What a night!

Hi there. This is Mark writing. It's 11:30 at night on January 28th, and I'm writing from a hotel room in New York City. I want to put a few thoughts here while they're still fresh in my mind. The orchestra just finished playing a concert in Carnegie Hall, an important concert that I hope is the start of an uphill climb for the Houston Symphony.

A few years before I joined in 2004, this orchestra was one of the more respected in the country, had a high profile conductor, and was doing some pretty neat things - frequent recordings, tours of Asia and Europe, and regular trips to Carnegie Hall. (It's important to note that visits to this city and concert hall are one of the ways reputations are made and upheld, perhaps more than any other single performance.) Some time around 2001, the reality hit that there just wasn't the financial support to continue these activities. When I started, it was with a roster of players feeling very let down - knowing that ours was a great orchestra but sliding into anonymity.

We've lost some key musicians during these years, and we feel our identity as a top notch ensemble is unclear. I suppose the critics will decide that. Regardless, tonight's concert - in front of the people who hear the world's best orchestras on a weekly basis - was a major step toward climbing out of that position of anonymity. We performed Gustav Holst's Planets as the main work, accompanied by a film of high definition images assembled from recent NASA footage of the actual planets. It's a neat idea, and most people seem to like it. It certainly has garnered a whole lot of interest - five sold out concerts in Houston, full house tonight in New York, and another tour this fall in England. And that's part of what made tonight truly memorable - there was a tangible excitement in the air, a real buzz surrounding the event. It's definitely the first time I've experienced that so strongly since entering this profession. I felt extremely fortunate to be part of something that people were really excited about. It truly is a mighty blessing to play alongside such a talented bunch of musicians, and tonight, in such a wonderful concert hall.

Update, Long Overdue

No Christmas post. No New Years post. No pregnancy picture posts for months 4, 5 or 6. No post even marking the end of the second trimester, and the beginning of the third.

And it's beginning to get real that we are going to soon have another baby. That we'll soon be up all night again. That we'll have to learn how to split our attention between Benjamin and his sister. That we'll have to help Benjamin learn how to adjust to not being the center of our universe all the time.

We meant to toilet train him before the baby came. We meant to wean him from his beloved Biddy (pacifier) too. We meant to get a few more projects done around the house. And buy a minivan. I meant to write blog posts capturing my thoughts about this pregnancy and my thoughts towards this little girl growing in my belly, so that she, too, would have some record of her earliest days.

But here we are: 2 1/2 months before baby #2 (already named, but unless are our family or you can directly ask Ben who will gladly tell you her first and middle name, you'll have to wait for her birth day to find out) is scheduled to arrive, and we have done none of the above. And that's okay. But instead of waiting for the perfect blogging time to arrive, I've at least written down a few thoughts that are in my head today. And I'll post some pictures below.

The things we have accomplished:

• Bought a new reclining/rocking chair. We had a huge overstuffed one that we bought about a month after Ben was born that was damaged in the flood. I really wanted to replace it before potentially spending every waking (and sleeping) hour holding a baby again. Particularly if this one is like her brother, with a "button" on her back that goes off whenever / wherever you try to put her down.
• Bought a new TV. I realize that this shouldn't necessarily be on the "to do" list for having a baby, but in order to make room for the recliner in our living room, we had to move some things around, and part of the plan was to get a flat screen to hang on the wall so we could gain more floor space. And Mark found a great deal, so we went for it. It's a cool TV --- replacing my little one from high school! We've watched a few movies and Good Eats videos on it so far (Not much TV yet, except football, as we don't have cable, my old favorite TV shows are usually on before Ben goes to bed, and I actually haven't really figured out how to use the TV since we got the cable converter box when we moved back in last year), but mostly I get to appreciate the Wild Animal Baby DVD on it in the afternoons. :) Mark has plans to build a Home PCTV (is that what it's called?), and replace our current 5 remote controls with a single one. But all that will likely happen after baby is born.
• Began the transition to Ben's big boy room. Mark bought him a twin mattress last week, which we put on the floor (after removing the guest bed, which awaits having a murphy bed frame built for it in our percussion studio), and my mom bought him a very cute quilt set to go on it. Pictures of that to come. Then during the evenings this week, we moved around the furniture in and out of his new room. Today we cleared out everything from the closet, and I've just begun putting his things into this room. He took his first nap in his big boy bed this afternoon (slept over 2 hours, so I think it works :) ), and tonight he'll probably sleep in it for the first time. We'd been encouraging him to sleep in it all week --- usually starting out snuggling in it, but then he'd eventually ask to move to his "baby bed." In order to move everything out of his new room, we ended up piling it in his old room, and actually put the mattress on its end. If he really wants to sleep in his baby bed tonight, I'll probably pull the mattress out for him, but I'm hoping he's ready to make the move.

Wild Animal baby is now approaching its end, so I better wrap up this post, or I'll be hounded to watch blue elephants dancing on the internet, but first here are a few pictures:

Benjamin's Advent Stickers: I put up the first few days of stickers in a column, low on the wall. Apparently, I had set a precedent by doing so, so every following day of stickers had to go up on the wall, higher and higher in a column (until we added a second column). Ben would tell me to put them "way up there!" You can also see our new chair in this picture. Many hours of rocking in it, to come!



Ben was in our church's Christmas pageant. He was a sheep. Adorable. He enjoyed being in the pageant and practicing the songs for it. I have a really cute video of him sitting on stage waving to us during the actual "show". Maybe one of these days I'll post it. But let's be realistic. I probably won't.



One morning Ben found the sesame street underwear we bought to have on-hand for when he was ready for toilet training. He really wanted to put them on, so we did. I thought "this is it! We're going to toilet train, now!". Not so much. Back in diapers by lunch time. :)

I think the picture below will be perfect for posting in the baby picture section in his high school senior year book. :)



Here he is on the phone with Grandma Susan, telling her all about his underwear:



Doesn't he look so grown-up in this picture? He's wearing his elephant hat, a Christmas present from Gramma and Granddaddy, which he just opened up. He's telling us what elephant's say, which includes the gesture he is making in this picture.



Trying out his blue elephant stool from Aunt Sarah.



6 month pregnancy profile pictures. Only one more week before I need to take (and post?) the seven month pictures!







And yes, I cheated, I put in the Potty Song video for Ben so that I could finish this post! :)

Snow in Houston!

This is Mark writing. Perhaps it made the national news that we got SNOW IN TEXAS! It seems to happen about once every five years. We got a little dusting around our first Christmas here in 2004. This time, we got some more, and it even lasted through the night. It's melted by now, but we sure had fun with Ben. He took a really long nap, so we just had a few minutes in the snow before it got dark. We've been reading Ezra Jack Keats' Snowy Day - a fun kids book - so Ben already had some idea of what to do. We made snow angels, then built a snowman. He was pretty scrawny, but it was fun. I actually had to have Katherine school me on how to get a big snowball started.

At one point in the evening, the snowman fell over. Ben commented that he was taking a nap and perhaps he'd like a biddy (pacifier). This morning, he immediately wanted to go see the snowman so I carried him out there in his pajamas to say hello. It appeared a dog had peed on the snowman's head - some lovely yellow streaks. Katherine moved him back to his waking position and he's actually not melted yet. Fun stuff!





This is about as much as we ever get here.




Snow angels with mommy


The blind leading the blind


Isn't he handsome?




You can't play in the snow without some hot cocoa afterward.

IT'S EMPTY!!!

Yup, that's it! The very last box in our storage locker. And now, it has made its way to our house where it will be unpacked shortly. Can you believe it's taken fourteen months to fully recover from Hurricane Ike. Incidentally, 2009 was the slowest hurricane season in memory. There were only nine named storms, and I don't think any of them threatened the gulf coast or Florida. We still have 9 days left in the official hurricane season though.

When we told the folks at the desk we were done with the locker, they mentioned a lot of people have been emptying out recently and asked if our usage was from Ike damage. So I guess 14 months is about what it takes.

Does anyone need any moving boxes?

Chef Benjamin

Hi friends. This is Mark writing. I've been meaning to write for a while about all of Ben's culinary endeavors. Man, this boy really loves to be in the kitchen! We still make "cheesy eggs" almost every morning. He can rattle off all the ingredients we'll need anytime you ask. On the weekends he wants to make waffles. "How about frozen waffles Ben?" "No, I want to MAKE waffles!" He and Katherine make muffins most weekends too. This is great because they make pretty healthy ones with things like oatmeal and zucchini and not too much sugar. And these make great snacks throughout the week. He and I usually whip up something on Monday afternoons to take to our bible study. Often it's just break-and-bake cookies but he has fun still. We recently had a great time as a family assembling potstickers. That's something I didn't imagine three years ago. I really like this about Ben, and it truly is a blast to see him having so much fun. But sometimes it tries my patience, especially when I'm trying to make something unfamiliar or delicate. For example, I was trying to make empanadas a few weeks ago. If you've never done that, it involves puff pastry which is really awesome stuff, but has to be handled gingerly. That was a bad idea to have a 2 year old involved. So here's some pictures of us in the kitchen, and a few bonus ones. Enjoy!

Ben and Katherine making muffins. You can tell he's very proud of his work:




Transferring some lettuce:


Helping at the stove (okay, mostly just watching):




Oopsy


Contemplating jack-o-lantern design


The finished piece:

Pat is a ...

GIRL!!!!!!!!!!

Can you believe it??!!! We are absolutely giddy with excitement. It also seems much more real that we're really going to have another baby. I (Mark) have found it hard to get too attached when it's just a little human, rather than a little boy or girl. WOOHOO!!!!

Patricia or Patrick?

Wednesday, if he/she cooperates, we could find out Pat's gender.

While we are hoping for a girl, the Griffith clan reproductive history indicates Pat will be a boy. And, no, I don't have a "motherly instinct" regarding gender. And if I did, I'd probably be wrong. I was SURE Ben was a girl until we found out otherwise.

Any guesses out there?