Dr. David Michelson (Graduation)

IN THE HOTEL (BINGHAMTON, NY)

Grandma loves books :)

Then. . . (mama's graduation:  2010)......................................and Now (dada's graduation:  2012)

GRADUATION

Dave being hooded (see screen to the right if your eyes are bad)

Proud Mama

MIA/GAVIN'S PLAYDATE @ TAMMI'S WITH SARAH

Mia and Lizzy

2 mamas (Tammi, me) with their tired boys (Carson, Gavin)

Thank you so much ladies for watching the kids while we were at graduation.  I don't think "watch" accurately captured what these women did for us.  While the boys stuck to being mezmorized by the singing snowman collection, the girls decorated the windows with Christmas gel stickies and made personalized holiday ornaments among other activities.

AT FUJI SAN (DINNER)

As if the first fire display wasn't horrifying enough to Mia, this guy did it again with the flaming onion trick.  Clearly he wasn't good at reading people because his in-your-face tricks were often aimed at Mia who was clearly disturbed by his silly games.

Earl, these family photos are AMAZING.  

Thank you to Kim who was busy deciding between scallops and steak ;) 

Mia did this pose on her own, so cute :)

Binghamton Besties!

Congratulations Dr. Michelson.  I am so proud of you.  I know it has been hard and you have had to overcome one challenge after the next.  It wasn't easy bouncing Gavin in the baby Bjorn while typing simultaneously (AND have dinner ready for me when I came home from work) but you did it and you did it with grace.  No complaints, no despair just dedication and hard work.  So admirable.  I love you sweetie.  Or should I say Dr. Sweetie ;)

Mia update (and The Nutcracker Ballet!)

Mia has been heard from the car seat singing "5 little speckled frogs" and she actually goes from 5 to 4 to 3 to 2 to 1 when previously she used to just sing one number over and over or jump around sporadically.  She has also started to say "duh" and "oh my gosh" and "stupid".  I grapple over letting her mimic these things she has heard from others or actually telling her my distaste for them.  On the one hand, making a big deal out of it will only make it more fun to say (I fear) and on the other hand, I HATE her saying "duh" to me and I try to teach her about respect and not being rude.  

In general though (especially if she has taken a nap), Mia is a great gal and we have tons of fun together.  She is learning about calendars at school and knows the days of the weeks, months of the year and even that it is 2012 (although I think I blew her mind when I told her in January it would be 2013).  She is still very confused by the concepts of "today" and "tomorrow" though because one night recently she said that after she woke up it would be tomorrow (as I've told her in the past) and the next morning she told me "it is tomorrow" and I failed trying to tell her that it is always today but that today is yesterday's tomorrow and tomorrows yesterday (I could have seen this failed explanation a mile away but I still thought it was fun to try and it will be fun to see if she gradually "gets" these concepts or if she "gets" them more suddenly).  At night, I give Mia kisses and hugs, then we do "nosies" (rub noses) and we do "eyeglasses" as Mia used to call "eyelashes" where we do butterfly kisses and recently I was being silly with her and started doing "earsies" and "chins" etc (you get the point) and Mia said, "we should do vaginas. . . that would be funny" and I just ignored it and said, "good night" before promptly telling Dave and having a good snicker or two.

Well recently, my girly and I went to what I hope to be our first annual Nutcracker ballet together.  She has been hoping to start ballet classes and we told her that when she turned 4 she could (though she sometimes says she wants gymnastics or art classes too).  So I thought this would be a fun tradition to have.  I knew she could sit still the whole time but wasn't thrilled that it fell during nap time (1pm).  Still, we grabbed a cupcake beforehand and had M&Ms from the concession stand during intermission and she was good to go.  Everything in moderation, including moderation as Mia's wise aunt once taught me.  Here we are all dolled up before heading out to Red Bank's Count Basie Theatre::

Gavin is 18 months old

18 MONTHS

Although Gavin is now 19 months, here are some notes from a month ago, when this post was intended before Hurricane Sandy and also some newer updates.

• Gavin can be heard doing the "Quack Quack" portions of our animal music CD and loves to dance (raises his arms [hands in fists] alternately and then. . . well I may just have to get a video of this someday)
• Gavin loves to clean up and will do so while singing his own version to the clean up song "keen up keep up ah wuh ah wuh ah keen up keen up"
• Gavin is still a big eater (oftentimes eats more than Mia and equal to Dave or I) though he is getting picky with veggies recently and will say "no" while shaking his head side to side.  
• Gavin has all 12 teeth (only missing 2 yr molars though he started teething these recently).
• He is in size 5 diapers and 18-24 mo clothes.  Sad to say we've taken a break from cloth diapers due to our space constraints at the loft and our need to really clean/sanitize the ones that got damaged and I just haven't had the time nor motivation to tackle this chore yet.  
• Gavin loves cars, trains, balls (and throws very hard/far with decent aim too!)
• He is also a huge hug addict and I dare anyone to hear his pathetic open-armed request for one (huuuh) and deny him!  It is a good thing Gavin loves to hug too because his sister does too.  Sometimes I just feel like I am going to get a cavity from all their sweetness towards one another although I guess he occasionally does diss her hug attempts and she does occasionally knock him over with her overly enthusiastic hugs.  
• Gavin was super gentle with Cookie as well as our cats before they had to temporarily start living without us (sniff). 
• LANGUAGE
• Gavin has been saying Mia perfectly now for sometime.
• After starting to count to 10 during diaper changes (to distract him, as we had done for Mia) he quickly picked up on counting and, although he has a proclivity for odd numbers like 3 and 5, he can pretty reliably count all the way to 10 with little to no help.
• started saying his colors.  His favorite to say is "purple", which he says just like that.  He can also say green ("geen") and blue ("bue").  Although he likes to try to figure out colors and is sometimes accurate, I'm not sure that accuracy has risen above chance levels yet.  
• calls strawberries "Saturdays" and brocoli "braclova".  He also called grapes "boblios" for some reason and calls clementines some weird name with an "M" sound.  The funny thing is he can imitate anything we say and can say many things correctly ("pear", "apple" etc).  
• started stringing more words together in "sentences" like "mama more nana" though mostly it is just 2 word sentences, if that.  
• Said "Gavin" for the first time recently after much prodding.  
• Although language is a big development right now, he is also interested in developing his climbing/balancing skills as is evidenced by his climbing on his toys, toy buckets and even a book if that is the only "tall" thing in sight.  

SLIGHTLY SHOE-OBSESSED :)

PopPop's shoe

Daddy's shoes