Gavin, Ursa, Santa & the Elf

8wks old

Its ~9:30pm as I sit here and right this. I can't believe that 8wks ago, we were a mere 15 minutes from seeing each other face to face.

Today was the first time you took a bath with your dad. You had so much fun splashing in the water. I have to admit I was completely freaked out that dad would drop you, but he did an awesome job keeping you alive. :) Normally you scream your little head off as we lotion you up after a bath...but not . today. You were so happy after your big boy bath

I love you little man. Thank you for choosing us as your parents.

Love,
Mom

Smiling Tadpole

Tadpoles 1st Christmas Tree Experience

Yesterday we were driving home, arguing about whether or not to get a christmas tree. About 10 minutes from our house, we saw the tiniest "U-CUT $20" sign from the street, started laughing like crazy and turned around to check it out.
After a following a maze of tiny signs, we found the most ghetto tree farm in New England. Luckily we wanted a small tree this year (as the options were small or short and fat)
ps - my fav part may be the fact that the weirdos have hung laundry outside to dry in 20 degree weather.

I love you little man

I love the way you smile once your belly is full. I also love how mad you get once you realize you let a huge grin slip by.
I love the way you look like your daddy. You both share an identical hairline, long legs, hands and feet. You have the same olive coloring that made me fall in love with your daddy.
I love the energy you have. You refuse to nap during the day. You will catch a cat nap here and there, and you are always angry when you wake up. You don't want to miss one second of whats going on.
I love our conversations. You observe life, collect your thoughts, and then tell me all about it.
I love how snugly you are with me. You will lay on my belly, with your head on my chest and enjoy a back massage from mom.
I love your appetite. (You are an eater like your mom) I promise to provide a wide variety of healthy tasty foods for you to grow big, strong and smart like your daddy.
Thank you for picking me to be your mom. I love you!

3wk pics

3wk update

Misc milestones & updates
-Gav is going to bed ~8pm, wakes up between 2-3 to eat for an hour, and then sleeps until 6-7am
-the yucky cord fell off on day 10
-I have witnessed poo coming from Gav's bum during aa diaper change...eww!
-The worse part of the diaper changing process is putting the clean diaper back on - he LOVES being naked!
-Gavin sleeps on his side. We put him down on his back, and he rolls right over. This was a talent he showed on day 3.
-The boy LOVES to eat. He's attached to my chest ~90% of all waking hours
-He has slept in his big boy crib since his first day home
-He loves his fuzzy big sister ursa (and she is really protective of him on walks)
-One of his best gifts was a fisher price fishtank. He will lay and talk to his swimming fish before bed each night

He's here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Baby Gavin - born Thurs Oct 23rd - 9:46pm - 8lbs 5oz - 20.5in

10/10 & 10/17 Dr Appt updates

10/10 -> 30% effaced, 0cm dialated

10/17 -> 50% effaced, 0.5cm dialated

Delayed post - Wk 36/37 pics Tadpole & Mom (10/4)

Tadpole pics - 36wks
The Dr. thinks tadpole is ~7.1lbs right now, although the number could swing 1lb either way.
(Notice the enormous head)


Steve thinks it looks like our poor baby has a toupee and/or beret in this pic.



36wk belly shot


37 wk belly shots (technically its 36 wks and 6 days, but anyhoo)

Delayed post - Wk 34 pics (9/20)

Chelly took a couple of pics of my 34wk belly.

My christmas present fleece from last year - stretched to the max. (Thankfully it doesn't have buttons....otherwise someone might have lost an eye)

Baby Shower Fun

On Saturday 9/20, our family & friends were kind enough to throw us a huge baby shower. Our guests were so incredibly generous with gifts for tadpole. I want to thank everyone for their kind words (I didn't hear a single..."you are so freaking fat"). It was great to catch up with some of our friends that we have not seen since our wedding. Thank you again for sharing such a special day with us!

Here are a few pics from the shower. In case you couldn't guess, I am the fatso in the black dress. I know you are supposed to be nice to preg women....but someone should have told me that my dress looked like a mumu!!! Oye.

My husband - aka bartender

Shower guests

Crazy gift table

Ursa helping to unwrap gifts




Tadpole Cake (including an alligator!)


Steve and I want to specifically thank Sarah, Chelly, Amy, my mom, Steve's mom & Tina for all of their hardwork pulling this together. It was a day we will never forget. Thank you so much!!

Surprise Baby Shower by Men!?

Today I had the surprise of my life....the boys at worked managed to pull off a surprise baby shower for me. I am still completely blown away by it. (FYI - I work at an engineering company where the male population is around 90%) They ordered pizza and a cake, and even bought presents. (granted some of the presents were wrapped in Christmas paper) I wish I had pictures to share, but the boys forgot a camera.

Who knew that engineers were so thoughtful? I love my monkeys!

Note - this also makes up for the rude comments I've been getting the past week or so. Such little gems as "wow...you are huge" or "are you sure that there aren't 2 or 3 in there?" or "is your due date tomorrow?"

Happy Birthday Dad!

A few mortz action shots for his birthday:


His first new england snow w/ spook:

And my fav.....it looks like we know how to dance!!!! What a crock!

Happy birthday!!!

Love,

the red

Oh my....do you lift weights or work construction?

That is not something I expected to hear from an the nurse teaching our infant/child CPR class yesterday. And no, she was not addressing me...she was speaking to my husband. (Read on - I'll come back to this point)

At the nagging of my obgyn, I signed up for a couple of baby classes. Yesterday was our first, "Infant/Child CPR". We were a few minutes late to class (I forgot to account for the additional time waddling takes), but luckily there were 2 seats available in the last row. The 30-40 minutes of the class were spent going through slides written by a nurse/mother with 6 children all under the age of six (the last 3 of which were triplets). Needless to say, the was an angry undertone to the slides. We did learn a couple of good tips/reminders of things to do pre-tadpoles arrival. Speaking of which, have you heard of "icing your cell phone"? I was the only doofus in the class who didn't know (although I think Steve was lying). If you are in an accident, emergency workers will check your cell phone address book for the ICE contact (in case of emergency). I'll add it to my phone, but Steve is crap out of luck. His company cell phone forces him to use a password. I offered to buy him a dog tag with my number for him to wear on a necklace, but he said no.

Another strange/interesting tidbit: if you call 911 from your cell phone, the call is routed to the State's central calling center, and then routed back to the town you are in. According to the nurse, this could tack another 10-20 minutes onto the emergency response team. If you call from your house phone, it will automatically go directly to the town police/fire. Seeing as we do not own a home phone (or share the same last name...but that is an entirely separate post!), we need to add the local police/fire to our cell phone contacts. We did have an internet home phone for a while, and Steve was able to test the 911 response time (albeit by mistake). The police chief was at our house in less than a minute...small towns are good for something right?

Back to the class. After the slide presentation, we moved onto a series of horribly produced videos designed to scare us, and then train us on CPR. Then the class divided into 2 groups, and the "live practice" began. Our group consisted of crazy ER nurse and 2 other couples. We started with the dummy toddler, and worked our way around the group practicing. When we got to Steve, he placed his fist on the toddlers chest, wrapped his other hand around, and "WOOFT"....I honestly thought the head was going to blow off the doll, bounce off the ceiling, and land on me. What does the teacher do? She giggles like a highschool girl watching her football interest running sprints on the field. "Oh my...you are so strong!" He tries again "WOOft"...yes, it was a little lighter although not much (poor plastic dummy). Now the silver haired fox exclaims "oh my...do you lift weights or work construction for living? You are so strong!". I immediately start laughing, especially when he says in his deepest tone "I work in finance". The dummy gets passed to couple #3, the scrawny nerdy couple. The poor guy tries to get a good "WOOFT" from the dummy's windpipe, but no such luck.

We continue on to the infant dummy. We have reversed direction this time, so I get the infant dummy after Steve has blown out its air pouch. I have severe issues b/c I can't bend over to give the dummy a breath while its balanced on my leg (big belly in the way). I end up having to use the table for support, while the instructor ignores me and continues to comment on my husband's likeness to Hercules. After a few more tries, I was finally able to figure out how to save my plastic baby from choking. Hopefully my Hercules will be there when I need him. :)

Oh - a warning to everyone coming over once tadpole is born. My OCD husband has purchased a blowup baby and CPR dvd (on a suggestion from the silver haired fox). I believe he will be requiring everyone to take a lesson and practice on the creepy blowup baby. Have fun with that one.

Happy 27th Birthday Sarah!

Happy Birthday Aunt Sarah! We hope you get lots of presents (don't worry if they are wrapped in christmas paper...)

Love,

Ursa & Tadpole

New Fancy Camera

Thank you Aunt Amy & Uncle Dan for the new fancy camera! Now we'll be able to record all of the exciting dearkielo activities. (I probably should have said "I'll" not "we'll" b/c wojo is not allowed to touch the camera. He is the sole reason why we are on our 4th camera)

On day 1 of new camera, we learned that Ursa + Uncle Dan + New Camera = Fun times!

New camera is able to take regular pictures:

And new camera can also capture video! (Please ignore the weird "silent" laughing which actually turned out like creepy heavy breathing. Who knew that new camera would pick up every little freaking sound?)

Video #1: Ursa ignoring Dan

Video #2: Sandbox games

ps - why does it take so long to post a video on blogger? Good grief...who has time for this?

Carlito's Angels

Sleepytime

Tadpoles stylin' new crib --> Thanks Oma!

Sucka!!!!

I've given up alot of things for you....delicious soft cheeses, this years Beaujolais Nouveau, yummy seafood (fried calamari, steamed mussels), anything within 20ft of the deli. And I'm ok with this....I do it out of love.

HOWEVER....you need to get with the program kid....our family eats spicy food! Your dad has learned to adapt. When we first met, EVERYTHING he ate was bland. And now look at him...he'll order something spicy without a second thought.

Your heartburn game was working for a while. I was beginning to question whether or not it was worth it to eat spicy. The pain was incredible, and nothing seemed to work.

But guess what? I've just discovered the secret! As soon as I ate something with a kick, I immediately throw a wet blanket down the shoot (ie 3 tums). Have fun trying to start a fire with your wet matches SUCKA!!!!!

BTW - if you think mom is bad, wait until you meet your Aunt Sarah and Aunt Chelly. Aunt Sarah orders shrimp pasta and a bottle of tabasco (in the same breath) when she goes out to eat. When your Aunt Chelly goes for Sushi, she steals the wasabi from everyones plate in ADDITION to ordering 10 extra blobs for herself.

You can thank me later for the early training. :)

12 hours in the life of Ursa

~7pm: waiting for dinner



~9:30pm: stuffed after a yummy meal


~6:30am: waiting for opa to call


~7am: listening to opa ramble on the phone about cars


~7:15am: bored with opa... (notice the tail sticking straight up)