Interior Designer for Hire.

She's a Gourmet...

To be clear, Sophie dumped all her cheerios out of the bowl onto the living room floor. She proceeded to place them one by one back in the bowl and "drink" them individually.

525,600 Minutes--Part Deux

One year. One year! How is Sophie already one year? I know every parent says it, but I really, really mean it. I can't BELIEVE that it's already been a year since Sophie was born. I've been playing the 'one year ago today' game for about a week now (I feel like play that game a lot...). One week ago yesterday , Tony and I undertook the task of walking all the way to the dog park in hopes of encouraging Bean to make her debut before my induction date. One week ago last Tuesday was the first day of my maternity leave. One week ago this Wednesday, I had my first panic attack because I realized I was about to become a parent. You get the idea. Now my baby is about to become a toddler. Exciting, but a little sad at the same time.

Since Thanksgiving (seriously, I'm the worst blogger ever. Who waits 4 months between entries?), there have been lots of exciting updates. Bean started walking New Years weekend. Just stood up and toddled from Tony to his mom like it was the easiest thing in the world. Granted, she looked like a drunken sailor at first, and there were plenty of crash and burn moments, but at this point, she looks like she's been doing it all her life! She even can squat down and pick things up without having to hold onto anything anymore (that's a skill, for those of you who are thinking, "big deal, I do that all the time!"). Sophie is also talking up a storm. Her favorite word is "hi", which she says to everyone and anything. You are usually greeted with a cheerful "hhhhiiiii" when you walk into her room to get her out of the crib. Strangers are persistently greeted as well on the streets. "Daddy" and "doggy" are interchangeable, and she will frequently repeat "dahdeee" until either Tony or Lucy appear. She's picked up a few signs also. Actually, she's known the sign for "light" (opening and closing your hand at the ceiling, although she kind of just twists her wrist back and forth) for awhile now, and is starting to finally remember the sign for "all done" (waving open palms face down back and forth), too. She can show you were her (or your) nose is, and pretty consistently can show you her belly and eyes too. Her other new trick to put the phone (or remote control, or calculator, or anything really with a keypad) next to her head. Not always her ear, but she seems to know that phones (or phone like objects) go next to your head. My kid rules. :)

We're doing a small bbq at my mom's house this weekend to celebrate her birthday. Mostly, we want to celebrate the fact that we made it through the first year unscathed, and that we managed to keep her alive. Go us! Some carne asade, some beer, and family and a few close friends is the perfect way to celebrate our amazing little girl.

I'm sure there is more I should be talking about, but I'm a little too nostalgic to be thinking much past Sophie right now. Stay tuned, and I might even update on Tony's and my happenings as well!



Three months (I don't have a younger pic available!)


Eleven months. How does that happen?! (P.s. She was having an interactive experience with some cottage cheese)

Blessings

In light of it being Thanksgiving week and the baby shower I attended yesterday and all, I've been doing a bit of reflecting. In my musings, I reminded again how truly blessed I am in my life. I have a job that I (used to) love where I know that I am making a difference in people's lives everyday, a roof over my head, an amazing husband, a beautiful daughter, the best friend a girl could ask for in my sister, great parents...my list could go on an on. I have friends that inspire me and challenge me everyday. I have friends that I have known since I was 7 (Jana), 9 (Erin), 12 (Andrea, Jamie, Christina). I have reconnected with dozens more over the last six months thanks to the magical world of virtual networking. I don't think many can say that their group of friends--the ones that are invited to all the major events of their life and their kids' lives--consist of people that they've known since you were in elementary and junior high school. There's not a day that goes by that I don't smile at the idea that Sophie and Ryden will grow up together the same way that Jana and I did, or that I can get parenting advice from Kristen, who was in my preschool class, or that Sophie's aunt was also one of my good friends from high school.

I am a bit ashamed that I complain at all about the things that I don't really like about my life, as my worst day is the best day that someone else could ever aspire to. So in honor of it being Thanksgiving week, I am just going to enjoy my blessings, and be glad for all the amazing things I have in my life. :)

Pictures

Because I STILL haven't uploaded anything to snapfish (I have like 4 months of pictures. Ugh)...




~I'm 7 months old!~








~Modeling her new hoodie. She's pretty fired up about it.~











~Rocking the excersaucer~















~The early stages of a toothy grin. There's 4 teeth in that little mouth of hers. She's cutting 2 more as we speak!~
















~Do you love the tights as much as I do?~
















~Checking out the view from her tummy.~

Cruising and Ladybugs

Bean and I are playing last night, which is pretty typical for a weekday evening. The dinner has been had, the jammies are donned, and really we are just enjoying ourselves until it is time for bed. Lo and behold, what does my daughter do, but hitch herself up, and start crawling across the living room floor (it might not have been quite as effortless as that, but that's pretty much the gist). She looks like a drunken sailor right now, and it takes some time to move a few feet, but crawling is crawling, and my kid is officially mobile!

In other news, Bean had a great first Halloween. Tony and I drove down to San Diego on Friday night, and actually got to spend an ENTIRE weekend with his family (I should probably clarify that Tony FINALLY has weekends off! It is amazing what two days off in a row can do for a person!). Anyway, the drive down was a little bit rough. For those of you familiar with SoCal, and the area known as "the crush", you know how terrible the traffic can be. Minimal lanes, no median, and everyone and their brother is all trying to travel through about a 17 mile stretch of freeway. But I digress. In this section of freeway, there is also a huge costume store that is literally spitting distance from the freeway (my SoCal people, I'm sure, all know which store I am talking about). Apparently, Friday was the single best day in the history of the world to buy a costume, and the entire population of Orange and LA counties were piling into this establishment doing a little last minute shopping before heading off to whatever party was planned for the weekend. The only reason why I mention this is that Tony and I were caught in this poop storm. We spent over an hour trying to make our way past this store. From Dodger Stadium to the store is about 20 miles...it took us well over an hour to drive this stretch. I mention this only because Sophie has never been much of a fan of traffic. Thankfully, she slept through the worst of the traffic, leading Tony and I to believe that we were in the clear. No sooner had we passed the exit to the store (literally, hundreds of cars and people spilling out into the parking lot...it was ridiculous), then we started hearing the first squeaks and murmurings from the backseat. After a 10 minutes of fussing, she fell back to sleep again, only to wake up 20 minutes later and cry. For at least 40 miles, she cried, wailed, whimpered to be let out of her carseat and be put to bed for reals. She was pretty miserable by the time we reached Tony's parents' house, but after a bottle and some cuddling, she was sound asleep.

I bought her a costume over a month ago, even though I knew how silly it is to take a seven month old trick or treating. She isn't going to last for more than a few houses, there were no guarantees on the weather (which was beautiful, by the way), she's an armful which would make carrying her a challenge after awhile. At any rate, I bought the costume anyway, because it was too stinking cute not to. I dolled her up after dinner, with this as the result...



...Seriously, how CUTE is she? Tony and I went to maybe 3 houses with her, just so I could feel like I got some miles out of the costume, and then took our niece and nephew to another half dozen before we headed back home. I'm pretty sure that she'll be a ladybug again next year so I can feel justified in buying her costume in the first place.

The rest of our weekend was lazy, relaxing, and much needed. Our nephew, Max, celebrated his first birthday last week, so we had a small family party for him on Sunday. Max, by the way, was a lion this year...



I hope everyone else had a great Halloween. I can't believe that we are a little more than three weeks from Thanksgiving! Where does the time go?! Stay tuned for more updates!

Half a Year...

Sophia is 6 months old (well, truth be told, she's almost 6.5 months old, and I am just slow on the pick up...). I can't believe my little bean is already a half a year old! Tony and I marvel constantly how much she's grown and developed since March. Truly, when we look at pictures of her from when she was first born, we hardly can recognize that baby! In 6 months, Sophie has:

* learned to roll front to back, and back to front.
* decided that tummy sleeping is the greatest thing in the entire world.
* started eating cereal (rice and oatmeal)
* started eating pureed yams, squash, green beans, peas, apples, and avocado. She LOVES the yams, apples, and squash. The jury is still out on the other stuff.
*cut three teeth. She has two on the bottom, and one on the top. We think the second one on top is moments away from making its debut.
* learned to drink from a sippy cup. She drinks water now like her life depends on it.
*started hitching her back legs into a crawling position. Tony and I are going to be in for it when she goes mobile...
*learned to sit up on her own. She also thinks playing while laying down is for babies.
*learned that standing is the greatest thing ever. She balances herself (with help still) against the coffee table, the couch, us, and gets the biggest grin on her face when she does so.
*started saying "dadadada", "mamama", "cahcahcahcah", and "dahdahdahdah". The last 2, I think, are "cat" and "dog". It might be my overactive imagination, but she seems to say those only when Sappho (the cat) and Lucy (the dog) are nearby. Our friend, Julie, is also convinced that Sophie says, "ok, bye bye", but I haven't heard that one myself.
*gotten this close to sleeping through the night. She has a night every 10-14 days when she makes it all the way through. Unfortunately, I started back to work 3 weeks ago (I am SO NOT a fan of working mommyhood), and hanging with various babysitters has thrown her off her game a bit. I'm sure once her permanent nanny starts (a week from today), she'll work it all out. Getting a full night's sleep again is a dream that Tony and I feel like is still too good to be true.

6 months. I think its going to take me at least another 6 months before I am going to be used to this!..