30

I'm thirty today.


Holy crap.

eLLe - 11 months

Dear Luciya,

Happy eleven months!


Well, look who's standing up all by herself. Up until about 3 days ago that was one of the crowning achievements of your eleventh month. And then, you walked. And we're still lolling in the aftershocks of this insane achievement.

You're taking a few steps here and there each day. You wobble and bobble and are so tentative before you take each step, and after you do you look up to our faces to make sure we saw it. Or maybe it's to make sure we're still there, because the ground is suddenly a lot farther away.


A couple weeks ago you started doing the most hilarious thing: drumming your fingers against your lips as you made noises. Your new favorite sound is belup-belup-belup. You'll make this noise when you wake up in the morning or from a nap, happily belup-belupping in your crib for a while until you're ready to come on out and greet the day. You cheeky little monkey, you.


lickteschtein from shemmy on Vimeo.

When you're up, your new favorite activity is the exploration of drawers and cupboards. You've figured out how to pull on knobs and handles, and then you systematically extract the contents and toss them over your shoulder. Just yesterday you figured out how to open the glass doors that encase the DVD player and cable box. I fastened them closed with our trusty friend, the rubber band. Ol' rubber band lives on every pair of cupboards in the kitchen except the ones that hold the towels, the tupperware, and the ziploc baggies. But you know this already. You are a huge fan of pulling the zilpoc bags out of their box one at a time.

Your comprehension of what we say to you is suddenly out of this world. One of my favorite things to say to you is "kisses." If you're standing at one of the full-length closet mirrors and I say "kisses," you'll lean in to the glass and smack one on your pretty little reflection. You'll lean in to me or your daddy so that we can give you kisses when we ask to.

You've also learned "hi" and "bye-bye," or at least what to do when anyone says one or the other. You flail your little arms from the shoulder (sometimes one arm, sometimes two) and bid your fond salutations.

All these firsts are just so much fun to witness. This morning you went to your first Easter egg hunt. I know that next year and in the Springs to follow you'll be bounding through the brush and scooping up all the plastic eggs you can find, dropping fistfuls of sticky jellybeans into your mouth. But today was pretty sweet. You managed to pick up a few eggs and drop them into the ducky basket that Aunty Betskers gave you before you were born (you were due on Easter last year, remember?).


funny bunny from shemmy on Vimeo.

Your culinary tastes have expanded to things like tofu, raspberries, and frozen organic green beans that I run under warm water for a few seconds to soften them up a little before you suck out the still-cold middles. You are becoming such a pro at feeding yourself that you seem irritated when I try to give you food from your bowl or jar. You are also seriously irritated by any type of bib and can yank off whichever type we try to put on you at meal time, be it snap, velcro, over over your head like the cloth diapers I've cut holes in.


Your sleep patterns lately have been random at best. I'd say that on average you sleep completely through the night (and we're talking 12 hours!) about three nights a week. The other nights you've been quite squirmy and squirrelly, and on more than one occasion this month I've gotten up to nurse you at 4 a.m. But my goodness - any number of things could be interfering with your sleep. Your gummy friends Pokey and Buddy continue their ascent. You're gradually becoming bipedal. And you are suddenly huge.

Your daddy figured you must be going through a growth spurt, and sure in enough, this morning your pajamas were torn to shreds, you had a full set of teeth and you were studying for your SATs.


Good thing I can still cuddle you completely in my arms.


I love you, Luciya!

Love,
Mama

crazy/beautiful

texas ranger! from shemmy on Vimeo.

What happened? Daddy had just finished giving her a bath and was about to put on her diaper when she stood on her own and decided it was time to walk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's more, if you can't get enough (we can't!):


walk the line from shemmy on Vimeo.

baby's first avocado

i don't believe it!

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family genealogy - Family pictures

auma

Dear Kelly,


I just wanted to give you a little shout out and thank you for being the most awesomest of the awesome.

For the past twelve years you've had a way of breaking my blues and summoning the smiles out of me.

You are like a fresh baked, fudgy brownie: sweet and warm and full of ooey gooey delicious comfort.


You have the ability to make me laugh like no one else can. You soothe me. You put you little hand on my shaking heart and say "There, there, Mamma's here, don't mind me, it's all gonna be alright." And I totally believe you.

Thanks for coming to visit us, for loving my daughter, and especially for offering your help in our upcoming wedding. Somehow I forgot that you're an event planner by trade. It will be the best wedding ever! And you, my lovely made of honor, will have to work hard to not outshine me. Just this once. Cuz, you know, I'm the bride. The lucky, lucky bride.


I love you, Mamma!

Love,
Hamflounderbone

P.S. The other day I came across this poem I wrote to you 7 years ago, after we had graduated college, I'd moved to Maui, and you were across the universe in Prague:

You are the best thing that's happened to me
From the first day you showed me my friends in the tree
You're better than popcorn and Vendage merlot
Better than sled rides by a lake in the snow
And the perfect Road Buddy wherever we'll venture
When we're young or we're fat, with teeth or with dentures
I love living my life by your antecdotes
And hearing your voice through numbered post-it notes
I know we'll be laughing till we're wilted and gray
We'll drink and we'll smoke and still fall down and play
We'll reap all the joys that our good lives deserve
(Though I'll have to improve on my shuttle cock serve)
Though I live in the sun in this high island bliss
It is always you that I love and I miss
But though our lives lead us to live far apart
Know you'll always have a home in my heart
The end is long off, but once we're in it
We'll jump back into life... and begin it.


College was the best, wasn't it?!

nervy!

I teach my first stations of Stroller Strides tomorrow. I am excited. A little nervous, but I have a feeling I'll be pulling on all my experience in front of the wee ones on Maui and effectively acting like a crazy person, but what the hey - the kids all loved me, right?

John has been out of town since Tuesday and gets back on Saturday. Really, I don't know how single mothers do it. Especially single mothers who work outside the home. I am so fortunate to have an involved daddy. Hurry back, I said!

John is working with his family on an internet venture in beautiful, warm, sunny, calm Southern California. I am surrounded by trails of thousands of ants and multiple poopy diapers a day. Creepy crawlies and squishy smellies! 

Can I blame it on all this, then, that I totally stood up a friend tonight? That I actually had a social engagement, with a live person, and I flaked?! I didn't show or call?! I forgot?! (And I wonder why I don't have friends...)

(Sorry, Kori!)

pokey and buddy

Last Saturday night Luciya slept fitfully. She kept letting out pained little cries. Normally, I would go in and check on her, but I didn't, because I KNEW what was happening. Sure enough, on Oscar Sunday I stuck my thumb on her bottom gums and felt the spiky little crowns of two new friends: Pokey and Buddy.

Pokey is on her right and Buddy is on the left. They're getting a little more visible each day: two little white dashes in the center of her gums. My bet is on Pokey showing up first, but we'll see.

Did you hear me? Luciya is teething!

And she's shitting her pants at an alarming rate. Sorry, but I just had to pause in writing this because another diarrhea squirt interrupted us. I don't know if it's because of the teething or what, but poor child has been filling her diapers to overflowing several times a day for the past 3 days. Yeesh. Her mood is fine, though, and she seems well enough. If by tomorrow his hasn't cleared up I'll call Dr. Angie.

Luciya has tooth buds!!