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.