the little bird

helen indira randel [also known around these parts as birdie]
born december 3, 2010
3:40pm
6 pounds, 3 ounces
19 inches

thea walked into the hospital room and immediately demanded, "i want to hold my baby." we love her so much already!

as ready as we're going to be

we've been doing a lot of sorting, organizing, rearranging and getting things in order for bam bam's arrival this week. as soon as i put something away, thea takes it out again, which makes the entire process a wee bit challenging.

i know she's trying to help and something tells me she's going to be a great BIG SISTER!



nana and papa arrive tonight!! woo hoo!!

ps to the bubba: stay in there as long as you can, it's freeeeeezing out here!

two!

a couple pics from thea's second birthday party which was attended by the birthday girl, her dad and yours truly. we kept it very small this year and it was really nice...just us, a few presents and a homemade cake.





plus, a nicely wrapped present:





update on jan 5, 2011: i'm adding a video of thea blowing out the candles on her cake because it's one of her favorite videos to watch. she's obsessed with birthdays and blowing out the candles these days and i want her to be able to look back at this blog and have a record of all things thea. she's been watching the video from her first birthday and gets such a thrill to see us singing happy birthday to her when she was a little bubba.

giving thanks

our little girl, all grownz up.



we were heading out yesterday to thanksgiving dinner with the phung family [thank you for the delicious meal and great company, as always!] and thea just looked like such a big girl to me. i can't believe she's going to be two on monday. how is this possible?! she had her two year check-up the other day where we found out she weighs 31 pounds and measures 35 inches, 90th percentile for height. at this rate, she's going to tower over me by her fifth birthday.



as we prepare for bam bam's arrival at some point this week, i've been flooded with memories of thea's birth, especially since i was in labor at exactly this moment two years ago. i remember it like it was yesterday which is odd because these days i can't seem to remember what i did yesterday.

i'll try to post at least one more time this week and we will, of course, keep you updated when we have news!!

going for a jog

we've officially entered the "i'll do it," "let me do it!" "i can do it!!!!" phase of development, which can be trying at times. just the other day we were in a hurry and i picked thea up out of her car seat to get out of the car quickly and she broke down crying because she wanted to do it herself. while sobbing she threw herself in front of me and tried to physically restrain me from walking away so she could get back in and re-do the whole experience.

she also wants to get herself dressed and loves to put on clothes these days...hers, mine and especially zack's boxers, which she has fashioned into pants, shirts, dresses and hats. here's an outfit she put together last week that's actually not half bad, compared to some of them:



the lighting was very strange in this photo but i love the way it turned out:

a month of firsts

in an attempt to even out thea's scraggly mullet and knowing that if i don't get things done now, they aren't going to get done for awhile, i took thea to get a haircut yesterday.

we stop into little locks every week because it's a few doors down from music class, it's also a toy store and it's the home of two very fluffy bunnies and one big lizard. so after a few months of hanging out there i figured thea would be pretty comfortable and not make too big of a scene when we strapped her down and cut off her hair.

she was apprehensive for the first minute but with the help of a 'thomas the train' episode playing above her and a big mirror where she could watch herself, she was totally cool with the whole experience.

here are a few pics:

a big one!

this morning while thea was coloring downstairs she took her diaper off, declared she had to poop and asked me to come upstairs with her. she sat down on the big toilet and did it all in a matter of a few minutes. it was quite remarkable actually. i'm not getting my hopes up that this is the end of diapers [nor am i totally sure i want it to be as not wearing them opens a whole new bag of issues] but i did set a goal of november 2010 to have thea toilet trained and i'm pretty amazing at her timing. i haven't pushed her at all, simply asked her every time she started mentioning poop if she wanted to sit on the toilet and the answer has generally been no. today was clearly a different story....

at the pumpkin patch

a couple sundays ago thea and i visited a pumpkin patch which had loads of rides and games. her two favorites were the bouncy house - she jumped her little heart out for over 45 minutes - and the train. she immediately took a liking to the train operator and made funny faces at him every time she passed. i think he gave her an extra long ride because he found her so amusing.

three is a wonderful number

i'm going to vancouver this week, my last plane trip for quite some time. i'm feeling big and tired and really just want to stay home with my feet up but am staying busy taking thea to all kinds of lessons and activities on top of working full time. i've become acutely aware that ourime as a family of three is almost over so i'm trying to take every opportunity i can to do fun things with her. and while i'm excited to meet nuggie numero dos, i also feel some sadness that this chapter of our lives is ending. during just about every dinner over the last week thea has looked up from eating with a big smile on her face and said, "zack and sarah," like she couldn't be more pleased with how things are in this very moment and it gets me a little choked up each time.

every monday morning she and i go to music class, which she loves. her teacher, miss crystal, has risen up the popularity charts in our household and gets at least a few mentions a day. this morning zack surprised us and met us out front. thea was so excited to see him that she grabbed his hand and we walked in holding hands as a threesome. i wish someone had taken a photo.

in honor of the holiday, all the kids were encouraged to dress up in their costumes so here are a few pre-halloween pics. more to come when we go trick-or-treating on sunday!





ps: i've been a terrible blogger over the last two months. we had not one but TWO milestone birthdays in our family last week. i won't mention numbers but would like to say a belated and very HAPPY BIRTHDAY to grama and papa!!

looney bin

thea has been coming up with some doozies lately. i'm not sure where she picks up these things but she said this to zack last weekend, totally unpromted and it was a completely appropriate response for the way he was acting!

nine ten ten

so, it's the just about the last day of september, exactly one month since i posted, and thea turned 22 months today. as the boss said, "vacation's over" and i need to get back to posting. i'll keep this one short though a longer one about the last month is coming soon.

we had an AMAZING time at our wedding and want to thank everyone who joined us and also those who couldn't make it but were there with us in spirit. it was a weekend we will remember and treasure forever. thank you to our families, our friends and especially our parents for making all our dreams come true.

we don't have the photo files from our photographer yet so i'm including a link to a few on his blog. he does have a website where you can view all the photos, so if you're interested, please email me and i'll send you the username and password.

rocky rock star

andre took an amazing photo of thea and zack this weekend while we were up in palo alto. it was a quick trip, we arrived early friday afternoon and left first thing this morning, and except for the wedding, all of our time was spent at the pool.



in fact, thea spent much of the last 12 weeks in a pool with her beloved swim teacher, rocky. three lessons per week [a summer requirement of her swim school] really started to pay off and she's now doing the crawl all by herself!





also, i just realized that thea is 21 months today!!! WOW!

uno, dos, tres

the work of la la:

many of you know but some of you don't

early in 2010, we decided that we didn't have enough going on this year and why not keep things interesting? actually that's not quite how it went down but nevermind the semantics; we have another nugget cooking the oven. estimated date of arrival is december 5, 2010.

we had our lengthy, in-depth ultrasound just over a month ago. this was the one that, in the weeks leading up to it, we were trying not to think about it but were both thinking about it quite a lot. it was the same ultrasound, the same week in july, two years earlier that we found out about thea's cleft.

turns out everything looks good this time around!!



i have been craving bacon with this pregnancy as i did with the last. last weekend zack made pancakes and bacon for breakfast.

random sidenote: thea often wakes up with food on the brain [definitely my daughter]. one morning last week we were lying in bed at 5am and she said, "zucchini." she repeated it a few times and then said, "chicken." i said, "zucchini? chicken? are you hungry?" she responded "zucchini, chicken, rice" and then moved on to the next unrelated thought that popped into her mind. a few days later, around the same ungodly hour of the morning while lying in bed, she said "cucumber." maybe she was pondering the differences between these very similar looking vegetables?

anyway, i brought the bacon over to the table and broke off a very tiny piece for thea. she put it in her mouth and before she could even chew it, she raved, "MMMMM. this is YUMMY." i responded, half under my breath, "i know. it's like crack." thea was silent for a moment as she finished chewing and then yelled, "CRACK PLEASE. MORE CRACK PLEASE!"

much to her father's chagrin

thea loves cats. we can't get through a book without her skipping ahead to the pages with kitties on them and hugging every picture. she also likes to lick things and then look up happily and say, "like a kitty."

we took a trip to the pet store on sunday morning with the intention of getting thea a fish. the highlight of the trip for two-out-of-three-of-us, however, was checking out the kitties. thea had the biggest smile plastered on her face as she watched them and they clearly wanted to play with her. they came up to the bars of their cages and stared right at her, meowing much to her delight.

thea was so overcome with emotion being in the presence of those kittens that she kept turning to me and kissing my face. it was pretty adorable. poor dada is trying his hardest to get her on the dog-train but so far, kitties are clearly her favorite.

after looking at the guinea pigs, mice, birds, turtles and snakes, we picked out a fish to take home. without further ado, i introduce the latest addition to our family, curtis bloop mendelson randel [plus thea showering him with kisses]:

salutation nation

thea, zack and i all did yoga together this morning at a huge outdoor lululemon class in point loma. actually, let me re-phrase that: i did yoga. thea did a bunch of downward dogs and almost-headstands and then wandered around talking in a loud whisper. zack followed her around stuffing her with apples to keep quiet.

here's the only photo we got:

CSI: willy wonka

this is zack's bachelor party weekend and a few of his friends have flown in from out of town so he's spending tonight with them at the hotel. the last three weekends have been packed - the decathlon, our birthdays and now this - so i was really looking forward to a little peace and quiet tonight. maybe even a little couch time with my friends the situation and tommy.

i took the day off since laura doesn't work on saturdays anymore. thea and i had a busy but very fun day together and i even managed to cross quite a few items off my never-ending list of to dos. i got her home, fed and bathed by 7:20p which is nothing short of a miracle for time-challenged me. [we try to put her to bed by 7:30 every night now as it seems to cut down on her waking up in the middle of the night.]

i had just finished toweling her off when she grabbed one of her letters and started intensely talking to zack on the phone. something she said made me laugh [ironically, i think it was "oh, crap!"] and then she started to laugh hysterically so i grabbed the camera. i'm pretty glad i did because so began a memory i won't soon forget....



"oh, boy" is right.

yes, thea did poop on the rug. a large amount. in my defense, i didn't believe her at first because this was poop #6 of the day. my reaction startled her so much she began to stomp in it until i picked her up and put her in the bathroom. she looked down and saw the poop on her feet and didn't like it so proceeded to jump about trying to get it off. our bathroom floor very quickly resembled a crime scene in a chocolate factory.

i grabbed her and stood her up in the tub where she promptly pooped some more, probably out of fear, the poor thing. i think i said something like "oh my god, more poop!" and it must have been in a slightly exaggerated tone and volume because this time the sight of her poop terrified her and she became hysterical, very similar to the way i have acted when i realize i'm within a football field's distance of a mouse. she wanted NOTHING to do with that poop and began climbing out of the tub. which is when i sat her on the toilet. which is also when she started smearing the poop from her feet all over my dress.

not quite how i envisioned my blissful evening of me-time unfolding.

i laid her down on a towel [still sobbing] and praised her over and over for being such a champion pooper [realizing that my goal of her being potty trained by november might just have been flushed down the toilet]. i scrubbed her, put on a diaper and PJs and once we were in her room she calmed down. we had a heart-to-heart, i told her not to worry, i'd clean it up and all's well that end's well. she seemed to have put the whole thing behind her as we went through our bedtime ritual and said our goodnights.

i was just about to close her door when this tiny voice filled with fear said, "clean it up mama, clean it up."

we're in trouble

the annual decathlon was last week, in which zack continued his domination of the 40 ounce chug event. at the awards celebration after party, thea took to manning the keg with aplomb. more importanly, i'd love you all to take note of her ponytail!!

like father like daughter

yesterday was zack's birthday and we stopped for ice cream on the way home from dinner, mostly because i was craving it, not because zack or thea really wanted it ;)

after only a few small licks of chocolate chip, the sugar was fully absorbed in thea's bloodstream and she was on fire. she proceeded to sing, count and run her mouth the entire ride home. actually, not that different from any other day now that i think about it. riding in the car is such fun with thea at this age because she notices EVERYTHINE and makes me appreciate my surroundings in a whole new way!



as well, i wanted to share these two photos of zack and thea [taken a few weeks ago on one of our only sunny days so far this summer] which make me laugh every time i look at them.

may be less confusing in two months...

drop of sunshine

carol [grama] visited us last week and it was AMAZINGLY WONDERFUL to have her here! it was a pretty quick trip but we managed to sneak in a few trips to the beach, two swim lessons and a visit to the hotel pool. thea has turned into quite a water baby.

the day before carol left we went up to solana beach and had a yummy breakfast before heading to the beach for a couple of hours. thea played in the surf, built sandcastles with zack and tired herself out so much that she took a 1.5 hour nap snuggled up first in my arms and then with carol. this is a photo of them shortly after she woke up.



thea and i were in the car on monday morning just after carol's plane took off and she was kissing and hugging her kitty, holding her tightly.

i said "do you love kitty?" and she responded, "kitty is so sweet."

i asked, "oh really? who else is so sweet?" thinking she might reply "thea" because i often tell her how sweet she is.

she quickly and definitively replied, "grama."

i agree miss thee.

frank the tank

here thea is getting herself psyched for a streaking mission:

driving miss daisy

playing dress up with la la last week

to our love

happy father's day to all the dads out there, especially our own dads, papa and jimbo, and the best dada around: ZAAAAACK!

thea loves her books

this is a pretty long video but i love it. thea has been counting for the last month or more. anything and everything must be counted. she can get all the way up to 21 though lately she's been skipping 13-16 and jumping from 12 right to 17. you can't hear it on this video but she usually makes twelve into a three syllable word: ta-weeeell-ve. she does this with the word blue too: ba-loooo-u. i'm trying to get her saying them on video before she outgrows it as i've missed so many funny words already!

summer's here

zack and thea have been going to the beach at least once a week for over a month now but this weekend was my first time in a long time and it was just what i needed to feel that summer has begun! thea absolutely loves the beach and asks to go almost every day. i think she'll be surfing before we know it.

eighteen months

and thea finally has enough hair for an up-do!

wishing we were in CT

zack is away this weekend visiting his family and i'm more than a little sad we're not there. i love when family is all together in the same place, it makes me so happy.

thea and i made the best of our weekend alone and took a trip to sea world. i have VERY mixed feelings about sea world, especially after seeing this, but we already had one year unlimited passes and it's just so damn convenient. it takes us less than 10 minutes from our front door to get inside the park and thea can run around until she drops. today we went on some rides and saw the shamu show. then i let her play in the padded pit, which is the equivalent of putting her in a hampster wheel, she's totally exhausted when she's finished.

here are a few photos with some of her favorite sesame characters:







and waiting patiently for shamu on an unseasonably cold day in san diego:

kinkle kinkle

if you listen closely you'll hear thea's version of 'twinkle twinkle little star' with a little 'baa baa black sheep' thrown in for good measure!

hipstamatic

some photos taken today with a new camera app for my iPhone. the stitches in thea's lip fully dissolved yesterday. all healed!

early april

i'm attempting to get caught up and wanted to post some photos from our easter morning.





like father, like daughter