The Birkett's 2010 In Review

It's time for the annual year in review.  As a family we were blessed with a fantastic year.  We'll look back and remember it fondly. It will probably be the last year we'll get to travel as much as we did (thanks to free flights while under the age of two!).

This year was such an exciting time for Anderson - we saw him figure out how to stand by himself and just as fast as he could stand he started to take his first steps. From there it never ended he was quite the proficient walker by the time his first birthday came around.  Although he's been fast in terms of the physical activities Anderson is still catching up in terms of verbal communication. We've been seeing some great strides and feel he is on the cusp of just exploding in this arena.

Lake Tahoe
(Anderson is on mom's back)

2010 saw us heading on the road to some fun and exciting destinations.  We a started the year in Tahoe where Anderson got to see and touch the snow for the very first time.  Mom and dad hit the slopes (mom literally hit the slopes...a lot) and then mom headed to the casinos with Kelly for a little gambling.  What can I say, mom loves herself a little craps. Right before Anderson's first birthday we headed to sunny Cabo San Lucas for a makeup vacation. We were originally scheduled to go before maternity leave ended by a pesky hurricane got in our way. Ce la vie! It was a fantastic place to get away, short flight and no hassles in renting a condo with a pool. I think we're going to frequent it more in the future. Memorial Day brought us to sunny Maui for some QT with G-Pa, Grammy and cousins Hannah, Jesse and Griffin. The pool was the biggest part of our day, every day. Next on our agenda was London in August.  We were worried about the 10+ hours flights and the time change but Anderson was a champ! Mom and Dad were able to enjoy the trip and wedding festivities and Anderson was able to enjoy his week with Poa Poa. Finally Anderson rounded out the year in NJ - a week with Nan. During this trip he took his first ride into NYC and checked out the major tourist attraction - Times Square.

In between all of this traveling mom and dad worked really hard. After approximately 7 years Brian said goodbye to Yahoo! and headed off to a start-up: Trubates.com Bri loves it and is energized by the work he is doing as the VP of Business Development.  Dawn is still with salesforce.com and really got back into the saddle at work - having to travel to Seattle, Spokane, Paris and Toronto throughout the year opening new offices and rolling out new AWS programs for the company. Luckily the hard work has paid off - we purchased a new house in San Mateo! There's plenty of room for Anderson and possibly more! We hosted a few events already -Halloween Trick or Treating and Christmas Breakfast/Dinner.

WS Victory Parade

I've saved the best part for last - 2010 was the year of the San Francisco Giants.  We once again had our season tickets and were able to experience the most amazing end of a season and playoff run. It was beyond our wildest expectations. 

We look forward to all the blessings 2011 has to bring!

An early Christmas present...

care of the S.F. Giants.

2010 World Series Trophy

The streak is over

We made it almost 19 months without a trip to the ER, but that officially ended today.  Anderson is fine, nothing a little extra TLC won't help. Luckily, it didn't involve blood, puke (that comes later) or any other bodily fluids.  Anderson took a very hard fall and knock on the head at about 6:45am today. Now we're used to Anderson taking tumbles and hitting his head here and there, and hard ones at that. Today was different though. It sounded different and he fell backwards - his feet totally slipping out from under him and the back of his head hit the hardwood floor. He was pretty dazed and was having a hard time keeping his eyes open. Bri and I made the decision to have him checked out. We figured better safe than sorry.

The ER wasn't packed and we were seen right away. The diagnosis was just what we expected and wanted to hear - he hit his head pretty hard and probably knocked the wind out of himself but he'd be just fine in a day or so.  Technically it's a concussion. Unfortunately he did develop the one side effect of a head injury - vomiting. Gross. We're lucky that we've never had to deal with this yet either. Another streak down the drain.

Besides today's bad luck Anderson has been great! He's added a few words in quick succession and we think this may mean he's on a roll in terms of progressing on that front.  Halloween was fantastic! Anderson was a zombie and got the hang of trick or treating by following his cousins. 

His stats from his 18 month appointment are:

• Height: 30" (although I think this is a bit off as it matched his 15 mo appointment)
• Weight: 22lbs 13oz

What does this mean? He's a happy, healthy little guy. Emphasis on little.

Since the last blog, we moved house. This time it's permanent. We love our new place and can see it as a good place to grow as a family and put down roots. 

The day we got the keys to our house!

Changes abound

It has been a insane month in the Birkett household.  Insane in a good way though.  First, Brian decided not to follow his group to Monster.com when it sold by Yahoo!.  Brian is now the VP, Business Development for a start up called Trubates - a site similar to Groupon but instead of a deal a day you search for what you want and they are on the site for more than a day.

Secondly, we decided to buy another house.  We having been renting the house Brian grew up in for the last year and half because we didn't have room to live as a family of 3 in our 1 bedroom condo in the City. Bri and I were casually hitting up open houses to get a feel for what was coming online and one thing led to another. We're scheduled to close on the house on October 5th.  It's pretty amazing - we'll be located on the keystone of a cul-de-sac and it has 3bedrooms, 2 baths, great flow for entertaining, a huge backyard. Behind the house is what is called a "Hidden Park". There are 6 cul-de-sac that lead up to this park, unless you live in these "Lanes" you'd never know about it.  In fact, our back fence has a gate that leads out to the park letting you out right in front of the tennis courts.  Why buy a house with all of that when the city can maintain it all for you! We still own our condo and thank our lucky stars for our amazing tenant! I hope she never leaves (or at least not until the market returns a bit).

Third, I have been gone for half the month. (insert tiny violin here).  Bri and I had plans for months to go to the inaugural game of the NY Giants at their new stadium. It then turned out to be right in line with a trip to Paris I had to take for work (rough, I know). At first I was excited. A whole two weeks away to sleep in and recharge my batteries. Then as it led up to say goodbye to A I could feel the sadness creep in.  What was I thinking! I don't mind the diaper changes, tantrums and tears - especially when they are followed by a hug, smile or belly laugh. With my trip winding down I've realized it was good but Skye is certainly no substitute for a hug & kiss from my two favorite men. Plus "table pour un" is no fun at all. I'd much rather be in the City of Light with them both.

So tomorrow I take the 12 hour flight back to SFO and start the craziness of packing and moving.  Bri and I will be celebrating our 5 year wedding anniversary amongst a sea of moving boxes. So romantic - at least we'll be together.

First Class Traveler

It's been almost 6 weeks since our last blog. Time flies when you're having fun!  At the beginning of the month we traveled to London for a week.  Bri and I attended a wedding of a close college friend and brought along Bri's mom, Sunny, so we could enjoy ourselves without having to find babysitting services. It was a great decision. I'm not sure we had been out that much in years, forget about just since having a child.

Anderson was champ and continues to travel without a hitch.  The 10+ hour direct flight to London was long but he was very well behaved there and back.  The hardest part of the trip was the first day. We left SFO at 1pm and arrived at LHR at 7:30am.  Needless to say as the day progressed we were exhausted.  We thought we could just put Anderson down for a nap at his regular time, but no he was having none of that.  Mom and Dad struggled the most with this no nap situation. Then like clockwork he went to bed at 7pm.  It was a great trip - too bad Anderson won't remember any of it when he grows up!

In other news, Anderson now runs. Mom, Dad and Evita are tired. Evita, however, needs to start running. She's been getting a lot of extra food courtesy of A throwing it off the side of his highchair. Needless to say Evita is a little chubbier than normal. Anderson still doesn't talk much, in fact there are some words he was saying before such as "anana" (banana) that we haven't heard in a long time.  It concerns me a little bit, but then again the words he does say - dada, daddy, doggie, hi, more - have become very clear and refined. He still doesn't call me anything..boo. At this point I'd take him calling me lady. Pity party over - he runs to me to give me hug or belly flops on me if I'm laying on the floor. He's a ham and cracks me up.

Dear Sleep, I love you and miss you...

Bri and I really hope we can see our friend sleep really soon. After the past few sleepless nights (last night being the worst, a Sunday no less) I have a major bone to pick with the tooth fairy.  I understand that teeth are neccesary but having four molars work their way out in varying degrees at the same time is not fair to parents but really not fair to Anderson. The poor guy is miserable at night. It's weird, during the day he's been drooling like crazy and chewing on everything and anything but at about midnight it's clear they are making their move. To top it off after a near sleepless night A's been getting up as early as 4:45am ready to go for the day and play. Oy Vey! Poor baby and mommy. I would say poor dad but Bri's been away for business some nights and will be headed to Vegas for business this week.  He's getting a few good nights of sleep mixed in there. Lucky guy. We'll be heading to the doctor's on Friday to see what his stats are but I'll be sure to ask about this crazy teething and sleep patterns. I realize we've been blessed to have a 12 hour a night sleeper since he was 4 months old, but I've been spoiled and want it back!

In other news, A is 15 months old today. How cute is the picture to the left? The weather has been great these days so we try and spend as much time outside as possible. For a few reasons, it tires him out, Evita gets a break, our house doesn't get trashed and there's so much to do in the Bay Area! The town we live in has a great large park that has a Japanese Tea Garden, ball field, large playground and an old school train ride.  A was a little too small to sit in it himself, so I had to go along for the ride.  Rough life.  We're headed  across the pond to London in two weeks and tkaing Anderson with us. He's been good on planes thus far, but I pray a 10+ hours flight doesn't push it.  I'm hoping we bump into Gwen Stefani and her kids in one of the Hyde Park playgrounds.  Maybe her kids will want to be best friends with A and we'll start having playdates in the U.S. ha ha ha.

Full Speed Ahead

I was thinking the other day that I might actually be more exhausted now than I was a year ago with a newborn.  It may have to do with the fact that I work full time (and long hours lately) and have a walker on my hands. No joke, Anderson is in to EVERYTHING. Somedays I can't wait until meal time because he's strapped into his chair and can't run around for a good 20-30 minutes.

We went to Maui with Bri's family and had a great time. We've been taking Anderson to swim 'lessons", it's really singing songs while in the water, and found that it paid off.  He loves the water and will cry if he sees a pool and con't go in it.  More importantly he really enjoys swimming under water back and forth to mom and dad.  It's super cute! While we were in Hawaii Anderson got to spend 10 days with three of his cousins.  He also started to vocalize a  bit more than ever.  After his one year appointment we started signing three words - milk, more and all done.  In about two weeks he really got the concept and started signing back. It's amazing. He also has a few words - da (Bri), doggie, anana (banana) and hi. He's a very social kid and waves hi to almost everyone if we're in the store.  I was at the playground iwth him the other day and a person walked by with their dog, he waved hi and then picked up speed saying "doggie, doggie" while charging after the dog.

The biggest change that we've seen since his birthday is that he's lost the "baby" in him.  In what seemed like an overnight transformation he's more little boy than ever.  Maybe it was the haircut? Or the walking/running?  It's slightly sad but also exciting.  I once had a co-worker tell me that it only gets better as he grows up and you know what, she was right.