Thanksgiving break

We're back! We had a wonderful trip to see family for the holidays. We drove in the evening this time and Molly slept the entire way both directions. It was the fastest we've ever done the trip since the baby arrived. (I can still call her a baby for two more weeks, right?)

We're still decompressing today, but here are a few photos from the week.

Molly at the children's museum (for a video of Molly there, go to Anna's blog: http://mamakandcompany.blogspot.com/2008/11/cousin-fun.html)


Molly eating jelly at the diner (I shudder to think how much jelly she consumed this week).

Molly dancing with her great grandmother to Christmas music. (She started dancing a few weeks ago. She doesn't do it on command, but if a song moves her you look over and see her bopping.)

Molly eating Thanksgiving dinner. The squash was her favorite.

Lucy giving Molly some water. So helpful!

I wish I took more pictures. There was the great moment at the diner when Jim had Molly and Lucy both in his arms bouncing around and cracking up. There was Black Friday shopping -- Molly and I made it through until about 3! Molly went down a slide for the first time at the children's museum and loved it. What a great place that is! She and Lucy hugged each other, swatted at each other, played together and did so many cute things that I can't remember them all. Molly stuck her hands in my Thanksgiving pie Cool Whip and in my hot cocoa's whipped cream. She also learned baby signs for dog and cat (she was really into the cats at her grandparents' houses this week). Whew!

One thing we missed was the trip into see Nan, but we hear she got our blogs set up on her computer so big hugs and kisses for Nan!!!

More walking

Molly stopped nursing today just long enough to practice a little walking ...



Isn't she getting better?

Here's a shot from today. She's been playing with empty spice containers. She was having a good time with paprika.

Here's one from yesterday. It was really cold out and we were going to walk to play group, so I put Molly in the baby wrap and then zipped her into my coat.

@!$#@$-in' baby signs!!

You know what happens when a baby learns to make the sign for "milk?" Mommy doesn't get out of the nursing chair for two days straight. When Mommy says "but you just had milk, lets play with this toy instead," baby makes the "milk" sign furiously with both hands and screams. When baby falls asleep nursing and gets fussy about being moved to her crib, she makes the "milk" sign with both hands and screams and wakes herself up. I am frantically trying to get her to learn the signs for other things -- eat, drink, baby, book -- but all she wants is milk. Half way through her meals she pushes at her tray and then reaches out her hands toward me and makes the "milk" sign.

I've created a monster!!!

Baby signs

A few mornings ago I was sitting with Molly in the rocking chair around 5 a.m. wondering if I should nurse her or try to get her back to sleep without nursing. I looked down in the dark and could just barely see her opening and closing her fists, the baby sign I've been using for nursing.

Let me put this in context. I've been making baby signs at Molly since she turned 6 months old and she has never clearly signed anything back. She understands the signs somewhat (if she's crying and I sign "milk," she calms down, if she's fussy in the high-chair and I say and sign "all done," she grabs the rim of the tray and pushes it away), but I have to admit I was losing interest in this whole thing and forgetting to do most of them. Then about a week ago she started doing the "milk" sign when she was lying on the nursing pillow -- not asking to nurse, but kind of commenting on what we were doing.

Since that morning in the dark when she used it as a request, she's been experimenting with the "milk" sign. Today she was really testing it out. She nursed, got down and played for a few minutes, then looked up at me and made the sign again. She seemed surprised and delighted when I reached for the Boppy and pulled her back up into my chair. She still doesn't use the sign most of the time (she uses her old sign -- crying and slobbering on my shoulder), but now when I show it to her she signs back. It's amazing how quickly she's becoming a little person who can communicate.

Her other big thing this evening was pointing. She now points at things and grunts, apparently demanding that you bring the object to her immediately. Usually it's something she can't have, like grown-up books or electronics or tissue paper. Tonight in the bathtub she kept pointing at the lever that drains the tub and whining. She also pointed at her floating bath toys, so I brought each one within her reach (the beauty of her bath seat is that it keeps her in one place -- shhh, don't tell her she could escape!), then she let them float away and pointed again for me to bring them back. Hmmm. I don't like where this is going.

I don't know why I started with these little stories. The big news this week was that Oma and Grandpa made a spontaneous, last-minute, one-night visit to see Molly. She was overjoyed. She doesn't take time to warm up to people anymore (including waitresses, my former coworker and random moms at play group) so she was immediately basking in the attention. We went to the children's room at our town's library and Molly had such a good time. It's full of toys. She got to play with puzzles and a bead toy, and also flirt with an older boy who was playing with trains.

She was in an adorable, snuggly mood today after all the grandparent-love. I'm glad Thanksgiving is coming up so we can see everybody! It seems like a long time since we were home.

Spicy baby

The other night at dinner Molly seemed to be begging for mustard so Jim put a tiny dab on his finger and let her taste it. We braced ourselves for a funny reaction but got nothing. She ate it and asked for more. I think this is what emboldened me the next day to let her try the spicy Indian beef that I was eating for lunch (homemade by Jim). She ate a little piece and wanted more. It was fabulous!! I gave her as much as I dared. She loved it. That made us so proud.

We're also excited about the way she has figured out how to make us do stuff for her. If you push a button on a toy and she tries to do the same thing and can't do it herself, she grabs your finger and puts it on the button. She's into small containers lately and often she can snap a container closed but can't open it, so she holds the closed container out to you or drops it in your lap to get you to open it for her. I could see this getting annoying down the road, but right now it's such a fun game!

Also, she's started doing things on purpose to make us laugh, or more accurately, to get us to continue laughing. I first noticed it the other night when we were reading "Touch and Feel Farm" together. She touched each textured spot with her fingers, as usual, until we got to the last page. Instead of touching the pig's spongy nose with her fingers, for some reason she leaned forward and oh so delicately touched it with her mouth. I laughed. She paused, then did the exact same motion again. I laughed at that. She paused, then leaned in for another lick. As long as I kept laughing, she kept licking.

Here she is in a more serious moment, sitting in the front window yesterday.

Some videos

First, some from from Halloween night. This is Molly's blanket ride.



Now for some walking videos. We've been trying really hard to get a good one but it's hard to predict when she's going to take more than a few steps.

Voting

We didn't get any photos, but this morning Molly went to the voting booth for the first time.

We went all together as a family and were at town hall about 10 minutes before the polls opened. There was a line out the building. Everybody was patient and civil, and the line moved quickly.

In Massachusetts they give each voter a paper ballot and walk over to stand at a cubicle in a row of cubicles to fill in bubbles with a black marker. Then you have to check out by giving your address again and they put your ballot into a scanner box.

This is a little more challenging with a baby than going into a booth with levers. Molly was grabbing at my marker and made a little stray mark on one of my votes for local election (I hope the scan machine is forgiving). She also tried pulling stuff off the cubicle wall and, my favorite, grabbing the cubicle wall and peeking around to the guy voting in the cubicle next to us. She was one of many babies there, though, and we made it out of there without causing any disasters.

Now Molly's asleep and I'm glued to the computer watching for results. Yay!

Halloween

First the breaking news. Molly just took eight steps!!! She didn't even fall at the end. Jim and I were sitting in the living room talking and she just took one tiny step after another across the floor. I think my counting distracted her. She turned around to look at me and then plopped down. Wow. I can't believe that just happened.

Anyway, Halloween.
We never got Molly fully into her costume because, as we came to realize, she's a baby. Babies don't like putting strange things on their heads that they don't understand, let alone entire costumes. She did keep the sock monkey hat on longer than she keeps sun hat on, though, so that was fun. Here's our monkey in a cage (aka at the top of the steps behind the baby gate).


Jim volunteered for baby duty last night and I worked the door. We started with about 160 pieces of candy and, for the first time ever, had to turn off the lights before the official 8 p.m. end of trick-or-treat because we ran out. It was only five minutes early, but it was still unusual.

We're both really suffering because there was no left-over candy. We've never had this problem before. Usually we eat ourselves sick on Halloween and then have to unload all the rest on our coworkers. Last night we were like zombies, walking around the kitchen opening cupboards and moaning that we wanted candy. It's for the best in the long run, but I can't help but wonder if we should have forced the baby into her monkey suit and walked door-to-door just so we could raid her stash. Maybe next year.

The highlight of the evening for Molly, aside from seeing all the kids at the door, was playing with the tag on her unworn costume.

She also had some serious play time with her daddy, including blanket rides, a bath and some other weird stuff.