CLIF's blog

The official stats are that Anastella "Stella" Claire Frishberg Leavitt made it in to the world at 12:41pm on August 27th.  She weighed seven pounds 8.3 ounces, measured 20.5 inches in length and had a full head of dark hair.

Christy was told to head to the hospital at about 1 in the morning and after getting no answer at the first two friends who could take Lucy, we just packed up and got in the car and started banging on her friend Bella's door.    Lucy was a little reulctant to be left by her parents at 2 in the morning, but once she started playing with Bella it seems like she forgot all about us.  Bella's parents reported endless giggling and playing such that they eventually had to separate them so that they could get some sleep.

Labor was easier and shorter than the last time, but if I said it was easy I would be misleading would-be mothers everywhere.  Nothing easy about it, but Christy was a rock star as always.

Stella is cute - like most but not all babies - and thus far has been relatively easy.  Relative to the only other child we have that is.  Stella is sleeping well, feeding well, is easy to sooth and doesn't spit everything up.  What's not to love?  She put on weight from the time she left the hospital to her first doctor's visit, which in our world is a miracle and spectable to behold.

Lucy seems to be enjoying it thus far.  Two visits to the hospital, a gift exchange (recommended by Kimberly Larson), and despite objecting to "the noise" (crying), seems to be fond of Stella and even a little bit excited by the whole thing.  She has been a little clingier and needier than usual, but as you will see in the pictures is gentle and loving with her little sister.

The irony of Lucy saying "don't like that noise" about anything or anyone is not lost on us.

Louisa has been here to help, which has been fantastic.  Mostly it has allowed Ivan to jump right back in to the insanity of the global warming bill, and Christy to stay attentive to the constant feeding.    We look forward to more visits from more folks.

The pictures we have uploaded show cuteness, screaming, washing (Lucy came prepared) and lots of posing with the newest family member.

As far as the name.  We like it. No particular story behind it other than there is a very special family friend of Ivan's grandparents who had the same name.  The expanded version we came up with just to give Stella choices when she is older.  I am sure there are other kids named Anastella  but it was not listed in the Baby Name Wizard, so feels pretty unique but not too wierd or wacky.  We got to register it so maybe there will be an explosion of Anastellas in the next few years.

A name really doesn't mean much in the scheme of things, and if you read the book Freakonomics you will get a lesson on just how little it means, but the note from Ivan's grandfather Don made us feel pretty good about our choice.

"Stella was one of the finest most loving honest fair women we had the preasure to be associated with.  And now we have another Stella.  Congratulations."

Well, its almost 11pm, so we need to start getting to sleep so that Stella can wake up for the midnight feed.

Thanks so much for all the love and well-wishing.  We are very excited to get to know who Stella is, but so far she seems like a keeper and a sweety pie.  Time will tell.

We will keep putting up pictures here and on Ivan's Facebook page.

A few more photos here covering April and May 2009. 

Following Lucy's attempted break in at the White House, she actually scored an invite to the Easter Egg roll, so plenty of staged shots with an impatient Lucy.  Big news here was that she actually shook the President's hand and he asked her several times how she was doing.   She was too stunned to react despite all her training on what to do if she were to meet the POTUS.

A hair cut, some play dates and then it all pales next to the big vacation.  Apparently sand and water are a big hit with kids.

We all spent more than a full week on the beach in NC's outerbanks.  Great house right on the beach in the town of Duck.  Dinner every night on the deck, lots of digging in the sand and even a little water play.  It was really fantastic and Lucy had a blast.

Enjoy the pictures.

Lots of new pictures in that section of the blog.  They cover the period from Halloween, Thanksgiving in England, the Colorado vacation, Christmas in CA, the swearing in of President Obama and Lucy's second birthday.

That is a lot of travel and a lot of Lucy.

We just spent a lovely afternoon at the pumpkin patch with Lucy and her best friend Emma.   Beautiful sunny weather and lots of fun on the farm.  Lucy is using lots of words.  Putting a few of them together - "Draw daddy".  She has more interest in exploring the refrigerator than she does with playing with toys, but a sporadic interest in food unless it is a Cheerio or a banana. 

Favorite words are:

O's          Cheerios
Nini         Banana / Nana / Nina's mom
Daddy      Daddy
Mommy   Mommy
Waty        Water
Car      Car
Bubble      Bubble
ankyou   Thankyou
Ee.Uu      Bless you (as in after you sneeze)
Brid      Bread
Apple      Apple
Nose      Nose
chi      Chin
Ne      Knee
Em      Emma
Uh Oh      Uh Oh
Up      Pick me up so I don't have to walk
Walk      Put me down so I can run away

We are all very busy with election oriented and other work.  23 days or so to go.  We are in England for thanksgiving and California for the December holidays.  Lucy can sit still for about 2.5 minutes, so we are a little nervous about 420 minutes on a plane to England.

We will try to get more on top of this posting thing just in case Lucy ever looks back and is like "dudes, what were you doing for the second year of my life?  You think i run around being cute for my own pleasure, or that this cuteness thing is easy?  Stick with the program!!!"

Oh, and just a note on the elections:  While shopping for books, we saw a kids book on Barack Obama with a big picture of Barack on the cover.  I asked Lucy who it was and she said "Bama".  The kid is still confused on the difference between mom and dad, but she knows who the next president is.  We are very proud and if you have any doubts about who to vote for on November 4th, take a hint from Lucy.

Lucy is really enjoying her food these days.  With three new molars to crunch with she makes handy work of the O's.  In addition to enjoying the food she also enjoys her own company and conversation.

We have no pictures of the driving yet, but Lucy just got a brand new car to go to school in each morning.   She will be the coolest kid on the block with her new Honda Fit.  It is Blackberry Pearl colored, which is a good name for being on Capitol Hll as it is a cool new kind of wireless device, and it is also a fun kind of dark blackberry color to look at.

She is also walking.  Started taking 4 or 5 steps around the 20th of March, just before Grandma and Grandpa Frishberg left town.  That was a nice way to end their trip and she continues to get more and more confident each day.

Recently she has been a little bit back and forth between the most charming, fun and spirited little tyke and being an absolute cranky pants.  Today we realized why.  She has three new teeth!  Big ones at the back of her mouth.  All the better for chewing steak with.

A few new pictures up here, some of which are courtesy of Grandma Tam.  They had a lovely visit and it was very helpful during the rough transition to day care.  Oh, yeah, the rough transition to day care...

Do NOT have your nanny and nanna all leave at the same time and then think your kid will be happy to be dumped in a group setting with a bunch of new folks.  It was a rough couple of weeks, but now Lucy is having fun, enjoys the other kids and is even sleeping through the night in her own bed again. 

One of the bonuses of the day care is this kind of creepy video surveillance thing  where  we can watch her from the office computer.  It is nice to check in on her but can be a little distracting too.

Enjoy the pics.

You may not be too surprised to learn that Lucy keeps getting cuter and cuter.   If you don't believe check out some of the latest pictures.  It covers the extensive period from Halloween through the beginning of 2008.

The problem with writing so sporadically is that the good stories get lost to the major headlines; we went to England for thanksgiving, we wen to Aspen for fun (other trips were fun too, but really we had no calender oriented excuse), and to California for the Holidays.  We had many good meals with friends at our home on the hill and have enjoyed the company of lots of little Lucy friends of late; Asher, Riley, Michael, Emma, Gus, Isabella, Maia, Maya, Lilianna and Porter.

When you get beneath the headlines it isn't all as glamorous. 

Aspen was beautiful and fun, but not as fun as usual.  Lucy and Christy both were stricken with the stomach flu.  Both were troopers but it was not pretty, clean or without odor.  Lucy ended up at the emergency room drinking out of a syringe for a few hours to avoid dehydration and has since learned to love the syringe as a preferred method of getting sustenance.  This habit was cemented by an ear infection for which the medicine came mixed in with the sweetest of sugary goos.

The trip out to California saw continued illness.  As it was the holiday season Lucy was in a giving mood, and decided to share her germs with many family members, most notably her poor great grandfather who spent Christmas day as no one should.

Despite all that, the holidays were fun (not for Great grandpa, but..) and Lucy got to hang with Santa and her new little cousins.  She was spoiled and doted on by all sides of the family and we may even be invited back some time.  She even got to take a spin in the city manager's chair for the City of Santa Rosa courtesy of  Grandpa Bruce and her fans in the city attorney's office. 

Thanksgiving was fun too and was remarkably disease and incident free.  In fact, we got bumped up to business class on the flight out and Lucy slept through both the food services, allowing parents to eat and sip wine in peace.  The trip to england was a long time coming and was quite fun AND relaxing.  With a kid in tow it is a very different trip though.  No jet lag when you don't sleep through the night anyway.  Not one visit to a restaurant or pub.  We did go to the opening of Grandma Tam's pottery show and got to meet lots of other artists who made largely pretty and breakable things - fortunately all out of little arms' reach.

Ivan has started a new job working down the hall from Christy and we have one month left of Nana Louisa left before she returns to CA (We are pretty sure it won't be for long).   She will be missed more than we can imagine at this point and only hope that Lucy is repaying her with her own special powers of affection as we could never fully repay the gift of her presence and help.

Grandparents Mel and Tam will fill her shoes for the month of March and then we are on to the open market place of day care in DC.  We think we have some good options and while Lucy will certainly enjoy the company of other little squirts once she gets used to not being spoiled by the one on one attention of family members.

Lucy is still little (18 pounds max) but the benefits of this just grown and grow.  We are now on the receiving end of hand me down clothes from kids both older and younger than Lucy.   She is not walking yet, but has a funny way of walking on her knees.  She loves to play with her food and test her parents' (mostly her dad's) patience.

All in all she just gets cuter and cuter and the temptation to peek in to her room when she is sleeping never subsides.  We breath a huge sigh of relief when we get her down to bed and then pretty quickly miss her funny little personality. 

Enjoy the pictures.  We'll make more

Just a ton of new pictures up here because it has been so long since we posted ANYTHING for so long.  I guess we are both back at work full time and it shows.

These pictures cover our Labor Day trip out to the Northwest (best pictures here)where we hung out with Aunt Naomi and Uncle Scot, visited the Washington coast with the Whitridge cousins, and went to a great wedding for some great friends.  Also a quick trip out to CA where she got to meet lots of new family members.  There are tons of bath time and play time pictures. 

The one video that is prepared is a video prepared as an invite to our annual trek to Aspen for all of our work colleagues.  Enjoy

In terms of the basic Lucy specs as of 11/4/07, Lucy is somewhere around 16 pounds.  I mean, who is really counting at this point.  She has two teeth in the bottom front which are very sharp.  She crawls very fast, can climb up the stairs un-aided (but closely monitored), and she is just starting to "cruise" around coffee tables etc.

We take her to the park regularly and she likes to climb the stairs to the slide, go down the slide, scale the kiddy climbing wall (I do not jest), and eat every leaf she can find.

Anyway, enjoy all the pictures and we will get to more videos soon.

We have had a lot of great and fun visitors in the last few weeks that have made for some fun new pictures.

Lucia's great grandparents and uncle Justin came to visit from California and England respectively.  While they were in town we also got a visit from second cousin Dominic (San Jose, CA) and Big Gus Ruben.    We didn't get a picture with Dominic but enjoyed a couple of great meals with him and his friend Bo who were on a tour of the great ballparks of America.

The visit with family was great and all parties had a blast playing with each other.  When Lucy is awake she is a ball of energy and it took all of us to keep her entertained.  Best of all, Lucy loved going out for morning coffee with her great grandpa Don.  In a few years she will be leading the charge out to the beach in Santa Cruz for coffee and catching a few waves.

We don;t have any new dimensions to report for Lucy but you can get a pretty good sense of her size compared to Big Gus Ruben.   Gus' mom, Sarah, was in town from Seattle and so we got a chance to meet Gus and to introduce Gus and Lucy to each other.   Gus is 2 months younger and 3 or 4 pounds bigger than Lucy.  One of Ivan's grandma's books is called Gus the Bus (Gus has a copy) and I think we met the title character. 

Lucy came clean with us the other day and disclosed her secret sideline as a super hero.  She didn't have much choice when we caught her watching a Cops re-run in her Wonder Woman uniform.  Anyway, she promises to be careful and always wear her gold bracelets when she is out on the job.   Thanks to Greg for making helping her with the outfit.

We don't have photo or video evidence of this yet, but today (8/4) Lucy crawled for the first time.  She didn't get far, but it was movement for sure.   Now we turn ourselves to the business of making the house safe for the new mobile Lucy.   Today was also a big day because the House passed a bunch of good energy legislation.   We still need a president who will do more and this is only a beginning, but it is long overdue that good things are starting to happen in Washington.

It has been a long time since we posted anything.  Lucy got in to her safety college, got her drivers license and just got back from her study abroad in the Sudan.  Ok, it hasn't been that long, but we have lots of new pictures and a couple of new videos that feature her first laugh on tape and playing in a new toy.

Sorry for the sloppy camera work on the first laugh video.  It is totally true what they say about working with kids and animals.  Especially when you are a crew of one.

As for the exersaucer video, this should really serve as a public service warning for other parents.   We are borrowing this toy from some friends and Lucy loves it...  Like crack cocaine. 

• Easy to overdose.
• Overstimulating with any dose.
• Almost certainly has long term negative consequences.

On other fronts, she is sitting up and can support herself until she falls over.  We have added extra padding to the floor mat as she has not learned to protect her head when falling.  In fact she seems to be able to knock her head pretty hard on the floor from the lying on her back position.  Talent.

She seems like she will be crawling soon.  From lying on her stomach she can pull her legs underneath herself and the raise up on her hands.  From that position all she can do is  - yes you guessed it - fall over.  Turns out that this "crawling" position raises her center of gravity beyond anything she can control.  Her other attempt at crawling is to keep her face on the ground and just kick her legs in and out very fast, occasionally getting some traction and shoveling forward.

Other big item on the new skills list is blowing raspberries.  Apparently this is a bona fide developmental benchmark as the doctor asked about it.  Imagine how proud we are to say yes, our daughter blows raspberries.  She is very good at it.  She does it a lot.  She is in the 90th percentile for blowing raspberries.

On the dimensions front, she is chowing down 30 ounces a day but is still just shy of 12 pounds. Just a thought, but maybe she hasn't put on more weight because sometimes she blows raspberries when she is eating, making it more like spraying out than sucking in. 

Her hair is growing and quite blond and her eyes remain very blue.  Dad has some concerns that she might try to invade Poland at some point.  Fortunately at her size she won't get very far. 

Everywhere she goes people love her and she is the life of the party.   She is very comfortable with strangers and at a party does her own version of crowd surfing, getting passed from one adoring fan to another.

Next exciting visits are from the great grandparents and her english uncle.  Then at the end of August we head out to Oregon for a wedding and a little R&R in the great northwest. 

That is certainly not all the news that is fit to print, but watch the videos as they are worth a million words.  Enjoy the pictures too.  There is nose pulling, laughing, playing and hanging with family.