It's Gonna Be a...

I've been waiting to write this until now so as not to jinx anything. Because there is nothing like pregnancy to make a person superstitious. It's on a par with baseball in this regard, no joke.

Deep breath....I've decided it's ok now.

I'm pregnant, and we're gonna have a girl!!!

The ultra-sound tech had a velvety Russian accent and called me momma. "Scoot leettle closer to me, mom-ma." Then, a few minutes into the scan she said, "So, you say you have leettle boy?" And I said, "Yes." And she said, "Well...thees looks like Preencess!"

We were crossing the Gowanus canal when J told me that he could really start to imagine the shape our family was going to take. I dreamily said "Yeah...", but on second thought wanted to know what he actually meant. He said (seriously), "With lots of yammering in different pitches." That really cracked me up.

look out world!

Wedding Guests

My friend Marissa married her honey Aaron yesterday at lovely Fishkill Farms in upstate NY.

Photo by James Muccio, who said, "Those two sitting there was the cutest thing I ever saw."

Our going to this wedding was not without silliness and excitement. I thought it was to be on Saturday, so we showed up, all dressed up, a little late, and no one was there! I called the soon to be beautiful bride and she answered her phone (bad sign!), and said, "No sweetie!, It's tomorrow!"

So we got to have a whole weekend in the country, complete with picnicking, touring the Vanderbilt mansion, going to Walmart for the very first time (to buy picnic blanket), and watching the Olympics from an air-conditioned hotel room. Not so bad!

Seattle Stories: Golden Gardens' Beautiful Skies

Isaac, Omi, Jeremy

It was a very Seattle day at the beach with a shovel, and a rake, and a bucket.

And lots of fish and chips afterward, of course!

Seattle Stories: Farmer Isaac

ooommmmm

The combo of sitting on grandude's lap, feeling the roar of the diesel engine, and watching the the bucket go up and down, brought Isaac as close to meditation as I have witnessed so far.

No smiling, no talking, just knitted eyebrows and pure focus.

"Happy Mother's Day!", from Isaac

He first said it sitting in his stroller with a big open smile and legs kicking. I was so darn happy that I clapped and whooped, inspiring him to say it about 5 more times.

This video is from a bit later, when I think he wanted to put on slippers more than to perform for my smarty-phone, but I couldn't resist, I wanted to hear it again, and again and again!

Dreamy Windowsill

When childproofing looks good!

How did he learn to say that!?

Isaac just said his first serious, long-ish, sentence!

"Cat knocked over modem - big crash!"

We were stuck in traffic and he was saying "Cat knocked over!" over and over again. I really wanted to hear a noun at the end of the sentence, and Jeremy had told me earlier that it was the modem the cat knocked over. So I told Isaac, easy as that! No way Isaac knows what a modem is.

Big crash!

This language learning phase is really somethin' else. I'm so tickled by it!

This morning I gave Isaac a strawberry, and he happily asked for more Seba-da-yee.  And then more Seba-da-yee, until I had to stop myself from asking him back, "You want another sabadayee?"

I did a small bit of online research into how babies learn to talk and found some good stuff.

In the Huffington Post, there's an article about a new study which suggests that young babies learn language from lip reading as much as hearing sounds - I had no clue!

And in Parenting magazine, a basic overview of how it happens and how they study it. There is info on when language learning starts when its starts (in the womb!) and how fast they learn (very very fast!), and what we can do as parents to help (play!, read!)

Language learning with Grandpa

I remember before we had Isaac and I was nervous and worried about how to be good parents, Jeremy said that all we had to do was feed, and clothe him, love him, and read to him. I liked it laid out simple like that.

Lovely Korean Cloth Diapers

A baby preparation landscape

My step brother and his wife are going to have a baby soon (yipee!!). His wife's momma sent her 3 different kinds of cloth diapers from Korea. Some of them are really different than the American variety. They are much thinner and bigger and you fold them many times.

When we first had Isaac her mom sent me a bunch too. We didn't actually use them as diapers because they made such good swaddling blankets for a little one in need of swaddling; The fabric sort of sticks to itself.

We layered them on top of Isaac as little blankets too. I remember Jeremy really getting into the layering. Along with little white cheesecloth like blankets my mom gave us, Jeremy would pile up 5 or 6. It was pretty funny. But it was nice to have choices in thickness.

Mighty Mountain of Pancakes

We went to my step brother's house on Sunday and he made pancakes.
I love pancakes so much, and these were way better than any I've made. He said the recipe was pretty normal except for the wacky addition of making your own buttermilk by adding vinegar to regular milk.
Very DIY!

The recipe is from Allrecipes.com, and it goes a little like this (I only changed it to take out spray oil for the pan. He used, and I definitely prefer straight up butter!):

Fluffy Pancakes

• 3/4 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons white vinegar
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• butter for the pan

Directions

1. Combine milk with vinegar in a medium bowl and set aside for 5 minutes to "sour".
2. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Whisk egg and butter into "soured" milk. Pour the flour mixture into the wet ingredients and whisk until lumps are gone.
3. Heat a large skillet over medium heat, and melt more butter. Pour 1/4 cupfuls of batter onto the skillet, and cook until bubbles appear on the surface. Flip with a spatula, and cook until browned on the other side.

Isaac receives a visitor from Japan

Isaac's Auntie Kyoko has arrived!

She has proclaimed him "sooo cute!" many times, with her enthusiasm for the little guy bringing on big smiles from all of us.

Isaac has been showing off for her an impressive usage of the Japanese language: rousing games of "inai, inai....bah!" ("peek-a-boo!"), as well as, "naanii!?"("whaa-aat!?"), and "naii-no!" ("it's here...isn't it??")

Kyoko and Isaac discuss how to break inside a chain link fence.

We had a lovely Christmas Day at The Brooklyn Bridge park, where Isaac got to look at trains and planes, and got to ride on the carousel, twice!

Surveying the surroundings after the eventful, double-ride.

Like Daddy, Like Baby

Brown corduroy pants and black puffy coats are a style statement of cool, whether the man is 38 years or 1 year, as exemplified by this father-son combo.

Matchy-matchy!

This photo was taken after Isaac had walked off with a small cowboy stride, all the way to the chain-link fence, a whole two basketball courts away!

Dying and Living

Jeremy just called because Apple Computer's mega-wizard Steve Jobs died. He needs to stay late to report about it. 

My aunt died in December, a little while after she told me that Isaac looked like Alfred Hitchcock.
Grandma Nina died 2 weeks ago.
Jeremy's great aunt died too, before Grandma Nina, but nobody told Grandma Nina because they didn't want to upset her.
My step-brother's grandfather died one month ago.

I keep thinking about how when a person dies, they take nothing with them.
My aunt left her piles of papers behind in her kitchen, high heels in her bedroom closet, a tuxedo cat, her full Bottega Veneta purse.
What did we do with the purse?

Meanwhile, Isaac is living like crazy. Soaking up and sputtering out, zooming and clapping. Here's a video of his latest playground trick:

Goodbye Grandma Nina

I feel a little funny calling her Grandma Nina because she was Jeremy's grandmother. But she was the kind of Grandma so full of love and blessings and worries about whether or not you are dressed warmly enough, that it seemed there was enough to go around, so I got to call her Grandma Nina too.

She died last night.

Jeremy says there is now a huge hole where she once stood as a rock. She was the center of gravity for his family. We tried to visit her every weekend, if that gives you any idea of how much she was loved.

I remember her stroking my pregnant belly and telling Isaac that he had very dopey parents because we had visited her so late (8:30pm) at night. She said we were dopey dopes, but that he would be very smart.

Her yiddish flowed onto small Isaac, "Shayna punim. Tattela. Shayna kinda. Zeezun kinder."
And then to us, and anyone else in the room, "I love him! I love him. I love him!"

Grandma Nina, 94 and Isaac, 7 days

We love you too! We love you too!

Glasses Thief

Spotted and photographed in Fort Greene Park, Isaac B. shows no remorse in taking his Grandpa's *glasses.

Got 'em! Now just try to take them away from me!

Or his harmonica.

I'm good at this!

We have still yet to discover a motive for the crimes other than "well, that's just what babies do."


*Speaking of glasses, Jeremy found this cool online store that Isaac would just love.  Its called Warby Parker.  Their shtick is that they send you a box of 5 pairs of eyeglasses that you pick from their website, so you can try them on before you decide.  Or your baby can steal all of them, as long as they give them back within 5 days.  How exciting!

Father's Day, One Week Early

I'm so confused!
First I thought it was last Sunday and I was wrong. Then I thought it was today, and I was wrong again!
Arghh. I gave this papa his present anyway. Couldn't wait!

On the card are two green dinosaurs. The big one is Jeremy, the little one is Isaac.

I learned I was wrong in a sort of embarrassing way:  At a cafe this morning, buying bread for my baby-daddy's French toast, I called out enthusiastically, "Happy Father's Day!" to a daddy whose little boy was sitting on the counter eating something sticky.  Both Daddy and kiddie looked at me like I was nuts and said, "Isn't it next weekend?"
Oops!

Isaac takes on the Newsroom!

Isaac visited his papa's workplace for the very first time yesterday and created quite a stir!

I've got a lot to do here.

He worked very hard,

You need something?

keeping a keen eye on CNBC for breaking news,

Ok, I'm on it.

 and coming up with some very catchy headlines:

Stocks Down, Send in a Clown!

Our visit's end found our intrepid little hack somewhat tired, but still very photogenic!

Yes, that was me at the controls.

If you notice the birdcage painting in the background, it is my copycat version of Kiki Smith's birdcages from the Brooklyn Art Museum.  You can't quite see, but in mine the little birdie is wearing a reporter's homburg hat.

Here's a close-up:

Here is Kiki Smith's original:

We all like them a lot.

.

beachdaddy and child

There is just something about this picture that I love, love, love.  I most certainly love the 2 peeps in the picture, but its the triangular-ness of their persons that gets to me, and the look on the little guy's face that makes me feel so content, though I'm not totally sure he was.

my momma

I just spent way too long looking for a photograph of my mom and me.
She's wearing sunglasses in the photo, with a canvas channel 13 bag curved over her long shoulder.  We were visiting the Statue of Liberty, so she's got little black Olympus camera cupped in one hand while looking into the distance, looking very beautiful and tough.  In a Jennifer Beals sort of way.
I'm up front and center in two braids, big glasses, and my Washington "deecee" overalls, looking squinty (no sunglasses).

Sadly, I can't find it anywhere(!) so please imagine it, and  instead, look at this picture, from around the same time.  She didn't usually wear deely boppers in the kitchen, but I think it suited her goofy side quite nicely.
Here are some memories of my mom from when I was a kid:

1.  Strong, smooth, warm, brown hands with veins bobbing all about on the surface.
2.  Big sunglasses, big regular glasses too!
3. The softest, silkiest, curly hair ever.  I used to want my friends to stick their hands in it, to everyone's embarrassment, and to my pleasure.
4. Her key chain, a little brass pulley, worn smooth and soft.
5. Blintzes with blueberry sauce, homemade applesauce, big pasta shells stuffed with cheese in tomato sauce, warm raisin scones snuggled into a cloth napkin, sour cream coffee cake, and cookies, lots and lots and lots of cookies.
6. Delicate porcelain boxes (made by her) with mysteriously fitting lids.
7. A majorly green thumb resulting in bags upon bags upon bags of zucchini.
8. Love.  Such an incredible amount of love, I swam in a whole mountain lake of it.

Happy Mother's Day Momma!