Fashionable lady!

Kiki's turning two tomorrow!

Kiki's still too young to understand what it means that it's her birthday, so we'll probably just do something low-key. But we've been meeting up with family & getting presents in the mail all week.

Here's Kiki opening a present from "Halmi", her Korean grandmother. Two beautiful party dresses.



And our day celebrating with cousins!






Kiki's trying on one of many adorable outfits that "Uncle Lizzie", her beloved former babysitter, sent from Vancouver.


We have one more present to go, from Grandma. That one's going to be opened tomorrow.

Dec 2009 - Jan 2010: Rowan (3-4 months) and Kiki (21-22 months)

So, so sad. Liz says goodbye and heads for Canada. Kiki doesn't understand, but she misses "Uncle Lizzie".



Scott, super-dad a la Park Slope. Part-exercise, part-practicality due to the snow, this is how we get around in Prospect Park.

We get to the playground and find 18 inches of snow blanketing everything!

So Daddy makes Kiki a snowman with personality, with parts from discarded christmas trees and random gloves found lying around.

Rowan caught red-handed with "babydoll".

MJ initiates Rowan into the wonderful world of African drumming.

Shane's giving Kiki some pointers on the drums. Kiki is a natural as a drummer, with her sense of rhythm and love of noise. God help me.

Dec 26th snowstorm: who needs a backyard when you can play in the middle of the street? They were perfectly protected from traffic by the two snowplows "stuck" down the street, blocking off the street to cars.

Our little Honda up to its neck in snow. And there it would sit for 2 weeks.

Christmas day: Dad shows Kiki how to apply lotion. Now, Kiki will smear anything lotion-like (yogurt, chapstick, lotion, soap) on her face and says "Kiki pretty."

Halmoni and Halbi gave Kiki a fun Kai-Lan treehouse.

Kiki and Rowan showing off their presents from Liz's mom:

Rowan happily hanging out in his new down jacket.

Early December: I'd been trying to get some good pictures of Kiki & Rowan together. It's a bit like herding cats, but it helps to put Rowan in a basket for support.


From very early on (~2-3 months or so), Rowan has been amazingly responsive to smiles. I think it took Kiki much longer to smile and laugh, but Rowan seems to really like to interact with others.

Random arms-length picture of the three of us spending an afternoon together.

This is Kiki's "Biiiiiig Smiiiiiile."

Awww, my sweet Row-Row.

Rowan Clause.

Maybe not so jolly...

Kiki seems to have a full-blown ear fetish. And Rowan strangely has a full-blown ear-being-touched aversion.

The "tunky monkey"

It's 3am and I hear babies babbling

It's 3 am. I can't sleep, and I'm listening to Kiki talking to herself in her sleep. And it occurs to me that I should document some of her alien language. It's fascinating how her brain works. Her brain knows the words...sort of...but her words are still mushy and malleable, like she's tailoring them as she goes.

"THIS THING"
"This thing!" has become her new empowerment phrase, thankfully replacing the "MINE!!!", which had been HER word since she could first talk. (Mine actually meant "more"--we know this because she'd do the sign language gesture for "more" at the same time--but morphed into a definite "MINE!!!" over time. It was her word for: get me this, pick me up, take me there, what's this curious thing?

"DASHA"
For the longest time, I didn't understand what she meant by this. She kept pointing to something and said "Dasha?". Eventually, I realized it meant "What's this thing?" Tonight, after 6 months of hearing her say this word, at 3am on January something-or-other, as I hear her mumbling in her sleep, I finally what it really means. It's "That's a..." In other words, she's pointing to something and saying "that's a......_________". She's been playing a fill in the blank game with us.

"SHUB-BOPPLE"
Scott is convinced Kiki is remembering a past life as a Persian princess or something, because he thinks this is a Persian (or Arabic?) word. Plus, it just sprang out of nowhere from her lips with such conviction and certainty that it was hard to believe it wasn't really a word. In her world, shubbopple means something like "now would you would at that, isn't that just amazing?".

I'm torn between eagerly anticipating her language development, so I can really start talking to her about what's in her head. At the same time, this period of time when language is a mysterious puzzle from outer space is so much fun. And I have to say, I get a secret thrill from being the person that can decipher her squishy words the best.

Four Months of Rowan

Tomorrow, Rowan will be 4 months old. So in honor of this occasion, here's his life so far:

His delivery was complicated by an umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, which caused his heart rate to drop periodically during labor. But after hours of oxygen, shifting and monitoring, he popped out nicely at 1:30pm (ish) August 12th, 2010.

My beautiful baby boy, Rowan "Ro-ro" Charles Powell.

Kiki came in with Aunt Mary (babysitter extraordinaire on labor day!) and greeted her new brother with instant kisses, many many kisses. (The suffocating bearhugs, she'd save for later.)
He was a big baby (8.2 oz) but still sooo small.
Auntie MJ, his official photographer came by for a visit.
Along with Auntie Songhee, his champion against second-child neglect syndrome.
For a small baby, he has freakishly long toes. Not sure who he got them from. ???
A few days later, after we all went home, Kiki started initiating Rowan to her management style. The submit-to-my-will-and-we'll-get-along-just-fine style.
But as ever, she was generous with the kisses.
Grandma flew all the way from Montana to see Rowan and Kiki. She and Kiki's daddy took her to the new Pier 6 playground to give mom a chance to rest with Ro-ro. Kiki wore the new bathing suit Grandma brought and jumped right into the fray.



By the end of August, Kiki had to say bye-bye to her beloved babysitter, Chanika. She even learned how to say her name just for the occasion. (And she hasn't forgotten it since.)
Fun with helpless newborns...

One month old, and we were sometimes able to get a beauty shot. But mostly, he kind of looked...
sort of funny...or scared...
or confused...


Finally, around two months old, and he's starting to find his cuteness.




Come Halloween, while Kiki conquered Park Slope as a magical flying unicorn...




Ro-ro was content to sit snug in his blanketed stroller and watch the show.


STAY TUNED FOR MONTH FOUR...