Dancing Time

Music - Dancing - Lovin' Life!  

That's our girl.  We have music on much of the time - from Latin to Classical, from Jazz Standards to Golden Oldies, and don't forget the Folk and Bluegrass - we appreciate it all in our household.  And so does Little A.  She has started to rock to the music lately, whether it's ambient music or an electronic toy (cringe!) she seems to love it all.

Reading Time

I love books. I have always loved books.  I love the smell of books.  In fact, I love the smell of books so much that I love the smell of libraries. The smell of libraries is universal and whenever I move to a new place, I can't wait to head to the library and get my card. When I walk in the door - I take a deep breath in - and mmmmm.  It always smells like home.  So I really hope that Analiese will love books as well.

While she is still too young to sit still and listen to a story in its entirety, she does spend impressive chunks of time by herself on the floor opening, closing, and turning the pages of her picture books.  I hope it's a sign of a fellow book fanatic yet to emerge! 

 

December & The Holiday That Wasn't

You most likely think that this post will have all kinds of cutesy pictures of Analiese - and her FIRST CHRISTMAS.  But in fact, it won't.  Because our family didn't really have Christmas in December this year.  We had already planned on postponing the holiday to accommodate Jared's travel plans - and have the family Christmas in January. So Christmas Day felt more like "The Christmas That Wasn't".




Instead, we have all kinds of fun pictures to share from Life With Analiese - who turned 9 months old on December 25th. She's been out as long as she was in!

Analiese's Nana from Kentucky sent some Christmas presents in December.  Analiese had reached the weight maximum for her newborn car seat - not to mention her long Whittier/Thomson legs were crunched up against the back seat of the car.  But not anymore!  Now she has a brand new car seat that is big enough to accommodate quite a bit of growth (Thanks Nana!). Neither of us can wait until Analiese turns 1 so that we can turn that car seat around and let her face forward!!  She hates sitting in the rear facing position - who wouldn't?

I have been integrating "Diaper Free" parenting techniques from the beginning and they have certainly paid off.  I rarely have to clean a disgusting diaper because she knows how to go in the toilet...and has been since about 8 weeks old. Obviously when we travel, or have company and get distracted, she still wears diapers - but we needed something she could sit on because she was getting too big and too heavy for me to hold over the 'Throne' when she had to go.  Here she is, happily boasting her new found bathroom friend!

The one "Christmas-y" thing we did do this month was visit Analiese's cousins, who live in nearby Riverside. Aunt Mary Beth made a delicious lunch for us and then Lauren, Lila, and Analiese got busy making Gingerbread Men.  It was so much fun.  The girls started a tradition of a book exchange for Christmas, which made this mama very happy!






Now that Analiese is so mobile, she follows me all over the house as I go about my daily chores.  She watches and learns and as soon as she is able, she pitches right in to help.  Here are a couple of videos of Analiese helping me out around the house.  The first one is right before breakfast time as she helped me to unload the dishwasher:

A few days later, she nudged her way into the laundry room as I was folding the laundry from the dryer.  She asked if she could help and who am I to turn down a helpful hand?

The desert has been hard for us to get used to.  We have been here for six months now and, well, neither of us can say it has really grown on us.  We have started to get out a bit more, on Kevin's days off, to explore the areas around us.  Thankfully, within an hour and a half, we can get to the San Bernadino National Forest where we have begun to scout out future camping zones for next summer.  It is always a little cooler up there. We packed a picnic lunch and sat beside Lake Hemet, enjoying the view of water, trees, and wildlife. 

 Even though we knew we wouldn't be celebrating Christmas until January, the rest of the world seemed to carry on as if nothing had changed.  Analiese and I attended a MOMS Club Christmas Party in the park.  It was a warm sunny day but Santa Claus was still able to make it and Analiese had her first Picture With Santa...not a snowflake in sight!

Pajama Time

For those of you who have children past the age of five - does this sound familiar? 

For those of you who are still, "In the trenches", so to speak, you are not alone! 

After her bath, you wrap her like a baby burrito in a pink fuzzy towel.  Her hair curls up - her sweet baby shampoo smell hovers in the post-bath humidity.  Her soft baby cheeks have those perfectly rosy patches that are a particular shade of pink only lovely luscious delightful baby cheeks ever have. You transport her down the hallway to her bedroom where you hold her with one arm and think, "Dang it! I meant to set her pj's out ahead of time!"  You open and close drawers with one arm and one foot as all the while she is trying to flip herself out of your arms like a slippery wet seal to reach for the lotion-the hairbrush-the dirty-diaper-folded-up-from-earlier-the-alarm-clock-cord-the-lampshade.  Whew! You keep saying, "Nnooo no, punkin" in a cheerful tone (although you are totally exasperated), hoping she won't think you are mad at her for doing perfectly normal baby things but that she'll hopefully recognize that new word, "No," and stop doing what she is doing.  She doesn't. You lay her on the towel and, in what appears to be a baby massage in rapid fast-forward, you apply baby lotion to a constantly moving target singing a manic version of the ABC's to keep her occupied long enough to remain in relatively the same GPS position on planet earth. Then you reach out for the short sleeve onesie and, "Gah! Arghghghgh!!!!" You begin holding the baby with one foot up on the bed as you reach your body in a yoga-worthy lunge to open and close drawers with one hand and one foot - again - to try to retrieve the onesie you forgot to lay out and then forgot to lay out again.  You put her in it.  You take her feet in one hand in a grip you hope won't hurt at all while you lift up her bottom half and slap the diaper down, already opened up, in the approximate position.  You have learned to get the onesie on first these days because when you used to put the diaper on first, she learned how to habitually open her diaper tabs so that the minute you re-did them she un-did them again while you were trying to get the onesie on.  It didn't work.  Now you get the diaper fastened and you immediately grab both sides where the onesie snaps are and snap them quick as she still tries to undo her diaper tabs through the onesie.  You take a breath.  You are ready to put the footie pajamas on.  She is not ready, nor will she ever be ready, to have you put those footie pajamas on.  You thank the goddesses that you grabbed one of the two p.j. sets that have zippers, as opposed to the nine p.j. sets that have snaps, which require two adults to get snapped up at bedtime - one to hold the squirming sweaty was-rosy-now-turned-red-faced baby and the other to say, "Let's count the snaps," as she attempts to kind of hold moving baby legs a little bit more still while holding two snaps from two separate sides of the now rapidly moving baby legs to get them together long enough to snap them closed and hope she snapped the right pair together so she doesn't have to start all over again.  Anyway, at least the zipper saves you from that.  There are miracles, even in this day and age.  You put one of her arms through the first arm hole, she starts to whimper and squirm.  You take a deeper breath.  You begin to reach for her second arm and she jerks it away. She has just learned to do that too.  It's made things more...challenging.  You play the "let me grab your gosh-darn-arm" game with a clenched grin on your face because it really is quite funny if you think about it. But while you are doing it, it isn't funny at all.  It has just become the least funny thing possible in that very moment.  You get it through. She wails. Woops! You thought you got it through but it turns out that her little thumb got slightly stuck on the hem right at the end of the sleeve and you begin to realize why she hates getting her p.j's on so much.  You take a breath.  Now it's time to zip it up. This is the fun part.  You hold her torso with one hand, simultaneously thankful for your large 5'-11"-person hands that can almost completely span her torso, because little-handed Mamas must really have to work it! With the other hand you start doing this crazy single-handed march that makes you look like you have seven fingers instead of five since some of them hold the separated zipper parts a little bit closer together, while some of them grasp the zipper tab, and the rest of them use a forward pushing momentum to help the zipper tab creep up the leg.  The leg that's moving. The leg with the cutest darn fat rolls you ever did see, all of whom (that's right, I said 'whom' because they are that cute) are in harm's way from the evil ever-moving zipper.  You get it up and over her calves, then the bending knee, as she kicks her legs straight, and bent, and straight, and bent, all while your six-to-seven-or maybe-even-nine  fingers on the one hand keep the zipper dance happening.  You get to the top, you snap the little top flappy thing over the zipper tab.  Finished!! And you are EXHAUSTED.  I mean you are so exhausted from putting on her footie-pajamas that you have to actually set her down on the floor in front of you, stand up straight, stretch your arms over your head and then take a couple more deep breaths.  You look back up to proceed with the bed time routine.,.,and she is already out of the room, back down the hall, into the kitchen area where she is happily splashing around in the dog's water bowl you forgot to pick up earlier to keep out of her way...