A SoCal Christmas

Things I like about Xmas in Southern California:
* Going to the store on Christmas Eve in flip-flops
* The only snowmen you see in your neighbors' front yard are made of wire and twinkling lights
* Celebrating Christmas and Hannukah at the same time and nobody bats an eye
* Eating Tofurkey for Christmas dinner, being able to find it easily at the grocery store, and other people have heard of it and don't say To-what-y???

Big News

Felix just went to the pediatrician yesterday, and she said he's getting to be a real fatty! No, she didn't say that, but she said that, at almost two months old, his size is the same as the average 3 1/2 month-old. He's at the 90th percentile for weight and 95th for height for a two month-old, weighing 13 lbs. 13 oz. (6265 g) and 24 1/2 in. (62 cm) in height. His head is only at the 50th percentile (15 1/2 cm), but no worries, I'm sure it'll catch up. He also got his first vaccination for Pertussis, Diptheria and Polio at the pediatrician's.

Oh yes, and Felix smiles a lot, as you can tell from the picture.



Here is Ella with a sling that Nicki made for her doll Big Baby. Nicki is always carrying Felix around in a similar sling, so Nicki sewed together a little one with fabric left over from a larger one. Nicki's boss, Becky, gave her a nice sewing machine that she's starting to get the hang of using. Ella loves her new sling and has been carrying Big Baby around in it all day.

Ella started a new preschool this week and she really loves it. This is a big deal for her, because she usually hates going to school and cries when we take her there. But with this one, she is excited to go to school and doesn't want to leave when we pick her up. She still whimpers a little bit when we leave, but hey, it's the first week. I think the school is going to work out.

Here is Ella and Nicki at the holiday party they had at her school on Thursday, with the school's director, Lynette.

Holidays Beginning

The holidays are here and over Thanksgiving weekend we went to visit my Mom, Blair and the three dogs Jasper (above), Tallulah and Cody in Palm Desert. Ella loves to play with Jasper and he's very accommodating, but he kept his distance with Felix. Babies are something new for him. Ella also took a golf cart ride and got a tennis lesson from her Granny. Ella had never even held a tennis racket before and was able to hit the ball.




On Friday night Ella and Felix visited their Tante Lynne's house, who was being visited Grandpa Martin; and cousins Jessica and Savannah; Julie, Riley and McKenna; and Jackie.

The pictures above are Felix with Savannah, and Nicki and Felix with Grandpa.



We've caught Felix smiling a few times, but its hard to get a good picture of it. Here's one we were able to get. He doesn't want to smile at our us or at Ella, only at our cat Toots.



Ella's friend from her old daycare, Amaya, came to visit yesterday with her Mom. Ella and Amaya both had a blast, and we hadn't seen Ella that happy in months. Ella hopes she comes back to visit soon.

Funny

I was set to take Ella to school the other day and was dressed in a t-shirt because it was a warm day. When she saw me, she said, "Can you wear a shirt with buttons?" So I had to change into a nicer shirt. It wasn't because I wasn't dressed nicely enough (this is a toddler, don't you know) but rather because one of her favorite games is to button and unbutton my shirt. She didn't do this game while we walked to school, but she liked to have the option.

Ella and Felix went to see the pediatrician on Wednesday. Felix was 24.5 inches in length (62.23 cm) and weighed 10 lbs, 14 oz. (4933 g). Ella was 36 inches tall (91 cm) and weighed 28 lbs. (12.7 kg). All perfectly healthy. Felix is growing very fast.

Here's a picture of Ella and Felix with the pediatrician, Dr. Liddy, and me.



Felix is one month old as of yesterday! He is already making cooing noises that are more than just grunting and gurgling, saying "oooo" and "aaah". Proto-language skills that most babies don't develop until the 3rd month.

Ella has learned to associate letters of the alphabet with words. She will say things like "B for book", "O for octopus", "D for Diametaceous". Well, I made that last one up. But I'm very proud of her.

Oma came to visit

Ella and Felix's Oma came to visit from Oct. 23rd to Nov. 6th and stayed at our house. We went to the Museum of Natural History (Ella wanted to see the dinosaur skeletons, but preferred to stay a discreet distance away from them, since they scared her) and the Getty Museum. Oma took Ella to her new preschool every day, a 30 minute walk roundtrip twice a day, so she got a lot of exercise.

It was great to have Dianne here, since she helped out quite a bit, especially cooking delicious meals for us picky vegetarians.

Here's a cool picture that Nicki took of Ella and her Oma at the kids' learning center at the Getty, drawing some masks inspired by the faces in James Ensor's "Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889":

Growing fast

Felix had his 2-wk check-up with Dr. Jena today; he is now 9lbs 9oz (4337 grams), so he has gained a full 2lbs 1oz since his last check-up which was 3 days after his birth.

Happy Halloween! Here is Ella in her new tights and shirt from her Oma, and Felix (10 days old) looking at his Mama.

More Felix Photos

Ella holding Felix, something she really loves to do.


Felix sleeping on the bed. Look how similar he looks to Ella when she was first born:



Finally, me holding Felix. He's just discovering his hands, so that's why he has the fussy expression.

Felix is here.

Felix Dashiell Vincent Dennis born October 17th, 2006; weighed 8 pounds 3 ounces (3517 grams) and was 21 1/2 inches (53 cm) in length.

He was born at our home and delivered by midwife Leslie Stewart, CNM, and in the water, after 3-4 hours of active labor.

Felix is healthy and happy, and is eating very well. Mom is doing well, too.

Nothing to report...yet

We're now in the middle of October and still no baby. Though, there's one thing to be sure of, he will be born in October, it's just a matter of when.

Nicki is being a real trooper, particularly while he waits to decide to come out. I wish I could be as relaxed as she is. I'm not, which is why I am getting pretty antsy about it.

Ella was born early and it caught us completely by surprise. Kids are always unpredictable, even when they have yet to breathe any air.

Here's a nice picture of our already-born child, with me at the Getty museum.

Ella is Three

The big day finally came, the day which Ella has been talking about and looking forward to for weeks - Ella's birthday. It has really been more of a birthday week, which started off with a combined birthday-farewell party at her daycare. In the morning, the kids helped make a cake, and in the afternoon, Sara gave a little speech where she explained that everybody grows up and now that Ella is a big girl, she is going to start going to school. All the kids helped decorate the cake and Ella got some presents, a photo album of her fun days with her friends there, and something else which is perfect for her and she absolutely loves: a bed for her babies. As soon as she got it home, all her babies first took turns in the bed then all went into it together. She rocks it and sings "Rock-A-Bye-Baby" to them.



On Saturday afternoon it was Ella's birthday party, complete with the requested Dora The Explorer cake, and pink and green balloons. 18 of her friends joined her at Gymboree and ran and played and jumped around until they were worn out.

Tuesday, on Ella's actual birthday, Ella opened her birthday presents in the morning and then shared cupcakes with her new friends at pre-school. Given the choice of where to have her birthday dinner, Ella naturally picked SUSHI.


Ella's latest - and heartwarming - turn of phrase is "Won't you...?" as in "Won't you read to me, Mama?"

A picture is worth one word

Ella is probably the most excited about the baby coming. She calls it "her baby", like Nicki is going to give birth to one of her dolls. And yet a picture can sometimes say less than a thousand words, in this case it says only one - joy. Despite the minor frustrations that occur day-to-day when you have kids, there is always that overwhelming sense of joy that runs through everything and you hope will never go away.



Ella is showing off her new outfit that she picked out herself, an ensemble that she felt was fit to clean the house in. She has a little broom and mop set that's become one of her favorite toys.

Although, I wonder whether her playing with it all the time is a comment on our housekeeping.

Ella the Artiste

Ella has been learning to draw people for almost as long as she hold a crayon. When she started to talk, she often requested Nicki and me to draw ourselves, or draw Ella happy or sad, or draw other people she knows. Usually, we made a simple drawing of a big, round happy face, and she wanted us to draw it over and over. I always figured she was learning how to do it, and soon she was practicing herself. The first drawings she made were completely unrecognizable as people, but we always praised her so as not hurt her self-confidence. Well, now she can make faces all by herself. Check her self portrait above. She drew it on our shower door with bathtub crayons.

Recently she started to get the hang of it, usually getting the head and the placement of the hair right, but then the eyes would be somewhere floating in space and the mouth would always be below the chin. Now she progressed to this pretty quickly. She also made a drawing of the yet unseen future baby:



Perhaps we have a little Mary Cassatt.... It's amazing how fast she learns things.

Lazy Days of Summer

The summer is winding down in California, and the temperature seems to be, too. Lately, the temperature where live has been hovering around 85 (29 degrees Celsius) after an extremely hot July. It's been nice, and we often eat dinner outside, which Ella enjoys.

Nicki and I went to her midwife appointment yesterday and we discovered that the baby's head is down, so he's getting ready to come out. Hopefully it won't happen too soon, we don't want to be unprepared. Still, we're really excited about it and can't wait to meet him. He certainly is an active one so far, Nicki complains that his kicking and rolling around is pretty distracting.

We sorted through some baby clothes friends of ours gave us, from their eight month-old boy who has grown out of them. It occurred to both Nicki and me: Why is it that boys' clothes are so stereotyped? I mean, everything has fire engines and baseballs and construction tools on it, and good luck finding anything that isn't blue. It's like clothes are designed for parents to take their boys out in a public and say "LOOK HERE! THIS ONE IS DEFINITELY A BOY, WHETHER HE LIKES IT OR NOT." The poor kid doesn't know that he's supposed to like these things. What's next? Baby clothes for boys with pictures of sexy women on them? "HEY BOY! DON'T YOU GO GAY ON US."

I made a little mixtape for Ella - at least, that's what us oldies used to call a playlist (as in ipod) - that I burned onto CD of old Disney movie music, and it has since become a hit in the car when I take her to daycare in the morning. She refers to it as "Mickey Mouse" because the CD starts with the theme to the Mickey Mouse Club. You know, "Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me? M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!" She also calls the theme to Winnie the Pooh the "fluff" song, because there's a line in there about Pooh being "stuffed with fluff" and she laughs hysterically whenever she hears it.

There's nothing like the sound of a two year-old laughing. It could make a troll happy.

Ella's new phrases

"Oh well..."
"It fits perfectly!"

Favorite trick: putting her Winnie The Pooh washcloth on her hand, and rubbing my belly with it, whereupon baby boy reacts by rolling and moving around - apparently this is hilarious!

First Zucchini

I went out to the garden last night, as it hadn't been watered in a couple of days, and lo and behold I discovered a good-sized zucchini growing on one of my plants. I was very excited. I've tried for two years to grow zucchini, and haven't had much luck, mostly because the bees didn't seem interested in my plants. This year we've had lots of bees, courtesy of the many bee-attracting plants we've planted in the garden, including one that was a gift from my mother-in-law. So I guess I have her to thank, sort of.

We also have a couple of yellow crookneck squash growing, too, along with eggplant (which I grew successfully last year), tomatoes and jalapeno peppers.

Ella's A Shutterbug

Ella took her first picture with our digital camera. She's always been a ham with the camera, as evidenced here:



That's our Ella, always putting on her best face. After this one, I believe she asked to see it on the camera's display as she always does, and she laughed hysterically at it.

Anyway, Ella took a picture of us and a garden hat that she made at art class, and I think it shows a sense of composition, don't you think? At least the hat is the focus of the picture.



Last night, I came home after getting my hair cut and Ella wanted to get her hair cut, too. Her hair has been growing slowly since she's been a baby and lately has been looking like Beethoven hair. Anyway, here it is (drum roll, please) - Ella getting her first haircut.



Actually, she let Nicki snip a few ends off. But then she went around the house saying, "Look at my hair. I look pretty."

Seven Months

Nicki is now seven months pregnant with our impending arrival, and we're very excited as the day gets closer. Everyone is doing fine so far, but Nicki has been complaining that little one is pretty active for a few weeks now. She's concerned that it's going to be a bundle of energy once it is born, but I think that it's just taking advantage of the new-found room in there, which it will soon lose as it grows. We'll see.

I also think Nicki is bigger than she was with Ella at this point. Here's a picture of Nicki pregnant with Ella a few days before she was born at 35 weeks, and you decide:

Our Camping Trip

All of us went to Montana de Oro state park over the weekend, a campground nestled in the mountains and near a beach, just outside of San Luis Obispo in central California.

Ella got her first experience sleeping in a tent, and she took to it like a trooper. We cooked out with our camping stove, tried in vain to make a fire with wood that was too green, and which we paid $6 a bundle for, and walked around the mostly full campground, full of families with children. The campground seemed to be populated mostly by friendly locals.

When picked out our campsite, there was a note left in the storage box attached to the picnic table. It was written by a family who had stayed there before us, and said that there was mouse named Toby who lived in the box. We were not to feed him or disturb him. I opened the box and there was a little nest inside, but no Toby. The next day, there was a mouse eating a long piece of grass from inside a hole near the box. I hoped it was Toby, but I never found out.

The highlights of our trip for Ella were seeing a large bird near our tent jumping around and pecking the ground. I never figured out what he was pecking at, but he did it for several minutes like he was on a trampoline and Ella was pretty amused. Ella was also fascinated by a rabbit eating grass in our campsite, and we all remained quiet while he ate so that he wouldn't be startled and run away. We also saw a bobcat cross the road as we came in, and the dad of a little baby came by to visit us the first morning, and he told us about a bobcat that slinked through his camp.

We went to the beach twice and Ella helped me make her first sand castle. She also picked up a collection of rocks and sand in her play bucket and took it home with us. At a beach we stopped at on our way home in Carpenteria, near Santa Barbara, Ella watched a boy dig a huge hole in the sand with quite a serious collection of digging tools, and he seemed consumed by it for hours.


We let Ella have a few more treats than she normally does at home (we're on vacation, after all) and she consumed her fair share. In Solvang, a "Danish" town north of Santa Barbara, Ella had a huge gingerbread cookie, frosted to look like a colorful dinosaur. After her "lunch", she enjoyed having me ferry her around on my shoulders and act like she was tall like the big people.


Outside of Solvang there's an ostrich farm, and for a couple of bucks you can feed them; they are about the most aggressive eaters I've ever seen. They also had Emus on the farm to feed. We thought Ella might be scared of the large birds, but she laughed while they pecked at the bowls attached to dustpans that contained the food.

I think the camping trip was a success. Ella fell asleep on the way home.

Zippedy-doo-dah

Ella loves to sing along to music CDs and with us. Here she is singing the song from the Disney movie "Song of the South". Enjoy! (This works best if you choose "Original Size")

PS she does not have a splinter, so there's no need to worry.

Ella is Pregnant

Not possible for a nearly three year-old to be with child, you say? Ella would beg to differ.

Nicki, as some of you know, is pregnant with our second child and Ella is already acting like a big sister. She talks to the baby in mama's tummy, puts toys under Nicki's shirt for it, and feels the belly when the baby kicks. Nicki helpfully puts Ella's hand at the bottom of her stomach showing her where the baby is.

Ella will sometimes act it out herself. She'll lean back and pull her shirt up, and say "The baby is right there" while putting her hand on her tummy. She'll also say, "See? It moved," while making her stomach move in and out, acting like there's a baby there.

One time I was playing catch with her and the ball hit her tummy. She got upset and said, "Look out! There's a baby in there."

So Ella is pregnant, at least as far as we're concerned.

My Links

Ella's Blog












My website: Baby Signs with Nicki