Happy Halloween

It’s Lilia’s first Halloween, so G-Lin and I thought what could be cuter than making her the same costume I wore as a baby.

As I’m not much of a seamstress, my mom started it off and did the hard parts, namely the sleeve hols and gourds.

Next came the fun part…i.e. the stuff I can do without breaking a sweat. I designed the face and glued it on, stuffed the pumpkin and sewed up the bottom.

After threading through the cording it was time for a fitting.

Sadly my little pumpkin does not seem too pleased with my handiwork. She’s just been tooling around in her onesie and tights so far today but when she wakes up from her nap it’ll be time to put the jack-o-lantern back on. Maybe she’ll like it more today.

Here’s hoping…

Home sweet home

We’re home from our trip to the valley to take care of G-Lin during her knee replacement surgery. Mom is recovering nicely at Valley Gardens and will be heading home for the rest of her recovery on Wednesday.

Lilia helped keep everyone’s spirits up during the long wait for Grandma Linda to come out of surgery.

She played Peek-a-boo with GG and climbed all over a fun bus shaped play structure. She wowed the nurses and cafeteria workers alike.

It was a long week, but G-Lin said she didn’t feel any pain whenever Lilia was around so that made it all worth it. I’m also fairly certain Lilia’s cuteness improved the quality of mom’s care. She just makes everyone so happy!

You should talk to your baby

We were waiting for the J Church on the way to our playdate with Tesla and Amy when a woman came up to us and started talking to Lilia and playing with her feet.

I know this bugs a lot of people, but I find that I really haven’t minded most of the unsolicited advice that started pouring in when I was pregnant and has yet to let up. My friends would say it’s because I love attention, and while that may be partially true I also believe that as annoying as it can be, it all comes from a good place. People see this amazing little person (or even just the baby bump) and want to share anything they know to be true to make that wee one’s life a little better. At least that’s what I tell myself to keep from snarking at these people.

But I digress. This lady was playing with Lilia and talking to her in the MUNI station. I wasn’t as involved in helping Lilia babble and wave as usual as I’m a bit sleep deprived lately but I smiled politely and thanked her when she told me what a cutie I had. Then she proceeded to tell me that I should really talk to my baby. Huh?!?

Yeah apparently she’s just getting to the age where she’s aware of the world around her and I should talk to her to help prepare her for it. Umm, sure, ok, I’ll give that a shot. Thankfully her train came right after that, because I think my smile was fading.

Flash forward to that evening in the grocery store, yet another toe grabbing lady oozing about how cute Lilia was. I was more alert for this one, thanked her enthusiastically and got some good grins and waves from Lilia for her. Then as she walks away she pleads with me to take care of my baby. “Please, please, take care of her, take care of your baby, take good care of your baby.” Umm, ok. I’ll get right on that.

I know my annoyance at this is amplified because I’m tired, or I look like I need more advice because I look so tired. Any way you shake it, I’m pretty much over the unsolicited advice for now.

On another note, we’re headed off to Stockton today to take care of G-Lin during her knee surgery. We will miss you oh wonderful world wide web, but we’ll be back with tales from the valley next week. Think good thoughts for my mama girl.

Hitching a Ride

It’s Fleet Week and thanks to the Blue Angels performing in our front yard…

…getting to Alfie’s birthday party was a nightmare.

Buses and cable cars weren’t running, which I didn’t figure out ’til I stood on the corner with Lilia for over 30 minutes. As the consummate conversation starter, Lilia made eyes at a nice couple from Ohio also waiting unawares. They decided to catch a cab, and I managed to hail one for them right away. We were all going downtown so they offered to take us with them. I said I needed a car seat, and they said to go grab it, they’d wait.

Golly gee people are nice to ladies with cute babies.

So I trekked back up the hill, grabbed the car seat and buckled her in while the cab driver informed me that legally a car seat isn’t necessary, as riding in a cab is the same as riding a bus. I can’t see the correlation, but that’s good to know. I wish I could find something to confirm or deny this, but the best my quick Google search turned up was this equally uncertain post.

Speaking of our front yard, Angel Island is on fire right now, and the bay is all aglow. Scary.

A night away…

Lilia is 9 months old today. We celebrated by going to Alfie’s first birthday party. I know I’m a total mom because I have been having so much fun at all these 1 year old birthday parties. It’s crazy to me that in 3 months it will be Lilia’s turn.

With this milestone came another. I took my first night off. Lilia stayed home with Daddy while Sarah and I headed to San Rafael for the night. It was hard to leave her at first but by the second glass of champagne I was pretty well over it. Ahh to enjoy a full night’s sleep and to wake up on my own, sans screaming baby! It felt luxurious and lonely all at the same time. I did arrive home invigorated and with my patience renewed so I guess everyone who said leaving her was healthy was right, but I still missed her like crazy!

Oh, and for the record, she had one of her better night’s sleep without me too according to Daddy. Go figure.

Poop in the Park

Our very first time leaving the house with Lilia when she was a mere 3 days old I left the diaper bag at home. That was my first “bad mommy” pang. Since then I’ve had many more of those pangs in varying degrees like when Lilia eats a leaf or does a face plant. But there’s nothing to make me feel like a bad mommy more than when she needs a diaper change and there’s no diaper in site. It’s like the naked dream on an anxiety level.

Lilia wrapped in her car seat cover on her first trek out of the house-sans diaper bag.

Yesterday Sarah and I took Lilia to Michelangelo park. It’s not far from our place but several large hills do divide us so we wimped out and drove. We had the diaper bag, the park blanket, snacks, cribbage board, toys. Everything you’d need and more for an afternoon jaunt to the park.

Not too far into our play time an odor began to waft from Lilia’s diaper. Maybe it’s the beat greens she’s been eating but she’s a stinky pooper lately. I reach for the diaper bag and lo and behold the diapers and wipes are not in there. Seriously?! Seriously. They got left in the stroller from the day before and it was the one thing we didn’t bring with us. So I did what any “bad mommy” would do. I took the poopy diaper off, shook it over the trash, strapped it back on her, finished our cribbage game and headed home.

Sweet Potato Printing

With money being tight and lots of baby births and 1st birthdays coming up it seemed time to bust out the potatoes, onesies and fabric paint and do some sweet potato printing. Plus Sarah got excited about doing crafts after spending all afternoon making baby food. I think she’s liking this mommy stuff and it’s fun for me to have a cohort.

Luckily she is a stellar potato carver, and I am a super stamper, so like working with G-Lin, we made an excellent team.

We got a bit carried away and frankly could have made a dozen more if we hadn’t run out of stuff to stamp! In the end this is what we made.

Kiss her to sleep

As Lilia gets older she seems to be sleeping less and less. Oh how I miss the days of the Miracle Blanket where a tight swaddle bought us 8-10 hours of sleep.

Now our normal tricks to get her to sleep all seem to fail miserably. The 5 S’s no longer soothe our big girl. The white noise is a no-go. Shhh’ing is a thing of the past. Her pacifier gets tossed in frustration, so there goes sucking, swaying/swinging works ok, as long as Mommy does it. Not Daddy, not a swing, just Mommy. Swaddling is long gone and side/stomach is also impossible without Mommy snuggling her there.

As I type she’s screaming her lungs out while Daddy tries to soothe her. This post started after I successfully kissed her back to sleep. That is the only thing that seems to work with her right now, I just have to kiss her to sleep. Now how do I get her to stay that way?

Baby Trumps Foodie

I admit it, since Lilia came along meals got a little less gourmet and a lot more functional around here. I stopped planning nice dinners, setting the table, and you can forget about lighting candles.  Instead I’ve gotten much better at making dinner with what’s on hand or as Adam calls it, scrounging.

Now that Sarah’s here for a bit, I’ve got an extra set of hands, the inspiration and cooperation to whip up a nice supper after Lilia’s in bed, and look, I even lit a couple candles. Fancy.

First up on the menu was Tortellini in a Cambazola cream sauce with figs, prosciutto, toasted pine nuts and blanched asparagus. And if you think that sounds good, you should see what we did with the leftovers!

It’s the little things…

It’s been a few days since my last post because, well, we’ve been a bit crazy! Sarah and Adam are still searching for jobs. Adam and I are juggling the two part time ones that we have and Lilia just keeps on growing. No major developments but it’s the little things she does that keep amazing us.

Adding on to Lilia’s baby signs vocabulary she now signs “hot”. The sign for hot is blowing as you would to cool something down, and I have to say it’s pretty cute when she does it because it’s in such an exaggerated form it’s like she’s spitting. We’re working on gentle, ball, hurt and bird next.

Speaking of silly cute, Sarah got Lilia a music cube to hold her over till the Together Tunes Cube finds its way to our doorstep. One of the 6 songs says “Open shut them. Open shut them. Give a little clap clap clap” Each time when it comes on and only when it comes on she claps. We’ve tested this repeatedly trying to trip her up and get her to clap for one of the other tunes and it’s happened once or twice but she nails it pretty consistently. Sarah thinks she’s a genius.

She is pulling herself up on everything and is so proud of herself when she finds a new thing to climb. She’s also getting really brave and letting go with both hands for 2-5 seconds before either grabbing back on or plopping on her bum. We’ve been getting our entertainment by making her clap when she’s standing up then watching her go all wobbly. Good times.

Finally, when it rains it pours and around here it’s raining teeth. One more lower tooth is breaking through and I think a top tooth isn’t too far behind. Sleep is in high demand around here, but other than a bit more restlessness than usual, she’s coping with it fairly well.

So that’s what’s up with us, what’s up with you?