the year of the...cat?

One thing I failed to mention in Daphne's 10-month update yesterday is that we've got quite the babbler on our hands! We were reluctant to call it just yet (although, looking back, turns out big bro was saying a few words/sounds pretty discriminately by about 11 months) but for a few weeks now, it's pretty undeniable that her first word is cat.

For awhile she would consistently make the "c" and "t" sounds when she'd see the cats (we have two of them...still, and yeah, she's a fan) and then eventually she began to say, very clearly, "cat". It's almost always the first sound she makes when she wakes up from a nap or in the morning. And while she's definitely using the word discriminately for the cats in our house, she also uses the word for other animals we see outside - other cats, dogs, birds - and for more mysterious connections like trees. Because they're kinda fuzzy? As the kids say these days, IDEK. Anyway, here's a quick video from a couple of weeks ago, around when the above pics were taken. If you listen closely you can hear her say "cat" over and over again once she gets over to our black & white kitty, Xander.

10 months!

As usual these days I'm a couple of weeks late on my monthly update for Daphne. I can hardly believe we've entered double-digit months and that I'll be thinking about 1st birthday shenanigans in a couple of weeks when the holiday dust has cleared. Other than more teeth and Thanksgiving celebrations, not a whole lot happened in month ten.

We got outside. A lot.

And it's a good thing we did considering the cold snap we've been experiencing in the Bay Area, nothing like Elias's first winter in Boston but unusually cold for these parts. For a second-born kid in particular, this stage is a bit frustrating since all Daphne wants to do is crawl around on the floor and she'd be content to do so at home. She's not a fan of being strapped into anything - car seat, stroller, shopping cart, etc. - but staying home for too long doesn't work so well for Elias's combination of crazy energy and limited ability to self-entertain/direct. He has a room full of toys but when we're home all he seems interested in doing is running from room to room, bouncing on our bed and the couch, nearly stampeding Daphne in the process.

So we schlep Daphne to big brother's activities (practicing martial arts above in the background while Daphne considers eating leaves), to the playground, and to other more toddler-appropriate venues way more than we ever did with Elias at this age.

I keep telling myself it'll get slightly better in a few months when she can toddle around and - hopefully - put fewer things in her mouth. Or maybe chasing after her will get harder.

But the outings have made for some fun firsts (first time on the carousel at the zoo, for example) and some awfully adorable family photo ops.

And, actually, speaking of not being terribly interested in toys, when we are home, all Daphne is interested in doing is pulling up on everything and opening various cabinets and cupboards to pull out things we'd rather she not have access to.

This is a particularly fun corner of the house:

Sharp corners, an open outlet, a lamp she can pull down, a bookcase she can climb, etc. On a less challenging note, she does seem - finally - a little bit more interested in books lately.

She still wants to gnaw on them but she's actually letting me read her a couple of books before naps and bedtime, all of which makes me realize how amazing it was that Elias was so into books from such a young age.

Here are some images from her 10-month photo shoot:

Based on when she's done other stuff compared to big brother we have a prediction going that she'll walk by Christmas and she is standing unassisted for several seconds at a time now. But as the holiday approaches, I'm not so sure that prediction will be accurate. I guess time will tell. People keep asking me if I'm ready for a walker. Well, that's irrelevant. I'm not really prepared for any of this craziness. But it's going to happen. With Elias I welcomed walking, especially considering how quickly he at least went from uncertain toddling to confident walking. I'm guessing Daphne may not be as coordinated as he has always been. Less coordinated and less cautious which should be a fun combination. Anyway, ultimately I just loved not having to carry Elias everywhere since he also didn't care for the stroller. We always joked that he was a toddler trapped in an infant's body and lately at least I feel the same way about Daphne. So I think on some level I'll appreciate that part of budding toddlerhood but it'll be interesting to see how she differs from big brother as a toddler.

a Dinovember inspired Thanksgiving

I'm just going to say it: I can't stand the Elf on the Shelf. And I truly mean no offense to the parents who do it. If that's your thing, by all means, enjoy. But it's not mine. That said, and I'm not sure why, I loved the concept of Dinovember when I first read about it last month. Initially I'll admit I was like, oh here we go again with another parent who wastes a perfectly good nap or evening setting up these elaborate photo shoots that sometimes make a legitimate mess that I personally would not want to then have to clean up. But the project stayed with me and I got a legitimate kick out of each photo they posted.

And I love that as a parent, regardless of the gender of your child/children, you probably have a bunch of plastic dinosaurs laying around, right? Everyone could participate and share pictures without this one-upping-them vibe that I associate with Elf on the Shelf which is, at the end of the day, pretty similar. With all that said, I present to you our very mellow Thanksgiving 2013, during which we bucked tradition with our turkey meatloaf and let the dinosaurs have a little fun as well.

The dinosaurs help with food prep, with a couple of mischievous dinos trying to sample the green beans.

Dinos set the table.

Dinos are a little stumped by the mashed sweet potatoes.

Dinos wash up.

Dinos wait patiently.

Dinos are all, "turkey meatloaf, are you kidding me?" No dinos, I am not. (I mean, seriously, who wants to cook a turkey with an infant and a 5-year-old who won't eat it, anyway?!)

Turkey meatloaf is redeemed by pie and whipped cream.

We had fun. And there was no lying involved. I don't know, I guess it might be fun to surprise your kids with a dino shenanigan that they find in the morning but I just can't imagine we'd pull that one off with a kid like Elias. He seems to believe in Santa and the Tooth Fairy but I don't think he'd be fooled by an elaborate dinosaur set-up. Also, he's a little cranky in the morning so I don't think we want to go there. Nope, Elias helped out in this case, coming up with ideas about what the dinosaurs would do next and helping set them up for the photo.

Hope y'all had an equally relaxed and enjoyable holiday. Also, this post reminds me that I never did a holiday wrap-up last year! Gasp! I'll see if I can squeeze that in with current holiday shenanigans, Daphne's 10-month update, all about Elias's transition to Kindergarten, etc.!

teeth!

Before I get to Daphne's 10 month update (10 months and 3 days today! whoa, double digit months!), I wanted to write a little something about the interesting intersection of ages we have going on right now with the two kids, with Daphne getting and Elias losing first baby teeth!

Pretty exciting stuff. Elias as a baby got his teeth on the early side but Daphne's took a couple of months longer to break through. That said, within about a month's time she now has four teeth to date with another two on bottom working their way up...I think. She got the bottom left, with the right one closely following and in the last week the top two front teeth broke through. She also had a nasty several-weeks-long cold so she was a pretty cranky mess last week, right when Elias was suffering from a bad ear infection. By the holiday we were in decent shape, but more about that later.

Anyway, then yesterday when I went to pick Elias up from school he announced that he'd lost a tooth at lunch! Just like that. No wiggly tooth build-up or drama, or not really. He'd been talking about loose teeth for a couple of months but it always seemed to be a different tooth that was wiggly and usually followed a buddy losing one of his or her teeth. So I didn't think much of it. He seems to have lost it at lunch and it is literally lost. The story about where exactly it went keeps changing. I thought maybe it got stuck in food but at first he said he threw it away - because "it was bloody" - and then he said he threw it under the table. Needless to say, we won't be keeping that first lost baby tooth (or future ones?). The whole experience is classic Elias right now - not talking about it much leading up to it (similar to how he didn't complain about his ear hurting until it was causing him so much pain he could only sleep for 15-20 minutes at a time, barely responding to ibuprofen), and throwing it away because "it was bloody." He's not a big fan of messy, so this does not at all surprise me. Keeping the tooth probably didn't occur to him at all.

The tooth fairy still paid him a visit though, leaving $2 for the missing tooth. That's pretty generous, especially considering there was no tooth to exchange. Perhaps he or she knew to search for it in the school cafeteria. Anyway, the tooth's neighbor is super wiggly as well so I think we may have another gap in that smile pretty soon. When I dropped Elias off at school this morning I hollered, "If you lose a tooth today, don't throw it away, okay?"

9 months!

Here are some photos of Daphne during her 9 month photo shoot a couple of weeks ago:

 

 

Most months I try to capture in the images what she's up to - you know, sitting, crawling, pulling to standing, playing the guitar with her teeth...Typical infant stuff. Anyway, I know I've said this every month but phew, was October a busy one! In addition to continuing to work on all the new moves she acquired in month 8 and Halloween shenanigans, Daphne and I took our first mother-daughter trip and her first airplane flight! The occasion? To visit Uncle Brian and family as part of his surprise 40th birthday festivities (we couldn't swing flying the entire family out and didn't necessarily want Elias to miss school, and hey, the baby flies for free! It was almost like flying solo. Almost.). Here we are at the beginning of the day:

And here we at the end of the day, after a 6 am flight from Oakland to Vegas, an hour and a half layover there, and another 4 1/2 hour flight from Vegas to Connecticut:

We both look pretty tired, don't you think? Daphne did well in that she didn't scream the entire flight. At the end of the Vegas-Hartford leg several other passengers told me very approvingly how well she did which I think can be translated to, "she didn't bother me nearly as much as I feared she might." While she slept most of the short flight from Oakland to Vegas, she only slept the first half-hour or so of the second flight, leaving me just four hours or so to entertain a squirmy worm of an increasingly mobile baby in one seat, with two people sitting next to me on our very full flight. 

We did this for FOUR HOURS. And I had to change her diaper THREE TIMES. Here she is finally conked out on the drive from the airport to my brother's house:

Of course. And the party hadn't even started! (By the way, that's "bear lovey" in her mouth. We discovered a month or so ago when we tried to wash "bear lovey" one night - she basically sucks on the blanket so it gets a little ripe after a few days - that it's actually a pretty essential element of her bedtime routine and ability to fall asleep. I couldn't figure out why she was suddenly inconsolable until I fished it out of the laundry and gave it back to her. Immediately quieted down and fell asleep. So much for washing it while she sleeps. Duh.)

Anyway, pro tip: if a flight attendant tells you to "take an extra seat" when you get on the plane, do everything in your power to take that second seat and keep it, whether you've paid for that extra seat or not (I was flying on Southwest where you're not assigned seating - I guess this might not apply in cases of assigned seating). What a difference a little extra elbow room made on the flights home.

The weekend itself was very enjoyable, Daphne was pretty manageable, and of course it was wonderful to see my brother, his family, and my Dad, who flew in from Oregon (we coordinated flights somewhat and shared a rental car...not sure I could have managed this trip without his help!). We enjoyed a pretty mellow couple of days of apple-picking, soccer game-watching...

...getting to know extended family members...

...and marveling at the wonders of modern domestic life, much like her brother several years before her.

Oh yeah, and then we got home, had some In 'n' Out for lunch, picked up Elias from school, played there for a bit, and then took big brother to martial arts practice.

What can I say, we like a good challenge. And, clearly, I produce children who can function remarkably well on very little sleep.

Not surprisingly, while it was kind of nice to only have one kid to worry about for a few days, especially after three weeks of solo parenting both of them, I missed Elias like crazy as that was the longest I've ever been away from him. It was good to go, and it was good to come home. The best trips are like that.

baby girl's first princess costume

So, for the record, now that I have a daughter, I will confess that I'm not a huge fan of the princess craze (girly stuff and dolls and all that I'm fine with). I won't forbid it or anything but I certainly won't encourage it until she's old enough to express an opinion on the matter and request princessy stuff herself. And this is no double-standard. We didn't overtly encourage stereotypically boyish things for Elias (or forbid them) and in fact welcomed the times when he picked out a Dora the Explorer potty training seat, for example, just as we encouraged his love of all things with wheels. And it doesn't bother me when people now tell me what a "boy's boy" he is. He is who he is, whether that's stereotypically boyish or not, and we look forward to seeing who Daphne grows up to be as well. That said, it turns out we have already embraced the princess culture with our Halloween costumes this year (but c'mon, if you're gonna go as a princess, what better princess to be, amirite?).

Yep, Daphne was Princess Leia to Elias's Luke Skywalker:

He's posing there with his classmate and good buddy, Kingston, after their Halloween parade at school.

I can't remember the exact context but Elias asked me what the word crush meant recently and when I asked him after explaining if there was anyone at school he had a crush on he at first replied everyone, that he had a crush on everyone at his school, and then clarified to explain that most of all he had a crush on Kingston. Aw.

We kept Halloween shenanigans to a delightful minimum this year and I have no regrets. Well, almost no regrets. We never got a really good picture of both Daphne and Elias together in their costumes, brandishing light saber to boot. But Elias is again talking about a Star Wars themed birthday party next year so perhaps we'll have another chance - their costumes are certainly big enough!

And while we went to our usual pumpkin patch early in the month, we never got around to carving the one big pumpkin we brought home.

We did supplement with some other pumpkins we picked up at Trader Joe's and decorated the front porch with them, but Elias was a little bummed on Halloween day that we never got around to the carving part (even though he seems to enjoy very little about the actual process; Neal ends up being the one to do most of the scooping out of pumpkin innards and actual carving). As I have done with so much stuff over the past nine months, I kept saying "we'll do it next year" or "this will be more fun next year". Because carving pumpkins with a six-year-old and a 21 month old running around will be a piece of cake, right?

Anyway, aside from those minor regrets, it was nice to not overdo it. One pumpkin patch, one Halloween parade, one session of trick-or-treating in costume. For the latter, Elias got to walk around a few blocks in our neighborhood with his daycare days best buddy Hazel who moved back to town about a month ago. Yipee!

Stay tuned for Daphne's 9 month update later this week...