Almost Two Years

At home watching Wiggles

Maddy occasionally hugs Milo. It's very cute, but Milo isn't very impressed with it.

M&M during a snack break at the Oakland Farmers Market - 29 May 2010

All loaded into the car seats and ready to go. 29 May 2010

Milo feeling giggly after eating yogurt. Notice the lad has his first skinned knee.

M&M enjoying their first wagon ride in their birthday gift from Grandpa.

Milo at Fairyland in Oakland - 3o May 2010

Maddy loves looking at animals. Here she tries to pull herself into the enclosure to visit with the donkey. Fairyland - 30 May 2010.

Here Maddy waves frantically at the llama to make sure she gets noticed. The llama noticed alright but wasn't terribly excited about. Fairyland 3o May 2010.

More Fairyland pictures.

Maddy wasn't sure what language the llama spoke, so she went with sheep -- "baa ba ba, baa baa ba, ba ba ba." The llama didn't appear to speak that particular dialect.

Post bath Milo.

Maddy gets a little crazy before bed time.

M&M visiting Little Farm at Tilden Park in Berkeley. 31 May 2010.

Maddy doing laps at the playground at Tilden Park.

The Month In Pictures

13 May 2010 - Maddy finds an old pair of my eye glasses. That's right, I wore those things for a few years back in college. Why? Well, my good buddy Matt dared me to. They're only slightly smaller on my face.

9 May 2010 - Milo decides whether he wants to give the big slide a go. He's done it before, but not this day.

9 May 2010 - Milo enjoys making noise on the playscape.

25 April 2010 - Maddy digs deeper!

25 April 2010 - Milo tries to get every last bit.

13 May 2010 - Milo goes for his occupational therapy assessment. Despite the appearance, this room is not the chimp enclosure at the Oakland Zoo. Milo did pretty well -- he even showed off a few skills we didn't know he had, like kicking and catching a ball (albeit a very, very close throw).

8 May 2010 - Maddy takes a closer look.

8 May 2010 - Milo and Maddy play outside in the courtyard.

19 April 2010 - Milo in the kitchen while we prepare his pre-bedtime milk. Notice how curly his hair gets.

10 May 2010 - Maddy in the garden after getting home from daycare.

10 May 2010 - For some reason, whenever we get home, M&M run over to the neighbors house and hide in her foyer. The eventually come out and follow me.

19 April 2010 - M&M at the Tilden Park Farm in Berkeley.

22 Months Old!

22 months old (calendar age) already! Hard to believe, but with (most) of the preemie challenges behind us, we've settled into a pretty normal routine. These days, Mom gets the kids ready and drops them off for daycare most mornings. I pick em' up in the afternoons and take them home for a little more playtime and then make them dinner. We do baths and pajamas, and then a bottle and some reading before they head off to bed around 7:00 or so. (We're looking to ween them off the bottles over the next month or so.)

On weekends, we usually head to the park or go somewhere. Of late, we've been taking the kids to a children's play gym called Gymboree where they goof around and play. We usually take them out for lunch -- the kids both love eating quesadillas from our local Mexican joint. Although they typically throw most of the food I prepare for them either on the floor or at me, they do a pretty good job when they eat out. Maddy especially loves to look around and wave and blow kisses at the people in the restaurant.

The next big step is to get the kids swimming. They both enjoy the water, and I figure once they are decent swimmers, we can look into buying the "family raft" for some very mellow floats on mild whitewater. That's probably 5 or 6 months away at least -- maybe a year. We'll see.

4/12/2010 - Maddy and Mom getting ready for bed.

Maddy after bath.

Clearly his father's son, Milo loves to wash his hands repeatedly.

4/12/2010 - Maddy doing a diaper check on Milo. Hopefully it was all clear. M&M hang out in at home during a wet NorCal spring day.

The living room gets taken over.

M&M at Sadie Dey's Cafe in Oakland. The whole business model of Sadie Dey is pretty brilliant - provide a place for parents to enjoy a coffee while the kids play. Mostly it's a lot of fun, the problem is that on a rainy day the place is packed to the gills with damp, screaming toddlers. Still fun, just a little hectic.

I'm really surprised that no one has opened one of these places here in Alameda, who's unofficial slogan is "Alameda, where hipsters go to breed." We've got five high end children's clothing shops within two blocks of each other, but no hipster coffee joint with a playground in it.

The kids love the play kitchen. They spend about half an hour taking out and putting in a plastic chicken in the freezer. Who wouldn't?

Milo enjoys his fruit cup at Sadie.

4/11/2010 - Maddy playing in the courtyard.

4/11/2010 - The Pixie. Even with the rainy days, we're still seeing more sunshine and Maddy seems to be getting blonder and blonder.

4/15/2010 - Milo and Maddy at daycare during a Cowboy Jared visit. We're lucky enough to have a daycare on base within a five minute walk of Dad's office. Once a week, the signing Cowboy Jared comes for a visit. Maddy in particular, but Milo too, really loves to dance around and clap. I think she was a little distracted during this visit because Dad was there too.

Maddy sits closest to Cowboy Jared and Milo sits in the front row too.

Sing along with Cowboy Jared. This guy must have the greatest job in the world. Yet another reason for me to hate my high school guidance counselor -- he completely failed to mention the possibility of becoming a singing cowboy. I sincerely hope M&M consider this option -- it would beat law school by miles!

4/17/2010 - M&M at Gymboree. It was "through" day at Gymbo -- which means the whole theme is to get the kids to go through things -- hoops, tunnels, etc.

Milo and Mom bang along to the music at Gymbo.