Some Pictures

OK, so I have NO time to be blogging right now, but these pictures are just too great. My friend Anne Marie came to visit and took these as we played at a local playground with Aria.









Yay for friends. Yay for cameras. Yay for stealing a few moments from work to post pictures...

Back to the grind. Love to all.

To all you blog readers out there...

A quick message from an overworked blogger:

There's a function that allows you to leave comments. I think you might have to jump through a couple of small hoops, such as create a user account so you can sign in or something. But if you do that, then each time you visit our little family blog, you can bless us with a sign of your having been here. You can leave little pearls of wisdom, weigh in, offer your two cents, share a laugh, join in, participate, etc... You get the picture.

It helps motivate me to keep trying to find time to post if I know that someone, anyone enjoys perusing (or really even notices). (Bethany and Tara get gold stars for consistently commenting.)

Thanks in advance. I look forward to your priceless additions to my blogging experience. :)

Just for visiting today, I'll reward you with a couple of photos.

On my birthday, we went to Baby Loves Disco, a monthly event for babies that takes place in a night club.

Here are Mama and Baby, getting down together. OK, more like Mama watching Baby getting down. And Papa taking pictures. Whatever.




And here are a couple of views from Kirby Cove on Monday, October 27, a very special day.




That's all you get this time. I've gotta get to bed.

Catch Up Time

So you know you haven't posted in a while when even your forget-to-take-pictures self takes a look at her collection of pictures and there are about a bazillion and a half to post. So I will post some portion of the bazillion and a half. (Yes, I really am a math teacher.)

Life has been fun lately, although we are finally feeling the perpetual illness that you hear about in the home of a toddler. I don't think I was sick at all for something like two years, and then we have had a series of three illnesses in a row sweep through our house in the last month. First it was a very snotty cold (sorry for the graphic description), then it was a particularly horrendous, but thankfully very short, stomach flu, and now back to another very snotty cold. I look approximately like Rudolph at the moment. I'll spare you pictures of that.

We've also been very aware in this house lately of the uni-directional nature of time. This is the month of birthdays for the more mature members of the family, and the less mature member is gaining maturity at lightning speeds. We are all getting older. They say that's how it goes.

Now on to some photos.

A few weeks ago, Aria and I ventured up to Sonoma to join Mischa and Tara for a picnic in the park. It was the vintage festival, parade and all, but we really just wanted to sit outside and eat food and visit.

Aria ate quite a bit of good picnic food, including her very first fig, which was purchased from some cute kids walking around selling bags from their very own tree. Oh, small towns...


After some visiting at a respectful distance (check out Mischa's face),

and some not-so-cooperative picture posing,
Aria decided it was time for hugs.

...and more hugs...

...and even more hugs...

And then we had some nice Mommy cuddles.

What a great day!

And now for some around the home photos.

One day many, many months back, Nana bought Aria a funny little pink sunhat in a valiant attempt to shield her delicate little baby skin from the then-early-summer sun. Aria would have none of it. But then a few weeks ago, she found the hat in her hat basket and couldn't get enough of it. I just had to document the occasion.


As her papa would say, Aria, your mama dresses you funny. (As I recall it would have been even funnier if the photo had included the shoes. Oh, well.)


About a month ago, Little Stella was too sick to play (This was right at the beginning of the month of illnes. I am trying not to hold a grudge.), so Aria got her wonderful nanny, Chikin (Yes, Chikin. Really.) all to herself. I came home to find them playing together in the back yard. I took the opportunity to take some photos Paparazzi style. (It's incredibly hard to take photos of Aria when she knows you're doing it, because they all end up looking the same - baby with slightly fussy, demanding face lunging toward the camera with her "gimme" hand out.) Anyway, You can see that playing can be very serious business for Aria.

But not quite so serious for Chikin.


The other day Aria came across an old sweatshirt of mine in a pile (I don't know how that happened, I promise. I ALWAYS pick up after myself. Hee hee.) She picked it up and immediately began trying to insert her arms into it anywhere she could. She wouldn't rest until she could wear it. Unfortunely, it didn't last long, as it's so long she couldn't walk very well.

And an Aria and Mama self portrait. Is this our good side?


And a very sweet picture of Aria. I have a feeling this one will turn out to be a classic.

Have I mentioned that I'm really bad at remembering to take pictures? For example, we went to the academy of sciences the other day. Saw (and kissed) many beautiful fish, as well as a puma, an owl, a California condor, jelly fish and an albino crocodile. Well, we didn't kiss all of them, but more of them than are kissed by most respectable humans. We also had a great time sitting in beautiful red plastic chairs and dancing to soundtracks of informational videos. And we kissed some strangers, young and old alike. It was a good day. But did I get any photos? Did I even remember to bring my camera? I'll let the absence of visual evidence answer that question.

Well, I got smart on Thursday and pointed the camera out to Chikin on a day when she and Stella were over here playing with Aria. I came home to find these. Clearly a great collaboration is taking place. Watch out Gilbert and Sullivan, John and Olivia, Fred and Ginger...



Our budding genius.


One of her very favorite activities is studying all of the goings on on our little section of Ney Street. Chikin caught her in the act. I'm sure she was either spying on neighbors or watching the garbage truck.


That's all for now.

No, wait, I think I owe a mention to Leslie, my ex-student. Or I guess my student. (Once my student, always my student, yada yada yada...) She is a loyal blog follower (or so she leads me to believe) and wanted a mention. So I will brag about her a little. She is currently in the act of mastering her college Calculus class, even after being woefully underprepared by a high school precalculus class that spent most of the year with substitutes. Go, Leslie!

Now I think that's really all.

Kissing the Cat

Somehow I forgot to include this in the last post. It's just too funny, blurriness and all...

Sometimes when she does this, the cat looks at her like she's a strange alien. Other times, he gets in the mood and kisses right back.

Vocabulary

Spoken word vocabulary:

Papa (the very first one and possible the most clearly pronounced still.)
Mama
cow - it's hard to describe how cute this is. you just have to hear it.
moo - "mow"
cold - "co"
hot - "haaaa"
cheese - "chz"
avocado - "caco"
cracker - "caca"
melon - "meme"
Stella (her dear little friend) - something like "nyanya"
man (before this many men on the street were "Papa!")- "ma"
Shah Shah (our kitty) - "ya ya"
meow - without the long e sound, the voice goes waaay up, along with the eyebrows
bath - "ba"
ball - "ba" or often "ba ba"
flower - "owa"
towel - "owa"
owl - "owa"
shadow - "wawa"
pillow - "piwow"

she can also bark (sort of) and enjoys doing it immensely. does that count as a word?


Sign vocabulary:
dog, cat, bird, eat, drink, nurse, shoes, socks, stars, tree, clean, dirty, frog, thank you, book/read, ocean, flower (although she doesn't ever sign it now that she can say it), butterfly, change,

OK, OK, some pictures, already...

I love this cute little picture of Stella. She is the friend Aria gets to see four days out of every week.

Aria is REALLY into shoes. She signs excitedly when she sees them on the floor or when she happens to notice them on someone's feet. Here she wanted to try on Papa's shoes.

And again on another day (as evidenced by the jammies)...


Apparently she was less comfortable in Mama's new running shoes. (This is the "up!" position.)

Shoes aren't the only things she likes to put on. She sometimes finds her pretty dresses in her room and wants them on over whatever else she has on. On this day, it was her sweet new little halter top, a gift from Tricia and Kawayan.

I just love these next two expressions.


The other day, Renard looked at Aria and exclaimed, "You have a uni brow!" Look closely and you will notice the extra avocado-flavored feature...


I better publish quickly, or it may never happen...

Just some pictures

OK. I keep not doing a post because I can't find time to say all that there is to say. (This is very silly, I know.) So, I won't try. I'll just put up some pictures. And maybe say a thing or two, but if I run out of time, I'll hit the "publish post" button before running off, so if there's a rough ending, this is why.

In case any of you are worried, we're doing great. Busy. Parenting a 14 month old is like this, I hear. Full of adventures. And things to figure out and arrange and take care of and in between there's work and groceries and such.

Aria is healthy and happy and learning like crazy. She's a walking, talking (some), signing (a lot) human being with lots of needs and thoughts and demands and ideas. It's pretty fun. And exhausting.

I can throw in a couple of picture explanations before I run off.

This was at Aria's birthday party, more than two months ago now. Aria and Grandma working on learning more about each other...


This is old, but it was just given to me and I couldn't resist putting it up. This was taken at Bob and Dwayne's wedding in November, when Aria was just 5 months old.


Baths are fun.

This was taken in Sonoma on the fourth of July, when Ethan, Aria and I had come to hear our mother (Aria's Nana) sing.


Fussy, messy baby...

More birthday party pictures. Many lovely people came. We got lots of pictures of the backs of their heads.



Aria and Jessica (evidenced by the cute orange sneaker) and I had a little picnic a few weeks ago. The sun was bright and Aria borrowed Jessica's shades.



She has taken recently to sitting in the glider. Chillin...


Cat toy? What cat toy? I just see a "ba!" that makes cool noises when I shake it around.


I just had to throw this one in. Ethan and Victoria worked hard to transform my back yard into a lovely play space. It really is. I won't hold this post up waiting for pictures of how lovely it is, but I'll put them up soon.


And publishing...