sun was bright and warm, and the sky was a brilliant blue with fluffy clouds way up high. we flew over a bunch of lakes over the state border to the southern wisconsin regional airport (JVL) in janesville, wi, about 80 miles northeast of our starting point.

...on our way to JVL, i shot a photo of this lake. when i looked at the photo on the computer at home, i was struck by how similar the lake is in shape to the korean peninsula. i oughtta know cuz i designed a t-shirt for my high school korean club that was the shape of our motherland formed by the names of all the members in korean club (our high school was at least 10% korean). just take a look for yourself:

...the bunny ear is a little short on the lake version, but you have to admit that there is a resemblance, no? i'm going to have to ask ted's dad what path we took so that maybe i could find out the name of that lake.

anyhoo, we ate lunch at a cafe that was at JVL. cadence just wanted to see some planes take off, which we had a chance to do even though it was a small airport. it was so cute watching her with grandpa. she even held his hand as they walked around the airport instead of just taking off on her own like she normally does with us.

...we headed back to grayslake after lunch and cadence fell asleep on the bumpy ride back. ted's parents flew back to their own airport, which is just a few minutes of flying time from campbell airport. they probably landed before we had settled into our car and driven out of the parking lot.

all in all, it was a lovely way to spend an autumn afternoon. we don't get to see ted's parents enough as it is.

...early saturday morning, soon after ted had left for work, i heard a loud *THUD* that made my heart sink down to my stomach. i ran into the bedroom, and sure enough, cadence had literally rolled all the way across from the middle of our giant full-sized-plus-queen-sized bed, flat onto her face onto our hard wooden floor. in the still dark room, i didn't realize the extent of the damage until my eyes adjusted enough to see that her mouth and chin were a bloody mess which FREAKED ME OUT. luckily, she hadn't broken any teeth, and the blood was all from a busted lip and nothing that would require stitches or anything. still, it was unnerving for me as i had never seen cadence that bloody before. this is the first time she's fallen out of bed in her sleep that i can remember. we put a pillow on the edge of the bed, which normally gets her to roll in the opposite direction, but for some reason, the pillow must have fallen off.

i know that booboo looks pretty nasty, but she didn't seem to be in too much pain, as she nursed just fine right afterwards. but i did feel awful whenever i looked at her throughout the day for letting her fall out of bed like that. normally, i sleep in with her on saturday mornings until she wakes up, but for some reaon, i felt like waking up early yesterday. just goes to show that you should never pass up an opportunity to catch some more z's.

...i finished a book yesterday by brian mclaren called 'the story we find ourselves in.' this is the 2nd book in mclaren's trilogy of "nonfiction novels" about a pastor's rediscovery of christian faith. i read the other two books in the trilogy already, and i have to say that this may be my favorite one. maybe it's because i love reading fiction more than nonfiction that seeing christianity as a narrative as opposed to a set of dogmas or beliefs is appealing to me. i highly recommend this book for anyone who doesn't have much exposure to christianity and wonders what all the fuss is about, and for those who are or were raised as christians and aren't satisfied with a generic, cookie-cutter faith.

then last night, dave and becki came over for dinner and we watched a documentary called 'why we fight' about the american "military industrial complex," a term coined by eisenhower in his farewell speech. i didn't see the whole movie, as i was playing with cadence in another room for much of it until she went to sleep, but i was still pretty heavily impacted by some of the images in that film which were so disturbing, esp. clips taken at the baghdad morgue of rotting corpses just thrown together in big piles--men, women and children.

...i thought back to earlier that morning when cadence had her fall, and how much the sight of her blood upset me. and that was nothing compared to what so many mothers and fathers are seeing happen to their children around the world. i cannot fathom a life overshadowed by the constant fear of bombs and bullets, not just for oneself but for one's entire family as well. what kind of a world is this that we have created for our children?

and i thought back to something i had read in the brian mclaren book earlier that day, about how the ultimate fight is not one that can be fought with bombs and guns and machetes, but one that can only be fought with love and peace and forgiveness. if our president claims to be doing god's will, and our secretary of defense does "what the good lord tells him is best for our country", i can't help but wonder whose voice(s) they're actually hearing when they pray.

jesus lived during the height of the roman empire. but he never seemed to care too much about fighting the roman oppressors or seeking revenge for all the wrong that had been done to the jews. instead, he proclaimed "blessed are the peacemakers" and to turn the other cheek and to love your enemies and to repay evil with good. it may seem like he was telling people they needed to let others walk all over them, and his way may sound weak. but when you think about it, in the long run, the only way to overcome evil IS with good, with love, with kindness. if you love your enemies and are good to them, there is no way they can win.

the terrorist attacks of september 11th traumatized our entire nation. however, i think that we could have reacted differently. what if instead of being gripped with fear and hatred, we as a nation had reached out to the world's muslim community and embraced them and acknowledged that those terrorist acts were not representative of the muslim religion? what if we had done something crazy like choosing to forgive? i keep thinking about the example the amish have shown us in recent weeks of the power of forgiveness and returning evil with good. i think a lot of people who used to think the amish were a bunch of luddites may view them differently now.

somebody has to be the one to choose to forgive and to love first, or else the cycle of hate and violence will never end.

...there's something else that jesus said that i've been thinking about. something to the effect of 'what good will it be for a man if he gains the world yet forfeits his soul?' and by that, i don't think he means going to hell. i think you lose your soul when you continue to choose greed and selfishness and powermongering above love and peace and kindness and selflessness. america has positioned itself to be the world's only superpower, but has it been at the cost of its soul? is it worth being the richest and most powerful country in the world, if it's at the cost of knowing how to love and care for one another or being able to swallow your pride and lay down your weapons without fear or being faithful stewards of our priceless environment?

there's lots i'm mulling over in my mind and heart these days, lots i don't have adequate words for. there's so much darkness and pain and crap in the world these days, but i'm still going to choose hope. why? how? because when i look at my daughter's face every day, i just can't help it...

Labels: cadence

...so as i was saying, we went to the volo auto museum last weekend. my main reason for going out thataways was because the fall foliage is so much prettier up north near where i work. we drove down the long and winding and picturesque Sheridan road along Lake Michigan from Evanston all the way up to Lake Forest before we cut across west towards Volo. now you'd think i would've taken some photos of the lovely autumn colors, but i didn't...it just goes to show how lazy i've become. anyhoo, that photo's from like 4 years ago.

...i'm not really into cars, but i have to admit this museum had some really pretty ones. pretty shiny ones, to be more exact.

...we saw some famous movie cars, like from ghostbusters and batman and the blues brothers. but like i said, i'm not so into cars, no matter how shiny they may be, and i had absolutely no interest in the military museum they had there. so if we hadn't seen ted's dad's car on display there, i probably would've wanted my money back.

...what WAS cool about the place was that they also have 5 huge antique malls attached to the auto museum. we only had a couple hourse to browse the hundreds of vendors there, but i did manage to find a few cool things. they had some really nice furniture at pretty reasonable prices, so i think i may want to go back there.

sunday was a about as busy a day as we can get. we met with my fellow mommyblogger friend carol of bokumbop and her husband and adorable 11-month old son for lunch at a peruvian restaurant called ay ay picante. carol is korean and her husband is peruvian and they are both quite the experts on peruvian cuisine. the food was yummy, although an enourmous platter of ceviche (basically raw fish marinated in lime juice and spices) is probably a bit much. i was interested to learn that in peru, asians are not that much of a minority, and that when carol visits there, people assume she's peruvian.

...after lunch, we stopped by a birthday party for the 2 year old son of ted's coworker. we were only there for about 45 minutes before we had to leave to pick up uncle dave to go out to the 'burbs for grandma day. cousin vikki's sister connie was in town from iowa w/ her son perry and husband ben, so we were able to see them at grandma sophie's too.

perry is a couple months younger than cadence, and the last time we saw him, he was barely walking, but now he was running around, counting to 10, dancing, repeating everything his mommy was saying, etc. it's so much fun watching these little ones grow up. cadence always looks forward to grandma day because she gets to see vikki's daughter mackenzie (a.k.a. 'eh-zie'). it's so cool that she's old enough to remember people enough to want to see them again and to ask about them.

anyhoo, it was quite the busy weekend, and now i'm tired. my throat started hurting on my way home from work today, and it's gotten progressively worse this evening. i wonder what my chances are that this will not turn into a full-blown nasty cold...

...ugh. i've got one word for ya. MIGRAINE. let me add a few more: SUCKS. MAJORLY. OUCH.

let me just finish with a little story about that photo. we went to the volo auto museum for a family outing on saturday. much to our surprise, there was ted's dad's old race car sitting on the grounds on display. ted's friend eric had converted it into a monster car for a special episode of monster garage a few years ago. we had no idea it was on display at this museum, so it was a nice surprise and made the long drive worth it to see that crazy car in person.

more about the weekend later...

...no, i'm not referring to my crazy relatives here in the states. i'm talking about the insane posse to the north of my motherland, the north koreans. it so happens that my paternal grandmother was from north korea and moved to the south to study. she was separated from the rest of her family after the korean war divided the peninsula. as far as i know, we have long lost relatives north of the DMZ, so that's why i'm calling them my crazy relatives.

i know that the world at large thinks the north koreans are totally off their rockers, and the fact is that this is a pretty accurate description. you see, this is probably the largest colony of cult members in the whole world. i'm talking 46,500 sq miles of 23 million cult members. after over half a century of isolation from the rest of the world, it's not surprising that the entire country has been brainwashed.

some people may be surprised to learn that this relatively small country has the 5th largest military in the world. i think it makes perfect sense, though, considering that the vast majority of food aid poured into north korea is used to feed its soldiers. since the civilians have to resort to eating tree bark and twigs, it's no wonder the military has no problem keeping the numbers up.

my dad visited north korea a few years before he died, and he brought back video footage of what he saw there. it was pretty bleak, and that was the stuff that he and his group were ALLOWED to see. although the country has opened up a tiny bit since then, it is still by and large a cult state. that's why diplomatic talks with them are so unsuccessful. you can't reason with a bunch of brainwashed paranoid megalomaniacs who have an accute inferiority complex. yes, i know that sounds contradictory, but such is the enigma that is the DPRK.

i recently had a dream in which i witnessed a nuclear explosion. i saw the mushroom cloud and i felt the sucking wind of oblivion. i remember wondering how the heck i was going to protect cadence and what would happen in the aftermath. i forced myself awake before i could find out.

i wish the north korean government would operate in a realm of reality that would be conducive to reasonable dialogue with the rest of the world. i wish kim jong il didn't feel like he has to act all tough and shit to live up to his father's image, when all he really wants to do is watch movies and eat popcorn all day. i wish the north korean people--i'm talking the ordinary people--could experience life free from hunger and oppression and fear and unclouded by the brainwashing effects of the psychological warfare perpetrated against them by their own government.

i wish wishful thinking weren't just wishful thinking...

...and it seems to indicate a lot of cute sweet boys vying for cadence's attention. this is cadence's little buddy at church, rudden. he's just a couple months older, and you should see the two of them chasing each other and squealing with mutual delight!

...fortunately, teddy wholeheartedly approves of the Boy. really, i don't think we could've found a cuter match for our little girl. and we already love his family too!

...it's fun to daydream about what kind of a woman cadence will grow up to be. what will be her interests and passions? what kind of music will she like? will she be compassionate and generous and loving? will she be creative? will she have kids? will we still be close?

...and yet, i know that each day with her is a gift and not to be taken for granted. it breaks my heart when parents lose their children, like the little amish girls whose lives were snuffed out so violently. i cannot even begin to fathom the depth of the grief that comes with such loss.

...it's thoughts like this that drive me to prayer, maybe not the on-your-knees-dear-heavenly-father kind, but nevertheless a prayer from my deepest parts, a prayer not utterable in words alone, a prayer because i know that as much as i'd like to, i can't watch over my little one every second of the day, and i can't control all the elements in the universe that affect her safety and well-being.

i guess that's why i still believe in god, in my own way. if i didn't, i would feel so utterly out of control that i would probably go insane...

...cuz you can't get enough of a toddler named CADENCE playing the drums! ok, it's really a practice pad...but our downstairs neighbor is on vacation, and ted's setting up the kit today! we'll have to get some footage of the little one on a REAL drumset.

...is it just me, or does cadence look like a kid ready for kindergarten with that backpack on? holy patootie! she sure is growing up so fast...

...how is it that one day i had a cute little chubby baby like this...

...and a couple blinks later, THIS is what i've got on my hands??!! amazing, isn't it? cadence and i have been looking at old videos of herself when she was a few months old. she looked like such a blob back then. i mean, she was cute and all, but compared to the so-very-aware kid she is now, she really was more of a blob than a person--a very captivating and adorable blob, but a blob nonetheless. still, i sure do miss those days when i could cradle her in one arm, when a mere smile from her was enough to melt my heart, and the sound of her unintelligible cooing was music to my ears.

a really long time ago, while we were still living in Ravenswood, someone stole the faceplate off our car CD player. i realize that it’s stupid to have a detachable faceplate if you’re not going to actually detach it, especially if you a) live in chicago and b) are going to forget to even close the damn door, let alone lock it. but we won’t go there…

being the lazyasses that we are, we continually put off replacing the faceplate, mainly because i had thrown out all literature pertaining to the car stereo and hence, without a faceplate, we barely could remember what brand the thing was, let alone the actual model number. of course, we could have just unscrewed the stereo and pulled it out and somehow figured it out, but that would’ve required considerable effort on our part.

so rather than do what would appear to be the obvious, we instead subjected ourselves to mere FM radio via the portable transistor we’d gotten as a thank-you gift from our subscription to our local public radio station. and this is how we got on for the past year.

well, that little transistor radio melted in the summer sun a few weeks ago. thus died my one tenuous connection to the outside media world during my torturous commute to and from work. granted, i drive to work only about 3 times a month (probably less during these past months of stereolessness), but i finally decided i’d had enough. i begged ted to please PLEASE!!! get me a replacement!!! and he did.

now, when we drive, we have MUSIC. of MY OWN CHOOSING!!! or ted’s, depending on who got in the driver’s seat first. i cannot even tell you what a relief it is, how soothing, how utterly satisfying it is to listen to some decent tunes on some decent speakers for a change. even cadence is much more docile during longish drives.

anyhoo, this whole long and drawn out exercise in penmanship (i’m writing this on the train) has been to inform you of the CD i chose for my maiden voyage w/ the new stereo. i thought it would be appropriate to play as the first CD an album i had previously never listened to before. i had a handful to choose from due to a recent music binge, and i finally settled on Rather Ripped, the most recent Sonic Youth album.

i got to listen to pretty much the whole album on the way to work last week, and, like, WOW! what a great pick for My First Drive With the New Stereo! i had heard some stuff about this album on NPR a few months back when it first came out, and i’d been meaning to get a copy for a long time. now that i’ve listened to it, i have to say that this is probably one of the most accessible SY albums. they play it tight on this one, for sure. some of the songs are just so pretty and sad, like the 3rd track 'do you believe in rapture?' which is like thurston moore meets the Left-Behind-a-la-iraq-war series. there are these lovely melodic arpeggiated guitar measures that, if listened to at the edge of the ocean during the hour of the gloaming, when the sun turns the world into a mound of sunken golden treasure, while you are alone but well-fed and amply caffeinated and nicotined—if listened to under such conditions, you just might explode from the happiness. or sadness. take your pick.

anyhoo, i highly recommend this album, even if you’ve never been a sonic youth fan. it’s worth a listen or two.