April 26, 2009

Okay, it's official: Michael is a toddler!!! I might have mentioned it before, but now it's real. He is all over the place. You cannot turn away from him for a second anymore!! Don't get me wrong, I think it's wonderful. But it can be very time consuming as well. Robert was baby sitting him last week and took him out to dinner. He wanted to pick up some food that Michael had dropped on the floor and within seconds Michael had managed to get out of his high chair and climb on top of the table!!! Then when they came home, I usually don't let Michael in the kitchen because it's not child proof (yet) and he found a steak knife on top of the kitchen table. His reach is getting further as he is getting taller. All of a sudden Robert looked at him and asked him what he had in his mouth: the steak knife: with the pointy side in his mouth!!!!!

All he wants to do now is climb, he knows how to climb on top of the sofa and run back and forward on it. Believe me, one of the next posts will be about how he fell of the sofa and hit his head on the coffee table. It's just a matter of time. Last week I took him to Baby boot camp and Cadence, his 3 year old friend, likes to climb too. So Michael has to copy everything she does. Of course, he isn't so stable yet and fell of the bench hitting his head, scraping his chin and arm and cutting some teeth through his gums. But does he learn from that? No!! He is as stuborn as his daddy. We are going to have our hands full with this little one :) I love it!!!

Yesterday we walked for the March of Dimes, which is now the March for Babies. The weather was nice, not too hot, but very very windy. Robert's colleague Jennie walked with us, as well as his brother David and Nephew Josh. Thank you all for walking!!!

Jennie was able to raise over $250 for Michael!! Isn't that awesome!!! We raised over $500, so in total we were close to $800, which I think is absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much for donating:
Jennie Greene, David Pincus and family, Anne Pincus and family, Matthew and Mary Pincus, Steven Pincus and family, Paul and Tracey Tripp and family, Myrle and Marty Horn, Jim and Mary Ruth Moreland, Irene and Evan Katz, Michelle and Dirk van Onselder, Jeff Strouse, Celi, Tony and Nina (Who have raised $1400 in baby Noah's memory!!), Rachel Alexander (who's donation was doubled by her employer!!) and Ivy Tenenbaum, Michael's home teacher (whom we hope is coming back soon!)

Jennie lives right next to the Park where the walk was held, so we parked at her building. She lives right at the water. All she sees from her condo is Ocean, awesome!!!

This picture was taken in front of her building. We were ready to walk :) We applied the sun tan lotion, I had Michael's sun umbrella on the stroller and Michael was wearing his sun glasses, but didn't want to look up

Jennie; a colleague and Robert in front of the Fidelity Information Services (FIS) booth, after we registered for the walk.

How can you beat walking a March for Babies right next to the Beach and the Ocean?! It was beautiful and with the wind it didn't feel so hot. Josh, Rob and Jennie are walking. Notice there are not a lot of people around them? That is because we started an hour and a half after everyone else :)

Time for a little break :) As you can see, we lost the sun umbrella because it was so windy. It actually flew into the road and we were lucky that it didn't cause an accident with some cars. Later on we found out that the umbrella hit Michael's head and he has a bruise and some scratches on his head. Poor baby!!!! He is such a tough little boy, he didn't even cry (or maybe we didn't hear it because of the wind...)

Why not take advantage of the beach while we were there?

Luckily I brought his 'leash' because we were right next to a main road and all the traffic guides for the March were already gone when we were walking.

After you take Michael out of the stroller, there is no way to put him back in!!!

So Uncle David ended up walking with him on his shoulders :)

And of course David tried to do anything to get a rise out of me, so he climbed on top of this wall and pretended to jump off with Michael. Funny David!!! Even the guy on the right of the picture is thinking: Oh my Lord!! I can't watch this :)

But luckily Robert and Josh came to the rescue :)

We had a fun walk. It took us about 2 hours to do less than 5 miles :) (the walk was 6 miles, but by the time we got back to the park, everyone was gone already). We ended up in Jennie's condo for a drink and that was a great way to end the March for Babies. Once again, Jennie, thanks for all your help!!!

Rae, Jules and Lionel spent the weekend in St. Augustine for their high school reunion. Isn't that awesome? They still have reunions!!! They stayed with their friends Jim and Mary Ruth and they had a wonderful time!!! Hopefully we will be able to travel up there some time and meet them too :)

On a sad note, our friend Claudia's aunt Rosie passed away this week. You might have seen pictures of her and her twin sister Lydia on this blog before on several occasions. They were the very adorable 92 year old twin sisters. They got married on the same day about 70 years ago, and the last few years were living together again with Claudia's brother Ron. Aunt Rosie didn't have any family left and Ron and Claudia took wonderful care of her the last few months. She was very lucky to have them in her life.