wait, July was supposed to be the quiet month...

So much for that. Ever since Daphne was born 6 months and three days ago there has been, in addition to, you know, having a newborn/infant, some crazy outside thing going on or something I had to plan or prep for, one thing after another. I kept looking forward to July since we had little going on. But it turned out to be a pretty crazy month, including but not limited to the following documented events:

As I mentioned in Daphne's 5-month update, we took her on her first road trip to visit Grandpa Ron and Grandma Stephanie at their summer condo in Graeagle, about an hour north of the Truckee/Tahoe area. The five hour drive there went pretty well, with Daphne fussing for only the last 15 to 20 minutes. The drive back, on the Sunday after 4th of July, when everyone in Northern California was headed from that area back to Sacramento and the Bay Area, took about two hours longer and that's about how long Daphne screamed her little head off for mysterious reasons. The visit itself was predictably fairly unpleasant, though not at all the fault of our hosts; traveling with a baby is just like that and I had forgotten.

Minus one epic meltdown (and probably a couple of less epic ones), though, Eli did pretty well. Packing for the baby made me realize how easy traveling with him has become as far as stuff to take along and keeping him entertained in the car. While there we hiked to a river a couple of times, checked out the little town and pond, watched fireworks (just Neal and Elias), and played with their new puppy, Eli's favorite part of the trip.

We had one pretty mellow week after the 4th of July holiday before we started "learn to swim" lessons with Eli every morning for two weeks, meaning instead of dropping off at preschool then racing home in time for a morning nap for Daphne, she napped a little on the early side so we could make it to the 10 a.m. lessons and then dropped Eli off after. The first couple of lessons also coincided with another two-day period of solo parenting (the second of three business trips in about five weeks!). So that was a little hectic. But it was worth it since Eli seems to be really enjoying the water this summer. He can't exactly swim yet but he's so much more comfortable in the water than he was last summer.

Daphne, on the other hand, was not such a fan of the pool, which was a little surprising since she loves bathtime. I thought about doing the parent/tot lessons with her after the 6-month mark but with everything else going on, I think I'll wait until next spring/summer when she may be a little more enthusiastic. And I'm not exactly suit-ready, if you know what I mean!

The other big event of the month for Elias was his last days at preschool. Here he is on his first morning, nearly two years ago:

And here are a few images from his last day last Thursday, which also happened to be pajama day:

 

The wave! Eli has been waving goodbye to me essentially since beginning daycare at 19 months, when he'd sit at the window that looked out on the driveway and wave to me until I drove out of sight. He's waved goodbye to me from that glass door almost every day since his first day of preschool. I'm pretty certain we won't be able to keep up this tradition once he begins kindergarten. Sniff.

Ah, the monkey bars, installed last summer and easily Eli's favorite part of preschool.

 And, you know, every playground.

I was a little misty on drop-off but not when I picked him up, oddly, maybe because his last day was a half-day and there weren't as many other parents picking up then. It felt a little anti-climactic, I guess. And not surprisingly, Elias doesn't seem sad at all but I'm sure, as he did with daycare, the preschool stories and memories will begin to come out over the next few months. He did almost immediately begin to ask about his good buddy, Max, and wondered when we'd see him again since they're going to different schools for kindergarten. So perhaps that part of the transition from preschool to big kid school is starting to set in. Anyway, we've had three playdates with Max since last week so I don't think he has anything to worry about in that sense. And we'll be back in about three years when Daphne's ready.

Speaking of Daphne, she had a pretty busy month as well! She seems more
interested in toys lately, which is nice. Of course I'm always sitting right there with her but it's nice to have something take the edge off a little. Previously it was like she was always just watching me, waiting for the next entertaining thing. It gets exhausting after a few hours. Not that I'm complaining...

She still needs a little support since she doesn't seem to remember that the nose dive forward or falling backward, even on carpet, doesn't feel so good, but she's sitting up pretty well these days.

We've eaten out at restaurants - something Elias seems to miss more than us! - a little more recently since she can now sit pretty comfortably in our portable booster seat. She gets a little fussy after a bit but we've already had five years of training so the transition from dining with one child to dining with two was much easier than the first time around.

Okay, so it's still a little early and it was a very gentle swing, but I couldn't resist giving the bucket swing a try at one of our recent trips to our local playground.

She's getting a little more hair on top, not enough to put in a barrette or anything but enough for a post-bathtime baby mohawk.

All this sitting up does seem to be helping out in the spit up department but she still gets me pretty good every couple of days.

Also sure to help over the next couple of months is the introduction of solid food. Around mid-July we started with rice cereal and have since introduced avocado (not a huge fan in this California girl but I'm sure she'll warm up to it as she gets older), sweet potato, apples, pears, bananas, mango, and peas.



Her favorite food so far seems to be peas, followed by apples.

I've made one puree (pear/banana) and mashed a little bit of fresh fruit but otherwise I've done mostly store-bought jars so far. Spoon-feeding seems particularly tedious this time around so I look forward to working up to more finger foods over the next couple of months.

Otherwise breastfeeding continues to go pretty well although I've had a mysterious on-again, off-again case of maybe a chronic plugged duct that goes to show even when it goes well, breastfeeding is hard work. It's kind of like sleep. Even "good sleepers" have their sleep regressions and flukey 5 a.m. wake-up calls and such. But we trudge on and I'm hoping to continue breastfeeding until she hits the one-year mark.


In addition to working on sitting up, Daphne's favorite activity seems to be floor time, when she can practice rolling to get to a toy (something Elias rarely did; he rolled but not really to move around). It would be convenient if she enjoyed some hands-free contraptions for longer than five minutes but this pre-crawling stuff is pretty fun to witness.

Despite being a chaotic month, as with Elias around this point, I do feel like we're starting to turn a little bit of a corner. Not that I didn't enjoy her first six months but I do feel like I'm managing this SAHM business a little better and enjoying our time together a little more. I have a feeling she's going to be a fun sidekick.

Happy half-birthday, baby girl!

that was fun...let's do it again!

Well, that seemed to work so let's try this again - here's an animated series of shots of Elias in our new kiddie pool we bought on the 4th, toward the end of an unusually long heat wave:

Looks like he's working on some white boy rapping, no?

5 months, animated

 

I'm testing out the sharing of an animated series of images directly from my Google + account. 5 months with guitar photo shoot in one shot!

5 months, round 2

Daphne is 5 months (and almost a week, thanks to a busy week last week and the 4th of July holiday weekend delaying this post)! I'm not sure what her stats are since she doesn't have another routine check-up until the 6 month mark but let me tell you, she's getting pretty heavy to schlep around. I've been toting her in the baby bjorn to run errands and go grocery shopping and she's not only getting a little too heavy for that to be comfortable/convenient, she's also getting so long it's getting to be a little cumbersome to walk with her legs constantly hitting my legs and knees! I'm hoping she continues to work on sitting unsupported so I can plop her into the front of shopping carts soon.

Mmm, toes. But I digress. Month 5 went by in a blur thanks to a couple of weeks of epic spit-up right around and following the 4 month mark (with the past several weeks being overall much better I think it's safe to say we've hit the reflux peak!), big brother's birthday bash, actual birthday shenanigans, school field trip...

...preschool graduation (when she should have been in bed for the night)...

...and then getting ready for Neal's birthday and our first road trip over this past weekend.

We also survived our first solo parenting adventure, with Neal traveling for work for the first time since Daphne was born.

Thank goodness we had beer set up the jumperoo before Neal left for his trip - that baby contraption allowed me to make dinner, for example, while she jumped and Elias ran around the house like a wild animal (which is what he does lately - that and jump on the couch like it's a trampoline). More Daphne-centric events this past month included learning to roll over one way. Since then she's rolled in the opposite direction a handful of times but still seems pretty clueless as to how to roll from her tummy onto her back.

She's getting very close to sitting unsupported, able to do so for a few seconds before she starts her nosedive forward or slumps to the side. When on her tummy she's already doing some pre-crawling maneuvers but I'm personally more looking forward to that brief window of being able to plop her down on a blanket with some toys without worrying about her getting too far! Also, our house is basically covered in a layer of Legos so baby proofing should be pretty interesting this time around.

Otherwise, many of the mama friends I've made since Daphne was born have already gone back to work, but we managed to plan a family picnic last weekend and enjoyed some quality time with our baby buddy, Gus (who's older brother is also named Eli!). Sometimes I forget that Daphne won't always be an itty bitty baby - she and Gus will be enjoying true play dates together before we know it!

the first of many graduations

It's a bit anticlimactic since Elias will continue to attend for another month, but the boy officially graduated from preschool last Thursday.

The ceremony started with the kids performing some of their favorite circle time songs and a dance they helped to choreograph with their dance instructor.

They even performed a preschool variation of Katy Perry's "Firework", a song that was very popular with the kids after it came out last year.

Then they sat and waited patiently as each of the graduating students was called forward to receive their certificate, rose, memory book, and of course a round of big hugs.

The ceremony was very entertaining, even for Daphne, who would have normally been in bed by the time it started. Despite going through her routine as usual and starting off asleep in the car seat, she woke up as soon as the ceremony started and stayed awake through the entire thing.

She's a lot like her brother, in more ways than just her looks, it turns out! Hopefully she'll enjoy preschool as much as Elias has when she's ready to attend in about three years.

5 years!

Despite referring to him as a "5yo" for a few weeks now, I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that Elias is now officially five years old and headed to Kindergarten in the fall, to boot! We celebrated with a party at home last weekend so his actual birthday Friday was a little bit anti-climactic, spreading the additional celebrations out between then and this weekend.

The party was a great success. Initially Elias wanted a Star Wars themed party at Pump It Up. There seems to be something abut turning 5 that makes these kids want a Pump It Up party because of all the PIU parties we've been to, I think all but one were for kids turning 5. But after a few weeks of discussing that idea, suddenly he changed his mind and wanted a beach party. There was no way I was planning a party at the beach with a 4 month old in tow, so I first tried to dissuade him to which he replied, "I know - how about a beach themed party at home!" My first reaction was, well, that's not much better. His third birthday party was held at home and it was so much work cleaning and decorating and getting ready before the party and then cleaning up all over again once the party guests left! But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the party could take place mostly outside and actually, maybe that would work better for the youngest member of the family who still likes to take three or four cat naps each day and is getting harder and harder to get to nap on the go!

And since we recently bit the bullet and hired a yard guy to maintain the areas outside of our house, I knew it would look relatively tidy around here.

I ordered invites from another Etsy seller this time around since I knew I wouldn't have time to design and make my own. For the actual party, in order to keep the party-goers outside, we rented a bouncy house and had water guns (getting water from the water table; the boys and a couple of the girls decided they'd better take their shirts off, so we had an interesting mix of shirtless kids and girls decked out in princess dresses), sidewalk chalk, and sand art bracelets to keep the kids busy.

Since we don't have many chairs I bought a bunch of beach mats and laid them out on the grass for kids and parents to sit and eat picnic style. For food we had a spread of pizza, sandwiches, mac 'n' cheese, fruit, veggies, chips, and crackers. For beverages we offered adults Corona beers and wine coolers in addition to soda and juice for the under-21 set. I think the alcohol was a big hit since a few parents have come up to me at preschool over the past week telling me what a fun party it was. I think we may have started a new tradition.

I've been sort of obsessing over Costco cakes for a couple of birthdays now, and this year seemed the perfect year to try one, with Daphne making DIY projects difficult and having more guests than at previous parties. The vanilla cake and filling itself were a little on the bland side - it would be nice if they offered a fruit filling instead - but the frosting was very satisfying in that store-made birthday cake way. Not bad for 18 bucks!

Fortunately, Elias was into all aspects of the party this year and did not melt down when it was time for party guests to sing him Happy Birthday like he did last year! Before the party he kept talking about how he was going to smash the cake in his face, wedding style.

Done! At this point we sort of rushed from cake to pinata as I sensed guests were ready to leave.

In future years I'll take out an activity or two (I always worry about having enough to do and then feel like I'm rushing through what I do have planned) and set an end-time for the party, something I didn't do this year. For the most part it worked out fine, with most guests leaving in that 2-3 hour window. But there was one guest whose parent didn't RSVP until the day before, requested to drop the kid off due to siblings' conflicting events, and then showed up an hour and a half later than planned to pick the kid back up! Never. Again.

For goody "bags", we handed out mini beach pails with seashells, flip flop keychains, and water guns tucked inside - something Elias helped out with the afternoon before - plus beach balls and balloons. Again, it was a little much, especially trying to get each kid the color balloon they desired before leaving. I finally got helium-filled balloons from a party store this time around and to be honest, I think they're a little overrated. Something else to file away for future parties...

That evening Elias enjoyed his very first "movie night," post-little-sister's-bedtime (and actually slept in the next morning until almost 8!), with Grandma Joanne.

It was a day that's been tough to top between his actual birthday and this weekend, but we've enjoyed a few additional birthday shenanigans, beginning with shark cupcakes (birthday boy's very specific request) at preschool on Friday. Here's video of his fellow preschoolers singing him happy birthday (I didn't realize until I watched the video back how focused he is on the candle during the entire song!), and two of the teachers granting his request of five chair lifts...


...plus a picture that one of the teachers took of the three of us (Neal was, obviously, working):

He opened a few small gifts from us that evening, including this Webkinz hedgehog - I can't remember how it started but it's become a bit of an inside/family joke. I think you can see that on his face even though the picture's not great.

And keeping with tradition, we're off to Fenton's in a bit. Normally we'd go on his actual birthday, but with it being on a Friday this year, by the time Neal gets home from work Daphne is about 30 minutes away from the final meltdown of the day. Hopefully an early dinner on a Sunday afternoon will work out a little better. I'll post an update from that adventure later this week!

Happy 5th Birthday, sweet boy! I think we've finally hit an age that, when people proclaim, "oh, that's a fun age," I can totally agree.