Part I:

Part II:

I have a question mark as a blog post title because my brain is fried and I don’t feel creative enough to think of a real title.  I had one of those days at work that was basically hour upon hour of me confronting all of the many things I don’t know, head on.  This is the point of doing a postdoc, but sometimes I get sick of feeling clueless.

Holden had his last days with his nanny Laura, and friend Mallory, last week.  Everyone cried at the end of the day—-Laura cried, Mallory’s mom cried, and I cried.  Our nanny moved out into the country several months ago and just couldn’t continue the long commute to watch our babies, even though she loves them so.  We couldn’t have gotten better care for Holden, I am convinced.  We are staying in touch with Laura and will drive out to the country often to visit her.

Just look at how much Laura loves Holden:

And although it was a sad week for us and I was anxious about how Holden would adapt to yet another childcare situation, he has done fabulously this week with his new friend Felix and Felix’s grandma, Jackie.  Holden and Felix have a lot of fun together (they are only 8 days apart, so they are engaged in much of the same stuff).  I do feel good about leaving Holden there (or as good as one can feel when they are away from his/her baby all day), and Holden seems to genuinely enjoy his time.

And FINALLY, we found a daycare center that can cover my other 3 days of work so that I will have coverage for all 5 work days!  I will be full-time in the lab starting the week of September 14th through the end of December, and then things will switch up a bit once the spring semester starts and I begin teaching again.  After doing a lot of searching, we feel like we finally found a good daycare for Holden—the kids there were happy, the staff were outgoing and friendly, the place was clean, they had appropriate toys, the staff were familiar with child development (and how to optimize it!)  It was a totally different feeling from the first daycare center we visited, and I will feel much better about leaving him there.  I can’t say that I am jumping for joy over being away from Holden that much, but if I feel it’s not working for him or for me, I can always scale back my hours again.  I do feel lucky that I had several months of working part-time as it was really the best of both worlds, allowing me to spend a lot of time with Holden while also keeping some research connections.  Next week will be the last week where Holden and I have 3 days to ourselves to enjoy walks around the neighborhood, visits to the park, bike rides, and story time in our PJs.  I’m not scheduling anything else for next week so that I can fully bask in my time with H.  I’m also trying to figure out ways to streamline our evenings so that dinner prep is faster and easier and we can spend more quality time with H (before the meltdown portion of the night begins).

And what has Holden been doing these days, anyway?  Well, he is running around and climbing up things.  The other day, I went to check on him and found that he had climbed up into his chair in his bedroom and surrounded himself with his books:

He dances, makes animal noises, and uses a few words.  His word “dig dig” for dog, recently morphed into “diggy.”   He also says “owl” which he has attempted to extend to “towel” and “flower.”  He consistently uses sign language to express his needs.  We taught him the sign for “more” in the context of asking for more food.  He has flexibly applied the sign for “more” to ask the equivalent of “again” as in “Can you make my duck toy run in circles again?”  He simply signs “more” when he wants me to do a trick again or repeat something over and over and over again.  I also noticed him signing for “more” in the middle of the night when he had finished nursing on one side, and wanted me to flip him to the other side.  He is starting to use a real cup (without a lid) and is starting to use a fork, although his fingers are still much easier for him.  He gets frustrated and throws tantrums routinely at this point, which is usually funny to watch.  He used to eat everything we’d put in front of him; now, he is starting to refine his tastes.  While he still loves broccoli and meat (especially steak), he loathes any kind of fruit or vegetable that still has its skin (e.g. apple, zucchini).  If I want him to eat it, I have to peel it.  And if it’s fruit, the likelihood of him eating it increases if it’s encased in pancake or muffin batter.  Blueberry pancakes again???  Don’t mind if I do!

August was a ridiculously busy month.  We took a trip to Waterville Valley, NH; we spent a weekend in Portland, ME to visit the grandrents and see our fabulous friends Sarah and Joanna; our friends John and Amanda traveled all the way to VT  for a visit; I threw a surprise bridal shower for my wonderful friend Sue at a local vineyard and winery (a wine tasting is an AWESOME bridal shower idea—-just sayin’!)

We have pictures of all of these wonderful events—and again, because I am so, so fried, I feel too lazy to post them.  So I will simply conclude with my favorite picture of H from the past few weeks.  Here we are, on one of our last trips to the neighborhood pool: