Origami birds.

How timely, on the 101st anniversary of Akiro Yoshizawa's birth I'm posting pictures of our revamped origami crane mobile. Somehow this project, made when pregnant with Mila (see original pictures here), found its way to California and transplanted itself in our living room. Now I've added a few colored cranes into the mix but in looking at these pictures...and looking at the all-white one...I think I prefer the latter. I'm such a sucker for that clean and fresh look. Plus it's not like the color white stands a chance if it's anywhere near the ground, so I might as well take advantage of it with the ceiling decor, no?

p.s. I was going to write how Mila never seems to pull on the birds...until I tried to take a picture of the mobile and she came over, yanked on it, and took down 9 or so birds in the process. Well.

p.p.s. Yes. Absolutely. Those are Christmas lights hanging up on our walls. They're staying up there. 

Recent milestones.

*You won't see these in yo mama's baby book ;)

First pickle: February 23rd.
First ferry ride: February 26th. Larkspur to San Franciscooooooooo!
First natural disaster/act of God/what have you: An EARTHQUAKE in the early morning hours of March 5th. (for the record it was Steve's and my first quake as well and unsettling to say the least. Not our first natural disaster though. We are from Florida after all.
First conformity (as Steve put it): March 7th at Lil' Kickers Soccer (complete with uniform! Ohmygosh! Pictures are coming!)
First astroturf experience: March 7th, see above.
First taste of Ethiopian food: March 7th at Cafe Colucci

Introduction to the joy of dunking one's warm cookie in cold milk: March 12th :)

Felt Food Friday: 'Nanas!

How could I make felt food to outfit a play kitchen and not include a banana?!  They were Mila's first word after pa, one day she was with Steve at the grocery store and out of the blue she insistently started pointing and saying "nana nana nana" repeatedly. And that is how nanas came to hold cult status in our house. I made just one for now. For various reasons I've somehow weaned myself off coffee this week so am trying to be extra gentle on myself with more rest, more planning ahead the night before, etc. Hopefully I'm over that hump soon.

Our nature table: spring

I thought I'd share a few pictures of our nature table right now. Hello color! Painted rocks and even the embroidery thread had to join in on the fun. Our nature table is an old Ikea coffee table which I painted with chalkboard paint last year. Here is where I put Mila's many 'treasures' that she finds on our walks...just walking from the front door out to the car often will turn up a few pebbles...twigs...and the like. Just a few months ago for Christmas we had our little wooden Nativity scene there (and of course the figures got moved several times daily by someone with adorably chubby fingers), and now here it is getting close to Easter and there will soon be colored eggs on there (I'm excited to dye eggs with Wugs!). 

wooden eggs in felted nest from apple n amos

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.