Learning and doing more every day

It's been about a month since I've blogged and we've had a lot going on!

I'm back to work full time, which is an adjustment for all of us, but one that we seem to be navigating successfully. I am still working from home 2 days a week, which allows me to use that time I would be commuting to spend with Sophia.

We've also been traveling a lot, between our new place in Newport (more on that later) and a wedding in Buffalo on Memorial Day Weekend.

Sophia got to have a vacation at Nana and Pop Pop's (two new words she's acquired in an ever-growing vocabulary!) for the weekend, receiving more attention and spoiling than one could even imagine!

Playing with Nana in the sand:

Hanging with Grandpa:

Fun at the beach:
Unfortunately, all this working and such has really minimized the amount of pictures I take of Sophia these days, but here's a fun one from the park today:

Peak a Boo

As I mentioned earlier, her vocabulary is growing so much every week. New words and phrases include: "No No Dada" "Yes Dada" "Bus" and my personal favorite "Uh-Oh" (which, happily, is not always used when something is an Uh-Oh!) .

We missed out on the touch-a-truck this past weekend, but the other day we spent about 30 minutes outside of Porter Square watching all the "Buses" or "Toot-Toots" (as she often refers to them as) drive by. She climbed up and down the black and white stairs constantly, but would stop every 3 or 4 minutes when a "toot-toot" went by. It was classic.

Tomorrow is her 19 month birthday - Time really does fly!

The Good Stuff - London

Well, after all the trauma, we finally made it to London.
Sophia was a trooper. Though the plane ride was hellish, Sophia was kind enough to nap throughout the day as we rolled around in the stroller. So the game became: Pictures of Sophia sleeping next to important landmarks. We must have seen all the big sights and plenty of cool neighborhood stuff, though I don't think Sophia really saw any of it.
Starting off the day:

St. Paul's Cathedral:
Telephone Booth:
Hey Sophia - look - Big Ben. Parliament.
Luckily, she perked up for her first visit to a proper English Pub:
(her food intake generally involved French Fries (aka chips) and Croissants. YUM!
Of course, there was some play time with her friend JJ back at the house:
and her "cheeky" look:

It was a great, albeit brief trip.
Finally, after a 7 hour plane ride too hellish to even begin to describe, we made it home to Boston.
I would do the trip again in a second. I have no regrets about taking Sophia, but I wouldn't do the flights by myself. The tag team is really necessary on flights of that length. Our friends Tera, Jimmy and JJ were so amazing and hospitable, despite Sophia & I battling the time adjustment, a few remnant pukes and not much enthusiasm from Sophia in the beginning. The highlight of all the time zone craziness was coming back to the States during Daylight Savings transition. It meant we only had a 4 hour difference instead of 5, and while Sophia woke up at 4am this morning, she did curl back in from 6a-9a, giving me a little respite and time to catch up on sleep too. Bring on the next adventure.

Wow - What a Week (Part 2)

So after the excitement of visiting Children's Hospital, we knew there would be some recuperating time. We weren't surprised to find Sophia was not particularly hungry the next day, after all that she had gone through. She seemed otherwise to be in good spirits. Fast forward to 2:30 when the sitter calls me at work to say Sophia is throwing up. A lot.

Not good. Not good at all.
The poor thing can't keep anything down - water, juice, bread. Nada.(We had gone through a similar puking spree in December, which I caught as well. It wasn't a pretty sight.) But she did go down to sleep fairly easily (I think exhausted from everything). Sadly, we had 2 more bouts of puking throughout the night, including one event after which she looked really drawn. I was concerned about dehydration and called the on-call doctor. They recommended Pedialyte and gentle rehydration, which worked like a charm. By 7:30am she was back drinking and generally in good spirits, only a bit clingy (which isn't her style). She was able to keep small, bland bits of food down (pasta, etc) and after a check in call to our pediatrician, we loaded up and headed to the airport. Yup - London, with a small, recently ill child. But all the signs were pointing to recovery for her. And besides, we had a whole plane ride in front of us to sleep. What could go wrong??

Well, Sophia has never liked to miss out on anything - she will play bobbing head doll (you remember from boring lectures in college - sleeping than popping awake just to make sure no one caught you!) which is essentially what we did for the whole ride over to London. It was a 7pm flight and we landed in London at 6am London time (so 1am our time). She slept probably a total of 2.5 hours (in 45 minute clips) and I slept next to nothing, walking around with her and trying not to wake the other passengers. But we made it and we were in London. Hooray! Bring on the sights and good friends!

Where has the time gone?

It's been a very busy August for the Ahouse clan. From our trip to New York & Connecticut to our weekends in Newport and Maine, we kind of feel like the traveling wilberries. But I'll take it.

This past weekend, we spent some time up on a lake in Maine with the Ahouse clan. Sophia thoroughly enjoyed the attention from her Aunt Hayley (and "auntie" Kiera).









Sophia spent some quality time exploring the lake (so nice and calm and perfect for baby sitting!)



She also had a great bath time photo session (Thanks Grandpa Ahouse).






What's even more entertaining - she appears to be acquiring the "Ahouse look" check this out:

















Finally, I got some down town, complete with a nice little massage. (highlight on the "little" part)

Sophia's First Trip to the Cape

This weekend, we were kindly invited to the Cape (North Falmouth) by our friends Katie and Ferris. They have a 5 week old daughter, Clare, who is just adorable. It is hard to believe that stage is so far behind us already.

We had a very relaxing (well, as relaxing as life is with a 5 week old and almost 6 month old) weekend. The bonus was it felt like early summer, with temps in the 70s and gorgeous sunshine. The boys went kayaking and then we all took some nice walks, exploring the area and just enjoying the sunshine.

Ferris was way more adventurous than the rest of us, venturing into the 49 degree water - ekk!


Sophia got into the spirit for the Kentucky Derby wearing her seersucker!



She also got into the spirit of summer living - hmm, does it taste better than her normal bottle??



(no worries, no beer was actually ingested by Sophia)

A great weekend and a special thanks to Ferris and Katie, who are becoming awesome parents.