Mommy teaching Maile about Bocce. Or is it Maile teaching Mommy?
On Sunday our neighbors hosted a day long bocce tournament at the local bocce courts. (Yes, there are local bocce courts right down the street from our apartment. Who knew?) Apparently this is a tradition that the neighbors have been doing for years – they hold tournaments on the Sunday of Memorial Day and Labor Day to bookend the summer. In addition to some serious bocce, there was a ton of great Italian-inspired food.
Maile Girl was fascinated by the rolling balls. She stared at the game for so long that I’m pretty sure she has it figured out. Do they offer scholarships for bocce?
I have an admission to make. I cheated a bit when it came to my fantasy football drafts this year. I had Maile Girl helping me with my picks…
Me: Maile Girl, I need a WR - what do you think? Maile: Hold on, let me check a few things. Take Wes Welker, I think he has good value right now. Me: Thanks, Maile Girl.
Last week we started a new bedtime routine with Maile Girl inspired by her friend Harold. Basically, instead of holding Maile and feeding her the bottle, we let her feed herself in her “milk” chair. We showed her a few times that the chair was where she got her milk and she took right to it. Now when she wants milk at night, she often just crawls over and gets ready. (Or maybe she just like the pedicures Mommy gives her…)
The fact that Maile is starting to feed herself combined with the move to regular milk (from breast milk and formula) has made the whole feeding process much easier. Now if she can only figure out the potty training thing
(Dad note: how about those rock and roll jammies too, right?)
Just a quick one tonight as Daddy is very busy getting ready for football season… but check out this screen grab from a recent video we took. Maile looks more and more like Mommy every day…
One of our new favorite activities is going on a family walk after work. Maile absolutely loves being outside and she especially gets a kick out of walking around with Mommy and Daddy. She walks between us and holds onto both of us. As we walk Maile giggles, babbles and shrieks, telling us all about her day with Megan and Hannah. Its pretty much the best thing going. Since we are all involved its hard to take a good picture, so the shadows above will have to do.
Christine and I are starting to learn a very useful parenting lesson. For the first year of Maile’s life, we worried when she made lots of noise – crying meant that something was wrong. Now? We worry when Maile isn’t making any noise. Whenever it gets too quiet in the house and Maile isn’t directly in sight, it typically means something naughty is going on.
Below are four examples. In each instance, Christine or I were doing something and Maile snuck off and next thing we knew…
What? I thought I'd help by picking out my outfit for today...
What? I'm just learning how toilet paper works...
What? I just wanted to make sure you didn't leave your credit card at the store...
You know what? I got nothing for this one. I just spilled my dinner. Sorry.
First a story. We knew Maile was getting pretty close to walking. We were nervous that she was going to take her first steps when Christine was in New York -or- last weekend, when I was in Boston. Neither of us wanted to miss this big step (pun intended). Maile Girl bided her time and then yesterday, when we both got home from work, Maile gave us a big present. We were playing with her in the living room and I decided to pull her walker a bit away from her. She stood teetering a bit and then all of a sudden Maile took her first tentative steps. Probably 3-4 the first time. But they were definite steps. Christine and I were so happy that a) she walked and b) she waited to do it in front of both of us at the same time. Very cool to share the milestone as a family.
In any event, no video of those very first steps – just something we’ll have to remember for ourselves (fascinating concept, right?) But today, Maile and Hannah were playing outside (the weather has been beautiful) and I managed to catch some walking on video. Enjoy!
On Saturday Maile and Mommy went to meet the latest addition to the San Francisco crew – Oliver. Oliver is the son of Lisa and Alex.
When Maile Met Oliver
During the visit Mommy learned a valuable lesson…
Maile isn’t quite ready to hold babies yet What caught Maile’s attention? Oliver’s cat, Furio. (Yes, Furio has his own blog. And 746 fans on Facebook. Which is just ridiculous.)
Here, kitty, kitty...
Then Allison showed up and the focus was back on Oliver again. The first of many fights over Oliver ensued…
Maile: So what do you think of Oliver? Allison: He's pretty cute. Maile: Just remember I met him first.
Allison: What do YOU mean you met him first? Maile: Just saying, I've got dibs. Allison: What are dibs? Maile: Not sure, but I've got 'em.
Things got a little ugly from there, but we managed to get everyone together for a final group shot…
From Left to Right: Alex, Oliver, Lisa, Stephanie, Allison, Keo, Maile and Mommy
Update on Maile and Daddy’s Home Alone adventures… we’re doing pretty good. Still very much missing Mommy, but staying strong. We had grand plans to use our new iPhones to FaceTime chat – unfortunately two things happened:
1) We can’t do it at night when Mommy is on the hotel WiFi because Maile Girl gets too worked up missing mommy before bed.
2) For some reason when we try in the morning it doesn’t work on Mommy’s work network.
So we improvised and Mommy sent Maile a video to watch. And watch it we did. About 20 times!
