Thar she blows!

Another beautiful holiday weekend here, folks -- foggy, cold and grey, exactly like it's been for weeks (well, we did get two nice days in there). Oh, well ... this baby's enough fun to make up for the lack of summery weather! So, here's what's been happening in Annika's world lately:

--Grandma M visited for several weeks, splitting her time between us and her other grandkids in Sunnyvale. She got to see a lot of incremental development, go on a bunch of walks by the ocean with the baby, and of course take a million pictures and some videos. Also, we got a chance to go out a couple of times (once Annika's down for the night, she's pretty much good to go) -- thanks, Grandma M! 

--She's begun handing stuff to us. There are two main variations on the theme: handing a book to you, with the clear request for you to read it to her, and giving you a toy or other object so that you can make it do something (like the Easter rabbit sent by Great-Grandmother Nean --Daddy pulls its tail to make it scoot across the floor; baby watches in fascination, picks it up, looks it over, then hands it back to Daddy to make it do that again). 

--She's experimenting with hiding and visibility. She's been doing peek-a-boo forever, but she's really stepped up her game, using all kids of things to hide behind, from my T-shirts to small chew toys that only cover part of her eyes. While we're pretending we can't find her, she peeks out of the side, checking to see if we can really still see her or not -- it is hilarious to watch the gears mesh in her mind while she's figuring this out. 

--Walking is imminent -- she's getting quite good at walking holding onto only one hand (or using only one hand to "cruise" along the furniture), she can stand for a long time by herself, and she's trying to take steps unassisted. Aaaany day now ... 

--Clapping. She'll applaud for anything -- especially herself, for standing or because she handed you something -- and always with a huge smile.

--We saw a whale! Dad went out for a run Tuesday morning, and came back after just a few minutes, saying he saw a whale pretty close in. So we all hustled out to see if the whale had made its way to our cliff, and sure enough, it had -- two of them, we think, one bigger than the other. We saw tails, spouts, and that arcing dive they do, as we watched for about 15 minutes. We're pretty sure she was impressed. 

Aquatic baby!

Another Sauce weekend has just concluded, and in addition to her busy schedule of charming the socks off of people and sleeping through a long night of very loud musical performance by the Sauce band, Annika had two more firsts:

1) Visiting the Bigfoot Discovery Museum in Felton, CA, and getting her picture taken with Sasquatch (an artist’s rendering – the big guy himself was wisely keeping out of the spotlight, somewhere deep in the woods as usual).

2) Swimming! Or at least, getting into the pool. With hat, sunscreen, and cute new swimsuit all deployed, she happily bobbed around in M&H’s heated swimming pool in Daddy’s arms for awhile, then Mom’s, then friends’ and back to Dad & Mom again. She splashed her hands into the water, investigated droplets that got on her, bounced like she does on land, and got zoomed around by Daddy, from one end of the pool to the other. She seemed to really enjoy it! Young Skyler S. also enjoyed his first dip in the pool, although neither of the babies could figure out what was really going on, heh. Annika stayed in until her feet pruned up completely, and then slept like a rock, worn out by all the excitement. Grandparents, take note: There is video and photographic documentation of this event, I assure you, and we’ll get it out to all you Annika fans asap.

Thanks again to M&H and all the Saucers for a fab weekend.

104 degrees in the shade

Well, Annika and I are back from our trip to Texas, trading 104 degrees for about 60 with drizzly fog. Sure was nice to have summer for a few days …

The visit was wonderful – we both missed her daddy, but we did have lots of time to just hang out with Grandmother H. and, of course, the birthday girl, great-grandmother Nean, and Kelly and Auntie L., Uncle J., and even my own uncle and aunt (who, when we all had dinner together on the square in Big D, watched Annika sit in her high chair for an hour and a half, happily chewing on things [the menu, her toys, a straw, some Cheerios, whatever], and said they wished they had recorded the entire dinner for purposes of showing it to their own grandkids as an example of how to behave in a restaurant! Heh.).

We were staying at our cousins’ place, which has A/C, and Annika had acres of new space to explore – different carpets, plants, toys, coffee tables, wood floors, couches – all the things she can use to play with, or hold onto standing up, or put in her mouth which she oughtn’t to. And that went double over at her great-grandparents’ house – such fun for her, such relentless watchfulness for me!

And there were some new developments, too – notably drinking from a straw (maybe we’ll skip the whole sippy cup thing, since she’s really not loving it, and use a cup with a top and a straw when she’s done with the bottle?), and her waving hi and bye-bye appropriately. When we got back, with Daddy’s help she added clapping! Good times all around.

Although, I tell you what – next time this baby flies, it’s gonna be with both parents. She’s strong, she’s mobile, and she is TOTALLY NOT TIRED NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT AND NOT GONNA SLEEP NO WAY NO HOW. Gaaaaaah! Yay for the bulkhead row and sympathetic seatmates, at least …