Cake-wasted at beach day

Our lab had a beach day to send off one of our postdocs (John) who just got a professor job - I kept Omar home from daycare to go with me. He was hilarious - he sang happy birthday when they brought out the cake, but paused when it got to the name...someone spontaneously filled in the silence with "Happy birthday John's new la-ab"...and Omar happily finished the song. Here is a pic of him diving into the cake. Rocking the swim diaper and Dad's sunglasses.

White Sands

Wait - I was wrong - I do have a few good ones from the White Sands!

Idyllic family time

Our trip home to New Mexico was so wonderful, but I did not take any good pictures! Fortunately, Tina always documents things in a way that capture the feeling of the moment - so I share these with you. Thank goodness for Tina!
Omar really blossomed during and after the trip - being with all the cousins and family gives him a sense of his place in the world. He has a lot of confidence after these trips - hopefully sometime soon we will live closer before all these kids grow up...

 

Making the most of the Boston summer!

Here in Boston, it snows nine months of the year, and hails the other three. Any food that grows here is tough and tasteless. The people that grow here are even more so. And there are no dragons. (inside mom joke. ha.)

But really, because the winter is so long and cold, the summers feel very euphoric! Every moment we want to be out soaking up the sun and enjoying the carefree life. These are some pics and some short clips from the past two weekends - a fun-packed visit from Lilia and Glenn and an outing to the Children's Museum with Omar's best friends from 'school'. ;)

Can't wait to be back in New Mexico for the 4th of July!

(First movie in the movie theater - Monsters University with Lilia!)

 

Inspiring Art

Tina and LJ have me inspired to start posting again! This has been a *challenging* year. The biggest thing going on in our lives was Art going through treatment for thyroid cancer.  I am starting by posting these pics of Art and Omar at Art's first 10K after the treatment. He looks pretty good, huh?

Equalized, Aware.....Reunited

 

Omar has struggled with so many ear infections in his short life - he has been on antibiotics for the past two months straight with little relief - so he had a fairly urgent operation yesterday to insert tubes and remove adenoids. The doctor said afterward that there was so much thick fluid in his ears, his hearing would probably be a lot better now. Omar was so brave and wonderful. What an amazing miracle surgeons perform - I was so nervous about the surgery itself I had not yet contemplated the benefits immediately evident afterward. He immediately started breathing better - I hadn't even realized how heavily he breathed before because of his large adenoids. Little by little, throughout the course of the day, other things have been coming to my attention. He is walking with much more balance, taking more steps in a row. He said "bath" instead of "da". At breakfast and lunch, like every day for the past several months, I worked with him on saying "down" instead of screaming and kicking to get out of the high chair. By dinner, when he was ready to get down, he looked at me and said "down"!

The sweetest thing is that he has started saying "mama" again. Mama was his first word, and he used to say it all the time before his major ear problems had set in. Then he fell out of saying it - I thought he was just going through a Dada phase. Today it has been nothing but mama mama all day! I honestly think he just couldn't hear me all those months (dada talks MUCH louder than mama....) The other reason I think this is because Omar used to just shout everything he said...today I have heard him speak with more variation in tone than ever before. It is nice to hear him talk to his Elmo doll in a sweet, high-pitched voice. It also makes me a little sad - to think of all the sweet, soft things I said to him - he missed out on all the "I love yous". We are reunited today, and I am so grateful.

Happy weekend pictures