Uncle Nick's graduation and a 37-weeker's lament

Happy times in the 'Hood.

Thanks to Lee for the sweet picture.

We've had a really nice run of weather in the last couple weeks: not too hot for a pregnant sleeper but sunny days for playing.  The air conditioning at work is pretty nice too...

We've rented our house out for 4 different weekends through AirBNB and have, each time, taken short siestas with family.  Last weekend we went out to Aurora and got our gardening on. 

And our outdoor pooping. 

It's Montessori break week so we're doing blitz potty training.

Going great. 

No pants piano duets with Grandpa Rick.

He's wearing pants.

No pants World Cup with Uncle Nick (and Mary).

We're all wearing pants. 

Or ARE WE??

We got a couple bonus days with Ainsley (on a berry-picking excursion here) and Eliza before Alex and Schuyler got to town for Nick's graduation (!).

The whole gang went out for a celebratory dinner at Taughannock Farms Inn.

She cleans up real nice, eh?

She's smiling because it's so frickin' funny to bellow repeatedly, "It's YELLOOOWWW!" and hold a yellow crayon.

Restaurants are fun.

Luckily Eliza took her outside to get some ya-yas out and run around before we were asked to leave.

All dudded up for the ceremony.

Nick and his Three Nieces.

Proud IHS grads, classes of '96, '15, and '89.

I love these good men.

Whoopee!!

This weekend we had our final pre-baby renters and went out to Aurora again, this time to an empty house since they were away for a wedding.  Last night Fiona spontaneously broke into spinning dance moves when some jazz piano came on the radio.  

Here she's exhibiting classic Bogel coordination (Alex and I were just appreciating how well we've done athletically over the years despite our klutziness) and then an EXCELLENT recognition of the need to poop.  Yay for age 2!

Mary's doing quite well with potty training as well though doesn't seem interested in digital photography instruction.  

Whining Post-Script in Pursuit of Honesty:

Today marks 37 weeks of pregnancy and, though I am deeply grateful for these children --more than for perhaps anything else in life besides finding Elliott-- I can almost no longer stand it.  My body and soul and I have high thresholds for discomfort and we take near-masochistic pleasure in tasks of endurance but we are all worn out.  The week I stopped puking (week 27) I started getting back pain and it's gotten so much worse over the past month!  Elliott is doing all the bedtimes because I can't sit and read Mr. Chicken Goes to Paris with her on my lap without shooting nerve pain from my sacrum; I take lavender baths in the middle of most nights; I curse and stretch and move my six pillows and sometimes eventually "sleep" in the guest room to let Elliott sleep a little (I try to give him every third night so one of us stays sane); I call into work more than ever in my life; I've tried acupuncture, physical therapy, chiropractic, massage, yoga...   Gaaahhh!  

Bring on the nights of not sleeping because I'm nursing and snuggling!  

OK, we're really close now.  

Tubby Tony is still breech and our scheduled date for a C-section (assuming he doesn't rotate) is on Monday, July 13th.  For now I'm aiming for potholes and hoping to break my water to move that date up.  Please send locations of local trampolines and road construction.

Cozy towels, nudie dances, and outdoor Ithaca loveliness.

After tubbies she chants, "Wap up cozy, cozy, cozy!" and wiggles with delight.  

This has only been heightened by the addition of towels with animal heads from the cousins.

Nudie dance!

She's got a thing for hats and dirt.

"I'm a mountain climber."

Oh, we had the nicest time swimming at Treman yesterday!

I love the smell of the waterfall and the feel of sand and rock on my feet and it feels so special that my daughter gets to have these same sensations growing up.
We had a great time splashing and making drip castles and splashing more and stomping and watching big kids.

It may have been even more fun to apply "sun cweam" to her parents.  All parts of her parents.  

Even the cweavage. 

The Wonderful Grubbiness of Two

Some Philly Throwback, thanks to Uncle Aran.

 Ithaca Festival Parade!  

Emma and Elliott were flirting.

(Thanks to Kerry and Karen for pics.)

 Fiona needed a little comforting after being retrieved for the 18th time from running with the mile dash racers in the street while yelling, "I wanna wun!".  

Next year, kiddo!

Audrey, Saia, and Uncle Nick cuddled up.

Yes Fiona's drinking vegan bug repellant.  

Please note Kerry on the right. 

I didn't know we were making faces.

The next day was fun except when I rammed by false tooth into Saia's head necessitating an emergency trip to Oasis for organic frozen berries.  All is well.

It stormed and poured briefly that day so we took our ice cream to the waiting room of my downtown office.  These Mizrahi girls waited patiently for their non-dairy treats to arrive while our daughter gorged, with absence seizure eyes, on cream and sugar.  

Well... MOSTLY patiently.

Happy grub.

She also dabbles in other, slightly more complex carbs like "long bread".

Fiona got running down our steep driveway and tumbled head over heels onto a rock pile.  Awesome.  Most of the recovery popsicle she ate but some she applied directly to her scrapes, intuiting, no doubt, the antibacterial properties of blueberries, home-made maple syrup, and yogurt.  We're gonna market it.

Costume BONANZA!!  

Ainsley and Eliza sent a HUGE collection of toys and clothes and costumes and Fiona wanted to use them all at once.

Yesterday we crashed the birthday party of a friend of friends and hung out at Stewart Park.

Greatly overestimating the lakeside temperature, I resorted to sticking underwear on Fiona's head for warmth.  She insisted on wearing it for the next 4 hours.

The only sad moments in this blissful Saturday were prompted by dismounting the carousel.  

"I want to wide the hoses!"

Holding on tight to the pole.  

Undies go up and down!

She was very brave and "good scared".

Such a fun group.

Back home (in undies) for some watermelon and neighbor time in the street. 

 And a little tolerating-pregnant-mom time on the couch.  Isn't this fun, Fiona??

"Let's go outside, Mommy."

Gratuitous playground pic.

Surveying the neighborhood.

Feeding the baby brother "bweast miwk" via my (shrinking) navel. 

She's gonna be one heck of a helper. 

Pretty much everything is exciting when you're two.

Sometimes you just need to lie down and process for a while.

Since I'm trying not to pick her up much for my back I just lay on the driveway for half an hour this morning, talking about leaves and grasses (thanks, Mom, for the grasses that we just stole from your garden), and bugs, and neighbors, and carousels.  Eventually Elliott lured her up the driveway with promises of watering the new implants (behind her below) and she got wet, watermelon sticky, and jumped in the sandbox, offering me some sand tea and Elliott some "tasty, sweet beer".  Yum!

Pop got the ol' Vespa going and started training his grubby copilot.

Captain Bubble Beard will rise again tonight, nice and clean.