More July 2010

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A moving target

This past week we have had to baby proof the house. Oscar is getting more and more apt at his caterpillar impression and is so much more inquisitive about things that could severely harm him than Annie ever was at his age. Not only did we have to put outlet covers on the plugs but we had to buy these boxes you put over outlets that have plugs in them so that he can't unplug the cords (a task he's repeatedly attempted). Thank goodness for technology. He's also started his foray into solid-solid foods, like Cheerios and the highway robbery baby item called "puffs" (which is just dehydrated fruit injected with air so that it melts in their mouths. There's probably a total of .25 oz of actual food in a 5 oz. container. What we do for our children.). The first few days we had him trying Cheerios, he was so enamored with putting them in his mouth, but then soon became tired of actually eating them, so most of them got spat out as soon as he proved he could perform the task. Practice makes perfect.

Annie had her second week of ballet camp and liked it so much that we decided to sign her up for ballet classes this fall, and by fall, I mean in two weeks. I don't remember schools beginning this soon as a kid. It's ridiculous. She starts ballet as soon as we get back from Connecticut and then school the following week. Her first week of school, though, will be the equivalent of sticking one's toe into unfamiliar water. She'll go for like an hour and change each day and then has the following Monday off (building pink towers is apparently very stressful work) before beginning her grueling 2-3/4-hour school day five days a week. We've also been working on our reading with Annie. Well not "our" reading, hers. Sorry, as a mom you learn to refer to everything in the first-person plural, like "we don't drag babies by their arms," or "do we need to use the potty?" I can see me answering for her on her wedding day, "We do."

As mentioned before, on Friday we will head up to Connecticut for Family Fest 2010. We are looking forward to showing everyone how much these kids have changed since they last saw them. We'll just have to put a leash on Oscar.

The Ferrara Clan 07-2010

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Driving Mr. Oscar

Oh great. Now he has wheels. Fantastic.

"Mobile 1, this is Mobile 2..."

Ah, summer. A time for fireflies, farmer's markets, and runaway babies. As if we haven't had enough to keep track of, what with a precocious 3-year-old and a curious infant, we now have a crawler. Kind of. I guess it's more accurate to say he's doing a spot-on impression of a caterpillar. In any case, he's mobile and we're screwed. People always say this, and I used to always roll my eyes when I heard it, but now that I'm one of them, please have sympathy: Annie and Oscar are NIGHT AND DAY in terms of their babyhood. I'm not prepared. I have to retrain all of my motherly assumptions like "Oh, he won't crawl over there, that's a heating vent, Annie hated that kind of thing." DOH! or "He won't eat that piece of paper, Annie just liked the way it sounded." DOH! Yes, I'm proverbially being beaten senseless by an 8-month-old. Touche, Oscar, touche.

On a lighter note, we had our first party on our great deck: a fourth of July to-do including the inaugural run of our charcoal grill (which unfortunately had to be manned by one of our guests as we're still a little bit afraid of it. What? It's really HOT!). We invited some of our neighborhood friends and others that added up to about 12 adults and 50 kids (well not 50, more like 8, but it sounded like 50). Jay made a killer jicima salad, I made a panzanella and fruit cobbler. And to top it all off, our friend Marie made the killer flag cake shown here. And to ensure the comfort of our guests, Jay created the great wall o' flaming citronella around our deck, or as I like to call it, Mosquito Massacre 2010. The kids did great, running through the sprinklers and competing in their own personal World Cup soccer championship. Oscar hung with our friend and landlords Beverly and Al, the surrogate grandparents, for most of the party. Annie was SO excited to be the hostess. After the first guest arrived, she proudly beamed, "NOW the party can STAAAARRRT!!"

We're gearing up for our visit to Connecticut in a couple of weeks. We can't wait to see our cousins and grandparents and we WILL see them ALL, both sides. Before we go, we just hope Oscar gets these two teeth he's been working on since before conception. They are taking FOREVER to poke through and he's not happy about it. No one is, really. Fever, naps so short you'd think he was just taking his time blinking, lots of waking up during the night. Well, nothing some ibuprofen for him and wine for me can't dull. We're all doing our best. What's so sad in the sweetest way possible is that even in utter pain, Oscar does his best to smile. It kills us. Where did we order him from? We should get more.