Ten Months Old Today.

We can hardly believe it.

As I type he is sitting by my feet alternating chomping my toes, trying to get to the outlet, and eating plastic things out of my garbage. Developmentally right on target.

Yesterday we got a large box of clothing from my mom, who is in the process of moving to a house with less (no) storage. Anyway, the box was filled with dozens of fabulous and amazing polyester items from my childhood. We grabbed the pieces that seem unisex enough, and the rest we'll offer to miss Shay, but I'm not so sure 70s poly is her style.





This is Julian clapping with excitement to see that Team Discovery will likely hold 2 podium positions for this year's Tour de France!

Actually, it was the first time we'd let him see the TV on, and I think he thought it was someone talking to him because he's accustomed to the i-chat.

Life wise, it's been a busy few weeks.

We went to another picnic for families with kids adopted from Guatemala. I totally fell for the cutest 4 year old twins (home about 6-9 months?) and their older sister who sing "Leaving on a Jet Plane" as their bedtime song. We were singing it and one of the twins stopped and corrected my lyrics. Toooo cute!



Emma (9), big sister to Manuel (5) who came home in December, was in Julian's constant attendance- see below. We are not so patiently waiting for her to be old enough to babysit, and hope her mom will allow us to be first in line.



Jon's last music class of the season with Julian was this week. I am hoping the insipid songs will get a rest until they start back up in September, but I'm not counting my chickens.

Jon and Julian both made some friends in the class and I think Jon's got an "in" on a play group.





Since the boy seems to like the guitar, I've been trying to play a bit more too. He loves it, but usually he'll grab the strings so I can't really play anything. That's probably ok because the only songs I know on the guitar I learned in college (read: csny, joni mitchell, etc etc) and drive my husband to hide under the couch.



The only other notable news is that we had an opportunity to stop by the adoption agency in Hillsboro (Journeys of the Heart) that facilitated Julian's adoption. It was so great to be able to introduce him to everyone there.


This is Susan and David, they own the agency. Not sure what David and Julian are looking at...





OK i know that's not Julian, but I thought Elwynn could use a shout out as we keep having to throw her outside since she is too "zen" to run away from Julian when he picks her up by her skin, tail, or ears. Ouch. Poor Elwynn.

Busy bees.

Time is flying.
Julian will be 10 months old on Saturday.
Unreal.
He is doing great, attaching more every day, and starting to show some stranger anxiety, which although stressful for all of us, is a very good sign!

So, I wanted to post some photos of our welcome gathering for Julian.
For the record, this party was intended to be small, and one of several showers, but it got bigger than we expected. As I mentioned in the last post, I inadvertently excluded some close friends from the evite (moral- never use your computer address book to make your party list), and since that time have realized that was the tip of the iceberg. I've come up with 3 or 4 others that didn't get invitations for a variety of computer related reasons. Sigh. I'm sure more will come up, but hopefully the self flagellation will come to an end soon, regardless.



bodhi and the hamilton boys climbing our bamboo


first watermelon!


eli and julian. they just met but kim and i decided they are going to be best friends (ok, at least on the same soccer team)


the yard was in full bloom


we had the ladies from the farmer's market down the street make organic chicken and veggie tamales. steph provided the gluten free chili and cinnamon brownies. mmmm, brownies.


a shout out to allison and brad, they got engaged this week!


tunnel of love.


the aftermath.

Here are my excuses for not blogging...

1. I went back to work
2. All of the final design decisions about my new office have to be done by this Friday
3. Jon was getting a bit fed up with how much computer time I was logging
4. The Tour de France started and we are addicts
5. Now that Julian is crawling so quickly, if I turn around for a second, he has somehow found yet one more thing to do that could cause permanent injury



6. No one is posting comments (hint hint...)

So, here goes....

Julian has an ear infection which we found incidentally at a check up. The MD suggested (I shit you not...) blue tansy essential oil for him to breathe, and cranio-sacral work by the chiropractor. Good enough! Since there are now studies showing that antibiotics before the first year is up significantly increases incidence of childhood asthma, I'm happy to skip them. He doesn't seem too uncomfortable with it and really, most ear infections will resolve on their own anyway.

Tooth #2 is poking through and the cute gumming my shoulder has now turned into the not so cute biting my shoulder. It is cute, however, when he laughs when I say "ow!" Dangerous precedent, I know, but I just can't help it.

Julian is pulling up and standing everywhere, cruising from object (or person) to object (or person.) He will use just about anything to pull himself up, including Jon's nose.



Steph came to visit for the weekend and it was so great to have her here and finally meet the little mister. It doesn't look like Jules really took to her at all though...



Peek-a-boo is the current favorite and we're loving it.













We've got twice a week music class and once a week swimming class. No danger of getting bored here, I tell you. I'll have Jon bring a camera to classes next week so we can post some snaps.

The next post will go up in the next few days and will be of our little welcome home party we had this weekend for local friends. It was lovely, but I very unfortunately forgot to invite one family who really, really should have been there. Hmmm...somehow I thought by posting that it would make me feel a little less horrid about the oversight, but alas, I'm apparently not going to get off that easily.

Our Portland Family

We had July 4th today at Greg and Ada and Bodhi's with the Alexanders, the Days, and Matt. It was hot hot hot out and we had a ball playing in the pool. Ada told me that all the mamas in Brazil put bandanas on the babies heads to keep the sun off so we tried it. How very very cute.





Everyone commented on how much more settled Julian seems. He was much more relaxed with the cacophony of the supercharged kids.





We fed him melon bits, which he loved. He even got a little nap in.



Julian did sprout a few hives, which could have been from the pool, the new breast milk he is getting, or something else entirely, I suppose. They were gone before bedtime, thank goodness.





Nala had a hard time relaxing...NOT.

I was watching everyone thinking how much we'd all grown up over the last 10 years since Kyle, Greg and Christian all lived together in the basement of the kung fu school- when I heard an uproar coming from the pool. All the daddies (minus jon, thank goodness) decided it would be fun to see who could do the best belly flop. Glad to see that at least we haven't gotten old and boring.





Kyle won.

Ouch!

That sure did hurt when Julian put my finger in his mouth and bit down...

BECAUSE HIS FIRST TOOTH IS POKING THROUGH HIS GUMS!!!

Just thought I'd let y'all know.

:)
-S

Big Weekend

As I mentioned, we had to clear out of the house for the weekend and we stayed with Pam, Kyle, and Shay. It was fabulous. I was actually nostalgic of the days of community living.

We played and laughed and it was a great break for us to be out of the house and away from the lists and organizing that seem to run our days. We'll be working on a way to leave this behind at home sometimes too (hmmm...sounds like shabbat?!)







The floors turned out ok, not great, but at least they're protected now from spills etc.

Saturday afternoon there was a picnic in SW Portland for families who have adopted from Guatemala. All of these kids are just so beautiful. We met one couple in particular that we really liked who have a 13 month old named Liliana. Jon and I actually met the dad on a plane ride from Guatemala City to Houston in January. He was kind enough to give up the middle seat and move to the window so we could sit together. Sweetest little girl gave Julian a giant hug as we were leaving.


Woo Hoo, a picnic!


Julian loved being at the center of the crowd...for a little while anyway.


Liliana and Julian.


Liliana and her mommy.


Julian's first time on the slide. He liked it.

All is well.

No new news other than we're heading to Ky, Pam, and Shay's house for a few days while Eddie the floor guy comes to refinish our cork floors (long story, but it's our fault...please don't ask.)

Hopefully Julian will enjoy the change of scenery. Tilly will not be pleased, I'm sure, to have a baby yanking on her again, although she is the sweetest and most easy going dog so she puts up with it. I'll post some pics when we get home.

Elwynn the cat pictured below, is not quite as easy going. She wants to be where the baby is, but she seems forget every time that attention = having her tail and ears pulled. Then she gets mad. We're on high alert keeping an eye on them when they're together.



Oh, today is our 3rd anniversary. We celebrated by moving all of the furniture out of the addition, and by eating several things chocolate. We may even clean the kitchen after the baby's asleep.


Reading books before bed.


Truckin'

I'll post again after the weekend.