What a difference 3 days make

After my kvetching that we were missing all of Nora's milestones and had to resort to staging a series of firsts in order to accurately record them, Nora decided to take matters into her own hands. Tuesday her first two teeth broke the surface (they're still not all the way in). Wednesday morning she pulled herself up for the first time (she was pretty excited). Wednesday evening she caught her first softball (That was actually an accident. Owen threw a softball that hit Allen's shoe and landed in between our little girl's chin and the sippy cup she was holding. Amazingly, she was unhurt (and also unfazed) by this unintentional game of catch which will not be repeated for a long, long time). And Thursday afternoon she clapped for the first time. We figure at this rate she'll be walking Memorial Day and talking in full sentences by the Fourth of July.

The teeth thing isn't particularly exciting, Nora's refusing to clap on screen, and we're not re-enacting the softball thing for obvious reasons, but for your viewing pleasure, here is Nora pulling herself up, day two.

So Much for Posterity

I've been catching up on Nora's baby book, a task I felt would be relatively simple for while I hadn't entered things in real time, between all the tracking, blog entries, and Facebook status updates, I figured we'd have some record of all her major life moments thus far. Apparently not. Between the Nora's camera shyness, the subjective nature of certain events and the fact that we typically don't give her bottles and so have no idea when she started holding them herself at daycare, there's a lot of missing data.

I've resigned myself to the fact that the best we can say is that Nora first sat up "the end of February, 2010..." and have decided to instead focus on the future. Specifically, scheduling Nora's firsts in advance so that there's no question as to when they transpired. With that in mind, we took Nora to her first National's game on Saturday (it was Mom Mom and Grandpa Don's first National's game as well if anyone wants to record that for posterity) and her first trip to the zoo on Sunday. She slept through most of the game (we left early due to rain) and was relatively indifferent to most of the animals at the zoo (though we suspect she might have been sulking as her father was enamored with the baby gorilla and as Nora is most definitely not swinging from "vines," she really couldn't compete), but it was a pretty good weekend nonetheless, especially for a "first-timer."

(click here to see the pictures including an adorable movie of the baby gorilla)

The Week of Elaine

With Mother's day and Elaine's birthday falling within a few days of each other this year, we had a week to celebrate Elaine, the wonderful, loving and caring mother of our adorable children; and my witty, beautiful, intelligent, supportive, and all around amazing wife. I'm not one to post chain status updates, but I will say here that I count my self lucky everyday for having Elaine in my life.

Our week of celebration began on Mother's day. Owen and I woke up early to pick up fresh bagels for breakfast before Mommy woke up, and Nora thoughtfully slept in late allowing Elaine to do the same. Later we went out for a delicious tapas lunch at Jaleo's with Mom Mom and Grandpa Don. We'd just seen Jose Andres on 60 Minutes the night before, so it was fun going to his first U.S. restaurant the next day. Our favorite dish was probably the pork belly, and it was great tasting what all those Top Chef contestants rave about. Owen loved the pancakes of course, and Nora always the considerate daughter slept through most of lunch.

Elaine's actual birthday was during the week, and we just had a quite night at home with some ice cream cake. The real birthday celebration for Elaine came on the following Sunday, when we left the kids with Mom Mom and Grandpa Don, so we could go to Volt for dinner. We'd been wanting to eat at Volt ever since we rooted for Brian Voltaggio to win season six of Top Chef (he came in second, eventually losing to his little brother). The dinner didn't disappoint, we had the six course tasting menu in the chef's kitchen, and everything was absurdly delicious (our favorite was probably the Yellowfin Tuna & Soy Air). Plus we had a great view of the kitchen, and multiple run-ins with Brian himself (although we didn't get a chance to ask if he made a cameo on the DC season of Top Chef that just finished filming). It was quite a treat to have night out with just the two of us, all and all a lovely way to celebrate Elaine's birthday.

(click here to see pictures from our dinner at Volt)

Dead Men's Hollow

My friend and co-worker Jared is in a blue grass band, and when we heard his band was playing at Eastern Market on Sunday morning, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to catch a show. Owen had a great time listening to the blue grass, and he was very excited to see someone playing a banjo. The highlight though was Jared letting Owen play the stand up bass!