Beaches, trails, and harmonicas

Never not smiling. But who wouldn't smile at Point Reyes?

Anja likes to pose for the camera now. She thought it would be great to show her sandy hands at the beach.

As we were walking down this trail after a few hours at the beach: "Mommy, I like this place." "Me too."

Limantour Beach, Point Reyes. We had one of those great blue sky/foggy days, where thick fog repeatedly rolls in off the ocean and then clears to blue sky again.

Jay calls this the baby gate. It prevents sand eating.

3/4 family portrait.

Anja still mostly thinks Maija is pretty funny, or at the very least, entertaining. Maija doesn't get the joke.

Maija is really getting around now. Mostly through army crawling and inchworming, but also sometimes through rolling. And she pulls herself up quite a bit too.

I love this little local park - so does Anja. She took "Dave the Minion" for this walk.

With some Christmas money, we bought a set of harmonicas and a mandolin. Anja loves the harmonicas. Here she is playing a song for Maija, and then for me:

We took the girls for a stroller hike on Bolinas Ridge trail last weekend. It's a fire road along a ridge that goes on for miles with views of the bay area. I had somewhat higher hopes for the road condition, and we were only able to go a couple of miles with the strollers before turning around. Maija can ride in the backpack carrier now, but Anja is just too heavy for us to carry, so stroller hikes are really the only way we can hike for any distance right now. The road actually looks fine in these pictures, but it's pretty rough further down, since it's also open pastureland.

Anja with her tights, sun hat and sunglasses. Anja still loves to go for hikes in any form. She always want to see animals, "like lizards... and birds... and whales..."

Jay took this great picture of the girls at the store. I love Maija's dazed baby look and Anja's Elton John sunglasses. As usual Jay noted that he received piles of comments about how he was Super Dad for grocery shopping alone with two kids, even though there were at least six other women doing exactly the same thing.

Anja's comments:

Jay: Anja, do you want to do some yoga with me?

Anja: No. I'm gonna do dinosaur yoga. (puts head on the ground and foot up in the air) It's for spinosauruses and ankylosauruses... and brachiosauruses... and pterodactyls...

Anja: I'm a baby brachiosaurus. And that's Mommy brachiosaurus, and Auntie brachiosaurus.

Me: Are you going to help Daddy do that puzzle?

Anja: Yeah, I'm a brachiosaurus. I'm so strong.

Anja: Auntie Heather eat all your food and get big and fat!

Jay: No, you mean 'big and strong'

Anja: Yeah, like Daddy!

Jay: Yeah.

Anja: Mommy, it's so nice to meet you at our house. It's so nice to meet you here.

Me: Oh, thanks, it's nice to meet you too.

Anja: Yeah. And you can live with us here. There's lots of room for you. And you can play with my toys!

Jay: I'm gonna go change a diaper, Honey. Want to help me?

Anja: NOOOO!!!

Jay: Okay, just checking.

Seven months old

Maija is very sneakily getting bigger. It's hard to believe she is seven months old already. We weighed and measured her for the first time in a while today: 98th percentile for height and 40th percentile for weight. Still tall and thin for her age, and eating like crazy. She can demolish a huge bowl of solid food, and even cries for the split second between spoonfuls when she isn't actually receiving more food.

She loves the baby swing at the park!

And actually, Anja still does too.

Now that Maija is eating a lot more solid food and no longer nurses EVERY minute of the day, I can actually leave the house without her sometimes. On one of those occasions, Anja and I went on a short hike in the park at the edge of town recently. The hike was really just to the top of a large-ish hill overlooking Petaluma, but a good little trek for Anja, and I love that she calls it a hike. I told her we would look for salamanders since it was so wet lately, but it turned out to be way too cold for them to be out. We did see a hunting kestrel, and one hummingbird, which was good enough for her. And later the next week Anja asked me if I remembered when we saw the kestral on that hike.

Anja really loves dancing lately. Dancing mostly means walking in a circle with exaggerated slow movements to music, but it's really fun for her.

I think it's funny that Maija never really understood the concept of a pacifier. We bought every brand, style and size pacifier when she was a month old and I was so desperate for a break, but she hated them all. Even now, she seems to think, "I ought to like this, but I just don't." At least now we don't have to worry about weaning her from it later.

A nice photo of Anja and me from my 365 Day Project - a self portrait per day for a year.

We went to Fisherman's Wharf this past weekend to visit the aquarium where we have a membership. It expires soon, and I think we may instead get a membership to Cal Academy this time (which actually has a bigger aquarium than this, although I will miss these gigantic underwater tunnels). Maija loved the jellies, they're my favorite too:

Awesome.

Anja built this great playdoh boat for her guys to ride in. They are on their way to the aquarium to see "fish and dinosaurs and sheep."

And from Anja:

Anja: (as Maija grabs her) NO! I'm not a very good baby toy!

Anja: (looking at the toilet paper roll that had been unrolled and then rolled back up) Who did that? Was it me?

Me: It's going to be cold outside today and a little bit rainy.

Anja: But we can still go outside. It's going to be dry outside today, is that okay?

Me: Tonight is a movie night. What movie should we watch?

Anja: How to Train Your Dragon! But we don't usually train dragons, that's just a funny joke.

Anja: Let's both be Night Furies! (crawls around on all fours)

Me: And Maija can be a Gronkle.

Anja: And Daddy and Auntie Heather can both be Deadly Nadders. We are all dragons in this house!

Me: When I was a little girl, I had those books too.

Anja: When you were a little girl? And then what happened, when you were a little girl?

Me: I grew up, and now I'm big. And some day you will be big too.

Anja: I will grow up. I want to be just like you guys.

Me: Sure, you can grow up just like us.

Anja: And then what can I be?

Me: Well, you can be anything you want. You can even be a mommy like me, if you want.

Anja: I want to be a spinosaurus.

Me: Okay, you can be a spinosaurus.

On Dasher and Dancer and Firebot

I'm way behind on updates. Since I last wrote I've flown across the country twice with Maija (once with help and once by myself). We've visited or been visited by grandparents from both sides, and Maija has started daycare one day a week.

Maija and I look a little bit alike:

Grandma R visited and we took a trip to Armstrong Redwoods. Anja is seen here posing with "Rocky", her gecko/flashlight that Grandma bought her during that visit. Actually, this Rocky is technically "Rocky #1", due to an unfortunate mishap the following week that Anja did not know about, involving Jay's car. I made an emergency trip to REI to get Rocky #2 while Anja was out the next day.

And here is a rare picture of the four of us! Most of us are looking at the camera and some of us are even smiling.

Santa came to Petaluma on a tugboat.

Petaluma had its downtown tree lighting ceremony. Which we technically missed because we were in the candy store, but we came out afterward to see it.

The following week we watched the lighted boat parade downtown. It was pretty spectacular, although less so if you are only 2.5 years old and your parents get the time wrong and you spend an extra 30 minutes standing in the cold and dark waiting for the drawbridge to open and for the boats to come.

We had a beautiful foggy evening in Petaluma afterward.

We ran across Petaluma Pete, the wandering piano player. Anja was a big hit and even made it into the local online paper:

http://petalumapete.blogs.petaluma360.com/12449/big-downtown-crowd-last-night/

Maija is an expert at sitting now, and when I gave her something to hold onto today, she pulled herself right up.

In case you needed any more Christmas-themed content, here is Anja singing "Joy to the World" (Joy to the Whir-old), accompanied by Jay on plastic piano.

Tree up and decorated:

Anja says funny stuff:

Me: Look, it's Super Maija! (holds Maija up in the air)

Anja: No! It's just Regular Maija.

Me: Special Maija?

Anja: No! Just Regular Maija.

Me: Just Regular Maija.

Anja: Yeah.

Jay: (to Maija) Your bib says "Daddy loves me". Daddy loves Maija. And Daddy loves Anja. And Daddy loves Mommy!

Anja: And Daddy loves Oskie! (the neighbors' cat)

Anja: What starts with poop?

Me: Poop starts with the letter "p".

Anja: P...p... pee. Pee in the potty! Hahahaha!

Anja: That's Firebot the Reindeer!

Jay: Firebot?

Anja: Yeah. That's Rudolph and that's Firebot.

Me: Maija is a little sad.

Anja: It's okay Maija. PEEKABOOOOO!!!!! She likes that. That makes her happy.

Me: Do you like your little sister Anja?

Anja: Yeah!

Me: What do you like about her?

Anja: I like about her that she grows up.

M-N-O-P-O-P-M-N-O... what starts with cow?

Cute kid.

Okay with back time, hates tummy time.

Anja hanging out at the coffee shop in her cool retro sweater. This was mine long ago. She is playing chess without a chess board and about ten "horsies".

Anja drew a seal.

Anja likes playing with Maija.

Anja still says funny stuff:

Me: Anja, are you done with your soup yet?

Anja: (taking really fast spoonfuls of soup with her face really close to the bowl) I'm not done. I'm just a bee eating pollen from a flower!

Jay: Don't lick your toast, just take bites out of it. Licking it is too messy.

Anja: (in extreme distress) But I LOVE licking!!

Me: Do you want to have some friends over for movie night? Who should we invite? Can you think of anyone?

Anja: Auntie Heather!

Me: Well, Auntie Heather won't be here until next week, can you think of anyone else?

Anja: Do you remember Kai?

Me: I do remember Kai. But he lives kind of far away so he can't come this week.

Anja: He will just have to DRIVE! Do you remember Kai?

Anja: I'm two years old.

Me: That's right. And I am 37 years old.

Anja: You can even go to school!

Jay: Who knows their letters at daycare? Which kid knows their letters the best?

Anja: Uhh... me! M-N-O-P-O-P-M-N-O... what starts with cow?

Jay: (at a local restaurant) Okay, let's go wash your hands in the potty and then you can go play.

Anja: No Daddy! Not the potty! Wash your hands in the sink. We don't wash our hands in the potty!

Heather: What does Grandma like for Thanksgiving dinner? Does she like turkey?

Anja: Yah.

Heather: What else does she like?

Anja: Turkey and turkey and turkey and pizza. And not a diaper. Hahahahahha!

Halloween and Oatmeal

Anja had a great Halloween. She remembered what to do from last year, but was still a little shy about walking up to houses. We started downtown where all the merchants hand out candy, and then walked through the historic neighborhoods nearby. Homeowners go a little nuts around here for Halloween - Anja thought some of the decorations were a little scary, but not so scary that she didn't go up to them for candy. Both Maija and I were sick last week and Maija was still recovering a little, so we didn't dress her up but instead let her sleep in the carrier. Anja had just as much fun looking at all the costumes as she did getting candy. My favorite costume(s) was the family with the mom and dad dressed up as Thing 1 and Thing 2, plus the toddler as Thing 3 and the mom's belly as Thing 4.

We also didn't drag Anja's Goldbug car around with us. It was a nice idea to make it, but just too much for a 2.5 year old to deal with.

One restaurant gave out ice cream cones to the kids! Anja ate about 10% of this before Jay had to finish it for her, but it was still a big hit with Anja.

Maija is laughing more, although we can't get her to laugh as well as Anja can.

Anja has been expanding her menu back to fruits and vegetables again (although not really away from the favorites: toast, butter, and honey roasted peanuts). She really likes broccoli again, and eats zucchini cooked or raw. But EVERYTHING must be either peeled, or eaten around the peel. Here is how she eats zucchini:

She peels apples, grapes, and now recently: peas. Did you even know you could peel a pea? It takes a really long time but you can.

We started giving Maija a little solid food yesterday and she loves it. This morning she ate about 1/2 cup of oatmeal for me. It's a nice change since Anja was not into breastfeeding, formula, or early foods at that age. Maija still wants to nurse all the time, though, so I don't think solid foods will be the break I was hoping for.

This month Anja will be in daycare two days a week (one of those days is when I'm at work), as we ease her back into the daycare routine and give her more stimulation than she gets at home. Next month we will start bringing Maija to daycare one day a week too.

Anja's games with her toys are increasingly more complex. She loves to set up scenarios with her characters. She is generally very inclusive with all of her toys - everyone is friendly with everyone else and none of the carnivores eat each other. They either eat "other dinosaurs" or they just eat grass. And a bunny can be a mommy to a dinosaur. At lunch she hugged a spinach leaf and a piece of banana. At the coffee shop we took out their box of mixed chess pieces and the "horsies" played games like ring around the rosie. At night she is choosing more and more toys to take to bed: she always has to have Huckle, Flopsy and purple taggie, but then usually also has a few plastic dinosaurs, a construction truck, and a few other stuffed animals. Then in the morning when she walks into our room she brings them all along. She looks like a toybox with two tiny legs sticking out the bottom.

Words from Anja:

Anja: I'm a spinosaurus and you can be this dimetrodon.

Me: Okay. I eat plants. Do you eat plants?

Anja: No, I eat dinosaurs.

Me: Oh no, are you going to eat me?

Anja: No... I eat OTHER dinosaurs.

Me: Okay good. I have a spine on my back. And you do too.

Anja: Yeah! It's very nice. It's a very pretty spine.

Anja: (after listening to me sing nursery rhymes) Mommy! Sing the rainbow song!

Me: I don't know that one. How does it go?

Anja: Raaaaainbow. Rainbow. Raaaiiiaaaaiiiin-boooooooww.

Me: What are the other words in the song?

Anja: Rainbow, rainbow.

Me: And what is the name of the song?

Anja: Rainbow.

Me: Anja, you dropped some more cereal. Here you go (picking it up).

Anja: How come so messy around here? How come so many messes around here?

Jay: Look, my name is Daddy Mr. Napkin Head.

Anja: NOO! Your name is Jay!

Jay: But I'm making funny jokes.

Anja: No! But they're not funny. People think they're not funny!

Me: Look Anja, Maija likes oatmeal.

Anja: Yeah, she has dreams about it.

Jay: Do you know what M-O-V-I-E spells?

Anja: Um, I don't know, what? Some kind of movie.

Stats and dragons

Anja smiled for this picture, but then had to check to make sure that she was really smiling:

Maija had her four-month checkup and vaccinations. She is doing great, and is at 95th percentile for height and 42nd percentile for weight - tall and thin just like her sister. She still eats ALL the time, giving me little more than 1.5 to 2 hours between feedings during the day.

Her daytime naps have been intermittent lately, and even nighttime sleeping lately hasn't been as great. She goes to bed pretty reliably at 9pm, but then sleeps anywhere from 3 to 8 hours before needing to eat again. Often she eats for hours, drifting off then waking up to eat again and refusing to be put back in her crib. Then sometime around 5am she usually starts making funny cooing noises and blowing bubbles, which is incredibly cute but also means that my night of sleep is done.

We've been pretty tired around here lately. Anja was sick last week, fighting a fever for several days. Then Maija had her vaccinations which made her sad for a couple of days too. Now Jay is sick with what Anja had. And we're also getting the first rains of the season, so it's been dreary - we just had four inches over the weekend!

Anja is good at making Maija laugh. And she loves to hold her hand. Before bedtime she makes sure to give Maija a hug and a kiss. Although tonight she also said goodnight to the crickets, and I don't think she loves them.

Anja's Halloween costume is finished. This is the first year she's into it, so it's been really fun putting it together. Maija unfortunately will be wearing Anja's old flower costume, but I don't think she will mind. Anja remembers about trick or treating from last year and keeps talking about how she will say "trick or treat" and people will give her candy!!!

Potty training is finally moving forward again, from the apparent stalemate we had been in for several months (consisting of Anja wearing underwear all the time, but with many minor accidents every day). Now Anja goes entirely by herself sometimes, including getting up and down off the stool, which is really helpful. Although sometimes she comes out of the bathroom with no pants or underwear on afterward.

Our special weekend movie this week was How to Train Your Dragon, which was a pretty good movie for Anja. There are only a handful of kids movies that are well made and interesting for adults, but also not too scary for little kids. So now she pretends to be a dragon in addition to a dinosaur. Dinosaurs are still her main focus right now, though. And she can name them: "Mommy, this is a brachiosaurus, not a brontosaurus, a BRACHiosaurus!" She also knows ankylosaurus, t-rex, iguanodon and spinosaurus and I'm sure some others that she could tell you about.

Conversations:

Me: Anja, I'm really proud of what a great big sister you are. You must really like being a big sister.

Anja: I pooped in my underwear once.

Me: Oh, well that's okay. Anyway, you are really helpful taking care of Maija and getting her toys, and making her smile.

Anja: Look, a cupcake! (shows me her apple piece where she inserted the apple stem like a candle)

Anja : (while looking at a picture on the computer of a friend's new baby who is wearing one sock) But who is that guy?!!

Me: That's Jasper.

Anja: He's like our baby. Except he has a sock there. And no sock there!

Me: So he's not like our baby?

Anja: No. But where is his sock? Is it lost?

Anja: Who is that guy?

Me: That's Jasper. That is Toby's brother. When you have a baby in the house who is a boy, that's your brother, and if the baby is a girl, that's your sister.

Anja: Where's MY brother?

Me: You have to put some pants on to go play in the sandbox.

Anja: Aw, man!

Me: Okay, fine, go outside in your underwear. (Anja runs out the door)

Anja: This raspberry has something on it!

Me: Those are little hairs, they are part of the raspberry.

Anja: It has little hairs? Like me! I have little hairs!

Jay: Up in the air, it's Super Maija!

Anja: Maija is a Super Drooler!

Big Sister and updates

Anja really likes being a big sister. Sometimes she's a little too excited:

Me: Anja, don't put that pacifier in Maija's mouth, she might not like it.

Anja: But she likes it! See?

Me: Yes, that's really nice of you, but you should let her put it in her mouth by herself if she wants to.

Anja: (dejected) Oookayyy.

20 seconds later:

Me: That's really nice of you to help Maija, but you shouldn't put things in her mouth.

Anja: She likes it.

Me: I know, but please don't put anything in the baby's mouth.

10 seconds later:

Me: Anja? Don't put anything in Maija's mouth.

Anja: Look Mommy, she likes it!

Here is Anja playing with Maija by herself:

Some updates about recent events:

-Maija is trying to crawl: She can get her bum up in the air or her head up in the air, but never at the same time.

-Maija rolls up on her side to grab toys and is pretty good with her hands now.

-Anja's language skills are incredible. You have to be careful how you talk around her because she will correct your pronunciation and grammar.

-Maija got her next round of vaccinations without too much trouble.

-We went to the local pumpkin patch where Anja still likes the bounce house more than anything else.

-We started a ten gallon aquarium bug house for Anja. So far we only have a spider, a crane fly, and a bunch of pill bugs.

-We put a ban on any tv for Anja during the week, and after two weeks we've seen a big improvement in behavior. Now the weekends are special "movie days" that we look forward to.

-Anja has a new friend, Ian, a 4 year who lives a couple of houses down. He doesn't usually play with yucky girls, but he's really great with her.

-Anja is going to be Goldbug for halloween (he's the little yellow bug hiding on every page of Richard Scarry's "Car and Trucks and Things that Go". It is going to be awesome. If I have enough energy, I will also make a Lowly the Worm costume for Maija, but I'm not making any promises.

-Anja loves her big girl bed. She bangs into the walls and thrashes around when sleeping but has not yet fallen out.

-I am finding that working from home is a mixed blessing, but overall really good for us as a family. It is very difficult to get anything done at home so I find that on the days I do go in, I'm very stressed about trying to get everything done in time. I am looking forward to going back to work full time in January, although I wish it didn't mean having to put Maija in daycare.

-Maija is a very relaxed kid and generally pretty easy to take care of. She travels pretty well, except that she needs to eat really frequently (I only get about 1.5hrs between feedings still).

-Anja eats the skins of grapes again, instead of peeling them

-Anja is more likely to eat food if in the shape of a face

-Maija's new hair is coming in blonde.

-Anja's new hair is coming in brown.

-Maija smiles when Anja smiles at her but cries if Anja makes a scary face.

And as always, Anja's comments:

Anja: Maija can say lots of words.

Me: Pretty soon she will. She can't really say any words yet.

Anja: Maija can say a couple of words.

Me: Oh yeah? What words can Maija say?

Anja: Aye-ahhh!

Anja: (looking at a picture of a gecko in a book). A gecko in their house! That's silly!

Me: Some people have geckos in their house to eat their bugs. They crawl around on the walls and eat bugs and then they don't have any bugs in their house. Wouldn't that be fun to have a gecko in the house?

Anja: Then we would be sad.

Me: Because we wouldn't have any bugs in the house?

Anja: Yeah.

Me: When I was little like you, I had a Winnie the Pooh doll

Anja: When I was little like you, I growed up. And got big!

Me: That was a loud car.

Anja (thinking I said "That was a lot of car"): No Mommy, not "lot of car", say "lot of CARS!" not "lot of car."