The Gaga Diaries

With a living veteran in our family (we love you, Bampi!!), we all know and respect the true meaning of Memorial Day.  While we have not lost any immediate loved ones in combat, we empathize with those who have and are so grateful for their ultimate sacrifice. The ladies in my family have a longstanding tradition of visiting the cemeteries of veteran and non-veteran relatives over Memorial Day weekend to honor them and decorate their graves.  After this, another nice use of the extra day off is to enjoy spending time together as a family. 

This year’s holiday weekend was filled with cousin sleepovers, lobstah at the beach, playgrounds and parks, fireworks (Baby Gaga *DID* inherit my fascination for them!!), grilling, and lots and lots of soft serve. 

Looking forward to lots more of all of the above throughout the rest of this summer! 

Did you know that Baby Gaga is Mexican? Well, if you want to get technical, he is Mexican by relation.  You see, his two cousins came to our family through adoption and are full-blooded Mexican-American.  Naturally my whole non-Mexican family has decided to adopt this heritage as our own since that’s just how we roll.  We are a family who loves any reason to celebrate, remember? So this weekend we threw our first Cinco de Mayo fiesta NOT to celebrate Mexican Independence Day (that’s not until September), but to celebrate the victory of the outnumbered Mexican army over the French in the David & Goliath-like Battle de Puebla in 1862.  

There was authentic (and some not-so-authentic) food like enchiladas, pozole, guacamole, Mexican casserole, tres leches, sombrero cookies, and of course, margaritas.  None of those for Baby Gaga though! 

A piñata.

Games like “General Zaragoza Says.” 

And best of all, a real-life Battle of Puebla reenactment where the little people played the Mexican army and the adults played France.  Don’t be surprised if the authenticity of this reenactment lands it on PBS or something someday soon! *Note: in the video, I meant to say the army on the right is FRANCE, not Mexico twice. 

¡Viva México!

Last weekend we celebrated Baby Gaga’s grandfather’s birthday.  The whole family met up at Skip’s Snack Bar, this old school hamburger joint that’s been around for 65 years and is a legend in the area.   Pretty fitting for my dad’s 65th birthday! 

One of the best parts about Skip’s (after their Cheeseburger Special and old car Cruise Nights, of course) is this big field behind their restaurant.  It’s hard to find such wide open spaces in the city, so it was a fun treat to be able to let the little guy loose where he could run wild.  

And run, he did.  All of us — big and small — had a blast racing around after one another, burning off those All-American hamburgers, french fries and shakes.  It felt good to be out in the late sunshine, running around breathless, and getting our hands dirty.  

Baby Gaga then kindly agreed to referee a pretty competitive pick-up air volleyball game amongst the big kids.   

This was one of the first times we’ve really been able to all run around together as a family since the little guy’s been walking around on two feet and it was so fun!

Looking forward to many more warm nights of family, milkshakes, and playing hard until the sun goes down.  

Happy birthday wishes to our favorite classical-music loving, diaper-changing, spit-up corralling physicist.  You’ve come a long way, Bampy, and we love you for it! 

I underestimated how fun holidays with a 15-month old can be.  Even though Baby Gaga may not be able to talk intelligibly a whole lot yet, he clearly understands who and how important the Easter Bunny is.  He got *SO* excited when he spotted this guy at our brunch this morning. 

And that was just the beginning.  He literally would not stop squealing and talking in his high-pitch stuffed animal voice when he noticed this six-foot tall fuzzy guy walk on by.  We proceeded to chase Peter Cottontail all around the restaurant until everyone was done with their meal. 

When we got home after brunch it was still a little chilly outside, so we decided to bring our egg hunt indoors.  

Baby Gaga clearly received the expert egg hunter gene. 

The little guy spotted his first egg right off the bat, tossed it in the basket behind him and immediately proceeded to rush around looking for more.  

And he found more. 

And more and more! 

And then… he stumbled upon the jackpot! 

Ohhhh yeah.  The Easter Bunny definitely didn’t forget Baby Gaga this year! 

After we indulged in way more sugar than Baby Gaga has probably ever had in his entire life (man, Reese’s Pieces eggs are GOOD!), we went in to check on the jelly bean seeds we had planted the night before on Easter Eve. 

Sure enough they had sprouted up into a beautiful Lollipop Garden! 

There’s nothing like a little Easter magic. 

What a fun day.  And the best part? We get to do it all over again next weekend when we celebrate Greek Easter with the whole family (some of them are away in DC at the moment to attend the Easter Egg Roll at the White House… pretty lucky, huh?!).  Happy Easter, y’all! 

Family + corned beef & cabbage + chocolate stout cake + Black Velvets + 70 degree temps = one fabulous St. Patrick’s Day weekend! 

                                       Cousin FaceTime Love. 

One of the many fun parts about co-vacationing with your family and sharing adjoining rooms? GOLDFISH SNACK PARTIES BEFORE BED! 

1) Babies are capable of staying up 13 hours with only 30 mins of napping if enough stuff is going on that distracts them. Oy. Travel days seem to last forever! 

2) You get a lot of sleep when your baby, the world’s lightest sleeper, conks out by 8pm every night in your hotel room.  

3) You also get first dibs at the buffet breakfast the next day when you wake up at 5:30am while on “vacation”. 

4) Going to both the pool AND the beach constitutes a busy day.

5) Babies love pico de gallo and some have even been known to eat it by the bowlful whenever it is placed in front of them. 

6) Going to the beach isn’t quite the treat one’s parents imagine it will be when you hate sand…

…with a passion.

7) Sand isn’t quite so terrifying when you are wearing shoes.

8) Even if you hate sand, it’s pretty hard not to love the water.

9) You don’t always need to speak the same language to make a new friend. 

10) Just when you are finally starting to adjust to the time change and your new vacation schedule, it’s inevitably always time to go home.

Thanks for the memories Cancun! 

I guess you could say sometimes I do things a little backwards.  While I never went to Cancun for spring break in college, I did go there for nine glorious days with my baby and my husband for our first official family vacation last week. 

We actually co-vacationed with Baby Gaga’s cousins and uncles, as well.  

Believe it or not, if you time things right to ensure you miss MTV and all the college coeds, Cancun can be quite the perfect place for a tranquil, rejuvenating, family-friendly getaway! 

While in Mexico I learned that vacationing with a baby is definitely a lot different than when it used to be just Papa Gaga and me.  

We slowed waaaaay down and did a lot more vegetating and a lot less go-go-going than we used to.  

We also returned home almost as pale as when we left.  We definitely sought out shade at all costs for the especially fair-skinned, redheaded member of our family! 

Our first vacation together sure was a lot different than our Papa Gaga and my previous vacations as a twosome used to be.  While a part of me was a little sad that we didn’t get to experience beachside massages, swimming with dolphins, or rappelling down ancient pyramids, more of me was thrilled to be able to witness the looks on our son’s face as he dipped his toes in the Caribbean Sea, listened to a mariachi band during dinner, or tried papaya for the first time. 

One successful family vacation down and hopefully many, many more to come!

More Happy Birthday wishes are in order this week.  Today we’re sending ‘em out to Baby Gaga’s great auntie who keeps the whole family in stitches every time we get together! xoxo

This week I did something I have never done before. I watched two babies under two for two days since my niece’s usual caretaker is under the weather.  And you know what? Not only did we all survive with our hair still in tact, but we even managed to get out of the house quite a bit.  The first day we met up with a mama friend and her son in Harvard Square for a cup of hot chocolate and grabbed some frittata to-go on the walk home.  Today we were back over at Harvard where Baby Gaga participated in another study for their Child Development Lab. After that we also hit up the library and Whole Foods.

I know this may not sound like a big deal to many, especially to those without kids, but this was unknown territory for me.  I wasn’t sure how it would be to juggle two of everything — two mouths to feed, two bums to diaper,  two heads and sets of hands to bundle up for the cold etc.  Wrangling multiple children is no walk in the park, but I was excited to find myself getting out of the house relatively easily and realizing that this was do-able.  Baby Gaga was such a good sport and didn’t seem to get too jealous either.  I made a conscious effort to shower him with extra attention and praise, and he made a conscious effort to shower me with extra hugs and snuggles to be sure I didn’t forget about him, which was pretty adorable.

I also thought it was interesting how much more attention one attracts when traveling with two. Perhaps it was having a baby strapped to me and pushing a stroller along that made me really stand out, but I had so many people stop to smile at me, tell me to go ahead and take the elevator before them and their suitcase, ask if the babies twins (ha! for so many reasons), or even pull out their cellphone telling me about they can relate and proceed to show me photos of their FIVE children! 

I’m not sure exactly when the Gaga Family will expand (although I can promise you that I will never have FIVE children unless I miraculously have quadruplets next!), but it never hurts to sneak in some practice runs here and there.  Besides, how could I ever resist any opportunity to sneak in some snuggles and quality time with the adorable Cousin Gagita.  At three months old she is already developing the sweetest little disposition… and making Baby Gaga look like a GIANT. Amazing what a difference nine more months can make! 

Here’s wishing a very Happy Birthday to the other fiery redhead of the family, Baby Gaga’s great grandmum.  You still don’t look a day over 50 in our book! So glad we get to share some of your genes.  If we can only all be so lucky! 

I’m dying to post a recap of Baby Gaga’s first Christmas more than anything, yet here I am staying up far too late once again putting it off.  Perhaps the fact that there are 728 pictures (yes, you read that right) to sort through from the past two days has a little something to do with my procrastination.  Or perhaps I am just a little too distracted switching out of Christmas mode and into 1st birthday party mode for this weekend.  Wow.  I am still in denial about that.  Anyhow, to distract me from the fact that I am three days away from becoming the mother of a 1-year old and from writing my Christmas morning post, here are some bits and pieces from our lovely Christmas Eve this year… 

First it was off to Great Grandma Gaga and Auntie Gaga’s festive home for a delicious holiday lunch, complete with goofy hats. 

Living room lounging. 

And pecan pie.  Mmmm. Apparently we were having such a nice time that I forgot to take many more pictures than this! The hours passed by so quickly that we also ran out of time to make it to some of our usual favorite Christmas Eve parties that we had planned to drop by at that evening.  Now that we’ve got a little one, naps and other things take priority and we had some *very* important business to attend to at home… 

…like making sure we bribed Santa with plenty of tasty treats! Apparently Baby Gaga didn’t yet seem to grasp the concept of leaving the cookies and eggnog for Santa.  I guess he thought we said to eat them on behalf of the Big Guy? And he certainly wasn’t going to let Rudolph’s carrot go without taste-testing it first himself.  No complaints from me there.  Leave it to my child to find a carrot as enticing as a cookie! 

Next it was onto the gifts. On Christmas Eve, my family always had a tradition where we each got to open one special present.  I don’t know how many years it took me to realize that this present was never a surprise.  It always contained a new pair of Christmas pajamas. I love this tradition and so we’ve decided to carry it on in our family. Papa Gaga, BG and I each got to open a pair of Christmas PJs we had picked out for one another. Baby Gaga also got to open one additional package that contained a personalized ornament symbolizing the past year (a tradition from both our families) to be hung on the tree that night. 

Baby Gaga’s first ornament was a pair of white baby shoes that said his name and the year on the soles. 

After opening our Christmas Eve gifts, we all changed into our new pajamas and got ready for a visit with our Austin family via Skype.  

Baby Gaga’s grandparents read us the Texas version of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.  Our little candy striper was so into it! After saying good night to the Texans, we then read Baby Gaga the original ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas for the first time. 

Then we settled in for a looooong winter’s nap.  Well, as long as one can sleep with a teething baby in the house. Christmas 2011 to be continued! 

You are the coolest two-year old we know. 

And the best big cousin a Baby Gaga could ever ask for. 

You have the whole family in stitches all the time. 

And we are so lucky to have you in our lives. Here wishing for another fabulous, fun-filled year for my favorite nephew!! xoxo