My First Memorial Day in SoCal

Just another classic day for the wee man. We made a big leap forward this morning at 530am, when DaDa fed KJ his bottle. Keegan held the bottle himself and actually checked to see if my hand - by moving his hand on top of mine then pulling it back - was sneakingly assisting in the early morning darkness. He figured me out and was determined to feed himself...pretty cool. Not if he could only get the bottle, mix the formula, get back in his crib, and sleep until 8am! Ok, we can't ask for too much from a 10-month old...but he did sleep until 815am this morning (on mom's day off...he must have known she needed the sleep!).

Top 3:
1. going to Fashion Island shopping mall in Newport Beach with MaMa and Nonni. Keegs is always great with people, but we had no idea he loves water shows...ya know, the kind where water flys from one hole to another in a pond (this happened to be at an outdoor mall and had more kids astonished by flying water than were surprised to find out that Barry Bonds was doping...exactly, even a 10-month old could tell that a cranium shouldn't triple in size after the age of 35!).

2. Puff the Magic Dragon - a cool moment for me in the car (of course a GMC, as PaPa wouldn't have it any other way) on the way to Fashion Island. We were all signing Puff to Keegan, a song that my mom sang to me during my early years. I actually chose Puff as the mother-son song for our dance at my wedding....only to hear that everyone thought my mom fed me pot brownies as a child...ha!

3. Tickle Fest - Keegs' hearty laugh is something to make any parent melt. In a once a night ritual after bathtime, KJ gets a couple of big ole raspberries in his armpits while being changed. He bursts out with a huge laugh, squirms around, and looks at you as if he devilishly wants another one. Just classic. If you don't think this tickles, just try it. Kate did it to me but while I laughed I realized she was busy pulling armpit hair out of her teeth...don't try this at home.

In a small attempt to memorialize Keegs' youth on Memorial Day, we stopped by a kiosk at the mall. The owner makes some pretty cool clay impressions of baby's feet and hands, complete in all different patterns, sizes, colors, etc. We picked up a sweet surf board (to remember his time in SoCal) with his tiny feet on it - it's going to look great and KJ was a natural posing on the ceramic clay (as he always is in front of a camera).

Thoughts:
I started to read Freakonomics while Keegs slept in the car today. Very fascinating the way these to economics professors stripped away the obvious in our every day lives and used economics to unsurface some really odd, but cool findings. Today's take away is that everything basically comes down to incentives: the creation, structuring, and monitoring of actions to get a person (or people) to do what you want them to do. More to come on this as I work through the book....

529 accounts - We opened up KJ's first investment account this evening, a 529 educational account. These college investment vehicles are great ways to save money for school, defer taxes, and receive state tax breaks. It was weird to fill in the box - "estimated year of college: 2024"...it seems so far away, but no doubt it will be hear before too long.

MaMa and Nonni had ice cream today but I turned it down because I'm growing increasingly lactose intolerant....and it would have been a very long (and difficult for the passengers) ride back to Hermosa had DaDa indulged.

Oh yeah, and we also got an invitation to Hawaii today from our friends the Lims! Jill, Jon, Noah, and Justin are returning home for 1 month after graduation and would love to have us join....maybe MaMa and DaDa will have a chance to tour Mauna Loa again in a helicopter...that was cool.