Friday, July 31, 2009

Standing Tall

Naomi is able to stand on her own, without any support, for a whole 30 seconds. It’s the cutest thing to watch her practice this new skill. She pulls or pushes herself up into a standing position off of whatever is near her to support herself (usually me, or whoever is sitting near her) bends a little at the knee, steadies herself in anticipation, then slowly lets go and raises her hands out, half in an act of balancing herself, and half in an act of showmanship to say. She gets a look of concentration on her face while she’s doing this, then once she knows she’s doing it and standing on her own, she bursts into the biggest grin and looks around to make sure everyone is checking her out. As soon as she plops down onto her butt, she looks around at everyone again and starts clapping, making sure she gets the round of applause that she is due. Naturally I haven’t gotten a good picture of this process since it all happens so fast, and since Naomi tends to clam up when she knows the camera is on. But hopefully I’ll catch her in action this weekend!

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Day Care

It's official. Naomi is now enrolled in daycare starting Sept 8th. I know it'll be good for her from a developmental/socialization aspect, but part of me is sad that she'll be spending the entire day out of the house. I think the hardest part will be when my mom leaves to travel overseas, Austin and I will have to figure out how to take care of ourselves! We've been so blessed (some may say spoilt) over the past year!

Drama Queen

Yes indeed, Naomi takes after her mama and likes being the center of attention. She clearly has a flair for the dramatics – her most recent antic, purposefully bumping her head on furniture, then screaming bloody murder, all for attentions sake. I’ve watched her look around to make sure someone is watching, slowly approach a table, or a chair leg, or anything she can bump into, SLOWLY lower her head and tap the furniture, and then BURST into tears, screaming at the same time. I take partial blame because I did make a big deal of the action the first time I saw it, laughing out loud and pointing it out to anyone in the room. Now she does it so often, and we’re trying hard to pretend like we don’t notice her when she does it. Hopefully she’ll grow out of this phase soon, cause sometimes she does hit her head a little harder than she intended to. She ends up with red marks all over her forehead. Lets just hope she doesn’t kill any of those brain cells!

Thursday, July 23, 2009

A milestone of my own

Today is going to be the first day where I won’t get to see Naomi awake. Since she’s always asleep when I leave for work, I’m always excited to see her for a few hours after work before we put her to bed, and desperately try not to schedule anything after work in order to avoid conflicting with this precious time. Tonight though, I’m going to join some college friends for dinner in Manhattan, and probably wont get home until well after she’s asleep. I’m sure I’ll have a great time, and hey, maybe I’ll even feel a little liberated at having a break from my nightly mommy-duties, but right now I’m just missing my little girl. Thankfully I’ll make up for missing her tomorrow since I’ll be working from home in the morning, and in the afternoon we’ll be driving out to DC to visit Austin’s grandmother for the weekend. After a 4 hour drive down to DC, I’m sure I’ll wish I was still having dinner and drinks with my girlfriends!

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Something new everyday

After a couple of weeks of trying, Naomi decided she'd drink all her milk out of a sippy cup today!! I normally give her a little milk in a sippy cup every once in awhile. She usually picks it up, takes a swig, and then throws her cup on the floor as if to say, "Milk only comes in bottles!!" Tonight we decided to give it ago before bedtime. She happily chugged the whole 8oz down in under 10 minutes. Definitely a big accomplishment for her!! Austin's going to try in the morning, and hopefully we'll be able to put all of our bottles away in no time!

Daddy's Girl

As Naomi grows, some days I swear I'm looking at an old photo of myself, my mini-me. Some days she looks just like Austin. More and more I see more of Austin in her. Maybe it's the clueless "Huh?" look that they both have mastered....

Monday, July 20, 2009

Flower power


I love putting headbands on Naomi. This is her first big girl headband courtesy of a long, successful day of shopping at the outlet mall at Woodbury Commons.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Thirteen Months


Naomi turned 13 months today. It's amazing how much she's changed in just one month of being a toddler. Most noticeable of her changes is in her willingness to be away from Austin and I. She has very little stranger anxiety these days; she'll wave "hi" to everyone, whether we're at church, the grocery store, a restaurant, or even in a parking lot. Last night she waved bye bye to a random car full of people pulling out of the lot at Red Robin. They all laughed and happily waved back.
It's so fun to watch her open up to our friends and family. On a complete opposite end of the spectrum, she's developing a case of shyness. While she'll happily go to friends and family that she's met before, and she'll happily wave to strangers from a distance, if someone new approaches her too quickly, she quickly turns back to Austin or I and tucks her head into our shoulders or looks away. She'll almost always warm up though especially when the so called new person has treats to offer her.
This month she's also started getting stronger and can pull herself to a standing position like a pro. Just within the last couple of weeks she's started cruising and can pull herself along any piece of furniture (windows or walls too) that she has access too. I'm almost certain that before we know it she'll be walking.
Another major changes is her babbling. From the moment she wakes up she's babbling, laughing, chatting to herself and to her dolls. When she sees anyone on the phone, she HAS to be allowed to join in on the conversation. While it is soo fun to be able to call her from work and have a "conversation" with her, I do worry that she's starting to gain some bad habits, because if she's not given the phone fairly early on in the conversation, an immediate whine fest ensues.
Which leads me to the last of her major developments in this first month of her first year....her tantrums. She can go from a happy, fun, laughing baby, into a screaming, crying, toy flinging, nightmare of a baby in point 1 second flat. Right now my aim for discipline is really just distraction, try to get her focused on something else. it's hard because, how exactly do you reason with a one year old? But if these tantrums are any sort of predictor for future events in toddler-hood...Austin and I could be in for a ride..and not a fun one.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Summer evenings

I love this time of year. It's warm out. No bulky coats, no itchy sweaters, no SOCKS. I hate socks. We recently had our backyard patio done and bought a patio table. We had originally rushed to get this all done for Naomi's birthday party, but as luck would have it, it stormed on her birthday party day, so we didn't get to enjoy it. However, now that the rain has finally cleared up and the weather has been beautiful at night, we've been eating dinner and breakfast outdoors more and more. There's something about eating outdoors, breathing fresh air, feeling the sun on your skin, that just makes me happy. After 12 hours in the office, it's just relaxing to have dinner outdoors with my family. Naomi seems to like it too. She's always much happier outdoors. And it's not as big a deal when she throws her food on the floor either (a daily event now). Although it means lilo and stitch miss out on their treats for that meal.

From Naomi 12 months

From Naomi 12 months

From Naomi 12 months

From Naomi 12 months

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Our social butterfly

This past weekend we went up to Hartford, CT to partake in Austin's aunt and uncle's 25th wedding annivesary. We had a great time seeing Naomi's great grandma and grandpa, auntie stacey and grandma wei. Naomi has definitely gotten over any stranger anxiety that she may have had. With the exception of her Uncle Patrick (who tormented her by stealing the chocolate bars she was playing with), Naomi spent the majority of the party socializing, reaching out to anyone and everyone who was willing to hold her. She also pointed at food all afternoon long and was fed all day long. The girl may be little, but she can eat. Everyone at the party left probably thinking we dont' feed her enough, because anytime food was in sight, she was begging for more! It was fun seeing Naomi interact with new faces, her personality is really starting to show. She especially loved seeing other children and would eagerly chase after some of the older toddlers, and wave frantically at them from across the room. This gives me hope that daycare will be a lot easier when she finally does go full time. By the time we left, it was much later than we had anticipated, and I was actually hopeful that Naomi would fall asleep in the car since we were out past her bedtime. Unfortunatley, she decided she had to balance out her good behaviour at the party with craziness in the car. she proceeded to scream at me for the full 2.5 hrs that it took to get home. She pulled a jeckyll and hyde on us. We left connecticut with a completely different baby in our car, man did she have everyone at the party fooled into thinking she was such a good kid!! jk she is a great kid, just doesn't like car rides.
From Naomi 12 months

From Naomi 12 months

From Naomi 12 months

From Naomi 12 months

From Naomi 12 months

From Naomi 12 months

From Naomi 12 months

From Naomi 12 months

Walking...well not quite

Naomi has been cruising across all surface areas, she even scales our walls. This I propped her up on her push toy to see if she got the idea of walking..it took a couple of tries, but she's getting the hang of it!



Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Waiting


This is the site Austin was greeted to when he went in to get Naomi this morning. Good thing we lowered that crib mattress months and months ago!

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Mullet be gone

Naomi's mullet finally grew to a point where I had to take action. On Friday night, she had her first haircut. We turned on the tv which served as incredible distraction while I snipped the back portion of her hair. Definitely not a professional job, but at least she's no longer rockin the mullet!

Here's a before and after photo:

Before:


After (excuse the puffy eyes, she had just woken up after a rough nap):

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Gone too soon

One of my favorite Michael Jackson songs is "Gone too soon" off of his Dangerous album. It's quickly become a more popular song given his sudden death. Call me crazy, but I'm torn up over his death. I've always been a Michael Jackson fan from when i was a little kid. His infamous postponed concert at Singapore's National Stadium was the first concert that I ever attended. I've been hooked on his music, videos, dancing, singing, and ever bizarre life ever since. I'm sad to think that Naomi could grow up not knowing of this great legend, not only of his songs, but of how he opened up doors and changed the landscape of music and performance. Thankfully, as a kid I liked to spend all of my allowance on CDs, so I have most of of the Michael Jackson collection, so in the past couple of days, probably like the rest of the world, I've been playing old Michael Jackson songs and introducing Naomi to the King of Pop. I've gotta say. So far, it seems like she's a fan. Check out her moves....

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Happy Fourth of July



We had a nice 4th of July weekend. On Friday, we spent most of the day at home while I rested up getting over a stomach bug. It was nice to stay at home with nothing to do after weeks of running around. On Saturday, Gene, Jaime and Alli came over for a bbq and playdate. It's fun to watch Alli and Naomi interact as they get older. Each playdate, they interact more and more with each other. While they've started playing with each other, they've also started fighting over toys. How do you teach a 1 yr old to share their toys though!?
In the afternoon Chris came over and we went to our town 4th of July celebration. It was a small fair, but it was still fun nontheless. We had applegate farms icecream, and Naomi got her first pinwheel and balloon animal. It was supposed to be a bug...but some could argue it was a pig with antlers. We figured we'd try and watch the fireworks from our backyard since we were so close to the town fair, but all the big trees blocked most of the view. Next year when Naomi is older we'll definitely stay out to catch the fireworks. I have to say we were really impressed with what we saw/heard though. For a little town, we had a pretty amazing firework display!
Today we went to church, and Naomi had a great time in the nursery. She doesn't even cry when I leave her anymore! She loves the nursery staff, and really enjoys watching all the other kids in the class. But I know she still misses us cause whenever service is over and I go to pick her up, she throws her arms up in the air, smiles and starts screaming with glee as she races towards me. I get such a kick out of picking her up. Hopefully she'll be this excited to see me when we start dropping her off at daycare.
After a nice family nap, we went to the mall where everyone got a little treat. For dinner we went to Bonefish grill for some yummy seafood. Naomi got to play with crayons for the first time. She tried to eat the green and red crayon a couple of times...but for the most part, I think she understood that you were supposed to draw with them.
It was a good long weekend. I always feel sad on Sunday evenings, and long weekends always make it even harder. I'm already looking forward to next weekend!

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Ithaca

Last weekend we went up to Ithaca for Joe and Jess' wedding. We hadn't been back since 2004, and boy were things different! It was a little sad to see how many new buildlings were on campus, most of which looked nothing like the traditional architecture that gave Cornell it's character. It was even sadder to see that Ithaca finally caved and allowed chain stores to open up in Collegetown. There was a STARBUCKs in collegetown.
We had a great time meeting up with old college buds. Naomi got to finally meet Caleb, Emily, Nicolas, and catch up with Josiah. There was lots of eating, lots of play time for the kiddies and a lot of good ol fun. The weekend passed too quickly to say the least. It was such a different experience being back at school with a baby in tow! Even though she had no idea where we were, it was fun to point sites out to Naomi, "see Naomi, this is where daddy stalked mommy" haha.
Hanging out with old friends made me wish we lived closer to everyone. It'd be so fun to have regular playdates.