Sunday, March 25, 2012

Three Months


Our sweet baby James is three months old today. 






* James has found his hands and loves to nibble at them.  He loves his pacifier too.  He just needs to learn how to keep these items in his mouth on his own.
* He can now track the dog and the cat's tail as he/it walks across the room.  Simon loves to sneak in licks of James' head whenever he gets the chance. 
* James is still not sleeping through the night.  Not even close.  He sleeps for a few hours while Joshua holds him at the beginning of the night and then in two hour stints (if I'm lucky) in the bassinet next to the bed the rest of the night.  However, he falls back asleep rather quickly.  The key is to swaddle him well so that he cannot break loose.  Once a hand gets out of the swaddle and finds its way to his mouth, he screams with frustration. Even though I would love if he slept more consistently, I'm not feeling as exhausted as it seems like I should.
 

* We love his smiles and his love for Alma. All day long he watches her intently and, when she goes up to bed at night, he spends the next few minutes searching the room for her.  And Alma adores him as well and still wants him to be part of everything we do.  We are so lucky to have such a loving and helpful big sister around to help us take care of him.

His silly baby faces are still one of my favorite things about him.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Happy St Patrick's Day!

And, no, we won't tell you what he is wearing under the kilt!

Friday, March 16, 2012

Simon's Adventures


He left our house after the sanitation fellows accidentally unlatched the gate, ran two blocks away and was collared and leashed by some folks, was taken to the police station where an officer took him home for the night to play with her dogs. Guess the person who was taking all my calls at the police station just didn't know about Simon. Craigslist was the hero as someone eventually contacted me because she noticed a Craigslist posting that matched my listing.

Joshua got him from the police station before he got any prison tats.

Simon Update: Still Missing

This morning a kind woman called to say that she saw Simon running in the street (at New and Elizabeth Streets) at 12 noon yesterday so she pulled over and -- with the help of some high school/college gals --put a collar and leash on him. Then the girls took him and said that they would report him as missing. However, none of the agencies (police, vets, shelters) have heard of a missing dog. The kind woman didn't get the contact information for the two who actually took the dog. It has been over 24 hours since he was found; one would think that he would be reported by now.

If anyone sees our pup, please let us know! Our two-year old is missing her best friend! Thanks!
Alma may be the only two year old who is excited to look at Everyday Food.  She loved all the asparagus in this month's issue.  Another fun magazine game we play is "Where's Martha?" with the Martha Steward Living Magazines because you can always find her in there a few times.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Missing Dog

Simon went missing.  If you are in Bethlehem and see him, please let us know! 
Asleep on Daddy's shoulder

Wednesday, March 14, 2012


Would it shock you if I told you that she dresses herself?

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Our Little Cry Baby

James is a much more difficult baby for us than Alma was.  Not sure if it is because we are trying to juggle more this time around with more laundry, a bigger house to clean, a toddler to manage, I'm working from home, Joshua's work is taxing, etc. etc.  James is continuously having more stretches of smiling and laughing but they are no where as consistent as they were with Alma. While she loved to have some independence from our arms, James would like to be held constantly.  He is even starting to tire of the Mody wrap so I have to hold him in my arms most of the day. 

The counter balance to this situation is that James is better about sleeping at night.  While he wakes up every hour or two, he also goes right back to sleep with a few pats or a little nursing.  In general, I feel more rested than I did during the first months with Alma.

Even through all this crying, I still am overly in love with him.  He is the cutest little boy and I'm excited to see him continue to grow ... and (hopefully) calm down a bit. 

Friday, March 9, 2012

Alma's Love



Other current loves include:
* Angelia Ballerina
* Princesses (and crowns, wands, spinning in circles, etc.)
* Lions or more specifically, girl lions (lionesses)
* Dimbo (aka Dumbo) and the Fox and the Hound as these are the only records we have that have the accompanying book
* Birthdays (and birthday cakes, the birthday song and blowing out candles)
* Hearing the story about the time when I was in Malaysia and a wild monkey jumped on a bag of potato chips my friend was carrying as we hiked.  The monkey ate the bag of chips and my friend cried while saying, "I didn't think they would like barbeque favor!"  Alma is fascinated by this story and Joshua cannot stop laughing every time I tell it ... so maybe it is all our current loves.
* Watering the seeds we planted last week
* Sleeping with her "friends" which consist of stuffed animals: Blue Nose the Bunny, Snow Bear the Polar Bear, Pancake Bear (a yellow flat bear from the Yoders), Penguin (an Emporor Penguin puppet from Grandma Chisholm) and a very small horse. She sleeps under her Alma Kateri blanket from Uncle Brian and Aunt Bridgette

Thursday, March 8, 2012

The Chisholm Scowl

We recently got a great email from Joshua's mother referencing the strong brow of Joshua and our children:

Hi Josh and Laura,
As you can tell, Josh, these are some very old photos of your Dad. I thought you'd appreciate seeing the first recorded evidence I have of that famous Chisholm scowl. 
Love,
Mom




Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Naming James

Naming babies seems to be my Achilles' heel.  Or, more specifically, naming baby girls is just plain difficult.  The entire pregnancy I assumed that I was having a girl, even though the ultrasound tech and the doctor almost let it slip twice that it was a boy.  ("You don't want to know the sex? Then quickly stop looking at the screen!" and "You have a baseball catcher based on how this baby is situated in there!")  It was just difficult to imagine going through a pregnancy and not coming away with a girl in the end, since that is what happened the first time around for us.

As with naming Alma, I spent a lot of time thinking about girl names for James (before he was born and we knew he was a he, obviously).  We started off with the list of names left over from Alma -- names like Penelope and Jacqueline.  But very early in the pregnancy the name Vivian popped into my head.  The entire pregnancy I couldn't move past Vivian, a name I had never considered -- and may have even actively disliked in the past -- but it seemed to fit the child we were expecting.


I didn't give any time to thinking about boy names because James has been James since Joshua and I first met.

James is named after his grandfather, Joshua's father who passed away when Joshua was nine years old.  Joshua's father went by Jimmy as a child and somewhere along the way went by Jim.  Joshua and his father share the same initials of JAC and we knew that we wanted to carry on the tradition.  Originally we thought that we would also wait for the third child to use those initials -- Joshua and his pop are both the third of four children -- but then we decided that if we were blessed with a son, regardless of birth order, he would get the title.

While pregnant with Alma, we confirmed with each other that we still wanted to name a boy James and keep up with the JAC tradition.  We spoke a bit about how I wanted to keep the boy's name as James and not go the nickname route.  Joshua disagreed, arguing that nicknames happen and we cannot fight it.  (Comically enough, he fought Alma's South Philly nick name of "Allie" tooth and nail.)  And we discussed at length a proper middle name that began with "A".  On the day Alma was born, we were telling some family members what Alma's name would have been if she were a boy and we both announced a different middle name.  Guess it wasn't fully decided at that point but we decided on Anchor as a middle name that day.

Once we became pregnant in 2011, we again checked in that James Anchor was our chosen boy's name and then never talked about it again.  Honestly, we may have mentioned it one other time in passing.  But I was so focused on girl names that we just didn't get into it.

So when James was born, he was easily named.  ... And then we proceeded to call him other names by mistake.  Baby Will and Baby Joey were heard more often than Baby James the first few weeks with infant James because those were names of babies we have been around recently and the names flowed out of our mouths more easily.  Eventually, with some practice for our sleep deprived brains, we got used to the ring of Baby James.  Of course, Alma is calling him Baby Buppee, I often refer to him as "Punky" (when it is just the two of us) and Joshua thinks that Jimmy is cute.  Poor James, we will call you something yet. 

The reasons we choose Anchor as a middle name:
* I love middle names that provide guidance or virtues.  Anchor means "a person or thing that can be relied on for support, stability, or security; mainstay."
* Joshua and I met while rock climbing and I have a background in sailing; both activities require anchors.
* I'll admit it: it just sounds cool.  Before I met Joshua, I daydreamed about naming future children Andrew Spyder, Jonathan Tyger and Erica Danger.

Since naming James, we have learned that the gospels of St. James are known for a focus on action over reverence, which is the core idea behind Joshua's work as a faith-based community organizer.  And the awesome gifts that we have received that are anchor-related are too much.  The old school sailor outfits and shirts that say things like "Mommy's First Mate" are just too cute!!

Saturday, March 3, 2012

(You can see Alma rockin' this same shirt here.)

Friday, March 2, 2012

Thursday, March 1, 2012

"Laugh at Your Brother"

Alma can make James smile and laugh better than the rest of us.  She does this by laughing in his face.  So Joshua and I end up requesting that Alma laugh at him often.   We will stop before they are tenderly-emotioned teenagers, we promise.