Music Together

Terran and I started taking a music class in Princeton. It's for babies, of course, so we sing and bang on miscelaneous instruments. I am not sure if he enjoys it. Just like other babies, they seem bewildered and look at each other. But I think it's a lot of fun.
The reason for this blog is regarding a paragraph that I read in the Music Together book.

Some of you mothers may have experienced the following in the delivery room only minutes after the birth of your child. Even with all the hustle and bustle in that room, your baby may have turned his head toward you when you spoke, because he recognized your voice among all the other voices in the room.

It continues to say that 97% of the babies recognize the mother's voice.

It didn't happen exactly that way for Terran but he certainly did recognize my voice. As with most other babies, he came out healthy and crying. He continued, crying, while the nurse handed him to me and Pat cut the umbilical cord. At that moment, with my tiny little baby in my arms, I was completely speechless. I couldn't believe that this was mine and he's been living inside me for the past 37 weeks.

After all that was done, he continued to cry. Pat held him for awhile and they did a couple other things to him, and finally, he was brought back to me. Since he wouldn't be quiet, I just started talking to him. And at that moment, he stopped crying, and looked at me. I told Pat, "see, he knows my voice". And really, my voice was the only thing familiar to him in his new world. Poor baby.

new car

In Los Angeles, we were able to live with one car. Pat took the bus to work, and I got the car. Now, it's necessary for each of us to have a car so we searched and bought a car at the end of the year. It's a Subaru Legacy Outback AWD. For some reason, Pat really wanted that car. I thought it was OK but didn't think we needed to get an AWD. It's a nice car. For the first time, we have power windows, power doors, remote key, CD players, lots of speakers in the car, and sun and moon roof. We didn't have any of that in our 1981 or 1994 Honda Civics. It's really fun to drive and I love being behind the wheel. But one big problem. It's a big time gas hog. Our first tank of gas did us 18.5 miles/gallon. Compare to my 94 civic which can still do 30 miles/ gallon, it's terrible! Believe it or not, Patrick's 1981 civic can do close to 30 as well. (unfortunately, we had to sell that 81 civic to pat's fellow labmate in CA because we thought that the winter here would be too harsh for the car. We barely used the car in recent years but I miss it.... I learnt how to drive in that car and took my driving test in it....) It makes me feel really bad to be driving everywhere with the subaru.
We bought it mainly for Terran's safety. Pat didn't want me to drive around in Subaru in snow with Terran so we got the AWD. I don't really know how to drive in snow but I hope that the gas hog will do it's job and keep us safe.

home

We are getting awefully close to the closing date for our new home. I'm excited that we will finally be able to get out of this "transit" phase without local addresses or phone number. I can't wait to get all my stuff out from the storage. I'm sick of wearing the few item of clothing that I brought with me.
With just a few more days to go, I need to get a chunk of money ready to pay for all the costs. The problem is, no one seems to know just yet, how much everything is going to cost. I am a bit worried because I just want to make sure we have enough, but there's no way of telling until they give me the numbers. Since Pat is working, it's my responsibility to deal with the house. So I make all the phone calls, get utilites working, get house cleaning scheduled etc. etc. and keep entertaining my baby at the same time. Can't wait til it's over....