Tag Archives: Video

Little Man and Michael Jackson

15 Nov

When J and I first met, we clicked on a lot of things:

– We both love Jane Austen and LOVE the movie Pride and Prejudice (yes, we’re girls. Indulge us.)

– We both use Jergens Healthy Glow tanning lotion in the summer because J burns and I just like to tell people I spent the summer in Aruba or somewhere exotic

–  We were both pregnancy book nerds — she read What To Expect When You’re Expecting from cover to cover when she was carrying Sports Man, and I hit Barnes and Noble less than a week after I found out about you.

However, one of the other things we discovered we had in common was dance. I played tons of sports in elementary school, but once I got older (and got braces…and terrified Pop Pop by getting hit in the mouth one too many times…), I took up modern dance and ballet instead. I danced all through middle school into high school and once I hit college I took up ballroom dancing and a teeeeny bit of contra dancing. I was never quite as flexible as I wanted to be, but oh it was fun! It was nice to find out that J and I shared such a passion.

But do you know what’s better than finding out we shared that passion? Discovering that we both passed that passion to you. And thanks to J’s lighting fast iPhone filming skills, we have proof that you will probably hate us for in 10-12 or so years. And may I just say, you have incredible, prodigious skill. It’s overwhelming. You even pose like Michael Jackson. Next time we’ll get you gloves and you can do the moon dance.

But for now, it’s just another thing that J and I can commiserate over :) P.S. — The thing you do with your legs at the end is my favorite.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Football Face Mask Penalty

23 Sep

I am a huuuuge football fan. It’s one of the many reasons why autumn is my favorite season — prime ACC football and NFL season. I’m a fanatic. I’m one of those yell-at-the-referees-even-though-they-clearly-can’t-hear-me-through-the-television people. Luckily, my love for football seems to be genetic. And also it’s highly encouraged by The B’s. They’re big Giants fans. I’ve forgiven them for that because I’m a good person.

You are already a pigskin fan. I still remember the day J sent me the text telling me that you had learned to say, “touchdown.” So proud.

Unfortunately, the rules of football seem to be eluding you. But seeing as you are only two years, two months and one day old (but who’s counting?), you have time to learn. Here’s your first lesson: face mask penalties are bad and generally considered illegal. And by generally, I mean always. Why is this your first lesson?

This is why.

P.S. — You’re adorable.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’m a Comin’!

16 Jul

The official statistics are in. It’s been…

– 73 days since I saw you last (Boo!)

 

Which is…

– 73 days longer than I like to go without seeing you

 

But now we have…

– Six days until your second birthday

– Four days until I see you

– Three days until I fly down there

 

Not that I’m counting.

 

But maybe I’m not the only impatient one…

So I have decided that this video (thank you E!) means that you’ve just been missing me like crazy and you can’t wait to see me again. Don’t worry buddy…I understand the feeling :)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Little Man Can Sing!

30 May

The day after a big birthday is kind of like the day after Christmas – you’re coming off a high, and the anticipation of the big day is gone but luckily, you’re left with a lot of gifts to distract you from that. However, being pretty far away from most of my close friends and family on my 21st, I only got three real gifts.

The first is my ability to purchase alcohol for the rest of my life.

The second gift I got was my job, and true to form, it certainly distracts me because I’m busy all day long. I’m one of those silly interns who is so unbelievably excited to be an intern. The only reason it’s silly is because not that many people get super excited to do a whole lot of grunt work for no money at all. But your mom is a nerd sometimes. I love it!

The third gift is my favorite though, because it’s from you and The B’s. A big hug goes from my heart to J’s for thinking of this and sending it to me. Yet another wonderful reminder of how beautiful open adoption can be. I can’t tell you how many times I replayed it. Over and over and over again for half an hour at least, probably more. I love you so much Little Man. Thank you for song! It absolutely made my birthday a perfect day.

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Wanna Talk About Me, Wanna Talk About I

29 Mar

 I am aware that I am a biased person when it comes to you. I know for a fact that I cannot and will never be able to view you objectively. But I grant myself pardon because what parent isn’t like that when it comes to their own child? You see, to me, you are the cutest baby ever born, you were the best baby there ever was, and basically, you just do everything better and earlier than any other baby who’s ever been born. Probably not a fair judgment, but like I said…I’m biased. And since parents everywhere think the same thing of their children, I’m also not alone.

Of course, this “overestimation” in your abilities (which is not at all an overestimation in my humble opinion) extends to your brilliance. Yes, brilliance. You, my dear son, are incredibly smart. You can already say the alphabet and recognize letters and numbers. And you don’t just recite the alphabet – you actually know what letters come after which (as J told me yesterday)! You can count to twenty. You pick up on new things incredibly fast, and from everything I’ve heard in my developmental psych class about “the age that babies develop the ability to (fill in the blank),” you are always ahead of the power curve. I brag about you a lot. Even if those things weren’t true, I couldn’t be prouder of you.

Speaking of my developmental psychology class, (I know, I refer to it a lot, but it’s just so relevant!) we were discussing the other day about the age when toddlers start to recognize themselves. My textbook says it’s generally at or a little after age 2 that kids start to recognize themselves in pictures or videos or even the mirror. However, I happen to know that you’ve been able to recognize yourself for a long time. Last time you visited, one of the ways we kept you entertained was to show you videos. I showed you ones I took that day and your parents showed you ones they’d taken over the past few months. Any time you saw yourself, you would point to yourself in the video and say, “Me!” And you’re still four months away from being two years old. Who woulda thought?

But actually, that was not the first time you demonstrated your ability to recognize yourself. You did that even earlier. E sent me a video at the beginning of February depicting your new (and fairly prodigious) skill, which means you were able to recognize yourself even before that.

I know, it’s a small feat, but I get incredibly excited over the little things you learn to do. You could learn the word “garbage” and I’d squeal about it for days, telling everyone I know. I know it’s silly, but I can’t help it. I just get so proud of you! I know a majority of your smarts comes from having wonderful parents who give you books and educational games and sit with you for hours on end while you learn the alphabet. I’m sure it also comes from having a brother who loves to teach you things. But there’s a little part of me that likes to think maybe it’s just your stellar genetics (I graduated high school with highest honors, and have been on the Dean’s List every semester of college. Just saying). Maybe mama had a little something to do with it ;)

Also, you’re insanely adorable when you learn to do new things, which is also partly the reason why I brag so much – you’re just so cute and you make me so happy, I figure I should spread the joy. Kind of like this :)

Tags: , , , ,

Daddy Dearest

28 Mar

On your first birthday, I got you a present, but I actually wrote cards to J and E. Well…they weren’t so much cards as they were letters. And maybe they weren’t so much letters as they were small novels. But either way, your first birthday was kind of like our first birthday as a family. I had chosen them and met them months before you showed up, but our families didn’t truly become one until that beautiful summer day.

Of course, J and I like to write each other all the time, and the birthday letter I wrote her was no small feat. She even wrote me one back that birthday weekend. But today, I kept thinking about the letter I wrote E.

The letter I wrote E was actually partially about my own father, Pop-pop 3. I’ll tell you all about growing up with Pop-Pop 3 one day – there’s just too much love and too much fun to fit it all in a couple of letters. He was, and continues to be, an amazing father to me. He was “the best-of-the-best” when it came to dads, as I told E. And though a lot of that is due to his constant support and constant pride and constant reminders that I am loved by him, that “best-of-the-best” title is also due to the little things.

Pop-pop 3 and I played ball all the time. Before we had a basketball goal in the driveway, he would empty out the garage and use our giant trash can as the “goal.” He would throw me pop-flies in the yard when we played baseball. He taught me how to throw a spiral football. He would play with me until it got too dark to see outside, and only then would we go back inside. He would take me out for ice cream every Wednesday in middle school, and then he’d hang out with me in the local library until I had dance class. He did a million little things for me, but they meant the most. They still do. Only now instead of ice cream, we go out for coffee. Instead of playing ball with me, he’ll change my oil or quietly help me do laundry when I’m deeply absorbed in my homework and not paying attention. Like I said…little things.

I’ve always known that he loves me to the ends of the earth. “To infinity and beyond” as we always say (thank you, Buzz Lightyear). And my dad actually had a big influence on your adoption. I wanted you to have a dad like mine. I wanted your childhood to be everything mine was – filled with love and little things. And though I would have absolutely given those things to you – pop-flies, football until dark, ice cream Wednesdays – I wanted you to do those things with a dad, too. I wanted you to have a dad who does the small things, who never lets you forget that he loves you, whose love is obvious, even when he’s not saying it out loud.

E is that dad. Just like Pop-pop 3, he loves doing those little things. I saw that even before you were born, in the way he was with Sports Man. I saw in the pictures of him goofing around with Sports Man. I saw it in the way he showed off videos of how Sports Man could read and play basketball. It is no different with you. He loves playing the same games with you over and over, no matter silly they are. He loves playing ball outside. When you were just a month old, he already had the tradition of getting up with you, feeding you and then holding you while he drank coffee on the porch.

No one has ever reminded me of my own father as much as E does, and it’s beyond heartwarming. As my letter said, every time I see the two of you together, my hearts swells so much, I swear it could burst. He doesn’t even need to tell me how much he loves you. I can see it in the small things, sometimes just in the way he looks at you. Just like Pop-pop 3. And just like me, I’m pretty sure your first word was “da-da.”

As I’m sure you already know, your laugh is famous, and it’s also one of my favorite sounds in the whole wide world. As a matter of fact, quite a few of my favorite videos of you have you laughing in them. This one is of you and E, and it’s the first time I ever heard you laugh, which is why I treasure it so much. And of course, who was the first person I ever saw with ability to make you laugh? E.

You and I are quite the pair of lucky ones to have the dads that we do. When you’re finally old enough to read this, give E a hug when you’re done. Until then, I’ll give him twice as many hugs for the both of us :)

Tags: , , , , ,

Team Effort: The Boys of The B’s

23 Mar

There are times when you are just so cute, I can hardly stand it. You’ll say something new or do something funny or sweet and I literally won’t know what to do with myself other than break into a huge smile, squeal like a little girl and then tell everyone I know. If there is anyone in the world with the power to make me smile no matter what my mood is, it’s you.

Whenever I’m down, I just go through the many videos I have on you – ones I’ve taken myself, ones I’ve gotten from E, ones J has put on Facebook – and I find myself laughing and happy again. It’s times like that when I feel like I love you so much, it might not be containable. I think it’s the one and only time a heart could explode and it could be a good thing.

Well I found myself laughing and happy this morning when I woke up and checked my e-mails to find that I had received a couple of new videos from E. Apparently, Sports Man took it upon himself to teach you your first shape: the triangle. You seemed to pick up on it pretty fast – you call it a “tangle,” and E had the wonderful presence of mind to capture it on video. It’s adorable. I did my squealing-like-a-little-girl thing this morning and I’m still wearing a huge smile because of it. Now comes the part where I tell everyone I know. Or should I say, show everyone I know.

A big thank you to The Boys of The B’s – you for being you, Sports Man for being a wonderful teacher and E for sharing these fantastic, tiny moments of your life with me. You guys make quite the team :)

Tags: , , , , ,

In Case of Spontaneous Memory Loss

21 Feb

When I turned 14, my parents birthday present to me were my baby videos on VHS (I got a cell phone too, but that’s not the moral of the story). I know it sounds anti-climactic for a teenager’s birthday present, but I was thrilled with the videos. I had only known the older me, the me I was then – I had always wanted to know what I was like as a kid. Of course, Grandma M and Pop-Pop 3 had kept very detailed photo albums, but videos are different. You get to see yourself in action, you get to witness your personality instead of hearing about it second-hand.

In my first baby video, I threw up. Everywhere. It wasn’t exactly the romantic notion of my “adorable” baby videos like I had imagined. But luckily, that one was followed by cuter ones – I remember one of me laughing in my old bedroom, and it reminds me so much of you, just laughing at absolutely nothing but finding it hilarious nonetheless. The other one I remember really well is of me using myownbaby walker (like the one I got you) to run away from my dad. I remember that Pop-Pop 3 talked to me in every video, like he was narrating my life for me since I couldn’t do it yet.

Now, since J is a photographer and E is like lightning with the video camera and I play around with both of those mediums, you are going to have a very well documented childhood. But just in case you get the “what was I like then” bug and don’t want to wait for all of us to gather the mass media we have on you, here’s the abridged version of you as a baby, my Little Man.

You’re not afraid of anything. Not dogs or stairs or falling down. You dive head-first into everything.

You’re tough. You get right back up when you take a tumble.

You’re adventurous. Everything you see that you want to know about, you find out about.

You’re a quick learner. It doesn’t take you long to pick up on something once you’ve seen or heard someone do it.

You’ve been incredibly observational since you were a baby. I used to just walk around the house with you and you’d stare wide-eyed at everything we passed, like you were just taking it all in.

You’re mischievous. You’ve got the perfect I’m-up-to-something-I-shouldn’t-be smile.

You’re the world’s biggest daddy’s boy. If E is within a mile of you, he’d better be right next to you…or else.

You’re cranky after you wake-up from a nap. I still love you, though :)

Everything Sports Man does, you want to do. It’s cute to watch. You adore him.

You want what you want. I suppose that’s a universal toddler trait, but either way – when you want something, no one is going to stop you from getting it. That’ll come in handy later on in life.

Overall, you are and always have been a very smiley little guy.

You say “cheese” whenever someone points a camera or an iPhone at you.

You blow kisses every time you say goodbye.

You can outrun me when you have the element of surprise on your side, and I jog regularly. Not okay.

You love being around people.

When you accomplish something you’ve been working at, no matter how small it is, you smile the world’s biggest smile at whoever is closest to you. Sometimes you say “yay!”

Until you started walking, you loved being held. It might have had something to do with the fact that you were never put down (I remember J saying she had to vacuum with you strapped to her chest in the Baby Bjorn), but you’ve always been incredibly huggable so that’s not our fault.

If you’ve been sitting or after you fall down, the way you stand back up is by getting on all fours, walking your hands to your feet and sticking your tiny butt straight up in the air to regain your balance before you stand again. It’s the cutest thing ever.

You’ve always had my eyes and C’s mouth. The rest of you is just…you. 100% unique.

Everyone loves your chin. I have a feeling it will remain very popular.

You exclaim, “Doggy!” anytime a dog walks past you. Even if it’s walked past you a hundred times in five minutes.

You sleep with a “lovey” at night. It’s a type of blanket. If you wake up without it, you cry.

You stick out your bottom lip when you cry really hard.

You’ve definitely got your own personality. The grins (from the cute to the mischievous), the Liam laugh, the “come and get me” looks, even the cries – they’re all one of a kind.

And one last thing you may not know about yourself, but is undoubtedly true – you are special. To so many people in so many ways, and I feel very lucky to be able to know all of the things about you that I do. I promise to continue making videos of the things I see and memories of all of the things in between.

And if you ever get a girlfriend, I reserve the right to show, read and tell her every last one.

Tags: , , , , , ,

The Laugh I Love

10 Feb

J is a wonderful photographer. This will be easy to see when you get older and have a chance to really appreciate her work, but ever since I met her, I’ve been blown away by what she can capture with a camera. It’s how she keeps me with you even when I’m not – she sends pictures to my phone when you do something cute or silly. Occasionally, she’ll have do photoshoots of you and not only will you be adorable in them (you’ve been photogenic since your ultrasounds) but they will look downright professional. She even started a blog right after you were born so I could keep up with your day-to-day progress, but eventually you kept her too busy to be able to update it every day, and she and I grew so close, we didn’t need a blog to connect us anymore.

Though I am no where near J and her skill, I take pictures of you too. I attempt to capture every single visit we have together so I can come back home and wow your many aunts (my beautiful friends who have also loved you since you were rolling around in my tummy) with how much you’ve grown and how handsome you are. But what I like to do most is record videos of you.

I love home videos because, like pictures, they record a moment in time. So years from now when you’re taller than me (I don’t like to think about it), I will be able to look back on these videos and remember when you used to be small enough to hold. One day, I hope we can watch them together and you can be amazed by your own miniscule-ness. I also hope that on that day, as you watch your teeny, tiny self interact with the world, you can get even more of a sense of how many people love you and have loved you from the very beginning.

This is one of my favorites videos of you. Granted, it’s not one of the ones from the very beginning (and I’ve got ’em, don’t you worry), but since it’s one of my favorites, I figured it should be the first one I post in our blog.

I recorded this in June 2011; you were almost 11 months old. Sports Man was playing with the car keys (you have a thing for keys – you love to play with them) and he started jumping out from behind me and jingling them at you. As you will be able to see, you found it hilarious.

I know that everybody loves baby laughs, but I have never been happier in my life than when I see and hear you laugh. It is the best sound I’ve ever heard. You just sound so jubilant, so entertained and as a mother, I am happy whenever you are happy. I would say that’s from the Handbook too, but I think it just comes naturally. That’s part of the reason I love The B’s and everyone else you are constantly surrounded by, even though I can’t always be one of them – they make you happy. They make you smile and they make you laugh, and all of that makes me thankful.

But for the many, precious moments I do get to spend with you, I try to immortilze in film so that way, I can see you any time I miss you. That way, I can see you anytime I want.

Tags: , , , , , ,

%d bloggers like this: