Banner Day

We used the potty.

Not me, or Tony, or the cat (though that would have been notable). Alice told her dad during tonight's bath that she needed to use the facilities. She hopped out and was as good as her word. Much rejoicing, the end of diapers is nigh!

"Ry Ruff Eww"

"Mhhm." Says I to the noise coming out of Alice's mouth as I cut up an apple for our snack.

"Ry Ruff Ew." She repeats and then says, "Tank" after receiving her slice of apple.

"You're welcome", I reply automatically.

My pantleg is tugged gently and I look down. "Ry Ruff...Ew." Alice says into my blank face, then she adds to clarify: "...Mama".
I am beset by a sudden thunderous realization and a buzzing thrill behind my cheekbones.

"I love you too baby!"


Color me gobsmacked.

The big 01

We had a Monkey theme:





We had two adorable cousins in attendance:






There was cake:






And candles to blow out:





Boy howdy were there presents for all the kids:







And a general abundance of delightful chaos:






Thank you to the whole family for helping with this party and for everyone who traveled to come and visit us. A special thank you to Michelle for carrot cupcakes so delicious that they were eaten to the last miniscule crumb. Thanks to our family and friends, Alice had a wonderful day.

I've got a new way to walk

Alice took a nap in her carrier this afternoon as Mommy tried to burn some calories by taking a walk at naptime. My back was killing me by the time Alice woke. Yoga usually cures what ails my spine so I let Alice play by the couch as I went through a few moves.

I was performing the downward dog yoga pose (rear in the air) when I looked through my legs to make some eye contact with Alice. She was standing by the couch laughing at my silly pose. Then to my utter surprise she took one steady and unwavering step towards me, then two, three...four!

I watched my daughter's *first steps upside down.


*Caveat: Alice's "First Step" (singular) was actually witnessed by both Tony and myself as Alice did a magnificent swivel move on her heal in order to switch from standing on Mommy's toes to standing on Daddy's feet.

It's official: She's crawling

fingerprints

Since she hit six months Alice has been sleeping less deeply during her naps. This makes trimming her nails while she is sleeping (the only viable option) a trial. Today she refused to let me touch her hands and actually planted her face down on her fingers and refused to roll over. Since I was working on the computer next to her I just let Alice nap on her hands. When she woke I looked down and said "Hello Sweetie how are yu..."

Did you see the perfectly formed little baby finger impressions in her soft baby face? This is what happens when we are stubborn Alice.

Today was a banner day in the learning to crawl academy. When Tony came home Alice was rambling her way across the bed toward her daddy at warp (for a scooting baby) speed. She was pretty proud of herself for figuring it out.

Two Firsts

Last night Tony and I fed Alice her first meal of Brown Rice Cereal. She took to it much faster than we had anticipated. I had assumed that she would push the first spoonful out of her mouth and play with the contents. Instead she took the first offered bite and quietly pondered the taste. Then she devoured the whole bowl.

After such a hearty meal we thought she could use a drink so we gave her a baby-sized cup (thanks Betty) and a little bit of water. At first she wanted me to tip the cup for her while she took some tentative sips. Ultimately Alice took the cup in both hands and doused herself while draining her first drink.

Embroideries

Tonight I attempted to embroider Alice's X-mas stocking with marginal to poor results.

This enrages me as I assumed I would be a magnificent stitcher. This assumption was based on no actual evidence or prior experience. Damn it all to poop.

Maybe felt is a bad medium for stitching. What is it they say, "It is a kick-ass craftsmen who blames his tools"? Something like that...

In other news Alice started barrel rolling today. She now uses rolling as her sole means of locomotion. If I let her, Alice would roll herself right off the bed and crash to the floor. Her enthusiasm is to be commended. I bow to Alice's superior efforts in mastering a new skill.

Damn you embroidered snowflake!! Why don't you look like the picture on the box?

First babysitting

Alice with Cousin Chris:

Alice with Cousin Ben:

Technically speaking Alice has been baby-sat before by My Mother and Tony's folks. However, Grandparents could arguably not be considered babysitters in the traditional sense. As they are not of the teenage- raid the fridge/ textmessaging- variety. Up until last week no one without a driver's license has ever watched Alice. That all changed when we arrived in Dallas for Thanksgiving.

We were invited to spend the holiday sleeping at my Grandparent's home. It was wonderfully comfortable and my Grandmother cooked an excellent meal. You can see her in the background of Ben's photo. This is probably the only time she will want me to post her picture on the internet as she is not fond of being photographed (she looked lovely though).
Upon arrival at my Grandparents house my cousin Chris (see above) immediately asked if we would like him to watch Alice. How's that for service? I used to babysit both Chris and Ben in their early days and it is nice to see some return on that investment! Ben also offered to watch the kid as he lives here in Austin. But since Ben is working and getting ready for college I think he can skip sitting on the baby.

I'm going to date myself now: What's with the long hippie hair on kids these days? You guys look nice but I don't get the new "cool" fashions. I'm not hip. Ben explained that his hair is long because his girlfriend prefers long hair. Ok, that I get.

P.S. I should add that my Grandfather (Jack Towne PHD) cooked the bird, and it was delicious!

First (extended) sit

One of the people we visited over Thanksgiving was my sister-in-law Becky who makes the most delicious carrot soup. We had a little luncheon at her home and, among other things, watched Marilyn (my niece) practice sitting up. Alice had not really gotten the hang of sitting up yet without assistance. But it seems to me that Marilyn is a very good role model for her cousin because Alice chose that afternoon to emulate Marilyn and sit up on her own for a ridiculously long time.

Note: This video might be more interesting for Grandparent and Great-Grandparent types as it is very monotonous.
I think you can even hear Becky deadpanning the word, "fascinating" and Bro-in-law Mike saying, "Blog entry!"

First food

Alice had her first official food yesterday. It was celery. Let me explain.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday we traveled to Dallas and spent time with our DFW clan. We went to a lovely leftover party the day after Thanksgiving at Tony's Aunt and Uncle's house. This is a place that is always jam-packed with babies and veteran parents. One of those is Tony's excellent cousin David who gave me some crackerjack parenting advice. The subject was teething remedies and David said that he and his lovely wife Kristy used cold celery on sore baby gums with their four boys. The strings in the celery prevent potential choking if a bit should be bitten off by exuberant chewing, with the proviso that you must monitor the baby during this process because you can't trust the little buggers.
Thus Alice had her first food which she mostly drooled on and gazed at adoringly.

The post-Thanksgiving party was great. I loved that other parents were doing sweet things for Alice like casually handing her something non-toxic to play with when she got bored or wipe her chin when it got damp. Alice seemed overjoyed by the company of other small folk. Especially her cousins Andy and Marilyn.

I think that little Marilyn showed a graciousness beyond her age by allowing Alice to dive on her toys. Marilyn's Mom Karen says that Marilyn probably didn't notice the toy thievery, but I think my niece is just an uncommonly sweet girl.

In any case it was nice to see the two baby mohawks together.

Long time no see

Due to a flurry of travel I have been shamefully absent from this blog. Also the kid has begun waking up from her naps (and at night) whenever she hears my keyboard clacking. So there you go. As you can imagine baby sleep is sacred.

A lot has happened during my sabbatical:

Alice took her 1st flight:

The kid and I tagged along on a business trip with Tony to my hometown of Albuquerque.
Alice behaved beautifully on the plane. I was worried about the change in altitude so I gave Alice a pacifier to pop her ears. The take-off didn't seem to bother Alice at all. However, the landing obviously caused her some pain. Poor baby. She didn't cry but she looked up at me as if to ask "What's happening and why does it hurt?"
Nursing really worked better than the pacifier. It was tricky balancing the safety of having her strapped into the carseat (it wasn't a full flight so we didn't have to buy a ticket to use her seat) with wanting to prevent Alice's crying with nursing as we changed altitude.
The only real problem we had was a diaper explosion during our stop in Lubbock (shout out to the Howe family!). It was one of those deals where the entire back of the kid was painted in poop. Gross but all too common. We couldn't put Alice on her back in our seats (no room/ lots of poop) and the bathroom changing table was a joke. So we had to strip the kid while she was standing up and wipe her down. At that point Alice did start wailing. I'm sure that if I were standing naked on an airplane covered in poop I would also cry.
Once we were back in the air all was joy and light. Alice had a good time sleeping and playing with her toys.