Introducing Jackson Scott ~July 8th, 8lbs 4oz

At Roosevelt Hospital July 9th early am

This post is coming embarrassingly late (poor third kid), but such is life with 3 kiddos and a big move to the burbs.

Well he arrived alright! 5 days late, but on his own and once labor finally (finally!) got going, it was a speedy 2.5 labor and straightforward delivery. 8 lbs, 4 oz and 20 inches long with dark hair like his sisters and looking kind of like them as well. We spent a quiet first night in the hospital, with a little girl as our roommate taking turns being hungry, so moms didn't rest much at all.

After a hospital visit from big sisters Maya and Laila who came with Tata and Abuela, we came home to an apartment full of boxes (why do we keep doing this to ourselves?!) and a whole 5 days later moved to Westchester...... right.

Luckily the kids and I escaped to the Hamptons the day before the official move leaving Brian and his parents to it. A brilliant move really, because the whole situation would have been otherwise impossible. We were able to rest in comfortable accommodations with grandparents to help - Maya in pony camp during the day which she loves, Laila, Jack and I hitting up several of the kids programs at the library (and Jack good baby sleeping through everything in the ergo).

Happy 2nd Birthday Laila!

Laila turned 2 which we celebrated at home with cake and balloons, and then we came home to Larchmont to a house that inevitably needed work but was functional - Brian did a lot in the week that he was here alone (thank goodness! Would not have been able to handle it in my postpartum state). We're starting to get our bearings and the unpacking is still coming along. How many trips to the home depot/pier 1/ikea/ bed,bath and beyond/hardware store are humanly possible??

The girls have been great with their little brother, even little Laila seems content with his existence. Maya as expected has taken all the change in stride and is excited about her new surroundings and especially her bunk bed.

We headed back to East Hampton for an end of summer stint and also celebrated Maya's 5th birthday with family, and a last minute visit from Gabriel which is a treat because we don't get to see my uncle very often at all - last time we were in Uruguay was 5 years ago almost when Maya was all of 3 months old.

Happy 5th Birthday Maya!!

Checking out my new stroller mate

Smiling in Montauk

And then there were 5...

Maya's Prek Graduation... and moving on.

Yesterday was Maya's Prek Graduation from Little Ones which perhaps was the first thing in a while (as we've been running and running with projects) to give me some pause and reflect on what a good place that has been for her these last 3 years, and really for all of us- a neighborhood school where she and I have made so many friends that we will dearly miss when we leave.

They did a great job - the kids participated in skits in small groups that reflected the work they had done over the course of the year - their frog study, the rainforest, construction ..., they sang "One Love" (above) and they walked across a bridge to receive their diploma and we watched a video montage of what the kids wanted to be when they grow up (Maya said a ballerina). It was so sweet, yes there were several tears shed - tomorrow is the official last day of school so at least it wasn't a whole lot of goodbye's all at once, but Maya although excited for her new school in Larchmont has already expressed how much she will miss her teachers. I can't believe it's been 3 years that I have been walking her to that school - time indeed flies. I will miss them too. Can't believe how much she has grown while there.

It's been a doozy of a couple of months. We closed on the house in May and got straight to work - refinishing floors, painting, carpeting, tree pruning, furniture shopping etc.. etc... it's coming along and we're in a good place with the house for our move 2nd week of July. 39 weeks pregnant and baby still seems plenty content, unlikely to make an appearance early as I fully expected. Better perhaps as it gave us the time we needed to get organized and plan and pack. We've even started to work on our remodel for next year - playing with floor plans and options. Hoping that construction won't be overly stressful.

But for now our plan is to head to the Hamptons soon after the baby is born and get out of the way of the big move leaving Brian to it. And when we come home it will be to Larchmont, and not LIC, which will really feel weird at first. More on that to come...

Happy Birthday Maya!

4 years old! Maya and her classmates celebrated with her at Jane's Carousel in Brooklyn Bridge park with an Olivia themed event, lots of Uruguayan specialties and a piñata and lots of mini cupcakes.

She is very excited to be four, and asked me all summer when her birthday was, and if she was four yet and if she could now go to pre-k. Going to pre-k is a big deal apparently because it means she will be in her separate classroom and be the oldest group in her preschool.


On that note, pre-k thankfully starts tomorrow for a half day of school. I am ecstatic at getting back into a routine. Although our summer was lovely - most of it spent in East Hampton with time divided between YMCA camp, beach, pool, yoga and horse back riding! Maya started taking lessons and we went together to the barn once a week and both rode - it was nice to get back into it having not ridden regularly since college. And Maya loved the whole experience from getting the horses ready, to her lesson, to the sponge bath she treated her horse to afterwards. Merrylegs is the name of her white pony by the way and she talks about her frequently.

  We've spent the last several weeks taking advantage of all those fun city family amusements that we hadn't gotten to all summer - Natural History museum, Bronx zoo and I think there is a Renaissance faire trip in the future - any excuse to be outside in a medieval princess dress and eat a turkey leg. Some pics from her birthday party. Happy September everyone!

Happy 1st Birthday Laila!

 Awwww.. little girl turned 1 year old. The year was a crazy blur managing two kiddos, part-time work and planning for our future moves, but she is at an adorable age if I do say so myself - has already taken several steps on her own before hitting the 1 year mark but doesn't trust herself, only two teeth (bottom) but we're working on that and already a dessert connoisseur (did Maya have sugar before a year old?). Hey it's the second, you're a little more relaxed and probably so are they.

But we had a little celebration for Laila (albeit in the middle of a hail storm!! no seriously hail the

size of peas crashing to the ground as we stared
 out the windows in the lobby of our new apartment building wondering when we could make a run for it!). Laila had herself an ice cream party at Malu, local shop with several brave neighborhood friends who came out with their kids despite the end-of-the-world summer thunderstorm we were experiencing.

It was super cute - ice cream for everyone and strawberry ice cream cake for Laila. Of course when we got home the storm was over and the clouds parted, I'm sure rain (and hail?) are good luck on your birthday in some cultures.

After her party we packed it up and headed to East Hampton to celebrate again with Tata and Abuela for a double whammy re-do for Laila and a happy birthday to my mom who turned 45 +/- the next day.

Nice dinner, and two cakes of course for a double singing. Happy birthday Laila! Happy Birthday Mom! What should we do next year? :)

Another year and a couple of firsts

Well.. Happy birthday to me! 33. I think a few years ago that number would have scared me (getting up there!) and today it just feels like another day and I feel so lucky with all that I have in my life. I mean just look at this DAY!

Not a cloud in the sky - it's been gorgeous out. Low key celebration planned for tonight, strawberry shortcake and good champagne, rents coming over to say hello and Brian set the slow cooker this morning so I don't have to make dinner. Opera tickets for Friday.

We listed our apartment for sale last week. A staging company came and rearranged all our furniture and yes the space does look better and bigger. We had a good turn out for our first showing and a few more appointments lined up for this weekend, we shall see what happens. Since we had to get everyone out of the house (no easy feat) we decided to take Maya skiing!

We went to Mountain Creek in NJ and after a few tears she agreed (well... was strongly encouraged, well actually we just kind of threw her down the hill) she liked it! Went up and down the bunny hill a few times and liked the magic carpet and even made it on the chair lift twice with her dad - once with only one ski on :)

But she made it down the hill a couple of times and went thorough the motions which was what was important - knew she would like it once she didn't think it was so scary. Laila and I watched from the sidelines and videotaped (you can hear her babbling on the clip below). Needless to say everyone passed out in the car on the way home. We will definitely be making one more trip before the season is over. There's been virtually no snow this season but it's been perfect for beginner as it keeps the crowds away.

Little Laila is starting to rev up her crawling motor. I frequently find her on all four rocking back and forth and she's getting better at clearing longer distances backwards.

And yes sometimes she ends up under the furniture, with wild animals perched above her head. But such are the perils of crawling. She's a lot of fun these days, very smiley and curious and still her sister's biggest fan.

We're busy getting our summer plans together - we will most likely head to East Hampton for most of the summer and take advantage of some camps out there, including (and this one I'm super excited about) horse camp! Maya's going for a couple of weeks and will take a few lessons - buying half chaps for a 3-4 year old is a pretty amusing experience. But I would love to get into riding again, and getting her interested seems like a good excuse :)

Happy end of February everyone... onto Spring!

The arrival of Laila Marie

 She's here! Laila Marie Hennessey was born at 6:44pm on 7/20/2011 (her official due date by one count, a day early by another) weighing in at 7lbs, 5oz and measuring 20 1/4 inches long - with lots of black hair like her sister, and really looking a lot like Maya in general.

Her birth was nothing like I expected (of course). After dropping Maya off from school last Tuesday, I made my way to the grocery store when my water broke! What is this!? I couldn't believe it. I ran home and put Brian and mom on alert and headed to my midwife's office who quickly confirmed that it had indeed broken, but there was plenty of fluid left and 20 mins on the monitor showed baby was doing great and I was having regular contractions. They expected me to go into labor within the next couple of hours and were hesitant to let me go back home to LIC. Oh well! I was not in labor yet and had a few things to take care. Brian got the call to head home from Westchester and we all convened at home for lunch.

Maya was picked up form school and went home with grandparents to spend the night, dogs were dropped off at their boarding home, bags were repacked and the waiting game began. It was 90 + degrees in NYC last Tuesday but we tried to go for a walk to a local ice cream shop to see if walking would bring on real contractions. We didn't last long - the heat was brutal. Went for an acupuncture session to try to stimulate labor and started some homeopathy at the suggestion of our doula. And then we watched movies, prepped dinner, cleaned the house and rested in the AC. At around 10pm contractions were coming regularly and slightly more intense but a far cry from any real labor. So we went to bed, had a full night's rest and at 11am on Wednesday headed to the hospital as our 24 hours were up and labor was nowhere to be seen.

We narrowly avoided a pitocin induced labor as labor finally kicked into high gear at around 3pm. Finally! Huge relief that it was going to happen on its own and that it was likely we would have the natural birth we planned for and were expecting having had such a good experience with Maya. A little over 3 hours later in what ultimately was one super speedy delivery our little Laila was born. We were thrilled to be able to bring her home the next day and have our first night as a family of four at home.

Maya thankfully has really taken to her little sister and asks about her, is concerned when she cries, wants to touch her and make baby noises at her and occasionally tells us what to do - "pick her up, she's hungry!" A lot of adjustments for an almost 3 year old, but the big sister has taken it all in stride.
We've had a wonderful week getting used to our new routines. Of course having Brian at home has been great - he's done his own outings with Maya and she has been fine with that understanding that for now mom needs to stay home with the baby.

Tomorrow Brian heads back to work, Maya will be at school most of the day and then the fun really begins - we'll see how I manage both little ladies on my own. The intense heat is not helping, but Maya being so accepting and Laila being a pretty chill baby so far will definitely make a huge difference.  Now that she's here we're hoping to enjoy some more summer activities and hopefully a trip to the Hamptons next weekend. We feel truly lucky to have to beautiful healthy little girls.

Birthday Surprise!

Happy Birthday Brian!!

Thanks to everyone who joined us for lunch and for surprising Brian with a belated 35th birthday celebration!

Fall Milestones

Ahhh September. My favorite month of the year, lots of sunshine and cooler temperatures mean open windows and bearable subways rides, and it's safe to turn on your ovens to roast all the amazing produce available at the farmer's markets.

This month we celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary (that's right folks, count 'em - FOUR years!) with a dinner cruise on the Hudson river and around New York harbor. We started on the west side at Chelsea piers, went south on the Hudson, around the southern tip of Manhattan and up the East River a little before turning around and sailing south to New York harbor. The highlight of the cruise was sailing right by the Statue of Liberty (picture below although a little hard to see and doesn't do it justice). It was very fun, the NY waterways provide you with a whole new perspective on this crazy city. Highly recommend.

The other significant milestone was little Miss Maya starting nursery school and she's done so well with the transition it's been so fun! She whines a little when I leave but settles down very quickly and continues with whatever art project or activity she is engaged in. I've started my part time work schedule (which I'm loving) and need to be at work during the hours that she is at school and the fact that she has transitioned into school quickly and easily has made the whole experience very pleasant and fun. I pick her up at 2pm and we come home for a nap.  Here she is on her way to her first day at school with her Disney princess lunchbox. So grown up!

Spread a little love...

Welcome February! The weird 28-day month where we celebrate Black history, women's heart health awareness month, Valentine's Day and as a finale, my birthday. Maya will be 18 months old, except she was robbed of her 'official' 18 month old benchmark because her birthday falls on the 30th, so she's a little jipped of this ever so important marker of her toddlerhood and will just have to share mommy's birthday on the 28th.


With all the Sturm und Drang (go Tim Gunn) in the news these days, the unemployment rate, Haiti, economic woes and Toyotas not being safe (sheesh) it's nice to have places to turn to that focus on the positive. It is after all a 'love month'.  I came across Optimist World, a website that reports on positive news, charities, tales of triumph and all around 'fuzzy feeling' inducing stories. The Saints winning yesterday ain't bad either. And this Sarah Palin oops is just plain funny, unless you're a Republican which I doubt many of you (you being my loyal and dedicated readers) are. So enjoy.


Another fun project of late has been a little knitting enterprise I started up with a friend of mine. We call this little project of ours that keeps us up knitting at night Urban Baby Knits, and for those of you who are aware of Etsy, truly a little gem of a website, we opened up a shop there to sell well, you guessed it - knits for babies. We don't have much up yet but we're hoping to keep it going (so please check back! We'd love your feedback), and we sure are having a lot of fun designing items for it. I find it to be a rather satisfying hobby, with a concrete finished product at the end.

So there it is - we knit, watch football, celebrate birthdays, take naps, host friends, bundle up and make plans for dinner to make it through this ever so coldest of months. And if you're particularly tired and down about the weather and need a laugh - there's always Cake Wrecks.