Gelukkig nieuwjaar

Happy new year! Given the likelihood that we'll be up at 4:00am, we didn't think we could make it to midnight, so we're celebrating Dutch new year! That is, we're celebrating the roll of the year in the timezone of the Netherlands (assuming I've done my time conversions correctly). May everyone have a wonderful year.

Julie, Molly, and Jim

Christmas trip

We had such a wonderful time visiting family last week. Thanks to a small battalion of neighborhood children we were able to leave the rabbits for an entire week and not worry about them starving or about the snow piling up in the driveway. We are happy to report that the Hannah Montana party, if the pet sitters and the snow removal boy did indeed have one, was cleaned up without a trace.

So we had plenty of time to settle in before Christmas. Jim and I gave ourselves an early gift -- our first night out without Molly since she was born. A little overdue? Uh-huh. We waited until Molly went to sleep (which of course took way longer than usual) then met David and Anna and Kim for dinner at a Mexican restaurant. We had SUCH a good time. We gorged ourselves on fried ice cream and sundaes, and we didn't leave until the place was about to close. It was so strange to be wearing something other than PJs at 10 p.m. Jim and I both had our cell phones on the table and were checking them constantly for messages from my mom, who graciously agreed to stay home with Molly, but we needn't have worried. Aside from a little coughing, she didn't make a sound.

Molly's holiday festivities started Christmas Eve with Oma's family party. (I just posted some photos). She stayed up an hour past her usual bedtime but didn't quite make it through the whole party. She really enjoyed meeting Bonnie, her golden retriever cousin -- lots of panting, the baby sign for dog. She also enjoyed opening her gifts and playing with Lucy and the rest of the family.

Talking via Webcam with Luutsen and Annie.

Playing with Grandpa's trains.

Christmas day (see photos here) started with presents at Grammy D's house.

Then we went to Oma's house for presents.



Then we went to the K's for more presents and dinner, then to my mom's family's big party for even yet more dinner and dessert.

Molly was as full of energy at the end of the day as she was at the beginning. We had a hard time getting her to focus on opening gifts, especially at Oma's house. She and Lucy kept wandering off to other rooms and the guys had to go find them and bring them back. At one point somebody set up two chairs to block the hallway. Molly marched right over, pushed one chair down the hall and walked into the blockaded room.

Molly did find the focus to eat tremendous amounts of ice cream, frosting and probably many other naughty things I don't know about.

We had a lot of fun watching her play with her new toys. And of course there was the moment the next day when we noticed that she was surrounded by new toys and what was she playing with? Four used plastic cups and a string of old raffle tickets.

I did a lot better this trip with keeping the right gear on hand wherever we were ... until the last day or two. It was all down hill from the morning at the diner when I realized I needed a bib and didn't have a clean one with me. I realized I had a diaper bag as big as a suitcase and nothing useful in it. The low point was the day we were driving home when Molly woke up from a nap and her diaper had leaked, soaking her clothes. I had no clean clothes to put on her. We ended up putting in the wet clothes in the dryer and taking her to lunch that way, dirty but dry.

Now that we're home I'm trying to reintroduce her to vegetables and catch up on sleep. On that note, time to go to bed.

Home Again, Home Again

Well, we're back in Ayer after an uneventful drive home. Molly slept the whole way home and we made it in just a hair under 6 hours. Weather and traffic were pretty good, and the house and the bunnies are all intact. We'll have some more details of the trip and some photos in the next few days.

Molly has a big plastic key chain with buttons that play noises and songs ("Blue Car. Yellow House. The wheels on the bus go round and round...") that was wedged under her leg for pretty much the whole drive. Every time she moved or shifted position we'd here a little "honk honk" or snippet of a song. We're all going to have some strange dreams tonight.

Merry Christmas to everyone and have a happy new year.

Lizard tongue

This is a new little thing Molly does that we call "lizard tongue."



She had her 1-year check-up yesterday and everything looks good. She weighed in at 21 lbs, 3 ounces. She's 31 inches tall (seems a little bit high to me, but whatever) and her head is 18 inches around. She has definitely grown in the past month.

The birthday report

What a great day we had yesterday, from beginning to end.

We started with special birthday pancakes for breakfast. Then David, Anna and Lucy arrived and we ladies went next door for play group. I think the little girls had a good time. Lucy found some good books and a squishy kid chair that she really liked. Molly is finally walking around with all the bigger kids. One of the girls about Lucy's age was in a particularly friendly mood and gave Lucy kisses and hugs. She also tackled Molly with some serious hugging and kissing, and Molly hugged her right back. That was a little strange -- the two little girls rolling around together in my lap. Huh. Maybe it was some special birthday lovin'.

Back at home Molly got in some play time with her uncle and cousin.

Oma and Grandpa arrived with their dog, then Jim came home early from work. Molly took a nice nap while I made her cake. (Blogger is flipping the photo to vertical, which is just as well -- clearly this was not a professional design job).


We had a big lunch, then we played a (totally geeky) Powerpoint slide show I put together with photos of Molly from the past year. Molly got her hand prints all over the TV.

Then we opened gifts. Molly enjoyed each gift so much we had to work really hard to get her to open anything else. She opened this gift from her great grandmother B. first and liked it so much she was ready to call it a day. She carried the outfit around, flopped on top of it on the floor and snuggled it, and got annoyed when we tried to set it aside.

Snuggling it:
We got a video of this really cool toy from Kim:




After presents we sang and helped Molly blow out her candle.
And she dug in.
We carried her straight to the tub, where it took two of us to find the baby (oops, little girl) under all that chocolate glop. She had a great time splashing around while Lucy stood at the side of the tub pointing and saying "duck" and "soap" and "splash" and "nakey."

Once everybody was clean we settled in for some family time.



Around the time Molly usually gets ready for bed we bundled the girls up to take a walk outside and see the Christmas lights in the neighborhood (and shake off the cake-induced sleepiness).


Despite the unusual evening craziness...

our little 1-year-old girl got all cuddly and snuggly with her cousin, then went right to sleep.

Birthday girl

Just a few pictures until I get a chance to write more ...

Helpful girl

Molly has been trying to "help" around the house for a long time but lately she has learned to do a few things that really are helpful. The big one is she helps me unload the dishwasher by taking the mugs and plates and bowls out of the racks and handing them to me. We have a video of it that I will post when I get a chance.

Also, she now only walks to the change table when I say "diaper,' she also carries her packaged up dirty diapers (holding my hand, it's so cute) out to the kitchen and drops them in the trash can. She will put my dirty socks in the hamper if I point to the socks and point to the hamper. The other day in the bath she carefully set a bath toy on the ledge where I always set it to drain. (I was amazed she even noticed where it goes!)

Here we are yesterday doing dishes together.

She watches so much cooking in our kitchen, sometimes she likes to try it herself.

Isn't she a silly girl?


We had a rough day today. I think I got food poisoning from something that sat in our 50-degree fridge during the power outage -- not sure what, but I've been suffering. Jim worked from home so he could do things that turned my stomach, such as feeding the baby and changing diapers. I'm feeling better now though, in plenty of time to get ready for Molly's birthday tomorrow and feel all sentimental about snuggling my little baby on the last night before she's officially not a baby anymore. I think she's going to have a good time tomorrow.

Ice storm

Last night around 11 p.m. our power went out. We woke up around 3:30 a.m. to Molly crying, probably because she was cold. The power was still out. At one point Jim came out to the living room and he could hear trees cracking and breaking under the weight of ice.

The power came back around 6 a.m., just as I was snuggling up with Molly to nurse and trying to stop kicking blankets off her chilly feet. The temperature in the house had dropped to 61.

This was the view out our windows:



By the time Jim left for work the roads were fine, the house was warming up and everything seemed to be back to normal. Then around 8 a.m. the power went off again. Hours went by, still no power. It was getting cold in the house again so I packed the baby into the car.

Trees were down everywhere. I could smell pine, even with the car windows closed. Our grocery store was open and some people were shopping, but it was dark inside -- clearly running on a generator -- and a woman appeared to be putting plastic over the refrigerated produce. We drove on to a grocery store farther away that had power. Then we drove around looking for stores that were open (didn't find much) and killing time. The baby fell asleep. When the sun came out it looked as if all the trees were made of glass. Here's a picture I took after we got home.



Around late afternoon we started to worry we were facing an even colder night in the house with no heat. Hundreds of thousands of people lost power. The radio reports said it probably wouldn't be back in a lot of places until Monday.

We booked a hotel room. It was getting dark by the time Jim got home and we used flashlights to finish packing and shutting off the utilities. (Molly had a good time toddling around with a flashlight). The car was loaded and we were just about to go out the door when Jim noticed that one house down the hill had lights on. Then he noticed another and another. He went downstairs to turn our power back on and it worked! We heard one of our neighbors cheering down the street.

So that was our exciting day. The lesson? We need to stop talking about buying a generator and actually buy one. At least Molly didn't seem to be bothered by the whole experience. Of course, we didn't actually have to leave the house. Big sigh of relief!!!

Cranky pants

Did I mention that Molly screams?

Along with the dramatic highs lately we're getting some dramatic lows. She'll be playing quietly by herself and out of nowhere she'll scream as if she pinched her finger in a door. I run over, only to find she's angry because she can't pick up something off the floor.

She also shrieks in the car a lot lately. It's shrill and no amount of sweet talk or tossing toys to her can make it stop. On our Thanksgiving trip, sometimes singing "Old MacDonald" magically helped (no other song!).

Yesterday she got into a mood where she shrieked whenever I put her down, then stood at my knees crying and shrieking until I picked her up again. She's had a cold all week and seemed to be having a particularly rough time with it yesterday, so I'm sure that was a factor. I tried to carry her as much as possible, but she likes to reach out to "help" in the kitchen, which results in a lot of spills and frantic hand washing (she put her whole palm in almond butter last night -- ugh!!!)

"Who, me?" she says.


In the brief moments when she isn't shrieking, Molly has been cracking us up with a little comedy routine she's testing out. She puts pants on her head (too much "Blue Hat, Green Hat" maybe? Ooops!). We've seen this one many times now and it still gets a laugh.

OK, I should be napping during her nap. Jim and I were up in the wee hours of the morning again with her today for the second night in a row. So tired ....

Special visitor

Sinterklaas appeared magically at our house overnight. (See Wikipedia for a little history on the original Dutch santa). When we woke up this morning, look at all the stuff he left beside Molly's wooden shoes.

We've been having such a great time this week. Molly is becoming a little person, and such a delightful one! A couple nights ago we discovered that she understands the word "head." If you say "Where is Molly's head?" she puts her hand on her head. We taught her toes and feet, too, and now it's so much fun to tell her the names of things because anything could be next. She also knows what "diaper" means and will walk me down the hall to her room and lie down on the changing pad. Then she remembers she doesn't like diaper changes and crawls away. It's really funny.
She's using the sign for "all done" now (waving her hands around). She also seems to have her own language of signs for which we cannot figure out the meaning, much to her frustration. She does one where she pokes her index finger into her opposite palm. The book says this is one way to sign "more." However, it is not the way we taught her. I have no idea what she thinks it means. She also does a sign where she pats her open hands on her chest and the other day she was rubbing her hair forward on her head in a way that looked like a sign. She looks at us like we're pretty slow when we don't know what she's saying.
Her cuddling has reached new heights of cute this week, too. She has this little routine where she flops on her belly on the floor, lays her head down and kicks her feet. She
gfhjjkklgrdrddrbn (that was the girl, now she's doing a funny little knee-bend dance on the kitchen floor)
She hugs us around the neck and gives big kisses. She cuddles her stuffed animals.
She's also working very hard to rearrange the house. It's as if she's been looking at all the poorly placed stuff for her entire life and finally she can walk around with stuff in her arms and put it where she wants it. She brings dirty socks into the kitchen, toys into our bedroom, plastic container lids into the bathroom. Don't even ask me where her shoes are. The other day I put mismatched shoes on her feet to go for a walk because I couldn't find a pair.

Speaking of walks, it's been a little warmer this week so we went outside a few times so she could toddle around.