18 months old.

Mila reached the 1 1/2 years-old marker last Wednesday. I'm hesitant to describe her--for starters, there's so many layers to her personality across different situations. Sometimes she shyly clings to me and other times she is very much an extrovert, waving to strangers and eating up attention. Sometimes she has a short fuse and her emotions are delicately maneuvered around, and then she looks up at me with those huge sparkling eyes. Smiling eyes. There's that determined set to her mouth when she's concentrating, the furrow in her brow. The way she frantically calls out Mamamamamama from the backseat of the car when getting tired. She toddled around the living room last Sunday while I tried to catch a few more minutes of precious sleep until I felt a little hand patting my side of the bed. Letting me know she wanted up. Then she laid quietly on the pillow next to me, softly chuckling at her little finger puppet book while I suddenly forgot how tired I was and just stared in amazement at this miracle. Her. I made her. And she's me, she's Steve, but she's also her own person.

Which brings me to this: she's still coming into her own, and I want to give her space to do exactly that. Be her own person. No labels. How could I sum her up neatly anyway? I can only describe the experience of raising her. And I do know that when I look at my daughter I see God. This isn't only what being a parent is all about, it's what life is all about.

Meeting The Thinker

One of Mila's favorite books lately is Good Night San Francisco. She loves to point out the pa and the babies (all children are babas in Wugs' eyes) but for some reason she especially gravitates towards an illustration of Rodin's The Thinker that stands (sits?) in the courtyard at the Legion of Honor. She'll make a fist and deliberately place it under her chin, gazing up at us--she just knows the grins on our end that come next.

Last week we headed into San Francisco and after some shopping, lunch, a visit to the Koret Children's Quarter at Golden Gate Park (seriously so so good. There's even a concrete slide!), we made one last stop to meet The Thinker. And even though we had been telling Mila that she was going to meet The Thinker, I don't think she was quite expecting...that. This larger than life statue, a page from one of her favorite books, come to life. My fantastic girl blinked in the bright sun for a moment, almost as if she was startled--then tentatively smiled. It took her a minute to process and was likely a little overwhelmed. In a good way, I hope.

She's been asking to go see The Thinker ever since.

Felt food Friday: Cupcake!

It's been awhile. There have been not one but two days spent in San Francisco--I hope to post pictures soon-- Wugs' first ferry ride, her Leap Year Half Birthday (!!), a sudden very very very keen interest in parks (paak-a! she says), and poop issues (and since it's my kid, I am way more concerned than would ever be about mine), to name a few. So this week in honor of Mila's big 18 MONTHS I made a felt cupcake, but have only had time to do one so far. Here's the tutorial. There's a few different felt cupcake designs floating around on the internet but I liked the fluffy frosting look of this one. I stuck with the strawberry on top since I hate maraschino cherries.

Steve is getting on me about making some, um, healthier food options for this play kitchen (I say it's all important!) so I'll put the felted sweets on hold for now.

Oh, and as far as real Unbirthday food goes, believe it or not, I stayed up until past midnight the night before making Wugs a mini-version of this cake...only to have each layer fall apart as I turned them out onto the baking rack.  I will spare you the whiny details about how I stood in the kitchen sobbing in my pajamas. Oh yes. (I don't think it's the recipe but the stupid mini cake pans I bought. From now on I'm only using springform ones--but wait, do they make them in a mini version?) We ended up buying a mini cake from a local bakery, put 1 and 1/2 candles on, and Wugs blew them out with a little help from Mama...something I don't think she could do on her 1st birthday, although I'd have to go back and check the home video to be sure. It was actually delicious, though it didn't hold a candle to the deliciousness of a Wugs.

Felt food Friday: Donuts!

Mardi gras was on Tuesday and I celebrated by baking donuts, then making a few felted ones. Marmousch always makes donuts for Mardi Gras, Nonna does too, and even though mine won't hold a candle to theirs I still felt it was my duty to introduce Wugs to this tradition. (It was easy! I made, kneaded, and shaped the dough the night before and just baked in the morning after rising.)

Wugs liked them well enough...I mean, every time she caught me shoveling one into my mouth (do any other parents out there run into the kitchen to sneak in 'bad' food? It's not just me, right?) she would insist I share. And I would! But it wasn't something she clearly adored (I'm talking to you, cheesecake).

As for the felted ones pictured at the top, and their awesome tute here on Skip to my Lou. My favorite is the vanilla-frosted one. Aren't those embroidered sprinkles so stinkin' cute? To date Wugs has not yet tasted donuts with icing yet--the only donuts in her universe are plain glazed raised and baked ones. But I'm sure by August we'll have remedied that. p.s. There's my pajama'ed monkey eating a non-felted donut last Tuesday morning.

The Edible Schoolyard

The other day we went to The Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley. I had learned about it when we last lived in the area, after reading Alice Waters and Chez Panisse. Then the other day at the park I overheard a mother talking to her daughter about chickens.
Chickens? Are there chickens nearby? Yes, at the edible schoolyard, she casually replied. The Edible Schoolyard! It's a self-sustaining teaching garden--with adjacent kitchen--at a middle school in Berkeley, and has served as a model for other like-minded programs around the country. It had fallen off my radar for a couple years there, but my love for community gardens (any loved garden, actually) has never wavered. We visited out of curiosity, we left inspired. I love the idea of children knowing where our food comes from, and taking pride in growing something from their persistent effort. We hope to recreate something in the spirit of The Edible Schoolyard on a smaller scale with our own children. Worm bin, chicken coop, meyer lemon and persimmon trees (and an outdoor pizza oven!) are just a few things I would love to be able to see from my kitchen window.

*Those last two pictures are Mila acting out her response to the question, "How do the chickens eat?" That's her, pecking the ground.

Getting called off

This morning started out pretty spectacularly when at 5:14 Steve got a phone call putting him on call for the day. Translation: mama gets to sleep in. Then the day got even better when he got called off for the day completely. Happiness! After a Papa nap we headed out to one of our favorite places, Tennessee Valley. We were there just a few weeks ago but this time brought bikes. Um, in other words we were able to complete the trail and reach the ocean (for the littlest among us is not yet a hiker but more a walk 2 steps, pause 2 minutes kind of girl. And no, she's not too keen on the ergo these days when she could be exploring on her own 2 feet like a madwoman.). Bikes are where it's at if you have a toddler! Mila loves the fast movement, likes to aaaaaaaahhhhhhh and let her voice waver with all the bumps on the trail, and even putting on the helmet comes with much less drama these days compared to when she first started biking with us. And she didn't make fun of me for walking the uphills. So thanks for that, Wugs. Here is Tennessee Valley in all its sandy and sunny glory:

And thank you, Steve's work, for giving us our Papa one extra day.

Milestones this past week

The big and the small.

First bite of cheesecake: February 14, 2012.
First girl scout cookie: February 13th (we tried the new one, Savannah Smiles...but she'll soon be tasting the peanut butter ones as well ;)
First hug and kiss to a friend: February 14th (how fitting that it was on love day.)
First shadow puppet show (put on by Papa during bathtime): February 15th (oh the amazed look on her face! I wish I could bottle that up and sell it, I'd never have to work another day.)
First ride on the big-kid swings: February 17th (the nonchalance! she hummed the entire time I was pushing her with a proud little smile on her face.)
First time down a slide where Mama wasn't there at the bottom: February 17th.
As you can see it was a momentous day at the park.

p.s. Yesterday we signed Mila up for a 'Lil Kickers' class starting next month...she is in the Bunnies group (groups go, from the youngest: Bunnies, Thumpers, Cottontails, Hoppers, and Jackrabbits. How sweet is that?). Since Mila is fascinated by anything involving a ball we think she will take to this new endeavor quite well. I for one can't wait.