Snowbound Herpetologist

She seemed to enjoy her first sled ride, but she looked ridiculous!  I think that *real* Michigan babies look more graceful :)

And late on the post, yet again - sorry! Maya has been doing really, really well lately.  The exciting news of the past two weeks is that daycare is transitioning her from two naps to one nap, which results in a super mega long nap when she does sleep.  This weekend was the first time husband and I were able to keep her awake until 1pm when she's meant to go down, and although she looked a little tired and grumpy out on our pre-lunch bird walk (yes, it was kind of rainy), she perked up a bit at the end :) As for new skills, our biggest area of progress this month has been signing and speaking.  Actually, the signing has helped us understand her early attempts at some words that we never would have understood if she wasn't also concurrently making the sign for the word while trying to say it. Words she can say: - mama (finally!) - dada (which she likes to call out lovingly a) while nursing, or b) while being rescued in the middle of the night…neither circumst...

Just because I finally got a pic in which you can see her brand new top two teeth - adorable!! Monster PJ's! :)

My good friend Mark has let me know that I am way behind on my blogging, so here's a quick update!  We are alive, but busy.  Husband is in the UK this week giving a ton of talks all over England, so Maya and I are on our own.  I do not know how single parents do it all the time, it's exhausting! Oh, and we have another cold.  Again. I have Maya's 11 month update coming up in just a week, so I don't want to steal too much thunder from that, but Maya is picking up words and signs quite quickly now.  New signs of the past two weeks are dog, hat, bath (finally!), and gorilla (we have a book with chest-thumping gorillas, so this one happened by accident).  Shoe has gotten more correct now too, with two closed fists instead of one open and one closed (no idea why she was doing that?).  She's standing on her own (and can get there by herself from the floor, with nothing else to hang on to), but not walking. Here are some recent photos! Maya is *tota...

These things are deceptively hard to set up!  Sometimes even mamas make mistakes :) An inauspicious beginning "I feel like there's a problem here" OK, we've got it working now Too fast!

Yay, Maya!  We are celebrating tonight by eating…leftovers :)  We did have a great morning today on a playdate with some of our work friends who have 2-year-old twin girls - totally adorable! I apologize in advance here that again, this will be a short post…. New and exciting developments: - Upper central incisors are finally coming in !!  Right side is completely broken through, left side is at the "hole" stage where there's a single open area, but I can't actually feel anything sharp yet.  These new teeth will give her a whole new look - my baby will look like a toddler now! - We have words!  So far, she (reliably) says uh oh, dada, duck (=all birds), and abba (Abby).  There's a mama thrown in there upon occasion, but she also sometimes calls me duck.  Oh well. - We have one new sign to add to "cheese" - this one is "shoe."  She loves both with an uncanny passion. - She's decided walking isn't really for her.  She used to...