Quickly

...this is the third time I've tried to post this. Sheesh. Blogger just won't upload video.

I want to get dinner in the crock pot before Sam wakes up from his beauty sleep. I just finished a great book my father recommended. While Albom's books are wonderful, I don't recommend them for anyone post-partum. After I read The Five People You Meet in Heaven, I cried for three days.


Sam's colic is slowly getting better. I never thought I would be thrilled with three hours of crying a night. It's funny how a baby changes your perspective on things. Our pediatrician recommended we try Xantac. It worked miracles with his sister. We can hope. Sam is also starting to coo. He sounds like a little BeeGee. It's so cute. Except every time he does it, all I can think of is that he belongs on the SNL skit The Barry Gibb Talk Show. Watch the link - it cracks me up! He sounds just like Robin when he sings! He has also been smiling a bit more lately - it's so tough to get a picture of him - this was the best I was able to do:

It's not the most flattering picture, but like I said before - he's a pretty serious chap most of time. Serious, but very, very cute!

Caroline was wearing her cool girl shades the other night. She is such a ham. And slowly adjusting to her role as big sister. Thank goodness!

Sunday Night...

First of all...Happy Birthday to Caroline and Sam's Grampy. AND Happy Anniversary to Caroline and Sam's Nina and Pops.

Caroline is protesting sleeping as I write, but Sam's colic seems to be improving. THANK GOODNESS. Though, I do have to say that sometimes we don't know what to do at night because it seems so eerily quiet without an infant screaming for five straight hours!! But that's a good problem to have...

Our little man with the Art Garfunkel hair...

...and his sister. Apparently trying to recapture her youth.

A New Find

It's not exactly our style. AND we bought it for Sam to grow into. BUT we couldn't help ourselves when we saw THIS for $2 at a garage sale this morning. We can't help if it fits Caroline NOW!!



She kind of looks like a Terminator here:

Please Note...

...the new link to the Arizona Winter League in our links section. At last report, Matt and Mikey were hitting Flagstaff and ready to head south from there. I'll let everyone know which teams to cheer for. Hopefully I can find somewhere on the internet to listen to the games.

This is what Caroline looked like this afternoon. Guess Sam and I wore her out...

Two Things...

Caroline and Dada are doing bathies and Sam and I are hanging out. We may have had some progress in our five hour daily battle with colic (I don't want to speak too soon). It involves decreased sensory input, swaddling, a pacifyer and power feeding prior to five pm. If it works, our pediatrician has just attained genius status in my book.


Sam has had some genuine, reproducible smiles in the past couple days. He seems to be a pretty serious chap in general, but is downright jolly when he wakes up in the morning. As evidenced here:
Okay - it's not the most flattering picture, but it's a smile - I promise.


Caroline helped me make "happy feet brownies" this afternoon. She is an excellent stir-er, though every time I turn my back to throw something out or get more supplies somehow her face ended up in the batter bowl. Good thing we made them for just us to eat.


I tried to make Thai food tonight for dinner. Jim and I were using chopsticks to eat it with (so much easier to wash than a fork and spoon). Caroline requested to use the sticks to and, by golly, she did great. Much better than I ever did my first encounter with chopsticks!

Sweet Jane

I'm not a huge fan of Jane Austen. But when I heard this (never thought I'd hear the Cowboy Junkies on PBS), I became intrigued. I just may have to watch The Complete Jane Austen. We'll see if I can stay up that late.

Please Dont Go! [Update-Vids added]

Per Request, here are some pics from this weekend when Uncle Pat and Aunt Erica came to visit. It was so nice to have some extra hands around (oh - we put them to work) and to hang out. Caroline really took to them and (as you will see in the picture) stood at the front door crying "Please don't go" as they were leaving. Too cute, I tell you.

Caroline and Sam were lucky enough to hang out with Grammy and Grampy this afternoon. Can I tell you how much more I like people after three hours of uninterrupted sleep? Jim and I were actually awake enough to talk about the primaries and discuss this fascinating book that I'm reading the way home. Thank you, Grammy and Grampy (from Caroline, Sam...and Mommy and Daddy).

Click To Play

Click To Play

Wake Up Unca Matt!

Caroline Giggling At Herself

She's watching old videos of herself on the blog and is having a ball!






Caroline Laughs At Herself - Watching Old Videos of Her on the Blog!

Good Times...

...Were had by the Leahy children in Worcester last night. It was the first time we had been together that we hadn't tried to beat the tar out of eachother. We did teach Caroline how to Superfly snuka Matt. It was too cool.

Some Worcester Links

While cleaning up my laptop today at lunch, I ran across a few blogs / websites that are Worcester-related...I frankly have not looked at them for a few years but figured that I'd put them here and "add to the community" of us Worcester bloggers...

www.volcanoboy.com
www.radioball.net
www.wormtownnightlife.com
www.worcesterlove.com

Wednesday...

Sam and I have to go downtown today to pick up a copy of his birth certificate and run some other errands. He's napping and resting up after the most recent blowout (how many outfits can an infant poop on in one day?). So I have two minutes and then have to empty the dishwasher, pick up the toy room, vacuum, throw in some laundry...You get the idea.

See?!?! I told you she was working for food.

Watching the football game. GO PACKERS! I have decided that I can have an AFC and NFC team - so the Pack it is (Favre is cute, too - that helps).

My little man.

Naked Bootleg

I learned what a naked bootleg is today. So did Caroline. She's repeated it frequently while watching the Packers/Seattle game. Caroline is a big football fan - she requests to watch the games on Sunday ("I want to watch the football game."). The funniest part is that she actually sits and watches them and seems to enjoy it. She is able to identify first downs, touchdowns and interceptions (she says "Oh, no!"). Though right now, it's a bit more amusing (and challenging) as she didn't have a nap today. Grammy and Grampy came down to have cake for her birthday, so nappies went by the wayside. She won't last until the Paytoilets game tonight (I might not last that long, either - I think we'll be listening to Gil on the radio) - but we'll at least be able to enjoy the NFC game.
We were very excited this morning. We got a real, bona-fide smile out of Sam (the first) and Caroline wanted to hold Sam. This was the first time that she has really chosen to interact with him for an extended (at least in toddler terms) period of time.


Caroline is also becoming quite the photographer. She has taken my camera (unbeknowst to me) and taken some, should I say, interesting pictures in the past few days. Like this:

I was very surprised to find them on the camera and it took me a while to figure out how they got there (though the picture of the tip of her show was a great clue).

One of Caroline's favorite things to play with recently has been the box of scarves and mittens. Last night she emptied it and brought out something for everyone in the kitchen to wear (including Sam). This was the result:

We went out and got a special Backyardigans balloon for Caroline's party today. Once she saw me get out the paper plates and napkins, she made it very clear that she was ready for her party to start (even though it was ten in the morning).

Once the party got going, there was no stopping her. Especially with the ice cream cake. She was a little neater with it than she was with the cupcakes last year. But it's evident that we still have some work to do with the utensils.



There will be more pictures once I can post the ones that Caroline and Sam's Grampy will send. But, one more time - HAPPY SECOND BIRTHDAY, CAROLINE!!! You are very loved.

The Aftermath...

Sam is beginning his evening fussyness - so this will be short.


Who would have thought that just 730 short days ago, holding a little "Caroline Burrito" in our arms, that she would look like this:





Even Sam got into the birthday spirit tonight.
One of the other kids at Ria's got her apink princess Barbie"
And since she has been building "clarinets" wih her blocks, we got her a recorder

She just needs to figure out which end to use

On an Unrelated Topic...

Jim brought my attention to this. Say what you will about Howard Zinn (as Landau would say, everyone sucks lemons in his world), but A People's History of the United States is a mind blowing book. I've read it three times and still find things that I hadn't picked up on before.
Good for him for still fighting the man at the age of 85.
Plus, he's a Red Sox fan.
We'll have to keep our eyes peeled in hopes that PBS picks up his new mini-series.

Happy Birthday Caroline!

After at least one child being awake between the hours of one thirty and six AM (usually involving screaming)...this is what we were treated to this morning at shower time:

Doesn't it figure that he gets his longest stretch of sleep between six and nine AM?!?!? Poor kid, he's got so much gas, he doesn't know what to do with himself. Oh, well - at least somebody got some sleep.

Oh - and we gave Caroline a couple of small birthday presents this morning. Now that she's two, we told her that she has to earn her keep. Or, as she likes to call it "Working for food, Mama. Working for food."

Almost Two...

...Wow. This means that we have officially four hours and twenty six minutes until the Terrible Twos start, right?

Actually, we have a new super hero in residence. I think someone has been watching too much "Super Why" and our hero's name is "Princess Super Naked". Emphasis on the naked part. She tends to streak wildly about the upstairs of our house after bathies. We're not sure what her super powers are, but we are pretty sure that they don't involve going to bed without a tantrum or going pee-pee on the potty.
Sigh.
Here are some pictures from today:

Just stretching out...

Mommy. Camera. Pleeeeaaaaasssse.

Daddy and the kiddies.

Besides the crazy eyes, he's pretty cute (if I do say so myself)

One More...

Sleep is a funny thing. I find recently that I can get very little and feel great. But when I'm left to sleep for an interval longer than three hours, I feel pretty lousy. Not that I get that many intervals of sleep that are longer than three hours...

Caroline and I have been up since six. Sam and Dada were able to sleep until seven thirty or so. CJ and I watched Word World. All I can say is thank goodness for PBS. Kid's programming on regular television is really crap. Especially at six in the morning on Saturday.


Here is one more picture that I forgot to put up yesterday. It's courtesy of Caroline's Papa:

Found: One Hewitt Huntwork

This has been a long time coming...Hewitt was big on the local Boston folk scene for several after winning the Boston Folk award in 1993...I and my college buddies have kept up with him over the years but I had trouble finding him in the recent past...I especially wanted to contact him after the MTV version of Wuthering Heights was broadcast in 2003, since two of his songs were performed on the show, including his great I Will Crumble which was on his 1995 album The Only Drowning Goldfish...Hewitt m/c'd at the Acton Jazz Cafe for a few years to keep a spot open in the metrowest Mass area for the folk / acoustic scene...anyways, it's late, so more on this later, but here's a link to his new song & album...according to his website this will be a big year for him, releasing a new song each week this year!

January Already?

Wow - 2007 went really fast. I think that if you told me last January that we would have two children I would have laughed and told you that you were nuts. But the strangest thing is that it seems like Samuel has been here a lot, lot longer than two and a half weeks. I can't imagine life without him. I have also forgotten what a full night of sleep is like. Sam and I did some reading last night. GREAT book (Gone With the Wind is one of my favorite books, anyways). It has been so long since I've read a book that I haven't read previously or that doesn't have words that rhyme. Sam and I also did some housework today - just some general pick up. Then I introduced him to the Grateful Dead, Queen, Yes and Van Morrison. He seemed to like Van Morrison the best. So do I. Plus, all the dancing seemed to help get some gas out. I call that productive learning.
My Dad sent me some cute pictures he took when he and my mother were out last week:

If this isn't a Windex commercial, I don't know what is!

Pops and his brood

At the Ecotarium..."It's a horse!"