Category Archives: Parenting

A New Arrival at Ramsgate Manor

We’re happy to announce that Caitlyn “Coco” Kalani has made her arrival at Ramsgate Manor (our home). She came home last week and we’ve been slowly adjusting to our new routine with Coco in the mix.

As many of you know, Zander started school this week. He’s excited to be starting first grade, but he’s even more excited to be a great big brother and help us around the house with his little sister. He was aggressive at first, but he’s learning fast that Coco is still a very tiny baby and needs time to continue her development. Continue reading

Caitlyn “Coco” Kalani, 10 Days and Growing

coco sleepingIt’s been an interesting week for us. Coming home without your newborn is tough, but we’ve had tremendous support. Caitlyn Kalani is doing great. We’ve been visiting her daily at Rex Hospital in the Special Care Nursery and monitoring her progress. It’s been ten days since Coco arrived a few weeks early. We’ve had our share of up and downs, but mostly ups!

(As we say at Red Hat a lot, up, and to the right.)

Merri Beth evicted from Rex hotel

It was the morning of Tuesday, July 31. I headed over to Rex, prepared to take Merri Beth home from the hospital. I arrived just in time to review the application for the birth certificate, making sure that Caitlyn Kalani Hibbets was spelled correctly and reviewed a few other details. We paid a visit to Coco, who was improving from this weekends’ extraction. Continue reading

Baby Coco’s Arrival

This is the story of baby Coco’s arrival. Quite an adventure for the Hibbets family.

As many of our friends, family, and co-workers already know, we got a wonderful surprise during the early morning of July 27. After a long day of work, Merri Beth started having contractions while we were preparing dinner—but she didn’t think they were contractions. We ate dinner as a family and I got some late-night work done while MB was catching up on some True Blood, trying to fight the pain. I went to bed shortly after midnight and was awakened by MB just after two in the morning. Our lives were about to change. Continue reading

The Change was Good

At the beginning of February,  Zander started attending a new daycare.  The first week was good, but it was also a little rocky. He got a few sad faces towards the end of the week because he had trouble listening and following directions. I think that was still part of the adjustment to a new environment and actually having some rules to follow.

Since he’s been in Childrens’ Discovery Center, he’s learned new letters and numbers, improved on his writing, and even made a few awesome crafts, like a sock puppet and a palm tree. I attended the class Valentine Party and was very impressed that 24 4-year olds could sit still for that long, while valentines were handed out.

I’ve even started noticing changes while he’s at home. Continue reading

Time for New Discoveries

Zander started daycare when he was 7 weeks old—we knew one day we might  have to choose another school to help prepare him for kindergarten.  That time arrived last week…

I wasn’t convinced that Zander was learning everything he could while at school. I started to wonder if he would be ready for kindergarten this Fall.  If we sat down to go over the alphabet, he would guess at letters or just decide he didn’t want to review them.  I also noticed that he was having trouble writing letters and became easily frustrated when he didn’t know a letter.

To make sure I wasn’t the problem, I asked my sister to sit down with Zander and test him to find out what he knows.  As a first grade teacher, she has more patience and experience dealing with young children than I do.  Continue reading