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!

Crawling?

Our baby girl is on the move! She's not yet up on her hands and knees, so we're not quite ready to officially call this "crawling", but she can commando crawl wherever she wants to go.

All by myself

Allen was in San Francisco this past week. It was the first time he's been out of town since Nora was born. We survived...though it was a bit touch and go there for a while. Nora ingested some hosta leaves while I was talking to a neighbor and it wasn't until she threw up and developed explosive, green diarrhea that I realized something was amiss (fortunately they're not poisonous, but they're also not edible). In addition, Nora started teething in earnest which resulted in her waking up twice a night and Owen had an accident on the walk home from DOL which entailed my taking apart the stroller in order to clean it. I never made it to work before 9:30 am and the video I was going to make of Nora attempting to crawl didn't happen, but Owen's art project was finished, well balanced meals were eaten, baths taken, bedtime was largely adhered to and I didn't resort to alcohol until Friday night when Allen returned and the kids were safely in bed.

Now, if only he wasn't leaving for a work retreat later this week...

Baseball!

My friend and co-worker Dave is a Wisconsin alumni, and with the Brewers coming to town he thought it would be fun to invite Owen and I to a Nats v. Brewers game complete with a Wisconsin themed beer and brats tailgate. After "soccer practice" (really Owen just played baseball on the side of the field) on Saturday, Owen and I walked down to the tailgate and enjoyed some of the fine products of our Badger friends. Then we walked over to the Park to catch some of batting practice, Owen brought his glove, and we went right down to the edge of the field in hopes of seeing some players and maybe getting a ball. I told Owen that in all the years I've shared in Nats season tickets, I'd never managed to catch a ball. Well it turns out all you need to do to get a ball is show up early and look like an adorable three year old. It didn't take Owen long before one of the Brewers came over and handed Owen his first Major League Baseball. Having secured a baseball, we went on a quest for ice cream, and found our seats in the upper deck down the right field line. We ran in to all sorts of friends at the game, Ben, another friend from work coincidentally had seats right next to ours, and we bumped into Jeff and some old college friends as well. The game was great, Livan Hernandez pitched a complete game shut out and the Nats won 8-0, and all the nice Midwestern Brewers fans around us took it all in stride. Owen had a great time, and he can't wait to go to another baseball game.

(click here to see all the pictures)

Sailing with Grandpa Fawcett & Grandpa Don

We took Owen sailing several times back when he was almost one year old, but the last few summers we decided he was too little to appreciate sailing, and too rambunctious to be safe. Lately though, he's been talking a lot about boats and ships and asking to go sailing again, so we decided it was time to take him back out on the water.

Last month I helped move Grandpa Don's boat down from the old marina in the inner harbor, to it's new home at Hartge's on the West River in Galseville, MD. Back in the summer of 2000 Dad, Thomas, Joe, Brendan, Billy and I charted a boat out of Hartge's and spent two weeks sailing around the Chesapeake, so I've been really excited about exploring that part of the Bay again.

The weather for the weekend was looking a bit chilly on Saturday for Ben's first birthday party, but Sunday looked to be a great day for sailing. Grandpa Fawcett, Owen and I drove out to Hartge's and met Grandpa Don at the boat in the morning. Owen put on his life jacket, and we worked out a tether for him, and we were quickly under sail. Owen was quite the sailor, working the winch to trim the jib, taking a turn steering the boat (with just a little help;), and keeping a lookout with the binoculars. We sailed out to Thomas Point Light, had a little lunch, and decided to head back to explore the Rhode River.

The Rhode River is just around the corner from the Marina, and it was one of our favorite anchorages on our big sailing trip back in 2000. There was a great little spot in the middle of three little islands where we anchored, and we swam to High Island, the smallest of the three. When we got there, Dad and I were having a bit of trouble orienting ourselves, until we finally realized that High Island had disappeared beneath the waves, all that was left was a little sign sticking up out of the water marking what was now a navigation hazard. Having satisfied our curiosity, we turned for home, and promised Owen we would take him sailing again soon.

(click here to see the sailing pictures)

Easter

 

We didn't get tickets to the White House Easter Egg Roll yet again this year (we were informed via an e-mail addressed to "lotterylosers"), but the kids didn't seem to mind. We dyed Easter Eggs Friday night with Aunt Katherine, "Uncle L," Makalya and Grandpa Fawcett. Saturday I took them to the Egg-stravaganza at Lincoln Park where in addition to getting a balloon hat, fishing, bowling and playing with bunnies, Owen managed to get just one egg from the dirt field covered with eggs and preschoolers (in his defense, Allen was home and since Nora was sleeping in the stroller, Owen was left to his own devices in his inital foray and all the eggs were gone within 2 minutes).

But fear not, the Easter Bunny visited our house Sunday morning and Owen's only competition can't crawl quite yet. After bagels and church (where Owen met an imposter Easter Bunny) we headed to Mom Mom's where there was a hunt for Easter baskets with Makayla and then a full on Easter Egg Hunt sponsored by Nancy, Danny & Christopher. Afterwards, Owen spent much of the afternoon lounging in the hammock or else digging in the dirt while Nora took a much needed nap. All in all, a beautiful Spring day and a lovely Easter.

(click here to see all the Easter pictures)

Go Fly A Kite!

 

We took advantage of more beautiful Spring weather this weekend, taking Owen to his first soccer practice Saturday morning (he kicked the ball a few times and ran around a lot, but actually getting him to do any of the drills was a bit of a stretch), flying kites by the Washington Monument for the Kite Festival Saturday afternoon, and then taking a stroll through the cherry blossoms. Owen's take on Spring, "I don't like Spring, Spring took the snow away." To be fair, I think he really did have a good time flying his kite;) (click here to see all the pictures)

Players

Shortly after Nora was born, Owen's best friend Leo's parents invited Owen over for a playdate. Owen had an amazing time (there was a farmer's market and ice cream involved) and immediately informed us when we picked him up that he wanted Leo to come see his room. So the next month Leo came over and had such a great time playing fort that he had Owen over again the following month. Back and forth they've gone for months, playdate steadies with mostly happy results.

Then one day, Owen started asking if he could have his other best friend, Sophia, over. We eventually extended an invitation and were able to coordinate a date with her mother. It did not go quite as well. At some point Owen knocked a tambourine off the ottoman and it hit Sophia. She demanded an apology; he refused. Things deteriorated from there. In the end, Sophia announced that she never wanted to return to Owen's house (though her mother has invited Owen over there) and Owen has started arresting Sophia at daycare because she doesn't want to come back to his house.

But what's worse is that while Sophia was "playing" at our house, Sophia's mom ran into Tadashi's mom and mentioned that Owen and Sophia were having a playdate. Tadashi has apparently never had a playdate and so now they would like to coordinate one. Meanwhile Owen now wants to have Chloe (whom I haven't even met) over and Fiona informed Allen when he dropped Owen off one morning, that she wants me to call her Mommy so we can arrange a sleepover.

Which is why we never should have "cheated" on Leo in the first place...

Elephant Parade

 

On Tuesday the circus came to town and while Elaine was off at a White House meeting on demographic data sets, Owen and I skipped out on our naptime/branch meeting to see the elephant parade pass by the Capitol. The weather was spectacular, a beautiful Spring day in DC, perfect for a playing on the Mall, riding on Daddy's shoulders, and watching the Elephants marching down 3rd Street.

Nora Sitting

The status of Nora's ability to sit-up has been source of contention for weeks now. Allen claims she's been able to sit upright since late February; I've been less generous. Allen is an eternal optimist and so the fact that when placing our daughter in a sitting position she didn't immediately topple over clearly meant that she was now a sitter. To me, the fact that she did topple over shortly thereafter meant she was not. (We had a similar debate when Owen was at this stage.) But now Allen has proof that our little girl has indeed mastered the art of sitting (or at least was kind enough to wait until after he stopped recording to fall).

 

Yellow Balloon

A retirement party at the Department of Labor typically includes a nice lunch, a framed DOL seal, a lovely parting gift and a balloon bouquet. Oddly enough, a number of retirees don't want to take 20 or so balloons home with them to commemorate their years of service, and so periodically a large bunch of balloon will appear outside the door of DOL's daycare, making some lucky tykes' day.

So it was on December 10th when I went to pick up Owen from a long day of school. I grabbed a balloon on my way in, only to have it liberated by 10 three year olds once I arrived at Owen's classroom. We grabbed another one on the way out.

A week and a half later, we were impressed that the balloon was still fully aloft as we left for Christmas in Iowa. We were amazed that it was still so when we returned. Weeks past and then months but this balloon continued to defy expectations regarding the shelf-life of helium and the laws of gravity. We wondered if the balloon had made some sort of pact with a higher being -- a kind of Portrait of Dorian Gray for the latex population.

But then 2 1/2 weeks ago, it began sinking. At first it hovered a few inches from the ceiling, but last week it reached Owen height. Allen responded by trimming its string, because as he stated so passionately, "That's what you're supposed to do" (there are apparently rules about maintaining neutral buoyancy of dying balloons).

It rebounded, coming to life in its extended period of neutral buoyancy, riding the air currents throughout the house, and turning up in the least expected places. But today Allen had to remove the last bit of its tether in order for it to stay afloat. This might have been a mistake, for now that the snows have mostly melted and the weather is feeling more like Spring here in our nations capital, we left the door open when we arrived home from our grocery store/ice skating outing. Owen was helping bring in the groceries, and our magical balloon, excited by the new air currents provided by the open door, glided out into the great wide open.

Allen made a valiant attempt to save it, sprinting out the door and leaping after the balloon, but it just alluded his outstretched hands, clearly it was not meant for this world. We suspect it's now over the rainbow (having heard so much about it from Owen) and while we're sad to see it go, we couldn't imagine a better ending for it.

Family Cuddle Time

 A family selfie during cuddle time seems like a good idea.

Better than a Tie

Sometimes the stars just align. Several months ago we learned that Allen's friend Joe was going to do a month's rotation at Walter Reed Hospital and would be bringing his wife Cate and their daughter Gigi to DC for the month of February. We mentioned this to Allen's friend Nabeel and his wife Megan when we saw them over Thanksgiving in the hopes that they and their sons, Kaden & Liam, could make it down some weekend for a mini-reunion. Meanwhile, Allen's friend Chris, his wife Elise and their daughter Hazel returned to the area for an indeterminate stay while Elise took some classes and Billy announced he'd be flying in from China for a week or so to celebrate Chinese New Year.

Which means, that despite four time zones, two hemispheres, six kids and a colossal snowstorm, we managed to have a grown-up dinner with Allen's closest friends in a private dining room at Nora's followed by a massive playdate the next morning with their off-spring. Not a bad belated birthday present if I do say so myself.

(click here to see Allen's pictures)
(click here to see Nabeel's pictures)

Year of the Tiger

On Saturday night we celebrated Chinese New Year's and rang in the Year of the Tiger. I was born at the tail end of the Year of the Tiger in 1975, and according to Billy when the year of your birth returns, it is a very auspicious year. Well, it certainly has started wonderfully, we celebrated with some of our closest friends, Billy of course was back from China, Joe & Cate are here for the month with Gigi, and Chris & Elise are here with Hazel (although Chris was out of town for the party, quite auspiciously recording the first episode of 'Dan Vs.' the animated television show he created). The food was of course delicious, Mrs. Kung having out done herself again. Owen and Gigi had a great time dressing up in Owen's tiger costume and playing hide and seek. Hazel and Nora battled it out for who could look the most adorable. Chris' parents even came by to join the celebration. The next morning we met up with Joe, Cate and Gigi for brunch, and next weekend we're looking forward to Nabeel, Megan, Kaden and Liam coming into town from Boston. With such great friends to celebrate with, it certainly looks to be the start of a great year.

Blizzard of '10

A typical DC winter has a few inches of snow a few times a season, but every once in a while DC is walloped by a massive blizzard. The first one I remember was the Blizzard of '79. We were living in Annandale, and Ken & Helen were visiting from Iowa when a storm brought two feet of snow to the area (18.7" officially at DCA, but the DCA total is always lower than the rest of the region since it is right on the Potomac). Dad and Ken built a snow tunnel system through the yard for me to play in, and cemented early on my love of snow. My senior year in high school brought the Blizzard of '93 (a.k.a the Storm of the Century), over a foot of snow in McLean along with wind and ice canceled school for a week, and sent me trekking through the snow combat cabin fever by being snowed in with friends. The Blizzard of '96 happened the first week of January while I was on winter break from college. This storm was a one two punch with two feet of snow falling in the first part of the storm followed by another foot a few days later. Once again, the snow sent all my friends out trudging across McLean to meet up with each other (although I think there was more beer involved this time around;-).

Since moving back to DC from Austin, we haven't seen much snow. We moved back a year too late for the Blizzard of '03, and we drove out to Iowa the day before the big storm this past December. We may have missed the snow before Christmas, but the conditions (El Nino, Greenland block, and a negative north Atlantic oscillation) were in place for a very snowy winter. Sure enough, the day after my birthday brought the beginnings of the Blizzard of '10, the one storm to rule them all, Snowpocalypse, Snowmaggedon. By any name this storm was a monster. The snow started Friday afternoon, and shut down the Federal Government. By late Friday afternoon there was already enough snow for Owen and I to build a snow fort in the front yard. Our neighbors Hunter & Joy had some friends over, and not to be outdone started building an igloo to compete with our snow fort. After Owen went to bed, it was five on one in the neighborly snow fort building competition, so we ended up collaborating on the forts. Using a kitchen trash can, we packed the wet snow into ice like bricks for building materials and built snow structures that should last until spring.

On Saturday, the snows continued to cover the forts, and we tried to keep up shoveling the sidewalks to provide a pathway for the kids on the block to get to each others' houses. The snow in our front yard piled up three or four feet deep as we kept shoveling, and provided the perfect spot for snow tunnels to expand the fort. Saturday night the snow finally stopped falling, and we measured 21" of heavy wet snow on our back deck here on Capitol Hill.

Sunday brought sunny skies and lots of time playing with friends in the snow forts. Owen loved playing outside in the snow, but at three years old, his endurance out in the cold is limited, so we had lots of indoor time as well, and the first signs of cabin fever were showing. Monday brought more of the same, our street still was not passable, we played more on our block. By Tuesday it was becoming clear that another major storm was on the way, so we took advantage of the calm before the second storm to walk over to Grandpa Fawcett's house and go out for lunch down by Eastern Market. It was great to get out of the house, but walking that far with Owen on my shoulders and Nora in Elaine's baby backpack was quite exhausting. When we got home, the next storm was already starting.

As I write this, we're in our sixth day essentially trapped in the house, over ten inches of snow has fallen from round two of the the Blizzard of '10, and we've broken the record for the snowiest winter set all the way back in 1898-99. The winds are gusting over 40 mph, and the view out the window is a complete white out. There is little prospect of getting anywhere by car for the next few days, and who knows when we'll go back to work. Gotta love it.

(click here to see all the Blizzard pictures)

Owen Dancing, Nora Laughing

One of the best things about having two kids is watching them interact with each other. Nora adores her big brother, and while most of the time Owen is too busy playing to take notice of his baby sister, occasionally he'll decide to do something incredibly sweet. When he does, Nora just eats it up. Thankfully it happens often enough that it wasn't too difficult to capture on video. Here's Nora cracking up watching her big brother dance for her.

Nora's First "Solid" Meal

Now that Nora is almost five months old, we've started her on solids. With Owen we waited until he had his first taste of Avacado, a food a bit more substantial than rice cereal and breast milk, before we wrote a blog post on his first solids, but we decided Nora's first taste of semi-solids warranted a post. She wasn't quite as excited as Hazel was for her first taste of rice cereal, but she took to it fairly well. Our little baby is growing up...

Rolling Over

On December 15th, Nora rolled over for the first time from her belly to her back. It happened at 11 am and was so unexpected that no footage was obtained at the time or even when she repeated the feat that night for father and brother. She then refused to do it again for over a month. The past few weeks it's made a return appearance, and on January 25th Nora even added the more difficult back to belly maneuver to her repertoire. Alas, Nora has abjectly refused to let us record it for posterity and lately has taken to waiting until we leave a room or turn our back to alter her poise. She's apparently the Snuffleupagus of the rolling over world.

But after a couple of intensive nights of filming we were finally able to capture the elusive Nora rolling from back to belly (we've given up on filming the belly to back thing entirely). It's not her finest work, there's a lot of teasing, and I find it maddening that once Allen took the camera away she was practically doing flips, but at least we finally have evidence to back up the baby book.

Every Little Boy's Dream

Owen woke up today to a digger, a dump truck, and a bulldozer outside his window digging a giant hole to work on a sewer pipe. Needless to say, it's been a good day (and thankfully the sewer pipe work hasn't seemed to affect our plumbing ;)

I Like to Ice Skate Ice Skate

We took Owen ice skating for the first time on Saturday, and he had an absolute blast. Just a couple falls, and he jumped up and brushed himself off each time. His favorite part though (and the cutest bit of the movie below) is when he started 'ice dancing' while singing, "I like to move it move it, I like to ice skate ice skate!"

Feels Unlike the First Time

We don't coddle our children. Sure we buy organic food, have a dvd player in the minivan and our toy to furniture ratio is somewhat askew, but dammit, when we decide it's time for our baby girl to start daycare we make her sit in a stroller in less than 30 degree weather for the 1.67 mile trek to the Department of Labor.

In our defense, both kids were pretty well insulated from the elements and Nora actually slept the entire walk in. She continued sleep even after I dropped Owen off and so Nora and I hung out in my office for another 45 minutes until she woke up. We headed down to Ms. Kita's room and settled her in just in time for a walk with her classmates (inside, because it was less than 32 degrees and DOL's daycare apparently does coddle our children). We nursed and played for a while, she slept, we nursed again, and then she joined me for a discussion of health insurance coverage of part-time workers before we grabbed her brother and headed home (she slept through that commute as well).

Nora took the whole day in stride, and while her sleep was a bit off (1.67 miles doesn't equal all that long of a nap), she seemed surprising chill about being separated from her mother for extended periods of time (if one considers an hour an extended period). I for the most part was too distracted by a backlog of queries to pine away too much. Really the most traumatic part of the day was returning home and realizing that I'd lost one of Nora's first shoes in the flurry to leave.

Owen's first day was definitely harder on both mother and child, though the fact that Allen was in Japan at the time might have been a confounding factor. Regardless, Nora and I are staying home for the next few days and regrouping before we venture back to DOL on Friday -- when the weather is predicted to be a balmy 50 degrees.