Saying Goodbye

In some good news we have been able to re-home two of the four kittens. This afternoon I took them, the two we have been calling Abbot and Angelo, to Dave's office and a wonderful woman named Eileen took them home to add them to her household. So, two down and two more to go! (Plus we are looking to get rid of some of the other cats in addition to the kittens. Are you sure there are no takers out there???)

In some very sad goodbye news, we had to say goodbye to our Timneh African Grey Parrot, Chloe, a few weeks ago. I have been so torn up about this that I haven't even been able to write about it until now. Chloe is just so protective of her cage area (and there is nothing wrong with that behaviour). The problem is that with Sylvia crawling pretty soon she would not realize that we leave Chloe's cage area alone. Dave and I saw a potentially bad situation emerging where Sylvia would pull herself by Chloe's cage and Chloe would get scared and bite a finger . . . And so, we brought Chloe to a wonderful parrot store and they promised to find her a really good home. I truly hope they do.

We love that bird and miss her so much. She was a good bird and she was always good for a laugh. One of her favorite things was to make this joke: We would ask her, "What's a chicken say?" And she would respond with "Meow" or "Ruff" or some other incorrect answer. She thought this was so funny and would laugh hysterically after performing this joke. We really do miss her.

But sometimes the right thing to do in life is say goodbye.

Just Because She's Cute

No reason for this post other than to put up a few pictures from today:

Six Months

Sylvia turned six months today. Half a year. I can hardly believe it. She is amazing and I cannot believe how quickly time has flown by-- and how much faster it will continue to move.

I love my daughter.

Eating my Feet and Rolling Over While Sneezing

For starters, the Little Pumpkin has a cold. The poor thing is sneezing all the time and that little nose is running like crazy! Her eyes are droopy and she even has a sore spot on the one eye from all that watery goop coming out. Poor thing.

But her spirits have been good. She loves to "eat" her feet:

And today marked a milestone: She finally rolled from back to front while awake! She has done this many times when she is sleeping, but today was the first time she did it and was aware of what she was doing. She was so proud of herself:

And finally, she is just the cutest thing ever and I wanted to post a picture to prove that:

Our NIH Trip

This is the friend we acquired while on our D.C. trip. Actually, he's the toy that we brought home for Sylvia. She loves him-- great rattle to chew on!

We had a VERY busy three days. We flew out Sunday afternoon and arrived in D.C. early evening. Made it to the hotel by mid evening. Monday was spent waiting for virtually nine hours-- at least for me. Dave had some tests and such to keep him "occupied" while I just sat and waited literally all day long.

Monday evening I got together with some old college friends:

It was so good to catch up with them (Andrea, Lauren and Kimmy). We have stayed in touch via the online world but in person is so much more fun.

Tuesday was spent with my cousin and his pregnant wife (Jonathan and Heather, visited this past summer):

It was so cool that they drove into Bethesda to meet up with us. We had a great time with them as well and managed to make a very full Tuesday out of it. All our site seeing climaxed to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Yummy!

Wednesday was clinic day-- the day that we actually meet with the doctors and learn what is going on with Dave's disease. This means tons more waiting. And wait we did, but in the end it was all worth it because Dave got a GREAT report. It turns out they can see no additional tumor growth. This means that his tumors have maintained for two full years. He got such a great report that they are letting him return in TWO years instead of only one! It will be so wonderful to have a year off. Naturally, they did send him home with a list of things to monitor and watch out for and should he begin having problems he is expected to contact them and we will return sooner than the two years. But we rejoice in the news we did receive.

Today we picked up our Little Pumpkin. She did great with Oma and Opa all those days. While she was happy to see us, it is comforting to know that she did fine without us. We spent the rest of the day playing with our baby and being happy to be back home. Back home and healthy!