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Not even 48 hours after Debra gave birth to Hannah Lenore, the two of them were cleared to come home.

Colin was excited to have his mother home, but I think his greeting his new sister with a shark in his hand was his way of letting Hannah know who was boss. Hannah was happy to be home to sleep not in a plastic tub, but in her own (well, borrowed—thanks Wendy & Joe!) co-sleeper. Grandma was a hero since she had gifts for everyone when mommy and Hannah got home from the hospital. Hannah spends a lot of time “on” her mother, whether nursing (which is going pretty well, thankfully) or sleeping (or spitting up).

Right before I left Colin in the capable hands of his nanny and our friends Sandra and Charles on Tuesday, January 22nd, this was the message Colin recorded for his mother to keep her motivated during the next—as it turned out—28 hours.

Colin was, of course, making mommy feel good while she went into labor to deliver Hannah Lenore. I’m sorting the pictures and will post a couple of sets tomorrow. Need to sleep now. But I love this video!

I really can’t stop laughing… Check out the comments in this post. Turns out mom’s a genius: in the drawer under Colin’s crib—there is our missing bouncy chair!

Thanks mom.

We had originally intended to go to the Train Show at the New York Botanical Gardens, but it turns out Thomas the Tank Engine can cause quite a stir in these here parts and we were treated to a SOLD OUT sign upon arrival. Bummer!

We were visiting the show with the Barr family and they did some quick thinking and came up with CMOM: The Children’s Museum of Manhattan as a quick alternative. It was cool! Colin had a great time even after getting driven all over creation (from Hoboken over the George Washington Bridge through Manhattan to the Bronx and then back to Manhattan’s Upper West Side)…

CMOM has what looks to be a bunch of great stuff for Colin, but we didn’t have that long so we ended up playing on just one of the 5 or so floors. Colin was able to first pretend to be a fireman (!) both by getting inside a firetruck, but also by dressing the part. He had a great deal of fun crawling back and forth through a long tunnel that they had underneath one of the elaborate pieces of play equipment (even threatening to trample much smaller children in his haste—you can see something in that poor little girls’ expression).

The “dragon” (or “dinosaur” depending on what Colin decides to call it each time we talk about it) Colin is climbing off of in this picture was the center of much of time in the museum. It was crowded by scads of little ones each picking up blocks off the floor to “feed” the dragon. When it wasn’t so noisy you couldn’t hear anything, the dragon actually told you what letter was on the block and what food started with that letter, but I think that was a subtlety lost on most of the kids (and parents since most of them seemed to drop their kid(s) in the epicenter and gravitate to the benches around the outside).

Anyway, this whole thing answered a question I had about how Colin would fend for himself if he wasn’t just hanging out with Ceci whom he has known 90% of his life. Another child who was much older, though not much bigger, than Colin decided Colin had the cooler block and grabbed onto it. Colin stayed very calm and simply stared the boy down for a minute and then in a dramatic gesture yanked it back into his sole possession. Is it weird I was awfully proud of him?

The other thing to note? That cool red fleece Colin wore? Compliments of his Aunt Rosie! (See how nice I was to note call you his GREAT Aunt Rosie?) (Oh, wait…) Anyway, thanks Rose Anne!

“I just wanted to play tag…”

Since I am getting so used to thinking in terms of weeks, I just thought it would be fun to re-visit a moment that occurred around 330-ish weeks ago (I’m sure my father can correct the actual number of weeks)…

Everything below is from an email I evidently had sent to some of our colleagues at the office. Deb recently re-forwarded it to me as she was cleaning out old emails and I got a good laugh. And a bunch of warm-fuzzies. Can I say that on ellsworthlink? Or does that make it too family-friendly?!?!

Okay, so I’ve obviously been thinking about this for a long time, but had finally decided that “it was time.” I had gone out and purchased an engagement ring for Deb in the middle of June and settled on the occasion of her twin nephews’ second birthday party this past weekend (June 30th, actually) as the right time–since her family would be there and I knew that would be special to her.

In preparation for the proposal, I wanted to talk to both her mother and her father to ask permission. I spoke with her mother but had to leave a message to CALL MY CELL PHONE NOT THE HOME PHONE for her father. Turns out he didn’t get the whole message and the first thing he did was call Deb and ask if she knew “why Matt would have been calling me?” (AHHHHHHHHHHH!) I found out through her sister that Deb knew I had asked permission and was worried that the surprise would be ruined so I began making up this story about a fabulous bed-and-breakfast getaway I was planning for the two us for the weekend *after* the weekend I was really going to do it. I even went so far as to go ring shopping with her even though I had already ordered the ring… Apparently I was overdoing it a bit because she mentioned to a mutual friend that I had been talking it up so much she was beginning to wonder if it was just a smokescreen and that I was probably going to do it at a different time! Knowing when I was planning on doing it, I assumed she was thinking that weekend and was resigning myself to having to rely on her word that she was surprised. It turns out she was thinking I was going to do it *later* not sooner. In fact, she later said she didn’t ever in a million years think I would do it this past weekend since she didn’t think I had it together (i.e. the ring) yet.

The birthday party was at a park and everyone was asked to bring a dish to pass so I thought we should bring Deb’s favorite dessert–angel food cake, strawberries and Cool Whip. I had purchased a die-cut strawberry-shaped card and placed it inside the container of Cool Whip so she would see it as we were preparing the dessert at the picnic. So after the twins blow out their candles we went to set out our dessert.

It was actually funny because when she did open the Cool Whip she initially thought the card was a COUPON! After some slight nudging from the crowd she looked at it and started shaking a bit when she realized what she thought might be happening. Inside the card I had drawn a picture of a ring with a question mark… When she turned around I was down on my knees with the little velvet box opened ready to say some things and propose. She was so surprised, however, that she involuntarily shouted out “NO WAY… (stammer stammer stammer)… HERE?” and was taking steps back. Imagine me, already on my knees shuffling after her. Well, she finally did come back to me and buried her head in my shoulder as I tried to tell her all the things I had wanted to say to her at that moment. She wasn’t hearing me at all through her shaking and crying and laughing (and mine), so I had to tell her what I had said later; I remember thinking the whole time I was trying to say them that “I spent a long time thinking of exactly the right words, you have to listen!!!” She did hear me ask her to marry me and she did say yes at the right time so something was getting through! Her brother-in-law later teased us that he wasn’t sure we were going to get the ring on the right finger because we were both shaking and laughing and hugging and carrying on.

Deb’s sister had asked one of her friends to videotape the twins’ blowing out their candles and “just don’t bother turning it off and real casually point it at my sister.” So, apparently a videotape exists of the exchange but we haven’t seen it yet; can’t wait!

It really was wonderful. After all the fun we both had playing cloak and dagger, her exclamations and hard-to-ad-lib trembling were awfully convincing that she really was surprised! A lot of her family was there: mom, sister, grandparents, aunts/uncles. They (and we!) were very happy to be able to share in the moment.

I’m not certain it’s the Beatles, but it does serve as a quick teaser to the photos we’ll be posting soon about our trip to Iowa.

Pitiful. I haven’t even posted the pictures from our apple picking trip to Pennings Orchard a couple of weekends ago and the apples are already gone. Yes, I like apples. And not just of the computer variety.

We had a great time. Colin was much more helpful this year than last year, even picking a couple of apples himself and hauling the apples he picked in his new (John Deere!) tractor.

There was lots of other stuff to do there, too. We were especially intrigued by the wooden train we had seen on the website since—as you know—Colin is very into trains. And he loved it. I like this picture a lot since he looks a little like the calm in the middle of a big storm of people. We somewhat randomly decided to do the pony-ride thing. And I don’t know that it was Colin’s favorite part of the trip, but he was a good sport.

We did leave with a very happy Colin, though!