Shoes

I'm not sure if it's a Minnesota thing, a midwestern thing, or a land of ice and snow thing, but around here, it's pretty standard to take your shoes off inside and leave them by the door. You don't want to track all the melting ice and snow, plus whatever's in it (sand, chemicals, etc....) into the house, y'know.

We leave our shoes by the door on a rug that my aunt Donna made for us for our wedding. It may not be a beautiful use for what's undoubtedly a beautiful rug, but it is useful.

It cracks us up to see Maisie's wee soft-soled slippers there next to our shoes, which seem so huge by comparison! That pair only just still fits - she'll outgrow them soon.

Guess how much I love you?

This picture reminds me of a moment in Guess How Much I Love You, by Sam McBratney. That book is a staple of our bedtime routine around here. If you're not familiar with it, the storyline is pretty much Little Nutbrown Hare trying to tell his father how much he loves him, but Big Nutbrown Hare always manages to one-up his son. It's cute and funny, and if I'm especially overtired or emotional, it can make me cry with its sweetness.

"I love you as high as I can reach," said Little Nutbrown Hare.

"I love you as high as I can reach," said Big Nutbrown Hare.
That is very high, thought Little Nutbrown Hare.
I wish I had arms like that.

Chasing the kitties

Maisie's favorite game is to chase the cats around the house.

Into and out of the bedrooms, around the living room, and as seen here, under the dining table.

Pretty soon she'll be too tall, but right now she is still little enough to crawl under the table and then stand up to try to get at the cats, who've taken refuge on the chairs.

If she catches up with them, she tries to pet them, but she gets too excited and ends up pulling out handfuls of their fur, or pulling their tails, as we say "Gentle! Gentle with the kitties, Maisie!" Poor kitties. They're terribly patient. Next weekend we're heading down to Iowa to visit Aaron's family. And to give the kitties a little break.

Fussy weekend

Finally posting after a rainy, fussy weekend.

As you might be able to tell from the drool coming out of her mouth, Maisie is finally teething for real. Her two front lower teeth are finally poking through the gum - you can't quite see them yet, but you can feel them. Maisie was cranky the whole weekend, and didn't sleep or eat well. Plus we were housebound by the torrential rain... well, it was a long weekend.

Even though this picture is blurry, I like it because you can see just how much hair she's got. Aaron and I were looking back at some old pictures from January and February the other day, and we were amazed at how bald she was back then! We thought she had so much hair - but look at her now. We may not get her a real haircut for a while, but her bangs are already starting to get into her eyes.

Tattoos

My nephew, Dylan, is all about temporary tattoos these days.

It's not really surprising, I guess; his mom has three tats, and his dad has one (or maybe two) too. Laura usually gets them for Dylan one at a time out of the vending machines at the grocery store. But when Aaron found a pack of 50 pirate-themed temporary tattoos, he knew Dylan had to have them.

Little did we know, however, that we'd all end up wearing them... including Maisie! (I myself am currently sporting a cutlass temporary tattoo on my belly, and you can see Laura's pirate, on her right elbow.)

Maisie's daycare provider Anna laughed and laughed when I showed her Maisie's Jolly Roger this morning.

Beat the heat.

This weekend was really, really hot and humid (again...), so we escaped to the Mall.

The Mall of America, a.k.a. the MOA, the Sprawl of America (soon to be even sprawlier with a 5.6 million square foot mixed-use expansion in the works), or simply and elegantly as The Big Mall, is a really popular location when it gets super hot outside. Every time the heat starts creeping towards 90, it seems like half the population of the Twin Cities (and the better part of Iowa, and maybe western Wisconsin too, judging from how crowded it gets) heads there. And why not? It's 4.2 million air conditioned square feet of movie theaters, an indoor park, food, and shopping. Plus, free parking.

We go too... how could we resist?

I mean, even Boba Fett goes to the mall.

Play with your food!

Maisie has started doing this thing recently that is so cute.
She will take whatever she's holding on to, hold it up over her head, tilt her head cutely and laugh and laugh.

Here, you can see, she's doing this with a parsley sprig as she smiles at Aaron.

This was at Salsa a la Salsa in Midtown Global Market this evening. Midtown is one of my favorite places in Minneapolis. The building used to be an old Sears, and stood vacant on Lake Street for many many years. It was totally revamped and is now a marketplace with local restaurants and shops, and is really helping to turn around that part of Lake Street. We had a fun time and a delicious dinner, we ran into our friends Jen and Tristan, and Maisie (typically) made several new friends, smiling at everyone she saw. She also got me to buy her two beautifully embroidered Mexican shirts. They are SO cute (and cheap!); I am sure you'll see pictures of them showing up here soon!

Sketti face

When I was pregnant, Aaron and I spent a lot of time wondering what our baby would be like. We figured she'd have curly hair and blue eyes, but beyond that, it was all up in the air. So we'd conjecture based on our own likes and dislikes.

I remember one time we were at Buca di Beppo, a restaurant (for those who haven't been there) that serves family-style delicious, garlicky Italian food. I said to Aaron, "I'm pretty sure our baby will like to eat at Buca."

And although this wasn't at Buca, our first foray into pasta makes me think that I was right! She enjoyed picking up the spaghetti and managed to get a fair amount of it into her mouth. I got some in there, too. I didn't give it to her on a plate, because there's a picture of my sister about this age with a big plate of spaghetti dumped on her head. I did, however, make the rookie mistake of giving her the spaghetti after her bath... oops.

Maisie had her nine-month well child check today. For those following along at home, she's now 27.5" long (50th %ile) and weighs 17 pounds, one ounce (25th %ile). And her head circumference is in the 80th percentile! That's one great big melon she's got!

Nine months!

An action shot, appropriately, to start off this entry. I say appropriately because these days, Maisie's constantly in motion. She crawls all over, and fast, too; she pulls up to standing; she's taken a few steps "cruising" along the furniture; and yesterday, she let go while standing up and stood for a few seconds before falling down onto her bottom. At nine months, she can feed herself all kinds of food (even though there's no teeth yet). She can sign "milk." She recognizes her regular caregivers and loved ones (us, her daycare provider, my mom, my sister, and Dylan) and is happy to see them.

This picture was taken today as we played a fun game about testing limits. Our living room has a door that opens onto a screen porch. For various reasons, we don't want Maisie to go onto the porch unless we're out there, too. So this game involved her crawling as fast as she could to the door, and then stopping at the doorway and screaming with laughter as we said "Maisie!!" and hauled her back into the living room. Rinse, repeat. Pretty hilarious stuff - we were laughing too, much more so than we will be when the limits-testing involves boys and curfews!

Sick day.

Maisie's daycare provider called me around 10:30 this morning, letting me know that Maisie had a fever of 101.7 and needed to go home.

I wasn't getting much done at work anyway... people were mostly just sitting around, talking about the bridge collapse. So I picked her up and brought her home.

Her fever has dropped under 100 thanks to a sure-fire combo of baby Tylenol, lots of naps, and lots of snuggles. I think she'll be back to her usual cheerful, busy self in no time. And maybe with some teeth to show for it!

Bridge collapse.

Just in case you were wondering, we're all okay, as are Laura, Dylan, and my mom. Cell phone service is spotty at best right now. I guess this is why people still have land lines.