Raffi Dance Party

Bed time - sans diaper, sans english

Goodbye January, Hello February

Chugging along here, let's see . . . I'm enjoying school, Ben's working hard, Susannah's being entertaining, and oh yeah, it's still cold.

Granddaddy and Shay-Shay braved one of the coldest weekends on record here, and we had a lot of fun with them even though it was too cold to leave the apartment. Thanks for coming to visit bringing all the good food!






















































Susannah's new favorite activity is Destruct the Apartment, and the kitchen seems to be her favorite place to start. She's treating the cabinet full of pots and pans as her headquarters. She likes to take all of the ziploc bags out of the container and pull all the magnets off the refrigerator. Then she takes her baby doll and gives it a really comfortable place to sleep. Being a toddler is so fun.

On the long side since editing is too much trouble

Susannah watching it snow

Kidney Update!

Drum roll, please ... The urologist said we could finally stop giving Susannah the preventative antibiotic, which she has taken in some form or another since the day she was born! The sonogram showed that the dilation in her kidneys is continuing to gradually decrease. The ureters weren't visible, a good sign because it probably means that they are no longer dilated at all. The odds of her needing any additional surgery are smaller and smaller. We'll go back to the doc in mid-March and if things continue down this path, we will be seeing him less and less in the future. Can I get an AMEN!!!

I have more good news to report: Ben got a promotion! I am so proud of him and so glad that his hard work has not gone unnoticed. Hooray, Hooray, Hooray!

January Thus Far

First up, technical difficulties. We have some cute videos of Susannah that we took on the Flip camera we got for Christmas. But we can't get them to upload on the blog, which is annoying. If any Flip users have tips, please let us (by that I mean Ben) know. Otherwise we will just use youtube, I guess.














Back to January. We've been having fun. S had another little cold that turned into a respiratory thing, so that wasn't the best way to start off the year, but I think we are getting the hang of what to look out for to prevent it from getting too bad. She had a sonogram and bloodwork on Friday and I am still waiting for the doctor to call me with his thoughts. From what I could see, with my untrained and yet somewhat trained-through-time eye, is that her right kidney still looks really good and her left is the same if not a bit smaller. I could see the kidney tissue on both pretty clearly, so that is always a good sign. In general S has been super healthy and man life is so much more fun when your kid is not sick.

We had a wonderful brunch with Susan and Geoff a few weeks ago at their apartment in the Village. They knew Ben when he was a wee babe in the city and have been so wonderful to us as we navigate being parents in NYC. No pictures of that, I know, I know, but here is S back at home making good use of the toys that Susan picked out for her.


































We've also been having playdates. I've gotten to know a couple of families in the building so we have some friends to visit when the timing works out. (Susannah's favorite friend though is probably the doorman, Freddy.) Here she is with Paige, a friend on the third floor who is actually her size.





















Aunt Anne Louise and her bf Chris were around this weekend, and we headed out to the MoMa. it was too crowded to get into the Tim Burton exhibit so we were stuck with the usual Picassos and Klimts and Warhols. And a cool mandala-ish thing on the way home. Poor us.



























I'm back in school this week with two classes -- both with teachers who have either written or edited some of my favorite nonfiction books. It's intimidating but so fun too.

Susannah's keeping warm, and oh so stylish too.