kateplusadam

Wait, It's Still 75 Degrees in Florida in January?!

2012-01-16T23:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday at 11:00pm we got off an airplane as a family, and trundled through the terminal onto the sidewalk to wait for the bus to Long Term Parking. It was 16 degrees and windy, and that was particularly difficult to bear because we had just enjoyed 4 days in the glorious warmth of southern Florida's sun. It was in the low 80s the first day we arrived, then the 70s the next day, and then it was a chilly mid-60s, for which the locals were literally apologetic. The day we left it was in the 70s again.

I don't know why I'm rambling about the weather, the reason we went down there was to see Kate's parents and grandparents, and to celebrate her grandfather's 97th birthday!

It was a real treat to see everybody down there. When Kate's grandmother saw True she was just over the moon.

And her grandfather was equally thrilled to see everyone. Here he is bonding with Cole over technology:

The kids gave them oodles of cuddles, and spirits were great. It was such an honor and a joy to have that time with them. Plus there were tiny ice cream cones.

When we weren't giggling with the 90-something-year-olds, we were traipsing around Lake Worth with Kate's parents, painting the town silly.

Yes, there is almost always something on Cole's face. He lives life too quickly for napkins to catch up.

The house which Kate's mom rented was spectacular. It was right on the beach on the bay side of the Intercoastal, so we spent a lot of time floofing around near the water.

Cole cut himself after being particularly uncoordinated near some barnacles, but that didn't stop him from continuing to enjoy his surroundings.

True wasn't impressed:

No, that's a lie - she actually thought everything was fascinating. Especially her big brother.

And she totally played with legos. That's my girl.

And most importantly, she made funny faces.

The house also came with an unexpected cat.

It was really cute, and would perch itself in the sink and then drink out of the faucet when you turned it on. And then it would just hang out in the sink. Adorable. I am allergic so I didn't think it was that adorable, but it all seemed ok in the end.

Anyway, the trip was spectacular, Kate's family is amazing and I love them, and southern Florida in the dead of winter is an absolute joy. We had a great time.

The kids, for the record, were fantastic on the plane.

Mappy Chanuchristmas!

2011-12-24T22:38:00.000-05:00

I was going to title this post something like "Babies: Fun and Hilarious." Because of this (it's a slideshow of a bunch of photos, not a video, so please don't be disappointed. It's just that there are like 24 photos in the set and I figured this would be better than a long list of photos):

True is excited about sparklie things. Understandable, as sparklie things are awesome.

We hope your holidays are / were / will be spectacular!

Threeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

2011-10-13T05:26:00.002-04:00

Oh hi! How you doin?

Me?

I'm happy.

Why? It's my birthday! Yup, the big oh three. That is, like, so big. I told my parents I'd handle this blog post, and they handed over the keys to the internet.

Let's get this party started! You hungry? How 'bout a special snack, for me? For all of us!

Cupcake?

Doughnut?

Ice cream!

Full belly? Check! Now, let's gear up for some fun

Fly Kicks

Fabulous accessories

Silly sidekick

Let's bounce!

I can't show you pictures of our shenanigans, it's classified. But it was epic, award winning even! That time, with the thing, and then the fire trucks? Crazy bananas, and exhausting

From now on, I walk the line

We love you , sweetbean. Happy birthday!

Washing Windows

2011-09-13T14:41:00.003-04:00

Okay, so this is a little off topic. I apologize.I have just watched some of the keynote for Windows 8, and having been a Mac guy for basically my entire life, I am shocked to say that I am really excited about the direction Microsoft is going with their operating system(s).

I love how Windows 8 is just like Windows Phone 7. I love how they are taking the concept of navigating a computer and turning it on its head. I love that they are innovating. They are totally late to the mobile platform race, but in my opinion they have the most refreshing and interesting offering. I find it fascinating that they are blending their desktop OS so completely with what you find on their phones. Apple is doing the same thing, but frankly I don't look forward to my laptop looking like an iPad looking like an iPhone.

That is so interesting and full of potential for interesting ways to deliver information.

Incredibly vibrant and ridiculously intuitive. But so busy and kinda ugly!

I can't believe that Microsoft is creating something artful, elegant and more desirable than what Apple is stuck with. Weird right? I can't wait to see this stuff on store shelves.

Baby Sizemodo

2011-09-05T11:09:00.000-04:00

We love doing science experiments. We just pulled Las Vegas up from the basement because we thought True might enjoy bouncing around in it. Holy crap it was dirty. I vacuumed it, Kate swarshed it with damp towels, and threw the fabric seat part in the washing machine. Glory of glories, it looks like new!!So we popped True in it to see what she thinks.Not a bad first impression! She certainly seems joyfully intrigued.

Now for the interesting part. Here's Cole in Las Vegas a little over two years ago:That photo was taken on June 26, 2009. Cole was almost 5 months old adjusted, 8 months old actual, so somewhere in between. True is 5 months old in this photo.So they're basically the same age! Do they look the same age to you? I don't know. Cole seems stronger, but True seems fatter. Of course, Cole had way more time in gravity to develop his muscles so his extra strength makes sense.Fun stuff!

Our Hurricane Weekend

2011-09-04T20:41:00.001-04:00

Hurricane Irene came through last weekend and did some terrible things to a lot of unfortunate people. We were lucky enough to endure with no damage and no loss.This is how we spent most of the hurricane's passing itself:But afterwards we went out to splash in the puddles!And Cole learned how to use an umbrella...It was all so fun!!Until it was time to go home, then it was sad.But on the way home we got to check out the tree that fell across the road. It made Cole go "what?!"That's all I have to report on right now. I hope your'e having a lovely Labor Day weekend!

Crazy Helfet Extravaganza!

2011-08-21T12:31:00.001-04:00

Last week, Otisfield Maine was overrun with Helfets from all over the globe. Just for context, this is what downtown Otisfield looks like:

The purpose of the reunion was to celebrate my Grandmother Edna's 90th birthday. I call her Gogo (pronounced with a british accent). This is her excited about cake:

Gogo travelled all the way from Plettenberg Bay, South Africa to be with everyone. Plett (as we call it) is here:

View Larger Map

What a trooper, seriously!

She was joined by all of her kids, and her kids' families. I'm still confused by where the apostrophe is supposed to go in that instance, but I figure you get the idea.

Also from South Africa, but from Cape Town, came my parents (accompanied here by my brother Dan and me):

Then from the UK came Gogo's son Keith and his wonderful family. This is Keith and his wife Gail:

And here are his two brilliant and gorgeous daughters Nicki:

and Charley:

Oh, I just realized that I have a shot of the whole family. Here it is:

From the illustrious NYC came Gogo's other son Clive with his also awesome family. Here's Clive and Keith being mischievous:

Clive's wife Susie enjoying the view from the dock:

And their son Aron who enjoys pretending he's an Abercrombie model:

From the left coast of the US, my brother Daniel and his family came from Portland OR. This is Becky:

And these are their awesome kids Theo and Henry:

Oh, and this is Dan:

If you put it all together, the whole crew looks like this:

This is the first time in the history of the world that there has been such an extensive gathering of the Helfet-under-Edna Clan, and it was really, really awesome as Cole would say.

There was tons of excellent food, goofing around in the water, playing in the basement on rainy days, enjoying the outdoor jacuzzi, and sitting around chillin'. The best thing though, was seeing all the different generations and families getting together and interacting with each other. It was quite a sight, and a real joy to be a part of.

Cole and his cousins Henry and Theo had a ball running around smashing things and giggling. Seeing them finally meet each other and become friends was a real treat.

To set the scene, this is the giant awesome mansion lodge thing we rented for the week:

Pretty sick right? And this is the pond the property is attached to:

Here it is at night:

I went out with my Dad at around midnight to get that shot, and while we were on the dock, we heard coyotes howling in the distance. It was incredible. They were distant enough that we weren't concerned, but we still went indoors soon thereafter. Who wants to take chances when it's almost a full moon?

We all spent a lot of time messing about in the water.

Those big inflatable things ended up looking a lot more fun then they actually were, but that's ok. Here's a bunch of other silly things we did away from the water's edge:

Cole finally learned to play Air Hockey:

Henry spectating (watch your fingers, eeek!)

Aron shared his saxy talents with us:

True loved it when my mom became absent-minded and stared at nothing:

There was lots of stuffed game all over the house. They were all friendly.

Happy Gogo on her birthday morning:

Giant yummy birthday meal!

And of course we enjoyed a lot of time by the grill and around the dining table:

That last one was at our good-bye dinner at a local restaurant.

Good night, Maine. Amazing to see you, family! So much love and fun. Too bad we're so spread across the earth. I'm so glad we can have so much fun and joy when we get together. What an awesome week. Thank you so much Gogo, for such a generous and loving gift.

Holy crap my parents are here!!

2011-08-06T21:01:00.000-04:00

Last night at like, a billion o'clock, my parents flight from Oregon touched down. We didn't have much time to ketchup because it was definitely snooze o'clock, and it was just me picking them up anyway. So I just dropped them where they are staying after many hugs and stuff. All they really wanted was to see the kids anyway, we know how it is. That had to wait until today.

So we went out to the Cove again and BB'd some Q with my friend Paolo, his baby daughter Camila, and his in-laws who only speak spanish. It was super fun! Most importantly though, there was some inter-generational snuggles and giggles.

Three generations of dudes!!

Sassy girl, meet sassy Gogo!

Hooraaaayys!!

It was so great to get everyone together and to see them and now we're off to a crazy family reunion / 90th birthday extravaganza in Maine. More on that later.

In the meantime, here's some video of True dishing out some sparkle eyed smiles.

Damn. It's hot.

2011-07-23T22:26:00.000-04:00

Today we went to the Decordova Museum in Lincoln for some good old fashioned culture. I made a movie about it.

In other news, a couple weekends ago we went to this rad place called the Garden in the Woods. It's in Framingham and it's really beautiful! It's essentially a Botanical Garden of all native plants. Wicked fun for Cole to run around there, and a great place to receive mosquito bites.

There were ponds.

Cole found a PINECONE!!!

There were tons of pretty little flowers.

It doesn't look like it, but this is Cole running quite quickly down a bit of a hill on a path made of gravel. It doesn't take long for him to take a spill.

What's funny is that he then pretends he's inspecting something on the ground. Like we didn't just see him fall flat on his face.

There were beautiful babbling brooks

And wonderful bridges that we all loved tromping over and watching the water flow beneath us.

Plus some gnarly awesome roots. Like literally gnarly as well as the fun rad dope definition of gnarly.

Then last weekend we went to the Cove in Auburndale again!

Except this time it was super rad because we hung out there with some friends. All of us dads are dorky camera wielding nerds.

This is Paolo and Fernanda's daughter Camila:

She is adorable. She and True chilled out pretty happily. They are going to be best friends when they grow up. Or else.

Paolo's mother in law made some bad ass Salsa from scratch.

It was delicious.

TBO's son Ryan and Cole played on the rocks.

And they played on the slides because ... because slides are fun.

And they played with balls and stuff

And it was generally just fun as hell.

Double the Fun

2011-06-29T20:39:00.005-04:00

Once upon a time, back in 2009, we happily hosted aunts and uncles imported from New York to celebrate the homecoming of our #1 son, Cole. Aunt Gale & uncle Steve, and aunt Liz & uncle Phil woke up early, piled in the car and hightailed it on up to Beantown to meet their new great nephew. Well, they've done it again. That fabulous foursome came to our happy home and touched our hearts with their sweetness and love. We literally wept with joy at their arrival, and not just because they brought enough kosher deli to eat for days. It means so much to us that they made the trip to meet our #1 girl, little Miss True.

Oh, did you want to share the magic moments? Well you're in luck, we've got a few special pics of the day

The Poopies

The Bayers

Uncle Steve

Uncle Phil

Lirpy luv

Gale gazing

Uncles

Family Portrait

So yeah, there is some serious happy happy joy joy around here these days. It makes us look like this:

We have so much to be thankful for, we're celebrating Thanksgiving in July. Family, fun, beach, sun, and a deep fried turkey. Cheers!

Helloooo Long Beach! The sequel™

2011-06-10T23:07:00.000-04:00

This past weekend we took the kids (that's our new favorite thing; saying "the kids") to hang out with family down in Long Beach. It was a great trip!

We already knew Cole loves the beach. But now we have video proof.

Weeee!

It was great to see everyone. There were so many hugs and cuddles that it was crazy. Crazy good, of course.

We also ate a lot of delicious snacks. You know. Marvel, awesome grilled stuff, flagels, and whatever Cole could find on the floor.

Cole loves to help. He is a giving soul. He was instrumental in the great shovel organizing project.

The results of his work are pretty awesome!

Oh, and True totally helped too.

Speaking of True, she's totally turning into a person. Check it out, here's some footage of her blurbling and stuff. Dunno if she'll make the debate team, but this is way more fun than her sleeping all the time!!

We'll leave you with that. Hugs to all.

Baby's First Hike

2011-04-24T22:11:00.001-04:00

Holy garbanzo beans, the weather today was absolutely gorgeous. We had to do something! So we went to an Audubon wildlife sanctuary in Natick to walk around and see some naturey stuff. The place has a really nice boardwalk which we enjoyed immensely.

The wood from which the boardwalk was constructed seemed to be ancient and by itself was quite beautiful.

There was no railing on some of the sides and it was a bit nerve wracking (racking?) watching Cole just walk right up to the edge. He behaved himself though.

The woods shared all sorts of beautiful secrets with us.

True found it fascinating.

We saw some wildlife, including a musk rat and some little turtles sunning themselves. It was a little rainy, so they were a little frustrated, as you can see.

Cole started off with a bang, running off ahead of us and getting his little hands all over everything. It was great!

He played more hide and seek with us, and this time chose some better hiding places than the other day.

But then he got tired and annoyed.

Eventually we made our way back to the car and drove home so Cole could enjoy the Graham Crackers he was promised.

The Parabolic Continuum of Huge Successes

2011-04-18T12:12:00.000-04:00

No seriously, let me explain that.

When a baby is born, it's like HOLY CRAP A BABY!! And then if you're lucky and have a normal healthy baby, it is not capable of much more than eating, pooping, making a bunch of noise, and hanging around being adorable. Then it starts to grow and exciting things start to happen.

The baby picked up its own head and moved it around all by itself!! HUGE SUCCESS! Then the baby does that all the time and it's no big deal.

The baby becomes aware of its own limbs! HUGE SUCCESS! Then the baby does that all the time and it's no big deal.

The baby eats solid food for the first time!!! HUGE SUCCESS! Then the baby does that all the time and it's no big deal.

BABY TAKES FIRST STEP!! HUGE SUCCESS! Then the baby does that all the time and it's no big deal.

Etc.

What I'm getting at here is that it's really fun to be so excited about all the little things. And so easy to lose sight of how amazing we are as humans as the exciting things become common. But check out all the cool stuff we can do! And check out how quickly we learn to do it!

The other day Cole threw a basketball into the net by himself for the first time on purpose. It was really exciting!! It was a HUGE SUCCESS!! And True was lying on her belly looking one way, and then she picked up her head and looked in the other direction all by herself! HUGE SUCCESS!! They are totally different levels of success but super exciting either way. We as a species are capable of so much. It's just cool.

What I'm wondering though, is do achievements that we consider so exciting become rarer as we get older? Or does our appreciation for greatness just become more discerning?

In other news, yesterday we enjoyed the spring weather and went for a walk in Cabot Woods.

It was a beautiful sunny but chilly afternoon.

Cole threw rocks in the brook.

And Kate tried to take a serious portrait of the guys.

And then we played a whole bunch of hide and seek with Cole.

It was really fun! Cole's sense of what you can hide behind is a little skewed though.

It makes it easy for monsters to sneak up and NOM HIM!!

Though I don't think he minds.

True wasn't impressed by all this "outdoors" malarkey.

But Cole frigg'n loved it.

We ended the afternoon barreling through the woods with reckless abandon. Well ... Cole did anyway.

Lastly, I experimented with some photos shooting into the sun just for kicks.

Happy Marathon Monday! Go runners go!

True

2011-04-11T12:23:00.001-04:00

I looked down at my feet wrapped in a paper suit, and out the window of the 10th floor recovery room at Beth Israel. My life was about to change again in an enormous way because of a tiny being. We were having another baby!

This time though, the mood was quite different. This was no emergency. Months and months ago, we had sat down with Kate's OBGYN and looked in a calendar to choose our daughter's birthday. And we had made it to that date. Through Kate's incredible strength, determination, discipline, and general awesomeness, we had made it 37 weeks and 2 days to our chosen date; April 4, 2011.

When summoned, I followed the nurse into the Operating Room. This time I was less scared and mind blown, and more excited! Everything was going to plan. Everything was expected.

Still crazy though.

I entered the OR and saw a familiar scene, and things were pretty similar for the first part of the surgery. I did my best to comfort Kate and keep her informed of what was going on. I held her hand tightly and stroked her hair. Then out came True! And at this moment everything was new.

True screamed so loud! This was not the myew of a one pound pipsqueak. Girl has pipes. They cleaned her off and brought her to a warmer.

I cut her umbilical cord as she, like Cole had, peed all over the place. She was becoming tranquil.

They carefully brought her over to the scale to get her birth weight.

A lovely weight for a baby girl! What delicious little toes!

At that point I stole a photo of the operating room, feeling like I was breaking the rules. But it is rare to have an opportunity to take a shot like that! How often is an average joe in an operating room with a camera? *click*

This is the point at which everything became truly new for us. They gave her to me to hold, and didn't ask for her back until the end of the operation. I sat there with Kate for the next half hour or so holding our baby!! She didn't need any resuscitation or tubes or monitors or anything! Just a cuddly dad! Holy crap was that awesome.

Having True up with Kate for the remainder of the operation made Kate look like this:

Don't let her smile fool you though, a C section is no joke. Damn! Kate is strong.

After they finished up and wheeled Kate to the Recovery Room, we cuddled with True for about another hour before they brought her to the Nursery for ... whatever they do down there. It was incredible to just chill with her.

Hi.

An hour or so later they brought us down from Labor and Delivery to the Maternity Ward. Another new experience for us. It is laid out just like Ante-Partem, but the colors are bright, the moods are jolly, and there are balloons and flowers and stuff all over the place. How nice! As soon Kate was situated and I was able, I ran over to the Nursery to get True and bring her back to our little room (#669. I can't lie, I giggled at least 5 times). Reunited, we embarked upon a 5 day cuddle-fest.

Visitors! Gamma Jane!

Gogo and Bill via skype!

Bunny!

I don't have pictures, but Stacy and Grace from the NICU came down to say hello too! Hello!

Big brother Cole!!

Cole was incredibly sweet with baby sister True. He would point and gently whisper "sister" with a coy smile on his face. He offered her his only prized graham cracker. And since this post can't be all True True True, here is a lovely video of Cole elegantly consuming popcorn like the delicate flower he is.

Eventually we couldn't resist defacing one of her boring white onesies.

Baby burrito at dawn.

Baby noggin.

Side note: Kate had her toenails painted to match True's nursery. Adorable.

Baby at the spa.

Baby uses a chair for the first time.

Baby in a hoodie.

At one point we waited too long to feed her and true just starting nomming on mom.

Not much to do when feeding a baby in the middle of the night. Except try to take artsy fartsy photos of the sink.

True is bored by artsy fartsy.

But she likes eskimo kisses. She has the softest little nose!

At some point Kate realized the drugs she was taking came in colors which matched True's nursery. I don't know what that's a sign for, but it's pretty awesome.

And finally, baby hiccups!

We are home now and enjoying being a family of four. Not sleeping much, but so far so good. We are trying to figure out what color her eyes are going to be. Place your bets in the comments. Honestly, sometimes they look brown, sometimes they look dark blue.

Thanks to everyone for your warm wishes and congratulations. We feel so loved and that helps us love our babies.

Onward!!

Buzz buzz buzz...

2011-03-22T23:07:00.000-04:00

Spring is springing!

We have been busy bees lately. With the impending birth of our daughter some time in the next two weeks (holy bazonks!) we have been doing what we can to get the house ready for mayhem and family fun.

We finished the playroom wall:

And started a lego wall in the entry hall:

(Cole helped)

And since we decided to turn the guest bedroom into the Girl's room instead of letting her sleep in a drawer somewhere, we got her room together too:

What says baby girl like disco balls?

In other news, we went to our friends Paolo and Fernanda's baby shower! They are expecting a little girl at right around the same time we are. It's going to be rad having some nearby siblings of the same age!

They had awesome food

And Cole's friend Ryan taught him some modeling poses:

Cole didn't really get it, but he has been trying his best:

In an unrelated note, Cole really likes school busses.

And he doesn't really fit in his penguin hat anymore.

So he's been trying other hats on for size:

His favorite new thing though, is BASKETBALL!! He loves watching it on TV, and watching the kids at school play in the gym, and he loves slam dunks. Who doesn't?

Oh, and finally -- the other day I tickled Cole and he giggled.

Cole loves Kate. How could he not? She's awesome and fun.

I just realized that Cole is wearing the same frigg'n rocketship footie pajamas in every shot for the past two months. Is that a coincidence? Or does he wear those same pajamas every day? That is a mystery that Kate and I will have to figure out. We'll get back to you.

Thumbs up for that.

We painted some paint.

2011-02-21T20:37:00.000-05:00

We went to this place called Terrene nearby to get some non-toxic low VOC paint for two reasons. One, nobody likes to breathe poison, and two, we can't open the windows to air the joint out because BRRRR!!! See one.

We started thinking about painting the play room and could only come up with one good influence:

I know it's silly, but it's a PLAY room! So, silly it is. (Silly and awesome.)

Yeah, that works!! And it looks even more fun when applied to a wall in the play room.

Little green would be proud. This is only phase 1 of 2 though; next up will be a giant posterized photo converted to vinyl line art and applied to the green wall. The subject of the photo will be VTEC powered. I know that doesn't mean anything to some of you, so I'll just say more plainly that it'll be the green mini.

And we didn't stop there! We also got some color for the living room. We were looking for something subtle, just to give the room a little depth. Like maybe you wouldn't notice unless you were looking real hard.

I guess we ended up with something different, but I like it. Those flowers are these cool three dimensional things that Kate found on "the internet." They have tacks on their backs and you just jam them right into the wall. Sweet!

Painting is easy, but one thing that I actually am quite proud of is that I freehanded all the edges for both rooms. No more tape! I learned the hard way that taping edges on crater surfaced plaster doesn't really give you the hard edged look we crave.

This is what Cole's hair did when he saw the green wall:

OH, and last but not least, we finally completed the basement metamorphosis from earth spilling wall hole to luxurious laundry nook. Check it:

We are thrilled that no families of hibernating badgers were displaced during the construction.

I think that's all for now. I'm going to go eat some brownies that Kate made, because it's Monday night.

It keeps snowing! Cold, fluffy, pretty, icy, piles!

2011-01-23T13:37:00.000-05:00

Hey Cole! Ready to go out in the snow?

... I guess ... so .. ..

*Trudge*

What do you think?

I think it's super rad!! What is this stuff? It seems familiar, but somehow strange. I must remove my mittens to explore it properly.

Verdict: It is weird.

I will help daddy with this thingie.

What gives! The landscape seems to have changed around here. I don't remember this mountain.

But I like what they've done with the place. I'm glad mommy is prepared for any encounters with Wolves or Ogres. RAWR!

How can it be so soft and fluffy, and so pointy at the same time? The world is a crazy place.

-- Cole

So yeah. It's wicked snowy out. But that hasn't stopped us from going out and doing rad stuff! Yesterday we went out to the Charles River Museum of Industry in Waltham.

It was pretty cool! It's a small museum with lots of things that are toddler friendly. Cole could just walk up to most things and climb on them, grab them, or poke them.

Or drip snot on them. Tis the season!

The array of crazy complex old school beautiful machines was staggering.

And the old wonderful signage was spectacular.

They even had a hand made wooden machine. I think this one was built in 1835. Maybe 1935.

Cool.

More snow is due in the next couple days, and we look forward to whatever adventures lie ahead for the rest of the winter. Laters!

Blink!

2010-12-30T16:08:00.000-05:00

Recently, I got a flash for my camera. I don't know what the heck I'm doing with it, so occasionally, I experiment. Cole is a willing participant because he likes that the flash beeps when it recycles. Cole likes beeps. Here are some flash photos of Cole being a giant ham.

Wait, we have a blog?

2010-12-25T13:11:00.001-05:00

Hello there, blog! Haven't seen you in a while! What's it been, like a month and a half? I don't even know.

We've been busy! Everyone's been sick, and everyone's been well, and Cole has been enjoying school, and I've been working too hard, and now I'm on vacation, and we've been preparing the house for the cold weather, and I've been practicing my run-on sentence construction.

First, we just got insulation blown into our walls. It was pretty cool. This is how they did it:

Like 10 years ago, we went to a zoo in November with some friends, where Cole was more fascinated with pictures of himself than the resident animals, 'natch.

He did enjoy hanging out with his new friend Addison though.

They seemed to enjoy looking for birds in the birdarium the most.

And the birds enjoyed looking back at them, too.

Cole has continued to do a great job of enticing us to go out for walks regardless of the weather. Cold rain? Pshaw! Sliding around on icy marshland in the rain is FUN!

But it's also very serious. Don't forget that.

Cole got ahold of our matter multiplier and managed to duplicate himself 3 times before we could turn it off.

He gets into everything! He's even learning how to get up on the counters.

Might be a problem one of these days.

Cole's daycare has an annual holiday singalong recital performance thing. It is awesome. Here is some video of the event:

There is an extended 10 minute remix, but I am not allowed to show footage of the other kids on public internets. If you want to see the private video you'll have to friend me on YouTube and then I'll have to send you an invite. It's quite complicated. But you get the gist of it; the kids started singing, and Cole was like "no thanks!"

Also, Cole finally got another haircut. He had been blinking a lot so we were wondering if he had an eye problem, but then we realized that it was just his bangs poking him in the eye all the time. SNIP!

We like his hair mussy and long but we also think he looks handsome with his little boy cut.

Especially when he has a constant runny nose. It's a great look for kids in the winter. Speaking of runny noses, last night (Christmas Eve!) we went out for a chilly walk downtown to enjoy the lights in the Public Gardens.

It was gorgeous. And then we saw the lights over on Comm. Ave. Incredible!

We goofed around there for a little while, taking out of focus pictures.

And then headed back to the Gardens to see if the indigenous Tiny Snowmen were out playing. We were in luck! We found one!

So cute!!

WHOA! What did the tiny snowman ever do to you? Jeez. We're going to have to work on how Cole responds to competition in the "cute" department.

Then we headed back to the car, enjoying the lights as we went. Cole really digs the sparklies.

Anyway, we finished the evening with a self portrait. Kate is wicked pretty, and that's a fact.

Rocktober

2010-11-06T18:03:00.003-04:00

We were so busy rockin' in October that we neglected to blog for the whole month? Jeez. Time flies when you're two. That's right, a little someone in our family turned TWO years old on October 13th. I mean, it's kind of a fake ID type two, but if the drinking age were two, he could totally be at the bar knocking back brewskis with the big kids.

Speaking of big kids, Cole started school! He goes to Newton North High School (his dad's alma mater, go Tigers, rawr!). He's very advanced, totally acing trigonometry and bio-chem, flirting with the frosh girls on Main Street, the usual. OK, maybe that's a slight exaggeration. But his little classroom is in the new fancy shmancy high school building, so posh. It's a great program, and he LOVES it. We can't take pictures at school, but we can show you his supercool new backpack:

In other news, we celebrated Halloween, BOO! Hey Cole, what were you for Halloween...?

Oh, my kicks? Converse High Tops, classic.

Did you want to take a closer look? I'll help

Candy? Yes please! NOM NOM NOM

It's fall in New England, so we're getting our last licks of outside activities. We go for walks at the Arboretum in JP

And visit Drumlin Farm in Lincoln

Hay, what are you doing here?

We saw some supercute lop eared goats

And learned all about ducklings, very educational.

Then we had to leave...Did someone say leaves?!?!?

Bye!

Oh, side note. Today Cole took a spill on the sidewalk and got some roadrash on his face. It's sad and cute.

Touch A Truck. Sounds Weird, Is Awesome.

2010-09-26T13:19:00.000-04:00

Today we went to this event at Newton South High School called Touch a Truck. Last year when we saw the signs, we lacked the perspective of the parents of a toddler, so we just thought it sounded funny. Touch a Truck? Silly. But this year we couldn't wait to go. Let's poke trucks! We figured Cole would really enjoy it.

We were right.

Look at the trucks!

I will touch them.

Poke.

This is the best thing EVER!

This looks familiar...

Trucks plus ramps equals FUN!

Side note: do you like my new haircut? (Nice truck!)

Hey, this micro truck is just my size!!

Trucks. They make me feel so safe.

Hemispherical mirrors make animal crackers taste better!

To see the full set of photos, click here to check out the Flickr gallery.

Some stuff.

2010-09-20T20:54:00.000-04:00

Cole learned some new tricks:

I landscaped the front yard a bit with some grasses and bamboo and buried a bunch of bulbs and stuff. The hoses you may notice protruding from the basement window are for temporary water delivery while the city tweaks the water system.

And I built another wall bit over on the other side of the driveway.

Then with the last of the stones I built some "legs" for a silly table in the garage to hold general crap. For the top I smooshed some 2x4s together with glue. We'll see how long that lasts.

And Emma; this part's for you: the other day I made some Pear-Ginger pancakes. The ginger was a little more subtle than I'd have liked it to be, but they were pretty super yummy overall.

I started by soaking the pear bits in ginger tea:

Then I minced the pear bits so they'd be all smushy in the cakes:

When I made the pancake mix, I used the ginger tea instead of water:

The end result was pancakes. Hello pancakes! They're like a fruit salad. But cake shaped.

Remember when it was SEPTEMBER?! Damn.

2010-09-11T16:40:00.001-04:00

Wow, we have a lot to catch up on.

About a month ago we went to visit Kates' folks down in Long Beach. We went to the beach a lot and shared lots of sunny smiles and cuddles with G6 and Grampa Rick.

As an added bonus, Kates' sister Hanna was also there, along with her shark bag.

Amazingly, in the past 6 months or so, their mean outdoor cat Garp has turned into a sweet puppy dog. Everyone is amazed.

Sweet-ish I guess. Garp will still usually try to eat your face. Or your hand, or whatever's closest. But still cute for sure!

Cole is working on sitting in chairs. The beach was the perfect training environment.

Kate's aunt Liz got Cole a super dope Black Dog hoodie.

For the first time EVER he wore a hood and left it on, and put on SUNGLASSES! It's the dawning of a new era.

Although I guess if the "era" is that of Cole being a diva, then I guess that's not very new.

Side note: when we got home, we put Cole in a truck.

Last weekend, our friends Scott and Emma visited and stayed with us while we all attended our mutual friends Tristan and Vanessa's wedding.

Scott:

Emma:

Scott and Emma:

Tristan and Vanessa all married and dancing and stuff:

The wedding was beautiful and tons of fun.

Finally, I leave you with a video of Cole giggling:

The End!

I Made a Frigg'n Wall

2010-08-29T12:14:00.001-04:00

The other night, as Kate and I were sitting at the dinner table enjoying the Fois Gras Duck Bleu Au Gratin Flambe that Kate had prepared, she was like "I've been thinking. Nothing says lovin' like some good old fashioned masonry."

To prove my undying and true Love, I went straight out and ordered a giant palette of stones and began work on a stone wall to beautify our front "yard."

Here's some before and after pics!

Tree area before:

Tree area after:

Path to Patio before:

Path to Patio after:

Front area before:

Front area after:

Front angle 2 before:

Front angle 2 after:

And the Pièce de résistance is that I took our solar lamps and built them into the wall to illuminate the patio walkway at night:

Yay for rocks!

How YOU Doin'?

2010-08-09T15:53:00.002-04:00

Hot fun in the summer time, that's what we've been up to. Grandma and grandpa (Cole's Gogo and Grampa Bill respectively) have come to town. Good times galore...

We got together with our fun new cousins again!

Ohh la la, the Public Garden is lovely this time of year. We Made Way for Ducklings

"Climbed" Trees at the Boston Public Gardens

Hey grandma can I get a boost?

Checked out the awesome fountain on the new Greenway

Wore crazy hairdos

Giggled our faces off

Visited the Aquarium

Walked in the woods

Played at the playground under grandpa's watchful eye

And we all generally had a wonderful time. Thanks for a super awesome visit!

If We Were Kids, We'd Be On Vacation

2010-06-26T15:04:00.001-04:00

I'll start by apologizing for the ten billion photos in this post. Sorry!

Since my parents have been here we've spent a lot of time doing fun things! They've babysat for Cole a number of times, and we're having good dinners together and generally having a lovely relaxing visit. Walks, food, smiles and giggles. What more could you want? And Cole has totally taken to Mom and Dad; he thinks they're great fun.

The other night, we went out to Bukowski's in Boston to hang out with our newly discovered super awesome groovy fun cousins, Abby and Glenn.

Hi mom!

Eventually mom and dad had to go while Abby, Glenn and I killed some snacks.
Bye dad!

This has nothing to do with anything, but these photos are cute.

I see you!

Also cute and apropos of nothing, we made a video:

Last weekend, Kate, Cole and I went to a place I used to go when I was a kid. It's called "The Cove" (at least in local vernacular) and it used to have really dangerous playthings for kids to climb on, fall off of, and get splinters from. But now it's all modern and safe and crap. Still awesome though! Check out the view:

Cole totally got into the water and enjoyed wading and splashing.

Kate helped him really get into it.

Check out Cole's face. RAAWR!!!!

This is my favorite picture ever. Such fun!!

Then Kate got behind the lens and took this beautiful shot:

And Cole got excited about the world's shortest slide:

Then the Geese arrived.

We tried to pet them.

They had other ideas.

And with that we packed up and went back home to get some lunch 'cause it was getting HOT! And we were hungry. Bye Cove!

That's all for now. I'll leave you with some shots of some crazy clouds from the other day.

Yay Pride!

2010-06-16T14:21:00.001-04:00

We went to the Gay Pride parade in Boston this weekend! It was such fun. Good energy, wonderful sights and sounds, and some rain. We think it's important that Cole is exposed to as much awesome stuff as possible, so we figured this would be a good event. Plus; who doesn't love a parade! I took a bunch of pictures which are all at flickr, but here's some highlights:

Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes

2010-06-06T12:50:00.004-04:00

It is, as they say here in beantown, summatime. All sorts of fun and frolic is afoot. Speaking of feet, our little guy needed some new kicks for the season. Of course, we took him straight to the sensible shoe store, to get the recommended pediatric orthopedic ergonomic organic baby einstein type footwear. The selection was, in a word, "eh."

We were looking for something special, something cool for the hot summer fun ahead. And then, Cole spied, with his little eye, the best shoes ever!

Behold - Baby's first flip flops! With monkeys on them! Adorable much?

Jealous? Me too.

OK, so, they do have an additional strap (flup?), sort of a flip flop training wheel, for beginners. Cut the kid some slack, he just started walking, he doesn't need to add any extra credit difficulty points just yet.

What's great about flip flops, is that they go with just about everything. Like for example a cargo shorts and a dinosaur camo ensemble?

Cole's strutting his stuff on the catwalk.

Seeing as how flip flops are practically the Stein family crest, this is kind of a big deal. Thanks uncle John, for being such a good role model.

Sometimes Water Just Falls From the Sky

2010-06-04T22:48:00.000-04:00

The other day it rained like crazy. Kate and Cole braved the storm and enjoyed the downfall.

At first Cole was curious.

And Kate was just sitting there under the cover of the front "porch."

But then they just jumped in and got drenched. Despite the look on his face in this picture, he was really enjoying it.

See? He loved it.

But then we had to come inside and towel off 'cause it was getting CHILLY.

After which Cole ran directly to the mirror and proceeded to check himself out. Hi, handsome!

That's all I can remember from that day.

They're Here!!

2010-05-28T16:32:00.000-04:00

First stop, Cabot's of course!

Today We Had A Ball

2010-05-25T11:21:00.000-04:00

We started at Pino's Pizza. Already a good day, right? But then we went to CVS and bought a $2 red ball and went to play with it in the field across the way. Tons of fun was had by all! It was great to just let Cole romp around and not worry about where he was going, as in every direction was nothing but a sea of grass.

He wandered over to the bleachers.

He snuck over to the tennis courts.

He kicked the ball around.

Then he went and hid behind a tree.

But Kate found him.

And scared him silly!

Then some random guy offered to take a family portrait, and as always, one serious, one goofy!

After which we were just in a ridiculous mood and went crazy.

And then the afternoon in the field came to a close with a good session of repeatedly throwing a giggling Cole up in the air.

It was awesome.

The end!

Buttercups!

2010-05-23T07:25:00.000-04:00

So there was this awesome patch of buttercups on the small lot across the street from us. Yesterday I was like ... I want to get some pictures of Cole in that buttercup patch. So I went out and took these pictures (Cole was barely in the mood) and then literally within a half hour the woman who owns the land came out to mow the grass and decimated the buttercups in the process. Maybe she magically knew my intentions and was waiting for me? Or maybe we're just lucky.

A new expression.

2010-05-17T08:33:00.001-04:00

Cole has been working on a new facial expression we like to call his "Stink Eye."

It's silly, ugly, cute, funny, and ridiculous all at once. Sometimes he cracks himself up while attempting it, and the result comes out a little tweaked:

Goofus.

He's also making a little progress on the self-feeding front, having moved on to stabbing utensils.

HOMPTH.

In other news, cousin Shira came to visit yesterday with her cousin Ilyssa. We didn't manage to get any pictures 'cause we were too busy walking around in the woods dazzling the squirrels with interesting conversation, and laughing about all sorts of things that I'm sure you would also find hilarious. Plus kick ass chocolate chip cookies. Man, those were good.

Finally, last night we enjoyed some dessert that made us wish Jane was here.

Happy Mother's Day!

2010-05-09T14:24:00.001-04:00

Hey, so it's Mother's Day! Awesome! I hope all the moms out there are celebrating and enjoying the day. Kate and Cole and I are thinking it's a nice day for a walk in the sun, because yesterday it was all monsoonie and super rainy and chilly. Which sucks, because yesterday was the March of Dimes, which is a walk for babies and NICUs and things, all of which we think are important. We went down town to the Hatch Shell (appropriate much?) to the NICU reunion tent so we could say hello to all of our nurse, doctor, and respiratory therapist friends. We didn't see Liz, (but apparently she's knocked up! Yay!) and Stacy was out galavanting with her hunky boyfriend or something (awesome) but we did get to spend lots of time with Grace, which was so super fun! She rocks. It was perfect timing for Cole to show off his new trick: fully unassisted walking! He wandered all over the tent, accidentally grabbing random peoples' butts and collecting empty candy wrappers and used dixie cups. That's what toddlers are supposed to do right? All of the NICU people were thoroughly impressed with his perambulation and he kicked it up a notch by dancing to the live rock n' roll tunes the band in the Shell was pumping out. His version of dancing is waving his arms around and bobbing a little, and it is hilarious. He was a frigg'n star, and he loved being the center of attention. Huge success! Tons of fun! Yay for babies and NICUs and Grace!

If you want proof that he can walk, here's a silly video that we took a couple days ago. YouTube made it seem like sped up film, but we don't mind.

Hmm, I just noticed that Cole put some graham cracker bits under the space bar.

Also, there's this video which is taking the universe by storm (be sure to have the audio CRANKED because doppler shifted giggling baby is awesome, but quiet):

We had gone to spend some time with the Steins in Long Beach, and with all of Kate's siblings in attendance, there was sure to be some hijinks. And what can we say, Cole loves hijinks!

Speaking of Australian flightless birds, we totally saw an emu the other day at the zoo!

Cole had fun.

We saw a BUNCH of animals!

Scary Mandrills

Purty Peacocks

Snoozy Lions

Groovy Gorillas

And MORE! To see all of the stuff we saw, here's a link to the Flickr Album!

I think that's all the news we got so far. We're going to go get some Pino's Pizza (with orange soda) because it's Kate's favorite.

Saturday night? Blog time.

2010-04-17T23:33:00.000-04:00

April is awesome. It's spring time!

Although I could have sworn that last year it was like 12 degrees until mid-May, but whatever. The weather has been changing, and we have been enjoying it. We have gone for walks in the woods.

And checked out some babblie brooks. What used to be frozen now is flowing!

Look! Lakes!

Don't get too close though, kid.

Unless you're a dog. Then you can do whatever you want.

Cole would be like "Look up! Look right!" Because there are tons of awesome things everywhere to see when you're outdoors exploring the world.

It's so wonderful to see all the green that's popping up all over the place. I think spring is my favorite time of the year. We are very fortunate that Cole is at a place in his life now where he can walk along with us and experience all the beauty that spring exhibits. We keep thinking that if it was still winter right now, we would go crazy indoors trying to figure out ways to keep Cole and his abundant energy satisfied.

We went to a Botanical Garden at Wellesley College. It was dope.

Cole was like "WHOA."

Look! A plant that eats bugs! Yum.

There were tons of flowers that you just don't see around here. It was great.

This one made me think of Kate.

Also, as some of you may know, there has been some CRAZY rain around here. And flooding. Here's proof. This used to be a meadow at an arboretum, but now it's trees bursting out of a mirror.

It rained a little today so I took some photos of rainy things.

Speaking of nerds, because I have no willpower and am a good capitalist, I bought an iPad. I figured, you know ... it's good for Cole. Except it seems that he still prefers the iPhone.

You can't blame him though ... that thing is heavy!

Finally, we're working on Cole's independence. No, he's not moving into an apartment in Allston. He's learning to put his spoon in his MOUTH instead of on the floor. PLUS, he's learning to do so while there's food on the spoon. In other words, he's learning to feed himself. Cool, right? We think so. And Cole seems to think it's pretty sweet too.

HOMPTH!

Now back to Sandra Bullock on TV.

Cole's first plane ride great grandparents haircut

2010-03-28T19:34:00.002-04:00

So Cole went on a plane on Sunday. We don't have any proof because we were too preoccupied with being like "holy crap we're on a plane" to get the camera out and get some snaps. But trust us, Cole flew. He was the model of a perfectly agreeable tazmanian devil of a pre-toddler with ADD. He didn't freak out or cry or anything, but he didn't stop moving, didn't relax, didn't sleep, and to keep him (and us) sane we basically did about 10,000 laps of the plane walking back and forth from the cockpit to the can.

Oh no wait he did sleep. For like 5 minutes before we landed. Thanks kid!

But we made it to Ft. Myers safe and sound, plunking right into the loving arms of Rick and Jane. And it was 80 degrees out. Awwwwwww yeah.

It was rainy and monsoonie the first day we were there, but that didn't dampen our spirits.

We hung out in Rick and Jane's awesome little house and watched NASCAR and NCAA basketball, and curious Cole inspected every square inch of the new house, making sure everything within his reach was pulled onto the floor. There was a ton of fun and cuddles and we read Hop on Pop repeatedly. Then night fell.

The next morning, it was not raining any more.

Seriously, this is the view from their back porch. How frigg'n awesome is that? It's wicked awesome, and that's a fact. We went for walks on the beach and enjoyed the sun and cheeseburgers.

Then Cole accidentally ate 500 balloons and became lighter than air. Fortunately, Kate was there to keep him from floating away.

That afternoon we went to the Corkscrew Swamp Audubon Sanctuary. Apparently this place draws birdwatchers like crazy, but we just wanted to see the murky swamps.

The place is gorgeous. And Cole got to poke a tree.

Oh yeah, and there were sleepy alligators there. They left us alone because Cole is big and tough and they were a little intimidated.

They had spiders with smiley faces on their butts too!

Then we went home, the sun set, and we prepared to head out to West Palm Beach the next day for a 4-generation gathering!

We took alligator alley across the state, and when we arrived at Rose and Harold's house, the smiles never stopped. The joy was palpable.

Eventually Cole couldn't resist the urge to hit the slots.

After which he ended up feet-up in Rose's lap.

We just had tons of fun. And snacks.

Look! Four generations!!

So the trip was stupendous. We flew with Cole, and he handled it brilliantly. Cole saw grandparents he adores and met great grandparents whom he showered with giggles. So much fun!

Changing gears, yesterday Cole got the world's first haircut. We went to this awesome place that focuses on cutting squirmy kids' hair. It started out like a normal haircut.

But Cole was like NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

But the lady was super cool. She sang him songs, she blew bubbles, she played distracting videos, and successfully cut Cole's hair.

Here's a before and after:

Super stylin'. I ain't lyin'. Cole looks fresh and his eyes ain't cryin'.
I just wrote that awesome rap.

The end!

Oh hai!

2010-02-15T21:23:00.003-05:00

It's February already? The MIDDLE of February? Jeez. I don't know what happened to January. I guess there was too much work and not enough fun, but fortunately that is all turning around. The last couple weeks have been full of silly!

Cole has learned how to open cupboard doors.

He likes to dismantle the blender. Strange that the folks at Gymboree call him "Danger Magnet."

Speaking of Gymboree, here's a shot of him enjoying the bubblefest there:

BUBBLES!!

And we've found a new place called "Indoor Playground" where we can go and play. It's like a playground ... but indoors. Genius!

We've also been goofing around the house quite a bit. As well as getting into the cupboards, Cole has enjoyed rummaging through the only drawer he can reach:

which also happens to contain the drugs which he no longer needs to take.

We are super excited about his growing healthy enough to leave the drugs behind. Not only is it awesome that he no longer has kidney stones or high blood pressure, but selfishly it's way less work to feed him in the mornings and at night. Significant stuff! Get outta here drugs!

On a lighter note, this is what Cole would look like if he was in jail, and enjoying it:

And this is what he would look like if he was driving a car (concentrating really hard):

And this is what he would look like if he was driving a car, and being followed by the oscar meyer weinermobile, if he didn't know it existed:

And this is what he would look like if he was being coy and curious and stuff:

And this is what he would look like if he was STANDING UNASSISTED in the hallway:

Exciting right?! Although that only lasted about 5 seconds and I was lucky to get a shot, but still! We're stoked! So stoked that we went straight into a rigorous training schedule to get Cole onto the U.S. Ottoman Scooching team:

We are hoping for a 2016 Olympic bid.

On a less Cole-related note (boring), I had my first freelance photo gig last Thursday. I went and shot cupcakes at a super awesome bakery in Brookline called Party Favors. Here's some excerpts:

Click here for the full set if you're bored!

Partial payment for this gig was a custom Valentimes Day cake, which ended up looking like this after my simple request:

We ate that cake over the weekend. It was delish.

Merry New Year and Things!

2010-01-01T10:15:00.002-05:00

We've had a great couple weeks. It's been snowy, and freezing, and beautiful out. One day it was 50 degrees, and then the next day it was 6. I've been off work since December 19th, and it has been an absolute joy to stay home and be with Kate and Cole all day. I have to go back to work on Tuesday. I'm not looking forward to it.

Cole is wrestling through a bit of a cold, and I am not even going to attempt to describe the torrents of snot he's producing. Who wants to read about that anyway? We are doing our best to avoid contracting his sneeziness, but we have a feeling he's going to take us down with him. We figure one of the best ways to keep our health up in the middle of winter is to get out and enjoy the weather, so we've been taking a lot of walks at Cabot Woods and Cold Springs Park. Beautiful places.

On Christmas Cole got some groovy clothes, including some super awesome crocs with little croc faces on them. We can't wait till his feet grow big enough to smoosh into them!

His other big gift was a box of tissues. What can I say, he enjoys the simpler things in life.

We also found out that Cole has done a complete 180 regarding his position on being thrown up in the air. What used to terrify him now brings him barrels of gigglie joy.

Good to know, right?

For no reason, here's some pictures of Cole after a bath:

There's a whole ton of them at Flickr if you want to see the rest...

Something I'm excited about, for which you may not share my enthusiasm, is that for my birthday I just got a new lens for my camera. I'm not so sure about the grammatical structure of that previous sentence, but I'm not sure about a lot of things. Anyway, the new lens is a macro lens (or in Nikon nomenclature, a "Micro" lens) which allows me to take super zoomed in pictures of things. I think it's pretty sweet. It's typically used to take photos of tiny things like insects, but since there are no insects in the snow, I brought the lens to the sink.

Fun! Again, there's a number of these shots at Flickr.

That's all I got for now. I hope you're enjoying 2010 so far -- we sure are! The music is on, and we're napping on the couch!

It's beginning to look a lot like ...

2009-12-15T20:55:00.002-05:00

Sequins!

So this is our first Christmas / Chanukah together as a family in our own house! I think that's pretty exciting. We are all really thrilled about being able to continue and create traditions revolving around the holidays. So far we've kinda fallen down on the whole lighting the menorah thing - we have done it once. Tonight will be twice, and I think it's the 5th night. We'll work on it! We have put up a Christmas tree though, and decorated it with lights. We have no ornaments, but that's cool -- the tree we got is working hard enough to hold up its own limbs; ornaments could be trouble. Sadly, I don't have any good full body shots of the tree; I've been too obsessed with being "artsy." Sorry about that!

I know you can't really tell, but that fuzzy glow behind Cole is our menorah burning brightly, delivering the Jews from darkness 5000 years ago:

Hey! A Blog post!

2009-12-06T16:16:00.004-05:00

November was great! The number one highlight was Thanksgiving in Long Beach NY. Cole was smothered in love and affection by Kate's family who had gathered from all over the place. It was great!

Cole has a great sense of karmic balance, so he dished out some love too. This is his version of kisses, with Kate's sister Hanna being the fortunate subject.

This is the scene at the illustrious Stein abode after the meal; you may be able to see Cole being bench pressed by who I believe is John, Kate's brother.

The next morning was chilly but beautiful. We walked across the street to the beach and enjoyed the sunny windy sand and soothing long beach surf.

More recently, it totally snowed last night! Enough to crawl around in if you're just about two feet tall and have a silly hat.

Cole's #1!

2009-10-24T11:52:00.009-04:00

Sweet fancy bananas! We have been busy like bees doing all sorts of fun stuff. Don't worry, we took a few (thousand) pictures to show you guys what we've been up to. So sit back and grab a snack, there's a lot to review.

Kicking off the fun parade is Cole's birthday celebration. Our kid is officially one. That is nutso! And, a good reason to par-tay (insert crazy dance moves here).

Aunt Hanna swooped into town to boogie down with her favorite nephew. Unfortunately, she came down with THE PLAGUE en route to the festivities. She insisted on taking proper precautions. Safe, but sassy:

Cole got lots of gifts from his friends and family (thanks generous everybody!). At first he was all "rectangles? I love rectangles!"

But then he was all oohhhhhh, wrapping paper

Destruction! What a great gift!

But wait, there's more, it has a sweet candy center

It's escargot flavored, my favorite, nom nom nom

Escargot appetizer that is, because people, there was cake! Small cake really, of the cup variety. We drove all the way across town to get the best birthday treats in Boston for Cole's inaugural sweets. Lyndell's bakery, in a word, yum!

We were a little worried that once he'd tasted cake he'd never eat boring stuff like green beans again. So we were shocked (considering his double sweet toothed genes) when Cole wasn't entirely excited about the cupcake:

Still, Cole was mesmerized by candle fire

And intrigued

You talkin' to me?

Finger lickin' good

I crush the birthday cakelettes

Carnage

We capped off our birthday celebrations by visiting our favorite friends in the NICU

Hi Stacy, my primary pal! Let me just check your ID

Steve! My respiratory therapist, look how good I am at breathing, thanks for the tips!

Does this scale make me look fat?

No, kid, you look great!

Good times, good times. It was nice to visit my friends. Everybody was so smiley. What a happy day.

Speaking of smiles, we've been out and about doing lots of fun stuff like going to the playground.

Climbing on the jungle gym

Swinging on the swings

We went to the Newton Town Fair, mom and dad thought it would be fun. They ate cotton candy and corn dogs, and all I got was this lousy balloon

Boring much? Where's the fried dough, guys?

So, it's Fall in New England and state law practically requires us to do some seasonal activities. We headed north to Russell Orchards in Ipswich for some local type fun

We checked out the punkin patch

And made the acquaintance of the local residents

Oh, and there was doughnuts, hot homemade cider doughnuts

Which are not too shabby

Plus farm fresh produce, pears!

And finally just a coupla artsy close ups of the kid

Halloween is coming up, so we've been working on a costume. There's so many choices, and face it, Cole is adorable in everything. Here's a few we considered

Pooh! We liked this one because it had a built in pot belly (not that Cole needed any padding)

101 Dalmations? Cole was not amused

But, neither of these was the winner. What will Cole be on Halloween? you'll see....!

So yeah, year one? Check! We're hoping the next one will be a little less eventful. We kinda doubt it, though. Because there's so much to be excited about

Bananaversary

2009-10-03T23:37:00.011-04:00

The actual post it note marking the appointment that started it all.

As we approach Cole's first birthday, there's another less festive but still significant anniversary to mark. One year ago today, at 1:30 PM on October 3rd 2008, everything went sideways on a pretty epic scale.

We managed to make our way through every anxious minute, but it's only now that we've come out the other side, that I truly appreciate the magnitude of the events that transpired (thank you survival instincts, for providing the emotional equivalent of giant styrofoam peanuts).

Now, we bask in the warm glow of all things Cole, but we still remember some of the harsh, fluorescent lit moments in the hospital.

The day that Cole shifted from twenty three to twenty four weeks gestation, crossing what the docs refer to as the "threshold of viability." That's the actual medical term for, well, might.

Listening as a doctor described the myriad of possible and potentially catastrophic side effects of being born at 24 weeks, and the higher math we did trying to calculate the remote possibility that he could be "normal."

The moment the doctor asked us to decide the "parameters for rescuscitation" for our unborn child and the mind-bending re-definition of "good parenting" that it required.

How odd it felt that the arrival of our little one didn't involve the typical madcap, sitcom style dash to the hospital, the standard bedside new family portrait, or any traditional celebration.

Feeling strange when someone congratulated us, and strange when they didn't.

Sitting with our baby boy as he set off alarm after alarm by "forgetting to breathe" and watching his heart rate drop on the bedside monitor. Hoping, wishing, willing him back to life. For months.

The loooooooong ten day wait to hold our little guy, and the very first butterfly cuddles.

The sheer terror, worry, wonder, hope. The crushing physical, mental and emotional exhaustion.

And yet, there have been a thousand points of light along the way. Of love and kindness, of luck and grace, of artistry and intuition, of care and snacks.

We have come to accept that though our story isn't conventional, we think it's special and beautiful in its own way. Preemie parenthood is an intense experience, and it has given us much more than we ever imagined.

We feel so lucky, and very, very grateful for Cole, who had spirit, and fight, and heart, and courage, and even a little bit of sass as he faced yucky challenges and eked out tiny triumphs along the way. Even the doctors marvel at our fat little miracle, who defied all the ugly odds.

Might we use this solemn occasion as another excuse for cake? Probably. Because today, we celebrate all the elements of our extraordinary journey. And what's a celebration without a little something sweet?

Good-bye, little green.

2009-09-30T12:06:00.006-04:00

It was going to be a hard morning, so I started it off with some extra awesome fuel.

So, little green, it has been great building you, knowing you, and working on your quirks together. Now it's time to make way for some more important things.

How about a little retrospective? Remember your crappy old motor and your transmission which blew up 3 weeks after I bought you? That was awesome.

Remember the wonderful sound of the straight cut gearbox DSG installed after that incident, and how you pulled me slowly around the track, and even more slowly up the hills?

Remember how I gave you a heart transplant and made you the bionic green car?

Good stuff. Your new heart beats strong, and we've had a lot of good times together.

Off to a better place! You will enjoy California, I know it.

So anyway, this morning a huge truck came to load little green up.

And up she went!

Here's video because I'm sappy.

An then the green monster was on a truck.

Fit right in amongst the cars.

And then, they drove away.

Good bye. I will miss you hugely.

Three cheers for the venerable car 47!

beep!

Cole loves swings. It's a fact.

2009-09-14T09:17:00.003-04:00

We went to the park on Sunday because the weather was perfect for science experiments. We wanted to see wether or not Cole would enjoy swings. Like real swings, not those battery powered fisher price things (which are still awesome, but you know -- they're not SWINGS).

We did a couple tests and we can unequivocally state that Cole loves swings. We have a mathematical proof, but I think these photos will suffice, and be easier to understand.

It's a beautiful, rainy day.

2009-09-12T13:04:00.004-04:00

This morning I swept the acorns off the driveway and patio. Ahh, the glamour of home-ownership.

On a less boring note, Stacy came and visited this past weekend! It was so great to see her. Remember Stacy? I am so glad that we're keeping in touch with our awesome NICU nurses -- they are such an important part of our extended family. Liz, you're next! Anyway, Cole remembered Stacy with a big smile:

Yay! It's still funny to me seeing Stacy, Grace, and Liz in "street clothes."

Cole is growing. Not just his big round belly, but he's getting longer too! Proof is that we've needed to pull out the box of "future" clothes, and put away some of his regular outfits cause he just doesn't fit into them anymore! It's nuts. It's sad to see some of our favorites get folded up and put into storage, but exciting to see some of the new threads he gets to strut around in. Check it out:

This is our new favorite family portrait:

How sassy is that kid? Wicked sassy.

You can't really see his classy collared shirt, but you can see that Kate's about to get drooled on, and that's funny.

Changing gears, my friend Andy came over and helped me start installing speaker cable into the walls of our house. This has been a lifelong dream for me, and I'm really excited to be doing it for real, in our very own house. I know it's a silly dream, but this home theater / stereo baloney is actually important to me. Here's one third of our progress so far.

We have done the front left, center and right speakers. Next we have to do the rear left and right speakers, and the main patch plate where they all route to. That'll be fun! I have to say; drilling through the basement floor into the wall between the hallway and living room was scary at first, and then incredibly satisfying. Fun!

Holy crap, it's September already?!

2009-09-06T08:06:00.002-04:00

Nuts.
We've been paying attention to odds and ends around the house, and are continuing to explore the neighborhood with Cole. The other day we want on a walk with Grace ( remember Grace from the NICU? ) and her dog Rocky at this great little park nearby. The weather has been really nice lately, and we're trying to take advantage of it.

Here's Grace helping Cole navigate the treacherous terrain.

As you can see, Kate is wearing this totally awesome aluminum frame baby carrier thing. We got it from Kate's parents at a recent visit; a generational hand-me-down. Jane used to carry Kate around in it, and now it's Cole's turn to perch in its old-school pocket. The thing may look a little cumbersome, but let me tell you - it's from an age where products were designed to entice people into traveling in space. I don't know what that means, and I don't think it's true, but the point is - the aluminum tubing is light as hell, it's surprisingly comfortable to wear, and Cole sits comfortably up there with a good amount of freedom and security. It's awesome!

This is Grace's pup, Rocky. He's a sweetie and a sillyhead:

Overall, Cole really dug being out in the woods.

I just like these two pictures:

Sometimes Cole is very serious.

Anyway, another thing we've been playing with lately in Cole's playroom is some little plastic friends. Cole has been learning how to get along with others, and in these simulations, we think he is doing fantastically.

Cole isn't shy.

Doesn't this look fun?

On a less Cole-oriented note, we're making slow progress updating and improving the house. We've got fancy new door handles (all of the fixtures in the house are brass, and we're trying to eventually replace it all with brushed aluminum).

Those are sweet 'cause you don't have to remember your keys. And if the battery dies (they claim a 9V battery lasts 3 years) you can just use the key that you stash somewhere under a doormat or whatever. Seems groovy, and so far we're loving it. Also, you may notice we painted the front door black. I'm sure you didn't notice that, but it's a fact. It used to be an awful brown that didn't match anything. Black matches the "shutters."

We also put some much fancier numbers up out front.

And I pulled up those damn posts with their ridiculously heavy concrete anchors which used to hold the chainlink fence up.

The outside of the house is much cleaner now:

Except the "front yard" is now essentially a bunch of dirt. We'll figure something out.

That's it for now! Enjoy the end of summer!

Big Time

2009-08-10T23:18:00.005-04:00

We went out for a bite to eat tonight, and perhaps a bit of air conditioning because sakes alive it is hot and sweltery up in here!

As we carried Cole through the restaurant, we were stopped by a cute, little, old Italian lady who said "Led mee zee jor baybee. Ooooo hee eez adorable, and SO BEEG! " And we were all thank you, thank you nice lady. Then we sat down, looked at our snoozing doodle and quietly reveled in our luck and joy. "SO BEEG?!" Remember when he was soooooooooo small? We do.

Oh, Pippy McSqueaks, you've come a long, long way, baby.

Thanks, talented anonymous friend!

2009-08-09T08:14:00.002-04:00

In an incredible fit of generosity and sweetness, a "secret admirer" from the west coast channeled their incredible knitting skills and created this amazingly beautiful sweater for Cole. The color is perfect for his little blue eyes. We did a photo shoot yesterday morning because the lighting was great.

Now, before posting these I'd like to ask for your forgiveness: I have to post like a hundred of these because they are SO DARN CUTE.

So here goes:

Assassin Cole

This is my favorite one:

I really like this one too:

Now we're on to non-blue sweater photos....

Cole is a champion nose booper:

Pineapple upside down baby:

He has totally found his toes and has just learned how to nibble on them:

Cole loves to read magazines:

So yeah! That's how we spent yesterday morning. I gotta say, I value weekends so much more now that I am a parent than I did before. More time for snuggles and giggles.

I leave you with one shot of our living room, and one of our kitchen as the house slowly progresses away from boxes and shambles.

News flash! Betty has been adopted!

2009-08-06T10:38:00.003-04:00

I know that this is kinda old news to most of you, but I figured I'd make it official. I don't know why posting something on the blog constitutes officiality, but that's a thought for another time.

Betty was adopted the day after we closed on the new place. The timing could not have been more perfect! Betty would have been pretty miserable in the chaos that was our moving process, so we're glad she didn't have to experience that. I actually never met the adopting parents, but Kate speaks very highly of them, so I'm sure they're superb people. You can be assured that the next stage of Betty's life will be one of comfort and joy. And snacks.

To Betty! A wonderful, snoozy, quirky, sweet, adorable goofus of a pup.

We're getting there!

2009-07-23T11:42:00.007-04:00

I know, I know -- we're slackin' hard core with this blog thing! Well, to be fair, we are not slacking in other areas. We are working our butts off unpacking, having finished the actual moving of the things. Soon we will have technology properly set up in the new house, and then we can show exciting things like photographs and ... well yeah that's about it.

Anyway, I figured an update was in order, and since I'm at work and only have access to non-Cole-related things, I will talk to you about something I'm SURE you've been dying to read about: my commute!

View Larger Map

My cycling commute has gone from 3.6 miles to just about 9 miles. It may be longer, but it's much more pleasant. I am no longer going down the bike lane on Mass Ave and turning onto Comm Ave, jostling for space on the asphalt with cars the whole way (the bike lane on Mass Ave is notorious for being ignored by motorists). The commute is a bike path that follows the southern bank of the Charles River pretty much the whole way. Sections of it are essentially a sidewalk to Storrow Drive / Soldier's Field Road, but then there are good chunks of it which are wonderful pathways through lush greenery or quiet runs right next to the water. It's pretty awesome.

I wonder if I'm going to at some point eschew beauty for efficiency by cutting off a huge stroke of the charles by taking Western or Brighton Ave... but so far I am enjoying it. Pictures to come!

A house! Seriously! It's ours! We live there!

2009-07-08T21:42:00.005-04:00

Front:

Back:

From the sidewalk (note car 2.0 poking its butt out):

Our little garage:

Our back yard:

I love ferns:

And we have some stairs in the back yard too:

These are the wild flowers in our front "yard."

This is the west side of the house. It's like ... a quarry or something.

Here's the east side of the garage with the stairs that go down to the back yard:

A detail on those stairs: they are beautiful brick with fantastic moss. I love moss.

The back side of the garage. MORE MOSS!

There's a beautiful japanese maple tree in the front:

Holy moly! More moss in the driveway!

The garage is really ... small. Note how the mini looks kinda normal in there. As if the garage was made for it or something. Too bad I have to sell it, it fits so nicely!

So I guess we don't actually live there yet. But we could if we wanted to. And we do want to. We just have to get all our stuff there, first. Our plan is to pull down the wallpaper, paint the walls, pull up the carpet, and then move all of our worldly possessions over in small piles.

Now, there are a couple of terms one can use to describe the removal of wallpaper. Strip, scrape, etc. Those two involve tools, steam, maybe chemicals, and a ton of effort. We are going to use the word "pull." Because all we did was pull it off like a banana peel. Check it out!

Grab the edge:

and PULL!

A couple hours later, you've got a fully stripped house!

So here's our piles of wallpaper, ready to be sent to wallpaper heaven:

Fun! Next steps:
- Wash the remaining dried adhesive off the walls.
- Spackle all the crumblie bits, cracks, edges, and holes we found lurking behind the wallpaper.
-PAINT!

We're thinking we'll paint with some of the newer primer / paint combinations in white. We want to live there for a while before choosing colors.

So yeah! That's our house! Come on by any time! We'll be there spackling! Or drinking champagne! Or doing backspins on the kitchen floor!

Awesome.

Kate is an awesome cook.

2009-07-03T18:53:00.003-04:00

So it turns out that Cole thinks store bought food sucks. I suppose I'm being a little harsh, but whatever. Regardless, we decided to start making our own baby food because it's more natural, more pure, easy to do, and cheap. Kate is actually doing all the work so I must give her the credit. I'm just the documentarian.

It turns out that when I fell in love with Kate so many years ago due to her being an excellent chef, it was with good reason. She makes excellent combinations of M&Ms and Reese's Pieces, and excellent smooshed fruits and vegetables. Dig her handiwork:

Soften:

Smoosh:

Store:

Chill!

Here's proof that it's delicious and that Kate is a genius and that Cole will grow up big, strong and healthy:

It was so good that Betty even wanted some!

It's gotta be Christmas somewhere, right?

2009-06-28T07:22:00.003-04:00

Cole is growing up. I knew this would happen eventually, but I didn't know it would manifest itself in more drool, more smiles, and the potential for learning high fives. But yes, we decided it was time for some new accessories to help his little mind develop. Enter the overstimulation station:

Here is Cole, semi-floating, flanked by all manner of shiny distractables. He loves poking, smashing, grabbing, and spinning. The biggest benefit of this thing though, is that it melds seamlessly into our industrio-modern decor.

He really does enjoy all the crazy stuff this thing has to offer. I still love accidentally capturing silly faces.

The other accessory we got him is a new stroller. He's JUST big enough to fit in a normal thing where he sits, gets buckled in, and faces forward so he can watch the world come at him. We figure he'll enjoy all of that input. So we put it together, and took him out for a stroll with the whole family. Let's go guys!

Unsurprisingly, he fell asleep within a few minutes.

He's Crafty

2009-06-25T10:24:00.002-04:00

I wish I knew more about cars. I wish I knew more about troubleshooting the odd noises they can make. I wish I could dab a finger into the fluids they leave on the driveway and examine the color, smell, or feel and know exactly what to do. I'm learning that stuff now, in my 30's. Does that mean my capacity for understanding is limited? Do our brains become less flexible as we get older? Or do we just have less time to spend on things, absorbing their details?

Who knows.

But I'm getting Cole started early. This past weekend, he helped Bill wrench on his race car, and he helped me watch Bill weld a seat bracket into the floor of our Formula F racing Peugeot.

Bill's race car ( the 240RS Maxi ):

Here's some pics of Bill working on the Peugeot, our <$500 race car. I figured I'd just include some shots of this so you know what I'm into. Note: Bill is doing all the welding; I currently lack that skill.

Cole enjoys the Maxi quite a bit (but I'd like to think he prefers the mini)

He also accompanied me and Kate to another car gathering. He is becoming quite the regular at these events! I don't have any shots of him at the event, but here are some examples of cars he appreciated the most:

This one's for Rick:

Hello, Long Beach!

2009-06-16T12:14:00.007-04:00

This past weekend, we headed down to visit Kate's parents in Long Beach. Or Lido Beach if you want to get technical. We had a great time, and Cole already misses all the snuggles and smiles from the variety of extended family and friends. This morning he was like "Where's G6? Where's Grampa? Where's Liz? What about Maggie, Shira, Gale, Steve, Clive, Susie, Aron, Addie, Jon, and everyone else? This place is so BOOORRRRIIINNNGGG!" Sorry kid, but now it's just us. The amount of love he enjoyed among the visitors was incredible, and his smiles and comfy snoozes were his thanks.

I'll also include this picture of Cole cuddling with Shira because it's an artsypants shot, and you know that's my thang.

This was Cole's first time on the beach. We were very excited about that! I don't know why, but we were compelled to take a bunch of pictures. The first day was chilly and Cole fell asleep instantly.

Note the totally kick ass vintage 70's Knicks jersey he's wearing. That's a hand-me-down from uncle John, whom we saw wearing the very same shirt while perusing a photo album of Kate's youth. Pretty awesome.

Aunt Maggie came down and played with him in the freezing water for a bit.

But his hat flew off

So he had to wear mine, even though it didn't fit very well.

I'm telling you, the water was COLD.

So we abandoned the water and played on the beach a little.

And we experimented with what Cole would look like wearing a long fantastic toupee.

It was chilly in the wind though, so we returned home and took some naps.

And hung out with some new friends.

It was a lovely afternoon. That night my uncle Clive, Aunt Susie and cousin Aron came out for a visit. We had a great time walking on the beach and catching up. It had been a while!

It was so fun that we were all frozen in time for a second, a-la the ending to an 80's TV Show.

It was a beautiful night.

We were visited by UFOs.

The next morning there was finally some sun. So much sun, in fact, that it was impossible to get a photo without over-exposing it.

Until I noticed that you can actually change the settings on the camera. Pretty cool right? Moveable switches.

Cole had some energy and we introduced him to the concept of stomping around in the sand. He enjoyed sqooshing it between his toes, and picking it up and smarshing it between his fingers. He was mesmerized.

Fun! Also fun is relaxing in boingie chairs.

But the most fun is getting MARVEL!

Fun for us anyway. We didn't allow Cole to partake because his little gizzards would probably turn into stone if he ate a single sprinkle. Soon, little guy!

That afternoon, my good friend Jon dropped by for a visit. This is the Jon whom I wrote about on the very first post of this blog. The last time he saw us was Cole's birthday. It was pretty cool to spend time with him again in a less holy-crap-what-the-hell-is-going-on type of environment.

Here's Jon doing his best Cole impersonation.

And who doesn't love a smooch on the head?

Shira took this picture of her iPhone. I'm pretty sure she's going to use that as her wallpaper until the end of time. Right Shira?

I now end the post with a curious seagull.

Inside Out

2009-06-12T14:56:00.002-04:00

We accidentally overlooked an opportunity to eat cake (gasp!) on May 29th. That date marks Cole's one hundred and sixteenth day of freedom from the NICU. He has now officially been on the outside longer than he was in the clink. His baby mitzvah if you will. So hooray for tipping the scales in the name of normal. We'll add this date to the other cakeaversaries:

October 13th - Birthday
January 25th - Due date
February 4 - Hatch day (graduation from the NICU)
May 29th - Baby balance day

Bring on the cupcakes!

Experimanicure

2009-06-11T08:45:00.002-04:00

I did a test. Just out of curiosity, I cut Cole's fingernails one day, and mine at the same time. Do they grow at the same rate? A couple weeks later, it turns out that they do! We both needed a trim at the same time.

So if you're ever wondering if baby nails grow any faster or slower ... they're just the same! I suppose that shouldn't come as any real surprise, but I thought it was fun.

Alright!

We do this for you.

2009-06-07T14:19:00.003-04:00

We're going to try to make more posts more frequently, I swear! In an effort to have something silly to post, we took this:

But then some awesome things actually did happen, which we documented photographically for proof. First, we went out on a beautiful Sunday afternoon walk with the dog at Cabot Woods in Newton. We remembered that our awesome NICU nurse Grace lived near there, so we gave her a call and joined us with her lovely husband and ADORABLE DOG. The walk in the woods was wonderful. And I lied, I didn't have my camera that day so there are no photos. Sorry!

However, we went back to the NICU the next day to say hello to our friend Stacy, and I DID bring the camera that day.

Hello old friend!

Yay! That was such a great visit.

Now here's some random photos because who doesn't love photos? Nobody, that's who.

Snoozy head.

And finally, I am selling the mini. It stunks (typo! But I'm going to leave it because ... "stunks'? That's hilarious! To me.), but it will allow us to buy a better house in a better neighborhood, and Cole deserves that much. He also deserves to be picked up from school in a super rad car, but we'll cross that bridge when he goes to school. Anyway, since the mini is going away, I wanted to do a little photoshoot with it and Cole. Ta daah!

And then we had to stop because he was getting sick of the whole concept.

And that's it for now! Time to go celebrate our anniversary. Because it's our first anniversary. Hooray!

Nom nom nom nom nom

2009-05-29T19:57:00.002-04:00

The other day Cole ate snacks for the first time! Very exciting!! He had gotten the green light from our pediatrician, so we bought some peas, bananas, and apples. We figured we'd start with bananas because the truth is, bananas are delicious. Unless you're Andy Smith, but he's an anomaly.

The first face he made when confronted with the feeling of food in his mouth was something like this:

But then he seemed totally intrigued and loved it:

He also totally got the hang of it and started feeding himself. He was like, "hey man, I got this. Take five while I scarf this down."

It was pretty sweet. Here are some more pictures of the event.

Fun! I also took some video. Here's some video!

2 Things

2009-05-19T08:18:00.004-04:00

I've just updated kateplusadam.com. It now an aggregation of a couple things:

The last 2 blog posts
The latest 19 photo uploads to Flickr
The last 2 videos we uploaded to youtube
My twitter tweets (tweet!)
Links to all the old stuff

So yeah. Might be a good place to look for updates because we don't always update everything at the same time.

Also, our hard drive came back from the hard drive monkeys, and now we've got a whole mess of photos to blog about. All of that to come, because I have to get to WORK! Preview:

Quick shout out

2009-05-11T09:24:00.003-04:00

I just wanted to take a moment to give a series of hugs to all the people at the Beth Israel NICU. We went to the NICU reunion tent at the March of Dimes on Saturday and it was so wonderful to see everyone! Among the amazing staff at the table, Grace and Stacy were there, giving Cole kisses and happily squeezing him. We had a nice chat with Dr. Gupta too. It felt so great to be among that company again, celebrating Cole and his new fat rolls.

No photos for now, because our hard drive with the photos on it is under the knife, but as soon as it gets back there will be a big ass post with 47 thousand photos. Maybe more.

Mom and Dad are leaving today *sad!* It was an incredible visit, and deserves its own detailed post. I'll write that later, I have to go get some work done.

Miles of Smiles

2009-05-03T23:03:00.004-04:00

So, it's been a while. What's up?

We've been up to all sorts of shenanigans: visiting parents (grandparents!), a wedding, and lots of playing with friends, near and far. We've seen international racing boats, museums, bars, ice cream shops, rain, sun, and fresh spring breezes. Also a bunch of other stuff that I can't think of right now.

Here's Cole next to his very first turbo:

We had the honor of joining Livia and Jamie for their son's Baptism, and we wanted Cole to look especially respectable. Kate's mom Jane had managed to find a super awesomely appropriate outfit for him. Here he is all dressed up for the first time.

He was ready way before we were, so he sat around on the couch while Kate and I got our stuff together. Drumming his fingers, he waited patiently.

Cole has found out that his fingers can be used to grab stuff. Like my face.

Cole met a new green friend in the past couple weeks.

When they talk to each other, the words they use are mostly "RAWR!" and "AARRRR!".

One thing that we've been trying to do for quite some time now is capture one of Cole's big happy smiles on "film." Here are some of our best examples:

Yay smiles and giggles!
More pictures and updates to come. Just have to recover my busted hard drive. Yay.

Belated Blogging

2009-04-13T20:31:00.001-04:00

Oh, hello there!

Where the heck have we been? Ummmmm, besides reveling in the awesomeness that is Cole? Yeah, that's about it.

First, just the facts. Fat king Cole is SIX months old! Yeah, seriously. Can you believe it? Happy birthiversary big guy! Speaking of supersized... Cole has been very busy octupling his weight, currently tipping the scales at a whopping fifteen and a half pounds. What a porkchop! Our pediatrician tells us that this is in the 90th percentile of weight for his age, not that we're crazy stat watchers, but come on, he has multiplied by eight, people! That is not too shabby. He is also sleeping through the night (ish) and speaking fluent french. OK, that last one not so much true.

Since Cole emerged from his little NICU cocoon and half way house arrest, he has been meeting and greeting friends and family galore. He recently hosted aunt Gale and uncle Steve, along with aunt Liz and uncle Phil. They zoomed alllll the way up to beantown from the big apple with bagels and lox and potato chips, oh my! It was like culinary hebrew school for our little latke. We noshed and snuggled and did a fashion show of Cole's entire wardrobe. I am telling you, you could just feel the love.

Have bagels will travel

Family portrait

Hangin with Lirpy

Phhhhht with Poopie

The greatest aunties

We are faaaaamily

Men munching

Ladies lunching

Snuggles

Cole also recently celebrated/slept through Passover. Mazel tov!

Speaking of love, Cole also spent some quality time with our family friends Margie and Tony, Steph and Jennifer. They gave him plenty of hugs and quiches. It was a wonderful celebration with lots of smiles and joy. We swapped preemie stories with Steph, mom to beautiful, brilliant preemie success story and role model to Cole, Kendra. Tony even serenaded Cole with song. Of course, Cole collected cuddles from everybody.

Supreme snoozing

I boop your nose!

Hugs

Sidenote: After four months of lying solo in the hospital crib, I had worried that Cole might be a little robot, sort of "meh" about the snugs, even though we held him every chance we got. Well, this kid is a cuddle machine! Never is he happier than when he is perched in an admirers arms like a baby chick in its cozy nest. He is absolutely shameless, and pouts if you even think of putting him down. It's ridiculous, ridiculously adorable that is.

Speaking of snuggles, we had a great visit with our friend and Cole's NICU nurse, Stacy. We have missed her! We had a little love fest at the local ice cream joint.

Happy reunion

Hello friend

Smiles

We are thrilled that the stinky Boston weather is slooooowly springing to life.

The flu season is waning, and we are widening our radius, taking field trips to stores, snack bars, dog parks, oh, speaking of dogs...

Our foster pup is making progress in (skinny, awkward) leaps and bounds. We have named her Betty. For the first few days we could barely get her out of the crate, she was such a nervous nellie. We were thrilled when she started creeping around the house, exploring every inch of the place with her skinny little snoot. She was easily spooked and really flinchy at first, but now she wags her tail and even plays! She also, um, steals stuff. It's a funny greyhound thing, not all of them do it, she's our first foster who has. The theory is that they've never had anything of their own at the kennel, so when they finally have the chance, they, um yeah, steal stuff. Not like diamonds or illegal cable, just little things like toys, towels, blankets laundry etc. It's pretty hilarious.

Snurfle

Zoom zoom

Adam's parents just arrived from South Africa for a visit. They've spent the last few weeks in Portland visiting Adam's brother, his wife Becky, their son Theo, and their new baby Henry who was born in November. Welcome to beantown Bill and Linda! I'm sure we'll be posting pictures of their visit soon.

Cole's Adventures in Snacks and Snoots

2009-03-16T07:53:00.002-04:00

Keeping Cole cooped up in the house was boring. Actually, boring isn't quite the word for it, but we knew that his presence had so much more potential. Now that it's not freezing outside, and Cole's getting a little bigger and stronger, we figure we can start venturing out into the world with him at our side. When I say "the world" what I really mean is "our favorite food joints."

We always take him out in the proper attire:

And he likes to stay close to us:

Sleeping through burgers, fries and shakes at Four Burgers:

Pondering Nachos at Uno's:

Mastering cutlery at Uno's:

Mesmerized by soda at Uno's:

I also took him to his first car gathering where he witnessed a sweet '67 Ferrari and didn't appreciate it:

We love dogs. Dogs are awesome! Hopefully Cole will love dogs too, and you can't love 'em till you're exposed to a bunch of cute snoots. So we brought Cole to rub noses with some friends.

Alex and Meghan's French Bulldog Lola:

Gathering affection from some retired racers at a Greyhound Welfare open house:

I'm just going to slip this one in here; this is the pup Cole now spends time with every day -- our new foster dog, as yet unnamed:

Upgrades

2009-03-07T10:52:00.002-05:00

I know it shouldn't come as a big surprise or anything, but Cole is totally growing! He's getting bigger and fatter, and slowly learning things like eye contact and how to use his hands (kinda). We're trying to teach him hugs and the cabbage patch.

Physically, one of the things that is fun for us to see is that he's growing eyelashes and eyebrows. They weren't really there before, and now he's a doe eyed boy!

Cute.

As the weather gets better and Cole grows older, we're starting to venture out into the world with him, step by step. Kate takes him to Whole Foods and we've taken him to exciting places like breakfast and pizza joints. No photos of that, but trust us, it's the truth.

We're also trying to teach him to read, and so far he's starting to grasp looking at pages. It's a start!

I know you can't believe it, but we have a bunch of photos of him doing random stuff.

And I know that this is like, the most clichéd baby picture on earth, but I like to post it to show how big his hands are getting as a barometer for his overall growth.

Look at that! He's at two whole knuckles now! Remember when his hands were no bigger than my fingernail?

Nuts.

2009-02-28T20:19:00.002-05:00

Cole's been learning all sortsa new stuff. Like how to be a big nerd:

How to fly a helicopter (using Kate as flight simulator):

How to be casual:

He's learned all about eggs:

Yeah; that's right. He licked the egg. But it's cool, it was all boiled and as sterilized as an egg can get.

This pictures is just for arsty fartsy's sake.

I just like this picture.

Cole's Gramma G6 Granny Grandmother Jane came to visit too. Jane is Kate's mom, and she's awesome. She and Cole had a great time bonding.

Hey guys, what's up?

Matching outfits dot com!

They totally didn't even call eachother that morning and say "let's wear matching outfits!" either -- it was a total coincidence. Crazy right?

I know.

Homeboy

2009-02-16T20:42:00.003-05:00

The blog is totally not over! It's actually just beginning in a way, I suppose.

We're totally a family now! It's amazing.

Amazingly fun, amazingly exhausting, amazingly new, cute, gigglie, frustrating, confusing, wonderful, hilarious, silly and more. We are learning a ton, growing closer, and just enjoying being together. And doing our best to keep eachother from going crazy.

I am really pooped, so my brain doesn't work well enough to write much else at the moment. I have taken a whole bunch of pictures documenting many of our activities (I'll totally spare you from crappy parts). Enjoy!

We've been sleeping

Using computers

Making faces at each other

Boiling soiled clothes and linens in hydrochloric acid

Bringing home exotic ingredients we've never tried before

Experimenting with exciting and new recipes

Hanging out OUTSIDE!! Remember when it was 50 degrees out? That was awesome.

Keeping an eye on the little doodle from hundreds of centimeters away

Trying on new shoes

Reading books in bed

Reading books on the couch

Snoozing on the couch

Snoozing in bed

Being generally adorable

Photos? Me too me too!

We are family

2009-02-04T17:22:00.002-05:00

This morning when we stepped out the door, knowing Cole was ready to finally come home, we noticed we had had a visitor. The preemie stork had come to let us know there would be a delivery.

Fortunately there was a dusting of snow so we had proof.

When we got to the hospital we put Cole in his homecoming outfit.

Here I go!

However, it was going to be freezing out so he needed an additional layer.

We signed seventy five pages of forms, packed Cole into his car seat, and gave teary eyed hugs to all the doctors and nurses who were present to see us off. It was really intense saying good bye to these people; they really do become family. Leaving was definitely bittersweet. One of the nurses got a snap of us as we went through the exit.

We got him into the car, and drove him home at about 7 mph. It was awesome. Freedom tastes so sweet. We got home and immediately took a bunch of ridiculous pictures.

Baby on the porch!

Baby in front of the FJ!

Baby in front of Car 2.0!

Baby and mom on the couch!

Ponderous baby on the couch in his room!

Baby in his crib for the first time! Holy moly!

Baby toes!

Baby under big silly sign!

Baby in Jail!

Baby in Jail!

Baby fingers!

Holy crap what am I going to do with this thing?!

Baby snoozing in front of stereo in bassinet.

Then after acclimating at home for a little while, we got a great email from a friend from the NICU. She has a baby there too, and she sent this great picture of her baby's monitor with Cole's monitor as a subwindow. For some reason this photo brings tears to my eyes.

Intense.

Anyway ... we'll be at home CHillin' for the next couple days. Just the family.

Two Dudes

2009-02-03T16:32:00.007-05:00

Tic Toc, watching the clock. Nothing new to report. It's hard to type with my fingers crossed, so I'm just gonna post some pics of my guys...

Baby's first "Man"icure

Cliperty clip clip

Buff buff buff

Not So Fast

2009-01-30T15:18:00.002-05:00

Well, our little rascal has been a bit sassy and they've revoked his off campus privileges. Apparently he's not quite ready to leave the cozy confines of the NICU. Not that we blame him, it's a pretty cushy set up here with his personal assistants and round the clock all you can eat room service. Still, we're bummed we can't make lots of SuperCole Sunday* jokes. I mean, he's super every day of the week, but SuperCole Wednesday (or whatever it's gonna be) just doesn't have the same ring to it.

To clarify for the worriers (you know who you are, hi mom!), Cole is fine. This is a nuisance, but not an indication of anything negative. He just needs a little more time, it's common for micro-preemies born as early as he was. Better he be safe here in the clink than out in the world and at risk.

Anyway, the countdown has been reset, five days (ish) and counting...

T Minus 2 days and counting...

2009-01-30T07:30:00.005-05:00

Cole's new potential release date is Sunday! We were sad when they said it wouldn't be Friday, but also a little relieved that we had another weekend to get the house ready, get more "baby stuff" and go out clubbing with college kids on a 3 day bender. We just had the Merry Maids come and clean the hell out of our house, and they did an amazing job. Cole is no longer susceptible to attack by dust bunny armies. Hold the phone; what's up with the phrase "dust bunny"? That makes them sound cute when in fact they are grody to the max. Just sayin'.

We have had a tough couple nights because we've had to say temporary good-byes to our favorite nurses at the NICU. Now in fairness all of the nurses we have had over the past 3+ months have been amazing, compassionate, brilliant, thoughtful, sweet, and have each in turn saved our son's life at one point or another. Saying they are angels and miracle workers is an understatement, and they have our eternal gratitude and respect. The reality though, is that there are a few nurses who took him under their blue scrubbed wings and really nourished him and guided us through this whole ordeal. They became our friends and his extended family and we can't wait till they move in with us after Cole comes home. Stacy, Liz, Grace -- you are our shining stars and we adore you and thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all that you have done for us. This post is a tribute to you and your everlasting kindness.

Stacy

Grace

Liz

We really can't say enough about all that you have done, and we really look forward to continuing to have you in our lives. As Cole grows, know that he is a product of your love.

Sounds Good

2009-01-28T23:36:00.003-05:00

Good news! Cole had his hearing screening today and... he passed! Cheers to his ears! Which reminds me of an odd preemie quirk from way back in the beginning. When babies are born as early as Cole was, they're still growing, and important parts like cartilage aren't fully formed. So his little ears were sort of floppy, not super floppy like Homer's ears (remember those ears? They were awesome. Sigh) but if he slept on them wrong, they'd fold over like flower petals. No worries though, you could just mush them back into place. Anyway, Cole's ears are now officially, doctor approved perfect, inside and out (plus adorable) so hurrah!

Anyway, we got to thinking, if he's just laying around, listening to stuff, what should he hear? Soon he'll be free of the hustle and bustle and beeps and boops of the NICU and then what? Clearly, a mix tape is in order. The song list is pretty important, music being a powerful and influential medium and all. Does Jack Johnson = mellow dude baby? Would hair band rock breed a tiny aggro tot? We've got some ideas of our own, but we're opening our playlist to you, our grooviest friends. Send us your suggestions for Cole's first dance party soundtrack. He's already getting good at throwing his hands in the air, and waving them like he just don't care.

Unsigned Integer

2009-01-27T11:17:00.004-05:00

Now here's a conundrum. Cole's due date was the 25th, so he's no longer negative days old! Awesome. He's 2. But I don't REALLY want to start counting his days until he comes home, which may be Friday, so he's negative 3. But Friday is a moving target based on his stability, so maybe he should be x - 25 days old, with x being the date. Unless he comes home in February in which case it would be more like x + 6 where x is the date in February. This is why we never talk in absolutes when it comes to Chill, because it just gets silly. Anyway, I think when he comes home he'll be 0 days old in my head.

Speaking of 0 days old, I would like to mention that though Cole is technically still premature (because he's x-25 days old), his eyes are officially mature! His risk of ROP is gone and as he gets older he'll eventually be able to read the giant mini billboard screwed into the wall above his crib. We are so thrilled knowing that his eyes are all growed up! Good stuff little guy.

The whole giant mini billboard thing is actually a really good segue into the next topic. It's also just an awesome thing to say because it's ridiculous. Kate's sister Maggie came up and helped us buy a ton of stuff and prepare the house for Chill's homecoming. His room is all done and waiting for a baby. Wanna see?

The first thing you see on Cole's door is this super awesome teensie onesie we got from Stacy, one of our most awesome nurses.

Sorry it's so dark, I need to do some color correction. Or be a better photographer.

And now some detail shots of the silly things all over the place.

One of the buckets in the ikea thing under the window is full of toys and stuff which we've gotten from our wonderful, generous friends. I'm looking forward to finding out which of them Cole gravitates to, and which stuffed animal(s) he falls in love with. So much fun! I can't wait till we can just hang out in there and read books with cardboard pages.

C•HILL

2009-01-22T22:38:00.002-05:00

We got a package from my old college friend MiRi today. It contained a really nice note and a dope little blue hat (pics to come). Written on the hat in big block letters is the word CHILL. I thought that was pretty cute, until I did a double take and noticed that there was a bullet between the C and the H ... C•HILL ... Cole Hilliker ... that is so awesome! MiRi, you are a superstar and I love the dope nickname you just gave Cole.

Chill.

You know what's freakin' amazing though? Yesterday they took his feeding tube out! He is now 100% baby. No more bionic parts, no more support, no more invasive stabby things. Just little human parts. He seems much happier too, but that might just be me projecting. Who knows, but he sure looks cute without any crap obscuring his face.

About to sneeze....

SNEEZING!

Grover is free too! AAA!

NICU Centennial

2009-01-20T23:08:00.003-05:00

One of the things that has always been interesting to me is how baby's ages are measured. People say things in weeks, days, months, and some other units that I'm completely unfamiliar with. I used to think it was strange, but now I totally get it. Babies change so much in so little time that even a week, or sometimes just a day can present you with a totally different little dude. If we were measuring in grand metric units of 100 days, Cole would be one unit old. That's nuts! And boy has he changed a lot!

One of the most significant recent changes is his ability to breathe room air. This is so huge and exciting! He has now been off oxygen since Saturday at 11am. That's three and a half days! I am over the moon with joy about his strong little lungs.

Of course Cole couldn't be satisfied with all this good news, so he has decided to have elevated blood pressure for some reason. He's had this problem on and off for a couple weeks, and everybody's stumped. His kidneys look great, and he hasn't been anywhere near the salt lick. He is taking a little medication for it and has another ultrasound coming up to check out his gizzards. All the doctors are saying that it's no big deal, just a curiosity. Indeed.

This evening we had a lot of fun goofing around. Here's proof.

YAWN!

After the festivities, Cole was pooped and he fell asleep cozily beneath this beautiful blankie that Kate's aunt Gale made for him.

Is he fashion forward or what? I know, totally! Kate liked the blankie too. And is adorable.

Easy Breathie Beautiful

2009-01-17T23:09:00.002-05:00

Today they are doing another test of a cannula free Cole. It's totally awesome! It's so great to see his little face without tubes all over it. I bet you're going to be surprised to know that I took some pictures.

Fixed! A photo essay.

2009-01-16T00:07:00.007-05:00

I don't know what a photo essay is, but I kindof assume it doesn't have any words. Therefore I don't think this is technically a photo essay because there will be words. I hope that's okay with you.

We woke up this morning a little late, knowing that we wouldn't have to get to the NICU till the early afternoon. We checked in, and there was a cancellation at Children's Hospital, so there was a chance he'd be shifted up to around 10am or something. That would be sweet! We could get this all overwith super early!

That didn't happen. We goofed around all morning and planned for the original 3pm time. What we didn't plan for was Cole's new hat.

What the crap is that?! Turns out it's his IV. They tried to get one into his arm, his wrist, his leg, his foot, his everything. He's too chubby though, which is a great problem to have. Weird, because the result is a huge puffy hat with a giant needle going into his brain (it's not actually in his BRAIN, but that's fun to say if you're juvenile like me). Our nurse Liz said that it's actually a pretty awesome spot for an IV though, because this way there's no arm or leg that needs to be bound. It looks scary, but is really great for Cole. Definitely deserves a high five.

We hung around till 3, and then 3:30, and his appointment kept getting pushed back. It was totally like this:

But it was cool because we got to spend time with the nurses we love. This is Grace.

This is Grace and Liz, and Kate holding Cole with something on his noggin. Special shout out to Liz -- she came in on her day off, during her "working nights" rotation, or whatever it's called, just so Cole could have a friendly face at his side in the OR. How great is that? Liz rocks; it's a fact.

Finally, our time came. The ambulance came and we began packing Cole into the very fancy Pizza box. Special delivery!

There's a baby in that calzone:

Off you go buddy.

Precious cargo, waiting for the elevator.

The back of the bus is where all the cool kids sit.

Good thing you have all this hardware to bring you all the way to across the street!

Here we are finally at Children's. As you can see, if it comes down to it, Liz is ready to kick some ass on Cole's behalf. You may notice that Cole got a Curious George to keep him company in the OR, courtesy of the Children's staff. That's pretty awesome.

Clearly there will not be any ass kicking required, because everybody at Children's is awesome, and they fawn all over Cole. They think he is adoreable. I think they're right.

Cole was actually having a good time. If you click this picture you'll see he was all giggles!

He must have known that there were not going to be any flammable anesthetics used. Good thing.

Into the OR you go! Have fun in there!

Kate and I head over to endure the 2 hours the procedure requires in the waiting room.

We didn't have our Dinosaur stickers, but it's cool because we're over 12.

This was our view.

And then suddenly this!

Yay! How'd it go everybody? Very well thank you. Cole slept through the whole thing thanks to sleeping drugs and local anesthesia. And super kick ass surgeons.

When we got back to the NICU at BI (home sweet home!) they pulled him out of the pizza box and he looked great.

Curious George remained at his side as he reacquainted himself with his room, temporarily from the new perspective of a warmer rather than his crib. The nurses were sweet enough to shield his eyes from the lights 'cause they're bright! Ow!

Cole was fairly uncomfortable for a little while and Kate did a really wonderful job of comforting him. She is a kick ass mother.

And that's the story of Cole's surgery. He was inconsolable for a little while, but Kate hung in there and made sure he was happy and snoozy. He should be back to normal in like a week or so.

Cole's Cut

2009-01-14T22:25:00.003-05:00

Cole's hernia surgery has been scheduled for tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon. Eek!

Please send good vibes, wishes, thoughts, prayers, love etc. his way.