Father's Day Rocket Ship

I never imagined I'd have two little boys. With all the work we do every day to raise them, give them what they need and keep the ship together, I often forget to savor the joy they bring to my life. My first Father's Day with both of them was a perfect time to remember how blessed I am and just have fun, laugh and love them.

All Noah needs right now is for me to talk to him, hold him, give him lots of smiles and mix in a bottle every 3 hours. Eric on the other hand, requires a rocket ship. After sleeping in and having some breakfast with the family all together, Eric and I took a huge box that we had in the garage (thanks Aunt Kathy and Uncle Rick!) and turned it into our own interstellar vehicle. Eric actually decided that the box would be a rocket ship. I had suggested we make a castle but his imagination was bigger than that. We cut the windows, made the escape portal, added power buttons and steering wheel, and spent an hour painting it. After that it was time for lift off. We flew to the moon, battled monsters and hid from momma. I think I had more fun than Eric.

Later in the day, Eric's rambunctous friend Aemon came over to play and they quickly discovered how to crash the rocket ship. Here's a sweet video of the two kids:

Summer, summer, summer time

The weather has been pretty nice these past few weeks minus the days when the San Francisco Fog rolls and cools things down about 20 degrees. You think it is summer and than *wham*, just like that you are freezing. It is certainly the time of year you see swarms of tourists on the cable cars wearing shorts brrrr and the SF fleece that bought at Fisherman's Wharf.

News in Noah's world is that he is starting to grab various things and bring them straight to his mouth, not of the toy variety yet though. He prefers fabric like birth clothes, blankets, and his very own chew-guy that was given to him by Nicole. This weekend he also began getting more and more familiar with his feet grabbing his toes and rolling his hips side to side.

Noah is very good and communicating. He only uses crying as last resort or if something is really, really uncomfortable like that dang GERD. I really need to get this on video, but when he is working up a hunger he will start squirming and "talking" more. If you dare walk by him or set him down while the hunger is building he starts shaking his fists and feet at you with this look of real concern while he states "unh, unh, unh".

Being summer time we have also had some time up at Oma and Opa's house on Lake Wild Wood, a regular Disneyland for Eric. Boats, golf carts, bikes, hoses, tennis, dirt, fishing, and local wildlife (deer and humming birds). We are gearing up for the big Lake Wildwood 4th of July extravaganza as we speak which will be the first visit with all the cousins (except Semi the black lab cousin) together.

Ready for the World Cup

Where's that chicken

This morning Eric and I were sitting on the couch, me feeding Noah and Eric talking. Out of no where (as most of his thoughts are) Eric asks me, "Where's that chicken Momma?"

"What chicken?" I say. "Oh, you mean the rooster three houses down that doesn't know morning from night?"

"No Momma. The one on Shari's old roof."

Our living room window looks out on a view of our neighbor's (Shari) gorgeous roses and the roof of her house (ever since we got our new roof in December Eric refers to all other roofs as old). A few weeks ago we were sitting in our morning spots on the couch (me feeding Noah and Eric keeping us company) and there was, on Shari's roof I kid you not, a huge wild turkey. I was so stunned my reaction was to scream out "uh,uh help". Then the turkey flew off the roof, down to the ground, and over the fence into Dean's yard.

Now, turkeys are pretty common up in the Oakland hills and the state parks up there but I have never seen them down here just wandering around so I was a little taken aback. In San Francisco I have seen foxes (red & gray), coyote, skunks, raccoons, and flocks of parrots but not a turkey. And to see a turkey eye to eye out your window and 6:30am is pretty surprising. You see, there is only about one foot between our window and Shari's roof so that turkey might as well have been in our living room.

So to answer Eric's question "where's that chicken?" Well that would be three houses down in Chucks backyard, but the turkey is now roaming around on Burbank street.

Look at Noah's cute eyes

Noah and I were sitting on the floor with Eric watching him play with his fire truck and their crew Bill, Trevor, and Mel. Mel is a female and Eric makes her lead driver in just about every rig he owns (dump truck, garbage truck, fire truck, flat bed, digger, and 4x4). Don't ask me why. Maybe it is because I am raising and equal opportunist. In the same breath he was using to script his work crew he moves in close and quickly to Noah and says, "Oh, look at Noah's cute eyes". I nearly cried. Then his next sentence is to tell me he likes me ear rings and that Annee (short for Rosanne - his teacher) also wears nice ear rings. In the last month Eric's communication skills have gone from choppy to crystal clear and he you know he is happy when he is jabbering.

Eric is really warming up (finally) to his role as big brother.Today he sat next to Noah, opened a book and began "reading" him a story that started like this "Once upon a time....".

Noah is growing by leaps and bounds and my shoulders are getting buff from carrying around this 14 pound person in his favorite spot, over my shoulder, most of the day.

Some of his latest milestones:

1) Discovering his hands - I love it when he throws them out like he is going to give you a big hug, meets his hands in the middle, watches them, and pulls them to his mouth studying them the whole time.

2) Rolling from back to front and front to back - to date only once but he meant it. He was nearly nude up at Oma and Opa's so maybe he was feeling free in the fresh air.

3) Strengthening his neck - he can almost hold it up without bobbling too much. He also likes to lift his head, legs, and bum off the floor all at the same time. In yogi speak we call this boat pose and I can barely do it.

4) Looking at shapes, patterns, little toys and trying to swat them with his hands and feet. He will also grasp a small rattle if I put it in his palm but after a few minutes will start to cry because he can't let go of it so swoop in and save the day.

Click this link below for some of the May photos

For the pics click this:

SnapfishPhotos

Sing it cowboy

Snail mail happens

My dear friend Susanne of Pica Press & BULLSEYE created these beautiful birth announcements for Noah

I will get them out to you in the snail mail the old fashioned way but before I did I wanted to capture how beautifully they arrived. So special for Susanne to share her talents. It means so much to me.

Nebulize THIS Momma

So the day has finally come. It took 3.5 years for the virus to break through all my defensive moves,  but Eric has his first bad chest cold. The doc gave one listen and said since he is not a chronic smoker she was suspect a virus had set it.

Once Eric turned 2 and we put him in day care with all the germ sharing  I new it would be inevitable but I also knew that his "preemie" start was behind him and his lungs were strong enough to take it and recover. I  had mentally prepared for these nasty colds toddlers are culprits for carrying. But some how he managed to dodge the respiratory germs until now which is pretty amazing considering most babies and toddlers have about ten colds a year.

I do feel a bit vindicated now for all the precautions I have taken because even as a tough and strong three year old he is still a former preemie and the doc could tell with a good listen to his lungs so I can only imagine what this would have been like had he gotten this when he was one or two. Ask anybody who tried to come withing twenty feet of my son.  Aside from being the hand-washing nazi, I practically required them to submit recent medical documentation that they were not sick!

We are treating his cough with albuterol that has to be administer through the "nebulizer". Oh, let the good times roll. Eric isn't a huge fan of the "nebulizer" as you might have guessed. Have you ever met a three year old who wants to sit still for ten minutes with a mask on their face. No, me either. We  have pulled out every reward we can think of. He turned down chocolate but being able to watch Handy Manny seems to get the job done. Mostly we have had to grab him, pin him on my lap with my legs and hold the mask to his face for TEN MINUTES. We get to have this fun at least three times a day for a week!

He is however getting more accepting of this and it is getting easier. He also gets a steroid medication. Now if you know Eric you know he doesn't ever stop moving. He is MR. Action. Now imagine Mr. Action on fast forward. This medicine jacks him up like I loaded him up with a "shot- in-the-dark" ( shot of espresso in a cup of dark roasted coffee). It is pretty amazing to see.

With all of this he is in pretty good spirits but who wouldn't be once you are breathing easier.

Of course brothers share everything and Noah caught this cold too. His biggest issue is post-nasal drip making him gag and worsening a mild case of reflux. Try as I did, it was impossible to keep Noah out of Eric's line of coughing and goopy nose. At least Noah is building his immunity before he has to go childcare.

All this has me thinking we should start having happy hour in this house because I could use the mellowing effect of a stiff drink! Chocolate seems to help though. Good new is everybody is feeling better and recovering quite well.

Eric the photographer

Have you noticed the Flickr photostream to the right of the screen. I put together a collection of streaming photographs taken by Eric. Some day he will be a famous photographer and I will be able to say "hey check out this amazing photo composition you had at 3 years old!"

A little known fact is that Momma was once obsessed with photography back in the day of film, developing, and dark rooms. Oh the fun we had goofing of in the art department dark room at Great Falls High. I always say I spent half my senior year in the dark between taking photos for yearbook (thanks Mr. Kirk for always post-signing my get-out-of-class-free-card to photograph something for yearbook;) What a sport!)and my hologram class. Yes, instead of physics I shot holograms, which by the way is all physics and geometry, neither of which I was good at by themselves. I continue to digress here by saying that it was between photography and nutrition when choosing a college major.

I am no photographer.

Here is a great picture Eric took of Noah

  and another abstract of Rollie, Scoop and Muck

 These are photos he took of himself. The red-eye flash went off and give him a tint. I think they are pretty cool photos:

Strange looking ritual or mom-baby yoga?

Momma and Noah  just finished up a 4 week series of MomBaby yoga. While bringing Noah to yoga wasn't conducive to the most mind-body-busting yoga I have ever done,and as much as I wanted to jump into viniyasas,inversions, twists, and backbends it did have many benefits:


1) Practice getting out of the house and being somewhere semi on time

2) Time to giggle with the Noah and meet other moms and babies

3) Repair the muscle that pulls apart in the abs during pregnancy

4) Locate the obliques

5) Remember how to slow down and breath

6) Prevent me from jumping doing too much too soon

It was a great kick start but now that those classes are over Noah and I bond and giggle at home or in the park and I go to yoga for some internal time to get crazy and find peace all in the same 90 minutes.

Noah's first walk to the Golden Gate Bridge

He was just thrilled!

Chatting with the lil'monkey

Where's Waldos?

Last weekend was the annual Bay to Breakers run in San Francisco so this is a very pertinent question for Eric to be asking. We took E & Noah over to Alta Vista Park & had lunch at the crepe place on Fillmore street. An entire community of people out of the estimated 70,000 runners dress up like Waldo making him fairly easy to spot. Eric was spotting Waldo all over the city all afternoon. While the run begins downtown at 8am it takes most of the day for many of those Runners (in costumes) to make it from the finish line at the beach back to their homes. So all over the city, far from the race route, in random places you may see Snow White, a man in chaps (and nothing else), 80's dressed jazzercisers, or Where's Waldo. We once saw a clown "resting" after the race on the pavement, feet dangling over the duck pond. Classic. Momma and Dadda have participated several times. You don't run for time. You run for the experience.

Eric was amazed that he could spot real life Waldo's everywhere when he is so difficult to spot in those darn books. I should have gotten pics of Wald but didn't. Instead here are some photos of our Bay to Breakers day activities at the park.

I love the way you call me Momma

This is Momma's (that's me) first Mother's Day as a mother of not one, but two beautiful boys.

I am in awe every day as I look at there happy faces and watch them grow, their personalities emerge, that I have been the chance to bring them into this world and guide them along their paths.

Eric is three and a half .He is sweet, sincere, and imaginative. He is also ambitious, determined, head-strong, courageous, and speedy. He knows exactly what he wants and he goes after it after careful calculation.

Noah is now two and a half months. He is sweet and sensitive. He is calm and happy. He is 11 pounds 7 ounces and 22 inches. He has a good appetite and smiles at the sounds of our voices and at the smiles on our faces. His eyes are as big and bright as his brothers and I see so much familiarity in is face. I am going to be bold and say that he resembles me and sometimes I see expressions that mirror my mother's expressions.

Today, I caught Noah smiling and kooing at Eric. It made Eric so happy to get some attention from Noah. Eric smiled and giggled back at him. Of course it melted my heart. These boys are going to great pals.

For Mother's Day the boys surprised me with tomato plants and other seeds that we all planted together today. Eric and I spend a lot of time in our yard with our gardening gloves on and I have been wanting to plant tomatoes so this was perfect. I couldn't have asked for a better Mother's day. Spending the putzing in the dirt in the yard was perfect. This on the heals of getting to go to yoga (by myself - not mom/baby yoga) yesterday AND get my hair done in the city. I was definitely spoiled this weekend.

When Eric was born our lives came to a screeching and sudden halt. I did NOTHING but pump milk and go to the hospital. I didn't listen to music, watch movies, go for runs, meet with friends, have guests over, go out to eat, go to the store, ride my bike.....nothing. There was nothing in our lives besides Eric, hospital, and - for Aaron- trying to work. When Eric was Noah's age we very slowly starting re-incorporated the things we loved back into our lives . Noah being born a blessed full-term big, healthy baby we are experiencing incorporating him into all we do. I must say this is a profound and welcomed difference. Noah gets to come along on the ride and hear so much laughter (from us and his brother) and be with parents  who aren't worn down from spending three stressful months prior in the hospital.

Eric is a beautiful miracle of a boy to have arrived at 26 weeks and 2 days and be the thriving little boy he is. Noah is a beautiful miracle to have achieved a goal of full term and be the health happy boy he is. I am filled with gratitude to have experienced both. I am a better mother because of these experiences, not letting the normal hard stuff (like being awake with both kids at 1:00am or Eric having ZERO interest in potty training) get me down because after all it is NORMAL; and as my wise sister-in-law and mother of three says when things seem tough, "It is just a phase and it will pass."  I also don't let the small stuff like "spilled milk" or even finger-nail polish on the rug get to me because, well, messes happen and they can be cleaned up. It's ok. In fact when Eric spills something now he looks at me and says "its ok" and I look right back at him say "it sure is!"

Thank you for this blessing of motherhood.

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mama's!

Happy 2 months & Happy Birthday Dada

Noah is 2 months old on Dada's birthday, April 27th. His personality is starting to shine through and he is blasting us tons of smile session in response to high pitched voices, face to face close-ups, and of course gas (the most common cause for smiling these days). His last weigh in put him a 9 pounds 4 ounces and 21 1/4 inches. That, however, was two weeks ago and we are definitely noticing him being heavier and longer - probably closer to 10 or eleven pounds and 22 inches. He has out grown the newborn diapers and moved on to size 1. This happen rather suddenly and caught us completely off guard. After a few too many blow-outs and leaks we abandoned the 2 packs of newborn diapers we had on hand and made a mad dash to the store for the "big boys".

Speaking of big boys, Eric is getting more used to having Noah in his world and shows him off proudly to his friends. Eric is still more interested in Noah's gear than Noah. Turning on and off his swing, bouncy seat, or music. Although he does get down and close and talk to him and kiss is forehead from time to time and he likes to hold Noah's hand. He also gets quite a concerned look on his face when Noah is screaming and quickly tells me, "Momma, Noah is hungry again!"

Noah is sleeping for longer stretches now sometimes five our six hours. We have struck a happy balance of nursing and formula. We learned the first month, after Noah hadn't regained his birth weight, that my milk production wasn't keeping up. So we became a little milk factory over here breast feeding, pumping, and bottle feeding. Sounds simple enough right? Well, insert washing pumping supplies and bottles and a a good amount of burping time and you will realize why we never answer the phone around here. We are all amped up on this activity for about a week or so and now found a happy place that we can maintain with a whole let less expectations and guilt. Happy, weight-gaining baby = success. Happy, rested, momma = success.

Love his little tuft of hair here. Sometimes when the sun light hits it just right we think Oma will get the red hair she is hoping for, but Eric teased us with red hairs too and then it turned blondey blond. I imagine Noah will be a blond too.

"Noah is my baby brother. He doesn't have teeth cuz he can't eat thin mints"

April fun photos

Here are some pictures of what has been happening around here this month. Noah is doing well. Everyone is getting more acquainted. Noah is putting on weight an is now 9 pounds 4 oz, a good eater, loves to be held, walked in the carrier, and smiles when he is feeling good. The smiles are a real boost during a 3 am snack time! His temperment is sweet and mellow but he can scream louder than any baby we heard when he wants to (signaling gas, hunger, or you stopped moving the stroller Mom).

Pictures....

Photo album of Noah one month old

Many of these photos were taken by our in-house photographer, Eric! He has an eye for composition and knows how to use his camera timer quite well.

Eric why are you putting that pen in that glass of water?

His answer: because it's wet