Notre Dame Dallas weekend

The Irish came to Dallas last month to play Arizona State at Cowboys Stadium.  Mike and I ended up not going to the game itself, but we did drive out to tailgate for the afternoon before the game.  Elizabeth watched Michael and Malcolm for the afternoon, so we just took Joseph and he enjoyed his second time out to Arlington.  It was unexpectedly chilly, but the rain held off for the afternoon and we had a fantastic time.  I got to see three of my classmates, two of whom I hadn't seen in six or seven years (!), who'd come in for this game from Houston, Austin, and Chicago.  I was so happy to visit with them.  I've said before that Notre Dame is really the only thing in my life  I experience nostalgia for.  It doesn't take much to remember studying all night at the heavy wooden desk in my senior dorm room, waiting for friends on the steps of South Dining Hall (and eating my trusty chicken patty sandwich for lunch all the time), making Easy Mac in my hot pot, scrawling notes on people's white boards, fighting the wind and trudging through snow during finals weeks, praying with friends at Sunday night dorm masses, standing on the wooden bleachers in the stadium (either baking in August or shivering in November), lugging suitcases and boxes up and down stairs every semester for move-in and move-out days, scrolling through microfilm in the library, listening to the weird radiator clanging sounds in old buildings, and just ... everything.  There's such a tremendous sense of *place* about Notre Dame that stays with you.  I've only been out eleven years and I know I'm probably as bad as any other alum in complaining about not being able to recognize half the new buildings around campus or having no idea how the technology has changed things about the student experience (why, in my day, ethernet had just been installed on campus, and MP3s were the new file format you could use to download songs from any student's folder on the open intranet, and I didn't even have a cellphone until senior year! *shakes fist*).  Still, enough stays the same that it doesn't take much at all to remember everything.  And of course the things I valued most about ND were the friendships.  It was a pretty amazing group.  And while many people, as noted, I haven't seen in years, they were the kind of friends that you can see after seven years and know that, while they're different, they're also still the same in so many ways and it's wonderfully easy to talk as if no time has passed.  I'm so thankful for that.

...And enough with the reminiscing.  We did not end up making it to my sister's tailgate, since the parking lots were a lot farther apart than I realized from looking on the map, but she also had a fun time, and she got to go to the game too.  Also, my parents came in for the weekend and so did Mike's dad, and all of the grandparents really enjoyed seeing the grandkids.

Michael is always so happy to see Lita!

Go Irish

Happy to hang out with Grandpa!

A special surprise this weekend was seeing Aunt Amanda, who came back for the weekend from where she is working in Guatemala.  You can tell how happy she was to see her little sobrinos.  They were pretty happy to see her too.  Que buena sorpresa!  :)

Target trip!

Silly faces

Michael and his godmother

Amanda and sobrinos

Sibs, parental units, and cousins :)

New steps

Just a few thoughts tonight on our big boy at not-quite-three-and-a-half.  Michael has been in a buoyant mood lately, and although he alternates with stubborn, automatic-oppositional mode like a teenager (first response to most questions these days is "No, I don't want to!"), the good times are pretty great.  I just love how he has been coming up to me lately and saying, "I love you, Mama."  Heart melting :)  He likes to make tea for me in the mornings by turning on the Tassimo machine, opening the tea bag, putting it in my mug, and pushing the button to start.  Sometimes this results in torn tea bags and tea scattered on the floor of the pantry, but hey, I sweep several times a day anyway.  Michael also helps stir things cooking on the stove, and I am supervising and emphasizing safety so hopefully we won't have any accidents ... my thinking is, better to teach how to be in the kitchen safely than try to make it prohibited, an impossibility in any case.  Michael's favorite line is quoted from It's the Easter Beagle: "When the water starts to boil, let me know!"

Speaking of quotes, the kid is ridiculous in memorizing his favorite movies.  I imagine lots of kids do this, but I think it sets him up for theater someday because he'll have no trouble memorizing his lines.  Tonight after we put him to bed he kept quoting Great Pumpkin scenes over and over.  I'm just glad he also has memorized the Our Father and the Hail Mary.  I'd feel guilty if the only things he memorized were cartoons :)  So hard to keep him in one place, though.  Tonight, prior to the Great Pumpkin rendition and in the middle of the Hail Mary, he abruptly switched topics.  "Blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.  Snoopy has a tail!" I affirmed that yes, stuffed animal Snoopy has a tail, and we were able to finish our prayers.

Until recently, for whatever reason, Michael wouldn't talk to anyone in Spanish unless he knew they were native speakers like Elizabeth or Stefani's dad.  He just humored anyone else talking to him in Spanish.  But the past week or so he's been casually dropping lines to us.  Pretending to see Elizabeth's dogs out the window: "Dónde están los perros? Oh, allí están!"  Playing barefoot at a little playground after the rain tonight: "Está lloviendo.  Están mojados mis pies.  Y aquí está mojado. Y está mojado en el otro lado."  Scolding Malcolm: "No toques eso, hermano!  No thank you!"  Commenting on his dinner: "Yo no quiero comer nada."  I feel pretty fortunate to be able to get what he's saying and answer in Spanish ... otherwise, he'd be outpacing us pretty quickly and we'd have no idea what he meant half the time!  Elizabeth is very proud :)

The other big thing for Michael lately has been potty training.  Aunt Amanda did the amazing job of teaching him how to go when she watched him for a weekend last month.  After a whole week of him successfully going, I took him to BK for a special lunch.  Michael loves chicken and dip (just ketchup), and apple juice like you wouldn't believe.  He was very happy to put on the crown and wore it the whole lunch.  I was talking to a friend last week about how we want to protect our boys from that (inevitable?) cynicism and "too cool" attitude down the line, because this innocence and sweetness is so wonderful.  It's nice to have a little boy who likes to wear his Burger King crown :)

Christmas in Florida

The rest of Christmas break was very nice.  The boys had a great time with their grandparents and Aunt Amanda, and we enjoyed the warm weather.  Spain is pretty much exactly like Texas, weather-wise, so it was a bit chilly and Florida was nice and warm.  (Of course, I say that, but Mike and Amanda prefer colder weather!)

Christmas Mass at Holy Family

Food negotiations were ongoing

More fun with swings

Michael loves the playgrounds with sand

Chilling with Aunt Amanda

I have no idea what Malcolm is doing here

Downtown Disney with Pooh and Tigger

Michael's birthday party

The big day finally arrived today: "They're going to sing Happy Birthday to Michael!" is what Michael's been saying all month.  He watched us put up Sesame Street streamers this morning and clean up around the house, and he was very anxious to have his guests come over.  It was nice that Amanda was the first to arrive since it let Michael warm up a little bit - he always needs a little time.  But then as more people started to arrive, everything went well.  I'm always amused by how kids need no directions to immediately find the toys in a new house and start playing, and that's what everyone did before and after lunch, during present opening, and even afterwards.  We had pizza for all the little kids, and they all seemed to enjoy it.  (I managed to get one slice and so did Mike ... but I think Michael had three!)  For presents, Michael did a nice job of saying "thank you" for everything just like we practiced.  For cake, we had a cookie cake, since Michael always likes the idea of cake better than actual cake itself, but really loves cookies.  All the parents tried to convince their kids to eat the cookies instead of the icing, but pretty much no one listened and they all ended up with blue icing everywhere.  Oh well!  Finally, Amanda encouraged everyone outside on this gorgeous day and some of the kids played with the new wiffle ball, football, and cars.  Thanks to our friends who were able to come today - it was a very special birthday for Michael and we all had a great time.

Fall Family Fun

A few weeks ago, instead of driving out to Lewisville for the pumpkin patch, we stayed closer to home in Richardson.  The Owens Farm pumpkin patch is a bit smaller with not as many activities, but it was 30 minutes closer and still a very nice time.  We were able to get some nice sibling photos (well, all of us are smiling and looking at the camera, anyway - the kids are doing their own thing!) and a few good ones of the cousins.  Happy fall!

Lawlers

Blackwells

Malcolm likes the pumpkins

Cousins!

Michael is always happy to see Amanda

Canon looking serious on the hayride

Smart little guy

Putting things together

We were just having fun this afternoon with his baby signs so I thought I'd put up Michael's 21-month-old post early for Aunt Amanda :)  Amanda, by the way, is the first distinct three-syllable word that Michael can pronounce.  For the last couple of weeks he has been working on saying "A-man-(sometimes long pause)-DA" and now he's a pro.  Whenever there's a knock on the door he says her name since she's been stopping by after her classes or work a lot lately.  She is pretty happy about this.

Michael knows all the people in his life pretty well, though.  He checks for "Ellie" (Elizabeth) out the front window every morning.  He also adds her name to our bedtime prayers every night.  If you ask, "Quien te ama?" he answers "Ellie!"  (I have to say, "Y quien mas?" in order for him to say "Mama!"  It's very sweet. :)  Elizabeth will keep coming for the rest of this week to take him to the park in the mornings, and then she'll go to visit her mother for the next six weeks or so.  She'll be back by the beginning of November when I head back to work, but we are really going to miss her a lot.  Michael always runs to give her a hug in the mornings and tosses off "Ciao!" whenever she leaves.  When Chris, Stefani, Canon, Theresa, Ryan, or Brendan come to visit Michael says all their names (well, he's working on something for Brendan, but he does knows him).  He can't say any word for Lita yet, but Pere is definitely a favorite (they are both in town helping me out this week with the new baby).  He's getting used to there being two babies around -- still calls Malcolm Canon every time he sees him, but I think he is starting to recognize that Malcolm is different.

Today when Michael watched Signing Time at lunch, I noticed he was doing even more signs than before and working them together.  During the song for "bath," for instance, there was a girl taking a bath, a dog getting a bath, and then a boy taking a bath.  Michael wasn't really doing the sign for bath at all, but he told me girl, dog, and boy all in a row.  And he apparently picked up "stop" and "go" also, which we had a lot of fun with.  He says "PA" for stop (which I'm pretty sure is "para" from Spanish) and is pretty close on that sign, and puts both hands forward for "go".  I chased him around a little doing this and he laughed a lot.  Finally, I wasn't sure he had picked up on "hurt" or "sorry" even though I try to show him "sorry" in other contexts, but he did both of those signs before naptime too.  Such a smart little boy!  He is doing great.

Vocab

As a first time parent, I try to restrain the impluse to brag all the time about my child, realizing that other people, especially more experienced parents, are well aware of what tiny wonders children can be.

So, I will warn ahead of time that this post is explicitly meant to brag about Michael, so avert your eyes if you roll your eyes at this sort of stuff.

...........

Michael has been blessed to have wonderful language teachers in his early life, his aunt Amanda (sign language), and his nanny Elizabeth (Spanish), who have both imparted their particular idioms onto the tabula rasa of our child. Michael has been attentive student, and thus far accumulated a formidable reservoir of verbal expressions that communicate concisely his wants and needs. Below we have compiled a list of expressions Michael uses on a consistent basis to communicate his interior thoughts and emotions. He will be 15 months old next week.

*Note: The + sign indicates sign language.

dada mama papa (Pope) amama (amanda) t (theresa) chris stef bear baba (bottle) pan (bread) ungy (hungry) + apple nana (banana) mas (more)+ please (just +) cookie + cheese + oma (oatmeal) Bambi baby memo (Nemo)

all done + up off Bye Hi agua (water) wet (just +) hot abra (open) nose oreja/ear eyes mow (meow, for cat) mmmm (moo, for cow) uh-uh (woof-woof, for dog) fish pa (pants, puffs) no mine Elmo

Thanks to Aunt Amanda

It's hard to believe it's been three months already, but Aunt Amanda's last day as our nanny was Friday. I am so thankful she was able to be here the last few months. She is so great with the baby, which I think all our blog readers have seen well evidenced by all the videos and pictures she posted on here this summer! :) I am grateful to see how he has been happy and thriving during my start back to work -- I never had to be concerned that he was well taken care of. I *did* have to be concerned where I'd be meeting them after work on a regular basis though, since she took him on field trips all over Dallas all the time :) Thank you, Amanda!



So today marked a new day for our family ... Michael the Baby's first day with his new nanny, Elizabeth. She is so sweet and caring, and I am so thankful that she has already shown such a great interest in Michael even before she became his nanny, by visiting with him several times over the summer so she was familiar to him (and she came over to learn Michael's routine from Amanda in the last few weeks too). He really likes her, and their first day together went great! Michael's small sign vocabulary has definitely helped him already in communicating with us, but he seems unfazed by hearing Spanish now as yet another language. If we can combine them all, we can get him saying "mas y mas" in sign language before we know it :)

Pool shots

Here are a few pics from last week when my friend Lisa was here. We decided to buy LB a swim suit (the smallest size they had was a 12 mo. suit!) Enjoy :o)

Atlanta

Last Thursday I had to go to Atlanta for a business trip (firmwide practice group meeting for the group I work with) for three nights. I was worried about how Michael would do with me disappearing for three days. When I asked at the La Leche League meeting, the leaders asked if I could just take him with me. I thought that was pretty unlikely ... but then I checked fares, and they were reasonable, and I asked Amanda if she'd be willing to come along and take care of the baby there, and she said yes. So, the three of us went on my business trip! I'm so glad it worked out -- kept me from having to pump around the clock for three days, and also kept Mike from being traumatized overnight back here. Michael has adjusted pretty well to me being at work so far, but I think if I disappeared for that long it would be a little rough.

The meeting was at the W Midtown in Atlanta. I've stayed at that hotel before on business trips to New York, and it is so postmodern and trendy, every elevator ride feels like you're at a club. There are black platform beds and modern couches, with trendy lighting fixtures, and dim lights all around. All in all, kind of a weird hotel and definitely not my style. It's perfectly nice, just ... not my style. Unfortunately I think it threw Michael off also. He is now a pretty veteran traveler who adjusts pretty well to different cities, but he did not sleep well AT ALL the whole weekend. He and Amanda did great for the most part -- there was a park in walking distance, a food court and some walkable areas around the hotel, and Amanda got to see a few friends -- but he hardly napped for her, and he woke up every two hours for me at night. He was just so stubborn, he wouldn't calm down to sleep like normal. I think something must have just felt different about the environment, even with Amanda's helpful sleep sounds machine. My co-workers who met Michael thought he was great, though, especially because he slept the whole plane ride home -- ha.

The meeting was not well organized overall, but some of the presentations were interesting and I tried to make the most of saying hello to co-workers I talk to and work with all the time but rarely get to see in person -- I do a lot of work for our other U.S. offices. It was great to meet the guys from Madrid and practice my Spanish too (they actually think my accent is good, in contrast to my Ecuadorian in-laws who make fun of my Castilian Spanish). They invited me to bring Mike there and call them, and they will show us around. I haven't been to Spain since my study abroad there (I won't even mention how many years ago now), and I would LOVE to go back. So I'll definitely have to take them up on that.

The best part of this business trip was getting to see Patricia, who I'd actually only ever gotten to meet in person one time before, at a closing in New York two years ago (!), but who has become a great friend since then. I finally got to meet her husband, her little baby girl and her toddler who is adorable and is going to be my future goddaughter :) We went to church on Saturday night at Christ the King cathedral and I enjoyed the beautiful music there (sadly, continues to be a contrast to our own parish). In all, I am extremely grateful to Amanda for coming with me so I could bring Michael and have a good business trip without worrying about him.

Fun day!

So basically this kid is just cute.

We went for a jog this morning. I gave him a bath since it was so humid outside (he was pretty sweaty...like me). After his bath he took a glorious two and a half hour nap, and then we had some fun. I parted LB's hair in a different spot after his bath, and was surprised that it remained parted after his nap.

It seemed as though LB was a little jealous as I ate my lunch, so I decided to give him some food of his own. He did a great job eating his pears, and we worked on the beginning stages of saying "more" in sign language :o)

He's really working on pulling himself up to a standing position, and often whines until you help him up to stand for a little while :o)

Enjoy the pictures!

The mirror

Aunt Amanda's turn to blog about the little guy.

LB has been very helpful over the past few days. We have spent a lot of time at my new apartment, and he has generously offered his stroller as a dolly for many bags and boxes. :o) He watched the cable guys install my cable and internet as he rolled around on the floor. The highlight of our day yesterday was sitting in front of the mirror. LB spent several minutes cooing and smiling at the super cute reflection staring back at him.



Lots of progress has been made toward being able to sit up on his own! More on that later...

I'm really looking forward to spending the summer with Little Buddy! :o)