Nine days old

Baby Anne

My water broke at 4:00am on January 3rd, we arrived at Prentice Hospital a few hours later. Here we are in the triage area.

Baby Anne arrived later that afternoon. Here she is with the proud Savta

With Auntie Jen

With Grandma and Papa

Almost one day old, with Auntie Linda

With Uncle Adam

With Auntie Clarissa

Elijah has been in wonderful spirits. He is very helpful around the house, fetching things for Mommy and even lugging groceries up the stairs this afternoon. He is rather camera shy and I bribed him with a lollipop to get this shot.

The whole family came over to help celebrate Anne's first Shabbat. Darling Max was very excited to give kisses to his new cousin, what a sweetie!

First blessings

With Dodah

With Daddy this evening. Auntie Sandy made the gorgeous blanket.

Birthday celebrations

Such a fun week celebrating Elijah's 5th birthday!! The actual birth date was last Sunday and we had a low key day close to home. We went out with family for brunch and dinner, so Elijah had two free desserts with candles to blow out. Had planned to visit the science museum during the day, but the birthday boy wanted to chill at home and play with his new Hungry Hippo game isntead.


The official celebration took place at our house. We have limited space so just stuck with family and the boys from Elijah's class this year. His school music teacher performed for the kidddos and we had a great robot cake from Deerfield Bakery (thank you, Gilia!!)

IKEA Hackers

Elijah turned 5 a few moments ago. He is fast asleep and I am super excited to give him his new LEGO table in the morning. I took a little IKEA side table (a gift from my dear friend Linda, thank you!!) and expoxy-glued the top of it in LEGO baseplates. Super easy and inexpensive. Will be sure to post a photo but right now it is covered in heavy boxes so that the glue sets overnight.

I found the idea (and so many more fun ones) online at www.IKEAhackers.net. It is full of all sorts of neat projects. I am already thinking about something like this for Anne ($20 for the tables and chairs). The design is a piece of fabric with plexiglass on top.

Also like this one ($4 spice racks as book shelves) for the baby Anne's room!!

Wagner farm

Gilia, Elijah, Amiel and Miriam

Kisses

Elijah crawled into our bed earlier this week and kissed by belly. I assumed it was for the baby, but you never know. "Who was that kiss for?" I asked. "Your INTESTINES!" he replied.

Wishing

Elijah's birthday is fast approaching and it feels that the year is flying by us. A number of people have inquired about birthday gifts for the boy and his little sister. We thus decided to create an amazon.com wishlist!! Just go to amazon.com and click the wishlist button in the top right corner. Enter my email address (my last name@yahoo.com) and the list will pop right up.

BTW, the amazon.com wishlist is really easy to use. For more info about it, go to http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=cm_wl_rl-create-new-list?ie=UTF8&nodeId=897204&language=en_US

Market

We finally did make it to the farmer's market a few weeks back. Max and Deborah joined too!

Almost five

Elijah's daily commentary is so entertaining and I am constantly kicking myself for not documenting his witty little remarks. I'll try to do better. In the meantime, there is much to report about our nearly FIVE year old boy. He is a prolific artist and comes home from school with stacks of drawings. He used to be focused on mazes but has now taken an interest in maps, buildings, people and machines. He drew the cutest alien the other day and I recently found a few dinosaurs too. He often includes text in his work and there are occasionally strings of random letters/numbers. Sometimes he embellishes his drawings; he writes words or little pictures on small scraps of paper and then tapes the scraps to the main picture. One of my favorite Elijah creations with a mezzuzah which he drew in marker and then cut out. It even had a few Hebrew letters. I assumed this was school project but Elijah informed me that he just decided to make one.

He is still great at entertaining himself. In addition to drawing, he enjoys building with his over-sized blocks, twisting pipe cleaners, playing with his veterinarian kit and tinkering with Legos. He still loves stuffed animals and usually has either Cow, Lobster, Goose of Blue Dog in tow. Elephant has disappeared but Elijah doesn't seem to care. I am sure he'll turn up. In the past, he was generally happy for others to do things for him but he is a bit more independent these days. He helps pick out his own clothes and gets dressed all on his own. With prompting, he buckles his own seat belt and brushes his own teeth. He is very intent on opening packages without help, and I love that he can fill up his own cup with the refrigerator's water dispenser.

So much to love about such a little person. There are butterfly kisses at bedtime. The sound of his voice and all the funny things he says. I especially love listening to him talk to Blue Dog and switch voices when Blue Dog "talks" back. As long as the sun is up, we let him slip into our bed and I somehow even like his morning breath. He is very sensitive but increasingly able to tolerate things not going his way.

Elijah has never shown interest in babies and has certainly never asked for a sibling. I'd describe his initial reaction to the pregnancy as ambivalent (at best). We started to announce the pregnancy around three months and I was having a particularly hard time keeping it a secret from the boy. We'd initially planned to let Elijah "figure it out" on his own, but once we started telling everyone I thought we should reconsider. I brought it up with Amiel but he wanted to stick with the original plan. Figuring Elijah would find out soon anyway, I went along. Literally minutes later, Amiel called up his sister to share the good news. He was sitting at the dining room table and Elijah was at the other end coloring. "We're pregnant!!" he announced. Elijah did not respond whatsoever. "Amiel!" I exclaimed, "Elijah is sitting RIGHT there!" Amiel waved his hand and insisted Elijah wasn't even paying attention. Yeah right, I thought. Elijah is ALWAYS paying attention. "Elijah," I asked. "Did you hear what Daddy just said?" He briefly looked up with a dead pan expression, "You're pregnant." I scooted over next to him, "Do you know what that means?" He said "no" and didn't look up. "What did it mean when Deba Bebba was pregnant?" I inquired. "She had a baby in her belly," he replied matter-of-factly. "So what does it mean?" I pressed. "You have a baby in your belly," he said. I futilely attempted to engage him in conversation for a moment more but he was clearly disinterested. It wasn't the response I'd hoped for but it wasn't unexpected either. At least he didn't object outright!

Thankfully, Elijah has slowly started to show interest in his little sister. He is certainly amused by my growing belly, particularly the portruding belly button. He sometimes rubs it and occasionally tries to talk to his sister. It'd be an exaggeration to say he's excited about her arrival, but he is certainly curious and also very sweet to his Mommy. I am no longer able to pick him up and he is very understanding of this. When I have a hard time standing up or picking things off the floor, he is eager to lend a helping hand. We like to joke around about how baby Anne loves Haagen Dazs and make sure to enjoy it together as much as possible.

Even though he's nearly five and very much a BOY, there is still a part of me that thinks of him as my baby. About a month back, he was snuggled on my lap and I referred to him as "my baby." He pointed to my belly and announced, "I'm a boy, that's your baby!"

Summer

The temperature has been consistently above 90 for weeks, but my summer is just now kicking off. July is always busy at work as the new interns show up and someone needs to train them. I worked three weekend shifts last month and seemed to spend much of my remaining free time sleeping or stressing. Now that it is August, I am settled into my new (third year) schedule and my call responsibilities are significantly improved. Morning sickness is gone and I even have round belly to show for it.

It finally felt like summer when I ate a juicy peach this afternoon. It really felt like summer when packed up our lawn chairs and took Elijah to see a movie in the park tonight. The Chicago Park District erects giant movie screens throughout the city all summer long. The films are free and tonight they screened Shrek Forever After. Elijah had never seen a movie on the big screen and we've never let him have popcorn either, of course he loved both. The movie was funny, but the balmy night and carefree atmosphere made for a perfect evening. I loved watching Elijah sit in his little chair and laugh out loud. So many more for summer things to do and I can't wait.