at the pool

Here are a couple of videos from the pool the other day. I am so proud of our little swimmer!

First day at her new school

This has been a big week. Today is Roan's first day at her new daycare. Deep down I'm excited for her. It's a wonderful place, with exposure to art, music, an educational curriculum, and 9 other kiddos her age. I know it's going to be really good for her.

I just didn't expect today to be so hard on me! I guess I haven't had to experience the trauma of leaving her with new, different care providers for a long long time... about a year in fact. It's not so much that I worry they won't care for her well. They are amazing. It's a nagging pain in my heart that the next few days there might be a difficult transition for her. I just hate to think of her being scared or confused. And I hate being without her all day. It's so nice when she's upstairs with our nanny and I can hear her tromping around or giggling or even crying on a rough day. Even though I'm not in the room with her, I feel like I know how her day is going.

Gosh, I don't know why I'm being such a big baby. At this very moment I'm logged into the daycare's web site where they have streaming video. I can watch what Roan is doing, whether inside or outside the center, at any time. About half an hour ago she was having a rough spell. It was snack time, and instead of sitting at the table with all the other kiddos she was wandering around with her paci and blankie crying. *heart breaking* But I just peeked back in, and she's sitting on one of the caregiver's laps holding a pair of maracas, shaking them enthusiastically while the other kids in the circle around her are singing. *awww*

I strongly believe that one of the best gifts we can give our kids is the gift of independence. The privilege of experiencing the world around them on their own, the ability to make their own decisions, their own mistakes, and to experience and learn from the consequences. I see today, however, with crystal clarity that I may find it hard at times to walk that walk. An ounce of pain for her I experience tenfold. But I guess no one said it would be easy!

So much to catch up on

I haven't written lately because we've been too busy having lots of summer fun. (And working in the backyard... it's still mostly dirt back there though!)

Last weekend was her friend Scarlett's first birthday. Here they are together. Notice how Roan is intently eyeing Scarlett's cheese stick, shrewdly waiting for her opportunity to strike.

Roan is saying all sorts of new words. Every time I turn around she's got a new one. Last night it was "ca-coo" for cucumber. And tonight, giraffe (or "raff" as she calls it). I've noticed that unlike most of her peers who seem to start saying new words by pronouncing the first syllable or first few letters, Roan most often starts at the back end of the word. Yogurt is still "gurt". Milk was "ilk" for the longest time until she recently added the "m". It makes it tricky for words that share the last few letters like stuck, duck, and quack, or cup and up. But it's so darn cute.

In addition to linguistic development, she is also progressing socially. When I picked her up at Mommy's Day Out on Monday I learned she has a friend who is a boy whom she appears rather taken with. I am not, however, calling him a boyfriend. I mean come on, they're ONE. Her teacher said she was saying "Brice Brice Brice" all day long. And when you ask her about this dubious Brice character she gets a big smile on her face and acts all shy. Watch out Daddy, she's getting an early start!

This week Roan had her last nanny share playdate with her best buddy Audrey. Next week they're starting up at a new daycare but on different days, so they might not see each other for a while. It makes me a little sad because she adores Audrey. After they've had a play day together all I hear is "Aw-dee, Aw-dee" all night long. They played outside with the water table today and Lindsay got some great photos; I'll post them soon.

On a personal note, we are starting a running program. A group of people in the 'hood (not necessarily mommies) call themselves the West Side Runners. West Siiiiiide. Oh yeah. Anyway they meet up once a week for a 3 mile run (I once ran 3 miles at one time. ONCE.) at a local restaurant, followed by cocktails and half priced appetizers. They call it reverse carbo loading. Anyway, it must have sounded like fun for me to break my "I don't run" mantra. I often say I'd rather walk 2000 miles than run 26. But with the limited time I have, there's no denying that running is the shortest path to getting and staying in shape. So of course we had to get a jogging stroller. I hate the fact that I now have TWO strollers. Ugh. But what can ya do? At least I was able to pick it up used on Craigslist for chump change - those things can be pricey!

What else... .oh yeah! Roan is fast becoming quite the swimmer. The outdoor pool at the park down the street from us opened for the summer and we've been making the most of it. Roan has a little swimsuit that has an innertube around the middle. At first she seemed to think it was a new torture device, but after just 3 or 4 trips to the pool she is a real pro! She *loves* the pool. We canNOT say the "p" word unless we are just steps away from the pool or else there's hell to pay! Yesterday they were closed unexpectedly, and I didn't know that till we got there and let me tell ya it wasn't pretty!

Considering she's only been swimming a handful of times in her life I could not believe what all she was doing tonight. She would actually kick her feet and try to paddle around in the water by herself, climb up the stairs and jump in, pull herself along the pool's edge with her hands, and beg to be put up on the side of the pool so she could jump in. It was amazing! And the whole time she just had the biggest grin on her face; she was so proud of herself.

Tomorrow Arwen, Jen & I are going to a class on composting. We're hoping to get some more work done in the yard this weekend. This past week we built two new huge planters for vegetables out of broken up recycled concrete. They came out quite lovely in my opinion. Next it's plants, then more irrigation, and then mulch!! I can't wait till the last of the dirt is gone. Which reminds me... that's the other thing we've gotta do: get rid of the 6-7 yards of dirt piled up in the back. Oy vey.

Oh and of course Sunday is Father's Day. Let me wish a preemptive Happy Dad's Day to all the dads out there. Roan has a card and a couple little gifty things for Arwen, and I have a couple of suprises up my sleeve for him.

Well that's about it for now. Big hugs to all our loved ones out there...

Last weekend

Our first camping trip with Roan and the Little Guy last weekend was good overall, although it was not without a few hiccups. We had some trouble finding a campsite (we didn't have a reservation) and got into camp much later than we expected after traveling long distances down some rough roads.

Just as we were congratulating ourselves on not having to set up a tent, we discovered that our 2 1/2 gallon water jug opened up inside the Little Guy and got all of our bedding wet. We found ourselves towling up water at 9:00 at night in the dark with Roan still not in bed.

But finally Roan went down like a champ and gave us a chance to enjoy some time by the campfire. She loves the Little Guy. I was skeptical that we would be able to sleep all together as a family in there, because co-sleeping has never worked out with her. But she slept soundly through the night, even with Sasha curled up with us. I wish I could say the same for us, but I'll take a night of solid sleep for Roan over us any day.

The next day she was in heaven out there in the woods. She wandered all over our campsite, picking up rocks, sticks and pinecones, placing them in her bucket and carrying her "treasures" to and fro. She toddled over to the campsite next door and introduced herself to the four other kids staying there. She discovered the fun of swinging in the hammock.

She also had fun at the lake with the dogs. And later on Aunt Jen (now sometimes referred to as "fee-fuh") and Uncle Micah took her on a walk to see a waterfall (she fell asleep in the backpack before they got there). She also got her first taste of roasted marshmallow, not to mention a campfire breakfast and hamburgers and hotdogs. I have never seen her so dirty, or so happy. I don't think she cried once all day except when I had the gall to try and make her take a nap.

You can see the rest of the camping photos here.

As if that wasn't enough fun for one weekend, on Sunday we went to a neighborhood picnic organized by the "Highlands Mommies," the mom's group I belong to. They had hamburgers, hot dogs and veggie burgers for everyone; neighbors brought every kind of side dish you can think of; there was a dessert contest, a raffle with excellent prizes (we didn't win any) and wine and beer. Not to mention a lot of our friends from the neighborhood. Roan had a great time playing on the playground with the other kids, hanging out with her little buddies and poaching food off of our plates. After all that excitement, she slept in the next two days and took extra long naps.

Here she is all cuddled up with her Daddy on Monday morning. Normally she's all chipper first thing in the morning, ready to get after it. Not that day.

I told her that's ok; lots of people feel the same way about Mondays.

I can't wait...

to post the pics and videos from this past weekend's camping trip. Suffice to say, Roan was a very happy camper! The apple doesn't fall from the tree where love of nature is concerned. Hopefully I'll get the pics up tonight.

Dig It

Aahh... summer is finally here! And we are enjoying it, I tell you what. Yesterday Roan and I met up with some of our neighborhood friends at the zoo, and it was such a great time. This was her third trip to to the zoo, but the first time she really seemed "into" the animals. She laughed out loud, squealed, pointed and said "oooh" at the polar bears, giant turtles, giraffes, komodo dragons, fish and geese. She chased a peacock halfway around the park and darn near caught it too. She ran all over the place, played with her friends and got her first taste of ice cream.

She would take a little nibble, think on it a moment and then grunt enthusiastically as if to say, "hey, bring the good stuff back over here!" It was one of those perfect sunny but not hot Denver days, and all us moms had such fun with the kids and also just hanging out jabbering with each other. All in all, it was a great day.

Last weekend we broke ground on a massive backyard landscaping project. We must've gotten confused and thought it was "Labor Day" instead of "Memorial Day," because we labored like crazy. We had a little help from a hired hand, and thank goodness. We never could have gotten as far as we did on our own. We took out all the trash trees on the south side of the lot (where Arwen is), removed the sod, rototilled, levelled the dirt, and put in new grass and border.

We moved *so* *much* *dirt*. It was astonishing. Behind those limbs to the left there, the whole back of our lot is filled with the excess dirt. It's amazing what backbreaking work it is just to get a blank slate!

Roan got into the action, of course. She loves to "help." This usually involved standing in the way of the rototiller/ shoveling dudes/ wheelbarrow and scooping one tiny toy shovelful of dirt onto the pile. It was adorable, I gotta give her that. And naturally she has added a new word to her growing vocabulary: "dirt"!

Here she is trying on Daddy's gloves. Dad had to shovel one-gloved till he could sweet talk her into giving it back to him.

And here is the fruit of our labor: one little patch of new green grass. All the area around it that is currently dirt will be landscaped with bird and butterfly attracting plants, trees and mulch. Oh and we plan to put in a privacy fence to screen our neighbors' disasterous yards from view. We still have a ton of work ahead of us!

But that will have to wait at least until next weekend. This weekend we're going camping in our Little Guy trailer. I'm so excited! We seriously have not been camping since 2005!!! That is just plain wrong! I'm excited to see what Roan will think of it. I pray she sleeps, and lets us sleep. We are bringing a tent as a backup, in case we can't sleep all together as one big happy family. Wish us luck...

Oh, before I go here's a quick clip from last weekend.

A long winded recap

We had a great time in Dallas visiting Uncle Johnny, Aunt Angela, Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Ronnie as well as all the other folks there to celebrate John's graduation from SMU. Roan did her best to behave through the ceremony, but she and I spent most of the time at the back of the room with her running around making new friends with the other spectators. She helped cheer Uncle John's triumphant walk across that stage. We got to see John's fantastic new house, and even take Roan for a swim in the pool. Mommy Too threw John an incredible party to celebrate, and (unfortunately for my head the next morning) there was a non-stop margarita machine. It was a great time.

If only the trip home could have been as nice as our stay out there. Roan put us through our paces. I have never heard her cry and scream so inexplicably and for such long stretches. Naturally, the 3 hour flight was packed and she didn't sleep a wink. We were all exhausted by the time we got home, but the up side was that that experience was over!

If Roan could speak more eloquently, she might have pointed out that she is cutting molars on both sides of her mouth, and at the time of the flight was suffering a terrible diaper rash. Maybe that had something to do with it.

She is also continuing to exhibit more toddler-like, authority-challenging behavior. We've been on a reading binge lately trying to get our strategies caught up to her behavior. The last book I read, "Redirecting Children's Behavior" worked great for a while, and I think we may be able to return to it at some point in the future. But for the moment we've turned to "Love and Logic" which is all about giving kids choices and consequences, delivering discipline without breaking a sweat.

That last part is key, they say. As soon as you get mad, your kid realizes the inherent fun in pushing your buttons and then you're lost. As Arwen's mom once wisely said, "The key to kids is, you gotta trick 'em!" Now we finally know what she meant. Once Roan becomes more verbal, the options abound. Until then it's pretty basic. Try and have as much fun with her while she's not misbehaving, and when she is put her in her crib until she calms down and becomes sweet again. There's no screaming and yelling, just the simple idea that it's more fun to behave well and have good times with Mom and Dad.

I like this philosphy because I find myself prioritizing having fun with Roan, and when she misbehaves I don't view it as an exasperating affront to my authority. I just whisk her off to her crib for a little "bedroom time" to readjust herself. I also feel good about having a framework within which to deliver fair and compassionate discipline, and provider her with the limits we all need to get along in the world.

In the couple of weeks since we've been home, we've been busy. We picked up a new toy. It's a small trailer, not much more than a queen sized bed on wheels, called a Little Guy. This is not our actual unit, but here's a sample of what they look like. We haven't taken it out yet, but we hope to soon!

In our next episode, photos of the enormous landscaping project we've taken on in the backyard...

A video clip from tonight

Roan and her Daddy playing "monsters" before bedtime.

A quick word...

to say a lengthier post is coming soon. It's been a fun & busy couple of weeks. We traveled to Dallas to see my brother John the college graduate! We're all so proud of you John!! But I am such a loser I didn't break out my camera even ONCE. Doh! I will have to steal some pictures from Karen & Jen.

We also have been working our tails off in the backyard. This I do have pictures of, just got to get them uploaded. Stay tuned, updates coming soon!

Happy Mother's Day

I hope yours was a happy one; mine was. I got lots of sweet cards in the mail. Jen and Micah watched Roan on Saturday night so Arwen and I could go out to a nice meal and have some drinks with friends. We had such a good time that when we got to Jen's to pick her up we decided to make a night of it and have a sleepover in their basement.

On Sunday Jen and Micah looked after Roan again for a couple of hours so we could go pick out a new TV for the basement! It's kind of embarrasing how excited I am about it. But we haven't been able to watch a movie on anything other than a laptop since Jen & Micah moved out. Then we went to the zoo in the afternoon, and Roan got to ride the carosel and the train for her first time. I would say she is reserving judgement on the zoo as a whole, but she was a big fan of the monkeys and of the geese, who she chased all over the place. Then Sunday night Jen and Micah came back over (you'd think they'd be sick of us by now) and cooked us a fantastic dinner and helped us hook up the TV. All in all it was a great weekend.

Which was nice, because we had a couple of rough nights last week. On Wednesday night I put Roan to bed as normal, and two hours later BLAMMO she wakes up crying with what turned out to be croup. Her breathing was so wheezy and strained we called the urgent care nurse for help. We opted not to rush her into the emergency room right away (not big fans of the ER since her first appearance there), and instead kept an eye on her for a few hours by putting her in the pack n play in our room. At 2 am she was wheezing so badly we almost packed her into the car, but we tried one last thing - cranking up the humidifier - and that did the trick. The wheezing went away and she slept 5 hours interrupted.

The next day we got her in to see the doctor who identified her barking cough as a textbook case of croup and explained what that is - a cold-like virus that attacks the throat instead of the sinuses - and what they do to treat it - not much, mostly let it run its course. After those first couple of bad nights she's much better, now with just sniffles and an occasional cough. Bless her heart, I felt bad for her this last week. First she got the sniffles, then she got croup, and on top of it is teething molars. Ouch! Yet despite it all she really tried to keep her chin up. She's been a little more testy lately (I hear the word "no" a lot!) but that's understandable.

Oh one other Roan development: she "named" some one for the first time besides Mama and Dada - Uncle Micah. She calls him "ga ga". It is so cute; whenever she stays over at their house she always has to have "Ga ga" put her down to sleep. She has also added a lot of other words to her vocabulary in the last month. These are all things she says regularly:

• please (peas) - she also signs this one
• more (mo) - she signs this one too
• Sasha
• house
• outside
• open
• eye
• bird
• bottle (ba ba)
• bunny (ba ba)
• broccoli (ba ba)
• ball (ba)
• brush (bsh)
• no! (her favorite word, which she says with much enthusiasm)
• juice
• cup (bup)
• yogurt (guk)
• milk (lk)
• jacket
• cracker (see below)
• uh oh
• help (elp)
• banana (na na)

New words just starting to make an appearance:

• apple
• diaper
• thank you
• teeth
• yes (I would *love* to hear more of this one)

Regarding her pronunciation of "cracker." Yes. Well a few months back her good friend Audrey started saying "cracker." Arwen and I secretly thought it was hysterical that 1) Audrey pronounced it "caca" and 2) it was such a favorite word for her that she said it all the time in public to the point that perfect strangers would be compelled to ask her parents "Is she saying caca?"

Well I guess the karma wheel came around on us. Roan has her own twist on the pronunciation. She has shortened Audrey's version to just the first syllable, so it has an unfortunate and very striking resemblance to a profane name for the male member. And of course she loves crackers and asks for them all the time. Between that and her pronunciation of the word "ice" which sounds *exactly* like "ass" this girl is working on a sailor mouth like her good ol Aunt Jen. :)

Ducks are cool

So are geese. That's what Roan thinks. We went to the park today and she spotted a mallard and his lovely mate from across the way. She went chasing after them saying "duck duck quack" etc. And then she spotted some geese hanging out by the water. I had to go scoop her up before she jumped in.

It was hard to tear her away from all the excitement.

When we did finally go she kept saying "bye bye" and waving to the ducks and geese over and over.

So cute.

Here is a video of her with the geese. Apparrently geese say "quack" in her mind.


And here's one last picture, from first thing in the morning.

A quick video

Roan on the slide in Houston

Link to birthday photos

Looks like there was a problem with the link I included in my last post. Try clicking here. You shouldn't have to login.

Happy Birthday, Part II

We've had so much fun over the past couple of weeks it's taken me a while to recover! By the time I returned from Roan's wonderful birthday party in Houston it was already time to start preparing for Jen's 30th birthday bash. It may take a couple of posts to get fully caught up.

For starters, here are some photos from Roan's Houston birthday party. Many thanks to all the friends and family who were able to share the day with us. We had gorgeous weather and lots of yummy food. Roan was a real trooper, considering we arrived in from Denver just 15 minutes before the party started! She is such a little champ. Sadly just one day was not nearly enough to get caught up with everyone, but it was much better than the alternative.

You can see all the photos from Roan's birthday here.

Lots has been going on since then. She has started signing! Her first sign was "more," as in "more food please!" She has been enthusiastically learning new words as well, and much of our day consists of her pointing at things she wants and grunting/babbling. Because this tends to make me feel weary by the end of the day - there's nothing like being ordered around by a little cave girl - I've been emphasizing the sign for "please." It's an open palm on your chest moving in small circles.

We had a bitter confrontation one morning over using the magic word in which I wanted her to say please when she was pointing to her milk and grunting. This was apparently an affront she simply couldn't bear. Or maybe she just woke up on the wrong side of the bed. She launched into a temper tantrum like I've never seen before. At first she seemed defiant, but at a certain point she acted like we'd hurt her feelings or violated her trust. It was perplexing! Even after we gave her the milk she was still so upset. But now that a few days have passed we've noticed she has been signing please without even being prompted, and with a sense of pride. Today when I picked her up from a day with the nanny, Lindsay remarked that she'd been signing "please" enthusiastically all day.

In other news, she seems to be growing like a weed. She got a *ton* of adorable 18 month clothes for her birthday (which was lucky since she had no summer clothes whatsoever) and she's already squarely into the 18 month size even though the weather is summery only about half the time. It better get warm quick or else she better slow down on the growth curve.

One funny story. This is from a week and a half ago or so. I was on the phone with a client one afternoon on one of my half days when Roan woke up from her nap. Arwen volunteered to go get her up and feed her while I finished up on the phone. About an hour later I came upstairs and Arwen filled me in on all I had missed. I had put Roan down for her nap in just a t-shirt and her diaper, unaware that she is now capable of pulling her own diaper off. Which she did before Arwen came up to get her. And it was full. I mean really full. By the time Arwen got in there she had already been fingerpainting in the color brown all over her sheets, her crib and her hair. The thing that totally impressed me (besides her ingenuity) was that through all that I didn't hear a peep from Arwen. He just took care of it all before I made it upstairs without saying a word - cleaned up her crib, washed her up, the whole 9 yards. Go Daddy!

way overdue

I know, I know. Have patience. It's been a whirlwind the last few weeks. Between birthday parties and business meetings I don't know whether I'm coming or going. For those who don't know, this Saturday is Jen's 30th birthday!!! So of course I'm scurrying around like a little mouse. If you remember to do so, give her a ring on her big day to wish her well!

Photos from our trip to Houston & Roan's 2nd 1st birthday party will be posted soon.

First words

In the last weeks Roan's vocabulary has started to blossom. It seemed like for the longest time she referred to pretty much everything - including me - as "dada". But now she can say all of these things, and knows what they mean:

• Mama
• Dada
• Dog
• Cat ("dak")
• Duck
• Quack (she loves to quack! but it sounds more like "kah")
• Sock ("dock")
• Hat ("at")
• Up
• Down
• Cheese ("she")
• Go (she says this crystal clear as she is zooming around the room or along the sidewalk)
• Food ("nana" as she calls it)
• Ice (which she says with a thick southern accent, "aaice"
  

I would have to say that the lightbulb has gone off in Roan's head as to the power of language. All of a sudden, by uttering a few simple syllables she can get what she wants (usually for me to pick her "up up" and give her some "nana"). She spends a lot of time babbling incomprehensibly too. She talks with such conviction it's as if she's fluent in a language we just don't understand.

This week I've started to see more toddler-like behavior. She's getting frustrated over the littlest things (like not being able to pick up something heavy, or not being coordinated enough to sort shapes) and have mini temper tantrums. She is also no longer placated by my attempts to distract her from unacceptable behavior. When she does something I don't want her to (like dig in the dog food), I try and offer her a choice of two alternate (acceptable) toys. The idea is it's a win-win. She gets to feel in control because she is making a choice, and I get her to stop doing the no-no without even saying "no."

This has worked beautifully up to now. But this week, when I show her the two toys she swats them both away and shakes her head emphatically almost to the point of meltdown. Guess it's time to pick up some new tricks!

Oh I should also mention she had her one year checkup and is 20 lbs 4 oz, 28 3/4 inches tall, in the 50th percentile for height and weight. And she is currently cutting her eighth tooth.

It's official

Roan is now officially one year old, and we have officially survived our first year as parents! We had a nice day today. Well actually we worked all day and had to deal with all manner of perplexing software bugs and being hacked. But we had a nice night.

Jen and Micah came over and brought a beautiful gift for me in honor of having "squeezed that monster out of your poon," as Jen so eloquently put it. In all seriousness it is a gorgeous necklace, asymetrical with large assorted stones. I wonder sometimes how it is that I got the reputation for being the sweet one, when it seems she never leaves an occasion unmarked.

Tonight is Josefa's last night visiting with us. We went to a neighborhood restauarant for broasted chicken (it's an Iowa thing) and homestyle sides. Roan wished we had elected to stay home to celebrate, and vocalized her displeasure throughout the meal. But we got through it. Nothing like a tough meal out to eat with a toddler to make you feel like you're earning your stripes.

I uploaded a few more pictures from this past weekend including a visit to the contemporary arts museum. My camera is acting up right now, so I don't have anything more recent. For some reason the flash isn't working. I'll have to take it in and get it looked at. In any case, hope you enjoy these.

http://www.flickr.com/gp/11647815@N04/v019eC

Happy Birthday Roanie

Saturday we threw Roan a little birthday party here in Denver. Gramps and K flew in from Miami Beach as well as Grandma Fifa from San Francisco. Several of her friends were on hand to help celebrate, and their parents downed some margaritas and sangria with us.

So I'm sure you won't be shocked to learn that Roan *loved* birthday cake. She snarfed down half a cupcake before Dada cut her off. I'm not sure whether it was the cupcake or the general excitement of the day, but that night was her worst night of sleep ever in her life. She woke up at 1, 2, 3 and 3:30! That's AM people. Oh what a night...

It just so happened that only girls showed up to the party. It was fun watching them play together in their cute little outfits. All the guests went home with pinwheels and balloons. What a blessing it is to be able to entertain them so cheaply at this age!

Here's another shocker for you: Roan enjoyed opening her presents. To a point anyway. It is true she was generally more interested in the packaging than in the contents.

It will probably take days for her to absorb the new goodies that have been added to her stash. She keeps picking up new things and marveling at them like "Oh wow, where did this come from?"

Long after the presents were opened, she marched all around the house that evening with gift bags filled with nothing but tissue paper, as if she were showing off something very important.



One of her big presents was a rocking chair restored by Gramps that's been in the family for over 70 years. His father rocked in it as a child, as did he and his brothers. It was in pretty bad shape when he got his hands on it, but it's as good as new now (even better!) and he restored it with a finish very similar to its original barn red stain. He fashioned the cowhide seat himself!

Roan loves the chair, and instantly seemed to appreciate that it was just her size. Every morning when she wakes up and comes into the livingroom it's the first thing she goes for.

One thing I was truly grateful for was the weather. We had had some chilly overcast days earlier that week and the forecast wasn't looking good. But we had warm temperatures (for Denver in March) and sunny skies all day. It was warm enough that after all the guests had gone home we put Roan into her swimsuit to try out her new water playscape. Unfortunately it wasn't all that warm, especially as far as the water temperature was concerned. If Roan ever wants to allege parental misconduct in the future she can point out that I subjected her to this activity less just a few hours before snow actually fell in Denver!

You can click here to see all the pictures from the party.

Closing in on one year

Sorry no pictures today. I tried to snap one this morning before zooming off to the babysitter's, but the dang camera was out of batteries. Roan was so cute. In a great mood, as usual. Tromping around the house babbling at the top of her lungs, whacking things with a drumstick, saying "up up" to be picked up and "duh duh" to be put down.

Coming up on one whole year, this week I have felt overwhelming feelings of gratitude and joy wash over me. When I think back to where I was a year ago - I was in utter misery at the tail end of pregnancy, full of anxiety about what this baby would be like and what I would be like as a mom, living in a construction zone, and wondering how my body would ever go back to anything resembling its former shape. We survived her birth and those first few crazy months. I never would have dared to hope that I could be as happy as I am today with our little family.

I feel so grateful and so lucky to have been blessed with this sweet child. When she smiles and laughs at nothing much I wonder how on earth one little person can be so happy. As she toddles around all over the house I marvel at her phsyical dexterity. When I see her interacting in playgroups confidently and sweetly - marching right over to new kids and sharing her toys - I can't help but feel like she has a healthy start on the interpersonal skills she'll need to succeed in life.

Being a mom has been a humbling experience so far. Some days you feel like you're getting it all right and others you don't have a clue. One thing is very clear to me though. These little people come to us with personalities and temperments all their own. We can do our best to help shepherd them through life. But they ultimately determine what lens they see the world through. When Roan wakes up radiating joy, I know that didn't come from me. It comes from what I can only describe as the thermonuclear happiness reactor deep inside her.

Happy Easter

Hope you had a nice Easter weekend. We spent it with some friends at their earthship in Taos. (More about what earthships are later.) Roan got a silly little easter basket with some plain old empty plastic eggs inside. It felt like a stroke of Mommy Genius - it kept her occupied endlessly! Take the eggs out of the basket... put the eggs in the basket... repeat 463 times. Oh the happiness that can be bought for $2.89 at this tender age. Hope you enjoy the photos.