All for One, One for all

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MONROE!!!!!!

Let's be honest--a baby's first birthday party is really more for the parents. The kid typically has no idea what is going on. So we wanted to celebrate in a way that would be fun for us and mark the completion of a wild, crazy, difficult, fun, amazing year. We wanted Monroe to get a kick out of it too, but all she really requires is people to pay attention to her, a nice supply of food, and a solid couple of naps per day, so this was not a tall order.

We planned a champagne brunch for right after morning nap (she was still asleep when the firsts guests started showing up, so that was perfect.) We had about 2 dozen of our friends over, most of whom were adults.

Games
I put up a dozen pictures of "first moments" from the first year of Monroe's life. There were the typical ones, like "first steps" and "first tooth," but we also included a few more idiosyncratic moments such as "first pretty dress" and "first foil hat." Guests got a sheet with all the firsts and all the dates on which they occurred, but jumbled. The only person to match every first with its date was Aunt Naomi, the big winner.
We also did decorate-your-own-party-hats. Naomi helped me cut them out of posterboard and we've been clipping random pictures and letters out of our junk mail for a while now in preparation for this activity. Junk mail pictures + glue sticks = free stickers. I planned this so that there would be at least one fun thing for the few kids I knew would attend, but it turned out to be fun for all ages. :-)

The kiddos also enjoyed sidewalk chalk, running up and down the length of the garden (the little rocks were lava and the big walks were islands) and sticking leaves in our fountain.

Cake
Monroe had cupcakes for her cake--a baby friendly recipie sweetened with fruit, so she could eat all she wanted. Good thingm because she ate TWO WHOLE CUPCAKES.

After cake and singing, we just hung out chatting while Monroe made the rounds to everyone who'd come to see her. We had a nice time visiting with all our guests, some of whom we hadn't seen since she was just a few months old!


I'll leave you with a few adorable pictures of Monroe in her party hat (made by Aunt Naomi):

Monroe's first day at the beach

Hours of packing and planning: 2.5
Hours of unpacking and laundry: 1.5
Time in the water: 14 minutes
A day at the beach: timeless

Waves at sunset

duck-a-boo

This is Monroe's preferred version of peek-a-boo, in which she finds something to hide behind and then ducks until she *thinks* she is out of sight (usually you can see the whole top of her head and both her hands, which is hilarious.) She waits a sec for you to respond to her "absence" and then she pops out from behind the obstruction gleeful with expectation as you say "there she is!!" It is a very high-energy, full-body workout version of the original hide-behind-your-hands game. But then, Monroe is a high-energy, full-body workout kinda baby!!



This was taken on a bus in Amsterdam. Since this time, she's also mastered "traditional" peek-a-boo in which she covers her head with scarves, towels, or clothes. :-)

I walked!!!

Monroe just took 3-4 steps all by herself!!!

The setting was our friends Chris and Gina's house, where we were celebrating the 4th with the annual Venice canals wind-powered homemade boat race (more on that shindig later.) Eben stood Monroe on the floor and assured she was balanced, then he backed off so that she was standing all by herself in the middle of Gina's kitchen. Me and about half a dozen folks were standing around at the time and I commented aloud, "I wonder if she'll start walking today." A moment later, Roe lunged forward and took 3 or 4 unsteady little steps, traveling right across the kitchen to my legs. AMAZING!

It's a very fitting way for her to celebrate Independence Day! :)

block tower fun

Eben and Monroe got a new game going at the apartment in Utrecht.



Editor's note: As I look back on this video months later, I love it because it captures so much about Eben and Monroe's play dynamic. He is so good at putting her in an active role and responding to her, and he really knows the importance of suspense to both humor and surprise. He is such a fun dad!!

break even day.

Today is Monroe's 9 month birthday!! On this special day, we cross an amazing threshold. Up until this day, Monroe had spent more of her life on this planet inside my body than she'd spend outside of it. But today, she breaks even. And for the rest of her life, that special time that she spent completely supported and nourished inside my body will constitute an ever smaller percentage of her time on earth.

SHE DID IT!!

This disturbance in the carpet (which you probably can't really make
out..) is the evidence of Monroe's first crawl!! I was out with some
friends and Eben was getting Monroe ready for a bath. He put her down
for a moment to get things together and she spied a lovely electrical
cord nearby and went for it. At first Eben was just noticing how fast
she was moving and then he realized she was actually crawling instead
of just lunging, flopping, and rolling.

I am not sure we're ready.... but we're proud. he he he

foot fat

methinks a doggy I do hear

In this video, Monroe and I are playing with a toy at the table when she hears a dog barking in the distance (probably in the next building or even down the block.) Check out the thoughful look she gets as she slowly turns in the direction of the mystery sound.

A day in the life

6:55 am--Time to wake up!! I am supposed to get up at 7:15, but I like to surprise my mom and dad whenever I can. They are so funny, slow, and confused when I wake them up every morning! I am so happy to be in bed with mommy and daddy (although I am never sure exactly how I get here because I go to sleep in my own bed at night...) Mommy opens her eyes a little crack, so I bonk her in the face a few times with my fist, just to say hello. Then Daddy's radio starts playing, and he lets out a terrific sigh and trys to bury his head under his pillow, so I roll over and start bopping him in the face a little too. What would they do without me?

Mommy gets up and goes to get her shiny shiny cup. This is a very special cup and I can tell she really loves it because she carries it around all morning and holds it close. I think it has this steamy brown stuff in it, but it is hard to be sure because she keeps the lid screwed on really tight and never lets me play with it. But maybe today she will?

First I've got to go say hello to The Baby in the Mirror. Gosh, she is so cute!! I love to play with her! I touch her fingertips, and once I even tried to lick her. She was kinda cold. While me and her catch up, mommy and daddy take off some clothes and then they put on different clothes. Isn't that weird?

After mommy puts on the new clothes and spends some more time holding her shiny shiny cup, she takes me for my first diaper change of the morning. Dang it, I knew this was coming. But this time it's not as bad as I thought it would be--she's finished almost before it gets on my nerves! Next, we go sit at the table and I get to drop some toys while mommy puts stuff in her mouth. She puts all this stuff in and it never comes back out. Isn't that weird?

Wow, it's 9:30 a.m. Goodness, I am tired. After all the visiting Mirror Baby and toy dropping and trying really hard to get the shiny shiny cup, I just can't wait for my nap! Mommy draws the shades, turns on my sleepy sounds, and wraps me in a blankie for my morning nap. Ahhhhhhhh....

Howdy!! It's 10:30 and I am all awake now. I look around and see my fishies hanging above my crib, I haven't talked to them today! Hiya fishies!! Oh, look, there's mommy there. Hi mommy! Mommy turns off my sleepy sounds and opens the window. Hello Sunshine! Oh, gosh, another diaper change? Even worse--she's taking off my clothes. And NOOOOO, she's putting on some other clothes! Why would she do that? My parents seem like nice people and everything, but geeze they are obsessed with taking clothes off and on!!

Wow, hello, it's my babysitter Cruz! Cruz is so fun! She sits with me at the table and lets me drop all my toys, one by one. She walks me all around the whole house and lets me look in every single mirror, even the funky ones she has to lift me up for. And guess what? The Baby in the Mirror meets me there every time! I have so much fun with Cruz I don't want to stop and nurse or anything! (But it's nice to see my mommy right there at her computer.)

It's only 1:00 in the afternoon and mommy seems to think I am going to take another nap. Boy is she clueless! Nothing could be further from my mind than a nap right now, and I tell her so by screaming really loud when she tries to wrap me up. But then I go ahead and nurse because it's SO tasty... and there's no harm in relaxing a little while I get my snack. But I won't go to sleep. I'm gonna go ahead and cuddle up a little more in mommy's arms, but I won't go to sleep. I might just close my eyes for a little bit, but I won't... go .... to ...

Oh, wow, it's 2:00!! What happened? Mommy turns off my sleepy sounds and opens the window. Hello Sunshine! I guess it's time for us to do something outside now because mommy is getting everything loaded into the stroller. COOL! Where are we going?

Oh, I know, it's yoga. Right away, I hook up with my crew--Audrey, Bella, and Parker. They are all almost 6 months old just like me and we like to be together. But guess what? I am the only one who can sit up. Boy, yoga is exciting when you can sit up and look any way that you want!! I never noticed how interesting all the grown-ups are. They are twisting around in such funny ways. I try twisting just like mommy and everyone starts pointing at me and cracking up! But it wasn't funny when mommy did it. Isn't that wierd?

After yoga we come home and I remember that I actually don't like my stroller--how did I forget that before?? I start crying until I hear mommy singing. Boy, that yoga seems to make her even happier than the shiny shiny cup because she sings all the way home. I guess it makes me happy too, because I don't cry even when she changes my diaper!

At 4:30 I USED to take an evening nap when I was just a little baby, but now I am so mature I don't really take a nap in the evening anymore. So instead, I just sit in the rocking chair with mommy nursing, with the radio on really quiet and the warm sun coming in... so relaxing... so...
Wow, it's 5:30! Time flys when you are not officially napping! Another diaper change. Now it's time for that new thing mommy does, where she pokes some mushy stuff into my mouth. I don't really get what is going on here. I like the taste of the mushy stuff okay, but what's the point of having something in your mouth that you can neither crunch against your gums nor suck on? Isn't that weird?

After that new thing with the mushy stuff, I have to get my diaper changed AGAIN and this time mommy takes all my clothes off. I hate this! Why should a person have to take off a bunch of clothes AND put on a bunch more clothes just because they got a little bit of poop their shirt and pants? I complain every time they do this to me, but it doesn't seem to make a bit of difference. Oh well. Like I said, it's their one flaw.

It's around 6:30 and I wonder what the heck we're gonna do now? It's getting kinda boring around here. OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS, IT IS DADDY!!!!!!! I have never been so excited in my whole life! My arms and legs can barely flap fast enough and the corners of my mouth are going to crack from smiling so so so much because daddy's here!!!! Wait--where is he going? WAHHHH--oh, there he is, using the big porcelain diaper. Now he's washing his hands. Good thing mommy brought me in here where I could see him.

After daddy throws me in the air and swings me from side to side and cracks me up again and again, I sit at the table with my mommy and daddy while they put more stuff in their mouths and talk and talk. I get to play with my toys and do some cool gravity experiments. So far, everything falls when you drop it. Isn't that weird?

I'm pretty tired, (after all, it's almost 8:00) so I don't mind it too bad when my daddy takes my clothes off AGAIN and puts on different clothes, just for me to go to sleep in. It's really the only thing wrong with my parents, this obsession with moving people's clothes around. I don't get it. Next daddy tells me the story of "The Going to Bed Book." He has the whole story in his head so I can just chew on the book if I want. Neat, huh?

I love nursing with mommy to go to sleep at bedtime, and I hate it if anything keeps me up late, so I have to say goodbye right away!! Goodnight!

Monroe's First Vegetable!!

Saturday we reached another exciting baby milestone: Monroe's first solid food!! I had been looking forward to this for quite some time. I couldn't wait to cook Monroe some food... which is kinda funny when you consider that I've been "preparing" all her meals since she was born! Still, there was something exciting to me about making her that first fruit or vegetable!

We began with a trip to the Farmer's Market to look for some in-season fruits and veggies that would make good baby food. As usual, Monroe enjoyed all the sights and sounds of the bustling market.


We grabbed some organic apples and sweet potatoes for later in the week, and we decided that butternut squash from Finley Farms would be Monroe's first food!! The farmer was nice and agreed to take a picture of us with Monroe and her first vegetable.


At home, I cleaned up the squash and gave it to Monroe to play with for a while while, just for fun. She was pretty interested in the new object. Then we put all her future baby food on a roasting pan and slow-roasted it all while we did other things. The aroma of an oven full of butternut squash, sweet potato, and apple was fabulous!


After the squash was pureed and cooled, we were finally ready for the big moment. Or I should say we THOUGHT we were ready--I realized as the first spoonful of squash met with Monroe's strong and curious fingertips that we had FORGOTTEN TO PUT A BIB ON THE CHILD. If that's not a "rookie parent" moment, I don't know what is. Oh well. There's a lot of laundry in this job, I didn't figure a little more would make a big difference, so we just went on with show.

With Monroe in her chair and Mommy and Daddy sitting on either side of her, the meal began. We started off by enthusiastically eating some squash ourselves, just to build the energy. This was easy because it really was quite tasty--I love roasted winter squash when it is in season!



When Monroe started her usual "begging" behavior, we gave her her first spoonful!



We quickly realized that spoon-feeding a brand-new eater is actually a lot messier than simply offering a bit of the food on the tip of your (clean) finger. Monroe doesn't see how big she needs to open her mouth for the spoon, so she ended up pretty much scraping all the squash off onto her cheeks as she slid the spoon into her tight lips. But with a fingertip of food, you can help her out a bit with that. Once she started sucking the food off our fingers she realized what she was tasting and got more excited.

The whole family relaxed at the table for around 15 minutes. Eben and I shared a glass of wine while feeding Monroe and cracking up as the squash spread from her face to her outfit to the table and beyond. When we sensed the fun was coming to an end, Eben ran off to draw a bath and Monroe went straight from her high chair into the tub with daddy while I ran around cleaning the kitchen and treating her laundry. Thank goodness she'll still get 95% of her nourishment from breastmilk in the next few weeks, because I'm not ready to do this production more than once a day!

time marches across my heart

Monroe turns 5 months old tomorrow and all day all I could think was, "This is the last time I will ever put my 4 month-old Monroe down for her morning nap" or "This is the last walk I'll ever take with my 4 month-old Monroe," or "This is the last time we'll ever change our 4 month-old Monroe into her pajamas for the night." I am so happy to see her growing and so amazed at all she can now do and enjoy, but at the same time my heart is breaking with the realization of how quickly this time with my baby will race by.

morning musings...

Every year at church the kids at our Neighborhood Youth Association (an episcopal charity) make requests for Christmas presents which our parishioners then supply. We always dig around for the kids who want video games. :-) This year, a 12-year old boy listed Eben's latest game as his number one choice! Eben picked up a copy and wrote a note explaining who he was and telling a bit about how the game was made. I can't help imagining what a neat surprise that will make!

I can't say why I decided to tell you about that, except for that this is a cold dark morning and Monroe has decided to sleep in. This is a HUGE treat for me, particularly because we're still working towards getting her napping reliably on her own during the day--she's a bit of a catnapper which makes it difficult to manage my chores, meals, etc. But this blessed morning, I'm already drinking my second cup of coffee! I've dressed, checked email, put away dishes, finished Christmas shopping, made a blog post, and much more! Now I can't wait for her to wake up so we can play. :-)

There's Daddy!

Monroe's "Daddy Smile."

Binky Drop

In this little clip, Monroe looses her binky. This gives her a start at first, and then she gets the most disgusted look on her face... oh, the indignity of life as a baby!

Our big exciting day!

Yesterday was a really fun day with the baby for us parents (I don't think it made a difference at all to little Monroe though. tee hee!)

We still can't take the baby into crowded places for several weeks, but hanging out in the apartment will eventually drive us both crazy. So we decided to go out to Will Rodgers State Park for a picnic lunch!

First, we got to experience the hilarity of how long it takes to go anywhere or do anything with a baby. We began to hatch the State Park plan around 10:00 am... and we were there around 3:30! First, we both needed showers, I had to run some laundry, the baby needed a bath, we had to pack the picnic, and eat a snack, and when we were almost completely ready, I needed a little nap! It was nice actually, to be on "baby time" with no appointment to keep.

Next, we got to experience how much stuff a baby needs for a few hours at the park. The back of our Prius was literally FULL of baby stuff--the diaper bag, the boppy, the stroller frame, lunch (okay that was for us), extra blankets, emergency stuff, water (again for us, but still) and more!

First we picnic-ed while Monroe slept in her carseat on the table:


Then we popped her carseat into its stroller frame and tested its off-road capacity. These are great easy trails that get you high above the city before you know it. We could see the whole bay, distant islands, and the city downtown. It was really beautiful and refreshing!


After the walk, we all rested in the shade in the park and Monroe had her own lunch before we packed back into the car and headed home.

Eben and I had a great time, and Monroe didn't know the difference (she slept almost the whole time!) so overall it was a great success!

Editor's note: Looking back at this post about a year later, not much has changed as far as the organizational effort it takes to get a baby out of the house... although it does seem that as your child gets bigger, the pile of stuff she needs at all times does get a wee bit smaller.

Look how in the last picture Monroe is wrapped in a blanket and then in an inside-out t-shirt. That's because we only had two blankets (the giant one we're laying on and the thin one she was swaddled in.) It was a balmy day, but when we sat down on the grass in the shade it felt much cooler and we got paranoid she'd be cold. So there she is, in the shirt of my back. Somewhere in the back up files from my computer at this time period, I think there is another picture from a few minutes later where we'd added a burp cloth to her head, folded up to make a hat. I guess I was too embarrassed and upset with myself to share these details at the time, but now of course I think it is hilarious that with all that stuff we brought--with that giant carload of stuff--we FORGOT an extra blanket and a hat. Rookies!!

The many faces of Monroe

Happy One Week Birthday!

Well, the most exciting, intense, crazy, beloved week of our lives so far has come to a close... and we're all healthy and enjoying each other! I go back and forth between feeling that I can't bear the fact that her little cheeks are already filling out (because I never want her to change) and feeling so excited about what the future will bring!

...

Usually, someone's stuff is a trace of their selves, a telling record of where they've been and what they've done. It can be such a comfort when someone you love is away to have these records of their daily life around you, to remind you that the missing person belongs with you. For instance, if Eben is away and I get to hang a bit of his laundry, it always leaves me smiling. His clothes are deeply imbued with his personality, not just because they reflect his style, but also because of all the layers of memories put into each garment.

With the baby, it's a very odd phenomenon because she has stuff everywhere, all over our house--but as of yet, she has no history here. So this stuff functions not as a trace of her existence, but as a sort of premonition, a hint towards a future that we haven't inhabited.

our bathrobes,
hanging behind the bathroom door