sarah's wedding

One of our good friends, Sarah, got married this past weekend in Deerfield Mass. Sarah lived in NY when I first moved here. And although she moved to DC shortly thereafter (Surprisingly I think I only knew her for a year or two in NY), we've always stayed in contact. I love Sarah for her humor, her energy and spunk, and her warmth.

Ryan and I drove up to Deerfield on Saturday morning. Its about a 3.5 hour drive. I wasn't sure how Fay would handle the drive -- we haven't been on a road trip since xmas when she was 2 months barely aware of her surroundings. I took the precaution of packing some of her favorite foods (carrots, cheerios, teething biscuit, milk), and I bought two new toys for the road.

Guess what! Fay hates being confined to the carseat. She was fine for the first hour of the trip, when she was.....*sleeping*. But when she woke up, she wanted out of that seat and now. It didn't help that mommy and daddy were WAAAAAAY up in the front seat while Fay was facing backwards in the back seat. She cried for what had to be 45 minutes, while I tried to give her milk, carresses, toys, songs, everything. Finally we pulled over to give her some boob and hold her for a while.

Once we got back on the road, I stayed in the back seat with her, and she was a little happier but not much. Finally she fell asleep about 20 minutes before we arrived at the hotel.



Fay was able to attend the wedding, which was beautiful. The wedding took place in Sarah's mother's back yard. Her father passed away last year and it had been his wish that Sarah marry in their yard and orchard that he had nurtured. The ceremony was near the house overlooking the orchard and the reception was down the hill by the orchard. We plucked some raspberries off the vine immediately following the wedding. Not to say that the provided snacks weren't tasty.



After the wedding we met our nanny, Mandy at our hotel to ditch Fay. Mandy is originally from Boston so we gave her Friday off to go home for the weekend and she agreed to make the 2 hr hike to Deerfield to sit with Fay. Such a nice treat to have someone Fay knows and loves to stay with her in the unfamiliar surroundings of a hotel. Then Ryan and I drove back to enjoy the reception. We had a great time and met some really nice people. Ryan and I thoughtfully examined the people we were seated with at the reception and determined we were at the.... friends-of-sarahs-that-don't-live-near-her-and-
are-older-couples-with-children-table

If she reads this, she'll have to let me know if we were right. :)

This morning, after a brief (freezing!) dip in the hotel pool, we got to see Sarah and her family again for brunch at the orchard. Then Ryan, Fay and I took off for another road trip (yay!) towards home. Luckily, Fay fared MUCH better this time. Mommy sat in the back seat with her, while Fay lunched and napped and played and was generally in a good mood.

Overall, it was a great weekend. It was fun to get away from home and spend time in a beautiful part of the East Coast. It was great to see Sarah, whom I haven't seen in a couple years and finally meet her (now) husband.

Ryan took some really lovely pics of Fay and me. And I tried to return the favor (must learn how to take a photo!). Take a look at the Flickr set....
Click here for Sarah Howard Wedding Photo Set

weight check

BTW, Fay, Ryan and I visited the pediatrician last Sunday. She had asked us to come in for an 8 month check up just to check on Fay's weight. She'd been leaning out a bit, going from the 75th to 50th to 25th percentile in weight. So on her 8 month bday she weighed in at 17.25 lbs. I'm not sure what percentile that is, but she basically gained 2.25 lbs in 1.5 months. I'd say she's no waif.

Fay is "crawling" aka scooting

On Thursday I got a text message from Mandy telling me that Fay was crawling. We'd been working on her all week because she was just on the cusp. And the breakthrough came on Thursday afternoon. Bummer that I wasn't home for it, but Mandy caught some great video, and we've been having fun today with her new skill.

So I have two new videos for you. You can see for yourself how Fay gets around. She's not full fledged dangerous at this point; she only scoots for objects she really wants that are somewhat nearby. I'm sure she will advance to mad curious crawling baby shortly.

Mandy entices Fay to crawl with her red sneakers.



Fay goes for the remote

Rooftop pool

I signed Mandy and Fay up for "splash on the roof" class at our local kid/parenting center. When I emailed for details, I was told to hurry up and fax my application because there was a lot of interest in the class and it might fill up quickly.

Mandy and Fay went to the class last Thursday afternoon. We (Mandy and I) were both excited because for a long time Fay has been too young for many of the classes in the neighborhood. Some start at crawling, others start at 9 months. But this one did not have an age prerequisite. I was excited enough that at about 30 minutes past the start of the class time I texted Mandy and asked how it was going...

Her reply: "No one else was there and the water was too cold but we gave it a short try."

Oh noooo! :( Apparently, Mandy and Fay walked out on to the roof only to find...one woman (the facilitator), a large kiddie pool, and a lot of cold water and floating toys. Mandy said the woman kept on trying to entice Fay to play with the toys. And poor little Fay.....well you can see it by the pictures. She knew just how bad the situation was.

On the up side, Mandy and Fay can switch to the other time-slot. I guess everyone (all those interested parties) signed up for the Wed morning splash class instead.

summer is here

Not all of Fay's photos can be fashion shots.

We've been going through a bit of a heatwave over the past week. Normally Ryan and I pride ourselves on not running the A/C until absolutely necessary. Well, it may have been necessary even under normal circumstances this week...but with a new baby around, we didn't really hesitate. So we've had the A/Cs going for the past several days while Fay sits home with Mandy. Of course there have been the normal power outages that NYC suffers when the heat rises. I found myself concerned about my frozen milk (mama's milk). What happens if we loose electricity and I have to throw out months worth of pumping! With the hate of pump that I harbor, that may just make me tear up a bit.

But no such problem. We did loose water last night for a brief period. I'm not really sure why. I headed off to be at 11:00 with a small pit stop in the bathroom, only to discover that the toilet wouldn't flush. Eek! I just hoped that Ryan wouldn't wake in the middle of the night to an unwanted discovery. (he did :) )

Tomorrow, Mandy will take Fay to the first in a series of "splash on the roof" classes at Edgies. Edgies is the neighborhood parenting center I went to when I was on leave and met a bunch of great moms. I think Fay's new class will consist of some kind of kiddie pool with other babies and moms/nannies on the roof. I'll keep ya posted.

The other fun tidbit from this past week is Ryan and I planned and booked our winter vacation. We really wanted to go on a beach vacation because it seemed the easiest thing to do with a toddler. And we thought an "all-inclusive" family friendly resort would probably be the most enjoyable and hassle free. WELL, after several hours of research Ryan stumbbled upon a vacation package that seems a little too good to be true. We are booked at an all-inclusive family resort in Jamaica, that includes, get this, a "vacation-nanny". The resort will provide you with a vacation nanny every day of your stay. She will be the same woman each day, and if you want to use her services after hours, you pay a small hourly rate. SO, if we want to lounge by the pool with a little extra supervision...or get a massage..or whatever, we can have a little nanny help. I think we'll probably use her the most at night, so we can enjoy a nice dinner out. But it will certainly help in the "vacation" part of things to know we can use her during the day too.

Jess

Friday playgroups

I'm sure I've mentioned that every Friday a handful of moms in my neighborhood get together with our babies to socialize.

At this point there is no denying that the socializing is primarily for the moms, but we also like to see how our babies interact as they continue to get older and a bit more social themselves. I met most of these moms when I was on maternity leave and they were as well. Now some of us have returned to work, but quite a few of us managed to get Fridays off so we can continue these Friday get togethers.

This last Friday one of the moms had her camera and she attempted to get a good photo of all the babies in attendance. She snapped a series of photos all within a matter of seconds. And they are really great to view as a set. I suggest you use the slideshow link and cycle through them at a quick clip to see the action move from frame to frame.

Nicely, Fay is front and center so we can see all her movements clearly. :) The last photo is a keeper -- Eleanor looks like a movie star and Fay looks like a drunk movie star.

Playgroup Set: click here!