moon river

this evening's mood .. it's in my head all evening long, can't help it but sing .. is it because 30 is closing up on me??? or is it because I miss NC sooo much.. and this song always connected to NC for me, cause Alex and Sarah were the ones who sang this while I was living with them.. miss NC.. that's life..
anyway, next piece to learn on my piano .. :)

visitor and Calaveras Big Trees SP

We had a visitor, Kati, from last Friday till this Monday evening. She's an old friend of us, also a chemists, as I wrote a week ago... She flew to Sacramento Friday evening, we had a relax day on Saturday, with walking, shopping, and a nice dinner with Andy coming over as well. Then we went for a hike to Calaveras Big Tree State Park. It was georgeous. The colors, the treest, the trail, it was perfect, a perfect first hike for Bori as well :D
Some pictures from the adventure..







Kati left Monday late afternoon. We had fun with her, she's sooo much fun. I wish she could come more often, she must learn how to drive and then she can be here in 5-6 hours... but untill then it's flying...
Also, I have my piano perfectly tuned now :D John, the piano tuner was here second time last week, after the big tuneup ca. a month ago. He fine-tuned the piano, but was short on time, so he came back today as well, to fix some sticky keys. It sounds perfect now :D I love it, I play it almost every day, if not every :D

my beautiful piano taken apart here...

John is a nice guy, 93% blind, and works slowly, but sure thoroughly. And it was quite interesting to see how this piano is build up.. I hope I can do some of the maintenance myself if needed.. there might be an engineer lost in me ;) hihi

Bori had a great day yesterday, she was eating perfectly and having a 4 hours schedule.. and in the evening she was sleeping from 9pm all till 3am.. but of course we are back to crazy schedule and mad day again.. oh well, little suprises are the best, right?
And today is my father's birthday :D :D :D we have celebrated him while they were here, but still.. it's good to say out loud :D

One happy morning... (10/20/08)







the University pool: they only have this, the outdoor one, but it's heated, so it's open throughout the year :D Balint goes there ca. 3-4 times a week, if not 5 times, I'm trying 2 times, swimming for 30 minutes before I pick up Reka at the daycare. Bori is quite cooperative so far, she usually sleeps while I'm swimming :D

another week

Last weekend was nice and relaxing: on Saturday we were at a water polo game, Pacific Tiger played.. quite bad actually, but oh well, our Hungarian standards are pretty high, specially knowing that we won the Olympic gold medal against the US .. and there was a swimming competition afterwords, so we stayed and watched the cute girls/boys swimming :D
on Sunday we washed the car, which we haven't done in a while, and celebrating it we added some new bumper stickers.
Bori is still great, sweet little angel: she sleeps quite much, she's smiling now, occasionally, but certainly if she's in a good mood (full stomach, and after sleep) then you can "talk" with her, so cute.. her eating is getting a bit better, I'm still trying the breastfeeding, but it seems that she's just lazy .. if she's fed by breastfeeding, then she gets ca. 100mL, and she is good for ca 3 hours.. if she's fed by bottle (milk or formula), then she eats at least 130-150mL (5oz), and she's good for 4-5 hours.. of course it's not true when it comes to nights.. our nights are still inconsistent, can't predict whether I'll get 3-4-5 hours sleep.. but oh well, it's not that tiring than I would have imagined, specially cause I'm always feeding her by bottle in the middle of the night, it is soo much quicker.
Reka likes her daycare quite much, they went on a Field trip this Wednesday, came back with a planted seed, a pumpkin, and some walnuts (shelled ones)..
This weekend we'll be busy because one of our good old friend, Kati, is visiting from Santa Barbara: she is Hungarian and also a chemists :D, graduated from ELTE, Budapest, 1 year after me, then did her phd in Germany and now postdoc in Santa Barbara. We haven't seen her for ages.. and she's just that kind of person with whom we continue from the same point where we've left off years ago.. I like those kind of people, who does not make a fuss about why we weren't in contact for some time... anyway... so Kati, is visiting :D arriving Friday evening, and leaving Monday evening...
oke, posting some pictures now, and then back to work..

Reka and her new ABC learned in the daycare

my older daughter was in a singing mood while riding back home from daycare :D

propositions ...

Proposition 8
pro marriage .. www.protectmarriage.com
here in CA people will vote on Nov.4 not only to choose president but also about 12 propositions of the state California. Quite a few interesting in fact, I'll be happy to tell about the rest of it as well if it's of interests .. but specially proposition 8 is the most debated throughout the state and the most interesting for us too..
first of all: it's about whether state should "redefine" marriage as between men and women, or should allow same sex couple to marry.
people had voted before, against same sex marriage. but the court ruled that it's unconstitutional. hence they can get married in fact now... now the voting again ..
it's interesting to see when walking or driving around.. you can tell just by looking at the yard if that people will vote for or against prop8 and therefore vote for McCain or Obama..
I'll be interested to see what will come out. the poles shows a bit more on the No votes (liberals, and so favoring the same sex marriage, equity for everyone, etc etc..) but the media of course talks about the Bradley effect, when often people tell the poles one thing (to be more politically correct, named after an afroamerican candidate, who was shown to lead, but at the end had failed against a white candidate) and will vote another thing inside the cube..
we'll see..
but of course, until then let's tell everyone that marriage is in fact between men and women .. right?? :D

pictures

Yosemite: Reka with my parents






Sacramento: Reka, my parents and me.




At home on various days..






yesterday at the playground.

rough week

we're having a rough week, me and Bori .. it has to do with her tummy hurts, or she's being hungry, or not hungry, but messing her/our schedule up ..
I like to have a schedule, Reka was so great about it, ate every 3 hours and then 4 hours, and slept through the night after 5 weeks.
now Bori is quite different.. her eating fluctuates between 1.5hours and 5, and probably everybody knows that I'm not the feeding on demand kind of mom, so it frustrates me quite much .. but there were a few times when she was crying and I could see that she's hungry ..
and the nights are not the same either, there was one night when she slept 6 hours, mostly it's 3 to 4hours, but never the same night in a row.
and there were times when I had some issue with having enough milk.. with Reka. I had no problem whatsoever, in fact, I had to much .. but now, due to all what happened in August, I have enough, but no extra.. and when I don't have such a great day, it's not enough for Bori, so then comes the formula.. and I feel guilty and worried.
I'm trying to work out, but I feel that it's affecting how much milk I have.. and I'm trying not to eat (in fact, most of the times I'm not hungry, and I'm just dringing water a lot), but it's affecting my milk too .. so I'm struggeling now, can't loose weight, I feel like .. well, not to great..
but that's life, and I'm telling myself slowly and hopefull I'll be back where I was by Xmas..
oke, that's it for now, posting some pictures today I promise.

Amie

My former colleague and friend, Amie, had a baby boy yesterday. I'm so happy for her. He's their first child, and she has been and I'm quite sure that will be so great with him. Her pregnancy went smooth and amazingly there were months when she actually lost weight.. I'm so jealous of her ;)
anyway, i'm happy for them, cause it's a start for something really amazing. and although I don't know anything about her labor yet, but I hope that she had the same experience that I had 2 months ago with Bori: I'm ready for the next one :)
Congratulation Amie and Jon!! you've done it :D now comes the hard part ;)

2 months

We are two months old today. :)
Bori is still doing very well, she's sleeping more and more during the nights, on a better night I even get 5 hours sleep. Last week Tuesday we've measured her, and she's over 4 kg by now, 4.14kg to be exact, which is a bit more than 9lb. She's eating very nicely and is awake more and more. We can go shopping with her quite easily, she's not bothered with the car-ride at all..
This morning, morning naptime..



before feeding:


after feeding:



two other cute thing about her:
she makes the funniest noises all the time.. my father refers to this sound as an old wheel that's creaking.. when she's about to wake up from sleeping, before feeding, after feeding, before going to sleep .. she stretches herself and makes these funny creaking sounds :D soo cute :D funny how Reka never did these sounds..
the other thing is when she's on her tummy, she wonders around in her bed .. always forward of course, by being in froggy position and the stretching herself, and then froggy again .. usually I have to put her down at the very end of the crib, and then after a couple of house she's already done half of the bed :D

how to put the baby down :D ... difference between Hungary vs. USA.
here they tell you never put the baby down on her tummy. it's because some research show a slight increase in sudden infant deaths while sleeping..
at home, in Hungary, Bori was placed on her tummy all the time in the hospital, because it's safer if she spits up after feeding, and they had the baby monitoring system.
well, because the first 12 days of her life was spent most of the time on her tummy, Bori really likes it .. at first I've tried not to used it, but now I gave up cause she likes it so much and calms her down, specially when her tummy hurts.. so we've decided that she's old enough and plus these research you never know ;) we publish research results and we know what they can or can not mean ;) :D


The piano was tuned up almost 10 days ago, it's not perfect, but good enough for the first try and he'll come back for a fine-tuning after my parents left. I'm playing every single day :D:D:D Sarah, you would be proud of me :)
My dad has arrived last Saturday evening, of course JFK messed up the flight again, but that's life, and no suprise for JFK.. he still has some jetlag, and he is quite tired from work also .. so it's resttime and playing with the granddaughters.. They'll be staying with us till the 13rd of October. We'll have a month by ourselves, with a great friend visiting on the weekend of 24th Oct. And then Balint's parents are comming for 12 days begining the 20th of November.
I've cut my left index finger yesterday evening while preparing dinner.. I was late and was rushing cutting up the green onions for my favourie chinese meal... I've cut it quite bad.. never had that bad actually in my life.. so I'm soring right now, and have a bandage on my finger .. that's life.. and I'll survive, but it'll take quite a bit of time to have a nice finger again.. :(