Introducing Dr. Karl Russo

After a very admirable six years of toil, yesterday my husband handed in a copy of his dissertation to the graduate office. He's finished! No more classes to attend, papers to write, or revisions to make! Here he is celebrating at Devon Seafood Grill in Philadelphia last night. Doesn't he look relaxed?

And then there were two...

teeth, that is! Poor Adam had a very rough night last night. He woke several times crying out in pain from his second tooth breaking through. I keep reminding him that he won't remember any of this, but that doesn't seem to be helping right now. Baby Tylenol does, though. As long as he has his medicine every four hours, he's a pretty happy kid. Still no pictures, though. He's very private about his teeth. We rarely catch a glimpse of them and even Mommy is not always permitted to feel them with her finger.

A tooth!

On Friday, we discovered a little pearly white making it's way into the open! Adam's front bottom right tooth is coming in. And we're hearing about it, too... A little bit of Tylenol and a lot of love is all that's needed to get through it, though.

It's not really visible yet. I'll post pics when it is.

Cherry Blossoms

This week, people are coming to Washington DC from all over the country, just to see the cherry blossoms. Until tonight, we had not made an official trip into the city to see them. I wanted at least one good blossom picture for Adam's scrapbook, so tonight was the night.

Oooh, what's this?

Mmm, I wonder if they taste like cherries?



Oh, there you are, Mommy!





What a big bathtub. Too bad it's so cold outside, or I could splash in there.

Let's do this again!

Only a little behind

This weekend, I finally brought my borrowed rake outside and tackled the wall-to-wall carpet of leaves that made up our backyard. We just never got to it in the fall. Something about a baby?

We counted 12 bags at the curb this morning, plus one can full of stray branches. There are many more branches, and a few more stray leaves. I'm embarrassed to admit (and at the same time, pleased with the results) that in some places in the yard, the bottom layer of leaves composted into rich soil over the winter. It should provide some good nutrients for my plants!

I rewarded myself for the efforts with a trip to Lowe's. I've planted 3 hydrangeas, 3 small variegated shrubs, 2 rose bushes, a juniper bush, an arborvitae, a holly bush, and a rhododendron in the bed in front of our house. When we have a nice day, I'll take and post a picture. The hydrangeas can barely be seen from the street right now, but I hope that they grow quickly.

Next, I'd like to do some planting in the back yard. I'm planning to transplant some of hostas that the previous owner mistakenly put in our front yard to the shady back. A few "bleeding hearts" plants would be nice, too.

A fun new food

Adam has yet to cut any teeth, but we think he gets teething pain sometimes. Honestly, for the last three months, every time he gets fussy, we've been blaming it on teething! We'll be right one of these days, I suppose. Lately Adam has been much more interested in chewing on his plastic spoon than eat the food on the spoon, so we think we may finally be on to something.

On Saturday, I offered Adam some tiny frozen blueberries from Trader Joe's. I hope they would feel good on his gums. And being so small, a relatively safe finger food. After an initial "what are you doing to me now?" face, I received a very purple toothless grin.

Crawling!