22/52 and 5 Months

Week 22 and 5 months- This was the week the Jumperoo came out for you! I love that so many of our baby things have lasted for three babies. All three of our babies have used the same crib, stroller, highchair, changing table and jumperoo.

You loved the jumperoo just as much as your brothers have. You are at the perfect age for the jumperoo. You love to get in and jump like crazy. You also love looking at everything on the jumperoo. You have become so alert and nothing gets by you. You can hear a crinkling bag from rooms away and you keep a sharp lookout for things you want. Your brothers love sitting by you in the jumperoo and playing with everything. They love watching you learn and change and get excited by every new stage you’re in.

Your bi brothers in the Jumperoo!

 

 

 

This is 4

When Malcolm was born on January 2, 2014 he weighed 4 pounds 3 ounces and was 16 inches long. He is now 34 pounds of love. He is now a kisser, a lego builder, a reader, a dinosaur lover, a hugger, a singer, a big brother and a little brother, an oatmeal lover, an even bigger dinosaur oatmeal lover, goggle wearing swimmer, the color yellow lover, marble run master builder, cutest little four year old. 
Some things I currently love about my four year old Malcolm. He’s trying really hard to learn his letters and when we read books insists I point to the words and then tries to say the words at the same time as me so he is reading too. He will read some smaller books to Miral and gets them pretty close! He loves building swords and weapons. He wants to sit next to me every night at dinner. He gets up every night and comes and gets me to tuck him back in…this I don’t love as much but I do love tucking my sleepy boy in and I love how hard he tries to stay in bed to get stickers for his sticker chart. He loves to talk and will get so excited and talk and talk and talk. He also loves saying he is so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so excited. He really uses that many sos….He eats super slow and drives me nuts but then he turns to me and says, Mommy I just can’t eat fast, and my heart melts and we sit and sit and sit. He loves corn and carrots and mango and could eat a pound of each. He loves to cuddle, give kisses and hugs and has a bit, sweet heart. He loves Miral and sings her songs all the time. He loves Adam and wants to do and say everything just the same as him. He loves his ates (nannies) and wants to play with them for hours. Batman is his favorite superhero and Octonauts is his favorite TV show, with Blaze and the Machine as a close second. 
For our sweet, big hearted birthday boy we had non stop celebrations for a full week. A few days before his birthday Uncle Nooj and Aunt Das helped set up an awesome party at a jumpyard. It was such a fun day. Our family came and some close friends came and the kids jumped and rock climbed all day. Aunt Das even got a yummy Momofuku cake! Only in New York could we have such a special treat. We don’t have many pictures because everyone was jumping and running around so much! It was so nice to have our friends Fran, John, Anish and Zita and see all of our kids playing together.  

And here is a sign of a good birthday party! What a lucky boy to have Aunt Das and Uncle Nooj throw him such an amazing New York birthday party! And Uncle Nooj’s Uncle Mike who let us have this super fun birthday at his jumpyard. If we lived in New York we would be there all the time for sure!

A few days later on Malcolm’s actual birthday we were in New York at Aunt Das and Uncle Nooj’s house and had a special New York day for Malcolm. We let him choose what we did. It was about -10 degrees out there but we rallied, bundled up and headed across the street for breakfast at this awesome diner. I LOVED this place. It was so old school. We actually went back the next day because I loved it so much and it was full of the same exact people. I wonder if they go there every day. The boys loved their pancakes and Miral slept the whole time. All the makings of a great meal.

Next stop on the birthday bonanza, we headed back to Aunt Das and Uncle Nooj’s apartment to see Grandma Yuyu, who was also celebrating a birthday! We had gotten her some special birthday treats.

Then we all headed off to an arcade! Our normal arcade in Manila is the size of our living room. This arcade was in Time Square and was huge! The boys LOVED it. It was a good place to celebrate, especially cause it was warm on that cold New York day.

And wait, there was more! Grandma Gertch made some cupcakes and we all sang Happy Birthday to the birthday boy!

We left for Manila a few days alter and had a celebration at Malcolm’s school. Malcolm got to walk around the sun four times and show all of his friends pictures from when he was a baby. He loved it! He showed everyone each picture. He was so excited for the spotlight to be on him and was so happy Miral and mommy were there to help celebrate.

21/52

Week 21- This was a big week for you, daddy left for Pakistan and you moved into your own room.

At first I had planned on keeping you in my room the whole year. With daddy in Pakistan I figured why not. I love having you close to me. But the same week that daddy left (which was the day after we got back from the U.S.) I realized you were just getting too big for the co-sleeper and you were waking up when I came to bed. So I moved you to your room. Luckily it’s a super cute room with lots of light and you love it so far. The minute you moved into your room you started sleeping better! I missed you a lot but I know we’ll both be better if we’re sleeping and your smile in the morning when you wake up and get you is amazing!

365 Countdown

The first 30 days Randy was gone went by pretty slowly and involved a few tears. The second 30 have gone a bit quicker. Maybe because at the end of these 30 Randy is coming to visit. We are all VERY excited that he is coming. Or maybe because I’m back at work now and between work and the kids living a full busy day. 
In honor of Randy’s trip back and being a quarter done with the longest year of my life I’m going to list some of the things I miss. Of course I miss just having him around all the time and his presence the most and a hundred more things, but here are just the first 10 that comes to my mind. 
  1. Having him turn off the lights and lock the door every night before bed, every night when I have to do this i think about how awesome it is that he usually does this. 
  2. Having someone else to wake up in the middle of the night with the kids…oh boy do i miss this! Meanwhile Miral continues to be my best sleeper, usually up once a night even this week with her first tooth breaking through! 
  3. His Sunday night dinners, boy i miss this one alot.
  4. How much he makes us all laugh.
  5. His breakfast fry ups.
  6. Going up to visit him at his office at work (my office was one floor down).
  7. Going for runs with him and having him convince me i’ll feel better even if i’m super tired, which is of course true.
  8. Getting mani and pedis with him while we have wine and watch a movie, yup this really happens. One of the many perks of the Philippines.
  9. How he can always find a good show or movie to watch.
  10. How Randy always turns the TV off at 9:30 and gets me to bed at a reasonable hour. 
And here is a bonus one- 

Sharing a nice glass of red wine with him and talking about anything, i miss talking to him probably the most. Sure we text and have phone calls, but i have so man things to tell him and just talk to him about and we never have time. 

Snowy Days

The day before we were supposed to leave for Manila there was a big snow storm! Our flight was canceled and in the end, despite long phone calls to United into the wee hours of the night we had an extra three days at Grandma Yuyu’s house.  Well, let’s chalk it up to good practice for our next post…which is Kiev!! 
We definitely got lots of practice in for those wintry days coming up in Kiev. Randy has promised me Christmas markets, cafes, a walking city, close travel to lots of European cites, ballets, good friends already there and snow for the kids, so we are pretty excited about our next post. It will be the opposite of Manila in so many ways and a nice complement. 
To practice for our new home, here’s how we spent our snow days. 
Cuddling and watching the snow storm

Legos, Legos and legos

Playing in the snow

Shoveling

 Snowball fights

 Playing with Uncle Ari 
Basketball 

Reading book in our pjs

Eating

And of course no trip to Staten Island is complete without a trip to Lee’s Tavern. This was such a nice treat and it was pretty special to take the kids to a place Randy and I love so much in Staten Island. They even have pacman now, or maybe it was always there and we didn’t realize before we had little boys who LOOOOOVE video games.

Before we knew it we were on our way. One missed flight and an unexpected overnight stay in Toronto and we were home!

A sign you’ve been traveling too long, Your kids start impressively patting each other down.

Just a few days of jetlag later and we were back in the Manila swing of things! A jetlag tip for everyone out there. When your kids are all up at 3 a.m. sometimes it hurts less to just embrace it and have a party in your bed and try again the next night 🙂

And keep them up later the next day, even if this is what your dinner looks like. 

20/52

Week 20- Another year of firsts. You celebrated your first New Years with a party at Aunt Das and Uncle Nooj’s house, Malcolm turned 4 with a jumpyard party and Grandma Yuyu celebrated her birthday too. You had your first canceled flight after a blizzard snowed us in. You rolled over once again and can no longer be held in by your swaddle which means your sleeping is up in the air. But we’ll worry about that when we get back to Manila.

You spent the whole time in New York with both Grandmas holding you the whole time! Your brothers are still totally head over heels in love with you. They love holding you and encouraging you to roll over. Watching the boys with you is the cutest thing! Malcolm calls you Meeral (accent on the a) and is obsessed with giving you kisses and Adam would hold you forever if he could.

2018

I don’t really like New Year’s resolutions and haven’t made any in years. But this year maybe it’s because I’m going to be on my own and I have some time after the kids go to bed to reflect I have collected a few. 
2018 is going to be the year of color for me. I already started with a yellow cabinet for the boys room and a pair of pink pants. The cabinet is great and currently housing 50,000 lego piece (I’m not exaggerating), the pants I’m working on….
2018 is going to be the year where I focus on playing more with the kids. I want to be a more playful parent (maybe this stems from the fact that the fun parent will be in Pakistan for the year). I have spent the last 6 years working on routines and family dinners where food is actually eaten and a 7:30  bedtime. And i have good kids. I want to enjoy them and say yes to the extra story, say yes to a picnic dinner on the floor, laugh at Adam’s corny kindergarten jokes, act silly, have dance parties.  This is definitely a work in progress for me and outside of my comfort zone. Silly and saying yes just doesn’t come easy to me. I don’t know why, but i want it too! So i’m working on it this year. So far i have said yes to more books more often and we’ve had a few dance parties and I’m working on the rest. 
2018 is the year of me….I am going to fix what needs to be fixed (wisdom teeth, i’m coming for you) and work out (so cliche I know). I actually am decent at working out (better when Randy is nearby encouraging me) but I still go at work a decent amount. It’s the rest I’m not great at, I never can find the time to see the dentist for a cleaning or to cut my hair more than once a year. I can get the kids to the dentist and to cut their hair so I am going to work on this for me too. 
But there is the whole year to work on all that. For now let’s go back to our last week in New York.  New Years started with a party the day before at Grandma Gertch’s with loads of family to see and hug and of course pose for pictures with. Luckily Miral and Laurel were willing participants. 

New Years Eve Day we woke up at Grandma Yuyu’s house and she had more presents for everyone! The boys each got an awesome legos that have been on their list. Needless to say, everyone was pretty happy!

Then we had some friends from Manila who have moved to Djoubouti come visit us. It was so nice to see the kids all together and nice for the boys to play with Maddie and Teddie and Delia and for me to catch up with Gina. Last year Gina had three kids, a six month old, worked at public affairs and her husband in Pakistan, so it was nice to pick her brain and talk since she basically already lived my life this year and survived.

Then it was time to head back to Aunt Das and Uncle Nooj’s house for the New Years party. We were ready.

The boys made it to 8:15 and the rest of us to 1:15. We are such party animals. Daphne made us some shrimp cocktail and a cheese and meats plate, then we put all the kids to sleep and had a yummy lamb dinner. The best part was when the kids woke us up the next morning it wasn’t too painful to wake up and share some Martinellis with them.

Happy 2018 everyone (yes it’s February, but at least it’s not 2019)….

Christmas Eve

Before we knew it it was Christmas Eve. We started the day at Grandma Yuyu’s house and she had presents for all!  Two big remote control cars for the boys and loads of clothes for Miral. 

Grandma made us a yummy dinner and we all got to hang out for a while before heading into the city.

We got to Aunt Daf’s and Uncle Nooj’s house in time to get our Christmas pajamas on and make some fun stockings, since our stocking were back in Manila and leave cookies for Santa. Once the kids were asleep we wrapped all the rest of the presents, had a heated game of Trivia (that the girls won thanks to Gretchen and her clutch final answer!) and had some Christmas spirits. Such a great day full of family and Christmas goodness.  It was so nice to be with everyone and have all the kids utterly spoiled by all of our family.

19/52

Week 19- This was a big week.  It was your first Christmas and what a special one.  We were in the US for the first Christmas in 5 years.  It was also Malcolm’s first Christmas in the U.S. and Laurel’s first Christmas and although we weren’t together it was Grant and Tamer’s first Christmas.  2017 was definitely the year of babies!  You got to spend your first Christmas with so much family.  It was a pretty special first Christmas.

Once upon I would have told you I didn’t like pink for babies and I didn’t like when people matched their babies. I was SO wrong. I LOVE pink on you, I think it’s your best color and I LOVE matching you with Laurel. Every time you two are matched it just makes me so happy and makes me thing about how lucky Daphne and I are to have two beautiful baby girls just three weeks apart who can grow up with each other. 

Every time we put you two together you would hold hands. Swoon!