No Standards Whatsoever, Part 2

A long time ago (when we only had two kids, which seems like a really long time ago), I did a post about how Tori and no longer had any standards when it came to our normally clean house.  I had a photo of me reading the newspaper on the couch in my pajamas while surrounded by a messy array of toys and other items.

But that was nothing compared to the lapse tonight.  Charlie was constipated and crying while trying to poop, so Tori and I had to put his legs in the proper position and then kind of massage the poop out of him (I realize this must sound awful, but I assume every parent has had to do this at some point).  Anyway, some time passed and I was rinsing my dinner plate.  That's when it hit me that I had not washed my hands between massaging the poop out and eating my dinner.  Really disturbing.  Even more disturbing?  We had fish tacos for dinner...you know, the kind you eat with your hands?

Charlie One-Year Appointment

Because I try to use this blog as a baby book, I try to always enter the info for the kids' appointments.  You may have noticed that Charlie is a tad chunky, but actually his weight was only in the 85th percentile (25 lbs, 12 oz), his height was the 55th percentile (30 inches) and of course his enormous head was in the 97th percentile (19.25 somethings).  He and Zadie are two peas in a pod when it comes to big heads!

He's on track with everything developmentally, though he doesn't seem to be in any rush to take steps.  He's pretty content crawling around (he finally crawls the "real" way now).  Unfortunately he still has to take lots of medication for his childhood asthma, but all in all he's doing great.

His favorite thing in the world watching his siblings romp around.  A close second is feeding himself...that always seems to entertain him for long periods of time.

MY very favorite thing about Charlie is his great belly laugh.  It's almost husky and it makes me happy every time I hear it.

Charlie Turns One!

Charlie turned one year on September 20th and we had a small party in the park with some dear friends.  I felt a little differently about this milestone than I did for other two kids, as you can kind of gather from the Evite text below:

It's been a tough first year. Between the emergency stomach surgery at three weeks, the non-stop crying for the first six months, the emotions of the court taking him away for a month, the chronic ear infections and childhood asthma, and then that time a few weeks ago when he swallowed a tiny lava rock and we had to call 911...let's just say that we are ready to celebrate a very important milestone.

Homeboy is a survivor. He made it. We made it. Let's have a party in the park!

So, as you can tell from the invitation and the photos below, we had quite a bit to celebrate and we are thankful to the friends and family members (including my parents coming up from San Diego and my Aunt Dana, who was in town from Texas) who attended.

Here is the man of the hour.  Unfortunately, this wasn't his most photogenic day because he got suncreen in one of his eyes and it was kind of red and goopy.  And, in an unfortunate wardrobe choice, he was shirtless the whole time and that isn't his best look for obvious reasons!

And here is the quite tasty cake that our friend Sidney baked.  My mom also made some homemade lemon bars (from her own lemon tree) and those were great, too!

We've made it a tradition to have pinatas at all our kids' first birthday parties.  This year I stuffed it with trail mix, organic gummy fruit treats, and apple sauce "crushers."  The parents seemed relieved, but I must admit it's the first time I've ever seen that many kids neglect to pick up everything that came out.  Oh well...

Unfortunately, we managed not to take photos of any family members, but we did get some shots of friends who turned out.  Here is our friend Shafiq and his dapper son, Zak.

And our friends Allard and Richard, who we first met in our foster-to-adopt class about four years ago.

Zadie Portrait

My sister-in-law took this great photo of Zadie over the 4th of July weekend.  I love this girl's smile.

When people see this photo, I have a feeling they will say that she looks just like me.  Like I've said before, I really don't see it.  Maybe it's hard to see yourself in another person.  At any rate, I take it as a compliment because Zadie is far more beautiful than I have ever been.  And I'm not being modest.

Tori and I marvel about her beauty all the time and I tell her sometimes that she is beautiful or that I love her smile, but we don't want her to necessarily grow up focusing on that too much.  And, frankly, I don't want her to be one of the super-popular beautiful girls in high school because I think they get into too much trouble and have to face a lot of peer pressure.  I hope she can be a bit of a nerd in high school, like I was.  Not the kind that's picked on, but enough a nerd that she's a bit sheltered from the scene in high school.  Fingers crossed!

Beach Days

We like our kids best when we're at the beach and least when we're in our house.  At the beach, all three kids are really good at entertaining themselves.  Our routine on the weekend is to pack lunches and lots of snacks and try to get to the beach around 10am and then leave about 2pm for naps back at home.  We're not sure how long we're going to be living such a close bike ride to the beach, so we're trying to make the most of it now.  It always amazes me how many people live in L.A. and never go to the beach, since I think it's one of the main benefits of living here (then again I rarely went to the beach when I lived in San Diego).

Here are some of my favorite photos from the beach over the past few weeks.

It's always so special and rare when one of the kids wants to stop playing and just chill.  I was a little bit jealous of this moment.

Check out Charlie's weird kimono robe thingie.  A friend brought this back from China as a bathrobe when Zadie was little, but it's thin and cool and perfect for keeping his pale skin out of the sun. 

Hooray that Skip has a boy cousin his own age!  Here is cousin Gavin, who will soon be moving to L.A. for more beach days! 

I think this was a day when we came to the beach after work and didn't have bathing suits.  I like it when Tori wears this cute hat instead of the other, totally awful Korean hat she typically wears.  Had to document the occasion.