Oh well, so much for my “one post a week” momentum back in what, November? On the plus side, I’m not inundating anyone with too much information.

Livy and cousin Colin

A lot has changed since November. Livy isn’t quite talking yet, for real, but she’s close. She’s busting out three and even four word sentences here and there. But mostly she does a lot of naming. Here is a typical Livy conversation: “Mommy! Baby nap. Water. Meow. Mommy watch. Couch. Mommy sit down. Three, four.” And so on.

Mommy, hold. Cheese!

Watching her learn how to talk is like watching water boil. Yes, I mean the obvious joke of it taking forever, but there’s a deeper metaphor there as well. You know how when the water is getting really hot and bubbles begin to form on the bottom? And then some of those little bubbles break free and come to the surface? At that point nobody would say the water is boiling yet. But somewhere between that and the full on, rolling boil, you go from not boiling to boiling. Learning to talk is like that. The first words are those first little bubbles that pop up. As they learn more and more words, the bubbles come up faster and faster. At some future point, the words come in a full boil, but before that it’s hard to say for certain when they go from not talking to talking.

But she’s able to ask for things she wants, specific things like cherries or yogurt. Or her blanket. She asks us to play with her and read books, and dance. For some reason she never asks us to sing. Hmmm.

Señor Livy

And then there’s the word, “no”, the most famous word for parents of toddlers. She definitely loves the word and says it even when she means yes. For example: “Does Uncle Orion smell?” She obviously doesn’t understand “no” completely, but she’s not even two yet, so we cut her some slack. She only spends one hour in the dungeon per mistake. But she won’t be on easy street forever!

Here’s some more pictures for your enjoyment. As always, larger versions can be found in the galleries

Big shoes to fill

Tea, anyone?

Livy’s first haircut

Here’s the next set of photos - these are a smattering from over the last few months or so. The next few blog posts will include some great video and some more photos from specific events, like my dad’s wedding. I’m aiming for once a week until all the stuff is online. Time will tell if I can keep up with that pace.

First up, some pics from late summer, enjoying the outdoors:

What a face

Slides are fun!

But Mom pushing me on my bike is even better!

Pretty flowers, pretty smile

Next, we’ll move it indoors for some … err… indoor fun. Just look at the pictures, that’s where this post is at.

Her shirt says: “My dad is COOL… we’re a lot alike”

Bubbles for dinner?!

It’s all about the accessories

Check out the whole gallery by clicking here. There’s some more great stuff in there, and as usual the pictures are bigger there. Enjoy!

I know I’m a bit behind on the posts, but you’re in for a slew of great pictures and videos in the coming days and weeks. This post I’ll start with some pictures from a great trip up to Canada we took to see the grandparents back in August.

The trip started with a few days in Dunnville, Ontario, and we were lucky enough to time that part of the trip with Uncle Steve’s own vacation across the mountains of Canada. Steve is a natural with kids and Livy warmed up to him in no time, which is unusual since she’s a little more shy around men.

We are fabulous!

The family bopped around Dunville in cars, on bikes, and on foot. When Steve is around you tend to bop, and this trip was no exception. One trip Livy particularly enjoyed was to a fair that had kiddie rides, and she rode with gusto. The ride operator mentioned that he usually had to stop the ride for kids that small but Livy was game for the whole thing.

After a few days, Steve left to go back to Germany and the rest of us voyaged up to the cottage. The weather was cool for August, so we didn’t spend as much time in the water as we’d have liked, but we still were able to enjoy the outdoors.

Ready for action

Grandpa tells a story

These next few photos are some my favorite ever taken of Livy. She was playing among the boulders along the lake, and hamming it up.

The cottage is great because it’s so easy to relax there. We played in the water, rode our bikes, and at night we played cards or watched a movie. Of course, it’s a little different than from before we had Livy, and not quite as relaxing, but it’s a wonderful place to be all the same. And few things are cuter than a baby taking a sink bath.

And finally, a good one with Grandma. Earrings are fun!

The whole set of pictures from this trip can be viewed by clicking here. They’re bigger, too, which helps.

I haven’t actually written in depth about Livy in a while so here’s an update on how she’s developing and what’s new lately from that point of view.

As you can see from the last video she’s cruising around now. She’s very adventurous and at this point knows no fear - when we go outside she just wants to wander around the whole backyard. She loves the little slide we have in the backyard but her favorite toy is this little hollow plastic tricycle that we push her around in. I can actually run with her strapped into it and she loves it. She even leans into the turns! She also loves water. Cheryl took her to Sandy Hook last week and to the little beach at Round Valley this week and she absolutely loves being in the water, splashing around. You have to drag her out of it! Bathtime is fun for the same reason.

Silly girl

So her personality is unfolding a bit. She’s a silly girl, smiles and laughs easily. She revels in funny sounds and faces, and loves being tossed in the air and held upside-down and she’s a little dare-devil in training. She really is becoming a person now, and holds eye contact and is very interactive. Today for the first time, she actually sat still on my lap while I stroked her back and her head - she’s never been interested enough in that to sit in one place for it.

Her play is getting a little more complex. One of her favorite things to do is to take something and put it somewhere else - sometimes that means the toilet or the garbage can, but it’s all the same to her. She is figuring out some of the spatial toys she has, like the one that has circle, square, and triangle cutouts that you fit into the wooden board. She gets it every time if two of the three pieces are already in place, in terms of rotating the square/triangle to fit, but if more than hole is there, she hasn’t figured out which piece goes in which hole. It is definitely cool to see when she figures these kinds of things out.

With arms like these who needs swimmies

Today we were playing in the basement where we have this big plastic kiddie table with little chairs, and I left the room for a minute and came back in to see her standing on the table! Which means she climbed up using one of the little chairs. With a little guidance from me she got back down using the chair as well. Later on, she wanted to go back up but the chair had been knocked over, and I watched as she picked the chair up, got up on it and would have easily been able to get back on the table but she apparently lost interest and climbed back down. So that was interesting, seeing her fix the chair so she could use it to climb.

Speech-wise, she’s just had a sudden change in that now she’s exclaiming things. It’s still nonsensical but it seems to mean something to her! She’ll say “Muh-guh!” She also understands quite a bit of what we’re saying now. Cheryl tells her, for instance, that it’s time to get ready for a nap, so let’s go upstairs, and she’ll head to the stairs by herself and start climbing. You can tell her to take her shoes off and she’ll start working on the velcro straps. It’s hard to tell if she’s actually speaking any new words besides Mommy, Daddy, cat, doggy, Annie, and “Gatsby” which basically sounds like “Daddy”, but it’s just different enough to make me think she’s saying something different.

Thunderstorms are scary and it sucks when they’re at night, since she usually wakes up from them crying. We’ve had a bit of a regression lately with sleep and she’s been waking up a lot, but I guess that happens. Actually, as I type this she’s crying a little bit. Maybe I should start writing about how easily she puts herself back to sleep. (update: it worked!)

Spinach is good

Food-wise she’s still eating really well, relatively speaking, but she is definitely getting pickier. Luckily, she still really digs broccoli and avocado and other good stuff, but certain other things that used to be staples, she’s no longer interested in, like bananas, apples, pineapple.

I guess that’s all for now. Stay tuned for more videos and pics, and let me know if there’s anything in particular you’d like to see or hear about Livy and I’ll see if I can capture it with the camera/camcorder. Livy on request!!

The title of this post will make sense once you watch this video, which is a solid minute of pure Livy. Enjoy!

Three new photo galleries are up for your viewing pleasure.

• A small Easter gallery
• A big month 10-12 gallery
• A small Charlotte gallery, from when Cher and Livy watched the twins while Lisa & Mark vacationed in Alaska.

Here’s a few photos that are worth not having to click your mouse to get to. But if you want to see a bigger version of the picture, you’ll have to click it. Those are the rules.

Hi folks, another short video for you to enjoy. We’ve been trying to capture her doing her strange babbling that sounds like some kind of weird language. You probably have to turn the sound up to hear it clearly, but it’s there for a few seconds anyway.

In other news, her first word is ‘mama’, her second is ‘dada’, and we think her third is ‘doggy’. Strange, isn’t it?

The other thing I thought worth mentioning was that her play has definitely become more complex. She’s been pushing buttons for a month now, which has made a lot of her toys infinitely more interesting. And lately she’s been taking toys and placing them on shelves or in cabinets or buckets. Maybe she’s developing her organizational skills - probably by watching me. Cher is pretty messy after all.

Enjoy the video.

Holy crap! It works! Enjoy this video of Livy motoring around the house in various ways.

I still have to figure out how to capture video in the correct aspect ratio, if that’s possible. For now, it just looks squished horizontally. Oh well, you get the idea.

Hey there peoples. Livia is really enjoying life these days! She loves standing and walking around with the help of furniture, big toys, or mom/dad hunched over like Quasimodo, holding her hands. I think Livy will be showering soon, because she stands in the bath now more than she sits. Also, she has added “clambering” to her repertoire, as she climbs over legs and dogs with ease. Just today, she figured out how to climb stairs.

She’s talking up a storm, and by talking I mean incoherent babbling, but it’s such expressive babbling, punctuated by shouts of “MEM!” and peppered with raspberries. She says “mama” more than “dada” but that’s not surprising since she’s a momma’s girl. I don’t know for sure but it seems as if she’s associating saying “mama” with mama herself. I.e. actually using it as a word. She seems more likely to say it when she’s upset (and wants her mommy?).

Her favorite animal continues to be Cletus cat. He is such a champ, as he hangs in there while Livy tugs on his tail and clutches fur and so forth. How many cats would be so chill? But Cletus is special - as many of his admirers know, he likes it rough. So maybe it’s not such a surprise that he tolerates Livy - we’re talking about a cat that likes to be spanked here.

Sleep is still pretty solid but she’s been waking herself up by sitting up in the crib, and can’t always put herself back down. Also, the nursery turns out to be the hottest room in the house, and we were ill-prepared for the heat that just hit us. Last night was not fun (picture desperate scramble to find the fan that hasn’t been seen since last fall), especially coming as it was on the night before my bio final, and Cher at work… good times.

OK, the latest photos are up!

One thing I realized as I put these together is: we’re not taking as many pictures as we used to. In fact, we took like 4 pictures of her in the whole month of March. We did shoot a lot of video though, and one of these days this blog will be lousy with video. But not today.

Without further ado, the latest gallery can be found here. Also check out the latest additions to the 2nd friends & family album - a great shot of great-grandma and Livy and one of Colin and Livy that unfortunately also has Orion in it, but what are you gonna do.