Thursday, November 29, 2012

Our First Girls' Night Out


Tonight was a wonderful night of firsts. Mo and I had our first girls' night out, Mo marched in a parade for the first time and she went to a movie for the first time. And not only was it a night of firsts, it was a super successful, magical night of firsts. The city of Davis was throwing its annual christmas tree lighting ceremony, including a parade with Santa and Mrs. Claus, free horse drawn carriage rides, and free showings of the Grinch at the Varsity theatre. Last year Matt and I (with baby Mo in tow) went downtown at the appropriated start time and it was so crowded we could barely move through the crowd, let alone find dinner anywhere. So this year I decided to go all in and get downtown super early, which turned out beautifully. Mo and I strolled into an empty Chipotle at 5:00 for dinner and by 5:15 the line was out the door. Most excellent timing. We shared a kids meal and it was the first time I have been able to sit nicely and have a conversation over dinner with my child. It literally brought tears to my eyes. No running around, no screaming. We just sat and enjoyed each other's company and it was lovely. Molly even ate her dinner without spilling a single grain of rice. Other people actually commented on our super cute dinner date. JOY!




I was so excited about the success of our dinner that I decided to buy Mo a GIANT sugar cookie from Peets Coffee. And man oh man do I wish I had my camera out for the look on her face when I handed her that cookie! She stood, rooted to the spot, with that cookie raised high in the air just staring at it with a look of jubilant amazement that such a thing existed. That cookie was so amazing she took her time enjoying it, instead of shoving it down her throat like all other cookies. JOY!



It was only 5:30 at this point so we strolled through downtown looking at all the Holiday decorations in the store windows. I had the Ergo (to avoid the stroller in a crowd thing) and Mo was so excited to get to be "baby" again. So we walked, and oohed, and ahhed, and snuggled our way towards the parade. JOY! We made it all the way to the Co-op and somehow found our good friends Melissa and Patrick in the giant crowd. And then we all joined the Band-uh and walked in the parade. JOY! And if that wasn't good enough we all got to go see the Grinch for free with hot cocoa and popcorn to boot. Mo did well sitting and watching the movie but was SUPER concerned about the Grinch's treatment of Max. "Oh NOOOO!!! DOGGY!" Luckily it was really cute and not too loud. Mo's first movie! JOY!

                                                      Waiting for Cocoa in Mishka's

                             Patrick made friends with the Grinch.  Mo was in no way interested.




And to top off the whole night there were the free horse-drawn carriage rides across the street. There was a loooong line but it wasn't too stormy and we were in the company of good friends so we decided to wait.



We were even "entertained" by the noisiest most obnoxious group of pre-teen girls that I have ever observed. I kept commenting on the lack of parenting and decided they must be hanging out on the corner being obnoxious and rude unobserved untiiilll...It was our turn to ride and the parents of those girls came out of the woodwork and notified us that we would be on the ride together. Oh, geez. And it was as bad as you might think riding with a bunch of sugared up pre-teen girls with checked out parents would be. OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS! They literally scream-sang songs the entire ride at a volume that made Mo shout "STOP!" and Patrick sign "all done." That moment, however, when Mo and Patrick were fed up was too cute to consider the ride a loss :) Patrick's face was priceless. "What is wrong with those girls mom?" JOY! (in spite of crazy obnoxiousness). And after a fabulous night we walked back to our cars (which were conveniently right next to each other) and sped off to our cozy, warm homes to hunker down for the night. This night has been my favorite night of the year and gives me so much hope for future girls night outs!


Saturday, November 24, 2012

Thanksgiving at Station 57

Thanksgiving didn't seem very traditional this year. We bought a meal from the Nugget on Wednesday because Matt had to work on Thanksgiving day. No cooking. No fuss. No muss. Grammy was visiting and we had a nice relaxing day eating all the food we didn't have to prepare and walking around Davis in the gorgeous sunny weather. Lovely.

Yolo Berry Post Wednes-giving
Dinner





 Can you see Mo standing in Lake Puddle-in her non waterproof boots



















Mo hasn't needed her "uh-oh" lately but I'm afraid that this is because she suddenly prefers to shove her whole hand in there.



I was worried that Thanksgiving would feel less spectacular than normal because Matt was working, but it turned out to be a fantastic day. We woke up and leisurely watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, spent a gorgeous late morning at West Manor Park, strolled through Village Homes, and we all took nice long afternoon naps.




















And on top of all that we got to have dinner in the Apparatus Bay of Station 57, where Matt was hard at work (cooking). I wasn't sure what to expect dinner-wise from busy firefighters but when we arrived at 4pm, there was a full on yummy Thanksgiving spread.






There were even playmates for Mo as Captain Mcthorn's family was also joining in the fun. Mo loooved Collin, Captain Mcthorn's son, and we were frequently told that "we are in trouble" when she comes of age. Ugh.
There was even an emergency at the station when someone blew up a diaper. Big time. And we didn't have diapers in the diaper bag. Luckily there was a way too small diaper hiding in the cracks of the car. Whew. Disaster averted.


Who Me? Stinky Pants?



















                                                 The Difference a Year Makes:

                                                                       2011

                                                                     

                                                                        2012












                                         

Friday, September 14, 2012

Gua-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!

Last week we watched our tantrumy two year old screaming on the floor and thought, lets try tent camping. Logical? Probably not. But, despite all signs pointing to the probability that tent camping would be a literal screaming mess we packed up little blue and headed for the foggy ocean views of Highway 1. We planned our trip around nap times of course and right on cue Mo slept for the first two hours, waking up just as we got to the little hot dog stand in Bodega where we planned to get lunch. Parental high fives! From the hot dog stand, little blue's gps told us we only had an hour to go North! Books, Elmo videos, and Pie-pad (what Mo calls the Ipad) time should fill that right up! Exceeept....for the extra hour of stop and go road construction traffic that we sat in. Ergh. I will admit we got a little tantrumy towards the end. But boy was it worth it! We pulled into our campsite, nestled between the ocean and the river, smack dab in the middle of the redwood trees.

Our tent actually went up quickly, the air mattress inflated, and...we only had a small setback when Molly concluded that we had erected a bouncy house for her entertainment in the middle of nowhere. Hmmm.

Time to run around in the gorgeous grandeur of the redwoods surrounding us! Mo, don't you want to run and play? "Noooooooo!!!!! Huuuugggg!!" It is amazing how a two year olds screams can echo in the absolute peace and quiet of nature. Yikes, said all the old people with their tiny lap dogs ;) So we hugged Mo and went for a walk in the woods. Luckily we came across a treasure trove of blackberries and Mo decided the redwood forest was pretty awesome after eating about a thousand berries. That should be interesting later, in a tent, in the dark (spoiler alert-it didn't happen).



























After our walk we hunkered down to eat some campfire grilled trader joes o's. Perfect food choice, as Mo ate almost a whole can herself. Parental high five number 2 !


Then it got dark, and the fire was a little too scary so we retreated into the tent for a little pie pad time in preparation for whatever the night was to bring.


I unzipped our nice warm sleeping bags and laid them underneath us all because I was afraid Mo would be freezing. Then I covered us all with fleece blankets and it was lights out. Mo vehemently refused any sort of blanket but fell asleep after an hour of alligator rolls, ear pinching and eye poking (guess who was on the receiving end of that). Mo slept like an angel, BLANKET FREE, while Matt and I FROZE! How do kids not feel freezing temperatures?! Our saving grace came when a raccoon poked me in the head and I told Matt "I think we have a little friend." Little did I know the raccoon poking me in the head -from outside the tent-was not our problem. Matt sat up and said "Shoo, get out of here!" Uh-oh! Those freaky little raccoon hands had unzipped our tent door and was halfway in our tent!! He didn't care that Matt had chastised him so what's a guy to do? Matt had to smack a raccoon, in our tent, in the middle of the night. What!? Mr. squeakers got the hint and ran away complaining to his friends the whole way back to the trash cans. Then the band of raccoons had a very loud chattering conversation and I thought we were goners. The good news was that the raccoon awakening allowed us to zip up our warm mummy bags and we were all able to sleep for the rest of the night until 7:30am! Major parental high fives. We successfully tent camped with a two year old!! We happily skipped rocks and went for a river walk, reveling in our amazing success...to be continued...will they survive day two?

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Molly's World

Today as I was getting ready an apparently super capable -no longer a baby-girl somehow found the camera, turned it on, and snapped pictures of her world. She actually did a great job of expressing how big her world looks with her photographs. And then she found me in the bathroom, said "here you go", handed me the camera and said "more cheese." Groggily I replied with something that sounded like "What-Huh?" She repeated "more cheese!" and flashed her cheesiest grin. She was telling me she wanted me to take pictures of her...in the bathroom...at 6am...while I had soap in my eyes. Okie dokie then...CHEESE!









Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Utter-ly Molly

Little mumbling Molly is finally starting to utter words that I am able to comprehend, which is amazing because we used to have stare downs as she grunt-screamed "unh-unh-unh" and occasionally pointed at things. What do you want? Why are you stomping your feet and screaming while pointing at the only expanse of wall with nothing on it. Would you like me to explain the absence of objects? How very philosophical of you Mo. Thank goodness little humans learn to speak. However, very first words weren't very helpful. Unless, I guess, you happened to be in a barnyard. It all started with the animal noises. Apparently being able to identify animals with "Moo", "Neee" (Neigh), "Hah Hah" (dog panting), "Meow", and "Qak" (quack)," is waaaay more important than being able to ask for life sustaining services such as water, food, and help getting unstuck from inside the bookcase cabinet. Speaking of the bookcase cabinets. We noticed it didn't take long after bringing the cabinets into the house (cabinets that are way easier to get into than out of) for Molly to figure out the word "Stuck!" Now we are getting somewhere. She is also able to say "wah-ter" (H2O), "oww!" (usually referring to crunchy things under bare feet), "side" (outside), favorite foods such as "pehr" (pear) "grp" (grape) "cheeeeese" (cheese) "ap-puhl" (apple) "curkur" (cracker) "wee wee" (kiwi) and of course "uh oh" to ask for her pacifier. And she can ask for a few of her favorite things. Most of her words are a little muffled but these are clear as a bell. Lets see if you notice a theme. "Elmo" "Abby" "Ernie" "Big Bird." Added to that list would also be "pie pad" (Ipad) when grammy is in town. When grammy is in town that is the only word we hear. "Pie pad?" "Pie Pad." "Pie Pad!!!" When not obsessed with pie pads Mo is obsessesed with body parts and will point to parts and name them "eahr" (ear) "noh" (nose) "elmo" (elbow-haha) "eye" "mouh" (mouth) "teeh" (teath) "her" (hair) and "Nee" (Knee). We have also started to notice that, when she is sleepy, she will pretend to pass out on all available pillows while whispering "night." Sweet girl. And, when in an extra special wonderful mood she will point to her heart and say "you!" very enthusiastically. Which is the moment our hearts nearly exploded because we realized she was saying "I love you." So amazing! However, I'm pretty sure I want the language skills to end here because on the flip side of the coin I think I'm starting to hear the beginnings of some serious sass. "No!!!" 


Sunday, March 11, 2012

Molly's MacGyver Mullet

Why do people seem to almost always get the sex of your baby wrong? I remember walking through Michaels with Mary Holleman when her son Oliver was about a year old and a woman came up and congratulated Mary on her beautiful baby girl. I looked at Oliver and thought hmmm, he totally looks like a little boy to me, especially since he was wearing a blue onesie and blue striped pants. Well, wouldn't you guess we had a baby girl and everybody in Davis seems to think she is a boy.  A few months ago we were at the farmers market and a man came up and asked what our little guy's name was. I replied that HER name was Molly. And he loudly proclaimed, "Wally!!, what a handsome little fellah!" Argh. You might think we had her dressed in a gender neutral outfit right? Like jeans and a stripey shirt or something. Nope. She was dressed in her frilliest little pink outfit. Sigh. At least her hair was pretty short then. I thought that as her hair grew out she would look more like a little girl. Well, I was wrong. As her hair grows out she seems to look more and more like MacGyver. Sigh. And everywhere I go people seem to think Molly is such a cute little guy and they are convinced that I'm a weirdo who likes to put bows in little MacGyver's hair. Sigh. So, to cut the mullet or not to cut the mullet? A bunch of moms from Mo's school chopped their baby girls' mullets and I think they look pretty cute but I'm really scared of making Mo look more like a boy dressed in fancy girl clothes. And now for some MacGyver hijinx...

      Molly's MacGyver Mullet

  MoGyver! Elmo's in Trouble!

        All MoGyver needs - duct tape and Q-tips

                                                       A little earwax oughta do the trick!

                                                          MoGyver and her trusty wolf

                                                                       MOGYVER!!