The First Birthday Party Circuit Continues

We went to Lila's friend Mia's first birthday party last week, and her mom - MY friend - Melissa did a great job pulling together a swell party right on the cusp of holiday fever. Mia, as usual, was wearing the smartest outfit in the room, the food was delicious (including warm shredded chicken sandwiches that Melissa's mom brought all the way from Toledo), and our favorite cupcakes (that we had for Lila's party, too) were served in abundance. Lila showed off her impressive knee-walking skills to all the other kids, rooted through Mia's toy box like a cop with a search warrant, and went out of her way to fondle every Cheerio in a little dish Melissa had set on a sidetable:




That was before she dumped the whole bowl behind the couch, in full view of our hostess.

Anyway.

Lila did eventually curtail her path of destruction to pose briefly with Mommy and Daddy in her cute party hat.





But our favorite part of the party was the official ceremony of singing "Happy Birthday" to Mia and serving her her first cupcake. It felt like the red carpet of a premiere, and the star was a one year old baby.

At first the crowd was a swarm, and even on our tiptoes, we had a limited view:




We elbowed our way in to catch a brief glimpse of the baby superstar, who seemed slightly alarmed by the hubbub:




Then we zipped around to the other side of the scene, to capture the paparazzi crowd:




But in the end, she recovered with aplomb and struck a pose that was both adorable and kittenish:




Can't wait for next year!

Peas

Lila does love her peas, which are not the most convenient thing for a toddler to love. One at a time they are lovingly collected in her new "pincer" grasp and shoveled into her mouth. If she's preoccupied, they can easily dribble out again, rendering moot the entire process.


(A pea in the hand...)


But now she has developed an interest in using a spoon, or, rather, 2 spoons, neither to any practical effect. Mostly now the peas get flung around the room and she chases them across the plate with tightly held spoons. She does occasionally manage to scoop them up into the belly of the spoon, but as soon as she starts to pull it to her mouth, she tilts it so that they all fall off.


(Spoons...the great mystery of 15 months)


And all this to say that when all is said and done, the ratio of peas eaten to peas distributed is quite unimpressive. And yet no one is bothered by this except her parents.


(Pea Carnage)


As I watched this display the other night, I recited to Lila a poem I remember from a book I loved as a kid:

I eat my peas with honey
I've done it all my life
They do taste kind of funny
But it keeps them on the knife!

She reacted by grunting and throwing a spoon at me...

Drivers' Ed

(Drive me around, Daddy!)

Lila's been crawling into her little cart that Nana Ann gave her, looking cute as a button as she arranges her animals around her and surveys her toy kingdom. Josh got the bright idea of taking her for a spin as she sat in it, and wheeled her around the empty dining room. "You're going to be sorry," I told him. "She figures out that she can be driven around in it, it's all she's going to want to do." He ignored me. "That looks like a really comfortable position for you," I added, as he crunched himself into a half moon to reach the handle. And as I predicted, he stopped and the inevitable look of outrage crossed her face in under 5 seconds. "Ack!" she shouted, signing "more"...and then "please" for good measure. Josh tried to distract her with something else, but she would have nothing of it. "Ack!" He started pushing again...

...And so the driving of Lila has begun.


(Bring me to the kitchen, driver! And keep your eyes on the road!)

Photo Fever

(Preparations for the trip back East!)


The new camera is here but we still don't know how to use it, so this is one from the old one. It's amazing how many shots you take to get the good photo.

I can usually throw out the bad pictures:




but I can't seem to throw out the mediocre ones:




And of course every toddler set of pictures has the "perp walk" photo - the one where the baby has clearly had enough, but you are still trying to snap the perfect photo:




For this shot alone I took 11 photos, and threw out 3. There are only 2 really good ones - the first one and this one:




What's most frustrating is that the pictures have the usual awful background, with me hiding behind her with my morning bedhead, and that omnipresent rental-apartment-giveaway, gloriously dirt-dull white wall behind us.

And once again the camera flash is casting that crime scene ambience.

But we'll keep taking them!

Next entry...the new camera's first pictures!

Pardon the Interruption

Josh went back East for work and took the computer, so blogging came to a halt. He got back yesterday, but in the interim we got a new camera we don't yet know how to use. And also I've thrown out my back and write this entry from bed, where I have not been enough, and so the problem lingers since Sunday night.

Josh is in the kitchen feeding Lila dinner, and I can hear him singing a song that goes like this: "More pasta! More pasta! More pasta more!" It may not look it on paper, but trust me, it's catchy.

Lila is walking much more now. Tonight she walked from the living room couch, acress the dining room, and fell at the kitchen entryway. For those that don't know our house, that's a long way! Once she goes down she retreats to crawling or knee-walking, until she gets her nerve up to try another walking stint. She does love the applause that goes with it, so she's been trying it a lot over the past week.

We are getting ready for our trip back East for the holidays. I hear it's cold! I found her snowsuit and her new blanket pj's that I threw into the laundry. It's hard to imagine cold weather, especially when packing. I am also imagining which of her friends we will bring - by friends I mean stuffed animals and dolls - all the way across the country with us. Who deserves to go? Of course we have to take Sweetie Baby, she's Lila's crib friend and she'll make it seem like home. And then there's her newest friend, Pancho the sock monkey. She carries him around a lot these days, but really, aren't there some others wiith senority? I mean, Lilac Pete would be crushed. Dinosaur Jones is small, he might make a good pocket friend. And of course there's Mr. Bunnybear, but he's the Hope Diamond of the collection - technically, he should never leave the house.

Such are the thoughts of a person who worries early and often. There is so much to do before we go - another busy work week, presents still to buy, and a heap of birthdays before the new year that must be addressed as well. And will there be a holiday card with Lila's picture on it? Too soon to tell. It's not the picture that seems insurmountable; rather it is the gathering of addresses that I have still not figured out how to catalog efficiently.

I have a friend who participated in a rodeo once; the winners got blue ribbons, and all the losers got ribbons that said, "I tried my best". I always thought that was a very dignified way to fail. So if we fall short with our efforts before we leave it won't be for lack of trying; I will try my best.

More pictures soon.

6 Things You Didn't Know About Lulu

1) Her favorite word is "belly!", which she pronounces "dilly!"




2) Her favorite game is for you to pretend that any of her dolls or animals are sleeping. You say "sshhhh!" and she says it back, and then she screeches, and then you have to make the doll wake up and seem startled. You must do this many, many times.




3) She likes the sound "ssshhh!" so much she makes you read books that have it in the story, and then she repeats it after you, and signs "more" so that you will go back to the beginning and start again, even if you aren't at the end of the book.




4) In the morning when you go to get her out of her crib, she stands excitedly and hops from one foot to the other, then when you get really close, she turns on her Aquarium lullaby machine, because (I think) she loves it so much and wants to share it with you.




5) She loves vegetables. Her favorites are avocados, peas, corn, green beans and edamame.




6) She still doesn't know about TV.

A Girl and Her Bear

(Okay, okay, it's true...she looks like mommy)

Lila at 14 months with Daddy's childhood bear (with his old rocker in the background too).

Things Get Interesting

In the same way that we can't seem to buy a dining room table, a flat screen TV or curtains, we've known for some time now that my vacuum cleaner has seen better days. Ol' Vaccy has served me well for about a decade, but after 2 years in storage, it was clearly underperforming, and Eva, our cleaning lady, has refused to use it since it was first presented to her. (I'll avoid any specific descriptions of my Eureka's troubles, because, as this is a blog for a child, any details will sound like I'm describing an old hooker past her prime).

But we bit the bullet. We spent the last few days scouring the web for data, and then on Saturday we piled the babe into the car, packed the stroller and headed to Bed, Bath and Beyond and Best Buy to comparison shop. I had said I wasn't interested in the Dyson, mostly because I find those TV commercials so damn annoying, but after 2 hours of debate, questions and test runs, I had come around to the bagless Dyson. It's an impressive machine, I have to admit. The model was on sale (10% off) at Best Buy, but we had a 20% off coupon from BB&B so we headed back to get the bigger discount. But then Josh had the foresight to read the fine print on the coupon where it said explicitly the the Dysons were off the discount table. Come to mama, Best Buy!

We came home with our bright orange monstrosity and in our excitement we actually argued over who would get to vacuum first. Josh and I split the living room, then while I fed Lila he did our room, her room, and the dining room. As he put her to bed, I did the kitchen.

Get ready for this:


(The Money Shot)


It turns out we have been living like animals. Were we the only ones who didn't know?

Our Thanksgiving

(He's not really dead...he's just bobbing for apples)

While it was technically Lila’s second Thanksgiving, we like to think of this year as her first: it was her first time watching her parents slowly give themselves nervous breakdowns trying to throw it themselves.


(Who needs a dining room table when you can rent one for $19 a day?)

Not being able to make it back East to see our families, we decided to invite 7 people over for dinner. Thanksgiving is a time for overreaching!

Josh took on the turkey and stuffing, while Christine handled everything else – mashed potatoes, brussel sprouts, sweet potato pudding with crème fraiche, apple turnovers, and pumpkin pots de crème. We also had some key contributions from our invited guests. Lila was in charge of crawling all over the kitchen, getting dangerously close to the oven.


(the spread)


The night before Thanksgiving, nearly everything was (miraculously) in order, except for one thing: the turkey we thought was going to arrive thawed on Wednesday came frozen. This nixed the brining plan, and Josh spent the entire afternoon watching the turkey brick float in a cooler of cool water, willing it to defrost, and then lay awake most of the night panicking that it might either not be thawed enough in the morning, or have thawed so early that it was spoiled. Christine lay in bed next to him, also awake, panicked that everything else might go wrong. That’s why me make a good couple: we divide the panicking duties well.

But the next morning, the turkey was thawed and cool, and everything seemed in order. Lila was decked out in the outfit we’ve been waiting for her to grow into, an adorable dress from France (thanks Karen and Tim!) that it is impossible for a child not to look cute in, and the guests started arriving at 2:30. There were Lisa and Eric (who arrived ten minutes after landing at the airport from producing a TV show in New Orleans), and their baby Sascha (the happiest, clappiest baby in the world, also known as the Baby Whose Flawless Sleeping Habits Have Been Making Us Jealous for Eight Months). Also, Andy, Meredith, and Avery (known to readers of this blog as the Backwards Sheep), Dan and Gillian (from Josh's work), and Adam, a co-worker of Lisa’s, who dealt with a room full of yelling babies like a champ.


(La belle bébé)



(Lila, Sascha and Avery...the definition of parallel play)



(Meredith, Avery and Sascha)


All told, the meal came off nearly according to plan. While the babies all played on the lawn, we hovered in the kitchen, staring at heating pans and pots begging them not to let us down. The turkey came out only an hour after anticipated, and, amazingly, emerged looking very intact in the face of the 400 puncture wounds it suffered from Josh’s overzealous meat thermometer poking.

Just as we can’t seem to take a picture that doesn’t include four electrical cords dipping in like ivy, we also couldn’t find an attractive setting for the finished turkey, so the top of dryer had to do, with a tool box as backdrop. But Lila seemed to approve of it, in theory, even if she refused to eat any turkey. (She did prove a big fan of mashed potatoes and Gillian’s green-bean casserole. She also demonstrated that food-throwing is not a kitchen-only habit for her. Very versatile, our baby.)


(Doesn't it look as though Josh has just pulled the turkey out of the dryer?)



(turkey and sweet potatoes)


It was a great time with some great new friends, and we proved to ourselves that we can handle a holiday. Now we just have to find a way to do it without it upsetting our mental health.



(Even when she's angry, she's cute!)

Say Please

(Hello cord! I see you!)


Before we introduce today's topic - manners - perhaps it must be explained first why Lila is sitting her her toy basket.

If only we knew.

We have a plastic bucket of toys in the living room that is low and wide, and recently she has started climbing into it and throwing toys out. Then I bought this new basket for her kitchen toys at Target today, and as soon as she saw it, she climbed into it too. No reason, I guess, but darn cute.

Moving on...

Aida has been dilligently teaching Lila to use sign language, and this week we really started to see her use it to communicate. "More" and "please" are the ones she's mastered, and though they are rudimentary, she is clearly pleased to get her point across. "Please" is the one we are particularly excited about, because currently even the slightest desire is expressed in a bark of distress, especially when it comes time to read "Pat the Bunny" for the 50th time in a day. It's not a seamless transition to signing, however. Here is the current system:


(1. "EEAAACKKK!" Translation: "Read this to me NOW!"



(2. Daddy: "Can you say 'please?'" Lila signs "please")



(3. Daddy reads the book to Lila)



(4. "EAAACKKK!" Translation: "Read it AGAIN!")

Return to step 2. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat!

A Look Back

(bedtime...or so we hoped)


Maybe it's because I'm consumed by Sweeps - the television ratings period where everything we do is dramatically heightened for maximum emotional impact - but I was looking through some pictures and decided it was time for a brief highlight reel of Lila's early days.

It's a little late for a one-year retrospective of La Vida Lulu, but if any of you had a fussy infant you might understand that the first 2 months were a teary and confused blur for both Lila and me. It was only in the weeks just before Thanksgiving that I was able to shower on a daily basis and complete the simplest of tasks without bursting into tears. Her fussiness didn't ease up in a significant way until the middle of January, but it was a year ago almost exactly when we saw a glimpse of hope, thanks to a crucial decision.



(first bath)


We had started out with a matronly pediatrician who was dismissive and remote, and the final straw with her came one day in early November when, debilitated by back spasms, I hobbled into her office for the flu nasal mist (the less desirable alternative to the scarce flu shot) and was reprimanded by her staff for stating aloud to the receptionist my purpose for being there. I said I was there for the flu shot (I had forgotten the exact verbiage "nasal mist" and figured they would know what I was talking about) and apparently someone in the waiting room felt outraged that our pediatrician was doling out precious flu shots to adults (since babies under 1 year aren't given flu shots, it is fairly standard course is to inoculate the parents). A nurse took me into a waiting room and told me in harsh terms that I had gotten them all into trouble. As I limped home, I can recall the humiliation of letting out one uncontrollable sob that caused a stranger in front of me to cross to the other side of the street.

The next day I brought my fussy bundle of rage to Dr. Bess R., a sunny woman in her early 30's who suggested I try all the wives tales remedies for colic, promised me that I had a healthy, beautiful baby who would soon mellow out, and gave me a pat on the shoulder of reassurance that my previous doctor seemed too stingy to administer. She also taught me a nifty party trick where she pushed Lila's knees hard into her belly 3 times...Lila giggled the first 2 passes, and then let out an enormous fart on the third. Rarely has broken wind smelled so sweet.


(Infancy...when male pattern baldness symptoms are adorable)


A week later at our regular appointment, Dr. Bess gave us a strategy for putting Miss Lulu to bed at night. We had been putting her down for the night (in theory) at 10, and she told us to put her down earlier, as early as 6:30, as late as 7:30. This sounded like madness to me. She also told us to give her a bath, nurse her, then do one thing to separate nursing from bed (she suggested a book or a song), then put her down in her crib awake, turn out the light and leave the room. This plan made about as much sense to me as putting her crib in the street and hoping the sound of traffic would soothe her down to slumber. Lila had never slept longer than 4 hours in a row, and had never fallen asleep without being rocked or shushed.

That night she slept 8 hours in a row. Woke once and went back down without a fuss for another 4.

I now worship at the altar of Dr. Bess.



(One of my favorite photos of Lulu and her dad)

Shaving Cream A Go Go

(yet another stirring photo backdrop)

Aida is a fount of knowledge for fun baby activities. Yesterday, she and Lila broke out the shaving cream and Lila got to go to town. Lately Lila has had a lot of fun playing with kitchen utensils, and her favorite is the whisk, which she uses to stir up imaginary stews, poke her animal friends, and, of course, point. But a whisk in shaving cream (you can see it in her hands if you look carefully) was the pinnacle of excitement! Lots of stirring! Good times!

The picture we haven't taken yet

Avery's dad Andy took this great picture of Lila a few weeks ago.

We have GOT to get a new camera.

Grumpiness Resolved

(When Lila goes to school do you think we can keep Aida on as a clothing consultant? How does she come up with these adorable little outfits?)

Lila has developed a 2 week sleep cycle in the past couple of months, whereby she starts out rested, and over the course of 2 weeks gets more and more sleep deprived until she is in an uncharacteristacally grumpy state (see previous post). Then the cycle culminates with a morning where she is dazed and docile, like yesterday, and her usual hour nap extends from it's usual one hour, to two hours, to three hours, to four hours to a FIVE HOUR NAP. She went down yesterday at 11 AM and woke up at 4. And is so utterly zonked that she still goes down willingly, thumb in mouth, at 7:30. Bizarre.

And so the cycle begins again.

Halloween

(From the Awkward Family Outing playbook, pg 4)


For Lila’s first Halloween, Aida and her two nanny friends decided to throw their favorite babies a costume party in the park. One of the many things that proved to Christine and me that we were meant to be married is our mutual hatred of costumes; both of us tried to avoid Halloween at all costs at a very young age, and have spent all of our adult Halloweens cowering in our apartments, terrified to answer our phone for fear that there will be someone on the end who will invite us somewhere that involves a mask.

But that doesn’t mean we’re not above dressing up our daughter. We figure that soon enough genetics will have their way and she’ll start hiding on October 31, too. But until free will kicks in, we’ll let her get in the holiday spirit. So we bought her a turtle costume and looked forward to the big day…until Aida told us that it would really be nice if we got into the spirit and got dressed up, too.


("I'm pretty sure this kitty cat is also my mommy.")


Any other time, we’d have instantly thought of an important “appointment” we had that day. But daughter trumps grouchiness. Christine opted for the tried and true cat costume, running to fight the crowds at Party City the day before the party (when we seem to do our best work). I figured I could do one of two things: not dress up and be a wet blanket, or put a bedspread over my head and spray myself with a hose and go as a Wet Blanket. At the last minute, I searched the apartment for anything costume-like and found the pith helmet that I was given to pose in for a Golf magazine article I did earlier this year. I put on some cargo shorts, a khaki-colored shirt, and some work boots, tucked some of Lila’s stuffed animals in my pockets, and went as a zookeeper. The pith helmet was key. Once it came off, I just looked like a poorly dressed plushie fetishist.

Off we went to the party, leaving Lila’s costume in the trunk since the padding in her “shell” would be uncomfortable for the car. We pulled up to the park, saw the orange and black balloons in the distance, and wrestled Lila into her costume in the parking lot. It became instantly clear that Lila is very much her parents’ child. Look, if you will, at the following pictures and you will see a completely disinterested and mildly disgruntled baby. “Get it?” she seems to say. “I’m a turtle. Very cute, very cute. Now when can we end this charade?”


("So is this a holiday where we celebrate turtles? Because I'm still not clear on why I'm dressed this way.")


You may also notice something else in the pictures. None of the other parents are in costumes. In fact, Eva, one of the other nannies, wasn’t either. Aida had a belly-dancer outfit on, but was cold and wrapped a coat around herself so she was costumed in theory only. As we made the long, slow walk toward the group in their street clothes, we felt like those people in your workplace who show up as Paris Hilton or Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes and run around the office all day chastising you for having no holiday spirit…when in reality we are just the opposite. So off came the pith helmet, because I’d rather be thought of as a poorly dressed deviant than a ham. Christine made the cat thing work all day, because she is a better person than I.


(As close to a full blown smile as Lila got all day, in the arms of Aida)


Back to Lila, however: she endured the ignominy of her turtle punishment all day like a champ. Even we, who think she is the most beautiful baby in the world, have to admit that perhaps “turtle” wasn’t the way to go, and for that we apologize to her. Her friend Avery, however, was the cutest little sheep you’ve ever seen, while pal Lola was a delightful fairy.


(The adorableness quotient is quadrupled when you realize Avery is wearing her lamb costume backwards)


We quickly forgot our costume woes, however, when Aida’s friend Pilar unveiled the most glorious Mexican feast. Home-cooked enchiladas with mole, tostadas, vegetable salads, each one better than the next. I’d be willing to dress up as the back end of a horse with Tom Sizemore up front for a little more of that.

All in all, costumes be damned, it was a wonderful day. Lila even got to swing at her first piñata, though we think the turtle thing affected her joy when sitting amidst the spoils. That and the fact that she has no idea what a Skittle is, nor would we give her any. Many thanks to Aida, Pilar, and Eva!


(Lulu's first pinata)



(After 4 toddlers fail to make a dent in the pinata, Lila hits the pinata with a bat while Aida hits the pinata with Lila!)



(The scramble for Skittles)