Since our return

This posting is for our own memories because some things are pretty momentous moments in our little guy's life, but don't necessarily get accompanied by photos.   Feel free not to read!

Upon our return to Lugano we had already made the decision to transition Liam into his own room and crib for nights as well as the naps that he'd been doing.  We were not sure how long of a process it would be, and with James starting up work right away I think we both were nervous.
For the first week back we put a mattress on the floor in his room so that when and if we needed to hang out in there, we could at least be comfortable.  Amazingly enough, probably a week and half later we took it out.  This is not because he is sleeping through the night, but he has made some major strides in that direction.

Remember, we're talking about Mr. clockwork who HAD to eat every 4 hours.  I wasn't even sure how we would get to skip 1 of those feeds!  So needless to say I am both shocked and amazed that less than a month later he has gone from 4 hours between feeds to up to 12 hours!  (For the record, 12 hours was last night!).  He is still waking a few times, and so I would say on an average night these days, James might go in once in the late evening, and I often end up in there for an early morning feed (around 4 or 5am).  He's generally going to bed between 7:30 and 8:30pm, and quite often doesn't wake up till 8am (with little wake ups in between of course.)  But still, that's really impressive to me.  We are allowing him to cry for short periods on his own if he doesn't settle into sleep in a reasonable amount of time, and that is by no means a piece of cake, but knowing that he's eating so well during the day, I definitely feel less concerned that he's not getting what he needs.

In fact, little wonder over here has graduated from simple pureed packages of food back to Mama's home cooking which includes a delectable menu of anything from banana and avocado mash, to alphabet pasta with a cheese and vegetable sauce.  He's tried pureed chicken and beef, but from jars as I haven't yet tried to make them on my own, and mixed with other stuff.  He's not a huge fan of the chicken yet so I end up disguising it with fruit and vegetables and potentially sometimes yogurt, to make it tasty enough for him to eat.  The beef on the other hand was a hit mixed with creme frais and pasta, or sweet potatoes.  His favorite is his morning smoothie (banana, mango, some other fruit, oats and rice cereal mixed with yogurt) for breakfast.  It's so sweet.  Every morning now that James is on his healthy kick, he gets up and makes the family smoothie.  Love it!   

We have also just discovered some mom and tots groups in the greater Lugano area that are for English speakers.  Today was our first visit to one that was held at St Edward's church.  It went quite well, and I'm excited to have a place for Liam to interact with more kids.  He is also getting the opportunity to hang out with his pal Drake 2 mornings a week for an hour or so while I am working.  It's actually really sweet to see how interested and playful they already are with each other.  And on top of all that, we have our other mothers in the area and are still getting together once a week or there abouts to hang out with the wee ones.

Life is good here.  Busy, but good.  I am grateful to be able to pretty much be a stay at home mom, but still fit in some part time work, and I think Liam enjoys all the time he has with us, but is also learning to socialize so well.  He continues to crawl, pull up and walk as much as he can, and I have no doubt he'll just get more and more confident till he's walking all on his own!  This really is such a fun age.

Karen and Matt's Wedding

I had been trying to post some of the sweet videos shirin took of Liam in Vermont, but they refused to upload, and time is ticking and I need to be done with catching up on summer posting.

So the last summer installment is from Karen and Matt's wedding - August 21st, 2010.
We drove from Bennington to the Schenectady area on Friday morning and it was a bit of a marathon till we got home to Switzerland on Monday evening.
Friday afternoon was a mani/pedi with the bridal party, then wedding ceremony rehearsal and then the rehearsal dinner.  We had to leave dinner around 9pm because Liam was starting to fade (he'd done so superbly though), but at least we had most of the evening with everyone.  Here are some pictures of Liam at the dinner:

Meeting (and eating) Chandra - It seems Liam had a go at every lady's necklace that night!

Hanging out with the bride and groom

The whole wedding was beautiful.  I think it was the first time I spent most of a day away from Liam, which was certainly bizarre, but knowing he was just down the hotel hallway with James made it easy enough.  We began preparing at 11am and the ceremony was only scheduled to start at 6:30pm.  Of course before that there were the formal pictures and such, but we also spent a luxurious amount of time getting the beautiful bride all set.

This picture makes me laugh - Karen's amazing hair took about 3 hours to do, this was 30 mins in and I thought it was a terrific granny do!

Finally all ready - the bridal party on the balcony of the honeymoon suite at the Glen Sanders Mansion

Nura, Rebecca, Karen, Chandra, Megan

There is already a bit of a height difference between Karen and I, but in this instance my 4 inch heels didn't help matters!

Finally our little family was together for the formal pictures - Liam is rocking the beach formal look with his bare feet mostly because we can't keep shoes on him.

Our family with the bride and groom

At the cocktail hour and Liam is still going strong

Chandra and Dave

Liam still awake at dinner (he had his own special mush) - by then it was around 9pm

Amazingly, Liam hung in there for more wedding celebrations till just after 10pm.  When people got up dancing and we brought him on the dance floor he had a complete blast!  It was really sweet to see.  We did retire early from the wedding celebration because we thought it the responsible thing to do, but we are so pleased we got to be there for so much of it.  

Sunday morning we woke up, packed our bags one last time and drove back down to Brooklyn (about a 3.5 hour endeavor)  We arrived to pouring rain, and with just a few hours before our flight we tried to relax a little at James' parents house one last time.  Unfortunately after arriving at the airport and all going smoothly, we boarded the plane and then were told that there would be a delay.  The delay of almost 3 hours then meant we would miss our connection in Zurich and would have a 4 hour layover there.  It ended up being quite a long and not so fun trip because Liam was also overtired and unable to sleep well in the bassinet.   Our small silver lining was that we discovered that Zurich airport actually has a very nicely equipped nursery, so we did spend a little of our added time hanging out there.  

Liam and I in the Zurich airport nursery

Before our final flight to Lugano

Vermont - still summer 2010!

The second last portion of our US adventure was spent in one of James' and my favorite places - the Strohmaier farm in Bennington, VT.  With all the moving around we were doing we decided to try and consolidate Boston and Vermont, and thanks to Shirin, Mims and Nana's willingness to spend a little time on the farm, we managed to see everyone.  It also feels more relaxing and peaceful up there, and James and I absolutely love spending time with Gigi and Sonny.  This time was even more special because they were able to meet Liam and on top of that, part of my family was there too.  We were there a total of 9 days, with 5 of those including Nana, Shirin and Mims.  I'm disappointed we have no evidence of Liam chasing down the cats, but they were always quicker than us.

On the drive up to VT.  He's really quite a careful driver - look how attentive he is of the road!  (just incase SS is after me, this was taken in a STATIONARY vehicle, in a parking lot.)

The classic painted Moose picture from Bennington

Liam meets his grandpa Sonny!

Liam with Grandma Gigi

Introducing Liam to the calves

We call this video "Liam's first Cow Lick!"

Liam and Shirin hanging out on the lawn out front. This was Liam's first chance to move about and crawl in grass.  He loved the texture and of course ate many blades of grass!

Shirin lets Liam have his first organ lesson (on some antique 1700's show piece in Manchester). He is a very enthusiastic pupil.

One day we came home and saw this little rocking duck - a genuine piece of the 50's.  Sonny had gone scouting around and found it in the basement somewhere.  He cleaned it up nicely and brought it back for Liam to use.  How sweet is that?

This is a sweet one of Nana and Liam.  She was showing him pictures in a magazine, and though he won't sit still to look at books with me or James, he seemed just fine doing it with her.

Introducing Liam to kiwi for the first time.  Shirin brought a ton of fresh fruit with her and Liam loved getting to suck on some peach, a mango seed, and this piece of kiwi.  Truthfully, as long as there's fruit in his food, he's been a pretty good eater.

Before we left VT we made sure we swung over to Brattleboro to visit Josh, Shan, Oliver and their newest member, Calvin (just 3 weeks old at the time).  I am embarrassed to discover we took no pictures of their kids, so all I really have as proof of the event is this photo of Josh with a grumpy Liam!  Sorry Josh!

Mas Mexico!

I can't help but post a few more pictures from Mexico.  Like I said, I'm really trying to limit the number but it's hard!

Four Generations - too bad Liam isn't a girl!

Love this one of Nana and Liam

Liam going for my chocolate shake at the swim up bar

A sweet one of Mims and Liam hanging out and playing with Nana's cane

This is a funny story that must be told - We were sitting down for lunch and Liam was on Grandma Gail's lap.  Our food arrived and we were just chatting for a second and next thing I know, I look up and see Liam with a piece of bread stuck to his lip!  This is the incriminating evidence of his first bite of bread:

Who can resist squishy baby feet with sand between the toes?

Talk about a bad hair day for me, but I had to post at least one picture that showed we made it to the ruins in Tulum.  It's quite a spectacular place, but boy was it a hot afternoon!  This was the occasion that Liam also took it upon himself to ditch his hat.

Another sweet moment - this was the day that Liam discovered how to pull himself up to standing, and below is the way it happened - right on his dad.

Family picture after a swim

Liam in his sunglasses was quite the sight.  Everyone commented on him.  I guess the really surprising thing was that he was willing to wear the sunglasses and didn't try to take them off!

Mama and baby in the sea

This last thing is a video of the first time dunking Liam under the water

Viva Mexico!

We spent a fabulously decadent 9 nights on the Riviera Maya in Mexico.  After our great experience at the Dreams resort in Puerto Vallarta I was thrilled that we were able to find a decent deal at their newest resort just south of Cancun - Dreams Riviera Maya - all inclusive.  It just opened in the fall of 2009 so everything was brand spanking new, and it really was beautiful.
To add to the perfection we were able to convince Grandma Gail and Nana to come for 5 nights while we were there and so we got some family time in as well as a lovely holiday.  This was also the first time Nana got to meet Liam, so it really was special.  Our days consisted of nothing more taxing that figuring out where we wanted to eat for each meal, and when to order our first frozen drink.  We sat, lay and swam our way through the days!  We have a million photos so I will try and pick out as few as I can to give a sense of the trip without overdoing it!

James and Liam chilling out when we first arrived in our room.  We did have a crib for him as well.

Our most challenging task was to secure a pallapa (or bali bed) at the start of every morning.  Thanks to Liam being an early bird that was no problem!

James and Liam enjoying the infinity pool.  Liam really had a good time in the water!

Probably my favorite photo - my two boys on the beach

Taking Liam into the sea for the first time

Grandma Gail and Liam reunited and happy to see each other!

Liam passed out for a nap while we had lunch at the restaurant right near our pallapa

A perfect moment

Liam loved meeting his Great Grandma!

Grandma Gail taking Liam in the pool for a swim - the sun was a bit strong at this time so he's wearing a T-shirt and hat to protect that fair skin of his