Owen's Birthday Party...

It's been an overwhelming whirlwind of a birthday weekend for our family. Friday was Owen's fourth birthday, and his last day at the DOL daycare. Owen of course seemed fine with it all, but for us parents it was quite emotional, since he's been at the DOL daycare with the same core group of friends since they were all infants. Elaine is particularly sad that her little boy won't be right downstairs from her office anymore, and when she's down nursing or visiting Nora, she'll miss the excited voices of Owen's friends in the hallway yelling for Owen to come quick and see his Mommy and baby sister.

To make the day extra special (insert sarcasm) for Owen, he had to go to the doctor's office the morning of his birthday for a checkup and three shots. The unfortunate timing was dictated by having to be four years old to get his next round of vaccinations, and DCPS requiring he have his vaccinations before school started on Monday. After plenty of screaming at the doctor's office, he seemed to be fine for the rest of the day at DOL, enjoyed his party, and cheerfully said his goodbyes to all of his teachers and friends. That night though, he had a bit of a fever and was even too tired for ice cream cake.

By Saturday morning our little boy had rallied, and he was ready for his real birthday party. We drove up to Mom Mom and Grandpa Don's house after lunch, and Owen showed off his favorite birthday presents from Mommy and Daddy, a Washington Nationals batting helmet and a Josh Willingham t-shirt, perfect for playing backyard baseball in.

As if a weekend filled with Owen's birthday, his last day at DOL, and getting ready for his first day of school wasn't packed enough, while we were at Mom Mom's we got a call from Peabody Elementary School telling us they had a spot for Owen. Peabody was one of our top choices (it's part of the Capitol Hill Cluster School, we have many friends and neighbors who have sent their kids there and given the school glowing reviews, and it's right by Stanton Park on Elaine's walk to work), but we were so far down on the waiting list that we had written off our chances of getting in and enrolled Owen in Ludlow Taylor instead. Owen was really excited about Ludlow Taylor (they have a baseball field on campus), we'd been doing a regular Sunday evening playdate with other Ludlow Taylor families, and Elaine had already been to a few PTA meetings, so we weren't ready to say yes to Peabody immediately and instead asked to be able to sleep on it and get back to them in the morning. The upshot of course was that we'd spend Owen's birthday party agonizing over the decision.

With our minds racing about what school to send Owen to on Monday, we drove over to the Little Gym for his birthday party. Owen was a bit overwhelmed by everything and was feeling a bit shy at first (hard to blame him really with everything going on), but he eventually warmed up to everything and had a great time at his party. As much fun as he had running around in the gym, his favorite part of the party was showing off his Washington Nationals cake. Baseball really is the best in the eyes of our four year old.

After the party we went back to Mom Mom's for bison burgers and more cake (this time Mom Mom's delicious banana cake). He also opened his present from Mom Mom and Grandpa Don, a new pair of bright yellow boots, and a yellow raincoat to go with them.

We agonized over the school decision all night, but after sleeping on it we were leaning heavily toward Peabody, even if that meant breaking up with Ludlow Taylor. The last thing to do was to convince Owen that this was a good thing. Sunday morning was gray and rainy, so Owen donned his new yellow boots and raincoat and we went over to Peabody to check out the playground. By the time we got there the rain had let up and Owen started to get excited about the beautiful playground. Some other parents were there working in the gardens, and Owen helped out raking some mulch, then he joined the other kids playing "Haiti Firefighter Earthquake Rescue Squad." With Owen seeming more at ease with the idea of Peabody, we called and officially accepted the spot for Owen. Then the assistant principal came out to the playground to welcome us to the school and give us all the forms we needed.

Exhausted from everything about the weekend, we went home so Nora could have a nice long nap, then took Brad and Marlo up on the offer to join them for a lovely evening at the pool. Just what we needed to relax on our last real day of summer.



(click here to see all the birthday pictures)
(click here to see all the Peabody pictures)

Four!

Wow. I'm not sure which is more amazing to us: the fact that Owen has now been in our lives for four years, or that four years and one day ago, we didn't know the kid.

It's kind of a big birthday for us, because Owen's birthday is also his last day at the daycare he's attended since he was 3 1/2 months old. Come Monday morning, Owen will be at Ludlow-Taylor Elementary School, which means we'll no longer be commuting together and I won't be able to check in on him at a moment's notice. I'm coping as best I can.

In preparation for his first day, DC Public Schools interviewed me to assess whether Owen had any developmental delays. The last question they asked was "What is your favorite thing about Owen?" I rambled on for a while, but in essence said that it was his capacity for joy. When I asked Allen the same question, he replied that it was his adventurous nature. We both agree, though, that it's hard to narrow it down to one thing, because we have a sweet, silly, smart, loving, dramatic, curious, happy, adventurous little boy and our favorite thing about Owen is that he's Owen.

Happy fourth birthday, little man.

1. Playdates involve more tears than their name would suggest.
2. Banjo-Sneaker-Rockstar-Pajamas are the coolest.
3. Hide-and-Go-Seek is a much more efficient game if you tell the seeker where you're hiding.
4. You don't need to pace yourself when it comes to stickers.
5. The high-dive isn't at all scary. Cookie Monster, however, is a whole other story.
6. Winter is the best season...except for maybe summer.
7. Peeing while standing is overrated.
8. Baseball isn't everything. There's also softball, the Nationals, playing catch, batting practice...
9. It's nice to be worshiped.
10. Three is a magic number.

MoCo Fair

On Saturday we joined the Brown's for our third annual trip to the Montogmery County Fair. As always, we had a great time seeing all the animals, visited the fire fighters and their moon bounce, rode the ponies, checked out the tractors and the combine slide, and had dinner and ice cream. The new addition this year for Owen and Mia (and the daddies) was a ride on the Ferris Wheel. The hour was late and the line was long, but the view was amazing, and Owen and Mia had a great time checking out the fair from on high.

(click here for all the pictures)

Iowa- Part VI - Hooverfest and Homeward Bound

Our Iowa trip culminated with a celebration of our 31st President. We thought there would be more Pre-K appropriate activities at Hooverfest -- Allen promise us a Big Wheels race -- but the weather and the planning committee didn't cooperate. Instead we avoided the rain and watched Hooverball from the safety of Aunt Martha's balcony, had more sweetcorn back at the Pond with the Hoover Family and Trustees (and got a few last jumps in as well), and stayed up until 10 pm to eat ice cream and watch the fireworks (which Owen found scary but Nora loved).

The next morning we headed to Aunt Katherine's and Uncle L's a couple hours after Grandpa Fawcett. Makayla was also visiting and so she and Owen got to play baseball with the neighborhood kids and camp out in their own fort (though Owen didn't last the night) while Nora celebrated Mardi Gras a bit too early and enthusiastically.

We finally headed home on Monday, much to the disappointment of Owen who couldn't bear to leave Makayla ("She's the best... I love her."). Construction was crazy and so we took an alternate, scenic route through Pennsylvania before finally making it home in time for dinner.

And so ends our Iowa journey...until Thanksgiving.



(click here for all the Iowa pictures)

Iowa - Part V - Camping in the Tipi

Last night Owen and I camped out in the tipi with Thomas and Ethan. We started out with everyone at the Pond for some swimming and a dinner of grilled pizzas. As the sun started to set we lit a campfire and roasted marshmallows for some delicious s'mores. Grandpa Fawcett and Uncle Ken told some campfire stories for Owen and Ethan, and when the hour was late we grabbed our sleeping bags and hiked back through the woods west of the Pond to the tipi. For Owen and Ethan, excitement and exhaustion dueled in the night, and exhaustion quickly won as the boys drifted off to sleep.

Despite predictions from Mommy and Grandma Z that Owen would be scared and want to come home in the middle of the night, he slept soundly and woke up at 6:30 excitedly proclaiming, "Hey guys, it's morning time!" After waking up the whole tent, Owen decided to, "sleep a little more longer," and Thomas and I went about cooking pancakes in the tipi.

Owen had such a wonderful time camping, that he didn't want to change clothes when he got home, because if he took of his dirty camping clothes, then the camping trip would really be over. To help him out we set up his sleeping bag for nap time, and talked all about one day going on a camping trip to the Boundary Waters with Thomas and Ethan.




(click here to see the tipi pictures)

Iowa - Part IV - High Dive

Owen has always been a big fan of jumping into the pool, so when we were driving out to Iowa, I tried to convince him that it would be fun to jump off of the dock. It's a bigger jump than he's tried before, but I thought that with his life jacket on he might be up for it. Well the first day out at the Pond we tried to jump off the dock to get in, but he decided it was a bit too scary, so we waded in at the beach instead. Once he was used to the water though, Owen decided it was time to jump off of the dock. He did it without hesitation, and after a few jumps I had him watch me jump off of the high dive. Well, he certainly thought that was exciting and immediately asked to go off himself. I wasn't sure about that plan, but he was halfway up the ladder before I could try to talk him out of it. I climbed up with him, and he wanted me to pick him up so we could jump off together. After one more chance to back out, we jumped, and Owen came up with the biggest grin on his face.

We jumped a few more times with me holding Owen, and eventually we graduated to jumping off together while holding hands. Then finally after a few days of jumping, we would climb up to the top of the high dive together and do a "one-two jump" where Owen would jump in all by himself, and then I would follow afterward.

With Owen setting the record for the youngest person to go off of the high dive, his grandparents became inspired to express their youthful vigor. Mom mom was first to claim she would jump off of the high dive. Bets were placed, and sure enough on the day of the Sweet Corn Festival, Mom mom made the leap setting the record for the oldest person to do the jump. That record wouldn't last for long though. Once Grandpa Z got wind of it, he decided the record was his for the taking, and the next day he jumped of not once, not twice but three times (to ensure adequate video coverage). Grandpa Fawcett couldn't break the record, but he didn't want to be showed up by Owen's other grandparents, so later in the week he decided it was high time he jumped off of the high dive as well. Owen thought Grandpa Fawcett might be scared, so he insisted on jumping with him, and directed the jump to a successful conclusion. With three grandparents having jumped off the high dive, one might think that Grandma Z would be next, but she claims to have not yet lost her sanity.

We're all quite impressed with Owen's bravery jumping off of the high dive, but Mommy at least is a little afraid of where this will lead. If he's jumping off the high dive at three, what will be doing in a few years? Owen was very impressed with his cousin Andy's backflips off the the high dive, but thankfully he realized he was too young to try one, for now...

Iowa - Part III - Sweet Corn Festival & Open Pond

The weekend brought plenty more activity with the Fawcett family Sweet Corn Festival on Saturday, and the Open Pond party celebrating 25 years since we started construction on the dam for Cold Spring Pond. After my grandparents Floyd and Mary Helen, and my great uncle Alfred and great aunt Helen all passed away, the Fawcett family decided we needed an annual event to bring the family together, and thus the Sweet Corn Festival was born. Because when the sweet corn is plentiful, there's no better time for a party at the Pond.

Saturday morning was spent picking, husking, cooking, cutting, packing, and freezing sweet corn (though truth be told, with our kids and Steve & Becky's kids to wrangle in the morning, plus various Grady departures after the Baptism, we only made it for the tail end of the actual work, and then Owen mainly spent his time eating sweet corn). The morning work was followed by a lunch (with lots of corn on the cob of course), and an afternoon of playing and relaxing at the Pond.

Owen had an absolute blast playing with his cousins Olivia, Maura and Sam. There was plenty of playing on the beach, paddle boating, paddle boarding, baseball playing, frolicking on "Hollywood", and jumping off the dock (more on this in a later post). Owen really was thrilled to show off the Pond to his cousins, and has clearly adopted the Pond as his favorite place in the world.

That afternoon we had a special treat when Joe, Cate and Gigi arrived from St. Louis. We hadn't seen them since we dug out from the blizzard of '10, so it was great to see them in a more temperate environment. Owen and Gigi had a wonderful time playing together, and we all had a lovely dinner at the Pond (with more sweet corn of course).

After two days of big events at the Pond, we weren't quite done. August of 1985 (back when I was living in Iowa), was when the bulldozers first started work on the damn for Cold Spring Pond, and on Sunday we celebrated the Pond's 25th birthday party with an Open Pond event. The whole community was invited, and over 200 people came to tour the Pond and enjoy ice cream and cookies. The whole weekend was an exhausting whirlwind of fun, and it was nice to end it with a little ice cream.



(click here to see all the pictures)

Iowa - Part II - Nora's Baptism

We planned Nora's baptism to dovetail with the Fawcett Sweet Corn Festival in order to maximize Fawcett attendance (to maximize Grady/Zimmerman attendance, we simply made them godparents or officiants). It was pretty effective. We had Fawcetts coming all the way from Alaska for Nora's big day and all but the oldest and youngest of the Grady siblings managed to make the event resulting in a total of 50 revelers our own mini Loaves and Fishes miracle moment.

Nora was a little apprehensive about it all. Still recovering from the long drive and a bit overwhelmed by the crowds, she wasn't too pleased when Uncle Bernie started anointing her with oil (he responded by telling her, "It gets worse"), but seemed to rally when he poised her over the baptismal bath and "assumed the position." By the time Uncle Bernie had her stand (or rather be held) behind the alter with her Godparents -- Uncle Dave and Cousin Caitlin -- her parents and big brother to announce her membership into the Christian community she was positively aglow.

After which we headed to the pond (which Owen informed us he prefers to church) for another sort of baptism...

(click here to see all the pictures)

Iowa - Part I

For our big summer vacation this year, we're spending almost two weeks in Iowa for Nora's Baptism, the Fawcett Sweet Corn Festival, the 25th birthday party for Cold Spring Pond, and Hoover Days. We packed up our bags and left DC after lunch on Tuesday to drive to Aunt Katherine and Uncle L's house in Cleveland for the first leg of our journey, and the next morning, all of us left in a caravan for Iowa. The drive went reasonably well, Owen of course was endlessly entertained by the DVD player in the minivan, but Nora is still stuck in a rear facing carseat for another month, so she had a few stretches of inconsolable crying, but at least managed several good naps in the car.

On Thursday Leanna and Grace came over for a visit, and the family began to trickle in. We started preparations for Nora's baptism on Thursday (e.g. Owen, Grandpa Z, and I picked up the keg and brought it to the Pond, so we could start working on the CO2 levels in the kegerator ;) We did some exploring around the Pond, and Owen was very excited to see the Uncle Ken's new teepee back in the woods on the West side of the Pond.

That evening the Fawcetts and Zimmermans gathered for dinner at Agave in West Branch, and with over twenty of us, we pretty much took over the restaurant. After a huge dinner, we headed back to Iowa City to rest up for Nora's big day.

(click here to see all the pictures)

Pre-School

Those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer haven't been too lazy in the Fawcett household, as preparations for Owen's transition to the DC Public School System have begun in earnest. List serves have been joined. PTA meetings have been attended (ok, one meeting was attended; a subsequent committee meeting was skipped but I found out about it the day before and Allen didn't get home until 7 pm that night...). Fundraising ideas have been shared. And for the last two Sundays, we've attended a Ludlow-Taylor Early Education Playdate so that Owen can at least meet his new classmates before his first day.

We've had mixed experience with the playdates -- they've been primarily attended by children that will be in the three year old program. While Owen has enjoyed the actual activities (a splash day, chalk drawings), he hasn't interacted that much with the other kids. We have a few more playdates before school starts, so hopefully Owen will find a friend or two to ease the transition.

All about the Cute

Fireworks and Other Fun

We had a very full Independence Day and the three day weekend this year. We started out the holiday weekend with Tadashi's 4th birthday party on Saturday. Owen had a great time with the trombone band that played the party, and Nora played contentedly with the other babies.

That was just the beginning of Owen's excitement for the day, because after coming home for a quick dinner Mom Mom and Grandpa Don came over to take Owen to the Kennedy Center to see Mary Poppins. The original plan was for Owen to spend the night at Mom Mom and Grandpa Don's house after the show, but the poor little guy was so exhausted by the end of the day that he broke down when he got to Silver Spring and desperately wanted to be in his own bed. Mom Mom kindly drove him back home, and by midnight he was back in his own bed sound asleep. After a good night's sleep and a 4th of July breakfast of chocolate pancakes Owen recounted how much he loved seeing Mary Poppins, especially Bert walking on the ceiling during Step in Time. Then he called Mom Mom to thank her for taking him to the show, and told her that he'd like to sleep over at her house another time when he hadn't had "such a big day" and when he wouldn't miss out on Daddy's chocolate pancakes;-)

On Sunday we tried to take it easy for most of the day to prepare for braving the crowds to see the fireworks on the Mall. Elaine was anticipating an unmitigated disaster, but we managed to find parking in our old neighborhood, and it was just a short walk to a lovely spot in the grass by the Botanic Gardens where we spread out our blanket to watch the fireworks. Owen wasn't overly fond of all the noise, particularly the cannons near us that went off during the 1812 Overture, but he enjoyed seeing the fireworks, and Nora wasn't phased by any of it. Certainly not an unmitigated disaster, and we might even try it again sometime.

On Monday we finally relaxed with an afternoon at Mom Mom and Grandpa Don's and a swim in Rose's pool. Katherine was in town, and Jen came over, and several people from the neighborhood joined us for a little 5th of July cookout. A nice way to end the long weekend.

(click here for all the pictures)

Field Trip

On Friday I managed to take a morning off of work and chaperon for Owen's field trip to the building museum. It was quite a treat to tag along with Owen's class, and it was great to see how excited Owen was to have his Daddy with him. It was a bit of a hike for the kids to get to the museum, but once we were there Owen had a great time playing with all the blocks, and I even got in on the fun building an arch with one of the other dads. Owen has several more field trips scheduled this summer before he starts at his new school, so hopefully we'll be able to do this again soon.

Better Than the Old Pornographers

I have a soft spot for the New Pornographers -- they're one of my favorite bands in general and they performed the first concert Owen attended in utero. So when Allen heard they'd be in town around our anniversary (despite the fact he wasn't sure if he'd be), he went ahead and got tickets. Allen's Sweden trip was nixed and Grandpa Fawcett graciously agreed to watch the kids, so we finally got to see the complete band perform at the 9:30 Club, including the always elusive, Neko Case. The show was a bit surreal, particularly when they performed Electric Version accompanied by their "Rock Band" counterparts (which A.C. Newman only scored an 85 on for vocals) and broke out an impromptu (and ironic) tribute to Starship's "We Built This City," but it was a great way to celebrate our seventh year of marriage and how much my musical tastes have improved under Allen's influence.

If you want to enjoy the show yourself, NPR is streaming it here.

Father's Day - Part II

Last year for Father's Day, Allen got "Rock Band." This year, we decided to step it up a notch with an actual guitar. Thanks to a covert outing to "Guitar Center" with our dear friend, Brad Brown, who was instrumental (snicker, snicker) in the enterprise, Allen is the proud owner of a Yamaha Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar. And after a jam session with Brad and some guitar lessons off his i-phone (yes, they have an app for that), Allen was able to rock out a little with Owen.

Father's Day - Part I

Father's day started a little early this year. On Friday night, Dad, Owen and I went to the ballpark to catch a Nationals game. It was a beautiful night, the weather was perfect, Stephen Strasburg was on the mound for his second ever home start, and the snipers were ringing the roof of the stadium. Yes, it was such a perfect night for baseball that President Obama and family couldn't pass up the chance to see the rookie phenom pitch against their beloved White Sox.

Owen of course was thrilled to be at a ballgame with his Daddy and his Grandpa, and excited about all that entailed. A curly W pretzel in the 1st, a hot dog in the 3rd, ice cream after the Presidents Race in the 4th, singing 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game' in the 7th inning stretch, and lots of cheering for his favorite Nationals players, Ryan Zimmerman, Stephen Strasburg, Josh Willingham, Adam Dunn, Nyger Morgan, and Pudge Rodriguez. Strasburg was brilliant of course, after giving up a run in the first on an infield single and a bloop double, he struck out 10 and walked none in seven innings. It wasn't quite enough for the win though, the game went into extra innings tied at one.

We headed home with the game still tied after 10 innings, and Owen was quite proud that he stayed two innings longer than Sasha and Malia. The White Sox scored in the 11th after we left, and the Nats couldn't quite pull out the win, but it was a great night none the less. I can't think of a better way to start Father's Day weekend than spending a beautiful night at the ballpark with my dad and my son. Life is good:-)

(click here to see all the Father's Day pictures)

We're In

Back in November we started to investigate the schools on Capitol Hill to see where we should apply for a Pre-K program for Owen. We went to numerous open houses and school fairs, talked to other parents, and checked out test scores and various other metrics before finally submitting our application for the DC Public Schools Pre-K lottery in January. It didn't go so well. Owen was wait-listed unilaterally and when I began calling the various programs to ask about the likelihood that he might eventually get in, I was universally laughed at.

But now, after more months of phone calls, attending fundraisers, and some neighbors giving us the heads up that they added an additional class, we are happy to report that Owen is registered not in his first choice (that would be Peabody's SWS, #66 on the wait-list), or his second choice (Peabody Elementary, #159 on the wait-list), or even his third choice (Maury Elementary, #50 on the wait-list), but his fourth choice, Ludlow-Taylor (where he was only #19 on the wait-list).

The Peabody schools are more established, are attended by several of our neighbors' kids, and are conveniently located directly along my commute. Maury is attended by several daycare families we know, has a really active PTA and is only .49 miles from our house (and along Allen's bus route). Ludlow-Taylor is .67 miles from the house, is not on either of our commutes, requires yellow and green uniforms, and while above the DC averages, still has a ways to go on its test scores. However, their PTA is becomming more active, it's adopted a Emilia Reggio curriculum for its pre-school and pre-k classes, it has a full-time Spanish teacher, a partnership with the Fillmore Arts Center and possibly most important to Owen, it has a baseball field.

So Owen is now enrolled for the 2010-11 school year. We'll see how it goes, and hopefully we won't have to abandon the city for the suburbs for at least a little bit longer...

Inside Baseball

Owen has really gotten into baseball lately. On Friday night I took Owen to his third baseball game of the season, and his first night game. He was completely enthralled. He loved watching every pitch, he made sure that everyone in our section knew that Ryan Zimmerman is his favorite baseball player, and of course he cheered like crazy for the Presidents race. He's turning into a huge Washington Nationals fan, or the 'red guys' as he sometimes calls them after seeing them play the 'blue guys' or Brewers, and the 'orange guys' or Orioles, so I was quite impressed he was able to adjust to his beloved 'red guys' playing the Cincinnati Reds on Friday.

He doesn't just like watching baseball, but loves playing the game as well. We have a mini-beach ball that is just perfect for playing inside baseball (or at least Daddy and Owen think so, I think Mommy is only reluctantly on board with this plan), and Owen likes to practice everyday. He's developed quite the swing, and if he keeps this up, he'll be tearing up the t-ball league when he's finally old enough to play.

Summer School

On the morning of May 24th, Allen and I rose early, turned on our respective laptops, logged into our dc.gov accounts and waited, with credit cards in hand, to enroll our children in swim lessons at 6:30 am. This may seem a bit overkill, but there are only eight spots in each of the classes and they tend to fill up in five minutes or less -- last year the computer system was down and so we had to circumvent a street closing and a nonplussed capitol policeman to get to a rec center where after a few phone calls we were finally able to enroll Owen. It was a little dicey for a minute there, as Allen didn't realize his address was incomplete and so it wouldn't let him pay for Owen's class and by the time I attempted to enroll Owen on my computer the class was full, but eventually it all worked out.

Getting to lessons was even more of a chore since the powers that be decided to do some "deep patching " on Saturday morning and closed our street (though Owen was pretty psyched to see both a digger and a dumptruck working on our block). We eventually made it out and after an emergency bagel stop, headed to the pool. The water was chilly, Nora seemed a bit confused about it all and Owen was a bit more hesitant than he was last year -- until they turned on the fountains after class was done -- but all in all it was a good start to the day and to Nora's swim career (and we even got a couple of covert pictures in before I was reprimanded by one of the instructors).

Summer!

Memorial Day weekend brought the start of the summer pool season, and we took full advantage of the 90 degree plus weather to take Nora swimming for the first and second times. Our good friends Brad and Marlo (and Mia and Ben) invited us up to their pool on Sunday and Monday evenings for sandwiches/grilling and plenty of swimming with the kids. Nora didn't look all that pleased to be in the water, in fact she made her best "Margaret Grady" face and glared at the camera like her great grandmother, but eventually she warmed up to the idea of swimming. Owen was a bit more reluctant to jump in the pool than he was at the end of last summer, but he was happy to grab every flotation device he could find and start kicking away. On Sunday, Andrew and Luke joined us as well, and the kids got a bit more adventurous. Nora and Ben had fun in the little pool with Elaine and Marlo, and the Dads took the big kids into the big pool for plenty of racing, tossing, splashing, and fun.

(click here to see all the pictures)

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!