Monday Morning Mia

It's a quiet morning here at Casa BabyStoneJohnson. Mia is sound asleep, Walter is cashed out in his blue chair, and the only sound is the quiet hum of the dishwasher. We had a busy weekend, so it's nice to have an hour of silence before starting our day anew.

Our condo is on the market, at long last. We had our first open house yesterday, and it was even better attended than we could have hoped. Our realtor assured us that many of the prospective buyers seemed really interested, so all of our digits are crossed. Yesterday was a gorgeous, sunny, warmish winter day, and the happy home buyers were out in droves, we hear.

Mia is completely healed from her ear infection, although it seems I have developed one myself. I cannot remember the last time I had an ear infection, and if Mia's hurt half as bad as mine does, she is one tough little trooper.

We had a near perfect weekend here in Boston. Saturday I took the morning off and made some headway on my dissertation. The pieces are finally falling into place. I have all of the data, all of the software and all of the hardware I need to begin to analyze my datasets. We have a babysitter starting Friday who seems to be a truly lovely woman. We'll be moving into our new house soon that has an office on a different floor from the rest of the hubub, so I'll be able to sneak downstairs and work. Things are looking up.

After I worked on Saturday, Ben, Mia and I went shopping for countertops for our new house. We decided on the style and material we liked, and now just have to decide if we truly NEED counters or if we can make do with what's currently there.

After shopping, we took Mia to brunch. She smiled and laughed at the waiter, and dazzled the rest of the customers with her hilarious laugh. Speaking of restaurants, Mia has suddenly turned into a champion eater. Before, she would refuse just about anything anyone put in front of her. Now, she'll at least try a bite of almost everything. We had Japanese food on Friday, and she ate miso soup, fish, rice, and chicken. At brunch she ate toast, egg, ham, salmon, bagel, canteloupe and honeydew, and grapes. I gave her a bottle of cow's milk, too, to see if she liked it, and she powered it down. It looks like she was just a bit of a late bloomer in terms of eating.

We went to Trader Joe's on Saturday evening and Mia got to ride in the front of the cart, which is her new favorite thing to do. She smiles at everyone, and loves to look around and see all of the food products. Saturday night she slept through the night--7 pm until 6 am.

She really has become a different person now. She is truly more of a toddler than a baby. She has become more active instead of passive. When she wants a book, she points to it and says "dat" or even goes over to her bookshelf, if we're in her room, pulls a book of the shelf, and brings it over to be read. She chases Walter all around the house, cracking herself up if he gives her a kiss or nuzzles her stomach. It's an amazing change that seems to practically have happened overnight, although of course that's not possible. Part of me wishes she would stay this age forever, yet at the same time I can't wait to see who she becomes.

Tough Choices

For the next year or so, our beautiful daughter will be stuck between the clean simple lines of a bald head that everybody can appreciate:



and the long hair that we'll be taking chewing gum out of in no time.

It's that transition stage that poses some interesting problems. We're looking at a budding Mullet today, thin on top, but billowy in the back.



Does a responsible parent trim it and hope that it all grows back evenly? Should we just be thankful for the hair that she has and not mess with nature?

Should we invest in the Flowbee sooner rather than later?

Monday Morning Mia

Rough weather around here...Mia has her very first ear infection. She's on antibiotics which, while curing the ear infection, are upsetting her little tummy. Her way of coping with illness has been to sleep all day, luckily. When she's awake, though, she just doesn't feel well and it's hard for us to see her so uncomfortable. Both Ben and I have had our share of ear infections and we know just how painful they can be. She's not eating or drinking much, and giving her medicine has become a bit of a struggle. This morning she appeard to be on the mend, so here's hoping she'll be her typical happy self shortly.

No news in the house front...we are still waiting to hear if the sellers will accept our requests. Hopefully we will hear today and can begin the celebrating. Once we have a signed purchase and sale agreement, perhaps we can put a few pics online for you to see.

Other than that, winter has finally arrived here in New England. No snow, but colder weather. It's actually reassuring--60 degree weather in January was a little frightening.

Hope you all are well!

Tiny Dancer

As promised, here's our dancing queen. This song is going to quickly become annoying, but if this is what it takes for her to break it down, well we're stuck with it.

Tiny Dancer

We're having technical difficulties with blogger, so I apologize if this video appears three times. Eitherway, in all its glory, our dancing queen:

Monday Evening Mia

Sorry to be so delinquent in posting. We've been very busy around here. Since last you read, we have found a new house in our neighborhood and put an offer on it. Things are still very much in the works, but if all goes well we will be the proud owners of a little pink house with a guest room for visitors. So please keep your fingers crossed! More information will follow if everything goes well.

Mia continues to astound us. After taking those few steps, she has ceased all walking. Her crawling has quickened, though, and she's very able to get just about anywhere quite quickly. Outlets are a huge draw, as is the edge of the bed if she's lying on it.

She has also become quite the little dancer. Video would be better, but maybe this picture will give you some idea her latest dance moves.





She is talking up a storm. She knows "cat" and "dog" and "baby" and probably some other words, but those are the most consistent. She can point to Walter or a picture of him if you ask her where the dog is. In one of her picture books, she points to the pictures of babies. She is eating a little better these days--she likes cheese and watermelon now. Hopefully some day she will like vegetables, but we're grateful for anything now. She also enjoyed banana bread at a brunch we went to last weekend. We might have to start sneaking in zucchini and carrots into muffins to get her to eat her veggies.

It's incredible that in less than five weeks Mia will be a year old. She is such an amazing little person now, with a devious personality, a crooked little smile, and the bluest eyes you've ever seen. I don't think either Ben or I could have dreamed we'd ever have such a great kid.

Peanut Butter Jelly Time

We have no new videos of Mia to post, despite rumors that she now dances on occassion, and we have two confirmed sightings of her taking an unassisted step.

So untill we get more footage, you're left with the baby song I sing to Mia when we're eating that is most guarenteed to annoy my wife. (she'll kill me when she sees that I posted this)

=)

Woo hoo!

Don't have photo evidence yet, but Mia took her first steps yesterday. Well, to be accurate, she took one step two times. We'll see if she does it again today and try to capture it on video.

New Years Resolutions

For the most part I couldn't resist posting this picture of Mia's new reading chair



It once belonged to my father and aunt, when they too were a touch smaller. She'll have to grow into it, but who else has a bright naugahyde yellow chair?

So onto the resolutions. Beyond the yearly feeble attempts to get in shape (again), watch less TV (again), and keep the house cleaner (oh, who are we kidding?), we added an interesting wrinkle, no buying books, at least through June. Seems we both have a tendency towards aspirational purchases, buying 3 books for every one read. The upside is, we've got massive, truly massive reading lists that have until now been untamed. So this year, we're going to try to make a dent, and if we save a buck or two each month, all the better. Wish us luck.



Of course we might just overcompensate by getting Mia her own library.

Monday Morning Mia

Happy New Year to you all.
May your year be merry and bright.