Photo Retrospective--Mid to Late August

A couple of weeks ago, Hallie got all dolled up in one of the many fine dresses that she inherited from her friend Alex to attend not one, but two birthday parties in the same day.

Here's a shot of her on her way to her friend Adam's party, where she had a lot of fun with all the neighborhood kids. Notice the drool all over the front of her shirt. It's evidence of tooth number 3, which FINALLY just popped:



Later on, she had a great time playing with Ethan (and Karina, who is not in this shot) at Uncle Josh's birthday party. Josh received a great number of bottles of fine single-malt and top shelf bourbon. Happily, Hallie did not partake in any of them.



Later that same week, we had our now-famous hospitalization for Hallie's scopes and swallow study. To cheer up our little girl, we gave her her very first oreo cookie. She knew just what to do with the inside and scraped it clean with those two tiny teeth. She did try to get some of the chocolate cookie in her mouth, but most of it ended up on her:



To reward Hallie for being so brave about all those tests (the worst of which was the IV inserted by the very nice anesthetist who needs to go to phlebotemy school), we took her to Sesame Place again last week. She had a ton of fun in and out of the water, and spent a lot of quality time with her friend Alex.

Hallie really enjoyed the bird bath and toddler pool. She took like a fish to water and seemed to know how to swim quite instinctively.



Of course, all the fun and games came to a screeching (or wretching) halt when Hallie decided to drink some of the pool water. This was not only yucky and unhygeinic, but posed a greater risk to her now that we knew that she aspirates on thin liquids. Too bad they don't thicken up the drink with a bit of Simply Thick. Actually, that sounds at least as bad as Pediasure backwash...

Anyway, we moved back to terra firma and Hallie visited her favorite attraction at Sesame Place--the gym mats.

There, she made a new friend:



And she got buried in rubber blocks by some big kids who thought the prospect of building a fortress around Hallie was hilarious:



At one point, Hallie appealed to an equally pint-sized ally for some assistance:



And ultimately, our little marauder did break free:



And what's a visit to Sesame Place without a meet and greet with your favorite characters?




In the middle of all this Hallie-related fun, we moms got to celebrate our second anniversary (of our ceremony; we've actually been a couple going on six years next month). On Monday, I came home with these flowers for Sharon:




I might have been responsible for the flowers and a yummy assortment from a local chocolatier that is FABULOUS called Naked Chocolate, but Sharon is responsible for the wonderful photography. And the flowers themselves are reminiscent of our wedding flowers (mango calla lillies, salmon and red roses, and irises, which we assembled ourselves---definitely an undertaking but it was worth it).

We actually got to go out together two nights in a row last week. On Monday we were having a trial run for a baby sitter and went to a new and very yummy bistro a couple of blocks away. The raw bar assortment was yummy; the babysitter was not so much.

On Tuesday, Aunt Neystice and Aunt Kim babysat Hallie while we went out for a more formal anniversary celebration. They were much better at taking care of Hallie but sadly are unavailable to watch her this fall.

Then, on Saturday, Sharon, Hallie, and I headed down to the Shore for what we supposed was a last weekend by the pool. I packed accordingly. The weather, sadly, did not comply and the weathermen hadn't the faintest clue on Friday that it was going to be 60 and raining all weekend. Hallie ended up wearing her cousin Adam's 18-month sweatshirt and some pants that I threw in at the last minute.

However, in this shot, she is wearing neither shirt nor sweatshirt. Indeed, what she is wearing is her lunch.



That's what you get when you let the girl feed herself!

That's all for now; we're STILL engaged in our (apparently) never-ending search for someone to take care of Hallie. I go back to school next week, so it's kind of urgent at this point. If anyone out there has any recommendations for finding a nanny/sitter who is patient enough to deal with a somewhat-hard-to-feed micropreemie, by all means let me know. We have a few very good responses to our most recent Craigslist advertisement, but any advice you might have for training caretakers in the fine art of sleep feeding and reflux/laryngomalacia positioning are always appreciated.

And, speaking of laryngomalacia (and vocal cord paralysis), a big shout out of thanks to Laura for her great video of Daniel and his creative and cute antics, not to mention heartfelt renditions of ABC. You can watch for yourself at Adventures in Juggling