Ded
Posted on | October 17, 2009 | No Comments
Lindsey is sick. Matthew is three. Together they might just kill us dead in our tracks. We never stood a chance!
pleased to announce!
Posted on | September 23, 2009 | No Comments
the official launch of Casey Yu Photography’s online presence! Please stop by and take a look. 
Note: on the flash site there is music but! Because I dislike it when other sites bombard me with their music, I have turned off the “automatic play” option. You’re welcome!
got your nose!
Posted on | September 19, 2009 | No Comments
to every season
Posted on | September 8, 2009 | No Comments
One of the things I miss most about living in New England is the changing of the seasons – especially as the hot and humid days of summer melt into the crisp and cool autumn, complete with the changing of the leaves and everything. It’s much more subtle here, and I only miss the leaves changing colors when I am in the mood for a Dunkin Donuts coffee.
Here, though, we’ve got seasons changing – but we notice it mostly in the kids. Look at Matthew.
Matthew is huge. He is ginormo-boy. He is 45 lbs and thinks he is 20. He is 3 years old, he loves Dora and Diego (oh, hello consumer mark), he loves “na” (snacks, mainly raisins and fresh fruit). He is EmoBoy – often calculatingly throwing himself onto the floor when he is Angry! He’s about to start speech therapy with the local elementary school, but he has no problem communicating with us – except when he’s pissed, then watch out. The boy’s got a TEMPER! Can you believe he’s 3? He looks like he’s 5!
And Lindsey, oh Lindsey.
She’s eight months old and is starting to develop her brother’s temper! Yesterday she was pissed off at me and threw a FIT when I took away a box of raisins from her. If she could talk she would have said, “WTF do you think you’re doing, crazy woman? GIMME THOSE RAISINS!” and then thrown a chair at me, à la pro wrestling’s finest. Lindsey loves being tickled (the anticipation moreso!), food, and most importantly – Matthew. She adores the ground he walks on. Often she will break into hysterical peals of laughter when he does so much as look at her. And if he intentionally tries to make her laugh? The happiness oozes.
Look at this hero worship:
I told Josh we’d have to move into a 3 bedroom apartment so we could separate them. By the time she’s able to walk, she and he will be thick as thieves and then Josh and I are really in for it.
eight months in
Posted on | August 23, 2009 | No Comments
Dear Lindsey,
I must start out by asking your forgiveness. So many times on the 23rd of each month since your birth I meant to sit down and write you a letter talking about what you’re like as a growing person. I managed to write a letter every month for Matthew until he was 18 months, and I have tapered off dramatically since. So I apologize.
Second kids get the short end of the stick sometimes. I don’t take nearly as many pictures of you as I did for your brother, and I can’t count how many times I left you momentarily to fend for yourself while I prevented your brother from committing some sort of toddler catastrophe that would have taken us all out.
At any rate, I wanted to write you a letter, just for you. Everyone in this household loves you – even though you’ve only been here for a scant eight months, we often wonder what we did without you here.
You are such a happy little person. You howl with laughter when your brother does something funny (like jump on the bed), or if he kisses you (which he does often). You love being tickled – from head to toe you laugh so hard sometimes you can’t breathe! You love dancing and talking – both of which you do a lot of at Dixie’s. When you dance your feet kick out and it almost looks like you’re swimming.
Sometimes, though, you burst into tears, but that is because you have so much empathy you don’t know what to do with it yet. When Matthew is heartbroken, so are you. When your Baba sneezes loudly, sometimes the tears well up! When Mama wipes your nose, you protest vehemently. But you are always quick to smile again at us.
You are an amazing little girl and I can’t tell you how happy you make me. These past few months have been pretty rough on Mama. Somehow, though, just cuddling with you and nursing you while you grasp my fingers tightly makes it a little better. You’re my little lifesaver.
So, my sweet Lindsey, I apologize for not writing you letters as faithfully as I did Matthew. They’re in my head though, and I am always writing them in my head when it’s just the two of us, when sleep is drowsily upon you, and I kiss your head and bid you good night.
Love,
Mama
taking a break
Posted on | July 23, 2009 | 2 Comments
I am taking a break tonight from editing pictures – focusing instead on writing. Writing, especially online, used to come easily for me. Pixels and words and letters and characters spilled out of my fingertips onto the keyboard and into the internet and yet, here I am, struggling to put words together. So, here goes nothing, a list in no particular order.
1. I just bought a very expensive, very high tech, very intimidating camera. I bought it because I am a professional photographer – there, I said it. I am a newly professional photographer, but one nonetheless, and this camera is an investment in my future, my career, and in myself. I am also a tech whore, so it all sort of fits together.
2. I am struggling at work right now. I went to a session the other day that talked in part about stress and as the checklist went, so did I, circling and “mm-hmm”ing the items described. It’s official: I am stressed. I need to become less stressed, but that concept is stressing me out. A vicious cycle.
3. I joined Weight Watchers, but apparently only in wallet-only. I am having a supremely hard time rationing my input, probably because of #2 above. I know this works for me, and I just need to DO IT.
4. Matthew’s speech update: still delayed. We just got his Oakland school district IEP (Individualized Education Plan) – 16 pages long, full of words that roughly say, “He understands what you say but doesn’t not speak coherently.” His expressive speech is at the 22-24 mos level, receptive 33-36 mos. Roughly – as you can imagine, testing a toddler whose main job it is to be very put off by testing is a tough task indeed. Long story short, he’s going to be starting speech therapy twice a week at the school next door to Dixie’s house in September, when school starts. His last early childhood education speech therapist, Lauren, bade him farewell the day or so before his birthday (that stops at age 3).
5. Lindsey is still not sleeping through the night, which means I am not sleeping through the night. I am sometimes so exhausted I fall asleep standing up on BART and/or Muni. Good times.
And with that, I go to snooze.
Three
Posted on | July 14, 2009 | 1 Comment
Three years ago today, my sweet Matthew was born. I thought he was amazing in 2006 but he keeps continuing to surprise and fascinate me.
Happy birthday my schmoo. Mama loves you.
2006:
2007:
2008:
2009:
TRANSIT I SMITE THEE
Posted on | June 30, 2009 | 5 Comments
Oh, too many brain cells today have been vanquished in an attempt to figure out All Things Public Transit.
The good news – I can now take up to $230 in pre-tax dollars for public transit commuter checks. Now to figure out how much?
On a regular basis I ride BART, MUNI (SF) and AC Transit (East Bay). MUNI and AC Transit take the Translink smart card. I can go to Walgreen’s and give them my commuter checks and they put money onto the card. Woohoo! BART takes BART flimsy paper cards, although allegedly Translink will be accepted by the end of the year – this promise has been a baited carrot stick for so long that I never will believe them until I see the green logo with my very eyes.
So, normally, I’d get 2 BART Plus tickets – which are regular BART tickets that you can flash on MUNI for access, but not AC Transit. In order to buy them via commuter check, I’d have to mail them in (timeliness is not a virtue of either mine or the USPS) or (what I did) go down to the Lake Merritt BART station and buy my two passes (Part A for the 1st-15th, then Part B from the 15th through the end of the month).
Now, not only are all of the rates going up in all the transit agencies ($2 instead of $1.75 on AC Transit; $2 instead of $1.50 on MUNI, and some percentage higher on BART since the fares are calculated by distance there), you can no longer buy BART Plus tickets anywhere except in the automated machines, which don’t take commuter checks. GAH.
The other frustrating thing is that if you ride BART, you can get a $0.25 discount if you hop on and transfer to either AC Transit or MUNI. Not if you pay by Translink card, so that’s potentially $1/day (or $20/month) that is lost in the shuffle.
And, BART may go on strike.
Long stupid story short, I have a headache from trying to play this stupid game of Transit Check CRAZY, I have no idea how much money I should pull out of my paycheck each month (I think I will have to break out an abacus for this), and the net result is that BART will still be crowded, MUNI and AC Transit will still be a deathtrap (the passengers and bus drivers are crazy), and I still won’t be able to get a good nap on any form of public transportation unless I bring my own goddamned pillow.
And after all of that jazz, I will end up buying:
- Two $60 BART tickets (for which their actual swipe value is $64 each)
- a MUNI flash pass
- an AC transit monthly pass loaded onto my Translink card.
All of that and I still will pay $30 extra a month post-tax dollars. Let the good times roll!
a conversation
Posted on | June 7, 2009 | No Comments
Casey: Why can’t I get any valium for Matthew’s surgery tomorrow?
Josh: Because it’s a Children’s Hospital. They treat children.
Yes, I am a ball of nerves here, I have to say. We’re getting up at 5AM (well, that’s the goal), Josh’s grandmother will be here at 5:30AM, and off we go. It’s ridiculous, the amount of anxiety I’m feeling, for something so ridiculously small (tubes in his ears), but there you have it.
In other news, how cute is my daughter?
the things which are up
Posted on | June 6, 2009 | No Comments
In large chunks:
Chunk the First – Matthew’s scheduled for a 7:30AM surgery on Monday to put tubes in his eardrums. I know this is a routine thing but I am so anxious about it I dreamt horrible things about it last night. Yeesh. In it I was furious at Josh because he changed something around and I woke up, totally pissed. I had to remember he hadn’t actually changed any of our plans. In this dream I also thought that instead of coming to watch Lindsey on the day of Matthew’s surgery, Josh’s grandmother was actually going out on a date with Donna Noble’s grandfather.
Chunk the Second – Lindsey is doing well. Teething up a storm, screechy and totally adorable. She loves it when you dance with her, tickle her belly, or float her in the air. She also loves her fingers, her fist, and preferably jamming the entirety of it at once in her mouth. Also, drooling copiously. She’s now 19.2 lbs at a couple of weeks shy of six months. I grow chunky babies. She’s drank me out of house and home, and we’ve had to supplement a few bottles at daycare with formula. I am mostly over that – there’s only but so much my boobs can handle. We’ll muddle through.
Chunk the Third – Have you visited my photography website? Please do! Become a fan on facebook! I will be in Tallahassee and Orlando over Christmas this year, so if you’re in the area and would like to schedule a session while I am there, contact me.
Chunk the Fourth – I started back on Weight Watchers, perhaps because I am a masochist.
Chunk the Fifth – my new favorite diet soda? Coke Zero. Better living through chemicals, I say!
college fund