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There She Grows

Lilah got a bunch of plastic bangle bracelets and figured out just what to do with them. I suppose this could be considered an addendum to an earlier post, although it lacks that certain while-he’s-asleep charm.   However, we may have to start a series entitled “stuff on dad.”

taken when lil was ready to fall asleep after a fun day at griffith park.

LOL, Daddy had a cold and took a nap on the couch. To make him feel better, Lilah provided him a penguin buddy, another blanket, a tupperware with plastic strawberries, and of course the long-time cure-all of stickers all over the face. What a thoughtful little doc she is.

He woke up having no idea. If either of us ever should be asleep while she’s up and wandering around, we never know what piles of toys we will wake up to.    this stuff cracks me up.

Title pretty much says it all! A gift for Mike’s birthday: a portrait of him, by Gondry himself! I emailed him several photos of Mike from which to choose… some of the pics included me. I mentioned that if he wanted to include me that would be cool too.. and he did! Suweeet.

These are the photos he took us from:

Pre-school is currently closed for a summer break. Which has left me devoid of work time and searching for new ways to keep Lil entertained indoors, avoiding the heat wave and wildfire ash showers. Daddy’s birthday was Friday, so Thurs seemed like a good time to try making sugar cookies with Lil.   I figured the activity could fill a portion of our day plus it would be a nice gift for Daddy.

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Lil enjoys “shaving” alongside Dad. She uses a tiny nailbrush to skim the shaving cream from her face, but much of it remains there until her shower. I know Daddy enjoys that these moments are not reserved for sons.

Nonetheless, there is something decidedly girly about this scene.

My kid is totally 2. Wow! I guess I may as well talk about her birthday party.   Like last year, we had a party at our house and invited some of her little friends and a lot of our big friends. We had some snacks and finger foods for people to munch on, and this time (unlike last year’s sweltering day) the weather permitted us to hang out in the backyard. Mike and Papa hung a sunshade up in the yard the day before, which helped a lot. We decorated our windows with glass markers and hung balloons everywhere. Mike pitched one of our camping tents for the kids to play in, and he painted one of our small outdoor tables with chalkboard paint for the kids to draw on. We had bubbles and pinwheels and flower leis and a bowl full of little instruments. We had a huge pitcher of grapefruit juice squeezed from our backyard tree for everyone to enjoy, along with vodka for the grown-ups. Lilah picked out her birthday dress and was thrilled with it, as soon as she put it on she was twirling around saying, ‘feel like princess!’ Seeing my happy kid made me a very happy mom.

Lots more after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

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!

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.

Mike and I did not ride our bikes for almost a decade.    They’ve been languishing behind the garage, collecting rust and spiders. I decided it was finally time for a long-awaited tuneup because I wanted to ride around with Lil.   I started looking into child-seats, hoping that by now civilation had developed a front-mounted seat and I’m happy to report that humanity did not disappoint. There are several available now, and the iBert safety seat seemed like the clear winner. Our verdict so far about this seat is after the jump.

Anyway, so excited was grandma about this concept, that she got both of our bikes tuned-up and Lil’s accoutrements as our birthday presents. Lil watched wide-eyed as we loaded the decrepid bikes into the trunk. She was psyched to bring them to the ‘bike doctor’ and kept talking (as always)  about how mommy and daddy’s bikes will be fixed and lilah will ride on mommy’s bike too. She was thrilled about her own seat, and little Giro Me2 helmet which is awesomely adjustable to fit like a glove and has little duckies all over it.

So now, all of a sudden, we have bikes. And cruising around on them is Lilah’s new favorite thing to do on earth. Check out the pics: Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, I am rapidly approaching my mid-thirties.    This year my birthday was pretty low-key, but somehow perfect.    We didn’t have a get-together or attend the ones we were invited to, due to Lilah’s illness.    That limited our plans, but it’s somewhat of a scapegoat.  There is also the issue of my declining sociability.   Things have changed and I sometimes feel like I’m teetering between two versions of myself, not entirely comfortable with either, and unsure how to remedy the distance between the two.

But what I want to talk about is Mike and how awesome he is, for all the big and little things.

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Mike finally got an awesome digital camera after far too many years of pining over the decision to shoot something other than film. True to form, he is now fully immersed in photography again. As well he should be. He even got a nifty fish-eye lens and has actually started updating his flickr. This is a Very Good Thing ™. He’ll have an updated site in the relatively near future, but until then check out his flickr page where he has only just begun to bring the reign. (by the way, if you type phrases like ‘bring the reign’ you just might be a huge dork).

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Lilah loves toothbrush time.   We graduated her from that little soft brush thing I wore on my fingertip, to a bonafide big kid toothbrush. During her showers and before bed each night, she gets her teeth brushed. Top. back. back. inside. outside. Bottom. back. back. inside. outside. Then she gets to hold it herself and basically chew it to death for awhile. Its a special treat when Daddy lets her use the sonicare for a bit. She really loves that! More power to the two of them, that thing still weirds me out.

Happy and She Knows It from corinne m on Vimeo.

Lilah was a bit ill this day. We got a call from the preschool saying she had thrown up so I picked her up early, then she was sick a few more times throughout the day. (that is why her clothes are off… things got pretty messy!) At some point she had a huge burst of energy and was clearly feeling better, finally. Which made for a very happy Lilah.