The L.A. Dime

Brad and I love having family and friends come to visit. It’s so wonderful to catch up in person, have the house full of voices and it seems that those are the times we tend to take full advantage of what wonderful sights and experiences LA has to offer. With Mom-Mom and Pops spending the last 10 days here, we had a beach day (Clays’ first and he really loved the ocean sounds and fresh air), a Sunday brunch at the “Inn of the Seventh Ray” to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary, a really fun dinner at Bubba Gump and a whole lot of hanging out at home and the pool just chatting or being silly with the kiddos. Thanks for the visit you two!!

Last Saturday we celebrated Sophie’s 3rd birthday at Underwood Farms. We’d reserved the morning session thinking that late August in LA would be hot, however we got very lucky and had a wonderful overcast morning with the sun starting to peek through just as we were packing up. Sophie and her friends were able to enjoy a horse-drawn wagon ride, feed various farm animals, ride ponies, jump in a bounce house and run free throughout the farm’s beautiful grassy areas. Mom-Mom and Pops were still in town to celebrate this special day and were especially helpful with getting the food set up and Clay entertained. The one request Sophie had for her birthday was purple cupcakes…and purple cupcakes she got….and some purple nails too.

Dear L.A. Dime readers, very soon this blog will be migrating to www.riddellfamilyblog.com. Nothing will change other than the address. Brad has decided to use the www.bradriddell.com address to build a professional(ish) website about his writing, teaching and other projects. This new site for Brad won’t be a blog, per say, but he is exploring using the very cool website Tumblr to start his own, more personal microblog.

Sound complicated? It’s not. Bookmark www.riddellfamilyblog.com now, so that when you run up against Brad’s new site, you’ll know where to go. He’ll post a link if he gets the Tumblr thing going, too, just in case you haven’t gotten enough of us!

Thanks for reading!

We have reached the week 3 mark of Clay’s life and here are his latest stats: he’s at 8lbs, 8oz; has outgrown newborn diapers and newborn clothes; drinking up to 6oz per feeding; sleeping about 3 hours at a time at night and takes several long naps throughout the day. Most importantly though is the wonderful sibling bonding happening – Sophie still asks where he is as soon as she wakes up in the morning and loves it when I bring him along to pick her up from camp. And vice versa, Clay doesn’t mind her hugging, kissing and tugging on him whenever she’s around. His favorite sleeping position is on his belly, on my chest.

Note: For some reason I can’t get the “picture labeling option” to work today so the first 2 pics (in the brown outfit) are week 2, the next 2 pics are from week 3, then there’s a food coma shot after Dada fed him and then there’s Miss Sophie Bophie showing us her silly faces and gestures.

We’ve been a Netflix family for many years now. We love the convenience of being able to choose which movie we’d like to see and not be tied to movie times that might not always mesh with what’s happening in our lives at that moment. Furthermore, it saves us a ton of money as we can get unlimited movies for only $15/month, while one movie ticket out here can run you about $12.

While we have 2 separate queues, since our movie preferences are quite different, I did convince Brad to watch my latest selection – “Food, Inc.” with me last night. His initial response (which I actually also heard from quite a few others that I asked if they’d seen this flick) was: “I’d rather not know”.

Having read that the movie was a realistic and therefore frightful look into how our food is made and what it’s actually composed of, did indeed seem like it might leave us never wanting to eat again – but the way I look at it, being uninformed/ignorant about it might be even worse.

So, last night we took a chance and watched it. And we were shocked. And saddened. And angry. And enlightened. I won’t spoil it for you because I’d really encourage you to watch it yourself but here’s what we’ve committed to doing:
- Eat less meat
- Buy more at local Farmer’s Markets
- Read even more food labels

So, check it out yourself….you owe it to your health….and the agricultural future depends on you to take a stand.

On a different note….I am soooo excited and looking forward to “Eat, Pray, Love” coming out soon!! I absolutely loved the book and of course, Julia being my favorite actress, this one I am going to have to break my own rules and see it as soon as it’s released…in the movie theater…with a box of Bon-Bons in hand:)

To give Sophie a little one-on-one time, we set up a little pool party on our patio yesterday afternoon. She put on her bathing suit, took all her “swim friends” and had a great time getting wet.

The adjustment for her has been going well – one of her first questions upon waking up every morning and when getting picked up at school is: “Where’s Baby Clay?”. She asks to touch his hand or hold him every chance she can and wants to watch or be involved with everything we do with him.

There have been a few times where we’ve had to tell her to be more gentle or that right now wasn’t a good time to hold him, which has made her very sad. Brad and I are still adjusting to having 2 kids that we want to give our full attention to and some days are better than others..

She absolutely loves her new school though and asks to go all the time. While there, she gets to swim every morning, make a ton of various art work (she calls them her “art projects”) and learns new songs daily. They have a different theme to focus on/learn about every week – Beach week, Recycle week, Space week,….but her favorite so far seems to have been Dinosaur week. It feels really good knowing that she enjoys going there and is happy to learn and grow.

As I hold my newborn Baby Boy and have a conversation with my Toddler Girl, I feel a little overwhelmed by the big responsibility. However, I also feel extremely thankful to be given this opportunity and grateful for my hubby who is there every step of the way, ready to tackle this challenge as a team.

By this time last week, I was high on Petocin and an Epidural counting down the minutes to finally meet Baby Riddell. Within a few hours, that wish was granted and for the past week, all 3 of us have fallen more in love with Baby Clay every day.

He’s a very mellow dude — once he’s been feed (he’s up to 3-4 oz already!!), he’ll sit and watch us for about 30 minutes, before he dozes off again for a long nap. He likes to be held close, doesn’t want his arms swaddled and has even cracked a few smiles (although I am sure completely involuntary, they are super cute nonetheless). So far, he’s still awake more at night than during the day, but hopefully that’ll get switched over in a couple of weeks. While I see a lot of visual similarities between Clay and Sophie, one behavior that is exactly the same is…yup, you guessed it…”sharks mouth”. Anytime Clay is ready to eat, he opens his mouth very, very wide, throws his head from side to side and as soon as the food is on his lips, devours it.

His first doctor’s appointment went well, he had his first trip out to park yesterday and his first bath.

Below are his “week 1″ shots – taken this morning.

After one night at Hotel Cedars, we decided it was time to come home and start our new life as a family of four. Clay’s first car ride went fine – although with temperatures in the high 90’s, I have to admit that I was really hoping that our AC wouldn’t stop pumping out that life-saving cool air.

The first 2 days at home have been good — Thanks to Jan who continues to keep Sophie entertained as we are re-learning all the little “baby things” you forget….like having a burp cloth close by at all times, how to swaddle and functioning on less sleep. So far, Clay is following his sisters footsteps in taking lots & long naps during the day and getting up about every 2.5 hours at night to feed. He’s learning how to sleep in his bassinet without being held and we’re learning what his favorite holding positions are.

We’re trying to capture his various looks – he’s very expressive (especially in his sleep) and I am falling more and more in love with those big blue eyes (who knows if they’ll stick around). While taking some pics of him last night, Sophie posed too so we got a great “paparazzi shot” of her.

Another big help these last 2 days has been food deliveries by our closest friends – Thank You Aiyana for bringing over that yummy lasagna last night and working with a crew of others to set us up for this next week with warm dinners!!

As Jan took off this morning, we are gearing up to start our new life today…on our own…and I just can’t wait!

After all these months of telling Sophie about her becoming a big sister and involving her in the baby preparations around the house, it was finally time for her to meet her little brother. Jan brought her to the hospital last night and upon inspecting the room, she was ready to lay eyes on Clay. She had a huge smile on her face, jumped up & down and threw her hands up in the air. She asked what “her” name was and Dada tried to explain that Clay is a boy….she didn’t care much though and asked to hold him. She said he was cute and that she loved him. She then requested that I unwrap him completely so she could inspect his toes, feet, belly, chin and head. She was quite thorough and seemed satisfied with the overall results.

We settled into bed around 10:30 and Clay actually slept for a 6 hour stretch. While that was really nice (as both Brad and I had not been sleeping well the previous nights), the nurse wasn’t happy with me for letting him sleep past his “every 2-4 hour feeding schedule”. Today we have a series of tests lined up but are hoping to check out of the hospital later this afternoon/early evening.
Stay tuned on how our first day at home goes….

Richard Clayton Riddell arrived today, at 2:21pm, weighing 8.1oz and measuring 21.5 inches. He’s passed all his baby tests, has had 2 feedings, 1 bath and a lot of kisses.

My water broke at 2am, we arrived at the hospital at 6am and after 14 pushes, he entered the world. A huge Thank You to Faleena for coming over very early this morning to help get Sophie up and to camp….and to Jan, who drove down from Napa Valley and will spend the next few days with Sophie at our house…and to Zack who brought us yummy food!!

Clay seems to be a strong little fellow – he tore right through the measuring tape while the nurse was trying to get his head circumference and also wouldn’t bend his legs during the flexibility exam. We’re not sure yet what his stance is on being swaddled.

It’s been 6 hours since he’s joined our family and we are simply amazed and thankful for this new baby. Thank You so very much to all of you who have supported and shared our joy over these past months — I could feel all of that love and support as I was laboring today!