Malibu Madness

We have been waiting to tell people our great news until it was official--all of the paperwork signed and delivered, but John has accepted a position at Pepperdine University! He is going to be their Director of Creative Writing! We are so excited! The day after he received his job offer letter we drove down to Malibu to check out the campus (which John had seen already when he interviewed there but wanted to show me) and to scout out apartments in the area. It was Will's first trip and he did really reall well in the car. After we arrived in Malibu, he was stiff and cranky for a few hours, but he did great relatively speaking. . .

I was nervous the first night in Malibu. It is a really long town, like 26 miles stretched along the Pacific Coast highway, and all I could really see was the ocean, the big gates for movie stars' houses, and restaurants. It dawned on me that we were going to live in this place (or very near it) and John was going to work at the university every day, but what was I going to do?! Go to lunch with Gweneth Paltrow? I imagine that I will do some adjunct teaching at Pepperdine, but the thought of actually living in Malibu was a bit terrifying.

The second day was better. We spent the morning in Thousand Oaks, which is a city about 20 miles inland. We found a great apartment near the road that goes to Malibu, and less than a mile from the church we will probably attend. Thousand Oaks turned out to be a normal city, more or less, and I relaxed. I could picture myself living there, or living in Malibu in an on-campus condo and driving into Thousand Oaks occasionally. Now I am getting more and more excited to move and see what life is like in southern California.

That afternoon we went back to the Pepperdine campus and walked all around with Will in my carrier. See the picture below. It was the first time I was afraid he would get sunburned. I put a hat on him to protect his head, and he didn't like that one bit. He hates hats, at least the kind that fit tight against his head. So I ended up holding a blanket over him the whole time.

Then we came home. Will did even better on the ride home, sleeping most of the time. We would have to stop every few hours so I could nurse him and play with him a little to keep him from getting too stiff. John starts work on August 1st, so we will be moving in just a few months. We pray that it will be a smoother move than last time, when all of our DVDs were stolen by our moving company.

On the 6th Will was 2 months old, and went in for his well baby checkup. He is doing great. He weighed 11 lbs, 3 oz, a monster. He is practically out of his newborn clothes already. He also had his vaccinations, which was worse for John and I, I think, than it was for him. Poor little guy startled and screamed bloody murder when the nurse stuck him with the first shot, and he had to have 2 more! Then he slept way longer than usual, and refused to eat very much for 2 days. He had a little low-grade fever but it was easily remedied with Tylenol. All in all it went very well--no adverse reaction, really. Below is a picture of me holding him after we brought him home from the doctor. He's wiped.

On Sunday we went to church for Easter service, which was fun. I left Will again in the nursery with the group of little old ladies who care for the infants. Will just looked at me from one of the ladies' arms as I walked away. Each child is given a number, so that if there is a problem, they type in the number and it comes up in the sanctuary where we can see it during the service. But he did fine. He was in almost exactly the same position when I came back for him, looking at me the same way.

This week I also gave him his first haircut. His hair is SO long, and it was getting a bit scraggly in front of his ears, always getting milk in it after he ate. So after his bath I trimmed the hair in front of his ears. It was hard work, I tell you. He did pretty good while I did one side, but would NOT turn his head for the other side. I had to get John to hold his head, and then quickly cut the hair in a couple of snips. Funny thing is, I think it looks better on the side I had to cut quickly. I think he looks so much older with his hair cut, like a little man. It wasn't too bad for my first try cutting hair ever.