more bloggy kid stuff

its me, jeff. i haven't blogged in a while. So here I go!
First, a cute picture of the kids:


Here's levi playing in his Thomas the Train fort that aunt Heather & Mayra gave him for his birthday


And Ruby looking out into her bright future...


Watching "Babe" for the 150th time can be exhausting for Levi.


I'm learning not to ask Levi to "smile for the camera", because he just makes an expression that looks like he's farting. See?

lights out

Update: We ended up eating some tasty pizza from Little Star by candlelight and then showing Levi how to make a S'more d'Lor. More than a few years back, our friends Lor and Audrey invited Jeff and me over for a backyard bbq. Rather than using graham crackers and Hershey's, Lor sandwiched the roasted marshmallow between LU Le Petite Ecolier cookies (the dark chocolate kind). Absolutely ingenious. The chocolate's built-in and dark to boot, baby! I added some sliced almonds and a sprinkle of cayenne pepper to my S'more d'Lor and ended up with something really yummy.


We're charging up the batteries and making sure our flashlights work. It's Earth Hour tonight at 8:00. Check it out at http://www3.earthhourus.org/. Brought to you by the WWF. No, not the hokey meatheads throwing each other around in the ring but the World Wildlife Fund. Hmmmm...so what are we going to do for an hour without power? Well, it will almost certainly involve matches and fire. Levi's going to love this.

you know you need a haircut when

...you shed more than the dog. No joke. My hair was everywhere. If I stood in any one spot for more than a few seconds, I'd find at least 3 strands of hair had fallen around my feet. So I went to the salon today and gladly got more than 12" lopped off. It. Feels. So. Good.

before

after

Eggsellent Easter

We're back on the air.

Today was very eggy. We decorated eggs, hid eggs, looked for eggs, deviled the eggs, then ate more than our fair share of eggs. Here are a couple snapshots from the day.




Last weekend was Jeff's birthday. My parents came over on Saturday to babysit so that I could take the birthday boy out for some pizza in Larkspur. We've been following Michael Bauer's pizza blog on SFGate for the past few months, and Jeff wanted to check out Pizzeria Picco. We didn't love the pizza, but certainly liked it. However, we did love getting in and out of the car, eating a meal, stepping into shops and art galleries without the kids in tow. The next day we drove up to Oakland to celebrate a little more with Jeff's family. By most accounts, it was a pretty tame and easy going weekend. Jeff's now a geezer though (37!), so he was pretty tired come Sunday night.


We got a new camera, in large part because we had a hate-hate relationship with the built-in flash of our old one. Any time we'd use the flash, we'd end up with something like a snowman in a snowstorm. So we never used the flash and, well, got a lot of stuff like the grainy dark picture above. Does the new camera mean more fodder for Jeff's Mother Scratching Tech Rant in the sidebar? You bet.

6 months already?!?

Ruby's infancy is just flying by. For some reason, it's going by much faster than Levi's. Is this typical of the second child experience? Are we just so distracted with the daily duties of caring for two kids that we forget to keep track of time? Anyway, today is Ruby Dooby Doo's 6 month birthday. She's sitting up unaided now. I also noticed today that her leg and arm movements are getting more purposeful while she's on her tummy. She's on the verge of another breakthrough that I'm rather ambivalent about. Mobility will certainly make her happy, but it will also necessitate more vigilance on my part. I better get to work on growing another pair of eyes on the back of my head, and a third functioning arm while I'm at it.

We had to implement Operation Tough Love because Ruby's become too strong to be swaddled. She'd consistently wake up 2 or 3 times a night because her arms would break loose. So I bit the bullet and stopped swaddling her cold turkey a week ago. She started to get the hang of self-soothing after 3 or 4 days, but the transition was heartbreaking. Many times she'd be wailing in her crib and all I could do was tell her that I loved her. She's still addicted to the bink, but we'll have to tackle that another day.

Levi's now fully embracing his toddlerhood. Lately he's taken to throwing full-blown tantrums when he doesn't get his way (i.e., ear-piercing screams and flailing limbs). His performances outdo any show put on by any child actor on TV or in the movies. However, he's a joy to be with when content. Last weekend Jeff was watching some music video on LATV (Latino entertainment channel) when Levi looked at the screen and said, "Workers!" As in, construction workers. Hopefully we can get him to understand that not all Mexican men are construction workers before something embarrassing happens!

before

after







Aweseome, they're starting to interact!

What'd I tell you? She loves the bink.

solids no likey

The pediatrician advised that I start feeding Ruby small amounts of rice cereal at 4 months. His take on it was that the earlier she started on solids, the less likely she'd be to reject it. Well, we did just what the doctor ordered and now Ruby clamps her jaws shut when a spoon even nears her face. Go figure. A feeding of cereal typically proceeds as follows...

Levi's Big 0-3

We celebrated Levi's 3rd birthday last weekend with his first official birthday party. He's still very shy with other kids so we limited the invite list to his crazy aunts and uncles. Luckily he's okay with infants, so Ruby and his cousin Hadley got to come too. For the first course we had chips and salsa. The second course was pizza (of course). The third course was some banana nut bread disguised as a birthday cake. (Yep, I'm turning out to be one of those moms.) Levi was showered with presents. Jeff even dug up the black light and some disco classics so that Marielle could thoroughly entertain us with her awesome dance moves. We had a great time. Happy birthday, little dude!