Vlog Backlogue

Well, remember when we all went to a Halloween festival? I've finally gotten around to uploading a video of Katrina and Alexandra riding the burlap sack slide. I thought Katrina would freak out, but not so. Also, Katrina being cute with tickling below...

Happy, happy weekend

Have you ever had a couple of days where everything goes well and you are completely recharged for the coming weeks, months, etc? I got very lucky this past weekend, to have such an experience.

On Saturday Erica took me out for a facial and pedicure and then we had a lovely lunch at a sustainable, organic place called "The Dogwood Cafe." The best part of the morning and afternoon was hanging out just with Erica and catching up with her (though the spa treatment was pretty awesome too!). For the evening, Erica and Geoff and their puppy Frankie watched Katrina (and appropriately indoctrinated her with the Muppets), while John and I headed to an Ethiopian restaurant for an official date. It was really fantastic to have a chance to talk to John for several hours about things that didn't involve what needed to be done around the house or with Katrina. Total bliss!

On Sunday, the three of us headed to the Baltimore Aquarium where we raced through a bunch of exhibits in order to see the dolphin show at 11:30. Katrina sat through the half hour show eating raisins, looking serious, and not uttering a single word. The minute it was over and we got up, she looked at us very excitedly and said "Dolphins! Splash! Play ball! Jump, jump, jump! Swim under!" Obviously she had a blast and carried that energy through lunch and a couple of exhibits. We stopped by the touch tank where she refused to touch the horseshoe crab, but finally relented to picking up two mussel shells and transferring water between them.

After her nap, Katrina helped John decorate my birthday cake with sprinkles. She started out with one sprinkle at a time, which finally progressed to handfuls of sprinkles and finally the entire bowl in the middle of the cake. We videotaped the decorating, so hopefully John will be able to post it sometime during the week. We enjoyed the cake! cake! with our next-door neighbors who had dinner with us.

My birthday celebration continued on Monday when a co-worker brought in some fish dumplings and then today we all had apple pie and I got a really nice card from all my labmates. All this birthday celebration came on top of the lovely emails from a bunch of you and a couple of calls too.

Lucky me to have such great friends and coworkers and a great family! And now for the ham whom you have all come to see:





Muppets watching is serious business!


Hanging out with Uncle Geoff and Auntie Erica

Oooooh Caaaarla! And other contest winners!

We're trudging through our backlog of posts, and wanted to announce that Katrina picked Carla's name first in our 200th post contest. Since we had just a smattering of people leave us a message though, we would like for ALL of you (Carla, Sarah, Julie, Pacificmod, and Carey) to send us your current address to muchieguchie at yahoo dot com. Carla will be getting the grand prize, and everyone else will get prizes too. We will be sending them out within the week.

And thank you all for leaving comments. It is really nice to feel like we aren't just creating a bank of memories for the mooch, but that actually our friends and family like to check in on us too. We love you all!

Catching up

Roaring for Puff the Magic Dragon

With all the job stuff I've been going through lately, it's been really hard to keep up with blogging what's been going on. As many of you may have noticed, my name conspicuously has been missing from a lot of posts recently. Some of this has just been that Alexandra seems to keep beating me to the punch on downloading pictures (see job stuff, above). So in an effort to combat that, here I am...

And we've sort of just come out from under a horrible week of aches pains, coughing, and various volumes of mucus thanks to a nasty flu that hit Alexandra the hardest but has struck me and Katrina too. Having survived all that, plus some job interviews on my part (yes I'm on some short lists, no I haven't heard anything), we got some much deserved fun with Kiki this weekend. Saturday was spent doing not much of anything, though Alexandra took big K out for a spin around town and then we both took her on a little walk that involved taking her little pink stroller around. This is a recent fascination for Katrina, she basically loves taking some of her play food or stuffed animals around in her little stroller. There is even the chicken(kitchen)/livingroom/choo-choo! stroller game that involves me or Alexandra pulling a small toy puppy while Katrina chases it with her stroller full of fake food. It culminates in her shouting choo-choo(??) and attacking the puppy with the stroller when we get to the living room. We have to say something along the lines of "Oh, no!".

Today we got to go to Zenta's birthday party, a wonderful little girl from Katrina's daycare. Her parents are very nice and had us and a few other people for some great food, lots of balloon animals, and a pinata. The best part of the afternoon involved a huge balloon fight among the adults, with Katrina sitting _very_ still to avoid the crazy grownups. And Alexandra discovered a hidden talent at zoological balloon engineering, giving us great hope she has a backup job in case this whole science thing doesn't work out.



Pushing the Stroller, Hollywood Style!

Lately, I haven't really given an update on what we have been doing with Katrina or what new things she has been doing. The weekend before Katrina's birthdays was really nice in that the three of us passed the time doing family activities. On Saturday we went to the Walter's Art Gallery. It was the first time that I had been (as an undergrad I couldn't afford the cost of a visit, but now that it is free, it has become quite affordable). We took Katrina to the children's activity center where we made Ethiopian fans. Afterwards we looked for the Ethiopian art as part of their collection. After touring the "Sue-seum" (as Kiki pronounces it), we headed out for a quiet evening at home. Sunday started off with John and Katrina making pancakes, though I tried my hand out on making pancakes in the shapes of a giraffe, pig, and dragon. And then, not much. So all in all, it was a perfect weekend.

Voting

I almost didn't vote today. I hemmed and hawed and said that it probably wouldn't matter, because in MD, it was a given who would win. Now before you get all up and arms about it, I finally walked the one block to my polling station and voted. In the ice storm. Despite being bedridden (no joke) for five days with a wracking cough/head cold thing (which is really why all the hemming and hawing came about). What finally did it, was not just that it was a historic primary, but thinking about people around the world who would walk for miles to cast a vote, flu be damned. I don't ever want Katrina to ask me why I didn't vote in an election year, in a primary. I don't ever want her to try to get out of jury duty, or shrug her shoulders at a voting booth, or be complacent about the world around her. And if I don't want her to be those things, than I surely can't be those things either.

I'm crawling back to bed, hoping that all of you who can vote, have voted, or will soon. And we will return with contest winners and updates on the mooch once I can actually be up and about for more than an hour without being winded.

Actual birthday

Tired of hearing about the Kikster's birthday? Promise that this is the last post. We spent a lot of the day laughing (ok, actually there might be another post with the video - can't upload it tonight):

Birthday bonanza, party-goers

Katrina's birthday was our first celebration in our new house. I was interested to see how many people could comfortably fit. Originally we had planned on just three of Katrina's friends and their parents. With the addition of godparents and grandparents and one or two other folks, we quickly reached our limit, though there were several other people that we would have loved to see there too. Overall, almost everyone could fit, though it was a tight fit for a bit with the kids running around.

We were really lucky to have the following people come (I'm not posting pictures of some of our guests, due to privacy issues):


Godmother Erica and Uncle Fingers, er Uncle Geoff


Danielle


Kathy and Ryan


Godfather John


Farmer Dan

We posted all of the pictures (taken with a polaroid - you remember what those are, right?) on a tractor that I made. It complemented the tractor pulling pictures of Katrina throughout the year and I'm hoping to put them all together into a book for her as a keepsake of the party.




After folks left, Katrina had fun opening all of the generous presents that she got. Erica and Geoff got her a wonderful papyrus that she is having fun pointing to and that we plan to put up on our wall soon. She also got some wonderful books, tractors, trucks, planes, games, clothes, and even a great wheelbarrow that she has insisted be upstairs when she is, and downstairs when she is. Here is just a sampling of some of her present opening:

Birthday bonanza, part 2

On Saturday we held Katrina's birthday party at our house, complete with animal plates, farm cake, and a round of Old McDonald. Despite owning a bandana dress and leggins, Katrina firmly against dressing up in theme. That didn't stop a couple of folks though from showing up in their farming garbs. Katrina was a bit overwhelmed when everyone showed up at once (especially since I think she was ready to take a nap - so much for planning things around her sleep schedule!), but warmed up about an hour in after the food had been served and she realized that her friends were here to play with her. She got bashful again when everyone sang Happy Birthday to her (although she's been practicing for weeks!), but once the cake was cut, everything was A-OK again.

It was absolutely wonderful to see so many wonderful faces at her party - friends, family, caregivers, and godparents were all able to come, and John and I actually got a chance to talk to almost everyone. Here is just a smattering of pictures. We'll post a couple more up tomorrow.

Birthday bonanza, part 1

On Friday we brought in a cake (farm-themed) for Katrina's birthday celebration at daycare. We stopped by after her nap to participate in the festivities. Katrina was very excited at the prospect of having a birthday, and had spent most of the week saying "Trina! Too (two) old!" Freaking adorable. :)

When we arrived at daycare, Kathy and Katie had decorated the pink butcher paper with balloons and cow spots. We listened to the Happy Birthday song and then watched as all of the kids devoured the carrot cake. It was a lot of fun.

After her birthday party, we took Katrina up to the "big kids" room. Since she has turned two, she is transitioning this week to the 2-3 year old classroom, and we wanted her to meet her caregivers and get a chance to check out the room and kids. While I was ok during our transition meeting (we got loads of artwork and a developmental update - she's doing really well and we were told that her language skills and vocabulary are great), seeing all the bigger kids was a little rough on me. I hope that our petite girl can hold her own!

Naptime!

Pacificmod asked in the comments what we found about naps transitioning around 14 months. This is kind of a hard question, because Katrina used to take two naps a day until she moved to the one year old room at her daycare in State College, where she had one nap a day. So in a sense, her daycare made the transition for us, though we tried to be consistent with what they were doing. What they did was over two weeks push her morning nap later and later until her nap came right after lunch. This is pretty much the schedule she follows now. We do notice that in the morning she usually hits a low around 10am, but these days we usually ride that out with some quiet play, or give her a nap if she asks for it.

The best thing to do is watch your child and see what they respond well to, and be as consistent as possible! If you are able to keep that nap in the morning for as long as possible, do it. As with everything we are bombarded with advice on what is "best" for a baby. I believe enough sleep for your little one, whatever that is (and we all know when a wee beast hasn't had enough sleep), is what's right.

Hope that helps!