Day 19

Incredibly grateful for mail like this:

We got that yesterday. You better believe I am thankful for Eliot (and Alison and Colin).

We are family

We had such a great time in Virginia—so glad we went, so very glad Jordan and Sophie could be there also and very grateful that Ben and Jen are willing to host all of us.


We met Colin. Just look at those eyes! They aren't exactly brown (sigh) but they are also very different from Alison's eyes and Eliot's too. Both of those kids have crystal blue eyes. Colin's eyes sometimes look gray or navy blue.

Alison has changed so much. She's looking very grown up, not like she's in kindergarten. Some of that is her height (she's nearly four feet tall at age five), but a lot has to do with her new sense of confidence. This visit, she got to make cake pops with Sophie; watching her break the eggs and use the mixer was a lot of fun.

This picture shows perfectly how Colin is--a little love bug who grabs on tight and likes to cuddle. He's really fond of clutching hair in his little fists and can get a death grip you wouldn't believe. I'm not sure how Jen still has any hair left on her head.

Isn't this a great picture of Jen, Alison, Eliot and Colin? I swear Jen stays calm through anything.

Sophie posted this story yesterday about Jen:
The best mommy quote this holiday was definitely when 2 1/2 yr old Eliot asked his mom to get him out of the highchair. Jen, who had a baby in her arms, said "I can't get you right now Eliot, how about you sing a song to yourself."

Jordan and Sophie are just the coolest, always upbeat and looking to make sure everyone else is having a great time too. Kent took some great pictures of them "dancing" with Alison and Eliot and you should see the grins on the kids' faces.

OK, bear with me. Yes,it's another picture of Colin but this one is pretty cute even if he is crying.

Kent and I had gotten Eliot probably three different sets of train tracks from Ikea last spring before we left Boston.

I'd protested that three were too many plus the package said they were for children ages three and up and that Eliot would only be two at Thanksgiving, all to no avail.

I'm here to say that Kent was right.

Eliot loved his train tracks and splitters and whatever else was in there and so did everyone else.

Finally, here's our annual family picture. We clean up OK, don't we?

Catching up

Heading to the birthday dinner

Here’s a picture from my birthday—we’re dressed to go to dinner and I’m wearing one of the dresses I made.

My cake

And here’s a picture of my birthday cake. Kent told them the name to put on the cake and he said there was a pause and they asked if I used the whole name. I think maybe the decorator started to spell my name incorrectly because you can see a bit of a bobble in the script. I’m sure it was very hard to get all nine letters on that cake!






Smithfield got a dusting of snow late Saturday afternoon and this is a picture of Alison getting ready to run, run, run in it. The next picture is Eliot at the door watching her. Pretty cute, huh.

Alison has gotten old enough that she understands when someone is leaving. Yesterday after lunch, she walked toward me and I could see she was tearing up and wanted me to hold her. I picked her up and she told me in a tiny sad voice that she didn’t want me to leave. Awww that broke my heart.


All in all, I had a really fantastic visit. I love seeing Ben and Jen and the kids and even more, I love it that they invited Kent and me to see the ultrasound. I feel very fortunate to have family like this.

It's a . . .

Boy!

I’m in Virginia this week. Ben and Jen invited us to come for her ultrasound yesterday and we wouldn’t have missed it for the world. It’s amazing how much detail you can see in those scans today. Ben and Jen said the images were even clearer than they were two years ago with Eliot.

Ben apparently has natural skills at reading the images; he’s known the gender of each of the three babies just by looking at the image—before the tech says anything. That’s how it was yesterday. I looked over at him and he was grinning. The tech saw it too, and asked him if he knew. He said yes, you couldn’t miss it. She laughed and agreed. So grandson number two it is!

Alison wasn’t really interested in having another brother and had told Ben that if it’s a boy, “you just keep it to yourself, Daddy.” He’d already told her he would get her an American Girl doll if she wasn’t getting the sister she wanted. So on the way home, we stopped at Target to pick up a doll. Kent had to head to the airport after that so he didn’t get to see the kids open their presents.

Eliot was far more interested in the cookies and rolling around on the tissue paper with the cat than he was in the toys.

C is for cookie!

And cat!

Point counterpoint

Ben offered this picture as a counterpoint to Eliot looking more like him than his brother, Jordan:

Ben did admit that he is a few years older in this picture than Eliot is.

Ben didn’t want to hear this

But I think Eliot looks a bit like Ben’s older brother, Jordan. I don’t have many pictures from the boys’ childhoods—their father has them—but the few that I do have show some resemblance. What do you think?

This is Jordan at 13 months. His hair is much darker than Eliot's (and is nearly black today as an adult).

Here's Jordan again, slightly younger than the first picture, but I think you can see the resemblance even more.

Here's Eliot last Friday at the park.

Shears in Boston!

Despite Boston showing some (typical) crappy weather on Tuesday and Wednesday AND despite the flight issues Ben and Jen had getting home last night, I think a good time was had by all. I know I thoroughly enjoyed having the four of them here and would do it again.

Our plan of having them stay in our apartment while we stayed in the bed & breakfast across the street worked out perfectly. They had more room to spread out, we could hang out with them after Eliot and then Alison went to bed and they could be as noisy as they needed to be. The only drawback was that since we have just the one bedroom, the kids had to sleep in the same room as the parents—that wasn’t hard on the kids but I know it made for harder sleeping conditions for Jen. Ben could sleep through exploding hand grenades so I doubt he noticed anything.

Kent picked them up Friday from the airport and once they got to the house, we headed over to a nearby park. That gave the kids a chance to run around and play while we could start sorting out what things they wanted to do here. We ended up touring the New England Aquarium and the USS Constitution on Saturday; Sunday we headed over to Boston Common and the kids played in the Frog Pond, plus they rode on their first ever carousel. On the way home, we stopped by Dunkin Donuts so Alison could have her first ever Dunkin Donut experience. She’s now completely hooked.

Monday we checked out the zoo—if you look on the left side of Alison, you can see the hind legs of a napping male lion. Tuesday was pretty dreary but the rain held off long enough for us to walk around the North End. Later that afternoon while the kids napped, Kent and Ben took a tour of the Sam Adams brewery (you may have to provide your birthdate to enter that site). Yesterday we took the Red Line to Harvard Square and then had lunch in Cambridge.

I’m sure you are curious about the cats—and too bad if you aren’t since I am going to write about them anyway! Overall, all three cats did well. Both Eddie and Wally tend to hiss if they smell other male cats and Ben and Jen do have a couple of male cats. So Wally and Eddie were a little hissy at first. As usual, both Eddie and Chloe stayed out where the action was. I think they do that so they know where the trouble actually is and can run away if the situation calls for it. Wally had a harder time of it since he really is a big scardy-cat. His tail was down most of the time and he hid in my closet in the very back behind a suitcase—unfortunately that closet is in the bedroom, where of course the kids slept. So we had to make sure a door was ajar so he could escape during nap time.

Eddie started seeking out Ben for petting by Saturday night and Chloe did too either Sunday or Monday. Last night, Wally finally really came out. His tail was up, he hopped from my lap to Kent’s lap while the kids were very close by and he also finally stopped hissing. I sort of think maybe Ben and Jen started smelling more like us and less like their own house, plus we’d done a few loads of laundry which I’m sure got rid of some their cats’ smells.

All in all, the cats adjusted just fine. I don’t know that Wally would ever seek the kids out for attention but at least he did no harm.

A quick picture

Both of the kids are sitting in my office chair, getting ready to watch one of their videos.