Happy Second Birthday

This morning we had a little breakfast celebration for Monroe before a late start to school/work. Monroe was thrilled when she saw her decorations.


I wrapped (or put bows on) all the presents that were sent, and she had a grand time opening them all.


We had Aunt Naomi and visiting Grandma Nikki over for a breakfast of quiche and fruit, followed by "birthday cake" which was actually whole wheat muffins... not that she knew the difference. :-)




Finally, around 10:30, we went about our business. Monroe had a great day (despite arguing with her little buddy Auvuneesh that he could not possibly be two, NO--she was two) and a nice night at home.

Happy Birthday Monroe!

my heart is melting

This morning Monroe said, "I love you" for the first time in her life--"I love you mommy" in fact. That makes today a perfect day, no matter what else happens.

the laughs just keep on coming....

Today Monroe got a card from her Nanna and I thought she'd be pretty excited to open some mail, so I was keen to tell her about it:

Me: "Monroe, you got a letter in the mail today."

Monroe: "The letter A?"

a beautiful father-daughter duet

I snuck up on the adorable performers and made an audio recording of them singing in the bathtub.

there's nothing like family

image from http://blog.makezine.com

Monroe is at Aunt Naomi's house making a batch of homemade play-doh with her Grandma Nikki while I pack our suitcases for a little Memorial Day getaway. I feel so rich in love!!

Do you know any grown-ups?

The scene: Mommy and Monroe are cuddling in the big yellow chair, bonding after a day of school/work. As usual, mommy "makes small-talk" by asking Monroe little questions about her life, her day, her thoughts.

Mommy: Hey, are you a kid or are you a baby?

Monroe: Monroe kid!

Mommy: Wow. Do you know any other kids?

Monroe: (pauses, thinking) Daddy!

Mommy: (with suppressed grin) Oh? Daddy is a kid? Hmmm. Well, do you know any grown-ups?

Monroe: (enthusiastically) Mommy! Mommy grown-up!

And yeah, that pretty much sums up the family dynamic.

priceless laughter

the most peaceful place

There is nothing as peaceful as the weight of a sleeping baby relaxing into your arms. From underneath a sleeping child, the world's problems never seem quite so dire.

Monroe's first bike ride

in the fullness of time.

Yesterday when we were going to bed I said I really wanted to live my Saturday over again. Eben was taken aback because he thought I meant I had regrets--that I wanted to re-do the day and erase the way I'd lived. But that's not what I meant. I had this tangible sense of all the possible Saturdays I could have had, all the infinite choices I could have taken and lived, and I wanted to experience each of them in succession. I wanted the evening where I stayed up late sewing and finished our bedroom curtains, and the evening where I made a gourmet dinner, and the evening where Eben and I took the baby monitor out in the garden and drank champagne and watched the rain fall while we listened to Monroe sleeping, and also the evening where I went to bed at 8:45 and slept like a log. Not to mention all the mornings and afternoons I want to have with Monroe on this exact day--the day when she is seventeen and 1/4 months old and calling her butt her "button," humming Old McDonald, and learning to point out her eyebrows and her chin.

In today's Gospel something was said to have happened "in the fullness of time" and I thought the odd phrase captured a lot about how I am feeling. My time is so full, so crowded with valuable possibilities. I am grateful for all of it, but I regret the necessity of making decisions that cut off other possibilities.

Living this life is like reading a very good book--I can't wait to turn each page, but I never want the book to end. Sometimes when I am reading a delicious book, I intentionally delay myself in a fantastic part--I get up to make a cup of tea or do some housework or some other task that does not require focused attention. The mindless task lets me linger in the world of the book and extends one scene or moment until it is fully amalgamated into my consciousness and I am ready to continue in the story. That's what I wanted last night. To just stop, and sit, and process Saturday from the sidelines, outside of life. But instead I did some chores and hung out with Eben and went to sleep. And today I woke up and here I am on a new page, a bit haunted by the feeling that this is all going a little faster than I want it to.

Chicken

We experimented with walking to the daycare to pick Monroe up on foot and take her home in the Strolls Royce. The round trip is about 3 miles, and it's a pleasant way to pass a part of the evening that can feel quite rushed. I hope to spare the time for it every now and then.

By way of keeping Monroe amused as the walk home rambled on and she lost her fascination with all the bikes and buses whizzing past, I started talking to her about her day. This is a funny little one-sided conversation I often have with her--usually at dinner. It started as a complete joke. I would infuse my voice with mock formality and ask "And how was your day Monroe?" This was funny because a) we'd been together all day long, and b) she couldn't talk. and she would drool or coo or stare into space. Later, I kept on asking the question in a slightly less comical but still tongue-in-cheek way just as a way of keeping up our little mommy-baby banter which she seemed to so enjoy. Eventually, when I asked "How was your day?" she would nod vigorously. I am still not sure if that meant she liked the questioning itself and wished it to continue or if she was simply trying to communicate that her day was "yes, yes, yes." Either way, it was deadly cute.

And today as the novelty of pointing out bikes and buses wore off and I sensed that a stroller revolt was in the cards if I didn't come through with better entertainment, I started in on a version of the "How was your day?" series. I asked, "Did you play with Simon today?" Simon is the boy we left her sitting next to when we dropped her off in the morning, which I guess that is why he popped into my head. I didn't really expect an answer--I was being a little bit goofy--but she nodded and then affirmed with a surprisingly clear pronunciation of "Simon" in the cutest little voice. So then I asked her "Did you play with Max?" and "Did you play with Harper?" and each time she nodded and carefully pronounced the other child's name with a serious and thoughtful look. We'd never said any of these names before, and I am not sure she had either--she was really on a role. So I was disappointed when I ran out of daycare playmates to mention. Too bad I didn't know more of the kids names! Casting around for anything to keep the amusement rolling, I asked, "and what did you have for lunch today?" Given the fact that I was talking to a 16-month old, I clearly intended this as a rhetorical question. But without missing a beat, Monroe looked up at me and answered, "Chicken."

I nearly fell over in the sidewalk.

You know you are an animal lover when....

...when you kiss the PICTURE of the the kittie on the cat-food bag at
the grocery co-op.

pat pat pat

Monroe has started doing the cutest thing.

When she hugs us she adds a qick series of little pats to the back, kind of like the sympathy pats a little leauger might get from his coach after a strike out. I guess she picked up on patting as a gesture of affection after we'd patted her back to soothe and calm her. It is SOOOO sweet that she's started doing it back because unlike hugs and kisses which of course we've always actively campaigned for, this little gesture has never been something we've tried to get her to do. It's also never had any attention called to it (unlike the beloved Kisses which we've always labeled verbally.)

It made me think she must have a really sweet heart to have intuitively picked up the meaning of little love pats and spontaneously offered them to her loved ones.

Beach Day, described

Aunt Naomi proposed an outing to Leo Carillo State Beach, a beautiful stretch of shore in Malibu where dogs are welcomed. The area is about an hour North of us, so we set off at exactly nap time in the hopes of a peaceful drive.


Our hopes for a relaxing drive/nap busted along with our back left tire. We were about 18 miles up the coast/28 minutes into the nap. Luckily, we coasted right into a full service gas station (a typical Malibu luxury) where an expert patched the tire after extracting a HUGE screw.


When we told Monroe that Aunt Naomi would be at the beach, she got very excited and started chanting "Omi, omi." Mike, Naomi, and Baxter left a little later than we did because there was a playoff game they could not, in good concience, abandon. But since they avoided driving over any GIANT screws, they arrived at almost exactly the same time as we did.


Monroe regarded the beach as the biggest sandbox the world has ever seen and was accordingly psyched about it.

We took her shoes off so she could get the full beachgoer's experience.



She could have played in the sand for days...




But there were Uncle Rides to take too, and rocks to explore!
Dada started her off on the little rocks, but they quickly graduated to the boulders.




I don't think most 16 month-olds have experienced that much thrilling climbing. But then again most 16 month-olds don't have Eben for a dad.

After the rocks were conquered, we went through one of Leo Carrillo's sea caves (dry-ish when the tide is out) to get to an area full of tide pools. We had fun looking for sea life.




The day was full of snot and happiness.


See that lil' footprint right in the middle of that shot? Now whose sweet foot do you think that belongs to?


Gratuitous curl shot in 5, 4, 3, 2...


Squishy mud made Monroe take BIG steps.


I got Eben to take a shot of me just to prove that I was there too. :-)

Christmas Morning: the movie

Bang Bang

We put together this little experiment in long-distance closeness when Veronica was out for a visit over the Thanksgiving holiday. I made a short video (the top one) of Monroe and her singing a song they'd both gotten into doing in the course of her stay. (Monroe's part is the knocking!)


In the bottom video, you can see film of Monroe watching the original video--and getting a big kick out of it. We probably watched it about a dozen times. I taped her during the first few rounds when she was just smiling and giggling, but eventually she was knocking along vigorously and she even said "ban ban!" Now every time she sees my computer she points at it and starts bopping back and forth in a pantomime dance to show that she wants to watch the video again.

Palm Springs 2

We started the day with coffee of course! Monroe loved the model train that made circuits around the roof of the diner.

After breakfast and a trip to a local grocery joint to get picnic supplies, we headed up into the foothills to meet Mike and Naomi at the tram station. Monroe was very excited and surprised to see her Aunt Naomi!

The view from the tram station parking area was already amazing.We rode the world's largest rotating tram car--kind of like a giant, spinning ski lift. It took us 2 and 1/2 miles straight up Mount San Jacinto. It was a nearly 15-minute ride with breathtaking views. We traversed through 5 distinct climate zones to a snowy wonderland at the top of the mountain, where it was about 30 degrees cooler than the valley below.

Look at this picture, taken from the tram station at the top of the mountain. Bottom center in the frame you can see a descending tram car on the cables, heading for another white tower (there were 8) along the way.

After a picnic lunch inside the warm lodge/tram stop, we set out to explore the winter wonderland.
Monroe lasted all of 5 minutes before the cold got to her and the whole thing wasn't fun for her anymore. She just couldn't see what we were all excited about... and it didn't help that she can't be convinced to keep her fleece hat on to save her life. So I volunteered to take her back to the lodge while the rest of the gang went exploring.

We found a lovely ballroom overlooking the park which was empty save two fully-decked out Christmas trees. Pretty much the perfect place for a one year-old to play! As you can see in the following two pictures, Monroe prefers her snow at a distance but her Christmas trees she likes very very close. :-)


The rest of the group had a nice wintry hike to a dessert lookout point where they could see the whole Coachella Valley.




Sunset on the mountain was odd--at about 4:00 the sun dipped behind the neighboring mountain, blazing bright due to the unusually high angle at which it slipped behind the extra-high horizon.
We relaxed in the lodge with coffee and drinks to watch the snowy mountain turn pink and purple before the AMAZING tram ride back down the mountain in the dark, looking out over the moonlight mountain to the lights of the city.


We Who Travel with Baby were off at that point, enjoying our Sesame Street Christmas Album until Monroe fell asleep in the car (and for most of the rest of the drive, to be honest.) Mike and Naomi, who had only just arrived that day, used Urban Spoon (on the iPhone) to pick a cool place for a romantic dinner in Palm Springs and drove back a few hours later.

Good thing...

... Good thing we have Aunt Naomi to teach Monroe the art of napkin
folding!!

lil' foot

Today I was hounded by the bittersweet awareness of how big big big my lil' baby has grown. While tidying up the house after Monroe had gone to bed, I grabbed a pair of her shoes that somehow made their way into my bedroom and I realized in a flash that even though she HAS grown, she is still heart-achingly small in many ways.

Hiking

Monroe and daddy get in touch with nature.