Young Baby Young

In homage to the BR (that’s code for Baskin Robbins, in case you’re not in the know), Carrie sent this dress to Emily:

When Carrie’s up visiting next month, Emily hopes to take her first trip to the BR!  She’ll watch Carrie hem and haw over which flavor to try — perhaps even asking for a taste of something new — and then, as always, without fail, she’ll order her scoop of mint chocolate chip as if the idea just came to her that minute.  We’ll take our ice creams outside, pull out some plastic chairs to sit on, watch the traffic go by, and talk about deep and meaningful things.  Or not.  We may just sit and eat our ice cream. 

Luckily for Emily, it’s not snowing out…because the tradition of eating outside remains the same regardless of the weather.  This is an important rite of passage for the littlest Cakesie and I’m so pleased that she’s found the perfect dress for the occasion!

The mullet continues to thrive.  I suppose it’s more of a rat tail than a mullet.  Either way, it’s highly impressive.  Auntie Caroline thinks we should dye it pink.  Grandma Jane wants to see it braided and beaded, Caribbean-style.  I tried putting a clip on it the other day, but found that my wee one bore an uncanny resemblance to John Quincy Adams, so it was quickly removed.

Business in front…

…party in back!

…you receive an email from a dear friend that says, “You sent us two house-warming cards.  Have you lost your mind?”  (Kate was nicer about it than that, but the sentiment remains.  Luckily, she can totally relate — she has a 1-year-old and another one on the way!) 

NO, I didn’t realize I had done that.  I remember thinking about sending a card a few weeks ago…it was a fleeting thought, like a lightning bug…then I saw the perfect card in the store and bought it, wrote in it, and mailed it.  Huh?  I sent the first one, too?  Umm, did it say the same thing??

Here’s the question I always get asked: is she this happy all of the time?  The answer: pretty much.  Emily spends the majority of her time enjoying herself.  She likes people, she likes toys, she likes to eat, she likes to sleep.  What’s not to be happy about?  For example, here’s what I see when I look at her in the car:

or in the tub:

In the past few weeks, Emily has experienced quite a few “firsts”.  She survived her first cold — it wasn’t a bad one by any means, but it left her a little out of sorts.  She woke up a lot in the night and didn’t eat very well.  She’s since recovered and is back to her perky self.  And praise be, she’s sleeping again!  I had quickly gotten out of the habit of waking multiple times in the night after the early days; I was exhausted after a week of her night wakings.

She has finally perfected her rolling skills and now, when you put her down on the ground, she’s likely to get away from you.  She can roll both ways — which she’s very proud of — and she seems to like her new mobility.  When I lay her in her crib, I always find her in a totally different position later.

We’ve seen preliminary crawling efforts.  She puts her knees up under her, but doesn’t quite know what to do next.  NOT that we’re complaining: we’re happy to not be chasing after her yet!  She’s an excellent sitter.

Emily is eating many good foods now, and is starting to self-feed a little.  So far, she’s only mastered teething biscuits and rice cakes.  Actually, “mastered” may be an overly-optimistic estimation of her skills….  She usually ends up feeding at least 3/4 of her snack to Nathan when she accidentally drops it on the floor.  Obviously, he’s not complaining. 

We’ve introduced her first dairy products, egg yolks, and chicken will hopefully be served tonight (if I can pull myself away from the computer to cook it!).

As proudly mentioned a few weeks ago, she has her first tooth.  She’s very protective of it and doesn’t like to let us see it, but we can feel its razor sharpness in there.  She doesn’t seem to be experiencing any further pain in her gums, but still enjoys using her sippy cup spout as a massager when given the chance.

She met her first “big doggies” last weekend when Tyson and Abigail, the boxers, invited her over to play.  She was quite fond of the big doggies, especially Abby.

While over at Tyson and Abigail’s, she saw her boyfriend Dakota, then Dakota’s daddy took her for her first tractor ride, which she enjoyed very much.  She’s going to be a John Deere girl yet!

The peekaboo video, posted last week, was one of her first times laughing out loud without being tickled.  We were so pleased to hear the spontaneous laughter…what a joyous sound!  We keep trying to crack her up, but she reserves her giggles for thing she finds truly entertaining.  What a critic!  I shouldn’t be surprised, though: Chris and I can watch a comedian perform for an hour without breaking out in genuine laughter.  Unless, of course, we’re watching Stephen Colbert — then all bets are off.

I thought I witnessed the first glimpse of “stranger anxiety” the other day when I took Emily with me to book club and Deborah held her.  It seemed like Emily whipped her head around until I was in view again.  Having said that, though, she was tired and hungry, so perhaps it had nothing to do with a different person holding her!  She’s been fine since, as you’ll note from this picture with Christina:

On an un-Emily note, the garage project is slowly moving ahead.  The miserable weather this summer has really bogged things down.  The next step is for the floor of the garage to be poured, then construction can begin.  They have to wait until things dry out a little before concrete can be poured — and wouldn’t you know it rained again today? 

When David and Wade were here last week, filling in the foundation with gravel, they noticed a strange indentation in the ground near the walkway.  David tapped it with a shovel and lo! a five-foot sinkhole appeared!  There used to be a well there.  It was filled in 15 years ago when a new well was dug and the old one was landscaped over.  Apparently, all of the fill had settled in the last fifteen years and the only thing covering the well was a three-inch layer of soil!  Wow.  How many times have I walked near that in the past month while carrying Emily to and from the car?  Eeee….

Here’s the last round of pictures from Dad and Charlene’s visit.  We did the requisite trip to MDI to enjoy the sights and visit Bar Harbor; we rode up to the Penobscot Narrows Bridge observatory deck and scoped out some amazing views, then walked around Fort Knox afterward; and, of course, we gazed adoringly at Emily and enjoyed all of her antics.

“Look at me, I can stand!  Momma, don’t help me — I can do it my own self!”

“What?  I didn’t touch the doggie.  I’m gentle on the doggie…gentle…gentle.”

America’s Next Top Model is waiting for Emily.

“Yeah, I really am pretty adorable when I bend forward like this, aren’t I?  You just want to sop me up with a biscuit.”

“Hi, Grandpa!  It’s about time you got down here on my turf.  So.  What do you want to do now?”

“…and then if you roll over like this, they give you mad praise.  For real.  Now you try it.”

“If I had a dollar for every time someone touched these cheeks…”

Da bridge.  We took the elevator up to the top and checked out the observation deck.  I can’t believe I went skydiving when I was in college — looking down from this tower made my stomach turn.

Standing below the old and new bridges.

A view of Bucksport from the tower.

This is what everyone else sees when I walk around with Emily.  I’ll be minding my own business in the grocery store and suddenly realize that there are three people standing behind me, making faces at my daughter.  (Or maybe that’s their cover when they’re actually trying to steal my wallet….)  She’s pretty cute.

We parked the car to eat lunch and Emily decided that this would be a good time to learn the basics of driving.

“I can see a lot more when I stand up and steer.  Good tip!”

‘nother break was needed to appease screaming baby.  As soon as we stopped the car, she was all smiles again, so we took a few minutes to check out Newbury Neck and do a diaper change.

Thank you for coming to visit us, Grandpa Nolan and Grandma Charlene!

The day after Dad and Charlene arrived, we headed to Sebec Lake (an hour north of Bangor) to spend a wonderful weekend with Dad’s childhood friend, Don, and his wife Leslie.  We played cards, ate like kings, and relaxed.  I had my first margarita in over a year.  Emily proved to be very adaptable.  She was, of course, the star of the weekend.

Our gracious hosts, Leslie and Don.

The first lobster of the season for all of us.  Yum, yum!

Me feeding Emily in the highchair they have on hand for the grandchildren.

Chris feeding me some of Don’s delicious homemade guacamole.

She responds this way to her sippy cup every time.  In fact, she responds to most drinking vessels like this, even though all she drinks is water.  She loves to drink.  She cries when you take it away. 

A cake in honor of Charlene’s birthday on the 9th.

Emily being most impolite as she searched fiendishly for loose coins between the couch cushions.

She loved posing for Charlene in her baby Adirondack.

Me admiring the metal sculpture in the yard.  I think I need one…but mine will be on a budget, probably made out of old tin cans and plastic sporks.  Sigh.

“Is you talking to me?”

These pictures completely capture Emily’s constant sweetness.  Note the adorable dress — a gift from Leslie.

Dad relishing his morning cuppa joe.

We could get used to this “camp” living.  Leather couches, lobster, boat rides…this is the life!

Emily took her first boat ride ever.  She was really looking forward to it…until we put on the lifejacket.

“A lifejacket?  Interesting.  Let me taste it and let you know what I think.  Hold, please.”

“I have tasted said life preserving aparatus and have found it to be unacceptable.  Remove it now.  [...]  What do you mean ‘no’?  Oh, you’re gonna be sorry!”

Lifejacket #1 made her so unhappy that we put a different one on her to see if it would be less offensive.  As you’ll note, lifejacket #2 was equally anger-inducing.

Drinking temporarily distracted her from her unhappiness.

I could tell that Dad took great pleasure in the fact that Emily stopped crying when he held her.

Once in a while, we let Charlene be in a picture, just so she can prove she was on the trip. 

Oh captain, my captain.

Emily finally fell asleep after all of the trauma she had endured.

After we docked the boat for the day and removed her floatation device, she said, “What are you talking about?  I love boat rides!”

This game never gets old.

While Dad and Charlene were here, we took them on a drive through Blue Hill, Brooklin, Sedgwick, etc. so they could see our ‘hood.  We made the requisite stops at Naskeag Point and El El Frijoles.

Meanwhile, the concrete guys came and poured the walls of our garage foundation.  I think I caught them playing Jenga with the bricks from our walkway before they got down to business.

Emily spent some time investigating all things Grandpa Nolan.  She especially liked his watch (hey, the girl has good taste), his glasses, his goatee, and his hats.

You can stamp this grandpa inspected and approved.

Let me formally acknowledge that Charlene took almost every picture you’ll see in the next few blog entries.  Even though everyone grumbles and groans when they see the camera coming out, they’re secretly happy in the end because there’s a huge collection of fantastic photos to enjoy.  So, mad props to Charlene.

Emily knew some non-Maine grandparents existed, sure, but it was incomprehensible to her.  I mean, the child measures everything in inches — can you imagine how many inches away the state of Washington is?  She vaguely remembered that Grandma Charlene had made her a fabulous quilt, but that was a lifetime ago in Emily time.  So it’s a darn good thing they decided to come visit.

Grandpa Nolan and Grandma Charlene arrived on July 9th for their first visit with the Emmycakes.  They wisely arrived with a gift in hand: her very first sock monkey, made in delightfully girly colors.  It met with her approval.

In preparation for their visit, Emily inspected ferns.  As you do.  (Okay, the truth is, I took these pictures before Dad and Charlene arrived and never had a chance to put them on the blog.  So I’m slipping them in here.  Nonchalantly.  Go with it.)

Another set of photos that should have made the blog earlier: my “help, I’m stuck in the mud” call.  I never should have made fun of Natalie for falling in the foundation hole.  I was punished by mysteriously managing to drive my car off the road — a road that was approximately 100 yards wide, if not more.  The family is still making fun of me.  I can’t even come up with a good defense.  It was all quite embarassing.  Uncle Steve and Ray responded to my damsel in distress SOS signals and hauled me back out of the muck.  Of course, by then, Chris had heard about it, as had Aunt Mary Ann, and Jane, and oh, the contractors working on Ray’s site had been called, and….  My face is still red.

I digress.  I’m supposed to be talking about the visit.  We spent their first day here enjoying one of the first sunny days we’d had in a long time.  We took the stroller out and roamed downtown Blue Hill.  Dad was horrified by the cost of his $4.30 quadruple shot, half-caff, non-fat latte [you're not in Seattle anymore!], but it was otherwise a very enjoyable adventure.

An emergency diaper change.  This job is not always glamorous, but someone has to do it.  At least we tracked down the most idyllic spot imaginable to take care of filth.

Family Young:

Dad found a suitable throne:

And finally, exhaustion settled in for Miss Emily: