big girl room

We did it! For the first time in a year, Luciya isn't sleeping right next to us.

Last night was her fourth night in her upstairs "big girl room."


The first two nights she slept fitfully and woke up twice each night around 2:30/3:00 a.m. Understandable. She didn't know what was going on, and it was probably hard to sleep without the constant rhythm of daddy's snoring ten feet away. The third night I made a couple changes. First, I left a nightlight on. Second, I dropped about four pacifiers in the crib so she could find one if she needed. (I've resigned my pacifier struggle. She uses them to fall asleep, and that's it. That's fine with me.) She slept 12 1/2 hours straight that night.


We are now huge fans of the big girl room. We can waltz right into our own bedroom at any time, turn on the lights, and flush the toilet if we want to. Luciya loves her new room, with all her toys and books within easy reach. Our favorite thing to do lately is read books, and I'll sit in the rocker and tell her to "get Mama a book," and she'll waddle over to the bookshelf, select one, and bring it to me so that I can pull her up onto my lap and read.


She has exactly two books that are her favorites, that she wants read over and over and over. The first is Rainbow Rob, which is a great story about a penguin who wants to be other colors besides black and white. There are lots of fuzzies and other textures to play with, and she knows which one is coming next. The second is Little Feet Like..., and it has squares of different materials, like soft blankets and cuddly towels, that Luciya likes to rub her bare little toes all over. Yes, I've read each of these books 43 times in the last three days. But it's just so darn cute to watch her wobble back and forth between me and the bookshelf, grunting as she hefts these heavy board books. (Even though my head is racing right now with Rob is black and Rob is white. No color at all, just dark and light....)


The new room still allows for other well-loved activities, too, like tearing all the clothes out of the drawers. Which, as we all know, is the most fun EVER.

the ragamuffin dance

Grab your bottle and drop your pants
It's time to do the Ragamuffin Dance!



Pull your hair and let it fly loose
Then bend over and shake your caboose!



Pinch your belly and give yourself a squeeze
Then reach down and touch your knees!



By the time you're done you should be huffin' and puffin'
That's how you know you're a ragamuffin!

eLLe - one year old

Dear Butter Pie,

You turned ONE YEAR OLD on Saturday.


I'm sorry I didn't write you a post sooner. Maybe it's because I've been so busy with your grandparents in town and planning your birthday party. Maybe it's because since your daddy went back to work I feel I don't have as much time to spend in front of the computer. Or maybe it's because I'm in complete, total, and utter shock that YOU ARE A YEAR OLD. Seriously, my eye just twitched.

Though I can't even remember the last chapter in the book I read before bed last night, I can remember in bright, explicit detail the events and hours of a year ago.

I remember walking out on the new and awkward doctor who insisted we go in for immediate artificial induction. Calling my angels at Haleakala Waldorf School, who meditated and sang deep earth songs and sent me in to labor that same hour. Deciding on home birth, calling the midwife, and laying a tarp under the sheets of the guest bed. Moaning through the night as contractions ripped through me and the doula held me as she slept next to your tutu. Waking in the morning, 14 hours after labor had started, to find I was only 3 cm dilated. And walking, crying, and screaming for 14 hours more until we went on the world's longest, bumpiest car ride to Maui Memorial Medical Center, where we were ushered in, I relaxed, and you emerged, blue-fingered and crying, 6 hours later.


I remember that first night alone in the hospital, you mewling for milk, me so exhausted, trying to figure it out, everything surreal. I remember the nurses shaking me awake after I fell into the deepest sleep of my existence the next morning, because the doctors had checked you and you needed to be fed again.

I remember the drive home in the morning, how your daddy drove so slowly and it seemed that everyone else in the world should be driving slowly, too. That things were different. Colors were brighter. Shapes were sharper.

I remember swaddling you over clothes that we thought would never fit - they looked tiny enough to clothe a doll. Stroking your silk-soft, hairy back and shoulders. Watching you sleep as you softly moaned with each breath, communing with your angels.

I remember it all. And it was all a year ago. One whole year.

And here you are, my dear - rambunctious, lively, lovely, intelligent, enchanting, long-haired (pigtails every day!), serene, wiser than I can imagine. You still wave to something in the corner that I cannot see. You still make silly noises in your sleep. I still check on you at least three times each night before bed.


You are a delightful - gulp! - toddler. You toddle. You wobble. You explore and tug. You're incessant when you say "mamamamamamamamamama," but it sounds so sweet as the first word you sigh in the morning.

You're a year old! Holy cow!


You've taken such giant leaps in the last few days since your birthday, both literally (figuring out how to climb down the step into the dining room!) and figuratively (drinking cow's milk!). The weekend before last your Aunties Trisha, Cass, and Kelly and I got together for our annual reunion (7 years strong! Way to go, mammas!) and I chose those three days to be the Weaning Weekend. (Actually, you chose it, as you'd been showing less and less interest in the breast and we'd gone 2 or three days without breastfeeding on a couple occasions). So we are now officially nursing-free. And it is much easier than I thought it would be! I thought for sure I' d be so sad, longing for your warm little body and smooth suckle, the bonding it produced. But I'm actually handling it just fine, I'm not sore at all, and the fact that you had begun biting down with your two mini chompers helped the transition as well. So. Bottles it is. And that's okay.


You also got a forward-facing car seat for your birthday and now sit in the middle of the back seat, looking out! At first you didn't quite know what to think. You look like such a big girl in that car seat! The only thing I don't like about it is that when you fall asleep, your heavy little head lolls onto your chest and it doesn't look too comfortable!

You're eating like a pro. It's fun; when we go to restaurants we can actually order you something off the menu! The other night you had some plain pasta shells and before that, bits of a crustless grilled cheese sandwich! You love to feed yourself and refuse any food offered you from a jar or on a spoon. I think you may have fed yourself some of Mila's dog food tonight. Well.


You have been a pretty good little sleeper. At night, anyway. For the past few weeks you've been flirting with the idea of taking only one nap during the day, and only in the morning, but I've had to put my foot down. Girl, you need your afternoon nap. Mama needs your afternoon nap.

We had a first birthday party for you on Saturday. It was supposed to rain, but we all got together and did a little sun dance, and sure enough, we were outside for much of the party! you scored lots of loot - toys, clothes, and books. You had about 10 of your new little friends over to enjoy cupcakes, which you immediately smashed right into your face. I put so much energy into planning the party and watching over the course of events that I neglected to take many photos, and we didn't get ANY video of me presenting you with the little burning "1" candle. Also, though all of your grandparents were there - even great-grandma Leona! - we didn't get a single family shot. Oh, well. The day is, I'm sure, ingrained in all our hearts and minds.


Since you were born, you've slept either right next to our bed or in the adjacent alcove room, where we can hear your every sigh and where, since you're such a light sleeper, we have to tiptoe around if we need to enter the bedroom or use the bathroom. So we've decided that as of this week, either tomorrow or the next day, we're moving you upstairs to your "big girl room." I am thankful I've had a couple weeks to get used to this idea. We'll see how it goes! And I promise I'll still be looking in on you at least three times before I go to bed.


I love you, Luciya! Thank you so much for choosing me.

Love,
Mama

due date - one year later

A year ago now you were due to arrive

Thought you'd be in me until you were five

You took your sweet time and arrived 12 days late

My whole world's been different since that date


My baby, my sweetness, my angel, my truth

I celebrate the first year of your youth...

You waited inside and my body turned round


Then you came from the heavens to this earthly ground


In the first hours the world seemed brand new

After the first week I still just stared at you

And you grew............

One month old and sleeping with grace

Two months old - Maui sun on your face


Three months old with pretty pierced ears


Four months old, smiling brings happy tears


At five months you're sitting and growing


Six months in mid-October, glowing


Seven months old and beginning to crawl


Eight months - naked time feels best of all


At nine months your tenth airplane ride


Ten months - your mouth has two teeth inside!


Eleven months old and walking around


Almost a year and my awe is profound

I love you, Luciya!

Love,

Mama

boo!

A girlfriend and I were in a coffee shop the other day. It was our first time out since Luciya began walking; hence, she was everywhere. At one point I caught up to her near the table of the parents of another one-year-old. "She is so cute!" the mom said to me. Then the dad said, "She looks like a Disney cartoon character."

Ummm... thanks?

"Yeah!" said a third woman, "She looks like Boo!" And everyone at the table adamantly agreed. "Definitely! Boo!"

Boo, apparently, is from a Pixar movie called Monsters Inc. I've heard of it, but never seen it. This is Boo:

Here is Luciya on Easter. Does anyone else see the resemblance? 

Or do I need to go back to that coffee shop and kick some ass?

47 down

It fits!!

stinky caca poopy

Well.

Yesterday morning after John flushed the toilet upstairs I heard a "bloop bloop" bubbling sound coming from the toilet downstairs. We investigated to find that the water level was high. We flushed it and everything seemed okay. Later in the afternoon the downstairs tub was filled with gunky residue that looked like it had backwashed up the drain and then seeped (the liquid, anyway) back down.

Fast forward to 7:00 p.m. Luciya is asleep and as I'm sneaking into the room to check on her I notice Stenchy McStenchfart seeping from the bathroom. It was too, too gross. Foul sh*t water and soggy brown toilet paper had poured from beneath the closed lid of the toilet and was sitting about 4 inches deep in the bathtub. In the laundry room, a drain in the floor had overflowed to make a nice round puddle.

The plumber made it here at about 9:30 pm and was here until 11:00. We scoured the front lawn, with the help of two neighbors and one flashlight, for signs of a valve to the septic tank. (Never found one). The plumber returned at 9:00 this morning (and yes, I peed in the back yard last night - twice and went to Stroller Strides this morning stinky and un-showered). They removed both toilets, replaced one (ca-ching), and ran a camera snake through the hole left by the other one (ca-ching, ca-ching), where they discovered the roots of the giant tree in the front yard had broken through decades-old pipes to block the flow of "solids."

They managed to clear the pipes for what may be a week, may be a month. We'll be able to use the toilet and showers until they have to come again (ca-ching times infinity), tear up the front lawn, hopefully find the pipe (nine feet down? Possibly.), and replace it. We'll be responsible for the landscaping repair (ca - whatever). (So those of you coming to our September wedding will know why the grass will most likely be a different color. At best.)

I was thinking last night about how we used to say in Hawaii that Mother Maui is the type of place that will either welcome and accept you with open arms if you're supposed to be there (good job, good friends, good housing, etc.), or chew you up and spit you out if you're not (no job, wrong friends, and your house gets broken into. And your wallet is stolen). We were, obviously, in the lucky first camp. And it makes me wonder: does Idaho possess any of those same mystical qualities? Are we being told somehow that maybe this isn't a good fit? I mean, seriously? John loses his job and we're suddenly slapped in the kisser with emergency dog surgery, truck repair, and poop flooding? Did we not give enough to charity last year?

Or should we just suck it up and laugh about this 50 years from now when we're sitting on this re-cemented front porch directly over the septic tank and say, "This was all so worth it."?

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!!