Please don't feed the animals....

Ahh the developmental milestones we never expected…. Yes it is a running theme here. Her latest passion is for the weak, the downtrodden... the very hungry pets of the Lacroix household. Yes, she feels for them so much that she is compelled every time she eats to share a little (or a lot if she doesn’t particularly like the fare) of her meal with Kita (and Whiskers if he can manage to sneak in). And like most acts of charity we do because it makes us feel good… Genevieve’s joy is evident in the range of giggle to out and out crack-up every time she gives Kita or Whisky a morsel of her meal….

Die cold, die

All is well in Mott Lacroix household… hmmm truth be told maybe “well” isn’t the word for it. Poor Genevieve has had a cold for going on 3 weeks now. Who knew that those darn viruses could be so persistent. Of course it doesn’t help that she now cringes and cries whenever the nose bulb (aka snot sucker) gets within a five-foot radius of her head. And to think, most babes get about seven colds a year. So seven a year times about three weeks a piece…. By god that means that she’ll be sick for almost half of the year! Man I better find a way for her to make peace with the snot sucker…..

Well, even in her ill found state of snot she still manages to look pretty cute. This morning we played dress up with a nice vintage number that was mine when I was about her age. The tights were a hit given that her new favorite pastime is to rip off any sock placed on her foot.

And for my next act....

Genevieve has become quite the performer in the past few weeks. Grandma Nicole gave her a piano and as you can see she is quite fond of playing it. No Mozart yet but she does enjoy a good round of the itsy bitsy spider. Not only does she enjoy “playing” the music she also does a pretty nifty little dance to it every so often when the mood strikes her ☺

When she isn’t tickling the ivories or dancing she is performing the “anything you can do I can do better” routine. This little ditty involves her imitating things that you do and let me tell you she is building up quite the repertoire. To date she does a mean imitation of the pirate (arrrrr), an African bushman (click, click, click), a person laughing (ha, ha, ha) and my personal favorite “devil baby” (a low growl followed by a shaking head). The pirate is her Dad’s favorite and as a result it seems like whenever I leave the room I can hear them arrring to each other and giggling. She also does a few impersonations, her most common one being of her friend Riley, the nanny’s 1.5 year old daughter who likes to go around saying “that” and pointing at things. As a result Evie is constantly saying “that, that, that” and using her pointer finger… ahhh she must be brilliant!

And finally there is Evie the movie star! Here she is in her latest film "Snow is Cold"

Scare tactics

One of the great debates for the eco-minded with babies is whether to use cloth or enviro disposable diapers. Which is “better’ for the environment, believe it or not, is a hotly debated subject. There is one, albeit infrequently considered, option that is hands down the most eco way to go. This path is known as conscious elimination or going diaperless. Now I must confess I am not enough of a hard core greenie to travel this road but we have had some experience with what it might entail. Every month or so Evie starts to get a diaper rash so we give her bum a break and have a diaperless night (or at least a diaperless hour or so). During these times of trouble we have learned her “cues” for when she is going to eliminate and can usually act accordingly, i.e., make sure she is sitting on a towel or bring her to the toilet.

After Christmas my family all went skiing together and stayed at a condo that was a classic circa 1975 wonder. On the second night Genevieve started to have a rashy problem so we decided to let her roam free (the carpets were far from pristine so we figured no one would really notice should there be an incident…and this my friends is why I don’t want to rent our old house). Patrick and I quickly discovered that a diaperless baby was a terrifying notion to my father and little brother. All of a sudden the once adorable baby was compared to a one shot, fully loaded, game of Russian roulette that was to be feared as though her nether regions contained an atom bomb instead of the innocuous and decidedly mundane baby poo and pee. They both watched her like a hawk and when, inevitably, she relieved herself they were both so horrified that they immediately vacated the family room and only returned when Patrick certified that it was “safe”. Being the kind, understanding sister I am I found this phobia of my brother’s to be quite entertaining so of course I had to exploit it by waving her naked bum in his face. Poor Genevieve, nothing but a pawn in my evil design.

In other news, and pictures, Genevieve’s first Christmas was great! She got to spend the holiday with my family and Patrick’s dad, Monique and Sarah. Mom made her phenomenal a stocking, which, as you can see, was rather large. Evie’s favorite part of Christmas was definitely the ribbons, of course a close second was the wrapping paper and certainly last were all the fabulous clothes that everyone bought her.




New Years was spent in Utah at Brian Head where we all got to go skiing and Genevieve was able to see and (sorta) play in the snow for the first time. It was so cold out (5 deg) that really her first snow experience was more of a quick photo shoot ☺ The snow was just one of the many exciting new experiences…. Tops on the list though were spaghetti and the New Years fireworks; she laughed and pointed her way through the whole show.

Evie's new "crib"

Well it was touch and go there for a bit but I am happy to report that last weekend the whole clan successfully moved into our new digs.... we are still in boxes and everything is just a bit chaotic so not too much time to post but I thought I'd put up a few pics. Hope everyone has a merry christmas and a chilly wonderful solstice and I'll update with stories later

Cookies

Mmmm cookies. Last year Annie and I hung out and made Christmas cookies and it was a lot of fun so we decided to do a repeat this year… only this year we had two additional “helpers", which of course we had to dress for the occasion. Maxine was fabulous (except when Aunt Kelly tried to hold her, then she would cry) but Evie was trouble… Luckily Maxine let Evie use her swing otherwise cookie making would have been nigh impossible. This picture of Annie says it all!



Anyway over about 4 hours we managed to make one batch of cookies… not nearly as productive as last year (ahh story of the life of a person with a small child) but man was it fun!

In other news Patrick and I are buying a new house this Tuesday so stay tuned for pictures of Evie and Kita in their new digs!!!

Look out world... here I crawl

Here is a little footage of Evie crawling her stuff after Thanksgiving last week.

DangeDar

It would appear that our daughter has a terrible affliction. (Or is it ability?) Some sort of evolutionary malfunction… I call it baby DangeDar. DangeDar is a radar for danger and let me tell you Genevieve’s DangeDar is acute. I suspected she had this ability when she was still a log-rolling babe and would frequently roll herself into awkward situations, but now that she is fully mobile there is no mistaking this “talent”. In any given room she is able to find the one item that should under no circumstances be placed in one’s mouth.

There are a number of different types of items that get caught in her DangeDar net. Some are floor errata, such as tags from recent purchases, rocks, kitty litter. Others are more vertical in nature like corners of coffee tables, edges of rocking chairs, trash cans and (of course) the almighty electrical outlet.

Now I am all about positive redirection of a seemingly destructive habit. So I have done some thinking and decided that Evie and I could open a business and channel her DangeDar for the forces of good (like say to start a college savings account). You see one of Genevieve’s specialties is dust bunnies. Oh yes, if a dust bunny resides within a good 20 foot radius of her she hones in and goes for it. So here is how the business would work… Genevieve and I would seek out any and all persons who are exceptionally neat-freaky. We would then offer her services as a guaranteed dust bunny locater, just place her on the floor of the client’s home and let her do her work. I would then follow her around with my dustbin and broom and wrangle any free-range dust bunny she should encounter!

Crazy times!

Whew what a crazy past few weeks. We went to Baltimore, Evie and I got (and still to some extent still have) yucky colds, I rode in the Tour de Tucson (33 miler), Sonja and Wili came to visit, we went to a baby party, Patrick's friend Elisa came to visit and then we just got back from San Carlos, Mexico for Turkey Day. What excitement all packed into just a few weeks... here are some photos of the fun!

Baltimore!!

The big weekend finally came! Last weekend Patrick, Evie and I went all the way across the wide ole U.S. to meet our nephew Dylan for the very first time! It was a whirlwind of a weekend but wonderful... albeit quite cold for us (well at least me) desert dwelling types.

Although many a pre-trip hour of mommy sleep was lost in anticipation of the plane ride I am happy to say that both the coming and the going were blissfully uneventful. Evie was a great traveler and mostly just slept on the ride to and fro.

On Friday we arrived after dark and stayed up late (including Evie....) talking and having fun.



On Saturday we went for a wonderfully cold walk around Nicole and Vivian's "hood" Including a trip to a great second hand baby clothes shop where Evie acquired an awesome new hat. The afternoon was spent at the Visionary museum... the place where loony (as in crazy) people's art is displayed. Lots of fun colors for babies to look at that is for sure!





That evening Evie and I adventured out on our own to Silver Spring so I could see some of my good friends from my DC days. Sarah and Jamie made a fabulous dinner and a good time was had by all (well as you can see toward the end of the night Evie wasn't too happy but really up to that point she had fun!) Of course I got totally lost trying to get home. Thank goodness for map guide and Patrick's ability to talk me through the streets of Baltimore at 11 pm....







On Sunday we went to the famous Baltimore farmer's market and had the world's best crepes and picked up some fine fixings for Genevieve's baby food. Sunday night was the highlight though. Erik made a wonderful lasagna for everyone and Monique and Karen came by to visit too. The evening's entertainment was (of course) sitting around watching Dylan and Evie play, play, play.

I desperately need to sleep so I'll have to let the pictures do the rest of the talking... Whew what a wonderful weekend!!

Faces of Evie 2!

When Evie was just six weeks old I put together a little collage of her funny faces. Well now at more than six months old I decided it was time for an Evie face update. Like many aspects of Genevieve her faces are certainly more exciting than they were at first. Given that food plays a prominent role in her little world I thought it appropriate to do a food themed faces collage!!

Halloween!

Genevieve's first Halloween was good but pretty uneventful. We dressed her up as a kitty cat (as you can see...) the only problem was that this kitty costume was clearly made for kids in colder climes... all nice a fleecy and way too hot for a Tucson Halloween! As a result we kept taking it off her during the day because the poor thing was sweating up a storm.

Evie's Halloween consisted of coming downtown with me to visit my work and then walking up the hill to Patrick's work. Everyone loves a costumed baby so she was a bit hit in both places :) That evening we hung out at home and Ben, Annie and Maxine came over with us to wait for a trick or treater or two to come to our door (of course not a single one did :( Maxine was supposed to be a leopard (a nice complement to Evie's kitty, but she had already outgrown the costume... oh well next year they can go as some sort of dynamic duo.) Well if nothing else it gave us a great chance to hang out with friends, eat pizza and drink beer (or in Ben and Patrick's case whiskey) on a weeknight!

More butts....

There are many great questions to be pondered out there, like what is the meaning of life and why do humans always seem to be fighting over/about something… well maybe it is my lack-of-sleep-addled brain but these days I feel like the most important conundrum out there is: why are baby butts so darn cute? Now I know I am your typical over-cooing mom, but I would wager that there are very few people out there, even those not yet with wee-ones, who disagree.

So what exactly is it about the backside of a baby that is so appealing? I mean, really, if you think about it this should be the least appealing part of anyone, but most especially babies. Babies have all sorts of great traits but their derrieres are, in the end, the stinkiest grossest place that needs to be cared for. When Evie was about 2 months I coined the phrase “poo-splosion” to describe the overwhelmingly large bowel movements she would have on occasion. Now how can something associated with that possibly be cute?

Could it be some sort of survival instinct created to ensure that all babies have clean bottoms? Certainly if that thing weren’t cute I would be much more reluctant to approach it. (Hmm well that is a question for a evolutionary biology type, I’ll have to have Brendon look into it, what a fabulous topic for a PhD!) Or perhaps it is just the diminutive factor, i.e., all things that are small are inherently endearing? Maybe it is simpler than all of that. Maybe the answer is just that everything about babies is cute, butts, toes, noses you name it, and that part must be cute. With deep questions like this one swimming in my head it is a wonder I ever sleep!

Wiggle yer butt

I consider myself a pretty well read mommy, hip to the stages of development jive. The past week or so I have found that I was wrong (for the first…OK really not even first…but most certainly not the last time in this baby adventure I am sure) There is a stage of mobility that I had never heard of before, indeed it isn’t even in any of the “what the heck do I do with my baby” books. Because I cannot find this stage in any "baby know it all" book I have dubbed it alternately the “wiggle yer butt” stage or the “launch position.”

The wiggle yer butt stage is the point at which a baby has mastered the art of hands and knees but cannot quite seem to get it together enough to move in a crawl. Aptly named (or so I think) in this stage the baby just hangs out on his/her hands and knees going back and forth like they are trying to propel themselves forward by sheer force of butt inertia and wiggles and squiggles their little bum in the air, trying to do what I am not entirely sure… but I’ll be darned it if isn’t funny to watch! Evie now spends quite a bit of her time in the “launch position” Every time I go to get her out of her crib, for example, she is there, on all fours, just wagging her little bum in the air and rocking back and forth like maybe, just maybe, this will be the time that she will magically move forward.

I can tell that much like the transition from rolling back-front but not front-back this whole awkward neither here nor there stage is frustrating to her. Luckily she has her parents (but especially her dad) who are well educated in the art of crawling and are more than happy to spend quality time with her working her through this tricky stage. Wish her luck as she forges ahead in the days to come.

6 Months of Life!!

Soundtrack

When I was in college I loved the show Ally McBeal. One of my favorite parts about it was that each character had a theme song, something that epitomized them that was constantly playing in their head as a motivation to their day. Well these past few weeks Patrick and I have a new “theme song.” Actually it is really more like a soundtrack… Our new familial soundtrack consists of the near constant babbling of Miss Evie, and anyone who has spent time with her recently can corroborate this, pretty much anytime she is awake she is talking, talking, talking. It is great laugh therapy for Patrick and I. She has even taken to babbling in the middle of the night when she wakes up to eat.

The theme song is not just for Patrick and I, she seems to pick themes herself as well. One day the refrain will be la, la, la and the next da, da, da and then a little ka, ka, ka. Sometimes she gets really fancy and combines the sounds (Patrick swears he has heard both a daaag (to be translated as dog) and a daaady). These more word like sounds are punctuated with the squeal, scream and not to be over looked groan and grumble. She must be telling one fantastic (and epic) story in her head!!

Last weekend we took our last trip up to Blue for the season. There were lots of great things a foot. Getting to wear Oma Monique’s outfit for the first time, playing in the grass, small jaunts in the woods and a fasciations with Grandma Mary’s painted toenails…. Ahh if we all could be so entertained by the minutiae of life!

Its heeeree!

News flash!! Yes folks it felt like forever to her mom and dad (and we did not actually have to suffer any of the pain… well maybe a little pain in the ear and head(ache) department) but really it couldn’t have been more than six months… Evie officially (as of Monday night) has a tooth!! Now the tooth is not quite photogenic enough yet to share, it is still in its nascent stages but a quick once over on that little lower gum definitely confirms its existence. Hooray only 19 more baby teeth to go!

In other news it was a banger-up weekend for birthdays. On Saturday (after a much needed massage that Patrick bought me for Mother’s Day) we went over to Ben’s mom’s house for a birthday feast that included ribs and other gourmet goodies for Ben's birthday. Evie got to see Maxine again and that was great! It was really neat how interested Evie was in her, especially when she cried.

On Sunday we went up to Phoenix for my Dad’s birthday. Mom and I spent an hour or so trying to take video of Evie that she can use for her Prep stuff. The “weekly video” is an out-take from that and is posted special for her Uncle Brendy who thinks that her excited belly convulsing is particularly hilarious… Dad thought it looked like swimming… of a sort. Brendon spent some good quality time with his niece playing on the floor in Mom’s office… mirror and someone new to play with = hours of entertainment!!

Maxine!!

Huraahh! Annie and Ben had a little girl last week... her name is Maxine. We all went over there to meet her last Saturday. What an amazing little tot. It blows me away that just a few months ago Evie was smaller than she is right now! Maxine also graciously let Evie play on her awesome rocking horse.

Baby Babble!!

Have you ever seen a badly dubbed Japanese film? Well Evie does a great impression of one these days… her mouth moves and the sounds that come from it don’t quite seem to match. It is hilarious to watch! (Or at least I think so… maybe those of you with hobbies other than baby may think otherwise ☺) Well lucky for us this week I don’t have to try to explain it… I can just show it! Mom bought us a video camera to take videos of Evie for her Prep work and so we of course set about putting it to use. I am still working on my skills as a videographer and catcher of the perfect baby moment....What fun!

Baby Prison

There are crafty doings a foot in the Mott Lacroix household. A little over a week ago I removed the bumpers on Evie’s crib, which now reminds me of a baby prison. It’s the “this is where you go when we want to be able to take our eyes off you” place. Now generally she only goes to the clinker when she is sleeping but increasingly she will wake up and not make any fuss so I’ll come into her room in the morning or at nap time and she’ll just be hanging out in cell happy as a clam. Well more or less happy, based on recent evidence I firmly believe she is trying to find a way to make a jail break.

Exhibit A: One week ago at around 5 am I hear a pounding that sounds like bad drum set playing coming from what I thought was our next door neighbors (We once had a neighbor there that, I kid you not, played like Animal on the Muppets so I just figured he had decided to pick up the hobby again). Finally at around 5:30 am the unrythmical rat-a-tat-tat drove me from bed and on my way to the kitchen to make coffee I realized that in fact the “drummer” was Evie. She had scooted herself all the way to the end of her crib and was having a jolly old time kicking at the end of her crib. It may seem like innocent fun but I know she was just testing the strength of those boards.

Exhibit B: Last weekend I walked by the nursery when I thought she was napping only to find Genevieve chewing, to the best of her toothless ability, at the bars of her baby prison. She was clearly trying to beaver her way out.

Exhibit C: Last Tuesday I woke up at 3 am to feed Evie, went into her dark bedroom and proceeded, as is per usual, to blindly feel around the crib for her little body. What I found was a baby on her tummy with two legs dangling out of the crib between the slats. Obviously she was trying to discreetly lower her self to the floor for a fast getaway.

Can these three incidents possibly just be coincidence, just the innocuous crib explorations of a five month old? Perhaps, but when I post a note about an escapee baby in the weeks to come you’ll find that I was indeed in the know about this one…