Santa, Bears, Pink Scooter

Kaia's one wish for weeks (months?) has very precisely been for one Pink Scooter. Her greatest love/nemesis Nico wants for nothing but gum and a yellow firetruck. Here's not so rare footage of them sharing their "lists" and promptly having one of their romantic spats, the night before Christmas when all through the house...

No one was going to be cooking in the midst of such chaos, so after driving around and visiting houses with nice lights, we went Opa! and celebrated at the Greek restaurant with good baby food humus.

Then, before you know it, it's show time. Santa came to our house for the first time (as we are always away) and he ate the cookies and left candycanes along with a whole slew of gifts (as did all our generous relatives, thank you all!). We spent the whole day in our cozy PJs (care of Karen, aka Mimi) and Kaia licked through maybe 10 of those candycanes.

Great Skate

Dearest Diana, our fairy godmother, "taught" Kaia how to skate the other day in NYC's Bryant Park (a patch of grass park which has magically transformed for the season into a ice rink). If a three-year-old can skate, this is what it looks like:

The Turkey Crawl

Just when we had about given up, Addie finally made her move across our bed, Nov. 25, one year and one month old. The moments here after her bath time and before bed is usually her happiest time of day, so it's a fitting setting for her big event. (Now she's cruising a bit and I of course am in noooo hurry for these developments. Slow down!).

The Dance

Back before Addie crawled - yes, she finally crawls, as of the night before Thanksgiving, see next blog entry for that - there was the scoot. And all along, there's Kaia's Dance, which has flailing, pointing, rolling, and sometimes required family participation. Note those gorilla slippers on Jeff in action.

Turtles on a log

Labor Day weekend and we worked on the house of course (painting a surprise attic mural, cheeky subject matter to be revealed later). But we also took the time to walk around our beautiful Rockefeller Preserve, and try to get that baby butt moving into a crawl already. Here's Jeff imitating a log full of turtles:

Hurricane Who?

We holed up here during Irene and watched it rain and get a little windy and the river rise and rise, but we're very grateful to be on high ground. We only suffered a bit of cabin fever, when things like this are known to occur (not for the squeamish):

And then it was like the storm never happened. A perfect picnic along our waterfront park.

Will she or won't she?

We've spent the last few months encouraging Addie to crawl -- not sure why we would do this since her success will mean our house of three flights suddenly becomes house of 1,000 crashes. Since Addie practically lives on her red potty, she's turned this into her mode of transportation in the meantime, and she's scooting so well she's doing K-turns on the kitchen floor. Oh the suspense; any day now. And just to stir some sibling rivalry, last cmes the old footage Mimi dug up of Kaia's first crawl at 10 months in FL.

happy campers

In July we dared to camp in the Catskills for the first time with two kids. Who knew, when we have the fan going at home while we sleep, that Addie is so very loud in the night? The amenity we couldn't leave home without? Art supplies of course...

June jump splash laugh

Obviously overdue as always, but here are some more summer oldies of the ever-important laughing-baby variety, or a baby just tolerating the weird parents that strap her into this hanging contraption that turns her into a human puppet.

Rabid Addie?

Addie has a scream like no other -- human, that is. One day there was a stranded baby raccoon in our backyard and she sounded eerily familiar. The hair of our girls remains unmatched.

April in the Attic

As Addie approaches her half-birthday, she's all raspberries, smiles, squeaks, and chewing anything that comes near. April showers? No matter - we've got a nearly-finished attic now and every square inch is sacred to us in such a tiny house. Jeff's still working on it, but Addie's got a place to sleep, there's a big table for art projects, and carpet for Kaia to roll around on. Here are some quick peeks into this small, weird world at the top of our house, Addie happily perched in the midst.

kaia sings...and sings some more

What a gift it's been to have our daughter raised from the sick abyss she's been in. Here she is singing to kill time before Daddy comes home and then singing her way up to bedtime.

Long cold winter

What a long cold winter it's been and we've only begun. Everyone's in varying stages of sick, but we survived Christmas and a lot of terrible-two-ness (we'll spare you from those videos). Instead here are some happier times, here, there (TX), and freshly home from the hospital.

Starting with the most recent, today. Kaia adding color to an otherwise dreary day:

Christmas at Mimi's, an exploration of the fun places you can store a newborn:

Weeee. Ride'em Cowgirl! The squeaky old horse at Uncle Erik's house:

Beautiful Rockefeller State Park near our house in late autumn:

Adelie, three days old, and some French film for l'ambience: