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New Shoes

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Yesterday was a fun day! It is so nice to be able to say that for a change. Micah had a bit of a rough night on Wednesday – it seems his top two teeth (that have been sitting just under the surface and visible for almost two months now) finally poked through! He woke up around 4:00 am crying, but quickly put himself back to sleep. At 5:30, he woke up crying again, so Elliot went in and gave him some Tylenol. Thankfully, he fell back to sleep again…and slept until 9:45!!

He woke up nice and cheery and cuddly. I gave him a bottle and made him French toast for breakfast. He really seems to love that. I put a touch of cinnamon and vanilla in the batter, and we used applesauce and organic strawberry jam to add a touch of flavor. Needless to say, naptime did not happen as planned at 10:30.

The architect arrived at 10:30. We sat down and discussed options, and I think we finally made a decision to go ahead with the renovations. I must admit – I’m not exactly thrilled about the decision. I would much prefer to just get rid of this house and move somewhere new. I think I’m about to go off on a tangent here and get away from the “fun” part of the day :).

If we renovate Elliot’s house, there are still a few basic problems. 1) The house is on an extremely small lot, and we will not have much of a backyard for our children (no swing set or jungle gym for them). 2) We cannot get all of the rooms we want. I could live with giving up some of those things if it was unreasonable, but for the money we have to spend, there is no reason we shouldn’t be able to get exactly what we want. 3) Even with the renovations, the rooms will be relatively small and our storage and closet space will be somewhat limited. 4) We will definitely not have a garage at this location (while not necessary, it really is something I prefer to have). 5) I think the current house is kind of ugly – and the renovations will not fix the “ugly” part for me. I also do not like that we are situated near a very busy street (dangerous for children and animals) without sidewalks. The street is narrow, so street parking for visitors is also a challenge. Our “view” also includes two very large apartment buildings and a fire house, which I feel are detractors from the “ambience.” Because of these shortcomings, I just am reluctant to renovate the house. Add to that, we’ll have to move 2 more times – and live in my condo (which is also too small) for another 6-9 months. We will have to be living in the condo with a new infant, and we’ll be moving with a baby that is a few months old. That is just a challenge in terms of space and exhaustion level. Did I mention that there are 40 steps to my front door at the condo? Imagine carrying an infant seat up and down that! And I’m worried about Micah falling down all those stairs, too.

As you may not know, if we decide to move, Elliot and I cannot agree on a location to live. Ironically, there is only a 3-4 mile difference between where he wants to live and where I want to live – and “compromise” does not seem feasible here (at least not for Elliot). Elliot insists on living within a few blocks of the metro (preferably the Bethesda metro) and wants the ability to bike downtown. That leaves us with a very small radius of “acceptable” and the homes are all quite small, on tiny lots, and very expensive. Any of the houses I want to live in that are in our price range are outside of Elliot’s desired living radius. I just can’t seem to convince Elliot to give in on any of his priorities and meet me halfway. He seems to think if he gives up any one of his priorities, then the living arrangement is unacceptable. It frustrates me, because he expects me to compromise on living environment, and he does not seem to think that is a significant compromise.

We went house hunting this past weekend – we saw one “perfect” house that I would love and he could manage the location (although not ideal for him), but it was absolutely outside our price range. We *might* be able to swing it with some fancy financial moves, but to me, it does not make sense to risk being that “house-poor” – what if we lose a job or have a family emergency? I just don’t want to worry that tragedy could cost us our house, too.

My proposal was to figure out how much it would cost us to stay, and figure out what house we could buy for the same amount of money. I suggested we add the cost of our current mortgage to the cost of the proposed renovations, and then add in the profit we would make by selling our house now. I suggested that total should be the maximum amount we should spend on any house (basically, we would be paying no more than the cost of renovating our existing house). Luckily, that gives us a pretty decent housing allowance – but not quite enough to get the house I think we need in the area Elliot wants to live. We are in a no-win situation! I just feel like I’m left without options – we have to do something to make room for Twoey, and if we wait any longer, we have a real problem. I think if I insist that we move, Elliot will be miserable and make me miserable. I’m hoping that if I give in here, perhaps he’ll be willing to move in 5 years and he’ll give me what I want (or be willing to compromise then). I just hope I’m making the right decision – because this process does not make me happy.

Okay – forgive my divergence! I’m now back to the “yesterday was fun” part of the post. After our meeting with the architect (and our long discussion that followed), we took Micah to his class at Kidville. Micah loves this class – called Run, Wiggle, Paint and Giggle! It is an hour long, and they have educational toys and “free play” time, followed by music/singing, then physical learning activities, then tactile/art time (they played with butcher paper). He loves to dance and play with the instruments. The hour passed quickly, and it was evident that Micah was exhausted without getting his morning nap. Unfortunately, we had one more errand to run – we needed to buy Micah shoes! Micah fell asleep on the way to the shoe store, but we woke him up and dragged him inside. We picked out a pair of these adorable brown suede walking shoes – they come up to his ankles. My little man has fairly small – but very WIDE – feet! He wore a size 4 double wide!! I love his adorable fat little feet :). By the way – many thanks to my parents, who paid for Micah’s first pair of shoes. I am fairly certain he’ll need one more pair, so we’ll go looking again over the next week. Baby shoes are more expensive than I expected, but it really is important to make sure they fit correctly. I’ve been shoving Micah’s feet into regular width shoes all this time, and that is not good for his feet or his walking development. Now that I have his shoe size and one properly fitting pair, I’ll go in search of a “bargain.”

We got home from shoe shopping and Micah took a nap. He only slept for about 1 hour, though – I had expected a much longer nap from him! Elliot went out to help the Red Cross deploy more support to Haiti while Micah was sleeping, but did not get home until Micah’s bed time. He went back out again around 10:00 pm and spent the night out working for Red Cross.

My grandmother seems to be holding her own. Yesterday was a good day, and I am hoping to get over there today and see her. I did not make it this morning yet – I fell down a flight of stairs last night and injured my ankle. Quite a good run of luck I’m having, huh?

The good and the bad

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I’m so sorry I’ve been quiet again. You see…I just didn’t know how to write this post. I’ve decided to just write it all out – the good and the bad. I keep spinning around in circles, wondering if I should lead with the good, then tell the bad, or perhaps I should get the bad things out first and end on a high note. For lack of a concrete decision, I guess I’m going to ramble a bit, and perhaps just share the events as they unfolded.

Back around June 29 last year, I started to write a post entitled “Bad things happen in threes.” I do not know how many people have heard this saying, but it always seems to ring true. When I started the post, Farah Fawcett, Michael Jackson and Ed McMahon had just died. Shortly thereafter, Billy Mays died, and I was wondering what “bad” things were coming next. I do not remember what the remaining 2 things were…and I guess I just did not feel the need to talk about Farah, Michael, Ed or Billy.

But, back to the present. Last Saturday, we went to a first birthday party for Micah’s friend Owen. We met them in our breastfeeding support group – hard to imagine that a year has already passed and our boys are growing up. We had a great time playing and eating pizza. Micah showed off his walking skills, too. The following day, we had another birthday party for our friend Janice’s son, Andy, at a Gymboree. Micah was so funny, trying to walk around and play with the “big” kids. He had fun on the slide, he loved the singing and the parachute, and he was all over the place. He even sat at the table in a “real” chair (okay, a child-sized chair) and ate off a plate (well, he occasionally tried to dump the food on the floor). I intended to come home and blog about our fun party experiences, but I got a bit distracted by “Bad Things.”

Bad Thing #1: I guess the “bad things” started when I learned that my friend lost one of her precious twins – her son, Will – at 25 weeks pregnant. Like everyone else hearing this news, I was stunned. How could such an awful thing happen? I have been stunned that something so awful can happen. I do not even know how I could possibly comfort her during this time…but my heart aches for her. I have been thinking of her and her other precious twin Abby, and hoping that she remains strong and continues to grow and thrive. Even worse than how awful I feel for my friend – the selfish panic has a way of hitting home with me right now – at only 18 weeks pregnant. Yes, I said it – hearing of such a tragic loss became a selfish moment for me, too. I feel awful even saying that, but it has been sitting right there in the back of my head since I learned of this tragedy. I guess hearing that something so awful has happened to someone I care very much about is terrifying – it really made me think about how it could hit that close to home for me, too.

Bad Thing #2: Haiti. Need I say more? I just sit here, appalled every day that there is such devastation in Haiti. As you all know, Elliot works in emergency response, and he has spent much of his time since the earthquake planning logistics and getting equipment and supplies down to Haiti for Red Cross. He has helped several teams get off the ground (which involves several 4 am trips to the airport and countless hours of phone calls negotiating with airlines and TSA). I have to say, I do not understand why it is taking so long to truly provide the relief they need in Haiti. I am angry that so many have died during the earthquake, but I’m even angrier that perhaps tens of thousands are dying because they are buried beneath rubble and rescue teams have not gotten to them in time. What a terrible way to die – alive, trapped under rubble, waiting to die of starvation or dehydration. I’m shocked that survivors are starving to death because there is no food or water for them. I’m disgusted that doctors are choosing to amputate limbs to avoid infection because there are not enough antibiotics or sufficiently equipped ORs to provide better alternatives. I heard that at ONE facility alone, they are performing more than 70 amputations a day. I hurt knowing that despite all of the will in this world to help, send supplies, send rescue teams – we do not seem capable of fixing this with sufficient speed to save everyone.

A GOOD INTERLUDE…I’ve been fixating on the bad things, but somewhere in this week, I wanted to post about how much Micah has been growing and changing. He is truly walking now – he is on his feet more than he is crawling. His language skills are growing – he makes a sign for phone, he claps, he understands when I tell him to bring me something or throw me a ball, and he has started saying the word “ball.” I have some amazing video of him toddling all over the house! I’ll have to post some more video in a few days when I can focus on all of the good things.

BAD THING #3: Perhaps it was foreshadowing of things to come the following day, but we had a terrifying experience last Tuesday night. Micah was sitting on the couch with me, and as he always does, he crawled to the end of the couch by the arm. I was talking on the phone to my mother, and I had my hand resting on his feet. I thought I would feel him if he tried to push off to take a header off the couch, and that I would be able to pull him back or stop him. Yes, you can see where I am going with this. It all happened in an instant – so fast, and yet it was like watching a movie in slow motion. Somehow, without pushing off with his feet, Micah started to fall over the arm of the couch. I started to yell and dove after him, throwing the phone somewhere on the floor. I got to the arm of the couch and felt his legs brush through my hands as I missed grabbing him. I watched my sweet little baby boy land on his face on the floor…and then while his face was still down, I watched the rest of his body flip over, bending his neck almost 180 degrees before he landed flat on his back and his face popped up off the ground.

I know I stopped breathing for a second as I stood over his body. From the way his neck bent, for a moment I was certain he was either dead or paralyzed. I was afraid to grab him and move him – terrified that would make the injury worse. For a second, Micah did not move or make a sound. That was the longest moment I have ever endured. I have to say, the relief washed over me when he started screaming and moving – my first thought was that he was alive and not paralyzed. Since he was already moving wildly, I decided to gently pick him up and hold him. I quickly realized he could move all of his limbs and turn his head. He had a bad scrape on his nose and a bit of a red mark on his forehead. We immediately called the doctor to figure out if we should go to the emergency room. Micah quickly showed us that he was able to walk and was behaving normally. When the doctor called back, she assessed the situation and told us that it was unlikely he needed to go to the emergency room and be put through xrays. We kept him up another couple of hours before putting him to bed, and I checked on him throughout the night, terrified something bad would happen to him overnight. The next morning, Wednesday, Micah appeared no worse for the wear. He had a big red triangle on his nose – the kind kids get with a skinned knee. He looked a lot like Raggedy Andy!! But, much to my surprise, he did not even seem sore. I hated letting him out of my sight for a moment, but he insisted on running all over the place.

A few hours later on Wednesday morning, I got another call, while we were meeting with an architect to discuss possible renovations to our house. Round 2, Bad Thing #1: My grandmother fell and was being rushed to the hospital. My mother told me that the fall did not sound like a big deal, and they were merely sending her to the hospital as a precaution. When my mother got to the hospital, however, she called again – apparently, they suspected that my grandmother had fractured her skull, and her temporal artery burst. After they stitched her up and took xrays, they confirmed the fractured skull. She then had a CT scan, which identified 3 major bleeds in her brain, including one major bleed in her brain stem. They briefly discussed surgery, but my grandmother is 97 years old and she suffers from dementia. Surgery is traumatic – if she survived it at all, it would definitively cause a loss of function. Because of the dementia and her age, she is not a candidate for physical therapy to recover that loss of function. So, any surgery (if she survived) would likely have made things worse. Add to that, my grandmother was taking a medicine called Plavix, which is a blood thinner. Because of the Plavix, she has a difficult time clotting (making surgery dangerous and the bleeds unlikely to stop on their own). While we stopped giving her the Plavix, it takes about 10 days to fully leave the system. Ultimately, the doctor suggested we not operate and transfer her to hospice care. They seemed to think she only had a few days to live, at most.

This was devastating news. While my grandmother is 97 and suffers from dementia, and while we’ve realized she could die at any time for quite a while now, we just never envisioned this scenario. Elliot and I spent most of the day at the hospital with my family during all of this. After a number of hours, we got my grandmother’s transfer to a nursing home for hospice care approved. When the ambulance arrived, my mother drove ahead so that she would be there waiting for my grandmother when she arrived at the nursing home. As we prepared her for transport, she became increasingly agitated. She managed to pull the bandage off of her head (which was there to try and control some of the bleeding). She started yelling at the EMTs and she was very upset. At the last minute, I decided to ride in the ambulance with her, to help keep her calm. My grandmother often does not recognize me, but yet, she seems to respond to me. Perhaps it is because I call her Grammy so she knows I am family, or perhaps somewhere buried in her mind I am still familiar to her. Either way, I thought she needed me with her, so I hopped in the ambulance.

Unfortunately, I did not think about my terrible morning sickness, or how it is exacerbated by motion. Nor did I think about the fact it was rush hour and we were traveling 10 miles away. It was a VERY long trip – but I only threw up one time. I felt awful for the EMT – you should have seen the look on his face when I calmly asked him if he had a container I could use for vomiting. We arrived at the nursing home, and both my grandmother and I settled down. It was amazing how alert she was, and she appeared not to feel any pain!

The next day, Thursday, was Micah’s 13 month birthday! Elliot was up and out at 4:00 am again to help get a team and supplies out to Haiti, so I was on my own that morning. I should have posted something joyous here to mark the event – but I was finding it hard to celebrate with such sadness surrounding us. Thursday was not a good day for my grandmother. She just slept all day, and barely responded to anything. We were getting mixed signals all day from the hospice providers – one minute they said she was doing well and this was likely just a reaction to the prior day, the next minute they felt her bleed was getting worse and were not sure she was capable of swallowing food and water, the next minute the doctor was telling us she was in a coma and we should pull all food and water. At 9:30 pm, my mother and I made a run out to see my grandmother again. We thought it might be the end. We got there … and my grandmother woke up and chatted with us. We were angry at the doctor for his misinformation, but it was a good visit, and once again, I am so thankful that I had the time to talk with her and tell her that I love her.

On Friday, while my mom visited my grandmother in the morning, she was quite alert and responsive. My mother insisted they do a swallow test to determine what she was capable of eating, and she passed. I went out to visit later in the day. We insisted that they give her food and drink to keep her comfortable for as long as she can take it. Saturday, my grandmother seemed to be holding steady. Sunday was another good day, although I was unable to visit her.

We had a very busy day on Sunday. Micah had a bad night and ended up sleeping until almost 10:00. As a result, he missed his morning nap, and was like the energizer bunny! I decided that it was not appropriate to take him to the nursing home – he is too restless and wants to get into everything, and I just did not think it was a good idea to have him fussing or crawling on the floor while I was trying to sit with my grandmother. In the afternoon, my mom came over for a few hours to spend time with Micah. Elliot and I took advantage of the time and went house hunting. I’ve mentioned before that we only have 2 bedrooms in our current house – so we have a space issue when Twoey arrives. We are torn between putting on an addition and moving, and we just cannot make a decision. I’ll save that discussion for another post. Anyway, we looked at houses for a few hours and realized that we still do not know what to do. We got home around 4:00, just in time for Elliot’s brother Steven and niece Melissa to arrive. She is a college student, and headed off to South Africa for a semester abroad! She was leaving from Dulles, so they drove down for the flight out on Monday afternoon. It was a nice, but brief, visit.

(NOTE – Round 2, Bad Thing #2 – Another earthquake hits Guatemala and El Salvador). On Monday, much to everyone’s shock, my grandmother was stabilizing. The doctors kept telling us that they could not believe she was breathing and not in a coma with the extent of her brain bleed. And yet…there she was, chatting. She was definitely sleepy and her dementia was still an issue, but she was quite responsive to us – more chatty than she has been in a while. They got her up and bathed her, and they even put her in a wheelchair for a bit. We had a long discussion on Monday about finances – insurance coverage, Medicare, hospice services, etc. Unfortunately, because the doctors were certain she would not survive more than a few days, we did not keep her in the hospital for 3 days, so she is not eligible for some of the Medicare benefits (which makes a few things a bit sticky for us). We are trying to work around this glitch, but we hope to be able to keep my grandmother where she is for as long as she is with us.

After I got home from visiting my grandmother, we took Melissa to the airport. We got her to the airport in plenty of time (despite the fact we were pulled over on the way out for an expired tag – long story, but the tag is actually NOT expired, but we cannot get the new sticker to put on my license plate). Ironically, we ran into our friend, Bill, at the airport. Elliot & I actually met at Bill’s Superbowl Party in 2005. We offered Bill a ride home. Steven left as soon as we got back home. Micah was being cranky and refused to nap – it was a LONG day.

Today, however, was not as good a day for my grandmother. She is back to being very sleepy. She responds to my mother (I was not able to go visit today), but she has not been responding to any of the nurses or caretakers. She has been choking more during meals, which is dangerous for her, so we have had to pull back on what she is eating. It remains to be seen if she is just exhausted because she overdid it yesterday, or if this is the beginning of the decline we have been expecting. I am planning to go see her again tomorrow.

Another selfish moment … I have a huge conference for work next week. All week – Monday through Saturday. This is the most important event for me all year, and if I miss it, I would lose my job. I’m terrified that something will change (or, to be blunt, that my grandmother will die) while I am away at my conference. How am I supposed to choose between being there to support my mother during a terrible time and my job? I hope I do not have to find out.

So…that is the good and the bad. Once again, I’m left asking – what is Bad Thing #3? I wish there did not have to be anything else to complete this chain. I hate that bad things seem to come in threes. And I hate that there is so much sadness tainting all the good right now.

Twoey’s 16 week OB visit and ultrasound

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On Wednesday, we had our 16 week appointment. Unfortunately, DH was unable to join us due to a work conflict, and I wasn’t able to record the heartbeat this time. The appointment went well – I was measuring right on target, I lost 2 more pounds, and I’m probably just stuck with the morning sickness. I have to get more bloodwork done, but they didn’t manage to get me the bloodwork requests before I left. Frankly, I hate getting the bloodwork done anyway, so I just couldn’t be bothered fighting!

Today was Twoey’s 16 week ultrasound! We hoped they would be able to tell us the gender, and we needed to meet with the doctor about my contractions and pain. Naturally, they were late getting started. They started out doing a cervical length check, and it did appear there was some shrinkage (not such good news) but it was still at least 3.5 cms, which is a decent measurement, just shorter than last month.

Then, the tech got to it and started checking the baby. Everything looked great with Twoey! Baby was measuring about 3 days ahead (Micah was measuring ahead at this point, too). Arms/legs/head all looked perfect, and the little heart was pumping away, with a heart rate of 155 bpm. We got to see the kidneys and spine, and cute little hands and face. Best of all, Twoey decide to cooperate and show us the “goods”! Here are the photos we got:




Isn’t SHE beautiful? Yes, we are having a little girl!

In other news, the fibroid is hiding well up against the placenta, but the doctor feels that it will continue to give me some problems. I was given a prescription of Indocin to take for the pain and contractions, but not more than 48 hours worth of medicine in any one week period. Hopefully, that will do the trick! For right now, everything is going asexpected, and our next ultrasound is scheduled for February 4.

Update on Twoey

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Morning sickness has been a constant for me – as long as I remember to take 2 Zofran every 8 hours, though, I can function. I hope this lets up soon! In the meantime, I am not exactly certain when I took this test, but we decided to do Intelligender again. From what I have read, it is about as accurate as flipping a coin, but hey, it’s fun, right? So, the results, once again….



Yup, it says Twoey is a boy. I can’t help but think Twoey is a girl, but it could be wishful thinking :). I’ve always thought the “perfect” family is one boy and one girl, so it probably means I’ll be a mom to 2 boys instead. As long as he/she is healthy and happy, right? We have to go back for another ultrasound on January 8. My fibroid is growing at a nice rapid rate, so I definitely need to be monitored again. At the NT scan a few weeks ago, the fibroid was still bigger than Twoey. So, we’ll be going back on January 8, and there is a good chance they’ll be able to tell us the gender at that point!

I’ve been feeling some movement from Twoey for a while now. It is very different this time around. With Micah, it started very softly, almost like bubbles or a flutter. I think I started to become aware of it around 13 or 14 weeks. With Twoey, the movement feels stronger, but I’ve almost been second guessing it because it seems too strong a feeling for so early. I guess we’ll see what happens with time!

An announcement and some stories

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A bottle of baby shampoo…$7
A can of formula…$25
A package of jumbo diapers…$43
The fact that there are 4 people in this photo….priceless:

It is with great pleasure that we are finally able to announce that we are expecting baby #2, due June 22, 2010. After a very rocky couple of months (we thought we lost the baby several different times), we had our 12 week nuchal tanslucency scan on December 8. After everything we went through, we were quite nervous about this visit. We got there and the tech started things up…and we were SOOO relieved when we heard there was still a heartbeat. As the ultrasound went on, the news got better and better. The baby was moving well, the neck measurements were perfect, all the parts were in place…hands, feet, arms, legs and nasal bone. Here are the two pictures of our beautiful little bean, (who we are calling Twoey), that we were able to take home.
Random Story Time
I adore Micah, but he is becoming quite a challenge to handle in so many ways. First, let’s start with diapering. Diaper changing is really and truly an exercise in baby wrangling – Micah twists, turns, stands, flips, dances, squirms, crawls, and hollers. We hand him a toy – sometimes it appeases him and he’ll play. Other times, he’ll throw it on the floor and return to insanity. We’ve tried remote controls, books, digital thermometers, the blue nose squeegey – at different times, each of these “toys” enthralls him, but some days, nothing but freedom will do!
Now that we’ve covered diapering challenges, let’s talk about eating. Micah does not like to drink much milk, and he refuses to take a sippy cup. He should still be drinking 20-24 ozs of formula a day, but I’m lucky most days if he drinks 10-14. In the morning, he likes to go play. In theory, that alone would be fine if he did a great job of eating. And some meals, Micah is a GREAT eater. He loves veggie burgers, hamburgers, turkey burgers, cheese sandwiches, pizza, cheerios and kidney beans. He also loves bananas and pears. Just about anything else, however, is a crap shoot. He appears to hate pasta, although he was willing to eat pesto-coated tortellini the other day. He will sometimes eat yogurt and cottage cheese, and he will sometimes let me feed him applesauce or oatmeal. Other times, he grabs the spoon and smears it in his hair while dumping the bowl on the floor. He will not eat white potatoes (can you imagine?), peas, green beans or carrots anymore. I can actually handle this newly found pickiness, but what is driving me crazy is his need to “share” the food with our dog! He drops at least half of everything he touches on the floor for her! And if we say “no,” he smiles and tries to “sneak” and drop the food on the floor. I mean, seriously, is deviousness an instinct or a learned trait? The worst part is my dog is supposed to be on a grain-free diet because of her allergies. We finally had her skin doing better and her hair re-growing, and all this recent influx of waffles and Cheerios and bread and crackers has her skin back to being a mess again, her bald spot is back with a vengeance, and her nose irritation returned. How do you explain that to a 1 year old? I think I’m going to have to put MICAH on a grain-free diet for the sake of the dog!!
By the way – did you notice I said 1 year old? That is right – Monday is Micah’s first birthday! We are having a party for him on Sunday (well, two). It is also Chanukah for us (the “festival of lights”), when we celebrate Judah and the Maccabees’ (the Jewish makeshift “army”) victory over the Syrian King, Antiochus, who tried to kill us. After our victory, Judah and the Maccabees sought to rededicate the Temple, and there was only a small amount of oil left to light the eternal flame. Once lit, the eternal flame should never be extinguished. The miracle is that the little tiny bit of oil managed to last for eight days. To commemorate the miracle, we light candles every night for 8 days. Each night, we add one more candle to the lighting, and on the last night, the entire menorah is lit – all 8 candles (plus the one we use to light the other candles – known as the shamas). Because Chanukah falls around Christmas time, in the US, Jews also celebrate Chanukah with gift-giving.
In honor of both Micah’s birthday and the holiday, we are having a Chanukah party for Micah’s birthday! At 12, his playgroup friends will join us, and we’ll serve traditional Chanukah food (like latkes – potato pancakes). Micah will then take his afternoon nap, and around 3:30 or 4, we’ll have some other friends and family join us for Chanukah party, take 2. We’ll continue eating traditional food, playing Chanukah games, and we’ll have Chanukah music playing. We’ll light the candles, exchange gifts and watch Micah destroy a birthday cake. What could be more fun?