New Job

After several years at Unity Health Care, an underserved clinic in Washington, DC, Elise accepted a new position as an instructor in the Department of Family Medicine at Georgetown University. She will be working in their teaching clinic in Fort Lincoln, Maryland. Elise has precepted at the Georgetown clinic for a number of years, so she will be very familiar with her new practice. However, unlike her current job, the new position will be full time. That means life will be getting even more hectic for the Morris family. To help manage the chaos, Bryant altered his work schedule to leave at 4:30pm. With any luck, we all will be home by 5:30pm each night. We had some trepidation about Elise working full-time, but the Georgetown position was too good to pass up. Elise will miss her friends at Unity and the patients to whom she was so dedicated, but she’s also excited about this new opportunity.

Easter 2010

Easter was glorious this year. After a long, hard winter, we were finally rewarded with some nice spring weather. Right on cue, the daffodils sprouted and the cherry trees blossomed. We spent as much time as possible outside over Easter weekend, talking long walks through the neighborhood and playing at our local playground. On Saturday evening, Henry and Vivian hunted for eggs in the backyard. After Henry discovered that the eggs had candy inside, he stopped hunting and started stuffing as much candy as possible into his mouth. On Easter Sunday we kept up our tradition of going to mass with the Powell family and having brunch afterward at Clydes. And in the afternoon, we had another egg hunt with Joey, Andy and Sara. Below are some pictures from the weekend.

That's Entertainment

After Sesame Street Live in December, Henry got to see two additional shows this spring. In February we went to Disney Live and in March we saw the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. The circus was definitely Henry’s favorite. He loved seeing the elephants and zebras and kept assuring himself that the tigers behind the cage “can’t bite me”. Henry also got his first taste of popcorn at the circus and ended up eating the entire box (plus a snowcone).

Underwear!

Henry has been doing great with his potty training. We were pleasantly surprised when his teachers suggested he was ready to begin wearing underwear at school. For the past several weeks, he has been wearing undies during the day and keeping them dry (no accidents so far). We’re slowly expanding our underwear collection: we began experimenting with Thomas the Train, moved on to Buzz Lightyear and friends and are now ready for a full cast of Super Heroes.

Growing Up

Vivian joined Henry at the SEC daycare center in March. Two of her teachers—Ms. Louis and Ms. Gloria—cared for Henry when he was in the infant classroom, so we knew we were leaving our little girl in good hands. Her other teacher, Ms. Chichi, has been wonderful. Vivian is the youngest child in the classroom and definitely one of the favorites. The first week got off to a rocky start when Vivian refused to take her bottle at school. We had been giving her a bottle from time to time during Elise’s maternity leave to avoid such a problem. But Vivian decided to cause her parents’ some serious stress before she finally started cooperating. Now she eats and sleeps just fine. Her favorite activities at school are going for walks outside with her friends and turning the knobs on a musical play gym. She is now rolling over and pushing up on her stomach. She is intensely interested (and often amused) by everything her brother does and even managed to grab his arm the other day in what will surely be the first of many sibling tussles. Below are some pictures of Vivian at three months.

Presidents Day Weekend

After two blizzards in one week (see Snowmaggedon), we were ready for a long weekend away. Elise wanted to visit her Aunt Barbara, who had recently moved to a hospice in Hampton, Virginia. So we decided to head down that way and also spend a few nights at Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg, Virginia. The Lodge has a giant indoor waterpark with a wilderness theme. More a theme park than a hotel (there are animatronic animals that sing and dance and costumed characters that roam the halls), the entire enterprise is designed to give kids (and their parents) a break during the long winter months. Thanks to his swim lessons, Henry enjoyed playing in the waterpark, which has a section just for toddlers. He even ventured into the three-story water fort, the lazy river and the giant wave pool. However, his favorite part of the stay was evening storytime when the children gather around the lobby fireplace and listen to a story in their pajamas. It was a nice change of pace, but after a long week stuck indoors, we were tired and a little out of sorts. Mostly we just wanted to get back to a normal routine.



On Sunday we headed down to Hampton and stopped at the Virginia Living Museum, which was a surprisingly nice little diversion. It was “reptile weekend”, so Henry got to touch an iguana and a boa constrictor. Vivian mostly just slept. On Monday, we visited with Aunt Barbara and her son Barrett at the hospice. Barbara was moving a little slower, but seemed as feisty as ever, especially when dealing with her incorrigible nurses. Elise and Vivian stayed at the hospice and had lunch with Barbara while the boys retired to a nearby playground. Barbara seemed to enjoy our visit, especially seeing Vivian and Henry again. This proved to be our last visit with Barbara. She passed away shortly thereafter. We hadn’t expected her to go so quickly but were grateful for the chance to see her once last time before her passing.

Potty Passport

One benefit of being stuck indoors for a week is that we were able to devote more time to potty training. Henry has been using the potty infrequently since last fall (and usually only after being bribed with gummy treats), but the real breakthrough came during Snowmaggedon, when he suddenly figured out the whole pee-pee thing. One of the parents at Henry’s daycare made a "potty passport" for each of the children where they can place a sticker each time they use the potty. For the last month, we’ve been regularly filling up our potty passport both at home and at school. So much so, we may need to get an insert soon. We’re still a long way from underwear (or even “number two”), but progress is definitely being made!