I'm not sure what it is about this toucan...

...but my children seem to be afraid of it.

Evie, April 2007:

Felix, September 2010:

Welcome, Felix

Dear Felix,

Welcome to the world, little guy.

You may have heard the rumor that, as the second-born, you're already holding the short end of the stick. I didn't blog about you all through pregnancy, your crib is a hand-me-down, and it's inevitable that at some point your harried mother will put a pink bib on you because really, nobody will know the difference.

But you're not just Evie's sequel, the little brother, number two. You're a brand new person, new to our family, new to the world.

Your name means "Lucky" or "Happy" in Latin, and is the root of many good wishes: Felicitations. Felicitous occasions. Feliz Navidad. When we look at the path that brought us here, the unexpected turns in our lives, and the joy that surrounds us today, it seems like the perfect name for you. Your middle name, Peter, is in honor of your grandfather. While you didn't have the opportunity to meet him, I can safely surmise that he would have been quite taken with you.

You're not yet 24 hours old, but you've already met many people: Your parents, your big sister, your grandmothers, and one of your aunties. More admirers are anticipated in the coming days. Facebook is all abuzz with your arrival.

It's a big job, giving you a childhood that will live up to the promise of your birth - my much-anticipated, well-loved, happy, lucky little boy. But I couldn't be more excited.

The Dinosaur Room

We had looked at 5 houses already that day. By all definitions, Evie was a trooper. She led us through each house like a pint-sized realtor, saying "That's a nice kitchen" or "Time to go upstairs!" By the time we got to the last house, it was nearing naptime and lunchtime and any reasonable almost-3-year-old would have run out of good humor.

Evie didn't know that her parents had seen this house once before, nearly a month earlier, on our first day of house hunting. It was an improbable choice: farther out in suburbia than we had envisioned, a different floor plan than we had pictured, and firmly outside of our price range. But we had looked anyway, and something about that house stuck with us.

March 2010: What a View

Oh, what a difference a year makes.

Last year at this time, I was preparing for Evie's second birthday, trying in vain to imagine a way out of Reno, and (since large-scale change felt nearly impossible) focusing on incremental changes such as exercising regularly and upgrading the light fixtures in my house.

Flash forward to 2010. In the past 12 months, the following things have happened:

A letter to Evie on her 2nd birthday

Dear Evie,
Another year has passed, and what a fun one! For the first time, you seem to understand the concept of birthdays - well, sort of. You're still fixated on your friend Nofar's birthday, which was two weeks ago, but I can understand why it stuck in your head, since there was a bounce house involved.

You have accomplished so many amazing things this year. First steps, first words, and even the first pieces of potty training. But the best part, by far, has been seeing your personality shine through as you grow.

I tell myself that I must be doing something right, because you are the happiest kid I know. When I pick you up at daycare, I always hear compliments about your sunny disposition and your effortless transition into the 2-year-old class.

Farewell to Bada

This morning, in response to some earnest whimpers, I walked into Evie's room. She was lying on her tummy under a blanket, looking snuggly, but sans pacifier.

She raised her head to look at me. "Evie binkie?"

I grabbed a green Soothie from the backup stash in her pajama drawer, placed it in her mouth, and she quickly put her head back down and went back to sleep. It was a fairly ordinary interaction, but I couldn't help thinking of what has been lost.

We've called her pacifiers binkies since we first introduced them, when she was two weeks old. Shortly after her first birthday, when she started discovering words, she named her pacifier "Dabadap." Dabadap was common parlance for months, and soon was truncated to the middle of the name, "Bada," with a heavy accent on the second syllable.

How to Bake a Red Smoosh Cake

Step 1: Decide on a whim and a craving to bake the red velvet cupcakes you saw in an ad in Parents magazine.

Step 2: Go to Safeway to purchase cupcake fixin's. Decide not to purchase cupcake papers, since you've had a box of them in the cabinet for years.

Step 3: Preheat low-end Reagan-era oven with uneven heating feature and turbo-burn capability to 350 degrees.