Curious about George

I took Lena to Mrs. Nelson's Toy and Book Shop for storytime this morning. First of all, I LOVE this store. The clerks don't even mind if small sticky children touch the pretty books and mess up the decorations. But the best thing was storytime.

I was worried that Lena would be too young and bother all the other children whose parents would then turn on me with angry "what kind of mommy are you!?" looks. But Lena was actually quiet and happy to sit on my lap. I think partly because the giant curious George and "the man in the yellow hat" compelled her to ponder the mysteries of fiction vs. reality. She had an "oh my god they can escape from the book!" look on her face for most of the reading. Her friend Aidan, however, was very interested in touching George and yellow hat man, so went up to take a look. Usually, Lena is the more intrepid of the pair, but Aidan had a great time wandering around. After the reading there was a photo opportunity and craft, followed by a snack - a banana snack.

A great time was had by all and Lena went home tired and happy. I am definitely putting this on my Regular Lena Activities calendar.

Sugar Honey Ice Tea

So Lena is starting to say actual words. She's been "talking" for a while, but it's some crazy moon language made up entirely of the "words": segoy, zooy, gud, HEY! and various facial expressions. Some recognizable words she can say include: hi, egg, and good. phrases only Jason and I understand include: what's this? (whasis?) , what are you doing?(whadoon?) and Hi Dad (hida). We've been trying to get her to mimic words we tell her. For example, I point to a tree and say "tree. Look Lena, TREE. Say it with me...tree. Treeeeee. Tree." Her response: "segoy?" and the maniacal laughter of the very young. This was the general pattern until Monday.

This weekend was somewhat busy. Lena and I went to a birthday party and Jason went to Simi Valley for game day, or geek club as I like to call to it. Simi Valley is quite a ways from Claremont so he used most of the gas in the car. I do not notice this lack of gas until I am already enroute to the store on Monday. I have no idea how low on gas we are, only that the gas light is blinking at me. I am not relishing running out of gas with a small child in the car so respond as I always do in these sorts of situations: cursing. Well, I'm sure you can figure out the rest, but I'll tell you anyway. I start yelling "shit shit shit" and from behind me comes the perfectly intelligible echo: "shit, shit, shit" and of course, maniacal laughter.

Mommy and Me

Lena and I are in a mommy and me class that meets every Thursday morning at 9am. This is a good time because it tires her out right before her nap. This is a bad time because for the last 2 weeks I've had to wake Lena up to go. I know, I know she's a great sleeper (just like her mom. I'm so proud) but she's starting to get cranky when woken before 10am. I'm only sort of joking...she woke up at 10:45 on Wednesday and still went to sleep at 8pm. She's both teething and going through a growth spurt as evidenced by the consumption of large quantities of spaghetti-os and chicken nuggets as well as the constant drool.

As much as she grows and looks so much bigger and less infant like every day, she is still so small compared to other children her age. She's the youngest in our mommy and me class and definitely the smallest. The other mommys often comment on how she still has a baby face and total strangers in the grocery store are surprised she can walk already. They are even more surprised when I tell them she's almost 18 months.

But really there are worse things than having a baby that lets me sleep and does not weigh too much to carry around. I have no complaints. (ok, well at least about the sleeping and the carrying. the poop and drool are a whole different thing)

Doilies coming your way

I have taken up the grandmotherly art of crochet. Actually, my grandmother can crochet you under the table so don't laugh. (she sent us a really beautiful blanket when Lena was born.) I decided on crochet because knitting makes me angry, so I'm going with something I can do with less cursing. Unfortunately, I still mostly suck at it. I've made a couple hats - one for Lena and one for me. Lena will actually wear hers, but I think that's because she can't see it on top of her head. Also, she's a baby so I doubt she really cares anyway. I've also made a truly ugly scarf. For one thing - it's HUGE. I used a large gauge hook so the holes are bigger than they're supposed to be, but that's not the problem so much as the color. I started with cream, moved to maroon, ran out, and added blue. The pattern called for 240 stitches so it's like 6 feet long. I'll have to wrap it around my entire head so it doesn't drag on the ground. Also, as Jason has so kindly pointed out, we live in California so there's not much call for extra warm clothing. Even so, it's been a lot of fun. My goal is to crochet a not ugly baby blanket for my new neice or nephew. (this is my brother/sister-in-law's baby-to-be for those of you who may have thought Gina went crazy) Since Jared and Emily have taste, I think I'll go with something other than cream, maroon, and blue. If anybody out there crochets, I could use some tips.

We're Back

Hey all! We're back from our Portland Vacation. We had a great time. Lena got to see her grandparents, aunt, and uncles. Jason and I got to see two movies and eat in a restaurant without worrying about baby seats and the squeal of happiness that is the inevitable consequence of Lena's restaurant joy. (She LOVES to eat out. I think it's because the waitstaff think she's cute and bring her extra food.)

For those who are wondering, Lena behaved herself on the plane both to and from. There were a few minutes of crying and wiggling but mostly she was happy to look out the window with her dad. The flight attendants commented on how good she was, which of course put the pressure on us to keep it that way so we made stupid faces to make her laugh and I let her try to feed me her pacifier. It all worked out in the end.

Once in Portland we stayed in Dan and Gail's basement, which was the PERFECT place for us. We had our own bathroom and kitchen and a huge space for Lena to run around. She had a ball watching Sesame Street and throwing her toys around. On Friday the 6th we all drove up to a turn off near Government Camp to show Lena snow. At first she seemed confused by all the white and cold (and probably the 3 layers of clothes, boots, hat and scarf we dressed her in) , but once Uncle Jared and Aunt Emily took her sleding and Uncle Peter ran her around she was fine. She stayed in and played in her huge basement for the rest of the week and as I mentioned before, Jason and I got out and about some. A great time was had by all. Pictures are available on our Flikr site which you can access by clicking the scary picture of me from 1800-something just to the right.