Baby BB-Ford: 3 boys and a Mama

Cousins bonding (JoYi, TaiGa, Lance Julian)

DJ, Leighton and Froy off for a big bike ride.

I think it's important to not be out numbered, but I totally am! I now manage a small army of boys. I spent weeks getting DJ enrolled in Berkeley Unified, getting him a doctor, dentist, therapist, transition services and finally getting into the habit of a much more serious school environment. It has been a very stressful couple of weeks. Suddenly raising a 13 year old makes a new baby look like a cinch.

Jonna, Grace and DJ play with his new nerf guns.

Brothers.

We get more visitors now that we have a baby. What's up with that??

My Prince Julian continues to change exponentially. He popped out 2 teeth simultaneously. He's majorly into eating solid foods. He has full hand and body control, including sitting up on his own, rolling all over the place, and getting on his hands and knees. He still only scooches backwards, but it's movement! I've uploaded tons of really cute videos of all his new tricks on my youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/MamaBBFord?feature=mhee

He has also become very verbal. He's working on his consonants--"dada" "tata" "jaja"--and he does lots of grunts, screams and this sucking-air-in guttural noise that he is quite fond of (check out the video of his conversation with Bianca). I don't think we can count "dadadadada" as his first word because he doesn't actually know what it means at all.

Most exciting is we are now sleeping through the night. Thanks to Leighton's stone cold heart, we ignored LJ's pleadings for a night and now bedtime is between 7-9pm and he wakes up between 6-7am. It's pretty glorious. And so funny that Karl and Yuki are about to be the ones sleep deprived! Muahhahahahahahaa!

Maria holds LJ between games.

January 5th marked the first women's volleyball tournament post-baby. Three women on my team have babies and we brought them all. It was a sight to see. We only had one sub and that lucky lady was in charge of a toddler and two breast feeding infants. There were multiple instances of one mom breast feeding while walking around corralling Naima, who only wanted to find her mama mid-play. At one point my team had to call a time out so that I could finish feeding Lance, then run on the court clipping my bra back together. The real testament to our mothering and volleyball skills--we won the whole tournament!

Tracie reffing with her son Liam in the Bjorn.

We had a huge party for Yuki and Karl's baby Genmai and to celebrate DJ's birthday as well as his joining our family. As always, our community came out in force showing some major culinary love. I'm always so floored by the wonderful people in our lives-- the generosity, the friendliness, the diversity. I think I throw so many parties just to be reminded that there are so many good people in the world and they like good food, good music and good conversation. I can't thank you enough for coming and being a part of my life. This time, instead of being crowded with pregnant women, we were crowded with the cutest babies ever! Generation II in full effect!