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.