First trip to OMSI

I had meant to post pics of our trip to OMSI and never got to it. She had so much fun that I'd hate to miss this one. (I wish that we had pics of all of her discoveries, especially her splashing at the water table, but Gus was doing stroller watch/taking pics with Eric for much of the time. We were worried about leaving our brand new stroller unattended, but were later assured that they'd never had a theft issue and Gus came in at that point. I think in the future, though, we'll just use theirs when we go).





If this one looks familiar, it's because I used it as a daily photo for the day.



It was really fun watching her interact with new people. She and this little boy really hit it off.

Oh, but how they've grown

Esther sent me some pictures of the girls this week that were taken at Sarah's birthday party in December. I am honestly amazed at how much they've grown in just four months. I see her every day, and I can tell that she's turning into a little girl at an amazingly quick rate. The change in these pictures is profound, though, and much more than I was expecting.

Named after a deranged man, no less

On Wednesday, Gus suggested that I meet him after work at Kelly Point Park. Gus had referenced it a few times as being near his work and I just assumed that it was a grassy knoll on the river. It is that, and so much more. There are miles of trails and beaches, and it's right at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers. It's absolutely spectacular. We enjoyed it so much the first night that we met there again last night. Here are some shots of that and a few other happenings of the last few days:







Her new throne. She loves it-- not that you'd know that by the look on her face or anything.

After our first reconnaisance of the park, we met Rosie and Jaden in NW for one last shindig before their big move. The spread from Elephant's was fabulous.



He has amazing timing, huh?



To be fair, here's one of me. There was one that was worse but I'm vain.



While we were waiting at the park for Gus, she got down and crawled in the grass for the first time. Apparently, she decided that digging in the dirt really is what it's cracked up to be.



When we got home, there was a package waiting from Aunt Jackie and Uncle Ed (my dad's sister and bro-in-law) with Chie's first birthday present. She was, as usual, initially enticed by the tag. But she took to that stuffed elephant quite famously. There was also an adorable t-shirt that I have yet to get a shot of that shows the image.



Back at the park the next day. This time, we roamed the beach a bit.



This is an Oregon beach, after all. No palm trees here, no sir. But there's lots of wood for bonfires.



My husband really isn't a fan of smiling on cue.



They're like peas in a pod.



On the walk back to the car, we found this. I guess there's always a chance, but...



After all of that beautiful weather, we felt like breaking out the summer food. Out of the focus is a pile of fresh french fries, cooked in Tuck, our new fryer. Get it? The burgers were seasoned with fresh thyme and homemade barbeque sauce. And the pea salad was like spring epitomized. It was a delicious almost end to the week.

Me talk pretty one day

Chie's vocabulary is developing at a rapid rate. I know, I know, she's only 12 months old. And if you weren't in the same room with her, you probably wouldn't believe me. But she now has SEVEN words that clearly have meaning to her. They are:

Mama
Dada
Our first names
Book (said "bo" when she wants us to keep reading)
Water ("wa-wa" that only stops when she gets her sippy)
Grandma ("g-ma" pronounced "guh-ma")

There have been a few others that we've wondered if she was using them intentionally. But all of these have been repeated so many times that there's no mistaking her intentions.

Mama the sound utilized the most frequently. She will climb up my legs and say it, or crawl towards me. She also says it a lot when she wakes up. I'll walk into her room to find her babbling "Mama. Mama!" She first said it a few months ago. I had her up at work with me and came into the room three different times to find her calling, quite insistently, "Mama!" It can also mean that she needs something though. She gets very insistent when she has a need. That shouldn't be surprising AT ALL.

Save the date

If you live in town (and are part of a very small guest list due to a bias I'll explain momentarily) you'll be receiving this in the next week. But I thought that the rest of you might like to see the preview to the birthday fete. It's not really going to be a big to-do. I really hate big, loud parties where the babies all seem overwhelmed. It'll just be family and a few of her little friends and their parents, of course. We need all the supervision we can get!

Why just a day when you can have a Party Week

When we lived in Utah while we were engaged, we began a tradition called The Birthday Week. It started as a joke. Gus said that he thought that birthdays were so wonderful that they really should go on for a week, instead of just a day. Our resources were limited at the time and it seemed like a good way to make him feel special without blowing our wedding fund. The idea stuck and now, every year, our birthdays are looked forward to with much anticipation. Today marked the end of Gus' Birthday Week. Here's a recap:



Gus called from his tutoring appointment and suggested we meet him down in Northwest. And so we did. The day was beautifully sunny and we caught the very end of it. We played in the yard of Chapman School with Chie for a little while; Chie rode the swings again (she and I had stopped at the park on our errands earlier in the day) and we discovered how difficult it is to get a picture of a moving toddler. She tried the slide for the first time too but didn't seem entirely thrilled with moving that quickly while falling at the same time. And in the midst of it all, Gus got this shot. I was whispering in her ear and she was, at least for the moment, rapt at the sound of my voice and very, very still. We headed home after that and made our incredible fish tacos with chipotle sauce. It was a nice night.

Tuesday we met again in Northwest and wandered around until it was time for me to get a long-delayed haircut. That night was kind of crazy because after my haircut, I had to go up to work for a few hours. Chie got pretty maxed out while Gus tried to entertain her and by the end of the evening, we just collapsed into bed. But the promise of dinner at Andina the next night helped us hold on.



Gus' dad took this shot of him blowing out his birthday candles. The two-thumbs up is part of a signature move, performed at the table while we all laughed along with his crazy dance moves. The dinner itself was incredible. Our waiter was fabulous and was able to accomodate the varied tastes at the table (including a plain steak and potato for those in our party who were not up for a Peruvian take on cuisine). We'd gone there a few weeks before to check it out and absolutely fell in love with the range of tastes. Here's a shot of the causa, Gus' favorite dish:



Gus' birthday was decidedly more low-brow. We went down to Northwest, again, to a taqueria on the strip. We busied Chie with taco chips to keep her happy while we ate



and then stopped at Mio Gelato for some mango and cinnamon goodness



We had been having a lot of fun but that night, we agreed that we were both getting a bit exhausted from all of the festivities. And so Friday, we just took it easy and spent time as a family, bumming around. It was actually quite lovely. And it gave us time to gear up for the big party that we held on Saturday with friends. We had, at the peak, almost thirty people. Some of them were friends that we see all of the time, some were friends that we only see once in a great while. And one couple were friends of friends that we'd never met before! It was crazy. Gus took command of the pizza station and cranked out a variety of pies, all of which disappeared within moments of being cut.

Our friend Eric took command of the camera that night. Here are a few of the shots that he took. They give a great feeling for the energy that night:





















The aftermath of the party wasn't too bad, either. I guess all of those loads of dishes that I did in the midst of the festivities paid off. We were highly surprised at the amount of diet soda that was consumed, however. Hopefully none of our friends will find their brains rotting under our watch.



It was a wonderful week together. I'm just glad that we have a few months of a break from the partying! Chie's birthday is coming, of course, but she gets coddled nearly every day. I don't think she'll notice a difference.

Newsletter: Month Eleven

You turned 11 months old a few days ago and when I realized this fact, I was honestly shocked. The very idea that you are approaching a year takes me aback every time that I realize it. A year! I just can’t believe that you’ve been in our lives for nearly an entire year. I know, I know. This shouldn’t come as a shock. I’ve spent every one of those days with you, cradling your tiny body and washing your little fingers when you smoosh fig newtons between them and rocking you until you finally succumb to sleep. I guess that it’s hard to see them all added up, though, and realize how much each of those days has changed our life.



Those days often begin in a very lazy way. You wake up ready to nurse every morning; you often sound quite perturbed at the idea of waiting even two seconds before you get your fix. But once you’ve gotten it, it’s not uncommon for you to fall back against me and back into sleep. I started noticing this and so now, we nurse in the morning tucked into lots of blankets and pillows. The wonderful thing about this, at least in my estimation, is that I often get another hour or two of sleep. It’s interrupted, somewhat, by some thrashing and baby snores and waking that’s immediately satiated by latching you onto the breast. When you do wake up, for good, you’re often still game to cuddle into the covers at intervals. You’ll sit up, and poke around for a few minutes, and then lie your head down on my leg or my torso or the pile of pillow—really whatever comfy place is most accessible. Then you’ll crawl around a little bit more and then lay your head down, on and on. At some point that becomes tedious to you and then we’re up and at ‘em.



Breakfast typically comes next, another rotating portion of our day. You eat in a small but seemingly never-ending trail. You’re almost never in your high chair for longer than five or ten minutes. When you’re done, you make that clearly known. You had a high chair that we’d been borrowing from the Dougalls but it had a tray that you could push off with a few hard shoves. We’ve finally replaced it and meal times have been going much more smoothly. Your food repertoire continues to broaden but you still love your standard fare; you’ll almost always gobble up bananas, cheese cubes, avocado, or applesauce. You also signal when you’re done by spitting out any food that’s put in your mouth. You do it so efficiently too, with a deft movement of your tongue.



The rest of your days are spent playing, reading, cuddling, and trundling off to wherever your imagination takes you. The first time that I realized that you’d just taken off into another room, I followed your little noises and found you in our bedroom, removing books from the shelf one by one. Thankfully, when we moved in to this apartment, I made a concentrated effort to put things away in such an order that when a baby joined our family, we wouldn’t have to baby-proof everything. I did this in the kitchen specifically and it has turned out to be one of the most brilliant things I've ever done. It is helpful beyond words to be able to clear the dishwasher or get dinner going while you go from cabinet to cabinet, removing dish cloths and cookie cutters.

The truth is, though, that you’ve absorbed the constant refrain of “gentle, baby girl” and treat most everything with care. I should say baby care because at times, I’m surprised how fine your coordination has become and yet, at the same time, your exhuberance can appear at any moment. You’ll be carefully turning the pages of a book and then squeal and try to remove the cover. But you’re learning. Sometimes you learn the hard way. You've sustained more bruises in the last few weeks than I remember getting in at least a month. I suppose we both have the clumsy gene in common. But it's learning none the less, even if it is literally from the school of hard knocks. All of those interactions with the things and people around you teach you new lessons. Watching your brain work through each of those tasks is truly as wondrous thing to behold.



That brain of yours seems to be developing at lightning speed. There’s been a definite shift in your interaction with the world over the last few weeks. You’re so much more participatory in everything going on around you. And you want to be in on the action. You’ll crawl over to see what’s going on if you hear a noise. And you’re so fast at it now, too! We’ll hear your little hands padding on the linoleum and then the next thing we know, your little face will round the corner and be all smiles to see us again. If there are children around, you’re very attuned to what they are doing and seem to want to find a way to be involved. And you are more tuned in to inatimate objects as well. You always seem to be trying to figure it all out. You often do, too, which often creates unintended messes all over our house and wherever else we take you. You’re just so present now. As Grandma put it, “She’s a really a player now, isn’t she?” And you are. You’re a definite player in every aspect of our life. Welcome to the party, baby girl!