Weekend of fun and bumps!

Well we certainly had an eventful weekend!  We had a lot of fun and a lot of bumps along the way.

It all started on Thursday evening when we went for a walk in the evening and met some neighbors with two little boys Leo's age!  He was playing with them and loving it, then he tripped on pavements and went hear-first into their plastic play house.  He got a superhero bandaid from our new friends, so he was content with that.  The little boy who is 2 wanted a matching bandaid so they each had one on their foreheads.  A budding bromance.

You can see the welt here on his forehead:

On Saturday morning we went to the zoo!  It was really hot but we had a great time.  It was super busy though, so we did a lot of stroller jockying (Brad did, I held hands - teamwoooork!)

Leo sized up against the baby elephant:

 We looked at fish and did A LOT of staring at Dad:

Later that afternoon, we went to our friend Brynn's 1st birthday party!  Brynn's mom is a friend of mine from high school who I reconnected with recently.  Brynn and Gavi are both in the baby room at the JCC, and Leo looooves Brynn - every morning he looks for her in the baby room and she gets a huge smile on her face and crawls over to say hi.  It's so cute.

At the party, Leo and his friend Emmett played outside with balls, ate watermelon and cupcakes, and took a break from the heat inside and were playing with Sesame Street toys.  Look at those pink cheeks:

While we were playing outside, Leo was standing on a folding chair shooting a basketball.  He did it like 10 times and was totally fine, but then he lost his balance and fell from the chair onto the concrete and his face hit the ground first.  He was screaming and I scooped him up and ran into the house with blood dripping down his face and from his mouth.  The poor thing has (luckily pretty shallow) but very painful open scrapes on his nose, his mustache area (???) and his upper lip.  Thank goodness he didn't chip any teeth!  I think it scared him, it scared me, we probably scared other party-goers, and I know it hurt him.  Finally he calmed down when the birthday girl's mom gave him a baby sippy cup (he didn't want his water bottle) and a little toy and he was sitting on my lap.  Poor thing, I feel so bad!  Major major mom fail.

The next day, we went to the mall to run some errands and I was (am) still feeling really badly about Leo's big fall.  So we went to the Disney store and Leo got to pick out a new friend!  He picked out Goofy, and we got a Minnie for Gavi!  He was so excited at the store - he kept seeing something he liked, would yell out of excitement, run over to see it, and then see something else exciting, and the cycle continued:

In the afternoon, we hung out at home and Gavi inspected Brad's ears:

Bibi and Zee came over to play and they had chicken flights with the kids:

Then Leo took yet another spill.  He was roughhousing and hit his cheek and eye on the corner of the brand new table that Brad and I made (humble brag).  Luckily we had softened the corners a little bit but it still made two dents on the poor little guy's face.  And it's all on the same side of his face.  We have always had a table here so it's not like it was a huge new thing in the room, it was just bad luck.  We tried to put ice on it so it didn't bruise but he didn't want it, so more hugs and snuggles were in order.

Here, Mickey meets his new friends:

And here is a video last night, showing just a one minute glimpse into our lives.  Actually it's 55 seconds but you can tell what happened at the end of the video.  I was trying to nurse Gavi and Leo kept giving her kisses and she kept craning to see him which made him give her another kiss which made her crane to see him, and, well, this is what it's like nonstop at our house:

And here we come to this morning, in all of Leo's beaten glory.  He doesn't look worse for the wear, does he?  That's a total of three semi-major injuries in a matter of 4 days.  Hopefully we can take this week to recover (and he doesn't pick at the scabs when they form) so he's back in working order by the time we go to the beach this weekend. 

 

Playing Hookie

Last weekend, all four of us were sick for various reasons.  Runny noses (Gavi, Stacey, Brad), sore throat (Leo, Stacey), cough (Leo), etc.  On Tuesday, we woke up to Leo just coughing and coughing.  The poor thing - he had a sore throat and he was all phlegmy and so miserable.  

At I was getting Leo out of bed and seeing how he was feeling, Gavi needed to eat...NOW!  So we went into the bathroom at 6:30am to steam Leo out.  While Gavi nursed.  While I called Dr. Zee to see what he thought (thanks for taking my call so early!)  It was early morning chaos.  We decided it was best to keep Leo home from school since he wasn't feeling well, to rest, and to hopefully not get his friends at camp sick.

Leo then hung out in my room and watched a movie (Frozen, obviously), while I got Gavi ready for school.  We brought her to school, Leo helped drop off her milk as he always does, and we went back home for Leo to relax.

He watched some TV (he likes to say "Alexa!  Play Coco!" and she does!  He can turn on a movie by himself!  Scary, right?)

He ate some oatmeal (with chocolate chips, obvi) to help his throat.  Yes, he was shirtless because since he was sucking his thumb with Teddy (see picture above), he had a huuuge drool spot on his shirt.

We watched the garbage truck go by:

We picked cherry tomatoes:

Dr. Zee came over to check Leo out, and Leo also checked out Dr. Zee.  He said Leo's lungs sounded all clear (wuhoo!), and Leo's spirits were slowly picking up. This was around 11:30am, and he was pretty much back to his normal self:

Leo took a nap, then he played with stickers:

We went for a long walk to run some errands and to...

See some diggers!  We drive by this construction site every morning and he craaaaanes his neck (no pun intended) to try and catch a glimpse of any construction equipment.  We decided to go see them in person.  Unfortunately it was all sleeping by the time we got there, but we were able to get up close and personal with a Road Roller and a little digger.  It was so exciting!  And yes, he carried this pear for our entire hour+ walk, and only started nibbling it when we were almost home:

And finally, Leo was babbling on and on, and I realized he was saying "goodnight" to all of the construction equipment.  I tried to have him say it again so I could catch it on video and it kind of worked:

So Leo is mostly feeling better, most of the noses are nearly clear in our house, and Leo had a nice day staying home "sick" from school.

Gavi is 6 months old!

Gavi is 6 months old!!!  I absolutely can't believe it.  Here is our big girl:

And with proud big brother:

And what Brad's the most excited for, Gavi ate her first food!!!  Sweet potatoes:

Check out the video of Gavi having her first food!  It went...okay...

She has gotten much less tongue-thrusty in the last week or so and is actually enjoying the food more now and has gotten upset when she's sitting in her chair and we're not feeding her.  By now she has tried sweet potatoes, avocado, a cheerio, and rice cereal.

Overall her first food experience was a success!

Before school one day this week I took this sweet picture of Gavi:

Then I hear "Mommy, look at me!" and I took this adorable picture of Leo.  It wasn't until I sent them to Brad that I realized Leo was doing exactly what Gavi was doing.  I guess he thought "hey, if Mommy thinks it's cute when she does it, she'll think it's cute when I do it!"  And he was right

Crazy Hat Day at school calls for a Wisconsin hat!"

And of course, Gavi had her 6 month doctor's appointment.  She was really sleepy so she was pretty melancholy the whole appointment:

Waiting for the doctor:

She did great!  She got 3 shots and one oral syrup.  She weighs 15.5lbs which is in the 30th percentile for her age and the 70th height percentile.  She's right on track!

Leo enjoyed breakfast this week while I was getting everything ready - look what he did with his orange slices.  Yep, he's Brad's.

Look at these cutie petuties:

When Leo says "not Mommy gets in the picture", I listen to him and get in the picture:

Bonus video: Brad kissing Gavi and getting some serious smiles and giggles:

A Very Pittsburgh Day

Last Saturday, we had a very Pittsburgh weekend indeed!  We went to family/beginner yoga at PPG Paints Arena, and we got to meet Iceberg, the Penguins' mascot!  

Iceberg felt very comfortable holding Gavi, and Brad felt very comfortable handing her off.  Brad, when a giant penguin offers to hold our baby, please pause for at lest a split second to consider if it's a good idea.  

But it was, and Gavi was totally cool!  Leo, on the other hand, had some hesitations.  He didn't want to say hi or give a high-5 or hug, which is totally fine. 

But then, during yoga when we were supposed to be getting our ommm on, he kept asking where Iceberg was.  So after yoga we went back to the lobby to see Iceberg and he kept shying away from him.  He wanted to watch the penguin safely from across the room, behind my legs, peeking out.  You know what, that's fine.  The concept of a penguin that's like 20 times your size - that's weird.

We then wanted to get donuts so we headed to the BEST donut place in Pittsburgh, Party Cake Shop, in Brookline which I hadn't been to before.  We each picked out a treat and then we went to PitaLand where Leo was such a great helper, they gave him a pita all for himself!

Brad was out running errands so I had these two stinkers at home and they both decided to take very short naps.  Here I put Leo in Gavi's crib.  Do you think they're enjoying it?

We played in Leo's room with squishy toys (Gavi) and huge blocks (Leo).

Leo told me he was going to bring be a surprise and said "one second" and held up a finger and nodded.  This is something he clearly picked up.  Turns out both Brad and I say it - kind of often - and now Leo does too.  First he came back and brought my medicine and vitamins from my drawer (with child-proof caps on).  Then he said he was getting me another surprise and this one was my Vaseline that Leo and I use as chapstick and a flashlight which he likes to shine in eyes.  We need to work on his gift-giving abilities.  I give him much better surprises than he gives me.

That night, we went to the Pirates baseball game!  Our friend Josh had extra tickets for a suite and we jumped at the opportunity.  Thank goodness for the suite because it was 90+ degrees and swampy as anything.  We had the doors open to the suite so it was even really hot inside. 

Josh gave Leo a Pirates shirt which was SO big but he really wanted to wear it - it was literally down to his ankles and he loved it despite the heat. 

Brad was really excited to present Leo with his very first ice cream in a baseball hat!  He had sprinkles, he had crushed cookies, he had pretzels - this was some goooood ice cream. 

Leo saw the Pirate Parrot waaaay across the stadium, then proceeded to spent the rest of the game running between inside where he would grab one french fry with dip, and standing outside looking with Diana for the Parrot.  I don't think they saw him again because imagine just how hot it was inside that parrot suit!

Our first family of 4 outing to a Pirates game!

Pittsburgh's newest Pirates fan:

What do we think, Stamms, is this okay if he's a Pittsburgh fan, not a Buffalo fan?  If it makes you feel any better, he now randomly erupts with "WE ARE!"  and Brad responds with "PENN STATE!" sooooo yeeeahhhhh...