finally, the video!

finally got the video up of molly's first eating adventure last Friday. sorry about my giant hand being in the way of all the action, but you get the idea. can't wait to try bananas and sweet potato - YUM!

solid food, part deux

so we had more yummy rice cereal today...and today she went gangbusters! we took Jen F.'s advice and gave her one spoon to play with as we fed her with the other. that worked great! though sometimes she ended up with both spoons! :)

and it was another pretty day here in P-town so we got outside. after a bath, molly, harley and i enjoyed the sun, while dad went to rehearsal for his upcoming play. molly spent time playing in her "pack and play" (thanks to her auntie Erin), chewing on her toys, and practicing her raspberries (one of her newest tricks). harley and i shared baby carrots and looked at all the weeds and tried to figure out how on earth we are going to tackle this giant yard. but it was too nice of a day to really let that bring us down.

hope wherever you are, you're enjoying the day as well!

...and later that day

yesterday, after the food extravaganza, molly, zero and i went down the street to the library and celebrated Dia de los Ninos (day of the children). we got our picture taken with Clifford the Big Red Dog, ate fruit and cake, watched beautiful folk dancing, and generally had a wonderful time. but before we left the house we took a few shots of lovely miss molly in her pretty dress, including the one above where you can actually see her two bottom teeth if you look close enough...she was laughing at her dad dancing around the living room. the day was topped off when we all found the diaper bag i had lost the week before - sheesh, where is my brain?!

solid food!

yep, she did it, she had solid food today! well, very liquid-y rice cereal to be more precise. earlier this week i bought fancy-dancy, whole grain, organic, non-processed rice cereal (earth's best) and our good friend Karen gave us a lovely silver spoon! so this morning we got everything set up for her, and we even put her in the fancy dress her great-grandpa and auntie Sharon gave her for the special occasion. she did AWESOME!

we made up a couple teaspoons of food, and though she probably only ate one (or maybe even less), she did great with it. unfortunately, the beautiful spoon was just a bit too big and metal-y for her - she really likes to chomp down - so for now we switched over to a baby spoon with soft plastic on the spoon-end.

at first she made these great "what the heck is this stuff?!" faces...then she moved on to, "hey, this ain't too shabby!"...and then she was sucking it off the spoon and motioning for more! she especially loved the spoon, and sometimes it was hard to get it back from her so that we could load it up with more chow.

all in all, i think it was a great success, and we're looking forward to more rice cereal tomorrow! right now, she's taking a little snooze after her big morning. we have a quick video of her first meal, but i'm having some trouble downloading it. hopefully we can get it up soon! love to everyone!!

sitting at the table!

we are coming up on 6 months, and molly is starting to sit pretty good, plus she has 2 bottom teeth and LOVES to watch us eat...so we figure next weekend we'll try giving her some rice cereal. how exciting is that?! in preparation, our friend Martha gave us a little seat that attaches to our chairs and makes a high-chair for molly-moo. it works really well, and you can see molly seems to like it! she sat at the table in her own chair last night while we had dinner. in the past she's either been in her bouncy chair on the floor (with harley thinking she has to compete with molly on begging for food), or sitting in our laps (meaning a whole lot of food being dropped in her hair). so last night was a real step up!

other than that we had a really nice weekend, which in a way started on thursday because i got to work at the St. Johns branch library which is 3 blocks (or a 5 minute walk) from our house. how cool is that?! on friday we visited our friends Martha, Craig, Sam and Maria. Sam and Maria, via their parents, have given molly many of the fine clothes you see her in, not to mention her car seat and now her high chair. we are forever indebted to them and totally appreciate them making us all look like we actually have style!

on saturday we hung out with our friends Monica and Mobius. Monica, her husband Greg and their son Mobius were in birth class with us, though both molly and Mobius were obviously on the inside for that. Mobius is a bit younger than molly, but outweighs her by 3 pounds - he's a big boy! but molly is catching up, he used to outweigh her by 5 pounds!

here's wishing everyone a good week - bon appetite!

the sun!

so the sun came out today AND it was warm - these two things have not happened simultaneously for...well...a long, long time it seems. so we all got outside - hooray! and we got some fabulous shots of miss molly doing her thing. she was so cute, and seemed very happy to be outside- as did her "big sis" harley. molly got to wear the cute dress her Grandma Mike gave her, and her adorably chubby legs got to see the sun for the first time! so here are a couple pictures for you, in celebration of our lovely day, and a quick little video.

our hero zero

i like to think that at some point zero and i had a fairly equal relationship when it came to taking care of each other. we would help one another through tough times, had each other's backs, and when one of us was sick, the other would care for them. but once i got pregnant all bets were off, and zero spent the next 30+ weeks taking care of me. this was on top of working full time and being in a couple plays. he made sure i ate (even if all i did was throw it right back up), made sure i was keeping hydrated, made sure i had enough pillows, and most importantly made me believe i was actually going to survive. he saved me really, i couldn't have done it without him.

and he's still doing it. only now he's taking care of two of us. he spends his days caring for molly, playing with her, keeping her happy, clean, well-fed and rested. he keeps the house in order and always has dinner for me when i get home from work. and then, because i can not bear to be away from molly once i'm home, he continues to work on the dishes, taking out the trash, washing bottles, picking up. and on top of it all, he's in a play - so he somehow has to find time to work his lines and go to rehearsals. i truly don't know how he does it...but he does.

i will never be able to put into words how thankful i am to him, how much i love him, how happy he makes me, how much better he makes my life, how proud i am of him, and what a fantastic father he is to our daughter. i can say thank you, and know that because of his love and commitment and devotion to molly, she is going to grow up a very happy and healthy little girl...and i guess, there is no better thanks than that.

i love you zero.

ps- molly actually has both her two bottom teeth coming in - wahoo! ;)

teeth!...for real this time!

so a while back you may remember a posting where i mentioned feeling a tooth come in...well the truth of the matter is that the very next day i didn't feel it anymore. but last night, when little miss chomped down on my knuckle - as she is prone to do - i really felt a tooth. just to make sure, i peeked inside her mouth and sure enough, there is a little tooth poking out of the gums (boy does that look uncomfortable!). her first tooth is coming in on the bottom, front, just to the left.

it's weird, i'm super excited about this new development, but kinda sad too. it means she's leaving some of her baby-self behind. she'll be eating soon and before we know it she'll be asking us for the car keys. people say it all goes too fast, but it's impossible to describe how fast - it's a blur. a heartbreakingly wonderful blur.

it's hard being a baby...

it's been kind of a tough weekend. we had a couple immunizations on friday, and they took their tole on miss molly. she has been feverish and a bit unhappy ever since - and you can't really blame her! those mean ol' shots in her perfect, pudgy thighs - it's an outrage! zero keeps reminding me that it's much better than her getting polio or meningitis. hopefully she'll feel better today.

but even with feeling super ucky, she managed to have many molly moments and make us smile often...

...like watching her play in her new saucer for the first time (pictured above) - so many options to play with! what's a girl to do!?! (by the way, we got that off of craigslist for $10, score!)

...and the new game we like to play on the changing table - peek-a-boo with the CLEAN diaper - that really cracks us all up

...or when we dance along to a duet performed by "toofy the shark" and "meow meow the cat" to Marc Ribot's "Las Lomas de New Jersey" (fyi, the cat does the translating).

other fun things include trying to grab mom's water glass whenever she takes a drink, making rattles, rattle and chimes, chime (preferably without also whacking oneself in the face), watching dad work on his new shed, screaming at the top of our lungs just to see how loud we can be, and having little conversations with all the many friends - though sometimes those conversations can get pretty heated.

speaking of conversations, at the bottom is a quick little video of her with her squirrel/chipmunk...she's smiling and sort of talking to him (when the camera comes out she tends to tone it down a bit). i sound like a complete dork, but she's pretty darn cute!

and here is a picture of molly with her dad. look at those blue eyes! don't i have the most beautiful family?
we hope everyone else out there is happy and shot-free!

the cutest little girl in the world...

yep, it's true, she is. ya'll can't deny it. she's the cutest. and the most brilliant! and she's 5 months old today!

here she is starting to sit up. she loves sitting and playing with her toys. talking to them. it's great fun for everyone. and she's rolling from tummy to back like a pro!

here she is all snugly before a walk yesterday, in a little outfit her friend Beverly gave her. it snowed for us here in Portland yesterday, so she needed to be extra snugly!

Grandma comes for a visit!

we had the best weekend! Grandma May came for a visit and it was awesome. on friday, us ladies went to a late breakfast together at our new favorite place, Little Red Bike Cafe - molly loved watching all the action of people coming and going, as well as the ceiling fan! later in the day molly had a bath, during which there was much splashing and playing - and Grandma caught it all on video. our friends Shani, Sarah and Scott came over for dinner that night which was super fun (by the way i want to make a public congrats to Scott for being accepted into PSU's Masters of English program - wahoo!)

the next day we went to Book Babies at the downtown library and hit the stores. throughout, molly was happy and smiley and fascinated with it all - we are so lucky!

we (i) need to get some video up of molly chatting with her friends (her stuffed animals and other toys) it is really wonderful to listen to. but the best, the very best, is waking up to molly's smile in the morning - what a way to start the day - maybe we can get that on video too so we can share the love!

below is a pic of three generations of may women together. it makes me wish so much that my grandmother was still alive, she would be head-over-heals for molly.

molly's play things

we seem to name all of molly's toys...there's meow meow the cat, hop the bunny, dingolambdog the puppet, el pollo loco the chicken, and el spherico azule the blue ball - just to name a few. all are well loved and well slobbered on.

molly just got a new toy from her friend Kell and it has a name too, one that zero gave it...the "bad boyfriend". why, you might ask? because much like a bad boyfriend molly loves her new toy and whenever she sees it she wants it, but shortly after being with it a while, it makes her cry. she tosses it aside. but almost immediately she wants it again, even though it's bad for her. it's pretty funny. and here she is with "bad boyfriend", looking a little guilty.

right now molly is talking up a storm, which makes us very happy. we love molly speak. she is also dealing with her first ever cold which i think is actually more traumatic for us than for her.

we're also getting ready from Grandma May to come - very exciting!!

coming soon...cuddles-thenics (much like calathenics, but for cuddlers).

happy st. patty's

it all started a year ago today, when zero and i went to our friend Joe's st. patty's party and i celebrated a bit too much. ;) six days later when i still felt hungover, it finally occured to me that it might actually be something else. and so on friday, march 23, during zero's lunch hour, we took the pregnancy test and found out about molly. wow!

and look at us today - our happy, healthy, strawberry blond, at least a quarter Irish, little girl. what a beauty! i wonder if she'll always want to have a party on st. patty's day?...memories from the womb.

oh, and zero called me at work today to tell me some fantastic news...MOLLY ROLLED OVER! she's been trying for days, but that pesky arm kept getting in the way. but this morning (with "a little help from the landscape" zero said), she rolled over all by herself! huzzah!!

so happy st. patty's day. here's to the Irish and here's to rolling over!

when good friends come to visit...

yesterday, our very good friends, Hope, Drew and their son Kell came to visit from Seattle. Hope and Drew have been our friends for many years and some of you may remember when we were able to go visit them in Norway a couple years ago (and while we were there Hope wasn't feeling very well and it turned out she was pregnant)! Kell was born on December 29, 2006 - which makes him around 15 months old - and he is quite the handsome young man! he's walking, signing, feeding himself and has 10 teeth! he is a real joy to be around (as are his parents)! wow...parents...i can't believe we're all parents...how'd that happen?

we had a great time, we all went for a walk together, played with toys, and got a chance to catch up (though we could have used a few more hours, or days even). and as you can see from the picture at the top, molly is a bit smittin' with the young man. i foresee a very good friendship in their future. and at the very least, they dress alike (actually, that was molly's fourth outfit for the day and Kell's second. molly had a lot of blowouts, Kell just got crazy with his pasta and cheese). zero, molly and i are gonna try and make it up to Seattle in the next few months for another visit - maybe we'll take the train!

oh, and speaking of teeth, i can feel one of molly's coming in - not to mention the drool and knuckle-gnawing is out of control - i can't believe our little molly moo is getting teeth. where does the time go?

wearing molly

so last friday, zero, molly and i went to talk to an expert "baby wearer"...baby wearing is huge these days, and basically means using a sling or carrier of some kind to tote your baby around with you.  when you go for walks you can use this rather than a stroller or, if you are home and need to get things done, you can strap them on and do your housework.  this had been in our game plan from the start, but before molly moo was even born we went out and bought slings that never really worked for us once she actually got here - bummer.   so last week we met this expert (Dacia) and she had these long strips of fabric that you wrap around yourself and the baby and voila, you're as one!  i had seen these things on other people before, but it all seemed way too complicated for me - i mean, i'm not nearly coordinated enough...but it worked!  and now i'm on board with the whole wrap thing.  and as you can see from the picture above, molly seems pretty on board too (and check out her new hat!).  watch out world, here we come!

oh, and i should mention, we have a FABULOUS baby carrier (the ErgoBaby, thanks to Auntie Becky) that we will be using in the future, but molly isn't quite big enough for it yet.

what a difference a few months can make...

after watching the video in the post below, and seeing what a very tiny girl miss molly moo was in the beginning, now take a look at the picture above, taken just a couple of weeks ago...molly in her fantastic, yellow leg-warmer ensemble - now those are some thighs! at her dr. appt today, she weighed 16 lbs, 5 oz! 90th percentile baby! booya! we are so proud.

we have lots more video of her, only most of it hasn't been loaded on the computer yet, so while molly works on those thighs (and belly and chins) i will work on getting those ready and up on the blog for your viewing enjoyment!