Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

And a happy birthday to princess Paela, ruler of all at the Madsen household. Our little adventurer was busy with firsts this week.  read more »

Perhaps we should talk about all the things we didn't do this week. I didn't go to work. Wayne didn't make it to the free culture conference he wanted to go to on Saturday. We didn't make it to the beach. Paela didn't nap at Church again -- I think she is done with Church naps finally. It's asking a lot for a toddler to sit still long enough to sleep. And toddle she does.  read more »

Unemployment is a very common term around here. In the past half year, Rebecca's work has seen occassional layoffs. Then they took the plunge and dropped 20% of their remaining workforce on Wednesday, including Rebecca. With their stock at 3$ a share now, we don't expect the company to last very long -- or at least not without outsourcing almost everything to India. Which is already the direction they've been going.

So, Rebecca is unemployed. After a 700+ point drop on Wall Street, many companies here are jumping ship and eliminating their workforce. We see moving trucks all the time, people are leaving the area like rats in a burning building. On the positive side, Rebecca now has more time to spend with Paela and I can frantically try and get my pre-thesis defense finished in three weeks.  read more »

We found Paela a bigger sandbox to play in Saturday -- in Santa Cruz. She loved the beach! Loved, loved, loved it.

She got a huge smile when we plopped her in the sand, sand started filling her bucket handful by handful. She tasted a little, but it wasn't worth tasting more than that. She tried to stand up and walk, which was very tricky but she managed.  read more »

For a nice afternoon treat, we took Paela to a park just south of the airport and watched planes fly over our heads. They were loud and Paela initially climbed into Rebecca's arms when they roared by, but by the end of the trip, she was making the sign for airplane when Rebecca's arms were full of other stuff. Along with the sign for airplane, she's also been signing "all done" and "up" for quite some time.  read more »

We made it to the temple on Wednesday -- the first time since before Paela was born. It was nice to be able to go and reflect and learn together. Paela had fun with her Aunt Angela and cousin Thomas, though apparently she is still a little unsure about her Uncle Karl. He must be making funny faces at her behind our backs or something.  read more »

Paela has been sleeping through the night for some months now. Except when we keep her out late -- then she wakes up a couple of times with what we've come to call her "nightmare" cries. She doesn't actually want anything when she wakes up, except to be held. And she used to not even want that, so I count us lucky that holding her now helps calm her so she can go back to sleep.
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Again, the summer ends and school begins. How many more times do we have to do this?

Which means it was time to watch movies during the week and prepare for this school year. Which I would like to be my last.

Paela has become very dependent on walking with our finger for support. We've started to break her of that habit this week, which resulted in her retaliating with her frustrating whimpers.

Lots of errands. Lots of other boring things. We talked about my birthday last week, so really there isn't much to talk about this week.

I wish I didn't have more school. I think I'm done.

We started the week off with a fat lip. Not me, not Wayne, and not Star cat. Poor Paela did something (we still aren't sure what, though we have theories) to her mouth within five seconds of us both turning the other way.  read more »

After last week, we decided to get together more for lunches this week. It was a nice treat and we have learned to enjoy how close Rebecca works to home [like that was hard to do...]. Including that we found a new park around the corner from both her work and our apartment, we can make a trip of visiting Rebecca and swinging on the swing.

Paela survived her first day of church without a nap. Lucky for us it was only 2 hours long and she crashed on the trip home, but she managed to be a playful little baby with no fussing -- naps at church are increasingly difficult to obtain.  read more »