Zoey borrowed my camera

I've been letting Zoey use my old camera. I know she's been taking a ton of photos but it wasn't until last night when I downloaded them to see what was still on the cameras memory card. Here are a few of my favorites....




You gotta love the toe-shots..

Some musings

My children make me laugh. They make me cry and want to scream too. But it sometimes amazes me with their little quirks.

Zoey who turns four in a few days has just amazed me lately at what a big girl she is. And she knows it and insists on it now. She'll be crying to me about something and I tell her that she's acting like a baby and she goes "nooo momma but i'm a BIG girl!" She is too. Right now she is working on her Bs. Baby starts with a BBBB - bbbBB. She likes to tell me. She also tells me that Knee starts with a B - but I feel bad that I have to tell her shes wrong. It in fact starts with a K but not a KKKkkk like Kick. Think about it, if youre just learning to read and the alphabet, Knee is one of those cruel words. Sure it starts with a K but it sounds like an N. Why? Well b/c the K is silent. Why? B/c it's in front of an N like knowledge. Or Knorr. Why? B/c that's our language??? What else should I say to her? Poor thing, its a long road ahead of moose vs mooses or mouse vs mice vs mouses....

Then theres my younger child. She's going through that whole separation anxiety thing which will drive yourself insane. I either have to carry her at ALL times (like vaccuuming) or she has to be no more than 4 inches from me. But otherwise, she is a hoot. She LOVES the water. It used to be that I could only shower for as long as it took her to crawl from her sisters room where she was playing down the hall and into our bathroom - approx 9 seconds. Where she would sit and cry for me to come out. Now that she can walk - as soon as me or my husband turn on the water, shes in the shower. She plays in the water, she stares straight at the water coming down. She is pretty cute - and I love it. Now I could give myself a spa treatment in the shower if I wanted to! Awesome!! She's also become obsessed with the buckles on her high chair. This is a pain in the butt since it provides only frustration for her. Her little hands aren't nimble enough to put them together and so she sits there so intent on piecing them together and sooo not able to do it!! Audrey's latest words include: titty (kitty), be-be (baby), ma-ma, da-da, dis (this), and we've heard her say dog and back. She can also do the sign for "more", meow like a cat, and make kissing noices. And I just taught her to say "wwooowwww". She's quite talented - I think we'll be taking her show on the road soon!

Remembering 9/11

Can you believe its been 5 years?

I found myself watching a program on the Discovery channel last week. I told myself to turn it off and within 4 minutes was crying hard. I know I will never forget that day - I remember everything like as if it were last month. But in so many ways it seems like a lifetime ago. FYI - three months after 9/11 I was pregnant with Zoey. There have been studies that show there was a population spike in the months following Sept 11th.

We were in SF at the time, a country apart from NY, but so much of SF is NYC's twin. As a stockbroker, now husband went to work before dawn to be at his desk when the market opened at 9am. Just about every brokerage had an office in the WTC. In his office (UBS at the time) there was a squawkbox that was a direct feed from the trading floor in NY (not in WTC but down the street). When the announcer in NY spoke in the box, it transmitted directly to the other UBS office in the country. That morning as he was sitting at his desk, the voice on the box started "screaming the tower has been hit repeat the tower has been hit. A plane just hit the world trade center". This narrative continued throughout the attack to tell the story of what was happening in NY and DC. And of course we all watched it on TVs worldwide. How strange is that - we watched it happen live on Television. This is the world that I brought children into - where we can watch such horrific violent acts of terrorism on tv...live?? I know this happens in other countries, I see it on the news. But I didn't chose to live in one of those countries - I wanted to live in this one. The land of the free, home of the brave. The glorious USA. On that day, we were not.

However, that day is also a testament to that very statement - the home of the brave. The number of heroic stories from 9/11 abounds tenfold. From the story of Flight 93 to the story of two guys they showed on the program that saved 50 or more people in the towers but died himself. And of course to the firefighters. The stories of firefighters going in the towers and up the stairs as people are fleeing the building. After the south tower fell. Knowing that that building could fall too and did. There is one story in particular that I wanted to share. You might have heard it already.

A small company of firefighters were in the north tower when the south tower fell. They were on floor 27 and against orders the captain ordered his men to leave the building. So the capt and his men began to leave. Quickly. Along the way in the stairs they met Josephine an older woman (60s I think). She needed assistance down. And so the whole company helped her down - together they stayed as a group. People are fleeing around them and these guys are hanging back to help this one woman. Around the 4th floor, she sat down. She needed a rest. One of the firefighters said it took every bone in his body to keep from screaming at her to keep moving. But they all sat down with her. It was during this time that the north tower collapsed AROUND them. Literally the floors beneath them were the miniscule pieces of debris and above them around level 6 or so was the rest of the debris. IF Josephine hadn't sat down and these men hadn't stayed with her, they wouldn't have survived collapse. Somehow they were safe in this little cocoon in their stairwell on the 4th floor all because of an elderly woman named Josephine. It took 5 hours for the rescuers to get them out - but they did and they survived. Basically unharmed. I read about this story shortly after 9/11. I'm not one to preach about God or even share my own beliefs. But I feel strogly about this, that was God's miracle. I believe he gave us that story on purpose. As almost a phoenix in such flames. To show that hope was still alive on a day when so much else was lost and gone. The darkest day the darkest hour that this country will hopefully ever see. In the days after 9/11 when I was so confused and scared about our future. I clung to that story as evidence that there is a God or higher power or other existence in our world. And that was a sign to us to keep hope, faith, and love alive. Can science really and truly explain how those people survived? 100 story skyscraper fell around them....think about it.

Peace and love, and never forget....

A couple recent photos...

What a big girl she is!!!