The Birthday Party That Wasn't

Last week was an insanely busy week. We spent a lot of it prepping for Micah's birthday party - buying supplies and decorations, planning and purchasing food for the menu, making the birthday cake, etc. We were expecting about 15-20 people for Micah's "playgroup" party, and then another 30-40 people for our Chanukah/birthday party. I purchased tuna fish and egg salad, we had over 20 lbs of potatoes for making potato latkes, and enough cake baked to feed an army! Our plan was to have cupcakes (decorated like Elmo) for the playgroup party. We baked about 3 dozen cupcakes for that. We also had a huge 2 layer cake for the "main event." My nieces were in town for a few days before the party, so we were a bit crazy all week. We took them to a few music classes and had a great time with them. Anyway, Saturday morning rolled around...and Micah woke up with a 102 degree fever. And a cough. The cough started to get worse as the day went along, so we decided to take him to the hospital. We were actually hoping that he had an ear infection - a couple doses of antibiotics and we thought things would be back on track!

Unfortunately, we learned Micah had a viral case of bronchitis, and would likely be contagious to children. When we came home from the hospital, we sent out a note and canceled the playgroup party. We then sent out a note to all of our other friends and family, letting them know that Micah had a virus and could possibly be contagious. On Sunday, Micah woke up fever-free, but still coughing. We decided to go ahead with the afternoon party, but naturally, nearly everyone declined to come. My parents, my brother, sister-in-law and my two nieces (who had already been around Micah while he was sick), my cousin and her two children, and one of my best friends were the only people in attendance. Despite the poor turnout, we still had a great time!

Here are some pictures and video from the event:

Micah also got SOOO many wonderful presents. My parents bought him a play gym - it has a slide, a ladder and a basketball hoop. Jen and Jeremy bought him an outfit, a dump truck, and a tool bench toy. My cousin Michelle brought him a mega blocks set, and Heather bought him some clothing, some books, and this adorable singing donkey (it sings "Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch"), and Ken and Erica dropped off a baseball toy, and Ellen gave him a singing Chanukah bear. My parents' friends Diane & Joey, Sheila & Les, and Suzette & Joel also sent him a wonderful storage bench before his birthday. We were so lucky to have such wonderful presents!

An announcement and some stories

A bottle of baby shampoo...$7

A can of formula...$25

A package of jumbo diapers...$43

The fact that there are 4 people in this photo....priceless:

It is with great pleasure that we are finally able to announce that we are expecting baby #2, due June 22, 2010. After a very rocky couple of months (we thought we lost the baby several different times), we had our 12 week nuchal tanslucency scan on December 8. After everything we went through, we were quite nervous about this visit. We got there and the tech started things up...and we were SOOO relieved when we heard there was still a heartbeat. As the ultrasound went on, the news got better and better. The baby was moving well, the neck measurements were perfect, all the parts were in place...hands, feet, arms, legs and nasal bone. Here are the two pictures of our beautiful little bean, (who we are calling Twoey), that we were able to take home.

Random Story Time

I adore Micah, but he is becoming quite a challenge to handle in so many ways. First, let's start with diapering. Diaper changing is really and truly an exercise in baby wrangling - Micah twists, turns, stands, flips, dances, squirms, crawls, and hollers. We hand him a toy - sometimes it appeases him and he'll play. Other times, he'll throw it on the floor and return to insanity. We've tried remote controls, books, digital thermometers, the blue nose squeegey - at different times, each of these "toys" enthralls him, but some days, nothing but freedom will do!

Now that we've covered diapering challenges, let's talk about eating. Micah does not like to drink much milk, and he refuses to take a sippy cup. He should still be drinking 20-24 ozs of formula a day, but I'm lucky most days if he drinks 10-14. In the morning, he likes to go play. In theory, that alone would be fine if he did a great job of eating. And some meals, Micah is a GREAT eater. He loves veggie burgers, hamburgers, turkey burgers, cheese sandwiches, pizza, cheerios and kidney beans. He also loves bananas and pears. Just about anything else, however, is a crap shoot. He appears to hate pasta, although he was willing to eat pesto-coated tortellini the other day. He will sometimes eat yogurt and cottage cheese, and he will sometimes let me feed him applesauce or oatmeal. Other times, he grabs the spoon and smears it in his hair while dumping the bowl on the floor. He will not eat white potatoes (can you imagine?), peas, green beans or carrots anymore. I can actually handle this newly found pickiness, but what is driving me crazy is his need to "share" the food with our dog! He drops at least half of everything he touches on the floor for her! And if we say "no," he smiles and tries to "sneak" and drop the food on the floor. I mean, seriously, is deviousness an instinct or a learned trait? The worst part is my dog is supposed to be on a grain-free diet because of her allergies. We finally had her skin doing better and her hair re-growing, and all this recent influx of waffles and Cheerios and bread and crackers has her skin back to being a mess again, her bald spot is back with a vengeance, and her nose irritation returned. How do you explain that to a 1 year old? I think I'm going to have to put MICAH on a grain-free diet for the sake of the dog!!

By the way - did you notice I said 1 year old? That is right - Monday is Micah's first birthday! We are having a party for him on Sunday (well, two). It is also Chanukah for us (the "festival of lights"), when we celebrate Judah and the Maccabees' (the Jewish makeshift "army") victory over the Syrian King, Antiochus, who tried to kill us. After our victory, Judah and the Maccabees sought to rededicate the Temple, and there was only a small amount of oil left to light the eternal flame. Once lit, the eternal flame should never be extinguished. The miracle is that the little tiny bit of oil managed to last for eight days. To commemorate the miracle, we light candles every night for 8 days. Each night, we add one more candle to the lighting, and on the last night, the entire menorah is lit - all 8 candles (plus the one we use to light the other candles - known as the shamas). Because Chanukah falls around Christmas time, in the US, Jews also celebrate Chanukah with gift-giving.

In honor of both Micah's birthday and the holiday, we are having a Chanukah party for Micah's birthday! At 12, his playgroup friends will join us, and we'll serve traditional Chanukah food (like latkes - potato pancakes). Micah will then take his afternoon nap, and around 3:30 or 4, we'll have some other friends and family join us for Chanukah party, take 2. We'll continue eating traditional food, playing Chanukah games, and we'll have Chanukah music playing. We'll light the candles, exchange gifts and watch Micah destroy a birthday cake. What could be more fun?

Thanksgiving....in three parts

****I apologize for being missing in action for so long - over 1 month! I've had a lot of blogs partially written, but due to computer problems, sickness, and a variety of other crazy things, I just haven't been able to post. I decided to "catch up" today, and I am backdating many of my posts (for accuracy) and I will let them publish over the next few days. I promise to stay on top of blogging again from here on out.*****

Part I....Visiting Della

Growing up, we were very close with the neighbors who lived around the corner from my parents. Their oldest daughter, Rayna, and my younger brother are the same age, and they were best friends growing up. She and her younger brother Stuart, were always like siblings to me, and Arleen and Lorin were a second set of parents. For Thanksgiving, Rayna and Stu were in town, and we brought Micah over for a visit and to meet Arleen's mother, whom we all fondly call Della. Della was in love with Micah - the hugged and generally just had fun together. We had a great little visit before heading out to our Thanksgiving plans.

Part II....The Farm

My cousins (Hank and Marlene - my Dad's first cousin and her husband) own a farm in Comus, Maryland, about 25 minutes north of where we live. It is a fairly large farm - about 88 acres, I believe. For the past 15 years (at least), they have been living in an apartment over the barn. Sounds crazy, right? It is actually a very nice apartment, and I'm always amazed how they manage to fit 40-60 people in there for holidays.

We've been going to celebrate Thanksgiving out at the farm for many years. We have not been out there very often in the past 3 or 4 years, however, and I think this is actually the first Thanksgiving Elliot has been to the farm. For the last few years of my grandmother's life, it was just too difficult to go out there. The apartment has about 30 steps to the front door. With 40-60 people in attendance, there is always a lot of noise and commotion, and usually more than a few runny noses. After one Thanksgiving, she caught a nasty case of pneumonia. That was the last time we all went out to the farm together. Last year, I was on bedrest at the end of my pregnancy, and we left town on Friday to head to New Jersey to attend my niece Stephanie's bat mitzvah (against doctor's orders), so we just had a quiet Thanksgiving in our "new" house (that turned out to be crazy, too - we were so unprepared to host a meal in our house)!

This year, we were thrilled to head back out to the farm! It was the first time my nieces had been there, and we were excited to have Micah spend time with his cousins and extended family. We arrived around 3:00 pm. After all these years, Hank and Marlene are finally building a "real" house, and we were able to take a tour. Their daughter, Lisa, gave us the grand tour, and we were really excited to see it. It should be ready in 2010, and hopefully next Thanksgiving, we'll be dining in the house!

We all started out milling around inside the apartment and catching up. Outside, there was a swing set and a jungle gym for the kids, and we were able to bring the kids to the field to see the animals. Micah got to pet a pony - he was a bit unsure, though. He could hear the dogs barking (they were in the barn to keep from being underfoot) and all he wanted to do was find the dogs.

The food was delicious. There were several different kinds of stuffing and sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes, and there was roasted turkey and fried turkey and duck and goose. There were different kinds of sauces and veggie dishes. For dessert, there were cookies and pies and cakes and fruit. It was an eating feast! After the meal, we lit a bonfire out front. The kids played on the equipment, we roasted marshmallows, and we talked to the horses. We left around 7:30 pm and headed home, but it really was a fun day, and we hope to go back again next year.

Part III: Friday night

On Friday morning, bright at early, we loaded up the car and hit the road. We went to New Jersey to spend Thanksgiving Part III with Elliot's family! In an effort to accommodate us, they graciously agreed to postpone Thanksgiving until Friday. Not surprisingly, we left a bit later than we had planned (Elliot never quite gets out the door on time). Micah was really good in the car, and fell asleep quickly.

A few hours into the trip, Micah woke up (as expected) and we stopped for lunch. He sat in a high chair, ate some pizza, and was truly wonderful. Until we had to get back into the car. Unfortunately, he had had enough car time, and he was fidgety and crying on and off the rest of the trip. We sang to him and played games, and eventually, we got him to fall back asleep for a little while, but he was awake and crying the last 1/2 hour of the trip. We finally arrived at my Steven and Jodi's house, and everyone was there waiting for us. Micah got to crawl all around and play, and he spent some quality time with his family. He sat with his Grandma Roberta and Poppy Ira, and he played with his cousins Ethan, Stephanie, Brian and Melissa, and he had a great time. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures - we accidentally left our camera at the farm and missed a great photo opportunity.

Elliot and I had done a lot of the cooking - we brought turkey, pumpkin pie, sweet potatoes, and a few other things. My sisters-in-law made meatloaf, broccoli, mashed potatoes, and a few other side dishes and desserts. Everyone got along really well, and we had a fun celebration. Thanksgiving turned out to be a fantastic holiday, and perhaps we'll try doing this again in the future.

Bedtime in NJ was a bit of a challenge. Micah was in unfamiliar territory, and he really didn't want to go to sleep. I ended up having to go in there and sit with him for over an hour to get him to sleep. He finally crashed, but he did not sleep all that well. He woke up around 5:30 in the morning, and it was a challenging day. Luckily, Micah's cousins wanted to spend some time with him, so Elliot and I got a bit of a break. Jodi was a huge help, too - I apparently was sound asleep during Micah's morning nap, and when he started crying, I didn't even move! She went upstairs, changed his diaper and brought him downstairs and gave him a bottle while I got some much-needed sleep. I can't even begin to tell you how thankful I was! My niece Stephanie was able to catch a few photos on her camera:

Micah started calling Brian "Bubba" (we were working on saying Brian, and we started to say Brian - Buh, Buh to get him to make the sound, and he eventually said Bubba! I think Brian will now forever be Bubba).

We hung around the rest of the day, and headed out to dinner at the Olive Garden. Micah loves their minestrone soup (not surprising, since he made me crave it by the bucketful while I was pregnant with him)! Micah ate a ton of soup and bread, and around 7:00 or so he started getting tired and cranky. We changed him into his pajamas, and put him to bed in the car. The ride home was relatively uneventful, and we were able to transfer Micah back into his crib and he slept through the night.

10 & 11 Month Photos and other stories

Before I get to the important stuff (the PICTURES), I thought I'd tell you how we finally came to have Micah's 10 and 11 month photos. Elliot took Micah for the 10 month photos last month, but due to our crazy schedule that day, he was not able to stick around and choose the photos and pick up the order. They were supposed to email us a link to the photos online, and I planned to order them and pick them up weeks ago. Naturally, the store has been having a glitch with their online system, so we never were able to access the photos online.

Yesterday, my day began at 3:oo am when Micah woke up shrieking. Yeah - teething sucks. Poor little guy is just miserable. I never really fell back to sleep after that, and we had to get up and out early because I had a 9:00 appointment and a packed day. We had an 11:00 appointment with the pediatrician for Micah to have his ears re-checked (all-clear!) and we also needed to ask the doctor a few other questions. Because of our tight schedule, we decided to bring Micah to my appointment because we knew he would want to nap at 10, and at home he only would have had a 15-20 minute nap before we needed to leave for the pediatrician. As predicted, Micah started to get sleepy around 10:00 (my appointment was wrapping up), so Elliot took him out to the car where he fell fast asleep. Because we put him down for his nap in the car, he was asleep for about 45 minutes. I think Micah absolutely would have slept another hour or so if his mommy and daddy did not torture him by waking him up to be poked by the doctor!

We asked the doctor about the ridge running down his head - specifically, I'm concerned that some of the bones in his skull may have fused too soon. The doctor did not think it was a huge problem because his head was not misshapen, but I'm still a bit concerned. I'm going to bring it up again with the other doctor at our one year appointment in a few weeks. (On a side note, I spoke to my friend whose daughter had this problem, and she is putting me in touch with her doctor to discuss my concerns and figure out what, if anything, we should do). The doctor also said that Micah has 4 teeth trying to break through on top!! I can't believe he is going to go from a toothless wonder to a baby with 6 teeth so fast! I hope the teething goes easier this time, but I'm not hopeful. We almost gave him the h1n1 vaccination today, but the last time he was vaccinated, he ran a pretty high fever, and we did not want him sick over Thanksgiving, so we decided to wait a bit longer. Hopefully, we aren't making a mistake. He hasn't been well enough to get the shot since the doctors got it in October.

After his doctor's appointment, we bundled him back to the car and headed off to Emily and Juliet's first birthday party!! The kids all played together in the basement playroom, the birthday girls made a huge mess out of cake, and a wonderful time was had by all! Unfortunately, Micah was a bit grumpy during the birthday party because he hadn't had much of a morning nap.

We left the birthday party at 2:15, and Micah fell asleep in the car on our way home. I dropped Elliot off at home around 2:30 so he could do some work, and I ran inside to go to the bathroom and grab my phone. I decided to head down to Tysons a bit early and let Micah nap in the car until our 4:00 pm photo appointment. We actually arrived at the mall around 3:00 pm. Micah was asleep in his car seat, so I just sat in the car with him for an hour while he slept. He was so exhausted that I am glad he was able to take a nice long nap. The pictures came out great, and I also picked up the 10 month photos we had done last month. I have to say, I had a particularly difficult time choosing. After the first pass at the photos, there were 20 photos I loved. I finally narrowed it down to 12, and ultimately only ordered 6, but I keep thinking about those other 6 I didn't order, and the other 8 I ruled out after the first pass. I think there were some amazing shots in there, but I just couldn't order them all. There were some of him climbing these stairs, and some GORGEOUS closeups of his face. The photographer printed some amazing photos (some in black and white and sepia) and showcased them in frames, and I really wanted to buy everything. I swear, I could have dropped thousands of dollars on those photos! Naturally, the entire process took a LONG time. We arrived for the photos at 4, but we did not get out of there until 6. Poor Micah - he was getting so cranky and hungry and restless after the first hour. I gave him a bottle and a snack and after that, he was kind of annoyed he was stuck in the stroller and out of food.

I was less than 10 miles from the house, and it took more than one hour to get home because the traffic was so awful. Micah was hungry and tired, and pretty much shrieked the entire way home. No real shock there. I knew that I was chancing things the way I had scheduled our day, but I just did not realize it would be that awful.

It was 7:00 pm before we finally got home and sat Micah down for dinner, and he was pretty cranky, extremely hungry, and in no mood to eat ANYTHING we put in front of him. He mostly mushed his food on his clothing and fed it to the dog. We eventually stumbled on some food he was willing to eat - kidney beans. Yes, that is right, kidney beans. Those are his FAVORITE beans. I think he could eat them every day. He likes them straight from the can, or picked out of minestrone soup. It doesn't really matter to him - he just likes his beans. We offered up black beans tonight - which met with the dreaded "ick" face, accompanied by the cringe and the tongue flipping out the food onto his chest (his "blech" move). I really hate that new little trick. He looks as if he will eat something...in it goes...chew...chew...blech...out it comes again! Once he decided the black beans were a no-go, he wouldn't try ANYTHING else on his tray. We had to empty it off and start all over again. We tried cottage cheese - no luck. I then grabbed a spoon and gave him some fruit sauce (I think it was a banana/strawberry mix). After the fruit, we tried kidney beans. VICTORY!! Micah did his happy dance and said "Mmmm" as he chewed his beans.

I have to say, I'm amazed Micah ended the evening absolutely adorable. He was running (well, crawling) 900 miles an hour in circles around the house, shrieking with laughter, chasing the dog, and just simply being a happy baby. He and the dog fought over toys, and Micah climbed into his toy basket to play. I swear I did not think he was ever going to run out of energy! He was intermittently coming over to me for a hug and kisses, to rest his head and suck his thumb, and then back off and running again. He is also standing more and more without holding on to anything, and yesterday he stood himself up from the floor (not holding on to any toys).

So, one last cute little story before I post the pictures - Micah was crying out around 5:00 am this morning (he woke up at 3:30 making noise, started screaming and needed comfort for 10 minutes at 4, and made a lot of noise for the next 2 hours). After this particular shriek, I heard him flip over and then I heard this clapping sound. Naturally, I turned on the video monitor to spy on him. He had moved to the other end of the crib, wrapped his left arm around his little doggy blanket with his thumb in his mouth. He had his other hand reaching out and patting his tush - that is right, he was trying to pat his own tush to put himself back to sleep! I need to hook the monitor up to a recording device to capture some of these moments.

Now, without any further adieu, here are Micah's 10 month photos:

And his 11 month photos: