Vintage

When Riley was born Brad and George gave her a Vintage 2006 t-shirt with a bunch of grapes on it. For a while it was her absolute favorite shirt. She loved to wear it with her yellow tank top (sometimes over, sometimes under) and would have worn it every day if we let her.

At George’s baby shower everyone was decorating onesies. I’m not really known for my creative streak (because I don’t really have one) and I was post-call from a long Olive View county hospital night and pregnant and tired and protested the idea of having to create anything… until I remembered Riley’s shirt!! I ended making a poor reproduction of it, only Vintage 2009 this time.

When Kendra visited recently she suggested making Vintage onesies for Eridani (her daughter) and Damon as well. George (who is creative AND artistic… lucky Max) made them and brought them over for the photo shoot…

[Damon, 3months]

[Eridani, 4 months]

[Max, 5 months]

In the last minute, Riley threw her shirt on as well, but she didn’t want to sit down with the babies…

Bryce is a little more then a year younger then Riley, but they play together really well…

[Riley and her buddy Bryce exploring in the garden]

Sage and Riley

just a nice picture…

It’s from when we went to Pismo beach. Riley really wanted to go down to the beach, so Sage took her on a walk (I still couldn’t walk that far because Damon had just been born…)

Mayflower

Apparently Riley has been learning about Thanksgiving at the daycare. The other day she came home with a little replica of the Mayflower, and today she had a story about what it is…

“The Mayflower is a boat that the pillowgrims flew over… I mean sailed over in because the people in the place they lived wouldn’t let the pillowgrims do what they wanted to do, so they left in the Mayflower and came here so they could do what they wanted to do.”

4 months

Yesterday I was driving south on the 405 in the carpool lane, just before the Getty center, and realized the last time i had driven there I was in labor and driving to UCLA from Olive View hospital for Damon to be born. Seems like so long ago… I remember being so nervous and so excited, and couldn’t wait to meet my new baby boy. Well Damon has been as lovely and wonderful as I imagined he would be while pregnant. First came his smile, and now his personality is starting to develop too. He’s becoming playful and everyday he’s talking more and making new and different cooing noises. He discovered his feet and loves to grab on to them. When he smiles it’s the most heart warming sight. He has certainly has his melt-down moments, but overall still has a really nice disposition.

What else can I say about my little boy… well to start, he’s not so little. We went in for his 4 month check-up recently and he’s 18lbs 2 oz (97%) and 25 inches (75%), which is bigger then Riley was when she was 9 months old! I think I’ve carried him in the Bjorn for the last time… he’s so heavy it hurts my back. We’ll have to switch to the ergo carrier I think.

[We moved him to the crib a few weeks ago because he’s too big for the bassinet!]

Last week I had an RWJ conference in San Diego from Mon-Fri. Seemed too long to leave Damon at home (that’s a lot of milk!) so my mom flew out to take care of him for the week. Riley stayed home with Sage, and actually seemed to really enjoy having one parent all to herself. I was worried my mother would be bored, but she said she had a lovely week going on long walks to the beach with Damon.

About a month ago I went to a conference in Chicago. I left late on Saturday, came back early on Tuesday morning, and left behind 25 bottles of frozen milk and 5 in the refrigerator (went overboard a little, Damon needs about 8 per day, but didn’t want to run out!). I read a commentary in a magazine in the waiting room at my Ob’s office a while ago about a woman who pumped obsessively for each of her kids to be sure they had breast milk for the whole first year… In trying to figure out why, she decided that though she loved her work, pumping milk helped with the inevitable guilt moms feels about leaving baby home with a caregiver. That really resonated with me. I love my kids and I love my work, and I hate hate hate pumping. But knowing that Damon has had only my milk somehow makes me feel ok about choosing to go back to work. Not that formula would hurt him at all, it’s more a symbolic thing.

Anyway. That’s the Damon update. Or as Riley likes to call him Damonator. Or Damino (almost like domino). Or sometimes we call him Bubbaloo (Bubba, or bub, for short). There are a lot more cute pics and videos out there, but they are on my iPhone, and it’s such a pain to upload them… someday!

Damon’s Favorite Picture

There is a picture that Riley made a year or so ago with little fluff balls and feathers that Damon has decided is his favorite. He likes it so much!

Riley has another one that’s similar, except with more balls and feathers, but he doesn’t seem to be into that one as much. We also walked around for a while looking at Riley’s other artwork, but none of it struck his fancy the way this particular one did. It’s right next to the comfy chair in Riley’s room, so he gets to look at it a lot. Lucky boy!

Grandma Brigitte

My mom was here for a lot of August taking care of Damon… but she also spent a lot of time with Riley:

[reading the newspaper]

I thought I had some pictures of them gardening together, but I can’t seem to find them. They planted sunflowers and morning glories on the roof and went to water them every evening. Riley was really excited and proud when they started growing. They also did a lot of planting and re-potting outside and in the rest of our house with Sage (while I held Damon and watched). When Riley learned the word “expert” on her sesame street word of the day podcast, she decided grandma is an expert at gardening (which she is). Nice to have an expert around. (Incidentally, Sage is apparently an expert at running and tickling, and I’m an expert at feeding Damon and giving hugs and kisses).

[Reading The Man Who Walked Between the Towers (it’s a really good book! check it out!)]

[Yoga!]

Grandad

I took this picture at the UCLA pool a few weeks ago, because it reminded me of a classic picture from when I was a baby…

Incidentally, if you cover below the nose, the old picture of my dad looks a lot like my brother Michael now…

Yellow Dress

[Riley in her yellow flower girl dress]

Puff

Recently Mary from Peter, Paul and Mary passed away. NPR did a story on her, and played parts of some of her most famous songs… including Puff the Magic Dragon. It’s been years since I’ve heard that song. We used to sing many of her songs at my summer camp, so hearing them on the radio made me very nostalgic. Anyway. I thought Riley would like their songs too, so this evening we played Puff for her. She loved it instantly, and wanted to hear it over and over again. She said, “it makes my insides feel nice and sleepy.” She danced around the kitchen until bedtime, then listened to it on repeat while getting ready… and now she’s listening to it on repeat while falling asleep. I’m hoping by morning she’ll be ready to get back to her regular morning mix (which she also loves). Here’s the current play list:

Alone in Kyoto (Air)
One Day (Bjork)
Over the Rainbow (Israel Kamakawiwo’ole)
Three little birds (Bob Marly)
Blackbird (Beatles)
Hyper-ballad (Bjork)
Wild World (Cat Stevens)
The Boxer (Simon and Garfunkle)
Brown Eyed Girl (Van Morrison)

You can probably tell which songs Sage chose, and and which are mine. I tried to chose cheerful songs that are also classics in my mind. Alone in Kyoto was a brilliant choice by Sage. It really is a perfect song to wake up to.

Starting to get a little tired of Puff… maybe I should move farther away from her room…

Vegetable flowers

In trying to convince Riley to eat vegetables, we came up with the Vegetable Flower a while back. She was really into bees for a while, so we would pretend we were bees, and every flower had to have petals and pollen. It works really well. Recently vegetables have fallen a little out of favor, but we can usually convince her to eat some. it’s all about the gimmick…

[Grandma’s creation]

[the center part is a mini red pepper with carrot sticks in it]

These really aren’t our best work, just the ones we happened to take a picture of, but you get the idea…