Easter Weekend

Saturday afternoon we were very brave. We took Oliver on his first airplane ride!

After battling through an hour and a half of traffic on I-95 (people looking at the tornado path and damage, really - come on!), we got to RDU and they checked us in, albeit a bit late. Somewhere between checking in and running to our gate they gave our seats away. Could it have had anything to do with the fact that they put Oliver into the system as a lap child when we checked in? I hope not.

In any event, we waited it out and (somehow!) got onto the next flight to LaGuardia. Oliver was great on the plane, despite my nervousness. (Want a good article about kids on planes? Check out our friend, Vicki's blog article HERE!) He had a bottle on the way up which popped his ears, and on the way down he let out two loud screams and it was done! Hooray!

We rushed to change and get to dinner, where we surprised my step-dad for his 65th Birthday. It was also the first time Ollie got to meet Aunt Amie (below), Aunt Sarah (farther below), Uncle Mike and Aunt Ali. He also got to see his grandparents and great grandma again!

Aunt Amie (aka A-squared)

Aunt Sarah home from college for the weekend.


It was great to see everyone, we had a great Easter brunch (with a killer dessert table!) and I even had TWO... count 'em... two! pieces of sushi :) such a rebel.

We saw some family friends, went to the house Ben will be living in beginning in a few weeks, walked around the club, and began speaking to someone about where we'll be living. It's starting to seem a bit more real. Just a bit.

Here's my little man in his Easter outfit (from Old Navy), how cute? :)

Such a little stud!

Such a little "nugget" (as Amie would say), especially compared to Sarah's penguin!

9 weeks old and 2 month check-up

This morning we had Oliver's 2 month check-up. He weighs a whopping 10.8 pounds (10-25%ile), and is 23 inches long (50%ile) and has a 41cm head circumference (75%ile). So he's a string bean with a big head. They also gave him three shots (and cute little Scooby Doo band-aids) and one oral vaccine - I think it's been messing with his stomach. Either that, the infant ibuprofen, or the new Vitamin D supplements (which smell AWFUL!).

We also had a mini-photo shoot in between projectile spit-ups (three sweaters of mine later...)

Smiles!

Lookie! I got it! I may have taken about 30 pictures, but I snapped two pretty good ones of little man smiling in his lamb swing. Maybe it was my funny noises, Stella's funny face, or he was laughing at Khloe and Lamar on DVR :)

Also - check out the latest video about our school along with some others in N.C. - an interview with 5 month pregnant me and some shots of my students.

Click here for video!

April 16, 2011

Yesterday it poured. We heard thunder and saw lightning. No clue that there was a tornado less than two miles from our house.

Around 4pm we lost power, but it was restored today by 3pm. Last night we headed up toward Lillington, we couldn't go into Fayetteville because they closed Ramsey St. We heard rumblings about a tornado, and an 18-wheeler overturning. We grabbed some dinner, and picked up a styrofoam cooler and two bags of ice in order to transfer the "liquid gold" from our freezer to Kristin and Brian's freezer (thanks guys!) and headed home to get some sleep. Oliver had his diaper changed by flashlight/glow stick.

We ventured out this morning, to shower and get some food, and saw the craziness that had passed through down the road. The Goodyear Tire plant had an entire wall ripped off, the fence was battered, and 100-ft trees were uprooted. Insane!

Those are bleachers from the Pine Forest H.S. baseball field across the road.


This poor house had a For Sale sign in front. Not a whole lot left to sell.

Feeling pretty lucky about now...

Play time with Stella

This afternoon we had a grand old time playing with our two babies. They were both fed, happy, and wanted some Mommy and Daddy time. This was a great opportunity to play as well as snap some pictures (and video from the earlier post!)

I love this photo (above) because it shows the incredible difference between the size of Stella's paw and Oliver's head... they're getting very used to each other, although Stella will be shocked at how quickly Ollie grows and how much more of her he will be able to handle in the coming months.


Once Stella gets situated (with a bit of help from one of us), she loves watching Oliver play on the floor. She thinks she's protecting him. This one is great just because they were both looking at Ben taking the picture!

Today he was wearing shorts.... well... they are 6 month shorts (the only ones we had clean), so they looked more like stylish gaucho pants. Anyway, Stella thought this was an open invitation to insert her snout into his shorts and sniff. Strongly discouraged.

Tonight is our first night in a new type of diaper - aimed at overnight protection, so we'll see what time little man goes until.... we've been pretty good at stretching meal times out to about 4 hours. I had to wake him at 8:15 to feed him tonight, he'd been asleep the whole time we were walking and while we went grocery shopping!

Oliver's Gym Tme!

This is a video we took today of Oliver playing on his little red play gym. Not only did he grab onto the ring in the middle (not in this video), but he was really responding to the music. Ben was PSYCHED that he grabbed the ring with his left hand! Lefty tennis player in the making?



I'm going to try to take more videos, but they seem to take forever to upload.
Enjoy!

Better late than never...

I found these two pictures on my phone (while getting the car's oil changed this morning) and am finally putting them up. The first is the "Chuckie" picture of Oliver on his due date (2/15) when he was obviously woken up by the ultrasound tech, and was NOT happy about it. Needless to say, he's a lot cuter now :)

The next picture is one of the only pregnant pictures of me. I didn't do the weekly photo thing that a lot of my friends do, and I'm kind of regretting it. This photo was from about 39 weeks, and I look exhausted because it was 6am. I'm confident putting it up now that I'm only 5 lbs away from my pre-pregnancy weight!

It's still hard to believe that Oliver was in there!

Smiles among other things :)

Oliver has been smiling for a little over a week now, most of the time at Ben, and it's been my goal to catch it on camera. I got pretty close (above) a few times, but haven't caught the full grin like we've seen it in person with silly voices. When he's falling asleep, he sometimes laughs and smiles - and I can't wait until he does it awake and in response to something we do!

This is a 6 month onesie, and although it isn't snug, it certainly isn't big! This is the one that Caitlin got for us, and Oliver is wearing it proudly tonight as the Yankees and Red Sox play. I can't wait until he's old enough to go to, and appreciate, a baseball game!


I love the picture above because you can kind of tell how blue his eyes are getting. When Ollie was born, they were the sort of steel gray that most babies are born with, but they've been getting progressively lighter and more like Ben's. I know they can change over the next year, but we'll see what happens. There's a pretty good chance they'll end up blue like Ben's and my dad's.


This (above) is a typical Saturday night in our house.... I've been reading a lot about babies and their schedules, or lack thereof. I would LOVE nothing more than to have Oliver on a 6-10-2-6-10-2 schedule, but I've read that some babies just don't need, demand, or even LIKE schedules. I have a feeling that is my child. He can eat for 2 hours straight, then sleep for 4. The next day, he'll be up at the same time, and just want to play. During the day, of course. Nights (fingers crossed) have been pretty good. We'll see what happens when the grandparents come to stay with us when I'm back at work, and whether that helps the schedule. Who knows!

Photo editing....

I downloaded a 30 day trial of Adobe Lightroom the other day, and have been playing around with it (while feeding Oliver ::multitasking::). It's a pretty cool program that lets you edit photos, and now that we have a pretty good camera I'm having a lot of fun with it. I know I've only scratched the surface of what it can do, but here's a cute picture of our first baby :)


[She was looking out the window next door at her best friend, Belle, playing fetch.]

6 weeks...

It's baffling to me to think that if I hadn't had a C-section, I would be going back to work tomorrow. I still have two weeks at home with my little man, luckily! I know it's going to be hard to leave him, but I'm thrilled that he will have wonderful people looking after him for the days I have to go back to work. Ben will "babysit" (I seriously dislike when Dads say they are babysitting... um... it's your kid too!) him for four days, then Judith (Ben's Mom) is coming for 2 weeks. After that, my mom will be here for 3 weeks, and finally my dad for a few days to help me move up to CT.

Here's Oliver playing with his little gym (above) - Stella has figured out that the ladybug (center) plays music when it's pulled. Fantastic.

Oliver smiled for the first time on Friday morning (both Ben and I were there to witness it), and has been periodically grinning since then. It's my goal for this week to capture it on camera, I've come close!

Also, I went for my first run on Saturday - a whole 2 miles with Kristin and the BOB (love it!). I also started the "Insanity" DVDs that Chris burned for us... someone who hadn't worked out for 30 days should not be allowed to do the "fitness test." Results will be burned. At least there's plenty of room for improvement!

My dad and Candy are here visiting for a few days (after a slightly disastrous pair of Southwest flights here). So far the elliptical has been fixed and they've only been here for 14 hours!

Ollie with Grandpa...

...and with Grandma Candy :)

Things I've Learned in North Carolina...

By now, you probably know that within the next 2-3 months, we are moving back up to Connecticut. We've had a great three years in North Carolina, but are excited to be rejoining the North - for lots of reasons. First, for family and friends. Also, Ben is looking forward to going back into teaching tennis, where he is rewarded more for his hard work. I'm lucky enough to be married to him, as I will have the privilege of staying home with Oliver next year. (We're pretty excited about the gastronomy we will get to partake in as well!)

Anyway, I know this blog has been pretty much Oliver (and Stella) focused, but here are a few things that we've learned in North Carolina, that we will one day share with our Southern-born son. (These are in no particular order).

#1 - Southern hospitality is not a myth. All of our neighbors wave to each other when they drive on our street. It's wonderful. I love it.
#1 1/2 Paula Deen is not a myth either. I'm pretty sure there are a few versions of her running around dropping kids off at my school.

#2 - You can cut the lights on, and conjugated verbs can be used in pairs - eg: I might could do that. What would Microsoft Word grammar editor say to that one?

#3 - Southern accents may prove problematic for phonetic spelling (I can now successfully read "Ima gona git me sum more" - can you?), as well as understanding homophones - see photo: (actual assignment from about 2 weeks ago)
#4 - When women don't like someone, but they don't want to admit it, they say "bless her heart." As if that were some consolation, it's really just code.

#5 - You are classified by the college sports team you support, State and UNC divide houses, destroy relationships, and it's pretty serious stuff. Don't even mention Duke or Wake....

#6 - The skullet. I was aware of the mullet (business in front, party in the back), but not this.... It is a skullet. Yes, that's right. Google it if you don't believe me. How did I come to 'know' or hear of this oh so fashionable hair style? It was parent-teacher conferences. What? A father actually had this hair do? Nope. It was a younger brother of one of my students. Yes, that's right, he was 4 years old and sporting this do. Let that marinate.

#7 - "Baby" is a completely appropriate nickname to call a young girl or woman. As in, a Kindergartner approaches her teacher and the teacher says, "whatcha need baby?" Interesting.

#8 - Hush puppies are a lot sweeter than I thought they would be. They are also unusually addictive.

#9 - Barbeque is different in North Carolina, and doesn't actually have BBQ sauce on it, it's vinegar. The sauce is white. Not tasty.

#10 - There are more churches than grocery stores, gas stations and fast food restaurants (which is hard to do), and they have very amusing messages on the marquees out front. Examples: "Need a new life? G-d accepts trade-ins", "The golf course is open after church on Sunday, too", "call us to find G-d, text us if you want to meet him." Oh there are so many....

#11 - Working at a low-income school (mostly rural) has taught me that neglect is everywhere, regardless of your socioeconomic status. It can be sending a child to school hungry and in shorts in January, or it can be sending a nanny to pick them up from school because a parent is too busy with their hairdresser. Children have the same basic needs, no matter what their zip code.

#12 - Some of the photos in those emails you get entitled "The People of Walmart" are shot at our local Walmart. I've seen them first hand.

In closing, I'd like to reiterate that we have thoroughly enjoyed our time here. We know that had we not moved down here, we might not have Stella and Oliver in our lives. We've made wonderful friends, who we will stay in touch with for years, and will miss dearly.