Fall has fallen! (part 3)

So my September posting has gone into November -- perhaps that says something about how frantic our lives have been last few months. In October we had a day trip to the pumpkin patch, Halloween and Nina and Boris' visit for the "Rally for Sanity" (where I forgot my camera , so no pictures for the blog!) These tales will have to wait until... January? Just kidding. Hopefully just until next week or so-- although we do have some fun and busy weeks planned ahead in November: visit from Basu Grandparents and a trip to NYC for Thanksgiving.

But now... September! The other wonderful and momentous blog-worthy event was having the Zych grandparents visit and our trip to the Homestead Farm for apple picking. Here's a slideshow of the pictures from those days, including: the apple picking, adventures at the "choo choo" park, cupcakes and bubbles! In these cases, I think the pictures do tell you the story fairly well about the fun we had and the big girl that Zoë has become.



During this trip to the apple orchard, Zoë also made friends with some chickens. After observing them carefully, she choreographed her own "chicken dance" -- complete with clucking, arm (wing) waving, and several squatting gestures, but some spins and Zoë flourishes too! Unfortunately she become rather self-conscious (relatively) with the video and I was not able to capture the full splendor of this dance. Enjoy the video and imagine it 100 times more hilarious! :)



Once she got the sillies out with the dance (actually she was pretty serious about that too), she grew very diligent about the apple picking experience. She did manage to pull a few apples from the tree with the help of her tall father and grandfather, but mainly she thought someone should pick up the apples on the ground (who cares that they were rotten!?) Here are two videos of her working very hard to collect apples.




The days are flying by. Just the act of writing this blog for our life 2 months ago forces me to reflect on quickly Zoë is growing and becoming a full-fledged (no pun intended!) little girl! In these short two months (short for us-- went by in a flash, barely time to upload the photos!) she has really mastered several skills: walking, climbing, drawing circles, thinking, reasoning, communicating, her vocabulary has grown from ~40 words to ~120. She sings her "ABC's", she throws fewer tantrums because she can articulate what she wants. Her fascination with the world around her impresses me and reminds us to slow down and enjoy life a bit more -- she seeks out the "moon" and "stars" (Mommy is proud) and likes to ride "bus" and watch "Choo choo" (Daddy is proud), she discovered the magic of watching the autumn leaves swirl around her on a blustery Fall day. She helped make her Halloween costume -- but that is a story for a different day ...

Fall has fallen! (Part 2)

September was the month of visitors. In one weekend we had Ben, Simona and Dan visit! (Next weekend the Grandparents Zych were here -- more on that in the next blog entry) Zoë was thoroughly stimulated and had someone to play with her nearly all the time... no wonder that when they left she was especially needy. It seemed that in the mornings before dropping her at school she suddenly needed extra Mama time to assure her that 1. Mommy wouldn't leave like the other visitors and 2. that she has my attention too some of the time. I think this is better now!

I digress now with a recent tale: She is still testing her boundaries, in her wise toddlerhood -- and with only limited communication skills she sometimes asserts her wishes, opinions and independence in shocking ways. Like the day that she bit Haven in school because Haven tried to steal a cheerio from Zoë. The teachers were rather relaxed about it, but I had to have a stern talking with Zoë: "You don't like having bugbites. It is mean of the bugs to bite you. You can't go biting other people-- it hurts. Use your words!" Eventually she did say "Soree" to Haven. The teachers said that this was age-appropriate behavior -- she is testing different ways to communicate. Generally she is so sweet and sharing and friendly. But not about her space. And definitely not about her food. Hmmm...

So when the gang was visiting, we went to the park. Lately Zoë has been coordinated enough to scramble up the stairs and find her way to the reward-- the slide doooooooown. Whhheeeee! Here's a video:



Also this weekend, Zoë was invited to her first birthday party! Emil (the son of friends of ours from New York -- and introduced to us by Simona and Dan, no less!) turned two! Here are some pictures of Zoë at the party. The outfit fit her perfectly (from Didun, brought from India several months ago!) Unfortunately she was in a mood -- overall pleasant, but once Mommy wanted to take a nice picture with her Zozo, she was sour. Sadly, no good shots of the two of us :(



Ok-- I did not make my deadline to finish September blog entries by September... oops! (But did anyone really notice, I wonder?) More updates soon...

Fall has fallen! (Part 1)

There goes another month. Like last month (or was it two months ago) we have several stories to tell and only so much time to give in telling them. Here is a "table of contents" foreshadowing future posts (hopefully I can cover all of this by end of September... 4 days to go!? Can Mama do it?):

Growing up... Eating Corn

Attending Emil's birthday party

visit from Dan and Simona and Ben!

Grandparent (Zych's) visit

Apple picking at the Farm and chicken dance

miscellaneous cute-ness :)

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A little teaser for now as we await the rest of the pictures to finish uploading and getting organized -- could take days. Really? who knows.

Zoë has become quite a little girl. She's not a baby. If you show her a picture of herself where her hair does not resemble the crazy-clown-cute-curly-wonder-that-it-is-locks-of-glory, she calls that "baby". To be fair, she does feel fondly of babies and has two dolls (three now! but the third is a gorgeous Eskimo doll from Alaska, courtesy of her grandparent's, and can't justly be called "baby") and she feeds them "baba" (bottle) and cares for them.

But SHE is NOT a baby. She dresses in jeans or corduroy pants and real stylish shirts (rarely a onesie!) and is offended if we forget to put on her pants after a diaper change (only babies walk around in diapers without pants!). She insists on feeding herself with a spoon (and does very well, getting most -- 80 % of the food actually into her mouth). She uses words well: Moon, apple, cheese, socks, shoes, pants, elbow (and almost all body parts from fingers to toes!), walk, eat, cook, park, cookie, ... there are so many and she can mimic and say practically whatever you tell her. I think now is the time that we have to start watching our words and actions... to avoid embarrassment later! (Not that we do anything weird or embarrassing that we don't want perfect strangers to know about. Really! we are very normal. Ahem.) She doesn't play as much as she cooks, sweeps, and does work (evidence forthcoming in the "Zoë gathers apples in a bucket" video). And don't think you are the only person who can blow bubbles -- oh no! She needs to control the soap wand and blow them herself (drinking large amounts in the process... are we fools for feeling better somehow that the labels say "non-toxic"? Gotta pick your battles!) She loves looking at photo albums -- unfortunately, these aren't as rugged as her board books and she is learning to be gentle with the pages!

So given that introduction (or summary), here's a video of Zoë eating corn (or I think attacking, is more appropriate of a term!) right off the cob. It is both heartwarming and pride-inducing, as well as appropriate advertisement for the late summer-early Fall bounty that we have here in Maryland. In Zoë's words: "Num num!"



Stay tuned for more in the next few days!

Proud day for Astronomy

Sorry Zoë fans, this is a digression about Mom and her friends this time! NO worries, we posted only yesterday, so you can read about Zoë below.


Check out my friend, Amber, here at Goddard, NASA in this video from the Jimmy Fallon show. She's the pretty redhead. Yay, James Webb Space Telescope... we look forward to your inception :)

Now back to work.

July Part 3 -- Life is Art!

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up. ~Pablo Picasso

Oh! the calendar did it again... another month managed to race by before I could keep up! But fear not! I am two days late, but here's the last of our July trilogy and so as to be fair, I am even going to add a few highlights fresh from August.

From the title and first quote, I bet you can guess that we spent a nice part of July in museums! yay :) We are making an effort to actually enjoy D.C. since it has so much to offer. Over a couple of weekends we headed to three museums:

1. National Portrait Gallery -- we LOVED the courtyard! They also had several neat American impressionists like Mary Cassat and I found I also liked Childe Hassam.
2. Building museum -- this is a great space! They also have some interactive play. Zoë liked helping to build the arch with giant (as big as her!) blocks. Also, the building itself is pretty awesome.
3. The Phillips Gallery -- this is not a free collection. I know!
What were we thinking when we are in D.C. surrounded by free museums... ? but it was sooooooo worth it! The museum is located near Dupont Circle in what appears to be a lavish home. Many rooms have furniture from the same time period as the corresponding art. The pieces ranged from Monet's Luncheon of the Boating Party to more modern Rothco, with some Goya and Matisse's thrown in. I was impressed by the unique Van Gogh selection-- many I have never seen or heard of! We bought a cool boardbook for Zoë with Van Gogh paintings and a simple story to go with it. Feel free to check out all the pics in this slideshow...



Some other fun that we have had around town:

• Zoë's favorite park has the usual playground stuff, but also lots of toys to share. Here she is driving a police car!
• We've been exploring neighborhoods. U Street is a little like Telegraph in Berkeley. It has a long history of African American activism and is where the poet and activist, Langston Hughes, worked as a busboy. In his honor, a wonderful cafe/bookstore/restaurant/brunch locale named "Busboys and Poets" was founded. It was yummy and fun! (Thanks to Nina for the recommendation, ages ago!)
  
• Nearby in Adams Morgan, we also found a fun cafe/lounge/restaurant called Tryst. How awesome that a bar also has a large number of kids toddling around and has bookshelves stocked with books, boardbooks (for kids) and toys. Zoë loved the Etch-a-sketch and shapes matching toy-- which was high quality, made of wood and everything. AND the coffee is good! We are going to live @ Tryst. Matt doesn't know yet... but it's sort of a must. Zoë rocked the milk drinking with a straw-- we were duly impressed. Rather, relieved since it was our fault for not bringing an extra bottle. When will we learn? Apparently now it is unimportant! Ha.
  
• Zoë loves her Box. She loves "baby" (her doll) too and the two of them live inside Box. Box once housed Mom's new printer, but now it is where Zoë brushes her teeth, hides, plays, ... etc. We like Box.
  
• The weather has been nuts! The heat and humidity have caused crazy storms that no one could have predicted... well, except for the global warming experts. We had a tornado watch. The hurricane level winds took out most of the power in our county (luckily not ours but Zoë's school was closed for 3 days). On the plus side, when the storm cleared, we had pretty sunsets. Talk about a silver lining!
  
• We all went on a bike ride! Zoë liked it enough in the end to subject herself to more helmet wearing, even for fun. Plus, the helmet has ducks on it. She can practically form a story, with WORDS. It goes: "helmet ... bike? oh no! Bye bye ducks (these would be the ducks on her helmet) ...". Translation: "If I wear helmet, can we go on bike ride? No? Ok, then bye bye ducks (since not wearing helmet requires a polite goodbye to her good friends!)" We rode to the Farmer's Market and got vegetables and yummy bread, including these french morsels of delight called "Canèles" -- they are chewy, custardy, crispy and AMAZING! Zoë, with her cuteness, scored herself (and us) the sweetest, juiciest donut peach (tiny peach shaped approximately like a donut).
  
• Check out the pics here for more fun! Like: Zoë eating messy foods all by herself and Mommy making castles for Zoë to demolish (the prettier the stack, the better it falls, I tell you!)...
  
  

July Part 2: A Very un-Happy Birthday and Other Tales

Here's the next installment in our most recent debacles. The title above should actually read: "Other Tales and a very un-Happy Birthday", since that will be order of discussion... (in case you care for an outline. How very scientific of me, I know...)

I start with a "Zoë is growing up" story. The first (of many, I suspect) Zoë versus Mom episode(s). We didn't do the whole sleep training thing. Zoë sleeps in our bed, we transfer her to her crib -- we sleep better without fighting her and she sleeps better too. But, this particular Friday night Zoë threw a fuss when transferring her to her crib. Back to letting her fall asleep in our bed, ... transferring her. Again, a fight. This pattern continued 3 times until it was 1am-- 3 hours after she first went to sleep. Finally, I had it. She's old enough now to understand that her bed is the crib and that there are boundaries. She's also simply too big to sleep in our bed with us, comfortably. And... it is a Friday night, so if there's ever a time to lay down the law, this is the time. So... I embark upon the battle of wills.

It is epic, it is fierce, it ends with Mom winning the battle. I will not relive it all here and now. However, here are some highlights:

• There was some rationalizing: "Zoë, you are old enough to sleep in your crib now without much fuss. We still love you. A lot of people love you a lot... (list of names), but you can't sleep in our bed anymore. You are a big girl. And when you wake up, you will see moon -- but even moon is sleeping now. So it's best if we all sleep soon." (Sadly, by the end of this process, both moon and Sun were on the brink of rising).
  
• Zoë understood all this. She nodded. She pointed at the window. "Moon", she said. More nodding. Less sobbing. She pointed at Daddy, "Dadda" she said (who, by the way, was snoring blissfully at this point. HOW???). She pointed at me, "Mama". She pointed at herself, "Zozo". There was complete understanding ... until "WAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!" when I put her back into her crib. Lots of kicking, lots of screaming, lots of thrashing. All understanding undone. Back to square one.
  
• At one point, I found myself saying: "Zoë, I know you are stubborn. But you didn't get that trait from your father. Cry all you want. Scream all you want. But this time, I will out-stubborn you. So there!"
  
• The statement above was made with me kneeling on the floor, arms dangling over the crib railing. How ironic that while I was not granted any sleep, my arms were fast asleep, now throbbing from the numbness. Sigh.
  
• Patting, bursts of screams, more patting, lots of shushing... for ~2 hours. Sleep. My armpits hurt, but sweet sweet sleep at last.
  

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We have joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) for fresh produce for the summer. Every Tuesday, we pick up a grocery bag full of farm-fresh produce that is grown biodynamically to be the healthiest and with the least negative environmental impact. Zoë enjoys cleaning and learning about her food too! Here, you see her playing with the garlic, whose stalk is taller than she!

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WARNING: Like Lemony Snicket, I warn you and possibly discourage you from reading any farther if self-pity and tales of woe deeply depress you.

So, ten years married and 32 years on this Earth... and yet, the momentous day started with poor Zoë puking on poor me (aka, birthday girl). Zoë's school had an outbreak of Hand Foot and Mouth, which is NOT Foot and Mouth (despite the creative naming similarities). In this case, the name comes from the outbreak of blisters on the hand, foot and mouth (see here). The main concern with the disease is that the mouth blisters become so painful that children will stop eating or drinking and will become weak and dehydrated over the week long healing process. Zoë didn't have any of the symptoms except a few blisters on her heel and maybe a few on her hand. With the recent mosquito bites it was hard to tell definitively anyway (bonus: she can now say "bug bite!").

Other than throwing up, she did have a slight fever a few days earlier, and just seemed a little tired in general -- poor Zoë was missing her usual sparkle. When I called the school to share the news, the director told me that in addition (ooh! how exciting!) to this Hand Foot and Mouth, the school also had a recent confirmed case of Roseola. Back to the internet to research this one. Roseola has symptoms of incredibly high fevers (like >104 degrees F!) followed by a full body rash. Zoë's fever was much milder... but on close inspection, she was covered by small dots! Super.

Next: call the Doctor to make an appt. Followed by the call to cancel the appointment at Vidalia, the much anticipated restaurant where I was supposed to enjoy a nice birthday lunch with my husband. "Is this how birthdays go for grown-ups?" I think... closely followed by thoughts of worry and concern and "what if's" -- after all, we have had > 6 months of near-constant barrage of illness and none of us had any immunity left to fight another aggressive illness. Now what?

The Dr. barely walked five feet into the room and declared: "Roseola. Classic case." He then checked her temperature, ears, throat, ... I asked him to look at the blisters on the heel: "Are these also related to the Roseola?" He looked a little surprised and said that that was probably Hand footh and mouth. SHE'S GOT BOTH?!?? "Yup! They are different viruses, so no reason she can't have both" and that was that. He made it sound like I should be thrilled that she was chosen by the germ Gods to bestow both illnesses (mis-directed birthday gifts, perhaps?) upon our lucky little one-- Is that like having your birthday cake and eating it too? Luckily(if that's the right word-- silver lining outlook...!) she appeared to have a mild case of both SIMULTANEOUSLY.


Unlike Alice's very happy unbirthday, this birthday was my very unhappy birthday-- a backward day. You know? Where good is bad... and in kind, my birthday this year would instead be celebrated on July 21st. I started a list of 32 reasons that this birthday sucked (the self-pity oddly made me feel much better), but just at the moment that I got to #23 (note: that is 32 backward!!!) Stephanie wished me a happy day and gave me several reasons that I should feel good about myself and my special day. I received birthday wishes throughout the day and I realized that I did have many blessings to count. I did make it to Vidalia. Zoë is better and stronger now. This year I got the best gift of all-- I got a do-over. Two birthdays, two chances to appreciate my life, my family, my friends and our health, two opportunities to gain wisdom and perspective in this often too hurried life. And, my wonderful, supportive husband brought home a cake worthy of pictures, memories, and a few extra pounds.

July Part 1: Trip to Outer Banks (OBX)

This month has been eventful and fun. To make it a bit more manageable to read and write, I am breaking into 3 sections. Hopefully I will be able to write all three sections within the month of July... otherwise the title would be incorrect!

In this first part, Zoë and her parents travel to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. Matt and I celebrate TEN years of marital bliss. I admit that at some point, I felt that maybe we should have planned earlier and better and gone someplace really exotic and extravagant. After all, we deserved it. Ten years is no laughing matter. But... we were busy. 2010 has aged us, and taken us by surprise, and as a result, we have little vacation time, lots of premature (?) white hairs, and a real need for some downtime and relaxation. Jetting off to see Macchu Picchu or even lay on the sands of Hawaii, though eventual pies in the sky, just seemed overambitious and exhausting for now. So... we set off instead to the town of Manteo in OBX and ended up having a perfect time!

This was an interesting and fun trip for several reasons. We stayed in the town of the first settlement (where the first child, Virginia Dare, of British born parents was born in 1587) of the United States on the Fourth of July. As we watched the fireworks and sang patriotic songs with our fellow inn-mates (sorry, pun NOT intended!), it was amazing to envision those first pioneers building the very town where we were this day.

It was also fun to visit two of the lighthouses -- there are a chain of famous, haunting lighthouses in the area, including one on a remote island where horses roam free and wild! But those areas are not accessible by car, and would require more time and planning than for what we had the luxury. Someday later, perhaps...

Then there were the beaches on both bay and Atlantic Ocean. Imagine if we were a little more ambitious, we could watch the sun both rise and set over water in one day! We chose instead to sleep in. Zoe preferred waiting for "moon" anyway.

We also enjoyed the Elizabethan Gardens very much! Zoe befriended many a butterfly (new word for her-- dunno why, but she picks up those "b" words really well! Another recently learned phrase: "bug bite").

It was just so, so nice to sit in the rocking chairs at the lovely Inn where we stayed, and look out onto the piers and shimmery blue waters, watching the lighthouse grow warmer in the setting sun, and just ... re-ee-la-aaaaa-x-... every day we found new wonderful, independent, fun coffee stores with fresh, fragrant, coffee and treats. As expected, Zoe made friends everywhere we went. :)

That was pretty much it for the four day vacation. If you want to see more pictures from our trip, here's a full slideshow and a video of Zoe stretching her legs and walking with her recently growing sense of freedom.