Day 120: Party Down

It was a busy Saturday for Michal.  After waking up super early and spending about 45 minutes just chilling in her crib, playing with her friends and chatting up a storm, we got a move on, heading up to Baltimore to see her grandmother.  After that, it was off to a triple party - a party celebrating the birthday of one of Josh's college roommates, his daughter's second birthday, AND a housewarming for their new home.  

After snacking on some peach-flavored puffs and noodles, Michal got to eat some honeydew with her daddy. 

 Practicing high five with Kylie

 Everyone loves Roy, especially Michal!

 Aside from not getting many naps in today, Michal was all smiles and charm today...

 Okay, maybe not.  She totally skipped a nap, powering through until she started to melt down.

 Getting back into a good mood

Love that smile!

You can't tell from this picture, but she definitely has two teeth coming in from the top.  It's possible she has two more on the bottom - this has yet to be confirmed.

Day 119: Nappy Friday

Saying hello post morning nap!  Michal is still a pretty good napper (and a phenomenal sleeper at night), even though she usually cries bloody murder for a short while before she realizes she is tired and wants a nap.  While she sleeps REALLY well for day care, we know we are incredibly fortunate with her sleep patterns.  Every time we go into her room once she awakens, this is the view we get.  She pushes up into a cobra-like position, smiles a huge smile, then releases down into happy, excited arms and legs.  You can't help but smile at such excitement.

Day 118: Yo, Baby!

Somebody was in a GREAT mood today.  We have a theory that she has been teething (although we are not sure WHERE that tooth is emerging), and perhaps it will erupt soon.  Once we got home this evening, Michal and I went for a walk with the dog while Josh went for his training run, then came home to play and eat a bit.  On the menu tonight: yogurt and puffs. 


We are beginning to expand her food options, so when I was at the grocery store the other day, I picked up some baby yogurt.  While I would have preferred to purchase a plain/non-flavored version, that was not available, so I picked up the peach.  I pulled out the container, put a small amount in her bowl, then readied the camera to capture the inevitable hilarious expression at first taste.


She loved it. 

She also ate a bunch of puffs, now that Passover is over and her normal snacks can be enjoyed.  She is really improving in her fine motor skills and is becoming adept at feeding herself... well, at least most of the time.

The fun times continued with a post-dinner bath.  Right before this shot, she was playing and splashing like crazy.  Then she folded herself in half, as she often does while playing, but, being in the bath, she basically dunked her face into the water.

She was a bit surprised at this.  I laughed.

 Peek a boo!

 Can you tell this girl loves her daddy?  He came into the bathroom after readying her nighttime bottle.  I had my back to the door, but it was obvious when he entered the room.

 My favorites.

Day 117: A Royal Wave

Even though Michal seems to have little interest in moving from point A to point B, she is quietly becoming more social.  Not long ago she started to wave, which in this case was a flopping of the arm in someone's general direction.  


Her wave has evolved.  She occasionally still flop waves, but she also has adopted a bit of a royal wave.  She extends her arm our, and regally flips her wrist and hand around in a wave that Kate Middleton might be practicing this week.  She does not often share this wave with all she meets; in fact, today at day care, she would not show off her new trick.  But at home, she will wave at the television, then penguin humidifier, and the dog.  Funny girl. 
  

Day 116: Giraffes Can't Dance

Michal got a special piece of mail yesterday.  Well, at eight months, everything is pretty special, but this was a package from her friend Sophie in Florida.  Sophie's mom is awesome and sent Michal Giraffes Can't Dance, which has turned into one of our new favorites.  The book is colorful and has a ton of different animals, and the message is great too: everyone has their own talent and way of doing things.  It's a really cute book and Michal really loved reading it.  In fact, we read it several times today, and by the afternoon, she got really excited when we sat down to read it.

 SUPER excited to see her new favorite book... again.

 I'M going to turn the pages, Mama.

This seemed to be a favorite set of pages.  On the first page, a bunch of monkeys cha-cha, and the next page, eight baboons do a Scottish reel.  Baboons doing a Scottish reel.  I love this book.

The book is so colorful and there is so much to see.  I have a feeling we are going to discover something new with every reading.  

Day 115: Civil War Baby

History surrounds us.  It doesn't matter where you grew up or where you live currently, there is something to be discovered in your figurative backyard.  Growing up in California, history felt a little shallow.  Sure, I made a model of a California Mission with homemade stucco and cardboard (not to leave out the little trees that dotted the courtyard), but most of the American history I read about in my text books happened 3,000 miles (and 150-200 years) away.  Now that I live just a few minutes away from so many historical sites, I definitely have a different sense of and relationship to the story of this country.  

Fortunately (or unfortunately?) Michal has two parents who are very interested in things of this nature, and we definitely plan on torturing enlightening our children with trips to a variety of National Parks and important historic sites.  Josh has been indulging in a recent burst of interest with all things related to the Civil War - he even read to the baby in utero from this book - it is 952 pages long!  He did rave about the book and its narrative flow, but give me Gone With the Wind and I'm happy.

We took advantage of one of our last remaining days of vacation to head southward to two battlefields Josh has been anxious to visit: Chancellorsville and The Wilderness.  The picture above was taken during our driving tour of the Battle of Chancellorsville*, very close to the Chancellor House, the namesake of the battle.  If you look closely, she looks a little scowl-y, so you know she disapproves of war.  

After finishing our tour of the main sites of the Battle of Chancellorsville, we continued along VA-3 to see some of the sites related to the Battle of The Wilderness, named for the incredibly dense forest of the same name.  One of the stops along that tour was Ellwood Plantation.  The manor dates back to the late 18th century, but the particular reason we made a special stop had to do with events related to the Battle of Chancellorsville (1853).

 First off - here is Michal at the base of the stone steps leading up to Ellwood Manor.  When the National Park Service took over the home in 1977, it began renovations to restore the building to its Civil War state.  One thing they did not change?  The very first step, on which Michal is sitting so nicely, is the original stone step brought up from the quarry at Aquia.  It dates back to the 1790s.  There is something pretty remarkable about an eight-month old baby sitting on something that is more than two hundred years old.

And then there is the biggest motivation for our visit to this plantation.  The personal tours we were given through the house were very interesting and informative (today was the very first day the site was open for viewing, so the volunteers seemed quite eager to have visitors), but we did not waste much time before heading down to the family cemetery.  The cemetery, seen behind Josh and Michal in the picture above, held a number of unmarked graves for members of the families who lived at Ellwood.  Alongside those bodies is the grave marked with the single, standing stone, which contains only part of a body.  This is the burial site of General "Stonewall" Jackson's left arm, which had been amputated just across the clearing after he was wounded by friendly fire.  While Jackson was removed to another location where he eventually perished from pneumonia, his chaplain, Beverly Tucker Lacy, carried it just across the field to his brother's home, burying it in the family cemetery.  


Another long day, but one that resulted in TWO more stamps in Michal's National Parks Passport.  Not bad at all.


* The best part of civil war sites is that they are so large you HAVE to drive around to view them - I'm all for a nice walk in nature, but some of these sites span miles.

Day 114: National Parks Baby!

It was National Park Week this week, so we took advantage of the last remaining day to visit Great Falls in Virginia (there is a Maryland side, which we visited last year).  We also took the opportunity to get Michal her National Parks Passport. 

Hmm.... what have we here? 

Let's get a taste! 

Nom, nom, nom... 

Not much nutritional value in this thing.  What's in it, anyway? 

A view of the falls.  This spot is on the fall line that runs along the East Coast, a geological feature marking the drop off from the rocky Piedmont down to the soft Coastal Plain.  In this area, the Potomac River drops 77 feet in about a mile on its way down to the Chesapeake Bay.

Wait, nature?  What the heck is that? 

Getting a hands on experience with nature.

Day 113: Green Baby

Today would have been the day when Michal would have helped set a Guinness world record, but we left the house a little later than we would have liked and then got lost on the way to the local site of this worldwide effort.  We will definitely have to make it a priority next year!  We got there just a few minutes late, but it was pretty cool to see so many people in one room using cloth diapers.  I tend to be the weirdo who gets overly excited when the subject comes up, so it is nice to know there are others out there.


It was another gorgeous day today, aside from a few brief spots of storms and rain, but when it was nice, boy was it NICE.  Once we got home from our many adventures, we went for a walk with the dog - it was a thinly veiled excuse to take pictures of the babes outside.  Unfortunately we were nearing an early bedtime, so only Bailey was able to coax a smile from her.  The smile in the picture above is the ONLY one I was able to capture.  All of the other pictures look a little angsty teenager.


I know I've posted about 15 pictures that look just like this lately, but I love pictures like this with her gorgeous eyes... and the drool hanging off her chin.

Day 111: Lazy Thursday

We had a lovely lazy Thursday at home today, as is evidenced at the pajama baby pictures from sometime this afternoon.  Except for a quick jaunt to the gym for each of the adults, we did not leave the house at all.  Nice and lazy day of playing with toys, eating avocado, broccoli, and sweet potato, and catching up on some good television (The Pacific, for those of you who haven't seen it yet - great miniseries).


Yesterday we noticed Michal had a new smile.  While her normal smile is big and wide, this one was squinty.  After a few glimpses of it, we realized it was her SUPER happy smile, but once I started to try to capture it with the camera, it disappeared.

 Here is her normal, toothy smile... such a cutie pie!

 I ALMOST caught it here.  

She did not quite go into full SquintSmile, and the picture ended up fuzzy anyway.  Boo.

 Philosophical baby - pondering what it all means... or just looking at something outside 

We ALL hung out in the living room - Bailey, too.  

He took turns sleeping under the table and the chair on the right.  

Michal kept putting her head down - doing a Bailey impersonation, perhaps?  

Day 110: A Family Outing

We took advantage of the wonderful weather and took a family outing to the National Zoo, meeting up with a few friends who also had August babies, including Michal's sock-stealing/eating boyfriend.  We had a great time, although I think everyone was exhausted after hiking all over the zoo wearing 20 pound babies (I cheated and let Michal sleep in the stroller for a while).  We checked out the giant, ancient fish of Amazonia and visited the lions, tigers, gorillas, and even a paper-bag-wearing Orangutan.  Just a great day.


We have very few pictures of the three of us.  We don't really even have one from the hospital, something I really wish we'd made a point to do while we were there for nearly a week.  So here is a family shot, and of course, Michal had little interest in looking at the camera.  You can nearly see the wheels turning in her head here - in the very next picture taken, she's attacking Josh's face. 

Day 109: Be Zany

Michal got a new toy today.  Well, to be honest, I got a new toy today, and it just so happened that it was for the baby.  I have had my eye on the B. Zany Zoo Activity Cube for longer than I care to admit.  I do not recall the first time I saw it, but I have purposefully walked past the toy department at Target many, many times, just to take a peek.  It has been the ultimate test of impulse shopping.  Add to it that several of our baby friends also have the toy, and it was only a matter of time until it came to live in our house.  


I had a lot of fun, playing with the camera and taking pictures of Michal's first experiences with the cube.  I absolutely love the toy.  Not only is it made of wood (read: no annoying musical electronic noises - we have a few really fun, musical toys, but it is nice to have something different), but it has a plethora of different activities to explore.

 Peeking through one of the windows before removing the outer packaging.

Brilliant baby - already learning her ABCs 

I end up deleting most of my Michal pictures because she moves and I get blur.  

FINALLY this works to my favor!

Taking a gander at what lies up above. 

 Silly girl... not sure what face this is.  

 We seem to love giraffes in this house.  The first door she opens - giraffe.

 Checking out the rhino on the top level.

I have no idea what THIS face means...

This is a GREAT toy for practicing standing.  She stood up for several minutes.  Once in a while she got nervous about losing her balance and started to cry out, but once she realized I was right behind her, she got right back to playing with the rhinos and ducks on the top level. 

Day 108: Chag Sameach, or, Happy Passover!

Today starts the Jewish holiday of Passover, which lasts eight nights and commemorates the exodus of Israelites from slavery in Egypt.  The story goes that once Moses was able to convince Pharaoh to let the Israelite slaves leave, the people had such a short amount of time to gather their belongings that they were not able to adequately prepare their bread and did not have enough time for the dough to rise.  They were left with a flat cracker, which we now call matzah.*  This is the basis for the major annoyance of the holiday - we do not eat anything with leavening, which means no bread, no cakes, no cookies, and is extended, in a convoluted way, to not eating anything made from corn, soy products, and a whole litany of other things that do not seem to make sense.

 Once I gave her the sheet of matzah, all she wanted to do was hold it out in the air, up above her head, or out to the side.  I'm not quite sure why the matzah inspired this.

While I do not mind matzah or Passover much, this might be our first glimpse of how she takes after her daddy.  This is her, "What the heck is THIS, Mama?" face.

We celebrate the first nights of Passover with a seder, which is a festive meal that is organized around a set of actions and stories.  We headed down to Virginia (stopping off first to pick up Michal's convertible car seat - we got a steal!) to Josh's aunt's house.  One of the best parts of Jewish holidays is gathering with relatives, and while my family is just a bit too far off to see for holidays, it is nice that we have Josh's nearby.  Good food, good company, and an AMAZINGLY good baby.

 Such a good sport - everyone wanted to hold and play with the baby.  Once she had some food in her belly, she was perfectly fine leaving me behind and setting off on adventures with others.

With the seder beginning around 6, we figured Michal would hang out with us for a while and then head to bed around her normal time, somewhere in the 7-8pm range.  I took this picture above at 10:00 PM.  This crazy kid, with very little fuss or crankiness, stayed up the entire time, gamely eating some egg yolk, banana, and carrots during the seder (not all at the same time).  She did fall asleep in the car on the ride home and went back to sleep in her crib after a diaper change, bottle, and cuddle with me.

* For some reason, I have this vision that the bread, baked upon their backs as they fled Egypt, probably ended up a bit more like pita or naan than a cracker.  I guess that is just wishful thinking.