Kiana at the United Nations

Slowly, slowly, it's beginning to feel like spring might be getting ready to appear around the corner. Rain has washed away the towering piles of snow and ice that have accumulated from the blizzards this winter, and this week has been pretty mild. This morning while dropping Aidan off at playschool, I discovered (to my surprise) that underneath one of what used to be a giant snowdrift is a - still deliciously piney smelling - pile of Christmas trees! I can't wait to be done with winter and really welcome spring!





This week we had a lot of adventures. The UN's Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is meeting this week and next, and I wanted to try to attend some of it, to help me with my research projects. However, Kiana does not really even know what a bottle is right now, and it takes 2 hours just to go down and come back on the trains. So, attending was tricky!

Monday, Daddy took President's Day off, and brought the kids down to me for a couple of nursing breaks so that I could attend NGO Consultation Day - a preparatory session for the week. (He is THE BEST!!) Aidan was psyched because they ate lunch at Five Guys, and Kiana was a good sport about nursing at the Salvation Army headquarters, so it all worked out! I caught up with some colleagues from the CSW I attended 2 years ago, and learned a lot.


During the rest of the week, Daddy had to work (of course), so I decided to take Kiana with me in the hopes that she would either nap during the sessions, or play reasonably quietly on the floor in the back of them. Unfortunately (though predictably), things were much too exciting for her to sleep, and the sessions we attended were too full to have much playspace in back, so I didn't get much out of those, except for some rather exhaustingly long periods of train time up and down and up and down. Kiana was definitely the youngest CSW attendee and made many friends, but thought she should be the main speaker at all events, so it wasn't exactly as I had hoped for! Ah well, it was worth a try!


On Saturday, I was fortunate enough to discover that an all-day event I wanted to attend on "Celebrating UN Women: The Way Forward" was streaming live. So, I watched most of it from home, while we relaxed in the morning (Aidan watched WALL-E and Kiana napped). Then Daddy took the kids downtown on the trains to see probably "the biggest construction site in the world" (the World Trade Center) while I finished up. It worked!


Sunday we did a Target run, and Aidan did a short bike stint with his friend Rowan (who was out with Laurie and Wesley) at the PIS 187 schoolyard blacktop. It's SO nice to have the snow gone!


AIDAN:
- Quote of the week: "Old MacDonald had a booger. EIEIO!... With a pick pick here, and a pick pick there..." (!!!)




KIANA:
- Kiana is now greased lighting as a crawler, but is already bored with crawling and wants to walk! She holds her hands up above her head, waiting for us to take them, and then walks all over the place. She especially loves racing down the hallway with Aidan, while Daddy holds her hands to help her walk, and then getting scooped up with him by me to giant "yay!"s and cuddles!
- She tried *spinach* this week, and LOVED it! I am so excited! (Maybe she'll convince Aidan too ;p )

Happy Valentines Day & Happy Birthday, Mama!

Monday was Valentines Day, and I woke in the most wonderful way! Aidan climbed into bed with us at about 6:45AM and we all relaxed together for a little while. Then, while I was nursing Kiana, Aidan asked Alex: "Daddy, why does Kiana LIKE Mama so much?" He responded, "Well, why do YOU like her?" Then Aidan said, "Because I *want* her, *always*!" It was the sweetest Valentines Day ever!!!


Thursday was my birthday (I turned 31), and it was wonderful! I woke up to a gorgeous day (high in the mid-60s). Then I had a bunch of friends over for a toddler-free tropical brunch of ham croissants, quiche, and fruit (papayas, pineapple, fruit salad), with liliquoi (passion fruit) mimosas and a liliquoi meringue pie! I have been obsessing about the liliquoi meringue pie for a couple of months now, ever since my brother Jon-Michael made one in Hawaii and I heard about it. So, that was the major reason for the party! (I wanted an excuse for that pie!) Fortunately, even though I couldn't hunt down fresh liliquois in Manhattan in February, Alex found me frozen passion fruit pulp (nothing else added) that worked *perfectly*, and the pies (I made two of them) turned out outrageously good! Having such a fun morning made the whole rest of the day feel special, especially with the unusually good weather (it has normally been in the 20s, possibly 30s). For dinner, I made (frozen) ahi in (fresh) coconut milk over rice (my favorite!), and mud pie for dessert. It was a delicious and wonderful day!


AIDAN:
- Aidan's new favorite number is 37,000. This makes negotiations more difficult across a range of situations! (E.g., he wants 37,000 more minutes of playtime before he gets clean in the bath, or before he lets someone else take a turn)
- He has been getting very into EMPHASIS: His frequently now tells us that he is "Su su su sss sss sss sss sss SO" tired/ hot / whatever (!)
- He also continues to blow us away with his aptitude for geography puzzles: We've pulled out our world puzzles, and Aidan has been putting each continent together, state by state, talking with us about key features and doing everything much faster than I can. It's pretty amazing! Daddy loves sharing his love of maps and puzzles with Aidan!

KIANA:
- Kiana can now crawl at high speed wherever she wants to go. We've had to pull out the baby gate, because we are worried about her falling down the stairs from our foyer to living room! She loves being able to get to whatever toys *she* wants (rather than whatever we put in front of her).
- She's had a lot of fun with Daddy games: dancing, having him tickle her with his 5 o'clock shadow, bouncing and getting tossed (carefully!) into the air, and even starting "Daddy ladders" (walking up Daddy while he's sitting down, all the way up to his head).

Crawling!

We had another mostly happily uneventful week this week, free of sickness, and full of togetherness. Friday, Aidan brought home a Valentine from school, complete in its own (heart-covered) mail-box. (SO cute!) During the week we also continued our tradition of reading "I Stink" and "The Lorax" every night, as we have for at least the last week and a half: Aidan has memorized the whole "I stink" book and large segments of "The Lorax" - his memory and reading are amazing!


This weekend I got a lot more work done, getting through most of the next chapter revision, while Alex again took over with the kids. On Saturday, they trained down to FAO Schwarz where they watched the professional giant piano dancers and had our favorite burgers at Five Guys. Then, back home, Aidan watched Monsters Inc. for the first time! (He loved that the monsters were scared of the kids!) On Saturday, Aidan watched Monsters Inc. again, and then we all did a Costco trip.


Here are some highlights from the week:


AIDAN quotes:
- Wednesday: "I'm NEVER going to get out of the trash can!"
- Friday: "WALK to me, Kiana! Jump up and give me a kiss!"
- Sunday:
Me: "Aidan, After the WonderPets, I need you to help me take out two trash, and then we'll have PIZZA!"
Aidan: [claps twice] "I WANTED to take out the trash!!!"


KIANA:
- Kiana started really crawling TODAY! This morning, Aidan was drawing a giant mural on some newsprint on the floor while she was playing with a hammer on the rug. When she realized what he was doing, she crawled right over to see what was going on! She has definitely strengthened her core muscles and now keeps her stomach completely off the floor. She still tends to drag her left leg underneath her, as she likes to move forward, and then move back into a sitting position, and this makes it an easy switch, but she is definitely crawling not just scooting!!
- This week, we worked on making Laurie part of Kiana's world by seeing her all week long. On Monday and Tuesday, we hung out with Laurie while she babysat Rowan and Wesley; on Wednesday and Friday, Laurie babysat Kiana for a couple of hours mid-day and picked up Aidan; and on Thursday, Kiana and I bumped into Laurie at Gideon's bakery and we walked to playgroup together. It's been great! Kiana is playing really well with Laurie and has hardly cried at all, and I think we have (barely) introduced them in time to minimize having a really hard time because of (impending) stranger anxiety. (yay!) It's also helped me get more work done and have a break, which has been wonderful.
- Towards the end of the week, Kiana has had a really bad bout of teething: she had a sleep strike for most naps and was up hourly at night for a few nights in a row. It's been rough! Fortunately, a combination of baby Tylenol/Motrin/Orajel andwalking around in the Ergo with Mommy or Daddy has mostly worked in the long run. I'm looking forward to actually seeing the teeth that are causing all of this pain!!

Pulling up/ Superman

It took a while, but things finally turned a corner this week - thank goodness! Daddy got better and went back to work on Tuesday, Mommy did 7 extra loads of laundry to work on decontaminating the house, and - with the house no longer being a sick-ward - everything got a whole lot better. Oddly enough, Daddy's strep test came back negative: apparently his horrible sickness over the weekend was a (non-H1N1) variant of the flu virus. (!) I am grateful that things have improved! Being overwhelmed with everything is no way to live.


The kids were absolutely thrilled to have Daddy get back to his regular self, and had a blast roughhousing and playing games with him.


This weekend, Alex took over with the kids and I finally got a chance to work. Saturday, they took the trains down to pick up our clay from Family Clay Day and played at home. Sunday, Daddy took Kiana on a walk as far as the ice would let them around the Cloisters while Aidan watched Yo Gabba Gabba (one of his new favorite shows). I managed to finally send off a couple of book chapters that have been hanging over my head for months, so that was a big relief for me!


Here are some highlights:


AIDAN:
- At school, Aidan and his friends have recently been obsessed with an "I'm Going on a Bear Hunt" song. Every morning when we drop him off, they demand that Miss Nana turn on the soundtrack (again and again and again), and they race around and around in in a circle chanting along with the words. When they get to the part where they say, "it's a bear!", they all speed up, start laughing hysterically and falling over themselves, and race around the circle even faster. It's hilarious to watch! Aidan loves it!
- Quotes:
* [Aidan in the bathroom with me somewhere else in the house]: AIDAN: "Mama! ... Mama! ... Mama!" (ME: Yes, Aidan?) AIDAN (once he's sure he has my attention): "I need PRIVACY!"
- [When I was pretending to sit on him, while he was hiding under a blanket]: "Mama! No sitting on your beautiful boy!"
- "Mama! I REALLY want to be a REAL superhero! You know who I want to be? SUPERMAN!"


KIANA:
- Kiana pulled herself up for the first time on Sunday! Around one o'clock, Daddy was playing with Kiana on the floor, and she pulled herself up, first with him and then with the couch, and then pulled a North America puzzle (that was on the couch) onto Daddy! Then, a couple off hours later when I had taken the kids to a playdate at Christa's, I put Kiana in Ollie's bed, and she pulled herself up again in Ollie's bed! So exciting!
- Kiana is getting *very* good at scooting, and is getting all over the place quickly now. She also sits up so well that I hardly ever worry that she'll topple over.


- Daddy has started doing cup games with Kiana that she loves: she likes it when he builds towers with them, and also when he spins them on wooden floors, and also when he puts a toy or something in between two of them and shakes them like a rattle. It's a whole new adventure!