Walkabout

A few weekends ago, my friend Allison and I piled into the camper van with Ada and Allison's twin boys, Thomas and Max. It was a sight: three car seats and weekend gear for three babies. I think the moon landing was only slightly more logistically intense. You can see more pictures from the weekend here: http://malcolmsisters.blogspot.com.

Allison captured this photo of Ada learning to walk all by herself -- I just love this image. It's a view of Ada that I see a lot of these days: her back to me as she scurries off to investigate some horrifically dangerous object. Why are they only attracted to precipices, wild animals, virulent piles of garbage and other gaping maws of destruction? How about reading about cuddly bunnies and puppies on Mama's lap? What's wrong with that, I ask you?

Weebles Wobble...

Well, weebles might not fall down, but Ada sure does. As you can see below, she looks like she's been in a bar fight. She's starting to take a few steps on her own and while she's mostly doing great, we have had some spectacular wipe-outs. The little cut by her eye was the result of a play ground traffic jam -- a bunch of big kids were running around in circles and I was trying to get Ada and her little scooter past them without injury. Just as I turned around to make sure the coast was clear she toppled sideways and hit her head on a ladder. I saw it coming and yelled, "fuck!" which is apparently not approved language on the playground. I'm still getting dirty looks from the other mommies. Oh well. Their three-year-olds were bound to hear the word at some point, right?

As far as the bruise on her cheek, I'm honestly not sure where that one came from. Another dramatic wipeout of some sort. Amazingly, she's pretty unfazed. She howls for a second or two and then settles down and goes back to whatever she was doing, leaving me wringing my hands and worrying about concussions and memory loss.

Bathing Attire

Not that I'm a prude or anything, but it's probably not a good idea to expose the little one to, y'know, destructive and cancer causing rays of the sun. Oma found her this lovely ensemble (includes sunglasses, not pictured) that covers her up in style!

Posterity

Last weekend I managed to capture Ada in her standard napping posture -- totally sacked out, with her but in the air. I realize it's not much in the way of competition for the extremely cute early pictures of Nola but nonetheless, probably worth documenting... for posterity. heh.

The Play Group

The kid likes people! There's no telling where she got her outgoing nature -- certainly not from either me or Thor, that's for sure. She loves her Tuesday morning play group, which is a baby and toddler lollapalooza -- guitars, slip'n'slides, treats, the works! We also go to a music class on Wednesdays where she crawls around the circle, waving hi to everyone, and then sitting next to the teacher, patting her guitar. It's a little strange that this tiny person has made me SO much friendlier -- I've met more people in the last year in my neighborhood than in the previous 6 years!

C-aaar-nivore!

A lot has changed for Ada in the last week or so... mostly because now she eats. People far and wide told me, "just leave her alone! She'll when she gets hungry!" Well, I had other priorities and really, really wanted to make sure she gained weight... unfortunately, all of our tap dancing and , "hey, look over there!" distractions were just making her more resistant.

So we stopped! Now we give her a ton of different finger foods (avocado, her favorite of all) and let her have at it. At the same time we feed her a few things here and there, but wait until she actually opens her mouth and goes , "mmmm!" That's a sound I never thought I'd hear her make! As you can see below, she's really getting into this whole eating thing -- she picked that chicken clean! (OK, not really)

Oh, happy day. She's actually finished a meal in 15 minutes this week... rather than the normal hour. Imagine! All that time we'll get back for marauding!

Anniversary of Ada Today

I was hoping to mark the anniversary of Ada Today with a whole bunch of backlogged pics but am having trouble uploading pictures again... maybe I'll take the opportunity on this momentous anniversary to move things somewhere else? Really, really annoying! Grrr, Blogger -- you are soon to be dead to me!

In any case, lots going on around here but I'd venture to say that there's lots more going on in Bend, OR... perhaps even the arrival of Tiny Niblet Stryker (I don't think that's the actual name, although I've suggested it a few times)... yaay! Kisses!