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There She Grows

Today, our little girl is no longer 1. She is, officially, The Big 2. And, it has been a whirlwind of a weekend leading up to her big party today. I’ll have to write about all that later, once I find time to tackle the overwhelming amount of great photos and fun times involved.

This little post is about Dad. His day took the obligatory backseat to our celebration for Lilah, and of course he didn’t give it a thought.   He was too busy helping me get everything ready for the birthday party.   Doing whatever he could to help clean and organize the house, fixing stuff, setting up the backyard, manning the BBQ, making sure we had everything we needed plus giving Lil lots of big giant hugs, helping me stay sane and just being the awesome dad and husband he always is.

In the midst of our party preparations and Lil’s nonstop playtime with grandparents, she and I managed to sneak away to the garage-turned-craftroom to finish daddy’s great big card. We later displayed it at her party as a bit of a reminder that while Lil’ J is the star of this particular show, Mike should be celebrated too! Along with all the dads who came out to celebrate her birthday on their day.

Happy Fathers Day to all dads everywhere! And thank you, my beloved husband,  for everything you do each day for our little family and for being the best dad ever to our wonderful little girl for 2 years now!  Every kid should be so lucky to have a dad like you!

Lil is so imaginative.    It shows each day in the things she says when she’s playing or just talking to us.   I assume that many little toddlers her age have wild imaginations, but because she talks so much and so well, we may have a rare window into the creative imaginative mind of a little one, as well as their dream world.     I’m gonna post just a few recent examples here… even though stuff like this happens constantly.  Read the rest of this entry »

This is  a handy list of kid-friendly activities in the area. It was passed on to me by a friend but originally compiled by Andrea Weiss, updated June 15, 2009. This is a great list to have on hand, and a good resource for families travelling to the area.

We’ve been to several of these spots, but most are yet to be checked off my list.   I’ve added a few photos of us enjoying these fun times.    I might eventually add some of my own recommendations, because this is by no means an exhaustive list!  Enjoy. Read the rest of this entry »

My little baby kid will offiically be 2 years old at 4:04pm next Sunday!

We’re having a party for her at our house with lots of her buddies and visiting family. And she is super excited about it. Yesterday we attended two birthday parties for two of her little buddies, so she is fully in birthday party mode.  She has known for months that hers is coming up, and now that its so imminent, she is talking about it every day.

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Lilah has been using faucets as microphones for some time now.  She just loves to sing songs so much and she likes the echo in the shower (who doesn’t?)  so after a fun bath, she tends to stand at the bath faucet and just belt out songs one after the other. Sometimes she’ll do a medly of several favorites.  Other times she’ll sing an entire rendition of ‘loving is a beautiful feeling’, a song she seems to reserve for shower purposes only these days.

Anyway, the other day she’s outside running around with the garden hose nozzle and starts using that as her microphone.  Then all of a sudden she stops and goes, ‘one two three four. one two three four.’   A soundcheck, obviously.  This was new. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the moms in our playgroup is expecting her 2nd son next month, so the other day instead of meeting at the park, we had a little baby shower for her at my place.   We had lots of snacks and gifts and it was lovely to celebrate and chit-chat.  We also had a house full of crazed kiddos who are used to running rampant at a playground during this time slot.   Our house looked as if 7 small tornados had run through it afterwards.  Look how adorable they are, mushing together in our bed.   

A few weeks ago, Daddy cut some windows and a doorway in an empty pampers box, and presented it to Lil as a new little house. Stroke of genius! We figured it was good for a bit of fun that day, but since then the luster has not worn off by any means. She still plays with it often, and sometimes for extended periods of time. The primary residents thus far appear to be two separate families using the home as a bit of a timeshare. Its either the baby dolls and her plastic doggy, or Mickey and Minnie and Goofy.

The other day when Lil was in a foul mood (teething, again?! I hope this is the final bout of it!) I tried lots of activities & distractions to cheer her up. She wasn’t having any of it until I suggested she paint her house, and her face just lit right up. It really saved the afternoon. So I’m pretty happy with how much we’ve all managed to get out of a plain old empty box. Here she is, just getting started:

btw, the empty plastic container that previously contained the array of hummus we served at a recent BBQ was really worth saving; it is an absolutely ideal painting palette.

And when she was finished, she ran around the yard saying “blue-y hands! blue-y hands!” A friend of ours joked after seeing these pictures: looks like she took care of that pesky smurf problem.

Daddy, Aunt Jen and I brought Lilah back to the arboretum last weekend. She had so much fun! We really should visit more often. Its beautiful and fun for all of us. The last time we were there, Lil couldn’t even walk. She loved it even then, but this was a much different experience. She was running around like crazy and really experiencing and exploring. She was loving the wildlife (turtles, lots of birds, lizards). It was so much fun to see her in the woods, and how enthralled she was with the peacocks (I am too!). She had a dream about peacocks the next day (I’m going to make a whole post about our windows into her dreams one of these days).

More pics are on flickr…

Wow there are soooo many overdue posts I’ve wanted to make. But I need to start with something that happened about an hour ago.

We were on a walk with Marley and passed by two ferociously barking dogs behind a fence. They were just going nuts which got Marley riled up. She has been in protective mode ever since Lil entered our lives. Anyway, I had to scoop up Lilah to keep her moving along, while struggling to hold Marl back by her harness. Lilah was going on and on about it. oh no! dogs, barking! marley, barking too. oh no! Even after we’ve passed them. So I turn to her and agree. Dogs barking a whole lot. geez. And she goes, yeah, geez.

then a few second pass and she looks at me and just says, ‘What the heck?’

This really caught me off guard, I had no idea she knew that one. I mean, that happens all the time, but something about the way she said this and the timing of it, made me just start giggling. She picked up on that immediately of course and was super proud of herself for all this, so I said, ‘I didn’t know you knew that one.’ She said it again and she started laughing uncontrollably.

On Memorial Day, we did something we haven’t really done before. We had a big BBQ in our backyard and invited a ton of people from various facets of our lives. Aside from Lilah’s birthday party, I don’t think we’ve ever had a gathering of this size at our place. I feel as though I’ve been putting off doing something like this for far too long so we just went for it. Our yard is finally at the point where I am ok with entertaining back there. We had a bunch of Mike’s friends, lots of my friends, we had our single friends AND some of my “mommy” friends along with their kids. This mix of folks was the very definition of worlds colliding…and it felt really good. Read the rest of this entry »

Another long overdue post… A few weeks ago, my dad came to visit, and it was great to see him. He is a rare guest for Lilah, and I’m so glad for her to have a connection with him. We went to Disneyland, because we could. Those free passes have seriously been our most-used perk of the job.  We also went to the Aquarium, which is always great fun for Lilah.  Here are a couple family photos I really love:

I think we had a really nice time, although I wish I had cooked more delicious meals. Plus, Lilah wasn’t exactly on her best behavior because she happened to be on a nap-strike that week. But I think it went well mainly because I decided not to discuss how much I still lament the things his family members said to me almost a year ago.   Instead he was just able to focus on Lilah. I think they have bonded the last two times they saw eachother and I hope they keep talking.

Lilah is so full of emotion and loves to show it. She is always giving big unsolicited hugs and kisses, saying things like “I Love you!!” or “Soooo much!” or “My Mommy!” while patting my back… its enough to make one’s heart just melt. She loves to put her arms around daddy and mommy’s necks at the same time and hug us with all her might.   She loves to hug her doggy and say, “nice marley!” She’s just a bundle of love, and to mommy nothing feels better than her hugs.

When she’s overjoyed, excited, amazed, concerned, proud or simply pleased with things the way they are, she makes it incredibly clear.  And she likes to play around with expressions.   She will proudly produce a surprised face, happy face, laughing face, worried face, sad face or angry face (complete with dramatic grrrr) upon command.   Her imagination continues to astound me, and pseudo emotions are a part of her pretend play.   Future actress? hehe.

She is so full of sympathy/empathy too. If someone gets hurt she is soooo concerned. Kissing it better, asking for medicine to help apply to the ‘wound’…sometimes she can get extremely upset at the idea of someone being hurt so we have to tell her, no no no we’re ok!

She is just the sweetest little thing EVER… except when she’s not, lol. When she is angry, look out! This girl knows what she wants and she wants it NOW. Her mad emotions are just as strong and overwhelmingly clear as her happy ones, yikes.

I really dig this whole, being a mom on mother’s day thing.
You really feel sorta special. Its nice.

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He cut a doorway and several windows into a diaper box and it is now a special house for Lilah’s toys.  She is having a wonderful time playing house with Mickey, Minnie, Pluto and Goofy.  Saying, ‘wagging tail!’ when adding the dogs, and ‘family home!’ when they are all inside together.

She tried to get in herself, but she is a bit too big.  One of the walls collapsed.  Daddy took it to the ‘workshop’ for home repairs with packing tape while Lilah waited, stamping her feet with excitement.

Now the family is cozy inside their revamped house, and daddy and Lilah are playing basketball and she is laughing hysterically.

Sara had to check out some of Griffith Park’s kid attractions for a class she’s taking. She needed a test subject and Lilah was more than happy to oblige. Here’s a rundown of our fun day!

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