smoosh

This past Saturday we celebrated Ally's first birthday with family and friends. Much to our surprise she wore her special cake hat for much of the party-- perhaps because she was distracted by all the interesting people!

Opening presents

Hearing "Happy Birthday" for the first time

And having her first piece of cake, of course. She seemed to eat about half the piece with considerable seriousness.

TODASTWD

Yesterday was Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, which passed with minimal mention in my office. One of my coworkers who has elementary-school aged children brought his son to the office, who read quietly most of the day (call me impressed!). My agency did not have a big celebration (by comparison, check out the schedule at the University of Toronoto), so to be honest if it wasn't for my coworker (and the On Balance blog) I would not have known that the day had passed.

It's fantastic that some large institutions are able to offer activities for "TODASTWS" because trying to work and watch a child at the same time is... well... the kind of thing you only think is possible before you have a child.

solid gold!

About a week ago Ally started bouncing up and down and doing something that could only be called "head banging" to music. We caught it on video this past weekend.

lonely

This past week I spent my first nights away from my family since Allison's birth while traveling to a workshop in Phoenix, Arizona. As you can see, Ally missed me bunches. Or at least I like to think so, since I missed her and Rob a lot. I felt my distance from them most keenly on Thursday night as I waited to board a red-eye scheduled to bring me home at 6 AM Friday. I had imagined walking through the door right around when Ally woke and cuddling my sweet, still-sleepy baby. But mechanical difficulties intervened, my flight was canceled, and the prospect of not returning home made me break into tears in the middle of the US Air terminal. When I finally returned home on a different flight around 3 PM Friday, it took Ally a moment to recognize me with my "I haven't had a shower for 36 hours" ponytail. She felt heavier in my arms than I remembered (must be all the macaroni & cheese). After a few minutes she warmed up to me again and all was well.

warm fuzzies

This past weekend we advertised a bunch of stuff on Craig's List to begin emptying our storage room of items we no longer need-- one of many steps to take before putting our house on the market in a few weeks. We've only advertised one item on Craig's List in the past so we weren't sure what to expect... so on Saturday morning we advertised a filing cabinet, bookcase, our manual push lawn mower, some old speakers, and a (free) artificial Christmas tree. Within 30 minutes my e-mail inbox had the first inquiries and the selling began! The filing cabinet went to a nice man buying it for his college-age son. The push mower went to a guy who likes to play soccer at a local field that is rarely mowed, and he thought the push mower would do a great job clearing the goal area for him to play. The speakers left our home by Saturday evening. But the best story of all was that our Christmas tree went to a woman who works at a summer camp for deaf high-school students where the theme this year is "Christmas in July." So we're $100 richer, everything has sold, and we're feeling generally good about the world.

hello? why, it's for you!

Easter passed last Sunday with minimal fanfare as I was sick, but it was nice to spend the day at home and Ally enjoyed her first Easter basket. We packed it with a few eggs (we just have three, Anne!), a book, and a toy phone since Ally's very amused by the phone these days. The phone has a feature where you can record your voice and it will play back when one of the phone buttons is pressed. Rob has been recording all sorts of messages on it this week in the morning, so when I return home from work I never know what it will say, but Ally always finds his messages very funny.

baggage

Every day I go to the office, I carry on the commuter train and metro system a back pack with a book, my lunch, and other stuff and a tote bag with my pump. Because I am traveling for work next week, I also brought home with me a laptop (bag # 3). When I pick up Ally, we add bag # 4. So you can imagine the amusing juggling that occurs when I get out of the car in the afternoon and try to carry Ally and all of these bags into the house. Sometimes I will take two trips, but now that she is crawling if I leave her and go out the front door, she makes a dash for the front door and for the step down into our foyer that we can't figure out how to gate. Not safe! Bad Mommy! So I try to juggle. I can imagine the people across the street looking out their windows and thinking, "Ha ha! There goes that silly working mom again."

baby kisses

I think one of the cutest new behaviors we have seen that has accompanied crawling is that Ally crawls into our laps and gives us hugs and sloppy kisses.

e material

We really cracked up over a recent post by our friends about running out of things to do with their son by the end of the day. This afternoon has been a challenge because I'm nursing a cold and Rob had to meet with his group for what we hope is the last group project of his academic career. Left feeling pretty under the weather with a baby to entertain, I set as my goal simply making sure she didn't hurt herself and let her do the things I would usually prevent. One item with which Ally has been fascinated for weeks are Rob's Simpsons DVDs. Overlooking other movies on our shelves, she pulls these out and fiddles with a piece of paper attached to the back of the boxes with information about the DVD. In the past when she has grabbed them, I have carefully removed the DVD from her (very strong) grip and offered another choice. Today I gave up.

I feel a little bad about the DVD paper, which Ally quickly ripped off, but she played with it for almost 30 minutes!!! No kidding! So.

milestones

This week Ally reached two milestones: she clapped her hands and she stood in her crib.

So this weekend we'll lower the crib mattress to its lowest setting.

clapping

Ally learned to clap her hands this week!

11 months

Today Allison is 11 months old-- an extraordinary milestone on its own but more impressive when we realize that in a month she will be one year old. Wowzers. How did two young groovy hipsters like us wind up with a one-year-old?

splash

No April Fool's here... today we signed a house contract. !!! Still a bit shell-shocked by cozy phrases like "if you are unable to obtain financing we reserve the right to liquidate all of your assets," we are happy, anxious, and scared to report that we will be moving at some point between November and January to a home that will look roughly like this (sans trees, of course):

Of course our home builder reserves the right to completely change absolutely everything they wish without prior approval and our home hasn't sold yet. So, if you're in the market for a townhouse, let us know before we sign a realtor contract and we'll cut you a big break!

Rob marks our territory:

We laugh in the face of lifelong debt!