One

Poor Miss A had a fever at her birthday party, so she wasn't terribly interested in the cake. We didn't realize it til later, which is kind of weak, considering how feverish she looks in these photos. Oops.

Fortunately, she had several willing helpers when it came time to blow out the candle!

Happy (belated) first birthday, my little monkey!

My streak would have continued if today was September 25

I realized that if I'm going to use the blog to track the kids' milestones, I'd better get to it. I know that pretty much everyone who reads this thing already knows about most of these, but this is for posterity, kids.

Ava is officially pulling herself up on anything and everything. She's also cruising. I hear that early walkers start around 8 months old, so she clearly won't hit that. But I wouldn't be surprised if she's walking before Jonah turns 3. She is also finally cutting her first tooth.

Jonah is potty trained!

After our disastrous attempt at potty training back in July, Matt started telling Jonah that he could have five (!) M&Ms if he peed in the potty. (Matt didn't consult with me before determining the quantity of M&Ms that a peepee was worth.) Jonah was still not interested—until we gave him an M&M to try! Once he knew what he was missing, he was pretty much potty trained in two days. It's been over a month now, and he's not even wearing a diaper for naps. He's also often dry overnight. I was terrified of potty training; I'm shocked and amazed at how easy it was.

Jonah has also started preschool, and he loves it. He's going to Pine Village Preschool, which is a Spanish-immersion preschool that just opened up a site in the South End. How we got to this particular school is a whole other story, but we're happy with it so far. And Jonah can already count to at least 20 in Spanish!

Ava and I attended Katie and Blythe's non-bachelorette party/non-bridal shower last weekend. We spent two nights on Block Island with them, Mom, Aunt Sally, and Blythe's mom, Adrienne. Ava had been a little sick, but she was a real trooper, and she was great the whole weekend. The adults had a lot of fun playing games and drinking wine after she went to bed.

Labor Day weekend, I flew down to Memphis for Tiffany's bachelorette party (and I held my own, even though I haven't done much partying lately!), and Matt drove ALL BY HIMSELF with both kids down to New Jersey for the weekend. I'm truly impressed that he did that. Personally, I find the idea of driving alone with two kids to New Jersey on a holiday weekend way more terrifying than the idea of taking care of them by myself for a few days.

We had a busy summer, and it's carrying on into fall. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up!

Oreos and other diet foods

I was a skinny kid. I can't find any photos, so you'll have to trust me on that.

That lasted through college. Perhaps it was all the walking I did in school (no car), or maybe it was the crappy food. But I never really gained the freshman fifteen, even though I probably could have used it. Once I graduated, though, I started to gain a little. Not a lot all at once, just five pounds or so a year. By the time I hit 30, I was more than 50 pounds heavier than I'd been when I graduated from high school. (Hmm...no photos of this era, either. Go figure.) But in the summer of 2004, after needing to buy size 16 shorts, and after seeing my sister eat Oreos while on Weight Watchers (more on her later), I decided it was time to lose some weight. I figured if I could eat Oreos while on a diet, that was the diet for me.

Six months later, I had lost 40 pounds and bought a size 6 wedding dress off the rack. I looked great, and I felt great.

So naturally, I turned back to Weight Watchers after both my pregnancies. I gained nearly 60 pounds when I was pregnant with Jonah, and lost all of it before he was a year old. I kept it off for a few months, but my weight started to creep back up when we decided to start trying for #2. (I treated both my pregnancies as my last opportunity to eat whatever I want, and once the decision was made, I guess I started a little early.) I only gained about 40 pounds with Ava, but I started fifteen pounds heavier. Weight Watchers has once again been my savior, though. She's five months old, and I've been below my pre-pregnancy weight for nearly a month. And that's with hardly any exercise. Now I just need to lose 10-15 more pounds and I'll be at my goal.

(Warning: here's the part where I go all WW cheerleader on y'all.)

The great thing about Weight Watchers is learning tips for a new lifestyle. This is not just a diet, it's a new way of life. I've made a lot of small changes in my eating habits that have really added up when it comes to weight loss. Best of all, I'm setting an example for my kids. I'm sure they'll inherit good genes—neither Matt nor I have ever been grossly overweight—but they'll also inherit good eating habits. (I hope. Jonah's a picky eater, but at least we're keeping him away from junk food.)

But don't take my word for it. Here's a photo of my sister from two years ago.

We were all pretty worried about her. She did not inherit the best genes, and her risk for things like diabetes and heart disease were only exacerbated by her weight.

When I had Jonah, I was truly concerned that she might not be able to run around with him on the playground, or worse, that she might not be around to see him grow up.

Here she is today, having lost more than 40% of her body weight.

It's taken a few tries, but she's lost it all with Weight Watchers and exercise. This former couch potato is now a gym rat who actually runs. I'm inspired by her story, and thrilled that she's doing something to be sure she'll be around for her niece and nephew, and hopefully, someday, her own as-yet-hypothetical kid.

Katie and Ava, spring 2009

Katie and Jonah, summer 2008
(I couldn't find a more recent picture of them!)

So many children, so little time.

It's so hard to keep up now that our help is gone. We had Grandma for almost two weeks, and then Nana for 10 days, and then the whole family came into town for Ava's naming. We were terrible about taking photos that weekend, but Matt managed to snap a few at the kiddush afterward.




Since then, Ava's been working on her tummy time:



And Jonah decided that Tigger wanted to hang out in the Baby Bjorn:



We got Jonah to stand near Ava long enough to take some photos, but Ava refused to smile:



But since she sleeps six or more hours most nights, we've forgiven her!

Technical Difficulties: Please Stand By.

We left our camera in Bethesda after Thanksgiving, and on it were Halloween photos and G-d knows what else. So here's one Halloween photo for now.

We won't get the camera back, most likely, until after the Monkey's sister arrives next month, so any posts that go up between now and then will be very text-heavy. Which is fine, because Monkey likes to say funny and clever things. For example: He was having trouble napping on our last day in Bethesda, and so I went in after he'd been making noise in his crib for 30 minutes. I said to him, "Let's read another book, and then go to sleep." And he said back to me, "Mommy, I want to play."

Minor edit: I guess I should have read my previous posts before putting this up. Didn't remember that I had already posted this photo!

Happy Second Birthday!

Work stresses, child care stresses, and a disfunctional internet connection at home have all contributed to making it harder and harder to keep up with all that Monkey has been up to. Fortunately, the child care stress is more or less solved (although we miss our 'Bine, and it's only been one day since her last day!), the internet connection should be fixed on Monday (fingers crossed), and work stress should dissipate once I leave for our conference in Florida in 12 short days.

Here are some photos from Monkey's two birthday parties. We had one on the 17th, for his daycare friends, at the Pru.



We also had another one, on the 19th, at home, for other friends and family. They were both lots of fun!

It's been a busy summer.

We had a major computer malfunction just before our August vacation, and sadly, lost about a months' worth of photos. It took quite a bit of time to get the computer back up to snuff, and I'm still not sure it's really 100%. But we bought an external hard drive, finally, and so now we have plenty of storage space for everything.

Part of what we lost were some fun photos from our 4th of July trip to New Jersey, but I do have these (admittedly low-res) photos from my camera phone, including Monkey's first "amusement park" ride, from a fair at the park near Grandma's beach house.




Monkey wasn't too sure about the ride at first, and the operator was about to stop it to take him off because he was crying, but I got him settled down, and by the time it was over, he had enjoyed it so much he didn't want to get off, and cried again.

When we got back from vacation and finally got the computer up again, it was time to start watching political conventions. Matt and I stayed up WAY too late during both the Democratic and Republican conventions, cheering and jeering.

In case you needed a hint about which convention got the cheers and which convention got the jeers, check out these Monkey videos:



(Okay, "Go Bills" isn't terribly relevant to the election, but it's awfully funny!)

I also decided that it was time to make my wedding album. (Almost three years later, with kid #1 approaching two years old, and kid #2 on the way, I'd say it was more than time!) So I've been spending a lot of time on that. In fact, once the conventions were over, I started staying up late to finish the book. But it is nearly done, and anyone who wants a look-see can e-mail me and I'll share the Shutterfly link.

We did, however, take some time to visit with Nana over Labor Day weekend, and the highlight of the weekend was our trip to Edaville USA, for a "Day Out with Thomas." Monkey loved the kiddie rides, the ride on the train (according to him, we rode on Clarabel), and spending time with Nana and his aunts. Check it out!