La vie dansante

With the new baby, learning how to unplug

2010-09-15T14:39:00.001-05:00

So much has changed since Julian was born, which is what prompted me to start La Vie Dansante in the first place.

Having a personal blog was my only outlet for writing and then, as I started taking more digital pictures, photography as well.

But now, almost four years later, so much of my life takes place online. There are days where it seems like all I do is cultivate my virtual presence. With Facebook, Twitter and blogging, sharing is the name of a game I've gotten quite good at since the early days of this blog. I still see La Vie Dansante as a scrapbook for my life outside work, and as much as I've enjoyed putting everything out there over the past few years, I think it's finally time to set up some boundaries between what I share with the entire universe and what I share with people I know.

After talking it over with Ian, I've decided to make La Vie Dansante a private project that Blogger will let me share with 100 readers. This weekend, I'll get around to posting more about the birth of our beautiful new little boy, and if you'd like access, please e-mail me at broylesa at gmail dot com so I can include your e-mail address in the list of friends and family who can access the blog. I think it'll require you to log in with a password, but hopefully you'll only have to do that once.

Thanks for understanding. I know it's a hassle, but it's the right decision for our family.

Getting ready to meet our new little elf

2010-09-08T21:46:00.007-05:00

It's hard to believe I'm delivering a small child tomorrow.

I could attempt to write some "'Twas the night before baby" poem, but that would be a tad overachieving, even for me.

But, in case you were wondering what goes through the mind of a pregnant woman less than 12 hours before she gives birth for the second and last time, here are some thoughts:

I didn't even bother to look up the name we've picked out until just now. We'd settled on the name Avery Jack a few months ago, and barring some look on the kid's face that just says, "I ain't no Avery Jack," that's what we'll call him. Are you ready for this? It means "elf," "ruler of the elves," "magical counsel" or some deviation of "wee wise person." I find this very funny, but come to think of it, I didn't know Julian's name means "youthful, downy bearded" until just now and that hasn't had much effect on the person he has become.

Our little elf has been pretty quiet on this last day inside my belly. We've known about him since the very beginning, when he was just a cluster of cells. A striking difference from pregnancy No. 1, when Julian was a 4-month-old fetus before we caught on. I don't feel like I "know" this kid any more than I "knew" Julian when he was coming out, but I can speak for both Ian and me that we're not nearly as apprehensive about being responsible for a new life. That's one thing being a parent will teach you: Everything eventually works out, even when there are offspring involved.

Having been a pregnant woman on both sides of the increasingly political debate about medicalized birth practices, I am totally at peace with having a scheduled C-section. I could rehash the two-day labor experience from way back in 2007 that ended in an emergency C-section, but the details really aren't that important. Julian came out healthy and that's all that matters. Another hour or two at the birthing center, where the midwives weren't advocating for what was best for the health of me and my baby (having me push for three hours at 8 cm dilated, for instance), and things could have turned out very differently for both of us. Healthy baby and healthy mama is the goal. How you get there really doesn't matter.

So, at 5:30 a.m. tomorrow, I'll stroll through the doors of the hospital near our house and within a few hours, we'll greet the little guy who has been incubating inside my uterus for the past 39 weeks. The doctors think he's about 7 1/2 or 8 pounds, and if the heartburn I've had is any indication, he'll have a full head of hair.

Julian will come to the hospital mid-morning to meet his baby brother, a moment I've been anticipating since before we even got pregnant. There's no denying that choosing to have another child has a lot to do with providing a sibling for the one we already have. I have a sibling whom I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. I can't imagine having grown up without her, and because of that bond, I can't imagine raising Julian as an only child.

It's past 10 p.m., so I really should be going to bed, but I don't feel that tired and in a way, I kind of want to stay up and stroke my big round belly that will be gone (or at least nice and flabby and not so taut) by this time tomorrow. I've said it before, but it's worth saying again: I really, really enjoy being pregnant. It's a beautiful thing to experience, despite all the waking up to go pee in the middle of the night, the pelvis pain, the heartburn, the restricted diet, the swollen feet and extra 40 pounds. I know carrying a baby isn't so pleasant for other women, but for me, it's something I'm really going to miss. (Not enough to have more babies, I promise. I'm so not interested in having more than two children that the doctor will be fiddling with my tubes tomorrow after the C-section to ensure that I'm done.)

It's fun to experience it with the people you see every day, the friends who tentatively rub your belly and say that they've never felt a pregnant woman's stomach before, the strangers in the store who ask whether you're having a boy or a girl, your partner who so patiently adjusts to all the physical changes you experience while still saying that — and treating you like — you're the sexiest woman in the world.

Off we go! A big day for the Knox-Broyles family awaits us in the morning...

Julian on stage

2010-08-09T17:45:00.004-05:00

Julian had his first on-stage performance on Sunday with the kids at his school. Three songs, three costume changes, including the cutest little "Smooth Criminal" outfit you've ever seen.

In other news, my friend Jodi came over on Sunday and helped me set up the crib, which without a doubt makes this whole baby-having thing seem a whole lot more real.

Modern Variety, an Aurora original

2010-08-01T11:27:00.004-05:00

Modern Variety is one of the last of its kind.

Five and dime stores have been fading from their retail glory for decades, but somehow Modern Variety in Aurora has held on, without turning into a tourist trap. (Mainly because there aren't many tourists in small town Missouri.)

Modern Variety survived the first Wal-Mart that opened up on the opposite end of town about 25 years ago. Wal-Mart expanded and moved across the road, and Modern Variety held on, selling everything from stamps to fabric, kids toys and cooking equipment.

Just last year, the Aurora Wal-Mart doubled (or hell, maybe even tripled) in size to become a Supercenter (even though there's another Supercenter just 15 miles away and the entire town only has 7,000 people), but I guarantee you, Modern Variety would give them a run for their money in terms of the number of products they carry.

In every corner, you'll find the most random items displayed next to even more random items. Punch bowls, silly putty, quirky knick-knacks or gift cards. These cell phone pictures hardly do the place justice, but I hope you get a chance to shop at a store like this before Wal-Mart puts them under for good.

July 4th at the beach

2010-08-01T11:21:00.004-05:00

A few more photos I found from our July 4th trip to the beach at Port Aransas.

(Props to CVS for having expectant mother parking! In my eight months of being pregnant, this is the first place I've found a spot reserved for waddling mamas like me.)

Oh, how we love Snoopy's! It's under the causeway between Mustang Island and Corpus Christi. Fried goodness and cold beer, right next to the water. What more could you ask for?

What Not to Wear, maternity style

2010-08-01T11:10:00.005-05:00

Keeping up my "What Not to Wear" style while pregnant hasn't been easy, but it's actually been a really fun challenge. Yes, some days, I look like this:

Hippie skirt, dress or moo-moo that people who've known me for more than a few years will definitely recognize as "old Addie."

But on most work days, especially on the ones when I'm out and about in the community or really wanting to feel "on," I step it up:

I'll make sure Ian takes a few more photos of me on my stylish days as proof that I didn't totally drop the ball this time around.

Baby Julian, on film

2010-07-25T17:30:00.004-05:00

While Julian was shooting his first roll of film, I was finally developing the last roll of film I took before getting my digital camera.

After taking (and developing) film photographs with a Canon A-1 for eight years, I switched to a Canon Rebel XT just after Julian was born. The last roll in the A-1 sat in the camera for three years before I finally pulled it out earlier this year to develop it.

It took me a few months, but I finally had the roll developed, and here are some of the images. (I can't believe how quickly we make the change from one technology to another. Even while living in Spain, I was able to get a roll of film developed within a week of finishing it.)

I kinda like the quality of the photos. I guess it's part of this oh-so-21st century desire of "perfecting flaws."

Julian's first roll of film, yes real film

2010-07-25T16:09:00.000-05:00

When digging through my stuff, I found an empty disposable camera from, oh, a decade ago. Julian had fun learning how to charge the flash, click the shutter and, strangest of all to this child who long ago snapped his first digital picture, wind the film.

Cascarones and a trip to the zoo

2010-07-25T16:08:00.005-05:00

I am (or was, as of Friday afternoon) at inbox zero for all three of my primary e-mail addresses. (Ah, the weird world we live in where three e-mail addresses isn't out of the norm.)

Why stop at e-mail? Here are some pictures from this spring I found buried in my iPhone. Better five months late than never, right?

Just before SXSW, we took a trip to Fort Worth to see Ian's brother's family. We had the best few days with them, including this trip to the Fort Worth Zoo.

Just before Easter, it was all about cascarones at Julian's school party. All the kids (and the adults) had a few dozen eggshells filled with confetti to break up and throw on people.

We were cleaning confetti out of our hair for days.

Flashback through childhood

2010-07-19T21:01:00.009-05:00

In May, my parents decided to sell the house that we'd moved into in the early 1990s. Over the course of the years, Chelsea and I eventually graduated and moved out, but both of us left behind boxes of the weird memorabilia you collect over the years. Homework, knick-knacks, photographs, hand-written notes to your best friend in high school Algebra. Diplomas, newspaper clippings, yearbooks, VHS tapes of media production videos.

I had about a dozen containers, from small Tupperware containers packed with notes from my college classes to big boxes with spelling bee trophies and debate team medals.

My folks finally said they weren't going to babysit all that stuff any more. (They were moving to my grandmother's house and didn't want any extra baggage.) On top of that, they said, it was my lucky day: They would hand-deliver it when they came down in early July.

I knew this day was coming, and even though I thought I had purged all I could after high school, but it was time to purge again. For two weeks, I tackled a box or two at a time. I made piles all over the living room for sentimental artifacts (1st birthday cards, letters from my mom), historical documents (You can't throw those 9/11 papers away!) and photographs.

I was surprised at the number of food-related things I found. Books filled with recipes from my third grade classmates' families (usually mothers, but that's a post for the Feminist Kitchen.), apples drawn with red crayon, (badly written) essays about popcorn.

I also found some evidence of my sprouting feminism and distrust of many of the lessons of organized religion.

Ever the pack rat, I loved going through this record of my life and it did pain me to part with some of it. (Was I really ready to throw away that football, autographed by the entire football team, from my junior year when I was nominated for homecoming queen?)

But a big part of nesting is purging, so I indulged in lightening the load.

Barefoot and pregnant in The Feminist Kitchen

2010-07-14T08:23:00.007-05:00

This time, I have a perfect good excuse for the nearly two-month lapse in posting.

I started a new blog. (More on that in a second.)

Fear not, faithful readers of La Vie Dansante, who have been tracking my family's progress since I was pregnant with Julian. This blog was my very first foray into blogging and social media, which is now a significant part of my work life (Not to toot my own horn, but I just found out that I was named the top user of social media by a national association of features editors).

As my online (and much more public) life as a food writer has developed, I've spent the time I would have spent writing about the dancing life trying to consciously live the dancing life.

And now I find myself two months from having another baby and two months from having posted a single thing of record for the first one.

Family and kid blogs really are the modern day scrapbook, and I owe it to my own to keep this up, even if it's not as frequent as I'd like.

And as if I don't have enough balls to juggle, enter The Feminist Kitchen, an online project I started a few months ago.

It's a blog (bookmark it: thefeministkitchen.wordpress.com) that I post to about once a week on topics related to women and food. I've been fascinated with women's studies and feminism since before I was ready to identify myself as one, and connecting feminism and food is a natural extension of my personal and professional lives. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I do writing it. Please engage by leaving comments, sending me topic ideas or story links or, if you feel compelled, contributing an essay you feel moved to write. (E-mail me at broylesa AT gmail DOT com if you are interested in writing a guest post.)

Now, on to a little update about Julianito and all the changes in our lives.

The biggest change is this belly and the baby growing inside. He's already getting hand-me-downs (foremost, the name we almost gave Jules) and tons of love from his big brother, who gives my belly kisses and tickles and wants him to play pirate with him.

We couldn't ask for a better few months leading up to baby. It may be hot as hell, but it's my favorite time of year, there's water in the greenbelt, exciting things are happening at work, Ian and I are playing on the same team and we all have a great attitude about the new kid.

Like last time, I'm loving being pregnant. It's the most special, unique period of time because it's always changing and it comes to a definite end. This will be the last baby, so I'm trying to enjoy every kick and hiccup, every fawning comment about my glowing skin or cute belly. (I could do without the heartburn, but I really can't complain. Baby's healthy. I'm healthy. Not everyone is so fortunate.) I can't remember if I've written about this before, but I don't mind when people touch my belly. It's nice when they ask, but it's such a privilege and an honor to carry a child, it's the least I can do to share some of that glory with others.

Julian has been obsessed with what he calls "dangerous signs" for months now. When we go to the greenbelt, he has to stop and read all the signs about no camping or alcohol. If he sees a flash of yellow or red (especially that circle with a line through it) on a trash bin, a box or even on the visor of the car from his perch in the backseat, he wants to know what it says.

I'm so proud of us keeping up the Spanish with him. We have a ton of English books at home, so when we go to the library, we check out books in Spanish (the Bizchoco series is his favorite right now). When he pointed out Amelia Earhart on the cover of Night at the Museum II, he called her "Familia Earhart." He's excellent at understanding commands and will sit through cartoons in Spanish. We practice as much as we can on our frequent "adventures" in the city to the grocery store or the bibilioteca or the mercado de granjeros. He's my little amiguito adventuroso.

Julian went on his first field trip today to see "Toy Story 3" (we saw it when my parents were in town in early July — yes, I cried — but he enjoyed seeing it again) and last night, he ventured for the first time into the deep water at Barton Creek with the assistance of a small inner tube. (We hadn't been able to get him into water where he couldn't touch in any other flotation device or even with Ian or me.)

(Small detour here: A few weeks ago, on Father's Day to be specific, when we were swimming in on the Blanco River in Wimberley, I saved an older gentleman from going under. He was in distress and I was the only person within earshot who heard him call for help. The adrenaline kicked in, and I swam over to him, calling for additional help to a group of folks on the shore. I can't remember exactly if I pushed or pulled him to a place where we could both touch, but somehow we made it. By that time, several strapping fellows had hustled out to help get him up on the bank. Luckily, he didn't lose consciousness, but he was pretty close.)

Luckily, the pregnant lifeguard wasn't needed during subsequent trips to the San Marcos River (floating with Erin from Dallas) and the Gulf of Mexico (Port Aransas, on the Fourth of July, with my mom and dad and the boys). It's been a summer full of water, which makes this water baby very happy.

Here are some photos from our trip to my friend Loncito's ranch over Independence Day weekend:

YaYa will be coming down in September for the littlest's arrival, but that means we have just less than two months to enjoy what's left of life as a family of three. It's been a wonderful summer, which I'm sure will lead to a fantastic (not to mention eye-opening) fall.

May in Missouri

2010-05-13T12:35:00.008-05:00

To celebrate my grandmother's 80th birthday, the entire side of my mom's family converged in Missouri in early May.

From Friday to Monday morning, all 17 of us — including my California-based uncle to my grandmother's now grown foreign exchange student Fernando and his partner Kim — split our time between my folks' house and my grandmother's, mostly coming up with excuses to eat.

Every time we get together with the family, Julian has grown and changed enough that they have to get to know him all over again. This time, he was entertaining them with jokes, songs ("Little Bunny Foo-Foo" is a favorite right now) and observations about Missouri. He was such a trooper on the way up there. Nearly 12 hours without a DVD player or other electronic device to keep him entertained. I know, I know; we're draconian parents, but we'd rather break up the trips with rest stops than turn him into a car-riding zombie.

I brought two cameras, three if you count my iPhone, but didn't take nearly as many photos as I should have. I guess I spend so much time trying to photograph things for my blog and work that it's nice to have a break from capturing everything in a picture.

I was happiest when stealing moments with just a few members of my family away from the group. Chelsea, Nick and I went flea market shopping in Springfield before meeting up with our cousin Christian for pizza. Chelsea and I pulled ourselves out of bed at 8 a.m. on Saturday go with GaGa to the farmers market.

We had a nice celebration for GaGa at my parents' house on Saturday night where I was in charge of prompting the stories and laughter. I came up with top 10 lists (top 10 reasons GaGa should be on Facebook, top 10 reasons she really goes to San Diego every year, top 10 reasons I hope she never stops cooking) and once the ball got rolling, everyone, especially my uncles and mom, started opening up and sharing memories. Having us all in one room was so special. GaGa is in such good health, and she is the reason we're all so well adjusted and have such giving spirits.

My Aunt Betsy, who never minces her words, said some of the most poignant things about GaGa and her lasting impact on the family she married into. After everyone pitched in to throw a flawless reception at the community center in Aurora on Sunday, she made note of the fact that there was not one fight, spat, disagreement or even a tense moment the entire day, the entire weekend in fact. Most families can't even make it through a Thanksgiving dinner without some drama.

"You are the reason that our family is so open, outgoing and service-oriented," she told GaGa later. "You have passed that legacy on to us. Not every family is so blessed."

After the family-filled weekend, it was time to start meandering back to Austin. We wanted to take our time, hopefully canoeing and camping along the way. Rain killed our canoeing plans, but we stayed in an awesome cabin in the Ouachita Mountains in Southeast Oklahoma and we camped at Cooper Lake just northeast of Dallas.

It was nice to spend some time just with the boys. The weather was perfect for sleeping and cooking outside, and Ian finally got to go fishing with Julian.

It was good to get back home, where summer is definitely underway. The garden has exploded, the AC is on and my belly is getting big. 2010 is flying by. I hope you all are taking time to enjoy it.

And baby boy makes four

2010-05-01T15:12:00.004-05:00

The news started to trickle out to our friends and family in January, then our wider circle in Austin, including work, and finally on Twitter and Facebook, so it's time to fess up here.

We're having another baby.

Looks like baby boy No. 2 will be born in September, just as the heat of the summer finally starts to set into our bones and we lose hope that it will ever turn cool again. But we get what we ask for: I didn't want to have another baby in winter, so I'm lucky enough to get to have one in summer this time around. Boy or girl, I could have cared less, but now that we know it's a boy, I'm thrilled to think of Julian having a little brother.

He's pretty excited, too. It's a hard concept to impart on a 3-year-old, but he's really digging the idea of a baby brother, for whom he's always coming up with different weird names. (Most of them characters from movies or strange sounds like Wall-E or Ree-Roo.) He gives my belly tickles and kisses and — most of the time — is happy to share his Lucky Charms or quesadilla with his mommy so the baby can have some.

Speaking of the belly, there she is, growing by the day. I can still wear most of my clothes, but just with a rubber band to close the button and a cloth band to cover up the open fly. I'm very excited about having an excuse to wear moo-moo dresses all summer long (as if I needed one!), and swimming has already proven to be a relaxing, soothing way to easing my muscles.

When Ian was a kid, it was often just him and his dad, so in some ways, he has an only kid mentality. I feel so lucky to have grown up alongside Chelsea, and I knew I'd want two kids. When Julian was born and just an infant, it was hard to imagine having the energy, time or gumption to want to go through it all again, but I knew we'd eventually feel ready again. I feel so fortunate that Julian has grown into such an independent little boy and Ian into such a confident, patient father. It's a lot easier to prepare for this new little life because each of us plays a role in making our family stronger.

Being pregnant again has been great. Last pregnancy was pretty easy, minus the heartburn, and I'm feeling the second trimester glory right now. It's so funny to me, now that I've been pregnant, then not pregnant and now pregnant again, the stereotypes about pregnant women, especially about their emotional stability.

Sure, all kinds of crazy things are happening with hormones and anticipating such a big change, but I feel more focused and confident than ever when I've got a baby growing inside me. Many pregnant women report feeling in their prime, some physical symptoms notwithstanding. I'm lucky enough not to be suffering from nausea (I had some in the beginning, but it was linked to when I was taking vitamins. Once I started taking them at night, the nausea went away) or back pain (I'm sure that's probably coming soon.), but emotionally, I feel like I know what I want for myself and my family and there's little that can stop me.

Mentally, preggo brain does seem to have set in, which means I'm pretty freakin' forgetful, but even though I sometimes can't come up with the exact word or phrase I'd like, I still know that the feeling behind it is solid. I have no tolerance for people who come into our life and affect our balance in a negative way, and I just don't have time to deal with pettiness or problems that don't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

I'm bakin' a baby, people. Family is very clearly at the top of my priority list.

After all, come September, there will be four of us.

Hunting for Easter eggs

2010-04-05T17:37:00.004-05:00

We did our first Easter egg hunt this year. Last year, we did a hunt with my parents when we were on a camping trip in Oklahoma, but this year, Julian really got into the egg dyeing and Easter Bunny hiding the eggs thing.

18 eggs was just enough, and we didn't go crazy with candy. (Julian had an Easter party earlier in the week for that.) It was all about the hunt, and the other fun things we found along the way, like this cute snail.

A different kind of bread pudding, plus my sister's new food(ish) blog

2010-04-04T11:52:00.004-05:00

Been having a lot of fun at work lately, writing about these adorable Easter-themed (and easy to make) cake pops, as well as a Mexican bread pudding called capirotada that is full of dried fruit, nuts, brown sugar syrup and, of all things, cheese.

My sister, Chelsea, and I have been talking a lot more about food lately. She's always been an astute shopper, but now her focus is on ingredients. We talk about genetically modified seeds, so-called "natural" chicken, organic milk, "Fresh" the movie, rice bread and grocery store prices. We're both officially food dorks in the best kind of way. I was bugging her this weekend about starting a food blog. She needed a place to share her discoveries, like the bruschetta grilled cheese she'd just made. And then just like that ('cause that's how my determined sister rolls), she started Simplicated. I'm so excited that she's at least testing out the blogging waters, now matter how much it ends up being about food.

Spring play days

2010-03-28T16:21:00.006-05:00

It's been such a lovely spring so far. The garden is growing like crazy, and we finally got a mower to deal with the grass that just seems to shoot up a few inches every day.

Cousins Jenna and Michael came down this weekend to celebrate Ian, Scott and LaVonne's birthdays (all in the second half of March!), and they had a bunch of fun playing in the yard. Jenna even helped me plant some tomatoes and peppers.

Our friends Ryan and Jennifer hosted a crawfish boil for Ian's birthday, and Julian loved playing with AND eating the crawfish. With his dad's help, he even figured out how to tear off the tail all by himself.

We're enjoying the 75 degree days while they last. We should have another month or 6 weeks of nice weather like this before the blazing heat sets in, but at least the Greenbelt is full of water so we'll have our beloved swimming holes back!

Riding the rails

2010-03-26T16:06:00.003-05:00

For an upcoming story for the paper, I took Julian on Austin's new MetroRail commuter train. It was free this first week, so everyone and their mom was riding, too. (Literally. There were way more kids and parents on the train than I expected.)

Julian is obsessed with all things transportation, so he was thrilled to ride the train up to Highland Mall. There are tons of problems with the train (no weekend or midday service, no benches at the stations), which I'll cover in the story, but all-in-all, we had a great time. Plus he got to play with one of these cardboard MetroRails while we had to wait for another train. (The first one of the afternoon leaving downtown was full 15 minutes before it was scheduled to leave the station.)

Taking an artist's date at the Modern Museum of Art in Fort Worth

2010-03-18T13:41:00.007-05:00

A few weeks ago, we took a weekend trip to see Ian's brother and his family in Fort Worth.

The 3.5 hour drive up I-35 is enough to keep us from going up there very often, even though there are a ton of fun things to do in the DFW area.

But every time we go up there, I promise I'm going to go to one of Fort Worth's incredible museums, and I've never booked the time to do it until this trip.

So on a rainy Sunday morning, a day after we took both families to the Forth Worth Zoo, I drove my happy little self to the Modern, which is considered to be one of the best modern art museums in the country. I relate to contemporary and modern art far more than traditional art forms, so you can imagine my delight when I showed up to the museum to see signs advertising a Warhol exhibit.

Before I'd even walked in the door, I knew the effort to take an artist's date with myself had paid off.

The Warhol exhibit was fine and dandy, but nothing compared to the museum's permanent collection. The building itself is striking, a design from Japanese architect Tadao Ando that was complete in the early 2000s. The glass-encased building is surrounded by water that during my entire visit was beautifully speckled with rain.

The most memorable piece was a set of 32 photos by Nicholas Nixon called "The Brown Sisters." Each year for the past three decades, Nixon has photographed his wife and her three sisters standing side-by-side, their stoic, determined gazes saying as much as their journal entries from the same period of time.

Here's what I wrote in my own journal while captivated by the images:

Four sisters, from young girls who've just lost their innocence to wrinkled, wise women. They grow determined over the years, holding each other, rarely looking at one other, but always connected together in some way. Their clothes change, but more so, the style that comes to identify them. How one always changes her hair and the wily-haired one doesn't, not even once (However, it does gets more unruly by the year.). You see none of them with child (or at least not visibly), but it's as if you can see the husbands and the children come and go, and through it all — the jobs, the houses, the triumphs, the losses, the once-trendy jackets, blouses and accessories — they have each other.

Here's an image of all the pictures, but I haven't been able to find a gallery where you can flip through them to get the same frame-by-frame journey as seeing the piece in real life. Nixon, by the way, is still photographing the women once a year.

Happy birthday. Have some staples.

2010-02-28T18:09:00.002-06:00

So many words, so few I can manage to type here. Sorry, dear readers, for leaving you hanging for so long.

Just a few days after Julian's third birthday, he fell off the couch and gashed his head open. Had to get two staples. The first such minor emergency for us, and I'm happy the first is over. He was a trooper, but it was hard on everyone. He got the staples out and had his yearly well-check, which went well. He's healthy and growing just like he should. We are so blessed.

As usual, he's on fire, telling jokes, coming up with crazy questions and exploring the world of Hot Wheels. (He recently got a Hot Wheels collector book with hundreds and hundreds of car pictures. He's as happy as a pig in slop.)

A few cute things he's said lately:

"I'm a big boy. I can teach anyone anything."

"The snow is so beautiful! It is beautiful to my heart and to life and to earth. Life comes to the earth!"

Today, we made flapjacks with blueberry syrup, which he was just delighted to help with and — surprisingly — eat. (He's your typically picky kid these days.)

I have some pictures on my camera that I'll download and hopefully post soon. Thanks for understanding how nuts life with a young kid and a more than full time job is. Blogging about me and the family has just taken a place on the backburner lately. :/

30 days of cable

2010-01-31T16:14:00.005-06:00

It's been more than two years since my family made the decision to kill cable.

It was mostly a financial decision, but one that went hand-in-hand with our overall dismay at what we saw and how it affected our lives. We soaked up such life-enriching shows as "Myth Busters," "Gene Simmons Family Jewels," "Project Runway," "Survivorman" and "Little People, Big World" in the days before we called up Time Warner and told them we were done spending $65 a month on noise that was taking up valuable space in our home and in our heads.

We made it through the (delayed) conversion to digital last year with our $7-post-rebate box, which unlocked the world of Create and KLRUQ, two additional PBS stations that many cable subscribers don't have access to, and if they do, are buried under a mile-high stack of sexier stations.

Ten channels suited us just fine. There was always something interesting on at night, usually "History Detectives" or "American Masters." Julian had "Super Why" and "Dinosaur Train" that kept engaged him over breakfast in the morning.

Sure, we watched "American Idol" and "Seinfeld" reruns, and we even had to *gasp* find something else to do during the commercials besides fast forwarding through them. (We could do without 90 percent of traditional primetime programming, however. You can keep "24" and "The Mentalist" all to yourself.)

But last December, we embarked on a little 30-day vacation to cable land. When setting up my iPhone at the you-know-what store, we found out we could switch our land line and Internet from Time Warner and save the exact same amount that having my iPhone would increase my cell phone bill.

They threw in the all-too-tempting promotions ($400 in all), if we signed up for their cable. Free install and all.

I'm a sucker for a deal.

A week later, a nice guy showed up to hook it up, and a few hours later, he and Ian were making playdate plans for their boys. (Most of you know this, but my husband is what you might call friendly.)

And with the flip of a switch, cable was back.

"Only for 30 days, right?" I asked Ian. "That's it," he replied.

I'd toyed around with the idea of blogging every day of these 30 days, but — if you can believe it — I never found the time. Probably had something to do with the blaring noise and pretty pictures I found my attention glued to.

There's something slightly more sticky about cable television verses the stuff you get over the air. (Insert reference to staring at a car crash here.) There's a psychological reason that sex and celebrity sell, and cable companies will always create the content based on ratings, so I have zero hope that the (de)escalating will ever cease. ("Who are these Kardashians?" Ian asks an equally clueless me. "Are they heirs to a hotel chain?")

I also know that the number of channels will continue to grow. Seriously, who needs 850 of anything, much less cable channels?

Could you imagine if every single night, you ate at an all-you-can-eat restaurant that had 850 dishes of every ethnic and distinct flavor? Some nights, you spend 3 hours just looking over the menu only to end up on an episode of "Man V. Wild" that you're sure you've seen before.

So, we've been feasting on television's Golden Corral for almost a month, and I am quite literally counting the days until we can call The Company and kill this squawk box that's eating up a tranquility — which included a healthy relationship with television — we once enjoyed.

Of course, Julian loved being able to watch "Yo Gabba Gabba" whenever he wanted, and we got a kick out of "Ru Paul's Drag Race." I got to catch up on a bunch of "Project Runway" I missed over the past few years, and Jaime and what's-his-face are still blowing up stuff on "MythBusters." Bear Grylls is still, well, you know exactly what he is, drinking his own piss and all.

But the disquiet is unsettling. Even when the television is off, the pull to turn it on is so much stronger than when you only have 10 channels to choose from. Books, magazines, cooking, playtime, even movies are more attractive when "Desperate Housewives" or "20/20" are the best options on the tube.

It saddens me most is that when we go cable-less again in a few days, we'll be getting back to a "normal" that is foreign to most American households. A normal where NickJr does not exist. A normal where Rachel Maddow is someone you read about on Twitter. A normal where Rick Steves is the Travel Channel, and Christopher Kimball is Alton Brown.

A normal where our emotional energy, our well from which we water each other and ourselves, isn't sucked dry by the massive elephant — whose weight is at least a quarter advertising — that is the world of cable television.

I'm still not going to know who the Kardashians are or what witty observation Tony Bourdain most recently made, but I think I'll survive.

Snapshots from the turn of the decade

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Just after Christmas, I took the picture above. My red phone, which would soon be replaced with an iPhone (see below). Second-hand guitar books my dad bought my mom. His reading glasses, my keys, lens cap and sparkling black shoes. Julian's plastic snake.

That day, we went out to Uncle Tom's house for a bonfire, but nothing warms my heart like seeing three of the most important people in my life making music together. My mom, at 55, has become serious about her guitar practice. Every day, like meditation, she plays. She and my dad play well-known songs that marked the early days of their marriage, but when they are with Ian, they just jam. Feeling the song instead of reading it from sheets of paper.

Maybe they should start a band. The Bonfire Bandits?

I love the cedars at Tom's house. Live oaks are generally considered the superior Central Texas tree (I've been hearing about "those invasive cedars" since I was a kid visiting his house.), but the cedars at his house have been thinned so that are now taller and more like trees instead of large bushes. But he still has to thin them out every few years. Last summer, he and Scott did a bunch of work on the yard, leaving beautifully shaped stumps like this behind.

(P.S. I uploaded about 25 more Christmas photos to the holiday gallery. Over on Relish Austin, I posted this blog post about all the food-related fun we had in December, including a New Year's paella party.)

Fast forward to the first few weeks of the new year and the new decade. Now I have this miniature computer — thanks to Ian and his mom — on which I can look up recipes, directions, weather, news, Twitter, Facebook and take and share photos. (I hope to use it in the future to update this blog. My apologies ahead of time for the decreased quality in photography for posts on the run.)

Already 2010 is off to a roaring start. It's going to be a big year in so many ways.

A virtual holiday card from the Knox-Broyles family

2009-12-27T00:38:00.003-06:00

God bless technology. I wasn't able to send out Christmas cards this year, but with the help of animoto.com, I made this video, which will give you a pretty good idea of what we've been up to this year.

Hope you all have had a wonderful holiday season!

The merriest of Christmases

2009-12-25T13:44:00.002-06:00

We're having a blast with everyone in Austin. GaGa and my sister and her husband are in Missouri, stuck in one of the whitest Christmases in recent memory. It will be their memory, not mine, because on this sunny day, we are headed to Uncle Tom's house, where I'll hoping shoot more photos to add to this Flickr gallery.

In this set of photos, you'll see more of Ian-turned-Santa, the Statesman's Cookie Swap party that I organized, as well as our Hanukkah/Christmas/solstice/birthday party last week, where I fried latkes for everyone and our friend Jodi led a menorah lighting.

Hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season! Enjoy the snow for me, if you have it. It's been far too long since I've been surrounded by a peaceful winter wonderland.

Making gingerbread cookies for Santa with YaYa

2009-12-24T21:37:00.005-06:00

Julian and YaYa set out to make a gingerbread house today, but it quickly turned into gingerbread cookies instead (thanks, partially incomplete Whole Paycheck Gingerhaus Chalet directions!).

We put the finishing touch — red, er pink, and green icing piped from plastic bags — tonight after Christmas dinner with my dad's family.

Santa will be getting these gems, which, if you ask me, are elegant enough for a Martha Stewart cookbook.

Too bad Julian ate all that icing! Santa could be stopping by any minute and he's not going to bed any time soon. I guess we'll manage.

Merry Christmas!

Who is this adorable Santa Claus...

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...and why do I want to give him a big kiss on the lips?

It's really too bad Ian had to miss LaLa's annual Christmas party for the kids. He would have liked this jolly fellow. :)

Update: It appears Santa even made a stop by our house earlier this week.