Thursday, May 31, 2012

Quatre mois

My dearest Lily,

I love you. I love you. I love you. Je t’aime, ma petite chou. 

four months

I have written you several letters, and at the end, I always tell you that I love you, but today I want to put it first. I hope that I never forget to tell you that I love you. Everything else, ma belle, can wait.

Yesterday marked your four month birthday. You are a whopping 15 pounds 13 ounces and 26.25 inches, which puts you squarely in the GIANT category, or what others call the 98th percentile. Lily, there is nothing dainty or petite about you from your unbelievable amounts of drool to your big, hearty, baby laughs. We love to hear those beautiful sounds and your father and I will dance around and generally act buffoon-like in order to hear you laugh, but the only one who can constantly garner giggles is your big sister. Oh Lily, how you love your big sister. Sometimes I set you up on your blanket for tummy time in your sister’s room, and I come back minutes later to find you both snuggled up together laughing and gurgling. Daisy loves to tell you stories, stories about butterflies and fairies, and you just gaze up at her adoringly. I hope you two always continue to laugh together, to have fun together, and to share your stories. 

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Besides laughing with Daisy, your ultimate favorite activity is to snuggle and cuddle. All you want to do is to nuzzle and cuddle and lay in someone’s arms, usually mine. You love it when your grandparents bounce you. You love it when your daddy makes funny faces at you. You absolutely love it when Daisy plays peek-a-boo with you. But, more than anything, you love snuggling up next to me, nestling into my chest and flashing that beautiful baby grin up at me.

Of course, I am the ultimate indulger of this behavior since one of my favorite things to do is to love on you. So we end up spending huge chunks of every day just sitting in the nursing chair or lying on the floor of your room nursing, giggling with your sister, reading, singing French lullabies, and snuggling. I cherish this time together and hope that you take your sweet time growing out of this phase.

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Actually, just take your time growing up. Period.

I love you more than all the stars in the sky and the waters in the ocean.

Love,

Momma

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Yes, another post on food

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I had a whole different post lined up and written in my head – what, they don’t count when you write them in your head? – but having managed to spend the entirety of naptime on the couch, catching up on Grey’s Anatomy (OMG!) eating spoonful after spoonful of Trader Joe’s Cookie Butter instead, and so that one’s going to have to wait.

And what is this Cookie Butter you ask? Basically it’s like a delicious combination of crushed up gingerbread cookies and peanut butter. Except, well, it doesn’t taste like peanut butter at all, but resembles it only in texture. The back of the jar claims you can spread it on toast, waffles, dip pretzels or even celery (yeah, I had to read that twice too. Hey, whatever means it takes for you to eat a vegetable, I’m in), but I’ve actually only had it from jar to spoon to mouth, sometimes alongside a few chocolate chips. Yes, in that picture you do see a baby spoon. It’s the perfect size to savor each bite.)

If you do not live near a Trader Joe’s, I apologize. This post has probably angered you heartily. If, however, you do, I suggest you run – run, not walk – to your nearest Trader Joe’s and pick up a jar of this bad boy. Then call me. I’ll come over with my baby spoon and a bag of chocolate chips. We can do some serious damage.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

The picture of beauty

She is dressed in a striped hot pink and orange skirt with a Minnie Mouse polka dot swimsuit top, four or five strings of beads hang around her neck, the faint tracings of her afternoon snack of blackberries around her lips and dirt caked underneath her fingernails.  “I look so beautiful, Momma,” she says. Her brown eyes glitter with delight.

To me she is the picture of beauty.

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One the way home, Daisy is perched on my back nestled in the Ergo while Lily rides stretched out in the stroller, gurgling and laughing at the silly faces I make for her.

“Momma,” Daisy says, “I saw a fairy. She was aqua,” spurting out her new favorite color name, “and pink. And purple, Momma. She had purple wings. So beautiful.” She tells me she can fly like fairies as she brushes my hair. She leans her head down, gives me a squeeze, “I am so happy, Momma. So happy.”

To me, this is the most lovely sentence in the English language.  

One day, my girls will be older and beads and sand and fairies will be forgotten. One day, they will be older and they will think it was silly to ever have believed they could fly. And one day, they will be older and not have time for pretend tea parties or to dig holes in the sand or build castles made of wooden blocks with their momma.

But for now, they are little and innocent and the imagination is beginning to emerge. We arrive back at our house, unload and stretch out on the front grass to wait for daddy.

And to me, in this moment, I have never seen anything so beautiful.

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Monday, May 07, 2012

Red wine and old friends

So, I realized that I never told you about our trip to San Diego. Driving nine hours with a sick toddler and a newborn to walk up and down switchbacks to look at lions, and tigers and bears (and we didn’t even SEE any tigers! But, the elephants were by far the favorite) in 90 degree heat. Did I mention Daisy was sick? Did I mention we had a newborn who prefers to eat every two hours, and will let you know of her displeasure with blood-curdling screaming? On the upside, we spent 48 hours with my parents, brother and his girlfriend telling bad jokes, people watching and drinking beer. So, you really do not need a recap. (Except you need to see this picture. How cute are they?)

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Because now I would like to talk about my weekend! What did you do for your weekend? For our weekend, we drove to Healdsburg and enjoyed good friends, good food and good wine. Saturday morning was a picture-perfect spring day, so J, Daisy, Lily and I hightailed it up to Sonoma County.

You have to understand, J and I are not very good at Doing Things with our weekends. Mostly our weekends consist of doing errands and chores, paying bills, folding laundry, taking the dog to the park, Church on Sunday morning, watching an overdue Netflix DVD, reading our books in the backyard. Occasionally we go to the Farmer’s Market. If we BBQ with friends AT OUR HOUSE, alert the San Francisco Chronicle. On Mondays at my standing park playdate, my new friend will ask “what did you guys do this weekend? We cooked gourmet dinners for a local homeless shelter, took the kids on a family hike, and led a parenting seminar before we tutored a few refugee orphans!” And I say, “uh, our biggest achievement was  getting to church on-time. Also, we each went to the gym.”

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So for us, a day trip to Sonoma County was quite a feat. We had lunch at the Dry Creek General Store (I had the General’s Club sandwich and a cookie, and maybe like half of J’s racer 5 IPA, whatever, I would have asked too) before splitting a bottle of wine at John Tyler Winery. We talked and laughed, reminiscing on old memories and catching up on life. We laid on the grass in Healdsburg Square, watching Daisy splash in the water of the fountain where we shared another bottle of wine. We talked and laughed and gazed at cute babies, and wrapped it all up with pizza for dinner. 

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And on Sunday? Well, we didn’t even make it to Church.