Some pictures

Just a few photos from the last couple of months...
Alyssa napping with Dad.
Alyssa & Hannah practice standing
Amanda being goofy
first taste of watermelon
A fun ride turns scary at the fair




first tooth who knew you could use a stethoscope to go deep sea diving?



















and finally, the flower girls

Flowers for Grandma

Won't be long now

Look out! She's mastered the up on her knees move so she'll be crawling any day now.

Just sharing a few photos from the last week or two.

Here's one of Alyssa being painfully cute in her ultrasaucer. We moved her outside so she could enjoy the sunshine for a bit.







One of Amanda in her jammies talking on a toy phone. She has long pretend conversations with just about everybody she knows and a few people I've never heard of.
We spent a couple of days with Scott’s grandparents. Scott and Grandpa golfed, Amanda played and Grandma spent a lot of time cuddling her youngest great-grandbaby. As you can see, she was one happy grandma.

The pictures above were taken at the Art & Wind Festival where Amanda had a blast jumping in the bounce house and squeeeeeealed with delight when she met a giant walking can of motor oil. I can’t imagine her being any more excited if she’d met an actual celebrity, like say Dora the Explorer or Cinderella. She proudly wore her "Please recycle motor oil" sticker for the rest of the day.
And last but not least, that’s Alyssa eating her first cookie (technically a Gerber biter biscuit) and enjoying it as much as a hot fudge sundae. I forgot how messy those things are. I practically had to hose the girl down afterwards because somehow she got that cookie everywhere including in her ear and between her toes.

The latest

Alyssa is seven months old now. Can you believe it? Having her on my lap is no longer the peaceful experience that it used to be. Gone are the days when she would lay there blissfully happy for as long as I could hold her just smiling up at me with her big drooly smile. Now, she wiggles and squirms and demands constant entertainment.

She loves to be held up so she can stand or bounce and she's always digging her sharp little toes into my thighs. Reading with her in my lap is a thing of the past too because she will happily eat my book or magazine. She's forever trying to get her hands on my laptop too. I made the mistake of sharing a glass of water with her a couple of times and since then, she grabs for whatever i'm drinking as if she fully expects her share. Coffee, margarita, whatever... she doesn't understand why I won't just give her a sip.

She has a touch of separation anxiety now. She cries when I leave the room or if she happens to see me passing through. I just wish she could understand me when I explain that I'm only going to the bathroom, I'm not leaving the country.

She's still a very happy baby though. She now claps very enthusiastically when we say "Yay!" or if she sees someone else clapping. Getting her to stop crying is sometimes as easy as gasping dramatically as if it's shocking to me that she would even consider crying. She will smile or laugh and I will feel grateful that she responded to this trick while simultaneously imagining her in therapy at age 43, saying, "My mother never allowed me to express my emotions."

Alyssa is always on the move now. She gets pretty far just by rolling but she's also just started doing that wounded soldier crawl where she half crawls, half drags herself. So when she sees something she wants, she goes for it and she goes fast! And often just as Alyssa is about to grasp whatever it is she was working so hard to get to, Amanda the, ever-watchful big sister, lets out a blood-curtling scream and pulls the item from her sister's grasp no matter how harmless the item is. Alyssa doesn't seem to mind though. She just basks in her big sister's attention. Amanda plays with her and helps keep her entertained. Sometimes when I'm holding Alyssa, Amanda throws her arms around both of us and announces, "Group hug!"

Scott hasn't returned to work yet, though the contracting job is still in the works. He's had a few projects to keep him busy though. This seems to be the year for new kitchen appliances. First the dishwasher died in January and then the oven died last week. So we're now the proud owners of a brand new oven. We're probably getting a new roof in the next few weeks and also painting the outside of our house.

Both of the girls are going to be flower girls in my niece, Karyn's, July wedding and I've been working on finding dresses for them and the other two little girls. I hope I'm not breaking some cardinal rule by sharing a picture of Amanda in her dress. I figure it's okay, since she's not the bride. The other girls will wear the same, but I'm still searching for something similar for Alyssa…She's more of an honorary flower girl anyway since she obviously can't walk down the aisle.

We spent a few days at my mother-in-law's over Mother's Day weekend. That's Amanda chasing swans one night when we went for a walk. I love that picture because it reminds me so much of my niece, Katie, when she was around that age and we took her to the park and gave her bread to feed the ducks. I said, "Now go slow and be really quiet so you don't scare them away," at which point she took about three very quiet steps forward and then took off at a full-speed run, yelling at the top of her lungs. Katie's way was always way more fun than mine. Maybe the ducks didn't think so, but I did.

Just sitting in the park

Though I always think it's kind of funny when Alyssa uses one hand to make sure those two fingers on her other hand don't fall out of her mouth, what is most exciting about these pictures is that Alyssa is SITTING, completely unassisted.

We were at the park yesterday and as I was pushing Amanda on the swing, I looked up to see that Scott had set Alyssa in the grass in the sitting position. And aside from the uptight mommy voice in my head asking, What is he thinking? Why isn't she on a blanket? Doesn't he know she has delicate little thighs? Doesn't he know she could put a leaf in her mouth and choke on it? Why isn't he watching her so he can catch her if she starts to tip over? I was also thinking, each time I glanced up, "She's still sitting, SHE'S STILL SITTING!"

Yes, she will sit for quite a while assisted by her boppy pillow and sometimes she will sit by herself for 20 or 30 seconds, but with me nearby to catch her when she starts to sway. But at the park, she sat there perfectly steady for a good five or six minutes like it was no biggie, like she'd been sitting for years. She sat like that until she saw me walking towards her and then she did this little happy dance and tipped over. So, of course, I spread out a blanket and sat her up again to get these pictures.

Yay Alyssa!

My sleeping ballerina

(I'm including the second picture so you can see her skinned knee.)

Trauma, drama and cute baby pictures

Yesterday Alyssa said, "Ma-Ma" for the first time (FINALLY), prompting me to take these extremely adorable shots of her following her bath.







Then we ran a bunch of errands. One of the places we went was Home Depot to buy flowers for the backyard and also to look at doors. My favorite moment was when Scott knocked on a door, tryng to figure out if it was solid or hollow, and Amanda said, "Daddy, don't be silly. Nobody's ever gonna answer that door!"

The trauma started when we got home. Amanda fell down and skinned both of her knees. And the drama immediately followed. She has quite a gift for the dramatic but she's always been pretty tough when it comes to injuries. She'll cry for a minute and then go right back to playing. But not yesterday. Yesterday she screamed like it was the end of the world and I felt horrible for her. I brought her jellybeans to distract her while I took care of the knee but she continued to scream as if her head had been torn off, well not that you could continue screaming in that particular instance, but you get the idea.

What I wanted to say was, "Sweetie, when I was a little girl, they didn't have Disney princess band-aids and Neosporin with Pain Relief. We had plain beige band-aids and smelly orange methiolade, which I presume my father learned about back in the days he served as a medic in the National Guard, probably during the very same class they trained him in torturing the enemy. Yes, when I was a little girl, if you came inside crying because half the skin was missing from your knee, first you'd get in trouble for ruining your new school clothes and then, as your siblings looked on in sympathy mixed with horror, you'd have to take the long walk down the hallway to your parents' bathroom where your dad would promise you, "this will only sting for a second," before he applied liberal amounts of the alcohol-based disinfectant methiolade, which believe me, burned like a… uhh it BURNED A LOT when it came in contact with your bleeding knee. The methiolade always hurt far more than the actual injury but if I cried my Dad would say, 'Sweetie, when I was a little boy they didn't have band-aids and methiolade, if you skinned your knee they'd just cut your leg off above the injury and you'd keep right on playing...'"

Anyway, Amanda made a rather quick recovery when I pulled out the, "Looks like you won't be able to play outside any more today," card. She was totally fine for the rest of the day, planting flowers and playing endlessly. But then this morning, shortly after waking, she announced, "I can't walk!" and then sadly added. "I guess you'll have to carry me everywhere. And I think I need more jellybeans."

When I informed her that we were having waffles for breakfast and that I would be unable to carry her to the table because I had Alyssa in my arms, she said, "FINE! I guess I'll have to crawl then." (Who knew being a parent was going to be this much fun!?!) After a couple minutes of watching her crawl down the hallway I decided to suggest that perhaps crawling might be a tad harder on the knees than walking. She, quite huffily, said, "I CAN'T WALK because I can't bend my knee!" (Right, not much knee bending required for crawling.) Then she started in with this half-walk/half-crawl thing that was actually quite amusing to watch and, as expected, she only did it when she knew we were watching. (I KNOW, I'm cruel but did you see the Ray Charles movie? He was BLIND and his mom didn't help him at all!)

So when Amanda rather quickly figured out she wasn't getting much mileage from the knee injury, we had one of those "It's a Miracle!" scenes in our very own living room. It was like that scene from Heidi where Shirley Temple taught the pretty girl in the wheelchair how to walk. Amanda announced, "Mommy, Mommy, look! I can walk again!" I promise you it was a beautiful moment. Tears all around.

Do not try this at home

Thought I should tell you about today's dumb parenting moment. See what's going on in this picture? Bad idea.

That's Amanda painting on the floor as her sister looks on. Normally Amanda either paints outside or uses her easel, but the other night she wanted to paint on the floor and I thought, Oh why not? These pictures were taken immediately following Alyssa's first cereal. This painting session ended well, but today's painting session did not.

This time I actually thought to warn Amanda to be careful not to step in the paint…and then I told her that if she accidentally stepped in the paint NOT to walk on the carpet. What I failed to tell her was what to do if she stepped in the paint and didn't realize it, which is what probably
happened today.

Scott found paint on a pillow and was giving Amanda the 5th degree and Amanda was swearing up and down that she hadn't gone near the pillow. He said it HAD to have been her because none of us had done it…and I said that we couldn't rule out the cat. The cat could have jumped on her painting and then ended up on the pillow. There was, after all, cat hair on the pillow as well.

So we were in the middle of this ridiculous detective routine when Scott looked up and happened to notice that there was paint all over the dining room floor and paint footprints all the way across the living room carpet. And to think we were worried about the pillow. Amanda continued to argue that she had NOT done it, despite the fact that there was a clear footprint, obviously matching the boots she happened to be wearing. She still swears the cat did it. Scott just wandered around saying, "If the boot don't fit, you must acquit," and I went to work washing the paint out of the carpet. (Yes, it all came out of the carpet.)

Scott swears that there will be no more paint allowed in this house but I'm not there yet. I figure that making a few really big messes is just a requirement of childhood. And I'm really glad they make washable paint.

Well this is becoming a bad habit

Me not writing for long periods and then feeling like I need to catch up. Acch! Okay, so Scott has now been unemployed for over two months…I don't think I've mentioned that here before, but most of you know he was let go from Oracle in the last round of layoffs in February -- him and about a thousand others. He wasn't terribly upset about it. After working at the same company (well PeopleSoft/Oracle) for the last ten years he was ready for a break so he's been enjoying some time off.

And I've been slowly going insane.

Because though I love my husband dearly, I am someone who Needs My Space. So having him here 24-7 for the last two and half months has been a major adjustment for me. And of course the last couple of months have been filled with an endless amount of rain, meaning we've spent much of that time trapped in the house.

Mommy needs some quiet time is becoming a very familiar phrase around here. And my family doesn't do quiet very well. Alyssa obviously can't be counted on to be quiet on demand, Scott requires that the TV be on every second, and the last time I asked Amanda for some quiet time she agreed wholeheartedly and then proceeded to have a long discussion with me about the best possible way for her to be quiet. Seriously, picture this:

"I know! I can make only quiet noises, like THIS," (as she proceeds to blow into her plastic teapot like it's an instrument that makes no noise) "OR I can dance!!! Because dancing doesn't make any noise. Or, or... I know! I can color. Coloring is REALLY quiet! Would that be a good idea? Or... no, I think I changed my mind. I want to watch my show. It's easy to be quiet when I'm watching my show. Mommy, can you turn on my show? Mommy? Can I sit in your lap while I'm being quiet. Brrr...I'm cold behind my toes. Can we have a blanket, Mommy? Mommy, will you read me a book? Mommy, remember how we went to that hotel in Monna...Monnaway? I liked that hotel. I liked that hotel and I liked our vacation. Can we go there again and get cotton candy and ice cream? Mommy, I'm whispering because I'm being quiet. Oh, Mommy? Just one more thing before I'm quiet. Can you make me something to eat? Mommy, I'm pretending it's opposites day so if you want me to be quiet you have to ask me to be loud."

And then, just because she's evil, she adds, "Mommy, you make me cozy and sooooooooo happy."

So I've been going a little crazy, but there's a pretty good chance that Scott will go back to work at Oracle as a contractor soon. Keeping my fingers crossed that actually works out. Things are getting easier anyway now that the weather is clearing up. Scott is playing golf more often and last week we went to Monterey for a couple of days. That was fun and relaxing… The aquarium, fisherman's wharf, the beach, Alyssa's first time putting her toes in the sand…

Before that, the girls and I spent a week at my mom's house, which was a nice break even if it did rain the whole time. I got to do some scrapbooking while my mom and Bob played with the girls. I should say it was a nice break for me. My mom and Bob are still probably recovering!

For Easter we went to Rick & Cara's for brunch and an egg hunt. Fun, fun… Then we swung by Harvey & Ila's since we were in the neighborhood. The girls had a blast.

In other news, I finally got a haircut and my hairdresser informed me that wave is coming back. That came as a relief because I was just thinking the other day as I was torturing my hair into straightness how annoying it is that when my hair was stick straight I was constantly forcing it into curls and would have killed for some natural wave, but now that I seem to have acquired a bunch of natural wave, I'm forever dragging a flat-iron through it trying to straighten it out. So anyway, she used a diffuser and scrunched my hair and I ended up with this whole new look that I can pull out on occasion.
Scott loved it. I think I like it and this is what Amanda had to say...

Me: Do you like my hair?

Amanda: Well, umm, no. I don't really like it. It's all messed up. And well, wow... What are you gonna do to fix it?

Me: I just went to the hairdresser and she did it this way on purpose. I like it.

Amanda: Really? You went to a hairdresser and she did it on purpose? (said as she was trying to straighten my hair with her hands.) You like it? Well I don't like it. And when I touch it, it feels like bird poop.

Yeah. I don't even want to KNOW why she knows how bird poop feels.

Alyssa's first cereal

Tonight I felt like a terrible mother. I don't have those moments that often. I mean in general, I know I'm not perfect in the mommy department and I make mistakes. A lot of them, I'm sure… but for the most part I figure I'm doing a pretty decent job. I know that at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if the house is perfectly clean or if every meal was completely balanced, it matters that they're healthy and happy and very much loved, which, of course, they both are.

But tonight I gave Alyssa her first "solid" food… her first cereal. And now I'm feeling like a jerk. We started her big sister, Amanda, on cereal a full two months earlier when she was a baby and I recall feeling a touch of guilt over that too. Everything I'd read on the subject suggested we wait until she hit the six-month mark because starting earlier could cause allergies or have other problems associated with it. But her doctor suggested we start at four months because Amanda was so big and waking up so often to nurse and she thought solids would fill up her belly a little better and might keep her sleeping a bit longer.

More sleep? I jumped right on that bandwagon and started feeding Amanda cereal the next day. Risking a lifetime of allergies or who knows what in order to get a few more hours of sleep. Way to go, Mommy. Unfortunately cereal didn't help things at all in the sleep department and Amanda wasn't a particularly enthusiastic eater. She was always wildly enthusiastic about nursing but the other stuff? She could take it or leave it.

So the first cereal milestone was not one I was terribly excited about this time around. Our doctor said we could start Alyssa at four months if we wanted to, but since she was sleeping well, we could wait until six months if we preferred. No reason to mess with a good thing.

So my plan was to start cereal on Alyssa's six-month birthday but we weren't at home that day. We'd made sort of a spur of the moment trip to Monterey, and packing rice cereal had been the last thing on my mind. So I decided we'd wait til we got home and then for various reasons we didn't get around to trying cereal until tonight. I didn't think she'd be that interested anyway. I hadn't noticed her tracking my fork from food to mouth or any of the signs you're supposed to look for. Plus Alyssa is pretty laid back about the whole nursing thing compared to her sister. Don't get me wrong, she's always been a good nurser, I've never had any problems with her, but compared to Amanda she seems to have such self-control and restraint.

I chose to do on-demand feedings with both girls. With Amanda, I felt like a full-service-bar with a flashing neon-sign on my chest glowing "open 24 hours" and Amanda would stumble in at all hours with that frenzied, half starving look and I'd be like the harried waitress, rolling my eyes, but never able to say no to a paying customer, whipping the boob out yet again… and she would eat noisily, making slurpy, happy sounds the whole time...and then if it were nighttime or naptime she'd often fall asleep with that satisfied, half-drunken look about her, my boob still in her mouth and I'd count to 20 or 30 or 60 and then hold my breath and slowly and quietly, so as not to disturb, pry my boob from her mouth. At which point she would usually start searching around, like hey, hey, hey… don't take that away, I was still eating… and so I would wait, again, until she drifted off to sleep and try the routine all over again.

Sometimes this went on endlessly until I thought I might lose my mind. And then when I was finally free, I would breathe a huge sigh of relief, roll over and attempt to get some sleep myself or if it was daytime, attempt to get something done. But then at some point she would stir in her sleep and wake up looking for the boob. I swear it felt like she needed to know where my boobs were at all times. I always imagined she must feel something like a homeless person, sleeping with one eye open in case someone tried to steal her shopping cart.

Though nursing Amanda was wonderful, being a human pacifier was not particularly fun. Luckily it hasn’t been that way with Alyssa at all. She shows up right on schedule (her idea, not mine), she orders politely, she eats in a very dignified manner and when she's done, she's done. I expected her first cereal experience to be a similar thing but it wasn't.

You know that thing they do on Survivor every season where after the contestents have been existing on rocks and leaves for months, they auction off a chocolate bar and a spoonful of peanut butter and six women scratch each others' eyes out for their chance at it? That was Alyssa and her rice cereal. The girl was deadly serious about that cereal.
From the very first bite she ate like she was completely ravenous. We couldn't shovel the food in fast enough to keep her happy. She tried to assist in the process, helping her dad get the spoon into her mouth, grabbing for the bowl, because I think she knew she could do it more efficiently. When Amanda asked if she could feed her, I said, "be careful," a warning I offer on a regular basis, but this time I was more concerned for Amanda's safety, slightly afraid Alyssa might chew one of Amanda's fingers off… you know, if she had teeth.

So I sat there photographing every bite, feeling like a total jerk. Poor kid was clearly HUNGRY. Who knows how long she'd been waiting for this meal? And me just taking my sweet time. Oh well… Live and learn. She has a full belly now, and she'll be well fed from here on out. Time to move on to my next dumb parenting moment.