April photos

I am still horribly behind, but here are April's photos.  That's something, right? ;)

April 2013 photos

Photo Dump

So very behind on this blog! All is well, both boys are doing great.  I will do a proper update soon, hopefully, but for now here are photos from March and a separate small album for Easter.

March 2013: Photos here

Easter: Photos here

February Photos

I'm totally behind again, but here are photos from February.  I will try to do a proper update soon.  The boys are well and doing great, and I hope you enjoy the photos!

Adding slideshows from Picasa no longer works, so here is the link: February 2013 photos

January photos

Just a quick photo update.  All is well with the Biggs boys, though we are currently suffering through our third cold this winter. :( But since I last updated, Julian turned one and he stopped wearing his helmet!  I will try to write more another time.  Here are January photos in the meantime.

Finally, an update!

Trying to get back into blogging!

Julian will be one year old next week - hard to believe!  He is doing wonderfully.  He has four fully reliable words - "gat" for cat, "ba" or "a-ba" for ball, "buh" for book, and "da" for dog.  He also babbles a variety of sounds and calls all cars and trucks "ca".  He is very funny though - everything is a ball, such as when we were at the market and the pile of oranges made him desperately reach out going "ba, a-ba, a-baaaaa!".  For a while, however, only our Samcat was a cat - but now he is calling all animals other than dogs "gat"!

He is not yet walking independently, though loves to walk holding onto our hands and while pushing Teddy's shopping cart.  He is eating a little bit better, though it comes and goes.  He enjoys avocado and guacamole, cheese, crackers, applesauce, yogurt, and ground beef.  He loves playing with his brother's toys - second kids are lucky! He pushes the trains along the track on the table, he plays with Teddy's new castle with great concentration, and loves leafing through all the paperback books.  He also enjoys colouring and puts real colour down on the paper with the crayons, though he also likes to eat them, of course.  He has a great attention span and is very good at self-entertaining, though also is social and loves to play with others.

Things are going well with the helmet - he continues to tolerate it fine, and we have seen a good amount of improvement.  The overall asymmetry is down to 7.1mm from 10.5mm to start.  We will probably finish with the helmet after six months of wearing, because the change will have been enough.

Theodore is also doing pretty well.  He continues to enjoy preschool, and has made some friends there.  He enjoys the circle time, music, and especially outdoor play.  

We stopped his private speech therapy, but he continues with the school district twice a week.  One of those days there is another little boy in his session, which is great.  His speech has improved dramatically and we are thrilled!  He sings and tells us sentences.  He has even started playing games with his toys where he makes up little stories for the trains/dolls/etc and narrates it out loud.  We are still working on pronunciation and complexity, but we're so proud of his progress.

Christmas was spent in Canada, and we had a great time.  We were all extremely sick before leaving and didn't really recuperate until nearly Christmas Day, but were glad we went (and glad for some TLC after a hellish week of coping here on our own!)  We were in Brampton one week and Ottawa a second week, and saw all our families.  Theodore absolutely adored playing with his cousins Austin and Alexandra in particular - it was lovely to watch them play.  And while the cold weather was quite shocking to both boys - and Theodore was not impressed with having to bundle up - the snow was well-received, especially by Theodore.  Ottawa was buried in it, which was great.  Theodore also really enjoyed the Santa aspect of Christmas this year - we wrote him a letter, left out milk and cookies the night before, etc.  It was fun to see!

Winter here in California is not as cold as back home, of course, but we are still all a little bit cooped up at present (and everyone but Billy has a bad cold again!)  Still, we try to get out as much as we can, to the store and park.  We just started a Gym Kids class all together - Teddy used to go before Julian was born, but now there is an ages 1-4 class that we can all attend! 

I will try to update again after Julian's first birthday with his stats from the doctor's visit and party pictures!

Here are photos from December; photos of Brampton and Ottawa are on Facebook: Brampton photos; Ottawa photos.

And two videos from December:

Silly noises:

Little reader:

Just a media update

No time for a proper update right this minute, but wanted to post the photos and videos that I've had ready for several days!  Hopefully a proper update before the holidays.

November 2012 photos:



Videos (there are a lot!)

Julian's silly noises:


Julian rocking out:



Julian driving the train at the park for the first time:


Teddy singing his ABCs:


Teddy singing Twinkle, Twinkle:

October 2012

Another month gone by!  Here's a quick update:

Not too much new in Theodore's world this month.  Still enjoying preschool, playdates, etc! Coming soon, we will be dropping his private speech therapy, but he will still have therapy twice a week through the school district.  We are all so impressed by his speech development, however.  His physical skills keep improving as well - last week he climbed up the slide for the first time!  He did enjoy Halloween - he was obsessed with pumpkins all month and is sad they aren't in stores any longer.  He did very well trick-or-treating.  We only went to a few houses but he said trick-or-treat and thank you, and was not scared or shy.  

Julian is now nine months old.  He is still wearing the helmet.  It's going well, though at our last checkup he hadn't had any significant change.  Grow, little head, grow!  He got a clean bill of health at his doctor's visit as well, though once again the Biggs genes are asserting themselves apparently, as he got longer but his weight has dropped down to the 3rd percentile.  He is starting to eat better and so we are just giving high calorie, high nutrient options and seeing what comes of it.  He is incredibly active, meeting all his milestones, vocalizes a lot, and very happy, so we are not worried.  In fact, he officially graduated from physical therapy this week!  

We've had some lovely weather lately, so are enjoying as much outdoor time as we can before winter.  We had a great visit with Auntie Suzie (who is Teddy's new best friend) and Cathy this week, and Auntie Suzie will be back on Thursday.  We had a fun party for the election last night and are looking forward to Thanksgiving in a few weeks.  Other than that, life continues as normal!

Here's the photos and video!

Busy busy:

Catching Up

I got September's photos posted a while ago, but haven't had time to write a blog post - apologies!



The big news for Theodore, of course, is that he turned three last month! He was super excited about this and loves telling people how old he is now.  His actual birthday was a Friday, so he went to preschool as usual, and then in the afternoon we went for frozen yogurt and to the park.  The next day we had four of his friends and their parents over for a little party.  Everyone had a fun time!

He has also been going to preschool for just over a month now, three mornings a week for three hours (9-12).  He adjusted to this really well and seems to be enjoying himself quite a lot.   They have a great outdoor play area, music twice a month, circle time, and a nice group of teachers and kids.  In fact, at pick-up recently one of the teachers, Miss Linda, pulled him aside specially to tell him he was one of the sweetest, most fun, and most gentle kids there.  That warmed this mom's heart!

As I mentioned last month, he was also assessed recently for services through the school district due to turning three and aging out of the Early Start program.  He qualified for speech therapy so we are now attending that twice a week.  It is meant to be a group program but so far he is a group of one...the therapist is working on it!  She's very nice and seems to be making good progress with him.  His vocabulary continues to expand rapidly, so we are really working now on articulation in particular.  He is still doing private speech therapy as well, though we have just changed to a new therapist because I changed all our days around a bit after letting our nanny go (once Theodore started preschool, I didn't feel we needed her help any longer).



Julian is 8 and a half months old now.  He has mastered the "traditional" hands-and-knees crawl and is astonishingly fast!  He is also pulling up and getting back down easily, and cruising along furniture.  He is our very bold and adventurous baby for sure. He is starting to eat more solid foods, especially if it's puffs - we dip them in purees and a reasonable amount gets in that way.  He likes to feed himself - he is a very independent child in general!  It's been so interesting to watch his personality develop in comparison to Theodore.

As you can see from the photo, he is now wearing the helmet I mentioned in the last post.  Everything has gone very well with it.  He adjusted quite quickly to wearing it, and now wears it 23 hours a day, with a one-hour break at dinner time (all the better to smear food into his hair!)  After two weeks we went for a check-up, and he had already had 1mm positive change in his head shape.  The measurements refer to the asymmetry on the diagonal of his head - 0 would be perfect, but since no head is perfect, we are aiming for 5mm or less of asymmetry.  He started the treatment at 10.5mm, so the change so far is great.  He does get a little itchy when it is off, and for a while was sweaty, but overall he barely notices it (though we are already, despite our best efforts at cleaning, noticing a slight funky smell - they warned us about this, but I can already imagine how it will be by the end of treatment!)



September and October so far were busy but fun otherwise.  We had a nice visit from Grammy Eileen that the boys loved, especially a trip to the train shop!  Unfortunately Grandma Carole and Granddad Bill were not able to visit as planned because Granddad suffered a heart attack two weeks ago.  I'm happy to report that he is doing very well, and we are talking on Skype every day to keep in touch instead.  We have also kept busy with playdates and outings, such as taking both boys up to the city for the first time to visit with my old friend Jeanette.  The rainy season started up last week, but before that we had a heat wave (over 100F one day!) and today it is warm and sunny again, so we are spending as much time outside as we can until winter sets in.

As always, here are photos and videos.  I put the photos up a while ago, as I mentioned, so they run through the end of September only (and my videos seem to be a little out of date too). I'll try to do October's photos and a blog post for them in a more timely fashion in a few weeks!



Julian just after learning how to sit up, early September:


Feeding himself squash, also early September:

Monthly Update

Another month gone by, another update!

Big news for Theodore: he is now potty-trained!  I decided to do the 3 day potty training method with him last week.  This involves going straight to underwear and consistently reinforcing that the child tells you when they need to go, and being very involved and positive for those three days.  Well, after a handful of accidents the first day, he got it, and was completely pee-trained by the end of the first day!  He is so proud of his accomplishment, and we are too. He especially loves all his new undies - I got fun  Thomas the Tank Engine and Mickey Mouse ones.  He also liked collecting stickers and chocolates while training - we did the second day same as the first, to reinforce, but he was done already!

In other news, he will be starting preschool next month.  He will attend a small Montessori school in Mountain View three mornings a week from 9 to 12.  I think he will love it, though it will definitely be a change.  We hope to do a visit or two before he starts.  He loves being around other kids though, and we also hope it will help his speech development continue to blossom.  On the speech front, he is about to graduate from the Early Start program due to turning three.  We thus had an assessment this week with the school district to see if he will qualify for extra speech services through them.  He is really continuing to improve so much, though he has a ways to go with vocabulary and articulation.

Julian is now almost seven months old.  He did great at his six month checkup, weighing in around 14 and a half pounds, and keeping fairly steady on the charts.  He has had his first tastes of solids, though he's definitely not keen on them yet.  He tolerates sweet potatoes, and absolutely freaked out at fresh homemade peas!

He has three teeth through, and they are sharp!  He is also still army crawling everywhere, and is very fast.  He also gets up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth, but can't quite get anywhere that way yet.  He abandons it often because he just wants to catch up to Theodore!  He absolutely adores his big brother.

On more serious news, we attended a clinic at Stanford and were told that he does indeed have plagiocephaly as we suspected, which is where his head shape is asymmetrical and flattened.  This is due to the torticollis we have been attending PT for.  At his age, given that he never spends time on his back anymore, it is unlikely to further fix itself, so we have opted to get a cranial remolding helmet.  It was a hard decision, but we think it will be for the best.  The asymmetry is quite noticeable, and the doctors also noted that one ear is pulling (shearing) forward, and his forehead is more prominent on that side as well.  So, we have our consultation/scanning appointment next week, and he will be fitted for the helmet on September 12th.  I will be sure to post with more information after the appointment and pictures when he is fitted.

Other than all that, we keep busy with playdates, park time, and continuing PT and speech sessions.  As seen above, Julian now loves the swing, and Theodore has graduated to the big boy swing!  He can't swing himself yet, but loves being pushed on it.  We have also had some fun family outings, like to the Day Out With Thomas event, where we rode on a real steam train with a replica Thomas engine.

Overall, an interesting and busy month!  Now we are just preparing for the start of school, and then looking forward to a visit from Grammy Eileen later in September, and Grandma Carole and Granddad Bill in October.  As always, here are photos and videos.  Rather too many photos, apologies, but hope you enjoy!

Slideshow embedding is not working...and leaving a big blank space...here is a link to this month's photos instead!

July/August 2012

Videos:
Julian and a roller toy at a play place last week:


Boys chatting and rolling:


Julian blowing raspberries (and trying to grab the phone!) a few weeks ago:

Quick Update

Hello!  Just a quick update to try to get up to speed here.

We had a great time on our trip to Canada.  Both boys loved being doted on by their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  I put photos of the trip on Facebook, and it's really too big of a job to go back through and put them on Picasa as well, so I will just link those albums:  Brampton and Ottawa photos; and Montreal/Wedding photos.  The boys were good fliers, and adjusted quickly to the time change.  Julian spent his first significant amount of time in the car, and did quite well, particularly on the Ottawa to Montreal drive! We were able to visit lots of friends and family, and in particular Theodore was able to have many playdates with children around his age.  He especially loved all the time he spent with his cousins Austin and Alexandra. And both boys were wonderful at the wedding - Theodore had a three hour nap that afternoon and then stayed up dancing and partying until 10:30 pm!

Since then we have just been settling back into our normal routine.  Billy had five days off work around Independence Day, which was fun for everyone.  We are doing PT once a week now for Julian and speech once a week for Theodore, and Theodore also has a gym class once a week.


Speaking of speech, Theodore has made huge gains in his vocabulary recently.  His word list is now well over 50 words long, probably even more as he has so many new ones, I can't keep up!  He is also able to put words together to form simple sentences: he will say "help please", for example, or his new favourite, "train time!"  He is much more willing to try new sounds and words, and is even refining words he previously had (such as saying train rather than just signing, or saying "eh-mo" for Elmo instead of how he used to just say "eh-eh-eh").  He will also tell you about his day in sentences - we just don't understand all of it yet.  But most of his words are quite clear, and we're extremely proud of his progress.


Julian is also developing wonderfully.  He started rolling when we were in Ottawa, and hasn't stopped since!  He can roll all around to get wherever he wants, and has also started army crawling.  He's definitely on the loose.  He's a very smiley, happy baby who loves his brother and desperately wants to put all of his brother's trains in his mouth, haha!  He will be six months old next week, so I am getting ready to start feeding him solids. He has actually been 100% breastfed from the tap so far - no bottles of expressed milk even - I am pretty proud of that achievement.

As always, here are some photos and a video. I will try to update after Julian's 6 month appointment with his statistics!

Theodore talking:

late June/July photos:

late June/July

Pictures and Videos

Really just a media update today - I wanted to get caught up on photos and videos before it got out of hand again, and also before our big trip!  We leave on Friday for Canada - a week in Brampton, a week in Ottawa, and a few days in Montreal for Auntie Catherine's wedding. 



Things are going well here.  Julian is now four months old and growing every day.  He is very active, alert, and talkative.  He is still doing physical therapy, however, he has made great progress and we are pleased with his improvement.  Theodore is also well, adding new words to his vocabulary very quickly these days, such as a word or approximation for the numbers 1 to 10.  We also just finished a 10 week music class.  While Julian just looked around a lot, Theodore really absorbed the class and learned quite a bit!  We also made a new friend at class and are having a second playdate with them today.

Okay, here's the pictures and videos.  Will update again after our trip! Have a nice June!



Julian talking last week:


Theodore dancing (and singing a little, too):

Update

I'm very behind on updating this blog - apologies! Life, as you can imagine, has been busy, plus due to my own incompetence I've gone through several phones recently, and have had to dig them all out to import and sort photos. Anyway, let's get to it!



Julian is now three months old. He is a truly wonderful baby. Overall he has a very chill personality, and loves to smile and laugh. He will hang out contentedly on his mat or in his swing, which is a nice change from Teddy's more high needs infancy. He loves his big brother and enjoys watching him. He is also a dedicated thumb sucker, which amuses his big brother to no end! He nurses well, and is gaining weight well. At 3 months he weighed in at 11 and a half pounds. As I mentioned previously, he had to re-do his newborn hearing screen, and he passed with no problems.

We have been dealing with one small issue however - he has mild torticollis, which means that he doesn't have the full range of motion in his neck/head on one side - in his case, his left. It is not severe, though because he tilts to and favours the one side, when lying down pressure on his head is not evenly distributed, and so his head shape is a little lopsided. We decided to pursue physical therapy to be proactive about the issue, and because we have a relationship already with Teddy's former therapist who we love and trust. We have had four sessions, and definitely the head shape is improving and we are working on stretching and strengthening the neck muscles. Unfortunately, Julian rather hates the therapy, to put it nicely, though at his latest session he enjoyed himself for 20 minutes before realizing he was supposed to be angry about us manipulating him! We will probably go for only a short while, so it's not a long-term problem.



Theodore is now 2.5 years old. He celebrated his half birthday in March with cake and some new trains! He is really blossoming and doing very well. He graduated from physical therapy in March, though in reality had not needed it for a while, but we love his therapist and he had so much fun we thought we would keep on. He runs, (almost) jumps, dances, and loves to kick his soccer ball around. He has really built muscle strength and loves to move his body, which is wonderful to see. He is still attending speech therapy, though only once a week at this time for scheduling reasons. While he still has a pretty severe delay he is making progress. He has several new words since I last wrote, and also is signing words very consistently and using these words and signs to truly communicate with us. For example, he will regularly sign "eat" when he is hungry, and when he goes on outings he comes home and tells us via signs and words that he saw trains, birds, etc. He has a word for all the colours and enjoys using those in particular, and is especially proud of his "bus", which is extremely clear and said often, with pride! He continues to love his trains and books most of all his toys, though he also enjoys art, playing outside, and music. He has started taking on chores around the house and really likes being a big boy who helps out: he will put away the cutlery from the dishwasher, throw things out in the garbage, and put dirty laundry in the basket. He is a funny, sweet kid, and while he can be stubborn and mercurial (hey, he's two!) we really enjoy him and his personality.



The transition to two children has been going quite well. Theodore is, in general, pleased with his baby brother. There are definitely challenging moments, but those are usually resolved with snuggling up on the couch with a Thomas the Tank Engine video while I nurse the baby. He really enjoys lying next to Julian on his mat and holding his hand and looking at him. We still try to do lots of outings, and are currently enrolled in a Music Together class, which was appealling because I was able to bring both Julian and Theodore. Theodore loves the class and we all have a lot of fun at it every week, and listening to the CD at home!

To help me out during the day, we have hired a nanny, Myisha. She comes twice a week, currently on Wednesdays and Thursdays, from 8 to 5. She takes Theodore to his speech therapy which is a big help for me, and does activities, outings, and lunches and nap time. She will also watch Julian so I can shower and nap! She is a very fun young woman and Theodore really enjoys spending time with her, which is great.

Other than those sorts of updates, life continues on daily. Billy was able to stay home from work for one month after Julian's birth, which was wonderful. After that, my parents came to stay for two weeks to help out. We definitely appreciated that! Since then we also had a short visit from one of my oldest friends, Nigel, and have had various friends over for visits. In June, we will be travelling to Canada for three weeks, going to Brampton, Ottawa, and then Montreal for Billy's sister Catherine's wedding. It will be Julian's first trip!

Time to finish this update and post it, finally! A huge slideshow follows - all of February, March, and most of April. I also have one short video of Julian from March. Hopefully in the future I will update more frequently and then the photo albums will be less epic!

Photos:


Chit-chat in March:

Julian Emmanuel Biggs is here!

Theodore's baby brother Julian was born on Friday, January 27th at 11:18pm. He weighed 7lb 3oz, and was 20" long.



So far everything has been going very well. Julian is a good nurser and has an easy-going personality. He had his first check-up yesterday morning. He had dropped to 6lb 10oz in the hospital (normal amount of loss) but had already gone back up to 6lb 14oz yesterday. He's a lovely pink with no hint of jaundice. The only issue to date is that he didn't pass the newborn hearing screening on his left ear, but we've been told that is very common. We'll be going in for a follow-up screening in two weeks and I will post about the results at that time.

Theodore is pretty calm about the whole change in having a baby around the house so far. He did wonderfully with our (amazing!) friends from Halflab who came to stay with him over the weekend while I was in the hospital, and has been pretty chill about things since Julian came home. We are lucky that he is so good about it all!



We are all, obviously, tired, but doing well. The birth was uncomplicated and we were discharged Sunday morning. Billy is on paternity leave for a month or so, which is wonderful. I will try to update again soon, but for now here are photos from the first 5 days of Julian's life.

Catch-Up Photo Post

With the new baby extremely imminent (due in 3 days!) I thought I would try to sneak in a small photo update here. While I've posted pictures from Paris, Brampton, and Theodore's second birthday, there are obviously lots of other pictures from that time period that I haven't put up. So this post is to link to a collection of photos from August 2011 through the end of December 2011, including Christmas photos.

Quick notes on Theodore: he is now 28 months old, and doing great. His speech is really improving - he has a sound or sign for tons of different animals, and a 'word' for most colours. He is willing to try new sounds out, and definitely now says 'cat', 'da-da', and 'ma-ma' very clearly. His other reliable words are 'ba' for bus and 'uck' for truck. He still uses his signs as well, especially for milk and train. Trains continue to be a huge hit in this house! We continue to do speech therapy twice a week, and he enjoys it. We are also still doing physical therapy once a week, though he doesn't actually qualify for it any more - but the insurance keeps paying and we adore Jyoti, our therapist, so we keep going! He does still have lower muscle tone than other children his age, but otherwise he is generally at age-level and in particular has shown no ill-effects from his foot anomaly so far.


Enjoying physical therapy back in August.

He is very interested in his baby brother - he loves to pat my tummy and snuggle up to it, and pat my breasts where baby brother will get his milk. We will see how he feels when a real, live baby is in the house, but so far we have read and talked about it a lot, and he seems very excited! He is still such a sweet child - he definitely has developed opinions and can be contrary and stubborn, but overall he is easy-going and a delight to be around.

When the new baby arrives, I will hopefully continue to update about both boys here on this blog!

Here are the photos; I haven't uploaded any videos lately, but hopefully will catch up on that soon. Just getting through five months of photos was work enough!

Second Birthday Pictures

I'm still very woefully behind on this blog, but here's a mini-update with pictures from Theodore's second birthday in September.



We opened presents the morning of his actual birthday. They were almost exclusively train-related and he was thrilled! Theodore is still completely in love with Thomas the Tank Engine and trains in general.

Later that morning we went to the Palo Alto Junior Zoo and Museum and met Talia and Beti. It's a cute little zoo and play area that Teddy loves, and they had a fun time running around together and looking at the animals.



We saw Talia again on the morning of the 10th when we held his birthday party in our backyard. We had bubbles and cupcakes, which went over very well! We kept everything low-key because he was only turning two and isn't a fan of big, noisy events anyway, and it turned out great.

Theodore also had a two-year checkup with his pediatrician in that time, and everything looked great. He's around the 10th to 15th percentile for height (it's hard to measure a screaming, flailing child!) and just under the 3rd percentile for weight. It was exciting to have him on the charts, and he's got a lovely growth curve that just happens to be on a lower part of the chart than average. He's very healthy overall and so we were pleased! We have been discharged from seeing the GI doctor further, and also met with Endocrinology in December and were told not to worry there either. So he's officially a small child that takes after his father - which is fine by us, because he's so happy, healthy, and smart.

Here are the rest of the photos from his birthday - just 14 of them - and hopefully soon I will post more catch-up photos and news, unless his Baby Brother arrives in the meantime!

Brampton report

Slowly working my way up to the present. At the end of August, Theodore and I took a 5 day trip to Brampton on our own, while Billy stayed home to work. The flights were definitely challenging - Theodore didn't nap on the way there, and threw several epic tantrums going both ways - but it was worth the trouble in the end, as it was great to see all of my family.



Theodore had a really good time, though unfortunately he was battling a cold and a cough. In particular, he loved spending time with his cousins Austin (age 5) and Alex (age 3). He wanted to do everything Austin did and looked up to him a lot. We were able to spend three of the four full days we were there with his cousins and Auntie Debbie, which was wonderful. They came to Brampton twice, and one day we went down to their house in Toronto to visit with them. Auntie Suzie also visited each of those days, so I got lots of sister-time and Theodore got spoiled by his aunties!



A highlight of the trip for me was taking Theodore to visit his Great-Grandma Peggy, who is his only living great-grandparent. She just turned 97 years old, and is living in a facility in Shelburne, 45 minutes north of Brampton. She is suffering from advanced Alzheimer's, but still really enjoyed our visit while we were there. I know Theodore won't remember the visit, but I'm glad to have photos to remind him of it in the future. While she is in great physical health you can never count on more time at her age.

In general, it was a nice, low-key trip. We didn't travel to see friends, and while there were many people I would have liked to see, it was much easier this way. We hadn't seen Debbie or Theodore's cousins since last Christmas, and will not be travelling this Christmas, so it was good to just spend lots of quality time with them. Though next time, I think I would think twice about flying alone!

That catches me up on our two trips of the summer. I'll end with one video and photos, as always. On another note, I'm sure this isn't a surprise to anyone reading this blog, but just in case it is, I forgot to mention here that I'm pregnant again and we're expecting baby #2, another boy, at the end of January. It's fairly obvious in the photo above, so thought I should make it explicit! We're very excited and Theodore likes the idea of his baby brother being in my tummy. Everything is going very smoothly this time around; I'm being closely monitored but so far we seem to be in the clear as regards complications. Fingers crossed for the rest of the pregnancy!

Theodore enthusiastically copying his cousin Austin:


Photos:

Paris report

Well, I'm so far behind at this point that catching up seems daunting - so I thought I would break the summer down into separate posts to make it more manageable. I'll start with our fabulous trip to Paris!



10+ hour flights with a toddler are definitely not a breeze, but Theodore really rose to the challenge. He slept half the flight there (an overnight) and at least took a nap on the way back. We had direct flights and bought him his own seat - best money we ever spent.

Our apartment was in a great location in Le Marais, near many great shops, restaurants, parks, and the Metro. The four flights of stairs (no elevator) were a challenge, but the apartment had two floors, was bright and airy, and extremely spacious. We were all very comfortable there for our stay. Theodore certainly had no complaints!



Billy worked for most of the vacation from the Paris office, though he would usually go in a little later so that we could all leave the house together (aka he could help me with Teddy + stairs), and he would leave quite early to meet us at the park and go to dinner. We did do some "big" tourist outings on weekends and one weekday morning: we saw Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, and spent an hour and a half at the Louvre (not bad with a toddler in tow!) During the week Theodore and I would go do one touristy and/or kid-friendly activity in the morning, come home for nap, and then usually go to the park in the afternoon. There were several beautiful, fun parks close to our apartment, which was wonderful. As morning outings we went to a small zoo, the Tuileries, the science museum, Place des Vosges, the Middle Ages museum, etc.

While it took a few days to settle in because of the time change, Theodore really had a fabulous time. Paris is a toddler's delight! There were lots of cars, motorcycles, dogs, frites and pain au chocolat, and best of all, birds. He chased the pigeons in the park every day, and could do so for an hour or more at a time! It was great fun to watch him laugh and run, and as a bonus, it really improved his footwork and agility - Jyoti, his physical therapist, was blown away by the advancement in his skills when we got back.



We also had the pleasure of a nice visit from Billy's sister, Theodore's Auntie Diana. She stayed with us for the second week we were there, and Theodore really enjoyed her company. She helped us manage that hour and a half at the Louvre in particular, and also babysat one night so Billy and I could have a date night! Much appreciated, and it was really nice to spend time with her.



Billy also had his first night alone with Theodore - I went to London for one night to visit a friend. I was gone for just about 24 hours, and everything went very well back in Paris. Big thumbs up to Billy for that!

Overall it was pretty much the perfect vacation - we lived like locals, did some touring, and tried to take it easy (though we got tons of exercise!) It was hard to come home at the end!

I'll finish up with two videos and a slideshow from Paris. Next time, I'll do the trip to Toronto Theodore and I took, and hopefully also do stats/general updates.

Bird chasing champion:


Flamingo rock out:

Happy 2nd Birthday, Theodore!

I know it's been ages since I updated this blog properly, but I didn't want to let such a big milestone go by. Happy 2nd birthday to our beautiful boy!

We had gifts (Thomas trains!) and went to the Palo Alto zoo with Beti and Talia in the morning, and had cake with Daddy after dinner. We are having a small birthday party on Saturday morning with Beti, Kevin, and Talia.

Hard to believe we've gone from this:

September 2009

All the way to this!!



Love you, baby!

General Updates

Theodore turned 22 months old today. It's hard to believe - the time has gone by so quickly. We have had a pretty busy and full month since I last updated.

June started on a sour note when Billy and I both had extremely bad bouts of stomach flu, and Theodore had a rotten cough and cold. Thankfully, Grandma Carole came to the rescue and came to town on the 9th (my birthday!) We were so grateful to have her help, as we were in a pretty bad state. She stayed for two weeks, which was a wonderful visit and let us get back on our feet and also enjoy her company.

Riding the miniature train at Vasona Park

During her visit we had a terrible heat wave, but managed to beat the heat by checking out new things to do, like the San Jose Children's Museum. It's been hot and and off since, but other than a lot of complaining on my part, we've been surviving.

This last weekend was the Independence Day holiday, and Billy had both Monday and Tuesday off - hooray! And even better, Theodore's Uncle Michael and Uncle Alex came to visit. Uncle Michael stayed for four days, and Uncle Alex is still here, going home on Saturday. We've been having a great visit, and Theodore is enjoying getting to know his uncles better.

At the Japanese Tea Garden on July 4th

As always, Theodore continues to grow and develop daily. He has no new words, but has been using several words/sounds more consistently, notably "ba" for ball and "ka" for cat. Perhaps the biggest change since the last update is that we weaned him from breastfeeding while Grandma Carole was visiting. It went extremely smoothly, and while I miss it, he is very into snuggles now, so those are lovely as well. We are still going to speech and physical therapy, though we have no classes on at the moment, due to summer schedules. We visit the park almost every day instead, or play in our wonderful backyard. Speaking of that backyard, Theodore and I have been growing vegetables together, and got to taste our first cucumbers this week! He was very excited, though didn't end up wanting to eat it when it was on his plate!

Next update will come in August - after our big family trip to Paris!! We leave July 20th and come home on August 5th. We are very, very excited and I think Theodore will have a wonderful time. We plan to go to lots of parks and eat pain au chocolat every day, so I'm sure that will agree with him!

As always, video and photo to end!

Enjoying T-Ball at sports class:


Photos:

Vancouver, Medical News, Etc

The promised post-Vancouver update, only a week later! We had a wonderful trip.

At Stanley Park

We were in Vancouver from the 21st to 24th of May. Unfortunately, Theodore woke up with a rotten cold the morning of the 21st (and slept terribly the night before, so we were all extremely tired). He travelled well, however, sleeping almost the whole way. Billy and I both got varying degrees of crud as well, so it was bad timing, but we still did the best we could.

On Sunday we went to the main event, Auntie Catherine's engagement/medical school graduation party. It was held at her fiancé Kevin's parents' house and was a fabulous affair. Poor Theodore was pretty out of sorts, but we all managed to have some fun and eat delicious cheese blintzes. After the party we went to the Vancouver Aquarium with Grammy Eileen for a short visit. Theodore adored the sea otters and seals. We then went out for delicious Greek food with all of the above-mentioned people plus Billy's cousin Colleen. Due to some mix-ups, I don't have any photos of these events...if I get copies from anyone later, I will include them in a future photo album.

We then had a most excellent holiday Monday. In the morning we met Billy's cousins Pamela and Sean for brunch, and Pamela's daughter Serena. Theodore didn't pay her much attention during the meal, but afterward they hugged and he was in love with her from then on! After that we parted ways with Auntie Catherine and went to Stanley Park with Grammy Eileen. We visited the Aboriginal village in the park, and went on the Spirit Catcher miniature train ride. They put on an excellent dramatization of a legend about Raven, including costumed actors, and Theodore just loved it. After that we wandered around the park, enjoying the beautiful scenery. That evening we went to Granville Island for a delicious fish supper (and Theodore enjoyed looking at the boats).

We left early Tuesday morning for home, but late Wednesday night Grammy Eileen rejoined us here in Sunnyvale! Theodore really enjoyed her visit. Unfortunately, he was sick AGAIN, with some sort of tummy bug that kept us housebound most of Friday and Saturday. But once again, we made the most of it, and we had a lovely time all together, going on several short outings and to the market.

In other news, we took Theodore to his regular checkup with the pediatric orthopedist (we go every six months). This month we got an x-ray done of his foot:

X-ray!

The good news is that everything is looking good! There had been concern about his big toe, since it grows outward slightly, but the doctor said that the growth plate looked fine. She was pleased with his walking and his balance, and prescribed no treatments at this time. We will continue to go for a checkup every six months, but this was an important visit that gave us the all clear as far as surgery goes. Of course his toes will never be "normal" in the sense that there are missing bones, but they should continue to grow proportionately.

Today is Memorial Day so we were able to enjoy a second long weekend in a row. This week we have to get back into the normal routine of things!

That's about all the news...Theodore continues to progress and grow, and be a delight. His language skills are increasing, and he has several words now (though does not like to repeat them!) I forgot to mention last time that he sometimes says "there" or "this" for items, and since then he has said "truck", "track", "broom", and "cup" in contextually appropriate ways. There are other sounds that we're less certain on so aren't calling yet. In general his babbling and vocalization is becoming ever more complex, which is very exciting. And he is still fond of his "yeah!"

Until next time, here are a few photos and a video:

Throwing rocks with Daddy on the beach: