Last weekend and this weekend

We've had lots of friends and family in Rock Hill over the last two weeks. Here are some pictures from last weekend that I didn't post before and some from this weekend as well.
-Shirin

Grammy and Cyrus playing at Winthrop Lake.

Playing with sticks.

A cute pair.

Meanwhile, the rest of us played Ultimate Frisbee. My team of Bren, David, and me (Team Gunshow) beat the team of Clayton, Gabriel, Olga, and my dad (Team Nerd). It was super fun. We need to add this game to our FL family games.

Then, back home to eat lunch and play Catan.

Cyrus watched us play with much amusement.

Since, we were taking up all the seats, my mom fed Cyrus on the floor.

He just shoved it in as always.

He's started to like ball caps and I liked him wearing my dad's "Kiss me; I'm from Shiraz" hat.

That ends the pictures from last week. Below, we start this weekend's pictures.

Yay! Two of my favorite people in the world arrived Friday night!

Of course, we had to teach Anahita how to play Settlers of Catan. It's our newest favorite game.

This morning, Tita came with us to go yard sailing. Gabriel and I price-hunted while she snuggled with her baby nephew.

Peek-a-boo! I wanted to buy Cyrus one of these, but Gabriel said "no." I'm sure I'll be glad I don't have it once I get back to my small condo. We have very little room for anything else.

Climbing in and out.

More playing with Auntie Tita.

Picnic time at Winthrop Lake. Here, Cyrus is taking my dad's hat and knocking off his glasses.

Ahhh, relaxing at the park.

Group picture taken by some shy frisbee player.

Playing outside tonight in the wagon my dad rigged up for Cyrus. It was pretty dirty, so my dad lined it with a Persian rug. He has several of those just laying around the house. :)

Indian dancing baby

Surprise visitor

Guess who flew home for the weekend? Watch the videos to find out. (Sorry, Sam, if you can't watch it on your computer). Maybe you can figure it out without the video! :)
-Shirin

Surprising my mom:



Surprising my dad:

Some more about neuro

I am working with the Neurology department of a private specialty hospital this week. I've been really lucky in getting to see all types of varied neurological disorders. Today, we did brain surgery on a cat to remove several meningiomas, cervical vertebral repair on a Great Dane with neck instability, and removed the slipped disc of a dog with severe neck pain. Meanwhile, the intern and techs were also managing a case of a dog who was having constant seizures after having a routine dental performed at their local vet. The theory is that some of the anesthetic drugs induced the seizure (not a common occurrence), but the seizures just wouldn't stop and the dog had to be put into a coma to try to control them. We also had some post-op complications, which is also a possible consequence of surgery, that the intern was dealing with (like septic pneumonia).
All of these cases are very complex and complicated, and I am incredibly impressed by how the doctors and techs deal with them. This office, or at least the service that I'm on right now, is a very well-oiled machine. I wouldn't hesitate to bring any of my animals here myself. Actually, two of my parents' cats have already been to this place before, Lupe for a visit to the internist for GI issues, and Teddie to be diagnosed with probable renal cancer and to be put to sleep :(. I looked at her radiographs, and it looked like the right decision. She was very sick.
I am dragging myself off to bed now. I'm exhausted and have to be back at my very busy office tomorrow morning. At least I get the weekends off! :)
-Shirin

Cyrus videos

Cyrus has been having a blast here in Rock Hill with his grandparents. He is playing lots of new games and being a generally happy baby. I didn't get to come home before he went to bed tonight (sniff, sniff) because I was in surgery until 8 PM, but I did get a few videos from this morning with us playing before I went to work.
I feel good knowing he's with my parents while I work these longs hours. My feet are absolutely killing me from standing all day, but I'm learning a ton and getting to see lots of cool neurosurgeries.
-Shirin

Playing with Cyrus instead of making lunch. We were playing peek-a-boo, one of his new favorite games.



This video is a little jumpy, since Cyrus ran back and forth from me to my mom, and she was trying to hold the camera at the same time. He took turns hugging us and jumping on us at first, and the last half of the video is him being silly and tugging on my pants while I try to make lunch. It's cute.

Neurology

I'm on Neurology this week at the private specialty hospital that I am externing at. I really like Neuro and will be doing a full rotation in it later on at UGA, but I have enjoyed my peak at it so far. I am impressed with the amount of surgeries they do every day, which are all complicated ones I've never seen before, like spine and brain surgery. We also do lots of MRI and CT scans to detect the exact problems causing the neurological deficits. I've also be really impressed at the amount of money people are willing to spend on their pets. The cost of MRIs and surgical repairs is in the thousands, but people do it every day, which warms my heart.

The days can be reasonable hours or long hours.  Today I was there 11 hours and got home late and tired.  Yesterday was better and I got to go home and play with Cyrus before dinner.  Being an extern, I basically have no function, other than to learn, follow them around, and ask questions.  I do get to scrub into surgery with them and sometimes help them hold instruments, etc.  That's pretty fun.

I have been doing well without my dear husband, but I am really excited about him coming to visit on Friday.  Life is just not the same without you, Gabriel.

-Shirin

The pretty front of the hospital.

This is a myelogram we sometimes do to detect spinal cord or disc lesions. Contrast is injected around the spinal cord to see them.

A CT scan of a brain.

Videos of Cyrus in Rock Hill

I started my first day in Neurology today at the specialty clinic in Charlotte, NC.  It was fun and I will blog about it soon.  My mom spent her first day at home taking care of a baby by herself all day since I was little (probably).  She seemed a little tired but mostly great! :)  Cyrus seems to be teething again and was quite fussy, but she's a pro and got him through the day until I got home.

Here are a couple of videos from tonight and earlier this weekend when he wasn't being so fussy.

-Shirin

This is from this weekend when Gabriel was still here playing with the baby. We miss you, Daddy!



Eating and chatting with Daddy.



Interfering with Grandma's laundry pile.



Playing in the living room with Grandma.



Playing with Grandpa in a new game of lying down all over the house.



Now playing that game with Grandma.



More playing with Grandma.

Rock Hill

We're in Rock Hill for the weekend.  We drove up Saturday morning while Cyrus napped.  We didn't know how it would go, with the 3.5 hr drive and Cyrus' longest nap usually lasting about 2 hours.  Luckily, he slept a little long in the car and was mostly happy all the way home.

I am here for my externship, which starts on Tuesday.  We were lucky and got Brendan to come up with us.  Clayton and his girlfriend also drove down from Raleigh to visit with David, so we have lots of friends and family with us this weekend.

-Shirin

Gabriel showing the gang his favorite 'incredibots' website.

Meanwhile, Brendan got a chair massage.

Later in the afternoon, we went to the karate school (David's friend owns it and we get to use it when it's closed) and played games.

I got them to help me build an obstacle course, and we competed against each others' times.  Brendan won, of course, but we all were close behind.

Then, Brendan and Gabriel grappled with David refereeing.

We came home to find my mom bathing Cyrus...

...and my dad cooking dinner.  So nice to be a kid again with someone to take care of you.

After eating dinner and playing Scattergories with my parents, we met Clayton, Olga, and David at Hooters to watch the UFC fight.  

This morning, I got up early and took care of my sweetheart.  Here, he's eating mangoes.  Yummy!

He's learning to use a spoon, but he's still very lousy at it.  He used his fingers more often to eat his soy yogurt than he used his spoon, but he's learning.

"Wha'choo lookin' at, Momma?"

Trying to grab Chapu as she walked below the chair.

Yay!  Grandma is awake!

My mom and I took a cup of coffee out to the deck in the cool morning air and watched Cyrus play.

I love seeing him surrounded by plants.

Making music with the windchimes.

Look at the camera!  Point at Grandma!

Done with another rotation

Yay! I passed Radiology and am moving on to my Charlotte externship this weekend. I'm SO relieved I passed and don't have to retake the test or retake the rotation. Man, that would be awful. It wasn't an easy test, but I pulled through, thank God, and today is my last day. Whoo hoo! Done with 4 rotations, 16 more to go!
We head to Rock Hill tomorrow for a weekend with the family before I start working in the specialty clinic on Tuesday.
-Shirin

More birthday pics

For those of you who aren't regular readers of my mom's blog, you can look at more pictures of Cyrus' birthday by clicking on this link. My mom takes good pictures and from a different perspective, obviously.
-Shirin

Almost done with Radiology

Can you figure out what's wrong with any of these radiographs of a horse leg below? (Without looking at the answers?) Neither can I! Actually, I'm kidding; these examples are very obvious problems that probably even you guys could figure out, at least partly. However, normal radiology is not nearly that easy.
After almost 3 weeks sitting in the "bat cave" in the dark and trying to interpret radiographs, I've come to respect and fear radiology greatly. Yes, I have learned a LOT. But, I am still so unsure of my reading abilities. Unless the lesion's very obvious, I don't have the confidence to call what I see. I think that just comes with repeated exposure and practice.
We have our final test on Friday morning and our last rounds meeting on Thursday morning, so the light is at the end of the tunnel. I have also enjoyed learning a lot about ultrasound and CT imaging modalities. We use ultrasound constantly in vet medicine and I have gotten SO much better at interpreting different organs and lesions as well. But, I still have a lot way to go, since I was just watching the screen and not operating the transducer myself.
My next rotation, as I mentioned before, is at the vet specialty clinic up in Charlotte. I am excited, since they will be letting me rotate around to several of their services, so I will get to do some more Exotics and will also be in Ophthalmology, Oncology, Cardiology, and Internal Medicine. All of those listed above will be repeated at UGA at a later time, except for Cardiology. I didn't have room in my schedule for it, so they'd better teach me everything quick!
Wish me luck. If I fail the Radiology test, I'll have to repeat the whole rotation over again and I might die.
-Shirin

In real life, the lesions aren't circled in red. Darn...

Bathtime

Cyrus has always been a water baby. We still haven't taken him swimming, much to my chagrin, but he's loved his baths and playing in the water. Lately, that seems to have changed. For one thing, he refuses to stay in his little blue bathtub. That has had to be retired. He's in the big bathtub, now, even though I feel that it's wasteful with extra water. We try not to fill it all the way.
Also, he seems to get bored just sitting in the water getting washed, whereas before he really liked it. So, this Saturday we took a trip to the local Babies R Us to get some bath toys. He absolutely loved the trip, the run around the store, and all the fun things we came home with.
Mommy and Daddy, I would suggest getting a few toys for the tub for when we come for our 3 week stay (only a few days away...yay!) It'll make for a much nicer bath time. For those of you that don't know, I am doing an externship in Charlotte for 3 weeks, starting after Memorial Day. It'll be at the specialty clinic up there, and I set it up specifically so that I could stay with my parents and bring the baby for them to baby sit. Knowing what my situation is now, it would be plausible for me to leave Cyrus home with Gabriel, but at the time I planned it, I was still planning on possibly breastfeeding and didn't know if I could be away from him that long. Plus, my parents are really excited to spend all day with Cyrus. I hope they know what they are getting into. :) (Cyrus and I will also be staying with Rita and Gene next April for 2 weeks. I found a great Shelter Medicine externship near Tampa and they are going to be taking off from work to babysit...he'll be almost 2 by then!!) I'm really excited about both trips. What I hate to think about is being away from Gabriel, but he'll be coming up for visits on the weekends.
-Shirin

Reading about fruit (from Aunt Nahid's book) before we went to Babies R Us.

Playing dress-up with Mommy.

Now wearing the girlie hat. I don't think I'll ever have a girl, so this is the closest I'll get.

Cyrus and Gabriel looking for bath toys together. Cyrus was overwhelmed by all the stuff.

Fleeing the scene of the crime...literally.

Whoa...all those squishy, colorful balls!

Getting ready for his bath with his daddy.



Playing with his new bath toys.

Some videos

We've had a fun weekend, but I got very little of it on record. We went to yard sales, thrift stores, and the Athens Farmer's Market on Saturday morning (where we got a "new" microwave and a bunch of vegetables, respectively). The night before, we went to a birthday party for Cailyn and got to see a bunch of friends. Unfortunately, my camera batteries were dead and I didn't get pictures of any of it.
Here are just a few videos of us playing around the house. Now that we have Cyrus, Gabriel and I spend a lot of time playing outside and at home with the baby. It's not what everyone would choose for their Saturday afternoons, but we enjoy it.
-Shirin


Reading to Cyrus (until the camera was turned on and he didn't want to anymore...how typical). He actually does like to be read to a lot and really likes to turn the pages for himself.




Playing outside with his water bottle on the front steps. He still really likes practicing sitting.



Running to give Gabriel a hug inside. It's so nice to be hugged by the baby you love so much.




More playing outside, hugging daddy, and practicing sitting and lying on the ground. What a silly boy.




Cyrus really likes to take and give objects back and forth nowadays.




"Buh-buh." The end.

Weight loss program

Have you noticed in our most recent pictures that Gabriel and I are looking a little slimmer? Probably not, but we sure can tell when we get on the scale every morning. We've both started a weight loss program in the last 2 weeks and it's already been very rewarding for us.
I'll start with Gabriel's plan, since he was the impetus for this whole thing. We often had talked about how sodas and sweets and non-stop eating (sort of his food MO) weren't healthy, but we never came up with a plan to deal with it. Finally, 2 weeks ago, Gabriel decided to do something about his growing belly. He made a pact with himself to lose 9 pounds in 3 weeks and to cut out all sodas and juices. Since then he's been recording all his food consumption and calorie intake on a wonderful website he found, called The Daily Plate. I've often kept a food diary, but I was never able to accurately calculate how many calories I was eating, let alone predict how many calories I needed. The Daily Plate does all of that for you. Gabriel and I both entered information about how much we weigh now and how much weight we'd like to lose per week. His goal was 3 pounds per week (mine was 1.5 per week), and the site told us how many calories we needed to eat. It also lets us record our exercise so that if we eat more than we were supposed to, it can subtract the amount we burned exercising. Knowledge really is power. Knowing we have to report our food activities daily and being much more aware of ingredient labels of food has made a world of difference in our dieting lives.
The first week, Gabriel lost 6 pounds. Before you worry, realize that he said his cessation of soda and increased water intake made him shed gallons (seemingly) of water in increased urination. It seems that the sodium in soda causes lots of water retention and that was definitely part of his weight loss. Since then, he's slowed down to a more reasonable pace. But, he did an amazing job sticking to his calorie intake goal AND exercising several times a week. Brendan made up an exercise plan for him, which required him to do cardio at least 3 times a week, to lift something heavy every day, to tap his food while at his desk, and to work out once a week with Brendan at the gym.
Something very unconventional that Gabriel did to ensure he'd stick to his goals was to sign up on another website called Stickk. It allows you to pledge money to an anti-charity (a charity you hate) in case you don't meet your goal, whatever it may been. So, Gabriel has a large sum of our money sitting in an account somewhere, just waiting to see if he'll fail or not. Gabriel's anti-charity is the National Organization for Marriage, an organization that fights against marriage rights for all people (or they might say, promotes marriage for only a man and a woman). Since we would hate to give them even a dime of our money, it's been a powerful incentive to stick to his diet.
Since I always want to lose weight, I jumped on the diet train a day or two after he started, and my plan has been much the same as Gabriel's. I didn't pledge any money, though, because I know I can be loyal to a plan as long as I have to record my actions somewhere. Since I started, I have lost about 4.5 pounds and am still going strong. So, I have made it back to my pre-baby weight, but I was already overweight when I got pregnant, so I going to keep losing.
I've been so grateful to Gabriel for his healthy choices, since they have really affected our whole family in a positive way. I feel very liberated without food having complete power over me. I never drank soda, so I wasn't able to give it up, but I have stopped overeating and, to achieve my calorie goals, I have started to eat much healthier food and exercise more. The junk food I ate before would just reach my calorie goal so quickly, I can't eat it and expect to be able to eat dinner. I have also loved seeing Gabriel eat much healthier food, especially lots of fruit. Cyrus comes up to him for bites of his pears, and I feel like this change in food behavior really does effect our whole family for the better.
If any of you wish you were thinner, I would suggest you check out the link above to the Daily Plate. They really make it so much easier to understand what kinds of foods to eat and what quantities are appropriate (and I promise, the servings will be a lot smaller than you are used to). But, you realize that eating less doesn't leave you as hungry as you thought it would and almost makes you feel better than if you had stuffed yourself silly.
-Shirin

Working out on his stairmaster, which he does several times a week.

Weighing in daily is a huge part of keeping track of the situation. The Daily Plate website also has a page where we record our weight every day, and it makes a graph of it for us to be able to track it.

We went to the Farmer's Market yesterday, and I'm really excited about buying a basil plant. I'm going to repot it today and hope it gets huge and luscious.

On a side note, I thought I'd mention that I've had the goal of not using plastic grocery bags since Earth Day. I've gotten much better about bringing my canvas bags to the store with me and have found that now that I have my own bags, it seems ridiculous that we all are provided free bags every single time we grocery shop. What kind of crazy country do we live in? Free bags every day? Yuk.

Eating healthier has really caused a shift in our grocery shopping choices. We always bought more produce than the average family, but now we buy so much more produce than anything else. Below, you'll see our week's produce includes bananas, pears, nectarines, mangoes, bean sprouts, asparagus, kale, cabbage, sweet potatoes, and butternut squash. Yum!

I really hope we can keep this up. It seems like the type of life change that we should just stick with for life. So many diseases are caused by or worsened by obesity, and we were heading in that direction. We both love to eat, but we also want to live long, healthy lives and be good examples for Cyrus. I'm so grateful to Gabriel for making such a healthy decision for our whole family (it's a lot harder to be healthy when your spouse is always bringing home pizza). I'll have to give you guys updates as to whether we can stick with it. It definitely takes more time and effort than I might be able to handle this summer in clinics, but I truly hope I can manage it anyway.

One year doctor's visit and new videos.

Gabriel took Cyrus to the doc on Monday for his shots and a well-baby visit.  This was the first time his weight was under 90th percentile, which we attribute to all the exercise he's been getting while walking so much in the last 3 months.  He went down into the 75th percentile, so our chubby baby is finally thinning out.  Oddly, his height and head circumference stayed in the 90th percentile (and actually his head is now measuring bigger than before), so I guess if he stays like he is now, he'll be a tall, trim, big-headed kid.  That sounds about right.

Here are some new videos of Cyrus playing with Daddy and Second Daddy (aka Uncle Brendan).  Ha ha.

-Shirin

Helping with the groceries.



More moving jars about. I really need to figure out how to get him to like tidying up.



A council meeting with the representative from Babyworld. (Gabriel and Brendan being silly).



Playing chase with Daddy. He really loves to be chased now.



Getting an awesome wagon ride from Uncle Tio.

Birthday pictures!

Here are the pictures from last weekend. We had a great time. Thanks to the grandparents for the visits and presents.

-Shirin

Pap pap feeding Cyrus lunch on Friday.

Gene discovered that Cyrus likes to stack blocks.

Concentrating hard on the blocks.

Picnic in the park on Saturday.

Cyrus ate puffs while we ate subs.  Yum!

Playing on the playground...whoo hoo!

Now the other grandpa is here with a wagon full of toys!

Oh my god!  So many toys!

Preparing dinner in the kitchen with a naked baby in our midst.

Watching Mommy making a yummy salad.

What's Grammy doing with me?

Ooooohhh, a cake!  (I made it for Cyrus myself; it's a carrot-banana cake with walnuts on top).

Nice family dinner.

We ate ashe-reshdeh.  It's a Persian noodle stew, and I cooked it in my crock pot for almost 20 hours.  It turned out really well.

Lighting the birthday boy's candles.

Happy Birthday, my sweet bubsy.

First encounter with cake.

Stuff it in!

More more more!

Two messy hands, both filled with carrot cake.

Getting washed off in the hose outside afterwards (he also peed out there).  The Gabriel part of Cyrus hated the cold water.

Opening presents.  Cyrus needed some help, so I got to open presents for him, which I loved for my own selfish reasons.

Hugging Pap Pap good bye.  All good weekends have to come to an end.

Birthday and Mother's Day weekend

It was a wonderful first birthday for Cyrus. We kept it very simple and cheap and just celebrated with family. We were expecting both sets of grandparents, but unfortunately Rita was unable to make it due to unforseen circumstances involving work and travel. Gene was able to come without her, so we had 3 of the 4 grandparents, which was still very nice. We went on a picnic on Saturday for lunch and had the presents and cake later in the afternoon after Cyrus' nap.
He got some toys from the Modaresi's and some really cool cloth shoes from the Beal's. Wearning shoes actually makes Cyrus trip more, so it's really nice to have a sort of slipper that protects the feet without getting in the way of walking.
Now that Cyrus is one, he's considered a toddler (so I'm told), so I no longer really have a baby (sniff sniff). I can't say I miss the middle-of-the-night wake-ups, but I do miss the little cuteness a little bit. I've sincerely enjoyed watching Cyrus learn new things every day, though. Gene saw him stacking blocks this weekend, which we'd never seen before, and he's also started to repeat some noises we make towards him too. Very cool.
OK, enjoy the videos. Pictures will come later.
-Shirin
PS I didn't say much about Mother's Day, since it was pretty low key. I got my mom an accessory for her new iPod Nano (that she got for her birthday) and my dad made us breakfast and lunch. It was just nice to spend time with family.

Cyrus has started this funny thing where he lies down on the floor on purpose. Maybe he's imitating Gabriel; we don't really know. He'll also do it on command, which is a new thing too.



Cyrus and Gabriel like to play ball together.



Gene (Pap pap) played with Cyrus so much this weekend and did lots of silly things that Cyrus loved.


Here they are being silly together.



In this video, you see two of Cyrus' new favorite activities: 1) dancing and 2) taking and giving objects to someone.



I have never heard Cyrus laugh so hard as he did this weekend. I finally got a sample of it on video.



Cyrus ate his carrot cake like there was no tomorrow. He was also surrounded by grandparents, snapping photos. What a special guy.



Cyrus imitating Gabriel.

Livin' life

Now that I'm in clinics, I have more free time overall for sure. I've filled it with lots of family and social activities. I am still, unfortunately, forced to be gone from my baby much more than I would like, but things have been going well and Radiology, which is what I'm on now, is not one of those that keeps me late at night. I've gotten home around 5-6 PM most days, which is great because I can spend a couple of hours with Cyrus before bedtime. I never would've dreamt that there would be days when I'd see him an hour in the morning and 2 hours at night, but I guess that's pretty typical for a working parent. He seems very happy at his babysitter's and I just have to swallow my guilt and acknowledge that I am living with my decisions. I hope he appreciates that I'm a vet one day and that I couldn't stay home with him all the time in order to be so.
Outside of clinics and family, I have tried to do other fun things too. Most notable lately were the international dinner I cooked for and went to, the birthday party I went to with Cyrus, the Human Rights Festival I went to, and the party celebrating the graduation of the vet class above me. Yes, that means I am now a senior vet student. With a little under a year to go, I am heading towards really being a veterinarian. I can't believe it. Clinics are incredibly educational at all times, which simultaneously makes me realize how much I have learned and how much I still have to know before I am a good doctor. I can't believe my brain will ever be able to hold as much information as my professors', and maybe it won't, since they are specialists and I won't be, but it'll still be a whole lot.
Here are some pictures.
-Shirin

My classmate Tammy came over to teach me how to cook a Malaysian noodle stir-fry called Mee Goreng or something like that.

Yum-o!

Happy birthday, Solan!

What is this sweet, sticky stuff on my fingers?

OOo, it's smushy!

The rest of us got cake too (except for Cyrus, poor boy. His mommy is too mean).

Ahh, this is what a person does with a cake.

Trying to get a baby picture. Cyrus was remarkably chill, but Solan wasn't so sure.

So, mommies had to step in. That's when Cyrus got unhappy.

At the Human Right's Festival, Cyrus got a "I am not a nugget" sticker from the vegan booth.

My friend Erin walked downtown with us to see the festival.

This is where I sit and look at radiographs a lot. The other radiographs we take are all digital and on big computer screens for the radiologists to look at, but we get the old films to study from.

This is what I am faced with every morning for 2 hours. Me and my 5 classmates are sat in front of a series of miscellaneous radiographs and grilled by our professor as to the details, diagnosis, and treatment of the diseases from each radiograph. It's pretty demoralizing. (I snuck this photo with my cell phone).

This is me leaving work to go make dinner while Gabriel picked up Cyrus.

After work and daycare, we are very happy to see each other.

I love you, my one year old sweetheart.

Now, eat your tofu.

Something cute

I promise to blog about something other than Cyrus soon (for those of you interested in the other parts of my life), but Gabriel took a very cute video today while I was at the coffee shop studying (my Radiology rotation gives us tests...yuk. I thought I was done with those). Anyway, we've noticed lately that Cyrus has started to really recognize the proper usage of certain objects. He likes to pretend to talk on his cell phone and today he started to brush Gabriel's hair with the hairbrush. I knew he'd seen us do that, but I had no idea he was really watching us. Guess I'd better make sure I don't do anything I don't want him to do.
I've also noticed that he's started that thing kids do where they constantly bring you objects in exchange for praise about how generous and sweet they are. He brought me about 20 leaves and rocks two days ago when we were outside. Just anything he could pick up off the sidewalk was brought to my open hand over and over again.
Here's the video that Gabriel took of himself and Cyrus after Cyrus had walked up to him and started brushing Gabriel's hair. It's never as good when you try to make Cyrus repeat something, but you'll get the point. He also used the actual bristles the previous time (and in the video he uses the wrong part). But, whatever; it's really cute.
-Shirin

Longer videos

OK, Daddy. I took some longer videos for you. They are just him eating and drinking. He's gotten quite good at it. He'll even eat beans and rice with his fingers, which I think is kind of a hard food to pick up. I'm glad I have a good eater. I hope he doesn't become like me and get really picky. I hope I will dodge that bullet (although I tortured my poor parents enough to deserve it). :)
-Shirin

Playing and chatting

I am on Radiology right now, which means I am fairly guaranteed to get out by 5 or 6 every day. This is not the way of most rotations, but Radiology is not an in-patient service, which really cuts down on our work. We mainly function as a service to other services (like Surgery or Neurology).
Thus, I was home in time to play outside with Cyrus today. He's teething on top right now, so he's been a little cranky and clingy, but we managed to have some fun anyway.
Enjoy.
-Shirin


I like this video because it sounds like he calls me "mama." I'm still not certain he knows it's my name, but I like to imagine. (You can also see him chatting it up with his Uncle Tio at the very beginning).




This video cracks me up, because he's been very clingy and I thought I would just video me carrying him. Instead, he promptly puked all over my shoulder for some unexplained reason. Good thing Uncle Tio was there to help me clean up. It's always an adventure with a baby around.




Walking around outside and repeating mommy.




Peek-a-boo! He's got this game down.

Birthday party for Solan

Cyrus attended his first birthday party this weekend. I haven't uploaded my photos yet, but I just got these two from one of the other moms. The bottom pic is of us three vet student moms (the other two are freshman) and our kids. Solan, in the middle, is the birthday boy. I think it's funny how all the babies look so much like their moms, and we are all quite different looking. I'll post the rest later.
-Shirin

None of the babies would cooperate in sitting down with one another at the same time.

So, the moms sat with the babies for this cute picture.

Finally...FL pictures!

Last weekend, we went down to Uncle Sam's house for our biannual family get-together. It was only a weekend this time, instead of several more days, but it was all we could manage with my busy clinic schedule and Gabriel's work schedule. It was lovely to see everyone and Cyrus managed to take naps this time, which made life with him go much smoother.
We were sad that Casey's branch of the family was unable to attend due to several prior engagements. Hopefully, we'll get to see him, Janice, Morgan, and Cruz soon.
Here are the pics from Bren's camera (as I forgot my memory card and used his camera).
-Shirin

Pap Pap snuggling with his grandbaby.

Ha ha...I love this picture. I didn't take it, as far as I remember. Here, we take the first picture and add Emily choking David Reinke (Bren's best friend). Priceless.

Two brothers ready for the woods competition.

"Hey! It's mommy with the camera!"

Me practicing my rope climbing skills.

Sam is in the hat, explaining the newest hunter/chase game in the woods. This one was every man/woman for him/herself. We all had to try to outlast each other in the woods while being hunted by...

...these two. David and Brendan were the only two people in good enough shape to run around in the woods for 45 mintues while the rest of us hid from them. We were allowed to obtain plastic "freeze" or "deflect" guns to help protect ourselves from their deadly tap on our shoulder. Once they did that, we were out of the game. Gabriel and I teamed up and hid in the top of a Cedar tree for over half an hour and were never found...whoo hoo! Nicole also outlasted the hunters by finding the immunity idol. It was a lot of fun.

In the second came we played, Gabriel was hunter and chased Brendan through some thorns. This is what both of their legs looked like. They don't mess around, boy.

Then, it was time to play our newest favorite family game, "Vampire." It comes from the overarching game called "Mafia," and is just the version where the bad guys are vampires instead of hitmen. We are all randomly assigned secret roles of good guys or bad guys and have to try to ferret out the bad guys before they get us. We get a lot of suspicious, accusatory people in this game, but we love it and it can be played by huge groups. Below, Gabriel is trying to convince people he's not a vampire (though he really was, I think).

Meanwhile, Cyrus munched on a cracker and watched his daddy's good show.

Saturday night, Cyrus didn't want to go to sleep on time. He was just too stimulated. So, he was allowed to stay up and snuggle with his great grandmother, also known as Mamaw. How cute they look together. He was calm in her arms for at least 10 minutes, which is very unusual for him.

She told him funny things.

OK, late night...and it's time to play poker. Look at David's poker face!

Bren must've had something good too.

I don't think Cyrus realized something exciting was going on...maybe it was all in Gabriel's head.

Riding on Uncle Tio.

Watch this; it's only 30 seconds.

If any of you read my mom's blog, you probably already saw this, but I wanted to put it up for my viewers too. It will take 30 seconds of your time and is more educational than watching Cyrus walking around.
Also, it reminded me of a trivia question we just had in FL...darn, I still need to get those pics from Bren of our trip; I'll post about it soon so ya'll will understand what trivia I'm talking about.
-Shirin

Figurin' stuff out.

We're really enjoying watching Cyrus figure out how to do things. Lately, he's been trying to learn how to push his duck from Tia Sarah, get his train out of the door, and sit down and get up on his own. See videos for more visuals.

On Wednesday, when Sarah gave it to him, Cyrus just picked up this duckie and banged it up and down. On Thursday, he was already pushing it the right way to make it quack and smack its feet.



Quack, quack.




He tried SO hard to get this train out of the door and got very frustrated, poor guy. But, you can watch to see how it turns out.



Pushing his train around the sidewalk and learning to steer.



In this one, Cyrus prepares the door for pushing his train through it.




Learning how to sit down can be a lot harder than it seems. Falling backwards isn't that natural, I guess.



Learning how to get up from a seated position can also be pretty difficult, it seems. This is a fairly long video, but I kept recording until Cyrus finally got off. I thought my dad, especially, would want to watch his brain work. :)



Now, it's time for practice. Sit down, get up; sit down, get up.