Bundle of Joy

Salutations to all! I have been holed up in a bunker surrounded by soiled diapers, baby spit, and varied and copious amounts of baby crap all around. I have managed at times to escape and replenish the oxygen however our humble abode continues to serve as our main stomping ground.
Can I just interrupt my thoughts for a second and let you all know on a secret that also happened to be an understatement? Having a baby is HARD! One more time: Having a baby is HARD!
Somehow though, I seem to take a lot of things in stride. For instance, this morning when I was driving Ashley to work, my worst nightmare was realized. Aubrey started crying his cute little eyes out non stop till we dropped Señor Bright off. It may be hard for folks that don’t have children to understand how incredibly hard it is to hear your baby cry. You see, I just learned that giving birth and especially breastfeeding releases extra hormones that cue your body to make milk, and feel excruciating pain when your child is screaming bloody murder. So the screeching that was emanating from behind the drivers seat was hard to listen to, but by no means as painful as I was imagining it would be as those hormones I take it are kicking in ( No doubt to keep me from loosing my mind). For Ashley, though, he may have a different story. Either case, he is doing an excellent job and is a life saver in the morning, as he takes the kid and lets me sleep a couple of extra hours until the little one needs a boobie snack. On that note, I have a new understanding and appreciation for my mom and mothers in general. I know that my parents did the best they could with what information they had and I keep thinking of that saying that people repeat when they have children or want children. They keep saying that they want to provide something better for their kids. They want to provide more than they had as children and usually that means materialistic things such as piano lessons, a car when they turn 16, private schools or anything that money can buy. It didn’t take me too long to figure this one out. I want to provide for my child something that was unfortunately the exception and not the rule in the home I grew up in. I want to provide a safe and loving home for Aubrey. I want him to constantly be reminded what a loving partnership full of respect, love, intimacy and most importantly laughter looks like. I want him to see that Ashley and I are comfortable telling each other how much we appreciate each other and how we love each other. I want him to see that even though Ashley or I make food for each other, do the dishes, take the dog out, go to the grocery store or run any errands, that every time, we say thank you for doing this, or that. I know that sounds corny and even fake, but believe me, it is so important to know that you are being appreciated and to know how to appreciate someone else.
Sometimes as I nurse Aubrey, my mind always tends to wander about all those moms that are not in the greatest relationship. I think about how hard that must be for all the women who perhaps are in domestic violence situations. I think about the close bond mom and baby have while they are nursing and I cringe at the thought of having a little one be witness to the violence that the person they rely on for warmth and shelter, food and love is sometimes kicked, beat, raped, hurt or verbally abused constantly about her appearance, her weight, her skills as a mom, etc. I know this because I use to work with women whose existence was that every day. Even though I loved my job, I am so glad that I left when I did. I needed a break from the constant stories and now I finally realize that I need to direct the strength to my son.

As he grows, I want my son to know that it is ok to cry, it is ok to feel sad and it is ok to discuss and confront something that is making him uncomfortable. It is ok to be mad at someone you love and to talk about it. The worse thing is being afraid of not expressing your emotions. I have known people that live their lives afraid to embrace whole spectrum of emotions and to some degree it was probably a survival mechanism as maybe it was never safe to express their thoughts or feelings to someone that they loved.

When I was working at EDVP, we constantly talked about the cycle of violence and how it affects generations. The work sometimes felt overwhelming since there were so many cases every day, but the thing that kept me going was the thought that I didn’t have to change the world, all I had to do was make just one person feel heard and informed and hopefully that would create enough energy to change something in their lives for the better. That energy in turn would transcend into their relationship with the their children, family, lovers, bosses, a complete stranger and in turn that positive energy would live on forever making its way around the world changing something. These thought brings me back to Aubrey; his beginning in this world as a single cell, dividing into millions of cells building onto one another forming tissue, organs, systems, limbs, birth, a smile, back to his mom who looks at him everyday and is filled with positive energy, despite the poopy diapers, the spitting up and the sleep less nights. Peace.

Aubrey Sketch

Evening all, I wanted to share this sketch of Aubrey created by Aunt Marylou. Thanks Lou!

Happy belated Turkeyday, and other stuff

Well Happy Turkeyday everyone. I still have trouble recognizing how big a deal Thanksgiving is in the US. Always surprised to see the streets empty as everyone's inside doing the family thang. We did a very low key Thanksgiving this year, no traveling or big family get togethers, just out little famdamily at home with some Hungry Man turkey dinners (yes with cranberry surprise dessert... yuk) and delicious pumpkin pie. Don't knock it, given the the lack of complications, and once you take it out of the plastic container, it's not half bad. Come on how can you go wrong with, as the box says, "Over 1lbs of food!"


And of course we had to have some pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and some Crispy Crunch crumbled on top (it's a Canadian thing).


And here is some more vids of our kids, Aubrey and Haley.

Aubrey hits the town... so to speak

So little Aubrey has been with us for a little over a month, and in that time we've had a number of outings, so here are just a few.

Today was an amazing winter day, crisp and clear, not a cloud in the sky. This is the front our our humble abode. The beautiful Fleur De Lis built in 1927.



Someone stuck a little Dalai Lama image in our front yard. How cool is that?



Gorditos! Our favorite little Mexican restaurant out in Greenwood. They have ridiculously big burritos. Aubrey slept through it, but I think it will be a favorite when he's older.




Beautiful Green Lake. We fit right in with all the other mothers and nanny's pushing strollers around the lake on a sunny Tuesday afternoon. Having said that most of them had on track suits, headphones and rollerblades. Damn yuppies! (Yes I see the irony, as we push around our über hip Quinny Buzz stroller from Finland, or England or something like that)



A very rare moment. Virginia was awesome and ventured out on her own, with little Aubrey in tow to pick me up from work, and then off to Blue Water Bistro for our favorite, Pork ribs and crispy, frizzled onions. Oh and for dessert the deep dish TollHouse chocolate chip cookie with vanilla ice cream. It is so damn good!



Volunteer Park with our good friend Uncle Dave.




Uncle Dave - FILE PHOTO - "Huggies are the shit, YO!"



And one of our new favorite places, Cafe Presse. Amazing French bistro snackies, and pretty cheap too. Mmm buttery! Once again Aubrey slept through this one, which we appreciate, but I think it will be a favorite for him one day soon.




A new neighborhood fixture. Tougo Coffee house is awesome, and just around the corner. This is where I officially joined the ranks of "Coffee Fiend", after 10 years of avoiding coffee like the plague.



And of course here is my "pusher", coffee proprietor extraordinaire, and our friend Brian. Who has a 1 yr old son, so I've been hitting him up for advice.

Well thats all for now. laterz.

Working from home... ya right!

So this was my first week back to work, but I'd planned to be working from home, and thereby help out Virginia, spend time with Aubrey and ease back into the daily grind or work. Well boy was I wrong. As of 9am Monday morning I was already getting emails and calls about new pitch work that need my attention, and unfortunately it required lots of meetings, and face time with people so hard to do it remotely. So as of Tuesday evening I'd already spent about 10 hours in the office in 2 days. Work has actually been good, I guess being away for 3 weeks really helped me recharge. Having said that it is really tough to be away from Virginia and Aubrey, I was getting used to being with them 24/7. I love my new family even with the stresses and sleepless nights I wouldn't trade it for the world. :-)

Marylou has spoken

Ok it's official, Aunt Marylou has weighed in on the question of whether the name Aubrey is "manly" or not. And I quote, "I've never heard of a female Aubrey; it's a good old fashioned cowboy name — strong and sturdy, out herdin' the cattle and generally doing "manly" things — though after "Brokeback Mountain" the whole cowboy image has shifted somewhat."
Well said Lou, thanks for the chiming in. :-)

Ms. Aubrey Bright please... is she there?

Well it's happened, and it only took 3 weeks. With this one piece of mail, that came from the hospital no less, Aubrey has entered a world I've known my whole life. That being a world that seems to think Ashley and Aubrey must be girls names, even though Ashley is traditionally a boys name, as for Aubrey, well I guess it's a gray area.


There is nothing quite like making a credit card purchase over the phone and having the operator ask for the name on the card, immediately followed by the question, "Is she there?" To which I answer, "well she is me", that usually gets something like, "Oh I'm sorry... I didn't realize... ah... sorry...", sensing their embarrassment I usually let them off the hook by saying "not a problem it happens all the time". Or the other fun thing is when I make a purchase in person and the cashier looks at the card, then at me and says... "geez you don't look like an Ashley" Having heard this before I knowing full well they only said this to be funny at my expense or to seem superior by pointing out my less then "manly" name so I tend to be a little more bitchy and say "well what exactly SHOULD an Ashley look like?" That usually ends the witty cashier/customer banter.

Having said all this I have never been ashamed of my name, and love it's uniqueness (I've only met 1 other male Ashley in my life) so I hope that in time Aubrey will come to feel the same way. I mean come on, Mr. Aubrey Malcolm James Rodriguez Bright... how cool is that?!

Oh ya speaking of Aubrey's name, we got his Social Security card in the mail yesterday and I guess they don't like long names, cause his official name on the card is, and I quote "Aubrey Malcolm James Ro Bright". I'm sure this will come back to bite him in the butt at some point.

Look ma he's a growin' big!

What's new you ask? Well let's see... Aubrey had his second check up at the doctors, and he's doing great and getting bigger everyday! Which makes sense, since that what he's supposed to do right? :-) He's officially gained a full pound in weight and 1 inch in height. I'm surprised it's not more since he's been eating like crazy! As you can see by the picture he wasn't so happy being striped down, placed under the bright lights and poked and prodded, but then again who would.

Aubrey says "Yo what about me?"

After Aubrey saw Haley's video he demanded to have one of his own. So without further adieu.




And of course a few more pix.

Introducing Haley

Aubrey has been capturing the spotlight lately, and rightly so, but I wanted to give Haley her due. So here she is in all her glory performing her patented "rolling stop" in the park the other day. Sorry for the crappy quality, I shot it with my cellphone.



And here are a few other shots.