The Baby Akers Blog

Another holiday has come and gone. Frances had a great time searching for Easter Eggs for the first time. Here is a little video I put together in iMovie of her foraging for jellybean-containing eggs.

This is going to be a slightly egocentric post. I know the site is supposed to be about Frances and the new girl coming in July. And yes, it’s been confirmed by another ultrasound as a definite girl. As I’ve said before, I’m extremely proud to be a parent and can’t wait for the new arrival. Hopefully I’ll pick up the pace and write more about the upcoming birth and how we think Frances will deal with it. We have lots to do to prepare, and Annie has definitely shifted into the “nesting” phase, and wants to clean EVERYTHING.

Frances playing in the snow

There are stories to be told that I haven’t gotten around to yet. Like the time we took her to the snow a few weeks ago. It was just like going to the ocean in Florida. She was fascinated with the falling white stuff, and had a blast trying to sleigh ride. And not to mention that her vocabulary is becoming vast, and that she is beginning to string words together. It’s really funny, but we can totally have full on conversations back and forth now.

But now it’s April and there are important things to talk about… Like basketball.

Those that know me well, know that I’m a die-hard Kentucky basketball fan. I practically have a UK shirt for every day of the week, and wear them with pride here in California. I live less than 20 minutes from the town that gave us Michael Porter and Chuck Hayes, and those that see my t-shirt or hat always have great things to say about Hayes. But other than that, most people don’t understand my obsession. California is too diverse with just too many teams here to really form a die-hard allegiance to. There are 49er fans, Giants fans, & Lakers fans, but more often than not they are fair-weather and only root when their team is doing well. Well, except for the Raiders fans… those people are just nuts. Annie never really understood until I took her to a home game at Rupp Arena in Lexington. For those of you outside the state of Kentucky, you’ll never know what it’s like, and probably never understand unless you experience it for yourself.

Frances showing us her game face.

Kentucky basketball is a culture. It begins at birth and never waivers. You don’t switch sides, and you don’t stop wearing your Kentucky blue even when your coach is a drunken buffoon. Through thick and thin, you stick with it and hope for a day like today. UK is playing for a national championship tonight. They are favored to win, and I fully expect them to. But I’m OK if they don’t. It will be heartbreaking, and I’ll probably be in a bad mood for a bit, but you have to celebrate the ride, and enjoy the journey they got them there. Win or lose, I’m happy to be a part of it.

Another reason why I write this post is that I hope that this passion I have rubs off on my children. Frances already enjoys watching with me and throws up her hands when I do when they hit a three (I just need to teach her how to throw up the 3 goggles). Sometimes my language gets a bit salty, and I have to try to reign it in, but I can’t not get excited or angry when I watch. It’s just what fans do. Not to mention all referees are horrible and deserve my vitriol… hehe

I remember with great joy growing up watching the games with my parents. I remember playing against Wimp Sanderson’s crimson plaid suits, Alan Houston of Tennessee game winning free throws, and I remember THE SHOT Christian Laettner hit 20 years ago to keep UK out of the final 4 in 92. They all happened with us huddling around our TVs, or even radio when UK had their TV rights taken away by the NCAA in the late 80s early 90s. I was there in 1996 as a student when they won the national championship, and one of the several thousand on the streets near campus celebrating. I was NOT one the few burning couches or turning over cars, but I was there watching them. Even the stupid are passionate.

People want to put importance on being a family and doing things like eating dinner together, etc, etc… But things like this bring families together. I call my mom after every important win and we break down the plays like we are coaches watching game tape. It’s what ALL Kentucky fans do. It brings us together and makes us all a family. It’s such a treat to run into fellow random fans out here and spend 20 minutes talking to a perfect stranger about how this player or that player is playing and what they could do to get better. It’s a bit strange to an outsider, but it’s perfectly natural to us. The best example was hiking in the middle of a dense California forest, and we were passed by a couple that saw my UK hat, and he was an alumni and we talked for 10 minutes about an upcoming game. Annie and our friend Byron were amazed. But it happens… We are everywhere!

So tonight, win or lose, I’ll be watching it with Frances and we will celebrate a win or we won’t, but at the end of the day, she’ll still get story time, and a hug and a kiss from me before bed time.

Passion is a great thing, and I hope everyone has at least one. I like to think I have several. Whether it’s basketball, playing guitar, cooking… whatever… It’s important, and I hope my kids can share in at least a few of ours.

Go Cats!

UPDATE: Cat’s Win!!!!!!!!!!

… We are having another baby!

Waving to the world

I warned everyone that we had a follow-up post coming very soon. We couldn’t wait any longer and wanted to shout out to the world that we are expecting another baby in July.

So far all is well, except for the unfortunate morning sickness that Annie got in the 1st Trimester. She seems to be over it now, but according to her it was way worse this time around. She also started to show a bit sooner this time, so we had to decide how long we were going to wait to tell everyone.

Now for the kicker:

We went in for the first ultrasound a few weeks ago. Since we were so early on in the pregnancy the technician immediately told us when we got there that she wouldn’t be able to tell us the sex. We were deflated by this news because many of our friends had told us that they may be able to tell that early.

Surprisingly, during the course of the exam, the technician was having the same issues she had with Frances. In both cases, the babies’ heads were buried with the legs sticking up. Basically giving the technician a poor view of the brain, but a really great view of between the legs! So she sighed and told us that should could probably tell us the sex, but we’d have to come back for the follow-up ultrasound to make sure. She was really clear about her hesitation to tell us, but she also said she was pretty certain is was a………. GIRL!

Baby's head

That’s right, barring any surprises, we should be proud parents of another girl. I was already outnumbered in the house, so what’s one more, eh? We couldn’t be happier, and frankly it saves us money knowing we can recycle the girl clothes we already have.

So thanks, everyone, and stay tuned. We aren’t shifting the focus of the blog insomuch as we are just going to be writing about so much more than Frances now. I think she is going to make a great big sister!

Obligatory Christmas photo

Holy crap, it’s 2012. Time sure does fly, doesn’t it? Let me just say that 2011 was a great year. There really isn’t a whole lot to complain about. Yes, the economy is bad, but Annie and I are both fortunate to be happily employed.

Let’s get right down to it. Being a parent is one of the greatest things that can happen to a person. I certainly wouldn’t have said that 10 years ago. Back then it would have been to be signed to a major record contract. Now I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. This past year has been fantastic. I’ve tried to keep everyone informed with this blog, but as you faithful readers know, it’s been sporadic at best.

To close out the year we took a much needed vacation to Florida on Christmas to meet up with my mom and dad who drove down from Kentucky. We stayed at my aunt and uncle’s condo near the beaches of St. Augustine. My parents hadn’t seen Frances since our drive to Kentucky in June, and they were fascinated by her growth. FYI, she is now 34 inches tall and 24 lbs! Maybe she will be a basketball player. That would please me greatly.

Frances looks out the window

Anyway… My parents picked us up from the Jacksonville airport. Our flight left from San Francisco, with a layover in Atlanta. Frances was, for the most part, a very good traveler. She was fascinated with looking out the window, and of course, didn’t want to remain still. But we bought her her own seat, and always had me and Annie on each side. The biggest hurdle was getting her to nap. It just wasn’t happening. She fought and fought her sleepiness, but instead of napping when she should have, she decided to pass out 30 minutes before landing. So when we started to descend, wow, the screaming from being woken up began. Yeah, for a few minutes, we were THOSE PARENTS.

"Why can't I sleep!"

You know, the ones with the kid that won’t shut up. Luckily there were a few others on the flight. We were flying on Christmas day, so there were quite a few families.

So needless to say. Frances wasn’t in the best of moods to meet the grandparents. But after a good night’s sleep she was good to go. My parents couldn’t get enough of her. It was kinda funny seeing their reactions too. Frances walks on her tippy toes, but is very nimble and tends to run that way too. My mom would gasp every time she fell or ran into something. We’ve grown accustomed to her falls, and she hardly ever cries. So pretty soon my mom stopped worrying after seeing her continuously bounce back up asking for more.

Sleeping like an angel...

The things we saw:

The view from above

The first day we decided to take in St. Augustine. We drove to their famous lighthouse and walked to the top. Unfortunately Frances wasn’t allowed, so my parents babysat at the bottom. My mom was still healing from a knee surgery, so she wasn’t going to make the climb anyway. This is the same lighthouse that has been featured on the SyFy show Ghosthunters twice. In fact the whole city seems to promote its ghostly past. I couldn’t tell you how many “haunted” tours they offered about town. We didn’t see any ghosts, but we enjoyed a great view of the city from the top of the lighthouse.

Next up was the Alligator Farm. That was quite the fun, and Frances seem to really enjoy the scenery. I had been to this very one when I was a little older than she is now, and I remember having a blast, so I hope that she can remember it too.

We capped the evening off with a dinner at a local restaurant where my parents are always shocked by the amount of food my wife can eat and still be skinny. It truly is one of the wonders of the modern world.

Look at all the people!

The next day was quite the adventure. As many of you know, Annie is a Harry Potter nut. She can recite lines from the books, and knows every character. I too enjoyed them, and as a fan of Stephen King, I liked how each book got denser and darker. So one of the many reasons we decided on going to Florida was to also get a chance to visit Harry Potter World at Universal Studios, Orlando. Apparently this is also what everyone in Western civilization thought too. I’ve been to Disney Land, Disney World, Universal Studios California, but I’ve never seen the mess like what we drove into that day. Perhaps you saw it on the news. You know, the little blurb about record setting attendance in theme parks over Christmas. Yep. That was us. We were the poor schmucks standing in lines like everyone else. Harry Potter world is a part of the theme park, but it reached capacity instantly and we were diverted to another line were you got a ticket to come back later to be let in at a specified time. We thought OK, no worries, let’s do it. We’ll get our ticket and walk around the park to see what else that had. So we stand in line for a ticket to get into HP World… Now keep in mind, we had ALREADY bought tickets and were already INSIDE the Universal Studios theme park.

Hogwarts Express!

We now wait in a line at 10am for 30 minutes to get a ticket saying come back at 3:30PM! Let me repeat that… 3:30!!! PM!!! So we both said “screw that” and went to see if they just had a stand-by waiting line to get into HP. They did, and of course that line was over an hour long, but since Harry Potter was basically the only reason we came, we decided to wait in line and press our luck. Fortunately the line moved fairly well, and we made it to the land of butter beer and wizardry in under an hour.

Once inside, it was visually stunning, and very cool. But good gracious was it crowded. The line to the rides were over 2 hours long, and to even get into the gift store was almost an hour. We bought ourselves some butter beer, chocolate frogs, and got the hell out. FYI, we didn’t bring Frances. I can’t imagine what kind of hell it would have been if we had. I saw so many looks of misery on children and adults while waiting in line. It really made me wonder why we do the things we do. With that said, though, it was fun seeing all the cool scenery, but count me out of the next trip.

Wow, the ocean!

The next day was the trip to the beach. It was truly a hilarious time watching Frances. We had taken her to a beach before she could walk or really understand anything, so this was really her first big exposure to the ocean. The day was mild, and the water warm enough. In other words, it was a great time to show her. Initially she was a bit skeptical of the waves and getting wet. But she loves her bath time, so we figured she’d warm up to it. She loved the sand, and my mom got a big kick out of watching her dig it up and put it into a pail. But most of all, it was blast seeing her get in the water. She was all smiles, and I really believe she was fascinated by the ocean. As an adult I see the waves and the gigantic body of water, and I don’t’ think much about it, but seeing Frances really see it for the first time and go “WOW!”, really brings a smile to my face. Now I understand just how much we take for granted as we grow older.

You know I had to wear Kentucky blue in Gator country!

All in all, it was a great trip and I’m glad we went. I don’t get to see my parents enough now that I’m in California. So seeing them anytime makes me extremely happy. I only wish that we could have seen my brother and sister, but we just didn’t want to risk the weather in Kentucky over Christmas.

So that’s it for 2011. 2012 looks to be very promising. Stay tuned for another post coming soon. I promise, you don’t want to miss it.

Cheers!
Eric, Annie, and Frances

Frances trying to figure out if waves are good or bad

Well, hello there everyone. It’s almost 2012, so I figure I better squeeze in a blog post before the New Year.
Ah yes, the obligatory year-in-review post… And what a year it’s been.

Frances with Santa

January marked Frances’ six month birthday.
In February we watched as she crawled for the first time.
March was the first eye-opener that she is growing up too fast as we witnessed her standing for the first time in her crib on her own. We quickly lowered the mattress to the lowest setting in the crib.
April passed and she picked up the skill of stair climbing.
May came and she got braver and braver about standing on her own. We were convinced that during those two months she would be walking. But alas, it didn’t happen.

June rolled around, and we took off for our trip across the country to Kentucky. Frances was a real champ on the trip, and we all had a great time. Perhaps the biggest news in June was she learned to walk and that my parents got to see her take her first steps. All a month before her first birthday!.. Which by the way, her first birthday party was a success, and again I thank everyone that came.

After that the posts were few and far between. I know. I’m a terrible blogger. I won’t be winning any awards for quantity. However, during those months, Frances was exploding before our eyes. She was growing exponentially. She is still in the 95% of height. We have to dress her in 18-24 stuff all the time because everything else is so short.
Her vocabulary seems to grow every day. She still babbles A LOT, but sometimes she has a moment of clarity, and it seems like the rants make sense. Other than that, she is still belting out single words, but not limited to: Eat, Milk, Shoes, Book, Dog, Dadda, Mamma, Pappa, Knock Knock, Yuck, and her personal favorite: NO NO NO!. Momma and Dadda aren’t too fond of that last one. She even knows how to sign for milk, please, book, shoes, more and all done. And let me tell you, these signs have cut down the whining and crying for things considerably. “Please” was the best thing we ever taught her.

But she is not all perfection. The terrible twos have arrived early and the tantrums have begun. She is an extremely independent lady and wants to do everything herself. Things like walking up the stairs upright, getting in and out of a chair, etc… You know, things that would break her neck if she tried these on her own. If she can’t do these things on her own she is devastated. Or at least that’s the look on her face.
But other than the threat of personal injury, she truly is an awesome baby. She smiles all the time, and says hi to everyone she meets. She’s probably more social than either me or Annie, and that’s fine with us.

So as the year closes the next adventure is right around the corner. In a few days we fly to Florida to meet up with my parents. We hope that her first plane ride goes smoothly. We are not too worried about it, but it is a long time to be in the air with a toddler. Especially one that loves to run around free.

So I close with saying thank you for continuing to be interested in our lives. We feel blessed to have great friends and family around us that love Frances and want to follow her as she grows.

Thank you everyone and a happy holidays to all!

I know it’s a bit early, but we wanted to post a few pics we took of Frances modeling her Halloween costume for this year.

Frances as a Frenchman

Annie was set on dressing her up as a Frenchman, and I too thought that would be hilarious. We really wanted to toss in a baguette, but the Brie cheese turned out to be a good touch.

Frances as a Bumble Bee

Next up is the Bumble Bee costume. This came from Gymboree and we think she looks pretty adorable in it. Go on, try to tell me she doesn’t look cute! And yes, That’s a Hershey’s chocolate bar to keep her happy. Don’t worry, we didn’t let her eat it… It’s not Halloween yet!