Well, my maternity leave is over! Everyone at work has told me, "you're back already?" (All except for my coworker Egidia who has helping to cover for me, for her I couldn't get back fast enough!) If it seems fast to them, it flew by to me!
Unfortunately I can't intersperse text and images in this blog, so I'm going to give you a rundown of the photos below in order.
The first ones are from New Year's Eve, which we spent at home. My mom was with us, but preferred sleep to watching the ball drop. Which I totally understand because the three of us were splitting all-night shifts with Andrew at that point.
We had some time to go down to the Hollywood "Broadwalk," which despite its name is not really especially broad, just a regular boardwalk. It does go for over two miles along Hollywood Beach, which is one of the wider and more beautiful beaches in south Florida.
Margie and Brian came down in January and my mom went back to Illinois to help my sister Theresa, who is expecting a little girl in May.
VIDEO: Puppet Andrew
During that time, we did a little sightseeing and went to Vizcaya in Miami, which I've always wanted to visit. It is a mansion built around 1914, on 180 acres of what is now prime waterfront real estate in downtown Miami. It was built by James Deering of Deering-McCormick-International Harvester fame, which was based in Chicago. No surprise he wanted his vacation home in Miami. He built it to look like a European estate, much older than it actually is, with artwork and valuables throughout the home. It is pretty incredible, and the gardens are apparently a magnet for quinceañeras, who these days all look about 25 instead of 15, and are getting their photos taken by professional photographers. Bringing Isaac to such a quiet and non-touchable place was a questionable decision, although we didn't have much of a choice since we all wanted to go. And he acted as you'd expect a two-and-a-half year old to act, when you won't let him run through the house or touch anything or go past the velvet rope or hide behind the antique furniture. Luckily there were four of us, and the gardens were fun for him, especially the hedge maze. Which is low and not at all like "The Shining," not to say it didn't cross my mind.
Continuing on, Isaac's "novia" (girlfriend) and part-time babysitter Mariana, who helped me with the boys after Margie left and before I went back to work, was going back home to Venezuela so we had a little farewell get-together at the house featuring a huge dense chocolate cake. If you can believe it, the Party City near my house had absolutely no "bon voyage" decorations (although St. Paddy's Day was fully covered), so I decided to change it up and have a "USA" party. Isaac still misses her!
One rainy weekend day, we decided to try out a place we had heard about called Young at Art, which is a children's museum about 15 miles west of the house. I don't even think "museum" does it justice, it's the largest and most insane kid's play area I've ever seen! Adam enjoyed it too. There were probably seven different very large play areas with all kinds of activities that are all didactic. There was even a live musician! Needless to say, we are now members.
I'm very lucky that my company offers a phase-in period, which starts out at 20 hours a week and works up to 40 hours by week 5. Right now I'm in week 3, and it's been a huge help both emotionally and practically, to get things done and gradually get used to being away from home all day. We hired a very nice lady Olga, who lives nearby, to watch the boys at our house during the day, and it's been working out great.
Andrew's such a big boy, and really developing well. Check him out here:
VIDEO: Tracking with his eyes
That's all for now! Hopefully it will not be so long between posts again!