Tiju/Malcom

Greetings from Michigan. Zoe and I made the trek here last Saturday, May 3. (The plane ride you ask? Well let's just say, I'm considering starting a Care2 petition to require that all airplane bathrooms have a changing table). On Sunday we drove across the state to Reed City to visit my friends Teresita and Tammy - and meet their 2 month old son, Hunter. It was wonderful to see them! On Tuesday, Zoe and I drove back across the state. While driving, I took about 30 minutes of video to log what it's like to drive across the state of Michigan. I hope that someday I'll be able to edit that footage into something I can post on You Tube. My current video editing software sucks.

The rest of the week we hung out with my folks, my brother and his family and some very close and long standing family friends. We even made a trip to the Zoo and saw Polar Bears. And it's amazing that she has learned signs that we've never practiced with her. At the zoo today, we saw a seal and she did the sign for seal with out prompting. I'll add a photo slide show with more from this week to this post once I have them up loaded.

So, what in the heck is Tiju/Malcom? It's the way Zoe says Thank you and Your Welcome. She has had an absolute verbal explosion in the past 2-3 weeks. She knows the entire alphabet. It's amazing! Even on this trip the new words just keep coming, music is the newest word. She is starting to put sentences together, "Water, please Mommy" (yes she does say please, thank you and your welcome). She has started to sing as well, and will sing along when we sing to her. I have some of this on video... I do hope I find some easy video editing software soon. So watch for updates to this post.

Ahpo

I had an especially fun evening with Zoe tonight. Vera has been in Chicago on business travel this week, so Zoe and I have been hanging out. We've both been sick with a cold, but we both slept well last night, so a night on the town was in order. After picking her up from day care, we went out to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen in Walnut Creek. Our table was situated by a window that looked across the street to the Apple Store. For those that know Walnut Creek, the Apple Store has a HUGE white Apple on the store face. Every time we pass this sign, whether walking or driving by, Zoe points and says, "Ahpo, ahpo!" which is her way of saying "Apple, apple". So all through dinner and on the way out of the restaurant, she kept saying, "Ahpo, ahpo!" I was reminded of my brother describing how he used to drive by the McDonald's arches with my then 2 or 3 year old niece, and she would point and say "Mmmm, french fries!"

Anyway... I decided to take her over to the store. We walked across the street and up the side walk to the store. At one point, we could no longer see the big Apple, and she said "Bye, bye" to the Apple. Once arrived in front of the store, I told her to look up and pointed to the big apple above. And then she saw it, "Ahpo, ahpo, ahpo, ahpo!" She just stood there looking up. I decided to take her inside the store. She would not have it. She squirmed out of my arms and ran back out the door. She just wanted to look up at the apple sign. A couple of the teen aged staff members of the store came to watch this cute little toddler look up and say "Ahpo, ahpo". I couldn't help but wish I had and iPhone to take a short movie of this to send to Steve Jobs. Hey, I need some seed money for Zoe's college fund!

We've had some fun visits in February. My parents were here for a week in mid February. I have not posted photos from that trip yet because I need to get the photos from my Dad's camera once they return from their mission trip to help rebuild homes in the New Orleans area. Check out the web site for their trip, Katrina Relief Mission. Also, my good friend Keith visited last weekend (see post from 3/3/2008).

A Visit from Keith

My very good friend, Keith, visited this weekend and met Zoe for the first time. He flew in on Friday, and left early this morning. We had a great time!! Friday we went to Walnut Creek for dinner. Saturday we went to the park and in the afternoon, Vera and Zoe went out while Keith and I geeked out and set up my Hogwarts Express Lionel train set (Finally! And, it blows smoke!)


Sunday we went out to breakfast. I dropped Keith off at SFO, and headed off to my soccer game, when Keith called me saying his flight had been canceled. Doh! He even works for the airlines, and we both forgot to check that before we left the house. So, we got to spend an extra night with him!! It was wonderful to see him. It had been close to 11 years since we last got together. I love it when you can finally see someone after that long and still feel the closeness as if we were both still in our early 20 and glued at the hip, never apart. Here are some photos from our visit.

H is for Here Comes the Sun!

Happy Valentines Day!

Holy Crap! I'ts been a month-and-a-half since I've updated this blog. It's been an eventful couple of months. Let's just say I've been in a fog and the blog has not been very high on the priority list. My apologies to any one who has been checking this since Christmas....

December and January are completely foggy for me, as I have been dealing with some extremely painful pinched nerves in my neck due to buldging disks. I've been on vicodin, percoset, and prednisone. Needless to say, that's where the fog comes in. I also received two rounds of cortisone shots into the swollen nerves in my neck. So my entire body has been a mess since the beginning of December. Finally this week I'm at a place where I don't have to take much in the way of pain medication. And my poor immune system is still reeling and trying recover (after several colds and sinus infections).

We spent New Year's Eve with Vera's Mom in Novato. Zoe and Vera slept in Vera's old room, and I had to sleep upright on a chair in the living room. (It's only been since late January that I've been able to sleep lying down consistently.) It was a lovely evening, good food, good company. With my family so far away, I'm so grateful that we have Vera's Mom so close by.

In Mid-January, we went to Tahoe with our "Mom's Group". We had 8 moms and 4 toddlers in a rented home in the snow. It was great fun. I have lots of photos and videos to edit from that trip. I hope to post them in the near future. While there, Zoe turned 18 months old, she hit the 1 1/2 year mark. Amazing... time sure does fly.

It's worked out that at least one of us has been sick consistently for the past 2 months - aside from my whole neck pain stuff... Vera had the flu just this past weekend and has been crazy busy with her new job.

And Zoe, well she simply continues to amaze us. Her vocabulary grows and grows. She has started to learn letters of the alphabet. "H" is one that she really likes to say. She also knows, A, B, F, I, H and P. One thing that she started to do around Christmas/New Years is call me "Mommy" and Vera "Mama" which is a thrill! We both have our own name! She also knows to call Vera's mom "Nana". She calls my Dad "Papa" for Grandpa and for my Mom, Grandma comes out kinda like Mama or Nana.

She loves to run now too! She dances when Signing Time is playing. She loves to stomp. Whe she dances she seems to keep the beat. It's incredibly adorable. She's simply just a whole lot of fun right now. I'm just bummed that I have not been myself physically, as I can't always get down on the floor and play with her or pick her up easily.

Day care is going well--she naps really well there. But she has been sick quite a bit since she started there. Hand-foot-mouth, colds, coughs, now an ear infection. We feel like we live at our Pediatricians office. At one point, mid January, she was coughing and wheezing so hard that her pediatrician told us that if it got much worse she may have to be hospitalized. Fortunately, the prednisone she took both orally and inhaled by nebulizer helped reduce the inflammation in her lungs, avoiding the hospital. Whew! She remains on a nebulizer treatment once a day and will do so until the end of cold/flu season this year. As soon as she got better from that, she got an ear infection. So it's just been on thing after another,as I mentioned, with one of the three of us being sick consecutively pretty much since early December.

The weather has been feeling like spring is on it's way... The sun has been out and the rain has stopped. All of us are hopefully on the mend. My neck is doing much better. We all seem to be moving toward recovering from what ails us. -Knock on wood- So, H is for "Here Comes the Sun!"

I hope to add some back dated posts with Christmas, Tahoe trip and other fun things, likie Zoe eating broccoli and stomping in the rain in her new rain boots soon. I'll do my best to make it before the end of the month.

Till then... Here Comes the Sun. Doot-n-doo-doo, here comes the sun. And I say: It's alright!

Christmas Greetings

Christmas greetings to all! We spent a wonderful three days in Monterey with Vera's family. We ate too much, laughed a bunch, and had an all around good time. Christmas Eve is when the family was does their gift exchange. While other people were ooh-ing and ah-ing over the gifts they were opening, Zoe, who has not quite caught on to the whole present opening thing, received this small gift bag from Nana (Vera's mom). She emptied out the bag and started putting things inside the bag, and then would walk around holding up the bag saying, "Oooh!" It was very cute.

I have been a great big slacker when it comes to updating this blog. I have some video snippets and cute stories from the past months that I hope to update soon. When I do, I'll back date the posts and at the same time create a new post highlighting the updates.

For now, here's a quick update: Zoe has begun to get used to day care. She willingly holds out her arms to go to Sonja (the day care owner) as we give her a kiss good bye. It's a good feeling to leave there with her not in tears. And she is always happy when we pick her up.

Zoe is changing so much these days. She is learning new words all the time, repeating words we say and experimenting with sounds. She loves to say words with the "s" sound. She says "dis" for "this" a lot and points at things. Other new words are:

"ites" for lights. She stared saying that as the neighbors put up their Christmas lights.
"bees"or "beeths" for strawberries, which she loves!
"ock" for clock.
"eyepoo" for diaper.
"teen" for train.
"ahckie" for broccoli, which she also loves!
"ahpee" which we think is for happy. We're not quite sure what she is saying on this one. Vera thinks it might be a song from day care.

From the Chrebletts, happy holidays!

And check out our Holiday Elfs at http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1126166089

Turkey Sandwich

Thanksgiving was sandwiched this year between Zoe being sick on either side of the Holiday. Last year, she got her first fever on Thanksgiving day. This year, she had the Hand-Foot-Mouth virus in the day's leading up to Thanksgiving, was healthy on Thanksgiving day, then had a cold and cough all week following Thanksgiving.

It's been a stressful couple of weeks. Vera started a new job, Zoe was sick, Zoe started full time day care. So that means little sleep for all of us and lots of emotional ups and downs. Not fun. I even forgot to bring the camera to Thanksgiving feast at Nana's house (Vera's mom).

Zoe is moving through her first-cold-without-fever this week while attending day care full time. I can't begin to describe the heart wrenching feeling to drop off your sick child at a place that she does not want to go to. Today is Friday and she is beginning to feel better. The saving grace is that Sonja, the woman who runs the day care, sent home this lovely picture that Zoe drew yesterday. I almost cried when she handed it to me. It's amazing what a little thing like a first art project can do to make two stressed-out Mommies feel better.

A big thank you goes out to Aunt Jackie for calling every day to see if we needed her to come over to watch Zoe, in the event Zoe was not well enough to go to day care. It meant the world to know there was a back up plan available this week!!!

All I can say is TGIF and TGFFB (Thank goodness for fluffy bunnies).

You decide...

I mentioned in a post the other day (see post called Walking, Walking, Walking and Stacking) that when so Zoe walks, she holds her arms up in such a way that she looks like the Mutant in the closing credits of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's tremendously adorable.

Here's a clip of her walking taken Sunday Nov 11, next to a clip of the closing Buffy "Mutant Enemy" credits. You decide... Similar, eh? Zoe's cuter though.