I'm not Josh-in'!

Ba-dum-dum (someone tap the cymbal behind me). I know, I know, but it's better that the first name game come from his favorite auntie, right?! Wait, you mean I'm his ONLY auntie? Hm. Whatever. Favorite. 'Cause I said so.

Nick's brother Chris and his beautiful wife Kate came out last weekend for a few days. It was the first time I've met my nephew Josh, who turned 7 months old just a day after they left. Nick got the chance to spend a few days with them right before Christmas, but this was my first time with the little man. Needless to say, I was koo-koo for cocoapuffs over him, and as soon as the camera was pulled out it didn't get put away until they left.

Josh had a terrible case of RSV a few months back, which included hospital stays and many many sleepless nights for baby and mama. Taking every precaution against re-infection, Josh gets to have a nebulizer treatment each night. The unit was clearly designed for little kids - the mask that goes with it is painted up with an elephant motif in bright colors. Well, elephants may not be Josh's cup o' tea ... the mask was good for chewing

(that's the mask in his hands and mouth, next to the pacifier, painted with an elephant face)
but when it came to the nebulizer, he prefered to gnaw on the hard nozzle end. Hey, the medicine got into his mouth and nose!


We got to spend some nice lazy mornings around the house, and Nick and I both got to play with Josh (and his toys). The early morning light around the house wasn't all that bright, so it really put the f/1.8 on my new lens to the test. These were the moments when I think having the f/1.4 would give a significant advantage for a) handheld shots (I'm too lazy to ever use a tripod) and b) wiggly lil guys like Josh. And I thought the cats had a knack for turning their head just as the shutter released! (Outside in brighter light the f/1.8 was exceptionally fast and very sharp. I've definitely pushed the limits of this lens.)



I love how everything in this picture is moving except for the very middle of his face. Quite a fit!


Kate and Josh playing with his doggie blanket (his favorite!):






The above picture is an example of the shutter speed not being quite fast enough. If this were taken at 1/50 instead of 1/25, it would have been much crisper.

When it comes to lenses, a logical question to ask is "why not just make the smallest f-stop available? Say, 1.0? 0.8? The faster the better, right?" Well here's the rub: The lower the f-stop, the wider the aperture. The wider the aperture, the shallower the depth of field. Translation: when you use a smaller f-stop (say, 1.8 or 1.4) you have such a shallow depth of field that you can end up with a person's eyelashes in focus but not the pupil. Yeah, it's that precise. If your subject is moving, like, say, a wiggly wormy of a baby, then their eyeball goes from being in focus to out of focus in 0.00001 seconds flat. So even when using f/1.8, I adjust my camera so it focuses using just the center point focus (instead of the 9-point autofocus) and I take A LOT of pictures. Few of which end up truly sharp, unless I'm in good lighting (outdoors or a very well-lit room).

In a room with more filtered lighting, like our living room early in the morning, most of the pictures were taken with shutter speeds between 1/15 and 1/50, giving them a slightly gauzy look. Not entirely undesirable, in retrospect.


Of course, it helps when your subject is THIS DARN CUTE.




I'm not a big digital effects kinda gal, but when I tested out some Lightroom presets, this one just seemed to lend itself to these two shots. Kind of an old-timey effect. I LOVE THEM!





Josh liked to roll himself into a taco with small blankets that we put down on the floor for him, so Chris and Kate came up with a viable solution: a much bigger blanket. Which he then used to roll himself into any variety of food-like shapes. Tacos, check. Cinnamon rolls, check. Scrambled eggs:

Check.

Somehow, I almost always managed to get a clean shot when Josh was stuffing things into his mouth. Like any good Sinnokrak, he always takes pause to examine and enjoy potential foodstuffs! Seriously - of the 400-odd pictures that I took during their stay, I got about 100 that were clean enough to use (remember the part about the wiggly 7-month-old?) and at least 20% of those involved Josh's mouth being obscured by his hands plus miscellaneous other objects (pacifier, toys, bottle, etc). A boy after my own heart.







Josh is so alert and aware and was absolutely fascinated by Naski and Natasha. I think, in part, it's because they're about his size. And although Chris and Kate have a mini daschund at home, cats prance about in a manner quite different from a little weiner doggie, so seeing Josh recognize something new and seeing him so intrigued by it was thrilling. The cats, for their part, reacted quite differently than I would have expected. Naski is a total lover with us, but it scared stupid by strangers (like Chris and Kate, or any other adult for that matter). And yet he was utterly curious and exploratory around Josh, especially when Josh was on the floor. Naski would stalk Josh:


And Josh would get Naski in his eyeline and become transfixed (which kind of freaked Naski out a bit, in an "oh my god, HE SAW ME!" sort of way):


A few times, Naski made his approach:


And ultimately, the only thing that made him emboldened enough to get this close was the promise of a new toy. Notice them playing tug-of-war with it:


Watch out, Naski boy ... as he gets bigger, you can expect to win fewer and fewer of these things ...


For everyone out there who thinks you need an SUV to transport children, take note. We fit 4 adults and Josh's car seat into my Prius very comfortably! And since it's a hatchback, I could make smoochy faces at him every time I messed around with stuff in the trunk!




Josh also LOVES peekaboo - he plays it with whatever's around, but especially loves to play it with his doggie blankie.


PEEKABOO!



Okay, so this blog post was not supposed to be about the technical ins-and-outs of my new lens. It was supposed to be about this fantastic weekend that we had with Josh, Chris, and Kate! And we did pack a lot into the weekend. We went to the Midway, where we spent some time up on the flight deck (Josh was strapped to Kate and his fair Lowry-Sinnokrak skin was being protected by a blanket):


Looking across to the Nimitz over at NAS North Island:


Josh woke up for a diaper change just before we popped into the gift shop. Chris plopped this too-large child's cover onto Josh and it made for the most precious photo:


After the Midway, we stopped at Point Loma Seafoods for lunch (mmmm, fresh fish!) and then took Kate out for a quick sail while Chris chilled out with the lil man on the pier. The winds were frisky at first, pushing our 22-ft Catalina over pretty far. These are moments that I call R2D2 moments ... think back to Star Wars and the noise that R2D2 made as he and Luke were zipping through the canyons ... kind of a robotic "WHEOOAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!" That's the noise I make when we're heeled over and it feels like we're perpendicular to the water. We were able to give Kate a few of those moments until the winds died down, causing us to cut our sail short and head back in. I NEVER take the camera out on the water in boats that small, so no pics, sadly.

But. The next day, we went out to the Wild Animal Park! This is truly our favorite place in San Diego. We live 3.5 miles from the zoo and go there a couple time a year, and yet we drive 35 miles to the Wild Animal Park 2-4x as much. It was originally designed as a breeding facility, with huge enclosures that include many (non-predator) species that would co-mingle in the wild. Originally created this way to encourage breeding, it makes for a very Jurassic Park-like atmosphere. You can wander about 1/20th of the acreage of the park on foot, and for the rest you need to take a tram ride. The orignal tram was shut down a year or two back (old, unsustainable, needed so much rennovation it wasn't cost effective) and they have since opened a shorter bus ride that may get a bit closer to the enclosures, but focuses on Africa and entirely skips the Asia enclosures. I'm sure they're working on it ... but we miss seeing those water buffalo and the asian rhinos!! =( If you've followed our blog for a while, you've likely seen a billion pictures from the Animal Park. So here are some people pics:

At Condor Ridge:


Josh, in his first umbrella stroller! (what a big boy!)


It's hard to know what a 7-month-old, particularly one who is in his first upright stroller, is processing about the world around him. Josh seemed awfully entranced by his surroundings but unaware of the animals. On our bus ride around the enclosures, he was more interested in his bottle and groping Nick's arm hair (I really wish I had a picture of THAT) but he still knew what the camera was all about!


We also spent a day around La Jolla:


and Coronado, enjoying the sun.

Nick got to spend some quality time with Josh playing with cat toys. No, you read that correctly. Nick treated his nephew like a cat. This blue ring? It's a cat toy. Nick turned it into a baby toy. Well, he's resourceful. So there's that. If we're ever in a situation where we are living in a carboard shack, at least I know our kids will be entertained. And, really, when you think about it, that's saying something.











Ohhhh, sorry Joshie bug. That was totally Uncle Nick's fault. heh heh.

Here are some good shots from their last day in town:








Wow. I'm sorry, I'm totally biased, but this is too freakin adorable. What wife DOESN'T love seeing their husband get all Babysiter's Club with their brother's/sister's/cousin's/friend's kid? Huh, I just realized that was a throwback reference. Yes, Camille, I grew up in the Babysitter's Club and Sweet Valley High era. We were as cult-esque as one could be before the advent of internet and Twilight. But without the creepy Mormon references.

Anyway. If you're thinking of commenting to this post with some slightly veiled reference to babies and Nick and me ... right now, we're super happy just being Auntie and Uncle Nick! I won't lie to you, faithful blog reader(s), I'm becoming not entirely opposed to the idea of children coexisting with us and our cats. But I'm just trying to get through my thesis committee meeting on Tuesday (the 14th) and the susequent thesis defense (end of June-ish?) and the move to Ohio. Then you can start to nag about babies. Until I give you the look of death, that is! =)

For now, I got my googlie-eyed fix with Josh last weekend. I'm so happy and proud to be little Josh's Aunt Erin. I can't wait to be closer to this wee one (and my other nephew Braydan, who is an incredible 4 1/2 years old, and my soon-t0-be-niece, due in late May!!) starting this fall. I envision awesome Randar-and-Erin tailgate BBQs for Illini games this fall. Oh yeah, I don't actually have time to make this happen, so *snap snap* Randy, Jenni, baby Brace, Mom, Dad, Sinnokraks, Ashley, Alex, Peter, JoAnn ... we need to make this work!! =)