Borscht Night

Last night was our long-awaited Borscht Night; we'd been talking about having our Russian friends over for a big pot of soup for a long time. We made a big pot of borscht and everyone else brought a side dish. Scott served a church mission in Russia for two years and is fluent in Russian, so he has a group of friends and colleagues who are Russian or who lived there for missions or to teach English.
This lovely lady is a native. She must have slaved away in her kitchen all day to make homemade pelmeni, which is like ravioli filled with meat and cheese and such. She was happy to hold Phoebe pretty much all night to get her "baby fix." Funny story about this distinguished guest. This little man's parents moved into the apartment that we moved out of. He was born two weeks after Phoebe, and he was also six weeks early. We think there was something in the water there.

Lego Art by Bruce

Here is a scene that happens about a hundred times a day: Bruce builds some form of robot-alien-spaceship-rocket-shuttle thing and then brings it to me and shows it off. Sometimes if he sees the camera, he requests that he get a picture with his work of art.

Shameless Bragging

Yes, she is cute.

Got it!

And because someone doesn't want to be left out...

$24

I have all kinds of pictures to download, but have been too busy with other things. I like to post pictures with each post, but I've been procrastinating posting because of my laziness in hooking the camera up. You'll have to come back later for pictures, but here's proof that we still exist:

Scott had finals last week. This week he starts a new block of classes, including an "introduction to clinical medicine" where he will be working in the hospital a few times a week taking patient histories and such. He actually took this course during his PhD, but is taking it again as a refresher.

I've been busy with the daily grind: feeding Phoebe, running, feeding Phoebe, washing dishes, feeding Phoebe, writing about cameras, feeding Phoebe, building a marble track with Bruce, feeding Phoebe, hanging up a few pictures finally, feeding Phoebe, attempting grocery shopping at the most crowded store possible with two kids, feeding Phoebe.... Notice a trend? Phoebe is all of nine pounds now, but dipping on the growth chart so we're back to feeding her more frequently (and with no end in sight for the breastpump - bummer).

Bruce told me he's been playing "bad guys" at preschool. He and his friends capture the teacher and put her in jail. If she's not available, they capture other innocent kids. He's not always a total bad guy though. Bruce also plays "princesses" with his girlfriends. I asked if he was a prince and he said that he likes to be a princess and wear the dresses. Hmm. Sometimes Bruce randomly tells me that he loves me (yes, I'm lucky) and yesterday he added that he loved me as much as $24. Wow.

Phoebe is smiling now. It happens right after she's eaten and when she has a clean diaper, so the stars have to align and then it's still a flicker of a smile here and there. But it's definitely a smile. I haven't been able to capture it on camera yet. Soon though. Phoebe had a doctor's appointment last week. We were hoping to get rid of the apnea monitor once and for all at that appointment (the alarm hasn't gone off since a few days before Christmas), but it didn't turn out that way. She has to stay overnight at the hospital on a bunch of monitors before she can officially be rid of it. That hasn't been scheduled yet, but I'm hoping for sooner than later. In the meantime, I've completely given up on carrying the monitor around (to the grocery store, work, preschool, library, etc) and feel just fine hooking her up only at night.

Getting back on Track.

I took pictures at a track meet this weekend. It was put on by my club, the Greater Boston Track Club. I love that the people racing are of all ages: there were high schoolers, collegiate athletes, post-collegiates, and even a few athletes with some seriously white hair. I can't wait to get back on the track and run some races! I'm running about 45 minutes a day now, and I'm feeling pretty good. My plan is to slowly build back my mileage base and add a tempo run in a few weeks. I want to be in good racing shape by the fall so I can run a decent Tufts 10K this year and some solid cross country races.
Go GBTC!

The Siblings

I love both of their faces in this picture. They're so funny.
Have we mentioned just how much we love this little lady?

Proof that Vegan Food is not always Healthy

A friend gave me an awesome cookbook for Christmas. It has a bunch of recipes from Babycakes NYC, a vegan bakery. I've been lusting after the Triple Chocolate Fat Pants Cake (that's the name from the cookbook). I recently got out a few pairs of jeans from a dusty box labeled "skinny clothes," so to celebrate I made this awesome cake. It consists of a brownie-like cake with coconut oil frosting and vegan chocolate chip cookies crumbled on top. Oh yeah, and there are three layers of that. It's pretty ridiculous. And it was sooooo good.

The Pit

I was a little delinquent in downloading videos from our camcorder, so this movie is old. This is Bruce a few days before we brought Phoebe home; we went to an open gym at a gymnastics center and he loved it. He keeps asking to go back. Someday, we will.

Cooped up.

This is what happens when Bruce doesn't get out as much as he should.

Random tidbit: the song Bruce is dancing to is by singer/songwriter Sufjan Stevens. I ran with his brother, Marzuki, on the Greater Boston Track Club.

Million Dollar Baby

Cost for stupid doctor to tell me my water wasn't broken when it was: $295 (can I get a refund?)
Cost of ultrasound to check on Phoebe: $310
Cost of a C-section: $4,600
Cost of anesthesia for C-section: $1,722
Cost of my labs: $326
Cost of medical supplies for my care: $495
Cost of Phoebe's medical care: $36,717
Cost for Phoebe's room and board: $107,109
Cost of Phoebe's ambulance ride to closer hospital: $2,560
Cost of Phoebe's bloodwork: $49

Not quite a million dollars. But $154,183 is a lot of money. And that doesn't count prenatal care or the $47 can of special formula. I probably owe our insurance company a Thank You note.

Long-lost update

We are still alive. I try to update the blog at least once a week, but that fell through the cracks last week. We've been busy. Here's the update:

Scott started a new semester. He has biostats and musculoskeletal classes. The highlight of his week was dissecting a freshly amputated knee. Yummy.

I've been working like crazy! This week is the Consumer Electronics Show, perhaps the busiest week of the year for camera industry news.

Bruce has been a big helper, as you can see in the picture. He loves holding Phoebe and asking questions like, "Does she love me?" and "Are you proud of me because I'm a good big brother?"

Phoebe had her two-month checkup. She's up to 8.5 lbs now. We're slowly getting all the statements from the insurance company about how much her hospital stay and appointments cost. That'll be a blog post in itself. She's one expensive baby, but she is so so so cute. Scott and I still fight over who gets to hold her.