Counting

Last week, all of a sudden, after forgetting about the numbers 5 and 6 for a couple of weeks, Landon was counting correctly all the way up to 10. Since that day, he has yet to remember 5 and 6 again. So it goes like this: 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.  He also went from singing the alphabet while missing half the letters to now getting almost all of them. It's super cute to listen to him singing nursery rhymes. He especially loves twinkle twinkle and its a small world. We love this smart little guy so much.

Truck Lover

Jon is constantly coming up with home improvement projects. One of these was building a portable fence to block off our driveway from our relatively busy street to let the kids and Quincy play out front a little bit while he gardens. The longest available fence to be found is only 25 feet across and we needed one that was 30 feet across so Jon came up with this system of pipes, netting and zip ties to make our very own special fence. We recently set it up one morning so Landon could watch the trucks that were working on our street. He loved watching them while we would walk Avery to school and didn't want to stop watching them when we got home.

Sweetest Words

Avery has taken to writing us letters. She will leave one on my pillow or give one to me when she gets home from school. They brighten my life. Here is a recent example. Sweet girl. And yes I will show this to her when she's a teenager and doesn't feel quite this way anymore!

That's my kid

While in Atlanta, my sister gave me 2 pictures of me from when I was a toddler. We showed them to Landon and said, "who's that?" and he said, "Landon".  See what you think.

Warning... Gross

Prior to our departure for Atlanta, the kids sink was clogged mostly with Avery's hair. I asked Jon to deal with it but in the chaos of getting ready to travel, it was left for several days. We also have taken to eating chia seeds in smoothies and oatmeal. They contain omega 3 fatty acids, fiber, antioxidants and minerals. Anyhow, they tend to get stuck in between teeth and are best removed by brushing your teeth. Do you see where this is headed? No? So sink is clogged with hair, then Avery brushes her teeth, chia seeds get stuck in the hair ball and alas, we come home 5 days later to a little chia plant growing out of our sink. So disgusting, but also an interesting little science experiment.  And since Jon was still sick upon our return home, I had the great pleasure of cleaning out this mess!

Gross, I know.

Grandma Libby turns 95

My beautiful, beloved grandmother Elizabeth turned 95 this March and we were so fortunate to get the whole family together and have a lovely party for her. Unfortunately the first night we arrived in ATL Jon came down with some wicked stomach bug that left him out of commission the whole trip and beyond. But the kids and I enjoyed our time with Grandma Libby, Grancy, Aunt Nita, Aunt Nancy, Uncle Mayo, Aunties Kate and Bee and all the cousins. We also got to see my college friend Karla. She brought the kids little gifts including chocolate covered bugs. The kids loved them, apparently not caring what the chocolate was covering. We went to the High Museum to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit. I didn't see much from the floor where we set up the kids to color pictures to keep them out of trouble, but it was still lovely.The party had a great turnout. We also had a fun easter egg hunt for the kids in my grandma's yard. Our flight home was crazy delayed but we did all make it home :)

Landon Eating the Chocolate Covered Bug

Cousins playing at the water-logged park to keep out of trouble during party prep time

My handsome nephew

I love this picture

Oh yes, it's true, that says flight home from ATL to LAX was delayed 6hr 19 min, and indeed it was...

Dancing in the airport, they were such troopers during the delay

The new Pauley

Thanks to Great Work Perks, Jon and I were able to go to a UCLA basketball game this year. I got to see the newly remodeled Pauley Pavilion and it is super cool. They have made it very contemporary but have preserved the old center court in a sort of museum-style exhibit on the east side of the building. I hope to get back there again soon. I would love to take Avery to watch gymnastics there too. When I was 8, my mom took me to the Olympic gymnastics exhibition at the old Pauley and I can still remember my first exposure to UCLA. I loved watching Mary Lou Retton and Bart Conner perform.  I digress. UCLA beat Arizona State 79-74 in overtime. They went on to be a terrible disappointment in the Tournament, but I did enjoy watching them win on the new home court. I love this place.

Road Trip

The public schools in our city are part of their own school district. We have been very happy with our little (less than 370 K-5 students) neighborhood school so far. The principal, teachers, and support staff have been great. Due to budget cuts, this year we have 6 furlough days. At least they were kind enough to add the furlough days onto 3 day weekends to make them 4 days or at the beginning of spring break to make it 12 days instead of 11 days. That I appreciate, although I obviously wish there were no furlough days. Mid-February for President's Day weekend we took a little getaway to Palm Springs to stay at my friend's condo. It was great fun. We got to swim, go to the zoo and eat lots of frozen yogurt, the best of which was at Eddie's Frozen yogurt, so yummy. We brought Quincy too and he was in heaven. Landon figured out how to climb out of the pack and play this trip which was not so much fun. He was up very early each morning roaming around trying to find some trouble to get into, the worst of which was to drink the remnants from my wine glass from the previous night, surely not more than a drop or two.

 Sweet, cuddly, sleepy guy

 view from the balcony

 Cool train exhibit at the zoo

 Sooo hot

 Carousel at the zoo

Lots of fun swimming time with our little tadpole

We love kindergarten

Watching Avery progress in Kindergarten this year has been so much fun. She went from knowing her letters and loving to be read to, to now trying to write sentences of her own. Her teacher insists that we not help with spelling, that she spell as she hears the word and I guess eventually she will learn how the words are really spelled. She also has done great with her sight word lists. She got to go to a father/daughter dance with Daddy and she had so much fun with him and all her friends. They did a little girl conga line and had shaved ice.

Avery's shrinky dink Valentine for her beloved teacher, aka chycher.

Sweet Cousins and Aunties Visit

After the New Year, we were graced with a visit from my sister and her family. We enjoyed a bunch of quality cousin time. We enjoyed the PV tide pools, sledding at the beach, park time, and a small birthday party for Landon and Auntie Bee. Here are a couple of pix from my phone. We are so lucky that although we live thousands of miles apart that both families make it a priority to get together as often as we can. Of course we didn't get to all the things we wanted to do, so they will have to come see us again soon.

 Lucia, Quincy, and Elliott

 Sweet matchy Minnie Mouse girls

Dark sunset after the tidepools

Late Christmas Present

Let me set the scene. Avery and Landon are in our bedroom playing "night night", where they get under the covers and pretend to sleep for a second, then jump around a little, then pretend to sleep again.
Jon is in his office and I am downstairs finishing up making dinner.

Avery: "Come quick, Landon took off his diaper, and oh no...."
Jon: "Karen! Karen! Come up here now!!"
I grab paper towels and antibacterial spray (I've been here, done this before, or so I thought).
Avery: "Landon teetee'd on your side of the bed, mom!"
and as if it couldn't get worse...
Avery: "And he pooped on daddy's side of the bed!"
Yep it's true. In no time flat, he managed to use our bedding as his toilet/diaper.
So now I am doing laundry, obviously.
I carry the filthy linens downstairs to load them into the washing machine and am reminded as I look into the dryer that I still had Landon's laundry in the dryer from the night before, when he cried so hard (for no good reason) that he puked all over his crib. 

 It's a good thing he's so handsome.

Sleep

So Landon, aka LB (landon baby) or Gogo bear, isn't the best nighttime sleeper I've ever known. But he sure does know how to nap in the car seat like none other. On more than one occasion he has fallen asleep before we even got out of the parking garage at work or driving down the street from home.  He can also fall asleep being held at the beach surrounded by friends and family.

Now if he could just channel that into good home sleep...

No Way

I was at work on December 23 and Avery called me at work to tell me she learned how to ride her bike. Jon just brought the bike along to the park, she hasn't really been interested in trying to ride lately. We took the training wheels off over 6 months ago and worked on coasting mainly. So he didn't think that he should bring the camera, it was just another day. But alas, she decided to figure it out. So on Christmas day, after seeing what Santa brought, opening tons of wonderful gifts, eating frittata and blueberry coffee cake, we all trekked over to the park to watch Avery in action. We are so proud. It is strange, I can't explain why it is such an accomplishment, but it's such a cool thing to watch my big little girl ride her bike all alone (and to see her write about it too!).

Hot as what?

There has been a recent hot spell in So Cal. The other day we were outside and Jon says "it is hot as Hades" to which Avery replies, "It is hotter than Katie's, because in Alabama there were thunder storms and clouds. But today is just hot. Hotter than Katie's".
Jon and I just smiled at each other. She cracks me up sometimes. Most of the time I forget what she says though.

Carnage in the Rapoport Garden

So last year, I lovingly planted a garden and tended to it everyday - watering, weeding and fertilizing.  We never got to eat ONE thing... Our dog Quincy got to it right when everything ripened and was ready to eat. He sacked and plundered our garden and made it look like a horrific crime scene.  All I found were tomato seeds and half eaten peppers all over the place. 

So this year I tried it again, only I decided I would outsmart him and put up a fence. I have been even more vigilant this year with watering, weeding and fertilizing. Everything is coming in really nice. We even got to eat a single delicious tomato that came early.

So last night I let Quincy outside and I guess he has been secretly planning his attack. We heard noises coming from outside, but I figured there was no way it was coming from our garden because of my fort knox like fence. I went out there and sure enough I smelled tomatoes in the air and that little stinker had breached the fence and was scarfing down some tomatoes. 

In the morning I went out to survey the carnage and thankfully he only got two of them. I then spent 25 minutes rebuilding and reinforcing my fence to protect the remaining tomatoes. 

Then Avery and I let him out of the house to test my engineering skills and this is what we saw...

Pictures from Last day of Preschool

End of Preschool

This week I have been acutely aware of the end of an era, the end of bringing Avery with me during the week when I drive to work. If I had to add up all the hours we have spent commuting since she was 3 months old, it probably ends up being thousands of hours in the car together. She has gotten so much more fun as the years have gone by. We have conversations about all kinds of things, from where the sun rises and sets to who she enjoyed playing with at school that day.

Last week Jon and I realized that it didn't make sense for her to go to school after 6/29 because she would only be there a few days in the next 2 months due to swim lessons, in-town company and a trip to the South, so I let her know 6/19 that she had 5 more days of school left. I thought she might be upset, but she was fine, happy even.

Recently, Landon has been crying incessantly on the drive home from school and Wednesday I sat in the front seat and marveled at how Avery will sing to him when I want to pull my hair out or scream! She must have sung 5 rounds of "Hush Little Baby" followed by "Twinkle Twinkle" followed by "Rock-a-bye Baby" and lastly "ABC's" until he Finally fell asleep. I will miss these precious moments. She also has taken to distracting him in the morning when I drop them off so he is not upset when I leave them. I hope he can start distracting himself now that she won't be with us. Friday was her last day. We made black-bottom cupcakes for the teachers and kids on Thursday. Avery was a big help in the kitchen, we made 8 dozen cupcakes! 6 dozen were mini cupcakes though. She loved licking the spatula and bowl.

Avery has been excited for her last day. She is excited to be "off school for the summer". I got through the morning ok, just a little teary eyed as I looked back to wave goodbye. Fine during the day until I went to pick them up and Teacher Edna, her teacher from blue group when she was 3 years old, had put a picture of her in the mailbox for us. I got totally choked up looking at how she has grown. We are so proud of Avery. She is growing up and we are excited for this next chapter in her life.

"Da"

Our little guy is growing up. He is funny and loving. He is slowly but surely outgrowing his "bang my head on the floor, or bite you, or hit you when I am frustrated" phase. Thank goodness.
He calls out to us throughout the day, "mama!!" "dada!" He says "da" for yes and often says "no!" when he means yes. Jon has figured out if he says no but you think he means yes, ask him to say please and if he says please (signing) then he really means yes. We have been asking him to say "Avery" for a few weeks now. He says something unintelligible and then we ask him again and he says "dada", reliably. It's so cute and sweet. The nickname "gogo bear" has seemed to stick, at least for now, thanks to Avery now we all call him gogo bear more than Landon.
He is about to transition to the toddler room at school next week. He will have the same teachers that Avery had when she was a little one. Teachers Sheila and Beverly. I like both of them very much and know that he will love them. I went to talk with Miss Sheila and saw all the little ones asleep on their cots. It is hard to believe he is finished with cribs at school, growing up. I also remember when Avery transitioned to this class they told me she would be drinking from cups and would not miss the bottle and they were right. So I have sort of just waited for him to go to the toddler class to start weaning the bottle aggressively because I know they will help me so much with this transition. They are doing lots of water play now that it is summer time and he will love this.
The teachers were sharing with me about seeing Avery after her piano lesson in the community area interacting with Landon during his snack time. He kept going to her and giving her hugs and he became upset when his teachers told him it was time to go back into the infant room so Avery said "Landon you need to go with your teachers into your room now" and he listened to her. They really are so sweet to each other, almost all the time.

The Great Flood of 2012

I should have known May 9th when I pulled up to the garage with the kids in the backseat after a long day of work and saw the garage door open and the wet-vac in the garage that something bad was going on. But I didn't. I should have known when Avery went inside and said "wow, look mommy!" that something bad was going on, but I didn't. I really thought it might still be a good surprise. But alas, our dining room had flooded. Jon had spent the past hour or so wet-vaccing the floors to get up as much of the water as he could. Over the course of the next week or so, our floors were slowly ripped up by various workers. We found mold, possibly from an old flood from before we bought the house. So we tried to see that as a silver lining, flood the house but get rid of mold. We also ended up having to remove about 1/2 the downstairs flooring, which got rid of a few bad scratches we had from the past year. Lastly, we got new baseboards which had been kind of shoddily done and now they look wonderful. This is the tiny hole in the pipe that caused all the trouble.

 We are so happy to have our house put back together again!

Water Slide Fun!

Daddy Can 'Do

Avery loves to have her hair done. She would love if I put it in 2 braids every day. I lack the dexterity and the know-how to do it on a regular basis, so most days she is content with a ponytail +/- headband. Today I came home sick from work and found Avery with a ponytail. I wasn't sure if it was the same one from the prior day, but it turns out Daddy can make a mean-looking ponytail, with a little guidance from our girl.
Never mind that both kids were out of their pajamas and it was only 10 AM on a Saturday. Very impressive. No joke, Jon makes things happen on his days home alone with the kids. There is always park time, farmer's markets, jogs in the stroller, and vegetables on their plates. I'm a lucky mama and they are some lucky kids. And he, as a husband of a nurse practitioner who works weekends, is lucky too, to have this precious time with the kids that a lot of dads don't have (I think)!

Published

About 2 years ago an acquaintance of mine at work approached me to see if I might be interested in authoring a chapter for a Pediatric Surgical Nursing textbook; specifically to write about 1 of 2 neonatal surgical issues. After coercing my friend to co-write the chapter with me, I graciously accepted. Emi and I made a good team, I think. She could always motivate me when I felt overwhelmed and she is much more organized than I am. I brought to the table that I had written a chapter before, although about a much less complex and more concrete procedure rather than a complicated and at times controversial disease process. Somehow the deadline managed to coincide with Emi changing jobs and our big move and the birth of Landon. We were able to buy a little extra time, which put Emi stuck coming to the new house on several occasions, while I tended to a newborn and we reviewed our final drafts. The actual publishing of a textbook takes a long time. We submitted our final draft in March of 2011. I have since told Emi, don't ever let me do this again!!
Our editor was a wonderfully helpful woman, Dr. Carmel McComiskey from Maryland, who actually came to speak to the Advance Practice Nursing group at CHLA shortly after our chapter was finalized. I had the pleasure to meet her after she spoke. I stood in line to meet her and said "Hi, I am Karen Rapoport, I just wanted to shake your hand" and she said "No come here and let me hug you, you did a wonderful job." So nice to get that kind of affirmation from a really smart, inspirational lady. The textbook arrived at my house on April 12th; 13 months after we submitted our final draft. Remember Emi, never again :)