my water boy

jakey has loved the water since birth. as soon as his cord fell off and he could take a bath he has been showering with me and loving every second. he has had a couple of baths in the sink and sits there like a king in a hot tub. its no surprise that he loved being in the pool too!

being in the pool really wears a body out, you know?

we're coming home!

jeremy, jakey and i are moving to wichita! really really soon!

we gave our notice a couple of weeks ago and i am finished working this friday. saturday my mom, jakey and i are leaving groton and heading to wichita via nashville. jeremy and max are driving the uhaul and going a different route. by july 4th we will all be home, safe and sound.

the bad part is that jeremy has to fly back to connecticut and work for the rest of july.

the great news is that i already have a part time, work from home job. very happy about that. i miss my baby when i am working.

it was all kinda sudden, but we are happy that jakey will get to grow up with his cousins and family. and we are happy that we get to be near all of our family too.

soooo. how excited are you? cant wait to reconnect with all of my wichita/kansas friends. if anyone has a cute house for rent next door, let me know! :)

uncle max!

both boys in their plaid shorts!

uncle max has been staying with us since june 1 and watching the baby while i am working. so far so good - he even managed to change a diaper (and got the full fire hose effect, poor guy). he is quickly becoming a jiggling expert and jakey doesnt give him too hard of a time.

8 Weeks? You've GOT to be Kidding!

 i cant believe it has been eight weeks already since we had jakey. everyone who is a parent knows how fast the time flies. it is getting hard to remember the almost six years of life jeremy and i had together before this kid! he started smiling at people on his seven week birthday: me first, then daddy, then uncle max. he still hasnt smiled at rumpy or cricket. :)

also on his seven week birthday he slept 6 hours straight at night! he has done that one other time since, and i love it. otherwise he is pretty good about sleeping four or so hours, waking up, eating, and going straight back to sleep for a few more hours. i am getting over the zombie stage of motherhood, and very happy about that.

he got his first set of shots today and didnt cry too much. of course he only got two shots instead of all the usuals because we declined several of the vaccines. the doctor said that even the kids who get the rotovirus vaccine get rotovirus - what's the point then? he has been extra fussy this afternoon but sleeping most of the time thankfully.

he gained about two pounds in the last month and grew and inch and a half - 23.5 inches and 12 lbs, 11 oz. He is in the 75th percentile for height and weight. He talks and looks and does everything that a two month old is supposed to be doing!

parental visit: second set

shortly after my mom left, jeff and barb arrived! they came bearing k-state gifts, which are ALWAYS welcome in our little connecticut house! :) jakey loves wearing his k-state socks all the time. darci also sent some adorable little onsies with john deere stuff embroidered on them. LOVE!

we spent a lot of time with them exploring the area and trying some new restaurants (and some old standards).

it was great to spend time with them. we got to eat at mystic pizza, and barb amazed me by being able to tell me what year she went and saw the movie, who she went with and the plot.  That movie came out in 1988! i cant even remember what i wore yesterday until i do the laundry... (mommy brain at its finest).

the parental visit

 my parents arrived very very early in the morning on may 9 - our first baby visitors! we spent a lot of time just hanging out with them holding the baby, but we also made it out to eat on the water a few times. dog watch in stonington is at a marina and the sun was setting as we ate - beautiful!

 my mom bought jakey a mini swing. it took him a few days to get used to it but now he loves it. he also loves his sophie the giraffe. (seriously this toy is amazing - an international sensation!)

on saturday mark and lanelle brought carly and ava to come a see the baby. the girls were more interested in the cats than the baby but it was a wonderful time to catch up and hang out. 

 my mom spent lots of time holding the baby, smelling the baby, rocking the baby and changing the baby.  cricket got in on some of the action too.

my first mother's day

Jeremy brought me starbucks in bed. that started the day out right! then we got all dressed up and he took jacob and me out to eat at a favorite seafood place by the water: s&p oyster. we had to wait over an hour during which i had to change his little diaper twice, but he slept other than that in his car seat. he also slept all through the meal. basically he was a perfect angel. everyone who passed by commented on how cute he was and wished me happy first mothers day.

the food was great and i got to spend time with my two favorite boys. i couldnt have asked for a more perfect first mothers day!

wanna see what we made?

Jakey is one week old today.

here's a short clip of him in the hospital at one day old:

daddy took that video while mommy was sleeping.

here is jakey hanging with me today (1 week old!) while daddy went back to work. you can hear his little snorts (the reason he is often called mr. snorty pants), his baby sneezes, and see a smile. i know it isnt a "real" smile yet, but man oh man is it still cute!!!

{i have been trying unsuccessully to upload this video since tuesday. i am going to try it in the next post. }

book review: endgame

Endgame: Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall- from America's Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness

by Frank Brady

from the back: Endgame is acclaimed biographer Frank Brady's decades-in-the-making tracing of the meteoric ascent- and confounding descent - of enigmatic genius Bobby Fischer. Only Brady, who met Fischer when the prodigy was ten years old and shared with him some of his most dramatic triumphs, could have written this book. Drawing from Fischer family archives, recently released FBI files, and Bobby's own e-mails, this account is unique in that it limns Fischers entire life - an odessey that took the Brooklyn-raised chess champion from an impoverished childhood to the covers of Time, Life, and Newsweek to recognition as "the most famous man in the world" to notorious recluse.

Posessing a 181 IQ and remarkable powers of concentration, Bobby was only thirteen when he became the youngest chess master in US history. But his strange behavior nearly halted his Cold War championship match with Soviet star Boris Spassky, he turned down millions of dollars in sponsorship offers, and by 1992 he was an international fugitive, wanted by American law enfocrcement for having violated US sanctions.

Woven into Fischer's late-life odysset are bizarre flirtations with apocalyptic religions, Nazis, and mafiosi, and bouts of paranoia that had him traveling with gun-toting bodyguards and railing against perceived conspiracies.

Who was Bobby Fischer, and what does his life say about the flowering of genius and the distorting effects of fame? In Endgame, Frank Brady gives us the fascinating answer.

my review:

this biography was incredibly interesting to me. i am too young to know anything about bobby fischer from when the main events of the book were taking place, but reading them in this book made them real to me. the author really got inside information and explained the world of competitive chess in a way that made sense to even someone who doesnt know how to play chess (which i do, thanks to my dad and his interest in bobby fischer back in the day) without seeming condescending. if this subject appeals to you in the least i think you will enjoy this book.

jakey is here!

 heres me at 8 am yesterday...

and here's me last night.  pretty good day.

jacob russell was born at 3:53 pm, 8 lbs, 3 oz, 20.5 inches long. he is basically perfect and i am so in love!

last belly pictures EVER

 40 weeks - wed april 13

then... a week later:

41 weeks, April 20.

And here we are, April 25, and still pregnant. Tomorrow we are scheduled for an induction if baby k doesnt make his appearance today. so everyone pray for him to come out today!!!!

i am SO tired of being pregnant. yesterday after church we went out to eat (i hadnt bought anything to prepare for easter dinner because i was fully convinced that we would be in the hospital... no such luck) and then for a long walk out at bluff point. it is a beautiful walk. yesterday we took a different trail than usual and stumbled across the homestead of the governor of the massachussetts bay colony. the house was built in 1645 and the foundation still stands. we walked back along the water. it was a beautiful day, but the walk wasnt nearly as effective in producing a baby as i had hoped.

babysitting on the couch

the cats know something weird is going on. both of them love to sit on the belly whenever possible. we call it babysitting. baby k kicks and punches them, but they don't seem to mind. odd little duckies arent they?

birthday celebration in NH

 the weekend after our birthdays we drove up to new hampshire. we stopped in manchester first and hung out with ryan and stephanie, after making a very productive stop at baby gap in the manchester mall. that is the only one i have seen that has maternity clothes too and they were having some amazing sales. for $30 i got two dresses and a sweater. yay! and baby k got his first pair of jeans and a really sweet button down shirt.

anyways, we drove out to a cute little farm and went on a sleigh ride. they took us all around and we saw animals both wild and caged, little outbuilding still decorated for the holidays, and at the end they dropped us off at a fire pit were we could roast weenies and make smores. perfect winter activity. we went out to eat after at the brazilian place where they keep bringing more meat. baby k loooves that place!

after dinner we drove down to nashua to spend the night with mark and lanelle and the girls. we stayed up too late talking, but when we woke up in the morning for church we were practically snowed in! we all six spent the day in our pjs, eating waffles and hanging out. i failed to take any pictures but it was wonderful. i got all kinds of baby snuggles in too. the snow finally stopped and we headed home.

funny how one extra day off can make a weekend into a vacation!

baby k's room

 we finally finished painting, hanging pictures, assembling furniture, and putting up shelves. the wardrobe in the corner is perfect size for baby clothes, especially since there are NO closets at all in our apartment and he needs a place for his stuff.

 we are ready for the baby and for visitors (in due time of course). and i left room above the bed for a special gift from auntie anna. :D

rump wonders why his ugly mug didnt make it into any of the family photo frames around the clock.

what's been going on?

we've been insanely busy recently. we took a trip to new hampshire to celebrate our birthdays and see some good friends (more on that later) and have been driving the 45 or so miles back and forth to guilford last week and this week to help out at another community. this accounts for a large part of the reasons i havent been blogging. i have to use my berry as a modem and service here is spotty as we are out in the middle of nowhere (kinda).

the community here is beautiful and we've enjoyed our time here. we will back again next week too. there is a lot of wildlife on the grounds (they own several acres including a huge pond for fishing) so the cats have really enjoyed sitting in the windows and watching the birds and squirrels. rumpy tried to jump through the window to get at a particularly saucy squirrel. thankfully he just scared himself and didnt break the glass. the cats travel well (thankfully) but are starting to get even more annoyed by the sight o the carrier and their leashes than they used to.

we've been to three of our four birthing classes and have one more on monday. we will finally get to tour the maternity ward of the hospital where this little guy will get himself born! only four weeks and six days (or so, but who's counting?) to go! very weird to think that in a little over a month we will be parents. we are getting close to ready for him as far as having all the stuff we want or need (for the first few weeks anyway) but i dont think there is any way to become completely mentally ready, no matter how many classes we go to or books we read. welcome to parenthood, right?

when we are back in groton this weekend i plan to post some pictures and another post or two about what we've been up to lately. see you all then!