Three

You've seen the cake, now for the stats... Alexander is three-years-old. Thirty-nine inches tall. Forty-one pounds heavy. Didn't much care for his hearing test. And was so super-cute when answering the nurse during the eye exam!

The little munchkin will get a referral to get his lispy speech evaluated. His ear tubes look like they're about to fall out. His feet are practically "normal" less his grasp reflex & his need for super-duper wide shoes.

And how do you celebrate a clean bill of health? Well, how else but a hair cut!

"I stay here, car."

Since receiving Dr. Lori's awesome, fantabulous, world-changing bedtime & sleep-the-night advice, Alexander has, you guessed it, gone to sleep willingly (in less than 15 minutes) and slept the night thru in his own bed. (Well, until this week's terrible cough-a-thon).

To make this miracle happen, we've been working to cut the babe's naptime out entirely. A napless day isn't Mama's favorite kinds of day, but it is Mama's favorite kind of night. In bed & passed out by 8 (or earlier). Whoa-hoo! And Mama gets a whopping 2 hours of time to read, blog, clean, craft or veg in front of the TV. Sweet!

Anyway, without the opportunity to sleep in the house during the day, the kid has taken a special liking to the back seat of Mama's car. Now, every time we turn onto "H" Street to come down the hill toward the house, the boy starts insisting, "I stay here. I stay here, car." Yeah, my child prefers hangin' in Mama's messy car than in Mama's messy house. Not good...

Bottle free's the way to be, happy birthday to me & thee

Been awhile.

After 2 weeks of coughs & cuddles, we're still celebrating the babe's birthday. After this weekend, we're done. At least for another 6 months.

Surprisingly, the Dr. Arch still wanted to see us for Alexander's "Well Baby" checkup, despite the fact that she's seen him at least bi-weekly for the last 3 months. It'd been a week since she'd seen him, so of course he was well...

Anyway. 24 pounds, 12 ounces. At one point the bruiser was 25+ pounds, but that Pneumonia really took it out of our little poopsic. 31 & 1/4 inches long. And all kinds of awesome.

And then she told us that bottles are out & the day for binkies is nigh. Zander hasn't had a bottle since, and he truly hasn't missed them. We're using up all the bulk formula we purchased, but when that's gone... well, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to stomach giving him cows milk... we'll see.

After our birthday celebration, Russ & Amber invited us over for some delicious pasta & amazing berry bake. Yum. They had the best birthday present for Zander too... a little too perfect. D & baby were up until nearly 10pm playing with the mega blocks. But they had fun!

Then we helped Owen celebrate his first birthday, just 4 days after Alexander turned one. Alexander had a fabulous time playing with all of Owen's little cousins; made him miss all of his Carlisle Cousins... It won't be long!

Owen gave Alexander a Mega Blocks School Bus, which quickly became his new favorite...

Until we got grandma's birthday balloons...

So, that catches us up... we're going to Carlisle this weekend, finally, to celebrate Zander's first & Norah's second birthdays with the whole fam-damnly. Including Mama Zoya, Babushka & Dirdushka. Alexander can't wait to play with all the kiddos!

9 months... and always being kissed

My little pumpkin is 9 months old! That is nearly as long as I carried him in my belly; can you believe it?

Today we had his 9 month well visit with doctor Arch, and our little man is just perfect! He weighs 22 pounds & 5.5 ounces and he is 29 inches long! He's growing like a weed!

The little watermelon king also got his seasonal flu shot, minus the mercury today... Now I just have to find someone to give it to me! We've pretty much decided NOT to get Zaney a Swine Flu shot. Of course, that might mean we have to quarantine ourselves from all civilization... but I guess it'll be worth it! The doctor actually said, "This isn't the time to be joining new play groups..." So, I guess I wont!

Unfortunately, our little cuteso caught my cold while we were in Carlisle @ the car show. The night D arrived in Carlisle, the babe tossed & turned all night. Technically, he was sleeping, but he was having trouble breathing through all the snot, so I was very technically NOT sleeping. Poor guy... poor mama!

When my mama made the 5:30am wake up call, we were all three up playing with the babes...

With just a couple hours of sleep after an awesome, busy, sickly & physically demanding week, I was a mess! I can work through most everything, but, as most of you know, when I don't get enough sleep, I'm like a pregnant, hormonal, crying mess. Hoy vey. More on that later...

And then Babushka Anna, DeyDya, Papa Andrei & Irina arrived! Zander has a severe case of "No, no, no, I didn't say you could hold me... Where's my mama?"

So, I don't know what happened when he met Andrei. Zander LOVES him! Almost more than D & I combined! Alexander won't go to his grandparents, but within 5 days of arriving in the country & within 5 minutes of arriving in Carlisle, Andrei was flying the babe around the front yard, and the babe was loving it! Gigga What? (No idea who taught me that phrase... The Advocate... but I looked it up just now, and I'm assuming it is just a song and not offensive. Correct me if I'm wrong. And don't forget, I grew up in a box. :).

Actually, the night before Andrei arrived, Z did start fussing, crawl up to my sister's legs & climb to be held... Is his eyesight so bad that he thinks Jenn & I and D & Andrei look the same? My mama seems to think that D's DNA is so similar to Andrei, that Zander can smell it. I wonder if they're hiring for police dogs... ?

The only thing Carlisle was missing after the Brooklyn'd crew arrived was Slava & his family. Hopefully some day soon we will all get together!

What a motley looking crew?

So, back to my hormonal mess. D wanted Zander to get his first haircut. And I agreed long before the babes & I got sick and sleepless in Carlisle... Cue the waterworks.

My goodness. That was horrible. Equivalent to our time in the hospital laboratory shortly after Z's birth squeezing blood from Z's stone cold little foot. Except, I cried harder this time. And there were more people around to see my misery. Oh, and Alexander didn't like it either.

Ironically, I was holding Zander out by the street shortly before we left, and my pops pulled out his scissors. Clip, clip. Snip, snip. No tears. Straight haircut... Why isn't everything that easy?

But then it was time to bring the whole crew back to Wheeling. So while Mama, Papa & Aunt Jenn crammed into the backseat, attempting to get the "Easy-Install" car seat, you know, installed, Zander took turns teaching his grandmas how to drive the Prius.

What a busy 2 weeks! Now we're getting ready for Nemka & Vasya to arrive with Zander's betrothed, Galina! Well, I guess I'm also waiting for D to get home from work... It's 9:19pm, you'd think he might be home by now...???

It's my party & I'll cry if I want to!

Our lil' Baby Boris isn't so little anymore:(... He turned 6 months, 183 days, one half of a year old this week.

We had his 6-month check up Thursday and our little man is 19lb 8.2oz & 27 1/4inches long. The doctor answered all the crazy questions that JB & I came up with the night before while watching "16 and Pregnant," so don't worry, Zaney's allowed to keep eating watermelon & we can use butt cream for everything that ails him.

Unfortunately, the littlest Russian didn't handle his shots so well; he passed out almost immediately, and woke up with a killer hangover & a fever. Poor guy, his 6-month birthday party was almost ruined!

He couldn't even get excited about his delicious watermelon...

However, he did perk up when he saw his delicious peanut butter iced marble cake. But then again, we all got excited (especially the neighbors...All brad wanted for his birthday was some peanut butter icing. I guess JB will have to start giving peanut butter classes!)

Zander still isn't feeling 100%, but he managed to muster enough energy to show Seester Dana & Dear Diana around Wheeling Friday. They just came into town for the day to eat cake with us; but as soon as Dana got out of the car, she decided she wanted to move here. Good job Alexander!

On our Wheeling tour, Alexander made his second visit to the downtown Center Market. He was almost as excited as Denis about the fish sandwiches.

After lunch at the Market we headed up the mountain to stroll around Oglebay & look at the flowers. It's so easy to stroll downhill... now, the walk back up to the cars, that was gruelling. Grrr.

Then, like all friendly visits, Denis grilled veggie burgers (yum), burgers & dogs (not the neighbor dogs, unfortunately), and our signature grilled veggies. We spiced up my mama's oven taters & added those the mix too. Even Seester Dana enjoyed it!

Although it was way too hot for a fire, the smell wafting from the new neighborhood dog pound next door made drove us too it! It was funny, DD also brought out a fan to blow the smoke toward the fence, to try to keep the poo smell out. I'm surprised he didn't pull the respirator out!