Christmas Eve video

Maia opening one of her presents on Christmas Eve. Two parts to the same event... Have I mentioned how much I love how she runs? She doesn't just run... she prances!

Pictures from Maia's Christmas Concert

We were delighted to be sent a link to these pics today. They were taken by Celia's and Maura's dad. Here we see Maia and Pete, behind them, Nick crying (and being held by Miss Nikki, I think) and Claire looking to the left. The teacher in black is Miss Jessica, who was originally in the infant room when Maia first started daycare, and who frequently reads to the kids in Spanish (yay!). She then transferred to the T2 room, and often covers in the T1 room in the afternoons. So she's on track to spend a LOT of her time with Maia!

This was when they were wheeled in to the event... From Back to Front are: Celia, Claire... Nicholas, (I don't know the name of the other boy)... Maia and Pete Another view with three of Maia's teachers. The one in the middle (with the dark colors and puffy vest on) is Miss Kathy, the lead teacher in the infant room This is a really cool "stitched together" panoramic shot.

Christmas Morning 2009

At the crack of dawn, we enter the living room to see what Santa left for us...

Christmas Day

Christmas morning. Our gift from Maia. This ornament: red and green felt on a paper plate, with a gold pipe cleaner for a hanger.

And a green construction paper tree, dotted with bingo stampers.

Maia got a new hat, mittens and boots. She was very excited about those. Spoiled girl also got 6 (yes SIX) pairs of shoes! She also loved the Little People car on the floor behind her.

ELMOOOOOO! She was so excited as soon as she saw him... we didn't even know she knew who he was. I don't think she's ever watched an episode of Sesame Street.

She has carried Elmo around a lot of the time since Christmas.

Maia's new kitchen from Aunt Tara & family, and Nana Effie and Poppa Raymond.

The aftermath.

Maia's new kitchen, also her full tea set (on top) and her new hat - which she wore for several hours. As you can see, she's such a peanut, it will be quite a while before she really outgrows this kitchen in height. She can just barely reach the microwave. Initially, her play with it consisted of playing the phone (Heh-wooah!). The pot and skillet that make bubbling and sizzling noises were very cool... but perhaps I don't cook enough for her to really know what to do with it!

Several days later, while I was cooking spaghetti, I brought her to her kitchen and showed her how to stir, and put the lids on, and put invisible food on the plates. I then returned to cooking. Shortly thereafter, I heard this odd noise, and looked up to see that Maia had actually pushed her kitchen from her bedroom into the hallway. I imagine her intent was to move her kitchen into the kitchen! Funny girl.

Maia quickly got the hang of her remote-controlled puppy from Nana Effie and Poppa Raymond. Also seen here is the sling bookshelf from my Grandma Marcia and Papa Joe. After carrying around Elmo for some time, Maia pulled out this cutting board (she loves to play with these), put Elmo down on the cutting board saying "Ni-night!" and walked away. Hysterical!

Your giggling days are over, my little red furry friend.... mwahahahahaha!! And for me?

Ah, yes. The Snuggie. The most romantic, thoughtful gift ever? Actually, Ray thought it would elicit a laugh (which it did!) and he needed to give me something else to open on Christmas morning, since my big gift had already been opened.

Check it out... Leopard Print. It's Snuggie Wild Side!

My exciting gift (and hopefully, a gift that keeps on giving!) An HD digital camcorder...

...which takes such huge data files, I know I need to figure out how to compress them. All part of the learning process (and appropriate software) I suppose. Anyway. Uploading takes a LONG time, and editing takes even longer, right now. So I promise I will spend some time figuring it out so I can share the great videos we've filmed.

Christmas Eve

On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, my parents, Kathleen, Andrew, Emily, Adrian and Lydia all gathered at our house for food and presents. Andrew had a six bone prime rib roasting in the oven (YUM!)for dinner. In the mean time, we had a pile of food for grazing.

Maia was most excited about the fruit.

We had a pile of presents

Lydia, Emily and Adrian make their best rock poses for Uncle Ray

And then their best excited faces for the surprise gift of the Wii (an item they never thought they would receive in a million years!)

Maia absolutely LOVED her tea set from Aunt Kathleen, Uncle Andrew and cousins!

Lydia and Maia did some dancing in the kitchen

Maia's other exciting present was a ride-on Winnie-The-Pooh airplane.

Which had lots of lights and made some noises which Maia wasn't at all sure about for a moment.

However, she got really excited about it in no time, and is really loving it!

All in all she did really well with all the excitement and activity. She ate a good dinner, but ran out of stamina for opening all her presents. She went to bed pretty much on time and slept well, waking up to another pile of presents in the morning...

Talking to Daddy

On the evening of the 23rd, Ray gave me my first Christmas present, telling me I needed to figure it out before Christmas. And what was it? An HD digital camcorder! Woo! So here was an opportunity to try it out. Christmas Eve morning... Maia and I were just getting ready for the arrival of our guests. Ray had to work, and had called to check in. We finished our conversation, but Maia was upset that she didn't get the chance to talk to him. So we called back, and Ray's co-workers were confused by the animals Ray was naming off (What does a lion say?) so he was also explaining to them that he was speaking with his daughter. I have spent a LOT of time trying to figure out how to get these HUGE files edited and uploadable, and think that I've finally got it. However, until I get better at it (and have more patience) I think the videos will be a little slow in coming as it is taking me a good 30-45 minutes just to upload them! Much less the few hours I was taking to figure out how to edit them!

15 weeks

OB visit today (12/23, actually). Ray didn't go with me to this one (too crazy at work!). So at this time I am up 7 lbs total, 3 lbs. since last month. The OB says he is extremely pleased with that (I wasn't, but as I think of it, it's probably about where I was last time, and I did okay then, even with that 10 lbs of swelling in the last month), and tells me that he generally allows a free 5 lbs for the holidays. With one of the holidays (Thanksgiving) already done, he figures I'm ahead of the curve. Have I mentioned how much I love my OB? Sheesh... wish Weight Watchers would give that kind of grace period for the holidays! That said, I'll try not to overdo it. My BP was 100/64. It's funny to me that my BP tends to run lower when I'm pregnant than my more usual 120/70. The baby's heartrate was 150 again this time. What was rather nifty about this one, was that the way my doctor had the doppler positioned, you could hear both my heart beat (70 bpm) and the baby's (150 bpm) and the baby's being about twice as fast as mine (but slightly off-kilter) made a pretty cool rhythm. If I haven't mentioned it before, my OB loves Ray. He loves to talk computers with him. He walked into the exam room saying "Hi Guys!" and I said "It's just me today" and I swear, I saw a glimmer of disappointment. I told Ray my OB missed him, which Ray thought was pretty funny. Not sure he believed me, though. This is day number 109 and you're 15 weeks pregnant! You have 171 days or 24 weeks left, and are 39.3% of the way there. Baby's age since conception is 95 days or 13 weeks.

Bloody Noses and Too Many Funerals

Tonight, Maia fell asleep cuddling her "mu-kik," (you may remember this little gem I picked up for camping, which Maia now loves to carry around - heavy as it is for her - like a purse), listening to her favorite cd (in ipod form)

Lately, she has been preferring to cuddle with me laying across me, and looking up into my face, while asking me to sing. This is rather a departure, because for a while she didn't want me to sing for her, and she preferred to cuddle with me face down across my arms. With daddy, she generally cuddles with him with her head on his shoulder. She's very fidgety with me that way, and can't get comfortable until she lays sideways.

I generally sing or hum "Baby Mine" from Dumbo (I think it's particularly sweet, and is easy to hum for longer as needed). I never had occasion to sing any particular lullaby with Maia while she was in utero, I'm hoping that this little June Bug will learn to love this lullaby earlier.

So this evening of cuddling with her "mu-kik" came following a bit of a rough evening. Maia often plays by ringing around my legs, or leaning through them. This evening, however, while leaning through, she let go and fell smack on her nose. I picked her up, and when the screaming started to subside a little, I took a look and saw a nose and mouth full of blood. Alas, trying to convince a 16-month-old that you need her to hold still while you wipe off the blood and see what's wrong... well, that's like trying to put pants on jello.

But after some diligence, I was able to determine that it was just a bloody nose, and she was more than ready to "dit down?" and go play, regardless of her messy face and hands.

So after a little clean up, she sat and read her books for a while.

It's been a full couple of weeks. A full month, really! After running the Holiday Pops gauntlet the first week of December, I was having a quiet night (finally!) at home on Sunday evening when my mother called to advise me of the death of a good family friend, Peggy. Her death was not unexpected, but very sad nonetheless. The world lost a powerful force for peace, and one of the dearest women I had ever met. Her husband, Phil, sings bass in my dad's quartet.

Several hours later, I read a co-worker's status update on facebook, lamenting the loss of the good Dr. G. Dr. G had left the hospital where I work in June of this year, seeking a 3/4 time position in another hospital across town as he wanted some more flexibility and time with his family (who live in California and Hawaii). It took me some time to track down someone who knew what happened. This was a sudden and unexpected loss, and very difficult to wrap our heads around. An active man full of joy, mischief and compassion, he was the one doctor who could always advocate for me, or help me tackle the tough issues in my position. I was so sad when he left, and just could not fathom this turn of events.

On Tuesday the 8th, we had an informal memorial at work to share our memories of him with his family and each other. That was extremely difficult, and touching, even though many stories got us laughing. On the 10th, during a severe winter snow storm (aka, blizzard), a few co-workers and I went to his funeral, in the middle of the work day.

On Saturday the 12th, we assembled at WPC for Peggy's funeral. She was a long-standing choir member, and so the family invited the choir to sing two pieces that Peggy had chosen. My sister, my father and I joined in for that, along with faces we hadn't seen (and voices we hadn't heard) for years and years who returned for this occasion. Peggy's funeral was amazing; in attendance and in stories told, and letters she'd written to her children read aloud.

Then for me, after briefly greeting the family (by cutting into the longest receiving line I'd ever seen at a funeral), I headed home to spend a little time with Maia, and getting ready for my company holiday party. Around 7, Ray got Maia to bed, and Emily came over to read, watch movies and listen for her cries, while Ray and Andrew went Christmas shopping! This was Emily's first time babysitting for Maia while we weren't here (although not the first time babysitting) and she rose to the challenge when Maia woke and wouldn't return to sleep by singing "Twinkle, twinkle little star" to her... which worked!

That evening, the third shoe dropped... I'm sorry to say that they always seem to come in threes The mother of my Aunt Dianne passed away. She was a resident of the senior living center to which Maia's daycare is attached, and was last in our home for Maia's birthday.

Mrs. Jolman was sharp and engaging, and I grew up calling her Grandma Jolman, not fully understanding that just because she was my cousin's grandmother, didn't mean she was mine, too. Her remaining family is spread about, with my cousins living in Lansing (well, that's not that far), and California, and my aunt and uncle living in North Carolina. That being the case, we offered a room (next to a noisy 16-month-old) to my cousins to help defray the expenses... and my cousin Tamara and her husband, Jason, stayed with us over this weekend. Unfortunately, we were hardly able to play good hosts, as there was a child to get to bed on time, and Ray had an overnight mainframe work assignment, which had him working from 2 am to 9 am on Saturday/Sunday morning, leaving him pretty much out of it on Sunday.

In between all of these events, there was Christmas shopping, errand running, cleaning, rearranging, Christmas gift making, and entire day of baking and lots of evenings of complete exhaustion! I think I'm fully ready for the year to be over, already!

My cookies are finished baking, and I still need to wrap presents for my co-workers and Maia's daycare teachers. I realize that this entry was not so much about our immediate family, but these losses were all pretty important to me, both for myself and for people I deeply care about. So it seemed right to share them.

Art O' The Month

White chalk on black paper This one is apparently old (7/09). Crayons on pink construction paper.

LOVE this one. A painted leaf.

Red tissue paper glued on construction paper.

Christmas Concert

Maia's first Christmas Concert (such as it was) at daycare this evening. Ray and I were there, along with my parents. The whole thing lasted about 10 minutes, and the longest part was getting all the kids in. The toddlers came in last, many of them in their buggy. Maia is in front with her friend Pete (remember this story about Pete?) In the back row of the buggy are her good friends Celia (with lots of hair) and Claire (with not so much). These three kids she has been with since the infant room.

Handing out the bells.

Jingle Bells.

Special features of this video? The gradual emptying of the buggy of toddlers. Pan right, then pan left and Celia is screaming her head off (Her mother is playing the piano). Pete and Claire are now ringing bells... but Maia? Not so much.

What this video is missing, however, is Maia saying "More, more, more?" and making her sign, about 30 seconds after the song is done.

Feliz Navidad

Featuring: Pete, still ringing his bells. This song being too high, and most of the kids NOT singing it. Maia realizing she has her own bells, but still not really using them.

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

Featuring: Claire clapping, Pete rocking back and forth, and Maia finally participating by doing a little foot stomping, clapping and ringing of her bells... but only after those activities are done! The person delivering the flowers is Carolyn, the center's director. She is presenting them to Andrea, the lead teacher in Maia's room (T1), and Aimee, who is Celia's mother. Aimee and I sing together in Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus.

Gender Predicting Fun

I found this post online (and took out some of the more personal physical ones). Thought I'd share with you where I am with this pregnancy (X) versus with Maia (M) It's a boy if...

• You didn't experience morning sickness in early pregnancy
• Your baby's heart rate is less than 140 beats per minute
• You are carrying the extra weight out front M
• Your belly looks like a basketball too soon to tell!
• You are carrying low too soon to tell!
• You are craving salty or sour foods
• You are craving protein: meats or cheese
• Your feet are colder than they were before pregnancy X although really, I'm generally cold with this one, outside of rare "power surges"
• The hair on your legs has grown faster during pregnancy M, X
• Your hands are very dry M, X
• Your pillow faces north when you sleep my pillow faces west
• Dad-to-be is gaining weight right along with you M
• Pregnancy has you looking better than ever
• Your nose is spreading
• You hang your wedding ring over your belly and it moves in circles.
• You are having headaches X - and LOTS of them! with Maia I didn't have any... the first time ever I can remember not having at least a headache a week since adolescence. In fact, from the time I got pregnant with Maia until I got pregnant this time, I didn't have a single headache. Now I get about 3 a week. Sigh.
• You add your age at the time of conception and the number for the month you conceived and the sum is an even number

So that's 4 for Maia, and 4 for June Bug.

It's a girl if...

• You had morning sickness early in pregnancy M, X
• Your baby's heart rate is at least 140 beats per minute M, X
• You are carrying the weight in your hips and rear X lovely
• Your hair develops red highlights I have these anyway.
• You are carrying high too soon to tell for this one, but with Maia it varied. Low in the beginning, high in the middle and very very low at the end!
• Your belly looks like a watermelon M
• You are craving sweets M, X sweets and starches for both, but that's also pretty typical for me. With Maia it was chocolate milk and bananas. With this one, it's Wendy's Frosties.
• You are craving fruit I haven't exactly had fruit cravings for either (except for the bananas), just a general preference for fruit over veggies. With Maia, I did have an abhorrence to vegetables. I had to choke them down.
• You crave orange juice I actually don't really care for orange juice, except on really rare occassions.
• You don't look quite as good as normal during pregnancy M, X I figure this for both of them, but am probably not the best judge. Not many of us feel that we look great when we're feeling large, bloated and nauseated!
• You are moodier than usual during pregnancy M, X
• Your face breaks out more than usual during pregnancy X at least more than I have while I was pregnant with, or nursing Maia. My skin was the best it had ever been while pregnant with Maia.
• You refuse to eat the heel of a loaf of bread I never care for the heel
• Your pillow faces south when you sleep
• You hang your wedding ring over your belly and it moves from side to side X to be fair, I never did this for Maia.
• You add the age at the time of conception and the number of the month you conceived and the sum is an odd number M, X That number is 43 for both (32+11, or 34+9)!

That's 7 for Maia and 9 for June Bug.

The Chinese Gender chart predicted girl for Maia, and girl for this June bug as well.

Snow!

The forecast was for 3-5 inches of accumulating snow overnight, the first snowfall of the season. Up until this weekend the previous month of November has ranged from the 40s to the 60s in temperature. I didn't figure it would probably accumulate that much, since the ground isn't anywhere near frozen.

Well, I was wrong. I think we were closer to eight inches by the time the morning came. Anyway. Glad it happened to coincide with a Friday morning, so Maia and I could go play outside together. So... first time in her snow pants, and first time actually playing in the snow.

Out the back door. Two steps forward and... FACE PLANT! The funny thing is she didn't really seem to mind all that much. She really struggled to walk in the snow, but did a pretty good job crawling around in it.

So she enjoyed her time in the "noh" and ate a bit of it, too. What was really funny for her was when I around in circle in the snow. Even funnier for her was when I picked her up and we ran around in circles together. Lots of giggles!

The Grandmas and the Grandpas

Maia's daycare is attached to a retirement community (nursing home, assisted living, and independent senior living), and the kids go to visit the residents of the community, who the staff refer to as "The Grandmas and the Grandpas." This is such a unique feature of her daycare, and I really feel strongly that the interaction is of benefit to both the kids and the seniors. Particularly that it is done often: several times a week. Each day when I pick Maia up, I get a "Daily Sheet" telling me about her day: food, nap, diaper changes, activities, etc. This one in particular I had to save. The details under the "Today I..." section: ... went to resident activity and read stories and sang songs to the grandmas and the grandpas. We also brought bubbles to play with! When we were leaving, one of the Grandmas said "Maia is my favorite because she is full of energy and I love watching her." We went to the circle drive before lunch and ran around and played a couple games in the grass. Maia looked at books on her own today and played with the farms and animals with her friends! Can I tell you how much I love this? Especially when paired with this quote from today's daily sheet: ... went to resident activity and we read books and played with bubbles with the Grandmas. Maia also gave hugs to the Grandmas before we left..." What a honey! I love how open and accepting she is (although that may come back to bite me later, and I worry about her future safety, because I'm a mom and that's my job). And I love that she enjoys being with older adults. And, really... she gets a good mix! Most of her daycare teachers are in the 20s and 30s. Ray and I are... well, not young parents. Then she has her own Nanas and Papas. And then her more senior "Grandmas and Grandpas." Look at all those generations. I guess I just feel really fortunate that she is getting these experiences.

OoOooo Christmas Tree!

Maia took a long morning nap today, something quite unusual for her. She generally naps for anywhere between 20 minutes and 2 hours at daycare, starting between 12:40 and 1:00 pm. Today, however, she went down about 10:30 am, after a while of general grumpiness and eye rubbing. I'm sure all those teeth coming in is not helping. So while she was sleeping, we decided to take the opportunity to put up the Christmas Tree. That also requires re-arranging the living room, so it was quite a surprise when Maia finally woke up to see our handiwork. So how did she respond? Well, sleepy and disoriented, she was carried into a room that looked completely different with some huge tree thingy in the middle of it, and she was curious, but really NOT sure about it. She was initially okay looking at it from the safety of daddy's arms, but she was NOT interested in leaving his arms to explore it for a good 15-20 minutes. She was, in fact, shaking a little. Poor thing.

Eventually, she started warming up to it, and we started hearing the "Ooooo Piddy!" and "Tee!" that we were hoping for. And spending sometime just looking, she consented to get a little closer and take a look.

Visiting Santa

I really wanted to head to Meijer Gardens to check out the holiday displays. It was a beautiful day, sunny and relatively warm for the season, so I thought it might even be a good day to walk outside and see the reindeer. So we piled in the car, and drove through the parking lot. It was jammed. So Ray decided we'd be better off heading to the mall and seeing Santa. So we did. When we arrived... we were next in line. I guess it was a good call. Maia did great, again. She seems to be fearless when it comes to strangely dressed adults. So we got the ridiculously overpriced package, and they were nice enough to let us take a couple of our own.

Okay, now how do you get this wrapper off?

Since she was all dressed up and still clean, we decided to get a few more pics of our own. This is her "sheeeeeeeze!" smile. After walking around a bit, Maia was eager to get out of the stroller (big surprise!) and so we stopped at the play area with the giant breakfast food so Maia could play with the 8,000 other children who were there today. When we were done, we tried another photo by a Christmas tree, but she was more interested in the tree than turning toward daddy. So when I tried to help, I got this... Big Mwahs! I love it! Later that afternoon, it was snack time. This is Maia with a mouth FULL of cheese. So full, she could hardly chew. And on Thanksgiving Day, Aunt Kathleen brought over some duplos that were no longer utilized in the Pool household. In that big box of duplos were some Winnie The Pooh duplo pieces. She knows nothing of most characters, she isn't terribly interested in sitting and watching TV or movies, so we rarely bother. As such, she did not know who Pooh was, and had to be told. Initially, she repeated the name correctly: "Pooooo!" and his "oney!" Later, however, she showed Aunt Kathleen and Grandma her toy, and announced his name: "POOP!" We appreciate a little potty humor from time to time, and could not contain our chuckles. I know I shouldn't perpetuate this mispronounciation... but so help me, I think it's hysterical.

And one last tidbit: Maia's canine teeth are coming in. They're poking through on the right side, and the left side is still lagging behind in both molars and canines. Her mouth is almost FULL!