The Apple of Uncle Markus's Eye

My brother is unabashedly in love with his niece. He is in grad school in Las Vegas, but he has managed to develop a relationship with Lydia via Skype and the occasional visit to Austin.

I am a bit in awe of the fact that Lydia knows how to Skype. She stands and interacts with the person on the screen; today she played peek-a-boo with Markus and would point to her tummy when he asked her to, etc.

I knew that their Skype-relationship was legit when Markus managed to get her to stop crying through the computer. She went from tears to laughter in under a minute--pretty impressive without a computer, and factor in the distance and you've got a winner. He sealed the deal when Lydia became fussy on another occasion, and he said, "I think she has a poopy diaper." He was right. Markus identified the dirty diaper from Las Vegas before Robin or I did. Pretty impressive!

Uncle Markus loves Lydia, and Lydia loves Uncle Markus!

Messmaker

Mealtime has become an increasingly messy event in our house. Lydia likes to feed herself, but her spoon and fork skills are mediocre at best. As a result, she ends up going for strategies like this:



We talked to the pediatrician about ways to redirect this behavior, and she advised us to just let Lydia go at it, though she agreed that after Lydia, for example, smears all of her milk on the counter, we should not refill her cup, and the same goes for her food after it is all on the floor. The mess is not pleasant, but I feel like it's part of Lydia's learning process in becoming an independent eater. For now, we will have to be okay with mealtime looking like this:

Class Clown

Lydia has developed a sense of humor. She will laugh at things that she thinks are funny, and she will try to do things to make us laugh. Here she is, fooling around at the dinner table. Note how serious her face is while she has the washcloth on her head and how she laughs when she pulls it off!

Further Proof

Here is Lydia doing her party trick!

Ten Thousand Words

Color Me Embarrassed

I have had a hard time coming up with blog topics lately. Lydia and I have fallen into such a great routine, and I feel like a blog that reads, "Life is great! Having a lot of summer fun!" might get monotonous after awhile. Here's a fun thing I have not mentioned as of yet.

Lydia loves to color. We gave her crayons for the first time in April, and her main interest was in eating them, not scribbling. Since then, she has slowly gotten into coloring. We took a big piece of cardboard and put it down on her picnic table so that she has lots of space and doesn't mark up any of our counter or wood surfaces and bought her Crayola Tadoodles, clever little gadgets that make crayons easier to hold and more difficult to eat. She's such a budding artist!!

Father's Day Dinner

Summertime in our house means food. Lots and lots of food. Food like this: Grilled watermelon steaks and beer-glazed back beans...



This paired with Robin's embracing of the whole "way-too-a-man's-heart-is-through-his-stomach" notion meant one thing: Robin's Father's Day gift would be a dinner.

Since Lydia is still a bit too young to cook, I took the reins. Using a new cookbook filled with recipes from a local restaurant, Fonda San Miguel, I went to town creating things to celebrate Robin and everything he is to our family.

Black Drum Ceviche


Jicama and Canteloupe Salad with Pomegranate Dressing


Stuffed Zucchini Squash with Salsa Rancheros (I even roasted the tomatoes and made the salsa from scratch!)


and Watermelon Margaritas, made with Watermelon-Infused Tequila. (Yes, I made that, too!)


The Luthers came over for our Sunday evening dinner tradition and Jessica brought over a Tres Leches cake that she also made from scratch.



It was perfect! Happy Father's Day!

To the Men in Our Lives

Lydia and I wish you a Happy Father's Day!!!

Blogging on the iPad

I am loving my iPad. I have yet to find something that I can't do that I did on my laptop. For those that are curious, I ended up getting the BlogPress App for my iPad, the same app I use from my iPhone. We purchased the keyboard dock to go with my iPad, so typing is exactly as it was on my laptop. In order to include pictures on my posts, we upload photos to Robin's computer (which is where our pictures have always been stored) and I sync my iPad to his MacBook, syncing only the most recent album. If I wanted to spend lots of time syncing all of our photos, I could, and there is the space on my iPad to do this, but I have yet to see a need. I have had a couple of moments when I forgot to save on the iPad and lost a blog entry I wrote, as BlogPress doesn't save drafts automatically, but other than that, the transition has gone smoothly, and let's face it, the iPad does look pretty cool.

Role Reversal

With the end of the school year has come a switch in the routine in our house. So far the transition to me being at home and taking care of Lydia and Robin working full-time has gone well. Robin has had enough going on at work that he was ready for this switch awhile ago, and I have been eager to be home more. I am enjoying having more energy to contribute at home--thank goodness for a teacher's schedule.

Lydia and I have settled into a great routine. She is still in daycare two days a week, so on those days, I run errands, go to yoga, meet friends, and enjoy some much needed free time that I have been craving since, oh, March 2009. When she is home, we have settled into a nice groove of breakfast, going for a morning walk/run, taking a morning nap (while I clean up the house, take a shower, and get ready for the day), having lunch and taking a fun outing to the pool, library, or children's museum, coming home for an afternoon nap, my designated do-nothing-to-my-heart's-content time. I read, nap, watch trashy TV, nibble on snacks. It is good. Once Lydia wakes up, we run to the grocery store for dinner ingredients. It's a rough life, I tell you.

I can't help but compare this summer to this same time last year. While we did have Spring together, Lydia was so little that we were really in survival mode. Comparing her now to her at 12 weeks is just night and day. There are some parents who will tell you how much they miss their children as infants, how they wish they could go back. Maybe with time I will hit that point, but for now, I am totally in the "It Just Gets Better and Better" camp as opposed to the "Just Wait Until..." camp. (Say this in a threatening voice, usually following some sort of profession of parenting joy and contentment, and you will know what I mean.) Lydia can play now, she interacts, she expresses happiness and love. We are having so much fun.

Family Photo?

 

Body Part Identification Outtake

"Where is your nose???"



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Party Tricks

Lydia has been working on some party tricks. We have been telling her for awhile that all of the other babies are walking and fussing, so she needs to up her game.

Some we are not so pleased with. She attempted to dance on the table, but decided her Mozart cube didn't provide the appropriate tunes.


She is working on food art, but has realized that supplies are limited, as Robin and I do not replenish her dish and cup when she has successfully spread her entire serving of breakfast on the countertop.


She is still working with these minimal resources.


She finally settled on the classic body-part identification routine.

"Lydia, where is your head?"


"Your nose?"



"Your feet?"



"Show me your belly!"

iPad!!

My trust iBook, the one I lugged in my backpack around UT, to my student teaching placement, and all over the place since, bit the dust this week. As Robin's work has picked up, this has meant little to no time for me to blog using his computer. The solution? An iPad. I am using it in place of my computer, and so far, so good. We'll see how blogging goes. I need to figure out how to upload pictures to blog posts, and I think a bit of playing will get me there quickly. Please be patient until then!

Keens!!

Sent for her by Gramma Mree!


-- Post From My iPhone

Lydia Hard at Work

It's a rough life... so much to do, so much to do.

Help Me Rhonda

I have tried to think of some sort of poetic introduction to this video, but really, it needs no words. Circa 1998, here is Robin, along with Gabe, Mike, and Matt, providing us all with some great vocal stylings, not to mention a few amazing dance breaks. Oh, the moves, the obvious giddiness, the hairstyles (not to mention existing hairlines...) It is all just too good. Special thanks to Dusty E. for not only digging this up, but getting it on youtube and sending it out. (Rhonda is his mom; the boys made this for her!)

Scrunch!!

-- Post From My iPhone

Cool Once Removed

Patricia Drew is Lydia's babysitter. She is amazing with kids, and Lydia adores her. She is also an incredibly talented musician and sings and plays the viola in a band called The Soldier Thread. She was featured in this mini-documentary about four musicians trying to make music the center of their lives. Check it out here. While Lydia isn't in the video, the little girl down the street is!

While we blame parenthood for making us somewhat boring, we really were never super-hip. Thanks to Patty, we are at least one degree away from cool!

Date with Dax

What do Dax and Lydia do on a date, you ask? You may remember this back in July:

But times have changed, my friends.

Now, they socialize at the picnic table.

He serenades her with a song on the piano.

And he chauffeurs her in the Red Rider.