Opinionated baby!

Maisie has lately been growing very... opinionated. And vocal. She used to be very tractable, but lately, if she doesn't want to do something, she'll let you know in no uncertain terms. For instance, tonight when we were driving, she did NOT want to be in her carseat. She screeched at the top of her lungs all the way from Target to home.

This has become especially true during diaper changes, for some reason. As soon as we put her down on the changing table, she starts screaming and kicking. She hates it!

The only way to keep her calm is to give her a toy, or a bottle, to distract her. It'll work for a few minutes. But as you can probably tell from the look in her eyes... it won't last.

I'm not sure if she's just an opinionated baby, or if this is a glimpse of the toddlerhood ahead of us.

Book shopping

We all knew that Maisie likes books. But today she discovered the joys of book shopping.

We went to BookSmart today, a great new & used book store in uptown Minneapolis. Maisie first browsed in the Food/Food Writing section, showing some interest particularly in Anthony Bourdain. She then moved on to music. She tried to read the copy of Heavy Metal you can see in this picture, but it was shrink-wrapped so she couldn't open it.

We stopped her when she got to first editions & collectables, though!

Skoal Vikings!

Okay, it's been a week since we last posted on here. This week has been very busy, so we haven't had a lot of time to take cute pictures of Maisie! Plus, she's going through a growth spurt that's causing her to sleep all the time. Seriously, she goes to bed at like 6:15 pm and sleeps until 6:30 am, and then takes three naps during the day. When she is done with this growth spurt she is going to be three feet tall. But in the mean time, there's not much time to take pictures of her.

We've also got a super busy weekend coming up, and I don't know how much picture-taking will happen. So to tide you over, here's a picture from last weekend.

I think this picture is hilarious, although Aaron thinks we both look really annoyed. Maisie looks like she is saying "Come on and take the picture already, Dad!!" You can really see how blue Maisie's eyes are, and how long her hair is getting.

As you can see, I'm wearing my Vikings jersey! This weekend the Vikings are playing the Packers at home, and Aaron's friend Emily is taking me to the game! I am SO exited; it's a huge rivalry and it's always a really good game.

We can't wait to see you, Emily!

Dinnertime smiles

Maisie really enjoyed herself at dinner tonight, as you can see!

She enjoyed a tasty meal of edamame and blueberries. Yum yum! Maisie is generally a very good eater, and hasn't rejected many foods that we've offered her. But she especially likes meals where she can feed herself - so much so that when we give her yogurt or purees, we have to make sure she has cheerios, or else she'll grab the spoon and wave it all around. She hasn't really figured out how to use utensils yet. So in that respect as well, the blueberries and edamame were a real hit!

Saturday celebrations

One thing I love about the Twin Cities is all the random little neighborhood festivals that spring up during the spring/summer/fall. Today we went to two of them!

We started out at Woofstock in the Linden Hills neighborhood of Minneapolis. As you can probably guess from the title, this is a celebration of all things doggy.
We're not huge dog people, as you probably could've guessed, but our friend Brian has adopted two retired racing greyhounds and is really active in that community, so we went to say hi to him and his boys, Boogie and Crash. (Boogie is the black one, and Crash is the brindle.) As you can see, Boogie was exhausted by all the goings-on. Fortunately Crash is kind enough to let Boogs rest his head on his back. They are such sweet dogs. If we were ever thinking about getting a dog, we'd seriously consider adopting a retired racer.

After Woofstock we headed home. It was naptime, but Maisie refused to sleep! So we strollered up to a random little neighborhood celebration not too far from our house. There was a bounce house for the kids, sidewalk sales, deals on cones at our favorite ice cream place, and even a really cool taiko drumming performance.


Too bad Maisie slept through it all! She even missed out on the ice cream, one of her favorite treats. She fell asleep about two blocks from home, slept through the whole walk (including the taiko drums), and woke up again when we were about halfway home.

Oh well, it's not a bad thing. Aaron and I enjoyed a nice walk, and Maisie definitely needed the sleep more than she needed the ice cream.

Maisie & Aaron's week

Maisie's daycare provider took this week off. My supervisor is out on medical leave, so Aaron's staying home all week with her.

Even though it's been seasonably (or even unseasonably!) chilly out, they've had a good time so far - lots of strollering around the neighborhood in the afternoons, going to the park to see ducks and stopping by friends' houses. Yesterday they went to our community library to check out the kids' room. They've also had fun at home reading books and playing with the kitties.

A particular favorite game of Maisie's these days is the chase game. It's pretty straightforward - Aaron "runs" from the living room to the bathroom, to Maisie's room, to the kitchen, while Maisie crawls madly after him, laughing the whole way. When she finally catches him in the kitchen it starts all over, only in reverse.

Mondays are always difficult. But I think this coming Monday will be harder for Aaron than most. Even though it's been hard work, who'd want to go back to the office after spending a whole week at home with Maisie?

Books

I'm sure it comes as no surprise to anyone reading this blog that Aaron and I both love to read. We definitely hoped to pass our love of reading on to Maisie, and are happy to see that it seems to be taking!

We've made a real effort to read to her often, and we leave books scattered about with her toys. In the past she would show us a book she wanted us to read to her - most often it was "Yellow Bird" which was a gift from her Auntie Clare. But as you can see here, as she intently analyzes Sandra Boynton's "Not the Hippopotamus," recently she's started "reading" her books by herself - she will sit with them and very seriously flip through the pages and look at the pictures. She isn't interested in help, and will actually get a little angry if you take the book from her to read it aloud. Excuse me, but Maisie was reading that... thank you!

We're hoping it's the beginning of a life-long love of books!

Visiting Iowa + 10 months!

Happy Labor Day, all! We took advantage of the long weekend and went down to Iowa to visit Aaron's family.

We stayed with Maisie's Grandma Jo, who Maisie loves to pieces. Maisie gave Grandma Jo plenty of hugs at every opportunity! It was really cute. Maisie also enjoyed playing with Grandma Jo's toys, including this awesome car. We also got to see Auntie Clare, Auntie Brynna & Uncle Jason, Cousin Nika, and Grandpa Greg, Peg, and Katherine, and had breakfast on Sunday with Aaron's high school friend Emily! Hi Emily! We want you to come visit us!

We came home on Sunday so we were able to relax today, which is Maisie's ten-month birthday. Yay!

We celebrated by going out to Chiang Mai Thai, one of our favorite Uptown restaurants. We shared chicken satay, egg rolls, fried tofu, and toasted coconut ice cream. Maisie particularly enjoyed the satay and the ice cream, as I am sure you can tell.

At ten months, Maisie has lots of skills. She cruises confidently, and has started letting go of her support when she's standing up. She can only stand independently for a second or two... but I think walking is coming soon! She has three signs (milk, more, all done) and is getting very talkative; she can also recognize several words, including "kitty!" She plays peek-a-boo, claps her hands, and loves to give hugs. She finally got some teeth last week... the bottom front two, at the same time. I don't think the top ones are too far behind. And today's discovery: her armpits are ticklish! It's so cute.

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.

Tschüß Rob & Liza!

Our friends Rob and Liza moved to Dortmund, Germany yesterday.

This picture (taken by Aaron's sister Clare!) is of us reading at their wedding last month. Maisie had a bit of stage fright, and urped all down my right side as soon as we got to the front of the church. Oops! But nobody else seemed to notice, and aside from that, I thought our reading went quite well. It was a lovely wedding (and a rocking reception).

Their move isn't permanent (at this time), but just for the school year - Liza is a teacher, and she got an offer for a position at a brand new English-language school. It's a great opportunity, and we are quite happy for them, although it was really hard to say goodbye. So we will just say "tschüß" instead!

Good luck, Rob and Liza! We miss you, and we are looking forward to hearing all about your German adventures. We demand stories in person when you get back, and until then, we will read your blog!

Activity table

What a difference nine months makes, hey? Maisie has gone from that teeny, helpless little newborn to this big girl with a full head of hair who crawls all over, feeds herself, and pulls up to standing!

Her current favorite toy is the activity table in this picture, which our friends Laura, Jason, and Oliver loaned her. Oliver was born in February 2006 and really enjoyed playing with it for a while, but he's since outgrown it. They were nice enough to loan it to Maisie! She really enjoys it... it's exactly the right height for her to pull up on, lean against, and play with. It has fun spinny parts, a squeaky thing, and flippy parts, and even a little embedded mirror. She's chewing on a big orange lego-like block that came with the table. Aaron and I especially appreciate that it's not electronic - no annoying blinky lights or tinny music!

Thanks, Laura & Jason & Oliver!

Nearly 9 months ago...

My mom took this picture of Maisie.

You can see all the monitors on her. Her left hand is wrapped up in gauze because she had to have an IV in. And you can't really tell, but she was in a big plastic bubble isolette. I never saw her in it - by the time I'd recovered from the C section enough that they could bring me down to the nursery, she was breathing room air.

We're in the time between 9 months from my due date and Maisie's actual 9 month birthday. This one seems like a pretty big milestone to me; soon Maisie will have been out in the world for as long, and then longer, than I was pregnant with her. As we approach that day I'm thinking a lot about my pregnancy, labor and delivery, remembering what it was like, the good and the bad.

As I recall, these ten days between due date and birth date were some really long days.

Happy birthday Gramma J and Grandpa Greg!

Maisie's Gramma J and Grandpa Greg both celebrated birthdays yesterday! We weren't able to see Grandpa Greg, but we did go out to dinner with Gramma J, Laura and Dylan.

Maisie had fun seeing everyone, and sharing our food. She ate some of Dylan's chicken strips and one of my mom's sweet potato fries. As you can see here, she also ate a green onion from Laura's plate.

She really enjoyed chewing and sucking on it, which surprised us all. Really, an onion? But she seemed to like it. She sure was stinky when we got her home, though!

A lovely weekend

Yesterday was an absolutely beautiful day, so we went and hiked a little bit around one of the more beautiful parts of Minneapolis, Minnehaha Falls.

It's the waterfall you can see in the background here, and it's a ten minute drive from home if you hit all red lights. The trails are really well kept up by the city, so it wasn't really technically difficult or anything and we didn't go very far. We did cover a lot of vertical ground, though - we started up by the head of the falls, went across on the footbridge and then all the way down to the river, then down a ways and back up.

The day was perfect - 82 degrees, sunny, but not humid and no rain in sight. The falls area was packed! There were lots of families with strollers, who stayed up by the top, and lots of bigger kids splashing around in the (very shallow) river at the bottom. People were having fun and enjoying the weather and the beautiful scenery. It was one of those days that I really love Minneapolis.

Even though the backpack Maisie was in distributed her weight really well, it was a lot of stairs to climb. Aaron was pretty pooped by the time we got back to the top! Up by the falls is a nice seafood restaurant called Sea Salt, so we stopped there after our little hike. I had grilled fish tacos and a beer, Aaron had a catfish po boy and a soda, and Maisie had little pieces of my fish (which she really enjoyed) and a bottle. Then we went home and all took a nap!

So big!

Wow, it's been a week since our last post! Sorry about the delay... computer problems have kept us offline, and Maisie's been keeping us busy too of course.

New skills she's picked up over the last week include for-real crawling - she used to just do an army crawl along the ground, but now she gets her tummy up - and pulling up to standing.

As you can see, she's enjoying her new skills! But between the new mobility and the pulling up, we've had to really get in gear with childproofing. It's amazing to me just how soon it seems we'll be chasing after her as she runs after the cats, because it really doesn't seem all that long ago that we were celebrating her newfound ability to roll over. Time flies like an arrow... and fruit flies like a banana!

8 months old.

Maisie turned eight months old yesterday! It was actually kind of a difficult day, as you may be able to tell from this picture (taken today)...

Eight months marked Maisie's first injury: she got in the way of a thrown toy fire truck at daycare. At urgent care, the doctor said that the eye was fine and the cut didn't need stitches. So no lasting harm, although I think she'll have quite the shiner. The doctor also proclaimed her to be "feisty" as she screamed and wiggled the entire time he was checking her eye, cleaning the cut, and putting some goopy stuff on it to stick the sides together. It took the doctor holding her head, me holding her arms, and a nurse holding her eye open to get the exam done. Maisie wasn't hurt - she stopped crying the minute I could pick her up - just angry at being held down!

Today is the Fourth of July. We have plans to go to a nearby park that has a wading pool with my sister and Dylan, and then grill for dinner over at their house. It should be fun!

Hot fun in the summertime.

Well, we have found a solution to the messy food face feeding dilemma - now that it's not super duper hot outside, we are feeding Maisie on the deck!

Today she actually tried two new foods: scrambled egg (just the yolk - whites are allergenic) and cottage cheese, which she is seen enjoying here.

We are giving Maisie full-fat yogurt and cottage cheese. When she doesn't finish everything I dish out for her, I usually end up eating it myself. And I have to say, yum. It's going to be hard for me to go back to 1%.

What we've been up to.

Two things have been going on over here since I posted last.

First, it's been really hot. Like, really really extra super duper hot. And humid.

Second, Maisie is becoming mobile.

Put together, this means that she spends a lot of time army crawling, scooching, and working on pulling up - in her diaper.

You can probably tell that we have a lot of childproofing yet to do...

Fun with food, part 4.

Today's food and facial: yogurt.

As you might be able to tell from the recycling in the background of this picture, today we decided to eat in the kitchen instead of in the living room. Maisie can sit up reliably, so she can sit on the floor while she eats. And unlike the living room, the kitchen's not carpeted. Which, as you can probably tell, is important.

Another busy weekend.

This weekend was full of fun activities: a wedding, a visit from Grandma Jo and Auntie Clare, and maybe most fun (for Leah)... Carleton reunion!

Because of the wedding and visits from the relatives, we didn't get to spend much time in Northfield enjoying reunion. On Thursday, however, we did make it over to Rachel's house to barbecue with our friends and their kids.

Here, Maisie (Carleton class of 2030) is getting to know Rachel's adorable son Jackson (class of '27, I think). He would run up, kiss her on her face, and then run away. Repeat over and over. She thought it was hilarious, and was laughing so hard! It was really cute.

Playgroup

Our daycare provider's daughter graduated from sixth grade yesterday, so she closed daycare for the day. Aaron stayed home with Maisie, and brought her to our neighborhood baby playgroup.

He said it was kind of chaotic - lots of babies, little structure. But all the babies seemed to have fun, and Aaron enjoyed getting out and talking to other adults during his day with Maisie. Our neighborhood has quite a few stay-at-home parents, so they regularly meet during the week, which I think is pretty cool.

That's one thing we really love about our neighborhood - there are lots of other new families around! So there are always folks strollering around in nice weather, and there's always someone to talk to about being a new parent.

Busy weekend.

We had a very busy weekend, with no end in sight of scheduled activities. Fortunately, most of the things we "have" to do are a lot of fun!


For instance, on Friday night Maisie and I met some friends at our friend Rebecca's house. We played in the backyard, I had some wine and cheese, and Maisie had a football. Yum!

Then Saturday, yesterday, was Auntie Laura's birthday. We had lunch with her, Dylan, and our mom to celebrate. We always have fun with Laura and Dylan - Maisie really loves her cousin Dylan a lot, and he is really good with her. He plays with her and makes her laugh and laugh. He is such a funny kid, and is a real ham in front of the camera.

7 months

Maisie is now seven months old!This pic illustrates our recent nights: we hear her fussing and go into her room to try to settle her, and find her in "tummy time" and grinning. That's no way to go to sleep!

This weekend we had our first visit to Urgent Care, prompted by an ear infection.
We didn't realize she was sick because her symptoms were pretty much the same as teething symptoms: she was irritable, drooly, rubbing her face, and running a low-grade fever. Sigh... she's now on two different antibiotics: ear drops as well as an oral amoxicillin. Poor peanut.

But ears and teeth (or lack thereof) aside - seven months so far is a good age! Maisie can sit up on her own, and is getting ready to crawl soon, we think... she spends a lot of time on hands and knees, getting her tummy up off the ground. Look out!

One funny thing is that now that Maisie has noticed the cats, she adores them, but they are really leery of her - she tends to grab at their fur. We talk to Maisie about being gentle with the kitties and model how she should pet them (gently! gently!), but she hasn't quite got the hang of it yet. Soon, though!

Look at me!

Maisie has pretty much got the hang of sitting up now.
Look at this: hands free, even!

It's a total cliche, I know... but wow, she is growing and changing so fast. Last night we looked back at some of her photos from the winter, and couldn't believe what a wee little thing she was, and how much she's grown in such a short time.

Still no teeth though... sigh. Teething is no fun for any of us.

Chicks and Ducks and Geese better Scurry

Hello blog. Oh, the weather outside is frightful. It's humid, and rainy, and I haven't been able to take my scooter out for a spin more than once this whole week. I don't know if I've ever shown you any pictures of my scooter. It runs on this revolutionary new type of biodiesel.

Here's me buckled into my biodiesel scooter (I'm checking my mirrors):

However, I saved a little anecdota-boat for ya from some sunnier days about a week ago. I was out in my scooter, driving around the neighborhood, when I happened upon a bunch of neighborhood kids playing in a lake. I was like, hey guys, how's the water?

And one little flat headed kid said, "Quack."
The big kid said, "Honk."

Yeah. These are your future leaders, America. Good luck with that.

Congratulations Eoin & Heidi!

This weekend, our friends Eoin and Heidi got married. Congratulations, you two!

Aaron and I went to the wedding and the first part of the reception by ourselves, while Maisie hung out with her Gramma J and cousin Dylan. We missed her, but figured she wouldn't have enjoyed the wedding all that much. Plus, that meant that we both got to enjoy the wedding without baby-wrangling.

We did bring her to part of the reception, though!

She didn't eat dinner, but did enjoy our place card. She also got to meet lots of new friends, which is always a good time.

Congratulations, Eoin and Heidi! We are so happy for you!

Sweet potatoes!

We haven't had any good messy-face food pictures for a while, so...

Sweet potatoes! Maisie loves them, as you can see.

She really hasn't disliked any of the solids we've offered her. It makes mealtime a lot of fun. Sweet potatoes, pears, peas, applesauce, avocado, bananas... she'll eat it all, and then the spoon too!

Happy hour

My friends and I like to get together after work at each others' houses for happy hour. This usually involves a little wine, a lot of cheese and crackers (yum!), and a fair amount of baby-wrangling. Among us we have two teenaged step-kids, two active toddlers, Maisie, and one baby on the way, as well as several dogs.

Fortunately even our friends who don't have children are willing to help with the kids! Here is Maisie with our friend Sarah, hanging out at our friend Bethany's house last Friday.

It was a beautiful day, and we loved spending time at Bethany's gorgeous house.

Why we can't ever go anywhere.

We are often invited places in the evening, but we can never go unless we find child care. Even if the place and people are baby-friendly, it's just not going to happen, because Maisie is all about being early to bed (and sadly for us, early to rise).

I have been asked why we gave Maisie such an early bedtime. Ha ha ha! If it were up to us, she'd stay up a little later, and sleep past 6:00 a.m. Instead, this is what happens by 6:30 p.m. every evening.

She gets her bedtime bottle, and bam! Out like a light.

Even if we wanted to keep her up, I don't know how we'd do it. This baby is bound and determined to get her sleep.

(The nice thing is, though, that when we do find a babysitter, it's pretty easy work!)

Happy mother's day!

To all the mamas, grandmas, aunties, godmothers, and mamas-to-be,

Happy Mother's Day!

Love, Maisie

On the mend.

Maisie's feeling better, thanks to amoxicillin and a lot of sleep.

She stayed home with Aaron today, but texted me to let me know as much.


Oh, and if you call Aaron on his cell and he can't hear you too well... it's probably not your phone or the connection. Turns out that baby saliva + cell phone = not good.

You'd think we'd have seen that one coming.

First ear infection.

Maisie and I are home today - she's got her first ear infection, poor little bug. But instead of a picture of sad, sick, unhappy Maisie, I will share a picture from happier times: yesterday.


She really loves her swing, as you can see. The tray has two toys attached: a mirror and a little fan-like thing with a pinwheel in it. Fascinating! Sometimes when she swings we'll sit in front of her and tickle her toes when she swings forward, and that always gets huge laughs.

Send good ear thoughts our way!

Sunday plans.

Today was the Heart of the Beast's May Day parade in Powderhorn Park, which is about six blocks north of our house. We were going to picnic with friends in the park, watch the parade, and then enjoy everything the park had to offer.

But we had a change of plans, thanks to the weather - instead of the beautiful, sunny day we'd hoped for, we had grey, overcast skies with intermittent showers, and wind gusts over 50 mph. We actually lost power for a while, thanks to tree limbs on power lines.

So instead of a picnic and parade, we stayed inside, read books, and played with toys.

All in all, we had a very nice Sunday... once the power came back on.

Six months!

Maisie's six month birthday is tomorrow! Although she was almost born on the 2nd, so I am writing this entry today.

To celebrate, she'd like to pull your hair!

Pulling hair isn't her only new skill, although it seems to be a favorite. She's also eating quite a few different foods, and is actually now quite a fan of the mesh feeder. She's constantly rolling over back-to-front. This gets to be a problem sometimes because she doesn't really have front-to-back rolling yet, and she's woken up a few times on her tummy which is quite upsetting to her - and to us, because we have to get up and roll her back over. She's almost sitting up by herself now too. She uses her hands a lot and has gotten very good at getting things to her mouth. And, most fun, she's very social and will smile and laugh at just about anyone who smiles at her.

I can't believe Aaron and I have had Maisie for six months! It seems not as long - but at the same time, I can hardly remember what our lives were like without her.