My Little Guy is Growing Up

Line of the Week

During one of the many exhaustive conversations this week about Zita's upcoming ( in 3.5 months) birthday, Freddy interrupted her with

"Zita, on the day you were born, I bet you were already thinking about your first birthday."

I bet she was.

Freddy, however, has caught on to her party planning tendencies and has had his seventh birthday cake design hanging in the kitchen for a month now. Never mind that his birthday is still 6 months away. 

Jealously

Something tells me that sibling jealousy won't be the problem when the new baby arrives.

Weekends in September

September is one of my favorite beach months. There are few tourists, the cooler weather is so welcome, and even the locals don't go much since official beach season is over. We took a late afternoon picnic to the Monte-Estoril beach and had the best time.

 Let's think of ways to put me into pre-term labor. Yes, watching Moojie jump off the pier head first into rough water would be a good way. Thanks for that Moojie.

The next time he did a flip and the tourists standing at the end looked more concerned that I did. The man then stood peering over to make sure Moojie came up for air.

He's looking a little too pleased with himself for scaring me into a panic.

Here's Freddy and his two cousins shooting the breeze and contemplating life's great beach dilemmas: rugby on the sand, or swimming.

 They went with Rugby

Our little niece worships Zita and loves to follow her around

 Nothing beats a good beach side shower to finish off the weekend. 

Sweet Zita

Having a baby on the way does not make me feel better about the fact that Moojie is a man, "baby" Freddy is in first grade, and Miss Zita is now looking like a teenager.

We went to the beach on Sunday night and my sweet girl was happy to stay right where she was, sitting in the sun, so I could snap a few shots of her.

 She was willing to sit still, but she wasn't wild about looking at the camera

 Until I said I would cut it out if she just posed for one shot.

 Love this girl.

33 Weeks

After we dropped Moojie at the starting line, we nipped into this cafe for breakfast. I asked Zita to take our picture in front of the sign because this is the very first place I ever went in Portugal. When I was only 17 and visiting from St. Andrews,  Pai picked me up at the train station in Lisbon and drove me straight here for fresh orange juice and a Portuguese pastry of some sort. Here we are now married, 16 years and almost 4 children later. Who would have thunk it? Zita and Freddy had a breakfast full of good old times stories. Lucky them.

I haven't taken an actual belly profile shot since 30 weeks so this will have to do until I get myself organized.

My contractions are more and more frequent,  but that's sort of okay since we have a crib, a car seat, and at least one huge lasagne made and frozen. I also got more uniforms for the kids allowing a whole week to pass without anyone having to even touch the washing machine. My biggest problem is lack of sleep. I would very much like to visit NASA and sleep in a zero gravity room for just one night of uninterrupted sleep. 

Annual Destak Race

Moojie ran the annual 3k Destak race from the Estoril Casino to Cascais this morning. 

It started pouring so finish-line spectators were sparse.

 It was just like last year in that two crazy-fast runners crossed the finish line first, followed by a running club group, and then came Moojie! He rounded the corner in a group of 5 and made a break-away to cross well ahead.

 His time from last year was 13:05 seconds and the clock wasn't running this year. Moojie caught the time on his watch and shaved off almost 4 minutes.

 A little Google conversion revealed that he was keeping a 5-minute-mile pace.  I guess all that tennis is doing something.

Here he is crossing last year- he looks 6 years younger :(

 This has nothing to do with the race or Moojie, but just look at how beautiful this ship looked against the water behind the finish line. It reminds me of the last scene from Goonies.

Friday Photos

I don't know what's come over me, but I didn't take many photos this week. I didn't get any bump shots either, but I'll enlist Zita to help with that this afternoon before I hit 33 weeks tomorrow.

Today wraps up the second week of school. Getting up early and getting going has been easier than last week, but we might need to make a few check-lists this weekend. Pai has had a few SOS calls to bring various things to school on his way to work, and today I had to double back and drop off Zita's lap top.

The new American Girl Magazine arrived showcasing the fish tail braid. Zita showed me the how-to instructions in the car as we pulled up to school, and above is what I came up with. She was the talk of the morning with that hair and the American Girl Magazine is a huge hit with all the girls.

Permanent desks were assigned and I think it's a good sign that Freddy is not assigned to an isolated desk, but in a row of three. My take is that the chatty or distracted kids have separated desks, but that's just a guess.

Some sort of boat race was going on all weekend which always makes the scenery all the more beautiful. We are so spoiled with great views here.

Tennis has been a killer for Zita. They push her so hard and make her do so many drills that I spend half the time wanting to just swoop in and save her, but the rest of the time thinking that it's so good for her to be pushed out of her comfort zone. Definitely no ego coddling in these tennis classes.

We had Pai's Godson, who is is cousin's son , for the day yesterday. I loved having a baby around, but it made me realize how much of a big kids house we are now. It seems there are sharp objects and hazards all over the place. We don't even have bibs any more, but a clothes pin solved that problem. Freddy was an absolute sweetheart with the baby. I was melting all afternoon long watching them.

Animal water and food dishes, and Apple products are the number one baby toys. It's scientifically proven.

Crawling after the cat's tail was a pretty good distraction too.

Moojie will run the annual Destak 3k race this weekend so stay tuned for pictures and results!

A Baby of Our Very Own

The reality that a real baby is on its way is starting to sink in for everyone. We were talking about names as we often do when Freddy piped up with " I can't believe I'm going to meet a baby of our very own! Moojie got to hold me and Zita. Zita got to hold me, and I've never gotten to meet one of our very own babies."

Being the youngest, I certainly had never thought about that, but Freddy did have a point. He went on: " it's not a friend's baby, it's not a cousin, or niece or a nephew, it will be our very own and I just can't wait."

He mentions daily how excited he is to meet this baby and even though Zita and I posses a maximum level of baby love, Freddy joining in makes for one enthusiastic welcoming committee.

Moojie just assembled the crib, so here's a sneak peek.

Dinner Idea

Thai chicken with almonds and red pepper over rice.

New Addition

No, not a baby. We have weights! This was actually Moojie's birthday present. We gave him the money for half, and he paid for the rest with savings and birthday money from family. It was just delivered and assembled this morning. With a house full of boys, I'm sure it will get plenty of use.

Not Just An Artist

She's also a woodworker! On Saturday night after we had tucked Zita and Freddy into bed, I remarked to Pai that what we really need is a little key cabinet. We have more keys that we can keep track of and we recently did a house-wide key round up. I didn't give the matter a second thought, until Sunday after our pancake breakfast when Zita disappeared outside in her nightgown. I heard banging and clattering, but went about my normal kitchen clean-up routine.

Zita appeared in the kitchen holding up this board, proud as could be, and remarked " you told Pai you needed somewhere to hang keys, so I made this."

She was keen on a collaborative phase two of getting it painted and labelled, but I had to get Freddy off to tennis.

Love this Zita- there's not telling what she'll come up with next.

What's The Best Toy?

Hammer and Nails

Baby Things

Moojie was swadled in this little blanket as a newborn, and just looking at it conjures images of his squishy baby face, newborn smell, and those  I'm alive and I sound like a little lamb! newborn noises that all babies make.

    I gave away a lot of his baby stuff, but safely kept this blanket until miss Zita came along. She took it off to the first day of pre-school with her in a huge pink backpack and duly wrote "Zita" on the seam.  

Freddy started day care the earliest since I was working by that point. I handed him over to his teacher, shoving this blanket at her as he started to scream. I started to cry the moment the blanket left my hands. I didn't stop until I got to work and even then, I was heart broken pretty much until I stopped working 2 years after that.

I get a little fuzzy on my high school US History, or on the corporate finance classes I took in college, and I've been known to watch a Kahn Academy video or two before settling into study sessions with Moojie, but my mind has been programmed to lock away every single memory related to baby items from socks and bibs, to blankets and PJs. 

When I look at these old blue pajamas, I see my younger self stepping out of a taxi on Market St. in St. Andrews with an 8 week old Moojie in one arm, and a carry-on bag in the other for our first visit to Scotland together.

 

This size zero-month sleeper is what I handed to the nurse right after Freddy was born, only for her to hold them up and laugh out loud. I hadn't even held Freddy yet so I didn't know what was so funny, but in true sassy Portuguese nurse fashion, she asked "what size baby were you expecting? 

Your big boy will never fit in this!"

Miss Zita was our sweet pea angel all dressed up for the Portuguese relatives in her long hand sewn gowns and this lovingly knit cardigan.

These socks have been passed around to most of my mom's grandchildren and just came back to me this Summer. As soon as I had them in my hands again, all of the details of our first flight were vivid and real. Moojie wore these socks at 8 weeks from San Francisco to London. I spent most of the flight walking him up and down the aisle tugging at the socks as  passengers let me know that my baby was about to lose a sock.

I can throw away just about anything, and there's nothing I love more than a good clean out, but baby stuff is just painful to part with and now with my last baby on the way, I think I'm going to have an even harder time letting go. How do other people manage?

Final Summer Post

 On the very same day that we went to the aquarium, we headed over to the Pavilhão de Conhecimentos. It's similar to the Exploratorium in San Francisco, and worth the drive out to the Expo without question. I love this place! 

 The line for this ET bike is usually long and Zita didn't have the courage last time, but she conquered her fear and did it. Not only did she do it once, but went back again, and then again.

 Go Zita!

 The huge table of nails was a hit.

 Zita in a velcro suit.

 Freddy trying out a little walk on the moon in a zero gravity suit.

The only drawback is the location of the bathroom. It's like a movie theater where you have to exit with your ticket, find the bathroom, and then swipe your ticket to get back in again. We spent half the time finding tickets and walking kids (ok, and me a few times) in and out to the bathroom. Luckily we had a good ratio of 2 adults to 5 children so it wasn't that big of a deal. Small bladdered large families beware!