Zadie and Skip Hit the Ranch!

Last weekend, Zadie, Skip, and Tori all had their very first taste of the family ranch. It was my first time visiting since 2001 and it was great to be back. The weather was a bit of a drag, but we still got to have one night by the campfire. Zadie loved every bit of tromping around in the mud. Thanks to my parents for putting us up in a motorhome!

A bunch of family in front of my parents' new shipping container that they converted into a high-end trailer. They're such die-hard environmentalists that they even recycle their home. Haha.

Me and Skip with my Aunt Nancy and Aunt Kay. Best part of Texas? My aunts live there.

Hanging out by the campfire on the night it didn't rain. Skip was so bundled up you can't really see him. I call this Tori's Amelia Earhart hat.

Zadie had fun getting dirty. I interrupted her shoveling long enough to get this photo with my dad. "Shovel" was her very first two-syllable word (besides "mama").

Thanks to Cousin Mark for letting us borrow his Polaris. Zadie started out really excited about steering, but then eventually fell asleep at the wheel.

Thanksgiving in Washington

A few weeks ago we spent five days in Washington to celebrate Thanksgiving with Tori's family. Thank you to Tori's brother Zach for hosting all of us (I think there were 20 people at the house). As usual, a grand time was had by all. The photos above are from a day we spent ice-blocking at the park and then playing kickball. It was a tense competition, but Phoebe ultimately beat Zach in the ice-blocking Olympics.

The time we spend with Tori's family is quite a bit different than with mine. Both have their benefits, so it's nice to alternate holidays and experience the best of both worlds. It would be pretty fun to get my parents out on the field for some kickball, I have to admit!

And Now Zadie Zoo

Kim did a great job getting good photos of Zadie, especially considering the fact that she was in a difficult and annoying mood on this particular day! The one on the top is my very favorite.

In a terrible development, we seem to have lost the $40 hat that Zadie is wearing in one of these photos. Ack! We haven't seen it since our San Francisco trip. :(

Smiley Skip

These are my favorite photos of Skip. As you can see, he is a super smiley baby! And he looks pretty cute in overalls, too.

Family Photos

I never had the chance to blog about this, but we had a GREAT family vacation to San Francisco for a week. We spent part of the time celebrating my sister's 35th birthday with her family, our family, my parents, and Nick. I really love for Zadie to have time with her cousins. We spent the rest of the week in the city with Tori's friend Nika and her family (thank you, Nika, for the kind hospitality!). Hanging out in the city is always great, but this time it was even more special because Nick is now a freshman at San Francisco State and he accompanied us just about everywhere we went. Aside from being good company, he's a huge help with both kids.

Kim was kind enough to take some family photos of us, which I was very excited about. These are the first good photos we've had of Skip and we really treasure them. I will post more in upcoming posts of each kiddo, but I thought I'd start by posting the family shots. Kim had her work cut out for her since Zadie was in the worst mood ever!

Thank you, Kim, for your awesome photos! You can check out more of her photos on her blog.

Halloween

It took me a while, but I'm finally posting Halloween photos! This was really the first Halloween Zadie was actually engaged in the whole event. Tori made her a tin man costume from The Wizard of Oz. Most of you probably know that Tori has dressed up as a tin man practically every single Halloween. It was nice that she passed this costume along to Zadie this year. As you can see from the photo, it turned out pretty cute and we got a TON of compliments. We went to the "walk streets" in Manhattan Beach, which is packed with tons of families. Given the locale, it's fairly well-to-do. Zadie's costume was the only homemade costume we saw ALL night!! Nice work, Tori!

Maybe Skip will be the tin man next year and Zadie will be the lion. If her hair is longer she can be Dorothy. Anyway, this year Skip was a skeleton. I'm not into gory/scary costumes, but it just so happened that this little pajama outfit was amongst some hand-me-downs that a friend sent and so it went perfectly. Not sure why Linda painted his nose black, but it looked cute.

A prize to anyone who can tell me what Linda is dressed up as. She's wearing a footed pajama outfit that she found at a garage sale (who knew they came in adult sizes?) and her nose is painted black and her hair is in little pigtails. It's the nose that throws me off because otherwise I would guess she was dressed as a baby or something. Whatever the case, it was enough to get her a bag full of candy and she had a good time.

It's really funny to me when I think about what must have been going through Zadie's head this Halloween. We hadn't told her anything about the holiday at all, but all of the sudden one day we start dressing her up in a box with shiny stuff on the outside, paint her face silver, and ask her to carry around a silver axe. She duly complied, but she was really taken aback when she looked in the mirror and saw her face painted. Anyway, then we walk a few blocks and take her from house to house to trick-or-treat. There were lots of other oddly dressed people and they were all going around getting this stuff in little wrappers. See, Zadie has never had candy and I really don't think she understood what people were giving her. She never asked to have a piece. But she was still very interested in getting more of whatever people were giving and kept doing her infamous "Mo!" at all the houses. She didn't seem to take a lot of joy in getting the candy, which was just fine with us!

Thanks to Tori's sister Katie for taking these photos. She and her husband Leo are pictured above with their brand-new baby boy, Gavin.

He's a Looker!

I've really been enjoying Skip lately. He's almost four months old and is full of smiles and coos. I've actually decided that I'm kind of over that 0-3 months stage because this is way more rewarding.

I'm also loving how CUTE Skip is! This photo is Exhibit A, with more to follow. I find myself always telling him how adorable he is, but then I think of Grandma Linda and how she always tells children that they are resilient and quick to laugh and kind and all that stuff and so I tell him those things, too. We don't want him growing up thinking he can skate by on his looks!

Oh, and the other thing that makes Skip like 500 times more adorable is that he has been sleeping through the night for past few weeks! The Kate and Tori training program has been a smashing success and he typically sleeps from 7:30pm to 6:30am. This makes me like him (and everyone else around me) much more because we are finally getting our much-needed sleep! As of yesterday we put Skip on a new training program so that he can fall asleep on his own, rather than us having to put him to sleep or having to give him his pacifier every three minutes when it falls out. He fell asleep tonight -- without his pacifier, which was only by accident -- within about five minutes!

Okay, sorry to brag if you're reading this blog and your kid is keeping you up at night (Jenna!). I'm just pretty excited about all this. I'm a much better parent when I'm rested!

Kate & Tori's Big Anniversary Weekend

Sadly, I don't have any photos to post, but last weekend Tori and I left the kiddos with my parents and we spent two nights at their house in the mountains to celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary. There couldn't have been a finer anniversary present than TIME alone together. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for the great gift!

I love for Zadie and Skip to spend time with my parents (and not just because we get a break). Zadie loves playing outside on my parents' deck and is really well-behaved while she's there. Skip isn't super aware of his surroundings just yet, but he definitely loves all the attention my parents give him and he responds with lots of smiles and cooing. Oh, the other thing Zadie loves is that my dad lets her drive his car around in the driveway!

I've also heard that Zadie had some ice cream that weekend, which would be the first time she's ever had any. Oh, dear!

Surprise Visit From Grandma Linda

Two weeks ago we got a call from Grandma Linda telling us she was driving to Texas and had decided to take a different turn and come see us instead. She was here in a few hours and we had a great five days together.

The weather was kind of grey and cold while she was here, so we actually didn't have as active a weekend as we usually do when she visits, but of course we still fit in two bike rides. At this point, Skip really doesn't like riding in the bike trailer. He pretty much screams his head off until he starts choking and we have to pull over and stop and someone has to take him home. But we're confident once he gets a little older he'll enjoy it as much as Zadie does. If he wants to go on adventures with Grandma Linda, he better come around!

It always takes Zadie about a full day to completely warm up to Grandma Linda once she arrives, but then they go off on all kinds of fun adventures together, like to the dog park, Jamba Juice, bike rides, etc. Skip isn't quite big enough for the full Linda experience, but his time will come soon enough! In the meantime, he gives her plenty of smiles and she does reiki on his flat head.

Fudgesicle

Kim took some WONDERFUL photos of Zadie over Labor Day Weekend and I haven't posted them yet because I was trying to give equal opportunity to Skip, but it's hopeless at this point. Skip will have his day in the sun when Kim takes his photo in November.

This is my very favorite photo that Kim took. As many of you know, Zadie really hasn't ever had anything chocolate except on her first birthday when the crowd revolted after Tori tried to take away her chocolate cupcake. So she was quite enjoying this fudgesicle at my parents' house.

And this is another great shot of Zadie. This is the one we're going to put in her portfolio when she becomes a child star. Haha. You can check out some of Kim's other photography on her blog.

Away with the Grandparents

My parents picked up Skip and Zadie this past Sunday and kept them for three glorious nights. It was a really busy work at week for us, so it worked out perfectly for them to take over. We had just got Skip trained to sleep through the night, so he came through during their time with him. I really wanted both kids to be perfect little angels since my parents are actually going to babysit AGAIN next weekend when we celebrate our anniversary. And it seems the kiddos came through big time. Here is an email my dad wrote to my family:

The kids were incredibly good. This was my first extended time with Skip. Kate recently wrote on her blog that he is the best kid ever. I read this right before we picked him up Sunday. I figured this was well placed propaganda. However, I came to the same conclusion. I’ve never seen a better baby than Skip. I particularly liked the fact that he was so generous with his smiles. He would even laugh out loud at his Granddaddy’s shenanigans and tried his darndest to talk to me . Zadie is more active and kind of bossy but, GOSH, she’s sweet! I was amazed by how protective she is of Skip. She LOVES her little brother.

So thank you, Mom and Dad, for your excellent care. I tried calling a few times to see how it was going, but my parents were always so busy they didn't have time to talk!

No Standards Whatsoever

As many of you may know, Tori is an extremely clean person. Her mom has always worried that she'll be so busy cleaning that she won't take enough time to do the fun stuff (apparently Linda wishes that she had let things go a bit more and hadn't spent so much time worrying about having a clean house when she had kids). Well, Linda, this photo is to ASSURE you that you need not worry. Tori has become quite adept at dealing with mass chaos, as you can see in this photo.

I'm not nearly as neat as Tori, but I'm still pretty clean and I have to fess up and say that I really used to judge people who had kids and whose houses and cars were messy. Now I look at this photo and I am humbled. I never would have thought that our house would look like this -- of course we clean it up at the end of the day or when people come over, but there's a certain sense of surrender that I think you can detect here. In this case I am surrendering so that I can read the Sunday paper.

Can you believe this photo?! The little culprit is not even pictured, either.

Skip in D.C.

I've been feeling badly about the fact that I have many more great photos of Zadie than I do of Skip -- I don't want this blog to seem like I have more to say about Zadie than Skip. But let's face it, it's much easier to get great photos of a 20-month-old than a 3-month-old. Also, Tori didn't take any photos from her trip in D.C. (blame it on the wife!).

But today Tori's friend sent along this cute photo of Skip. And I want to take this opportunity to say that I think that Skip is really the best baby I've ever known of. I'm sure that you think I'm biased, but I don't really think I am. Zadie was good, but Skip is even better. What do I mean specifically? Well, he only cries if he is (1) hungry, (2) tired, or (3) in pain (like if Zadie drops a book on him). But all of these situations are quickly resolved. When he wants to go to sleep, I just cradle him in my arms and maybe give him a pacifier and then he's out. Tori has her own method, but either way it's really easy.

Some babies might be really easy because they have zero personality and aren't interactive. But Skip is full of smiles and loves to interact with people. It's so easy to make him smile!

The only thing dear Skip needs to work on is sleeping through the night, but I think that's right around the corner. He's been getting much better -- lately he just wakes up once around 4am and then we give him a pacifier and pat him a little and he falls back asleep until around 6am.

So, in my humble opinion, Skip is the best baby ever!

31 Words

Me and Zadie playing in the mud at low tide this past weekend...

Zadie and Skip are both wiped out after a recent walk down to the beach. I love that Zadie could fall asleep in this position -- I'm very envious. Thanks, Connie, for the double stroller!

Zadie is almost 20 months now and we keep wondering when she's going to start talking. But then I decided to make a list of all the words she says and I came up with 40! Now if she could only string a few together. But no rush...I'm sure there will be plenty of times that I'm tired of hearing her talk! Here is Zadie's current vocabulary, although the caveat is that she doesn't pronounce these all correctly -- but she pronounces them well enough that I know what she means. The asterisk means that they are her TOP, very favorite words.

no*, whoa, mama*, towel* (strangely obsessed with towels!), hat, helmet, dog, wawa*, nice, Skip* ("Ship"), that*, fruit/food (sounds the same), home, book, share, yes, shoe, sock, foot, bath, fun, arf, meow, help, up, down, on*, more*, ball, bye, hi.

I'm curious to see whether Zadie will be more mechanical or verbal. So far, Tori and I are always amazed by how much Zadie loves taking things apart and putting them back together. I'm not just being a biased parent when I say that she is ahead of the curve in that respect. And she's definitely not ahead of the curve in terms of talking, so it will be very interesting if she grows up to be a little engineer kid. I'm so completely useless at anything mechanical that it will be nice to have the extra help (Tori's sort of good at both).

Skip's First Bike Ride

Skip had his first bike ride yesterday, a few days shy of three months. Tori hooked up the trailer thing and pulled him behind her bike (Zadie was in her seat behind me). I wish I could say that Skip loved every minute of it, but at first he hated it. We didn't make it very far before we had to pull over, but once we got him out of there he loved being outside at the beach.

Yesterday was the best day at the beach! The water was warm, the temperature was perfect, we all got to ride bikes instead of deal with parking AND I found a boogie board in the trash. The foam was broken in three pieces, but it was still somewhat rideable. Boogie boarding is so fun -- I should do it more often.

Skip was a bit happier on the ride home, but he's just not a huge fan of either his car seat or his bike trailer. Hopefully that will change soon.

Wish I had a photo of all of us in our bike contraptions...

Skip @ 3 months

Skip will be three months old in just a few months. We're making really good progress with the adoption and feel very positive about it and thankful that everything is proceeding quickly and smoothly. As I've said before, Skip is an exceptionally good baby. We thought Zadie was really good baby, but I'm going to go ahead and say that Skip is better. When he cries it's directly related to either being hungry or wanting to go to sleep. The only thing he really isn't good at is riding in the car.

The big news with Skip is that he has just started a rigorous sleep training program. I decided it was time to start this program a few days ago when he woke at 1:30am. He had been waking up earlier and earlier and the cumulative effect of three months without sleep was really getting to be too much. Plus, he's got plenty of food and he's old enough to sleep through the night! So things are getting better and he's typically been sleeping until 4 or 5am now. I can't tell you what a big difference this makes!

Oh, the other thing Tori and I wanted to be sure to mention is that Skip is extraordinarily full of smiles and coos. I captured one of his smiles on this video, but I wasn't talented enough to video him and make him smile at the same time (sorry for the poor camera work).

Skip still has a great head of hair and really hasn't lost any. The roots are blonde, but they still haven't overtaken his dark hair. He's a handsome kid!

$40 Hat and Two-Tone Lip

Zadie and I went on a bike ride to Manhattan Beach on one of my days off and I really wanted to get her a hat. I made the mistake of going into one of the fancy shops there and two salespeople swarmed me with all kinds of adorable hats. Some of them were more than $60, but I felt too embarrassed to leave without buying something and I figured I could just make Tori return it later. Anyway, I picked this hat and we ended up not returning it because it's so cute. It actually looks enormous in this photo, so you'll just have to trust me. And now Zadie has a $40 hat, which is typically how we refer to it, e.g. "Where's Zadie's $40 hat?"

I don't think I've ever written about Zadie's two-tone lip. It's very unique! People often think that she has lipstick on one half of her upper lip because half of her lip is much redder than the other side. It's been that way since she was born. The doctor told us some long story about blood vessels and said that it would eventually go away, but it certainly hasn't yet. We are quite partial to it, but I don't know how Zadie would feel if she was an insecure teenager dealing with make-up and kids' stupid questions. When she was little, Tori used to always call her "Two-tone."

Labor Day Catch-up

So much has happened since my last post! Once you fall behind it starts feeling insurmountable to post something and it just gets worse and worse.

To recap, Tori and I had separate family vacations over Labor Day weekend. Tori took Skip and spent a week in D.C. with her very good friend who just had a baby. She called me often to tell me what an amazing time she was having and how much she loves her circle of friends in D.C. I was having a good time of my own, though. Zadie and I drove to my parents' house and met up with Kim's family. While my dad, brother, and brother-in-law and I went dove hunting in Arizona for 36 hours, my mom, Kim, and nephew took fabulous care of Zadie and her twin cousins.

It makes me so happy to see Zadie playing with Sophie and Izzy. This was the first time that I think they were all fully engaged with each other. They did lots of swimming, went to the park, and had activities like decorating sugar cookies (my mom insists they didn't give them the cookies afterwards).

I would love to share more about Skip's experience in D.C., but unfortunately Tori didn't take a single photo (despite insisting that she needed to take the camera with her). But she did say that he slept the entire plane ride to D.C. and was a superstar baby all around. Hooray, Skip!

I will post more photos later of the amazing ones that Kim took of Zadie, but first here are some of Zadie and her cousins.

Skip at 2 months

I neglected to blog about my mom's visit last week. She spent lots of quality time with Skip and, apparently, also had time to read the paper at the same time. Check out Skip's monster pose -- he often sleeps like that.

This is Skip snoozing through one of the many fine cultural events he has attended in his short life. I think this was either a Neil Diamond cover band or a swing band.

I haven't posted nearly enough photos of Tori and Skip, so here's one of Tori with her signature Moby wrap. Tori is very passionate about the importance of babies being held, so she always tries to strap Skip on her even when she's multitasking.

Skip had has two-month checkup today and he's doing great. One doctor had told us we were overfeeding him a bit, so we cut back on the formula slightly. Skip now weighs 13 lbs exactly (76th percentile) and measures 23 inches (51st percentile). These are huge jumps from his 2-week appointment, when he was in the 15th percentile for weight. His head circumference remained in the 10th percentile, but the doctor said it's good for them to stay at the same rate and not to grow (or shrink) too rapidly.

So all is well with Skip. We had a busy weekend and hung out with Tori's friend Nika, her kids, and her parents. They were all amazed at how mellow Skip is. It's true -- I think he's even more mellow than Zadie was. He has a few things he cries about: he cries at the three-hour mark when he's ready to eat, and he cries when he's having trouble falling asleep and needs some bouncing or a pacifier. But that's really about it. He's a very content baby and he's really become so handsome!

Fun Zadie

I decided it's time I throw a little love Zadie's way and post a video. This is "fun Zadie." I'll spare you all the "tantrum-throwing Zadie." I really wanted to get a video of Zadie going underwater in the pool because she's really good at it, but unfortunately she got really distracted by a water gun and it didn't happen. But it's still cute because she's jumping around and showing how happy she is to be in the water -- despite the fact that she apparently had a double ear infection and we were oblivious. Oops!

And how about this pool? Doesn't it make you want to visit my parents? It's a pretty nice spot!

Chug-a-lug

Here's Skip right after his bath. I call this his investment banker hairdo because I brushed it so perfectly flat and boring -- my mom prefers it when we give him the faux hawk.

Skip is doing a lot of chug-a-lugging. He's been eating 6oz every three hours since he was two weeks and it's really starting to show! The little guy who seemed so teensy now has a double chin, big cheeks, and rolls on his thighs. I took these photos today because I feel like his looks have changed so much recently.

Here's one of us outside on a cool summer night. It's cute how Skip is looking right at the camera.

Uncle Hank

I think everyone already knows this, but Uncle Hank is our "manny." He's been taking great care of Zadie since she was about 6 months old -- home with her four days a week and then going to school at night. Hank lives in our basement, so he just pops up at 8:15am when I need to head to work, which is quite convenient. I feel very thankful to have such a good childcare situation and it makes me happy that Zadie and now Skip have a male presence in their daily lives.

Zadie LOVES her Uncle Hank. For those of you who don't know him, he's really quite difficult to describe. I don't think you will ever meet anyone with a kinder and gentler spirit -- he's certainly much more kind and patient than I am! Uncle Hank can match any child in terms of his ability to play for hours and to make up elaborate imaginative schemes. Zadie and Skip get to learn about all kinds of things that they would never hear from me about -- like the solar system and science fiction and fantasy animal creatures and all kinds of stuff that I have no idea about. And Uncle Hank also helps toughen these kids up -- he teaches Zadie to dust herself off when she tumbles and to push herself to the next level at the playground. You should see him get her flying on the see-saw! She definitely gets some air time.

Hank also is a willing participant in "Mommy and Me" classes. He hangs out with the local moms at Zadie's music classes and swim classes. And, when he's not doing that, he takes Zadie to the park almost every single day.

I know that Zadie and Skip will have great memories of their Uncle Hank!

Reflections on Zadie @ 18 Months

Above: Zadie wearing Grandma Linda's crazy birthday hat.

Zadie had her 18-month checkup yesterday and she's had a big growth spurt. She measured 34.5 inches (100th percentile!), weighed 25 lbs, 2 oz (70th percentile), and had a head circumference of 19 inches (a precipitous drop to the 90th percentile). Sadly, she also has outer ear infections in both ears and we're now putting drops in her ears -- the doctor said she was quite the trooper to not have complained!

I've been thinking a lot lately about Zadie and how developed her personality already is. Maybe it's partly because I've been hanging out with Skip and I often wonder what his personality is going to be like when he gets older. So I want to jot down some observations about Zadie at 18 months so that she can look back on this later and see if she thinks some of these core elements about her personality hold true.

• This kid is sassy. One thing you have to say about Zadie is that she has personality, for better or for worse! Given ideal conditions (outdoors and lots of fruit on hand), Zadie can be the most charming and adorable kid you've ever seen. Grandma Linda always talks about Zadie's special twinkle in her eye. But just as surely as she has a twinkle, she's also got some little horns that can come out! This typically happens when she is not allowed to have some piece of fruit that she sees or is prevented from doing something she is really fixated on. Then she can deliver a ruckus. It surprises me a little that my child is so capable of loud ruckuses (given my calm and even-keeled nature!), but I think she has what I'm diagnosing as "Early Onset Terrible Twos." So I definitely think she will grow out of this stage, but in the meantime I will continue to marvel about how sweet her sweet is and how sour her sour is.

• She may have my genes, but she's got Tori's personality. In the ongoing debate over nature versus nurture, chalk this one up to nurture. I think Zadie looks a lot like me, but she acts just like Tori. Here's how:

1. Obsessed with the outdoors. Even when she was an infant, we could always calm Zadie down by taking her outside and letting her feel the breeze on her face and look around. Now, as a toddler, her favorite thing is to be outside at a park or, even better...
2. Swimming! Like Tori, Zadie is a die-hard beach-goer. We decided early on to let her embrace the full beach experience and she would eat handfuls of sand and go charging into the waves even when the water was freezing. Some of my favorite pictures of her are ones my sister took of her covered in sand in Hawaii. She also loves to swim at my parents pool in San Diego, which has been great fun.
3. Mechanical? As everyone knows, I am the last person you would ever want to ask to fix something. I struggle to put together Pack 'N Plays, pack the trunk of a car, and even arrange chairs in a room. But somehow Zadie is amazingly mechanical and one of her favorite activities is finding random keys and picking the lock to the cupboard in our kitchen. She's picked it open so many times that it's actually hard to open with the correct key and Grandma Linda gets frustrated trying to open it and has to call Zadie over to help! Zadie could also buckle and unbuckle straps for hours and hours.
4. Rough around the edges. Tori is not a quiet person. She talks loudly, laughs loudly, bangs dishes loudly, and generally lives life loudly (I love you, Tori!). Zadie seems to be cut from the same cloth. She greatly enjoys slamming doors and generally barrels her way through life. I'm relieved and surprised that there haven't been any stitches yet.

• Zadie loves her mama. Although originally we were going to be called Mama T and Mama K, that has now evolved into Mama (Tori) and Mommy (Kate). Zadie's very favorite word is Mama! She can't quite say Mommy and she sometimes uses Mama to refer to me, but most of her "mamas" are directed at the one and only Tori. Since Zadie loves being busy (very unlike me), she loves to follow Tori around and watch everything she does. She particularly loves to watch Tori cook, sew, water the plants, and fix things. It's really quite adorable.

• It's all about the fruit. Yes, I realize most kids like fruit. But this is something completely different. This is a total fixation on fruit, to the exclusion of all other foods. Zadie is madly in love with fruit. Her preference is for berries, and blueberries are her very favorite. When she visits my parents' house, my mom gives her buckets of the stuff and her diapers are purple. Although we are appreciative that her favorite food isn't, say, hot dogs, this fruit obsession results in daily battles over foods. It's miraculous to me that Zadie has grown so much on such a poor diet. She pretty much boycotts all other foods. My mother sees this as divine retribution, given what a terribly picky eater I was.

• MORE! Tori did not want me to neglect mentioning Zadie's other favorite word. "More" was the first and primary sign that we taught Zadie and it has kind of become her mantra, her guiding vision, and her reason for being. Her cousins Nick and Austin loved watching her frantically signing for more fruit in Hawaii (I'll post a video of her signing later). Now that she can actually verbalize it, her "more" comes across as quite demanding and bossy. We're trying to teach her to throw a "please" on the end of it, but so far that hasn't stuck.

Skip Smiles...For Real

Just a quick report to say that Skip smiled yesterday. Not randomly and not because of gas, but really in response to us smiling and looking at him. Since then we've had two or three smiles, but they have been great. Today I got one that was huge!

Skip Bonds With Hal and Denise

If you look closely at this photo, you can actually see Skip smiling!

Zadie and Skip and I got back today from four days with my parents. Zadie had her usual fun swimming in the pool, including with her cousins Nick and Austin. But what was special about the weekend was that my parents really got to bond with Skip. They had met him for a few hours a few weeks prior, but this time they really got to know what a good baby Skip is and they showered him with love and attention.

My dad was able to squeeze in some holding time, but my mom was pretty attached to Skip (or vice versa) the whole 4-day weekend. She didn't want anyone else to hold him or feed him and she sang him lots of songs and rocked him. It made me really happy to see him getting so much TLC because I have to admit that it's harder to give that time when you have a second child. Luckily Skip has many people in his life already who love him. Grandma Linda was here on the very first day we brought Skip home and she got to spend a week holding him and whispering in his ear. And now Grandma Denise got his turn.

Tori missed little Skip and she is sitting next to me right now feeding him. I think Skip just got way cuter all of the sudden -- probably because he is fattening up so nicely. He is a really good baby and we are feeling lucky! I just wish he would sleep a little bit longer during the night, but I'll save that discussion for a future blog post.

Already 4 Weeks!

It's crazy to think that Skip will be four weeks old tomorrow. You can see from these photos (I think) that he's really starting to fill out. Hooray! I'm excited to plump him up and to watch him grow big and strong (although not too quickly).

No offense to anyone with a bald-headed baby, but I've always thought babies with hair are much cuter and so far we've been 2-for-2 in that category. Skip has a great head of hair, although I suppose he'll probably be losing it soon, or at least getting weird bald spots. What's interesting now is that you can see that the roots of his hair are actually pretty light. Tori thinks he's going to be blonde, but I'm not sure yet.

Yesterday we went to the beach with a bunch of USC friends and Skip pretty much slept through the whole day. Then more people came over to our house to watch a movie projected in our backyard and he slept through all of that, too. All of our friends were making fun of us saying that we had it so easy. I told them they should spend the night and wake up with him during the night. But the truth is, I know that -- relatively speaking! -- we have it very easy and we're lucky to have such a calm and content baby. Again, we're 2-for-2 on that front! Well, Zadie was really calm when she was a baby, but nowadays it's a whole different matter.

In a few days I'm going to take Skip and Zadie to San Diego to hang out with the grandparents for a long weekend. This will be a good time for my parents to get more quality time with Skip since they only got to hold him for about two hours the last time (and only other time) they saw him. And of course Zadie will be delighted to see her grandparents and go swimming! I need to decide if I'm going to take Skip for his first swim.

Zadie Meets Skip

Here's the video of Zadie meeting Skip for the first time. We had just driven Skip home from the hospital in Pasadena and Zadie was returning from a walk with Uncle Hank. She was obviously very curious about him and then gave him a nice little kiss!

Zadie has been really good to Skip this whole time. She likes to come over and pat him or bring him a pacifier. When Deshon was here, he could steal her toys and she did NOT like that at all -- she'd secretly elbow or give him a little kick here and there. But even Zadie can see that Skip is totally vulnerable and helpless and so she treats him with kindness.

At certain points, I've wondered if Zadie thinks Skip is a dog. When she sees him she gets really excited and barks at him. Maybe she thinks we brought home a little chihuahua. Either way, she likes him!

Two Weeks

Skip turned two weeks old yesterday, so I thought I would enter his info from his two-week checkup. He weighed 7 lbs 6 oz (15th percentile) and measured 20.5 inches (50th percentile). His head circumference was 13.5 somethings, which is the 10th percentile. So quite a bit smaller than Zadie was at this age, but we look forward to fattening him up!

And I guess I actually haven't written down all his birth stats. Skip weighed 6 lbs 6 oz and was carried to term. He measured 19.5 inches.

We're thankful to have such a happy and healthy baby boy!

To Skip From Granddaddy

Skip is sleeping on my chest right now -- much like he was in this photo. There have been several things I've been meaning to blog about because later I'll print this out and this will be his baby book, but it's been a little rough finding the time lately.

For now I just want to copy and paste this sweet email I received on your behalf after I set out a message announcing your name.

Dear Skip,

This is the first time I’ve ever addressed anyone named Skip. I like your name. As soon as you are old enough you should get down on your knees and say prayers of thanksgiving for your name. Believe it or not, your parents almost named you Oliver. Of course I would have loved you even if they had named you Icabod – but Skip is much better. Three days ago Denise and I drove 250 miles round trip to meet you for the first time. It was a short visit – only two hours. Your parents, Grandma Linda, Aunt Katie and Uncle Leo, and Uncle Hank were all gathered at the high water mark on the beach in Manhattan Beach, just south of the pier. Your sister Zadie was there, wet and sandy. It was 80 degrees and a beautiful day at the beach. I expect you will spend many days at the beach and other places outdoors. Denise and I were both able to hold you, feed you a bottle, and Denise changed your diaper. I wish I had known your name then so I could have practiced it while holding you. But your parents hadn’t picked your name yet. They wanted to make sure they picked a name that fit you perfectly. The perfect name for you is Skip.

This morning Grandma Denise and I are flying from San Diego to San Antonio to attend a Kuykendall family reunion in the Hill Country of Texas. We will make sure you and Zadie spend lots of time in Texas. It’s God’s country and you have lots of kinfolk there that are great people. I can’t wait to take you to the Kuykendall ranch. Speaking of names, your last name is a tough one to spell and pronounce. It’s a bit of a burden. You’ll be thankful that your first name is one syllable and easy for everyone to understand.

I love you and can’t wait to hold you soon and call you Skip.

Granddaddy Hal

Introducing...Skip!

After MUCH deliberation and input, we have a name for our little baby boy. Drumroll please...it's SKIP! You weren't expecting that, were you? We literally must have discussed hundreds and hundreds of names in the last week and we wanted a name that was masculine, easy to say and spell, and unique. I also wanted a one-syllable name since his middle and last names are so long.

We received a great deal of input over the past week and, in the end, we didn't listen to any of it. We happened upon the name Skip because we were actually talking about the name Kip. When we came up with it, we exchanged an excited look and did a little jig in the kitchen with you held between us. We like Skip because it's boyish and fun and easy and a bit unusual. And it's also an old name and we like old names (earlier we had been trolling the list of top names from 1920!).

So, dear Skip, you have no idea how much effort we put into your name and we hope you will always like it. We think it suits you and we've already practiced it with these ideas from your Grandma Linda: (1) "Skip K. is running down the court, he shoots, he scores! Way to go, Skip!" or (2) And the winner of the spelling bee is Skip K. (I don't like to use our last name on the blog). I think it works.

Baby Boy Meets The Family

Dear Baby Boy,

You wouldn't believe how many people ALREADY love you! On the day we brought you home from the hospital, Grandma Linda arrived for a visit from Washington. She took wonderful care of you and whispered lots of encouragement for strength and a wonderful life in your ear.

A few days later, your aunt and uncle, Katie and Leo, came to visit from Las Vegas. All of us went to the beach -- you went to the beach a total of four times in your first 9 days of life. Not bad! Everyone enjoyed holding you and was very impressed about what a calm baby you are. You don't like to have your diaper changed, but other than that you're pretty chill. Oh, another thing people always notice about you is your big feet. I wonder if that means you're going to be really tall.

Your grandma Denise and granddaddy Hal really wanted to see you, but they were going out of town and decided they had to wait until they got back. But then they couldn't stand it anymore and so they drove 2 hours to meet us at the beach and hold you for two hours -- and then they had to turn around and drive back home. I promised them I would tell you about that and you'd appreciate it some day.

Here's a nice photo with you and Grandma Linda. She left this morning and I'm sure she already misses you. I don't know if you can tell, but Zadie is lovingly patting you in this photo. She likes you and thinks you're quite the curiosity! I wish I had a photo of your other grandparents visiting with you at the beach, but we'll make up for it later.