My baby is one!
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| From for Geneveve's printed album |
How is it possible my baby is a year already? I know people say it goes fast, so I constantly remind myself to soak up this babyhood. It’s amazing how much happens in the first year of life. This little creature was once the size of a lentil. Then would do rockettes impressions in my belly. Then was this scrunched nosed, bobble-headed creature who only smiled in her sleep. Then she started smiling, laughing, crawling, walking and doing headstands. Now she wants to walk while holding my hand which melts my heart and I want to cry. I adore this child so much.
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| From for Geneveve's printed album |
Geneveve is becoming quite the comedian. Lately she likes to get into downward dog pose and get us to help her into a headstand. She also likes to climb into chairs and lean back like she’s lounging. She likes to displace Ubu and climb into her bed and bounce around. She loves to empty Ubu’s water bowl and carry it around the kitchen. She discovered the dog door months ago and has only climbed through it twice. I thought it would be more of a hazard, but she’s happy to splash in ubu’s water. She loves water and tolerates having her head wet (finally). She now tries to run in the shallow end at the pool and squeals with her arms overhead. Fearless. She loves kids, especially older ones who can do all sort of fascinating things, like jumping. She is social and friendly. I have never felt so introverted in my life.
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| From for Geneveve's printed album |
Her first word a few weeks ago was “Hi,” which she learned quickly while hiking at Glacier Park. By the end of the day she was saying hi to everyone she could see, even if they didn’t see her. She says mama and dada and daudie (doggie) but Hi is the very clear word spoken with intention (and an expected reply). Doing baby sign language was definitely worth the effort of feeling silly for a few months with no response. It’s amazing to have her tell me she’s hungry or sees a bird in the sky. She’s so perceptive of the world around her. Sometimes I have to look around because I don’t know why she’s signing “duck” then realize there’s a picture of one behind me. Her main signs are animals. For a while she signed “more” but gave up on that and tends to sign “potty” during or just after peeing. 
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| From 08 – Newport and Glacier |
I was worried that she would walk early because she crawled before 6 months (and I walked at 10 months!) but she seemed to enjoy crawling and standing for quite some time. But my worries were not necessary because this new focus on walking has slowed her down (she is a speedy crawler). She is getting more solid at walking every day and is really into climbing anything she reach her foot up onto, especially climbing Mountain Momma in bed.
She’s starting to give kisses, but mostly open mouth gaping kisses to her books. And recently to Ubu.
She still has only two teeth but I swear those top four are going to come in at once! At her 9 month appointment the pediatrician said “Any day now those top teeth are coming in.” Hah! It’s been 4 months but she hasn’t had many bad teething days or nights. Maybe it’s the amber necklace? Who knows…
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| From for Geneveve's printed album |
Her interest in food comes and goes but she will almost always eat oatmeal (which I cut with quinoa) and kamut puffs and Barbara’s o’s. She tends to like fruit in season (what a good eco-conscious Portlandite), choosing to only eat blueberries off our bush in the yard over berries from the store. Right now she loves the white peaches. I can’t get this girl to eat greens but I give her a break, you can only chew so much with two bottom teeth. I did do a kale/spinach puree with coconut milk that she liked for a day. She also is really into corn right now. I got a good deal on 3 dozen corn so she better eat it!
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| From for Geneveve's printed album |
We’ve been busy on the homefront, making time for story time at the library and enjoying our playdates turned mama productive time. I started a “laborshare” if you will call it that where every week a different mom hosts and picks the meal and does the shopping. Then the other moms show up at the appointed time (or when naps allow) and the moms chop and cook and tend babies as needed and the babies play. Or pull off everything from the fridge. Or empty cabinets. Then we all go our separate ways and enjoy dinner with our families. We’ve been doing this a couple months now and it’s been going great. I enjoy going to new moms groups and playdates but it’s nice to do a task with other moms that we all do anyways alone and have a little company. Plus it’s nice to have meal during the week that I don’t have to plan for. And try new recipes. And get to know other moms. So far there’s two moms that are pretty regular and it seems like a good size group for cooking and corralling.
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| From for Geneveve's printed album |
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| From for Geneveve's printed album |
Geneveve had two first birthday parties, one in Portland and one at the grandparents Robinson. The Portland one was a baby-fest. I think we had 4 naked babies in the kiddie pool at once. Geneveve tried everyone’s water bottle, the sprinkler got turned on and no one had a melt down. It was a hot day so we turned our 2 man inflatable raft into a pool and it was a success. I made the millet cake from Feeding the Whole Family and decorated it with the banana frosting (which was really drippy so I went with it and made it drippy). I tried to make this little bird nest on top…but I aimed for natural dyes….turmeric for the yellow…blue ended up being pink. Blueberries don’t really dye blue so we had pink birds with chocolate eyes. The cake tasted great, especially since it had millet and natural sweeteners (I was skeptical). Geneveve loved it.
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| From for Geneveve's printed album |
The family party we also lucked out with great weather. (I was always jealous of the summer birthday kids growing up. They got pool parties and the weather cooperated. My parties were usually indoors, always coincided with Lent, and there could be a snowstorm…) I made the carrot cake from the same cookbook and did the yam frosting (which held up to decorating much better than the banana one) and it looked a little Halloween-ish. Also tasted great. She showed off her new walking skills to the family and this social butterfly went around and spent time with everyone at the party. She does this a lot lately, going to greet newcomers, mingling easily. At the library she crawls into other mom’s laps. She does show a little stranger anxiety towards bearded men.
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| From for Geneveve's printed album |
We’ve gotten a few camping trips in this summer which have gone better than I anticipated. I wasn’t sure how naps/bedtime/sleeping in a tent would go but she loves it. She loves playing in the tent and the fresh air seems to invigorate her….so she stays up a little late but is so easy going. We camped at Breitenbush Hot Springs and she had a great time playing with a friend we visited who is 7 months older than her. We camped near Mt St. Helens with another family who has a 3 year old and a baby Eve’s age. Geneveve was the first to fall asleep! We hiked the lava tube there and none of the kids really enjoyed being in the dark for so long but it was an adventure. We also camped in Idaho on the Pend O’reille Lake which was beautiful. Geneveve enjoyed playing in the dirt at the campsite and focused on throwing rocks into the lake. Maybe she’ll start skipping stones soon like her dad.
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| From for Geneveve's printed album |
We even made it up to Seattle this summer for a wedding and Geneveve stayed up late and then slept most of the drive home! It felt like a miracle because our last trip to Seattle was really intense. I had no idea that not all kids love car seats. She has just started falling asleep in the carseat! Which is really nice…I don’t know why she fought it for a year.
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| From for Geneveve's printed album |
We’ve been blessed to have a lot of family and friends come see us the past year (which is nice because it’s less travelling for us…Geneveve is just starting to be OK in the carseat on car rides…but no cross country drives planned or desired any time soon). I appreciate all of you who made the effort and took the vacation time to come visit and stay with us. Our guest room is always open….