Quiet alert

Henry at 5 days

First sponge bath

Henry at 4 days

Thanks to everyone for the well-wishes, flowers, and online tributes.

And belated congrats to Ben, Sharon, and David and to Ambrose, Aara, and Leo.

Settling in at home

Henry Samuel arrives!

Our little boy Henry Samuel arrived ahead of schedule on July 23 at 7:55pm. He was 21.5" long and weighed 7 lbs, 6 ounces.


I started feeling not-so-hot around 1:00am on the 21st. I wasn't sure if this was a pre-labor thing or just a late pregnancy thing, but it made me unable to sleep, which unfortunately meant that I had already been up for 20 hours when I went into real labor around 9pm on the 22nd. Below is the last pregnancy photo, taken on the evening of the 22nd.



We headed to the hospital right at morning rush hour on the 23rd after spending a somewhat surreal night walking around Park Slope, making 4:00am Blondies (Jesse's idea to keep me distracted), and packing our hospital bag, which we hadn't finished yet. When we got there, my contractions had slowed down, likely due to sheer exhaustion, and the doctor said we could either try drugs to speed up labor or walk around the neighborhood for two hours. I had a little bit of a second wind and decided to walk around to avoid getting drugs, so Jesse showed me the building and playground where he had grown up and we walked along the East River. We got back to the hospital and waited for almost an hour to get re-checked in because they had run out of rooms, and by the time we were in our room, I was in pretty bad shape and ready for the epidural, mainly because I needed to get some rest.

Jesse was impressed that my contractions (the black line) were "off the chart."


The epidural took a few hours to arrive and even longer to work correctly, but once it kicked in, things got a lot sunnier.



After 23+ hours of labor, and after essentially being awake for 61 hours, Henry finally arrived!




Jesse showing Henry the view that he grew up with.

MoMA house exhibit

Despite sweltering temperatures, we very much enjoyed the new exhibit at MoMA on prefabricated houses.




The cats enjoyed checking out our new changing table, which was lent to us by my sister and skillfully assembled by Jesse with no directions (don't worry, the part used by the baby is protected from cat fur).

Friends baby shower and Bon Jovi

Our very generous and wonderful friends Catherine and Nicole organized a co-ed baby shower in Prospect Park last weekend. We had great weather and great food and there was even a sports event (which made Jesse very happy). Thanks to everyone for attending and giving us such cute and useful gifts!







After the shower, Chris and Jesse headed to another Olmsted park to see Bon Jovi. I really wanted to go, but thought it would be pretty uncomfortable at 8+ months.

Wellfleet 4th of July Summer Olympics

We spent a long 4th of July weekend in Wellfleet with almost the entire Wilde clan.






In a new tradition, Jesse organized Summer Olympics. Two teams of 7 faced off in five events, starting with a piggy-back relay


After a highly contentious kickball game, there was a dramatic finish to the treasure hunt (points for creative photos)


The fourth event was the limbo (congrats to Callahan and Annabelle)


and the final event was the balloon toss.

Farm to Table

A couple weekends ago, Brian and Ellen invited us to Stone Barns for a pea-centric lunch at Blue Hill and a Farm to Table honey program