She's Ready for Mt. Everest

Marea's new thing is climbing. She's getting really good at climbing up on chairs and the couch but she enjoys balancing between the barstools and hanging on the coffee table more. It makes me crazy because i'm so scared she's going to fall but I know she needs to climb! The big question is...when will she master the final frontier...making it out of the crib?




The biggest challenge I am facing right now is keeping her busy. She is so busy. And this means that I am busy. Busy trying to keep her busy. If she's interested in something, her attention span is about 20 minutes. If not, it's about 3 seconds. I can see her interests and abilities changing a lot right now. She's definitely able to DO a lot more. This is making it really fun for me to buy stuff for her because I love watching her explore things. Thank goodness Christmas is coming, i'm looking forward to having new toys for her and I to play with!



Sleep has been improving. We rarely get woken up at night and naps are improving. Now if I could just get her to sleep in until at least 6, every day, i'd be a super happy camper. I just struggle with the early wake up, even though it's Gary who usually gets up with her!

Friends

It is so wonderful to see Marea and Jackie becoming such great friends! At the beginning of summer, when we first moved, Jackie wasn't too interested in playing with Marea. But over the course of the past few months, as Marea has grown up a bit, and become more interested in Jackie, the two of them have starting developing a relationship that is sure to become great friendship.


Marea can say Jackie's name, and will often talk about her. When we pull into their neighborhood, or up to grandma and grandpa's house, Marea knows and starts chattering about Jackie. If I mention that we are going to go see Jackie, she will often run for the front door and start pounding on it, like...arn't we going right now, mom?


"C'mon, Baby 'Rea!" That is the adorable way Jackie will entice Marea into playing one of her games. Thankfully, Jackie is mostly interested in running around with Marea, playing some sort of chase game. Marea certainly isn't interested in sitting down and focusing on anything right now. She wants to run around! They will run around, and poke at each other or bump into each other and squeal or let out a dual scream. It's very cute.


In a very short time, Emily will be part of the mix too! Now that is going to be fun...the three of them, this summer, at the beach.

Other fun stuff:
MMMMMMmmmmm-ma! Marea's version of a kiss. The cutest and sweetest kiss! Besides when she blows a kiss. How adorable is that?

Favorite song: She loves to sing "happy and ya know no-no-no-no-it". But she also loves dancing to her new cd from auntie sam. And when listening to her music in the car, she will often declare "dance!" and then gary and i must start groovin!

Could we possibly be close to potty training? For the past few days, Marea has been announcing her poops. Sometimes its before and sometimes it's after, but she definitely is understanding what is going on. It didnt' take long at all her to figure it out. Now Gary and I must get diligent about running her up to the potty! Stay tuned on this one!

Words, Words, and more Words

I can't believe how many words Marea has. Her vocabulary is exploding right now. She will often try to repeat just about anything I say. Pretty soon my little baby will be having a conversation with me. I'm going to miss all the baby babble.

What she doesn't have words for, she communicates in other hilarious ways. Such as, dragging her high chair across the room and running over to the refrigerator, pounding on it, stomping her foot and screeching....hmmm....think she's hungry?

The other monster we've created is her love for 'melmo'. So I let her watch Sesame Street in the mornings....what else am I supposed to do at 5:30 am when I can't even see yet? I let Elmo do the work! I can't believe it but I actually think Elmo is pretty cute. And Marea adores him too. She can spot that little red monster anywhere. It's suprising how much junk is out there in the world with Elmo on it. Right at her eye level. The cutest thing she does is sing the theme song. I hope I can get that on video.

Current Obsessions

There are a lot of fishies to point out at grandma and grandpa's house. Marea sees all of them and i'm seeing many of them for the first time myself. It's a pretty fun game. Marea says 'fishie', and I try to find it. The fishie pajamas are also a hit right now. Two mornings now have begun with a cheerful 'fishie' coming from the crib.
And who doesn't want their shoes on at 6 a.m.? Marea's other obsession right now is shoes. She loves putting on her own shoes and walking around the house, looking at her feet. But she's equally happy finding my shoes, or Gary's shoes, and bringing them over to us so we can put them on. "Mama shoe" and "Daddy shoe" can be heard several times throughout the day as she finds our shoes laying around the house.
Some other words she just loves repeating...cheese (favorite food), keys, car, NO, (actually it's 'no no no no no no') more (she's still signing it too, she does it over and over and over again repeating more more more!) down, pool (anytime she finds something pool related, such as our suits or towels, she'll say pool), jackie...she'll try to say just about anything these days. Hearing the little words come our of her mouth is just downright adorable. But then again, everything about her is absolutely adorable!
Pics....

Ball!

Marea is currently obsessed with anything round. She will happily point it out and exuberantly say, 'BALL'!

Some hilarious examples:

While investigating a roly poly bug in the backyard at grandma's house, she touches it and it rolled up into a 'BALL'!

While running like a manaic around the grocery store, she sees a pack of blueberries and happily (and longingly) exclaims 'BALL'!

While driving down the street, from the backseat we hear, 'BALL BALL BALL', and then the search is on for mommy and daddy...where is the ball? On this particular occasion i'm thinking of, it was the balloons in front of the car dealership.

And Grandma Craig has a whole tree of 'BALLS' in the back yard. Finding one on the ground is a guaranteed 'BALLLLLLLL!'

Here's some pictures from another fun day where the word of the day was 'FISHIE'!

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Marea's favorite thing to say is 'Beeeeeeeee'. Over and over again. I think she says it when she's content and in a good mood, just playing around. It's something she just says to herself when she's being a busy beeeeeeeee.

The past few days she's really started babbling a lot. As if she's having a full conversation with us. She'll string long 'sentences' together. She's also getting really good at repeating words, or at least trying to. Sometimes they come out so clear it's unreal. The other day in the bathtub she put (what sounded like) three words together...gary and i can't remember what they were but it was so clear....and for a second i just looked at her and thought, oh my god...pretty soon my baby is going to be talking and she's going to have all these things to say! We'll be having two-sided conversations! It was almost like a wierd glimpse into the future...just to keep me on my toes. So i'm making a point to teach her more words now. I've always talked to her a ton throughout the day...mostly to save my own sanity...but now i'm picking easy words and associating them with objects and repeating. It's just a matter of time.

She still does the babbling into our cell phones all the time. It's definitely still a favorite activity. Her babbling actually resembles how we must sound when we're on the phone. It's not sing-songy, more like brief little statements with pauses and everything.

Yesterday while hanging outside by her pool, she repeatedly got out, walked over to her sunscreen bottle, touched it and then pretended to rub it all over herself. It was really funny.

Yum...a lemon!

Little Miss MORE

Well I'm happy to report that the sign language class was a success...if I continue to use it on a regular basis I know the Little Miss would pick it up really easily. Unfortunately, I haven't been using it too much so her 'vocabulary' isn't very big. But she does use one sign CONSTANTLY...and it's MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE! Not only does she sign MORE, but she also says MORE when she's signing it. And whatever it is....mostly food, but also anything she wants, she signs and says more over and over again. It's absolutely hilarious.


What Marea always wants the most of is blueberries. The child absolutely loves them. It's practically an obsession.

Summertime Fun in the Sun!

Well we've made our move back to So. Cal. and so far it's proving to be an extremely good decision! Marea (and her mom and dad) is having a blast playing with all of her family and friends. A quick recap of what we've been up to so far...i've really been lagging on this post!

We kicked off our start here with Marea's First Birthday party. We almost kicked her out of the family when she wouldn't eat the cake! What's up with that? I can't believe our baby turned one. It has absolutely been the most wonderful and intense year of my life and I can't believe a whole year has gone by so quickly.


Then it was off to Mazatlan for a week of fun in the sun. Marea loved the ocean, the pool, tacos and sand. Mom and dad love beachside bar service and having help from cousin Lauren. And it was awesome spending time with Auntie Sam and Uncle Robby....we always end up getting treated like royalty when we're with them. The penthouse suite with our very own pool was fantastic....for Marea to skinny dip in. A good time was had by all.





We just returned from Marea's first camping trip, we headed out to El Capitan State Beach in Santa Barbara. We somehow didn't pack the tent poles so we ended up renting a posh 'tent cabin' at a very nice upscale campground. We had beds, clean sheets and towels, nice bathrooms with showers, maid service and lots of other fancy amenities. Marea was the campground rooster, waking each day in her usual good mood which involves lots of happy screeching and babbling. Marea enjoyed the freedom of wandering outside. I suppose the universe was telling us something by setting us up for success this time around. Next time we're doing the real tent thing!

Updates

Marea's top 4 teeth are coming in. The two middle haven't poked thru yet but I can see bulges, and the two side ones have poked through. Hopefully they'll all come thru together so is doesn't look like she has fangs. She's been doing great in spite of this!


It also seems like she's working on her language, big time. She chatters away constantly, not the old sing-song stuff she used to do, but more like she's trying to communicate. She mostly does it when she's engrossed in something, like playing with her toys, picking flowers or rocks out in the yard, or playing telephone (which seems to be a favorite game right now). She pretty vocal in the car too, but experiments more with silly sounds and screaching then. So far she can say 'ball', 'bye' (waves and says 'bye' to daddy every day, even before he's gone), 'cow' (she says 'ow') and 'rock'. She probably says a lot more than these but this is what i've picked up on so far. I know she's listening and trying, so i'm making a point out of repeating words and saying things correctly.


One word that I need to teach her is 'help'. Her current version of help is a high pitched scream. She is really curious and determined these days, so when things don't go her way, its no secret.


Another favorite game right now is when I throw blankets and pillows on the ground and she rolls all over them. She likes it when I join her for that one. Very cute indeed.


All in all, she's just way too cute and super fun. I get sad when she has to go to bed at night. Sometimes I wish the fun could just go on and on. From what i've heard, this ride just keeps getting better and better. What could be better than that?

Sleep Report

So guess who woke us all up in the middle of the night? The other baby of the household, HOMER. It seems that some type of predator, we're not sure if it was a cat or a raccoon, was trying to invade our house in the middle of the night. Homer, being the watch-cat that he is, defended us all by letting out loud, obnoxious howls to scare off the dangerous beast. Which promptly woke us all up.

Can I please just get a full night of sleep soon??

Oh So Sweet Dreams

I can be pretty superstitious sometimes, and after 11 months of broken sleep, I really don't want to shake the cosmic forces, but i'm just so damn excited that i'm going to do it anyways....Marea has been sleeping through the night for a full week.

Okay please let her sleep through tonight. I don't know what i'll do if I have to get up with her because i'm still soooooo very tired because I can't sleep! I stir a lot more at night than I used to, and I've been waking up every morning at about 4:30, waiting for my little love to call out to me and I just can't fall back asleep! And now that Marea is sleeping through, she's been waking up around 5:30-6 a.m., and well I can't make poor Gary get up with her every day, (although he's such an awesome husband and dad and he does it a lot anyways!) so, I bit the bullet and got up with her and the roosters this morning, meaning that i've been up since 4:30. YIKES! Now if I could just get my own sleep back on track, I just don't know what i'll do with myself. It's been a long time coming and it's finally here. I think i'll probably live it up by staying up until at least 10. Wow!

Another big milestone worth noting....Marea has been falling asleep for her naps without breastfeeding. This is a big step, unfortunately it's a step we're taking so that I can stop breastfeeding. I'm having a very difficult time wrapping my brain around the idea that my baby and I will no longer have that connection, but I know we have lots of other wonderful things to look forward to. In the meantime, i'm savoring every minute of it till we finally call it quits.

Marea ate halibut and salmon over the weekend and absolutely loved it. Now that she's older i've really starting getting adventurous with her food. She is a great eater. Must of been all that awesome breastmilk that got her off to a good start.

Mobile, Coordinated, Thoughtful, Curious and Fearless

As I sit here watching Marea play in the back yard, these 5 words come to mind. She loves to play in the rock walkway area and has figured out how to pick up the rocks and lift them up to a pot that is turned upside down on a bin and stick them through the little hole and it makes a 'thud' sound as it hits the bottom. She's really enjoying that. But she also found a long iron hanging plant holder that she is now banging against the rocks. And i'm sitting here wondering, how long do I let her play with this potentially dangerous object and give her the satisfaction of exploring her curiosity without hurting herself? I want her to explore everything around her, and i'm glad it naturally seems to be part of her personality. She's no girlie-girl (yet). She seems to be pretty rough and tough, willing to take a few bumps and bruises for the sake of doing something she just HAS to do. Like I said before...the toddler years are upon us, and although I see her little attitude emerging when I have to play safety cop, I'm more excited about her boundless desire to figure it all out. I guess we'll figure it out together.

Potentially the most dangerous of all...sticking her feet in Homer's water dish! (Hey, it bought me about 10 minutes, which I then used up trying to get the most perfect photo!)

Growing Up

The Little Miss is turning into a toddler right in front of our eyes. She's really taken off walking, and toddles all throughout the house. She's still a bit weary of separating from me in public, but her stranger anxiety seems to of settled down a bit. She's very interested in everything around her.

She is learning so much...giving kisses, dancing when I put music on, calling homer over for a pet (ya right!), kicking all her balls around the house, escaping from the baby gates, playing with her toys in new ways...such as putting things in as opposed to throwing things out! She's making lots of new sounds too, in fact, I think she tries to mimic what I say sometimes. She is no longer a baby blob! She's a little person!

Everybody's Moving!

With all the talk and preparation for our big move back to So. Cal., Marea decided she was also going to get moving....on her own two feet.

The day before she turned 10 months old, she took a few steps independently while being coaxed by cousin Sara. Over the past two weeks, her balance, coordination and will has skyrocketed. She can't yet get into the standing position from sitting down, but she'll find just about anything to pull herself up on and just walk away. And she's in heaven. Our baby can walk.

And...our baby can talk! She can absolutely say 'ball'. She knows what it is and says ball. She loves playing ball. Definitely a current favorite.

Speaking of talking, Marea and I have started our sign language class and it's really fun. There are few older toddlers in the class and they are definitely using sign language. I'm really working on using signs regularly at home so she'll pick up on it. I'll admit, it feels kind of silly, and sometimes she gives me this puzzled look, but I know the wheels are turning and before long, she'll be signing right back.

And now, introducing Marea's newest cousin, baby Emily....next summer they'll be running around the beach together.

Current Favorites

Turning the pages of all her books, but 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' is the fave; Emptying anything, such as cupboards, drawers, toys from the toy box, plastic easter eggs from her sand bucket; figuring out the shape sorting toy with mommy; dancing with mommy; walking up the street to see the baby goats and walking at the beach; DOGS (loves dogs!); playing 'get the fishie' game with daddy; standing up and letting go; cruising around the furniture and walking while holding on to our hands; playing with the sand at the beach or digging in dirt; and blueberry pancakes.





Marea is also showing us how smart she is these days. She can understand some basic words, like 'kitty' and 'daddy'; if I start reciting some of her favorite books she'll go pick it out of a pile; and our favorite-she'll put her hand out to homer and make a clicking sound just like we do.

Ha!

We've caged the little beastie!

We finally had to break down and buy some gates. Marea's free will was taking her straight to the kitty, kitty food, wine rack, front door, bathrooms, and many other 'off limits' places, so we decided it was time to give her a safe confined space to roam. This has diffused the frustration that comes along with her reaching a desired destination only to get pulled away and put back in front of a boring array of toys. She really doesn't seem to mind, and it's really saved us some frustration as well! She has free roam of both the living rooms which are completely baby safe, except when Homer enters her domain. She's still madly in love with him and goes straight for him when he's in her space. It's also nice that Homer has a safe place now too! We call it the kitty viewing area.





We're having more of that awesome spring weather so Marea and I have been hitting the beach for long walks and sand play. I really love relaxing with her at the beach.


Swimming lessons are going great...she's doing so well! She can go underwater without swallowing water! It's impressive. I love the fact that she's not scared of the water. She was destined to love water-just like her parents, she's got salt in her veins.

The bottom two teeth are really starting to poke through now and are easily visible. They don't seem to be bothering her at all.


Overall, things are great. We're just cruising along.

Tooth!

We have a tooth! Marea's bottom left tooth poked through this weekend. The right one is coming up next, it's right there just waiting for the middle of the night to cut through. The poor girl has had a rough few weeks. She's been a bit fussy and not sleeping very well, and I had a feeling that her teeth were coming through. Finally-teeth are here! Only twenty-some more to go!

I estimate that I lost approximately 18 hours of sleep over these bottom two teeth. I'm pretty sure that the pain has been keeping her up at night. With some help from Gary, we pulled through and although she's still having a hard time sleeping, I'M getting a bit more sleep. Days are rough when mommy is cranky.

And here's the little miss....(no pics of the teeth yet, she's hiding them pretty well)

I'M SOOOO EXCITED ABOUT SUMMER!!!

I don't think i've been this excited for summer since I was a kid. I know it's not for a few months but we're getting a taste of it here now. Marea and I went to the beach today and it was a perfect 70 degrees and no wind. She LOVED it. She loves sitting in the sand, grabbing at it, wiggling her toes and she even loved the water. I would dip her toes in and then pull her up and she would laugh.

She is the perfect beach buddy.

Hello Again!

We've had a busy few weeks! We took an unexpected trip to Long Beach (goodbye Mary Ann), followed by a visit from Auntie Sam and Uncle Robbie to celebrate Gary's birthday, followed by about two weeks with a cold. Marea and I were stuck indoors getting her well, but it didn't really slow her down much at all. She's really getting around these days, getting into everything. The house is pretty well childproofed and I try to let her explore as much as possible on her own. She's still absolutely head over heels for Homer. I don't think she'll ever tire of seeing him. And she loves pulling herself up to stand on everything, but the railings are her favorite by far. She's getting strong.
We started swimming lessons, and she is doing great! Daddy is her pool buddy. During the second lesson she was putting her face in the water and it didn't bother her at all. She's a natural. She'll be swimming this summer.
She's eating a wide varity of foods these days, and she never voluntarily misses a meal. We started finger foods this week, and as soon as she gets the hang of getting the food from her fingers into her mouth (istead of her fist) I know she's going to love it.



And to top it all off, she's getting cuter by the second.






The weather is nice, the baby is well, so this week we're getting out to enjoy our last few months in Santa Cruz.

Because We Can

Need I say more?

Sometimes being the parent is just too much fun.

Wild Thing

I think this picture pretty much sums up the past week:

The child has gone completely nuts. She literally tries to climb the walls. She is into absolutely everything except her toys, and she gets MAD when I take things away from her. And of course the new found excitement of standing in her crib is seriously sabotaging my nap efforts. I spend the majority of my day chasing her around. Distraction is my biggest ally.

She's loving every minute of it!

She (kind of) likes green beans!

I've been on a quest to find more veggies for Marea to eat. Avocado got spit out and peas gave her a nasty rash. Yesterday we tried green beans and I think they're a go! Although, she did throw them up. But maybe that's because I went running with her in the stroller too soon after she ate them. Because today she had them again and no barf! And she even made that cute little 'mmmmmm' sound a few times. Not after every bite like she usually does though.

I must admit, I feel guilty giving them to her because they're just so gross. I gave her some apples afterward just to get that awful taste out of her mouth.

She also loves this little device-a mesh bag that I can put soft foods in for her to chew on. Keeps the big chunks out. Very messy and disgusting, but tons of fun!

And finally...some daddy time.

0 to 60

Last weekend Marea impressed us by beginning to crawl. This week Marea impressed us being able to crawl FAST...and climb the stairs, and open all the cupboards, and pull herself up to standing on every piece of furniture we own. She couldn't do all of this stuff as of yesterday!
What have I learned? Almost everything in the house is dangerous except the carpet.

Boy is she happy.

What she did with her shirt in this picture, I don't know!

She absolutely loves the stairs. And unfortunately, licking the floor.

living on the edge

In the past, i've been known to do some pretty crazy things. in the interest of not incriminating myself, i won't name any of those things. if you know me, you get the point.

but THIS takes the cake:



yes...i actually snuck into Marea's room while she was sleeping and took this picture. because she just looks so sweet when she's asleep. now that's some dangerous living.

it actually ended up being a two hour nap. as you can tell, i still haven't figured out what to do with myself with all this extra time on my hands.

Welcome to Our World!

Hello Everyone!

So I started working on this right before Christmas, and of course didn't get very far over the holidays. But now we're back and i've put some time into this, and i'm ready to send it out for your enjoyment. But really, the enjoyment is all mine. There is nothing I would rather do than show off my Little Missy Pie!

So here it is, our new blog. For those of you who don't know what this is (mom), it's an online diary, which I plan on using to capture all those crazy, fun, amazing moments that Marea and I (and daddy too) share on a daily basis. Because just like everyone told me, time is going by way too fast, and I don't want to forget any of this! I'm still sleep deprived too, so chances are i'll forget a lot unless I write it down. And of course, I wanted a way to share more of her life with everyone who lives far away.

Check out the cool photos section at the top of the page! I'm really happy about that part. I plan on adding to this blog and to the pictures as much as I can. Which may be a lot these days as Marea is taking way better naps. So check back often!

7 months

Today Little Missy Pie is 7 months old! Where has the time gone?

She has been in such a great mood lately. Just a pure joy to be around...happy, smiling, screaming with delight, lots of new babbling (mamamamamamamama! and babababababababa! and wawawawawawawa! and dadadadadadada!) and of course, crawling around. It's been really fun thinking up new games to play with her. Like, let's bury Marea in the laundry pile....

She thinks that just about everything we do is funny. Or maybe she's just laughing at us and how ridiculous we've become. But I don't care how silly we look. It didn't take me any time at all to get over that-you know, being in public and acting completely silly. In fact, people are naturally drawn towards people who are having a genuinely good time. *Especially* when there is an adorable baby involved. I catch people smiling at us all the time. Not just smiling and noticing that we're having fun, but really feeding off our energy. Hopefully it's contagious!

Run Homer Run!

Homer's reign as King of the Floor has officially ended. Marea can crawl.

He doesn't know it yet, because she's still too busy going through the magazines on the lower half of our coffee table and chasing down electrical cords (which we need to deal with ASAP!), but as soon as she's finished with that, i'm pretty sure he's next.

It started on Saturday morning. She just woke up and showed us her new moves. She seems pretty excited at her new ability to get around, so excited that she hasn't been able to take her morning nap! But i'm not sweating it....this is bound to tire her out, right? Right!!! Right?????

She's not very fast yet, but I know it won't be long and she'll be racing around. So my task for this week is to get started on marea-proofing the house.

Free will, here we come.

we're back!

so after an extended holiday vacation with our families in so.cal, we returned home and i got sick. and of course, marea was so worried about me that she just couldn't sleep! now i know i complain a lot about how little marea sleeps and how tired i am-but let me just tell you, i now know misery.

thank god for this little face!






we enjoyed all of our christmas decor so much that we left it up till the middle of January. ya right! after returning home, we had piles of christmas loot to sort thru (thanks everyone!), a baby on a sleep strike, a dad suffering through returning to work, and a sick mama. so it took us a while to get to everything, but now i feel like we are finally settled at home again. ahhhhh.....

not only are we settled, but we are actually getting some sleep! after a few rough days with little sleep, we decided that we had to do something to save our sanity. and now that marea's a bit older, it's time to teach her the joy of sleeping. and much to my suprise and delight, there has been very few tears! yippee, marea! i'd fill you in on the details but i'm planning on making millions when i start my baby sleep consulting business, as i've tried EVERYTHING!

of course, I'd feel like Bush standing on an aircraft carrier with a mission accomplished sign, if I was to say we've won the battle. i'm sure she's still got a few tricks up her sleeve, just to keep us on our toes.