We Have a Plan; Coco's Antics

So, I think we finally have a plan to get to India to get Flynn and Margot.  Ken made arrangements to finish filming in Los Angeles this Friday, a week earlier than originally planned.  He’ll be home on Saturday.  In the meantime, my last day in the office will be this Wednesday.  On Thursday, I’ll fly with Cornelia to Atlanta where I will rendezvous with Grandma Connie, Grandpa Roy and the Kennesaw Wingards.  I’ll stay in Atlanta on Thursday night and then fly back to San Francisco on Friday night.  Ken and I will have the weekend to get ready for the trip to India.  We’ll leave on Monday afternoon and arrive in India at 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning (about 24 hours after we leave).

On Wednesday morning, we’ll pick up Flynn and Margot from the hospital and get them settled into where we are staying.  (Okay, where we’re staying isn’t figured out yet, but Ken is working on it.)  We’ll also immediately start the process to get Flynn and Margot home.  The first step will be the DNA test required by the U.S. government to prove the kids have a parent who is a U.S. citizen.  This takes about a week.  Once that’s done, Flynn and Margot will be issued their U.S. passports at the U.S. embassy.  Then we’ll have to get the necessary visas from the Indian government to leave the country.  That requires a two-step process and visits to two different agencies..  If everything goes smoothly we could be ready to leave on or around Wednesday, September 25th.  We’re scheduled to fly home on Friday, September 27th, so everything really has to go smoothly. 

A lot of people have asked if Cornelia knows what’s coming.  No, she doesn’t.  Sure, we’ve been telling her for a few months that she’s going to have two little siblings, and we’ve watched the episodes of Dora the Explorer with Dora’s twin little brother and little sister countless times.  And we showed her pictures of Flynn and Margot when they were born last weekend.  But I don’t think at her age she really understands the abstract concept of siblings -- or the enormous upheaval that is about to occur in her life.  I fear she will not be pleased.

What's better than the refreshing feeling of cool water
dripping on your tummy from the planter on the deck above?

Meanwhile, she’s having fun just being Coco.  She’s fully embracing her two-year-old-ness.  Her vocabulary and language skills are really amazing (although I have nothing to compare it to).  She is now using lots of fun expressions like “I’m fine” (which clearly she learned from me) and “I be right back.”  A week or so ago she turned to me and said, “I have idea.”  I was amazed and waited with great anticipation for her to reveal this idea to me.  However, no idea was forthcoming.  No sooner had she uttered the sentence than she immediately turned her attention to something else.  She said it a few more times the following week, again without sharing with me any of her mysterious ideas.  Fortunately this week she started saying it and actually sharing an idea too, usually her directive for our next game.

A passion for Play-Doh.

And that’s what Coco and I do; we play a lot of games.  She likes to play scenes from Dora the Explorer.  Sometimes she’s Dora and I’m Boots, and sometimes I’m Dora and she’s Boots.  (She decides of course.)  On occasion we are Super Babies, which involves capes and running.  We’re Diego and Baby Jaguar a lot, and that usually involves rescuing Baby Jaguar from some imaginary emergency - like falling off a cliff (the bed) and/or falling into a body of water (the floor).  We are also quite often Little Blue Truck and Big Dump (not affiliated with Dora) and that involves imaginary mud and a lot of pushing.  Sometimes she decides that she’s Daddy and I’m Coco.  Like the other night in the bathtub she was Daddy and put the shampoo in my (Coco’s) hands.  That night she also dumped water on her own head after weeks of dumping it on my head.  “Close your eyes, Daddy!”

One of her new activities is jumping off the stools in her room and off the stairs in the entry hall.  First she jumps off, then I have to catch her jumping off.  Then all of her stuffed furry friends have to take their turns jumping off (she throws them off the stools) and then her friends have to catch her.  (I’ll just say that it’s a tricky maneuver to catch a jumping two-year-old while holding a stuffed panda . . ..)  She also likes to wave her wand and say some jumbled form of “abracadabra” usually turning someone (me) into a duck.  For some reason it’s always a duck.


 Her playground manners are coming along nicely as well.  She knows how to share sandbox toys (most of the time), and how to take her turn on the slide (most of the time) and when to say she’s sorry (whenever Daddy says so). 

While all this sounds lovely, she has her share of fits and tantrum like any two-year-old (who just spent four weeks with her grandparents) does.  Sometimes it feels to me like no one has ever said “no” to her.  So Daddy is saying “no” a lot these days.  “No, you can’t eat peanut butter with your fingers.”  “No you can’t wear your pajamas outside.” “No, you can’t put toothpaste on your toothbrush a third time.”   “No, you can’t roam around the house with ink pens and markers.”  “No, if you don’t eat your Cheerios (which you chose over the scrambled egg sandwich, Greek yogurt and fresh strawberries I made for you for breakfast), you cannot watch Dora the Explorer, or play with your Play-Doh, or go outside.”  (She still didn’t eat her Cheerios which resulted in a rather unpleasant morning for the both of us.)

Flynn and Margot - Day 3 Update

At the end of day 3 (Monday night, India time) Flynn and Margot are doing well.  They have started bottle feeding a bit and are expected to be on bottle-only in the next several days.  They are breathing just fine. 

Finally, names for our newest family members

We are very excited to share with you the names of the newest additions to our family.  It won’t be a surprise that we’ve selected family names.  Ken and I want our children to feel a strong connection with their families, both immediate family and extended family.  Family names are a part of that connection.  The names we’ve chosen are also a nod to our families’ histories as well as the joining of the Gotham / Walsh and Wingard / Jackson families. 

Cornelia’s first name is her grandmother’s / Ken’s mom’s name.  Ken’s mom was named after her mother’s sister who was named after Cornelius Jackson, a relative living in the 1800s.  According to Ken’s great aunt Ida, Cornelius Jackson lived in Virginia as a free black man during slavery.  Cornelia’s middle name – Walsh – is her grandmother’s / Mike’s mom’s maiden name. 

Our newest additions will be Margaret Jackson Gotham Wingard and Flynn Roy Gotham Wingard.  Like Cornelia, both of them are named after their grandparents. 

Margaret is Mike’s mom’s name.  Most people call Mike’s mom Mary, but family and friends from her childhood call her Mary Marg which is short for Mary Margaret.  She was named after her mother’s two sisters.  Jackson is Ken’s mom’s maiden name.  Margaret will go by “Margot.” 

Flynn is derived from Ken’s dad’s name – Flen.  We’ve just changed the spelling a bit.  Roy is Mike’s middle name, Mike’s dad’s first name, Mike’s great grandfather’s first name, Ken’s middle name and Ken’s dad’s middle name and the name he uses.    

Other names we considered included:

Barack and Michelle

Jay-Z and Beyonce
Luke and Princess Leia

Kirk and Uhura 

Sponge Bob and Square Pants

The newest Gotham Wingards

Ed. Note:  At the time I wrote the following message to our families, names had not yet been finalized or announced.

On Saturday morning we welcomed to the family our two newest Gotham Wingards.  We have a boy and a girl, born on Saturday, August 24, 2013, local (India) time.  The boy was born at 11:56 a.m. local time (11:26 p.m. Pacific time on August 23^rd) weighing 1.87 kg. (4 lbs., 2 oz.) and the girl was born at 11:57 a.m. (11:27 p.m. Pacific time on August 23^rd) weighing 2.18 kg. (4 lbs., 13 oz.). They arrived earlier than expected but still made it to week 34 and both are healthy and strong.  Names are still pending but should be announced soon, and our new departure date for India is not yet determined.

How we heard, or “Welcome to our normal.”:  Ken, who is in Los Angeles filming HomeMade Simple, called me at home asleep in bed in San Francisco at 3:25 a.m.  He had just read via an email from our agency in India that our surrogate had gone into labor and the babies were coming.  Ken was thrilled and near tears with excitement, which is what he does.  I was excited of course, but I also went into total panic mode which is what I do.  “These babies are coming too early!  Will they be okay?  When are we going to fly to India?  Ken is scheduled to be in LA for another three weeks.  How are we going to get Coco to Savannah before we go to India!  Oh my god, what if they're not Virgos!  This is not going according to the schedule!!!!”

Ken then called back again at 5:03 a.m. with the good news.  Two babies.  A boy and a girl.  Both healthy.  (Both Virgos.)  “Whew.”  And I admit that I then fell back to sleep.  

Flynn Roy Gotham Wingard

Margaret "Margot" Jackson Gotham Wingard

Summer Camp 2013 - The first two weeks

Cornelia is in the middle of her first summer camp experience.  It’s even “sleep-away” camp, as they say.  She’s spending four weeks with Grandma Mary and Grandpa Roy in Port Angeles while I work out of the Seattle office for four weeks and Ken works in Los Angeles on HomeMade Simple for six weeks (and possibly more).  While it’s tough to be away from her so much, at least I get to see her on the weekends.  Ken won’t get to see her until he’s back in San Francisco in mid-August.  But Cornelia is having a spectacular time, even if Ken and I are missing her a lot.

 

Dressed and ready to go to the airport.

Cornelia and I flew to Seattle on Saturday, July 13th, and stayed with Aunt Kathy until Mom and Dad arrived on Sunday night after finishing the Seattle to Portland bike ride.  (Yes, Cornelia’s grandparents finished a 200-mile bike ride for about the 12th year in a row before they came to pick up their granddaughter!  I think Coco’s gonna be sporty.  It’s inevitable.)  Cornelia was still up at 9:30 p.m. when they arrived - which in hindsight I realize was an indicator of the “up past her bedtime” pattern which was to follow.

"I'll just make myself at home, like Daddy does."

Her first week in Port Angeles was quite busy and much like her stay last September.  Of course she helped around the house; she carried the newspaper and mail in to Grandma every day, she helped Grandpa fill the birdfeeder and sweep the deck and the driveway, and she even supervised Grandpa washing the cars.

"That way to the playground, Grandpa!  That way!"

After all the chores were done, she kept busy splashing in her wading pool on the deck, riding bikes with Grandma and Grandpa, testing out the new playground at Shane Park, and even taking swimming lessons with Grandma.  

Coco loves her swimming lessons.  And, why not?  It’s a combination of two of her favorite things:  water and other kids.  Grandma was a bit concerned about whether or not Coco would do well when it came to sharing some of the pool toys.  She didn’t want Coco to be expelled on her first day of swim class.  But Coco did well; sharing when she was supposed to.  She liked jumping into the pool with Grandma catching her.  And there was another one of her favorite things too:  a slide into the pool!  Grandma thought it was for the bigger kids (the four-year-olds) but she was wrong.  At the end class, all the kids could slide into the pool and of course: “Coco do it!” “Coco do it!” “Coco need it!”  As you might imagine, Coco had a hard time being patient but she did manage to get four turns on the slide (with Grandma catching her of course).

Trying on jewelry for the dinner party.

Uncle Ned and Aunt Stephanie visited for a few days and their first night included a dinner at the house with friends Dan and Wendy.  Coco dressed up of course.  Cornelia had just one dinner party during her first week at Grandma and Grandpa’s.

Coco’s second week in Port Angeles included a trip to Hurricane Ridge to see the deer and to play in the snow, followed by a trip the next day to the Hoh Rain Forest.  She is learning her wildlife and she knows what a moose looks like - at least a moose on a sticker.

 

"I found the deer!"

"Where are my skis?"

"Where are the fish?"

"Where's the bear?"

Grandpa, Coco, Grandma, Aunt Stephanie, Uncle Ned

I started Skyping with Coco at bedtime from the office and one evening we even had a little puppet show (with thanks to my colleagues who have various stuffed toys on their desks at work).

Last weekend we all went to Yakima to see the Walsh family (and for Dad’s high school reunion).  It was a typical weekend in Moxee: congregating at the Pitt’s house, wading in the pool, barbecuing and eating ice cream.  Coco got to spend time with her cousins Donovan (“he who opens doors”), Bella and Dylan.  My cousins Erin, Stephanie, Tracy and Mathew were there as well, which was great.    

Splashing with cousins Bella and Donovan.

 

 

Daddy, Great Grandma Betty, and Coco

 

We even visited Coco’s great grandmother Betty, which was really quite wonderful for all of us.  And we even got a chance to see four of the six Wingenbach kids - Kay, Dot, John and Jim who happened to be in Yakima as well.