Reindeer Merlin

I bought some reindeer antlers for Merlin last year and found them while we were trimming the tree and decorating on Sunday. Typically, he hates them…here’s a photo of poor Merlin and Sofia looking on:


And trying to get them off:

Story Time!

Sofia and I went over to Edie’s house for a playdate over the Thanksgiving weekend. Edie shared her toys with Sofia and Sofia enjoyed playing with her little car coupe and reading new books. She especially enjoyed the slides in the living room. The girls shared Emma’s lap as she read to them:

Thanksgiving

The Bongornos graciously adopted us this year for Thanksgiving Dinner. ;) We spent the day with Chris’ family, including, Naomi and little Nora. Chris’ parents have two little dogs which looked like ewoks; adorable, but they were her height and immediately ran to lick her face. Sofia didn’t like that and after I picked her up she started wagging her finger and saying “no…no!”

Dinner was great and Sofia enjoyed turkey and apple pie.

Wag the Finger

The Boyd Grandparents and Uncle Gary came to Cleveland for a quick pre-Thanksgiving visit. Sofia enjoyed her time with her grandparents, playing and reading with them. Uncle Gary hung out on the couch watching football while Sofia would occasionally block the TV.

Their dog, Maggie, also came to visit. Sofia was excited to see another dog and at one point pulled her tail. Maggie barked at her and frightened Sofia to tears. Nana Nola scolded Maggie by saying “No, Maggie, No!” while wagging her finger. Sofia immediately imitated her and she has used it on Merlin, her daddy, me and now apparently her classmates. She says “No….no…” while she wags her finger at her victim.

Hot off the Presses

Ohio City in the PD?
I attended a luncheon, last week, featuring the new editor of the Plain Dealer, Susan Goldberg. It was interesting to hear her views on Cleveland since she moved here only a few months ago, and it was encouraging to hear her say she wanted to highlight positive stories about the city. I took the opportunity to “pitch” the story of an Ohio City Baby Boom and related cooperative ventures, such as the babysitting co-op, food co-op, dinner club, book club, etc. Surprisingly I did get an email from one of her reporters who expressed interest in doing a “fun story for the holidays.”


Where are they now?
Several friends have replied to my mass email about our blog and shared their latest news or locations. Peace Corps (or State Dept) friends include:

Alex Hamilton, and his wife Jessie, are in Taipei studying Chinese in preparation for his State Dept. posting in China.

Mark Reese is somewhere in Afghanistan doing Allah knows what. Here’s a recent pic:

Lorel Donaghey is in Austin, TX working for a non-profit and traveling domestically.

Sophie Forbes is back in NYC after a few years in Indonesia. Sophie shared an update on Amy and Irving who are now the proud parents of three.

Alisher Samadov is now in Moscow working for BAT. He sounds very happy and is hanging out with Pardaev and other Tashkent friends. Alish's dad, Dr. Samadov, also wrote and he and the family are doing well.

Chicago friends who visited recently include Simon Lopez, who was in town for work last week.
We attempted to dine at “The Harp” with Sofia in tow. Sofia wasn’t very cooperative. She was pretty restless and I think may have scared Simon since he’s the new father of a three-month old boy.

Hopefully his little Max will have more patience for restaurant dining. Here’s a photo of Simon’s son at three months (on the right):

Edgar Hernandez was also in town about a month ago for his job. Edgar is now a regular fixture in Ohio and works often in Columbus.

I also saw Brian McDonough in San Francisco about three weeks ago when I was there for work. Brian and I first met in 1998 at Joe and Mary Dalsin’s wedding, thanks to Janet Cavallo. We’ve been good e-mail friends, but hadn’t actually seen each other in about 10 years, so it was a fun reunion.

Sofia's Latest Escapades

Will this go on her Permanent Record?
While I look forward to all of Sofia’s milestones, this is one I was hoping not to see this soon; Sofia’s first “bad report card.” When I picked her up from school and I asked her teacher, Ms. Carrie, how Sofia’s day had been. She looked at little discouraged and replied, “Oh..not good. We have a couple of incident reports for you to sign.” My first thought had been that Sofia had hurt herself, so I looked her over, but she looked fine. Ms. Carrie proceeded to tell me that Sofia had scratched several of the other children and was generally in a foul mood. The incident reports noted that Sofia had scratched a “friend” over a toy and in another case bit another “friend’s finger.” She was given “cool down”, by sitting at the table and was told “nice touches.”

I couldn’t believe Sofia was a bully! As I gathered her things I noticed little Rolland smiling up at me with couple of bright scratches on his face. I asked Ms. Carrie whether Rolland was one of Sofia’s victims, but she said she wasn’t allowed to say.

Joe and I worked with Sofia that evening reminding her to give “nice touches” and thankfully the next day Sofia’s report said she’d been very good to her friends.

Sofia’s First Civic Duty
Sofia accompanied Joe and me to vote last week. We did some last minute research on a judicial race and voted on some local issues while Sofia enjoyed exploring the elementary school atrium where the voting was held.

Surprise Party and Sofia’s First Co-ed Bath
Damon’s Surprise 30th Birthday Party was this Saturday and despite having three potential babysitters, I decided to stay home while Joe went to celebrate. Unfortunately going to a bar while you’re pregnant is not much fun. Instead Molly and Naomi came over with their babies, since their hubbies went to the party as well. Will and Sofia were very good and shared their toys, while little Nora spent the evening nursing. Melissa, Molly’s sister, stopped by to say hello.



Sofia stayed up way past her bedtime, but managed to squeeze in time for a bath with Will. I dutifully took photos to embarrass them when they're teenagers.

I'm already behind!

Well, I’m behind already on keeping up with the Blog thing. Some quick updates…

Sofia’s First Haircut
We took Sofia to the Studio (http://thestudiosalon.biz/), about two weeks ago, to have her first haircut. Since Sofia hates keeping ponytails in her hair we had to have her bangs trimmed.

Here’s the before shot:



I sat Sofia on my lap and she did really well. She seemed to enjoy the attention and didn’t fuss at all. We were prepared for a little trepidation and potential crying, but she was a champ.




The wonderful thing about patronizing local businesses is that we ran into Bernie and Angela. Angela was getting a cut (it looked great!) and they were witness to this historic event.

Here’s the after:


Sofia received a certificate confirming her first haircut and a lock of her hair for posterity.

Quick Jaunt to Chicago
We went back to Chicago this past weekend for Adam’s wedding, Joe’s frat/college buddy. Sofia, although rather squirmy, did pretty well on the plane. Thankfully the flight is short, so it wasn’t too painful.

We left Sofia at my parents and dashed off to the wedding. Needless to say traffic is horrible, but we did manage to make it in time to see Casey walk down the aisle. Her dress was very pretty and she looked beautiful.

The event space was very hip and industrial; exposed brick, votive candles throughout, concrete flooring, iron wrought railings and glass block walls; very appropriate for the artistic couple.

During those two quick days we did manage to visit family. We visited the newest member of the Boyd clan, Brendan Patrick. Brendan was awake, briefly, but we didn’t have a chance to take a photo. Here’s one of Keira and Brendan on his birthday:



Sofia and Keira played for a little while and practiced sharing.


My brother and his family came over on Sunday morning. Sofia’s cousins, Cecily and Vincent, entertained her.

Aurora also came over and showed off her cute haircut in time for her first birthday in a couple of weeks.

The Last Six Months....

We have been busy the last six months, namely with selling our house, buying a new home, moving, going on vacation and conceiving a child in between.

We hadn’t planned to sell our beloved Jay home, but we ran across another house, not too far away, that was larger and had a great yard. We decided that if we were able to sell the house on our own, without a realtor, then we would do it. Joe created a great website with information on the house, of course, but also info on Ohio City and other nearby amenities. Reading the site I wondered why we were even selling, since our house was so great!




It was on the 2005 Ohio City Home Tour, as you may recall:
www.2915jay.com and we did conceive two children in that home!

Nonetheless we proceeded and marketed the house through listserves and word of mouth. Luckily we had several interested couples and one couple in particular seemed to love it. Franklin and Maggie bought our home and moved in August.

W. 47th St.
Our new home, another Century house, is much larger, with nice, big rooms, lovely wood trim, hardwood floors throughout, a full basement (where my poor cats are now housed), a great master suite on its own floor and a wonderful yard! We hung a little toddler swing from a tree and Sofia loves being pushed high by daddy. We also bought a little slide and the previous owners left us their sandbox, so we created our own little park.

Oaxaca, baby!
Just two weeks after moving in, Joe and I went back to Oaxaca to vacation sans Sofia. Sofia split the two weeks between Joe’s parents and mine. It seems she had a great time and adapted very well.

Joe and I met up with Gavin and Stacey at O’Hare and spent the first few days in Puerto Angel. We rented a Jeep as the hotel owner strongly encouraged a 4x4 to use on the dirt road that led to his hotel. The drive to the area was fine, but the off-terrain road was pretty steep and full of holes. Joe expertly avoided our descent off several cliffs and we made it safely to the beach. The hotel, Bahia de La Luna (www.bahiadelaluna.com), while rustic (read=cold shower, bats in the room and mosquito nets over the bed), it was amazing. It sat on its own small bay, so it was isolated from any other hotels or people. The first night we were the only guests. French honeymooners joined us the next morning and promptly made out all day on one of the hammocks. Reto, the owner, a Dutch ex-pat, made all our meals from scratch, as well making amazing margaritas. I had a sip :)

A few days later we drove to Puerto Escondido, about 40 minutes north up the coast. Puerto Escondido is a well-known surfing/hippie town. The waves are legendary and tournaments are held frequently. Our hotel was a little less rustic, but still simple. The rooftop pool and hammocks, and view of the ocean, was a pleasant surprise however.

Joe borrowed Stacy’s boogie board, while Gavin refreshed his surfing skills. I read quite a bit and went through three books by the time our vacation was over.

Listos, ready, listos!?

After a few days of watching surfers and drinking micheladas (at least Joe did), we drove back to Huatulco. We stayed at the Gala Resort, where we had honeymooned. After the last two hotels, it was very nice to stay in a modern facility (read=hot showers, 24-hr room service, mini-bar, TV, AC, etc.). The Gala is all-inclusive, so we had lots of food all the time, drinks and plenty of activities. The Gala Entertainers, a group of 20-something year olds, tried to entice guests into playing tequila volleyball, water football, beach volleyball and water aerobics, among other games. Their constant refrain was “Listos?!” or “Ready!?” It was amusing to see them try to convince guests to tear away from their beach chairs to join the festivities. They finally convinced Joe, Gavin and Stacey to play tequila volleyball and watch them get drunk. Stacey also participated in water aerobics, which was very amusing when the “instructor” had them hug their neighbors and kiss on the cheek. I’m not sure what that worked out.

Most of our days were spent playing, or watching others play, all sorts of water sports. We lounged, worked on our tans, read, ate and drank. The evenings we ate some more, played billiards and tried to stay up to make it to the Gala Disco. We actually did go out one night to the Papaya Club, which played great music…oh and soft porn on the TV screens. Pretty strange.

Despite the great weather and wonderful vacation I was anxious to get back to Sofia; especially with so many toddlers running around the resort. We promised ourselves that we’d return in a couple of years with the kids and hope we can drag some friends with us.

Back in Cleveland
Once we returned, we continued unpacking and settling in our new home. The big news, of course, is the new baby. I had my first ultrasound right before we left and the due date still holds as March 16th. As with Sofia, my first trimester was painless. Just a little tired, but thankfully no morning sickness or any other adverse symptoms. At 20 weeks, I’m certainly showing. I had another ultrasound a few weeks ago and everything is fine, but we also found out the gender. It’s a girl! The first ultrasound seemed to show it as a boy, but it was very early. Regardless it was a surprise to hear we’re having another girl. Now we have to figure out a name…

Halloween Hurrah
Keeping with tradition, we held our annual Halloween “bash” albeit a little early. We invited, pretty much, every toddler (and their parents) that we know, including Sofia’s classmates. We had about 12 or 13 kids attend, all in their costumes. They were adorable. Unfortunately, for them, it was 80 degrees, so most discarded their fluffy costumes after an hour. The backyard was a hit and it was fun watching Sofia play with her friends. It was also great meeting some of Sofia’s classmates’ parents, as well as chatting with our friends.


Sofia seems to like dressing up and she was adorable as Fifi the Pink Poodle. A skunk, spider, a couple of bees, a parrot and a pirate also arrived.

Next year we can expect at least five new babies at the Halloween bash! The first one, Nora Bongorno, arrived last week, just in time for Halloween.