The Wedding

Clio was a big hit at her first wedding ex-utero (we went to Rory's wedding 8 months pregnant). She was charming in a green seersucker halter dress and bloomers, and very content to arrive on the arm (quite literally) of a dashing escort, aka The Daddy.


She was shy with some of her suitors, (that's the shy look, arm behind her back, chin down into her shoulder),


But once the ceremony began and the crowd settled down, Clio lost all pretense of shyness and spoke right up, issuing a lot of "da da das" into the quiet. She also trotted out her latest trick to practice- this mostly includes hitting my face.


Clearly, Clio liked having her hands held almost as much as I like having my face hit.


Once the bride arrived (and what a gorgeous bride!), The Daddy took Clio to a less disruptive spot, way back in the grass.

All in all, I'd say she did okay.
Mazel tov, Sara and Roy!

Sleeping in the wet spot

One thing that was great about our trip was that everything was new to Clio, and being an avid explorer, there seems to be nothing better than, well, a whole new world. Troutbeck had much to recommend it- an old stone manor house, a babbling brook, a wide variety of beautiful plantings- but our room, and particularly the headboard of the four poster bed, was especially fascinating.

I should maybe mention here, by way of explanation of the half-naked exploring, that Clio has become even more impossible to change. She freaks out when you get her on her back- and more and more often, she manages to get away from me. This time, I didn't have the heart to interrupt her climbing expidition. Look how pleased she is to have made it to "the top":

Later that afternoon, when we pulled back the covers to take an afternoon nap, we discovered that someone had made a big wet spot in the sheets, right between our pillows. Turns out that bare-butt time is dangerous, especially when combined with exciting new activities.

Dave slept in the wet spot. But only because it was more on his side, and I think we were both too tired to argue.

Driving to Amenia (or, "The Six-Hour Tour")

Memorial Day weekend. Fenske-Bahat nuptials in Amenia, New York, a picturesque town in the Catskills. According to Google maps, a 2 hour and 10 minute drive from Manhattan. About an hour in to our trip, we were still on the Brooklyn-Queens expressway, and I had the good sense to remark, "the longest it's ever taken me to get out of the city is about 2 hours." Jinx. At the 2 hour and 10 minute mark, we were crossing the Triboro bridge into the Bronx (yes, that's still a part of New York City, the very same City we started from). At 3 hours we passed Yankee stadium and started singing the Gilligan's Island theme song. At 4 hours, Clio threw up her lunch. (Perhaps we should have stopped the car to feed her her lunch in the first place.)


It was a complete mess, but she didn't seem to mind. In fact, she thought the peas and carrots on her shirt looked just fine for a second go-round (I'm pretty sure she's got one in her fist, here):


Hours 4 through 6 are a bit hazy, but they include: a second bout of car sickness for Clio, a stop at a roadside BBQ joint with an outdoor smoker, eating pulled pork in the car, getting hopelessly lost and apparently going in circles within, according to our directions, .2 miles of our destination, pouring rain just as we entered Amenia (the first time, before tumbling out on the other side of Amenia without finding our turnoff), and dubbing our car the Divorce Car.

My friend (and boss) Anne has a boat which Dave remembered is known as the Divorce Boat. I think these names are self explanatory. It should be said that we actually had a perfectly fine time on this adventure and found ourselves laughing by the time we reached Troutbeck; however, we've had similar luck with traffic and poor directions in the year that we've had this Taurus, and they mostly haven't ended with laughter.

At any rate, we did in fact make it- not in time for the cookout, but in time for an outdoor screening of Goonies with Sara, Roy, and many of their friends.

We'll take the rest of the weekend in installments, although I'll say right now that I did not capture many of the best moments- like the tandem bike + baby trailer- on camera. One day I'll learn.

Clio the terror

My uncle Jim and aunt Missy sometimes talk about their daughter Katie's baby pictures, and how, looking back, they could pinpoint the face that would spell trouble her entire life. The last time I heard him say this, I felt a little doom, because I already knew Clio's expression. It looks something like this, and it makes me fear for the toddler and teen years:


















See what I mean?
What's that saying? You get the child you deserve? You don't get a child you can't handle (are those like the glass half empty/ full versions of the same thing?)
Ask me if I believe it in a couple of years!

Sharing

Clio has been branching out in her culinary repertoire, and she really prefers things she can pick up and feed herself. For weeks now, she's been having a love affair with cheerios- when she sees the yellow box she starts jumping up and down in her high chair and laughing excitedly.

This morning, Clio handed me her last cheerio, then changed her mind and took it back. But then she bit it in half, ate one piece, and handed me the other.

All better

It occurs to me that anyone reading this probably wants an update on clio herself; when last we left her, she was feeling very bad indeed. After 8 days of this, Clio was sick of being sick. (We suspected some crocodile tears, but mostly gave her the benefit of the doubt).


Luckily, she rebounded, and got right back to business, with some old skills like cruising the living room:


New ones like picking up toys or blocks one by one and handing them over:

And playing in the dirt.

Also, making both her grandmother's especially proud, Clio has discovered the miracle of savings!

With the worst behind us, I can even admit that we were a little scared that Clio would never get her sunny personality back- and we realized just what a great kid we're lucky enough to have. We needn't have worried. As the toddlers say, Clio's "all better!"

Mother's Day Off

I just realized I don't have any pictures of myself with my mom when I was little. I wish I had one, both to share here and to keep in my house. I've been thinking about how young she was when we were little, and what a natural she must have been at this mom business.

Today is, of course, my first Mother's Day as the Mommy, too. After great deliberation, it was determined that what I really wanted was a day off- a day to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. No advance planning, no decisions. Dave and Clio were good enough to oblige me, and the weird result is that the two of them had a great day together and I spent much of the day (blissfully) alone.

I got to sleep in- until 10 o'clock!
I got to eat my favorite indulgent breakfast- sweet potato pecan flapjacks- and I didn't have to make it and I didn't have to clean up.
I got to go shopping. Lots and lots of shopping. I pretended I was with Stacey and Clinton and even went into Searle for the first time ever. I didn't look at price tags. (Okay, I looked at them when deciding what to actually buy, but not until then.) I have a whole new wardrobe for spring and summer, stuff that looks good and looks good together; stuff I feel really good in, and really like myself.

By the end of the day, I must admit I have two regrets:
First, not calling or sending special messages to all of the mother's in my life to share the celebration, and second, not being home to put Clio to bed. Suddenly it seemed wrong to have spent Mother's day primarily alone, and I called Dave to have him tell her good night, and that I love her. I made him promise to tell her out loud, even though she can't really understand the words.

When I came home, Dave told me how much his day of primary-parenting made him appreciate the Mommy; it means a lot to hear that- isn't that what today is all about?

Now I need to go upstairs and tell Clio one more thing: how very very happy I am to be her mom.

not too sporadically

Well, double pictures is better than no pictures, right? The technical difficulties may or may not be resolved, but I've done what I can here. And since Dave is on the phone, and our movie is on pause, and there's just so much to say about Clio these days, I'll just do one more little post for the day.

(I know, I'm doing this exactly wrong, right? Going crazy today and then you won't hear from me for weeks. Well, I'm nothing if not... sporadic.)

Clio has finally picked up a couple of the things we've been trying to teach her. She now uses the sign for "more." Sometimes she seems to actually mean she wants more of something, but more often she seems to be saying "food" or "I'm telling you something, don't you get it?"

She has also learned to shake her head. Similarly, this sometimes means "no" but sometimes... well, we're not quite sure. She really, really, really likes to do it though, so we'll see if any nuance emerges.

And finally, she has learned to wave bye bye:


Bye bye for me, too.
See you all soon... I hope not too "sporadically."

Damn, technical difficulties

For those of you who have checked out the blog already- I now see that a number of the pictures in "photo spectacular" are not showing up. Maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to turn down Dave's help....

In the meantime, just wanted to mention something about Clio's bath tonight. She has a little basket that suctions to the tub and holds an assortment of plastic sea creatures. Usually she's a big fan of taking them out and dropping them in the water (same way she loves to take anything out of its container- recycling, her toys- and loves to drop anything, anywhere) but tonight, after plenty of play time, she actually put them back IN.

Well, half of them anyway. And then she took them all back out.

But, progress, right?

photo spectacular

Okay, because I have a backlog of cute photos to share, here is a small sampling of random activities from the last few weeks.

Trying out one of Lucia's old sunhats (how cute!) before we took it outside...

Checking out Dad's workboot (and we wonder how she got sick!)

Playing egg rattlers...


Giving kisses...


and making a fort.

Easy Breezy

Hey, that was so easy! I can see how people get into this.

To deal with the late stages of Clio's stomach virus as it melds into the early stages of her next bout of teething, we tried what my friend Maureen calls "confuse and distract." We took her to Lowes to buy plants for the window boxes.

She didn't really buy it, but I had fun.



Back at home, we all sat around waiting to feel better.
Clio is getting very good at sitting.

(as an aside, Dave is trying to "teach" me how to blog now, and hanging over my shoulder asking questions and trying to control my mind. I think I'm doing just fine, Dave, but thanks for the "help"!)

Where was I?
Right- sitting. Not very interesting, I know.



Until.... Clio decided to take a dive off the seat.
Look at Dave's face- he barely caught her.
Now THAT would have been the icing on the cake!

Here we go...

Clio is sick.
And, I've been threatening to consolidate my Clio updates into one place for months now.
And since the Mommy is also sick, and Nonny and Papa were forced to cancel their visit, and the sun is shining but we're all stuck inside, what better time to learn to blog?

I'll keep it short until I figure out how this thing works.
And then I might cheat and put the old updates here, complete with pictures, so it's all in one place, as if I got my act together sooner.