Young Baby Young

The cedar hedges had to come down (after a couple of particularly nasty encounters with the snow plows and their napalm salt), so a privacy fence is going up in its place.  We’ll paint ‘er white next year, after she’s had a chance to settle, or cure, or season, or whatever that word is.

Finished fence, new pavement on the driveway, finished garage — the only things left are the landscaping and re-bricking the walkway.

A view from inside of the garage.  (That silver beast is my new minivan.)

Our reclaimed mud room — it’s so nice to not be storing trash on it anymore!

Here’s the house from the back, including our newly-completed screened-in porch!  We’re so excited about that part. 

A closer view of the new porch.

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Sometimes when Emily wakes up from a nap, she’s rocking some serious bedhead.  We were laughing so hard about this one that we tried to capture it on film.

Emily’s new favorite place to play: inside the hearth.

The turkey day feast was held at our house again this year, just the way we like it.  (Luckily, there’s no competition — no one else wants to do it, so the honor is all ours!)  With this being our 3rd year hosting, I daresay we’ve worked out some kinks and come up with an excellent meal.  This year’s menu included

• turkey & gravy
• stuffing
• mashed potatoes
• sweet potato casserole
• steamed green beans with olive oil
• butternut squash
• beets
• cranberry relish
• jellied cranberry
• biscuits
• cranberry nut bread
• blueberry pie
• pecan pie
• pumpkin pie

Yum!  Chris and Grandma Aunt Mary worked fastidiously on the gravy and it turned out beautifully.  As always, there were a trillion dishes to wash afterwards, but it was worth it.  What deliciousness!

Grandma Aunt Mary and Grandpa Uncle Steve decided that it was also necessary to bring a gift for Emily, so she ended up with awesome new faux Mary Jane shoes, black pants (in two sizes), a dozen new socks, an adorable white sweater, and a touch-and-feel book.  She loves it all!

Last weekend was an exciting one for us: we went to visit Emily’s friend Gwen on Saturday, then visited Annika in her new house on Sunday.  Phew!  When did a not-quite-one-year-old start making our calendars so full?  What should we expect when she’s, say, eighteen months old?!  I’m going to have to hire an assistant to keep track of all of our appointments.  (This coming week includes photos with Santa, the Christmas parade, playgroup, a few trips to the Y, and more.)

Last weekend was the “pajama sale” in Bar Harbor.  Each year, participating businesses try to create a little retail boost by offering progressive sales to those who show up in pajamas.  It might be 25% off if you show up before 8am and 15% until 10am, for example.  Even more exciting are the “bed races”.  Local businesses can enter the competition by putting a bed on wheels, decorating it, coming up with a team name, and then racing it down Cottage Street.  That may sound not hilarious to you, but you’re sadly mistaken.  Bed races = good times.  Gwen and family were kind enough to invite us down for the morning. 

When we arrived, Emily took a moment to explore the new book selection while Gwen showed off her beloved blue ball.  (It was this ball, as the story goes, that helped Gwen take her first steps — the ball got away and she had to have it, so whatchagunnado?  She walked over and picked it up!  Emily was mightily impressed with Gwen’s walking skills and hopes that she, too, will be taking such momentous “steps” in the near future.  Her mother is less geeked about this concept.)

Here’s an example of one team participating in the bed race.  You have to have a real bed (on wheels) and someone in the bed.  Then four people sprint up the street, make a turnaround, and come back down. 

We were especially fond of the entry by the Bar Harbor Police Department — they had the “blue light special” bar on top of the frame with working lights and sound.

Daddies and their girls as they watch the races.  Ahh.

And back home to the beloved blue ball!

* * * * * * * *

The other big activity of the weekend was seeing Annika in her new home, which is about 1/2 mile from ours.  Excellent!  To see them for a 10:30am brunch date, we left our house at 10:29 and rolled in by 10:31.  We could totally get used to this.  Lisa, Chris, plan to see us every Sunday around that time!

There was no beloved blue ball at this residence, so my tripod became the coveted “toy”.  (You’d think that with the 23984776523 toys that Annika had around her house, they could have found something more appropriate, but if you really believe that, you don’t know how young children think.)

“Hey!  No fair distracting me with the camera flash!  Now give me that tripod back, Emily.”

Team Marshall was willing to let me utilize the retrieved tripod for a quick group picture — we were the first guests at their new dining room table, so clearly a picture was in order.  (And had we not been the first guests, I would have found some other reason to take a picture — like that it was a warm day in November, or that my coffee cake was a success, or that it was a day that ended in “y”.)

After this picture was taken, the girls decided to “talk” to each other by, as Chris puts it, “going all Mariah Carey on us.”  It was like they were calling all of the neighborhood dogs.  Both girls were delighted with these otherworldly squeals while the four adults looked at each other with thinly-disguised fear in their eyes.

I’m anxious about winter.  It’s hard to get out of the house for activities when it’s cold.  So I’m rounding up the girls for a periodic mother’s group/playdate.  Amelia and Lucie came over for the first one last week and we had an excellent time.

Here’s Amelia getting the girls ready to push the cart across the room.  Emily is wearing the camo dress that Grandma Jane brought back from St. Maarten, by the way — too cute.  Lucie is wearing her ever-present beaded necklace.  She won’t go anywhere without them.  Really.

Poor Emily: she has her mother’s tendency to be a bull in a china shop.  Here she is ”helping” Lucie walk with the pushcart – or more aptly, helping knock Lucie over:

Lucie was interested in a book her mother picked up and nestled in for a reading.  Emily made a beeline from across the room so that she could be in on the action.  Nobody reads without Emily!  Move over and give me some lap!

It seems that being “in on the action” is defined as grabbing the book out of Amelia’s hands (despite Lucie’s protests) and then proceeding to inspect it (albeit upside down).  Sigh.  That’s my girl.  Dainty little flower.

Emily also has her mother’s tendency to get all high-pitched and up in your bidness when excited…and to roughly pat heads as a gesture of friendship…and to steal shoes (so what if her foot’s still in it?)…and to snatch the beloved jewels (which was clearly crossing the line in Lucie’s opinion):

I chuckled so much as I watched Emily and Lucie interact.  Being me (as I so often am, and do so well), I felt the need to look at old pictures of the girls (with “old” being a relative term, given that Emily wasn’t even here a year ago!).

March 2009:

May 2009:

June 2009:

She’s so cute when she’s on the swingset — I can’t help but take a million pictures of her.  This time, all of the pictures were keepers.

Things you should know about Emily:

1. She’s nearly so many months old that she can’t show you the number with her fingers.
2. The most common question I get asked by strangers: “Is she always this happy?”  (Answer: yes.)
3. She loves to sleep.  Thank goodness.  She goes to bed at 7:30pm (and is most crabby if you try to keep her up later), sleeps until between 6 and 7am; takes her first hour and half nap around 9am; and takes her second nap of about the same length around 3pm.  I’m telling you, she’s no good without her 16 hours of sleep.  She decides in which position she’ll sleep, which blankets will be cast aside, and which toys will be used to smother herself.
4. She wakes up smiling.  And jumping in her crib.
5. Finger foods are her friends.  She really prefers to feed herself, although she’ll occasionally tolerate a little help.
6. She’s doing very well with weaning: she never did take to the bottle, so she drinks formula out of a sippy cup.  We nurse two, sometimes three times per day.
7. According to her most recent well-baby check-up, she’s no longer ridiculously chubby: her weight is in the 60th percentile and her height is 50th.
8. Emily is supremely curious.  She wants whatever you have and she’ll examine it quite closely when she gets her mitts on it. 
9. She’s learning how to blow kisses.  It’s too cute for words.
10. She likes the same toys adults like: keyboards, mouses, cell phones, iPods, and keychains.  So, she has her own set of each of those.

Emily made her first trek to the homebase of her Young lineage.  We went down to visit Jean, Chris’s stepmother, and her husband John.  Chris’s father died in 1987, and most of his siblings have passed on as well, but there’s still a siren song that lures Chris down there every few years.  Of course, it’s a gorgeous part of the country, so that doesn’t hurt!

The weather was not on our side for this visit — it rained the whole time — so we didn’t get to do some of the touristy things that I wanted to do.  That was my third visit to Charlottesville and I’ve still never been to Monticello.  We didn’t get to do downtown this year, nor did we stroll the UVa campus like we like to, but we did get to eat delicious food, do some indoor shopping, and relax.  There was an evening out at Chris’s favorite restaurant, The Bavarian Chef, and there was an always-delicious lunch feast at Michie Tavern with Aunt Sue.

Emily playing with John — they liked to use the ottoman as a drumset, which thrilled her immensely.

Jean and John’s friends brought over some toys that their grandkids had played with.  Emily loved the popping ladybug.  So much so that she got to take it home with her!

Carrie and Dave had thoughtfully provided Emily with toys, too.  She was thrilled with her new pushcart / riding car.  Carrie had to assemble that toy (before we arrived) and according to both her and Dave, it was a stressful time.  Carrie refused to the read directions (hello, directions are for sissies!) and Dave had to work very hard not to rip the parts out of Carrie’s hands and scream, “Give me that!  I’ll do it myself!”  Emily loves her cart and could spend hours going ’round and ’round with it.  Much to the dismay of our not-so-young-anymore backs.

Jefferson.  Such a good dog.  He never barked once.  When Nathan and Natalie are gone, this will be their replacement.  (But don’t tell them that!)  Emily loved Jefferson.  She squealed at him just the way she did to Scout-Scout (Carrie’s kitty).  Incredibly, Jefferson wasn’t afraid.  

Emily, Chris, and Aunt Sue after lunch at the Michie Tavern.

Jean and John with Emily, still at the Michie Tavern.

With that, I hereby declare myself a Virginian.

…and baby makes four!  We send our congratulations to Kate and Hugh on the delivery of their second child, Lily Marie.  She arrived yesterday, 10/17, at 5:59pm with an impressive weigh-in of 8lb 14oz. 

I doesn’t seem like very long ago that we were pregnant visiting Kate and Hugh in Vermont with Jack when he was only 5 months old!  Actually, now that I think about it, it wasn’t that long ago…here’s a picture from September 2008:

After flying in to Charlottesville, VA, we centered our qi overnight and then drove to Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina the next morning in our new-to-us minivan.  We were worried about how Emily would do on a 5-hour drive; she surprised us by being amazingly chill and easy.  She slept for big chunks of time, then we’d take a little break and get some food before heading on the road again.  We stopped at one of my favorite guilty pleasures, the Cracker Barrel, and she loved the toys in their gift shop.

She’s suddenly “into” toys.  You walk past something toy-like and she starts squirming, vocalizing, and grabbing.  She protests loudly if you don’t let her see it.  She cries if you take her away from it.  Sometimes her interest is adorable; sometimes it’s frustrating.  In the Cracker Barrel, it was adorable.

When we arrived at Carrie and Dave’s house, we were greeted by Carrie in her apron — she was busy tending to that night’s dinner of ribs, sauerkraut, homemade applesauce, and mashed potatoes.   Oh_my_god, deliciousness.  Here we are, right before we attacked the food like ravenous hyenas:

and here’s what was left:

I started off the visit on the right foot by bringing a bag o’ goodies for our gracious hosts.  There was a package of toys for the cats, plus delicious treats for the humans.  I made Carrie open the bag because I needed her to discover the 1-lb bag of malt balls I included — her least favorite thing ever.  She practically threw them across the room in disgust when she realized what they were, which of course had me in stitches laughing.  Over the remainder of our visit, I would bring them out like they were something new and offer her one; she’d say yes a split second before realizing what I was offering and then get mad anew.  Ahh, good times.

Our visit to North Carolina was so fabulous.  I love having friends that are easy to be around.  We didn’t need to *do* anything; an evening of chatting or playing cards kept everyone happy.  Chris and Dave spent some quality time stooping (that is, sitting on the front stoop discussing important things) and became very animated about cars — something neither one gets to delve into with the wifey.  At one point, they were talking about engines (I think) and Chris screamed, “I know!  The 455!” to which Dave shrieked, “Exactly!” and then they both erupted in uproarious laughter.  Carrie and I thought that was hilarious.  Why are they speaking in code?  What’s a 455?  For the rest of the weekend, we’d just look at each other occasionally and scream “455″ gleefully, much to the [mock] displeasure of our menfolk.

We tried to keep things as normal as possible for Emily, so she napped at roughly her normal times, ate in a highchair, and took baths in the evening before bed.  She was fascinated by the big girl tub — she’s never had so much room to move around.  She insisted on standing up, though, which wasn’t a good idea because it was so slippery.  We kept her from falling, but not sliding; she has since decided that big girl tubs are for the birds.

We made Dave submit to a urine test.  You can never be too careful around North Carolinians.  Luckily, he passed.

We spent Sunday at Glencoe, the mill restoration project that Carrie has been heading up at work.  She gave us a full tour of the renovated building, the non-renovated buildings, and the mill town.  We had a million questions for her and she proved most satisfactory in answering them.  It nearly brought a tear to my eye to see my little girl all growed up.  It seems that it also distracted me from taking any pictures — all I have is a couple from our walk in the nearby park.  It seems I missed my chance to take cool pictures of the mill and its surrounding historic houses.  Darn it!

Carrie captured an excellent picture of me reading Emily’s favorite book to her:

It’s a good thing that we brought treats for the cats because I suspect they were quite traumatized by our visit.  Nana remained in hiding the entire time.  She’s remarkably good at it given that their house is about 1200 square feet and we barely caught sight of her once.  Scout was a little more sociable.  Emily freaked out every time she saw her.  Scout would nonchalantly enter a room, as only a cat can, and Emily would look up and see her.  Her eyes would get big and then she’d start squealing with delight.  She would ATV her way over to Scout’s last-known location, mowing over toys, clothing, pillows, whatever, but alas: Scout would already be gone.  Emily would do her best to find kitty-kitty, but kitty was smart enough to go into a room that was baby-gated.  Emily would see Scout-Scout behind the gate, so she’d pull herself up and peer over the top at the kitty, still emitting the insane supersonic noise.  Scout’s eyes would be big black saucers and she would be hunkered down in a defensive position — she didn’t know that Emily was just that excited to see her!  It’s no wonder Nana stayed hidden for 72 hours.

Days after we left, Carrie said that Nana finally decided to play with the toys we’d brought for her.  Now that it was safe to come out.

Yesterday morning, she was sitting in her high chair when Chris came downstairs to leave for work.  She looked right at him and said, “Dada!”  He looked so victorious; I couldn’t stand it.  I put my face in front of her and tried to coax her into saying “mama”.  I failed.  She just said “dada” again.  And again.  And again.

Eleven months of nursing, toting, changing, and amusing; this is the thanks I get?