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.

Day 107: Busy Day

We had a very busy day, driving all over the state and seeing all sorts of friends.  We started out with a birthday brunch, the dropped Michal off at Grandma's house so we could go love on a brand new, squishy newborn baby, and then headed home.  Unfortunately we ended up missing a dinner with friends due to absolutely insane traffic in Baltimore (our hour-long drive took 2 1/2 hours!), so by the time we got home, it was time for the beebs to go to bed. 


So, tonight's picture is courtesy of our Summer Infant Best Video Monitor (best gadget yet!):

Take note of her positioning - on her stomach, as she seems to prefer.  

The video camera used to sit on the rail of her crib, but with her increasing mobility (and horror stories of babies getting a hold of the power cord), we moved the camera to a shelf in her closet.  We can still see her quite well, but the resolution is a little grainier than we used to experience.  But then again, given that it is pitch black in her bedroom, it is pretty amazing.

Day 106: Eight Months

I'm going to sound like a broken record, but I am okay with that - where has the time gone?  For some reason, those early months seemed to move along with an acceptable amount of speed.  Now, I am barely remembering to say "seven months" in response to questions about her age before realizing she's eight months old already.  Wow.


A few Michal facts at eight months:

Michal wakes up around the same time every morning - 

probably when her room fills with light.

Michal's movements during her sleep resemble a cartoon of Billy's travels from Family Circus.*

She LOVES eating green beans and broccoli.  

(here, eating = gnawing on the veggie but not actually consuming anything)

Michal got to spend eight months with her great-grandmother.

Michal is really great at standing.  She is not so great at getting herself to standing.

Michal does not seem to have any desire to figure out how to move on her own.  She will reach and reach and reach for a toy, then just move on to something else when sheer willpower does not get her there.

Michal adores Bailey.  He is still leery of her.

Michal's newest best friend was born today.  Cannot wait to watch them grow up together.

Michal has two teeth already and seems to be readying for more.

She is brilliant.

*Minus the Christian overtones

Day 105: Swinging

She seems to enjoy the swings.  Although, the dog does distract her if he is in the vicinity.  And then she wants to steal the camera from me.  But it does not matter what mood she is before she gets to the swing (she was pretty quiet/sleepy while in the Ergo carrier today) - once she starts to move, the smile is on.

Day 104: Masterpiece Theater

It was another gorgeous day today.  They are becoming more frequent, but the newness is still there.  The scars from winter still allow the warmth and sunshine to retain its novelty status, but soon enough they will fade and we will complain about heat and humidity.  


After work and day care today, we ran home, picked up the dog, the Ergo, and camera, and headed over to the AMAZING playground down the road from us.  Not only is it huge with really cool swings that look like flying saucers, but you can CLIMB A CASTLE.  Pretty awesome stuff.  We took the dog for a bit of a walk so he could do what dogs do - sniff around and eat grass, of course - and then we made our way back to the single, solitary baby/toddler swing.  This is the only drawback of this playground, which built for a thousand rambunctious children.  Of course, as we walked up to said swing, another parent with a toddler (she was walking and talking - I have no idea how old she was) beat us to it, so as she settled her child in the seat and proceeded to push the swing into motion, we pretended that we had intended to just hang around and look at the playground, not at all stalking the swing.  After a minute or two, we gave up and headed home.


Once home, we started dinner up so we could hopefully time it right to have a family dinner (you know, so the kid grows up well-adjusted and all that), and headed out to the deck.  I fired up the grill (marinated flank steak - yum), and we spread out a blanket for the Babes so she could do her baby thing.  After a while, I gave her a spear of broccoli - one of her favorite new toys (yes, toys).

Tell me that doesn't look like a broccoli pipe.  She looks very Masterpiece Theater-y.

Day 103: Perfect Timing

I think it is pretty cool that the weather is edging towards spring at the same time that Michal is becoming so very aware of the world around her.  Sure, it is entirely possible to be aware of the world at other seasons (although, really, winter is just lame for that.  Okay, MAYBE you have snow around here.. that's it), but there is something so special about spring.  I love walking past the same tree, and day by day, something new is happening to it - first a bud, then the first sprouts of leaves, then the flowers, all from what appeared to be a barren stick of a branch.


When we got home from work and day care, we took Bailey for a family walk.  At one point, as Bailey was off doing who-knows-what, I walked over to a newly flowering tree to point out the blooms to Michal.

It's going to be a fun, albeit a potentially destructive*, spring!

* She has not yet mastered "gentle" - it's all systems go for exploration of the hands on variety.

Day 102: Peek-a-boo!

It is so much fun watching Michal learn new tricks skills.  It is even more fun when we realize that they are not a fluke or simple coincidence.  She now knows that flapping her hand limply in the air is waving and communicates something, although she does not know quite yet what that action means.  When we wave, she will wave back, but she is more mimicking us than saying hello or goodbye, often getting a smile or cheers in return.  Even so, it is fun watching her learn and acquire new tricks skills.


One of the other tricks in process has been peek-a-boo.  Every day, after a shower or bath, we hang out on a blanket in her room for some naked time.  She always has her towel with her, so slowly but surely, we started to teach her peek-a-boo.  Mostly I would throw a portion of the towel over her face and say something to the effect of "Where's Michal?" or "Where's the baby?"  As she reached up to pull it away, the response would be something in the realm of "There she is!"  We got pretty good at that game - we'd throw a portion of the towel up, and she would reveal her face.  


Only lately has she initiated the game herself.  Here she is today - note the very upper left hand corner of the first picture - you can definitely see baby fingers grasping the towel, and then pulling it down with an impish grin.