I need a little angel sitting on my shoulder

We just finished up a visit from Grandpa and Halmoni--Halmoni longer than Grandpa, since Grandpa was actually here (or rather, in Dayton) to work. We managed to get Halmoni sick (not the flu), but otherwise I think they had a good visit. We definitely did. The girls enjoyed playing with them, and Eric and I enjoyed having the extra help and adult conversation. And, uh, the clean kitchen. (Especially since I'm involved in a Christmas Cookie Throwdown at work and am making eighteen dozen cookies to sell for charity.)

While they were here we went for our Christmas tree, and decorated it a few days later. The girls had a great time putting up ornaments:

Chloë was inexplicably averse to having her picture taken in front of the tree. The best we could do was a sneak attack where I suddenly turned around while holding her for ornaments, Eric and Maia closed in, and Dad took the picture quick:

After that she squawked and protested, and I subsided. There are other pictures she's being agreeable in.

Now Grandpa and Halmoni are gone, but our tree remains. We did cutout cookies tonight, because Chloë wanted to, and decorated them with sprinkles and red hots and Maia's fingerprints. There's a bunch of wrapping Chloë wants to help me with. The shopping for them is done (though the crafting isn't), and once we take care of our usual Christmas candy and cookies we should be in for a pretty restful holiday. At least, as restful as we can get around here.

On an only-vaguely-related note, we were reading from the Dora omnibus tonight when Maia said, "Piggie - drink." She pointed to a pig who was, indeed, holding a drink. Then she hefted her sippy of milk and continued, "Maia, too." She's mimicking everything we say these days, and showing an almost frightening comprehension and attempts at communication. This girl is going to be trouble.

To the coast and back

And we have survived the plane ride home, with a decent but single nap for Maia and ten minutes of sleep while landing for Chloe, and a ten-thirty bedtime that night and a nine-thirty bedtime last night as we inch ever closer to our regular schedules and Maia struggles with her frustration that she can no longer get out of her bed.

The trip was great. Very relaxed (except for the day of the wedding), low-key, lots of time for talking and playing. Some tidbits:

-The first morning, Chloë woke up at five local time and we went downstairs to get milk and explore. She poked around and peeked through the blinds, and soon reported, "They have a sandbox!" It was a sand/water table, and both girls had a ton of fun in it. They also made a ton of mess. Their sand play always coincided with bathtime.

-When I needed to buy shoes for the wedding, Chloë came along and tried on shoes from the clearance rack. "Look at my grown-up shoes!" she said, sporting a deep-red high-heeled shoe on one foot and a sparkly pink one on the other. "Mama, you should wear grown-up shoes!"

-We visited Mom's work so she could show off her granddaughters. Her coworkers went wild over the girls, cooing and exclaiming and begging for hugs. I expected Chloë to retreat and be shy, but instead she went willingly into people's arms, jumped up and down, accepted their compliments, and even spontaneously offered a hug to a latecomer.

-Afterward, we went to Tully's and got drinks, a raspberry and a blueberry shake. Chloë claimed the blueberry, Maia the raspberry, but they traded sips and each would readily offer Mom, Dad, and me their cup when asked. They circled the table, drinking and clutching their cups, as we sat in comfy chairs around them.

-Eric put Maia down for a nap one day and came downstairs. Not long after, he turned around to see her slithering backwards down the stairs and toddling toward him. "Maia Verity!" he said. "You get back upstairs!" She looked at him a moment and started back up the staircase.

-This happened again. After he sent her back up the second time, he went to check, and found her playing with my phone.

-His keys appeared magically in my purse after the next naptime.

-The next two nights, I put Maia down for sleep and then spent the next half hour saying, "Get back in bed!" After a while I'd poke my head in and she'd immediately climb back in bed.

-At camp, the girls ate through one of those huge plastic containers of blueberries you get at Costco. Then when we got back to Mom and Dad's, they ate all the blueberries off their bushes, maybe a couple of cups' worth. Then they ate a huge bag's worth Mom bought from work. (Admittedly, I helped. And a cup went into some scones. But still.)

-Maia learned to say "Grandpa," "Halmoni," and "Abby" (her cousin we met for the first time while there).

-Coming back from some trip, Chloë asked, "Is Halmoni still there?" When I said yes, she said, "We should tell her what we did. And hug her!"

-As mentioned, we met my niece Abby for the first time (though we'd seen pictures and a web call) during the trip. Chloë seemed a little diffident at first, but then it was "Maybe Abby can play." "Will Abby be there?" She came to a dinner with her new Aunt Amanda the night before the wedding. She didn't want to sit next to Abby, but she spent most of her time watching her (when she wasn't scarfing down tofu).

-Dad taught Maia to say "please" when she wanted ice from his Coke. "Moh (more)," she started out saying. Then, at his prompting, "Bee." After a few times, she said, "Moh. Bee," unprompted.

-At each airport, both girls made a dash for the windows to watch the airplanes (and so Chloë could look for the animals on the tails--we flew Frontier, though she also identified one with "Two As and a bird," which is American). Maia called, "Buh! Buh!" (either bird or bug, I'm not sure which) until I told her they were planes, when she started saying, "Bay! Bay!"

-Except for the stopover on the way back, when she was asleep. I put Chloë's blanket under her head. Chloë promptly said she needed her blanket, so I swapped it out, waking Maia momentarily. Chloë then never touched her blanket.

-She then proceeded to eat two tiny bites of the burger we bought for lunch (McDonald's unfortunately being the best of our limited options). Maia slept through the entire stopover, but when she woke up in the airplane she proceeded to devour half a burger, bun and all.

-When we crossed Lake Michigan, I looked out the window and remarked that all I could see was water. Chloë looked and said, "No, Mama. That is sky."

Family Camp

We're out in Seattle now, having just come back from Shafer Family Camp. It's a yearly event that we've never been to until now. But since Chloë says, "I want to go camping again! For a long long long long time!" it will probably not be our last time.

The girls did really well, even with the time change (in fact, that probably helped them sleep a little better than they might have otherwise). They took to the strange beds in the trailer, enjoyed eating outside, visited with family they'd never seen or barely remembered, didn't get too near the campfire, and had fun in the lake. If it had been a little warmer, or the ground not so rocky, it would have been better; but we still waded and threw pebbles to see the splash, and saw baby fish (and "sharks," which were slightly bigger baby fish) and watched the waves from speedboats rock the shore. 

Saturday we had a surprise wedding shower for Amanda, and had the family potluck. That night Eric and I, and James and Amanda, watched the meteor shower. The girls played with their cousins and ate pounds of fruit and were generally spoiled all around, and we all had a good time.

Daytona

And the verdict is: Daytona (now dubbed Second Vacation by Chloë) Was Good. We stayed in a huge house that Eric's cousin had rented (borrowed? I'm not clear on this), across the road from the intracoastal waterway, with cousins and aunts and uncles and grandmas and so on. The beach proper wasn't far, and Chloë won't go near the surf, but Maia loved it. They both loved the sand and the pool. Chloë was proud of being able to float around by herself in a floatie and kick around the pool a little. Maia loved being jumped in and out of the water and standing on one of the steps, up to her chest, considering taking the next step down but never quite doing it . When we got out of the pool once, we walked around to dry a little and Maia headed back toward the edge. Eric and I both said "No, baby!" but she just sat down at the pool's rim to dabble her feet in the pool and kick, wistfully, at the water.

Chloë had a reasonably good time, it looked like, playing with her older cousins (they did get pretty bossy and probably didn't realize when she didn't actually want to play their games, since she didn't say so unless I asked her) and did a lot of coloring and playing with blocks and taking walks and swimming and running around. Maia was clingy, as we expected in a house full of so many strangers, but she had some fun too, especially with the puppy an aunt brought along. Eric and I swam and took the girls to the pool and gave series of two-girl baths (the older cousins wanted in on the big fancy tub) and played games in the evening.

One night we walked on the beach together. We passed a man fishing in the dark, shining a flashlight on his pole. As we passed he called, "Hey, do you have a flashlight?" I said I was afraid not, puzzled why he needed a second light, and he walked toward us and held out his flashlight, saying, "Here, have this one. Where are you from?" We said Toledo, and he said, "Welcome to Florida."

So we came home richer by a flashlight (also some books, because there was a used bookstore in town and, well, you can't spend all your time swimming). Chloë came home richer by a set of beach toys and a pretty good tan, and Maia poorer by a set of goggles (not that she used them anyway). It was a good vacation. The girls were great travelers; Chloë got antsy, and Maia upset when she wanted milk and wasn't getting it, but there was no major whining or complaining, and mostly they played or watched movies or ate or slept.

I actually came back a couple of days early, to save vacation days, and while they were gone I cleaned most of the house (I ended up forgetting to dust one wall, and I didn't sweep the basement) and marveled at the way things would, when I put them away, still be put away two hours later. I baked and did laundry without interruption, and went shopping without needing to stop for potty breaks or snacks or naps or whininess or bedtime. And I still had time to relax and goof off. It was marvelous. I even slept ten hours in a row on Saturday and lounged in bed for half an hour when I woke, just because I could.

But when I went to the bookstore I picked up "Biscuit's First Beach Day" because I thought it would be a nice reminder of their time at the beach and Maia is in love with dogs. When I went clothes shopping I picked up a bigger (4T) bathing suit for Chloë because her two beloved ones from last year are really too small. I changed Chloë's sheets and turned down her bed, so we could lay her right in it when they got home late Saturday, and put Maia's stuffed animals in the corners of the crib so she'd have room to lie down. Eric called a little after one on Sunday morning to say they were close, and I sat up in the living room until I heard them pull in and could go out and lift Chloë out of her seat and into the house, and then take Maia for a big hug. It was good to get them back.

In the meantime, Chloë said to me this morning, "Soon it will be summer." I said, "Silly, it's summer now." She said, "No, I mean real summer. When my pool that is not too big is out." I guess Eric needs to mow so we can set up the kiddie pool in the backyard.

On the road

We're off to vacation at Daytona Beach today. We're driving...for twenty hours each way...which has me shaking in my sneakers. But the girls were very good on the way to South Haven for our Easter break (or "Bacation" as Chloë still refers to it), and we're hoping to do a big chunk of the driving while they're sleeping...and we're going in Memaw's van which is equipped with DVD player, so I'm in hopes it won't be too bad.

Chloë eagerly helped pack last night. She picked two bed toys (Elmo and Frog) and a small blanket (the warmest one she has, which I vetoed; then she picked the most garish one she has, but it's light so I let it pass). She selected one set of pajamas, one pair of underwear, six shirts, three shorts, and two bathing suits. (I edited appropriately.) She would have packed all the socks, except they were still being washed. She's got a thing about her socks. She used to glory in naked time before pajamas, but ever since she got into underwear she's been refusing naked time, and she never wants her feet uncovered. I insisted yesterday that we wait until her feet de-wrinkled from her bath before putting socks on her and she was visibly agitated, asking me every few minutes if her feet were dry enough yet. Bath time continues to be an issue with her...the past few baths she's been reluctant because, we think, she has a scratch on her leg that she says hurts when it's in the water. Possibly the real trouble is that we put a Band-Aid on it for the first couple of days and then insisted on taking it off for her baths, which of course hurt a bit. As the scratch has healed she's been less recalcitrant, though she's still not as enthusiastic about baths as she used to.

Back to socks: I mentioned that she wouldn't be wearing socks a lot at the beach, and she said, "But I can wear socks with my sandals." I just know she's going to ask to go swimming in her socks. We have water shoes for her and I'm hoping they'll be good enough substitutes. She's started to put on her own underwear and pants sometimes, with orientation assistance, and the last day or two has attempted to put on her own socks as well, probably to be independent of her parents' faulty understanding of how vital it is to cover one's feet at every moment.

Maia, of course, doesn't understand we're going on a trip, but if she did I bet she'd be the more excited of the two...though Chloë is excited, especially when we tell her it'll be like Bacation and she'll get to not only play with Addie and Rae-Rae a lot but see her distant cousin Marlee as well. Maia is much more mercurial than Chloë, I'm noticing. When she's upset she has real fits, throwing things and squalling, with sobs so intense that she stops breathing for several seconds as her face gets redder and her eyes squinch shut, mouth open in wordless fury. When she's happy she's so happy. The other day I held her while she played with the light switch. I said "on" in a squeaky voice when she turned it on, and "off" in a low boom when she turned it off, and before long she was giggling like a mad thing, so hard she woke Eric up (and Eric doesn't wake easily). She adores sliding and swinging and being tossed around in our arms, and squeals with happiness...and sometimes she likes to make us laugh, too. "Maia is being funny," Chloë said this morning when Maia poked her finger into my nose on purpose after I told her "don't put your finger in your nose," and she was right, and I was so delighted by the both of them. Though I did use my stern voice to tell Maia to knock it off with the nose-picking.

So this post isn't really about the trip, of course, but doing the planning for a family trip makes me think about my family and how nice it really is to be going somewhere together, even if I think it's a little soon for this long a trip (travel-wise, I mean). It's a very grown-up but very real pleasure to be able to shepherd our family into  the kind of vacation I went on when I was a child. I hope I can give my kids the kind of experiences I had...or at least ones that are as good. There were no DVD players on our trip to Disneyland when I was eight, but there was music and snacks and cousins and my parents providing distraction and conversation and the opportunity for a great time, and I had it, and I hope Chloë and Maia do too.

Give that girl a hand

Maia learned to clap tonight! She's attempted it before, but tonight, while Chloë demanded I make "water fountains" out of her squirty bath toys, she not only got her hands to connect, she made noise doing it. She was so pleased, especially when we cheered and clapped with her.

Later, Chloë wanted us all to "nuggle" in our room, so we piled into the bed, the two girls naked except for diapers. Maia didn't want to snuggle; she wanted to stand up and clamber about and, when my shirt eventually rode up, to blow raspberries on me. A particularly loud one sent Eric into paroxysms of laughter. She looked around at him in slight concern, then at me since I was giggling too; then she decided all was well and clapped. I'm not sure if she was applauding herself or us.

Maia Maia, nighty-night

Maia leans over in the bath to drink the bath water. "No!" I say, but that doesn't stop her doing it. She mouths the faucet, too.

I wash her soft back and her strong legs with a warm, soapy cloth while she stands at the bathtub's edge, holding on with one hand, the other keeping a toy crab in her mouth. She drools. She grins. She lets go and for a second, she's standing there, unsupported. She drops softly back into the water and I take the opportunity to wash her arms and underarms, her chest and feet. I'd play This Little Piggy with her toes, but there's no time; she's moving again, onto her hands and knees to get the magenta cup floating just a bit out of reach.

She sips at the water again, and I say "No!" again, and she looks thoughtful and says, "Buh." She often answers me when I talk to her nowadays, though I don't usually understand her responses. Occasionally I do. This is not one of those times, unless "Buh" means "Oh mother." She splashes at the water with her hands, watches where it goes, splashes again.

I wet her fine, still-sparse hair and her face, and wash her well to get the sweet potato off. Eric asked at dinner if he should bother washing her off, and I said something about getting the big chunks at least, and he took me at my word; there are still sweet potato splotches on her eyebrow, her neck, the top of her ear. She did enjoy being able to feed herself, though. She protests a little as I scrub, but not much; she's too engrossed in gnawing at her cup and crawling after the monster ducky.

I rinse her off and get her delicate bits, and then open the drain. I take her towel off the rack and tuck it under my chin. She sees it and grins, her eyes lighting up, and drops the monster ducky. I pick her up and place her against my chest to wrap her in the towel so we can sit on the toilet and dry her off. Today she twists in my grasp before I've even gotten her fully wrapped up. Is she unhappy and wants me to hold her close? No, she's peering at the shiny knob on the towel closet in the corner and trying to take it.

I try to turn her, but end up drying her face and head and feet in that position and carrying her, monkeylike, into her room. I deposit her on the changing table and keep a hand on her as I'm selecting a diaper and a sleeper. She gets up and starts exploring like a spelunker, arms spread wide against the wall, toes tucked into any cranny, perilously close to the edge. "I'd have thought I'd have intelligent babies," I tell her. "Why aren't you afraid of falling?" I gather her in, hold her high above the changing table, and blow on her as I send her down onto it--quickly, but with a soft landing. She's delighted, but the charm only lasts a second. I manage to get her diaper on her and adjusted properly after five or six of these. Then I'm too afraid, even if she isn't, to stay on the changing table, so she gets flown to the floor.

She picks up a cloth from the laundry pile and covers her head with it. "Where's Maia?" I say, and she yanks it down. "There she is!" I say, and we both grin. When the charm wears off she crawls next door, where her big sister and daddy are playing, and I follow, sleeper in hand. Then it's Chloë's turn for a bath and a good hair-combing; then Maia comes to me again for some milk, at least until she gets up on her hands and knees and finds she can't get her head down to the R.I.N.D.S. satisfactorily, and gives up in favor of trying to reach the lotion bottle. Then it's time for her Sleep Sack and a short book. She's fighting to get me to put her down before I've gotten two lines into her lullaby, so I cut it short and put her down and turn on her aquarium, which is what she wants. I whisper, "Sleep well," and leave her staring raptly, her face blue from the aquarium light. Before a minute passes I hear her I'm-falling-asleep growls, and smile.

Merry Chwitmat!

We hope your Christmas (or other winter holiday) was as happy as ours. We spent Christmas Eve with some friends (and some excellent pasta sauce) and drove home the long way, looking at the Christmas lights. Chloë picked a place to hang her stocking, and in the morning we went down to see if it had been filled. It had.

She worked hard that morning: she opened her presents, plus Maia's, plus Eric's and mine. After every one she said, "I want to open more presents!"

But she was happy to play when we told her there were no more. Maia enjoyed it too. We went to the girls' cousins' grandmother's for Christmas dinner, and had more family over for cider and cookies that night. "Chwitmat id not quite ober yet," Chloë said that night, and she was right: we finished up with Christmas at the mothers' this evening, with dinner and presents and pie.

She and Maia both got quite a haul this Christmas: books, toys, stuffed animals, clothes, a rocking horse, Duplos, several electronic gadgets (a tablet for Chlo--presumably, as Eric said, the Speak & Spell of 2011. I don't even have a tablet), and the best prize of all, a Play Hut. She and Maia have been crawling in and out of it ever since we opened it up, sometimes with their other toys, sometimes not. Chloë's asked me to go in, but only my front half fits. But it's just the right size for the girls.

We had a really lovely Christmas this year, so lovely it surprised me, somehow. We worked hard for it, but it was worth it. We've seen friends and family, and shared treats and gifts with loved ones, and enjoyed spending time together. And with our toys. As Chloë's been saying to everyone, Merry Chwitmat!

Squiggles

Chloë can draw circles now! And squiggles! She's been good at lines for a while, and would occasionally scrawl across the paper and proclaim it a plane, or a cloud, but when I ask her to draw a circle, or a triangle, she's said, "I can not." But the other day she was doing actual loops and intentional zigzags. She gave me the picture, but I forgot to bring it into work. I'll have to do it tomorrow.

(In all honesty, I don’t particularly admire the pictures she makes. I'm glad she enjoys them and I'm glad that this developmental step has occurred, but the pictures themselves don't move me and I don't actually want one up in my cubicle. That's normal, right?)

She's been very keen on the Christmas decorating. "Mama, want to decorate?" she said hopefully all weekend, even after I told her we were all done. She loved putting the berry picks into the garland on the staircase, and "helping" me put up the snowflake lights. Now she wants them on all the time. She was happy when we picked out our tree from Andersons (a little tabletop tree, which is exactly what it's going to be with the crawling baby and all) and is excited to put ornaments on it.

Unfortunately that won't happen until Tuesday, but that's because today is Cookie Day, when Mimi and Addie and Rae come over to make cookies until dough oozes out our ears. Hmm, maybe I shouldn't say that when toddlers are involved. Anyway, she likes cookies and she likes her family and she likes baking with Mama, so it should be a good night. We're going to make sugar cookies with sprinkles. Usually I make the type of cutout cookie that needs to be iced, but she's not that good at squiggles and circles yet.

To Seattle and back

So our Seattle trip went very well, considering. I no longer fear the cross-country plane ride with two children under the age of three. Dread, perhaps, but not fear. --It wasn't really that bad, just draining. Both girls were pretty well-behaved (Maia better than Chloë; five months is an excellent age to fly with a baby) and Chloë had the greatest time at the airport. After getting through security (surprisingly quick considering we had five bags, a stroller to fold--two on the way back--and a carrier) we arrived at the gate and made a beeline to the window, where Chloë stood and watched the planes, narrating for the entire gate: "A plane? Another plane. Another plane! Another plane moving! Another plane! Another plane flying! Another..."


She wasn't excited about the takeoff or her harness, but once she was allowed to get up she enjoyed the view of the clouds and the other planes and the circles and squares on the ground. Maia, meanwhile, nursed quietly during takeoffs and smiled and was charming during the flights. At the end of one flight, while we were sitting waiting for everyone else to get off, a young man paused and said, "Your baby is so good! I didn't hear a thing!" which I translated as "Thank you for not ruining my flight." A later flight unfortunately included a short tantrum from Chloë about her shoes, but the threat of not being able to go on planes anymore quieted her down. Don't think we were bluffing either.

The visit with Grandpa and Halmoni went very well, too. Both girls adjusted somewhat to the time change, so they were getting up at 4:30 or 5:30 instead of 3 o'clock; and there was much playing and being cute and enjoying themselves. They met or re-met family; Chloë got to take a bath with her cousin Aubrey and learn a little more about sharing; they went to the playground near Mom and Dad's house. A lot. First it was with cousins Gabriel and Matthew (who was slightly cranky from lack of sleep; when we talk about the visit Chloë usually contributes with "Matthew crying?"), but then Chloë was hooked. Luckily, Mom and Dad were willing to play.



Maia did a bunch of rolling; she now rolls onto her stomach if she's not sufficiently sleepy when put down, then cries until we come and right her. Though she was working on the reverse this morning, so maybe she'll be self-sufficient in that regard soon. She's also tentatively able to sit, at least for short periods. Also I need to pull out the nine-months pants for her because the six-months ones are much too short.


What do you mean, stop growing?


Definitely not that much.
We have good girls. Well-traveled girls, now. They seem glad to be home and back in their routine, but they did well; I think they will as long as we're all together.

Kalahari

And we're back from Kalahari, the water park, where we stayed for three-ish days with the mothers and Eric's sister's family. Chloe had a fabulous time, in the kiddie area or the wave pool with Daddy or me or Mimaw or Omi or Michelle. She started out timid, but by the end was going down the slides by herself, slipping down on her back and lying there in her life jacket waiting for a hand up so she could go again. Whenever we took a break, she'd willingly accept a drink or a snack or a diaper change, but pretty soon she was tugging at somebody's arm to go back into the water.


She got to spend a lot of time with her cousin Addie, which I think both of them enjoyed. Addie tends to be a bit bossy, as befits her role as eldest cousin and four-year-old, but they played in the water and at the kids' playground, and in our room in the mornings, and giggled together a lot.


Maia continues her schedule of feeding every two hours, but with a ratio of seven adults/teens to four kids, I got to spend a good amount of time away from her (which sounds terrible, but hey, I like being in the water too). She seemed to like the humidity and warmth and white noise while we were there.


Hey, how come I don't get to go on the water slides?
This was our first real Snyder family vacation with the girls, and I think it was a success--we all had a good time, and the community of extended family is always nice, and the scramble of coordinating schedules and preferences wasn't too bad. I was happy we went, for all of us but particularly for Chloë. We played hard, which I think is how this sort of vacation should be, and spent today recovering--after a disagreement on whether the concept of "having a bath in the morning" exists, Chloë's hair finally no longer smells like chlorine. Hooray!

Open the pod bay doors, Hal

Chloë's visit with her halmoni was great. Mom arrived Thursday night and left Tuesday evening, and in between they drew pictures, played with blocks, watched babies on TV, shared clementines and potato-cheese soup, and chased each other approximately 173 times around the living room. "Halmoni" was too hard to say, but she could point to Halmoni when asked, and started to call her "Hal" by the end of the visit. Mom took her in the mornings so I could get extra sleep. When we left for the airport she gave Halmoni a hug and a kiss and a bonk (and then started screaming when I walked out the door too--I guess after five days she forgot that Mama goes away sometimes) and waved, saying "Bah-bah," very sweetly.

Mom was impressed by how well and how much she eats. We had rice and stirfry and dried seaweed for dinner one night, and Mom was amused by how much of the seaweed went down Chloë's throat, and how quickly. (When I came home from the airport I had the leftovers, and offered Chloë a piece of seaweed, tearing strips off and leaving them on a napkin on her little table. She finished them sooner than I'd have thought possible and started saying "Pee! Pee! Pee!", jumping up and down and gesturing at me--I was talking to someone--until I realized she was saying "Please" and wanted more. We repeated this until my meal was finished and the seaweed was all gone.)

Wednesday morning I got her her bottle and changed her diaper and set her down on the floor, and she immediately toddled to the spare room, saying, "Hal?" I felt so sad for her, seeing the empty room where she expected her grandmother to be. "I'm sorry, sweetie," I told her, "Halmoni's not here anymore. She went home." Chloë stood there a moment. Then she went to her paper and pencils on the floor and started to color, something she and Mom would do in the mornings but she and I or she and Eric normally don't. Ever since, she's been crankier than normal, and harder to get to sleep. We've decided Halmoni isn't allowed to come visit anymore.

There and back again

Chloë, Eric, and I went to Seattle Wednesday through Sunday to see her grandparents. It was a great trip, though the travel itself was wearing; it turns out Chloë doesn't sleep well while flying. She was also disconcerted by the leash we put on her in the airport, but other than that she did pretty well. In Seattle, she woke up every morning around 4 AM Pacific time, and despite this was spoiled by her grandparents anyway. She came away with several new tricks, including:

-the word "baby."
-a much more accurate pronunciation of the word "ball." (One syllable, even!)
-when you hand her a paper towel and say "Wipe hands" or "Wipe face," she obeys.
-pointing to her grandpa when asked "Where's Grandpa?" ("Halmoni" was a little harder.)
-spreading her hands out, palms upturned, with a wide-eyed innocent look as if to say "What happened? I just don't know!" We haven't quite figured out what she means by it, but that doesn't stop us from being slayed by its cuteness.

Possibly also:

-making spitting noises to herself in bed. She did this tonight after we put her in bed. I'm thinking she was remembering the sort-of-spitting contest she and Grandpa had at dinner Saturday night in which Grandpa got covered in baby spittle and, speaking as a mother, totally deserved it.

Breathless

First, Chloë sends a shout-out to her new cousin Aubrey, born yesterday. Welcome, Aubrey! You may have been born even bigger than Chloë at birth, but you've still got a lot of growing to do to catch up, so get to it!

Second, Chloë's potential new sibling is still smaller than a thumb but already causing trouble. I spent most of yesterday either sitting down or lying down, panting. This out-of-breath-ness is a new thing; it didn't happen when I was pregnant with Chloë. Of course I wasn't toting around or chasing down a toddler when I was pregnant with Chloë, either (except for a couple of times we were with our nieces and nephew Addie, Cindy, and Steve Jr.). For some reason yesterday was especially bad; I had to lie down after my shower, wasn't up for taking Chloe outside, couldn't stand terribly long. It's a good thing Chloë has started wanting to be changed on the floor rather than the changing table.

In the meantime, she's really taken to "up." I'm wondering if she's generalized it from "pick me up" to "Mom, do something for me." It's seemed like it a couple of times. We'll have to pick a new word to work on. "Drink" would be a good one. She mainly indicates she's thirsty by pulling up my shirt. I don't think she's serious about nursing half the time; that's just the only time I know to ask "Do you want something to drink?" And "drink" starts with D, which means she's halfway there already. Eric is still trying, with more hope than success, to get her to say "Mama." She persists in calling me Dada, just like him. We're wondering if she figures "Dada" just means "parent." I mean, as well as "book" and "tree" and "outside" and "deoxyribonucleic acid" and such.

Chloë's first Christmas

We spent Chloë's first Christmas in Seattle with my parents. She turns out to be an excellent traveler. She had no problems with her ears, even on the flights back when she had a cold (which is better than I did); she loved walking through the airport, riding in the carrier and watching the lights and the people; she was able to sleep most of the way out and part of the way back. We connected through Dallas on the way out, and through Chicago on the way back, and got caught in the Chicago traffic jam--we left Seattle three hours late and arrived to a canceled flight, couldn’t get on standby or another flight until the next day, and ended up spending the night in a hotel without our luggage. Except for kicking off her socks in protest when we tried to get her to sleep (at nearly midnight, Central time) in the hotel crib, she even adapted well to that.

She had a great week with her grandparents. I hardly saw her at all except to feed her and put her to bed, but she was happy to introduce them to her ways and accept their adoration. She was introduced to aunts, uncles, cousins, great-aunts, great-uncles, and carrots, and loved them all. She got so much stuff Mom and Dad are having to ship most of it back to us (plus Aunt Kris packed her present in a mailer box, which was pretty awesome). A year ago we had no baby stuff. Now we've got more baby stuff than almost anything else. There are teethers, balls, rattles dolls, toys that sing, squishy books for the bathtub, soft books for chewing, hard books for reading.

We had Snyder family Christmas the day we got back, and except for sleeping through most of it (due to having gotten only about six hours' sleep that night and another couple on the plane and in the car, which wasn’t nearly enough) she did well there, too. She certainly got plenty of loot, including an exersaucer, which is good because she's almost outgrown her swing.

Yesterday we finally had our nuclear-family Christmas. Her gifts from us were a stuffed dog which she opened herself (with help), a pendant with her birthstone, and a Christmas ornament. She got four other ornaments so this last wasn't exactly necessary, but it was important to me--my parents gave my brother and me an ornament every year to help out with our trees when we moved out, and I want to do the same for my children.

So Christmas number one was a success. Now we've got to teach her certain pieces of etiquette, such as thank-you letters, but her penmanship isn't the best so those probably won't go out very promptly.