Oh Pittsburgh

So I made it to Pittsburgh.  We were forecasted to receive less than an inch of snow, and I think we're at about six inches.  My mother was recently in the hospital for a semi-serious condition, a hemotoma, that resulted in three pints of blood floating around in her abdomen.  She has been puking all afternoon, and making running trips to the bathroom.  We're debating about taking her back to the emergency room, but the next door neighbor doctor is coming over to check her out first.  Makili came down with a fever this afternoon, and then Nadine called to tell me that Morgan came down with a fever on Wed, which has since been found to be pneumonia!  Blair and Amanda just arrived for Amanda's baby shower tomorrow, which my mom is already crying about the fact that she might have to miss and Emily, Caroline and Suzanne get in within the half hour.  Whew.  

And, my Dad is tormenting my mom.  He just walked out of the bedroom with a disposable stethoscope on.  Then he went back in and I heard my mom scream "get the hell away from me with that."  Followed closely with "You're annoying the hell out of me." 

Fun fun fun.

My Nerdy Husband

Raph likes to guilt-trip me about not helping him with his homework. Like I should grade his lab reports and what not after having cleaned the house, done the laundry, cooked dinner and taken care of Makili all day. But occasionally I give in and try to help. Last weekend he wanted help writing questions for his final. He told me I could either read and article about the sun or paintball, and then I'd have to write questions. I don't care too much for paintball, so I chose the sun. It was the most annoying article ever and I quit on the second page after reading this paragraph about the nuclear fusion that takes place in the core of the sun:

The fusion cycle beings when two protons, or hydrogen nuclei collide to form a nucleus of deuterium (2H). This fusion is accompanied by the conversion of a minute amount of mass into energy - a lot of energy. In fact, it is enough energy to cause one of the protons to be converted into a neutron, releasing energy in the form of a positron (*) and a neutrino (v). The positron annhiliates an electron, and two gamma rays (y) are created (this is omitted from the figure for clarity). The deuterium combines with another proton, forming a helium-3 nuceus (3He), releasing a gamma ray in the process. Then two 3He nuclei fuse together to form a normal helium nucleus (4He), ejecting two protons, which start the process over again.

Seriously! He makes his poor students read this garbage. Come on. You're a positron.

Paka

Ann and Larry (aka Annma and Paka) came down this weekend, after pukefest 2009.  They brought homemade bagels and a sled with them.  Larry had a grand time whipping Makili all over our glare-ice road.  Makili thought it was great, till they let him out, then he did NOT want to get in again!  It was fun while the frigid temperatures allowed us to stay outside...

About Saturday

Makili puked randomly ALL over me on Wednesday and then proceeded to seem fine. In fact he wanted to eat five seconds afterwards. Then I thought he might puke yesterday morning, but he didn't. So I packed him off to head to a birthday party. Raph puked first thing yesterday so I kicked him out of the car and took Makili by myself. We drove the 45 plus minutes to get there. Right after I got off the exit, he puked ALL over himself in the car. Joy. Not having brought an extra set of clothes for him, I changed him into Morgan's accident outfit that was still in the diaper bag (she just potty trained) in the freezing cold while he screamed the whole time. Then I scoured the floor for enough money to get back through the tolls and turned around and went home. The whole way home he screamed at me for more mangoes.

Makili and Raph napped together, still in Morgan's shirt, with his hand in his diaper. Then they got up and both puked again.

This is him today having found the bag of candy that Nadine gave Raph for his students. He is so naughty.

Parenting Tip for the Day

Kids don't have throw up burps, they just plain throw up. (If you're lucky, all over you.)

Blue Skies and Snow

Yesterday morning was the kid of morning you love when you live somewhere that gets a lot of cold and snow. The deep blue skies brought early sunlight into our bedrooms, and lit the snow with soft orange light on all the trees and in the fields. It wasn't too cold, and we took advantage. Raph spent almost an hour snow blowing and Makili was totally captivated and followed him around until he saw me kick the snow bank. He thought that was awesome and then walked around kicking all the snow banks. He would only stop to get his mittens adjusted. Eventually he fell face-first into the snow bank. That was the end of the morning's fun...

Snow and Ice

We were expecting 2-4 inches. But it just kept coming and coming yesterday. At least it was warmer after a week of temperatures well under 20 degrees, with wind chills below zero. What torture. Makili loved the snow yesterday, trudging right through it. It was adorable. He and I took a digger, while he was on my back, and I am still suffering with a hurt thumb, but that appears to be the only injury sustained. After that, Raph took an axe to the ice on the back deck, which was the culprit.

This is frozen salt water by the way...

What it once was...

I went back and looked at the first posts on my blog, more than two and a half years ago. I wrote so much more then. It was even decent writing. I started this blog hoping it would help me be a writer, something I always thought I might like. Let me laugh at loud at this point at the sheer absurdity of thinking that I would be able to find the time in my day to write anything longer than a paragraph. It took me a week to write Makili's last update. Our poor second child can not count on the same level of documentation that time afforded to me after Makili's birth. So my blog has become a depository for photographs, and I suppose that is alright for a while. (What, like 6 years?) Maybe at that point, I'll start having coherent thoughts again and the time and energy to write them down in a meaningful way. In the meantime, here are a few more pictures.

This is the face Makili makes when he knocks over the block tower, or throws something that he shouldn't, or he is being naughty and knows it.Shake, shake, shake.

I like these crazy eyes.

Hanging out with Buds

We've been somewhat social lately, hanging out with Ryan, Jess and Rachel, and Mark Lauren and Kayden. And testing out the new portrait lens. Here are a few pix from the last two weeks.Lauren is modeling the chemistry glasses our nerdy husbands wear.
Here is Makili at the Children's Museum complaining about having to walk.
Cute Kayden and the windmill. Kayden might be the only kid I know with a proportionately larger head than Makili.
Here is Makili making a present in his pants for us.
Cute Rachel always has a smile for the camera.
If we give him enough books will he entertain himself?
Ryan says no.

First Time on the Ice

Some neighbors of Raph's parents had a hockey party on their pond this weekend. I wasn't sure what Makili would think of it, since he doesn't even like snow on his shoes, but I should have known that once he saw his Dad sliding around on the ice he would think it was awesome. He LOVED it! He would give a big "whoa" any time someone hit the puck and chase it down the ice. Isn't Daisy the cutest?
Then he got a stick. First he practiced pushing the snow off of the ice - then he tried to get the puck. It might have been easier if he wasn't wearing adult mittens.


He was so cute.

Makili and his shapes

Evidence for his genius...

It's a BOY!

According to our very nice ultrasound technician, who put up with the "are you sure?" question, and showed me some sound evidence to support her claim,

We're expecting a boy!

At 18 months.

I've been definitely slacking on the Makili updates for a while. The truth is that it is just hard to keep up. But it is time.

The first thing to know about Makili at 18 months, is that he knows what he wants and what he doesn't want. If he doesn't like your offer you will get this look and these shrugged shoulders, which cracks us up. I can't tell you how often I see this shoulder shrug.

Some things that Makili likes: 1. eating. 2. climbing on chairs 3. parks 4. jumping 5. eating. His new favorite thing is Daddy, which I'll be honest I don't mind too much. It is actually pretty cute. He yells "Daaaa" every time he sees Raph and only wants Dad to do everything. (I love this especially when its time for a diaper change). "Makili, want me to change your diaper." At this point he will just point to Dad.

Makili is very into motor skills. He's been jumping off of the ground for over a month and loves it when there is a slight lip between two surfaces so that he can jump off. He only gets about an inch of air, so it is still pretty funny to watch him jump. (Raph likes to point out that he gets the same amount of air as his mother.) He LOVES to climb on chairs, and pretty much refuses to sit in his chair any longer - preferring to climb onto a chair at the dinner table and stand there with us. He's only tipped over half a dozen chairs in this process, for the record. He loves slides, parks where he can get into the climbing thing by himself. He loves ramps and running up and down them.

Makili is just really starting to take off with language. For a while there, he was completely obsessed with the letter "d" and EVERY word would start with it. Ball was "dall," shoe was "do," etc. The only exception to this being his ability to say "more" and "choo choo" with relative clarity. As a matter of fact he used to say "b" for berries, and brooms and balloons, but even that subsided to the "d" for a while. This week though, he has really gotten better. I don't know if I can list all his words, and you might not be able to understand them if he said them but I think I'll try: more, choo-choo, clock, shoe, ball, sock, hat, daddy, mommy (seldom heard!), tick-tock, water (noone but me would probably understand this one), cat, dog, tree, help (another one I alone would probably understand), up, done, block, diaper, uh-oh. That's all I can think of at the moment but I know there are more. I know other kids his age with working vocabularies, but Makili is holding his own I think. He's just far more into the motor skills. He doesn't have much trouble getting his point across, though, so I'm not too worried. He also still signs when it is convenient.

The kid understands absolutely everything. He understands prepositions. "Your ball is under the couch" will prompt him to go get a broom and try to push it out. "Go around the table." no sweat. Sometimes he will bring me a diaper when he is about to poop (and he always tells me after the fact, by grabbing his crotch Micheal Jackson style and saying diaper), which I think is a great sign and I might get a little bold with the potty training sometime soon? He understands "put it back" very well, and will usually listen, unless you get the afore-mentioned shoulder shrug, which means he is not interested in putting said object back. He can definitely follow two-step directions, though he will often pause and stare at you first while he makes sense of what you said.

Makili is amazingly adept with spacial puzzles. I bought a floor puzzle with numbers and shapes at the thrift store for $1. I though in another year or two, he'll like this. But for fun, i pulled it out and started putting it together. He amazed me by being able to put the shapes in the correct holes. At first I thought it was an accident, but now he does it like a pro and I've seen him use the same brain power on other 2-dimensional puzzles. He hasn't seemed to generalize the knowledge to 3-dimensional shapes though. For example, he still hasn't mastered the shape sorter, which I find super interesting.

He is still a fairly good sleeper, though he spoiled us over the break by sleeping until 8:00. He is back to his normal 6:00 wake up which is acceptable I suppose. We're working on not laying with him at bedtime. We had worked this out before our trip to California in October, when Makili was spoiled, and we are just now diggging our heels in about it. A few times recently, Makili has refused to take a nap, and made it all day without one. I'm discouraging this at my friend Nadine's suggestion, since when #2 comes around it will help me stay sane.

He hasn't been to the doctor in nearly 3 months (if you don't count the emergency room), so I don't know how much he weighs and how tall he is but I'd guess low average on all accounts except head circumference of course.

Makili has also been a giggle monster lately. He's developing quite a sense of humor and when he thinks something is funny (like hide and go see which he LOVES) he giggles like a maniac. This age is terrbly cute. I'll try to add some more pictures but I've been working on this post for ever, so I'm going to post it before it is out of date.

A retrospective on 08

January



February March
April
May

June

July

August

September

October


November

December (a few more favorites from our trip).







Raph and I brought in the new year right. We played games with my parents until the new year came. (I am the 2008 champion in Bananagrams and Oh Hell!) Then we slept in while my mom watched Makili this morning. We've pretty much gotten to do that every day here which has been entirely blissful. Last year Raph and I welcomed the new year by watching the sunrise at the beach, and that seemed pretty great. But laying in bed until 9:00 is pretty damn awesome too. Happy New Year.