Weekend with Bubbe / Atlanta

So, two weeks ago, I finally got my baby-free getaway with Miso. And Bubbe got a weekend with Natalie and Mike.

Here are some Bubbe-Natalie shots. (Above, Natalie doing her camera thing).

Natalie loves her Bubbe!
While Mike, Natalie, and Bubbe played together, I had a wonderful time in Atlanta. Miso and I were nominally there for Stitches South, a knitting convention. Mostly, we were there to see each other, having missed each other in early February. We did do plenty of knitting, though - and we each took a class at the convention (I may have finally mastered turning the heel on a sock, with some thanks to Miso for some follow-up teaching).

We also spent lots of time browsing the giant marketplace. I succumbed and bought some beautiful yarn to make a sweater for myself (also, when I finally finish the sweater, I pledge to look happier than the model in that link). Miso also won a skein of yarn, which she very generously gifted to me; I plan to make a gift hat with this yarn, just to keep the good mojo flowing.On the Miso-is-amazing front, check out the gloves she made me:I know, right? The most darling part of this is that the yarn comes from Seattle, and it is called Green Lake. Be still, my beating heart.

I'm a member of a knitting social networking site (I know, right? Luckily, if you actually know me, you'll know that nerdy pursuits are, um, to be expected). When I was expecting Natalie, I joined a group on the site for other women expecting babies in the summer of 2009. Since I'm a little socially isolated here, these women have quite literally become my support group. It helps that we all have children that are the same age. And it helps that through the magical technology of message boards, we can share our pictures/stories/rants/triumphs asynchronously. And it helps that they are truly kind, wise, and wonderful women. A handful of them live in Atlanta (if I'm right, the other regional concentration is Seattle. Sigh.). Anyway, we had a little Atlanta meet-up.
Since one cannot live by yarn alone, we also ate! First, the coffeeshop where Miso and I went every day:They just don't make 'em like that in Fort Worth, you know?

As some of you might know, Mike and I are big fans of the TV show Top Chef. A few seasons ago, a chef from Atlanta made it into the final round. Miso and I went to his restaurant, specializing in local and organic food. And it was good.

Our other exciting brush with dining fame was at Peter Chang's. The New Yorker readers among you may remember the article about the mysterious peripatetic Chinese chef - we actually ate his food!And it was good. And, in a moment of exceptional spouse-hood, I actually wrapped my leftovers in a zillion layers of ziplock bags, put them in my suitcase, and brought them back for Mike (the food was all vegetarian, and it was just from the same afternoon). No leaks!

Lest you think all we did was eat (and knit!), Marianne and I also took in a little history and visited the Jimmy Carter Presidential library. On the downside, this wasn't the MLK history tour I'd perhaps envisioned; on the plus side, at least we didn't visit one (of the multiple!?) Gone With the Wind museums.The grounds of the museum were also beautiful. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by how green and tree-y Atlanta was. I mean, there was also a fair amount of traffic and sprawl, but Atlanta also seemed green, urban, and eminently livable (especially in April!).However, at the end of the weekend, I was very happy to return to my crew:

"Regular" life (catch-up at 21 months)

So, we've had a little excitement in our lives (a visit from Bubbe Brenda, a solo trip for me to Atlanta to see Miso), but, rather than write about that, I want to just do a little catch-up post about Natalie and our lives. You know, since this has, effectively, become our digital baby book.So, Natalie remains sweet and wonderful and darling and we adore her. Before our trip to Hawaii, she started on a real streak of progressively earlier wake-ups. Upon returning from Hawaii, we tried to just shift her to, like, mountain time. So her new bedtime is an hour later than before, and she sleeps - on average - about 25 minutes later. So, um, yeah. At least we've learned to really appreciate those 25 minutes.When we go into pick her up, she always two things: immediately demands the other parent, and points to either the cat or the dog on her alphabet wall hanging and announces its name. Okay, occasionally, she also points to the zebra and calls that either kitty or doggy, but, well, at least we're in the quadraped universe.Although she doesn't yet know zebra, her animal vocabulary is improving. She can identify bears and bunnies (although context is key there, as those sound a lot alike). She knows and loves birds - and will even identify them upon just hearing their chirping. She knows cows and will moo if you ask her what cows say. Today I think I caught her saying "fish". She loves animals; I don't think she's really realized that people can actually have dogs or cats that live in their homes. The thought would, like, blow her mind.One super-cute thing she does when she sees something she likes is to wave "hi" (the wave is more like a sideways opening and closing of her hand [kept close to her stomach] than a sort of parade/greeting wave that others would describe as a wave), say "hi-eeeeee" to the object in question, and then lean in to kiss it, while making the "mmmmmm" sound. Adorable, no? Sometimes she'll kiss us, but this routine is usually reserved for, say, kitties in books or her favorite toys.

And what are her favorite toys? Well, tote bags, of course.And hats. The girl loves accessories.Also, we found a golf ball a few weeks back on a walk around the neighborhood. And then we found another. And then we found a sort of squishy, floaty ball in Hawaii. These are, literally, her favorite toys at the moment. We didn't take the golf balls to Hawaii (coals to Newcastle, anyone?), but the morning after our return, she found the golf ball in the living room and happily greeted it and waved to it.

I've been taking Natalie to an informal weekly stroller workout. Most of the time, she's awake and alert. Sometimes not. I have no clue what will happen come summer, but it's been pushing 95 degrees here some days, so I'm sensing that my stroller striding days may be taking a seasonal vacation.

Natalie's been eating more foods. Her use of the spoon and fork is sporadic, but we're getting there. In addition to all the new fruit she tried in Hawaii, she's been sampling dates, matzah, dried cherries, crackers, and, uh, other stuff we can't recall. This is all in addition to her new favorite food, cheese. In fact, she's been known to request a cheese course at the conclusion of each meal. We also think she's developing words for water ("wa") and milk ("melh").In the words department, a big word she's been using lately is her own name! She calls herself "Nani". In fact, today I took a picture of her, and then she rushed over to me and wanted to see the picture displayed on the screen on the back of the camera. When I showed it her, she pointed to the picture and said, "Nani, Nani." Too cute!

She hates having her hair washed. So much so that sometimes she'll even try to climb out of the tub. Unrelated to her bathing woes, though, she loves water. I picked up this water table at Costco, and I'm hoping that we'll get a lot of use out of it this summer! (We've since moved it outside, leaving the xylophone and yoga ball inside....).Since it's spring in Texas, it's also time for the annual bluebonnet pictures. Just to set to the stage, here's last year:And this year:
Although our part of Texas is rather devoid of scenic beauty, this is the one time of year when it's really very beautiful here - suddenly everything is green, and there are wildflowers everywhere.(full disclosure: the flower pics were actually taken a few weeks ago, but I didn't have a chance to get them up until now. Happy spring!)

Hi-eeeee

Or, Hawaii. You know.

So, yeah, we were there last week. And it was awesome. Even though we were mostly around Waikiki, which is an overbuilt, dodgy sort of paradise (especially at 4am, but that's another story); and even though the trip back was, to put it kindly, miserable (I have actually been having nightmares about it since then); and even though I like long, grammatically incorrect sentences, Hawaii was great. Really, really great.

We had a lovely time. Of course, the beach was nice. Of course, we enjoyed Grandma Pat's company (and Grandma Pat's evening babysitting services!). But I think Mike also had a very professionally satisfying time. For real. So, a win-win all around.

The flights? They were long. The outbound one was okay. I mean, there was a bad 40 minutes, and Natalie kept wanting to lie down (lie down!) in the aisle. But we made it. And people even smiled at us as we left. The return red-eye? Not so much. She. Would. Not. Sleep. In her car seat, in her seat, she was just mad. And screamy. Did I mention it was a red eye? So we both spent a long time rocking her and bouncing her in the galley at the back of the plane. At one point, when I finally believed she was asleep and I gingerly put her down, she woke up with a howl. And the man behind us cursed at me. He cursed at me! I generally have low expectations for people, but, I mean, come on, we are doing the best we can. Cut us a break, dude.

Okay. Enough. Back to the happiness. Here's our intrepid traveler upon arrival in our hotel room.We were staying withing walking distance of both the convention center (where Mike's conference was - do you know how many nerds with tote bags it takes to fill the Honolulu Convention Center for 4.5 days straight? A lot!) and the Hilton Kahanamoku lagoon. The lagoon is actually a public park and a great place for kids to swim - although since it is man-made, the sand isn't that soft, dreamy sand you'd imagine. No matter.

Here's the view from the lagoon, as seen from our room.And here's looking out toward the beach.We didn't go to the beach that first afternoon - we were simply too exhausted. And after a nice Thai meal, we all fell asleep. Until 3:30am. When Natalie woke up. Awesome! We'd heard about an all-night diner, so off we went. Of course, this was the one morning where it was closed until 5:30am. So we walked the streets of Waikiki in the dark. Perhaps, in retrospect, not the best idea. Anyway, a mediocre breakfast, a nice nap, a trip to the farmers market and the supermarket later, we were ready to hit the beach.We also believe in proper hydration.The next morning, thanks to our early Natalie-alarm, we were able to drive to the North Shore, have breakfast, watch the surfers, and return all before Mike's lunch meeting and afternoon panels.

Here are the waves at Sunset Beach. I have pictures without people in them, but they're actually not as good since there's no scale. These waves were huge! And there were both surfers and boogie boarders doing their thing.One night, Mike and I went out for a lovely fancy dinner while Grandma Pat stayed with Natalie.Here's some random cuteness from the hotel room.One day, Mike was gone most of the day, so we met him briefly for coffee.We saw old friends - lots of them, at various receptions and cocktail parties and dinners. It was lovely. Here's just a photo sampler, though.Regarding the above picture, our friend Danielle had us out to her house and cooked us a lovely dinner. Her kids are darling, her dog is sweet, and she is lovely as ever!

One morning, my mom and I took Natalie to the famous farmers market in Honolulu. It was crazy! There may have been more tourists than locals, thanks to several trollies dropping visitors off at the entrance (although the police were also there directing traffic, which does suggest a certain amount of locals/people with cars).Natalie fell asleep on the way back to the hotel, so we drove out around Diamond Head. How pretty is that?This is not the world's best picture, but it definitely captures a nice Natalie moment. Natalie is really, really interested in other people's food. We've given up eating in front of her if we don't intend to share. My mom learned this the hard way (luckily, she was okay to share!).One other afternoon, Mike had a few hours between panels, so we drove out to the Pali Lookout.We then stopped at a beach on that side of the island for a brief swim before heading back. Oddly, while at that beach, we ran into two other people from Mike's panel. Unlike all the other conference attendees we'd seen at the lookout, these people were not wearing their name badges.Here are a few shots from our last day, proof that we took Natalie to a park and tried to tire her out before the plane ride!Aloha!