Gratuitous Cuteness

New photos posted on Flickr! Just our girl, being dangerously adorable. Enjoy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thefriscokid/sets/72157618916266948/

Something’s Fishy.

Eleanor’s new favorite toy is this “aquarium chair” that plays music and wave sounds, vibrates, and bounces. It’s been a lifesaver for Jeff and I! When she’s really tired and too upset to sleep, we put her in it and she’s conked out in 5 minutes. And when she’s alert and I need a second to make a sandwich or something, I put her in it and she shouts with glee as she kicks the fish to make the sounds and bubbles go. You can see in the video how excited she is when she makes the toy work with her own feet!! It’s cool to see her learning cause-and-effect, I can just watch the feeling of empowerment creep into her happy little face as she thinks: “I did that!”

Talkshow

I finally got some good video of Eleanor being talky! She talks mostly during her playtime. Here’s us playing with her dangly-thing toy. I love to hear her exclamations of suprise. I can’t wait to hear her giggles!!

Baby Reunion

Yesterday afternoon I met up with all the women from the birth class that Jeff and I took before Eleanor’s arrival. All of us have babies now, and it was kind of surreal, looking around at all these brand new people that weren’t around two months ago. All these little people that used to be bumps under my friend’s shirts. It’s crazy how, before I had a baby of my own, all infants looked pretty much alike to me. Now, I really see how different they all are. Here’s a pic of all the little ones on the couch. Eleanor was the only one that didn’t end up crying! (Eleanor is third from the left, dressed in designer White. She’s the second heaviest and by far the longest babe, see how she barely fits on the couch?)

It was fun catching up with the other women. Jeff was puzzelled, “What are you guys going to do? What are you going to talk about?” While there was camraderie during pregnancy, I now have so much in common with these mothers. Most of the time, there was one or two babies fussing, one or two nursing, and one or two sleeping. Not too crazy. But there was a moment when every baby was fussing and needed attention, and it was crazy to hear alll these mothers comforting thier children in such different ways; songs, funny rhymes, voices, bouncing, and all the babies responding with happy gurgles and grins. It sounded a bit like a rookery, full of song and squeaks. I felt suddenly like a part of a real sisterhood.

Eleanor makes the cutest sounds in her sleep.

She’s a talker, that’s for sure. Ever since her first check-up the doctor has said she’s unusually vocal for a baby her age. And my dad says that all that vocalization means she’ll be a singer (something she most definitely did not inherit from her father or I!). I have yet to get a good recording of her during the day “talking” but this evening I caught her in the middle of a talking dream I guess, because she chatted to herself for about 6 minutes before quieting back down.

The sounds she made tonight are the closest things I’ve heard to the sounds she made riiiight after being born. The tiny, kitten-like squeaks went away after her first 48 hours or so, but I was delighted to hear them again tonight after missing them for so long. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday Jeff!

Today, Jeff turns 30. I’m so blessed to have this man as my husband and as a father to Eleanor. We love you, Daddy!

1st Mother’s Day

On Mother’s Day, Jeff made me breakfast in bed complete with delish strawberry banana smoothies and perfectly scrambled eggs, just the way I like them. Then we went to church, and on the way home thought “Why don’t we drive to southern California to go swimming?” Jeff and I have been feeling a little stir crazy and we love road trips, so we figured, let’s give it a go with the little one and see if we get to keep this up. And Jeff gets so frustrated with not being able to swim in the ocean in SF, the water is painfully cold and we’ve heard that LA has warm water. So we threw together our things, a picnic for the car, and left. Here’s the video of our trip:

The best part was definitely our journey through the Central Coast, I’ve never seen it before and it was truly breathtaking. And we had a really nice breakfast in Hermosa Beach at a little place called Martha’s 22nd Street Grill, out on the patio looking at white sand, blue ocean and a perfectly clear sky. But once we got down to testing the water, we found that it’s really cold (even though people say it’s a lot warmer than northern Cali, it’s actually just a little warmer) and the beaches are nowhere near as idyllic as we’d thought. Bummer. At least we got to explore the area (we now can say we’ve seen most of the beaches and beach towns in the LA area, because we cruised … and cruised … and cruised, looking for the perfect spot to jump in the water…and jump out quickly, a few shades blue-er). And of course, the best part of road trips is getting lots and lots of time together just talking.

One thing we talked about is how different this Mother’s Day was than other Mother’s Days. I always write inside the card for my mom something along the lines of “thanks for being such a great example” or “thanks for always being there for me” … but this year I have a totally different perspective. While I’d always thought of my mom as being there for me as an adult, or teen, or even as a kid; I’d never considered her as a mother to a newborn me. I hadn’t considered what it took to carry me for 9 months, birth me, feed me, stay up at night with me, diaper me, comfort me … as I’m finding out with Eleanor, this is a really big job! And I hadn’t thought about my mom making an actual physical sacrifice to keep me alive and healthy during my earliest days. And, during that trying time, and every day since, never ever ever failing in love. That’s a long time. I’m glad to have a chance to see motherhood from this perspective because it makes me know how much I was loved, just to be here today. That in itself is a pretty nice Mother’s Day gift.

1 Month Photos Posted!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thefriscokid/sets/72157617834332644/

Just some cute shots in one of her cutest little outfits. Enjoy!

Pat-A-Cake

This weekend, I sang Pat-A-Cake to Eleanor, just the way my mom sang it to her, and how she used to sing it to me when I was a baby.

Patty cake, patty cake, bake a man.

Bake me a cake as fast as you can

Roll ’em up, roll ’em up, throw him in a pan!

I couldn’t help but notice that Jeff was chuckling and when I asked him why he explained that he’d never heard Pat-A-Cake sang that way and that it wasn’t the “right” way. What?! What was he talking about? That’s exactly how it’s supposed to sound. Right? So, we settled the controversy the modern way: we Googled it. The real words go as follows:

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man.

Bake me a cake as fast as you can;

Pat it and prick it and mark it with B,

Put it in the oven for baby and me.

For the record, Jeff’s mom sings it a little differently, too! Her version (which she sang for us via video conference, thankyoutechnology) goes like this:

Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man.

Bake me a cake as fast as you can;

Rooooooll ’em up and pat the dough and mark it with B,

And put it in the oven for baby and me.

It’s pretty amazing that Mothers have this influence over thier children. In matters as trivial as nursery rhymes, or as huge as child-rearing, whatever our mothers do is the “normal” and correct way to do it. They set the bar for EVERYTHING. What a strange and wonderful power to have.