l.a. livin'

i'm amending this post because i forgot what i was going to lead in with - violet's celebrity sightings! she met jon cryer at coffee. ("he-whoa witto baby," he said in a goofy voice.) she's seen sam rockwell walking his dog many times (and seen our dogs try to attack his dog many times). she was especially impressed (or was that me?) to see tobey maguire in the 'hood. "spiderman!" she screamed. (or was that me?)

she also had a big indirect brush with fame this week, when i was pumping her milk one room over from the guy who made a little series of movies about "the force." the door doesn't lock where i usually pump, so i blocked it with a chair. i kept looking over my shoulder to make sure he didn't walk in. can you imagine??

i forgot to mention that violet's six-month check-up had its (literal) ups and downs. the up: her length is above the 50th percentile! the down: her weight is into the 5th. to me, it looks like it's dropped off the chart, but when i said something about the "zero percentile," the ped laughed that there isn't a zero percentile. i guess that makes mathematical sense, but then why does the graph allow the plotted line to fall under its lower limit? i guess the good news is the doctor isn't worried. with these measurements, i fear that violet is already aspiring to the pages of us weekly, and i blame her l.a. lifestyle.



weekday mornings are still pretty frantic, which is ironic because the race comes to a grinding halt on the 101. i've been meaning to update, however, that violet's car fury waned awhile ago, although that first month of the daycare commute was pretty much the worst of my life. i can't say she loves being in her car seat, but she mostly tolerates it now, thanks to:

an ever growing rotation of toys. i'll pay any price for something that entertains her at length.



the muppets and wee sing cds. i won't lie, these are both getting pretty hard to take (apologies to my hensonite husband). (sample wee sing lyrics: "walking walking walking walking hop hop hop hop hop hop running running running running running running now let's stop now let's stop." yes, let's.) i think violet likes the broadway quality of the muppets and the kids voices of the wee sing, so i need some new options, stat. what's remarkable, however, is that although i've listened to these songs hundreds of times now, i still don't know a lot of the lyrics. there's no question that sleep deprivation really does inhibit the formation of new memory, probably for evolutionary reasons.

and last but not least:



forgive the sun in her face - i had to lift her shade to snap the pic once we parked. i actually prefer that she doesn't sleep in the car since it can mess up her "real" naps, but when she's done, she's done, even if i'm jingling something right in her face. the puddle of drool is more proof of our shared genetics.

in other news, stranger anxiety has been making a return, to the dismay of everyone who wants to hold violet. we loved visiting with nana and my godparents rich and sandy this past weekend, but violet unfortunately preferred them from the view of my (apparently bulging a.c. slater) arms (according to my husband). we managed to trick her with the floating head teddy to get this one:



nana was probably the most brokenhearted, but we used violet's rich-and-sandy present - an awesome old macdonald puppet - to get one more:



it's hard to imagine a more frustrating job than sears child portrait photographer.

but despite the little day-to-day annoyances, life is good. pretty much every conversation that kevin and i have is now interrupted with a non sequitur about how violet is the most awesome baby in the universe. and it certainly helps that she's happy to see me everyday when i pick her up.



obviously the feeling is mutual.

six months

if violet could talk, i'm sure she'd be excited to announce that she's now zero and a half years old.

the first time i left violet alone with kevin was when she was three weeks old. i ran over to the studio city farmer's market on a sunday to buy fruit. it was the strangest sensation, being away from her, and as i was waiting to pay for a basket of strawberries, i couldn't help but ask the woman standing next to me about her baby, a 14-month-old girl slung up in a bjorn. when i explained i'd just had violet, the mother had all sorts of advice to offer. she kept repeating how hard it is in the beginning and then concluded, "i'd say it got better for me, more fun, right around six months." i remember feeling on the verge of a panic attack. six months. that was an eternity at that point. but now, here we are, over the crest and on the downward slide to violet's first birthday, and already i just can't understand where the time has gone.

without further adieu, i give you this morning's photo shoot. things started off grumpy. like, mom, more pictures? this really isn't like you!



then, alright, ONE smile.



and i'm out!

from irish car bombs...

...to diaper bombs. how st. patrick's day has changed for kevin!



violet was certainly in the spirit as if she'd had one too many:



or two too many:



or three:



over the legal limit!



thanks to grandma linden for all the st. patty's day gear!

in other news, we finally found a hit with sweet potatoes, and violet has been pounding them all week. sitting in an actual seat for a meal is not a hit, so i don some raggedy clothes and hold her over the counter while we rotate through two or three spoons. poor kevin has had to work late all week, but maybe it's for the best since the sweet potato massacre is hard on his neat freak ways:

a visit from g-ma

violet was a happy baby all week with grandma in town from washington dc. they hit it off immediately, and violet was extremely impressed with all of grandma's bling. the gold bracelet was the first item in the mouth, and after that, violet tested grandma's boundaries and began chewing on the beautiful gold cross that grandma wears around her neck. "i wouldn't let just anyone do that, you know," grandma said.

nana and cousin kristy were able to join us for a jaunt to violet's favorite los angeles destination, the grove. kevin endured the day of lady talk. to show his solidarity, he went shoe shopping while the girls hit the nordstrom ladies lounge so that violet could eat. it also wasn't kevin's first visit to the american girl store, nor will it be his last. if he wanted to punch any toddlers in tiaras and their stage moms, he suppressed the urge well.



given how many workdays i've missed lately, i couldn't ditch out, but i was lucky that g-ma wanted to visit the office. kevin got to meet all of violet's new teachers. violet's attempt to chomp on my boss's collector's edition grover doll was thwarted. it was a good day.



but mostly we spent the week just hanging around the house and enjoying the warm weather. violet was sad to see g-ma go but looks forward to seeing her again soon.



and of course the other babies miss her too.

farewell first daycare

first of all, batgirl is feeling better. there's still a runny nose going on, but i gather that's the daycare life for you. if violet's immune system is "immature," mine must be downright frat boy. i've been coughing for over two weeks! like up from 3-4am keeping everyone awake coughing. kevin gently pushed the neti pot on me a few days ago, and now that i've got the technique down (and no longer feel like i'm drowning in the ocean), i'm a convert. and finally getting well i think. jinx, right?

so i cried when we said goodbye to violet's first daycare. the older "helpers" who don't speak english suddenly realized that violet was leaving and just erupted with "noooo angelita! no se va!" they grabbed her and showered her with kisses. it was so cute, and even though violet was fried because her morning nap had been sidelined, she had smiles and hugs for them, especially her primary care teacher marlene.







i also cried when kevin and i opened our first gift from violet - her photo in a hand-painted heart-shaped frame, along with a ceramic footprint. they had photos up of the gift-making.





with kevin's mom in town, we were flipping through our wedding "album" (aka stack of loose photos), and kevin's mom complimented one where i'm looking misty. "i was crying," i confirmed. "you do that a lot, don't you?" his mom laughed. i've never thought of myself as a big crier, but apparently i am! look at all of these references to my waterworks lately! am i one of those sentimentals now? (those people who actually put photos in albums?)

i was reading an article recently about what parents do with the proliferation of artwork and "artwork" they get from their kids. the softies save everything despite the fire hazard, the middle roaders covertly throw away all but the special items, and the tough lovers tell their kids that half-assed work doesn't belong on the fridge. i wonder where kevin and i - both haters of clutter - will fall. i do imagine that after we're dead, violet will dig this little ceramic footprint out of a box. hopefully she won't be annoyed with us for it.

we live

there's surely a more eloquent way to put it: a baby getting sick SUCKS. it's just so heartbreaking, listening to her cough, trying to suction snot out of her nose, watching her be miserable and exhausted with no way to communicate about it other than crying or lethargically slumping against our shoulders, tired eyelids fluttering. lethargic is really not violet's style.

the cough started the saturday of president's day weekend, and by sunday night, we realized her fever was almost 101 and called the ped, who wanted to see her first thing monday morning and diagnosed bronchitis with a 10-day 3x/day regimen of antibiotics, i.e. a dropper of goopy pink liquid squirted down her screaming throat.

then i got sick, fever for three days before i finally went to bed when she did at 7:45pm this past saturday night and woke up in the broken-fever lake of sweat.

all this while trying to navigate her transition from her old daycare to her new one, where she officially started (with a half day) yesterday. she was weeping and reaching for me as i left, despite the five mandatory visits we'd completed. then fifteen minutes into her first nap there, a fire drill commenced, and she had to wake up as she was wheeled out to the parking lot in the evacuation crib with several other babies. she was a champ, according to the teachers, who say she had a "good" first day. i think that translates to "okay" (and that "okay" translates to "bad"), so i'm feeling better today, my first real day back at work in over a week, although i'm abridging it. having learned my lesson after handing her directly to her primary care teacher yesterday (hand-off = meltdown), today i put her on the floor and played awhile before i left. another baby her same age was whimpering on her back, and violet responded by immediately rolling over, army "crawling" a few inches, grabbing the baby's foot, and putting it in her mouth. we'll need a few lessons in how to make friends.

in other news, just before she got sick, violet started solids! she's had brown rice cereal and bananas so far, but it's all pretty much a dismal failure at this point. "get that medicine dropper the f away" has become "get that spoon the f away." but we got some cute pics, and that's what matters, right?







violet also enjoyed some sunday reading with daddy.





i'm sure it's not helping her weight gain issues that the big headline was SHRINK YOUR BELLY! although she seems much more interested in SIZZLING SEX MOVES - FOR YOU & HIM!



and apparently befuddled by SLEEP TIGHT EVERY NIGHT!