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.