happy halloween!

The car seat dressed up as a cow... they baby dressed up as a bear... and off they rode to a party!

yollM

That's Molly backwards.

On Vacation

Sorry we missed your call. We're on vacation right now visiting friends and family in southern California. Hope to see you soon!

And now, for something completely different

Well, it's been over a week and I really have no good excuses for not writing, except that I've been thoroughly enjoying time with Molly. Wait. Did I mention that I have loads more time to spend with Molly these days? Oops. I guess that's pretty big news: I quit my job. My last day was while the Nonas were visiting. Call it a second maternity leave, if you will. It's really wonderful. Zach, Molly, and I are starting to get a rhythm going, figuring out how we both can get work done without stepping on each other, and how we can all spend a little more time together.

And Molly is just soooo much fun! Have I mentioned how much fun she is? She's really fun! My favorite move of hers right now is the peek-around-the-corner. See, she sits really well but doesn't go from sitting to belly very well. But she enjoys watching things and so she'll sometimes lean her head and her body to one side to see something just out of view. It's really cute. And, I suppose, rather sophisticated (or just plain silly!).

(Of course, all that fun can be exhausting)

In other news, we're headed down south this weekend. We'll hit San Diego for two days and then up to LA to visit with Zach's family. And we've got tickets to go out east for thanksgiving! We're flying in to JFK and out of Dulles with many many friends and family members to visit. We can't wait!

Picture Journey: Nona & Faux-na visit

6 days; 3 cameras; hundreds of photos; all boiled down to these 12 in a "guest post" with love from Nona.

Our house was filled to the brim with love - Nona and "Faux-na" Ann both visiting from the east coast, Mary P joining the party after a few days, and Nana & Pa stopping by just in time for us all to head out to the Bluegrass festival with Molly in her new backpack (lovin' the view!).

No news is good news...

so we went to see the doctor today & get the MRI results, and basically Molly is fine. they're still concerned that at some point she'll develop "tethered cord syndrome", where the bottom of the spinal cord gets tangled in the bones at the bottom of the spine. they'll check it out in a year to 18 months, and if it looks worse they will perform a relatively straight-forward surgery to separate out the spinal cord from the bones. this is all preventative, even if she did have it, there probably wouldn't be any issues until she got older, but with all this lovely MRI imaging technology they have the ability to head that stuff off early. yay for kaiser and preventative medicine!

anyhow that's the scoop. now for the fun stuff (thanks to photographer extrordinaire Matt Podolsky)...

MRI drunk?

The MRI went fine - Molly had the head of pediatric anesthesiology watching over her the entire time. He was really nice. You know you've got a good doctor when the nurses are raving about him. He let me be with her while she breathed in the yucky gas that made her sleep but neither of us were allowed to stay with her during the actual MRI, which took over an hour.

Waking up was fun - this is a picture of Molly in her "drunken" state post-anesthesia. She was all floppy, but trying really hard not to be. :) Once she was awake enough to nurse the sent us home and we had a nice long long nap. And then she was pretty much back to her normal self, just a little more tired than usual.

The next step is our appointment with the pediatric neurologist on Monday afternoon. He'll do a neurological evaluation, go over the MRI, and then we'll either know that there is or is not a problem. As they've told us all along, most likely there will not be a problem and all this is just to be on the safe side.

Here's to safe sides. And drunk babies.