update from Mollyland

things are pretty fun and exciting here in Mollyland. here are some examples of what Mollyland is currently offering...

a phrase we hear often around our house is, "you be Oscar, daddy is Cookie Monster, i'll be Big Bird" or "i'm Mary Ann, you're Mike Mulligan, daddy's Henry B. Swift" (all characters from Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton) or in the case of the picture here, "i'm a princess, mommy's a mommy princess and daddy's a daddy princess". and then we all run around pretending to be princesses which usually involves some flying and using tools to fix things. we are very talented princesses! Molly's imagination is in full swing, and i think we have a little actor here, rather than a little librarian. ah well, i do like theater!

of course she may be destined for a different kind of performance...

for those that didn't know, her father was a dancer before he started acting, and Molly seems to be following in his footsteps there as well. actually, more in the footsteps of one of her favorite books, Josephine Wants to Dance, about a kangaroo who discovers ballet and against all odds, becomes the prima ballerina! and actually, i love to boogie too, so she was destined to have dancin' feet. in the video above (and yes, it does look like maybe she's picking her nose, but what can you expect, she's a toddler!) you'll note that she's wearing a red sock on one hand. she likes to wear it around - a la Michael Jackson - and say she's Santa Claus. we may not stop talking about Santa in this house until next December!


so as you can hear, she can also really belt out the songs. one day, many, many weeks ago now i was home from work, sick in bed, and Molly climbed in with me, stood up and sang in full "abc", "twinkle, twinkle", "baa, baa, black sheep", "farmer in the dell", and "sing, sing a song". she has added many songs to her repertoire since then, including Bruce Springstein's version of Bob Seger's Pay Me My Money Down, almost every song ever sung on Sesame Street, a couple sea shanties, and a few she's made up herself on a variety of topics such as snack time and mommy's boots. singer songwriter? perhaps! here are a couple videos of two songs she made up about Clifford the Big Red Dog after she saw him at the Portland Children's Museum. the first song focused on "Clifford" and is a bit more mellow, the second is more about his coloring..."red"...and gets pretty rock n' roll. you'll note there's even a performance injury at the end!



or maybe a different art medium? like painting! for Christmas her great-grand Papa and auntie Sharon gave her finger paints. we already need to buy more, she wants to paint all the time. and our collection of "masterpieces" is growing on the wall. here is a little video of her painting. you'll note she talks about big bird, and Karl (from the Zen books with Stillwater the Panda). you'll also note that at some point she gets paint on her fingers, tries to shake it off, and then chooses to lick it off (which is where i quickly turn off the camera).


we keep mentioning Sesame Street...we had been reading Elmo books and the like for some time, but when she turned two we started watching a little "tv" (DVDs on the computer) and Sesame Street was one of the first. we instituted popcorn and Sesame Street nights on Sundays and Thursdays. after dinner, when the dishes have been cleared, i make popcorn on the stove, and we all sit down and watch Big Bird and Ernie and Bert and the whole gang. other favorite shows of Molly's are Bob the Builder, Handy Manny and Blue's Clues. Auntie Sarah recently introduced us to Yo Gabba Gabba, that for me feels like what a psycholdelic trip must feel like (and not necessarily a good one), but Molly loves it, of course, so we may need to add it to the rotation. the picture above of Molly and Zero eating popcorn totally cracks me up! check out those silly faces! like father, like daughter!

another current family tradition is going to see high school basketball games at Molly's future high school! those of you who have known me a while know that i played basketball all through high school, and loved it! Molly seems to love it too! she can actually sit through an entire basketball game, we are constantly getting comments from people who are amazed by it. we bring her pom-pom and at half time she runs around and makes friends with other little kids. she yells "Go Riders" and "Go Roosevelt" and claps and talks about the "girls running" and the "girls throwing the ball". and if the concession stand is open, we get popcorn. good times!

Molly's love of reading is still very strong. she picks up books, sits down and reads them to herself! she's memorized them word for word and as i read books to her i watch as her mouth moves along to every word i'm saying. and this is not just one or two books, oh no, this is twenty, thirty or more - she currently has over 50 things checked out from the library, and she reads them all! this very morning we co-read A Wish for Things That Work - i would read a line and then she would say a line - she's brilliant i tell ya! she asks to be read books many times a day, and she takes the stories we read about and uses that amazing imagination of hers and builds on them - it's wonderful! and i think all this reading may be the reason why we can have entire conversations with her already, which i wasn't expecting quite so young. her language ability is quite astounding. at lunch today she said to me, "i am going to walk you to work with mr. ant [an imaginary friend] and he will say 'i want to go back to Molly's house' and i will say, 'no, not yet' and we will walk you to work". wow!

she is also starting to truly make friends. not that she didn't have friends before, but now at play gym she'll actually walk up to some other little person and ask if they want to play ball with her or run around. she has one little friend named Rowan who she likes very much! due to my work schedule, i rarely make it to play gym, but lately on Fridays we've been going together. i had heard her talk about Rowan, but had never met her, so when Molly introduced me to her it was very exciting. last Friday when we showed up, Rowan ran across the gym yelling "Mollly!" and they gave each other a huge hug. this is a picture of them playing together!

and speaking of friends, last month we were finally able to see our very, very good friends Hope, Drew and Kell. the last time Kell and Molly saw each other, she was only four months old. Kell was the big boy at 15 months, and i remember being so amazed at his ability to walk, and sign, and eat solid food with all of those teeth he had! this time, Kell had just turned 3 and he blew my mind again - he is an amazing little boy! and so are his totally awesome parents - if only we could convince them to move to Portland...ah well! you'll note in the pictures here, compared to the last time they saw each other, they are much closer in size. and they played together quite well! they played with cars, listened to stories together, were thrown dangerously around by their fathers (us mothers couldn't even be in the same room), threw rocks into the water at the park, and took a bath (of which we got the best video ever, but it will forever have to stay within our two families as there is some brief nudity).

so yes, the adventures here are great indeed, and sometimes we even dress the part! especially if there are boots involved. to the left was her get up to go hike around the Columbia Slough last weekend. she's starting to get into clothes, and want to play dress up (as you saw earlier in the post). it does make getting dressed a bit easier, she doesn't always insist on being naked anymore and fighting clothes. you just have to let her pick her own thing out, which can mean you end up with something quite "loud", but hey, i'll take it! sometimes it doesn't work out so well though, as you can see to the right, we only managed to get half-way dressed (and i think those boots might be a bit big for her).

thanks for enduring this super long post - i get to it so rarely anymore and then i have so much to tell you all! and this time, thanks to my new iPod Nano with built in video recorder and my friend Steph's flip video camera, we actually had some video to share, which is nice. for our final shot today, here is Molly and her friends all cozy in bed together.
so long, for now, from Mollyland! take care everyone!

turning two!

can you believe Molly is two? it's crazy but true! we took a week to celebrate this year, starting with a small bday party with some of the neighborhood families the saturday before her birthday. we've never had that many people in our home - luckily, a lot of them were under 3 feet tall. of course that doesn't include our own daughter who at her 2-year dr. appointment measured in at 37"! check out all the people in our tiny house - wahoo, party!


her auntie Shani made her a beautiful banner and delicious chocolate cupcakes with creamy frosting. throughout her party, Molly would occasionally ask, "cupcakes?" and i would ask her to wait. eventually, it was time. she pulled out a chair, climbed up, looked around at everyone as if to say, "ok, it's time to start singing now", so we did. if there was ever a moment i wish i had on video, it was that moment (thankfully Diana and Denise got some pictures!). she gazed lovingly upon her cupcakes, swaying to and fro to the singing - man that kid LOVES to dance - so beautiful and so happy! once the singing was done, she knew right what to do and blew out her candle. then she grabbed a cupcake, got down off the chair, sat right down and licked off the icing! too cute!! here she is with her cupcakes...


for her actual bday, my mom flew up and we all went to the beach. we went to Long Beach, WA and stayed at our favorite place, the Lighthouse Resort. this is where Zero and i went on our honeymoon (exactly three years before!). they have these lovely condos right on the beach, and they have a salt-water pool and hot tub. it's a great place for families to stay. as we drove into town we stopped by one of the local kite stores and got Molly her first kite. the kite looked like a lovely frog (a poison dart frog i believe, but so pretty!). after we unloaded all of our stuff at the condo, we immediately went down to the beach and flew our kite! we also brought along a bucket and shovel for the beach. the next day we went back to the beach and built more sand castles and Molly ran straight into the water at one point. no fear. and she wasn't bothered by the cold either. amazing! Harley the pooch also had a wonderful time, she ran around like a puppy - and she really wanted to get that kite! we all had so much fun!


and here are a couple of my favorite pictures from the beach. here is Molly and Grandma the first day we got there - Molly still strikes this pose sometimes and says "grandma"!

and here is the whole family at the beach!

on her actual birthday (10/29), we went swimming, we went to the beach, we had all her favorite foods (omelets for breakfast, mac&cheese for lunch, chili for dinner) we opened presents (here is a slideshow of Molly with her new toolkit):


and per Molly's request, Grandma made apple pie for birthday dessert. look how happy she is!

we came home to a box from Grandma Mike and in it was a "very hungry caterpillar" extravaganza. she made Molly a quilt with the hungry caterpillar theme, and she sent the book, a little stuffed caterpillar and a board game (which Molly asks to play with almost every day!). here is Molly in the box everything came in, all cozy with her new quilt!

Molly got tons of wonderful things for her birthday, books that she loves (we all love SkippyJon Jones!), puzzles, a flashing toothbrush (which really helps her with brushing her teeth), a stuffed bison and so much more! but on Halloween we went to see auntie Shani who once again gave Molly the piece de resistance. last year it was baby doll, Molly's constant companion...this year, a stroller for baby doll. i swear she's gonna run those wheels right off of it! and because her imagination is in full force right now, we are constantly putting baby doll (or whoever else she can find) into the stroller and either "going to work" or "going to market" or "going to beach" or "going to airport" and off she goes. a few minutes later, she's back and there is much discussion of how the trip was and how her day was. it's the coolest thing ever! here she is with baby doll in the stroller.

it was an awesome week - i'm thinking "family tradition" myself! this tradition will of course have to include that upon our return to Portland from the beach, Grandma and Molly have a sleepover and Zero and I get to spend an evening together at the Heathman Hotel. Grandma graciously offered to do that for us this time. we ordered room service and watched Terminator! do anniversary celebrations get any better? i don't think so!

happy number two my sweet, sweet girl! you are truly the light of our lives. to think a year ago you were barely walking and only saying "daddy". now you run, jump, climb, swim, twirl and dance. you say "may i have pancakes for breakfast, mommy?" and read books to your baby doll. you easily count to ten (and know all the numbers to twenty, they just get rearranged a bit), and remember the words and tunes to songs, and have the best darn rhythm i've ever seen! you make jokes and your laugh is beautiful and contagious. sharing may not yet be your strong-suit, but you are kind and obviously already feel deeply for others (as we witnessed in your concern for the porcupine who was scared by mice in Quiet! There's a Canary in the Library). and the other night, when you walked up to Zero and i, threw open your arms and said, "mommy, daddy...both hug", it was the best moment of my life so far. you rock my world Molly-moo! i love you!!

next up, Halloween cowboys and a trip to the farm with Moe!

the May's

yeesh, it's already been a month, but we went to visit the May's in early-September, and we actually stayed for more than just a weekend and it was so much fun. we got to spend some serious time with the family, and Molly loved every minute of it.

we spent our first day there at uncle John and auntie Laurie's place, which is beautiful! once Molly woke up from her nap (she fell asleep on the way over from the airport) we fed apples to the deer, we had a most delicious lunch, and we ran around the front yard with all the dogs. Molly loves her uncle John so much, and they played together lots. i didn't have older siblings growing up, but uncle John was like a big brother to me and watching he and Molly play reminded me again of all the great times i had playing with him growing up (and still do!). the times he would let me wrap my arms around his neck and he'd swim me across the pool under water. the times he would tickle me mercilessly. the time he caught me spraying whip cream into my mouth straight from the canister...uncle John is one the greatest guys out there, and Molly is very lucky to have him as her uncle too! here is a little slideshow of them playing together.


we also got to spend a day at Papa (Molly's great-grandfather) and Sharon's house in San Jose. once again, we showed up with Molly asleep but she didn't stay asleep for long and she woke up to more amazing food (the May's really can cook!). we went for rides in the golf cart and saw ducks and geese and horses. we played with our tricycle in the driveway. and we helped Papa feed the birds. it means so much to me that Molly knows her Papa, and my hope is that someday soon Papa, uncle John, Molly and i can all go camping together - and they can teach her the ropes - how to set up a tent, how to fish, and all that good stuff!!


we had a BBQ at my mom's for Labor Day and the whole family came. Grandma Nancy had decked the place out with a new play kitchen for Molly and a sandbox. Molly loved whipping up some food in her new kitchen (with real working faucet), and she loved getting sand everywhere while playing in the sandbox. so basically, we had "Molly TV" where we all watched her play and run around. Zero got right in the ol' sandbox with her, which was pretty cute. and after more scrumptious food, we had cake in an early celebration of both my and molly's birthdays.


the next day we went to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium and had such a good time! thankfully Grandma's cell phone takes a pretty decent picture, because we all forgot our cameras. we saw otters, and penguins, and sharks. we touched star fish. we stood under a crashing wave. what a fantastic place!


we also managed to squeeze in dinner with the LAHS (Los Altos High School) crew while we were there. below is a shot of us all hanging out at Sandra and Jason's place.


and Molly was an amazing traveler, once again. that girl is so flexible and ready to have fun. it's such a pleasure doing these things with her and that's saying something because i am a bit of a freak about traveling. so the fact that i can do it with a toddler in tow, and have fun! well, she is obviously someone very, very special!

hip, hip, hurray for the Mays!

choo choo

our friend Karen recently gave herself the most wonderful bday present, a trip to Florence, Italy! and while she was there she picked up the sweetest toy for molly, the train you see above! here is a little video of molly playing with her new train. she caught on immediately to "choo choo"! you'll note that most of the video is of her backside, it's because if she sees the camera, all bets are off (as you'll notice at the end). enjoy!

i [heart] molly!

my family has many traditions, many of them are pretty dang wonderful, but one in particular that i really, really love is my mom's valentine's day tradition. when i was growing up i would wake up every valentine's day to a trail of paper hearts that would lead me to my valentine. so cool! and this year, my mom sent me the bag of paper hearts (yep, she still had them!) and we started the tradition for molly. below is a little slide show of molly on the paper heart trail.

so yes, i know i went way overboard with the valentines, but she so deserves it! she got some new bath toys, a fish-shaped wooden castanet, some wonderful new clothes and shoes, a new book, a xylophone (we're all about the music around our house), and the pièce de résistance, a wooden "walk n' roll". wahoo, let the good times roll (and make really cool wooden chime-like sounds all around the house). here is a picture of her playing her new xylophone, be sure to note that she's sporting her first ever, super cute Converse tennies - yay! those are from grandma Nancy.

she LOVED chasing the hearts. she saw the first one and gasped. picked it up, saw the second one, gasped again, ran to it, put the first one down, picked the next one up and then noticed the next in line...gasp! and, as you probably noticed in the slideshow, some just went straight in her mouth (the big shiny ones were her favorite). i think the hearts were definitely the best part for molly!

and because i know you all need more of a molly fix, here are some other nice pictures. here on the left is one of her in her cozy robe, after a bath (with all her new bath toys) and reading with her daddy. they are so beautiful! our friend Jen showed us some new board books from the library, and one - This Little Chick by John Lawrence - is really a hit!



another fun new thing with molly is telling us when she's sleepy. when she looks a little tired we'll ask, "are you sleepy" and she'll just drop whatever she's doing, get down from wherever she's climbed, and lay all the way down on the ground. in this shot, her dad joined her. they were both very sleepy. and check out those curls on the back of her head.

shortly before she was sleepy, she was running around the house like a mad woman having a good ol' time. here she is, all smiles. what a beautiful girl!


and last but not least, our friend Jen gave us a valentine that had a temporary tattoo in it, and here is molly sporting her first tat (red scull and crossbones on her shoulder). like mother like daughter! tee-hee. actually, i told her she could have as many temporary tattoos as she wants, wherever she wants, but for the real thing she has to wait till she's 25, like i did! check her out...what a toughie!
hope everyone had a lovely valentine's day full of love (and at least a little chocolate)!

argh, happy holidays, matey!

happy holidays from the may/feeney clan! what a wonderful (and white) christmas we had this year! we didn't have any travel plans, no one was coming to visit, so we hunkered down and enjoyed some delicious food, more snow than portland has seen in 40 years, and the best company anyone could ask for!
xmas eve morning we got all dressed up and went to Sarah and Scott's for xmas brunch. it was a very snowy morning, so we had to do some extra bundling, load molly into the backpack (care of the Hare's, thanks you guys!) and we made our way through the winter wonderland! molly looked beautiful in her dress and stripy tights, and had a lot of fun playing with Audrey, Sarah's niece.

because of all the snow, we didn't really get going on the xmas decorating until xmas eve. i went into downtown St. Johns and found a tree for us (actually, the nice man on the lot lopped off the top of much taller tree, so that we could have a tiny one to fit into our tiny home). i dragged it back and zero prepped if for the tree stand. molly helped me get out the xmas decorations and start setting up!


zero and i went very light on the prezzies for molly, but there were still mountains of them by xmas morning! here is what it looked like after Santa had come by...check out all those presents tucked behind the tree!
and here is molly xmas morning, seeing the tree decorated for the first time and getting her stocking! she was fascinated by the ornaments, but was also very gentle with them. it was really the cow bell that she liked the most, which i figured and purposefully stuck on the bottom for her to play with.

and then it was time for the present extravaganza, and here is a little slideshow of that! we started with stockings for her and Harley (yay, molly got her own set of keys - maybe mine won't get lost so often!) and then dove into the wrapped presents from friends and family. people were so generous and lovely. she got balls, and books, and booties, and beads, and baby dolls! in fact, the baby doll was my old baby doll, 'Amy' that my mom had cleaned up and sent for molly - that brought a tear to my eye!

she also got many new clothes and her own camera! shakers and puzzles and bath toys too! we were opening presents all day long (notice the many different outfits throughout the slideshow). and the last present she opened, right before bed, was the first present she got actually, from her Aunt Erin and cousins Sarah, New Year and Ryan.

other fun things we did that day, we had a xmas bath and played with our new bath toy. check out that xmas spirit diaper!
we also watched the snow fall, and in this shot you can kind of see it. the flakes were as big as silver dollars, and it was beautiful.
and we tried to take another family xmas picture, much like the one we did last year. check out the tiny tree and tiny baby, all bundled up in her daddy's arms. but for this year's shot, we had a mover! so a couple of the shots were just of her blazing through. our favorite blurry molly shot is below!
but in the end, we got one that worked!

we made up a big dinner (thanksgiving, part deux) and had an impromptu potluck dinner with our wonderful neighbors (who made fresh raviolis - yum!). and so we bundled up the miss again (in her xmas dress, xmas booties, and pixie hat!) and headed next door.
it really was a spectacular day. from our family to yours, happy holidays and a merry new year to you all!

molly's got a brand new pair of shoes

so, as you know, Molly's walking now. more like running (at least that's how it feels to me) and so we had to get her some shoes. real shoes. not the socks with grippys that she has been wearing. the first hurdle was that we didn't know what size she was. all this kid sizing is like a foreign language to me and i really don't get it. at one store, there were some shoes at size 13 that were smaller than the ones at size 5, what's up with that? speaking of 5's, that's molly's shoe size. thanks to the good folks at Nordies, we know that now. and we got her a spectaculary cute pair of pedipeds while we there. these ones in fact!

so we donned our new shoes, headed out our front door, and walked down our street together - molly holding on to each of our hands - it totally slayed me! the first time your kid toddles down the sidewalk and reaches out for your hand, well it's indescribable! here is a picture of that first walk down the block taken with my phone.
we went to our local kids used clothing story, Lily Toad (which is awesome) and got her some more shoes, in a lovely red (molly looks great in red). and here is a little slide show of miss moo in her red shoes.

what we need now, with all the rain and blustery weather, is galoshes. she has some that were given to her, but they are already too small. though she does insist on me putting them on her and she toddles around (clump, clump, clump). i only let her wear them for a minute though, i worry about her squished toes. she also likes these red sandles someone gave us, that have a slight heal to them. it's strikes me as odd, who would sell a size 5 girls shoe and put a heal on it? i mean, really people, these are for CHILDREN! but molly likes to play with them, she likes to play with all her shoes. it's pretty cute.

other molly wonders. she says dog, uh-oh (usually means, "i'm about to drop X on the floor"), whee (that's a word, right?), "ah-do" (which we believe means "i love you"), "gee" (which stands for cheese and/or cookies, her favorite foods) and dada all the time. mama is still a rarity, but when she really needs me, she gives me a shout (usually in the middle of the night if she wakes up and gets the frights). she also has her signs for water and "all done" completely down now. and beyond the words and the signs, she just communicates so well with us now - pointing and gesturing - and it is very obvious that she pretty much understands everything we say (that means you too Brandon!).

she still L-O-V-E-S her babydoll that her auntie Shani gave her for her bday. here's some super cute shots with babydoll.
she is getting better and better with her hand dexterity, it's super fun watching her manipulate things with her tiny fingers. and she's started to help out around the house. you all saw her dusting, but she also helps with the vacuum, sponging off the table, and carrying things from the fridge to the stove for me.

and then there is the dancing...i'm going to have to do an entire post on that. boy can that girl BOOGIE!

every morning i look at her, and it's like she's a whole new little girl. she looks more and more mature everyday. and every day she learns something new, and does something that just blows us both away. molly is a total superstar!

and speaking of super-stardom, i want everyone to note that i got out 4 posts today! boo-ya! now you won't hear anything from me for like 6 months. :)

take care everyone!

molly's big birthday week!

so it's official, i am the mother of a one-year-old. how on earth did that happen?! ya know, let me re-phrase that...i am the extremely proud mom of the best one-year-old ever! and we've spent the past week plus celebrating her complete awesomeness!

it started with a fun trip to the coast with our good friends Shani, Sarah and Scott (we must have a thing for "s" names). mona and harley (the pooches) went as well. molly's been to the beach a couple times now, but this was the first time we just turned her lose on the sand and let her crawl around. she loved it. especially getting to watch the pooches run and frolic. here are some shots of her on the beach - what a beauty!

then grandma May came to town to help us celebrate! and on the big day, october 29, we had an all day party fest! we started off the day with molly saying her first word. drum roll please...it was "daddy". yep, daddy. and no, i'm not jealous (or at least, not too jealous). she's been saying da-da-da for some time, along with ma-ma-ma. but on the morning of her bday she actually pointed to Zero and said "daddy". i was floored. it was so cool. what a way to start the big day! we then had pancakes for breakfast and opened presents. actually, we off and on opened presents the entire day (and for all the days since, she's a bit spoiled doncha know) and here is a little slide show of some of that. her favorite present i have to say is her baby doll from her auntie shani, though she's been quite fond of everything she received. she is a very lucky girl!

around 3:00 some of her little neighborhood friends came by and she had a little party. there were cheerios and cheese and much playing with toys and crawling around on the floor. it was pretty wild lemme tell ya!


after that, Shani, Sarah and Scott came by for dinner and cake. molly had her favorite for dinner (macaroni and cheese with peas) and i made her a banana cake and covered it with whip cream. here's the slide show of her cake experience, which ended up where all good 1st year bday party cake experiences should, with her plunging face first into the cakey goodness!

we had one day of rest and then it was time for halloween. we carved a pumpkin that morning and hung up our spider web, put out our ghost pirate ship and tombstone, and waited for trick-or-treaters to arrive. we got a costume for molly. she couldn't tell us what she wanted to be this year, so i went with the thing she seems to love most in this world, dogs! she wasn't fond of the costume, but boy was she cute!


also on Halloween we went to our first Tiny Tots storytime at the library. this is a big deal because you have to be 1 to go to Tiny Tots! after a couple months of finally being the seasoned veteran at Book Babies storytime (0-1 years old), and really running the show, Molly seemed to be a bit more hesitant at Tiny Tots. and who could blame her with all the older kids walking around. but i'm sure it won't be long till she's running that show too! she's not a shy girl, that molly...she's a real go-getter!

speaking of firsts, the following day Molly went to swim lessons and went under water for the very first time! she handled it very graciously. though right as i was about to dunk her under, she gave me this look like, "i know what you're up to mom, and i'm not sure how i feel about it". but after she came back up, she just looked around at the other kids, some of whom were freaking out, and seemed to say, "huh, that wasn't so bad". and she continued on with her water frolicking fun!

that night we went to her aunti Shani's birthday party and had tacos and cheesecake and played with Shani's family's dog, Lucy - you'll remember her from a previous post. I was thinking that at some point in the future (maybe when molly turns 21 and Shani turns, oh wait, i shouldn't give away her age)...well, i was thinking they could have a big joint bday party blowout! fun, fun, fun!!

and the party keeps on coming. she just got two great CDs from her auntie/uncle/cousins Beth, Sean, Sinead and Declan and we danced along to those! let's see how long we can keep this bday extravaganza a-rollin'!

catching up...again

so, it's catch up time again...i'm well over a couple weeks behind in everything.

my grandfather emailed me today and asked what was new on the blog, and it reminded me that i never posted a pic of when he and his girlfriend Sharon drove all the way up here from Cali to visit us! this was about a month ago and we had a truly fantastic time. molly loved hanging out with her great-grandpa and Sharon taught her how to "give me five"! we went for walks, went out for dinner, went to the beautiful Chinese Gardens (zero and i hadn't been there in years - if you live in Portland, go now!). Papa and Sharon were kind about my attempts at cooking (they are both very good cooks), they saw our house for the first time, and they raved about zero's new play. unfortunately, my camera was on the fritz, as was Papa's, so the only pictures we got were taken with zero's camera phone, so not the best quality...we are so happy they came!

so the rest of this post is mostly going to be words (refer above to "camera on the fritz")...but exciting words! for instance, molly is now standing on her own! yep, you heard it hear first, she stands on her own. no assistance needed from household furnishings, mom, dad, the dog...and the stance is great, very sumo wrestler with wide legs, slightly bent at the knee. i'll get a picture and post it as soon as i can (of course, she may be walking by then).

also, molly is getting into "dollies". in this case, it is her "meow, meow" the cat and "hop" the bunny. the past few nights she's been playing with the two of them together, having them "talk" with each other and dance around, it's too cute for words.

molly has also reached the point where she wants to do everything herself. if you try and feed her now, she points at the spoon and screams, demanding to feed herself (which explains the yogurt strewn all over the dining room, the dog is loving it). she wants to put on her own clothes (do you know how hard it is to put socks on yourself, think about it...now try it with pudgy, not quite coordinated, baby hands). and she helps with everything including folding the laundry (she likes to pull it off the chair onto the floor and then "fold" it), cleaning off the dining room table (from all the yogurt), making the bed and more. these are very exciting times!

speaking of exciting times, last weekend we had a blast. we went to a program on Friday that the library put on called "Dancing with the Dogs". this entailed humans dressing up in slightly silly costumes, putting matching costumes on their dogs, and then dancing around to such hits as "supercalafragilistic" and Madonna's "Express Yourself". yes, i'm making fun a bit, but really it was pretty impressive. these dogs are the same ones that do obedience trials and they know their stuff and love showing off. there were a couple Golden Retrievers, a Miniature Poodle and a Terrier mutt. Molly thought she had gone to doggie-lovin' paradise and she sat there squealing and clapping. she got so loud at times that the dogs would stop mid-boogie to look at her. she can make a very high-pitched noise when happy - and boy was she happy. afterward she got to pet the dogs and let them lick her face -very fun!

and it turns out, molly is an equal-opportunity animal lover. molly had been under the weather, so we skipped taking the bus dowtown for book babies last saturday and instead went for a leisurly stroll in our neighborhood. one house we passed had chickens, and though they may not be the smartest, they do know that humans equal food and they came running over to us as we walked by. molly lit up, pointed and barked (making a barking noise is pretty much her reaction to all animals). after the chickens caught on that the barking baby was not going to feed them, they wandered off and we continued on to the local skateboarding park to watch all the boys skate around. i have a secret hope that molly will be into skateboarding...so i'm starting young with the skater worship. they need some girls there anyway.

that afternoon, molly seemed better so we met our friends for a trip to the pumpkin patch. we only stayed about 30 minutes, but we got to go on a hay-ride, and we picked out a pumpkin. this will be Molly's second halloween, but being only 2 days old for the first one meant we really didn't do much. this year we have a costume! and Grandma Nancy will be here and we'll hand out candy to the neighborhood kids.

during the week i took the camera into the camera doctor. he explained a lot of stuff that didn't make sense as to why it might be behaving badly, and then he checked on how many pictures i've taken with it. he let out a slightly crazed laugh and said, "i've never know anyone to take this many pictures with a point and shoot, especially in only a year." so basically, i worked my camera to death. or almost death, sometimes i can get it to work for a brief span of time. but now you see why this is all so hard for me, not having a camera, i'm a picture-taking maniac! and i am missing a multitude of cuteness!!

also since i last posted, our neighbors had their son, Vincent. he was born around the middle of the month and his birth marked the fourth baby on our block all within a year of each other, pretty cool, huh? Beau, the oldest, turned 1 on the 15th, Molly is next in line, and then Adriana's 1st bday comes in the spring. we hope they will all be the best of friends!

this brings us to this weekend. this weekend molly and i are sharing a cold (isn't that nice), and today we started up swim lessons again at the neighborhood pool (only a 10 minute bus ride, yay!). we also checked out a local preshool. it turns out that if we want to start molly in preschool before she old enough to go to college, we need to get on some waitlists now. so we're checking things out...

and this evening, i actually had a perfect moment where i was not only able to get the camera to work, but i also was able to get molly and harley to sit next to each other. so we'll end this post with a couple of pictures of my two little girls!

what have you got in your mouth?!

a few weeks ago a friend of ours, who takes care of children for a living, commented on how molly doesn't try and put everything in her mouth, like some kids do. i was taken aback a bit by this statement, because in my experience molly puts EVERYTHING in her mouth. but upon further reflection, i guess molly is a bit different in that she never, ever wanted a pacifier, nor does she really suck on her fingers or thumb...which some may consider lucky, but i tell ya, a little "self-soothing" wouldn't be such a bad thing now and again.

but the reason i bring this up is because i was looking through some pictures taken fairly recently of the moo and i saw a theme...and the theme was things found in molly's mouth. of course, there were all sorts of pictures i didn't get because i was too busy trying to get them quickly out of her mouth...such as shoes (we are constantly having to hide our shoes because as soon as she sees them, in the mouth they go!), diaper cream tubes (yum, zinc oxide-y goodness), dog hair (eeew!), rocks (really molly? rocks?) and electrical cords (aaaayyy!). but here are some of the less troublesome items, and in most cases, these are even meant to go in the mouth!

for instance, the toothbrush! now that is meant for the mouth, and molly is very good about brushing her teeth every night. she looks forward to it actually, and starts gesturing towards the toothbrush holder in the bathroom. and once we are done brushing, she's very good about rinsing her toothbrush under the faucet. the only problem? at times, she doesn't want to give the toothbrush back...




then there is the teether - another pro-mouth item! i got this particular teether because it's of the safe-plastic variety, which is a pretty big issue in this day and age (for some more information on that read here and here). so this teether is a-okay in the plastics department AND it's very convenient for holding in your mouth as you crawl around! yay!






lastly we have the nasal bulb syringe...okay, so not technically meant for mouths, but we've never used it on her nose and she seems to really enjoy it. it's amazing what parenting does to a person, at one time this may have grossed me out, but no more.

so there you have it, things that go in molly's mouth. i only wish i had a picture of her chewing on her own toes, cuz that's a sight to see!