Miss Chavez Turns One-Half

Little One is getting big. 

Around her half birthday, I took some photos of her sitting on the couch.  She's pretty good now and will sometimes sit unsupported for decent lengths of time. 

I never put her on a hard surface unless I'm right there, though, because she may lean back or fall over at any time - such as when she has the urge to eat her foot. 


Super-exciting video of her sitting:



Dolly has enjoyed a special relationship with Mr. Giraffe (zhu-raf-ee').  We generally only give her a pacifier when she goes to sleep (and sometimes at church when we're trying to keep her quiet).  She and Mr. Giraffe have had some wonderful times together.  She used to break out of her swaddle and then hold him and suck on him (the pacifier part, or the body, or the label) or just clutch him close after she woke up.  The lovebirds after naps:

Notice how she's sideways in her crib.  More on that later.

Again, sideways.

Dolly loves shoulder rides.  She grabs Jim's hair like reins.



Last week we went to the fair.  One of Jim's patients had a booth in the woodwork exhibit.  He wanted to show Jim that he's legit, so he gave Jim two tickets and even followed up later asking when Jim was going to be there.  We thought we needed to support.  Plus I love the fair. 

First we stumbled upon the "Tuff Trucks" event - modified, tricked-out cars and trucks racing around a dirt track with jumps and bumps.  I LOVED it.  It was sort of intense and so fun to watch.  I am totally white trash at heart, apparently.  Ever was digging it, too.



It's my mullet; it's my pride:


Dolly's mullet and Jim's hide-a-mullet/beaver tail.  We know he really needs a hair cut.

Below is a better picture of Dolly's double-layer mullet, composed of a long, thin layer with a short layer of new growth (?) underneath.  I gave her a mullet cut a long time ago.  It obviously needs attention again.  And by the way, these photos make her bald spot look really bad, but it's actually filling in quite nicely.  (I discovered that regular combing goes a long way toward heading off dreadlocks that must be cut off.  [Yes, it took me a while to realize that.]  My contribution toward the bald spot has ceased.  I can't, however, take credit for her hair growing back.  She spends much less time on her back these days, as she has started sleeping on her side and tummy.  In fact, she has gotten a couple of starter dreads on the side since all this rolling around began, but I was able to comb them out.  Said rolling is discussed further below.) 

I tried really hard to get a good picture of a mobile going over the big jump.  This is about the best I could do.  See the red truck in the distance?

 Enjoying daddy/daughter time:

The lady next to us couldn't believe that Ever wasn't bothered by the noise.  And then a super-loud mobile came out, and Dolly started to lose it.  The lady next to us was telling us to cover Ever's ears, so we mostly missed when the super-loud mobile crashed.  On its side:

 So that was exciting.  The driver and his passenger were fine.  The crowd loved it.

After that, we went through the animal area, where Dolly bonded with a goat named "Mischief." 

We didn't notice the goat's name until we were leaving, but we thought it highly appropriately because Lil' Miss has become Lil' Mischievous has become Miss Chavez.  All three incarnations of the name are currently in use. 

This is the face Jim makes when he's loving on Dolly:

He bites his lower lip.  I curl both lips around my teeth and bite down, if that makes sense.  It is ugly and is rapidly worsening my smile-line wrinkles, I'm sure, but I just can't enjoy her squeeziness and softitude unless I make that face along with the squeezing and softing (thank you, Clara, for making "soft" a verb).  It's like when I used to rub the ruffle on my pink blanket when I was a kid; I had to suck my thumb at the same time to really maximize the enjoyment.  Unfortunately, I squeeze and soft the dolly all day long, so I'm making the face all the time.  What I have learned from Dolly is that I am Lenny from Of Mice and Men.  I can't get enough of the squeezing and softing.  But I digress...

From the goats, we moved on to the cows.  Dolly got a ride and was very happy about it. 

Doesn't it look as if they're inside the pen with the cow?

Shoulder rides deteriorate into head-sucking (or in this case, hat-sucking) after a while:

All I want to do is squish my cheek into her cheek every second of the day.  Her cheeks are incredible.  Lenny would like them. 

After the animals, we went to the woodworking area and saw Jim's patient and his wife.  There was some pretty amazing stuff.  We headed out shortly after that.  The awkward news is that neither Jim nor I paid any attention to where we parked, so we spent a good 40 minutes walking around the parking lot trying to find our car.  A worker guy even drove his golf cart around looking for it.  He didn't take us with him, though, and we found the car before he came back. 

In other Dolly news, we had her six-month checkup.  She was almost 14 pounds, which put her in the 13th percentile for weight (up from the 9th percentile at her last appointment).  She was in the 60th percentile for height, and her head was in the 70-something-th percentile.  So she's probably going to be a tall, skinny brainiac. 

She's getting her first tooth.

She sticks her little tongue out a lot.  I love it. 

She makes "g" sounds sometimes but is still more of a fan of vowels.  She also clucks, does a deep-throated gurgle, squawks, and screams for fun.  When she really wants to have a conversation, she makes a mumbling sound followed by a high-pitched, sucking-in noise that's really cute.  She and Jim were going back and forth doing the high-pitched thing, but she got distracted and didn't do it so well after I took out the video camera.  This backlit video is all we got: 

She still spends some time in the Bumbo. 

She wants to grab EVERYTHING in sight. 

Coming for the camera.

She is especially obsessed with my yellow purse, computer, and phone.  She also likes remotes, paper products, and pretty much everything I don't want her to have. 

Upon learning of her love of plastic bags, we started letting her play with this packing material from an Amazon box (which has pictures of kids x-ed out all over it).  The other day she leaned for it and almost got into crawling position.

She didn't like that.

I don't think she's going to keep up with the Rob-and-Anna kids' timetable for crawling.

She's gotten quite good at solids, at least when she's in the mood.  Force-feeding her when she's more interested in playing, however, is extremely frustrating.  There's a lot of hands-in-mouth...

... and spitting:



She can chow down on rice cereal.  Orange foods have gone over very well - sweet potatoes, carrots, squash.  She'll also eat apples, pears, and peaches.  She's less excited about green beans and peas but sometimes does OK with those, too.  The only food she has pretty much completely rejected is straight chicken (or was it turkey?). 

She enjoys bath time.  Jim had a hard time getting her out the other day because she wouldn't let go of the side of the tub.

She has become a crazy sleeper.  More often than not, she's either sideways or completely upside-down when she wakes up. 
 

She has gotten too big to be sideways in her crib, so limbs are popping out. 

As you can see from those last couple pictures, I have FINALLY (as of this last week) stopped swaddling her.  Although I'd never seen her roll from back to front (we have seen her do it since), I always worried about her getting onto her belly and then not being able to roll back over because her arms were swaddled.  Then in the space of a couple of days, I found her on her tummy (once with her head up against the side rail) with most of her naked torso out of the head hole of her sleep sack.  Houdini.  I started swaddling her with one arm out to get her used to it and then just started to put her down without any swaddling.  That has really put a damper on our bedtime routine, which began with swaddling and then consisted of me rocking her while I read and sang to her until she started to close her eyes.  Now, without the swaddling, she's kicking, flailing, arching her back, and/or putting her hands all over my face and the book I'm trying to read to her.  She's done quite well putting herself to sleep, though, and I'm so glad I don't have to worry about death by partial swaddling.  Now that she has been reunited with her arms, however, she has become quite the belly sleeper, making me worry (just a little) that she's going to suffocate with her face down into the mattress.  I check on her all the time.  I think maybe a video monitor should be in my future. 



T.V., Heart-to-Heart, and Back to Work

T.V.

Dolly likes her T.V.  If there is a T.V. on anywhere in the vicinity, she will find it, contorting her body in whatever way is necessary for her to see it.  We refuse to let her watch it, but Jim likes to have Good Morning America on while he gets ready and eats breakfast.  (I just noticed that Good Morning America needs a comma.  Argh.)  If Dean's in the room, however, she often forces him to turn it off by pulling stunts like these:

Heart-to-Heart

The other day, Jim was hanging out with Dolly, talking very softly and seriously to her.  There was some discussion of how she needs to be careful about boys, as not all of them will be nice to her.  I wish I'd caught more of the convo, but this is how they looked... 

... until I distracted her with the camera.  I hope I didn't make her miss out on any crucial words of wisdom from her father.

Back to Work

In other news, I made my big debut back at work yesterday.  I'm planning to go into the office one day a week and then work some from home another day or two.  I'm not exactly sure what my schedule will be but am aiming to work 15-20 hours a week.  Our friend Trisha Wilson (wife of Jim's good friend Jeremy) is watching Ever this month, and then Karen Wilson (Jeremy's mom) is taking over next month.  We are sooooo grateful to them for their help. 

Dean woke up crazy early yesterday, so I did get to see her before I left for work.  Jim was in charge of feeding her and dropping her off at the Wilsons' in the morning and then picking her up in the afternoon.  Trish texted me an update and a picture in the morning, so I knew all was well.  Apparently Dolly had a good time, and the Wilson kids were excited to have her.  I stayed too late at work, however, so Jim had to keep Little One up too late so he could go to the beginning of YM.  As a result, they had some bedtime issues, but everyone survived.  Dolly was her happy self this morning.  This is Ever's "report card" from her first day with Trish:


(Jim added the two later feedings.)

Surprisingly, I wasn't terribly traumatized about going back.  My firm is amazing.  The people are wonderful.  Nobody really cares what I do, when I work, etc., and they're willing to let me experiment with this.  It doesn't seem so bad when I only have to go in to the office once a week, especially knowing that Dolly's in such good hands. 

When I popped into Neil Martin's office yesterday morning, he said, "You're back!  Well, I don't know who won the pool."  (I worked A LOT for Neil when I was a Summer Associate and when I first started with the firm after law school.  He came to our wedding.  He gives me recipes.)  When Jim and I got married and I moved to Oceanside, I know a lot of people thought I'd end up quitting pretty quickly.  (I heard through the grapevine that one of the partners said, after hearing about my commuting/working-from-home plans, "She won't last a year.")  And I know a lot of people probably expected me to take my maternity leave and then quit.  I'm really glad that I keep proving them wrong.  I just keep showing up. 

I know this arrangement won't last forever, and I don't want to let myself take on so much work that I get stressed out, don't have time for the house or cooking or myself, etc.  But I'm grateful for all HFB has done for me.  I enjoy the people with whom I work.  I want to help my wonderful mentor, who's in the middle of chemotherapy for breast cancer.  I have loyalty issues.  So we'll see how this goes...

P.S.

Dolly has been napping for over three hours.  I have done a load of laundry (well, not the folding part yet), eaten some cereal, wasted a little time on the Web, paid a bill, talked to a partner and gotten a work assignment, billed a .7 completing that assignment, composed this post, and attended to a couple other odds and ends.  If Dolly did this every day, I could really get some things done.  

Idyllwild

In keeping with our tradition, Jim planned a weekend getaway to celebrate our fourth anniversary.  We went to Idyllwild, a little mountain town northeast of us somewhere in the vicinity of Palm Springs. 

We didn't arrive until about 8:40 P.M. Friday night.  We had planned to stop for fast food on the way, but each of us was waiting for the other to decide when to stop.  Then we realized we'd past all the fast food, and we feared there'd be nothing open in Idyllwild.  (That happened to us once when we went to Julian.  It wasn't that late when we arrived, but nothing was open.  We had to survive on a little loaf of bread left for us in the cabin.)  We were thrilled to discover the Mile High Cafe as soon as we hit town, open until 9:00.  We had a nice dinner and made friends with the owner, a super-cute, friendly Asian lady who took an interest in Ever. 

(Photo taken later from the car.)

We stayed here:





It was a cute, cozy little cabin.  Apparently Elvis stayed there in the '60s while filming a movie.  The spiders also found it hospitable.  One crawled on Jim as soon as he got in bed.  We also caught three tiny ones descending from the ceiling toward the bed.  Not my fave, although I may prefer it to the ant-infested cabin in Julian we stayed in a couple years ago.

We went to the Honey Bunns and Joe Bakery for breakfast Saturday.  I had a delicious cinnamon roll; Jim had a caramel pecan bun and some sort of lemon cookie.  The he-owner chatted with us for a few minutes.  He was a flooring contractor and the she-owner (his wife, the baker) an accountant in Rancho Cucamonga.  They retired from their regular jobs, moved to Idyllwild, and opened this bakery. 

 



The owners' daughter recommended a couple of hikes to us, so we hit the more strenuous one - a 6.6-mile (roundtrip) jaunt to Suicide Rock - right after breakfast.  As the family pack mule, I carried Little One.  She slept some in the Baby Bjorn and had some fussy spells, but she hung in there and let us complete the whole thing.  Everyone we saw on the trail was very impressed. 

These trees, with red bark and pink flowers, lined a lot of the trail.  The bees LOVED them.  The near-constant hum of bees scared us, but we had no encounters. 

Happy baby.  (Note:  she was NOT this happy at the very end of the hike.  We had to take her out of the Bjorn to calm her for the last little stretch to the car.) 

She loves sucking on the Bjorn.  She is well into the I-want-to-put-everything-in-my-mouth phase.

Dean slept the last little part up and then most of the way back.  I woke her a couple times when I slipped and almost fell.  She wasn't a fan of that.  And no, this hat does not fit her and does, in fact, try to swallow her head whole.  It's on loan from the Karners and is the only one we have. 

The top.  We weren't sure which rock was the Suicide Rock.

Attack of the hat.

Jim really liked this tree.



After the hike, we went back to the cabin, got cleaned up, and tried to put Baby to bed.  She refused to sleep, despite being extremely tired, so we went into town for dinner.  We ended up at a place called Jo'An's, where Jim had a burger he loved and I had a disappointing salad.  (Jim said I should've known; it was like ordering a salad at a bowling alley.)  We were accosted by a drunk man who apparently cooks the meat in the outside area on weekends and who wouldn't stop talking to us.  Then we went to a chocolate store and splurged on $16 worth of chocolate.  Most of it was Jim's, and in any case, I can't say it was worth it.  But that's how we do.  While we were in town, a couple people recognized us from the hike.  One lady stopped and asked, "Is that the baby from the hike today?"  A guy in the chocolate store asked us how far we made it, and we were proud to answer, "All the way to Suicide Rock."  Dean was famous in a day.  People will probably be talking about the amazing baby-hiker for years to come. 

Sunday morning we took a couple photos in town and then headed out to the Ernie Maxwell Trail, which was the other hike recommended to us by the Honey Bunns people.  I couldn't really capture the cuteness of the town, but I took a couple random shots from the car.

Fueling up before the hike.  I love how they're gazing at each other.

We understood from the Honey Bunns girl that this would be an easy, three-mile amble - nice for a Sabbath morn.  Turns out it's five miles (roundtrip) and not flat.  There's a little creek shortly before the end of the trail.  We hung out there for a little while, fed the babe, and then headed back because she was losing it. 

Jim decided to man up and take the baby this time, thereby avoiding ridicule from people on the trail wondering why he wasn't carrying her.  (A few people made comments to us on the Suicide Rock hike.  Jim was upset that I didn't defend him by explaining that she fussed when he carried her but slept when I did.) 

 

More of the red-barked trees.



Setting up the shenaniquin shot.

Not the shenaniquin's best work.

Flirting over lunch.

I didn't know I was in this picture.  Had I known, I would've tried to look happier.


At this point, Jim put the camera on top of the backpack.  I then picked up the backpack, not realizing that the camera was on top of it until I saw the camera fall off.  It rolled down the rock and into the water. 

After the rescue, the camera wouldn't turn off for a long time and could still take pictures.  I got one last shot of Jim carrying Little One, with an empty Bjorn on his back.  She was too angry to ride in the carrier any longer, so he carried her the whole way back. 

Eventually, the camera turned off and went to camera heaven.  The good news is that 1) the pictures were still on the card, 2) this experience forced me to learn about the existence of "the card" and how to plug it directly into the computer instead of hooking up the whole camera (technology is not my thing), and 3) the camera was already on the fritz and had been refusing to turn on for periods of time the previous day.  So if ever there was a time to drop a camera in water, this was it.  I pretty much nailed it. 

Sadly, the weekend photos are completely bereft of any close-ups of Jim's nose.  The purple scabby thing became a giant ball that that stuck about a half-inch off his nose.  It was disgusting and bizarre.  (Sorry, honey.)  Monday morning, Jim had his scheduler cancel his appointments and got in to see a doctor, who confirmed as follows:  the graft never took, and the scab on top was the dead graft; the stitches never dissolved as they were supposed to, so the scab couldn't fall off; and Jim's nose underneath was growing and growing, past where it should, and pushing the scab out.  So they cut the giant ball off and cauterized his nose.  Now it looks like a regular wound, and both nostrils are on similar planes, so that's nice.  Jim's doctor told him he could do another graft, but there's no telling it would work.  The scar may end up pulling out his nostril, but we'll hope for the best.  Jim's just excited that he can get back in the water and go on a little three-day surf trip to Mexico that he and Sam have been planning for next week.