uh, you better just give me the whole bottle!

2010-12-21T12:09:00.001-05:00

Babylove

11 weeks

Lately

2010-11-08T03:18:00.001-05:00

beach pictures in october, right on schedule...

2010-10-26T16:48:00.019-04:00

laughing with gaga

peanut butter face

judah looking pensive

Judah is getting ready for Halloween!

2010-10-08T10:56:00.000-04:00

This morning he came out of his room ready to scare the daylights out of his sisters. The opacity of his blanket foiled his plans...

Ps can you tell feeding the baby leaves me with a fair amount of free time?!?! ;)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GAGA!

2010-10-07T14:40:00.004-04:00

gaga saved the day again when we were having solie and today is her birthday. i love this picture of her holding solie for the first time and can't wait for the littlest one to learn to love her gaga as much as my "big kids" do. i honestly don't know what we'd do without gaga.

solie

judah

hilina

saida

Solie Eden Thomas

2010-10-06T16:21:00.000-04:00

Born 9/30/10
5:53am
7lb 3 oz

I am so happy I was able to have a successful vbac and an extremely short labor in the middle of a tropical storm. And exceedingly thankful my mom and sister were there with us to welcome her into the spinning world. We are so happy she has come!

This is a video I took of her in the middle of the night. I love how she looks from her hand to me and back again. Happy accidents. Her dad calls her "the rose of beauty bare" but I think she sort of looks like a turtle. A beautiful little turtle.

Hilina, Saida and Judah have handled all the changes remarkably well. Saida especially has fallen completely in love with her baby sister and Judah hasn't tried to eat her or give her away so we are grateful for small miracles.

2 days old

Father and daughter

Saida and Solie

Multitasking before naps

June

2010-08-20T22:14:00.000-04:00

Dosa picnic in Washington Square Park.

Free Judah at celebrate Brooklyn

Sarah and Hilina

Hilina's godmother & family

The waterpark down by the east river

In all the chaos of moving we packed the charger to our camera. So sadly all my pictures from this summer are via my phone or some of the ones above were taken by the lovely Dana. We've had a beautiful summer with family and lots of traveling, and cousins, and ice-cream, and swimming, and birthdays galore, and buying a car, and growing this baby (7 weeks left!). But uploading all these pictures sure does make me homesick.

late spring afternoon

2010-05-24T20:48:00.001-04:00

2010-05-19T20:51:00.001-04:00

Judah has entered the delightful "no!" phase of toddlerhood. When he's not feeling it, it's no to everything except those things where it's an adamant "I don't want it!" We've learned to ignore this annoying behavior lest he think he's the boss. That is when we aren't able to tease him back into my sweet snuggly Judah. Most of the time he's delightful although it could be we are just better equiped at raising our second headstrong Leo.
Here's a successful effort on Ben's part!

Lately

2010-05-18T22:34:00.001-04:00

On the way to get flowers

Saida had to wear my hat, while hilina chose the sidewalk chalk box to use as a purse. They love to accessorize.

New and improved fire escape.

The girls picked out petunias for their window boxes. Judah tried to help with the planting but dropped his shovel 2 stories down and almost hit someone.

We've started just bathing him in dirt. Seems simpler that way. You should have seen all the dirt that came out of his diaper that day.

Mudpuddle

2010-05-11T08:37:00.001-04:00

They look like they have pants on!

winter into spring

2010-05-09T21:08:00.012-04:00

freedom

at the zoo

dress up and dancing

catnap

best friends

easter diva

at the new playground

pop and baby j

we took a trip to the aquarium out on coney island

p.s. we're having another baby in october! a little girl!

The animal.

2010-03-01T06:54:00.001-05:00

Sometimes one of your kids will enter a new phase and just start cracking you up, you know? Quickly Judah is leaving any traces of babyhood behind and if he's as funny as he has been lately we are in for a treat. The kid loves to make people laugh.

an oldie but a goodie.

2010-02-22T09:06:00.000-05:00

judah, i feel like this a few times a day...

We moved!

2010-02-04T16:14:00.000-05:00

We are so happy in our new place. Even though we loved all our friends and neighbors over on the old block this place makes more sense for us- better layout, more space, 1/2 block from the park and YMCA, an old movie theater, etc. And the little boy downstairs is just one month older than Judah and very sweet.

So you think you can dance?!?!

2010-01-29T07:43:00.001-05:00

Toddler edition. I love hilina's intense joy when she's dancing! And I really do think Judah dances like Bill Cosby, one of my heroes...

My very quiet cricket

2010-01-27T20:33:00.001-05:00

Her refrain in case you can't speak saida, is 'he rubbed his wings together but nothing happened not a sound anymore.'

December.

2009-12-30T22:38:00.001-05:00

These are just some silly cell phone pictures from my phone of our christmas vacation. It's been a crazy december with both ben and Judah being hospitalized with pneumonia and trying to move in a few days and paint the new apartment and visit with our amazing family down south. We even got caught in a blizzard in Virginia

My hats go off to families who have to stay in the hosptial for months. It's heart breaking.

It turns out hilina is a real girly girl who is now obsessed with dress up and princesses.

13 inches in Richmond!

My sister's new puppy, frank!

Curry face.

Picking out the tree!

Saida covered in a trash bag because guess who gets carsick?! At least she smiles in her sleep!

Hope everyone has a happy and healthy 2010!

2009-11-09T11:20:00.001-05:00

Playing in the leaves.

From my cousin, Alana!

2009-11-09T11:19:00.001-05:00

Lowrider - making Poppy proud.

Looking down the line for his reciever.

Ridiculously excited to see the train go by.

Grumpily holding hands while snacking. Who knows...

Walking home

2009-10-22T22:00:00.001-04:00

I love how she shakes her little tushie.

Hilina

2009-10-05T20:47:00.001-04:00

Hilina had a big week last week with an ambulatory EEG to measure how many seizures she's having and where they are coming from. She was so brave and carefree about the whole thing, hardly bothered her except for carrying the machine around in her backpack. When it got too heavy I'd have to hold it which means we were inseparable for 3 days. Naps, meals, playground, bedtime, etc. Besides marking all her seizures (don't know the exact number yet but it was a lot) I had the added pleasure of keeping her baby brother from trying to pull the wires out. We don't know anything yet but it's over and hopefully they got all the information they needed. She is such a trooper and has more heart than anyone I've ever met...

In front of the museum.

2009-10-05T20:38:00.001-04:00

Time

2009-10-03T20:05:00.000-04:00

2 years ago, right about now we found out who our girls were. And 6 years and a few hours from now ben and I were really meeting for the first time at a little bar in shephardstown, west virginia.
This is time as an ingredient...

Ring around the rosy?

2009-09-27T20:47:00.001-04:00

Before bedtime tonight saida decided to pull her pants up as high as she possibly could. I thought she looked so funny that a video was needed but I ended up with a video of something entirely different...

Turtle, where are you?!?

2009-09-24T14:27:00.001-04:00

Backwards crawling

2009-09-19T23:12:00.001-04:00

This afternoon Judah was on a different schedule from the girls-I love when this happens because, well, its awesome to have one on one time. he's such a crack up and towards the end of the afternoon he was so giggly and he gets weak when he's laughing and tickled with himself. Man, I really love this guy.

judah taking the playground

2009-09-16T12:56:00.002-04:00

judah started walking back at the beginning of the summer but i never posted anything about it because our summer was just crazy busy trying to take advantage of being able to be outside every day. so... voila! he thinks he's two, not just barely one.

Picnic

2009-09-05T20:47:00.002-04:00

I cannot get this tutu off hilina for anything.

Summer evening with the aplins

Greatest hits

2009-09-04T22:08:00.001-04:00

Playing hide and seek

2009-09-03T11:36:00.001-04:00

Guess who got into the mud at the playground?

2009-09-01T18:44:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago in the garden

2009-08-27T21:52:00.001-04:00

On the beach

2009-08-26T18:56:00.001-04:00

Traveling to South Carolina

2009-08-25T22:23:00.000-04:00

my oldest is two!

2009-07-01T17:01:00.011-04:00

flying above coney island

my cancers having their birthday pancakes

her first ride

on our way to the wonder wheel

watching a rainbow from their room with poppop and gaga

sliding with dada and judah

cooling her feet

at the natural history museum

lunch in central park

two year olds have sass

summer evening picnic

prospect park carousel

the rose garden

spring! easter!

2009-05-14T19:48:00.022-04:00

this is an all picture post of the last month or so that's serving as a tribute to this thing from outer-space that landed in new york. yeah, yeah, i know it's probably old news to the rest of america, aside from maine, but maine's practically canada anyway. florida will recognize this as "the past," but it's still very, very special to us here.

spring:

hair

2009-04-27T13:20:00.006-04:00

so i finally learned how to braid. it was one of the goals i set for myself at the start of winter. i figured i had plenty of time on my hands that i needed to learn how to do it. people have lots of feelings about african hair, myself included. one friend who is a social worker told me that as a case was going before a judge where the birth mother had too many drug problems to care for her child who was entering the foster-care system. the mother's chief reason she didn't feel her daughter could be taken care of by the white foster-mom was because she wouldn't possibly be able to take care of her daughter's hair.
i have issues. i realize this. i obsess over my girl's hair. i worry that if it's not done properly that i will be judged by strangers on the train or people we pass on the street. why in the world do i care? transracial adoption is such a BIG issue, an article i read today even said adopting outside your race is 'cultural genocide' and so i wonder if i feel all this internal pressure because i'm a white lady, or if other moms feel this, too. i gave up on hilina's hair for awhile because she pitches such a fit and when it was wild and crazy i got SO many compliments on it from, you guessed it, white people. i have such boring straight hair i love her curls... but when i started 'doing' saida's hair i got so many compliments from friends who are you guessed it, black. i'm just thinking out loud here, wondering about the differences.

i knew it would be different than caring for my hair. i knew if i basically did the opposite of what i did for my own, namely, taking the oil out, i would be heading in the right direction. i guess what i wasn't prepared for was the cultural stigmas surrounding african hair and how it's taken care of. if it's long or short. straightened or natural. braided or 'down'. on the bus i'll look across the aisle and see white kids coming from the playground or school with their hair in haphazard pony tails, looking like it hasn't been brushed in days. you almost never would see a black child out in public like that. is it because it requires so much attention to make sure it doesn't get damaged?
anyway, i just never thought i would feel so insecure about it. and judged. and proud when it looks good. i'm not sure if the judging is in my head or actually exists, probably some of both i imagine. i just don't want my girls as adults to look back at pictures of themselves as kids and think, lord what was she doing to my hair?!?!?!? even though i say that about my mom (thanks for the bowl cut, mom!). i just want to be able to answer that i was doing the best i could, and for me that involved learning how to braid.
parted into triangles and braided
i was just playing around here in the back trying to braid braids into each other.

these little barrettes at the end of the braids can be picked up at any african hair braiding place for cheap. i think they work great at the ends of braids. trouble is keeping them from judah...
i joined one of those yahoo groups for african hair but i felt too embarrassed to ask any questions so if anyone has any questions ask away. i'm no expert but i've sampled my fair share of product (carol's daughter - totally overrated!) and dropped enough braids to offer a little advice if anyone has a question.

the vipers in diapers...

2009-04-16T19:52:00.009-04:00

my friend beth, the one i keep talking about? well she kindly babysat for us last weekend and made an observation that warmed my heart... we had put judah down for the night before we left and were letting the girls run off their dinner before she put them down and she said judah was just beside himself (i'm getting to the heartwarming part, trust me) but that once the girls were in there with him, she never heard a peep out of him. she said she can tell already that they're functioning as a little unit. i'm thinking of starting a band... we had our first rehersal on the evening of my birthday when we realized our children were in desperate need of a bath and some post-bath songs.

the girls are absolutely thrilled that 'all of the 5 little ducks came back' YAYYYYYYYY! judah looks like he's trying really hard not to roll his eyes at them. could it be? why yes, it is...A BEN LOOK!

have you ever seen someone 'wash the spider out' with such gusto? impressive, if i do say so myself.

how big is saida? 'shhaaaa beeeeee' apparently.

3 peas in a pod, errr, tub.

father and son

and just in case you were wondering...
scratchy throat? check! watery eyes? check! flowers in bloom? check! TWO consecutive days in the seventies? CHECK CHECK CHECK! spring is here and we couldn't be happier!

thirty shmirty

2009-04-13T13:55:00.012-04:00

who says getting old is no fun? on friday i turned thirty whole years old, although, i've felt thirty for a few years now...gee, i wonder why? in keeping with a thomas family tradition we went out for pancakes to celebrate with our friends the aplins.
gus really went all out when he found out it was my birthday...
look how excited saida is to get some of that cupcake! could her mouth be open any wider?

this is where judah asks if he can have some and i laugh at him, maybe this summer, buddy...
here's my lovely friend beth and "old" susannah...
hilina is a pro at tom's now, here she's trying to keep things out of judah's reach, turns out the boy has serious swiping skills...
only part of the reason why dining at tom's is a holy experience...

afterwards we went to the playground where judah could just hardly contain himself...

and hilina walked all the way to the slide on her own!

in other news saida has picked up a couple of new phrases that she uses randomly, one being "go, judah go!" which she says whenever he does anything really. sitting there chewing on his hand, she's right there cheering him on... and the other is 'oh, man' which we were having trouble figuring out where she got until we realized it was our favorite egyptian, sammy, who says it all the time and that's why the accent is different... so ben was saying the lord's prayer with the kids and he got to the end and said 'amen'. and saida scrunched up her face and looked so seriously at him and said, "oh, man." close enough, i guess...

judah crawls!

2009-04-03T19:19:00.003-04:00

It's been big week here! I now have 3 very mobile children... I've forgotten so quickly what it is to chase after a baby who's suddenly on the move. He's into everything, and maybe I will get some flack for this, but I do think boys are different than girls. He has no fear of crawling over anyone or anything to get to what he's got his eye on. And even better is that when I tell him no, he sits up, smiles, and laughs. It's actually pretty adorable and I melt every time... "oh sure, baby, you can pull the computer off the table, ok..." i challenge you to watch this video and see if you could muster up a firm no.

hilina walks!

2009-03-30T12:25:00.003-04:00

this is her preferred mode of transportation now! she's so proud of her new skills that often we find her just walking in circles... i think we have to give a lot of credit not only to sammy (her pt), but to saida, for being such a constant force in her life and the best motivation we could have hoped for.

cheerios anyone?

2009-03-29T21:01:00.003-04:00

seems like judah likes cheerios about as much as i do...

march madness

2009-03-23T21:26:00.017-04:00

homeless in miami.

judah coming into 7 months which apparently requires standing constantly and doing the snake.

thoughts on nap time:

cooties 101:

cooties established:

judah and hilina are bffs.

you wanna piece of me?

playgroup that pretends to sleep? GLORY ON HIGH.

drawing nozzle, her favorite "phant"

a light in winter

baaa.

papa & fat cheeks. wait. fat cheeks & papa.

judah, not doing much...

2009-03-10T17:18:00.002-04:00

judah has started doing this sort of hop crawl that i've been trying to get on video but you know how that goes. he gets up on all fours and then brings both his knees up, hops, and then lays down because holding up his big head wears him out. i couldn't get it but decided to post this anyway because most of our family hasn't seen him since christmas and he's changed SO much since then. he continues to be an amazingly sweet silly baby and we all just love him so much.

Untitled from Anna Thomas on Vimeo.

attempting a family portrait.

2009-03-10T12:28:00.008-04:00

we had just a phenomenal weekend here. it was warm warm warm - like actual t-shirt weather, and not the t-shirt weather where you're faking it and actually would prefer to have a sweatshirt on. needless to say we tried to stay out as much as possible. saturday we had a quick breakfast and practically ran to the playground, then came home for naps, went back out to the park and the brooklyn museum for first saturday and then over to the aplins for dinner. while we were there, mr. aplin tried to get a picture of all of us.

i give him an "A" for effort.

my "bed"ouins

2009-02-27T20:41:00.002-05:00

here are the girls wrestling on the bed. i think it's the color of the sheets that makes me think of a sandstorm.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DONNA!!!!!

2009-02-20T09:03:00.004-05:00

my sweet hilina

2009-02-18T13:43:00.007-05:00

i don't know how to talk about this or if i even want to talk about this so if you come back later and i've deleted this, then you'll know i changed my mind. but sometimes i wonder if there is anyone else whose baby has CP and if they do, if they feel like i have been feeling this week. because it's just been this week that it's actually sinking in that hilina might not be ok. i guess i've always just assumed that we're doing all this therapy and she's made so much improvement physically, that everything would be fine and she would maybe take a little longer to walk and talk, but that she'd catch up. maybe have a little limp, but it honestly never occurred to me that she might not be capable of catching up completely. we've had some evaluations in the last few weeks for speech and special instruction (both of which she qualifies for) and they've been pretty discouraging. it sounds so stupid, but i'm just now realizing that she might never be able to control the muscles in her mouth well enough to speak clearly or that we won't be able to do enough for her to right arm so that she can use it just as well as her left. and with her still being so young there is still so much up in the air. because her brain injury was so severe and primarily affecting her language center, we don't know how much the right side of her brain will compensate for the left stroke area. her brain is actually re-wiring itself on a daily basis and we don't know if when it stops she'll still have epilepsy. we don't even know if the seizure medication she takes is frustrating her ability to concentrate, or if she just isn't interested in what we're trying to teach her.

when you have a child you spend hours daydreaming about them, about what their future might look like. what they might want to do, if they'll marry, if they'll be as horrible a teenager as i was... and i think very naturally i always pictured saida and hilina together. running on the beach chasing each other, covered in sand. sitting at the kitchen table doing their homework (in my head i always have a kitchen big enough to have a table to eat at!). i never once pictured judah passing hilina. i never once thought about how it will affect saida if she always feels like she has to protect hilina. because i never pictured hilina growing up differently than saida and judah. it's like my life has gone a little out of focus this week and i just need to re-imagine it but i can't because we just don't know. maybe i just need to learn how to let tomorrow worry about itself.

on a lighter note, we went into the city a few weeks ago down to my old stomping grounds in battery park. we got to watch the sunset behind the statue of liberty. believe it or not, the view of the water is the same from my old office and i don't miss it one bit.

judah's first swing!

traffic jam

i seem to be saying, 'uh a little help here?!?!'

the content of our winter

2009-02-14T13:25:00.021-05:00

winter is long, cold and snowy in new york.
sunrise

sunset

and you may wonder what exactly it is i do for 10 hours a day with the kids while ben is working away.

you have story hour on the bed

when it's over 40 out, you bundle up and head to the park

you have a friend over

you let her steal a kiss

you cheer on our new President!

you try new foods

you play dress up

and then you laugh at how silly you look

you play eye-spy out of the window.

you watch the snow fall

you play with each other - although judah doesn't look so happy here, he usually loves attention from his sisters and is all smiles when they're around

and you let mama take lots of pictures to appease the grandparents :)

christmas in february, i'm sorry, no excuses.

2009-02-06T13:17:00.015-05:00

saida and lainey

probably my favorite picture from christmas. thanks to aiden for letting saida play with his armor!

this is the closest we could get to a picture of all the kids in their pjs

uncle sam and the poods.

you might remember kusha from the bathtub photos. he and saida LOVE each other so much. they chase each other and then scream and run.

our last night there we threw a little party

roshi and judah

father and son.

ben and his mama

ben was pretty excited that the very hungry caterpillar became a butterfly.

pretty excited about the whole thing

15 people, 8 kids, christmas morning- it was awesome!

judah slept through the whole thing in his car seat so we wouldn't loose him in the wrapping paper.

christmas morning, judah being swarmed by all the little girls.

christmas in catawaba

2009-01-09T14:41:00.009-05:00

this picture was a long time in the making.

catawaba

two horses in a field or 'a blessing'

walking off into the sunset

gaga and saida (she got dressed in the dark)

meme's barn

20 people crammed into that house.

saida goes country

uncle don and hilina

matt and ivy

christmas part 1 of 3 north carolina!

2009-01-05T14:35:00.015-05:00

my sister came and picked the kids and i up in virginia to bring us home for a few days. i didn't seem to take many pictures because i was short an extra set of hands as ben was still in the city hard at work. i didn't get any of the kids uncles - my brother, and uncle sean who was so sweet with my girls especially, snuggling them while watching the simpsons. my brother is known in our family as the baby whisperer but judah is still so chill that his services weren't required as much. i was so happy to be home even if for such a short time. i never lived there (my family ended up there) but as an army brat i really couldn't care less "where" home is so long as my family is there.
grandma emmy

here's my mom apologizing to judah for his big head (i think my poor uterus deserves an apology too)

grandma donna and "balthy" as he is affectionately known

peyton swinging

hilina and ash

hilina and bryce (bryce is my cousin's son which makes him my second cousin, right? so that makes him the kid's...third cousin? second cousin once removed? absolutely adorable? yes!

trying to open presents.

my family is so awesome they had christmas dinner early so the kids and i could be there!

2008-12-10T09:19:00.007-05:00

hi mama!

stuck in the basket

all smiles

concentrating on getting that dog into his mouth

making the bed

please read me this book? how can you resist this face?

i'm not really sure what's going on here, but it's pretty funny.

tree trimming and yummy food.

2008-12-08T18:11:00.007-05:00

we had a great time putting up the tree. thanksgiving was pretty hard for us, being away from our families. we went down to our landlord's for thanksgiving dinner (which was so yummy) in the evening. but before that, i'll admit, i was pretty sad. ben sent me out to go to a movie by myself so i could have a break and on the train i decided i would go get our tree instead. so i got off, bought a push cart, a 7 foot tree, and hoped for the best getting on the bus. i wasn't sure the driver would let me on, and was prepared to walk the few miles home. but he was feeling the christmas spirit and i was home in no time flat to surprise everyone. ben was most surprised (the girls were kinda scared, actually) and i think pretty grateful that he didn't have to go get it.
our great friends, the aplins came over the following day with their little girl susannah for snacks and tasty beverages. i love the tree. it's my favorite part of christmas. my grandmother, helen, was an amazing needle-pointer and hand-made most of the ornaments on our tree. handy, since they aren't breakable. although, the girls haven't paid too much attention to the tree thankfully. we blocked it off anyway. and then saturday i made thanksgiving dinner for the five of us. i got ben good. we went around saying what we were thankful for (for the girls we suggested what they might be grateful for - books, each other, raf raf, judah, etc). and then when it was my turn i announced that i am especially thankful for the baby i have in my tummy. his upper lip started sweating - it was awesome. (i'm not, by the way).

putting the lights on

tangled up in lights

tree trimming with the aplins

hanging an ornament

i do love our tree

our first thanksgiving - just the 5 of us

dinner in front of the tree

and the stockings were hung

judah giggles and coos

2008-12-04T14:07:00.003-05:00

i was trying to add this to the last post but it wouldn't work. so here it is.

judah laughs from Anna Thomas on Vimeo.

hilina walks

2008-12-04T11:43:00.005-05:00

i'm sorry i haven't been posting too much. our computer has been on the fritz thanks to hilina dropping it off the couch. but it's feeling better and so i hope to be able to update more. the last few months have been amazing. i can't believe how quickly everything seems to be changing. the girls are getting so big and learning so much. i think most parents hope their kids will love to read. i know i had visions of my little ones toddling over to my lap, book in hand, and i promised myself no matter how busy i got i would read to them for at least 20 minutes every day. i just never imagined they would do it 15 thousand times a day. especially saida. every time i sit down and sometimes when i'm changing a diaper or whatever, i look down and there she is with hop on pop or goodnight gorilla or brown bear and phew. hilina's occupational therapist is jamaican and it never fails that when she's working, saida drops a book in her lap. she says, "now miss saidie i'm not going to read you no more brown bear, brown bear going to have to take a rest now miss sadie". if you can picture that being said in a booming accent with andrea laughing and saida then making fun of andrea laughing, you'll think it's funnier. anyway, it's awesome how much they love to "read" to themselves now too, and it's helping them learn more words and doesn't involve going outside so i'm happy as a clam. saida now can say with meaning "mama, dada, dog, night night, mouth, nose, no, judah, hi, bye, cheese, milk, dog, pop pop, and raf raf (her stuffed animal's name). she's started saying hina but doesn't use it you know what i mean? she is loving dancing and has started running and has cut 5 teeth in the last few weeks which was freaking horrible.
hilina is turning into a total spaz. now that she's more mobile (she can crawl as fast as saida walks now), she's into everything. surprisingly, she's the trouble make of the two. she's a dancing fool. she gets her arms up in this chicken move and shakes them back and forth making the weirdest intense face like she's concentrating so hard and then she yells "wooooooooooa" likes she's really been breaking it down. i've tried to get it on video but you know how that goes. she's also learned a lot of words in the last few months: mama, dada, da (for saida), ju (for judah), woof woof (for hound dog), NO! which she uses all the time, it's awesome, hi, bye, etc. she's also got some made up words like bia bia which, trust me, you don't want to be on the receiving end of one of her bia bia outbursts - it means she's really mad. whenever i get a few minutes alone with her she wants to talk. and boy does she say what's on her mind. she tells entire stories if you just keep asking her questions she will go on and on. it's made me really excited about them getting older and anxiously awaiting when they speak in sentences so i can find out what's really going on inside their minds. she's really doing great in therapy as you can see here:

i'll be out of the city for 2 weeks with lots of extra hands on deck and sammy has said to just walk with her all over the place. so hopefully she will really get it in the next month. the first steps she took were beautiful (not the ones on video) and i cried like a little baby i was so happy.
judah just had his 4 month check up and the boy is 17 lbs already. that's how big saida was when we brought her home. crazy for me to think about. he's brought so much joy to our family. he's started rolling over and smiling at just about everything. his favorite pastimes currently include: chewing on his fingers, eating, sleeping, looking at himself in the mirror, watching his sisters, being sung to, and practicing standing.

happy thanksgiving

2008-11-29T14:09:00.008-05:00

my fatty

so smiley

"JUDAH!" her mantra

the girls, their gaga, and their favorite pastime

bedtime

sittin' on the counter eating patty pan squash

being such a good helper!

2008-11-23T10:32:00.006-05:00

i took this picture while walking

we took a stroll

we went out for our favorite pizza!

another fun lesson in music history

nightly dance party

much belated halloween photos

2008-11-12T19:59:00.007-05:00

one proud flamingo

poppop and the queen of the jungle

our ferocious lion?

look at that tail!

sweet saida. this was before she was decided the parade was okay and took off trying to steal candy out of big kid's buckets

sunset on the walk to the parade

before the parade

the grumpy pumpkin

2008-11-04T08:31:00.003-05:00

STOP CHECKING THE BLOG - GO VOTE!

HILINA IS HAPPY THAT WE ARE ALREADY BACK!

best of edition

2008-11-02T10:01:00.010-05:00

i was uploading photos from my phone into iphoto, and somehow pictures i thought had been lost in a phone mishap suddenly showed up. it was funny to watch them upload because it was totally out of order and one would be saida drinking from a bottle (seems like so long ago) and another of judah 3 days old. i present to you, the best of the camera phone pictures:
when she was still small enough to fit in the bumbo. look what a chub-rock she was.

totally asleep like his uncle matt.

i love this picture.

typical morning and a great attitude from me as always. i was sweet and kind each day of my pregnancy.

wow.

oh, hilina. yikes, baby.

christmas tree in gondar, ethiopia. looks like they just threw the decorations on and said ah! perfect!

it's already november, wha?!?!!?!

2008-11-01T10:56:00.006-04:00

i know, i know, you're hungry for pictures. well, here check these two out:

is that better? heeheee. anyway, haven't been posting much because, guess what?!?!?! no, i am not pregnant. but i am having knee surgery on tuesday! whoo-hooo! so life's been a little complicated as of late, but workable as it somehow always is. it's just not possible to explain to little babies that mama's in a lot of pain and can you please not jump on my knee, thanks. i've tried every which way but loose and they just have the memory of a gnat. it's got me thinking though, this surgery, about our year. and how if you told me last year at this time that i would bring home two babies, learn how to be a parent while pregnant, move, find out my oldest has cerebral palsy and epilepsy, have to deliver via c-section, worry about the financial collapse (the russians are optimistic), and have knee surgery while taking care of 3 babies, i would have taken a rain check for the year 2008. the craziest thing is, this has been the best year of my life. my most freaking awesome friend grace has a photo album called, "i really love my kids" and there are so many times that phrase runs through my head. yesterday morning i had all the babies in bed with me. it was cold outside but the radiators were on, i had my coffee on the dresser next to me and everyone was in their pjs reading an easter book over and over and i thought to myself for like the millionth time, i really love my kids.

last weekend our friend hosted a party and all five of us went. there aren't very many good pictures because we were having so much fun we forgot to take a lot. it's funny, with the bum knee i get out even less (though we have established date nights on thursday and we go out for like 3 whole hours, it's awesome). i digress. my point is, i think i've forgotten how to conduct myself in public - catch many flies?
we had a great time at the party, here saida is literally bouncing off the walls:
she's discovered chase, although sometimes she gets so excited she gets confused and runs to you instead of away. hilina has started getting in on the action although it's not pictured here because she was busy stalking sam the cat. she'd never seen a cat before i realized and was fascinated.

GaGa is here saving the week AGAIN. her amazing super powers conjured up like 40 coolers worth of food. mmmmm food. she and PopPop helped us go to the children's parade in park slope yesterday. i have a ton of pictures to upload - it was really a lot of fun once the girls stopped being scared of each other dressed in costume. i wish i had gotten a video of earlier in the week when we tried their costumes on them. when they looked in the mirror, they laughed and laughed. but when they turned and looked at each other - oh the horror!

showing off his head control and some other stuff

2008-10-20T15:01:00.005-04:00

i know i am partial being he's my baby, but look how handsome he is!

hilina looking too grown up

saida stuck in the bumbo

lots of kisses for judah

2008-10-16T16:41:00.001-04:00

lots of kisses for little j from Anna Thomas on Vimeo.

2008-10-13T09:56:00.009-04:00

saturday was just perfect here so we decided to picnic with the aplins and their grandma moonpie in the park. the babies were quiet and the girls were happy to be in the grass so it was a beautiful afternoon. there was even a baRack obama rally in the park with a gigantic flag for the kids to run around under and on top of. they really loved it. judah, of course, slept. i swear he isn't always asleep, but he doesn't smile at the big camera, only my camera phone which i think is because he can see his reflection in it. i'll upload the pictures from my phone soon so you can see how smiley and giggly he is. but he did sleep through the night last night - from 7pm to 6am! i hope it wasn't just a fluke. he usually wakes up around 430 to eat and go back to sleep which is great, but it would be freaking awesome if he just let go of that. Lord knows he's big enough.
Also, we dug out Saida's walker/pushing thingymabob for hilina and she used it to walk across the living room and back!!!! so crazy to see how much she has learned in just a week! she's just cruising everywhere.

multi-tasking.

hilina, a giant flag, and wind do not mix

conquered.

susannah, putting the moves on judah AND playing hard to get at the same time. truly a feat for someone so young.

happy days

2008-10-11T19:45:00.009-04:00

i've been calling judah "little j" and yes i know it's from gossip girl, the most scandalously horrible wonderful show that i love so so much. here again is my sweet little j.

molly and alana came over on monday bringing the holy gifts of doughnuts and great company. alana and her husband are adopting from ethiopia as well, and in the grueling paper chase stage. soon soon they will have their little babies to smooch.

sometimes i think you could take a picture of hilina's nostril and it would be stunning. she is simply so beautiful to me.

being a good big sister

someone got into the baby powder. it was everywhere but she was having so much fun i couldn't even get mad.

guess who's crawling?!?!?!?!!!

2008-10-10T09:36:00.003-04:00

beach week II

2008-10-09T22:50:00.014-04:00

sam and judah

what do you do when there are 40mph winds outside? you play with the rafts inside

fun in the hammock

hilina's first time in the ocean

jumping over waves

the girls with their new hero, aiden

uncle sammy

these two are inseparable

"and this guy was the first guy to ever record the song i played you last night!" "really poppop?"

aiden and ivy (also known as mini ben and amanda)

lounging

listening for the ocean

aiden takes the girls for a ride in the boat

"and that song i played you last night, that guy is from richmond." "really poppop? wow!"

saida's first cinnamon danish

goo goo gaga

nightly dance party

flock of seagulls

just pitiful

me and the liny bottoms

saida trying to steal gaga's shades

too many monkeys jumping on the bed!

beach week I

2008-10-04T10:24:00.011-04:00

my sweet babies

mama's girl

i hate to keep belaboring this point, but last year at beach week we had NO kids. the picture on the right of us in blue? that was a year ago. do we look older? more sleep deprived? more responsible?

the whole family

guess who preferred sand to water?

ben keeps taking these birds eye view shots of me and judah, but i swear we're not always laying down

lesson on how to use a baby to conceal your muffin top

we joke about hilina being a daddy's girl but he just eats it up!

attack of the hungry seagulls

saida's first time putting her feet in the ocean! she loved it and eventually kept running into the water every time we set her down.

view from the porch

Aimeriez vous acheter de moi quelque cheveux voles?

2008-09-19T15:19:00.008-04:00

it's been a crazy few weeks here, good crazy though. saida is walking everywhere, like a sumo wrestler. she's so funny talking all the time in her own language. this morning she woke up early for some reason and not wanting to start a bad habit we just listened to her talking to herself for like 30 minutes. hilina was still asleep and it was like she was thinking, if i talk loud enough she will wake up and talk to me so "DOI ugh errr wuuuh DOI doi hhhhuhhhh DOI DoOOOOiiiI" and then hilina finally woke up and her baby talk is all frenchie sounding so she answers saida and it sounds so pretty, all "oui oui! je suis un ananas. j'etais un canard. mais, les canards sont tres tres stupid, ainsi j'ai change". i love it. i love how much they are growing up. yesterday i stood hilina up in the pocket doors- facing out so she was leaning back instead of forward as she is want to do- as part of our therapy. and saida went to the other door and stood just like her and then lifted up her shirt and patted her belly. so then hilina lifted up her shirt and patted her belly. the must have mirrored each other for fifteen minutes, it was awesome. it just seems like something new happens everyday. for instance just a minute ago saida said "NO!" and the next 2 years flashed before my eyes. sigh. hilina is doing great in therapy - getting stronger every day. if you hold her up she will make stepping motions and is starting to bear weight on her legs. she is so proud of herself, almost as much as we are. we meet with her team in two weeks to discuss her progress, what's working and isn't, if there are other therapies she's qualified to recieve (i'm pushing for speech because she has a really hard time chewing and swallowing). but all in all we couldn't be more pleased with her progress and are really hoping she's walking by christmas not only for her own sake, but mine too, as she is almost 3 feet tall and absolute dead weight when you carry her. and then my little judah. he's an angel. the most content baby i have ever met. i think he heard the happy chaos that is our life for nine months and decided to take it easy on us. he's easy to make smile, and easy to feed, and easy to comfort and all around just a total pleasure to be around and love on.
in just a few hours we are leaving for south carolina where we go each year with ben's family. that's right, we're packing up all 3 kids in the rental car and driving around 14 hours to the beach. we're stopping half way at ben's sister's house to break up the trip but considering our girls have only ever been in car seats 3 times - yikes! let's all hope it goes well. but the way i see it, even if it's total crap for the whole drive when we get there, we'll be at the BEACH. WITH PEOPLE. TO HELP ME! AT THE BEACH!
it's the girls first time to a beach that doesn't have trash and broken glass all over the place (god bless coney island) so i think they are going to be in hog heaven. especially saida as you can't pull that child out of the water for anything - even food.
all tuckered out.

see? he's awake!

my girls

my boys.

saida in the park walking like a sumo wrestler.

hilina

happy ethiopian new year!

2008-09-11T14:54:00.007-04:00

guest blogger: excerpts from the album, "ethiopia, the country"

2008-09-10T10:40:00.022-04:00

if you all are as sick of seeing our living room as anna and i are, then please take a look at some brand new pictures of vast, open spaces in a far away country. these pictures are from an album of mine i took in ethiopia while anna was puking her guts out during her first trimester with judah and multiple bouts of food poisoning. i felt kind of guilty leaving her in the room and exploring villages on my own, but she pretty much made me and i'm very thankful for that. it was sad though, returning to our dank rooms in the middle of nowhere, seeing her sweating and shivering under a dim, hanging light bulb, in cots on a cement floor. i swear i felt like i was in the english patient more than once.

these 11 photos are for all those adoptive families getting reading to travel to ethiopia. jouir de la beauté.

remnants of a castle, gondar

orthodox burial ground, lalibela

blind street beggar and beautiful girl, lalibela

the goha hotel, (amazing), gondar

toukoul orphanage, (where we first met saida & hilina), addis ababa

after the christmas slaughter, goat's blood on pavement, addis ababa

orthodox priest, lalibela

rock-hewn church and home of above priest, lalibela

addis ababa

lalibela

lalibela

pencil drawing from four years ago

2008-09-05T10:24:00.001-04:00

labor day weekend

2008-09-03T19:55:00.013-04:00

oh what a weekend! friday we had visitors stopping by all day which i love because it makes my day go so much faster. the boy came over and saida was following him everywhere and he was so tolerant except when she grabbed his shirt to keep from falling over. toddlers don't like to have their clothes pulled because this also happened with another little boy on sunday who face masked her. i think she learned her lesson.

and then saturday was the children's parade which saida and judah slept through and hilina looked like she would have rather joined them. but i just love it except sadly there were no stilt walkers this year which is my favorite. but managed to get some fun pictures nonetheless.

then sunday we packed up all the kids and went over to our friend's house for homemade pasta and 3 different kinds of delicious sauces. mmmmmmm. i could eat erin's pasta every day. mmmmmmmm.

jerah made saida the movie star she so wants to be. God help us.
we made it home just in time for them to close the parade route so the NYPD could set up so that ALL the traffic was re-routed down our little side street. which also happens to have a fire station on it. which means the bumper to bumper traffic that was outside for 4 hours blocked the firetrucks who were so frustrated they just laid on their horns with the sirens blaring until about 5 in the morning. yeah, i know you're all jealous.
needless to say on monday we all camped out and watched the us open and napped off and on.
a perfect weekend. four labor days ago (just 4 years!) we were married, so i guess that was the perfect weekend. but this one with our family was a close second.

historic moment

2008-08-29T10:46:00.013-04:00

wednesday evening as we were getting dinner ready and watching the news of the democratic national convention, we turned on just in time to see illinois hand things over to new york, and the most impressive hillary clinton. i called ben in and we pulled the girls on to the couch with us to watch history being made. then hillary moved to forgo the formalities and have Barack Obama be named the democratic candidate for president... it was just, amazing. i cried, ben had chills. i cried because even though this doesn't mean my girls won't ever experience racism, institutional or overt, the nomination of the first african american is a powerful sign of how far things have come. i hope as they get older and we tell them about the evening, how they just clapped and clapped and laughed, that it will truly be change they can believe in, and also change they have experienced firsthand.

here are some photos from yesterday evening.

hilina's eyelashes have grown a foot in the last few weeks. don't know if this picture really captures it.

dreaming of yet more milk

catching my breath?

2008-08-27T14:41:00.007-04:00

i'm not gonna front, this is really freaking hard. the past few days have been so much better than i thought they were going to be - got so much done and had a good time and just really loved being with the girls who i have been missing so much the last few weeks. it was so fun to see how much they've learned. like saida, learned how to climb stuff which is, like, a pain in the a** but wow! she's climbing! and hilina can stand up from sitting on the stoop! huge! but both the girls woke up in bad moods this morning and i was like, holy mackrel this bites the big one. if you have kids you know how eternal a tantrum can seem and how it's hard to see past the end of your nose in that moment. i realize that i am so lucky. that my life affords me to stay home with my beautiful children and that if you had asked me 5 years ago what i would want to be doing this is it. but that doesn't make you feel like less of a broken record when you say for the upteenth million time to not touch the baby. seriously, does anyone have a remedy for this? they are just curious but too rough and it's almost like i can't set him down anywhere but his crib unless i sit right there and say don't touch the baby over and over. they don't get tired and go find something else to play with. yet.

let's move on, shall we?...anywho, paige had asked how i get hilina's hair looking so cute. the answer is... I have great friends who do it for me. :) she is very tender headed, and has so much beautiful hair that about all i can manage are the poofs. i understand braiding in theory, and practice on my own hair. but i have to relearn to braid because it's upside down from how i learned. and you have to start with such small pieces that with a wiggly baby - i drop it as soon as i start! so hopefully as they get older and can sit still longer, i can take credit. until then i'll keep relying on the kindness of my friends. something i can do? take braids out. here's h getting her braids taken out. pretty awesome, huh?

and here's my first outing with all 3
judah's first trip to the market - he was thrilled

and just because...

i know i'm short on pictures of the girls lately, but never you fear, now that i am back with them full time, there will be more equal billing.

live blogging day one - no help

2008-08-25T09:54:00.012-04:00

saida tantrum counter: 6 BUT quick recovery

10AM
not so bad. water dish made into bath/pool. messy clean up.
everyone is fed, even me and the dog. although the dog did have to share some of his food - i found a piece in saida's mouth. disgusting. almost snack time.

1030
while trying to feed judah, saida clearly wants me to hold her. hoist her onto the couch with my leg, trying not to disturb baby. she proceeds to snap my bra strap for the next 20 minutes. hilina slides over to couch where baby is eating, saida is snapping, wants to stand. i hold onto her arm so she can pull up to couch, use my other elbow to keep saida from karate chopping judah. use my feet to help hilina position hers so she wont fall. now baby is fed and girls are having snack and some milk. even hound is sleeping. ahhhhhh.

1110
spent the last 30 minutes playing 'don't touch the baby, no you don't have to cry, you're not in trouble, you just can't touch him while he's trying to sleep'. it's a fun game, everyone should play.

1220
girls eating lunch, clean diapers on everyone. body starting to betray me. 30 minutes until nap time. then a big decision for me - eat lunch or sleep?!?!?! think sleep will win :) saida has started giving me kisses again, think she is getting over being so mad at me. hilina keeps feeding hound, need to pay more attention.

400
everyone had a good long nap, even me and judah. although then everyone woke up crying so it kinda sucked all the joy out of that. but we recovered with some quiet time. i had judah strapped to me and got the girls up from their nap. usually when i used to get them up i would carry them to the couch and we would have some snuggle time. but i had to just get them out and set them on the floor. once they realized they could either cry in the nursery or crawl over to me, they chose option b and we were all happy. minor adjustments being made here and there.

410
does anyone want to come walk my dog? he won't stop pacing and wimpering. i think he's still sick.... yikes. hope he can hold it a few more hours!!!!

500
number of times i have said 'don't touch the baby, he's sleeping' or some derivative thereof: 196
number of poopy diapers changed: 6

810
everyone is in bed! well, judah will be up again soon, but woohooo! i made it! this evening kenzan, my neighbor, helped me bring the girls down to sit outside for about 30 minutes, and beth stopped by with a coke, mmmmm delicious... then hilina's pt came and it got a little dicey with her crying and saida imitating hilina crying and judah being hungry and then ben came home and both the girls wanted him to hold them and so they were crying even more, and so i did what any sane person would do. i got in the shower. it was divine. and then i made dinner and fed all the babies and now all i have to do the rest of the night is sit on the couch and wait for the hills to come on. my incision is pretty sore but not busted open and so i would call today a success.

sisters. and how much they rule.

2008-08-24T16:11:00.013-04:00

over the past 9 days, we've had the amazing fortune of having our sisters visit us in brooklyn. they didn't come here to see famous people, they didn't come here for hot nights out on the town (although ben's sister did in fact have one of those in williamsburg and kept asking me why an elderly woman dressed in leopard print would go on stage and play a trombone at a bar and, well, kind of take herself seriously, at which point i tried to tell her all about what a hipster was and then she said it was just too much for her. i think i had her at goodbye with ankle-tight jeans), nor did they come for grass-fed only organic ice cream or the panic-attack-from-hell-which-is-times-square. no, they came to clean my fridge out, throw away the entire contents of my closets, and clean up after my jealous, diarrhea-striken dog. god bless you two. all that other crap is so overrated.

hi guys! it's amanda. love you and all, but your apartment smells like a church nursery. forty love!

stoop sitting with bff's. after this, saida climbed all the stairs as ashley calmly guided her and tried her best not to freak her shiznay.

said night out, (pre-game)

i had to

2008-08-21T13:35:00.004-04:00

daady and hilina

ash, taking in the new baby smell

nanner and judah

milk coma

sittin' on the stoop

saida walks!

2008-08-20T12:27:00.002-04:00

my girls are getting so big! i've been trying to get this video of saida walking for a few weeks now, but she'd still rather crawl than walk (she's so fast on fours) but we finally got it on sunday. and hilina is speaking her own brand of ewok that i can't seem to get on video either but i will keep trying because it's hilarious. especially when she gets mad and babbles her frustration complete with fist pumping.

afternoon with 3 babies. from Anna Thomas on Vimeo.

do you see what i see?

2008-08-16T11:59:00.010-04:00

judah has a perfect five pointed star on the bottom of his foot. which makes even more sense of his middle name, balthazar. according to ancient christian texts (specifically early ethiopian orthodox christian history), balthazar (or a spelling derivative thereof) was one of the 3 magis/kings who followed the star in the east to first visit baby jesus after his birth. he was the wiseman who carried frankincense and is represented in 3rd century art as most likely the african or "moor" magi. the idea was that the lion of judah/tribe of judah, which claim the lineage of christ, and the origins of balthazar would further tie our son to his ethiopian sisters and the ethiopian context in which i spent my first trimester pregnant with him. pregnant with him and wretching in addis ababa, lalibela, gondar, etc. plus, we also liked the idea of having his name naturally invested with the idea of true hospitality, empathy, worship, and celebration.

little girls

2008-08-16T09:53:00.004-04:00

people warned me before judah was born that hilina and saida would seem SO BIG to me once he was born, and they weren't lying! like the other night, saida had seen me nursing judah and so when i finished she crawled over to me and handed me her bottle to feed her too. (i've heard this kind of regression is typical). anyway, i had ben put her on the boppy for me and i mean, i felt like she should be starting kindergarten the next day she was just SO BIG! they are doing pretty great, considering. it's hard for me more than them because i just miss them so much - playing with them and making them laugh and snuggling them. i keep sneaking in their room after they go to bed and holding their hands through the slats in their crib. they've been so loved on by friends and family. my mom was here for a week taking care of them and it really couldn't have gone more smoothly. my mom was an elementary school teacher when we were kids before going back to school to get her phD in child psychology. she works for early intervention in north carolina, so really, she is like the most qualified babysitter EVER for hilina and she's FREE. plus she has equal parts of patience and fun ideas to do with the girls so that they passed their days happy as clams. it was pretty cool actually because by the end of the week they had really attached to her. they love everyone they meet pretty much but besides ben and i, have never really cried when someone else left the room, or reached out for someone to hold them if they had the option of being held by one of us, or let out their happy screeches when someone came in the room, and they did all those things for my mama. makes me happy. also made me cry a lot when she left. i guess even when you're a mama yourself there are times in life when you still want your own!

on laboring

2008-08-14T12:03:00.007-04:00

courtney asked about my labor and so i will say labor is the most indescribable thing i have ever experienced. i went into early labor shortly after my blog post last thursday and he was born about 24 hours later. i was in early labor until about nine at which point i began to not be able to talk through contractions and starting to get that other world feeling that's sort of like a trance - very foggy. we left for the hospital about one am and checked into our room and answered a bunch of dumb questions and that's pretty much all i remember until dr. michel told me i was ready to push (19 hours after i'd gone into active labor in the first place). i pushed for 2 hours and it was clear from the shape of my stomach and his dropping heart rate that he was stuck and so was rushed in for a c-section where they found his hand placed just so next to his head and the cord around his neck twice. what started out as exactly what we wanted ended up as far from what we wanted and then right back to exactly what we wanted because he is perfectly healthy and lovely. i have the most wonderful doctor who i know did everything possible to help me have the birth we wanted and that we really tried every thing under the sun to get him down and out safely before taking him. here she is maybe 30 minutes after he was born.

besides ben there was one person i could not have done this without and that's our doula. she deserves the patience award for sticking it out with me for so long. it's hard to help someone labor when they've sort of gone catatonic on you! i did not speak for close to 10 hours ben says. but she heard me on so many levels and was able to anticipate what i needed and assured us at every step that everything was ok, and that judah was going to be ok, and that yes, labor does in fact end. i mean look at this face... does that look like the face of someone who is going to let anyone mess with you? lanice's help has been invaluable to us, i don't think i would feel the contentment i have if she had not been a part of our total experience from preparation to actual labor and as a post partum doula teaching a hormonally engorged woman how to breastfeed... she has her own room in my heart whether she likes it or not.
also that woman in the background was my labor nurse and she was so amazing as well. she really "got" us and her quiet and confident energy was really helpful to me during the pushing stage, especially as it got dicey with his little heartbeat. she also scrubbed in the surgery and took some really amazing pictures of him being born but internet, you cannot see them because i have SOME boundries and showing you my guts crosses the line.
so, yes, the surgery complicates our life a little. i can't pick up the girls for a few weeks still. but i know that everything happens for a reason and maybe this happened so that i would be forced to hide in the bedroom with our sweet new baby and memorize every detail before it changes the next day and watch his eyelashes grow.

older pictures from the hospital

2008-08-13T20:44:00.004-04:00

this is minutes after he was born

few hours old

one day old

judah leaves the hospital

2008-08-13T19:19:00.011-04:00

we are so happy to be home. especially me. but i think judah is too. our first night was great now that we are really getting the hang of eating. he wakes up like hey i'm hungry and i'm like hey i got LOTS of milk, let's hang out for a bit and finally getting is GOOD. in general he's just a sleepy sweet little pooping machine and i am totally in love with him. and he was so kind as to come out with his dad's lovely fingers and long long monkey toes. we still can't decide who he looks like, he's going to change so much anyway, but we're leaning towards PopPop.

leaving the hosptial!!! whooo-hooooo!!!

look! a waterfall on the east river from the cab ride home (he was unimpressed)

going home!(ready for lunch!)

afternoon catnap

evening with sisters and grandma emmy

jerah came over for some baby smooching

first morning at home, two sleepy heads. ben says judah sleeps like me but i don't know how i sleep because, um, i'm sleeping when i do that.

guest blogger (also known as husband; also known as bat nuts space cadet...)

2008-08-10T22:41:00.011-04:00

after arriving home from taking anna's mom to meet judah for the first time yesterday, i offered to grab emily a soda from the corner store since i had to walk the dog anyway. we got home, by the way, all ripe for a nap. so i put the girls down and then took hound out before crashing.

i walked to get the soda at the corner store and then walked back to my street, happy to run into some inquisitive neighbors. i told them all about how anna was doing, what labor was like, how amazing it was to see something for the first time that somehow came from you and how you somehow oddly recognized it, and ultimately how my first diaper change took more wipes than my first one with hilina did when i actually took a pair of scissors and cut her outfit off of her. ah, those were the days. two sweet girls in a far away country crapping their brains out from their bottoms to their hair.

anyway. so after telling this to my neighbors for about 20 minutes, i walked up the stairs to our apartment and was about to turn the door before uttering *&%#! HOUND DOG!

yes. in my post i-have-the-most-beautiful-son-ever-is-this-for-real-because-if-this-isn't-for-real
-and-i-am-dreaming-then-i-hate-all-dreams stupor, i apparently bought that soda, walked right by my dog and proceeded home without him. needless to say, i hurried back the two blocks and found him still tied to the bus stop pole, sitting down, looking at me like a crazy man with three, virtually, brand new kids.

today at the hospital:

a son is born

annabeth & judahgoodness

post-circumcision (i was so there for you...)

mom & 3 kids & a load of sterile objects for saida to play with

hilina attacked by the nursing cover!

not with a bang but a whimper

2008-08-10T07:24:00.007-04:00

please welcome into the world:

judah balthazar thomas

born on 08/08/08 at 4:17pm
weighing 8 lbs, 3 oz
21 inches long

mother, father, son, and daughters are overjoyed and exceedingly thankful for excellent health all around.

endings and beginnings

2008-08-07T15:00:00.003-04:00

this morning i got off the train at 77th and walked straight into labor and delivery before i realized i was in the wrong building. i know. wishful thinking. long story short the wee lad is ready to go - turned back around to the right position, 3 centimeters, something was bulging which she said was a positive sign, all the good stuff. so she stripped my membranes which ow, doesn't feel good at all, and if i don't go tonight on my own, she's going to break my water after we put the pancakes to bed tomorrow night. all that to say, at the very latest we'll have a little mushy baby on saturday. it seems SO surreal. after thinking about him for months and month and months we finally get to meet him. i hope he has long pretty fingers like his dad. and the thomas blue eyes which are so beautiful and i hope he is as funny as i am. when we were at this stage with saida and hilina, on a flight somewhere over one of the four continents we traveled across to meet them, it was christmas eve. sigh. i am feeling so lucky right now.
here is the last belly picture - 40 weeks, 3 days.

if you can pray that all goes well, and that the girls do okay we would be so grateful. even though i know they will be with my mom it will be so hard for me to be away from them, i've never been away from them for more than a few waking hours.
now it's time for me to go clean some corners again.

finer points of a conversation

2008-08-05T06:55:00.006-04:00

what with my official due date having come and gone we decided it was time to try again to explain to the girls why mommy's tummy is so big and why it's not ok to jump on it, and how daddy should have had the foresight to buy stock in ben&jerry's the moment he found out he was going to have another baby. in the long run i know it will be so wonderful how close in age the pancakes are to this stubborn cubscout not ready to make his debut yet. but in the meantime this is the look we often get when we try to explain that they're going to have a baby brother any day now...

one year olds do not really understand this it seems. so we tried explaining to them that he was going to be very tiny and that we have to be extra gentle with him and not sneeze on him and share our toys (and mommy) with him. hilina got really excited at that part. saida, not so much...
then we told them if they were really good and didn't crawl on him or play rough with him for awhile that we would take them out for ice-cream. somehow, they got that part.

here are some other shots from this talk...

in other news, ben is sick. he's only ever been sick like twice since i've known him so it's pretty sad. he has a high fever and i'm waiting for the doctor's office to open so i can get him in there. if you're so inclined, say a prayer he's better really soon, and that i don't go into labor with him not able to get out of bed!

2008-08-03T17:46:00.004-04:00

walking to beat the band.

2008-08-01T14:20:00.004-04:00

I just want to go ahead and call b.s. on people who say walking helps you go into labor. We must have walked 10 miles on Saturday around the city, nada. But! we had a great time and ate some delicious french fries and saw christian siriano (winner of last season's project runway) - it looked like he'd used a whole can of aqua net on his hair, so not fierce.

at the playground in SoHo.

at the doctor yesterday she said she will let me go until the 13th at which point if i still haven't gone into labor (god help me) she will break my water. there is an end in sight!!!!! the baby's current weight? 18 lbs.

a bevy of drunken doves

2008-07-31T09:19:00.002-04:00

this was the girls playing the other afternoon, not sure what got into them but i tell you it made still having this baby on the inside seem not so terribly bad.

Untitled from Anna Thomas on Vimeo.

my dog.

2008-07-28T15:44:00.006-04:00

hound has not left my side all day. this morning the very second ben got up hound climbed up laid his butt on ben's pillow and his head on my stomach (very gently). and that's about as far away as he's wanted to get all day. every truck that's gone by he's actually gotten up and growled in the direction of the window. normally, hound can't even be bothered to lift his head at such street noise. i'm not sure what gives here. since the addition of the pancakes hound and i have sort of been at odds - me angry with him because i'm always picking his fur out of their hair, and hound, in his own way, angry with me because sometimes (only sometimes) i forget to feed him breakfast until like 12:30. i have a lot on my mind, ok? anyway, between our frustrations with each other and the heat it's unusual he would be so clingy - trying not to read too much into it, which i've obviously already done.
he thinks i am crazy.

i think he senses i am going into labor soon, and that his sudden desire to follow me everywhere has nothing to do with the bacon in my pocket.

hilina update

2008-07-28T08:23:00.008-04:00

i have to say, hilina's new physical therapist is just amazing and is really doing wonderful things for hilina. he and her occupational therapist (pt works with body mainly, ot works with fine motor skills but because she is so young, their work overlaps a lot) are great people and are becoming extra family members it seems which is great when someone is at your house in the evenings. lately it seems their times have been overlapping and we all sit and joke about how i can't get off the floor anymore, and saida's attitude, it's so great. but really what is great is that they are both just falling in love with hilina and taking such good care of her.
she is making great progress - she can sit on her knees now, she can feed herself, if she is on the couch she can pull herself to standing (she sort of leans into the back of the couch to do it), she can army crawl ALL OVER the place - i mean the list goes on and on. we're hoping she will be up on all fours crawling very soon. her biggest obstacle seems not to be the semi-paresis but her low muscle tone which is very very low.
her posture has improved leaps and bounds thanks to my bony fingers poking her in the back all the time, just look at that trunk rotation!

but the muscles in her legs and arms are a whole different package. so we practice standing a lot. and tucking her left leg under while she's standing so she puts her weight on the right leg. i know i've been saying this for months, but her brace should be here this week and it should really help a lot.
until then we are using some yellow rainboots to keep her ankle from turning in. she was cracking up in this picture, not sure if you can tell through the ball in her mouth.
she is really making me laugh all the time as she starts to become more mobile and take on the world a little bit. she is so easy to make laugh and willing to just go along with whatever. sometimes ben and i wonder if she really is an angel. which makes it kinda funny when she is crying because she doesn't want to have her diaper changed.

she is loving books these days, they both are actually, and this morning i peaked in the nursery and she was laying on her back holding onto her leg in the air reading.
practicing standing at the coffee table

so proud of herself!

and just for comparison here is our first picture of hilina we saw. we think she is about 3 months. gentle and sweet even then.

saida turns one!

2008-07-26T11:04:00.016-04:00

it's hard to believe my sweet beast is one but she surely is. when i think about how much she's changed since i first met her 7 months ago - it's staggering. she was so serious and quiet - sizing us up, figuring out how in the world she ended up in new york from ethiopia. and now she is so, just, so much of everything. as her personality forms she's becoming so particular and hilarious and i absolutely cannot wait for her to start talking because i think she is really going to have some ideas to tell us how we can do things better around here. our friend said once she thinks saida will have her mba by the time she's like 17 and be ordering people around, and i can totally see it. especially now that when you give her anything to play with she pretends it's a phone. i'm pretty sure "dadadadada yeyeyeyeyeyeyeyeey HUUUUH" is baby talk for "why isn't that report on my desk i asked for it 15 minutes ago?!?!?!"

here was our first picture of her. we think she's about 2 months. we knew as soon as we saw this picture that she was going to be a pistol.

continuing with what's becoming tradition we had a casual breakfast at tom's. the girls are only mildly obsessed with pancakes and are so enthralled with the elaborate decorations that i can even bring them there by myself - it helps that everyone there is so nice and loves them so much.

in the morning the weather was kinda crummy so we opted for the brooklyn museum before a nice walk. the girls found it thrilling. they fell asleep for about 30 minutes which ended up being the only nap they took all day. when you're one you can boycott a real nap!
unfortunately we had to go to the pediatrician for their one year check ups after the museum. it took me months to get the back to back appointments and there was no other time to do it when ben would be able to help me get them there. so here is our big girl after she had to get her shots.

normally such a ham, she was sort of mortified to have everyone singing to her and looking at her. she looks like she's about to burst into tears as we encourage her to eat her ice-cream and cookie, poor thing. she was exhausted but when you're one you can stay up past your bedtime!

when you're one, you get to eat ice-cream with your hands!

her big present was.... A NEW PUPPY! isn't she so cute?!?!?! here she is helping saida open her presents.
just kidding, not even we are that crazy. that's silvia's puppy.

playing with her new blocks!

the girls playing with all their friends from the neighborhood.

a lily from ben
for those of you wondering, no benny anytime soon. only one centimeter dilated, the good doctor thinks another few weeks probably. another 2 weeks with this freaking belly!

the g says guh, the g says guh, every letter makes a sound the g says guh - like GaGa

2008-07-21T22:16:00.013-04:00

gaga came to save me. for an entire week. it was the greatest week ever because when you are nesting without central air it's less like "why isn't my linen closet straight, i have to clean it right now!" and more like "man, i want my linen closet to be clean! why isn't it clean?! i'm so hot! wah!" but gaga swooped in and took over my kitchen and the babies and ordered me to bed and it was magnificent. i actually had a cup of coffee and watched regis and kelly. in peace. and truthfully they were kind of annoying but boy does kelly have some biceps! i digress. i wish i could say i am rested but i think it's kind of impossible to be rested at 38 weeks, but i feel mentally restored and ready to get this baby out! (everything is going great by the way, the good doctor thinks he's 8lbs give or TAKE a 1/2 pound). i blame the potential 8 pounder on all the amazingly delicious food we ate last week. i even got a thanksgiving dinner one night! i felt like the luckiest girl in the world.

fun in the laundry basket

what a ham hilina is. no matter where we are, what she's doing, anything, you pull out a camera these days and she's all "hey there! cheese!"

i have a bone to pick with you internets! no one warned me of this molar thing - that they could cut molars at one year and that the time it took for one tooth to break through would seem like an eternity. gaga told me that if an adult had to cut a molar we'd be like rolling on the ground banging our head on the floor. and i was pretty close to doing that just watching (hearing) saida go through it. bless her heart she was just miserable. thankfully, i was on vacation and so gaga was her distraction during the day, i just had to work nights! but gaga had to do overtime with a teething baby.
gaga had to give zerberts.

gaga had to hug her lots

and when that didn't work gaga had to hang up her upside down till the giggles escaped

we all want gaga to come back :(

2008-07-13T20:28:00.005-04:00

too tired, can't write. very happy days. pictures here.

breakfast at wimbledon

2008-07-09T09:05:00.012-04:00

what can i say? ben loves tennis. so watching the williams' final was of course a family event. and what a match! it started with homemade blueberry pancakes.
YU UM.

hilina found them tasty, too.

ben, not so secretly, cannot wait for the day when he can take the girls to the tennis court. he particularly thinks saida will be a tennis star. i wonder what she thinks about that?

serena opened the match with a beating.
come on venus!

and come on she did. all the way to the trophy. hilina was proud.

all that textbook tennis got saida in the teaching mood. so she decided to help our doula point out what birthing a baby is really like.

diagram 1: "the finer points of labor"

all those pancakes, excellent tennis, and rhythmic birth breathing, left me feelin' the spirit.

2008-07-03T20:44:00.003-04:00