Second Christmas

It is Madeline's second Christmas and she is home in NY visiting family again. She has loved her time with our relatives and their associated pets. She was a trooper on the plane- I'd say the best baby there! Although she survived the day of travels, however, she now has a wicked cold- despite my pre-holiday trip to the pediatrician. A slight fever, cough and runny nose- which does wonders for her sensitive skin- bummer.
But when she is good she is very very good and she is practicing her new words with gusto. I will work on some pics as soon as i get the chance.
In the meantime,
Merry Christmas!

xoxo

you should see the other guy

Well- here it is folks. the greusome pics of our little girl's
triumphant battle with the sidewalk.

Just so you are not horrified when you see her and her face looks like it has
be mauled by wild boars, we thought we'd send these out on the blogosphere!


i know. it stinks. and it is only the beginning of her being a toddler.
She has been walking for 4 months now. and is great on her feet, on stairs, bumps
etc. its just that i put her in a winter coat (an unfamiliar place to here around here) to prepare her for our 2 week trip to antarctica- i mean, Ny and Ks. and she lost her footing and was unable to brace her fall with her hands bc of the darned coat- she looked like Billy from A christmas story all bundled up and unable to move.

its all my fault.
and now i have to bear the scorn and shame of bringing her home for the holidays with a sad sad scab.

she took it in stride, though. here is is the next day- mostly smiles.

xoxo

Talk talk talk- cat got your tongue?

We are about to embark on our two week family visiting journey and so we thought we would give you a heads up on what madeline is saying these days.
She has an arsenal of about 30 signs and about 20 words. I will give you an abridged list of the most popular of both and here is a link, for those of you with time on your hands, in case you want to see how she signs the words you may want to use with her.

She understands so much of what we are saying that you of course, dont need to know how to sign to tell her things, but she will tell you an awful lot with her hands and it might be fun for you to know what she is saying. so here is a link to a site with a signing, video dictionary where you choose letters and it will give you a list of words available for demo. when you click, it will show you a woman signing these words.

http://www.mybabycantalk.com/content/dictionary/dictionaryofsigns.aspx?letter=A

just thought it might be kinda fun. and yes, we are such hippies, i know!



and the one word we have NOT taught her, and hope for her not to learn, is "No". She is usually told "thats not for you", or "not right now, maybe later" or "try this instead". We have learned that for some of our friends, their 1 year olds know that two letter word all TOO well and use it more than mom and dad would like! So we are trying it out.

Anyway- here are Madeline's signs:
All done
more
milk
eat
drink
water
apple
banana
cheese
toothbrush
night night
baby
light
stars
book
bubbles (she made this one up so its not the same as the ASL sign)
bath- she kind-of does this one but understands it more than she can replicate it
up
please
thank you (this looks like blowing a kiss but there is no noise)
shoes
hat
potty
tree
airplane
pig
giraffe
bird
duck
phone



Madeline's spoken words:
hi
hat
hot
eyes
ball (pronounced dall)
mama and dada
nana
cat (kitty cat)
dog (sometimes she says woo woo instead)
shoes
toes
banana
night night (nah nah)
this
bye bye
please (peez)
noodle (pronounced doo doo which is a commentary on my cooking i suppose)
yes
trees
nose (but usually she just points to hers and makes piggy sounds or cleans it out so to speak)
she also says "tickle tickle" and a host of gibberish words

we try to say the correct pronounciation for her every time she uses baby talk for one of her words like "please" instead of "peez"

anyway. i hope you are looking forward to seeing her, if we are coming to a town near you this month. and if we are not, we hope to see you sometime soon too!


XOXO

Snow in San Mateo

We saw snow! at church, they brought in 4 trucks of snow and we sang carols and shared cookies and had a blast. madeline is not sure what all the fuss is about- its so cold... this is fun?

spinach etc

we have been getting our produce from an awesome organic farm. (Capay farms in the north bay) they deliver it each week or bi weekly or whenever and we have had some of the best apples, strawberries and pears in our lives, the satsuma mandarins and the greens are great too. We have had lots and lots and lots! of spinach and chard and kale though, this month and have had to find ways to make it right away and keep it from going bad. this week i made spinach tomato sauce. and madeline went to town!

she particularly liked how it felt in her ear and on her head...


Other pics include hanging with her friend Thomas at Mikey and Kay's house this morning and also finding her way into her closet. she loves shoes and will tear the house apart to get to hers. i have made a shoe shelf for hers, up high but she managed to pull and shake and take drawers out and climb her way up to get them. you'll see...<




ps: no obligation to join the produce delivery. 30 dollars for a large box (well worth it)and smaller boxes or just fruit are also options with no committment. and we get a free box if you join! www.farmfreshtoyou.com

then and now...

I just had to post this blast from the past that my godmother sent me.

I know you are all thinking... wow those kids invented the goodwill style screen t-shirt fad.
and you are so right. now i want royalties!
oh- and why are we fatter now that we are older? now that don lost 29 lbs in november and i only shed a handful, i think looking at this pic makes me feel like stepping it up!

xoxo

brrrr

It got cold in san mateo this evening.
We got to wear our scarves and hats for the first time!
We had to take a pic of madeline in her grizzly bear hat and paw mittens!

 

 

cute pics from today

just a quick two snapshots in a new outfit. Thank you aunt M
xoxo

Happy Hollow with Jordanna and Beth

We have such great friends in san jose and we never get to see them!
So...
Madeline and i took a trip to see beth and jordanna and we all had a great time
at happy hollow zoo and museum.
we saw and pet so many animals, rode the carousel and went on some great slides
and even saw a puppet show during lunch!




we cant wait to go back. these little girls squealed the whole afternoon.
xoxo

Uncle Deedge

We just got a few cute pics from Uncle Deedge's visit.
he spent this week with us and madeline loves him so much.
She wanted to spend every second with him, chasing him around
babbling to him about...anything and generally being buddies.
They got their polos and verizon wireless on together on thursday-

Baby Loves Disco!

we took madeline to a hot nightlcub for...
BABY Dance club fun!

...last week and here is a vid:it is very dark (i mean we were at a nightclub after all! so you might want to turn up the brightness on your screen)!


The deal is, a group takes over the hottest nightclub in town
and babyproofs it! there were egg shakers and scarves and books,
bubbles and hoola hoops, a big kid friendly snack bar and cool
tunes spun by a local hip hop dj. We met up with some
of our favorite friends and we all boggied down.

madeline got picked up as you can see in the video and
she and claire got crazy toward the end of the night.

babylovesdisco.com

Thanksgiving 07

We had a great Thanksgiving here at home. Madeline played all day with "uncle deedge"
We have really been enjoying our time with Dennis this week. He has been a super trooper,dealing with lots of late night wak-ups that last for hours, hospital trips, days all mixed up because of rotten naps etc. Par for the course with a sick baby, but he has been so helpful and generous and Patient - Thanks Den!

We had a small and wonderful t-day at home. Don is sticking to his diet like you would not believe and passed on all the fixins except the steamed veggies. He even went without dessert and wine. he is amazing. ... i ate enough for both of us.




Don made the turkey on our rotisserie and it was outrageous! I put together the mashed potaotes, sauteed green beans with almonds and cranberries, cranberry sauce with nuts and mandarins, steamed veggies and sweet potato. It was a hit.

Here is a little clip to send you running to your fridge for some leftovers!

Croup is the worst!

We had our first emergency room experience last night (or should i say this morning...since we arrived at around 3am).


Madeline is fine now but i wanted to tell you that it is no fun and she was a brave trooper!

We had her on a nebulizer and medicine etc for croup a few weeks ago. it cleared up for a couple of weeks and WHAMO it came back last night with a scary force.

She was Whooping/coughing and it sounded like a barking seal...i kid you not. the sound is so scary to hear. and wheezing and crying...and we were on the phone with the nurse asap. She talked us through calming her throat problem down and said if it came back in the night (this first bout was at 11pm) that we should bring her in.


fast forward to 3am... and we were in the car within 3 minutes. She got the medicine she needed and caught her breath and fell asleep nursing in my arms. She got an hour of sleep and they sent us home.


Today she is not coughing as badly and has been a happy little bee, buzzing around as usual. But at the pediatrician's office we learned she has an Ear infection too!! this is her first, so we had no idea. she hasnt been irritable, nor pulling at her ears or having any symptoms except a cold. Who knew. she is such a tough cookie, she didnt fuss at all.


So she is being treated for both now...and we know she will have a clean bill of health soon
We are not looking forward to the years ahead and the many hospital visits we know we will probably make!

alright, time to catch up on last night's sleep.
Here are some pictures of madeline having happier times so you arent fretting about her for the rest of the day!

(in the wagon with Sachin and on the carousel at Happy Hollow)

xoxo

Boys have cooties!

Okay, so Madeline must take after her mommy....

never been a fan of the Abercrombie boys myself.

I'm more for a geek with a bald head and big beautiful smile!

And besides...she is not ready to be boy crazy yet anyway.

Academy Of Sciences with Daddy~

Madeline wanted to go see the fish in San Francisco so on Saturday we took a field trip to the Academy of Sciences in downtown. She Loved the low tanks where she could see in and kiss the glass on the tanks. She also enjoyed splashing in the touch tanks where she held a hermit crab and pet a starfish. She astutely signed "fish" and "star" during our trip and loved the train trip to and from the aquarium. (We loved the hot cocoa we picked up at Tartine and the treats we snagged at Bi-Rite later in the day in the rainy Mission)

apples

She loves fruit. here is a quick video of madeline having her snack

Train Trip!

This morning Miss Madeline took her first train trip!
We just went one stop up to the next town to the park
but she loved it! She was captivated by the people at the station,
sitting in the train car, the whistles and the things moving by. Here
are some pics of her with her ticket all ready to go!

 

 

 

Time is flying

Check out last year's halloween candy compared
to this year! Same wok, same amount of candy but this
year there is a big toddler sitting in it!

Shake Rattle and Roll Baby!

Madeline's first earthquake hit tonight!

Here is a link to the local news report:

http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-10-31T043231Z_01_N30209776_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-QUAKE-CALIFORNIA-COL.XML&archived=False

Reports say 5.6 on the richter scale...for now. In actuality, it felt like a huge
truck drove by our house. We were placing Madeline down in her crib as it hit us (we are 30 miles from the epicenter-Alum Rock, CA, basically between San Jose and San Francisco proper) and it sounded like a loud plane was overhead. Then there was the rattling of things in her closet and then the whole house seemed to be rattling. Don and I emerged from her room and said "was that an earthquake". No biggie...

They say that within 72 hrs is always the possibility of an aftershock being stronger than the original quake. But the particular faultline that this one came from hasnt produced anything strong in a long time.

Yes,this was the strongest quake to hit since the big one that collapsed the bay bridge in '89. but its pretty tame. We were certainly not effected except in the sense that we are slightly more aware of the awesome power of mother nature than we were yesterday.

much love to you all.
xoxo

Monday with a friend

Madeline's friend Claire comes over every Monday and then on Thursday Madeline goes to her friend's house. Claire's mom, Sara, and I get two glorious hours to take a shower, cook, clean, fold laundry and sometimes even check out email or read a chapter in a book! We started this trade a couple of weeks ago and the girls have a blast with eachother.
Yesterday we went to the park together and if you have ever tried to wrangle two 1 year olds on the slide- it is Exercise! One is going up the stairs, the other is trying to climb off the edge, they dont want to come down together, or at all- it is a hoot!
Only matched by the fun we had on our wagon ride to the park wherein each little lady threw something out of the wagon every 2 steps. A cup, a hat, a ball. Mayhem! But it keeps us in shape, right?!

Anyway, here is a snapshot of the girls before we left for our excursion. Don't they give the appearance, at least of cooperative little angels?