A little trip to Santa Monica

We spent our Labor Day on a lovely little trip down to Santa Monica for baby Alex's baptism. We had a great time meeting and holding and kissing baby Alex, and were so honored to be his godparents. Orthodoxy takes god-parenting very seriously, so we will be praying for Alex every day. Here's a great and amazing prayer in our prayer book that we use for our god-children and for Adessa: (I changed it a bit, to modernize the language.)

A Prayer of Parents:
O God, our heavenly Father, who loves mankind, and are most merciful and compassionate, have mercy on Your servants ___Adessa, Alex, etc...___ for whom I humbly pray, and commend them to Your gracious care and protection. Be, O God, their guide and guardian in all their endeavors, lead them in the path of Your truth, and draw them nearer to You, that they may lead a godly and righteous life in Your love and fear; doing Your will in all things. Give them grace that they may be temperate, industrious, diligent, devout and charitable. Defend them against the assaults of the enemy, and grant them wisdom and strength to resist all tempation and corruption of this life. Direct them in the way of salvation, through the power of Your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, and the intercessions of his Holy Mother and Your blessed saints. Amen.

I love that prayer. Sometimes I add to the lists all the other adjectives and states I wish for them: joyful, kind, peaceful, merciful, discerning, etc. but they're kind of all included within it anyways. Anyhootie- we had a great time being with Alex's family, Amy and Ale, and his grandparents Rich and Laura, and hanging out in Santa Monica!

Alex's little family at the baptism.


Our little family at the baptism.


A school of fishy kites on the beach. Very cool!


Ale and Amy with Alex and Adessa.


Adessa eating breakfast (delicious beef stroggenof) with daddy on the balcony.

A Few More Firsts

First in cuteness!  First time allowed close enough to inspect the tomatos.First time picking a tomato. (She went on a brief picking frenzy, until I put the camera down and stopped her. I can see she'd be quite good in the fields, but sadly these tomatos were not ready. It will be her last time for a while.) Reading with Daddy in the kitchen. The list of firsts is slowing down, but to me, it's getting funnier.  We've now had Adessa's first dirty look (on Monday, August 18th for the baby book, after I asked her if she wanted more chicken.)  We loved her "first talking with her mouth full"  experience, (Wednesday, August 20th) as she was so adamant about talking and eating at the same time, and so suprised that food kept leaving her mouth as she lectured in gibberish.  She's pulled her first all-dayer (not so funny), where she resisted all sleep for an entire day, (well, all the way to 4:00, that's a longggg time to be awake for our bunny.) Her first molar has three of it's vicious barbs through her gum, ouch. She's started hurrying, which isn't quite running, but can no longer be classified as walking-- its an unsteady scurry.  She's started making faces to be funny that we've never seen before, her first show of creativity?  One is her with her lips pulled back into a small "O" over her teeth, I'll try to get it on film. Very funny.                                                                                                                                                                  Also funny are her words.  She's talking up a storm, some words appropriate for subject and time, some not.  It often sounds like Cantonese to me (Really! Like Joy Luck Club on video) with harsh r's and lots of zzz sounds. I've ruined her for thank you, though. She can say it, but since I say it when I'm taking something contraband away from her, she now says: "thank ooo" whenever she gives me something.  Whoops.  She's also become a weilder of the word "no". I guess it was bound to happen, but it sure is shocking to hear it amid her crying, "No no nononono no no."  Calvin was trying to use "Please refrain" but sadly, it didn't catch on.   

Summer Fun

Sharing a banana with Sadie.

Adessa's first pig-tails!

Posing with cousins in front of Mt. Hermon's waterfall.

Creek walking fun.

Like all teachers, as soon as the first day of August arrives, I start mourning the end of summer. School starts early this year, which makes it seem worse. I've really loved (as always) my summer, but especially with Adessa. It's been great to do things on her schedule and be a stay at home mom. I'm only working part time, again this year, which is great. Calvin will be able to do part of her childcare starting in October as his schedule changes and he moves out of the office and back onto the road, which is also great.

Adessa has had quite the parade of friends and family around this summer.  This week, her cousins from Riverside have been staying in Mt. Hermon, and they adore Adessa.  She adores them, too, but sometimes gets overwhelmed with their attentions.  She is trying to talk, still lots of mumbo-jumbo, that I respond to in Spanish, and more words: shoe, bubble, tree, cheese, more, wa-wa (for water), bah (for bath). 

Fun in the Sun!

Driving, driving, driving. We did a lot of driving. Adessa was a trooper, but was happy to be anywhere but in her car seat by the end.


Kissing baby Alex at our stop in Santa Monica. (Who's mom, Amy, is in labor RIGHT NOW (9:00pm, 7/29/08). We are excited to meet him and are praying hard!


Floating on the "Lazy River", part of our hotels water-park-complex-concentrated-fun-for-all-ages-extravaganza-spectacular-area. This photo captures one of the brief moments that Adessa wore her glasses.


Back at home, hooray! She's a walker, hooray! (July 24th she was using it as her preferred method to get around.) And another hip hip hooray for Adessa's first pony tail. Are you as suprised as she is?


Palm Desert was great, but... we learned many valuable lessons about vacationing with a child. It is interesting to see, though we've adjusted so much since leaving our old lives and becoming parents, there are still more paradigm shifts in store for us.

Our epiphany: Having a child is not relaxing. We didn't relax very much. Gone are the days (that we both somehow still expected) where we could sit by the pool under an umbrella with a book, jump in when it's too hot, get out and read some more. That was the previous definition of relaxing vacation for me. No time limits, long hours just reading and swimming, maybe a little snooze, some slight sun burn.
Not so with a kid. She didn't last countless hours by the pool, she could be depended on for about one hour, and then we were taking our chances. And the naps! At home, naps are wonderful respite, because she sleeps and we get stuff done around the house. In our (lovely) hotel room, however, she slept and we waited for her to wake up so we could turn the light on, or took turns at the pool or workout room, but always with a time limit.

Interesting. It left us wondering about our next vacations. Probably won't be going to 108+ degree temperature places any time soon. We've ruled out camping for the forseable future. We don't particularly enjoy trying to eat in restaurants with Adessa. Hmmmm... We might be enjoying our time off from home for the next few years. And I look forward to reading, care-free, when our kids are...in middle school? teenagers? married?

Tahoe Family Vacation 2008

Before we left: (We hadn't downloaded pics for a while, these are catch-up.)

Her blueberries are so bright, she has to wear shades.


Is she posing? Looks like she's posing, in a tree, in San Luis Obispo. (We went the other weekend for a friends wedding.)


Tahoe
At Moon Dunes Beach, North Shore:
Bathing beauty, see how she basks.


We love Tahoe!


She did great on the car ride, too.


We had a terrific time in Tahoe. Adessa had a terrific time, especially. She loved the sand, the beach, the water, her cousins and aunts and uncles, all the stairs to crawl up and down in our condo, the pool,the rocks and sticks, and the boats. She has two new words: boat and Noah, thanks to the exposure in Tahoe to both.

This is a big post, really. Today Adessa is 13 months, 1 & 1/12 years old. And sometime this week, she got up and walked. She started standing up on her own, and then it was a few steps towards someone, and now she's taking steps here and there all over the place and falling down in between. Her greatest amount is probably around nine or ten steps, and sometimes she prefers to crawl or be walked. Its cute to watch, her walk is very wobbly, with lots of pausing and balancing and almost falling over. But it's walking!!

Terrible Ones?

I'm sure it's not really terrible, yet, or as terrible as it could be.  However, we're having some shrill shrieks, some head-thrown, back arched, body stiff, all around tantrums. Hmmmmm. Interesting. Adessa's realizing she's separate from me, wants to be and doesn't want to be at the same time. She also realizes there's a wide world of pretty, yummy things, and she wants them all Right Now. So far our parenting strategy has been to watch with eyebrows up, bemused and slightly irritated. Mostly, I miss the sweet thing she was, really thought I had parenting sewn up. Not so much.

She's also progressing like mad, much more steady on her feet but still not walking. She says: ball, oww, eye, hi, mama, dada, Li-Jah (for Elijah), and barks for dogs. She signs: more, bird, milk, and all done.We're going to Tahoe next week and are so excited to hang out by the lake and let her play in the sand. We'll have lots of pics and stories. 8)

Watching the neighborhood.


Our favorite gypsy.


Bathtub fun.

Here are the teeth!

Titles are hard for me. It's just more about Adessa

Adessa's up to walking about four steps by herself, as long as someone is there for her to aim towards. She's getting much more stable and confident, especially thanks to the little walker that she got for her birthday. She reads books to herself, but isn't very interested in having us read to her beyond the first few pages. (Which makes me worried she won't be a reader. She wants to turn the pages herself, in whatever order, but will put up with us pointing to dogs or fish with appropriate word labels and noises.) She sings to herself, sometimes at high volume. Her face has doubled in expressions and expressiveness, which is delightful to watch. Interacting is just fun. She's up to eight teeth, and they're getting bigger and bigger which makes her look very grown up and kid-like. Adessa has been previously spotted giving her pacifier to her stuffed animals and doll, and even to the crying baby in a book. Now, when putting her to bed, she consistently will lie on her back, hold her feet in front of her face, make the sucking noise and offer her pacifier to her toes. Its charming! With the hot weather, she's been wearing tank tops and shorts, and its a treat to have her soft skin available to kiss!
It hasn't felt like summer, yet, as I participated in a writing workshop after school got out, and then have been taking care of business. I look forward to unwinding better and having a few days with nothing to do except swim and frolic.