Finally, The Fennell Christmas Story

I figure seeing as tomorrow is New Year's Eve, it is now or never in terms of getting a post up about Christmas Day at the Fennells' Massachusetts home. We didn't get too many great photos this year, and hardly any of poor Teia (we should start saving for her future psychotherapy bills now!). But considering that Greg and I didn't get to our own gifts until 10 at night on Christmas Day, it is a wonder we got any photos taken at all! Christmas Day was a frenzy of activity at our house as we guided Kai through as much present opening as we could, fed and napped Teia, cooked turkey, played in the snow and tried to keep the mess to a manageable disaster.

Relaxing it was not, but we definitely enjoyed seeing Kai experience the first Christmas that he understood (well, understand is used as a relative term here). When he woke on Christmas morning, I had to explain that Santa wasn't downstairs but Kai decided to check each room when he came down, just in case, and then checked to see that Santa had eaten his cookies, drank his egg nog and that Rudolph and the other reindeer had eaten their healthy carrot snack. This was also the year that Kai realized that the presents inside the boxes and wrapping paper were more interesting than the wrapping paper itself. Having said that, it still took SIX days for Kai to open all of his gifts. We sort of expected this so we started on the 23rd with a few gifts each day and still didn't finish until Dec. 29th! He seemed to really enjoy the small gifts best: an electric spider man toothbrush that Santa left in his stocking (if I'd known the improvement in dental hygiene that it would bring, I would have bought one a long time ago!), Thomas the Train socks, mittens that look like lions, a tube of m&ms, the various puzzles he received, and of course a bunny. The bunny Santa left for Kai has been welcomed into the bunny family and dubbed "isfmasf bunny." Like last year, I imagine he'll grow into a few of his other gifts as the year goes on. In the meantime, Greg is enjoying them! He really can't wait for next year as Kai's Christmas list and his own will start to look more alike!

Here is a picture of our little man playing with the house that Santa left for him. As you'll see in the video below, he thought the ringing doorbell was pretty cool (somehow I screwed up the placement of the video so it is at the bottom of this blog post).

Here is the little man with some of his Christmas loot!

A Fennell family Christmas tradition is a Christmas morning breakfast of crepes served with nutella (of course), fruit, and whipped cream. You can see the delight and anticipation on Kai's face as he looks at his whipped cream laden breakfast! A Christmas Eve tradition is chocolate fondue and this year we decided we'd let Kai in on the fun. He liked it quite a bit and in fact, he looked at me after dinner tonight with a big smile on his face and said quite clearly "Kai wants coklate fondue."

Santa brought Teia a bouncy seat and as you can see, it was a hit with both of our kiddos!

We had some pretty special moments over the holidays: Kai has decided that he likes Teia enough to start kissing her. We had a visit from Grandma Barbie and Poppa Mike; Greg and I got to spend a rare few hours together out of the house, and thanks to the technology of Skype, we got to visit with family and a special treat was an afternoon Skype with Uncle Meeko who is home from Afghanistan for the Christmas holidays.

In case we don't get a New Years post up, Happy New Year to All!

The Annual Kai Christmas Haircut Before and After Shots

Last year on Dec. 24th Kai got his first ever haircut and we blogged about it. Remember this little guy?

This year we've been kinda busy and overwhelmed so Kai's much needed haircut got put off and off until we were calling our son the Blonde Beatle. See exhibit A below:

And this is the after shot. As you might guess, Greg took Kai for his haircut alone, hence the extra shorn look this year. Kai seemed to like it though b/c when they got home he proceeded to walk into the house with a big smile and did a spin to show off a 365 degree view of his new 'do!'

And here is a pic of Greg and the kids. Just because I liked it :-) Merry Christmas everyone!!!!

Countdown to Christmas...

Dec. 22nd. Only 2 days to go until Christmas Eve, which has always been my favorite part of Christmas...maybe its the anticipation or that magical feeling in the air that night. I have admitted in the past to being an anticipation junkie so it only fits that Christmas Eve is my favorite part of Christmas. It wasn't always that way. As a kid I used to write up a schedule for Christmas Eve a few days ahead of time. It was filled with activities that would help make the day speed by until Santa arrived. Every year it started with sleeping in, because shortening Christmas Eve day was the best way to make it fly by. I wonder if Karen and Mike remember their dictatorial Christmas Eve schedules?

Kai seems to sorta get Christmas this year, at least the Santa Claus, Christmas Tree and Presents part of Christmas. A mesmerizing computerized message from Santa certainly helped http://portablenorthpole.tv/watch/ed637c5931a401ae8885e1c41086e0ee . We're not sure how we're going to explain all the other stuff to him when the time comes seeing as we're not particularly religious folk. We will definitely tell him the original Christmas story when he is a little older but for now, in an attempt to add something to all the commercialism for him, we've told him that Christmas is about Love. It is about celebrating the people that you Love and treating everyone with Love. We hope he gets a little bit of that. He has learned how to say 'Mewwy Isfmasf' and its pretty darn cute.

A few days ago we took him to a place called Santa's Magic Playland. It looked pretty spectacular on the website so we figured we'd suck up the steep admission and take the little man. We dubbed it Santa Land to keep it simple. It turned out to be a bit of a cheesy amusement park with the "indoor" part being the concrete outer hallways of a baseball stadium, but there were a few gems there, like a reindeer barn with a red-nosed Rudolph and moving reindeers and lots and lots of Christmas lights. Kai was pretty mesmerized at first and then a little freaked out by all the commotion. We got a neat shot of him watching the reindeer that really captures the true innocence of a young child enthralled with Christmas...definitely part of the Christmas miracle. Mommy and Daddy played a water gun game and Evil Daddy won and snatched a high quality stuffed penguin from the hands of other people's little babes. We hope Kai appreciated it. We left not sure if it was worth the money (well, actually we know it wasn't) but over the last few days Kai has been talking alot about Santa Land so maybe he got more out of it than we did. And if he did, great, that was definitely the point.

In the spirit of Christmas we've got some snow. We're expecting it to melt by Boxing Day so we're busy trying to make the most of it. Kai has been out sledding and Mommy and Daddy have been out on their skis. Yesterday I visited our favorite local spot, Great Brook Farm, and did an hour of skate skiing. I both dreaded and looked forward to it b/c skate skiing is really hard work and I'm carrying just a little bit of extra weight :-) and alot less fitness than last year. But until my arms threatened to fall off from exertion, it wasn't that bad. I credit either 1) blood doping (pregnancy induced) or, 2) muscle memory - it is the 2nd year of being back into winter sports for us Fennells so it wasn't quite the shock to the system that it was last year. I can't wait to get out there again and to try pulling Kai in his chariot with its newly attached skis.

No post would be complete without a little Teia update. I know we're biased but she just gets cuter by the day. She has discovered her voice and when she's awake, she's "talking." She also likes to stand. She stiffens her little body and pushes on her feet until we raise her to a standing position where she triumphantly surveys her domain from her wobbly perch. She is getting more and more interested in big brother Kai and we're already thinking of booking her a chiropractor appointment to deal with a sore neck from it whipping back and forth as she watches him sprint by (just joking, not offense to chiros but I don't believe in manipulating babies - can baby life really be that physically taxing???). Teia loves to smile and she saves her biggest smiles for mommy, the milk source. Sometimes I wonder what I must look like to her, a giant milk bottle maybe? On second thought, likely not given that she has started to complain quite strongly when offered a bottle these last few days. Does that mean I look to her like a giant boob????? Okay, let's scratch that image, QUICK!

We want to wish all of our family and friends who take time to read our blog a very Merry Christmas and all the best for the New Year (2010?!) We didn't get to snail mail Christmas cards this year but you might receive a New Year's letter if we get a few quiet moments here and there.

The Ankle Update

It hasn't even been two weeks since we all visited the ER b/c I couldn't walk but I already have my MRI results. Pretty amazing health care service eh? Too bad it couldn't be like this for everyone...but that is for another post. I know some friends and family are interested to see what the magical machine revealed about my weird post-partum ankle injury. Well here it is, the laundry list, as the orthopedic surgeon who shared the results with me called it:

1. Tenosynovitis involving the flexor hallucis longus ... bla, bla, bla

2. Tenosynovitis and Tendonitis to the peroneus longus and brevis tendons...bla, bla, bla

3. Nondisplaced anterior distal fibular avulsion fracture...bla, bla, bla

4. Disrupted anterior talofibular ligament...bla, bla, bla

5. Talar chondromalacia

6. Possible ganglion cyst.

And that folks, is the abbreviated list. What does that mean in plain English? Obviously it is not good news. I was quite disappointed as I had already planned my post doctor's office visit run. I should have known it wasn't going to be good news as my ankle has been persistently sore for the past little while. When I saw my scan what jumped out at me and at the doc was some really bright white signal within my ankle, up the side of my lower leg and within my foot. That accounts for #1, which is basically a whole lotta fluid around my tendons in this area. #2 is more fluid and tendonitis. #3 means that my ankle has grown a bit of extra bone over the years, likely due to all of my ankle injuries and this bone is periodically breaking off...youch! #4 means that the lateral ligaments (outside of the ankle) that I have strained, pulled and torn on more than a few occasions kinda aren't there anymore. I guess these guys can only take so much abuse before they pack it in and just kinda go away....kinda creepy eh? No wonder I have a loose ankle. There isn't much there anymore holding it together on the outside. #4 is the arthritic stuff he alluded to before. Basically the cartilage b/tw the bottom of my fibula and my ankle is wearing away which likely accounts for the grinding feeling I often get in my ankle. This is the reason he is most concerned about me running as all that will do is accelerate the degeneration in this area. He didn't spend much time on #5 at all but it is pretty self-explanataory...more fluid.

So I am off to see a foot and ankle specialist in January and the orthopedic guy I saw this week warned me to expect surgery in my future. I am hoping for the best right now, that something can be done to make my ankle feel and work better with minimal disruption to our life. We'll see how that all turns out. In the meantime my sweet husband has ordered me an ankle brace type thing that we hope will enable me to run once in awhile b/c let's face it, what better exercise is there for a mom of two kiddos. It requires only running shoes (and hat and mitts in this weather), and about 40 minutes. No driving, no gym memberships, no gear, no additional time. What could be better? I keep telling myself that if I didn't have that bad night where we had to go to the hospital, I'd never know about all this and I'd still be running. But I have resigned myself to spending more time on the rollers in the basement. Kai doesn't mind as he finds the rollers absolutely fascinating. We're hoping for some serious snow fall this winter too so I can spend lots of time on my cross country skis. My skate skis are in the shop at this moment being waxed up and the fish scales are ready to break trail tomorrow after we get the forecasted dump tonight. I have also joined up for some indoor group riding at a local bike shop on Saturday mornings starting right after New Year. I am not sure how I'll survive 2 hours on rollers so we are on a hunt to find our rusty old trainer. Greg had to give me a little kick in the okole to get this going as I was worried about how it would work with nursing and of course, I am nervous about being the fat old lady amongst a room full of racer kids. Well, at least I know they won't drop me.

One-Armed Typist

Sorry its been so long for me to post. Besides being a Super-mom to the kiddo;s and super-wife to this harried grad student, Louise has also been holding down the posting-fort. I've had a few post ideas, but never sat down to type them oot. I'll still need to give a father's perspective on breastfeeding someday, but that will be a later post.

For now, I'm perfecting the art of typing one-handed in the dark while my left arm slowly goes numb and left bicep shortens to half the length of my right one from holding our wee chickadee (so hope you forgive the typo's!). As the previous pictures attest, she's already quite the charmer! I already see myself as the softee dad with this one - sorry, Louise, you're going to have to lay down the law with Little Teia Boo!

Anothe plus of school break is the ability to get to sleep before 11, sometimes before 10! And actually be able to help L out at night (can't do much about the b'feeding, tho - even MIT can't solve that issue right now!)

Today, while Kai was at daycare, we went to Teia's 2 mos appt (10# 12oz!) adn went out to lunch afterwards. Amazing how easy and quiet it was with just one, immobile, sleeping baby!! Why didn;t we realize this when Kai was this age??? The only difficulty was that Louise ended facing a particularly noisy eater at another table at Bruegger's Bagels (not me!) so we had to leave before she got ill. Oh, and her Chai came out of a machine. Liquid cotton candy wouldn;t have been as sweet. Still, it was lovely to just spend time together, jist the two of us (we still had Teia, but when babies are sleeping in their car seat, you can just pretend the whole unit is a big handbag. A handbag that can poop, spitup or cry at a moment's notice, but a handbag nonetheless)

Time to put the little one in the basinette. After this post, now both my arms are tired!

photo overload

this will be a one handed post - opihi is attached to my other arm. i wanted to share some cute photos i know the gps will love. last night, kai and his good buddy charlie had a cookie decorating party. it wa a ton of fun but i can sum up the event in one word: MESS.

this is what happens to little boys and dads when they eat too much sugar!

and here is our lovely little lady! we almost got a photo of kai and teia together. almost. i really do think it'll happen by new year's eve though. kai is warming up to the idea more and more every day. last night i asked him if he'd like to hold teia for a photo and to my pleasant surprise he said yes! but by "hold teia" kai meant hold her by the bicep and let her little 8 weeks old floppy body do what it does best, flop! so that ended that photo session quite quickly. we'll keep working on it.

The Teia Update

Poor Teia is definitely suffering from second child syndrome. Not only are there far fewer photos of her than of Kai at this age, we haven't blogged much about her at all b/c we just don't have the time. So I thought I'd take a few moments so her grandparents can see how she is growing and read what she is up to. I do plan on starting a TotSpot page for her but it might have to wait until the new year, given all the busyness of the holiday season.

This one is a little blurry but too cute to resist.

Check out the double chins!!!

Our little Teia is nothing short of a wonderful baby. Probably our biggest challenge with her is that she still much prefers to nap on warm, breathing bodies than in her chair or bed, so we spend alot of time with our opihi attached to us and our backs are certainly feeling the pain! She has decided that she'd like to challenge Kai for the title of Spittiest Baby of All Time. We're a little bummed about this but if this is the worst we have to deal with for now, we're okay with that. We are well supplied with burp cloths and bibs and we've got a good washing machine.

Teia is growing like a weed. The pics below were taken last weekend when she turned 7 weeks. She has her 2 month check up next week and we'll get her official measurements but my rough estimate based on our home scale is that she weighs about 11 lbs now. Kai was about 4 months old before he weighed this much! So to us, Teia seems like a big baby! She has already outgrown her newborn clothes and I have a feeling I'm going to have to do a lot of shopping to keep up with her clothing needs. We are thrilled that she is growing so well and hope that soon she'll start sleeping longer stretches. She wakes up about every 3 to 4 hours most nights. She has had a cold and the snuffles have been waking her up so we're hoping when the congestion completely clears she'll sleep better. Although it is New England in the winter so that may not happen until spring :-(

Teia is full of smiles and lets out little exclamations now and then. I always laugh in the middle of the night when she decides it is time for a little baby squeal. She certainly isn't loud enough yet to wake anyone but I'm sure she thinks she is. Since she started smiling we've discovered she has a little dimple on her right cheek that to us smitten parents, is beyond cute.

She has lost alot of her newborn hair and now has the look of male pattern baldness. Her new hair is growing in ever so slowly as a soft peach fuzz on top of her head. Her eyes are blue but I am betting that she may have inherited her Dad's eye color. In some lights she looks like she might go hazel. We'll have to wait and see! She definitely has her own look and isn't a dead ringer for Kai but when I look down at her sleeping face, it transports me back 2.5 years b/c she is so like him. I'll have to post some comparison pics.

In other news, Greg finishes school for the xmas break tomorrow. Words cannot express how much needed this break is for us. It has been a long fall semester. Hopefully we'll get some more pictures taken and posted and maybe you'll even see a post from the mystery man himself. The fun starts on Sunday!

No more running, ever?!?

Yes, that is what I've been told. And yes, compliance may be an issue. Here is the story: back in early October while I waddled around with Teia on board my relaxin-infused body (that is the loosen you up hormone you get when you're preggers), I twisted my ankle one day, my right ankle, better known as my 'bum ankle' b/c of the numerous strains and sprains it has suffered over the years - gymnastics, car accident, soccer etc, etc. Let's just say my right ankle has taken more than one for the team. A few days later the swelling subsided and it felt fine. Ever since it has reminded me a few times a week that it was still sore. I would yelp in pain and then a few minutes later, I'd be fine. I haven't paid too much attention to it except to look down at it every now and then and say "oh, you are still sore!?" I've kinda had a few other things on my mind.

Well, yesterday said ankle decided it was sick and tired of being ignored in favor of a cute little newborn baby and a very loud 2 year old. I was sitting on the floor chatting with Teia when all of a sudden I couldn't get up. My ankle felt like it was locked in a vice of pain. I could not move it or bear weight on it. Given that it had bothered me several times already, I sat and waited for the pain to subside. It did not. The pain radiated up my achilles tendon and all I could of think of was...did I tear my achilles? It was that bad. Then I panicked. Teia needed to be taken care of; Kai needed to be picked up at daycare in, like, 5 minutes. What was I to do? I called Greg at school with our secret code ring that means "YOU MUST PICK UP THIS PHONE NOW!" and he responded promptly. He scooted home and our kind daycare family brought Kai home. I think he thought it was really cool to ride in a pick up truck.

Then we went on a full Fennell family adventure to the ER. And what an adventure it was. Kai rec'd virtual accolades yesterday for his stellar behavior at daycare but he left it all there and turned into monster Kai at the ER. What do you mean I can't have another cereal bar? I want one NOW!!!!!!! Whose child is this????? Poor Greg was left to deal while I was confined to a wheelchair (hospital policy they said). The ol' doc was a bit overwhelmed I think to walk into our exam room to find me nursing Teia, Kai re-arranging the furniture and Greg looking exhausted. I was informed by him that he had no idea what was wrong with my ankle and that orthopedics was "impressed." The nurse informed me that I was "that case," you know, the bizarre one that they go home and tell their families about....we had this lady with this weird ankle pain tonight...oh, and her son was really loud. Yes, we were the bizarre case and the family with that child. Oh well, it happens. So, given that orthopedics was "impressed" with my injury, they agreed to see me the very next day.

So today I met with said orthopod, a very nice man. He looked closely at my x-rays that had been pronounced 'unremarkable' by the ER doc. He disagreed. He used words like "degenerative" and "arthritic." Yikes! Then he said he would NEVER run on an ankle like that...never. And most definitely not with any additional body weight. Do I have a little of that? Check. He then ordered me not to run, most especially while we are investigating my tricky little ankle. So I'll be getting an MRI on Thursday. My Canadian friends and family can get off the floor now, yes, Thursday. Crazy isn't it? An MRI for a sore ankle in two days! I also got free crutches out of the deal! (Well courtesy of USFHP - my insurance company). Kai is pleased. He tried to take one to bed last night but even he had to acquiesce that it was a little too big for his crib. Ladies, you'll enjoy this one...the doctor suggested I use only one crutch and carry the baby with my other arm. Yes, that'll work...I don't think he ever took care of a baby for long, especially not in a 3 story house.

Well the bizarro ankle felt fine by the morning. The swelling was down and it felt 80% back to normal. Each time I got up to feed Teia, I could tell it was resolving, as it has each time before only it took alot longer and hurt alot more this time. So the current best guess is that in addition to the degenerative and arthritic changes visualized on x-ray, there may be a "loose body" floating around in there that keeps catching and causing the pain and immobilization. The solution - arthroscopic surgery. I guess the MRI will tell. A 45 minute MRI I'm told. I guess the ankle is a complex little creature.

After weeks of bi-weekly trips to the doc to monitor my pregnancy, frequent trips in November to monitor Teia's weight gain, and our multiple H1N1 vaccinations, I am more than a little tired of the doctor's office. But I am reminding myself to be thankful that it is nothing serious. I guess I am just wearing out. I kinda always worried this would happen, that I'd be 80 years old with a powerful set of lungs and tick, ticking heart but with a rickety body that could hardly move. I guess I just didn't think I'd be dealing with it at 39....

Getting Festive!

Yesterday Kai and Daddy went out and picked out a Christmas tree which meant that it was officially time to get decorating! We thought we'd share some pictures of our festive abode. We're not finished yet but we did get the tree up and decorated and put up a few lights here and there.

Kai was quite enamored with the Christmas tree and particularly, the lights. He was more of a director when it came to the ornaments, pointing out where he would like a particular ornament to hang. He also enjoyed rolling them down a piece of furniture we used to call 'the chaise' but it has been known more often lately as 'ramp,' 'trampoline,' crash mat' or 'slide.'

To add to our festive spirit, no sooner had we hung this guy on the door...

That we were treated to this!!!! The first real snow of the season. Well, it actually snowed during Teia's birth but this time it really stuck!

Early this morning this is how our backyard looks! I was so inspired I headed out for a run after Teia's 6 am feed. It was awesome except I underestimated a little bit the degree of winter weather that had actually visited upon us and didn't account for a nasty part of east coast winter....black ice! But I managed to complete my run without breaking any bones! I made it safely back inside for a hot cup of tea

:-) Seasons Greetings everyone!