I've ignored my blog for a long while, but I want to record my second birth story before it all slips from memory.

I had an OB appointment on Wednesday, July 22nd, the day after my due date.

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At the end of last month we took an ambitious, eight-night family trip to Texas. I'd call any trip involving air travel with a two year old ambitious, but this was all the more so because it had three separate legs with three different accommodations.

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Though Lachlan's language skills are improving by the day, he's not yet able to articulate what's wrong when he doesn't feel well. Indeed, when we get sick it feels like we all take one gigantic leap backward. We don't have time to be polite or express ourselves eloquently; we just want our moms.

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One of my greatest joys as a parent is tracking Lachlan's development. Language is most obvious because it allows him to communicate better with each passing day.

Jess sent me her pictures of the dyeing eggstravaganza.

My Aunt Jill got married this weekend at a picturesque Texas hill country location near the ranch she's building. Mickey generously gave me the okay to join my family there for the event, but I just wasn't quite ready to leave Lachlan for even a weekend.

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Lachlan is incredibly lucky to have lots of family members and friends who adore him. I'm always pleased to observe that each loving adult has their own preferred way of spending time with him now that his little personality is emerging.

My mom loves to cook with Lachlan.

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Last Easter, Lachlan was just ten months old and not yet walking. Because his Nani adores him, though, she bought him his very own Easter pail filled with goodies, including four plastic eggs.

Our little boy is 18 months old today! It's hard to believe that he'll be closer to two years old than one year old from now on.

Lachlan's latest trick is putting two words together. He began with 'mo chee' (more cheese) and 'mo gaba' (more garbage cans).

One of the best parts about having a toddler around at the holidays is starting new family holiday traditions.

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Lachlan and I went with his preschool this morning to Hidden Villa Farm in Los Altos. We'd been there twice before as a family, but never on a tour without our stroller!

Teacher Diane advised us to dress warmly because mornings are chilly on the farm.

Lachlan started swim lessons when he was just four months old at the Cook and Phillip Pool in Sydney. I use the word 'lesson' loosely here because four month olds cannot learn how to swim, but they can get better acquainted with the water, a small stepping stone on the path to actual swimming.

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Prior to moving overseas, I had lived in the bay area (Berkeley, Oakland and San Jose) for about six years.

When Nani had to return to her job teaching high school English, we had to bid her a sad farewell on Monday morning. It was hard to say goodbye because we spent the summer having way too much fun together while furnishing the house and establishing our new lives as a bay area family.

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A couple of weeks ago Lachlan and I went to My Gym, a Gymboree-esque baby gym in Palo Alto, for its 45 minute Little Waddlers class.

We had an absolute blast. The best thing about the place is that all of it is child-friendly, of course. Lachlan was free to climb on and grab anything.

** I intended to post a video of Tiny walking here, but the connection is just... too... slow **

This little man is on the move. Our friend Shannon kindly let us borrow a sturdy wooden push walker that allows Lachlan to practice walking with support.

I was sure that spending two months in Hawaii, with 24 hour support from Mickey with Lachlan, would allow me to catch up on my favorite hobbies such as reading, blogging or cooking. Instead, we spent our time in Hawaii taking a true vacation and doing very little.

Our friends Dan and Estee have generously handed down to us some cute clothes and baby things that their sixteen month old son has outgrown. Included in a recent bag of hand-me-downs was a Carter's penguin costume, sized six months.

Plenty of my posts are dedicated to exciting moments and events, trips, holidays, etc. The purpose of this blog, though, is to record my thoughts and feelings about not only those special times, but the mundane everyday parts of life as well. Hence this post about the grocery store.

As soon as I learned that the Cook and Philip Pool offers lessons to babies as young as four months, I knew I had to enrol my little nipper. We've gone four times now and it's fantastic.

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During my antenatal classes and while staying in the hospital, the midwives stressed the importance of reporting to the Early Childhood Health Centre (ECHC) as soon as I left the hospital. A midwife would visit me at home, answer my questions and I'd be referred to the local parents' group.

I am amazed by how profoundly my experience as a new parent is shaped by expectations and confidence.

Like Rufus Griscom in his TED talk: Let's Talk Parenting Taboos, I expected to be hit by a "Mack truck of love" upon holding my new baby for the first time.

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Our baby boy changes everyday and I don't want to forget what he's like now at nearly seven weeks old. Here's a list of a couple things we've noticed:

He likes to raise one fist in what I call his 'power to the people right on' move.

When Lachie arrived, I experienced a lot of new feelings physically and emotionally. One of them was a sense of disbelief that the pregnancy was really over. There were times during my pregnancy when I felt like it would never end and then suddenly it had.

I don't know how new mums find the time to update their blogs! I have a tremendous amount of help from my mom and Mickey and still I've neglected my blog during Lachie's first weeks.

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.

It was just three weeks ago that we welcomed our sweet boy to this world. Though I wish I could post daily updates, pictures, thoughts, feelings and observations, my first priority is to write his birth story before it fades from my memory.

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Last month, Jennie hosted the most beautiful, personal, thoughtful and delicious baby shower of all time in my honor. She, Thor and others put in a tremendous amount of work to make my penguin-themed, high tea shower incredibly special and fun and I couldn't be more grateful.

As a white woman without multiple visible tattoos, I was pretty used to appearing approachable to the general population.

It was only relatively recently that I learned about the concept of a babymoon: a last vacation for a couple before their baby arrives and presumably changes the way they travel forever.

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In preparation for the moment when Mickey and I need to dash (or arrive leisurely) to the hospital for the birth of our baby, we've been studying checklists of items that belong in your hospital bag.

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Over Australia Day weekend this year, Mickey and I took a quick trip to Melbourne. We enjoyed a long day at the tennis watching back to back semi finals matches and then spent the remainder of the weekend on the Mornington Peninsula, a wine-producing region two hours south of Melbourne.

Here it is April and I still haven't shared some photos and memories from our New Year trip to Colorado. Our dear friends Chris and Jess moved there from Sydney two years ago and we'd been keen to visit ever since.

I learned the hard way that you should choose an obstetrician based on referrals from friends, not solely on the appearance of their websites.

When I first told my GP about my pregnancy, she gave me a list of local OBs who have offices in the city, but can deliver at the hospital of your choice.

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After I'd reached the twelfth week of my pregnancy, we knew the little bean was likely to stick around and that we could share our joy/fear/apprehension/explanation for my strange behavior with Sydney friends and colleagues.

Mickey was eager to tell the world, but I felt much more reluctant.

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