Home Schooling

I have a couple of friends who home school their children. I quite admire them, I don't think I could do it. There are wonderful things about home schooling that make the idea very tempting, flexibility being a big draw. Flexibility in how things are taught and when. On Avery's last day at school before maternity leave Teacher Alma handed me a folder with Avery's first 13 or so letters as well as cut out letters and pictures for the remaining letters. Each week at school Blue Group has a letter of the day. They have a project where they glue the cutout letter onto a paper along with say apples cut out from construction paper for the letter A. They encouraged me to finish up the alphabet by the time we got back to school in late April.
I am definitely not cut out to be a preschool or elementary teacher and here are some prime examples of why:

My moon looks like a banana and how about that mouth with teeth. The mountains are okay. Lastly my mailbox, if she had properly glued the mailbox it would have looked much better but instead it's on it's side and the flag is on the opposite side of the paper.

Is that the saddest one-eyed octopus you ever saw? I don't even know what those green things are... Diamond doesn't start with O, neither does leaf... I have no idea.

I think this one speaks for itself. Crazy pig.

Anyway we made it all the way through the letter U. Thankfully they sent home some umbrellas in the folder for Avery to glue on the paper so I didn't have to torture myself trying to cut out umbrellas or ukuleles. Avery went back to school April 26 and she was so happy to be there, it made me so happy. I was a bit disappointed to see the letter Z project posted all over the walls of Blue Group. We almost made it to the end, only 5 letters shy. Let's see how these last ones turn out, I am sure my zebra will be comparable to Teacher Edna's zebra.

Redondo Beach Pier

April 22 our new neighbors were kind enough to offer to babysit for the kids so Jon and I could go out to dinner for my birthday (35!) and our anniversary (7!). We went to Baleen, a restaurant near the Redondo Beach Pier, and we saw a bunch of sea lions out on the rock jetty. We talked about how Avery would like to see this so the next day we took a little family trip to Fisherman's wharf. It is an interesting place, kind of old school marina people, bars, restaurants, boats to see. We happened upon an arcade, played a little air hockey, let Avery play a bean bag toss game and ride a pretend pony.
She did so well at the bean toss game that she got to pick a prize. She picked a blow-up, 4 foot tall giraffe that she named Lucy. I told her if Quincy got a hold of Lucy that he would pop her, so now Lucy lives in Avery's closet. Lucy is a very happy giraffe.

Santa Barbara

My best friend since junior high, Jenny, and her family recently bought a house in Santa Barbara. They were amongst our few friends who waited out the housing bubble with us, renting while the prices of real estate sky-rocketed, waiting until the prices dropped to make our move into home ownership. We drove up this weekend to see their beautiful new house and had such a nice visit. We enjoyed each others company, a yummy lunch, a walk across the creek to go feed the horses, and exploring the outdoors and all the neat features inside the house. James was born 3 months before Landon and the girls always enjoy their time together. And it goes without saying that I enjoy catching up with Jenny anytime, anywhere. We look forward to making more memories together in both of our new houses.

A Lesson in Sleep Training

Last night Landon decided to give us a little lesson in sleep training. At age 5 months I finally broke down and we sleep trained Avery in order to survive my commute and workdays. Waking up 2-3 times per night was not an option. It was not an easy process, letting her cry herself to sleep. In the end she became a great sleeper after only 9 nights and each night got easier but it was kind of painful. So, fast forward to now. This boy. He had been sort of sleeping well the past few nights but I was waking him up around 10 or 11 to feed him. Last night, I decided to see what would happen if I just put him to bed after the 8 pm feed. And holy moly, he slept until 630 this morning. He is saying "hello, let me sleep". After all this big boy doubled his birth weight at 9 weeks, exactly 12 lb 14 oz at his 2 month appt. Sweet chunky boy.

Really?!?

Last night Avery woke (us) up 4 times (what?!?!) because there were (non-existent) bugs in her room. I nearly wanted to scream every time but I refrained, eventually sending Jon in to deal with the later bug freak-outs. Then around 4 am Quincy puked all over our new carpet in our bedroom. And of course that's the night that Landon slept all (all!!!) night long. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry so I did neither, or maybe I did cry a little.

Short Fat Fry

Today we went to see Dr. Woo for Landon's 2 month appointment. No real big questions for him. Just curious to see how much he weighed. I was guessing 12lb, we looked back to see Avery was 11lb 7oz at that same appt. Well, he was 12 lb 14 oz, he exactly doubled his birth weight at 9 weeks! That puts him in the 75th percentile for weight. I can free myself of any worry (that I really did not have) that he needs anything more than my milk. Our episodic periods of bonding that already are becoming more spaced out... I have an iPhone app that tells me how long he eats, on which side he last ate, how long he has eaten thus far today, averages for the week and month of how many hours we have spent nursing. Initially I was spending 4+hrs feeding him, we are now down to 2.5hr/day. I know this will be the last time I experience the miracle of infancy and so I both delight and lament in the decrease of hours. This period is so fleeting and I try to remind myself on occasion of that fact.
Oh, and he is only 22 inches long. 10th percentile! Hence, the 'short fat fry'. It seems he may have gotten Grandpa Alky's genes, because all the other males in his lineage are at least 6 feet tall. This reminds me of a story from when Jon and I were dating. He still lived in Wisconsin and I was living LA. We had only met at Aubrey and Chris' wedding so I didn't know him very well. I was convinced that he was less than 6ft tall, like maybe 5'10" in my recollection of him. He kept telling me he was 6ft. One day I got a call from his phone and it was a nurse in Wisconsin, he had her call me from his yearly checkup to tell me that he was indeed 6 ft tall. It made me laugh and smile and I did finally believe that he was 6ft tall. We will love Landon nonetheless no matter how tall he is. Surely karma will not punish him for all the times I said I would never date a short guy...

Shushi

When I was pregnant with Avery, Jon started asking when she would be able to eat sushi. I said maybe when she was a teenager, but Jon didn't like that answer and now likes to ask all sushi restaurant workers when she can start having sushi. Their answers vary. I don't do raw fish sushi, I do vegetable sushi, like cucumber or avocado or last resort a california roll with (fake) crab. Jon loves sushi, claiming the raw fish is sweet or some silliness like that. So tonight for the first time successfully Avery ate and enjoyed my kind of sushi, which she calls shushi which makes it all the more fun. She loves the ginger but not the soy sauce. Jon is so happy that now we can all eat sushi together

Good Buddies

After a plethora of book club girls being born (5 to be exact), the tides changed starting with William 3 years ago. Since then, all book club babies have been boys. Here are the 3 youngest book club boys; Quinn, Ryan and Landon. Thanks Ryan for smiling :)

Visitors

We were so delighted to have my sister, aka Auntie Kate and her youngest, Mazie, come to visit us. I was in need of some sister time and so grateful that Auntie Bee, Lucia and Elliott allowed them to come across the country to spend a week with us. Although my sister left 2 of her triplets behind, she still sort of had twins because she ended up helping me so much with Avery while I cared for Landon. I am so appreciative of this time we had together. I had a list of things I wanted her to help me with and we accomplished a lot, we made a big pot of homemade pasta sauce, she gave us a crash course in using our food dehydrator. I never knew a grown man could consume gallons of dried tomatoes in one sitting. We made delicious raw corn chips in the dehydrator and some really disgusting yogurt taffy. We started getting the baby announcements ready to be sent. And I know we did lots of other things I can't remember. What I do know is I was so devastated when they left. Maybe because now that we bought a house in LA it is pretty evident that we will not be living near each other anytime soon and our kids will not be growing up together. So the time we do have together is all the more precious. Mazie took some pictures with my phone. Here is a small collection of those. Jon took some great pictures of the cousins which I will post sometime...

Mazie love, ready to head to the airport

Sweet loves

Thanks for visiting! We love y'all and you are welcome anytime!!

Activities

Moving to a new town and taking Avery out of school at the same time was a bit worrisome for me. I didn't want her to be bored or missing kids her age too much. The timing wasn't ideal with both these things coinciding but timing usually isn't perfect in life and yet things tend to work out. I sought out some activities through the local recreation program to start at the end of January about 3 weeks after we moved. They just happened to coincide with the week that Landon arrived. Thankfully GG was here to take Avery to her first ballet class. Avery loves her new ballet teacher, Miss Chrissy. They have lots of fun and learn a little bit of ballet/tap too. I took a bunch of pictures of the private lesson Avery got with Miss Kelsey when all the other girls didn't show up. Usually the class has about 6 girls in it.

Shuffle Step

Jumping over stuffed animals is super fun.

Miss Kelsey rewards good dancing and memory of things learned during class by letting the girls hula hoop. Miss Kelsey is a great hula hooper and Avery really enjoyed it too.

GG and Avery missed the first art class because I left faulty directions for them as I tried to ready myself to get to the hospital to deliver the baby, oops, my bad :) Avery really enjoyed art class. The teachers were sweet and she got to do some really cool projects.

Here is a mobile they made. Each week had a special project as well as free play with playdough and painting and coloring.

The kids loved these different sized tree trunk pieces.

This wasn't from art class but illustrates Avery's beginning attempts at drawing a person.

For the last art class Avery was joined by her beloved cousin, Mazie who came to visit us. They had a great time painting together and making pompom art.

funny girl

I don't write down all the funny things Avery says. I should because she constantly makes me laugh, but I don't. My current favorites include: "I'm am" which I realize she has been saying for a long time now and I sort of wonder if she might say it forever; "much more better", so cute; and "packpack" instead of back pack. She calls tofu "toe food" and she asks funny questions like "do worms have eyes and do bumblebees have jaws?". I had to look both those answers up on Google, no worms don't have eyes and yes bumblebees have mandibles, of course they do.

Two Sleepyheads

Now what do I do, two sleeping kids in the car? The stars have aligned. Hope this isn't the last time they do. I pulled into the garage, realized they were both asleep, backed out, went for a drive in search of a drive thru Starbucks to get a chai tea latte. I did not find one, drove back home, took this picture and then woke Avery up.

Good Ol' Swing

This trusty old swing has been through Avery, our friends Calvin and Sylvie, but I don't think it has seen any action like that with Landon. We have had to change the batteries multiple times already. He loves to smile at himself in the mirror above, do a little paci sucking and then pass out for hours on end. He really doesn't nap in his crib and definitely prefers the swing during the day.

Our little loves

A Good Morning

Can you see he is smiling at her? Love them!!

We went for a walk this morning on the strand and despite a forecast of rain we walked about a mile from our car without an umbrella or rain gear. But we did manage to find a nice little place to stop for breakfast while it poured outside. The weather cleared briefly but then just as we were going to try to walk back to the car it started pouring again so we sent daddy on a mile long run with a very full post-breakfast belly to retrieve the car. It was a great day.

Baby doll

Avery thought it was really fun and funny to have a sleepy Landon try on her headband. Yes that is Mommy's hand holding it properly in place.

A new friend

During this maternity leave Avery is taking a hiatus from preschool. It is just too far to take her for the day, at least 1 hr both ways. Plus we are in a new city so we don't have any local 3.5 year olds for her to spend time with yet. I have tried to get our not-so-local friends to come visit us some which has been so great but she definitely misses seeing her school friends 2 days a week. Grancy got Avery a Jessie doll from Toy Story. She is really cute and says about 15 different sayings. Avery has enjoyed playing with her and I love this picture.

Baldy

Much like his big sister, Landon's hair has started falling out. With any luck he will have some hair grown back by the time he is 2. Also like Avery his hair has a red hue in pictures, not so much in person. This picture makes me laugh and smile. Not sure when he will ever have eyebrows.

Joy/iPhone

Finally, after having my little Samsung flip phone for who knows how long, the iPhone came to Verizon and I was first in line, pretty much literally, there at the Apple store with my pre-purchased receipt and my 2-1/2 wk old baby, begging for my first iPhone. I love it. I love how I can take pictures all the time because my phone is always close-by, unlike my camera. So today I captured a sweet little hand clutching my shirt while he was sleeping. That is my true joy, moreso than the iPhone.

Hello, Kitty

sweet cuddles

Hello, kitty.
I love this picture.

Happy Valentine's Day!

It's funny to catch this picture, with Avery looking beautiful as usual, such a sweet big sister. But also with Landon found rarely with his binkie/paci and swaddled. This leads me to write about the vast differences with a second baby. He is so rarely swaddled, only at night for night time sleep. He naps on-the-go or in the swing, never in his crib. With Avery naps were scheduled and in the crib, swaddled, with a noise machine. Landon can sleep through barking dog, Avery screaming, vacuum under his swing, music blaring. He has very distinct periods where he needs the pacifier, but once he is calm and almost asleep he lets it go and falls asleep. With Avery the 5 s's of "the happiest baby on the block" were frequently implemented: shushing, side-lying, swinging, swaddled, sucking. At Landon's 2 week appointment Dr. Woo reminded me of the witching hour with lots of crying and the need for soothing was to be expected. Only it never came and I kept waiting and saying, "no don't say he's a good baby, it might jinx it", but he has no witching hour. It may also be that the crying doesn't bother me/us so much the second time around. I mean what can you do when unloading groceries, getting lunch quickly prepared for a hungry 3 year old? But I think it really is more that he cries a wee bit less. No yoga ball for bouncing to be found in the new house. Yet.

Sledding in Sand

Have I already said how happy I was to get out of Venice and into the South Bay where we can enjoy family activities? At the Redondo Pier there is an area of sand built up in the winter months where kids can go sledding down a big sand hill. Jon bought us 3 sleds on amazon and we were able to get there on a sunny, chilly day for Avery to sled. Because of the sand the sleds don't just slide but require someone to pull the passenger along. Jon was Avery's pilot mostly but there were some tween girls who also enjoyed riding our awesome sled and pulled Avery down the hill repeatedly. These were among my first iPhone pictures so I did not know how to zoom yet, hence the distant view of the hill, sled, Avery, and Jon. I sat in a beach chair in the shade and fed the little guy while they had tons of fun.

Poor Quincy

Can you see from his look that Quincy realizes he has fallen yet another rung down the ladder? Maybe he has, but Jon does a wonderful job of still caring for him, much better than I do. Quincy is so good with them both, especially Avery who wakes him from a dead sleep to try to get him to play with her. He has a 'yard' now out back, but he usually just sits by the screen door waiting to be let back in. We have new scat mats to keep him off the sofa so he and I are getting along much better these days since I don't have to look at his fur on the couch, yay! He really is a good boy and since one of my sister's dogs recently went to doggie heaven I try to give him an extra pet each day...

Tiny Guy

Sweet tiny guy. When I found out I was having a boy back in the fall of 2010 I took a little trip to Nordstrom Rack with Avery to find her some new shoes and I happened to find 2 cute boy outfits. I was convinced I would not find any cute boy outfits but I did! I have loved putting him in this one even though he looks like a little puppy in it. Love him!!

Sweet Loves

A picture of my sweet loves, Avery 3 yr 6.5 months. Landon 1 week.
Of note, the headband Avery wears in all these pictures is from her friend Ella at school. She received it in her cubbie on the last day of school before we left for maternity leave. She misses her friend Ella who clearly has an excellent fashion sense and understanding of Avery's fashion preferences. She literally wears it every day.

A Real Baby!

Avery got a very special gift when Landon came home from the hospital: her very own baby doll. She really had to work at first to be gentle, she just loved him so much she wanted to squeeze him. Jon compared her to Lenny from "Of Mice and Men". "I will name him (Landon), and I will hug him, and pet him, and squeeze him". She would literally shake, trying to keep herself from squeezing him too hard, so excited to have her very own baby. These pictures are of how she introduced him to all her friends. She loves to cover him with her blankets. We have had lots of lessons about the fragility of babies, soft spots, not covering baby's head, etc. It is a work in progress but she is a quick learner and loves her baby brother so much.

He's Here!

Our sweet boy, Landon James, was born this morning at 1032 AM. He weighs 6 lb 7 oz and is 19.5 inches long.
We stopped at the 7-11 down the street so Jon could get a giant Icee, after all we knew it would be a long night. I was only 2 cm dilated when we got to the hospital. They offered that I could go home, I said no thank you! We did some walking around to get things going and by 4 am I was demanding the epidural. It was crazy painful going in but worked like a charm within minutes. I was worried that my water did not break all this time through all these contractions. But in the end it was protective and meant to be.
My doctor broke my water, which was meconium-stained which is an indicator of stress for the baby, at 7 or 8 am. Once I started pushing around 930am the baby began having decelerations where the heart rate drops with contractions and did not improving as quickly as it should. They put oxygen on me, put me on my side, said "I am suspicious that the cord is wrapped around your baby's neck", insisted I stop pushing for a short time, they brought out the vacuum just like with Avery, there was very loud, insistent encouragement from everyone in the room and NICU was there. Our nurses Stephanie and Polly were incredible. The baby had the craziest 'growth' on his head as they carried him to the warmer but fortunately it was just fluid displaced by the vacuum and within an hour or 2 it was gone, thank goodness.
The cord wrapped around his neck 3 times (quite rare according to our OB). He had apgars of 8 and 9, which to me as a neonatal nurse practitioner tells me we got lucky and that cord was not too tight. He already loves to eat. Avery came to see him this evening. I could not have scripted a more perfect first meeting, she said the sweetest things, hopefully one day we will be able to post the video. She was holding him for a while and he started to fuss because he was hungry and she was so so sad that I had to take him back. She wanted to feed him a bottle. It was sweet and sad. I had to tell her we didn't have a bottle to give him yet. But there will be plenty of bottles to come.
We are so happy to have this precious addition to our family. Now to sleep while I can. The nurses are taking him for his first bath and to let me get a little rest until the next feeding. The second child is so different. Jon and Avery went home and it is just me and my little guy, whereas with Avery Jon never left our side.

Back in the Saddle of Blogging

Whoa, I cannot be more behind in my blogging and so much has happened in the past several months, so I am picking a day to start again, letting the months in between go. If I ever find the time to go back to those months I will but for now I will touch on a few highlights up to the day before our second child entered this world. January 23.

The first is not a highlight, but a confirmation that it was time to get out of Venice... December 5th we discovered that Jimmy our homeless neighbor for the last 7.5 years had died.

Sidewalk memorial for Jimmy, we spotted it walking down our street to the farmer's market, right where Jimmy's brown van was always parked. We knew immediately he must have died. We got the details by Jon talking to some other homeless people in the neighborhood, he had been hospitalized with pneumonia and was found in his van just days after being discharged. Quincy will always miss Jimmy's belly rubs.

We signed the papers on our new house in December 3rd and closed on our new house December 8th.

Closing day - the keys were finally ours!

I went out on early maternity leave after chest pain landed me in the CHLA ER and SM-UCLA L&D... (let's be honest: stress-related) in mid-December. I semi-successfully french-braided Avery's hair for the first time.

We celebrated Hannukah and Christmas.

Avery lit the Hannukah candles herself every night after saying the prayer. She is growing up!

Rugelach for Santa
Happiness Christmas morning

The moving truck came to Rose avenue Jan 7th. We spent our first night in Redondo Beach that night, very very late that night after moving all day and going back to clean Rose that night.
Grancy stayed with Avery that first night without heat and I couldn't sleep at all on our new mattress in our new house with new strange lights outside and new noises.

Last meal at 544 Rose #3, PB&J and Whole Foods salads

Grancy and Avery on the way our new park moving day afternoon

Avery did great with the transition, never looking back, happy to sleep on the floor for a week before we found a special big girl bed on Craigslist.
Pretty new bed.

We settled in like crazy for the next 2.5 weeks. We unpacked the last boxes around Jan 21st.

Jan 15th: We went to check out our new pier, Hermosa pier. I barely made it back up the hill to the car!

Jan 20th: Avery and I went to Mission Viejo to see Grancy and met up with some very special high school friends at the park. They were all so sweet to meet us there. Amy, Shalimar and 2 of her kids Wyatt and Amaiah, & Amanda (and some random kid at the park).

On Jan 23rd GG arrived to hopefully be around to take care of Avery if I went into labor. Originally she was coming Jan 25th but I decided the 23rd would be better; what a fortuitous decision. We all finished cleaning up the garage that afternoon, scrubbing old baby toys/swing/etc. That night both cars were parked in the garage for the first time. I had a feeling labor was coming so I took a nice shower and did my hair at 8 pm and at 930 pm, when I lied down to rest, my contractions were 2-7 minutes apart. Around 1130 pm we headed to the hospital, relieved that GG was there to be with our sweet girl. We went in to say goodbye to her, that we were going to the hospital because the baby was coming and she didn't say a word, just got a big smile on her face and went back to sleep.