Thursday at the Park

Gwennie at Ryan's birthday party, in her princess dress (thanks, ML!)

It has been pretty rainy the last little while, but it cleared up enough last week to get in some serious park time. (The good thing about the rain? Gwennie loves herself some puddles. She's a champion puddle-stomper!

Thursday was a pretty good day all around. We went to Storytime at the library, which means "Nuuuuuuuuu buuuuuuuks! accompanied by the new books dance. Ryan and Stacy were at the library, so that was an added bonus. And I had won at bunko the night before, so we went to pizza for lunch. We sat upstairs by ourselves, and the kids chased and chased each other around the tables, before and after stuffing themselves with pizza. They ran so much that Gwennie crashed out for her nap without crying, which is always a huge bonus.

After we fixed the pigtails-

we hit the park.

We played in the sandbox while we waited for Ryan.

Then Gwen made cookies out of tanbark.

Gwennie calls these next two "going on slides!" (She's helping with the post.

Then we headed over to the volleyball court, where we played with a friendly kitty, but Mama didn't get very good pictures of that. Got a decent one of Ryan and Gwennie rearranging the tanbark, though.

This is a very fun thing to do at the park.

So is going on the red swing. Gwennie doesn't do the baby swings anymore! (Mama pauses to be a little sad.)

Thursdays are fun! Mama is still getting the hang of this blogging thing! (The pictures keep moving around, and the spacing gets weird, and what is up with no "undo" function?)

Party Girl

Gwennie and her stripey tights. Rutherford is fascinated by them.

And this week's phrase is: Right Now. "Play game, Daddy? Play game righ-now?" "Want milk righ-now, Mama." It's not nearly as rude as it may seem - it's not really a demand at all. It's a timeframe more than anything else. Gwen's got righ-now, I haffa-way (I have to wait,) and layer (later.) She's actually better at later than at have-to-wait. You can practically her her little brain cells begging, hoooow looong? Hooow looong do I haffa-way?

It's been a busy, rainy week for social butterflies. The rain started on Tuesday and effectively canceled our usual Wednesday hike. So everybody came over here for a playdate instead. That's her playdate dress up above. Gwen was a very gracious hostess, and only got upset over sharing once.

We moved the slide inside for the playdate, and it's now living in our foyer. We don't use the front door all that much, so that's ok. Gwen hasn't actually been sliding all that much, but she's making her father happy by performing physics experiments, sending Rutherford and various other toys down it.

Thursday Gwen wore her brown Sesame Street shirt. No pictures, it's not that cute, but it did make a boy at the library ask his mother if she could take it off, because it was his turn to wear it. And when we went to Adessa's house that afternoon, she poked Gwen and shouted, "Momo!" several times, until Gwen and I figured out what she was saying. Gwen's face said it all - why is she call Melmo Momo? There are a million names for the small red monster of Sesame Street.

Saturday was Ryan's party, and Gwennie wore her pretty party or princess dress (the name changed accordin to when her father was around, mostly.) Guess what Gwennie got for Valentine's Day?

We love the Dollar Store! We love shopping at the Dollar Store late on the night before the holiday, when the manager is ready to make a deal! Whoo hoo!

The most amazing thing about this dress? She wore it for the entire party, mac-and-cheese-lunch, birthday cake, and all, and I was able to hang it back up in the closet. I'm still shocked. Because usually she ends meal like this, with one hand in her high chair, and the other one waving a PBJ in the air.

She's seriously into hats and scarves righ-now, too, but that's a post for another day.

Stewart Sickies

Here's Gwen, before the virus sank its nasty, scritchy claws into her, and while she was clean.

Phew. We are finally coming out of the worst family illness we've had in a long, long time.

It started - oh jeez, two weeks ago, just before the Inauguration. Gwen got herself hurt over at the neighbors. She managed to scrape a fair chunk of skin of of her middle finger. It's mostly better now, but it was fairly traumatic for everyone, the neighbors most of all, I think. (I can't imagine anything worse than having someone else's kid get hurt on your watch - yeesh.) The injury wasn't ER-worthy, but it was definitely the Worst Thing that had ever happened to our Gwennie.

So that started a few nights of interrupted sleep, and partial nights of sleeping in the "big bed" as G. puts it, which sequed right into the weekend, and the beginnings of a fever. In the meantime, I'd gotten a gig subbing at my old school, in the 6th grade classroom. Which is my favorite sub job, because those are the last of my students. I didn't teach all of them, but even the ones that I didn't still know me as a teacher, rather than just a sub. Plus I love 6th graders - I love the curriculum, love the fact that I can really tease them, and love checking out how the cute lil' 8-year-olds I knew have gotten all scrawny and long and awkward. And smelly, whoo boy, hugs take on a whole new meaning, and whoops - so has this paragraph.

But check it out: I got a standing ovation from 20 12 year olds on Tuesday, when I told them I'd be there all week (their teacher had a new grandbaby.) A standing o. How cool is that?

Anyway (it's my blog and I can ramble if I want to) I had to work on Monday, and when I got up, Gwen was burning up. Full fledged fever, runny nose, whole thing. And I thanked the stars once more that I am not a single mom, because what would I have done? As it was, I cancelled Daphne, and Jim canceled his appointment for the day, and stayed home with her. All week, or at least until Friday. I started fading on Tuesday, was full out sick by Thursday, and just gritted my teeth through Friday. Because a) um, standing ovation! b) the teacher was counting on me, c) we really need the money, and d) my last class of kids! It was a great week with them, really. I just could've done without all the snot in my head.

Jim was still ok on Friday, when he had a consulting job, but by Saturday he was definitely feeling it. We all just groaned around the house and Costco (we were seriously out of food and supplies.) Jim's starting to come out of it now.

So. All of that, and it was mostly set up. Because I really wanted to blog on Sunday, when Jim slept way way in, and Gwen and I ate our pancakes and eggs by ourselves, and I was looking at my beautiful (pink-nosed, red-rimmed eyes, cold-infested) daughter. She is so much fun right now. She's talking more and more, and she's just such a little person. I don't even remember exactly what she was saying or doing, I just remember thinking - remember. Snapshot this moment right into your head, this feeling, this child, this morning. Because oh boy, she is some good stuff right now.

She's a nuzzler. She hugs my neck tight, then pulls back and studies my face carefully, selecting her placement. Then, with all the precision of a surgeon, she'll tun my head and lean in. Half the time she just rests her mouth against my cheek, and I'll stand there, poised, waiting for the smack of the kiss, and it doesn't come. The nuzzle just lasts. What does follow, almost every time, is the turning of my head the other way, so the she can place the partner kiss on the other cheek. Then one on my nose. Or my eyes, on at a time, very very gently, my little snuggly girl. Of course, this morning the eye kisses came after pancakes, and were a little, um, sticky. But still. When a little pigtailed girl offers you kisses, you do not turn them down.

I deliberately didn't take photos ove the weekend, because we were all less than our best. But here's one from yesterday, when we had lunch with some of my girlfriends. I'm telling you, some seriously good stuff, in her twirly pink poodle dress and shiny shoes.

Birthdays and other happenings

Cupcakes are a big hit in Rutherford's house. One of us, who shall not be named, but shall be prominently featured in photographs, call them puckcakes. Which is less of a comment on my baking skills than on her speaking ones, but it did throw me there for a while. Particularly because she really likes pancakes, too, so I kept getting mixed up.

Today we made yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting for Jim, who turned ... well let's just say he's in the last year of his midforties - on Friday. Gwennie wore her little apron, and dumped ingredients into the bowl with great glee. She gets a little mad when I want to actually stir things myself. "My turn!" she yells, and then she flicks a great glob of the batter over the edge of the bowl. Still, she does pretty well for a two -year-old.

Here's Gwennie enjoying hers:

Oh, it was yummy. It took a long long bath to get all the chocolate off of her.

And this is the girl on her birthday, last December, when her mama specifically did not make chocolate frosting. Nana's banana cupcakes with whipped cream frosting for the totlets. Made for less dramatic pictures, but they were a big hit with her little friends and their mamas. (Jim's more of a classicist.) Plus she's got the way cute birthday girl t-shirt on, and the pigtails, and oh I could eat her own little whipped cream self up. Except it's almost 10 and she's not asleep, which is bringing out other less attractive tendencies in me. I passed the shirt on to one of her friends, and I'm hoping to get a whole chain of pictures of two-year-old Santa Cruz girlies in it.

She has had a couple of rough nights sleeping, which has left her father and I all zombied out. I'm just waiting for her to fall asleep now before I hit the rack, too. I may be waiting a long time.

She had her 2 year check up this week, and everything looks great. The only weird thing is, she's now really big for her age. She was born 5 weeks early at 7 lbs, 3 oz., but then she was in the 5th percentile at 6 months. I kind of got used to her being little. Somewhere in the last 6 months, that changed. I knew she'd been growing a lot, but seeing the numbers - and the little dot on the dr.'s chart - was a bit of a jolt.

But look at her - she's clearly a happy, healthy kid. This was her at the beach during our winter heat wave last week:

She likes the sand waaaay more than the ocean at this point.

Cutest thing right this moment: She's got a few new phrases that she's using. "Come along" as in "Come along, Daddy, play blocks" and "Come along, Mama, time to go!" My personal favorite is "There you go!" "There you go, Rufford! New diaper!" "There you go, blocks! No fall!" All siad in a little piping voice. "There you go!" Not-so-cute-thing: the word "mine!" is now a big part of the vocabulary.

Here's the blast from the past, since I did a lousy job of blogging the last few months. This is the

Girl with our gingerbread house from Christmas. Doesn't she look grown up? The raccoons loved the fact that we composted it right after the picture. They tore apart the composter in their food-coloring-and sugar frenzy. The lid was halfway down the hill, the top tier of the composter was askew, and there were nibbled remains of gingerbread scattered around. Oh well, at least it stayed out of the landfill. And out of Gwen, for that matter.

Jim's still looking for a job, I'm still subbing and not looking hard enough for more work, but for the most part, we're doing ok here on top of our little hill. I won't go as long between posts, I promise.

Gwennie's morning

Woke up, cried until Daddy got me out of the crib.

Woke Mommy up with a pat on her face that ended with my finger in her nose, and a call for "kiss!" (Ok, so Mommy didn't mind that part too much.) Played "Pull the pillow out from under Daddy's head. Laughed. Said, "Daddy sad? Daddy sleepy!" Threw myself down next to him and snored.


Read all my new library books and my Halloween books. Kissed the witch on the wall.


Decorated my face during breakfast. Yum, oatmeal! Yummier, raisins!


Played manymanymany (but not nearly enough) games of peekaboo. Only now I call it "haidin!" Laughed.

Played dress up with a washcloth(Mommy missed that picture) and a new hat. Laughed.


Ran around outside with one shoe on.


Yelled "DYYYPer!" really loud while Mommy changed me.

Laughed.

Colored.

Now I'm helping Daddy rewire the tv. He says I'm a good helper.

It's only 10:30 am.

This afternoon, I'm going to the NICU reunion, the pumpkin patch and a BBQ. Bye bye!

Gwennie Busts a Move

Or, The Rabago Tongue in Action

Did Something Good

I can't get the pictures to post anywhere except at the top, so here's one of our little lion, with her little lion.

So I have to admit, I always feel self-conscious at rallies or protests. Well, always, as if I go to one every other week. Let's start over: even back in college, I felt self-conscious. You're basically yelling at no one. I mean, I think it's important, but it's still a little weird.

But... at the No on 8 rally, Gwen's music teacher pulled up at the corner where we were - rallying, I guess you'd call it. And he's a hip, dreadlocked music-teaching-young-children loving guy, and I had literature to hand out, so I ran over to him. In his defense, he wasn't really looking around, and all of a sudden this large redhead is in his car window, yelling "Teacher Jonah! Vote No on 8!" and it's quite possible that I frightened the bejeebers outta him. But after he recognized me (one meeting, mind, even if was only 2 days before,) he looked me in the eye and said, "I don't vote."

I was flabbergasted, stammered apologies, and slunk back to the curb. But I was bummed. I really liked him, but I have a hard respecting someone who doesn't vote. I mean, honestly. Be an adult. I couldn't really think of a way to convince him to vote without being more obnoxious than I already had been, but it bugged me.

Well, today after class, he told me that he had been thinking about it a lot, and talking to his friends, and that he has decided it is really important for him to vote. So he's registered for the first time this century. And he's talking to other people, convincing them to vote this election, too. He says he doesn't even get why we should have to vote to allow adults to marry. You go, Teacher Jonah!

Score.

I'm proud of me - I put myself out there, and it made some impact.