The Fine Game of Nil

We’re going to make a concerted effort to try to get back into updating the blog. We had been very busy for a while, and then the upheaval and chaos around my mom dying. We’ve had a lot of change in the last several months. Dor born. Mom got sick and then died. Alex started interviewing for, and then got, a new job. I returned  to work from maternity leave. Alex changed jobs. Liam and Dor changed daycare. We are finally settling back into some sort of routine, but it’s been tough.

I’m going to try to put some pictures up from the last few months, but I won’t to intensive long posts about it, so that we can try to get up to the present.  As mentioned before, at the end of August we attended Kat and Taybin’s wedding. The following weekend we went to Lake George (our last weekend there as Bill and Linda sold the place). Then we went to St. Louis to visit family and introduce them all to Dor. I then flew to Seattle with Dor to see my mom and family, and Alex and Liam flew home to Boston. I stayed in Seattle a week, returned home to Boston and started work. I was at work for one week when my sister Anne called and told me to come back to Seattle. I flew back out that day, with Dor again, and was gone until October 8th. October 8th I flew back to Boston, toured the new daycare with Alex, and the next day we drove out to Syracuse to meet with Alex’s dad, Bill, Linda, Becky, Will, and Catherine to spread Penny’s ashes (Alex’s mom, who died in November 2007). We then had a few days in Boston before flying back to St. Louis for my mom’s funeral. Then back to Boston, where I  started back at work, and Alex went on to finish up his last few weeks at NEB. November 2 he started at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, where he is doing HIV research. As you can see, it was total chaos for a while there. Liam had some sleep set backs during all this, which isn’t really surprising when you think about all the changes and travel, etc. Not to mention that I was away from him for 17 days (7 and then 10), when the longest I had ever been away before was about 72 hours. It has taken a lot of patience and work to get his sleeping back to normal, but it seems to be there. He’s such a good, and resilient kid. They both keep me so busy I haven’t really had time to grieve. I can’t decide if that is a good thing or not. We just keep going, because that’s all we can do. I still terribly miss my mom. I’m sure that doesn’t change or go away.

I thought we had pictures from our Lake George and first St. Louis trip online, but we don’t yet. Until Alex can remedy that, I will post some pictures from Halloween and various other pictures from that time frame.

Liam has been learning how to take his clothes off, and often will take off his shirt or pants and run around…

Dor has been developing great head control, and actually really enjoys her tummy time. Our limiting factor is that Liam likes to try to do tummy time with her/on her, so we have to patrol like hawks while she is down. She has done lots of rolling from tummy to back (has been doing it since September) but just this week finally turned from her back to her tummy on her own. She is very smiley, and has the biggest cheeks around. She’s also quite vocal, and coos, squeels, and laughs/giggles a lot.

Liam drawing on his chalk board

We love cuddle time on the bed…

We were going to dress Liam up as Mario (from Mario Brothers) for Halloween, but just could not get organized to do it. Honestly, right after the funeral and returning home, it was a miracle that I was functioning at all. A mom friend from the playground who has somewhat adopted us lent us this costume, and Liam loved it

Dor’s costume was not nearly as exciting, but she was still pretty cute

A street near our house really goes all out for Halloween, choosing a theme and all the houses decorating around that theme. They close of the street to traffic, and everyone is out and about in their costumes. This year’s theme was Halloween Vegas. It was really cool.

Liam had a doppleganger out that night:

A few days later, Dor dressed up as a puritan