Hazel's New Playroom

This child's stuff was taking over my living room. In an effort to streamline things in our little almost- two hundred year old house, we (initially reluctantly) decided to transform the adjacent library into a playroom. We kept much of our stuff in there, but moved it onto the top shelves. We are giving Hazel the bottom two shelves of the built ins, and eventually we will clear out the cabinets underneath for more of her stuff. We wanted to get her a kitchen, since she always loves playing with them at other peoples homes, and a little table and chairs for crafts and snacks.

These toddlers start taking up a lot of space. We were lucky to have a friend bring over a huge box of toys for Hazel, none of which would fit in our living room anymore. We also wanted to rid ourselves of the gigantic, 200-pound tube television that took up half the room with a slim, light, wall mounted LCD with hidden wires and components on the built ins. This is probably the best thing we have done for our quality of life. Hazel is so happy to have her own little space, and we are so happy to have some of our space back. Everyone is happy. Except the cats- they are never satisfied.

Kid friendly, without being kid-centric.

Eventually I'll make it to Ikea to get some storage bins for the bottom two shelves for Hazels toys and art supplies. The record player will probably stay so Hazel can rock out. Also, that framed lace on the wall was made by Hazel's great-great grandmother Zarhouie.

We still have some more art to hang on the wall. Hazel loves this little light up "fish tank" that scrolls fish by. She sits in her chair with her cup and just watches them go by and laughs.

These shelves will have containers/bins eventually.

That's Hazel's purse- I loaded it with her sunglasses, toy cell phone, plastic keys and my expired credit cards. She carries it around on her elbow all day.

Yay! Our new little TV! The room seems so much bigger now.

Living room looking into the new playroom. The bins on these built ins were just moved up to make room for Hazels books on the bottom shelf. The bins still contain some of her toys that will eventually move into the playroom or up to her room. The cable box and DVD player are now on the fourth shelf up with the wires run through the wall. Thank you, Dave!

Knitting and blogging chair.

The dogs on their couch. *sigh*

It's like getting a new house. Still small and old, but a much cleaner and less cluttered one.

What Hazel is Doing Now

Hazel is eleven months old.  Can you believe it?  Neither can I.  Every month I planned to write what cool new developmental milestone she had hit, but I didn't.  There was a lot of stuff that I wanted to write but didn't.  I hope that I will never forget it, but I know I will.  I figured that I would take the time now to write a little bit about the Things Hazel Has Learned in these past eleven months- the culmination of all those neural pathways strengthening and paring away, all the practice and teaching and nutrition and sleeping.  I try to get pictures and video of these little things before they slip away or morph into something else more "sophisticated" (whatever that means), but Hazel can hear the camera turn on from a mile away and come rushing up into the lens before I can get a shot.  That is why I have had fewer pictures to post.  It's certainly not for lack of trying.  Every time I download a batch of pictures to the computer, I end up deleting about two thirds of them!  It's too bad, because I want to have some sort of record of all these little things she does.  I guess this is it, and hopefully in thirty years this will jog my MS lesion-littered memory centers and I will have perfect mental pictures of how stinkin' cute this kid was (is).  

Hazel waves.  She waves at every little thing she sees.  Every time we go get her in the morning or after a nap we have to walk her around the room so she can wave at each little thing. She doesn't do that grabby kid wave in which they just open and close their palms- she waves her hand and arm like The Queen.  We call it her Miss America wave, and it is adorable.  When she was in the hospital, the nurses would take her out to the nursing station so they could keep each other company and give us a break.  Hazel would just sit there and wave to all the nurses and all the other kids as they walked the loop on the unit, post surgery.  She doesn't smile when she does it- in fact, she looks very serious.  So serious that you have to laugh.  when she does something "bad", like try to eat the extension cord and I yelp , "NO!" she gets nervous and startled and turns around and waves at me.  When the disposal runs and the noise scares her, she waves at it.

She is clapping!  It's so funny because she does it whenever she hears any music, and when she is happy.  So she will get startled, wave at what scared her and we say something like, "Hi, disposal!" for her and she gets excited and claps.  Rinse, repeat.  All day, and I still can't get enough.  

This kid really loves music.  She sits with her legs bent under her and bonuses up and down on her butt clapping to any sort of music.  Right now I am playing a lot of Krishna Das, Armenian folk music, Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins, Bon Iver, Magnetic Fields and Morphine.  She even started bopping around to Sonic Youth.  Go figure, but she has good taste.  I am taking her to Music Together classes and she is loving it.  I didn't know how it would go for her, but she is doing well!  They give you two CD's of all the songs in that curriculum, one for the car and one for home, and we listen to it a lot.  The songs are great and she really enjoys it when I sing them to her throughout the day now that she recognizes them.  

She is starting to stand on her own after pulling up, but she doesn't know it yet.  Once she figures out what she is doing, it's only a matter of time before she takes off running. As it is she crawls faster than I can run.

She is feeding everything to everyone.  Food, her pacifier, her bottle, lint, dog hair...everything she can pick up, she feeds to me, her dad, the dogs.  She has caught on to the fact that the dogs ill hang around and give her the desperately wanted attention if she feeds them, so she has really started to enjoy handing them little pieces of her food and getting them to lick her hands so she can laugh.  She even tries to feed me my own necklace, and hilarity ensues.  

Her language skills are developing so rapidly.  She is saying "mamamamama" at me and "dadadada" at Jamie but she is also mimicking other sounds and movements we make with out mouths.  The other day, she said DOG!  Seriously!  Jamie and I were both there.  She was in her booster seat, eating and of course the dogs were milling about her and she pointed at them and we said, "dog", and then she said, in a cute hesitant whisper, "dog".  We nearly died.  

I'm trying to take advantage of her mimicking phase by attempting to teach her to blow kisses, high five and do a terrorist fist bump.  We'll see how that one goes.  She sure is cute stuff...

Old Men

...but first I just wanted to share that my most heart wrenching and honest blog entry about multiple sclerosis was posted on Brass and Ivory, a blog that discusses "health policy and big pharma are sprinkled with a little multiple sclerosis and music." Lisa is an MS blogger extraordinaire and send me super kind and informative emails when I was first diagnosed. Just wanted to share. Someone likes me!

So, since this camera problem has me operating about two weeks behind schedule, I'm just getting around to updating with pictures from our trip to Middlebury for the Old Boys Rugby Reunion. Jamie, and the other old men from rugby teams past whooped the young 'uns who currently play for the college. They taught those kids a lesson in Newtonian physics; force equals mass times acceleration. Roughly translated- you get fat when you get old, and though you may not be able to run as fast because your knees hurt and you have angina and so forth, it don't matter when what you're hitting is a third your size. The Old Boys beat the kids 38-14.

Getting ready to leave for Vermont

It's a long drive!

Grumpolina watching the game

Group picture of the Old Boys Middlebury Alumni Rugby Team

There's your dad, Hazel!

Look how old they are!

Hazel was stunned seeing all the old men in their tiny shorts.

This is my friend William Taylor. He was kind enough to let me stay at his house with Hazel since the boys went out to the rugby drink up and slept in a trailer in the parking lot after the game. His sister Emma who is five was also nice enough to let me sleep in her princess bed. We made cupcakes for their brother John's first birthday. Their mama Danielle certainly has her hands full.

The next night we stayed with Hazels grandparents in St. Johnsbury. Hazel was kind enough to lick Hectors tags clean for him.

Hector didn't mind.

Watching the game.

Keeping the pesky Vermont mid-October mosquitoes off.

And here are some funny pictures of Hazel over the past couple of weeks. This is Hazel's imp-y, troublemaker face.

She gets these teething cookies stuck in her mouth every time and we can't pry them out, so we just wait for them to dissolve in there.

Hilarious pacifier #1

Hilarious pacifier #2

This Weekend

Jamie took Hazel and I out of town for my birthday this past weekend. We stayed at the Blueberry Hill Inn in Goshen, Vermont, population 227. It was beautiful and such a nice relaxing escape. Te breakfasts and dinners at the Inn were spectacular, the company was delightful (for the most part) and the setting was gorgeous. Hazel is an absolute dream to travel with. We had been nervous about it, especially since dinner was served family style to all the Inn's guests at the same time, right at Hazel's bedtime. So it could have gone either way. Soon Hazel was the star of the show, and everyone went on and on about her and what a "good" (meaning compliant) baby she is. And only one woman gave me unsolicited parenting advice! The whole weekend!

This is the best picture that I could get of the amethyst ring (Hazel's birthstone) that Jamie and Hazel got for me. I wear it on my wedding finger to keep my family with me.

Moose! The first of FOUR that Hazel saw this weekend.

Outside of an antique store in Brandon, VT. Little baby in big chair.

Hazel chillin' out by the waterfall.

Bringing her bottle of Red Bicyclette to dinner at the Inn.

Hanging out under the apple tree behind our room after a day in the car.

The pond behind out room. We woke up to this every morning and fell asleep to the frogs every night. The little building behind the pond is the wood-fired sauna.

This poor lonely dog spotted us driving up the road and came charging towards our car. He showed up at the Inn looking desperately for someone to play with. He loved kiddos and kept charging at them every time one came around the corner. There were about four kids swimming in the pond before dinner and this poor dog just paced the ponds edge waiting for them to come out. He was a cuddly fellow, and Hazel is fond of dogs, so we made a temporary family.

Keeping an eye out for kids in the mood to play Chase.

Anson's First Lesson in Love

So on my birthday last week, a couple of mamas came by bearing cupcakes for a little playdate between tornado warnings. Poor little Anson was plowed and left in the dust by Hazel. He was resigned to catching a ride on her butt while she tried to kick free. I wish I had it on video, because Anson just sort of allowed it all to happen and it was so sad, but of course we just sat and laughed. Of course the second we turned our backs, Hector swooped in and swallowed my birthday cupcake in one gulp. By the time we discovered it, he just looked up and spit out the candle. Thanks, Hector for totally ruining my birthday.

Mama Tina and Lola. Clearly made for one another. Tina will be greatly missed when she begins her OBGYN residency at BMC and will be working crazy 80 weeks for the next four years. Eek. The mamas of Boston will be lucky to have her catch their little ones, though. Rumor has it that she'll even breastfeed your baby for you! *wink*

Hazel carelessly kicking Anson out of her path of spit-up destruction.

"Wonky eye? What wonky eye?"

Look at his limp little arm...
...and dazed stare.
Oh Anson, don't let her treat you this way.

We Killed the Keg!

Last year we had a BBQ the last weekend in June so we could show off our new house. We decided to do it again this year to show off our new Hazel. We had about 60 people over the course of the day, and a couple of families stayed for a sleepover. Unfortunately, the weather was not the greatest. There were a lot of people expecting a day at the beach with a dinner time BBQ, but because it was so chilly (59 degrees!) and slightly drizzly all day, they just came right over and we had the grill going for the whole afternoon. Hazel was delightful, as always. She was passed around and hardly ever fussed. She loved watching everyone talk and move around, then she went to bed.

Jamie is finding out what a chick magnet a cute baby can be.

Here are a bunch of people in my back yard.

This is Mau Mau, Piper's transitional object, who she decided should be strapped in for safety.

Hector was very content to lay and be admired by all the beautiful ladies.

Piper and Owen, who is pretending to be a boy who doesn't know how to walk yet, but he totally walks and is really good at it!

This is Estelle, who is so beautiful it's scary. But she does like to give the camera the stink-eye.

Here are more of our friends eating food and working on the keg. Hazel is currently in her third outfit in this picture, being loved on by Natalie. I don't know why people like to congregate by the barn so much.

As the night wore on, people decided the fire was more comfortable then the barn. These are some of the folks who stayed for the sleepover. Hardy, Mike, Laura, Danielle.

The folks again, dealing with the drizzle. This is Bacci, Hector's new best friend. Even Flossie got along with Bacci.

John Mike Taylor.

Emma Taylor who said Hazel's shirt made her look "just like a princess" and couldn't get enough of her. We always have fun when the Taylor kids stay over. They spent Sunday at the beach together so I could get a chance to clean up an nap.

Sunday afternoon, I hear a knock on my door as I was cleaning up. It turned out to be my dear old friend Michael Santoro, who I have known since I was 16. I had not seen him in the flesh in about ten years. He and I picked up right where we left off, and I didn't even care that I had not showered or washed my face, was not wearing a bit of makeup (but I was wearing the shirt that I had slept in) and for the life of me could not remember if I had even brushed my teeth. That stuff doesn't matter when you have friends like Michael, who I consider my brother. That is, until he's all, "Let's get a picture together!" Ummmmm.......

Michael is working on cooking up his second child, so he was loving snuggling with Hazel, getting excited for "those quiet little moments".

Have I mentioned that Michael's son, Gio is just as handsome as his father?

Ugh. I'm working on two hours of sleep here. But I love my friend.

Here's Hazel mugging before she heads out to the beach.

Mama. Mama.

And this was how a busy and exciting weekend ended for us all.