Childhood explorations

At some point, nearly every child in America does that most American-childhood-like thing, basking in the American childhoodishness while reveling in the joy of being an American child.

We refer, of course, to the innocent poking of furry creatures. We got to witness it firsthand this weekend with boydog, girldog and Cousin Marcus, who got along pretty darned well. girldog was a little bit freaked at first, but when Cousin Marcus tried sharing his Cheerios they bonded, and closely.

Here's one of the little lad's first interactions with boydog:


Cousin Marcus got so excited he's since gone home ... but continues to bark.

With Lil' Genghis, mom and dad have been so excited those times her eyes just get incredibly wide open and she seems to suck in the world around her, exploring, learning, curious. It's the same deal with Cousin Marcus, now 14 months, shown here with his dad, Uncle Chris:


Cool stuff, eh?

Yeah, but now we're going to change tracks a bit and talk about something even cooler but less childlike.

dad went to grad school with Aunt Donna, the only one of his friends who is actually graduating. (He told her to stay the hell away for fear of bad luck, but she wasn't listening.) Well, Aunt Donna's having one heck of a great year -- even just the past two months. In rough chronological order:

• Got engaged to Uncle Ed;
• Told off her sister-in-law;
• Told off her brother;
• Graduated!
• and, today, got published as the banner article on the front page of the Boston Globe!.

Now she just needs a job, but in the meantime, let's all offer our congratulations! =)

Happy Birthday, Aunt Lelia!

Aunt Lelia, Uncle Chris and Marcus came to spend the weekend with us and what a great time we had! We ate plenty of Brazilian food, and yesterday drove to New Hampshire to attend Aunt Sussen and Uncle Gary's baby shower.

Here's a beautiful picture of Bellinha this morning beaming at Aunt Lelia and wishing her a Happy Birthday!!

Life as a New Dad

Nuff said.

Beautiful Belly

A pic of Aunt Piu and her 17 week belly. mom got a little emotional seeing her little sis so obviously knocked up =D ("I'm getting old!!").

Prima!

So now we know: Bellinha's cousin is a girl!
mom knows where to get all the cutesy girly stuff to send to her. So much fun to dress a little girl! ;)

Edited to add: Aunt Piu just called and confirmed that the little lady will be called Ana Cecilia.

The first dress

Isabella wore a dress yesterday for the first time, a lovely gift from Marina. Chewie wanted to stay close and monitor the situation, as usual. The dress pattern kind of blends in with the bed sheet, which was unintentional.

Meeting Grandpa John

Grandpa John came to spend the weekend with us and showed us how it's done. See Bellinha pay attention to this very interesting song about calamari:



Pay attention because you can see her smile briefly in the very last second ;)

Here's another video:

Things Bellinha can do at 5 weeks...

She can spin around in her bed. The other day she woke up lying across in the crib, managing to get around the sleep positioner, and despite the swaddler.


She can hold on to her binky for dear life, and she can pull it out of her mouth when she's done with it.

She still doesn't like baths. That doesn't seem to change, but she looks sooo cute in this bunny rabbit towel that Aunt Lelinha gave her!

Happy burpday!

Friday was Bellinha's first (month) birthday. She celebrated with pepperoni pizza, beer, and big bottles. Well, one outta three ain't bad.

The real celebration came today ... er ... the day that ended 30 minutes ago, Friday. We took her out for a nice stroll, swinging by a pizza place (for us) with the former diabetic mom sampling half a piece of baklava to boot; a run to CVS for some baby necessities ... and then lots and lots of time at the library, followed by a stop on the river.

Lil' Genghis just loves being read to, if by "loves" you mean "enjoys sleeping through." mom and dad wound up reading something like four books to her, and she slept gladly through most of 'em. Lessee here:
Are you a ladybug?: The daughter liked sleeping through this. The mother liked learning more about ladybugs.
Mike Mulligan and His Steamshovel: dad read this when he was a kid, and it was kinda cool to get back to. Of course, now he thinks Operation Plowshare should be used to create deep-water ports in Africa, but hey.
Easter Egg Disaster: Eh.
Last, but not least: The Discovery of Dragons: Wow. Click that link. Click the "Look inside this book." Wow. Very cool stuff, and funny, too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you guys just want pictures. She slept pretty much the whole outting. So don't expect too much action.

New record

Bellinha's pushing the 10-pound mark now, making for a gain of 30.5 ounces in the last three and a half weeks. The doctor says she's happy with the little lady's progress, but everybody's trying to figure out if yonder infant is getting heartburn.

The really good news today comes from mom's new new moms' group.

You know those bumper stickers? You know, like, "My child is an honors student at Candlebrook Elementary" or "My moronic shih tzu is smarter than my wife's brother"?

Yeah, turns out sweet Lil' Genghis can outscream the other nine children. If that's not something to be proud of -- think, high oxygen intake, good lung capacity and those huge dad feet, making for one heck of a potential basketball player -- what is?

New video

We got some video of Lil' Genghis taking a bath (the weird parts are not in the camera frame, don't worry).

The bathtub, again, was a "gift" from Uncle Rodrigo, who apparently enjoys making his only niece nervous and angry. Watch closely -- at the very end, Bellinha offers him a hand gesture.

She's got something from mom...

Her cheeks at 3 weeks and 5 days old. She looks a lot like dad but those cheeks come from her mommy ;)

Isabella's busy weekend

Two photos from the weekend:

- Saturday celebrating mom's birthday in a Thai restaurant, and

- With dad, enjoying an Ester brunch at the Newton Marriott.

Dad's girl

Love you guys!
mom, having one of those super-sentimental moments =)

Dad's nightmare

dad didn't quite like this insight into the future provided by manic Photoshopper and nerd extraordinaire Uncle Bob, but mom doesn't mind what Bellinha writes about as long as it rakes in enough of the moolah.

Two pictures taken yesterday

Showing how big she is now =)
Today at the ped's office she weighed in at 9lb 5oz (or 4.225kg).

Lil' Genghis' lil' update

So mom and dad are exploring new levels of sleep deprivation, but might be doing better than others because of the experience from the tough pregnancy. So far, Isabella is really a miracle -- she has a way of making your heart melt when she grabs a finger with her fingers or, today, her toes; she has the most expressive eyes; etc. etc. etc. More to the point, she only cries for four reasons: diapers, food, pending diaper and Uncle Rodrigo. Let's look closer:

• diapers. Our little lady has high standards for personal hygiene, something she clearly got from her mom instead of ... yeah.
• food. So, she eats for an hour and a half at a clip, every two and a half hours. That leaves roughly 40 percent for sleep, gambling, alcohol and recreational drugs. Then there's all the stuff her parents have to do. She winds up crying for food seemingly all the time.
• pending diaper. She farts more than the dogs, and she doesn't like it.
• Uncle Rodrigo. He's the source of a lot of her crying, a few times a week. And when he makes her cry, it's for like 45 minutes at a clip, the most awful heartbreaking noise ever. He says the baby bathtub was on one of our wishlists, but we all know he could've gotten her something comforting, like the bottle warmer, or maybe some bourbon.

So mom is seemingly always feeding, and dad got himself transferred with a longer commute. There's barely time to care for baby, find food at odd times for us, and keep the meth lab and the eBay "photo of expensive merchandise" scams going. It's so hard to juggle a baby, gainful employment and criminal enterprises!

Annnyway, we know you, Dear Reader, are waiting for some photos taken with Bellinha. So here are the photos taken with her.






See, isn't that cool?

Wait.

What?

We said photos taken with Isabella, fotografias com Bellinha. Mas voce desejo fotografias de Bellinha, pictures of her. Stupid git.

OK. So, based on the miscommunication problems here, we're going to try to feed you little snips of Lil' Genghis and maybe a picture from farther out.

This post is for Cousin Savannah

Aunt Sharon is asking for children's book suggestions to help her daughter:

I'm hoping to start little Savannah her own book collection and I'm asking for suggestions from family and friends.
Pat laughs and says our daughter hasn't even made it into the world and I'm already trying to force her into having a love for reading. I just think the love of books will come naturally to a child of two newspaper people... but I could just be fooling myself.
So, I'm asking for people to send me the name of their favorite children's book so I can put it on my list to buy in the future.
I'm planning to keep the list and write the name of the person who recommended the book so Savannah can one day read it herself.

First, let's applaud the parents in wanting to read to their children -- it's particularly important early because the brain gets mostly wired up by age 3. You can even read to a child in the womb.

Second, let's hope the parents are less concerned about whether she'll love reading and be more concerned about trying to talk her out of entering the newspaper industry. Ever.

Third, anyone in Arkansas who can read ... =)

No, seriously, let's post some suggestions here. We've got a bunch of babies on the way, as well as the already-here Lil' Genghis, so book suggestions in either English or Portuguese could benefit the offspring of Sharon and Pat, Rebecca and Josh, Sussen and Gary and of course Cristina and Robinho. (That covers some six English speakers and three Portuguese speakers right there, plus mom and dad.)